One of the weirdest things I am seeing is the pushback from employers on "Remote"
We have actual studies showing that remote workers are more productive, have higher morale, and save themselves and their company money (no commute, no office rent)
And yet employers are still doggedly determined that employees sit in their toxic offices being miserable.
Employers are worse off (lower productivity), employees are worse off (lower morale).
FYI instig007 is not part of the Haskell community but seems to occasionally lambast people about Haskell, risking giving the Haskell community a bad name: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44199980
> but seems to occasionally lambast people about Haskell
If you are to add community notes to my comments, at least add the part that clarifies that I only lambast incompetence and lies.
> risking giving the Haskell community a bad name
as opposed to those that spread FUD, I suppose? It's not the first time I'm asking this question, so what's your take on people who inflate their credibility by telling lies about the tech they clearly don't know?
Playing this corny HN-brained faux-debate game when Israel is blocking hundreds of aid trucks from entering Gaza and letting children starve to death is in really bad taste.
It's not "faux". I mean it genuinely. It's one thing to claim that Israel should ensure food security (that's my point of view). It's quite another to claim "collective punishment", and that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
By the way, there are hundreds of trucks on the Gaza side of the border, the opposite of blocked, let through by Israel, but the UN refuses to collect them and distribute them: https://x.com/Ostrov_A/article/1950577195153580306
It's impressive how thoroughly Hamas has won the information war when they have made it so heart-wrenchingly emotive that presenting any alternative view point is "bad taste" (at best, it can also be much worse).
The appropriate question is does this meet the intent requirements for collective punishment?
All these international crimes do have various requirements. Collective punishment in particular has more intent requirements than many other war crimes. Death and destruction in and of itself is not sufficient.
> The appropriate question is does this meet the intent requirements for collective punishment?
Let's put Netanyahu in front of the ICC and let the lawyers figure it out.
Edit: That isn't tongue in cheek, I think it is one of the few ways to difuse the cauldron of violence that keeps brewing hotter and hotter. A broad international coalition to hold the leadership on both sides responsible for their war crimes.
The ICC lacks juridsiction over the war crime of collective punishment, so that would be an easy win for Netanyahu. To charge him with collective punishment either the united nations security council would have to create an ad-hoc tribunal, a domestic israeli court could charge him, or some other national court under the principle of universal juridsiction could bring charges. The ICC cannot.
More generally though I agree. I'm a big supporter of the ICC and generally believe it to be a fair court. I'd like to see those accused stand trial, present their defense, and let justice be done no matter which way it leads.
I'm still not sure what you mean. Are you saying that when children are unintentionally killed in war that is "punishment"? Were the children killed by NATO troops in Afghanistan "punished"? For that matter, do you think Oct 7 was Palestine "punishing" Israel?
> A blatant lie.
Interesting. How are you so sure that the article I linked is a blatant lie and the one you linked isn't?
Oops, I killed 17,000 kids, totally an accident, my bad, so I'm just gonna keep doing the same thing, but I said it was an accident so that's totally cool right?
You realize that's more than a order of magnitude more than the total number of people killed on October 7th? If October 7th was justification for this war, what Isreal has done in response justifies so much more. (To be clear, I don't believe in collective punishment so neither is justified.)
> How are you so sure that the article I linked is a blatant lie and the one you linked isn't?
I start by looking at the sources reputations, then look at the amount of context that they include that contradicts their implicit or explicit view point. From there the process gets more complicated if necessary.
In this case you have blog source that clearly elides relevant context against a news article that presents the position of both sides coming from one of the more trustworthy news organizations. I don't necessarily trust the AP to be unbiased or not spread propaganda but in comparison to that blog, it is pretty easy to guess which is more reliable.
There seem to be a few strands getting entangled here. If you look earlier in the thread you'll see I'm asking for justification of the claim of "collective punishment". So far I haven't seen any, and indeed I haven't seen any direct responses to that request at all.
An observer following the thread (and maybe this applies to you too) might think "But what I am seeing as so egregious, why does it matter if it's technically 'collective punishment' or not? That's just nitpicking, splitting hairs, and a really awful thing to engage in when such suffering is occurring". Well then, if someone has such a strong argument that it easy for them to make it without leaving hairs that can be split, without leaving anything that could technically be nitpicked then let them make that argument. But so far I haven't found that argument. The arguments that I have found so far have loose ends, and when I pull on the loose ends I find invariably that the whole argument unravels.
