Racism is embedded in human nature and in every culture. Though it takes different forms. I don't think "Indians" deserve any special mention on that one.
It's telling that we're quick to ascribe anything bad to "human nature" while balking at the notion that anything positive might also be human nature. Greed and exploitation? Yes, absolutely, human nature, nothing you can do about it. Racism? Totally human nature, just look at this random animal species. Cooperation, trust, hospitality? No, those must be unique virtues expressed only by the pure of heart or the naive, just think of the wolves.
Nevermind that "race" as a concept did not exist in the modern sense in Western cultures prior to colonization despite the exposure to other peoples with other skin tones from other parts of the world. Nevermind that cooperation and aiding the weak and forming alliances has been the only thing keeping us alive as naked, defenseless animals that need to sustain our young for years before they can carry their weight, feed themselves, let alone fend for themselves.
> Nevermind that "race" as a concept did not exist in the modern sense in Western cultures prior to colonization despite the exposure to other peoples with other skin tones from other parts of the world.
I'm not sure what the tweet has to do with your question.
To your question: I'm referring to modern Western racism which is built on the scientific racism that became popular when there were economic incentives to explain why chattel slavery is okay when you do it with some people when it's otherwise not okay to do with others. This was downstream from a massive need for cheap labor in the colonies to produce exotic goods to export to Europe for profit.
I don't know why you're asking for an explanation of random unsourced and unqualified historical factoids (without mentioning e.g. which harems, which courts, where and in what time period, which seem kind of important specifics when using vague generalisations like "largely") - maybe ask whoever you learned that from unless you're "just asking questions".
But if you want a general answer to "why is there discrimination against groups outside the imperial core" mine would be that it is easier to justify an exploitative power hiearchy, especially one that subjugates the majority of "its own" people, if you declare outside forces as non-human or sub-human to prevent fraternization which might challenge your rule.
You can easily find this happening in sexism/"patriarchy": men are humans, women are different because they can get pregnant so they are more emotional, more deceitful, stupider, incapable of abstract thought, too easy to manipulate to deserve voting rights, more likely to cheat on their partners because they want the best genes for their offspring, naturally nurturing and caring, inherently better at social skills, inherently risk averse and unfit for leadership, etc etc whatever whatever. Or, as I already said, racism: white people are humans, Asians are different because they're clever but have no soul and operate like a hive mind, Black people are different because they're stronger but impulsive and child-like and must be disciplined to protect them from themselves, Arabs are different because they're deceitful and uncultured and only know how to steal and destroy and breed, etc etc whatever whatever. Heck, you can even find it in the trappings of "enlightened" critiques of democracy (or defense of capitalism, i.e. the centralisation of control of "capital"): us studied high-IQ people of wealth of course should get a say in things but most people allowed to vote are very stupid, easy to manipulate, only seek to reaffirm their biases, bordering on mentally incapable of managing their own life but also of course completely at fault for everything they suffer, etc etc whatever whatever. All of these are bullshit just-so generalisation that just happen to neatly explain why we (men, white folks, academics, people of wealth, etc) deserve to be in charge and anyone who isn't in that group not only does not deserve to have any say but it is in fact in their best interest for us to be in charge of their life too and if this just happens to benefit us immensely, that is only by pure circumstance and what harm does it do anyway if that is the case.
Also, I'm not talking about individual bigotry or stereotypes. "Scientific" racism existed to help perpetuate a system of power relations by justifying the ownership and subjugation of groups of people. Caste systems does and medieval European feudalism did much the same. "Tribalism" however is a red herring because in tribal systems, society is confined to the tribe itself and interactions between tribes are, essentially, diplomacy. Once society expands past a tribe, we usually use the term "nepotism" (or "networking" if you want a positive spin).
> I don't know why you're asking for an explanation of random unsourced and unqualified historical factoids (without mentioning e.g. which harems, which courts, where and in what time period, which seem kind of important specifics when using vague generalisations like "largely") - maybe ask whoever you learned that from unless you're "just asking questions".
I literally said Ottoman and Mamlukian harems. There was only one Ottoman dynasty in one place in one historical time period. As there was only one Mamlukian harem in one place in one contiguous historic period.
