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> I think Netanyahu belongs in prison

For those who didn't know: There are multiple charges of corruption against him, which he is probably guilty of. But as long as he can lead Israel in a state of emergency, he can have those delayed, or perhaps even work around them.

This new war against Iran also diverts attention away from what is happening in Gaza. The starvation has entered a new critical phase. The populace has been concentrated, so they can no longer work the fields. The number of sites that are handing out food aid have been greatly reduced, and dozens of people are killed every day by Israeli soldiers while they are trying to get to the sites.






>There are multiple charges of corruption against him, which he is probably guilty of.

For anyone who is not following the trial, as soon as the prosecution's case-in-chief was over, the judges publicly notified the prosecution that they should drop the bribery charges as they are unlikely to be able to prove them.

The prosecution case for briberty was built on a hypothesized meeting in which Netanyahu supposedely instructed the director general of the ministry of communications to serve the interests of Elovitch.

During cross examination, the defense managed to prove conclusively that such a meeting, as described, could not have occurred. They also showed that the presocution had the evidence to show it could not have occurred.

Don't assume guilt or innocence based on heavily politisized reporting.

https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/local/409910/ (use Google Translate)


after how many years in power one can assume that the prosecution is simply ineffective in uncovering something resembling the truth when it's directly about those in power?

Why investigate if we can simply assume the accused is guilty.

Why assume innocence when the accused has de-facto executive control over the prosecution?

This is simply not the case.

Edited: removed some inflammatory language I shouldn't have used.


Why are people getting in the weeds about these specific cases? Isn’t, you know, all the genociding a good enough reason for us to want him to be imprisoned? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading this thread.

This is HN. Half of the people here are Zionists and 45% don't care about anything except AI, Rust, and Rockets.

I am learning this. And to think I thought this place might be better than some other notable forms of social media. People need to remember what they do and don’t know about and learn not to comment so strongly on things they know nothing about…

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Ah yes, as we all know criticising a genocide is a hate crime…

Why you were downvoted for this is beyond me except in assuming this site to be full of fanatics for defending anything Israel's government does regardless of rationality or moral reasoning. I've long defended Israel's right to exist and defend itself, but when those policies mutate into deliberately starving a tiny, poverty stricken and crowded strip of land until you're knowingly causing the deaths of who knows how many little children and civilians through essentially deliberate starvation, it becomes a deeply, grotesquely criminal act. This deserves legal punishment, however unlikely that seems to be given the Israeli government's powerful backers and their absurd stubbornness in justifying monstrosities.

is the destruction of gaza awful? yes. is it a genoicde? no. flippantly tossing words around devalues them and debases the conversation. https://worldpopulationreview.com/cities/palestine/gaza

the 20 years leading up to trump, calling every republican a nazi, has completely destroyed the meaning of the word. trump is actually doing a lot of fascist leaning stuff this time around, and you could possibly use that word appropriately but it is currently meaningless.


"flippantly tossing words around devalues them and debases the conversation." Agreed- and that's exactly what you are doing with the word, "no."

Soldiers are murdering an entire population- or as many of them as they can, seemingly- for political purposes that desire that population to simply not exist anymore. To say that is _not_ a genocide devalues the meaning of the word.


They're not "murdering an entire population"; although many thousands of Palestinians have been killed, it's still a tiny percentage of the total population.

But it's not necessary to murder an entire population for it to count as genocide. Any attempt to destroy a people counts, including forced sterilization, re-education, mass deportations, etc.

But it's also clear that Israel has explicitly targeted civilians, help workers, journalists, refugee camps, food distribution, and I've even read about them shooting people hiding in churches. None of those are valid targets.


to say that is what is happening is completely disingenuous. seemingly something happened by the democratically elected government of Gaza on 10/7

A democratically elected government invaded Iraq and killed a lot of Iraqis.

If Iraq got some sort of super advanced technology that made them the superpower in the world, would they be justified if they:

- Started bombing US cities, including hospitals, schoolsetc and killing US civilians?

- Would they be justified in cutting off food and water supply to all of the US?

- Sniping kids and people waving white flags in the head?


You are missing that:

* Hamas keeps its missiles, arms and other military equipment inside or underneath schools and hospitals

* UNRWA was functioning as an arms dealer by putting arms inside of bags of flour or other food items

* Hamas generally has its fighters not wear uniform, but instead wear civilian clothes or even niqabs (where only the eyes are visible). Making it extremely difficult for the IDF to determine who is a combatant and who isn't- and guaranteeing mistakes will be made.

