Comment by thyristan

Comment by thyristan 8 days ago

Well, when it comes to conflating, I'll take your calling Israel a terror state as a standard: The democratically elected government of Gaza-Palestine is the Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation. Thus by your conflation regarding Israel to be a terror state, the Gaza strip part of Palestine is as well. Its population chose a known terrorist organisation, everything is run by a terrorist organisation, they did terrorist things such as bombings, abductions and murders of innocent civilians. Thus (Gaza-)Palestine is therefore a terror state. Supporting it is therefore supporting terrorism.

Thus either you apply your conflating standard equally, Palestine and Israel are both terror states, and any support of them is supporting terrorism. Or you rather differentiate, and separate Palestine as an abstract concept of a hypothetical future homestead of the Palestinians from the Hamas, the Fatah and other (mostly terrorist) organisations that govern it, and the population that, in parts, is governed by them and elects and supports or opposes them and their actions. But if you do that, you will also have to differentiate between Israel as a state, its military, government, parties, population and their respective support and actions.

In that second case you can support Palestine as an abstract idea without supporting terrorism, you can support the population and their rights, hopes and struggle. As you can do with Israel and their people. However, on pro-Palestine protests, I've never really seen this kind of differentiation applied, I've seen far too many Hamas flags, heard far too many calls to wipe Israel from the map, far too many praises for terrorists (called "martyrs"). Thus, in practically all cases, I'd without hesitation call supporters of Palestine supporters of terrorism.

regularization 8 days ago

> Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation.

According to the New York Times, Netanhayu was propping up Hamas in the weeks and months before the current conflict ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... ). This has been happening since the beginning of Hamas.

The government over there has been supporting Hamas since the beginning, because they don't want to deal with Fatah going to the UN. Everything recently is the result of that. So don't come around talking about Hamas. Especially since Netanyahu and his US counterparts are trying to sideline Fatah, and are persecuting secular Palestinians like Samidoun and the PFLP more than Hamas. The US, Canada, Germany etc. crack down on the seculat, left-leaning Samidoun so that only Hamas is left standing in Gaza.

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thyristan 8 days ago

All that doesn't make them any less terrorist.

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whatshisface 8 days ago

I think it's wise to separate the future of both Israel and Palestine from their present. In 100 years there will be surviving Israelis and surviving Palestinians and they'll have a view of the present generation.

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[removed] 8 days ago

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settrans 8 days ago

"The antisemite does not accuse the Jew of stealing because he thinks he stole something. He does it because he enjoys watching the Jew turn out his pockets to prove his innocence."

Although I laud your unassailable argument highlighting yet another instance of double standards against Jews, ultimately there is little upside in engaging with the "no, no, technically there is a difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism" crowd. I am sad that Hacker News is rife with this kind of bigotry, but I don't see the tide of this battle turning anytime soon.

In case, dear reader, you are one of the intellectually curious ones who holds the opposing viewpoint, ask yourself why you demand that only the Jews lack the right to self determination?

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DiogenesKynikos 8 days ago

I'll bite.
Most demands for self-determination were for self-rule on land already inhabited by the group in question.
Zionism was unique in that it demanded self-determination on land inhabited almost 100% by a different group of people.

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- settrans 8 days ago
  
  Given that the Jews were forcibly expelled from their homeland by the Romans, by definition, any Jewish self-determination would need to take place in a land that is at least partially[0] already inhabited. You now have two choices:
  1. Deny Jews the right to self-determination altogether, continuing the dispossession of an actively persecuted people, indeed, the same one that was about to face the Holocaust in Europe, thereby punishing them for their own historical victimization, or
  2. Acknowledge the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination, even if it takes root in their historical homeland and entails negotiating with and sharing the land with other peoples, thereby accepting that historical justice often requires grappling with imperfect realities, and that two national claims can coexist without one invalidating the other.
  Or are you arguing that self-determination only applies to groups of people who haven't been exiled from their homeland (i.e. the people that need self determination the least)?
  [0] Before Zionism, the population of Mandatory Palestine was 98% smaller than the same region today. Even the Arab population has increased 26-fold. So, yes, technically it was inhabited, but dramatically less developed. And even then, Jerusalem was 60% Jewish.
  
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  DiogenesKynikos 8 days ago
  
  > Given that the Jews were forcibly expelled from their homeland by the Romans
  2000 years ago.
  You're saying that events from millennia in the past mean that the Palestinians should have had to cede the land they lived on to a group of outsiders from Europe.
  People can make of that what they may (I think it's ridiculous), but you at least have to admit that it completely invalidates your argument that Zionism is just like any other demand for self-determination. We're talking about a demand for other people's land, based on appeals to events from thousands of years ago.
  
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thyristan 8 days ago

I'll bite as well.
There is a difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. The former is condemning a land-grab because of some 2000 year old claim. The latter is hating Jews because they are Jews. There is a world of difference there.
The forefathers of everyone in Europe, with very few exceptions, occupied a different strip of land 2000 years ago and were driven out by romans, goths, huns, germans or whomever. Most pieces of land changed hands a dozen times or more. Should we now rearrange all the maps and revert to our 2000 year old original national lands and identities? Why 2000 years, why not 500, 5000 or 10000? The maps looked different in those periods as well.

