Google employees call for company to support Palestinians and allow anti-Zionism | Hacker News Reader

Google employees call for company to support Palestinians and allow anti-Zionism

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29 pointslalaland112528 comments

There is a particular irony in how this article about the suppression of pro-Palestine sentiment at Google itself got flagged and removed here

There is no irony. This site is not run by Google, Israel or Palestine.

[flagged] Zenzur

>A group of Jewish Google employees is calling on the company to increase its support of Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly bombing campaign in Gaza.

I don't see how anyone could not support this. Guess I'm biased.

The Israeli Google employees in Google's two Israeli campuses, for instance, who have been under Palestinian rocket fire for about a week now.

*Hamas rocket fire

Hamas is the legitimately elected representative of the Palestinians in Gaza. They were voted into power in 2006 and act as the Gazan sovereign.

We can agree on "Gazan rocket fire".

2006 was 15 years ago

And yet that was the last time the was an election (at least for the top officials)

> *Hamas rocket fire

This is the rub really. The militants aren't formally part of the government, the aren't broadly supported, but they are tolerated. People don't fully agree with them... or disagree with them. My mental model is the de facto soft semi-decriminalization of marajuana that was in places in many states before 10 years or so.

...like most of the Middle East: it's complicated.

Hamas is the government in Gaza.

I was under the impression that the militant wing was only loosely affiliated with the political wing. There was discussion after 2001 when they were updating the list of terrorist organizations.

The Middle East is very complicated, but this is hard to read as anything but misinformation.

In the last legislative election in Palestine, Hamas received 44.45% of the vote to Fatah's 41.43% and gained a majority of the seats in the PLC [1].

Although Palestinian trust levels for Hamas are even slightly lower than Fatah, Hamas's actions over the past month are gaining broad Palestinian support [2]. There's people on both sides who want to see the conflict end, and people on both sides who are approving of the conflict (more so on the Palestinian side which feels scorned over the past 80 years).

It is Hamas rocket fire and IDF rocket fire. There are other sides against this conflict and escalation, but to claim that this is not government action or approved of by large swathes of the population is incorrect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

[2] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2021/0517/For-Ha...

The Palestinian people definitely deserve sympathy, and I think everyone (even Israelis) agree. The difference of opinion is that some people blame Israel for their problems, while others blame Hamas.

Let's be clear though: Anti-zionism is a form of antisemitism. People can rationalize all they want about how/why it isn't, but they would be wrong. You can argue all you want about the policies of the current Israeli government, but anti-zionism is still a form of racism.

Is anti-ethno-nationalism still racism when applied to other countries, or just Israel?

Erasing one ethnostate (Israel) for another ethnostate (Palestine) is not racism, is just lack of self awareness.

What other countries is it applied to besides Israel?

There is a difference between Zionism and deleting Palestine and Palestinians from existence.

Equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism is a Zionist idea in and of itself. The fact that many Jews are anti-zionists doesn’t help your argument either.

The history of anti-semitic Zionism is not too pretty either

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement

Zionism is the idea that Jews should have a homeland in what is (now) Israel. It is not exclusionary - there are non-Jewish (including Muslim) citizens in Israel, and they have full rights (far more than they would have in most of the neighboring Arab countries, and yes there is sometimes racism - just like everywhere else in the world, though that is no excuse - but the that has nothing to do with Zionism).

You can choose not to support Zionism. But if you actively believe "Jews should not have a homeland" that is anti-semetic.

Anti-Zionism is, by your own definition, opposition to the idea that Jews should have a homeland in what is (now) Israel. I don't see any proponents of "Jews should not have a homeland [at all]" here. Perhaps they could have New York, or Florida.

It's hard to separate between Zionism and Judaism in this case, because Israel IS jewish in the sense that it is populated by Jews. So aborting Israel has real immediate consequences (quite likely bad) for 7 million Jews living there. It's very unlikely they will just all get an American citizenship or build a homeland in Florida, I've never heard of such a plan by anti zionists. I know you were kidding but it's worth noting the anti zionist plan is to just abort Israel, that's pretty much it. There is some nice talk about creating one democracy for everyone living there after around 7 million Palestinian will return but there is absolutely no real plan on how to sustain such a state or create a safe environment for jews to live in under those conditions. Let alone what bodies like Hamas have in mind for the future of that area...democracy is not part of the plan. So yes being anti Zionist is being anti Jewish to the Jews living in Israel.

If you would say that Palestinians don't deserve to live / create a state in Palestine it sure sounds anti Palestinian and maybe even islamophobic to me. In fact many people who deny the right of Palestinian to have their own state use islamophobic arguments.

Saying the same about Jews should be looked at similarly, and yes there is quite an overlap between anti zionism and anti semitism.

Also - Zionism means different things to different people; Bernie Sanders' Zionism (yes, he is a Zionist) isn't the same as Benjamin's Netanyahu.

But simply outright rejecting Jews right to live in ANY borders in that area seems to me quite hard to justify. It may not be racist in and itself but it has big (probably bad) consequences for the jews living there if it's ever realized, and it is an idea that is loved by many people who are anti semitic (either muslims, extreme right or extreme left supporters).

For the love of god stop downvoting comments you disagree with. Let's have an interesting discussion about it instead and then maybe downvote bad comments that might pop up later. Downvoting and flagging a comment like this make people not even want to engage in a discussion as they quickly risk having replied to [FLAGGED] which ruins it for everyone as they can't read the thread later.

I'm with you in general, but what do these two comments in this thread have in common?

- Wherever a Jew goes he makes that place worse.

- Anti-zionism is a form of antisemitism

They're both stupid, untrue and intended to shut down the conversation. I think they both deserve downvotes.

I disagree. The first comment generalizes the members of a religious/ethnic group and is hateful. The second is an (incorrect, IMO) idea that is commonly believed by supporters of a political movement that has sought take ownership over Judaism.

There is very little discussion to be had about the first, but there is room to debate the second.

But maybe this is a reflection of my own biases - the first statement offends me personally and makes me want to walk away from the conversation while the second just sounds wrong and makes me want to engage.

Appreciated. HN is one of the few places this can be discussed without descent into abuse.

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