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> undermining democratic structures Democratic structures like fatah and hamas ?

slt2021 2y ago
the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal. Yesterday they were called terrorists by the mainstream, tomorrow when they win they will be hailed as heroes and freedom fighters. the zionists were also called terrorists by the UK in the beginning, especially when they bombed king david hotel
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal No, it isn’t. Very few revolutions (i.e power inversions) have succeeded by indiscriminately killing the dominant side’s civilians. That frequency, moreover, goes down over time.
  - slt2021 2y ago
    yes it is. before oct7 there was a somewhat broad consensus that Hamas are bad and are terrorists. nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority. People are sympathetic to Palestinians. Not Hamas. The best way for the foreign pro-Palestinian movement to fuck this up for Palestine is to falsely equate Palestinians with Hamas. Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel. > everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-israel-has-valid-reasons-for-fighting-fewer-say-the-same-about-hamas/ https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan#Key_concepts_and_final_status_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan#Key_concepts_...
      - kelthuzad 2y ago
        >No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority. Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet, even if they supported the resistance most of them wouldn't publicly admit that. American discourse, despite it's "freedom of speech" mantra, has a history of mccarthyist silencing to shut down debate, that's why certain ideas can't always be publicly expressed or one's affiliation revealed. >Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel. Hamas has succeeded in their primary goal which was reminding the world that they still exist[1] and they won't let any normalization happen without a Palestinian state. They successfully derailed any normalization efforts. Another victory is that, for the first time ever, people, even ordinary americans, openly recognizing them as the resistance and showing support on social media where some of those tweets receive 150-250k+ likes, which was impossible before the genocide. In contrast to before where people always had to hide their support in order to prevent being accused with the common smears by zionists who wanted to shut down debate and suppress any information that would reveal that its the zionists who have a century long history of zionist-terrorism[2] and that the natives have a right to resist colonization without being demonized for it. >Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory. Trump waffles a lot to appease his donors, what his real opinion or plan is can be discovered by his actions in due time. Many israelis were disappointed by his ceasefire push and said that this deal was "forced upon israel". Edit: the zionist brigade is quick, not even 10 seconds after posting this reply it already had a downvote lol. [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinwar-and-hes-rebuilding-0a16031d https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinw... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jewish-zionist-terrorism-and-establishment-israel https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
        wqaatwt 2y ago
        [flagged]
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    - rastignack 2y ago
      You don’t resist by filming yourself slaughtering children under captagon. Please see what French resistance was. Hamas and its apologetics are terrorists. And barbarians
      - slt2021 2y ago
        how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children? israeli atrocities are much worse because of casualty numbers are much higher on palestinian side and 60% of victims are children and women
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children? Technically a war crime, but of the variety that happens in every war and has basically never been punished. Anywhere. It’s horrible. But that’s war. There is no such thing as a clean or just war, it’s always going to be horrible, the aim is literally to kill each other. It seems once every ten years we find a war and zoom in closely and realise that war is horrible. The lucky ones this time were Ukraine and Palestine. The unlucky ones, basically everyone in Southeast Asia and Africa.
        kelthuzad 2y ago
        > It’s horrible. But that’s war. Was the holocaust just war? Was the Warsaw ghetto uprising a war against Germany? It takes 2 armies to have a war, not a colonized people locked up in an open air prison fighting against a sophisticated army, armed by one of the world's superpower, in flip flops while the colonizing army can't even bother to focus on the fighters and so just drops 2000 pound bunker bombs on entire families over and over again for 15 months straight. South Africa has compiled dozens of pages documenting explicitly genocidal intent from high ranking israeli officials for its ICC case. "UN Special Committee finds Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war" https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-committee-finds-israels-warfare-methods-gaza-consistent-genocide https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      > still calls them terrorists I’m sure that if you asked most people in Europe or the US they’d would agree. I’d bet on average more strongly than before the war. I mean Israel is deeply flawed, oppressed and is committing war crimes. Can disagree about that. Hamas on the other hand is objectively evil and should be destroyed. Arguing about what cost exactly is worth paying for that is reasonable disagreeing with the premise itself is wrong and immoral.
    - WrongAssumption 2y ago
      You said tomorrow they will win and be called freedom fighters. I don’t follow. Does it look to you like Hamas won?
    - Tainnor 2y ago
      > nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position I don't think this is anywhere near a mainstream position.
  - aprilthird2021 2y ago
    I mean, the IRA succeeded and that wasn't but 20-30 years ago? They are largely no longer seen as terrorists. Hell, Israel is a good source of terrorist groups becoming legitimate. Prime Minister Menachim Begin went from leading a terror outfit to elected Prime Minister
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - amenhotep 2y ago
      The IRA of the 20s Irish war of independence succeeded, but were less obviously terrorists. I think it's inaccurate to say that the provos succeeded. Success for them would've been if Northern Ireland left the UK and joined the Republic. It didn't. The Good Friday agreement is hardly an unalloyed win for them. And, um, they absolutely largely are seen as terrorists.
      - aprilthird2021 2y ago
