I believe the court reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself. Presumably, the "all it can to prevent" wording is meant to work around things we expect a nation must do, such as defending itself from attack.
The court referenced article II of the Genocide Convention here, which includes "Killing members of the group." Any country that commits genocide in the way outlined by the convention would be in violation, not just Israel.
So Israel can't enjoy the same right to self defense that any other state would? They can't conduct a war in an urban environment with an actual intentionally genocidal enemy, and must resort to targeted assassinations? That standard is absurd. Surely you can admit some middle ground ,if you're discussing in good faith.
Unfortunately for the Palestinians, that is not what was ruled. They were hoping for a full ceasefire like what you have interpreted, but they are very disappointed in the ruling because it does not say that.
What it does say is
1. Israel must do more to prevent the possibility of genocide. Genocide is killing a people with the intent of killing them for the sake of destroying them, and not as collateral damage, so it does not mean stopping all death. Collateral damage, unfortunately, remains on the table.
2. Israel must report back in a month with how they are doing that. For example, they could show lower amounts of collateral damage, an increase in aid, punishments for officials that make statements that could be construed as genocidal, and so forth.
That is better than nothing, to be certain, but it is far from a ceasefire, unfortunately.
> Correct, it's very likely that Israel is committing genocide and the court ordered them to stop while they do a full investigation.
I think there was a miscommunication. You said that the provisional measures said that Israel must stop killing Palestinians, and so there is no way to have a ceasefire. I was saying that what's actually in the provisional measures is a reiteration of the Genocide Convention, of which all countries must already abide, including Israel. Whether or not it's likely a country is commiting genocide or it's self defense, they haven't ruled on. I deliberately avoided any speculation with my comments.
> Leading propaganda machine and former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf suggests that the Israeli government should allow aid into Gaza officially, but unofficially let "protesters" to block all aid from entering the Strip. I think that's actually kinda what happened today.
> The Gaon Rabbi Dov Lior Shalita in a halachic ruling: Citizens must prevent the entry of Hamas trucks even on Shabbat, because equipping and supplying the enemy is a war act that must be stopped from the point of view of human control.
Yesterday, 0 trucks could enter Gaza, the day before that 9 out of 60, don't know about today. Note that under the convention against genocide, Israel is required to prosecute genocidal speech, much less such genocidal acts (apart from not committing them of course). Instead, as Yoav Gallant just posted this on Twitter:
> The State of Israel does not need need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza. The ICJ went above and beyond, when it granted South Africa's antisemitic request to discuss the claim of genocide in Gaza.
... which is as good a summary as any for what you find at every corner with this: not just the unwillingness to learn, but the inability to even comprehend any of this. When Gideon Levy talks about the incredible depth of Israeli indoctrination, he isn't kidding, and he's not exaggerating.
"brainwashing" is a term that's going to unavoidably turn this conversation in a bad direction, it might be best not to use it here. There are less inflammatory ways to describe what's happening in that tweet.
I changed it to "indoctrination". Which is a more polite word that doesn't really do it justice, but it's not really important because the result, the inability to even meaningfully interact with the charges, is a constant.
As George Orwell put it, from the totalitarian perspective history is something to be created, rather than learned. Or as Robert Antelme described a concentration camp guard: "trapped in the machinery of his own myth". I just cannot find a flattering way to describe these things, there just is no material to work with for that.
The technicality I see here is that the ICJ can call a ceasefire in an armed conflict, this would carry the implicit message that the civilian casualties are collateral damage. Instead they are asking to stop the genocidal acts. In a genocide the civilians are the target. It’s bad for the Palestinians in the short term, and bad for Israel in the long
Except SA specifically asked the court to require a ceasefire, which would have immediate consequences via security council vote and no more munitions landing in Israel. And the judges voted it down
This isn't a read between the lines situation, because SA's request was specifically for the court to temporarily rule for a full immediate ceasefire until the larger case could be heard
What is interesting here is that by mis-reading the verdict like yourself, and Israel assuming the worst, both sides immediately came out saying today was a huge win. So at least we have that, everyone (but the Palestinians, who aren't a side in this case) is happy
Honestly I'm not trying to mis-read the verdict which is why I asked the question. I think all of Israel's strategies to date include the death of Palestinians. Since that's explicitly forbidden with that ruling, how will they continue to fight? Will they just ignore the ruling or change tactics?
Do you mean from page 2? Because that is the court just saying what each side requested. The actual order that the court gave is much later in the document.
> They just asked Israel to try hard to minimize damage, which they already demonstrated they do.
Where, other than with mere hand waving? How did they explain away blowing courts and universities with rigged explosives? Soldiers bragging about "occupation, expulsion, settlement, annexiation"? All the talk about how there are no civilians in Gaza? How many people who said that has Israel prosecuted so far?
You've been using HN primarily* to conduct political battle on this topic for a long time now. You've already taken to doing this again, repeatedly, in this thread.
That's not in the intended spirit of what we want on HN, and especially not the spirit which I attempted to describe in my pinned comment at the top. Therefore, please stop.
* In fact, it looks like you've been doing nothing but that. I've already explained to you repeatedly and at length why that's not ok on HN. If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you. (And lest anyone worry: no, this has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with your views. You're plainly breaking both HN's rules and intended spirit, that is all.)
Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
I'm sure that you have legitimate reasons to feel the way you do, but you're posting to this thread in a way that is against the intended spirit, as I tried to explain it in the pinned comment at the top. Please don't do that. If you can't post in the intended spirit, that's understandable, but in that case please don't post until you can.
The measures ordered by the UN court are in references to Article II of the Genocide Convention [0], which limits the scope to “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”, where the court identifies the group as “Palestinians in Gaza”. So it’s the intent of genocide towards that group which is the deciding factor. As long as the actions do not carry that intent (and are plausible as such), they are not prohibited.
My reading is that the court is basically saying “You are presently running the risk of committing genocide, please take all measures in your power to prevent that.”
They will claim they are attempting to kill Hamas militants and any non-Hamas Palestinians deaths are incidental. You can do anything with this excuse. Did the court close this loophole?
Any accusation of genocide will be for the relevant courts to decide. False pretexts (excuses) can be identified as such. The present court order is a shot across the bow. The court is explicitly saying that the intent of genocide appears plausible at this time, and explains the reasons for that assessment. Meaning that Israel will have to show with their actions if they want to turn it implausible.
I don't think it's really a loophole. For example, the Nazis could not possibly claim that the people they killed in death camps were merely collateral damage.
Generally the proportion of civilians in a hospital vastly outweighs any fighters. Bombing a hospital does in no way count as reasonable steps to prevent collateral damage.
Shooting people queueing for food aid similarly does not count.
The source for that is Gazan eye witnesses, Same one that argues that Israel killed 500 people bombing Al Ahli hospital, that was eventually found out to be from a failed Hamas rocket.
Even if what they claim is true, as you can see from multiple sources, al Shifa hospital still stands and operational.
The article has multiple inaccuracies. It glosses over the fact that many weapons were found inside the hospital (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/15/1213145028/israel-hamas-gaza-...),
It ignores the fact that there was armed Hamas forces fighting Israeli military on hospital grounds (https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/11/13/hospital-gaz...).
And just plain inaccuracy telling that the solar panels were the only source of electricity for the hospital, since the hospital was operating from the start of the war, up until today, with generators.
Whether or not weapons were found is not the point here, this is evidence. We can debate credibility such as whether days of the week are terrorists but again, that's not the point. The ICJ found enough evidence of merit to show the plausibility of genocide, I'm displaying evidence here that says eyewitness accounts of attacks.
I don't believe this and the court found reason to further investigate genocide. The statements from Israeli leadership alone contradict what you're saying.
Regarding starving, they are getting aid but Hamas steals it for their own us (fighters and black market), so it’s Hamas that starves the Palestinians, not Israel.
The previous poster said the Palestinian dead are collateral while targeting Hamas terrorists. Not from direct action of Israel trying to kill uninvolved.
He didn’t say there are no dead civilians. Any war has civilian casualties
You are allowed under international law to lead war with significant amounts of civilian casualties. The issue being judged is claims of Israel committing a genocide. This is just a preliminary order while the full case is considered, and it might be bad PR to disregard it, but nothing else will come of it.
When hearing 'genocide', most people immediately jump to the Holocaust, but the definition used by the ICC and IL in general is far more permissible:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
A to E are horrible acts by themselves, but what makes a genocide is intent, and intent is very hard to prove. Personally, I think SA brought a very strong case forward, the genocidal tendencies of key Israeli decision makers and exeters are well published. In the US and Europe, the political class and general public just ignore the evidence currently, and a ruling of the ICC might help people 'wake up', but not much tangible consequences will result from it otherwise.
You might find this to be an interesting read, even if it may not change your mind.
“What Did Top Israeli War Officials Really Say About Gaza?
Journalists and jurists point to damning quotes from Israel’s war cabinet as evidence of genocidal intent. But the citations are not what they seem.”
From what i understand, the ceasefire was an extreme long shot by south africa and nobody really expected the icj to grant it. Particularly because the court cant order hamas to do anything and a one sided cease fire seems kind of unreasonable, but also the right to self defense is pretty fundamental in international law.
Is ICJ even able to order a ceasefire? ICJ did not recognize the activities of Israel as the right to self defense. ICJ would have recognized the activities of rebel force against the genocide as the right to self defense, but I don't think that is a question that came up.
Yes, the ICJ can order a ceasefire. It ordered Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine, for example. In this case it decided not to, but it did order other measures (which hopefully will save lives, but time will tell).
There is some nuance there because russia's justification for the war was that ukraine is comitting genocide. It is less clear that the icj can order it for a war of self-defense.
The argument goes that the ICJ derives its authority from the UN charter, where article 51 states "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security..."
So just because icj can tell someone to knock it off if they (falsely) claim the reason for the war is to prevent genocide, it is unclear they can do so when the reason is self-defense after an attack
> So just because icj can tell someone to knock it off if they (falsely) claim the reason for the war is to prevent genocide, it is unclear they can do so when the reason is self-defense after an attack
In this matter, they are the judge of whether the actions are self defense, and they are the judge of whether the actions are genocidal. Otherwise, even the most monstrous and illegal acts could be excused by unilaterally declaring "self defense!". Russia, for example, also claimed all their actions were "self-defense", and continues to do so, to this day.
The similarities don't end there: Much like russia claims Ukraine isn't a real country, and should be demilitarized, and Ukrainians should be controlled by Russia; Israel claims Palestine isn't a real country, and should be demilitarized, and Palestinians should be controlled by Israel. Both Israel and russia attack civilian buildings full of civilians (!), and justify it by unconvincingly claiming there was a military target somewhere around there, plotting to harm them. russia usually doesn't level the entire block like Israel does, but not for want of trying. All in the name of "self-defense".
russia: goal is removing the government of Ukrainians by force and dominating Ukrainians. Israel: goal is removing the government of Palestinians by force and dominating Palestinians. russia: 'we must deprogram Ukrainians to remove their extremist, anti-russian feelings and get them to accept our domination of them'. Israel: 'we must deprogram Palestinians to remove their extremist, anti-Israel feelings and get them to accept our domination of them'. That last bit of abuser gaslighting is particularly gross and scary to me. All in the name of "self-defense".
With that in mind, the reasons claimed by each side for each action may inform the judges, who then judge what the actual reasons are, and rule accordingly. Indeed, Israel sought to have the case dismissed, claiming a jurisdictional issue like the one you suggested. The judges heard the arguments and evidence for and against such a claim, and judged that they had jurisdiction under the law.
Israel's participation in these proceedings, in front of the judges who judge such matters, on both jurisdiction and merit, seems to only further legitimize the judges and their judgement on such matters. Could Israel be cynical enough to join russia in doing an about-face on their recognition of the judges' legitimacy, simply for being ruled against?
> > The court ruled that Israel must do all it can to prevent genocide, including refraining from killing Palestinians or causing harm to them
> Sounds like a ceasefire to me. How else would they do this? Definitely not with any of the military tactics Israel is currently using.
Reading the actual icj ruling it seems like it only forbid it when done with genocidial intent. The court did not forbid collateral damage.
The specific wording included the line "...take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II..."
Earlier in paragraph 78 they said "The Court recalls that these acts fall within the scope of Article II of the Convention when they are committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a group as such (see paragraph 44 above)."
So basically it is only forbidden if the intent is specificly to kill Palestinians and not if it is collateral damage to some other military objective.
I don't think this order will affect anything israel is doing.
I agree the ruling is politically ambiguous like pretty much all things political - but it does pretty clearly signal that the international community has soured on the IDF's actions. This feels like a great opportunity for the Isreali government to say "Oh, my bad" and start serious de-escalation issues while losing less face because they're complying with "genuine humanitarian concerns".
Diplomacy isn't about hard rules - the ICJ can't say "We impose a cease-fire" and demand that the GM of the world step in an immediately cease hostilities. Everything in diplomacy is about posturing and implications - it's why the US has managed to maintain the frankly insanely incoherent "Strategic Ambiguity" of trying to appease the PRC and Taiwan simultaneously, and it works - both countries are happy that the US winks after every statement about the PRC or Taiwan and gives local politicians room to favorably interpret the US statements to their base and reinforce that "Actually they're on our side".
Quite the contrary - they have all the power, they are just choosing not to use it in this case. If the court ordered a ceasefire all weapon shipments to Israel would have to stop the same day.
What does "have to" mean in this context? If the US were to sell another batch of weapons would other countries try to shoot the plane out of the air? Would they try to unilaterally sanction 30% of the world economy?
International law regulates war, but does not entirely prohibit it (that would be futile; wars of aggression are specifically prohibited by Briand-Kellogg pact, but nowadays even aggressors try to dress the situation as justified defense and often get away with it; few wars since 1945 were tried by a competent tribunal and judged unlawful).
It isn't unlawful per se to cause civilian casualties during military operations; any demand that the warring parties limit themselves to killing combatants only would be unrealistic, especially in urban settings.
It is unlawful to target civilians intentionally or to cause wanton damage to civilian infrastructure, though.
Isn't this collateral damage of waging war with a terrorist organisation embedded in civilian population? I don't this this counts for genocide, as sad as the results are...
Under the Rome Statute that set up the international criminal court, apartheid is defined as a crime where:
>inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them".
Netanyahu's approach to the Palestinians likely fits into this definition.
It's worth noting that system does not apply to 2 million Israeli Arabs (nearly all of whom self-identify as "Palestinian" from an ethnic/national perspective) of the exact same race as the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
The overt driver of the system - and the one that is agreed to across the whole Jewish-Israeli population - is the security issue of a Palestinian population that has held since 1948 that they are still at war with Israel, will never accept a Jewish state in the region, and will one day drive the Jews into the sea. This belief is propped up by constant propaganda from other Arab states and UNRWA (which has defined itself to exist because of a Right of Return that applies to 750k Palestinians and their descendants in perpetuity, but doesn't apply to the 14 millions Indians & Pakistanis, 12 million Germans, or 2-3 million Poles & Ukrainians who were also displaced by ethnic partitions established in 1947-1948).
Israel shows every day that they are willing and able to live closely with the Palestinians who accept their right to exist and aren't trying to murder their families, without using apartheid-like systems of control. Israeli Arabs certainly face suspicion and unofficial day-to-day discrimination, but if you asked Israelis how they would feel about an equal two-state system where West Bank and Gaza were a sovereign nation populated by Palestinians who were like the Israeli Arabs, they would largely be on board. There would be friction for a while, but it would be tolerable for both states to survive and thrive without the security apparatus that needs to be in place right now.
There is no doubt that Netanyahu's current governing coalition is made up of racists and religious extremists who would NOT be okay with that. Many of those secretaries want to use security issues as a pretext to fully take over "greater Israel," and use the border wall as much to keep their actions there hidden from the Israeli public as they use it to keep Hamas and IJ terror attacks to a minimum. But the PA - for all its collaboration and security partnership with the IDF - still pays bounties to the families of suicide bombers. And the reason more moderate Palestinian leaders have never been able to really negotiate a settlement is that they would be immediately overthrown by a populace who never accepted 1948 as the end of a decades-long attempt to throw the Jews out of Palestine.
This has not been adjudicated in court, but I think it's difficult to claim that the current system is primarily an ethnic or racial one when it doesn't apply to the millions of Palestinians who are accepting of their neighbors. Even if it is often abused by racists.
They made baseless and not properly confirmed accusations about minor incidents against Ukraine in 2022 while ignoring Russian atrocities allowing Russia to execute considerable information war operations against Ukraine.
In 2023 they were caught on multiple occasions to propagate very serious and harming Hamas propaganda. In one case they participated in an infowar attack that resulted in clear danger to the United States citizens and army personnel.
The value that Amnesty like organisations provide is incredibly important but I can't see how Amnesty itself in the current state can be trusted.
> Israel shows every day that they are willing and able to live closely with the Palestinians who accept their right to exist and aren't trying to murder their families, without using apartheid-like systems of control
This is very much not the case in the West Bank where expropriation and colonisation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers continue, under the watchful eye of the Israeli army.
The Israeli state has done it's best to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian state, condemning millions of Palestinians to eternal military occupation and second class status in their own homeland.
Any claim that Israel is acting in good faith towards Palestinians is very much undermined by these facts.
West Bank settlers are overtly funded by right-wing christian evangelists from the U.S.
The Likud turns a blind eye because its basically a free military. Moreover, it provides a military buffer between Israel's mainland population and much of the radicalized West Bank population.
I agree that the actions in the occupied territories are oppressive and terrible. I was referring to the actions within Israel itself, towards Israeli Arab Citizens. Which shows that the oppressive actions is not based on ethnicity or religion, it's based on fear.
Thing is, that fear is taught in schools, a large part if not most of the Israeli population are too young to remember the holocaust, so this is propagation of fear on a national scale, and to what end?
> is the security issue of a Palestinian population that has held since 1948 that they are still at war with Israel, will never accept a Jewish state in the region
Will Israelis accept a sovereign Palestinian state in the region? A clear NO.
Even the 1990s / 2000s two-state solutions were never meant from Israeli side as recognizing full sovereignty of Palestine - it was meant to be more like an Israeli protectorate with its own administration but without its own armed forces, no control over air space etc.
> and will one day drive the Jews into the sea
While many Israelis are eager to drive Palestinians to the sea. (check Daniela Weiss as a somewhat prominent example)
The current government seems to want to ethnically cleanse Gaza. The West Bank has to expect a similar fate, just way slower with expanding settlements.
> but I think it's difficult to claim that the current system is primarily an ethnic or racial one when it doesn't apply to the millions of Palestinians who are accepting of their neighbors
Still apartheid. You can't explain it away so easily.
> not a single country will accept a soverein Palestenian state, because they're ruled by terrorists.
You yourself say that Palestinians can live completely peacefully, why can't they have a sovereign state with a better government? I hope that after years of Israeli government / Netanyahu supporting Hamas [1], they will change the strategy.
Murder/attempted murder of adversary citizens in neutral territory is just one of a legion of examples of behavior the West constantly criticizes Russia for, by the way.
The Russian government kills unarmed civilians outside of Russia. Usually Russians, but not always. The Israeli government also kills unarmed civilians outside of Israel. So yes, in the category of "nation states that covertly murder people globally with negligible consequences", both are present. Hell even India is in that group lately...
Important to understand that Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction (neither is the USA). On the other hand, the Geneva Convention is about as “universal” a treaty as you can find, Israel itself ratified the GV without any reservations, all UN members (US and Israel included) are subject to the authority of the ICJ/World Court, and there’s even a fsir consensus that the GC applies to everyone, even if a state weren’t a UN member and signatory.
(While the USA and Israel have shown immense disdain for the ICC and the USA has levied sanctions against it, its chief prosecutor, and The Hague in the past, the US officially sponsored Khan’s nomination for the post of chief prosecutor this past round and Israel has been extremely chummy with him and the ICC compared to under Bensouda. The ICC under Khan hasn’t done anything about Gaza.)
Perhaps I am unlearned in this area but I am unclear why the Jewish state, after its people experienced the atrocities of World War II, would act in this manner toward the Palestinians. Can anyone shed light on this? I understand completely the need to rid the world of Hamas terrorists, but in the process they have shown a reckless disregard (to put it mildly) for Palestinian people and their wellbeing.
It's not about religion, it's about occupation. Zionists got permission to occupy the land from the British with The Balfour Declaration then started the invasion in full in 1948 with Nakba. When you occupy someone's land, there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily. This is why colonization most often leads to genocide or permanent apartheid.
I have read a bit about this and I understand the explanation but I still don’t understand how a group of people subject to genocide can turn around and a few generations later be behaving in many (obviously not all) of the same ways toward another group. I would think that if anything the Israeli people would have some empathy and try to find a two state solution that exists in peace.
Reminds the cases of child abuse that run in families, with former child victims becoming perpetrators against their own children[1]. But on on a whole society level.
There are many Jewish people, born in Israel and outside of Israel, who do long for a two-state solution or a one-state solution where everyone lives as equals. But sadly those are not the people who hold political or military power.
The UN does not corroborate the accusations you levy against Hamas. Israel has (documented) killed hundreds of UN or general aid workers; to my knowledge, Hamas has killed none.
Having naive trust in political entities is frankly bellying a level of willful ignorance that humanity should have evolved from by now. Good luck on your journey.
I’m not even sure what accusation you deny. Quote the accusation I made you have a problem with.
Please don't cross into flamewar and please review my comment at the top of this thread. If you can't post within that spirit, please don't post. If this thread turns conflictual the descent into hell will be sharp and steep. We don't want that here.
Please don't cross into flamewar and please review my comment at the top of this thread. If you can't post within that spirit, please don't post. If this thread turns conflictual the descent into hell will be sharp and steep. We don't want that here.
Because propaganda works everywhere. Teach people that “the other” seeks their destruction and then reframe any violence as tragically necessary self-defense.
The history books don’t mention the Nakba and civilian casualty statistics in Gaza are dismissed as Hamas propaganda.
And I don’t mean to suggest Israel is unique in this. There are many parallels for instance with American “world police” patriotism.
I refer in my comment to the impact to non-Hamas Palestinians. Eliminating the terrorist organization of Hamas is not controversial (at least in my mind), but the civilian casualties to regular Palestinians seems to be indefensible (again, at least in my mind)
Problem is no one will take refugees from Gaza even temporarily. If countries would the death toll would be much less. The reason Egypt doesn't is because Hamas has links to and provides support for Islamic terrorists groups involved the Sinai Insurgency. I think that hope had been that over time since 2007 Hamas would moderate and act more rationally. Instead the opposite has happened.
So the combination having to destroy Hamas and the unwillingness of other countries to take refugees is terrible for hapless civilians.
> Problem is no one will take refugees from Gaza even temporarily.
Problem is history shows "temporary" displacement tend to become permanent displacement (AKA Ethnic cleansing) under the current settler-apartheid regime ruling Israel, so other countries understandably refrain to abet ethnic cleansing.
I agree the worst thing that could happen is displaced Palestinians from Gaza refusing to go back to where other people have decided they have to live because otherwise it'd be ethnic cleansing.
> Problem is no one will take refugees from Gaza even temporarily. If countries would the death toll would be much less.
Why should other countries bear the burden and costs for a problem that is overwhelmingly a consequence of the actions of the Israeli state in general, and the current far-right government in particular?
The Palestinians have been offered a two-state solution on more-or-less reasonable terms on at least two occasions. It isn't for me to say whether they were right to reject those offers, but the human cost of continued conflict has obviously been borne disproportionately by the Palestinians, particularly Palestinian civilians. Sadly, the actions of extremists on both sides have made the possibility of a two state solution increasingly remote.
You're right. It's incomprehensible. In such a situation I can recommend resolving the impasse by broadening what you consider to be the possibly solution space. More specifically, consider the possibility that what you think is happening is not an accurate reflection of what is actually happening.
> When you occupy someone's land, there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily
I don’t understand why people think this is a good argument. Lots and lots of places shifted in control since 1948. Poland moved half a country to the left, world empires got decolonized, India and Pakistan split and then the latter split once more, all with enormous population movements, the list is nearly endless. “All of that should revert to how it was before, even if at the cost of kicking out or killing everybody who live there” is a pretty extreme revisionist take.
In all these countries, “we should restore our borders to $maximumSizeEver” is widely understood to be a far right take (the Russians want Ukraine, the Greater Hungary people want Transylvania, the Greek neonazis want Trabzon (!), everybody wants Kashmir, etc etc etc). It’s a far right talking point. But for Palestine it’s somehow a mainstream opinion. I don’t get it.
I mean, there’s lots of good arguments to be made for the Palestinian case IMO but I don’t find “they once had more land and therefore they should get it all back no matter the consequences” very compelling.
Forcing people off of their land is the definition of ethnic cleansing and I don't think that's ever ok nor generally accepted in the world. I think Israel is a lot like apartheid South Africa. You can end the apartheid government and start making reparations, including land back to the native inhabitants.
Yeah it's never OK but do you also think Finland should get Viipuri back? That was the second-largest city of Finland, the Soviets took it in WWII and kicked out all the Finns and that was that. It's now Vyborg, a sleepy Russian town of little importance. That was a catastrophe too.
Do you also think Lviv should be Polish? And Wrocław German? And Trabzon Greek? No wait I mean Armenian, which do we even pick, seriously everybody wants Trabzon! Should the entire Arabian peninsula be Turkish again?
Where does it stop? Why should Palestine be restored to its one-time borders but not the rest? All this happened in a time when moving populations around at the whim of a few imperialist rulers was considered a super normal thing to do. That doesn't make it right, but the Nakba isn't a particularly unique historical event. Get over it, and focus on the actual current events that are also bad, such as the settlements, decades of effective imprisonment of everybody in Gaza, and so on. There's plenty of good arguments! But "from the river to the sea" is a far right revisionist talking point and in my opinion it does an enormous disservice to the Palestinian case.
The issue is that after the Winter war there was still a Finland, after WWII there was still a Poland, and a Germany and a Turkey and a Greece and an Armenia.
There is now no real Palestine state and no realistic prospect of one. Somewhere between 5 and 8 million Palestinians are now condemned to be extremely unwilling subjects of an endless military occupation by a hostile state and reduced to second class status in their own homeland.
I don't think that's a crucial enough difference to be in favour of destroying an entire country and deporting or killing the people in it. You can totally be in favour of freedom for Palestine, for a one or two state solution, in all kinds of configurations, without supporting the "kill or deport the Jews" argument.
It's really not very nuanced at all - if you want to kill or deport all the Jews, even when formulated in fluffy terms like "give those poor Palestinians their homeland back", you're not really trying to make the world a better place are you? You'd be just like those far right Israelis who seem to want to kill or deport all the Palestinians. It's the exact same vibe, just aimed in the other direction. They're both the baddies. Don't be like them.
> to be in favour of destroying an entire country and deporting or killing the people in it.
woah! dial it back there. I advocated no such thing
please take a few deep breaths and read slowly over the thread making note of who said what. then please reconsider slinging accusations like that around.
I'm in favour of a two state solution.
My main point is that the long term actions of the Israeli state, especially in the West Bank, have made the viability of a Palestinian state (i.e. one in coexistence with Israel) completely impossible.
This thread is about this sentence from another commenter:
> When you occupy someone's land, there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily
This is advocating for destroying an entire country and deporting or killing the people in it. This is the context in which I read your comment, because you came to their defense. I read your comment as explaining why you thought their comment was a perfectly OK one.
I'm happy to read you don't actually agree on this with them, and I think we pretty much agree.
Yeah indeed, and in fact I just edited that out because I realized I had it wrong. EDIT: turns out I edited the next thing out, the "defense" thing is still in. Keeping it on because otherwise this gets even more messy.
ANYWAY I think you made your point clear and we agree, sorry for messy edit commenting here :)
FWIW I clicked "vouch" on your response to them, I have no idea why it got flagged into oblivion, it's the kind of nice concise nuanced point that I wish I could make :D
You're misreading what I said (might be my fault for not being clear enough!). I mean that the occupier would have to genocide all of the occupied to have peace. Essentially there will be permanent resistance unless the occupied are given full rights or completely oppressed. Clearly the former is desirable and the latter very undesirable.
Right! I did indeed misunderstand that. And I agree with @biorach's point in response to yours: of course there are compromises and middle grounds and ways forward that hurt for everybody (but less than perpetual war would). It's how this stuff usually goes.
I think that's a honest rebuttal to my point even if I don't agree. I don't though because I think Nakba was egregious, asymmetric and recent enough that I believe the damage can be undone.
What you forget to mention is that, in many cases, a lot of those moves are indeed still contested.
And in fact, the Zionist argument is exactly that one: "because there were some Jews here 2000 years ago, this land must be a Jewish ethnostate". Why is that argument ok, but "there were Arabs here 80 years ago" is not?
Because, in reality, both arguments are stupid and tribal to a level rarely seen after 1950. Both should join modernity and move to a shared state - not based on XIX century racism, but on XXI century respect for democracy, religious equality, etc etc.
Unfortunately, the side with (atomic) power refuses to even countenance the possibility, because of a tribalistic ideology that shames some of their magnificent ancestors. And so we continue with an eye for an eye, like in the darkest of times.
Zionists were living in the area long before British Mandatory Palestine or the Balfour Declaration - they bought land and legitimately immigrated there while it was under control of the Ottoman Empire. The UN chose to partition the region in 1947 due to ongoing violence on both sides - and the British actually voted against it I believe. The Arab states then chose to go to war against the newly formed Israel - not the other way around, as your comment implies.
>Zionists got permission to occupy the land from the British with The Balfour Declaration
This is not an accurate representation. Jewish people were given the legal ability to purchase land in Mandatory Palestine. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs were tenant farmers or landless labourers. Jewish land purchases inevitably led to the displacement of these tenants, but this was the lawful outcome of a lawful land sale.
The issues surrounding occupation of land after the 1948 and 1967 wars are significantly more complex and arguably do involve violations of international law by Israel.
So what if that's true (and it's not entirely true - there was forced takeovers of land, and there continues to be land theft in the West Bank today).
If I sell you my land, does that make it right for you to form a separate state with it? Perhaps I would rethink that decision with the advance knowledge of your intentions.
If I understand what's happened elsewhere correctly, then we have an example of this elsewhere at the world stage -- the separation of Kosovo from Serbia is in a large part due to land purchases from Albanians, who then vied for independence when their population grew enough.
When Israel declared independence, that land was not governed by any state due to the withdrawal of the British Mandate. The Palestinians had previously been offered statehood through the 1947 UN Partition Plan, but had rejected it. They did not take steps to establish their own state in anticipation of the British withdrawal.
> When you occupy someone's land, there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily.
I can certainly think of some other ethnicity in that region who had their land occupied and was cleansed from the region. They even somehow managed to survive an attempt to fully exterminate them! Surely there will be peace once they get all of their land back :)
> I can certainly think of some other ethnicity in that region who had their land occupied and was cleansed from the region.
And I can certainly think of some other ethnicity in that region who that ethnicity cleansed from the region according to their own holy book. :)
Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (God telling Joshua, leader of the Israelites, to go to war)
> 16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
Well, it was a joke (hence the :)) showing that the quoted statement also applies in reverse and to continue with that joke it certainly seems like this case satisfies the "or are fully exterminated" criteria, so point taken :)
Slightly more seriously (Though only very slightly more seriously :)), IIRC our current understanding of history is that the jews are Canaanites. Quoting from Wikipedia "Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.[59]: 78–79 Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.", so at the very least one of those peoples survived until today :)
> there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily.
I think you could add assimilation to this list. In this particular instance though, it looks almost entirely unlikely (due to Israel being fundamentally defined as a Jewish state).
Israel's tactic has always been deterrence: I will inflict you so much pain that you will think twice before doing this again. Despite being proven wrong, a "realist politician' will automatically think of adding more (and then some) deterrence as the only solution.
I remember 20 years ago, during the first bombing of Gaza, they hit just ONE building and felt pressured enough to apologize for the handful of civilian deaths. Unfortunately, faced with larger threats (real or imaginary) and weak international pressure, Israel has been able to escalate the level of deterrence through the years to what we are witnessing now.
That is why any ruling to curb that "automatic" escalation (like today) is wholeheartedly welcomed.
IMO there are also subtler layers of racism coloring these policies. It's not as blatant as the far-right rhetoric, but a persistent undertone within elements of Israeli society justifies severe deterrence tactics and totally overide any empathy learnt from historical lessons.
No essentially it is as simple as how any abuser bully behaves. They will continue their behavior as long as they are allowed to. Look at US for enabling them.
You've been posting repeatedly to this thread in a way that has been crossing into flamewar and breaking the intended spirit that I tried to express in my pinned comment at the top. Could you please stop doing this? It leads to hellish flamewar, and we don't want that here.