FYI both of those dynasties, as did many other kingdoms and empires, had a strong preference for Slavic and Caucasian (as in from the Caucasus) consorts, as can be seen from the ethnicities and religions of most of their dynastic rulers' mothers. And Islamic and Mongol rulers were notorious for keeping younger male slaves from both regions as companions. Heck, the Mamluk dynasty itself was formed by a bunch of Cuman and Circassian slaves who ended up being so powerful as to control their Ayyubid masters.
Also, we know that some of those pre-human species interbed and co-mingled with each other. The dynamics between tribes is also completely different from modern racism.
Just ascribing behavior we observe in humans to "human nature" is a thought-terminating cliché and prevents looking deeper into how we got here and why. Modern society didn't pop into existence fully baked and that goes as much for the good (which we rightly laud as important achievements we need to preserve) as it does for the bad (which we often just describe as "human nature" to avoid challenging our assumptions).
If everything bad is human nature, there's literally no way to improve things. If everything bad is human nature but only for certain people, that's one step away from arguing that the only way to improve things is through genocide.
With respect, it can be hard to see the nuance in this if you're from the US (a country that is so racist even the government openly practices it, but sanctimonious enough to pretend it is instead free).
Your second claim seems to being mistaking their role as telling absolute truth. The very first sentence makes it clear that they are reporting an official government statement, and the next that Israel disputes it and says the PLJ was responsible. This seems very normal for war reporting and I note that they’re very careful to attribute each claim so the reader can decide how much to trust it.
Edit: your first source is a pro-Israeli advocacy group run by a former AIPAC employee, which has marked its coverage of the war with things like baselessly claiming reporters were in on the October 7th attacks:
Given that in this case they ran a report by a witness, and then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question, it’s interesting to note how carefully the “Honest Reporting” writer relies on uncited insinuation or tries to distract your attention to statements by people who are not part of al Jazeera. Again, it’s not great that they ran a story by someone who lied but that’s a hazard of breaking news coverage and it’s hardly unique in the field.
> then publicly updated that to say that a Hamas investigation had called her credibility into question
I don't think there's much of a question, the claims were just fabricated, according to Hamas themselves.
By "publicly updated", do you just mean quietly deleting the articles with false information? As far as I know, they never acknowledged the error and published a retraction, which calls into question their legitimacy as a news organization.
I was referring to the lead in that “Honest Reporting” article which was about one of their employees doing the opposite of this claim by correcting the record:
Now, I do think they should have put out an official statement pointing out the unreliability of the interviewee rather than simply yanking the video but a single unreliable witness interviewed in a tumultuous event which is promptly dropped seems to fall well short of establishing a lie. All news organizations interview people who turn out to be wrong or misleading, so we’d want to see more than a single interview to establish whether there’s a pattern of poor vetting or running a story after evidence has come forth that the witness is unreliable. The public has rather strongly expressed a desire for immediate news coverage rather than waiting for lengthy review and corroboration.
I don't really take issue with publishing the allegation (it's credibility might have been lacking, but that's difficult to judge), just quietly yanking the false information. Wouldn't any legitimate news agency do some form of retraction, such as adding a prominent note at the top of the original article?
To be clear, I think they should have updated their liveblog to add a link to the subsequent Hamas statement calling its accuracy into question. That said, I think some of this comes into questions about the format - this wasn’t a specific story but one of many breaking news details in a tumultuous event, and it’s far from unprecedented within the industry.
As a good example of how messy this can be, consider this story:
None of that is mentioned on that story and the only correction is a minor detail.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that it’s okay for Al Jazeera to be sloppy if the NYT is sloppy but rather that we should be consistent in our standards and they should probably be higher for everyone. The public and especially people covered in these stories deserve better.
I've been following the Screams Without Words story and I don't think it's really comparable to something that was basically confirmed to be false. The NYT stands behind the report
> We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation which was rigorously reported, sourced and edited.
A lot of the "debunking" seems fairly weak in my opinion. E.g. Gal Abdush's brother in law made a rather baseless statement that "the media invented" Gal's rape. Really the article was reporting what Israeli police believed, mainly based on (non-public) video evidence which the Times reporters also reviewed.