        Are you kidding me? The Provos went from convicted, imprisoned terrorists to the legitimate heads of government in Ireland and legitimate heads of government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein was largely led by provos for quite a while after the Good Friday Agreement. Idk, many people see the IRA insurgency as having had good outcomes for Ireland and Northern Ireland, so like they say, one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter
        defrost 2y ago
        Indeed, a former leader, Gerry Adams, is on the cusp of a substantial payout in recompense for a long imprisonment that wasn't squeaky officially done by the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams It's not just that former Northern Ireland "terrorists" now hold positions of power, they are also being (potentially) awarded for hits they took during their struggle.
  - forgotoldacc 2y ago
    Using just fairly recent examples, Russia and China's communist revolutions were notably brutal and had no problem with harming civilians. They won. North Korea and North Vietnam (now just Vietnam) were also brutal against the other side. Both of them are running their own countries. To go a bit more recent, the Taliban was behind a bunch of terrorist attacks. They now run Afghanistan. To be fair, though, North Korea and Afghanistan have basically no allies in any sense due to their behavior. And the people who fought against North Vietnam and lost were just as savage as them. But Vietnam and China are happily traded with, and nobody outside of old folks in America think anything bad about Vietnam these days. If anything, a lot of people think it was unjustified to have ever fought against them.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  Except Zionists are capable of establishing and running a democratic state (however flawed according to some it might be). It would be silly to pretend that’s even remotely close to being an option for Hamas. For starters modern Islamic fundamentalism is inherently incompatible with democracy (amongst other reasons). Expecting that organizations like Hamas could somehow magically change for the better is pure madness regardless of everything else.
  - slt2021 2y ago
    Zionists are perfectly capable of subverting and terrorizing their way and murdering those who oppose them. you know it was radical jewish terrorist who murdered yitzhak rabin, who tried to make peace with palestinians? it was mossad, who helped finance and support Hamas, so that moderate PLO could never make progress on unified palestinian state?
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      Well yes extremist radical Zionists are about on the same level as moderate Islamic fundamentalists. That’s kind of the problem.. > yitzhak rabin So you wouldn’t consider him a Zionist then?
  - GordonS 2y ago
    Hamas is not an Islamic fundamentalist organisation. They are Muslims, but they have not twisted the religion for extremism; they are not ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
    - awaywithcovid 2y ago
      Sure about that ? Try reading the Hamas charter: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp Yes, it was later "updated" to make it more palatable for Western consumption. some excerpts: Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes. "Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep." Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.
Flammy 2y ago
I assume OP is referring to internal-to-isreal structures such as the independence of the supreme court.
edanm 2y ago
> Democratic structures like fatah and hamas ? This refers (I imagine) to internal Israeli politics - a certain portion of the Israeli populace fears that Netanyahu is attempting to make Israel less democratic by various means. This was a topic that caused mass protests in Israel before October 7th, and continues in some form even now.
bjoli 2y ago
Israel has been hindering a democratic process in Palestine since forever. It was a borderline explicit policy to bolster hamas to split the Palestinian rule in two to be able to say "we have no negotiating partner". Netanyahu has been quoted saying that outright. Very few of the Fatah concessions ever led anywhere despite promises from Israel, leading many palestinians to think that Fatah was weak. Which other "strong" democratic options were there? PNI? Third Way? They were never serious options. Now, the Fatah party has been incompetent and corrupt. I am not saying democracy would have sorted itself out in Palestine, but I am saying that if Israel would have wanted a democratic development in Palestine, it would not have dealt with Fatah in such bad faith. Nor, I must add, would they have killed any palestinian (Gaza) leaders opening up to peace with Israel. Ahmed Yassin was killed just months after started proposing a long term truce on the condition of a Palestinian state in the west bank and gaza. his successor (al-Rantisi) suffered a similar fate after a similar proposal. Then Jabari in 2012. Then they killed Haniyeh who was the principal negotiator during all recent peace talks. None of these men were innocent cute bunnies by any means, but Israel has been sending a clear message for many many years: negotiation will be done by force.
xg15 2y ago
As https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42722937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42722937 said, I was referring to the judicial reform and the gradual erosion of civil rights that the current government is driving forward within Israel, not in the occupied territories. This is an intra-Israeli conflict that is (mostly) independent of the Israel-Palestine conflict (and also of the question how democratic a state is anyway that keeps ~50% of its inhabitants under permanent military rule). It falls more in line with the other shifts towards populist or authoritarian governments we have seen in the West. (Trump, Orban, Erdogan, etc) It does have a unique Israeli flavor to it though, which does circle right back to Israel/Palestine: That the political force that's driving this authoritarian shift forward is closely associated with the settler movement and the most extreme voices regarding the Palestinians. This was also the case before the war - however, they took the war as opportunity to further erode civil rights, e.g. free speech and manipulate institutions such as the police. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Natio... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-magazine/.premium/at-the-prepare-to-resettle-gaza-conference-wishful-thinking-made-way-to-concrete-plans/00000192-b04a-daee-a9fb-fedaf2a60000?gift=ceadbe2d816b4822b2244d53cb8af90b https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-ma... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-13/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-national-security-minister-ben-gvir-took-over-the-police/00000190-1245-db28-a995-57ddcf390000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-13/ty-article-ma...
hmcq6 2y ago
Why else would Israel prop up Hamas over the secular PA?

