Hacker News Reader

Comment by slantedview | Hacker News Reader

These protests aren't about Hamas though. There are other protests about that, and surely those are valid. These protests are about Israel's campaign of what UN officials say is genocide. Most attempts to change the subject to Hamas are bad faith attempts to protect Israel from culpability.

View on HN

UN officials don't say it's genocide and anyways they're not the arbiters of that claim. Changing the subject to Hamas is not bad faith. Hamas is the ruler of Gaza, was voted into power, and enjoys support of most Palestinians. It's impossible for Israel to "separate" its war on Hamas from the population within it resides. The ignoring of Hamas by the anti-Israel crowd is what's bad faith.

Do you separate the Russians from Putin? Should we boycott Ukraine from attacking Russians and not fighting directly with Putin? Do you have any other realistic examples that support your idea that somehow we can ignore the topic of Hamas here? Are the anti-Israel protesters being clear about their stance on Hamas and terrorism?

> Hamas is the ruler of Gaza, was voted into power, and enjoys support of most Palestinians.

Hamas was voted in 18 years ago with less than 45% of the vote on a platform of clean government and keeping peace with Israel based on the 1967 borders.

Hamas today is not the Hamas that was voted in, very few Palestinians alive today voted for them.

Re: your last point, the median age is around 18 so half the population wasn’t even born the last time there was an election. I cannot imagine what it must be like growing up with so little control over your life.

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

Hamas today is exactly the same Hamas that was voted in. If elections were to happen again, Hamas would still get voted in, that's why they haven't happened.

That's the reality which anti-Israelis are determined to ignore.

% of the popular vote doesn't matter. US presidents also get voted with less than 50% of the popular vote.

Their platform isn't and never was peace within the 1967 borders. Again that's the reality anti-Israelis are determined to ignore.

> If elections were to happen again, Hamas would still get voted in, that's why they haven't happened.

If Hamas believed they would win, wouldn't they be more inclined to hold elections in the territory they control?

Netanyahu and his administration actively worked to bolster Hamas and keep them in power: https://original.antiwar.com/connor_freeman/2023/10/26/netan...

So yes, let's go after all supporters of terrorism!

It is more nuanced than this. Netanyahu did take a divide and conquer strategy with Hamas and the PA. That much is true. But the Palestinians have agency here and we shouldn't take that away from them. I don't think saying "actively worked to bolster" is that accurate. It was along the lines of better the devil we know . Like many things in this story, it doesn't yield itself to simplistic observations. I don't have a lot of love for Netanyahu but he's certainly not a supporter of Hamas terrorism.

> It was along the lines of better the devil we know

Israel also "knew" the PA, but worked to marginalize them anyway.

Israelis freely and democratically elected Satanyahu (among other racist and genocidal maniacs who call for the genocide and destruction of all of Palestine), who is literally their longest serving PM, who literally brags about making any efforts about a Palestinian state fail, while Hamas was elected once 18 years ago and half of the population today weren't even alive then.

The reason the Palestinians don't have elections is that Hamas would get voted for again. It enjoys popular support. This 18 year ago and half the population thing is bullshit. Half the population doesn't get to vote anyways when half the population is under 18. That's how democracy works.

On the Israeli side the reason Netanyahu and most Israelis object to a Palestinian state is that it's clearly just going to become a base for launching attacks on Israel, just like Gaza. Palestinians don't want a two state solution, they want to destroy Israel. They say it explicitly in every survey. Go watch videos on YouTube of Palestinians in the west bank interviewed about this question prior to Oct 7th.

> Palestinians don't want a two state solution

This is a pretty generalizing statement about a whole nation that surely has varying opinions on the subject. I would even say a bit racist and dehumanizing.

Can you share the survey’s you claim exists which demonstrates this?

I think the parent meant Palestinian leadership. There were two offers for a Palestinian state which included east Jerusalem as the capitol. One by Barak rejected by Arafat and the other by Olmert rejected by Mahazen.

There were undoubtedly flaws in both offers. But that's how countries start. You form something, build trust and negotiate to improve conditions. Unfortunately, Palestinians have always suffered from bad leadership that keeps dragging them to conflict with Israel. They keep losing these conflicts and their situation in the aftermath is always worse. Unfortunately, this is no exception.

> Half the population doesn't get to vote anyways when half the population is under 18. That's how democracy works.

But the entire population gets to be blown up anyways by 2000-pound bombs. That's how mass murder works.

I’m not sure what you mean by “bad faith” here. I think most defenders of Israel are pretty forthright about their belief that UN officials are wrong and Hamas is solely responsible for the suffering in Gaza. That doesn’t mean you have to agree - I personally am skeptical that trying to parse out who’s most responsible or most at fault makes sense - but most of the opponents you’re seeing genuinely feel that protests against Israel are protecting Hamas from culpability. (International relations in a violent region are hard!)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com