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

aljazeera.com

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

#531

Post by RationalDino »

emmelaich wrote: post #463
stoorafa wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve been in touch with Palestinians use HN? Not to seem one-sided, I didn’t realize Gazans had sufficient internet access, let alone food or water, to browse HN.

Also, regarding food and water .. it's not hard to find pictures and reports of thriving markets, cafés, clubs. Materially, I'm pretty sure Gazans are better off than Egyptians. Of course that doesn't much diminish their grievances which is based on lost land and and lack of freedom of movement.

According to GDP per capita, before the war Gaza was at $3500/year, while Egypt was at $3700/year. Which says that Egyptians are probably better off than Gazans. Even before the problems of the blockade, lack of electricity, and the current disruptions of war conditions.

So no, people in Gaza are not better off than people in Egypt. Though they are closer than I would have guessed.

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

#532

Post by __blockcipher__ »

thrownv7032g wrote: post #501
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leaders have also said they will kill Jews anywhere in the world, btw I'm curious, is your claim that one of the current leaders of Hamas said this? If so I'd love to read the quote. > If Israel doesn't take out Hamas, it is entirely unclear if it will be able to prevent them from carrying out more attacks in the future. One counterargument is that taking out Hamas, if they succeed (I'm not bullish), is likely to j…

If you want to see what Hamas says, or the tone of a segment of regional discussions, I encourage you to use your favorite translator on https://www.aljazeera.net/ . The arabic-language views are not always shared on the english-language version. The blog section is particularly aggressive at times. For the most inflammatory statements by leaders you can look at https://www.memri.org/ , whose translation choices are…

I'm familiar with Memri, although it seems like less of a CIA op and more of an Israeli / American Zionist op. Then again, there might be a lot of overlap between the two :P (Wiki claims that it's founded by "Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser")

I'm no fan of Hamas. Although speaking personally, I will never condemn any attacks of theirs on Israeli military installations or IDF tanks/soldiers. But any civilian killed intentionally is a war crime. I was really saddened to hear about the attack in Jerusalem where two Hamas gunmen killed a couple of civilians. To me that stuff is totally unjustifiable.

I wish Hamas would give up dreams of reclaiming the originally stolen Palestinian land; it's not right that the land was taken but for better or for worse Israel is here to stay. I would like to see them fight a defensive war, with any offensive operations (i.e. crossing into Israel) focused only on military targets. In reality that's unlikely to ever happen, but if Hamas just did that then they would have the indisputable moral highground, instead of the current reality where in absolute numbers they commit way less evil than Israel but are clearly full of darkness themselves.

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

#533

Post by avtar »

scythe wrote: post #498
nahumfarchi wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Jew, I have quite a few qualms with the comparison to Warsaw. I'm not denying the suffering in Gaza in any way, but it's far fetched to put this on the same grounds as Warsaw, in which an estimated 300-400k Jews were murdered, and which was just one of an industrial system of mass murder. I agree that the settlements are an obstacle to peace, no argument there. But there are solid reasons why the border between…

>we've tried that Here's a former Israeli official responding to this claim better than I reasonably could: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/10/10/the-crisi... https://www.hoover.org/profiles/shlomo-brom >[Shlomo Brom] retired from the Israel Defense Forces, where he held the position of director of strategic planning in the general staff, in 1998. He was also the deputy national security advisor, 2000–20…

And here's an interview with Daniel Levy, one of the Oslo Accords Israeli negotiators, sharing his views about that process and the Gaza withdrawal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a6O-ZeW5zQ

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

#534

Post by richbell »

axus wrote: post #350

My impression is that leaders of both militaries have a goal to remove the civilians of the other side from the borders of Israel, permanently.

That reminds me of "The Onion Explains: The Israel-Palistine Conflict."

https://youtu.be/ECscKICzsJ0

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

#535

Post by justrealist »

jacooper wrote: post #462
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?

You mean the only news outlet who hasn't lied once since the start of the conflict? Unlike CNN, BBC and others who just believed IDF lies like the beheaded babies thing?

Al Jazeera blatantly lied about the rocket launch that landed on the Al Shifa hospital, putting on pure misinformation to explain why it was not possible for a rocket to have landed there.

