The first time i saw this concept of the 'double-tap' - to target first-responders to the scene of an earlier strike - was in the movie,' The Hurt Locker' - where it was employed by some ISIS-tier insurgents using a VBIED disguised as an ambulance. Presumably this was intended to show the level of depravity of the terrorists. First time actually seeing this employed in the real world was last year when Israel did a double tap that killed multiple journalists working for reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye and Quds News Network plus paramedics and medical staff *at a hospital*. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nasser_Hospital_strikes
Now finding out this is essentially SOP for Israel and the United States (eg: the triple-tap strike at the Iranian girl's school where parents rushing to save their kids from the collapsed school were hit in the second and third strike), I wonder if the terrorists learnt this tactic from the US coalition or vice-versa.
Did you see the video that Wikileaks released, now 16 years ago, when the Apache helicopter fired on the first-responder on the the scene, a van which also included children.
At that point, another voice – presumably an officer not on scene – asks if the van is “picking up the wounded” and is told that they are. Two Iraqis from the van carry the wounded man around the side of the van to load him inside.
An American voice with the call sign “Bushmaster 7” says, “Roger, engage.” One of the helicopters blankets the van with machine-gun fire.
“Oh yeah, right through the windshield,” says one of the soldiers, while another voice on board briefly laughs. “There were approximately four to five individuals in that truck, so I’m counting about 12-15″ casualties.”
Later when news that two girls had been badly injured was greeted with: "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."
While historians tend to disagree (rightly IMHO) with the severity of the Dresden Bombings, as reported by Kurt Vonnegut (WWII POW @Dresden)... it was definitely a disgraceful targeting-of-civilians, by Allied Forces, for the sake of demonstrating Power, alone.
Complete and utter devastation, no survivor left unravaged.
Yes, for the sole reason that it's just a label assigned by an invading enemy government.
The problem is that the label is used in media to assign moral judgement, when it's just a political proscription that is typically assigned for entirely geopolitical reasons. Almost every country occupying a foreign territory, or is engaged in war with a group, or even another country, calls military action of the other side terrorism.
It doesn't mean anything. If it is to carry a moral judgement, it needs to be based on universally applied principles. It takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's absolutely not based on universally applied principles.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.
These where clan militias fighting for a headstanrt in the proxxy civil war to come. There is no iraq. Its a iranian proxxy with a sunni province and a basically split of kurdish region. That "nation" never existed except in western maps and heads. Those "freedom fighters" where the basis for isis and the iranian militias. None where patriots, just in it for the family wearing the state as skinsuit. They thoroughly disproved all neoliberal cultural ideals about universal nneeds and wants.
If we follow your logic, then I'd argue that similarly, there's no countries in the world. In particular, there's no United States, it's land colonized by Europeans who came to that land and slaughtered its indigenous people and claimed it for themselves.
The western culture forms meta families. We ostracize the sexual others like everyone else, but they form a nation wide "meta" family that connects everyone to everyone, allowing for the traditional clan family to flap open and dissappear with only nuclear families remaining. Oh and they form a ruling caste with working institutions. Western societies are one huge artifical clan.
The Hannibal Directive - the IDF's infamous "murder-suicide" pact, where in Israel's polity can take a decision to sacrifice their own civilians and soldiers to prevent them from being taken hostage by their enemies. In fact, it is now slowly being revealed that many of the so-called Hamas "savagery" that were hyped up by Israel and the western media about the killed civilians and soldiers were actually the result of Netanyahu government ordering the IDF to shoot, bomb and kill their own people and due to orders to disregard Israeli lives when attacking the Hamas militia:
- Israel expanded the use of its murderous “Hannibal Directive” – designed to prevent soldiers from being taken alive as prisoners of war – by killing many of its own civilians.
- The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June.
- Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
- At the initiative of the local Gaza Division, “Hannibal” was carried out right away: less than an hour after the Palestinian offensive began. “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza,” the division was ordered at 11:22 am.
- By midday, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military (the so-called “Pit” headquarters, deep under Israel’s Hakirya building in downtown Tel Aviv) to invoke the Hannibal Directive throughout the entire region, “even if this means the endangerment or harming of the lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves.”
- Israel has been engaged in an aggressive cover-up of its crimes against its own people.
- “Every day in captivity was very hard,” one former detainee said at the angry meeting. “I was in a house when there were bombardments all around. We were sitting in tunnels and we were very afraid that, not Hamas, but Israel would kill us, and then they’ll say: ‘Hamas killed you.’” Another released detainee said: “The fact is that I was in a hideaway that was bombed, and we had to be smuggled away, and we were injured. Not to mention that we were shot at by a helicopter when we were on our way to Gaza … You are bombing the tunnel routes exactly in the area where they [the other captives] are.”
Think about the irony in that - Hamas wanted to keep, and did more, to keep the Israeli hostages alive than their own government or the IDF! (This is what happens when wacko religious fundamentalists run a country).
The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases,
Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two
cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
The Hannibal Directive is supposed to prevent kidnappings, in a similar vein as "the US does not negotiate with terrorists". Say what you want about it, but it's not borne from Israel's callousness towards its own people, it's borne from facing truly monstrous enemies.
Finally, and I know the odds of this succeeding are real low, I implore you to do what you can to get out of what seems like a Marxist/Leninist Israel/Palestine absolutist hole you're in. I don't know you or your background, and I don't know if my read here is correct. But sourcing "electronicintifada" and "wsws" (straight up propaganda outlet and ML rag) or claiming elsewhere that Biden/Democrats would have supported Israel's attack on Iran (not even Israel thinks this, and the evidence is they didn't do it under Biden) gives me some pretty clear signals. I want to be clear: these people are nuts. MLs are nuts. Pro-Pali antisemites are nuts. (Again if I'm right) you're in the equivalent of thinking ivermectin will get you laid right now, completely off the deep end. Timothy Leary said it best: think for yourself, question authority. Don't be a useful idiot for these evil people.
> The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June. - Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
> The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians. Other evidence, including from Israel's own Defence Minister confirms that the IDF were told to execute the Hannibal Directive (which is an order to kill their own people). There's no stretch in relating the two.
"The US does not negotiate with terrorists" doesn't mean that they also prioritise killing their own soldiers or citizens, as the first line of defensive or offensive tactics.
And your attempts to paint me as some left-based extremist / conspiracist, due to the sources cited, is both ludicrous and laughable. I am an Indian, and Gandhi politically united us Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc by teaching us to recognise the extremists / religious fundamentalists amongst us, who only political thrive in fostering hatred, enmity and violence between communities. That is why we remain a secular nation. And aren't a communist nation too (as we understand that extremist left- leaders seeks to divide people by class - a different identity politics at play).
Left- or right- doesn't matter, and each have a constructive role to play - the trick is to keep extremism at bay.
Thus, I don't see Israeli Jews committing genocide against Palestinians or the Lebanese. What I see is the depravity of Israeli right-wing Jewish religious fundamentalists relishing in the blood-lust of slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese women, children and the old simply because they are Arab Muslims and Christians, who refuse to leave the land where they were born. We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are. Hitler did the same too - while the west has white-washed it, the Nazis where driven as much by Christian fundamentalism (as they were by the Eugenics) in creating the "us vs them" political narration of hate and violence. Netanyahu's politics is not so different from Hitler's or the Nazis today.
And just as Hitler's perverted Christian Nazism has nothing to do with Christianity as practiced by the ordinary Christians, Netanyahu's own perverted fundamentalist version of Jewish Fascism has nothing to do with Judaism of the ordinary Jews. Netanyahu's Jewish religious fundamentalism that drives the Israeli-right and the Islamic fundamentalism that drives the Palestinian-right are two faces of the same coin. Get rid of both, and the politics of hatred and violence in the region have a real chance to end.
> Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians.
No, what EI wrote is: "Hundreds of Israelis were likely killed by Israel itself in “Hannibal” targeting incidents as well as unintentional crossfire."
This is wrong, and also propaganda. Why would they do this? Think for yourself, question authority.
> We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are.
There aren't enough extremists to do the truly abhorrent things. They need help from others, so they use tools like propaganda and coercion. Think for yourself, question authority.
I'm not here to defend the Likud party. I think what Israel prosecuted in the wake of the October 7th attacks was a genocide. But I do the next thing, which is learn the history and analyze a variety of sources with different incentives to get as clear a picture as possible, in hopes of not becoming a useful idiot for evil. Not everyone can do this, I understand. But I agree with 90% of what you wrote--you're clearly pretty smart and motivated, so I think you can.
Also apply think for yourself, question authority to me! Why would I do this? Am I a Zionist psyop? Am I virtue signaling on what I think is an influential message board? Am I ignoring my wife in a vain attempt at making the world a better place, which is something like the shadow of narcissism or the fear of irrelevancy?
Religious crazies have taken over Israel and they simply don't value the lives of non Jews. They want those poor citizens gone for more Semitic Lebensraum.
"One high-profile journalist targeted in this way was Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month. After his death, the Israeli army quickly circulated documents claiming he had been a Hamas operative since 2013. "Yet even if taken at face value, the files showed his last contact with Hamas was in 2017 – years before the current war," said France 24."
You think Israel shows every bit of intel they have???? The last thing they showed being 2017 doesn't say he was only Hamas for four years.
The basic problem here is that all the terrorist groups over there call their propaganda people "reporters". In a sense they are, they are reporting on events. That does not make them not considered combatants, though. Israel has found terrorist affiliation for about half of the dead "reporters", but that doesn't make the others civilians. Hit a combatant, the person next to him is probably also a combatant.
You're using the term "terrorist" to describe people indigenous to the land that Israel stole. If you use logic, that makes Israel that terrorist group since they used violence to kick Palestinians out of their land and homes, not the other way around.
Lookup the Jewish terrorist groups Irgu, Lehi, and Haganah. Lookup the assassination of Lord Moyne by Lehi and the 1946 Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel. The leaders of these terrorist groups eventually became Prime Ministers of Israel.
While you're at it, lookup the attack by the Israeli military on the USS Liberty that killed 34 Americans.
What is interesting is how governments and controlled media flip and reverse terms (in a 1984 kind of way), along with avoiding accountability, to suit their purposes. Even when it is very obvious that actions are morally wrong, war crimes, or even genocide.
It's got to the point where it's like someone outrageously punching you in the face, then pretending they didn't or were the victims, when there is a response.
Exactly. As Bassem Youssef once put it: "Palestine is like a fish bowl. It's a lot of fish, it's condensed. Israel is like the person over that bowl, crashing the bowl, killing the fish, taking any fish they want. ...[talks about how Israel takes Palestinan hostages all the time]... At a certain point, Israel is just hovering over that fish bowl. At some moment, a fish, crazy enough, suicidal enough, will jump from the bowl, through the air, bite the pinkie of Israel. And Israel would be like: Oh my god! That bitch bit my pinkie and my hand was not even in the bowl."
Hezbollah isn't in Israel, so any argument about what happened in Israel is irrelevant. And by far the primary cause of Palestinians leaving was Arab countries telling them to get out of the way of the coming invasion. And, well, when you refuse to agree to lay down arms is it really surprising you're not allowed back in?
King David Hotel? You mean British military HQ? Who received and ignored the warning about the bomb?
USS Liberty--ever consider how hard it is to identify ships from the air in a combat situation? Israel knew the ship claimed to be American, but they thought that was a ruse.
> USS Liberty--ever consider how hard it is to identify ships from the air in a combat situation? Israel knew the ship claimed to be American, but they thought that was a ruse.
Everybody outside of the IDF PR department has accepted that Israel deliberately targeted USS Liberty.
The “misidentification” story was utterly unbelievable at the time, and remains so now. There are endless statements from top US national security officials directly calling the Israelis liars.
> ... the person next to him is probably also a combatant
Absolutely, they could even be future combatants even if they are not now. That's why killing schoolgirls in Iran, reporters in Lebanon, etc. is justified, they are all potential terrorists. It definitely can not be proven otherwise that they are not. Why take a chance? /s
Germany continues to provide arms and support to the IDF and did so throughout the entire duration of the Gaza Campaign. Just recently, the Volkswagen group announced it is considering retooling one of their factories to manufacture missiles for Iron dome system. The UK also continues to manufacture and sell components for weapon systems used by the Israelis. The UK's RAF bases in Greece, Cyprus, and the UK have also been key logistics hubs for weapons to the Israelis and the Americans. In addition, the UK operated daily surveillance flights over Gaza out of their base in Cyprus through the entire period of the Gaza Genocide. The exact goal and nature of this operation continues to be kept secret but it is inconceivable how they weren't witness to the countless war crimes being committed on the ground. Mainstream outlets like the BBC and the Guardian continue to suppress reporting on this story. I am sure there are more countries providing support in secret and in smaller ways. Germany which suspended all arms exports to Saudi Arabia in 2018 citing the murder of the journalist Khassogi and grave human-rights violations in Yemen lifted these restrictions last year citing its defence of Israel. It is illuminating to note how Germany defines the protection of human rights and journalists in these cases.
