Hacker News Reader

Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

It's not about race, but it is about the invention of a country that relies on specific demographics to exist (majority Jewish) which necessitate keeping millions of people stateless yet under the full control of an elite ethnicity who actually have the votes and the control.

And no matter where Jewish people are from, they are that privileged ethnicity. The Arabs in Israel get token rights (but you and I both know if they were a demographic threat in Israel those rights would be revoked). And the Arabs in Palestine get no rights in Israel but are fully controlled and blockaded by Israel. That's the ultimate source of the conflict. It's not thousands of years old, and it is partly about race (if you consider Jewish a race, as the nation of Israel does).

View on HN

> The Arabs in Israel get token rights.

That's just false. The Arab minority in Israel has right to vote, the right to establish political parties, freedom of expression, freedom of association, free press, religious autonomy, separate educational systems, legal rights, etc.

Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth. Of course this doesn't mean theres' no racism, but that's a different issue.

They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country. You literally have to be Jewish to buy land. Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war. They can get evicted from their houses. They are discriminated against. And I don't think you're a full citizen if you can't even buy and keep property.

> Also Jewish people started burning down buildings full of Arabs during the war.

Citation needed.

> You literally have to be Jewish to buy land

False.

> They don't have a right to own land in 90% of the country.

False. It's true only to 13% of the land which is owned by JNF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel#Land_ownershi...

Looked into this and yes I think I was mixing up the 90% of land owned buy the ILA with the 13% owned by the JNF: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iopt0308/4.htm#_ftn53

In the case of the ILA, you can buy it if you have full citizenship, but not if you are an Arab with a residence permit but not full citizenship. You can however buy land if you are Jewish and not a citizen. I find this somewhat racist still. Moreover, according to the above source from Human Rights Watch, Arabs still are de facto prevented from leasing 80% of the land. So my figure is not that far off. You also didn't dispute the fact that they have been evicted and contained. Which is also mentioned here.

They have also been steadily changing the rights of Arab Israelis over the course of 2024, as if their collective punishment of Palestinians needs to extend even to their own citizens, just in case: https://www.ft.com/content/3d57cf7c-a097-4e86-8f39-0f7720508...

Edit: archive link here https://archive.is/gvke5

I cannot find a source about the exact incident I was citing about arson perpetuated on Arab Israelis. It was a long time ago I read about that. So I will concede that seeing as I think my other points hold strongly. There are several incidents of arson and increased unpoliced violence in East Jeruselam and the West Bank though. I find this as clear evidence that the war crimes going on in Gaza are not just about retaliation to Hamas, but are part of a larger racist issue, since Palestinians in the West Bank logically do not deserve punishment for things Hamas did, but are being killed at far higher rates since this war. I say higher because children were always being killed every week in the West Bank, increasingly so in 2023.

> seeing as I think my other points hold strongly.

But they aren't. The initial claim was about Arabs in israel (aka israeli arabs), not Palestinians in the west bank / east Jerusalem which is a different topic.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm not gonna protect Israel's treatment to it's arab population, but let's get some facts straight. In terms of human rights you're still better off being arab israeli than being an arab citizen in most of the arab countries.

Bro when I said my other comments, I was speaking about the points ABOVE that statement. The ones I provided sources for. Both of which are about Arab Israeli citizens. Most of what I provided was specifically about Arab Israeli citizens. Are you being purposefully dense? I said I don't have evidence about the burning of Arab Israeli buildings BUT I have provided other points pertaining to Arab Israeli citizens that do hold up.

Anyway, saying "there's human rights violations but other countries have more human rights violations" is stupid and doesn't prove the point that Zionists are trying to make, that they are the victims in this situation and are not racists with an intent to genocide. Go say to black Americans in 20th century fighting for full civil rights "well at least you're not still in Africa, you'd probably be starving so you should really be grateful for this wonderful fair country". Those are two seperate issues.

> Both of which are about Arab Israeli citizens.

> Most of what I provided was specifically about Arab Israeli citizens

Palestinians in the west bank are not citizens. So again, Israeli arabs have much more than "token rights", they have all the rights i listed before.

As someone who was defintely pro-palestinian and now changed his stance to "eeeeh it's complicated", I want to thank you for taking the time to rebutt falsehoods and to call out exaggerations rather than engaging with ready-made partisan talking points. I know doing that sometimes feels like pissing in the wind but in my case, it really helped question what I thought I knew and to admit that I was probably more ignorant than I thought.

