Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-concludes-israel-guilty-genocide-gaza

by Qem • 10 months ago

1415 860 10 months ago

middleeasteye.net

Full report: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...

jenders• 10 months ago

This is not tech related and does not belong on hacker news

a_paddy2• 10 months ago

This is a genocide.

Qem4• 10 months ago

A tech-enabled one.

tchbnl• 10 months ago

Sure it does, if enough users find this interesting to them. I for one find this interesting.

omnicognate• 10 months ago

This is politics and therefore probably off-topic for hn. It not being tech-related is irrelevant.

An argument could be made that it is an "interesting new phenomenon", but the post is most likely to result in tedious flamewars regardless and so should probably be killed.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Theodores• 10 months ago

I would agree with you if we were in 1994 and this was about Rwanda.

Those tower blocks in Gaza that were felled on the anniversary of 9/11 were not taken down with machetes. We have got AI assisted targeting going on, with all of your favourite cloud service providers delivering value to their shareholders thanks to sales to the IDF.

The corporation that once had 'don't be evil' as their mission statement are suckling on the IDF teat along with Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.

cnlevy7• 10 months ago

Israel: Surrender or we'll destroy your city Hamas: Only if you let us rebuild and prepare the next war Israel: Starts destroying the city by bombing emptied buildings, these having received warning from Israel beforehand UN: Oh look, a genocide

buyucu4• 10 months ago

I find it interesting and worth talking about.

speakfreely• 10 months ago

I generally find HN discussions pretty interesting, but this particular topic seems to just be two groups who have zero chance of changing their minds hurling misinformation and propaganda at each other.

yieldcrv7• 10 months ago

Useless except if the following done on the US side:

Remove exception to AIPAC political status

Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely

Replicate EO 14046 for Israel which adds the entire ruling party and head of state and spouses and military and affiliated business to the OFAC list

all of this is easy and doesn’t require Congress

but nobody is close to considering those actions with regard to Israel. Notably, other nation’s organizations do not enjoy this courtesy

(Don’t sorry guys, Hamas is already on these lists too)

therobots9279• 10 months ago

Voters can take a stand and refuse to vote for anyone complicit in this atrocity.

imglorp2• 10 months ago

In the US, both parties were supportive in the last election. Not many choices.

margalabargala3• 10 months ago

They tried that last November and wound up worse off than if they hadn't.

jmyeet• 10 months ago

I fully understand the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness with this situation. Lots of people like to imagine what they'd do in certain situations, historical or otherwise. We no longer need to imagine what most people would do in the HOlocaust. We now know: nothing. In WW2, most people could reasonably claim ignorance. Even a lot of Germans could claim ignorance. Now we have livestreamed 4K 60fps evidence that is impossible to ignore.

There's a phrase that's widely attributed (arguably misattributed) to Lenin:

    "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"

So while the US could end this entire thing with a phone call, it's not true to say that things aren't changing. US support for Israel continues to plummet to new lows [1], to levels I never thought I'd see. Small things like blocking a cycling event in Spain, the future of Eurovision being uncertain, European states recognizing Palestine, problems for the port in Haifa due to changes in shipping because of Houthi rebels, ICC?ICJ investigations, these genocide findings and so on... it all adds up. It all matters. It all compounds to political and economic pressure on the actors involved.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/692948/u.s.-back-israel-militar...

yieldcrv7• 10 months ago

I don't feel hopeless by pointing out that the UN report is a small piece of a puzzle, despite the high level of energy used to collectively create it.

It's easier to talk about these things and seeing consensus shift on consensus driven forums like this. My prior observations about that state's policies and supporting culture have been similar, but seen as extreme and "cancellable" at one point. Espousing my observations would have been conflated with ideas of physical harm to Jewish and Israelis, which I don't harbor. My ideas are much more similar to Jewish Israeli residents that protest their own government within Israel. And it's been nice to see many stateside Jewish people distance themselves, and now even second guess Zionism, which Jewish community leaders initially denounced 120 years ago by foreseeing these specific issues and its inherent extremism.

When it comes to my country's involvement, it's a complete aberration in US foreign policy. The reasons require a contorting ourselves for no real practical reason that isn’t already fulfilled by other countries in the Middle East, it’s just money moved from one account to the account of our politicians and appointed representatives.

So I am happy to see piece by piece, people re-evaluating the state narrative on that country. The politicians with discretion on all the levers are unfortunately a far cry away from changing anything.

shykes7• 10 months ago

Remove exception to AIPAC political status
Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely

What would that achieve? AIPAC is a domestic organization. Their members are US citizens and permanent residents, making individual political donations of their own free will.

AIPAC vets candidates for their support of Israel, and individual donors rely on them to make an informed decision. But ultimately it is their decision, and their money.

If AIPAC disappeared tomorrow, their members would still be directing their political donations towards pro-Israel candidates, as is their constitutional right. They would simply look for another nonprofit to do the vetting, or do the research themselves.

On top of being ineffective, attacking AIPAC in this way would also be unethical. You may not like that some US citizens prioritize support for Israel in their donations. That doesn't give you the right to suppress their donations. It creates a dangerous precedent where suppressing the political rights of some citizens is justified if they have the "wrong" opinions.

MomsAVoxell7• 10 months ago

You may not like that some US citizens prioritize support for Israel in their donations. That doesn't give you the right to suppress their donations.

It's quite simple, treat Israel like Russia. Same tools are available for any nation which commits atrocities under the watchful guise of the mighty, moral, USA.

yieldcrv7• 10 months ago

AIPAC is the successor of an organization that the DOJ targeted for lack of FARA disclosure, its simply a reincorporation to slide by

But you’re right - putting the military on the OFAC list will be far more effective as it is practically putting economic sanctions on nearly every person in that country

It will likely impact pro-Israel non-profits as so many persons involved at all angles are also Israeli citizens, many holding US citizenship too, and it will be prohibited to move money to or from sanctioned people

mfru• 10 months ago

Conclusion:

" 251. The Commission’s analysis in this report relates solely to the determination of genocide under the Genocide Convention as it relates to the responsibility of the State of Israel both for the failure to prevent genocide, for committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 and for the failure to punish genocide. The Commission also notes that, while its analysis is limited to the Palestinians specifically in Gaza during the period since 7 October 2023, it nevertheless raises the serious concern that the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and Israeli security forces’ actions therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023. The events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the Commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population from their lands and its replacement.

252. The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

253. On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement. The Commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.

254. On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition, the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

_DeadFred_5• 10 months ago

Seeing the number of flagged comments, and going from past discussions where any discussion seen as pushback was flagged, this discussion really doesn't belong on hacker news.

runarberg• 10 months ago

The infrastructure for genocide needs a lot of technology and technology related subject. The victims of genocides include technology workers, hobbyists and hackers. No doubt there are HN members who are current victims of the ongoing genocide. They deserve our sympathy and their existence needs to be acknowledged.

ethics13• 10 months ago

The mental gymnastics to make this stick is truly incredible.

bix64• 10 months ago

Technology enables so many of these problems and yet the technology builders want to flag it off the face of the internet?

AlecSchueler• 10 months ago

Hey stock prices might go down if you're not careful.

GeoAtreides• 10 months ago

Oh no, people are commenting too hard. Only mild topics on HN, otherwise the servers explode... or something

therobots9279• 10 months ago

I for one will be holding my representatives responsible who continue to vote for the US to enable a genocide. The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.

beloch• 10 months ago

Flipping the U.S. really is the key to ending this conflict. The U.S. reliably uses its security council veto to nix any meaningful UN response and the U.S. remains, by far, the biggest supplier of arms to the IDF. If the US were to stop veto'ing everything and cut off the IDF's supply of, at least, some types of weapons, the new ground assault would likely end quickly.

Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.

jcranmer2• 10 months ago

There's definitely a generational gap going in the US. Support for Israel is not popular among the younger generation in the US, and there's a good deal of voters in their 20s and 30s for whom support for Israel a red line in candidates. But older generations tend to be staunchly in favor of Israel, and too much of the gerontocratic political class thinks that pro-Israel uber alles is the key to winning votes.

It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.

dlubarov16• 10 months ago

Why would we expect any desirable outcome in this hypothetical though? So the US flips, Israel is pressured into withdrawing, Hamas regains control of the strip and resumes rocket attacks, Israel is forced to respond eventually. It doesn't seem like a path toward a real solution.

