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I think the “Apartheid state” accusation refers to the occupied territories, and the fact that the people living there are not afforded the rights of Israeli citizenship, while still being under Israeli control

Maybe Apartheid state is not the right term, but there are clearly two classes of population: Israelis, and people living under Israeli military control without being Israeli

> but there are clearly two classes of population: Israelis, and people living under Israeli military control without being Israeli

Any trustable source to back this up?

Sources on what? The existence of occupied territories? Or the fact that the occupied population can’t vote in Israeli elections?

Here is one for you:

https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is...

FYI, this is from B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.

The gaslighting is a bit ridiculous. The occupation in places like Gaza isn’t a secret. Your posts are comical.

Isn't Gaza ruled by Hamas?

>It shows screenshots of people calling the actions of Israel apartheid. I am not taking anything seriously that calls Israel an "apartheid state". You don't know what apartheid is.

>Arabic Muslims and non-Muslims alike has more rights and power in Israel than all other Arab states combined.

Only if you're an Israeli citizen. If you're Palestinian, you're liable to be kicked out of your house by the Israeli government without recourse or warning.

Exactly.

If Israel were an apartheid state, then even the Arabs living inside Israel would not have rights.

Nope, its not about having rights. That the comic version of apartheid.

Its about being an equal partner in the society to jointly and equally decide what are the rights and obligations of each member.

And that is a threshold Israel can never achieve. The Jewish majority unilaterally decides what the role of the Arabs are.

For example, the Jewish majority has, unilaterally and without explanation, decided that their Arabs countrymen are not fit for the obligation of conscription, for the privilege of defending Israel.

And we all know why.

That's a redefinition of the word "apartheid". Probably done to use its emotional connotations.

"Comic version of Apartheid"?

Apartheid was an actual political system, implemented and practiced for years.

Much more that not being an "equal partner", it involved enforced legislation to classify people according to race and then to restrict rights based on that classification.

NOTE: I'm not weighing in on the Palestinian/Israeli issue here, but as someone who grew up under the Apartheid regime, I'm objecting to what I feel is misuse of the word.

Apartheid doesn’t have to be based on religion. Here it is based on being born in Israel vs being born in the occupied territories

Where are these occupied territories?

"Arab" is not a religion, it's an ethnicity.

Blacks in SA did not have any rights. Arabs have rights in Israel.

It is not an apartheid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-occupied_territories

How do you explain the ongoing eviction, backed by IDF enforcement, of Sheikh Jarrah? If Palestinians have equal rights and Israel has stopped occupying Gaza and encroaching on Gazan land, why are there constant clashes between settlers and Gazans in the West Bank?

How do you explain the disproportionate response from Israel, carpet bombing Gaza indiscriminately, not even focusing on military targets? What about the cries of death to Arabs that Israelis were filmed shouting during the latest campaign?

You’re also attempting to paint things in a light that washes over the obvious missteps and war crimes of Israel.

> carpet bombing Gaza indiscriminately

It's just their words against theirs.

I don't know what happened to the anti-Arab chanters, in my opinion, they should be sued (and arrested when appropriate). And "Israelis" did not shout those. They were from an ultra nationalist faction.

It's not Israelis vs. Palestinians. It's Hamas wanting to kill every Jew it can, and Israel attacking Hamas to save its citizens, and then innocent Palestinians getting killed because they were used as human shield by Hamas.

If Hamas stops ruling Gaza, and the leadership are properly brought to justice, and Israel still does what it is doing today, I will turn pro-Palestine in a heartbeat.

And honestly I don't like the power orthodox Rabbis have in Israel. I am opposed to clergy- Jew, Islamic, Hindu- does not matter.

I think the main question from op was this- it completely rips apart all the propaganda you’ve been writing throughout this thread.

> How do you explain the ongoing eviction, backed by IDF enforcement, of Sheikh Jarrah? If Palestinians have equal rights and Israel has stopped occupying Gaza and encroaching on Gazan land, why are there constant clashes between settlers and Gazans in the West Bank?

The fact that you ignored that question in favor of Hamas wanting to destroy Israel (which is a well known, undisputed fact) honestly shows you the know the truth and are complicit in deceit.

I’m curious do you work directly for the IDF, or are you from the group of people who just hate Arabs and wish they’d disappear?

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with; it will eventually get your main account banned as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Banned which account? And I’m curious why some of these “political” posts break site guidelines but others do not. I see political discussions on Crimea and China. Are the guidelines specific to Israel and Palestinians?

"This account" means "the account I'm currently replying to". No, of course the guidelines aren't specific that way. Not all political posts are off topic, but everyone needs to follow the site guidelines, and the rules apply more, not less, as a topic gets more divisive: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

That does not mean that every post that breaks the site guidelines gets moderated, though, for the simple reason that we don't see everything that gets posted here. There's far too much for us to read it all. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. People can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

To be clear, you can go ahead and ban whatever accounts you’d like.

This thread is currently trending on the front page, and it’s as political as this post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27646686

But that thread hasn’t been flagged, nor are you going out of your way to ban posters in that thread.

But the account you replied to was mine, and you’re banning me because the Israel Palestine issue seems to be censured by Hacker News.

You can just admit that instead of hiding behind site policies and guidelines. “We won’t allow criticism of Israel.” If you want to be a cog for Israeli propaganda, that’s fine. Why hide behind site guidelines and not fess to it? It’s pretty spineless and cowardly, no?

Did you not notice that the very same Israel/Palestine article has just been on HN's front page for many hours?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282

There were multiple submissions of the article. More explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647873. I hope you'll notice that the truth is exactly the opposite of how you perceived this.

I banned you because you broke the site guidelines egregiously. It has zero to do with what the topic happened to be. The topic could have been type inference, Oreo cookies, chess ratings—that's not the high-order bit. What's not ok is posting in a way that destroys this place for its intended purpose. The ecosystem here is fragile. Comments like what you posted destroy it. We need to protect it. That's all that's happening here.

You're far from the only person doing that, and we try to be as fair and even-handed as we possibly can. I know we don't do it perfectly. But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27643425 was hardly a borderline call.

> It's Hamas wanting to kill every Jew it can

You bet. Jews immigrated en masse to Palestine, then used their leverage at the UN to have half of the country assigned to themselves alone, then proceeded to ethnic cleanse as many Arab villages as possible. In the decades Israel has used every possible excuse to occupy more land, in violation of all laws and agreements, and install their population, while harassing, persecuting, and killing the indigenous population.

You bet that Hamas wants to kill them! It's because they're vicious anti-semite? No.

(By the way, jokes apart: no, Hamas doesn't want to kill all the Jews and has officially said so: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full )