I think it would be comparable if Israeli police retracted their claims and stated that Gal was not raped. Then surely the NYT would make some kind of clear correction/retraction, rather than quietly deleting (part of) the report.
Specifically, that is the position of the intelligence agencies of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and also the conclusion of investigations by the Associated Press, CNN, The Economist, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. That's really the best we know about it.
I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
The "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I have no idea about the reasons of the explosion, but contesting the palestinian dead toll without [credible] sources is politics.
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason.
I have no idea how all those newspapers could manage >>independent<< investigations, as the Israeli army banned journalists. The first time [that I saw] CNN reported on something they actually filmed was The Israeli army pointing at tunnels.
BTW, CNN is now much less biased towards the israeli narrative. During 2023 [Latam] CNN seemed a Netanyahu's outlet more that anything. France24 and DW >>seem<< neutral right now. Spain outlets have mediocre coverange, and Latinamerican outlets are only citing random news from other outlets.
The Wikipedia "Summary" is clearly biased and absolutely not "The best we know" depending on who is "we"
I dare say United Nations might have a more balanced approach, and they cite the enclave health authorities when they say that as of April 22th there are 34,000 deaths. No other source is cited for some reason.
You're giving a ton of weasel words here: most likely (but not certainly). All that word salad of wishy washy makes it clear that the fog of war is still present regarding those events.
Describing the report as credible is not accurate. Given that many news outlets retracted their initial claims and the official statements, it is very likely that there is enough evidence that Israel did not bomb the hospital and that the reported number of casualties is inaccurate. You using the "fog of war" argument to dismiss his claim—which was honest enough to say "not certainly"—is irrelevant. You could say this about almost every other reported event in Gaza.
If you include the surrounding context, that al Ahli had been targeted before, and since, and that other hospitals had also been not only targeted but actively sieged for days, at is in fact credible that the Israeli military targeted and hit the Hospital.
Now remote forensics on the site makes it implausible that the initial reports of an Israeli airstrike were true, however we still haven’t ruled out other types of munitions by the Israeli military.
Note that the initial reports of those supportive of Israel were also false. They claimed that they captured the rockets which they claimed hit the hospital on camera. It turned out this footage was of an unrelated rocket which got completely destroyed in air. Al Jazeera was actually one of few media outlets which correctly hypothesized that this rocket was unrelated to the incident.
The fact is, we still don’t know what happened, all we know is that many of the initial reports were false. There was a lot of lying involved to win the narrative (especially by Israeli officials), and there are at least two very credible hypotheses on what happened.
In order for that to happen, a Shabak rep. Will have to provide statement that Haaretz poses serious threat to the national security of Israel. Call me when that happens (spoiler: it won’t).
Now that would make an interesting hn story.
[EDIT: sorry, having read the bill again, it's also required for Haaretz to be "a foreign news channel"]
It depends. Not sure of the threshold offhand, but I believe it has to do with “incitement of imminent lawlessness” — that is, whether your words are designed to cause specific violent acts (as opposed to just generally stirring up hate that ends up being violent).
Concrete examples: “Jews will not replace us” is protected speech; “everyone go out and find a Jew” to an angry mob is probably not.
Leaving that question aside, I believe there's a difference between that, and reporting, uncensored, that somebody else did. Presumably Israel is happy for the "right" people to report it, with the appropriate condemnation and editing. What that ends up amounting to is compelled speech. I know that's not quite the issue you're responding to, but I do believe that free speech requires the right to report that somebody said something that might be illegal itself, and that free speech also requires that you not be compelled to rebuke it with the appropriate government talking points to do so.
I think you can. I mean the Daily Stormer amongst other horrible hate-filled online publications are allowed to publish online, and US citizens are allowed to read it.
Meanwhile Israeli citizens cannot read Al Jazeera legally now.
Had cops show up at the home of a child that was on a sports team of my daughter's. They were looking for her brother and took him in.
Afterwards we spoke more to her mother and found out that users in game forums had told him he could make these kinds of comments and it was free speech as long it wasn't a call to violence. Well I don't know the legalities, but I do know he was never welcome back at that school. (Nor even in the district for that matter.) Worse, the neighboring district got word, and they implemented their own machinations to ensure he was effectively banned from there as well. In the end, they sent him to live with relatives.
