Israel launched a dozen attacks on UN troops in Lebanon, says leaked report

> Okay. Wow. I hadn't realised you were on board with Hamas killing more Jews.

That's a ridiculous strawman argument. Do I seriously need to explain how wars work?

It's fair to be a pacifist, but it's unrealistic and deadly. PLO killed many Israelis, children etc. But their goal was statehood so they stopped and moved forward. Hamas's goal is ending Israel. Wars work towards goals.

> Currently there's a lot of legit credentialed journalists being killed with evidence that some are being specificly targetted.

That is terrible. But you know what's also terrible? Hamas literally kept hostages in the house of a Journalist. Many so called Journalist were part of the October 7th attack. They used UNWRA as a puppet as part of their attacks and money laundering.

They used ambulances, hospitals etc. as cover. There's some point where using an ID as a get out of jail free card is a problem.

> That's a straight up war crime .. although as unlikely to be prosecuted, just as Kissinger skated.

That is a huge problem. Unfortunately the UN has zero credibility at this point. It came up with more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined. More than Russia, Sudan, China, Iran etc.

That's a problem because I would like to know if Israel is committing actual war crimes and I would like an objective body to be in control of that. The UN is not objective by any stretch of the imagination.

Luckily the US has Leahy. If there is actual evidence of a war crime being committed then a lawsuit against Israel in the USA can stop financial support for Israel. Even if the lawsuit is thrown out the facts would still be out. Yet such a lawsuit isn't prosecuted.

> > Guess what enables them... > > Is the answer Netanyahu and his scaly mates? They do seem to offer a lot of incentives.

How did Netanyahu get into power and keep it for so long?

During the 90's Israel tried to go through with the Oslo accords. Hamas blew up busses filled with civilians in the middle of Tel Aviv. Many busses. They shot up coffee shops and did everything they could to stop the peace process.

Netanyahu used that and built his power base around it. He went to every such attack site and gained traction. Without Hamas he would have been an anonymous secondary "also ran" politician. Hamas made him. This symbiotic relationship continues to this day to such an extent that the right-wing extremists defined Hamas as an asset. Following October 7th they expanded settlements in the West Bank as "retaliation" which is stupid and evil. But again, zero-sum entities act like that.

The difference here is that Israel is the stronger side. When Palestinians pick a zero-sum approach to solving a conflict it is a suicidal death cult.

> > What do you expect Israel to do? > > Act in accordance with the people that have acquired power ..

That isn't an answer. Israel tried to do that. It tried to offer statehood. It tried "just leaving". You can argue that this wasn't "genuine" or wasn't enough... But baby steps are required in this case and Hamas proved the problematic nature of this approach.

> years of pushing limits have rebounded much as many predicted and now those that sought permission to go all out have that in spades.

This shows deep misunderstanding of the situation. Hamas is a zero-sum player, it wants an all out war because it wants everything from the river to the sea. It objects to the very notion of peace with Israel.

See https://twitter.com/ABZayed/status/1784565074964664531

> It'd be nice albeit a little fanciful, if the people of Israel could put better people in power .. but that's a whole other slice of alternative history.

Israel did put better people in power. Notice how the whole world including Europe and the states are seeing a surge in the right-wing?

Why is that? Because unfortunately the extreme left has become delusional in its extreme stances.

There's a huge difference between wanting peace and refusing to fight a war. You're completely dismissing Israeli attempts at peace and mis-labeling Hamas attacks as territorial when they are religious, fanatic and proxy driven.

In the US the majority of people want to deport all immigrants. These are people who contribute to the economy and do nothing wrong. Is it a surprise that Israelis moved to the right as a result of Hamas attacks?

Is it a surprise that these right-wing politicians use that to further their agenda in the west-bank?

I think Israel is naturally liberal and will move back to the left when it is no longer under threat. The problem is that as long as Hamas is a threat this just can't happen. One of the reasons the settlements are expanding is to block such motion to the left, this is where US pressure could help but it's a delicate needle to thread. If the UN had any credibility it could help, unfortunately it doesn't when it comes to Israel.

Look. We're discussing horrible things here. I want to make sure it's clear that I think every civilian death is a tragedy. Hell, almost every non-civilian death is a tragedy too - Hamas militants were born in a pretty awful situation, all things considered. I'm taking a pro-Israel side in these comments, because I honestly disagree with your characterization of most things Israel is doing, especially as compared to other wars. (Though I do thank you for discussing fairly horrible topics in a civil manner.)

But as a disclaimer for everything else - I consider myself firmly in the Israeli left, possible far-left. I think Israel has done a lot of morally wrong things for (at least) the last 15 years. And while I think the war's aims are absolutely legitimate, I think it has gone on far, far longer than it should and that Israel has done many immoral things as part of that war. (And to make this all worse - I think one of the main reasons it has gone on this long isn't even because it's good for Israel - it's just that it's good for Netanyahu personally.)