* Hamas also uses child soldiers or orders children to throw stones at IDF soldiers - again ensuring IDF soldiers have to always be afraid the person in front of them is going to kill them and that they have to make split second decisions on what to do about it


Ah yes, the human shield argument. Like the "tunnels" and graphics provided by the IDF. Convenient isn't? Every hospital, apartment block, school and refugee camp has hamas in them, so everything is fair game.

ya it's pretty FUCKED UP that HAMAS does that, and Iran funds it, isn't it? or do you think Israel just wants to slaughter people weaker than them because they can? if that was their aim why did they wait until 10/8 to start doing it? they could have done it any time in the last 30 years.

Do you ever interrogate your own biases? do you tend to think of them as being justified and logically sound?

> seemingly something happened by the democratically elected government of Gaza on 10/7

Gaza doesn't have a democratically elected government, and one of the reasons Palestine (of which Gaza is a region) does not have a democratically elected government is that Israel has exercised its power as an occupying power administering large parts of Palestine directly and controlling the rest indirectly to prevent elections which have been jointly agreed on by the two main factions.

And they’ve done that specifically to maintain the current violent and divided status quo, which they leverage as pretext to continue their long policy of genocide.


What happened on 10/7 was terrible but a terror attack doesn't make what Israel does to Palestine less of a genocide.

There is a reason officials of both Hamas and Israel have been charged by the ICC.

I love how no one mentioned trump or nazis in this immediate thread but the fact that you brought it up unprompted paints a perfect picture of exactly what kind of person you are. I don’t need to call you any names, you’ve outed yourself all by yourself.

It's genocide. And the reason we were using the word nazi for twenty years was to try to warn everyone what was happening, but nobody listened, and now you got nazis.

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I'm not going to wait for the situation to get so severe that it has an effect on that graph before I start using words like 'genocide'.

Calling everyone Nazis wasn’t to warn everyone. Fairly sure it was mostly just virtue signalling. Everyone using the word wasn’t around when WWII happened.

The result probably just desensitised people to what was going on since every little infraction the right did seemed to make them a nazi.


The current campaign against Gazans satisfies the criteria for genocide.

Here is the UN definition for genocide. While you normally can't prove a negative, each jot and tittle of the definition is clear in the Gazans' case, so I leave it to you to figure out why you're so cautious to call a spade a spade and call a genocide a genocide.

> The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide recognised and codified as an international crime.

> Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I). It was codified as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been ratified by 153 States (as of April 2022). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law. This means that whether or not States have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is allowed.

> The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention was the result of a negotiating process and reflects the compromise reached among United Nations Member States in 1948 at the time of drafting the Convention. Genocide is defined in the same terms as in the Genocide Convention in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 6), as well as in the statutes of other international and hybrid jurisdictions. Many States have also criminalized genocide in their domestic law; others have yet to do so.

> # Definition

> Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

> ## Article II*

> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

> Killing members of the group;

> Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

> Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

> Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

> Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

> *Elements of the crime*

> The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

> The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

> 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

> 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

> 2a. Killing members of the group

> 2b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

> 2c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

> 2d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

> 2e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

> The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.

> Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”

[0] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition


Well said.

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Those are not the criteria of genocide ... Here are the criteria:

https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

Here's the basics:

"In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

    Killing members of the group;
    Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
Read. Note that numbers don't matter, intent does. Kidnapping a single kid can almost be genocide and an attack with 1000 civilian victims can fail to qualify as a genocide. Now go and google "Hamas charter" and read. Intent is pretty damn clear.

Israel is not intending to destroy an ethnic group. They're simply not. Hamas, in contrast, is. The organization's entire existence is centered around their intent to commit genocide.

This is also the reason Russia's actions in Ukraine, meant to destroy the Ukrainian nation and identity, ARE warcrimes but Ukraine's (much more limited) actions inside Russia don't qualify. Despite the fact that Ukraine is killing people in Russia. Of course propaganda bots are trying to confuse both issues.

So in other words, by the UN definition, by the ACTUAL criteria:

1) Israel's war in Gaza is NOT a genocide.

2) Hamas' attack on 10/7, intended to wipe Israel off the map by killing Jews, was genocide.

