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

haaretz.com

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

#631

Post by edanm »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #588
edanm wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is such a valid argument. But the Oslo accords officially created the PA, which rules over the Palestinians in the West Bank. And Gaza is ruled by Hamas. The Palestinians are governed by a mix of Israeli military law and PA laws, which originate from Jordan, I believe. Some argue that in practice, Israel has control over all the Palestinians, so in practice there is one large apartheid state. I don't believe th…

And Bibi supported and kept Hamas in power so Israeli society could labor under the delusion that keeping Palestinians out of sight and out of mind was a viable plan. Until it wasn’t. He’s been elected again and again, and has been steadfast in preventing self governance from ever taking hold. To the degree Israel is a “democracy” it is because there is voter consensus that there can be no Palestinian self rule.

You're partially right, and I've stated many times that I think Israel has acted in morally wrong ways for the last 15 years of Netanyahu's rule.

But I think it's important to understand that the reason the Israeli electorate went down this path is because of the failure of the peace process in the 1990s and 2000s. The Israeli public multiple times elected leaders pursuing peace. Even former right-wing hawks turned around and pursued peace. And some things came out of it, like the creation of the PA which gave limited self-governance to the Palestinians.

But eventually, the Palestinians turned down what were perceived to be very serious and generous peace offers by the Israeli public, walked away from the negotiations, and started a terrible wave of terror attacks.

Similarly, Israel removed all settlers and all army personnel from Gaza, the result of which was the election of Hamas, with a sworn mission to destroy Israel, and constant rocket attacks on Israel.

So the way the Israeli public (correctly) sees it, there is no "partner for peace", and even when peace was very seriously pursued and positive steps taken to give Palestinians what they ostensibly wanted, the result was violence directed at Israel.

That is why there was a turn away from pursuing peace and just trying to "live with the situation".

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

#632

Post by nsguy »

bawolff wrote: post #621
nsguy wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palestinians are not a country. What other members of the UN are not countries? I believe other countries have opposed to the Palestinians becoming UN members. The last time around 9 countries voted against and 25 abstained. So I guess 34 did not support that purely symbolic vote (since the UN general assembly can't give the Palestinians membership, only the UN security council can).

> Palestinians are not a country. What other members of the UN are not countries In fairness, the definition of state is pretty arbitrary and seems more like a popularity contest than anything else. Like how is taiwan not a state? How is the vatican a state? How is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta a state?

Wikipedia says: "International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other states.[2] "

Taiwan has a permanent population, it has a government not under another, and it has the capacity to interact with other states (and does). There's no doubt Taiwan is a state and the only reason it's not universally recognized as one is China.

"Palestine" has no defined territory, no government, and really no capacity to interact with other states as one.

Wikipedia goes on to say: "There are also entities that do not have control over any territory or do not unequivocally meet the declarative criteria for statehood but have been recognised to exist as sovereign entities by at least one other state." including Palestine in this list.

It feels like the statehood of Palestinians should be a matter between them, Israel, Jordan and Egypt, the three countries that own the land that Palestinians desire to have as their state. Can the world declare that California is a state if the US doesn't want it to be?

Btw re: admission to the UN: "The requisite conditions are five in number: to be admitted to membership in the United Nations, an applicant must (1) be a State; (2) be peace-loving; (3) accept the obligations of the Charter; (4) be able to carry out these obligations; and (5) be willing to do so."

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

#634

Post by edanm »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #604
hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Bibi supported and kept Hamas in power so Israeli society could labor under the delusion that keeping Palestinians out of sight and out of mind was a viable plan. Until it wasn’t. He’s been elected again and again, and has been steadfast in preventing self governance from ever taking hold. To the degree Israel is a “democracy” it is because there is voter consensus that there can be no Palestinian self rule.

He's a believer. He want several things that can't be well understood by the non-religious. He wants the al Aqsa mosque demolished/removed, so the temple can be rebuilt. He wants all of Jerusalem. And, even what he would call all of "Greater Israel" eventually. In that order, but he's willing to settle for those things out of order if it looks possible. A peaceful neighboring Palestine doesn't allow for any of that.…

None of that seems accurate, not when it comes to Netanyahu. He's not a religious zealot and almost certainly isn't pursuing anything because of religion.

> But there are millions of people in Israel that want nothing more than this. And he is their leader.

I don't think there are millions in Israel that want Al Aqsa demolished, that is a delusion that has no historical basis at all. There are of course religious extremists who want really bad things, but they are a relatively small minority of the population.

Most of the population just wants to live in peace and safety. They believe there is no safety to be found with a Palestinian state next door (with good reason, see what happened in Gaza).

