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

Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 170 posts

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#91

Post by philwelch »

kamaal wrote: post #78
blvr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. No. You've got it completely wrong. Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. History has basically proved that to be true. What it's not: 1. The idea that Jews are in any way superior. All races have equal rights under Israeli law (although secular Jews have some obligations that other groups don't, i.e. mandatory military service) and Israel has a significa…

>>Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. Makes perfect sense. If you settle a persecuted set of people on a totally unoccupied land, which would be totally harmless. What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted. If a persecuted tribe in Africa decides to settle d…

California has been "invaded" and the existing set of people "driven out" what, two times going on three now? (The Spanish driving out the Indians, Americans driving out the Mexicans, and now Hispanics immigrating at record rates driving out white Americans).

This narrative about driving people out is an oversimplification at best, though, just as much for Israel as for California.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#92

Post by philwelch »

xenophanes wrote: post #47
haberman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American who is split on this issue (I find fault on both sides). None of the things you mentioned were ever uncertain to me. If Israel is looking for more support from people like me, the question I'd like to see them answer is: how do they justify the West Bank settlements? I can't even begin to understand how Israel can claim to want peace with Palestinians while unilaterally moving into the land where 2/3…

The justification for settlements is as follows: buying land, and living there, is legal. Describing this process is "unilaterally moving into land where 2/3 of them live" is false. A way to stop being split on the issue is to stop believing false factual claims. Palestine will have moderate leadership sometime after the majority of Palestinians are decent people who will vote for decent leaders. Blaming Israel for t…

The problem is that the West Bank isn't exactly sovereign territory of anyone. If it was, settlements would be a non-issue--some Israelis want to move into Palestine, it's up to the Palestinian immigration authorities, just like if some Egyptians wanted to move into Israel today. But there are no Palestinian immigration authorities, just the Israeli government, and since that government is democratic that puts them in a bit of a pickle.

If Israel is serious about holding the West Bank as a future homeland for Palestinians, they should be more restrictive about building new settlements and gently push for closing existing settlements. It's hard to do that when the settlers are your own people and they vote, though.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#93

Post by cup »

YZF wrote: post #90
cup wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is occupation and apartheid.

Since this is HN let met just say that I hope you don't apply the same sort of oversimplification to the code you write. Technically Gaza may have been under Egyptian control historically but Egypt doesn't want it back. Israel has no presence in Gaza. So there's no occupation in Gaza and no apartheid in Gaza any more than there is South Korean occupation and apartheid in North Korea. That doesn't mean everything is r…

If Israel has no presence in Gaza then why is the municipality not given access to the sea and to the air. Is there a sea port in Gaza?

Attempts to whitewash Israels treatment of the Palestinians falls short the minute facts enter the argument.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#94

Post by philwelch »

guelo wrote: post #84
blvr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. No. You've got it completely wrong. Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. History has basically proved that to be true. What it's not: 1. The idea that Jews are in any way superior. All races have equal rights under Israeli law (although secular Jews have some obligations that other groups don't, i.e. mandatory military service) and Israel has a significa…

Yea right. Are you saying that Zionists locating Israel in Palestine has nothing to do with their 3,000 year old holy book?

It's fairly uncontroversial historical fact that the Jews are originally from Palestine.

Why don't you do research on the early Zionists, if you're actually curious about the subject and not just trying to score points in an internet debate? Probably most of the early Zionists were very secularist.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#95

Post by gyardley »

skrebbel wrote: post #64
xenophanes wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you believe posting anti-semitic remarks in public is appropriate. We should care about your opinion why? Flagged.

I'm curious, why do you equate "critical of the Israeli government" to antisemitism? I have no problem with Jews at all. In fact, if you read carefully, you'll see that the word Jew (or anything like it) does not appear in my post.

There are ways to be critical of the Israeli government without being antisemitic. You could be critical of, say, something relating to unemployment insurance.

