HN user
Why would Israel make the Palestinians in Gaza full citizens when That’s separate territory from Israel?
1) most of Palestine and Palestinians are not in Gaza, bug in the West Bank
2) if Palestine is separate territory from Israel, why Israel builds its roads and cities on it?
The idea that you would be branded as an anti-semite and lose your job because you are critical of Israel also sounds bad.
Sounds very plausible instead. The original cancel culture is exactly that used to silence critics of Israel- the accusation of antisemitism has been used for decades to terminate careers. People have learned very well to keep their mouths shut.
FWIW, this is a classic line of prejudiced people: 'I'm not anti-X; some of my best friends are X.'
On the other hand, this is just a trope that needs to die. It's a non sequitur and is in fact an example of kafkatrap:
There is a reason. Maybe this reason is that the "conflict" has been going on for 70 years? Maybe the reason is that the situation is particularly humiliating for Muslims, who saw the West unilaterally decide to install some Europeans in one of Islam's most historic places? Or maybe the reason is that, different from other injustices, this one is brazenly denied both by the perpetrators and by those who should be witnesses? Because an injustice will upset, but there is nothing more enraging than seeing those in power deny the obvious and pretend that the perpetrators are victims.
So there can be many reasons. Why do you choose the one that, once somehow transferred 5500 km from Bangladesh to Palestine (not sure how much they have in common), puts the Palestinians' struggle in the worst possible light?
Act.IL is a Social networking service launched in June 2017 that can be used via a mobile app on mobile devices running iOS or Android.[1] It is used by supporters of Israel to oppose "anti-Israel content" such as boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS).[2][3][4]
the simple reality of nations protecting themselves
Israel is stealing from others (this is an established fact), its victims react, so Israel "protects itself" against that reaction. Are you ok with this? Do you think that robbers have a right to protect themselves from their victims?
Race is a very important component on Paletinians hating Jews.
This is an entirely irrelevant, even ridiculous, argument, given the present situation. Which is that there is a very concrete and justified reason for Palestinians to hate Israel, and that's because Israel is oppressing them in a way that no people would ever tolerate and that would be classified and prosecuted as a crime if the perpetrators were any others than the West's darlings.
By the way, a friend of mine is a Palestinian from the West Bank who was subject to Israeli persecution, and had in the end to flee elsewhere. She is Christian, as has been her family since time immemorial. I can assure you she heartily hates Israel nonetheless. (10% of Palestinians were Christians, that's something Israel prefers to gloss over, since any empathy from the Christian west is dangerous).
You want to talk about the atavic, religious hatred that Palestinians harbour for Jews? Cool, then remove all the actual, justifiable reasons for that hatred and after that, if there's any left, we can talk about it.
Everybody has influence of the Israel-Palestine matter because the conflict exists only thanks to the spin Israel gives to it. They do what they do- and profit from it- because the public opinion in the Western countries (USA in particular) allows them to. That's why it's so important to them to keep shaping that opinion, and that's why it's so important to change it.
There is no Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. There is nothing to solve. There is a country that is slowly expanding in territory it doesn't have a right to, with some resistance from the original population.
This is a crime. Why do they do it? Because it's convenient and nobody stops them. Why nobody stops them? Because they've convinced the world that "there is a conflict", that "it's complicated", that "they're antisemites and they want to kill us all".
That's it. Weapons are just a tool. What enables Israel to keep occupying land and persecute Palestinians is just what people think of the whole thing. As long as people think "it's complicated", "Palestinians are just backwards antisemites", Israel will have a free hand in doing what they're doing. That's why convincing people is fundamental: and Israel knows very well, and that's why they censor as much information as possible.
It's Hamas wanting to kill every Jew it can
You bet. Jews immigrated en masse to Palestine, then used their leverage at the UN to have half of the country assigned to themselves alone, then proceeded to ethnic cleanse as many Arab villages as possible. In the decades Israel has used every possible excuse to occupy more land, in violation of all laws and agreements, and install their population, while harassing, persecuting, and killing the indigenous population.
You bet that Hamas wants to kill them! It's because they're vicious anti-semite? No.