3) a whole number of Hamas' actions outside of the 10/7 attack ALSO qualify as genocide, as the intent is clear (such as their actions when they got elected, to give an example of something that DOES qualify as genocide against Palestinians ... but of course committed by Hamas)

The simple fact is that Hamas, and frankly a lot of Palestinians, just like Russia, want to commit genocide. That is what makes the difference according to the criteria.


You've posted several comments in this thread that are inflammatory and outside the guidelines. We have to ban accounts that continue to post like this. Please read the guidelines and observe them in future, particularly these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


Sure, openly written documents can help with evaluation of intent, but how can we ever define someone's intent (something that is only in people's hearts)? We know of many legal cases where the intent is obvious but not easily provable.

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Isn't intent usually decided by a jury/court, taking the actions of the alleged perp into account? Most law breakers won't just admit their guilt, and most legal systems don't let defendants unilaterally declare themselves innocent.

> Hamas explicitly states that committing genocide in Palestine and Israel against Jews and "Palestinian traitors" ... is the start. They clearly state their intent to do so worldwide, on essentially everyone, as that will bring the islamic second coming. Yes, really, that's what it says.

Nice, it's like the "preventive" strikes of Trump on Iran. Israel is basically committing genocide on Palestinians so ...Palestinians don't do genocide on them AND the world? Thank you Israel, for saving the world, by committing untold atrocities, a genocide and ethntic cleasing (in the name of good, of course).

Again, I will reiterate: Israel currently does to Palestinians what answers ALL criterias of a genocide. Is it a genocide? Yes. Can we call it a genocide? Yes. Would we continue calling it a genocide and compare it to what Nazis did to the Jewish population? Yes.


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That's rich coming from a defender of Israel, the apartheid state that indiscriminately kills children and does a genocide on a whole population. What's even richer is that Israel is the one known for doing so:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/more-human-c...

Besides, two wrongs don't make a right. And it's Israel occupying another country, not the other way around. It's also Israel who killed 20x more innocents in the last years.

https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/

Israel also attacked 4 countries: Syria, Iran, Palestine and Lebanon in just the last 2 years, yet somehow those genocidal warmongers are allowed to have nukes?

Nah, the ICC has issued an arrest for Netanyahu because of his war crimes, and there IS genocide in Gaza. Go cry somewhere else, you won't take the world's eyes away from this Nazi style genocide.


What Israel is doing checks the first and third items in your list. They kill members of the group, and not just in Gaza; in the Westbank, it's common for illegal settlers to attack Palestinian towns, including killing people. The IDF does nothing to stop them, but if Palestinians try to defend themselves against this aggression, IDF shows up to stop that.

The wall separates farmers from their land, and has made it nearly impossible for Palestinians to live their life, to go to work, etc. And Gaza is a ghetto; an open-air prison, with way too many people, and no way for them to build a normal life. Israel has also kicked Palestinians out of their homes in order to give them to Jews.

I'm not denying that Hamas is also genocidal; they clearly and openly are. And probably more so in intent, but a lot less so in capability. Israel has been killing and disrupting a lot more Palestinian lives than the other way around.


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Do you think these are all accidents? Read what I wrote. The intent is clearly there.

If Hitler said "I'm not going to kill any Jews" while murdering a million Jews, would you believe he didn't have the intent to kill them? And there's plenty of people in Israel who do talk openly about destroying Palestine, destroying Gaza, killing or deporting all Palestinians, and even arguing that Palestinians aren't a real people (like Putin does with Ukrainians). All of that shows intent.


Did you read your own list?

Based on news reporting, what Israel is doing in Gaza checks multiple items.


sometimes people who operate within rules-based systems mistakenly project those same rules outside of the same systems which they are operating within

Without commenting on your characterization of what is happening as "all the genociding", I want to actually answer your actual question - why are "we" talking about the weeds of this case.

There are a few completely separate issues here. GPs comment is talking about the internal-to-Israel, state-level trials against Netanyahu. These have been ongoing, started several years before the Gaza war, and are being adjudicated in Israeli courts right now. These actually have the power to force Netanyahu out of office or actually make changes to how he behaves - because they are internal to Israel, and if the court decides something, presumably the police and military will follow the courts. (Unless there's an actual coup and Israel stops being a democracy - which I don't think is even remotely likely, btw.)

There is no ongoing trial within Israel against Netanyahu related to the conduct of the war. In general, Israelis view the current war as being fought legally.

