It is incredibly interesting how the US (and Germany) have put so much into Israel and associated groups they really don't want it to fail (despite the Israeli gov doing their damnest to facilitate just that). In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area, plus they have a healthy amount of zionists close to money and power at home. I imagine the political calculus of if and how to support it is ridiculously difficult.
Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.
On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".
"Never again" - Was that ever an idea that Israel committed to? I thought this is only something that Germany and potentially other countries committed to, and Israel saw itself as the victim since forever, so they have no reason to commit to anything, but the victim card, which allowed them to have their own country in the first place.
Note though, that Germany's commitment to "never again" got somehow repurposed in exactly letting the thing happen again. Be it because politicians here are not actually educated enough to recognize the thing they should prevent, want to close their eyes to the fact that the once-victim now perpetrator, did it and they did nothing to stop it, they just don't care, the weapon exports are just too good of a business, or whatever. Germany has utterly failed to prevent the thing from happening ever again, and Israel has proven our collective "blind spot". The one entity, that no German politician is allowed to criticize. And still the political climate is such that, most likely, if you criticize Israel in any way, your political career is over and you get branded as an anti-Semite. Oh the irony of it.
While it should actually be a huge headline in every newspaper, that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and is still committing it as we sit here, the newspapers are awfully quiet. It seems like it is not even worth a headline. Man, the truth hurts. Sucks when your reporting has been so biased all along. Hard to make a 165 degree turn now, I guess (I give them 15 degree, for the occasional reporting on the matter at all.).
The idea is, that without the victim role of the Jews in the 2.WW, they would never have had the international support, that they enjoyed for decades. They would never have had the "social credits" among nations, that they had. Countries like Germany, supposedly would have opened their mouth much sooner and sanctioned Israel, if it were not for our perpetrator role in 2.WW. The idea was, that finally the Jews have a safe haven, and that that needs to be protected.
Israel has been playing that victim card for decades. It allowed them to get where they are. Now that card is crumbling, as they did the unthinkable. I hope that one day our German politicians will also realize this. It is becoming quite ridiculous, how Germany behaves in foreign policy in that regard, and many people here are ashamed of their own country and government. This is stuff that makes people vote for extremists, which I can tell you, we have no additional need for right now. To me it is unthinkable to ever elect the ruling parties again, due to how shitty they handled everything. Well, already wouldn't vote for them anyway, because of all the corruption in their ranks.
There's a belief in the western left that Israel was set up by Western countries as colonialism. That way they can more easily call for the dissolving of the illegitimate country for a 1 state solution.
If you acknowledge that the Jews were elbowing their way into the area of their own desire for a state, against the wishes of the Ottomans and then British, it makes it more difficult to paint them as evil invaders.
The current US administration also derives a lot of its support from evangelical Christians, who have a belief that Israel must exist in order for Jesus to return to earth. Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
Not all evangelical Christians are like this. There are two main branches: covenantal and dispensational. Dispensational theology is basically the same thing as Christian Zionism, and was invented in the 1800s by John Darby and his followers[1]. Covenantal theology goes way further back and is still popular today. For example Presbyterians are a major covenantal denomination.
They leave out the part where their end time scenario says the Jews will ally with the Anti-Christ, will nearly all be killed in a war with Gentile armies, and then the remaining Jews will all convert to Christianity.
I don't think you have to be an evangelical Christian to belief that Israel should exist. I think a lot of people not heavily invested in politics or world affairs simply see Israel as more of a Western country aligned with their values and beliefs and want them to exist.
> Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.
Yes, support started for Israel once Epstein got dirt on them. There is no history of support for Israel prior to that. Yours it totally the most likely/rational take.
WTF is going on with this site? You sure have people real comfortable to say this kind of shit here.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert."
--Jean-Paul Sartre
If you claim that America, which has supported Israel forever and long before Epstein, is supporting Israel because 'Epstein' based on conspiracy theories, everything I said and quoted applies to you. OP brought Epstein into it for a reason, not a mistake. You continued referencing Epstein, not a mistake.
But everyone reading this, see how the above post turned the words just slightly from OP they defended and my response, to try and change the discourse/make me defend something different/uncomfortable versus what I originally replied to? Not claiming they did that on purpose, but if they did it would be an example of what Sartre said. Not saying you intentionally misconstrued/misrepresented what I said. Just saying that you happened to do the thing.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Edit: can't post but there is no need to bring Esptein into it at all if it's just about manipulation fears (since the USA has supported Israel long before Epstein). Both of you specifically brought Epstein needlessly into your arguments. I'm done dancing and doing word play like the quote says.
No there was a factual mistake in that person’s comment. That’s not identical with anti-semitism. Someone holding a mistaken view isn’t anti-Semitic simply because anti-Semites hold mistaken views.
Last election the democrats didn't have a primary, and the republicans barely had one. Political change requires more than one day at the polls; it demands large scale sustained effort by many people, including those in positions of prominence, and even with that success takes time and luck.
Part of being in a leadership position is taking responsibility for what happens on your watch. The electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed.
> Last election the democrats didn't have a primary, and the republicans barely had one
Now do down ballot.
> electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed
Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war. Even if they thought they were just throwing a tantrum. That includes the war’s repercussions, including the dissolution and incorporation of Palestine.
If you care about net effect, the answer is obvious. If how one feels reigns supreme, yes, that voting bloc is excused. (But still irrelevant.)
As I stated before, changing a political party from the bottom up takes time. While a good endeavor, it doesn't affect who is currently in the drivers seat. Either Harris or Trump were going to be making the decisions about the current Gaza situation regardless of what the electorate did.
> Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war.
Pro-palestinian voters didn't swing to trump. Virtually no one swang to Trump; his election results in 2024 were basically the same as in 2020 plus the increase in population of areas that voted for him in 2020. Exit polls indicate that Trump voters were overwhelmingly pro-israel. I'm sure some individuals did, but not enough to make any difference one way or the other. Trump won because 6 million democrats who showed up in 2020 stayed home in 2024. If they had gone out and voted for Harris, and then Harris supported Israel's efforts, as she publicly said she would, you would still be saying they endorsed the war.
The parties have already decided their position on a variety of issues so if you're going to get nominated for the party you'll be against them on that issue.
And the system is designed to exclude independents. The last nationally visible "I" candidate was roughly H Ross Perot. The system made sure that didn't happen again.
Yes, and at this point I'm not arguing for or against that action. I'm saying the current and previous US administration have very different foreign policy.
Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? They're the leaders of a terrorist organization. The US takes out terrorists wherever they may be (or, works with local authorities to get them first). But, when local authorities are siding with the terrorists, we go in there and do it ourselves. October 7th was Israel's 9/11 - we went and got bin Laden in Pakistan, without dealing with the Pakistani government. Why shouldn't Israel do the same thing? I say - kill all the Hamas leadership, and leave the random Palestinian citizens alone.
Let's imagine that a political opposition leader from Russia were to take refuge in the US. Now imagine that Russia performed a "surgical strike" bombing in the US to kill what they viewed as a terrorist leader. Can you imagine the outrage that would occur? That's exactly the situation that Qatar has just experienced.
It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war.
Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.
No, that's not the point. Whether someone is a terrorist is subjective. Russia could (and likely would) define their opposition leader as a terrorist.
My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
> Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be?
Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.
Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be a terrorist regardless of situation, and thus by definition had almost zero civilian deaths. It was one of those things that got leaked through the war logs.
The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
> Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is
Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war.
More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.)
> war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people
One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?
It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
i believe official un position about setting any refugee camps in gaza it's that it will be forced displacement of population. or something like this. going back to days when Israel setup camps for evacuation of population from Rafah.
I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone
and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
We have bombed their leadership. This is an entirely different war. Hamas was/is the government of Gaza. They're part of the people there, not outside it.
You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further.
It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide.
Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.
Turn your electricity off for days on end when someone in your country does something that other country disagrees with.
Hell, turn your fresh water off too.
Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years.
Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well.
Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way.
Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby.
When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition.
No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
You left out a lot of things.
You are trying to make a point. I don’t expect you to put in all the things that go against your point, but you left out so many that maybe your point is not worth making.
>I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4
Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets.
Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because.
I fully understand the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness with this situation. Lots of people like to imagine what they'd do in certain situations, historical or otherwise. We no longer need to imagine what most people would do in the HOlocaust. We now know: nothing. In WW2, most people could reasonably claim ignorance. Even a lot of Germans could claim ignorance. Now we have livestreamed 4K 60fps evidence that is impossible to ignore.
There's a phrase that's widely attributed (arguably misattributed) to Lenin:
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"
So while the US could end this entire thing with a phone call, it's not true to say that things aren't changing. US support for Israel continues to plummet to new lows [1], to levels I never thought I'd see. Small things like blocking a cycling event in Spain, the future of Eurovision being uncertain, European states recognizing Palestine, problems for the port in Haifa due to changes in shipping because of Houthi rebels, ICC?ICJ investigations, these genocide findings and so on... it all adds up. It all matters. It all compounds to political and economic pressure on the actors involved.
I don't feel hopeless by pointing out that the UN report is a small piece of a puzzle, despite the high level of energy used to collectively create it.
It's easier to talk about these things and seeing consensus shift on consensus driven forums like this. My prior observations about that state's policies and supporting culture have been similar, but seen as extreme and "cancellable" at one point. Espousing my observations would have been conflated with ideas of physical harm to Jewish and Israelis, which I don't harbor. My ideas are much more similar to Jewish Israeli residents that protest their own government within Israel. And it's been nice to see many stateside Jewish people distance themselves, and now even second guess Zionism, which Jewish community leaders initially denounced 120 years ago by foreseeing these specific issues and its inherent extremism.
When it comes to my country's involvement, it's a complete aberration in US foreign policy. The reasons require a contorting ourselves for no real practical reason that isn’t already fulfilled by other countries in the Middle East, it’s just money moved from one account to the account of our politicians and appointed representatives.
So I am happy to see piece by piece, people re-evaluating the state narrative on that country. The politicians with discretion on all the levers are unfortunately a far cry away from changing anything.
I for one will be holding my representatives responsible who continue to vote for the US to enable a genocide. The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.
Flipping the U.S. really is the key to ending this conflict. The U.S. reliably uses its security council veto to nix any meaningful UN response and the U.S. remains, by far, the biggest supplier of arms to the IDF. If the US were to stop veto'ing everything and cut off the IDF's supply of, at least, some types of weapons, the new ground assault would likely end quickly.
Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.
There's definitely a generational gap going in the US. Support for Israel is not popular among the younger generation in the US, and there's a good deal of voters in their 20s and 30s for whom support for Israel a red line in candidates. But older generations tend to be staunchly in favor of Israel, and too much of the gerontocratic political class thinks that pro-Israel uber alles is the key to winning votes.
It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.
I wouldn't label this as "support for Israel"/"against Israel". One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach. Many within Israel are not happy with Netanyahu's methods, and presumably they are not against Israel.
I understand that that's the current shorthand, but it seems inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing to me.
> One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach.
I suppose you could that in theory but only in theory. In practice, the current situation is not very surprising given the overall trajectory since the inception of the country. It's very disturbing to see the memes that are coming out of the social media of the soldiers and even the general population.
Even if the current govt. of the country changes, I wouldn't hold my breath about the new government making reparations or taking any other positive steps.
This is what puzzles me - ppl keep railing about being pro or anti Israel and it's overly simplistic and also not really accurately describing things. It's more pro/anti Likud or Kahanists, or really at heart a right vs left wing divide. There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against what Netanyahu and his political allies are doing.
It's not a party - it's an ideology: zionism [1], for which there is widespread left and right support. It is almost like a 20th century manifest destiny [2], with largely the same inevitable outcome.
I find this a strange take, and I hear it a lot from inhabitants of both the USA and Israel about their leadership.
For better or worse, Netanyahu represents the Israeli governement, which represents Israel. Similar with Trump and the USA, or Putin and Russia. Sorry for the people who don't agree with them, but that's an internal power struggle, and as an outsider it is normal to abstract that away. For all of us: Your country is doing what it does.
As a Belgian, I spit on my idiotic, nasty governements. Insert tiny violin, whatever Belgium does on the international forum, I'll still be tarred with it. Similarly, we talk about Germany's role in world war 2, even if only about 10% of them were associated with the NSDAP.
Every power struggle is always represented overly simplistic. Sorry for both the jews and Israëli's who don't agree with it, you're probably good people. This time I am lucky to sit at a very comfortable sideline, criticising your country. But the point stands: Israel is correctly described as officially committing a genocide, and hence it can't be described as the good side.
Israel was literally born out of political scheming to get assigned a portion of someone else's territory for an exclusive ethno-nationalistic state; then out of ethnically cleansing that territory. It was necessary to the project and planned in advanced.
You can be for the existence of a peaceful Israel that has entirely retreated within recognised borders and made amends for its past genocidal behaviour- but it's not what the current Israel is or, sadly, can ever be.
> There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against...
> Israel was literally born out of political scheming
Its more of a popular jewish movement that over 100 years changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
Political scheming is secondary and was born well after the 1840s.
> changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
That was the Ottomans who made that change. After losing a war to Prussia, to collect more taxes in 1856 they openly encouraged migration of all peoples - Jews, Christians, Muslims alike - to the Levant area. By the 1870s Jerusalem was Jewish majority, half a century before the British Mandate era began and even before the First Aliyah.
I was referring to the well documented deals and shenanigans that were instrumental first to get the promise of support for an Israeli homeland, and then in the UN to get the partition plan approved.
Zionism itself is a product of 19th century nationalisms and of course of a (widespread at the time) colonial mindset.
Do you really expect you can defend Israel with this kind of lawyering and be taken seriously? "Well akshually a ceasefire line...". For god's sake. Let's not even get into who has violated the supposed ceasefire first, or on the legality of settling your population outside of its line, violated or not (spoiler: illegal in any case). Settlements have been declared illegal many times during the decades, most recently this year by the ICJ, and Israel has known this perfectly well since the start.
Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to their indigenous homeland. Your Western leftist ideology have twisted the definition to your own agenda.
And the Arab opposition movement that later became the Palestinian movement has ties to literal Nazis...
German and Bosnian WWII veterans, including a handful of former intelligence, Wehrmacht, and Waffen SS officers, were among the volunteers fighting for the Palestinian cause. Veterans of WWII Axis militaries were represented in the ranks of the ALA forces commanded by Fawzi al-Qawuqji (who had been awarded an officer's rank in the Wehrmacht during WWII) and in the Mufti's forces, commanded by Abd al-Qadir (who had fought with the Germans against the British in Iraq) and Salama (who trained in Germany as a commando during WWII and took part in a failed parachute mission into Palestine).
Husseini is still regarded by many as 'the George Washington' of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored in the way our founding father is.
In February 1943 the first of three divisions was formed of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, who wore fezes decorated with SS runes and were led in their prayers by regimental imams notionally under the supervision of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.(Mohammed Amin al-Husseini from 1921–1937)
Israel was formed on violence, just like this. Even more brutal, if you read the history books. Why do you support country founded on so much hate and violence? First prime ministers of Israel were well known terrorists.
There's no way of supporting Israel without supporting this current genocide. Literally no way. Because this current genocide is the logical outcome of what Israel is. And was explained as such, in detail, by David Ben Gurion and Golda Mier. Decades ago.
Albert Einstein added his name to a famous letter to the NY Times in the late 40's, in which EXACTLY THIS was explained, in plain & uncompromising language, in the very first paragraph. For Israel to exist, it would have to be just like the Nazis. That's LITERALLY what that letter said.
The splitting of a non-existing hair argument that you're trying to do is just to avoid admitting that you've been wrong the entire time, and enough people warned (or boasted) about it from the very beginning that you really don't have an excuse for being this wrong.
The moral position then for those who oppose it, is to allow those who wish to leave Gaza into countries that support the Palestinian people. Ireland and Spain come to mind, Qatar as well could take it thousands, they have the money.
No argument. if the option is between near certain death due to bombardment or starvation and living in Brazil or ireland. I imagine most will take that choice, if of course it was given.
Bombarding people or starving people to force them to leave is forced displacement, and so is a crime against humanity. The solution here is for the party committing the crimes to stop, not for the victims to give their land to the criminal party.
Nor is available power and leverage being brought to bear on stopping them. Any honest attempt at helping innocents being traumatized would start there.
Then yes, facilitating voluntary movement after that would help, without also blatantly facilitating those who want to drive them out.
The reasons can be many. But if you believe that a genocide is indeed taking place and leaving Gaza saves lives, it’s a reasonable Path to help is to accept the refugees.
Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees to keep them out of harms way, why do they not extend the same helping hand to Palestinians from Gaza? who are, at least according to this UN report, in much worse condition?
But if you did that 95% of the anti israel propoganda machine would fall apart. You can't evacuate them or let
them settle elsewhere because that's exactly what israel wants.
My idea is to buy the gaza strip from the residents and they can take their newfound wealth to another arab country and be prosperous happy and peaceful there.
But yeah, the fact that no one is taking them in proves they are all a bunch of anti semites or virtue signallers. They don't care about palestinians, it's just politically convenient to pretend that they do.
This isn't right, though it can feel like an option when you are looking for a solution that doesn't make you feel bad.
Zionism is the idea of colonial occupation. The internal logic will always end in ethnic cleansing. It did in 1948. It's doing it now. American Manifest Destiny had a similar function, and it also resulted in massive genocide for which we have not atoned.
Zionism is done. A secular democratic state for all people with the right of return guaranteed for displaced Palestinians along with some kind of reeducation / denazification program for the genocidal citizens of the current state of Israel is the only viable solution.
As a Jew, I don't think Arabs should pay for Germany's crimes. I think Germany should pay. They paid a little already. They should pay more, especially now that they are supporting this genocide too.
Historically, Germany did pay: Billions of DM in the 1950s and tens of billions of euros since, plus ongoing survivor pensions and restitution. But the broader strategy after 1945 paired accountability with reconstruction to reduce civilian suffering and long-term instability, rather than chasing maximal punishment.
But we often don't have world powers pay immeasurable or insurmountable amounts due to the game theory that slip-up's between world powers are inevitable, and when they find themselves in a compromising and vulnerable enough position that another nation state can exert enough power on them to "punish" them, those world powers are already decimated enough that the only logical reason for the punishment is retribution/revenge, thereby adding more "hurt" into the world - when that world power's decimation was already its justice.
Also about 15 million Germans were displaced from their homes. Whole regions with 95% German population were cleansed and given to Poland. I am not making judgement on this (I am Polish, part of my family lived in a German house like that, the, land with all belongings other part lost their home and were moved to a labor camp in Siberia by Russians) just pointing out that Germans did pay.
A lot of people were displaced, forcibly moved to other areas, often to labor camps after WWII. Somehow we are able to accept this new order and live in peace. Arabs started multiple war over it, lost all of them, are still waging war today.
The road to peace for them is to lay down arms, surrender and accept the resolution made by the winning side - exactly what we all have done after WWII.
They did pay, but clearly not enough! Imagine: Berlin as the capital city of a revitalized Israel located in the heart of the rheinland. We could build so many beautiful resorts for the right kind of people (not Germans!).
Honesty, openness and transparency are a hard requirement if one is ever to diffuse polarization. As a result, your euphemizing by "Netanyahu's methods" to convey "UN-affirmed genocide" is polarizing, the opposite of what you claim to stand for.
Mossad have actually warned the Netanyahu government of this, saying U.S support for Israel is slipping away and now might be the best time to implement a two state solution, while it can still be as one sided as possible in favour of Israel. Netanyahu has chosen to ignore this.
For those who don't know, Cuomo volunteered last year (apropos of nothing, he doesn't have relevant experience) to defend Netanyahu in the ICC. So any "change of mind" he might be expressing now is a little bit... Suspect.
That gap between support of Israel across age groups existed historically AFAIK, although the margins were narrower.
More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue. That goes to both ends - previously unthinkable, unwavering support under Republicans but a very short leash under the Democrats.
> More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue.
A highly salient political issue becoming partisan is a good thing in a representative democracy, as that is the only thing that makes it possible for the public to influence it by general election votes.
In FPTP, this often ends up backfiring. A politicized issue quickly becomes a polarized issue - the other side takes the opposite view, and both sides then race to the extremes. Compromise becomes less and less possible, because then each side sees it as a defeat. Nothing ends up done.
Every possible alignment of circumstances “backfires” in FPTP because FPTP is a fundamentally bad way to elect a legislature.
That’s not a problem of, e.g., salient political issues becoming partisan—representing a coherent position on salient issues is the only useful thing parties can do—it is a problem of FPTP.
Worse there is always more than one issue. Now I can't even find someone in my own party to support as the race has brought them all the same way on this. And so I either support one of them anyway for other issues or I leave.
The thing about the progressive younger generation is that their voting choices have made things progressively worse for themselves in the last 15 years. It's hard to say that the underlying worldview that supplants a anti-Israel position is particularly sustainable domestically long term. To be fair, it's the same thing for foreign policy, the anti-neocons have failed just as bad.
And as for the Right, it's primarily isolationism, but they certainly aren't going to favoring Palestine over Israel anytime. That's already hedged in. At the end of day, it largely goes against of the interests of every actor not aligned with Iran or seeking stability to let Israel fall in favour of Palestine. We do need that hard power when America is retreating from the region.
Why would we expect any desirable outcome in this hypothetical though? So the US flips, Israel is pressured into withdrawing, Hamas regains control of the strip and resumes rocket attacks, Israel is forced to respond eventually. It doesn't seem like a path toward a real solution.
There isn't a real solution. Just an opportunity for a few years of peace where people can do the important things in life. That is no small thing though. The danger is in chasing some quixotic nationalist dream. That is never ever going to work out.
Well the real solution is to have a single state and assimilation of some kind, so that people can coexist. It’s possible. Israel itself demonstrates this since nearly 30% of the population isn’t Jewish. But I think a peaceful two state coexistence is unlikely with people who chant “from the River to sea”, which implies the complete erasure of the state of Israel.
> Israel itself demonstrates this since nearly 30% of the population isn’t Jewish
Israel also has a law that says that the right of self-determination only belongs to its Jewish citizens- it calls itself the Jewish state. I would be entirely for a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone, but that thing cannot be Israel.
The more of the Hamas stuff Israel breaks now the longer they will have peace later.
And you think they should just walk away from the hostages? If Hamas released the hostages the world would soon make Israel quit. But as it stands why in the world should they be expected to give up?
> Why would we expect any desirable outcome in this hypothetical though?
Ending unconditional US support is the only thing that motivates Israel to seek an end other than by genocide, which is a necessary (but not sufficient, on its own) condition for any desirable outcome.
Israel need US protection and money. If you take that away, the settlers go home. If they don't, then yes, I'm sure the US can defeat Israel in armed conflict.
Either withdraw from all the territory that doesn't legally belong to it (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, plus the parts of Syria and Lebanon it occupies), or keep the territory and make all the inhabitants equal citizens.
Syria lost the Golan Heights in a war that Israel initiated (Israel claimed it was preemptive self-defense, but that's highly questionable). And then in the last year, Israel has taken a bunch more territory in Syria, just because it can. Syria didn't do anything to Israel.
The whole thing about ethnic cleansing is really turning history on its head. The reason why Israel is hated by its neighbors is because Israel was founded by European settlers who conquered and ethnically cleansed the land.
In the six-day war, Syria attacked Israel before the opposite, so it's pretty misleading to say "in a war that Israel initiated".
Sure, Israel struck Egypt first, but Syria is not Egypt. And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial considering Egypt's naval blockade, expulsion of peacekeepers, deployment of ~100k troops near Israel's border, and Nasser being pretty explicit about his intentions.
> 1. Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel (as we now know for certain).
Where are you getting this idea from? A leader with no intention of attacking Israel would not have made statements like
"We will not accept any possibility of co-existence with Israel. [...] The war with Israel is in effect since 1948." (Nasser, May 28, 1967)
and then proceeded to amass ~100k troops near the border, or in Nasser's words: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ..."
As far as preemptive strikes go, it really doesn't get any clearer than this.
Not to mention the naval blockade which was in itself an act of war, making the question of who started the war rather moot.
The internal deliberations of the Egyptian government at the time are all publicly known now. The Egyptian leadership feared that Israel was planning an attack on Syria, which is why they mobilized their own army. They had no intention of attacking Israel.
The Israelis had been planning their own attack on Egypt for years. Ben Gurion had aggressive, expansionist foreign policy views, which the crisis with Egypt allowed him to implement.
The Israeli public was afraid of Egypt, but the leadership was extremely confident that Israel had massive military superiority over the Egyptians and would rapidly win any war. That's also what American intelligence thought, and what they told the Israelis.
As for Egyptian public statements about Israel, remember the political context: Israel had been founded 19 years earlier through the mass theft of Palestinian land and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel had carried out terrorist bombings in Cairo in the early 1950s in order to try to politically destabilize the country, and had invaded Egypt in 1956, as part of a conspiracy with Britain and France to take over the Suez Canal. The Egyptians had good reasons to view the Israelis as enemies and loudly complain, but we now know they had no intention of attacking.
Your position boils down to an unverifiable claim about Nasser's mental state. Nasser had not approved Operation Dawn yet; that doesn't mean he wasn't going to.
Even if Nasser planned to wait and induce Israel to fire the first shot, how would Israel know when Egypt's actions, as well as many of their statements, were perfectly consistent with a military preparing to immanently invade?
Taking this to the extreme, if Russia launched a silo of ICBMs targeting DC, and it turned out that they were all convincing decoys with no payload, would you say the US "initiated the war" for responding with real munitions?
Realistically, pre-emptive strikes don't get any clearer than this. If one objects to this pre-emptive, one would pretty much have reject the notion of pre-emptive strikes categorically. There can be a legal argument that pre-emptive strikes never technically fall under then narrow language of Article 51, but that's more of a strict textualist argument and not a pragmatist one.
Nah, history doesn't fully back you up there....Israel decided to face off with Egypt after Egypt decided to stop allowing ships in. Syria then decided to try and get in on this action all on their own.
In May–June 1967, in preparation for conflict, the Israeli government planned to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front, whilst taking into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front.
Syrian front 5–8 June
Syria largely stayed out of the conflict for the first four days.
False Egyptian reports of a crushing victory against the Israeli army and forecasts that Egyptian forces would soon be attacking Tel Aviv influenced Syria's decision to enter the war
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities in what is known as Operation Focus. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
As long as Israel controls the lives of millions of Palestinians who have no rights and who are treated like trash, there will be conflict.
In order to be effective, US pressure would have to be aimed at forcing Israel to do one of two things:
1. Withdraw its military from the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza), dismantle all of its illegal settlements there, and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. This is basically asking Israel to give up its dreams of taking over the Palestinian territories and to withdraw to its own borders - a simple ask.
2. Alternatively, Israel gets to keep the Palestinian territories, but it has to grant full, equal citizenship to the Palestinians who live there. That would mean that 50% of the Israeli electorate would be Palestinian, effectively ending the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. The next prime minister could be a Palestinian - who knows?
Israel has held onto the Palestinian territories for nearly 60 years without granting the people who live there (except for Israeli settlers) any rights. It has to either leave the occupied territories or grant everyone who lives under its control equal rights. It's actually quite a simple and reasonable demand.
Right now, because of unconditional US support, Israel has no incentive to do either of the above. Israel's leaders correctly believe that they can have it all: they can keep the land without granting the Palestinians who live there any rights. They operate with complete impunity. The US could end that impunity and impose real costs on Israel for its actions.
The Palestinians pursued a 2-state solution (option 1 above) for over two decades. It failed largely because of dead-set opposition from the Israeli right (thanks Netanyahu) and because even the Israeli center-left was unwilling to fully withdraw to Israel's internationally recognized borders and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. There were always demands to keep large chunks of territory (most critically in East Jerusalem) and maintain effective control over any future Palestinian semi-state.
Both options laid out above (the 2-state and 1-state solution) are vastly better for the Palestinians than living under permanent Israeli military occupation with no rights, and subjected to continuous violence from the Israelis. It would not be the Palestinians who would block these types of solutions, were they actually on offer.
The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Arafat was offered something very close to a two state solution. He walked away without responding. He couldn't accept (he would have been assassinated if he agreed), he couldn't make a counter-offer because there was a risk of it being accepted, leading to the same end.
Look carefully at all the "peace" proposals from the Palestinians. All are non-viable due to details buried in them. Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
The Palestinians were the ones who originally pushed for the two-state solution. It took them years to convince the Israelis to even come to the negotiating table, which finally happened in 1993.
The offer made to Arafat was awful for many reasons that are well known, and that I won't go over here (but to give you an exanple, the proposal said that the Palestinians would have no military, and that the Israeli military would have the right to enter Palestine whenever it wanted, meaning that Palestine would not have real sovereignty).
> He walked away without responding.
Actually, he told the Israelis that the offer was a very bitter pill to swallow, and that he would have to show it to the Palestinian national council before he could accept it. Then, the PLO came back a few months later to negotiate further in Taba. The Israelis eventually broke off negotiations, because the ruling party was about to lose the election to a party that opposed the two-state solution.
> Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
It always amazes me how Israelis say the Palestinian right of return is so awful, absurd, outlandish, unacceptable, etc., when the entire founding ideology of the state of Israel is that the Jews have a right of return from 2000 years ago.
What's happening in Gaza right now is unequivocally genocide, and it's shameful. But...
> The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms? Has that ever happened, in all of recorded history? Say the Israelis don't want to give up East Jerusalem under any circumstances, what then? Would the Palestinian side be justified in "blocking" the resolution of the conflict?
The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
Today, I don't know. I don't think that there is a fair or best solution. They're probably going to just keep fighting until the Palestinian side is hollowed-out and the Israeli side is a Burma-tier pariah state.
You're assuming it actually is genocide. And you assume it's Israeli actions rather than Hamas actions. Hamas sets people up to be killed, points at Israel, the world blames Israel.
Unfortunately the evidence is overwhelming, without compelling counter arguments, to the point of fact. To the point of the UN investigators concluding it is genocide. Denial is unbelievable. All that is left is justification.
> Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms?
Because might doesn't make right. Because there's such a thing as international law. Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
> The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine. They only want the rump: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most big Israeli cities used to be Palestinian cities, until the Israelis conquered and ethnically cleansed them in 1948.
The standard 2-state solution is already a massive concession by the Palestinians. It's not the starting point for more concessions. You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The way out of this is massive international pressure on Israel. Israel is strong as long as it's beating up on almost completely defenseless Palestinians. But Israel is a small country that could be pressured by the US and EU fairly easily. Instead, they back it to the tune of billions of dollars a year and give it diplomatic support.
> Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
When has this stopped any army? And hasn't this very thing happened to Jews in Middle Eastern countries, who were sent packing without any hope of compensation?
> You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The same goes for the Israelis, who swear a religious oath by Jerusalem every year, and time has shown (repeatedly, at that,) that no Israeli leader will be induced to give it up.
At some point, you've got to admit defeat, or else the conflict will simply continue forever, very much to the detriment of all involved, and their children, who are innocent.
The passions obviously run high, but obviously both sides should compromise from the position of the status quo, and it's wishful thinking to suppose that the side that has prevailed in combat will knuckle-under and let the loser decide the terms of the peace. This is quite literally something that has never happened before.
Granted, the Israelis are fighting their war in a way that is deranged and quite dangerous for their own long-term survival. If they were somewhat more chivalrous, their own goals would be far better served; there appears to be a very nasty edge to Israeli democracy.
> The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine.
You seem to be conflating the region of Palestine, which has always included a mix of religions including Jews, with the modern Palestinian national identity.
Jews were only a few percent of the population before Europeans started moving in at the end of the 19th Century. The people we now call Palestinians were the native inhabitants of the whole region of Palestine. They've given up 78% of it.
Yes, there was a certain period when Jews were a small minority; so what?
If we're using "Palestinian" to mean someone from Palestine, why wouldn't we count a family from the First Aliyah as Palestinian? The Second Aliyah? Holocaust refugees?
Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period. Would you say they're not real Palestinians, because they joined too recently? How about Arafat, who doesn't have a "pure" unbroken Levantine lineage (being born in Cairo)?
Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights, perhaps less voting power, than families who have been here for multiple centuries?
That "certain period" was over a thousand years. For at least hundreds of years until the about 1900, the region of Palestine was inhabited by the people we now call the Palestinians, not by the ancestors of the Israelis.
> Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period.
Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine. This is radically different than the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which was a mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory.
> Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights
I think you would accept that the following two situations would be very different:
1. People immigrate to the US, settle down, send their kids to school, and eventually become American citizens.
2. A large group of people enter the US with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country - a country in which they want there to be as few Americans as possible. They have their own militias and operate completely outside the control of any government that the people of the United States control. Just to make this scenario more realistic, we can say that the US is currently under the rule of a foreign empire, so that Americans have no say in their own government. The foreign settlers start taking over large parts of the country. Finally, the UN says that the US should be split in two, giving half of it to the foreign settlers. The foreign settlers agree, but Americans think it's unfair and don't agree. War erupts. The foreign settlers, based on superior political organization and funding from abroad, quickly establish massive military dominance over the Americans, and go on to conquer 78% of the United States, expelling 80% of the American population from the territory they control.
> Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine.
The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings. But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not. The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
And if we move past the rather old-fashioned idea that more recent immigrants don't count, the more relevant figure is that there was a (slight) Jewish majority within the partition plan borders.
> mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory
Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
> with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country
I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
> The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings.
Actually, we do have a very good idea. The demographics of Palestine were studied at the time (e.g., by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry), and are well understood. Arab population growth in Palestine was almost entirely due to simple births minus deaths, and was similar to population growth in other Arab countries of the time.
> But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not.
Which Jews? There were Jews who were native to Palestine. They made up a few percent of the population of the region. But the overwhelming majority of the people who founded Israel were recent immigrants. The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was from Płońsk, Poland. The first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann was from Belarus. Golda Meir was from Odessa and grew up in Milwaukee. You can go down the list. They're almost all like that. Heck, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was from Budapest, and barely ever set foot in Palestine (only once, I think).
> The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
The reason for the naming collision is simple: the Palestinians are the people who lived in Palestine before the Zionists came in, took over most of it and established Israel.
> Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
No, that happened in the years after the founding of Israel, as a consequence of it. It turns out that kicking out hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes and loudly proclaiming that you're doing so in the name of the Jewish people is a really effective way of stoking antisemitism in Arab countries.
> I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
If you read the scenario I sketched out above and think it's the same as everyday immigration and is okay, I don't know what to tell you. It's like calling the European settlers who drove out Native Americans "immigrants."
fyi, netanyahu signed follow up to oslo agreements, he handed over more areas of west bank to PA and he voted for disengagement from Gaza. He also expressed support for 2 state solution. Gaza disengagement was voted for and executed by Likud.
The only one who pursued 2 state solution is Israel.
There is a video from 2001 of Netanyahu explaining in private (he didn't know he was being filmed) exactly how he intentionally sabotaged the Oslo peace process during the 1990s.[0]
> he handed over more areas of west bank to PA
As Netanyahu explains in the video, he only handed over a small piece of territory, in exchange for a letter from the US saying that Israel could define "security zones" in the West Bank that would remain under Israeli control. That allowed Netanyahu to declare everything a security zone, blocking all future withdrawals. Netanyahu boasts in the video that he gave up a tiny piece of land to end the piece process and prevent there from ever being a Palestinian state.
In the years since, Netanyahu has repeatedly boasted that he's the one who prevented the creation of a Palestinian state. The founding charter of his party literally says that everything from the river to the sea should be Israel.
He didn't sabotage oslo peace process he found a loophole that allowed him not to withdrawal from some of the territory in west bank prior to final settlement of borders.
video from 2001. Bibi is not PM for 2 years already, and in 2000 there was camp david which could give palestinians state (they refused it, and started intifada instead). there were more negotiations that palestinians refused.
bibi boasting about something ? sure he does. he wants to appeal to electors. doesn't mean that he sabotaged anything.
and on topic of killing oslo peace process, i'll suggest you this lovely document from just after camp david that describes how palestians worked on implementing it: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm . and in general to review second intifada
Air defense alone isn't really a sustainable military strategy against endless rocket attacks. It would become even less viable if Israel lost US military aid, lifted the blockade, and/or stopped bombing things like rocket factories.
> how did they manage to average less than one dead per bomb dropped in urban/suburban environments?
By targeting first responders, jornalists, paramedics, and any professionals able to properly rescue wounded, dead and count the causalties, making available numbers a gross underestimate on the true death toll. Just a few days ago we all watched a staircase full of working first responders and jornalists being blown by israeli tank fire.
People keep saying that but nobody proposes a meaningful more precise approach. There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?
And look at Israel vs Hezbollah--Hezbollah makes little use of human shield tactics, casualties run in the ballpark of 90% combatant. Same force, same type of opponent, what's the difference in Gaza? Hamas makes very heavy use of human shield tactics and worse. We see 30-50% combatants. That implies that the majority of the deaths are because of Hamas.
"There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?"
Why would the military in countries hostile to Israel provide Israel with advice or plans on defeating their enemies?
> It doesn't seem like a path toward a real solution.
As long as the Dahiya doctrine persists, it won't be. But that's an Israeli problem - their disproportionate response has been exploited for years. Hamas is fine letting Israel commit as many war crimes as it takes to satisfy their leadership, it very clearly hasn't changed tactics in recent years. The cost to Israeli international credibility seems to be "worth it" in their eyes.
So, if Israel wants peace they first have to stop escalation. But even if Hamas was defeated, we know that wouldn't be the end of things. Next the Druze has to be defended, which would result in a very justified annexation of south Syria and repeat of the same genocidal conditions in Gaza. They would also attempt to unseat power in Yemen, and then embroil America in an unwinnable war against Iran to sustain a true hegemony.
It can either end in the death of one side, most probably Palestinians, or in peace agreement.
Currently there is war, peace is out of the window. First step is to stop the war, second step is to make both side actually negotiate.
It was attempted by Clinton a while ago but assassinations from mossad and hamas prevented the process to success.
To be honest, politicians have failed us too many times for my sad brain to believe that there will be a good outcome.
Most probably Israel society will keep radicalizing itself, Palestinians will be killed and Gaza bombed/annexed leading to the death of both Palestinian and Israeli civilization. Palestinian will be all dead and Israeli will have become in all manner what they initially sought to destroy, literal nazi.
I’d even bet that death by zyklon is more human that seeing your family and yourself getting slowly hungered to death. And contrary to nazi Germany, no Israeli can pretend to not know what’s going on.
It's the same liberal psychology behind UNSC Resolution 1701 in 2006 where Hezbollah pinkie promised to disarm. And now look at all the dead bodies that this liberal solution caused 18 years later. Of course the same types propose the same solutions again with no sense of shame as to how much death it causes.
