Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels
sacbee.com
sacbee.com
There is even a start-up opportunity there or a non-for-profit start-up opportunity.
So I don't think the adjective totally completely applies.
I'd love to further express my opinion on the subject, this just isn't the place for it. No matter how hard you spin it.
May be complex to you, but to (most of) the rest of us it is actually quite simple to understand.
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
Put another way, the number of people interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its importance in world events, far exceeds the number of people, and import, of "hacker news", so were the site to open its gates completely, articles like this would completely overwhelm what we came here for.
1) Get your permits. Dot your Is, cross your Ts if you can. If you can't and you think you are in the right, you should probably do it anyway. 2) If someone infinitely more powerful than you wants you to fail, things will not be easy for you. 3) Politics, business and technology mix whether you want them to or not. 4) If you are a powerful entity bullying your competition, there will be bad PR. There may be consequences in the future. You've been warned and it may be in your long-term interests to behave yourself.
Interestingly enough as I read the above I see a strong pro-Palestinian bent. But the 3 Jews sitting next to me right now would see me as a more middle-of-the-road-why-can't-we-all-get-along sort.
The Israeli government's actions in this and many other acts are completely immoral. Your 1) point may have some logical validity in general, but for the good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the whole world needs to get behind slamming down on the actions of the Israeli government, which also I believe also will hurt their own people in the long run.
This is a controversial issue, which doesn't belong on HN, partly because people's strong opinions on Israel are often disproportionate to their overall interest in human rights in the middle east. People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3599396
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575029
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452153
I don't see how that could make it off-topic. Everyone one HN -- indeed, everyone -- knows more about some things than others, and has more interest in some things than others, so by your standards everythin g ought ot be off-topic for HN.
> People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year.
That may be true of some sections of the general public. I suspect it is less true of HNers.
The nature of the opinions I voiced here are pretty much Chomskian in nature. If you're picking a fight with that spectrum of opinion with respect to Israel and Palestine as being to pro-Israeli, then I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you actually just misinterpreted what I said. Easy enough to do as it is an emotionally volatile subject.
I have some pretty strong emotional reactions to the existence of an apartheid state. But for real peace to happen everyone will have to set aside personal and historical feelings (or rabid crazy born again send me your money so that Armageddon may come craziness) and come up with a compromise where no one is happy, everybody is still breathing, and with a full belly from supper to boot. A moving apartheid wall of course has to go, the 1967 borders form a (sans US) international consensus, and efforts to create a mutually beneficial economic interdependency have to occur. I really believe that Israel has been moving in the wrong direction. I also believe that Israel's utility to American interests will also slowly begin to wane over time and Israel should have a long term dove-not-hawk plan to survive past their usefulness.
You might not agree with how I presented it. But I think it's important to talk about Palestine and Israel whenever possible and the way the conversation was going wasn't productive for what this forum is from a technological, business or political view. I tried to shift it to a direction where it could be honest & productive and not get down-voted out of existence from rabidness.
I'm upvoting your comment because it does look like you have both parties best interests in mind as well.
And I'm going to try to put this into a positive note:
This is also might be completely naive on my part. But the thought of one city, Jerusalem, being the capital of two different countries sounds like it should be the basis for peace and not the shitstorm that people make it out to be.
Both sides have to meet and both say, "This is fucked up. Let's fix it. Real prosperity and security is mutual prosperity and security."
I frankly would love to be able to fly to Israel, do a contract, fly to Iran, do a contract, fly to Palestine, do a contract, fly to Sweden, so on and so forth. Free mobility of labour AND free mobility of capital would require new labels. It wouldn't be your standard messed up crony big-C Capitalism of today and it wouldn't be socialism either.
I agree with everything you wrote but this. Twenty years ago, the great peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin (Z"L) wouldn't have been willing to think, let alone say, that the Palestinians actually deserved a real-life independent state, rather than some little dependency/colony of Israel. Now even people on the right have to pay lip service to the idea of an independent Palestinian state.
There have been a lot of quite dangerous panic reactions to this in certain segments of the right wing, but I think long-term Israeli politics is inching ever so slowly towards more reasonable positions.
(And... off-topic it goes again. Ugh.)
From the guidelines[0]: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
But submitting such an article will only trigger a flame-war. The content of the article is of the kind that triggers 'oh, ass-hole Israeli', and 'oh, Palestinians uses this to kill innocents'.
These are details. Not the actual problem. I'd be happy to see a good discussion about this conflict (although I'm not sure I'd contribute as I have little knowledge about it) certainly, if the community up-voted a related article.
So now ask yourselves, why is it different all of the sudden if we put "Palestine" and "Israel" back in the article.
Could it be that some here have an irrational and knee-jerk responses to that particular region of the world? If so, maybe that is an interesting discussion. How come a group that fancies itself more rational and straight thinking than others, has such strong biases one way or the other? Why is there so much discussion about this topic.
Are people driving an article down and flagging it as "inappropriate politically" not because they are trying to keep HN pure but because their own disguised biases are telling them to act that way.
But I'm here questioning the value of the discussion. If the Kenyan gov. removed the solar plants then there should be some reason, and that's worth discussing. I don't think that any (sane) gov. would remove solar plants providing free energy?
The value/(probability to start a war) of the article is close to 0. That's why I flagged the article. It's still my opinion, and I gave my argument. Certainly, I'd respect the HN community choice of what to discuss and how to discuss it.
Because it's a traditional flame-bait subject and will never produce useful discussion. Sure, some of the things you mention would be interesting, but this article does not discuss those, and even if it did discuss those the comments would still have very dull repetitive flame-baiting; and they would be the same comments seen for many many years.
> but because their own disguised biases are telling them to act that way.