Regarding what you call "genocide" or other accusations of war crimes or illegal conduct in war - that's something that gets adjudicated by international courts like the ICC and ICJ. The ICJ has a case open against Israel, claiming it is committing genocide, and the ICC has a warrant out against Netanyahu for war crimes. Those are completely unrelated matters. They also have less immediate impact - because there is no real way to force Netanyahu to comply with those warrants.


I was speaking more to the desire for him to be put away, rather than the practical means of how to get there, but I appreciate your comment regardless.

Side note to dang:

Please don’t delete this thread. Yes it’s getting pretty heated, but it’s by far the most rational discussion of this topic I’ve seen in a while. Plus I’ve learnt a few things, which tends to be a positive signal for quality


> But as long as he can lead Israel in a state of emergency, he can have those delayed, or perhaps even work around them.

Well, that's kind of true. The Iran war has certainly stopped proceedings against Netanyahu, because the courts are shut down - along with much of the country.

That said, this can't last much because the economy is completely shut down, and the trials against him were ongoing, eve amidst the Gaza war.

So he can't just indefinitely put off the trial against him.


> So he can't just indefinitely put off the trial against him.

Unless he changes the law, which he's tried on multiple occasions


ICC also has an arrest warrant against Netanyahu.

For events in Gaza last year, yes. The corruption charges are older and domestic only.

Yes, but it does significantly limit any "flee the country" options for escaping domestic charges.

Not all that much. Practically speaking, NATO countries will not arrest him.

That is too broad. There are NATO countries who will not currently arrest Netanyahu, but not all. The tide of public opinion has turned against Israel in even the countries most supportive like Germany and the US, so it's only a matter of time.

ICC is being hosted by a NATO country ...

Netanyahu has visited countries which are signatories and not been arrested. Even politicians in the Netherlands have said that they will not arrest him if he comes.

Those visits only happened because he was given the guarantee of not being arrested. I.e. they happened in the name of diplomacy.

Also, don't mix up a politician's personal opinions and official policy.


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The main charge is for the war crime of “starvation as a method of warfare”.

There is nothing political about that, and any measure of righteousness in what lead to it is irrelevant.


You're referring to the cutting off of supply lines into places where the enemy has chosen to embed themselves. With almost infinite video proof of misappropriation of all humanitarian aid (food and supplies) of their citizens during the conflict.

This is literally how every war since time has gone. The "Starvation" nomenclature is propganda, which to their credit they are CRUSHING at.


> misappropriation of all humanitarian aid

International organizations already warned that this might happen if the Israelis and USA would try to supply the aid directly by themselves, because this requires a level of expertise that they simply don't have. However, Netanyahu wanted to take matters in his own hands and the result was another crime against humanity.


> With almost infinite video proof

One-sided proof. The Isreali already made themselves impossible by banning the press.


Proof is an absolute word

Yep. Israel is still a party to the starvation and restriction of humanitarian aid. Hamas notwithstanding. Both sides can be evil. Two wrongs don’t make a right etc etc.

We should be clear about these cases that are brought against him (I'm not saying he isn't guilty, but context is important here):

Case 1 - as Minister of Communications he, allegedly, tried to get a tax extension for a company whose owners had given him expensive cigars and jewelry to his wife (worth $3100). The extension was not granted. He also tried to get a US visa for one of the owners.

Case 2 - One of the newspapers in Israel said that if he gave them advantages over a competing newpaper they would paint Bibi and his family in a positive light in their coverage

*Case 3 - seemingly similar to Case 2, a large news website offered to portray Bibi in a better light if he would push through regulatory changes as Minisiter of Communications.


> Case 3 - seemingly similar to Case 2, a large news website offered to portray Bibi in a better light if he would push through regulatory changes as Minisiter of Communications.

Favorable coverage was the original charge (סיקור אוהד). However, since this website was exteremely hostile to Netanyahu, the charge was changed to being unusually responsive* to requests from Netanyahu's spokespeople (הענות חריגה).


Then you know… there’s the whole crimes against humanity thing from the ICC too…

Based on their heavily biased view of the Gaza conflict, based on their Arabic affiliations and the Hamas-run Gaza government’s reporting.

They used a computer program to target hamas members based on signals and other intelligence inclusive of people who are not in any way combatants.

Bombs including and especially large not particularly sophisticated bombs were dropped on entire buildings preferentially at night to ensure the target would be likely to be home with their wife and family and you know any other families in the same building.