The actual durable solution is something like how Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers, or how Russia defeated the insurgency in Chechnya. Which is roughly the same as what Israel is doing in Gaza now. But Israel is playing on hard mode because the international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
> morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
I think this is key. The protest must condemn Hamas while supporting innocent people. Protests that support Hamas as some kind of justified resistance just prolongates everything. Hamas doesn't care for its people. It has an ideological system that glorifies death. Death is just a means to an end for them.
This is the problem of viewing things black and white. The whole conflict is varying shades of Grey.
> 18 year causality stretch without a single critical remark about israels constant desintegration of palestinian civic life.
Good job. The feat of not blaming the obvious aggressor is something very few accomplish.
Israel has control over water, electricty, gas, road, "law enforcement", etc. and used it for decades to push palestinians out of their homes. The last violent events are a result of long oppression and netanjahu establishing a theocracy. Only focusing on extremes and make conclusions on such a basis is something dumb people do, dont you agree?
Israel is clearly to blame, when you know a little more nuanced history and consider its long time dominant position in that conflict.
> international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas
By ignoring israels obvious long running now openly genocidal master plan, you are doing the same.
Well, you seem to be confusing Gaza with South Lebanon, which is what UNSC Resolution 1701, and the 18 years since then, pertains to. There was zero aggression from Israel, they got attacked unprovoked by Hezbollah on October 8th, 2023.
Hezbollah are supported by Iran, who don't get mentioned enough in this conflict. Iran is quite happy to maintain the conflict at the cost of Palestinian and Lebanese lives.
Have to ban AIPAC and all PACs first but good luck removing the hogs (elected officials) feeding at the troughs of money, gold bars, and bot army support. John McCain tried campaign finance reform but that didn't fly, and it's all been downhill since the abolition of the Tillman Act and the terrible ruling of Citizens' United.
The US seems to be dominated by different right wing meme factions now. A choice between different strains of Maga all of whom would kill thousands in Gaza just to spite the left.
People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of authoritarianism and they're still unwilling to vote unless Gaza is a fully solved problem. The cruel irony is that this behavior is worsening the situation in Gaza.
Couldn't the Democrats change their positions so that they align with and accommodate popular positions and win elections. I don't think most of the (rather large block) of folks I know who abstained wanted a fully solved problem, they wanted the US to stop funding Israel and that is a position that the Democratic party could have taken if they had chosen to do so.
Black people have known for decades, you vote for the people that don't actively hate you.
Sitting out of the process does absolutely nothing, whether its a protest vote, pretending that politics don't affect you, or just giving up completely. The people who get elected in those situations always 100% ignore you.
When people are in office that are at least willing to listen, you then make a lot of noise and put on pressure. You might get ignored mostly, since you are a minority voting block, but you can make incremental gains and even sometimes big wins.
what do you do if both sides actively hate you? voting for the lesser of the two evils seems to just guarantee evil forever, and they have no reason to listen to you if they know you'll always vote for them.
You also do what black people have known since the civil war ended. You run for office. Hispanic Americans have learned this and their voices are now heard, Asian Americans also seem to finally understand this point. Gay Americans and other minorities are also running and winning. The answer is to never sit out.
Are you complaining in this post about the suffering of Gaza while downplaying the suffering of black people in the US and the work black people have done? Because you think its productive to pit the different groups against each other?
Honestly, I have listened to and sought out a lot of diverse voices because I'm genuinely curious.
I certainly found plenty of folks who were not only okay with the DNC's position but who were actively happy with Harris as the nominee.
Black people are, however, not a monolith. I'm quite aware of the differences between the many different sets of ideas (everything from hoteps to DNC-paid shills to people who genuinely liked the Harris platform to black anarchists/commiunists/ ex-panthers/ etc) and it's highly reductive to try to make the claims you're making here about "what black folks have learned".
As a person who genuinely believes actual leftist (communist and anarchist) politics are legitimate I found plenty of folks who abstained or tried to hold the DNS to change their policy.
But regardless of the "harm reduction strategies" or how legitimate you think having any semblance of political representation, the fact remains:
the democrats lost.
Unless you want to concede that "the party can only be failed, it cannot fail the people", the reality is that the party could have changed its policies and accommodated groups that abstained and perhaps won.
You can claim that the voters are just fools, but at the end of the day very few of us have any power at all over the DNC platform so it's simply bizarre to blame us for their horrible, provable failed choices.
Because you didn’t address the substance of their point:
What you’re arguing for is only single-round optimal, but multi-round suboptimal — much like defection in the Prisoners Dilemma is defeated by trust strategies the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Until you show how it’s multi-round optimal, you haven’t addressed their critique.
But to answer the first, I’ve heard directly from party strategists that they look for people who vote, but not in a particular race. They can’t identify them directly, but a higher ballot submitted count than (eg) presidential vote count is a signal that they can gain voters in that area — which they follow up by surveying independents, etc to see what policy issues they’re concerned with.
The argument is that by not voting some rounds, you influence their platform in subsequent rounds. If you vote for them regardless, there’s no incentive to optimize their platform to address your concerns.
Doing what you're suggesting is exactly is what has got us here. Do you not see the pattern that the path we're on started very long ago?
What you're advocating benefits the greater evil ten times as much over a 20-year timespan. They're absolutely loving you. The more Bidens, the more Harrises, the more Clintons, the better for them.
You know why China is doing so well? Because they still remember how to think in the long term.
On the contrary, Democrats win when black voters turn out and lose when they don't. Because Republicans often hold such nakedly racist and repugnant views that voting for them is a complete non-starter, the only practical choice available to most black voters is not who to vote for, but whether to vote.
Black citizens make the most progress by strategies built around embarrassing the powers that be. Those powers generally capitulate (as much as they ever were going to) after a period of tantrum-throwing, which is where we are now. Such politicians hate having to vote against the donor class's wishes, but they'll do it to get reelected (or they'll be primaried by candidates who will). Or, they'll lose. Those are the choices, which Kamala Harris unfortunately learned the hard way.
One other thing black folk have known for decades: nobody you can put into the White House or the legislature will be able to stop half the country from thinking of you as a n!gger. You don't vote based on that because Carter and Clinton and especially Obama and Biden have shown us that election-based social progression is a pipedream.
This is what people don’t understand, because it isn’t their single issue.
If I beg you to reconsider on a very serious issue that is in your power to change stance on, and you not only ignore me but laugh in my face, then why exactly do you still get my vote? Why exactly should I reward you for completely ignoring my protests?
Make sure to swap Gaza for your single issue - maybe LGBT rights, or abortion, or gun rights - and then seriously think about how you would deal with it.
The Democratic party has basically decided to lean on “but they’re worse” as a political platform while backsliding on multiple issues. They do this because Democrat voters lap that shit up, chant “vote blue no matter who” like members of a cult, and then cry out in astonishment when the Democrats in Congress and in the gov keep sliding towards the right.
Also, an addendum: before blaming abstainers and third-party voters, it might be good to ponder on why Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency over making any concessions whatsoever on Palestine. At best, it was a grave miscalculation borne out of hubris. At worst, it was an act of self-sabotage to ensure unconditional support for Israel. Pick your poison :)
It's important to also point out that not enabling genocide is one of the most important issues single-issue voters can swing their vote around. That's because genocides both
1) threaten the international rules-based order, shattering the expectation of adherence to any number of human rights-centered protocols and representing crisis that can snowball into larger conflicts,
and 2) are often facilitated in part by police actions (civilian detainment, censorship, killings dressed up in lawful rules for the use of force, etc.), which threatens a general spillover of military action into the civilian/domestic status quo.
In other words, tolerance of genocide leads to a general shift towards war and despotism, even for people who aren't in the group targeted for genocide. Tolerance of evil builds the scaffolding for further subjugation.
You misunderstand. GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives. They're the bad cops. Democrats have the slightly less destructive policies and they sort of occupy reality. They're the good cops. Both cops have the same boss.
> GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives.
Not only that, the current president literally promised everything to everyone - just to win! People are too naive (or too innocent) not to notice the lies.
Tbf, that's Athenian democracy at work - politicians would promise the most audacious things just to get elected. One could argue that's even how democracy started in the first place - just so that one guy could rule Athens independently and not as a Spartan puppet.
Of course, we haven't adopted the other facet of Athenian democracy which is ostracization by voting.
It's assumed all cops are dirty. Good cops are few and far between as bad cops have incentive to get rid of them (so they don't snitch or do other 'good' things like police crime).
Couldn't far left progressives run their own candidates to win their own elections on issues without siphoning unreciprocated one-way support from the Democrat party? Given the toxic outcomes of supporting purity testers who give ultimatums similar to yours on political issues completely unrelated to the average voters life, theres likely no mainstream party that would align with a platform of virtue signallers that dont intend to create any meaningful policy, so to claim your position is popular is somewhat is a misnomer. Saving people is a popular concept, sure, but it's not easily perceptible to the rest of us that the group taking the strategy to ensure the most suffering for the Palestinians possible in our voting cycle is the one attempting that feat.
"Saving people" is an Orwellian turn of phrase for not supplying the bombs that are dropped on hospitals and refugee camps. Does the commuter "save" the child playing in the street by not willfully plowing her over in his SUV?
Not actively supporting a genocide isn't "virtue signalling". The Democrats will continue to lose until they face that reality. It's actually super gross to present the ethical will of voters like this.
Too bad the vote led to the current situation where women pointlessly die because of restrictive abortion policy, LGBT people get even more persecuted in the USA with no hope for improvement, protesting the genocide in Palestine is now ground for deportation for non-citizen residents and seems like it would make one an enemy of the state, so you lost all chances of being able to do something. Plus the ideology being force-fed into other countries with American politicians supporting far-right parties in Europe and attempting to strong-arm them into far-right policies (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/03/29/french-... ). I guess none of that ever mattered to abstentionists.
Well Europe was probably going to fell to the far-right anyway...
Is it the fault of the voters who couldn't stomach the genocide or the Democratic candidates who refused to budge on the issue? It's an argument that has been recapitulated millions of times now, so I'm not sure why we should repeat the exercise here.
It does make me despair to have the two parties that together govern our country both be so committed to something so heinous. Can one really be a proud citizen of such a nation?
We’re not citizens we’re subjects. Their dehumanization of Palestinians will eventually be applied to the poor and underprivileged “citizens” of the US.
If only the blue representatives would resolve this tension by pulling support for a now internationally-recognised genocide! :( I suppose that option is just too radical to put on the table.
You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I'm not sure why "less bad" on your pet issue isn't enough, especially when you're up against Trump, who has made posts suggesting resorts and golden statues of himself in Gaza.
> You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight?
I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
What are the implications? Israel isn't going to align with Russia or China, so probably they'll have to stand on their own and rely more on their nuclear deterrent. It'd be easier if they weren't bombing every single neighbor they have though.
Actually I think thats exactly the plan. They will milk the US as long as they can and once they have gotten everything they can from that dead corpse, they will do what any other nation would do: Align themselves with whatever partner that can help them the most. They have a lot of talent and investment (thanks to the US) and can offer other future superpowers plenty in exchange for partnerships.
Yeah I was just curious what the commenter thought because to me it's not obvious what would happen, there's many possibilities, what you listed is certainly plausible but it doesn't seem inevitable, depends on so much.
Exactly. Israel isn't exactly the nicest country but they're a porcupine. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. You keep poking them, you get hammered.
And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
I doubt any foreign policy aid would get pulled from Israel. Israel doesn't need to be taking actions perceived as genocidal. If the US wasn't offering full and unconditional support they'd just have to go about their foreign policy aims in a more palatable way.
Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
The Biden administration brokered and pressured Israel into a ceasefire that asymmetrically disfavored them. Israel exchanged 30 Hamas militants per Israeli hostage. The ceasefire outlined a permanent resolution to the conflict, including Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza. They also pressured Israel to keep aid channels open during the war, which is exceptionally obvious now given significantly longer blockades and that famine broke out under Trump. The 2006 withdrawal from Gaza and Oslo Accords were also brokered by America. Israel would not have agreed to any of this without any security reassurances in the form of military aid.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
Once again, that word "civilian". "Civilian" is defined by usage, not by original intent. And many of the apartment buildings that collapsed were because their foundations failed from the collapse of Hamas tunnels. Standard construction techniques are extremely vulnerable to damage from being undermined. Look at the pictures of the devastation--earlier on you could see the lines. Since then it has become far more blurred as Hamas tends to occupy or booby-trap just about everything.
And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base. Remember all the rejection of the idea that Hamas HQ was in bunkers under the main hospital? Repeated denials that any such bunkers existed. Israel had a very simple response: we built the bunkers, we know they exist. If hospitals were acting as they should be they would be open territory--the IDF could simply walk in and look around. Yet every time it's been a big fight. And I remember a supposed "hospital" strike where they actually hit a tunnel--got the commander they were after and got secondaries. A bomb that simply explodes underground isn't going to cause secondaries, so clearly they hit a tunnel that supposedly did not exist.
Like this whole thing has gone for 70 years in Israel. We already know what comes of the same strategy that was followed for all that time. Doubling down on it now isn’t going to change anything.
It has gone on and the people occupying Gaza and the West Bank rejected several two state solutions. And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel. It was capped off by October 7. What solution can work except to let the one democratic society take over the entire region?
Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas[1] [2] [3] [4]. If you screw yourself, you shouldn't blame anyone else when you get fucked.
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections.
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections (both in west bank and gaza) and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
Netanyahu literally propped up Hamas at the expense of other options, which you would know if you even just read the headline on the first source I linked. So you disagree with the Times of Israel? Care to elaborate on why you disagree other than just make assertions?
Obviously, but Hamas needed Israel's help to maintain power, which Israel was happy to do. This happened recently, like in the 2020s. In case there's a paywall preventing people from reading my sources, here you go:
> Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
you are moving goal posts. discussion was about gazans electing hamas while been well aware that it's charter calls for destruction of Israel and killing Jews
quoting you "Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas".
A few corrections on this topic:
- there was/is no Gaza politics
- Elections were general elections in Palestinian Autonomy
- Both Israel and PA were against elections because they were afraid that Hamas will win but USA forced it because "democracy shall prevail and will resolve everything"
- Hamas won general elections in Palestinian Autonomy in 2006 and assembled government chaired by ismail haniyeh as PM
- USA trained Fatah to coup against legitimate Palestinian government
- Coup succeeded in west bank and failed in gaza in 2007
- During coup, Hamas killed, dragged behind bikes or threw from rooftops those that opposed it
- After coup, Hamas tortured into obedience or killed all opposition
and on topic of how hospitals in gaza used, from same article: " Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital."
Qatar started sending money to the Gaza Strip on a monthly basis in 2018. $15 million worth of cash-filled suitcases were transported into Gaza by the Qataris via Israeli territory. The payments commenced due to the 2017 decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA), an administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rival to Hamas, to cut government employee salaries in Gaza. At the time, the PA objected to the funds, which Hamas said was intended for both medical and governmental salary payments.
Israel has always had the opportunity to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority. They chose to support Hamas, instead. Whether or not that's the right decision is up for debate, but the course of action was already set in stone.
election were in 2006. there were no elections after this. i am not sure how payments that started in 2018 influenced 2006 elections.
also, you probably weren't around back than, but there was international pressure on Israel to allow those money, because, quoting mainstream press, un, etc "hundreds of thousands of people will be hungry, there will be famine and collapse of all services in gaza that will lead to humanitarian disaster".
so, now, after Israel caved to international pressure to prevent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israel is blamed for propping up hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power
Are you sure you want to hold voters directly accountable for an election that happened over a decade ago? If yes, then it's a pretty slippery slope to be on, esp if the same standard were to be applied to US voters.
More than half of Israel's population wasn't even born when Israel was formed. Doesn't seem to matter, they are supposed to move back to Europe (though they were born in Israel of parents born in Israel of parents born in the middle east, not europe). They can't get away from the original sin of being born to people who were born by zionists. Those evil zio-settler babies.
The people "occupying" Gaza and the West Bank are the Israelis, and the Palestinians rightfully refuse any agreements which strip them of their rights under the guise of generosity. Stop with the ahistorical equivocation.
I wonder if that had anything at all to do with the Israeli right backing Hamas at the time, because they were being shamed internationally (haha) by the previously militant PLA/PLO being more and more willing to negotiate.
Netanyahu and his ilk didn't like the awkward questions of why the terrorists were negotiating but they weren't. So they started propping up Hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel.
"They" started firing rockets, or Hamas? Hamas who is 30,000 of Gaza's 2.5M? Just when was that last election, again?
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections.
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
What are you talking about? The Camp David Accords and Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty were resounding successes. The Oslo Accords achieved mixed results but was still a major improvement. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that requiring for Israel to unilaterally withdrawal was hopelessly naive.
Oslo was not an improvement. Palestine (the PLO/PA) gave up deterrence and renounced violence and the West Bank is now being annexed by far right Israelis. What did Israel give up in Oslo? Nothing
This is incorrect. In 1992, the PLO had little military presence and were exiled abroad. The West Bank was governed by Israel. The Oslo Accords allowed the PLO to return and govern their people, including the establishment and expansion of their security forces.
> On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans.
I agree with everything you said about Biden being practically better for Palestine, but this is nonsense. Israel would be a completely isolated state without US support. Even North Korea has China. The last completely isolated state in the world was South Africa whose apartheid ended as a result. It's not crazy to think Israelis might realize forcing people who have lived in the same country for generations to be stateless and voteless to preserve a "pure", "Jewish" state is not a worthwhile gamble if it costs them any connection to the outside world.
What do you mean by “pure Jewish state”? Israel has a 21% Arab population that is thriving and happy. In addition to 6% other non Jewish groups. So nearly 30% of the county isn’t Jewish.
Getting the Western world to agree to South Africa style sanctions towards Israel to their response to an attack is another level of unrealism over ending America's military and intelligence partnership. Even if that occurred, Israel is quite friendly with India that has only strengthened with October 7, and is capable of building a similar relationship with China.
Agreed, it along with claiming victory on that certain thing that started five years ago and didn't end yet, realllly annoyed the left. And now, matters are worse.
(It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
And that was always known to have been a counter-productive protest. There's nothing ironic about this. They were told. They didn't care.
It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.
If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.
It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
The Dems being willing to lose elections rather than meet voter expectations, says more about them than it does any particular voting or non voting group.
Have you considered that if they lose an election without that minority, then they still lose the election.
Like a political partys job is to get votes. An electorates job is to withhold votes to punish poor performance. The entity not doing their job here is the party.
The political party's job is to get votes. Which includes keeping the votes they already have. Giving things to one wing of the party can cost votes to the other wing.
The party is aware of the trade-offs. It goes ahead with its best estimation of what will win. Sometimes they can do everything right and still lose. One such scenario is when people would rather have the greater of two evils rather than be responsible for the lesser.
That was (potentially) a reasonable argument before the election, but the election happened and we know the results.
"We can't adopt [potentially winning strategy] because it might harm [definitely non-winning strategy]" is not a reasonable position. You don't have to adopt any specific alternative plan, but clinging to a non-working plan clearly isn't the right answer.
Sure and its possible thats what happened. But looking at their behaviour, its more like they thought they could use Trump to force everyone to fall in behind them regardless of policy.
The only way Democrats would have lost votes is if the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" folk weren't really prepared to vote blue, no matter who. Democrats didn't lose their base, they lost their left; theoretically, there's no leftist policy they could take on that would lose them their base, because it's their base.
The trolley problem is an oversimplification. What we have is actually a repeated trolley problem, where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The “less evil” party is in effect holding the people tied to the tracks hostage in your trolley problem. Because “less evil” is still evil, society decays no matter which way you flip the switch which leads to a population prone to fascism. The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
> where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests.
The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up?
If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote.
> The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
Biden literally started the genocide and Harris vowed to continue his policies, so no they are not "better". All they had to do is not support Israel and they would have won the election.
Yup. What's happening is horrible, but that doesn't mean there are better options. History has a very clear lesson: When Israel is harsh fewer Israelis die. When Israel is nice more Israelis die. The lesson has been repeated many times. Multiple times Israel has permitted the world to cram appeasement down it's throat, every time has made it worse for Israel.
Want peace over there, make peace not bring problems for Israel. But so long as Iran keeps fanning the fires of war I see no way to accomplish that.
wrong. There is a study that surveyed those that didn't. The conclusion was that if turnout had been better, Trump wins by an even larger margin. There definitely was a shift right.
Wait what happened? Was it that people who typically vote blue voted against those who supported Israel? As a Muslim and staunch supporter of Palestine, I didn't think that many people turned red because of this, at least not enough to swing the election. Wayne County, which has Dearborn Michigan (the city with the largest population proportionally of Muslims), stayed blue. I figured if Dearborn couldn't tip the scales any which way then the issue was probably not something worth campaigning on in terms of demographics
The bigger factor was people staying home because they refused any compromise on the issue. For races that swing depending on turnout, this was enough to tip those races red. Hard to say whether this impacted the Presidential election, but it probably did affect some House and Senate races.
Voting third party isn't the same as staying home. If a third party candidate gets just 5% of the vote, the party gets federal election funds in the next election. This isn't some pipe dream, third parties were crossing that threshold in the 90s. It encourages the major parties to alter their positions to avoid splitting the vote, and if they fail to do so then the third party can gain traction over the long run. Further, if you go to the polls for a third party, you are presumably also voting in down ballot races, where you have significantly more impact whether you vote third party or major party.
Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.
Yes agreed, that's why I voted instead of actually staying home. I wish other people would understand the nuance you just mentioned. I don't think either the democratic party nor the republican party actually care about anything more than keeping their seat at the table. They don't care about the working class, the disenfranchised, or the underprivileged, even if they claim to to get votes.
This is shocking to me tbh. Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster and that Stein or whoever had 0 chance of winning...
Yes, we did know Trump is a disaster. Perhaps Democrats should have met their voterbase somewhere in the middle to reduce the risk of losing to Trump? Of course, they didn’t, so to me the Harris campaign is to blame more than the third-party voters.
Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.
Democrats are constantly trying to please whatever portion of their voter base they think they need to win the election. In this case they were trying harder to court the maybe-Trumpers than the never-Trumpers because the never-Trumpers don't need as much convincing. Unfortunately, when these two groups become at odds over a single-issue vote, it fucks the Democrats no matter what they do. In the end, people who refused to vote for Harris over Palestine fucked everyone, especially Palestine.
And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.
I don’t see it as “letting Trump win”. I see it as “not supporting the Democrats because they don’t want my vote”. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, blame the Democrats.
Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.
It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.
I explained how Democrats were going to alienate one part of their voter base no matter what they did. Do you have an alternate pathway for how the Democrats could have magically chosen both options at once?
And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.
Okay, so you have rationalized to yourself why there was “no alternative” by essentially saying that Democrats were absolutely helpless to do anything - an act of God was in their way, so to speak.
Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?
This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.
I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?
Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.
You're just ignoring reality in a couple of paragraphs. Condemning Israel or extending a fig leaf to Palestine alienates the moderates. Not doing it alienates the single-issue-on-Palenstine voters. I don't understand why I have to keep saying that, or why you haven't addressed this fundamental fact of their voting base. They had to tiptoe around everyone's big feelings because not electing a dictator wasn't important enough.
My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.
And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.
What happened was complex, multi-factoral, and impossible to cleanly draw pithy conclusions from. It’s like the drawing of the rabbit that turns into a duck when you look at it a different way except there are fifty animals instead of just two. Everyone wants you to think it’s just their preferred animal because it fits their agenda.
This makes me curious about how many other historical events have presented the animal that happened to fit the ruling class at the time. I'm not talking about history being written by the winners, but more nuanced things.
Joe Biden invited Trump for a second term through his genocidal policy in Palestine and unwavering support for Israeli fascism. Trump's second term could have been avoided if Biden had been more moderate in several key topics, Palestine included.
> that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red
This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.
There is such a thing as sitting-it-out. People didn’t necessarily vote for Trump. They just didn’t vote for Harris. And that is exactly what the voting record shows: votes for Democrats dropped significantly between 2020 and 2024.
Even Wayne County, Michigan, which has Dearborn, stayed blue.
Though I was honestly surprised at how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump. Harris may be pro-Israel, but Trump is anti-almost everything else we stand for.
> how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump
I'm honestly split between pro-Palestinian Arab-American Trump voters and soybean-farming Trump voters as the stupidest voting blocks of 2024. Not only are you helping put someone in power who is so obviously going to work against your interests. You've also removed yourself from the other party's table where your issue might have gained priority down the road.
Tbh we are all victims of America's shitty two party system and voting system, and just reflective of how much power political pundits and influencers have. I think ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests.
> ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests
Not for these groups. They wouldn’t rank something that benefits their interests because they’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against. That generally doesn’t work in democracies, which require engagement and compromise.
Maybe the thinking is that if you stop waiting for your turn and remove yourself from the table, someone will move your issue up the road to get you back to the table.
That's not true at all. Even Alexis de Tocqueville discussed the value in not voting. It takes away the mandate from politicians. I don't think we live in a real democracy and I'm not giving legitimacy to fake, fully-Zionist elections. Direct action is much more effective and at some point our government will dissolve if the vast majority of people exit the optics of fake democracy.
It’s hard to say what Harris would have done, but it’s unlikely she would have greenlit the complete demolition of Gaza so she could build a resort.
Similarly, I doubt she would have forced places like UC Berkeley to send her lists of people critical of Israel (like you), then opened critical investigations against them.
Refusing to vote is the best way to ensure policies you object to the most are expanded.
I don't really understand this perspective. Obviously the consensus position across both parties has been to support Israel more. This is a bit murky with the (for lack of a better term) Nazi elements of maga, but GOP still claims to want to arm them more.
I don't vote for Zionists or genocide. It really is pretty simple. I also am unwilling to build my comfort on the backs of mass murder. In many ways it's better to have Trump so we can feel one tiny bit of the pain we're inflicting on others. We need drastic change and at some point the dam is going to break.
I think on foreign policy, the two candidates weren't that far apart, (although I would suspect the winds would have shifted quickly under Kamala) Importantly, as someone pointed above that the difference is in the domestic agenda where Israel is used as an excuse for to crack down on institutions and dissent.
Then you're privileging your own sense of moral purity over the welfare of the Palestinians. The situation is manifestly worse for them now, as was predictable. I hope the cleanliness of your hands makes that bearable.
I'm sure the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by "your team" would beg to differ. I don't vote for genocide, full stop. I also don't vote for Zionists. What's more important to democrats, Israel or winning elections?
This type of false rhetoric to support genocide makes me feel even more confident in my decision. Want my vote? Oppose Israel. It’s as simple as that. People who commit genocide have no moral high ground.
It’s not about moral fucking high ground, it’s about actual death and dismemberment that is actually happening that wouldn’t have. I can vote for the nazi that kills 100 jews, the nazi that kills 500, or vote for nobody; show me any alternative or else i gotta get in the booth for the first guy. Anything else is pretentious moralizing that costs lives.
My vote for no one is to limit damage. It’s critical that we end Zionism and not supporting Zionists is the best way to do that. It’s incredible the lengths democrats will go to defend Israel. It’s time to move on (and start winning elections).
Half of democratic senators and zero Republicans voted to suspend arms sales to Israel. So, there's clearly a more amenable party in this debate. The Dems who didn't sign on, we lobby or primary.
I qualified it. Generally speaking, they both support it. They even called the campus protests for peace antisemetism during Biden's term. Of course the GOP are much worse, but there's definitely reason to dislike both in this regard.
It's hard to understand what you mean. Logically, if you don't want to support Israel, you should vote Dem or abstain as Dems support them slightly less.
Imagine 250 representatives all going to a country with a similar population. It'd be mighty strange if 250 representatives from across the US went to Kyrgyzstan. Frankly, I'd find it strange if 250 went next door to Mexico all in the same year and that's a directly neighboring country that's actually relevant to US interests and the US's single biggest trade partner. Israel gets some sort of special treatment and it's really, really weird. It's treated with higher reverence than any state within US borders is.
This is actually easily explained by Israel having an intimate role in US foreign policy and culture for the past 80 years instead of being a majority Muslim constituent republic of the Soviet Union!
Korea, Japan, UK, Mexico, Canada, etc all are tightly entwined with the US and its culture. The first 3 had major roles in opposing the USSR. Politicians aren't taking trips to any of those countries en masse. Nobody is having their visas canceled for criticizing any of those countries. No college is losing funding if someone complains about those countries.
Sure. Let's ignore the country with the biggest source of immigrants to the US and largest modern cultural and demographic influence. We can move the goalpost and go with those examples.
When was the last time 250 representatives visited any of those countries?
(This is also an account that exclusively posts defending Israel)
None of which has anything to do with which countries politicians feel most comfortable visiting. If the political class felt much affinity with Mexico (rightly or wrongly), I imagine that there would be much less talk of a border wall. Clearly they do not feel the same way about Canada.
I doubt that there are recorded numbers just for politicians, but these are all popular destinations for Americans in general. Now, if there's something else odd about this statistic other than just the number you want to point out, that's a different story.
No, they're a vote that can be won by someone willing to stand up to AIPAC. I also will not vote for a Zionist. At some point, if we live in a real democracy, someone will put winning an election over being controlled by Israel.
> they're a vote that can be won by someone willing to stand up to AIPAC
If they cast a blank ballot, sure. Otherwise, betting on new turnout is a losing strategy. Particularly if you’re counting on that off cycle or in a primary.
There’s enough rage built up against Israel that it will tip the scale. For instance, how many elections do you think the Democrats need to lose before they address the desires of their only potential voters?
The US was “blue” when we helped Israel start the genocide. Too many democrats are far too lost in cable tv style politics and absolutely refuse to address how far over the red line they’ve stepped with their support for Israel. They will continue to lose elections until this is addressed.
Consider that the videos of Oct 7 had a similar effect on lots of decent people. The un is the same now as it was before October 7. In gueterres words "it didn't happen in a vacuum". The complete loss of credibility for the un also didn't happen in a vacuum. Even if their report is true it will fall on deaf ears thanks in no small part to their lack of any sort of objectivity when it comes to Israel.
This was me. I was browsing Hamas' Telegram account as they released the FPV videos that day. The two most disturbing scenes were the pantless body of a teenaged girl being burned amidst chanting of "Allahu Akbar", and militants scouring buildings for any person or pet they could kill and doing just that whenever they found someone.
I learned a very uncomfortable—though valuable—lesson about humans that day.
And why in the world do you think it didn't? I haven't seen the particular video he's referring to but I've seen enough that I do not find his claim unreasonable.
Remember that 47 minutes of video Israel was screening for reporters but did not release? They've gotten permission from some of the families and have released part of it. You definitely see people being killed on camera.
And the really important part isn't the video itself, but that it's stuff that Hams people chose to post on social media. Something to be cheered, not a horror.
Because it would be in the Hamas-massacre.net site if it was real. That's an IDF run site. They can't even confirm any rape victims on that site. They only have non-confirmed allegations on that site.
And, no, they didn't get permission from any of the other victims families to publish on that site.
So, the IDF literally has no direct confirmation of rape.
On a political or legal level for Israel it might have more implications though, that is impossible for them to ignore, but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries...just like Putin.
> Agreed, UN doesn't have a great reputation in America, I'm skeptical many people will care about this outside the media news cycle.
Lots of people will care, but it isn’t going to move a lot of opinions.
> Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024
Yes, but it says 57% do in 2025, the first positive change in support since 2022. [0]
But neither is that much more than the 50% that already think Israel is committing genocide [1], and the positions are probably significantly correlated, so this probably isn’t swaying many people that aren’t already convinced.
> On a political or legal level it might have more implications though but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries.
Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
> Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
So what is your expert opinion then? What is the risk to the state of Israel itself if ICJ makes a case against them?
October 7 made people in the US demand that their representatives stop supporting genocide? No, it didn’t. It made a lot of supposedly decent people support and even demand evil in their name. At that point you’re just defining “being a decent person” as “if nothing evil happens you won’t be evil” which doesn’t seem like a useful definition.
That is interesting, why videos from Gaza has strong effects while Oct 7 don't. Or videos from Ukraine don't. Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza is genocide while russians bombing child hospital in Kyiv is ok.
Unfortunately not all nations are equal and many suffers because of that.
Unfortunately truth is: western societies don't actually give a shit about either. It just a "popular" trend to support Palestine / Gaza and for a while that was Ukraine. But reality is that people don't really care enough about any of it. Just like they didn't care about wars in Africa, genocide in Cambodia, etc.
To actually solve big world problems it would take massive investments and sacrifice quality of life for many and increase taxes on rich. Obviously no one would agree. It's way beyond clicking "like" and "repost" buttons on social app or adding UTF-8 country flag to your name.
It's the same story with the Epstein list. No one gives shit about victims. Trump and GOP did much more horrible things, like literally killing people with their actions. But sex with underage girls takes all the attention and the blame. So all other Trump's crimes, which are countless to this point, are getting faded.
Lets address the elephant in the room. First of all, to be fair no one is ok with russia bombing hospitals. It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out.
Now from watching the coverage of this war you can't help but come to the conclusion that there's an organised but invisible movement opposing the war. The various humanitarian bodies and news outlets like al jazeera and bbc all quote each other in a self reinforcing loop of anti israel talk.
If it's not an organised conspiracy at least it's a very strong convergence of interests giving the impression of one.
Historically the main opposition to Israel comes from the Arabs with the European countries joining in with various levels of enthusiasm mainly for the pragmatic reason that the Arabs have all the oil.
The anti american block is also anti israel because that goes
against US interests.
It's not surprising then that the UN would be completely taken over by anti israel groups. It's basic maths.
But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.
I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs. And their motivation without a question is genocidal anti semitism. They are just upset the Germans didn't finish off their job and they are taking everyone else along for the ride.
I'm not saying there can be no legitimate opposition to Israel, but it's my belief, backed up by a certain amount of historical evidence that most of the opposition from official sources has its roots in anti semitism.
>> It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out.
That is not true. Political will to introduce sanctions is maxed out. And current US administration has even less interest in doing so than previous.
>>But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs.
Funny enough, no Arab country wants to really help Palestinians, to open borders for refugees. To host palestinians who lost wars with Israel.
The only people that accuse the UN for 'loss of credibility' are the religious fanatics in Tel Aviv, who are angry at the UN for not indulging their 3000-year old mythological delusions.
Too bad there weren't many good cameras around during the Nakba, my guess is we'd have some pretty revolting, hainous images to show the world.
Hatred doesn't exist in a vacuum, october 7 happened for a reason. The jew got persecuted, that created Zionism which persecuted in return, the circle of hatred is going strong.
I think after that I can't imagine the question, "will this impact israel?" makes any sense. They're deliberately perpetrating a genocide. It's real. It's the deliberate and systematic murder of two million people. I dont see the sense in asking: will the murderers care?
There's no murder of two million. There's at most, according to Hamas itself, 60,000 dead out of which 10,000 were hamas militants.
This is a regular ugly war.
If Israel wanted to kill two million, they could've done it already.
It seemingly doesn't matter how accurate Israel tried to be, they call genocide either way.
You may want to distance yourself from a defense of israel. This is not what you think it is; within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld. You can kill a large number very quickly if you withhold water.
That's where we are. Israel's actions have becoming increasingly genocidal as they have ratched up the "genocidal escalation ladder" with impunity. They had been afraid that someone would step in, but none have.
There's now no way of reversing at least 20% of the population dying, it's really just a question of whether they can finish them off, at least as a peoples with a need and claim to that land. If they can be whittled down to a small fraction of their original population, they can then be ethnically cleansed.
I'd imagine that has been the plan now for at least a year, or at least, most of this one.
> within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld.
I appreciate that you're making a prediction. We can check back in a year and see the population levels compared to today.
That's bullshit. There's plenty of water in Gaza, as well as food. They get external aid all the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGTMN9mgKcc Plenty of open restaurants in Gaza.
Even according to Hamas only 200 died out of starvation, and that number is disputed as well.
This is all Hamas propaganda that everyone believes.
There's an interview with a UNICEF worker on the ground there which you can watch, he even mentions when the restaurants reopened during the cease-fire
No. The Hamas death toll figures are just the identified dead. They don't include people buried under rubble or who died from secondary effects (health system collapse, starvation, disease). Plenty of sources think the deaths are in the hundreds of thousands.
Israeli citizens, the vast majority of them, have not taken meaningful effort in overthrowing the government of a corrupt prime minister doing everything in his ability to stay in power, else Israeli citizens ought to learn from Nepal and call for a concrete transition of power. At this point, they are complicit in the genocide, like it or not - simply protesting in Tel Aviv and their local kibbutzim won't cut it. And I say this as someone who's view has shifted massively on this topic since October 7, 2023 - from a vocal supporter of Israeli action (as a Muslim nonetheless!) to a vocal opponent now. Until Israeli citizens overthrow their corrupt government of their own will, they are all part of the genocide and must be rightfully ostracized. Especially given that Netanyahu has outed himself as a one-Jewish-state proponent, and has no interest in a peaceful resolution - or in regional peace.
What's to say Israel's next plans aren't for Greater Israel next? Stealing parts of the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Syria (which they already have done) and Jordan? And then Saudi Arabia and Iraq?
Ancedotally, as an Israeli, people's (or at least protesters') discontent with the Netanyahu government is essentially limited to his criminal charges, general populist antics, and his refusal to cut a hostage deal.
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks the IDF is commiting war crimes in Gaza, let alone a genocide.
There is great skepticism towards international NGOs that make these accusations, especially the U.N., owing to past pro-Palestinian bias.
Obviously, there are war crimes happening in Gaza—like in any war.
But having followed a number of conflicts, I don’t see Israel conducting itself in a way that’s uniquely bad.
What makes Gaza different is the opponent: one committed to total war, willing to sacrifice civilians in order to manufacture outrage and turn Western opinion against Israel.
Documented examples include:
- Shooting at civilians who follow evacuation routes
- Sending children with bombs in their backpacks
- Denying civilians access to bomb shelters
- Storing weapons caches and launching rockets from civilian areas
Initially that's what I thought too. But then the more the war progresses, there's only one group benefiting from what's happening - and it's not the remaining hostages.
Also, do Israelis really believe that with the extremely omnipresent intelligence apparatus that Israel enjoys, especially on the technological front, their country was not able to predict the October 7th attacks? Or did Netanyahu, personally on the verge of being convicted criminally, found a route out by starting a long-drawn out campaign where his hawkish approach would bolster his image? This entire affair has had all the stench of Putin's Chechnya escapade.
There is widespread bias against Israel, for the simple reason that Israel does not let press on the ground. Not even conservative, pro-Israel voices were allowed to report with boots on the ground.
And now Israel went a step further, by attacking a sovereign third-party nation that is trying to give a voice to the other un-sovereign side. Granted, they are heavily biased, but they are (were) also Israel's thread to communicate with Hamas leadership - and Israel just bombs their soil? Don't Israelis think on those terms?
Seeing PG slowly turn on this issue, from nothing into recognition and now into advocacy has been wild. Presumably because he has kids, and like many parents you understand with your eyes first, and then your heart.
PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list.
I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.
My best friend since childhood is Jewish and has a difficult time even acknowledging there is an issue. My other friend works for an Israeli company and the jokes are about what they’re going to do with the flattened Gaza land.
I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned).
Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians?
There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
It is eye opening remaining friends with people who's views and actions are completely opposed to ones own. There's no point attempting to educate them (often it makes them go harder against you). But by finding out about their lives and understanding where fear has replaced love one can learn a lot. And hopefully use that knowledge to find ways to speak out and create a society that aligns with ones ethics.
If they were going to change their mind, they likely would have already. If you're watching people starve to death, and defending it as normal politics, you don't care about others. You don't get out of harmful relationships for them, you do it for you.
I have two close friends with extremely pro-Zionist views, Friend A and Friend B. The recent number of atrocities has been so atrocious that Friend A has reconsidered their views, they've started yelling at Friend B for their unrequited support of Israel's policies in all things.
I think it was the recent double tap missile strike of the hospital workers, journalist and first-responders that did it.
Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?"
I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I've been a fan of PG's since reading the plan for spam essay in high school, and was a very early reddit user after he boosted it (join date Nov 2005). I have several friends who did YC at various points and was always a bit bummed that my career/life took a different direction and I didn't get the chance.
Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.
I used to shame PG for his elitist views. Now I celebrate his moral courage.
One man cannot fix everything.
Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo),
As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
> Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
i think it's worth stating simply and unequivocally that denying or defending a genocide that is the culmination of a century of colonialism and apartheid is Bad
Genocide is both extreme and labour-intensive. No one wakes up in the morning and decides to become an extremist; it takes an awful lot to turn someone into an extremist. That 'awful lot' has to happen to many people for a genocide to actually happen.
The genocide itself is simple enough; the thousands of years of conflict leading to the genocide are not. Anyone who believes they can unpick all that history to come to a neat conclusion about who are the 'goodies' and who are the 'baddies' is a fool.
My only interest in this conflict is in keeping it as far away from myself, my kith and my kin as possible.
I actually do think there are people in the Israeli government who wake up in the morning and work very hard all day planning on how to move every single Palestinian, dead or alive, out of Gaza and the West Bank.
Nazi Germany provided people the opportunity to become an extremist by answering a job ad, and put together a whole murderous infrastructure of extremism in about a decade.
That's certainly not true. They perhaps didn't know the full details, but Hitler was very clear about his intention to eradicate Jews from Europe even in 1939 when the Holocaust had barely started.
They definitely knew that Jews were being rounded up and sent to camps for slave labor in horrid and dangerous conditions that would kill many of them.
There are no goodies in this conflict, it doesn't matter whether some folks refuse to acknowledge their own tribe or ethnicity is doing or done some absolutely horrible things. No amount of whatabouttism is changing that, rest are details.
When anybody has doubts about how fucked up world and humans are, I just direct them into this medium-term conflict, facts are easy enough to find.
I think what happens is things come from people with certain views, who seem to be part of some specific tribe, and so the presumption is they’re just spinning a thing for their own angle.
This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.
Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.
"genocide good" ? that can't be, but it seems to be the case for a vocal minority on HN (I got banned several times over the last two years for accusing Israel of genocide ad starting a shit storm of angry mob comments)
> Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.
Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
Downvoting moves the comment down the reply tree and greys it out making it harder to read. Flagging comments completely hides them from many users, especially when logged in. And flagging submissions sends them to oblivion.
So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
The fact that you can’t see any reason other than bigotry why this comment would be down voted is exactly what he was talking about in his essay on wokeness.
Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts, but in the era of anti-BDS regulation and other measures aimed specifically at curtailing practical freedom of speech surrounding this conflict, can we really comment freely on this without anonymity? The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation. We can also expect corporate retaliation against employees who speak about this issue in a "wrong way".
> Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts
I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.
"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."
From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."
Most of geopolitics is geography and Israel has greatly benefitted as a unique bridgehead in hostile territory for a changing roster of great-powers and states against another foe e.g.
- Early Soviet support to undermine British Imperialism
- Balfour Declaration from Britain vs. Ottomans
- Nuclear tech from France vs. Nasser and anti-colonialism
- Military/Nuclear from Apartheid South Africa vs. shared pariah status
- Hegemonic power from the US vs. every unaligned country including Cold War, OPEC, Arab Nationalism, Islamism
The more recent metastasising of support into a political-religous-racial belief-system is even more troubling than the apocalyptic machinations of great powers because pure ideology departs from reason itself and is untethered to any care for the consequences.
The theory I've been operating under is that Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII, and operates essentially as a vassal state of the US's commercial military interests as a totally intractable perma-war in the region to ensure that even in lieu of other conflict taxpayer money can continuously be laundered to them in the form of expended munitions.
There's obviously a lot more going on from a social/religious perspective, but I'm prone to thinking of large-scale shifts and trends in terms of economic incentives.
I believe it's the other way around: The western governments, media and legislative bodies are under Israeli control.
Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?
It is humiliating, but that makes no sense at all from a power dynamics perspective. Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially. The US's military industrial complex is, and basically every politician is beholden to powerful capital interests, the MIC among them. Unconditional and enthusiastic support of Israel, then, is a proxy for support of those financial interests, hence the visits, deference, etc. This backed up by the very real threat of a handful of powerful lobbying groups that will and have coordinated to redirect funding to opponents of anyone they deem insufficiently deferential.
Recall please Grover Norquist. In the 90s and 2000s he leveraged proximity with the post-Reagan new conservative wave to grow a relatively modest org, Americans for Tax Reform, to a near universal policy chokehold on the Republican party.
Through a socially viral "no net new tax" promise, once Norquist secured pledges from party leaders, essentially all federal elected Republicans had to pledge as well. They were otherwise threatened with losing endorsement from Norquist and faced being ostracized and primaried. The leaders themselves were then caught in the net and none felt like they could break.
ATR influence has waned in the face of MAGA's more populist fiscal liberalism, but that was pretty much just one guy.
Extend that singular goal to a network with a narrow and aligned interest, and it can be very effectively maintained with intelligent and shifting messaging and reputation management. Consider how people like Loomer and Raichik that have emerged, not through established power brokers, but organically through social media platforms, and the significant influence they possess even in the White House.
How can you say it’s a conspiracy theory when you see tons of verified news articles with all of these Western politicians so supplicant to Israel and Israeli politicians?
What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.
Perhaps they have an understanding of the history of the region that goes further back than 2022, to truly understand this conflict you have to go back a couple hundred years.
If you read history and understand that Jews are persecuted and murdered in every country that is not Israel, what are they supposed to do?
Should we blame the Ottoman Empire for not industrializing earlier and losing the technology race to Europe and collapsing? After all, if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t collapsed at the end of WW I, Palestine would likely still be a Muslim territory.
That’s how far back you have to go to find a good starting point to explain how the conflict got to the point it’s at now.
> Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially.
Its not just funding and religious indoctrination. The very, very serious question that nobody seems to have the courage to ask, is this: where are Israels nukes?
The answer to that question might provide some insight into why things are so supplicant in certain halls of power ...
Israel wasn't created from nothing post-WW2. It was already 50 years into building a jewish state in first the Ottoman Empire and then British Palestine. Holocaust refugees, although symbolically important, were never a large portion of Israel's immigrant population.
The UN declaration was recognition of reality on the ground. And was, btw, rejected by the Arab parties and doesn't carry the force of international law. Israel declared its independence irregardless of the resolution the following year.
And Arabs owned about 8% of the land. Still more than the Jews, but nowhere near the 94% implied by omission.
In any case, go look at the malaria maps and desert areas. Notice how they match up with the areas allocated to Jews. The Jews may have gotten allocated slightly more land, but it was not fertile or desirable land.
> Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII
Though housing displaced Jews is undoubtedly a part of it, presenting that as the main or only reason for the existence of the state of Israel is quite disingenuous. Jerusalem had been Jewish majority for a century before the state of Israel was founded, decades before the British ever stepped foot in the Holy Land. Generally, when a state represents its inhabitants that is considered a proper functioning state.
Another possible explanation: Israel is a leading spyware manufacturer (e.g. Pegasus). They are probably involved in 'sensitive' eavesdropping operations world-wide, and quite likely, have data that would scare the world's leaders to even think not supporting Israel.
Isn't that found out that the "alternative" Signal client US Government officials are unofficially using is "backing-up" messages to company's server (probably in Israel).
It doesn’t. The US does, however, and the US has for decades put all of its weight behind Israel. Without that, Israel would probably have faced the same fate as apartheid South Africa.
The current genocide is to blame on the US as much as on Israel.
You're explaining what people can see. The question was why this happens though.
Why does this one country have such unwavering support?
Why is the current president for example not trying to save some money by just not giving it to them?
Just as there is an 'underworld', there is also a corresponding and related 'overworld'. Essentially organised crime, corporations, and security services cooperating in nefarious ways (often usurping - though not always violently - the power of states).
It's arguable that Israel is particularly interested and involved in this 'overworld'. See the early history of the CIA, FBI, Meyer Lansky and the mob, Epstein, the reach and effectiveness of Mossad relative to other similar organisations, etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I believe that most significant western leaders have probably been compromised in some way by 'overworld' influences. Look at what happens to 'the wrong type of candidate' that gets too close to power. Jeremy Corban was thoroughly and dishonestly scandalised by a campaign instigated and supported by Israeli interests. Why? The complete bandwagon type behaviour of mainstream British press of the left and right in that campaign is very reminiscent of the way recent mainstream media coverage reports on Gaza - it looks coordinated and in unison.
Of course, I'm probably wrong. Just trying to make sense of the madness I see around me.
TLDR; My theory is that Israel has corrupted our media and politicians through a nexus of nefarious actors that Aaron Good refers to as the 'overworld'.
No. But interestingly Netanyahu just called out China as a state conspiring against Israel's interests. So rather than trying to corrupt China's political system in their favour the approach appears to be to frame them as an explicit enemy. I'm sure we'll start to hear more of this from Israel regarding China.
Threats of assassination, and other dirty intelligence operations to blackmail and coerce politicians. Lavish gifts, paid vacations and campaign assistance for any politician who plays ball. Nuclear threats. Religious influence.
> The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation.
“Some form of” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, to the point of being dishonest propaganda. E.g., California is counted as one of those states based on AB 2844 of 2016. Which, to be fair, started out [0] as an actual anti-BDS bill (targeting state contracting only, but still an anti-BDS bill.) But the form that actually passed and became law does nothing that actually impacts BDS; it requires that state contractors with contracts of over $100,000 certify under penalty of perjury that (1) they are in compliance with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and that (2) any policy they have against a “sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States of America”, explicitly including but not limited to Israel, is not applied in a way which discriminates in violation of either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
It is not, in any meaningful sense, an anti-BDS law.
[0] Well, “started out” isn’t really true, either, since it was introduced as a technical change the an environmental health law replacing "Department of Health Services” with “Department of Public Health” in one section of law, reflecting a reorganization that had occurred subsequent to the law passing, went through a “gut and amend” switch to become a bill that would add new sampling requirements for drinking water, then went through another “gut and amend” to become an anti-BDS bill focussed on public contracting. But then it went through a number of more regular amendments which stripped out all the anti-BDS parts—both the operative anti-BDS language and the proposed legislative findings and declarations of purpose at the opening, replacing both the operative provisionsn and the findings and declaration portions with anti-discrimination rather than anti-BDS provisions.
I think it's a legitimate worry, but I don't think using our old accounts give us any less protections than throwaway accounts. And I doubt the people that would make such accounts have anything of interest to add to the discussion.
This is contradictory. If it's a legitimate worry, then it's reasonable for reasonable people to want to make such accounts. And reasonable people are exactly those who have things of interest.
From an HNer I'd also expect the understanding that yes, old accounts does give less protections, trivially from an information theory perspective.
Every time I've looked into the arguments for this being a genocide, I saw, at best, a description of urban warfare. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone is still reading this thread, could you write what you believe will happen after Israel won the war?
I more or less agree with you (if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper), but the report does have some specific examples of things that seem to go beyond "just" urban warfare. For example, Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder, which can serve no legitimate military purpose (except trying to prosecute the war via starvation of babies, which is illegal). When combined with the public statements from Israeli government officials that denigrate the Palestinians in Gaza as animals, I think there's definitely _some_ crimes against humanity being committed by Israel.
Given the deliberate creation of unlivable conditions on the ground and the absence of any viable plan for restoring Palestinian life and sovereignty, the civilian population of Gaza faces two primary and foreseeable outcomes:
Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathematical certainty in the coming months. A significant portion of the population, especially the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses—will perish even if direct hostilities were to cease. This is the direct and inevitable consequence of the "conditions of life" that have been imposed.
Permanent displacement and demographic change: For the remaining population, survival inside a Gaza that has been rendered uninhabitable will become a practical impossibility. The complete lack of housing, clean water, food, healthcare, and economic activity will create immense and unbearable pressure for civilians to flee the land in order to survive. This outcome aligns directly with the legal definitions of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, as identified by human rights organizations. It is also the logical endpoint of a strategy that involves mass evacuation orders followed by the total destruction of the evacuated areas, and it serves as a necessary precondition for post-war plans that require an "emptied out" territory for foreign-led redevelopment.
The military campaign, therefore, should not be viewed merely as a precursor to a post-war settlement. Rather, it is actively creating the physical and demographic preconditions for a specific type of post-war reality—one that precludes the existence of a viable, self-governing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. The destruction is not an unfortunate obstacle to be overcome during reconstruction; it appears to be the first and most critical phase of a reconstruction model that requires a tabula rasa. This connects the seemingly separate phases of "war" and "post-war," revealing them as a continuous process. The objective is not simply to defeat a military opponent, but to physically and demographically re-engineer the Gaza Strip to make it amenable to a future state that serves external interests and permanently prevents Palestinian sovereignty. The evidence strongly suggests that the intended outcome of the current strategy is a Gaza Strip largely, if not entirely, devoid of its Palestinian population.
Some basic observations:
28% of children under five are actively malnourished.
IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza.
100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.
Two weeks ago, journalists were targeted in an attack at Nasser hospital. Journalists are being targeted to scare them away and prevent what’s occurring from being shown to the world. https://youtu.be/xAK1w9r2J54?si=-ZvG-55KBKNZbqt9
And do you think we defeated the nazis by leaving their food intact? By leaving their bomb factories intact?
Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed?
War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.
Counterfactual: let's say Israel had never blocked food or other aid (or at least not more than since before October 7) but everything else were the same. Would it still be considered a genocide?
The trouble is, what is the right medium or long term solution. If Israel militarily fails as a state, which seems to me to be an implicit aim of a significant number of anti-Israel folks, the results will make the current Gaza conflict look like a joke.
You are misinterpreting the facts. Israel bombing Qatar for instance is only going to bring them more hate from Arabians, they could have fought back on the hamas while maintaining peace with the rest of the Arab world.
There was an alliance in 2020 between Israel and UAE United Arab Emirates. No need to say that it’s not the most promising alliance anymore.
Other countries that were neutral on Israel see their arabian population utterly hate Israel so they have to adapt and behave consequently.
They manage to unite the whole Arab front against them when they should have played on their division.
This is really a bad plan on long term. Despite what trump is saying, Iran nuclear weapon is very close. They failed on that matter too although there was a real opportunity with the agreement during Obama.
I don’t see a bright future for Israel in these conditions, all the weapons in the world can’t defeat hate from 450 millions Arabians.
Beside, people don’t want Israel military to fail, they want it to stop killing 80% civilians and 50% women and children. That’s completely different.
Short-term, Israel should have pumped the breaks on disproportionate response. Dahiya doctrine never worked, and now Hamas has successfully leveraged it to win (undue!) international credibility.
If a policy of de-escalation can be honored, you can lay the groundwork for a medium/long term solution that respects all sovereign parties.
Actually it's quite a good point, because no one in this thread has suggested a sustainable long-term solution for this mutual madness. Hamas without question wishes for the total destruction of Israel.
The starting points are not so difficult to come up with:
(1) Stop of all armed offensives.
(2) Complete dismantling of genocidal and corrupt government. Netanyahu and his gang in front of international courts, and then afterwards additionally in front of an Israeli court.
(3) Partial disarming of Israel, to restore a balance in the region, and keeping them from attacking more countries. Defensive weapons they may all keep, maybe even get more, but it really needs to be defensive stuff, for example to intercept missiles/rockets. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is needed more in Ukraine right now, which should take priority over Israeli needs.
(4) Organization of elections. Israel needs to get back from authoritarianism to functioning democracy. This might be done with international help. Possibly reforms, that strengthen courts, so that a second Netanyahu is unlikely to happen again.
(5) Long running rebuilding projects in at least Gaza, if not more countries, financed by Israel.
(6) Probably some international peacekeeping will be needed. This should not only include personnel from western countries. Must be from countries not directly involved and not from the US, or some EU countries, that supplied weapons used for the genocide.
(7) Negotiations are on again, this time with a new government, and mostly about how Israel thinks to aim for a peaceful future, in which it gives back illegally annexed territories, including, of course, illegal settlements in the west bank. This also includes all the illegally taken or occupied territory since founding, back to internationally recognized borders.
That's mostly the Israeli side of things. Of course Hamas will also have to make concessions. For example there could also be disarming of Hamas, where this is the price to pay for release of prisoners and a portion of the illegally occupied territories by Israel. Hamas shouldn't be helpless, but also shouldn't be able to launch new significant offensives.
There are many things, that can be done, and they are not difficult to see. They are difficult to execute in the current climate, where the powerful country has an authoritarian leadership, that is unwilling to compromise.
Zionist state - So that is the state, that thinks, that the land is god given theirs, right? Maybe such a state should disappear and a sane state appear in its stead. It may be that Hamas has a different understanding of that, but I think, that this religious fanatics state thing is no good for Israel as a country anyway. It would do them good to get rid of that ideological baggage.
> So that is the state, that thinks, that the land is god given theirs, right?
Though there does exist a small religious minority that does claim the holy land to belong to Jews as it was given by God, I only know one such person. Most Israelis feel that Israel should be a Jewish state because we earned the land in the same fashion as almost every other nation on Earth, and certainly in the same fashion as ever other nation in the Middle East.
But I'll tell you who does think that certain land can only belong to people of a specific race. People who call the holy land "Palestinian land". The invention of that term was, as are many of the anti-Jewish arguments, an inversion of the Jewish use of "God -given land". And just as you reject the idea when it is used by Jews, so would a logical person reject the idea when used by our enemies.
i'm ashamed of how long it took, i don't even know what words to use to explain that life matters, that all lives have the same value, and that death is bad
I didn't downvote you but I can understand people who did - your comment doesn't add meaningfully to the conversation because it doesn't add any new ideas or food for thought that the reader doesn't already have. It just expresses your frustration with the state of affairs.
While there is a place for that kind of comment in certain kinds of conversations, many people come to Hacker News to engage in curious and enlightening conversation instead of emotional echo chambers present elsewhere on the Internet.
I upvoted a number of comments there with opposing viewpoints because I appreciated that they made me think about things in a deeper way than I had previously, while avoiding anger or insults.
Hello, thanks for your comment but i don't think there's anything bad in frustration, anger and sometimes insults, i think emotional intelligence is a meaningfull addition to these kind of conversations, particularly when empathy and other natural human emotions have been demonized to this point. I also think that some angers and frustrations are perfectly healthy, i even think that in some cases it is not sane to not feel. Anyways thanks to those who don't downvote, seeya
I think what the parent comment was trying to emphasize is that making comments that don't contribute towards a discussion is against the guidelines of HN.
Comments like your original one, that only expresses your emotions, fall under this category, and are frowned upon. Not the opinion contained in your comment, but the comment itself.
HN users also use the downvote+flag buttons to enforce these guidelines. The downvote button is not an indication of user disagreement here the way it is on other sites.
I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).
Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable. Indeed, the US would rather sanction individuals at the ICJ than acknowledge any sort of legitimacy—even as our own politicians accuse Russia of engaging in "war crimes". I have no doubt that they are, in fact, I think that the evidence is quite damning. But the double standard is striking, as is the difference between the footage visible on social media and what is acknowledged when you turn on the TV or open the paper.
> break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.
this is never going to happen. there is just no practical enforcement mechanism. laws and police works within a sovereign country because the state has the monopoly on violence, this is not true on the international stage. no country will go into war to enforce an ICC/ICJ conviction.
I'm illiterate on international law, but does anything exist/is similar to the UN's peace keeping forces but for the enforcement of judicial decisions on the international scale?
> Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.
Since the mid 90s the world has proven to turn their head on the other side or pick good/bad narratives out of mere convenience.
It started with the Yugoslavian wars, it absolutely exploded after 9/11 when US could straight up lie about non existing WMD and drag 10 of their allies to fight Iraq "for reasons". It confirmed itself in a countless number of conflicts nobody cared about in Africa, Middle East, Asia.
Japanese civilians experienced far worse in WW2, and they forgot pretty quickly. The war against the Tamil Tigers would be another case study. Once the radicalism is dealt with by force, the ratcheting of violence is reduced, and people move on.
Japanese had it bad for 2-3 years. After that they were allowed to live in their country with their own leadership. Palestinians have it bad for 80 years, they are not allowed to return to their homeland, and we expect them to live in closely monitored concentration camps.
A persecuted minority was granted independence from a previously colonial, totalitarian, theocratic state. Since then they have been engaged in an perpetual war of terror.
Japan and Germany had it 'easy' because their defeat was so brutal, and their de-radicalization was so thorough.
Israel's real crime was being too lenient after the 6 days war, exposing themselves and radicalized Palestinians to the violence that's lasted to this day.
There was a huge Allied reconstruction effort in Japan (and Germany, and a lot of Europe, and elsewhere). I very much doubt there would be something similar for Palestine. Or Syria. Or, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would be an effort which spent a huge amount of money for zero effect outside the US compound.
> Japanese civilians experienced far worse in WW2, and they forgot pretty quickly
Because the vast majority of the Japanese people barely faced any kind of obstacles in the same way Palestinians are facing. Yes, they had food shortages and their wooden homes were bombed constantly to oblivion, and they suffered a couple of nuclear blasts, but that was because their history lessons teach their WW2 as something in which they were the aggressor (with Pearl Harbor, not the invasions of China and Korea). In Palestine's case, it will take much longer to wipe out that resentment. Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
The analogy would be if the allies plan for ending WW2 was to ethnically cleanse the Japanese archipelago and expel Japanese people into, say, camps in Xinjiang. I imagine if they had consistently telegraphed such a plan for years during the war, the resistance might have continued longer.
Before Japan was defeated, their military propaganda was that they were victims of encirclement and an oil blockade, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was a justified response to this victimhood. They started teaching a different story only because the allies forced them to change their curriculum. The same process of deradicalization will be forced onto Gaza after the defeat of Hamas. And why did you overlook the Tamil Tigers case study? And why would you euphemize nuclear bombs onto civilian cities like this, as if it isn't significantly more brutal than anything the Palestinians have been subjected to?
> Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
A luxury belief that's only possible to hold because Israel is militarily dominant to the point that the radical views prevalent in Palestinian culture cannot be acted out. The Israelis know this luxury belief is factually false, that's why they are the way they are.
> and why would you euphemize nuclear bombs onto civilian cities like this, as if it isn't significantly more brutal than anything the Palestinians have been subjected to?
How can six Hiroshimas kill less civilians than the actual Hiroshima (let alone the fire bombings) despite much higher density? The answer to this question might unlock something in your mind.
We don't have anhthing like a complete count of the dead yet. The 60k number the media still reports has barely moved in a year because Israel destroyed almost all of the health infrastructure that used to report deaths, and even before that people trapped in the rubble and not identified by anyone weren't counted.
That's true, but that 60k number isn't just civilians, and even if the total civilian count is higher than 60k, it's still likely lower than the civilians killed in Hiroshima, which is an inconvenient fact best left unmentioned by those who say that Israel has unleashed six Hiroshimas onto a location that's over 10x higher density than 1945 Hiroshima. How do you resolve this discrepancy?
There's no discrepancy because there aren't numbers. The 60,000 number is a dramatic undercount. The fatalities were being undercounted even before Israel had attacked every hospital in Gaza multiple times. There are mass graves occasionally found in Gaza but nobody is able to go through and document everything while they're still being genocided. In any situation like this it takes decades of research to try to reach an accurate count and even then there are is huge uncertainty, particularly when whole extended families are murdered all at once. Look at the Hiroshima death toll estimates - between 90,000 and 166,000 people killed. And this is the best estimate after decades of research. Almost none of that can take place now in Gaza.
But of course I'm talking to someone who pretends to believe you can carpet bomb an entire city of 2 million people relentlessly, cut off food and water, and kill fewer than 60,000 civilians.
I mean, there is a discrepancy, because even if I grant you your wildest guess as the base case, it is still going to be vastly lower than 6 Hiroshimas, despite 10x higher density, which makes no sense. So maybe it is not "carpet bombing", at least not how it was done in WW2 or Vietnam, and maybe such vague, loaded words are being deployed more for rhetorical effect than for descriptive accuracy. It kind of looks like ... a war?
> I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).
I don't think recognition as a State would really change anything. If at least one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council will veto everything that comes up, the UN won't effectively intervene in the situation. Military intervention in such a case is unlikely, unless at least one permanent member is willing to join an intervention coalition. Looking at conflicts the US has been involved in, it usually lines up around the lines with US maybe with their usual friends vs Locals or Locals and Russia and friends. The only one I found where the pattern was when France started sending arms to Nicaragua while the US was supporting the other side [1]. Unless Russia or China wants to support the Palestinians militarily, or the US decides not to no longer support Israel militarily, there's not much chance of outside intervention here.
Given the outside countries can't effectively intervene, recognizing the state of Palestine at least sends a message, that maybe hopefully influences the US?
If it were recognized as a state, it would need a lot of outside help. But if there was agreement on the territory and acknowledement of its sovereignty, an effective state could be worked toward in ways that aren't feasible when under seige or even simply occupation.
30 years ago, conditions for peace and the start of a newly recognized state seemed better, yes. But the situation hasn't resolved itself by being left as-is either.
In the international community the double standard was always against Israel aside maybe when it declared independence. The external enemy to distract the peasants from relevant problems. It doesn't have a lot of maturity. Perhaps the UN will go the league of nations if the current Gx hegemony loses control.
Looking at the official HN guidelines, it states that "Most stories about politics" is off-topic, and "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".
Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?
Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.
Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.
Yes, but as pg once put it, "note those words most and probably" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426). That was in 2012, btw, which shows how far back HN's approach to this goes.
That leaves open the question of which stories to treat as on topic, but the links in my GP comment go into detail about how we handle that.
I'm not saying we always make the correct call about individual stories. There will never be general agreement about that, since every reader has a different set of things they care about. But I hope we can at least make the principles clear, as well as the fact that they haven't changed.
fwiw I think y'all do a fine enough job of dealing with this difficult nuanced stance. I've noticed that when they stick around, it appears to be a combo of: this seems important enough, the community can probably have a civil conversation around this, people who don't participate will find learnings through the comments still. These 3 things always seem well satisfied, personally I appreciate the measured nature of this community and thank you and tom for the genuine work of trying to maintain the balances.
Israel and Israeli businesses are an intractable part of the modern American tech scene. Mellanox, for example, is the cited reason Nvidia ships any datacenter-scale interconnect at all today. America's highest-tech defense contractors work in direct concert with Rafael et. al, and companies like Cellebrite are suppliers of US law enforcement.
When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
> When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
If the topics and responses pertained to such a discussion, then that would be one thing. However, it seems like that is not what is being discussed in this topic nor comments section.
I think it always has the potential to be "intellectually satisfying" and there's an obvious 'tech' angle woven through it all. So much of it is tied to how information spreads and which technologies enable that. (And, how an actor can use technologies to their advantage).
I think that reference to "TV news" is outdated. Media has changed and there isn't even a clear division between what a media org puts on TV vs on the web.
And this sub-topic in particular (genocide ruling) isn't really getting a ton of mainstream news coverage -- many news orgs are deliberately distancing themselves from proper coverage. The story may exist on news sites, but it's not being surfaced.
> A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
Personally, one aspect I always enjoyed about this site was how it was often an escape for me from the endless bombardments of political discourse that is constantly being shown/recommend to me on other platforms. I do understand the importance of the nature of these types of discussions, but I agree with you, I am not certain much honest debate is being had here.
In the n number of threads like this, I would be surprised if many leave with any of their opinions changed. All too often do people comment to soothe their own knee-jerk reactions rather than to facilitate understanding or intellectually challenge one another.
Conversely, some of us don't hang out on sites that are an endless bombardment of political discourse. That sounds awful. The HN approach seems uniquely useful. One or two post on an event, easily skipped over and ignored if you want with all the comments hidden behind clicking on that headline. Whole trees of comments trivially collapsed at will when they become uninteresting. It is actually a really great way of getting international news (including US news for me) and sampling opinions and commentary, even if it was not intended that way.
It would be interesting to know how articles like this compared to the average article. How are the ratios of downvotes to upvotes, flagged to non-flagged, and comments to views? Are people who comment here positively or negative correlating to creating non-flaged/downvoted comments on other articles?
To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?
Many more downvotes and flags for sure. I can't answer your other questions without specifically looking into it, but my guess would be many more comments and much more negativity.
When having a politically-controversial long-running Major Ongoing Topic with multiple unflagged submissions, is there any obligation to keep some semblance of balance over the submissions that get flags disabled? When the articles making the front page disproportionately favor one side, it is hard to not get the impression that these are the only articles on that issue getting flags disabled.
For me, this is meaningful because for the first time a legitimate international body is calling this a genocide.
Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.
Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other. The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians". That idea was because Israel could name 17% of the casualties in Hamas registers as members of the organization. But assuming that every other casualty is a civilian is quite a stretch. For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills while he's aiming an RPG at them. For another, there are many other militant organizations in the strip, notably the Islamic Jihad. For a third, typically 75% - 90% of the casualties of war are civilians by the UN's own numbers.
And they are interpreted in the fashion most damning to Israel, whereas much worse on-the-record quotes from other bodies, notably those bodies which have demonstrated intent to destroy Israel, are interpreted more favourably.
When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished -- then your words indicating this is deliberate, given it could only be deliberate anyway, are interpreted differently, yes.
When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.
One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.
Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.
If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.
> When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished
Show me the evidence. You can find Arabic speaking influencers eating out in Gaza on social media. You can find security camera images of full supermarkets. The facts on the ground don’t match the narrative.
Far from withholding food, most of the food coming into Gaza now is via the Israel government, which is doing an end run around Hamas to get food to the people. Because Hamas, not the IDF, was shooting up aid trucks and taking all the food, both for their own use and to sell at inflated prices.
Hamas via MENA media companies is pushing the narrative of a famine because controlling the food supply is a primary means of extracting money from the population to further the war. Get Americans and Europeans to donate to starving Gazans, to fill the coffers of Hamas.
This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of water, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.
This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas.
There's a very large list of actions that can only be targeted against the civilian population, and have aimed-at and realised a genocide.
Sending food wherever, leads to it being captured by Hamas / local militias (for lack of a better word) so you have to distribute where you can protect it.
But of course where you have soldiers is where you'll take fire.
Maybe she cared about your own people, you wouldn't engage in places where humanitarian aid was being distributed
I'd invite you to watch the interview, all of this is addressed. The israeli placement of 4 aid distribution centres (out of the required and initial 400) has nothing to do with hamas.
> Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other...
You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills
Does it at least know who it is raping?
The commission has previously found Israel to be guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including extermination, torture, rape, sexual violence and other inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, forcible transfer, persecution based on gender and starvation as a method of warfare.
> You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
No, I do not think that Navi Pillay is less competent than me. I do however see that she signed off on circular references. Her competence has little to do with her motivations.
> Does it at least know who it is raping?
Yes. The single incident of rape - a group of soldiers ramming a broomstick up the ass of a captured terrorist who had murdered people - was done by known soldiers and they are being prosecuted. And we know the identity of the man who was raped.
"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "
> can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?
The point is that, as someone with limited stakes in this war and limited exposure to its history until recently, unbiased sources have been hard to come by. The entire definition of genocide has been politicised. That isn't a criticism of anyone doing it--language is a powerful tool, and it's fair game to try and bend definitions to one's advantage. But all that makes piercing the veil on whether this is the horribleness of war being selectively cited, or a selectively horrible war, tough.
This report cuts through that. The evidence is compelling, albeit less primary than I'd have hoped. The writing is clear and impartial. (Though again, a lot of secondary sourcing.) It doesn't seek to answer who is at fault for what is, essentially, an intractable multigenerational conflict (even before we involve proxies). It just seeks to simply answer a question, and in my opinion, having now skimmed (but not deeply contemplated) it, it does.
The balance of evidence suggests Israel is prosecuting a genocide against the people of Palestine. That creates legitimacy for escalating a regional conflict (one among money, I may add, and nowhere close to the deadliest) into an international peacekeeping operation.
Unfortunately, all of this rests on a system of international law that basically all the great powers of this generation (China, then Russia, and now America and India) have undermined.
Just like those international peace keepers abetted Hezbollah, providing them intel and cover, even illuminating our assets via spotlights for Hezbollah?
Or just like those international peacekeepers who filmed Hezbollah breach our border, kill soldiers, abduct others? And then when this was discovered, refused to share the unedited video with Israel?
We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?
Wether she is or not is not for me to decide - at any rate, her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?
And if you think the UN rapporteur is too biased to do their job correctly, why do you care what the UN does?
> her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?
No, no more than someone who predicts a market crash every day is proven right the one time they nail it. The quality and objectivity of the analysis matters. Not just the conclusion.
A market crash is a one-time event. A genocide is ongoing. This would be like someone claiming since 2003 there was a pedo ring in the upper echelons of society and everyone calling them a liar until...
What about "there is war in the middle east, still/again" is remotely unique enough in the last century to be a defining moment of the half-century?
If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.
The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.
Not to this degree in the last few decades. But I feel you are overall correct, it's just that the Internet allows for much bigger coverage of the details of the horrors committed, and it's interesting how governments around the world now fail so completely to shape the narrative.
The October 7th attacks were way worse than Hamas attacks that came before in recent history. The response was way worse than what has happened before in recent history.
And so both sides feel fully justified with their courses of action, because of what the other side did to them. That is the part that is so much not unique.
Governments are still shaping the narrative, it's just that the ones that are most skilled and successful in manipulating social media happen to be the non-Western ones (Think about China controlling Tiktok, or the various Russia election influence theories).
Ukraine War started 3 years ago in 2022, not two years ago. Or 11 years ago in 2014, if we count from the illegal annexation of Crimea.
The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.
UN Watch Rebuttal: Legal Analysis of Pillay Commission’s September 2025 Report to Human Rights Council
"This rebuttal examines the central defects of the UN report (the “Report”) issued by the Commission of Inquiry (the “Commission”). It shows why the evidence presented cannot sustain a finding of genocide under international law. A summary of its main deficiencies are as follows:
1. Failure to prove dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group is the central and extremely high bar in any genocide case. The Commission’s claim of genocidal intent fails on this threshold alone, relying on tortured parsing of statements, selective quotations, and conjecture rather than unambiguous evidence.
2. Erasure of Hamas as a belligerent: The report never acknowledges that the IDF is engaged in combat with an estimated 30,000-strong Hamas force in Gaza as well as thousands of fighters from other militant groups. A reader would come away believing the war has the IDF deployed against only women and children, with Hamas erased from the narrative. The Commission makes no attempt to analyze the war itself, because in its alternative version of reality, there is none.
3. Silence on Hamas’s military infrastructure: There is no mention of Hamas’s 17-year military buildup in Gaza, including its vast tunnel network, booby-trapped buildings, and massive arms buildup. By ignoring this reality, the report strips the conflict of its military context and recasts lawful military targets as evidence of genocide.
4. Erasure of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure: The Commission ignores Hamas’s openly acknowledged human shield strategy,[2] including its use of mosques, schools, residential buildings, and hospitals to conceal tunnels and weapons. Instead, damage to these sites is consistently portrayed as deliberate targeting of civilians by Israel.
5. No recognition of the hostage crisis: The report omits the fact that Hamas took Israeli hostages and continues to hold them, starve them,[3] and rape them.[4] This omission is consistent with the broader erasure of Hamas as an active actor in Gaza, removing essential context from the Commission’s narrative.
6. Reliance on Hamas-supplied fatality data: Despite Hamas’s long record of exaggerating civilian deaths and its status as a US and EU-designated terrorist organization, its figures are treated as fact while IDF data on combatants killed is ignored.
7. Civilian deaths distorted as evidence of genocide: The report presents civilian casualties as prima facie proof of genocidal intent rather than as tragic and unavoidable consequences of urban warfare, exacerbated by Hamas’s human shield strategy. The Report cites numerous incidents where civilians were killed as intentional and targeted acts by Israel without evidence.
8. Normal wartime consequences treated as crimes: Regular and expected wartime impacts on civilians, such as mental health impacts, difficulty accessing medical care and displacement, are depicted as evidence of genocide rather than inevitable outcomes of urban conflict.
9. Urban devastation portrayed as extermination: Large-scale damage is cited as proof of genocide, ignoring that urban combat inherently produces extensive destruction, particularly when military forces are embedded within civilian areas.
The Commission also ignores the obvious: the suffering of Gazans could be significantly reduced or even ended if Hamas released all hostages and relinquished control of Gaza. The idea that the population experiencing the claimed genocide has the power to stop it but refuses to is unprecedented in the history of actual genocides and exposes a deliberate blind spot in the Report. This omission mirrors the Commission’s broader erasure of Hamas as an active party in the conflict, a group with agency and responsibility, leaving readers with the false impression that all suffering in Gaza is solely Israel’s responsibility."
This one is sufficient for me. And I think classifying it as genocide is a big mistake if your goal is protecting the civilians in Gaza. An easily proven wrong accusation overshadows the fact Israel could have taken things more slowly an carefully. Which I think (with little experience or knowledge) they could since the power difference is huge between the sides.
There's a bit of an IQ test with this stuff. Obviously Israel and Hamas will both say whatever is most advantageous to them - of course one side will claim genocide and one will deny it, neither is meaningful.
A friend was telling me that Gaza has been starving for for 2 years so we looked back on the headlines and they said "brink of starvation" - so like - being on the brink for 2 years means you weren't on the brink?
Lastly Israel is clearly less restrained now than I've ever seen it. But like they were accused of genocide forever. So those accusations were false but now it's really happening? But if they had been restrained all along then they are the moral party?
I am not trying to persuade for a side it's just funny how so many posters here are like "ohhh we have the real and moral information here" when it's obvious that's not even available.
If your analysis is entirely headline based I can see why you might be confused. There are several levels of starvation, and Israel has progressively put Gaza through each. Complaining at each step is absolutely valid.