79524• 10 months ago

The US seems to be dominated by different right wing meme factions now. A choice between different strains of Maga all of whom would kill thousands in Gaza just to spite the left.

burnt-resistor• 10 months ago

Have to ban AIPAC and all PACs first but good luck removing the hogs (elected officials) feeding at the troughs of money, gold bars, and bot army support. John McCain tried campaign finance reform but that didn't fly, and it's all been downhill since the abolition of the Tillman Act and the terrible ruling of Citizens' United.

mandeepj3• 10 months ago

The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.

Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.

GoatInGrey2• 10 months ago

People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of authoritarianism and they're still unwilling to vote unless Gaza is a fully solved problem. The cruel irony is that this behavior is worsening the situation in Gaza.

JumpCrisscross16• 10 months ago

that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red

This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.

abustamam6• 10 months ago

Wait what happened? Was it that people who typically vote blue voted against those who supported Israel? As a Muslim and staunch supporter of Palestine, I didn't think that many people turned red because of this, at least not enough to swing the election. Wayne County, which has Dearborn Michigan (the city with the largest population proportionally of Muslims), stayed blue. I figured if Dearborn couldn't tip the scales any which way then the issue was probably not something worth campaigning on in terms of demographics

buyucu4• 10 months ago

Joe Biden invited Trump for a second term through his genocidal policy in Palestine and unwavering support for Israeli fascism. Trump's second term could have been avoided if Biden had been more moderate in several key topics, Palestine included.

ajsnigrutin• 10 months ago

US sure likes israel...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saar-urges-250-...

250 us legislators had to fly there (probably paid by the taxpayers) a few days ago.

Sadly, looking at the US politics, whichever side you vote, israel wins.

therobots9279• 10 months ago

I agree. That’s why I won’t vote unless someone NOT funded by AIPAC is on the ballot.

aegypti3• 10 months ago

Those are US state legislators. We have 7,386 of them. Sometimes a few wander outside during their election races.

You could easily fit that delegation into New Hampshire’s House of Representatives of 400 seats.

Meanwhile it’s more than double California’s total state legislature size of 120 seats.

It’s fun!

FridayoLeary3• 10 months ago

Consider that the videos of Oct 7 had a similar effect on lots of decent people. The un is the same now as it was before October 7. In gueterres words "it didn't happen in a vacuum". The complete loss of credibility for the un also didn't happen in a vacuum. Even if their report is true it will fall on deaf ears thanks in no small part to their lack of any sort of objectivity when it comes to Israel.

dmix2• 10 months ago

Agreed, UN doesn't have a great reputation in America, I'm skeptical many people will care about this outside the media news cycle

Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/most-peop...

On a political or legal level for Israel it might have more implications though, that is impossible for them to ignore, but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries...just like Putin.

lazyasciiart2• 10 months ago

October 7 made people in the US demand that their representatives stop supporting genocide? No, it didn’t. It made a lot of supposedly decent people support and even demand evil in their name. At that point you’re just defining “being a decent person” as “if nothing evil happens you won’t be evil” which doesn’t seem like a useful definition.

GoatInGrey2• 10 months ago

This was me. I was browsing Hamas' Telegram account as they released the FPV videos that day. The two most disturbing scenes were the pantless body of a teenaged girl being burned amidst chanting of "Allahu Akbar", and militants scouring buildings for any person or pet they could kill and doing just that whenever they found someone.

I learned a very uncomfortable—though valuable—lesson about humans that day.

grimblee• 10 months ago

Too bad there weren't many good cameras around during the Nakba, my guess is we'd have some pretty revolting, hainous images to show the world. Hatred doesn't exist in a vacuum, october 7 happened for a reason. The jew got persecuted, that created Zionism which persecuted in return, the circle of hatred is going strong.

ponector2• 10 months ago

That is interesting, why videos from Gaza has strong effects while Oct 7 don't. Or videos from Ukraine don't. Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza is genocide while russians bombing child hospital in Kyiv is ok.

Unfortunately not all nations are equal and many suffers because of that.

buyucu4• 10 months ago

The only people that accuse the UN for 'loss of credibility' are the religious fanatics in Tel Aviv, who are angry at the UN for not indulging their 3000-year old mythological delusions.

UmGuys6• 10 months ago

Serious question, will you abstain from voting? There are only 2 parties and they both fund Israel. One maybe slightly less.

tootie• 10 months ago

Half of democratic senators and zero Republicans voted to suspend arms sales to Israel. So, there's clearly a more amenable party in this debate. The Dems who didn't sign on, we lobby or primary.

sporkxrocket27• 10 months ago

Yes, I will. I will not vote for anyone who supports Israel. My vote is here for the taking, I just need to see an anti-Zionist candidate.

rcpt• 10 months ago

Stop this nonsense.

ipaddr• 10 months ago

Wonder why this made the frontpage when other political articles die.

Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?

dang7• 10 months ago

No, the rules haven't changed—they've been the same for many years. Let me try to dig up some past explanations.

Edit: here's one from a few months ago, which covers the principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815.

Re how we approach political topics (or political overlap) on HN in general: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re how we deal with Major Ongoing Topics, i.e. topics where there are a ton of articles and submissions over time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re how we approach turning off flags: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re the perception that "HN has been getting more political lately" (spoiler: it hasn't - though it does fluctuate): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.

If you or anyone will check out some of those links and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

roughly• 10 months ago

Just wanna say this is the kind of day where I feel like I should send you a fruit basket or something for the work you do here.

thegrim33• 10 months ago

Looking at the official HN guidelines, it states that "Most stories about politics" is off-topic, and "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".

Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?

Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?

I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.

Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.

cptnapalm• 10 months ago

I think you are the only good moderator on the internet.

belorn3• 10 months ago

It would be interesting to know how articles like this compared to the average article. How are the ratios of downvotes to upvotes, flagged to non-flagged, and comments to views? Are people who comment here positively or negative correlating to creating non-flaged/downvoted comments on other articles?

To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?

HaZeust2• 10 months ago

One question went unanswered: Can we get an Epstein thread this week?

throwaway306010• 10 months ago

When having a politically-controversial long-running Major Ongoing Topic with multiple unflagged submissions, is there any obligation to keep some semblance of balance over the submissions that get flags disabled? When the articles making the front page disproportionately favor one side, it is hard to not get the impression that these are the only articles on that issue getting flags disabled.

banku_brougham• 10 months ago

maybe because we are two years into an event that will define the early 21st century.

margalabargala3• 10 months ago

What about "there is war in the middle east, still/again" is remotely unique enough in the last century to be a defining moment of the half-century?

If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.

The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.

darthrupert2• 10 months ago

Ukraine War started 3 years ago in 2022, not two years ago. Or 11 years ago in 2014, if we count from the illegal annexation of Crimea.

The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.

Fraterkes• 10 months ago

C'mon man, the Charlie Kirk post stayed on the front-page for a pretty long time.

dotnet00• 10 months ago

With the amount of moderation that post seemed to be taking, I fully expected it to be killed quickly. Was pretty surprised it stayed up.

arunabha2• 10 months ago

Yeah, that was pretty surprising. Usually political stories are flagged and buried pretty quickly.

JumpCrisscross16• 10 months ago

For me, this is meaningful because for the first time a legitimate international body is calling this a genocide.

Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.

dmbche5• 10 months ago

Francesca Albanese has held the genocide line since day one as the UN special rapporteur on israel and palestine

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other. The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians". That idea was because Israel could name 17% of the casualties in Hamas registers as members of the organization. But assuming that every other casualty is a civilian is quite a stretch. For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills while he's aiming an RPG at them. For another, there are many other militant organizations in the strip, notably the Islamic Jihad. For a third, typically 75% - 90% of the casualties of war are civilians by the UN's own numbers.

mpweiher• 10 months ago

Go look at the report and the org and the people in it.

There is nothing "legitimate" about it.

The head of this alleged body is a staunch anti-Israel activist who is not taken seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Pillay#Israel-Gaza_confli...

"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "

MangoToupe4• 10 months ago

I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).

Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable. Indeed, the US would rather sanction individuals at the ICJ than acknowledge any sort of legitimacy—even as our own politicians accuse Russia of engaging in "war crimes". I have no doubt that they are, in fact, I think that the evidence is quite damning. But the double standard is striking, as is the difference between the footage visible on social media and what is acknowledged when you turn on the TV or open the paper.

actionfromafar5• 10 months ago

The international community is a worthwhile endeavour. But all other countries play at the behest of the US and now, also China.

Between them, the rest have only local influence.

toast02• 10 months ago

I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones).