Previously such strikes with very large numbers of collateral damage were authorized to kill top members of Hamas. Now they were authorized to hopefully an 18 year old cook irrespective of the 7 children that would burn to death painfully in the fire.

They recovered around 150 hostages at the cost of 50,000 children being killed or injured.

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-m...

Remember that Gaza isn't a democracy. Hamas is 50k people out of 2M of which the number of people that actually have decision making power would fit in a small room. Most people in Gaza aren't Hamas.

Israel is presently starving a large city full of people under the pretense of forcing them to leave knowing that can't do so. Starving people isn't morally different than herding them all into gas chambers.

If there is a place that needs immediate intervention it is using force to enforce peace in Gaza before all the remaining people in Gaza die.


They're starving 2 million people in broad daylight and basically everyone in the highest levels of the administration has said blatantly genocidal shit, but yeah it's all just bias.

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Bringing up Al Jazeera as an unbiased source about Israel is weird.

Amnesty international emitted report that say "Israel is not commiting genocide according to existing definitions, thus definitions should be changed":

> As outlined below, Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict.

Somehow people cite it as a proof of genocide.

BBC has produced a documentary with narrator being son of Hamas official, and were forced to apologize for that [1]. They sheleved another documentary with impartiality concerns. They have contributors calling to "burn Jews like Hitler" [2].

So yeah, there are unbiased critics of Israel, just none of those you listed

[1] https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/statements/gaza-how-to-survi...

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/26/well-burn-jews-l...


> Amnesty international emitted report that say "Israel is not commiting genocide according to existing definitions, thus definitions should be changed"

Source? Perhaps older report, before the country dropped any pretense of respecting international norms on human rights. Today Amnesty sees a clear case of genocide underway against indigenous palestinians in Gaza. See https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...


The citation is from page 101 of the report you linked. Have you read it?

Let me get the full paragraph:

> 5.5.2 STATE INTENT The jurisprudence on genocidal intent on the part of a state is more limited. The ICJ has accepted that, in the absence of direct proof, specific intent may be established indirectly by inference for purposes of state responsibility, and has adopted much of the reasoning of the international tribunals.380 However, its rulings on inferring intent can be read extremely narrowly, in a manner that would potentially preclude a state from having genocidal intent alongside one or more additional motives or goals in relation to the conduct of its military operations. As outlined below, Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict. The organization considers that the Genocide Convention must be interpreted in a manner that ensures that genocide remains prohibited in both peacetime and in war and that ICJ jurisprudence should not be read to effectively preclude a finding of genocide during war.

Regarding state intent, it appears this means that Amnesty is just remarking that a state can't launder genocide intent by parallel constructing additional motives or goals that are legitimate sounding.

So that does not support your conclusion that "Israel is not commiting genocide according to existing definitions, thus definitions should be changed". Alas, the text is misquoted, as it doesn't appear anywhere in the document. Those are not Amnesty words, neither the text actually in the report supports it.


> Alas, the text is misquoted, as it doesn't appear anywhere in the document.

I wrote the direct quote after the colon and ">" symbol. The part in quotes in my rephrasing. Of course AI wouldn't write such thing directly, they need to hide it deep into the report behind convoluted language.

This paragraph consists of

1. Explaination how genocide definition is interpreted by international courts, specifically ICJ.

2. Claim that existing interpretation preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict (for example, war in Gaza). I'm not sure that it's true, because for example, Srebrenica massacre happened during armed conflict and was found an act of genocide, but let's take their claim on face value.

3. Conclusion that we need change the interpretation of definition of genocide to be able to find during war conflict (specifically, war in Gaza)

Part 2 is what I summarized as "Israel is not commiting genocide according to existing definitions", and part 3 is what I summarized as "thus definitions should be changed". Technically they want to change interpretation and not definition, so the better summary would be "Israel cannot be found guilty of genocide according to existing interpretation of genocide, so the interpretation should change". Or do you disagree with this one too?


Wasn’t there some sort of the parliamentary issue with his government that this new war will push off as well?

As long as he can deliver a checkmate.

War crimes are only crimes when the war ends… start another war.

Recently, I read about the Qibya massacre [1]. Sometimes, even the end of war does not seem to bring any justice, and you wonder what kind of people manage to become prime minister...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre


Oh I’m definitely not defending the man. He’s scum. And you’re totally right - so many atrocities are swept under the rug.

>Israel

>The populace has been concentrated

>in a camp

ummmmmmmmmm


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It’s an opinion. People are allowed to form those with imperfect information.

