Hacker News Reader

Comment by blisterpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

Really interesting. Shame that they can't deal directly with Israelis, with all of their start-ups and like-minded technology types.

View on HN

I can never reconcile my respect and admiration of Israeli achievements in technology with my disgust at their horrible treatment of the Palestinians.

When I cant reconcile something, I start by questioning my own assumptions and premise.

There's no need to reconcile those sentiments. I respect and admire US achievements in technology (and music, cinema, etc), even though the US government has done and does a lot of disgusting things to non-US citizens. There's no contradiction.

Also, consider what policies your fellow citizens might support if your country was surrounded by hostile neighbours. I mean, 40% of the American public supports the "Mexico Wall", even though Mexico is an important trade partner and poses no military threat to the US. Imagine if Mexico and Canada were to declare their intent to destroy the US...

(not assuming you are American, above is just an example)

A better way to frame the support is in how the US defeated Germany and Japan and then helped them economically, in order to get them back up and prevent too much resentment. First and foremost Britain took no responsibility when they decided it's best to un-occupy the region, allowing the recent conflict over the same patch of land a lot of previous blood was wasted for before. Also, let's be fair and mention how much support (like Japan or Germany) the new state has gotten from the West and used that to reach where it's now. There's a difference between a regime supported while under sanctions and limited I/O ports and another that's supported freely. I'm mentioning that before anyone says Palestinians were supported from the outside as well.

Regarding Israel's (the regime) support of the west bank and gaza: it's more like a prison where, despite the inmates' violent behavior trying to get out, you must support them because you're holding the key to their cells since the victory in the war. Is it right for either side to repeatedly reach out to violence as a bargaining chip? No, it's not, but not every tribe of this world subscribes to Mahatma's strategy. Well, the Norwegians did successfully when peacefully opposing the German invasion, but again, different populations act and think differently.

I don't pick sides in this debate, but it's important to put things into perspective. Yes, other nations may have decimated them. Yes, both regimes have a history of undiplomatic approaches to finding consensus. No, Israel (the regime) doesn't support them out of good will.

Israelis are not a "guy". There are multiple segments of the population and typically the technological achievement people and the assholes that go to wars are not the same people.

Just for the record - most people here want peace and are willing to make sacrifices for it. If only it were that simple.

>Just for the record - most people here want peace and are willing to make sacrifices for it. If only it were that simple.

Lav davka. Most people want peace for free, and don't see why they should have to do the work of siding with filthy smolanim to counter the settlement movement when the Palestinians aren't trustworthy anyway.

Try attending an antiwar demo and being yelled at that you're a traitor and a dirty Arab if you think most Israelis want peace so much.

If most Israelis wanted peace, they wouldn't vote for the Right.

They vote for the right because they are afraid and violence and terrorist attacks have slowed down considerably when the right is in power.

This doesnt mean they dont want peace, it just means they want ssecurity first.

I'm struggling to imagine a single country in the world that would act as humane as Israel in a similar conflict.

That. As much as I think it's great that people are expecting more of Israel, IDF does not get enough praise. It's tough enough to come up with a workable solution (might not even be possible!), even tougher when you have to defend yourself from an onslaught of unwarranted criticism.

Some of you might enjoy this report by 9 retired high-ranking military people from different countries: http://www.high-level-military-group.org/pdf/hlmg-assessment...

Im struggling to understand what people hear when Amnesty International declares Gaza as worst humanitarian disaster since 1967.

"It could be worst, at least they aren't gassing them in camps"

Apart from AI's dubious record on that — you understand that these two statements about the conflict are not mutually exclusive, right? Of course Gaza is a humanitarian disaster, even extremen right-wingers would agree with you on that.

I'm struggling to imagine a single country in the world in a similar conflict.

there are plenty of arab-jewish businesses. in israel, though. arabs are pretty prominent in israeli STEM and medicine

Sadly, not so much in tech. In medicine, yes, very much so. But in 15 or so years of tech career in Tel Aviv I only got to work with or interview (or even receive job applications from) a handful of Arab engineers.

i've met some arabs in tech in israel. but they are not nearly as many as in medicine

It's getting better. More and more Arabs are entering the Israeli tech world.

The most prominent arab Israelis in tech usually leave Israel for the US, e.g. Nafea Bshara (co-founder of Annapurna Labs, now an Amazon subsidiary) and Johny Srouji ( http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-johny-srouji-apple-ch... ).

SolidRun [0] which makes Cubox and Hummingboard (popular micro ARM boxes, among other things), is also founded and run by arab Israelis.

Of note, I have met quite a few arab israelis in technolgoy, and every single one was from a christian family background. I'm sure there must also be arab israeli muslims into technology (among arab israelis, muslim outnumber christians 10:1) - but I have not yet met any in my travels.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolidRun

You'd meet more in Haifa area. Arab engineers I worked with in Tel Aviv all came from Haifa, Nazareth or further north.

That was my impression too. Sad given that Jaffa is part of Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is probably the worst place in the country to look for Arabs in hi-tech; Most of them are concentrated in the Haifa and Yoqneam region. (And possibly in other areas of the country which are less of a hi-tech hub.) In some companies in that area the Arab engineers probably outnumber the non-Arabs - the Technion churns out quite a few high quality Arab engineers on a yearly basis.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com