I don't think recognition as a State would really change anything. If at least one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council will veto everything that comes up, the UN won't effectively intervene in the situation. Military intervention in such a case is unlikely, unless at least one permanent member is willing to join an intervention coalition. Looking at conflicts the US has been involved in, it usually lines up around the lines with US maybe with their usual friends vs Locals or Locals and Russia and friends. The only one I found where the pattern was when France started sending arms to Nicaragua while the US was supporting the other side [1]. Unless Russia or China wants to support the Palestinians militarily, or the US decides not to no longer support Israel militarily, there's not much chance of outside intervention here.

Given the outside countries can't effectively intervene, recognizing the state of Palestine at least sends a message, that maybe hopefully influences the US?

[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0715/071566.html

MangoToupe4• 10 months ago

There's not really much of a state to recognize in the first place, is there? Maybe this would have made a big difference 30 years ago, but now?

raxxorraxor3• 10 months ago

China and Russia would prefer to turn Israel away from the US and more or less fortify their influence in the Middle East. Much more rewarding.

nialv7• 10 months ago

break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.

this is never going to happen. there is just no practical enforcement mechanism. laws and police works within a sovereign country because the state has the monopoly on violence, this is not true on the international stage. no country will go into war to enforce an ICC/ICJ conviction.

bombcar• 10 months ago

A country that wanted an excuse might use it.

amdivia4• 10 months ago

I'm illiterate on international law, but does anything exist/is similar to the UN's peace keeping forces but for the enforcement of judicial decisions on the international scale?

energy1239• 10 months ago

It makes it worse by reducing pressure on Hamas to surrender, increasing the duration of the war. Grotesque virtue signalling.

MangoToupe4• 10 months ago

Surely if a surrender takes place, it will be merely symbolic. I cannot imagine anyone can convince a population so terrorized to forgive or forget.

raxxorraxor3• 10 months ago

In the international community the double standard was always against Israel aside maybe when it declared independence. The external enemy to distract the peasants from relevant problems. It doesn't have a lot of maturity. Perhaps the UN will go the league of nations if the current Gx hegemony loses control.

epolanski3• 10 months ago

Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable.

Since the mid 90s the world has proven to turn their head on the other side or pick good/bad narratives out of mere convenience.

It started with the Yugoslavian wars, it absolutely exploded after 9/11 when US could straight up lie about non existing WMD and drag 10 of their allies to fight Iraq "for reasons". It confirmed itself in a countless number of conflicts nobody cared about in Africa, Middle East, Asia.

Aerbil3134• 10 months ago

The reason the US will never go against Israel is the enormous leverage Israel has over the US administration: through the AIPAC, a money laundering operation disguised as political lobbying, a steady flow of money is ensured from the US Treasury to Israel govt. and right back to the Congress. Check the amount your Senator receives from AIPAC here: https://www.trackaipac.com/congress

From AIPAC themselves: (https://www.aipacpac.org/)

Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.
%98 of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general elections.
$70M contributed through AIPAC to support pro-Israel candidates.
We helped defeat 24 candidates who would have undermined the US-Israel relationship.

Democracy anybody?

Now imagine Russia had a similar organization, what would the reaction be? Yet when it's Israel, it's somehow fine.

From Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC)

AIPAC was founded in 1954 by Isaiah L. Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government, partly to counter negative international reactions to Israel's Qibya massacre of Palestinian villagers that year.

eej713• 10 months ago

It's always useful to balance these claims against their critics.

Towards that end I offer up unwatch.

https://unwatch.org/

random97498322• 10 months ago

Nice critic. I remember on Reddit watching someone get blown up the other day while carrying water while it was still up. I think they were under 10.

Not sure if they died or just lost all their limbs.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

That was a young Gazan girl who tripped a Hamas IED that had been set for Israeli troops. That's why there was a camera pointed at it.

bix64• 10 months ago

Is there a specific report arguing that Israel is not committing genocide? I don’t see it on the home page.

bjoli• 10 months ago

Unwatch is, and has always been, critical of everything the UN does with regards to Israel. Had the UN made one statement like "Israel should not arbitrarily detain children and hold them without fair trials", I am pretty sure unwatch would twist it into antisemitism.

protocolture6• 10 months ago

The purpose of a tool like unwatch is to disseminate information to help zionists pollute discussions like these. They dont care about being right, or contributing information to the discussion, as much as they want to hand out gotchas, whatabouts, ad homs and so forth. Thats why its all just character assassination.

ukblewis9• 10 months ago

Proving the absence of something is kinda impossible… depends on if you believe in guilty until proven innocent or if you’re totally okay with going gung-ho into trusting the UN, a body led by the majority of non-democratic governments and used to try to destroy democracies

ukblewis9• 10 months ago

https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill... If you’re interested to see a rebuttal

shadowgovt• 10 months ago

True. And in the interest of balancing the claims of the critics, I offer up the observation that UN Watch is "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" (AFP article: Capella, Peter. "UN Gaza probe chief underlines balanced approach." 7-Jul-2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...).

rzk• 10 months ago

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch:

Agence France-Presse has described UN Watch as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" ... Primarily, UN Watch denounces what it views as anti-Israel sentiment at the UN and UN-sponsored events.

DaveExeter3• 10 months ago

Isn't that an Israeli "hasbara" site? The Israelis have admitted that they use the false cry of "antisemitism" to attack.

"Calling it antisemitism - it’s a trick we always use." Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Minister

https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1896748975207952758

gspencley• 10 months ago

How is that a refutation?

If I want to understand any position I would look for first sources. Say I want to understand why Russian invaded Ukraine, I would seek out Russian sources. When I try to understand the Palestinian position, I seek out Palestinian sources.

The beautiful thing about intellectual honesty and openness is that you don't have to agree with any position. You can expose yourself to things that deeply conflict with your personal values and walk away with a deeper understanding of why you value what you value, and how to refute ideas that you strongly disagree with.

To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge. You're saying that the very reason to dismiss it, to not even bother entertaining its arguments is because it is Israeli and no other reason. Beyond that, you are even arguing that any claims of prejudice can be dismissed outright on the basis of one thing that one Israeli Minster once said [allegedly].

That is the very definition of prejudice.

breppp3• 10 months ago

You are aware that Shulamit Alloni was on the extreme left and was criticizing this supposed misuse of Antisemitism, this is not some playbook

The american equivalent would be to quote Bernie Sanders saying "America is fascist" and then saying, see? therefore the USA system of government is fascism, even Congress agrees!

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

If we're on the subject of damning historic quotes, I've got one for you:

  > Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

- Hamas founding charter

amelius• 10 months ago

You can criticize it, but the fact that we're here should tell you enough already.

There is no "yes, but" when genocide is taking place.

buyucu4• 10 months ago

unwatch is funded by religious lunatics in Israel. Nobody takes it seriously.

leonixyz• 10 months ago

Hopefully we are at the beginning of a change, but I doubt this will come only from the UN.

The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.

The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba. Every year the outcome of the vote, which has always resulted in a great majority demanding the immediate end of the embargo, has been ignored by the US, resulting in millions of Cubans facing extreme economic consequences since many decades. The last time every country except Israel and US voted for ending the embargo (I might be wrong, maybe a single African state abstained).

In all of this, the only seed of joy I see, was seeing the Cubans a couple of years ago, after decades and decades of seeing their economy strangled by the most powerful country on Earth, roll out their own Covid vaccine just at the same time of those of big Pharma - a vaccine that resulted excellent, effective, and cheap. Hats off for the Cubans. Hope to see some other seed like this also in the Palestinians.

zpeti• 10 months ago

What people fail to understand about dynamics between countries, is ultimately there is no supreme court or arbiter of truth. The UN doesn't have authority over any powerful country (or non powerful country for that matter).

People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want, but there isn't. When it comes to geopolitics, the biggest and most powerful sets the rules and lives by them (or not). The USA has zero motivation to do something the UN wants it to do, if it doesn't itself want to do it. No one is going to hold it to account.

Ultimately - whoever controls the violence can set the rules. For the last 80 years that's been the US. Maybe that is changing, but not quite yet.

The UN isn't an international democratic institution. For the last 20-30 years it's been a powerless theatre. And it didn't have much power before then either. Because ultimately, whoever has the most nukes and the biggest army rules the world.

const_cast2• 10 months ago

Its important to note that most of those "irrelevant" countries are only irrelevant because they're perpetually under the thumb of world powers. Hence why they petition the UN. And, hence why empires and somewhat-formally colonial nations ignore them.

Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.

tdeck7• 10 months ago

People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want,

Can you blame them? The same countries facilitating this genocide have been telling everyone they uphold principles of human rights and democracy, and a "rules based international order*, and that they oppose genocide. Only now are enough horrors breaking through in such a surreal way that people are forced to notice the contradictions.

o11c• 10 months ago

One hopeful observation is that I actually have seen coverage of the genocide in a local newspaper this time. N=1 of course (and I'm not sure what other local newspapers have been like), but that's more than before.

tick_tock_tick• 10 months ago

The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.

It's not been ignored the purpose of the UN is for largely irrelevant countries to petition the world powers to maybe consider doing something. The UN has been so successful because it has no real power over players like the USA.

The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba.

Ok? I mean the purpose of the UN is for people to suggest stuff to players like the USA not for the USA to actually do what the UN votes for.

nradov2• 10 months ago

It's weird to claim that one country should be forced to trade with another country. International trade is voluntary on both sides. The US isn't responsible for keeping any other country's economy healthy. It's simply not our problem, and Cuban economic problems are a consequence of their own corruption and dogmatic incompetence. Should the US also be forced to trade with, let's say, North Korea?

The UN serves as a valuable diplomatic forum but let's not pretend that is does have or should have any real power or authority.

tdeck7• 10 months ago

The US sanctions countries and/or foreign businesses that trade with Cuba, the embargo isn't simply between the US and Cuba. Because the US has effective control of most of the world's financial system, it is able to enforce this.

user3939382• 10 months ago

The UN’s teeth appear to be red white and blue.

bix64• 10 months ago

Combined with the other ongoing conflicts it really feels like we’re in a WW3 era

epolanski3• 10 months ago

Sadly history is a very poorly studied topic.

I look at European leaders and they don't seem to remember it any better.

79524• 10 months ago

The best way to teach history would be to make politicians dig slit trenches and then shell them for a few days. Anything less than that people will always end up regurgitating ethno nationalist bullshit or "geopolitics".

wmeredith• 10 months ago

I don't want to downplay the atrocities going on in the current conflicts, but this sort of comment deserves some perspective.

About 70 million people were killed in WW2, as of the present day about 1 million have died in the war Russia is waging against Ukraine and about 70k people have died in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The horrors are most certainly real. But WW3 this era is most certainly not, that's thankfully off by an order of magnitude.

darth_avocado• 10 months ago

The World Wars were called World Wars because of the number conflicts and the powers involved. While the casualties and damage has been lower, it seems like the powers are at least indirectly involved at the moment.

impossiblefork2• 10 months ago

Yes, but WWII also had a phase called Phony War, and after that much of the war was in Poland.

We could say that Ukraine is the current Poland.

ukblewis9• 10 months ago

The China-US arena in Taiwan has not begun. What about the Russian “provocations” against NATO? I don’t think that it is necessarily clear that these conflicts are anywhere near WWIII yet but there are clear signs that we could be heading there

rustystump• 10 months ago

There is no discussion only mass flagging for anyone who isnt in lockstep on this. This is why politics is usually a subject to be avoided.

I am sure i will be flagged despite completely agreeing with the UN here but if any real change is to happen, minds must be changed which mass flagging does nothing to help. It only further entrenches people. But hey, at least it feels good right? Righteous and all that.

For those who disagree with the UN here, id be happy to change your mind. The us should not be involved in any of this.

cramcgrab• 10 months ago

Why is this posted on a tech news site?

vFunct4• 10 months ago

I don't understand this complaint. Are you the editor of this site?

tomhow2• 10 months ago

From the guidelines:

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ukblewis9• 10 months ago

Do you truly think that this news story is showing “some interesting new phenomenon”?

I am not one to talk as an Israeli Jew who clearly disagrees with the entire bullshit premise of the article… but either way, the story is only saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming for months

bigyabai6• 10 months ago

Because Israel is a part of the tech news cycle.

SilverElfin6• 10 months ago

I wonder the same. It’s odd to see it still here given the low quality of the discussion. And it is flooded by mischaracterizations, misinformation, and one-sided hyperbolic takes. I wonder what the right space or format is to have debates like this but in an effective way, rather than sides trying to win.

dang7• 10 months ago

However dismayed you are by the low quality of the discussion, I promise you it bothers us even more. It's awful.

Not only that but whenever a thread like this appears, tomhow and I end up spending all day on it, which is by far the worst part of the job. I don't mean to complain—that would be grotesque, given the suffering that's going on—but rather to say how much easier it would be if HN did not discuss this or similar topics at all.

But I don't think that's an option. It wouldn't be consistent with the values or the mandate of this site as I understand them, and it's our duty to try to be as true to those as we can. I want to be able to look back and say we did our best at that, even though the outcomes are this bad. I tried to explain this in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403787, though I don't know how successfully.

The upshot is that there's no good option and no way out. Maybe experiencing that is the best we can do to honor what's happening. It feels congruent with the situation being discussed, albeit in the trivial form that everything on an internet forum takes.

Etherlord87• 10 months ago

Try taking a look at Stack Exchange (Stack Overflow for other things than programming) - it's not perfect of course, but IMO the site's format promotes cold arguments.

Klaster_1• 10 months ago

Habr, the russian speaking HN-alike, was "outside of politics" too. That didn't end well for either Habr or posters there. For large issues like this, abstinence is complicity.

mattmaroon2• 10 months ago

@dang isn’t this the exact kind of story HN isn’t supposed to have?

qingcharles• 10 months ago

See here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45267159

gorgoiler• 10 months ago

When a discussion like this happens on the front page then it at least provides some useful data for testing the software and moderation tactics for highly flammable subjects.

My conspiratorial mind wonders if it’s done on purpose as a fire drill, but a kind of The Office sitcom fire drill where someone lights an actual fire. (That’s an example of irresponsible behaviour, but I don’t actual think an HN/Israel fire drill is equivalently irresponsible.)

pxc2• 10 months ago

Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts, but in the era of anti-BDS regulation and other measures aimed specifically at curtailing practical freedom of speech surrounding this conflict, can we really comment freely on this without anonymity? The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation. We can also expect corporate retaliation against employees who speak about this issue in a "wrong way".

prawn• 10 months ago

For anyone else not familiar with "anti-BDS":

"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."

From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."

King-Aaron• 10 months ago

From a historical, economic, social perspective... Why does Israel hold so much power over the world?

dragonwriter7• 10 months ago

The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation.

“Some form of” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, to the point of being dishonest propaganda. E.g., California is counted as one of those states based on AB 2844 of 2016. Which, to be fair, started out [0] as an actual anti-BDS bill (targeting state contracting only, but still an anti-BDS bill.) But the form that actually passed and became law does nothing that actually impacts BDS; it requires that state contractors with contracts of over $100,000 certify under penalty of perjury that (1) they are in compliance with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and that (2) any policy they have against a “sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States of America”, explicitly including but not limited to Israel, is not applied in a way which discriminates in violation of either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or the Fair Employment and Housing Act.

It is not, in any meaningful sense, an anti-BDS law.

[0] Well, “started out” isn’t really true, either, since it was introduced as a technical change the an environmental health law replacing "Department of Health Services” with “Department of Public Health” in one section of law, reflecting a reorganization that had occurred subsequent to the law passing, went through a “gut and amend” switch to become a bill that would add new sampling requirements for drinking water, then went through another “gut and amend” to become an anti-BDS bill focussed on public contracting. But then it went through a number of more regular amendments which stripped out all the anti-BDS parts—both the operative anti-BDS language and the proposed legislative findings and declarations of purpose at the opening, replacing both the operative provisionsn and the findings and declaration portions with anti-discrimination rather than anti-BDS provisions.

thrance• 10 months ago

I think it's a legitimate worry, but I don't think using our old accounts give us any less protections than throwaway accounts. And I doubt the people that would make such accounts have anything of interest to add to the discussion.

jjani3• 10 months ago

This is contradictory. If it's a legitimate worry, then it's reasonable for reasonable people to want to make such accounts. And reasonable people are exactly those who have things of interest.

From an HNer I'd also expect the understanding that yes, old accounts does give less protections, trivially from an information theory perspective.

dang7• 10 months ago

Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts

I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.

pxc2• 10 months ago

Thanks. I appreciate both your response and the difficulty of moderating discussions on this topic.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

Title: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.

pyuser583• 10 months ago

I'm sorry but Qatar is part of neutral commission? Israel just bombed them. It was a bad for Israel to do, but this isn't "third-party."

ngruhn• 10 months ago

And Sudan is having a home grown genocide right now...