slt2021 2y ago

the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal. Yesterday they were called terrorists by the mainstream, tomorrow when they win they will be hailed as heroes and freedom fighters. the zionists were also called terrorists by the UK in the beginning, especially when they bombed king david hotel

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is temporal No, it isn’t. Very few revolutions (i.e power inversions) have succeeded by indiscriminately killing the dominant side’s civilians. That frequency, moreover, goes down over time.
- slt2021 2y ago
  yes it is. before oct7 there was a somewhat broad consensus that Hamas are bad and are terrorists. nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority. People are sympathetic to Palestinians. Not Hamas. The best way for the foreign pro-Palestinian movement to fuck this up for Palestine is to falsely equate Palestinians with Hamas. Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel. > everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-israel-has-valid-reasons-for-fighting-fewer-say-the-same-about-hamas/ https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan#Key_concepts_and_final_status_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan#Key_concepts_...
    - kelthuzad 2y ago
      >No. About 20% of Americans support Hamas; 4% the October 7th attack [1]. It’s an extreme minority. Americans are the most propagandized people on the planet, even if they supported the resistance most of them wouldn't publicly admit that. American discourse, despite it's "freedom of speech" mantra, has a history of mccarthyist silencing to shut down debate, that's why certain ideas can't always be publicly expressed or one's affiliation revealed. >Going back to the top point: Hamas hasn’t succeeded. Gaza’s occupation looks like it will be far more draconian than it was a few years ago, with the strip separated by security cordons all controlled by Israel. Hamas has succeeded in their primary goal which was reminding the world that they still exist[1] and they won't let any normalization happen without a Palestinian state. They successfully derailed any normalization efforts. Another victory is that, for the first time ever, people, even ordinary americans, openly recognizing them as the resistance and showing support on social media where some of those tweets receive 150-250k+ likes, which was impossible before the genocide. In contrast to before where people always had to hide their support in order to prevent being accused with the common smears by zionists who wanted to shut down debate and suppress any information that would reveal that its the zionists who have a century long history of zionist-terrorism[2] and that the natives have a right to resist colonization without being demonized for it. >Trump's peace plan [2] is anathema to everything Hamas fought for. All the way to recognising anexations of currently-Palestinian territory. Trump waffles a lot to appease his donors, what his real opinion or plan is can be discovered by his actions in due time. Many israelis were disappointed by his ceasefire push and said that this deal was "forced upon israel". Edit: the zionist brigade is quick, not even 10 seconds after posting this reply it already had a downvote lol. [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinwar-and-hes-rebuilding-0a16031d https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinw... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jewish-zionist-terrorism-and-establishment-israel https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
      - wqaatwt 2y ago
        [flagged]
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  - rastignack 2y ago
    You don’t resist by filming yourself slaughtering children under captagon. Please see what French resistance was. Hamas and its apologetics are terrorists. And barbarians
    - slt2021 2y ago
      how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children? israeli atrocities are much worse because of casualty numbers are much higher on palestinian side and 60% of victims are children and women
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > how do you call israeli soldier bulldozing palestinian children? Technically a war crime, but of the variety that happens in every war and has basically never been punished. Anywhere. It’s horrible. But that’s war. There is no such thing as a clean or just war, it’s always going to be horrible, the aim is literally to kill each other. It seems once every ten years we find a war and zoom in closely and realise that war is horrible. The lucky ones this time were Ukraine and Palestine. The unlucky ones, basically everyone in Southeast Asia and Africa.
        kelthuzad 2y ago