That all said, I will answer your specific points that I disagree with -

> Every single Palestinian in Gaza has lost their home, a family member, or a limb. This is not the case in the Syrian civil war (as horrible as that was) nor among Uyghurs in East Turkistan. As horrible as those atrocities are (particularly the Syrian Civil war) it is still dwarfed by the atrocity which Israel is inflecting on Gaza.

To parse what you're saying here - you honestly think killing 600k civilians is not worse than killing ~30k civilians? Because there are less total civilians so this needs to be measured in percentage of the population? I don't agree with that kind of calculus, at all.

Also, Israel is not targeting civilians, as opposed to many of the other situations I mentioned. This doesn't matter much to the civilians killed, but it is very different morally speaking.

And yes, most Gazans know someone who was killed. That's awful and will absolutely traumatize them even more. I wish it were possible to wipe stop Hamas with no one dying. Hamas has made it impossible. They've said so, in their own words, many times - which is why most Gazans despise Hamas at this point.

But you know what - many if not most Israelis know someone who was killed on October 7th too, and everyone hears daily of the 100 hostages still in Gaza. That's awful too. But I don't think that is proof that the number of dead Israelis is somehow a bigger atrocity than other things, just because Israel is small. Lives are lives.

> Bashar al-Assad never committed a genocide (ISIS tried but were beaten). Israel has been committing a genocide for over a year now, with no end in sight.

I don't agree with your characterization of what Israel is doing. But even if you think it is a genocide - that's not a separate claim to what you were saying above. You're saying, as I parse it - Israel has killed far fewer civilians than in other situations, but it is doing a genocide so that makes it worse. But that's nonsensical - the death of the civilians is what genocide means.

And btw, you call it an ongoing genocide, which I really disagree with. There are very few civilians killed on an ongoing basis right now, and there hasn't been for months. It's certainly an ongoing case of mass displacement, which I really hope is temporary as Gaza is rebuilt.

And it really is relevant to say - Israel has lost hundreds of soldiers in Gaza. It could easily lose zero soldiers by attacking more from the air, with a 10x higher civilian death toll. That is relevant to considering whether killing civilians is Israel's goal - because it could easily do so with minimal losses if it didn't care about civilian casualties.

> But even in the Syrian Civil War, which caused millions to flee their homes (by some very plausible estimates half the country), most Syrians kept their homes,

It is true that one of the main things Israel has done in Gaza that is objectively worse is the destruction of much civilian infrastructure and homes. That's bad. A lot of it is because of the cynical use Hamas has made of civilian spaces, making it impossible to stop Hamas without destroying massive civilian infrastructure. But it's entirely possible that Israel has gone far beyond this in the destruction it has wrought.

I personally think lives are more important than property, so looking at the actual civilian death toll is a far more important metric.

> > Mostly because I reject the idea of Israel never having been decolonized- it was, it turned into Jordan and later Israel.

> [...] It sounds like you are saying that the nation or territory of Palestine does not exist, and that Israel’s (unambiguously) illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is not just justified, but also complete and absolute. I hope that is me misunderstanding, because if that is what you mean, than you are advocating for the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and on the West Bank.

I'm absolutely not advocating any such thing, and I have no idea how you got there.

Historically speaking, there was no nation of Palestine. That's not a POV - that's a historical fact. The territories Israel occupies were not Palestinian territories - they were Jordan's and Egypt's territories at the time that Israel captured them. That is Israel's position on why this isn't an occupation, iirc - that the countries don't want those territories back.

That all said, of course a relatively new and distinct national identity of Palestinian now exists, they existed in the territories of Palestine before, and they deserve to have their national aspirations met, which is why I am a big advocate for a two-state solution. It is the obvious and only solution to the conflict - two peoples with legitimate claims on the same territory, so they should each have a state on that territory.

> > "the Arab countries are historically against Israel".

> This is factually incorrect. Most Arab countries (as do most countries in the UN, and the UN it self) favor a 2-state solution with an independent Palestine along the 1967 line and a capital in East Jerusalem.

I was more referring to how they vote in terms of the UN and how their people perceive Israel, which influences a lot of policy etc.

And I don't think favoring a 2-state solution is being against Israel, btw - it's just common sense.

I do completely agree that Israelis tend to overlook the real progress made in relations with the Arab world. Israel is no longer quite as surrounded by enemies as it used to be, and that's a huge and important shift that most Israelis have not internalized, IMO.

> I think the end of WW2 was when people REALLY tried to catch a breather and try to build a newer, better world.

I think discussing history is irrelevant. None of us were around back then so blaming some ancestor for something is just stupid posturing that doesn't solve anything.