So, the number of fatalities is not really relevant to this particular thread of discussion, but if you want to have a discussion on that topic, maybe we can check up front whether we have a reasonable basis for such a discussion: Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't.
I don't see any other reason to kill 17,000 kids like that except as collective punishment or genocide. You seem pretty clear that it was neither so I'll leave it up to you to provide another reasonable explanation for why Isreal would want to intentionally kill that many kids.
1. "Not seeing any other reason" doesn't seem to be a particularly strong argument. But let's take it at face value. Estimates of German civilian deaths during WW2 range from 1.5m to 3m people:
Was that because the allies were "collectively punishing" or "committing genocide" on Germans? I don't think so, and I don't see any reason that civilian deaths in Gaza imply that either.
2. Do you have a source for your death statistics that doesn't ultimately trace back to the "health ministry" of an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation?
3. Not all children who have died in Gaza since 2023 will have been "killed by Israel". Many will have been killed by Hamas for a variety of reasons, including misfired rockets, booby trapped houses, mosques and schools, and getting caught in the crossfire. Since Hamas knows that every child death will be attributed to Israel it's quite happy for that statistic to rise.
4. As far as I can tell, Israel does not kill children (or any civilians) intentionally. Any civilian killed by Israel in Gaza was unintentional, and civilian deaths occur in any war. This happens all the more in Gaza since Hamas deliberately puts civilians in harms way, and booby traps civil infrastructure or uses it to hide in.
5. Hamas is the government of Gaza, and as such it seems like it is their responsibility, not Israel's, to take action to ensure that harm is prevented to their civilians, up to and including freeing the hostages they hold and unconditionally surrendering. That's what the governments of Germany and Japan ultimately did.
> "Not seeing any other reason" doesn't seem to be a particularly strong argument. But let's take it at face value. Estimates of German civilian deaths during WW2 range from 1.5m to 3m people:
To be fair, I think the allies commited a bunch of war crimes they were never charged with during WWII, and firebombing is high up that list as is dropping nuclear bombs on cities.
That said, WWII was an actual war and Germany (and the axis in general) lost fewer people than their enemies.
This is not a war, this an occupation and slaughter. Isreal has killed 50 times as many people as Hamas.
> Do you have a source for your death statistics that doesn't ultimately trace back to the "health ministry" of an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation?
These numbers are pretty much universally acknowledged as more likely to be too low than too high (including by Isreal.)
Here's a study not done by a Palestinian organization that says that the official Palestinian estimate is 40% too low.
> 3. Not all children who have died in Gaza since 2023 will have been "killed by Israel". Many will have been killed by Hamas for a variety of reasons, including misfired rockets, booby trapped houses, mosques and schools, and getting caught in the crossfire. Since Hamas knows that every child death will be attributed to Israel it's quite happy for that statistic to rise.
I don't even know what to say to the twisted amount of self deception involved in that sentence. "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault."
> As far as I can tell, Israel does not kill children (or any civilians) intentionally. Any civilian killed by Israel in Gaza was unintentional, and civilian deaths occur in any war. This happens all the more in Gaza since Hamas deliberately puts civilians in harms way, and booby traps civil infrastructure or uses it to hide in.
Isreal happily kills civilians to avoid risks to their soldiers, that's why this "war" has such a disproportionate death toll.
> Hamas is the government of Gaza, and as such it seems like it is their responsibility, not Israel's, to take action to ensure that harm is prevented to their civilians, up to and including freeing the hostages they hold and unconditionally surrendering. That's what the governments of Germany and Japan ultimately did.
Hamas won one election 20 years ago and neither Isreal nor the USA recognize Hamas as the government a sovereign country. It seems pretty bad faith to claim Hamas is the government only when it is convienent to blame them. (To be clear Hamas deserves plenty of blame.)
However, I place the responsibility and the majority of the blame on the group with the vast majority of the power: Isreal.
