Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

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Hi there, I personally admire the work you do, I fully support Israel in it's war against evil, I hope you eradicate Hamas (ideally they would all surrender, but that's unlikely, so the other option is they get killed) as soon as you can. If you doubt any of these words, check out my tweets/likes (@tomprimozic)

However, there's 3 "contentious" points that I want to ask (my go-to Jewish (& very pro-Israel) close friend is currently very far away and has his own issues - not that you don't, but since you posted here...)

1. What's your comment on "Hamas headquarters below Al Shifa hospital"?

2. Why do IDF soldiers shoot (and post) videos of them "mocking"/"disrespecting" Palestinian homes/mosques/schools?

3. What's the steelman argument of why Israel is "occupying" the West Bank? The best I can come up with is "they didn't occupy Gaza and look what happened", but (a) that wasn't known before Oct7, and (b) they would have IMO gained a lot of goodwill abroad if they had given it more autonomy...

Thank you for the kind words. Will reach out when I get home next. Been a long day - we did a big mission today and I'm wiped so please excuse the short answers.

1. Hamas was located in a significant want under Al-shifa. Israel released video of our commando unit raiding it. You can find that video online. Hard to watch.

2. Because they're angry and they're being stupid and reacting emotionally. Please understand, they raped our women, tortured them and then murdered them. They did the same to our men, old people and children. Imagine for a second if a specific group did all that to lots of people that you loved and cared for. How would you feel? What would you post as you took your revenge? Israel is a tiny country. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone is related to everyone, or is at least friends with them on some way. So the disrespect is because they are furious with our enemy, and our enemy identifies specifically as religious muslims and arabs. Hard stuff.

3. Oh wow that's a hard one. It's complicated. We're in a war to claim territory with the Palestinians. I mean, you could reverse the question and ask "why are the Palestinians occupying Israeli land". The Palestinians arent a people, per se. They are the random groups of different arab families that were living in the area at the time of the creation of the state of israel. Some are from iran, some from Syria, some from Jordan, egypt, etc. so we are not "occupying" their land because there is no "them".

Really what needs to happen is that we need to be separated. We can't continue to live in an intermingled fashion like this because it's too messy and unsustainable.

But.... that's a problem for another day. For today we just need to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Good night =)

1. and 2. make sense, thank you for your reply, especially given you've more important things to worry about!

regarding 3: I don't want to get into the "who's land it is" debate (I generally agree with your description from a historical perspective, but I also think that historical perspective is largely irrelevant).

But mostly a practical issue: why wasn't it (with the exception of Jerusalem and some other Jewish "holy" sites) treated more like Gaza (i.e. withdrawal, as opposed to building of more settlements)?

Obviously that wouldn't satisfy everyone everywhere (especially not the "open air prison" crowd) but I think it would have given Israel much more legitimacy - one of the crucial criticisms in the past few years was "taking Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements".

What I'm trying to understand, is why they did that? Probably not for the lack of land. Nationalist reasons? Maybe, but I don't see the potential massive gain there, to offset the (IMO) massive loss in internaional reputation from "occupying West Bank".

And in addition it would defuse at least a part of Hamas's justification for the Oct7 attack (the other, the Al Aqsa issue, obviously being fake, and of course that old "hate Jews" motivation wouldn't go away...).

Anyways I completely understand if you'd rather not have this discussion, I still hope you win soon!

>Because they're angry and they're being stupid and reacting emotionally. Please understand, they raped our women, tortured them and then murdered them. They did the same to our men, old people and children.

I have to point out that you are holding soldiers of a wealthy country to the same standards as a terrorist organization in one of the poorest parts of the world. It contradicts the claim that Israel is a bastion of civilization in the region. The behavior of the Israeli soldiers is despicable and your explanation seems to downplay and rationalize it.

> "I mean, you could reverse the question and ask "why are the Palestinians occupying Israeli land".

How? The West Bank, Golan. This is not the State of Israel's land. Never was. But it's being taken regardless. Israel's security justification might be taken seriously if it wasn't simultaneously supporting settlers who steal land. Stop them and you will find more international support.

> The Palestinians arent a people, per se. They are the random groups of different arab families that were living in the area at the time of the creation of the state of israel. Some are from iran, some from Syria, some from Jordan, egypt, etc. so we are not "occupying" their land because there is no "them".

This borders on racism and it still doesn't make the land they occupy yours. You need a stronger clam than conquest or an old book.

Just put this right on the shelf, "The Palestinians arent a people, per se."

I can't even. Genocide isn't just killing a people, it is also de-peopling them. So many in the entire comment section don't even know they are saying the quiet part.

It's depressingly common in this conflict. Shows there are environments where it's not even controversial.

Nope. The definition of genocide is: "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group." We are not doing that. You can see it by the fact that we arent bombing the places that the innocent civilians are escaping to. We only bomb positions where hamas is or is attacking from. They are using human shields, while we are trying to protect palestinian lives even at the expense of our own

I believe that this is the single worst comment I have ever read on this site.

Aweee... your compliments are too nice. I'm blushing. Thank you.

My country has given Israel billions upon billions of dollars and transferred advanced weapon systems and yet you guys were overrun by some dudes wearing slides flying second hand paragliders. Now after killing tens of thousands of civilians in retaliation, bombing hospitals and refugee camps with US made weapons (as it seems that the only part of the IDF that actually works is the US supplied part) you're here explaining why what you're doing technically isn't genocide.

"we arent bombing the places that the innocent civilians are escaping to"

Non-combatants, including US intelligence have concluded your country is: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/plan-one-month-gaz...

Or are you saying they weren't 'bombed' because they were tank shells?

Look up the actual definition of genocide. You're on the wrong of this.

> why are the Palestinians occupying Israeli land?

How can you write that when you immediately answer your own question?

> [they] were living in the area at the time of the creation of the state of israel.

It really makes Israel sound colonialist. As does saying "We're in a war to claim territory with the Palestinians."

> so we are not "occupying" their land because there is no "them".

And that, right there, is a genocidal mindset.

A huge goal of genocide is destroying the identity of a people. This is going to the next step. This is denying they exist at all.

>> Hamas was located in a significant want under Al-shifa. Israel released video of our commando unit raiding it. You can find that video online. Hard to watch.

I can't find that video online. I can find a video that shows a tunnel, allegedly under Al Shifa, and ending in a blast door.

IDF publishes footage of what it says is Hamas tunnel at al-Shifa hospital

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/idf-israel-arm...

I cannot find any "hard to watch" video of "commando units raiding" the tunnel. Do you have a direct link to such a video?

Note that the claim was not that there was a "significant [ward?]" under the Al-Shifa hospital. The claim was that Hamas had its headquarters under Al-Shifa.

For example, this claim was made by Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC, where Isaac Herzog claimed IDF is not actually attacking Al-Shifa:

[my transcript]: Undrerneath Shifa there is a huge huge terror base, actually the headquarters, the headquarters of Hamas Isis operations is right there under Shifa.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67397963?at_med...

So far, no such "yuge yuge terror base" has been found under Al-Shifa, or under any of the other hospitals targeted by the IDF.

Why is the IOF committed to a salted earth(genocidal) policy in gaza?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/world/middlee...

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