You can be kept on the brink of starvation just like you can keep a cup hanging over the edge of a table. It's a manufactured famine, therefore it can be created with precision. Unlike the potato famine in Ireland, it's controlled and they literally count calories going in (before cutting it to 0).
So according to that logic, Israel is intentionally orchestrating a "brink of starvation" which generates for it negative publicity but is very careful to ensure nobody actually starves. Why would be the strategy in that according to you?
I think there's something to the IQ comment I made earlier. If adversary A claims the adversary B is doing a terrible thing, that thing doesn't materialize, the smart money isn't to be like "oh well B is only not doing it because they are sinister."
Or say another way - if "they are evil" whether they do X or opposite of X, whoever is setting up that story for you is full of shit.
Given all the hatred that is going around, I believe the genocide is real. And if it's not real yet, it will be if someone doesn't put a stop to this.
But all the reporting does not add up.
Half the pictures Hamas shows of starving children aren't legitimate. They're children with medical conditions, not in Gaza, or from a different conflict.
The number of people starving to death each day are in the single or low double digits. If what was said was really true, there would be tens of thousands of people dead by now.
And I don't believe a single thing Israel says either. How many tunnels were actually found under hospitals? Definitely at least one. Definitely not all of them.
A little truth makes all the lies more believable.
I think starving children with medical conditions is even worse!
I really do not understand the recent Free Press articles about how news reporting about how children in Gaza are starving is not legitimate because the starving children in question had a medical condition. How does that matter? What audience is this news for? It makes everyone involved look like ghouls.
Exactly.. If your medical condition requires you to consume protein instance, and there are no sources of protein around (at reasonable prices), and you die out of starvation. How is that not a legitimate case?
“Half the pictures Hamas shows of starving children aren't legitimate. They're children with medical conditions, not in Gaza, or from a different conflict.”
This seems like a strong claim. Please back it up.
Seeing the number of flagged comments, and going from past discussions where any discussion seen as pushback was flagged, this discussion really doesn't belong on hacker news.
The infrastructure for genocide needs a lot of technology and technology related subject. The victims of genocides include technology workers, hobbyists and hackers. No doubt there are HN members who are current victims of the ongoing genocide. They deserve our sympathy and their existence needs to be acknowledged.
For some reason, I don't see this news mentioned on any mainstream media across the political spectrum (Al Jazeera --> Guardian --> BBC --> CNN / NYT / NPR --> Fox News).
The news cycle is moving fast enough that shockingly enough this news is already pushed off the frontpage of these news sites, but the article is there if you dig a little.
"
251. The Commission’s analysis in this report relates solely to the determination
of genocide under the Genocide Convention as it relates to the responsibility of the
State of Israel both for the failure to prevent genocide, for committing genocide
against the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 and for the failure to punish
genocide. The Commission also notes that, while its analysis is limited to the
Palestinians specifically in Gaza during the period since 7 October 2023, it
nevertheless raises the serious concern that the specific intent to destroy the
Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory,
that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and
Israeli security forces’ actions therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023. The
events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the
Commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and
repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population
from their lands and its replacement.
252. The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli
authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to
commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or
in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
253. On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli
President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence
Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli
authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement.
The Commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and
military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and
Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be
assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.
254. On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements
made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition,
the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence
of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference
that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission
concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and
continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility
for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure
to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
In 2009 the US sentenced the 5 leaders of the largest provider of humanitarian aid, The Holy Land Foundation, to 16 to 65 years in prison. The 2 guys sentenced to 65 years in prison are still in jail.
Afaik, these organizations barely bring in £50m collectively. For context, FIDF, the largest non-governmental American donor to the Israeli military, has gift £1.5bn+ in the past decade (£500m+ in the last 3 years).
Unfortunately, Trump’s support for Israel is still “unwavering “. So we’ll continue to aid and abet arguably the most horrific human atrocity outside Africa (Rwanda, Sudan etc) in very long time. You might have to go back to Pol Pot; even the suppression of the Rohingya by Myanmar isn’t at the scale of the complete destruction of Gaza by Israel.
Never ceases to amuse me how people tend to cling to a position unconsciosly, then try to rationalize this unconscios act.
US and west are all about some perceived genocide, while inside Israel, half want to surrender to Hamas or whoever because hostages, and the other half had had enough (of almost 80-year war) and just want to be done with it, and the third half wants to study Tora and do nothing, but be fed by the other two halves.
Both the Palestinian people and Jewish people are indigenous to Israel/Palestine.
No one side has the right to commit genocide against the other. At some point, there will have to be a two state solution.
The current Israeli government is indeed genocidal. Cabinet ministers have referred to the Palestinian people as a whole (not just Hamas) as an enemy and the IDF is carrying out the genocide.
This also means that by proxy the US is funding the military of a genocidal regime.
Just as providing Hamas with weapons is a terrible idea, giving them to Israel in its current state is an equally terrible idea.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
Do you truly think that this news story is showing “some interesting new phenomenon”?
I am not one to talk as an Israeli Jew who clearly disagrees with the entire bullshit premise of the article… but either way, the story is only saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming for months
Obviously we moderators are not present in the region, nor are we experts on the topic. That applies to almost every story that appears on HN. The “some interesting new phenomenon” is that – according to the title – ”top UN legal investigators” have made this finding. That's what we call "significant new information" about this topic. It's not for us to judge whether this finding is accurate or not; as I said, we're not there, we're not experts. But the discussion thread allows abybody with any particular knowledge on the topic to share their perspective.
I wonder the same. It’s odd to see it still here given the low quality of the discussion. And it is flooded by mischaracterizations, misinformation, and one-sided hyperbolic takes. I wonder what the right space or format is to have debates like this but in an effective way, rather than sides trying to win.
However dismayed you are by the low quality of the discussion, I promise you it bothers us even more. It's awful.
Not only that but whenever a thread like this appears, tomhow and I end up spending all day on it, which is by far the worst part of the job. I don't mean to complain—that would be grotesque, given the suffering that's going on—but rather to say how much easier it would be if HN did not discuss this or similar topics at all.
But I don't think that's an option. It wouldn't be consistent with the values or the mandate of this site as I understand them, and it's our duty to try to be as true to those as we can. I want to be able to look back and say we did our best at that, even though the outcomes are this bad. I tried to explain this in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403787, though I don't know how successfully.
The upshot is that there's no good option and no way out. Maybe experiencing that is the best we can do to honor what's happening. It feels congruent with the situation being discussed, albeit in the trivial form that everything on an internet forum takes.
Firstly, have you ever thought about the fact that one, posts like this alienate Israelis from one of the few remaining tech news sources which made them feel safe by excluding politics? (If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, in 2023, I realised that I could no longer read The Verge due to pervasive and horrendous misinformation about Israel on a tech news site)
Secondly, given the havoc that posts like this cause and that it appears to not meet any of the rules for posts on Hacker News (clearly not tech or programming related and quite frankly, no more interesting to any person in tech than any other person), why do you allow this post to still exist?
HN has never been exclusively a site about tech: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. There are inevitably some stories with political overlap, though we try to prevent them from dominating the frontpage. I've gone into this in detail in other comments in this thread, with links to past explanations:
Try taking a look at Stack Exchange (Stack Overflow for other things than programming) - it's not perfect of course, but IMO the site's format promotes cold arguments.
Habr, the russian speaking HN-alike, was "outside of politics" too. That didn't end well for either Habr or posters there. For large issues like this, abstinence is complicity.
When a discussion like this happens on the front page then it at least provides some useful data for testing the software and moderation tactics for highly flammable subjects.
My conspiratorial mind wonders if it’s done on purpose as a fire drill, but a kind of The Office sitcom fire drill where someone lights an actual fire. (That’s an example of irresponsible behaviour, but I don’t actual think an HN/Israel fire drill is equivalently irresponsible.)
I would agree with you if we were in 1994 and this was about Rwanda.
Those tower blocks in Gaza that were felled on the anniversary of 9/11 were not taken down with machetes. We have got AI assisted targeting going on, with all of your favourite cloud service providers delivering value to their shareholders thanks to sales to the IDF.
The corporation that once had 'don't be evil' as their mission statement are suckling on the IDF teat along with Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.
Israel: Surrender or we'll destroy your city
Hamas: Only if you let us rebuild and prepare the next war
Israel: Starts destroying the city by bombing emptied buildings, these having received warning from Israel beforehand
UN: Oh look, a genocide
This is politics and therefore probably off-topic for hn. It not being tech-related is irrelevant.
An argument could be made that it is an "interesting new phenomenon", but the post is most likely to result in tedious flamewars regardless and so should probably be killed.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I generally find HN discussions pretty interesting, but this particular topic seems to just be two groups who have zero chance of changing their minds hurling misinformation and propaganda at each other.
I don't want to downplay the atrocities going on in the current conflicts, but this sort of comment deserves some perspective.
About 70 million people were killed in WW2, as of the present day about 1 million have died in the war Russia is waging against Ukraine and about 70k people have died in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The horrors are most certainly real. But WW3 this era is most certainly not, that's thankfully off by an order of magnitude.
The World Wars were called World Wars because of the number conflicts and the powers involved. While the casualties and damage has been lower, it seems like the powers are at least indirectly involved at the moment.
If you look back through history this has been the case since at least the Cold War, though. All the proxy hot wars in the Cold War, for example, back when the world was bi-polar. Now it’s multipolar with similar proxy wars.
The Phony War was the phase between the fall of Poland (took ~1 month) and the invasion of France, where the dominant phase of the war was actually taking place in Norway.
The China-US arena in Taiwan has not begun. What about the Russian “provocations” against NATO? I don’t think that it is necessarily clear that these conflicts are anywhere near WWIII yet but there are clear signs that we could be heading there
The best way to teach history would be to make politicians dig slit trenches and then shell them for a few days. Anything less than that people will always end up regurgitating ethno nationalist bullshit or "geopolitics".
> The best way to teach history would be to make politicians dig slit trenches and then shell them for a few days
I don't see why you think that. That didn't work for Hitler, Göring, and the countless numbers of WW1 veterans in the SA and SS hungry for another try.
There is no discussion only mass flagging for anyone who isnt in lockstep on this. This is why politics is usually a subject to be avoided.
I am sure i will be flagged despite completely agreeing with the UN here but if any real change is to happen, minds must be changed which mass flagging does nothing to help. It only further entrenches people. But hey, at least it feels good right? Righteous and all that.
For those who disagree with the UN here, id be happy to change your mind. The us should not be involved in any of this.
Hopefully we are at the beginning of a change, but I doubt this will come only from the UN.
The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba. Every year the outcome of the vote, which has always resulted in a great majority demanding the immediate end of the embargo, has been ignored by the US, resulting in millions of Cubans facing extreme economic consequences since many decades. The last time every country except Israel and US voted for ending the embargo (I might be wrong, maybe a single African state abstained).
In all of this, the only seed of joy I see, was seeing the Cubans a couple of years ago, after decades and decades of seeing their economy strangled by the most powerful country on Earth, roll out their own Covid vaccine just at the same time of those of big Pharma - a vaccine that resulted excellent, effective, and cheap. Hats off for the Cubans. Hope to see some other seed like this also in the Palestinians.
> The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
It's not been ignored the purpose of the UN is for largely irrelevant countries to petition the world powers to maybe consider doing something. The UN has been so successful because it has no real power over players like the USA.
> The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba.
Ok? I mean the purpose of the UN is for people to suggest stuff to players like the USA not for the USA to actually do what the UN votes for.
It's weird to claim that one country should be forced to trade with another country. International trade is voluntary on both sides. The US isn't responsible for keeping any other country's economy healthy. It's simply not our problem, and Cuban economic problems are a consequence of their own corruption and dogmatic incompetence. Should the US also be forced to trade with, let's say, North Korea?
The UN serves as a valuable diplomatic forum but let's not pretend that is does have or should have any real power or authority.
The US sanctions countries and/or foreign businesses that trade with Cuba, the embargo isn't simply between the US and Cuba. Because the US has effective control of most of the world's financial system, it is able to enforce this.
Yes, of course. No one is required to use the US financial system. Other countries are welcome to build their own. Why should we allow ours to be used to prop up a brutal and illegitimate communist dictatorship?
What people fail to understand about dynamics between countries, is ultimately there is no supreme court or arbiter of truth. The UN doesn't have authority over any powerful country (or non powerful country for that matter).
People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want, but there isn't. When it comes to geopolitics, the biggest and most powerful sets the rules and lives by them (or not). The USA has zero motivation to do something the UN wants it to do, if it doesn't itself want to do it. No one is going to hold it to account.
Ultimately - whoever controls the violence can set the rules. For the last 80 years that's been the US. Maybe that is changing, but not quite yet.
The UN isn't an international democratic institution. For the last 20-30 years it's been a powerless theatre. And it didn't have much power before then either. Because ultimately, whoever has the most nukes and the biggest army rules the world.
> People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want,
Can you blame them? The same countries facilitating this genocide have been telling everyone they uphold principles of human rights and democracy, and a "rules based international order*, and that they oppose genocide. Only now are enough horrors breaking through in such a surreal way that people are forced to notice the contradictions.
Its important to note that most of those "irrelevant" countries are only irrelevant because they're perpetually under the thumb of world powers. Hence why they petition the UN. And, hence why empires and somewhat-formally colonial nations ignore them.
Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.
Empires are not exclusive to the West, and those also ignore the UN. For many of the countries under their thumbs, the West has at least sometimes been acting in their defense.
One hopeful observation is that I actually have seen coverage of the genocide in a local newspaper this time. N=1 of course (and I'm not sure what other local newspapers have been like), but that's more than before.
> Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.
Your framing that "3 people from Ethiopia/Congo/Sudan/Qatar wrote the report" is both incorrect and deeply racist.
Edit: and to make it clear, the report was authored by the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel" which is made up of the following three members:
That's not how I phrased it. I said that this is a 3-person report commissioned by the UNHRC. I then mentioned known human rights abusers who chair the UNHRC.
I had to look this up on Wikipedia and remembered this is the 19 year old UNHRC. They have never been objective in regards to the Middle East conflict.
Well, I guess in Ukraine there is no genocide, ruzzia can proceed to do whatever it wants. I love how sometimes people support terror sometimes not. It depends how it is presented and how strong propaganda is, and hamas propaganda is pretty strong.
It is an extreme hypocrisy to call what is happening in Gaza a genocide while saying nothing about much more horrible things that happen, on a much larger scale. It tells you something about the "bad faith".
The term "genocide" isn't tossed around lightly in international law. The fact that the UN commission is now saying they found "fully conclusive evidence" of genocidal intent by Israel's leadership is going to put massive pressure on other states, especially those who've been backing Israel diplomatically or militarily
The Chair of this "independent" inquiry is Navi Pillay of South Africa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_International_Comm...); the nation which accused Israel of genocide and referred it to the ICJ. The outcome of this inquiry was always going to be highly partisan. The report's definition rests upon statements by key Israeli officials in determining genocidal intent. While the statements are accurate, in a democracy, individual representatives do not constitute a single will. If the standard used here were applied to other international conflicts in which civilians were killed, as long as just one governing official were to have made genocidal remarks (and they used a fairly wide range), the entire conflict could be ruled to be genocide. Thus the standard used by Pillay and co-authors is so far removed from anything applied to any other nation and conflict that I find the entire exercise farcical.
I await the ICJ ruling, as I regard that institution as reasonably impartial.
In this situation, where you advocate for waiting until a different organization gives its opinion: while waiting, will net-more harm have occurred if Israel
1. reduces the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory, or
2. continues, as it is currently doing, to increase the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory
Is there a different answer, should this other organization’s opinion affirm or refute genocide?
Israel is under no obligation to stop. Not because of this report, nor even in the case of an ICJ ruling. I say I am waiting for the ICJ ruling to make up my mind on the matter. The rulings are inconsequential as far as the conflict.
Amnesty International, The International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, numerous other human rights organizations and world governments all say the same thing: genocide. To deny this is to say that you believe all of those groups are wrong and it is actually Netanyahu, Trump, Biden and Harris, along with their cronies in congress are correct. It is a position that cannot be defended logically.
> Agence France-Presse has described UN Watch as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" ... Primarily, UN Watch denounces what it views as anti-Israel sentiment at the UN and UN-sponsored events.
Unwatch is, and has always been, critical of everything the UN does with regards to Israel. Had the UN made one statement like "Israel should not arbitrarily detain children and hold them without fair trials", I am pretty sure unwatch would twist it into antisemitism.
Proving the absence of something is kinda impossible… depends on if you believe in guilty until proven innocent or if you’re totally okay with going gung-ho into trusting the UN, a body led by the majority of non-democratic governments and used to try to destroy democracies
The purpose of a tool like unwatch is to disseminate information to help zionists pollute discussions like these. They dont care about being right, or contributing information to the discussion, as much as they want to hand out gotchas, whatabouts, ad homs and so forth. Thats why its all just character assassination.
labeling information as pollution is sort of a red flag for me. I see this tactic used often, and its often followed up with accusations that don't even address the information labelled as pollution. now don't get me wrong, this tactic does work, it won trump two terms didn't it? I guess its just sort of a red flag for me as I'm not a trump fan. at least you didn't call it "fake news" so have an upvote, I'll take progress where I can get it lol
Yeah thats a fair statement. Feel free to check me on this, but the front page of unwatch appears to be covered in attack/slander/talking points on Francesca Albanese, compare and contrast with say,the wiki talk page for her, which goes through each claim individually.
I read through some items regarding Albanese and I'll certainly confess to some bias against palestinians that hasn't really abated since the october 7 attacks. But the unwatch page was pretty helpful to me precisely because of its attention to detail. I doubt that my opinion is that important tho lol
If I want to understand any position I would look for first sources. Say I want to understand why Russian invaded Ukraine, I would seek out Russian sources. When I try to understand the Palestinian position, I seek out Palestinian sources.
The beautiful thing about intellectual honesty and openness is that you don't have to agree with any position. You can expose yourself to things that deeply conflict with your personal values and walk away with a deeper understanding of why you value what you value, and how to refute ideas that you strongly disagree with.
To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge. You're saying that the very reason to dismiss it, to not even bother entertaining its arguments is because it is Israeli and no other reason. Beyond that, you are even arguing that any claims of prejudice can be dismissed outright on the basis of one thing that one Israeli Minster once said [allegedly].
Quite simply Israelis and Jews are not the same group, otherwise you would be holding all Jews on the planet responsible for this genocide. Dismissing the source for being Israeli is not antisemitic.
There are many examples of Israeli sources lying about the state of things, from the baseless claims against UNRWA to the unconscionable excuse of burying medics and the ambulances they were in, to avoid wild dogs eating them.
Israeli sources rarely offer evidence to refute the claims presented in this report, and a cry of antisemitism, as stated, conflates Judeism with Israeli nationality, hence these sources are worthless at best.
"To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge."
We agree it is an Israeli source.
All the unwatch site does is accuse Israel's critics of being antisemites. When you can't respond to the message, attack the messenger. Accuse them of being antisemitic and being funded by Hamas.
If we're on the subject of damning historic quotes, I've got one for you:
> Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Of course ignoring that Hamas was deliberately funded by Israel to cause a split between the politics of the West Bank and Gaza to prevent a unified political authority in Palestine.
I can well imagine a parallel universe where Israel gave them NO money whatsoever. You know what would have happened? Hamas would do the usual Islamic fundamentalist thing. Form a terrorist group and attack Israel. And then media commentators and intellectuals would accuse Israel of failing to help Hamas get put on the right path by helping them at the start, and instead Israel's inaction was like strangling a baby in the cradle. Typical Israel! Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
You imagine the future that suits your perspective and act like it's a fait accompli.
In reality, the PLO would have (and had been) quelling Hamas effectively. And then they were sitting at the negotiating table (after a rather ugly period). So Israel was facing awkward questions of "If Arafat is willing to negotiate, why aren't you?", so the Israeli far right locked in on the idea of "surreptitiously fund Hamas against the PLA/PLO".
Your imaginings count for nothing, because they're just your preconceived notion.
Many (not all) of those countries are fine with when it's a member of the second or third worlds committing atrocities. So no, there's no guts here. They perceive it's in their interest to call out some acts but not others - just like almost everyone else.
You are aware that Shulamit Alloni was on the extreme left and was criticizing this supposed misuse of Antisemitism, this is not some playbook
The american equivalent would be to quote Bernie Sanders saying "America is fascist" and then saying, see? therefore the USA system of government is fascism, even Congress agrees!
Plenty of people criticize Israel and are not antisemites. This is true of most Israelis. They generally criticize Israel in non-antisemitic ways. It is quite easy to do so.
Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Do people who have known Roger Waters his entire life think he is an antisemite because of his obsessive criticism of Israel, or because of all the other anti Jewish things he has said and done AND his singular obsession with Israel?
>In the 2023 documentary The Dark Side of Roger Waters, the
>saxophonist Norbert Stachel recounts Waters refusing to eat >vegetarian >dishes in Lebanon, calling them “Jew food”. When >the musician explained >that most of his relatives had been >killed in the Holocaust, the singer did >a crude and offensive >impersonation of a Polish peasant woman, and said, >“Oh, I can >help you feel like you’re meeting your long-lost relatives. I >can introduce you to your dead grandmother.”
>
>Tellingly, Stachel also claimed to overhear Waters telling a >girlfriend that Judaism was not a race, saying, “They’re >white European men that grow beards and they practise the >religion Judaism, but they’re no different than me; they have >no difference in their background or their history or their >culture or anything.”
He did write the forward to Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. The book is framed as an attack on Jewish fundamentalism.
Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Colombia, writes: “He [Shahak] says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.[b] He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..." I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?”
Edward Said wrote the foreward to the second edition, calling Shahak “one of the most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East.” Said writes that the book is “nothing less than a concise history of classic and modern Judaism, insofar as these are relevant to the understanding of modern Israel.”
At best Said endorses antisemites.
Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a podcaster known for promoting Holocaust revisionism and making historically inaccurate claims about World War II. He labeled Winston Churchill as the "chief villain" of the conflict. They perpetuated downplayed Nazi atrocities.
Regarding antisemitism, it is unfortunately a two millennium old racist phenomenon, which shows itself in an obsession many persons had with Jews and their "influence on world politics".
Behaviors include use of ritual scapegoating, where double standards are applied to the jews and then blame is shifted to them, culminating in ritual violence.
It's hard to delete 2000 years of western culture, so what you are seeing is mostly a rehash of this
This predated Israel by much and can be seen online for example by the unhealthy obsession with this conflict or even paranoid delusions considering Israel ("Israel killed Charlie Kirk cause I saw Nethanyahu respond to the murder" as can be seen in this thread)
In the above mentioned UN human right council you can see it in the fact 40% of decisions are about Israel while countries like Iran chair the committee. Or the fact there is a permanent clause (Article 7) meant to condemn Israel permanently, the only such country that had such a clause
I don't think you responded to the argument there. He's not saying antisemitism isn't real. Of course it's real, and has been for a long time. He's saying that automatically tarring critics of Israel as antisemites is invalid.
No, antisemitism is historically based on shifting blame and scapegoating. That's why the nazis were blaming Jews of genocide ("Germany must perish") while they were working on their destruction.
That's why an organization that used death squads to mass-execute civilians in entire towns (as was done by the Einsatzgruppen) gets to blame the side that bombs military targets (exactly the tactic used against nazis) with genocide
True. And in the interest of balancing the claims of the critics, I offer up the observation that UN Watch is "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" (AFP article: Capella, Peter. "UN Gaza probe chief underlines balanced approach." 7-Jul-2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...).
It is incredibly interesting how the US (and Germany) have put so much into Israel and associated groups they really don't want it to fail (despite the Israeli gov doing their damnest to facilitate just that). In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area, plus they have a healthy amount of zionists close to money and power at home. I imagine the political calculus of if and how to support it is ridiculously difficult.
And then there’s genocide. Framing support for Israel as purely geopolitical misses what’s going on.
1) Israel serves as a lightning rod. Much of the Islamist violence is directed at them rather than at the rest of the world.
2) Israel is a nuclear power. You think they'll let themselves be exterminated (and that's what their opponents want) without using their bombs?
There is a lot to unpack in this.
Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.
On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".
"Never again" - Was that ever an idea that Israel committed to? I thought this is only something that Germany and potentially other countries committed to, and Israel saw itself as the victim since forever, so they have no reason to commit to anything, but the victim card, which allowed them to have their own country in the first place.
Note though, that Germany's commitment to "never again" got somehow repurposed in exactly letting the thing happen again. Be it because politicians here are not actually educated enough to recognize the thing they should prevent, want to close their eyes to the fact that the once-victim now perpetrator, did it and they did nothing to stop it, they just don't care, the weapon exports are just too good of a business, or whatever. Germany has utterly failed to prevent the thing from happening ever again, and Israel has proven our collective "blind spot". The one entity, that no German politician is allowed to criticize. And still the political climate is such that, most likely, if you criticize Israel in any way, your political career is over and you get branded as an anti-Semite. Oh the irony of it.
While it should actually be a huge headline in every newspaper, that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and is still committing it as we sit here, the newspapers are awfully quiet. It seems like it is not even worth a headline. Man, the truth hurts. Sucks when your reporting has been so biased all along. Hard to make a 165 degree turn now, I guess (I give them 15 degree, for the occasional reporting on the matter at all.).
> which allowed them to have their own country
That's a weird thing to say, I thought it was because they set up governance amid a collapsed empire and defended themselves in a war
The idea is, that without the victim role of the Jews in the 2.WW, they would never have had the international support, that they enjoyed for decades. They would never have had the "social credits" among nations, that they had. Countries like Germany, supposedly would have opened their mouth much sooner and sanctioned Israel, if it were not for our perpetrator role in 2.WW. The idea was, that finally the Jews have a safe haven, and that that needs to be protected.
Israel has been playing that victim card for decades. It allowed them to get where they are. Now that card is crumbling, as they did the unthinkable. I hope that one day our German politicians will also realize this. It is becoming quite ridiculous, how Germany behaves in foreign policy in that regard, and many people here are ashamed of their own country and government. This is stuff that makes people vote for extremists, which I can tell you, we have no additional need for right now. To me it is unthinkable to ever elect the ruling parties again, due to how shitty they handled everything. Well, already wouldn't vote for them anyway, because of all the corruption in their ranks.
There's a belief in the western left that Israel was set up by Western countries as colonialism. That way they can more easily call for the dissolving of the illegitimate country for a 1 state solution. If you acknowledge that the Jews were elbowing their way into the area of their own desire for a state, against the wishes of the Ottomans and then British, it makes it more difficult to paint them as evil invaders.
>against the wishes of the Ottomans and then the British
Who has convincingly argued that it was against the wishes of the British? It was the British government's stated objectives.[0][1]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine
It is incredibly interesting, your have US Congressman coming into the US Congress, in an IDF Uniform.
The current US administration also derives a lot of its support from evangelical Christians, who have a belief that Israel must exist in order for Jesus to return to earth. Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
Not all evangelical Christians are like this. There are two main branches: covenantal and dispensational. Dispensational theology is basically the same thing as Christian Zionism, and was invented in the 1800s by John Darby and his followers[1]. Covenantal theology goes way further back and is still popular today. For example Presbyterians are a major covenantal denomination.
[1] https://aish.com/unlikely-zionists-the-fascinating-story-of-...
They leave out the part where their end time scenario says the Jews will ally with the Anti-Christ, will nearly all be killed in a war with Gentile armies, and then the remaining Jews will all convert to Christianity.
I don't think you have to be an evangelical Christian to belief that Israel should exist. I think a lot of people not heavily invested in politics or world affairs simply see Israel as more of a Western country aligned with their values and beliefs and want them to exist.
> Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.
Why would the terrorists exist to begin with if Israel didn't exist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
same you can ask why Islam conquests would even exist to begin with if everybody was already Muslim. Just that one thing ruins everything eh?
same about Christian crusades etc.
Religions want to expand. Some more than others.
Jesus doesn't need anyone's help or the existence of any country to return to Earth. He does whatever He wants, like it or not.
True.
And these guys sing whatever they want about Him, like it or not:
https://youtu.be/-aPnFTFrg5k
Barclay James Harvest - Hymn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_James_Harvest
The song was very popular in the peak rock music era, and among the youth.
It probably has more to do with soft power like dirt on policy makers than what the plebs think. What do you think Epstein was paid to do?
Yes, support started for Israel once Epstein got dirt on them. There is no history of support for Israel prior to that. Yours it totally the most likely/rational take.
WTF is going on with this site? You sure have people real comfortable to say this kind of shit here.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Concern that Esptein blackmailed politicians isn’t the same as anti-semitism.
If you claim that America, which has supported Israel forever and long before Epstein, is supporting Israel because 'Epstein' based on conspiracy theories, everything I said and quoted applies to you. OP brought Epstein into it for a reason, not a mistake. You continued referencing Epstein, not a mistake.
But everyone reading this, see how the above post turned the words just slightly from OP they defended and my response, to try and change the discourse/make me defend something different/uncomfortable versus what I originally replied to? Not claiming they did that on purpose, but if they did it would be an example of what Sartre said. Not saying you intentionally misconstrued/misrepresented what I said. Just saying that you happened to do the thing.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Edit: can't post but there is no need to bring Esptein into it at all if it's just about manipulation fears (since the USA has supported Israel long before Epstein). Both of you specifically brought Epstein needlessly into your arguments. I'm done dancing and doing word play like the quote says.
No there was a factual mistake in that person’s comment. That’s not identical with anti-semitism. Someone holding a mistaken view isn’t anti-Semitic simply because anti-Semites hold mistaken views.
Useless except if the following done on the US side:
Remove exception to AIPAC political status
Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely
Replicate EO 14046 for Israel which adds the entire ruling party and head of state and spouses and military and affiliated business to the OFAC list
all of this is easy and doesn’t require Congress
but nobody is close to considering those actions with regard to Israel. Notably, other nation’s organizations do not enjoy this courtesy
(Don’t sorry guys, Hamas is already on these lists too)
Voters can take a stand and refuse to vote for anyone complicit in this atrocity.
In the US, both parties were supportive in the last election. Not many choices.
> both parties were supportive in the last election. Not many choices.
Primaries.
The truth is that foreign policy rarely flips American elections. Particularly when we don't have our troops on the ground.
Last election the democrats didn't have a primary, and the republicans barely had one. Political change requires more than one day at the polls; it demands large scale sustained effort by many people, including those in positions of prominence, and even with that success takes time and luck.
Part of being in a leadership position is taking responsibility for what happens on your watch. The electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed.
> Last election the democrats didn't have a primary, and the republicans barely had one
Now do down ballot.
> electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed
Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war. Even if they thought they were just throwing a tantrum. That includes the war’s repercussions, including the dissolution and incorporation of Palestine.
If you care about net effect, the answer is obvious. If how one feels reigns supreme, yes, that voting bloc is excused. (But still irrelevant.)
> Now do down ballot.
As I stated before, changing a political party from the bottom up takes time. While a good endeavor, it doesn't affect who is currently in the drivers seat. Either Harris or Trump were going to be making the decisions about the current Gaza situation regardless of what the electorate did.
> Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war.
Pro-palestinian voters didn't swing to trump. Virtually no one swang to Trump; his election results in 2024 were basically the same as in 2020 plus the increase in population of areas that voted for him in 2020. Exit polls indicate that Trump voters were overwhelmingly pro-israel. I'm sure some individuals did, but not enough to make any difference one way or the other. Trump won because 6 million democrats who showed up in 2020 stayed home in 2024. If they had gone out and voted for Harris, and then Harris supported Israel's efforts, as she publicly said she would, you would still be saying they endorsed the war.
couldnt you instead, run for government? if its something voters care about, either youll win, or the competing candidates will change their tune
The parties have already decided their position on a variety of issues so if you're going to get nominated for the party you'll be against them on that issue.
And the system is designed to exclude independents. The last nationally visible "I" candidate was roughly H Ross Perot. The system made sure that didn't happen again.
One party had a long leash. The other cut the leash and yelled attaboy.
Now acting mildly concerned when the neighbour downstreet (Qatar) got their chickens bombed.
> Now acting mildly concerned when the neighbour downstreet (Qatar) got their chickens bombed.
Thing is, what was bombed there was Hamas leadership, not some rank-and-file goons.
Yes, and at this point I'm not arguing for or against that action. I'm saying the current and previous US administration have very different foreign policy.
Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? They're the leaders of a terrorist organization. The US takes out terrorists wherever they may be (or, works with local authorities to get them first). But, when local authorities are siding with the terrorists, we go in there and do it ourselves. October 7th was Israel's 9/11 - we went and got bin Laden in Pakistan, without dealing with the Pakistani government. Why shouldn't Israel do the same thing? I say - kill all the Hamas leadership, and leave the random Palestinian citizens alone.
Let's imagine that a political opposition leader from Russia were to take refuge in the US. Now imagine that Russia performed a "surgical strike" bombing in the US to kill what they viewed as a terrorist leader. Can you imagine the outrage that would occur? That's exactly the situation that Qatar has just experienced.
It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war.
Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.
But in your example, the unstated premise is that the opposition leader is not in fact a terrorist, so his killing is wrong.
In the case of Hamas, they are in fact terrorists. So the analogy fails.
No, that's not the point. Whether someone is a terrorist is subjective. Russia could (and likely would) define their opposition leader as a terrorist.
My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
There was only one bin Laden, and we didn't use missiles for that one.
> Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be?
Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.
Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be a terrorist regardless of situation, and thus by definition had almost zero civilian deaths. It was one of those things that got leaked through the war logs.
The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
> Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is
Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war.
More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.)
> war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people
One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
Do you accept Washington post as source? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro...
That is the Post reporting on a report. Do you know who wrote the report?
To be clear, the estimate doesn’t sound incredulous. I’m just curious to see how they are estimating.
> the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
the atlantic article from almost exactly year ago: https://archive.is/wKScw
Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?
It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
Well, one huge difference is that the UN was allowed to set up camps for refugees during the Mosul offensive.
In Gaza, people are just herded from one kill box to another, back and forth.
i believe official un position about setting any refugee camps in gaza it's that it will be forced displacement of population. or something like this. going back to days when Israel setup camps for evacuation of population from Rafah.
I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone
and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
hamas sits in estimated 350-450 miles of tunnels below cities. deepest known tunnels are ~230ft deep. entrances to tunnels are in buildings
how do you see surgical strikes on this ? and what kind of munition ?
or what is surgical strike when you have hamas team with rpg in the window of the building ?
Hilarious. 9/11 was used as a false pretense for invading Iraq, killing millions, for geopolitics and oil.
Never let a good crisis go to waste they say
We have bombed their leadership. This is an entirely different war. Hamas was/is the government of Gaza. They're part of the people there, not outside it.
You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further.
It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide.
Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.
I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4
Out of curiosity, how would you plan to do that?
You know nothing about me.
Turn your electricity off for days on end when someone in your country does something that other country disagrees with.
Hell, turn your fresh water off too.
Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years.
Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well.
Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way.
Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby.
When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition.
No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
You left out a lot of things. You are trying to make a point. I don’t expect you to put in all the things that go against your point, but you left out so many that maybe your point is not worth making.
>I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4
Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets.
Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because.
[0]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
I can write in “free Palestine”
And it's gonna get seen by one (1) vote counter who'll then put it away/throw it in the bin
As long as it doesn’t go to a genocide enabler I could care less where my vote goes
Oh I just don't vote instead, it just feels performative now
They tried that last November and wound up worse off than if they hadn't.
I fully understand the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness with this situation. Lots of people like to imagine what they'd do in certain situations, historical or otherwise. We no longer need to imagine what most people would do in the HOlocaust. We now know: nothing. In WW2, most people could reasonably claim ignorance. Even a lot of Germans could claim ignorance. Now we have livestreamed 4K 60fps evidence that is impossible to ignore.
There's a phrase that's widely attributed (arguably misattributed) to Lenin:
So while the US could end this entire thing with a phone call, it's not true to say that things aren't changing. US support for Israel continues to plummet to new lows [1], to levels I never thought I'd see. Small things like blocking a cycling event in Spain, the future of Eurovision being uncertain, European states recognizing Palestine, problems for the port in Haifa due to changes in shipping because of Houthi rebels, ICC?ICJ investigations, these genocide findings and so on... it all adds up. It all matters. It all compounds to political and economic pressure on the actors involved.[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/692948/u.s.-back-israel-militar...
I don't feel hopeless by pointing out that the UN report is a small piece of a puzzle, despite the high level of energy used to collectively create it.
It's easier to talk about these things and seeing consensus shift on consensus driven forums like this. My prior observations about that state's policies and supporting culture have been similar, but seen as extreme and "cancellable" at one point. Espousing my observations would have been conflated with ideas of physical harm to Jewish and Israelis, which I don't harbor. My ideas are much more similar to Jewish Israeli residents that protest their own government within Israel. And it's been nice to see many stateside Jewish people distance themselves, and now even second guess Zionism, which Jewish community leaders initially denounced 120 years ago by foreseeing these specific issues and its inherent extremism.
When it comes to my country's involvement, it's a complete aberration in US foreign policy. The reasons require a contorting ourselves for no real practical reason that isn’t already fulfilled by other countries in the Middle East, it’s just money moved from one account to the account of our politicians and appointed representatives.
So I am happy to see piece by piece, people re-evaluating the state narrative on that country. The politicians with discretion on all the levers are unfortunately a far cry away from changing anything.
I for one will be holding my representatives responsible who continue to vote for the US to enable a genocide. The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.
Flipping the U.S. really is the key to ending this conflict. The U.S. reliably uses its security council veto to nix any meaningful UN response and the U.S. remains, by far, the biggest supplier of arms to the IDF. If the US were to stop veto'ing everything and cut off the IDF's supply of, at least, some types of weapons, the new ground assault would likely end quickly.
Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.
There's definitely a generational gap going in the US. Support for Israel is not popular among the younger generation in the US, and there's a good deal of voters in their 20s and 30s for whom support for Israel a red line in candidates. But older generations tend to be staunchly in favor of Israel, and too much of the gerontocratic political class thinks that pro-Israel uber alles is the key to winning votes.
It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.
I wouldn't label this as "support for Israel"/"against Israel". One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach. Many within Israel are not happy with Netanyahu's methods, and presumably they are not against Israel.
I understand that that's the current shorthand, but it seems inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing to me.
> One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach.
I suppose you could that in theory but only in theory. In practice, the current situation is not very surprising given the overall trajectory since the inception of the country. It's very disturbing to see the memes that are coming out of the social media of the soldiers and even the general population.
Even if the current govt. of the country changes, I wouldn't hold my breath about the new government making reparations or taking any other positive steps.
This is what puzzles me - ppl keep railing about being pro or anti Israel and it's overly simplistic and also not really accurately describing things. It's more pro/anti Likud or Kahanists, or really at heart a right vs left wing divide. There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against what Netanyahu and his political allies are doing.
