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Comment by tonks | Hacker News Reader

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I'd argue that Israel is, in fact, behaving worse than South Africa ever did. Apartheid-era South African government was a nightmare, but didn't engage in mass murder (or, uh, "collateral damage") on an Israeli scale. Actually a few orders of magnitude separate them.

That slaughter is worse than discrimination should be obvious. If you discriminate against somebody you harm their dignity and you narrow their future possibilities; if you murder somebody you rob them of everything, including their dignity and every possible future.

I'd also argue, and I think that this should be perfectly self-evident, that however a group may have suffered in the past, it does not give them a moral right to impose suffering on others in the present. No such moral right can possibly exist.

Isn't "whoever saves one life saves the world entire" supposed to be a Jewish moral teaching? How can this be reconciled with a profound indifference to civilian casualties in captive populations?

> I'd argue that Israel is, in fact, behaving worse than South Africa ever did.

Nelson Mandela's grandson agrees.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/mandelas-grandson-...

South African here. There is a vast gap between what the elite believe and what the world perceives of South Africa, and what South Africans think.

Most South Africans have a very low interest in Israel-Palestine. Anecdotally, in person Palestinian rally struggle to get more than 100 people.

There are plenty of domestic issues which people care about more. For one, there are 20,000-25,000 murders here per year. Relatively the deaths in Gaza are much higher (it is about 25x smaller), but when people march its for the 127,000 murdered here over the last 5 years, not the 70,000 killed in Gaza.

That is the sign of a healthy society. Unlike many countries in the West that have bought into a billion dollar hate campaign sponsored by Qatar and amplified by strategic rivals like Russia and China.

Here's what some South African's think of him:

"AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo says he has removed Mandla Mandela as the traditional leader of Mvezo in the Eastern Cape."

"[His spokesperson] accused Mandela of being more concerned about the people of Palestine than his own people. "Palestine must give him a place to rule; they make him a chief there. Here in the land of AbaThembu, he is no longer welcome,” he said."

https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/abathem...

South Africa wasn’t at war, and the two situations have nothing in common.

Life expectancy in Gaza before Oct 7 was 75.5 years. Life expectancy in South Africa today is 65.5 years.

South Africa with its incompetence has done worse than Israel with its “apartheid”.

Fair point, I just wonder if the apartheid emerged because of the war or vice versa? Either way, a society that needs perpetual war to justify apartheid feels unsustainable.

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