But that's not what people are usually talking about when this argument comes up - instead, they're criticizing Israel's right to exist or Israel's right to defend itself (which amounts to the same thing). When they're not being so explicit, they want Israel to embark on a policy which would lead to the end of Israel (accepting indefensible borders, the 'right of return', etc.)

In short, they're making the 'anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism' argument. Personally, I think anti-Zionism is just the first type of antisemitism to try and simultaneously deny it's antisemitic. Let me try to explain with an analogy.

Let's say I was anti-France - that I believed French national identity was somehow illegitimate, and that therefore France shouldn't be a country. Since France shouldn't exist, France also isn't entitled to defend itself from external attack. However, I have no problem with French people! Great wine, great cheese - they just shouldn't be able to have a country. If a French person objects, I'll just patiently remind him that I'm not anti-French, I'm merely anti-France. Perhaps I'll criticize him a bit for inappropriately throwing out the anti-French card.

Sound ridiculous? Well, that's exactly how it sounds to me when someone argues that my people can't establish a state (in the same imperfect way most states are established) and then can't defend our state from attack. Everyone else's national self-determination is fine, but ours is somehow not.

So yes, when people make this sort of argument against Israel - a type of argument they would never make against Sweden or France or Mexico - in that case I do believe they're being more than a little biased against my people in particular, and therefore antisemitic.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#96

Post by philwelch »

cup wrote: post #93
YZF wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this is HN let met just say that I hope you don't apply the same sort of oversimplification to the code you write. Technically Gaza may have been under Egyptian control historically but Egypt doesn't want it back. Israel has no presence in Gaza. So there's no occupation in Gaza and no apartheid in Gaza any more than there is South Korean occupation and apartheid in North Korea. That doesn't mean everything is r…

If Israel has no presence in Gaza then why is the municipality not given access to the sea and to the air. Is there a sea port in Gaza? Attempts to whitewash Israels treatment of the Palestinians falls short the minute facts enter the argument.

Because if they had that access, they would import weapons to use to kill Israeli civilians. Are you forgetting which side of this conflict tends to strap bombs onto their chests before walking into a nightclub?

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#97

Post by skrebbel »

philwelch wrote: post #77
skrebbel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I'm curious: where in Europe is anti-semitism not "fully out of fashion"? I only know my own experience, of course (the Netherands). My impression is that here, apart from Arab immigrants, people couldn't really care less whether someone's Jewish. Most Dutch Jews are so Dutch that it's hard to tell they're Jewish at all, except possibly by their names. But all of this may also be because there are so few Jews in…

> (This, of course, assumes that by antisemitism you mean actual hatred of Jews, and not "being critical of the something the Israeli government does or did") Well, for example, there's being critical of something the Israeli government does or did, and then there's literally calling them Nazis. There's also that charming little incident in your country where football supporters, specifically of Ajax, took on a "Jewi…

I agree that calling the Israeli government Nazis was way out of line, but I don't see how it's antisemetic. I did not say anything about the Jewish people or about Judaism - I said something (tasteless) about the government of a country. Very tasteless, because many of the people of that particular country are the descendents of those who were persecuted by the Nazis. But how is the comment, in itself, antisemetic? There was no ethnic or religious undertone at all.

Fair point though about the football supporters. Their behaviour show the worst in any people. That said, if Ajax had happened to be associated with Catholics instead of Jews, the rival supporters would've come up with something horribly offensive to Catholics. So I'm not sure that this was real decent antisemitism: more like a very inappropriate form of anti-Ajaxism.

In fact, the way I understand that incident, it's much like using the term "Nazi" to criticize the Israeli governmen. I don't see how that's antisemitic, but it's still ridiculously offensive. When I wrote that, I lowered myself to the standards of mindless hooligans.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#98

Post by YZF »

cup wrote: post #16

An adaption from an earlier comment of mine: Lets be frank, this was a targeted assassination by a nation state that consistently tries to paint itself as a beacon of democracy in the region. Say all you want about Ahmed Jabari but his modus operandi was a direct result of a life of occupation and subjugation. You don't go into prison at the age of 22 and come out 13 years later a happy individual. I mean it was only…

