This is just one of an endless string of lies from Israel. Hind Rajab? World Central Kitchen? and many others that we don't know about. They even shot their own hostages waving white flags. Their first reaction is to lie, and if they get caught they say they will investigate. How can anyone believe them anymore, and how can anyone expect their investigation to lead to full accountability and prevention of future incidents? It just baffles me.
Hamas filmed the rapes using GoPro cameras. Families of the murdered women don't approve their publication. I recommend reading the UK October 7 Parliamentary Commision Report [1]. A relevant passage on page 131 states:
> The United Nations Report on Sexual Violence found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that “sexual violence occurred in Kibbutz Re’im, including rape.” The rape of women happened on Route 232, “outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of Kibbutz Re’im, which was corroborated by witness testimonies and digital material.
Just to summarize and being conservative with interpretation of events :
- On 23 March, IDF ambushes a convoy of 5 ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle responding to a distress call.
- 15 paramedics and aid workers are massacred. There is 1 survivor.
- Israel buries the bodies in shallow graves along with ambulances and the the fire truck and bulldoze over the site. This is picked up by satellite imagery.
- Israel blocks access to the area and refuses to cooperate with agencies trying to find & recover the bodies.
- The IDF and Israeli foreign minister claims that the vehicles were "advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals" and it eliminated "a hamas military terrorist ... who took part in the October 7 attack" and "eight other terrorists" from Hamas and PIJ .
- Lone survivor gives own account contradicting Israeli's version of events.
- The mass grave and bodies are uncovered on 30th March. A smartphone with the relevant footage is found among the remains.
- Smartphone footage recovered repudiates all of Israel claims and corroborates the survivor's account. That the emergency vehicles had their emergency lights and headlights on, many of the workers were wearing high-viz jackets. No weapons, or terrorists or IDF in sight.
- None of the names of the victims match the names of the "terrorists" given by Israel. The "hamas October 7 terrorist" is also not among the bodies.
- Israel "admits" it "made a mistake" and is "investigating".
Looking at the headlines and articles, I have to say that the BBC and the western media outlets did a better job burying the lede than Israel did, burying the bodies.
The language the media uses when reporting on israel vs. how it is reporting the atrocities in Palestine is very telling. We've seen it time and time again. They use passive form a lot of the time when reporting on Palestine (e.g. 20 children have died) vs (20 children have been killed by israel).
It didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
> The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) insists at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas - but has so far provided no evidence. It admits they were unarmed when the soldiers opened fire.
They really are pivoting to "these unarmed medics we shot without identifying them deserved it".
If we want to collectively punish people who voted for (or whose election resulted in the rule of) a bunch of fucking morons, well... I have some bad news for US citizens...
>If we want to collectively punish people who voted for (or whose election resulted in the rule of) a bunch of fucking morons, well... I have some bad news for US citizens...
I've seen comments unironically arguing for collective punishments when it came to the US, and they're at least popular enough that they don't show up as gray/[flagged].
The real news is how anyone would believe that Israel says the truth about anything at all.
The real news is how the BBC, Guardian, NYP and all mainstream media repeats and amplifies israeli discourse taking it at face value as objective truth
The incident had already garnered international attention since it involved workers of multiple international agencies. The footage was in the hands of the International Red Cross and the and the UN and was about to be presented at the UN council. There was no way to cover it up at this point. All that remains was about who gets the scoop, salvaging whatever credibility that remains while controlling the narrative.
Gotta love character assassination by screenshot, but I guess that's "cancel culture" for you.
A quick google doesn't support your assertion that he made those comments on "their" (BBC's) social media. And for me "a journalist they've worked with" doesn't equal "one of their correspondents".
But oh well, it's the age of emotions overriding our judgements, the question is, who's doing more of that between the 2 of us.
And your "general thread" is inaccessible since it requires making an account on a Nazi website...
You mean 'judging people by their own published thoughts'.
> A quick google doesn't support your assertion that he made those comments on "their" (BBC's) social media.
That wasn't the allegation in the comment you are responding to. Rather the allegation was that someone the BBC hired hates Jewish people, as shown on the person's social media.
> making an account on a Nazi website...