        > It’s horrible. But that’s war. Was the holocaust just war? Was the Warsaw ghetto uprising a war against Germany? It takes 2 armies to have a war, not a colonized people locked up in an open air prison fighting against a sophisticated army, armed by one of the world's superpower, in flip flops while the colonizing army can't even bother to focus on the fighters and so just drops 2000 pound bunker bombs on entire families over and over again for 15 months straight. South Africa has compiled dozens of pages documenting explicitly genocidal intent from high ranking israeli officials for its ICC case. "UN Special Committee finds Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide, including use of starvation as weapon of war" https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-committee-finds-israels-warfare-methods-gaza-consistent-genocide https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    > still calls them terrorists I’m sure that if you asked most people in Europe or the US they’d would agree. I’d bet on average more strongly than before the war. I mean Israel is deeply flawed, oppressed and is committing war crimes. Can disagree about that. Hamas on the other hand is objectively evil and should be destroyed. Arguing about what cost exactly is worth paying for that is reasonable disagreeing with the premise itself is wrong and immoral.
  - WrongAssumption 2y ago
    You said tomorrow they will win and be called freedom fighters. I don’t follow. Does it look to you like Hamas won?
  - Tainnor 2y ago
    > nowadays however, Hamas are hailed as resistance and freedom fighters. Only jewish hasbara still calls them terrorists, everyone else is sympathetic to Hamas, even Donald Trump, given his zionist position I don't think this is anywhere near a mainstream position.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  I mean, the IRA succeeded and that wasn't but 20-30 years ago? They are largely no longer seen as terrorists. Hell, Israel is a good source of terrorist groups becoming legitimate. Prime Minister Menachim Begin went from leading a terror outfit to elected Prime Minister
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - amenhotep 2y ago
    The IRA of the 20s Irish war of independence succeeded, but were less obviously terrorists. I think it's inaccurate to say that the provos succeeded. Success for them would've been if Northern Ireland left the UK and joined the Republic. It didn't. The Good Friday agreement is hardly an unalloyed win for them. And, um, they absolutely largely are seen as terrorists.
    - aprilthird2021 2y ago
      Are you kidding me? The Provos went from convicted, imprisoned terrorists to the legitimate heads of government in Ireland and legitimate heads of government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein was largely led by provos for quite a while after the Good Friday Agreement. Idk, many people see the IRA insurgency as having had good outcomes for Ireland and Northern Ireland, so like they say, one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter
      - defrost 2y ago
        Indeed, a former leader, Gerry Adams, is on the cusp of a substantial payout in recompense for a long imprisonment that wasn't squeaky officially done by the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams It's not just that former Northern Ireland "terrorists" now hold positions of power, they are also being (potentially) awarded for hits they took during their struggle.
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  Using just fairly recent examples, Russia and China's communist revolutions were notably brutal and had no problem with harming civilians. They won. North Korea and North Vietnam (now just Vietnam) were also brutal against the other side. Both of them are running their own countries. To go a bit more recent, the Taliban was behind a bunch of terrorist attacks. They now run Afghanistan. To be fair, though, North Korea and Afghanistan have basically no allies in any sense due to their behavior. And the people who fought against North Vietnam and lost were just as savage as them. But Vietnam and China are happily traded with, and nobody outside of old folks in America think anything bad about Vietnam these days. If anything, a lot of people think it was unjustified to have ever fought against them.
wqaatwt 2y ago
Except Zionists are capable of establishing and running a democratic state (however flawed according to some it might be). It would be silly to pretend that’s even remotely close to being an option for Hamas. For starters modern Islamic fundamentalism is inherently incompatible with democracy (amongst other reasons). Expecting that organizations like Hamas could somehow magically change for the better is pure madness regardless of everything else.
- slt2021 2y ago
  Zionists are perfectly capable of subverting and terrorizing their way and murdering those who oppose them. you know it was radical jewish terrorist who murdered yitzhak rabin, who tried to make peace with palestinians? it was mossad, who helped finance and support Hamas, so that moderate PLO could never make progress on unified palestinian state?
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    Well yes extremist radical Zionists are about on the same level as moderate Islamic fundamentalists. That’s kind of the problem.. > yitzhak rabin So you wouldn’t consider him a Zionist then?
- GordonS 2y ago
  Hamas is not an Islamic fundamentalist organisation. They are Muslims, but they have not twisted the religion for extremism; they are not ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
  - awaywithcovid 2y ago
    Sure about that ? Try reading the Hamas charter: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp Yes, it was later "updated" to make it more palatable for Western consumption. some excerpts: Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes. "Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. "May the cowards never sleep." Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.

