'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#301

Post by lossolo » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

qwerpy wrote: post #208

nicoburns wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other wars are discussed. There have been threads on Russia vs. Ukraine in recent months. Perhaps Israel look bad in the press because they are acting badly. It seems to me that Israel are unambiguously the stronger power in this conflict: they have are much stronger military, and additionally have the backing of the US and a bunch of other nations that would step in were Israeli territory under threat. And they are…

The way you put it, it sounds like Israel got up in the morning one day and for reasons no one can understand, decided to start inflicting civilian casualties on Palestinians.

Someone else might say the same about the Hamas attack on October 7th. As the UN Secretary-General said, "This most recent violence does not occur in a vacuum. It stems from a long-standing conflict, a 56-year-long occupation, and the absence of a political solution in sight."[1]

Whichever side you are on (if any), responding to atrocities with further atrocities is not justifiable. It doesn't matter who commits these atrocities

1. https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2023-10-09/secr...

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#302

Post by leereeves » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:15 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #244

rich_sasha wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is good reason to hold Israel to a higher standard. It is by many metrics one of the most sophisticated states in the whole world. It has one of the highest fractions of people with higher education, it is a highly innovative economy. It is the second largest country of origin for NASDAQ stocks - US being the first one - despite being small by numbers at around 10m people. Whereas the Palestinian territ…

I completely agree that Israel should be held (and hold itself) to a higher standard than Hamas. I think one thing Israelis... dislike... is that often Israel is held to higher standards than every other country on Earth , is held to impossible standards. And when it falls short of those standards - it is considered proof that Israel is evil.

Under what standard is conduct like this acceptable?

“One of the soldiers said I looked like his nephew and that this nephew was killed in front of his grandmother who was taken hostage by Hamas and that the soldiers will slaughter us all,”

Those who dared to leave their homes for whatever vital errand were shot down in the streets by snipers.

“They made us empty out our bags on the floor and blocked us from picking up our money or our wives’ gold,” Nader recalls. “What little food we had, they also threw away. They took our money, IDs and phones.”

The men and teenage boys were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a bare floor covered in scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and verbally abused. There was no sleep, and the grains of rice cut their skin as they sat there, undressed.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#303

Post by pimpampum » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:15 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #78

Taken in isolation there is nothing wrong with this type of reporting, the IDF should be held to high standards. In the context of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, there is a tendency to hold Israel to a much higher standard and excuse the Palestine side as if they were naive children. I don't see how that could possibly set up any lasting peace. Israel will become more deaf to outsiders, and Palestinians will not be…

IDF kills more innocent people, woman and children (percentwise and in amount) than Hamas.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#304

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #224

hiddencost wrote: post #70

My political awareness was forged by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the American response. The core lesson: the point of a terrorist attack is to trigger an over reaction. America wildly over reacted and became fundamentally hostile to Arab and Muslim people. This reaction led to some of the most successful recruiting of radicals in generations. Israel's response to this crisis seems to have failed to learn from that…

This is a common, but very flawed misunderstanding of the situation in Israel, by analogizing it to 9/11. (Many Israelis were pushing this narrative at the start of this, btw, but that doesn't make it true.) This wasn't just a terror attack, like 9/11 was. It was an invasion . Thousands of armed militants breached the border and invaded Israel, then killed more than a thousand Israelis. The militants were inside Isra…

> it was very unclear whether this would lead to a wider, joint attack by other forces as well

I agree that it's easy to discuss rationally from the outside.

Hamas is not a threat to Israeli existence. Without extensive and far superior outside help, Hamas could not hold a square meter of Israeli (non-Gazan) territory).

Do you have insight into why Israelis talk about an "existential" war? I'm not dismissing their feelings - WTF do I know? - but I think it goes beyond expected overreaction and the exaggerations of a few fringe figures.

(And obviously, existential or not, Israelis will not want to experience future attacks like this Oct 7.)

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#305

Post by forty » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

ashirusnw wrote: post #139

forty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't defense also supposed to be targeted against an aggressor? How could the millions of innocent civilians that Israel is displacing, destroying all their houses and belongings and killing (and maybe torturing as described in this article), be considered in any way as aggressor? if a terrorist hid in an appartement building, and the police came, start killing all the inhabitants of the building and destroyed the b…

you and the OP are conflating civil war with laws of war. October 7th was clearly an act of war, and war has been the result. Hamas knew this, but relied on Hezbollah and Houthies pitching in in a much larger way, they miscalculated and Gaza suffers.

I don't think they miscalculated. Almost everything in this benefit them in almost every possible ways. The horrors of Gaza makes them almost look nice to the eyes of some (they never have been more popular in Palestine and in the world), and makes sure they will have no shortage of terrorists in the many years to come, among the innocent victims and their brothers and sons/orphans. I don't imagine they care or didn't anticipate for those killing of innocent people.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#306

Post by amluto » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #128

dubcanada wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel's response tends to stem from a history of oppression which is where it gets touchy. Jewish have not exactly been treated well for most of the 20th century. Not saying that is a reason to invoke that upon someone else, but it tends to be where most thoughts come from. A sense of if we don't do something we'll lose "our" home.