I thought really hard about engaging with you after you discussed this conspiracy theory but thought I may as well correct your post in case anyone didn't see what you were doing. This will be my last post in the thread. Seek help.
We have video footage of Israeli soldiers sniping a 12-year old boy setting off fireworks near the west-bank wall. To those asking "How do we know if it was IDF that shot the boy" there is video footage of Israeli security minister congratulating and praisingthe shooter. [1]
We have video footage of IDF raping prisoners[2] and we have footage of one of the rapists being treated like a celebrity and getting standing ovations on Israeli national tv [3][4].
If i had to list all the video footage just from the last 18 months alone, i would be here all day and it would likely ruin your day. If anyone has still not woken up to the reality of what Israel is, its not for lack of video footage.
Is this a cabal of Jews trying to hide the truth? (no, it is not).
Or is it that the atrocity isn’t highly relevant to discuss on a hacker news thread, and also hard to have people follow HN Guidelines? (Much more likely explanation)
> Or is it that the atrocity isn’t highly relevant to discuss on a hacker news thread, and also hard to have people follow HN Guidelines? (Much more likely explanation)
The guidelines themselves say posts should be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
No I don't think it's a cabal of Jews, but I've seen posts get flagged for being critical of YC or OpenAI, and just a few days ago PG's essay got flagged seemingly just for vague references to the current political climate. There are clearly people using the flagging system to take down posts they don't like and it's always justified with "the post was off topic" even though there are no objective rules for what is on topic.
Israel absolutely employs individuals and idf members online to push their agendas and attempt to push back against the negative media being reported against them. Even western news sources reported on it.
As long as a substantial number of christians consider Israel a divine-ordained country, there will not be any repercussions for any crime they commit.
The Bible contains literal instructions for genocide, and many Christians bemoan anci nt Israel for not following those instructions to the letter.
In any case, it doesn't matter much. Of course in a democracy if you want something to happen you need to convince a lot of people (maybe not a majority but a lot). It's called propaganda. The fact that there's a lot of people that are enthusiastic about advancing the interests of another country is probably just the effect of some very effective propaganda originating from the actual beneficiaries.
Reception of propaganda is contrary to the essence of democracy, relying on a rational citizen able to critically weight different viewpoints and cut trough the worst of bias where propaganda thrives.
In a democracy, propaganda works, because of weak democratic implementation. If democracy is an ideal able to be realized, it would protect against that.
The burden is on the shoulders of the citizens, culture and state. Without education in the sense of critical thinking, intelligence isn't developed enough to establish democratic structures.
Herzl’s zionism is simply a belief that Jewish people should buy land and live in their ancestral homeland.
He wasn’t orthodox, didn’t believe God promised anything to anyone, didn’t speak Hebrew, but after the Dreyfuss affair (usual racist fake accusation BS) started to petition Rothschild (he was denied) and then other wealthier Jewish people with more success to start buying sand dunes and swamplands for Jewish families to return to Israel.
Herzl is definitely worth either reading or just studying for HN, the books are short and to the point, they dispel a lot of myths one gets from the media, and starting a country is a fairly ambitious project worth studying for any founder.
He also said that Jews should only hire other Jews.
If I was a politician that advocated Britain is for the British, and that whites should only hire other whites so that minorities have to leave due to economic pressure, how would you view me?
My own personal beliefs aren’t really relevant to the topic.
To answer the question anyway: Jewish and British and French and Arabs and Ghanaians and Balinese may want to hire their own, but there’s a certain point where the rubber hits the road and you may find someone outside the group with the skills or contacts you need.
My point is that you're presenting Herzl as if all he wanted was to legally purchase land for a Jewish state. But you left out that he advocated systemic racial discrimination to coerce another group to leave. I'm trying to ask if this would color your previously neutral and benign characterization of him.
> he advocated systemic racial discrimination to coerce another group to leave
When? You haven't made that point, only discussed that Herzl said Jewish people should hire other Jewish people, which is common among all groups of people, fairly benign and was almost universal in the past.
As mentioned in the comment you wrote your reply to, this is incredibly common, was even more common at the time, and it’s not at all clear that the intent was to make others leave - Herzl’s main writings about Arabs living in the area was to make them rich.
>Herzl’s zionism is simply a belief that Jewish people should buy land and live in their ancestral homeland.
