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Comment by WhyNotHugo | Hacker News Reader

China's not-so-democratic government nominally controls 15% of the global population, and a lot of the world's manufacturing know-how. The behaviour and standards that their leadership tolerates matters in a way nothing else does.

I don't think the situations in East Turkestan ("Xinjiang") and Palestine are even remotely similar?

There are no re-education camps in Israel that Israel declines? And on the other hand, in Israel, there is Gaza where they have no real authority and which is actively antagonistic against them?

Sure, Israel is occupying power on West Bank and preventing Gaza from getting supplies, but, it's on a different scale than what is happening in China?

I don't know enough to say how much power does Palestinian Authority actually have in West Bank; but it is much more self-governing anyway than anything they have in Xinjiang with Communist Party.

A lot of people have problems with Israel, but when the Republicans accuse Democrats of being anti semites when they bring them up, the criticisms get muted quickly, at least in American politics. I don’t understand Germany politics that well, but perhaps Israel is off limits because of history.

German here. Israel is totaly off limits here. The report of AI that stated the situation in Israel is apartheid was seeen very negative here. You cant critize Israel here without consequenz

I don't see that. For example, it has been the official position of the German government for at least 20 years to strongly criticize the Israeli settlements. There's regular critical reports in the press, endless TV discussions and so on. Can you name someone who has actually had to suffer negative consequences for reasonable criticism of Israel?

The critic is more than gently. If you are searching for responses to the apartheid critic of AI you will find mostly nothing going into the argument but mostly arguments against and relativations. Yes you can critic Isreal … but at first you have to see into the eye of the shitstorm coming to you and calling you antisemit. Sorry but even the harez is more openly critizing Israel.

It seems you're shifting the goal posts now. The fact that consensus criticisms are not as harsh as you'd like doesn't mean that Israel is "totally off limits". Discussions and criticisms are happening; and the fact that public opinion doesn't match yours can not only be explained by that opinion being suppressed, but also by it being wrong.

„totaly off limits“ was a bit over the top. Its only my personal perception. I travel a lot in europa and read different papers.. etc. Based on that whas my argument. And that is a personal opinion so not realy valid

Israel is so off-limits, most threads about other countries are derailed by people complaining they can't talk about Israel.

Off-limits in actual politics, not in futile political conversations between nobodies on internet forums.

He's saying israel is off limits in germany, not on HN.

Why is Israel held to a higher ethical standard than its neighbours in international media? It's almost as if not all countries are exactly the same and we have to talk about them within their context.

"No one is talking about X" is pretty much only ever said about political situations which generate enormous (disproportionate) amounts of discussion.

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