What is Russia's side of the argument? What is China's side of the argument? What is USA's side of the argument?
Bibi's reasons are not the same of the ultra ortodox, neither the same of the ultra zionists, neither the same of regular joes.
(Bibi wants to avoid going to trial, the orthodox believe god promised them "all of israel" (which includes some Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), the zionists are your run of the mill nazis (racists), while most of the people want "peace" whatever the price.
> [What is Israel's side of the argument?] What is Russia's side of the argument? What is China's side of the argument? What is USA's side of the argument?
All of these countries but one have launched invasions within the past ten years. What's the obsession with China?
The reality is much simplier, it's not a one man story not even a top down one. If you had travel on those area you would know that their leader reflect the will / moral sense of the population. Most Israelis approve the genocide, most Russians and Americans don't mind invading other nations.
The way I understand the dispute, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that Ukraine was formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Russia feels aggrieved that in recent years Ukraine has been trying to become part of NATO, a move that would further diminish Russia's ability to project power in the region.
NATO has already expanded into former Warsaw pact countries, and even former Soviet Republics. Russia feels they need to do something about Ukraine before Ukraine becomes one of them.
Western leaders have already broken the promise made during the cold war that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" beyond a reunified Germany.
Please, this is not a defense by me of Russia's attack of Ukraine. I'm just describing Russia's side of the "argument" as I understand it.
Once again, correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't understand Israel's side of the argument, if you could explain to me.
These are the "excuses" by Russia. The only real motivation is to expand its own power and influence in the World. They will find whatever lowest hanging fruit to justify the actions they think will lead to it. They will try to propose a rhetoric that sounds as if they are justified to something. Everyone does that, not just Russia, but there are countries and leaders who always want to expand at the cost of others, and there are countries who just want to be and are fine with their borders. If it wasn't decade old broken promises by someone from NATO or whatever they would of course dig for another reason as part of the propaganda. There is no rational reason for a peaceful country without goals of expansion to fear NATO. They don't like the expansion of NATO because it limits their abilities in the future to expand.
NATO is for countries that want to stay as they are without having to be as scared that Russia decides they would be their next target for expansion. If those countries in the east didn't join NATO, Russia would use another excuse to at first opportunity invade and occupy those countries.
Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance. A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are and not harm others, and certainly not commit horrible atrocities against other people.
Yet, even this kind of Zionist is under their own genocidal threat, "from the river to the sea", and instead of their being a sensible perspective of "maybe let's not kill a bunch of any people's" we are left with the never ending debate or whose worse.
Are there any polls (or any educated guesses) gauging what proportion of people who identify as Zionists want equal status with all Palestinians (particularly democratic rights) within the bounds of what was once Mandatory Palestine?
* A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are* = they want to live in peace in a land they took by murdering its inhabitant. You can have Jews living in Palestine though but it's not Zionism.
From the beginning, the founders of the Zionist movement were completely on board with the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians from their lands to establish the Israeli state.
Imagine having access to information about thousands of years of human history, with all its big migrations, the ebbs and flows of civilizations, religions and empires, and still actually thinking one people in particular have some natural claim to a stretch of land.
What if instead we respected state sovereignty and international law for the betterment of all instead of continually stirring up shit to benefit of a few powerful figures?
United States citizens are not indigenous to the region. Native Americans are, and the continuation of the indinginous peoples culture. People who have taken over the area and now call themselves "American" are just laying claim by making up a new identity.
It’s extremely regulated, especially conducting research into the ancestry of Israelis. Which makes you question the legitimacy of the research coming out of Israel about this topic, Not to mention that respected Israeli researchers who colored outside of the party line were reprimanded or called self-hating Jews.
If that's true, then great! Then we can do mass ancestry tests to establish the subpopulation that is indigenous to the region of historic Palestine. Let's do it.
Friend of mine was invited to a wedding of Jewish friends, and commented to them how impressed she was that they'd invited all their Arab friends along to the wedding as well (she was being sincere, not sarcastic). The conversation got rather chilly after that...
What does that even mean? Just because they converted (or were forced) to another religion?
Even the Hebrew recognizes there were plenty of other people living in territory of what is now modern Israel and that the Hebrews violently subjugated quite a few of them.
> the continuation of Canaanite culture
Well culturally they became mostly European, Arab etc. depending on where they lived.
This isn’t accurate. The majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi. The vast majority of them left the Muslim-majority countries during the Arab–Israeli conflict, in what is known as the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.
It is not even remotely the case that scholars accept that the expulsion of Jewish people from MENA was orchestrated by the new state of Israel.
What's especially aggravating about this trope is how useless it is in a discussion about today. It's not true, but if it were, what would that matter? You're still talking about Moroccans, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Iraqis who are not temporarily-embarrassed Europeans with a free pass to move back to where they came from.
A grandparent comment made the claim that most Israelis are from "Europe, Russia, pretty much anywhere but the middle east". That claim is luridly false. Why mitigate such a clownish argument? Acknowledge it's wrong and move on; don't build it into your own argument.
There are no Islamic countries. All Muslim-majority countries remain power structures intended to maintain the power of the powerful and use Islam as part of their means to do so. To call them otherwise or label them Islamic is fruitless.
We do the same for Israel. They claim Judiasm but we know they do not represent it. The same for all so-called Islamic countries.
When an “Islamic country” starts getting several billions of dollars in aid from the US and begins “quadruple tapping” civilians, then I suppose there will be some outrage.
In the meantime, this outrage appears to be more based in the criminal conduct of a genocidal state than any religious amenity
Several Muslim-majority countries have received billions in U.S. aid for decades, not just recently. The clearest examples are Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, in humanitarian years, Syria and Yemen.
Hell, Pakistan got more than $19 billion in U.S. aid from 2002–2010, plus a $7.5 billion non-military package over five years, and Afghanistan got more than $109 billion total through USAID.
Egypt gets about $2 billion a year on average since 1979, mostly military aid.
How do you think Islam spread? Peacefully? Look at history. And look at Islamic texts that preach the subjugation and killing of anyone who isn’t Islamic. It’s much more of a supremacist culture than any other.
islam wasn't the only religion to have an empire. and islam spread through voluntary conversion, for hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion. also no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today.
> hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion
Even if this was true, which I dispute, Islam imposes all sorts of methods to oppress other religions. Like special taxes for those who aren’t Muslims.
> no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today
And now these countries have inhumane systems like sharia courts.
You can dispute but you're still wrong. The majority of people under Islamic rule historically were non-Muslims but were afforded far greater rights than other societies, such as freedom or worship, protection, the right to their own laws, and the right to Islam's laws as well if they wanted.
And yes, they were taxed. Muslims paid zakat, non-Muslims paid jizyah. We can't make non-Muslims pay a religious tax, so they paid a different one. You make that sound like it's a bad thing.
Also, what you said about Malaysia and Indonesia is bizarrely bad and incorrect. It's not worth replying to you, you just spew lies like a Zionist. Oh wait...
Jizyah wasn’t at the same rate as zakat and its rate wasn’t uniform. It was often used to humiliate, reminding non Muslims of their subordinate status under Islamic law
Are you seriously trying to revise taxation of other religions into an “alternative” when it clearly was meant to discriminate and oppress them? The Quran literally says the jizya is about fighting those who don’t believe in “god”, to subdue them.
You are spreading revisionist misinformation, but it’s also so obvious and easy to disprove with a quick search. Why even try to spin it this way?
The mainstream academic consensus is that Jews generally fared better under Islamic rule than in medieval Christian Europe. Scholars also agree that jizya was paid in lieu of zakat (which Muslims paid) and military service.
Of course, this raises the question: if Jews fared better under Muslim rule than under Christianity, why would they leave their alleged homeland and go to Europe, only to want to go back a thousand years later?
Does it raise that question? Or is it rather a hopelessly ambiguous and undecidable question that's really more of a racialist rhetorical argument? The state of Israel was not formed based on a calculation of whether the Ottomans were better sovereigns to serve under than the French, German, or Russians.
I hope I'm communicating well where I'm coming from, which is not that you're wrong (or right) but rather how unproductive this particular species of reasoning is in modern geopolitical discussions.
Yep, and this is the obvious dishonesty of the people who single out Israel. It’s one country with a Jewish culture, where non-Jewish people also prosper in large numbers. But there are MANY officially Islamic nations where there is a state religion, where laws and religion are mixed together, and where violence/oppression of minorities is normalized and welcomed. Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this. It’s dishonest. Israel is much more egalitarian and frankly, civilized.
> Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this
Go easy on the Kool-Aid.
It's the opposite; those things are not talked about because they are universally acknowledged by anyone except the groups themselves as bad.
The problem with Israel is that you have a huge number of people who are not even Israeli gleefully supporting a genocide, either overtly or by doing everything in their power to silence anyone calling it out. This is a stark contrast: the only people actively supporting the oppression of minorities in Syria or Saudi Arabia are those carrying it out. There are no large groups of powerful people solely comprised of Americans in the US or Germans in Germany who do their best to silence criticism of Saudi Arabia. I'm sure you'll be able to find a few PR firms that Saudi paid, or a few people with business interests there who did such things, but it's completely incomparable to the Zionist lobby and the active carrying out of its interests.
What’s dishonest is your racist defense of a murderous and genocidal country that cynically uses Judaism
as a shield for war crimes. You should really think deeply about how you’re conflating the Zionist state with the Jewish people… not sure a lot of them are in board with your project. There is no world in which a Jewish-supremacist state is righteous.
As for equal rights, it is to laugh. Israel is an apartheid state. Ask any expert in the subject.
Let’s talk about the racist death-penalty-for-Palestinians law that just passed to Ben Gvir drinking champagne and to celebratory prayers in the Knesset. Or what about the fact that gay people cannot legally marry? Or that protesting the genocide gets you brutally arrested. Not to mention the ghetto that Israel has turned Gaza into. (shame on the Zionists!) What about no right of return to the people who lived on the land that Israel stole and continues to steal? (let me guess: all in self defense!) It goes on and on.
Why did this repose by someone else get flagged dead? It's factual and provides additional context. Deng why do allow these posts but then allow such one sided 'discussion'?
"The penalty imposed by the Palestinian authority for selling their property to a Jew is the death sentence. Conversely, the Palestinians or Jews or Christians inside Israel don’t face any such restrictions."
Your comment is an example of that dishonesty, since you’re ignoring all the Islamic supremacist states while stating your opinion that Israel is supremacist. Something like 20% of Israel’s population are Muslims, and they’re prospering there, so you can’t call it supremacist. On the other hand, officially Islamic nations are explicitly supremacist. They have state religions and laws against blasphemy and rampant systemic discrimination.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem have published reports characterizing Israel’s legal framework (especially considering the occupied territories) as apartheid or involving systemic discrimination. I’m not sure what more can be said.
The Amnesty International observer in Gaza reported students who were working together on projects with Israeli students and hoped that were be treated with extreme prejudice. Totally an unbiased organization on the subject.
Actions, not words. Otherwise we'd be believing that a certain political party in the 40s Germany was simply all about work setting you free.
Zionists have showed what they are about through their actions ever since establishing their ethnosupremacist state. And they showed that genocide is not a red line to them over the past 2 and a half years. What they say they are about on paper is no longer relevant.
> Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance
This blame falls squarely on Israelis and Jewish people as a whole for conflating Zionism, Israel and Jewishness as a single thing, and branding anyone who dared to be critical of Zionism as antisemitic. Now they try to distance themselves and rightly so, but it is their fault that the victim agenda backfired terribly.
I have expressed my solidarity to non-Zionist Jewish people in a previous comment, but still all I hear is victimization at how the world at large treats them rather than real anger and disgust at what the State of Israel is doing in their name. Where are the angry non-Zionist protests? Where are the people renouncing their dual citizenships? The reaction is still very subdued for a genocide in massive scale, and at times it is hard for us gentiles to feel sorry for their apathy.
Edit: Sorry, I can't reply to your comment below, for some reason.
This part,
> Did you know that Jews lived among Muslims for over a thousand years in peace?
is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Additionally,
> The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
Is ahistorical. There have been small but continuous Jewish settlements in the region since antiquity, Jews are indigenous. Further, Zionist immigration started earlier than 1948, as early as the late 1800s, and finally, Arabs fled Israel to avoid the incoming invasion from Arab Muslim nations who, for bigoted reasons, could not tolerate a Jewish state.
> is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Let's agree for a moment that there was intense bigotry and prejudice, as I'm very sure there was some amount. As we can also agree, there is human tribalism alive and well to this day between people of minimal or great differences.
Separate but equal is not enslavement or extermination. Dhimmi was the basis for peace, not equality, and I haven't found a compelling alternative narrative.