(By the way, jokes apart: no, Hamas doesn't want to kill all the Jews and has officially said so: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full )
So you're saying that the posts should be removed not because of what they say but because of their motives. And who decides what are the posts motives? You, of course.
Israel is running a slow-motion ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians, practices apartheid, and violates international law by building settlements on occupied territories... but you say that the reason Palestinians hate Israelis is because of their race? Yeah, sure.
We're also all the product of several rapes down the line of our ancestors. That doesn't justify rape when it happens now, does it?
Why would the US fabricate fake UFO videos to send to Russian/ Chinese militaries a message that is, as you imply, perfectly clear? They're the only recipients of the message, they understand it well, and nobody else cares about it. So why don't they just say it plain and openly?
So your explanation implies multiple conspiracies mixed with sensor errors, lying or actually crazy pilots, and a general pretension of being clueless, to send a message of having some advanced technology you could easily publish about in a military tech journal?
Why such a sudden change?
Trump is gone. Since he was the main proponent of the idea, and he was despised by half of the nation, they had to despise the idea too, even if it was quite fitting in the context of the anti-China rhetoric of the last few years. Now Trump is gone and the other half of the US is free to pick up his ideas.
the people that write the long rants tearing X person apart are either legitimately upset, or have an agenda way beyond trying to fit social expectations
These would be the activists who are- as you call them- the instigators, and who might be close to the origin of the events. But the second level is the media- and here you have journalists and bloggers, who are already far removed from the original events and are supposed to report them to a wider audience in a neutral way. And yet you see them grossly misreporting the content of text they have read and that anyone can check: despite much less direct emotional involvement here (if there is any it should be acknowledged and balanced), and the fact that a news article takes much more effort and focus than a simple retweet.
So the justification for the spread of obviously false information can only be either an actual wilful dishonesty (and I don't believe it) or it's nothing else than a selective blindness driven by an instinctive desire to align to the immediate peers.
from the initial Vice article horrifically misquoting him, to the weirdly rabid hate towards anyone defending him on forums like this and Reddit
In fairness those are both very common features of cancellations. Another that comes to mind is Damore, who never wrote what most people attributed to him. I've had perfectly clear for a long time that even smart people will misunderstand the clearest statement if it's what it's socially expected from them.
We have class actions, where hundreds or thousands of people can join together and sue a company- the claims for each consumer might be small, but put together they can add up to a substantial value.
We could do with the inverse, too. One person could sue for small-ish claims hundreds of harassers. You called me a rapist on social media together with a mob of idiots? Good, that's libel for you and for the other thousand who did. It's going to cost you 10 grands and a reprimand- not enough for a single court case maybe, but put them together and they can be worth it :)
If you wait long enough, it just flies away.
This actually travels. By itself.
I do think the west bank occupation is wrong and should be "solved" but it's far from evil because intent matters
I think the intent (insofar as it's the result of planning and not simply the result of multiple individual initiatives) is clear: to create an irreversible situation on the ground so that, if the time comes, there will be no viable solution to give those territories back.
That said, Israel is also very careful to avoid full scale ethnic cleansing and genocide, partly for ethical and cultural reasons (they're modern Europeans after all, and they want to be considered as such) and partly because ambiguity is what keeps the occupation sustainable. It cannot be done if they alienate the support of the western nations.
the bots downvoting me within 1 minute of commenting needs a break,
Yep, true about the bots, I was upvoted within a few seconds for my last submissions. So it's either a bot or someone who has an alert set up on new comments in this subthread. Maybe @dang could give it a look.
you can't start a war lose and then cry that you lost territory. ... That's how countries form, that's how borders are made.
Actually, according to international law, you cannot lose territory by war, even if you started it. I'm sure you think this is absurd, but it really is necessary.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
“Without this absolute prohibition, acquisitive states would have a strong incentive to obfuscate the origins of the territorial acquisition, leading us backwards to the days when borders were impediments to overcome, rather than frontiers to respect.”
Also, once you occupied someone else's territory (necessarily for a temporary period) to transfer your own civilian population in it is a war crime:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul...