No, it's just a really un-interesting topic for HN. As other people have mentioned there are much better places for this article. 4chan, or reddit, for example.
Coincident: A leading human rights figure got a lot of flak for writing a newspaper article saying that our (kenya's) next president will not be from the same ethnicity as the current. Not a wrong fact just a speculative opinion but because people are touchy when it comes to talking(in public only) about ethnicity since the last bloody elections, people were calling that an incitement and (this is now a media buzzword) 'hate speech'. Question is: can we hn-ly discuss a related topic without getting into the touchy and flamey parts? Far shot but if someone noticed something hn-worthy(like a data pattern or a behaviour pattern) in something as off-HN as say lolcats, will it be impossible to talk about it?
And now I have just been banned for this comment despite 4 upvotes...
And I can see that user "babbling" has been banned for this comment :
"Except that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is interesting to a lot of people and Hacker News tends to have more civilized discussions than some other places"
This doesn't feel right.
Do you think we should just ignore the human rights abuses that Israel is committing against the Arabs?
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
I don't think they'd cover this on TV news.
Since politicians started messing with technology? Btw, the article presents a case thereof, although maybe not to a degree justifying it being on HN. Anyway the implication "if it's politics, it doesn't belong on HN" is obviously false.
That sounds like the problem right there.
basically people installed solar panels, which require proper authorization, which they didn't have, so authorities are going to dismantle it. how this is news? just because it is in israel? so what? couldn't care less, this would happen in any part of the world, whatever. then article goes on talking about politics.
why this was even posted on hacker news?
I find it funny to read this comment while the number 1 post on HN is about a magician and his tricks...hehe. I really enjoyed both articles though.
Just vote for what you like and don't click on things you don't care about.
At this point, this discussion is more interesting to me at the meta-level more than its original topic.
Not only are they refusing to provide them with power (they're obviously paying for it, not "taking" it from Israel), but they're also preventing them from generating their own electricity as well. Depending on where you are in Gaza, you have anywhere from four to eighteen hours of power a day under normal circumstances. When the tensions rise, you'll be lucky to have two hours of power a day.
(1) Why do you think Israel should be obliged to supply electricity to a hostile territory, ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1], backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population centers?
(2) How exactly is Israel preventing the generation of electricity in Gaza?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
EDIT: grammar correction
Why do you think a newly found state (~65 years) has any right to claim the territory it occupies (except of the might makes right variety)?
ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1]
As opposed to a government that occupied the land from the previous inhabitants and has been steadily displacing them for decades?
backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population centers?
Backed up with routine genocide tactics...
Israel does not claim Gaza. It withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and gave full control over to the Palestinian Authority. Israeli NGOs even invested tens of millions of dollars in boosting the Palestinian economy after the withdrawal.
Either way, it's probably going to be very hard to have a reasoned discussion, so I'll just stop here.
Israel has a harsh dilemma. They want to keep their state (which is reasonable at this point), but on the other hand they don't want to share the power with Palestinians (which is not). They are also afraid that the Palestinian birth rate would have them outnumbered, and then what?. They use lots of tactics to ensure that the Palestinian population is confined --from import/export restrictions, to destroying their land for cultivation, to steadily expanding into other areas, etc. It's not genocide on the Hitler scale, but it's sure as hell, Ethnocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide
(That they "invested" into the area is laughable. What they did was they build companies to exploit cheap labour under very strict conditions. It's not like they enpowered any palestinians to become entrepreneurs. So it's investing in the same way Nike invested in building factories in Africa, etc.)
From the point somebody starts to criticize Israel.
Criticizing Israel, at least in the West, has become the modern day equivalent of religious blasphemy. All the usual tactics for protecting religion come into play: whining, playing offended, asserting persecution, while at the same time trying to totally and utterly destroy the critic by false accusations.
That's not true. Israel continues to control what can be imported to of exported from Gaza.
Please explain to me, what makes Israel worse than all the other area changes after the world wars?
Let's look at Karelia. Do you think the Finns should start bombarding St Petersburg with rocket artillery? (And would you expect such a mild response from Russia as Israeli has shown...?)
The main difference I can see is that Israel makes for a good external enemy for a bunch of really disgusting dictators.
>>Backed up with routine genocide tactics...
Last time I checked the population growth in Gaza was one of the fastest on the planet. So you use the worst accusations possible to make as "arguments". Seems like hate propaganda to me.
And so on. Get this subject of HN.
Worse? Ok, I'll bite:
It may not make it "worse" (sic) but it still doesn't make it right.
Just because your form of abuse is not worse than others' does not make you right.
>>It may not make it "worse" (sic) but it still doesn't make it right.
The point was not right or wrong, I argued that there are totally different standards -- especially if you compare with the neighbouring countries which destroy many Palestinian refugees' lives to keep the question alive.
You didn't answer that.
See my other comment for more about the different standards: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635315
But if you really want to discuss the "worse" part, why should the Israeli question be treated differently than all other land areas?
Edit: You don't want to "bite" on one of the fastest population increases on the planet called "genocide tactics"? If that is not hate propaganda, what is?!
This is a wrong framing of the question. I don't think anyone wants to treat it differently than all other land areas in similar circumstances. ALL of those are wrong. Now, mention any other specific "land area" similar, and we can talk.
But if you insist, I can think of some reasons this is to be treated differently: because Israel, despite being as abusive as other countries, is a favorite child of the West powers, and receives much more military, diplomatic and media support.
Just an example: we hear for the persecution of gays, or twitter users, or women's right in Arab countries repeteadly. How many times do you hear about things such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehadrin_bus_lines http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...
or this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078771/Israel-brace... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/naama-margolese_n_1...
I did. See Karelia above. Or choose a few others of the dozen (more?) of land area changes after the WWs.
