I think there's a fine line here. If someone is openly supporting terrorism or harm then they should be called out. Expressing support for Gaza, or Palestine, on the other hand is very different.
Two of the posts on the website that flags a "anti-Israeli" / "terrorist supporter" person:
> I know this is a professional plattform but we are human .. and you don't have to be a Muslim to support Palestine, you just have to be a human being. #SaveHumanity #SavePalestine
> Praise and thank the Lord. #betterlatethannever #savethechildren #prayforGaza #prayforpeace
Is this what counts as "terrorist" supporter these days?
Overall I agree with you, people should be shamed for any sort of support of terrorists, no question about it.
But this seems to be something else, it seems to be flagging "anti-Israel" sentiment, which seems to include a lot more than just anti-Zionism.
I would agree with you that it is wrong. Just because someone disagrees with Israel, or calls Israel out for actions that it has committed, is not the same as terrorism or making a threat. It's a really fine line, and I think regrettably that it moves with the political climate.
The issue is foreign commentators can do it in an unneccesarily divisive manner that causes blowback.
Plenty of Israeli Arabs (eg. A few who directly report to me) have denounced Hamas on LinkedIn but also voiced public criticism to the heavy-handed response that the IDF is doing. Heck, several of the survivors from the Nova Music festival were saved by Bedouin nearby, and plenty of the ongoing shelling in the North is impacting Israeli Arabs. Heck, a Chechen/Circassian mosque was hit by a Hamas rocket.
Western commentators are making it a black-and-white issue where you either support the Palestinian cause or the Israeli cause with no middle.
The 2nd/3rd/Nth generation Jewish and Arab diaspora have both been posting some vile comments about the other.
> Western commentators are making it a black-and-white issue where you either support the Palestinian cause or the Israeli cause with no middle.
I think you are being too charitable. From what I have seen, it's "you either support the Israeli cause or you are a terrorist who hates freedom." All we need now is a war criminal republican president for democrats to loudly criticize yet support at every opportunity to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and it'll be just like the early 2000s again.
It goes both ways. I've seen some toxic douchebags say that the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian. I've also had some douchebags PERSONALLY tell me "From river to sea, Palestine will be free" under the assumption that as a brown guy I'd sympathize. Everyone is in their own damn echo chamber and yelling across of each other. Assholes on sides need to get fucking slapped.
This is the problem though, you're equating the wish for an end to the occupation of Palestine with an explicit call for genocide. The two are not equivalent.
I don't know what you mean. The Palestinians want to kill Israelis and the Israelis want to kill the Palestinians. Expelling Jews from the river to the sea means all the territory that is currently Israel becoming no longer a Jewish state. Israel may very well deconstruct Gaza so it's no longer a state as well. Equal things at stake
> ... and you don't have to be a Muslim to support Palestine, you just have to be a human being
One can support innocent Palestinians without supporting Palestine, the same way one can support innocent Israelis without supporting Israel. Not sure why they decided to sneak in some dehumanization into what masquerades as a positive sentiment.
It's also not so great a leap to think that supporting a country means supporting its citizens. Your interpretation is valid, I don't understand why it would need heavy moderation. Perhaps hiding the post and asking it to reword it to be clearer?
How do you read that other than as "if you have humanity, you support Palestine", which is semantically equivalent to "if you don't support Palestine, you have no humanity"?
> > Praise and thank the Lord. #betterlatethannever #savethechildren #prayforGaza #prayforpeace
> Is this what counts as "terrorist" supporter these days?
Does "better late than never" refer to Hamas's attack on Israel, where they killed roughly a thousand people? If not, what does it refer to?
Does "Praise and thank the Lord" refer to the same thing? If you're praising God for that, you may not be a terrorist "supporter", but you're certainly a terrorist cheerleader and advocate.
And if you are referring to that, and saying "pray for peace" on the same line? Then your hypocrisy is nauseating.
All this is based on my interpretation of "better late than never". If I'm interpreting it wrongly, please clue me in as to what it actually means.
I can accept that... provided it applies on all sides. It means you can't say "that's a dogwhistle" when the far right says something that is not overtly racist. (Or at least, you can't expect "that's a dogwhistle" to result in them being censored/deplatformed/whatever.)
I'd reject the notion that a hashtag you don't understand and feel inclined to question alongside a bunch of hashtags with an obviously positive meaning is equivalent to racist dogwhistling. Given the positive context of the hashtag it seems possible "better late than never" refers to the trucks carrying aid finally rolling, the freeing of hostages, or some other positive thing. It's not strongly associated with much of anything that's trending on twitter. A person with doubts about that commenter's intent would seek out greater context in the poster's other comments, I would think.
Here's how. People who make arguments for "good Palestinians unrelated to Hamas" and for "ceasefire", against "humanitarian disaster" all very obviously blame Israel for harming those "good Palestinians" and not stopping firing etc. Which definitely helps Hamas and doesn't Help any Palestinians, nor Israelis.
For the most part it's just stupidity of people uninvolved with the conflict who found it easy to believe a story of oppression by a superior military / economical power. This is also what pushes the idea of "Hamas not representing Palestinians". While, unfortunately, it does. But every Western society rejects this grim reality. Because admitting it would lead to asking very inconvenient questions, revision of previously established policies... basically, admitting to being stupid and being manipulated by some "Nigerian prince".
Here's one example. Every political / military organization which wants to kill all Jews and establish Palestine "from the river to the sea" tries to legitimize this claim by appealing to UN's charter that warrants every nation the right to rule over themselves. In the case with Israel, there's what appears to be a conflicting resolution from the UN legitimizing Israeli state. While UN finds time to condemn Israel on a monthly basis, it could never find time to resolve this dispute. They'd have to go back and revisit this claim about every nation being able to rule themselves, amend it with some cases where that doesn't apply... but they are happy to sit on their hands, and the conflict keeps going. UNRWA is the same story: bad decision that keeps fueling the hatred, but UN will never admit they did something stupid, and will never reverse their decisions.
So, back to blaming humanitarian disaster on Israel: Israel is as much responsible for the humanitarian disaster as the world's oceans are responsible for the rising sea level. Israel is playing its hand the best they can. But, they aren't the reason civilians are dying in Gaza. No more than gravity or the engineers who designed fighter jets.
So, why is it surprising that Israel doesn't want to hear itself blamed for something that had no influence over? They are facing the same media device that's used by Americans who claim that "blue lives matter" -- a superficially innocent claim that, out of context could just mean that someone wants to support the police doing quite dangerous job, while, in reality, it's a reactionary stance that's meant to counteract the other sentiment: "black lives matter", instead of being used to actually help the police.
People behind the tag of "SavePalestine" don't really want to save Palestine. They are manipulating public sentiment to be against Israel. Had they really want to save Palestine, they'd be appealing to the UN to cancel UNRWA, to work with Israel in declaring Gaza a "failed state", preventing Gaza from having its own government, military, courts etc. instead having some form of international government, blue helmets etc. take control for the next 3-5 decades at least.
The story doesn't start with "Nakba" though. For those who don't want to Google, this is the brief history leading up to this event:
Turks rule over the territory of modern day Israel. It's part desert (Negev) part swamps. The land is pretty bad for agriculture, the locals are poor as dirt. Pretty much a place you'd call a "hole".
Series of pogroms in Russian empire lead to, beside other things, a stream of Jewish refugees wanting to settle in this "hole" because of a tradition they kept for thousands years that called this "hole" their home.
They want to buy land from the locals, when none in their right mind would. Many locals are tempted by the offer and the prospect of becoming city dwellers, wage workers... only to discover that nobody's going to hire them. They burn through the money they got from selling their land and sharply sink into even more abject poverty. Jews won't sell the land back, and even if they would, there's no money to buy it back. Jews also won't hire them.
So locals need a way out. A bunch of landless peasants who have neither the skills nor finances to start new industrial life in the city. They start blaming the Jews for swindling them out of their properties. And, of course, there were also cases of Jews taking advantage of the locals, so, that reinforces the idea that Jews should be purged from their land.
Comes World War I, Brits take over this territory, but they aren't really interested in solving the local disputes. They want order. So, whoever starts the fight gets a kick in the teeth from the occupational government. Arabs tend to get the short end of the stick more often. This leads Nazi Germans to side with the Arabs to mess with the Brits. Grand mufti gets great reception from Hitler, gets a title of honorary Aryan... picking up few other related ideas along the way.
The nice mufti guy organizes the blockade of Jerusalem with the intention to starve all the Jews living there. Not to mention inspiring few other incidents leading up to Jewish deaths. Jews either appeal to Brits, or seeing how Brits aren't eager to step in, retaliate themselves.
Comes the end of World War II, Brits finally had enough of the headache with this mess. Everyone feels like Jews need some kind of compensation for what happened to them during the war, so Brits push for the UN resolution legitimizing the Israeli state. Needless to mention the local Arabs are infuriated by this decision, since this would seal the fate of their lost lands forever. They go for an all-out war, but lose. This war and subsequent defeat is what today they call "Nakba" (catastrophe).
What is the difference to the exodus from Kuwait in 1990? Jews, perhaps? Although this expulsion could even make sense given that some local muftis tried to ally with Hitler for a holocaust in the middle east.
In Kuwait they "just" allied with Saddam and were expelled in return. I think what how some suppressed the Jews was quite a bit more serious. They fought for their independence. That this isn't well liked by any party is another story.
First, a ceasefire help Palestinian and Israeli civilians, so your first paragraph is wrong.
Your second paragraph is wrong too. Palestinian in the west bank are represented by the Fatah, which is a secular organization. Hence Hamas do not represent Palestinians. I'll add something else: Hamas only survived in Gaza thanks to the monthly 30M$ send by Qatar there: those dollars arrived by plane in Israel, where the Israeli army was waiting, then escorted (still by the army) toward Gaza, sent sent to an entry that was solely controlled by Hamas, ensuring their control upon food importation on one hand, and upon other political/paramilitary groups on the other.
This is linked to your third paragraph: UNRWA is seriously limited and cannot afford to give much more than schooling and food to children in Gaza. They would have done a much better job of securing peace than the Hamas with the monthly 30M given by Qataris. Who insisted that that money kept flowing into Hamas hands? [0]. I do not know why you attack UNRWA but the sister who called my grandparents to adopt my father worked with them, (the catholic hospital/school/orphanage she worked in before their expropriation was founded by this initiative) and I can't imagine her fueling any hatred: even when forcibly moved from the area she worked in for 40 years she said it was God's will and that she would do a much better work in her new place (at almost 80 yo)
Israelis civilians and Israel as a country has nothing to be blamed for, I agree with paragraph 4 and 5. But Netanyahu's government and his politic does. The 16 year blockade limited any influence work and humanitarian aid (its also why UNRWA critics specifically targeting the situation in Gaza to explain why it half-failed are at best fucking disingenuous, and i'm really nice). The decision to push the Hamas as a PLO alternative to limit Fatah increasing power in the Palestinian coalition was really short-sighted at first, but the continuous effort to keep that status quo by Netanyahu's government, including indirect funding of Hamas was criminal and probably the original sin of that pogrom (which do not absolve Hamas war criminals/terrorist of the majority of the blame).
Last paragraph: not sure why you conflate Gaza with Palestine. If it's on purpose, I agree that one solution would be to separate Gaza from Palestine (like Bengladesh from Pakistan) and going back to the original borders.
What really grind my gears is the western photo-open with Netanyahu. This is ridiculous. It would be like if all leaders went to General What's-his-name in Libya to take pictures with him after the dam failure that killed thousands of his citizens. It's pathetic, really.
I'm zionist BTW, I am for 'l'autodétermination des peuples', for everybody, and I did use to have a Haaretz subscription when I was younger, those are my 2 main bias in this conflict.
> First, a ceasefire help Palestinian and Israeli civilians, so your first paragraph is wrong.
In the short term it helps Palestinian civilians. But Hamas doesn't care about ceasefire. never did. They've broken numerous previous such agreements. So, the only possible ceasefire is the one-sided, where Israel stops shooting at Palestinians. If they do that, more Israelis will die. They obviously care about Israelis more than they care about Palestinians.
> Your second paragraph is wrong too. Palestinian in the west bank are represented by the Fatah, which is a secular organization.