SirSavary• 10 months ago

Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.

Your framing that "3 people from Ethiopia/Congo/Sudan/Qatar wrote the report" is both incorrect and deeply racist.

Edit: and to make it clear, the report was authored by the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel" which is made up of the following three members:

- Ms. Navanethem Pillay (South Africa)

- Mr. Miloon Kothari (India)

- Mr. Chris Sidoti (Australia)

You can read more about the commission here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

That's not how I phrased it. I said that this is a 3-person report commissioned by the UNHRC. I then mentioned known human rights abusers who chair the UNHRC.

cuillevel3• 10 months ago

I had to look this up on Wikipedia and remembered this is the 19 year old UNHRC. They have never been objective in regards to the Middle East conflict.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

It's easy to confuse them with the UNHCR, which I believe is a reputable body.

mkoubaa• 10 months ago

May we remain condemned for our failure to stop this for all of time.

l2silver2• 10 months ago

I see a lot of comments here are about how other countries should react to this designation, rightfully so.

I wonder also though, how Israel will react. Is this anything new for them?

yieldcrv7• 10 months ago

Here is how they reacted, by preparing for isolation

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-i...

https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-israel-to-get-ready-for-is...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-admits-israel-is-eco...

pick whichever source you respect the most

l2silver2• 10 months ago

What about the rest of Israel?

tguvot15• 10 months ago

he had press conference today and walked back what he said.

rf153• 10 months ago

Same cards they always play:

- our enemies are Hamas sympathisers

- our enemies are secretly Hamas members OR

- it's antisemitism

silverliver• 10 months ago

One look at the victims (or their mangled remains) immediately discounts all three.

tguvot15• 10 months ago

People in Israel don't really care about stuff that comes out of UN.

mjburgess7• 10 months ago

I think at the moment a term like "genocide" is still floating free from the reality of what that term means.

Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0

I think after that I can't imagine the question, "will this impact israel?" makes any sense. They're deliberately perpetrating a genocide. It's real. It's the deliberate and systematic murder of two million people. I dont see the sense in asking: will the murderers care?

machina_ex_deus2• 10 months ago

There's no murder of two million. There's at most, according to Hamas itself, 60,000 dead out of which 10,000 were hamas militants. This is a regular ugly war.

If Israel wanted to kill two million, they could've done it already.

It seemingly doesn't matter how accurate Israel tried to be, they call genocide either way.

epolanski3• 10 months ago

1. Multiple Israeli human right groups have already been calling what's happening in Gaza a genocide.

2. The overwhelming majority of Israelis knows and does not care about Palestinian civilian suffering, they do not even try to hide it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMyyVaiY4V8

dluan• 10 months ago

Seeing PG slowly turn on this issue, from nothing into recognition and now into advocacy has been wild. Presumably because he has kids, and like many parents you understand with your eyes first, and then your heart.

PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list.

I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.

endorphine• 10 months ago

Is he still vocal about it? Do you have any recent comments of his to share?

sporkxrocket27• 10 months ago

He is, he regularly posts about it on X. I really admire his commitment to ethics. It says a lot that even for him, it must be difficult.

jbstack• 10 months ago

For those of us not in the loop, what is PG, SV, and YC (I guess that the latter is ycombinator)?

firtoz• 10 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer) (YC Co-founder)

Silicon Valley

YCombinator yes

nakamoto_damacy4• 10 months ago

I used to shame PG for his elitist views. Now I celebrate his moral courage.

One man cannot fix everything.

Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo),

As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.

Aeolun2• 10 months ago

It's being abused.

Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.

adastra224• 10 months ago

Having a difference of opinion on a very complicated geopolitical situation that is the culmination of a century of regional conflict is not being a "hateful bigot" or abuse.

mattmaroon2• 10 months ago

The fact that you can’t see any reason other than bigotry why this comment would be down voted is exactly what he was talking about in his essay on wokeness.

DoctorOW2• 10 months ago

Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.

I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.

mostertoaster• 10 months ago

I think what happens is things come from people with certain views, who seem to be part of some specific tribe, and so the presumption is they’re just spinning a thing for their own angle.

This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.

Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.

steeve2• 10 months ago

Hard to put into words how those people act like the devil incarnate and a lot of the scene pretends that this doesn't matter.

steeve2• 10 months ago

The downvote are actually proving my point

mikepurvis• 10 months ago

Thanks for the heads up on this. I've been a fan of PG's since reading the plan for spam essay in high school, and was a very early reddit user after he boosted it (join date Nov 2005). I have several friends who did YC at various points and was always a bit bummed that my career/life took a different direction and I didn't get the chance.

Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.

vitajex• 10 months ago

PG has written in public about this for over 20 years. See "I admit it seems cowardly to keep quiet" in https://paulgraham.com/say.html.

insane_dreamer• 10 months ago

Unfortunately, Trump’s support for Israel is still “unwavering “. So we’ll continue to aid and abet arguably the most horrific human atrocity outside Africa (Rwanda, Sudan etc) in very long time. You might have to go back to Pol Pot; even the suppression of the Rohingya by Myanmar isn’t at the scale of the complete destruction of Gaza by Israel.

rf153• 10 months ago

It is incredibly interesting how the US (and Germany) have put so much into Israel and associated groups they really don't want it to fail (despite the Israeli gov doing their damnest to facilitate just that). In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area, plus they have a healthy amount of zionists close to money and power at home. I imagine the political calculus of if and how to support it is ridiculously difficult.

grafmax7• 10 months ago

And then there’s genocide. Framing support for Israel as purely geopolitical misses what’s going on.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

If you really believe that this report indicates that there is a genocide against the people of Gaza, I highly suggest reading this:

https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...

People whose goal is to understand the situation will read it. People whose goal is to slander the Jews, will ignore it.

Cornbilly• 10 months ago

The current US administration also derives a lot of its support from evangelical Christians, who have a belief that Israel must exist in order for Jesus to return to earth. Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…

etc-hosts7• 10 months ago

They leave out the part where their end time scenario says the Jews will ally with the Anti-Christ, will nearly all be killed in a war with Gentile armies, and then the remaining Jews will all convert to Christianity.

octopoc6• 10 months ago

Not all evangelical Christians are like this. There are two main branches: covenantal and dispensational. Dispensational theology is basically the same thing as Christian Zionism, and was invented in the 1800s by John Darby and his followers[1]. Covenantal theology goes way further back and is still popular today. For example Presbyterians are a major covenantal denomination.

[1] https://aish.com/unlikely-zionists-the-fascinating-story-of-...

bko• 10 months ago

I don't think you have to be an evangelical Christian to belief that Israel should exist. I think a lot of people not heavily invested in politics or world affairs simply see Israel as more of a Western country aligned with their values and beliefs and want them to exist.

Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…

I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.

hereme888• 10 months ago

Jesus doesn't need anyone's help or the existence of any country to return to Earth. He does whatever He wants, like it or not.

brikym• 10 months ago

It probably has more to do with soft power like dirt on policy makers than what the plebs think. What do you think Epstein was paid to do?

belter• 10 months ago

It is incredibly interesting, your have US Congressman coming into the US Congress, in an IDF Uniform.

LorenPechtel16• 10 months ago

1) Israel serves as a lightning rod. Much of the Islamist violence is directed at them rather than at the rest of the world.

2) Israel is a nuclear power. You think they'll let themselves be exterminated (and that's what their opponents want) without using their bombs?

ynx• 10 months ago

There is a lot to unpack in this.

Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.

On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".

stanfordkid• 10 months ago

This is a common framing by neo-liberal / centrist folks: That the US/West is intelligently and methodologically utilizing Israel for some tactical geopolitical advantage / force projection. It may have played out that way in the past... but at this point Israel is lobbying the US gov't heavily and has bought out most politicians via AIPAC. The myth of Israel being a "bastion" between the west and terrorist Arabs is pretty much a veneer... they are themselves responsible for generating much this terrorism. They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

  > They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up.

You state that as if you are unaware of the cross border attacks originating in Lebanon. How about "Armed groups in Lebanon bomb the shit out of Israeli citizens, and who would've thunk it the Israeli armed forces struck back".

muddi9003• 10 months ago

It is high time that we accept that the people in power are not sensible. That the world is run by a bunch of apocalyptic death cult, living out evangelical fantasies.

