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Comment by voisin | Hacker News Reader

Since we’re off HN topic anyways, can someone ELI5 why Israel blockades / occupies Palestinian territories? I would think given the treatment of Jews during WWII that there would be a special desire among Israelis not to treat a group of people poorly based on immutable facts like ethnicity. I understand the hatred of Hamas but don’t understand depriving Palestinian people of medicine and clean water and free movement.

For what it’s worth I have made a good faith attempt to answer this for myself and quickly got bogged down in information about the Ottoman Empire, etc etc which I can’t imagine is a real justification today.

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It's not about ethnicity or religion per se. The land israel occupies was taken by force from palestinians. Gaza specifically is to a large extent simply a refugee camp for those displaced to create the state of israel, and their descendants.

Both groups have, from their own perspective, a valid and exclusive claim to the land there. If not prevented from doing so, palestinians would certainly reclaim the homes and farms of their grandparents. Israel has the political, economic, and military power to prevent this, and so they do.

Not true. Jews purchased many of the lands during British and Ottoman rule. When Israel was formed the Palestinians were given the majority of the territories. They attacked to get the rest and were defeated in a very bloody war.

As a result many fled. Many stayed and are a part of Israel to this day, they vote and have representatives in parliament, supreme court etc.

The Gaza strip and occupied territories were held by Egypt and Jordan. They were occupied in the 6 day war (1967) but Israel never annexed them. Some of the residence there are indeed refugees who prior to the formation of Israel, lived in a different region.

It's also not true that it's not about religion. This is 100% about religion. Jewish settlers are entirely motivated by religion. Hamas is an extremist religious group who believes in holy war and murder of its own people. While Israel is technically a secular country, the religious forces are strong and force us into situations like this.

> Not true. Jews purchased many of the lands during British and Ottoman rule. When Israel was formed the Palestinians were given the majority of the territories.

"The Jewish State allocated to the Jews, who constituted a third of the population and owned about 7% of the land, was to receive 56% of Mandatory Palestine, a slightly larger area to accommodate the increasing numbers of Jews who would immigrate there." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...)

Notice that the areas allocated are not continuous most of the area is a desert (the entire southern region). It also doesn't mention who owned the rest of the land so the 7% number isn't valuable.

People on this part of the world have been killing each other for a good 3000 years or so. It has gone back and forward and there isn't really one correct owner.

However they want to do it, rolling into a music festival and shooting everyone really doesn't sound like the right way to fight injustice (perceived or real).

> People on this part of the world have been killing each other for a good 3000 years or so.

This is a really nasty way to dismiss it imo. It explains nothing but just assumes the conflict is inevitable. What, is the land cursed? Are they bloodthirsty barbarians who can't do anything else?

No, there are specific grievances in the recent past and ongoing. This is not some mythical blood feud with its origins lost in history. Israel as a modern nation-state did an ethnic cleansing to get itself started a few decades ago. People are mad about that, and it's in living memory you don't need to reach back to the obscure 3000-year-old whatever.

It is a lie that Israel was founded on an ethnic cleansing hiding the fact that the Arab league wanted to wipe out all Jewish settlements. Just like it happened in other Arab countries at that time and just how they want to do it today.

War erupted which Israel won and hence their claim to the land. They did not ethnically cleanse anyone, in many cases they even bought the land, which I have never seen in a similar conflict. Usually it is just taken.

Man what do you want to call the forced removal of an ethnic group from a geographic area so they can be replaced by another one? Ethnic cleansing has been the accepted term for this for a couple generations but I'm flexible on nomenclature here as long as we agree that the forced removal happened.

If we don't agree that it did then we literally cannot have a conversation across this boundary on this subject. I also don't see how you can adequately explain the current situation in the region when you deny this part of its history but that's your problem I guess.

Any admittance of fault would be abused and very one-sided, so we cannot have a discussion on this topic indeed. I stand by my statement that the accusation of ethnic cleansing is a hideous lie.

If you only hold discussions where one party must confess to ethnic cleansing, conflict is inevitable.

No I hold plenty of discussions where no one has to confess to an ethnic cleansing. But only ones where neither participant has committed one.

> I stand by my statement that the accusation of ethnic cleansing is a hideous lie.

