One of the most chilling maps I've ever seen is the one of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. It looks like a cell using lysosomes to kill prey.
HN should just ban controversial topics. Every time, these threads just devolve into mass flagging and downvoting and many times its usually one-sided depending on the majority view. Not interesting and not fun at all.
If you familiarize yourself with the past explanations that I just linked to, you'll see that this is explained in detail. If, after that, you have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to give it a try.
Given that HN is regularly read (and commented on) by some of the top minds in world IT, I personally feel it would be a travesty simply not to mention some of the biggest issues and topics facing the world today.
I personally feel there's nothing more important than engaging those high profile and influential minds on these big issues if we have any hope of solving or at least improving them.
There is no Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. There is nothing to solve. There is a country that is slowly expanding in territory it doesn't have a right to, with some resistance from the original population.
This is a crime. Why do they do it? Because it's convenient and nobody stops them. Why nobody stops them? Because they've convinced the world that "there is a conflict", that "it's complicated", that "they're antisemites and they want to kill us all".
That's it. Weapons are just a tool. What enables Israel to keep occupying land and persecute Palestinians is just what people think of the whole thing. As long as people think "it's complicated", "Palestinians are just backwards antisemites", Israel will have a free hand in doing what they're doing. That's why convincing people is fundamental: and Israel knows very well, and that's why they censor as much information as possible.
While I have no issue with controversial posts on HN - high profile, influential tech minds have zero influence over the Israel-Palestine matter. The same is true for many controversial topics.
The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine.
Zuckerberg can't influence the Israel-Palestine context one bit, and he has $100 billion in wealth and controls the world's largest social network. He can't make the slightest of difference, no matter what he believes or wishes were. Zuckerberg is entirely powerless. The same goes for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Brin, Page, Ellison, Musk and on down the list.
So the 'influential' people on HN? Whatever is less than zero ability to influence this topic, that's the power they possess.
> The President of the United States and Congress barely have any influence over what goes on between Israel and Palestine.
They could, they just always, in recent decades, choose to use it in very nearly the same way, with very slight variations.
I mean, the Congress and the Preident together could, on the one hand, declare war on Palestine (either the widely-but-not-US-recognized State of Palestine, or Hamas, or both) on some pretext and radically change the context.
Or, on the other side, they could recognize and arm the State of Palestine, stop all aid and arms sales to Israel, stop vetoing every Security Council resolution that Israel doesn’t like, and sign a defense pact with the State of Palestine.
They don’t do those things because they don’t choose to, but that’s not a lack of power but a lack of sufficient interest and desire in changing the outcome.
Everybody has influence of the Israel-Palestine matter because the conflict exists only thanks to the spin Israel gives to it. They do what they do- and profit from it- because the public opinion in the Western countries (USA in particular) allows them to. That's why it's so important to them to keep shaping that opinion, and that's why it's so important to change it.
The ability to shape opinions of voters and funding should be seen as a kind of influence. In the US context, perhaps the plight of Palestinian victims of property theft will influence some ethical capitalists to scale back their uncritical moral or financial support to Israeli nationalist organizations.
The site guidelines explicitly ask you not to post like this. If you have specific concerns about astroturfing or similar abuses, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. If you're just making up garden-variety internet insinuation about this stuff, that's off topic on HN. Either way, please don't post like this again.
Israel is an apartheid state. Stealing land and declaring a "jewish state" is no less criminal or insane than what isis / islamic state tried to do.
Anti-zionism is not equal to anti-semitism.
Just like I can criticize the USA without hating Americans, or criticize Iran without discriminating against muslims.
>Stealing land and declaring a "jewish state" is no less criminal or insane than what isis / islamic state tried to do.
The most famous commentary on the Torah (Rashi) begins when the question of why the Torah begins with the story of Creation and not with the first law the Jews were given
Rashi says:
"For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us”
https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.1.1?lang=en
I agree that some of Israel's actions in the west bank are better not done and palestinians should have a right for self determination.
However, the statement that Israel steals land is false. Israel has never stolen land from anyone.
The previous owners of the west bank were the Jordanians and the previous owners of the Gaza Strip were the Eygptians, who lost this land in a war they initiated.
Like in every conflict in the world, crimes are comitted by both parties. During the 90s and early 00s suicide bombers kill thousands of Israelis - that's the reason Israel built a wall around the west bank.
> the Jordanians [..] the Egyptians [..] a war they initiated.
Sorry to be an armchair commenter here, but I think this opinion is not highly agreed upon by internet sources in easy reach. Wikipedia at least suggests that the first strikes came from Israel's side[1].
> On 5 June, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields, initially claiming that it had been attacked by Egypt, but later stating that the airstrikes were preemptive.
