Hacker News Reader

Comment by vasilipupkin | Hacker News Reader

British Army and the IRA is not a relevant example. At no point did IRA want to destroy all of Britain and kill all British people. IRA phoned in bomb threats. It's a totally different situation. Hamas has 30 thousand fighters and its goal is actual destruction of Israel. Again, Israel ended the occupation of Gaza in 2005, it withdrew from Gaza and removed all settlements. The only thing that accomplished is worsen Israeli security, provided Hamas with a base to fire thousands of rockets from and ultimately culminated in October 7th. So, Israel is left with no options other than a full war against Hamas

and yes, it is a war. Since Hamas is the official government in control of Gaza it is most definitely a war. If you prefer to call it armed conflict instead of war, that's fine, it doesn't change the reality of what's happening.

View on HN

My comparison between the IRA and Hamas was never anything more than that they both operated from occupied territory. I could have used the ANC, FLN, the French Resistance, etc.

Hamas may be the government of Gaza, but they are still operating from a territory occupied by Israel. Hamas does control some things in Gaza, including the legislator, but the Israel army has the ultimate control. Look this has been debated before. If you choose to deny the occupation of Gaza, that is up to you. You are just wrong about it.

ANC, FLN, French resistance are all irrelevant examples because once again, as I explained, Hamas is an organization dedicated to destruction of Israel

Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. That is an undeniable fact. Subsequently, Hamas took over and started firing rockets at Israel, which caused Israel to impose a blockade on Gaza. Egypt also blockades Gaza, btw. Saying that Israel occupies Gaza without acknowledging that Israel actually pulled out of Gaza in 2005 is just silly. Israel did not control what happens inside Gaza strip for the simple reason that it did not have a presence inside Gaza strip, which is why Hamas was able to build all those tunnels. Why deny the facts? What's the point?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

> Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, as well as six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's inhabitants. The system of control imposed by Israel was described in the fall 2012 edition of International Security as an "indirect occupation". The European Union (EU) considers Gaza to be occupied.

This is how it was possible for Israel to cut off millions of people from the internet as it starves them to death.

yes, but why did Israel and Egypt put restrictions on Gaza after Israel left Gaza in 2005? Why did this happen? Surely, the reasons are extremely relevant for any conversation on this topic.

Unless you think that reason is that all Palestinians are terrorist and not humans, I fail to see how they're relevant. I'd be happy to accuse Egypt, too, where applicable.

sorry, that's just an absurd way to reason about things.

Of course, they are relevant. Israel is not acting in a vacuum. It didn't just wake up one day having completely withdrawn from Gaza and say, let me blockade Gaza for no reason at all, just because we feel like it. They did it for specific reasons and so, if you are going to talk about the blockade and not mention at all, pretend like the reason for the blockade just isn't there, then your analysis just becomes absurd.

The reason for it was that Hamas took over and proceeded to fire rockets at Israel, right? That Hamas is a terrorist organization. Look at the military infrastructure they were able to build under the conditions of the blockade, it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there. And Israel as a state has a primary responsibility to protect its own civilians against being murdered by Hamas. This clearly is highly relevant to any analysis here.

First Israel "completely withdrew", now it didn't, but for good reasons.

There simply aren't justifications for using starvation against civilians, calling them animals and calling for their extermination, while IDF soldiers make videos rifling through the belongings of Palestinians to mock them, talking about colonization. "They" (Israeli hard right etc.) always wanted to take the land, so using the crimes of Hamas as an excuse to do just whatever, for just targeting infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, as they so proudly describe in interviews, while repeating how it's all just self-defense is just too transparent.

> it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there

You think? As they say, there is nothing scarier than a man without hope, and nobody is complaining about not letting weapons in. At least I am not.

There is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities, dehumanize other humans completely, without getting deeply damaged yourself. As Chris Hedges wrote about comraderie (versus friendship), it feels great in war time, it's a high, for a while, but the comedown is really depressing and lonely.