At a certain point, the comparative death toll and comparative wealth/power imbalance make it clear: Isreal is engaging in genocide, not war.
> This is not a war, this an occupation and slaughter. Isreal has killed 50 times as many people as Hamas.
Right, so we come back to my original question, which I asked in order to determine whether we have a basis for a discussion: "Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't."
In any case, whilst we're looking at multipliers, what do you think of the Battle of Mosul?
By a variety of accounts the US, UK, France and Turkey participated in a battle that killed maybe 10 or 20 times as many of the opposing side than were killed on their side. According to some estimates they killed 40,000 civilians, more than 20x as many as the number of military that were killed on their side. Was that an "occupation and a slaughter"?
So I'm not sure we really have a basis for discussion. We simply differ on fundamental moral principles. However, I will respond to your points.
> I don't even know what to say to the twisted amount of self deception involved in that sentence. "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault."
Themselves? I'm saying Hamas is killing civilians, be it directly, by deliberately putting them in harms way or by stealing aid, not that civilians are killing themselves. Unless you're saying that the civilians are Hamas, which I don't think you are. And I certainly believe that Israel has responsibility to minimize civilian casualties and the responsibility to ensure aid flows freely, but until the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the release of all hostages I believe that Hamas holds all the moral responsibility for what happens to its people.
> Isreal happily kills civilians to avoid risks to their soldiers, that's why this "war" has such a disproportionate death toll.
This seems very unclear to me. If they had wanted to avoid risk to their soldiers they wouldn't have sent any in, they would have conducted only bombing operations. In fact, one reason to send soldiers in would be for the exact opposite reason: so they could minimize civilian harm.
Why do you think soldiers are on the ground at all, if they want to avoid risks to their soldiers?
> Hamas won one election 20 years ago and neither Isreal nor the USA recognize Hamas as the government a sovereign country. It seems pretty bad faith to claim Hamas is the government only when it is convienent to blame them. (To be clear Hamas deserves plenty of blame.)
It doesn't matter who recognises them. Before Oct 7th they had the monopoly on violence within Gaza. They are the de facto state. Civilian wellbeing is ultimately their responsibility, like German civilian wellbeing was the German government's responsibility in WW2.
Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
Above, in response to my claim that Hamas is responsible for Palestinian civilian deaths, you wrote sarcastically "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault." so it seems you do believe, to some degree, that they are Hamas's people.
> However, I place the responsibility and the majority of the blame on the group with the vast majority of the power: Isreal.
You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
> At a certain point, the comparative death toll and comparative wealth/power imbalance make it clear: Isreal is engaging in genocide, not war.
Ah OK, so you're not basing claims of genocide on the legal standard, just a difference in death toll and wealth/power imbalance. You're welcome to do that, of course. You can use words however you want, but that doesn't match the legal standard within international law.
The death toll is appalling. Hamas should be receive the utmost pressure to unconditionally surrender and release the hostages. Egypt should receive the utmost pressure to allow civilians to flee so that Israel can finish off Hamas and destroy the terror infrastructure they have built in Gaza. And by the way, I don't know what's happening there because I'm not there. All I know is what I see in front of me: arguments that don't seem to hold water, and an alternative perspective which is barely seeing the light of day.
> "Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't."
I believe it matters how many people you kill. Killing more people is bad.
I think the overall morality is complicated and based on more than that, but yes both the absolute numer if deaths and the ratio of deaths between sides and between combantants / civilians also matters.
> In any case, whilst we're looking at multipliers, what do you think of the Battle of Mosul?
I think any battle where you kill that many more civilians than combatants is deeply problematic. There were war crimes on both sides of that conflict as well.
Technically speaking, the ISIS were the occupying force and this was a "liberation" but I don't think that matters so much practically or morally. The people assuming control had the moral responsibility to keep people safe.
> Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
Isreal has a well established history of refusing to allow refugees to return to their homes.
I agree that Egypth should be allowing them in and does share some moral responsibility.
> It doesn't matter who recognises them. Before Oct 7th they had the monopoly on violence within Gaza. They are the de facto state. Civilian wellbeing is ultimately their responsibility, like German civilian wellbeing was the German government's responsibility in WW2.