Religion plays no role in this dispute. Fatah are as much terrorists as Hamas is. It's just at this point in time it's convenient to pretend that they aren't. Plenty of Fatah members are doing time in Israeli prisons for killing or attempting to kill Israeli citizens.
How did you come to a conclusion from what you wrote that Hamas doesn't represent Palestinians I don't have a clue. Hamas and Fatah don't differ on their position on "kill all Jews" question. They might not represent all Palestinians literally, but they are quite representative of the sentiment "on Palestinian street". They aren't some sort of a foreign plant nobody agrees with. They enjoy great support and love from their loyal subjects.
> UNRWA
What they do with schools is irrelevant. You simply don't have a clue what this is about. UNRWA was established to give eternal, hereditary refugee status to Arabs who attempted pogroms at the start of the independence war of 48, and then fled fearing retribution. This is what they refer to by the "right to return". The idea here is that children, or grand children, or grand-grand-grand...children of these people have a right to return to places like Yaffo and reclaim their properties.
No other refugee in the world enjoys anything like this. Refugee status expires after some time. Maybe ten or so years. This is reasonable because such status puts its owner in a limbo of not being a citizen of any country. Should your refugee status expire, the country where you live must do something about it. Either grant you citizenship, or kick you out. UNRWA put these refugees into eternal Purgatory of being stateless. They are told by the UN "one day you'll go back to live in Tel Aviv". And Israel tells them "go jump off a cliff, I need no antisemite terrorist living in the middle of the largest city in my country". So, as long as Israel stands, they aren't coming back. No two- or three- or however many state solution isn't going to alter anything about their situation. They are screwed, by UN.
UN could alter their decision to request monetary compensation for example. Israel would be very happy to comply. And whatever country that accepted these refugees would get a nice chunk of money to go with them. Yet UN is determined to keep this torture going because they are stubborn and stupid on one side, and on the other side all sorts of "human rights committees" have been hijacked by members with an axe to grind against Israel. And these refugees are a chip in this game.
> Last paragraph: not sure why you conflate Gaza with Palestine.
Dude. You obviously don't live there. Have never been there. Don't understand the language or the history of the place. I've spent 25 years of my life in this place. Palestine is not a thing. There's no agreement on what it is. But one thing I can tell you for sure, if anything is Palestine, Gaza is definitely there.
I highly doubt that even if Hamas shot more missiles after a ceasefire, any Israeli civilian would die from it.
> Fatah are as much terrorists as Hamas is
Disagree on that. Hamas essentially is anti-zionist (and anti-semitic) and use terror attack because they kill jews (they want to kill them all, as established once again by the recent pogrom). Fatah essentially want a two-state solution. They are revolutionary and push for an armed struggle, but if you call them terrorists, then FARCS are terrorist and French/Polish resistants were terrorists.
> They enjoy great support and love from their loyal subjects.
Hamas had 30M$ a month for a dozen years, yeah, i'm sure it's grassroot support and no indoctrination...
> You simply don't have a clue what this is about.
I indeed had no clue about that. Obviously i only know about UNRWA as a relief organization who provides training, food and money to hospital and schools in the middle east, i did not know it was only for palestinians (because the school/hospital i know work with them also used to help young jewish women and men w/o formal or secular education, and poor catholics). But "You simply don't have a clue what" refugee means. it doesnt "expire" after 10 years (this would be so weird) (read that: https://www.unhcr.org/media/convention-and-protocol-relating...). Are you conflating refugee, the international status, with the "refugee status" a national government grant after you are recognized as one? Because here how it work: a Palestinian have his refugee status recognized in France (thanks to UNWRA, it's easy if he can prove he is palestininan). From this point onwards, he has a residency card, and ten years of basic healthcare and minimum income. After those 10 years, if he did not get citizenship, he goes to Ofpra, ask again, and get it again. My mother hosted (or taught French to) different war refugees from Georgia until 2021, so hopefully they did not suddenly stopped being war refugees in 2018, or else the associations whe work with really screwed up.
Still, i have not clue about that part of UNWRA: so i read about it for 5 minutes: UN cannot create statelessness (weird word). This is illegal under the Geneva convention, so as long as Palestine is not a nation, its hard to revoke the provision that make Palestinian refugees (because the million or so living in Gaza or in the west bank cannot be recognized as Palestinian as long as Palestine doesn't exist). Also UNWRA has nothing to do with the right to return. It's was created after (a over a hundred UN resolution after), so you're damn right i "don't have a clue what this is about", but a quick google-fu would have helped you too. By the way, this was both rude and wrong, which is the worst kind of rude.
> You obviously don't live there. Have never been there.
I don't, I have. Only for a couple days (that's also when i started reading Hareetz), my father was denied entry at the last moment and i choose to come back once it was clear he wouldn't be allowed to enter at all (making pre-90s lebanon the only Middle-East country he was able to enter due to having "Jerusalem" as place of birth on his passport), sadly the place he was born in was destroyed in 2020 during a "resettlement" and he will never see it.
> I highly doubt that even if Hamas shot more missiles after a ceasefire, any Israeli civilian would die from it.
Based on what? What do you think rockets that Hamas fires at Israel are made for? Fireworks or something?
I witnessed two of my coworkers die because of a Palestinian suicide bomber (whom I also marginally knew) and a bunch of people wounded. Another time an IED went off in the garbage bin not far from the bus stop I had to get off. Luckily, nobody was harmed.
Palestinians are getting more military aid, and it's becoming more sophisticated and hard to counter. Israel doesn't have a good outcome for this Gazan flair-up. Everything they do will suck for them. Ceasefire: in the short term, more Israelis die, but it will also be seeing as them caving in to Hamas. It will embolden and encourage the other side to do more of this.
Going in and killing as many of Hamas members as they can will restore the status quo for a few years. But Hamas v2, or Fatah, or PIJ or w/e new thing will inevitably take place of present day Hamas, because killing Hamas doesn't solve the problem -- and here it's important to loop back to the fact that Hamas does represent Palestinians. They aren't an oddball. They are the natural result of Gazans, and especially the refugees from Gaza wanting a rematch.
The only way this problem can be solved is if UN initiates and enough countries follow through with the plan of dismantling all Gazan local authorities, while replacing them by international temporary ones. Gazan population today cannot be trusted to create a government, police force or courts that will not do the same thing Hamas is doing now. Just like Japan or Germany after WW2 they need an external supervisor to make them rebuild and rejoin the world community.
But, UN will never as much as even discuss such a program. And the cycle will continue.
> UNRWA
Your Wiki reading is very selective. Also, your understanding of how refugees interact with the local authorities is based on fairy-tales. Any refugee in order to be given this status needs to show that their life is in danger or something like that. Conflicts are eventually resolved, and you cannot make claims about your life being in danger a decade ago. That just won't be enough to get you a refugee status. Of course you cannot inherit it from parents... unless you are under UNRWA umbrella.
What happens to someone who fails to prove they are eligible for this status? -- expulsion or jail. In European countries it would be difficult to get rid of someone once they are there. So, they might be staying in a camp for years (my wife volunteered in one such camp on Lesbos). But if you are in a less "welcoming" country they might just bring you to the border and leave you there.
Similarly, it's a fairy-tale that UN decisions "can't make anyone stateless". It's right in front of you, couple million people in and around Israel. But you chose to "believe"...
But it's not limited to this situation with Israel. Take for example the Hague convention on adoptions. All signatories are required to not adopt children from another country-signatory w/o that country's permit. But, not all countries grant citizenship at birth. If you are born in such a country and nobody knows anything about your parents -- tough luck. There are plenty of UN-affiliated bodies who beat themselves on the chest and declare that no child should be stateless, and yet they are in the millions.
I know this because we adopted, and I know how the system is broken in many ways also because of the lack of insight on the part of people writing these conventions.
> right of return
It doesn't matter that it was created after some time. It was created before the window of opportunity closed. That's enough. The fact that you didn't know anything about, while this is one of the key problems in Israel-Palestinian conflict only emphasizes how ...
No, they have to show they cannot return to their home. The Georgia war ended a long time ago, but Georgian who used to live in occupied Georgia are still considered refugees.
And you sidestepped my comment about UNRWA. They have nothing to do with the Palestinian refugee status or the right to return, yet you attack them. Also sidestepped is the acknowledgement that you have to have a Palestinian state to make Palestinians refugees living in the West Bank not refugees. This cannot happen as long as the two state solution do not exist (and the best solution would be one based on the one drafted during the Oslo accords, don't you agree?)
I think we agree on putting Gaza under UN supervision, however your first comment was about denying the whole Palestine any governmental right, including the West Bank, because of Fatah's struggle. Its like your comments on Fatah, I find it incredibly interesting that a nation who violently fought for its right to existence would deny the same right to another.
UNRWA is the label for multiple issues related to Palestinian refugees, including the right to return. Yes, they have everything to do with it. The sole purpose of this organization is to deal with Palestinian refugees, which UN made a special case, separate from all other refugees. It's literally called "United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East". Does it sound like they have nothing to do with Palestinian refugees?
I mean, unironically, UN is full of b/s and nonsense. W/o specific knowledge of this organization, I'd say they might have been unrelated to Palestinian refugees, despite their name... but they are not.
Did their officials create the disaster in Palestine themselves (including the right of return)? -- No, they are too dumb to accomplish anything of such magnitude. Best they can do is organize soccer games in refugee camps, you know, instead of providing decent accommodations / healthcare / teaching useful skills or language etc. That's their MO: being totally useless and sometimes harmful through sheer stupidity.
But they are the UN's implementation of UN's policies, including the right of return. Whenever any Israeli talks about UNRWA, they don't mean the worthless soccer games and photo-ops with underage starving refugees. They mean UN policies represented by this organization.
> Oslo accords
That ship sailed long time ago. At the time, there was a hope that Palestinians could self-govern and become a responsible country. Today, Gaza to a larger degree, but West Bank is trailing not to far behind, are sliding into the same condition where Syria and Lebanon are: a "failed state". A plot of land ran by gangs of terrorists. Thanks Iran, mostly. But stupidity of various international organizations duped into supporting and financing terrorists in these lands might be a close second.
I've heard Macron is pushing towards anti-ISIS coalition taking control of Gaza after the purge of Hamas. Of all plans I've heard so far for Gaza, this is the best way forward IMO.
> a nation who violently fought for its right to existence would deny the same right to another.
Read it again. I said temporary. Gaza and West Bank today are unsalvageable w/o international intervention. If they want to not die out / devolve into a shooting range where everyone and their uncle test new weapons, they need to accept a foreign rule. Nobody's denying them existence. Much in the same way how post-WW2 government of Germany and Japan didn't try to kill off Germans or Japanese.
Your entire comment starts with the assumption that a military invasion in gaza could possibly lead to the end of Hamas. Hamas is not a group of people. It's an idea, and in recent history shooting ideas has only ever made them stronger. Israel can't shoot themselves out of this situation unless they're willing to kill or expel every single person living in Gaza if not also the west bank.
Let me be clear, any Israeli policy that calls for the long term imprisonment of Gaza will lead to more israelis dying. You just can't treat 2 million people like that and expect that none of them become terrorists. That's not how humans work
And by the way, for jew haters: more than half the teachers and nurses at my father's godmother school/hospital/orphanage are non-secular jewish, some even orthodox. She also received a visit from an Israeli minister once (a long time ago, when the first Rabin's government was in power), who supported their work. Also, a government might be "the will of the people", but i assure you no Israeli, even the most far-right ones voted to push for the funding of the Hamas or for the sterilization of Ethiopian jews: the current government/party (Likud) is just really good at controlling information and at astroturfing, before astroturfing even existed (look into Rabin's assassination and how the killer radicalized himself). I wouldn't be surprised if they have Shin Bet roots (Mossad weirdly seems more principled, but i only have four different interviews with ex-Mossad chiefs to base that on).
I didn't really want to engage on HN as I think this whole post doesn't belong here (politically charged content is something this site generally avoids), but I will highlight the issue here. If you jump in to advocate support of Palestinians / Gaza, but didn't express any support for Israelis / Israel when Hamas (the elected and still popular government of Gaza) murdered over 1000 civilians, you're not an unbiased supporter that just wants peace. You have ignored the catalyst of the current episode of this conflict, which was an incredibly, obviously evil act against Israeli and foreign civilians, by Hamas, and widely celebrated in Gaza.
