Comment by McAlpine5892 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by McAlpine5892 | Hacker News Reader

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> It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel.

And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary.

It absolutely blows my mind that in this day and age people are taking sides on a religious war. Stay out. Stay far out. There is no winning. There is no stopping the conflict. Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet. The only thing to see is human atrocities as far as the eye in the name of <your god of choice>.

> There's a state ... [that has] ... the facilities necessary to enrich weapons grade Uranium

Do they? It's oft repeated. But I vaguely remember this country being sold on an Iraq invasion due to nukes. Nukes that never existed and never were close to existing. This wasn't a simple miscalculation. The nukes were entirely and knowingly fictional. And that's just one example of a bullshit made-up reason this nation has started a war to waste lives.

How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?

Why should I believe my country today? Why is today the day of all days that the truth is finally being told? Why is today the day that god is real and I should jump in on the bloodshed?

Your masters are lying to you, to their benefit. They didn't wake up today and decide to be honest.

>> It's that they believe they have a religious duty to destroy the state of Israel.

> And the US is full of Christo-fascists who believe they have a religious duty to "defend" Israel by any means necessary.

How do you even begin to equivocate this? One wants to destroy a country, one wants to protect it from destruction.

> How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?

Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian - and they've had ample capacity to do. The reverse can't be said to be true. If there's a button that the Iraqi or Palestinian leadership that can press that would wipe out the state of Israel and everyone in it, do you think that they won't press it as fast as they can?

> Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian

They clearly and openly state that they want to force Palestinians off of their land and are using violence towards that end.

If there were a button to get rid of Palestinians, Israelis would “hit it twice”.

https://youtu.be/BkP78hyLl4w

That is two random youtubers.

You know better than to listen to rants on line... I hope!

I posted that because it was illustrative and the podcasters used the same phrase, without any shame or compunction.

Here’s a survey conducted by Israeli researchers showing that vast majority (82%) of Israelis surveyed support forcibly expelling Palestinians.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-03/ty-article/.p...

Israelis are brutalized, by the actions of Hamas and at having no choice but to fight Hamas in horrible circumstances.

Hamas could have ended the war in Gaza a year ago. Or on October 8 2023.

Do they? No. They will fight to the last Gazan child.

Is it nice that Israelis see no alternative to Gazans being resettled elsewhere? No.

Do you have a path for Gazans to go back to the mid 1990's when 100+ Gazans came to Kibbutz Nir Oz for a peace festival?

> Israelis are brutalized, by the actions of Hamas and at having no choice but to fight Hamas in horrible circumstances.

No matter how many times I see it, the constant shifting goalposts and lack of self awareness will always startle me.

I am not saying it is good or desirable.

Do you live in a place that has a death cult committing daily acts of violence and killing (against people on both sides of the fence, of both "ethnicities")?

Do you live in a place where billions are spent on offensive weapons (tunnels, rockets) and stolen from donated food aid (as Hamas has been hijacking aid for many years and selling it at profit)?

If you do not, do you have any idea how a group of people (e.g. a society) responds to ongoing violence and threats of violence?

Your dismissive "constant shifting goalposts and lack of self awareness will always startle me" is the mark of someone who sits in an armchair and experiences no threat.

Beware of being dismissive. This region needs people who push for the hard work of peace and avoid labels and dismisiveness.

There was a peace movement in the 1990s. It accomplished a lot (a million+ Palestinians live under a Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza was left to its own devices in 2005).

A death cult (probably two) killed that process. By killing people (including the Israeli Prime Minister). Years earlier, that death cult killed Sadat for his peace making work.

Support those who push for peace.

Call out those who don't.

> Israel has never actually wanted to end the lives of every Palestinian

Uh? So can you explain the genocide?

Can you explain a genocide in Gaza or the West Bank both of which have growing Palestinian populations even during wartime?

(If you correct for the 100K+ who left Gaza before Egypt closed its border in 2024)

Inventing is explaining now? Ah…

Inventing what, exactly?

The population growth rate in the West Bank and Gaza is higher than that of Europe.

I ain't the one having the babies... The residents of those places are.

And what is the life expectancy?

What is the life expectancy of a body politic that chooses ongoing offensive war?

That is not a well thought out question. The answer is different in PA controlled areas, non PA areas, and Gaza.

And Gaza's life expectancy is different for members of Hamas vs. non members. And was one thing on October 6, 2023 and October 8, 2023.

Hamas has agency.

They could end the war a year ago or tomorrow.

Why don't they?

I don't think "getting invaded" counts as "choosing offensive war".

>I don't think "getting invaded" counts as "choosing offensive war".

Do you know what Hamas is?

Do you know their charter?

Do you know that they diverted billions of $, meant to build housing for Gazans to their own pockets and to a huge underground fortress under a civilian population?

Do you know that most Gazans support Hamas, and that Hamas has made many offensive wars against the civilians and armies of both Israel and Egypt? (Hamas killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers running wild in Egyptian Rafah in 2014... Know what Egypt did? Leveled hundreds of housing structures)

Hamas has been in a state of war since the day they took power in Gaza.