I wouldn't be so cavalier about telling people they can say things like this. It's like, well you can say anything. But if you say things that make oblique suggestions towards violence, expect to watched from that point on. And excluded from any activities that people believe would provide you opportunity to act on what they now suspect to be your intentions. You can't talk about indirect suggestions of violence against airliners, presidents, or students in high schools and still expect to be able to show up at the White House, or board an airliner, or go to the high school you attend. Society doesn't work like that these days.
> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
From the poster a few levels above:
> In the case of Israel, the Middle-Eastern unit were literally showing videos demanding further uprising against Israel across the region directly from Hamas. Also the entire point of Al Jazeera was for Qatar to provide political influence through media, not as an unbiased news agency.
Showing a video of an enemy of the country calling for genocide of that country is a newsworthy event that is part of journalistic practice. The American media showed Osama Bin Laden videos calling for the death of Americans, to report on him.
Please learn the difference of showing a video of a terrorist calling for genocide to report on him vs the news anchor/owner of that news company agreeing with that terrorist and joining that call for genocide.
America has other limits on free speech. Foreign control of media for example which I am not familiar with.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Brandenburg v Ohio (the current standard for what constitutes incitement) literally says your free speech rights run up to and include advocacy for violent overthrow of the government. The limitation it establishes is "incitement to imminent lawless action", with heavy emphasis on "imminent".
There is still a question of whether that is the correct limit. Many people think it is. Obviously Israel disagrees. We can’t use the First Amendment and SCOTUS precedent to uncover aughts, especially to another country.
However, if you agree that Brandenburg set the correct limit, you can conditionalize aid on it. It’s just not a first principles approach.
> You can not. Inciting violence and calls for criminal action is a well establish limit of the First Amendment, but that is not what they are doing from what I gathered in this thread.
Saying "ethnic group XXX should be exterminated" does not meet the standard for incitement. I don't know why the debate has become about US law but I'm even more puzzled about so many people confidently stating, wrongly, that the US bans hate speech. The US has frequently been criticized by Europeans for this exact reason -- in their view, the US stance permitting hate speech is irresponsible.
There is more to it than that. The Supreme Court has held that “advocacy of the use of force” is only unprotected when it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action.”
Apparently as far as I learned from a lawyer the answer is yes. If you are not acting or planning to act on it what you described is protected under free speech.
That’s complicated. The US has criminal and civil law. With regards to criminal law in terms of expression and liberties there are very few things you cannot do. The default is to lean towards liberty always.
In terms of civil law you can generally sue anyone for anything at anytime unless there is existing law or contracts halting further civil actions.
You can't sue someone for calling for violence, including racially motivated violence. Incitement is a crime, but incitement happens when you direct someone to take a specific action and they do exactly what you said (e.g., you tell them to go beat someone and they do it).
Balaji Srinivasan - "Take total control of your neighborhood. Push out all Blues. Tell them they’re ... unwelcome Just as Blues ethnically cleanse me out of San Francisco, like, push out all Blues." https://youtu.be/EqJoXaNFFjY?si=x3HD6-P9n98KTHGi&t=14723
> Can you openly call for the murder of <enter ethnic group> in the US under the protection of the first amendment ?
Yes. We see this with open chants of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and "Globalize the Intifada"
...as long as the call is not likely to produce "imminent lawless action". Brandenburg v. Ohio was a decision by the Supreme Court establishing the "imminent lawless action" test for determining when speech advocating illegal conduct is not protected by the First Amendment. The Court held that speech is protected unless it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
I would describe this as a motte and bailey: using the failure of peace processes to advance the claim that any call for Palestinian freedom is genocidal. Although even the “motte” in this case is tenuous, since preventing the recognition of a Palestinian state has been an explicit goal of Israeli and U.S. foreign policy.
Honestly not even sure what to say about the second paragraph, other than that “implacable religious and ethnic hatred” is definitely a deeply held Western value. We don’t have a monopoly on it, but the idea that we are the uniquely moral ones, while all those other people are just motivated by hatred… sheesh.
