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Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

> However supportive of Israel one may be and how repulsed one should be by Hamas, I'd say that we should not fool ourselves in that the military operation in Gaza is Israel defending itself ("Israel's right to defend itself" is now a commonplace phrase) rather than avenging itself.

I’ve felt that as well, and I would add that even if you feel every action is justified I am skeptical that it’s not counterproductive. Each civilian killed by mistake has family, friends, and neighbors who might be inclined to avenge them and it’s hard for me to see how this doesn’t end up giving Hamas more recruits than they’re losing.

I especially liked this FP piece where the author mentioned that the big driver they saw for terrorism was loss of land. That’s forced so much conflict and it seems likely to keep this raging for years to come.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israels-failed-bombing...

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I think an even bigger driver of terrorism than conflict is the fact that most people in Palestine have lived their entire lives in a state wholly governed by terrorists. From birth, children constantly hear how murdering Jewish civilians is one of life's holy accomplishments, how Jews are all racist liars, how Israel shouldn't exist, how Hamas is their rightful glorious leaders, etc. You shouldn't underestimate the impact of decades of racist, nationalist propaganda on young minds. In reality, war and terrorism are awful, and I wonder if the reality of it doesn't disillusion people of its glory.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/world/middleeast/to-shape...

I don’t want to discount the effects of that but most people are also capable of knowing when they’re not getting the whole story. Only around a quarter of Palestinians approved of Hamas before the war.

>most people are also capable of knowing when they’re not getting the whole story.

Most people are conformists.

>Only around a quarter of Palestinians approved of Hamas before the war.

But a lot more approved of violence and terrorism, and they did prefer Hamas over alternatives (that's why no election for 17 years - because everyone knew Hamas would win).

Basically, there's nothing Israel can do that will compare with the main driver in Gaza: Hamas control of media and education or ability to just conscript. If there was nothing Hamas could use as propaganda, they'd just invent something. You can't compare the ability to recruit of a terror organization to that of pseduo-state. The state will always win. The state has a tax base, police, media, ways to make one conform. The terror org always needs to compete with the local power and that makes it way more difficult.

> But a lot more approved of violence and terrorism, and they did prefer Hamas over alternatives (that's why no election for 17 years - because everyone knew Hamas would win).

That makes no sense: why prevent an election you’re going to win? Palestinians don’t like the way Israel treats them, with no small amount of past incidents to base that on, but that doesn’t mean that Hamas is the only option.

> Basically, there's nothing Israel can do that will compare with the main driver in Gaza: Hamas control of media and education or ability to just conscript

This is just propaganda designed to absolve the Israeli right-wing of decades of bad decisions. If the Israeli government had done anything to help Palestinians have viable jobs or elections, for example, then the Hamas leaders would have had to justify their positions rather than blaming all of their problems on Israel. The underlying problem is that Netanyahu liked having Hamas as a justification for why they couldn’t allow Palestinians to have a state, and as a bogeyman to point to any time they needed political support.

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...

>That makes no sense: why prevent an election you’re going to win?

Because it is Abbas (PA President) who decides when there are elections and he was always going to lose badly?

> If the Israeli government had done anything to help Palestinians have viable jobs or elections, for example, then the Hamas leaders would have had to justify their positions rather than blaming all of their problems on Israel.

This doesn't answer to my argument, that Hamas has quasi-state resources, and no outside radicalization could compete with the radicalization they can create by simply controlling education.

Anyway, your argument is that it's Israel's job to manage the country next door. That would make sense only in a non-two-state reality where Israel is legally responsible and controls the relevant areas. You can't run elections in areas you don't control. But Israel hasn't controlled the Strip since 2005...

> The underlying problem is that Netanyahu liked having Hamas as a justification for why they couldn’t allow Palestinians to have a state, and as a bogeyman...

Partially true. But consider the alternative was to wage a war like this one. For this reason, nearly all of the Israeli Left supported the same policy... How many people would have supported this war without radical Hamas aggressive to begin it?