The worldwide attacks on Jews and synagogues, the chants of "Gas the Jews" and "From the River to the Sea" (which is a call for genocide of Israelis), the open calls from Palestinian terrorist groups calling for attacks on Jews worldwide, make it clear that antizionism is inextricably linked with antisemitism (as does the actual history of the conflict).
> Hamas (the elected and still popular government of Gaza) murdered over 1000 civilians
Israel killed over 1000 Palestinians from 2018 until before Operation al-Aqsa Flood. There's nothing really unusual about it from.that context. And Israel us currently massacring civilians in Gaza every day.
> the catalyst of the current episode of this conflict
Israelis murdered people on an aid flotilla a few years ago, and are evicting West Bank Palestinians from their homes with settlers, as the Israelis parade around the al-Aqsa mosque.
> Israel killed over 1000 Palestinians from 2018 until before Operation al-Aqsa Flood. There's nothing really unusual about it from.that context. And Israel us currently massacring civilians in Gaza every day.
Hamas makes no distinction between their soldiers and civilians deaths. And given their blatant lies about the supposed IDF attack on a hospital this week (actually caused by a Palestinian rocket which failed) and impossibly high and fast death count, and the whole being a terrorist organization, they can't be trusted.
Israel attempts to avoid civilians casualties via roof knocks and phone messages. The only exceptions here tend to be people storming the border. You are comparing that against designed, intentional murder, rape, and torture of civilians by Hamas.
> Israelis murdered people on an aid flotilla a few years ago, and are evicting West Bank Palestinians from their homes with settlers, as the Israelis parade around the al-Aqsa mosque.
That flotilla was trying to break a blockade and had been warned against it. When the ships were boarded, there was violent resistance, which resulted in some of the fighters being killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
Evicting Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank is obviously vile behavior. It's hard to get a liberal government elected in Israel to stop it given the state of the conflict.
About the mosque: It was the holiest site in Judaism for a thousand years before Islam existed.
> The worldwide attacks on Jews and synagogues, the chants of "Gas the Jews" and "From the River to the Sea" (which is a call for genocide of Israelis), the open calls from Palestinian terrorist groups calling for attacks on Jews worldwide, make it clear that antizionism is inextricably linked with antisemitism (as does the actual history of the conflict).
This makes zero sense. Terrorists call for terrorism, ergo anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism? You'll have to put up a better argument than that.
The actual history of the conflict starts with a bunch of European Jews turning up in West Asia and claiming that it was their land on the basis of a story book. European anti-Semites were more than happy with this arrangement because it meant their Jewish citizens would leave. Even the Nazis worked with the Zionist Agency to enable some 60 thousand German Jews to emmigrate to Palestine.
> This makes zero sense. Terrorists call for terrorism, ergo anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism? You'll have to put up a better argument than that.
The same people calling for antizionism are also calling for attacks on Jews. But anti-zionism is just antisemitic on its face: it means "I don't want Jews here in the middle east" (despite it being their historical home where they've maintained a constant presence). Here in the west (in the US and much of Europe, anyway), we generally reject the idea of using ethnicity as a reason to reject people from moving here. Imagine if we refused Native Americans from repatriating, but we called it "antitribalism" or something instead of the obvious racism that it is.
> The actual history of the conflict starts with a bunch of European Jews turning up in West Asia and claiming that it was their land on the basis of a story book.
There actually is a long history of Jews in the middle east, well supported by historical and archaeological evidence, and genetic studies (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judais... , you can find endless books and studies on the subject). They were exiled by multiple wars with the Romans, Arabs, and others. There were also ~600,000 Arab Jews who were exiled from various Arab nations in the middle east in the mid 20th century as well, who overwhelming went to Israel.
Early Zionism (late 19th century to 1948) was all Jews purchasing land in the area. They didn't just come and take it. Of course, there were plenty of socioeconomic issues here: Jews were buying land from wealthy landowners who lived or moved to other parts of the middle east, which often disrupted Arabs who lived or worked on that land prior to it being sold. Conflict with the Jews was thus twofold - partly based on the ancient religious strife, partly a socialist uprising (which was ultimately usurped by fascist populist groups like Fatah and Hamas). The Ottoman empire had controlled the land for hundreds of years, the population of the area had plummeted to a fraction of its historical population, and out of the Ottoman empire's fall, new national identities began to form, and with them, new nations - Palestine and Israel amongst them (also Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon...), and some of the Palestinian identity arose as a response to the rise of Israel. I'm going to refrain from going into further depth here, as I could write a novel. Recommended reading: "Palestinian Identity".
But to say the conflict starts at the point where there were the least Jews there is, at best, inaccurate, though it is convenient for antizionist narratives.
> European anti-Semites were more than happy with this arrangement because it meant their Jewish citizens would leave. Even the Nazis worked with the Zionist Agency to enable some 60 thousand German Jews to emmigrate to Palestine.
No the history doesn't begin with that at all. The Palestinian Mufti more or less allied with Hitler and was friendly to a holocaust in the middle east. That was before Israel existed obviously.
And that is not a Godwins laws argument, that is something what happened.
Jew immigrated after Israel independence. They were free to allow this migration.
The protests really demonstrated the need for Israel to exist for that matter.
You also don't see people demonstrating because 200,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait. Just because they supported Saddam, which is a pretty minor infraction compared to what was done to Jews.
> If you jump in to advocate support of Palestinians / Gaza, but didn't express any support for Israelis / Israel when Hamas
The vast majority of people are doing the opposite. Advocating support of Israel without expressing any support for innocent palestinians. The media seems especially bad about this, focusing exclusively on people who didn;t condemn Israel hard enough while ignoring the thousands of Palestinians that have been killed in settler terrorist attacks, which are implicitly supoorted by Bibi and the current regime. Israeli settlers continue to massacre palestinians in the west bank. Terrorism is never acceptable, but it unfortunately will continue as long as palestinians feel they're not respected by israel. That's just reality. I'm not advocating for naive peace talks, but you can't continue to be surprised when the prisoners rise up. And I struggle to think of any other word to describe gazans.
Always? They have been very clear about trying to avoid civilian casualties. Saying they are not always successful doesn't prove anything when you are fighting an entrenched enemy that is using human shields.
Rofl are you serious? Human shield is something like launching rockets from a playground, the roof of an apartment building, a mosque etc. Having a village a mile *behind* the border wall is not a human shield.
I totally forgot the time Nelson Mandela burned children alive, kidnapped kids and the elderly and just brutally murdered unarmed civilians...
Far be it from me to defend everything that Israel does. But even during the current bombings Israel tracks cellphone signals to try and bomb areas with minimal civilian presence. There's a huge difference between collateral damage and explicitly targeting civilians.
Israel tried to let more Gazans into its borders to work and reduce the burden on the people living there (not enough but it was improving) the Hamas chose murder with complete disregard to the lives of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are WAY worse than anything the French resistance did, and they were fighting damn nazis.
The ones that won the war for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba, and drove 80% of the indigenous population out of their homes at gunpoint.
(At least, they are currently hailed as freedom fighters by one side in that conflict. The Palestinians condemn them, but nobody cares what they think.)
There are a lot of claims there. Some fair some not. Neither ones relate to the current conflict. The claims of "drove 80% of the indigenous population out of their homes at gunpoint." is repeated often but is also missing a lot of context:
* Israelis didn't start that war
* Israelis were surrounded and attacked on all sides. They won.
* Many Arabs stayed and were invited to stay. They enjoy equal votes, supreme court positions and freedom of religion.
* Jews living in Arab countries were chased out and lost all their property too.
Furthermore, the occupied territories is the area we're talking about. That area belonged to Jordan/Egypt respectively. None of them wanted them back during peace talks. These people didn't have freedom before Israel came in.
Israel TRIED to make a peace treaty. The *HAMAS* destroyed that treaty by blowing people up. Its stated goal is the destruction of Israel. It is NOT about freedom in any way. It's about murder. Plain and simple...
The only way Palestinians will ever be free from Israel is if the Hamas is destroyed.
Just so I understand you correctly, are you saying that it's okay for freedom fighters to displace a civilian population at gunpoint, as long as it's the other side who started the conflict?
Not what I said. That was one point only. There are stories of the Jews in Haifa who begged their Arab neighbors to stay. They did. OTOH there are plenty of stories of slaughter of Jews during that war. It was a terrible war. There was no law since there was no country. No organized army with discipline and rules. I'm sorry these things happened.
That first war had war crimes on both sides. Lots of them. The Israeli side won. If it had lost I'm sure the Jews would be in a far worse situation than the Arabs are in the state of Israel.
A bunch of European Jews turned up in West Asia and and claimed it was their land on the basis of a story book. This was the starting point from which they wanted peace. It's not hard to understand why it was unacceptable to Arabs.
Muslims believe that same book of nonsense too... Half of these Jews lived in Arab states and were chased out of these lands (losing their homes too).
The Jews started coming in the 19th century and purchased lands. Many areas were bought during those years. During that time the land wasn't "owned" by any country so there was never a Palestinian country. It was controlled by the Ottoman empire and then by the English.
When the English left they divided the land between both factions giving the Jews a piece after the horrors of the Holocaust. Arabs started a war and lost.
I have empathy to the plight of the Palestinians. They shouldn't pay for the sins of their and our forefathers. But it's been multiple generations by now. It's fair to have a grievance, it's stupid to pick up arms when that hasn't worked well in the past.
While the Holocaust is used as justification for the creation of Israel, the Balfour declaration came decades before. Zionism was a European colonial project lead by Ashkenazim. The Mizrahim from Arab states migrated in numbers after the State of Israel was proclaimed.
The Palestinian identity is definitely a modern creation, shaped primarily as a reaction against Israel. But it's not too different from the notion of a Jewish People who need a separate homeland, shaped by European anti-Semitism.
> While the Holocaust is used as justification for the creation of Israel, the Balfour declaration came decades before. Zionism was a European colonial project lead by Ashkenazim. The Mizrahim from Arab states migrated in numbers after the State of Israel was proclaimed.
So. How does this contradict anything I said?
Ashkenazi Jews came earlier and bought up land. That was land that was ruled by the Ottoman empire and later the English. We were discussing Palestinians driven from their home during the independence war. During that same time Mizrahi Jews were driven away from their homes.
> The Palestinian identity is definitely a modern creation, shaped primarily as a reaction against Israel. But it's not too different from the notion of a Jewish People who need a separate homeland, shaped by European anti-Semitism.
Again. I don't see how this collides with anything I said. I very much believe in a two state solution and have a lot of empathy to the plight of the Palestinian people. The Hamas is evil though, not a freedom fighting organization.
I think there are plenty of legitimate things Israel can be blamed for (settlements, treatment of the PLO post Oslo, etc.). Arguing over history is pointless, both sides have deep victimization grievances. The Hamas is only making matters worse for the Palestinians and harder for those of us trying to bring about a Palestinian state.
Oh, you mean the war where multiple arabs armies attacked the newly formed Israel at the behest of the local arabs? Where the leader of the Arab League Azzam Pasha said, "this will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades [1]."
The newly formed Israel, that was formed because of constant (arguably terrorist) attacks on the British army, alongside actions against indigenous Palestinian Arabs (actions that could justly be called pogroms themselves), by Jewish separatists.
Those separatists were justifiably motivated, by the reality of the Holocaust, and the endless series of pogroms in pre-WWII Eastern Europe, to want a place of their own.
There was a certain kind of Jewish settler who decided that moving slowly back, and doing so in a friendly fashion to the people they were necessarily displacing, was unacceptable. it did not matter that other people had been living for centuries on the land they felt was theirs. It did not matter to them that most Jews were forced out of Palestine by ancient Rome.
I think a lot about the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the Landback movement here in the states. Is there a statute of limitations on giving land back to a displaced people? It feels like there should be.
I really don't get this argument. Israel has easily 100x more military power than palestinians. If you come to the conclusion that the only path to freedom is violence and you're up against someone 100x more powerful than you who has imprisoned you terrorism is pretty much your only option. Anything else will just lead to your immediate annihilation. It's easy to say "follow the rules of war" when they assure your victory.
Now I don't believe Hamas is actually fighting for freedom, but if they were and israel was unwilling to negotiate it's easy to see how they decide to massacre civilians.