When an occupying power destroys all the local infrastructure, deliberately destroys the police force and assume defacto control of the country, they assume the responsibility as well.
> but until the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the release of all hostages I believe that Hamas holds all the moral responsibility for what happens to its people.
The hostages were almost released. It is people like you that insist on unconditional surrender that are the reason they aren't home. That and Netanyahu's malicious desire to hang on to power.
I seriously dont unsterstand the stance that Hamas has ALL moral responsibility for civilian deaths. That doesn't match any moral framework I have ever read or heard about and seems be be just a jingoistic talking point.
> You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
I believe power comes with responsibility, yes.
> The death toll is appalling. Hamas should be receive the utmost pressure to unconditionally surrender and release the hostages. Egypt should receive the utmost pressure to allow civilians to flee so that Israel can finish off Hamas and destroy the terror infrastructure they have built in Gaza.
I don't have any support for Hamas or their choices or their war crimes, but then again my government isn't supplying Hamas with weapons to commot those war crimes with.
What I can't understand any moral individual believing what Isreal is doing is ok.
I've answered most of your questions, so I have a question for you: What percentage of the Gaza population needs to be killed before you will call it genocide or even just stop supprting Israel? 2% isn't enough so is it 5%, 20%, 50% or even higher? Will you continue to support Israel until they've killed 100% of the Gazans and achieved peace?
> > Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
> Isreal has a well established history of refusing to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here, but ... surely you can't be saying "I believe those civilians are being slaughtered/collectively punished/genocided and it's better to keep them where they are rather than let them flee to save their lives because they might not be able to come back"?
> I agree that Egypth should be allowing them in and does share some moral responsibility.
Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
> When an occupying power destroys all the local infrastructure, deliberately destroys the police force and assume defacto control of the country, they assume the responsibility as well.
Yes, "when". Israel is not yet in control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas still retains fighting capability and the war is ongoing.
> The hostages were almost released. It is people like you that insist on unconditional surrender that are the reason they aren't home. That and Netanyahu's malicious desire to hang on to power.
Almost? What stopped it? I doubt I had anything to do with it. I don't think Hamas or Israel are listening to me. Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands. If there's one thing that could make him even more hated, even more punished in the next election, it's hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip.
> I seriously dont unsterstand the stance that Hamas has ALL moral responsibility for civilian deaths. That doesn't match any moral framework I have ever read or heard about and seems be be just a jingoistic talking point.
Well, fair enough. You're welcome to your moral framework. It's one reason I don't think there's much basis for discussion here. We simply disagree on fundamental things. My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war, then any harm that comes to civilians is the moral responsibility of Hamas.
> > You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
> I believe power comes with responsibility, yes.
Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one. I don't agree with that.
> What I can't understand any moral individual believing what Isreal is doing is ok.
I can't understand how any moral individual can believe what Israel is doing is not OK! But I guess there are a few reasons for that, including having different beliefs about what Israel is actually doing. If I believed what I saw on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, NYT, WaPo etc. then I'd probably feel the same as you do.
(Individual actions of Israel or Israeli combat units may not be justifiable. In fact, I don't see how that's realistically avoidable in war. Israel should punish its soldiers that commit war crimes. I think the strategy of limiting aid is flawed: they should flood the Strip with aid so there is no risk of food insecurity.)
> my government isn't supplying Hamas with weapons to commot those war crimes with
Do you live in the west or the middle east? If so then your government probably has funded Hamas, actually. In fact if your country is a member of the UN then it probably has given at least some small amount of funding to Hamas. Billions and billions in (so called) aid have been poured into the Gaza Strip. Who is in charge of how it is spent? Hamas. Is that how they funded their military tunnels and weapons? Yes.
> I've answered most of your questions, so I have a question for you: What percentage of the Gaza population needs to be killed before you will call it genocide or even just stop supprting Israel? 2% isn't enough so is it 5%, 20%, 50% or even higher? Will you continue to support Israel until they've killed 100% of the Gazans and achieved peace?
As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability. I support Israel's just war goal of eliminating Hamas's military capability and securing the release of the hostages. I think that this war goal is the most just I am aware of in my lifetime, and Oct 7th was one of the most abhorrent events of my lifetime. Hamas's military capability must be utterly destroyed. Israel must not deliberately target civilians or civilian infrastructure. According to internationally accepted norms of law if the enemy military hides amongst civilians or uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes (including hiding military tunnel entrances in or booby trapping schools, mosques and hospitals) then they no longer have special protection.
