Hacker News Reader

Comment by n1b0m | Hacker News Reader

Israeli public figures call for ‘crippling sanctions’ on Israel over Gaza starvation

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/letter-sanctio...

It's important to note that a big part of Israeli society opposes the JahuNatan government, the illegal settlers and war crimes in Gaza. Even after the Hamas attack on Kibbutzim near Gaza in '23.

Quite important not to become part of the problem when you discuss this case. And the problem is that such a heated subject is prone to make people ideologically possessed and tribal. To a point where they become emotionally blinded and are unable to listen to people that don't share/fully support their beliefs.

They may oppose the current arrangement of the government but they don't disagree with the occupation and ethnic cleansing.

> Eurasia Poll: 82% of Israelis want to expel Palestinians from Gaza; 47% want to kill every man, woman, child

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/30/poll-israelis-exp...

I agree there is a significant number opposed, given the protest sizes in Tel Aviv, but it is far from the majority.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-israelis-support...

Given Israeli education, support for settlers, the immigration policy which allows anyone with Jewish heritage to claim land there (regardless of any connection to the area, and of any outstanding arrest warrants) and Israelis using their kids to stop aid trucks and so on, there's a lot needed to show the majority what is actually humane and acceptable.

Netanyahu is the longest serving Israeli prime minister in history serving a combined 17 years. And he is tipped to win again next election. He very much embodies the will of the Israeli public.

If you listen to their “liberal opposition” leaders like the likes of Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz they sound just as unhinged as Netanyahu himself [1]

Every poll conducted on Israeli public opinion on the conflict would make have made Nazi officials blush. Majority of Israelis support ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza [2].

Seeing the facts as they are is not being “emotionally blinded”. When genocidal psychopaths scream at the top of their lungs they want to commit genocide and actively work towards that goal, with the results right in front of our eyes, we compelled to believe them.

[1] https://x.com/ghostofbph/status/1948720978378309847?s=46

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

Except that's not the case at all. That one poll is extremely dodgy. Here's are other polls:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-70-of-israelis-support-se... https://en.idi.org.il/articles/58648 https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59019 https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59940 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/art... https://www.inss.org.il/publication/survey-april-2025/

But I'm pretty sure you are only interested in sources that confirm what you already believe.

You have no idea how far gone things are for you to be sprouting this weak hasbara.

It's interesting to contrast comments like this in this thread, with the amount of hatred and abuse heaped upon Russians on the day of Russia's invasion - not just the Russian state, but a big chunk of comments that made it clear that they held all Russians responsible for it and would like to see their lives destroyed. And had relatively little pushback against them.

I agree with the sentiment of your second paragraph, but I wish that thought applied in general, and not just to some special case countries. Especially considering the widely differing levels of democratic power people have in these different countries.

The Russian war on Ukraine is a WILDLY different case. There was no border dispute of any kind between these countries, no terror, no threats, just the Russian desire to own Ukraine.

Your point is pretty moot.

> There was no border dispute of any kind between these countries

That is such a perfect representation of the level of public discourse around this, that I can only thank you for providing a sample. It's not even hard to learn about the Donetsk region's conflicts and the destruction there long before the invasion, but flooding the media and Internet with convenient narratives like "just the Russian desire to own Ukraine" has worked and continues to work very effectively on the general public (likely even more than the censorship does).

And all of this is quite orthogonal to the main fact here, which is that it makes very little sense to blame the population living under an authoritarian government and want them destroyed for that government's actions, and then turn around and give people in a democratic country a pass on their government's actions.

> It's not even hard to learn about the Donetsk region's conflicts and the destruction there long before the invasion, but flooding the media and Internet with convenient narratives like "just the Russian desire to own Ukraine" has worked and continues to work very effectively on the general public (likely even more than the censorship does).

There was none. The conflict in Donetsk was entirely manufactured during the initial stages of the 2014 invasion. When the European Court of Human Rights reviewed a case concerning the downed Malaysian airliner, the Russian side argued that Russia was not involved, claiming that it was the work of "Donetsk rebels". The court found that there was no genuine separatist movement and no rebels of any kind, only unmarked troops operating under direct Russian control from the start.

If anything, the media has been flooded with misrepresentations that promote a "generic ethnic conflict" narrative to mask a straightforward and unprovoked invasion of one country by another country. And the reasons indeed do boil down to one single person, his unchecked power, and unhealthy obsessions - as has been the case with many dictators throughout the history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44725768

Reply on news.ycombinator.com