I am certain that you have very legitimate reasons for feeling strongly. Whatever your reasons may be, I respect them. At the same time, posting in a thread like this has to do with how one manages one's feelings: do they express themselves in (let's call it) a weaponized way? if so, that's against the intended spirit here. Or can you post in a way that is somehow larger than that? No one can be asked to do the latter, but I do think we can ask commenters to refrain from posting if they can't get there.
Dang, I think it would be better if you just didn't take sides on this and stopped policing vigorously. Both comments here are nowhere flame war territory.
The moderation issue here is not those two comments but the repeated pattern in each case.
Past experience has unfortunately made it clear that moderation needs to be relatively active on topics that are as divisive as this one. I wish it weren't so.
You've been posting repeatedly to this thread in a way that has been crossing into flamewar and breaking the intended spirit that I tried to express in my pinned comment at the top. Could you please stop doing this? It leads to hellish flamewar, and we don't want that here.
I am certain that you have very legitimate reasons for feeling strongly. Whatever your reasons may be, I respect them. At the same time, posting in a thread like this has to do with how one manages one's feelings: do they express themselves in (let's call it) a weaponized way? if so, that's against the intended spirit here. Or can you post in a way that is somehow larger than that? No one can be asked to do the latter, but I do think we can ask commenters to refrain from posting if they can't get there.
Yes. That is why I said: faced with larger threats
What I can add is that this is indeed not just a "larger" threat for them. It "activated" a millennium-deep Jewish trauma (through pogroms up to the Holocaust). Deep, very deep.
Maybe. However, the situation itself is so special, I'm not sure how you would "generalize it" to others. And there is really nothing esoteric about the deep trauma. It is widely documented.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
If the lesson is "Everybody wants to kill us and the only solution to safety is to have a nation state and defend at all costs against any other group", well it just all make sense.
Of course this is not the conclusion of every jew in the world but I fully expect it to be the conclusion of post WWII zionists, even though it was not the case for a lot of them that were influenced by socialist ideas but lost influence and power with time.
Of course the strategy of always planning for aggression in order to come up on top is somewhat self realizing in that defending your dominant position will necessarily mean abuses of power and resistance to it.
So the lesson is "Better safe than sorry" although it's not that simple because there is actually a safety cost to pay to maintain such a strategy.
The problem with October 7th massacre was Israeli government with Netanyahu at the top ignored their own rules of "Better safe than sorry" and that led to a monster growing at their borders (both Hamas and Hizbollah). Well, now it's "better be late than never".
> ignored ... and that led to a monster growing at their borders
Ignored? No, most of that administration actively encouraged and fostered Hamas for years and years. To their mind, it was better for their aims to build Hamas into a hardline organization, and more appealing than the alternative, which was a Palestine which was (slowly) becoming more open to compromise, more diplomatic (around the end of Arafat).
It pushed their nationalist agenda further to have a boogeyman in the form of Hamas, than to have to answer awkward questions like "Palestine is being very reasonable and open, so why isn't Israel?"
This is not quite true. The late Hamas rhetoric was that they are opposed two-state solution, but quietly, somewhere in 2010-s they began agreeing to 1967 borders.
Zionism is an ideology that took inspiration from the British empire. It was intended to be "something colonial" and pre-dated the atrocities of WW2. The fascist atrocities in WW2 can be interpreted as colonial tactics applied to Europeans, after all the British had been doing extremely bloody concentration camps in Africa and starved India during WW2. For some reason, Africa doesn't get the same play. I wonder why.
So people that engage in colonialism end up doing similar crimes. Israel remains probably the only old school colonial project in the present day with present day technology, backed by the U.S. empire to secure geopolitical interests in the oil-rich region among other things.
Something to think about: America is also a genocidal settler-colonial project and is one of the only nations to back Israel in the UN. Our genocide is still ongoing: visit a native american reservation and witness the immense poverty. Similarly to Gaza, the US state will simply say that despite being an occupying power, these are autonomous zones and we have little responsibility.
Modern-day Zionism to me and many others means that Israel has the right to exist.
It does not absolve many, including self-proclaimed Zionists, from criticizing some of Israel policies.
On other hand, my interpretation of people who are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists logically flows from above statement that they believe that the present state of Israel DOES NOT have a right to exist. Which implies deportation of extermination of 6 million Jewish Israelis
In my opinion, the word Zionism has been hijacked by activists who know that being anti-Jewish is not good optics, but anti-Zionizm is still something that can be sold to the masses.
I'm Jewish and I believe that Palestine should be a single democratic state that guarantees rights to all. No one has a right to an ethnostate, not even us. You see directly where this thinking leads — genocide.
Last time the Palestinians in Gaza got a vote, they voted Hamas, which has a charter based on eradication of the Jews. Are you sure you want them voting in the same state as you?
You must recognize that Hamas was elected after the continuous failure of the PLO to win concessions after Oslo, which abandoned the guiding principles of International Law in favor of "trusting the parties", but Israel, the more powerful party was able to dictate terms. A return to root cause analysis combined with the just principles of international law will see a fair deal. Arabs do not want to fight, they just want to be able to go home.
The fascist behavior I see coming from Israelis is completely repulsive and against everything I thought my religion stood for.
From the Hamas charter (2017).
"6. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity."
Jewish people have been murdered & driven out of almost every other middle-eastern country (where they used to be substantial parts of the population). What are their chances of surviving in an Arab-dominated Palestine? Note that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian authority is particularly keen on democracy.
Israel has a 20% Arab population who have the same rights as non-Arab citizens. They work in schools, hospitals, government, including the supreme court.
On other hand, Palestinians living in Gaza have elected a terrorist group[1] to govern them nearly two decades ago and have been subject to UN-sponsored education that teaches kids to hate Jews[2] for decades.
A single democratic state of Palestine with Palestinians and Israelis co-existing is impossible with current Palestinian leadership and the generations taught hatred.
As a westerner, I have never heard a single person in the western sphere mention a peaceful, non-occupational one state solution. How common is the idea of a democratic single state solution in Israeli politics? Do the advocates for it have a plan for dealing with the backlash from extremists on both sides? I'd like to read more about it. Now in the west it seems like even the two-state solution isn't up for discussion post-Trump.
The idea is common, but is rejected by the Israeli mainstream because they fear demographic changes - Palestinians are poor, so they have bigger families, hence eventually they would outnumber ethnic Jews and <insert fear here>.
If this sounds very similar to "great replacement" fears in US and Europe, it's because it is based on the exact same principles: the concept that a state's ethnic composition should be fundamentally immutable, and it's legitimate to fight against any threat to this immutability with discriminatory laws (or worse).
Unsurprisingly, that means that the European right, these days, have largely dropped their traditional antisemitism, and will happily share a platform with the Israeli government. The fact that a purposely Jewish state now cooperates with the heirs of Hitler and Mussolini should surely appear revolting to Israeli citizens. Alas, it does not.
Funnily enough, these arguments also deliberately ignore second generations, which by virtue of living in the country, they form a more cohesive identity based on the country itself, so diluting this ethnic composition in usually a positive fashion.
Israel is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the western world. In particular, it is more ethnically diverse than almost every single country in Europe. What ethnostate?
> Modern-day Zionism to me and many others means that Israel has the right to exist.
I think the framing of this argument is so tricky, because states don't have any rights. States aren't human beings. There is so much to unpack in the statement "X state has a right to exist".
> On other hand, my interpretation of people who are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists logically flows from above statement that they believe that the present state of Israel DOES NOT have a right to exist. Which implies deportation of extermination of 6 million Jewish Israelis
I am not saying that Israel's borders should be dissolved, but if Israel and Palestine were integrated into a single state where Jews and Arabs had equal rights, would this not still be a home for Jews?
Destruction of the state of Israel is not equivalent with the genocide of all Israeli Jews, unless your definition of genocide is the same as the one used by white supremacists in the US, who believe that letting non-whites into the country is genocide.
The point I am trying to make is that is Zionism, by your definition, exclusionary? If so then what you are describing is an ethnostate, which many would argue is a fascist idea.
Jews, Roma, Kurds, and all ethnic minorities deserve human rights. However, they are not entitled to statehood and their states are not entitled to any rights themselves.
Also, I do agree there are antisemites who say "zionism" as a dogwhistle for "jews".
Do you really think this is possible? Can you name a single state in the world with a majority muslim population that hasn't adopted any laws based on religion or passed any laws that discriminate against non-muslims?
Do you think it's realistic that if Israel is replaced by a new state tomorrow that has a majority arab muslim population it won't quickly become somewhat theocratic and enforce some degree of religious law against people of other religions? I think this outside view of a one state solution pretends the entire population of Israel believes in some sort of Western Democratic values and will provide a strong foundation of individual rights. I just don't see good evidence for that.
> Can you name a single state in the world with a majority muslim population that hasn't adopted any laws based on religion or passed any laws that discriminate against non-muslims?
Ironically this can be applied on isreal which declare itself Jewish state and have law of return [1] which allow any Jewish a right to "come" to isreal but does not extend the same to arab who were kicked during establishment of isreal
I'm not arguing there shouldn't be two states. I see the best path forward as likely Israel existing as a Jewish state and Palestine existing as a Muslim state. I don't think either side has a majority population willing to exist in a state with absolute freedom of religion and no religious policies. Far fewer people live as oppressed minorities if there are two states than if there is one.
> Can you name a single state in the world with a majority muslim population that hasn't adopted any laws based on religion or passed any laws that discriminate against non-muslims?
I don't know that Turkey has zero discriminatory laws against non-muslims, but they managed to operate as a secular state for almost 100 years before Erdogan.
> Do you think it's realistic that if Israel is replaced by a new state tomorrow that has a majority arab muslim population it won't quickly become somewhat theocratic and enforce some degree of religious law against people of other religions?
I have no way of knowing this.
> I think this outside view of a one state solution pretends the entire population of Israel believes in some sort of Western Democratic values and will provide a strong foundation of individual rights. I just don't see good evidence for that.
Noam Chomsky and Norm Finkelstein both agree with you on this point, and I tend to agree with them. My argument was not that a one-state solution was viable, but I was trying to get the OP to say if their idea of Zionism was exclusionary or not.
Personally I do not think that a one-state solution would be possible unless mass de-radicalization took place, because Israeli ethno-nationalists see coexistence as genocide. I think the most viable option is a two-state solution, where a competent Palestinian standing army could hopefully force some sort of detente.
This is a very convenient interpretation. Lots of people acknowledge Israel as having that right without identifying as Zionists. Lots of anti-Zionists are just anti-colonialists.
This argument is used to shutdown legitimate criticism of a multi-generational occupation, land theft and discrimination. Those things are not inherent to being Jewish. So the distinction holds.
> after its people experienced the atrocities of World War II, would act in this manner toward the Palestinians.
That's part of why they're acting this way. Security fears. I'm telling you, the median Israeli isn't motivated by bloodlust or a desire for land, they're motivated by a high level of fear that they will one day be killed by Hamas/Hezbollah/etc. That fear causes them to demand complete "security control" of the West Bank and Gaza. That fear explains why they would not budge on allowing Palestinians an army as part of previous two-state negotiations. That fear explains why they would give back the Sinai but not the geographical high ground of the Golan Heights. That fear explains why the Israeli Left completely collapsed after the Second Intifada. They're happy to give part of the West Bank back in two state negotiations, but they would never, ever, allow Palestine an army. Because of security fears. The Palestine-Israeli conflict is this positive feedback loop caused by a desire for security conflicting with a desire for freedom. We're in the terminal doom spiral phase of this feedback loop right now.
(@dang doesn't work - I saw this by accident but the only guaranteed message delivery is hn@ycombinator.com)
I wouldn't use the term propaganda account for several reasons, one of which is that on any divisive topic, no one agrees about what counts as 'propaganda'. People mostly use that word to refer to points they strongly disagree with. In that way, it's a lot like the word censorship. For moderation purposes, it's better to use different words so we don't get tangled in definitional arguments.
But it's against HN's rules to use the site primarily for political battle (among other things), and when an account does that repeatedly and ignores our requests to stop, we usually end up banning it. I did that a while ago in this case.
In order to qualify for the protection of the rules of war, you must typically abide by them. This means that you don't get to prosecute when people kill your human shields or when they block humanitarian aid that you are stealing.
To add to this, OP if you want to learn more about why Israel is so callous to Palestinian life you need to learn about the Israeli right wing and how it came to power. I mean, this whole thing goes back further than that but for understanding today it really helps to understand the movement of ultra nationalism in Israel from the fringe into the majority.
Fascism does not "just stop". You can already hear the far right wingers claiming that Israel also has a right to expand into Lebanon and the Transjordan. Ironically looking at how Germany was radicalized is really useful for understanding how Fascism has taken hold in Israel.
I’ve been told stories of the German occupation of my grandparent’s village. My grandfather has been a slave worker on the German farm.
The thing is, I personally can’t relate to any of that. It’s just like reading a book or watching a movie. It’s just so far removed from my reality. I think you greatly overestimate the impact of the holocaust on modern day Jews.
> ... the Jewish state... its people experienced...
This is your error. States and peoples are not unitary entities with a single coherent outlook and will. The vast majority of the Israeli population is far too young to have directly experienced the Holocaust, which ended 80 years ago. There are plenty of people in Israel who do not want to commit atrocities against Palestinians. There are also people who feel that they have a (literally) god-given right to occupy the territories where Palestinians currently live. If you think of Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet as being basically the same people who survived Nazi concentration camps in World War 2, then nothing Israel is doing in 2024 will make much sense.
To my mind, Israel's actions toward Palestinians (both in Gaza and the West Bank) are powerful evidence that nationalism inherently leads to atrocity no matter who's involved. If the cultural memory of being targeted by the Holocaust won't stop an ethno-state from setting up an apartheid regime, what will?
It's not self-evident that "the cultural memory of being targeted by the Holocaust [should] stop an ethno-state from setting up an apartheid regime". In Liberia, where the freed American slaves were sent to, they essentially enslaved the native population.
It's under-remarked on, but for a majority of Israeli Jewish people, the nakba era might have more immediate salience than the Holocaust. That's because they're not, as the popular imagination has it, all colonists from Europe; they're the Jewish people of the Middle East and North Africa, all of whom were forcefully expelled from their own homes after 1948.
There's no question that the Holocaust has enormous salience to Israeli Jewish people. But if you trace your roots to rural Arab Jewish families from Yemen or Iraq, your more immediate concern would be your own family's immediate viability in a world without Israel. A new rise of European fascism wouldn't be your problem; the fact that you'd have literally no place to go would be. You're sure as shit not moving back to Yemen.
This is both false and irrelevant. Anti-Jewish pograms in MENA following the Arab-Israeli war are well documented. Israel had a variety of motivations for ensuring they could comfortably resettle in Israeli territory, but that doesn't change the crisis Arab Jewish people faced in their home countries: they were forcibly expelled.
Further, it doesn't matter. Most stats I've seen suggest that the Mizrahim are at least a plurality of Israelis, and none of those people can return to their "colonialist home countries". By way of example, long before the current Gaza war, the literal first "official" action Ansar Allah took when it established control of territory in Yemen was to expel the very few remaining Jewish families.
People can say it matters until they're blue in the face, but the legitimacy of Israeli popular sovereignty within its 1967 borders is so difficult to argue with that we might as well accept it as complete. We're talking about millions of people, well armed, with a series of powerful historical arguments, and, of course, a nuclear arsenal. Their self-conception is immensely material in ways I don't feel like online Palestinian activists understand.
One reasonable way to think about Israel: their moral claim to Tel Aviv is much stronger than our claim to Dallas. And yet, for all the "turtle island" talk, no serious person entertains the idea of rolling back American sovereignty.
None of this legitimizes the ongoing military strategy in Gaza, or, for that matter, the West Bank crisis or the management of the 2-state process, something that the Israeli right has successfully and for decades worked to derail.
I only bring this up because I feel like there's a tendency in message board discussions to center Israel's legitimacy on the Holocaust, as if that's the sum total of what binds Israeli Jewish people to the land. No, it's much more complicated and deep than that.
I don't believe that might makes right and just because Israel is armed and backed by the West does not give them impunity to steal land. 1948 was not hundreds of years ago, there are people who are still alive who were ethnically cleansed from their land and forced into Gaza. Palestinians have a much stronger right of return than anyone who wasn't living in Palestine prior to 1948.
I think you might believe might makes right more than you realize, because, as I've laid out, it's easier to make a moral case for Israeli sovereignty over Tel Aviv than for American control of Texas --- you advocate against Israel because it seems like a plausible cause, and that plausibility is denominated in international military might. You don't advocate for the return of Texas to the people of Mexico because you viscerally understand it's never going to happen.
That being the case (maybe it isn't!), there are two big problems with your strategy:
1. It isn't possible. They're not going anywhere.
2. It's incoherent. There are very few countries in the world with a morally-hygienic claim to their land. Certainly, with the possible exception of Egypt, none of Israel's neighbors can! They're all of them creations of France and the UK.
You're making a lot of assumptions about my position. I most certainly do think we owe both indigenous people and Black people massive amounts of land reparations in the US.
Israel can be disbanded just like South Africa was disbanded. It has less support than ever before politically.
> Israel can be disbanded just like South Africa was disbanded.
South Africa wasn't disbanded, not even close. Apartheid ended more-or-less peacefully; non-whites were given the vote; and more-or-less democratic elections have been held ever since.
Several additional problems with your argument past what D.C. just said:
1. Israel has in fact immense support, far more than the South African government ever had.
2. Apartheid South Africa was a system of minoritarian rule, which does not exist within the 1967 borders of Israel (further, Arab Israelis have nominally full citizenship rights, and in fact fight for the IDF; they are a minority, unlike the victims of Apartheid, but they're also not living under an apartheid system).
3. For a majority of Israeli Jewish people, there is no other place in the world for them to go. There is no prospect of a negotiated settlement that forecloses on a Jewish state. Their BATNA is war. That wasn't the case with the Boers.
In these kinds of discussions I feel like people conflate the situation in Gaza and the West Bank with that of Israel proper. Continued Israeli occupation of Gaza probably is untenable! That occupation will eventually be disbanded, the way South African Apartheid was. But here we're talking about the entire state of Israel. Like I said, start with Texas, because that'll happen first.
> Apartheid... which does not exist within the 1967 borders of Israel
It isn't formal, but Arabs are marginalized and discriminated against. In West Bank, E Jerusalem, and Hebron, all that supremacy is dialed upto 11.
> Israel has in fact immense support
Fear and intimidation isn't support. Besides, I don't see this support lasting long outside of the US and Germany if the Oslo-process continues, which it will because for the Israeli right Judea and Samaria are too good to give up.
> talking about the entire state of Israel
I think folks mean the one-state reality but not total exodus of the Jews, though, it might come to pass if they let their guard down, now that there's genuine animosity to fuel a feud for another century.
I'm assuming you just missed the previous comments where I agreed that the Palestinians have a powerful moral argument about Gaza and the West Bank. If you read the thread, I think you'll see we might not have much to disagree about.
I feel like I haven't written anything that would give the impression that I'm unaware of the crimes Israel inflicted on Arabs during the capital-n Nakba.
The problem is: it doesn't matter. The point is that Arab Jewish people are in Israel now, by the millions. The issue isn't that they've won some kind of trauma competition; it's the simple practical fact of their presence and the history that brought them there.
Your second point, about MENA "nations" expelling Jewish people "in a vacuum", is deeply concerning. No matter what Israel did in Palestine, Arab Jewish people had no culpability. Arguments like this are why the distinction between criticism of Israel and outright antisemitism are so slippery. I too think that distinction is weaponized, but it's hard to press the point when you're making facially antisemitic arguments.
Clearly it does matter to significant portions of the people who either directly experienced it or are the children of those who did. I would argue it was a major driving factor for violent opposition to the Israeli state, now since replaced by Israel's current actions (current as in last 30 years) as the impetus.
> No matter what Israel did in Palestine, Arab Jewish people had no culpability.
I'm glad this discussion has forced me to do some research. I actually wonder how many of the early immigrant waves were even "expelled" in the first place, rather than moving of their own volition. Here's the example from Yemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet_(Yemen)...
And in Iraq's case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ezra_and_Nehemiah
"Like most Arab League states, Iraq initially forbade the emigration of its Jews after the 1948 war on the grounds that allowing them to go to Israel would strengthen that state; however, by 1949 the Iraqi Zionist underground was smuggling Jews out of the country to Iran at about a rate of 1,000 a month, from where they were flown to Israel.[23] At the time, the British believed that the Zionist underground was agitating in Iraq in order to assist US fund-raising and to "offset the bad impression caused by the Jewish attitudes to Arab refugees".
> That the MENA nations who expelled their minority Jewish populations did so in a vacuum
How does something occurring in Palestine justify this? Tying the actions of Jewish militias to your local Jewish population is antisemitic… if they expelled them to protest the creation of Israel, then that isn’t anti-Zionist. That they mostly all ended up going to Israel is ironically supporting the Zionist cause
No, there were no reports of a pogrom against Jews in Egypt in 1956. However, during the Suez Crisis in the same year, some Jewish individuals faced increased tensions and discrimination. Many Jews eventually left Egypt, but it wasn't a pogrom in the traditional sense.
In the context of a discussion about potential crimes against humanity, an argument that ethnic cleansing is sometimes ok feels particularly unconvincing.
> How does something occurring in Palestine justify this?
The real question is, would that have happened if it were not for:
-demonstrated brutality against the Palestinian population
-explicit creation of the Israeli state tied to a particular ethno-religious identity
If there had been no violence, and if Israel had just been a newly-independent country with the creation led by but not defined by the culture of the Jewish immigrants, would there have been a purge across the region? Personally I think not.
I'm trying to highlight that there is significantly more nuance to the creation of Israel beyond "we just showed up one day and everyone was mean to us for no reason" which, IMO, has surprisingly crept into numerous comments even on HN where you would expect such an educated demographic to know better...
This is again a frankly antisemitic argument. Arab Jewish people in Tunisia bore no responsibility whatsoever for what happened 1800 miles away from them. Racism isn't nuance, it's just racism.
You've been posting flamewar comments to this thread, which is against HN's rules and particularly against the intended spirit that I tried to express at the top of the thread. Please stop doing this. The thread is hellish enough as it is, and posts like these put it on the fast track to far worse.
You've been posting flamewar comments to this thread, which is against HN's rules and particularly against the intended spirit that I tried to express at the top of the thread. Please stop doing this. The thread is hellish enough as it is, and posts like these put it on the fast track to far worse.
Then kindly please eliminate racist and antisemitic comments so people don't have to respond to them. Especially the ones that spread false information and hatred like the comment I was responding to.
I'm trying to make the moderation calls as even-handed as possible and have scolded many accounts (and banned some) who are taking the opposite position from yours—including the commenter who was just arguing with you here.
That doesn't change the fact that you (I don't mean you personally, but everyone commenting) need to follow the rules and post in the intended spirit regardless of what others are doing.
Everyone always feels like the other started it and did worse; if you take that as a basis, all we end up with is a downward spiral, and that's what we're trying to avoid here.
Cultural and religious belief that the land belongs to them by divine right, and was stolen. WWII enabled them to resettle in their "home", but the principle of ownership didn't come out of WWII. The treatment of the Jewish people in WWII doesn't mitigate these beliefs, and may even strengthen them (ie, persistence and survival are further evidence of divine right)
(These aren't necessarily my opinions, and I am not Jewish. However I'm very closely connected to people who are, and I'm sharing the perspective I've been given)
If you look at the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention's statement [1], they call both the Hamas attack and the current Israeli action Genocidal. They characterise genocidal attacks in terms of not just their factual effect, but the intentional psychological effect of an "massacre of symbols of group life", in which the genocidaires deliberately try to symbolically erase the other group, in ways which are hugely traumatic: "inversion rituals, such as the killing of children in front of their family members; and desecration rituals, such as the massacre of entire families, the setting fire to homes with families still inside them, and the desecration of dead bodies", which they see evidence of in the Hamas attack. This is all magnified by the existing trauma of the Jewish people, in the holocaust but also events since, in living memory of more people - such as 9/11 (an attack on the city with the largest Jewish population).
So you have to realise that Israelis are not thinking normally right now. Even though the Hamas attack has in military terms "culminated", and Israel's military is many times more powerful, their trauma leads them to believe that there is a real, present threat of extinction of the Israeli state and their own nation and families. Under such conditions, it is very hard for them to see the suffering of 'the enemy' as relevent.
It also doesn't help that basically everyone else is just piling responsibility for a solution on the Israelis, despite the US, UK and Europe having enormous historic responsibility for setting up the situation.
[please note, this is explanation, not justification]
> So you have to realise that Israelis are not thinking normally right now. Even though the Hamas attack has in military terms "culminated", and Israel's military is many times more powerful, their trauma leads them to believe that there is a real, present threat of extinction of the Israeli state and their own nation and families.
I think that they think there is a real, persistent threat of Hamas continuing to make this kind of attack. Hamas has consistently said so, so Israel has reasonable grounds for thinking so. Hamas has even said that they won't settle for a two-state solution - they demand the destruction of Israel.
So if you're an Israeli, that leaves you very few choices: stay and accept being massacred every so often, shut down the country and leave, or destroy Hamas. Unsurprisingly, they choose the third option.
Here we run into the difficulties of the current media environment. With the Ukraine war, everyone and his dog is offering their tactical and strategic analysis. Here, not so much - just moral statements and talking points. So, while it doesn't seem plausible to me that Hamas would be able to repeat its attack again and again - it managed to create such a large attack because the IDF (or its political masters) f*cked up - I don't really have the analysis to back that up. What actually were Israel's military options? What could Hamas plausibly do under various scenarios?
I don't think the attack could be repeated as successfully even if Israel withdrew. And Israel clearly had justification doing something - but without an analysis of their options, it's hard to know what's justified - which is the heart of this case.
I agree that Israel's options are limited - in the absence of outside assistance. In fact, I don't see how Israel can solve the situation in the absence of a neutral outside security force. Here's why:
For a peaceful settlement, both populations need to be given hope.
- Israelis need hope of long term safety and security
- Palestinians need hope of self-determination and civil rights.
No deployment of Israeli forces satisfies both conditions. If Israel occupies Gaza, they deny the Palestinian hope. If they withdraw, they give up their own (which they won't do). Even if Hamas is destroyed, the PA is too weak to guarantee security for either Palestinians or Israelis, and Israel won't trust them enough to allow them to grow strong. Ergo, a neutral force is needed. But, that would require US co-operation, if not actual US forces, and I don't think Biden will risk it in an election year.
Maybe not the US. In fact, probably not the US - the Palestinians would (perhaps rightly) view them as likely biased.
This sounds like the perfect task for a UN peacekeeping force. (Of course, after various "resolutions" over the years, the Israelis may view the UN as biased...)
not only resolutions, and the UN's obsession with israel, but also the complete failure of UN peacekeepers between lebanon and israel as well. Israel won't hand their security to the UN over in any way - the UN has demonstrated they aren't fair to israel and aren't capable of acting as peacekeepers.
It would likely have to be some kind of ad-hoc force, maybe authorised by the UN security council or general assembly for legal reasons, but where the composition was agreed by Israel and the PA. And not under the management of the UN.
which UN force will enter gaza, fight door to door against booby traps and AT teams, the way Israel is doing currently, when the next round of rockets go off?
The problem is that right now, Israelis feel like anything other than obliterating Gaza is a fantasy that cannot work. But see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39152982
There are only three ways it can end, two involve both sides showing some trust, and the third involves war crimes. Given the carnage to both sides means trusting each other is unlikely, that takes us down to the "fantasy" of trusting a third party, or war crimes. Take your pick.
You need to replace "after" with "because". Having experienced a mass genocide easily justifies committing one yourself in the name of self preservation.
I was in my 20s and remember the feeling in the air after Al Qaeda members hijacked commercial planes and flew them into WTC in 2001. Fear, Anger, A bit of revenge.
Many of Americans, including soviet immigrants, enlisted in the army driven by that feeling.
Israelis lost significantly more of their population percentage-wise during October 7 attack perpetrated by the official government of Gaza AND as we know now, some Gazan civilians. Over 200 Israelis were taken hostage.
With that in mind, its fairly simple for me to empathize with the Israeli public who are angry at the death of their fellow citizens and want Hamas to be punished.
> its fairly simple for me to empathize with the Israeli public who are angry at the death of their fellow citizens and want Hamas to be punished
Definitely. Conversely, it should also be fairly simple to empathize with the Palestinian public in the (just picking one fairly recent example) Operation Cast Iron aftermath.
A bit of a strange take considering every one of your points applies much more to Palestine than Israel.
>I was in my 20s and remember the feeling in the air after Al Qaeda members hijacked commercial planes and flew them into WTC in 2001. Fear, Anger, A bit of revenge
Yeah the people in Gaza feel that pretty much every day
>Many of Americans, including soviet immigrants, enlisted in the army driven by that feeling.
They also feel this, which leads to them joining Hamas and is part of the reason there are normal Palestinians who support Hamas. Terrorists don't come out of no where.
>Israelis lost significantly more of their population percentage-wise during October 7 attack perpetrated by the official government of Gaza AND as we know now, some Gazan civilians.
Yeah I mean again just flip that and the people in Gaza experience that at a much higher rate
>With that in mind, its fairly simple for me to empathize with the Israeli public who are angry at the death of their fellow citizens and want Hamas to be punished.
Same but I also empathize with all the Palestinians just trying to live their lives in an open air prison and want revenge. I think both Hamas and Israel have genocidal intent, but one has much more power and is actually carrying it out right now.
Hamas barely scraped into victory in a power sharing agreement it then broke. Gazan at that time did not want this government. Half of Gaza's present population wasn't even born at the time of the last election. To blame Palestinians generally (including in the West Bank who are effectively being punished too) for this is exceedingly unfair.
Compare culpability with Israel's, which IS a functioning democracy, has had regular elections, a free press, a large population participating in the war and actively in favour of it - and blaming the average Gazan is even less fair.
Seeing how they literally took hostages, in addition to targeting and killing civilians, I'm honestly not sure how you can argue it wasn't a terrorist attack.
75% of a population indoctrinated for years by a violent group of thugs (partially supported by the current Israeli PM). But that still doesn't justify slaughtering them in a fit of vengeance. Check the numbers for a gloves off response within Israel and we see the cycle of vengeance you seem fond of.
>But that still doesn't justify slaughtering them in a fit of vengeance.
I didn't say it did, I just wanted to show that the population of Gaza does seem to condone terrorism as a whole, and it's not a small minority as you were making it sound.
Also if Israel wanted to slaughter everyone in Gaza they could do it almost over night. And it wouldn't require nuclear weapons, they possess more than enough conventional weapons to do so. Hamas has been shown to keep and fire their weapons in population centers, it makes it incredibly difficult to truly minimize casualties. If Israel wanted to maximize civilian casualties, they easily could.
>cycle of vengeance you seem fond of.
Seriously my comment was simple, not sure why you think I condoned 'vengeance'.
Apologies. I misattributed the vengeance comment to you.
When did I dispute the 75% figure? I said you'll find bloodlust in the general Israeli population too.
Wanting to slaughter everyone in Gaza isn't the standard to apply. It has shown it doesn't care if it does if that means killing the small fraction of that population responsible for October 7. It's shockingly callous, disproportionate and can never justify heavy bombing a populated urban area.
Yeah it's understandable why though from your own article:
>The PCPSR poll found that 44% of Gazans say they have enough food and water for a day or two, and 56% say that they do not. Almost two-thirds of Gazan respondents - 64% - said a member of their family had been killed or injured in the war.
>Fifty-two percent of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents - or 72% of Palestinian respondents overall - voiced satisfaction with the role of Hamas in the war. Only 11% of Palestinian voiced satisfaction with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
I would wager that actually means they're satisfied that there's "someone fighting for their rights" rather than they're satisfied with terrorism.
From another article[1]:
"Israelis reject U.S. pressure to shift the war in Gaza to a phase with less heavy bombing in populated areas by a ratio of 2-1...Only 23 percent answered that Israel should agree to the U.S. demand "that Israel shifts to a different phase of the war in Gaza, with an emphasis on reducing the heavy bombing of densely populated areas...A full 75 percent of Jewish respondents said Israel should ignore the U.S. pressure"
So it seems the same number of Jewish respondents are ok with the genocide occurring right now. Like I said in another comment, both Hamas and Israel seem to have genocidal intentions but only one side is actively pursuing it at the moment.
I can do my best to explain it, and I will do so with the assumption that people will approach any ensuing discussion in good faith. I'm not going to try and be wikipedia here, rather to just give a high level explanation of *why* a group of people, who were nearly exterminated, are acting this way. It will be very difficult to find the right words that can satisfy people who are very into this, but I will do my best, especially because I don't see a realistic geopolitical view being represented in the comments.
The question is "Why would Israel act like this?"