> > The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
> Is ahistorical.
While I can appreciate what you're trying to say here, the post you are responding to was describing a situation within the context of the Zionist state movement of the mid 1900s. The fact that there have always been Jewish settlements throughout the historical Levant (and beyond) is incidental. Neither of these points are without merit. I'm not sure arguing past each other about who deserves what is constructive.
(Looks like I can reply now)
I feel I've pretty clearly answered your question of "what 'revisionist' means in that context". Dhimmitude is absolutely not a basis for peace. If it helps, think of Zionism as a civil rights movement, but more aligned with Malcom X than MLK.
I don't believe it's incidental that there have always been Jewish settlements, it's exactly the point: Muslims were fine with Jewish settlements so long as the Jews were subservient to a ruling Muslim power, but Jewish self-determination was intolerable.
I do agree that arguing about who deserves what is not constructive. 1948 was 78 years ago, there are ~10 million Israelis, and the country has nukes. The historical perspective is not very helpful here.
I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court.
Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
> I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Individual Jews held prestigious positions in Europe as well. So what?
> Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
Yes, the literal and practical meanings differ. And of course, relying on others for protection leaves you at their mercy and locks you into a position of submission towards your "protector". Avoiding that reliance is perhaps the primary purpose of Israel.
in creating, perpetuating, and expanding israel, the zionist jews betrayed the ones who had protected them for so long, hosting them on lands that for the most part never even belonged to the jewish people to begin with. israel is the only colony turned state in history to have been created by a people who were previously stateless, this fact alone should raise suspicions about the true history and legitimacy of that state.
who gave the jews a state? people think it was britain but britain agreed to the balfour declaration, an agreement made between zionist bankers and the british state which involved upholding the rights of the indigenous arab population and which did not involve the creation of a jewish state. how do you think jews got their state regardless? did britain change their mind and decide to give jews more than they agreed to give them?
why should the arabs have accepted the partition? what was the rationale behind the partition, who made the decision and what right did they have to make such a decision, what was the justification for a zionist state to begin with?
the arabs made war after the zionists started the nakba, if zionists weren't so aggressive the arab states likely wouldn't have sent any soldiers to fight, just taken economic and diplomatic measures.
in historical jewish states, how did they treat the people they conquered? not to mention, most jews in the muslim world lived well outside of their homeland in palestine, and that's not because the muslims pushed them out, they were there before the muslims conquered, and many times they helped the muslims conquer because they would rather have lived under muslim rule than christian rule.
It’s not clear what "revisionist" means in this context, especially when pointing to Dhimmi.
I’ve never heard of it before today. I’m aware that Jews and Muslims live in Iran today. There is historical evidence, including written accounts, that some arrangement (Dhimmi?) existed over 1,200 years ago—whether social, legal, cultural, or, most likely, a combination. Under this system, the religions coexisted without the overtones of genocide within their communities.
Which has been enlightening. Thank you for highlighting the tenuous situation in Iran, which is not favorable toward Jews. This does shed light on the affair and seems credible to me.
they were merchants and artisans part of an international diaspora spanning thousands of miles, it was really an economic role that they chose to assume. they weren't victims of a racist occupation like arabs in the west bank today.
some would say that they were kicked out of their homeland so it wasn't really a choice but there's actually no evidence that this ever happened. for one thing, jews have always lived in judea and there's no record of them being expelled from anywhere there except the city of jerusalem in the 2nd century by the romans after they tried another revolt. there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt. the jewish diaspora was likely primarily a result of economic migration and subsequent success of jewish communities in certain economic roles as a diasporic community spanning many different lands.
The only choice they had which would have allowed them assume any other role was conversion to Islam.
> no evidence that this ever happened
There is obviously evidence and there several major Jewish or Samaritan revolts until the Romans lost Palestine in the 600s with the last revolt being quite brutal.
Of course the scale of expulsions, forced conversions and massacres is not really known but the region was almost certainly majority Christian by the time the Muslims got there
> there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt
There is no strong evidence of that either (depending on how one defines “huge” of course)
Islam allowed jews to own land, just like how it allowed christians to own land.
if there were several jewish revolts until the 600s that is evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions. the fact that the region became majority christian is not evidence of a major expulsion of jews and subsequent replacement by christians, likely they mostly converted just like how most christians would end up converting to islam. In any case it wasn't muslims who expelled them so they can't take it out on the indigenous muslims of the west bank.
there are records of jewish presence across the medditerranean region and the near east for centuries prior to the first roman jewish war
i am arguing against the idea that the romans kicked out all or most of the jews from palestine. I am not suggesting that no jews were ever expelled or sent away as slaves. I think the historical record is clear that the jewish diaspora would have existed even if not a single jew were ever forcefully removed from palestine. I also don't understand how it is relevant to the israel palestine conflict, palestinians aren't romans, they're the native inhabitants of the land, whatever really happened to jews in palestine 1500+ years ago is hardly relevant to any political disputes ongoing today. The fact of the matter is that palestinians can trace their ancestry to the land as far back as they can trace their ancestry, meanwhile most israeli jews arrived in palestine within the past 100 years, and before that their line was living elsewhere as far back as they could trace. There are palestinians that were kicked out in the nakba that are still alive today and hold the keys to their homes that they were dispossessed of. Did the zionists have that kind of verifiable and particular claim to the land when they came over?
All of it? Islam literally calls for violence and oppression of anyone who isn’t a Muslim. It’s literally in the Quran. Islam spread to many of the regions it is now in through invasion and genocidal violence. For example, they colonized India before Europeans did. They have completely erased the previous cultures and ethnic groups of the North African countries. Etc.
This is categorically false. The Quran explicitly says "There is no compulsion in religion". It teaches Muslims to say "You have your religion, and I have my religion". It tells Muslims to fight only those who fight them and "do not exceed the limits". In fact, it says God does not forbid Muslims from dealing "kindly and fairly" with non-Muslims who have not fought or expelled them.
If being against genocide and war-crimes makes one a jihadist, then the vast majority of the world is a jihadist, making the term itself useless. You can just say 'everyone'.
Nuremberg was only possible because Germany was invaded succesfully by allied forces.
All this war crime talk is nonsense. Either talk about sending your own children to war against Israel, or criticize them in other real terms. There are no war crimes against countries who don't recognize the ICJ, and even then, unless the judiciary of the country is consenting, a war crime charge isn't pursued.
It isn't a competition, but I hope you're neither an American nor a Russian, because if you are, clean your own house first before talking about how dirty someone else's is.
if you are american, cleaning your house involves going head to head with the zionist lobby which works for israel's interests. so i'm afraid the matter of israel can't be avoided here.
> Isn't it precisely the anti-zionist sentiment you eschew that resulted in the Oct 7 attacks by Hammas
Bringing this up in 2026 when it's abundantly clear there's zero chance the IDF had no idea about the planning of Oct 7, and didn't just let it happen, means there's no point having a conversation. When it's so well known that Israel is the one who have propped up Hamas.
> In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas." He continued saying "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."
> “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu
> Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview: “Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.”
I don't think so. at best, it proves that the current israeli government supported hamas to isolate them from palestinians in gaza. it doesn't support a claim that the oct 7 attacks were perpetrated by israel's own government (which is insane, since it took thousands of random arabs to actually carry out the attack). If your position is israel shouldn't exist, then it is you who is supporting Bibi's view that he needs to isolate palestinians and keep them in check (or worse) so that your wish of israel's non-existence won't come true.
The zionist goal is already acheived as i understand it, there is no need to fund zionism. israel doesn't need "funding" to sustain itself either, it's so prosperous on its own, even here on YC you'll see many startups based in Israel.
zionism isn't synonymous with gaza or west bank expansionism, or any act of violence. I keep seeing these types of arguments and i can't help but ponder if you're just repeating some disinformation campaign to prop-up and legitimize the anti-semitic reasoning used by the very same people fighting wars to supposedly prevent it (with some degree of legitimacy).
If you said zionism to enable the concept of a jewish state is reasonable, and even it wasn't historically, it is impractical to fight against it, and that israel has the right to exist. But the recent wars and harm against civilians is abhorrent, then you would be criticizing them in a way that actually makes sense, and can be used to actually do something to stop them. but your (and others') agenda only helps one side, and it is neither palestinians, their plight for justice, nor the side of peace.
The hypothetical “right to exist” is typically juxtaposed against its adversaries’ rights/efforts/privilege to wipe them off the face of the earth.
If a nation-state, or ethnoreligious group, has rights, then efforts to destroy it would not gain popular support.
Do ethnoreligious groups have a right to survival without suffering genocide? Does the international community, or Security Council, have a duty to prevent genocide, or the extinction of any particular nation-state?
You confuse nation state and people in this question. Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people, but these things are not necessarily the same. The Security Council has no obligation to prevent a peaceful union of two states that would make one or both of them cease to exist. Nation states do not have rights, people have rights.
> Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people
No, it does not. That's not how sovereignty works. nation states' obligations are only towards their own nation. Even honoring of treaties is expected only in so far as it is in the best interest of their nation to do so. There is no grand human coalition that has an obligation to intervene on behalf of the innocent being harmed by wars and genocide. it's a nice idea, but consent of the governed and all. Those people would have to first get their government to consent to participating under organizations like the ICJ.
"not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane."
not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane.
I mean, I'll take being allowed to boycott israel and call their genocide a genocide in my supposedly sovereign country, without getting arrested over it.
What makes you think I don't? I can (and do) boycott these and more, UAE for example is a nono for working with or using products and services of. The difference is, I am not allowed to do the same for israel, which is magnitudes worse than any of those you've listed so far. There is nothing in modern history that matches israeli depravity.
That requires them to either travel to a country that recognizes war crimes and be arrested, or a country deciding to go in and get them. I can’t imagine anyone would have the political will and means to invade. It seems extremely unlikely there would ever be an arrest.
Yeah, who disagreed with that? "war crime" is not a random term you can throw at things you don't like. you can dislike an atrocity, but you have no right to do anything about it.
It's so hypocritical. Not a single post on HN I've seen even brought up the genocide in sudan or other african countries. I'd like to see where you commented on how everyone who supported and provided refuge to Hamas and its leaders were committing an atrocity.
making noise about 'war crime' or atrocity does nothing except inflame the very propaganda being used to commit those atrocities, and legitimize all other atrocities being committed, from Iran to sudan, to ukraine and elsewhere. You pick and choose which genocidal country deserves attention based on your bias.
Iran's nuclear program was justified because they were eventually attacked, and Israel's atrocities are retroactively justified by people who insist they have no right to exist.
guess what, if I was an israeli and you're saying I have no right to exist, and should be genoicded or ethnic-cleansed, I wouldn't care about any atrocities against you either.
You don't care about legalisms and ICJ, so what do you care about? emotions? certainly you don't seem to care about actually doing something. organizations like ICJ exist for the purpose of doing something, and in this case it is ineffective.
I think my rambling about ICJ is more productive than other ramblings about "atrocity" or "from the river to the sea".
The whole movie is worth a watch. It was made by Teddy Katz, an Israeli student whose 1990s thesis on the massacre was discredited after legal action by veterans, largely baseless push-back against the thesis which was well researched and strongly supported by primary evidence. The movie is called "Tantura" and was released in 2022. IF you're not an AV person, the wiki on the tantura massacre is worth a read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantura_massacre
'The middle east is unstable because colonizers created arbitrary boarders forcing ethnic groups together into unsustainable nation structures with unsustainable ethnic tensions inside the boarders'
'Israel MUST return to pre 1967 boarders and must live with ethnicities that as a common political platform call for the death of all jews. Israel cannot consider stability/unsustainable ethnic tension when forming its borders but must use arbitrary boarders and assume ethnic tension will magically disappear in their situation ignoring the reality of hwo that has worked for neighboring countries. Also Israel is racist/ethnosupremecist for recognizing the realities of borders/ethnicities that we ourselves recognize in our previous statements about the borders created in the middle east by European colonizers'
If Israel cannot coexist with its neighbours then why plant it in this particular area of the world in the first place? Why not take part of Germany, the country which actually slaughtered millions of jews. Why do the Arabs have to pay the price of something they're not responsible for?
Imagine the opposite: an Arab group was planted to occupy part of Europe, occasionally gets into wars with its neighbours, and builds one of the largest weapons arsenals in the world, including nukes. How would Europeans feel about that?
"A double tap, or double-tap, is the practice of following a strike [...] with a deliberately timed second strike in the same place several minutes later, usually in an attempt to maximize the casualties of an attack."
"Double-tap strikes have been used by Saudi Arabia during its military intervention in Yemen, by the United States in Pakistan, Yemen, and the Gulf of Mexico, by Israel in the 2014 Gaza War, the Gaza war (2023-present), and the 2026 Lebanon war. by Russia and the Ba'athist Syria in the Syrian civil war, and by Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially since the full-scale invasion in 2022."