I hope that everyone would agree with me in this point of view, but maybe not, particularly not people who believe that absolute numbers of casualties are a relevant consideration.
Someone might say: "but they're already deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure!". OK, maybe they are, in which case I no longer support Israel. But maybe they're not, in which case I do support them. I don't think any of us here on this thread truly know, because we're not there. We haven't seen it. The best we can do is make a determination of what to believe based on different sources of information that we trust, and the arguments that we hear. Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water, such as the one that started my participation in this thread. After such scandals as the so called "Jenin massacre" (which turned out to be just a normal military confrontation) I'm not quick to jump to conclusions.
> Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here
Kinda seems like you do since I didn't say anything like that.
> surely you can't be saying "I believe those civilians are being slaughtered/collectively punished/genocided and it's better to keep them where they are rather than let them flee to save their lives because they might not be able to come back"?
I said that Egypt bears some responsibility for the deaths because of they made that choice. I provided historical context because I think Isreal also bears some responsibility for that Egypt's choice because of Isreal's historically poor behavior towards returning refugees with the wrong ethnicity.
> Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
That's a weird question. Moral responsibility isn't something you assign as a fraction and certainly isn't based on how much coverage something gets. That's a bizare way to think about morality, so I'm not even sure why you'd want to ask that in a good faith discussion.
> Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands
Netanyahu has both a clear lust for power and a slate of corruption charges hanging over his head. This conflict has been quite effective at helping with both, why would he want it to end?
> My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war
They aren't, that's why the ICC has issued arrest warrants. Given your stated stance, you should support Netanyahu turning himself in.
> Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one.
If a significantly more powerful party is in a conflict with a less power part and is killing way more of them, then yes, the does put the more powerful party in the wrong, reglardless of whatever talking point they have. The more powerful party has the greater responsibility for achieving peace and protecting lives and the failure rests primarily on them.
> As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability.
I didn't ask about absolute number, but a percentage of the population. You seem to be saying that there is no percentage at which you will adjust your point of view. If Isreal kills 90% of the population, that really wouldn't count as ethnic cleansing to you? What about 100%? There's really no point at which you would stop just taking Israel at its word?
> Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel.
If the entire world is telling you to stop murdering children, maybe you should consider listening?
> I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water.
Like the Pro-Isreal claim that you made and I debunked? How about casting doubt on the widely accepted death toll numbers?
I've seen the kind of information sources you cite. It's pretty clear you only look for sources that confirm your world view.
> > Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here
> Kinda seems like you do since I didn't say anything like that.
> I said that Egypt bears some responsibility for the deaths because of they made that choice. I provided historical context because I think Isreal also bears some responsibility for that Egypt's choice because of Isreal's historically poor behavior towards returning refugees with the wrong ethnicity.
They're indeed not your words, but I can't understand how what you said can be in contradiction with them. I can't help but conclude that you're describing a world where countries believe a population is suffering genocide, could take them in to save them, yet don't do so because they might not be let back. Please do tell me where I've gone wrong here.
> > Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
> That's a weird question. Moral responsibility isn't something you assign as a fraction and certainly isn't based on how much coverage something gets. That's a bizare way to think about morality, so I'm not even sure why you'd want to ask that in a good faith discussion.
I don't think it's bizarre (and I certainly didn't say moral responsibility is based on news coverage!). News coverage is certainly something you can assign as a fraction. If, when presenting news on a particular topic, only one country gets wall to wall news coverage and forum discussion of its behaviour and there is barely mention of others despite them sharing some degree of responsibility, that seems pretty odd to me, and I'd want to try to understand why!
> > Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands
> Netanyahu has both a clear lust for power and a slate of corruption charges hanging over his head. This conflict has been quite effective at helping with both, why would he want it to end?
I didn't say he wanted it to end. Elections will come around regardless of whether it has ended. If there are still hostages in Gaza when the election comes he will be judged very harshly by the electorate. Losing the next election puts him at increased risk from corruption charges so if he wants to avoid those charges he'll be trying his best to get the hostages out.
