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Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

bbc.com

221–230 of 230 posts

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#221

Anyone know why this post is flagged? I get that there is an aspect of 'Most stories about politics' but at the same time the tech censorship angle here is high and likely in-line with 'Anything that good hackers would find interesting.'

It's flagged because dang didn't unflag it, ultimately. Which is concerning.

dang unflags a lot of these, but the conversation is rarely productive. I don't think it's a particular bias or attempt at censorship.

But it's probably for the best. Once it's unblocked, it becomes a tug of war on both ends to flood the site with propaganda.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, are we going to ignore that more Palestinians has been killed till October last year, even without an official war declaration in Gaza and West Bank? There are more hostages including minors, taken by Israel, before and after the said incident.

This isn't a contest of volumes and it's a very false equivalency. Hamas attacked Israel knowing the cost in lives and chose to attack anyway because they don't value human life. Even that of their own people. Israel takes prisoners not hostages and has due process albeit flawed. Everyone arrested is arrested due to something they did. Not taken out of their home or a party. Not raped and murdered. These are not civi…

Lies.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a contest of volumes and it's a very false equivalency. Hamas attacked Israel knowing the cost in lives and chose to attack anyway because they don't value human life. Even that of their own people. Israel takes prisoners not hostages and has due process albeit flawed. Everyone arrested is arrested due to something they did. Not taken out of their home or a party. Not raped and murdered. These are not civi…

Lies.

Sure. Whatever you say. It's really hard to tell who's lying and who isn't with all the misinformation and also the sheer volume of facts.

It's also hard to find the "good guys" because both sides did some pretty awful things. Which again muddies the waters.

But the thing is that you chose to sweep the deck and call everything I said a lie with no nuance or thought. This brings me back to a different debate I had with someone I think here... I mentioned that Israel has gay rights and one of the most advanced human rights laws, civil rights, religious freedom etc. It's essentially a super liberal country in most regards (our labor laws will make California blush).

On the flip side I mentioned gays get executed in Gaza and wife beating isn't a crime under Hamas law. Honor killings are normal occurrences (if you don't know what it is you should seriously read up about it). I was accused of "pink washing".

Pink washing is when a corporation tries to hide bad behavior with a sham gay gesture. Israel has been pro-gay for decades, pro women and human rights. That's not something tucked on.

But the accusation reminded me of you. It accused me of stating a bad verifiable fact about Hamas while saying something verifiably good about Israel. How dare I state such inconvenient facts to assault your sensitive preconceived notions of whose "good" and whose "bad" in this narrative. I've clearly gone too far.

All joking aside. Why do you think those are lies?

Why do you choose to not believe a flawed democracy over a terrorist organization that murdered people for decades?

A terrorist organization backed by an Iran, Russia block... A terrorist organization that is killing its own people. If any of these facts seem wrong to you, I suggest furthering your research on that. I think you were deeply mislead. Israel is very flawed and did indeed mistreat the Palestinians a lot (especially in the West bank) but you need nuance. Palestinians vary Hamas is evil, the Palestinian authority is "complicated". Israel is also nuanced, it has the worst government in its history right now, but that's an anomaly. It did have more liberal governments over the years.

Unfortunately, Hamas and lack of nuance from the west help strengthen the bad players within Israel and move it further to the right.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#224
post #8

Was this decision made in Redmond or in Israel? Microsoft has offices in Israel and these offices are likely responsible for things happening in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is currently at "war" with Gaza and having Israeli employees of Microsoft having the ability to disable anyone's account calling civilians in Gaza is pretty horrible. Is Microsoft via Skype and Hotmail participating in what Israel's lea…

It has R&D centers and local business centers. Skype is not in Israel and there's no reason for a VoIP solution to route through a country local facility. The "complete siege" ended ages ago. Israel provides power, food etc.

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Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#225
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Right to everyone's door? There are not much of them doors left anyway. >A seige means the borders are closed. Yes, practically for close to two decades now. Sea, Air and Land.

[flagged]

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Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 500 trucks included other stuff besides food. Things like concrete (for tunnels) and water pipes (for mortars). Nowadays (as in the last few months) a minimum of 250 FOOD trucks enter Gaza daily. Sometimes as high as 350. Source, with occasional pictures https://twitter.com/cogatonline This also means that the embarrassing US floating pier brings in approximately nothing compared to the land crossings.

> Things like concrete (for tunnels) and water pipes (for mortars). Those were both banned. The trucks were mainly food. Also, the story was that they built rockets out of the pipes. In reality, they were remanufactured arms out of Israeli duds. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/world/middleeast/israel-h... > Nowadays (as in the last few months) a minimum of 250 FOOD trucks enter Gaza daily. Sometimes as high as 350…

You cant just inflate numbers at will to suit your narrative.

Current estimates are in fact only 500 trucks a day needed. This is directly from the UN.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far is Israel expected to deliver the food? Right to everyone's door? A seige means the borders are closed. The current situation, for at least 6 months now is that Israel is letting food trucks through the border, more and more every day. A problem exists for that last mile inside Gaza where no one wants to distribute it because militants will straight up beat truck drivers with sticks to steal the trucks and th…

I don't think Israel cares that much about the hostages (the constant indiscriminate bombing might give a hint). But if that's true and the hostages are in the hands of Hamas, then Israel would provide food and supplies to Hamas, right? Where are your sources about "huge piles of food just inside the Gaza border?"

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/nx-s1-5035998/gaza-israel-foo...

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#228
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about power and food since I have friends in the North who still don't have access.

How far is Israel expected to deliver the food? Right to everyone's door? A seige means the borders are closed. The current situation, for at least 6 months now is that Israel is letting food trucks through the border, more and more every day. A problem exists for that last mile inside Gaza where no one wants to distribute it because militants will straight up beat truck drivers with sticks to steal the trucks and th…

Anyway, there are a lot of reasons, one is this :

> Aid groups say coordinating their movements with the Israeli military inside Gaza remains a complicated and time-consuming process, sometimes requiring hours to coordinate safe access to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom border. And despite these efforts, Israeli airstrikes have hit aid workers on multiple occasions.

I haven't found anything on the investigation that is supposedly investigating the WCK workers murder. Unless the people who did that receives exemplary punishment, what sort of NGOs could distribute that aid? And ITF forces are still on the ground, and air.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

They required compromise which the Palestinians aren't capable of as a people

This is where your post veered from invective into pure and simple racism, unfortunately.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They required compromise which the Palestinians aren't capable of as a people This is where your post veered from invective into pure and simple racism, unfortunately.

I can see how that can be misinterpreted, that was not my intention. This isn't about race. It's about their social structure and partially about the depth of religion in their society. Also, I think it's a current state. I believe there is hope but it would require a major social shift, for that you need to put external pressure on them to change.

Right now all their leaders and wishful leaders are current/former terrorists. To climb to the top you have to prove yourself as a mass murderer. That doesn't yield good leadership skills.

But that's only a part of it. The main problem is their Hamula (extended family) structure. Their social order is to a large part dictated by major families that place their allegiance with individual militia. This is problematic, a leader needs to instill fear in the families and yet gain enough support by promising favors for each. The result is deep, rooted, inescapable corruption that tanked the Palestinian authority. Hamas has also robbed billions from the people of Gaza.

This sort of environment doesn't allow for compromise. The people who get to the top will be literally murdered by these families if they compromise. Anyone who shows statesmanship and willingness to work is quickly kicked out of the way by this cast system.

Don't get me wrong, individual Palestinians do want a proper democracy. But they can't really have it because the power of these forces is too big.

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