
Israel to destroy Palestinians' solar panels - georgecmu
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/24/4289803/israel-nixes-solar-energy-for.html
======
drats
This is totally irrelevant to HN and is one of the issues on the Internet
_most likely_ to start a flame war. Flagged. georgecmu you appear to have been
around HN a good while, which surprises me as it's more than long enough to
know this is totally inappropriate. Go to reddit.com/r/worldnews or one of the
other relevant subreddits if you want to discuss this issue.

~~~
Estragon
It surprises me that people are complaining this is irrelevant to HN. It fits
well with the PG/HN narrative of technology decentralizing political power --
Israel is suppressing this technology because it doesn't want to give up its
control of the electricity supply.

~~~
rnrlrn
"Israel is suppressing this technology..." that statement exactly shows the
problem with this post. this is a complex political problem that has nothing
to do with the technology. in fact Israel has made huge investments in solar
technology. you don't have to agree with Israeli politics. as an Israeli,I
rarely do either, but this post is one in a long list of demonizing and biased
posts that just make the situation worse for us left wing Israelis who
genuinely want a solution

~~~
eyko
> this is a complex political problem that has nothing to do with the
> technology.

May be complex to you, but to (most of) the rest of us it is actually quite
simple to understand.

------
orbitingpluto
If you want to take an entrepreneurial lesson from this:

1) Get your permits. Dot your Is, cross your Ts if you can. If you can't and
you think you are in the right, you should probably do it anyway. 2) If
someone infinitely more powerful than you wants you to fail, things will not
be easy for you. 3) Politics, business and technology mix whether you want
them to or not. 4) If you are a powerful entity bullying your competition,
there will be bad PR. There may be consequences in the future. You've been
warned and it may be in your long-term interests to behave yourself.

Interestingly enough as I read the above I see a strong pro-Palestinian bent.
But the 3 Jews sitting next to me right now would see me as a more middle-of-
the-road-why-can't-we-all-get-along sort.

~~~
mark_l_watson
After years on HN, I am going to post my first negative response to someone's
comment, yours!

The Israeli government's actions in this and many other acts are completely
immoral. Your 1) point may have some logical validity in general, but for the
good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the whole world needs to get
behind slamming down on the actions of the Israeli government, which also I
believe also will hurt their own people in the long run.

~~~
orbitingpluto
Please re-read what I wrote and clarify that you read what you think you read.

The nature of the opinions I voiced here are pretty much Chomskian in nature.
If you're picking a fight with that spectrum of opinion with respect to Israel
and Palestine as being to pro-Israeli, then I'm going to give you the benefit
of the doubt and assume that you actually just misinterpreted what I said.
Easy enough to do as it is an emotionally volatile subject.

I have some pretty strong emotional reactions to the existence of an apartheid
state. But for real peace to happen everyone will have to set aside personal
and historical feelings (or rabid crazy born again send me your money so that
Armageddon may come craziness) and come up with a compromise where no one is
happy, everybody is still breathing, and with a full belly from supper to
boot. A moving apartheid wall of course has to go, the 1967 borders form a
(sans US) international consensus, and efforts to create a mutually beneficial
economic interdependency have to occur. I really believe that Israel has been
moving in the wrong direction. I also believe that Israel's utility to
American interests will also slowly begin to wane over time and Israel should
have a long term dove-not-hawk plan to survive past their usefulness.

You might not agree with how I presented it. But I think it's important to
talk about Palestine and Israel whenever possible and the way the conversation
was going wasn't productive for what this forum is from a technological,
business or political view. I tried to shift it to a direction where it could
be honest & productive and not get down-voted out of existence from rabidness.

I'm upvoting your comment because it does look like you have both parties best
interests in mind as well.

And I'm going to try to put this into a positive note:

This is also might be completely naive on my part. But the thought of one
city, Jerusalem, being the capital of two different countries sounds like it
should be the basis for peace and not the shitstorm that people make it out to
be.

Both sides have to meet and both say, "This is fucked up. Let's fix it. Real
prosperity and security is _mutual_ prosperity and security."

I frankly would love to be able to fly to Israel, do a contract, fly to Iran,
do a contract, fly to Palestine, do a contract, fly to Sweden, so on and so
forth. Free mobility of labour AND free mobility of capital would require new
labels. It wouldn't be your standard messed up crony big-C Capitalism of today
and it wouldn't be socialism either.