The bottom line is that there are millions of people on both sides who were born in the region. They have nowhere to go and the idea that some would "just leave" is just stupid. There's only one solution and it's a two state solution, blaming history is redundant since both sides did some bad things.

We can review history to see what we can learn from it. Here the pattern is clear: Jews unified and strengthened their moderate base. Palestinians fragmented and moved towards violent approaches which didn't work well for them. With the exception of Oslo, but even there their leadership failed to compromise.

> When you refer to Jews "coming into the area", do you mean the post-WW2 immigration, or some other timespan?

19th century when the initial Jewish militias were formed.

> > Palestinians didn't have that capability of unity. They have very little in common other than hate towards Israel. > > Where does that hate come from, though? It didn't coalesce in a vacuum.

I'm not saying that Israel doesn't deserve some hate. But it's much easier to blame others for your problems instead of blaming yourself. Jordan and Egypt did pretty evil things to the Palestinians and didn't give them a country when they controlled these regions. Yet you don't see the same level of hate.

> I'll be perfectly honest, it's really hard not to interpret that as anything other than "Holocaust denial" level delusion

That is nonsense. You claimed "Palestinians were already fleeing from murder, and they couldn't return to homes which had been demolished by the Zionist militias".

Were there homes destroyed during the war?

Sure. Was it by Israelis? Possibly.

Was it with the purpose to prevent people from coming back? Maybe.

But you're presenting this as if all the Palestinian refugees or a significant amount of them escaped because of such actions. That is not something anyone can claim. The common narrative on the Israeli side is that the armies of surrounding countries orchestrated a strategic retreat. No one knows because there was no actual army in 1948. It was being formed from a militia and there was no organized standard/hierarchy. Also that particular war was remarkably deadly/violent for both sides. Record keeping wasn't exactly something you can count on.

Regardless, this is irrelevant. The fact that Palestinians keep going back to 1948 is part of the toxicity that prevents them from compromising on proposals for a Palestinian state.

> Some of them tried to return (refugees from Huj, in one example from mid-late 1948), and were refused, after internal debates by the Israelis over whether it would "set a precedent".

Could Jews who had to flee Arab countries and territories within that region return? Could they get their assets back?

This is not something new see: https://www.news18.com/opinion/opinion-why-muslim-world-shou...

"Ukraine was given territory from Poland, and the Polish minorities were expelled from Ukraine. In turn, Ukrainian minorities were expelled from Poland. While the Polish had to leave Lithuania and Belarus, the Lithuanians and Belorussians had to leave Poland. Also, Poland was given land from Germany, and the Germans were expelled from Poland. Many Hungarians had to leave from the Transylvania region of Romania. The Italians were expelled from what is Croatia today. In May 1945, the President of Czechoslovakia called on his people to “eliminate the German problem.” Nearly 2 million Germans were expelled from the country, and thousands of Germans died in the process."

Wars reshape regions and demographics. Especially in the 40's. Jews were victims of that through history too. I'm not excusing it, but it's not something special or unique in any way.

> > But Israel didn't choose that war, it was forced on them. > > Actions have consequences. As an aside, I constantly see this use of the passive voice in discussing this conflict. Israel never does anything, it just has stuff happen to it. Once you notice it, it's a really obvious form of shaping the information environment to condition people to think that nothing could ever possibly be Israel's fault, that no one making decisions in Israel has ever done so with malicious intent. Things just....happen.

Instead of proving that something is wrong you try to twist it. When the facts don't work in the favor of your argument then obviously the argument is redundant.

The fact is that Israel did seek peace and made a great deal of effort in that direction. But the standard Israel is held to is a standard that no country on earth would be able to hold to.

> I watched a man hooked up to an IV bag in a field hospital BURN ALIVE after an Israeli airstrike. The perpetual victim complex just doesn't resonate with people anymore.

You mean the hospital to which civilian hostages were taken and murdered there? Where Hamas literally had a base of operations?

I agree, it's awful. But what is the option here?

From now on firing rockets is OK as long as you do it on top of orphanages?

By accepting that narrative you're encouraging Hamas. Every time people talk about children dying in Gaza it creates a terrible incentive for Hamas. They use children as couriers because they know the IDF doesn't want to shoot them, but if they die they also win: https://www.timesofisrael.com/encouraging-our-children-to-ki...

> Yeah, because Turkish airstrikes haven't killed FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in less than a year. What a ridiculous deflection.

40,000+ most of which were Hamas terrorists. This was a response to an attack that killed 5 people. This is besides all the stuff that Erdogan is doing in Syria etc.

> At any rate, I hope this discussion has provided enough material for other HNers to educate themselves. The available Israeli sources are detailed and surprisingly candid.

