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Comment by myrmidon | Hacker News Reader

I honestly believe that the single thing that allowed the levelling of the Gaza strip is October 7th.

This is an easy "excuse" for an outside observer, because the scales are just not obvious enough; On one hand, you have a desperate/futile lashing out from palestinian terrorists (killing about a thousand civilians), on the other hand, a coldblooded strategic bombing campaign (with >20000 victims and basically no building left behind).

I would be really hesitant with assigning blame on either side here.

What do you think would have happened without that "mass mind control"? How could specifically western/external states have helped the situation in hindsight?

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Obviously the United States could simply have refused to sell weapons or crucial technology to the Israelis. The impact this could have is often overblown but it's not nothing.

We also could not have taken part in the atrocity propaganda around October 7 which has advanced numerous falsehoods like "mass rape," "40 beheaded babies," or even "1000 civilians killed."

What helps is to know the history of Israel’s ethic cleansing campaign against Palestinians. Zionists have been murdering civilians en mass since Israel was founded. We don’t hear about it in the West, but it’s actually well documented. They even sniped over a thousand people during the peaceful March of Return protest, leaving Hamas essentially no option.

Sure, but the low inhibitions on murdering civilians are entirely mutual- it's not like all the suicide bombing during the second intifada was mainly aimed against military targets...

I'll absolutely concede that as outsider its more important to keep the Israelis in check, but this is simply because of how the power balance looks: Israel is a modern industrialized state with a highly effective military-- the palestinians, on the other hand, have some smuggled RPGs and a bunch of guns at best.

But when assigning blame for all the bloodshed, also consider the following: If you swapped the roles over night, took all the military capabilities from Israel and gave it to the Palestinians: Do you think the situation would actually improve, or stabilize? Honestly?

My external view of the whole conflict is that Israel is a state that does not want to care for or govern its palestinian minority (which is unethical and very problematic); a lot of palestinians, on the other hand, simply want the Jewish population dead or banished, and finding a solution from this position is immensely difficult.

That ignores history though. There’s a very clear right and wrong here. Israel was artificially constructed through ethnic cleansing. The Balfour Declaration and Nakba pretty much explain it all.

I can absolutely see your point that Israelis in the past did unethical things to make their state happen. And many Israelis do unethical things still, or abuse the power of their state to disproportionally react to attacks.

But my point is-- this is completely unhelpful and almost irrelevant for conflict resolution now. Because what are you gonna do? Throw all the Israelis back to Europe or wherever their ancestors used to live at some point? Give all the military power to Palestinians and just... find out what happens?

It's also important to note that pretty much every modern nation has figurative ethical skeletons ins its closet, and frequently in the rather recent past-- would you sanction/break up the US for segregation (or, worse, their past with native americans)? White South Africans for apartheid? France for colonialism/Vietnam? I'm just saying that it is very difficult to deal with historical injustice consistently...

If you got to call the shots, what would you do with todays Israel?

PS: thank you for the discussion-- i really appreciate getting feedback from a different PoV in a civil manner!

I’m in the US so I would start with immediately ending all funding, military and political support for Israel. They’ve been able to be belligerent because we empowered that. Then I would sanction US companies that operate in Israel until apartheid is fully ended and a singular democratic state exists and the right of return is honored with reparations. I think we’d either see Israel play ball or collapse ala Rhodesia. Focusing on putting economic pressure on Israel seems like the most peaceful solution but I wouldn’t deny Palestinians a military option if that was all they had.

> I’m in the US so I would start with immediately ending all funding, military and political support for Israel.

This is a very principled move, but I think it overestimates the short-term political effect that sanctions can achieve by a lot-- consider Cuba, North Korea or Russia: even heavy, comprehensive sanctions were completely unable to steer those in a different political direction (what sanctions do guarantee is that the affected countries growth is stunted-- fifty years down the line Israel would be pretty much guaranteed to be economically weaker than unaffected neighbors-- but that is a double-edged sword, and unhelpful for peace efforts).

On the other hand, you have significant costs for establishing such a drastic policy: Israeli public opinion would consider you a backstabbing traitor after October 7th, and probably proceed to enact the exact opposite of your demands for the next decade or so out of spite. But an even bigger problem would be that you back the Israeli government into a corner, denying them the ability to weather Palestinian (rocket) attacks passively-- instead, the next clash would probably escalate completely. And that's extremely bad-- Israel absolutely has the military capabilities to enact genocide the conventional way, and by reducing their other options you incentivice exactly that (think current Gaza offensive but with tanks and infantry instead of airstrikes, half a million dead at the end instead of ten thousands plus a large mixed bag of warcrimes).