Hamas has murdered hundreds of Palestinians, including many who worked for peace.

What do you want to see?

More violence and blood?

Or more peace?

Promote what you want to see.

(Digging out the 100's of miles of offensive tunnels in Gaza is slow slow work. Hamas could end the war any time, but they will never surrender. They will fight to the last Gazan child. Do you want that?)

Is palestine territory occupied or not? You wrote a novel to evade a simple fact.

It is a hasbara account, no point in talking with it.

_How do you think Palestinians sleep at night? With the threat of Israel, funded by the largest military in the world, looming over them every night?_

Probably pretty badly now after squandering decades on building tunnels, hiding weapons and generally being a backwards fundamentalist cultish death camp. It's a mini Iran, and just as hateful. There's a reasom there's a massive security wall along the Egyptian border. They know what's up.

Those with the spirit to strike, will always dominate those with a mind to moderate.

> Every side has an ordained right to blow the others off the face of the planet.

What? Israel is 2000 Kms away from Iran, and would want nothing do to with them if not for Iran's "Death to Israel" slogan and policy...

> Do they?

The IAEA declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations, hardly a "bullshit made-up excuse"

Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications.

It's not about democracy. If it were, we wouldn't have overthrown countless democratically elected leaders throughout South America during the 20th Century.

Our elected leaders constantly attempt to expand their own power. To maximally punish whistleblowers. Our election system is ran by a duopoly who exerts extreme power over those voicing alternative views and opinions.

About democracy, it is not.

Let's say it was though. What gives us the right to blow other countries off the face of the planet? Are we somehow so much better than everyone else because we believe we're democratic? We don't even rank in the top 10 most democratic countries. We throw more people in jail than China. Per capita AND total overall. We throw more kids in jail than any other first world country [0].

Surely, democracy does not automagically lend to treating people fairly. We have enough problems in our own damn democracy to worry about. Crazy to be starting wars to "help" someone who never asked for it. Forcing violence upon those who never consented is absolutely abhorrent.

[0] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/afric...

Whose fault is that? The US and Russia have propped and warred every angle to extract as much oil as possible. The instability maintains a heavy flow of refugees into Europe, destabilising the freedoms they have there and pushing the politics further right.

The sudden switch yesterday from "they can't make nukes" to "they're a fortnight away from ICBMs" felt a little too reminiscent of Iraq twenty years ago.

If we want a stable Middle East, we have to stop bombing the shit out of it, and invest. Negotiate fairly for resources. Offer them a future. And demand Israel stop committing war crimes.

I wonder if the _negotiate fairly_ option is viable after countless generations have been bombed.

We either try, or resign to slowly killing each other until one does figure out how to wipe the other out forever.

Forced separation only deepens the hatred.

It can be simultaneously true that Iran is sitting on a huge pike of precursor materials for nuclear weapons, and is not currently actually making bombs. Last week she was emphasising the latter, now she’s emphasising the former. Disingenuous? Sure.

Trump and his people are children in the back of a car that found mummy’s gun in her purse. They have no idea what they are doing. I understand what Israel is doing but the US administration are clueless and rudderless.

Israel is the only country with tiered citizenship.

It is the only country that has constitutional preference for an ethnic group instead of equality of all subjects/citizens.

It is also the only country with automatic citizenship based on religion.

It is also the only country with nuclear weapons but not part of NPT. Even North Korea is a member of NPT.

The myth of Democracy is just that, a myth. It doesn’t work anymore.

The 18% of Israeli citizens that are Muslim are 100% equal to their Jewish brethren under the law. There is no tiered citizenship.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/supreme-court-rejects-israeli-...

Looks theocratic to me

I don’t think you understand what you linked to. That is about government census forms that track ethnicity, same as any other country. Nationality here doesn’t mean citizenship, but rather something closer to “tribe.”

Some well meaning citizens said “I want to check Israeli rather than Jew, Druze, Arab, etc.” Except Israeli is not a nationality in this sense. Nor is Jewish, on this form, a religious identification. It is a way of tracking, for census reasons, something closer to ethnicity. Not for nefarious purposes, but just to track demographics.

That is a very dishonest interpretation not only because the national registry is not a mere question of census but of identity, but because the Supreme Court clearly outlines that it in black and white that it is about the question of Jewish supremacy.

from the article:

> the court explained that doing so would have “weighty implications” on the State of Israel and could pose a danger to Israel’s founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people.

I think you are dishonestly interpreting it, but I'm not going to engage with a throwaway account.

- There is only one Israeli citizenship. Jews have it. Israeli Arab Muslims have it. Israeli Arab Christians have it. Druze have it. It's the same.

Is there discrimination, in all directions? Yup. The world is a tribal place.

But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on.

- Constitution -- You clearly have not read the constitutions of Syria, Saudi Arabia, or many other countries. Ethnic groups are all over the identities of most of the world's countries.

- Automatic citizenship - How narrow do you define this? African Americans can go to Liberia and other countries of Africa. Until just twenty years ago or so anyone with a German grandparent could automatically get German citizenship. If you are Cuban you can get American citizenship. Are you thinking this through?

