Comment by JuniperMesos

Comment by JuniperMesos 4 hours ago

14 replies

View on Hacker News

> For example, on Oct 7, 1985, Palestinian hijackers took over the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Reading this on a delay in 2025, the story unfolded over weeks: first they threw an American in a wheelchair overboard, then US fighter jets forced the escape plane to land, leading to a military standoff between US Navy SEALs and the Italian Air Force. Unbelievably, the US backed down, but the later diplomatic fallout led the Italian Prime Minister to resign.

From the perspective of 2025, I can't help but think about the people I know today getting vocally angry about Israeli violence in the Gaza strip, and suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics - and I wonder how many of those people would be happy to throw an American in a wheelchair off a ship in the name of the Palestinian cause.

Reading the wikipedia article about this incident, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Lauro_hijacking , it seems like the hijackers murdered the guy in a wheelchair before they threw his body off the ship, and it's possible but unproven that they picked him in particular either because he was Jewish or because he was in a wheelchair. The hijackers involved were given long prison sentences, but many of them were released decades ago and have fought against US in other ways since then.

I mostly think of the Israel/Palestine conflict as one that I have no dog in - I'm not Jewish, Israeli, or Palestinian myself and have no ties to the region. Nonetheless, pro-Palestine political messaging is something that happens around me all the time today, and knowing that the conflict was happening 40 years ago and that some of the same things that were happening then are akin to what is happening now colors my opinion of what is happening now.

V__ 4 hours ago

Maybe this is just my bubble, but the messaging I get is that Israel should stop murdering Palestinian civilians and not that Hamas is somehow righteous in their actions.

Reply View 7 replies
  • bigstrat2003 3 hours ago

    What I tend to see is mostly an overlooking of one side's actions while condemning the other side, with different people favoring different sides. So you have people who make excuses for Hamas like "they are just responding to an existential threat" while strongly condemning Israel, and people who make similar excuses for Israel while strongly condemning Hamas. Personally I feel that there are no heroes and everyone sucks in this situation, except for the innocent bystanders on both sides who are being caught in the crossfire.

    Reply View 3 replies
    • wredcoll 2 hours ago

      > Personally I feel that there are no heroes and everyone sucks in this situation, except for the innocent bystanders on both sides who are being caught in the crossfire.

      Wow, what a daring and brave opinion. I'm in awe that you're willing to share it publically!

      Like, a bunch of my local social media bubble has been talking about "media literacy" and "illiteracy" and related concepts and this is a great example.

      If, for example, someone is telling you that a publically terrible act of violence by someone associated with palestine is probably a response to previous israeli actions, they are not, in fact, secretly trying to imply that the terrorist is a hero.

      They're simply trying to explain the likely consequences of actions.

      One of the things that I find most frustrating in certain types of discussions is the idea that we can't do something that will improve the lives of large numbers of people on the off chance that a bad person won't get punished or someone undeserving will be rewarded.

      It's entirely probable that the solution that improves the lives of the most people in that region will also involve quite a few awful people not getting punished.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • jrmg 19 minutes ago

        In this and so many things now I fear that we’re discarding the idea that “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • samdoesnothing 4 hours ago

    I think it varies. I've seen everything from people simply caring about the wellbeing of Palestinian civilians to rabid Hamas supporters and everything in between. I think it's easy to get stuck in an environment where you mostly see views that align with your own or are the complete opposite (with a corresponding dunk) and it's easy to get rage baited.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • jl6 3 hours ago

      There’s a lot of ideological snap-to-grid.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • wredcoll 2 hours ago

        Also we're a bunch of strangers making very short comments, it's hard to convey the entire nuance of one's opinion on a complex topic.

        Reply View 0 replies
jl6 3 hours ago

News is often highly decontextualized, to our detriment. This site is a nice idea, because seeing echoes of today in old news is a starting point for adding a little bit of context back in. A lot of people live in a permanent rage-state induced by the simple good vs evil narratives that are so easy to spin when the context is obscured. These narratives break down when you start to piece together why events unfold the way they do.

Reply View 0 replies
mastazi an hour ago

I am Italian, that was one of the proudest moment in our history.

The Achille Lauro episode was an example of Italy choosing what's best for the region rather than what's best for the people across the Atlantic. Hundreds of hostages' lives were saved by the actions of the Italian Government that day.

For context, in the post WW2 era, hundreds of Italian civilians were killed in accidents caused by US military operations in Italy, and our spineless leaders did nothing. In many cases they actively helped covering up the truth. Two of many examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash

Reply View 0 replies
delis-thumbs-7e 3 hours ago

With that same logic me objecting to Iraq War I supported Saddam’s terror regime. Just because you think Israel actions are bloody genocidal war crimes does not mean that Hamas terror is justified or that some guy in a wheel chair should be killed. Yes, there is some young people who seem to get all of their information from social media and have absolutely no understanding of what is happening - they support Hamas, or claim that US have no dog in the fight.

Palestina-Syria was a term coined for the region by Emperor Hadrian after the destruction of the Second Temple, so 40 years is nothing in the timeline of this whole conflict. The modern Zionism goes back to the 19th Century and the Israel occupation and oppression of Palestinians at least to 1948. So no, this skirmosh at the sea gave you very litlle understanding of why things are like they are, why the violence continues and how US has been funding this conflict the whole time.

If you actually want to understand what this conflict feels for a regular Palestinian just trying to live, listen this interview: https://pca.st/episode/4f0099d2-2c6e-4751-b1e1-e0913fa25734

Reply View 1 reply
  • qntmfred 38 minutes ago

    do you have any suggestions for those who want to understand what this conflict feels for a regular Israeli just trying to live

    or Israelis 40 years ago today

    or 75 years ago

    or Palestinian Jews 100 years ago

    etc

    Reply View 0 replies
andrepd an hour ago

> From the perspective of 2025, I can't help but think about the people I know today getting vocally angry about Israeli violence in the Gaza strip, and suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics - and I wonder how many of those people would be happy to throw an American in a wheelchair off a ship in the name of the Palestinian cause.

I'm quite unsure what this is trying to imply. Israel committed genocide in Gaza, this much is established, and even the skeptics about the word "genocide" admit at least "war crimes". How does knowing that there terrorists from that place murdererd a person in a wheelchair in 1985 change one's view about that?!

May I remind you that Israel murdered over one hundred people in Gaza for over two years. Some of those were even in wheelchairs. Would you like a link to videos, uncensored ones? Double-tap attacks on hospitals? Maybe the screams will not let you sleep at night.

--

Nobody sane would perform the reasoning "Irish terrorists killed hundreds of British people in the 70s and 80s" ergo "the British army should destroy 85% of buildings in Ireland". But apparently s/Ireland/Palestine/ and it's a normal acceptable thing to say!

Finally, "suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics", of course it does. Israel is a major US ally and gets billions of dollars in funding. Of course it has implications on US policy, from diplomacy to finance.

Reply View 0 replies