This is totally incorrect for the case of the Hamas and is overused as a statement. It gives a terrible name to actual freedom fighters.
The Hamas isn't an organization with freedom as its goal. It's goal is strictly holy war (Jihad) and it considers the Palestinian children it kills along the way as martyrs. It has been a cancer on the people living in Gaza and has physically stopped the peace treaty (Oslo accord) from proceeding.
Honest question because I'm not super educated on this matter... I keep hearing all this awful stuff about Hamas: they use human shields, they're launching rockets from hospitals and churches, they dont care about the lives of Palestinian people. The only people I ever hear making these claims are Israelis and pro-Israeli westerners. I haven't heard any of these claims from Palestinian people. If it was true that they're being used as human shields by these awful thugs that are ruining their lives wouldn't there be more of an outcry against them by Palestinians? Maybe that's happening and I'm just not seeing it?
If you want to learn more about the way Palestinians and Hamas interact, look up "Son of Hamas", a book by the Palestinian son of one of the founders of Hamas. Here's an interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v738Wogza0
That's a good start. You can find reports of rockets launched from civilian areas on your own. I'm sure you can find others condemning Hamas. But the reason there isn't more obvious outcry is because Palestinians are largely supportive, and those that aren't don't exactly have robust freedom of speech protections - speaking out can get you killed. And the media doesn't seem to like portraying Palestine as anything other than a monoculture.
> Support of armed resistance was not always present. When Hamas openly fought the Palestinian Authority – which governs the West Bank and questioned the legitimacy of Hamas’ victory – and seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, over 73% of Palestinians opposed that seizure and any further armed conflict.
> At that time, fewer than one-third of Gazans supported any military action against Israel. Over 80% condemned kidnapping, arson and indiscriminate violence.
> If read over time, polls of Gazans from 2007 to 2023 tell a story. They help make clear that Gazan support for armed resistance grew alongside increasing frustration, anger and a sense of hopelessness with any political solution to their suffering.
It's very easy to judge people born into what is essentially the largest open-air prison in the world for being able to be driven mad, blow by blow by blow. You think you'd fare better?
I'm one of the Naaive people who think the Oslo accord would have worked if the Hamas was stopped and if Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn't have sabotaged it from the other side.
Unfortunately, today they are weakened due to terrible Israeli policy (specifically by Netanyahu). I hope Israelis understand that mistake but I'm not very optimistic.
I hope that after the dust settles Netanyahu will be gone and who ever is in charge will come to a reasonable agreement with the PLO. However, I'm not very optimistic. I think they have a more justified claim since the west bank has been expanding settlements (against Israeli law).
They are conducting a religious Jihad. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and an Islamic state in the area. They want to outcast every Jew living in the region. That is part of their charter.
In this conflict their goal was to start a regional war by inflaming Jordan, Egypt, etc. This would make them dissolve the peace agreement and go back to an all out war. To do that they need Israeli war crimes at a terrible scale especially against their own civilians.
They are using the bombings as propaganda to further their goals. Netanyahu is an idiot who (as usual) gives them exactly what they want. Unfortunately, eliminating them is nearly impossible as they are deeply embedded in civilian areas.
Your argument that they want this war crimes to initiate a regional war is funny. Why would you even go all this direction while an easier and more logical reason is that they are fighting for a Palestinian state [1]. And its funny that you put the blame on war crimes on anyone except who make them. No one is ever forced to make war crimes. If it is done, the perpetrators are never considered the victims at least in a sane world.
What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes. So the victims in this story are the poor Isreali soldiers who have to kill all these people and might suffer emotionally as a result!!
If they were fighting for a Palestinian state they would have collaborated on the Oslo accord which was leading there. Or they would have waited for the state to form and then taken over that state.
I suggest you read the link that you provided. Read it. E.g.
> Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people.
They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
> No one is ever forced to make war crimes.
I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
> If it is done, the perpetrators are never considered the victims at least in a sane world.
Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
> What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes.
That's very selective reading. Israeli army soldiers did lots of bad things. This is documented mostly by Israeli groups e.g.
And many others. But here's the difference, it's a country of laws. Things get reported and even soldiers can be tried for crimes. Does Israel have a perfect record?
No. But it's pretty good even when compared to other liberal democracies such as the USA.
I never said or implied that the Palestinian people aren't victims. They are caught between the Hamas and Israel. The thing that bothers me is that people blame Israel for this conflict when the blame should be on Hamas first by a HUGE margin then on Israel. There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
> If they were fighting for a Palestinian state they would have collaborated on the Oslo accord which was leading there. Or they would have waited for the state to form and then taken over that state.
Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Osolo accords was in 1993. That's 20 years of Israel not doing anything to actually give Palestinians a state after they sign the accords. Not only that but literally they build many settlements inside the Palestinian territories, and it is still expanding until today [1] and recently as this year they expand new settlements [2] . Not to mention the violence and terror that the armed settlers are spreading (i.e [[3] [4]).
> They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
They believe the entire land is theirs and there is an argument that they were stolen from them. We can argue about that, but there are people in Israel who also think that this is their entire land (And it is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli people came from other places). Also, they displaced Arab population and keep doing that to expand settlements. But lets pass this point and move to another important thing.
> I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
Aren't we past the point of explaining that burning people and beheading people are false claims that even Biden spread? [5]
But ironically, this is actually happened to Palestinian family by Israeli settlers in west bank in 2015 [6] and here is another one [7] . Which city in Israel would you suggest gets flattened as a price of that? (Rhetorical question, if that is not obvious enough)
> Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
I have seen a lot of fake photos and claims. I'm not saying that there were no civilians in Israeli side were killed, and I'm against that. But the Israeli war crime and carpet bombing of Gaza where hundreds of children are dead and thousands are killed is much worse, and what's crazy is that the world is letting this continue on a daily basis.
> They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
Can't we say the same things about Palestinian fighters. Well their people are killed, homes takes and bombed for decades. Can this logic extend to them, and some of them will not act according to what should happen. Or it is just easy to just extend that to all people. Isn't that what happened with every resistance movement in the world?
Again, to be clear, I'm against these actions. And even don't like Hamas for many reasons. But I just try to follow your logic. If you consider actions are terror. Apply these criteria to all sides. Don't say "takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far" to describe war crimes by one side.
> There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
A footnote, why? Because Arab blood is much cheaper for you than Israeli one? Specially that civilian's death toll is much higher on their side.
> Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Osolo accords was in 1993. That's 20 years of Israel not doing anything to actually give Palestinians a state after they sign the accords.
This is pretty detached from the facts. The accord was going well. Then Hamas started blowing up busses, coffee shops and just shooting up restaurants. Thousands died through suicide bombings etc.
This drove a stake through the accord. As a result Benjamin Netanyahu used the bombings to rise to power and destroy the remaining chances of a state. He later on explained that he specifically supported the Hamas to destroy the chance of a Palestinian state. He's a terrible person, no doubt. But there were two sides of terrible and he would never have risen to power without the Hamas doing their part.
> And it is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli people came from other places
That is no longer the case. The vast majority of Jews were born in Israel by this point. I think it stopped being true by the 80s or so.
Also this ignores all the Jews chased away from Arab countries after the formation of Israel so this went both ways.
> Aren't we past the point of explaining that burning people and beheading people are false claims that even Biden spread?
THESE ARE NOT FALSE CLAIMS. I didn't say beheading I said burned alive holding their children. This is a fact. Friends of my spouse were in their house (with 3 little daughters) as it was set on fire. Their village had 450 people. It has under 200 now.
These were peace loving people. One of the people there who was kidnapped as an 80 year old guy who used to drive cancer patients from Gaza for treatments in Israeli hospitals. A family living there used to organize an annual event of flight kites next to the border for friendship with the Palestinian people. These are not "settlers" who steal land. They were murdered in the most brutal way possible. Two kids (6 and 9) were hiding in a closet under the body of their mother to survive after their unarmed father was shot. Their 3 year old sister is in Gaza.
> But ironically, this is actually happened to Palestinian family by Israeli settlers in west bank in 2015
That is terrible and I'm well aware of that since it was reported a lot in the press. The guy responsible for that was caught and considered a terrorist. He was tortured and gave a confession. He is 100% a Jewish terrorist and he's in prison in isolation. Rightly so.
> I have seen a lot of fake photos and claims.
I know quite a few people personally. Israel has free press and international journalists were allowed into those regions so they can see. The number of testimonials is huge.
Unlike the Hamas which often lies (e.g. in the case of the Hospital in Gaza), Israel tends to have a better record. Not perfect for sure. But much better when it comes to the truth.
> Can't we say the same things about Palestinian fighters.
Yes we can. Worse. Bibi has let the Hamas run Gaza for decades. Their children programs were remarkably anti-Israeli and insane.
> But the Israeli war crime and carpet bombing of Gaza where hundreds of children are dead and thousands are killed is much worse, and what's crazy is that the world is letting this continue on a daily basis.
I think bombing is bad and doesn't help Israel. Having said that it is by no means worse.
Israel doesn't carpet bomb. Israel uses accurate ammunition's and the Hamas's numbers were often shown as lies, without external objective verification this can't be trusted.
Israel tracks mobile phones in Gaza and bombs areas with the minimal amount of civilian presence to minimize the damage to civilians. In fact, it threw an amount of bombs that is unprecedented on a relatively small area. Yet the number of deaths is still relatively low when taken into consideration.
Notice that during all of these bombings the Hamas keeps firing missiles and sending drones. It's still holding 200+ hostages many of which are children and elde...
> Why would you even go all this direction while an easier and more logical reason is that they are fighting for a Palestinian state
Because that would make them freedom fighters, and it’s important to make sure that the Palestinians are never, ever validated in any of their grievances. It’s a key step in dehumanization.
Have Russian grievances ever been validated since they started the war with Ukraine?
It seems like Hamas Grievances have been validated across academia and the mainstream media since they started the war with Israel.
Most of the Gazan prisoners are soldiers, policemen, army reservists. The ones scooped up by accident are being released - two on Friday and two before. Hamas has asked for a brief 24 hour ceasefire to release prisoners but Israel has refused, prolonging the imprisonment.
Ahmad Sa'adat is a "military fighter"? At the age of 70? He has been in Israeli prison for years.
That's funny I remember a time not so long ago when just questioning the origin of a virus, or the efficacy of a vaccine got people outed silenced. I remember when just having discussions around if men should be allowed to compete in women's spaces got people blacklisted and shamed.
I remember once when a landscaper that made the okay sign was fired from his job because everyone on the internet reached out to his employer to tell them he was a white supermacist when he had no idea what was going on.
But you're right now we should have nuance, and distinction when shaming and doxxing people who are wrong.
"Questioning," is an odd way to spell, "making assertions with zero supporting evidence as an excuse to refuse to wear a 1-ply cotton cloth in public." I never saw anyone question the efficacy of the vaccine. I saw plenty of people saying it is deadly and/or will grow spikes on one's testicles or ovaries.
It's hard to have nuance with people who are participating dishonestly from the outset.
> I never saw anyone question the efficacy of the vaccine
There is just about a zero percent chance this is true. Many people were openly frustrated that the vaccinated would still get and spread covid despite originally being told that wouldn't happen.
The "jab kills you" thing didn't gain traction until after the official narrative changed from "You won't get covid" -> "You won't get as sick from covid"
The "official narrative" changed when new variants of the virus spread and behaved differently. "Delta won't hospitalize you but you can still catch this new omega (it's not as bad)," is still very effective.
Retconning it to pretend like "the narrative" radically changed for no reason is another problem when discussing things with people who are intentionally dishonest.
Attributing my perspective to dishonesty seems, well, dishonest. The fact is that members of this forum are broadly more informed and versed in statistics when compared to the general public. The general population, through typical news sources (which are infamously bad at being accurate on scientific topics), was exposed to a cacophony of information of wildly varied quality. One small set of examples from what I consider to be reasonable sources (CDC, WHO, some papers, and two mainstream news publications):
[1] The original official estimates for death rate were off by an order of magnitude or more. [2] Then the government said masks don't work. Then the government said masks do work. [3-5] Then the government said they "miscounted" several relevant stats (cases, deaths, etc) several times. Then the advice was booster shots, as it was being discussed that the vaccine wasn't effective enough. [6-7] And as all of this went on, the public was becoming aware of varying governing bodies from all around the world disagreeing about strategy/effectiveness.
