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IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

haaretz.com

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Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#121

Post by roenxi »

austin-cheney wrote: post #76
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the government hold someone accountable for its own actions? Let’s not pretend that this is just some random soldiers doing this, this is exactly what the Israeli government wants.

Soldiers shooting at civilians is a war crime. It does not matter what the intentions of the soldiers are. It doesn’t even matter if the civilians are also armed up until the point they display violent intent according to a common person standard. Shooting at a crowd is a crime. That said the soldiers pulling the trigger are committing crimes. These are patently illegal actions to a common person standard which elimi…

NATO was conducting defensive operations against Yugoslavia around that time. It isn't clear that war crimes can be committed so easily by US allies. It'd be nice if they can be recognised though.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#123

Post by volleyball »

I guess the Israeli government's original plan to arm and support drug gangs and literally ISIS (euphemistically called 'clans') as "aid security" wasn't working out? Especially after it was revealed said "security" was stealing and reselling the food aid under the protection of IDF while the Israeli govt. and media blamed the looting on Hamas.

And after the Israeli opposition leader exposed the whole charade and Netanyahu defended it saying “On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with that? It only saves the lives of Israeli solders, and publicising this only benefits Hamas.”

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/netanyahu-defe...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Abu_Shabab

[3] - https://archive.is/20250606144357/https://www.ynetnews.com/a...

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#124

Post by lukan »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #115
niemandhier wrote: post #108

This comment thread is the most civilised online discussion I have seen in a long while about this particular topic, despite people coming from diverse backgrounds and disagreeing. In this sense, hackernews gives me hope that online culture is not lost yet.

It's because realistically hn is an oasis of educated people that has been overlooked by astroturfers and foreign interests (very strongly including the government in this piece), and hasn't expanded its core demographic for profit. This is what the rest of the internet would be like without manipulation. Imagine how much better things would be

If HN is so educated and civic, we would be able to have more of that sort of debate and not just once in a while.

Also note that dang is already pretty active here banning people.

It is a topic where deep emotions come up and where fanatism is widespread. Also among educated people. Also not sure if you have not noticed before, but HN is part of a profit orientated venture capitalist company. Still, I also do enjoy this Oasis here. But I don't see how it can scale in any way you seem to imagine.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#126

Post by forinti »

oulipo wrote: post #110

[flagged]

There were Nuremberg trials because Germany capitulated. We don't even have sanctions on Israel and the people responsible will only be jailed if they step outside Israel.

I am not optimistic at all and I am very afraid for Gazans.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#128

Post by roshin »

ajb wrote: post #82
austin-cheney wrote: post #12

The biggest problem with this isn’t the horror of the actual war crime. The far more serious concern are the lengths the government will go to avoid holding anyone accountable. That is so much worse because it unintentionally endorses future crimes and challenges the offenders to take ever more offensive actions without fear of consequences.

Even ignoring primary crimes, under Israeli law, even incitement to genocide is punishable by death. But so many members of the political and media elite have made inciting statements, that the rubicon is crossed; the political class cannot allow any serious, independent consideration of war crimes to ever occur, because that would risk them all facing the firing squad. This in turn signals to individual soldiers tha…

Regarding the risk to Israelis facing the firing squad, you do know that Israel only executed Eichmann (and one other person in a field court) since the founding of the country?

When it comes to the list of things that Israelis fear, being sentenced to a firing squad is very low down.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#129

Post by OhioMan2943 »

lukan wrote: post #124
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because realistically hn is an oasis of educated people that has been overlooked by astroturfers and foreign interests (very strongly including the government in this piece), and hasn't expanded its core demographic for profit. This is what the rest of the internet would be like without manipulation. Imagine how much better things would be

If HN is so educated and civic, we would be able to have more of that sort of debate and not just once in a while. Also note that dang is already pretty active here banning people. It is a topic where deep emotions come up and where fanatism is widespread. Also among educated people. Also not sure if you have not noticed before, but HN is part of a profit orientated venture capitalist company. Still, I also do enjoy…

I think people understand there's a time and a place for important political discussion on an otherwise tech community, especially because the quality and insight tends to be better than other places.

I don't have any delusions about ycombinator seeing some of the things it has supported recently, but in this laughably dumbed down world you take what you can get.

As for new communities I believe in being selective and restrictive- based on location, education, or interest and think it's the only way we can get smart communities again. Think how the tech barrier and slow adoption in the 90s/2000s resulted in a smart bubble online, and how covid was the death knell for distinct non homogenous smart online spaces because it brought everyone further online. It's discriminatory but look what we've become.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#130

Post by perlgeek »

spacecadet wrote: post #22

If we look at history, do the oppressed always become oppressors?

I'd say it's very hard for a powerful nation to not suppress somebody in the long run.

Just think of any powerful nation (or group of people, or whatever), and try to think of somebody they have oppressed, or are still oppressing. It's typically not hard to come up with examples.

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