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Comment by PoignardAzur | Hacker News Reader

To misquote Bryan Cantrill, one should not make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Netanyahu.

When a nationalist politician like him is faced with an event like this, long-term international diplomacy considerations barely enter the picture.

The violence just comforted him in his previous worldviews, all he saw was that his nationalistic policies were justified and the only viable answer was to be even more of a nationalist.

I don't see any reality where he didn't have the most violent response he could get away with.

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If there as an election tomorrow in Israel, do you think the new leader would be against war? Like it or not, Hamas' actions have prompted a response from the Israeli people, a different leader wouldn't change that sentiment.

True, Israeli votes are the only votes that have had, and can have, any material effect there. They have voted for Netanyahu reliably for years, so the present situation, Hamas included, is what they have, collectively, chosen. Hamas has always been Netanyahu's staunchest political ally. If Israeli voters ever choose differently, change might be possible. Until then, things will be reliably more of the same.

Netanyahu has in fact won less than 50% of the votes but due to a technicality managed to assemble a coalition with other parties that amounted to 64 of 120 seats in parliament (similar to Bush Jr. and Trump having won US elections despite winning less than 50% of the votes due to the electoral college). The latest polls show Netanyahu and his government with a less than 30% approval rating, this was hardly a slam dunk victory (and in fact Netanyahu replaced another prime minister who ruled between his terms when he barely won the November 2022 elections).

It remains the US's collective fault that Bush minor and Trump got into office on minority votes. We know how to fix the electoral system, and numerous states have chosen to implement that fix, so it just waits on a few more states to sign on.

What you say offers more hope than I had imagined possible.

What is the fix are are you referring to?

Probably the national popular vote interstate compact.

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

Isreali-Palestinian history didn't begin on October 7th. The sentiment isn't a creation of that event, though obviously the attack influenced it. The sentiment is also partly a creation of years of right-wing politics and an ineffectual opposition.

It's an issue in many countries, as we (even on HN) throw humanitarianism away, and the study of it, we will of course lose quite a lot. What replaces it?

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