How dare the founders be born in a country!
This isn't a normal company, just like every Israeli security "startup" with founders coming from idf intelligence units.
Even ignoring this, 32b for such a company just doesn't make sense.
They enlist because they understand that, Israel being such a small country won't exist without an army. Now you may not care, or even endorse such a development. But you can't blame someone who lived there all their lives and has families and friends all over the country to think and act the same.
There is very little complexity to the "conflict". A political movement supported by antisemites wanting to get rid of jews at home established a state through displacement and eradication of the indigenous population. This state has continued applying these kinds of policies to the indigenous population and neighbouring states, and is dependent on foreign aid and the atrocious pillage of other countries, e.g. to support israeli diamond exports.
After the second world war there was an informal consensus that states that participate in genocide do not deserve sovereignty, a position that has since been eroded, in part by the main supplier of the israeli occupation. I understand how people that grow up in fiercely chauvinist and expansionist societies that are groomed since preschool to participate in military apartheid activities have trouble resisting these, which is why I don't believe israeli society can be a part of the solution to its occupation in the short term.
But let's get one thing straight: calling the Arabs in Israel/Palestine "indigenous" while dismissing the Jewish people’s claim to that land is laughable. The very name "Jew" comes from Judea—this same strip of land-where Jewish history stretches back millennia. I’m not saying Arab families who lived there never had rights; of course, they deserve their own country too. But the idea that they’re the only "indigenous" group is just another cheap piece of propaganda, right up there with labeling the whole situation as "genocide" or "apartheid". People have moved in and out of Israel/Judea for centuries. Plenty of folks calling themselves Palestinian today came around the same time as the Zionists or later-just look at the family names that point to places like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond Al-Baghdadi, Al-Masri (the Egyptian), Halabi (Haleb = Allepo, Syria), Hourani (from Houran in southern Syria), Tzurani (from Tyre in southern Lebanon), Hijazi (from the Hijaz province of the Arabian peninsula), Mughrabi (from the Maghreb). Hell, Arafat was born in Egypt.
My basic point is this: both sides do actually have claims. But one side made it pretty clear they weren’t interested in compromise and resorted to terror against civilians, starting way back in the ‘60s. Naturally, the other side fought back, and things escalated.
As for calling Israeli society "chauvinist", give me a break. Israel had a female prime minister in the ’70s, has had women on its Supreme Court since forever, and meanwhile the U.S. is still waiting on its first female president. So, yeah-save the grandstanding about "chauvinism". It’s not as black-and-white as you’re painting it, and if you’re going to throw punches, don’t whine when you get punched back.
>> peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present state boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
> Several states do not recognize indigenous ethnic minorities within their territories as being indigenous peoples, and simply refer to them as ethnic minorities. Many of these ethnic minorities are marginalized from the majority ethnic population in relative social, economic and political performance measures, and their indigenous rights are poorly protected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_the_Rights_of_I...
Note that Israel merely abstained from voting on the latter, rather then voting against like Canada, The US and Australia did (while 143 voted in favor).
The case here is pretty clear cut. By most measures which actually matter for the rights of indigenous people, Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine, while most Israelis are settlers, or close descendants of settlers who gained control over the lands through conquest and colonization.
It is in fact very reasonable to dismiss the (European) Jewish people’s claim to the land if we are talking about legal claims to indigenous peoples. Even though no clear definition has been widely adopted (perhaps for the better) most of the umbrella terms capture Palestinians, and hardly any captures Israelis. Denying the Palestinian claims to their indigenous lands is very much the behavior that the Decleration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples sought to stop.
It follows from this view that the historical jews were weak, impure due to assimilation, 'freyers', which is why they were persecuted and subjected to genocide, and the new, zionist, jew is strong, muscular and will always make someone else the 'freyer'. And, as many zionists see it, will also be on the frontlines in the final struggle of the endtimes, where they will absorb the brunt of the violence and then convert to protestant christianity if they survive.
