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Deep Zionism

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: Deep Zionism

#71
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A maritime blockade or a no-fly zones are still not an occupation, and if there is an actual state with all the apparatuses of a state including a standing army in said territory, that argument goes down the drain pretty fast

>are still not an occupation >if Please provide evidence for your conclusion that it’s not an occupation; My source was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Gaza... Full quote being: >The United Nations, international human rights organizations,[1] International Court of Justice, European Union, International Criminal Court, some of the international community and some legal academics and experts r…

The Wikipedia article you quoted is misconstruing things. For example the actual ICJ finding was

> the Court is of the view that Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has not entirely released it of its obligations under the law of occupation. Israel’s obligations have remained commensurate with the degree of its effective control over the Gaza Strip.

Clearly "regard[ing] the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by Israel" is not an accurate characterization of the court's finding. Marko Milanovic had a nice post [1] about possible interpretations of the court's ambiguous wording.

There's no way the court would have had a consensus for a finding that Gaza was plainly occupied; even this advisory opinion was opposed by 3 of 15 judges.

There have been plenty of attempts to correct inaccurate info like this on Wikipedia, but in the last few years it's become rather futile since editors with an anti-Israeli agenda are a strong majority. (See e.g. the updated definition of Zionism they pushed through: "as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible".)

[1] https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-occupation-of-gaza-in-the-icj-p...

Re: Deep Zionism

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we disagree on a great many things and it probably will not be resolved through an accounting of facts or reasoned argument. I will mention that as far as 'red-herrings' go, the OP did not mention 10/7 when they called Gaza an open air prison.

Indeed, I can see facts won't sway you, or most people in the pro-Palestine camp. Also, I didn't mention the 10/7 attack either. The narrative that gaza is an open-air prison has existed for years, and it has been manifestly wrong for years; that hasn't stopped anyone from claiming it.

You did in your first comment of this thread on August 31, 2025 at 5:51:18 AM GMT.

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/45080674.json

Re: Deep Zionism

#73
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I can see facts won't sway you, or most people in the pro-Palestine camp. Also, I didn't mention the 10/7 attack either. The narrative that gaza is an open-air prison has existed for years, and it has been manifestly wrong for years; that hasn't stopped anyone from claiming it.

You did in your first comment of this thread on August 31, 2025 at 5:51:18 AM GMT. https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/45080674.json

Is your reading comprehension off? I said it wasn't an open air prison, which it isn't.

Re: Deep Zionism

#74
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did in your first comment of this thread on August 31, 2025 at 5:51:18 AM GMT. https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/45080674.json

Is your reading comprehension off? I said it wasn't an open air prison, which it isn't.

The only thing that I'm responding to is the first three space-delimited tokens in your post, which was "Prior to 10/7,".

Webster's dictionary defines "mention" as:

  > the act or an instance of citing or calling attention to someone or something especially in a casual or incidental manner
So yes, you did mention "10/7".

Re: Deep Zionism

#75
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your reading comprehension off? I said it wasn't an open air prison, which it isn't.

The only thing that I'm responding to is the first three space-delimited tokens in your post, which was "Prior to 10/7,". Webster's dictionary defines "mention" as: > the act or an instance of citing or calling attention to someone or something especially in a casual or incidental manner So yes, you did mention "10/7".

Indeed, I wrote "prior to 10/7" in my completely accurate statement that prior to 10/7 Gaza was not an open-air prison. I pointed out that there were roughly 500,000 exits per year from Gaza to Egypt and Israel in this period. The reason I mentioned this is because people justify the 10/7 massacre as some sort of freedom fighting operation where people were breaking out of a prison.

Thanks for defining the word "mention," brother, knowing this definition really addresses the central issue and refutes my central point.

Re: Deep Zionism

#76
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that I'm responding to is the first three space-delimited tokens in your post, which was "Prior to 10/7,". Webster's dictionary defines "mention" as: > the act or an instance of citing or calling attention to someone or something especially in a casual or incidental manner So yes, you did mention "10/7".

Indeed, I wrote " prior to 10/7" in my completely accurate statement that prior to 10/7 Gaza was not an open-air prison. I pointed out that there were roughly 500,000 exits per year from Gaza to Egypt and Israel in this period. The reason I mentioned this is because people justify the 10/7 massacre as some sort of freedom fighting operation where people were breaking out of a prison. Thanks for defining the word "men…

I think @chaps was quite justified in defining "mention", given that you just talked about 10/7 and then immediately insisted you never mentioned 10/7. That suggests that you either don't know what "mention" means, or you don't take any care with your words. And if you aren't being careful with your words, why should we trust them?