I'm baffled by how you've changed your stance in such a way. I sympathise with the Israeli people for thinking it's complicated and I understand that we need to consider them and their livelihoods and trauma when talking about the situation, but at the end of the day, what Zionist project requires genocide and thier government subsquently is quite happy to slaughter people like dogs. No amount of "the other side did some bad things too" justifies that when the Israeli's are the only ones who have the power to stop it.

You are trying to get me to engage to the claims you are making, I will not do that. Instead I will tell you about my stance change assuming you care. This is not about "the other sides did some bad things too", it's about the claims made by the pro-palestinians and the reality of it, which I think this thread illustrates quite well. On one side you have someone who cares about understanding the situation before making any claims and one the other hand you have someone (you) who is on his morality horse kinda saying that the facts, details in your eyes, don't really matter since you are on the side of the opressed. Attempting to dumb down the situation to an oppressor/opressed schema might be true in present day at an abstract level but does not help anyone. It's easy to be right, just make a broad abstract claim, it's much harder to be relevant. I know how you feel, I felt just the same, you are high on your emotion : It seems like for once it's a clear oppressor/oppressed situation, like the one you have read in History books but ask yourself "Why doesn't everyone see it like I do ?". Is it only because of the undeniable Israeli state propaganda directed at the western world and everyone is blind to it ? Or is it because people much smarter than us have tried to solve the situation, and failed ? Also do you care at all about a solution that would work for both parties ? Or do you only care that one party is right and the other, more powerful one, should vanish into thin air because they are wrong ?

I dunno man I've had a lot of people accuse me of being blinded by emotion on this but I am the only person who gave sources in this conversation. I've done a lot of reading, including of pro-Israel sources. The facts of the matter hold up. Israel is in the wrong. Again, the other side obviously did bad things but Israel is the one trying to create an ethnostate and then is acting surprised by the adverse consequences of that. Israel also is the only side with the power to stop this.

Anyway, I'll go back to being overly emotional by citing sources while the other side cites zero sources but is 'reasonable' because of their aesthetic of conservatism.

Edit: Also in terms of why do I think other people think differently, there are a lot of reasons. One is the genuine trauma of the holocaust. I totally understand why Jewish people felt like they could no longer conscience living anywhere other than a Jewish state after hundreds of years of pogroms leading to the holocaust. I also understand why they see anyone who is against them as antisemetic. There's lots of overlap between antisemitism and antizionism even if they are definitely not equivalent. I also understand that many people are scared of the instability in the region that be caused by the loss of a friendly westernised state and the possible formation of yet another total disaster of an Arab government. I also understand that it is not the choice of people who are grandchildren of settlers to have been born there and it is naive of me to dismiss the trauma of living in such a war torn place even from the more privileged side. None of these things makes it right to ethnically cleanse a people. That's the bottom line. And until we get Israel to admit that, we can't move forward, because the Palestinians cannot be gaslit out of their day to day experience of brutal military occupation and racist apartheid. They cannot be gaslit out of believing in the corpses around them.

Of course I don't believe we just dispose of Israelis for the sins of their forefathers. I believe they either need to give up a lot of land or they need to concede to having a multi ethnic state. Maybe the first one and then a plan towards the second so that neither side feels contained. This is easier said than done but it is what has to be done. Just like how South Africans had to forgive each other and the Irish and the English had to forgive each other, just on a more extreme scale. It's obviously a crazy thing to have to do, but you know what's worse? Continuing with a system that necessitates genocide.

I find it quite insulting that you see someone having the pro-Palestinian view and you think "oh yeah you're probably all for genociding the Israeli's to get your way"

That's unfair to your interlocutor who politely engaged with your point and tried give his source once, especially since you started with a false statement that you backed away from (with sources, to your credit).

I don't think you are blinded by emotions but "high" on them btw. I do not negate the fact that you are an intelligent, reasoning being. And it's fine, we all get emotional about things. I understand how appearing reasonable is part of the aesthetics of conservatism but I still wouldn't trust someone who seem engaged in overtly motivated reasoning to get to the truth of something, and I am speaking of both sides here. If you don't show me your own doubts, I will doubt you.

Edit:

You show a lot of understanding and I think that's a prerequisite for any serious conversation but you also see how it is not very practical for any online conversation to have a wall of "I understand that..."

> I find it quite insulting that you see someone having the pro-Palestinian view and you think "oh yeah you're probably all for genociding the Israeli's to get your way"

Well you see the problem, like any dispute in any relationship, it's an endless chain of "I feel insulted that..." unless you have a strict framework for discussion where everyone feels heard. Of course I don't see pro-Palestinians as having genocidal intent (and I take offence that you think I do :). I was one and I did not, but I also understand that an israeli person would be concerned about violent reprisals and wouldn't trust high on reighteouness pro-palestinians who would absolve themselves saying "Well they reap what they sow". That's why peace is hard, it takes a saint-like dedication to dialogue and gandhi-like refusal of revenge.