Right...
"We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country ... The removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - diaryentry from Herzl's diary 1895
> He wasn’t orthodox, didn’t believe God promised anything to anyone
Back then, most of the Orthodox were anti-zionists.
I dont know why you brought up Herzl anyway, since he died in 1905 and was not as representative of the modern state of Israel as compared to its other founders like David Ben-Gurion, David Ben-Gurion, and Yitzhak Shamir.
Suppose that they do - why is this the only area where they have had such astounding success? The closest they've come elsewhere is bans on abortion, where their victories are limited and intermittent, and the occasional transgender bathroom ban. The persecution of Christians abroad [1] doesn't even show up on their radar.
From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith.
> From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith.
It is for dispensationalists. Of course, that heresy only popped up a couple hundred years ago and goes against what Christians have always believed, that the Church is the New Israel, not some modern state.
>
From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith
For some, it is their primary goal. They think the end times are near, and by escalating the conflict they hope to make it happen as soon as possible.
They support Israel because the Bible says that those that bless Israel is blessed. On the other hand, they think only some Christians will survive the end times, so any non-christians (jews included) that are hurt, doesn't really matter. It's just collateral damage in a holy war.
It is one of the reasons why this conflict is so special for many.
This is not a conspiracy, but a minority of evangelical Christians with access to lots of money that pays lobbyists. They don't even try to hide it, and you can read about this from traditional news sources that has covered this for years.
Its more complicated isn't it. People can be favourable towards one side in a conflict without fully identifying with their goals. And they can be sympathetic to people without fully supporting the nation or its institutions.
My guess is that the global political elite are a small social circle of wealthy powerful people. And that if an action is socially acceptable within that group then it has little cost in the real world. It is not a conspiracy or anything or an evil plot. It is just how people behave.
Don't care about the war but there some weird tribal dynamics going on in this conflict that I find fascinating
This forum being basically being the h1b aspirant phpbb I'd expect more pro-israel sentiment from our indian cohorts like on other platforms-- but they overwhelmingly seem to be pro-palestinian here. I suppose the typical rss hindutva pro-israel accounts we see allover the rest of the internet might be lower class indians while ycombinator selects for more california-aligned values and gets more international ones with the precooked contemporary neoliberal value-set?
Once all the people of Gaza are dead, what those soldiers are going to do? They are built as soulless killing machine. They will start killing their allies.
Is this really a “fight to the death”? Hamas already accepted a cease fire. In fact it seems that only the Israelis want a “fight to the death”, given that they broke the cease fire and seem to have no intention of resuming negotiations. Given the extreme disparity in military capabilities between Hamas and the IDF, and the extreme disparity in casualties, are the Israelis really fighting to the death? Or are they just engaging in indiscriminate killing?
In no modern times did one side complete erase the other side. Hell, even 2000 years ago many regular romans were disgusted by the brutality of roman soldiers against Carthage.
Israeli violence is unprecedented in several objective metrics: in pounds of bumbs dropped, percentage of civilians death, percentage of civilian household destroyed (on par with Dresden now).
How do you rectify the simultaneous feelings that arise from knowing that Israel is shooting innocent civilians and knowing that Hamas uses ambulances to carry out missions?
Am I the only one aware of this? Everyone else seems to be blind in one eye...
Not trying to defend Hamas, but is there any actual proof of this? Or is it just based on Israel's statements (which has been found to lie repeatedly)?
Sure, you can reframe it to leave out Israeli news sources.
There is ample footage online of fighting between the two, and Hamas fighters don't wear uniforms. Which fits with Hamas fighting right out of the guerilla warfare playbook.
So it can be reframed as "How do you reconcile Israel killing innocent civilians with the fact the the main way to tell if they are innocent is whether or not they had a gun in their hands when killed?"
> the main way to tell if they are innocent is whether or not they had a gun in their hands when killed?
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that it's ok for the IDF to kill anyone they see because they cannot assess if they're a threat or not? Was it hard to see that this grandmother¹ with her grandson is not a militant trying to attack the IDF?
My point is very clear: Hamas purposely doesn't issue uniforms (they are extremely wealthy, so it's not like they cannot afford it) in order to muddy the waters between civilian and combatant. Put another way: Hamas's choice camouflage is "Civilian attire".