~~~
azernik
> I really believe that Israel has been moving in the wrong direction.

I agree with everything you wrote but this. Twenty years ago, the great
peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin (Z"L) wouldn't have been willing to think, let alone
say, that the Palestinians actually deserved a real-life independent state,
rather than some little dependency/colony of Israel. Now even people on the
right have to pay lip service to the idea of an independent Palestinian state.

There have been a lot of quite dangerous panic reactions to this in certain
segments of the right wing, but I think long-term Israeli politics is inching
ever so slowly towards more reasonable positions.

(And... off-topic it goes again. Ugh.)

------
rooshdi
Why are most of the top comments up in arms about this article and not the
magic secrets of Teller one? If you're going to shout "irrelevant", at least
be consistent. I think this speaks volumes of the biases inherent in some of
the commenters here. You may not believe it, but there are some individuals
here who would like to discuss the technological, entrepreneurial, and maybe
even human right implications of the events in this article. If you don't like
it, ignore it. The fact that the top comments suggest we shouldn't even begin
discussing the content of this article is very reflective of the entire
Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself...no one wants to empathize with the
"other side". On the contrary, we should encourage discussion and just down
vote whichever _comments_ we deem unproductive and upvote the ones, such as
orbitingpluto's, which provide great insight.

~~~
rnrlrn
"no one wants to empathize with the "other side"." not true. Israel has active
left wing and various peace movements. they just don't get much attention
outside of Israel. I realize people don't like to hear this but Israel is a
democracy with a wide range of opinions and representation of all society
including Arabs in the government. please read up

------
csomar
I flagged this post. It's not a problem to discuss politics, but it should
have a value. Do the HN community want to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict? Fine, submit an article about that.

But submitting such an article will only trigger a flame-war. The content of
the article is of the kind that triggers 'oh, ass-hole Israeli', and 'oh,
Palestinians uses this to kill innocents'.

These are details. Not the actual problem. I'd be happy to see a good
discussion about this conflict (although I'm not sure I'd contribute as I have
little knowledge about it) certainly, if the community up-voted a related
article.

~~~
rdtsc
Alright, let's do this thought experiment. Replace words like Israel and
Palestine in the article with countries in Africa. Something like "Water pumps
running off of solar power in Kenya, provided by a German start up are being
removed by the local government". Would that be acceptable for HN? I am 80%
confident, we wouldn't see all this discussion about how the story should have
been flagged and or how it is __totally __unacceptable for HN.

So now ask yourselves, why is it different all of the sudden if we put
"Palestine" and "Israel" back in the article.

Could it be that some here have an irrational and knee-jerk responses to that
particular region of the world? If so, maybe that is an interesting
discussion. How come a group that fancies itself more rational and straight
thinking than others, has such strong biases one way or the other? Why is
there so much discussion about this topic.

Are people driving an article down and flagging it as "inappropriate
politically" not because they are trying to keep HN pure but because their own
disguised biases are telling them to act that way.

~~~
chc
A big problem with this kind of topic is that, as you say, people have strong,
irrational responses. In other words, it is toxic. It brings out awfully
unpleasant people and brings out the worst in otherwise decent people. This is
why we are especially unwilling to indulge this particular diversion from
topic. It is harmful to HN. I don't fault you for your interest in discussing
it, but feel very strongly that it should be elsewhere.

~~~
rdtsc
Then maybe another level of discussion is how come so many HN readers (and
I've said this in my other posts, so apologies for sounding like a broken
record) who fancy themselves rational and unbiased all of the sudden exhibit
such a strong irrational response. Where does that come from? Is it
brainwashing? What is going on? In other words I agree with you that topic
might be toxic and that it bring out bad people, but I am interested in why
does it bring out "the bad" in good people? Why not just say "meh, don't want
to participate" and/or "don't know enough to form an opinion" and move on...