In 2005, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza meant the IDF leaving and taking all Jews from the area with them. That's about as pro-peace as you can get. Israel saying in essence "Here you go, Palestinians. Take all of Gaza in peace. No strings attached. We will supply you with water and electricity too!"
Gazans elected Hamas and then fired so many rockets at Israelis that they had to invent a new technology to protect themselves. Gazans dug tunnels under the border with Israel for no other purpose than to kill Israelis.
Yeah, like most humans, we Westerners have experience of hate, but no, Westerners do not have living experience of that level of hate. Well, Jews do.
This is dishonest. Try again, please. Why was "access to the rest of the world", by which I guess you mean the Egypt-Israeli blockade, put in place? When?
For someone who thinks the rest of us are so ignorant on this...
Gaza's (only) Airport, which had its radar station and control tower bombed in 2001, and its runways cut up by IDF bulldozers in 2002.
Gaza's port has been intermittently blockaded by the Israeli Navy since 2005, and permanently since 2007.
> Exit and entry into Gaza by sea or air is prohibited. There are only three crossings in and out of Gaza, two of them controlled by Israel and one by Egypt. Israel heavily regulates Palestinians' movement through Erez, with applications considered only for a small number of laborers (less than 5% of the number considered in 2000) and for limited medical and humanitarian reasons.[6] Israel's military cooperation with Egypt and its control of the population registry (through which it controls who can obtain the necessary travel documents) gives it influence over movement through Rafah.
Certainly sounds like "access to the rest of the world" is being prohibited.
I think you mean "In response to Hamas, funded in part by the Likud administration, because the PLA was being increasingly seen as conciliatory and willing to seek diplomacy (who knows why, tiredness of conflict, Arafat growing more philosophical in his late life), which caused awkward questions of "if they are willing to negotiate, why isn't Israel?"."
Hamas was propped up by the hard right wing because they made a more visible enemy.
So, if Hamas is dedicated to "exterminating Jews" as you say, then why would Israel give them funding and support against the PLA?
Hamas is ~38,000 of 2.5M people. And thanks to those embargoes and blockades, they're the only ones who are really armed in Palestine.
You're contorting the answer in order not to answer. The blockade was put in place in response to what, when?
2005, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza
2006, Gazans peacefully went about their lives, setting up - and minding their own - businesses, made trade contacts, geared up a booming tourist industry...? No. That's not what happened, is it. I'm sure you can find a way to blame Israel for Palestinian choices, but that helps no one.
2007, blockade, out of the blue with no rhyme or reason. Just to flex, and watch the world burn.
If you care about peace, you won't do these weird contortions to explain Israel's actions. As with Hamas, Israel explains the reasons for its actions very clearly but largely boils down to "leave us alone or FAFO".
The PLO had ordered its military/paramilitary to not antagonize Israel, and they weren't. That was one of the keys to sitting at the negotiation table. And there had been a few false starts. Israel, in response to those false starts, entirely reasonably, left the table. But then there was a period of reasonable calm.
Palestinians are not attacking Israel - this isn't a war.
Hamas continued to have a militant and extremist position, which included attacking Israel.
^ There, answering your question, acknowledging that Hamas had and continues to attack Israel.
Now answer mine:
Why did Israel fund and prop up Hamas rather than the PLO who was working towards a peaceable situation?
Like you said, Hamas are attacking Israel. But the Likud administration sent them money and supported them.
Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
> For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
> Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?
> Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes.
> The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
> For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
I suppose the Times of Israel is anti-semitic, too?
> And I ask again: there were no reasonable security concerns behind the blockade according to you? Just for evil funsies?
There's no room for conversation here. You doggedly hang on to issues even after they've been answered.
I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
> "Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech in the University of Valladolid in Spain without elaborating.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell.
> "Blowback: How Israel Went from Creating Hamas to Bombing It"
And what do you have? "Some guy on HN says Israel (and the US) supported the PLO against Hamas".
Huh. US involvement: "The US committed $59 million for training and non-lethal equipment for the Presidential Guard".
Fun fact, the amount that was sent to Hamas with Netanyahu's -specific and explicit- approval was around that much... every month... for near two decades.
But, as mentioned, I cannot see fruitful outcomes from further discussion here.
