Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

sacbee.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 192 posts

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#71

Post by ucee054 »

otisfunkmeyer wrote: post #64
ucee054 wrote: post #62

This post is no less informative and no more political than, for example, this post on ACTA: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620579 In my understanding it is in fact both acceptable under the guidelines and especially relevant to hackers and I will explain my reasoning on each point in order. The post is acceptable under the guidelines because it is factual reporting about Palestine and Israel, which is importan…

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but being a big fan of Starbucks who would like to be a moral/ethical person, can you explain why you are not a customer of Starbucks or provide a link or two? Would be much appreciated thanks.

Starbucks's founder/CEO sends money to Israel. I don't want my coffee money to subsidize him doing that.

http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.h...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#72

Post by tkahn6 »

anthonyb wrote: post #70
tkahn6 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> of the first historic examples of terrorism targeting civilians. Not only was the KD hotel a military headquarters, it was supposed to be empty at the time of the bombing. You're either ignorant or lying for some reason.

He's not ignorant or lying - you just need to look at Irgun's activities in the '30s and '40s to know that. Those guys were bombing a bus practically every day at some points ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks_during_th... ), which makes the hand-wringing from Israel doubly pointless. Perhaps the problem is that the Palestinians are slacking? They should blow up more things, not less...

I'm not going to defend Irgun because it's indefensible. It is simply a matter of fact that the attack was on the headquarters of the British military.

Edit: Your subsequent edits are quite sick and disturbing. You should consider reverting your text to the original comment.

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#73

Post by Estragon »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #26
coolestuk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the kind of ignorant idea I used to have. It is time you got beyond the media failing to provide a true historical context for what is probably the most over-reported region of the planet. Already in 1929 in Hebron "Palestinian" Arabs were massacring jews in Hebron. Jews who had live in Hebron for some thousands of years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre The way the media presents this story,…

Yuck. Wikipedia on the Middle East. I tried helping out with editing that area once and gave up in frustration. Lots of crazies on both sides, but I got the distinct impression that the pro-Israeli side was better organized, perhaps even funded. In any case, it looked to me like they were gaming WP for propaganda purposes (yes the other side was doing it too, but not in the same disciplined way) I'd never cite Wikipe…

Benny Morris's book Righteous Victims seems to be a reliable source of information about the conflict. He's a an Israeli history professor, not exactly a virulent antisemite. It's worth noting that he describes the trigger for unrest leading up to the 1929 massacre as the growing understanding among Arabs that "...the disproportionate growth of the [Jewish community in Palestine], nurtured and sustained by [British colonial] measures, promised to turn them into a minority in their own land."[1]

Anyway, bringing up the 1929 massacre in this context seems like a non sequitur. You might as well justify the second Arab-Israeli war in terms of the massacre innocent Palestinians by Israeli militants at Deir Yassin[2], a considerably more cold-blooded, treacherous, strategically terrifying, blatant war crime that played a critical role in driving Palestinians off their own lands. (But I'm not making this justification.)

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=M7tr9_rCwD0C&lpg=PP1&#3...

[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=M7tr9_rCwD0C&lpg=PP1&#3...

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#74

Post by anthonyb »

tkahn6 wrote: post #72
anthonyb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not ignorant or lying - you just need to look at Irgun's activities in the '30s and '40s to know that. Those guys were bombing a bus practically every day at some points ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks_during_th... ), which makes the hand-wringing from Israel doubly pointless. Perhaps the problem is that the Palestinians are slacking? They should blow up more things, not less...

I'm not going to defend Irgun because it's indefensible. It is simply a matter of fact that the attack was on the headquarters of the British military. Edit: Your subsequent edits are quite sick and disturbing. You should consider reverting your text to the original comment.

The attack was on a hotel - that's also a matter of fact, and similarly indefensible.

And I edited about 30 seconds to a minute after my initial post, to make my points clearer. I don't think that's unreasonable, much less "sick or disturbing".

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#75

Post by alan_cx »

ucee054 wrote: post #71
otisfunkmeyer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but being a big fan of Starbucks who would like to be a moral/ethical person, can you explain why you are not a customer of Starbucks or provide a link or two? Would be much appreciated thanks.