------
zunky
Since when did hacker news became a source for politics? That is what the NY
Times, Fox News,and CNN are for. Please don't let HN become one of those sites
that entices hatred towards another country or a certain group of people. This
post should be deleted as it has nothing to do with HN.

~~~
nailer
pg has steadfastly refused to limit topic discussion beyond the wide ranging
and vague 'anything that may be on interest to hackers'.

~~~
JS_startup
Not sure why 'hackers' would care about Israel-Palestine drama

~~~
rdtsc
They might not but they might care about Solar panels. That is probably why it
was submitted.

------
grannyg00se
"But last month, _Israel's_ Civil Administration - a branch of the military
dealing with _Palestinian_ civilians..."

That sounds like the problem right there.

~~~
zzzzxxxx
I love how you managed to find the root cause and the implied solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all while sipping your morning coffee.

------
tovmeod
off toppic.

basically people installed solar panels, which require proper authorization,
which they didn't have, so authorities are going to dismantle it. how this is
news? just because it is in israel? so what? couldn't care less, this would
happen in any part of the world, whatever. then article goes on talking about
politics.

why this was even posted on hacker news?

~~~
ComputerGuru
Because Israel limits the amount of power going into Gaza purposely.

Not only are they refusing to provide them with power (they're obviously
paying for it, not "taking" it from Israel), but they're also preventing them
from generating their own electricity as well. Depending on where you are in
Gaza, you have anywhere from four to eighteen hours of power a day under
normal circumstances. When the tensions rise, you'll be lucky to have two
hours of power a day.

~~~
davidkatz
Two questions:

(1) Why do you think Israel should be obliged to supply electricity to a
hostile territory, ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to
destroy it [1], backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population
centers?

(2) How exactly is Israel preventing the generation of electricity in Gaza?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant>

EDIT: grammar correction

~~~
batista
_(1) Why do you think Israel should be obliged to supply electricity to a
hostile territory_

Why do you think a newly found state (~65 years) has any right to claim the
territory it occupies (except of the might makes right variety)?

 _ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1]_

As opposed to a government that occupied the land from the previous
inhabitants and has been steadily displacing them for decades?

 _backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population centers?_

Backed up with routine genocide tactics...

~~~
davidkatz
Sorry, but I can't see any actual response to my questions here, just further
hate mongering.

Israel does not claim Gaza. It withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and gave
full control over to the Palestinian Authority. Israeli NGOs even invested
tens of millions of dollars in boosting the Palestinian economy after the
withdrawal.

Either way, it's probably going to be very hard to have a reasoned discussion,
so I'll just stop here.

~~~
alan_cx
Since when do reasonable criticism become hate mongering?

~~~
ugh
Calling what Israel does “genocide” is _not_ reasonable. The euphemism
(“genocide tactics”) doesn’t help.

~~~
batista
I think it is.

Israel has a harsh dilemma. They want to keep their state (which is reasonable
at this point), but on the other hand they don't want to share the power with
Palestinians (which is not). They are also afraid that the Palestinian birth
rate would have them outnumbered, and then what?. They use lots of tactics to
ensure that the Palestinian population is confined --from import/export
restrictions, to destroying their land for cultivation, to steadily expanding
into other areas, etc. It's not genocide on the Hitler scale, but it's sure as
hell, Ethnocide: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide>

(That they "invested" into the area is laughable. What they did was they build
companies to exploit cheap labour under very strict conditions. It's not like
they enpowered any palestinians to become entrepreneurs. So it's investing in
the same way Nike invested in building factories in Africa, etc.)

------
ak39
Good post.

This is definitely on point and relevant to HN visitors. This, for at least
two reasons:

1\. You never innovate in a vacuum: Whether it's genetically modified crops,
cancer treatment, AI, encryption or energy solutions, all innovation is
subsumed under the greater agenda of existing power and political structures.
If you innovate for people to use your innovation, you are forced to deal with
the attendant moral implications. This story clearly demonstrates this
scenario. Whether it's Israel as the morally shadowy character is not
relevant.

2\. Innovation in the the energy space will throw you into the political field
so violently you will regret not sticking to developing your new "To-Do List"
software like every other coward out there :) :

I feel strongly about the second point: energy related innovations and their
implementations to better the lives of people should be protected much like
water & food resources are (or ought to be).

Up-vote for sure.

------
TeeWEE
I was born in Amsterdam and didnt understand this conflict, after seeing
numerous documentaries i have an understanding what is going on. Basically
zionists believe they are the chosen ones and that all other are inferiour.
They believe the land is destined to them. Whatever the UN says. If you think
about it this is a similar ideology than the naxis. And in fact the same
methods are used. I recommend everybody to watch the documentaryovie '5 broken
cameras'

[http://newsterrorist.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/picture-
compar...](http://newsterrorist.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/picture-comparison-
between-nazi-treatment-of-jews-and-israeli-treatment-of-palestinians/)

