Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#471

Post by Levitz » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:09 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #407

myth_drannon wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears the government has no clear strategy and lacks the famous "the day after" plan. But from IDF side, it took two weeks to take over the whole border with Egypt. Rafah is empty and by the end of the month, it will be Israeli. So yes, they spent months not doing anything while the government was trying to secure hostage release and Biden was screaming do not touch Rafah. But in general what strategy do you nee…

> But in general what strategy do you need? Take over, destroy the military infra and prevent smuggling. That's all that is needed. Gaza is thousand years back, it will never recover. It is not a threat anymore in any meaningful way. Impressively amoral post, but this is insanity. (1) Israel doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not self-sufficient. (2) There's something monstrous about keeping 2M people herded up in a cl…

>Whether or not those people are "threats" shall remain to be seen, but Israel is going to lose (is, already, losing) the hearts and minds of everybody on the planet under age 40

At this point, I think these are not the real power dynamics.

I used to think Israel needed western support to exist. I don't do anymore. Now I believe that Israel needs any support, and they are perfectly fine with the idea of allying with Russia, China or whoever seems reliable enough and willing to put up with their stuff. Which means that Israel is not dependent on the west, more specifically, the US. The US is reliant on Israel for presence in the middle east.

Which would explain why they seem to do whatever they want, ignoring warnings from the US. The warnings aren't real, Israel is going to commit unspeakable abuses on a population either way, so might as well have them on our side. I believe that to be the current state of affairs.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#472

Post by bawolff » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:10 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #413

bawolff wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, i maybe overinterpreted. I can understand why Israelis might be suspicious of the UN. The relationship between UN and Israel seems kind of fraught in a way that isn't true of pretty much any other country. The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010 (edit: 2014), the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights record relative to other countries, and the whole UNRWA being totally different wi…

> The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010 You're not going to throw that out without reference to how the US and Israel have consistently been the only countries to oppose Palestinian UN membership and voting.

I mean, i was trying to talk about why Israelis might feel the UN is against them. That doesn't preclude Palestinians feeling the same way.

It is possible to talk about why X might feel Y without talking about why other groups might feel the same way or even whether or not that feeling is justified.

Talking about motivations is different than determining what is "fair"

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#473

Post by lupire » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:10 PM UTC

legolas2412 wrote: post #424

Matl wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I am for either giving the Palestinians the same rights as Israelis in a 1 state solution or a an independent Palestinian state but since Israel doesn't seem interested in that it's a cheap talking point because Israel will just crush the Palestinians under its boot until economic sanctions are applied similar to how it was done re South Africa.

[flagged]

The West Bank is occupied by in substantial fraction by Americans, not even Israelis, who choose to live in the West Bank, from where Palestinians were exiled by the IDF, under Israeli protection. How is that anything like Afghanistan nation building?

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#474

Post by CommanderData » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:11 PM UTC

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #229

The wild part about this, at least to me, is the wholesale incompetence demonstrated by Israel in this regard. If I couldn't google the talking points the bots make and see Israeli officials saying the same things, one would think these bots were Iranians acting with the intent to make Israel look bad.

At this point they have a wiki or discord somewhere where they share talking points between each other.

Someone from their group is clearly thinking ahead and automating all of them out of a job :)

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#475

Post by bakuninsbart » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

bitcurious wrote: post #320

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is not a democracy, a huge percentage of the populate cannot vote and have no civil rights or any sort. Let’s please stop repeating this falsehood. It’s propaganda and the facts are clear.

Can you speak more to your perspective? The only way I can understand your take is to say that the West Bank is rightfully Israeli and therefore its residents should be citizens with voting rights. Are you opposed to an independent Palestinian state?

The reason why South Africa and many intellectuals consider Israel to be an apartheid state is not because of the treatment of Arabs that were allowed to become Israeli citizens after the Nakba, but because of the occupation of the West-Bank. The West-Bank is not rightfully Israel land, but has been de facto under Israeli occupation for 50 years. The situation there is very comparable to SA Bantustans; the people there have no rights, have no nationality, and are brutally suppressed by the Israeli government and fascist settlers. Ghaza is basically an open air concentration camp.

The status quo is apartheid. The options to change that are one multicultural state, a two-state solution or genocide.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#476

Post by sva_ » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:12 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #457

tredre3 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to what purpose was the curfews imposed? The stated purpose was to flatten the curve. > Who benefited? The government. > How? By giving the impression that they were doing something. > Why were the curfews necessary to achieve those goals? They weren't, as far as we know. In Quebec's case they were still scrambling to justify them a few hours before the press conference: https://www.thesuburban.com/news/legault-s-c…

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I think the person you replied to named the purpose as "giving the impression that they were doing something", which is shockingly often the case with politicians: They'll do what they believe will get them voted for again.