Israel has offered many times a two state solution. I think in '47, several times in the 90s, and the 2000s. They have all been rejected. The reason is that the Palestinian leadership wants more. How much do they want? They want all of it. "From the river to the sea" is the expression. They have said it over and over again that this is the only thing that matters to them, and they will sacrifice everything to get it.
That is more or less why Israel is doing this. For some, that is enough to explanation and a fair summary, but if you want to understand more details then read on.
The Israelis, obviously, are not going to just leave their country, and so that leaves the Palestinians with war as the only option. And war has happened, like 4-5 times, and each time the invading forces were defeated. Rather than deciding that the welfare of their people is what matters, Palestinian Leadership values complete, total restoration as the only goal and everything they do is to that end.
So, it can be debated from that point of view whether Israel should exist as a country or not. If you however think that Israel should be a country, even a little bit, then you are basically against the Palestinian leadership's raison d'être.
Even then though, I think most Israelis had a hard time believing that this is how it would be forever. Time after time, war after war, they have tried to 'do the right thing' short of just leaving Israel or dying. For example, they were invaded, the fought, the won, and the controlled Sinai, which was part of Egypt. Then they gave it back, and the Egyptians were reasonable and they signed a peace treaty.
The problem is the Palestinian leadership will never do this, and that is what the point of October 7 was. The point of it was to make peace impossible. Remember, just before the October 7th, there were the Abraham Accords. Basically, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel were take the first step in establishing a new direction for the Middle East, with those countries at the center of it. Boom, then you have the October 7th attack.
Let me take a step back and and try to address some things.
It's important to say that in 2005, Israel already militarily occupied Gaza. The corridor that has been used to smuggle in weapons for the terrorist was locked down. Then, due to international pressure, Israel withdrew from that region, and they removed any Israeli settlements. What happened? Immediately after, Hamas took over and there has not been an election since. Now, there is no governance, all of the money is stolen and funneled into weapons, and they're backed by Iran, along with Hezbollah, the Houthi, etc... and it is Iran who has a strategic interest in dividing influence in the Middle East.
So let me be clear. They don't want peace.
It's a very difficult situation because Israel would 100% prefer peace. The trouble is that they have a neighbor, who controls millions of people, that would rather be destitute and keep fighting than to govern responsibly.
A good analogy would be something along the lines of North Korea, but with a very different military strategy. Hamas uses guerrilla warfare, whereas North Korea is going for the long shot of a nuclear weapon.
The Palestinian Authority is not that different, other than strategy. They're also incompetent and they also want to see Israel eliminated. However, their strategy is to pretend to want peace, so they...
Internally, denying humanitarian aid is seen as the legitimate and time-honoured strategy of "sieging the enemy state" though not all agree on how legitimate that is (I'm sure you can see the strangeness of sending food and medicine to enemy soldiers). Certainly supplying the enemy with fuel to use in their rockets, vehicles and armaments is seen as foolish (even if that would also provide fuel for the hospitals whose fuel was stolen by Hamas). There is zero desire in killing non-militants (outside of few extremists), but given the extremely horrible inhumane atrocities committed by Hamas (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_violen... ), the acceptance of collateral casualties is higher than usual (and Israel already went extremely out of its way to minimize civilian casualties before the Oct 7 attack). Hamas' tactics that intend to maximize the deaths of their own civilians are also a contributing factor to that acceptance. If you believe there is genuine desire or action specifically to kill civilians outside of that then you believe in fake news.
In terms of non-homicidal genocide (i.e. genocide in the sense of dismantling the group without killing its members), certainly a lot more people are fine with something like a Transfer plan (for example, I've heard a proposal that Egypt will take Gazan Palestinians as refugees/civilians and similarly have Jordan absorb the Palestinians in Yehuda and Shomron) and don't see it as much of an atrocity, merely taking back the land those Arabs conquered and colonized starting at around 640AD, without actual harm to those individuals (in fact, their lives could be much improved!). There's also the fact that Israel is very tiny; Even from just the southern part of Gaza, Hamas already fires rockets at Israel's most populated cities, giving them the mountains of Shomron (incidentally, the capital of the Israeli kingdom), simple mortars could rain down on Israeli civilians without warning and could easily lead to an actual genocide of all Israeli Jews, so moving the people a few tens of kilometers east sounds like a peaceful resolution in comparison.
Naturally, there's also the element of a long conflict. Arabs have been killing Jews in Israel during the British Mandate as well as the Ottoman rule of the region (in fact the IDF traces its roots to what are essentially local militias the Jews had to create to defend themselves). Israel's scroll of independence (a document that is considered that closest thing Israel has to a constitution) actually includes two paragraphs calling for the Arab nations surrounding Israel to work together in peaceful cooperation, so literally the very first action Israel took as a state was to call for peace, and literally the first thing that happened in response was an attempt to destroy Israel. After 76 years of war, certainly there's lowered sympathy for the enemy, especially one that elected Hamas (see above) and rejected peace (I've somewhat recently learned that outside of Israel almost no one knows that the Annapolis Conference very nearly resulted in peace via a two-state solution that was refused by Mahmoud Abbas [which I've heard he has later come to regret, not sure how reliable that is]).
Rising anti-semitism around the world (especially how popular it is to call for a genocide against Israeli Jews is in the form of the "From the river to the sea" phrase) also creates a backlash - Israel must act strongly to defend itself since it is the only place in the world where Jews can be in charge of their own fate and their own defense. If the BBC publishes lies about what happens in Israel, and protesters in England are calling for a genocide unopposed, not only should we not listen to what the English want us to do, we should prioritize ourselves even further. This is why IMO s...
This is a question you need to ask Jewish people, not HN. The response you'll get here obviously won't answer this question, because the people responding are either not Jewish, or the format doesn't lend itself to a genuine answer.
But, a mistake you make in asking the question is two-fold, one - the Holocaust was not a lesson taught to Jews so they'll learn empathy. It was something horrible and traumatic that was done to them. Two - comparing the Holocaust to what happens in Gaza means you're not aware of what the Holocaust was. Maybe you know highlights such as gas chambers etc, but not what it really was (through no fault of your own I'm sure).
But, to attempt some semblance of an answer. In the same way you wouldn't ask Haitians why their gov did terrible things to the DR and their population - didn't they learn from slavery? Or about India/Pakistan, didn't they learn from the raj? Or any of the African states in conflict - didn't they learn from colonialism? Or Turkey and Syria, Iraq/Iran etc. Then why ask this from Israelis? I hope you get my rhetorical point.
One more small point - people here mention how long ago the Holocaust was and far removed from memory. That's not really true. If you look at Pew 2013 poll of American Jews [0] they found:
> About three-quarters (73%) of American Jews say remembering the Holocaust is an essential part of being Jewish
> the Holocaust was not a lesson taught to Jews so they'll learn empathy. It was something horrible and traumatic that was done to them.
Well of course I am not suggesting that it was a lesson to teach empathy. My comment was merely that people who suffer traumas tend to have empathy for other people suffering similar traumas. I don’t think this is a particularly controversial observation.
> Two - comparing the Holocaust to what happens in Gaza means you're not aware of what the Holocaust was. Maybe you know highlights such as gas chambers etc, but not what it really was (through no fault of your own I'm sure).
Well I suppose you might be right. I’ve seen a number of the major films and documentaries and read Viktor Frankl, Eli Weisel and Anne Frank and visited Auschwitz, and I’ll be the first to admit this is merely a very basic overview of the atrocities rather than any form of academic investigation. But from this overview it seems like there are common threads of severe oppression based on immutable racial characteristics, no?
On your final paragraph, I probably would ask the same question!
This is something literally I and other jews I know have had to put up with for the last several months. The strongest plausible interpretation is the one I've lived through, which is that people decide to politically test their jewish friends and acquintances.
Please don't let people on hacker news say things like what questions should be asked of jewish people not in israel etc.
I certainly don't mean to deny your experience and I understand how it would be frustrating. In fact I know someone who has personally described something similar. But I do think you most likely misread the GP (probably precisely because you've been having these experiences; that would make sense).
They weren't recommending randomly accosting anybody. If the comment had been limited to its first 10 words, I could imagine understanding it that way, but the more important part was what they said right after that: "not HN. The response you'll get here obviously won't answer this question" — in other words, a question like that can't be answered by people who have no experience with it. It doesn't follow that one should indiscriminately harass everyone who does. I know some people are jumping to that, but it's not the strongest plausible interpretation of the GP.
If you had begun your reply with "Unfortunately some people are using this line of thinking to" instead of "Please don't tell people to", it would have been fine; and still more so if you had added some of the information that you included in your reply to me.
For what it's worth, I'm jewish and there are many jews who would disagree with my answer to the question you're responding to - just keep in mind how much diversity in thought exists. Though, the sentiment of your answer I do tend to agree with.
The question we're discussing is about the attitudes of people of "the Jewish state", by which they clearly mean Israel. Almost half of the world's Jewish People are Americans, not Israelis. I think you'll get interesting answers about Palestine from Jewish Americans (I've sure learned a whole lot these past few months), but a casual reading of your comment suggests that those people have a responsibility to account for Israeli policy, and they don't. This is an extraordinarily common complaint about the Israeli/Palestine debate --- that charges of "antisemitism" are weaponized against those who criticize Israel --- and it seems that there may be a kernel of truth on both sides of that complaint.
I wrote a much more strident and knee-jerk response to this at first (I'm sorry about that, and I should have read through the whole comment instead of snagging at the first sentence), but that first sentence is quite a snag! It seemed to upset other people who replied, and I can't really blame them too much for that.
The human mind isn't rational. Don't expect just because they very well know what genocide is, that they can't convince themselves they aren't committing genocide.
I think this is rooted in a strangely common misconception that Israelis actually want any of this violence. There's a minority who does, but it's no where near as being as common as on the Palestinian side (around 60-70% of Palestinians support the October 7 massacre)
Urban warfare is an ugly and complicated thing. Many of the Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza are moderates risking their life to defend their home and bring back their people.
When individual cases of reckless disregard are discovered (like in videos shared by Israeli soldiers on groups that get leaked out), those soldiers are disciplined.
But globally, it's just not true that the IDF has complete disregard for Palestinians.
What you just saying, is pardon, BS. 50% of respondents of JPost poll said that Israel is not violent enough.
> When individual cases of reckless disregard are discovered (like in videos shared by Israeli soldiers on groups that get leaked out), those soldiers are disciplined.
My understanding is that the colossal tradegy of Holocaust made Jews realise that not fighting back is an existential threat for them.
When Israel was established then Arabs did not accept its existence nor the existence of Jews in the region. What followed was a genocidal war to exterminate Jews in Palestine and destroy Israel. We know this war today as Israel war of independence.
The Arabs who participated against Jews in this war fleed in fear of retribution and were not allowed by Israel to return. We know these people and their descendants today as Palestinian refugees (they have special inheritable status given by UN).
After the war Israel was established nearly within the borders of UN assigned Jewish territories and UN assigned Arab territories were annexed by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (West Bank). But it was still not tolerable for the Arabs who again in 1967 attempted to exterminate Jewish state with the war.
After the failure Isreal took control over larger territory that was then inhabited largely by Palestinian refugees (Palestinians) - West Bank and Gaza and also part of Egypt over the Suez canal and part of Syria called Golan Heights. The reasons where twofold. First the UN assigned territory was clearly not realistically defendable and second the large part of the previously not controlled territories like Bethlehem or Jerusalem were believed to be Jewish lands (historically Jewish lands were between Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea). Territories belonging to Egypt were later returned by bilateral treatis (but Israel kept control over Gaza).
Fast forward to today and it appears that Palestinians have not abolished the idea of genocide against Jews. It has been clearly established that the 7th October attack was a genocidal act to eliminate as many Jews as possible. Around 3000 Palestinian men took part in it, Hamas had around 40000 fighters. This demonstrates that they had wide support among Palestinians.
This leads us back to Holocaust. Jews promised to themselves that they will not let the genocide happen against themselves ever again. Yet it happened.
What is going on in Gaza is a systematic work to eliminate this threat.
They do this with minimal risk to their soldiers who are mainly reservist e.g. common people with military training. They can't afford to lose thousands of people. Palestinians in contrast value martyrdom and are willing to take very high risks (like attacking an armored vehicle with a RGP within a group of civilians next to the hospital entrance (this has been documented by the video evidence)).
It is not a police operation. It is a military operation against heavily armed and trained opponent. The weapons are chosen accordingly. The urban landscape makes it especially difficult and destructive. Regardless as far I have observed then Jewish military has made great efforts to systemically minimise civilian casualties.
What they did not realise first was that in addition to the military operation on the ground there is also sizeable information war against them and when the enemy can find many willing sympathisers then the enemy can produce what ever claims they please regardless of the truth as was demonstrated by the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion.
I haven't observed the situation closely for months but by then Jewish armed forces evolved to be more open in their communication and to communicate more clearly the threats they had to fight against.
First you need to understand that there's no genocide here. Genocide actually means "the murder of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."[1] There is no question that the Israelis are not trying to kill everyone in Gaza and definitely not specifically because they are a part of an ethnic group.
Additionally, they have not shown "a reckless disregard for Palestinian people" and they would argue that unlike other conflicts in the region (Syria, Yemen, Kurdistan) they've been incredibly efficient in trying to avoid or limit civilian death.
Still, Gazan's have been dealt a pretty raw deal in that they have been ruled by a terrorist organization which has repeatedly stolen their aid to push their own agenda, and living amongst neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, that are afraid to take them in lest they bring instability to those governments. Note that in the beginning of this conflict the Egyptians wouldn't open the Rafah border to allow refugees.
Rather, many of the holocaust survivors would instead say that the Israelis are being too nice and not defending the people living in the country from a government in Gaza that has the following in it's charter:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" and "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees."(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp)
Millenia of oppression have taught the jewish people that the only way to be treated with respect is through military strength. Theyre applying that lesson here.
Imagine you have a Gaza like area where you live. You want to live in peace but the other folk want to wipe out your state on the basis that Islam must rule your area and destroy its current government. Also they occasionally fire rockets at your schools and get out and murder and rape people. Do you not think you might get annoyed with them?
I really hoped that a submission on ICJ ruling will pass the aggressive flagging. At least hoped that dang will keep his promise about allowing a submission about the case. This one could be it. I understand that once allowed there will be trove of hard liners will make it hell to moderate. But being difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss a potential genocide in a making in front of our eyes.
EDIT: The title has been changed since and the discussion has been unflagged
The problem is that this is such a partisan issue than partisanship can be perceived in the smallest of details.
As someone who was staunchly pro-palestinian but as of recently came to have a more informed and I hope a more nuanced view of the whole situation, I can't help to see the title as potentially misleading :
Is the ICJ saying to prevent the Genocide (i.e recognizes that a genocide is happening) or to prevent a potential genocide (that is it believes the situation could escalate towards a genocide) ?
From what I have read this is the second option, so I believe the title could be misleading.
The more a topic has a loaded emotional and symbolic value, the more careful the wording must be.
Also I remember how annoying it was that people did not share my indignation and how I perceived such carefulness as a form of voluntary blindness.
I definitely think this is a discussion we should have and I am actually pleasantly surprised by the kind of comments I have read so far in that they are not unhinged even though I may disagree with some of them.
I have not flagged it personally but I understand why someone would.
I was just responding on "Couldn't this be the one discussion ?" and I think it's not, for the reasons above.
Ages ago I had a job working in online advertising. My comment a the time was this "Advertising is worse than porn, but working here I can go home to my feminist girlfriend and not get shit for it."
Technology and politics have always had an intersection but unless it was part of your job, it was somewhat avoidable.
This is no longer the case. The simple word "alignment" means that these sorts of classical political issues have direct impact on tech, platforms and what they do. We, as a group, who has a unique view of what freedom means (speech, software and that intersectioN) should be acutely aware of the chilling effect we're living under on this topic. Even here where the discourse remains (mostly) civil there are those who will attempt to just shut it down.
I would be keenly interested to see how heavily this gets flagged and how that compares to other topics. I doubt dag would tell us but I could hope!
I find this topic relative to both tech and business because so many venture capitalists have taken a very vocal and militantly pro-Israel position. People have been fired from our industry for speaking out for Palestinians and the guy who first created this site has taken immense heat for his pro-Palestine statements. I don't know that any other geo-political situations have quite had the impact to tech that this has, mostly driven by the VCs.
Since you've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously and have ignored our request to stop, I've banned the account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
All: if you're going to post in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and that your comment is strictly within them.
That especially means two things here: being kind, and not using the thread to do battle. If you're not able to stick to that, that's fine, but in that case please don't post.
What does be kind mean in a context like this? Many things, but here's one in my view: it means finding a place in your heart for the humanity of the other—whoever the other happens to be for you.
That isn't easy but it's the spirit we want here. If you can't find it in yourself, that's understandable, but on this topic, please only post if you can.
The current title "ICJ genocide case: World court demands Israel limit deaths " isn't very accurate. I'd suggest reverting to the original "Top UN court orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza but stops short of ordering cease-fire"
Huh, firefox no longer displays that! I didn't realize that before.
Well, there is already discussion of the meaning of Measure 1) "take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular" part a) "killing members of the group", at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39143094, so perhaps the confusion can be worked out there. I don't think it's as simple as "limit deaths" but perhaps I'm wrong, not being a lawyer.
Isn't there a rule about modifying inflamatory titles? The article title "Top UN court orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza but stops short of ordering cease-fire" is less inflamatory, and will help prevent comments from going sideways.
Because the ceasefire was the number one demand by the South Africa. And they lost that, but the current title completely ignores that part, and instead highlights only the part that Israel lost.
That's like exactly the definition of the opposite of neutral: ignoring the part Israel won and only focusing on the part they lost.
And the fact that it ignores the major part of the case and focuses only on the minor part, only makes it more egregious.
Even the actual news source themselves changed the title, and for some reason you consider the HTML title more important?
Historical comparisons aren't relevant when evaluating whether conduct today is acceptable, especially when we're talking about the deaths of innocents.
Every day is an opportunity to be better than our ancestors.
Looks very relevant to compare. Or in more practical terms, it's worth comparing to something as a reference that's similar in complexity of urban warfare but was handled better.
"Better" is hard to judge, but mosul was about ten months and resulted in 10k civilian deaths. This one is already several times that count in a much shorter time span.
Peace is usually a product of avoiding "whataboutism". Humans of all shades and beliefs and origins have proven time and time again how barbaric we can be. True "justice" can probably only happen with the extinction of our species; to avoid that, someone has to say "enough" even if there are those who believe it isn't.
It doesn't. Mosul's civilian population were Iraqi citizens, the conflict was much larger, lasted a lot longer, used smaller munitions, resulted in a lot more military deaths and significantly less civilian deaths. This is despite the enemy being significantly better trained, better equipped, better logistics, years of preparation and less intelligence by the anti-ISIL coalition.
If you read some of those past explanations and still have a question about our general approach, let me know what it is. As for this particular story, I turned off the flags on it because it clearly counts as SNI (significant new information - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).
Thanks, I guess Hackernews generally is my 'safe haven' from politics. Really not intending to bite or insult, just a lot happier reading about Dijkstra being a pedantic nano-Dijkstrahole or someone dumping a GBA rom through audio. The stuff from OP I read everywhere else. My heart cries for the for the world and HN generally is one of my tissues. Much love anyways.
Can you please stop posting in the flamewar style? It's against HN's rules, and especially against the intended spirit that I tried to describe at the top of this thread.
Obviously most of what gets discussed on HN is relatively unimportant in the world. If that weren't the case, HN would simply be a current affairs site, which it isn't. At the same time, that doesn't mean every political story is off topic here—the guidelines already make that clear by their use of the word "most": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
There's a long and pretty consistent history to how HN handles the question of political topics.
How is anything? One could argue that real estate occupancy in San Francisco isn't hackernews.
I think there's an intellectual interest here, but the line is very blurry with politics. It's probably as blurry as the articles posted about US being a surveillance state, cryptocurrency articles unrelated to the technology itself, etc.
Dissents etc can be found in the case page: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192
- in particular the opinion of Judge Aharon Barak, the Israeli ad-hoc Judge (a peculiarity of the ICJ is that each side gets to add a judge, but it doesn't have much effect since there are 17 other judges). But interestingly Judge Barak ruled against Israel in the case of two measures, enforcement against Incitement and ensuring humanitarian aid.
I believe it's also available in French, for those more familiar with that language.
An important part of Barak’s involvement is the complete recognition of ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter, which it found (and Barak didn’t disagree) it had.
Barak is no fan of the current Israeli government. And they often attacked him publicly and organized demonstrations around his home. They truly sent the best international law expert the country has to offer
Not exactly. They sent the guy who controls the local judiciary because not doing so would be impossible due to his immense political power. The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself and having given itself the power to cancel any law or demand any changes to laws/policy on any arbitrary basis; since this state of affairs is backed up by a sufficient number of powerful institutions, it is effectively impossible to challenge.
Barak ruling to resupply the enemy (it is widely documented that "humanitarian aid" goes first and foremost to Hamas) in an international court is entirely consistent with his lifelong tendency to gradually reduce Israeli independence and voters' impact on policy and to increase Israeli compliance to the policy of outside parties, first and foremost the US. (Resupplying the enemy was required by the US from the start. It is interesting to see other examples where civilians are prevented by the international community to leave the area of hostilities and instead they are supposed to be provided with resources in this area where the monopoly on the use of force belongs to one of the sides in the conflict.)
While the exact requirements placed on Israel by larger powers are somewhat unique, having highly influential people in the country effectively work in the interest of larger powers is a common condition for smaller powers. In this Barak is similar to many other high-profile people and organizations in many other countries enjoying limited sovereignty at best.
Most of the judiciary are his loyalists. An example of his ongoing influence is the ridiculous legal doctrine invented just this year where the Israeli declaration of independence was retroactively declared to be the supreme law of the land, akin to a "meta-constitution"; his opinion on the matter was published after many months of campaigns where people would declare their "allegiance to the declaration of independence."
I feel like this is an over-simplification that's not going to be well understood by people not familiar with Israel's judicial history and systems.
He has some influence but I don't think "loyalists" (or the other terminology used in your earlier comment) is that accurate. The supreme court justices today have a range of opinions and are largely independent and interpret law (and some other universal principles, like human rights, is really what Barak brought to the table).
The interesting bit to me here is this signals that if those cases were brought in front of Israel's supreme court the outcome would likely be similar to the ICJ (except Israel's supreme court's rulings must be followed, it's not optional or requires security council approval). I think that was partly the intent in sending Barak and really the main argument that people that oppose the government initiatives to restrict the Israeli Supreme Court have. And so there's really no need to take Israel to the ICJ since its independent supreme court would e.g. enforce the same standards anyways.
> The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself
this is at most lie and at least misconception. Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the President of Israel, from names submitted by the Judicial Selection Committee, which is composed of nine members: three Supreme Court Judges (including the President of the Supreme Court), two cabinet ministers (one of them being the Minister of Justice), two Knesset members, and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association. Appointing Supreme Court Judges requires a majority of 7 of the 9 committee members, or two less than the number present at the meeting.
In practice, the 3 Supreme Court Judges, the two representatives of the Israel Bar Association, and the 1 Knesset member "traditionally" representing one of the two major political camps [the one aligned with most Supreme Court Judges] always vote together, so most of the judiciary is appointed according to the wishes of the Supreme Court Judges. The veto on appointing Supreme Court Judges adds a modicum of balance, but given that the country can be set on fire at will by the Supreme Court like we've seen in 2023, I don't believe that this veto is that effective at changing appointments (if an appointee is declared illegitimate by the Supreme Court, the country will be paralyzed by protests; and more prosaically, you promote to the highest court from lower courts and everyone appointed to these was appointed by a simple majority without the 7-out-of-9 veto.)
The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention. This is taught in schools as a good thing because there's "a majority of professionals rather than politicians." I presume that this idea is so effective and consistent with the principles of democracy that it should also work for nominating governments and lawmakers.
>The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention.
Judges in England and Wales (including supreme court judges) are selected entirely by unelected officials; The government is explicitly prohibited from interfering with their decision. Given the influential nature of English law, I would be very surprised if this was unique.
In the Netherlands the Dutch Supreme Court provides parliament with a shortlist of 6 people.
The Dutch parliament then makes a short list of 3 people based on that list. Traditionally the first three people on the 6 person list by the Dutch Supreme Court.
This 3 person list is then offered to the Dutch government who then appointments one of them, traditionally the first one on the list, as a Supreme Court judge.
In the entire history only once did the Dutch parliament deviate from the Supreme Court’s 6 person shortlist and only once did the Dutch government deviate from the parliament’s 3 person shortlist.
So in practice it’s the Supreme Court who chooses who should join them, none of the judges are elected officials.
Lower court judges aren’t elected either, like say, in the US.
Neither are prosecutors for that matter.
In general these are all merit based appointments, not unlike your average job application, just with more ceremony.
> The Israeli judiciary is unique in nominating itself and having given itself the power to cancel any law or demand any changes to laws/policy on any arbitrary basis;
1. Not completely. There are quite a few countries with fully independent judiciary, with judges appointing judges.
2. Courts with power to initiate, and prosecute a case by themselves also exist in other countries.
This is more nuanced. Some people in the government respect Barak. I don't know that Barak is active in politics (I haven't really heard him opine on the current government, but one can imagine he's not a fan). The more extreme parties in the government resent/oppose Barak. The "government" doesn't attack Barak or protest against him but certainly some (extreme/right-wing) political factions in Israel blame him for many things. I don't think he was sent because he's necessarily the best international law expert, but he's a very sharp and widely respected. His being sent while the government is trying to undermine the practices Barak established in the supreme court is a bit weird. Politics.
The civilian death toll in Gaza has been tragically high but there hasn't been any independent verification. Regardless of what's on Wikipedia, we can't trust specific numbers.
Hamas can't go toe-to-toe with the IDF. They are hiding in tunnels and among civilians, so these ratios aren't surprising.
To some extent, you can't blame Hamas for these tactics. They would quickly lose a conventional war. At the same time, if you have zero chance of winning a military victory, perhaps you shouldn't use violence to pursue your political goals...
Yes right, if israel is unable to fight conventional war, without massive disproportional amount of civil casualties, they should not probably engage in one.
As if we know how many Hamas fighters have been killed at the first place.
According to the official stats there is like 259 IDF casualties during the land operation. Which means that death ratio is 30:1 wrt to supposed 8000 Hamas death.Laughable.
Even then, military necessity of killing combatants, not actively particpating in the war is not justified. Yes, you can kill those, who is shooting the rockets at Tel-Aviv, but bombing willy-nilly all of Gaza just because there might be tunnels, where potential combatants might be hiding,. is not acceptable, although not am not an international law lawer.
Then they shouldn’t. That’s the simple answer of it. If they want to get rid of Hamas they will need to find another way. This level of civilian casualty is unacceptable. And as proven by the ICJ decision, it is not accepted.
While their statistics are regarded as an accurate account of the total death toll, they make no distinction between civilian and combatant deaths. This is obviously a crucial shortcoming if we are trying to ascertain whether the number of civilian deaths are disproportionate to the military objectives.
If we go all 19th century and assert that all men over the age of 18 are combatants. Then we get 70% of the deaths are civilian, and 30% are combatants. However we know a large number of adult men killed in Gaza or not combatants, e.g. they are journalists, UN workers, poets, university professors, etc. So 66% civilians seems very likely to be a huge underestimate.
What are you implying? That Samer Abu Daqqa, cameraman for al Jazeera killed in an Israeli strike on december 15th is a Hamas combatant? This is some serious accusation which requires some serious proofs.
Here is a list of the 88 (and growing) journalists so far killed in Gaza [1]. I would be impressed if you could find any shred of evidence that any one of them was an active duty combatant when they were murdered.
> Mustafa Thuria, identified in a document found by IDF troops in Gaza, was a member of Hamas' Gaza City Brigade, serving as Squad Deputy Commander in the al-Qadisiyyah Battalion.
> Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, is an Islamic Jihad terrorist, and was involved in the organization’s terrorist activities. Documents found by IDF troops in the Gaza Strip reveal his role in the Islamic Jihad's electronic engineering unit and his previous role as a deputy commander in the Zeitun Battalion's Rocket Array.
I think others have been shown wielding rifles or taking part in Oct 7, but I'll need to dig up the links when I have more time.
Edit: See e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/C17sCXPMKqW/?img_index=3. I don't think it should come as a surprise that some journalists participate in combat on the side; there are many examples throughout history of desperate defenders handing out weapons to civilians. Kyiv was a recent example.
Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were not active combatants when they were killed:
> According to Al Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout, Hamza al-Dahdouh and a group of journalists were en route to the Moraj area north-east of Rafah - which was designated a "humanitarian zone" by the Israeli army - but which had reportedly experienced recent bombings.
They were fleeing an area in Khan Younis being bombed to a designated safe zone in Rafah when their car was hit by an Israeli missile.
Even if we take the IDF at their words—which we shouldn’t—this is still not a shred of evidence they were active combatants when they were killed.
But we shouldn’t take IDF at their words, they have been proven to lie consistently when they target journalist. A high profile case was when they murdered Shireen Abu Akleh, changing their story multiple times until, finally, when the evidence against their story was so overwhelming, they finally admitted to targeting her.
As for the instagram thread. We really need a name to go with this. Who is this person? Is he on the list of the 88 which the Israel has murdered so far? ~The second photo doesn’t even look like it is the same person, and the third photo even looks photoshopped (and fails to show other results in a reverse google image search)~ [wrong, see edit].
His name was Muhyiddin Muhammad Muhammad al-Sadoudi and was a 24 year old fighter for the al-Qassam brigade, who died during active training in July last year, not by the Israeli army, and not in the current war. Only claimed to be a fighter, and never claimed to be a photojournalist by Hamas’s armed wing. He is not on the list of the 88 journalists in Gaza murdered by the Israeli army.
When you say they were not active combatants, what do you mean by that? If they were retired (which seems unlikely) that's one thing, but if they were just not on the frontlines, that wouldn't make them them illegitimate targets under the Geneva Conventions.
Thanks for getting to the bottom of those photos which admittedly lacked context. I didn't meant to suggest that he was in the list of journalists killed by the IDF; I didn't even know he was deceased. I think the point stands that both freelance photojournalism and guerilla fighting can be done in a part-time and/or non-professional capacity.
I mean if they are in an active combat mission posing a threat to Israeli solders or civilians. But reading more about this case it turns out I was wrong if we take the IDF at their words—which we shouldn’t to:
> “Prior to the strike, the two operated drones, posing an imminent threat to IDF troops.”
If this is true then they were indeed legitimate targets. However if what Al Jazeera says is true, then they were not.
> When asked on Jan 10 by AFP about what kind of drones were used by the two men and the nature of the threat the drones posed to Israeli troops, the army said it was “checking”.
> It said Mr Thuria was identified in a document found by troops in Gaza to be a member of Hamas’ Gaza City Brigade, while Mr Dahdouh was identified as a terrorist belonging to Islamic Jihad.
> The army statement included a copy of a document it said was a list of “operatives from an electronic engineering unit of the Islamic Jihad, including Dahdouh and his military number”.
So we pretty much have Israel says so, which is not good evidence, or any evidence for that matter. However the Al Jazeera story has witnesses:
> He [Mr Thuria] and Mr Dahdouh had been tasked with filming the aftermath of a strike on a house in Rafah, and their car was hit while they were on their way back, AFP correspondents said at the time.
kinda different comparing a state with an organization that was caught lying about death statistics numerous times in the past [1] and including in this war (such as the ali ahli hospital incident).
it should raise some questions how the casualty count went to 500 in a few hours, where everywhere else in the world it takes days to get a body count after any disaster
It is beyond me how someone can believe that an organization capable of kidnapping babies to advance its political goals is beyond lying to do the same
There are lies and errors. From both sides. But the 26000 figure is generally accepted by the UN and aid agencies. Figures from Hamas in previous conflicts have been confirmed.
it is accepted by the UN because there is no other figure. they have no other way of estimating, also the UN is far from a neutral element in this conflict
The UN is a political body composed of the political interests of its members, which are mostly authoritarian states, and it hasn’t shown much support for Israel due to the vast membership of Islamic countries. Parody case in point, Iran being Human Rights commission seat
UNRWA, the UN agency on the ground was shown again and again to be in the very least in the mercy of Hamas therefore cooperative, at most its infrastructure and staff was used by the organizations for attacks against Israel and to hold hostages.
The ICJ in this case heavily quoted UNRWA as a source while it is an extremely problematic one.
The hospital bombing I quoted above is an example case where many experts tried to estimate casualties based on evidence, they arrived to figures that range from tenth to fifth of what Hamas published.
This together with the fact they control the casualty figure and have a clear interest at inflating it in order to stop Israel from attacking, is pretty obvious to me what’s going on.