[2] https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8... - While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers.
[5] - "We documented 25 instances when the CDC reported statistical or numerical errors. Twenty (80%) of these instances exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 situation, 3 (12%) instances simultaneously exaggerated and downplayed the severity of the situation, one error was neutral, and one error exaggerated COVID-19 vaccine risks. The CDC was notified about the errors in 16 (64%) instances, and later corrected the errors, at least partially, in 13 (52%) instances. " - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4381627#...
Didn't we have different variants before the vaccines even got rolled out?
why didn't they come up with a vaccine that could resist the different kinds of variants that were out as they were being developed?
> I never saw anyone question the efficacy of the vaccine.
Hmm? I remember getting shit on for simply pointing out that the obsession about it is pointless, since it did precious little to stop transmission. They protected the people who got them, and in that sense misinformation was harmful, but I remember restaurants where you couldn't eat inside without 2 vaccinations plus booster, even with a mask. Which was insane and stupid, and people who just went along absolutely did not enjoy that being pointed out.
I got 2 vaccinations, by the time I should have gotten the booster I didn't. Not because I was worried about it, out of sheer spite. I don't do goosestep. I don't eat in restaurants either, I was not personally inconvenienced by any of this -- but I saw it, and made a choice to no longer be part of it.
Heck, I remember asking what possible good those contact tracing apps would do me, since I lived in self-imposed near-quarantine already (I didn't care who was vaccinated and who wasn't, I simply assumed everyone had Covid, including me). I got called a murderer for asking that, nearly literally.
> It's hard to have nuance with people who are participating dishonestly from the outset.
Then don't pretend what I saw with my own eyes doesn't exist and didn't take place.
It was effective against some of the strains and less effective against others. You want to pretend that the vaccine is worthless to the point that you should be allowed to wander around entering whatever shared space while people are still dying of the original strain? No wonder you were "shit on."
To this day one can easily have a discussion even on HN with someone who will tell you that, "nobody with any significant amount of life remaining ever dies of covid, so what's the problem?"
You're not getting boosted out of spite? Great job, that'll show 'em.
> You want to pretend that the vaccine is worthless
in reply to
> They protected the people who got them, and in that sense misinformation was harmful
You so showed me haha.
> To this day one can easily have a discussion even on HN with someone who will tell you that, "nobody with any significant amount of life remaining ever dies of covid, so what's the problem?"
Yeah, but you don't get to have that imaginary discussion with me. Make up whatever you want about me, and then keep it to yourself.
They cannot cope with the notion that one could be pro-Palestine AND pro-Israel AND anti-terrorist AND anti-war, all at the same time.
If you are pro-Palestine they think you must be anti-Israel, if you are pro-Israel they think you must be anti-Palestine. Which is an idiotic assumption but millions of people think this way.
So companies don't want to tread this line at all, because they have stock prices and earnings and other things to worry about.
To me it boils down to international law and the Geneva convention, and how they either apply to all or nobody. That is, by the same token terrorism is wrong, Israeli settlers murdering Palestinians and the IDF murdering journalists and bombing civilians under flimsy slogans about "human shields" is wrong. The same international law that makes the settlements illegal confirms Israel's right to exist. Want the settlements? Can't have Israel, not via rights afforded by international law. Want Israel? Can't have the settlements. And so on.
It's a simple matter of having principles rather than group affiliations. "Never again" isn't about Jews, it's about what the Nazis did; the actions and the dehumanizing sophistry to justify them, nothing more, nothing less.
The palestinians opposing hamas are extremely quiet. In Sidney the crowds flying palestinian colors chant "gas the Jews" and in Montreal "from the river to the sea". Making the distinction between terrorists and civilians without also acknowledging the specific behaviour of these groups of supporters is another fine line which might land one square with pro-genocide folks if not careful.
>Something something freedom of speech something something freedom from consequences.
Speech with consequences is the very definition of lack of free speech:
"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction."
"A spokesman for LinkedIn said the company determined that the site had used automated programs to extract content from the platform, a practice known as scraping, which is a violation of its rules. "
Whether there are underlying reasons, this is the cover that LinkedIn is using for the warning.
"Mistake" implies it could have turned out differently. But it couldn't have, not under our current system of incentives and laissez-faire approach to regulation. Outrage and fake news makes money, regardless of the external costs on social cohesion and democracy, so this is the guaranteed outcome given enough time. What is a mistake is the underlying system of (misaligned) incentives that leads to outcomes like this.
Youtube has been recommending me older onion videos about israel and at first glance I thought they were new given how perfectly they fit the current situation.
YouTube recommended a two year old Daily Show segment about the Israel-Palestine conflict to me and I felt the same. It could have been recorded yesterday. It's tragic how history repeats there.
It's the Trail of Tears 2.0 spread out over 75+ years. It's like they feel like if they just do it slow enough no one who has any power to do anything about it won't notice the parallels. They'e even going East to West!
Some comments are a prove of interesting history education, it's not about Jewish, it's about zionism, UK promised this land as safe land for zionists 1984, it's marketed as jewish but it was for zionists. before that date jewish used to live freely anywhere, in middle east, one proof of that is Asia cup 1939, Palestine team with jewish players.
after 1984, Britain sent zionists with weapons, and they formed organized groups to kick Palestinians out of the land, it' s not called selling if a gun at your face. then Palestinian started to fight back but with no weapons as Britains were already prisoning them.
what Palestinians are doing is clearly resisting occupation. you know a lot of modern so called heroes used to be called terrosits by the occupiers (Mandel, Malcolm X) . Western mentality won't get the idea of resistance espicially if they already stole the land of native americans and still economically occupying parts of Africa.
just think about Ukraine and if Russia wiped it and gave part of the lands to some troops , what would u call the resisting ukranians
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] threadTwo of the posts on the website that flags a "anti-Israeli" / "terrorist supporter" person:
> I know this is a professional plattform but we are human .. and you don't have to be a Muslim to support Palestine, you just have to be a human being. #SaveHumanity #SavePalestine
> Praise and thank the Lord. #betterlatethannever #savethechildren #prayforGaza #prayforpeace
Is this what counts as "terrorist" supporter these days?
Overall I agree with you, people should be shamed for any sort of support of terrorists, no question about it.
But this seems to be something else, it seems to be flagging "anti-Israel" sentiment, which seems to include a lot more than just anti-Zionism.
Yes, in many mainstream circles. It's absolutely insane. The world goes insane every time this 75-year war gets front-page billing.
Plenty of Israeli Arabs (eg. A few who directly report to me) have denounced Hamas on LinkedIn but also voiced public criticism to the heavy-handed response that the IDF is doing. Heck, several of the survivors from the Nova Music festival were saved by Bedouin nearby, and plenty of the ongoing shelling in the North is impacting Israeli Arabs. Heck, a Chechen/Circassian mosque was hit by a Hamas rocket.
Western commentators are making it a black-and-white issue where you either support the Palestinian cause or the Israeli cause with no middle.
The 2nd/3rd/Nth generation Jewish and Arab diaspora have both been posting some vile comments about the other.
I think you are being too charitable. From what I have seen, it's "you either support the Israeli cause or you are a terrorist who hates freedom." All we need now is a war criminal republican president for democrats to loudly criticize yet support at every opportunity to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and it'll be just like the early 2000s again.
One can support innocent Palestinians without supporting Palestine, the same way one can support innocent Israelis without supporting Israel. Not sure why they decided to sneak in some dehumanization into what masquerades as a positive sentiment.
Yeah, no. That's meant as an appeal to humanity beyond tribal solidarity. Reading dehumanization into it is a bit much.
Yes, when you're standing in the way of Israel and US ravaging a country by supporting those people, you are a terrorist.
> Is this what counts as "terrorist" supporter these days?
Does "better late than never" refer to Hamas's attack on Israel, where they killed roughly a thousand people? If not, what does it refer to?
Does "Praise and thank the Lord" refer to the same thing? If you're praising God for that, you may not be a terrorist "supporter", but you're certainly a terrorist cheerleader and advocate.
And if you are referring to that, and saying "pray for peace" on the same line? Then your hypocrisy is nauseating.
All this is based on my interpretation of "better late than never". If I'm interpreting it wrongly, please clue me in as to what it actually means.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trucks-enter-gaza-...
Well, yes.
Here's how. People who make arguments for "good Palestinians unrelated to Hamas" and for "ceasefire", against "humanitarian disaster" all very obviously blame Israel for harming those "good Palestinians" and not stopping firing etc. Which definitely helps Hamas and doesn't Help any Palestinians, nor Israelis.
For the most part it's just stupidity of people uninvolved with the conflict who found it easy to believe a story of oppression by a superior military / economical power. This is also what pushes the idea of "Hamas not representing Palestinians". While, unfortunately, it does. But every Western society rejects this grim reality. Because admitting it would lead to asking very inconvenient questions, revision of previously established policies... basically, admitting to being stupid and being manipulated by some "Nigerian prince".
Here's one example. Every political / military organization which wants to kill all Jews and establish Palestine "from the river to the sea" tries to legitimize this claim by appealing to UN's charter that warrants every nation the right to rule over themselves. In the case with Israel, there's what appears to be a conflicting resolution from the UN legitimizing Israeli state. While UN finds time to condemn Israel on a monthly basis, it could never find time to resolve this dispute. They'd have to go back and revisit this claim about every nation being able to rule themselves, amend it with some cases where that doesn't apply... but they are happy to sit on their hands, and the conflict keeps going. UNRWA is the same story: bad decision that keeps fueling the hatred, but UN will never admit they did something stupid, and will never reverse their decisions.
So, back to blaming humanitarian disaster on Israel: Israel is as much responsible for the humanitarian disaster as the world's oceans are responsible for the rising sea level. Israel is playing its hand the best they can. But, they aren't the reason civilians are dying in Gaza. No more than gravity or the engineers who designed fighter jets.
So, why is it surprising that Israel doesn't want to hear itself blamed for something that had no influence over? They are facing the same media device that's used by Americans who claim that "blue lives matter" -- a superficially innocent claim that, out of context could just mean that someone wants to support the police doing quite dangerous job, while, in reality, it's a reactionary stance that's meant to counteract the other sentiment: "black lives matter", instead of being used to actually help the police.
People behind the tag of "SavePalestine" don't really want to save Palestine. They are manipulating public sentiment to be against Israel. Had they really want to save Palestine, they'd be appealing to the UN to cancel UNRWA, to work with Israel in declaring Gaza a "failed state", preventing Gaza from having its own government, military, courts etc. instead having some form of international government, blue helmets etc. take control for the next 3-5 decades at least.
Turks rule over the territory of modern day Israel. It's part desert (Negev) part swamps. The land is pretty bad for agriculture, the locals are poor as dirt. Pretty much a place you'd call a "hole".
Series of pogroms in Russian empire lead to, beside other things, a stream of Jewish refugees wanting to settle in this "hole" because of a tradition they kept for thousands years that called this "hole" their home.
They want to buy land from the locals, when none in their right mind would. Many locals are tempted by the offer and the prospect of becoming city dwellers, wage workers... only to discover that nobody's going to hire them. They burn through the money they got from selling their land and sharply sink into even more abject poverty. Jews won't sell the land back, and even if they would, there's no money to buy it back. Jews also won't hire them.
So locals need a way out. A bunch of landless peasants who have neither the skills nor finances to start new industrial life in the city. They start blaming the Jews for swindling them out of their properties. And, of course, there were also cases of Jews taking advantage of the locals, so, that reinforces the idea that Jews should be purged from their land.
Comes World War I, Brits take over this territory, but they aren't really interested in solving the local disputes. They want order. So, whoever starts the fight gets a kick in the teeth from the occupational government. Arabs tend to get the short end of the stick more often. This leads Nazi Germans to side with the Arabs to mess with the Brits. Grand mufti gets great reception from Hitler, gets a title of honorary Aryan... picking up few other related ideas along the way.
The nice mufti guy organizes the blockade of Jerusalem with the intention to starve all the Jews living there. Not to mention inspiring few other incidents leading up to Jewish deaths. Jews either appeal to Brits, or seeing how Brits aren't eager to step in, retaliate themselves.
