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

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

aljazeera.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 1001 posts

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

#361

Post by wolverine876 »

slibhb wrote: post #271
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 fact that Israel is stronger doesn't seem especially relevant. We're not talking about a couple kids fighting during recess. The weaker side isn't automatically right and the stronger side can't be expected to moderate its response when we're talking about the murder of ~1000 civilians. It's also absurd to think Israel should chill out and let the US handle its defense. As if an occasional murder-raid and constan…

> the stronger side can't be expected to moderate its response when we're talking about the murder of ~1000 civilians.

A fundamental principle of the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) is distinguishing military and civilian targets, and minimizing harm to the latter. That applies to all sides in every war. [0]

In warfare, generally all sides are outraged, filled with hatred and revenge. They wouldn't be killing each other otherwise. That is not an exceptional situation, it's the norm; that's what the LOAC was written for. 1200 civilian deaths, though absolutely horrible, unforunately also is well within the norm for warfare. 100,000+ have died in places and times, including at US hands.

Obviously Hamas didn't follow that principle (they seem to have intentionally violated it). I can't say how well Israel is doing it, but it's an essential issue. Saying 'we're angry' or 'our people were killed' is not exceptional in warfare and does not create exceptions.

[0] https://www.justsecurity.org/89489/expert-guidance-law-of-ar...

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

#362

Post by shihab »

edanm wrote: post #344
shihab wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel absolutely has the right to fight Hamas. But on the question of whether it's really defense vs avenge on entire population, I urge you to go through recent nytimes article titled "Gaza After Nine Weeks of War" with an open mind [1]. Entire neighborhoods has been bombed to rubbles, parks and roads have been bulldozed. Every single civilian structures, hotels, homes, playgrounds, port- on a large stretch beside…

Every time somebody says this, I always ask the same question - what is the alternative? What should Israel do instead ? This is war. War is horrible and tragic, and far more so because Hamas hides within civilian buildings and used human shields. What should Israel do instead to protect itself and to fight Hamas?

Please, go through the images first. Then explain to me, how bulldozing a park aids in Israel's effort to fight Hamas?

Again, Israel has the right to fight and fight hard, anyone would do that in their place. But I think many people in the west are awefully unaware of just the scale and magnitude of the destruction Israel has unleashed.

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

#363

Post by tmnvix »

edanm wrote: post #295
tmnvix wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Rafah crossing is one of about half a dozen border crossings in Gaza. Is it really so out of the question that Israel allow civilians to seek refuge within Israel while they wage their campaign? I am fully aware that it would be politically unpopular, but without allowing that to happen I find it hard to take Israeli politicians at their word when they claim they are doing everything to minimise civilian casualti…

It is absolutely impossible. There is no way to tell who are civilians and who are Hamas militants - they purposeful wear civilian clothing and hide amongst civilians. If Israel were to let them through the border into Israel, there is no possible way to prevent Hamas militants from killing many many more people. (Unless you mean to create temporary refuge camps heavily armed within Israel that would still be closed…

I would assume it could be guaranteed that they would arrive unarmed.

> Unless you mean to create temporary refuge camps heavily armed within Israel that would still be closed borders, which doesn't seem like an improvemnt over the current situation

You are right that they would have to remain in a confined space. Still, they wouldn't be in danger of being bombarded which would be a vast improvement. Compared with an evacuation into Egypt it would also have the advantage that people would presumably feel more confident that they would eventually be allowed to return (given that Israel would rather they returned to Gaza than remain indefinitely within Israel).

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

#364

Post by lern_too_spel »

baz00 wrote: post #267
psipisi wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think the feminist in question wants attribution for herself rather than to make a point. Both sides have been harmed. The war is about reducing continuing harm from an organisation that literally said that this was just the start of things...

By harming civilians? Like GGP, I am disgusted by everyone carrying a weapon in this conflict. These people were driven out of their homes and walled off in poverty a few decades ago by an unelected government, which legitimized itself with elections only after they were gone. Some of the displaced are violent. That doesn't justify inflicting further pain on the rest.

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

#365

Post by edanm »

makeworld wrote: post #315
xyzelement wrote: post #254

I have mixed feelings about this topic appearing on HN as I feel like folks are entrenched one way or the other and information isn't going to sway anyone. If this were a discussion we want to have here, this feels like a very bad article as by it's nature it's a one-sided subjective narrative with very little light to shed on the depth of the conflict. An interesting differentiator left unsaid in this article is tha…

[flagged]

Can you define what you mean by genocide exactly?

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

#366

Post by adammarples »

edanm wrote: post #344
shihab wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel absolutely has the right to fight Hamas. But on the question of whether it's really defense vs avenge on entire population, I urge you to go through recent nytimes article titled "Gaza After Nine Weeks of War" with an open mind [1]. Entire neighborhoods has been bombed to rubbles, parks and roads have been bulldozed. Every single civilian structures, hotels, homes, playgrounds, port- on a large stretch beside…

Every time somebody says this, I always ask the same question - what is the alternative? What should Israel do instead ? This is war. War is horrible and tragic, and far more so because Hamas hides within civilian buildings and used human shields. What should Israel do instead to protect itself and to fight Hamas?

I think Israel has to ask itself why there is such a large militant force on its borders, embedded in the civilian population. Why the population support it and why it is hell bent on destroying Israel. Why for example does this problem not occur for other nations? Could Israel be responsible in some way for the situation it is in? The alternative might lie some way from addressing that.

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

#367

Post by edanm »

kamikazeturtles wrote: post #211
nahumfarchi wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The least of our worries at the moment... but honestly, the Israeli tech sector is highly intertwined with the army, so I doubt this will damage it in the long run.

How is it intertwined? Startups or big weapons manufacturers?

Israel has brought in 300k reservists. In a country of 9 million, that's a not insignificant percentage of the population.

Many of those are part of the tech sector and are currently not working.

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

#368

Post by wolverine876 »

lornemalvo wrote: post #179
kamikazeturtles wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always saw it as the Israel-Palestine conflict has been ongoing for 75+ years with no resolution. It's a conflict that's symbolic of the deep divide of the historical imperial powers and the Global south that suffered from colonialism. I feel this is why people in different continents of the world react so differently to the conflict and why many find it so interesting.

Framing it as some kind of "(post-)colonial" conflict inevitably leads to skewing/biasing the whole analysis and is theoretically flawed.

Could you provide some basis for those claims? I'm not saying your wrong or right, but especially for this situation, we need some reason to believe ...

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

#369

Post by password54321 »

jraby3 wrote: post #7

Just a reminder that Aljazeera is the state sponsored news of Qatar, a county that hosts Hamas leaders and is close allies with Iran. It’s not a valid news source.

One of the only sources that has journalists on the ground is not valid?

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

#370

Post by edanm »

text0404 wrote: post #105
krembo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the source is AlJazeera can you at least take these testimonies with a grain of doubt?

what's wrong with al jazeera?

They are considered incredibly biased against Israel, certainly by Israelis.

(Israelis consider a lot of media slightly biased against them, but Al Jazeera is in a completely different league.)

Post reply on HN