Leaving the fact that this figure also includes Hamas members, and therefore is useless at estimating if there is excessive collateral damage
the fact there isn’t a better source does not make the only source reliable.
This is going to be a major issue when the actual court case will have to rely upon it.
the numbers will always be ‘too high’ as they are the number of civilian deaths in a war.
However, if they are much lower relative to similar conflicts than that changes a lot. Currently we have no way of knowing that, yet still people attribute these numbers some magical properties
And from talking to families and people on the ground there there are some reports that IDF killed many Isreali civilians on that day [1]. The extent is not obvious without independent investigation of course.
> Weird how only disputing the Hamas numbers as biased is a talking point.
Why are you surprised that people trust Israel more than Hamas? Israel is a country that's ranked 29 of 167 on the Democracy Index[1], right _above_ the US. Hamas is literally a terrorist organization recognized in many countries, probably yours too.
Notably also voted against telling Israel to follow the raw key prohibitions of Genocide convention as written in the convention, something Israel agreed to in the past. Curious.
Also voted against asking Israel to preserve evidence of the crimes. Interesting perspective for a former judge.
Hmm, the relevant meat appears in paragraph 43. One one point, he votes against because it’s redundant to the Convention. Fair enough. On the other, a question of “plausibility,” comes up, which seems a term of art I wasn’t able to quickly decipher.
Since the comment that I replied to was flagged, I'm posting this here because it is simply a statement of facts.
- Judge Barak's numbers on civilian deaths on 7th october are simply wrong and could've been easily checked. 766 civilians were killed, 1200 was the total number of deaths (including armed forces).
- Israel's own numbers say "2 civilians killed for every one militant"[1], that's 66% in the Gaza offensive.
- 766 / 1200 = 63.8%
- 63.8% and 66% are indeed close numbers, don't see why would it be flagged.
Of course, the numbers claimed by other NGOs / UN make it worse. But Israel's numbers are sufficient to make that claim.
When Brits were firebombing German cities, that had very little to do with freeing anyone from anything. Even at the time it was recognized by many as an act of revenge, and it's hard to not take the same impression from how Israel is conducting itself in Gaza, especially given some telling remarks from Israeli leadership.
It's interesting that we keep quite a critical view of modern politicians, yet when discussing on the field interactions we assume that armies of people, all like one, follow the bloodthirsty orders from commanders above.
> at the time it was recognized by many as an act of revenge
In part. Air power was new at the time, and there was legitimate strategic ambiguity around the military value of removing war factories’ workforces. (This is why Germany and Britain bombed by night while America bombed by day.)
The book Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World War II covers most of the major issues.
The key point of distinction between the American and British approach emerged through what the British euphemistically referred to as "dehousing" - the idea that destroying German housing stock would disrupt the operation of manufacturing, divert materials and labour away from military use and demoralise the population. On this premise, civilian casualties were merely the incidental consequence of destroying houses.
Was it not? The war was not over and so no-one was freed, yet.
Regarding Dresden, from wikipedia...
> United States Air Force reports, declassified decades later, noted as a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the continued Nazi German war effort
Regarding the people that died on October 7, one important detail is evidence surfaced it appears a sizeable fraction was killed due to Israeli military attacking militants and hostages without distinction, to avoid capture, following the so called Hannibal directive:
Why is this flagged/down voted? Its just a plain statement of fact, supported by credible sources and references. Here's some more references if people think this didn't happen. The IDF attacked and fired on the Nova festival goers with Apache helicopters [1], an Israeli tank fired shells at Kibbutz Be'eri killing hostages and children, and stories of eight babies killed at the kibbutz have been proven to be false, among other things [3], [4]
The report that I saw said that there were 70 vehicles completely destroyed by RPG or Helicopter and the Israeli military did not go into specifics(although they undoubtedly have more data about the event than they have released)
IDF says “immense quantity” of friendly fire, that doesn’t sound like your “a few”:
Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
"While this is not a conclusive finding, it is currently considered the likeliest explanation based on the evidence gathered in investigations conducted by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal.[7]"
No official investigations made (only statements made by pro-israel media eraly in conflict), no proof thefore. Yet israel has track of bombing the Gaza hospitals, which makes aposteriori a more plausible explanation for the incident.
Regardless a failed rocket launch is a different matter from the Hannibal Directive which is deliberate lethal attack on their own hostages. The official directive was retired in recent years but is still practiced per Israeli reporting.
> The Hannibal Directive (Hebrew: נוהל חניבעל; also Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol) is the name of a controversial procedure that was used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) until 2016 to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."
> Israeli newspapers have reported that the IDF was issued orders echoing the wording of the Hannibal Directive during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. The IDF was ordered to prevent "at all costs" the abduction of Israeli civilians or soldiers, possibly leading to the death of a large number of Israeli hostages.
There's lots of proofs of misfires, hospital incident aside Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets are in many cases low quality and disintegrate in the air or just miss completely and land in Gaza. I'm sure you can find articles about it if you wanted to look.
As far as has been credibly reported, it wasn't a "sizeable fraction", it was a very small number. There's only one incident I know of that is verified.
I'm sure more will surface - such is war. Therefore I want to make it very clear - it is not an important detail, despite you calling it such. Hamas are the ones that attacked - if in the process of trying to stop these attacks, the IDF inadvertantly killed Israeli civilians, that is tragic - but is completely the fault of Hamas. This is true both legally and morally.
It is absolutely not "true both legally and morally." It all depends on scale and purpose of the operation. If israeli military acted with disregard to the lives of non combatants, that would account to war crimes, against their own population. They have history of war crimes against their own forces, called Hannibal doctrine, so I won't surprised if they have same directives against civilians.
> It is absolutely not "true both legally and morally." It all depends on scale and purpose of the operation.
Well I wasn't making a general statement - I was talking in this specific case.
Let's give an analogy - if a bunch of bank robbers have taken hostages and are threatening to kill them, and if the police is reasonably certain there is no way of actually getting them out - the police is morally justified in sending in SWAT to try and rescue as many hostages as possible. Even if they know that many hostages will die.
The moral fault is with the bank robbers, not the police.
> If [I]sraeli military acted with disregard to the lives of non combatants, that would account to war crimes, against their own population.
I think that's a totally valid internal matter for debate within Israel. Should this kind of doctrine be the rule? Is it appropriate to attempt to stop militants by any means necessary, including possibly at the cost of your own population? This is in the same vein as "we don't negotiate with terrorists", a principled position that theoretically cuts down on terror, but that has brutal immediate ramaficiations in specific cases.
That all said, I don't think this doctrine amounts to war crimes (I'm not sure how it possibly could amount to war crimes). And I think it's an internal matter for debate inside the country, but don't really see how it matters to anyone else.
In fact, it kind of proves the opposite of what many people think - that the IDF is specifically trying to kill Gazan civilians. I'm often asked "what would the IDF do if the innocent civilians around a Hamas militant were Jews, not Palestinians, would you still bomb them even though it might cause collateral damage?". And while I think that question has a lot of answers, I think the "Hannibal directive", if implemented on October 7th (as appears likely), is actually proof that the IDF acts consistently, if terribly brutally - civilians are sometimes collateral damage, even if they're Israelis.
I have a question about your analogy: How is the police so certain that the bank robbers won’t release the hostages with negotiations? Should we trust the judgement of the police?
I think the answer to these questions are: “We don’t known” and “No”. We should indeed scrutinize the police judgement, and if the SWAT team goes in guns blazing killing some of the hostages in the cross fire, we should question that decision. As is often done in countries with free press.
I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country. Even the USA frequently negotiates the release of hostages of terrorists. In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
I think the latter reason is true of Israel’s government. They are actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
> We should indeed scrutinize the police judgement, and if the SWAT team goes in guns blazing killing some of the hostages in the cross fire, we should question that decision. As is often done in countries with free press.
Absolutely. I'm not against scrutinizing anything. Like I said about this specific case - the people most aggrieved and most understanding of the situation is Israelis themselves, since we're talking about cases where Israeli citizens were killed while trying to kill militants. It's absolutely something the Israeli press should explore and something that the Israeli public should and will hold the military accountable for.
It is not, however, something that should be used to "score points against the IDF" or whatever- if the affected citizens themselves are not against the way this was handled, a third party using it as some kind of way to show that "the IDF is evil" or whatever is a bit silly (and, btw, insulting).
Nor is this something that should be used to conclude that "actually, Hamas didn't really kill so many people" - which is clearly false based on vast troves of reports of people killed by Hamas, much of them filmed.
---
In this case, bitter experience shows that Hamas doesn't release captured citizens without horrible costs - last time, for one soldier, Israel released 1,027 prisoners, including the person who just masterminded the October 7th attack. This time, 100 hostages were eventually released for a much more favorable-to-Israel exchange, and in exchange for a pause in the fighting - which some people take as a sign that the fighting pressured Hamas into accepting this deal.
> I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country.
It is - though it's complicated, many European countries do in fact negotiate, the US less often. I've heard reports that it isn't clear which policy is actually better in terms of number of captured civilians.
> On June 18, 2013, G8 leaders signed an agreement against paying ransoms to terrorists.[1] However, most Western states have violated this policy on certain occasions [...] These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, which funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid
> Some Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Britain, tend to not negotiate or pay ransoms to terrorists. Others, such as France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland are more open to negotiation. This is a source of tension between governments with opposing policies.
> In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
That's not the point at all! The point is to make it so that capturing hostages is meaningless - disincentivizing doing it in the future.
Many people in Israel warned, when deciding about that 1k-priosners-for-1-Israeli-soldier deal, that it would cause Hamas to really put effort into kidnapping more Israelis. Well - it happened - and a lot of people consider this proof that that previous deal was a "mistake".
> [Israel's government is] actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
IDF's own reporting calls the amount of friendly fire casualties on Oct 7 "immense". Your interpretation is more conservative than IDF's own analysis and reporting on their own evidence - that's suspicious.
Furthermore there is Israeli reporting on the practical use of Hannibal Directive during Oct 7, which is deliberate killing of military and civilian hostages. Israeli reporting claims that the use of this directive may have been responsible for a "large" amount of hostage casualties.
Despite official recognition of the "immense friendly fire", IDF also reports that they refuse further investigation because they believe it would be "immoral", so there is deliberate obfuscation at play.
>Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
>The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
>It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
>Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
EDIT: Mis-wrote something, see further comments for details.
I went down the rabbit-hole trying to find out exactly what was said and meant. I don't consider Electronic Intifada a credible source (I mean, the bias is in the name!), but they are citing specific statements made by an Israeli army reporter.
That said, I think they (and you) are making things seem very different by the way in which you're quoting the statements. I wrote there are only a few known cases of friendly fire on civilians, and you wrote that the army thinks the number is "immense", which contradicts what I said.
Except, if you look at the context of that statement from the article, I think it doesn't actually contradict it. Here's the whole paragraph:
> Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time.
The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's not morally sound to investigate the incidents. There could've been 100 incidents - e.g. 100 cases of cars bombed trying to cross back into Gaza, which may or may not have had hostages in them (which is I believe where the IDF supposedly invoked the "Hannibal doctrine").
A hundred potential incidents to investigate could absolutely qualify as someone saying there are an "immense number", while still only representing a tiny fraction of victims compared to the numbers we know for certain were killed by Hamas.
I honestly think that if your case hinges on the specific phrasing used to describe what someone from the IDF said, and which doesn't even necessarily prove anything - then your case is incredibly weak. This could've been a translation error (I couldn't find the original Hebrew version of this article), this could've been the reporter slightly exaggerating what they heard (even unknowingly), etc.
Do you have any other sources except for this? I'd love to see them.
Though again, let's be clear - there are already hundreds (possibly over a thousand?) known victims of Hamas that are verified. There might be some friendly-fire incidents too, but there are an incredibly large number that are absolutely known to have been killed by Hamas, many of which were captured on video by Hamas itself!
Trying to claim otherwise is just completely ignoring all real evidence in favor of conspiracy.
EDIT: More Israeli-source/Israeli-reported evidence below (excluding any non-Israeli analysis of evidence)
I just want to note one detail
> The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's morally sound to investigate the incidents.
The IDF says it is *not* morally sound to investigate the incidents
They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
> Almost a fifth of Israeli soldiers who died in Gaza were killed due to friendly fire, according to data released by the Israeli military, Israeli Ynet News reported on 12 December.
There is also IDF reporting on the use of helicopters:
> “The pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian … The frequency of fire at the thousands of terrorists was enormous at the start, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their attacks and carefully choose the targets,” Israel’s Ynet reported last month, citing an Israeli air force investigation.
> “Shoot at everything,” one squadron leader reportedly told his men.
> A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.
> According to Haaretz, the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri after admittedly “shelling” the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive. “The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri residents were killed,” the paper chronicled.
> Pilots have told Israeli media they scrambled to the battlefield without any intelligence, unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants, and yet determined to “empty the belly” of their war machines. “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them,” one Apache pilot commented.
And some Israeli witness accounts:
> An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces.
> The IDF says it is not morally sound to investigate the incidents
Yes, sorry, of course, I miswrote that. (I edited the comment.)
> They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
Again, I can understand that - since people have been insisting on propping up insane conspiracy theories that Hamas didn't actually do anything bad on October 7th. Ultimately I think it's a mistake, and not one that will be relevant anyway - investigations can happen one way or another. (Again, free press, free speech and all that.)
They’ve by policy excluded press access to these environments to an unusual degree, besides murdering at least 83 journalists within Gaza, so I’m less certain that resulting press coverage will result in establishing real consensus truth
I added more of the Israeli-reported evidence above that you're welcome to dig into
This idea stems from lack of familiarity with Israeli society.
Israel is a small country with very few degrees of separation between people.
The communities attacked are highly organized, hate the current government,somewhat critical of the establishment, and closely connected to the highest ranks in the IDF. Including some generals. And also connected to many of the fighters who were there on the ground.
There is absolutely zero chance that the army would kill many people and that it would be kept hidden from the families and the public in large.
Also, Hamas was not merely taking hostages, but spraying people with bullets and setting houses on fire with families in them. So your SWAT team dillema means nothing, as the army had no other option other then engaging with the enemy as fast as possible.
The fact that in many places special forces were indeed sent to carefuly deal with hostage situations is being criticised as it may have wasted time in which the Hamas was killing more people, and people who were trapped in their homes got choked or burned.
The better strategy may have been to charge at the terrorists, as their numbers and whereabouts were unknown and while some were holding hostages others were still moving around in cars or by foot looking for hostages to take or victims to kill.
The only confirmed friendly fire case during October 7 that I personally read about was a tank that entered into a fire exchange with Hamas hostage takers.
40 terrorists and 15 hostages were surrounded in a house at Be'eri,
Firing at IDF and police forces that surrounded the house.
After a failed negotiation in which the Hamas commander alone surrenderd with one hostage, fighting resumed.
The Hamas members were firing with guns and RPGs at the tank and nearby forces.
The Tank fired two shells at the house killing the terrorists and all but 1 of the remaining hostages.
> Big difference is that Israel is not targeting civilians on purpose
I think this is not a justified statement. Keeping in mind hat israeli government is clearly very far right, and on multiple occasions have brought up deranged things about Amalek, about "no innocents in Gaza", I think one can establish a reasonable doubt about the true intent of idf actions.
Israel is not targeting civilians, thats a fact.
It gains nothing from hitting them, and trying it best to evacuate them to safe zones. Why would they try to hit civilians? and if they did, why they didnt try to fire into the safe zones? (whom Hamas have fired rockets into Israel from multiple times, yet Israel didnt attack in order to not hit civilians, while risking its own civilians)
The people making decisions right now are not far-right, the far-right have been moved to the side line when it comes to the war decision making.Instead Gants and Eizenkot joined, whom both are moderate right.
All the sentence you quoted are out of context and were said just after a few days that Israel suffered the biggest massacre, the entire country was in trauma and in emotions.
Look, I live in remote corner of ex-USSR, do not care about intricacies of israel politics, all I can see is the top leaders of the country (minister of security, president, defence ministers) keep saying these weird stuff at all phases of he conflict; every other day some mad shit israeli army did again gets posted on X.
All israeli govt is far far right. Likud won't fly in anywhere in civilise world. Just seeing freaks like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir being actually employed in israel says a lot about israel. I am not good at these pilpul games of who slightly less crazy right wing who is more, what was the context of bibis deranged rants, so yeah. IMO israel as well may be targeting civilians. W#hich what ICJ had found that day.
You words are worthless to me, my friend. I make jusdgemjents from what I see, and I think that israel does target civilians in Gaza.
According to recent polls, if Israel had elections today - Smotrich and Ben Gvir will be out of the government, and Likud will get only 1/3 of the votes it got now, but we cant go to elections while in the middle of the war, thats a catch 22 for Israel.
Relying on X for your info is not a good idea, so much fake news, only thing worse is TikTok, for example the famous "500 dead from Israel hitting hospital" that turned out was a caused by the PIJ and there barely anyone hit.
In the mean time the government of Gaza (Hamas) is killing hostages.
Please don't post like this. It's against the intention of this site and especially against the intended spirit I tried to describe at the top of the thread.
I've been posting similar admonishments to commenters on all sides of this argument when they cross the line into flamewar. Your comments in this thread have clearly been doing that, and not only the comment I replied to.
It's common for people with strong feelings on a topic to feel like the mods must be biased against them and secretly in favor of the other side (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Meanwhile the other side(s) feel exactly the same way. These perceptions feel convincing, but you can't trust them—they're a product of some kind of hard-wiring that we all seem to share, especially when our emotions get engaged.
Any fair minded person who slogs their way through my moderation posts in this thread, and any similar thread, is going to see how hard we try to be even-handed, apply HN's rules fairly, and so on. Not that we always get it right, of course.
By the way, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. There is far too much content on HN, or even in a large thread like this one, for us to see it all. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
A common sentiment I have heard in the US is that "TikTok causes antisemitism".
What I believe is actually happening is that TikTok debunks a lot of Hasbara talking points about the Israeli occupation of palestine (because people can see the violence with their own eyes), but then people are not educated further about the nuances of Zionism and Judaism, the different political movements within Israel like Gush Emunim and how they are not related to Judaism at large.
Because Israel has so successfully conflated Zionism (a political movement) with Judaism (a religious one), it increases the possibility that when westerners stop supporting Israel they can adopt antisemitic viewpoints.
> when westerners stop supporting Israel they adopt antisemitic viewpoints.
That is very definately not a given. There are many, a majority I hope, of "westerners" who oppose the actions of the state of Israel without becoming anti semetic
Not all, sorry I should have qualified that statement. I was just trying to point out that when Israel claims that it stands for all jews, it can backfire and actually end up causing more antisemitism. I have added some qualifying statements.
There is disinformation on TikTok. There are white supremacists and antisemites that take every Israeli conflict as an opportunity to spread their hate. This is true.
What is also true is that you can clearly see Israel conducting a genocide live, while every news outlet in the west denies it or justifies it.
I am not talking about fake news, I am talking about citizen journalists, footage of children who have been pulled out of rubble. Footage of leaflets dropped on a column of refugees. The civilian death tolls that the US confirms themselves. The harder Israel denies their atrocities, the stronger the backlash becomes when people see the truth with their own eyes.
Israel's far right and Netanyahu bear a huge amount of blame for the rise of antisemitism, because they point to these atrocities and say "this is what Jewish people globally stand for".
Are you sure you can see this genocide? Remember when there was footage of Israeli bulldozers crushing people and it turned out to be footage of Egypt from 2014? Just because some social media account says what you’re seeing is the truth doesn’t make it so.
Yes, I make sure that I have verified that what I am seeing is real. I immediately do a fact check. I read Haaretz because if Israeli media is confirming it then it is undoubtedly real.
So many people ask "how could people have just let this happen" with respect to the Holocaust. This is how. They didn't want to believe it. Or they justified it. Or they were more worried about other things.
Well, we could conclude with this logic that all countries are politically motivated. After all, the countries that condemned the Russia's invasion of Ukraine were also the countries that abstained from supporting the South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.
Moreover, it should not be forgotten that there is a much bigger number of civilians deaths in Gaza than Ukraine. In one month the number of deaths surpassed civilian casualties in Ukraine war. There is a more serious problem there than in Ukraine.
> SA does not really present itself as an earnest or true actor in the sphere oh human rights.
Well, who does?
Among the major players in world politics I can't see any country with a clean reputation on human rights.
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, a country with an horrible record of police brutality, of farmers killing indigenous people and environmental activists and an hypocritical ambivalence towards Putin's crimes. And that goes to the previous right-wing and current left-wing governments.
I mean, sure. Personally, I’m a relativist. It’s just weird to see the country that recently bent itself backwards—like no other country—to let Vladimir Putin into its territory (it was reported they even considering leaving the ICC), is now bringing suit in the ICC for arguably less worse crimes than Putin. SA was not just apathetic to the genocide/domicide in Ukraine, it basically went out of its way to be party to it. Now it’s taking Israel to court. strange. Sure, many countries are still dealing with Russia, but only SA is dealing with Russia _and_ bringing countries to The Hague at the same time.
SA is dealing with Russia, so it might want to help Russia’s allies, and one of them is Iran who incidentally dreams of nothing less than, well, wiping Israel off the map with wiping out Jews as a cherry on top. Oops.
It’s all a tangled mess and I wouldn’t haste to take everything diplomats say at face value.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in Ukraine.
Putin is explicitly aiming to destroy Ukrainian national identity, which is genocide. He has disappeared countless people in the occupied territories… literally, countless, no one knows how many because rights orgs don’t operate there. He’s indicted by the ICC for stealing children from occupied territories to solve the Russian “demographic crisis,” and to remove the future generation of Ukrainians. There’s nothing frivolous about this, ask a Ukrainian. See Putin’s many speeches, including from February 24, to this effect, he doesn’t believe Ukrainians or Ukraine has a right to exist, and believed that Ukrainians can be dispensed with like subhumans.
"Mortality reporting is a crucial indicator of the severity of a conflict setting, but it can also be inflated or under-reported for political purposes. Amidst the ongoing conflict in Gaza, some political parties have indicated scepticism about the reporting of fatalities by the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH).
The Gaza MoH has historically reported accurate mortality data, with discrepancies between MoH reporting and independent United Nations analyses ranging from 1·5% to 3·8% in previous conflicts. A comparison between the Gaza MoH and Israeli Foreign Ministry mortality figures for the 2014 war yielded an 8·0% discrepancy.
Public scepticism of the current reports by the Gaza MoH might undermine the efforts to reduce civilian harm and provide life-saving assistance." [0]
> SA does not really present itself as an earnest or true actor in the sphere oh human rights.
If Putin is arrested in a foreign country, you'll have the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world staring down at the very existence of that nation. No country would do this, however earnest they may be about human rights. Neither will it be fair to expect anyone to do this.
> If Putin is arrested in a foreign country, you'll have the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world staring down at the very existence of that nation
Eh, or not. Putin isn’t Russia. Depending on timing, it might be a convenient time for a change in government. They could then demand his remittance, where he would no doubt get lost along the way or have a change of heart about his place in public policy.
That said, the prudent thing to do is that which was done. Barring Putin from entering South Africa.
If I were South African, I'd want my government to not risk nuclear annihilation (or even blackmail) - however small the risk may be.
And if you aren't South African, and especially if you live in a country under NATO's nuclear umbrella, you have no business telling them they should risk their lives (for whatever reason).
> South Africa asks ICC to exempt it from Putin arrest
"to avoid war with Russia" was how the rest of that headline went, along with two quotes about how Russia said such an arrest would be considered an act of war.
While I would welcome Putin's arrest, I can't exactly fault South Africa for saying they'd rather not go to war.
Arresting a head of a nuclear-armed state ? One that does not subscribe to the ICC ? How moronic would one have to be ?
Amusingly, the Biden govt had no issues officially supporting the ICC to deliver a ruling against Russia despite the US not being a party to the ICC themselves. That's like having your cake and eating it too.
None of China, India, Russia, and the United States are parties to the ICC.
From a narrow, legalistic perspective Iraq was in material breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 in 2003 and so the invasion was justified on that basis. I am not arguing that the invasion was right (or even remotely a good idea), just that it was never firmly established as illegal under any treaty in force at the time. By contrast, there was never even a fig leaf of a legal justification for Russia's invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
Bullshit. There was nothing in the resolution that called for war. The most it had said was in tune of - you must comply and if you don't we will report you. No particular enforcement.
> The outrage from the USA at the invasion of Ukraine, when the invasion of Iraq is a crime of the same magnitude.
I was certainly against it in 2003. The WMDs were bullshit. A war on "terror" is farcical. The profiteering and the industrial military complex, etc.
But I did later come around to the idea of getting Saddam and his government to stop genociding the Kurds.
Of course you should always assume a country like the US to be self-serving in its actions, but it's not as if it was taking additional land as its own, as is the case with Russia and Israel. Iraq was never going to be the 51st state.
> SA does not really present itself as an earnest or true actor in the sphere oh human rights.
Adversarial justice systems are an approach to dealing with the fact that individual actors in a system (including states in the international system) tend to be self-interested rather than earnest or true consistent advocates of the notional rules of the system.
I’m also not sure why SA would want to “gain brownie points from the people who support Hamas”. Wouldn’t they want to earn brownie points from those who support Israel, like the US, who they’d benefit more from?
Have you read through their case? It's pretty weak in my opinion. They seem to think that any war with a high number of casualties and insufficient humanitarian aid counts as genocide. By their standard the US committed "genocide" against Japan in WW2, arguably Germany too.
The person isn’t saying that Germany committed genocide during WW2, which is obviously true, but pointing out that by the above definition of genocide, the US committed genocide against Germany and Japan during WW2.
This is the same government that was just months prior going to quit the ICC so they could host Putin. They have no credibility, and frankly, no fucking power for most of the day. Utterly failed state.
I do think that their future Feb ruling is going to call for a ceasefire. If they called for one now, Israel & especially the US were just going to ignore it and reduce the power of the court.
Israel has created a beast that I don't think they can control themselves. I do think that the court is going to get more legitimacy after they explicitly tell Israel to __chill__, for Israel not to chill, and then get the ceasefire ruling against them & potentially an intensification of the genocide case.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, real people are suffering so these political games can be played.
I am so deeply disappointed in the Biden administration here. They're throwing away a lot of the good work they've done, and are actively getting Trump elected. People, naturally, do not want to participate in an election that is giving them a choice between ${person_currently_helping_a_genocide} and ${person_that_will_intensify_genocide}. You're just going to get voter apathy, and the consequences from that.
While that's technically true, they were elected in 2006 and since then no elections have been held. Not only that, members of the Hamas murdered Fatah rivals in the years that followed. Not to mention that most of the population today in Gaza are so young that they didn't even vote Hamas in.
So while they have majority support, it's not like they've had any real alternative.
It doesn't matter. Hamas is not a member of the ICJ. The state of palestine is a member but hamas aren't recognized as the representive of the state of palestine.
Additionally, the state of palestine is not a party to this case.
So no, the icj cannot tell hamas to do anything. The only people it can give orders to in this case are israel and south africa.
Hamas is the elected body of Gaza. It also has over 75% support according to several polls post 10/7. By all means it represents the interest of Gaza’s people whether anyone wants to admit that or not.
Not entirely true. Yes, they were elected in 2007 but they have not allowed the Fatah after that. The last election may have been 2012. So considering the amount of time elapsed I wouldn’t consider them legitimately elected.
You only have to believe what you want to believe. I'm just answering the GP's question in the most direct possible way, by referencing the answer of a primary party.
If they cared about the hostages, they wouldn't be bombing them to death on a daily basis, shooting those that escape, or gassing them in tunnels. The hostages are nothing more than political pawns to Netanyahu.
Keep in mind that Hamas reiterated their ceasefire deal recently, which includes the release of all hostages, and Israel rejected it.
It also included the release of the thousands of terrorists that were captured in Israeli borders in oct 7th. People with actual blood on their hands, and a guarantee for hamas to stay in power.
Moreover, Israel offered hamas a ceasefire if they release all the hostages and exile their top 6 leaders. That offer was rejected by hamas.
> Moreover, Israel offered hamas a ceasefire if they release all the hostages and exile their top 6 leaders. That offer was rejected by hamas.
That wasn't a serious ceasefire offer, and you've left out the reasons why: it was a pause of 2 months, not a ceasefire offer at all! Furthermore, Israel wouldn't release the hostages they are holding. Why would anyone agree to release the hostages in exchange for nothing but a brief pause of genocide?
Netanyahu knew Hamas wouldn't agree to it; he only even made the offer because he'd turned down the Hamas offer first, and so needed a different story for the media to run with. Which worked just fine of course - MSM ran with "Hamas reject ceasefire" without even mentioning the Hamas offer.
"thousands of killers" is just rhetoric; Hamas could argue that the IDF hostages they hold were "killers".
Meanwhile, many of the hostages held by Israel are held without even being charged. From what I've seen, it's quite obvious that many are innocent civilians, and hundreds of them are children.
We've also seen evidence that Israel tortures its prisoners, and that rape is endemic - which is probably why Israel won't let the Red Cross near them (something else it complains Hamas won't do).
1 year old baby can be argued as a killer?
Meanwhile the actual killers were caught live while killing Israelis in their homes in oct 7, they even filmed themselves and bragged about it. Pretty damning evidence.
Conflating the hostages to the Israeli prisoners is terrorist rhetoric, not genuine rhetoric.
Palestinian prisoners had access to the Red Cross up until oct 7, at which point the Red Cross was pretty useless and one sided against Israel.
Do you have any proof of rape accusations being endemic?
Strawman - I explicitly referred to those hostages that were members of the IDF.
> Conflating the hostages to the Israeli prisoners is terrorist rhetoric
Ah, so anyone who disagrees with you is a terrorist? I see you.
You're also implying that all hostages held by Israel were involved in the attack on 7/10 - blatantly untrue. Several Israeli soldiers are on camera saying they take Palestinians hostage purely so they have something to exchange with Hamas - this has been going on for years.
> Red Cross was pretty useless and one sided against Israel.
I'm sorry, but this is the kind of nonsense that spokespeople (like Eylon Levy) and career racists (like David Colier) like to espouse - everyone who disagrees with Israel's genocidal actions is an antisemite and/or Hamas lover. "The Red Cross are Hamas". "The UN are Hamas". Honestly, it's pretty pathetic.
Hostages are undesireable for Israel, as earlier they die/be killed the lesser leverage hamas will have. Besides, they will all be dangerous to official narrative, as they seem to have been treated ok by the militants.
Meanwhile, Josh Paul, a former US State Department official, detailed how a 13 year old kid was raped in an Israeli prison and “The State Department's inquiry into the case resulted in Israeli officials shutting down the charity involved in bringing the case to light.”
These have not independently confirmed. There is a history of passing by israel of Mexican cartel videos and photos of military women perished in other Middle Eastern conflicts as atrocities commited by Hamas .
I am not saying that Hamas did not (or did) commit the crimes on videos, it just the source is so reliably untrustworthy, so the videos cannot be taken seriously.
So what I shared, a well thought out article by Johnathan Cook and others, is propaganda but you telling me to watch unverified, often debunked videos that are actually from cartels or ISIS, isn’t propaganda? What’s next, should I search 4chan?
Are you talking about the Netanyahu quote at the end of the article only?
Otherwise there isn't a direct rape claim in there, but a witnessed missed period which they say could be due to rape or the witness also says it could be due to the harsh conditions (malnutrition is a real cause of it in some cases; Washington Post has reported on worries of refeeding syndrome in some of the released hostages so some were severely malnurished). I found an article with longer excerpts of the testimony and the dolls on a string quote was about inappropriate clothing provided and claims of abuse but the testimony excerpts there also didn't directly allege rape. Is the full transcript of the hearing out there somewhere?
I don’t love Trump, but there’s no denying there was far less war, and especially US-funded war, when he was in office. Ukraine-Russia massively escalated as soon as someone in the pocket of the military industrial complex got put in power, as Putin knew it would, and Israel followed suit soon after.
I find it hard to believe there’s correlation between the beginnings of Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas and who the US president is.
If anything, Russia and Hamas are each less likely to spark each conflict (in the specific sense of invading Ukraine and 7 October, not the preconditions) knowing that the US is more likely to provide arms to Ukraine and Israel.
Considering Hamas' plan all along was to martyrize the Gaza population by feeding it to the lions, subsequently sabotaging Israel's relations with its neighbors and the global community, it does make sense they decided to provoke a war during Biden's term, a very outspoken zionist.
But Israel is far more likely to want conflict to occur. Evidence of such desire would take the form of ignoring intel from international community stating that an attack was planned, and allowing human-sized slow moving targets to pass through the air defense systems unassailed.
I'm not sure what I will do, but I'm not voting for Trump either way.
