Blaming Israel for Hamas Attacks Sparks Backlash Across U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Blaming Israel for Hamas Attacks Sparks Backlash Across U.S.

wsj.com

6 pointssam34515 comments

I think anyone blaming Israel for Hamas's action or supporting students who made such a callous statement is on the wrong side of history. Whatever happened in the past doesn't justify brutality and savagery against civilians. People supporting such statements or trying to protect students who did are wrong and should apologize. Should these students be left to harm against angry, racist or emotional people? No, of course not. But not acknowledging how wrong their statement was is just irresponsible for any dialogue for peace. Realistically, there can be no peace if both sides are not pressured to it in some form. Dialogue is preferable.

I think some people need to understand that it is one thing to sympathise with Palestinians in general but it is another to side with Hamas, either explicitly or by default. Certainly, condemning Saturday's savage attacks on Israeli civilians does not mean supporting Israel's policies.

Each side is only applying pressure to the other, and have been for a long time. Their narratives braid together now. Civilians on both sides feel it. Equally? No. In the same way, by the same techniques? No. Do the politicians benefit from the status quo?

Israel's statemenr that this is their 9/11 is unfortunately likely to be more true than they want it to be. The USA squandered all sympathy extended to it in short order by reacting the way it did, and made the world worse off. Easily that is happening already in Gaza.

We need to distinguish between justification and explanation. The former pertains to morality, the latter pertains to facts. There is no justification for Hamas' atrocities. But if we want to actually explain, which we need if we want to take practical steps towards a solution, we need to look beyond the oversimplified "Hamas bad" takes. Yes, Hamas is bad. That isn't an explanation, and doing moral calculus isn't going to fix any problems.

Terrorist organizations like Hamas don't exist in a vacuum. Ideology, poverty, oppression, lack of education and young median age, and many other factors fed into the causal sequence of events that led to the atrocity taking place. Simply destroying Hamas could fix things in the short-term, but long-term, the underlying causal factors have to be addressed. We learned that already with the rise of ISIS.

All true but no progress can be made with Hamas in power. Its best for the entire region, especially Gazans, if this organization disappears.

The way our teacher explained about justifications in general: one needs justifications in order to 'explain' unjust actions. Yes, it is morality all the way down. That's why we have theories for just war, because of the normative ought: one ought not to kill others. Same goes for justifications for abortion.

>Whatever happened in the past doesn't justify brutality and savagery against civilians.

Good, now can someone say this to Israel, that is killing hundreds of civilians right now?

The thinking in Israel is that it won't be able to survive unless it greatly reduces Hamas power (preferably eliminating it altogether) and as a byproduct restores the deterrence against all the other surrounding enemies who are very tempted to join the party. Sure, there are also political motives, emotional factors (vengeance etc), fear and who knows what more but at the core I think the public and leadership understand things can't go on like this.

Or we could use this logic to end the Ukraine war tomorrow

> I think anyone blaming Israel for Hamas's action [...] is on the wrong side of history.

Ha'aretz: "The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu." [0]

Times of Israel: "For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces" [1]

> Whatever happened in the past doesn't justify brutality and savagery against civilians.

Whether an action justifies another action and whether the choice to engage in the first action earns blame for the results of the subsequent action are different questions.

The Israeli government can rightfully be blamed for the reasonably forseeable consequences of its policies, whether or not those consequences involve unjustified actions by other parties for which those parties also bear blame. Blame is not exclusive.

I would argue that those who ignore or deny the blame Israel--and the Netanyahu government in particular--is due are as much on the wrong side of history as those who do the same for Hamas.

[0] https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-10-08/ty-arti...

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

> Ha'aretz: "The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu." [0]

Are you seriously thinking Ha'aretz editors don't blame Hamas for what happened? Hamas' blame in this doesn't even need to be stated since its obvious. They brought thousands of "militants" in to murder, maim, kidnap and (allegdely) rape anything they came by. Placing "the blame" on Netanyahu doesn't absolve Hamas of anything even in the eyes of Ha'aretz editors who are far to the left.

> Are you seriously thinking Ha'aretz editors don't blame Hamas for what happened?

No, I’m seriously arguing that they are mature adults that don't subscribe to childish ideas like exclusivity of blame, and that—to quote the post you are responding to but clearly didn't read: “The Israeli government can rightfully be blamed for the reasonably forseeable consequences of its policies, whether or not those consequences involve unjustified actions by other parties for which those parties also bear blame. Blame is not exclusive.”

There is certainly reason to condemn those who do not blame Hamas, but that does not make it correct to condemn those who do blame Israel. In fact, those who do not blame Israel should be condemned for it, as well, since the promotion of Hamas despite their recurrent terrorism has been a long-time Israeli strategy to weaken the Palestinian Authority, provide an excuse against peace because their is nonviable single interlocutor on the other side, and justify continued oppression and violence.

>Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy at Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said universities stepped up their commentary on political issues during the pandemic and following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The engagement shifted expectations, said Morey, and has left schools “trapped…in a cycle of having to weigh in on everything and if they don’t, that failure to say something is saying something.”

Same could be said of corporations.

Maybe what they mean is that Israel has been bullying Palestine for many years.

This intel from the UN seems to say so.

https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestin...

No paywall: https://archive.ph/zkZ4X

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