If you are israeli and support the state of Israel, well, yeah, then I think people ought to try and make you uncomfortable until you stop.
The palestinian indigeneity is much broader than the arabic language. There is no "Jewish people's claim", there is a zionist claim, i.e. a claim from a movement that mostly consists of christians, unless enough hindus have come to support it to outnumber them. Most of the foreign funding would still be from christians, I think. Either way, the territorial claims have little basis in either history or religion, it's an entirely modern idea that fused british and zionist colonial ambitions in the region with antisemitism, and later was inherited by the US.
You have a very colonial outlook, by the way. You look at this and think of people as "Arab", as if the people displaced by Israel that got their homes and homelands eradicated would be the same as people in Morocco or Sudan. It's fine to just drive them away and murder them, because something something Judea, and the empire needs a military presence to offset challenges to its oil extraction.
The zionists brought terrorism to the region and invented parts of modern terrorist tactics, things like market bombings. Palestinians have compromised, while the state of Israel has refused to and systematically murders its negotiating partners and attacks other neighbouring countries. The palestinians got nothing for their compromises, while Hamas has had some success with armed resistance, which, under occupation, is a right.
Israel mainly attacks palestinian civilians, while palestinian militants have for decades tried to avoid civilian harm. This is why the suicide bombings stopped, for example. Israel is also not a democracy, and is illegitimate on this fact alone.
I think the US is severely chauvinist as well. That "female prime minister" infamously said that she could never forgive the palestinians for resisting displacement and murder, and thus "force" the zionists to murder palestinian children.
The zionist occupations are atrocious and criminal. This isn't a grey zone, it's clear from international law and basic morality. You don't get to eradicate people and societies in this way. It was wrong when the russians did it to the circassians, it's wrong when christians and jews do it to the palestinians and lebanese. There are no excuses, and can be no excuses.
Second, saying there’s "no Jewish claim" to the land is straight-up ignorance. There is actually "Jewish claim", you just are not familiar with it. Jews have prayed in the direction of Jerusalem for thousands of years, many prayrs have a part about the return to Israeli homeland (here is one example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Shana_Haba%27ah). It’s part of the jewish daily practice, woven into the very fabric of jewish identity. Meanwhile, Muslims face Mecca—not Jerusalem. Deny it all you want, but the Jewish connection to this place is ancient, tangible, and undeniable.
And let’s talk about your so-called "colonial outlook." Do you even realize Palestinians self-identify as Arabs? the Middle East is historically tribal and ethnic in its identification. This isn’t some "Western" lens; it’s how people in the region actually see themselves. Ironically, you’re the one imposing a worldview that simplifies everyone into a one-size-fits-all label, acting like it’s morally superior to note these distinctions.
Finally, about this "occupation" nonsense: the land in question was under British control—not owned by any Palestinian state—before Israel’s establishment. There was a U.N. partition plan, one side accepted it, the other side went to war and lost. That’s not some mythical, twisted story—it’s documented history. If you start a war and lose, don’t be shocked that you don’t get to dictate the terms afterward.
Honestly, the sheer amount of mental gymnastics required to frame Israel as pure evil while ignoring the endless terror attacks and outright massacres by Palestinian militant groups is staggering. You’re the one excusing atrocities by claiming they’re a "right" under occupation. It’s as if civilian lives only matter when you they are on your side of the political divide
In total 364 corpses were found, including cops and irregular combatants and so on. It's unknown how many of those were Hellfire:d, likely a rather large portion judging from the photos of the aftermath where you can see pretty much every car at the location having been blown up by helicopter.
At the very least it was nothing like the deep cruelty and genocidal mania of the occupation forces. They use snipers to systematically target small children, as you should know.
Palestinians commonly ask 'where are the arabs?' when they're crying and desperate in the aftermath of some israeli atrocity. It is because there is very little community among the arab populations in the Middle East that has allowed for Iran to help supply and train armed resistance groups in Palestine. Palestinians know this better than you or I do.