~~~
coolestuk
You are wrong on so many levels (and I'm not a jew). When zionism was created
in the late 19th century, most jews in the world had NO interest in moving to
Palestine or being zionists. Ask yourself the question: why if they believe
that the land that is now Israel was theirs on the basis of religion, why were
so many jews uninterested in pursuing this? Zionism was a reaction to the
hundreds of years of anti-semitism jews had endure. Most jews rejected zionism
(which was a nationalist movement not a religious movement). Most jews wanted
to stay where they were and wanted to be part of the country in which they
lived.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism>

The state of Israel arose from two factors. 1. The zionist movement which
provided a narrative framework (historical, geographical, political,
religious). 2. 70 years later, the attempt by the Nazis (and muslims like the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) to wipe out jews. The Nazis wasnted the jews out of
europe; fanatical muslims like the Mufti wanted them out of the middle east.
(Some fanatical Nazis and some fanatical muslims wanted the jews wiped out.
Some fanatical muslims still want the jews wiped out in toto). If you haven't
read the Life of Mohammed (the first and most orthodox interpretation of
Mohammed's life) you can read a condensed version here.
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/27156626/The-Earliest-Biography-
of...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/27156626/The-Earliest-Biography-of-Muhammad-
By-Ibn-Ishaq) You will see that already in the 7th century, Mohammed was
exterminating jews.

The markings that the Nazis used for jews, originated in muslim countries in
the middle ages, where jews (and christians) were made to wear special symbols
to make them aware of their sub-human status in the eyes of muslims
(dhimmitude). Later, christians in Spain (having pushed out the invading
armies of islam after several hundred years of violent domination) also made
jews wear stars, and that was adopted again by the Nazis. But the idea
originated with the muslim concept of dhimmitude.

After what the Nazis did to jews in Europe, no wonder many jews embraced the
idea of Israel as a safe(r) place for them to live (although millions of jews
who went to Israel were actually kicked out of muslim north africa and Iraq,
and all their wealth confiscated). If jews were going to face potential
extermination in the future, then it made sense to defend themselves in their
historical homeland (go on the Tunnel Tour in Jerusalem, and see the
historical evidence for their great civilisation before the time of Herod).

Since you are Dutch, what do you make of the best film ever made by Dutch
director Paul Verhoeven? I'm talking about Black Book, the film most Dutch
people will not watch, because it shows the extent of the collaboration
between Dutch people and the Nazis in the persecution of Dutch jews.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389557/>

And since the media goes on and on about "the Palestinian refugees", I suggest
you read this, and see how the UN manages to manufacture a refugee crisis
unlike no other in history: <http://www.danielpipes.org/10695/unrwa-palestine-
refugees>

It seems to me that jews have suffered so much prejudice and hostility over
the centuries, they have adopted far thicker skins than the rest of us. And I
think that many of us non-jews are too ready to channel the history of jew-
hatred from our the past of our cultures. And sadly, I think I was one of
those people.

~~~
ilja
(Being Dutch) I've never heard of Dutch people not wanting to watch Black Book
because it depicts the collaboration between Dutch people and the Nazi's.
Claims like that don't do much for the credibility of the rest of your
comment.

For more insight into media reporting about conflicts in the middle east i
recommend [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hello-Everybody-Journalists-
Search-M...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hello-Everybody-Journalists-Search-
Middle/dp/184668384X/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330264452&sr=8-1-spell)

~~~
ruv
I cannot verify/ negate the comment about the movie. However neither can the
fact that you're unfamiliar with it.