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not talking about war crimes like you brought up, I'm talking about general combat between the two sides, like you can see in the gazillions of videos posted (both by Israeli sources and Palestinian sources).
Thanks for explaining. I think the answer to your question lies in the fact that Hamas is not a regular army. They're fighting an army that has the most advanced weapons and tech on the planet, and they can't put a target on their back while moving around. This has been the case throughout history when the indigenous resistance fights a mighty colonial army.
Israel has the intelligence and capability to pin point their targets and deploy high precision targeting, as demonstrated in Lebanon and Iran. After seeing so many war crimes committed by the IDF, I'm convinced that while they can assess and eliminate targets in a precise fashion, thus minimizing civilan casualties, they deliberately _choose_ not to do so.
>Thanks for explaining. I think the answer to your question lies in the fact that Hamas is not a regular army. They're fighting an army that has the most advanced weapons and tech on the planet, and they can't put a target on their back while moving around. This has been the case throughout history when the indigenous resistance fights a mighty colonial army.
I just don't see how that makes it ok to camouflage as civilians. If Hamas cannot take on Israel, then the war is lost and it's better to go to the table and take what you can get rather than let your whole population die while staving off the inevitable.
Japan was in a similar situation in WW2, where they armed the populace (men and women) and gave them basic instruction on how to fight. This was in preparation for a land invasion, and the emperor was ready to sacrifice as many civilians as it took to protect his empire.
But the bombs dropped, they went to the table (knowing they would get bent), and avoided mass death of Japanese civilian "soldiers".
Unrelated to the above discussion but, not justfies it, it's still wrong.
But a poor hungry person is a lot more likely to commit a crime of opportunity that feeds them and their family than a well of, well fed person.
Maybe you are actually agreeing with me.
My view, as a neutral observer to the Hamas / IDF debate is they are both wrong and you would ( inclusive you not you specifically ) would probably do the same... Cough Afghanistan etc...
I'm actually making the argument that people should be held more accountable for solving problems the more power they have.
It's easy to say "both sides" committed immoral actions, but that doesn't really get us anywhere useful, other than perhaps some moral superiority.
If we want to actually solve problems, i.e. prevent those bad things from happening in the future, the practical suggestion is to start with those people who have the most power to effect change.
This is just one of an endless string of lies from Israel. Hind Rajab? World Central Kitchen? and many others that we don't know about. They even shot their own hostages waving white flags. Their first reaction is to lie, and if they get caught they say they will investigate. How can anyone believe them anymore, and how can anyone expect their investigation to lead to full accountability and prevention of future incidents? It just baffles me.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
Let's not forget the 40 beheaded babies hoax and the mass rape hoax.
Hamas filmed the rapes using GoPro cameras. Families of the murdered women don't approve their publication. I recommend reading the UK October 7 Parliamentary Commision Report [1]. A relevant passage on page 131 states:
> The United Nations Report on Sexual Violence found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that “sexual violence occurred in Kibbutz Re’im, including rape.” The rape of women happened on Route 232, “outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of Kibbutz Re’im, which was corroborated by witness testimonies and digital material.
[1] https://www.7octparliamentarycommission.co.uk/?s=09
[flagged]
Where is the material? "reasonable grounds" is not evidence. I'll just leave this here from the same report[1][2][3]
But the world did see how Palestinian prisoners were raped in prisons.
[1] https://imgur.com/a/TmKGadc [2] https://imgur.com/a/C6bsMp7 [3] https://imgur.com/a/ADsmgWy
Note the words "corroborated by [...] digital material" (emphasis added).
Given the consistent lies we are seeing by them, this cannot be accepted as is. I posted material from the same report you are citing.
The quotes in the imgur link do not come up in the report when you use ctrl-f.
This is the UN report (the one you linked to is the UK report). You'll find the quotes there.
https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploa...
Just to summarize and being conservative with interpretation of events :
- Israel "admits" it "made a mistake" and is "investigating".Looking at the headlines and articles, I have to say that the BBC and the western media outlets did a better job burying the lede than Israel did, burying the bodies.
"Appears to contradict" is a euphemism. The footage clearly shows the IDF initial account was a complete lie.