Last summer the ICJ published their considerations regarding the occupation and deemed it illegal and demanded that it ends immediately. A year ago they found it plausible that Israel is committing genocide and ordered the state to stop with possibly genocidal actions. Consistently and regularly israeli pundits and politicians are confessing to genocide on national television, the Internet and so on. Here's the defense minister in a recent speech:
"Residents of Gaza, this is your final warning. The first Sinwar destroyed Gaza, and the second Sinwar will bring upon it total ruin. The Israeli Air Force's attack against Hamas terrorists was only the first step. What follows will be far harsher, and you will bear the full cost.
Evacuation of the population from combat zones will soon resume. If all Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not kicked out of Gaza, Israel will act with force you have not known before.
Take the advice of the U.S. President: return the hostages and kick out Hamas, and new options will open up for you—including relocation to other parts of the world for those who choose. The alternative is destruction and total devastation."
This isn't aimed solely at the palestinians, Israel is doing the same in Lebanon, where they destroy crops and forests with illegal weapons like phosphor bombs, and they systematically destroy homes, historical monuments and infrastructure. They also occupy lebanese territory, and they occupy Syrian territory. Currently they are also in breach of the peace agreement with Egypt. It is a criminal, expansionist state. This is surely evil. If it's pure evil? I don't know, don't care, that difference doesn't mean anything to me.
Here is two: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/toi-original/watc...
Should I go on? There are so many... I think it holds water pretty well, doesn't it?
I've also explained that this event was unorganised and spontaneous, it wasn't an organised resistance activity such as I meant above.
To me this material prompts the wish for justice, with due process and so on, but you apparently believe it excuses occupation and genocide. I don't think we'll reach common ground here, in part because you also seem to think it should be fine to go on a molly roll next to a concentration camp and not risk harm.
Check how does "concentration camp" look before Hamas started a war at expense of the peaceful population on both sides. There are many "Before October 7" videos on there, all with timestamps and sources from clips that Gazans publish themselves. Luxury villas, luxury cars, cute restaurants and good life all around. Also very sick children were routinly treated in Israeli hospitals for free. The main obstacle for poor Gazans was Hamas and their governing. Hamas also managed to smuggle enough concrete to build a tunnel system bigger than NY subway, instead of pumping these resources into Gazan society.
I don’t think you realize just how hateful your post actually is. You are trying to paint a picture of victims of genocide that somehow deserved the horrors done against them, or at best denies the very real horrors another state is inflicting upon them.
This kind of speech has no place on a tech forum.
let me ask this - are you from the region? Have you been to middle east?
After months and years of the Khmer Rouge doing the Cambodian Genocide, and after most international experts and commentators (except Noam Chomsky for some reason) concluded that the Cambodian genocide was in fact a genocide. Non-south-east Asians were still allowed to hold opinion on it. And further more, if somebody (like Noam Chomsky) would be spewing apologia for the Cambodian genocide, more people than just South-east Asians were allowed to call it out as such.
Edit: Attaching the relevant Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial
Now I live around Palestinians, I have spoken with Palestinian refugees, both in Iceland and the USA. I have attended lectures from Palestinians, I follow Palestinians on social media (both the diaspora, from Gaza, West-Bank, and East Jerusalem). And my interaction with them paints a very different picture than you. The Palestinians I have spoken to don care about Hamas, they may even support Hamas, their primary concern is the Israeli occupation, and sometimes the Israeli settler-colonial national psyche (i.e. Zionism). They are way more pissed at the Israeli government, the behavior it has normalized, the support it gets from Israeli citizens, and the complicity from both Western countries, but especially the inactivity of other Arab countries. They may bring up religious settlers, but that would just be one example of a much larger list of the systemic oppression they experience. They may bring up Hamas, but that is getting into the nitty grit of Palestine politics, they are actually more likely to criticize Palestinian Authority than Hamas.