"The prohibition on deporting or transferring parts of a State’s own civilian population into the territory it occupies is set forth in the Fourth Geneva Convention.[1] It is a grave breach of Additional Protocol I.[2] Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts."
They didn't want a Jewish state at all, or be under Jewish rule.
Let's not be disingenuous here. Palestinians could never be part of a Jewish state, because Israel is a Jewish nation and a democracy. It simply cannot include millions of Palestinians as citizens- and I don't mean it as a critique (I also come from a national state formed out of a preexistent ethnic, linguistic and religious unity). It's a matter of fact. Israel wanted the land but not its original population ("the bride and the dowry" - https://www.amazon.com/Bride-Dowry-Israel-Palestinians-After... )
it's just that most of those countries annihilated the other side long ago so there is almost no one left to hear their voice...
So you think that Jews now have a right to do the evil they didn't get to before, because they didn't have a nation when conquers and pillage were still accepted?
Paris Hilton has a trauma too! You don't tell me. By the way, can I tell you about my personal traumas?
when you say you want the utter annihilation and destruction of a racial group
We already established that they don't say that.
when you praise and actively work to bomb busses, stab people in the street and in their homes...
If your country had been invaded and utterly militarily overwhelmed by another country, now intent on building cities and installing their population on your former land, what would you do to free it, where would you stop and just throw your arms up and say "well, I can't do anything"?
In a situation like that, there will always be someone who is willing to use any means to make the occupation and the oppression as costly as possible for the oppressor. It's not racial hatred, it's that when you cannot hit the army you'll hit whatever you can.
When Israel will have given back all the territory that has illegally appropriated (illegally according to the western nations, not some backwards middle Eastern dictatorship) then it will be in a position to denounce any continuing terrorism from Hamas. Before that, it's just complaining because its victims fight back.
Hamas is a movement with a religious fundamentalist basis, I don't think that "tolerance" is what you should expect from them. But this is not a beauty contest. Just use Occam's razor: they call to "Jihad" (struggle) because foreigners have come and displaced them from their homeland (well beyond what the international community- including the western nations- considers legal). It is just preposterous to attribute racial or religious hatred to those who fight back an invasion of their homeland. If China came and invaded your land, would you fight back because you are an anti-Asian racist? And after all, wouldn't being invaded and oppressed by China make you a bit into a racist, at least on the long run and while the struggle stands?
I don't think there is any chance for me to convince you, but the Hamas covenant is an old document, written by religious fundamentalists who also were inflamed by decades of conflict on their homeland and holy land (and whatever you think of it, you can't deny that the people who are losing the war and the land must feel wronged). So I cut them some slack and don't take the religious raving seriously. As the Wikipedia page you linked explains, Hamas itself has moved on and is far from monolithic: various of its leaders have multiple times declared in the past 15 years that they've moved away from that original covenant. The second sentence of the Wikipedia entry literally states that Hamas has a new charter since 2017.
So why would you fixate on a piece of text written 33 years ago by angered fundamentalists, that has also been multiple times rejected by the leaders of the same movement and that is now superseded by a more recent one? If you want to hate someone, it's easy to cling to a single piece of damning, black-and-white evidence, however outdated and contested. Don't you think you should consider more elements, at least to give your views some balance?
You can check the new charter here:
when the group is based on literally killing of Jews (Not even just in Israel).
This is literally bullshit.
Yep, and btw, how can the price of anything be exactly 0? This doesn't sound right either.
Hamas would kill every man woman and child in Israel without batting an eye if it had the means to do so
Yours is a textbook example of de-humanisation of the enemy. Once you believe this, you can allow yourself any atrocity. And you do.
It's their decision what to do with their bodies, absolutely, but then why should everyone be forced to accept their view of themselves as an objective fact? I don't doubt that in the vast majority of cases their view is sincere and sound- but shouldn't this judgement be left to those who know them rather than being imposed?
she doesn't think trans women should be allowed in women's bathrooms, ... a shibboleth amongst people who are, as it's often posed against the statement "trans women are women.
Because the right to call yourself "trans woman" has been widened to the point of including people who didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy. And yes, I don't think that those "trans women" are, or should be considered, women. Actually, not even "trans".