Comes the end of World War II, Brits finally had enough of the headache with this mess. Everyone feels like Jews need some kind of compensation for what happened to them during the war, so Brits push for the UN resolution legitimizing the Israeli state. Needless to mention the local Arabs are infuriated by this decision, since this would seal the fate of their lost lands forever. They go for an all-out war, but lose. This war and subsequent defeat is what today they call "Nakba" (catastrophe).
In Kuwait they "just" allied with Saddam and were expelled in return. I think what how some suppressed the Jews was quite a bit more serious. They fought for their independence. That this isn't well liked by any party is another story.
First, a ceasefire help Palestinian and Israeli civilians, so your first paragraph is wrong.
Your second paragraph is wrong too. Palestinian in the west bank are represented by the Fatah, which is a secular organization. Hence Hamas do not represent Palestinians. I'll add something else: Hamas only survived in Gaza thanks to the monthly 30M$ send by Qatar there: those dollars arrived by plane in Israel, where the Israeli army was waiting, then escorted (still by the army) toward Gaza, sent sent to an entry that was solely controlled by Hamas, ensuring their control upon food importation on one hand, and upon other political/paramilitary groups on the other.
This is linked to your third paragraph: UNRWA is seriously limited and cannot afford to give much more than schooling and food to children in Gaza. They would have done a much better job of securing peace than the Hamas with the monthly 30M given by Qataris. Who insisted that that money kept flowing into Hamas hands? [0]. I do not know why you attack UNRWA but the sister who called my grandparents to adopt my father worked with them, (the catholic hospital/school/orphanage she worked in before their expropriation was founded by this initiative) and I can't imagine her fueling any hatred: even when forcibly moved from the area she worked in for 40 years she said it was God's will and that she would do a much better work in her new place (at almost 80 yo)
Israelis civilians and Israel as a country has nothing to be blamed for, I agree with paragraph 4 and 5. But Netanyahu's government and his politic does. The 16 year blockade limited any influence work and humanitarian aid (its also why UNRWA critics specifically targeting the situation in Gaza to explain why it half-failed are at best fucking disingenuous, and i'm really nice). The decision to push the Hamas as a PLO alternative to limit Fatah increasing power in the Palestinian coalition was really short-sighted at first, but the continuous effort to keep that status quo by Netanyahu's government, including indirect funding of Hamas was criminal and probably the original sin of that pogrom (which do not absolve Hamas war criminals/terrorist of the majority of the blame).
Last paragraph: not sure why you conflate Gaza with Palestine. If it's on purpose, I agree that one solution would be to separate Gaza from Palestine (like Bengladesh from Pakistan) and going back to the original borders.
What really grind my gears is the western photo-open with Netanyahu. This is ridiculous. It would be like if all leaders went to General What's-his-name in Libya to take pictures with him after the dam failure that killed thousands of his citizens. It's pathetic, really.
I'm zionist BTW, I am for 'l'autodétermination des peuples', for everybody, and I did use to have a Haaretz subscription when I was younger, those are my 2 main bias in this conflict.
[0]https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2020-02-24/ty-artic...
In the short term it helps Palestinian civilians. But Hamas doesn't care about ceasefire. never did. They've broken numerous previous such agreements. So, the only possible ceasefire is the one-sided, where Israel stops shooting at Palestinians. If they do that, more Israelis will die. They obviously care about Israelis more than they care about Palestinians.
> Your second paragraph is wrong too. Palestinian in the west bank are represented by the Fatah, which is a secular organization.
Religion plays no role in this dispute. Fatah are as much terrorists as Hamas is. It's just at this point in time it's convenient to pretend that they aren't. Plenty of Fatah members are doing time in Israeli prisons for killing or attempting to kill Israeli citizens.
How did you come to a conclusion from what you wrote that Hamas doesn't represent Palestinians I don't have a clue. Hamas and Fatah don't differ on their position on "kill all Jews" question. They might not represent all Palestinians literally, but they are quite representative of the sentiment "on Palestinian street". They aren't some sort of a foreign plant nobody agrees with. They enjoy great support and love from their loyal subjects.
> UNRWA
What they do with schools is irrelevant. You simply don't have a clue what this is about. UNRWA was established to give eternal, hereditary refugee status to Arabs who attempted pogroms at the start of the independence war of 48, and then fled fearing retribution. This is what they refer to by the "right to return". The idea here is that children, or grand children, or grand-grand-grand...children of these people have a right to return to places like Yaffo and reclaim their properties.
No other refugee in the world enjoys anything like this. Refugee status expires after some time. Maybe ten or so years. This is reasonable because such status puts its owner in a limbo of not being a citizen of any country. Should your refugee status expire, the country where you live must do something about it. Either grant you citizenship, or kick you out. UNRWA put these refugees into eternal Purgatory of being stateless. They are told by the UN "one day you'll go back to live in Tel Aviv". And Israel tells them "go jump off a cliff, I need no antisemite terrorist living in the middle of the largest city in my country". So, as long as Israel stands, they aren't coming back. No two- or three- or however many state solution isn't going to alter anything about their situation. They are screwed, by UN.
UN could alter their decision to request monetary compensation for example. Israel would be very happy to comply. And whatever country that accepted these refugees would get a nice chunk of money to go with them. Yet UN is determined to keep this torture going because they are stubborn and stupid on one side, and on the other side all sorts of "human rights committees" have been hijacked by members with an axe to grind against Israel. And these refugees are a chip in this game.
> Last paragraph: not sure why you conflate Gaza with Palestine.
Dude. You obviously don't live there. Have never been there. Don't understand the language or the history of the place. I've spent 25 years of my life in this place. Palestine is not a thing. There's no agreement on what it is. But one thing I can tell you for sure, if anything is Palestine, Gaza is definitely there.
I highly doubt that even if Hamas shot more missiles after a ceasefire, any Israeli civilian would die from it.
> Fatah are as much terrorists as Hamas is
Disagree on that. Hamas essentially is anti-zionist (and anti-semitic) and use terror attack because they kill jews (they want to kill them all, as established once again by the recent pogrom). Fatah essentially want a two-state solution. They are revolutionary and push for an armed struggle, but if you call them terrorists, then FARCS are terrorist and French/Polish resistants were terrorists.
> They enjoy great support and love from their loyal subjects.
Hamas had 30M$ a month for a dozen years, yeah, i'm sure it's grassroot support and no indoctrination...
> You simply don't have a clue what this is about.
I indeed had no clue about that. Obviously i only know about UNRWA as a relief organization who provides training, food and money to hospital and schools in the middle east, i did not know it was only for palestinians (because the school/hospital i know work with them also used to help young jewish women and men w/o formal or secular education, and poor catholics). But "You simply don't have a clue what" refugee means. it doesnt "expire" after 10 years (this would be so weird) (read that: https://www.unhcr.org/media/convention-and-protocol-relating...). Are you conflating refugee, the international status, with the "refugee status" a national government grant after you are recognized as one? Because here how it work: a Palestinian have his refugee status recognized in France (thanks to UNWRA, it's easy if he can prove he is palestininan). From this point onwards, he has a residency card, and ten years of basic healthcare and minimum income. After those 10 years, if he did not get citizenship, he goes to Ofpra, ask again, and get it again. My mother hosted (or taught French to) different war refugees from Georgia until 2021, so hopefully they did not suddenly stopped being war refugees in 2018, or else the associations whe work with really screwed up.
Still, i have not clue about that part of UNWRA: so i read about it for 5 minutes: UN cannot create statelessness (weird word). This is illegal under the Geneva convention, so as long as Palestine is not a nation, its hard to revoke the provision that make Palestinian refugees (because the million or so living in Gaza or in the west bank cannot be recognized as Palestinian as long as Palestine doesn't exist). Also UNWRA has nothing to do with the right to return. It's was created after (a over a hundred UN resolution after), so you're damn right i "don't have a clue what this is about", but a quick google-fu would have helped you too. By the way, this was both rude and wrong, which is the worst kind of rude.
> You obviously don't live there. Have never been there.
I don't, I have. Only for a couple days (that's also when i started reading Hareetz), my father was denied entry at the last moment and i choose to come back once it was clear he wouldn't be allowed to enter at all (making pre-90s lebanon the only Middle-East country he was able to enter due to having "Jerusalem" as place of birth on his passport), sadly the place he was born in was destroyed in 2020 during a "resettlement" and he will never see it.
Based on what? What do you think rockets that Hamas fires at Israel are made for? Fireworks or something?
I witnessed two of my coworkers die because of a Palestinian suicide bomber (whom I also marginally knew) and a bunch of people wounded. Another time an IED went off in the garbage bin not far from the bus stop I had to get off. Luckily, nobody was harmed.
Palestinians are getting more military aid, and it's becoming more sophisticated and hard to counter. Israel doesn't have a good outcome for this Gazan flair-up. Everything they do will suck for them. Ceasefire: in the short term, more Israelis die, but it will also be seeing as them caving in to Hamas. It will embolden and encourage the other side to do more of this.
Going in and killing as many of Hamas members as they can will restore the status quo for a few years. But Hamas v2, or Fatah, or PIJ or w/e new thing will inevitably take place of present day Hamas, because killing Hamas doesn't solve the problem -- and here it's important to loop back to the fact that Hamas does represent Palestinians. They aren't an oddball. They are the natural result of Gazans, and especially the refugees from Gaza wanting a rematch.
The only way this problem can be solved is if UN initiates and enough countries follow through with the plan of dismantling all Gazan local authorities, while replacing them by international temporary ones. Gazan population today cannot be trusted to create a government, police force or courts that will not do the same thing Hamas is doing now. Just like Japan or Germany after WW2 they need an external supervisor to make them rebuild and rejoin the world community.
But, UN will never as much as even discuss such a program. And the cycle will continue.
> UNRWA
Your Wiki reading is very selective. Also, your understanding of how refugees interact with the local authorities is based on fairy-tales. Any refugee in order to be given this status needs to show that their life is in danger or something like that. Conflicts are eventually resolved, and you cannot make claims about your life being in danger a decade ago. That just won't be enough to get you a refugee status. Of course you cannot inherit it from parents... unless you are under UNRWA umbrella.
What happens to someone who fails to prove they are eligible for this status? -- expulsion or jail. In European countries it would be difficult to get rid of someone once they are there. So, they might be staying in a camp for years (my wife volunteered in one such camp on Lesbos). But if you are in a less "welcoming" country they might just bring you to the border and leave you there.
Similarly, it's a fairy-tale that UN decisions "can't make anyone stateless". It's right in front of you, couple million people in and around Israel. But you chose to "believe"...
But it's not limited to this situation with Israel. Take for example the Hague convention on adoptions. All signatories are required to not adopt children from another country-signatory w/o that country's permit. But, not all countries grant citizenship at birth. If you are born in such a country and nobody knows anything about your parents -- tough luck. There are plenty of UN-affiliated bodies who beat themselves on the chest and declare that no child should be stateless, and yet they are in the millions.
I know this because we adopted, and I know how the system is broken in many ways also because of the lack of insight on the part of people writing these conventions.
> right of return
It doesn't matter that it was created after some time. It was created before the window of opportunity closed. That's enough. The fact that you didn't know anything about, while this is one of the key problems in Israel-Palestinian conflict only emphasizes how ...
And you sidestepped my comment about UNRWA. They have nothing to do with the Palestinian refugee status or the right to return, yet you attack them. Also sidestepped is the acknowledgement that you have to have a Palestinian state to make Palestinians refugees living in the West Bank not refugees. This cannot happen as long as the two state solution do not exist (and the best solution would be one based on the one drafted during the Oslo accords, don't you agree?)
I think we agree on putting Gaza under UN supervision, however your first comment was about denying the whole Palestine any governmental right, including the West Bank, because of Fatah's struggle. Its like your comments on Fatah, I find it incredibly interesting that a nation who violently fought for its right to existence would deny the same right to another.
I mean, unironically, UN is full of b/s and nonsense. W/o specific knowledge of this organization, I'd say they might have been unrelated to Palestinian refugees, despite their name... but they are not.
Did their officials create the disaster in Palestine themselves (including the right of return)? -- No, they are too dumb to accomplish anything of such magnitude. Best they can do is organize soccer games in refugee camps, you know, instead of providing decent accommodations / healthcare / teaching useful skills or language etc. That's their MO: being totally useless and sometimes harmful through sheer stupidity.