So a country should be hated and double standards are ok, if some west countries accept it more than brutal dictatorships!? Sigh...
And sure, the othodox jews have extreme subgroups that are as crazy as e.g. the Saudi government. But what the Hell does that prove? You know full well that you can find similar in any democracy.
You must be trolling.
Karelia? You think this bears any resemblance to the Palestinian situation?!!! I'm not at all for countries annexing other countries territory and moving their borders. But the situation here is worse than most other cases -- and sure as hell not at all similar to Karelia.
Here's a better example: consider Mexico demanding California back, establishing a state there, treating Californian's as second class citizens, and confining them in small areas north of Sacramento.
(Well, the difference would be that Mexico had California a couple of centuries ago, not a couple of millennia. And immigrants from there already consist of 30% of the population of the state. So, in that case, they'd have a slight right to want it back).
>And sure, the othodox jews have extreme subgroups that are as crazy as e.g. the Saudi government. But what the Hell does that prove? You know full well that you can find similar in any democracy.
Segregated women/men bus lines? No, you cannot find this kind of crazy sh*t in any normal democracy, especially in Western Europe. You might find religious nuts being able to impose such rules inside their churches, monasteries or homes or clubs. Which is kinda OK. But on a bus line??? In public roads?
>>Karelia? You think this bears any resemblance to the Palestinian situation
You ignored my point again, but I think you know that.
Both cases were area losses where part of the population left. If anything Karelia was much more unfair.
That it looks very different now, compared to all the other land losses from the same time period, depends probably mostly on the Palestinian suffering made permant -- by the Arab states.
>>Segregated women/men bus lines? No, you cannot find this kind of crazy sh*t in any normal democracy
You mean it is different in your home and in your bus?
Amish do more extreme things, imho.
Also, how is it in France in those immigrant areas where the police are very careful to thread?
"basically people installed solar panels, which require proper authorization, which they didn't have"
It's also true that Israel has a history of limiting Palestinian development, of course. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not.
All in all I disagree that it's not relevant here. Maybe inflammatory, though.
Simple answer, they didn't have that right. And the ONLY reason they were able to actually exercise it, was because the Arabs (whom they had double-crossed) were instrumental in defeating the Ottomans.
The Balfour Declaration was one of the most blatent acts of perfidy and outright dishonest double-crossing in modern history. At the SAME TIME that the British promised that they would uphold the rights of Arabs to self-determination - in return for the Arabs fighting (and defeating) the Ottomans - they also effectively bartered away land that WASN'T THEIRS to a 3rd party - the Zionists.
This was all in response to someone trying to pass off the above act of basic dishonesty as legitimate authorisation for Israel, and every bit of nonsense that has followed.
The only authorisation that "Occupied Palestine" (aka Israel) ever had, from a moral perspective, was the old story of white European has guns, white European wants your land, white European will come and take it.
Whatever the reason for why the Europeans wanted it (resources, more space, or "our holy book says it belongs to US") really doesn't matter. The whole thing is a sham, which is why 60 years after the fact and after countless beatings, you still haven't "convinced" the natives that you're right.
And while we're all lecturing each other about the finer points of history, might I point out that this isn't the first time that Europeans came and took that strip of territory from the locals. And eventually, the locals took it back, lock stock and barrel ....
You try to use the narrative of colonialism, imperialism and racism, to obscure the fact that the islamic empire used weaponry and war to take control of almost every part of the world that is islamic (certainly all areas of africa, the middle east, europe and the indian subcontinent). And then it imposed its own forms of racism and colonialism on the subjugated people. Let's not even talk about the jews. Here's two books documenting the history of islamic slave-trading in Africa: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Legacy-Arab-Islam-Africa-Inter-relig... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Islams-Black-Slaves-History-Diaspora...
It seems it was every bit as bad as the racism and colonialism of the atlantic slave-trade. Even the UN expert panel on slavery in 1951 said that 1:20 people in Arabia was a slave. That was 1951. Three years after the establishment of the state of Israel.
Let's have some consistency here. At least the jews did not go into Palestine with weaponry and enslave the Arabs living there.
For the benefit of others who might have had the misfortune of reading the above (you're too far gone to matter):
The Middle East has had civilisation for millenia (spelling?) before Europe had. Consequently, there have been a multitude of different ethnic groups/tribes/peoples who have held sway over one part or another. Hundreds upon hundreds of states & kingdoms, which were themselves swallowed up by one empire after another.
Today, you look upon the Middle East and see just one thing, Arabic speaking Muslims - and you blithely assume that they all came from Arabia.
Completely ignorant and false.
The final "civilisation" or movement (not sure what the right term would be here) which held dominated the Middle East was Islam. And it stayed, unlike all the others.
Most Middle Easterner's today are Muslim, and speak Arabic. But they are still descended from Phoenicians, Libyans, Egyptians, countless migrant tribes (many of whom are collectively labeled under "Bedouin"), Hebrews (yes - the Romans didn't ethnically cleanse the entire population!), Nestorian Christians, etc, etc.
The people never disappeared. They just now speak one tongue, and practice (mostly) one faith. Thats why we know mostly refer to them as "the Arabs".
Trying to pretend that they don't exist, or somehow became extinct, is ridiculous.
Where did the "Palestinian Arabs" come from? PALESTINE. Thats where.
What you'r saying is akin to fast-forwarding past centuries of continued European integration, and then saying that the people living in what used to be called France no longer have any right to that land, because they are part of a wider European state and they all speak Esperanto.
Anyone who would like to read a somewhat more balanced account of the origins of the "Arabs" would be well advised to read "History of the Arabs" by Philip Hitti.
And as for this gem:
"At least the Jews did not go into Palestine with weaponry and enslave ..."