I agree that a "they reap what they sow" attitude can be tempting but is totally unproductive. You're absolutely right that we need real empathetic dialogue from gandhi-like figures. That was what I was trying to say in my last response. If the Israelis can admit that their genocidal actions have been wrong and that they have to concede some of their land for paece and the Palestinians can acknowledge the Isrealis generational trauma, welcome their need for sanctuary and disband Hamas then we could get somewhere. What I object to is that most of the world seems to believe that the Israelis should not have to admit to their own faults and concede anything. Hamas is a necessary resistance force in the eyes of the Palestinians if the Israelis continue to beleive that genocidal action is justified. I say in the eyes of the Palestinians because this may seem ludicrous to some of us, but that really doesn't matter. What matters is dealing with the greivances of the people in the area once and for all.

> Or is it because people much smarter than us have tried to solve the situation, and failed ?

There are also a lot of people much smarter than us saying that the core parts of the Palestinian narrative are true (Nakba, land theft, apartheid and occupation, and yes, genocide, not talking about the religious Islamist stuff). E.g. the heads if pretty much all UN orgs and aid agencies.

Yeah its really not that people smarter than us have tried to solve the situation. It's that people much smarter than us with selfish motives (Israel and US) have engineered the fucked up situation we see now. And the people who are smart and want to fix the situation (UN, leftist Israeli academics, Palestinian leaders) are shut down immediately by Israel and the US, therefore blocking any progress.

> Yes there are differences, but claiming that Arab israelis only receive "token rights" is a far cry from the truth

Aren't the rights only subject to them being an ethnic minority in Israel? According to nation-state law, they could not be allowed to retain those rights if they became the ethnic majority

This is well summarised. It could end very easily.

Inform us to your simple solution:

Keep things the same with Palestinians as wards of the state: Iran and others fund Hamas to continue the conflict.

Palestinians get an armed state: in 5 years Palestinians attack Israel and are utterly wiped out by complete military defeat and carpet bombing

Palestinians get an unarmed state.: lol like they have now? Smuggled arms, terrorism, eventual war, carpet bombing.

The essential geopolitical issue is that the Palestinians have never functionally accepted being defeated. So they never moved on and accepted peace in defeat like literally thousands of other ethnic groups historically in the history of ethnic conflict in the world.

Granted their only source of economic support is being funded to not accept peace by Iran and the Arab world for 70 years. That's four generations of Palestinians only existing to be thorns in the side of Israel and as useful fools.

At this point there is no good outcome for Palestinians. All roads lead to devastating military defeat politically. The economic basis of their existence (oil money) is rapidly fading. Old allies are now aligned with Israel (Sunni Arabs), impotent (Russia/Syria), or regionally deflated (Iran). Global warming is worsening. And they have increased their population 10 fold over 70 years with ZERO agricultural or economic ability to support themselves. Their political leadership is corrupt and paid to be militaristic and have authoritarian control. The West wont give them headline prominence anymore. The US is becoming insular, and we are entering an era of conflict and a fall in international diplomatic idealism

If you are a Palestinian and have any way to get out, get the effing hell out of there.

I could grant the Palestinians every moral high ground and argument. It won't change anything geopolitically and the Palestinians are utterly screwed.

Their only (impossible) chance is to reject Hamas, live in whisper quiet peace with Israel, develop tourism or some other economic basis to support their population.

And we all know reading that paragraph how impossible that is.

The best outcome would be that Israelis collectively decide that ethnic hierarchy isn't right as a state and commit to ending it. What you are saying is basically that black slaves couldn't be freed because all they'd do is try another ill-fated Nat Turner rebellion.

The Palestinians don't have to "accept defeat" if the Israelis can "accept ethnic equality". The same way the IRA and the PA (who renounced violence as an overture to Israel) never "accepted defeat" either.

Black slaves weren't funded, radicalized, and armed with military weapons and missiles with a stated goal of its leadership to kill all white people.

There are Palestinians that will get along with Israel. Newsflash, there are a ton of Palestinians living in Israel peacefully. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab.

The Palestinians need to lay down arms for a looooong time before kumbaya peace is on the table. Stop with the bullshit that West bank and Gaza just want peace. Gaza continued to politically elect Hamas.

Likewise Israeli right wingers are in charge of Israel, like if the southern states had a lock on the US government.

