Hacker News Reader

Comment by justin66 | Hacker News Reader

People sometimes forget how bitterly divided Israel was before October 7th, with hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the streets. The war put some of the infighting on hold for a while, but all the former problems still exist, and the stakes are higher.

View on HN

The division is not about the starvation of Gaza. All Zionist parties in the Israeli parliament support the military campaign in Gaza. Apart from some lip-service from left-wing leaders, to my knowledge no Jewish leader has spoken against the starvation. Israeli media (except for Haaretz) have largely denied that there is a famine, and have called it a "propaganda campaign" by the Hamas.

Some Orthodox Jews are very active against it, on very sound religious grounds.

Pretty sure there's some commandment about this.

They're a very tiny minority, and unfortunately they also get harrassed by Zionist Israelis

About 22% of Israel is orthodox and about 13% can be called "ultra-orthodox".

They play a major role in politics. Most prominently and recently, the 8-decade long exemption from the draft for Haredi Jewish people was ended causing a major crisis in Israel's government. All Haredi representatives of the Knesset withdrew leaving Netanyahu's party's majority with a razor thin margin of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset

You mean the really small minority of orthodox Jews who live outside Israel and oppose Zionism because they believe the coming of the Messiah should not be driven by humans (or something like that)? Or the ones who oppose the current Gaza conflict because of the recent push to conscript them into the armed forces, when they previously enjoyed the exemption?

Trust me, no orthodox Jews are opposing the Gaza conflict on humanitarian grounds. On the contrary, there is a STRONG orthodox faction in Netanyahu's government (of which Smotrich is a member).

If you watch Peter Beinart's channel, he has had Ehud Olmert and Avraham Berg on. IDK if they touched upon starvation specifically, but it seemed like they were not in denial about Israel's actions, especially the latter (I think Beinart lightly pressed Olmert on whether Israel's actions constitute genocide, and Olmert disagreed, and I don't know that I begrudge him that, given his position).

Neither of these former politicians are current leaders, of course.

> All Zionist parties in the Israeli parliament support the military campaign in Gaza

Source?

Honest question from someone whose knowledge of Israel's government isn't deep: does "Zionist parties" mean anything other than the parties which are not Arab parties? (are members of the Arab parties free to advocate against Zionism and Israel's status as a Jewish state?)

All parties except for the Arabs and ultra religious are Zionist. The ultra religious have their own relationship with Zionism, but are members of the government.

While Arab MKs do enjoy freedom of speech, they are ostracized and delegitimized by the majority of Jewish MKs.

> they are ostracized and delegitimized by the majority of Jewish MKs

Not exactly.

A conservative Arab party was part of the ruling government coalition in 2021. They joined with a wide spectrum of political parties seeking to defeat the Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu.

That was an exceptional event, that was deeply unpopular within said coalition, and only possible because Netanyahu was widely hated.

From what I read, none of the Jewish parties are interested in renewing the experience.

My understanding is the defense made by Zionist parties is more that Hamas has culpability in the starvation. I haven't seen this claim verified or debunked sufficiently to have a strong opinion about it but it at least seems within reason to me that Hamas is acting in bad faith and is weaponizing starvation of Gaza residents.

Perhaps the fact that the Israeli state are the only ones making this claim, and many multiple experts, humanitarians, countries, leaders, are saying the exact opposite should be sufficient enough to debunk the claim.

> Hamas has culpability in the starvation

I mean, sure? Like, I'm sure Hamas stole like some food. At least once. Non-zero culpability.

Sort of irrelevant to the fact that most of the culpability lies with the guys withholding food from starving people.

The Israeli military itself debunked it I think . The us said the same thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...

> how bitterly divided Israel was before October 7th ... people protesting in the streets. The war put some of the infighting on hold ... the stakes are higher

  What are the factors that transform a society that is generally decent, even if not free from flaws, into a society devoid of any moral restraints, into a multitude that wallows in the dubious pleasure of its cohesion and unity, indifferent to suffering, completely closed to others?