(shaking my head) Is it possible for anyone who has not lived under a rock for half a century to write that claptrap?
Already in 1929 in Hebron "Palestinian" Arabs were massacring jews in Hebron. Jews who had live in Hebron for some thousands of years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre The way the media presents this story, the jews arrived in Palestine after WW2. There's never any mention of the Muslim Brotherhood joining forces with the principle muslim leader of the area and with the Nazis in the 1930s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini#In_Nazi-oc...
The media bear a terrible responsibility for their failure to provide any kind of historical context to the problems in Israel/Palestine.
Anyway, bringing up the 1929 massacre in this context seems like a non sequitur. You might as well justify the second Arab-Israeli war in terms of the massacre innocent Palestinians by Israeli militants at Deir Yassin[2], a considerably more cold-blooded, treacherous, strategically terrifying, blatant war crime that played a critical role in driving Palestinians off their own lands. (But I'm not making this justification.)
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=M7tr9_rCwD0C&lpg=PP1...
[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=M7tr9_rCwD0C&lpg=PP1...
There has been violence from both sides of the conflict. On the Zionist side, there's another incident I've never heard mentioned in the media: the 1946 David Hotel bombing in which a Zionist terorist organization bombed a hotel in a strike at the British, killing 91 in one of the first historic examples of terrorism targeting civilians. This bombing was commemorated in 2006 by Benjamin Netanyahu and former members of the terrorist organization and a plaque was put up that effectively blamed the British, rather than the terrorist operation, for the deaths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing#60th_a...
Not only was the KD hotel a military headquarters, it was supposed to be empty at the time of the bombing.
You're either ignorant or lying for some reason.
Partially true... part of the hotel was used by the British for their offices:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel#History
Not quite. According to Wikipedia "Warnings were sent by telephone, including one to the hotel's own switchboard, which the hotel staff decided to ignore, but none directly to the British authorities." There's a difference between phoning in a bomb threat in an occupied building and bombing an unoccupied building.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
>You're either ignorant or lying for some reason.
I suppose it's impossible to discuss anything related to Zionism without one party denouncing the other's character. ;)
Do not put words in my mouth.
Perhaps the problem is that the Palestinians are slacking? They should blow up more things, not less...
Edit: Your subsequent edits are quite sick and disturbing. You should consider reverting your text to the original comment.
And I edited about 30 seconds to a minute after my initial post, to make my points clearer. I don't think that's unreasonable, much less "sick or disturbing".
This is definitely on point and relevant to HN visitors. This, for at least two reasons:
1. You never innovate in a vacuum: Whether it's genetically modified crops, cancer treatment, AI, encryption or energy solutions, all innovation is subsumed under the greater agenda of existing power and political structures. If you innovate for people to use your innovation, you are forced to deal with the attendant moral implications. This story clearly demonstrates this scenario. Whether it's Israel as the morally shadowy character is not relevant.
2. Innovation in the the energy space will throw you into the political field so violently you will regret not sticking to developing your new "To-Do List" software like every other coward out there :) :
I feel strongly about the second point: energy related innovations and their implementations to better the lives of people should be protected much like water & food resources are (or ought to be).
Up-vote for sure.
http://newsterrorist.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/picture-compar...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism
The state of Israel arose from two factors. 1. The zionist movement which provided a narrative framework (historical, geographical, political, religious). 2. 70 years later, the attempt by the Nazis (and muslims like the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) to wipe out jews. The Nazis wasnted the jews out of europe; fanatical muslims like the Mufti wanted them out of the middle east. (Some fanatical Nazis and some fanatical muslims wanted the jews wiped out. Some fanatical muslims still want the jews wiped out in toto). If you haven't read the Life of Mohammed (the first and most orthodox interpretation of Mohammed's life) you can read a condensed version here. http://www.scribd.com/doc/27156626/The-Earliest-Biography-of... You will see that already in the 7th century, Mohammed was exterminating jews.
The markings that the Nazis used for jews, originated in muslim countries in the middle ages, where jews (and christians) were made to wear special symbols to make them aware of their sub-human status in the eyes of muslims (dhimmitude). Later, christians in Spain (having pushed out the invading armies of islam after several hundred years of violent domination) also made jews wear stars, and that was adopted again by the Nazis. But the idea originated with the muslim concept of dhimmitude.
After what the Nazis did to jews in Europe, no wonder many jews embraced the idea of Israel as a safe(r) place for them to live (although millions of jews who went to Israel were actually kicked out of muslim north africa and Iraq, and all their wealth confiscated). If jews were going to face potential extermination in the future, then it made sense to defend themselves in their historical homeland (go on the Tunnel Tour in Jerusalem, and see the historical evidence for their great civilisation before the time of Herod).
Since you are Dutch, what do you make of the best film ever made by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven? I'm talking about Black Book, the film most Dutch people will not watch, because it shows the extent of the collaboration between Dutch people and the Nazis in the persecution of Dutch jews. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389557/
And since the media goes on and on about "the Palestinian refugees", I suggest you read this, and see how the UN manages to manufacture a refugee crisis unlike no other in history: http://www.danielpipes.org/10695/unrwa-palestine-refugees
It seems to me that jews have suffered so much prejudice and hostility over the centuries, they have adopted far thicker skins than the rest of us. And I think that many of us non-jews are too ready to channel the history of jew-hatred from our the past of our cultures. And sadly, I think I was one of those people.
For more insight into media reporting about conflicts in the middle east i recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hello-Everybody-Journalists-Search-M...
I do however see a problem with your eagerness to find an excuse to discredit the posts contents... If you've never heard of any of it and you consider yourself well educated on the subject, you've been clearly fed some of the abundant propaganda...
