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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

#871

Post by RamblingCTO »

regularjack wrote: post #312
RamblingCTO wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe rockets wouldn't be shot if Israel would not illegally occupy territories. Tell me you know nothing about this conflict without telling me you know nothing about it. Israel was inches away from just having to give the Palestinians their own state. Why then, did Hamas attack just before that? The answer is simple: it is and always has been about removing Israel. That's true for Hamas and all their supporters.…

I know enough about this conflict to know that Israel illegally occupies territories. If I am wrong about that, please do educate me.

You're not wrong about that. It's still not the reason for this dispute. See my other comments.

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

#872

Post by edanm »

hef19898 wrote: post #762
edanm wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of Israelis on all sides of this issue. There are also plenty of Israelis who frequent HN, btw (like me).

That the Israelian public is devided on the current Israelian government and its policies was reported on in Germany when it was about the judicative reforms. Reporting this devide between religious hardliners and more liberal people stopped with the Hamas and Gaza attacks. Since then, it basically comes down to equating Israel as a nation (ignoring the fact that policy is made governments) with all Israelians (ignor…

I very much agree that calling any criticism of Israel anti-semitic is both factually wrong and very bad, on many levels.

The main thing that upsets Israelis is when the criticism is:

1. Specific only to Israel, and/or far harsher on Israel than on other similar countries for no reason.

2. The criticism offers no path by which Israel is allowed to defend itself. It's totally legit (and morally must be done) to criticize Israel if it does bad things - but if literally every action that Israel takes is criticized as being "too much", the end result can only be "Israel cannot do anything".

Btw, small language nitpick - the correct term is "Israeli" not "Israelian", at least in English.

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

#873

Post by tsimionescu »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #787
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…

>In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders. What would be the solution of that independent state went to war and attacked Israel again? Would you agree at that juncture that Israel would be within its rights to destroy and conquer that state?

No, there is no allowance in international law for conquering and destroying a state. If you are attacked by a different state, you obviously have the full right to defend yourself and destroy the military installations used to attack you. You have a right to attack back and seek regime change and impose terms that ensure another attack can't happen, and even seek reparations.

But you do not have the right to attack the civilian population or to take their land. Even if you think they were for the war. The allies didn't conquer and destroy Japan or Germany. They didn't divide their territories among themselves (even the separation of Germany still left two sovereign states).

We have also learned from the end of WW1 and WW2 that investing into the old enemy state to make it happy and successful is in fact a MUCH better solution for lasting peace than pounding them into submission and trying to sap their economy. If Israel had sought a Marshall-plan like solution for Gaza after the Yom-Kippur war instead of a military occupation for the following 30 years, perhaps Hamas wouldn't have won the 2005 elections in the first place.

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

#874

Post by ido »

nradov wrote: post #670
boppo1 wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way Israel could undermine Hamas with prosperity? Make the lives of palestinians better, give back settlements, etc? Get average palestinians to think "wtf who are these terrorist asshats, Israel is a good neighbor."

Israel should stop expanding settlements. Those only make a final peace deal harder to achieve. But that won't solve the Hamas problem. Hamas leaders don't care what average Gazans think nor will they voluntarily give up power. Prosperous Gazans already have to pay Hamas protection money, so more prosperity in Gaza means more resources flowing to Hamas to buy weapons.

The problem is that there is no "Israel should or shouldn't do" - countries don't have agency like that, their governments do. And those currently in power intentionally wanted to make a peace deal harder to achieve, because they don't want peace.

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

#875

Post by edanm »

kurthr wrote: post #569
edanm wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rockets being fired into Israel is one threat, but the far greater threat is just Hamas repeating the October 7th invasion again. They've said, numerous times, that they will do it - invade Israel again and again, killing as many Israelis as they can. (Leaders have also said they will kill Jews anywhere in the world, btw.) If Israel doesn't take out Hamas, it is entirely unclear if it will be able to prev…

I think it's interesting to believe that Israel can effectively and permanently take out Hamas (and the like), while they cannot prevent October 7th. Either they have sufficient intelligence/surveillance or they don't. The last "election" in 2006 was the year after a majority of the population of Gaza was born (median age 18), and politically, it seems Netanyahu prefers Hamas to any less radical representation, becau…

> I think it's interesting to believe that Israel can effectively and permanently take out Hamas (and the like), while they cannot prevent October 7th. Either they have sufficient intelligence/surveillance or they don't.

That's a false dichotomy. Preventing surprise attacks on your soil, given an enemy that is smart and tries to outsmart you, is a completely different thing to engaging in war.