And then there is the damage in the eyes of the world, which will keep trickling in for many years. The US, UK, Israel and Germany have no credibility right now except to each other and the usual vassals.

Israel completely withdrew from Gaza. This inability to deal with the basic facts of the situation is amazing to me. Are you seriously arguing that Israel didn't withdraw? here, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueN-wntJqNE

After it withdrew and Hamas took over and started firing rockets, after that, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. This is not hard, this is not confusing.

"here is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities"

They are not committing atrocities. What you call atrocities is the inevitable tragedy of war. Yes, war is bad, it's bad for everyone, including Israel

But what's the alternative? Leave Hamas in power? that is not a possible alternative, that's been tried for 17 years, it has failed.

Israel only withdrew ground troops and settlers from the Gaza strip, it maintained the occupation via other means, including full control over the airspace, telecommunication, sea access, the population registry, etc. Israel fully controls all but one border crossing, and the only remaining is controlled by Egypt, but fully monitored by Israel and is subject to Israeli approval.

Israel maintains a 300 meter no-go zone inside the Gaza strip which they regularly shoot at Gaza residents for entering (although reports exist which states people have been shot at up to 1.5 km from the border).

Israel reserves the right to enter the Gaza strip whenever they see fit.

Israel has kept a continuous blockade of Gaza since 2007, between 2005 and 2007 there were also blockades of various levels of intensity. This started before the Hamas takeover of the strip.

Israel claims it ended the occupation but nobody outside of Israel believes that. This includes the UN, EU, International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, etc. Even the US state department considers Gaza to be occupied territory.

No, Israel only ever partially withdrew from Gaza. Their conduct prior to oct 7 is more then enough to qualify as occupation.

You are missing the point. Israel physically withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, without any agreement, without any negotiation. It simply withdrew its forces and moved its people out of there at huge cost. Subsequently, the expectation was that the security situation would improve. Had that happened, then you could talk about airspace, waters, etc. But that did not happen, the opposite happened. Israel's security worsened as a result of the withdrawal. Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel for 17 years now. The blockade happened not because Israel woke up one day and for no reason other than its own amusement ( and apparently Egypt too ) and decided to blockade. The blockade happened because a terrorist organization which is dedicated to destruction of Israel took over and at that point, Israel and Egypt had very little choice other than blockade Hamas. Alleging that blockade did not happen in response to Hamas is just flat out false. Did Egypt also blockade Gaza for no reason whatsoever? Come on, this is just absurd argumentation.

It is good that we can finally agree that Gaza is occupied by the Israeli military.

> Alleging that blockade did not happen in response to Hamas is just flat out false.

Never alleged that. The current variation of the blockade is in response to Hamas’ takeover. However there were blockades before Hamas’ takeover:

> The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border

> On 15 January 2006, the Karni crossing – the sole point for exports of goods from Gaza – was closed completely for all kinds of exports.

Hamas is elected to government in a fair election on 25 January 2006

> Between 1 January and 11 May [2006], more than 12,700 tonnes of produce were harvested in Gaza's greenhouses, almost all of it destined for export; out of it, only 1,600 tonnes (less than 13%) were actually exported.

Hamas takes control of Gaza in March 2007 after winning the civil war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

So for 2 years between the partial withdrawal and Hamas taking power Israel is limiting imports and exports into the Gaza strip.

The blockade follows a similar pattern as other illegal conduct in other occupied territories, is to limit the potential of a free Palestinian state. Israel didn’t wake up one day and decide to blockade for fun. It remains a colonial power with aims to keep its colonial holdings and limit any potential of its colonial subjects.

> Subsequently, the expectation was that the security situation would improve. Had that happened, then you could talk about airspace, waters, etc.

You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation. You have no proof that would be the case. Who is to say that without the rocket attacks, the Gaza strip would have continued to be subjugated, economically suppressed, and turned into a bantustan for Israel to exploit?