I don't think it is necessary to insult people as 'conspiracy nutters' on here. If you don't want to discuss something with someone, just give them a downvote and move on. No need to be uncivil.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#477

Post by lupire » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

revnode wrote: post #467

jonathankoren wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get these ideas? Yes, Filipinos did vote for a territorial government as laid out in the Philippine Organic Act of 1902. Yes, Puerto Ricans vote. It's a territory. They have their own devolved government.

At no point did Filipinos have the ability to vote for Senators, Congressmen, or the President. Same for Puerto Ricans. US has other territories too, by the way, with the same restrictions. You have no problem calling the US a democracy, but when the same rules are applied elsewhere you have a problem?

The people of PR voted against becoming a State.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#478

Post by refulgentis » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

endtime wrote: post #435

refulgentis wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very interesting thing, it demonstrates something uncomfortable & scary to me as a goy Zionist, who hangs out in a private, predominantly Jewish, space. Note the biggest word in the cloud: UNRWA. All my confirmation bias was in one direction in October. The oddly dissonant and desperate messaging you'd see made things extremely difficult to maintain that, like, you have to be of a very specific mindset to see…

[flagged]

We're blessed with polls right before 10/7 re: "Support for Hamas." Roughly 40/60. I've seen other junk ones passed around. I don't think 10/7 or what we ended up with in Gaza was justified, a sweeping international majority agrees, and both Israel/Gaza will poll at "of course it was justified and why are people so evil as to not support us"

You transmutated "I've never seen any jokes about WCK" to "the only thing I've ever seen is links about polls" to "linking to polls isn't bad.": sure, no one would say it is. so it comes across as an attempt to claim it is unreasonable to claim that worse things go on than linking to polls.**

> has a vested interest in perpetuating the "refugee" status of millions of Palestinians who were born outside Israel

I'm familiar with this argument: sure. If that's the case, let's get rid of the UN. We'll have to find some way to get not-terrorists governing Gaza, i.e. providing for the people.

There's two choices from there.*

In my experience, one of them is consistently ruled out by people who spend time litigating the UN. And I strongly believe that is where the breaking point in international support is.

* if you exclude "kick the can down the road" and "the Palestineans without the guns should seize power from the guys with the guns, otherwise they're complicit"

** It's just a feeling, but one informed by 1000 conversations I've had: if the strawman about poll links means "yeah, I've seen racism, but justified and rational, because the polls say a majority of Them" -- I think that's exactly the class of behavior that leads me to be a proud Zionist, it's dangerous to proscribe beliefs to a group, based on location of their housing, religion, skin color, anything. It justifies some very ugly things.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#479

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:14 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #407

myth_drannon wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears the government has no clear strategy and lacks the famous "the day after" plan. But from IDF side, it took two weeks to take over the whole border with Egypt. Rafah is empty and by the end of the month, it will be Israeli. So yes, they spent months not doing anything while the government was trying to secure hostage release and Biden was screaming do not touch Rafah. But in general what strategy do you nee…

> But in general what strategy do you need? Take over, destroy the military infra and prevent smuggling. That's all that is needed. Gaza is thousand years back, it will never recover. It is not a threat anymore in any meaningful way. Impressively amoral post, but this is insanity. (1) Israel doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not self-sufficient. (2) There's something monstrous about keeping 2M people herded up in a cl…

Is it? Pragmatically speaking, who is going to make it end in tears? Nobody in the region really wants a war with Israel: the Arab countries got their fill of it and Iran sure doesn't want to get into an actual war. And if anyone gets any big ideas, there's always Uncle Sam (and Uncle Sam's Western allies; who, btw, include Turkey).

I understand that people want to see things put right, but we must understand what world we live in and how the cards are dealt. There are three great powers, the US, China and Russia, and Israel has a um special relation with one of them, whereas none of its enemies do. The Arab countries want to make peace and do business, Iran might like to be a regional power but has no friends in the region and the Palestinians have nothing to negotiate with and nobody to stand up for them; nobody with any clout, that is.

There is nothing and nobody that can make it all end in tears for Israel. You and others misunderstand the geopolitical situation in the Middle East: Israel can do whatever the fuck it pleases, and it does.

To be perfectly clear, it is a shitty situation, but there is no obvious way out of it.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#480

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jun 05, 2024, 9:15 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #278

nerdjon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with not calling this propaganda: https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/18skzb0/ah_behold_o... https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/new-billboards-along...

Then you have a somewhat unconventional personal definition for "propaganda". Almost always people use that word to imply something clandestine, misleading, or both. What you showed is a paid advertisement from a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, JewBelong, with public accounting on all donations, and a relatively clear mandate for how it spends its money. Again, you're simply saying that a (really only slightly edg…

Don't know about other countries, but in the Bay Area a bunch of those billboards have been vandalized/edited by non-Zionist Jewish groups.

Anyway, advertising media are antithetical to debate, which presumes approximately equal access to an audience to lay out two or more competing ideas at once. You can't argue with a billboard, you can only rent another billboard, and pretty soon you have billboards everywhere. This is a garbage concept of political discourse.