> They were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the U.S. military was weighing whether to finish them off.
> "The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn't do it," one source said.
There isn't an army quite like Israel's in recent history. Depraved and worse than any islamic "terror" organisation - sometimes created by Israel to justify it's crimes.
compared to whom? how does one measure that purity? certainly Hammas is more pure in those terms, not that it is a competition (but you're alluding that it is).
They all suck. There are no good polities in the Middle East. At this stage into the genocide-counter-genocide cycle, there are no clean hands left.
We need to switch to renewables asap, and just withdraw completely from the Middle East. They all want to kill one another for fanatical or ethnic reasons, and we clearly have no capacity to stop them. We should insulate ourselves from the region and restrict any involvement to humanitarian assistance.
it's a bit too late, might even make things worse when all the petro-states start going hungry and desperate. I suspect in the timeframe it takes to wean off of oil as fuel source, there will be other resource issues arising such as water and climate-driven migration.
> Theocracies oppressing their own people while aiming for expansion, particularly, must be dealt with.
> Else, they will eventually oppress the entirety of humanity.
We poured trillions of dollars into Afghanistan trying to do just this. It failed. It is not within the power capability of any state to bring liberty to people that do not want it.
The era of global internationalism you're alluding to is receding. If the Iranians and the Saudis want to nuke one another, that is very sad, but we will not be able to stop them in the long run. The best we can do is to keep as far away from any such conflict as possible.
The world are not children, to be minded by us. They're autonomous humans with agency, many of whom sadly happen to be blood-thirsty fanatics, chomping at the bit for a chance to do some genocide. As demonstrated by the last fifty years of Western policy failure in the third world, we do not have the capacity to fix this and it is folly to try.
I would rather say they are eager to demonstrate that they are ruthless enough and able to kill anyone without conscience or hesitation to prove that they are a good candidate to replace the US hegemony in the greater region.
Germany: 7.7 to 7.9 beds per 1,000
Japan: 12.6 to 13.0 beds per 1,000
Israel: 2.9 to 3.1 beds per 1,000 people
USA: 2.3 to 2.4 beds per 1,000 people
Egypt: 1.1 to 1.4 beds per 1,000 people
OECD avg per capita: 4.2 per 1,000 people
Lebanon: 1.0–1.2 beds per 1,000 people
Palestine: 1.3 beds per 1,000 people
Palestine did have way more before, in 2022, at 13 per 1000. That would indeed be high.
Turns out that was purposefully done because of the extremely high prevalence of chronic disease and crises as caused by a blockade.
Now that I have wondered, I am curious as to why you would leave out such important details like this. Or not just plainly state your opinion.
I think we can guess why, and I think you also know it's because you are wrong.
- I'm under no confusion about what they're insinuating, that's not the point (see that below)
- I'm looking for their reply specifically
It's relatively easy to accuse, and to make up some story. It's a lot harder to provide substance and formulate a compelling argument.
Is the number of medical facilities really outstanding? Why does that suggest they're combatant hideouts? Which of them are, all? Why does them hiding combatants render double, triple, quadruple tapping, or even just targeting these facilities morally justified or reasonable? What sense does it even make to double, triple, quadruple tap in this context?
All pretty important questions I'd say, none of which are addressed by cowardly insinuations, I believe by design.
Last time I checked, my internal moral compass rated actually killing healthcare workers and the sick/injured/etc a lot worse than combatants using them as potential collateral (not that that'd be the pinnacle of morality). One would assume most other people's compass does too, hence why the above is news. How the paramedics that arrive afterwards become deserving of getting shelled, further remains an unelaborated-on mystery.
Yea, you mean Israel's use of human shields, right?....wait, who are we talking about using human shields, again?
"Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next.
“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we’ll kill you,’” the 36-year-old told The Associated Press, describing the 2 1/2 weeks he was held last summer by the Israeli military in northern Gaza."
Oh wow! So they make dummy hospitals and put dummy meat bags of all sizes for camera time and social media post just to make Israel look bad when they hit those meat bags. That is some strategy.
Nobody said they are dummy hospitals. They are dual use, some medical, some military HQ. And nobody said they were dummy meat bags. The most powerful weapon the terrorists have is dead civilians. And you get what you reward: punish Israel for dead civilians, you'll get more dead civilians.
Ever wondered why Israel has disproportionate amount of settlers in the West Bank, a land that doesn't belong to them? I bet that makes them a legitimate target.
Are you sure? Here are some stats of settler attacks from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
Year Total Incidents Daily Average
2021 540 1 incident / day
2022 852 2 incidents / day
2023 1,189–1,291 3 incidents / day
2024 1,420–1,449 4 incidents / day
2025 1,828 5 incidents / day
Hacker News is an American website. Hacker News allows political discussion. Israel is very relevant to American politics, many would argue too much so, but in any case, why shouldn't it be discussed here?
Less than 28 days ago you were commenting multiple times on Iran, Islamists and geopolitics involving war. Why are you suddenly so jumpy? I don't get it. Why is it suddenly unacceptable to talk about quadruple tappings on medical workers by Israel?
I flagged those stories too, stalker. They result in uninteresting flamebait like your comment. Hacker News used to be better than this. It's turning into reddit.
Ironically, many of my comments were flagged and removed where I suggested the post was inappropriate. No tolerance for any dissenting views or discussion, unfortunately.
You posted real discussions and opinions, the fact that you flagged them doesn't change the fact that you took some sort of value to the tune of spending effort posting replies beforehand. What I'm struggling to understand is why the call to shut down discussion on this topic when Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes. Don't pretend you don't see it.
Read their submission history. They talk about "radical extremist Islamist regime in Iran" all the time. Seems rather odd to be this cagey when people are getting sick and tired of Israel's constant war crimes.
Hezbollah is the main political party in Lebanon. Anything can be related to the main political party of a country. It's like saying you can legally kill Israeli medics because they are "related to Likud".
In any case, killing medics is a violation of the Hague and Geneva conventions and the internal law.
If this story is hard for you to take seriously, there's thousands more stories, videos and witnessings of war crimes by Israel in very recent history..
In all your comments, you keep referring to the resistance groups fighting the Israeli occupation as terrorists, which I’m guessing makes you either an Israeli or pro-Israel.
The IOF has been notoriously lying about killing and torturing civilians. Not only that, but even soldiers caught red-handed on video raping prisoners have not only gotten away scot-free but also been allowed to rejoin the army. Is there a reason why we should trust anything such a genocidal, morally corrupt organization has to say?
Please don't trawl through past threads for material to use in the current discussion. It breaks the guidelines about being kind, avoiding cross-examination, and using HN for political or ideological battle. A discussion thread should be able to stand on its own, and it's hard to know whether the surrounding context that applied when the commenter expressed their views in an older thread are relevant to the current topic.
We don't approve of digging up comments from old threads and weaponizing them in the present thread. However, your activity in this thread is not consistent HN's guidelines and intended use.
The most important and pertinent guidelines in this case are these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
I’m not sure if linking the video would violate HN rules, and I find it hard to believe that you haven’t at least heard about it. There is currently global outrage because the soldier in this video was acquitted and allowed to rejoin the army. The video was aired on Israeli TV and the IOF arrested the military official who authorized the leak.
The first time i saw this concept of the 'double-tap' - to target first-responders to the scene of an earlier strike - was in the movie,' The Hurt Locker' - where it was employed by some ISIS-tier insurgents using a VBIED disguised as an ambulance. Presumably this was intended to show the level of depravity of the terrorists. First time actually seeing this employed in the real world was last year when Israel did a double tap that killed multiple journalists working for reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye and Quds News Network plus paramedics and medical staff *at a hospital*. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nasser_Hospital_strikes
Now finding out this is essentially SOP for Israel and the United States (eg: the triple-tap strike at the Iranian girl's school where parents rushing to save their kids from the collapsed school were hit in the second and third strike), I wonder if the terrorists learnt this tactic from the US coalition or vice-versa.
Did you see the video that Wikileaks released, now 16 years ago, when the Apache helicopter fired on the first-responder on the the scene, a van which also included children.
At that point, another voice – presumably an officer not on scene – asks if the van is “picking up the wounded” and is told that they are. Two Iraqis from the van carry the wounded man around the side of the van to load him inside.
An American voice with the call sign “Bushmaster 7” says, “Roger, engage.” One of the helicopters blankets the van with machine-gun fire.
“Oh yeah, right through the windshield,” says one of the soldiers, while another voice on board briefly laughs. “There were approximately four to five individuals in that truck, so I’m counting about 12-15″ casualties.”
Later when news that two girls had been badly injured was greeted with: "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."
[flagged]
Please don't fulminate on Hacker News.
I only do it when it is deserved, and I don’t feel like it is anything abnormal after reading the thread it is in.
I would consider anyone that did not have a similar “are we the baddies” reaction to those posts to have a severe personality disorder.
The HN guidelines ask you not to fulminate regardless of how deserved it may be. All fulminators feel that it is deserved.
Targeting first responders was already a common strategy in the bombing runs of WW2, used by both sides.
This was a reason why bombers attacked in multiple waves.
War is a racket.
----
>why bombers attacked in multiple waves
While historians tend to disagree (rightly IMHO) with the severity of the Dresden Bombings, as reported by Kurt Vonnegut (WWII POW @Dresden)... it was definitely a disgraceful targeting-of-civilians, by Allied Forces, for the sake of demonstrating Power, alone.
Complete and utter devastation, no survivor left unravaged.
----
War is a racket.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden>
> I wonder if the terrorists learnt this technique from the US coalition or vice-versa.
Who are "the terrorists"?
I was referring to the terrorists in Iraq who were depicted in 'The Hurt locker'
Are you a terrorist if you attack an invading force during a war?
Yes, for the sole reason that it's just a label assigned by an invading enemy government.
The problem is that the label is used in media to assign moral judgement, when it's just a political proscription that is typically assigned for entirely geopolitical reasons. Almost every country occupying a foreign territory, or is engaged in war with a group, or even another country, calls military action of the other side terrorism.
It doesn't mean anything. If it is to carry a moral judgement, it needs to be based on universally applied principles. It takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's absolutely not based on universally applied principles.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.
Those are just Iraqi's that were defending their nation from a foreign invasion.
These where clan militias fighting for a headstanrt in the proxxy civil war to come. There is no iraq. Its a iranian proxxy with a sunni province and a basically split of kurdish region. That "nation" never existed except in western maps and heads. Those "freedom fighters" where the basis for isis and the iranian militias. None where patriots, just in it for the family wearing the state as skinsuit. They thoroughly disproved all neoliberal cultural ideals about universal nneeds and wants.
If we follow your logic, then I'd argue that similarly, there's no countries in the world. In particular, there's no United States, it's land colonized by Europeans who came to that land and slaughtered its indigenous people and claimed it for themselves.
The western culture forms meta families. We ostracize the sexual others like everyone else, but they form a nation wide "meta" family that connects everyone to everyone, allowing for the traditional clan family to flap open and dissappear with only nuclear families remaining. Oh and they form a ruling caste with working institutions. Western societies are one huge artifical clan.
s/terrorists/freedom fighters
For those unfamiliar with the "Dahiya Doctrine"[0] this is exactly that:
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
There is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive which was activated in Oct 7. It is simply killing own people and solidiers to avoid capture.
The Hannibal Directive - the IDF's infamous "murder-suicide" pact, where in Israel's polity can take a decision to sacrifice their own civilians and soldiers to prevent them from being taken hostage by their enemies. In fact, it is now slowly being revealed that many of the so-called Hamas "savagery" that were hyped up by Israel and the western media about the killed civilians and soldiers were actually the result of Netanyahu government ordering the IDF to shoot, bomb and kill their own people and due to orders to disregard Israeli lives when attacking the Hamas militia:
- Israel expanded the use of its murderous “Hannibal Directive” – designed to prevent soldiers from being taken alive as prisoners of war – by killing many of its own civilians.
- The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June. - Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
- At the initiative of the local Gaza Division, “Hannibal” was carried out right away: less than an hour after the Palestinian offensive began. “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza,” the division was ordered at 11:22 am.
- By midday, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military (the so-called “Pit” headquarters, deep under Israel’s Hakirya building in downtown Tel Aviv) to invoke the Hannibal Directive throughout the entire region, “even if this means the endangerment or harming of the lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves.”
- Israel has been engaged in an aggressive cover-up of its crimes against its own people.
- “Every day in captivity was very hard,” one former detainee said at the angry meeting. “I was in a house when there were bombardments all around. We were sitting in tunnels and we were very afraid that, not Hamas, but Israel would kill us, and then they’ll say: ‘Hamas killed you.’” Another released detainee said: “The fact is that I was in a hideaway that was bombed, and we had to be smuggled away, and we were injured. Not to mention that we were shot at by a helicopter when we were on our way to Gaza … You are bombing the tunnel routes exactly in the area where they [the other captives] are.”