Gaza is not occupied by Israeli military. After Israel withdrew from Gaza and ended its physical presence in Gaza, some still consider Israel as occupying Gaza due to control of airspace, etc. Some consider, that does it make it a settled fact. THere is disagreement on this from legal point of view its not a settled legal question.

Leaving the legal definition of occupation, here is the simple dictionary definition of occupation from wikipedia

Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the temporary military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.[1][2][3][4]

Israel did not have military control over Gaza, it is absurd to allege simultaneously that Israel had military control over Gaza and also allowed Hamas to build 500 miles of tunnels and attack itself on October 7th from the territory it militarily controled.

So no, by any sane definition of occupation, such as Wikipedia, Israel was not occupying Gaza before October 8th

These greenhouses you are referring to were run by Israeli settlers in Gaza. They were dismantled when the settlements were dismantled. Not by Israel, by Palestinians themselves https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863

"You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation."

Sorry, that is a weird analysis. By your logic we can't anticipate or logically analyze anything at all, it would all be speculation

The point of Israeli withdrawal was that if the occupation ends, maybe there is more chance for peace, that was the point of it and the opposite happened.

> There is disagreement on this from legal point of view its not a settled legal question.

The disagreement is Israel says there is no occupation while the rest of the world says there is. This is hardly a disagreement as much that one party is simply wrong. It is like Iran stating it does not have a nuclear weapons program or Russia claiming their elections are fair.

no, the disagreement is about whether the fact that Israel exercised some control over Gaza strip after it withdrew can count as "military control over Gaza strip" In plan English, it's plainly absurd. If I own 10% of the stock of a company, nobody would say I have control over this company But even if these arguments had any merit before Oct 7th, it's clear after that they make no sense. You can't claim with a straight face that Israel had military control over Gaza strip. It plainly did not, which is why Hamas was able to build a tunnel network and succesfully execute these attacks. And if it didn't have military control, that means it wasnt an occupation by definition of what an occupation is.

I feel like you are purposefully derailing the discussion.

First of all the French Resistance was dedicated to the destruction of Vichy France and Nazy Germany, and the ANC was dedicated to the destruction of Apartheid South Africa. The current Hamas charter only calls for the destruction of Zionist Israel, not for Israel as a nation.

Second of all, I stated before that the only relevant comparison, and the only comparison I ever made, was that they operate from occupied territory and against their occupiers. How far they go against their occupiers is indeed irrelevant, like we have both pointed out.

Israel does occupy Gaza, and they have since 1967, no matter how much you deny it. And as such, they bare full responsibility for what goes on in there. Off course any terrorists from Gaza are responsible for their own actions, and should be charged in a court of law. But Israel cannot fight those terrorists by causing mass civilian casualty inside the territory they control. And if they do, any collateral damage they cause, is their responsibility, and a crime they must answer too.

"The current Hamas charter only calls for the destruction of Zionist Israel, not for Israel as a nation"

This is gaslighting. There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements. Israel does not occupy Gaza, they left Gaza in 2005, you can't just pretend like that did not happen, come on. Israel did not have a physical presence inside Gaza before this latest round of fighting, this is a fact and it's absurd to deny it.

I find it interesting that you are willing to assume intent on Hamas while Israel is literally on trial for intending to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.

Everything you say about Hamas can be equally applied to Israel, and it is exactly what South Africa does in its legal case for the ICJ.

No, it can't equally be applied to Israel, just because South Africa does something, it doesn't follow that it's logical or correct.

It can't equally be applied to Israel because Hamas attacked on October 7th and subsequently vowed to repeat these attacks. That is extremely relevant, you can't just ignore this fact.

It's manifestly untrue that Hamas and Israel are morally equivalent. Nobody would bother to bring Hamas before a trial in the Hague; virtually every western country, given the ability to aerosolize Hamas (and only Hamas) with thermobaric warheads, would do so with minimal ceremony. The October 7th attack was horrific even on the scale of 20th century atrocities; it may not be on the top 5, but it's on the leaderboard.