It's not a party - it's an ideology: zionism [1], for which there is widespread left and right support. It is almost like a 20th century manifest destiny [2], with largely the same inevitable outcome.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
I find this a strange take, and I hear it a lot from inhabitants of both the USA and Israel about their leadership.
For better or worse, Netanyahu represents the Israeli governement, which represents Israel. Similar with Trump and the USA, or Putin and Russia. Sorry for the people who don't agree with them, but that's an internal power struggle, and as an outsider it is normal to abstract that away. For all of us: Your country is doing what it does.
As a Belgian, I spit on my idiotic, nasty governements. Insert tiny violin, whatever Belgium does on the international forum, I'll still be tarred with it. Similarly, we talk about Germany's role in world war 2, even if only about 10% of them were associated with the NSDAP.
Every power struggle is always represented overly simplistic. Sorry for both the jews and Israëli's who don't agree with it, you're probably good people. This time I am lucky to sit at a very comfortable sideline, criticising your country. But the point stands: Israel is correctly described as officially committing a genocide, and hence it can't be described as the good side.
Israel was literally born out of political scheming to get assigned a portion of someone else's territory for an exclusive ethno-nationalistic state; then out of ethnically cleansing that territory. It was necessary to the project and planned in advanced.
You can be for the existence of a peaceful Israel that has entirely retreated within recognised borders and made amends for its past genocidal behaviour- but it's not what the current Israel is or, sadly, can ever be.
> There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against...
No. Not at all.
> Israel was literally born out of political scheming
Its more of a popular jewish movement that over 100 years changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
Political scheming is secondary and was born well after the 1840s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
I was referring to the well documented deals and shenanigans that were instrumental first to get the promise of support for an Israeli homeland, and then in the UN to get the partition plan approved.
Zionism itself is a product of 19th century nationalisms and of course of a (widespread at the time) colonial mindset.
Do you still think that today its a colonial project ?
Does Israel still encourage colonies in the west bank?
Have Israel and Palestine determined borders ? A ceasefire line is not a border after the ceasefire is broken and the front line moves
Do you really expect you can defend Israel with this kind of lawyering and be taken seriously? "Well akshually a ceasefire line...". For god's sake. Let's not even get into who has violated the supposed ceasefire first, or on the legality of settling your population outside of its line, violated or not (spoiler: illegal in any case). Settlements have been declared illegal many times during the decades, most recently this year by the ICJ, and Israel has known this perfectly well since the start.
Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to their indigenous homeland. Your Western leftist ideology have twisted the definition to your own agenda.
And the Arab opposition movement that later became the Palestinian movement has ties to literal Nazis...
German and Bosnian WWII veterans, including a handful of former intelligence, Wehrmacht, and Waffen SS officers, were among the volunteers fighting for the Palestinian cause. Veterans of WWII Axis militaries were represented in the ranks of the ALA forces commanded by Fawzi al-Qawuqji (who had been awarded an officer's rank in the Wehrmacht during WWII) and in the Mufti's forces, commanded by Abd al-Qadir (who had fought with the Germans against the British in Iraq) and Salama (who trained in Germany as a commando during WWII and took part in a failed parachute mission into Palestine).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Arabian_Legion
Husseini is still regarded by many as 'the George Washington' of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored in the way our founding father is.
In February 1943 the first of three divisions was formed of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, who wore fezes decorated with SS runes and were led in their prayers by regimental imams notionally under the supervision of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.(Mohammed Amin al-Husseini from 1921–1937)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
> One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach.
I think you're overthinking this. We're taking about a country committing genocide here. You either support them or you don't.
I think you're oversimplifying. I absolutely oppose the genocide. I also support Israel's right to exist. These are different topics.
Israel was formed on violence, just like this. Even more brutal, if you read the history books. Why do you support country founded on so much hate and violence? First prime ministers of Israel were well known terrorists.
There's no way of supporting Israel without supporting this current genocide. Literally no way. Because this current genocide is the logical outcome of what Israel is. And was explained as such, in detail, by David Ben Gurion and Golda Mier. Decades ago.
Albert Einstein added his name to a famous letter to the NY Times in the late 40's, in which EXACTLY THIS was explained, in plain & uncompromising language, in the very first paragraph. For Israel to exist, it would have to be just like the Nazis. That's LITERALLY what that letter said.
The splitting of a non-existing hair argument that you're trying to do is just to avoid admitting that you've been wrong the entire time, and enough people warned (or boasted) about it from the very beginning that you really don't have an excuse for being this wrong.
The moral position then for those who oppose it, is to allow those who wish to leave Gaza into countries that support the Palestinian people. Ireland and Spain come to mind, Qatar as well could take it thousands, they have the money.
The moral position is to do what South Africa did, end apartheid.
Forced displacement is a crime against humanity.
No argument. if the option is between near certain death due to bombardment or starvation and living in Brazil or ireland. I imagine most will take that choice, if of course it was given.
Bombarding people or starving people to force them to leave is forced displacement, and so is a crime against humanity. The solution here is for the party committing the crimes to stop, not for the victims to give their land to the criminal party.
But they are not stopping are they?
If you don’t have the capacity to stop it but you do have the capacity to offer them a home shouldn’t you ?
Or is it the moral equivalent to the American “thoughts and prayers “?
It’s similar to the Ukrainian Russian meat grinder. The support is only extended enough for this to continue on forever
> But they are not stopping are they?
Nor is available power and leverage being brought to bear on stopping them. Any honest attempt at helping innocents being traumatized would start there.
Then yes, facilitating voluntary movement after that would help, without also blatantly facilitating those who want to drive them out.
it seems disingenuous to frame it as allowing "those who wish to leave Gaza" without discussing the factors that would make a person "wish to leave."
The reasons can be many. But if you believe that a genocide is indeed taking place and leaving Gaza saves lives, it’s a reasonable Path to help is to accept the refugees.
Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees to keep them out of harms way, why do they not extend the same helping hand to Palestinians from Gaza? who are, at least according to this UN report, in much worse condition?
But if you did that 95% of the anti israel propoganda machine would fall apart. You can't evacuate them or let them settle elsewhere because that's exactly what israel wants.
My idea is to buy the gaza strip from the residents and they can take their newfound wealth to another arab country and be prosperous happy and peaceful there.
But yeah, the fact that no one is taking them in proves they are all a bunch of anti semites or virtue signallers. They don't care about palestinians, it's just politically convenient to pretend that they do.
Humans are clearly an extremely irrational species.
It would be far less costly to give each family in Gaza $100k and a plane ticket than to continue this humanitarian disaster.
This isn't right, though it can feel like an option when you are looking for a solution that doesn't make you feel bad.
Zionism is the idea of colonial occupation. The internal logic will always end in ethnic cleansing. It did in 1948. It's doing it now. American Manifest Destiny had a similar function, and it also resulted in massive genocide for which we have not atoned.
Zionism is done. A secular democratic state for all people with the right of return guaranteed for displaced Palestinians along with some kind of reeducation / denazification program for the genocidal citizens of the current state of Israel is the only viable solution.
As a Jew, I don't think Arabs should pay for Germany's crimes. I think Germany should pay. They paid a little already. They should pay more, especially now that they are supporting this genocide too.
> As a Jew, I don't think Arabs should pay for Germany's crimes.
Germany no, but the Arab states should definitely pay for ethnically cleansing the Mizrahi Jews who currently make up a majority of Israeli Jews.
Mizrahi Jews make up 45% of Israeli Jews (as of 2018). A plurality but not quite a majority.
Source: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...
You honestly have no bone to pick with Germany? What does one even say to that?
No, I said the Arab states are not liable for Germany's crimes. But they are liable for their own crimes.
Zionism is a progressive cause that suffers from its success. It transformed victims into sovereigns, now recast as privileged colonial occupiers.
Isn't the very goal of "progress" in progressive to move away from victimhood to self-determined?
Historically, Germany did pay: Billions of DM in the 1950s and tens of billions of euros since, plus ongoing survivor pensions and restitution. But the broader strategy after 1945 paired accountability with reconstruction to reduce civilian suffering and long-term instability, rather than chasing maximal punishment.
But we often don't have world powers pay immeasurable or insurmountable amounts due to the game theory that slip-up's between world powers are inevitable, and when they find themselves in a compromising and vulnerable enough position that another nation state can exert enough power on them to "punish" them, those world powers are already decimated enough that the only logical reason for the punishment is retribution/revenge, thereby adding more "hurt" into the world - when that world power's decimation was already its justice.
Also about 15 million Germans were displaced from their homes. Whole regions with 95% German population were cleansed and given to Poland. I am not making judgement on this (I am Polish, part of my family lived in a German house like that, the, land with all belongings other part lost their home and were moved to a labor camp in Siberia by Russians) just pointing out that Germans did pay.
A lot of people were displaced, forcibly moved to other areas, often to labor camps after WWII. Somehow we are able to accept this new order and live in peace. Arabs started multiple war over it, lost all of them, are still waging war today. The road to peace for them is to lay down arms, surrender and accept the resolution made by the winning side - exactly what we all have done after WWII.
You just put words to something I felt, but could not entirely find the words for. Also, war does not solve war.
They did pay, but clearly not enough! Imagine: Berlin as the capital city of a revitalized Israel located in the heart of the rheinland. We could build so many beautiful resorts for the right kind of people (not Germans!).
Honesty, openness and transparency are a hard requirement if one is ever to diffuse polarization. As a result, your euphemizing by "Netanyahu's methods" to convey "UN-affirmed genocide" is polarizing, the opposite of what you claim to stand for.
Mossad have actually warned the Netanyahu government of this, saying U.S support for Israel is slipping away and now might be the best time to implement a two state solution, while it can still be as one sided as possible in favour of Israel. Netanyahu has chosen to ignore this.
For those who don't know, Cuomo volunteered last year (apropos of nothing, he doesn't have relevant experience) to defend Netanyahu in the ICC. So any "change of mind" he might be expressing now is a little bit... Suspect.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/25/us-news/andrew-cuomo-joins-hig...
That gap between support of Israel across age groups existed historically AFAIK, although the margins were narrower.
More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue. That goes to both ends - previously unthinkable, unwavering support under Republicans but a very short leash under the Democrats.
> More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue.
A highly salient political issue becoming partisan is a good thing in a representative democracy, as that is the only thing that makes it possible for the public to influence it by general election votes.
In FPTP, this often ends up backfiring. A politicized issue quickly becomes a polarized issue - the other side takes the opposite view, and both sides then race to the extremes. Compromise becomes less and less possible, because then each side sees it as a defeat. Nothing ends up done.
> In FPTP, this often ends up backfiring.
Every possible alignment of circumstances “backfires” in FPTP because FPTP is a fundamentally bad way to elect a legislature.
That’s not a problem of, e.g., salient political issues becoming partisan—representing a coherent position on salient issues is the only useful thing parties can do—it is a problem of FPTP.
Worse there is always more than one issue. Now I can't even find someone in my own party to support as the race has brought them all the same way on this. And so I either support one of them anyway for other issues or I leave.
whats actually going on with the mayoral race? is cuomo running as an independent against mamdani?
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2025/09/10/mamdani-hol...
The thing about the progressive younger generation is that their voting choices have made things progressively worse for themselves in the last 15 years. It's hard to say that the underlying worldview that supplants a anti-Israel position is particularly sustainable domestically long term. To be fair, it's the same thing for foreign policy, the anti-neocons have failed just as bad.
And as for the Right, it's primarily isolationism, but they certainly aren't going to favoring Palestine over Israel anytime. That's already hedged in. At the end of day, it largely goes against of the interests of every actor not aligned with Iran or seeking stability to let Israel fall in favour of Palestine. We do need that hard power when America is retreating from the region.
And my mom's hippie generation loved the PLO and Arafat, and my generation supported Israel. Israel existed through it all.
Why would we expect any desirable outcome in this hypothetical though? So the US flips, Israel is pressured into withdrawing, Hamas regains control of the strip and resumes rocket attacks, Israel is forced to respond eventually. It doesn't seem like a path toward a real solution.
There isn't a real solution. Just an opportunity for a few years of peace where people can do the important things in life. That is no small thing though. The danger is in chasing some quixotic nationalist dream. That is never ever going to work out.
Well the real solution is to have a single state and assimilation of some kind, so that people can coexist. It’s possible. Israel itself demonstrates this since nearly 30% of the population isn’t Jewish. But I think a peaceful two state coexistence is unlikely with people who chant “from the River to sea”, which implies the complete erasure of the state of Israel.
> Israel itself demonstrates this since nearly 30% of the population isn’t Jewish
Israel also has a law that says that the right of self-determination only belongs to its Jewish citizens- it calls itself the Jewish state. I would be entirely for a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone, but that thing cannot be Israel.
So that is hardly a real solution at all. And many Israeli people clearly don't want to coexist either.
But a peace process might give people a few years of peace. And peace is the best starting point we have for further peace.
The more of the Hamas stuff Israel breaks now the longer they will have peace later.
And you think they should just walk away from the hostages? If Hamas released the hostages the world would soon make Israel quit. But as it stands why in the world should they be expected to give up?
"Just an opportunity for a few years of peace where people can do more important things in life"
For many people that's amazing.
> Why would we expect any desirable outcome in this hypothetical though?
Ending unconditional US support is the only thing that motivates Israel to seek an end other than by genocide, which is a necessary (but not sufficient, on its own) condition for any desirable outcome.
The US and all other nations sanction Israel. If that doesn't work, military intervention. Israel will fall, it's just a matter of time.
What would you demand Israel do to be released from these hypothetical sanctions?
Military intervention meaning invade a nuclear power?
Be dissolved. I think sanctions and making Israel economically unviable are a peaceful solution.
What makes you think "dissolving Israel" would be any more peaceful than "dissolving Gaza" would be?
Israel need US protection and money. If you take that away, the settlers go home. If they don't, then yes, I'm sure the US can defeat Israel in armed conflict.
Making Israel unviable is condemning the Jews to death. You think that's a proper solution?
And don't say "go home". The majority are descended from those expelled from Arab lands, there's no home to go to.
Did Apartheid South Africa becoming unviable condemned white south africans to death?
Is this a trick question?
The answer is no. They still get to live there.
This is pure histrionics. It’s the Zionists committing genocide, today. Today’s reality trumps tomorrow’s fictional scenario.
Your comment is as extreme as Israel's actions at the moment.
This sort of mentality will perpetuate conflict and atrocities.
No, my comment reflects how the vast majority of people on this planet think. Israel will be the next Rhodesia.
Either withdraw from all the territory that doesn't legally belong to it (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, plus the parts of Syria and Lebanon it occupies), or keep the territory and make all the inhabitants equal citizens.
> plus the parts of Syria and Lebanon it occupies)
Well, if Syria and Lebanon didn't want to lose territories, maybe they should not have started wars to ethnically cleans Jews from the place?
I mean, when you start a war with your neighbour with the goal of extermination, you don't get to complain when you lose.
In fact, you should be happy that even though you tried to exterminate them, they didn't try to exterminate you when they won.
Syria lost the Golan Heights in a war that Israel initiated (Israel claimed it was preemptive self-defense, but that's highly questionable). And then in the last year, Israel has taken a bunch more territory in Syria, just because it can. Syria didn't do anything to Israel.
The whole thing about ethnic cleansing is really turning history on its head. The reason why Israel is hated by its neighbors is because Israel was founded by European settlers who conquered and ethnically cleansed the land.
In the six-day war, Syria attacked Israel before the opposite, so it's pretty misleading to say "in a war that Israel initiated".
Sure, Israel struck Egypt first, but Syria is not Egypt. And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial considering Egypt's naval blockade, expulsion of peacekeepers, deployment of ~100k troops near Israel's border, and Nasser being pretty explicit about his intentions.
Syria and Egypt had a mutual defense treaty.
> And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial
It's actually highly controversial, given that:
1. Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel (as we now know for certain).
2. The Israeli leadership was extremely confident in its own military dominance over Egypt, and that it would win any war quickly.
3. The Israeli leadership of the time had ambitions of territorial expansion.
> 1. Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel (as we now know for certain).
Where are you getting this idea from? A leader with no intention of attacking Israel would not have made statements like
"We will not accept any possibility of co-existence with Israel. [...] The war with Israel is in effect since 1948." (Nasser, May 28, 1967)
and then proceeded to amass ~100k troops near the border, or in Nasser's words: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ..."
As far as preemptive strikes go, it really doesn't get any clearer than this.
Not to mention the naval blockade which was in itself an act of war, making the question of who started the war rather moot.
The internal deliberations of the Egyptian government at the time are all publicly known now. The Egyptian leadership feared that Israel was planning an attack on Syria, which is why they mobilized their own army. They had no intention of attacking Israel.
The Israelis had been planning their own attack on Egypt for years. Ben Gurion had aggressive, expansionist foreign policy views, which the crisis with Egypt allowed him to implement.
The Israeli public was afraid of Egypt, but the leadership was extremely confident that Israel had massive military superiority over the Egyptians and would rapidly win any war. That's also what American intelligence thought, and what they told the Israelis.
As for Egyptian public statements about Israel, remember the political context: Israel had been founded 19 years earlier through the mass theft of Palestinian land and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel had carried out terrorist bombings in Cairo in the early 1950s in order to try to politically destabilize the country, and had invaded Egypt in 1956, as part of a conspiracy with Britain and France to take over the Suez Canal. The Egyptians had good reasons to view the Israelis as enemies and loudly complain, but we now know they had no intention of attacking.
Your position boils down to an unverifiable claim about Nasser's mental state. Nasser had not approved Operation Dawn yet; that doesn't mean he wasn't going to.
Even if Nasser planned to wait and induce Israel to fire the first shot, how would Israel know when Egypt's actions, as well as many of their statements, were perfectly consistent with a military preparing to immanently invade?
Taking this to the extreme, if Russia launched a silo of ICBMs targeting DC, and it turned out that they were all convincing decoys with no payload, would you say the US "initiated the war" for responding with real munitions?
Realistically, pre-emptive strikes don't get any clearer than this. If one objects to this pre-emptive, one would pretty much have reject the notion of pre-emptive strikes categorically. There can be a legal argument that pre-emptive strikes never technically fall under then narrow language of Article 51, but that's more of a strict textualist argument and not a pragmatist one.
Nah, history doesn't fully back you up there....Israel decided to face off with Egypt after Egypt decided to stop allowing ships in. Syria then decided to try and get in on this action all on their own.
In May–June 1967, in preparation for conflict, the Israeli government planned to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front, whilst taking into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front. Syrian front 5–8 June
Syria largely stayed out of the conflict for the first four days.
False Egyptian reports of a crushing victory against the Israeli army and forecasts that Egyptian forces would soon be attacking Tel Aviv influenced Syria's decision to enter the war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#Golan_Heights
Two thirds of the area was depopulated and occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities in what is known as Operation Focus. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
Unconditional surrender of all Israeli politicians and government workers, to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Therefore Genocide and starvation ? That’s has to be the weakest every physiological argument
As long as Israel controls the lives of millions of Palestinians who have no rights and who are treated like trash, there will be conflict.
In order to be effective, US pressure would have to be aimed at forcing Israel to do one of two things:
1. Withdraw its military from the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza), dismantle all of its illegal settlements there, and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. This is basically asking Israel to give up its dreams of taking over the Palestinian territories and to withdraw to its own borders - a simple ask.
2. Alternatively, Israel gets to keep the Palestinian territories, but it has to grant full, equal citizenship to the Palestinians who live there. That would mean that 50% of the Israeli electorate would be Palestinian, effectively ending the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. The next prime minister could be a Palestinian - who knows?
Israel has held onto the Palestinian territories for nearly 60 years without granting the people who live there (except for Israeli settlers) any rights. It has to either leave the occupied territories or grant everyone who lives under its control equal rights. It's actually quite a simple and reasonable demand.
Right now, because of unconditional US support, Israel has no incentive to do either of the above. Israel's leaders correctly believe that they can have it all: they can keep the land without granting the Palestinians who live there any rights. They operate with complete impunity. The US could end that impunity and impose real costs on Israel for its actions.
Your ignoring or forgetting that Palestinians don't want either of those solutions, and that's a core part of the conflict.
The Palestinians pursued a 2-state solution (option 1 above) for over two decades. It failed largely because of dead-set opposition from the Israeli right (thanks Netanyahu) and because even the Israeli center-left was unwilling to fully withdraw to Israel's internationally recognized borders and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. There were always demands to keep large chunks of territory (most critically in East Jerusalem) and maintain effective control over any future Palestinian semi-state.
Both options laid out above (the 2-state and 1-state solution) are vastly better for the Palestinians than living under permanent Israeli military occupation with no rights, and subjected to continuous violence from the Israelis. It would not be the Palestinians who would block these types of solutions, were they actually on offer.
The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
They never actually pursued a two state solution.
Arafat was offered something very close to a two state solution. He walked away without responding. He couldn't accept (he would have been assassinated if he agreed), he couldn't make a counter-offer because there was a risk of it being accepted, leading to the same end.
Look carefully at all the "peace" proposals from the Palestinians. All are non-viable due to details buried in them. Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
The Palestinians were the ones who originally pushed for the two-state solution. It took them years to convince the Israelis to even come to the negotiating table, which finally happened in 1993.
The offer made to Arafat was awful for many reasons that are well known, and that I won't go over here (but to give you an exanple, the proposal said that the Palestinians would have no military, and that the Israeli military would have the right to enter Palestine whenever it wanted, meaning that Palestine would not have real sovereignty).
> He walked away without responding.
Actually, he told the Israelis that the offer was a very bitter pill to swallow, and that he would have to show it to the Palestinian national council before he could accept it. Then, the PLO came back a few months later to negotiate further in Taba. The Israelis eventually broke off negotiations, because the ruling party was about to lose the election to a party that opposed the two-state solution.
> Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
It always amazes me how Israelis say the Palestinian right of return is so awful, absurd, outlandish, unacceptable, etc., when the entire founding ideology of the state of Israel is that the Jews have a right of return from 2000 years ago.
What's happening in Gaza right now is unequivocally genocide, and it's shameful. But...
> The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms? Has that ever happened, in all of recorded history? Say the Israelis don't want to give up East Jerusalem under any circumstances, what then? Would the Palestinian side be justified in "blocking" the resolution of the conflict?
The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
Today, I don't know. I don't think that there is a fair or best solution. They're probably going to just keep fighting until the Palestinian side is hollowed-out and the Israeli side is a Burma-tier pariah state.
You're assuming it actually is genocide. And you assume it's Israeli actions rather than Hamas actions. Hamas sets people up to be killed, points at Israel, the world blames Israel.
Unfortunately the evidence is overwhelming, without compelling counter arguments, to the point of fact. To the point of the UN investigators concluding it is genocide. Denial is unbelievable. All that is left is justification.
> Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms?
Because might doesn't make right. Because there's such a thing as international law. Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
> The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine. They only want the rump: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most big Israeli cities used to be Palestinian cities, until the Israelis conquered and ethnically cleansed them in 1948.
The standard 2-state solution is already a massive concession by the Palestinians. It's not the starting point for more concessions. You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The way out of this is massive international pressure on Israel. Israel is strong as long as it's beating up on almost completely defenseless Palestinians. But Israel is a small country that could be pressured by the US and EU fairly easily. Instead, they back it to the tune of billions of dollars a year and give it diplomatic support.
> Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
When has this stopped any army? And hasn't this very thing happened to Jews in Middle Eastern countries, who were sent packing without any hope of compensation?
> You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The same goes for the Israelis, who swear a religious oath by Jerusalem every year, and time has shown (repeatedly, at that,) that no Israeli leader will be induced to give it up.
At some point, you've got to admit defeat, or else the conflict will simply continue forever, very much to the detriment of all involved, and their children, who are innocent.
The passions obviously run high, but obviously both sides should compromise from the position of the status quo, and it's wishful thinking to suppose that the side that has prevailed in combat will knuckle-under and let the loser decide the terms of the peace. This is quite literally something that has never happened before.
Granted, the Israelis are fighting their war in a way that is deranged and quite dangerous for their own long-term survival. If they were somewhat more chivalrous, their own goals would be far better served; there appears to be a very nasty edge to Israeli democracy.
> The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine.
You seem to be conflating the region of Palestine, which has always included a mix of religions including Jews, with the modern Palestinian national identity.
Jews were only a few percent of the population before Europeans started moving in at the end of the 19th Century. The people we now call Palestinians were the native inhabitants of the whole region of Palestine. They've given up 78% of it.
Yes, there was a certain period when Jews were a small minority; so what?
If we're using "Palestinian" to mean someone from Palestine, why wouldn't we count a family from the First Aliyah as Palestinian? The Second Aliyah? Holocaust refugees?
Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period. Would you say they're not real Palestinians, because they joined too recently? How about Arafat, who doesn't have a "pure" unbroken Levantine lineage (being born in Cairo)?
Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights, perhaps less voting power, than families who have been here for multiple centuries?
That "certain period" was over a thousand years. For at least hundreds of years until the about 1900, the region of Palestine was inhabited by the people we now call the Palestinians, not by the ancestors of the Israelis.
> Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period.
Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine. This is radically different than the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which was a mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory.
> Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights
I think you would accept that the following two situations would be very different:
1. People immigrate to the US, settle down, send their kids to school, and eventually become American citizens.
2. A large group of people enter the US with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country - a country in which they want there to be as few Americans as possible. They have their own militias and operate completely outside the control of any government that the people of the United States control. Just to make this scenario more realistic, we can say that the US is currently under the rule of a foreign empire, so that Americans have no say in their own government. The foreign settlers start taking over large parts of the country. Finally, the UN says that the US should be split in two, giving half of it to the foreign settlers. The foreign settlers agree, but Americans think it's unfair and don't agree. War erupts. The foreign settlers, based on superior political organization and funding from abroad, quickly establish massive military dominance over the Americans, and go on to conquer 78% of the United States, expelling 80% of the American population from the territory they control.
Not exactly the same thing.
> Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine.
The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings. But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not. The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
And if we move past the rather old-fashioned idea that more recent immigrants don't count, the more relevant figure is that there was a (slight) Jewish majority within the partition plan borders.
> mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory
Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
> with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country
I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
> The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings.
Actually, we do have a very good idea. The demographics of Palestine were studied at the time (e.g., by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry), and are well understood. Arab population growth in Palestine was almost entirely due to simple births minus deaths, and was similar to population growth in other Arab countries of the time.
> But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not.
Which Jews? There were Jews who were native to Palestine. They made up a few percent of the population of the region. But the overwhelming majority of the people who founded Israel were recent immigrants. The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was from Płońsk, Poland. The first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann was from Belarus. Golda Meir was from Odessa and grew up in Milwaukee. You can go down the list. They're almost all like that. Heck, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was from Budapest, and barely ever set foot in Palestine (only once, I think).
> The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
The reason for the naming collision is simple: the Palestinians are the people who lived in Palestine before the Zionists came in, took over most of it and established Israel.
> Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
No, that happened in the years after the founding of Israel, as a consequence of it. It turns out that kicking out hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes and loudly proclaiming that you're doing so in the name of the Jewish people is a really effective way of stoking antisemitism in Arab countries.
> I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
If you read the scenario I sketched out above and think it's the same as everyday immigration and is okay, I don't know what to tell you. It's like calling the European settlers who drove out Native Americans "immigrants."
fyi, netanyahu signed follow up to oslo agreements, he handed over more areas of west bank to PA and he voted for disengagement from Gaza. He also expressed support for 2 state solution. Gaza disengagement was voted for and executed by Likud.
The only one who pursued 2 state solution is Israel.
There is a video from 2001 of Netanyahu explaining in private (he didn't know he was being filmed) exactly how he intentionally sabotaged the Oslo peace process during the 1990s.[0]
> he handed over more areas of west bank to PA
As Netanyahu explains in the video, he only handed over a small piece of territory, in exchange for a letter from the US saying that Israel could define "security zones" in the West Bank that would remain under Israeli control. That allowed Netanyahu to declare everything a security zone, blocking all future withdrawals. Netanyahu boasts in the video that he gave up a tiny piece of land to end the piece process and prevent there from ever being a Palestinian state.
In the years since, Netanyahu has repeatedly boasted that he's the one who prevented the creation of a Palestinian state. The founding charter of his party literally says that everything from the river to the sea should be Israel.
0. https://youtu.be/UzA04I3klkY?si=-Lm0ey7dsJSsWzZ5
He didn't sabotage oslo peace process he found a loophole that allowed him not to withdrawal from some of the territory in west bank prior to final settlement of borders.
video from 2001. Bibi is not PM for 2 years already, and in 2000 there was camp david which could give palestinians state (they refused it, and started intifada instead). there were more negotiations that palestinians refused.
bibi boasting about something ? sure he does. he wants to appeal to electors. doesn't mean that he sabotaged anything.
and on topic of killing oslo peace process, i'll suggest you this lovely document from just after camp david that describes how palestians worked on implementing it: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm . and in general to review second intifada
The Iron Dome prevents most of the rocket attacks. Gaza has no protection against what has become indiscriminate Israeli bombing.
Air defense alone isn't really a sustainable military strategy against endless rocket attacks. It would become even less viable if Israel lost US military aid, lifted the blockade, and/or stopped bombing things like rocket factories.
If Israeli bombing really were indiscriminate how did they manage to average less than one dead per bomb dropped in urban/suburban environments?
> how did they manage to average less than one dead per bomb dropped in urban/suburban environments?
By targeting first responders, jornalists, paramedics, and any professionals able to properly rescue wounded, dead and count the causalties, making available numbers a gross underestimate on the true death toll. Just a few days ago we all watched a staircase full of working first responders and jornalists being blown by israeli tank fire.
Israel needs to take a more precise approach to getting rid of Hamas.
People keep saying that but nobody proposes a meaningful more precise approach. There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?
And look at Israel vs Hezbollah--Hezbollah makes little use of human shield tactics, casualties run in the ballpark of 90% combatant. Same force, same type of opponent, what's the difference in Gaza? Hamas makes very heavy use of human shield tactics and worse. We see 30-50% combatants. That implies that the majority of the deaths are because of Hamas.
"There are plenty of military planners in nations hostile to Israel, if there is a better answer why are they not pointing it out to make Israel look bad?"
Why would the military in countries hostile to Israel provide Israel with advice or plans on defeating their enemies?
> It doesn't seem like a path toward a real solution.
As long as the Dahiya doctrine persists, it won't be. But that's an Israeli problem - their disproportionate response has been exploited for years. Hamas is fine letting Israel commit as many war crimes as it takes to satisfy their leadership, it very clearly hasn't changed tactics in recent years. The cost to Israeli international credibility seems to be "worth it" in their eyes.
So, if Israel wants peace they first have to stop escalation. But even if Hamas was defeated, we know that wouldn't be the end of things. Next the Druze has to be defended, which would result in a very justified annexation of south Syria and repeat of the same genocidal conditions in Gaza. They would also attempt to unseat power in Yemen, and then embroil America in an unwinnable war against Iran to sustain a true hegemony.
America is pissing away its hegemony all on its own.
It can either end in the death of one side, most probably Palestinians, or in peace agreement.
Currently there is war, peace is out of the window. First step is to stop the war, second step is to make both side actually negotiate.
It was attempted by Clinton a while ago but assassinations from mossad and hamas prevented the process to success.
To be honest, politicians have failed us too many times for my sad brain to believe that there will be a good outcome.
Most probably Israel society will keep radicalizing itself, Palestinians will be killed and Gaza bombed/annexed leading to the death of both Palestinian and Israeli civilization. Palestinian will be all dead and Israeli will have become in all manner what they initially sought to destroy, literal nazi.
I’d even bet that death by zyklon is more human that seeing your family and yourself getting slowly hungered to death. And contrary to nazi Germany, no Israeli can pretend to not know what’s going on.
It's the same liberal psychology behind UNSC Resolution 1701 in 2006 where Hezbollah pinkie promised to disarm. And now look at all the dead bodies that this liberal solution caused 18 years later. Of course the same types propose the same solutions again with no sense of shame as to how much death it causes.
The actual durable solution is something like how Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers, or how Russia defeated the insurgency in Chechnya. Which is roughly the same as what Israel is doing in Gaza now. But Israel is playing on hard mode because the international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
> morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
I think this is key. The protest must condemn Hamas while supporting innocent people. Protests that support Hamas as some kind of justified resistance just prolongates everything. Hamas doesn't care for its people. It has an ideological system that glorifies death. Death is just a means to an end for them.
This is the problem of viewing things black and white. The whole conflict is varying shades of Grey.
> 18 year causality stretch without a single critical remark about israels constant desintegration of palestinian civic life.
Good job. The feat of not blaming the obvious aggressor is something very few accomplish.
Israel has control over water, electricty, gas, road, "law enforcement", etc. and used it for decades to push palestinians out of their homes. The last violent events are a result of long oppression and netanjahu establishing a theocracy. Only focusing on extremes and make conclusions on such a basis is something dumb people do, dont you agree? Israel is clearly to blame, when you know a little more nuanced history and consider its long time dominant position in that conflict.
> international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas
By ignoring israels obvious long running now openly genocidal master plan, you are doing the same.
Well, you seem to be confusing Gaza with South Lebanon, which is what UNSC Resolution 1701, and the 18 years since then, pertains to. There was zero aggression from Israel, they got attacked unprovoked by Hezbollah on October 8th, 2023.
You are right. I have my difficulties with single event causality chains.
Hezbollah are supported by Iran, who don't get mentioned enough in this conflict. Iran is quite happy to maintain the conflict at the cost of Palestinian and Lebanese lives.
Have to ban AIPAC and all PACs first but good luck removing the hogs (elected officials) feeding at the troughs of money, gold bars, and bot army support. John McCain tried campaign finance reform but that didn't fly, and it's all been downhill since the abolition of the Tillman Act and the terrible ruling of Citizens' United.
The US seems to be dominated by different right wing meme factions now. A choice between different strains of Maga all of whom would kill thousands in Gaza just to spite the left.
> The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.
Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.
People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of authoritarianism and they're still unwilling to vote unless Gaza is a fully solved problem. The cruel irony is that this behavior is worsening the situation in Gaza.
Couldn't the Democrats change their positions so that they align with and accommodate popular positions and win elections. I don't think most of the (rather large block) of folks I know who abstained wanted a fully solved problem, they wanted the US to stop funding Israel and that is a position that the Democratic party could have taken if they had chosen to do so.
Black people have known for decades, you vote for the people that don't actively hate you.
Sitting out of the process does absolutely nothing, whether its a protest vote, pretending that politics don't affect you, or just giving up completely. The people who get elected in those situations always 100% ignore you.
When people are in office that are at least willing to listen, you then make a lot of noise and put on pressure. You might get ignored mostly, since you are a minority voting block, but you can make incremental gains and even sometimes big wins.
what do you do if both sides actively hate you? voting for the lesser of the two evils seems to just guarantee evil forever, and they have no reason to listen to you if they know you'll always vote for them.
You also do what black people have known since the civil war ended. You run for office. Hispanic Americans have learned this and their voices are now heard, Asian Americans also seem to finally understand this point. Gay Americans and other minorities are also running and winning. The answer is to never sit out.
Somehow this long hundred year process has resulted in genocide, so it seems something is broken.
Are you complaining in this post about the suffering of Gaza while downplaying the suffering of black people in the US and the work black people have done? Because you think its productive to pit the different groups against each other?
Honestly, I have listened to and sought out a lot of diverse voices because I'm genuinely curious.
I certainly found plenty of folks who were not only okay with the DNC's position but who were actively happy with Harris as the nominee.
Black people are, however, not a monolith. I'm quite aware of the differences between the many different sets of ideas (everything from hoteps to DNC-paid shills to people who genuinely liked the Harris platform to black anarchists/commiunists/ ex-panthers/ etc) and it's highly reductive to try to make the claims you're making here about "what black folks have learned".
As a person who genuinely believes actual leftist (communist and anarchist) politics are legitimate I found plenty of folks who abstained or tried to hold the DNS to change their policy.
But regardless of the "harm reduction strategies" or how legitimate you think having any semblance of political representation, the fact remains:
the democrats lost.
Unless you want to concede that "the party can only be failed, it cannot fail the people", the reality is that the party could have changed its policies and accommodated groups that abstained and perhaps won.
You can claim that the voters are just fools, but at the end of the day very few of us have any power at all over the DNC platform so it's simply bizarre to blame us for their horrible, provable failed choices.
You still vote for the lesser evil? Sitting out only benefits the greater evil, not you. I don't know how to make this any clearer.
Because you didn’t address the substance of their point:
What you’re arguing for is only single-round optimal, but multi-round suboptimal — much like defection in the Prisoners Dilemma is defeated by trust strategies the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Until you show how it’s multi-round optimal, you haven’t addressed their critique.
How is not voting for the lesser evil more multi round optimal? How does that argument look?
Right now it looks like you drained the baby with the bathwater.
My bigger question: Why would you make the foreign issues dominate your national issues?
I don’t do the second, so I can’t answer.
But to answer the first, I’ve heard directly from party strategists that they look for people who vote, but not in a particular race. They can’t identify them directly, but a higher ballot submitted count than (eg) presidential vote count is a signal that they can gain voters in that area — which they follow up by surveying independents, etc to see what policy issues they’re concerned with.
The argument is that by not voting some rounds, you influence their platform in subsequent rounds. If you vote for them regardless, there’s no incentive to optimize their platform to address your concerns.
I don't believe there is anything else we could realistically do. This stage of the conflict is about to hit the 2 year mark.
Doing what you're suggesting is exactly is what has got us here. Do you not see the pattern that the path we're on started very long ago?
What you're advocating benefits the greater evil ten times as much over a 20-year timespan. They're absolutely loving you. The more Bidens, the more Harrises, the more Clintons, the better for them.
You know why China is doing so well? Because they still remember how to think in the long term.
On the contrary, Democrats win when black voters turn out and lose when they don't. Because Republicans often hold such nakedly racist and repugnant views that voting for them is a complete non-starter, the only practical choice available to most black voters is not who to vote for, but whether to vote.
Black citizens make the most progress by strategies built around embarrassing the powers that be. Those powers generally capitulate (as much as they ever were going to) after a period of tantrum-throwing, which is where we are now. Such politicians hate having to vote against the donor class's wishes, but they'll do it to get reelected (or they'll be primaried by candidates who will). Or, they'll lose. Those are the choices, which Kamala Harris unfortunately learned the hard way.
One other thing black folk have known for decades: nobody you can put into the White House or the legislature will be able to stop half the country from thinking of you as a n!gger. You don't vote based on that because Carter and Clinton and especially Obama and Biden have shown us that election-based social progression is a pipedream.
This is what people don’t understand, because it isn’t their single issue.
If I beg you to reconsider on a very serious issue that is in your power to change stance on, and you not only ignore me but laugh in my face, then why exactly do you still get my vote? Why exactly should I reward you for completely ignoring my protests?