What does it mean "stand by" a statement that an assertion is a lie without attempting to refute the assertion? This is a nonsense action, it is nothing. I said I'm flexible about the vocabulary we use when we talk about what happened, so what happened? Why do so many palestinians live in gaza? How did they get there, under what conditions do they remain? Why aren't there more of them in other parts of israel?

I'm giving you an opportunity to describe it on your terms. So describe it.

You haven't put forward any argument that would allow for such a severe accusation, so I can dismiss it w.ithout comment just fine.

I am not flexible about the vocabulary of ethnic cleansing for that matter. It has a very specific meaning

I'm not making an argument, I'm making an assertion that you called a lie. So clearly you understood the point I'm making, I don't see that it requires further litigation on the details.

So, again, what happened? What is your description of the events that led to palestinians being so concentrated in gaza, and no longer living in the land they inhabited before.

Again I am giving you an opportunity to tell this story in the words you prefer. What, other than your cowardice, is preventing you from taking it?

Heh, no, it definitely doesn't need any litigation of the details at all as the case is pretty clear, your honor.

It is their own making. It is safe to be a Palestinian in Israel, while you probably don't want to be a Jew in Gaza.

You wouldn't want to be an unarmed german in an unsupervised corner of auchswitz either but that's hardly a condemnation of the prisoners is it.

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide

That comparison doesn't fit because the Jews in Germany didn't want to exterminate Germans. That was Nazi propaganda. Perhaps that perspective survived from the closeness of Hitler with the Mufti.

The levels of hate have gone beyond reason and strategy and (it is hard to read my own words but because it's the truth I won't leave it implicit) reached ethnic cleansing and suicide bombing. That is the only way to explain these events and what is openly planned.

The united states must stay out. Controlling a city sized pile of collapsed buildings is a nightmarish situation that I do not wish on Israeli conscripts but extraordinarily so not on our own volunteers. The prospect of a second major invasion of the middle east should give pause even in the event that a terrorist strike in the United States occurs. Second to that I hope that they can return to a peace process before the scale of the atrocities stain their (Israeli) flag forever and ours by abetting. (Hamas' flag has guns on it, it can't get a lot worse. Wishing anything from their own leadership is hopeless even surrender.)

The civilians will be given guns and told their life is already over. We will be told Hamas is using child soldiers.

In my opinion you shouldn't be worried about that possibility, the presence of the US in the middle east right now is probably just to deter other parties from escalating the conflict. The US has no interest and no intent for entering Gaza, Israel has the resources to deal with Hamas on it's own.

One of the most important parts of this conflict I think which most people here aren't talking about ia the geopolitics in the middle east. Most of this is still just a big old proxy war spear-headed by Iran. All the big terrorist groups and actors in the region wheather it be Gaza-based terror groups like Hamas or Lebanon's Hezbollah are funded and controlled by Iran.

There's a whole Wikipedia page on it, actually: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_proxy_co...

Israel has bombed airports in Syria only a few days ago. They seem willing to strain the American protection and could little by little provoke an escalation involving regional powers, leading to our involvement. The one thing that could make this catastrophe worse is if America is drawn in.

Not only a few days ago, they do that on a regular basis by now because there are regular shipments of weapons by Iran. Syria in its state of civil war doesn't have much influence in the northern regions, where Iran tried to deploy the weapons against Israel.

One need not forget that Israel too has no interest in an all out conflict. Also the syrian attack iirc was to prevent Iran's foreign minister from landing there.

Everyone's (except maybe Iran's) hope is that this conflict does not escalate any more.

Ok I understand this but why prevent clean water and food and medicine from crossing the border? Why disallow them from trade while simultaneously not letting them into Israel?

Note: If you're referring to things that they've done within the last few days, disregard this comment as this comment was written regarding the way things were before the recent attacks

I think it's more nuanced than just them trying to "prevent clean water and food and medicine from crossing the border." In the region, water is scarce and important for both sides. Israel does allow "clean water" into the region, the complaint is that Israel government allows their own people take too much of it (from the perspective of Palestinian farmers). In the American west we have the exact same problem. Farmers higher upstream of the Colorado river want enough water for all their crops, but this would deprive the farmers further west from having enough. There are intense and heated (political) battles between the regions, with both regions feeling like they are getting shortchanged. With food, medicine etc, there's concern that those supplies are going to enemy combatants/terrorists (from the Israeli perspective).