There is no other reasonable explanation. They have nothing to gain anymore.

viridian3• 10 months ago

In my understanding Israel, in the eyes of the US, is a convenient "wedge" in the Arab space that allows for easier power projection in the area

This doesn't get talked about enough but yes, this was Kissinger's geopolitical view of the near and middle east which we still largely operate on today. The goal being to use the oppressed state of Palestine as a way to separate America's greatest threat (an ascent multi-national Ba'athist movement) from the rest of the middle east by creating a situation that is impossible for the Ba'athists to ignore.

The only correction I'd make is that Israel isn't particularly important as an end in this strategy, they are just the means to achieve the goal of Palestinian subjugation. There's a reason the US also pours money into Egypt to enforce their border.

andsoitis• 10 months ago

For some reason, I don't see this news mentioned on any mainstream media across the political spectrum (Al Jazeera --> Guardian --> BBC --> CNN / NYT / NPR --> Fox News).

Could be that I just missed it, but seems odd.

mikae1• 10 months ago

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...

mediumdeviation• 10 months ago

The news cycle is moving fast enough that shockingly enough this news is already pushed off the frontpage of these news sites, but the article is there if you dig a little.

- BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go

- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/16/israel-committ...

- NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/16/g-s1-89014/israel-gaza-genoci...

dsab• 10 months ago

Yes, this is ownership issue, nothing new :)

gerash2• 10 months ago

The mainstream media in the West is pro-Israel in a bizarre way. Social media however has not been captured but idk what's happening to TikTok now.

thefz• 10 months ago

First news on all major outlets here (Europe)

michaelsshaw3• 10 months ago

This was top story yesterday on al Jazeera the moment it happened. I think you missed the windows.

maxlin• 10 months ago

What, they thought it might've actually been Egypt before this whole time?

lstodd• 10 months ago

Never ceases to amuse me how people tend to cling to a position unconsciosly, then try to rationalize this unconscios act.

US and west are all about some perceived genocide, while inside Israel, half want to surrender to Hamas or whoever because hostages, and the other half had had enough (of almost 80-year war) and just want to be done with it, and the third half wants to study Tora and do nothing, but be fed by the other two halves.

This is ridiculous and very bloody.

Can we please just be rational?

xyzal2• 10 months ago

What charity can one donate to? I just can't stand just doing nothing anymore.

cpach• 10 months ago

Médecins sans frontières perhaps?

https://www.msf.org/

ignoramous2• 10 months ago

Many. A few from the top of my head:

PCRF (children relief fund): https://www.pcrf.net/

Heal Palestine (meals and patients): https://www.healpalestine.org/

PRCS (first responders): https://x.com/PalestineRCS/status/1721839906605998526

The Sameer Project (camps & tents): https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject

---

Afaik, these organizations barely bring in £50m collectively. For context, FIDF, the largest non-governmental American donor to the Israeli military, has gift £1.5bn+ in the past decade (£500m+ in the last 3 years).

perfmode3• 10 months ago

If you live in the United States, your greatest point of leverage may be to influence your elected government representatives to take action.

Israel cannot continue without the ongoing support of the US.

boppo12• 10 months ago

influence your elected government representatives

good luck

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 10 months ago

isis-online.org

etc-hosts7• 10 months ago

In 2009 the US sentenced the 5 leaders of the largest provider of humanitarian aid, The Holy Land Foundation, to 16 to 65 years in prison. The 2 guys sentenced to 65 years in prison are still in jail.

I always worry the US will do it again.

xyzal2• 10 months ago

Answering my own question ... https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/

aussieguy1234• 10 months ago

Both the Palestinian people and Jewish people are indigenous to Israel/Palestine.

No one side has the right to commit genocide against the other. At some point, there will have to be a two state solution.

The current Israeli government is indeed genocidal. Cabinet ministers have referred to the Palestinian people as a whole (not just Hamas) as an enemy and the IDF is carrying out the genocide.

This also means that by proxy the US is funding the military of a genocidal regime.

Just as providing Hamas with weapons is a terrible idea, giving them to Israel in its current state is an equally terrible idea.

PicassoCTs• 10 months ago

Lol, Qatar is currently in that council- Quatar aka the muslim brotherhood aka hamas.. Hamas concludes this and tells this..

kharak• 10 months ago

Every time I've looked into the arguments for this being a genocide, I saw, at best, a description of urban warfare. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone is still reading this thread, could you write what you believe will happen after Israel won the war?

brainwad3• 10 months ago

I more or less agree with you (if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper), but the report does have some specific examples of things that seem to go beyond "just" urban warfare. For example, Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder, which can serve no legitimate military purpose (except trying to prosecute the war via starvation of babies, which is illegal). When combined with the public statements from Israeli government officials that denigrate the Palestinians in Gaza as animals, I think there's definitely _some_ crimes against humanity being committed by Israel.

doom2• 10 months ago

you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank

The Israeli government doesn't have to. They let settlers take care of that for them without any repercussions.

tguvot15• 10 months ago

animals comment (iirc made by galant) is misused. it was refering to hamas/pji/pflp that raided Israel on Oct 7th and not to the whole population

grafmax7• 10 months ago

if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper

Genocide means trying to killing the group in whole or in part. Trying to kill the group everywhere isn’t necessary for it to be genocide.

dragonwriter7• 10 months ago

if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper

Genocide does not require equal effort in all areas subject to the perpetrators influence; both the required intent and the required actions that define genocide can coincide with taking opportunistic advantage of available political pretexts to try to retain support of, say, a third-party country with a UNSC veto that uses that veto to protect the perpetrator from consequences, but might not do so in the absence of some kind of palatable pretext for a sufficient segment of the third-party state’s population.

Genocide requires particular kinds of evil, it doesn't require stupid.

ii412• 10 months ago

Nazi Germany had Jewish officials. I'm sure they didn't commit _genocide_ against Jews.

explore2• 10 months ago

Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder

“Yesterday, armed individuals approached four trucks outside our compound in Gaza City that were getting ready to transport desperately needed Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for malnourished children enduring famine." https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-theft...

This must have been done by the Jews of Gaza. Wait...

perfmode3• 10 months ago

Given the deliberate creation of unlivable conditions on the ground and the absence of any viable plan for restoring Palestinian life and sovereignty, the civilian population of Gaza faces two primary and foreseeable outcomes:

Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathematical certainty in the coming months. A significant portion of the population, especially the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses—will perish even if direct hostilities were to cease. This is the direct and inevitable consequence of the "conditions of life" that have been imposed.

Permanent displacement and demographic change: For the remaining population, survival inside a Gaza that has been rendered uninhabitable will become a practical impossibility. The complete lack of housing, clean water, food, healthcare, and economic activity will create immense and unbearable pressure for civilians to flee the land in order to survive. This outcome aligns directly with the legal definitions of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, as identified by human rights organizations. It is also the logical endpoint of a strategy that involves mass evacuation orders followed by the total destruction of the evacuated areas, and it serves as a necessary precondition for post-war plans that require an "emptied out" territory for foreign-led redevelopment.

The military campaign, therefore, should not be viewed merely as a precursor to a post-war settlement. Rather, it is actively creating the physical and demographic preconditions for a specific type of post-war reality—one that precludes the existence of a viable, self-governing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. The destruction is not an unfortunate obstacle to be overcome during reconstruction; it appears to be the first and most critical phase of a reconstruction model that requires a tabula rasa. This connects the seemingly separate phases of "war" and "post-war," revealing them as a continuous process. The objective is not simply to defeat a military opponent, but to physically and demographically re-engineer the Gaza Strip to make it amenable to a future state that serves external interests and permanently prevents Palestinian sovereignty. The evidence strongly suggests that the intended outcome of the current strategy is a Gaza Strip largely, if not entirely, devoid of its Palestinian population.

Some basic observations:

28% of children under five are actively malnourished.

IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza. 100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.

Food distribution is being limited by the IDF and administered violently by US military contractors. https://youtu.be/uKpkZNAFwkc?si=4K3XeQmxbxF23tGO

The economy is completely dismantled.

63% of all buildings (including homes) have being destroyed. https://youtube.com/shorts/GLTurLL6lB0?si=AywZxmGTjhNa6zQv

90% of the population is displaced.

94% of hospitals are destroyed. The only remaining hospital is Nasser. https://youtu.be/mTqSq1xokeM?si=QAczyYx19jCbg3H5

Two weeks ago, journalists were targeted in an attack at Nasser hospital. Journalists are being targeted to scare them away and prevent what’s occurring from being shown to the world. https://youtu.be/xAK1w9r2J54?si=-ZvG-55KBKNZbqt9

meowface• 10 months ago

Counterfactual: let's say Israel had never blocked food or other aid (or at least not more than since before October 7) but everything else were the same. Would it still be considered a genocide?