Make sure to swap Gaza for your single issue - maybe LGBT rights, or abortion, or gun rights - and then seriously think about how you would deal with it.
The Democratic party has basically decided to lean on “but they’re worse” as a political platform while backsliding on multiple issues. They do this because Democrat voters lap that shit up, chant “vote blue no matter who” like members of a cult, and then cry out in astonishment when the Democrats in Congress and in the gov keep sliding towards the right.
Also, an addendum: before blaming abstainers and third-party voters, it might be good to ponder on why Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency over making any concessions whatsoever on Palestine. At best, it was a grave miscalculation borne out of hubris. At worst, it was an act of self-sabotage to ensure unconditional support for Israel. Pick your poison :)
> “vote blue no matter who”
Say centrist Dems, unless it’s Zohran Mamdani. They have learnt nothing. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/zohran-mamda...
Indeed..
It's important to also point out that not enabling genocide is one of the most important issues single-issue voters can swing their vote around. That's because genocides both
1) threaten the international rules-based order, shattering the expectation of adherence to any number of human rights-centered protocols and representing crisis that can snowball into larger conflicts,
and 2) are often facilitated in part by police actions (civilian detainment, censorship, killings dressed up in lawful rules for the use of force, etc.), which threatens a general spillover of military action into the civilian/domestic status quo.
In other words, tolerance of genocide leads to a general shift towards war and despotism, even for people who aren't in the group targeted for genocide. Tolerance of evil builds the scaffolding for further subjugation.
Well said.
You misunderstand. GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives. They're the bad cops. Democrats have the slightly less destructive policies and they sort of occupy reality. They're the good cops. Both cops have the same boss.
> GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives.
Not only that, the current president literally promised everything to everyone - just to win! People are too naive (or too innocent) not to notice the lies.
Tbf, that's Athenian democracy at work - politicians would promise the most audacious things just to get elected. One could argue that's even how democracy started in the first place - just so that one guy could rule Athens independently and not as a Spartan puppet.
Of course, we haven't adopted the other facet of Athenian democracy which is ostracization by voting.
They are both dirty cops more like it.
It's assumed all cops are dirty. Good cops are few and far between as bad cops have incentive to get rid of them (so they don't snitch or do other 'good' things like police crime).
Couldn't far left progressives run their own candidates to win their own elections on issues without siphoning unreciprocated one-way support from the Democrat party? Given the toxic outcomes of supporting purity testers who give ultimatums similar to yours on political issues completely unrelated to the average voters life, theres likely no mainstream party that would align with a platform of virtue signallers that dont intend to create any meaningful policy, so to claim your position is popular is somewhat is a misnomer. Saving people is a popular concept, sure, but it's not easily perceptible to the rest of us that the group taking the strategy to ensure the most suffering for the Palestinians possible in our voting cycle is the one attempting that feat.
"Saving people" is an Orwellian turn of phrase for not supplying the bombs that are dropped on hospitals and refugee camps. Does the commuter "save" the child playing in the street by not willfully plowing her over in his SUV?
Not actively supporting a genocide isn't "virtue signalling". The Democrats will continue to lose until they face that reality. It's actually super gross to present the ethical will of voters like this.
Too bad the vote led to the current situation where women pointlessly die because of restrictive abortion policy, LGBT people get even more persecuted in the USA with no hope for improvement, protesting the genocide in Palestine is now ground for deportation for non-citizen residents and seems like it would make one an enemy of the state, so you lost all chances of being able to do something. Plus the ideology being force-fed into other countries with American politicians supporting far-right parties in Europe and attempting to strong-arm them into far-right policies (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/03/29/french-... ). I guess none of that ever mattered to abstentionists.
Well Europe was probably going to fell to the far-right anyway...
Is it the fault of the voters who couldn't stomach the genocide or the Democratic candidates who refused to budge on the issue? It's an argument that has been recapitulated millions of times now, so I'm not sure why we should repeat the exercise here.
It does make me despair to have the two parties that together govern our country both be so committed to something so heinous. Can one really be a proud citizen of such a nation?
We’re not citizens we’re subjects. Their dehumanization of Palestinians will eventually be applied to the poor and underprivileged “citizens” of the US.
If only the blue representatives would resolve this tension by pulling support for a now internationally-recognised genocide! :( I suppose that option is just too radical to put on the table.
Yep. It really is that simple.
https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-mom...
You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I'm not sure why "less bad" on your pet issue isn't enough, especially when you're up against Trump, who has made posts suggesting resorts and golden statues of himself in Gaza.
> You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight?
I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
What are the implications? Israel isn't going to align with Russia or China, so probably they'll have to stand on their own and rely more on their nuclear deterrent. It'd be easier if they weren't bombing every single neighbor they have though.
Actually I think thats exactly the plan. They will milk the US as long as they can and once they have gotten everything they can from that dead corpse, they will do what any other nation would do: Align themselves with whatever partner that can help them the most. They have a lot of talent and investment (thanks to the US) and can offer other future superpowers plenty in exchange for partnerships.
Yeah I was just curious what the commenter thought because to me it's not obvious what would happen, there's many possibilities, what you listed is certainly plausible but it doesn't seem inevitable, depends on so much.
> bombing every single neighbor they have
The neighbors who signed peace treaties (Egypt, Jordan) seem to be maintaining peace fine.
It's the ones who've refused to normalize relations since 1949 and keep launching rockets over the border at civilians who get hit back.
Exactly. Israel isn't exactly the nicest country but they're a porcupine. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. You keep poking them, you get hammered.
And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
Russia and China would love to get their hands on Israeli tech. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
I doubt any foreign policy aid would get pulled from Israel. Israel doesn't need to be taking actions perceived as genocidal. If the US wasn't offering full and unconditional support they'd just have to go about their foreign policy aims in a more palatable way.
Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
The Biden administration brokered and pressured Israel into a ceasefire that asymmetrically disfavored them. Israel exchanged 30 Hamas militants per Israeli hostage. The ceasefire outlined a permanent resolution to the conflict, including Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza. They also pressured Israel to keep aid channels open during the war, which is exceptionally obvious now given significantly longer blockades and that famine broke out under Trump. The 2006 withdrawal from Gaza and Oslo Accords were also brokered by America. Israel would not have agreed to any of this without any security reassurances in the form of military aid.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
They are using the “smart” bombs to precisely target and collapse civilian apartment buildings and hospitals on the thinnest pretext.
How would “dumb” bombs be worse?
It's very easy to kill people with dumb weapons especially in a dense city.
Syria killed 10,000s of civilians in just a few weeks using only dumb artillery to shell a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
The American incendiary bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 people in a single night of bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...
Yes, or course. And it’s also easy to kill them with smart weapons. It’s not ant all clear they care either way.
Once again, that word "civilian". "Civilian" is defined by usage, not by original intent. And many of the apartment buildings that collapsed were because their foundations failed from the collapse of Hamas tunnels. Standard construction techniques are extremely vulnerable to damage from being undermined. Look at the pictures of the devastation--earlier on you could see the lines. Since then it has become far more blurred as Hamas tends to occupy or booby-trap just about everything.
And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base. Remember all the rejection of the idea that Hamas HQ was in bunkers under the main hospital? Repeated denials that any such bunkers existed. Israel had a very simple response: we built the bunkers, we know they exist. If hospitals were acting as they should be they would be open territory--the IDF could simply walk in and look around. Yet every time it's been a big fight. And I remember a supposed "hospital" strike where they actually hit a tunnel--got the commander they were after and got secondaries. A bomb that simply explodes underground isn't going to cause secondaries, so clearly they hit a tunnel that supposedly did not exist.
> And many of the apartment buildings that collapsed were because their foundations failed from the collapse of Hamas tunnels.
Come on man.
Biden doesn't get credit for a few weeks of ceasefire after materially supporting the genocide for over a year.
Also, Biden explicitly stated that he is a Zionist[1].
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/05/12/j...
Like this whole thing has gone for 70 years in Israel. We already know what comes of the same strategy that was followed for all that time. Doubling down on it now isn’t going to change anything.
It has gone on and the people occupying Gaza and the West Bank rejected several two state solutions. And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel. It was capped off by October 7. What solution can work except to let the one democratic society take over the entire region?
Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas[1] [2] [3] [4]. If you screw yourself, you shouldn't blame anyone else when you get fucked.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
[3] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolste...
[4] https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian...
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections. Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections (both in west bank and gaza) and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
Netanyahu literally propped up Hamas at the expense of other options, which you would know if you even just read the headline on the first source I linked. So you disagree with the Times of Israel? Care to elaborate on why you disagree other than just make assertions?
Netanyahu wasn't PM betwen 1999 to 2009.
Last general palestinian elections in which hamas won was in 2006.
attempted coup by PLO was in 2007
you will know it, if you will know history.
Obviously, but Hamas needed Israel's help to maintain power, which Israel was happy to do. This happened recently, like in the 2020s. In case there's a paywall preventing people from reading my sources, here you go:
> Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
you are moving goal posts. discussion was about gazans electing hamas while been well aware that it's charter calls for destruction of Israel and killing Jews
quoting you "Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas".
A few corrections on this topic:
- there was/is no Gaza politics
- Elections were general elections in Palestinian Autonomy
- Both Israel and PA were against elections because they were afraid that Hamas will win but USA forced it because "democracy shall prevail and will resolve everything"
- Hamas won general elections in Palestinian Autonomy in 2006 and assembled government chaired by ismail haniyeh as PM
- USA trained Fatah to coup against legitimate Palestinian government
- Coup succeeded in west bank and failed in gaza in 2007
- During coup, Hamas killed, dragged behind bikes or threw from rooftops those that opposed it
- After coup, Hamas tortured into obedience or killed all opposition
just one example: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestin...
and on topic of how hospitals in gaza used, from same article: " Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital."
> Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections
That's not exactly true, no matter which side you support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Isra...
Israel has always had the opportunity to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority. They chose to support Hamas, instead. Whether or not that's the right decision is up for debate, but the course of action was already set in stone.election were in 2006. there were no elections after this. i am not sure how payments that started in 2018 influenced 2006 elections.
also, you probably weren't around back than, but there was international pressure on Israel to allow those money, because, quoting mainstream press, un, etc "hundreds of thousands of people will be hungry, there will be famine and collapse of all services in gaza that will lead to humanitarian disaster".
so, now, after Israel caved to international pressure to prevent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israel is blamed for propping up hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power
Are you sure you want to hold voters directly accountable for an election that happened over a decade ago? If yes, then it's a pretty slippery slope to be on, esp if the same standard were to be applied to US voters.
I do because it was clear to them what Hamas stood for. Try reading their charter for details.
Half the population wasn't _even born_ when Hamas got into power, and Hamas revised the charter in 2017 to remove the anti-semitic language
More than half of Israel's population wasn't even born when Israel was formed. Doesn't seem to matter, they are supposed to move back to Europe (though they were born in Israel of parents born in Israel of parents born in the middle east, not europe). They can't get away from the original sin of being born to people who were born by zionists. Those evil zio-settler babies.
The people "occupying" Gaza and the West Bank are the Israelis, and the Palestinians rightfully refuse any agreements which strip them of their rights under the guise of generosity. Stop with the ahistorical equivocation.
I wonder if that had anything at all to do with the Israeli right backing Hamas at the time, because they were being shamed internationally (haha) by the previously militant PLA/PLO being more and more willing to negotiate.
Netanyahu and his ilk didn't like the awkward questions of why the terrorists were negotiating but they weren't. So they started propping up Hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel.
"They" started firing rockets, or Hamas? Hamas who is 30,000 of Gaza's 2.5M? Just when was that last election, again?
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections.
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
What are you talking about? The Camp David Accords and Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty were resounding successes. The Oslo Accords achieved mixed results but was still a major improvement. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that requiring for Israel to unilaterally withdrawal was hopelessly naive.
Oslo was not an improvement. Palestine (the PLO/PA) gave up deterrence and renounced violence and the West Bank is now being annexed by far right Israelis. What did Israel give up in Oslo? Nothing
This is incorrect. In 1992, the PLO had little military presence and were exiled abroad. The West Bank was governed by Israel. The Oslo Accords allowed the PLO to return and govern their people, including the establishment and expansion of their security forces.
> On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans.
I agree with everything you said about Biden being practically better for Palestine, but this is nonsense. Israel would be a completely isolated state without US support. Even North Korea has China. The last completely isolated state in the world was South Africa whose apartheid ended as a result. It's not crazy to think Israelis might realize forcing people who have lived in the same country for generations to be stateless and voteless to preserve a "pure", "Jewish" state is not a worthwhile gamble if it costs them any connection to the outside world.
What do you mean by “pure Jewish state”? Israel has a 21% Arab population that is thriving and happy. In addition to 6% other non Jewish groups. So nearly 30% of the county isn’t Jewish.
Getting the Western world to agree to South Africa style sanctions towards Israel to their response to an attack is another level of unrealism over ending America's military and intelligence partnership. Even if that occurred, Israel is quite friendly with India that has only strengthened with October 7, and is capable of building a similar relationship with China.
Agreed, it along with claiming victory on that certain thing that started five years ago and didn't end yet, realllly annoyed the left. And now, matters are worse.
(It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
And that was always known to have been a counter-productive protest. There's nothing ironic about this. They were told. They didn't care.
It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.
If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.
It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
The Dems being willing to lose elections rather than meet voter expectations, says more about them than it does any particular voting or non voting group.
Have you considered that it isn’t voter expectation outside of a small minority of the party?
Have you considered that if they lose an election without that minority, then they still lose the election.
Like a political partys job is to get votes. An electorates job is to withhold votes to punish poor performance. The entity not doing their job here is the party.
The political party's job is to get votes. Which includes keeping the votes they already have. Giving things to one wing of the party can cost votes to the other wing.
The party is aware of the trade-offs. It goes ahead with its best estimation of what will win. Sometimes they can do everything right and still lose. One such scenario is when people would rather have the greater of two evils rather than be responsible for the lesser.
That was (potentially) a reasonable argument before the election, but the election happened and we know the results.
"We can't adopt [potentially winning strategy] because it might harm [definitely non-winning strategy]" is not a reasonable position. You don't have to adopt any specific alternative plan, but clinging to a non-working plan clearly isn't the right answer.
Sure and its possible thats what happened. But looking at their behaviour, its more like they thought they could use Trump to force everyone to fall in behind them regardless of policy.
The only way Democrats would have lost votes is if the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" folk weren't really prepared to vote blue, no matter who. Democrats didn't lose their base, they lost their left; theoretically, there's no leftist policy they could take on that would lose them their base, because it's their base.
Maybe at the time it was. Not so much anymore.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/support-for-israel-contin...
Why would Dems want Zionists to win?
I think the dems would be much happier if all foreign issues just went away somewhere. I dont accuse them of having any firm position on anything.
The trolley problem is an oversimplification. What we have is actually a repeated trolley problem, where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The “less evil” party is in effect holding the people tied to the tracks hostage in your trolley problem. Because “less evil” is still evil, society decays no matter which way you flip the switch which leads to a population prone to fascism. The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
> where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests.
The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up?
If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote.
> The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
Biden literally started the genocide and Harris vowed to continue his policies, so no they are not "better". All they had to do is not support Israel and they would have won the election.
It's the democrats who are holding the lever, not the voters
Yup. What's happening is horrible, but that doesn't mean there are better options. History has a very clear lesson: When Israel is harsh fewer Israelis die. When Israel is nice more Israelis die. The lesson has been repeated many times. Multiple times Israel has permitted the world to cram appeasement down it's throat, every time has made it worse for Israel.
Want peace over there, make peace not bring problems for Israel. But so long as Iran keeps fanning the fires of war I see no way to accomplish that.
This just means Israel is an ultra-violent society.
So really the only hope for peace is the elimination of the state of Israel and to return the land to Muslims.
wrong. There is a study that surveyed those that didn't. The conclusion was that if turnout had been better, Trump wins by an even larger margin. There definitely was a shift right.
> There is a study
Where is the study?
Wait what happened? Was it that people who typically vote blue voted against those who supported Israel? As a Muslim and staunch supporter of Palestine, I didn't think that many people turned red because of this, at least not enough to swing the election. Wayne County, which has Dearborn Michigan (the city with the largest population proportionally of Muslims), stayed blue. I figured if Dearborn couldn't tip the scales any which way then the issue was probably not something worth campaigning on in terms of demographics
The bigger factor was people staying home because they refused any compromise on the issue. For races that swing depending on turnout, this was enough to tip those races red. Hard to say whether this impacted the Presidential election, but it probably did affect some House and Senate races.
Ah, that's a good point. Indeed, I voted Stein over Harris, which is basically the same as staying home (much to my chagrin).
Voting third party isn't the same as staying home. If a third party candidate gets just 5% of the vote, the party gets federal election funds in the next election. This isn't some pipe dream, third parties were crossing that threshold in the 90s. It encourages the major parties to alter their positions to avoid splitting the vote, and if they fail to do so then the third party can gain traction over the long run. Further, if you go to the polls for a third party, you are presumably also voting in down ballot races, where you have significantly more impact whether you vote third party or major party.
Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.
Yes agreed, that's why I voted instead of actually staying home. I wish other people would understand the nuance you just mentioned. I don't think either the democratic party nor the republican party actually care about anything more than keeping their seat at the table. They don't care about the working class, the disenfranchised, or the underprivileged, even if they claim to to get votes.
This is shocking to me tbh. Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster and that Stein or whoever had 0 chance of winning...
> Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster
So the Democrats, who presumably wanted peace in the middle east, knew that Trump would be a disaster, and yet they still ignored voters concerns?
If you live in a safe blue/safe red state, then there's no harm in voting third party.
Yes, we did know Trump is a disaster. Perhaps Democrats should have met their voterbase somewhere in the middle to reduce the risk of losing to Trump? Of course, they didn’t, so to me the Harris campaign is to blame more than the third-party voters.
Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.
Democrats are constantly trying to please whatever portion of their voter base they think they need to win the election. In this case they were trying harder to court the maybe-Trumpers than the never-Trumpers because the never-Trumpers don't need as much convincing. Unfortunately, when these two groups become at odds over a single-issue vote, it fucks the Democrats no matter what they do. In the end, people who refused to vote for Harris over Palestine fucked everyone, especially Palestine.
And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.
I don’t see it as “letting Trump win”. I see it as “not supporting the Democrats because they don’t want my vote”. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, blame the Democrats.
Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.
It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.
I explained how Democrats were going to alienate one part of their voter base no matter what they did. Do you have an alternate pathway for how the Democrats could have magically chosen both options at once?
And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.
Okay, so you have rationalized to yourself why there was “no alternative” by essentially saying that Democrats were absolutely helpless to do anything - an act of God was in their way, so to speak.
Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?
This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.
I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?
Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.
You're just ignoring reality in a couple of paragraphs. Condemning Israel or extending a fig leaf to Palestine alienates the moderates. Not doing it alienates the single-issue-on-Palenstine voters. I don't understand why I have to keep saying that, or why you haven't addressed this fundamental fact of their voting base. They had to tiptoe around everyone's big feelings because not electing a dictator wasn't important enough.
My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.
And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.
What happened was complex, multi-factoral, and impossible to cleanly draw pithy conclusions from. It’s like the drawing of the rabbit that turns into a duck when you look at it a different way except there are fifty animals instead of just two. Everyone wants you to think it’s just their preferred animal because it fits their agenda.
This makes me curious about how many other historical events have presented the animal that happened to fit the ruling class at the time. I'm not talking about history being written by the winners, but more nuanced things.
Joe Biden invited Trump for a second term through his genocidal policy in Palestine and unwavering support for Israeli fascism. Trump's second term could have been avoided if Biden had been more moderate in several key topics, Palestine included.
> that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red
This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.
There is such a thing as sitting-it-out. People didn’t necessarily vote for Trump. They just didn’t vote for Harris. And that is exactly what the voting record shows: votes for Democrats dropped significantly between 2020 and 2024.
"votes for Democrats dropped significantly between 2020 and 2024."
For, or from? this is an important distinction to make.
Both.
Even Wayne County, Michigan, which has Dearborn, stayed blue.
Though I was honestly surprised at how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump. Harris may be pro-Israel, but Trump is anti-almost everything else we stand for.
> how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump
I'm honestly split between pro-Palestinian Arab-American Trump voters and soybean-farming Trump voters as the stupidest voting blocks of 2024. Not only are you helping put someone in power who is so obviously going to work against your interests. You've also removed yourself from the other party's table where your issue might have gained priority down the road.
Tbh we are all victims of America's shitty two party system and voting system, and just reflective of how much power political pundits and influencers have. I think ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests.
> ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests
Not for these groups. They wouldn’t rank something that benefits their interests because they’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against. That generally doesn’t work in democracies, which require engagement and compromise.
Maybe the thinking is that if you stop waiting for your turn and remove yourself from the table, someone will move your issue up the road to get you back to the table.
> if you stop waiting for your turn and remove yourself from the table, someone will move your issue up the road to get you back to the table
This doesn’t work unless you have the numbers to field your own candidate.
Serious question, will you abstain from voting? There are only 2 parties and they both fund Israel. One maybe slightly less.
Yes, I will. I will not vote for anyone who supports Israel. My vote is here for the taking, I just need to see an anti-Zionist candidate.
You must vote, but I wont fault anyone for voting 3rd party (or leaving a blank ballot, if you must).
Voting 3rd party sends a message: "be more like this 3rd party if you want my vote".
Not voting also sends a message: "I wont show up and vote, so just ignore me".
That's not true at all. Even Alexis de Tocqueville discussed the value in not voting. It takes away the mandate from politicians. I don't think we live in a real democracy and I'm not giving legitimacy to fake, fully-Zionist elections. Direct action is much more effective and at some point our government will dissolve if the vast majority of people exit the optics of fake democracy.
Are you saying that if enough people do not vote that our government will dissolve?
This line of reasoning helped get Trump in.
It’s hard to say what Harris would have done, but it’s unlikely she would have greenlit the complete demolition of Gaza so she could build a resort.
Similarly, I doubt she would have forced places like UC Berkeley to send her lists of people critical of Israel (like you), then opened critical investigations against them.
Refusing to vote is the best way to ensure policies you object to the most are expanded.
Committing genocide helped Trump win. That’s squarely on democrats.
I don't really understand this perspective. Obviously the consensus position across both parties has been to support Israel more. This is a bit murky with the (for lack of a better term) Nazi elements of maga, but GOP still claims to want to arm them more.
I don't vote for Zionists or genocide. It really is pretty simple. I also am unwilling to build my comfort on the backs of mass murder. In many ways it's better to have Trump so we can feel one tiny bit of the pain we're inflicting on others. We need drastic change and at some point the dam is going to break.
So when is the last time you voted for a president, if ever depending on your age?
I think on foreign policy, the two candidates weren't that far apart, (although I would suspect the winds would have shifted quickly under Kamala) Importantly, as someone pointed above that the difference is in the domestic agenda where Israel is used as an excuse for to crack down on institutions and dissent.
Then you're privileging your own sense of moral purity over the welfare of the Palestinians. The situation is manifestly worse for them now, as was predictable. I hope the cleanliness of your hands makes that bearable.
I'm sure the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by "your team" would beg to differ. I don't vote for genocide, full stop. I also don't vote for Zionists. What's more important to democrats, Israel or winning elections?
You vote for the options you have, not the options you want. It was your choice, not the Democrats's fault.
Not voting for those committing genocide is an option I have and will take every time. If the democrats want my vote, they know how to win it.
Given a choice between a lesser and a greater evil, you abstained. The welfare of Palestinians is not your priority.
This type of false rhetoric to support genocide makes me feel even more confident in my decision. Want my vote? Oppose Israel. It’s as simple as that. People who commit genocide have no moral high ground.
It’s not about moral fucking high ground, it’s about actual death and dismemberment that is actually happening that wouldn’t have. I can vote for the nazi that kills 100 jews, the nazi that kills 500, or vote for nobody; show me any alternative or else i gotta get in the booth for the first guy. Anything else is pretentious moralizing that costs lives.
Sometimes your vote isn't to support something, it's to limit the damage.
My vote for no one is to limit damage. It’s critical that we end Zionism and not supporting Zionists is the best way to do that. It’s incredible the lengths democrats will go to defend Israel. It’s time to move on (and start winning elections).
Half of democratic senators and zero Republicans voted to suspend arms sales to Israel. So, there's clearly a more amenable party in this debate. The Dems who didn't sign on, we lobby or primary.
I qualified it. Generally speaking, they both support it. They even called the campus protests for peace antisemetism during Biden's term. Of course the GOP are much worse, but there's definitely reason to dislike both in this regard.
Stop this nonsense.
It's hard to understand what you mean. Logically, if you don't want to support Israel, you should vote Dem or abstain as Dems support them slightly less.
No, I won’t stop. And you can’t make me.
US sure likes israel...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saar-urges-250-...
250 us legislators had to fly there (probably paid by the taxpayers) a few days ago.
Sadly, looking at the US politics, whichever side you vote, israel wins.
Those are US state legislators. We have 7,386 of them. Sometimes a few wander outside during their election races.
You could easily fit that delegation into New Hampshire’s House of Representatives of 400 seats.
Meanwhile it’s more than double California’s total state legislature size of 120 seats.
It’s fun!
Still a strangely high number.
Imagine 250 representatives all going to a country with a similar population. It'd be mighty strange if 250 representatives from across the US went to Kyrgyzstan. Frankly, I'd find it strange if 250 went next door to Mexico all in the same year and that's a directly neighboring country that's actually relevant to US interests and the US's single biggest trade partner. Israel gets some sort of special treatment and it's really, really weird. It's treated with higher reverence than any state within US borders is.
This is actually easily explained by Israel having an intimate role in US foreign policy and culture for the past 80 years instead of being a majority Muslim constituent republic of the Soviet Union!
Korea, Japan, UK, Mexico, Canada, etc all are tightly entwined with the US and its culture. The first 3 had major roles in opposing the USSR. Politicians aren't taking trips to any of those countries en masse. Nobody is having their visas canceled for criticizing any of those countries. No college is losing funding if someone complains about those countries.
None of those countries are currently committing genocide, their lands were settled long ago!
You sure are asking uncomfortable questions, better ignore or divert that
It would be more accurate to compare to England, France, or Canada. The US relationship with Mexico is complicated.
Sure. Let's ignore the country with the biggest source of immigrants to the US and largest modern cultural and demographic influence. We can move the goalpost and go with those examples.
When was the last time 250 representatives visited any of those countries?
(This is also an account that exclusively posts defending Israel)
None of which has anything to do with which countries politicians feel most comfortable visiting. If the political class felt much affinity with Mexico (rightly or wrongly), I imagine that there would be much less talk of a border wall. Clearly they do not feel the same way about Canada.
I doubt that there are recorded numbers just for politicians, but these are all popular destinations for Americans in general. Now, if there's something else odd about this statistic other than just the number you want to point out, that's a different story.
I agree. That’s why I won’t vote unless someone NOT funded by AIPAC is on the ballot.
> I won’t vote unless someone NOT funded by AIPAC is on the ballot
Then you're electorally irrelevant. Particularly if your only civic (in)action is not voting.
No, they're a vote that can be won by someone willing to stand up to AIPAC. I also will not vote for a Zionist. At some point, if we live in a real democracy, someone will put winning an election over being controlled by Israel.
> they're a vote that can be won by someone willing to stand up to AIPAC
If they cast a blank ballot, sure. Otherwise, betting on new turnout is a losing strategy. Particularly if you’re counting on that off cycle or in a primary.
There’s enough rage built up against Israel that it will tip the scale. For instance, how many elections do you think the Democrats need to lose before they address the desires of their only potential voters?
> enough rage built up against Israel that it will tip the scale
There isn’t. Not across partisan lines.
There is to flip primaries. But those too lazy or stupid to vote don’t affect those.
There really is and every poll will demonstrate that.
That’s not how US elections work.
Fun fact: If people like you would get off their asses on Election Day, Texas would have been a blue state for the last 15 years.
The GOP would be done, and we could meaningfully decide between the Bidens and Bernies of this world.
The US was “blue” when we helped Israel start the genocide. Too many democrats are far too lost in cable tv style politics and absolutely refuse to address how far over the red line they’ve stepped with their support for Israel. They will continue to lose elections until this is addressed.
People that don’t vote are just voting to let someone else decide.
Consider that the videos of Oct 7 had a similar effect on lots of decent people. The un is the same now as it was before October 7. In gueterres words "it didn't happen in a vacuum". The complete loss of credibility for the un also didn't happen in a vacuum. Even if their report is true it will fall on deaf ears thanks in no small part to their lack of any sort of objectivity when it comes to Israel.
This was me. I was browsing Hamas' Telegram account as they released the FPV videos that day. The two most disturbing scenes were the pantless body of a teenaged girl being burned amidst chanting of "Allahu Akbar", and militants scouring buildings for any person or pet they could kill and doing just that whenever they found someone.
I learned a very uncomfortable—though valuable—lesson about humans that day.
Then you must surely be learning something new about humans every day since?
Yeah, that never happened.
And why in the world do you think it didn't? I haven't seen the particular video he's referring to but I've seen enough that I do not find his claim unreasonable.
Remember that 47 minutes of video Israel was screening for reporters but did not release? They've gotten permission from some of the families and have released part of it. You definitely see people being killed on camera.
And the really important part isn't the video itself, but that it's stuff that Hams people chose to post on social media. Something to be cheered, not a horror.
Because it would be in the Hamas-massacre.net site if it was real. That's an IDF run site. They can't even confirm any rape victims on that site. They only have non-confirmed allegations on that site.
And, no, they didn't get permission from any of the other victims families to publish on that site.
So, the IDF literally has no direct confirmation of rape.
Agreed, UN doesn't have a great reputation in America, I'm skeptical many people will care about this outside the media news cycle
Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/most-peop...
On a political or legal level for Israel it might have more implications though, that is impossible for them to ignore, but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries...just like Putin.
> Agreed, UN doesn't have a great reputation in America, I'm skeptical many people will care about this outside the media news cycle.
Lots of people will care, but it isn’t going to move a lot of opinions.
> Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024
Yes, but it says 57% do in 2025, the first positive change in support since 2022. [0]
But neither is that much more than the 50% that already think Israel is committing genocide [1], and the positions are probably significantly correlated, so this probably isn’t swaying many people that aren’t already convinced.
> On a political or legal level it might have more implications though but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries.
Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/05/united-na...
[1] https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3929
> Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
So what is your expert opinion then? What is the risk to the state of Israel itself if ICJ makes a case against them?
Informing people > admonishing them
October 7 made people in the US demand that their representatives stop supporting genocide? No, it didn’t. It made a lot of supposedly decent people support and even demand evil in their name. At that point you’re just defining “being a decent person” as “if nothing evil happens you won’t be evil” which doesn’t seem like a useful definition.
That is interesting, why videos from Gaza has strong effects while Oct 7 don't. Or videos from Ukraine don't. Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza is genocide while russians bombing child hospital in Kyiv is ok.
Unfortunately not all nations are equal and many suffers because of that.
Meanwhile, the bombs exploding in Kyiv weren't sold to Russia by the US.
Unfortunately truth is: western societies don't actually give a shit about either. It just a "popular" trend to support Palestine / Gaza and for a while that was Ukraine. But reality is that people don't really care enough about any of it. Just like they didn't care about wars in Africa, genocide in Cambodia, etc.
To actually solve big world problems it would take massive investments and sacrifice quality of life for many and increase taxes on rich. Obviously no one would agree. It's way beyond clicking "like" and "repost" buttons on social app or adding UTF-8 country flag to your name.
It's the same story with the Epstein list. No one gives shit about victims. Trump and GOP did much more horrible things, like literally killing people with their actions. But sex with underage girls takes all the attention and the blame. So all other Trump's crimes, which are countless to this point, are getting faded.
Lets address the elephant in the room. First of all, to be fair no one is ok with russia bombing hospitals. It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out.
Now from watching the coverage of this war you can't help but come to the conclusion that there's an organised but invisible movement opposing the war. The various humanitarian bodies and news outlets like al jazeera and bbc all quote each other in a self reinforcing loop of anti israel talk. If it's not an organised conspiracy at least it's a very strong convergence of interests giving the impression of one.
Historically the main opposition to Israel comes from the Arabs with the European countries joining in with various levels of enthusiasm mainly for the pragmatic reason that the Arabs have all the oil.
The anti american block is also anti israel because that goes against US interests.
It's not surprising then that the UN would be completely taken over by anti israel groups. It's basic maths.
But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.
I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs. And their motivation without a question is genocidal anti semitism. They are just upset the Germans didn't finish off their job and they are taking everyone else along for the ride.
I'm not saying there can be no legitimate opposition to Israel, but it's my belief, backed up by a certain amount of historical evidence that most of the opposition from official sources has its roots in anti semitism.
>> It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out.
That is not true. Political will to introduce sanctions is maxed out. And current US administration has even less interest in doing so than previous.
>>But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs.
Funny enough, no Arab country wants to really help Palestinians, to open borders for refugees. To host palestinians who lost wars with Israel.
Fundamentally, Gaza has a strong effect because so much effort is made to shove it in our faces as a way of attacking Israel.
Virtually no mention to the far worse horrors Iran is perpetrating elsewhere.
The only people that accuse the UN for 'loss of credibility' are the religious fanatics in Tel Aviv, who are angry at the UN for not indulging their 3000-year old mythological delusions.
Too bad there weren't many good cameras around during the Nakba, my guess is we'd have some pretty revolting, hainous images to show the world. Hatred doesn't exist in a vacuum, october 7 happened for a reason. The jew got persecuted, that created Zionism which persecuted in return, the circle of hatred is going strong.
From John Spencer, a retired United States Army officer, researcher of urban warfare, and author.
> The U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking
https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...
I see a lot of comments here are about how other countries should react to this designation, rightfully so.
I wonder also though, how Israel will react. Is this anything new for them?
Same cards they always play:
- our enemies are Hamas sympathisers
- our enemies are secretly Hamas members OR
- it's antisemitism
One look at the victims (or their mangled remains) immediately discounts all three.
That may be, but that has never stopped Israeli military from doing anything.
1. Multiple Israeli human right groups have already been calling what's happening in Gaza a genocide.
2. The overwhelming majority of Israelis knows and does not care about Palestinian civilian suffering, they do not even try to hide it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMyyVaiY4V8
I think at the moment a term like "genocide" is still floating free from the reality of what that term means.
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
I think after that I can't imagine the question, "will this impact israel?" makes any sense. They're deliberately perpetrating a genocide. It's real. It's the deliberate and systematic murder of two million people. I dont see the sense in asking: will the murderers care?
There's no murder of two million. There's at most, according to Hamas itself, 60,000 dead out of which 10,000 were hamas militants. This is a regular ugly war.
If Israel wanted to kill two million, they could've done it already.
It seemingly doesn't matter how accurate Israel tried to be, they call genocide either way.
It's incredibly difficult to kill two million people, the easiest -- if not the only practically possible way -- is with mass starvation.
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
You may want to distance yourself from a defense of israel. This is not what you think it is; within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld. You can kill a large number very quickly if you withhold water.
That's where we are. Israel's actions have becoming increasingly genocidal as they have ratched up the "genocidal escalation ladder" with impunity. They had been afraid that someone would step in, but none have.
There's now no way of reversing at least 20% of the population dying, it's really just a question of whether they can finish them off, at least as a peoples with a need and claim to that land. If they can be whittled down to a small fraction of their original population, they can then be ethnically cleansed.
I'd imagine that has been the plan now for at least a year, or at least, most of this one.
> within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld.
I appreciate that you're making a prediction. We can check back in a year and see the population levels compared to today.
That's bullshit. There's plenty of water in Gaza, as well as food. They get external aid all the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGTMN9mgKcc Plenty of open restaurants in Gaza.
Even according to Hamas only 200 died out of starvation, and that number is disputed as well.
This is all Hamas propaganda that everyone believes.
There's an interview with a UNICEF worker on the ground there which you can watch, he even mentions when the restaurants reopened during the cease-fire
No. The Hamas death toll figures are just the identified dead. They don't include people buried under rubble or who died from secondary effects (health system collapse, starvation, disease). Plenty of sources think the deaths are in the hundreds of thousands.
Here is how they reacted, by preparing for isolation
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-i...
https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-israel-to-get-ready-for-is...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-admits-israel-is-eco...
pick whichever source you respect the most
What about the rest of Israel?
Until Israeli citizens do to the coalition what they're [ostensibly] hoping Gaza citizens do to Hamas
then what about the rest of Israel?
it's not like there's a lack of "settlers"
Israeli citizens, the vast majority of them, have not taken meaningful effort in overthrowing the government of a corrupt prime minister doing everything in his ability to stay in power, else Israeli citizens ought to learn from Nepal and call for a concrete transition of power. At this point, they are complicit in the genocide, like it or not - simply protesting in Tel Aviv and their local kibbutzim won't cut it. And I say this as someone who's view has shifted massively on this topic since October 7, 2023 - from a vocal supporter of Israeli action (as a Muslim nonetheless!) to a vocal opponent now. Until Israeli citizens overthrow their corrupt government of their own will, they are all part of the genocide and must be rightfully ostracized. Especially given that Netanyahu has outed himself as a one-Jewish-state proponent, and has no interest in a peaceful resolution - or in regional peace.
What's to say Israel's next plans aren't for Greater Israel next? Stealing parts of the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Syria (which they already have done) and Jordan? And then Saudi Arabia and Iraq?
Ancedotally, as an Israeli, people's (or at least protesters') discontent with the Netanyahu government is essentially limited to his criminal charges, general populist antics, and his refusal to cut a hostage deal.
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks the IDF is commiting war crimes in Gaza, let alone a genocide.
There is great skepticism towards international NGOs that make these accusations, especially the U.N., owing to past pro-Palestinian bias.
Obviously, there are war crimes happening in Gaza—like in any war.
But having followed a number of conflicts, I don’t see Israel conducting itself in a way that’s uniquely bad.
What makes Gaza different is the opponent: one committed to total war, willing to sacrifice civilians in order to manufacture outrage and turn Western opinion against Israel.
Documented examples include:
- Shooting at civilians who follow evacuation routes
- Sending children with bombs in their backpacks
- Denying civilians access to bomb shelters
- Storing weapons caches and launching rockets from civilian areas
Initially that's what I thought too. But then the more the war progresses, there's only one group benefiting from what's happening - and it's not the remaining hostages.
Also, do Israelis really believe that with the extremely omnipresent intelligence apparatus that Israel enjoys, especially on the technological front, their country was not able to predict the October 7th attacks? Or did Netanyahu, personally on the verge of being convicted criminally, found a route out by starting a long-drawn out campaign where his hawkish approach would bolster his image? This entire affair has had all the stench of Putin's Chechnya escapade.
There is widespread bias against Israel, for the simple reason that Israel does not let press on the ground. Not even conservative, pro-Israel voices were allowed to report with boots on the ground.