I regret the phrasing “U.S. and Israel backed coup”, since it makes them sound like equal participants and the discussion is now marginalizing the U.S.’s involvement. But like I said elsewhere, both the coup attempt and Israel’s support for Hamas at other points in time are well documented.
I think your contributions on this have been useful and valuable.
Parent keeps harping about Hamas coming to power in 2006 and that that is when the blockades started and that people should "figure out why those dates align", steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that the airport had been bombed in 1999 and runways dug up in 2001.
Oh, and any claim about Hamas being supported by Israel is apparently anti-semitic.
> I literally said "Hamas was actively attacking Israel".
You did? It was buried under lots of anti-Israel rhetoric that it was hard to see.
The blockade was introduced to the discussion as yet but one more example of Israel oppressing the poor Gazans, presented as if it were some kind of arbitrary evil simply to control Gazans with no other rhyme or reason. It turns out that there was a reason, actually. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40271323
So, without cruft:
2005: Israel withdrew from Gaza
2007: Israel blockades Gaza
we have "Hamas actively attacked Israel"
It seems a very straightforward cause and effect.
> Come on, you're actively avoiding anything that paints Israel as less than saintly.
Not at all. However, I do note with sadness that you and the other guy could not simply answer the question. Lots of diversion into how awful Israel is before at last a grudging admission that the blockade was in response to attacks.
Do you think it's at least possible that your firm and unwavering anti-Israel stance is informed itself by this kind of rhetoric? Just a thought.
Ok, now that that's established, I'll dig into this allegation of Netenyahu funding Hamas in order to deny Palestinians a state. And while I'm at it the other guy's allegation that at the same time Israel funded a coup against Hamas. Sounds suss out of the gate but who knows? Maybe this is the smoking gun that Israel is led by demons.
I find that most anti-Israel rhetoric is like that. Israel builds a wall in response to a wave of attacks: "Israel is building an open air prison". Israel blockades Gaza in response to tunnels: "Israel just wants to control Gazans lives" and so forth. Israel destroying an airport? Gee, I wonder why they did that? What possible reason could those monsters have for doing such a despicable act? Any ideas?
Did you know that Finland is building a wall on her border with Russia? In response to what, would you guess?
Is one of these walls ok but the other not? If not, why not? A wall is the most passive thing one can do to protect one's national borders, and yet, somehow you present it as yet another example of Israeli evil. Why Palestinians should have the right to stroll onto Israeli grounds anytime they please remains unexplained.
There certainly is a theme here of imputing malevolence even to Israel's most mild, passive response to actual violence by Palestinians. Are you infuriated by the Iron Dome as well?
No strings attached… except the lack of an airport (Israel destroyed it in 2001), a sea blockade, tightly controlled land border crossings and periodic attacks on Gaza power and water facilities. You only need to look at the past six months to see that Israel is not “supplying” Gaza with water and electricity out of the goodness of their hearts.
While you’re looking at the last six months, perhaps also look at what Israeli government officials have been saying for years. Just last week Bezalel Smotrich called for the “complete destruction” of Gaza — far more explicitly genocidal than “from the river to the sea” — and for the annexation of the West Bank if the UN were to recognize a Palestinian state. That level of hate is, at the very least, heartily reciprocated.
I am Jewish, by the way. So inasmuch as this affects Jews as a whole — rather than Israelis specifically — it’s not abstract for me.
There are two colliding views here - one is that Israel is acting in good faith, and the other - that Israel is on a campaign of cruelty. For the believers in the former, i want to bring two facts:
> tightly controlled land border
for people who think border is there for security, you should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items. United states has long protested this policy:
in 1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by Israeli religious extremist to sabotage the peace process
> The perpetrator was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old former Hesder student and far-right law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, because he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny Jews their "biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by establishing settlements".
> should be aware that Israel has, for years, blocked imports of essential sanitary products and food items into Gaza, i.e. toilet paper, soap, and humus. Many of the tunnels under gaza were built for smuggling in these items
Oh, now I understand! This is but a simple misunderstanding! How silly, but easy to clear up.
You see, the tunnels came first - into Israel in order to kill Israelis. Only then did Israel and Egypt blockade Gaza. Had nothing to do with smuggling. Now that that is cleared up, you can distrust Hamas and trust Israel. Unless, of course, there's another misunderstanding in your way that I can clear up for us all?
