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Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

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Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#431

Post by brookst »

McNutty wrote: post #37
ciconia wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This platform for tech news should not become a place for political posts, nor even for posting regular news headlines. What's a political post? What's "regular news"? And where do you draw the line? If not interested, you can just move on and ignore. There's plenty of AI articles all over the front page.

What is the appropriate number of times to "just move on and ignore" before finally deciding to say something because the integrity of hn as a platform is at risk?

Is the integrity at risk from allowing difficult controversial subjects? Or from prohibiting them?

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#432

Post by brookst »

immibis wrote: post #243
McNutty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree. This platform for tech news should not become a place for political posts, nor even for posting regular news headlines. Yes we know that reddit sucks but stop trying to make hn into reddit. Also the community can't handle it, just look at the handful of comments we already have here.

Unfortunately, everything is politics and politics is inescapable. "Ignoring politics" is also a political action and a political statement.

Indeed. Zone of Interest is a very impressive film that really explores the idea of ignoring politics.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#433

Post by YZF »

throwawayhate wrote: post #413
blurbleblurble wrote: post #6

I appreciate that this is on here and I hope we can collectively handle it. Tech isn't isolated from this situation, as difficult as it is to admit and talk about with civility and care. A US military software engineer even self immolated recently in protest of what's happening. I don't see what's happening in Gaza as being culturally particular to the specific identity groups involved here. It's a very human situati…

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Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#434

Post by fullspectrumdev »

Qem wrote: post #387
screye wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe another method is needed then? What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. I don't approve of Israel's methods. I'd prefer an egalitarian solution. But, I'm all out of ideas. Find me an instance of 2 co-habiting or neighboring groups that hate each other, have huge disputes and ended up in relative peace. I can give you my recent examples of previous instances that are now mo…

> What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. Sticking to quite recent examples: South Africa, Basque Country, Ireland.

The violence hasn’t really stopped in any of those places. Some participants have changed though.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#435

Post by flyinglizard »

golergka wrote: post #211
falcor84 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any other examples from history where the goal of combatants was (or at least appeared to be) to maximize the destruction of their own side? If so, what were the outcomes of these?

Gaza civilians are not on the Hamas “side”.

Hamas is the sovereign in Gaza. It’s literally their elected government.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#436

Post by tsimionescu »

EvgeniyZh wrote: post #389
wolverine876 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you justify it? Let's not start accusing each other. Drop the BS. > using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves) That doesn't mean they are using human shields (and it doesn't mean they are not): Asymetric forces need to blend into the environment - the mountains, the city, etc. In the city, that means blending into the c…

> That doesn't mean they are using human shields Being indistinguishable from civilians (blending in) is exactly using civilian as a shield -- the opponent can't identify you and can't kill everyone who looks like you > They can still minimize civilian death Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio

> Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio

Fairly low compared to what? The USSR invasion of Afghanistan? Assad engaged in a civil war? WW2 carpet bombings?

No recent war has seen anywhere near the deplorable civilian:combatant death ratio that we see here.

And if you also take into account that the IDF basically defines adult male as combatant, so that a lot of the "combatants" killed were actually just adult male civilians, then the picture gets even grimmer.

Not to mention, we keep talking about direct casualties, but Israel is going beyond this - they are not allowing some kinds of critical aid into Gaza at all (water treatment pills are forbidden, for one egregious example), and they are generally only allowing a trickle of aid of any kind in - in effect starving the population.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#438

Post by flyinglizard »

archagon wrote: post #383
creato wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you distinguish "retribution" from eliminating the threat posed by (in your words) a terrorist government? What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow the terrorist government to continue to operate unimpeded, which enables attacks on your own citizens? There's no population on the planet that would accept that.

Israel will lose most of their international support if they raze Gaza and starve the population.

Israel is already doing that (for valid reasons IMO) and it hasn’t lost support; if anything, Israel’s position with other Arab countries has never been better. They too would like to see Hamas gone.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#440

Post by wolverine876 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #414
wolverine876 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians. I despise Hamas, but this claim is disingenuous propaganda (by the leaders who make it, not the parent who repeats it): First, Hamas is 'notorious' for it because it's endlessly repeated by their enemies. That rhetoric doesn't make anything true. (Haven't we had the Internet long enough that people know it well by now?) Second, Hamas is an assymetric, ir…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36f2TqaD30 I found this interview pretty thought provoking. I think it is still pro-Israel, but it provides a view of Hamas's strategy that I haven't seen anywhere else. Basically, what I think Hamas leadership was thinking was to mirror the Hezbollah-Israel conflict from, what, 10 years ago, on a much bigger scale. According to this CIA officer, Hamas had 30,000 soldiers ready to eng…

> Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks

According to all the experts I read, Israel rushed in without a political outcome planned. All warfare is a tool to achieve political outcomes (unless the outcome was to drive Palestinians out of Gaza or just destroy as many people and buildings as possible). All warfare ends only with a stable political solution; otherwise it continues indefinitely; an example is Afghanistan, where the US failed to achieve a stable political solution and so the war never ended - unfortunately the Taliban have acheived a stable political solution, to some degree.

> I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.

I agree that the Israeli military has spared itself the hubris and casualities they experienced when they attacked Hezbollah around 20 years ago.

But we still see stories criticizing the Israeli military, and we don't hear desperate stories from Hamas, only from civilians. A military killing civilians isn't accomplishing anything. The question is, are they being effective against Hamas and in establishing some desireable political outcome?

> it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.

Also from being unable to leave.

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