MagicMoonlight• 10 months ago

And do you think we defeated the nazis by leaving their food intact? By leaving their bomb factories intact?

Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed?

War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.

nikodotio• 10 months ago

Israel’s civilian casualty rate is higher than germany, japan, or the Soviet Union during ww2.

grafmax7• 10 months ago

Forced mass starvation isn’t urban warfare.

ii412• 10 months ago

Then you have misunderstandings about urban warfare. Bakhmut is urban warfare. It's actually called an urban meat grinder, the worst form of urban warfare. Civilian casualties at Bakhmut is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than total casualties per different sources and estimates. 80% civilian casualties and 50% being women and children is not "at best urban warfare."

Gareth3212• 10 months ago

The Chair of this "independent" inquiry is Navi Pillay of South Africa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_International_Comm...); the nation which accused Israel of genocide and referred it to the ICJ. The outcome of this inquiry was always going to be highly partisan. The report's definition rests upon statements by key Israeli officials in determining genocidal intent. While the statements are accurate, in a democracy, individual representatives do not constitute a single will. If the standard used here were applied to other international conflicts in which civilians were killed, as long as just one governing official were to have made genocidal remarks (and they used a fairly wide range), the entire conflict could be ruled to be genocide. Thus the standard used by Pillay and co-authors is so far removed from anything applied to any other nation and conflict that I find the entire exercise farcical.

I await the ICJ ruling, as I regard that institution as reasonably impartial.

michaelsshaw3• 10 months ago

Amnesty International, The International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, numerous other human rights organizations and world governments all say the same thing: genocide. To deny this is to say that you believe all of those groups are wrong and it is actually Netanyahu, Trump, Biden and Harris, along with their cronies in congress are correct. It is a position that cannot be defended logically.

mattlutze2• 10 months ago

In this situation, where you advocate for waiting until a different organization gives its opinion: while waiting, will net-more harm have occurred if Israel

1. reduces the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory, or 2. continues, as it is currently doing, to increase the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory

Is there a different answer, should this other organization’s opinion affirm or refute genocide?

Gareth3212• 10 months ago

Israel is under no obligation to stop. Not because of this report, nor even in the case of an ICJ ruling. I say I am waiting for the ICJ ruling to make up my mind on the matter. The rulings are inconsequential as far as the conflict.

Jgoauh4• 10 months ago

i'm ashamed of how long it took, i don't even know what words to use to explain that life matters, that all lives have the same value, and that death is bad

Jgoauh4• 10 months ago

its crazy the number of people downvoting me for this, sadly i will not compromise on my beliefs

names_are_hard• 10 months ago

I didn't downvote you but I can understand people who did - your comment doesn't add meaningfully to the conversation because it doesn't add any new ideas or food for thought that the reader doesn't already have. It just expresses your frustration with the state of affairs.

While there is a place for that kind of comment in certain kinds of conversations, many people come to Hacker News to engage in curious and enlightening conversation instead of emotional echo chambers present elsewhere on the Internet.

By contrast, check out this sub thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45259553#45273473

I upvoted a number of comments there with opposing viewpoints because I appreciated that they made me think about things in a deeper way than I had previously, while avoiding anger or insults.

cookiengineer• 10 months ago

There's still humans using this platform, but always keep in mind that the bots will do everything they're programmed to do to fvck up your life.

AIMS and Team Jorge at work, again, they never miss an opportunity to ragebait the internet.

Stay safe.

eleveriven• 10 months ago

The term "genocide" isn't tossed around lightly in international law. The fact that the UN commission is now saying they found "fully conclusive evidence" of genocidal intent by Israel's leadership is going to put massive pressure on other states, especially those who've been backing Israel diplomatically or militarily

explore2• 10 months ago

UN Watch Rebuttal: Legal Analysis of Pillay Commission’s September 2025 Report to Human Rights Council

"This rebuttal examines the central defects of the UN report (the “Report”) issued by the Commission of Inquiry (the “Commission”). It shows why the evidence presented cannot sustain a finding of genocide under international law. A summary of its main deficiencies are as follows:

1. Failure to prove dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group is the central and extremely high bar in any genocide case. The Commission’s claim of genocidal intent fails on this threshold alone, relying on tortured parsing of statements, selective quotations, and conjecture rather than unambiguous evidence.

2. Erasure of Hamas as a belligerent: The report never acknowledges that the IDF is engaged in combat with an estimated 30,000-strong Hamas force in Gaza as well as thousands of fighters from other militant groups. A reader would come away believing the war has the IDF deployed against only women and children, with Hamas erased from the narrative. The Commission makes no attempt to analyze the war itself, because in its alternative version of reality, there is none.

3. Silence on Hamas’s military infrastructure: There is no mention of Hamas’s 17-year military buildup in Gaza, including its vast tunnel network, booby-trapped buildings, and massive arms buildup. By ignoring this reality, the report strips the conflict of its military context and recasts lawful military targets as evidence of genocide.

4. Erasure of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure: The Commission ignores Hamas’s openly acknowledged human shield strategy,[2] including its use of mosques, schools, residential buildings, and hospitals to conceal tunnels and weapons. Instead, damage to these sites is consistently portrayed as deliberate targeting of civilians by Israel.

5. No recognition of the hostage crisis: The report omits the fact that Hamas took Israeli hostages and continues to hold them, starve them,[3] and rape them.[4] This omission is consistent with the broader erasure of Hamas as an active actor in Gaza, removing essential context from the Commission’s narrative.

6. Reliance on Hamas-supplied fatality data: Despite Hamas’s long record of exaggerating civilian deaths and its status as a US and EU-designated terrorist organization, its figures are treated as fact while IDF data on combatants killed is ignored.

7. Civilian deaths distorted as evidence of genocide: The report presents civilian casualties as prima facie proof of genocidal intent rather than as tragic and unavoidable consequences of urban warfare, exacerbated by Hamas’s human shield strategy. The Report cites numerous incidents where civilians were killed as intentional and targeted acts by Israel without evidence.

8. Normal wartime consequences treated as crimes: Regular and expected wartime impacts on civilians, such as mental health impacts, difficulty accessing medical care and displacement, are depicted as evidence of genocide rather than inevitable outcomes of urban conflict.

9. Urban devastation portrayed as extermination: Large-scale damage is cited as proof of genocide, ignoring that urban combat inherently produces extensive destruction, particularly when military forces are embedded within civilian areas.

The Commission also ignores the obvious: the suffering of Gazans could be significantly reduced or even ended if Hamas released all hostages and relinquished control of Gaza. The idea that the population experiencing the claimed genocide has the power to stop it but refuses to is unprecedented in the history of actual genocides and exposes a deliberate blind spot in the Report. This omission mirrors the Commission’s broader erasure of Hamas as an active party in the conflict, a group with agency and responsibility, leaving readers with the false impression that all suffering in Gaza is solely Israel’s responsibility."

https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill...

trabant00• 10 months ago

Failure to prove dolus special

This one is sufficient for me. And I think classifying it as genocide is a big mistake if your goal is protecting the civilians in Gaza. An easily proven wrong accusation overshadows the fact Israel could have taken things more slowly an carefully. Which I think (with little experience or knowledge) they could since the power difference is huge between the sides.

leoh3• 10 months ago

The trouble is, what is the right medium or long term solution. If Israel militarily fails as a state, which seems to me to be an implicit aim of a significant number of anti-Israel folks, the results will make the current Gaza conflict look like a joke.

bigyabai6• 10 months ago

Short-term, Israel should have pumped the breaks on disproportionate response. Dahiya doctrine never worked, and now Hamas has successfully leveraged it to win (undue!) international credibility.

If a policy of de-escalation can be honored, you can lay the groundwork for a medium/long term solution that respects all sovereign parties.

velcrohn4• 10 months ago

What does de-escalation look like in Gaza? Allowing Hamas to regroup and re-arm, so they can repeat October 7 as they publicly promised to do?

aucisson_masque2• 10 months ago

You are misinterpreting the facts. Israel bombing Qatar for instance is only going to bring them more hate from Arabians, they could have fought back on the hamas while maintaining peace with the rest of the Arab world.

There was an alliance in 2020 between Israel and UAE United Arab Emirates. No need to say that it’s not the most promising alliance anymore.

Other countries that were neutral on Israel see their arabian population utterly hate Israel so they have to adapt and behave consequently.