> The people of both sides suffer, but those outside and those with political power on both sides are eliminationist. I think it's important to listen to member of cabinet when they say "nukes are on the table" or a settler when they say that everything from the Nile to Tripoli are rightfully theirs, when you evaluate similar Hamas rhetoric.

These are fringe views among the Israeli public, which you can see because that minister was widely condemned for that remark and withdrew it, and most statements made by Israeli politicians state the opposite.

Hamas's leaders have repeated the claim that they will perform October 7th over and over and over. And they actually did it when having the chance. There can be no doubt in any rational person that, were they to have the means to do it again, they would.

Both sides are simply not equal here in their desires, and there's no reading of the facts that shows otherwise.

(And btw, like many people on the Israeli center-left, I hate the settlers too, and definitely consider some of their actions to be terrorism much like Hamas's, though far smaller in scope, fortunately.)

> Israel claims that 55 Hamas commanders have been killed. What is the proper ratio of that to civilian deaths (17,700)?

I have no idea where you're getting that figure. Israel says that it estimates are that 5-7k militants have been killed.

> How does Israel know there are bunker/tunnels under the Al Sharif hospital? They built them.

What is your point? That Israel built some tunnels at some point doesn't prove anything. The Israeli claim is that an entire tunnel network was built out by Hamas for the purpose of using it as headquarters and to commit terror attacks. Which is true and verified.

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

#876

Post by egisspegis »

keefle wrote: post #805
mvdtnz wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a ceasefire. IDF ended it because Hamas fired rockets and didn't hold up their end of the hostage release bargain. There was a ceasefire before that, which Hamas broke by invading Israel and torturing, raping and murdering over a thousand innocent civilians.

Thats not completely true. By the time Hamas fired that rocket the time has already ended of the truce (7:00 am of that day), and Hamas was clear that it could not meet the extension criteria (brining out 10 more hostages from the category being exchanged (children and women)), it even proposed moving to another criteria (elderly), but Israel refused Again watch your language and only claim what has been proved (rape…

[flagged]

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

#877

Post by vidarh »

nradov wrote: post #446
ido wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Israelis can potentially vote out Netanyahu in the next election. But how exactly would you propose to remove Hamas from power without a lot of civilian deaths? Hamas leadership prefers the current state of affairs because it has made them wealthy by taxing the populace and embezzling foreign aid. They have no incentive to agree to a peace deal or allow new multiparty elections. There doesn't appear to be any realist…

It's a big problem, indeed. Prior to October 7, a large majority of Gazans supported having the PA take over control in Gaza. It's worth considering to what extent waning support and credibility with their own population was a motivation for Gaza in the attacks, given being seen to do something and goading Israel into making themselves be seen by the Gazan population as an obvious villain plays straight into Hamas' hands.

The biggest blow Israel could deal to Hamas would probably be to do the minimum to contain them, provide the PA with access and means, and let the PA deal with it with guarantees of meaningful concessions if/when the PA succeeds in meeting certain targets (that ought to carefully not mention Hamas, but mention things like demonstrating a functioning justice system and ability to secure the borders). To your point of a "neutral" foreign coalition, if granted access by Israel, the PA would potentially be in a position where it could ask for international assistance and try to frame it as allies coming to the aid of the population rather than an attack on Palestine.

But that would also first take an Israeli government that is serious about peace and negotiating concessions, and frankly the current Israeli government seems as caught up in seeing the continuation of the conflict as essential to their own power as Hamas.

In the meantime there's a real danger this will stoke up more radicalism not just in Gaza but in the West Bank as well.

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

#878

Post by WentFullRetard »

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…

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

#879

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #824
davesque wrote: post #410

It's really disappointing to see so many exceptions to the no politics rule right when we need that rule the most. There really isn't anything to be gained by discussing stories like this. We all know that atrocities are taking place. It's a war zone. A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶ ̶g̶l̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶l̶y̶ ̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶e̶d̶ ̶…

As vore's reply points out, HN does not have a no politics rule. If you want to know how we think about this, there are lots of past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... . If you look at some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a look. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for the history of "HN is getting too p…

[deleted]

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

#880

Post by xg15 »

za3faran wrote: post #862
mvdtnz wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a ceasefire. IDF ended it because Hamas fired rockets and didn't hold up their end of the hostage release bargain. There was a ceasefire before that, which Hamas broke by invading Israel and torturing, raping and murdering over a thousand innocent civilians.

[flagged]

Do you have sources for both claims?

I saw no reason not to believe the rape accusations of Hamas - many women came forward with this and it would absolutely fit with all the other things Hamas did on Oct. 7 - how they paraded around Shani Louk and then later killed her.

Unfortunately, rape by Israeli guards of Palestinian captives would also be believable from the reports you hear about treatments of captives.

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