But also, that Ynet article is just stenography for the IDF! The only sources are IDF officers and the Israeli defense minister. Why would anyone believe this is not just manufacturing a pretext for escalation?
I’ll add one more, which I alluded to in my first comment.
Netanyahu has been supporting and funding Hamas for years, specifically and explicitly to prevent recognition of a Palestinian state. Direct quote: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.”
This is dishonest. Why were these measures put in place? If any part of your answer is "to oppress Palestinians" the answer is wrong and you should update your information.
You simplify of course, because my actual argument is harder to counter. I understand if the choice choice is "Palestinians attack Israel as a righteous resistance to oppression" or "Palestinians attack Israel because the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent." why a reasonable person would think the first is more likely. It's counter intuitive to our expectations.
And you never answered the question. Why were those measures put in place?
I don’t think “they hate Jews” is a meaningful simplification from “the idea of living peacefully next to a Jewish state is abhorrent.” If your argument is more nuanced, you are doing a poor job communicating it.
Anyway, I’ll play ball. First of all, Israel controlled Palestinian movement into and out of the Gaza strip for years before Hamas came into power.
In 2000, during the Second Intifada, Israel closed Yasser Arafat International Airport — the only international airport in Gaza. The next year they destroyed it.
In 2005, Israel withdrew all settlements from Gaza out of concern that if the Palestinian population kept growing, it would threaten Israel’s ability to be a Jewish state.
In 2006, Hamas was elected in Gaza with a plurality of the vote. After the U.S. and Israel backed the previous incumbents Fatah in an attempted coup, Hamas seized full control of the Gaza strip. This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
> This is about when Israel imposed the full blockade.
about is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Let's walk through more slowly.
Israel withdrew from Gaza when? Then imposed a blockade when and in response to what?
I'm hearing that Netanyahu supported Hamas, now I'm hearing from you Israel supported Fatah. Which is it? Either way, or both, it sounds pretty nefarious of these wiley, shifty Israelis. They do this simply because they are evil or is there a charitable interpretation that they are addressing a a specific concern?
This is all well documented. But it seems like you are intent on finding charitable interpretations for Israel’s actions while not searching further than “they hate Jews” for Palestine’s. So unless that stance changes, I don’t really see any point in further discussion.
You: Did you know that Israel supported a coup against Fatah?
What would get me interested:
You: The blockade came in response to a serious of tunnel attacks and is an attempt to limit materials that could be used to attack Israel. But there is important context that's missing. Hamas came to power after an attempted coup, and...
I'll check into your 2 allegations and report back.
Ok. I read the first part of the Vanity Fair article and of the Times article and I think I get the gists. Asking if I have them right:
Regarding "the Israeli government supported Hamas", from the NYT:
For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
... Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
...Mr. Netanyahu’s critics disparage them as part of a strategy of “buying quiet,” and the policy is in the middle of a ruthless reassessment following the attacks.
Is that a fair excerpt?
Regarding "Israel and the US attempted a coup against Hamas" the gist appears to be that Bush the younger (really, as an aside, the worst President the US has had in my lifetime and I'm old enough to have been alive during the Nixon administration) supported a coup against Hamas in an incompetent attempt to create conditions for a the formation of a Palestinian state during his Presidency.
Is that fair? Probably not, because I don't have much patience for Bush shenanigans and it was hard to read.
One of the attached strings is that they aren't allowed to have a meaningful airport or seaport. It's a misrepresentation to suggest that Gaza has been free to self-realize given that it's basically been under a light-touch siege for decades.
That was not an original "string". The question is, and be honest: why was there a blockade? How long did Palestinians have Gaza and no blockade? What happened then?
This is not an argument. To address my argument, you'd have to show that "free" meant "sovereignty". But you cannot, because that's not what it means. It means the destruction of Israel and the expulsion - at best - of its people. It does not mean "living in peaceful coexistence with". What else do you think it means? What else could it possibly mean?
1 able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another: I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free | a free choice.
• [with infinitive] able or permitted to take a specified action: you are free to leave.
• (of a state or its citizens or institutions) subject neither to foreign domination nor to despotic government: a free press.