The language the media uses when reporting on israel vs. how it is reporting the atrocities in Palestine is very telling. We've seen it time and time again. They use passive form a lot of the time when reporting on Palestine (e.g. 20 children have died) vs (20 children have been killed by israel).
It didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0xp969n69o
> The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) insists at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas - but has so far provided no evidence. It admits they were unarmed when the soldiers opened fire.
They really are pivoting to "these unarmed medics we shot without identifying them deserved it".
[flagged]
Bull Burr said it best about human shields: https://www.youtube.com/v/t-mMt3c3ngQ
If we want to collectively punish people who voted for (or whose election resulted in the rule of) a bunch of fucking morons, well... I have some bad news for US citizens...
>If we want to collectively punish people who voted for (or whose election resulted in the rule of) a bunch of fucking morons, well... I have some bad news for US citizens...
I've seen comments unironically arguing for collective punishments when it came to the US, and they're at least popular enough that they don't show up as gray/[flagged].
When considering the Israel - Palestinian conflict, remember that the median age in Gaza is 18.
A large chunk of Gaza are children. 43% of the population are below 14 years old.
For comparison, the median age in Europe is 40.
The users you replied to are pointing out a simple fact that the Israeli govt lied, it is only you who is moralizing about anything.
The Israeli government may have been lied to by a radicalised IDF commander. I assume it's at least a squad required to do what's in the video.
Fairly certain the logic is applied to the other side, just not in this article due to the lack of relevance.
The real news is how anyone would believe that Israel says the truth about anything at all.
The real news is how the BBC, Guardian, NYP and all mainstream media repeats and amplifies israeli discourse taking it at face value as objective truth
Are you sure you're not reading quotes that are provided with attritbution and mistaking them for an assertion of fact?
BBC, Guardian, and NYT have all reported on this footage.
The incident had already garnered international attention since it involved workers of multiple international agencies. The footage was in the hands of the International Red Cross and the and the UN and was about to be presented at the UN council. There was no way to cover it up at this point. All that remains was about who gets the scoop, salvaging whatever credibility that remains while controlling the narrative.
[flagged]
Gotta love character assassination by screenshot, but I guess that's "cancel culture" for you.
A quick google doesn't support your assertion that he made those comments on "their" (BBC's) social media. And for me "a journalist they've worked with" doesn't equal "one of their correspondents".
But oh well, it's the age of emotions overriding our judgements, the question is, who's doing more of that between the 2 of us.
And your "general thread" is inaccessible since it requires making an account on a Nazi website...
> character assassination by screenshot
You mean 'judging people by their own published thoughts'.
> A quick google doesn't support your assertion that he made those comments on "their" (BBC's) social media.
That wasn't the allegation in the comment you are responding to. Rather the allegation was that someone the BBC hired hates Jewish people, as shown on the person's social media.
> making an account on a Nazi website...
I thought really hard about engaging with you after you discussed this conspiracy theory but thought I may as well correct your post in case anyone didn't see what you were doing. This will be my last post in the thread. Seek help.
We have video footage of Israeli soldiers pulling the pin and tossing live grenades over the West Bank wall. [1] There is no “appears” about it.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KCw6Lff5XcU
We have video footage of Israeli soldiers sniping a 12-year old boy setting off fireworks near the west-bank wall. To those asking "How do we know if it was IDF that shot the boy" there is video footage of Israeli security minister congratulating and praisingthe shooter. [1]
We have video footage of IDF raping prisoners[2] and we have footage of one of the rapists being treated like a celebrity and getting standing ovations on Israeli national tv [3][4].
If i had to list all the video footage just from the last 18 months alone, i would be here all day and it would likely ruin your day. If anyone has still not woken up to the reality of what Israel is, its not for lack of video footage.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBkNDNj05XA [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2024/aug/08/israeli-... [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNWxLz6_ME [4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNWxLz6_ME
tear gas grenades for dispersing crowd
This is called "Hasbara". Israeli for "Lie like the devil, boldly and always."
They've have used it constantly. Lately they have increased their budget so that influencer spread they lies.
Israel is a terrorist state and should be treated as one.
This will get flagged off the front page in a couple hours
It was flagged already at one point and got vouched back.