Think about the irony in that - Hamas wanted to keep, and did more, to keep the Israeli hostages alive than their own government or the IDF! (This is what happens when wacko religious fundamentalists run a country).
Sources:
1. How Israel killed its own people on October 7 - https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-killed-hun...
2. IDF carried out Hannibal Directive, new 'Sword of Damocles' operation on October 7 - https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-84400...
3. Israel’s use of Hannibal Directive led to many deaths on October 7, including Israeli civilians - https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/07/10/pqkz-j10.html
The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
The Hannibal Directive is supposed to prevent kidnappings, in a similar vein as "the US does not negotiate with terrorists". Say what you want about it, but it's not borne from Israel's callousness towards its own people, it's borne from facing truly monstrous enemies.
Finally, and I know the odds of this succeeding are real low, I implore you to do what you can to get out of what seems like a Marxist/Leninist Israel/Palestine absolutist hole you're in. I don't know you or your background, and I don't know if my read here is correct. But sourcing "electronicintifada" and "wsws" (straight up propaganda outlet and ML rag) or claiming elsewhere that Biden/Democrats would have supported Israel's attack on Iran (not even Israel thinks this, and the evidence is they didn't do it under Biden) gives me some pretty clear signals. I want to be clear: these people are nuts. MLs are nuts. Pro-Pali antisemites are nuts. (Again if I'm right) you're in the equivalent of thinking ivermectin will get you laid right now, completely off the deep end. Timothy Leary said it best: think for yourself, question authority. Don't be a useful idiot for these evil people.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
> The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June. - Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
> The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians. Other evidence, including from Israel's own Defence Minister confirms that the IDF were told to execute the Hannibal Directive (which is an order to kill their own people). There's no stretch in relating the two.
"The US does not negotiate with terrorists" doesn't mean that they also prioritise killing their own soldiers or citizens, as the first line of defensive or offensive tactics.
And your attempts to paint me as some left-based extremist / conspiracist, due to the sources cited, is both ludicrous and laughable. I am an Indian, and Gandhi politically united us Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc by teaching us to recognise the extremists / religious fundamentalists amongst us, who only political thrive in fostering hatred, enmity and violence between communities. That is why we remain a secular nation. And aren't a communist nation too (as we understand that extremist left- leaders seeks to divide people by class - a different identity politics at play).
Left- or right- doesn't matter, and each have a constructive role to play - the trick is to keep extremism at bay.
Thus, I don't see Israeli Jews committing genocide against Palestinians or the Lebanese. What I see is the depravity of Israeli right-wing Jewish religious fundamentalists relishing in the blood-lust of slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese women, children and the old simply because they are Arab Muslims and Christians, who refuse to leave the land where they were born. We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are. Hitler did the same too - while the west has white-washed it, the Nazis where driven as much by Christian fundamentalism (as they were by the Eugenics) in creating the "us vs them" political narration of hate and violence. Netanyahu's politics is not so different from Hitler's or the Nazis today.
And just as Hitler's perverted Christian Nazism has nothing to do with Christianity as practiced by the ordinary Christians, Netanyahu's own perverted fundamentalist version of Jewish Fascism has nothing to do with Judaism of the ordinary Jews. Netanyahu's Jewish religious fundamentalism that drives the Israeli-right and the Islamic fundamentalism that drives the Palestinian-right are two faces of the same coin. Get rid of both, and the politics of hatred and violence in the region have a real chance to end.
> Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians.
No, what EI wrote is: "Hundreds of Israelis were likely killed by Israel itself in “Hannibal” targeting incidents as well as unintentional crossfire."
This is wrong, and also propaganda. Why would they do this? Think for yourself, question authority.
> We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are.
There aren't enough extremists to do the truly abhorrent things. They need help from others, so they use tools like propaganda and coercion. Think for yourself, question authority.
I'm not here to defend the Likud party. I think what Israel prosecuted in the wake of the October 7th attacks was a genocide. But I do the next thing, which is learn the history and analyze a variety of sources with different incentives to get as clear a picture as possible, in hopes of not becoming a useful idiot for evil. Not everyone can do this, I understand. But I agree with 90% of what you wrote--you're clearly pretty smart and motivated, so I think you can.
Also apply think for yourself, question authority to me! Why would I do this? Am I a Zionist psyop? Am I virtue signaling on what I think is an influential message board? Am I ignoring my wife in a vain attempt at making the world a better place, which is something like the shadow of narcissism or the fear of irrelevancy?
> The logic is to cause difficulties for the civilian population so much that they will then turn against the militants
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
Hm, that rather sounds like terrorism
"If we bomb them some more, those poor citizens will surely realize that we're on their side"
Honestly I think we are already passed that.
Religious crazies have taken over Israel and they simply don't value the lives of non Jews. They want those poor citizens gone for more Semitic Lebensraum.
Precisely. Couldn't have said it better myself. +1
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https://theweek.com/world-news/israel-legitimisation-cell-ju...
> How Israel's 'Legitimisation Cell' is justifying journalist killings in Gaza
"One high-profile journalist targeted in this way was Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month. After his death, the Israeli army quickly circulated documents claiming he had been a Hamas operative since 2013. "Yet even if taken at face value, the files showed his last contact with Hamas was in 2017 – years before the current war," said France 24."
You think Israel shows every bit of intel they have???? The last thing they showed being 2017 doesn't say he was only Hamas for four years.
The basic problem here is that all the terrorist groups over there call their propaganda people "reporters". In a sense they are, they are reporting on events. That does not make them not considered combatants, though. Israel has found terrorist affiliation for about half of the dead "reporters", but that doesn't make the others civilians. Hit a combatant, the person next to him is probably also a combatant.
You're using the term "terrorist" to describe people indigenous to the land that Israel stole. If you use logic, that makes Israel that terrorist group since they used violence to kick Palestinians out of their land and homes, not the other way around.
Lookup the Jewish terrorist groups Irgu, Lehi, and Haganah. Lookup the assassination of Lord Moyne by Lehi and the 1946 Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel. The leaders of these terrorist groups eventually became Prime Ministers of Israel.
While you're at it, lookup the attack by the Israeli military on the USS Liberty that killed 34 Americans.
What is interesting is how governments and controlled media flip and reverse terms (in a 1984 kind of way), along with avoiding accountability, to suit their purposes. Even when it is very obvious that actions are morally wrong, war crimes, or even genocide.
It's got to the point where it's like someone outrageously punching you in the face, then pretending they didn't or were the victims, when there is a response.
Exactly. As Bassem Youssef once put it: "Palestine is like a fish bowl. It's a lot of fish, it's condensed. Israel is like the person over that bowl, crashing the bowl, killing the fish, taking any fish they want. ...[talks about how Israel takes Palestinan hostages all the time]... At a certain point, Israel is just hovering over that fish bowl. At some moment, a fish, crazy enough, suicidal enough, will jump from the bowl, through the air, bite the pinkie of Israel. And Israel would be like: Oh my god! That bitch bit my pinkie and my hand was not even in the bowl."
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/na2hwj4vB_A
Hezbollah isn't in Israel, so any argument about what happened in Israel is irrelevant. And by far the primary cause of Palestinians leaving was Arab countries telling them to get out of the way of the coming invasion. And, well, when you refuse to agree to lay down arms is it really surprising you're not allowed back in?
King David Hotel? You mean British military HQ? Who received and ignored the warning about the bomb?
USS Liberty--ever consider how hard it is to identify ships from the air in a combat situation? Israel knew the ship claimed to be American, but they thought that was a ruse.
> Hezbollah isn't in Israel, so any argument about what happened in Israel is irrelevant
Respectfully, it is relevant, as explained. Historical context matters.
> And by far the primary cause of Palestinians leaving was Arab countries telling them to get out of the way of the coming invasion.
Excepting, as in this case, where someone makes up a historical narrative with a handwave.
I was gonna research your points until I saw what you said about the USS liberty and figured that your earlier points are just as biased.
> USS Liberty--ever consider how hard it is to identify ships from the air in a combat situation? Israel knew the ship claimed to be American, but they thought that was a ruse.
Everybody outside of the IDF PR department has accepted that Israel deliberately targeted USS Liberty.
The “misidentification” story was utterly unbelievable at the time, and remains so now. There are endless statements from top US national security officials directly calling the Israelis liars.
I need you to know that you're defending and justifying war crimes while blindly swallowing the propaganda of a genocidal regime.
Needless to say, it's not exactly making you look too good.
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> ... the person next to him is probably also a combatant
Absolutely, they could even be future combatants even if they are not now. That's why killing schoolgirls in Iran, reporters in Lebanon, etc. is justified, they are all potential terrorists. It definitely can not be proven otherwise that they are not. Why take a chance? /s
How long will the world continue to tolerate Israel's egregious war crimes?
The world? There is one country supplying the weapons and funding.
Germany continues to provide arms and support to the IDF and did so throughout the entire duration of the Gaza Campaign. Just recently, the Volkswagen group announced it is considering retooling one of their factories to manufacture missiles for Iron dome system. The UK also continues to manufacture and sell components for weapon systems used by the Israelis. The UK's RAF bases in Greece, Cyprus, and the UK have also been key logistics hubs for weapons to the Israelis and the Americans. In addition, the UK operated daily surveillance flights over Gaza out of their base in Cyprus through the entire period of the Gaza Genocide. The exact goal and nature of this operation continues to be kept secret but it is inconceivable how they weren't witness to the countless war crimes being committed on the ground. Mainstream outlets like the BBC and the Guardian continue to suppress reporting on this story. I am sure there are more countries providing support in secret and in smaller ways. Germany which suspended all arms exports to Saudi Arabia in 2018 citing the murder of the journalist Khassogi and grave human-rights violations in Yemen lifted these restrictions last year citing its defence of Israel. It is illuminating to note how Germany defines the protection of human rights and journalists in these cases.
https://www.ft.com/content/1e41e6db-792f-4f60-b567-adb6458fb...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-still-sharing-intellig...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/germany-rewards-saudi-ara...
Europe is complicit, from silence to outright support and arms shipments. Except a few like Ireland.
What is Israel's reason for all this? Can someone explain their side of the argument, as it is?
What is Russia's side of the argument? What is China's side of the argument? What is USA's side of the argument?
Bibi's reasons are not the same of the ultra ortodox, neither the same of the ultra zionists, neither the same of regular joes.
(Bibi wants to avoid going to trial, the orthodox believe god promised them "all of israel" (which includes some Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), the zionists are your run of the mill nazis (racists), while most of the people want "peace" whatever the price.
> [What is Israel's side of the argument?] What is Russia's side of the argument? What is China's side of the argument? What is USA's side of the argument?
All of these countries but one have launched invasions within the past ten years. What's the obsession with China?
The reality is much simplier, it's not a one man story not even a top down one. If you had travel on those area you would know that their leader reflect the will / moral sense of the population. Most Israelis approve the genocide, most Russians and Americans don't mind invading other nations.
The way I understand the dispute, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that Ukraine was formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Russia feels aggrieved that in recent years Ukraine has been trying to become part of NATO, a move that would further diminish Russia's ability to project power in the region.
NATO has already expanded into former Warsaw pact countries, and even former Soviet Republics. Russia feels they need to do something about Ukraine before Ukraine becomes one of them.
Western leaders have already broken the promise made during the cold war that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" beyond a reunified Germany.
Please, this is not a defense by me of Russia's attack of Ukraine. I'm just describing Russia's side of the "argument" as I understand it.
Once again, correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't understand Israel's side of the argument, if you could explain to me.
These are the "excuses" by Russia. The only real motivation is to expand its own power and influence in the World. They will find whatever lowest hanging fruit to justify the actions they think will lead to it. They will try to propose a rhetoric that sounds as if they are justified to something. Everyone does that, not just Russia, but there are countries and leaders who always want to expand at the cost of others, and there are countries who just want to be and are fine with their borders. If it wasn't decade old broken promises by someone from NATO or whatever they would of course dig for another reason as part of the propaganda. There is no rational reason for a peaceful country without goals of expansion to fear NATO. They don't like the expansion of NATO because it limits their abilities in the future to expand.
NATO is for countries that want to stay as they are without having to be as scared that Russia decides they would be their next target for expansion. If those countries in the east didn't join NATO, Russia would use another excuse to at first opportunity invade and occupy those countries.
as long as people keep voting for politicians that are complicit with pro zionist policies
Until recently, in the US at least, there wasn’t any non-zionist choice. Same for the UK and for Germany.
Thank God this is changing, but it’s going much too slowly.
Who's the 'non-zionist' choice in the US?
It can be difficult, but many politicians are now running on explicitly anti-AIPAC and anti-Zionist campaigns.
