Well, a lot of people flag those topics because Israel is part of our western hegemony as far as political influence goes. What I find the most interesting is how uncritical we in the west are of the raise in authoritarianism in our own countries.
I’m Danish and all of our internet traffic is monitored and saved by our ISPs on behalf of our own government. A government who recently tried to have a former minister of justice and the former chief of the military spy agency (not sure what the English word for that is) tried for treason, not because they did anything wrong, but because they sort of leaked that our secret police let the NSA monitor our traffic because while it’s illegal for the PET to monitor Danish citizens directly, it’s not illegal for them to use surveillance information gathered by the NSA… Obviously we’re not living in a totalitarian state like the citizens of China, but it’s not like we’re really living in a democratic paradise either and things are continuing slipping in the authoritarian direction. With the US likely to re-elect Trump and several European nations going for far right wing or very conservative governments it’s not like there will be a lot of “help” from our foreign partners either.
But to return to your question, any political topic related to the west is often flagged on HN. I suspect this particular topic, and topics focused on China stay here because a lot of people actually find them interesting. It’s not exactly hard to find your information on Israel and Palestine, and almost none of it is related to HN, but insights into China especially with a tech focus aren’t easy or common in much of western media. This particular input is also very unbiased and well written on top of being very interesting. Where as a lot of the conflict or political topics that get flagged are mostly propaganda of sorts.
I’m Danish and all of our internet traffic is monitored and saved by our ISPs on behalf of our own government. A government who recently tried to have a former minister of justice and the former chief of the military spy agency (not sure what the English word for that is) tried for treason, not because they did anything wrong, but because they sort of leaked that our secret police let the NSA monitor our traffic because while it’s illegal for the PET to monitor Danish citizens directly, it’s not illegal for them to use surveillance information gathered by the NSA… Obviously we’re not living in a totalitarian state like the citizens of China, but it’s not like we’re really living in a democratic paradise either and things are continuing slipping in the authoritarian direction. With the US likely to re-elect Trump and several European nations going for far right wing or very conservative governments it’s not like there will be a lot of “help” from our foreign partners either.
But to return to your question, any political topic related to the west is often flagged on HN. I suspect this particular topic, and topics focused on China stay here because a lot of people actually find them interesting. It’s not exactly hard to find your information on Israel and Palestine, and almost none of it is related to HN, but insights into China especially with a tech focus aren’t easy or common in much of western media. This particular input is also very unbiased and well written on top of being very interesting. Where as a lot of the conflict or political topics that get flagged are mostly propaganda of sorts.