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> The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.

And they're trying their best to silence the Gazan voice by not letting in any international journalists, labeling every journalist as Hamas, killing them all, one camera at a time. Or five.

I agree. It is dehumanizing. Neither side views the others as humans. Neither side will engage in good faith negotiation. Both leaderships want it this way, yep I'll repeat that:

BOTH LEADERSHIPS WANT IT THIS WAY.

At a minimum, both keep power this way. #1 priority of crazy authoritarians: maintain power.

There is no humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a secular idea. These are two religious extremist regimes. There are no secular priorities by either government. Only religious extremist views. Neither side will negotiate or coexist in a secular peace.

Yes, Hamas will happily throw away massive numbers of its people if it thinks its winning. That's the entire strategy. Yes, they get paid to do that by various states like Iran and the UAE. That's the only money that comes into the palestinian territories: humanitarian aid (which is funneled/controlled by the PA or Hamas) and military aid, which gets funneled to Hamas (I admittedly know less about how the PA works, I think they are the same just not as bad) and they use to maintain authoritarian control over Gaza.

The military aid enables Hamas to keep power, and it only comes if they keep poking Israel.

Is it cruel of me to point out that expanding your population by 10x when they are virtually entirely dependent on external aid is absolutely crazy? And yes, sorry, the only reason I can think of other than incredible stupidity is for cannon fodder.

Why wouldn't a two state solution work? Well it would be a three state solution if we're serious, no way the PA in West Bank shares power with Hamas in Gaza. No effing way. And yes, they would still launch rockets at Israel. Because, again, that's what Hamas leadership gets paid to do, and having a state won't change that. If you think otherwise, I'm sorry, I think you are naive.

And yes, Israel/Netanyahu will look for ANY provocation to loose the barrage. Here, I'll give you a conspiracy theory: they'll false flag if they have to. Pay some group to start the war. I think there's a conspiracy theory they rigged this provocation. I'll give you that, sure! What would having a state matter?

Look, the Palestinians are in a really really bad situation in terms of power dynamics. Only in modern (secular) international politics do the Palestinians even get to voice an opinion. Go ahead and argue about books or historical rights or atrocities. It won't change anything, Israel has a military that can wipe you out, and even if it seems like this is unrestrained: it isn't.

Egypt will never let Palestinians into Sinai. Jordan will never again take them, Kuwait kicked theirs out, no Arab state will take them. They need to figure out a way to survive in Gaza. They are grossly outgunned, and only modern (secular) international relations prevents Israel from doing what the Mongols did to Baghdad.

The oil is going to get less important with alt energy and EVs. Global warming is coming. THE MONEY WILL DRY UP. International attention will return to the apathy in line with the Tigray war and Azerbaijan-Armenia and Turkey-Kurds, and whatever else is going on in the world.

When that happens, aid stops, food stops, gun shipments stop. Either Israel annihilates the Palestinians then, or they starve. Pick one!

Hamas needs to step down and surrender and accept any peace they can get. Yes Israel builds settlements and encroaches. Beg Egypt to once again take over administration of Gaza (they won't ...) Beg someone to do it, get Hamas out of power. Only way a two state solution works is if someone Israel trusts just a bit takes over Gaza for a decade on a path to independence.

If Hamas cared about its people, its children, its wives, it would step down. Right? Because they are humanitarians? Find some Arab country that will accept their surrender and provide sanctuary? Because the united Sunni brothers would do that for humanitarianism? You and I both know that will never happen.

The people in control will risk total destruction over the surrender of any power, money, or control.

> I agree. It is dehumanizing. Neither side views the others as humans.

To clarify, YOU are the one doing the dehumanizing in your post, as myself and that other poster observed -- Not to mention the genocidal rhetoric. Just 1 small snippet of it from your post:

> Is it cruel of me to point out that expanding your population by 10x when they are virtually entirely dependent on external aid is absolutely crazy? And yes, sorry, the only reason I can think of other than incredible stupidity is for cannon fodder.

Imagine criticizing a people currently being genocided, for reproducing. Why don't they just let their entire ethnic group be exterminated, amiright? Disgusting. You know who else thought that downtrodden groups shouldn't reproduce? Pretty much every xenophobic pariah and war criminal in history, and many (including israel) are using violence to achieve that.

'Is it cruel to sympathize with, and encourage, the perpetration of a genocide? '

Is that a serious question?

Why are you quoting something I didn't say? 'Is it cruel to sympathize with, and encourage, the perpetration of a genocide?'

So are you interested in a solution, or are you just pillorying people for sympathy?