- NPT, I am not sure anyone cares, but this is very different than your other topics.

> But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on.

As convincing as your lunch anecdote is, I'm not sure you're can hand waive away the problem so easily.

From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel

A March 2010 poll by Tel Aviv University found that 49.5% of Israeli Jewish high school students believe Israeli Arabs should not be entitled to the same rights as Jews in Israel

An October 2010 poll by the Dahaf polling agency found that 36% of Israeli Jews favor eliminating voting rights for non-Jews

A 2012 poll revealed widespread support among Israeli Jews for discrimination against Israeli Arabs, including 33% of respondents believing Israeli Arabs should be denied the right to vote, 42% objecting to their children going to the same schools as Arabs, and 49% "[wanting] the state to treat Jews better than Arabs"

And on and on and on...

That is polling, that isn't reality.

I live here. In places like Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs are together all day, every day. 40% of the police officers in Jerusalem are Arabs.

What is your problem?

Why do you selectively omit the polls of Arabs and Palestinians... about lots of things.... (attitudes to Jews, support of violent Jihadist groups, etc etc)

If you want peace, push for peace.

If you want violence and blood, keep doing what you are doing.

> What is your problem?

My problem is that Isreal is killing innocent people every day and I want them to stop it. Their horrible record of human rights violations is undeniable.

So I'm sorry if this colors my view of Israelis treatment of non-Jewish people within Israel and makes polls like the one's I cited easy to believe. But you're right I don't live there so I don't know the ground truth.

> If you want peace, push for peace.

That's exactly what I want. How do you suggest I push for it then? Because from where I sit, a good start is to be critical of (or at to least stop supporting) the biggest perpetrator of civilian death on the planet.

> The myth of Democracy is just that, a myth. It doesn’t work anymore.

That is a very strong claim that needs very strong evidence.

You have been provided with a list of items that undermines the claim of democracy, the evidence is also pretty strong. What else do you want?

There's only 3 problems with this old claim.

1. You have to define 'Israel' quite carefully to make it work. Palestinians in East Jerusalem cannot vote in Israeli elections. Is East Jerusalem part of Israel or not?

2. There are several other democracies in the Middle East, for example Iraq and Lebanon.

3. Some of the countries which aren't democratic, would be democratic, except that representative governments were overthrown by the United States, in part to enforce cooperation with Israel, against the wishes of most of the people in the country. For example, Egypt.

East Jerusalem is ... not a nut anyone here is going to crack.

What do those folks want for themselves? Be part of the Palestinian Authority? (Not the ones I have been doing a remodel with.) Make them part of Jordan?

Jerusalem is disputed territory. That makes it an uncomfortable mess, for more or less everyone.

The region needs more efforts toward peace, and less black and white, good/bad labeling.

East Jerusalemites are in limbo waiting for peace.

It's Jerusalem. It's a strange place.

Iran used to be a democracy in the Middle East until the US got involved

Iran was democratic … until we overthrew them.

We, the British or the Americans, or those who control both?

You seem to believe “democracy” is some kind of magic spell or something? This “democracy” just perpetrated and are continuing to perpetrate the worst kind of wanton and sadistic genocide in full view of the world and are doing it in high definition and with impunity. America is supposedly also a democracy and we just in fact bombed a place objectively without any provocation, in violation of our own supreme law, and being utterly counter to American interests, because an alien and foreign interest group has a stranglehold on America.

Democracy is not some magic word that justifies things

A shining beacon of democracy.

Israel has elections. So does Russia. Is Russia a democracy?

Israel, the democratic country whose prime minister appears to be deliberately prolonging the current conflict in Gaza and starting a new war with Iran to avoid facing corruption charges?

> Support for Israel extends beyond religious justifications

Yes, it extends that support to cover apartheid colonial occupation, more-than-likely genocide by all the accepted definitions, and the usual smattering of targeting civilians, executing paramedics in marked ambulances and ethic cleansing.

I could really care less what theit form of government is

> starting a new war with Iran

Hamas has started in on the 7th of october 2023, effectively rolling back years of negotiations done by Yasser Arafat. Where do you think they've got the weapons from? Netanyahu is no better, but they offered him the perfect motive for a response.

> Where do you think they've got the weapons from?

Ultimately, from the United States taxpayer. Who supply the Egyptian military government, who turn a small proportion over to the Islamists to keep them from too much rabble-rousing. Who smuggle them to Hamas.

Both Qatar and Iran supply money and other forms of support to Hamas. But no RPG makes it into Gaza (across a shorter than 10 mile border) without the Egyptian military sort of knowing about it.

And of course one of the reasons Qatar supplied them is because Netanyahu specifically asked them to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas

So Hamas used the Quatari funds for kids' food and medical supplies to buy and manufacture weapons. How does that change anything?

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/10/19/hamas-used-iranian-p...

None of what is going on in the Middle East is a "religious war" as such. That's a thought-terminating cliche that you're putting in practice pretty clearly here.

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