Question is, why?
Yes, but why?
Is this a cabal of Jews trying to hide the truth? (no, it is not).
Or is it that the atrocity isn’t highly relevant to discuss on a hacker news thread, and also hard to have people follow HN Guidelines? (Much more likely explanation)
> Or is it that the atrocity isn’t highly relevant to discuss on a hacker news thread, and also hard to have people follow HN Guidelines? (Much more likely explanation)
The guidelines themselves say posts should be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
No I don't think it's a cabal of Jews, but I've seen posts get flagged for being critical of YC or OpenAI, and just a few days ago PG's essay got flagged seemingly just for vague references to the current political climate. There are clearly people using the flagging system to take down posts they don't like and it's always justified with "the post was off topic" even though there are no objective rules for what is on topic.
Israel absolutely employs individuals and idf members online to push their agendas and attempt to push back against the negative media being reported against them. Even western news sources reported on it.
As long as a substantial number of christians consider Israel a divine-ordained country, there will not be any repercussions for any crime they commit.
The Bible contains literal instructions for genocide, and many Christians bemoan anci nt Israel for not following those instructions to the letter.
Only 8% of Americans have a positive impression of Zionism [1]. Whatever is driving US support for Israel, it's not the will of the people.
[1] Figure 2, "What is your impression of Zionism?", https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-do-americans-feel-abo...
This survey also shows ~80% of those polled to have an impression of one of:
* neither positive or negative
* don't know, or
* unfamiliar
If you look for surveys that ask about support for Israel directly, you will get significantly different numbers.
In any case, it doesn't matter much. Of course in a democracy if you want something to happen you need to convince a lot of people (maybe not a majority but a lot). It's called propaganda. The fact that there's a lot of people that are enthusiastic about advancing the interests of another country is probably just the effect of some very effective propaganda originating from the actual beneficiaries.
Reception of propaganda is contrary to the essence of democracy, relying on a rational citizen able to critically weight different viewpoints and cut trough the worst of bias where propaganda thrives.
In a democracy, propaganda works, because of weak democratic implementation. If democracy is an ideal able to be realized, it would protect against that.
The burden is on the shoulders of the citizens, culture and state. Without education in the sense of critical thinking, intelligence isn't developed enough to establish democratic structures.
Herzl’s zionism is simply a belief that Jewish people should buy land and live in their ancestral homeland.
He wasn’t orthodox, didn’t believe God promised anything to anyone, didn’t speak Hebrew, but after the Dreyfuss affair (usual racist fake accusation BS) started to petition Rothschild (he was denied) and then other wealthier Jewish people with more success to start buying sand dunes and swamplands for Jewish families to return to Israel.
Herzl is definitely worth either reading or just studying for HN, the books are short and to the point, they dispel a lot of myths one gets from the media, and starting a country is a fairly ambitious project worth studying for any founder.
He also said that Jews should only hire other Jews.
If I was a politician that advocated Britain is for the British, and that whites should only hire other whites so that minorities have to leave due to economic pressure, how would you view me?
Or is this wrong?
My own personal beliefs aren’t really relevant to the topic.
To answer the question anyway: Jewish and British and French and Arabs and Ghanaians and Balinese may want to hire their own, but there’s a certain point where the rubber hits the road and you may find someone outside the group with the skills or contacts you need.
My point is that you're presenting Herzl as if all he wanted was to legally purchase land for a Jewish state. But you left out that he advocated systemic racial discrimination to coerce another group to leave. I'm trying to ask if this would color your previously neutral and benign characterization of him.
> he advocated systemic racial discrimination to coerce another group to leave
When? You haven't made that point, only discussed that Herzl said Jewish people should hire other Jewish people, which is common among all groups of people, fairly benign and was almost universal in the past.
That is by definition systemic racial discrimination. This isn't hard to understand.
As mentioned in the comment you wrote your reply to, this is incredibly common, was even more common at the time, and it’s not at all clear that the intent was to make others leave - Herzl’s main writings about Arabs living in the area was to make them rich.
>Herzl’s zionism is simply a belief that Jewish people should buy land and live in their ancestral homeland.
Right...