Starbucks's founder/CEO sends money to Israel. I don't want my coffee money to subsidize him doing that. http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.h... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz

And Marks and Spencer?

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#76

Post by alan_cx »

davidkatz wrote: post #57
batista wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) Why do you think Israel should be obliged to supply electricity to a hostile territory Why do you think a newly found state (~65 years) has any right to claim the territory it occupies (except of the might makes right variety)? ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1] As opposed to a government that occupied the land from the previous inhabitants and has been steadily displacing…

Sorry, but I can't see any actual response to my questions here, just further hate mongering. Israel does not claim Gaza. It withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and gave full control over to the Palestinian Authority. Israeli NGOs even invested tens of millions of dollars in boosting the Palestinian economy after the withdrawal. Either way, it's probably going to be very hard to have a reasoned discussion, so I'll…

Since when do reasonable criticism become hate mongering?

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#77

Post by rdtsc »

chc wrote: post #66
rdtsc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, let's do this thought experiment. Replace words like Israel and Palestine in the article with countries in Africa. Something like "Water pumps running off of solar power in Kenya, provided by a German start up are being removed by the local government". Would that be acceptable for HN? I am 80% confident, we wouldn't see all this discussion about how the story should have been flagged and or how it is totall…

A big problem with this kind of topic is that, as you say, people have strong, irrational responses. In other words, it is toxic. It brings out awfully unpleasant people and brings out the worst in otherwise decent people. This is why we are especially unwilling to indulge this particular diversion from topic. It is harmful to HN. I don't fault you for your interest in discussing it, but feel very strongly that it sh…

Then maybe another level of discussion is how come so many HN readers (and I've said this in my other posts, so apologies for sounding like a broken record) who fancy themselves rational and unbiased all of the sudden exhibit such a strong irrational response. Where does that come from? Is it brainwashing? What is going on? In other words I agree with you that topic might be toxic and that it bring out bad people, but I am interested in why does it bring out "the bad" in good people? Why not just say "meh, don't want to participate" and/or "don't know enough to form an opinion" and move on...

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#78

Post by mark_l_watson »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #50

If you want to take an entrepreneurial lesson from this: 1) Get your permits. Dot your Is, cross your Ts if you can. If you can't and you think you are in the right, you should probably do it anyway. 2) If someone infinitely more powerful than you wants you to fail, things will not be easy for you. 3) Politics, business and technology mix whether you want them to or not. 4) If you are a powerful entity bullying your…

After years on HN, I am going to post my first negative response to someone's comment, yours!

The Israeli government's actions in this and many other acts are completely immoral. Your 1) point may have some logical validity in general, but for the good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the whole world needs to get behind slamming down on the actions of the Israeli government, which also I believe also will hurt their own people in the long run.

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#79

Post by ucee054 »

alan_cx wrote: post #75
ucee054 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starbucks's founder/CEO sends money to Israel. I don't want my coffee money to subsidize him doing that. http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.h... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz

And Marks and Spencer?

M&S hawks Israeli produce:

http://www.boycott-israel.co.uk/business-links/133-marks-and... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks_%26_Spencer#cite_note-53

Unfortunately I can't refer you to a comprehensive information source on companies supporting Israel, but you might find more information by googling for "jews for boycotting israeli goods" or "boycott divestment sanctions"

I did find references to several other companies at http://www.inminds.com/boycott-israel-2012.php

Re: Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels

#80

Post by ubershmekel »

Estragon wrote: post #45
drats wrote: post #14

This is totally irrelevant to HN and is one of the issues on the Internet most likely to start a flame war. Flagged. georgecmu you appear to have been around HN a good while, which surprises me as it's more than long enough to know this is totally inappropriate. Go to reddit.com/r/worldnews or one of the other relevant subreddits if you want to discuss this issue.

It surprises me that people are complaining this is irrelevant to HN. It fits well with the PG/HN narrative of technology decentralizing political power -- Israel is suppressing this technology because it doesn't want to give up its control of the electricity supply.

This is a political piece on a political issue. Solar/wind energy isn't new or hacker newsy more than building a house is.

I'd love to further express my opinion on the subject, this just isn't the place for it. No matter how hard you spin it.

Post reply on HN