This is one of those situations where there aren't really any clear/easy answers.

So that what? They can become a thriving, economically powerful micronation on their doorstep? With better access to the political and military connections necessary to reclaim what they will always consider their land? Why would israel want that? Why would they allow it, if they have the power to prevent it.

Isn’t the deck tilted so much in Israel’s favour (economically and militarily) right now, that Palestine doesn’t need to be oppressed in the manner that it is? Isn’t oppressing the Palestinian people what allows groups like Hamas to thrive?

(These are honest questions, from someone with essentially no understanding of the current conflict but is trying desperately to make sense of it and is struggling with obviously biased reporting everywhere I look)

First of all, I am biased to my opinions so take everything I say eith a grain of salt.

Now, you need to divide your concept of thr Palestinian people to (at least) 2 groups or factions, those that live in Gaza and those that live in the west bank. The major difference between these groups is that Israel is the sovereign over the West Bank but disengaged from Gaza about 18 years ago and since it's disengagement, terrorist groups like Hamas have taken control of the Gaza strip[1]. One could have a long conversation about human rights issues in the West Bank but what is happening in Gaza right now isn't oppression, it's a war. You could point out Israel's blockade of Gaza as a form of oppression but it's just a way for Israel to prevent Hamas from accumulating massive amounts of weapons from certain foreign actors[2]. The really terrible thing ia that Hamas's infrastructure is so deeply linked and interleaved with civilian life it's impossible to fight them effectively without hurting civilians (Israel has some measures to attempt to do that[3] but everything has it's limits). Hamas isn't interested in peace and will slaighter their way to victory whatever happens, they are actively hurting both Gaza and Israeli civilians as we recently observed with the cruel massacre. The world will be better without Hamas, it's heartbreaking it has to happen this way.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_G... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_proxy_co... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking

It's useful to focus on how neither entity is unified or homogenous I think. There are factions within israel that benefit from hamas having power relative to other options. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

A good bit of it is quite simply explained by "they want to do a genocide and this is an effective way of doing it."

If you are able to get a supply of rockets into your land, you can get anything that allows you to strive economically. Israel also granted them more autonomy which they repaid with terrorism. Do you just deny that fact?

The blind blame of Israel is just tiring. They still want all the land and drive out the Jews. That is no basis to found a prosperous nation.

It's not blind I'm not blaming israel for anything israel hasn't chosen to do. No one made them do an ethnic cleansing, no one made them keep its refugees in a blockaded prison city. No one makes them bomb palestinian children and assassinate palestinian journalists. These are their choices and they are responsible for them.

Hamas actually did make israel keep Gazans in a blockaded prison city through repeated terrorist attacks.

How're you sitting with this one today? Got a clear idea what hamas did to make israel bomb a hospital?

>Since we’re off HN topic anyways, can someone ELI5 why Israel blockades / occupies Palestinian territories?

No. There are things that you can reasonably expect to explain to an average five year old children. Humanitarian horror shows entangled into complex geo-political situations twisted with religious and ethnic matters is, to my mind, not one of them.

Sure one can always try to sketch some answers, but what is the purpose you are expecting to get out of it? If you want to build a solidly informed opinion, I’m afraid that there is no shortcut royal way.

But if this answer seems unsatisfying to you, maybe you can try https://eli5.gg/why%20Israel%20blockades%20%2F%20occupies%20...

I'm a liberal Israeli. The border used to be mostly open. With the Oslo accord the Hamas started bombing civilians (busses, coffee shops etc.).

The wall is a problem but it stopped this. Hamas did its best to destroy the peace that was forming. It found a collaborator in our PM (Netanyahu) who essentially supported them and elevated them so they will fight with the PLO.

The idea was that it would prevent the formation of a Palestinian state. That was always a stupid idea... Notice that this was never "official" policy, this is my interpretation based on his actions.

Right now the specific blockade is fulled by three things:

* Rage - this is something I feel personally as everyone lost someone they know there. It's a small country... When children are murdered it tends to bring out blind rage and indifference towards the other side.

