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

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

#601

Post by metta2uall »

asylteltine wrote: post #567
metta2uall wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IDF actually can avoid the vast majority of civilian casualties - they are the ones choosing to drop a huge number of bombs. They can do their job of defending Israel by actually protecting the border, and go after Hamas in a much slower & more precise way. See this article from Israel for an in-depth examination of IDF tactics: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

[flagged]

I certainly don't excuse Hamas - they are a despicable & evil terrorist organisation - and more evil than the IDF. This is quite obvious and uncontroversial though, so people often don't bother pointing this out.

If you launch a rocket from your kitchen on the 12th floor, I am allowed to defend myself, but not by flattening the entire building and killing a hundred innocent children, when you have probably gone to another building or tunnel.

There are many reporters in Gaza who are documenting the thousands of dead & injured children..

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

#602

Post by liorsbg »

adhamsalama wrote: post #259
liorsbg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make it OK.

Yes, killing over 17000 people, most of them women and children is not OK.

I think we agree that civilian deaths are tragic and should be minimized.

I'm guessing we disagree on who is responsible for those deaths.

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

#603

Post by Hikikomori »

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?

What did the US do in Afghanistan and Iraq? I don't remember them leveling cities.

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

#604

Post by ashirusnw »

xg15 wrote: post #576
nvm0n2 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The UN doesn't speak for the world, regardless of what they may claim. That might be true for Guterres but not for the GA. The delegations that voted were not directed by the UN but by their respective countries. No one forced them to vote for this. Israel itself gets its legitimacy from the UN resolution in 1949. > But why would anyone ask them to cease fire against an enemy that won't return the favour? My unders…

> so of course during such a ceasefire Hamas would have to stop the rocket attacks as well

During which Hamas would regroup, recover, and then be impossible to defeat and then would go on to commit another October 7th

What should in fact happen is another humanitarian pause allowing more hostages to be released but relief for civilians in conflict.

Hamas is now demanding all Palestinian prisoners, i.e. those who have committed attrocities in the past to be released which will never happen as it would incentivize further attacks against Israelis

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

#605

Post by doom2 »

ameminator wrote: post #539
doom2 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 suc…

> 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.

I think this is a more convincing argument to me of why a topic may not be appropriate for this forum. As for the rest of the thread, there are obviously some very low quality comments/sub-threads. But overall I've found these to be a lot less emotionally charged.

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

#606

Post by nico »

edanm wrote: post #466
kamikazeturtles wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that same logic you can justify the civilian deaths of almost any conflict. Every war crime will be justified. Japanese internment? Justified. Hiroshima? Justified. Agent Orange in Vietnam? Justified. Genocide of 2million Filipinos by the US Army? Justified.... It's exhausting just thinking about these atrocities so I'll take a break

No, because there's a huge difference between deliberately targeting civilians vs collateral damage. Genocide, which is the intent and actions to destroy an entire people, is never justified, because it presupposes you'll target and kill many civilians to achieve it.

> Genocide, which is the intent and actions to destroy an entire people, is never justified, because it presupposes you'll target and kill many civilians to achieve it

And that’s exactly what Israel is doing to Palestinians

Many government officials, including Netanyahu, have openly made genocidal statements, like calling Palestinians Amalek, calling them sub-human/animals, saying there are no innocent civilians in Gaza and calling for leveling the place, not to mention the thousands of bombs dropped, the insane number of civilians killed and civilian infrastructure destroyed

Seems like some people will wait until all Palestinians are killed and then say, oh I guess it was genocide

Maybe Israel doesn’t want to directly kill 2+ million people, but they are sure trying to get rid of them. They are: 1) killing and displacing them, 2) making it insanely hard for them to live in Gaza (destroying hospitals, schools, parks, government buildings, etc) and 3) pushing for neighboring countries to take them as refugees

And if Israel get away with it, the West Bank will be next (I mean they are already on it)

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

#607

Post by throwbadubadu »

midasuni wrote: post #526
Levitz wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When you're on the side of women and children, who lose in every conflict, everyone else gets confused because they expect you to pick one of the men's teams. So men don't lose in every conflict? Countries are "men's teams"? I'm sorry but this is infantilizing as well as brutally sexist.

95% plus of the time the war is decided and progressed by men. Very few women in the Israeli government, and none making decisions in Hamas. Same in Venezuela and Guyana, Russia and Ukraine, Sudan etc etc

That's still how our patriarchal societies unfortunately work.. that's similarly true for a lot of western governments still.

Nevertheless, even if the little elite that decides the fate of the peace wanting majority is 100% men, what does that now mean for suffering little men vs women?

The Israeli army btw has a surprisingly high percentage of women.. do now more men or women suffer? Please just let's stop with the nonsense, humans suffer.

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

#608

Post by NotSammyHagar »

ido wrote: post #48
dang wrote: post #2

All: if you're going to comment in this thread, please do not do so in the spirit of battle. The latter is off topic here, and the last thread HN had about this did not do well enough at keeping to the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . Instead, ask first whether you can find a place of compassion in yourself before commenting. If you can't, that's understandable, but then please don'…

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…

I wish more people had your perspective. I see a lot of us politicians who miss this basic human nuance, let's all be against all violence and attacks on civilians - we don't need to both sides it, just humanize our behavior. I think like you state, I want innocents, civilians everywhere on all sides to avoid violence, terrorism, bombings, this seemingly endless horror. I see many us politicians making misleading statements about wanting to say you must support destroying Hamas, and that's all they can say, and they attack people who say we must protect innocent people - and they can't accept any criticism about needing to protect civilians on the Palestinian side.

It's easy to over-react to an attack, and I hope people like you are able to control the reaction. I'm in the US, and it's important to me to remind people that the US destroyed Iraq in response to 9/11 (and Iraq wasn't behind it, regardless of them being an evil government) and a million people died and also we bear eternal shame for kidnapping people and torturing them in black prisons during that terrible time. I was a young adult at that time and I failed to make any impact on US choices. I hope other people do better than I did.

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

#609

Post by refurb »

xg15 wrote: post #525

I don't want to start another top-level thread on this topic, as it is contentious enough already - but just as an aside, the UN General Assembly just passed a (symbolic) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire with 153 to 10, an even stronger majority than the last resolution. Of course UN votes are always subject to all kinds of political considerations and power dynamics and the saying "nations have no frien…

It doesn’t really say anything. Why? Because the cost of voting is zero. The UN is toothless.

In fact, you’ll see many countries who are actively benefiting from the conflict through arms sales voting for a ceasefire.

In fact, the UN often nicely provides political cover for countries. It lets them do whatever they want behind the scenes then vote for peace and then trumpet it in their domestic media.

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