An example of this. Politicians are still politicians, and what a politician DOES is far more important than what one says.
https://www.aza-pac.com/our-candidates
That being said, Zionism has become political poison. Even with massive funding, pro-Israel and Zionist candidates are losing left and right.
What politicians run on and what they do after getting elected does not often match sadly.
The only one I can think of offhand is Bernie Sanders.
It's not crazy either, in Canada we have Avi Lewis, he leads a federal party and is very outspoken
>Born into a working-class Jewish family and raised in New York…
Being jewish is not the same as condoning Israel's war crimes (which shouldn't even have to be clarified, but here we are...)
Joseph Biden
Joseph Biden is a self-proclaimed Zionist:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens...
I was being facetious but in all fairness he was anything but when he was in the Oval
Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance. A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are and not harm others, and certainly not commit horrible atrocities against other people.
Yet, even this kind of Zionist is under their own genocidal threat, "from the river to the sea", and instead of their being a sensible perspective of "maybe let's not kill a bunch of any people's" we are left with the never ending debate or whose worse.
Are there any polls (or any educated guesses) gauging what proportion of people who identify as Zionists want equal status with all Palestinians (particularly democratic rights) within the bounds of what was once Mandatory Palestine?
* A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are* = they want to live in peace in a land they took by murdering its inhabitant. You can have Jews living in Palestine though but it's not Zionism.
From the beginning, the founders of the Zionist movement were completely on board with the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians from their lands to establish the Israeli state.
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Imagine having access to information about thousands of years of human history, with all its big migrations, the ebbs and flows of civilizations, religions and empires, and still actually thinking one people in particular have some natural claim to a stretch of land.
What if instead we respected state sovereignty and international law for the betterment of all instead of continually stirring up shit to benefit of a few powerful figures?
United States citizens are not indigenous to the region. Native Americans are, and the continuation of the indinginous peoples culture. People who have taken over the area and now call themselves "American" are just laying claim by making up a new identity.
I agree.
Let's confirm your claim through DNA tests to establish ancestry of Israelis and Palestinians.
Oh, they're banned in Israel?! Why would they possibly be banned?? Could it be that...
DNA tests aren’t banned in Israel.
It’s extremely regulated, especially conducting research into the ancestry of Israelis. Which makes you question the legitimacy of the research coming out of Israel about this topic, Not to mention that respected Israeli researchers who colored outside of the party line were reprimanded or called self-hating Jews.
If that's true, then great! Then we can do mass ancestry tests to establish the subpopulation that is indigenous to the region of historic Palestine. Let's do it.
Friend of mine was invited to a wedding of Jewish friends, and commented to them how impressed she was that they'd invited all their Arab friends along to the wedding as well (she was being sincere, not sarcastic). The conversation got rather chilly after that...
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> Palestinians are not indigenous
What does that even mean? Just because they converted (or were forced) to another religion?
Even the Hebrew recognizes there were plenty of other people living in territory of what is now modern Israel and that the Hebrews violently subjugated quite a few of them.
> the continuation of Canaanite culture
Well culturally they became mostly European, Arab etc. depending on where they lived.
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This isn’t accurate. The majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi. The vast majority of them left the Muslim-majority countries during the Arab–Israeli conflict, in what is known as the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.
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It is not even remotely the case that scholars accept that the expulsion of Jewish people from MENA was orchestrated by the new state of Israel.
What's especially aggravating about this trope is how useless it is in a discussion about today. It's not true, but if it were, what would that matter? You're still talking about Moroccans, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Iraqis who are not temporarily-embarrassed Europeans with a free pass to move back to where they came from.
A grandparent comment made the claim that most Israelis are from "Europe, Russia, pretty much anywhere but the middle east". That claim is luridly false. Why mitigate such a clownish argument? Acknowledge it's wrong and move on; don't build it into your own argument.
God this website loves bs conspiracy theory if it applies to jews. But we couldn't even talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
>is under their own genocidal threat, "from the river to the sea"
So, when Zionists used the same language [1] it's for peace but if goyim do then it's a threat, and a genocidal one, no less?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea#Hist...
The only way Zionism can be moral is if it abandons the idea of a Jewish supremacist nation.
Nobody says this about any Islamic country
There are no Islamic countries. All Muslim-majority countries remain power structures intended to maintain the power of the powerful and use Islam as part of their means to do so. To call them otherwise or label them Islamic is fruitless.
We do the same for Israel. They claim Judiasm but we know they do not represent it. The same for all so-called Islamic countries.
Sure they do. But Zionists are the ones that profess that a Jewish-supremacist state is a good idea.
When an “Islamic country” starts getting several billions of dollars in aid from the US and begins “quadruple tapping” civilians, then I suppose there will be some outrage.
In the meantime, this outrage appears to be more based in the criminal conduct of a genocidal state than any religious amenity
Several Muslim-majority countries have received billions in U.S. aid for decades, not just recently. The clearest examples are Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, in humanitarian years, Syria and Yemen.
Hell, Pakistan got more than $19 billion in U.S. aid from 2002–2010, plus a $7.5 billion non-military package over five years, and Afghanistan got more than $109 billion total through USAID.
Egypt gets about $2 billion a year on average since 1979, mostly military aid.
??? The US gives billions in aid to Jordan and Egypt, who torture and kill dissident civilians. And, it's not a genocide to lose a war you started.
How do you think Islam spread? Peacefully? Look at history. And look at Islamic texts that preach the subjugation and killing of anyone who isn’t Islamic. It’s much more of a supremacist culture than any other.
islam wasn't the only religion to have an empire. and islam spread through voluntary conversion, for hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion. also no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today.
> islam spread through voluntary conversion
False.
> hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion
Even if this was true, which I dispute, Islam imposes all sorts of methods to oppress other religions. Like special taxes for those who aren’t Muslims.
> no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today
And now these countries have inhumane systems like sharia courts.
You can dispute but you're still wrong. The majority of people under Islamic rule historically were non-Muslims but were afforded far greater rights than other societies, such as freedom or worship, protection, the right to their own laws, and the right to Islam's laws as well if they wanted.
And yes, they were taxed. Muslims paid zakat, non-Muslims paid jizyah. We can't make non-Muslims pay a religious tax, so they paid a different one. You make that sound like it's a bad thing.
Also, what you said about Malaysia and Indonesia is bizarrely bad and incorrect. It's not worth replying to you, you just spew lies like a Zionist. Oh wait...
Jizyah wasn’t at the same rate as zakat and its rate wasn’t uniform. It was often used to humiliate, reminding non Muslims of their subordinate status under Islamic law
Are you seriously trying to revise taxation of other religions into an “alternative” when it clearly was meant to discriminate and oppress them? The Quran literally says the jizya is about fighting those who don’t believe in “god”, to subdue them.
You are spreading revisionist misinformation, but it’s also so obvious and easy to disprove with a quick search. Why even try to spin it this way?
> The Quran literally says the jizya is about fighting those who don’t believe in “god”, to subdue them
Please quote this part from the Quran. I'd like to learn more.
The mainstream academic consensus is that Jews generally fared better under Islamic rule than in medieval Christian Europe. Scholars also agree that jizya was paid in lieu of zakat (which Muslims paid) and military service.
Of course, this raises the question: if Jews fared better under Muslim rule than under Christianity, why would they leave their alleged homeland and go to Europe, only to want to go back a thousand years later?
Does it raise that question? Or is it rather a hopelessly ambiguous and undecidable question that's really more of a racialist rhetorical argument? The state of Israel was not formed based on a calculation of whether the Ottomans were better sovereigns to serve under than the French, German, or Russians.
I hope I'm communicating well where I'm coming from, which is not that you're wrong (or right) but rather how unproductive this particular species of reasoning is in modern geopolitical discussions.
The US this week invoked God when bombing people
Of course, Iran does to, but let's not pretend everything would be peaceful without Islam
Yeah christians would never go crusading like that!
Hmmm, I wonder where the word «crusade» comes from though
Who said anything to defend Christianity? Are you really using it to justify Islam calling for violence against people with other beliefs?
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Evertone said this about Daesh.
Yep, and this is the obvious dishonesty of the people who single out Israel. It’s one country with a Jewish culture, where non-Jewish people also prosper in large numbers. But there are MANY officially Islamic nations where there is a state religion, where laws and religion are mixed together, and where violence/oppression of minorities is normalized and welcomed. Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this. It’s dishonest. Israel is much more egalitarian and frankly, civilized.
> Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this
Go easy on the Kool-Aid.
It's the opposite; those things are not talked about because they are universally acknowledged by anyone except the groups themselves as bad.
The problem with Israel is that you have a huge number of people who are not even Israeli gleefully supporting a genocide, either overtly or by doing everything in their power to silence anyone calling it out. This is a stark contrast: the only people actively supporting the oppression of minorities in Syria or Saudi Arabia are those carrying it out. There are no large groups of powerful people solely comprised of Americans in the US or Germans in Germany who do their best to silence criticism of Saudi Arabia. I'm sure you'll be able to find a few PR firms that Saudi paid, or a few people with business interests there who did such things, but it's completely incomparable to the Zionist lobby and the active carrying out of its interests.
What’s dishonest is your racist defense of a murderous and genocidal country that cynically uses Judaism as a shield for war crimes. You should really think deeply about how you’re conflating the Zionist state with the Jewish people… not sure a lot of them are in board with your project. There is no world in which a Jewish-supremacist state is righteous.
As for equal rights, it is to laugh. Israel is an apartheid state. Ask any expert in the subject.
Let’s talk about the racist death-penalty-for-Palestinians law that just passed to Ben Gvir drinking champagne and to celebratory prayers in the Knesset. Or what about the fact that gay people cannot legally marry? Or that protesting the genocide gets you brutally arrested. Not to mention the ghetto that Israel has turned Gaza into. (shame on the Zionists!) What about no right of return to the people who lived on the land that Israel stole and continues to steal? (let me guess: all in self defense!) It goes on and on.
Israel is indefensible. It should be dismantled.
Why did this repose by someone else get flagged dead? It's factual and provides additional context. Deng why do allow these posts but then allow such one sided 'discussion'?
"The penalty imposed by the Palestinian authority for selling their property to a Jew is the death sentence. Conversely, the Palestinians or Jews or Christians inside Israel don’t face any such restrictions."
Your comment is an example of that dishonesty, since you’re ignoring all the Islamic supremacist states while stating your opinion that Israel is supremacist. Something like 20% of Israel’s population are Muslims, and they’re prospering there, so you can’t call it supremacist. On the other hand, officially Islamic nations are explicitly supremacist. They have state religions and laws against blasphemy and rampant systemic discrimination.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem have published reports characterizing Israel’s legal framework (especially considering the occupied territories) as apartheid or involving systemic discrimination. I’m not sure what more can be said.
The Amnesty International observer in Gaza reported students who were working together on projects with Israeli students and hoped that were be treated with extreme prejudice. Totally an unbiased organization on the subject.
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Actions, not words. Otherwise we'd be believing that a certain political party in the 40s Germany was simply all about work setting you free.
Zionists have showed what they are about through their actions ever since establishing their ethnosupremacist state. And they showed that genocide is not a red line to them over the past 2 and a half years. What they say they are about on paper is no longer relevant.
> Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance
This blame falls squarely on Israelis and Jewish people as a whole for conflating Zionism, Israel and Jewishness as a single thing, and branding anyone who dared to be critical of Zionism as antisemitic. Now they try to distance themselves and rightly so, but it is their fault that the victim agenda backfired terribly.
I have expressed my solidarity to non-Zionist Jewish people in a previous comment, but still all I hear is victimization at how the world at large treats them rather than real anger and disgust at what the State of Israel is doing in their name. Where are the angry non-Zionist protests? Where are the people renouncing their dual citizenships? The reaction is still very subdued for a genocide in massive scale, and at times it is hard for us gentiles to feel sorry for their apathy.
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Revionist history at work.
What part?
eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ott... ?
This part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi
Edit: Sorry, I can't reply to your comment below, for some reason.
This part,
> Did you know that Jews lived among Muslims for over a thousand years in peace?
is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Additionally,
> The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
Is ahistorical. There have been small but continuous Jewish settlements in the region since antiquity, Jews are indigenous. Further, Zionist immigration started earlier than 1948, as early as the late 1800s, and finally, Arabs fled Israel to avoid the incoming invasion from Arab Muslim nations who, for bigoted reasons, could not tolerate a Jewish state.
> is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Let's agree for a moment that there was intense bigotry and prejudice, as I'm very sure there was some amount. As we can also agree, there is human tribalism alive and well to this day between people of minimal or great differences.
Separate but equal is not enslavement or extermination. Dhimmi was the basis for peace, not equality, and I haven't found a compelling alternative narrative.
> > The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
> Is ahistorical.