There is a lot written about civil disobedience through not partaking in electoral politics, and that's _likely_ the direction I'm going to go if Biden does not change his tone (and hopefully actually do a proper apology for his actions so far).
This sucks, and I'll participate in local and even congressional elections, but for president I can not really find myself voting for Biden. I do not expect myself to agree 100% with any candidate, but there are certain red-lines that a candidate can not cross. I have a few of those, being anti-abortion is not something I can tolerate in any candidate. Being pro-mass-killing-looking-like-genocide is also one. I suspect this feeling is not unique to me.
Personally regardless of any other stance I will always vote along the abortion lines. I would hope others would be able to prioritize that as well. I dont want to see the US turn into a theocratic dictatorship.
Abortion is probably one of the leading causes of the demographic destruction (and by extension, destruction of political influence) of the black American community.
Far and away the greatest opposition to abortion is religious in nature. Certainly other groups might oppose it for varying reasons but they are an extreme minority.
I would even venture to say that those other groups oppose it in part because of cultural effects of religious ethics infecting the rest of society.
Calling it a Muslim ban is pretty disingenuous, and always was. The ban left out some very large Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Pakistan for example.
He campaigned on banning Muslims. He then tried three different times to ban a large amount of Muslims. He regularly denigrates Muslims and blames them for our problems. According to his own people, he wanted to ban Muslims and wanted a fig-leaf to do it legally [1].
This kinda comes down to a case of who are you going to believe, a notorious fraudster and conman or your own lying eyes?
Biden apparently wants to lose. Watch every single campaign event be protested (many protesters are Jews). Yeah, that's definitely going to lower turnout on the DEM side.
Biden is not only going to lose, Trump might even get a trifecta.
I'm not sure the protestors will be a net negative, lots of people protested trump in 2016 and them getting thrown out only encouraged his base. If you watch the videos of the Biden interruptions the crowd stays firmly on Biden's side.
Biden's issues at the moment are that economic sentiment is a lagging indicator of some variables that have only recently recovered to their normal values (inflation etc.). If these issues fix themselves we will have a better sense of whether Israel-Hamas War has meaningfully impacted him.
Is that even possible procedurally? the preliminary hearing is done. They are meeting in feb to discuss the report on the things ordered, but i dont think they can just randomly make more orders at that point that aren't related to the granted orders.
From my understanding, if Israel doesn't show that they're able to reduce civilian deaths, they can grant South Africa's ask on the case which (from my understanding) is effectively ordering Israel to stop the attacks, and asking the world to help enforce it.
The court didn't even order them to reduce civilian deaths.
They do have to submit a report on their implementation of the orders, but reducing civilian deaths wasn't on the list of things they had to report on.
The US, under whichever administration, is in a very difficult position here. If the US stops all support immediately, this could be the end of Israel. Would that be just? I see a president carefully dancing on the thin line of supporting the Israel state while using the US leverage to stop the war (latest example: sending the CIA chief to the negotiating table). But this needs to be done without enabling Israel's biggest adversaries that support a Jihad against the people of Israel.
It's a common fallacy that money equates to purchasing power. That is only true so long as there continues to be a market with stable supply and stable prices. After COVID-19, many people had plenty of money, but you simply could not buy masks or vaccines at any price if there simply were no longer any to be sold.
Militaries are just as interconnected as anybody else. They depend on supplies of weapons and munitions. If the supply is gone, the size of the budget doesn't matter.
Iran was pretty miffed when some weapons of unspecified origin recently hit Iraq and Syria because they happened to land on the heads of Iranian operatives.
The concept of nations and borders in the middle east is a bit... different from the western variant.
Some of those countries are more friendly now, but loss of USA support would be huge. Such a removal of support would IMO be extremely unlikely due to how USA internal politics looks like from outside.
American foreign policy wasn't parodied as "world police" for nothing.
> I certainly think we could stop funding their military while still pledging to support them if someone actually tries to invade.
Subtly and nuance? Oh how I wish any politics cared about that.
I'm assuming, from the PoV of Israel and the Jewish diaspora in the USA, that because the specific attack that set this in motion was much much worse (proportionally speaking) than the 9/11 attacks were to the USA, anything less than 100% uncritical total support will look like "a betrayal" or "giving in to terrorism", to enough of the Jewish electorate in the USA, as to make that kind of talk unviable for at least a decade.
Real people aren't Vulcans. Emotions are raw, and will remain that way for a long time. And so the cycle will continue until either one side or the other is dead, or some absolute negotiating genius steps in and manages something even more impressive than the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.
(Makes me wish for Mo Mowlam to be reincarnated; good luck to you if she was an inspiration!)
I agree with your major point, but just point of fact that 20% of Israel's military budget is from foreign military aid-- nearly all of that paid by US tax payers (although it was France that likely supplied Israel with the technology for their nuclear arsenal).
A US official stated that at the rate Israel is bombing Gaza, Israel would have run out of munitions in 3 days without US aid. An Israeli official said the same, but he said their arsenal would only have lasted one day. Even if either/both were engaging in a degree of hyperbole, the gist is, that the bombing continues at the will of the Biden administration.
Yes, Israel would not cease to exist if the US withdrew support for genocidal murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but it would halt this most recent massacre of Palestinians by Israelis.
And, if the US stopped running cover for Israel in the UN Security Council, Israel would find it untenable to continue its belligerent disregard of international humanitarian law and past UN resolutions-- it might actually become the democratic state it claims to be, but to do so it will necessarily no longer be an ethno-religious state.
Israel has nuclear weapons. By the logic of even developing them, there's no reason not to deploy them if it faces conquest. Any existential crisis facing Israel will not come from outside.
Israel can face defeat without everybody dying (which is what would happen if they tried to use nuclear weapons). The US has enough control over Israel to make sure that never happens. We are a far greater military power than Israel.
If they were being successfully invaded, and facing defeat, the US would not be able to stop them from using nukes. What is the US going to do otherwise? End its support of a country that no longer exists?
The US has a military with deep intelligence ties. They would stop Israel from using nuclear weapons even if that meant invading Israel and taking out all of the leaders. There's no way the US would allow Israel to use a nuclear weapon.
You're gonna just guess that's true? That they will have perfect intelligence and a perfect capability to prevent a determined decision? What we do have some evidence for is Israel's ignoring the US calls for moderation.
Trump wouldn't intensify the genocide. Not just because Israel currently has carte blanche to do what it wants, but also because of personal animosity with Netanyahu.
> I am so deeply disappointed in the Biden administration here.
What do you expect him to do? With or without any assistance, Israel has more than enough weapons completely annihilate Gaza. Don't forget that they likely have nuclear capabilities. Israel believes they are demonstrating restraint and this restraint is the first thing to go if Israel feels like it's being backed into a corner.
From everything I’ve studied all super bombs (hydrogen fusion bombs) are also fission bombs. Since it is a chain of different kind of explosion stages that finally get the fusion reaction started.
First convention explosives then fission then fusion.
If they put it on Hamas, the radiation fallout would hit Israel pretty hard depending on winds.
It would fuck up Middle East in an awful way. Pretty much guarantee the Middle East Muslim countries ganging together to wipe out Israel completely.
I think that the statement by the head of the military that Israel is acting without any restraints is incompatible with the idea that Israel believes it is demonstrating restraint.
My point is to make it clear that it was obviously a rhetorical speech rather than some ongoing military policy during the war. You know perfectly well what I meant by restraint.
I am not so sure. I believe Israel only exists by the mercy of support from their Allies. The minute they lose that support Israel is doomed. The country is surrounded by enemies on all sides. Sure their military could win a conventional war with their nukes against any of their neighbors. But on the long term a small country with a small population and limited natural resources needs friends to run an economy big enough to support the huge military it needs to defend itself. And Israel is running out of friends fast. Sympathy for Israel in the West is surely declining at lightning speed with the current situation, I would not be surprised if this conflict is the start of the end of the country
What is nuts is that the Zionists have convinced everyone that that they speak for all Jews. I have so much respect for the activists in Israel that must face immense social and political pressure.
All the US has to do is: nothing. Stop sending over tank shells [1], Fighter jets and attack helicopters [2], deploying aircraft carriers [3] and stop vetoing UN Security Council resolutions trying to impose a ceasefire [4]
I’m not a fan of Trump’s domestic policies, but I’m absolutely sure that he has the moral high-ground over Biden right now. Trump used to be a supporter of Israel and to some extent still is, but he did during his presidency see that the Palestinians want peace more than the other side. I can’t imagine Trump going behind Congress’ back to arm Israel as Biden has done.
> I can’t imagine Trump going behind Congress’ back to arm Israel as Biden has done.
I absolutely 100% can imagine it. I would go so far as to characterise him as:
1) Pro-Israel:
> On December 6, 2017, the United States of America officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital city of the State of Israel. American president Donald Trump, who signed the presidential proclamation, also ordered the relocation of the American diplomatic mission to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv [...]. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision and praised the announcement by the Trump administration.
> Trump's decision was rejected by the vast majority of world leaders; the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on December 7, where 14 out of 15 members condemned it, but the motion was overturned by U.S. veto power.
2) Non-cooperative with Congress:
> The United States federal government shutdown from midnight EST on December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019 (35 days) was the longest government shutdown in history.
> The shutdown stemmed from an impasse over Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in federal funds for a U.S.–Mexico border wall.
3) Loving to go behind backs:
> Trump reportedly keeps finding a way to meet the Russian leader privately.
Huh? How would you accomplish this? Why wouldn’t the terrorists hide amongst the non-terrorists? Where would you take the non-terrorists? What about people who are terrorist-supporting non-terrorists, aren’t they a source of potential issues?
There is another player. China is interested in resolving the Gaza conflict.[1]
China's position is that, since the existing world order, the International Court of Justice and the United States, can't resolve this, China should become involved. Chinese container shipping lines COSCO and OOCL have suspended trade with Israel. China has already provided some aid to Gaza.[2]
Gaza has a sizable coastline, and China has a large number of amphibious assault ships available. They can defend themselves against Israel air attacks. If China decides to send humanitarian relief to Gaza, China can do it, and Israel can't stop them.[3] China would look like the good guys. Which their leadership knows.
Which other international conflicts has China resolved? The current Chinese state seems to be much better at fostering conflict (I.e. the ongoing Korean War) than resolving it.
So far, not much. Gaza is a good place to start. China wants more influence in the Middle East, and already owns or operates a large number of ports outside China.[1] Israel blockades the existing ports of Gaza. A China-run port in Gaza, protected by the PLAN, is a possibility.
It also assumes that the _US_ would allow a China-run port in Israel, which is so unlikely it might as well be impossible. Israel is a nuclear weapons state and such a close US ally that they basically have their own F-35 fighter jet variant.
"At least two-thirds of the world’s top 50 container ports are owned by the Chinese or supported by Chinese investments, up from roughly 20% a decade ago."[1]
They might look like "the good guys" by doing that, but they'd also be dragging themselves into an open war Israel (and its allies). I'm not sure that would be a smart move.
I'm also unsure if this move would be seen well domestically. They have enough problems right now, and focusing resources on this doesn't sound like it would be met with high praise.
I think the idea is that they'd genuinely be providing humanitarian aid, with military presence genuinely being there for self-defense.
They would simply be stepping into the role on the world stage the US and other Western countries have fulfilled for the last few decades. Israel probably wouldn't be foolish enough to attack them, and their allies definitely wouldn't aid them.
And in the unlikely event Israel does attack their humanitarian convoy, it would only give China an opportunity to do some live-fire practice and score extra points on the world stage as the innocent defender.
China may not even provide a military presence. First, because providing military presence could invite conflict since Israel would have the ability to claim the Chinese fired first, even if untrue. Second, because Chinese leadership is absolutely willing to treat the people as sacrificial pawns for a geopolitical goal. Trading the lives of couple hundred people on aid ships would be worthwhile in their eyes for an outcome that benefits China as a whole.
This seems far fetched given China's traditional insistence that countries' internal affairs should not be subject to external overview, it's undeclared stance that subject populations should be suppressed by whatever means necessary and the still marginal effect of the conflict on its trade.
It adjudicates the actions taken by all Israelis. Its jurisdiction should stop at the border it recognises. But it continues however to award land outside Israeli territory to Israeli citizens by ruling on the status of settlements. That is extra-territoriality.
The notion that Gaza's more than some variety of closely-held protectorate is either aspirational or a convenient fiction, depending on who's stating it. They aren't even close to having a level of control over their own territory and affairs to be considered a sovereign state. Hell, the West Bank also can't credibly be called a sovereign state, taking into account only facts on the ground and observed behavior, and not what officials say. In some respects US tribal nations have more actual sovereignty, in ways that matter, even though they definitely aren't sovereign states, from an international relations perspective, and functionally nobody treats their tribal territory as meaningfully distinct from that of the US as a whole, in these contexts.
However, situations like this, in which rhetoric and de jure policy conflict with de facto reality, open one up to others taking the fiction at face value. And what do you do then? Can't deny it without causing other problems. So now this may be regarded as an international matter because Gaza "isn't part of Israel".
Heh—that, for fuckin' sure. The fiction there runs the opposite direction, where China pretends (and encourages others to pretend) that Taiwan's less independent than it is, meanwhile just about everyone acts like Taiwan's in fact very much distinct and independent from China, even if they say otherwise.
I believe parent was referring to the Uyghur genocide[1] not the Territorial disputes in the South China Sea[2].
The line of thinking is that if Israel is subject to international courts/laws regarding genocide for its action, then China will be too. China's participation in judging Israel opens itself to the same judgement.
That line of thinking doesn't make sense since Xinjiang is part of China while Gaza isn't part of Israel. One is a domestic question, the other isn't (going by the international recognition).
I don't see folks buying that, sorry. In international realpolitik you play the cards you have and if your rival opens themselves up for criticism you play it.
Amphibious landings are highly vulnerable, and almost impossible to pull off without air superiority. What gives the impression that China's amphibious landing ships are resistant to anti-shipping missiles? Every article on modern naval combat I've read highlights just how vulnerable surface vessels are to attack, and how crucial it is to keep them out of range. I am incredibly dubious that China would land military ships in Gaza.
How is the Chinese Navy getting there? Gotta go through Gibraltar or Suez, and then there is the NATO naval base at Souda Bay. Only way their ships get close is with US consent.
> Gaza has a sizable coastline, and China has a large number of amphibious assault ships available. They can defend themselves against Israel air attacks
Sorry but this is goofy fan-fiction. No, China does not have the ability to forcibly land in Gaza without huge losses, and then being completely trapped there with no hope of resupply. That's an incredibly long supply line.
> Gaza has a sizable coastline, and China has a large number of amphibious assault ships available. They can defend themselves against Israel air attacks.
Chinese warships will never be allowed anywhere near the Mediterranean in the first place - if there is one thing that even the split US Congress will agree on, it is that China already has too much influence and that they need to be stopped.
Additionally, China's army hasn't seen actual combat in a loooong time. It's likely that their army is in just as bad of a shape as Russia's is, and getting that demonstrated on the world stage before they have a chance to snack a piece or the whole of Taiwan would be pretty foolish.
While what you are saying is technically true, Chinese ships would be allowed to exercise their right of Transit Passage under UNCLOS through the Strait of Gibraltar.
To my knowledge, China is a signatory to UNCLOS, but has disputes around it's "islands" in the South China Sea and their relation to the EEZ. I acknowledge that China's relationship to UNCLOS, as a minimum, is complicated and rapidly evolving, but I dispute that they do not have a right to transit passage. Or to be more specific, I would put forward that they would have a plausible argument to claim transit passage.
The United States has not ratified UNCLOS, and regularly claims the right of Transit Passage. In fact, this fact is one of the reasons why Iran claims that the United States cannot enter into Iranian TTW while making a Strait of Hormuz transit - because the US has not ratified UNCLOS, their claim is that the US cannot claim transit passage. For the United States (or any Western Nation) to make the claim that China cannot claim Transit Passage would lend weight to Iran's argument, which you can imagine, they would not want to do.
I do not want to make any assumptions around your specific views on this matter - you may hold the opinion that China could not claim transit passage, however I wanted to interject some perspective that:
1. That may not be universally agreed upon
2. Specifically, the United States and it's allies may not make that argument because it would put them in a negative position for other international disputes.
You really think China wants to create a precedent where a foreign power comes and helps a smaller region to deter a bigger aggressor, with military force? I find that highly unlikely.
I was with you until chinese contested amphibious landing in occupied gaza. China’s big picture strategy is to grow while not being drained by small conflicts the way the US is. This would be totally against that strategy.
i don't think china wants having anything to do with hamas. For a first experience as a military-humanitarian adventure, the chances of appearing as a support for hostage-taking muslim terrorist is way too high.
China believes in soft power. So I doubt they'd come in guns blazing to rescue Gaza.
However, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by brokering some kind of peace using their supply chain supremacy.
Meanwhile US looks more and more like a paper tiger because they can't stop Yemen from blockading Israeli shipments and also refusing to do the one thing that would resolve the shipping issues: force Israel to the table for a ceasefire.
I think its extremely unlikely that china will go to war with israel. That would be an extremely bloody conflict for almost no benefit to china.
Additionally china's military currently has big corruption problems (e.g. the missle fuel water controversy). I doubt china really wants to put their reputation on the line until they sort that out, especially given what happened to russia in ukraine.
China has no ability to project much outside of its own territory. They might be able to invade taiwan, sure, but anything farther off is still out of reach for them (even if they wanted to, which I highly doubt). They really couldn't stage much from their one support base in Djibouti.
China would only get involved to extend their influence. China is very much tit-for-tat. But who will grant them anything in return? None of the neighboring countries likes the Palestinians. Egypt even holds the border closed.
Israel could (and probably would) prevent the fleet from delivering the aid even without help from the US.
In support of your "If China decides to send humanitarian relief to Gaza, China can do it, and Israel can't stop them," you link to a description of a ship designed for an invasion of an island 85 miles off China's coast, an invasion which China (correctly IMO) calculates would probably end in failure (or else it would've invaded by now).
Israel can't challenge China militarily in, e.g., the Pacific, but it is a wealthy competent state that takes security seriously.
> Spin this any way you like but The International Court of Justice said there is no genocide
No, it didn't, that’s simply a lie.
It said that the pleadings were sufficient plausible and that conditions present a sufficient risk of irreparable harm to warrant provisional measures against Israel. It didn't say that there is no genocide, and it didn't say that there is a genocide.
The application for provisional measures it ruled on is analogous in the US system to a preliminary injunction, it enables the court to order measures judged necessary to prevent irreparable harm while a case is pending on the merits, and is not a ruling on the merits.
The case continues on the merits, which it would not if the court were already able to determine that no genocide took place. (And it wouldn't, in that case, order provisional measures.)
> and didn't demand a ceasefire or that Israel ends the war
This, OTOH, is true; the ICJ did not include in its provisional measures against Israel a demand for Israel to cease all military operations.
> It didn't say that there is no genocide, and it didn't say that there is a genocide.
It may change, but CURRENTLY, it does not think there's sufficient evidence to rule in favour of provisional measures, i.e., it does not think there is a genocide.
> It may change, but CURRENTLY, it does not think there's sufficient evidence to rule in favour of provisional measures
False, it ruled that provisional measures against Israel were warranted and adopted four provisional measures against Israel by 15-2 vote, and two by 16-1 vote (the latter including the Israeli judge ad hoc in the majority.)
It really matters what are the provisional measures that were voted -
South Africa asked several measures that would stop the the war, allow independent parties to enter Gaza and arrest Israeli officials.
They got none of that.
What was asked from Israel is to continue its commitment to the genocide charter, update the court on aid Israel is letting into Gaza, and prosecute in Israeli courts people that call for genocide.
> It really matters what are the provisional measures that were voted - South Africa asked several measures that would stop the the war, allow independent parties to enter Gaza and arrest Israeli officials. They got none of that.
They didn't ask for anything about anyone arresting Israeli officials (who mostly would be in Israel, not Gaza), they asked for non-interference with international agencies entering Gaza for fact-finding and evidence preservation. Specifically, they asked:
The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; to that end, the State of Israel shall not act to deny or otherwise restrict access by fact-finding missions, international mandates and other bodies to Gaza to assist in ensuring the preservation and retention of said evidence.
But on that topic the court ordered:
The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip;
Hard for them not to when there were missiles fired at them the day of this ruling. It would be difficult for them to not pursuit the removal of Hamas. Although, I agree that they have been heavy-handed in their operations.
Stop using unguided bombs in densely populated areas. Stop using poison gas. Stop killing people waving a white flag. Stop sniping people outside of a church. Stop planning and executing demolitions on universities. Stop starving people. Stop cutting water supplies.
Dang, everything I listed is widely reported on. I think I have the right to express this even on HN on an article about a genocide case.
Like the parent says, these have all been widely reported on. I think we have to come into this conversation with a base level of the events that are going on before commenting.
It's ~20k women and children killed/missing(presumed killed) at this point. There's no shortage of any kind of attrocities against civilians to be found online.
You can find anything from driving tanks over families with children, crushing them to death, and surviving children describing the ordeal, to videos of 9 year old being executed by a shot to the head in the street, to teenagers throwing fireworks and being shot and then finished off while laying on the ground. (in the west bank, even)
As for shooting people holding white flags, even CNN did a feature on that.
And there's an interview with the son somewhere (the person that is seen running to the woman in the end). I lost the link already, since there's a constant stream of new attrocities on Telegram, and there's no point keeping up.
I assume this is fresh water pumped into Gaza. What of the desalination plants? Cutting off all fuel surely ensures that that water source is also cut off. I would not be surprised to learn that this infrastructure has been targeted for destruction.
Israel controls all water in the West Bank. Palestinians in the West Bank are not allowed to even collect rainwater because all water infra must be approved by Israel, and they don't approve much.
"After October 7, the Israeli government shut off the pipes that supply Gaza with water. It has since only resumed piping water to some parts of southern Gaza while some water has entered via Egypt, but it’s not reaching everyone and is not nearly enough to meet the needs of Gaza’s population, requiring many to rely on the local water supply."
ICJ didn't reach any conclusions or positions except that IDF needs to be careful. No call for a ceasefire.
I'm curious what people in Tel Aviv see in media. In America, it's wall-to-wall "police say"-like IDF clips and Bill Maher condemnation, dehumanization, and equivocating Palestine supporters with Hamas terrorists. The talking heads cheerfully greet Netanyahu.
> In America, it's wall-to-wall "police say"-like IDF clips and Bill Maher condemnation, dehumanization, and equivocating Palestine supporters with Hamas terrorists. The talking heads cheerfully greet Netanyahu.
As someone who also consumes US news, this does not describe what I’ve seen.
Written, a combination of New York Times, Washington Post, and what Google News aggregates (frequently includes Fox and a mix of websites of local news websites)
I have found the exact opposite. NPR, for example, spends a lot of time humanizing Gazans and showing that Israel is terrorizing them, quite literally.
NPR also frequently talked about the right wing/nationalist power seizures leading up to this.
Before the war, I think a good number of Americans saw Israel blowing up the Associated Press offices. It hardly matters what the excuse was.
I feel like every week I've heard a story about Israel telling Gazans where to go, and then bombing that location.
I'm not sure I saw any news outlet that didn't report 70% women and children casualties, which pretty much speaks for itself.
Nobody I went to college with supports Israel at all. Genocide Joe is not just used by his oponents. That name didn't come out of nowhere. Many of the people who voted for him agree his genocidal support of Israel is unacceptable.
Fox, CNN and NYT are boomer news. I am sure many people still get their opinions and ideologies from those sources but I think its pretty evident that they are waning in popularity
1,604 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 748 ms ] thread> The court ruled that Israel must do all it can to prevent genocide, including refraining from killing Palestinians or causing harm to them
Sounds like a ceasefire to me. How else would they do this? Definitely not with any of the military tactics Israel is currently using.
If you are a Palestinian over there, don’t go waving a white flag or you just become a target practise.
Sources:
https://www.itn.co.uk/news/palestinian-man-carrying-white-fl...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-hostages-k...
What peril will Israel face? More condemnation of Hamas by western leaders?
> The UK, Australia, Italy and Canada have become the latest countries to pause funding for the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA.
Western countries stop sending relief to Palestinians in Gaza...
> This comes after the agency announced the sacking of several of its staff over allegations of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attacks.
> UNRWA says it has ordered an investigation into information supplied by Israel.
... because Israel alleged that it was the relief workers who were the terrorists.
Wake me up when they stop sending weapons to Netanyahu.
> ... because Israel alleged that it was the relief workers who were the terrorists.
Changes nothing. An opportunity for the rest of the non-genocidal world to come to Gaza's aid.
The rest of the world will continue to support the Palestinian people overcome this terrible evil being carried out by Zionist Israel.
What it does say is
1. Israel must do more to prevent the possibility of genocide. Genocide is killing a people with the intent of killing them for the sake of destroying them, and not as collateral damage, so it does not mean stopping all death. Collateral damage, unfortunately, remains on the table.
2. Israel must report back in a month with how they are doing that. For example, they could show lower amounts of collateral damage, an increase in aid, punishments for officials that make statements that could be construed as genocidal, and so forth.
That is better than nothing, to be certain, but it is far from a ceasefire, unfortunately.
I think there was a miscommunication. You said that the provisional measures said that Israel must stop killing Palestinians, and so there is no way to have a ceasefire. I was saying that what's actually in the provisional measures is a reiteration of the Genocide Convention, of which all countries must already abide, including Israel. Whether or not it's likely a country is commiting genocide or it's self defense, they haven't ruled on. I deliberately avoided any speculation with my comments.
The court said no such thing.
> Leading propaganda machine and former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf suggests that the Israeli government should allow aid into Gaza officially, but unofficially let "protesters" to block all aid from entering the Strip. I think that's actually kinda what happened today.
-- https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/175021647115263591...
> The Gaon Rabbi Dov Lior Shalita in a halachic ruling: Citizens must prevent the entry of Hamas trucks even on Shabbat, because equipping and supplying the enemy is a war act that must be stopped from the point of view of human control.
-- https://twitter.com/Torat_IDF/status/1750600997745959279
Probably a terrible translation but the point is clear, incitement and impunity, and the results are predictable.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/protesters-prev...
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/gaza/prote...
Yesterday, 0 trucks could enter Gaza, the day before that 9 out of 60, don't know about today. Note that under the convention against genocide, Israel is required to prosecute genocidal speech, much less such genocidal acts (apart from not committing them of course). Instead, as Yoav Gallant just posted this on Twitter:
> The State of Israel does not need need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza. The ICJ went above and beyond, when it granted South Africa's antisemitic request to discuss the claim of genocide in Gaza.
... which is as good a summary as any for what you find at every corner with this: not just the unwillingness to learn, but the inability to even comprehend any of this. When Gideon Levy talks about the incredible depth of Israeli indoctrination, he isn't kidding, and he's not exaggerating.
I changed it to "indoctrination". Which is a more polite word that doesn't really do it justice, but it's not really important because the result, the inability to even meaningfully interact with the charges, is a constant.
As George Orwell put it, from the totalitarian perspective history is something to be created, rather than learned. Or as Robert Antelme described a concentration camp guard: "trapped in the machinery of his own myth". I just cannot find a flattering way to describe these things, there just is no material to work with for that.
No, they have ordered Israel not to commit genocidal acts. The court has made no ruling on whether Israel has or has not committed genocidal acts.
This isn't a read between the lines situation, because SA's request was specifically for the court to temporarily rule for a full immediate ceasefire until the larger case could be heard
What is interesting here is that by mis-reading the verdict like yourself, and Israel assuming the worst, both sides immediately came out saying today was a huge win. So at least we have that, everyone (but the Palestinians, who aren't a side in this case) is happy
Where, other than with mere hand waving? How did they explain away blowing courts and universities with rigged explosives? Soldiers bragging about "occupation, expulsion, settlement, annexiation"? All the talk about how there are no civilians in Gaza? How many people who said that has Israel prosecuted so far?
That's not in the intended spirit of what we want on HN, and especially not the spirit which I attempted to describe in my pinned comment at the top. Therefore, please stop.
* In fact, it looks like you've been doing nothing but that. I've already explained to you repeatedly and at length why that's not ok on HN. If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you. (And lest anyone worry: no, this has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with your views. You're plainly breaking both HN's rules and intended spirit, that is all.)
I'm sure that you have legitimate reasons to feel the way you do, but you're posting to this thread in a way that is against the intended spirit, as I tried to explain it in the pinned comment at the top. Please don't do that. If you can't post in the intended spirit, that's understandable, but in that case please don't post until you can.
(Exactly the same thing, of course, goes for the commenters you're in disagreement with - for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39150923)
My reading is that the court is basically saying “You are presently running the risk of committing genocide, please take all measures in your power to prevent that.”
[0] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
Too many civilian deaths is for war crimes & crimes against humanity, not the crime of genocide.
Even if what they claim is true, as you can see from multiple sources, al Shifa hospital still stands and operational. The article has multiple inaccuracies. It glosses over the fact that many weapons were found inside the hospital (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/15/1213145028/israel-hamas-gaza-...), It ignores the fact that there was armed Hamas forces fighting Israeli military on hospital grounds (https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/11/13/hospital-gaz...). And just plain inaccuracy telling that the solar panels were the only source of electricity for the hospital, since the hospital was operating from the start of the war, up until today, with generators.
Additional, evidence for shelling: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/world/middleeast/israel-g...
The previous poster said the Palestinian dead are collateral while targeting Hamas terrorists. Not from direct action of Israel trying to kill uninvolved. He didn’t say there are no dead civilians. Any war has civilian casualties
When hearing 'genocide', most people immediately jump to the Holocaust, but the definition used by the ICC and IL in general is far more permissible:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
A to E are horrible acts by themselves, but what makes a genocide is intent, and intent is very hard to prove. Personally, I think SA brought a very strong case forward, the genocidal tendencies of key Israeli decision makers and exeters are well published. In the US and Europe, the political class and general public just ignore the evidence currently, and a ruling of the ICC might help people 'wake up', but not much tangible consequences will result from it otherwise.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/01/is...
Archive version: https://archive.ph/GV14c
The US would block anything against Israel anyway. The UN has no power when it comes to the security council members or their satellites.
The argument goes that the ICJ derives its authority from the UN charter, where article 51 states "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security..."
So just because icj can tell someone to knock it off if they (falsely) claim the reason for the war is to prevent genocide, it is unclear they can do so when the reason is self-defense after an attack
[IANAL dont know how accurate this is]
In this matter, they are the judge of whether the actions are self defense, and they are the judge of whether the actions are genocidal. Otherwise, even the most monstrous and illegal acts could be excused by unilaterally declaring "self defense!". Russia, for example, also claimed all their actions were "self-defense", and continues to do so, to this day.
The similarities don't end there: Much like russia claims Ukraine isn't a real country, and should be demilitarized, and Ukrainians should be controlled by Russia; Israel claims Palestine isn't a real country, and should be demilitarized, and Palestinians should be controlled by Israel. Both Israel and russia attack civilian buildings full of civilians (!), and justify it by unconvincingly claiming there was a military target somewhere around there, plotting to harm them. russia usually doesn't level the entire block like Israel does, but not for want of trying. All in the name of "self-defense".
russia: goal is removing the government of Ukrainians by force and dominating Ukrainians. Israel: goal is removing the government of Palestinians by force and dominating Palestinians. russia: 'we must deprogram Ukrainians to remove their extremist, anti-russian feelings and get them to accept our domination of them'. Israel: 'we must deprogram Palestinians to remove their extremist, anti-Israel feelings and get them to accept our domination of them'. That last bit of abuser gaslighting is particularly gross and scary to me. All in the name of "self-defense".
With that in mind, the reasons claimed by each side for each action may inform the judges, who then judge what the actual reasons are, and rule accordingly. Indeed, Israel sought to have the case dismissed, claiming a jurisdictional issue like the one you suggested. The judges heard the arguments and evidence for and against such a claim, and judged that they had jurisdiction under the law.
Israel's participation in these proceedings, in front of the judges who judge such matters, on both jurisdiction and merit, seems to only further legitimize the judges and their judgement on such matters. Could Israel be cynical enough to join russia in doing an about-face on their recognition of the judges' legitimacy, simply for being ruled against?
> Sounds like a ceasefire to me. How else would they do this? Definitely not with any of the military tactics Israel is currently using.
Reading the actual icj ruling it seems like it only forbid it when done with genocidial intent. The court did not forbid collateral damage.
The specific wording included the line "...take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II..."
Earlier in paragraph 78 they said "The Court recalls that these acts fall within the scope of Article II of the Convention when they are committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a group as such (see paragraph 44 above)."
So basically it is only forbidden if the intent is specificly to kill Palestinians and not if it is collateral damage to some other military objective.
I don't think this order will affect anything israel is doing.