And now Israel went a step further, by attacking a sovereign third-party nation that is trying to give a voice to the other un-sovereign side. Granted, they are heavily biased, but they are (were) also Israel's thread to communicate with Hamas leadership - and Israel just bombs their soil? Don't Israelis think on those terms?
I could never really get behind imagining expansionist policies without a clear philosophy supporting them
What would be the philosophy here? I've seen holdings from wars being held and released, and Golan Heights
he had press conference today and walked back what he said.
People in Israel don't really care about stuff that comes out of UN.
Seeing PG slowly turn on this issue, from nothing into recognition and now into advocacy has been wild. Presumably because he has kids, and like many parents you understand with your eyes first, and then your heart.
PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list.
I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.
PG has written in public about this for over 20 years. See "I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet" in https://paulgraham.com/say.html.
For those of us not in the loop, what is PG, SV, and YC (I guess that the latter is ycombinator)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) (YC Co-founder)
Silicon Valley
YCombinator yes
Is he still vocal about it? Do you have any recent comments of his to share?
He is, he regularly posts about it on X. I really admire his commitment to ethics. It says a lot that even for him, it must be difficult.
My best friend since childhood is Jewish and has a difficult time even acknowledging there is an issue. My other friend works for an Israeli company and the jokes are about what they’re going to do with the flattened Gaza land.
I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned).
Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians?
There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
I suppose the question is why do they remain your friends? What is the threshold at which you'd stop calling them that?
It is eye opening remaining friends with people who's views and actions are completely opposed to ones own. There's no point attempting to educate them (often it makes them go harder against you). But by finding out about their lives and understanding where fear has replaced love one can learn a lot. And hopefully use that knowledge to find ways to speak out and create a society that aligns with ones ethics.
I agree to an extent, but supporting genocide is a crossed Rubicon.
Him cutting off his relationships won’t help anyone, nor change any minds. I understand the impulse, but everyone loses from that.
If they were going to change their mind, they likely would have already. If you're watching people starve to death, and defending it as normal politics, you don't care about others. You don't get out of harmful relationships for them, you do it for you.
If you find something morally reprehensible then staying friends is harmful to you surely?
Can they be called a "friend"? Or is it a case of friends close, enemies closer?
I have two close friends with extremely pro-Zionist views, Friend A and Friend B. The recent number of atrocities has been so atrocious that Friend A has reconsidered their views, they've started yelling at Friend B for their unrequited support of Israel's policies in all things.
I think it was the recent double tap missile strike of the hospital workers, journalist and first-responders that did it.
How are these people your friends in the first place
Random sidenote, but Brits in SF tend to give me unexpected civic pride.
Huh - I didn't know he was a West Country boy.
Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?"
I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I've been a fan of PG's since reading the plan for spam essay in high school, and was a very early reddit user after he boosted it (join date Nov 2005). I have several friends who did YC at various points and was always a bit bummed that my career/life took a different direction and I didn't get the chance.
Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.
I used to shame PG for his elitist views. Now I celebrate his moral courage.
One man cannot fix everything.
Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo),
As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
> Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.
i think it's worth stating simply and unequivocally that denying or defending a genocide that is the culmination of a century of colonialism and apartheid is Bad
The situation on the ground is far more complex than your simplified summary.
Genocide is not complicated.
Genocide is both extreme and labour-intensive. No one wakes up in the morning and decides to become an extremist; it takes an awful lot to turn someone into an extremist. That 'awful lot' has to happen to many people for a genocide to actually happen.
The genocide itself is simple enough; the thousands of years of conflict leading to the genocide are not. Anyone who believes they can unpick all that history to come to a neat conclusion about who are the 'goodies' and who are the 'baddies' is a fool.
My only interest in this conflict is in keeping it as far away from myself, my kith and my kin as possible.
I actually do think there are people in the Israeli government who wake up in the morning and work very hard all day planning on how to move every single Palestinian, dead or alive, out of Gaza and the West Bank.
Sources?
Nazi Germany provided people the opportunity to become an extremist by answering a job ad, and put together a whole murderous infrastructure of extremism in about a decade.
The vast majority of Germans had no idea about the holocaust. It wasn't even well known outside Germany until a decade later IIRC.
What's happening in Gaza is different because now we have cell phones and the Internet, and AI isn't quite good enough yet to fake a genocide.
That's certainly not true. They perhaps didn't know the full details, but Hitler was very clear about his intention to eradicate Jews from Europe even in 1939 when the Holocaust had barely started.
They definitely knew that Jews were being rounded up and sent to camps for slave labor in horrid and dangerous conditions that would kill many of them.
There are no goodies in this conflict, it doesn't matter whether some folks refuse to acknowledge their own tribe or ethnicity is doing or done some absolutely horrible things. No amount of whatabouttism is changing that, rest are details.
When anybody has doubts about how fucked up world and humans are, I just direct them into this medium-term conflict, facts are easy enough to find.
I think what happens is things come from people with certain views, who seem to be part of some specific tribe, and so the presumption is they’re just spinning a thing for their own angle.
This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.
Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.
"genocide good" ? that can't be, but it seems to be the case for a vocal minority on HN (I got banned several times over the last two years for accusing Israel of genocide ad starting a shit storm of angry mob comments)
> Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.
"you assumed the comment was being downvoted, "
It has been ranging between -1 to 3, so a mix of votes and downvotes. It is 0 as of the time of this reply.
EDIT: -1 now right after I pressed submit.
> It's being abused.
Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
Yes but it hides the comment for most users. This is of course besides the flagging abuse which outright delists websites.
Downvoting moves the comment down the reply tree and greys it out making it harder to read. Flagging comments completely hides them from many users, especially when logged in. And flagging submissions sends them to oblivion.
So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
The fact that you can’t see any reason other than bigotry why this comment would be down voted is exactly what he was talking about in his essay on wokeness.
Hard to put into words how those people act like the devil incarnate and a lot of the scene pretends that this doesn't matter.
The downvote are actually proving my point
Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts, but in the era of anti-BDS regulation and other measures aimed specifically at curtailing practical freedom of speech surrounding this conflict, can we really comment freely on this without anonymity? The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation. We can also expect corporate retaliation against employees who speak about this issue in a "wrong way".
> Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts
I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.
For anyone else not familiar with "anti-BDS":
"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."
From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."
From a historical, economic, social perspective... Why does Israel hold so much power over the world?
Most of geopolitics is geography and Israel has greatly benefitted as a unique bridgehead in hostile territory for a changing roster of great-powers and states against another foe e.g.
- Early Soviet support to undermine British Imperialism
- Balfour Declaration from Britain vs. Ottomans
- Nuclear tech from France vs. Nasser and anti-colonialism
- Military/Nuclear from Apartheid South Africa vs. shared pariah status
- Hegemonic power from the US vs. every unaligned country including Cold War, OPEC, Arab Nationalism, Islamism
The more recent metastasising of support into a political-religous-racial belief-system is even more troubling than the apocalyptic machinations of great powers because pure ideology departs from reason itself and is untethered to any care for the consequences.
The theory I've been operating under is that Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII, and operates essentially as a vassal state of the US's commercial military interests as a totally intractable perma-war in the region to ensure that even in lieu of other conflict taxpayer money can continuously be laundered to them in the form of expended munitions.
There's obviously a lot more going on from a social/religious perspective, but I'm prone to thinking of large-scale shifts and trends in terms of economic incentives.
I believe it's the other way around: The western governments, media and legislative bodies are under Israeli control.
Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?
https://idsb.tmgrup.com.tr/ly/uploads/images/2024/07/28/thum...
Have you see the strange photos of all US politicians with yamakas near this wall in Israel as if they're pledging allegiance to something?
It's humiliating
It is humiliating, but that makes no sense at all from a power dynamics perspective. Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially. The US's military industrial complex is, and basically every politician is beholden to powerful capital interests, the MIC among them. Unconditional and enthusiastic support of Israel, then, is a proxy for support of those financial interests, hence the visits, deference, etc. This backed up by the very real threat of a handful of powerful lobbying groups that will and have coordinated to redirect funding to opponents of anyone they deem insufficiently deferential.
Recall please Grover Norquist. In the 90s and 2000s he leveraged proximity with the post-Reagan new conservative wave to grow a relatively modest org, Americans for Tax Reform, to a near universal policy chokehold on the Republican party.
Through a socially viral "no net new tax" promise, once Norquist secured pledges from party leaders, essentially all federal elected Republicans had to pledge as well. They were otherwise threatened with losing endorsement from Norquist and faced being ostracized and primaried. The leaders themselves were then caught in the net and none felt like they could break.
ATR influence has waned in the face of MAGA's more populist fiscal liberalism, but that was pretty much just one guy.
Extend that singular goal to a network with a narrow and aligned interest, and it can be very effectively maintained with intelligent and shifting messaging and reputation management. Consider how people like Loomer and Raichik that have emerged, not through established power brokers, but organically through social media platforms, and the significant influence they possess even in the White House.
Mossad is the missing link here.
They have power by being able to expose western leaders for any number of hypocrisies.
Or more likely outright blackmail. The curious handling of the Epstein scandal comes to mind.
A Tablet columnist recently wrote that suspecting a Jewish person of blackmailing is an anti-Semitic trope.
https://firstthings.com/the-epstein-myth/
Far too many conflate critique of Israel with critique of Judaism.
israel is #7 destination for weapons exports in usa with 3.6%
https://nordicdefencereview.com/u-s-tops-arms-trade-while-al...
I see we are going full conspiracy theories in this thread...
How can you say it’s a conspiracy theory when you see tons of verified news articles with all of these Western politicians so supplicant to Israel and Israeli politicians?
What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.
Perhaps they have an understanding of the history of the region that goes further back than 2022, to truly understand this conflict you have to go back a couple hundred years.
If you read history and understand that Jews are persecuted and murdered in every country that is not Israel, what are they supposed to do?
Should we blame the Ottoman Empire for not industrializing earlier and losing the technology race to Europe and collapsing? After all, if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t collapsed at the end of WW I, Palestine would likely still be a Muslim territory.
That’s how far back you have to go to find a good starting point to explain how the conflict got to the point it’s at now.
Every genocide has a justification that makes complete sense to the people carrying out or abetting the genocide.
> Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially.
Its not just funding and religious indoctrination. The very, very serious question that nobody seems to have the courage to ask, is this: where are Israels nukes?
The answer to that question might provide some insight into why things are so supplicant in certain halls of power ...
Are you fsuggesting Israel has a nuclear sub off the east coast or something? Why would nukes in Israel influence washington?
Israels nukes are man-portable.
Israel wasn't created from nothing post-WW2. It was already 50 years into building a jewish state in first the Ottoman Empire and then British Palestine. Holocaust refugees, although symbolically important, were never a large portion of Israel's immigrant population.
The UN declaration was recognition of reality on the ground. And was, btw, rejected by the Arab parties and doesn't carry the force of international law. Israel declared its independence irregardless of the resolution the following year.
How much land did Jews own then and how much did they have after 48?
Jerusalem was Jewish majority decades before the British mandate began.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
The answer is that jews owned around 6% of the land but got 56% in the partition.
And Arabs owned about 8% of the land. Still more than the Jews, but nowhere near the 94% implied by omission.
In any case, go look at the malaria maps and desert areas. Notice how they match up with the areas allocated to Jews. The Jews may have gotten allocated slightly more land, but it was not fertile or desirable land.
IIRC and AFAIK the plans for Israel were made by the precursors to UN way before Holocaust.
Holocaust was not the reason for the plan for a Jewish national home in historic Israel, Arab persecution of Jews in the region was.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
Another possible explanation: Israel is a leading spyware manufacturer (e.g. Pegasus). They are probably involved in 'sensitive' eavesdropping operations world-wide, and quite likely, have data that would scare the world's leaders to even think not supporting Israel.
Isn't that found out that the "alternative" Signal client US Government officials are unofficially using is "backing-up" messages to company's server (probably in Israel).
This is a huge leverage.
It doesn’t. The US does, however, and the US has for decades put all of its weight behind Israel. Without that, Israel would probably have faced the same fate as apartheid South Africa.
The current genocide is to blame on the US as much as on Israel.
You're explaining what people can see. The question was why this happens though.
Why does this one country have such unwavering support? Why is the current president for example not trying to save some money by just not giving it to them?
> Why does Israel hold so much power over the world?
Because it holds so much power over the government of the United States, and thereby benefits from the power the United States has over the world.
Because protecting Israel is part of America's mythology.
Worth having a listen to Aaron Good, author of 'American Exception' being interviewed by Jeffrey Sachs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXvuOG33zLs
Some of the gist of what he talks about:
Just as there is an 'underworld', there is also a corresponding and related 'overworld'. Essentially organised crime, corporations, and security services cooperating in nefarious ways (often usurping - though not always violently - the power of states).
It's arguable that Israel is particularly interested and involved in this 'overworld'. See the early history of the CIA, FBI, Meyer Lansky and the mob, Epstein, the reach and effectiveness of Mossad relative to other similar organisations, etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I believe that most significant western leaders have probably been compromised in some way by 'overworld' influences. Look at what happens to 'the wrong type of candidate' that gets too close to power. Jeremy Corban was thoroughly and dishonestly scandalised by a campaign instigated and supported by Israeli interests. Why? The complete bandwagon type behaviour of mainstream British press of the left and right in that campaign is very reminiscent of the way recent mainstream media coverage reports on Gaza - it looks coordinated and in unison.
Of course, I'm probably wrong. Just trying to make sense of the madness I see around me.
TLDR; My theory is that Israel has corrupted our media and politicians through a nexus of nefarious actors that Aaron Good refers to as the 'overworld'.
Is Israel able to cast this "overworld" power over China?
No. But interestingly Netanyahu just called out China as a state conspiring against Israel's interests. So rather than trying to corrupt China's political system in their favour the approach appears to be to frame them as an explicit enemy. I'm sure we'll start to hear more of this from Israel regarding China.
what power exactly Israel holds over the world ?
Threats of assassination, and other dirty intelligence operations to blackmail and coerce politicians. Lavish gifts, paid vacations and campaign assistance for any politician who plays ball. Nuclear threats. Religious influence.
none
Certainly holds significant influence over the US government.
Most of the US is pro israel. Therefore most of our government is pro israel. It is not complicated.
>Why does Israel hold so much power over the world?
Undeclared and un-identified nukes.
Arab nations have made invasions to Europe on a regular basis throughout history. That practically stopped when Israel was created.
Israel has been an amazing success for Western security.
> The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation.
“Some form of” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, to the point of being dishonest propaganda. E.g., California is counted as one of those states based on AB 2844 of 2016. Which, to be fair, started out [0] as an actual anti-BDS bill (targeting state contracting only, but still an anti-BDS bill.) But the form that actually passed and became law does nothing that actually impacts BDS; it requires that state contractors with contracts of over $100,000 certify under penalty of perjury that (1) they are in compliance with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and that (2) any policy they have against a “sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States of America”, explicitly including but not limited to Israel, is not applied in a way which discriminates in violation of either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
It is not, in any meaningful sense, an anti-BDS law.
[0] Well, “started out” isn’t really true, either, since it was introduced as a technical change the an environmental health law replacing "Department of Health Services” with “Department of Public Health” in one section of law, reflecting a reorganization that had occurred subsequent to the law passing, went through a “gut and amend” switch to become a bill that would add new sampling requirements for drinking water, then went through another “gut and amend” to become an anti-BDS bill focussed on public contracting. But then it went through a number of more regular amendments which stripped out all the anti-BDS parts—both the operative anti-BDS language and the proposed legislative findings and declarations of purpose at the opening, replacing both the operative provisionsn and the findings and declaration portions with anti-discrimination rather than anti-BDS provisions.
I think it's a legitimate worry, but I don't think using our old accounts give us any less protections than throwaway accounts. And I doubt the people that would make such accounts have anything of interest to add to the discussion.
This is contradictory. If it's a legitimate worry, then it's reasonable for reasonable people to want to make such accounts. And reasonable people are exactly those who have things of interest.
From an HNer I'd also expect the understanding that yes, old accounts does give less protections, trivially from an information theory perspective.
Every time I've looked into the arguments for this being a genocide, I saw, at best, a description of urban warfare. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone is still reading this thread, could you write what you believe will happen after Israel won the war?
I more or less agree with you (if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper), but the report does have some specific examples of things that seem to go beyond "just" urban warfare. For example, Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder, which can serve no legitimate military purpose (except trying to prosecute the war via starvation of babies, which is illegal). When combined with the public statements from Israeli government officials that denigrate the Palestinians in Gaza as animals, I think there's definitely _some_ crimes against humanity being committed by Israel.
> you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank
The Israeli government doesn't have to. They let settlers take care of that for them without any repercussions.
animals comment (iirc made by galant) is misused. it was refering to hamas/pji/pflp that raided Israel on Oct 7th and not to the whole population
Given the deliberate creation of unlivable conditions on the ground and the absence of any viable plan for restoring Palestinian life and sovereignty, the civilian population of Gaza faces two primary and foreseeable outcomes:
Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathematical certainty in the coming months. A significant portion of the population, especially the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses—will perish even if direct hostilities were to cease. This is the direct and inevitable consequence of the "conditions of life" that have been imposed.
Permanent displacement and demographic change: For the remaining population, survival inside a Gaza that has been rendered uninhabitable will become a practical impossibility. The complete lack of housing, clean water, food, healthcare, and economic activity will create immense and unbearable pressure for civilians to flee the land in order to survive. This outcome aligns directly with the legal definitions of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, as identified by human rights organizations. It is also the logical endpoint of a strategy that involves mass evacuation orders followed by the total destruction of the evacuated areas, and it serves as a necessary precondition for post-war plans that require an "emptied out" territory for foreign-led redevelopment.
The military campaign, therefore, should not be viewed merely as a precursor to a post-war settlement. Rather, it is actively creating the physical and demographic preconditions for a specific type of post-war reality—one that precludes the existence of a viable, self-governing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. The destruction is not an unfortunate obstacle to be overcome during reconstruction; it appears to be the first and most critical phase of a reconstruction model that requires a tabula rasa. This connects the seemingly separate phases of "war" and "post-war," revealing them as a continuous process. The objective is not simply to defeat a military opponent, but to physically and demographically re-engineer the Gaza Strip to make it amenable to a future state that serves external interests and permanently prevents Palestinian sovereignty. The evidence strongly suggests that the intended outcome of the current strategy is a Gaza Strip largely, if not entirely, devoid of its Palestinian population.
Some basic observations:
28% of children under five are actively malnourished.
IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza. 100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.
Food distribution is being limited by the IDF and administered violently by US military contractors. https://youtu.be/uKpkZNAFwkc?si=4K3XeQmxbxF23tGO
The economy is completely dismantled.
63% of all buildings (including homes) have being destroyed. https://youtube.com/shorts/GLTurLL6lB0?si=AywZxmGTjhNa6zQv
90% of the population is displaced.
94% of hospitals are destroyed. The only remaining hospital is Nasser. https://youtu.be/mTqSq1xokeM?si=QAczyYx19jCbg3H5
Two weeks ago, journalists were targeted in an attack at Nasser hospital. Journalists are being targeted to scare them away and prevent what’s occurring from being shown to the world. https://youtu.be/xAK1w9r2J54?si=-ZvG-55KBKNZbqt9
And do you think we defeated the nazis by leaving their food intact? By leaving their bomb factories intact?
Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed?
War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.
Do you realize that words like "they" and "the other side" are greatly reductive and lack much needed nuance?
Counterfactual: let's say Israel had never blocked food or other aid (or at least not more than since before October 7) but everything else were the same. Would it still be considered a genocide?
The evidence for genocide would be substantially weaker.
The trouble is, what is the right medium or long term solution. If Israel militarily fails as a state, which seems to me to be an implicit aim of a significant number of anti-Israel folks, the results will make the current Gaza conflict look like a joke.
You are misinterpreting the facts. Israel bombing Qatar for instance is only going to bring them more hate from Arabians, they could have fought back on the hamas while maintaining peace with the rest of the Arab world.
There was an alliance in 2020 between Israel and UAE United Arab Emirates. No need to say that it’s not the most promising alliance anymore.
Other countries that were neutral on Israel see their arabian population utterly hate Israel so they have to adapt and behave consequently.
They manage to unite the whole Arab front against them when they should have played on their division.
This is really a bad plan on long term. Despite what trump is saying, Iran nuclear weapon is very close. They failed on that matter too although there was a real opportunity with the agreement during Obama.
I don’t see a bright future for Israel in these conditions, all the weapons in the world can’t defeat hate from 450 millions Arabians.
Beside, people don’t want Israel military to fail, they want it to stop killing 80% civilians and 50% women and children. That’s completely different.
Short-term, Israel should have pumped the breaks on disproportionate response. Dahiya doctrine never worked, and now Hamas has successfully leveraged it to win (undue!) international credibility.
If a policy of de-escalation can be honored, you can lay the groundwork for a medium/long term solution that respects all sovereign parties.
What does de-escalation look like in Gaza? Allowing Hamas to regroup and re-arm, so they can repeat October 7 as they publicly promised to do?
A newly created throwaway account, repeating the prop of a genocidal military. Surely you can do better than this.
Actually it's quite a good point, because no one in this thread has suggested a sustainable long-term solution for this mutual madness. Hamas without question wishes for the total destruction of Israel.
The starting points are not so difficult to come up with:
(1) Stop of all armed offensives.
(2) Complete dismantling of genocidal and corrupt government. Netanyahu and his gang in front of international courts, and then afterwards additionally in front of an Israeli court.
(3) Partial disarming of Israel, to restore a balance in the region, and keeping them from attacking more countries. Defensive weapons they may all keep, maybe even get more, but it really needs to be defensive stuff, for example to intercept missiles/rockets. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is needed more in Ukraine right now, which should take priority over Israeli needs.
(4) Organization of elections. Israel needs to get back from authoritarianism to functioning democracy. This might be done with international help. Possibly reforms, that strengthen courts, so that a second Netanyahu is unlikely to happen again.
(5) Long running rebuilding projects in at least Gaza, if not more countries, financed by Israel.
(6) Probably some international peacekeeping will be needed. This should not only include personnel from western countries. Must be from countries not directly involved and not from the US, or some EU countries, that supplied weapons used for the genocide.
(7) Negotiations are on again, this time with a new government, and mostly about how Israel thinks to aim for a peaceful future, in which it gives back illegally annexed territories, including, of course, illegal settlements in the west bank. This also includes all the illegally taken or occupied territory since founding, back to internationally recognized borders.
That's mostly the Israeli side of things. Of course Hamas will also have to make concessions. For example there could also be disarming of Hamas, where this is the price to pay for release of prisoners and a portion of the illegally occupied territories by Israel. Hamas shouldn't be helpless, but also shouldn't be able to launch new significant offensives.
There are many things, that can be done, and they are not difficult to see. They are difficult to execute in the current climate, where the powerful country has an authoritarian leadership, that is unwilling to compromise.
Define the destruction of Israel as Hamas sees it, because I think alot of details are getting lost there, and many assumptions are made within it
The Hamas charter states that their goal, and the responsibility of every Muslim, is Islam, and Islam must obliterate the Zionist state.
Zionist state - So that is the state, that thinks, that the land is god given theirs, right? Maybe such a state should disappear and a sane state appear in its stead. It may be that Hamas has a different understanding of that, but I think, that this religious fanatics state thing is no good for Israel as a country anyway. It would do them good to get rid of that ideological baggage.
But I'll tell you who does think that certain land can only belong to people of a specific race. People who call the holy land "Palestinian land". The invention of that term was, as are many of the anti-Jewish arguments, an inversion of the Jewish use of "God -given land". And just as you reject the idea when it is used by Jews, so would a logical person reject the idea when used by our enemies.
GP wasn't me, but it's a great question.
What does de-escalation look like in Gaza? Allowing Hamas to regroup and re-arm, so they can repeat October 7 as they publicly promised to do?
i'm ashamed of how long it took, i don't even know what words to use to explain that life matters, that all lives have the same value, and that death is bad
its crazy the number of people downvoting me for this, sadly i will not compromise on my beliefs
I didn't downvote you but I can understand people who did - your comment doesn't add meaningfully to the conversation because it doesn't add any new ideas or food for thought that the reader doesn't already have. It just expresses your frustration with the state of affairs.
While there is a place for that kind of comment in certain kinds of conversations, many people come to Hacker News to engage in curious and enlightening conversation instead of emotional echo chambers present elsewhere on the Internet.
By contrast, check out this sub thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45259553#45273473
I upvoted a number of comments there with opposing viewpoints because I appreciated that they made me think about things in a deeper way than I had previously, while avoiding anger or insults.
Hello, thanks for your comment but i don't think there's anything bad in frustration, anger and sometimes insults, i think emotional intelligence is a meaningfull addition to these kind of conversations, particularly when empathy and other natural human emotions have been demonized to this point. I also think that some angers and frustrations are perfectly healthy, i even think that in some cases it is not sane to not feel. Anyways thanks to those who don't downvote, seeya
I think what the parent comment was trying to emphasize is that making comments that don't contribute towards a discussion is against the guidelines of HN.
Comments like your original one, that only expresses your emotions, fall under this category, and are frowned upon. Not the opinion contained in your comment, but the comment itself.
HN users also use the downvote+flag buttons to enforce these guidelines. The downvote button is not an indication of user disagreement here the way it is on other sites.
I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).
Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable. Indeed, the US would rather sanction individuals at the ICJ than acknowledge any sort of legitimacy—even as our own politicians accuse Russia of engaging in "war crimes". I have no doubt that they are, in fact, I think that the evidence is quite damning. But the double standard is striking, as is the difference between the footage visible on social media and what is acknowledged when you turn on the TV or open the paper.
> break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.
this is never going to happen. there is just no practical enforcement mechanism. laws and police works within a sovereign country because the state has the monopoly on violence, this is not true on the international stage. no country will go into war to enforce an ICC/ICJ conviction.
I'm illiterate on international law, but does anything exist/is similar to the UN's peace keeping forces but for the enforcement of judicial decisions on the international scale?
A country that wanted an excuse might use it.
> Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.
Since the mid 90s the world has proven to turn their head on the other side or pick good/bad narratives out of mere convenience.
It started with the Yugoslavian wars, it absolutely exploded after 9/11 when US could straight up lie about non existing WMD and drag 10 of their allies to fight Iraq "for reasons". It confirmed itself in a countless number of conflicts nobody cared about in Africa, Middle East, Asia.
It makes it worse by reducing pressure on Hamas to surrender, increasing the duration of the war. Grotesque virtue signalling.
Surely if a surrender takes place, it will be merely symbolic. I cannot imagine anyone can convince a population so terrorized to forgive or forget.
Japanese civilians experienced far worse in WW2, and they forgot pretty quickly. The war against the Tamil Tigers would be another case study. Once the radicalism is dealt with by force, the ratcheting of violence is reduced, and people move on.
Japanese had it bad for 2-3 years. After that they were allowed to live in their country with their own leadership. Palestinians have it bad for 80 years, they are not allowed to return to their homeland, and we expect them to live in closely monitored concentration camps.
A persecuted minority was granted independence from a previously colonial, totalitarian, theocratic state. Since then they have been engaged in an perpetual war of terror.
Japan and Germany had it 'easy' because their defeat was so brutal, and their de-radicalization was so thorough.
Israel's real crime was being too lenient after the 6 days war, exposing themselves and radicalized Palestinians to the violence that's lasted to this day.
Israel didn't kill enough civilians and didn't steal enough land after the war they started, sanest zionist reply in here.
> they forgot pretty quickly
There was a huge Allied reconstruction effort in Japan (and Germany, and a lot of Europe, and elsewhere). I very much doubt there would be something similar for Palestine. Or Syria. Or, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would be an effort which spent a huge amount of money for zero effect outside the US compound.
> Japanese civilians experienced far worse in WW2, and they forgot pretty quickly
Because the vast majority of the Japanese people barely faced any kind of obstacles in the same way Palestinians are facing. Yes, they had food shortages and their wooden homes were bombed constantly to oblivion, and they suffered a couple of nuclear blasts, but that was because their history lessons teach their WW2 as something in which they were the aggressor (with Pearl Harbor, not the invasions of China and Korea). In Palestine's case, it will take much longer to wipe out that resentment. Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
The analogy would be if the allies plan for ending WW2 was to ethnically cleanse the Japanese archipelago and expel Japanese people into, say, camps in Xinjiang. I imagine if they had consistently telegraphed such a plan for years during the war, the resistance might have continued longer.
You appear to be unaware of the multiple genocidal statements made by the allies towards the Japanese.
Before Japan was defeated, their military propaganda was that they were victims of encirclement and an oil blockade, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was a justified response to this victimhood. They started teaching a different story only because the allies forced them to change their curriculum. The same process of deradicalization will be forced onto Gaza after the defeat of Hamas. And why did you overlook the Tamil Tigers case study? And why would you euphemize nuclear bombs onto civilian cities like this, as if it isn't significantly more brutal than anything the Palestinians have been subjected to?
> Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
A luxury belief that's only possible to hold because Israel is militarily dominant to the point that the radical views prevalent in Palestinian culture cannot be acted out. The Israelis know this luxury belief is factually false, that's why they are the way they are.
> and why would you euphemize nuclear bombs onto civilian cities like this, as if it isn't significantly more brutal than anything the Palestinians have been subjected to?
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2025/gaza-bombing-eq...
> Gaza bombing ‘equivalent to six Hiroshimas’
How can six Hiroshimas kill less civilians than the actual Hiroshima (let alone the fire bombings) despite much higher density? The answer to this question might unlock something in your mind.
We don't have anhthing like a complete count of the dead yet. The 60k number the media still reports has barely moved in a year because Israel destroyed almost all of the health infrastructure that used to report deaths, and even before that people trapped in the rubble and not identified by anyone weren't counted.
That's true, but that 60k number isn't just civilians, and even if the total civilian count is higher than 60k, it's still likely lower than the civilians killed in Hiroshima, which is an inconvenient fact best left unmentioned by those who say that Israel has unleashed six Hiroshimas onto a location that's over 10x higher density than 1945 Hiroshima. How do you resolve this discrepancy?
There's no discrepancy because there aren't numbers. The 60,000 number is a dramatic undercount. The fatalities were being undercounted even before Israel had attacked every hospital in Gaza multiple times. There are mass graves occasionally found in Gaza but nobody is able to go through and document everything while they're still being genocided. In any situation like this it takes decades of research to try to reach an accurate count and even then there are is huge uncertainty, particularly when whole extended families are murdered all at once. Look at the Hiroshima death toll estimates - between 90,000 and 166,000 people killed. And this is the best estimate after decades of research. Almost none of that can take place now in Gaza.
But of course I'm talking to someone who pretends to believe you can carpet bomb an entire city of 2 million people relentlessly, cut off food and water, and kill fewer than 60,000 civilians.
I mean, there is a discrepancy, because even if I grant you your wildest guess as the base case, it is still going to be vastly lower than 6 Hiroshimas, despite 10x higher density, which makes no sense. So maybe it is not "carpet bombing", at least not how it was done in WW2 or Vietnam, and maybe such vague, loaded words are being deployed more for rhetorical effect than for descriptive accuracy. It kind of looks like ... a war?
> Once the radicalism is dealt with by force, the ratcheting of violence is reduced, and people move on.
If the radicalism is the product of decades of force, how could the further use of force possibly result in the reduction of radicalism?
> I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).
I don't think recognition as a State would really change anything. If at least one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council will veto everything that comes up, the UN won't effectively intervene in the situation. Military intervention in such a case is unlikely, unless at least one permanent member is willing to join an intervention coalition. Looking at conflicts the US has been involved in, it usually lines up around the lines with US maybe with their usual friends vs Locals or Locals and Russia and friends. The only one I found where the pattern was when France started sending arms to Nicaragua while the US was supporting the other side [1]. Unless Russia or China wants to support the Palestinians militarily, or the US decides not to no longer support Israel militarily, there's not much chance of outside intervention here.
Given the outside countries can't effectively intervene, recognizing the state of Palestine at least sends a message, that maybe hopefully influences the US?
[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0715/071566.html
China and Russia would prefer to turn Israel away from the US and more or less fortify their influence in the Middle East. Much more rewarding.
There's not really much of a state to recognize in the first place, is there? Maybe this would have made a big difference 30 years ago, but now?
If it were recognized as a state, it would need a lot of outside help. But if there was agreement on the territory and acknowledement of its sovereignty, an effective state could be worked toward in ways that aren't feasible when under seige or even simply occupation.
30 years ago, conditions for peace and the start of a newly recognized state seemed better, yes. But the situation hasn't resolved itself by being left as-is either.
The international community is a worthwhile endeavour. But all other countries play at the behest of the US and now, also China.
Between them, the rest have only local influence.
In the international community the double standard was always against Israel aside maybe when it declared independence. The external enemy to distract the peasants from relevant problems. It doesn't have a lot of maturity. Perhaps the UN will go the league of nations if the current Gx hegemony loses control.
Wonder why this made the frontpage when other political articles die.
Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?
No, the rules haven't changed—they've been the same for many years. Let me try to dig up some past explanations.
Edit: here's one from a few months ago, which covers the principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815.
Re how we approach political topics on HN in general: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Re how we deal with Major Ongoing Topics, i.e. topics where there are a ton of articles and submissions over time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re how we approach turning off flags: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re the perception that "HN has been getting more political lately" (spoiler: it hasn't - though it does fluctuate): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
If you or anyone will check out some of those links and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Looking at the official HN guidelines, it states that "Most stories about politics" is off-topic, and "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".
Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?
Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.
Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.
Yes, but as pg once put it, "note those words most and probably" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426). That was in 2012, btw, which shows how far back HN's approach to this goes.
That leaves open the question of which stories to treat as on topic, but the links in my GP comment go into detail about how we handle that.
I'm not saying we always make the correct call about individual stories. There will never be general agreement about that, since every reader has a different set of things they care about. But I hope we can at least make the principles clear, as well as the fact that they haven't changed.
fwiw I think y'all do a fine enough job of dealing with this difficult nuanced stance. I've noticed that when they stick around, it appears to be a combo of: this seems important enough, the community can probably have a civil conversation around this, people who don't participate will find learnings through the comments still. These 3 things always seem well satisfied, personally I appreciate the measured nature of this community and thank you and tom for the genuine work of trying to maintain the balances.
> There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.
That doesn't seem true to me. I'm seeing lots of opinions I don't agree with.
Israel and Israeli businesses are an intractable part of the modern American tech scene. Mellanox, for example, is the cited reason Nvidia ships any datacenter-scale interconnect at all today. America's highest-tech defense contractors work in direct concert with Rafael et. al, and companies like Cellebrite are suppliers of US law enforcement.
When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
you aren't using the word "intractable" right. meant "inextricable" maybe.
> When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
If the topics and responses pertained to such a discussion, then that would be one thing. However, it seems like that is not what is being discussed in this topic nor comments section.
Yet buried 3 or 4 levels in the comments is where you find this post :)
I think it always has the potential to be "intellectually satisfying" and there's an obvious 'tech' angle woven through it all. So much of it is tied to how information spreads and which technologies enable that. (And, how an actor can use technologies to their advantage).
I think that reference to "TV news" is outdated. Media has changed and there isn't even a clear division between what a media org puts on TV vs on the web.
And this sub-topic in particular (genocide ruling) isn't really getting a ton of mainstream news coverage -- many news orgs are deliberately distancing themselves from proper coverage. The story may exist on news sites, but it's not being surfaced.
> A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
Personally, one aspect I always enjoyed about this site was how it was often an escape for me from the endless bombardments of political discourse that is constantly being shown/recommend to me on other platforms. I do understand the importance of the nature of these types of discussions, but I agree with you, I am not certain much honest debate is being had here.
In the n number of threads like this, I would be surprised if many leave with any of their opinions changed. All too often do people comment to soothe their own knee-jerk reactions rather than to facilitate understanding or intellectually challenge one another.
Conversely, some of us don't hang out on sites that are an endless bombardment of political discourse. That sounds awful. The HN approach seems uniquely useful. One or two post on an event, easily skipped over and ignored if you want with all the comments hidden behind clicking on that headline. Whole trees of comments trivially collapsed at will when they become uninteresting. It is actually a really great way of getting international news (including US news for me) and sampling opinions and commentary, even if it was not intended that way.
Because it's BS. The rules are secondary to someone's political agenda.
[flagged]
Please make your substantive points without crossing into personal attack.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Just wanna say this is the kind of day where I feel like I should send you a fruit basket or something for the work you do here.
I think you are the only good moderator on the internet.
It would be interesting to know how articles like this compared to the average article. How are the ratios of downvotes to upvotes, flagged to non-flagged, and comments to views? Are people who comment here positively or negative correlating to creating non-flaged/downvoted comments on other articles?
To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?
Many more downvotes and flags for sure. I can't answer your other questions without specifically looking into it, but my guess would be many more comments and much more negativity.
When having a politically-controversial long-running Major Ongoing Topic with multiple unflagged submissions, is there any obligation to keep some semblance of balance over the submissions that get flags disabled? When the articles making the front page disproportionately favor one side, it is hard to not get the impression that these are the only articles on that issue getting flags disabled.
One question went unanswered: Can we get an Epstein thread this week?
For me, this is meaningful because for the first time a legitimate international body is calling this a genocide.
Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.
Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other. The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians". That idea was because Israel could name 17% of the casualties in Hamas registers as members of the organization. But assuming that every other casualty is a civilian is quite a stretch. For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills while he's aiming an RPG at them. For another, there are many other militant organizations in the strip, notably the Islamic Jihad. For a third, typically 75% - 90% of the casualties of war are civilians by the UN's own numbers.
Pages 51-54 contain a list of on-the-record quotes from the government itself. Those, at least, are not in contention.
And they are interpreted in the fashion most damning to Israel, whereas much worse on-the-record quotes from other bodies, notably those bodies which have demonstrated intent to destroy Israel, are interpreted more favourably.
When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished -- then your words indicating this is deliberate, given it could only be deliberate anyway, are interpreted differently, yes.
When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.
One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.
Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.
If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.
> When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished
Show me the evidence. You can find Arabic speaking influencers eating out in Gaza on social media. You can find security camera images of full supermarkets. The facts on the ground don’t match the narrative.
Far from withholding food, most of the food coming into Gaza now is via the Israel government, which is doing an end run around Hamas to get food to the people. Because Hamas, not the IDF, was shooting up aid trucks and taking all the food, both for their own use and to sell at inflated prices.
Hamas via MENA media companies is pushing the narrative of a famine because controlling the food supply is a primary means of extracting money from the population to further the war. Get Americans and Europeans to donate to starving Gazans, to fill the coffers of Hamas.
Here's an interview with a UNICEF worker who has spent a great deal of time on the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
Here's an interview with a UNICEF worker who has spent a great deal of time on the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of water, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.
This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas.