While I can appreciate what you're trying to say here, the post you are responding to was describing a situation within the context of the Zionist state movement of the mid 1900s. The fact that there have always been Jewish settlements throughout the historical Levant (and beyond) is incidental. Neither of these points are without merit. I'm not sure arguing past each other about who deserves what is constructive.
(Looks like I can reply now) I feel I've pretty clearly answered your question of "what 'revisionist' means in that context". Dhimmitude is absolutely not a basis for peace. If it helps, think of Zionism as a civil rights movement, but more aligned with Malcom X than MLK.
I don't believe it's incidental that there have always been Jewish settlements, it's exactly the point: Muslims were fine with Jewish settlements so long as the Jews were subservient to a ruling Muslim power, but Jewish self-determination was intolerable.
I do agree that arguing about who deserves what is not constructive. 1948 was 78 years ago, there are ~10 million Israelis, and the country has nukes. The historical perspective is not very helpful here.
I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court. Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
> I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Individual Jews held prestigious positions in Europe as well. So what?
> Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
Yes, the literal and practical meanings differ. And of course, relying on others for protection leaves you at their mercy and locks you into a position of submission towards your "protector". Avoiding that reliance is perhaps the primary purpose of Israel.
in creating, perpetuating, and expanding israel, the zionist jews betrayed the ones who had protected them for so long, hosting them on lands that for the most part never even belonged to the jewish people to begin with. israel is the only colony turned state in history to have been created by a people who were previously stateless, this fact alone should raise suspicions about the true history and legitimacy of that state.
who gave the jews a state? people think it was britain but britain agreed to the balfour declaration, an agreement made between zionist bankers and the british state which involved upholding the rights of the indigenous arab population and which did not involve the creation of a jewish state. how do you think jews got their state regardless? did britain change their mind and decide to give jews more than they agreed to give them?
The Israelis accepted the partition but the Arabs didn't.
The Arabs made war instead, lost, and so Israel won the land by force of arms, same as the vast majority of states.
why should the arabs have accepted the partition? what was the rationale behind the partition, who made the decision and what right did they have to make such a decision, what was the justification for a zionist state to begin with?
the arabs made war after the zionists started the nakba, if zionists weren't so aggressive the arab states likely wouldn't have sent any soldiers to fight, just taken economic and diplomatic measures.
in historical jewish states, how did they treat the people they conquered? not to mention, most jews in the muslim world lived well outside of their homeland in palestine, and that's not because the muslims pushed them out, they were there before the muslims conquered, and many times they helped the muslims conquer because they would rather have lived under muslim rule than christian rule.
It’s not clear what "revisionist" means in this context, especially when pointing to Dhimmi.
I’ve never heard of it before today. I’m aware that Jews and Muslims live in Iran today. There is historical evidence, including written accounts, that some arrangement (Dhimmi?) existed over 1,200 years ago—whether social, legal, cultural, or, most likely, a combination. Under this system, the religions coexisted without the overtones of genocide within their communities.
5x as many Iranian jews live in the USA now. 20x in Israel.
Iran has a population of almost 100 million, and the Hollywood Bowl could seat its jewish population twice over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Jews
I found this: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/11/22/iran-drops-the-facad...
Which has been enlightening. Thank you for highlighting the tenuous situation in Iran, which is not favorable toward Jews. This does shed light on the affair and seems credible to me.
They were second class citizens with limited rights (quite a bit like the people in the occupied West Bank for that matter..)
they were merchants and artisans part of an international diaspora spanning thousands of miles, it was really an economic role that they chose to assume. they weren't victims of a racist occupation like arabs in the west bank today.
some would say that they were kicked out of their homeland so it wasn't really a choice but there's actually no evidence that this ever happened. for one thing, jews have always lived in judea and there's no record of them being expelled from anywhere there except the city of jerusalem in the 2nd century by the romans after they tried another revolt. there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt. the jewish diaspora was likely primarily a result of economic migration and subsequent success of jewish communities in certain economic roles as a diasporic community spanning many different lands.
> economic role that they chose to assume
The only choice they had which would have allowed them assume any other role was conversion to Islam.
> no evidence that this ever happened
There is obviously evidence and there several major Jewish or Samaritan revolts until the Romans lost Palestine in the 600s with the last revolt being quite brutal.
Of course the scale of expulsions, forced conversions and massacres is not really known but the region was almost certainly majority Christian by the time the Muslims got there
> there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt
There is no strong evidence of that either (depending on how one defines “huge” of course)
Islam allowed jews to own land, just like how it allowed christians to own land.
if there were several jewish revolts until the 600s that is evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions. the fact that the region became majority christian is not evidence of a major expulsion of jews and subsequent replacement by christians, likely they mostly converted just like how most christians would end up converting to islam. In any case it wasn't muslims who expelled them so they can't take it out on the indigenous muslims of the west bank.
there are records of jewish presence across the medditerranean region and the near east for centuries prior to the first roman jewish war
> evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions
I don’t quite get how you come to this conclusion?
Ireland for instance continued having rebellion despite and after significant expulsions starting hundreds of years prior to 1916…
i am arguing against the idea that the romans kicked out all or most of the jews from palestine. I am not suggesting that no jews were ever expelled or sent away as slaves. I think the historical record is clear that the jewish diaspora would have existed even if not a single jew were ever forcefully removed from palestine. I also don't understand how it is relevant to the israel palestine conflict, palestinians aren't romans, they're the native inhabitants of the land, whatever really happened to jews in palestine 1500+ years ago is hardly relevant to any political disputes ongoing today. The fact of the matter is that palestinians can trace their ancestry to the land as far back as they can trace their ancestry, meanwhile most israeli jews arrived in palestine within the past 100 years, and before that their line was living elsewhere as far back as they could trace. There are palestinians that were kicked out in the nakba that are still alive today and hold the keys to their homes that they were dispossessed of. Did the zionists have that kind of verifiable and particular claim to the land when they came over?
All of it? Islam literally calls for violence and oppression of anyone who isn’t a Muslim. It’s literally in the Quran. Islam spread to many of the regions it is now in through invasion and genocidal violence. For example, they colonized India before Europeans did. They have completely erased the previous cultures and ethnic groups of the North African countries. Etc.
This is categorically false. After the Islamic conquest it took Egypt around 800 years to be a muslim majority country; under Islamic rule.
This is categorically false. The Quran explicitly says "There is no compulsion in religion". It teaches Muslims to say "You have your religion, and I have my religion". It tells Muslims to fight only those who fight them and "do not exceed the limits". In fact, it says God does not forbid Muslims from dealing "kindly and fairly" with non-Muslims who have not fought or expelled them.
ha! you need to study history more
Who remembers when they shut down the country so they wouldn't lose votes?
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If being against genocide and war-crimes makes one a jihadist, then the vast majority of the world is a jihadist, making the term itself useless. You can just say 'everyone'.
The world seems to tolerate Iran's proxy war against Israel.
Seriously, when ate the war criminals finally dragged before courts and sentenced like their forebears in Nuremberg?
Nuremberg was only possible because Germany was invaded succesfully by allied forces.
All this war crime talk is nonsense. Either talk about sending your own children to war against Israel, or criticize them in other real terms. There are no war crimes against countries who don't recognize the ICJ, and even then, unless the judiciary of the country is consenting, a war crime charge isn't pursued.
It isn't a competition, but I hope you're neither an American nor a Russian, because if you are, clean your own house first before talking about how dirty someone else's is.
if you are american, cleaning your house involves going head to head with the zionist lobby which works for israel's interests. so i'm afraid the matter of israel can't be avoided here.
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> Isn't it precisely the anti-zionist sentiment you eschew that resulted in the Oct 7 attacks by Hammas
Bringing this up in 2026 when it's abundantly clear there's zero chance the IDF had no idea about the planning of Oct 7, and didn't just let it happen, means there's no point having a conversation. When it's so well known that Israel is the one who have propped up Hamas.
> In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas." He continued saying "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."
> “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu
> Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview: “Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.”
Whether the IDF knew about the attack or not does not change anything for the argument i made. Unless you're claiming they orchestrated it.
The quotes I gave you from Israeli leadership unfortunately do change everything for the argument you made.
I don't think so. at best, it proves that the current israeli government supported hamas to isolate them from palestinians in gaza. it doesn't support a claim that the oct 7 attacks were perpetrated by israel's own government (which is insane, since it took thousands of random arabs to actually carry out the attack). If your position is israel shouldn't exist, then it is you who is supporting Bibi's view that he needs to isolate palestinians and keep them in check (or worse) so that your wish of israel's non-existence won't come true.
The zionist goal is already acheived as i understand it, there is no need to fund zionism. israel doesn't need "funding" to sustain itself either, it's so prosperous on its own, even here on YC you'll see many startups based in Israel.
zionism isn't synonymous with gaza or west bank expansionism, or any act of violence. I keep seeing these types of arguments and i can't help but ponder if you're just repeating some disinformation campaign to prop-up and legitimize the anti-semitic reasoning used by the very same people fighting wars to supposedly prevent it (with some degree of legitimacy).
If you said zionism to enable the concept of a jewish state is reasonable, and even it wasn't historically, it is impractical to fight against it, and that israel has the right to exist. But the recent wars and harm against civilians is abhorrent, then you would be criticizing them in a way that actually makes sense, and can be used to actually do something to stop them. but your (and others') agenda only helps one side, and it is neither palestinians, their plight for justice, nor the side of peace.
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Nation states generally do not have rights.
The hypothetical “right to exist” is typically juxtaposed against its adversaries’ rights/efforts/privilege to wipe them off the face of the earth.
If a nation-state, or ethnoreligious group, has rights, then efforts to destroy it would not gain popular support.
Do ethnoreligious groups have a right to survival without suffering genocide? Does the international community, or Security Council, have a duty to prevent genocide, or the extinction of any particular nation-state?
You confuse nation state and people in this question. Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people, but these things are not necessarily the same. The Security Council has no obligation to prevent a peaceful union of two states that would make one or both of them cease to exist. Nation states do not have rights, people have rights.
> Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people
No, it does not. That's not how sovereignty works. nation states' obligations are only towards their own nation. Even honoring of treaties is expected only in so far as it is in the best interest of their nation to do so. There is no grand human coalition that has an obligation to intervene on behalf of the innocent being harmed by wars and genocide. it's a nice idea, but consent of the governed and all. Those people would have to first get their government to consent to participating under organizations like the ICJ.
This viewpoint is basically that there is no international community at all, and that’s a broader argument
I’m not confused, but perhaps Zionists are.
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It pains me to criticize the UN, since they're the best the world has, but if the UN were more judicious on the conflict, it would help. Eg:
https://independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ban-kimoon-...
i dont think crimes define whether states have a right to exist.
they just dont have a right to exist. states exist by consent of the governed.
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Why did this get flagged dead?
"not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane."
> Israel does not have the right to exist as a state in chronic violation of international law
Cool, now enforce it. Oh? You can't? "International law" is just a bunch of words some people wrote down? Okay, thanks for letting me know.
not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane.
Exactly this.
These laws are worthless for as long there is nobody willing and able to enforce them.
Like this, it is a fantasy. I could write international law.
All laws are "just a bunch of words some people wrote down". So what's your point?
"International law" is just shorthand. If you read about it, you'll see how it can work, and the proponents are not as dumb as you seem to think
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The house is full of furniture from America and Russia, but it is still bloody filthy
I mean, I'll take being allowed to boycott israel and call their genocide a genocide in my supposedly sovereign country, without getting arrested over it.
Can you please do the same thing with the same fervent passion against all countries that do this. From the US and Russia, to Sudan.
What makes you think I don't? I can (and do) boycott these and more, UAE for example is a nono for working with or using products and services of. The difference is, I am not allowed to do the same for israel, which is magnitudes worse than any of those you've listed so far. There is nothing in modern history that matches israeli depravity.
That requires them to either travel to a country that recognizes war crimes and be arrested, or a country deciding to go in and get them. I can’t imagine anyone would have the political will and means to invade. It seems extremely unlikely there would ever be an arrest.
Israel's actions can only be described as inhumane and sadistic. In fact, it's similar to actual terrorism that they claim to be against.
A double tap attack is a deliberate tactic designed to kill first responders who rush to a scene after a bombing.
Assad in Syria used this tactic to target the White Helmet rescuers who would attend the scene after air attacks.
Now Israel is using the same tactic against innocent Lebanese medics.
More war crimes as usual
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Nobody cares about the legalistic rambling about the ICJ. We know an atrocity when we see it.
Yeah, who disagreed with that? "war crime" is not a random term you can throw at things you don't like. you can dislike an atrocity, but you have no right to do anything about it.
It's so hypocritical. Not a single post on HN I've seen even brought up the genocide in sudan or other african countries. I'd like to see where you commented on how everyone who supported and provided refuge to Hamas and its leaders were committing an atrocity.
making noise about 'war crime' or atrocity does nothing except inflame the very propaganda being used to commit those atrocities, and legitimize all other atrocities being committed, from Iran to sudan, to ukraine and elsewhere. You pick and choose which genocidal country deserves attention based on your bias.