  The victims of the Nazis' knowledge were indeed the Jews. Nazi anti-Semitism was indeed particularly destructive and murderous.

  But the Nazis disregarded human life wherever it was. The extermination of hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners of war is just another example, but their attitude towards their own army, on the Stalingrad front for example, was also devoid of any human consideration.

  Hitler did indeed lead these moves, but only here and there did anyone voice a complaint or reservation. With the outbreak of the war, the spirit of those who could truly resist was completely broken.

  Is it really that easy to break the spirit? How does that happen? Few history books deal with this. Huffner tries to explain, and even if he is not always convincing and does not see everything, this experience of his, so close to the moment of truth in Europe on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, is unique and one of a kind. I believe that even in our time and even in our places, it is worthy of in-depth study.

- Shulamit Volkov (afterword to "The Story of a German" by Sebastian Huffner).

Huffner is Haffner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Haffner

Which is probably one of the reasons, why they escalated the conflict out of proportion in the first place.

Even Charlie Kirk, of all people, was talking about this (ignore the clickbait video title): https://youtu.be/3wUq3t9f6ug?si=nV_NukcsjHZgj0MT

Of all people?

I just googled this: https://www.scribd.com/document/924955773/Kirk-Letter

I don't know much about Charlie Kirk except what I've read recently. But he does/did seem to be part of a growing element of the right in the USA who stand against Israel and Netanyahu specifically. And while I support that, I don't think it's necessarily to support Palestinians, but more as an America First policy.

In that context, "of all people" makes sense to me. I too have been surprised by the move, of some on the right, against Israel, considering their almost unanimous support previously.

> I too have been surprised by the move, of some on the right, against Israel, considering their almost unanimous support previously

The right is not a monolith. Various elements on the right have always been anti-Israel, from the non-interventionists to the straight-up racists. Kirk was one of the former.

Kirk is on video making a joke about how he used to tell leftists, "they would throw you off a tall building in Gaza," but now there are no tall buildings in Gaza (hyuk hyuk), because of those "stupid Muslims attacking Jews."

As the genocide has become more and more indefensible, many right wing water carriers (also including Tucker Carlson) have been peeling off and voicing occasional (but essentially harmless) criticisms of the relationship. It's more cynicism than principle.

Yes, I tend to agree. I get the feeling of an undertone of antisemitism and America First rather than any sympathy for the Palestinian people.

And the more I've read into Kirk, the more disgusted I've been.

Obviously, that doesn't justify what happened to him, but he definitely isn't some kind of saviour and hero he's been made out to be after his death.

Watching him effectively being made into a saint has been mildly nauseating.

You be aware of this study indicating more diversity of opinion on the right vs left.

https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso....

For context these are the questions asked since obviously this claim will change a lot based on questions. I wouldn't say it's terribly surprising based on my experiences, I've met Republicans against a lot of these things. I'm also wondering a bit how they got their sample since they had way more Democrats than Republicans and how representative it is (it also didn't close to match the racial makeup of the US). Not hating on the study, I didn't spend enough time reading it to know it's effectiveness, mainly the actual questions seemed important.

Item 1) Abortion should be illegal.

Item 2) The government should take steps to make incomes more equal.

Item 3) All unauthorized immigrants should be sent back to their home country.

Item 4) The federal budget for welfare programs should be increased.

Item 5) Lesbian, gay and trans couples should be allowed to legally marry.

Item 6) The government should regulate business to protect the environment.

Item 7) The federal government should make it more difficult to buy a gun.

Item 8) The federal government should make a concerted effort to improve social and economic conditions for African Americans.

Edit: to be clear I read the study and they used Prolific (https://www.prolific.com/) to get the participants but that means nothing to me.

Yes

https://youtube.com/shorts/nNfDr18C6H4?si=CKalCaG0DMUP3rZZ

This and my original comment apparently struck a nerve for some people, but I’m just sharing what I observe from the links I’ve included. I’d love to see some actual response to the content of these videos given Kirk’s apparent change of heart on Israel (especially if I’m off-base) as opposed to just downvotes with substance-free responses

Reply on news.ycombinator.com