Comment by invalidname | Hacker News Reader

Comment by invalidname | Hacker News Reader

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It's a monarchy under sharia so I don't think a western monarchy term properly represents what it is. Iran is very much unaligned with Hamas, it uses Hamas as a tool but despises it. Hamas and Qatar are Sunni whereas Iran is Shia, they despise each other but hate Israel/the west more.

> Playing Iran vs saudi arabia is also the reason why Qatar "passed money to Hamas", when asked by Israel (or rather, Likud). The funds they passed are originally from Israel.

Some money was indeed passed by Israel, but a lot of the payments for families of Suicide bombers etc. was not part of that specific deal. Giving refuge to Hamas leadership is not part of that either.

> I'm pretty sure they only report on things already reported on by Haaretz (which are the only middle east news i truly trust atm) or international medias.

I used to read Haaretz but now I only read specific posts my spouse shares with me.

Haaretz is a bubble. They pick narratives that fit specific world views. That makes it harder to understand why some things are happening. When I read more centrist news it gives me better sense of both sides on the matter and the comments there help me gauge public sentiment more accurately. Unfortunately, none is good and I still need a filter to "read between the lines".

I'd argue that any Israeli news source is better than Al Jazeera but I'm obviously pretty biased on the matter and even I don't blindly trust Israeli media.

I think absolute monarchy is exactly what Qatar is, an absolute monarch use religion to establish and justify its power. Absolute monarchies were pretty rare in europe overall, but looked a lot like Oman and Qatar look like these days.

I think Al Jazeera, in this very case, has a point, the PA army indeed fought Hamas in refugee camps, and those raids have caused deaths. I'm, very, very partial to Fatah, especially the post-2014 iteration, but hiding those raids is imho a very bad political move and will cause a Streisand effect.

Also, sadly, whatever Fatah do against Hamas, it will never move Israeli opinion about Palestinians.

> Absolute monarchies were pretty rare in europe overall, but looked a lot like Oman and Qatar look like these days.

In the 15th century... Sure. But since we still have monarchies today it's not quite the same as the UK.

> I think Al Jazeera, in this very case, has a point

They often do. My complaint isn't that they invent stories as a form of lying. They create a narrative and then cherry pick facts that fit with the narrative while hiding or misdirecting when inconvenient reality gets in the way. You can see more moderate western versions of this in Fox news or people like John Oliver.

> hiding those raids is imho a very bad political move and will cause a Streisand effect.

I don't think they hide the deaths. It's a matter of how they are reported. This is a powder-keg and Al Jazeera has repeatedly reported misinformation in an inflammatory way with complete disregard to the outcome.

> Also, sadly, whatever Fatah do against Hamas, it will never move Israeli opinion about Palestinians.

I disagree.

Israelis were very much for the Oslo accords and wanted them to work. Fatah didn't do enough to stop Hamas and then missed the two opportunities to get a Palestinian state.

Opinions swing both ways. Right now the global anti-Israel sentiment and the ongoing hostage situation has helped the Israeli right-wing control the conversation. But things change and can also change to worse.

E.g. if Hamas is successful in starting another Intifada the west bank will be completely screwed. This is what Ben Gvir and Smotrich are trying to trigger. They want another Intifada so they can use that as an excuse for ethnic cleansing. Fatah is doing the smart thing here. Sadly, if they'd had the political courage to do that in the late 90's we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

Ok, I stand corrected on Al Jazeera, you convinced me. I disagree with your opinion on the Oslo accords agreement among the general Israeli public, but time will likely decide who was right, and hopefully you are.

Just a point: we don't have absolute monarchies in Europe since like 1830, they are all parliamentary nowadays, or at least republican. The UK has practically never been an absolute monarchy, jumping almost directly from feudalism to parliamentarism. I'll stand on what Qatar and Oman are as political system, and those are absolute monarchies (the 'absolute' here is important), and I wish monarchists understood that.

I don’t think that Haaretz is in a bubble as much as it’s simply captured by its audience.

Don’t get me wrong it clearly has a very distinct ideological leaning but comparing their English edition to Google translate of their Hebrew one shows that their ideals very much take a backseat to subscriber fees.

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