• historical not a slave: the poor among the free men joined the slaves against the rich.
• [in names] denoting an ethnic or political group actively opposing an occupying or invading force, in particular the groups that continued resisting the Germans in the Second World War after the fall of their countries: the Free Dutch, Free Polish, and Free Norwegian fleets. See also Free French.
2 [often as complement] not or no longer confined or imprisoned: the researchers set the birds free | police were forced to let him walk free.
• not physically obstructed or fixed: he tried to kick his legs free | she smiled, leaned back, and waved a free arm in the air.
• Physics (of power or energy) disengaged or available. See also free energy.
• Physics & Chemistry not bound in an atom, a molecule, or a compound: the atmosphere of that time contained virtually no free oxygen. See also free radical.
• Linguistics denoting a linguistic form that can be used in isolation.
3 not subject to engagements or obligations: she spent her free time shopping.
• (of a facility or piece of equipment) not occupied or in use: the bathroom was free.
4 (free of/from) not subject to or affected by (something undesirable): our salsas are free of preservatives.
5 given or available without charge: free healthcare.
6 using or expending something without restraint; lavish: she was always free with her money.
• frank or unrestrained in speech, expression, or action: he was free in his talk of revolution.
• archaic overfamiliar or forward.
7 (of literature or music) not observing the normal conventions of style or form.
• (of a translation) conveying only the broad sense; not literal.
8 Sailing (of the wind) blowing from a favourable direction to the side or aft of a vessel.
#4 is the sense Palestinians mean it while well-meaning Westerners hear #1 and #2. The movement exploits the ambiguity of this term to dogwhistle and get all the no kidding white-supremacist, anti-Semites on board. To play in the bailey, so to speak.
You can't know to what extent a government will behave, and people will have different limitations and tolerances.
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
Is this some kind of rhetorical question? Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime. And hosting Hamas leadership. They fund Hamas more than Iran, according to Israeli intelligence (which may be wrong but that’s the source we have)
Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)
> Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US
Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.
Discovering that request surprised me, it strikes me as pragmatic and forward thinking; it also suggests that Qatar is rather keen to accede to US requests. Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel.
> Has that US policy changed now? If so I would have expected Qatar to expel
Yes. Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy. That's why they let Doha fund them.
We're now seeing American lawmakers criticising Qatar [1]. That's prompting Dohas to "re-evaluat[e] its role as mediator in ceasefire talks" and weigh "whether to allow Hamas to continue operating [its] political office" [2][3].
> Hamas was seen by even Israel as better than anarchy.
Better then anarchy or better than peace? There is some people on both sides of this conflict which are happy to see it radicalized and I think those people all benefits from the other being strong on the other side.
Better than anarchy and better Palestinians divided between Hamas and the PA is fair statement. Most Israelis don't believe any Palestinians have an interest in peace (I don't have a survey handy but I'm sure we can find one) and their actions reflect that belief. But if you can make a reasonable argument how defunding Gaza would result in peace then I'd be interesting in hearing it.
All that said, the actions taken by the Israeli right are certainly not helping the possibility of a future peace agreement, but it's not clear whether this specific action belongs in that group. One might argue that a stronger central authority in Gaza means there is a partner for a future agreement and that if Gaza can transition to be a more peaceful place (and it seemed to be heading in that direction) that would also support a future agreement.
Yes, my (probably somewhat poor) understanding is that Israel actions over the past years tended to favor Hamas and weaken PA. From declarations I read in the press I can imagine how some people are happy that peace doesn't happen so they can justify eradicating the Gaza inconvenience.
I can point to a laundry list of atrocities committed by US. Should Qatar refuse to host US?
Qatar is not a western country, there is no reason to expect it to buy into western exceptionalism. This is not to defend Hamas but simply to point out that the western double standard doesn’t reach much beyond Europe.
India pays a lot of money to Russia for oil, it doesn't make them a belligerent. China also has close ties, but arguably they've refrained from arming Russia.
Are missiles coming out of Qatar? Are they even supplying arms to Hamas, or do they simply fund the civilian portions of the government?
While you're at it, Bitcoin, a by definition no-value product, takes ~100 TWh to run annually.
Excuse the whataboutism.