"We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country ... The removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - diaryentry from Herzl's diary 1895
> He wasn’t orthodox, didn’t believe God promised anything to anyone
Back then, most of the Orthodox were anti-zionists.
I dont know why you brought up Herzl anyway, since he died in 1905 and was not as representative of the modern state of Israel as compared to its other founders like David Ben-Gurion, David Ben-Gurion, and Yitzhak Shamir.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/03/israel1
Sure, but conservative Christians do have disproportionate influence on politics ... and they believe these.
Suppose that they do - why is this the only area where they have had such astounding success? The closest they've come elsewhere is bans on abortion, where their victories are limited and intermittent, and the occasional transgender bathroom ban. The persecution of Christians abroad [1] doesn't even show up on their radar.
From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_t...
> From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith.
It is for dispensationalists. Of course, that heresy only popped up a couple hundred years ago and goes against what Christians have always believed, that the Church is the New Israel, not some modern state.
> From this behavior, one would think support for Israel was the central pillar of the Christian faith
For some, it is their primary goal. They think the end times are near, and by escalating the conflict they hope to make it happen as soon as possible.
They support Israel because the Bible says that those that bless Israel is blessed. On the other hand, they think only some Christians will survive the end times, so any non-christians (jews included) that are hurt, doesn't really matter. It's just collateral damage in a holy war.
It is one of the reasons why this conflict is so special for many.
This is not a conspiracy, but a minority of evangelical Christians with access to lots of money that pays lobbyists. They don't even try to hide it, and you can read about this from traditional news sources that has covered this for years.
Its more complicated isn't it. People can be favourable towards one side in a conflict without fully identifying with their goals. And they can be sympathetic to people without fully supporting the nation or its institutions.
My guess is that the global political elite are a small social circle of wealthy powerful people. And that if an action is socially acceptable within that group then it has little cost in the real world. It is not a conspiracy or anything or an evil plot. It is just how people behave.
Don't care about the war but there some weird tribal dynamics going on in this conflict that I find fascinating
This forum being basically being the h1b aspirant phpbb I'd expect more pro-israel sentiment from our indian cohorts like on other platforms-- but they overwhelmingly seem to be pro-palestinian here. I suppose the typical rss hindutva pro-israel accounts we see allover the rest of the internet might be lower class indians while ycombinator selects for more california-aligned values and gets more international ones with the precooked contemporary neoliberal value-set?
Not a war but genocide, it will be war when gazan people get billions of dollars in bombs.
We’re way off repercussions territory. Trump just cut the leash and let the foxes run wild.
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Once all the people of Gaza are dead, what those soldiers are going to do? They are built as soulless killing machine. They will start killing their allies.
I often wonder why people have such high expectations from anyone during a fight to the death.
In all other times, one aide would have completely erased the other side. Yet, here we are, the Palestinians have yet to surrender.
None of the Arab countries that fooled the Palestinians into believing that they will one day be liberated want them.
Is this really a “fight to the death”? Hamas already accepted a cease fire. In fact it seems that only the Israelis want a “fight to the death”, given that they broke the cease fire and seem to have no intention of resuming negotiations. Given the extreme disparity in military capabilities between Hamas and the IDF, and the extreme disparity in casualties, are the Israelis really fighting to the death? Or are they just engaging in indiscriminate killing?
Wait, "follow the Geneva Conventions" is high expectations?
In no modern times did one side complete erase the other side. Hell, even 2000 years ago many regular romans were disgusted by the brutality of roman soldiers against Carthage.
Israeli violence is unprecedented in several objective metrics: in pounds of bumbs dropped, percentage of civilians death, percentage of civilian household destroyed (on par with Dresden now).
Odd, all the sources I’ve read have the lowest civilian to combatant death ratio of any modern conflict.
on the Israeli side I’m guessing
It’s genuinely hard to get non-Hamas numbers, if you do take the Hamas numbers, they constantly shift wildly in both directions.
An example: https://www.euronews.com/2025/04/03/hamas-run-health-ministr...
How do you rectify the simultaneous feelings that arise from knowing that Israel is shooting innocent civilians and knowing that Hamas uses ambulances to carry out missions?
Am I the only one aware of this? Everyone else seems to be blind in one eye...