Thanks for the comment, but I doubt you read the whole article.
Saying that Israel started the war is akin to saying Britain and France started WW2 by declaring war on Germany.
They did decrlare war and initiated the first hostile act, but virtually no one considers the UK and france as responsible for the start of WW2, there were many events that led to the declaration of war that show beyond doubt that the Nazis were delibaretely acting aggressively and left no choice for UK and France, but to continue diplomacy by "other means".
Same goes in the case of the 67' war - if a country would have started a naval blockade on the US would it be considered an act of war? sure it would.
Prior to the 1967 war, Eygpt closed the Straits of Tiran, effectively blocking Israel from half of the world.
Just to put things in perspective - 90% of Israeli oil passed through the Straits of Tiran. So this was a really big deal as all the Israeli economy was dependent on the straits being open for commerce.
We probably have different views on this, but I consider who murders the first people as the instigator. That combined with lying about being attacked and the documented execution of Egyptian prisoners doesn't make me want to give credence to your point of view.
Also when France and the UK declared war on Germany, it had already occupied Poland using armed forces, so I feel like your comparison is a little tenuous.
My understanding of the six day war is not good, I'll admit that, it's based on some very vague memories of my history class in school and on some late night Wikipedia reading, but I am very confident that Israel doesn't have the moral high ground to the level of certainty that your original post implies.
(Also I would have liked that before accusing me of not reading my source, maybe you'd considered that even though we've read the same words we might get to different conclusions, and that's fine)
If you saying that Israel is not stealing Palestinian land, then you are simply ignoring a very well established and already proved fact. Instead of me trying to explain it, I would rather give you one piece information provided by a recognized Israeli source:
I feel like you linked me to something that proved my point. This seems like politics without evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. How much time has been spent moderating around this? Was it worth it?
Anyways i hope rick and morty succeed in their mission tonight.
I can't agree. The article touches on (relatively) interesting and new phenomena. This particular thread was a disaster, but the repost at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 got at least some ok discussion.
Yes, it was a lot of moderation work, with mixed results. Was it worth it? I'm not sure what you mean. I think we made the right moderation call, given the site guidelines and standard moderation practices, and given that, the work was just the work.
It is about Tech platforms deciding to side with Israel and silencing palestinians in social media.
We have had plenty of discussions here about social media censorship (especially during covid and trump era). This is a valid discussion as well as it is about human rights.
If we can talk and about Indian and Nigerian, or Chinese censorship against the Uyghurs and the Tiananmen square masacre, then we can talk about Israeli censorship war against the Palestinians as well.
Also Computer Ethics is part of the Computer Science curriculum in most colleges, and part of technology. We are not going to solve this conflict here, but we should know where censorship in tech is being used to suppress the voice of a whole population. I was born in a communist country (Albania), and censorship in media was used to suppress the voice of the people in order to prop up a brutal regime.
"In addition to using social media to incriminate Palestinians, Israel has also used it to muzzle us. In 2016, Israel’s then-Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked boasted that, in the previous four-month period, Facebook had complied with 95% of Israel’s requests to remove Palestinian content on the vague basis of “incitement.” A year later, Israel tried to push the “Facebook Bill” through the Knesset, legislation which would force Facebook to remove any content designated as “incitement.” "
If you continue to post religious/racial/whatever flamewar comments to HN, we will ban you. You've done it repeatedly and it is not what this site is for—quite the opposite. No more of this please.
> If your post calls for destroying Israel, then it deserves to be removed.
There are tons of posts from Americans talking about wiping various countries off the map. Should those posts also be removed? Should those users be banned?
If they are racially motivated, and shows hatred towards a whole ethinicity and people, yes, the posts should be removed and the users banned after repeat violations.
Sounds like you've set a system up full of semantic issues. For example, saying "Death to Israel" is in pretty clear violation of this rule.
But what about "Turn Iraq into a glass parking lot"? Someone could argue that they aren't targeting a "whole ethnicity" because Iraq is simply one of many Arab/Muslim-majority nations - and not even in the top 3 most populous Arab countries. After all, the person didn't say "Kill every Muslim" nor did they say "Bomb all Muslim countries" -- they just stated one of MANY countries that happens to be majority Muslim.
So you're saying that the posts should be removed not because of what they say but because of their motives. And who decides what are the posts motives? You, of course.
Israel is running a slow-motion ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians, practices apartheid, and violates international law by building settlements on occupied territories... but you say that the reason Palestinians hate Israelis is because of their race? Yeah, sure.
Race is a very important component on Paletinians hating Jews.
You are uninformed in this matter.