However: you're not commenting on the main point i'm making:
In the current times, zionists in isreal are behaving exactly like the nazi's where in WWII.
1) They are building walls
2) They deprive palestines from food and electricity
3) They are occupying land that belongs to Palestine under insternational law (they are building big flats over the well known internal red border) http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bilin,+israel&hl=en&ll...
4) Zionist believe (because they follow judaism) they are the chosen ones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_a_chosen_people
Could you please tell me what of this is incorrect. It is totally right. And when watching the movie you could see the isreal army burning olives tree in order to scare the people, they shoot tear gas at childer and they are building very big walls.
You are just telling me what happened to the jews. I know that! I also know that the dutch where not the best and helped the germans a lot. But that is HISTORY. I wasnt alive then. I couldnt help people. Currently the same thing is happening.
But ironically enough it is the zionists in isreal that are doign the same. And goverment is helping them.
The Israeli government has no common sense. They behave like fanatics and should be treated as such.
In my understanding it is in fact both acceptable under the guidelines and especially relevant to hackers and I will explain my reasoning on each point in order.
The post is acceptable under the guidelines because it is factual reporting about Palestine and Israel, which is important information that I do not believe would normally get reported in the US media. I have seen airplay of criticism (demonization even), mostly of the Palestinians but occasionally of the Israeli settlers, but not the facts.
I believe that the reason the facts about Palestine are suppressed is because of organized "Hasbara" (public relations) efforts by Israel's supporters in the USA. (Example link: http://www.hasbara.com/)
(I believe the factual record is one sidedly unflattering to Israel, so I believe that to be the Israeli motive.)
Otherwise I can't explain why there hasn't been more uproar about Israel's killing of US servicemen (Link http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/ch...)
Israel's attempted sale of US military secrets to China (Links: http://www.bigeye.com/041600.htm http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/motherofallscandal...)
or use of Israeli counterterrorism units against the "Occupy" movement (Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153307/from_occupation_to_%E2%...)
This is important information because people who knew the facts might choose to act differently, for example in terms of career choice or investment choice.
For example, given the facts that I know about how Israel treats innocent Palestinian civilians, I have an ethical problem with Israel and do not intend to work for Israel, to buy Israeli products, to do business with Israel, to buy stock in companies that make investments in Israel, or otherwise enrich Israel in any way that I can avoid, directly or indirectly. I am not a customer of Starbucks or of Marks and Spencer for this reason.
This issue is particularly pertinent to hackers because startup funding, research and development and technology transfer depend greatly on the military industrial complex - which is particularly developed in Israel and very strongly connected to the US military industrial complex. For example, if one does graduate research in networking or communications systems at Cornell, one's algorithms and work just might end up being used inside Israeli weapons used against civilians. Links: http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/israeli-university-bids-w-corn... http://www.redress.cc/americas/ldavidson20120102
It would be a shame if Hacker News guidelines become warped and misapplied as censorship tools for Hasbara and I am alarmed to see standard Hasbara talking points - such as 'The territories are "Disputed" not "Occupied"' - used to justify such censorship even on this page.
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.h...
http://www.boycott-israel.co.uk/business-links/133-marks-and... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks_%26_Spencer#cite_note-53
Unfortunately I can't refer you to a comprehensive information source on companies supporting Israel, but you might find more information by googling for "jews for boycotting israeli goods" or "boycott divestment sanctions"
I did find references to several other companies at http://www.inminds.com/boycott-israel-2012.php
(I follow the Middle East conflict a bit, because it is informative to compare my Swedish media with BBC/NY Times. News items such as Pallywood or torture between Palestinian groups are literally censored.)
The basic reason I started to care a bit is because I find it depressing when people hate and demonize a whole democracy with very heterogeneous political life.
Especially if said people never criticise neither rocket artillery against cities nor the glorifying of bombing/shooting children at close range. (No, it is not the Israeli side that do that.)
I have also never seen any criticism from these people of the Arab world's way of destroying the Palestinian refugees' lives, by refusing to integrate them. This is arguably worse than anything Israel has done, even in your description of Israel.
And to start talking about organised Jewish propaganda controlling a country's media is straight up disgusting. It smacks of the muslim world's copying of traditional anti semitic hate propaganda.
Then we have the muslim world's support of the mass murders in south Sudan, which in number of dead etc must be a thousand times worse than even your description of Israel. Talk about astronomical double standards for different groups...
I could continue for a while, but this won't change your opinions. You "know" that it is OK to ignore racist hate propaganda etc etc, since it is done against the evil ones.
I answered what uce0054 wrote about in the comment tree above, mainly demonizing and double standards.
Edit: If you don't really think it is relevant that the main critics of Israel mistreat the Palestinians much more than Israel, it is funny... but not surprising. I've never seen that from an Israel-critic.
You may find it "depressing when people hate", well I find it depressing when people can't answer my points and so have to resort to declaring the subject to be off limits, then smearing me, and finally changing the subject to Sudan. You owe me an apology.
Oh, and by the way, the Israelis did shoot children, bomb and rocket cities in Gaza in 2009, so how on earth do you say "(No, it is not the Israeli side that do that.)"?
>>You insinuated that my discussion of Hasbara means that I am some kind of "disgusting" Nazi referencing "traditional anti semitic hate propaganda", when I was linking to the Israeli Citizens Information Council's own website.
You wrote that you thought the Jews controlled the information in the US media. That is less than one step from the Zion protocols, quoted in the Hamas charter etc.
That is traditional antisemitic conspiracy arguments.
>>the Israelis did shoot children, bomb and rocket cities in Gaza in 2009
If an army fight people that hide among civilians, there will be civilian victims. Even if the army follows the war laws. That is very different from targeting and glorifying murdering children, which I wrote about.
