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Quite a chunk of Israel's population seem to be extemists, as these extremists are literally in the government. Also majority of Israeli voters don't seem to mi

Quite a chunk of Israel's population seem to be extemists, as these extremists are literally in the government. Also majority of Israeli voters don't seem to mind empowering these extremists to further their own interests (this is of course not specific to Israel, although endorsing and actually enacting genocide level extremists are rather rare). Look at the previous protests where palestinian protestors were vilified from all sides.

tasn 3y ago
They are not literally the government, they are a small part of the government (still troubling!). This was mainly because Ben Gvir promised security and being "tough on terror" and people bought into his propaganda and voted for him. I doubt this will be repeated in the next elections. There have been massive (unprecedented in Israeli history) demonstrations in Israel for the last 10 months against this terrible government that formed and their attempts at destroying the country.
- jampekka 3y ago
  I said in the goverment. Typically having a minister is the definition of being in the government. That they are not a larger part is of course a good thing. The protests were not about the genocide and apartheid. They were mostly about the interal power struggle, which is all well and good, but not protesting against genocide and apartheid per se.
  - tasn 3y ago
    Apologies, I missed the "in", but my comment still applies to the sentence right after and the overall sentiment. The protests were against the government as a whole and many of their actions including their messianic ambitions which include settlements (was a main point of discussion, though sometimes overshadowed by their attempt to weaken the legal institutions). I really don't want to get into politics on HN, but there is no genocide nor apartheid, this is just Hammas propaganda. Israel has the means to kill Palestinians and it doesn't. There are Muslims and Arabs in the Israeli legislative body, including ones that say that Israel shouldn't exist. How is this apartheid? Anyhow, even with the above, there were in fact a lot of pro Palestinian and anti settlement demonstrations during these demonstrations. How do I know? I've been to these demonstrations and saw the signs and Palestinian flags.
    - jampekka 3y ago
      Amnesty, HRW and UN, among others, characterize the situation as apartheid. Are these part of the Hamas propaganda machinery too? Politicians in Israeli gov have called for ethnic clensings. Legal privileges based on ethnicity are quite rare, at least for "western democracies". There were indeed some Palestinian flags in the protests, but they weren't exactly warmly welcomed. I'm of course relying on what I read. https://archive.is/pgh1S https://archive.is/pgh1S
      - tasn 3y ago
        Palestinian flags: the article you showed was from the first demonstration (or one of the first). There were many more in future ones and no clashes. FWIW I personally think raising the flag of an enemy state is distasteful, but Israel is a democracy. The UN still hasn't condemned the October 7th attack nor Hammas's use of civilians as human shields. Not sure about the rest. So I wouldn't call them an unbiased authority. Politicians in Israel have called for ethnic cleansing, fringe crazy politicians. Marjorie Taylor green blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers. I hope you don't let that paint your views on the US legislative bodies. As for different laws about ethnicities (probably the source for calls of apartheid): it's very limited, the main thing is that diaspora Jews can get citizenship automatically. This law is to help Jews anywhere escape from antisemitism. If you're an Israeli citizen however (muslim, jewish, christian or whatever), you have equal rights under the law. It's easy to parrot things like apartheid, but it's more like 0.001% apartheid in the most technical sense, and not what people mean it when they say this word. As for the comparison to western democracies: I think Israel is doing very well, even compared to some of the world's oldest democracies (France/Swiss multiple Muslim related bans, US during the trump administration, etc.), but the people drawing this comparison usually advocate for replacing it with Hammas which is a proper terrorist organization that advocates for killing all non Muslims, killing lgbt, etc. It's a classic Utopia fallacy gone to the extreme.
        true_religion 3y ago
        > The UN still hasn't condemned the October 7th attack nor Hammas's use of civilians as human shields. Not sure about the rest. So I wouldn't call them an unbiased authority. The UN does not seem to have condemned many of the actions of the Irish Republicans Army either. Some commenters use terminology like “apartheid” and “civil unrest” to describe this situation, so perhaps people in the UN also view this as a internal issue and they don’t want to comment on domestic terror?

tasn 3y ago

They are not literally the government, they are a small part of the government (still troubling!). This was mainly because Ben Gvir promised security and being "tough on terror" and people bought into his propaganda and voted for him. I doubt this will be repeated in the next elections. There have been massive (unprecedented in Israeli history) demonstrations in Israel for the last 10 months against this terrible government that formed and their attempts at destroying the country.

jampekka 3y ago
I said in the goverment. Typically having a minister is the definition of being in the government. That they are not a larger part is of course a good thing. The protests were not about the genocide and apartheid. They were mostly about the interal power struggle, which is all well and good, but not protesting against genocide and apartheid per se.
- tasn 3y ago
  Apologies, I missed the "in", but my comment still applies to the sentence right after and the overall sentiment. The protests were against the government as a whole and many of their actions including their messianic ambitions which include settlements (was a main point of discussion, though sometimes overshadowed by their attempt to weaken the legal institutions). I really don't want to get into politics on HN, but there is no genocide nor apartheid, this is just Hammas propaganda. Israel has the means to kill Palestinians and it doesn't. There are Muslims and Arabs in the Israeli legislative body, including ones that say that Israel shouldn't exist. How is this apartheid? Anyhow, even with the above, there were in fact a lot of pro Palestinian and anti settlement demonstrations during these demonstrations. How do I know? I've been to these demonstrations and saw the signs and Palestinian flags.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Amnesty, HRW and UN, among others, characterize the situation as apartheid. Are these part of the Hamas propaganda machinery too? Politicians in Israeli gov have called for ethnic clensings. Legal privileges based on ethnicity are quite rare, at least for "western democracies". There were indeed some Palestinian flags in the protests, but they weren't exactly warmly welcomed. I'm of course relying on what I read. https://archive.is/pgh1S https://archive.is/pgh1S
    - tasn 3y ago
      Palestinian flags: the article you showed was from the first demonstration (or one of the first). There were many more in future ones and no clashes. FWIW I personally think raising the flag of an enemy state is distasteful, but Israel is a democracy. The UN still hasn't condemned the October 7th attack nor Hammas's use of civilians as human shields. Not sure about the rest. So I wouldn't call them an unbiased authority. Politicians in Israel have called for ethnic cleansing, fringe crazy politicians. Marjorie Taylor green blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers. I hope you don't let that paint your views on the US legislative bodies. As for different laws about ethnicities (probably the source for calls of apartheid): it's very limited, the main thing is that diaspora Jews can get citizenship automatically. This law is to help Jews anywhere escape from antisemitism. If you're an Israeli citizen however (muslim, jewish, christian or whatever), you have equal rights under the law. It's easy to parrot things like apartheid, but it's more like 0.001% apartheid in the most technical sense, and not what people mean it when they say this word. As for the comparison to western democracies: I think Israel is doing very well, even compared to some of the world's oldest democracies (France/Swiss multiple Muslim related bans, US during the trump administration, etc.), but the people drawing this comparison usually advocate for replacing it with Hammas which is a proper terrorist organization that advocates for killing all non Muslims, killing lgbt, etc. It's a classic Utopia fallacy gone to the extreme.
      - true_religion 3y ago
        > The UN still hasn't condemned the October 7th attack nor Hammas's use of civilians as human shields. Not sure about the rest. So I wouldn't call them an unbiased authority. The UN does not seem to have condemned many of the actions of the Irish Republicans Army either. Some commenters use terminology like “apartheid” and “civil unrest” to describe this situation, so perhaps people in the UN also view this as a internal issue and they don’t want to comment on domestic terror?