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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> lot did business with Nazi Germany too

And then we told them not to and they (mostly) stopped. The correct way to effect this change is politically. Not at a company anniversary party.

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We're talking about it, so it seems pretty effective to me! The "won't people think of Bill Gate's feelings!" arguments aren't very compelling, just makes you look like you want to be complicit.

> We're talking about it, so it seems pretty effective to me!

Talking about an issue is productive if you need to bring awareness to it. There is nobody on the planet who isn't aware that something is happening in Israel and Gaza. And when an issue is this divisive, calling attention to it mobilises both sides. (See polling following the protests at Columbia, for example. Awareness went up. But net support increased more for Israel than Palestine because people just defaulted to their priors.)

Support for Palestinians has increased steadily since Israel started its latest genocide. I think you're confusing Zionist PR expenditures with actual support, which is rapidly dwindling for Israel.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-to...

> Support for Palestinians has increased steadily since Israel started it's latest genocide

I never argued otherwise. I'm saying look at the polling immediately after the protests.

Media reporting of atrocities drives down favourability for Israel. Media reporting of the protests drives down favourability for Palestine. It's why, despite favourability for Israel monotonically declining since 2023, its net favourability vis-a-vis Palestine blipped up in '24.

That's not true at all and you won't find a poll that backs up what you're saying.

> That's not true at all and you won't find a poll that backs up what you're saying

What's not? Literally look at the Gallup poll you cited [1] to see Palestinian favourability dip in 2024.

I'll note that part of it is the media's fascination with the pro-Hamas minority at pro-Palestinian protests. Organisers are getting a little better at screening those folks out.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-to...

There's zero evidence that the protests have had negative impact on support for Palestinians. The media is staunchly Zionist, you could make the case the protests have effectively counterbalanced their propaganda.

> zero evidence that the protests have had negative impact on support for Palestinians

Of course there is [1][2]. (You see similar effects from e.g. bridge blocking in the broader protest literature.)

And again, what do you think happened in 2024 that caused support for Palestine per your source to drop?

> media is staunchly Zionist

The population has been broadly pro-Israel until very recently. The media market is, in the end, a market.

[1] https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/49311-opinion-on-...

[2] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/05/03/p...

What happened? About a trillion dollars worth of hasbara, which in the end couldn't counteract the actual footage IDF were posting of their war crimes.

I’m starting to suspect you are arguing in bad faith. Three hours after you posted this, you posted [1] a sibling thread citing older numbers from the same source. Why did you do that? Over there your narrative was that support for Palestinians weren’t as great as your parent was arguing, so instead of citing this poll from this year, you posted an older poll from 2024 where support for Palestinians weren’t as great. You knew about this newer poll, but you still choose to post the older one that just so happens to align better with your argument.

Also this poll doesn’t back up what you are saying. These protests are as much anti-israel as they are pro-palestine, and support for Israel has been consistently dwindling. The protests continued throughout 2024 especially leading up to the November election, yet in 2025 support for Palestine was in all time high. Most likely the support dropped in 2024 because the horrors of the 2023 oct 7 terrorist attacks were still in fresh memory, so support for Palestine, which had been steadily increasing, took a momentary dip, but quickly readjusted at an increasing rate as the accusations of the Gaza genocide became ever harder to deny.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43617196

> you posted [1] a sibling thread citing older numbers from the same source. Why did you do that?

I’m citing the poll the commenter I’m responding to originally cited. Given they trust that poll, it made sense to respond to it. I was also making a point about a dip in 2024; the newer poll doesn’t update those data.

> support for Israel has been consistently dwindling

Literally what I’ve been arguing [1].

Support for Israel is monotonically decreasing. When protests are covered, support for Palestine dips.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43615994

For the record (not looking to argue, just pointing out interesting fact) this was just released today and shows for the first time that majority of Americans across all ages and all party affiliations have an unfavorable view of Israel (53%; up from 42% in 2022).

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-ameri...

Don't forget it all came to the center stage after a mass butchering at a music festival, few beheadings and some Jewish babies kidnapped. Pretty effective! What is a little terrorism for a greater good! /S

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