What do targeted assassinations have to do with democracy? The USA, the great bastion of democracy, engages in those as a matter of daily practice. I don't think these tactics are always useful but it's one of the things that can happen in situations where you have two parties who want to fight a war. I would say the outcome was a result of choosing to wage an armed struggle (mostly targeting civilian population) towards the destruction of Israel. He made his choices (which included firing hundreds of rockets to population centers). What does "recognizing" someone's right to "exist" mean in this context? "Palestine" is not recognized by anyone in the world so why should the Likud recognize it? This is a new entity that the Palestinians want to create. Perhaps it is the best solution for the region but for it to actually exist some sort of agreement has to be reached.

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#99

Post by skrebbel »

gyardley wrote: post #95
skrebbel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, why do you equate "critical of the Israeli government" to antisemitism? I have no problem with Jews at all. In fact, if you read carefully, you'll see that the word Jew (or anything like it) does not appear in my post.

There are ways to be critical of the Israeli government without being antisemitic. You could be critical of, say, something relating to unemployment insurance. But that's not what people are usually talking about when this argument comes up - instead, they're criticizing Israel's right to exist or Israel's right to defend itself (which amounts to the same thing). When they're not being so explicit, they want Israel t…

Hm. That's a very good point. But I believe that there's one hole in your argument: it's that a country defending its right to exist means that it's allowed to commit atrocities. I strongly believe that Isreal has a right to defend itself. In fact, I think they have every right to do what this thread was actually about: track down and assasinate a terrorist.

You cannot deny, however, that Israel has been less than kind to the Palestinian people in many instances. Is pointing that out antisemitic? No. What about if it's pointed out in an absolutely tasteless way, for instance by using a Nazi reference? Still not. It's tasteless, and I apologize, but it's not denying Israel's right to exist or defend itself. I'm not convinced that maintaining a situation that essentially boils down to having first-class and second-class citizens is the only way to guarantee the continued existence of Israel.

And, it's important that we're allowed to discuss this. If any criticism of Israel's actions is called antisemitism, we're effectively censoring the entire debate. Now I'll be the first to admit that arguing on the internet has little direct value, but I daresay that the "antisemitism!!" gut reaction is at least as harmful as people like me rudely denouncing the people running a government in situation as complex as Israel's as "a bunch of Nazis".

Re: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

#100

Post by 001sky »

skrebbel wrote: post #58
philwelch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Support Israel" is such a vague term. You can oppose individual policies or decisions while still supporting the basic existence of the country. The American right tends to be supportive of Israel. The American left is slightly more split, but since American Jews tend to be left-wing they exert enough of an influence on the rest. This doesn't tend to be as true in Europe, where anti-semitism never went fully out of…

Hm, I'm curious: where in Europe is anti-semitism not "fully out of fashion"? I only know my own experience, of course (the Netherands). My impression is that here, apart from Arab immigrants, people couldn't really care less whether someone's Jewish. Most Dutch Jews are so Dutch that it's hard to tell they're Jewish at all, except possibly by their names. But all of this may also be because there are so few Jews in…

Hm, I'm curious: where in Europe is anti-semitism not "fully out of fashion"?

-- Anti-semitism is rampant: In the UK, France, and Germany, etc. Its quite possibly, even trendy. [1,2,3]

____________________________

[1] How my hate-filled family spawned Merah the monster

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/how-my-hatefi...

[M. Merah murdered seven people, including three Jewish , in a series of scooter-borne attacks in the Toulouse area in March 2012.]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/how-my-hatefi...

[2] 'One in six' east Germans think like neo-Nazis

Published: 12 Nov 12 15:51 CET

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20121112-46121.html

[3] Anti-Israel culture war of British liberal elites is not a grassroots movement Too many of our leading British academic and cultural institutions are in the thrall of left-wing activists, but anti-Semitism is far from rife at the British grassroots

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1381/anti_israel_cultu...

[4] "There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary." - 2010. Y. Rabim, Nobel Laureate.

Post reply on HN