But they are the UN's implementation of UN's policies, including the right of return. Whenever any Israeli talks about UNRWA, they don't mean the worthless soccer games and photo-ops with underage starving refugees. They mean UN policies represented by this organization.
> Oslo accords
That ship sailed long time ago. At the time, there was a hope that Palestinians could self-govern and become a responsible country. Today, Gaza to a larger degree, but West Bank is trailing not to far behind, are sliding into the same condition where Syria and Lebanon are: a "failed state". A plot of land ran by gangs of terrorists. Thanks Iran, mostly. But stupidity of various international organizations duped into supporting and financing terrorists in these lands might be a close second.
I've heard Macron is pushing towards anti-ISIS coalition taking control of Gaza after the purge of Hamas. Of all plans I've heard so far for Gaza, this is the best way forward IMO.
> a nation who violently fought for its right to existence would deny the same right to another.
Read it again. I said temporary. Gaza and West Bank today are unsalvageable w/o international intervention. If they want to not die out / devolve into a shooting range where everyone and their uncle test new weapons, they need to accept a foreign rule. Nobody's denying them existence. Much in the same way how post-WW2 government of Germany and Japan didn't try to kill off Germans or Japanese.
Let me be clear, any Israeli policy that calls for the long term imprisonment of Gaza will lead to more israelis dying. You just can't treat 2 million people like that and expect that none of them become terrorists. That's not how humans work
The worldwide attacks on Jews and synagogues, the chants of "Gas the Jews" and "From the River to the Sea" (which is a call for genocide of Israelis), the open calls from Palestinian terrorist groups calling for attacks on Jews worldwide, make it clear that antizionism is inextricably linked with antisemitism (as does the actual history of the conflict).
Israel killed over 1000 Palestinians from 2018 until before Operation al-Aqsa Flood. There's nothing really unusual about it from.that context. And Israel us currently massacring civilians in Gaza every day.
> the catalyst of the current episode of this conflict
Israelis murdered people on an aid flotilla a few years ago, and are evicting West Bank Palestinians from their homes with settlers, as the Israelis parade around the al-Aqsa mosque.
Hamas makes no distinction between their soldiers and civilians deaths. And given their blatant lies about the supposed IDF attack on a hospital this week (actually caused by a Palestinian rocket which failed) and impossibly high and fast death count, and the whole being a terrorist organization, they can't be trusted.
Israel attempts to avoid civilians casualties via roof knocks and phone messages. The only exceptions here tend to be people storming the border. You are comparing that against designed, intentional murder, rape, and torture of civilians by Hamas.
> Israelis murdered people on an aid flotilla a few years ago, and are evicting West Bank Palestinians from their homes with settlers, as the Israelis parade around the al-Aqsa mosque.
That flotilla was trying to break a blockade and had been warned against it. When the ships were boarded, there was violent resistance, which resulted in some of the fighters being killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid
Evicting Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank is obviously vile behavior. It's hard to get a liberal government elected in Israel to stop it given the state of the conflict.
About the mosque: It was the holiest site in Judaism for a thousand years before Islam existed.
This makes zero sense. Terrorists call for terrorism, ergo anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism? You'll have to put up a better argument than that.
The actual history of the conflict starts with a bunch of European Jews turning up in West Asia and claiming that it was their land on the basis of a story book. European anti-Semites were more than happy with this arrangement because it meant their Jewish citizens would leave. Even the Nazis worked with the Zionist Agency to enable some 60 thousand German Jews to emmigrate to Palestine.
The same people calling for antizionism are also calling for attacks on Jews. But anti-zionism is just antisemitic on its face: it means "I don't want Jews here in the middle east" (despite it being their historical home where they've maintained a constant presence). Here in the west (in the US and much of Europe, anyway), we generally reject the idea of using ethnicity as a reason to reject people from moving here. Imagine if we refused Native Americans from repatriating, but we called it "antitribalism" or something instead of the obvious racism that it is.
> The actual history of the conflict starts with a bunch of European Jews turning up in West Asia and claiming that it was their land on the basis of a story book.
There actually is a long history of Jews in the middle east, well supported by historical and archaeological evidence, and genetic studies (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judais... , you can find endless books and studies on the subject). They were exiled by multiple wars with the Romans, Arabs, and others. There were also ~600,000 Arab Jews who were exiled from various Arab nations in the middle east in the mid 20th century as well, who overwhelming went to Israel.
Early Zionism (late 19th century to 1948) was all Jews purchasing land in the area. They didn't just come and take it. Of course, there were plenty of socioeconomic issues here: Jews were buying land from wealthy landowners who lived or moved to other parts of the middle east, which often disrupted Arabs who lived or worked on that land prior to it being sold. Conflict with the Jews was thus twofold - partly based on the ancient religious strife, partly a socialist uprising (which was ultimately usurped by fascist populist groups like Fatah and Hamas). The Ottoman empire had controlled the land for hundreds of years, the population of the area had plummeted to a fraction of its historical population, and out of the Ottoman empire's fall, new national identities began to form, and with them, new nations - Palestine and Israel amongst them (also Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon...), and some of the Palestinian identity arose as a response to the rise of Israel. I'm going to refrain from going into further depth here, as I could write a novel. Recommended reading: "Palestinian Identity".
But to say the conflict starts at the point where there were the least Jews there is, at best, inaccurate, though it is convenient for antizionist narratives.
> European anti-Semites were more than happy with this arrangement because it meant their Jewish citizens would leave. Even the Nazis worked with the Zionist Agency to enable some 60 thousand German Jews to emmigrate to Palestine.
No argument here.
And that is not a Godwins laws argument, that is something what happened.
Jew immigrated after Israel independence. They were free to allow this migration.
The protests really demonstrated the need for Israel to exist for that matter.
You also don't see people demonstrating because 200,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait. Just because they supported Saddam, which is a pretty minor infraction compared to what was done to Jews.
The vast majority of people are doing the opposite. Advocating support of Israel without expressing any support for innocent palestinians. The media seems especially bad about this, focusing exclusively on people who didn;t condemn Israel hard enough while ignoring the thousands of Palestinians that have been killed in settler terrorist attacks, which are implicitly supoorted by Bibi and the current regime. Israeli settlers continue to massacre palestinians in the west bank. Terrorism is never acceptable, but it unfortunately will continue as long as palestinians feel they're not respected by israel. That's just reality. I'm not advocating for naive peace talks, but you can't continue to be surprised when the prisoners rise up. And I struggle to think of any other word to describe gazans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wXgQWlLT1c
French Resistance? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance
And since when does Israel avoids civilians? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_Israeli_attacks_...
Always? They have been very clear about trying to avoid civilian casualties. Saying they are not always successful doesn't prove anything when you are fighting an entrenched enemy that is using human shields.
Far be it from me to defend everything that Israel does. But even during the current bombings Israel tracks cellphone signals to try and bomb areas with minimal civilian presence. There's a huge difference between collateral damage and explicitly targeting civilians.
Israel tried to let more Gazans into its borders to work and reduce the burden on the people living there (not enough but it was improving) the Hamas chose murder with complete disregard to the lives of the Palestinian people in Gaza. They are WAY worse than anything the French resistance did, and they were fighting damn nazis.
(At least, they are currently hailed as freedom fighters by one side in that conflict. The Palestinians condemn them, but nobody cares what they think.)
* Israelis didn't start that war
* Israelis were surrounded and attacked on all sides. They won.
* Many Arabs stayed and were invited to stay. They enjoy equal votes, supreme court positions and freedom of religion.
* Jews living in Arab countries were chased out and lost all their property too.
Furthermore, the occupied territories is the area we're talking about. That area belonged to Jordan/Egypt respectively. None of them wanted them back during peace talks. These people didn't have freedom before Israel came in.
Israel TRIED to make a peace treaty. The *HAMAS* destroyed that treaty by blowing people up. Its stated goal is the destruction of Israel. It is NOT about freedom in any way. It's about murder. Plain and simple...
The only way Palestinians will ever be free from Israel is if the Hamas is destroyed.
Just so I understand you correctly, are you saying that it's okay for freedom fighters to displace a civilian population at gunpoint, as long as it's the other side who started the conflict?
That first war had war crimes on both sides. Lots of them. The Israeli side won. If it had lost I'm sure the Jews would be in a far worse situation than the Arabs are in the state of Israel.
The Jews started coming in the 19th century and purchased lands. Many areas were bought during those years. During that time the land wasn't "owned" by any country so there was never a Palestinian country. It was controlled by the Ottoman empire and then by the English.
When the English left they divided the land between both factions giving the Jews a piece after the horrors of the Holocaust. Arabs started a war and lost.
I have empathy to the plight of the Palestinians. They shouldn't pay for the sins of their and our forefathers. But it's been multiple generations by now. It's fair to have a grievance, it's stupid to pick up arms when that hasn't worked well in the past.
The Palestinian identity is definitely a modern creation, shaped primarily as a reaction against Israel. But it's not too different from the notion of a Jewish People who need a separate homeland, shaped by European anti-Semitism.
So. How does this contradict anything I said?
Ashkenazi Jews came earlier and bought up land. That was land that was ruled by the Ottoman empire and later the English. We were discussing Palestinians driven from their home during the independence war. During that same time Mizrahi Jews were driven away from their homes.
> The Palestinian identity is definitely a modern creation, shaped primarily as a reaction against Israel. But it's not too different from the notion of a Jewish People who need a separate homeland, shaped by European anti-Semitism.
Again. I don't see how this collides with anything I said. I very much believe in a two state solution and have a lot of empathy to the plight of the Palestinian people. The Hamas is evil though, not a freedom fighting organization.
I think there are plenty of legitimate things Israel can be blamed for (settlements, treatment of the PLO post Oslo, etc.). Arguing over history is pointless, both sides have deep victimization grievances. The Hamas is only making matters worse for the Palestinians and harder for those of us trying to bring about a Palestinian state.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
Those separatists were justifiably motivated, by the reality of the Holocaust, and the endless series of pogroms in pre-WWII Eastern Europe, to want a place of their own.
There was a certain kind of Jewish settler who decided that moving slowly back, and doing so in a friendly fashion to the people they were necessarily displacing, was unacceptable. it did not matter that other people had been living for centuries on the land they felt was theirs. It did not matter to them that most Jews were forced out of Palestine by ancient Rome.
I think a lot about the establishment of Israel in 1948, and the Landback movement here in the states. Is there a statute of limitations on giving land back to a displaced people? It feels like there should be.
Now I don't believe Hamas is actually fighting for freedom, but if they were and israel was unwilling to negotiate it's easy to see how they decide to massacre civilians.
The Hamas isn't an organization with freedom as its goal. It's goal is strictly holy war (Jihad) and it considers the Palestinian children it kills along the way as martyrs. It has been a cancer on the people living in Gaza and has physically stopped the peace treaty (Oslo accord) from proceeding.
Haaretz recently printed how Netanyahu also was encouraging Hamas as he wanted war and west Bank settlement, not to make deals with Fatah.
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8...
https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2086%20English%20... (warning, pdf)
If you want to learn more about the way Palestinians and Hamas interact, look up "Son of Hamas", a book by the Palestinian son of one of the founders of Hamas. Here's an interview with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v738Wogza0
That's a good start. You can find reports of rockets launched from civilian areas on your own. I'm sure you can find others condemning Hamas. But the reason there isn't more obvious outcry is because Palestinians are largely supportive, and those that aren't don't exactly have robust freedom of speech protections - speaking out can get you killed. And the media doesn't seem to like portraying Palestine as anything other than a monoculture.
Secondly, https://theconversation.com/hamas-was-unpopular-in-gaza-befo...
> Support of armed resistance was not always present. When Hamas openly fought the Palestinian Authority – which governs the West Bank and questioned the legitimacy of Hamas’ victory – and seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, over 73% of Palestinians opposed that seizure and any further armed conflict.
> At that time, fewer than one-third of Gazans supported any military action against Israel. Over 80% condemned kidnapping, arson and indiscriminate violence.
> If read over time, polls of Gazans from 2007 to 2023 tell a story. They help make clear that Gazan support for armed resistance grew alongside increasing frustration, anger and a sense of hopelessness with any political solution to their suffering.
It's very easy to judge people born into what is essentially the largest open-air prison in the world for being able to be driven mad, blow by blow by blow. You think you'd fare better?