Diplomacy isn't about hard rules - the ICJ can't say "We impose a cease-fire" and demand that the GM of the world step in an immediately cease hostilities. Everything in diplomacy is about posturing and implications - it's why the US has managed to maintain the frankly insanely incoherent "Strategic Ambiguity" of trying to appease the PRC and Taiwan simultaneously, and it works - both countries are happy that the US winks after every statement about the PRC or Taiwan and gives local politicians room to favorably interpret the US statements to their base and reinforce that "Actually they're on our side".
Those bodies have zero power and countries that want to massacre will kill no matter what.
Other countries have ignored the ICJ before.
Israel has stockpiles of arms anyway. The war wouldn't stop just because the arms trade stopped.
It isn't unlawful per se to cause civilian casualties during military operations; any demand that the warring parties limit themselves to killing combatants only would be unrealistic, especially in urban settings.
It is unlawful to target civilians intentionally or to cause wanton damage to civilian infrastructure, though.
>inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them".
Netanyahu's approach to the Palestinians likely fits into this definition.
Indeed that understanding is corroborated by several human rights organizations, like HRW and Amnesty international:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/02/qa-israel...
The overt driver of the system - and the one that is agreed to across the whole Jewish-Israeli population - is the security issue of a Palestinian population that has held since 1948 that they are still at war with Israel, will never accept a Jewish state in the region, and will one day drive the Jews into the sea. This belief is propped up by constant propaganda from other Arab states and UNRWA (which has defined itself to exist because of a Right of Return that applies to 750k Palestinians and their descendants in perpetuity, but doesn't apply to the 14 millions Indians & Pakistanis, 12 million Germans, or 2-3 million Poles & Ukrainians who were also displaced by ethnic partitions established in 1947-1948).
Israel shows every day that they are willing and able to live closely with the Palestinians who accept their right to exist and aren't trying to murder their families, without using apartheid-like systems of control. Israeli Arabs certainly face suspicion and unofficial day-to-day discrimination, but if you asked Israelis how they would feel about an equal two-state system where West Bank and Gaza were a sovereign nation populated by Palestinians who were like the Israeli Arabs, they would largely be on board. There would be friction for a while, but it would be tolerable for both states to survive and thrive without the security apparatus that needs to be in place right now.
There is no doubt that Netanyahu's current governing coalition is made up of racists and religious extremists who would NOT be okay with that. Many of those secretaries want to use security issues as a pretext to fully take over "greater Israel," and use the border wall as much to keep their actions there hidden from the Israeli public as they use it to keep Hamas and IJ terror attacks to a minimum. But the PA - for all its collaboration and security partnership with the IDF - still pays bounties to the families of suicide bombers. And the reason more moderate Palestinian leaders have never been able to really negotiate a settlement is that they would be immediately overthrown by a populace who never accepted 1948 as the end of a decades-long attempt to throw the Jews out of Palestine.
This has not been adjudicated in court, but I think it's difficult to claim that the current system is primarily an ethnic or racial one when it doesn't apply to the millions of Palestinians who are accepting of their neighbors. Even if it is often abused by racists.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-...
In 2023 they were caught on multiple occasions to propagate very serious and harming Hamas propaganda. In one case they participated in an infowar attack that resulted in clear danger to the United States citizens and army personnel.
The value that Amnesty like organisations provide is incredibly important but I can't see how Amnesty itself in the current state can be trusted.
This is very much not the case in the West Bank where expropriation and colonisation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers continue, under the watchful eye of the Israeli army.
The Israeli state has done it's best to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian state, condemning millions of Palestinians to eternal military occupation and second class status in their own homeland.
Any claim that Israel is acting in good faith towards Palestinians is very much undermined by these facts.
The Likud turns a blind eye because its basically a free military. Moreover, it provides a military buffer between Israel's mainland population and much of the radicalized West Bank population.
Additional, yes there are discriminatory laws within Israel, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_citizenship_law
And https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/27/israeli-protests-ca...
Will Israelis accept a sovereign Palestinian state in the region? A clear NO.
Even the 1990s / 2000s two-state solutions were never meant from Israeli side as recognizing full sovereignty of Palestine - it was meant to be more like an Israeli protectorate with its own administration but without its own armed forces, no control over air space etc.
> and will one day drive the Jews into the sea
While many Israelis are eager to drive Palestinians to the sea. (check Daniela Weiss as a somewhat prominent example)
The current government seems to want to ethnically cleanse Gaza. The West Bank has to expect a similar fate, just way slower with expanding settlements.
> but I think it's difficult to claim that the current system is primarily an ethnic or racial one when it doesn't apply to the millions of Palestinians who are accepting of their neighbors
Still apartheid. You can't explain it away so easily.
You yourself say that Palestinians can live completely peacefully, why can't they have a sovereign state with a better government? I hope that after years of Israeli government / Netanyahu supporting Hamas [1], they will change the strategy.
1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
> 20% of the Knessest is Muslim/Arab. Have you been to Israel? Muslims, Jews, Christians all coexist peacefully you have no idea what apartheid means.
The apartheid regime is instituted in Gaza and West Bank, not in Israel proper.
we already have several: US, Russia, China....and Israel.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2022/01/20/the-murde...
Murder/attempted murder of adversary citizens in neutral territory is just one of a legion of examples of behavior the West constantly criticizes Russia for, by the way.
The Russian government kills unarmed civilians outside of Russia. Usually Russians, but not always. The Israeli government also kills unarmed civilians outside of Israel. So yes, in the category of "nation states that covertly murder people globally with negligible consequences", both are present. Hell even India is in that group lately...
(While the USA and Israel have shown immense disdain for the ICC and the USA has levied sanctions against it, its chief prosecutor, and The Hague in the past, the US officially sponsored Khan’s nomination for the post of chief prosecutor this past round and Israel has been extremely chummy with him and the ICC compared to under Bensouda. The ICC under Khan hasn’t done anything about Gaza.)
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-...
Remind yourself, this is the UN: https://youtu.be/narPqy6TXhQ?feature=shared
I’m not even sure what accusation you deny. Quote the accusation I made you have a problem with.
The history books don’t mention the Nakba and civilian casualty statistics in Gaza are dismissed as Hamas propaganda.
And I don’t mean to suggest Israel is unique in this. There are many parallels for instance with American “world police” patriotism.
I think recent events have taught this to Israel without any help from propagandists.
So the combination having to destroy Hamas and the unwillingness of other countries to take refugees is terrible for hapless civilians.
Problem is history shows "temporary" displacement tend to become permanent displacement (AKA Ethnic cleansing) under the current settler-apartheid regime ruling Israel, so other countries understandably refrain to abet ethnic cleansing.
Why should other countries bear the burden and costs for a problem that is overwhelmingly a consequence of the actions of the Israeli state in general, and the current far-right government in particular?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
I don’t understand why people think this is a good argument. Lots and lots of places shifted in control since 1948. Poland moved half a country to the left, world empires got decolonized, India and Pakistan split and then the latter split once more, all with enormous population movements, the list is nearly endless. “All of that should revert to how it was before, even if at the cost of kicking out or killing everybody who live there” is a pretty extreme revisionist take.
In all these countries, “we should restore our borders to $maximumSizeEver” is widely understood to be a far right take (the Russians want Ukraine, the Greater Hungary people want Transylvania, the Greek neonazis want Trabzon (!), everybody wants Kashmir, etc etc etc). It’s a far right talking point. But for Palestine it’s somehow a mainstream opinion. I don’t get it.
I mean, there’s lots of good arguments to be made for the Palestinian case IMO but I don’t find “they once had more land and therefore they should get it all back no matter the consequences” very compelling.
Karelia is another one. Whether or not such situations are resolvable peacefully is entirely up to the nations involved.
I don't see why revanchism gets a free pass in the specific case of the Palestinians.
Do you also think Lviv should be Polish? And Wrocław German? And Trabzon Greek? No wait I mean Armenian, which do we even pick, seriously everybody wants Trabzon! Should the entire Arabian peninsula be Turkish again?
Where does it stop? Why should Palestine be restored to its one-time borders but not the rest? All this happened in a time when moving populations around at the whim of a few imperialist rulers was considered a super normal thing to do. That doesn't make it right, but the Nakba isn't a particularly unique historical event. Get over it, and focus on the actual current events that are also bad, such as the settlements, decades of effective imprisonment of everybody in Gaza, and so on. There's plenty of good arguments! But "from the river to the sea" is a far right revisionist talking point and in my opinion it does an enormous disservice to the Palestinian case.
There is now no real Palestine state and no realistic prospect of one. Somewhere between 5 and 8 million Palestinians are now condemned to be extremely unwilling subjects of an endless military occupation by a hostile state and reduced to second class status in their own homeland.
_That_ is the crucial difference.
It's really not very nuanced at all - if you want to kill or deport all the Jews, even when formulated in fluffy terms like "give those poor Palestinians their homeland back", you're not really trying to make the world a better place are you? You'd be just like those far right Israelis who seem to want to kill or deport all the Palestinians. It's the exact same vibe, just aimed in the other direction. They're both the baddies. Don't be like them.
woah! dial it back there. I advocated no such thing
please take a few deep breaths and read slowly over the thread making note of who said what. then please reconsider slinging accusations like that around.
I'm in favour of a two state solution.
My main point is that the long term actions of the Israeli state, especially in the West Bank, have made the viability of a Palestinian state (i.e. one in coexistence with Israel) completely impossible.
> When you occupy someone's land, there can never be peace until they get their land back or are fully exterminated or controlled militarily
This is advocating for destroying an entire country and deporting or killing the people in it. This is the context in which I read your comment, because you came to their defense. I read your comment as explaining why you thought their comment was a perfectly OK one.
I'm happy to read you don't actually agree on this with them, and I think we pretty much agree.
not to argue, but I want to be really really really clear on this. I did not come to their defense. Please see my direct reply to their comment.
ANYWAY I think you made your point clear and we agree, sorry for messy edit commenting here :)
There was never a real Palestinian state. Locally there were Egypt and Jordan, two states that still exist in the same way that Finland does.
And in fact, the Zionist argument is exactly that one: "because there were some Jews here 2000 years ago, this land must be a Jewish ethnostate". Why is that argument ok, but "there were Arabs here 80 years ago" is not?
Because, in reality, both arguments are stupid and tribal to a level rarely seen after 1950. Both should join modernity and move to a shared state - not based on XIX century racism, but on XXI century respect for democracy, religious equality, etc etc.
Unfortunately, the side with (atomic) power refuses to even countenance the possibility, because of a tribalistic ideology that shames some of their magnificent ancestors. And so we continue with an eye for an eye, like in the darkest of times.
Note: Gaza and West Bank are not Israel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/27/israeli-protests-ca...
This is a huge one too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_citizenship_law
Zionists were living in the area long before British Mandatory Palestine or the Balfour Declaration - they bought land and legitimately immigrated there while it was under control of the Ottoman Empire. The UN chose to partition the region in 1947 due to ongoing violence on both sides - and the British actually voted against it I believe. The Arab states then chose to go to war against the newly formed Israel - not the other way around, as your comment implies.
This is not an accurate representation. Jewish people were given the legal ability to purchase land in Mandatory Palestine. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs were tenant farmers or landless labourers. Jewish land purchases inevitably led to the displacement of these tenants, but this was the lawful outcome of a lawful land sale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palest...
The issues surrounding occupation of land after the 1948 and 1967 wars are significantly more complex and arguably do involve violations of international law by Israel.
If I sell you my land, does that make it right for you to form a separate state with it? Perhaps I would rethink that decision with the advance knowledge of your intentions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_British_Mandate_for...
The majority of land purchases were made by the Jewish National Fund. Their aspiration to form a state was explicit and overt.
I can certainly think of some other ethnicity in that region who had their land occupied and was cleansed from the region. They even somehow managed to survive an attempt to fully exterminate them! Surely there will be peace once they get all of their land back :)
And I can certainly think of some other ethnicity in that region who that ethnicity cleansed from the region according to their own holy book. :)
Deuteronomy 20:16-17 (God telling Joshua, leader of the Israelites, to go to war)
> 16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.
Slightly more seriously (Though only very slightly more seriously :)), IIRC our current understanding of history is that the jews are Canaanites. Quoting from Wikipedia "Ancestors of the Israelites are thought to have included ancient Semitic-speaking peoples native to this area.[59]: 78–79 Modern archaeological accounts suggest that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centered on Yahweh.", so at the very least one of those peoples survived until today :)
That's very much not true.
Compromises are possible and are often the only way. Do I need to start listing examples?
I think you could add assimilation to this list. In this particular instance though, it looks almost entirely unlikely (due to Israel being fundamentally defined as a Jewish state).
I remember 20 years ago, during the first bombing of Gaza, they hit just ONE building and felt pressured enough to apologize for the handful of civilian deaths. Unfortunately, faced with larger threats (real or imaginary) and weak international pressure, Israel has been able to escalate the level of deterrence through the years to what we are witnessing now.
That is why any ruling to curb that "automatic" escalation (like today) is wholeheartedly welcomed.
IMO there are also subtler layers of racism coloring these policies. It's not as blatant as the far-right rhetoric, but a persistent undertone within elements of Israeli society justifies severe deterrence tactics and totally overide any empathy learnt from historical lessons.
I am certain that you have very legitimate reasons for feeling strongly. Whatever your reasons may be, I respect them. At the same time, posting in a thread like this has to do with how one manages one's feelings: do they express themselves in (let's call it) a weaponized way? if so, that's against the intended spirit here. Or can you post in a way that is somehow larger than that? No one can be asked to do the latter, but I do think we can ask commenters to refrain from posting if they can't get there.
Past experience has unfortunately made it clear that moderation needs to be relatively active on topics that are as divisive as this one. I wish it weren't so.
You're far from the only person who has been posting that way, but it's what we're trying to avoid here.
I am certain that you have very legitimate reasons for feeling strongly. Whatever your reasons may be, I respect them. At the same time, posting in a thread like this has to do with how one manages one's feelings: do they express themselves in (let's call it) a weaponized way? if so, that's against the intended spirit here. Or can you post in a way that is somehow larger than that? No one can be asked to do the latter, but I do think we can ask commenters to refrain from posting if they can't get there.
The Israel-Hamas War is entirely a response to this event.
What I can add is that this is indeed not just a "larger" threat for them. It "activated" a millennium-deep Jewish trauma (through pogroms up to the Holocaust). Deep, very deep.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
If the lesson is "Everybody wants to kill us and the only solution to safety is to have a nation state and defend at all costs against any other group", well it just all make sense. Of course this is not the conclusion of every jew in the world but I fully expect it to be the conclusion of post WWII zionists, even though it was not the case for a lot of them that were influenced by socialist ideas but lost influence and power with time.
Of course the strategy of always planning for aggression in order to come up on top is somewhat self realizing in that defending your dominant position will necessarily mean abuses of power and resistance to it.
So the lesson is "Better safe than sorry" although it's not that simple because there is actually a safety cost to pay to maintain such a strategy.
Ignored? No, most of that administration actively encouraged and fostered Hamas for years and years. To their mind, it was better for their aims to build Hamas into a hardline organization, and more appealing than the alternative, which was a Palestine which was (slowly) becoming more open to compromise, more diplomatic (around the end of Arafat).
It pushed their nationalist agenda further to have a boogeyman in the form of Hamas, than to have to answer awkward questions like "Palestine is being very reasonable and open, so why isn't Israel?"
So people that engage in colonialism end up doing similar crimes. Israel remains probably the only old school colonial project in the present day with present day technology, backed by the U.S. empire to secure geopolitical interests in the oil-rich region among other things.
Something to think about: America is also a genocidal settler-colonial project and is one of the only nations to back Israel in the UN. Our genocide is still ongoing: visit a native american reservation and witness the immense poverty. Similarly to Gaza, the US state will simply say that despite being an occupying power, these are autonomous zones and we have little responsibility.
It does not absolve many, including self-proclaimed Zionists, from criticizing some of Israel policies.
On other hand, my interpretation of people who are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists logically flows from above statement that they believe that the present state of Israel DOES NOT have a right to exist. Which implies deportation of extermination of 6 million Jewish Israelis
In my opinion, the word Zionism has been hijacked by activists who know that being anti-Jewish is not good optics, but anti-Zionizm is still something that can be sold to the masses.
The fascist behavior I see coming from Israelis is completely repulsive and against everything I thought my religion stood for.
From the Hamas charter (2017).
"6. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity."
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
Absolutely zero, and the people proposing this know that. That tells you all you need to know, really.
[1] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/maps/jew...
On other hand, Palestinians living in Gaza have elected a terrorist group[1] to govern them nearly two decades ago and have been subject to UN-sponsored education that teaches kids to hate Jews[2] for decades.
A single democratic state of Palestine with Palestinians and Israelis co-existing is impossible with current Palestinian leadership and the generations taught hatred.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
[2] https://unwatch.org/un-teachers-call-to-murder-jews-reveals-...
Here's a piece on it:
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/one-democratic-state-pale...
If this sounds very similar to "great replacement" fears in US and Europe, it's because it is based on the exact same principles: the concept that a state's ethnic composition should be fundamentally immutable, and it's legitimate to fight against any threat to this immutability with discriminatory laws (or worse).
Unsurprisingly, that means that the European right, these days, have largely dropped their traditional antisemitism, and will happily share a platform with the Israeli government. The fact that a purposely Jewish state now cooperates with the heirs of Hitler and Mussolini should surely appear revolting to Israeli citizens. Alas, it does not.
Israel is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the western world. In particular, it is more ethnically diverse than almost every single country in Europe. What ethnostate?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
I think the framing of this argument is so tricky, because states don't have any rights. States aren't human beings. There is so much to unpack in the statement "X state has a right to exist".
> On other hand, my interpretation of people who are self-proclaimed anti-Zionists logically flows from above statement that they believe that the present state of Israel DOES NOT have a right to exist. Which implies deportation of extermination of 6 million Jewish Israelis
I am not saying that Israel's borders should be dissolved, but if Israel and Palestine were integrated into a single state where Jews and Arabs had equal rights, would this not still be a home for Jews?
Destruction of the state of Israel is not equivalent with the genocide of all Israeli Jews, unless your definition of genocide is the same as the one used by white supremacists in the US, who believe that letting non-whites into the country is genocide.
The point I am trying to make is that is Zionism, by your definition, exclusionary? If so then what you are describing is an ethnostate, which many would argue is a fascist idea.
Jews, Roma, Kurds, and all ethnic minorities deserve human rights. However, they are not entitled to statehood and their states are not entitled to any rights themselves.
Also, I do agree there are antisemites who say "zionism" as a dogwhistle for "jews".
Do you think it's realistic that if Israel is replaced by a new state tomorrow that has a majority arab muslim population it won't quickly become somewhat theocratic and enforce some degree of religious law against people of other religions? I think this outside view of a one state solution pretends the entire population of Israel believes in some sort of Western Democratic values and will provide a strong foundation of individual rights. I just don't see good evidence for that.
Ironically this can be applied on isreal which declare itself Jewish state and have law of return [1] which allow any Jewish a right to "come" to isreal but does not extend the same to arab who were kicked during establishment of isreal
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
The state of the debate on this problem is so shockingly bad, it dishonours the long tradition of superb Jewish intellectuals.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't know that Turkey has zero discriminatory laws against non-muslims, but they managed to operate as a secular state for almost 100 years before Erdogan.
> Do you think it's realistic that if Israel is replaced by a new state tomorrow that has a majority arab muslim population it won't quickly become somewhat theocratic and enforce some degree of religious law against people of other religions?
I have no way of knowing this.
> I think this outside view of a one state solution pretends the entire population of Israel believes in some sort of Western Democratic values and will provide a strong foundation of individual rights. I just don't see good evidence for that.
Noam Chomsky and Norm Finkelstein both agree with you on this point, and I tend to agree with them. My argument was not that a one-state solution was viable, but I was trying to get the OP to say if their idea of Zionism was exclusionary or not.
Personally I do not think that a one-state solution would be possible unless mass de-radicalization took place, because Israeli ethno-nationalists see coexistence as genocide. I think the most viable option is a two-state solution, where a competent Palestinian standing army could hopefully force some sort of detente.
This argument is used to shutdown legitimate criticism of a multi-generational occupation, land theft and discrimination. Those things are not inherent to being Jewish. So the distinction holds.
That's part of why they're acting this way. Security fears. I'm telling you, the median Israeli isn't motivated by bloodlust or a desire for land, they're motivated by a high level of fear that they will one day be killed by Hamas/Hezbollah/etc. That fear causes them to demand complete "security control" of the West Bank and Gaza. That fear explains why they would not budge on allowing Palestinians an army as part of previous two-state negotiations. That fear explains why they would give back the Sinai but not the geographical high ground of the Golan Heights. That fear explains why the Israeli Left completely collapsed after the Second Intifada. They're happy to give part of the West Bank back in two state negotiations, but they would never, ever, allow Palestine an army. Because of security fears. The Palestine-Israeli conflict is this positive feedback loop caused by a desire for security conflicting with a desire for freedom. We're in the terminal doom spiral phase of this feedback loop right now.
I wouldn't use the term propaganda account for several reasons, one of which is that on any divisive topic, no one agrees about what counts as 'propaganda'. People mostly use that word to refer to points they strongly disagree with. In that way, it's a lot like the word censorship. For moderation purposes, it's better to use different words so we don't get tangled in definitional arguments.
But it's against HN's rules to use the site primarily for political battle (among other things), and when an account does that repeatedly and ignores our requests to stop, we usually end up banning it. I did that a while ago in this case.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39147089
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146733
Fascism does not "just stop". You can already hear the far right wingers claiming that Israel also has a right to expand into Lebanon and the Transjordan. Ironically looking at how Germany was radicalized is really useful for understanding how Fascism has taken hold in Israel.
The thing is, I personally can’t relate to any of that. It’s just like reading a book or watching a movie. It’s just so far removed from my reality. I think you greatly overestimate the impact of the holocaust on modern day Jews.
This is your error. States and peoples are not unitary entities with a single coherent outlook and will. The vast majority of the Israeli population is far too young to have directly experienced the Holocaust, which ended 80 years ago. There are plenty of people in Israel who do not want to commit atrocities against Palestinians. There are also people who feel that they have a (literally) god-given right to occupy the territories where Palestinians currently live. If you think of Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet as being basically the same people who survived Nazi concentration camps in World War 2, then nothing Israel is doing in 2024 will make much sense.
To my mind, Israel's actions toward Palestinians (both in Gaza and the West Bank) are powerful evidence that nationalism inherently leads to atrocity no matter who's involved. If the cultural memory of being targeted by the Holocaust won't stop an ethno-state from setting up an apartheid regime, what will?
There's no question that the Holocaust has enormous salience to Israeli Jewish people. But if you trace your roots to rural Arab Jewish families from Yemen or Iraq, your more immediate concern would be your own family's immediate viability in a world without Israel. A new rise of European fascism wouldn't be your problem; the fact that you'd have literally no place to go would be. You're sure as shit not moving back to Yemen.
Zionists even false flag attacked Iraqi Jews to help spur immigration to Israel:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iraq-jews-attacks-zionist...
Further, it doesn't matter. Most stats I've seen suggest that the Mizrahim are at least a plurality of Israelis, and none of those people can return to their "colonialist home countries". By way of example, long before the current Gaza war, the literal first "official" action Ansar Allah took when it established control of territory in Yemen was to expel the very few remaining Jewish families.
One reasonable way to think about Israel: their moral claim to Tel Aviv is much stronger than our claim to Dallas. And yet, for all the "turtle island" talk, no serious person entertains the idea of rolling back American sovereignty.
None of this legitimizes the ongoing military strategy in Gaza, or, for that matter, the West Bank crisis or the management of the 2-state process, something that the Israeli right has successfully and for decades worked to derail.
I only bring this up because I feel like there's a tendency in message board discussions to center Israel's legitimacy on the Holocaust, as if that's the sum total of what binds Israeli Jewish people to the land. No, it's much more complicated and deep than that.
That being the case (maybe it isn't!), there are two big problems with your strategy:
1. It isn't possible. They're not going anywhere.
2. It's incoherent. There are very few countries in the world with a morally-hygienic claim to their land. Certainly, with the possible exception of Egypt, none of Israel's neighbors can! They're all of them creations of France and the UK.
Israel can be disbanded just like South Africa was disbanded. It has less support than ever before politically.
South Africa wasn't disbanded, not even close. Apartheid ended more-or-less peacefully; non-whites were given the vote; and more-or-less democratic elections have been held ever since.
1. Israel has in fact immense support, far more than the South African government ever had.
2. Apartheid South Africa was a system of minoritarian rule, which does not exist within the 1967 borders of Israel (further, Arab Israelis have nominally full citizenship rights, and in fact fight for the IDF; they are a minority, unlike the victims of Apartheid, but they're also not living under an apartheid system).
3. For a majority of Israeli Jewish people, there is no other place in the world for them to go. There is no prospect of a negotiated settlement that forecloses on a Jewish state. Their BATNA is war. That wasn't the case with the Boers.
In these kinds of discussions I feel like people conflate the situation in Gaza and the West Bank with that of Israel proper. Continued Israeli occupation of Gaza probably is untenable! That occupation will eventually be disbanded, the way South African Apartheid was. But here we're talking about the entire state of Israel. Like I said, start with Texas, because that'll happen first.
It isn't formal, but Arabs are marginalized and discriminated against. In West Bank, E Jerusalem, and Hebron, all that supremacy is dialed upto 11.
> Israel has in fact immense support
Fear and intimidation isn't support. Besides, I don't see this support lasting long outside of the US and Germany if the Oslo-process continues, which it will because for the Israeli right Judea and Samaria are too good to give up.
> talking about the entire state of Israel
I think folks mean the one-state reality but not total exodus of the Jews, though, it might come to pass if they let their guard down, now that there's genuine animosity to fuel a feud for another century.
The problem is: it doesn't matter. The point is that Arab Jewish people are in Israel now, by the millions. The issue isn't that they've won some kind of trauma competition; it's the simple practical fact of their presence and the history that brought them there.
Your second point, about MENA "nations" expelling Jewish people "in a vacuum", is deeply concerning. No matter what Israel did in Palestine, Arab Jewish people had no culpability. Arguments like this are why the distinction between criticism of Israel and outright antisemitism are so slippery. I too think that distinction is weaponized, but it's hard to press the point when you're making facially antisemitic arguments.
Clearly it does matter to significant portions of the people who either directly experienced it or are the children of those who did. I would argue it was a major driving factor for violent opposition to the Israeli state, now since replaced by Israel's current actions (current as in last 30 years) as the impetus.
> No matter what Israel did in Palestine, Arab Jewish people had no culpability.
I'm glad this discussion has forced me to do some research. I actually wonder how many of the early immigrant waves were even "expelled" in the first place, rather than moving of their own volition. Here's the example from Yemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet_(Yemen)...
And in Iraq's case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ezra_and_Nehemiah "Like most Arab League states, Iraq initially forbade the emigration of its Jews after the 1948 war on the grounds that allowing them to go to Israel would strengthen that state; however, by 1949 the Iraqi Zionist underground was smuggling Jews out of the country to Iran at about a rate of 1,000 a month, from where they were flown to Israel.[23] At the time, the British believed that the Zionist underground was agitating in Iraq in order to assist US fund-raising and to "offset the bad impression caused by the Jewish attitudes to Arab refugees".
How does something occurring in Palestine justify this? Tying the actions of Jewish militias to your local Jewish population is antisemitic… if they expelled them to protest the creation of Israel, then that isn’t anti-Zionist. That they mostly all ended up going to Israel is ironically supporting the Zionist cause
The real question is, would that have happened if it were not for:
-demonstrated brutality against the Palestinian population
-explicit creation of the Israeli state tied to a particular ethno-religious identity
If there had been no violence, and if Israel had just been a newly-independent country with the creation led by but not defined by the culture of the Jewish immigrants, would there have been a purge across the region? Personally I think not.
I'm trying to highlight that there is significantly more nuance to the creation of Israel beyond "we just showed up one day and everyone was mean to us for no reason" which, IMO, has surprisingly crept into numerous comments even on HN where you would expect such an educated demographic to know better...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That doesn't change the fact that you (I don't mean you personally, but everyone commenting) need to follow the rules and post in the intended spirit regardless of what others are doing.
Everyone always feels like the other started it and did worse; if you take that as a basis, all we end up with is a downward spiral, and that's what we're trying to avoid here.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
(These aren't necessarily my opinions, and I am not Jewish. However I'm very closely connected to people who are, and I'm sharing the perspective I've been given)
So you have to realise that Israelis are not thinking normally right now. Even though the Hamas attack has in military terms "culminated", and Israel's military is many times more powerful, their trauma leads them to believe that there is a real, present threat of extinction of the Israeli state and their own nation and families. Under such conditions, it is very hard for them to see the suffering of 'the enemy' as relevent.
It also doesn't help that basically everyone else is just piling responsibility for a solution on the Israelis, despite the US, UK and Europe having enormous historic responsibility for setting up the situation.
[please note, this is explanation, not justification]
[1] https://www.lemkininstitute.com/statements-new-page/statemen...
I think that they think there is a real, persistent threat of Hamas continuing to make this kind of attack. Hamas has consistently said so, so Israel has reasonable grounds for thinking so. Hamas has even said that they won't settle for a two-state solution - they demand the destruction of Israel.
So if you're an Israeli, that leaves you very few choices: stay and accept being massacred every so often, shut down the country and leave, or destroy Hamas. Unsurprisingly, they choose the third option.
I don't think the attack could be repeated as successfully even if Israel withdrew. And Israel clearly had justification doing something - but without an analysis of their options, it's hard to know what's justified - which is the heart of this case.
I agree that Israel's options are limited - in the absence of outside assistance. In fact, I don't see how Israel can solve the situation in the absence of a neutral outside security force. Here's why:
For a peaceful settlement, both populations need to be given hope.
- Israelis need hope of long term safety and security
- Palestinians need hope of self-determination and civil rights.
No deployment of Israeli forces satisfies both conditions. If Israel occupies Gaza, they deny the Palestinian hope. If they withdraw, they give up their own (which they won't do). Even if Hamas is destroyed, the PA is too weak to guarantee security for either Palestinians or Israelis, and Israel won't trust them enough to allow them to grow strong. Ergo, a neutral force is needed. But, that would require US co-operation, if not actual US forces, and I don't think Biden will risk it in an election year.
This sounds like the perfect task for a UN peacekeeping force. (Of course, after various "resolutions" over the years, the Israelis may view the UN as biased...)
They won't. It's a fantasy.
Many of Americans, including soviet immigrants, enlisted in the army driven by that feeling.
Israelis lost significantly more of their population percentage-wise during October 7 attack perpetrated by the official government of Gaza AND as we know now, some Gazan civilians. Over 200 Israelis were taken hostage.
With that in mind, its fairly simple for me to empathize with the Israeli public who are angry at the death of their fellow citizens and want Hamas to be punished.
Definitely. Conversely, it should also be fairly simple to empathize with the Palestinian public in the (just picking one fairly recent example) Operation Cast Iron aftermath.
>I was in my 20s and remember the feeling in the air after Al Qaeda members hijacked commercial planes and flew them into WTC in 2001. Fear, Anger, A bit of revenge
Yeah the people in Gaza feel that pretty much every day
>Many of Americans, including soviet immigrants, enlisted in the army driven by that feeling.
They also feel this, which leads to them joining Hamas and is part of the reason there are normal Palestinians who support Hamas. Terrorists don't come out of no where.
>Israelis lost significantly more of their population percentage-wise during October 7 attack perpetrated by the official government of Gaza AND as we know now, some Gazan civilians.
Yeah I mean again just flip that and the people in Gaza experience that at a much higher rate
>With that in mind, its fairly simple for me to empathize with the Israeli public who are angry at the death of their fellow citizens and want Hamas to be punished.
Same but I also empathize with all the Palestinians just trying to live their lives in an open air prison and want revenge. I think both Hamas and Israel have genocidal intent, but one has much more power and is actually carrying it out right now.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...
Compare culpability with Israel's, which IS a functioning democracy, has had regular elections, a free press, a large population participating in the war and actively in favour of it - and blaming the average Gazan is even less fair.
Feeling like revenge isn't good enough.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palesti...
Seeing how they literally took hostages, in addition to targeting and killing civilians, I'm honestly not sure how you can argue it wasn't a terrorist attack.
I didn't argue it wasn't a terrorist attack.
I didn't say it did, I just wanted to show that the population of Gaza does seem to condone terrorism as a whole, and it's not a small minority as you were making it sound.
Also if Israel wanted to slaughter everyone in Gaza they could do it almost over night. And it wouldn't require nuclear weapons, they possess more than enough conventional weapons to do so. Hamas has been shown to keep and fire their weapons in population centers, it makes it incredibly difficult to truly minimize casualties. If Israel wanted to maximize civilian casualties, they easily could.