You can find rampant anti-Jewish sentiment in Quran and Hadith, and they are widely circulated in social media.
You maybe living in the West where such posts are not circulated, but they exist outside of your sphere.
There are two narratives. One in English- where they are the victims, and they need saving. Another one in Arabic, where they call for genocide of the Jewish people regularly.
And these were brought into my attention by my friends speaking Arabic.
Just because this narrative exists outside your focus and periphery, does not mean it does not exist.
You did more than anyone else to turn this thread into a flamewar hell. Moreover, this isn't the only time recently that you've broken the site guidelines with flamewar comments and attacking other users (e.g https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27590644).
If it were just the one thread, I'd let you off with a warning, but this is egregious (and it seems you've done this with other accounts in the past, too). Therefore I've banned this account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Edit: just in case anyone is worried about it: when we ban accounts in politically contentious threads, it's not because we secretly disagree with the politics of the banned account. Our goal is simply to enforce the site guidelines and prevent HN from turning into a flamewar hell, the end state of which would be scorched earth (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). The history of moderation comments here—not that anyone would want to slog through it—contains plenty of examples of HN users getting banned from every possible political angle.
> Race is a very important component on Paletinians hating Jews.
This is an entirely irrelevant, even ridiculous, argument, given the present situation. Which is that there is a very concrete and justified reason for Palestinians to hate Israel, and that's because Israel is oppressing them in a way that no people would ever tolerate and that would be classified and prosecuted as a crime if the perpetrators were any others than the West's darlings.
By the way, a friend of mine is a Palestinian from the West Bank who was subject to Israeli persecution, and had in the end to flee elsewhere. She is Christian, as has been her family since time immemorial. I can assure you she heartily hates Israel nonetheless. (10% of Palestinians were Christians, that's something Israel prefers to gloss over, since any empathy from the Christian west is dangerous).
You want to talk about the atavic, religious hatred that Palestinians harbour for Jews? Cool, then remove all the actual, justifiable reasons for that hatred and after that, if there's any left, we can talk about it.
You've entirely ignored the thrust of the parents argument.
I'd also point out that from the perspective of a secular westerner, even if one group is calling for the genocide of the other regularly; is the other group, which is actually committing genocide regularly, able to be held up as morally superior in any way? Is that group (Israeli Zionists) actually worth defending at all?
You have to remember that for the vast majority of the world, neither religious viewpoint holds much weight; only the globally agreed common ethics.
Is it not okay to ask for a partial reconstruction? Israel occupies land that is internationally recognised as not being Israel's. Demanding restitution, even occupation to enforce a peace. They're all extremely difficult ideas if you're Israeli, but perhaps required to start to put a broken situation right.
There’s objective collective punishment of Palestinians. That’s a simple fact. I don’t see “this is political” dismissal when people post about other controversial topics, such as Uyghurs and China.
Of course social media is technology. But so are brick houses, scissors, and trousers.
This post does not belong in this site because it is more political than related to technology.
Just notice the tone in the article. It screams "politically charged post".
It has very little or nothing to do with technology.
I did not dismiss it for being "woke liberal". I dismissed it because it moves away from the ethics of journalist being objective and seeing nuance. They don't in this case.
And social media is decades old. This post is nowhere near about being a post about technology.
Is telephone directory fraud a post about tech? Telephone is a tech.
In that same way the post rides on reporting on tech but is really a political piece.
The owner (daughter of Eric Schmidt) is probably trying to score brownie points by making Israel the villain. Because they are an easy target and no one minds.
Remember the people who killed Jamal Khasoggi? They came by airplane (also a technology) and coordinated with satphones and cellphones (also technology). That news is not Rest of World material.
Social media is decades old, and if there's any censorship going on, it is comparable to newspaper sensorship and tech is not central (newspapers use computers and internet, so are they tech?).
And since this is controversial, this should not be in HN.
I think the “Apartheid state” accusation refers to the occupied territories, and the fact that the people living there are not afforded the rights of Israeli citizenship, while still being under Israeli control
Maybe Apartheid state is not the right term, but there are clearly two classes of population: Israelis, and people living under Israeli military control without being Israeli
>It shows screenshots of people calling the actions of Israel apartheid. I am not taking anything seriously that calls Israel an "apartheid state". You don't know what apartheid is.
>Arabic Muslims and non-Muslims alike has more rights and power in Israel than all other Arab states combined.
Only if you're an Israeli citizen. If you're Palestinian, you're liable to be kicked out of your house by the Israeli government without recourse or warning.
Nope, its not about having rights. That the comic version of apartheid.
Its about being an equal partner in the society to jointly and equally decide what are the rights and obligations of each member.