> This thing in Gaza may well have been dragged out, just in the hopes that [...] or Iron Dome might shoot down something in just such a way as that the debris would fall on al Aqsa.

This is a ridiculous line of thinking. Hamas (and Iran) are shooting rockets at Israel, including at al Aqsa, Israel is spending millions with the iron dome to shoot down those rockets, and you think it's part of a nefarious Israeli plan to destroy al Aqsa?

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

#635

Post by throw_a_grenade »

dang wrote: post #53
throw_a_grenade wrote: post #5

related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40583661

We merged that one hither.

May I ask why did you move comments here and changed URL to that other entry, instead of just moving comments from this thread to the other? ISTM you already had a submission with correct URL, so naively it sounds simpler to do one operation than two...

(I know nothing about moderation tools)

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

#636

Post by bawolff »

nsguy wrote: post #632
bawolff wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Palestinians are not a country. What other members of the UN are not countries In fairness, the definition of state is pretty arbitrary and seems more like a popularity contest than anything else. Like how is taiwan not a state? How is the vatican a state? How is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta a state?

Wikipedia says: "International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other states.[2] " Taiwan has a permanent population, it has a government not under another, and it has the capacity to interact with other states (and does). There's no doubt Taiwan is a state and the only reason it's not universally recogn…

> them, Israel, Jordan and Egypt

From what i understand, both Jordan and egypt have renounced their claim to the Palestine. Egypt did so in 1978 and Jordan in 1988

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

#637

Post by nsguy »

bawolff wrote: post #636
nsguy wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia says: "International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other states.[2] " Taiwan has a permanent population, it has a government not under another, and it has the capacity to interact with other states (and does). There's no doubt Taiwan is a state and the only reason it's not universally recogn…

> them, Israel, Jordan and Egypt From what i understand, both Jordan and egypt have renounced their claim to the Palestine. Egypt did so in 1978 and Jordan in 1988

You might be right. I'm not an expert on the legalese of their peace contracts with Israel. I think giving the Palestinians autonomy was part of the agreement with Egypt. In which case, it's a matter between Israel and the Palestinians.

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

#638

Post by bawolff »

nsguy wrote: post #616
bawolff wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like, you have to be of a very specific mindset to see message after message about the evil UN and not say, "uh, did we go off the rails somewhere?" I think saying "evil" anything is wrong. But the UN is still a body made up of people, and like everything has its flaws. Its done some things that have turned out great and truly made the world a better place. Its done other things that haven't worked out so well. I c…

It's a body made out of countries. Many of which are not free, not democratic, do not support basic human rights. What has the UN done that's turned great and made the world a better place? Top 3 examples?

UN has been pretty succesful in areas that are not super politicized.

E.g. they have done a lot of good work reducing hunger & famine throughout the world. UNESCO has done a lot to preserve unique cultural & envirnomental sites around the world. UN has done a lot to put pressure on countries to ban female genital mutilation.

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

#639

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

tzs wrote: post #584
burkaman wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is relatively common for people born outside the US to be elected to Congress ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign-born_United_St... , https://www.senate.gov/senators/Foreign_born.htm ), but there is no requirement to publicly disclose dual citizenship. Ted Cruz and Michelle Bachmann are the most famous examples of holding dual citizenship during a congressional career, there may be more examples that I…

Ted Cruz says he did not know he was a dual citizen. He said he assumed that because he was a US citizen by birth, left Canada at 4 and lived entirely in the US and never took affirmative steps to claim Canadian citizenship he was not a Canadian citizen. When a newspaper brought it up he went through the steps to formally renounce Canadian citizenship, which became official in May 2014.

> he went through the steps to formally renounce Canadian citizenship,

Not a fan of Cruz, but this is sufficient for me. More problematic would be those nations that don't accept or don't allow them to renounce citizenship.

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

#640

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

burkaman wrote: post #503
samatman wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any dual citizens in Congress, could you provide some names please?

I could be wrong but I think it's an intentional misrepresentation of Israel's Law of Return ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return ), which allows any Jewish person to move to Israel and then become a citizen. It doesn't mean that every Jewish person anywhere in the world is automatically an Israeli citizen whether they want to be or not, but some people like to say that.

This is from your own link.

>On the day of arrival in Israel, or occasionally at a later date, a person who enters Israel under the Law of Return as an oleh would receive a certificate confirming their oleh status.

On the very day they step off the boat or plane. This isn't the case of "anyone who comes to the US and waits 10+ years might finally get to become a citizen". Seems pretty fucking automatic.

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