The Palestinians want sympathy. The Israelis want sympathy. The Palestinians want money (and get) money. The Israelis want (and get) money. The Israelis pound a religious book and whine about this being their ancestral home. The Palestinians pound a religious book and whine about this being their ancestral home. The Israelis show through their actions that they would happily kill all Palestinians. The Palestinians leaders regularly declare they would happily kill all Jews. Both sides are evil terrorists/genociders/radicals/militants.

I'm so tired of naive/mendacious moralism by the proponents of both sides.

At this point, a solution that doesn't involve "final solutions" won't involve social media propaganda logic, or "I want to save all cute kittens" levels of understanding the political, sociological, and historical difficulties.

Do you want me to quantify the sympathy? Well fine. Here you go. The Holocaust killed 5-6 million Jews. The current ... intifada/assault/slaughter ... is 66,000. Displacements, forced migrations, and the like probably killed hundreds of thousands more Palestinians. So let's go for the entire 75 years and say ... 500,000. Which is 1/10th the genocide placed on Jews, leaving out the hundreds of years historical pogroms of Europe.

So should I feel 90% sympathy for Israel and 10% for Palestine? That's what the scoreboard says roughly over the last 100 years. Is that what you want? Obviously that is ridiculous logic, and most importantly, doesn't help one iota for a short or long term resolution.

The Palestinians got an unprecedented historical gift: the amount of aid they have received after the 1950s British Empire like territorial and ethnic chaos is geopolitically engineered in the creation of Israel, I can't think of anything similar. It supported a population of like 500,000 people to the point they became 5,000,000 people.

It's because of the unprecedented oil wealth, obviously, and the kindness of Arab oil states, I believe UAE in particular.

Palestinians don't seem to realize that their greatest enemy isn't Israel: this aid largess that supports them is going to dry up. Oil is going to be less valuable as transportation electrification and alternative energy develop. The great eye of sauron that watches this little postage stamp of the world will turn to deal with other things, like nascent superpower conflicts between EU-Russia and China-Taiwan.

And I haven't even gotten to global warming disruptions that probably will start to rear up in the coming decades.

The money will dry up. The attention will disappear. The sympathy will fade. Israel will gain unrestrained power over the Palestinians.

The Gazans need to eject Hamas leadership, and surrender them to the Israelis. Then accept whatever conditions to be allowed to create and economy. That swinehead Jared Kushner is indirectly correct: their only hope for some economy is as a tourist economy for their swathe of the Mediterranean Sea. I don't see any other way they can construct some economy of and degree of self-sufficiency.

If Gaza and the West Bank don't find some means of doing something like this, they die of mass starvation when the aid necessary to support 5,000,000 people disappears.

Israel doesn't have to do anything but .... wait. They'll probably lose a large amount of US military aid at some point but they have an economy and industries to support the loss of that aid, and as the most geopolitically effective "ally" the US has in the region, it won't disappear entirely.

All the bullshit sympathy mongering by pro-Palestinians is just dooming them further. It keeps the conflict going and keeps resolution intractable, something that, as I have stated, the respective controlling political powers want, but the people ... probably not.

So if you have SERIOUS insights or solutions, please... go ahead.

> Why are you quoting something I didn't say?

I'm not. Double-quotes means quoting. Single-quotes means paraphrasing.

> At this point, a solution that doesn't involve "final solutions"

Yes, that is what many are looking for here -- that is why, when we see israel executing their 'final solution', we say that it is bad.

The rest of your post, with respect, is off-topic, and is more dehumanization which does not address the issue of israel perpetrating a genocide, because there is no justification for that. It does not matter what anybody did at any time: israel's genocide of Palestinians is bad and must be stopped, no matter what. It does not matter that israel is incapable of coming up with or implementing any alternatives: israel's genocide of Palestinians is bad and must be immediately stopped, no matter what.

It is up to israel to find a solution that makes them happy and does not involve genocide or other war crimes or crimes against humanity. Pretty much everybody else manages to do it, and israel is pretty smart and capable, so they can to, but only if the genocide isn't their goal. As many here have pointed out, though: genocide is their goal. They openly announce it, they just don't explicitly say "the g word" when doing so.

If you seriously want to discuss real solutions (I'm going to take you at your word here on HN, that you'll participate in good faith), it would have to start with you recognizing and stopping your dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric. Then, maybe we can use the following as a foundation of shared values to build upon:

All innocent civilian lives are equal to each other, they all have equal human rights that deserve to be respected, and the death of 2 innocent civilian lives is worse than the death of 1 innocent civilian life, no matter their race, nationality, or national origin. Hopefully you can agree with this.

