Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

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HN is slightly anti-jewish.

It is just a matter of fact.

A good thing however is it seems to changing slowly towards a more nuanced perspective.

Here's a true story which kind of describes a very similar situation but with a different outcome than what we've seen (yet).

For years I was bullied at school, and anytime I took revenge teachers arrived swiftly, telling me that even if the others started I wasn't allowed to respond. I still did though but it was obvious that I got more trouble for it than them.

Then I came to a new school. Pattern continues. I complained, nobody did anything.

Then one day I gave another bloke a real beating, and for a change my teacher stepped up and told the other teachers that if they couldn't ensure skinkestek was left alone they better not interfere when I gave the bullies a beating.

That was the last fight. Once they realized they wouldn't get any sympathy anymore it stopped. My siblings also stopped being harassed.

Generally everything got quieter because I was top dog now - and I didn't want to fight.

I feel this is the same in middle east. Israel is strongest but want peace. The international community keeps this conflict going like my teachers used to do by verbally abusing the strong but peaceful one.

My guess is the moment Hamas realizes there is no more sympathy to be gained by doing insane attacks that only serve to anger the neighbor then we'll get peace.

What is your evidence for HN being anti-Jewish, as opposed to anti-Israel or anti-Zionist? I'm genuinely interested; it's easy to conflate these three (on both sides of the argument)

If you consequently attack women I don't care if you do it because they look feminine or because they are actually women.

If you attack the only national home of the Jewish people, the only state that can be relied on to stand up for them, I don't care if you do it because they live in Israel, because they care about Jews or because they are Jews.

The result is the same.

Alright, I'm pro Israel in the sense that I believe the state has the right to exist and defend itself, but this is chickenshit. You cannot just browbeat people into supporting the actions of a state by calling them racist if they don't.

Israel != Judaism.

You seem to be conflating "Jews" with "Israel" on the basis that Israel is "the only national home of the Jewish people".

What does that mean exactly? The Jewish race, or the Jewish religion?

Do American Jews not count because they are not in the majority and/or the race/religion isn't specifically written into law?

In any case, the result is indeed the same: that Israel cannot be criticised.

But people are not criticising Israel because "they care for Jews", but rather for who they don't care for.

TLDR; If You want to defend Israel, or attack its attackers; Do so without ad-homs, straw-men and/or unreasonable maxims.

Too late to edit, but it seems the tide has already turned: for what I think is the first time I'm net positive for defending Israel. Maybe I've become more careful over the years, but personally I think it is more about HNers starting to question the media narrative.

This may have been true in the past. At this moment Israel is doing a whole lot of evil shit. They are becoming (or already have become) an apartheid state.

I am Jewish with lots of family there. However being Jewish does not elevate Israel from criticism.

They were definitely a model country for some time. Now... not so much. Right-wing nationalism has infected every part of the world.

This is about Israel not Jews. Israel is a country, Jews are not a country. Israel is not made of Jews, there are other religions in Israel. Why do you have to invent things and call them "matter of fact", such as Israel being a bastion of peace when they invest so much money and energy on Army and weapons or HN being pro/anti certain religions, is beyond my comprehension.

Funny you say this is beyond your comprehension AND be so biased against Israel.

Either you're incredibly naive about what an actual threat to a country and its civilians means (oh no! they invest in Army and weapons), or you're just a little bit anti-semite.

Just an honest question: do you think Manifest Destiny and killing native Americans was justified or in any way legitimate ? If you answer with a no, how can you support a country that arose and expanded exactly the same way ? is it the "old homeland" bullshit Israeli propoganda loves to spew ? If so, why not be completely fair and give back the balkans to the turks or spain to the Greeks or the whole mediterranean coast to the Italians?, the last two in particular were a true homeland for their conquerors for at least a millennia. What's the difference ?