> Anyway, your argument is that it's Israel's job to manage the country next door. That would make sense only in a non-two-state reality where Israel is legally responsible and controls the relevant areas. You can't run elections in areas you don't control. But Israel hasn't controlled the Strip since 2005...

Israel had military and, far more critically, economic control. They could at any time have worked towards a two party system or one of the other proposals - except that the people in power were committed to not doing that.

Just as Israel can’t solve this unilaterally, neither can anyone in Palestine. The Israeli right chose to prop Hamas up for years, but they could have tried to work with anyone else. What we’re seeing right now is what happens when two groups of corrupt hardliners see a profit in preventing compromise.

>Israel had military and, far more critically, economic control. They could at any time have worked towards a two party system or one of the other proposals - except that the people in power were committed to not doing that.

I don't understand what are you suggesting given that Israel didn't control the Strip (no military control), and that Hamas doesn't care for the economy?

>The Israeli right chose to prop Hamas up for years

True, but again remember the alternative was having a war like this one. Granted, cheaper than this one since Hamas was less powerful, but still a lot more deaths compared to what was the norm.

> I don't understand what are you suggesting given that Israel didn't control the Strip (no military control), and that Hamas doesn't care for the economy?

The Gaza Strip has been under blockade for decades and the West Bank for half a century. There are border crossings with Egypt and Jordan, but those require Israeli approval. Palestinian workers are excluded from most of the economy except where they provide cheap labor to Israeli businesses. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers have illegally taken Palestinian farmland and, in conjunction with the military, sabotaged Palestinian farms’ water supplies and done things like chop down orchards which take decades to recover.

> True, but again remember the alternative was having a war like this one.

Or making peace, supporting more democratic groups in Palestine, etc. Again, my point isn't that Israel is the only bad actor here but rather that the path they've chosen seems almost designed to ensure conflict continues by removing so many of the options for the average Palestinian and giving them as many reasons to hate Israel as possible. Every night-time raid, every person abducted off the street and mistreated, every business destroyed builds a grudge. Every opportunity to build personal accomplishments or wealth removed ensure that those grudges are likely to lead to a violent outcome or support for people who are doing that violence. I don't think war is inevitable in general but I don't see any way this trajectory doesn't lead to more of it.

I think we have a very different definition of 'blockade'. West Bank isn't blockaded by any normal definition. Gaza had some import limits, as it turned out not enough. Its beyond Israeli capability to 'support democratic groups' and peace simply wasn't on table (neither side's maximum is close to the other's minimum). This leaves security actions, and in general your idea is to blame every Palestinian/Arab intransigence on Israeli actions, and that's repeatedly belied by experience (e.g. the current war is exactly where Israel has been trying to avoid all these).

That article is factually misleading about Beersheba, the ad hoc committee switched it from the Jewish to the Arab state in 1948 but it was taken in the war.

>>Each civilian killed by mistake has family, friends, and neighbors who might be inclined to avenge them and it’s hard for me to see how this doesn’t end up giving Hamas more recruits than they’re losing.

Both Japan and Germany have been pretty well behaved since the Allies ground them to the dust during WW2 - why do you think it couldn't work here?

I’m not saying it’s impossible but that it’s a numbers game: if you have a messy battle with Hamas and kill a dozen people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s a dozen lotto tickets for the n% chance that one of the people who knew them succumbs to the propaganda saying the answer is to join Hamas and strike back. Angry people make rash decisions, especially if they think they don’t have choices.

I would highly recommend reading the FP article I linked. The author has researched this for years and one of the things which has made this so depressing for me is more cogently discussed in their work about what causes people to resort to violence. Japan and Germany had their share of angry losers, but they also had productive opportunities for most people – the U.S. wasn’t taking their land for American settlers and crowding them onto reservations. If you’re a Palestinian teenager aware of the outside world but resigned to a life of subsistence farming or living on foreign aid, and then someone destroys your family’s farm and says that the land they stole is theirs now, violence is going to look more reasonable because pretty much everything else has been removed. That’s completely unlike WWII, or even Vietnam, and I don’t think we’ll see anything good come from it.

