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Comment by saturn_vk | Hacker News Reader

It's sad that most world leaders do nothing to combat such genocide. There are so few sanctions against the state, or specific people, of Israel. Foreign forums are very much still open for business to them.

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What do you think world leaders should've done differently?

The post you are responding to lists several possible actions. Another good start would be to stop providing the weapons that have done this damage.

Cut off weapon gifts+sales to Israel, impose sanctions. Same way we dealt with the South African apartheid state.

Israel has both nuclear weapons and the Epstein files, so that's not really an option (granted: SA had nuclear weapons too, but nobody really to drop them on).

Nuclear weapons sure, but what is this about Epstein?

he's referring to the fact that epstein is a mossad agent and that compromised world leaders are being blackmailed to support the genocide

Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell in particular) are widely believed to have operated as a massive Mossad blackmail operation, collecting (and creating) blackmail material against western politicians and influential individuals to ensure their support for Israel.

I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.

and it seems pretty likely that's exactly what was happening.

The idea that a nation-state was/is running a child sex trafficking ring, and we're *not* turning over heaven and earth to investigate that so that country faces unprecedented consequences...I don't even know what to say

Why is it likely ? Why not Russia ? I’ve heard it’s Russia ?

Because Epstein had ties to Israel and not to Russia. There might be a similar ring run by Russia as well, who knows.

Didn't he have ties to basically all powerful people? Is there something special about his Israel ties that are different to his Bill Gates ties?

I thought this was interesting, from Al Jazeera to boot:

Political Reactions: While critics and unverified intelligence memos pointed to the deep relationship as a sign of state ties, current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly dismissed the notion, stating on social media that Epstein's close ties to Barak (a political opponent of Netanyahu) actually "proves the opposite" of Epstein working for the Israeli state.

He has ties to all powerful people as his clients, but he has ties to Israel that look closer to them being his employer.

Without some pretty good evidence, it sounds like conjecture, which is fine, but nothing of substance is being presented here.

Of course. A very valid way to view it, and the same way I would've viewed it in 2016 if you told me there was a global elite pedophile ring that helped get Trump elected.

Epstein definitely had ties to Russia. I don't know how to assess how important those were but they did exist

Epstein is thought to have been working for Mossad. If that's true, they probably have copies of all the video tapes (which we know were made) of all the stuff rich people did on Epstein island. This theory would single-handedly explain why almost everyone in the Epstein files supports Israel so strongly.

So you're suggesting that Israel would drop a nuke on a Western country imposing a boycott? Somehow, I doubt it.

> Same way we dealt with the South African apartheid state.

Who's this "we" who dealt with the SA apartheid state?

The international pressure on SA did absolutely nothing to change their mind (I'm old enough to have seen PW Botha's Rubicon speech live on TV). The NP (political party in charge) was slowly and carefully convinced to push out the hardliners.

The people left, like FW De Clerk, actually did the dismantling - unbanned the ANC, released Mandfela from prison, switched to allowing black voters, etc.

The rest of the world's pressure had absolutely no effect on the leadership. Change only came when leadership started changing.

See this for more background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiations_to_end_apartheid_...

The actual on the ground resistance was of central importance in the end of South African apartheid, but the international pressure and sanctions greatly increased the need for negotiations to begin. The point is to increase the pressure to change leadership through democratic means.

This could hopefully happen somewhat faster with Israel, given that the government isn't a literal Nazi remnant, as the South African government was. (Though, ironically, the main arms supplier to South Africa during the arms embargo was Israel, often reselling weapons from the United States. Sigh.)

"By the late 1980s, the South African state was in profound crisis, crippled by international sanctions, a stagnant economy, and widespread resistance. Recognizing the unsustainable nature of the perpetual conflict, the government under P.W. Botha began tentative, secret contact with the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the exiled African National Congress (ANC) leaders."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_(1948%...

A lot.

Literally on Oct 7, Hamas tried to return civilian hostages, who the IDF killed. This is why Hamas changed policies to only give up hostages through 3rd parties. They reached out to israel to try and return hostages and were ignored. They reached out to the US to return hostages and were ignored. [1]

So for starters, the US could have pressured Israel to negotiate with Hamas to return the hostages.

As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times). The US could have at a minimum threaten to withhold aide. In fact, there are laws on the books that a country such as Israel committing war crimes is ineligible for aide.

Finally, the UN should have deployed peace keepers to gaza specifically to stop the genocide.

Actions could have been taken, but they weren't because our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money as to turn a complete blind eye to it's misdeeds.

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-09-...

So you feel like after October 7, there should've just been a talk about what happened and some form of negotiation ?

Quote exactly where I even implied that.

Well what else do you expect when you subjugate a native population for decades? Just expect perfect victims?

The peaceful route didn't work. Only idiots will think continuing with the status quo will result in anything different.

> Finally, the UN should have deployed

UN has no such power. I am still amazed how people do not get this.

Members need to vote for such things to happen. It wouldn't, not in this climate.

The question was

> What do you think world leaders should've done differently?

Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.

This is where you notice that the world is more complicated than social media posts.

Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.

Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.

If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.

What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.

Iran would WELCOME UN peace keepers in gaza, are you kidding? Hell, I think even Hamas would welcome their presence. UN peace keepers would mean the likes of UNRA could operate once again in Gaza to deliver aid. It would also mean that Israel would have to stop it's aggression.

> Iran is helping Russia

lol, no, other way around. Though the Russia hasn't really been involved with Iran since Ukraine started. It's actually China that's the biggest Iranian trade partner.

The only party that'd be upset over UN peace keepers in Gaza is Israel.