>cycle of vengeance you seem fond of.
Seriously my comment was simple, not sure why you think I condoned 'vengeance'.
When did I dispute the 75% figure? I said you'll find bloodlust in the general Israeli population too.
Wanting to slaughter everyone in Gaza isn't the standard to apply. It has shown it doesn't care if it does if that means killing the small fraction of that population responsible for October 7. It's shockingly callous, disproportionate and can never justify heavy bombing a populated urban area.
>The PCPSR poll found that 44% of Gazans say they have enough food and water for a day or two, and 56% say that they do not. Almost two-thirds of Gazan respondents - 64% - said a member of their family had been killed or injured in the war.
>Fifty-two percent of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents - or 72% of Palestinian respondents overall - voiced satisfaction with the role of Hamas in the war. Only 11% of Palestinian voiced satisfaction with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
I would wager that actually means they're satisfied that there's "someone fighting for their rights" rather than they're satisfied with terrorism.
From another article[1]: "Israelis reject U.S. pressure to shift the war in Gaza to a phase with less heavy bombing in populated areas by a ratio of 2-1...Only 23 percent answered that Israel should agree to the U.S. demand "that Israel shifts to a different phase of the war in Gaza, with an emphasis on reducing the heavy bombing of densely populated areas...A full 75 percent of Jewish respondents said Israel should ignore the U.S. pressure"
So it seems the same number of Jewish respondents are ok with the genocide occurring right now. Like I said in another comment, both Hamas and Israel seem to have genocidal intentions but only one side is actively pursuing it at the moment.
[1]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-02/ty-article/75...
The question is "Why would Israel act like this?"
Israel has offered many times a two state solution. I think in '47, several times in the 90s, and the 2000s. They have all been rejected. The reason is that the Palestinian leadership wants more. How much do they want? They want all of it. "From the river to the sea" is the expression. They have said it over and over again that this is the only thing that matters to them, and they will sacrifice everything to get it.
That is more or less why Israel is doing this. For some, that is enough to explanation and a fair summary, but if you want to understand more details then read on.
The Israelis, obviously, are not going to just leave their country, and so that leaves the Palestinians with war as the only option. And war has happened, like 4-5 times, and each time the invading forces were defeated. Rather than deciding that the welfare of their people is what matters, Palestinian Leadership values complete, total restoration as the only goal and everything they do is to that end.
So, it can be debated from that point of view whether Israel should exist as a country or not. If you however think that Israel should be a country, even a little bit, then you are basically against the Palestinian leadership's raison d'être.
Even then though, I think most Israelis had a hard time believing that this is how it would be forever. Time after time, war after war, they have tried to 'do the right thing' short of just leaving Israel or dying. For example, they were invaded, the fought, the won, and the controlled Sinai, which was part of Egypt. Then they gave it back, and the Egyptians were reasonable and they signed a peace treaty.
The problem is the Palestinian leadership will never do this, and that is what the point of October 7 was. The point of it was to make peace impossible. Remember, just before the October 7th, there were the Abraham Accords. Basically, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel were take the first step in establishing a new direction for the Middle East, with those countries at the center of it. Boom, then you have the October 7th attack.
Let me take a step back and and try to address some things.
It's important to say that in 2005, Israel already militarily occupied Gaza. The corridor that has been used to smuggle in weapons for the terrorist was locked down. Then, due to international pressure, Israel withdrew from that region, and they removed any Israeli settlements. What happened? Immediately after, Hamas took over and there has not been an election since. Now, there is no governance, all of the money is stolen and funneled into weapons, and they're backed by Iran, along with Hezbollah, the Houthi, etc... and it is Iran who has a strategic interest in dividing influence in the Middle East.
So let me be clear. They don't want peace.
It's a very difficult situation because Israel would 100% prefer peace. The trouble is that they have a neighbor, who controls millions of people, that would rather be destitute and keep fighting than to govern responsibly.
A good analogy would be something along the lines of North Korea, but with a very different military strategy. Hamas uses guerrilla warfare, whereas North Korea is going for the long shot of a nuclear weapon.
The Palestinian Authority is not that different, other than strategy. They're also incompetent and they also want to see Israel eliminated. However, their strategy is to pretend to want peace, so they...
In terms of non-homicidal genocide (i.e. genocide in the sense of dismantling the group without killing its members), certainly a lot more people are fine with something like a Transfer plan (for example, I've heard a proposal that Egypt will take Gazan Palestinians as refugees/civilians and similarly have Jordan absorb the Palestinians in Yehuda and Shomron) and don't see it as much of an atrocity, merely taking back the land those Arabs conquered and colonized starting at around 640AD, without actual harm to those individuals (in fact, their lives could be much improved!). There's also the fact that Israel is very tiny; Even from just the southern part of Gaza, Hamas already fires rockets at Israel's most populated cities, giving them the mountains of Shomron (incidentally, the capital of the Israeli kingdom), simple mortars could rain down on Israeli civilians without warning and could easily lead to an actual genocide of all Israeli Jews, so moving the people a few tens of kilometers east sounds like a peaceful resolution in comparison.
Naturally, there's also the element of a long conflict. Arabs have been killing Jews in Israel during the British Mandate as well as the Ottoman rule of the region (in fact the IDF traces its roots to what are essentially local militias the Jews had to create to defend themselves). Israel's scroll of independence (a document that is considered that closest thing Israel has to a constitution) actually includes two paragraphs calling for the Arab nations surrounding Israel to work together in peaceful cooperation, so literally the very first action Israel took as a state was to call for peace, and literally the first thing that happened in response was an attempt to destroy Israel. After 76 years of war, certainly there's lowered sympathy for the enemy, especially one that elected Hamas (see above) and rejected peace (I've somewhat recently learned that outside of Israel almost no one knows that the Annapolis Conference very nearly resulted in peace via a two-state solution that was refused by Mahmoud Abbas [which I've heard he has later come to regret, not sure how reliable that is]).
Rising anti-semitism around the world (especially how popular it is to call for a genocide against Israeli Jews is in the form of the "From the river to the sea" phrase) also creates a backlash - Israel must act strongly to defend itself since it is the only place in the world where Jews can be in charge of their own fate and their own defense. If the BBC publishes lies about what happens in Israel, and protesters in England are calling for a genocide unopposed, not only should we not listen to what the English want us to do, we should prioritize ourselves even further. This is why IMO s...
But, a mistake you make in asking the question is two-fold, one - the Holocaust was not a lesson taught to Jews so they'll learn empathy. It was something horrible and traumatic that was done to them. Two - comparing the Holocaust to what happens in Gaza means you're not aware of what the Holocaust was. Maybe you know highlights such as gas chambers etc, but not what it really was (through no fault of your own I'm sure).
But, to attempt some semblance of an answer. In the same way you wouldn't ask Haitians why their gov did terrible things to the DR and their population - didn't they learn from slavery? Or about India/Pakistan, didn't they learn from the raj? Or any of the African states in conflict - didn't they learn from colonialism? Or Turkey and Syria, Iraq/Iran etc. Then why ask this from Israelis? I hope you get my rhetorical point.
> About three-quarters (73%) of American Jews say remembering the Holocaust is an essential part of being Jewish
that's above any other option.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/08/13/70-years-...
Well of course I am not suggesting that it was a lesson to teach empathy. My comment was merely that people who suffer traumas tend to have empathy for other people suffering similar traumas. I don’t think this is a particularly controversial observation.
> Two - comparing the Holocaust to what happens in Gaza means you're not aware of what the Holocaust was. Maybe you know highlights such as gas chambers etc, but not what it really was (through no fault of your own I'm sure).
Well I suppose you might be right. I’ve seen a number of the major films and documentaries and read Viktor Frankl, Eli Weisel and Anne Frank and visited Auschwitz, and I’ll be the first to admit this is merely a very basic overview of the atrocities rather than any form of academic investigation. But from this overview it seems like there are common threads of severe oppression based on immutable racial characteristics, no?
On your final paragraph, I probably would ask the same question!
Please don't tell people to harass random jews wherever they live about political stuff they aren't involved in. Thanks.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Please don't let people on hacker news say things like what questions should be asked of jewish people not in israel etc.
They weren't recommending randomly accosting anybody. If the comment had been limited to its first 10 words, I could imagine understanding it that way, but the more important part was what they said right after that: "not HN. The response you'll get here obviously won't answer this question" — in other words, a question like that can't be answered by people who have no experience with it. It doesn't follow that one should indiscriminately harass everyone who does. I know some people are jumping to that, but it's not the strongest plausible interpretation of the GP.
If you had begun your reply with "Unfortunately some people are using this line of thinking to" instead of "Please don't tell people to", it would have been fine; and still more so if you had added some of the information that you included in your reply to me.
I wrote a much more strident and knee-jerk response to this at first (I'm sorry about that, and I should have read through the whole comment instead of snagging at the first sentence), but that first sentence is quite a snag! It seemed to upset other people who replied, and I can't really blame them too much for that.
Urban warfare is an ugly and complicated thing. Many of the Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza are moderates risking their life to defend their home and bring back their people.
When individual cases of reckless disregard are discovered (like in videos shared by Israeli soldiers on groups that get leaked out), those soldiers are disciplined.
But globally, it's just not true that the IDF has complete disregard for Palestinians.
> When individual cases of reckless disregard are discovered (like in videos shared by Israeli soldiers on groups that get leaked out), those soldiers are disciplined.
Really? Do you want us to believe it?
My understanding is that the colossal tradegy of Holocaust made Jews realise that not fighting back is an existential threat for them.
When Israel was established then Arabs did not accept its existence nor the existence of Jews in the region. What followed was a genocidal war to exterminate Jews in Palestine and destroy Israel. We know this war today as Israel war of independence.
The Arabs who participated against Jews in this war fleed in fear of retribution and were not allowed by Israel to return. We know these people and their descendants today as Palestinian refugees (they have special inheritable status given by UN).
After the war Israel was established nearly within the borders of UN assigned Jewish territories and UN assigned Arab territories were annexed by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (West Bank). But it was still not tolerable for the Arabs who again in 1967 attempted to exterminate Jewish state with the war.
After the failure Isreal took control over larger territory that was then inhabited largely by Palestinian refugees (Palestinians) - West Bank and Gaza and also part of Egypt over the Suez canal and part of Syria called Golan Heights. The reasons where twofold. First the UN assigned territory was clearly not realistically defendable and second the large part of the previously not controlled territories like Bethlehem or Jerusalem were believed to be Jewish lands (historically Jewish lands were between Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea). Territories belonging to Egypt were later returned by bilateral treatis (but Israel kept control over Gaza).
Fast forward to today and it appears that Palestinians have not abolished the idea of genocide against Jews. It has been clearly established that the 7th October attack was a genocidal act to eliminate as many Jews as possible. Around 3000 Palestinian men took part in it, Hamas had around 40000 fighters. This demonstrates that they had wide support among Palestinians.
This leads us back to Holocaust. Jews promised to themselves that they will not let the genocide happen against themselves ever again. Yet it happened.
What is going on in Gaza is a systematic work to eliminate this threat.
They do this with minimal risk to their soldiers who are mainly reservist e.g. common people with military training. They can't afford to lose thousands of people. Palestinians in contrast value martyrdom and are willing to take very high risks (like attacking an armored vehicle with a RGP within a group of civilians next to the hospital entrance (this has been documented by the video evidence)).
It is not a police operation. It is a military operation against heavily armed and trained opponent. The weapons are chosen accordingly. The urban landscape makes it especially difficult and destructive. Regardless as far I have observed then Jewish military has made great efforts to systemically minimise civilian casualties.
What they did not realise first was that in addition to the military operation on the ground there is also sizeable information war against them and when the enemy can find many willing sympathisers then the enemy can produce what ever claims they please regardless of the truth as was demonstrated by the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion.
I haven't observed the situation closely for months but by then Jewish armed forces evolved to be more open in their communication and to communicate more clearly the threats they had to fight against.
Additionally, they have not shown "a reckless disregard for Palestinian people" and they would argue that unlike other conflicts in the region (Syria, Yemen, Kurdistan) they've been incredibly efficient in trying to avoid or limit civilian death.
Still, Gazan's have been dealt a pretty raw deal in that they have been ruled by a terrorist organization which has repeatedly stolen their aid to push their own agenda, and living amongst neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, that are afraid to take them in lest they bring instability to those governments. Note that in the beginning of this conflict the Egyptians wouldn't open the Rafah border to allow refugees.
Rather, many of the holocaust survivors would instead say that the Israelis are being too nice and not defending the people living in the country from a government in Gaza that has the following in it's charter: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" and "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees."(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp)
[1]https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...
The problem is that this is such a partisan issue than partisanship can be perceived in the smallest of details.
As someone who was staunchly pro-palestinian but as of recently came to have a more informed and I hope a more nuanced view of the whole situation, I can't help to see the title as potentially misleading :
Is the ICJ saying to prevent the Genocide (i.e recognizes that a genocide is happening) or to prevent a potential genocide (that is it believes the situation could escalate towards a genocide) ?
From what I have read this is the second option, so I believe the title could be misleading. The more a topic has a loaded emotional and symbolic value, the more careful the wording must be.
Also I remember how annoying it was that people did not share my indignation and how I perceived such carefulness as a form of voluntary blindness.
I have not flagged it personally but I understand why someone would. I was just responding on "Couldn't this be the one discussion ?" and I think it's not, for the reasons above.
There are many discussions worth having, not all discussions worth having should be on HN.
Ages ago I had a job working in online advertising. My comment a the time was this "Advertising is worse than porn, but working here I can go home to my feminist girlfriend and not get shit for it."
Technology and politics have always had an intersection but unless it was part of your job, it was somewhat avoidable.
This is no longer the case. The simple word "alignment" means that these sorts of classical political issues have direct impact on tech, platforms and what they do. We, as a group, who has a unique view of what freedom means (speech, software and that intersectioN) should be acutely aware of the chilling effect we're living under on this topic. Even here where the discourse remains (mostly) civil there are those who will attempt to just shut it down.
I would be keenly interested to see how heavily this gets flagged and how that compares to other topics. I doubt dag would tell us but I could hope!
That is, especially some of the statements by senior officials could be understood as genocidal.
What I gleaned from reading blogs: It is likely that the actus reus for genocide is there but intent will be very hard to prove if it exists
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
That especially means two things here: being kind, and not using the thread to do battle. If you're not able to stick to that, that's fine, but in that case please don't post.
What does be kind mean in a context like this? Many things, but here's one in my view: it means finding a place in your heart for the humanity of the other—whoever the other happens to be for you.
That isn't easy but it's the spirit we want here. If you can't find it in yourself, that's understandable, but on this topic, please only post if you can.
What's inaccurate about it?
(Btw - thank you for posting the links in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146163. We need those.)
Well, there is already discussion of the meaning of Measure 1) "take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular" part a) "killing members of the group", at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39143094, so perhaps the confusion can be worked out there. I don't think it's as simple as "limit deaths" but perhaps I'm wrong, not being a lawyer.
Or you can switch to https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-braces-worl... if you want the title to match the HTML title.
That's like exactly the definition of the opposite of neutral: ignoring the part Israel won and only focusing on the part they lost.
And the fact that it ignores the major part of the case and focuses only on the minor part, only makes it more egregious.
Even the actual news source themselves changed the title, and for some reason you consider the HTML title more important?
Every day is an opportunity to be better than our ancestors.
Yeah, they lost a lot of infantry forces and it's probably the reason there were less civilian deaths.
If you kill tons of civilians from the other side to save soldiers from your own side then you end up in the ICJ.
If you read some of those past explanations and still have a question about our general approach, let me know what it is. As for this particular story, I turned off the flags on it because it clearly counts as SNI (significant new information - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).
* as has the question "how is this hackernews", of course: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869
Obviously most of what gets discussed on HN is relatively unimportant in the world. If that weren't the case, HN would simply be a current affairs site, which it isn't. At the same time, that doesn't mean every political story is off topic here—the guidelines already make that clear by their use of the word "most": https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
There's a long and pretty consistent history to how HN handles the question of political topics.
I think there's an intellectual interest here, but the line is very blurry with politics. It's probably as blurry as the articles posted about US being a surveillance state, cryptocurrency articles unrelated to the technology itself, etc.
and a summary is: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Dissents etc can be found in the case page: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192 - in particular the opinion of Judge Aharon Barak, the Israeli ad-hoc Judge (a peculiarity of the ICJ is that each side gets to add a judge, but it doesn't have much effect since there are 17 other judges). But interestingly Judge Barak ruled against Israel in the case of two measures, enforcement against Incitement and ensuring humanitarian aid.
I believe it's also available in French, for those more familiar with that language.
Barak ruling to resupply the enemy (it is widely documented that "humanitarian aid" goes first and foremost to Hamas) in an international court is entirely consistent with his lifelong tendency to gradually reduce Israeli independence and voters' impact on policy and to increase Israeli compliance to the policy of outside parties, first and foremost the US. (Resupplying the enemy was required by the US from the start. It is interesting to see other examples where civilians are prevented by the international community to leave the area of hostilities and instead they are supposed to be provided with resources in this area where the monopoly on the use of force belongs to one of the sides in the conflict.)
While the exact requirements placed on Israel by larger powers are somewhat unique, having highly influential people in the country effectively work in the interest of larger powers is a common condition for smaller powers. In this Barak is similar to many other high-profile people and organizations in many other countries enjoying limited sovereignty at best.
He has some influence but I don't think "loyalists" (or the other terminology used in your earlier comment) is that accurate. The supreme court justices today have a range of opinions and are largely independent and interpret law (and some other universal principles, like human rights, is really what Barak brought to the table).
The interesting bit to me here is this signals that if those cases were brought in front of Israel's supreme court the outcome would likely be similar to the ICJ (except Israel's supreme court's rulings must be followed, it's not optional or requires security council approval). I think that was partly the intent in sending Barak and really the main argument that people that oppose the government initiatives to restrict the Israeli Supreme Court have. And so there's really no need to take Israel to the ICJ since its independent supreme court would e.g. enforce the same standards anyways.
this is at most lie and at least misconception. Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the President of Israel, from names submitted by the Judicial Selection Committee, which is composed of nine members: three Supreme Court Judges (including the President of the Supreme Court), two cabinet ministers (one of them being the Minister of Justice), two Knesset members, and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association. Appointing Supreme Court Judges requires a majority of 7 of the 9 committee members, or two less than the number present at the meeting.
The idea that 5 out 9 people nominating judges aren't elected, directly or indirectly, is AFAIK a fairly unique Israeli invention. This is taught in schools as a good thing because there's "a majority of professionals rather than politicians." I presume that this idea is so effective and consistent with the principles of democracy that it should also work for nominating governments and lawmakers.
Judges in England and Wales (including supreme court judges) are selected entirely by unelected officials; The government is explicitly prohibited from interfering with their decision. Given the influential nature of English law, I would be very surprised if this was unique.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commissi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_of_the_Supreme_Court_o...
In the Netherlands the Dutch Supreme Court provides parliament with a shortlist of 6 people. The Dutch parliament then makes a short list of 3 people based on that list. Traditionally the first three people on the 6 person list by the Dutch Supreme Court.
This 3 person list is then offered to the Dutch government who then appointments one of them, traditionally the first one on the list, as a Supreme Court judge.
In the entire history only once did the Dutch parliament deviate from the Supreme Court’s 6 person shortlist and only once did the Dutch government deviate from the parliament’s 3 person shortlist.
So in practice it’s the Supreme Court who chooses who should join them, none of the judges are elected officials.
Lower court judges aren’t elected either, like say, in the US.
Neither are prosecutors for that matter.
In general these are all merit based appointments, not unlike your average job application, just with more ceremony.
1. Not completely. There are quite a few countries with fully independent judiciary, with judges appointing judges.
2. Courts with power to initiate, and prosecute a case by themselves also exist in other countries.
- 766 / 1200 = 63.8%
Of course, the numbers claimed by other NGOs / UN make it worse. But Israel's numbers are sufficient to make that claim.
[1] - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...
To some extent, you can't blame Hamas for these tactics. They would quickly lose a conventional war. At the same time, if you have zero chance of winning a military victory, perhaps you shouldn't use violence to pursue your political goals...
Civilian/combatant fatality ratios of 3/1 are not uncommon in urban warfare.
Even then, military necessity of killing combatants, not actively particpating in the war is not justified. Yes, you can kill those, who is shooting the rockets at Tel-Aviv, but bombing willy-nilly all of Gaza just because there might be tunnels, where potential combatants might be hiding,. is not acceptable, although not am not an international law lawer.
Here is a list of the 88 (and growing) journalists so far killed in Gaza [1]. I would be impressed if you could find any shred of evidence that any one of them was an active duty combatant when they were murdered.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
> Mustafa Thuria, identified in a document found by IDF troops in Gaza, was a member of Hamas' Gaza City Brigade, serving as Squad Deputy Commander in the al-Qadisiyyah Battalion.
> Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, is an Islamic Jihad terrorist, and was involved in the organization’s terrorist activities. Documents found by IDF troops in the Gaza Strip reveal his role in the Islamic Jihad's electronic engineering unit and his previous role as a deputy commander in the Zeitun Battalion's Rocket Array.
I think others have been shown wielding rifles or taking part in Oct 7, but I'll need to dig up the links when I have more time.
Edit: See e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/C17sCXPMKqW/?img_index=3. I don't think it should come as a surprise that some journalists participate in combat on the side; there are many examples throughout history of desperate defenders handing out weapons to civilians. Kyiv was a recent example.
> According to Al Jazeera correspondent Hisham Zaqout, Hamza al-Dahdouh and a group of journalists were en route to the Moraj area north-east of Rafah - which was designated a "humanitarian zone" by the Israeli army - but which had reportedly experienced recent bombings.
They were fleeing an area in Khan Younis being bombed to a designated safe zone in Rafah when their car was hit by an Israeli missile.
Even if we take the IDF at their words—which we shouldn’t—this is still not a shred of evidence they were active combatants when they were killed.
But we shouldn’t take IDF at their words, they have been proven to lie consistently when they target journalist. A high profile case was when they murdered Shireen Abu Akleh, changing their story multiple times until, finally, when the evidence against their story was so overwhelming, they finally admitted to targeting her.
As for the instagram thread. We really need a name to go with this. Who is this person? Is he on the list of the 88 which the Israel has murdered so far? ~The second photo doesn’t even look like it is the same person, and the third photo even looks photoshopped (and fails to show other results in a reverse google image search)~ [wrong, see edit].
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67905566
EDIT: I found the origin of the photos in the instagram thread: https://nabd.com/s/121499899-f165c6/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B3...
His name was Muhyiddin Muhammad Muhammad al-Sadoudi and was a 24 year old fighter for the al-Qassam brigade, who died during active training in July last year, not by the Israeli army, and not in the current war. Only claimed to be a fighter, and never claimed to be a photojournalist by Hamas’s armed wing. He is not on the list of the 88 journalists in Gaza murdered by the Israeli army.
Thanks for getting to the bottom of those photos which admittedly lacked context. I didn't meant to suggest that he was in the list of journalists killed by the IDF; I didn't even know he was deceased. I think the point stands that both freelance photojournalism and guerilla fighting can be done in a part-time and/or non-professional capacity.
> “Prior to the strike, the two operated drones, posing an imminent threat to IDF troops.”
If this is true then they were indeed legitimate targets. However if what Al Jazeera says is true, then they were not.
> When asked on Jan 10 by AFP about what kind of drones were used by the two men and the nature of the threat the drones posed to Israeli troops, the army said it was “checking”.
> It said Mr Thuria was identified in a document found by troops in Gaza to be a member of Hamas’ Gaza City Brigade, while Mr Dahdouh was identified as a terrorist belonging to Islamic Jihad.
> The army statement included a copy of a document it said was a list of “operatives from an electronic engineering unit of the Islamic Jihad, including Dahdouh and his military number”.
So we pretty much have Israel says so, which is not good evidence, or any evidence for that matter. However the Al Jazeera story has witnesses:
> He [Mr Thuria] and Mr Dahdouh had been tasked with filming the aftermath of a strike on a house in Rafah, and their car was hit while they were on their way back, AFP correspondents said at the time.
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-army-c...
Weird how only disputing the Hamas numbers as biased is a talking point.
it should raise some questions how the casualty count went to 500 in a few hours, where everywhere else in the world it takes days to get a body count after any disaster
It is beyond me how someone can believe that an organization capable of kidnapping babies to advance its political goals is beyond lying to do the same
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/2010-11-09/ty-article/hamas-admits-6...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas... https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-death-toll-records-1.7010...
Simply dismissing a figure as skewed because of its source without a better one is a weak argument.
The UN is a political body composed of the political interests of its members, which are mostly authoritarian states, and it hasn’t shown much support for Israel due to the vast membership of Islamic countries. Parody case in point, Iran being Human Rights commission seat
UNRWA, the UN agency on the ground was shown again and again to be in the very least in the mercy of Hamas therefore cooperative, at most its infrastructure and staff was used by the organizations for attacks against Israel and to hold hostages.
The ICJ in this case heavily quoted UNRWA as a source while it is an extremely problematic one.
The hospital bombing I quoted above is an example case where many experts tried to estimate casualties based on evidence, they arrived to figures that range from tenth to fifth of what Hamas published.
This together with the fact they control the casualty figure and have a clear interest at inflating it in order to stop Israel from attacking, is pretty obvious to me what’s going on.
Leaving the fact that this figure also includes Hamas members, and therefore is useless at estimating if there is excessive collateral damage
Even if the true numbers are a quarter of the given figure that's still way too high.
This is going to be a major issue when the actual court case will have to rely upon it.
the numbers will always be ‘too high’ as they are the number of civilian deaths in a war.
However, if they are much lower relative to similar conflicts than that changes a lot. Currently we have no way of knowing that, yet still people attribute these numbers some magical properties
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-mistakenly-hit-festival-...
Why are you surprised that people trust Israel more than Hamas? Israel is a country that's ranked 29 of 167 on the Democracy Index[1], right _above_ the US. Hamas is literally a terrorist organization recognized in many countries, probably yours too.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
There are 15 ICJ judges, plus the two ad hoc judges appointed by the parties.
Also voted against asking Israel to preserve evidence of the crimes. Interesting perspective for a former judge.
Do you have a link to Barak’s dissent on those questions?
- Judge Barak's numbers on civilian deaths on 7th october are simply wrong and could've been easily checked. 766 civilians were killed, 1200 was the total number of deaths (including armed forces).
- Israel's own numbers say "2 civilians killed for every one militant"[1], that's 66% in the Gaza offensive.
- 766 / 1200 = 63.8%
- 63.8% and 66% are indeed close numbers, don't see why would it be flagged.
Of course, the numbers claimed by other NGOs / UN make it worse. But Israel's numbers are sufficient to make that claim.
[1] - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...
In part. Air power was new at the time, and there was legitimate strategic ambiguity around the military value of removing war factories’ workforces. (This is why Germany and Britain bombed by night while America bombed by day.)
The key point of distinction between the American and British approach emerged through what the British euphemistically referred to as "dehousing" - the idea that destroying German housing stock would disrupt the operation of manufacturing, divert materials and labour away from military use and demoralise the population. On this premise, civilian casualties were merely the incidental consequence of destroying houses.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qchwt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing
Regarding Dresden, from wikipedia...
> United States Air Force reports, declassified decades later, noted as a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the continued Nazi German war effort
https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-army-ordered-mass-hann...
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/11/25/israels-october-7-propaga...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
1. https://www.businessinsider.com/idf-mistakenly-hit-festival-...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%27eri_massacre#Survivors'_t...
3. https://archive.is/Zn3Bt
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91kG_bYsn0
It is true that there were a few incidents, but they only account for a very small fraction of the death toll.
Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
No official investigations made (only statements made by pro-israel media eraly in conflict), no proof thefore. Yet israel has track of bombing the Gaza hospitals, which makes aposteriori a more plausible explanation for the incident.
> The Hannibal Directive (Hebrew: נוהל חניבעל; also Hannibal Procedure or Hannibal Protocol) is the name of a controversial procedure that was used by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) until 2016 to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces. According to one version, it says that "the kidnapping must be stopped by all means, even at the price of striking and harming our own forces."
> Israeli newspapers have reported that the IDF was issued orders echoing the wording of the Hannibal Directive during the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. The IDF was ordered to prevent "at all costs" the abduction of Israeli civilians or soldiers, possibly leading to the death of a large number of Israeli hostages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
We have to ban accounts that post this way, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not post this way, we'd appreciate it.
I'm sure more will surface - such is war. Therefore I want to make it very clear - it is not an important detail, despite you calling it such. Hamas are the ones that attacked - if in the process of trying to stop these attacks, the IDF inadvertantly killed Israeli civilians, that is tragic - but is completely the fault of Hamas. This is true both legally and morally.
Well I wasn't making a general statement - I was talking in this specific case.
Let's give an analogy - if a bunch of bank robbers have taken hostages and are threatening to kill them, and if the police is reasonably certain there is no way of actually getting them out - the police is morally justified in sending in SWAT to try and rescue as many hostages as possible. Even if they know that many hostages will die.
The moral fault is with the bank robbers, not the police.
> If [I]sraeli military acted with disregard to the lives of non combatants, that would account to war crimes, against their own population.
I think that's a totally valid internal matter for debate within Israel. Should this kind of doctrine be the rule? Is it appropriate to attempt to stop militants by any means necessary, including possibly at the cost of your own population? This is in the same vein as "we don't negotiate with terrorists", a principled position that theoretically cuts down on terror, but that has brutal immediate ramaficiations in specific cases.
That all said, I don't think this doctrine amounts to war crimes (I'm not sure how it possibly could amount to war crimes). And I think it's an internal matter for debate inside the country, but don't really see how it matters to anyone else.
In fact, it kind of proves the opposite of what many people think - that the IDF is specifically trying to kill Gazan civilians. I'm often asked "what would the IDF do if the innocent civilians around a Hamas militant were Jews, not Palestinians, would you still bomb them even though it might cause collateral damage?". And while I think that question has a lot of answers, I think the "Hannibal directive", if implemented on October 7th (as appears likely), is actually proof that the IDF acts consistently, if terribly brutally - civilians are sometimes collateral damage, even if they're Israelis.
I think the answer to these questions are: “We don’t known” and “No”. We should indeed scrutinize the police judgement, and if the SWAT team goes in guns blazing killing some of the hostages in the cross fire, we should question that decision. As is often done in countries with free press.
I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country. Even the USA frequently negotiates the release of hostages of terrorists. In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
I think the latter reason is true of Israel’s government. They are actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
Absolutely. I'm not against scrutinizing anything. Like I said about this specific case - the people most aggrieved and most understanding of the situation is Israelis themselves, since we're talking about cases where Israeli citizens were killed while trying to kill militants. It's absolutely something the Israeli press should explore and something that the Israeli public should and will hold the military accountable for.
It is not, however, something that should be used to "score points against the IDF" or whatever- if the affected citizens themselves are not against the way this was handled, a third party using it as some kind of way to show that "the IDF is evil" or whatever is a bit silly (and, btw, insulting).
Nor is this something that should be used to conclude that "actually, Hamas didn't really kill so many people" - which is clearly false based on vast troves of reports of people killed by Hamas, much of them filmed.
---
In this case, bitter experience shows that Hamas doesn't release captured citizens without horrible costs - last time, for one soldier, Israel released 1,027 prisoners, including the person who just masterminded the October 7th attack. This time, 100 hostages were eventually released for a much more favorable-to-Israel exchange, and in exchange for a pause in the fighting - which some people take as a sign that the fighting pressured Hamas into accepting this deal.
> I don’t think that “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is an actual policy by any country.
It is - though it's complicated, many European countries do in fact negotiate, the US less often. I've heard reports that it isn't clear which policy is actually better in terms of number of captured civilians.
Quoting Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_negotiation_with_te...
> On June 18, 2013, G8 leaders signed an agreement against paying ransoms to terrorists.[1] However, most Western states have violated this policy on certain occasions [...] These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, which funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid
> Some Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Britain, tend to not negotiate or pay ransoms to terrorists. Others, such as France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland are more open to negotiation. This is a source of tension between governments with opposing policies.
> In fact not negotiating seems like a horrible policy which only serves to maximize unnecessary suffering. It may be a good policy if you believe that the lives of the hostages is worth less then the blood of terrorists, or if you are actively trying to spew hatred towards terrorists among your electorate.
That's not the point at all! The point is to make it so that capturing hostages is meaningless - disincentivizing doing it in the future.
Many people in Israel warned, when deciding about that 1k-priosners-for-1-Israeli-soldier deal, that it would cause Hamas to really put effort into kidnapping more Israelis. Well - it happened - and a lot of people consider this proof that that previous deal was a "mistake".