There's a very large list of actions that can only be targeted against the civilian population, and have aimed-at and realised a genocide.
It's a bit of a catch-22.
Sending food wherever, leads to it being captured by Hamas / local militias (for lack of a better word) so you have to distribute where you can protect it.
But of course where you have soldiers is where you'll take fire.
Maybe she cared about your own people, you wouldn't engage in places where humanitarian aid was being distributed
I'd invite you to watch the interview, all of this is addressed. The israeli placement of 4 aid distribution centres (out of the required and initial 400) has nothing to do with hamas.
Even the Israeli military admits that there is zero evidence of Hamas stealing aid.
> Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other...
You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills
Does it at least know who it is raping?
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-867600> The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians".
Which means that at least 83% are.
Nobody knowledgeable about the circumstances of that number could reasonably come to the conclusion you've come to.
Go look at the report and the org and the people in it.
There is nothing "legitimate" about it.
The head of this alleged body is a staunch anti-Israel activist who is not taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Pillay#Israel-Gaza_confli...
"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "
Francesca Albanese has held the genocide line since day one as the UN special rapporteur on israel and palestine
She's hardly impartial. Her husband worked for the Palestinian Authority.
Ooh, can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?
Wait, you know people who were killed by Hamas? You can’t even pretend to be impartial.
> can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?
The point is that, as someone with limited stakes in this war and limited exposure to its history until recently, unbiased sources have been hard to come by. The entire definition of genocide has been politicised. That isn't a criticism of anyone doing it--language is a powerful tool, and it's fair game to try and bend definitions to one's advantage. But all that makes piercing the veil on whether this is the horribleness of war being selectively cited, or a selectively horrible war, tough.
This report cuts through that. The evidence is compelling, albeit less primary than I'd have hoped. The writing is clear and impartial. (Though again, a lot of secondary sourcing.) It doesn't seek to answer who is at fault for what is, essentially, an intractable multigenerational conflict (even before we involve proxies). It just seeks to simply answer a question, and in my opinion, having now skimmed (but not deeply contemplated) it, it does.
The balance of evidence suggests Israel is prosecuting a genocide against the people of Palestine. That creates legitimacy for escalating a regional conflict (one among money, I may add, and nowhere close to the deadliest) into an international peacekeeping operation.
Unfortunately, all of this rests on a system of international law that basically all the great powers of this generation (China, then Russia, and now America and India) have undermined.
Or just like those international peacekeepers who filmed Hezbollah breach our border, kill soldiers, abduct others? And then when this was discovered, refused to share the unedited video with Israel?
We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?
> We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t know! But the point of peacekeepers is the belligerents lose their votes.
Isn't the PA mostly funded by Israel? Hamas and PA loathe each other.
Wether she is or not is not for me to decide - at any rate, her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?
And if you think the UN rapporteur is too biased to do their job correctly, why do you care what the UN does?
> her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?
No, no more than someone who predicts a market crash every day is proven right the one time they nail it. The quality and objectivity of the analysis matters. Not just the conclusion.
She didn't predict anything, she analysed evidence and arrived to the same conclusion as the ruling you qre recognizing today.
Odd you can't reconcile that both parties can be correct
The evidence didnt exist day 1
A market crash is a one-time event. A genocide is ongoing. This would be like someone claiming since 2003 there was a pedo ring in the upper echelons of society and everyone calling them a liar until...
maybe because we are two years into an event that will define the early 21st century.
What about "there is war in the middle east, still/again" is remotely unique enough in the last century to be a defining moment of the half-century?
If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.
The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.
Not to this degree in the last few decades. But I feel you are overall correct, it's just that the Internet allows for much bigger coverage of the details of the horrors committed, and it's interesting how governments around the world now fail so completely to shape the narrative.
Yeah it's worse.
The October 7th attacks were way worse than Hamas attacks that came before in recent history. The response was way worse than what has happened before in recent history.
And so both sides feel fully justified with their courses of action, because of what the other side did to them. That is the part that is so much not unique.
Governments are still shaping the narrative, it's just that the ones that are most skilled and successful in manipulating social media happen to be the non-Western ones (Think about China controlling Tiktok, or the various Russia election influence theories).
Ukraine War started 3 years ago in 2022, not two years ago. Or 11 years ago in 2014, if we count from the illegal annexation of Crimea.
The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.
C'mon man, the Charlie Kirk post stayed on the front-page for a pretty long time.
With the amount of moderation that post seemed to be taking, I fully expected it to be killed quickly. Was pretty surprised it stayed up.
Yeah, that was pretty surprising. Usually political stories are flagged and buried pretty quickly.
UN Watch Rebuttal: Legal Analysis of Pillay Commission’s September 2025 Report to Human Rights Council
"This rebuttal examines the central defects of the UN report (the “Report”) issued by the Commission of Inquiry (the “Commission”). It shows why the evidence presented cannot sustain a finding of genocide under international law. A summary of its main deficiencies are as follows:
1. Failure to prove dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group is the central and extremely high bar in any genocide case. The Commission’s claim of genocidal intent fails on this threshold alone, relying on tortured parsing of statements, selective quotations, and conjecture rather than unambiguous evidence.
2. Erasure of Hamas as a belligerent: The report never acknowledges that the IDF is engaged in combat with an estimated 30,000-strong Hamas force in Gaza as well as thousands of fighters from other militant groups. A reader would come away believing the war has the IDF deployed against only women and children, with Hamas erased from the narrative. The Commission makes no attempt to analyze the war itself, because in its alternative version of reality, there is none.
3. Silence on Hamas’s military infrastructure: There is no mention of Hamas’s 17-year military buildup in Gaza, including its vast tunnel network, booby-trapped buildings, and massive arms buildup. By ignoring this reality, the report strips the conflict of its military context and recasts lawful military targets as evidence of genocide.
4. Erasure of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure: The Commission ignores Hamas’s openly acknowledged human shield strategy,[2] including its use of mosques, schools, residential buildings, and hospitals to conceal tunnels and weapons. Instead, damage to these sites is consistently portrayed as deliberate targeting of civilians by Israel.
5. No recognition of the hostage crisis: The report omits the fact that Hamas took Israeli hostages and continues to hold them, starve them,[3] and rape them.[4] This omission is consistent with the broader erasure of Hamas as an active actor in Gaza, removing essential context from the Commission’s narrative.
6. Reliance on Hamas-supplied fatality data: Despite Hamas’s long record of exaggerating civilian deaths and its status as a US and EU-designated terrorist organization, its figures are treated as fact while IDF data on combatants killed is ignored.
7. Civilian deaths distorted as evidence of genocide: The report presents civilian casualties as prima facie proof of genocidal intent rather than as tragic and unavoidable consequences of urban warfare, exacerbated by Hamas’s human shield strategy. The Report cites numerous incidents where civilians were killed as intentional and targeted acts by Israel without evidence.
8. Normal wartime consequences treated as crimes: Regular and expected wartime impacts on civilians, such as mental health impacts, difficulty accessing medical care and displacement, are depicted as evidence of genocide rather than inevitable outcomes of urban conflict.
9. Urban devastation portrayed as extermination: Large-scale damage is cited as proof of genocide, ignoring that urban combat inherently produces extensive destruction, particularly when military forces are embedded within civilian areas.
The Commission also ignores the obvious: the suffering of Gazans could be significantly reduced or even ended if Hamas released all hostages and relinquished control of Gaza. The idea that the population experiencing the claimed genocide has the power to stop it but refuses to is unprecedented in the history of actual genocides and exposes a deliberate blind spot in the Report. This omission mirrors the Commission’s broader erasure of Hamas as an active party in the conflict, a group with agency and responsibility, leaving readers with the false impression that all suffering in Gaza is solely Israel’s responsibility."
https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill...
> Failure to prove dolus special
This one is sufficient for me. And I think classifying it as genocide is a big mistake if your goal is protecting the civilians in Gaza. An easily proven wrong accusation overshadows the fact Israel could have taken things more slowly an carefully. Which I think (with little experience or knowledge) they could since the power difference is huge between the sides.
Counting destroying a fertility clinic as "Preventing births within the group" makes this conclusion technically correct, but silly.
You are silly for pretending that was the only reason for for making that conclusion.
There's a bit of an IQ test with this stuff. Obviously Israel and Hamas will both say whatever is most advantageous to them - of course one side will claim genocide and one will deny it, neither is meaningful.
A friend was telling me that Gaza has been starving for for 2 years so we looked back on the headlines and they said "brink of starvation" - so like - being on the brink for 2 years means you weren't on the brink?
Lastly Israel is clearly less restrained now than I've ever seen it. But like they were accused of genocide forever. So those accusations were false but now it's really happening? But if they had been restrained all along then they are the moral party?
I am not trying to persuade for a side it's just funny how so many posters here are like "ohhh we have the real and moral information here" when it's obvious that's not even available.
If your analysis is entirely headline based I can see why you might be confused. There are several levels of starvation, and Israel has progressively put Gaza through each. Complaining at each step is absolutely valid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_scales
You can be kept on the brink of starvation just like you can keep a cup hanging over the edge of a table. It's a manufactured famine, therefore it can be created with precision. Unlike the potato famine in Ireland, it's controlled and they literally count calories going in (before cutting it to 0).
So according to that logic, Israel is intentionally orchestrating a "brink of starvation" which generates for it negative publicity but is very careful to ensure nobody actually starves. Why would be the strategy in that according to you?
Because they thought actual famine would be worse. They didn't realize how little the US would care.
I think there's something to the IQ comment I made earlier. If adversary A claims the adversary B is doing a terrible thing, that thing doesn't materialize, the smart money isn't to be like "oh well B is only not doing it because they are sinister."
Or say another way - if "they are evil" whether they do X or opposite of X, whoever is setting up that story for you is full of shit.
Given all the hatred that is going around, I believe the genocide is real. And if it's not real yet, it will be if someone doesn't put a stop to this.
But all the reporting does not add up.
Half the pictures Hamas shows of starving children aren't legitimate. They're children with medical conditions, not in Gaza, or from a different conflict.
The number of people starving to death each day are in the single or low double digits. If what was said was really true, there would be tens of thousands of people dead by now.
And I don't believe a single thing Israel says either. How many tunnels were actually found under hospitals? Definitely at least one. Definitely not all of them.
A little truth makes all the lies more believable.
I think starving children with medical conditions is even worse! I really do not understand the recent Free Press articles about how news reporting about how children in Gaza are starving is not legitimate because the starving children in question had a medical condition. How does that matter? What audience is this news for? It makes everyone involved look like ghouls.
Exactly.. If your medical condition requires you to consume protein instance, and there are no sources of protein around (at reasonable prices), and you die out of starvation. How is that not a legitimate case?
https://youtu.be/Yu2qqlHT-zA
> If what was said was really true, there would be tens of thousands of people dead by now.
But that is exactly the claim. What is your argument here? You say there cannot be a genocide because genocide is too awful?
“Half the pictures Hamas shows of starving children aren't legitimate. They're children with medical conditions, not in Gaza, or from a different conflict.”
This seems like a strong claim. Please back it up.
Seeing the number of flagged comments, and going from past discussions where any discussion seen as pushback was flagged, this discussion really doesn't belong on hacker news.
Technology enables so many of these problems and yet the technology builders want to flag it off the face of the internet?
Hey stock prices might go down if you're not careful.
How will I afford my vegetables without my stocks?!?
The infrastructure for genocide needs a lot of technology and technology related subject. The victims of genocides include technology workers, hobbyists and hackers. No doubt there are HN members who are current victims of the ongoing genocide. They deserve our sympathy and their existence needs to be acknowledged.
The mental gymnastics to make this stick is truly incredible.
Oh no, people are commenting too hard. Only mild topics on HN, otherwise the servers explode... or something
For some reason, I don't see this news mentioned on any mainstream media across the political spectrum (Al Jazeera --> Guardian --> BBC --> CNN / NYT / NPR --> Fox News).
Could be that I just missed it, but seems odd.
The news cycle is moving fast enough that shockingly enough this news is already pushed off the frontpage of these news sites, but the article is there if you dig a little.
- BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go
- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/16/israel-committ...
- NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/16/g-s1-89014/israel-gaza-genoci...
First news on all major outlets here (Europe)
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...
Yes, this is ownership issue, nothing new :)
This was top story yesterday on al Jazeera the moment it happened. I think you missed the windows.
The mainstream media in the West is pro-Israel in a bizarre way. Social media however has not been captured but idk what's happening to TikTok now.
Conclusion:
" 251. The Commission’s analysis in this report relates solely to the determination of genocide under the Genocide Convention as it relates to the responsibility of the State of Israel both for the failure to prevent genocide, for committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 and for the failure to punish genocide. The Commission also notes that, while its analysis is limited to the Palestinians specifically in Gaza during the period since 7 October 2023, it nevertheless raises the serious concern that the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and Israeli security forces’ actions therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023. The events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the Commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population from their lands and its replacement.
252. The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
253. On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement. The Commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.
254. On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition, the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
What charity can one donate to? I just can't stand just doing nothing anymore.
Médecins sans frontières perhaps?
https://www.msf.org/
If you live in the United States, your greatest point of leverage may be to influence your elected government representatives to take action.
Israel cannot continue without the ongoing support of the US.
>influence your elected government representatives
good luck
In 2009 the US sentenced the 5 leaders of the largest provider of humanitarian aid, The Holy Land Foundation, to 16 to 65 years in prison. The 2 guys sentenced to 65 years in prison are still in jail.
I always worry the US will do it again.
Answering my own question ... https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/
Many. A few from the top of my head:
PCRF (children relief fund): https://www.pcrf.net/
Heal Palestine (meals and patients): https://www.healpalestine.org/
PRCS (first responders): https://x.com/PalestineRCS/status/1721839906605998526
The Sameer Project (camps & tents): https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject
---
Afaik, these organizations barely bring in £50m collectively. For context, FIDF, the largest non-governmental American donor to the Israeli military, has gift £1.5bn+ in the past decade (£500m+ in the last 3 years).
isis-online.org
What, they thought it might've actually been Egypt before this whole time?
For the 100th time?
Unfortunately, Trump’s support for Israel is still “unwavering “. So we’ll continue to aid and abet arguably the most horrific human atrocity outside Africa (Rwanda, Sudan etc) in very long time. You might have to go back to Pol Pot; even the suppression of the Rohingya by Myanmar isn’t at the scale of the complete destruction of Gaza by Israel.
Never ceases to amuse me how people tend to cling to a position unconsciosly, then try to rationalize this unconscios act.
US and west are all about some perceived genocide, while inside Israel, half want to surrender to Hamas or whoever because hostages, and the other half had had enough (of almost 80-year war) and just want to be done with it, and the third half wants to study Tora and do nothing, but be fed by the other two halves.
This is ridiculous and very bloody.
Can we please just be rational?
Both the Palestinian people and Jewish people are indigenous to Israel/Palestine.
No one side has the right to commit genocide against the other. At some point, there will have to be a two state solution.
The current Israeli government is indeed genocidal. Cabinet ministers have referred to the Palestinian people as a whole (not just Hamas) as an enemy and the IDF is carrying out the genocide.
This also means that by proxy the US is funding the military of a genocidal regime.
Just as providing Hamas with weapons is a terrible idea, giving them to Israel in its current state is an equally terrible idea.
Why is this posted on a tech news site?
From the guidelines:
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Do you truly think that this news story is showing “some interesting new phenomenon”?
I am not one to talk as an Israeli Jew who clearly disagrees with the entire bullshit premise of the article… but either way, the story is only saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming for months
Obviously we moderators are not present in the region, nor are we experts on the topic. That applies to almost every story that appears on HN. The “some interesting new phenomenon” is that – according to the title – ”top UN legal investigators” have made this finding. That's what we call "significant new information" about this topic. It's not for us to judge whether this finding is accurate or not; as I said, we're not there, we're not experts. But the discussion thread allows abybody with any particular knowledge on the topic to share their perspective.
> saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming
In your opinion, is there a neutral organization in the world that could define whether the legal definition of genocide is being met or not?
I wonder the same. It’s odd to see it still here given the low quality of the discussion. And it is flooded by mischaracterizations, misinformation, and one-sided hyperbolic takes. I wonder what the right space or format is to have debates like this but in an effective way, rather than sides trying to win.
However dismayed you are by the low quality of the discussion, I promise you it bothers us even more. It's awful.
Not only that but whenever a thread like this appears, tomhow and I end up spending all day on it, which is by far the worst part of the job. I don't mean to complain—that would be grotesque, given the suffering that's going on—but rather to say how much easier it would be if HN did not discuss this or similar topics at all.
But I don't think that's an option. It wouldn't be consistent with the values or the mandate of this site as I understand them, and it's our duty to try to be as true to those as we can. I want to be able to look back and say we did our best at that, even though the outcomes are this bad. I tried to explain this in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403787, though I don't know how successfully.
The upshot is that there's no good option and no way out. Maybe experiencing that is the best we can do to honor what's happening. It feels congruent with the situation being discussed, albeit in the trivial form that everything on an internet forum takes.
Thank you for your service and not taking the easy way out. It means a lot.
Serious question:
Firstly, have you ever thought about the fact that one, posts like this alienate Israelis from one of the few remaining tech news sources which made them feel safe by excluding politics? (If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, in 2023, I realised that I could no longer read The Verge due to pervasive and horrendous misinformation about Israel on a tech news site)
Secondly, given the havoc that posts like this cause and that it appears to not meet any of the rules for posts on Hacker News (clearly not tech or programming related and quite frankly, no more interesting to any person in tech than any other person), why do you allow this post to still exist?
HN has never been exclusively a site about tech: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. There are inevitably some stories with political overlap, though we try to prevent them from dominating the frontpage. I've gone into this in detail in other comments in this thread, with links to past explanations:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45267159
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45269414
Try taking a look at Stack Exchange (Stack Overflow for other things than programming) - it's not perfect of course, but IMO the site's format promotes cold arguments.
Because Israel is a part of the tech news cycle.
I don't understand this complaint. Are you the editor of this site?
Habr, the russian speaking HN-alike, was "outside of politics" too. That didn't end well for either Habr or posters there. For large issues like this, abstinence is complicity.
@dang isn’t this the exact kind of story HN isn’t supposed to have?
See here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45267159
When a discussion like this happens on the front page then it at least provides some useful data for testing the software and moderation tactics for highly flammable subjects.
My conspiratorial mind wonders if it’s done on purpose as a fire drill, but a kind of The Office sitcom fire drill where someone lights an actual fire. (That’s an example of irresponsible behaviour, but I don’t actual think an HN/Israel fire drill is equivalently irresponsible.)
This is not tech related and does not belong on hacker news
I would agree with you if we were in 1994 and this was about Rwanda.
Those tower blocks in Gaza that were felled on the anniversary of 9/11 were not taken down with machetes. We have got AI assisted targeting going on, with all of your favourite cloud service providers delivering value to their shareholders thanks to sales to the IDF.
The corporation that once had 'don't be evil' as their mission statement are suckling on the IDF teat along with Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.
Israel: Surrender or we'll destroy your city Hamas: Only if you let us rebuild and prepare the next war Israel: Starts destroying the city by bombing emptied buildings, these having received warning from Israel beforehand UN: Oh look, a genocide
This is politics and therefore probably off-topic for hn. It not being tech-related is irrelevant.
An argument could be made that it is an "interesting new phenomenon", but the post is most likely to result in tedious flamewars regardless and so should probably be killed.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Sure it does, if enough users find this interesting to them. I for one find this interesting.
This is a genocide.
A tech-enabled one.
I find it interesting and worth talking about.
I generally find HN discussions pretty interesting, but this particular topic seems to just be two groups who have zero chance of changing their minds hurling misinformation and propaganda at each other.
Looks like the Zionist flagger bots are in full force here, you are all pathetic
Lol, Qatar is currently in that council- Quatar aka the muslim brotherhood aka hamas.. Hamas concludes this and tells this..
May we remain condemned for our failure to stop this for all of time.
Combined with the other ongoing conflicts it really feels like we’re in a WW3 era
I don't want to downplay the atrocities going on in the current conflicts, but this sort of comment deserves some perspective.
About 70 million people were killed in WW2, as of the present day about 1 million have died in the war Russia is waging against Ukraine and about 70k people have died in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The horrors are most certainly real. But WW3 this era is most certainly not, that's thankfully off by an order of magnitude.
The World Wars were called World Wars because of the number conflicts and the powers involved. While the casualties and damage has been lower, it seems like the powers are at least indirectly involved at the moment.
If you look back through history this has been the case since at least the Cold War, though. All the proxy hot wars in the Cold War, for example, back when the world was bi-polar. Now it’s multipolar with similar proxy wars.
Yes, but WWII also had a phase called Phony War, and after that much of the war was in Poland.
We could say that Ukraine is the current Poland.
The Phony War was the phase between the fall of Poland (took ~1 month) and the invasion of France, where the dominant phase of the war was actually taking place in Norway.
The Invasion of Norway was only the final month.
The China-US arena in Taiwan has not begun. What about the Russian “provocations” against NATO? I don’t think that it is necessarily clear that these conflicts are anywhere near WWIII yet but there are clear signs that we could be heading there
Sadly history is a very poorly studied topic.
I look at European leaders and they don't seem to remember it any better.
The best way to teach history would be to make politicians dig slit trenches and then shell them for a few days. Anything less than that people will always end up regurgitating ethno nationalist bullshit or "geopolitics".
> The best way to teach history would be to make politicians dig slit trenches and then shell them for a few days
I don't see why you think that. That didn't work for Hitler, Göring, and the countless numbers of WW1 veterans in the SA and SS hungry for another try.
There is no discussion only mass flagging for anyone who isnt in lockstep on this. This is why politics is usually a subject to be avoided.
I am sure i will be flagged despite completely agreeing with the UN here but if any real change is to happen, minds must be changed which mass flagging does nothing to help. It only further entrenches people. But hey, at least it feels good right? Righteous and all that.
For those who disagree with the UN here, id be happy to change your mind. The us should not be involved in any of this.
The UN’s teeth appear to be red white and blue.
Hopefully we are at the beginning of a change, but I doubt this will come only from the UN.
The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba. Every year the outcome of the vote, which has always resulted in a great majority demanding the immediate end of the embargo, has been ignored by the US, resulting in millions of Cubans facing extreme economic consequences since many decades. The last time every country except Israel and US voted for ending the embargo (I might be wrong, maybe a single African state abstained).
In all of this, the only seed of joy I see, was seeing the Cubans a couple of years ago, after decades and decades of seeing their economy strangled by the most powerful country on Earth, roll out their own Covid vaccine just at the same time of those of big Pharma - a vaccine that resulted excellent, effective, and cheap. Hats off for the Cubans. Hope to see some other seed like this also in the Palestinians.
> The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
It's not been ignored the purpose of the UN is for largely irrelevant countries to petition the world powers to maybe consider doing something. The UN has been so successful because it has no real power over players like the USA.
> The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba.
Ok? I mean the purpose of the UN is for people to suggest stuff to players like the USA not for the USA to actually do what the UN votes for.
It's weird to claim that one country should be forced to trade with another country. International trade is voluntary on both sides. The US isn't responsible for keeping any other country's economy healthy. It's simply not our problem, and Cuban economic problems are a consequence of their own corruption and dogmatic incompetence. Should the US also be forced to trade with, let's say, North Korea?
The UN serves as a valuable diplomatic forum but let's not pretend that is does have or should have any real power or authority.
The US sanctions countries and/or foreign businesses that trade with Cuba, the embargo isn't simply between the US and Cuba. Because the US has effective control of most of the world's financial system, it is able to enforce this.
Yes, of course. No one is required to use the US financial system. Other countries are welcome to build their own. Why should we allow ours to be used to prop up a brutal and illegitimate communist dictatorship?
What people fail to understand about dynamics between countries, is ultimately there is no supreme court or arbiter of truth. The UN doesn't have authority over any powerful country (or non powerful country for that matter).
People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want, but there isn't. When it comes to geopolitics, the biggest and most powerful sets the rules and lives by them (or not). The USA has zero motivation to do something the UN wants it to do, if it doesn't itself want to do it. No one is going to hold it to account.
Ultimately - whoever controls the violence can set the rules. For the last 80 years that's been the US. Maybe that is changing, but not quite yet.
The UN isn't an international democratic institution. For the last 20-30 years it's been a powerless theatre. And it didn't have much power before then either. Because ultimately, whoever has the most nukes and the biggest army rules the world.
> People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want,
Can you blame them? The same countries facilitating this genocide have been telling everyone they uphold principles of human rights and democracy, and a "rules based international order*, and that they oppose genocide. Only now are enough horrors breaking through in such a surreal way that people are forced to notice the contradictions.
Its important to note that most of those "irrelevant" countries are only irrelevant because they're perpetually under the thumb of world powers. Hence why they petition the UN. And, hence why empires and somewhat-formally colonial nations ignore them.
Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.
Empires are not exclusive to the West, and those also ignore the UN. For many of the countries under their thumbs, the West has at least sometimes been acting in their defense.
One hopeful observation is that I actually have seen coverage of the genocide in a local newspaper this time. N=1 of course (and I'm not sure what other local newspapers have been like), but that's more than before.
Title: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza
Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.
> Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.
Your framing that "3 people from Ethiopia/Congo/Sudan/Qatar wrote the report" is both incorrect and deeply racist.
Edit: and to make it clear, the report was authored by the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel" which is made up of the following three members:
- Ms. Navanethem Pillay (South Africa)
- Mr. Miloon Kothari (India)
- Mr. Chris Sidoti (Australia)
You can read more about the commission here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index
That's not how I phrased it. I said that this is a 3-person report commissioned by the UNHRC. I then mentioned known human rights abusers who chair the UNHRC.
I had to look this up on Wikipedia and remembered this is the 19 year old UNHRC. They have never been objective in regards to the Middle East conflict.
It's easy to confuse them with the UNHCR, which I believe is a reputable body.
I'm sorry but Qatar is part of neutral commission? Israel just bombed them. It was a bad for Israel to do, but this isn't "third-party."
And Sudan is having a home grown genocide right now...
Well, I guess in Ukraine there is no genocide, ruzzia can proceed to do whatever it wants. I love how sometimes people support terror sometimes not. It depends how it is presented and how strong propaganda is, and hamas propaganda is pretty strong.
You can be against both, it's OK. The UN has also identified a number of massacres of civilians in Ukraine as crimes against humanity.
Put two searches "Gaza genocide" and "Ukraine genocide" on this site and you will immediately understand what this is all about.
Stop equating anti-war sentiment with pro-terror sympathies. It’s a bad faith argument.
It is an extreme hypocrisy to call what is happening in Gaza a genocide while saying nothing about much more horrible things that happen, on a much larger scale. It tells you something about the "bad faith".
The term "genocide" isn't tossed around lightly in international law. The fact that the UN commission is now saying they found "fully conclusive evidence" of genocidal intent by Israel's leadership is going to put massive pressure on other states, especially those who've been backing Israel diplomatically or militarily
The Chair of this "independent" inquiry is Navi Pillay of South Africa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_International_Comm...); the nation which accused Israel of genocide and referred it to the ICJ. The outcome of this inquiry was always going to be highly partisan. The report's definition rests upon statements by key Israeli officials in determining genocidal intent. While the statements are accurate, in a democracy, individual representatives do not constitute a single will. If the standard used here were applied to other international conflicts in which civilians were killed, as long as just one governing official were to have made genocidal remarks (and they used a fairly wide range), the entire conflict could be ruled to be genocide. Thus the standard used by Pillay and co-authors is so far removed from anything applied to any other nation and conflict that I find the entire exercise farcical.
I await the ICJ ruling, as I regard that institution as reasonably impartial.
In this situation, where you advocate for waiting until a different organization gives its opinion: while waiting, will net-more harm have occurred if Israel
1. reduces the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory, or 2. continues, as it is currently doing, to increase the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory
Is there a different answer, should this other organization’s opinion affirm or refute genocide?
Israel is under no obligation to stop. Not because of this report, nor even in the case of an ICJ ruling. I say I am waiting for the ICJ ruling to make up my mind on the matter. The rulings are inconsequential as far as the conflict.
Amnesty International, The International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, numerous other human rights organizations and world governments all say the same thing: genocide. To deny this is to say that you believe all of those groups are wrong and it is actually Netanyahu, Trump, Biden and Harris, along with their cronies in congress are correct. It is a position that cannot be defended logically.
It's always useful to balance these claims against their critics.
Towards that end I offer up unwatch.
https://unwatch.org/
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch:
> Agence France-Presse has described UN Watch as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" ... Primarily, UN Watch denounces what it views as anti-Israel sentiment at the UN and UN-sponsored events.
Is there a specific report arguing that Israel is not committing genocide? I don’t see it on the home page.
Unwatch is, and has always been, critical of everything the UN does with regards to Israel. Had the UN made one statement like "Israel should not arbitrarily detain children and hold them without fair trials", I am pretty sure unwatch would twist it into antisemitism.
https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill... If you’re interested to see a rebuttal
UN Watch is a documented Israeli lobbying group, and was discredited decades ago:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...
I'd like to see a rebuttal from a government that isn't accused of genocide.
Proving the absence of something is kinda impossible… depends on if you believe in guilty until proven innocent or if you’re totally okay with going gung-ho into trusting the UN, a body led by the majority of non-democratic governments and used to try to destroy democracies
> guilty until proven innocent
Like how Israel treats Palestinians?
The purpose of a tool like unwatch is to disseminate information to help zionists pollute discussions like these. They dont care about being right, or contributing information to the discussion, as much as they want to hand out gotchas, whatabouts, ad homs and so forth. Thats why its all just character assassination.
labeling information as pollution is sort of a red flag for me. I see this tactic used often, and its often followed up with accusations that don't even address the information labelled as pollution. now don't get me wrong, this tactic does work, it won trump two terms didn't it? I guess its just sort of a red flag for me as I'm not a trump fan. at least you didn't call it "fake news" so have an upvote, I'll take progress where I can get it lol
Yeah thats a fair statement. Feel free to check me on this, but the front page of unwatch appears to be covered in attack/slander/talking points on Francesca Albanese, compare and contrast with say,the wiki talk page for her, which goes through each claim individually.
I read through some items regarding Albanese and I'll certainly confess to some bias against palestinians that hasn't really abated since the october 7 attacks. But the unwatch page was pretty helpful to me precisely because of its attention to detail. I doubt that my opinion is that important tho lol
You can criticize it, but the fact that we're here should tell you enough already.
There is no "yes, but" when genocide is taking place.
Isn't that an Israeli "hasbara" site? The Israelis have admitted that they use the false cry of "antisemitism" to attack.
"Calling it antisemitism - it’s a trick we always use." Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Minister
https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1896748975207952758
How is that a refutation?
If I want to understand any position I would look for first sources. Say I want to understand why Russian invaded Ukraine, I would seek out Russian sources. When I try to understand the Palestinian position, I seek out Palestinian sources.
The beautiful thing about intellectual honesty and openness is that you don't have to agree with any position. You can expose yourself to things that deeply conflict with your personal values and walk away with a deeper understanding of why you value what you value, and how to refute ideas that you strongly disagree with.
To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge. You're saying that the very reason to dismiss it, to not even bother entertaining its arguments is because it is Israeli and no other reason. Beyond that, you are even arguing that any claims of prejudice can be dismissed outright on the basis of one thing that one Israeli Minster once said [allegedly].
That is the very definition of prejudice.
Quite simply Israelis and Jews are not the same group, otherwise you would be holding all Jews on the planet responsible for this genocide. Dismissing the source for being Israeli is not antisemitic.
There are many examples of Israeli sources lying about the state of things, from the baseless claims against UNRWA to the unconscionable excuse of burying medics and the ambulances they were in, to avoid wild dogs eating them.
Israeli sources rarely offer evidence to refute the claims presented in this report, and a cry of antisemitism, as stated, conflates Judeism with Israeli nationality, hence these sources are worthless at best.
"To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge."
We agree it is an Israeli source.
All the unwatch site does is accuse Israel's critics of being antisemites. When you can't respond to the message, attack the messenger. Accuse them of being antisemitic and being funded by Hamas.
The Israelis have taken it to the point of farce!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/stop-antisem...
Receipts: https://unwatch.org/report-unrwas-terrorgram/
If we're on the subject of damning historic quotes, I've got one for you:
- Hamas founding charterOf course ignoring that Hamas was deliberately funded by Israel to cause a split between the politics of the West Bank and Gaza to prevent a unified political authority in Palestine.
I can well imagine a parallel universe where Israel gave them NO money whatsoever. You know what would have happened? Hamas would do the usual Islamic fundamentalist thing. Form a terrorist group and attack Israel. And then media commentators and intellectuals would accuse Israel of failing to help Hamas get put on the right path by helping them at the start, and instead Israel's inaction was like strangling a baby in the cradle. Typical Israel! Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Hamas had much less power.
You imagine the future that suits your perspective and act like it's a fait accompli.
In reality, the PLO would have (and had been) quelling Hamas effectively. And then they were sitting at the negotiating table (after a rather ugly period). So Israel was facing awkward questions of "If Arafat is willing to negotiate, why aren't you?", so the Israeli far right locked in on the idea of "surreptitiously fund Hamas against the PLA/PLO".
Your imaginings count for nothing, because they're just your preconceived notion.
And today they are promoted by second and third world countries who oppose the first world, specifically to divide the first world nations.
They are succeeding.
This sounds to me like you are trying portray poorer countries as lesser worth because they had the guts of calling Israel out.
The solution to rich countries being divided on an the issue of an ongoing genocide is you know, not committing said genocide.
What does "poorer" have anything to do with it? Is that some tactic to garner sympathy?
> However, Third World is still used as a (pejorative) term for the traditionally less-developed world (e.g. Africa)
So now the entire west, NATO and other US allies should with blinded conviction approve of the genocide?
This seems like you are afraid of isolation and the fallout of the ongoing genocide.
There’s cracks showing and you know when they open Israel will lose its privileged position.
It doesn't take "guts" to call out Israel in the forum of the UN. It is in 95% of cases just simple populism and nobody has to fear any consequences.
Many (not all) of those countries are fine with when it's a member of the second or third worlds committing atrocities. So no, there's no guts here. They perceive it's in their interest to call out some acts but not others - just like almost everyone else.
You are aware that Shulamit Alloni was on the extreme left and was criticizing this supposed misuse of Antisemitism, this is not some playbook
The american equivalent would be to quote Bernie Sanders saying "America is fascist" and then saying, see? therefore the USA system of government is fascism, even Congress agrees!
Not sure how that's the equivalent.
Lets see if there is a pattern.
Roger Waters criticizes Israel, Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Tucker Carlson criticizes Israel, Tucker Carlson is an antisemite.
Edward Said criticizes Israel, Edward Said is an antisemite.
Even "legends" get called antisemites! [1]
Hannah Einbinder criticizes Israel, Hannah Einbinder is an antisemite? Hmmm.
According to Jerry Seinfeld, anyone who says "free palestine" is antisemitic.
Any website, or any person, that claims "antisemitism" has lost all credibility for me.
[1] https://moguldom.com/454177/silicon-valley-legend-paul-graha...
Plenty of people criticize Israel and are not antisemites. This is true of most Israelis. They generally criticize Israel in non-antisemitic ways. It is quite easy to do so.
Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Do people who have known Roger Waters his entire life think he is an antisemite because of his obsessive criticism of Israel, or because of all the other anti Jewish things he has said and done AND his singular obsession with Israel?
* https://variety.com/2023/music/news/roger-waters-antisemitic...
>In the 2023 documentary The Dark Side of Roger Waters, the >saxophonist Norbert Stachel recounts Waters refusing to eat >vegetarian >dishes in Lebanon, calling them “Jew food”. When >the musician explained >that most of his relatives had been >killed in the Holocaust, the singer did >a crude and offensive >impersonation of a Polish peasant woman, and said, >“Oh, I can >help you feel like you’re meeting your long-lost relatives. I >can introduce you to your dead grandmother.” > >Tellingly, Stachel also claimed to overhear Waters telling a >girlfriend that Judaism was not a race, saying, “They’re >white European men that grow beards and they practise the >religion Judaism, but they’re no different than me; they have >no difference in their background or their history or their >culture or anything.”
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/rogers-waters-anti...
I know less about Said.
He did write the forward to Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. The book is framed as an attack on Jewish fundamentalism.
Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Colombia, writes: “He [Shahak] says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.[b] He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..." I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?”
Edward Said wrote the foreward to the second edition, calling Shahak “one of the most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East.” Said writes that the book is “nothing less than a concise history of classic and modern Judaism, insofar as these are relevant to the understanding of modern Israel.”
At best Said endorses antisemites.
Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a podcaster known for promoting Holocaust revisionism and making historically inaccurate claims about World War II. He labeled Winston Churchill as the "chief villain" of the conflict. They perpetuated downplayed Nazi atrocities.
Sure seems antisemitic.
You have simply given a false example.
Regarding antisemitism, it is unfortunately a two millennium old racist phenomenon, which shows itself in an obsession many persons had with Jews and their "influence on world politics". Behaviors include use of ritual scapegoating, where double standards are applied to the jews and then blame is shifted to them, culminating in ritual violence.
It's hard to delete 2000 years of western culture, so what you are seeing is mostly a rehash of this
This predated Israel by much and can be seen online for example by the unhealthy obsession with this conflict or even paranoid delusions considering Israel ("Israel killed Charlie Kirk cause I saw Nethanyahu respond to the murder" as can be seen in this thread)
In the above mentioned UN human right council you can see it in the fact 40% of decisions are about Israel while countries like Iran chair the committee. Or the fact there is a permanent clause (Article 7) meant to condemn Israel permanently, the only such country that had such a clause
I don't think you responded to the argument there. He's not saying antisemitism isn't real. Of course it's real, and has been for a long time. He's saying that automatically tarring critics of Israel as antisemites is invalid.
I get the formula: commit genocide and then call critics an antisemite.
No, antisemitism is historically based on shifting blame and scapegoating. That's why the nazis were blaming Jews of genocide ("Germany must perish") while they were working on their destruction.
That's why an organization that used death squads to mass-execute civilians in entire towns (as was done by the Einsatzgruppen) gets to blame the side that bombs military targets (exactly the tactic used against nazis) with genocide
True. And in the interest of balancing the claims of the critics, I offer up the observation that UN Watch is "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" (AFP article: Capella, Peter. "UN Gaza probe chief underlines balanced approach." 7-Jul-2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...).
Nice critic. I remember on Reddit watching someone get blown up the other day while carrying water while it was still up. I think they were under 10.
Not sure if they died or just lost all their limbs.
That was a young Gazan girl who tripped a Hamas IED that had been set for Israeli troops. That's why there was a camera pointed at it.
>That was a young Gazan girl
Are we sure we are talking about the same child who got blown up? There is quite a few.
unwatch is funded by religious lunatics in Israel. Nobody takes it seriously.