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Comment by computerthings | Hacker News Reader

> surveys indicated that an overwhelming majority of residents of Gaza supported Hamas

Come on, nearly half of the inhabitants of Gaza are/were under 18. "Surveys" cannot make collective punishment legal, or annexation and ethnic cleansing for that matter. I'd say outright cutting off a whole population from food and going on TV to rant about how even the babies are terrorists isn't self-defense or security. If anything it's with a second set religious extremists that needs Hamas just like Hamas needs them. And in similar fashion, they use "Israel" as a shield for what they want, despite the Israelis who do respect human rights and international law, and get threatened for it.

> You’re trying to separate Hamas from everyday people in Gaza

They are separate. Each person is responsible for their actions. You can't speak of democracy and then casually ignore this.

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I mentioned the surveys to indicate the complicity of the civilian population in Hamas’s actions. Often people claim the residents of Gaza didn’t vote for Hamas since the last election was in 2006. But the surveys reveal that most of them do support them and their religious terrorism.

> "Surveys" cannot make collective punishment legal, or annexation and ethnic cleansing for that matter.

What do you mean by annexation given that the entire region, including Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza were occupied by Jewish people long before Islamic Arabs were in the area?

What do you mean by ethnic cleansing given that Gaza’s population has grown rapidly over time, given Israel announces targets ahead of time, and given that most of Gaza’s residents still live? Israel could level all of Gaza but they haven’t done anything even remotely close to that. Even the highest claimed counts of deaths in Gaza would amount to a couple percent of the population. That doesn’t seem very successful for an ethnic cleansing.

> outright cutting off a whole population from food

Food and aid which Hamas stole and sold for money to fund terrorism to kill Israelis, all aided by UNRWA.

> Each person is responsible for their actions.

Right and Hamas was voted in by everyday people and still has their broad support despite terrorism, murder, and rape.

Your impassionate argument in favor of an ethnic cleansing with bombs, starvation and lack of sanitation lies in stark contrast to this outrage about the Uyghurs' culture being erased with development and draconian imprisonment for suspected extremism, while at the same time, the West Bank was reduced to a patchwork of ghettos with draconian checkpoints where life is cheap if you are suspected to be an extremist.

On the one hand, the slaughter of teenagers today in Gaza is justified because of the sins of their forefathers in electing Hamas, on the other, it's a genocidal atrocity that beards can only be so long in Xinjiang.

The US is only more righteous for supporting America's Greatest Ally at the cost of the lives of it citizens, of those of Arab countries and, now with the TikTok ban, to its founding principles, in your world.

I think you're raising an important point that I acknowledge, and I need to process that more. But my immediate thought is to note that the two situations are very different to me. Uyghurs are indigenous to Xinjiang (more than anyone else), and Islamic Arabs in Gaza or the West Bank are not indigenous to the region around Israel (Jewish people are, while Gaza's residents are outsiders since Islamic Arabs aren't indigenous to the region). The CCP/PRC is erasing Uyghur life in Xinjiang and forcing their population growth downward, while Islamic Arabs living in Israel have full protection of the law, can practice their religion and culture freely, gain wealth, have families without forced sterilization or abortion, and live without the threat of the state kidnapping their children. There's no evidence of Uyghurs broadly supporting terrorist attacks, while there's evidence of Gaza residents overwhelmingly supporting things like repeated rocket attacks.

There's more but basically there are enough differences that the situations can be treated differently. But at the same time, I do hope for a different, peaceful solution. Surveys show Islamic Arabs are generally quite happy under Israel, but that won't work for those in West Bank or Gaza perhaps. You are right that teenagers who aren't supportive of terrorism don't deserve violence. A two state solution still seems like the best idea, but Hamas has still not shown support for it, even though it would mean peaceful coexistence and could lead to a rebuilding of Gaza and West Bank.

What you call "Islamic Arabs" makes no sense. They are as native as the Jewish people. Mostly because they're nor more or less "Arab" than the Jewish people. Religion is what separates them, not race. Also, your argument ignores time. Even it it were true, for how many centuries have these "Islamic Arabs" been there? Why are they any less "from there" than Jewish people?

And there is an overwhelming support for the war in Gaza from Israelis, that many consider a gross violation of international law going beyond war crimes into genocide territory. If that is shown to be the case would Israelis deserve what they get in response? I doubt you'd agree.

Every genocide, every occupation and every conflict has its own historical conflict. You need to examine you own massive biases here, adjust your view to international law and human rights and you'd see the massive injustice here that is fueling the conflict and will continue to until its addressed.

Israel is not securing its own safe future here, there is no military solution here. Hamas will rebuild itself if it hasn't already because the crime they have committed and the people they have murdered will only boost the recruitment of Hamas and other paramilitary groups. This has always been the way the world over. Jewish history is itself has examples of this.

And I've never see a good faith attempt from Israel wrt this conflict that hasn't been completely derailed by the Israeli extremists and hardliners.

You mentioned America as an examplar of demcracy further up, while in truth it is an extremely flawed model of democracy:

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

There are better models of democracy around.

Israel have the right to defend their country of course, but Palestinians have the right to fight occupation under international law. They are massively repressed around the world - try support Palestinian rights in the US right now.

Anyone can be labelled a terrorist. I would label the IDF a terrorist organisation due to their methods, their justifications for the many human rights abuses and killings ring very hollow. They also encourage and support their own fundamentalists - aka settlers - to commit crimes.

Lastly I think anyone who commits war crimes should be brought to the ICC; Israel has shown it is incapable of broadly prosecuting theses crimes and obviously the PA cant either. It is Israels fault if they kill civilians and I don't buy any of their justification as they've been shown again and again to be untrustworthy. I believe they will be found guilt of genocide in the end, and the countries who supplied them with the weapons and tech will be guilty of enabling a genocide - there's plenty of evidence that the state department in the US has brushed knowledge of human right abuses and war crimes under the carpet for political and ideological reasons.

> You mentioned America as an examplar of demcracy further up, while in truth it is an extremely flawed model of democracy

I disagree with your framing, as does your source. The index you shared does not paint America as "extremely flawed", but just flawed (and even so, almost at the score of getting their highest rank). So adding the word "extremely" is your editorial take. However, their rating system is not transparent - it's not clear who they surveyed or what questions they asked. It's also clear this rating system is only somewhat correct in scoring countries - for example both Canada and Australia are democracies but have notable restrictions on free speech, a core principle of a free society and any democracy - but they were ranked higher than the US.

> Anyone can be labelled a terrorist.

Labels can be misused, but what actually happened? Has Israel been shooting rockets indiscriminately into Gaza? No, but people in Gaza have been doing that for a few decades now. In fact, the rocket attacks got a lot worse after Israel left Gaza in 2005. Is that not terrorism?

> It is Israels fault if they kill civilians

How can it be when they're pursuing terrorists who choose to use human shields on purpose? Israel has been careful to announce targets ahead of time and has gone above and beyond what any other country would to avoid civilian casualties. But in this situation, which was created by Hamas and their supporters, a country that wishes to protect itself from attacks can't achieve zero civilian deaths. That's unrealistic for any conflict, but especially this one.

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