But what is the opinion based on? Has OP read the filings or something?

If they waited to know the outcome then it wouldn't be a probability

Is OJ Simpson "probably guilty" of murder?

> This new war against Iran also diverts attention away from what is happening in Gaza

my interpretation is: disable Hamas (who embeds amongst civilians), then go after Iran (the true head of the dragon).


> disable Hamas (who embeds amongst civilians)

Hamas recruits among civilians. Radicalized civilians. And Israel has just radicalized even more Palestinians, creating even better recruiting ground for Hamas.

Israel has supported Hamas because it's a very convenient enemy for them. Hamas wants to wipe Israel from the map, and to Israel, that means a powerful Hamas controlling Palestine justifies their wiping Palestine off the map.

During the 1980s, when the PLO was the dominant force in Palestine and wanted a two-state solution, Israel supported the much less influential Hamas in order to undermine PLO's position. And I think in 2017, Israel asked Qatar to support Hamas.

Note that the Netanyahu government only goes after the people on the ground, not the leadership abroad. And they clearly have no problem killing and radicalizing more Palestinian civilians.


> During the 1980s, when the PLO was the dominant force in Palestine and wanted a two-state solution, Israel supported the much less influential Hamas in order to undermine PLO's position. And I think in 2017, Israel asked Qatar to support Hamas

You have got that the other way around. Hamas was founded in 1987 during the Intifada, before the PLO started supporting a two state solution in 1988. The reason the PLO made that shift was that it was in exile and a new leadership in Palestine was formed (including Hamas), and they were afraid they will lose relevancy.

In 1987 and going forward Hamas fought Israel, so claiming Israel supported it is paradoxical.

Qatari money was transferred to Hamas prior to any Israeli involvement as early as 2007, sometimes in cash through the tunnels.

In 2017 the Palestinian Authority refused to transfer taxes collected to the Hamas Gaza government or pay Israel for Gaza's electricity, leading to an economical downturn in Gaza.

Because of the pending humanitarian crisis that would probably end in starvation due to Gaza less than stellar economy, whose blame would be put on Israel as is accustomed, Qatar was used as a lesser evil solution. It allowed Israel not to directly fund the Hamas government, which except for its military wing, is also its schools, hospitals, municipal and all other civilians functions.

The narrative you are repeating also repeats itself as Israel created Hezbollah or even as far as the US created ISIS, 9/11 was an inside job etc

The source of this narrative in my opinion is the old racist imperialist narrative where the so-called natives are merely children incapable of agency. Here in the post colonialist sense, if there is any evil actor around, its actions or mere existence must quickly be attributed to the West/Israel, or else cognitive dissonance abounds


Israel under scharon has given gaza back including the settlements and got for that 700 civilians who followed the hamas members to murder, rape and kill children on the 7th October. Fuck all those fanatics ..

Let’s not forget that Benjamin Netanyahu even said once (that I know of from a recording) that the best thing for Israel is a strong Hamas.

I would really want to see that. Do you have a link?

Found it! For reference, I originally heard this in the Some More News episodes about “Uncomplicating the complicated situation in the West Bank”, but I can’t find those episodes at the moment.

> As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...


Thanks! I now understand the context.

> Note that the Netanyahu government only goes after the people on the ground, not the leadership abroad.

Israel says it killed Iran's military co-ordinator with Hamas - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9yxrxwzzzo


I kinda miss those secular Palestinian militants...

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> before the Israeli response has a chance to radicalize them

You… you think that was the start of the process?


This is exactly what's happening and I wish people would say it more often. Plenty of reporting showed the IDF had indication oct 7 attacks were about to happen and warnings were ignored.

“Head of the dragon” what’s that supposed to mean? Reminds me of language used by Israel citizens and government to describe the regime without pointing to hard facts. As far as I can see there’s many aggressors in that area. Israel is a main one.

You’re going to be brow beaten and down voted but you’re speaking the truth.

What other country is attacking or has attacked its neighbors as Israel has? What other country has been executing a live-streamed genocide that you can see the outcomes of on Instagram?

Just yesterday I saw a video of a mother comforting her infant whose leg was blown off by Israeli bombs. And yet these religious fanatics are the ones we call our “allies”.


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Oh my bad, as a person born and raised in the Middle East, I should’ve known my poor intellect could never match yours.

How many countries has Israel attacked in last year alone?


