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Comment by edanm | Hacker News Reader

Firstly, Palestine is not Iran.

Secondly, saying "Israel's leadership" said they want to drown Palestinians is a pretty ridiculous claim. Who said it exactly? When? Are they currently Israel's leadership?

Cause Israel is a democracy with many officials. Without something more specific, even if this is a real thing, it's like pointing to US congresspeople from the 1950s saying "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and using that to "prove" that Obama is actually racist.

Whereas Iranian leadership is a dictatorship and the same people claiming they would like to kill all Israelis are the people in power now.

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It was Lieberman, one source: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/02/israeli-and-pale...

And there are debates about the state of Israels democracy: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/democracy-means-ju...

I want to be clear that I'm not defending Lieberman, I hate him and think statements like his are horrible.

That said, you're leaving out context that make clear this is different.

Maybe the biggest difference is - he didn't suggest drowning all Palestinians, unlike the statements calling to "eradicate Israel". He specifically said it's better to drown Palestinian prisoners in the sea rather than release them (as part of a security deal, I believe.) (Which is still a despicable thing to say, don't get me wrong, but a very different thing nonetheless)

Also, the headline from the article that talks about this statement is "Lieberman Blasted for Suggesting Drowning Palestinian Prisoners". His sentiment is far too widespread, but statements like those are still not palatable. (Though to be fair, the situation today is probably worse.)

> And there are debates about the state of Israels democracy

Yeah things are not looking super rosy, but so far everything is speculation. There were also worries about the US's democracy, worries about a potential constitutional crisis, etc. I think it's safe to still call the US a democracy.

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