Peace was closest when Yassir Arafat walked away from an agreement that included a Palestinian state. He was probably paid to do by the Iranians, Arafat died worth hundreds of millions.

Finally,the Palestinians dug their own mass graves by increasing population by a factor of ten when they had no economy and lived off of world relief and Arab oil money.

That's why they will never make peace. They only way they get money to live is to fight Israel. If they don't fight Israel, the aid dries up and they starve. If they fight Israel, Israel unleashes military force and blockaded and they starve.

Geopolitically the Israeli right wing have won. The world doesn't care about mortality. The UN will probably even stop passing their paper resolutions, because the world has way bigger issues like Russia NATO Ukraine, China Taiwan, and Trump vs everyone, brewing trade wars, and the fact that Israel is allied with Sunni Arabs, and Iran lost all its proxies.

The Palestinians are losing their funders, losing practical military access, lost Egypt a long time ago.

Global warming will be kicking into gear, so that means widespread population movements and other issues that will take all aid from the Palestinians.

That's why it's so critical for the Palestinians to find a way to some sort of peaceful state with an economic basis. That is the very narrow historic window for their survival. There is no Israeli kumbaya moment. There is no UN intervention force.

The fact you say "they don't have to accept defeat" is utterly nuts. And it's why that brief path to some survival by the Palestinians in Gaza is virtually impossible.

The West bank has a slightly better chance.

> Black slaves weren't funded, radicalized, and armed with military weapons and missiles with a stated goal of its leadership to kill all white people.

They were actually all of those things... Do you not know what the Nat Turner Rebellion was?

> Newsflash, there are a ton of Palestinians living in Israel peacefully. 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab.

No one ever answers this follow up. What would happen if those Arabs were a demographic threat to the Jewish majority of Israel? Would they still retain their voting rights past 50%? Be honest.

> Stop with the bullshit that West bank and Gaza just want peace.

I never said that. I said that when Israelis decide that ethnic hierarchy is wrong and commit to ending it, this conflict can end.

> Peace was closest when Yassir Arafat walked away from an agreement that included a Palestinian state. He was probably paid to do by the Iranians, Arafat died worth hundreds of millions.

Oh so we just throw out lies now? My comment could have been a lot shorter. What happened to Arafat's counterpart, btw?

> Finally,the Palestinians dug their own mass graves by increasing population by a factor of ten when they had no economy

Advocacy of collective punishment. Nice!

> They only way they get money to live is to fight Israel. If they don't fight Israel, the aid dries up and they starve. If they fight Israel, Israel unleashes military force and blockaded and they starve.

Well, like I said earlier, they could get money if Israelis decided to collectively end the policies of ethnic hierarchy... You know Gaza had an international airport, it had a luxury hotel. It was building an economy. Constant war makes that hard. And as long as millions of people in Palestine don't have citizenship in any country, much less in the country that controls their lives, strife is inevitable.

> There is no Israeli kumbaya moment.

I don't agree. The people of Israel have a collective consciousness that will prevail. Ultimately, whites decided to end slavery in the US. Ultimately whites decided to end apartheid in South Africa. Ultimately Israelis will decide to end their ethnic hierarchy as well. It doesn't have to happen, but I believe it will.

> The fact you say "they don't have to accept defeat" is utterly nuts.

It's not nuts. It's a factual statement. The IRA did not admit defeat even after its prominent members were all jailed. The ANC did not admit defeat even after its prominently members were jailed. History shows they don't have to admit defeat. Many here might say it would be better for them and the Palestinians. But there's understandable mistrust of both sides that making a step forward is difficult. The last time steps forward were made, the PA renounced violence only to have more and more of the West Bank stolen. Rabin welcomed talks towards Palestinian statehood only to get a bullet in return. We went from the highs of Oslo to the lows of the Second Intifada. That kind of backstabbing makes it hard for one side to back down, but there is agency on both sides. The US decided to end racial hierarchy, and it was painful, but worth it in the long run. I firmly believe Israel can do the same.

Nat Turner: a sideshow of American history. Also, armed only with muskets, not missiles explosives and automatic assault rifles, and not able to travel the world and enact terrorism.

50% Arab voting rights: let me get this straight, you admit Israel will never allow Arabs to gain majority voting, an ethnic racial hierarchy, but are arguing that Israel... Can stop apply a racial hierarchy for West bank and Gaza? So you're admitting that your "just do this" is impossible.

The IRA (I'm assuming you mean the Irish) were white vs white, and Christian. Palestinian "problem" is both ethnic and religious divide.