Iran's nuclear program was justified because they were eventually attacked, and Israel's atrocities are retroactively justified by people who insist they have no right to exist.
guess what, if I was an israeli and you're saying I have no right to exist, and should be genoicded or ethnic-cleansed, I wouldn't care about any atrocities against you either.
You don't care about legalisms and ICJ, so what do you care about? emotions? certainly you don't seem to care about actually doing something. organizations like ICJ exist for the purpose of doing something, and in this case it is ineffective.
I think my rambling about ICJ is more productive than other ramblings about "atrocity" or "from the river to the sea".
If you want to understand the mentality of the zionists, watch this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzL5_JhA_QT
The whole movie is worth a watch. It was made by Teddy Katz, an Israeli student whose 1990s thesis on the massacre was discredited after legal action by veterans, largely baseless push-back against the thesis which was well researched and strongly supported by primary evidence. The movie is called "Tantura" and was released in 2022. IF you're not an AV person, the wiki on the tantura massacre is worth a read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantura_massacre
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Hacker News is so unserious.
'The middle east is unstable because colonizers created arbitrary boarders forcing ethnic groups together into unsustainable nation structures with unsustainable ethnic tensions inside the boarders'
'Israel MUST return to pre 1967 boarders and must live with ethnicities that as a common political platform call for the death of all jews. Israel cannot consider stability/unsustainable ethnic tension when forming its borders but must use arbitrary boarders and assume ethnic tension will magically disappear in their situation ignoring the reality of hwo that has worked for neighboring countries. Also Israel is racist/ethnosupremecist for recognizing the realities of borders/ethnicities that we ourselves recognize in our previous statements about the borders created in the middle east by European colonizers'
If Israel cannot coexist with its neighbours then why plant it in this particular area of the world in the first place? Why not take part of Germany, the country which actually slaughtered millions of jews. Why do the Arabs have to pay the price of something they're not responsible for?
Imagine the opposite: an Arab group was planted to occupy part of Europe, occasionally gets into wars with its neighbours, and builds one of the largest weapons arsenals in the world, including nukes. How would Europeans feel about that?
If you are as ignorant as me:
"A double tap, or double-tap, is the practice of following a strike [...] with a deliberately timed second strike in the same place several minutes later, usually in an attempt to maximize the casualties of an attack."
"Double-tap strikes have been used by Saudi Arabia during its military intervention in Yemen, by the United States in Pakistan, Yemen, and the Gulf of Mexico, by Israel in the 2014 Gaza War, the Gaza war (2023-present), and the 2026 Lebanon war. by Russia and the Ba'athist Syria in the Syrian civil war, and by Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially since the full-scale invasion in 2022."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tap_strike
The recent bombing of the bridge in Iran was apparently a double-tap strike by the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Karaj_B1_bridge_attack
I thought the US was caught doing a similar thing to those boats it was destroying because they might be carrying drugs.
> They were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the U.S. military was weighing whether to finish them off.
> "The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn't do it," one source said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/video-shows-final-con...
Yes, and the entire chain of command that did so should be prosecuted for murder.
Truly horrific
The importance of the “double tap” was expounded by Columbus in Zombieland as Rule #2 to survive the apocalypse.
https://zombieland.fandom.com/wiki/Zombieland_Rules
There isn't an army quite like Israel's in recent history. Depraved and worse than any islamic "terror" organisation - sometimes created by Israel to justify it's crimes.
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Obviously you can't post like this and we've banned the account.
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compared to whom? how does one measure that purity? certainly Hammas is more pure in those terms, not that it is a competition (but you're alluding that it is).
They all suck. There are no good polities in the Middle East. At this stage into the genocide-counter-genocide cycle, there are no clean hands left.
We need to switch to renewables asap, and just withdraw completely from the Middle East. They all want to kill one another for fanatical or ethnic reasons, and we clearly have no capacity to stop them. We should insulate ourselves from the region and restrict any involvement to humanitarian assistance.
it's a bit too late, might even make things worse when all the petro-states start going hungry and desperate. I suspect in the timeframe it takes to wean off of oil as fuel source, there will be other resource issues arising such as water and climate-driven migration.
Then they get nukes and the means of delivering them.
Unfortunately, we are at an era no area can just be ignored.
Theocracies oppressing their own people while aiming for expansion, particularly, must be dealt with.
Else, they will eventually oppress the entirety of humanity.
> Theocracies oppressing their own people while aiming for expansion, particularly, must be dealt with.
> Else, they will eventually oppress the entirety of humanity.
We poured trillions of dollars into Afghanistan trying to do just this. It failed. It is not within the power capability of any state to bring liberty to people that do not want it.
The era of global internationalism you're alluding to is receding. If the Iranians and the Saudis want to nuke one another, that is very sad, but we will not be able to stop them in the long run. The best we can do is to keep as far away from any such conflict as possible.
The world are not children, to be minded by us. They're autonomous humans with agency, many of whom sadly happen to be blood-thirsty fanatics, chomping at the bit for a chance to do some genocide. As demonstrated by the last fifty years of Western policy failure in the third world, we do not have the capacity to fix this and it is folly to try.
> Then they get nukes and the means of delivering them.
Remind me, which country was the only one in the world that actually used nukes to kill hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians?
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I would rather say they are eager to demonstrate that they are ruthless enough and able to kill anyone without conscience or hesitation to prove that they are a good candidate to replace the US hegemony in the greater region.
not just the politicians, also the media outlets that cover for them, and the zionist political donors who fund them.
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Germany: 7.7 to 7.9 beds per 1,000 Japan: 12.6 to 13.0 beds per 1,000 Israel: 2.9 to 3.1 beds per 1,000 people USA: 2.3 to 2.4 beds per 1,000 people Egypt: 1.1 to 1.4 beds per 1,000 people
OECD avg per capita: 4.2 per 1,000 people
Lebanon: 1.0–1.2 beds per 1,000 people Palestine: 1.3 beds per 1,000 people
Palestine did have way more before, in 2022, at 13 per 1000. That would indeed be high.
Turns out that was purposefully done because of the extremely high prevalence of chronic disease and crises as caused by a blockade.
Now that I have wondered, I am curious as to why you would leave out such important details like this. Or not just plainly state your opinion.
I think we can guess why, and I think you also know it's because you are wrong.
OECD average is 4.2 and hiding weapons in schools and hospitals is insurgency 101.
Naivety of you guys is staggering.
Why are you insinuating if your argument is supposedly so damning? Just state it plainly.
They can't, else their bigotry and support for genocide would be too evident. Such pathetic cowards...
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To clarify,
- I'm under no confusion about what they're insinuating, that's not the point (see that below)
- I'm looking for their reply specifically
It's relatively easy to accuse, and to make up some story. It's a lot harder to provide substance and formulate a compelling argument.
Is the number of medical facilities really outstanding? Why does that suggest they're combatant hideouts? Which of them are, all? Why does them hiding combatants render double, triple, quadruple tapping, or even just targeting these facilities morally justified or reasonable? What sense does it even make to double, triple, quadruple tap in this context?
All pretty important questions I'd say, none of which are addressed by cowardly insinuations, I believe by design.
Last time I checked, my internal moral compass rated actually killing healthcare workers and the sick/injured/etc a lot worse than combatants using them as potential collateral (not that that'd be the pinnacle of morality). One would assume most other people's compass does too, hence why the above is news. How the paramedics that arrive afterwards become deserving of getting shelled, further remains an unelaborated-on mystery.
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Yea, you mean Israel's use of human shields, right?....wait, who are we talking about using human shields, again?
"Dressed in army fatigues with a camera fixed to his forehead, Ayman Abu Hamadan was forced into houses in the Gaza Strip to make sure they were clear of bombs and gunmen, he said. When one unit finished with him, he was passed to the next.
“They beat me and told me: ‘You have no other option; do this or we’ll kill you,’” the 36-year-old told The Associated Press, describing the 2 1/2 weeks he was held last summer by the Israeli military in northern Gaza."
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-arm...
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Oh wow! So they make dummy hospitals and put dummy meat bags of all sizes for camera time and social media post just to make Israel look bad when they hit those meat bags. That is some strategy.
Nobody said they are dummy hospitals. They are dual use, some medical, some military HQ. And nobody said they were dummy meat bags. The most powerful weapon the terrorists have is dead civilians. And you get what you reward: punish Israel for dead civilians, you'll get more dead civilians.
They do? Compared to who? And no, I haven't, please enlighten me.
Maybe they have a disproportionate amount of wounded and sick to take care of? For some reason.
Ever wondered why Israel has disproportionate amount of settlers in the West Bank, a land that doesn't belong to them? I bet that makes them a legitimate target.
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They are evil now and they will be nice when some goal is achieved, this does not make any sense.
> they aren't the actual cause of the terror
Are you sure? Here are some stats of settler attacks from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
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In their own words... https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWz4l3eElig/
If the UN is not a credible source then I think establishing the state of Israel in 1948 should be thrown in the garbage.
The UN didn't establish Israel so the two events are unconnected.
> But every good deed gets harshly punished
Can you name some of the instances you’re thinking of?
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Hacker News is an American website. Hacker News allows political discussion. Israel is very relevant to American politics, many would argue too much so, but in any case, why shouldn't it be discussed here?
Because it's not intellectually interesting and because it falls in the off-topic category based on the guidelines of this site.
> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic
People don't come to Hacker News to talk about wars. They come to get away from wars.
Less than 28 days ago you were commenting multiple times on Iran, Islamists and geopolitics involving war. Why are you suddenly so jumpy? I don't get it. Why is it suddenly unacceptable to talk about quadruple tappings on medical workers by Israel?
I flagged those stories too, stalker. They result in uninteresting flamebait like your comment. Hacker News used to be better than this. It's turning into reddit.
Ironically, many of my comments were flagged and removed where I suggested the post was inappropriate. No tolerance for any dissenting views or discussion, unfortunately.
You posted real discussions and opinions, the fact that you flagged them doesn't change the fact that you took some sort of value to the tune of spending effort posting replies beforehand. What I'm struggling to understand is why the call to shut down discussion on this topic when Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes. Don't pretend you don't see it.
22122 is a familiar looking username.
hiya, long time no see! if so
Read their submission history. They talk about "radical extremist Islamist regime in Iran" all the time. Seems rather odd to be this cagey when people are getting sick and tired of Israel's constant war crimes.
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Hezbollah is the main political party in Lebanon. Anything can be related to the main political party of a country. It's like saying you can legally kill Israeli medics because they are "related to Likud".
In any case, killing medics is a violation of the Hague and Geneva conventions and the internal law.
If this story is hard for you to take seriously, there's thousands more stories, videos and witnessings of war crimes by Israel in very recent history..
Just worth clearing the point about Hezbollah in that context.
Hezbollah is not the “main” political party [1]
It is a major part of the government but not the main.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_L...
If they were the main party then it was Lebanon who attacked Israel following the war with Iran and not Hezbollah.
Lebanon is very pragmatic already and they actually have an army which isn’t Hezbollah.
My bad, should have put "one of the main political parties". Good correction, thank you.
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What does it mean for a medic to “be Hezbollah” in this context?
Are you saying they are employed medics of the organisation? Party members? Combatants?
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In all your comments, you keep referring to the resistance groups fighting the Israeli occupation as terrorists, which I’m guessing makes you either an Israeli or pro-Israel.
The IOF has been notoriously lying about killing and torturing civilians. Not only that, but even soldiers caught red-handed on video raping prisoners have not only gotten away scot-free but also been allowed to rejoin the army. Is there a reason why we should trust anything such a genocidal, morally corrupt organization has to say?
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Please don't trawl through past threads for material to use in the current discussion. It breaks the guidelines about being kind, avoiding cross-examination, and using HN for political or ideological battle. A discussion thread should be able to stand on its own, and it's hard to know whether the surrounding context that applied when the commenter expressed their views in an older thread are relevant to the current topic.
How about actually rebutting things rather than attacking me?
We don't approve of digging up comments from old threads and weaponizing them in the present thread. However, your activity in this thread is not consistent HN's guidelines and intended use.
The most important and pertinent guidelines in this case are these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
How is posting your comments attacking you?
It's an HN norm that digging up comments in old threads and weaponizing in the present discussion is not cool. I explained more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47813445
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I’m not sure if linking the video would violate HN rules, and I find it hard to believe that you haven’t at least heard about it. There is currently global outrage because the soldier in this video was acquitted and allowed to rejoin the army. The video was aired on Israeli TV and the IOF arrested the military official who authorized the leak.
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/statement-ohchr-08aug24/
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/outrage-over-video-leak-of-is...
I belive if you search for ‘Israeli soldiers gang rape prison’ you’ll find multiple links to it.