> Hamas uses ambulances to carry out missions
Not trying to defend Hamas, but is there any actual proof of this? Or is it just based on Israel's statements (which has been found to lie repeatedly)?
Sure, you can reframe it to leave out Israeli news sources.
There is ample footage online of fighting between the two, and Hamas fighters don't wear uniforms. Which fits with Hamas fighting right out of the guerilla warfare playbook.
So it can be reframed as "How do you reconcile Israel killing innocent civilians with the fact the the main way to tell if they are innocent is whether or not they had a gun in their hands when killed?"
> the main way to tell if they are innocent is whether or not they had a gun in their hands when killed?
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that it's ok for the IDF to kill anyone they see because they cannot assess if they're a threat or not? Was it hard to see that this grandmother¹ with her grandson is not a militant trying to attack the IDF?
¹https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/01/25/palestinians-gaz...
My point is very clear: Hamas purposely doesn't issue uniforms (they are extremely wealthy, so it's not like they cannot afford it) in order to muddy the waters between civilian and combatant. Put another way: Hamas's choice camouflage is "Civilian attire".
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not talking about war crimes like you brought up, I'm talking about general combat between the two sides, like you can see in the gazillions of videos posted (both by Israeli sources and Palestinian sources).
Thanks for explaining. I think the answer to your question lies in the fact that Hamas is not a regular army. They're fighting an army that has the most advanced weapons and tech on the planet, and they can't put a target on their back while moving around. This has been the case throughout history when the indigenous resistance fights a mighty colonial army.
Israel has the intelligence and capability to pin point their targets and deploy high precision targeting, as demonstrated in Lebanon and Iran. After seeing so many war crimes committed by the IDF, I'm convinced that while they can assess and eliminate targets in a precise fashion, thus minimizing civilan casualties, they deliberately _choose_ not to do so.
>Thanks for explaining. I think the answer to your question lies in the fact that Hamas is not a regular army. They're fighting an army that has the most advanced weapons and tech on the planet, and they can't put a target on their back while moving around. This has been the case throughout history when the indigenous resistance fights a mighty colonial army.
I just don't see how that makes it ok to camouflage as civilians. If Hamas cannot take on Israel, then the war is lost and it's better to go to the table and take what you can get rather than let your whole population die while staving off the inevitable.
Japan was in a similar situation in WW2, where they armed the populace (men and women) and gave them basic instruction on how to fight. This was in preparation for a land invasion, and the emperor was ready to sacrifice as many civilians as it took to protect his empire.
But the bombs dropped, they went to the table (knowing they would get bent), and avoided mass death of Japanese civilian "soldiers".
> it's better to go to the table and take what you can get rather than let your whole population die while staving off the inevitable.
They did. Israel broke the ceasefire agreement for no reason.
Dunno, which side has more power?
I'm confused. Are you making an argument that relative lack of power justifies immoral actions?
I.e. "My family is starving, I have less money than others, so it's ok for me to steal bread" (hat tip to Jean Valjean).
Just curious about your perspective.
Unrelated to the above discussion but, not justfies it, it's still wrong.
But a poor hungry person is a lot more likely to commit a crime of opportunity that feeds them and their family than a well of, well fed person.
Maybe you are actually agreeing with me.
My view, as a neutral observer to the Hamas / IDF debate is they are both wrong and you would ( inclusive you not you specifically ) would probably do the same... Cough Afghanistan etc...
Gaza has an incredibly high obesity rate, over 4K calories a day per capita, and it’s Hamas that stockpiles food not Israel.
I'm actually making the argument that people should be held more accountable for solving problems the more power they have.
It's easy to say "both sides" committed immoral actions, but that doesn't really get us anywhere useful, other than perhaps some moral superiority.
If we want to actually solve problems, i.e. prevent those bad things from happening in the future, the practical suggestion is to start with those people who have the most power to effect change.
So, "with great power comes great responsibility".
That's a concept I've believed in since Stan Lee illustrated it so beautifully to me as a child.
I'm not qualified to engage in serious ethics debates, and I'm definitely not qualified to hold an opinion on anything going on in the middle east.
Watching the news and scrolling social media in no way prepares me to understand the deep and complex issues of the region.
I was just curious about your perspective. Thanks for explaining.