(And civilians are generally not a direct target for the Israeli army -- Yes, you know the Israelis are evil and want to murder children, but please realise it is bad PR and against their direct interests.)
This is not quite what I wrote, but whatever. Even if it were, it's not just the Okhrana, the Nazis and Hamas who say stuff like this either, it is also Zionist lobbyist Haim Saban (Link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/10/100510fa_fact_...) The fact that he said the same thing doesn't make me a pro-Israel billionaire either, anymore than the Protocols make me the Tzarist secret police. The point is that you can dismiss something if it is untrue, not by calling names. You still owe me an apology.
> Even if the army follows the war laws. That is very different from targeting and glorifying murdering children, which I wrote about.
Israeli Tshirts depict pregnant Palestinians in sniper crosshairs, captioned "one shot two kills". Link: http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/15245946 That's two apologies you owe me.
> You have nothing to say about that the Arab countries destroy Palestinians' lives more than Israel ever did?
How? The Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians caused the refugee problem in the first place Israeli Link: http://zochrot.org/en
> Or my other points re double standards?
Again, see http://mondoweiss.net
But let's say you are right for the sake of argument that "Arab countries hurt Palestinians more than Israel ever did"
How is that justification for suppressing the factual reportage "Israeli authorities are threatening to demolish the installations in six of the 16 remote West Bank communities being illuminated by alternative energy, arguing the panels and turbines were installed without permits." ?
It is not. You are using untruths and smears to try to suppress the facts.
You guys also wear white capes?
>>The Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians caused the refugee problem in the first place
You handpick facts and twist them. Some points:
1. There were lots of refugee problems in both world wars, many worse than Palestine. This is the only case were the suffering was made permanent for generations, just to be able to keep up the hate. It is just disgusting that you blame others for what the Arab states did differently than the rest of the world.
2. There were more people thrown out from the muslim world just for being jews than Palestinians that fled in the middle of a civil war. Then there were jews from the West Bank that fled 1948-1949. Why do you guys never mention them?
3. Argh, enough.
You don't argue, you write one eyed hateful propaganda. I stopped reading.
This is the result of letting this subject onto HN. The language wars trolls are bad as it is.
If you think the facts that I or the original poster (or anyone else) have presented about the Israeli treatment of innocent Palestinian civilians, or about Israeli public relations, are selective, then let's see all the facts.
That doesn't mean "let's change the subject to Sudan". It doesn't mean "let's call him an antisemite". It also doesn't mean "let's make stuff up".
For example, you claimed that Israel doesn't glorify infanticide and I provided the link showing that snipers from the IDF Givati Brigade glorify the shooting dead of fetuses enough to wear Tshirts about it. Or you said that I provided "very little support" for my contentions about Israeli public relations, when in fact I provided the term in Hebrew hasbara that any reader can google and wikipedia for and decide for themselves.
It looks pretty silly when you make up stuff that a reader can falsify by looking on the same web page.
Worst of all, you keep trying to allege that I said that Jews - control the media, when what I talked about was Israel supporters - organize public relations.
This is called ad-hominem. You are trying to label me as Hitler because you are on the wrong side of the facts about Israel's treatment of innocent Palestinian civilians, and so you can't stand seeing these facts on Hacker News and wish to censor them.
It is intellectually dishonest and I read it as a violation of the Hacker News Guideline: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
I will therefore not reply to you further.
But you have nothing to say about the facts I argued that you handpicked, re expulsions for racist reasons (wrong religion) as compared to in the middle of a burning civil war, which both sides did?
So you have totally different standards for different sides.
I wrote that "Israel doesn't glorify infanticide"
>>snipers from the IDF Givati Brigade
I don't believe you are honest here, either.
You do realize that there is a difference between an official policy (mural paintings and celebrations when children are murdered with a knife in their sleep, etc) -- and the attitudes of individuals.
(You will find individuals with most any opinion in any country and in democracies they can express most of those opinions, too.)
I already made this point re T-shirts, you had nothing to say then either.
And so on. Keep this subject and the fanatics off HN.
>>Worst of all, you keep trying to allege that I said that Jews - control the media, when what I talked about was Israel supporters - organize public relations.
You ignored the 1st sentence in what you comment:
"There are lobby groups in the media for every interest group. You argue that the jews control the media with very little support and ignore that it is a carbon copy of racist hate propaganda."
But you know that. You can only argue against straw men.
As my last words:
Repeatedly condemning a heterogeneous democracy based on T-shirts of a small subgroup.... That must be the most pathetic and dishonest garbage I've seen in my life.
Then you claim I am dishonest... I got vertigo. If you're a troll, congratulations on blood pressure raised by sheer dishonesty.
I realise that conspiracy theories, intolerance and similar breed like flies in dictatorships. Afaik, it was the same in e.g. Eastern Germany.
But even if you grew up in a non-democracy, you should be smarter than condemning a whole country for what some individuals do. Especially in this case, with all the very different political movements inside Israel.
I realise you were taught that kind of "reasoning" in school and by media, but start thinking for yourself. For your own sake.
For instance, consider the anti semitic-inspired conspiracy theories about media control -- if you see your other garbage (T-shirts, etc) you ought to realise that you've been fed with some outrageous lies. Sooo... there might be things in those US media which you don't know, right?
All the above assumes you are just brainwashed by your social environment and not consciously doing propaganda.
(That you are unable to acknowledge a point and either ignores it or start with judging countries for a T-shirt(!) do speak for you being a hate mongering propagandist. But I am not certain.)
Yes, exactly. This subject will always, without fail, produce vitriolic hate-filled comments, without possibility of changing opinions.