I don't think what you're saying is actually right, if peacekeepers came in, it would (likely) mean a freezing of the current borders / situation, and isn't that what most people say justified October 7, "the theft of land"?

Allowing international journalists in would make the genocide even harder to deny and at that point there's no more returning to the "current situation". Regarding the border, at least for Hamas the 1967 borders would be just fine: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full (article 20).

Are you actually sending the Hamas charter and expecting me to read that and think it's reasonable ?

(I have read it before)

By all means please enlighten me, what's so unreasonable about it?

They never cancelled their original charter, and their position is to accept borders only as a stepping stone towards getting all of the land as a Muslim waqf.

Also, Hamas literally operated the 'March of Return' (demanding the 'right of return') that year. The best implication of that 'accepting borders with Palestinian majority on both sides on them', which is just a funny way of taking all the land.

I'm immune to Hasbara and not wasting more time debating it, but just leaving some Wikipedia snippets below as a kind of a "community note".

> They never cancelled their original charter

Wikipedia [0]:

This document [the 2017 charter] reflects our position for now (...) The old charter was a product of its era, 30 years ago. We live in a different world today.

> Also, Hamas literally operated the 'March of Return' (demanding the 'right of return') that year.

Wikipedia [1]:

The first demonstrations were organized by independent activists, but the initiative was soon endorsed by Hamas, the governing party of Gaza, as well as other major factions in Gaza.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Hamas_charter#Since_2017 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_...

Only if you think Israel is entirely correct in their assessment that every single civilian building actually houses dangerous hamas terrorists. I don't think that assessment is correct so I don't think the UN peacekeepers would be behaving exactly like Israel and the IDF has behaved in Gaza. Nor do I think the UN would put the same restrictions on aid coming into Gaza. They wouldn't stop peanut butter and baby formula from entering.

Iran gave Russia their Shahed drones, still exports artillery shells and missiles to Russia.

UN cannot allow UNRWA - since any actual operation would require Israeli cooperation given Israel is the only open border to Gaza - and Israel will not allow what it considers to be an extremist front.

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have proven to be unable to restrain terrorist attacks, and proven to be unable to restrain the Israeli response.

That's not how that answer was phrased. It directly indicated that the UN should have taken that action.

Make it make sense. The question is what should have happened. You say I answered what should have happened. But you also say "that's not how the answer was phrased".

How is my "should have" happened not a direct answer to the question?

That would result in the USA going to war against the UN. There is a reason the UN only takes action when the security council agrees. Countries on the security council can plausibly use their military might to prevent any UN action, so to prevent the senseless deaths of peacekeepers, they are given a verbal veto instead.

No it wouldn't? We are talking hypotheticals. When talking about what world leaders should do I include the US in world leaders.

I wasn't engaging in what's likely, just what should be. Biden and Trump should have been on board with deploying peace keepers. They were not.

If Biden or Trump would simply cut off funding there probably wouldn't be a need for peace keepers any more.

I tend to agree. The US bears a pretty large amount of blame here and I don't think Israel would have continued their aggression had the US withdrawn aid (or threatened to). But if they had continued, then that's where UN peacekeepers should have been deployed.

> Literally on Oct 7, Hamas tried to return civilian hostages, who the IDF killed.

This is literally terrorist propaganda, they tried to offer a return of a subset of the hostages in exchange for Israel not invading and dealing with the Hamas security threat. Obviously Israel was not going to leave such a severe security threat like Hamas intact.

If you had to guess, what do you think they might do? I feel like questions like this are in bad faith. Think about it for a minute, and try to come up with some things that they might do.

Send all collaborators to the international criminal court. (In the US, especially congress critters and members of the executive branch.)

Also, blockade Israel proportionally to the Gaza blockades. I doubt they would have kept murdering red cross members in Gaza once the supermarkets started running out of food.

How can they forcibly imprison the leaders of a soverein, nuclear armed state?

The remaining non-corrupt members of the executive branch (or the state governments) would uphold the oaths they took, lock potus and friend in boxes, and ship them off.

As for Israel, as I understand it, the next election will mean domestic jail time for the incumbents unless the polls are wildly wrong.

At that point, it would be easy for Israel to start climbing out of lawlessness too.

And while they're at it, forget about Israel being an ethnostate and give the 5 million Arabs without any representation a vote.

At the very least diplomatic condemnation and a South African level sanction.

Immediately stop all exports and money flows to Israel. Food and medical aid should still be allowed to both sides, of course.

1) Ultimately, money means more to foreign nations than what happens with internal affairs of their trading partners

2) Accusations of genocide, whether they stand up or not, are great fodder for whataboutism discussions. Let's say the world's two largest economies, the US and China, decided to start sanctioning Israel for what's happening in Gaza. You could expect other countries to start threatening actions against the US and China over their previous or current genocidal behaviors. These are obviously not things that the US and China want to deal with.

Do not forget that world leaders are heads of sovereign states that are in charge of their self defense. Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies, need to make public statements that are not hypocritical about what they would do for self defense. This is why both U.S. administrations support Israel's actions

Pretty sure that's not why US administrations support Israel's actions.

Bad phrasing on my part. That is one of many reasons

  need to make public statements that are not hypocritical

wow, you hold a very high opinion of american politics. you must have been reading new from paper news paper for the last 30 years

Sure, the need to self defense against US dangerous neighbors. Looking at you, Canada!

Have you been living under a rock? The time when "public statements" used to work is long, long gone.

> Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies

Sure, but are we going to ignore about the US having to rely on its "helpless" allies to provide staging points and cannon fodder for its illegal imperialistic wars? How much of a superpower would it be without its overseas bases?

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