Its ridiculous and pathetic you want to frame this as an attack against jews. I guess you took a page from ultra-islamists calling every criticism of islam "Islamophobia". But that's just you closing your ears and shouting "Blah Blah Blah I don't hear you.. Israel good, Israel good, Israel good", _Every_ Nation State in existence is an organized crime organization with a seat in the UN, Israel is just unlucky enough to have come late to the game, when Universal Human Rights were recognized as a good idea. You don't gain points for pointing out how this country or that killed n millions more than Israel, at least those other mobsters got a claim to the territory they rule that is more solid than "Well there is this book that a sky daddy wrote and it says right there that this piece of land belongs to us".

> If so, why not be completely fair and give back the balkans to the turks or spain to the Greeks or the whole mediterranean coast to the Italians?, the last two in particular were a true homeland for their conquerors for at least a millennia. What's the difference ?

If so, all the Jews that were chased from their homes in all the neighboring countries should also be given their homes back too, right?

Because this is a lot more complex than the media typically give it credit for.

Media conveniently forget that Jews were also driven from their homes and into Israel - only Israel integrated their refugees instead of putting them in refugee camps for use as a political pawn.

Media also tends to forget that Israel actively sends new settlers every year to invade Palestinian homes, burn centuries old olive tree fields, block access to water (while conveniently promoting retarded water purification trinkets).

Edit: firstly you are attaching to a tangent of my post. The point of my post above yours still stands uncontested.

Secondly: Feel free to dig out your sources. It would not be the first time I changed or nuanced my position on a topic were I thought my mind was set in stone.

Here's what needs to be proved for your claim to stand - as currently written:

- Israel (officially by government or military leadership)

- actively (as in: ordered it to happen)

- sends (plural, recent)

- invade Palestinian homes, burn centuries old olive tree fields, block access to water

- bonus points for this: (while conveniently promoting retarded water purification trinkets).

Prove it and I'll add it to my list somewhere near white phosphorus (because I'm fully aware Israelis mostly aren't saints).

Here are some sources, but any Amnesty International, United Nations or Israel boycott association will be happy to give you plenty more official data about this.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/state-funding-settler-institut...

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

https://religionandpolitics.org/2017/05/30/how-american-jews...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-olive...

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occu...

https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-un-idUSL...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SodaStream#Controversy

Upvote for now, will have to look into it later.

> is it the "old homeland" bullshit Israeli propoganda loves to spew ?

How old does something needs to be for it to be bullshit. Because the land palestinians have lost is now pretty old too, and their claim is subsequently bullshit. They should just accept that Israel exists, it won various wars, and now owns a lot of land where palestinians used to live.

Good strawman, I never meant that the claim is bullshit because it is old, I'm just describing it as such. And even conceding your faulty interpretation, Palestinians right to their land is documented by 80 years of audio-visual evidence, international and independent media reels, and UN resolutions. Israelis have a bunch of books most of them no longer believe. There isn't a fair and intelligent comparison to make here.

And regarding the "ownership" Israel has over the land, well... when your 300-million-strong neighbors around you all hate the digestive bacteria in your guts and your army is the same thing as your people, I wouldn't exactly call that a stable or a secure way of living. In fact, that just sounds like a good old apartheid regime to me, not really surprising though given that Israel is just a European colony who powered through decolonization through sheer dumb luck and a powerful nanny/benefactor/ally state.

Blame it on UN.

But when the world have thrown out the jews from their homes in all the neighboring countries and collected them in Israel at the same time Palestinian Arabs were thrown out from their homes in what is today Israel it becomes weird to talk about only one of those events in isolation, don't you think?

Just because Israel integrated their people instead of putting them in camps waiting for the others to be "showeled out into the sea" doesn't mean they are worse?

IIRC (I'm not that into India / Pakistan) this was about the same thing UN tried when they divided India / Pakistan aroubd the same time.

The UN didn't divide India/Pakistan - you're probably thinking about the armistice in Kashmir

There you go, now that you played the antisemite card and insulted a stranger let him know: how you can have hortodox Jews that are also antisionists? How would that work in that brilliant mind of yours?

Stay special!

He wondered why a country that is under threat invests in its army. This was not criticism.

Either this person is naive, as I said (I mean this in a non-offensive way), or this person is fine with this a threat being materialized. In this option B, you can call such blind hatred against a country and its people whatever you prefer.

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