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- settrans 8 days ago
  
  Set aside the 2000 year old history for a moment. Given that the Jews were a persecuted minority across Europe - and indeed faced the a campaign of extermination far worse than early Zionists feared - one can see the moral necessity for their self determination.
  Anti-Zionism is antisemitic because it declares that no, it is preferable for Jews to continue to face the Holocaust and other attempts at their genocide than to concede their right to self defense as a people.
  
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  thyristan 8 days ago
  
  There are different things here that you are glossing over and conflating.
  Yes, there is a moral right and necessity for self-determination and self-defense for the Jews after the Holocaust. But there is no necessity or justification for that to happen in Palestine, especially when this means displacing and slaughtering the Palestinians who have lived there for quite a few centuries. And indeed Palestinians do have a moral right of self-determination and self-defense as well. So the essence of Zionism, which is the idea of taking over Palestine for a Jewish state, is deeply immoral because of that. And this immorality doesn't simply disappear because of the wrongs that were done to the Jews by non-Palestinians. And because of that, anti-Zionism is a moral imperative, because it aims to correct an immorality. Whereas antisemitism is something completely different.
  > Anti-Zionism is antisemitic because it declares that no, it is preferable for Jews to continue to face the Holocaust and other attempts at their genocide than to concede their right to self defense as a people.
  Which means that you think the only possible way to avoid a genocide of Jews and for Jews to defend themselves is to settle in Palestine? Nothing else would have done? Given that there were quite a few wars around the establishment of Israel which could have very well wiped Israel off the map that is quite a bold statement.
  I rather think this idea of self-defense and self-determination of the Jewish people being only possible in Israel/Palestine is a religiously derived idea, nothing that has any basis in political and military facts or morals. It was just a "wouldn't it be nice to do this in Gods Promised Land?" kind of thing, current inhabitants be damned...
  
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  settrans 7 days ago
  
  Got it, so you only specifically object to the Jews settling in their ancestral homeland which they immigrated to legally and was 98% less populated than today, because the Nazi-aligned mufti of Jerusalem objected to their presence.
  Care to suggest a superior choice of venue for Jewish sovereignty where the Jews had a better claim to the land, and the locals were prepared to welcome their national project?
  
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megous 8 days ago

A few issues:

- "The democratically elected government of Gaza-Palestine is the Hamas" Hamas is not a democratic government, period. Elections you're talking about were almost 20 years ago. It's like calling Trumpistan 20 years from now a democracy, if Trump today declares he'll live forever, and that there will be no more elections, and enough MAGA Americans help him persevering.

- Israel's struggle is the Zionist dream of creating a Jewish state by any means. Means have been pretty violent and treacherous, from international terrorism, assassinations of diplomats, to mass killings and violent displacement of 100s of thousands of indigenous people, unilateral declaration of statehood over someone else's land, etc. Indigenous people have been revolting against this since way before Hamas even existed. It's quite something to bothside this, or even invert this, and call indigenous people terrorists, while violent immigrant invaders and land thieves are somehow legitimate state.

- Martyr != terrorist, it's anyone killed in some manner in relation to the above political context. If a child is shot in the head by Israel's soldiers, it will be called a martyr. Executed ICRC workers were called martyrs, etc.

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thyristan 8 days ago

The Hamas government isn't democratic, but it was democratically elected. And voters knew whom they were voting for, Hamas didn't change, they were a terrorist organization back then as well. Voters democratically elect all kinds of dictatorships. Still their fault.
Indigenous people (legitimately imho) started a war over that territory and lost it. Started a few more and lost those as well, together with some neighboring states. If you lost the war for that land, it isn't your land anymore. Simple as that. And terrorism isn't an acceptable means of warfare.

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- megous 8 days ago
  
  I'm pretty sure the violent colonizers who implemented a pre-meditated plan of conquest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet are those who started the war in this case. "Right of conquest" was not part of international law anymore at that time.
  They did not really win either, given that indigenous people, and their descendants, did not yet settle for their complete submission. Unless you call victory as having to hide behind walls and running to shelters every once in a while, and constantly making new enemies by bombing shit out of everyone around you.
  As to the fault of the voters for what happened after elections. Yeah, that's easily debatable, given the massive foreign interference into the post-election Palestine's politics and society from occupation, and third countries, and attempts to coopt oposition for violent overthrow of elected government. Also Palestinians did not vote for terrorism, but for "change and reform" at the time http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4606482.stm
  
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jacooper 8 days ago

It literally doesn't matter.

What Hamas did or does, doesn't give any right to Israel to ethnically cleanse, forcibly displace, massacre 100+ people every day and commit a genocide in Gaza. 100 people, most of them kids!

These are people with lives, families, hope and compassion. Just imagine if the Ukrainian war came even close to this. People are not numbers.

And these are WARCRIMES, the entire global system was built to stop such things from happening, letting the occupation do whatever it wants while making a joke of any and every concept of the "international rule based order" will come back to bite the west, hard.

If this is allowed to happen, what's different about Taiwan and Ukraine then? Let the stronger one win right?

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thyristan 7 days ago

As we are currently seeing in international relations, the "international rule based order" needs someone to impose order, otherwise it won't work. Putin called the bluff and he seems to win that hand.
So as in all the other areas of life, rules are for the small, puny ones, not for the big or well-connected ones. If you are big or have big supporters, might makes right. Morals and rules are then only relevant for propaganda, not for actual behavior

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