Re: Deep Zionism

#77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an editorial sentence; I was quoting a fact. The same fact appears in numerous other sources and gives lie to the open-air prison idea. Sorry you don't like that fact.

You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure, but you have yet to provide a single source that supports it. You made that calculation yourself, based on a statistic that you already admitted doesn't mean what you thought it meant, and doesn't correspond to the relevant statistic for India. Given how many times I've raised this issue to your attention, I would say you are now intentionally misleading people.

"You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure" This is simply false. I have acknowledged your correction twice. It's more accurate to say that there have been more than 500,000 exits from Gaza in 2022, which as a percent of the population is approximately 25%, though this surely includes people who exited multiple times. In the same year, India recorded 22.6 million exits from a population of 1.4 billion, which is less than 2%. Given that there were 500k recorded exits, it wasn't an open-air prison. QED.

The acknowledgments. "Thanks for this comment. I'd like to acknowledge that as you point out the 6.6% figure refers to exits from Gaza via Egypt using documented means, and may include people who exited multiple times, so the actual people exiting would be slightly lower. Similarly, it'd be nice for you to acknowledge that this figure doesn't include undocumented exits via tunnels in Rafah, or the 424,000 documented exits from Gaza via Israel." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45084323

"My claim is that it wasn't because people could get in and out. I have already acknowledged that the 6.6% figure refers to documented exits via the official Rafah crossing rather than indivudual people, and that this includes people who cross multiple times."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45091288

Also, this is data you appear to have been totally unaware of (as evidenced by your skepticism and repeated demand for sources), so it is you who should acknowledge you were wrong and stop spreading misinformation.

Re: Deep Zionism

#78
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure, but you have yet to provide a single source that supports it. You made that calculation yourself, based on a statistic that you already admitted doesn't mean what you thought it meant, and doesn't correspond to the relevant statistic for India. Given how many times I've raised this issue to your attention, I would say you are now intentionally misleading people.

"You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure" This is simply false. I have acknowledged your correction twice. It's more accurate to say that there have been more than 500,000 exits from Gaza in 2022, which as a percent of the population is approximately 25%, though this surely includes people who exited multiple times. In the same year, India recorded 22.6 million exits from a population of 1.4 billion, which is less tha…

Yes, you acknowledged the correction elsewhere. However, when questioned about the 6.6% figure by another user, you literally just replied "I was quoting a fact". Perhaps you meant the fact about the number of exits to Egypt, but to me, that appears highly misleading, perhaps intentionally so.

I think oscaracso makes a very good point as well. In a country as vast as India, you can find almost anything you need without leaving its borders. Less so with Gaza.

Re: Deep Zionism

#79
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I wrote " prior to 10/7" in my completely accurate statement that prior to 10/7 Gaza was not an open-air prison. I pointed out that there were roughly 500,000 exits per year from Gaza to Egypt and Israel in this period. The reason I mentioned this is because people justify the 10/7 massacre as some sort of freedom fighting operation where people were breaking out of a prison. Thanks for defining the word "men…

I think @chaps was quite justified in defining "mention", given that you just talked about 10/7 and then immediately insisted you never mentioned 10/7. That suggests that you either don't know what "mention" means, or you don't take any care with your words. And if you aren't being careful with your words, why should we trust them?

Yes, of course you think that, but it's also rather silly. I said "prior to 10/7", to point out that people claimed there was an open-air prison before that date. I wasn't talking about the attacks; I was talking about before the attacks. Do you want me to define "prior" for you?

Re: Deep Zionism

#80
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You keep insisting on that 6.6% figure" This is simply false. I have acknowledged your correction twice. It's more accurate to say that there have been more than 500,000 exits from Gaza in 2022, which as a percent of the population is approximately 25%, though this surely includes people who exited multiple times. In the same year, India recorded 22.6 million exits from a population of 1.4 billion, which is less tha…

Yes, you acknowledged the correction elsewhere. However, when questioned about the 6.6% figure by another user, you literally just replied "I was quoting a fact". Perhaps you meant the fact about the number of exits to Egypt, but to me, that appears highly misleading, perhaps intentionally so. I think oscaracso makes a very good point as well. In a country as vast as India, you can find almost anything you need witho…

So in other words you said I didn't acknowledge the correction, but I did acknowledge it, twice. I then modified it to point out that there were 500k exits from gaza out of a population of 2 million, something I'm glad you now don't dispute, because it gives lie to the whole "open-air prison" narrative.
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