The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.

None of this is to say that what Israel is doing now doesn't constitute a series of war crimes for which Netanyahu and his administration might be imprisoned (if Israel doesn't get to him first). A conflict can be squarely complaint with jus ad bellum but prosecuted in a way that contravenes the laws of war and humanity.

<del>You are right.</del><ins>I would argue</ins> Israel is much worse.

Israel is a state actor with a state level budget, and a state level arsenal which includes nuclear weapons. The damage it can and does inflict is an order of magnitude worse than the horrors any terrorist organization could ever dream of inflicting. But unlike Hamas, Israel also has state level responsibilities, of which it is horrifically failing to uphold. We should judge Hamas as a terrorist organization, but we should also judge Israel as a state actor, and as such any moral failings of Israel is infinitely worse.

> The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.

If true the horrors of 75 years of colonization, occupation and apartheid should be weighted in. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under constant threat of being shot at for opening a car gate, going down the wrong street, or simply for protecting their orchards from settlers.

That said, atrocities and crimes against humanity should not be ranked in any order. They should all be prevented, and in the worst case scenario prosecuted.

What my parent said was: “There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements.” is the only thing I’m equating.

The case against Israel at the ICJ is exploring whether it can be stated without a doubt that Israel intents (wants) to kill (or displace) all Palestinians in Gaza as a group. For this South Africa cites written and spoken statements by Israeli officials (written charter) but also its actions during the current conflict (hindering aid, destroying civil infrastructure, leveling residential neighborhoods, etc.) as well as also actions prior to Oct 7 of which this inferred intent only builds upon.

My parent was assuming genocidal intent onto Hamas, all the while many states are doing the very same against Israel. My parent may be right, but if South Africa et.all are right, the results are an order of magnitude more horrific, by the very nature that the perpetrator is not a mere terrorist organization, but a state actor.

---

EDIT: Removed an unnecessary name calling from post.

I don't think you've made a case for Israel being worse here that doesn't rely on simply tallying up civilian deaths; in fact, your argument lowers the bar further for Hamas, by suggesting Israel has special obligations conferred by statehood. Together, this offers a mode of inquiry that would lead one to believe that virtually every industrialized country is far worse than every terrorist organization.

If you have an argument that would be persuasive to someone who does not in fact believe that almost every country in the world is worse than Hamas, maybe there's a point in continuing to talk. Otherwise, it's fine that we disagree.

While I have you, can you stop writing things to me like that "you are right" barb?

Sorry about my choice of rhetoric. I’ll try to improve.

I want to note that Israel does indeed have special obligation coferred by statehood. Formally those are all the international agreements it has signed and promised to uphold. Relevant here are, among others, the Geneva convention, the Genocide convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. I’ll give special mention to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which Israel hasn’t signed, thus making it scary as North Korea.

When a state signs these obligations but then fails to follow them, they have in fact failed humanity on a moral level. When these failures result in countless deaths and horrors, they are especially bad. To me this is what makes Israel worse then Hamas. You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from.

Thank you for the edit! I appreciate it.

I think Israel's actions in Gaza have been hard to defend (their motivation: less so) so none of what I'm saying is an apology for Israel. But the idea that they're even morally comparable to Hamas is an extraordinary claim. Many (most?) normal reasonable people will read it and scratch their heads.

Every country fails humanity at a moral level in a great variety of ways. Israelis sometimes feel --- with some justification --- that they're held to a standard that does't apply to other western countries, let alone countries in their own region, where the deliberate, planned murder of civilians has occurred within just the past decade or so at scales that dwarf what's happened in Gaza.

I think the root of our disagreement is in Israel’s motivation. We will see when the ICJ rules whether Israel’s intention is merely counter terrorism or—as it is accused of—to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part. In the latter case (which is what I believe) the motivation is indeed hard to defend.