> > My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war
> They aren't, that's why the ICC has issued arrest warrants. Given your stated stance, you should support Netanyahu turning himself in.
Perhaps you are confusing warrants with judgement?
> > Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one.
> If a significantly more powerful party is in a conflict with a less power part and is killing way more of them, then yes, the does put the more powerful party in the wrong, reglardless of whatever talking point they have. The more powerful party has the greater responsibility for achieving peace and protecting lives and the failure rests primarily on them.
OK! Well, I completely disagree, and as such I don't expect we can make any more progress in this discussion, but I'm glad we managed to at least tease out this critical difference, so I thank you for persevering in the conversation. (We also disagree on how to determine the facts of the matter, but I think that's a less fundamental disagreement.)
> > As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability.
> I didn't ask about absolute number, but a percentage of the population.
A percentage of the (let's say pre-war) population corresponds directly to an absolute number because the pre-war population is a known constant.
> You seem to be saying that there is no percentage at which you will adjust your point of view. If Isreal kills 90% of the population, that really wouldn't count as ethnic cleansing to you? What about 100%? There's really no point at which you would stop just taking Israel at its word?
Correct, I do not judge morality of war by the percentage, or equivalently, absolute number of fatalities. I judge it based on the war goals and war conduct. Theoretically, and it won't happen, but theoretically, if the Gazans fight to the last man, woman and child before giving up the hostages and before disbanding the military capability of Hamas then in my view it is just to pursue the war to that length.
The same would have been true of my view of the conduct of the allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They were entitled to seek unconditional surrender. If Nazi Germany had not capitulated after Hitler's suicide, the allies would have been within their rights to continue to prosecute the war until capitulation, and no doubt more civilians would have been killed and more civilian infrastructure destroyed until they did so. Now, that's not to say that Israel, the US, the UK couldn't choose or have chosen to stop earlier for other reasons, I'm just saying I don't see it as a moral limit. I see Israel's war as just, and I see the allies' war on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as just, so in my mind that allows them to seek total victory.
> > Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel.
> If the entire world is telling you to stop murdering children, maybe you should consider listening?
Yes, I definitely think it's worth listening! In fact I have been listening very hard. But I also don't judge truth based on absolute number of voices either.
> > I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water.
> Like the Pro-Isreal claim that you made and I debunked? How about casting doubt on the widely accepted death toll numbers?
> I've seen the kind of information sources you cite. It's pretty clear you only look for sources that confirm your world view.
You're welcome to think whatever you like about what I look for. I'm quite content that my practice of searching for discomfirmatory evidence is a healthy one, and I will continue to engage in it.
No, because of their own behaviour. Israel might well lose the support of the USA and Europe, and if that happened the continued existence of their state would be far from certain.
I think the USA is unlikely to shift for as long as it's one single democratic nation, owing to internal political demographics. Same reasons it hasn't shifted on Cuba. But the USA keeps surprising me by failing to implode despite what all the politicians have been saying about each other, and by the anti-government language often used to justify gun ownership, so if I was in a position to influence Israel, I would be suggesting a diversification of international support.
I suspect most Israelis think differently. Even if "the arabs in the region are bad at fighting" they still outnumber the Israeli population by something like 20 to 40 times, depending on how you count. About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
EDIT: There are a couple of axes that helped me get a broader perspective:
1. Whether one supports Israel's continued existence
2. Whether one believes Israel's continued existence is guaranteed
Having started about midway between yes and no on 1, and at yes on 2, it was extremely enlightening to reinterpret my observations from the point of view of yes on 1 and no on 2. All Israeli behaviour that I had previously found incomprehensible finally made sense.
> About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
During a surprise attack.
The conflict that was started by Oct 7, according to Wikipedia, has seen 81,526+ dead on the Palestinian and associated side*, vs. 2,053 on the Israeli side.
That said, from the point of view of your edit: the ratio is irrelevant when someone's convinced they're facing an existential threat. Given Oct 7 was proportionally worse for Israel than 9/11 was for the USA, and the USA didn't seem to stop justifying everything through that lens for about a decade afterwards… it's going to suck for everyone that Israel thinks is so much as looking at them funny. (That isn't a joke even if it sounds like one: the people who see Israel as their home and their safe-space are collectively likely to be hyper-vigilant, to their own cost, in this kind of way, for a long time).