Now, imagine some fantasy where Israel leaves occupied Palestine to a UN peacekeeping mission or, say, the United States gives a big chunk of BLM land to anyone who wants to emigrate (not saying this is politically possible, just for the sake of argument). You’re that same Palestinian teenager who’s been shat on your entire life but now you have the option of likely being killed fighting on behalf of people you couldn’t vote for and clearly don’t care about you … or you could do literally anything else with your life and have a much better chance of living to age 30. Having options is hugely transformative and I think any path out of this has to involve finding one.

>or, say, the United States gives a big chunk of BLM land to anyone who wants to emigrate

For people who don't know, especially non-Americans, "BLM land" refers to unoccupied rural, wild land mainly in the western US states that's owned and managed by the federal government's Bureau of Land Management. It has nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Hah, yes, I should have clarified since that is way more confusing now than it used to be.

> Japan and Germany have been pretty well behaved since the Allies ground them to the dust during WW2 - why do you think it couldn't work here?

The grinding into dust was a small part of the reason for the successful outcome

The main victor in WWII poured vast resources into rebuilding the economies of Germany and Japan, ensured their viability as nation states, fostered democracy and encouraged the creation of an environment fostering equality, cooperation and growth. This all ensured residual bitterness was overcome relatively quickly.

Israel so far has done very much the opposite to the Palestinians. The prospects for long term peace look grim without a more magnanimous victor.

The West Bank is every year more decimated by settlements with Palestinians forced into tighter and tighter enclaves. This is not a recipe for long term peace

grinding them into the dust was not a 'small part of the reason', it was the only reason it worked in the first place. What do you think would have happened had the allies given billions of dollars in aid to Germany while the Nazi's were still in power? They would do exactly what the Palestinians have done with the aid they got - bought more weapons and killed more Jews.

Palestine has already received much, much, much more aid - in inflation adjusted dollars per capita, than Germany ever did - the only missing ingredient is destroying the terrorists and their supporters that run the country and then controlling, with absolute power, what that money is spent on - only then will things change for the better for both Israel and the Palestinians.

The reality on the ground in the West Bank runs contrary to this story.

Two infitadas crushed, Arafat long dead, a supine administration facilitates Israeli military occupation, Israeli settlers continue to pour in, expropriation and colonisation continue, the Israeli army dominates a territory where things only change for the worse for Palestinians.

In the West Bank "destroying the terrorists and their supporters that run the country" had lead to settlers and the army forcing Palestinians into every smaller enclaves making a Palestinian state increasingly unviable.

So no. Please do not claim that "grinding them into the dust" is going to lead to a better future for Palestinians. It is leading to colonisation and oppression.

we will have to agree to disagree - perhaps distasteful, but a generation may need to be sacrificed in order to get lasting peace - just like was done in germany and japan during ww2.

Did lots of non-combatants die? without a doubt. Is it sad? also without a doubt.

Were all the generations after that allowed to grow up and live in relative peace and prosperity because of that? Yes they were.

The reason things keep getting worse for the Palestinian's is because they insist on squandering any aid they get on buying more and more weapons - very little of that makes it to the 'women and children'. Until that cycle is stopped, nothing will change.

Hamas is perfectly willing to use their own women and children as human shields - those terrorists need to be killed with extreme prejudice, which will include a lot of collateral damage - until that happens, there will be no peace for anyone.

> just like was done in germany and japan during ww2.

The difference is that the USA did not expropriate and colonise the majority of their territory and reduce them to servile status, which is what is happening in the West Bank. Instead it ensured a viable homeland and democracy. Neither of which are happening in the West Bank.

The long term trajectory there is towards reduction of Palestinians to second class status, the inverse of what happened in Japan and Germany.