South Africa was probably related to the death of imperialism and the fall of British empire in particular. The whites were way outnumbered and required implicit world support to maintain that long term. The whites either relented or eventually would get the guillotine. Blacks had implicit power in numbers and surrounding countries. That's a totally different power dynamic.

Palestinian population problem isn't laying blame. It's the facts of the situation to highlight how precarious and vulnerable they are, and how little actual power they have. They can't sustain their population without aid, and that aid is implicitly dependent on them being a thorn in Israels side. No thorn, no food. So peace no food, war ... Blockade no food.

I respect your idealism, but I'm in my fifties (not Israeli, Arab, or religious, I have no skin in this game) and ... Look, the Palestinians have worked the moral argument for 74 years. During a time when geopolitics was reasonably quiet between the cold war and the post cold war unipower system. When there was still attempts at the UN, court of international justice, and other idealism internationally.

That era is coming to an end worldwide. Free trade is ending, America is turning insular/isolationist, global warming is in the rise, China is saber rattling, Xi is nuts, Russia is threatening NATO, the EU and NATO are fraying, right wing nationalism is on the rise.

The world is going to abandon the Palestinians. Egypt won't save them, Israel sure as hell won't. You call for impossible idealism, and I call for impossible realism.

Nat Turner had military technology of the time. You are just shifting the goalposts now to exclude everything that isn't exactly this situation to avoid discussing the reality that ethnic hierarchy is bad even in the face of valid security threats it shouldn't exist.

> let me get this straight, you admit Israel will never allow Arabs to gain majority voting, an ethnic racial hierarchy, but are arguing that Israel... Can stop apply a racial hierarchy for West bank and Gaza?

No, you admit that Israel would never allow Arabs to gain majority voting. That proves it is an ethnic hierarchy. Rights are not equal for each population. One ethnicity has the power and the other can never have it. That is what's wrong, and what I say should end. The Americans ended racial hierarchy. The Europeans ended racial hierarchy. The South Africans ended racial hierarchy. Israel must, and will end it as well.

> The whites were way outnumbered and required implicit world support to maintain that long term.

Just like Israel

> The world is going to abandon the Palestinians.

No it won't. Dictatorships like Egypt and Saudi might. But the people will never forget them. Even the Israelis have not forgotten them. Israelis themselves are some of the most vocal about their plight. And it's that spark that will lead them to freedom. You don't have faith in the people. You don't believe the people make change possible. I do. Call it idealistic, but every ethnic hierarchy has ended except this one. I think I'm just following the stats.

Ethnic hierarchies are a fact of history and geopolitics, especially where guns and hatred are involved.

Nat Turner was not financed to the tune of billions of dollars (inflation adjustment necessary) and employed by France to foment and continue fighting. He was not financed to torpedo any real resolution of slavery because it would mean the personal money train ends. Nat Turner did not have a Mafia authoritarian government oppressing a couple million people of his own kind.

The slaves didn't want collectively to fight and kill and jihad on their white masters. They just wanted freedom. They got reconstruction and segregation.

Slavery was only resolved with the bloody civil war. A civil war that America has the luxury of engaging in because it has no geopolitical enemies on its borders.

Does Israel want to kill a couple million of its people to resolve this in a civil war internally? When a dozen enemies would leap at the chance to attack them when they are weakened?

Look, you are dealing with more hatred, more barriers, more meddling external powers, more dangerous enemies.

Every ethnic hierarchy has ended? Us is still ethnically split along the echoes of slavery. The native Americans would also like to point out their situation. Russia is still the Rus at the core and subordinate ethnic stans, just like 1000 years ago. China is an ethnic hierarchy with the Han at the top. Turkey can't wait to reestablish a caliphate. South Africa has worse divisions than the US post apartheid.

The US native American population is basically the Palestinians. That is your analogue. Confined to reservations and poor. I don't want to hold them up as a model of "living as defeated people" but they exist, they have freedom to move in the US, and they aren't viewed by Americans as terrorists and periodically blown up. They have some economic determinism (casinos). That is the model the Palestinians need.

Again with Nat Turner you are just shifting the goal posts of course he didn't have billions but he did successfully kill a lot of whites and was feared and put up as an example of the dangers of ending slavery. Ethnic hierarchies by law with legally different rights based on one's ethnicity have all ended except in Israel. All what you are talking about are not legally encoded hierarchies. You're kind of just floundering so I'll leave you to it. Like I said before, and you didn't respond to, I believe in the people of Israel. They will not let their legacy be one of legally encoded ethnic hierarchy. They don't want to be China or Russia, they want to be America, where even the ethnically cleansed Native Americans are equal citizens (to use your own analogy) with equal voting rights and all

Reply on news.ycombinator.com