And that is a threshold Israel can never achieve. The Jewish majority unilaterally decides what the role of the Arabs are.
For example, the Jewish majority has, unilaterally and without explanation, decided that their Arabs countrymen are not fit for the obligation of conscription, for the privilege of defending Israel.
That's a redefinition of the word "apartheid". Probably done to use its emotional connotations.
"Comic version of Apartheid"?
Apartheid was an actual political system, implemented and practiced for years.
Much more that not being an "equal partner", it involved enforced legislation to classify people according to race and then to restrict rights based on that classification.
NOTE: I'm not weighing in on the Palestinian/Israeli issue here, but as someone who grew up under the Apartheid regime, I'm objecting to what I feel is misuse of the word.
How do you explain the ongoing eviction, backed by IDF enforcement, of Sheikh Jarrah? If Palestinians have equal rights and Israel has stopped occupying Gaza and encroaching on Gazan land, why are there constant clashes between settlers and Gazans in the West Bank?
How do you explain the disproportionate response from Israel, carpet bombing Gaza indiscriminately, not even focusing on military targets? What about the cries of death to Arabs that Israelis were filmed shouting during the latest campaign?
You’re also attempting to paint things in a light that washes over the obvious missteps and war crimes of Israel.
I don't know what happened to the anti-Arab chanters, in my opinion, they should be sued (and arrested when appropriate). And "Israelis" did not shout those. They were from an ultra nationalist faction.
It's not Israelis vs. Palestinians. It's Hamas wanting to kill every Jew it can, and Israel attacking Hamas to save its citizens, and then innocent Palestinians getting killed because they were used as human shield by Hamas.
If Hamas stops ruling Gaza, and the leadership are properly brought to justice, and Israel still does what it is doing today, I will turn pro-Palestine in a heartbeat.
And honestly I don't like the power orthodox Rabbis have in Israel. I am opposed to clergy- Jew, Islamic, Hindu- does not matter.
I think the main question from op was this- it completely rips apart all the propaganda you’ve been writing throughout this thread.
> How do you explain the ongoing eviction, backed by IDF enforcement, of Sheikh Jarrah? If Palestinians have equal rights and Israel has stopped occupying Gaza and encroaching on Gazan land, why are there constant clashes between settlers and Gazans in the West Bank?
The fact that you ignored that question in favor of Hamas wanting to destroy Israel (which is a well known, undisputed fact) honestly shows you the know the truth and are complicit in deceit.
I’m curious do you work directly for the IDF, or are you from the group of people who just hate Arabs and wish they’d disappear?
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with; it will eventually get your main account banned as well.
Banned which account? And I’m curious why some of these “political” posts break site guidelines but others do not. I see political discussions on Crimea and China. Are the guidelines specific to Israel and Palestinians?
"This account" means "the account I'm currently replying to". No, of course the guidelines aren't specific that way. Not all political posts are off topic, but everyone needs to follow the site guidelines, and the rules apply more, not less, as a topic gets more divisive: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
That does not mean that every post that breaks the site guidelines gets moderated, though, for the simple reason that we don't see everything that gets posted here. There's far too much for us to read it all. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. People can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
But that thread hasn’t been flagged, nor are you going out of your way to ban posters in that thread.
But the account you replied to was mine, and you’re banning me because the Israel Palestine issue seems to be censured by Hacker News.
You can just admit that instead of hiding behind site policies and guidelines. “We won’t allow criticism of Israel.” If you want to be a cog for Israeli propaganda, that’s fine. Why hide behind site guidelines and not fess to it? It’s pretty spineless and cowardly, no?
There were multiple submissions of the article. More explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27647873. I hope you'll notice that the truth is exactly the opposite of how you perceived this.
I banned you because you broke the site guidelines egregiously. It has zero to do with what the topic happened to be. The topic could have been type inference, Oreo cookies, chess ratings—that's not the high-order bit. What's not ok is posting in a way that destroys this place for its intended purpose. The ecosystem here is fragile. Comments like what you posted destroy it. We need to protect it. That's all that's happening here.
You're far from the only person doing that, and we try to be as fair and even-handed as we possibly can. I know we don't do it perfectly. But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27643425 was hardly a borderline call.
You bet. Jews immigrated en masse to Palestine, then used their leverage at the UN to have half of the country assigned to themselves alone, then proceeded to ethnic cleanse as many Arab villages as possible. In the decades Israel has used every possible excuse to occupy more land, in violation of all laws and agreements, and install their population, while harassing, persecuting, and killing the indigenous population.
You bet that Hamas wants to kill them! It's because they're vicious anti-semite? No.
The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 - June 2021 (231 comments)