4 ms·

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

by 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
        How is Hammas attacking Israel an internal issue? It's a foreign actor invading a country (literally taking down the border) and attacking Israel. Even if it was the case though, the UN has condemned Israel multiple times, why the difference? Shouldn't they avoid condemning Israel too as it's an internal dispute?
  - drcongo 3y ago
    > Israel has the means to kill Palestinians and it doesn't. This has to be one of the most startling claims I've ever seen on HN. Here's a graph that slightly contradicts your claim. https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/ https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/ This makes it very hard to take anything else you say at face value.
    - tasn 3y ago
      Not to belittle 30,000 casualties (terrible still), if this is the death toll in 23 years, which is based on Hammas reported number, includes "militants" (terrorists) and many other deaths, and all while fighting in a very densely populated area against a group using civilians as human shields: the Israeli death machine is doing a very poor job. Edit: I looked at this source closer, this is a random blog by an obvious biased source (general credibility aside). Using pictures of Palestinians in the header, saying that there's strong evidence that Israel is behind the bombing at the hospital parking lot, and still claiming that there were ~500 casualties there. Again, going back to the lame death machine argument: on one hand Israel is bad and using precise bombs that take down building, but on the other they somehow attacked a hospital parking lot with a weak bomb that caused little to no damage? Nevermind the ample evidence to the contrary of these claims, just this should give you a hint by how unlikely it is.
      - drcongo 3y ago
        You seem to have gotten a little side tracked. You claimed that Israel doesn't kill Palestinians - have you got a reputable source for this obviously false claim?
        tasn 3y ago
        This was said in response to claims of intentional genocide, not civilian damage.
        drcongo 3y ago
        No, you've introduced the word "intentional" there. You were responding to a post about genocide and apartheid by downplaying it and claiming Israel doesn't kill Palestinians.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Out of curiosity, what's the opinion of the "generic, politically-apathetic Israeli" (inasmuch as such exists) on Israeli protesters supporting Palestinian rights (in whatever form)? Is there room for them being viewed as loyal opposition? Or does the current climate make all-people-have-rights viewpoints rub folks the wrong way? During the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war in the US, there was a marked shift to "It may be bad... but now isn't the time to say anything. Be patriotic." And that wasn't even directly linked to an attack on national soil, like Israel faced!
    - tasn 3y ago
      Phew, that's a hard one. People are still demonstrating for the safety of the Palestinian people, and the Israeli army is very much aligned with that (Israel provides medical supplies, helps evacuate people, etc.). In fact, the leading slogan in Israel is "Free Palestine, from Hammas". Though at least from what I'm saying there's a lot of talk about unity, so there's probably less public tolerance for protests. The thing is, Hammas butchered a lot of peace activists in this attack, they killed babies, they raped women, and they kidnapped many people. Everyone's children is now in Gaza fighting for the safety of everyone in Israel, and its mere existence. I think protesting about anything other than the return of the 240 hostages still help in captive would be considered bad taste.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        "Free Palestine, from Hammas" is a beautiful way of phrasing it. It's always good to have an aspirational mission statement, lest our worst selves be absolved from responsibility for decisions we let them make.

by tasn 3y ago

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
        How is Hammas attacking Israel an internal issue? It's a foreign actor invading a country (literally taking down the border) and attacking Israel. Even if it was the case though, the UN has condemned Israel multiple times, why the difference? Shouldn't they avoid condemning Israel too as it's an internal dispute?
- drcongo 3y ago
  > Israel has the means to kill Palestinians and it doesn't. This has to be one of the most startling claims I've ever seen on HN. Here's a graph that slightly contradicts your claim. https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/ https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/ This makes it very hard to take anything else you say at face value.
  - tasn 3y ago
    Not to belittle 30,000 casualties (terrible still), if this is the death toll in 23 years, which is based on Hammas reported number, includes "militants" (terrorists) and many other deaths, and all while fighting in a very densely populated area against a group using civilians as human shields: the Israeli death machine is doing a very poor job. Edit: I looked at this source closer, this is a random blog by an obvious biased source (general credibility aside). Using pictures of Palestinians in the header, saying that there's strong evidence that Israel is behind the bombing at the hospital parking lot, and still claiming that there were ~500 casualties there. Again, going back to the lame death machine argument: on one hand Israel is bad and using precise bombs that take down building, but on the other they somehow attacked a hospital parking lot with a weak bomb that caused little to no damage? Nevermind the ample evidence to the contrary of these claims, just this should give you a hint by how unlikely it is.
    - drcongo 3y ago
      You seem to have gotten a little side tracked. You claimed that Israel doesn't kill Palestinians - have you got a reputable source for this obviously false claim?
      - tasn 3y ago
        This was said in response to claims of intentional genocide, not civilian damage.
        drcongo 3y ago
        No, you've introduced the word "intentional" there. You were responding to a post about genocide and apartheid by downplaying it and claiming Israel doesn't kill Palestinians.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, what's the opinion of the "generic, politically-apathetic Israeli" (inasmuch as such exists) on Israeli protesters supporting Palestinian rights (in whatever form)? Is there room for them being viewed as loyal opposition? Or does the current climate make all-people-have-rights viewpoints rub folks the wrong way? During the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war in the US, there was a marked shift to "It may be bad... but now isn't the time to say anything. Be patriotic." And that wasn't even directly linked to an attack on national soil, like Israel faced!
  - tasn 3y ago
    Phew, that's a hard one. People are still demonstrating for the safety of the Palestinian people, and the Israeli army is very much aligned with that (Israel provides medical supplies, helps evacuate people, etc.). In fact, the leading slogan in Israel is "Free Palestine, from Hammas". Though at least from what I'm saying there's a lot of talk about unity, so there's probably less public tolerance for protests. The thing is, Hammas butchered a lot of peace activists in this attack, they killed babies, they raped women, and they kidnapped many people. Everyone's children is now in Gaza fighting for the safety of everyone in Israel, and its mere existence. I think protesting about anything other than the return of the 240 hostages still help in captive would be considered bad taste.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      "Free Palestine, from Hammas" is a beautiful way of phrasing it. It's always good to have an aspirational mission statement, lest our worst selves be absolved from responsibility for decisions we let them make.