The fact that you're surprised that Israel is honest indicates a lot about your core bias. Israel is a liberal democracy and tries to do better all the time. Its history isn't perfect, whose is?

Try criticizing Hamas in Gaza. You might get buried alive by your brother using a spoon...

My university background is not in CS but it psychology and statistics, and even though I’m an expert in neither, I know at least one thing, that humans are horrible at statistics. We don’t think neither in absolute terms nor in proportional terms (although between the two we are more likely to think in [heavily biased; and nonsensically; inconsistently non-linear] proportional terms). What the human mind likes to do is to zoom in on the most extreme parts, and apply that to the whole population, that is we love to think in details, find patterns, and extrapolate. Like I said, humans are very bad at statistics.

In the Syrian civil war this manifested in use zooming in on cities like Aleppo or Raqqa, see the horrors there and apply those to the rest of Syria. So when we see the horrors in Gaza, we are not comparing 600k vs. 40k. nor 10% of the housing units in Aleppo vs. 85% of the housing units in Gaza. What we see is the absolute horrors that was Aleppo, and see it repeat in Gaza and think, this is unacceptable, and people don’t accept it.

Even though humans are very bad at statistics, humans are also smart. We are very good at spotting patterns and we can tell when we are being lied to, and we don’t like it. The Israeli government has been constantly lying to us throughout the genocide. They have been lying to us about about Hamas’ command centers, about their war goals, about their concerns for the hostages, etc.

We humans see that and can easily spot it, and it makes us mad. When the Israeli government tells us that all this destruction is because of Hamas’ presence there, we don’t believe it, that all those civilian deaths are just collateral damage we don’t believe that either. We know what collateral damage looks like, and see that Gaza does not fit it. Instead we see that civilians aren’t just accidentally killed, but they are actually targeted. I’ve seen interviews with experts on the news (mainly Democracy Now!) and they pretty much all agree that you don’t see this level of death and destruction among civilians unless they are actively targeted. This was also true of Aleppo btw.

We also spot the rhetoric among Israeli officials, and see similarities with history, we spot the racism and the hatred and it rings alarm bells. That is why we call this a genocide. Humans are good at spotting patterns, and the conduct of Israel is consistent with the patterns of genocide, so we call it a genocide. A case in point. As we were debating this, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly in favor of banning the main avenue for Palestinians to get aid. The only reason I personally see for this is genocidal intentions among 92 of the 120 members of the Israeli Knesset. That pretty much the whole Israeli legislator is on board with an ongoing genocide. The lies about UNWRA being connected with terrorism compounds mine (and most people’s) reaction, which further our anti-Israel bias. And you personally downplaying the history of the nation of Palestine also plays into this. Though not as extreme as what I initially feared (nor as extreme as the rhetoric of your government) it is still pretty damning and speaks of the complicity of the whole nation of Israel (not just the government) in the ongoing genocide.

It is not unusual for citizens of perpetrators of genocide to deny that genocide. I psychology this is called cognitive dissonance. Many Serbians today deny that the Bosnian genocide happened (or deny the very obvious Serbian involvement in it). Indonesians deny the genocide in East-Timor (despite the fact that there has been a political revolution in Indonesian since then). We even have quite a few Americans that deny the horrors of slavery, and probably most Europeans who deny (or downscale) the horrors of European colonialism.

Now, lets move away from peoples perception and the reason for why anti-Israel bias is increasing in the public consciousness, and onto the future and international law.

Like the the human brain, international law doesn’t compare atrocities with statistics. International law actually goes further and doesn’t compare them at all. International law takes into account which agreements a country has signed on to, and judges whether or not the country is in violation of those. This is the reason why the international community is giving Iran shit about their nuclear program but not Israel, despite the latter being a far worse offender. Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treat, but Israel hasn’t so international law can’t do anything about the latter.

Israel is however a member of quite a few treaties of international humanitarian rights, and has been in violation of quite a few of them for a long time (the most obvious example being the apartheid wall on the West Bank). Very few countries (except superpowers like the USA or China) have disregarded international law for such a long time with impunity. And since the Gaza genocide, Israel has only doubled down in this behavior, the UNWRA ban is a prime example of this. I very much doubt the in 2026 Israel will remain a member of the UN if it keeps doing this (which [as a human] I think they will).

We are probably seeing Israel’s last moments as a non-pariah state. The anti-Israel bias is increasing among the public consciousness plus blatant disregard of international law is Israel’s own doing, and the time of impunity has come to an end. This prediction is consistent with the fate of other (non-superpower) oppressors and violators of international law.

I think it has a lot to do with tiktok's rise to power, for the first time there is a platform that is not controlled by the west (Pro-Zionist), which would completely censor out news like Facebook and Instagram does.