When you think about this, remember that there are 2.2MM Palestinians in the Gaza Strip alone, and almost 5MM total. 24,000 is a terrible toll, and I think much of it is reckless and probably criminal, but it isn't a dent in the Palestinian population. There's no way to write that without sounding soulless, as if people were scoring tokens on some sort of strategy game we're all playing. But it's deeply relevant to the formal notion of a "genocide", which is what we're talking about when we talk about the ICJ.

Yemen and Syria are instructive comparisons here, and I'll note that while everyone was pretty grossed out at Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen (which had more to do with how we felt about Saudi Arabia than a genuine concern for Yemenis, who, like Palestinians, are for the most part victimized by the combatants on "their side), you didn't see much talk about Yemeni genocide.

Further arguing against a finding of genocidal intent on Israel's part is the provocation they responded to, which, again, is among the worst in modern history: a truly, deliberately vile attack done at breathtaking scale.

Like I said, we will see when the ICJ rules on the matter, which probably won’t be for another decade. However if the court rules in favor of provisional measures (which will probably be in the coming weeks) you must at least see how I’m justified in believing the genocidal intent. And even if it isn’t, the very fact that these serious charges are being pressed, means that many legal experts think there is a probably cause for concern.

The other points raised here are irrelevant. I’ve said before in this thread—and other threads—that there is no justification to genocide. So however heinously Israel was provoked, the genocidal conduct afterwards speaks for it self. This was explicitly stated in the oral arguments by South Africa.

As for the numbers, that also is irrelevant to the question of genocide. The convention states “in whole or in part”. South Africa argued that Palestinians of Gaza constitutes a group, and that Israels conduct in Gaza violates annex (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; of Article II of the Genocide Convention.

In comparison the Army of Republika Srpska was convicted of Genocide for killing 8,372 victims out of a population of 1.2 million living in territories controlled by the perpetrators. The total number didn’t matter, what mattered was the intent to destroy Muslim Bosniaks living in Srpska as a group.

I don't think you need the ICJ ruling to press a case that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, because there is a colloquial meaning to the word that covers any mass killing that targets a specific ethnicity. That isn't the legal definition, but legal definitions aren't the only ones that matter --- especially in international law, where the legal definition doesn't much matter at all, since international law is largely performative, a vehicle for mobilizing diplomacy and little else.

I would just caution that the colloquial meaning of "genocide" covers a lot of other terrible events in recent history that people don't single out as genocidal, and Israelis are, with very good reason, especially alert to the multiplicity of different standards here. They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.

I agree that Serbia perpetrated a genocide that killed far fewer people than Israel did. We killed more than 3 times as many civilians as the IDF in Gaza in our doomed Afghanistan invasion, and not only did very few normal people call it a genocide, but they got angry when we abruptly left. And I again urge you to check out the numbers on Syria and Yemen, two other conflicts Iran helped instigate.

The world is messy and usually pretty horrible. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, but I think it's helpful to know what another perspective on this might be.

> They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.

Some IDF soldiers made TikToks addressing Netanyahu, starting their intent to complete "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement". There are dozens of them bragging about how many houses they are blowing up, while they do it with wired explosives. Right now, the last "functioning" hospital in Gaza is under attack, while Israeli youth make fun of "killing Palestines" (most of them can't even pronounce "Palestinian" apparently) in live video chats. Some dude on Israeli TV saying "I'll be honest, I don't care about the war crimes, I just want to see buildings destroyed, mooooore buildings" etc. and everyone laughs.

[edit: And the line that "there are no innocent people in Gaza" is still being repeated by all sorts of people, including military. Here's for example Lt. Col. Oren Schindler in a radio interview: "We need need to make sure that wherever the IDF meets Gaza, there is devastation. Nothing less, nothing more. Where Battalion 74 was - it happened. I can garuantee you that devastation, nothing less, in every place we were, there was only sand left, and houses on the ground. Because in every home, unfortunately I learned that in Gaza there is no innocence."

