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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

#681

Post by yyyk »

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…

You massively discount the radicalizing effect. After what happens, neither side will agree to peace under your formula (which never worked even in more optimistic times).

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

#682

Post by dragonwriter »

ashirusnw wrote: post #676
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…

Bizarre is viewing Israel as "oppressor" for disengaging entirely from Gaza, dismantling is own Israeli settlements despite massive protests by the seller movements, and only imposing a blockade once a terrorist group took absolute control (and threw Gays and Fatah opponents off rooftops to their deaths) Not to mention the "blockade" is in fact Israel closing its own borders and Gaza has a third border with another c…

> Bizarre is viewing Israel as "oppressor" for disengaging entirely from Gaza,

Israel didn't disengage entirely from Gaza, it maintains a murder zone inside Gaza, and has murdered unarmed peaceful protestors in Gaza within that murder zone.

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

#683

Post by awesomeMilou »

dang wrote: post #4
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.

Yes, you're of course right—and at the same time, if I ask myself how to follow HN's core principle [1] in relation to this topic, I can't see "don't touch it at all" as right either. It may be an impossible quandary—but it's not in the spirit of this place to take an easy way out; or to put it differently, the easy way out (if one exists) is not in the spirit of this place. What does "curiosity" mean in a context li…

> What does "curiosity" mean in a context like this? It certainly needs to be more than just a technical dissection of details.

But then allowing this discussion on here is already misguided. Call me biased, but I don't think you're going to find a ton of experts on international law and the law of nations on a site aimed at technical discussion. Even in qualified circles, this discussion is already heavily biased.

I'd argue that in order to discuss topics like these, you ought to have a guided discussion, with experts present to correct polemic statements. (such as the 2nd top comment, that is currently trying to compare international law with laws affecting individuals, which is a gross misinterpretation of the legal situation of this war.) This is how well respected journalists and news outlets do it in my country.

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

#684

Post by nlh »

jmprspret wrote: post #560
prewett wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect Israel to defend itself against an enemy that lives next door and is indistinguishable from the citizenry? Doing nothing is not an option: Hamas' explicit, public goal is the annihilation of Israel, and they are right next door. An analogous situation would be if some member(s) of the family next door publicly wanted you dead, and randomly shot at you, your family, and your house. But you don't know…

How do you expect Palestine to defend itself against an enemy that lives next door and is indistinguishable from the citizenry? Doing nothing is not an option: Israel's explicit, public goal is the annihilation of Palestine, and they are right next door. The reality is, there is no good solution. Because Israel has engineered it that way, not Palestine, not Hamas.

I know the sibling commenter mentioned this, but it bears repeating just for emphasis:

> Israel's explicit, public goal is the annihilation of Palestine

This is categorically false.

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

#685

Post by ashirusnw »

__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…

The "blockade" was Israel protecting its borders once Hamas seized control. And it's not a blockade as one side borders Egypt.

For much of the time, Israel allowed goods through the tough restrictions on what types of materials were allowed in started once Hamas started tunneling into Israel to commit attacks.

Very recently, Israel increased significantly the number of work permits for Gazans to work in Israel in the mistaken belief that Hamas and Gazans were getting comfortable with improved economy and this would gradually lead to deradicalisation and eventual peace. The other estimated the humanity of Hamas who it turns out were actually planning barbarism.

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

#686

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #650
ido wrote: post #237

Plenty of Palestinians oppose Hamas and want peace and a free Palestinian state according to the '67 borders. These would be the equivalents on the other side.

> Plenty of Palestinians oppose Hamas Heck, even at the time of the 2006 elections, an overwhelming majority of Palestinians including Hamas supporters also supported a peace agreement with Israel, and moderation of what was then Hamas's platform. (The latter occurred, the former not so much -- in large part because Israel stopped negotiating when the executive of the PA wanted Hamas -- the party that won a majority…

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

#687

Post by jrflowers »

aluminum96 wrote: post #671
dang wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN, we've always gone by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... . Having a HN thread about an article does not imply endorsement of everything, or even anything, on the site. In my experience, it's a mistake to make reliability judgements about major sources (such as news organizations) at site scope. To pick an unrelated example, we often get criticisms…

Wow, thanks for responding dang! It's like a fleeting encounter with a celebrity. I see the HN policy, and understand it generally. But I am vocally lodging my objection in this particular case. To put a finer point on it: I don't think I'm the only person in my community who has an extremely negative opinion of Al Jazeera, and its historical lack of neutrality on this issue. Having a balanced and nuanced discussion…

> So why choose this source, when many more reputable sources have covered the suffering in Gaza?

I am of the understanding that the people posting in the comments to this article did so because they chose to, not because dang decided this is what people should read.

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

#688

Post by reducesuffering »

dang wrote: post #662
aluminum96 wrote: post #644

Al Jazeera is an exceptionally disreputable source for coverage on this particular issue. It's not just their primary source of funding -- the Qatari state -- but also their abhorrent track record of running stories with no factual basis (such as in the wake of the Al-Ahli incident). I can't point to anything specifically incorrect about this reporting. But you have to take a lot of primary-source-based reporting on…

On HN, we've always gone by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... . Having a HN thread about an article does not imply endorsement of everything, or even anything, on the site. In my experience, it's a mistake to make reliability judgements about major sources (such as news organizations) at site scope. To pick an unrelated example, we often get criticisms…

> On HN, we've always gone by article quality, not site quality:

I don't think that's true, per the word of PG himself. HN has had site blacklisting and downranking. "Some submissions get automatically penalized based on the title, and others get penalized based on the domain. I observed that many websites appear to automatically get a penalty of .25 to .8: arstechnica.com, businessinsider.com, easypost.com, github.com, imgur.com, medium.com, quora.com, qz.com, reddit.com, rt.com, stackexchange.com, theguardian.com, theregister.com, theverge.com, torrentfreak.com, youtube.com."

It probably still does. (yes I know you're mod)

(PG) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044

https://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-reall...

https://www.righto.com/2009/06/how-does-newsyc-ranking-work....

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

#689

Post by xenospn »

bjornsing wrote: post #485
nahumfarchi wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think that is a reasonable take at all. 1. This is warfare, not civil law. Hamas, which is the sovereign in Gaza (there has been no Israeli military presence there for years), commited an act of war in which hundreds were killed, raped, and kidnapped. Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen an…

> Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. This is often said and I’m sure often in good faith, but I always find it a bit unsettling. If by “making sure it never happens again” you mean stronger protection of the boarder going forward it’s fine of course. But if you’re referring to someone kind of offensive operation (as I assume most who say this are, since they a…

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

#690

Post by ZunarJ5 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #659
ZunarJ5 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...

> Additional friendly reminder that Bush Jr is responsible for Hamas. Israeli policy during the occupation is responsible for Hamas, and it existed before W had any foreign policy influence. Blaming Bush for Hamas because he was somehow responsible for the elections happening is stupid. The elections happening was a good thing. Fatah stupidly rejecting the idea of a national unity government was a bad thing. Israel d…

Sorry, it was an oversimplification, but the article here is pretty decent. The major takeaway is that conditions were not right and the whole election cycle was a bit ham fisted. Your break down is appreciated as it's got a lot of moving parts!
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