Once we're on the same page there, you can present some serious* solutions for evaluation.

* - serious here precludes genocide, however much one may want it, and as we see here, the scholarly and global consensus is that israel is currently perpetrating a genocide upon palestinians

> I'm not. Double-quotes means quoting. Single-quotes means paraphrasing.

If you abuse punctuation to mean different things than it conventionally means, then you are not going to communicate effectively. Paraphrasing is when you describe someone’s position without using quotation marks (in English generally, single and double quotes have the same meaning, and are used to distinguish nested quotations, with regional variation in which is usually preferred for primary, unnested quotations; both are also used for use/mention distinctions for literal words of phrases, and some styles distinguish which style of quotes are used for use/mention vs. primary direct quotation, but paraphrase is neither of these.)

your reply here quoted in its entirety for posterity:

> If you abuse punctuation to mean different things than it conventionally means, then you are not going to communicate effectively. Paraphrasing is when you describe someone’s position without using quotation marks (in English generally, single and double quotes have the same meaning, and are used to distinguish nested quotations, with regional variation in which is usually preferred for primary, unnested quotations; both are also used for use/mention distinctions for literal words of phrases, and some styles distinguish which style of quotes are used for use/mention vs. primary direct quotation, but paraphrase is neither of these.)

I hope this reply (focusing on 1 stylistic detail of the first sentence of the post rather than the substance) is not indicative of your usual posting. Try to focus on the substance. After all, I said I was assuming good faith and trusting that you were genuinely interested in the substantive discussion you started. Don't make me look dumb for trusting you. Feel free to edit your post to include more than just a stylistic nitpick.

Wait! Wait! I fear you heard might've heard me say something like, 'double down on the semantic thing, argue about its importance', but I didn't. Because what you or I think about stylistic preferences around paraphrasing (or as you put it, "abusing punctuation") is less important than stopping a genocide.

> I hope this reply (focusing on 1 stylistic detail of the first sentence of the post rather than the substance) is not indicative of your usual posting.

Not that I am overly concerned with your hopes in this area, but you could just check that with less effort than posting speculation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dragonwriter

> Because what you or I think about stylistic preferences around paraphrasing (or as you put it, "abusing punctuation") is less important than stopping a genocide.

That might be a point worth discussing, if what you were doing was, in fact, actually stopping a genocide, or even communicating effectively.

Darn, I was hoping you would focus on substance instead of again totally ignoring it and doubling down on the stylistic preference differences.

> if what you were doing was, in fact, actually stopping a genocide, or even communicating effectively.

It is! That's why I'm trying to discuss it in spite of deflections to purely stylistic differences. If you are interested in stopping the ongoing genocide too, please go back to the post you ignored the substance of and give a substantive, good-faith reply, if you are indeed interested in continuing the discussion you started and claim to want. Here is that post you ignored, for ease of navigation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45141607

> why would they provoke a war after reaching their goal of having a state?

Because having their own state isnt their goal, the destruction of zionism is.

> The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.

Israel has nukes and is self sufficient. International opinion only limits them until they decide dealing with the palestinians is more important, at which point they can team up with china. Really the only limit to Israels actions are what the israeli people will vote for.

I dont really get your obsession with the rabid animal theme. We know that israel cares more about civilians than the palestinian government because israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv. Hamas has mafia level control over gaza. Thats just a fact, why does that make us racist for pointing out? They use human shields, it is obvious that they do not care about their populace. We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza. That doesnt make the israeli government good, its just a reminder that things will probably continue to be terrible in the region

>They use human shields

Israel's definition of human shields is placing military infrastructure adjacent to civilian infrastructure. Literally no international body agrees with this, but ignoring that, the IDF is itself guilty of this because many of its installations, including Hakirya, are surrounded by residential buildings. The Lehi also fired rockets from and cached ammo within schools and synagogues - this is commemorated by plaques in the affected buildings. There is also copious video evidence of them taking human shields by the much narrower, much more widely accepted definition of human shielding wherein civilians are coerced into entering combat zones under the thread of violence.

1. The israeli government sucks

2. The IDF doesnt need to use human shields because hamas/iran dont have accurate missles. Even if the IDF did operate out of apartment buildings like hamas it wouldnt be evidence that the gov doesnt care about the populace because their enemies cant hit them anyway

Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?

>The IDF doesn't need to human shields

And yet they still do, by their own definition and the one that is actually in wide use.

>Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?

Far fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by the IDF 'mistakenly' turning a hospital to rubble with journalists in the vicinity. What are you even trying to argue?

< What are you even trying to argue?