Unfortunately, today they are weakened due to terrible Israeli policy (specifically by Netanyahu). I hope Israelis understand that mistake but I'm not very optimistic.
I hope that after the dust settles Netanyahu will be gone and who ever is in charge will come to a reasonable agreement with the PLO. However, I'm not very optimistic. I think they have a more justified claim since the west bank has been expanding settlements (against Israeli law).
In this conflict their goal was to start a regional war by inflaming Jordan, Egypt, etc. This would make them dissolve the peace agreement and go back to an all out war. To do that they need Israeli war crimes at a terrible scale especially against their own civilians.
They are using the bombings as propaganda to further their goals. Netanyahu is an idiot who (as usual) gives them exactly what they want. Unfortunately, eliminating them is nearly impossible as they are deeply embedded in civilian areas.
What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes. So the victims in this story are the poor Isreali soldiers who have to kill all these people and might suffer emotionally as a result!!
[1] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
If they were fighting for a Palestinian state they would have collaborated on the Oslo accord which was leading there. Or they would have waited for the state to form and then taken over that state.
I suggest you read the link that you provided. Read it. E.g.
> Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people.
They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
> No one is ever forced to make war crimes.
I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
> If it is done, the perpetrators are never considered the victims at least in a sane world.
Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
> What I can see your comment is some version of, these savage people are forcing nice people at the Isreali army to make war crimes.
That's very selective reading. Israeli army soldiers did lots of bad things. This is documented mostly by Israeli groups e.g.
https://www.btselem.org/
https://www.ahimlaneshek.org/
And many others. But here's the difference, it's a country of laws. Things get reported and even soldiers can be tried for crimes. Does Israel have a perfect record?
No. But it's pretty good even when compared to other liberal democracies such as the USA.
I never said or implied that the Palestinian people aren't victims. They are caught between the Hamas and Israel. The thing that bothers me is that people blame Israel for this conflict when the blame should be on Hamas first by a HUGE margin then on Israel. There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Osolo accords was in 1993. That's 20 years of Israel not doing anything to actually give Palestinians a state after they sign the accords. Not only that but literally they build many settlements inside the Palestinian territories, and it is still expanding until today [1] and recently as this year they expand new settlements [2] . Not to mention the violence and terror that the armed settlers are spreading (i.e [[3] [4]).
> They want the entire country. Not a separate state of their own. They know they can't get to their goal with a direct conflict against a far superior fighting force, so they use this approach.
They believe the entire land is theirs and there is an argument that they were stolen from them. We can argue about that, but there are people in Israel who also think that this is their entire land (And it is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli people came from other places). Also, they displaced Arab population and keep doing that to expand settlements. But lets pass this point and move to another important thing.
> I didn't say that. I said the Hamas is hoping for that or at least something they can present as war crimes. It's actually pretty easy to incite violence and rage. Just burning families with their babies alive pretty much does that to people.
Aren't we past the point of explaining that burning people and beheading people are false claims that even Biden spread? [5] But ironically, this is actually happened to Palestinian family by Israeli settlers in west bank in 2015 [6] and here is another one [7] . Which city in Israel would you suggest gets flattened as a price of that? (Rhetorical question, if that is not obvious enough)
> Sane? Have you seen the pictures and read the stories of what they did?
I have seen a lot of fake photos and claims. I'm not saying that there were no civilians in Israeli side were killed, and I'm against that. But the Israeli war crime and carpet bombing of Gaza where hundreds of children are dead and thousands are killed is much worse, and what's crazy is that the world is letting this continue on a daily basis.
> They are now surrounded by a lot of soldiers who read these things and are furious. That's no excuse for war crimes but all it takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far.
Can't we say the same things about Palestinian fighters. Well their people are killed, homes takes and bombed for decades. Can this logic extend to them, and some of them will not act according to what should happen. Or it is just easy to just extend that to all people. Isn't that what happened with every resistance movement in the world?
Again, to be clear, I'm against these actions. And even don't like Hamas for many reasons. But I just try to follow your logic. If you consider actions are terror. Apply these criteria to all sides. Don't say "takes are a few soldiers who go a bit too far" to describe war crimes by one side.
> There's justified grievances to have against Israel (especially the current administration which is downright criminal), but this should be a footnote after the blame on the Hamas.
A footnote, why? Because Arab blood is much cheaper for you than Israeli one? Specially that civilian's death toll is much higher on their side.
That's a barbaric statement.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/world/middleeast&#...
This is pretty detached from the facts. The accord was going well. Then Hamas started blowing up busses, coffee shops and just shooting up restaurants. Thousands died through suicide bombings etc.
This drove a stake through the accord. As a result Benjamin Netanyahu used the bombings to rise to power and destroy the remaining chances of a state. He later on explained that he specifically supported the Hamas to destroy the chance of a Palestinian state. He's a terrible person, no doubt. But there were two sides of terrible and he would never have risen to power without the Hamas doing their part.
> And it is a fact that the vast majority of Israeli people came from other places
That is no longer the case. The vast majority of Jews were born in Israel by this point. I think it stopped being true by the 80s or so.
Also this ignores all the Jews chased away from Arab countries after the formation of Israel so this went both ways.
> Aren't we past the point of explaining that burning people and beheading people are false claims that even Biden spread?
THESE ARE NOT FALSE CLAIMS. I didn't say beheading I said burned alive holding their children. This is a fact. Friends of my spouse were in their house (with 3 little daughters) as it was set on fire. Their village had 450 people. It has under 200 now.
These were peace loving people. One of the people there who was kidnapped as an 80 year old guy who used to drive cancer patients from Gaza for treatments in Israeli hospitals. A family living there used to organize an annual event of flight kites next to the border for friendship with the Palestinian people. These are not "settlers" who steal land. They were murdered in the most brutal way possible. Two kids (6 and 9) were hiding in a closet under the body of their mother to survive after their unarmed father was shot. Their 3 year old sister is in Gaza.
> But ironically, this is actually happened to Palestinian family by Israeli settlers in west bank in 2015
That is terrible and I'm well aware of that since it was reported a lot in the press. The guy responsible for that was caught and considered a terrorist. He was tortured and gave a confession. He is 100% a Jewish terrorist and he's in prison in isolation. Rightly so.
> I have seen a lot of fake photos and claims.
I know quite a few people personally. Israel has free press and international journalists were allowed into those regions so they can see. The number of testimonials is huge.
Unlike the Hamas which often lies (e.g. in the case of the Hospital in Gaza), Israel tends to have a better record. Not perfect for sure. But much better when it comes to the truth.
> Can't we say the same things about Palestinian fighters.
Yes we can. Worse. Bibi has let the Hamas run Gaza for decades. Their children programs were remarkably anti-Israeli and insane.
> But the Israeli war crime and carpet bombing of Gaza where hundreds of children are dead and thousands are killed is much worse, and what's crazy is that the world is letting this continue on a daily basis.
I think bombing is bad and doesn't help Israel. Having said that it is by no means worse.
Israel doesn't carpet bomb. Israel uses accurate ammunition's and the Hamas's numbers were often shown as lies, without external objective verification this can't be trusted.
Israel tracks mobile phones in Gaza and bombs areas with the minimal amount of civilian presence to minimize the damage to civilians. In fact, it threw an amount of bombs that is unprecedented on a relatively small area. Yet the number of deaths is still relatively low when taken into consideration.
Notice that during all of these bombings the Hamas keeps firing missiles and sending drones. It's still holding 200+ hostages many of which are children and elde...
Because that would make them freedom fighters, and it’s important to make sure that the Palestinians are never, ever validated in any of their grievances. It’s a key step in dehumanization.
Ahmad Sa'adat is a "military fighter"? At the age of 70? He has been in Israeli prison for years.
I remember once when a landscaper that made the okay sign was fired from his job because everyone on the internet reached out to his employer to tell them he was a white supermacist when he had no idea what was going on.
But you're right now we should have nuance, and distinction when shaming and doxxing people who are wrong.
It's hard to have nuance with people who are participating dishonestly from the outset.
There is just about a zero percent chance this is true. Many people were openly frustrated that the vaccinated would still get and spread covid despite originally being told that wouldn't happen.
The "jab kills you" thing didn't gain traction until after the official narrative changed from "You won't get covid" -> "You won't get as sick from covid"
Retconning it to pretend like "the narrative" radically changed for no reason is another problem when discussing things with people who are intentionally dishonest.
[1] The original official estimates for death rate were off by an order of magnitude or more. [2] Then the government said masks don't work. Then the government said masks do work. [3-5] Then the government said they "miscounted" several relevant stats (cases, deaths, etc) several times. Then the advice was booster shots, as it was being discussed that the vaccine wasn't effective enough. [6-7] And as all of this went on, the public was becoming aware of varying governing bodies from all around the world disagreeing about strategy/effectiveness.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7049028/ - Therefore, the case fatality rate (CFR) has been increasing over time, resulting in a high overall estimate of 5.25% (95% CI: 4.98–5.51%).
[2] https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8... - While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers.
[3] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/cdc-coding-err...
[4] - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-official...
[5] - "We documented 25 instances when the CDC reported statistical or numerical errors. Twenty (80%) of these instances exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 situation, 3 (12%) instances simultaneously exaggerated and downplayed the severity of the situation, one error was neutral, and one error exaggerated COVID-19 vaccine risks. The CDC was notified about the errors in 16 (64%) instances, and later corrected the errors, at least partially, in 13 (52%) instances. " - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4381627#...
[6] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/repeat-bo...
[7] - https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o108
Hmm? I remember getting shit on for simply pointing out that the obsession about it is pointless, since it did precious little to stop transmission. They protected the people who got them, and in that sense misinformation was harmful, but I remember restaurants where you couldn't eat inside without 2 vaccinations plus booster, even with a mask. Which was insane and stupid, and people who just went along absolutely did not enjoy that being pointed out.
I got 2 vaccinations, by the time I should have gotten the booster I didn't. Not because I was worried about it, out of sheer spite. I don't do goosestep. I don't eat in restaurants either, I was not personally inconvenienced by any of this -- but I saw it, and made a choice to no longer be part of it.
Heck, I remember asking what possible good those contact tracing apps would do me, since I lived in self-imposed near-quarantine already (I didn't care who was vaccinated and who wasn't, I simply assumed everyone had Covid, including me). I got called a murderer for asking that, nearly literally.
> It's hard to have nuance with people who are participating dishonestly from the outset.
Then don't pretend what I saw with my own eyes doesn't exist and didn't take place.
To this day one can easily have a discussion even on HN with someone who will tell you that, "nobody with any significant amount of life remaining ever dies of covid, so what's the problem?"
You're not getting boosted out of spite? Great job, that'll show 'em.
in reply to
> They protected the people who got them, and in that sense misinformation was harmful
You so showed me haha.
> To this day one can easily have a discussion even on HN with someone who will tell you that, "nobody with any significant amount of life remaining ever dies of covid, so what's the problem?"
Yeah, but you don't get to have that imaginary discussion with me. Make up whatever you want about me, and then keep it to yourself.
They cannot cope with the notion that one could be pro-Palestine AND pro-Israel AND anti-terrorist AND anti-war, all at the same time.
If you are pro-Palestine they think you must be anti-Israel, if you are pro-Israel they think you must be anti-Palestine. Which is an idiotic assumption but millions of people think this way.
So companies don't want to tread this line at all, because they have stock prices and earnings and other things to worry about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7RmcdHrYuk
It's a simple matter of having principles rather than group affiliations. "Never again" isn't about Jews, it's about what the Nazis did; the actions and the dehumanizing sophistry to justify them, nothing more, nothing less.
The name of the site is anti-israel-employees.com lol
Does praying for the safety of innocent Palestinians make me Anti-Israel?
Speech with consequences is the very definition of lack of free speech:
"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
"A spokesman for LinkedIn said the company determined that the site had used automated programs to extract content from the platform, a practice known as scraping, which is a violation of its rules. "
Whether there are underlying reasons, this is the cover that LinkedIn is using for the warning.
"‘The Onion’ Stands With Israel Because It Seems Like You Get In Less Trouble For That":
https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-becaus...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbgRk_hlM3U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZ4yXyzUG0
just think about Ukraine and if Russia wiped it and gave part of the lands to some troops , what would u call the resisting ukranians