Ann will say "Look at how $GROUP does this"; Bob will accuse Ann of blatant anti-semitic racism while Charles will accuse Ann of ignoring the blatant human-rights abuses against some other group.
This is entirely predictable, and is why subjects like this do not belong on HN.
berntb can mention Hamas bombing civilians and Jewish expulsions, and I can mention the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and Israeli actions against the Occupy movement. I don't need to negate his points or convince him of anything.
Once all the facts are on the table we can then trust the Hacker News readership to be intelligent enough to decide for themselves.
County X has two populations, the zarbs and the tiwks. The zarbs kill all the tiwks. The zarbs have been ethnically cleansed.
You may think this is a trivial point. But you're talking to an international audience, and you're talking about a subject where language is analysed in minute detail for perceived insult or support or whatnot.
Genocide = Killing
Ethnic cleansing = Expulsion
That would be a normal discussion. This isn't.
When I noted the official acceptance and idolising of terror, even murdering sleeping children with a knife, you "countered" by judging a very heterogeneous country by a T-shirt...
Just to not let the Israeli side be less than evil -- or better than "your" side in anything.
I commented on the insanity of the "argument" three times -- you just wrote that your T-shirt claim proved something!
1) Can you give an example of worse argumentation, ever?
2) Do you really think anyone wants to read that kind of garbage?
Edit: So it is clear. My point is that the facts won't emerge when the people debating lie and use obfuscation (i.e. lots of text) when they are plain wrong.
You called my posts "lies", "hate", "garbage" and "antisemitism" and made claims backed with no references.
I provided references to Israeli and Jewish sources that any reader can check. Here are some more:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/auschwitz-surviv...
That showed you to be a totally non-serious debater, ucee054.
You can't answer that (for the fourth time), so you link to an 86 year old individual and some activist organisations?!
Sad. You can't even admit failure, afterwards. You know the other side is evil.
What now? You'll lie? Here is a link to my first comment. You could maybe delete the parent?
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3637264
Also, your claim that it is possible to debate this subjects with fanatics is proven wrong. QED.
Edit: Since you don't seem to know it, you can find groups having most any opinion in a democracy. So activist web sites is not exactly the best support.
I pointed out that the Israeli side do do that too. You then claimed it was only "some" Israelis. I pointed out that in fact it was the people pulling the trigger. And I provided references.
And I never claimed that every Israeli glorified that; in fact I have referenced Israelis who do not. So in fact I have nothing to answer you for.
However, you have to answer for smearing the entire Palestinian side without providing a single reference. Apart from unsubstantiated assertions, the information content of your posts has been nil. I will charitably presume that you meant to condemn Hamas.
In that case, let the facts against Hamas stand. And let the facts stand about the Israeli destruction of Palestinian infrastructure - which was the original topic. Readers are smart enough to make up their own minds.
I don't need to "debate" you point by point, especially since you go off topic and into ad-hominems. And Hacker News doesn't need your permission to cover topics you are uncomfortable about.
It is policy/tactics from the Palestinian side to use terror. Not only Hamas. And glorifying murder of children at close range, etc.
You compared that with some T-shirts of individuals...
But you know exactly what I meant.
I stopped reading after you were dishonest in the first paragraph.
>>But you know exactly what I meant.
In fact, I wrote the same thing one day earlier to ucee054. See second half of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3638221
Because I can think of plenty:
It is the policy of Palestinian civil society, including over 170 NGOs, to resist by non-violent means, specifically Boycott Divestment and Sanctions
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctio...
You assumed I wouldn't check back a few days later, so you could safely add another dishonest strawman attack?
Already in the brother comment to yours, I gave a link to one of my comments which answer this latest strawman. The relevant quote from it:
You do realize that there is a difference between an official policy (mural paintings and celebrations when children are murdered with a knife in their sleep, etc) -- and the attitudes of individuals.
If you want to change the subject to "official policy", then state whose official policy. Specifically who. Hamas? Fatah? Who?
Unless it is somehow the "official policy" of the individual villagers being deprived of electricity in the original solar cells story, I will not be impressed.
Oh, and provide references. Your word isn't good enough.
I have been sprinkling references throughout my posts and, last time I checked, you had not not provided even one, yet you accuse me of dishonesty?
The nerve.
In my previous comment I showed that you knowingly lied about my opinions, then argued against your straw man.
Then, you claim I have nerve?!
And after you lie to make an argument, it is a bit late to start muttering about references.
(Besides, the latest discussion was your claim that the Mideast is a good subject for HN, which obviously is not the case -- because of the lying hate propagandists. Again, thanks for proving my point.)
You support my position when you e.g. quote an 86 year old individual and political activists to "show" your position -- i.e. that the Israeli side is evil and guilty of everything bad that happened.
And you judge a democracy because some T-shirts some people wear?! I really wish you are a troll...
Seriously, don't you have less ridiculous and less braindead attempts at arguments? Is this REALLY the best you have?!
Edit: So if you went to e.g. Spain and ended up at a metal gig, you'd judge all Spanish people as satanists... :-)
It is liberal jewish website that criticizes the Sudanese genocide and the treatment of Palestinian refugees by the arab world, seeing as you don't get enough of that from the Swedish media.
(Links http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/the-palestinian-refugees-of-le... http://mondoweiss.net/2008/07/darfur-part-2-lets-get-to-know...)
Mondoweiss however don't use these stories to cover up Israel's crimes either
So you don't have to worry, there aren't "double standards for different groups..."
Oh wait, I never said that...
I'm not surprised by your choice of black/white straw man to "argue" against...
...
these people of the Arab world's
wait - wut?
Which you certainly realized, fredster_s (in your 4th comment.)