* With the footnote that '"Indirect" deaths may be multiple times higher' and 'In addition to direct deaths, armed conflicts result in indirect deaths "attributable to the conflict". Mortality due to indirect deaths could be due to a variety of causes, such as infectious diseases.[27] Indirect deaths range from three to fifteen times the number of direct deaths in recent conflicts.[28] In Gaza, estimated 51,000 natural deaths, natural death rate has gone up from 3.5/1000 to 22/1000 (late June 2024)[29]'
Yes indeed, I'm talking about the surprise attack phase. (Israel has experienced a surprise attack before that has put its continued existence in question: the Yom Kippur war.) And in fact, looking at
In any case, Israel is surrounded by a hostile population of hundreds of millions (yes, still hostile despite the cold peace treaty it has with Egypt and the lukewarm one it has with Jordan), and it itself numbers about 10 million. So it is outnumbered by double figures to one.
I certainly don't see Israel's continued existence as guaranteed despite "nukes" and despite "American support" and despite having the "nth most powerful army in the world". And that point of view has helped me to understand the conflict like no other explanation.
Who de-escalated the 12 day war? Iran did, the "Ayatollahs". Who has a religious decree against nuclear weapons since they cannot be used without massacring civilians? Iran, the Ayatollah, not Israel and it's 3 digits of nukes that it threatens to use all the time.
I don't trust the Iranian government, not for any deeply researched reason but because basically everyone I meet who talks about them says that government is not trustworthy. Some of those people are themselves Iranians, and one told me that the Iranian government is speaking literally when describing the USA as "the Great Satan" (and Israel as the little satan).
But: there is a big difference between "we killed some people while targeting actual military assets" and "this city we levelled, it was full of civilians as well as a handful of valid military assets, and now it doesn't exist".
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm saying that the reason that Arabs with Israeli passports are not allowed to enter certain areas of the West Bank is because no one with an Israeli passport is allowed to enter those areas.
> What I pointed out is that there are areas within Israel where Arabs with an Israeli passport cannot enter.
Actually you said
> in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas
But in any case, since you also said "multiple sources online" perhaps you can link one so we're talking about something concrete and not just vague insinuations.
By occupied areas I did not mean Area A of the West Bank, I meant settlements considered "Israel".
It is trivial to find more sources than the one I already mentioned, there is a very very long wikipedia article as a starting point. I'm afraid you do not care about seeing what is going on, you care about dismissing opposing opinions.
You did not link to a Wikipedia article. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to watch Louis Theroux's documentary, which I'm sure is full of his characteristic dry takes.
"I'm not inclined to continue to try to drag it out of you." and "I don't welcome your assumptions about [me]" are personally abrasive. The site guidelines don't explicitly say "please don't be personally abrasive" but they cover that kind of thing with more general statements like "Be kind", "Edit out swipes", and so on.
Of course the GP post was outright aggressive, not just abrasive, and that is considerably worse. But we need users to stick to the guidelines regardless of what other commenters do. Not insisting on that just leads to a downward spiral, especially since it's human nature to underestimate the provocation in one's own comments.
Oh Dan, come on, really?! OP has been making all sorts of claims and failed to justify them with any more than "just look it up", and also making all sorts of assumptions about me. Saying what I said was about the most kind I could be in response. I guess I could just simply not contribute, as I had planned, but tomhow did explicitly ask me to here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44720318
Continue dragging it out of me ? You said that you are too busy to watch a documentary which portrays how the actual situation is there and the mentality of the settlers. I guess you're too busy arguing on hackernews.
Okay then, read a few sentences of the wikipedia article. Or should I spoonfeed them to you ? Okay, sure:
In a 2007 report, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine John Dugard said, "elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law"
On 21 March 2022, Michael Lynk, the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, submitted a report[180] to the UN Human Rights Council stating that Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip amounts to apartheid, an "institutionalised regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination."