Now my experience in interacting with Palestinians is probably very skewed to the left. I meet people in protests, on social media I follow gay’s rights activists, etc. So no doubt there are more conservative Palestinians who’s primary concern is Hamas and religious settlers, however I don’t think that makes my view ignorant nor hateful, just a little biased. However if I were to reduce the Palestinian opinion to only include the more simplistic and conservative one, that would not only make my option ignorant, but also perhaps a little racist.
it is indeed sad to hear that so few of the palestinians you have talked to are interested in peace and introspection. hamas is objectively the main reason for gazans’ misery and yet you didn’t meet the brave people who speak against them. anyway, it is also shunned in that community (especially expats who go to pro-palestinian demonstrations) to doubt the narrative of the pro-violence factions.
I can recommend you to seek such voices if you really want to know more and to actually contribute anything rational towards peaceful life in the region.
This is the kind of speech I was talking about. You are shifting the blame of the Gaza genocide, and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories away from the perpetrators of said genocide and occupation and onto the people who are fighting said occupation.
This is exactly the kind of speech which was very common in 19th and 20th century Europe and was used to justify their numerous genocide against indigenous peoples, who fell victims to European colonial conquest and oppression.
you can name many “indigenous people who fell victims” who butchered a thousand civilians and then took 250 hostage? what are you talking about with your inappropriate comparisons?
That is what you did 9 posts upthread. My claim of the Gaza genocide is well accepted among most genocide experts, several human rights organizations, international organizations, and several of the world’s government. The accusation of Oct 7 being a genocide is a fringe theory, which hardly anybody believes, but is used to justify the actual Gaza genocide. This is precisely why I jumped in this threat. To call out your speech for what it is.
> you can name many “indigenous people who fell victims” who butchered a thousand civilians and then took 250 hostage?
That specifically, no. Generally, yes. FLN in French Algeria comes quick to mind. They were probably as brutal and disregarding of civilian casualties among the French colonial settler population as Hamas is. ZANU and ZIPRA in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) is not hard to think of either. They regularly engaged in terrorist tactics. ZIPRA for example downed two civilian airplanes with the sole reason of killing as many white Rhodesian settlers as they could.
If we include general violence against the settler colonists done be the indigenous population outside of an organized group then the Haitian slave revolt is easy to mention. The revolting slaves made no distinction between civilians and military. There you actually had beheaded children which the freed slaves would put onto pikes and display to the french colonial soldiers.
If we include general colonies (not just settler colonies) the Viet Cong and the Kenyan Mau Mau come to mind. The Viet Cong would regularly bomb civilian targets and the Mau Mau did the infamous Lari Massacre where 74 (mostly) civilians were burned inside a locked hut.
All of these atrocities (except maybe the Hatian slave revolt) were than used to justify extreme violence against the indigenous population. The Mau Mau aftermath by british soldiers were particularly brutal, but still comes nowhere near the atrocities commit by the Israeli settler colonial army during the ongoing Gaza genocide.
Finally I would also like to call attention to the French Resistance. They didn’t come anywhere near Hamas in brutality against civilians. At worst they would throw grenades at Nazi soldiers in a public setting. But that didn’t stop the Nazi occupiers from calling them terrorist and use it to justify mass atrocities against the general French population.
At October 7th the Gaza strip was under occupation, with the population on the verge of starvation. That is not peaceful. It was also the deadliest year in a long time for palestinians in the occupied West Bank. An openly genocidal, kahanist-likudnik government had taken power in Israel.
Whatever "luxuries" got into the Gaza strip came through the smuggling network. And either way, armed resistance to occupation is a right. I'd argue it should be under apartheid as well.
and defense is a real right, unlike terrorism, if you pick violence, the other side will defend itself - so you are just glorifying more death, and are blind to your bloodlust, which is disgusting.