Why? Because you believe in a conspiracy of US news companies? This is laughable. If you cannot read these stories then go to Huffington Post or similar circle jerk sites. THIS DOES NOT BELONG ON HN NEWS
> I believe that the reason the facts about Palestine are suppressed is because of organized "Hasbara" (public relations) efforts by Israel's supporters in the USA. (Example link: http://www.hasbara.com/)
Those anti-Israeli people often accuses those who support Israel or at least mention that Israel is a secular democracy with freedom of religion (compared to its neighbours) as being "Hasbara boys". I've been accused of this various times - it is a way to silence anyone who defends Israel.
> Otherwise I can't explain why there hasn't been more uproar about Israel's killing of US servicemen
USS liberty was an accident that happened 40 years ago. Every anti-Israeli likes to bring this up...
> For example, given the facts that I know about how Israel treats innocent Palestinian civilians, I have an ethical problem with Israel and do not intend to work for Israel, to buy Israeli products, to do business with Israel,
I dislike how non-Muslims and women are treated in almost all the countries around Israel (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, etc...). Israel is a shining example of democracy and technological development. They produced more nobel prize winners than all of the other countries combined. They have technological industry and development and a modern society. Whilst women are not allowed to even go outside of the house in most neighbouring countries.
But any case your tripe does not belong on Hacker News! Go back to reddit!
The sale of the Phalcon radar to China is recent. The AIPAC espionage case is current http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2009/09/01/steve-ros...
Why aren't these big news? Do you want more examples?
> But any case your tripe does not belong on Hacker News! Go back to reddit!
Your tripe belongs on http://masada2000.org/
You mentioned the USS Liberty and then I mentioned that it happened long ago. Then you mention something completely different and unrelated. Don’t change the topic and just answer me this:
1. Did the USS Liberty event happen more than 40 years ago?
2. Was it an accident?
> The sale of the Phalcon radar to China is recent.
Israel did not sell the Radar to China, you are lying to me.
Israel wanted to sell the systems to China and asked for permission from the USA. The USA denied it and they didn't sell it.
So what? The biggest trading partner of China is the USA. Do you see China as an enemy of the USA? Should the USA stop trading with China?
I would say that that is pretty nice from the sovereign state of Israel to ask for US permission first.
> Your tripe belongs on http://masada2000.org/
Again you accuse me of being either Jewish or a Jewish puppet. This is pathetic of you and I am quite sad of what has become of Hacker News.
I know it is quite fashionable for people with too much time on their hands to jump on some PC bandwagon such as Israel bashing. I just don’t think that you are ill informed, extremely naive and a hypocrite.
Hacker News was one of the last social sites where this tripe has been kept at bay. It is just sad that the likes of you will now also ruin HN.
In the links in my original post 'Lt. Gen. Marshall Carter, the director of the NSA, told Congress that the attack "couldn't be anything else but deliberate."'
> Israel did not sell the Radar to China, you are lying to me.
You owe me a retraction. In the links in my original post "Cohen demanded Israel cancel the US $1-2 billion sale of 3-5 AWACS airborne radar aircraft to China." I never claimed the sale went through. It is pointless for me to cite the facts if you don't read the links.
More from the original links: " Former CIA Director James Woolsey testified Israel has covertly sold 'several billions' of dollars worth of top-secret US technology to Israel since 1983. The Inspector General of the US State Department found, in a 1992 report, a 'systematic and growing pattern' of Israel selling American military technology in direct violation of US law.
...
Pentagon sources charge Israel 'backdoored' US technology to China for the Patriot AA missile, other surface-to-air missiles; the PL-8 air-to-air missiles; C-802 anti-ship missiles; advanced composite tank armor and tank guns; aircraft avionics and ground radar systems; and the J-10 fighter, which is based on secret US technology used in Israel's cancelled 'Lavi' fighter. "
I believe a lot of hackers would think twice about supplying advanced technology to Israel if they knew the facts about Israelis trying to sell it to China (or in the old days Apartheid South Africa)
> Again you accuse me of being either Jewish or a Jewish puppet.
I accused you of supporting Israel. It is even more pointless for me to reply to you at all if you don't read what I write, just what you make up. In fact I think I'll stop replying to you henceforth.
> It is just sad that the likes of you will now also ruin HN.
Oh the Irony!
Blah blah blah. An investigation of the US government concluded that the attack was an accident. Israel also had no motive to attack the USA and it happened in the middle of a war.
> I never claimed the sale went through.
I do not read your links to fringe sites. You talked of a "sale" (past tense).
To make vague comments about the arms industry is quite dubious. You know that the USA itself sells arms to countries which may not be so nice? (e.g. Saudi Arabia).
> I believe a lot of hackers would think twice about supplying advanced technology to Israel if they knew the facts about Israelis trying to sell it to China (or in the old days Apartheid South Africa)
Trying to flog a dead horse. You know that a lot of the technology that was passed on to South Africa by Israel was at the behest of the USA? You know that the USA encouraged SA to enter a war in Angola to support anti-communist groups and prevent the spread of communism in Africa? That the USA could not directly support UNITA because congress was being unco-operative?
You know that the Soviet Union directly (and through its proxies such as Cuba) supported communist insurgents, but the west did not do the same? Even China supported the same side as South Africa during the war – because they had a problem with the spread of Soviet influence.
But you like to dumb down everything into neat little sentences, bring up obscure facts and hypocritically judge countries such as Israel by different standards than its neighbours.
I never really understood anti-Israel zealots such as you. It seems often that it is some radically left ideology mixed with a healthy dose of anti-semitism.
> In fact I think I'll stop replying to you henceforth.
I would appreciate that! Also, take your tripe anti-Semitic tripe back to reddit.
Actually I am not pro palestina or anti isreal. I just think that religion in its generality does not promote peac and understanding. A world without religionbwould be a better place.