Israel was invaded simultaneously by all of its neighbors more than once in the last 80 years.

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Iraq invaded Iran - that wasn't a war of Iranian aggression. Or is your point just that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was just as bad as Israel, so Israel is OK somehow?

No, my question was how many countries has Israel attacked in the last year. I know this might be outside your wheelhouse as a former CTO for some random porn company but I have faith you can use google

Your question, which I will once again quote directly:

> What other country is attacking or has attacked its neighbors as Israel has?


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Tell me more about the land they've ceded and where they got it from...

Youre just picking a random rung on the ladder and calling it the start. Where did your team get it from? Why was it not OK that two groups share the land given they both had occupied at a previous point in history?

What is Israel doing in Syria and Lebanon if not an invasion?

More like blinded by the corpses of slain children I’ve seen pile up through genocide but you do you I guess.

HN seems to be pretty full of that. Really bad.

What is the difference between chasing an imagined "Hamas" among the civilians and just starving and killing civilians?

> chasing an imagined "Hamas" among the civilians

what do you mean by this? that there is no Hamas, or that they aren't embedded amongst civilians, or something else?


that what israel is targeting is unrelated to hamas being at some point embedded amongst civilians, or whether they exist at all.

israel is instead making up its own hamas, and then bombing the food aid to target the civilians.


Israel is clearly capable of targeted attacks, like hitting one bedroom in a large apartment building in Iran. Yet they continue to use block sized bombs in Gaza.

They released footage of Hamas leaders being assassinated by drones to prove that Hamas really does exist. But they gotta bomb those hospitals to be extra sure.

Where is Hamas? How come I see Ukraine vs Russia combat footage every single day but only dead children out of Palestine? Where’s the IDF/Hamas combat footage? It’s because the IDF is just bombing kids.

There is no Hamas and if there is there’s barely any


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Let's rephrase it then: Why aren't journalists allowed to corroborate facts on the ground and even are murdered by Israel on a regular basis, while Israel is allowed to genocide an entire population away?

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I'm sorry, I couldn't detect an answer there. Are there any statements you would like to debate?

comments like this add negative value to the discussion. it shows complete refusal to engage on a professional level. If you can't articulate your thoughts or disagree with someone without taunting them, why do you comment at all?

lol. Embeds among civilians? Like the IDF does, with military underground bases? Disable Hamas via genocide? By destroying every hospital in Gaza? By raping Palestinian women & girls? By looting their homes? By bombing and starving them?

Exactly who is the Dragon here? You think Israel’s bloodlust is done with Iran? They want much more Territory across the Middle East. They are occupying parts of Cypress right now, And have craving for parts of Egypt and more.


Territory?! What the hell are you talking about?! They offered to retain a tiny portion of territory some decades ago, and that was rejected. You can say whatever you want, but this is not about land. That is ignorance. Sorry.

Israel has already this year claimed a chunk of Syria, and has destroyed over 100,000 (!!!) homes in Lebanon with the clear intention of taking that land too.

Could you please give a source for that information? I mean what chunk of Syria, and how was the claim done?


But they don't claim that territory is now Israel, do they?

Multiple Israeli ministers have publicly made the claim. But no, for now they are only saying that they will stay there for as long as they want. I'm sure destroying all those homes has nothing to do with it either...

Ok. I just misunderstood several comments, which say it is about gaining territory. And I see no evidence to support that. There are military operations, occupations, but nothing really solid that show intention of taking territory for later civilian use, or anex to Israel. Those are very different things. E.g. Russia is invading with a clear goal of annexing land; but Israel not ao much.

I am not saying is good or bad, just that the goal seems different here.


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Why not mention the events of the previous half century? Just admit you were born yesterday and go study history so we can at least have an honest conversation.

Good idea. But maybe start a few hundred years before half a century ago.

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Buddy most of the world is very sympathetic to the Jewish plight.

What we cannot tolerate anymore is the violence of the Israeli state. It has become the monster.


I really don't think you want to go down the "bombs hospitals and murders innocent people as their main goal" road if you're ride or die for Israel

When I’m in a bomb hospitals and murder civilians contest, but my competition is Israel

The Mossad literally trained Iran's elite torture units for them, in collaboration with the CIA: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/legal-and-political-mag...

Netanyahu’s actions endanger Jews. The rest of the world sees this for what it is. No one believes you. Disgusting.

I thought this was about nuclear bombs. /s



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