> [Israel's government is] actively trying to maximize the perceived threat of Hamas, and don’t mind Palestinians as a group being dehumanized in the process. In the eyes of the Israeli government, the lives of the hostages are worth the cost as long as the perceived threat level increases. Their end goal is to justify annexation in the best case scenario or ethnic cleansing or genocide in the worst.
You...
Furthermore there is Israeli reporting on the practical use of Hannibal Directive during Oct 7, which is deliberate killing of military and civilian hostages. Israeli reporting claims that the use of this directive may have been responsible for a "large" amount of hostage casualties.
Despite official recognition of the "immense friendly fire", IDF also reports that they refuse further investigation because they believe it would be "immoral", so there is deliberate obfuscation at play.
>Israel’s army on Tuesday admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of what it calls “friendly fire” incidents took place on 7 October.
>The key declaration was buried in the penultimate paragraph of an article by Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israeli outlet Ynet.
>It is the first known official army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.
>Citing new data released by the Israeli military, Zitun wrote that: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF [Israeli military] believes that … it would not be morally sound to investigate” them.
I went down the rabbit-hole trying to find out exactly what was said and meant. I don't consider Electronic Intifada a credible source (I mean, the bias is in the name!), but they are citing specific statements made by an Israeli army reporter.
That said, I think they (and you) are making things seem very different by the way in which you're quoting the statements. I wrote there are only a few known cases of friendly fire on civilians, and you wrote that the army thinks the number is "immense", which contradicts what I said.
Except, if you look at the context of that statement from the article, I think it doesn't actually contradict it. Here's the whole paragraph:
> Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time.
The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's not morally sound to investigate the incidents. There could've been 100 incidents - e.g. 100 cases of cars bombed trying to cross back into Gaza, which may or may not have had hostages in them (which is I believe where the IDF supposedly invoked the "Hannibal doctrine").
A hundred potential incidents to investigate could absolutely qualify as someone saying there are an "immense number", while still only representing a tiny fraction of victims compared to the numbers we know for certain were killed by Hamas.
I honestly think that if your case hinges on the specific phrasing used to describe what someone from the IDF said, and which doesn't even necessarily prove anything - then your case is incredibly weak. This could've been a translation error (I couldn't find the original Hebrew version of this article), this could've been the reporter slightly exaggerating what they heard (even unknowingly), etc.
Do you have any other sources except for this? I'd love to see them.
Though again, let's be clear - there are already hundreds (possibly over a thousand?) known victims of Hamas that are verified. There might be some friendly-fire incidents too, but there are an incredibly large number that are absolutely known to have been killed by Hamas, many of which were captured on video by Hamas itself!
Trying to claim otherwise is just completely ignoring all real evidence in favor of conspiracy.
I just want to note one detail
> The "immense and complex quantity" statement here refers to why the army says it's morally sound to investigate the incidents.
The IDF says it is *not* morally sound to investigate the incidents
They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
> Almost a fifth of Israeli soldiers who died in Gaza were killed due to friendly fire, according to data released by the Israeli military, Israeli Ynet News reported on 12 December.
There is also IDF reporting on the use of helicopters:
> “The pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian … The frequency of fire at the thousands of terrorists was enormous at the start, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their attacks and carefully choose the targets,” Israel’s Ynet reported last month, citing an Israeli air force investigation.
> “Shoot at everything,” one squadron leader reportedly told his men.
> A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.
> According to Haaretz, the army was only able to restore control over Be’eri after admittedly “shelling” the homes of Israelis who had been taken captive. “The price was terrible: at least 112 Be’eri residents were killed,” the paper chronicled.
> Pilots have told Israeli media they scrambled to the battlefield without any intelligence, unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants, and yet determined to “empty the belly” of their war machines. “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at, because there are so many of them,” one Apache pilot commented.
And some Israeli witness accounts:
> An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces.
Yes, sorry, of course, I miswrote that. (I edited the comment.)
> They have released their own data (without allowing third party investigation) on friendly fire for invasions after Oct 7, which they claim is 20% of casualties. They have not released evidence and refuse investigation of the casualties resulting from the "immense quantity" of "friendly fire" incidents on Oct 7.
Again, I can understand that - since people have been insisting on propping up insane conspiracy theories that Hamas didn't actually do anything bad on October 7th. Ultimately I think it's a mistake, and not one that will be relevant anyway - investigations can happen one way or another. (Again, free press, free speech and all that.)
I added more of the Israeli-reported evidence above that you're welcome to dig into
Israel is a small country with very few degrees of separation between people.
The communities attacked are highly organized, hate the current government,somewhat critical of the establishment, and closely connected to the highest ranks in the IDF. Including some generals. And also connected to many of the fighters who were there on the ground.
There is absolutely zero chance that the army would kill many people and that it would be kept hidden from the families and the public in large.
Also, Hamas was not merely taking hostages, but spraying people with bullets and setting houses on fire with families in them. So your SWAT team dillema means nothing, as the army had no other option other then engaging with the enemy as fast as possible. The fact that in many places special forces were indeed sent to carefuly deal with hostage situations is being criticised as it may have wasted time in which the Hamas was killing more people, and people who were trapped in their homes got choked or burned.
The better strategy may have been to charge at the terrorists, as their numbers and whereabouts were unknown and while some were holding hostages others were still moving around in cars or by foot looking for hostages to take or victims to kill.
The only confirmed friendly fire case during October 7 that I personally read about was a tank that entered into a fire exchange with Hamas hostage takers.
40 terrorists and 15 hostages were surrounded in a house at Be'eri, Firing at IDF and police forces that surrounded the house.
After a failed negotiation in which the Hamas commander alone surrenderd with one hostage, fighting resumed.
The Hamas members were firing with guns and RPGs at the tank and nearby forces.
The Tank fired two shells at the house killing the terrorists and all but 1 of the remaining hostages.
This is the Hebrew wikipedia page about the battle. https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%A9%D7%AA_%D7%9...
What claim?
As far as civilian casualty rates go, mid 60s is nothing to be proud of, but square in the middle of the pack when it comes to modern wars [1].
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581199/#B12
I think this is not a justified statement. Keeping in mind hat israeli government is clearly very far right, and on multiple occasions have brought up deranged things about Amalek, about "no innocents in Gaza", I think one can establish a reasonable doubt about the true intent of idf actions.
All israeli govt is far far right. Likud won't fly in anywhere in civilise world. Just seeing freaks like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir being actually employed in israel says a lot about israel. I am not good at these pilpul games of who slightly less crazy right wing who is more, what was the context of bibis deranged rants, so yeah. IMO israel as well may be targeting civilians. W#hich what ICJ had found that day.
You words are worthless to me, my friend. I make jusdgemjents from what I see, and I think that israel does target civilians in Gaza.
In the mean time the government of Gaza (Hamas) is killing hostages.
It's common for people with strong feelings on a topic to feel like the mods must be biased against them and secretly in favor of the other side (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Meanwhile the other side(s) feel exactly the same way. These perceptions feel convincing, but you can't trust them—they're a product of some kind of hard-wiring that we all seem to share, especially when our emotions get engaged.
Any fair minded person who slogs their way through my moderation posts in this thread, and any similar thread, is going to see how hard we try to be even-handed, apply HN's rules fairly, and so on. Not that we always get it right, of course.
By the way, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. There is far too much content on HN, or even in a large thread like this one, for us to see it all. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
The measures to be taken are specified in paragraphs 78–82 on page 23.
The blog has articles on the topic from both sides from numerous lawyers
What I believe is actually happening is that TikTok debunks a lot of Hasbara talking points about the Israeli occupation of palestine (because people can see the violence with their own eyes), but then people are not educated further about the nuances of Zionism and Judaism, the different political movements within Israel like Gush Emunim and how they are not related to Judaism at large.
Because Israel has so successfully conflated Zionism (a political movement) with Judaism (a religious one), it increases the possibility that when westerners stop supporting Israel they can adopt antisemitic viewpoints.
That is very definately not a given. There are many, a majority I hope, of "westerners" who oppose the actions of the state of Israel without becoming anti semetic
What is also true is that you can clearly see Israel conducting a genocide live, while every news outlet in the west denies it or justifies it.
I am not talking about fake news, I am talking about citizen journalists, footage of children who have been pulled out of rubble. Footage of leaflets dropped on a column of refugees. The civilian death tolls that the US confirms themselves. The harder Israel denies their atrocities, the stronger the backlash becomes when people see the truth with their own eyes.
Israel's far right and Netanyahu bear a huge amount of blame for the rise of antisemitism, because they point to these atrocities and say "this is what Jewish people globally stand for".
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bisan-plestia-motaz-...
Yes, I make sure that I have verified that what I am seeing is real. I immediately do a fact check. I read Haaretz because if Israeli media is confirming it then it is undoubtedly real.
So many people ask "how could people have just let this happen" with respect to the Holocaust. This is how. They didn't want to believe it. Or they justified it. Or they were more worried about other things.
Maybe you should re-examine your biases.
why would they have pulled out in 2006?
I will say this: SA is a deeply troubled country, but for once I think the ruling government has actually done a good thing by pursuing this.
https://www.politico.eu/article/amnesty-ukraine-report-wrong...
>The report on Ukraine doesn’t even address what the alternative fate of the country’s civilians might have been had their military stood aside
Moreover, it should not be forgotten that there is a much bigger number of civilians deaths in Gaza than Ukraine. In one month the number of deaths surpassed civilian casualties in Ukraine war. There is a more serious problem there than in Ukraine.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2YY1E6/
SA does not really present itself as an earnest or true actor in the sphere oh human rights.
Well, who does?
Among the major players in world politics I can't see any country with a clean reputation on human rights.
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, a country with an horrible record of police brutality, of farmers killing indigenous people and environmental activists and an hypocritical ambivalence towards Putin's crimes. And that goes to the previous right-wing and current left-wing governments.
It’s all a tangled mess and I wouldn’t haste to take everything diplomats say at face value.
How many civilians have died in the Ukraine and in Gaza?
"to the genocide/domicide in Ukraine"
That's very frivolous use of the word 'genocide'.
"Now it’s taking Israel to court."
Don't you think that it should have been done by the countries which took Russia to the court? They have done nothing. Strange.
Putin is explicitly aiming to destroy Ukrainian national identity, which is genocide. He has disappeared countless people in the occupied territories… literally, countless, no one knows how many because rights orgs don’t operate there. He’s indicted by the ICC for stealing children from occupied territories to solve the Russian “demographic crisis,” and to remove the future generation of Ukrainians. There’s nothing frivolous about this, ask a Ukrainian. See Putin’s many speeches, including from February 24, to this effect, he doesn’t believe Ukrainians or Ukraine has a right to exist, and believed that Ukrainians can be dispensed with like subhumans.
Can you link some credible references for this?
The OHCHR, as of October 2023, listed 10,000 killed and 18,000 wounded.
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/ukraine-civilian-casual...
For that estimate to be off by AT LEAST an order of magnitude as you are claiming requires quite a bit of evidence.
Per Russia: 3,000+ civilians killed[43] Per Ukraine: 25,000+ civilians killed[44] 50,000+ deported[45]
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
If Putin is arrested in a foreign country, you'll have the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world staring down at the very existence of that nation. No country would do this, however earnest they may be about human rights. Neither will it be fair to expect anyone to do this.
Eh, or not. Putin isn’t Russia. Depending on timing, it might be a convenient time for a change in government. They could then demand his remittance, where he would no doubt get lost along the way or have a change of heart about his place in public policy.
That said, the prudent thing to do is that which was done. Barring Putin from entering South Africa.
Do you really think that Russian government and military would kill in cold blood tens of millions of people over Putin's fate?
Besides, they would be too busy jockeying for power after Putin is out of the game.
"If you and your kind are the only potential victims I'd say go for it."
That's a lot of hate towards me and 'my kind'.
And if you aren't South African, and especially if you live in a country under NATO's nuclear umbrella, you have no business telling them they should risk their lives (for whatever reason).
I am having trouble finding any hate in here.
"to avoid war with Russia" was how the rest of that headline went, along with two quotes about how Russia said such an arrest would be considered an act of war.
While I would welcome Putin's arrest, I can't exactly fault South Africa for saying they'd rather not go to war.
Amusingly, the Biden govt had no issues officially supporting the ICC to deliver a ruling against Russia despite the US not being a party to the ICC themselves. That's like having your cake and eating it too.
None of China, India, Russia, and the United States are parties to the ICC.
Nation states are often immoral and hypocritical
The outrage from the USA at the invasion of Ukraine, when the invasion of Iraq is a crime of the same magnitude - both dreadful stains on humanity
Most recently the international support for the actions of the IDF whilst condemning Russian actions in Ukraine
SA is just normal in this regard
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/478123?ln=en
Bullshit. There was nothing in the resolution that called for war. The most it had said was in tune of - you must comply and if you don't we will report you. No particular enforcement.
the resolution is here - https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/682/26/PDF...
>"it was never firmly established as illegal"
Really? It was an act of aggression. It is illegal by definition unless the UN had explicitly decided otherwise which I believe it did not.
I was certainly against it in 2003. The WMDs were bullshit. A war on "terror" is farcical. The profiteering and the industrial military complex, etc.
But I did later come around to the idea of getting Saddam and his government to stop genociding the Kurds.
Of course you should always assume a country like the US to be self-serving in its actions, but it's not as if it was taking additional land as its own, as is the case with Russia and Israel. Iraq was never going to be the 51st state.
Adversarial justice systems are an approach to dealing with the fact that individual actors in a system (including states in the international system) tend to be self-interested rather than earnest or true consistent advocates of the notional rules of the system.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palesti...
Germany, yes? That's the primary example of genocide in the 20th century.
"The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II." (First sentence of Wikipedia.)
(I think widespread bombing of cities is a different crime.)
and they’d credible if they hosted Joe Biden?
Israel has created a beast that I don't think they can control themselves. I do think that the court is going to get more legitimacy after they explicitly tell Israel to __chill__, for Israel not to chill, and then get the ceasefire ruling against them & potentially an intensification of the genocide case.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, real people are suffering so these political games can be played.
I am so deeply disappointed in the Biden administration here. They're throwing away a lot of the good work they've done, and are actively getting Trump elected. People, naturally, do not want to participate in an election that is giving them a choice between ${person_currently_helping_a_genocide} and ${person_that_will_intensify_genocide}. You're just going to get voter apathy, and the consequences from that.
Israel is expected to because they are not.
So while they have majority support, it's not like they've had any real alternative.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Additionally, the state of palestine is not a party to this case.
So no, the icj cannot tell hamas to do anything. The only people it can give orders to in this case are israel and south africa.
Hamas's crines are the juridsiction of the ICC.
You could argue they should be, but what is and what should be are entirely different things.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-says-it-will...
Keep in mind that Hamas reiterated their ceasefire deal recently, which includes the release of all hostages, and Israel rejected it.
Moreover, Israel offered hamas a ceasefire if they release all the hostages and exile their top 6 leaders. That offer was rejected by hamas.
So please don’t present such a one sided view
That wasn't a serious ceasefire offer, and you've left out the reasons why: it was a pause of 2 months, not a ceasefire offer at all! Furthermore, Israel wouldn't release the hostages they are holding. Why would anyone agree to release the hostages in exchange for nothing but a brief pause of genocide?
Netanyahu knew Hamas wouldn't agree to it; he only even made the offer because he'd turned down the Hamas offer first, and so needed a different story for the media to run with. Which worked just fine of course - MSM ran with "Hamas reject ceasefire" without even mentioning the Hamas offer.
Meanwhile, many of the hostages held by Israel are held without even being charged. From what I've seen, it's quite obvious that many are innocent civilians, and hundreds of them are children.
We've also seen evidence that Israel tortures its prisoners, and that rape is endemic - which is probably why Israel won't let the Red Cross near them (something else it complains Hamas won't do).
Israel is behaving like a rogue state.
Do you have any proof of rape accusations being endemic?
Strawman - I explicitly referred to those hostages that were members of the IDF.
> Conflating the hostages to the Israeli prisoners is terrorist rhetoric
Ah, so anyone who disagrees with you is a terrorist? I see you.
You're also implying that all hostages held by Israel were involved in the attack on 7/10 - blatantly untrue. Several Israeli soldiers are on camera saying they take Palestinians hostage purely so they have something to exchange with Hamas - this has been going on for years.
> Red Cross was pretty useless and one sided against Israel.
I'm sorry, but this is the kind of nonsense that spokespeople (like Eylon Levy) and career racists (like David Colier) like to espouse - everyone who disagrees with Israel's genocidal actions is an antisemite and/or Hamas lover. "The Red Cross are Hamas". "The UN are Hamas". Honestly, it's pretty pathetic.
On Israeli guards torturing and raping Palestinian prisoners, including children, there is a wealth of evidence and many, many video interviews with victims. Here is just one story: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-cr...
https://x.com/jonathan_k_cook/status/1748390405173842099?s=4...
Meanwhile, Josh Paul, a former US State Department official, detailed how a 13 year old kid was raped in an Israeli prison and “The State Department's inquiry into the case resulted in Israeli officials shutting down the charity involved in bringing the case to light.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-resigned-us-state...
I am not saying that Hamas did not (or did) commit the crimes on videos, it just the source is so reliably untrustworthy, so the videos cannot be taken seriously.
Otherwise there isn't a direct rape claim in there, but a witnessed missed period which they say could be due to rape or the witness also says it could be due to the harsh conditions (malnutrition is a real cause of it in some cases; Washington Post has reported on worries of refeeding syndrome in some of the released hostages so some were severely malnurished). I found an article with longer excerpts of the testimony and the dolls on a string quote was about inappropriate clothing provided and claims of abuse but the testimony excerpts there also didn't directly allege rape. Is the full transcript of the hearing out there somewhere?
If anything, Russia and Hamas are each less likely to spark each conflict (in the specific sense of invading Ukraine and 7 October, not the preconditions) knowing that the US is more likely to provide arms to Ukraine and Israel.
There is a lot written about civil disobedience through not partaking in electoral politics, and that's _likely_ the direction I'm going to go if Biden does not change his tone (and hopefully actually do a proper apology for his actions so far).
This sucks, and I'll participate in local and even congressional elections, but for president I can not really find myself voting for Biden. I do not expect myself to agree 100% with any candidate, but there are certain red-lines that a candidate can not cross. I have a few of those, being anti-abortion is not something I can tolerate in any candidate. Being pro-mass-killing-looking-like-genocide is also one. I suspect this feeling is not unique to me.
https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2020/02/25/abortion-the-over...
Not only religious fanatics oppose it in its current form in America.
I would even venture to say that those other groups oppose it in part because of cultural effects of religious ethics infecting the rest of society.
This kinda comes down to a case of who are you going to believe, a notorious fraudster and conman or your own lying eyes?
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/29/tr...
Biden is not only going to lose, Trump might even get a trifecta.
Biden's issues at the moment are that economic sentiment is a lagging indicator of some variables that have only recently recovered to their normal values (inflation etc.). If these issues fix themselves we will have a better sense of whether Israel-Hamas War has meaningfully impacted him.
[Ianal]
They do have to submit a report on their implementation of the orders, but reducing civilian deaths wasn't on the list of things they had to report on.
How would Israel disappear? Palestine is clearly no match for them - who else is expected to suddenly move in?
I certainly think we could stop funding their military while still pledging to support them if someone actually tries to invade.
Keep in mind, Israel has it's own defense budget - it's not like it's military just disappears when US funding dries up
Militaries are just as interconnected as anybody else. They depend on supplies of weapons and munitions. If the supply is gone, the size of the budget doesn't matter.
The concept of nations and borders in the middle east is a bit... different from the western variant.
They've had wars with all their immediate neighbours since the modern state was created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab–Israeli_conflict#Notable_...
Some of those countries are more friendly now, but loss of USA support would be huge. Such a removal of support would IMO be extremely unlikely due to how USA internal politics looks like from outside.
American foreign policy wasn't parodied as "world police" for nothing.
> I certainly think we could stop funding their military while still pledging to support them if someone actually tries to invade.
Subtly and nuance? Oh how I wish any politics cared about that.
I'm assuming, from the PoV of Israel and the Jewish diaspora in the USA, that because the specific attack that set this in motion was much much worse (proportionally speaking) than the 9/11 attacks were to the USA, anything less than 100% uncritical total support will look like "a betrayal" or "giving in to terrorism", to enough of the Jewish electorate in the USA, as to make that kind of talk unviable for at least a decade.
Real people aren't Vulcans. Emotions are raw, and will remain that way for a long time. And so the cycle will continue until either one side or the other is dead, or some absolute negotiating genius steps in and manages something even more impressive than the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.
(Makes me wish for Mo Mowlam to be reincarnated; good luck to you if she was an inspiration!)
A US official stated that at the rate Israel is bombing Gaza, Israel would have run out of munitions in 3 days without US aid. An Israeli official said the same, but he said their arsenal would only have lasted one day. Even if either/both were engaging in a degree of hyperbole, the gist is, that the bombing continues at the will of the Biden administration.
Yes, Israel would not cease to exist if the US withdrew support for genocidal murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but it would halt this most recent massacre of Palestinians by Israelis.
And, if the US stopped running cover for Israel in the UN Security Council, Israel would find it untenable to continue its belligerent disregard of international humanitarian law and past UN resolutions-- it might actually become the democratic state it claims to be, but to do so it will necessarily no longer be an ethno-religious state.
I doubt it, Israel would nuke Iran before letting this happen.
I wouldn't put too much stock in any kayfabe between them.
What do you expect him to do? With or without any assistance, Israel has more than enough weapons completely annihilate Gaza. Don't forget that they likely have nuclear capabilities. Israel believes they are demonstrating restraint and this restraint is the first thing to go if Israel feels like it's being backed into a corner.
More public denouncement of what Israel is doing.
Get the Department of State to start sanctioning heads of state of Israel that are actively calling for a genocide.
He's effectively done nothing other than "handling it in private."
At least as much as Ronald Regan: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/08/12/A-shocked-and-outrag...
Or when Israel bombed Gaza two months after the previous cease fire: https://abcnews.go.com/International/israel-bombs-gaza-city-...
From the section of the ICJ ruling dealing with dehumanizing language used by Israeli officials:
> "I have released all restraints . . . You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals"
-- Mr Yoav Gallant, Defence Minister of Israel
From everything I’ve studied all super bombs (hydrogen fusion bombs) are also fission bombs. Since it is a chain of different kind of explosion stages that finally get the fusion reaction started.
First convention explosives then fission then fusion.
If they put it on Hamas, the radiation fallout would hit Israel pretty hard depending on winds.
It would fuck up Middle East in an awful way. Pretty much guarantee the Middle East Muslim countries ganging together to wipe out Israel completely.
Granted Hamas attacked them first but their actions give Jews worldwide a bad rep.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/09/biden-admini... 2. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-25/ty-article/.p... 3. https://www.voanews.com/a/us-aircraft-carrier-to-remain-in-m... 4. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-un-resolution...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-i-thought-israelis-would....
Apparently, those still supporting Biden will throw human lives under the bus for a more comfortable home life.
This is before October 7th, from September 2023. ‘ 2023 marks deadliest year on record for children in the occupied West Bank“
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/...
I absolutely 100% can imagine it. I would go so far as to characterise him as:
1) Pro-Israel:
> On December 6, 2017, the United States of America officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital city of the State of Israel. American president Donald Trump, who signed the presidential proclamation, also ordered the relocation of the American diplomatic mission to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv [...]. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the decision and praised the announcement by the Trump administration.
> Trump's decision was rejected by the vast majority of world leaders; the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on December 7, where 14 out of 15 members condemned it, but the motion was overturned by U.S. veto power.
2) Non-cooperative with Congress:
> The United States federal government shutdown from midnight EST on December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019 (35 days) was the longest government shutdown in history.
> The shutdown stemmed from an impasse over Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in federal funds for a U.S.–Mexico border wall.
3) Loving to go behind backs:
> Trump reportedly keeps finding a way to meet the Russian leader privately.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_J...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_State...
[3] https://www.vox.com/2019/1/29/18202515/trump-putin-russia-g2...
That was but a skirmish, they've been "at war" since the 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gaza#Israeli_contro...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
Any solution that "ignores all of the politics" is not a solution at all.
> evacuate the innocent people from Gaza
Evacuation and forced migration look awfully similar, and the latter is genocide. And how do you determine who is innocent?
> free and de-militarized
Not impossible, but extremely hard. Especially when their rival is heavily militarized. Is there any example in history of this besides Japan?
Gaza has a sizable coastline, and China has a large number of amphibious assault ships available. They can defend themselves against Israel air attacks. If China decides to send humanitarian relief to Gaza, China can do it, and Israel can't stop them.[3] China would look like the good guys. Which their leadership knows.
[1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-game-gaza
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-wa...
[3] https://www.newsweek.com/china-amphibious-assault-ship-type-...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/china-...
This would NEVER happen.
"At least two-thirds of the world’s top 50 container ports are owned by the Chinese or supported by Chinese investments, up from roughly 20% a decade ago."[1]
[1] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/experts-warn-of-chinas-inf...
This made me chuckle :-) "Let's dip our toes into solving international conflicts with an easy one, like the Israeli / Palestine conflict!"
I'm also unsure if this move would be seen well domestically. They have enough problems right now, and focusing resources on this doesn't sound like it would be met with high praise.
They would simply be stepping into the role on the world stage the US and other Western countries have fulfilled for the last few decades. Israel probably wouldn't be foolish enough to attack them, and their allies definitely wouldn't aid them.
And in the unlikely event Israel does attack their humanitarian convoy, it would only give China an opportunity to do some live-fire practice and score extra points on the world stage as the innocent defender.
China officially recognizes the state of Palestine.
The Isreali supreme court itself has determined that Gaza is not Isreali territory.
An Israeli court can say what it wants, but can't have it both ways.
The supreme court has jurisdiction over actions taken by the Isreali government, regardless of where those actions take place.
However, situations like this, in which rhetoric and de jure policy conflict with de facto reality, open one up to others taking the fiction at face value. And what do you do then? Can't deny it without causing other problems. So now this may be regarded as an international matter because Gaza "isn't part of Israel".
The line of thinking is that if Israel is subject to international courts/laws regarding genocide for its action, then China will be too. China's participation in judging Israel opens itself to the same judgement.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...
I don't see folks buying that, sorry. In international realpolitik you play the cards you have and if your rival opens themselves up for criticism you play it.
Rhetoric trumps logic in this one.
Does Israel have the stones for direct airstrike on Chinese fleet? It’s gonna get messy. It’s a big game of chicken, I am not sure who I would bet on.
Sorry but this is goofy fan-fiction. No, China does not have the ability to forcibly land in Gaza without huge losses, and then being completely trapped there with no hope of resupply. That's an incredibly long supply line.
Their only chance would be to make a bet that attacking them would be politically unacceptable.
Chinese warships will never be allowed anywhere near the Mediterranean in the first place - if there is one thing that even the split US Congress will agree on, it is that China already has too much influence and that they need to be stopped.
Additionally, China's army hasn't seen actual combat in a loooong time. It's likely that their army is in just as bad of a shape as Russia's is, and getting that demonstrated on the world stage before they have a chance to snack a piece or the whole of Taiwan would be pretty foolish.
There have been Chinese navy visits to the Mediterranean. You can sail in on international water. (Edit: Nope, it's to narrow)
"Chinese naval ships visit Morocco"
http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/CHINA_209163/Exchanges/News_20918...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You cannot get into the Mediterranean without passing through territorial waters.
Grabbing for straws: "Chinese naval escort taskforce visits Tunisia"
http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/CHINA_209163/TopStories_209189/79...
The United States has not ratified UNCLOS, and regularly claims the right of Transit Passage. In fact, this fact is one of the reasons why Iran claims that the United States cannot enter into Iranian TTW while making a Strait of Hormuz transit - because the US has not ratified UNCLOS, their claim is that the US cannot claim transit passage. For the United States (or any Western Nation) to make the claim that China cannot claim Transit Passage would lend weight to Iran's argument, which you can imagine, they would not want to do.
I do not want to make any assumptions around your specific views on this matter - you may hold the opinion that China could not claim transit passage, however I wanted to interject some perspective that:
1. That may not be universally agreed upon 2. Specifically, the United States and it's allies may not make that argument because it would put them in a negative position for other international disputes.
However, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by brokering some kind of peace using their supply chain supremacy.
Meanwhile US looks more and more like a paper tiger because they can't stop Yemen from blockading Israeli shipments and also refusing to do the one thing that would resolve the shipping issues: force Israel to the table for a ceasefire.
Additionally china's military currently has big corruption problems (e.g. the missle fuel water controversy). I doubt china really wants to put their reputation on the line until they sort that out, especially given what happened to russia in ukraine.
Israel could (and probably would) prevent the fleet from delivering the aid even without help from the US.
In support of your "If China decides to send humanitarian relief to Gaza, China can do it, and Israel can't stop them," you link to a description of a ship designed for an invasion of an island 85 miles off China's coast, an invasion which China (correctly IMO) calculates would probably end in failure (or else it would've invaded by now).
Israel can't challenge China militarily in, e.g., the Pacific, but it is a wealthy competent state that takes security seriously.
No, it didn't, that’s simply a lie.
It said that the pleadings were sufficient plausible and that conditions present a sufficient risk of irreparable harm to warrant provisional measures against Israel. It didn't say that there is no genocide, and it didn't say that there is a genocide.
The application for provisional measures it ruled on is analogous in the US system to a preliminary injunction, it enables the court to order measures judged necessary to prevent irreparable harm while a case is pending on the merits, and is not a ruling on the merits.
The case continues on the merits, which it would not if the court were already able to determine that no genocide took place. (And it wouldn't, in that case, order provisional measures.)
> and didn't demand a ceasefire or that Israel ends the war
This, OTOH, is true; the ICJ did not include in its provisional measures against Israel a demand for Israel to cease all military operations.
It may change, but CURRENTLY, it does not think there's sufficient evidence to rule in favour of provisional measures, i.e., it does not think there is a genocide.
Resorting to legalese isn't changing this fact.
False, it ruled that provisional measures against Israel were warranted and adopted four provisional measures against Israel by 15-2 vote, and two by 16-1 vote (the latter including the Israeli judge ad hoc in the majority.)
What was asked from Israel is to continue its commitment to the genocide charter, update the court on aid Israel is letting into Gaza, and prosecute in Israeli courts people that call for genocide.
They didn't ask for anything about anyone arresting Israeli officials (who mostly would be in Israel, not Gaza), they asked for non-interference with international agencies entering Gaza for fact-finding and evidence preservation. Specifically, they asked:
The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; to that end, the State of Israel shall not act to deny or otherwise restrict access by fact-finding missions, international mandates and other bodies to Gaza to assist in ensuring the preservation and retention of said evidence.
But on that topic the court ordered:
The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip;
Dang, everything I listed is widely reported on. I think I have the right to express this even on HN on an article about a genocide case.
You can find anything from driving tanks over families with children, crushing them to death, and surviving children describing the ordeal, to videos of 9 year old being executed by a shot to the head in the street, to teenagers throwing fireworks and being shot and then finished off while laying on the ground. (in the west bank, even)
As for shooting people holding white flags, even CNN did a feature on that.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/hala-khreis-white-...
Or the story of the church lady:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/family-remembers-cheris...
And there's an interview with the son somewhere (the person that is seen running to the woman in the end). I lost the link already, since there's a constant stream of new attrocities on Telegram, and there's no point keeping up.
Killing of white flag wavers: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-palestinian-israel-w...
White flag: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-palestinian-israel-w... (there is more than one instance of this)
Poison gas is a claim from the family of a dead hostage. They said the pathology report of the death indicated poison gas was being used to clear tunnels. So not confirmed. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-01-22/ty-arti...
Destroying schools: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/how-israel-has-dest...
Everything else, including these, are pretty easily searchable if you desire to learn more. I’m phone posting so sorry if this is messy.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/16/israeli-authorities-cutt...
I'm curious what people in Tel Aviv see in media. In America, it's wall-to-wall "police say"-like IDF clips and Bill Maher condemnation, dehumanization, and equivocating Palestine supporters with Hamas terrorists. The talking heads cheerfully greet Netanyahu.
As someone who also consumes US news, this does not describe what I’ve seen.
NPR also frequently talked about the right wing/nationalist power seizures leading up to this.
Before the war, I think a good number of Americans saw Israel blowing up the Associated Press offices. It hardly matters what the excuse was.
I feel like every week I've heard a story about Israel telling Gazans where to go, and then bombing that location.
I'm not sure I saw any news outlet that didn't report 70% women and children casualties, which pretty much speaks for itself.
Nobody I went to college with supports Israel at all. Genocide Joe is not just used by his oponents. That name didn't come out of nowhere. Many of the people who voted for him agree his genocidal support of Israel is unacceptable.