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

#536

Post by nahumfarchi »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #460
tsimionescu wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective that Israel is the defender here. In reality, Israel is the aggressor, and Palestine is the state that has been under occupation and illegal blockade for decades. October 7th was an (illegal, abhorrent and criminal!) act of retaliation against previous Israeli aggressions, not an unprovoked attack. If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one…

> but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea This by the way is an important fact to bring up when the claim that "Israel left Gaza many years ago and the problem didn't improve". In actuality, they withdrew their occupying army but still kept up a blockade, including a literal cap to the number of calories allowed to enter the country, which I can only interpret as a population control measure…

That is a weird tangent to take. The population size in Gaza nearly doubled in the last 20 years, reaching approximately 2 million (). If the sea blockade is a population control measure, it's a highly ineffective one. Did ever you stop to consider that it's, maybe, I don't know, to stop them from bringing in stuff to shoot at us?

() https://www.ft.com/content/7b618433-ba5f-4e92-a3e0-d5d41d6d1...

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

#537

Post by mikojan »

prmph wrote: post #415
qwertthrowway wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank ha…

> For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. Those restrictions are in place for a reason, which Hamas has confirmed on October 7th. And, what suffering does this cause exactly? Gaza had an HDI larger than that of many countries not at war, and had areas described as "wealthy". Any close reading of this co…

> Under such circumstances, what should Israel do? Pack up their bags and leave?

That is exactly what they should do: End the occupation.

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

#538

Post by vacuity »

prmph wrote: post #415
qwertthrowway wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank ha…

> For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. Those restrictions are in place for a reason, which Hamas has confirmed on October 7th. And, what suffering does this cause exactly? Gaza had an HDI larger than that of many countries not at war, and had areas described as "wealthy". Any close reading of this co…

Hamas is certainly a bad actor. I'm of the opinion that while Israel is somewhat better, it still did some bad things and is doing bad things that should be addressed. I wouldn't describe the Israeli government as a "defender" and leave it at that.

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

#539

Post by ameminator »

doom2 wrote: post #488
ameminator wrote: post #3

I honestly don't think this subject should be on here. I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I haven't seen any conversation about this topic that hadn't gone to hell.

> I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I've seen some variation of this sentiment both here on HN and elsewhere. It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all? If that's the case, what's the appropriate forum for debate? I'd argue that meatspace gathering places tend to not be much better (see: current debate about how…

Believe it or not, you're argument strongly resonated with me. However:

>It makes me wonder: is the topic so toxic that no conversation can happen at all?

I believe that the topic is so toxic and emotionally charged that it's almost impossible to have meaningful conversation about it. It's the "abortion" of geopolitics, where everyone is emotionally invested in their own way, distrusts/hates the other side or has such absolute positions that there is no point in arguing.

Now, it may still be worth the attempt (which I believe is the HN moderators' position on this matter). You have a really strong point that we should put in the effort to make space for this type of conversation. Unfortunately, all the evidence has convinced me that "polite, productive conversation" and "Israel/Palestine conflict" are mutually exclusive.

I see Hacker News as a tech-related with some general interest forum. I appreciate the high standards of dialogue and commentary on this website as well as the "intellectual exploration"-esque philosophy behind it. If a topic cannot conform to the above standard, I don't think it should be here - and that's out of necessity, to protect the environment of intellectual openness here.

Unfortunately, it may also be true that it's hard to find an alternative space to discuss this in society, that perhaps friends and family or your local community is not open to this discussion. That sites like Reddit are not great places for this discussion.

But HN cannot be the "everything" place and it's in this spirit that I think we should strongly consider limiting how much of this topic we welcome here, in the interest of protecting at least one great place for tech-related (with some general interest) intellectual pursuits.

I will let you be the judge - do you really find the rest of this thread constructive?

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

#540

Post by iteratethis »

psipisi wrote: post #246
ido wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, Dang. As someone on the Israeli left I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place- I do not condone Netanyahu and his government and am indeed very critical of Israeli governments of the past decades. But on the other side, my 78 year old mother is fleeing to shelter every couple hours as my hometown (not anywhere near the west bank or the Gaza strip) gets hit by rockets, as do my young nieces and nephe…

[flagged]

This has the typical "man dead, woman most affected" energy of modern feminism.
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