> those terrorists need to be killed with extreme prejudice, which will include a lot of collateral damage - until that happens, there will be no peace for anyone.

I agree that Hamas are disgusting and should be stopped.

Equally, Israeli colonisation needs to be stopped and until that happens, there will be no peace for anyone.

I always considered Gandhi suggestion for the Jews to suicide as a protest against the holocaust quite distasteful, yours seem a lot worse. But perhaps consider that the fact that the median age in Gaza is 18 years old, as an indication that maybe a generation has already being sacrificed. Or maybe, if we are going to abandon any trace of humanity in search of a solution, are you suggesting to sacrifice a generation on the Israeli side?

> Each civilian killed by mistake has family, friends, and neighbors who might be inclined to avenge them and it’s hard for me to see how this doesn’t end up giving Hamas more recruits than they’re losing.

I am not so sure about that.

I don't recall a bunch of anti-British terrorist Germans out for revenge for Dresden after WWII.

Nor have there been a bunch of anti-American terrorist Japanese out for revenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Even in the US, there really isn't a terrorist movement among indigenous people for revenge for the atrocities perpetrated on them by the United States (Wounded Knee being only one of many).

I think revenge can be a factor in radicalizing, but I think it has to be tied to some hope of advancing a goal beyond revenge for it to pick up steam.

I addressed the same point in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38620617

Basically, I think it comes down to options. After WWII, the average person in Germany or Japan wasn’t forced out of their home and livelihood, and the Marshall plan was quite effective at giving people peaceful options to be proud of. What I’m not seeing now is how Palestinians get something similar, and if you push people into a corner even non-violent people will conclude they have no alternative.

What do we consider "forced out of their home and livelihood".

Allied bombing of Japan in WWII destroyed upwards of 3.4 million homes and rendered the areas unlivable for a period of time.

Also, areas of Germany were given to Poland and the Soviet Union post WWII and many Germans were displaced.

In this case it’s also complicated by the lead up to the Cold War: I’m sure plenty of Germans resented that but even the ones who would consider violence knew that there was no likelihood of being able to win a military confrontation with the USSR. Attacking an Allied military occupation in Germany would not only have had no direct effect, it might have made things worse if that lead the American army to withdraw and leave the troublemakers to the tender mercies of the Red Army.

Again, my point was that while those countries didn’t have it great, they had peace after brutal wartime conditions and the prospect of rebuilding. Yes, having to flee would be unpleasant but they ended up in another part of their country where they were unquestionably welcome, spoke the language, and were able to participate in the government (which certainly hadn’t been the case for the previous decade for anyone who wasn’t a committed Nazi), and then the victors were rather generous in helping them rebuild.

Many, but not the vast majority, and they still had their homeland(s). That's the crucial difference.

Consider how that would have gone if we had then moved settlers into that space, including areas we hadn’t formally claimed, and dared the former residents to make us leave. There’s a big difference between “we have to rebuild” and “other people are living well in your fathers’ homes but you live in a squalid camp”.

Kaliningrad/Königsberg is a more apt comparison then? Because that's functionally what the CCCP did.

Actually something like that happened with Kaliningrad after WWII. The German population was forced out and Russian population brought in. The language was changed to Russian.

Definitely, but Kaliningrad had something like 100k people out of a total German population of roughly 80 million? I'm sure plenty of them had grudges but they didn't have an outlet to act on them unless they wanted to sneak through another country on their way to suicidally attack the USSR and, what I think is most important, the alternative was to build a comfortable life in Germany proper, where they were fully integrated with the language, customs, and political system. Grudges don't usually turn into violence, especially with suicidal odds of retaliation, when people have hope. I'm sure there were plenty of old Germans complaining about it – over beers, with full bellies, and going home to warm beds unwilling to do anything which would risk those comforts.

My argument is that Israel needs to figure out how to get to that level for Palestine: if you want peace, you want people to have prosperous farms and businesses to focus their energies on and confidence that if they do so those won't be taken away or destroyed.

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