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Comment by keewee7 | Hacker News Reader

Bad comment. First, can you please name the founder? Because according to wiki Ilya Segalovich never lived in Israel and Arkady_Volozh lives in Tel Aviv (Not a settlement). Both Jewish, so why present it as some "must-be-hidden-cause" connection with Israel?

Also, nothing shady from Israel side in term of sanctions. They have a large Jewish community in both Russia and Ukraine and need to be on good term with both to have their gov helping in supporting (or evacuating) them. Not to mention Russia has heavy presence in Syria which borders Israel. A conflict with Russia without anything like a NATO back is out of the question.

>Elena Bunina, who is Jewish, is stepping down from her role as CEO of Yandex LLC, 'Russia's Google,' amid the war in Ukraine. Sources confirm she is in Israel and has no intention of returning to Russia

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/2022-04-06/ty-...

It doesn't say she lives in a settlement. Or have any special treatment from Israel or influence on Israel in term of sanctions.

Many people consider all of Israel to be an illegitimate Western colonial settler state in the Middle East.

Those “many people” are likely ignorant and/or antisemitic.

Then they have some explaining to do. As they are very wrong, from a historical/archaeological point view [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judais...

> Then they have some explaining to do. As they are very wrong, from a historical point view [1]

Kind of explains the general vibe of relations between everyone in that area historically

The relevant Wikipedia page is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

Did you read it? It literally has a "Use in antisemitic" section. Can you have any bigger red flag?

> Use in antisemitic polemic

> conspiracy theorist, David Icke, who states that the Israelians falsely claim to be descendants of the Biblical Jews

I don't really care about conspiracy theorists. Mainly because they ignore 2000 years of accepted archeology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Tribe#Genetic_r...

This led me to look up similar information. Another article [1] looks into this a little more deeply.

I feel there is a resurgence of despising European dominance over the last 200 years and Israel is just another point here. Thus, we have material hypothesizing the illegitimacy of European Jews when the Jews of other ethnicities may have better acceptance in the region. (But all of this is just a vague hypothesis.)

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/tracing-roots-jewish...

> Bad comment.

>> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> The former Yandex CEO literally moved to Israel to escape Western sanctions.

That somehow doesn't support the point your are trying to make at all...

Not for being Russians, but for active participation in censorship by tweaking their news aggregation to show only hand picked government approved sources

Exactly what google has been doing the past year or two.

Is there a source for this? I'm curious.

Just read about Yandex.News which display censored news sources on Yandex frontpage that millions of people visit. There is really no hidden censorship here - they just follow Russian law that literally whitelist exclusively press controlled by the state.

They show Kremlin propoganda on their front page which makes Yandex part of Kremlin propoganda machine. They could have shut down news agregator, but they choose not to.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4975254

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2022/04/18/yandeks-ubral-izpoisko...

https://zona.media/news/2021/12/25/oiya

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/07/09/2021/613709739a79476fd52e1...

They are complying with russian censorship laws and it's gotten so bad that they are planning to sell the news service altogether to VK which is far worse than Yandex when it to how eager they are to enforce these laws and to work with cops.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5258943

>> when some of the Yandex founders and management have lived in Israeli settlements.

So now you have one more reason to say Yandex is bad for the world.

What have Israel connections got to do with shadiness? What are you insinuating?

Settling land that was recently taken from Palestinian families by force, often (literally) knocking the existing houses over with a bulldozer. In my opinion, that's a moral red flag to participate in such an atrocity.

What has Yandex got to do with any of that? Is everyone who lives in a country that commits atrocities "shady as fuck"?

<edit>: reading closely I see that the initial allegation did use the word "settlement", and indeed that would constitute ethically questionable behavior. However, a sibling comment refutes this.

I think you’re missing that the commenter was talking about Israeli settlers rather than Israelis in general? The settlers are controversial because they live in areas Israel occupied during the 6 day war in 1967. Much of the world considers their presence illegal, though Israel disputes that. Many, if not most, would consider living in these settlements a deliberate political provocation.

*edit: you hadn’t posted your edit yet. I have no idea if the allegation is truthful.

*edit again: Why do downvoters think I’m wrong?

I'm not sure if the parent comment really meant specifically settlers, since some people consider all of Israel to be "settling on land stolen by Palestinians".

That said, you might be right about parent's intention, in which case I agree with your post. Israeli settlers are definitely considered to be doing it partially as a political move, though some are doing it for economic reasons.

Have you seen what America has done in the Middle East the last 20 years? If you want to make a moral point then you should start there instead of trying to grind whatever axe you have against Israel.

Why does it have to be mutually exclusive? The thread is about Israel, so they're pointing out Israel's crimes. You can be critical of multiple governments simultaneously.

I've no horse in this race, so please don't take this the wrong way,

Escaping western sanctions by moving to Israel + Being a Russian shill are usually mutually inclusive, not exclusive things.

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