One might say this proves they don't want to kill innocent people, but Hamas forces them to, etc. but given the context and the actions, I'll just note that this is true about any atrocity. Look any of them up, from the most obvious to the most obscure ones, and you'll find someone painting the it as either a.) doing good or b.) doing bad because bad people forced them to or c.) doing bad for good reasons or a good goal that sanctifies the bad deeds. I doubt "genocide lawyers" would weigh such lip service much, if at all.]

Yes, there were also thousands of people in Israel chanting "Bibi, Bibi, you can't hide, you're committing genocide". But they sure are in the extreme minority.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-o...

> “Most Israelis don’t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists, all of them, or vague images with no names, no faces, no family, no homes, no hopes,” Baruchin said. “What I am trying to do in my posts is present Palestinians as human beings.”

> Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in a high-security jail, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.

Netanyahu has historically low approval, and most observers expect him to get booted as soon as the Gaza war winds down (sooner, if he can't wind it down expeditiously). When that happens, there's a nonzero chance he's going to end up in prison. It is not at all reasonable to suggest that his opponents are an "extreme minority".

People who are calling out the genocidal speech by hundreds and thousands of high-ranking "trolls" and the genocidal actions by the IDF are in the extreme minority.

As exemplified by a teacher put into solitary confinement for posting about innocent deaths in Gaza and suggesting having empathy for those.

Can you show me some, who aren't getting smeared and persecuted for it? I am not aware of a single one.

I agree with all of you that we should not tally crimes, that one crime doesn't justify another. But if I had to rank anyone morally, I'd say the same deed becomes morally worse the better off a person/group/nation is. We can trivially observe this in daily life, too. A rich person stealing 1€ from a beggar would be considered kind of monster, even though it might not even matter that much to the beggar. A beggar stealing 1€ from a rich person dropped wouldn't be a hero, but wouldn't raise any eyebrows either.

And the difference Gaza which has been cut off from the internet for 4 days in a row now, and a government that buys Google ads to smear the ICJ genocide charges as being politically motivated support of Hamas, is rather stark. The US senate just voted with a 75% majority to not even record Israeli war crimes. Are they affording that to other countries in the region, too?

> let alone countries in their own region

That's such an odd defense we never hear anywhere else, but constantly in contest of Israel. Why would the physical region matter? Those other countries aren't taking part in the Eurovision song contest, for example. They're not claiming to be a democracy respecting humanitarian values. Israel was founded by educated Europeans in no small part, not people from the region. If someone brags so much, including having "the most moral army in the world", while that army is doing what it is doing now, it might have something to do with them (too), not (only) the people who don't buy it having double standards.

We expect no better of other countries who currently aren't developed and weren't ever, we're barely even on speaking terms with them, when it comes to having a place at our table in polite company. I bet they also brag about being the best and having the best army, but we don't even hear about it and don't care. If one of them got accused of genocide via a formal trial, most media outlets would have covered and translated the first hearing, where the accusations where laid out -- instead of totally ignoring that and then reporting on Israel's so-called defense the next day.

We certainly don't have a fleet of journalists embedded in the armies of other countries in the region posting feel good stories, while the other half is writing up other random personal interest stories to make people feel good about the part of the picture they're not being shown at all. Or politicians just leaping to their defense before the ink on the accusation is even dry: https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2024/01/germany-rushes-to-decl...

To my eyes, Israel is held to the standard of a colonial European power in the 1960s, just prior to decolonization.

The atrocities and horrors of European colonization were indeed recognized, but not loudly, the media talked about it, but in a weird tone, often justifying or devaluing the lives of the colonized peoples. Resistance movements among the colonized were described as terrorists, and any fight against them (which was a fight to keep the European colonies) was described as just and moral. The UN spoke against colonization, but was ignored. Human rights abuses in the colonies were ignored or justified amongst western governments.

Of course Israel today doesn’t parallel this dark time period of European history. But the standards applied to Israel today are in many ways quite similar to the standards applied to a European colonial power aiming to keep their colonies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com