Flammy 2y ago

I assume OP is referring to internal-to-isreal structures such as the independence of the supreme court.

edanm 2y ago

> Democratic structures like fatah and hamas ? This refers (I imagine) to internal Israeli politics - a certain portion of the Israeli populace fears that Netanyahu is attempting to make Israel less democratic by various means. This was a topic that caused mass protests in Israel before October 7th, and continues in some form even now.

bjoli 2y ago

Israel has been hindering a democratic process in Palestine since forever. It was a borderline explicit policy to bolster hamas to split the Palestinian rule in two to be able to say "we have no negotiating partner". Netanyahu has been quoted saying that outright. Very few of the Fatah concessions ever led anywhere despite promises from Israel, leading many palestinians to think that Fatah was weak. Which other "strong" democratic options were there? PNI? Third Way? They were never serious options. Now, the Fatah party has been incompetent and corrupt. I am not saying democracy would have sorted itself out in Palestine, but I am saying that if Israel would have wanted a democratic development in Palestine, it would not have dealt with Fatah in such bad faith. Nor, I must add, would they have killed any palestinian (Gaza) leaders opening up to peace with Israel. Ahmed Yassin was killed just months after started proposing a long term truce on the condition of a Palestinian state in the west bank and gaza. his successor (al-Rantisi) suffered a similar fate after a similar proposal. Then Jabari in 2012. Then they killed Haniyeh who was the principal negotiator during all recent peace talks. None of these men were innocent cute bunnies by any means, but Israel has been sending a clear message for many many years: negotiation will be done by force.

xg15 2y ago

As https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42722937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42722937 said, I was referring to the judicial reform and the gradual erosion of civil rights that the current government is driving forward within Israel, not in the occupied territories. This is an intra-Israeli conflict that is (mostly) independent of the Israel-Palestine conflict (and also of the question how democratic a state is anyway that keeps ~50% of its inhabitants under permanent military rule). It falls more in line with the other shifts towards populist or authoritarian governments we have seen in the West. (Trump, Orban, Erdogan, etc) It does have a unique Israeli flavor to it though, which does circle right back to Israel/Palestine: That the political force that's driving this authoritarian shift forward is closely associated with the settler movement and the most extreme voices regarding the Palestinians. This was also the case before the war - however, they took the war as opportunity to further erode civil rights, e.g. free speech and manipulate institutions such as the police. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Natio... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-magazine/.premium/at-the-prepare-to-resettle-gaza-conference-wishful-thinking-made-way-to-concrete-plans/00000192-b04a-daee-a9fb-fedaf2a60000?gift=ceadbe2d816b4822b2244d53cb8af90b https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-ma... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-13/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-national-security-minister-ben-gvir-took-over-the-police/00000190-1245-db28-a995-57ddcf390000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-13/ty-article-ma...

hmcq6 2y ago

Why else would Israel prop up Hamas over the secular PA?