As a victim of occupation it's not illegal to form militias and use other irregular means of warfare.
Even if Abu Obeida dressed in babies it would not be allowed to kill them to kill him. The IDF murders civilians systematically and does not try to avoid civilian casualties. Much of israeli society and the IDF considers palestinian children to be "terrorists" in the making and hence legitimate targets, but international and humanitarian law does not support this position. But this is likely why doctors and surgeons commonly see sniper wounds in the head and torso on small kids in the Gaza strip, and it's why it's not uncommon to see video from the West Bank where some unarmed teenager is left bleeding out in the street while the ambulance is held up by the IDF some distance away.
It was illegal to take hostages, sure, but I'm under the impression that most that were taken on 7th were soldiers and that's another thing entirely. You also don't have any evidence of rape perpetrated by palestinians, while there is quite a bit of evidence for use of rape and sexual abuse against palestinians by israelis. Last summer riots erupted in Israel because some soldiers that raped one of their hostages to death were arrested over it, and a couple of the perpetrators were paraded on evening television as heroes.
That's not OP's claim? Although, I'd expect anyone who claims to be G-d's chosen people (religious fundamentalists pretty much anywhere) to anoint themselves saints. The corner stone for the kind of supremacist race/culture theories popular not so long ago.
No one's fault that a nation conscripts all its adults into what some (I don't) perceive as "killing machine" (especially, post 1967). Those adults could refuse, but most don't, for whatever reason. Post WW2, there's a general disgust for war and its proponents, regardless of who or where; except these folks who are even celebrated in tech / US.
> the world is a very simple, non-complex system
"I hated the notion of occupation since the very beginning. My first memories from after the 67 war are travelling with my children in the occupied territories. There were awnings over groceries stores with Hebrew lettering advertising Osem noodles. I couldn't bear it. I thought that was dreadful because I remembered German lettering in France. I have very strong feelings about Israel as an occupier."
It might sound weird to people from the US and many other western nations. Most people there aren't concerned with serving in the military - they either leave it to working class folks to serve, or they don't really have any neighboring enemies.
The Israelis aren't as privileged unfortunately. Israel requires all its citizens to serve so that its military is large enough and strong enough to defend against attacks from the many regressive and murderous regimes that surround it, or even better, deter them from even trying to attack.
I don't know where you live, but he lives in a country that's surrounded by theocratic dictatorships, failed states, and Islamist terrorists who livestream murders and kidnappings.
His choice seems perfectly rational to me.
This guy isn't a normal innocent civilian, that's my point.
It's really interesting to see these small mask-off moments when relatively veteran HN users allow themselves to indulge in such obvious bigotry as this comment.
Weird how you only really see this happening when the post has some relation to the Jewish state.
Apparently it's a mask off moment to notice these things? Or maybe you should examine why you think they're normal.
The Assad regime clinged to power in part in the way it did because it was what Israel preferred, israeli elites have been very afraid of what would follow the fall of Assad, which is likely why they've bombed Syria more or less constantly since then and occupies a large portion of the country. In the West many people believe the Assad dynasty to have been a clean iranian asset, but this isn't true. Bashar had good relations with security services in many other countries, and was one recipient of people collected by the US for torture during the so called War on Terror. Besides Beirut and possibly Amman it's likely Damascus was the most important spy hub in the region.
The fate of Syria is an enormous tragedy, that could likely have been avoided.
It is antisemitic to equate 'the jews' with zionism and the state of Israel.
Self reflection is great, and also is greatly missing from how you describe the palestinians. The palestinians don’t have agency in your view, and are only victims which is simply not the case.
The fact the jews are free to speak what they think (unlike majority of palestinians) is great, however one jew’s opinion doesn’t deny the opinion of majority of jews – that’s pretty easy. And your accusations of genocide and hateful intent on the side of all israelis (including these who go to IDF to protect their families), and claims of "shooting children" intentionally are all simply showing the fact that you are an antisemite, and majority of jews will feel the same way, no matter how many exceptions, Finkelsteins, or Shamirs you will find.
