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

Mentor startups in Gaza

mentor4gazaskygeeks.strikingly.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 66 posts

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#41

Post by golergka »

Udik wrote: post #39
golergka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, an objective, educated person would link this reaction to the action that prompt it.

And the action that prompted it to the action of the other side that prompted it before.. ad infinitum. The only way out of this loop is to ask yourself "who's occupying whose territory? Who's preventing the others from becoming a state? And who does the most killing"? And for all three questions, the answer is always Israel.

The questions that people sharing your position unfortunately don't ask themselves are different. Try "What actions can Israel do to change it" and "what will this result in", for starters.

Try to put yourself in Israel's place. Just imagine it for a minute. Israel disengaged from Gaza 10 years ago. What did it get in return? More security? Less attacks? Better relationship with organisations governing the territory? Would answers to these questions encourage you (you're in Israel place, remember) to make more steps like this?

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#42

Post by lordnacho »

So, what are conditions like? Is there a talent pool? Is infrastructure working (Do they have brownouts, are there a lot of people with internet)? Is it easy for investors to get their money in and out?

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#43

Post by pliny »

pvaldes wrote: post #40
wazoox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support people of Gaza through something really helpful and not politically laden, I'd guess.

If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that. We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for t…

I don't want to get into a political argument - but I will say that helping Gazans by directly improving their quality of life (like the OP proposed) is neither mutually exclusive with, nor dependent on, helping Gazans by promoting their cause politically.

It is a defeatist stance to take, in general, that you should abstain from treating a symptom just because it won't also cure the disease and in that sense I think you are working against the cause of Gaza and doing a disservice to Gazans by dissuading people from offering assistance.

>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside. Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.

You're unfortunately correct (about the bombing, not about the excuses), but the children of Gaza need to go to school and the infirm and injured of Gaza need hospitalisation, so not building those facilities is worse than building them and watching them be destroyed a few years later.

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#44

Post by XJOKOLAT »

pvaldes wrote: post #40
wazoox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support people of Gaza through something really helpful and not politically laden, I'd guess.

If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that. We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for t…

It is possible to do both

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#45

Post by IvanDenisovich »

pvaldes wrote: post #40
wazoox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support people of Gaza through something really helpful and not politically laden, I'd guess.

If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that. We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for t…

I feel that casting all Palestinians as eternal victims with no control over their fate until Israel decides otherwise is pretty patronizing. You're basically denying their agency and labeling them as hopeless children.

This is the opposite of what the initiative is about - it's about bringing normalcy to a troubled region, and if you'd read FAQ you'd see they stress the (relative) safety and economic stability of Gaza. It's a far cry for the "Warsaw Ghetto" and the "Palestinians as cockroaches" that you're throwing around here.

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#46

Post by golergka »

Udik wrote: post #36
golergka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis? What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.

"the terrorists that have power in Gaza". You start from the wrong premise. You're defining them terrorists because that allows you to dismiss their fight as "terrorism". Given that Israel is an occupying power in Gaza (yes, "in January 2012, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General stated that under resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, the UN still regards Gaza to be part of the Occupie…

There are several things wrong with your argument. Usually, I don't respond to things like this — but I have come to learn that commenters on Hacker News are unusually reasonable and intelligent people, so I decided to make an effort and explain all things wrong with this statement.

(These are separate and atomic arguments, which don't depend on each other logically).

1. You assume that "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" are mutually exclusive definitions, while one of them refers to the organisation methods and the other to organisation goals. Deliberately (this is very important word) attacking civilians and trying to increase civilian death toll in order to create a state of terror is, by definition, a terrorist tactic.

2. You go from "UN regards" to "objective fact" pretty easily. This implies that you hold UN as organisation to be of highest authority and consider it's opinion true by default. This approach needs some backup. All other things considered, you could write it as "UN regards them as freedom fighters" (which UN doesn't). Or "by UN logic".

3. You assume that these organisation goal is freedom from perceived (not debating this point now) occupation. However, that's not what they state. These organisations state that their goal is (1) destruction of state of Israel and (2) murder of all jews, primarily living in these territories (but not limited to them). If these organisations succeeded in their stated goals, they, of course, would get "freedom from occupation" (as they perceive it), but it would only be a byproduct of their mail goal, which can not be described other than genocide.

And finally, just out of respect for anonymous commenter on the site that I keep in a very high regard. Just in case you really want to keep a reasonable, logical, healthy discussion, and not a flame war. When you try to put a positive spin on these terrorist organisations, 99% of israelis wouldn't even consider responding to you. Because when you start telling people that organisations with motto "kill all jews" are misunderstood good guys, you don't seem like a guy worth having a discussion with.

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#47

Post by guelo »

golergka wrote: post #8
plug wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your desire to participate is commendable. I don't know anything about the safety risks of collaboration to Gazans, it's very sad situation and I appreciate that it's very complex and possibly dangerous. I'd certainly be interested to learn more. Otherwise, I'd imagine (possibly naively) that remote mentoring would be something good. If it were possible for you to participate - would you risk repercussions fo…

> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis? What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.

The terrorists just got reelected in Israel too. I'm always amazed that Israelis believe their government's propaganda about "human shields" used to excuse terrorist acts like the bombing of UN schools.

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#48

Post by moey »

pvaldes wrote: post #21

Sorry if I'm being rude, but this sounds like a really bad joke. "This building is the new place for your new startup, the burocracy is atrocious and humiliating; not people neither prime matters can enter or go out freely from here, and the entire place is systematically ravaged and firebombed each two or three years killing your workers, otherwise is fine." "Last year this nice new zone is flattened and 'cleaned' o…

Just to be clear, this isn't in the article. So if you're trying to paraphrase, you did a really poor job.

Also, people in warzones deserve a helping hand to make them feel normal. It's not in conflict currently. Yes the blockade is bad, but technology is the type of startup that it effects the least.

Also providing humanity to Gaza does not exclude one from trying to bring Israel to court for its war crimes. The latter is just much, much, harder.

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#49

Post by Curmudgel »

guelo wrote: post #47
golergka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis? What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.

The terrorists just got reelected in Israel too. I'm always amazed that Israelis believe their government's propaganda about "human shields" used to excuse terrorist acts like the bombing of UN schools.

The UNRWA has found rockets in their schools on multiple occasions:

http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-...

Re: Mentor startups in Gaza

#50

Post by tek-cyb-org »

aidos wrote: post #6
golergka wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer from Israel, I'd like to participate in something like this — but I don't think that there's any opportunity for me to do this. From what I understand, even if someone tried to do something like that on the other side, they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this.

Do you have anything to back that up? I'd be interested in reading about it. Edit: I can see there's an article here that sounds like the root of this sort of statement but I can't read any details because I'm in a really remote place with very little internet. Over the last couple of days I've discovered that the wired world no longer cares for those with 7kbs connections :-) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast…

I'm sorry but that article has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Every country on earth executes informants.
Post reply on HN