In 2020, the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din said that Israeli treatment of the West Bank's Palestinian population meets the definition of apartheid under both Article 7 of the 2002 Rome Statute
On 1 February 2022, Amnesty International published a report, Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,[203] which stated that Israeli practices in Israel and the occupied territories amount to apartheid
Want more ? Read the damn article and the sources yourself. And not random reddit or quora posts. I'm done here.
Your proof of apartheid was supposedly "in the occupied areas Arabs WITH Israeli passports are not allowed to visit certain areas". That's the claim that I'm challenging. Sorry if you thought I was discussing something else. If so then I can understand why you'd be confused.
I'm having trouble understanding the notion of "permanent military occupation of Gaza before 2005". Just out of interest, who occupied Gaza before 1967? And who before 1948? And who before 1920?
My guess is as with most emergent phenomena: both. Accidental that it happens in the first place, intentional that little is done to redress the balance. How could it be anything else?
> > these kinds of threads almost never feel to me like the juice is worth the squeeze
> I agree. The trouble is that not discussing it at all is not a solution either.
Not discussing it at all is certainly a solution. There are plenty of other fora where these issues can be discussed (Reddit and Twitter, off the top of my head). HN does not have to also take up that mantle.
> > Too many good-faith comments that don't go with the thread mainstream get flagged and dead
> I don't think there's a "thread mainstream" here. I think the community is deeply divided.
It's quite obvious that there's a thread mainstream. One perspective absolutely dominates the top level posts and replies. Top level posts with a different point of view have been flag killed very thoroughly. I would make a contrarian post (the type that HN normally loves) to try share my knowledge of the situation (which I bet is significantly deeper than 99% of the commenters here) but it's not worth it when I expect it to get instantly flag killed.
> If you (or anyone) see good-faith comments getting mistreated in this way, we'd appreciate links so we can take a look. Sometimes we restore those comments, other times we find that the comment broke the site guidelines and thus should stay flagged. But we always look, and usually also have enough time to reply.
But the discussion will have moved on by then. There are simply not enough moderator resources to moderate a discussion on this topic. That's not your fault, that's just the way it is, but it does lead to HN becoming a worse place.
If the flagging is such that one point of view is represented ad nauseam and the other point of view is barely represented due to flagging pile on, then it's not actually contributing to discourse at all -- it's just an echo chamber. That does not fit in with what I find valuable in HN.
I wish you'd work with us as we try to do what we can to maximize the quality of the thread, rather than dismissing everything we've spent today doing as futile. Of course it's going to be futile when the very people who think they could make it better insist that it's pointless to even try.
Yes, there's a weight of sentiment in a certain direction about this topic. Equally, there are minority, nuanced perspectives that are important, and I've unkilled several of them today and turned off flagging powers on users who were reflexively flagging anything they disagreed with.
I'll continue to be online for most of the next 4-5 hours. I'd be very pleased if you were to contribute positively by sharing your perspective, and as long as it's within the guidelines I'll ensure it doesn't get killed by a flag pile-on.
Well-argued minority positions are often the most valuable on HN. Comments that just say the same thing everyone's been saying are by-definition uninteresting, even if they're in the overwhelming majority. Indeed, one of the most important reasons to allow topics like this to be discussed on HN is to give a voice to well-argued minority perspectives that can't be found elsewhere.
Thank you for unflagging some of the posts. I think that the discussion reads a lot better now. I sympathise with the difficult position that you're in but given the hostility here to hearing views from a variety of angles I'm afraid I don't think I'll be contributing much personally. I still think this topic makes HN a worse place to be and it doesn't have to take place here. There are plenty of more suitable venues.
Only in so far as it relates to Gaza and the Ukraine .. which tracks for a US based IT forum given the US political ties to all parties concerned and the cyber capabilities of almost all the parties (including the use of phone bombs wrt Hamas members, etc).
Sudan doesn't have a substantial US sub community nor much in the way of a cyber footprint (on a globally relative scale).
When I worked for Standard Chartered I was told that Mu, the compiler in question, was only strict because it was originally written to target an existing strict runtime (called Lambda, and Mu is the next letter in the Greek alphabet), not because they particularly wanted a strict language.
I don't follow this bit. It's worse for employees, it's worse for employers, and it's exactly as designed?
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