Israel, Hamas reach ceasefire deal to end 15 months of war in Gaza

Post by carbontrioxide » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:49 AM UTC

Tainnor wrote: post #465

onecommentman wrote: post #361

A meta level comment for dang, I’m upvoting every comment that is being gang-downvoted…independent of the position. This topic, with roots going back millennia, deserves to have all opinions captured and presented, if nothing more than as a snapshot/wave collapse of where the opposing sides sat in 2025. Noting that, ceasefires are wonderful things.

It's not just gang-downvoting, I've seen perfectly reasonable and civil comments being flagged for no apparent reason. I remain convinced that HN is simply not the place to have a reasoned discussion about this conflict, and probably nowhere on the internet is.

Post by Ambadassor » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:52 AM UTC

SurgicalDoc_UK wrote: post #709

I welcome this ceasefire with caution. Israel are still currently bombing Gazan homes and the death toll is still growing. There is always a risk it is temporary for further tactical gain. A poll showed 60% of Israelis wanted a ceasefire but the 40% who want the war to continue are making a big noise. Violence was never going to take down a resistance group, we all knew this. I don’t think there can be a future with…

Post by biminb » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 10:57 AM UTC

reissbaker wrote: post #597

gravisultra wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true at all. The current conflict isn't some thousand year old feud. It was very much caused by the deliberate provocation and importation of European settlers via Zionism. It's easy to wave our hands and say "it's so complicated!" or "they've been doing this for thousands of years!" but it's not complicated, much like apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were not complicated. Colonialis…

The plurality of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi (aka, Jews who never left the Middle East), at 45% of the population [1]. This isn't about Europeans, or even "race": Mizrahi Jews and their Palestinian neighbors are racially indistinguishable. Ashkenazi Jews — that is, Jews who lived in Europe during the Diaspora — make up less than a third of Israeli Jews. [2] Although if you're dead-set on racial essentialism and blood-an…

Post by Rodmine » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 11:01 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #4

I credit Trump's pressure on Hamas - Hamas eventually softened a lot of their positions because they realized they had no choice. And I wish Biden had done a better job of supporting Israel, this war could have ended a lot sooner if Hamas had realized that the entire world was pressuring them to surrender. Instead the message got diluted with support for Palestinians, which Hamas interpreted as support for themselves…

Post by techdragon » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 11:07 AM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #692

techdragon wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In genuinely morbid moment of being nerd snipped… I wonder if the ordinance dropped per square meter on Gaza is higher than the ordinance dropped be square meter on Vietnam… which was famously bombed so hard that detailed maps needed to be updated in order to accommodate how heavily cratered parts of the country were with heavily cratered hills and slopes literally shifting like a form of mechanical erosion by bombin…

Vietnam has an area of 331,000 square km. America dropped over 5 million tonnes of bombs on it over a ten year period. That's 1.51 tonnes/km2/year. Gaza has an area of 365 square km. Israel dropped over 85,000 tonnes of bombs dropped on it over one year [0]. That's 232.88 tonnes/km2/year. Over 150x more. Don't forget! Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world - about 50 times more densely populated…