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Comment by ta20240528 | Hacker News Reader

ta20240528

I can't guess what the USA wants other than a distraction from the raping-of- children saga, but I bet Israel would settle for "we acknowledge your right to exist and won't fund or encourage organisations that plan to harm you."

If Saudi Arabia can get there…

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The world has seen what Israel does when they’re attacked. They don’t get to set moral frameworks anymore.

Agreed. But that wasn't the OP's question.

Who in your opinion sets the moral framework for defending oneself against an enemy which has sworn genocide and proven capable of destroying entire peaceful villages along their borders?

you're describing Israel here, right?

Which village in Gaza do you consider to have been peaceful?

[flagged]

The IDF did not starve civilians - that lie has already been disproven. I know that you'd love to repeat it until history records it, but by no objective measure was there famine nor starvation in Gaza. Other than the starvation of Hamas' hostages.

The images of "starving children" were images of children with other medical conditions. The UN reports used a metric that considered starvation at HALF the threshold used in every other conflict zone, and even with that metric only found "evidence" in a single location once.

… but they did bomb apartment buildings in Tehran. I saw that with my own eyes.

Stick to the challenge: what won't you accept? Nothing?

I accept the bombing of buildings which house those who have declared "Death to America, Death to Israel", and then have proceeded to bomb apartment buildings in Beit Shemesh.

That's a war crime.

No, that's just war.

From The United States Uniform Code of Military Justice: "Attacking civilians is unequivocally a war crime".

https://ucmj.us/is-attacking-civilians-a-war-crime/

@dang: you've banned members from this forum before for messy threads merely discussing apartheid. Surely advocating for war crimes — that the US itself considers crimes — is beyond the pale?

There are no peaceful villages in Israel, they exist only due to recent violence.

You do not consider Kibbutz Beeri to have been a peaceful village bordering Gaza? Or you are just unfamiliar with the area?

I challenge you to research Kibbutz Beeri and find a non-peaceful description of the village.

It's really hard to describe "11 points in the Negev" as peaceful.

Kibbutz Beeri was created for the sole purpose of justifying a hostile land grab by a bunch of well-funded European immigrants.

israel will never be reasonable. we can bully them or appease them but they cannot be reasoned with.

appeasement is seemingly having the same effect it did when chamberlain did it.

Why should Israel have a right to exist? And under what parameters? Within which borders? Who gets citizenship?

Surely there's no moral case to be made for Israel having a right to exist in its current religious ethnostate form? People who presumably should have citizenship due to their ties to the land area are excluded because they believe in the wrong ancient delusions.

  > Why should Israel have a right to exist?

There are at least three basic answers to that question, depending upon one's worldview.

1. Israel does not have a right to exist, in fact no state has "a right to exist".

2. Israel has a right to exist because her citizens successfully defend her from those who wish her not to exist.

3. Israel has a right to exist because the UN declared it.

  >>> random.randrange(1,4)
  3

That's the tough one, but I'll answer under that worldview for the remainder of the reply...

  > And under what parameters?

Under the parameters established by her founders, and the UN, and those established by her neighbouring states.

From the Israeli declaration of independence:

  "WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness"
  - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(Israel)

From the neighbouring states:

  "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel."
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Arab_League_summit

Need I remind you that seven nations attacked Israel on the day of her independence? That attack caused a million and a half people to become refugees - both Arabs in the holy land and Jews in the rest of the middle east. It also moved the lines of control from the UN partition plan lines to the 1948 cease fire lines - which far favoured the Jewish state and extended in some places to the internationally recognised borders of Mandatory Palestine.

  > Within which borders?

Within the borders of the predecessor state, Mandatory Palestine, just like all other newly-established states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uti_possidetis_juris). Had the Arabs founded an Arab state on the remaining lands of Mandatory Palestine then I would argue that Israel should be established only on the land allocated by the UN and the land lost by the Arabs in their failed war. But the Arabs never established a state there.

  > Who gets citizenship?

The people who live within the borders of the new state, and those whom the state determines are eligible for immigration. Just like every other state.

In other words, there is no reason to treat Israel any differently than any other state on the planet.

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