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Comment by sdenton4 | Hacker News Reader

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

> 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%...

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.

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