They manage to unite the whole Arab front against them when they should have played on their division.

This is really a bad plan on long term. Despite what trump is saying, Iran nuclear weapon is very close. They failed on that matter too although there was a real opportunity with the agreement during Obama.

I don’t see a bright future for Israel in these conditions, all the weapons in the world can’t defeat hate from 450 millions Arabians.

Beside, people don’t want Israel military to fail, they want it to stop killing 80% civilians and 50% women and children. That’s completely different.

boxerab• 10 months ago

From John Spencer, a retired United States Army officer, researcher of urban warfare, and author.

The U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking

https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...

eclat• 10 months ago

It is indeed. The arguments are so poor and obviously ideological. To give one example, it would necessarily imply that every war is an example of genocide.

Experts aren’t taking it seriously, but then again the UN has not been a serious organisation for as long as I can remember. Some serious scrutiny needs to be made of that organisation.

Genocide is a very particular crime, I’m not sure what the obsession with it is. It’s evident that there are examples of war crimes.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

This is an excellent, well-sourced analysis of the genocide claim.

https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...

archdang• 10 months ago

It is very far from excellent. Did you read it?

The Free Beacon piece feels like it’s arguing against a caricature of the UN report rather than the report itself. The Commission wasn’t trying to do a military balance sheet of Hamas vs. Israel. It was a legal analysis under the Genocide Convention. That means it asked: do Israel’s actions and official statements check the boxes for genocidal acts and intent?

And on that front, the report isn’t just “repeating Hamas numbers.” It leans thoroughly on interviews, satellite imagery, verified video, medical testimony, etc. The ICJ already said there’s a plausible genocide case and ordered Israel to let in more aid months ago. Fast forward: famine is now confirmed in northern Gaza, which really undercuts claims of “unprecedented humanitarian relief.” The UN verdict is a very detailed legal case that can’t just be waved away with “what about Hamas tunnels.” Your "excellent" article doesn't budge the needle at all on this.

dotancohen39• 10 months ago

Genocide is judged on the merit of intention. The report ignores all context of intent.

Aerbil3134• 10 months ago

Which other country can attack 6 countries in 72 hours and get away with it[1]?

I very rarely expose myself to international news. When I do, it's strikingly obvious that Americans have a president who treats every other country as if they are children to be disciplined (cue Trump "I'm disappointed in Putin/Israel/Canada..."), and Israel is the favorite child who can disobey the father and bully whoever he wants without consequence.

1: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/27890-israel-attacks-...

webninja• 10 months ago

What do they conclude about Russia?

jwe• 10 months ago

The amount of neo-antisemitism, ignorance towards history of antisemitism, Oct 7 denial, WW2 perpetrator/victim reversal, among other perception errors in this thread (and of course all online threads about this) is staggering and breathtaking.

At this point - except for this one message in this one thread on this one website - I have stopped all interaction with this topic online. I feel helpless, powerless and hope that this phase of human/news/information/power interaction is well past all of us within my lifetime.

5Qn8mNbc2FNCiVV• 10 months ago

I'm wondering how history could have been if Hitler had access to nuclear weapons / empathy given by a super power.

This is a step forward, but what's the way forward?

dplesh• 10 months ago

Y'all smart hackers be discussing it like its your life on the line here, but this conflict is of 2 people - Israel vs Palestine, and its an existential conflict for both of us.

This investigation raises concerns that are already voiced by some Israeli groups, but it fails to capture the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, did you know that about 20% of Israel's population are Palestinians, with many living in huge houses, built on their ancestral land, and drive fancy cars that I could never even afford as an Israeli with an average income. (BTW I'm not Jewish but it doesn't really matter for my point.) At the same time their impoverished brothers in Gaza employ warfare methods which were/are also used by ISIS, Taliban, Syria and Iraq. Methods that exploit standard war 'etiquette'. Seemingly, International Court and the UN fail to address such manipulations, which are disregarded by most, to the point its just frustrating to witness.

Gaza has become a nest of extremism. Palestinians are far more united by hate to Israel and desire to revenge rather than nationalism. Its nothing new. Always been and most likely will stay this way. I know that the 2 state solution is the most proposed idea by foreigners for a 'middle east utopia', but this devastating pathos cannot be the foundation for a Palestinian country in a 2 state solution.

I do not know what exactly is the solution. I am most certainly sure it does not include genocide of Palestinians. But what I do know is that they must turn back on extremism, hate and terrorism in order for us to progress towards real peace, healing, and a solution that will grant both people cooperation, trade, prosperity. Judea/Samaria and Gazan Palestinians must learn from their Israeli relatives, to understand that hate, revenge and terror will only lead to more suffering. I think most of Israelis understand it this way. I also think most Israelis are frustrated because of Palestinian ideology and pathos do not shift, but actually escalate with time.

A curious person asked me: 'if they would not yield, can't you guys yield in order for this perpetual escalation to end?' I told him this is a nice idea but meanwhile Israel showed compromises for the Palestinian cause and it backfired each time, with Palestinians exploiting diplomatic attempts in order to incite hate, revenge and devastation: Gaza Disengagement (2005) - Unilateral withdrawal of all settlers and military from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 settlements. - Hamas claimed credit for "forcing Israel out", which boosted its popularity. - Within a year, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections (2006). - After the 2007 Hamas–Fatah split, Hamas took full control of Gaza, and rocket fire into southern Israel intensified.

Oslo Accords (1993–1995) - Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people; withdrew from parts of the West Bank and Gaza; allowed the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). What actually happened: Israel transferred control of cities like Jericho, Gaza, Ramallah to the PA. But the PA failed to prevent militant groups (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) from launching suicide bombings inside Israel during the 1990s.

Hebron Protocol (1997) - Israel Withdrew from 80% of Hebron, leaving only a small enclave under Israeli military presence. But violence persisted, with shootings and clashes continuing. Hebron became a flashpoint, requiring heavy ongoing Israeli military presence despite partial withdrawal.

Palestinians would argue the “backfire” narrative ignores that these concessions were partial, fragmented, and often unilateral. But actually what it is - a lack of ability to impose sovereignty and excess of corruption in the case of PA. Greed for power and will to exploit any 'gesture of good will' in the case of Hamas. This is not diplomacy. This is not the foundation for the 2 state solution I wish to see someday. They must change in order for it to happen. Death and bloodshed on both sides will only continue if we head this way.

I am curious to hear your take and vision regarding the 2 state solution, and how do you think we can get there?

therobots9279• 10 months ago

TLDR. Why did you create a brand new account to say this?

cryptochick• 10 months ago

    Shalom, everyone. My name is Luis Guillermo Mora Jr., and I stand here today not as a politician or a performer, but as someone who’s been profoundly shaped by the Jewish people and the unbreakable spirit of Israel. I’m a trans person who’s learned to navigate a world that often feels hostile, and I’ve got no love for the federal government’s overreach. But what I do have is unwavering respect for Israel a nation that’s more than a country. It’s a living testament to resilience, a fortress built on generations of struggle, innovation, and an unyielding will to survive.

I owe so much of my own strength to Jewish mentors—people from Israel and the Jewish community who showed up when my life was falling apart. When betrayal and isolation hit me hard, they didn’t just offer words. They lived strength, compassion, and humanity in a way I’ll never forget. They taught me what it means to stand tall, to fight for who you are, no matter what the world throws at you. That’s the spirit I see in Israel every day a nation that’s faced unimaginable challenges yet remains a beacon of hope, ingenuity, and moral clarity.

To me, Israel isn’t just America’s ally. it’s a partner in something deeper. Our shared values, rooted in freedom, faith, and the drive to protect what matters most, are the bedrock of why this alliance works. Those Judeo-Christian principles? They’re the engine of our way of life, the reason we can stand for something bigger than ourselves. If I ever heard Israel was drifting toward alliances that compromise those values—like cozying up to China—it’d break my heart. Because losing that bond wouldn’t just be a geopolitical loss; it’d be a loss for humanity itself.

I look at Israel and see the ultimate survivors people who don’t just endure but thrive, who protect a legacy that’s vital to the world. You, as Israeli Americans, carry that legacy here, bridging two nations I love deeply. I’m not here to make promises I can’t keep or to tell you what you already know. I’m here to say I see you, I honor you, and I’ll always stand with you. God bless Israel, God bless America, and God bless the unbreakable bond between us.

Thank you.

Instagram.com/ninainnu

ukblewis9• 10 months ago

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPCVnqrjJXS/?igsh=OGFkdTJyOGpqbH... See the truth

Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

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