The israeli govenrment is far less cavalier with their civilians lives than hamas is. As you pointed out they are not just sticking them in the line of fire like hamas is

> Because having their own state isnt their goal, the destruction of zionism is

Oh of course, these are not people- they don't want their own good, they want to destroy others. Is this what you mean?

> israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv

You obviously don't know that Israel bombarded Gaza killing 1800 people in 2008/9, 430 people between 2010 and 2104, 2270 people in 2015, plus 800 more between 2016 to 2023? This 4 times the victims of October 7- and we don't count the blockade and the wrecked economy.

> We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza

Yes of course, blame the victims. No, Israel has imprisoned 2 million people inside Gaza for 20 years and periodically bombed them, and this is an unimaginable crime, orders of magnitude worse than Hamas ever did. Frankly, October 7 was horrible but nothing in comparison, plus it was obviously needed to bring the necessary attention to the situation. Fucking sucks, but hey, that's something Israel brought upon itself thanks to its criminal behaviour and the complicity of the West.

What is the point of acting like Hamas has not constantly, from its inception, called for the utter destruction of israel? You are not tricking anyone here, they werent trying to hide it or anything. I agree the palestinians have been horribly oppressed by the Israelis, but sometimes people deserve to be oppressed. Sucks for all the kids born in gaza but its not israels fault their society has called for genocide of jews for like 80 years now. I feel way worse for Palestinians in the west bank than those in gaza. The west bankers truly got fucked by israel, the gazans largely deserve what they got. You dont get to constantly launch rockets at their biggest city and then claim you want peace.

Where do you get your news? They've really done a number on you.

> What is the point of acting like Hamas has not constantly, from its inception, called for the utter destruction of israel?

What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over? You know, even if you don't like the goals of Hamas (which is not monolithic, it has even accepted Palestine in the 1967 borders, offered 10-year truces, etc)- if you give people what is fair, and cooperate, and let them have a life with hopes and future- you will get peace in return- with or without Hamas.

And the bottom off this idea of "Hamas wants to destroy Israel" there is always the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness. This is stupid and racist.

> You dont get to constantly launch rockets at their biggest city and then claim you want peace.

Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either. You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.

> Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either.

The palestinains started pretty much every war. Israel won them. If the palestinians didnt want to be stuck in gaza they shouldnt have started and lost all those wars. Now they have to live with the consequences. To be clear I dont think gazans are wrong for being pissed about their situation. I do think theyre wrong for doing absolutely nothing to improve it though. I think theyre wrong for starting wars they cant win and then complaining when they dont win them.

> the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness.

Maybe if they stopped devoting all their resources to destroying israel and invested in themselves people wouldnt think this(to be clear I dont, although I do think Hamas leadership largely does thinks this). The bottom of the idea that hamas wants to destroy israel is hamas, repeatedly saying they want to destroy israel. Why shouldnt I trust what they constantly say?

> What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over?

Who is acting like this? Israel shown restraint which hamas has never done. You are right, they could kill every single person in gaza quite easily, they dont want to. The same cant be said for hamas and how they feel about israelis.

> Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either.

Why not? Why should Israel, with the power to wipe palestine off the map, settle for anything less? The problem with hamas launching rockets is that they cant back it up when israel correctly sees that as a declaration of war.

> You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.

And this mentality is why the israelis have decided a genocide is their best option

>The palestinains started pretty much every war.

The Palestinians didn't start the 'war of Independence' in which the precursors of the most moral army in human existence prosecuted what widely fit the rubric war crimes on a massive scale. They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel. They didn't occupy South Lebanon or the Golan Heights. They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran and the prime minister of Yemen. They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceazefires by raiding cities in Palestinian territories. This is such an egregious misunderstanding it's hard to blame it on simple ignorance.

> The Palestinians didn't start the 'war of Independence'

yes they did. The jews were ready to accept the UN plan.

> They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel.

Youre right about this one

> They didn't occupy South Lebanon

This was in direct response to attacks from hezbollah

> or the Golan Heights.

Agreed israel did syria very dirty

> They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran

By government officials you mean terrorists who directly contributed to ki9lling israeli civilians

> They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceasefires

Yes the palestinians absolutely did this

The median age in Gaza is 19 years old, you're a deranged genocidal clown and probably a bot.

They did, every chance they got? Ntifadas, suicide bombings , 7 October , on and on.

Only exception was when the west bank was part of the Palestinian state and ghaza part of Egypt for 30 years. They where "peaceful" under islamic rule, though still warring against Israel.

Peace = Colonializing the world for the faith. Its very medieval and very real .

The nazis just wanted Lebensraum , why can you not accept those goals.