That explains what happened in 50s and 60s. Leveling Gaza in 2023 doesn't fall in that category, Hamas never had the power to do anything about Israel's existence as a state.

I think that what’s going on in the minds of those calling the shots on Israel’s side (or at least most of them) is: they’re not trying to level Gaza. They’re trying to fight a war against Hamas, and Hamas is fighting from positions in cities that are often literally on the grounds of or inside what ought to be protected civilian sites: hospitals, mosques, etc. And they are surely making what seems a straightforward tactical calculation: they could send infantry in to try to minimize civilian casualties at enormous cost to their infantry, or they could use their massively superior firepower to just destroy the Hamas positions from a distance.

And the Israeli command feels the need to fight on the ground in the first place because Hamas is holding obviously innocent hostages and shooting militarily-useless but nonetheless quite dangerous explosive-filled rockets over the border. Hamas is goading them very effectively. If Israel could magically snap its fingers to destroy Hamas, get rid of all of Hamas’ weapons, and leave Gazan civilians, buildings and infrastructure alone, of course they would!

One might ask why Hamas is doing any of the above. I don’t think Hamas is at all on the side of the residents of Gaza. Their strategy seems much better explained by some rather different goals: improving their own status in the world, raising money, making a really big show, weakening Israel, seeming and feeling important, and recruiting more militant members. I think that every Gazan civilian injury and death is in Hamas’ favor. Israel making itself look bad is in Hamas’ favor. More Gazans who hate Israel and feel hopeless and marginalized is in Hamas’ favor. So of course Hamas wants to keep holding hostages and randomly blowing stuff up in Israel.

To be clear: I do not think Israel is making an ethically or strategically appropriate decision here. But I understand where they’re coming from.

And I don’t think Hamas is making the right decisions either, ethically or strategically, at least if the goal is making a good, safe life for residents of Gaza.

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#307

Post by bitcurious » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #130

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You usually nuke stories that are political. I'm not being critical, it clearly leads to significant improvement over similar sites. What makes this one different? When I see a headline like this, I usually assume I managed to see it before you did, and if I refresh the page that it will probably disappear. So again, and without accusation, what's different? Bad things happen all over the world, nearly constantly or…

Users usually flag them, but yes, moderators often downweight them too—and then there are times that we turn off the flags. The answer to your question goes like this: (1) some stories with political overlap are on topic (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... (2) we try to be careful about which those are, so the site doesn't go down in flames; (3) I think it follows from HN's core princ…

I got the impression that stories about the Ukraine/Russia was have been consistently suppressed, including stories about the tech side of the war - drones, hacking, etc. Is this impression mistaken?

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#308

Post by adhamsalama » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

iddan wrote: post #136

[flagged]

Over 18000 Palestinians were killed, about 70% of them were women and children. Many more under the rubble. 1.9 millions (85% of the population) are displaced.

And you're calling people antisemitic (how original) because they care about the massacres and ethnic cleansing Israel is committing against Palestinians (who are in fact Semitic).

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#309

Post by wolverine876 » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

ameminator wrote: post #9

banku_brougham wrote: post #5

Im glad to see the community engage with this -- there couldnt be a more significant current event happening right now and its jarring that it would be so silent. Edit: And why is it relevant here? At a minimum coworkers are suffering silently through it. The emotional damage just for internet bystanders is staggering.

In my experience, the "benefit of the doubt" has been lost in relation to this subject. I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. It's tragic and a tragic subject, although I dispute the "there couldn't be a more significant current event" - lots of events are equally (or more) significant and relevant. I hope to be proven wrong, but I have doubts.

The last two threads I've seen on HN on this issue have been civil and productive. I'm very impressed with HN (and with the moderators).

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#310

Post by ameminator » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 9:17 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #187

ameminator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the "benefit of the doubt" has been lost in relation to this subject. I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. It's tragic and a tragic subject, although I dispute the "there couldn't be a more significant current event" - lots of events are equally (or more) significant and relevant. I hope to be proven wrong, but I have doubts.

> I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. I bet almost no one in this thread is able to juggle three balls either, even though learning how to do so doesn't take all that much practice. But it does take some practice. Should we be surprised when people are unable to do something that requires practice and education , when they lack both?

I (and many other users of this forum) have expectations on the minimum quality of discourse. Moreover, I am happy this forum exists with its quality of discussion. I am interested in preserving this high level of civilized interactions.

Time and time again, when it comes to the subject of Israel and Palestine, it has been shown that the discourse never meets the minimum standards I usually enjoy here. To the point where I am not sure if it's even theoretically possible.

To use your metaphor - if this were a forum about juggling, I would generally expect people to have an honest interest in juggling, and to have discussions about juggling. If every discussion about curling, on my juggling forum, devolved into abuse - it would be reasonable to avoid discussing curling (at a certain point).