> I wouldn’t deny Palestinians a military option if that was all they had.

If you give Palestinians workable military options, a lot of them (most certainly the majority in Gaza, maybe a minority for Westbank residents) are going to try and exterminate every jew in Israel, which is just not an improvement. That is one of the biggest difficulties-- even if you managed to wrangle territory from the jews, a right to return for expatriates and their descendants, monetary reparations and legal representation-- that is still quite likely to simply not be good enough for a significant number of fanatics on the palestinian side (and there is no way to get concessions like that from the jews except at gunpoint anyway).

Still, I can see at least the Westbank situation slowly improving over the years. I have talked with a few residents (pre-Covid): People are bitter, there is a lot of repressed anger and helplessness and opportunities are also often (ab-) used to radicalize (e.g. schools or educational autonomy in general), but I could see this slowly mending over a century or two-- Gaza on the other hand... :(

I don’t agree. Palestinians will use force to reclaim their land and rightfully so. Again, Israel could choose peace to stop this from happening. They are the occupying force and the only humane option is to end occupation. I think demographics in the west will support this line of thinking more and more so I don’t see Israel having much of a choice in the long run.

The last U.S election disagrees with your demographics prediction. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong about the future, no one knows and we're all horrible at predicting things, but this maximalist view of yours (And many people in the extreme left) is pushing the Palestinians to a zero sum game where they keep losing.

I think the last election agrees with me! Harris lost because of her support for Israel and sure enough Trump got a ceasefire done immediately. I’m no Trump fan and think he’s anything but pro-Palestinian but he was the lesser evil here.

Getting a ceasefire was a pro Palestinian move by Trump? Most of the Israeli public is in favor of the ceasefire and hostage deal - and quite a large majority.

Kamala Harris and the whole democratic party lost because of a lot of things. I wouldn't put the Palestinians in the top 5.

Yes a ceasefire is pro-Palestinian and they have been celebrating it. There’s another hostage exchange happening where they get back 200 people in exchange for 4 today.

It's also pro Israeli and is wanted by the majority of Israelis.

Even if that's true, which I don't think it is at all, so what ? What's the end game ? Afaik at some point people are supposed to move on. It's been 75 years since 1948, we can solve this thing with a 2 state solution but that's not what the crowds here want. For some odd reason Israel needs to pay the ultimate price, while real 'settler colonialist' countries like Australia, Canada and the U.S who pretty much exterminated (sometimes by purpose, sometimes by disease) whole native populations don't need to pay anything (oh yeah - some lip service sure. Here's a nice reservoir for you Mr Indian).

How come?

The end game is a single state, full rights to Palestinians and reparations. It’s also quite possible Israel goes the way of Rhodesia.

It's also quite possible none of that happens. We'll live and see. In the meantime its mostly the Palestinians who are paying the price for this ultimate quest for historical justice (of course the Israelis are paying a price too for this endless war, and its bad, but not nearly as bad). Perhaps you're right and eventually it will be the Israelis (who will likely mostly flee the region, a thing they're quite used to already). And then finally justice will be served I guess. Quite a lot of losers from this Jihad for ultimate historical justice and "one state democracy".

> We don’t hear about it in the West

Lol right, we never hear about it. You people are so meek and quiet about the perceived evilness of Israel. People only speak about Sudan, Syria, Yemen and countless other places with worse atrocities. No one ever mentions the Palestinians.

The vast majority of Americans do not know about The Balfour Declaration, Nakba, The March of Return… they know what Zionist media teaches them, which is nothing about the actual history of the region. This is the source of demographic split in how Israel is viewed. People who grew up with the internet vs msm are more informed.

Right the whole world needs to talk about the Nakba and Balfour, constantly. That's the major historical event the world needs to be obsessed about and the most important thing on our plates now.

Yes. It’s directly related to the most major issues of today including the post we are currently commenting on.

The fact we're talking about it does not mean its related to the most major issues of today. That's your opinion and I can't think of anything you can back this up with.

If you don’t think the war in Israel, AIPAC, Zionist owned AI, Zionist VCs, the presidential election… are important, then there’s not much for us to discuss.

Side note, the pathological Israeli desire to have the last word is super obnoxious. You can just let a conversation end without adding one more reiteration of the same thing you’ve already said many times. I find this bad trait is omnipresent amongst Zionists.

You're probably getting a lot of feedback from "Zionists" because you're spewing crazy hateful nonsense, and seem hung up on checking for replies all the time. There's nothing stopping you from simply not doing that. But here, I promise not to write anything more to you since clearly you're a lunatic, have a good life. You're more than welcome to write the final point.

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