* Fear - Israel survived in a very hostile environment thanks to its ability to instill fear in its enemies. This showed a weak underbelly and Israelis are rightly concerned that anything less than complete destruction of the enemy will trigger an all out war.

* Hostages - There are civilians and children held hostage. The minister responsible for infrastructure specifically said that electricity and water won't be restored until the hostages are returned.

I personally think the bombings are absolutely horrible. I know quite a few Palestinians and my heart goes out to them. There's a mob mentality on both sides and we both lack in leadership. It took 5 days for the MODERATE head of the PLO to issue a very weak condemnation of the attack. On our side Netanyahu is as corrupt as they come. A demagogue of the worst kind. He promised to "flatten Gaza" which is stupid. I don't want that.

The Hamas has been a cancer on the Palestinian people. It murdered more Palestinians than Israel ever did. They believe in holy war and that Palestinian dead will be rewarded in the afterlife. The death of a Palestinian child is just PR for these guys. They are as terrible as they come. Unfortunately, this cancer masticated through the population. I have no easy answered but one thing I think pretty much every Israeli agrees on, they MUST be destroyed completely. Not the Palestinian people, the Hamas. My main concern is the leadership vacuum. The PLO isn't great either and won't want to collaborate with Israel after everything it did... Going back to something resembling the Oslo accord will be hard on all fronts.

Israel isn't committing genocide in the Gaza strip. Lets not go there.

In fact, lets not blame the victims. Israel is defending themselves from aggressors and so I don't go far at all to consider their hasty response to the situation.

Next, "what palestinian territory?"

The british through blood, death and gore took that land. They formed Israel who has kept the land through blood, death and gore.

Did the palestianians take the land by force? Were they given land? Nope and Nope.

There is no blockade.

If there was a blockade - how so many weapons got in?

Guarding the borders is essential - we saw what they did in a few hours without them. Burning women alive. Decapitating babies. Raping teenagers then shooting them.

Without a guarded border - they'll do a second holocaust. That's not a speculation - that's a proven fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

"If there was a blockade - how so many weapons got in?"

Tunnels.

"Decapitating babies."

This was fabricated.

Wait who said it was fabricated? It’s been widely reported to be true afaik

>It’s been widely reported to be true afaik

Its been widely reported without evidence existing, which should have been a redflag for anyone with brain. It was just "trust me bro" by the prime minister.

Everybody has been slowly backtracking on it over the last 2 days. Including Israel itself:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-b...

And the statement that it would be fabricated should be taken as it is? Doesn't explain the witnesses though.

What is stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Israel was being asked about it for days by western media and refuses to provide anything.

witnesses: believe me bro

Because killing babies is good as long as you don't decapitate them?

OK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

That is not a straw man argument. If anything you seem to be conducting one by focusing on a single detail to discredit a narrative. Children were executed in cold blood. That's a fact. The method of execution is really irrelevant here.

>That is not a straw man argument.

It is a textbook example of a strawman. He is putting words in my mouth that I never said to debunk my post. That is exactly what strawman fallacy means. Lmao.

>If anything you seem to be conducting one by focusing on a single detail to discredit a narrative

Another strawman. I merely pointed out it was a hoax, as briefly and straightforwardly as possible. I didnt say anything about any "narrative" at all.

>The method of execution is really irrelevant here.

It is very relevant when it was explicitely stated. Falsehoods must be pointed out. Relentlessly.

They published verified photos of dead and burnt babies. You're grasping on literal straws.

>They published verified photos of dead and burnt babies.

This is irrelevant to the topic discussed which is "validity of the Israel's claim of decapitated babies". You entered this specific topic and keep derailing it with these claims that are unrelated to the original statement.

>You're grasping on literal straws.

Literal straws is what grows behind your house. Perhaps you meant figurative straws.

> Literal straws is what grows behind your house.

This is exactly my point. You're being purposely petty as if decapitation of a baby or mutilation with a knife are different. There are many lies perpetrated in the fog of war. But your choose to focus on the methodology of baby execution as the "hill to die on" in terms of "truth" is pretty f*ed up.

It is very relevant to the topic of whether Hamas murders babies.

Stop defending people who murder babies.

Proof you don't have any excuse for defending people who murder babies.

Coward.

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