Now you've just picked an hasbara template at random.
There are polls about this that you could easily look up. Is your position that if most Israelis affirmatively support atrocities like this, the rest of the world should just pretend like we never saw that?
> America has killed at least 100x more civilians than Israel has
These aren't mutually exclusive. Israel is one of America's proxies. I'd support the international community putting sanctions on the US to put a stop to these things, but unfortunately it's not likely to happen because the US is the world's largest superpower and controls the global reserve currency, so it can operate with a degree of impunity. Is that a good situation, that you want to replicate around the world?
> no one on his right mind would demonize ordinary Americans
When the overwhelming majority of a country supports committing atrocities, it's not "demonizing" them to point that out.
> to be persecuted everywhere they step on earth.
Apparently it's "persecution" when people say that enthusiastically participating in a genocidal ethno-state's secret police means your company shouldn't get 32 billion dollars.
If the world should generalize over entire populations groups according to some poll then it should at least be consistent and not do it only to Israelis. If I find a poll that shows most Palestinians support October 7th would you immediately denounce every Gazan you talk to? It's also quite obvious many Gazans agreed not only with October 7th but also with the subsequent treatment of the Israeli hostages (which is a type of long lasting torture). Most of these hostages were/are simply kidnapped civilians, the ones you talk about in Sdei Teiman were most likely Hamas fighters connected to extreme cases of violence and terrorism. So there's more nuance here than you make it out to be. I personally think if anyone sexually abused them they should be thrown in jail but I can see why many Israelis have their hearts filled with hatred toward Hamas fighters. It's the job of the state to maintain rule of law.
It is telling that your fantasy about "Hamas fighters connected to extreme cases of violence and terrorism" helps you accept and tolerate systematic sexual abuse of palestinian men, but you don't draw similar conclusions from the actual, real, bombing of small children starving in haphazard tents. The palestinians do not have the capability to do "extreme violence", they just don't have the materials and tools and suppliers needed, because they suffer under occupation or in refugee camps.
The reason most jewish israelis are fine with the crimes their state is committing is not the palestinians themselves, which have a right to resist the occupation violently.
They did. They used that capacity to kill as many people as they could - they reached around 1200 people (+ 250 more kidnapped - many of whom died later) which is not a lack of capacity, and then the war started. Now they have much degraded capacity which is probably a good thing for Israeli civilians. If the Palestinian had a greater capacity to kill on October 7th they would have used it.
The palestinian armed groups had a lot more weaponry than they brought along on October 7th, in an operation that was explicitly aimed at military personnel and bases, as detailed in the israeli report published a while back. They concluded for example that the palestinians in the unorganised second wave arrived at the Nova festival because they couldn't find the way to a military base.
It is unknown how many of those 1200 were killed by friendly fire. From widely circulated photos it has to be a rather large portion, and you also fail to mention that a lot of those people were soldiers and other combatants.
It's not a war, it's a genocidal occupation that is met with puny resistance. You should stop lying and get help to leave zionism.
The Gaza numbers are pathetic compared to the Vietnam war and the Vietnam war was nothing compared to the Holocaust. Let's keep deteriorating this debate I'm loving it.
The puny resistance with Iranian and Qatari support? Tens of thousands of rockets and drones are "puny"?
> “We have local factories for everything, for rockets with ranges of 250 km, for 160 km, 80km, and 10 km. We have factories for mortars and their shells. … We have factories for Kalashnikovs (rifles) and their bullets. We’re manufacturing the bullets with permission from the Russians. We’re building it in Gaza,” Ali Baraka, head of Hamas National Relations Abroad, is quoted as saying.
You should stop lying and stop the hate against a people who defend themselves.
Yes. It's puny.
It's not defense when you're the aggressor.