Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

arabnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 193 posts

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#81

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

lisasays wrote: post #71
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #45

[flagged]

No - it's not because they specifically support the settlers. But because they don't give a fuck. The Palestinians are far too small in number (and most especially political clout) for them to make any accommodations for. Especially if it upsets public opinion in that larger (and infinitely stronger) country they have the misfortune of being surrounded by.

They're giving service to Israeli settlers in Palestine but not Palestinians in Palestine.

There's nearly 4 million Palestinians in Gaza & the West Bank, and about 7.15 million Jews in Israel. By contrast, there are 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and 9,000 settlers in Gaza.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#82

Post by Quillbert182 »

mikece wrote: post #2

I wish lawmakers would urge (or force?) PayPal to actually give you a detailed reason when they freeze your account and effectively confiscate your money. I still have hundreds of dollars tied up in the limbo of "your account is frozen but we won't tell you why."

Not sure if this is relevant to your situation, but I found this blog post interesting:

https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/i-fought-the-paypal-and-i...

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#83

Post by mjhay »

mikece wrote: post #2

I wish lawmakers would urge (or force?) PayPal to actually give you a detailed reason when they freeze your account and effectively confiscate your money. I still have hundreds of dollars tied up in the limbo of "your account is frozen but we won't tell you why."

They want to earn interest on your money.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#84

Post by pavon »

antihero wrote: post #62
mikece wrote: post #2

I wish lawmakers would urge (or force?) PayPal to actually give you a detailed reason when they freeze your account and effectively confiscate your money. I still have hundreds of dollars tied up in the limbo of "your account is frozen but we won't tell you why."

I don’t understand why people keep their money inside these platforms. Surely if you are getting a lot of money, you should be depositing it in your bank regularly?

He said he had hundreds of dollars tied up. That is a fairly small balance for someone who does (did) a lot of business with paypal and is transferring it out regularly.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#85

Post by user982 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #72
user982 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...

Yeah the immediately following "public opinion" section is particularly interesting. really makes u think.

I do wonder how Pew got such drastically different results from every other poll.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#86

Post by hutzlibu »

fnovd wrote: post #66
willcipriano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a Israeli kills a Palestinian child (like this [0]) and is later killed himself, would his family receive survivorship benefits? If Palestinian fighting men aren't soldiers does that mean Israel is killing non combatants? [0] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/eight-palestinian-chil...

I don't understand the confusion on this topic. One side will pay the family of a suicide bomber that murders innocent civilians, the other won't. It's not complicated. War is ugly, but as a global society we do have some idea about the difference between combat and terrorism. Firing rockets indiscriminately into a civilian area is not combat. Hiding your guns, bombs, and bases inside of civilian buildings is not som…

"I don't understand the confusion on this topic. One side will pay the family of a suicide bomber that murders innocent civilians, the other won't. It's not complicated"

Not complicated?

Just compare the civilian casualties on both sides. Afaik they are way higher on the palestine side.

When the IDF bombs a refugee camp, to take out one terrorist, they still consistently hit bystanders.

And before the IDF was military dominant, plain terrorism from the israeli side happened as well:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

And still happens:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/israeli-settle...

With every death, there is more demand for revenge. And the Hamas stand for revenge, which is why they are formally in power.

I honestly don't know of a more complicated conflict.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#87

Post by q1w2 »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #45

[flagged]

The recent change is because numerous Palestinian organizations have stopped accepting Bitcoin as Americans donating via crypto have been arrested for supporting terrorism.

source: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2023-0...

It should be noted that these 11 lawmakers are vocally anti-Israel.

Rashida Tlaib, Mark Pocan, Earl Blumenauer, Betty McCollum, and Greg Casar, etc...

This is definitely a minority opinion in Congress.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#88

Post by flagrant_taco »

fsflover wrote: post #31
flagrant_taco wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that law look like exactly? It couldn't single or PayPal and likely shouldn't single or Palestine to be sorry all the time and effort to get it passed.

"A company with larger than may not freeze your account without giving any reason and without any recourse.

That's a pretty serious step with the federal government directly limiting what every business can do. I'm not actually sure if that would even be constitutional given that it severely limits how potentially privately owned businesses set their own terms of use.

Defining what those limits are is entirely arbitrary, how do we pick a number that makes sense universally? Is that number adjusted for inflation, population size, business market share, etc? Does this only apply to financial service businesses, regulated financial institutions, or any business? What's the legal definition here for freezing an account?

Writing clear laws isn't an easy or fast process, especially when you're talking about a government regulation 300M+ citizens spread across 50 different states with their own laws.

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#89

Post by lisasays »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #22

I've had absolutely terrible experiences with Palpal. Lawmakers should be urging everyone to use a better service, forget worrying about PayPal's ban. The last straw for me was when they blocked a transaction of a few hundred dollars without any explaination. I was talking to a support rep for well over an hour, repeatedly being told that there is no security team at PayPal that can see why a transaction was blocked…

So is there any viable alternative to PayPal at present (for individuals and small businesses)?

That doesn't have onerous documentation requirements (like submitting all your PII to some untrustworthy entity) and is not subject to the same arbitrary seizures and stonewalling?

Re: US lawmakers urge PayPal to end ban on Palestinians in Occupied Territories

#90

Post by refurb »

p-e-w wrote: post #80
londons_explore wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your account is frozen but we won't tell you why If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. They also aren't allowed to give you your money back (incase the money is laundered). The only way to get your money back is to get a court to order them to give it back. The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back. They won't contest…

> If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. That sounds like bullshit. Why would a mere suspicion of fraud, in the absence of a subpoena or court/gag order, mean that they aren't allowed to tell the account holder that they are suspecting fraud?

Correct. Look up the laws on suspicious activity reporting.

If they came back and said "oh, we banned you because you made multiple, small transaction to high risk countries", well then you could just not do it next time.

Post reply on HN