I do however see a problem with your eagerness to find an excuse to discredit
the posts contents... If you've never heard of any of it and you consider
yourself well educated on the subject, you've been clearly fed some of the
abundant propaganda...

------
dminor14
Article is political not factual. Contains numerous errors designed for
political propaganda purposes, shouldn't be on a technical website.

~~~
danmaz74
If there are factual errors, point them out. I'd like to read about them. But
saying this generalically doesn't help.

------
evertonfuller
Off topic.

------
Rastafarian
I don't understand Israel politics at all. Why not act straight and just
deport all Arabs from inside their current borders? There are so many Muslim
states around that should (willingly or not) give the refugees a shelter. It's
not like that will make people with anti-Israel feelings hate them more than
destroying perfectly good solar panels when a global energy crisis is quite
likely.

------
hastur
Just another data point confirming a well known pattern:

The Israeli government has no common sense. They behave like fanatics and
should be treated as such.

~~~
JS_startup
Much like you should

------
ucee054
This post is no less informative and no more political than, for example, this
post on ACTA: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3620579>

In my understanding it is in fact both acceptable under the guidelines and
especially relevant to hackers and I will explain my reasoning on each point
in order.

The post is acceptable under the guidelines because it is factual reporting
about Palestine and Israel, which is important information that I do not
believe would normally get reported in the US media. I have seen airplay of
criticism (demonization even), mostly of the Palestinians but occasionally of
the Israeli settlers, but not the facts.

I believe that the reason the facts about Palestine are suppressed is because
of organized "Hasbara" (public relations) efforts by Israel's supporters in
the USA. (Example link: <http://www.hasbara.com/>)

(I believe the factual record is one sidedly unflattering to Israel, so I
believe that to be the Israeli motive.)

Otherwise I can't explain why there hasn't been more uproar about Israel's
killing of US servicemen (Link
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/ch...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/eedition/chi-
liberty_tuesoct02,0,43090.story))

Israel's attempted sale of US military secrets to China (Links:
<http://www.bigeye.com/041600.htm>
[http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/motherofallscandal...](http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/motherofallscandals.php))

or use of Israeli counterterrorism units against the "Occupy" movement (Link:
[http://www.alternet.org/story/153307/from_occupation_to_%E2%...](http://www.alternet.org/story/153307/from_occupation_to_%E2%80%9Coccupy%E2%80%9D%3A_the_israelification_of_american_domestic_security/))

This is important information because people who knew the facts might choose
to act differently, for example in terms of career choice or investment
choice.

For example, given the facts that I know about how Israel treats innocent
Palestinian civilians, I have an ethical problem with Israel and do not intend
to work for Israel, to buy Israeli products, to do business with Israel, to
buy stock in companies that make investments in Israel, or otherwise enrich
Israel in any way that I can avoid, directly or indirectly. I am not a
customer of Starbucks or of Marks and Spencer for this reason.

This issue is particularly pertinent to hackers because startup funding,
research and development and technology transfer depend greatly on the
military industrial complex - which is particularly developed in Israel and
very strongly connected to the US military industrial complex. For example, if
one does graduate research in networking or communications systems at Cornell,
one's algorithms and work just might end up being used inside Israeli weapons
used against civilians. Links: [http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/israeli-
university-bids-w-corn...](http://mondoweiss.net/2011/12/israeli-university-
bids-w-cornell-and-350-million-to-set-up-on-roosevelt-island-in-ny.html)
<http://www.redress.cc/americas/ldavidson20120102>

It would be a shame if Hacker News guidelines become warped and misapplied as
censorship tools for Hasbara and I am alarmed to see standard Hasbara talking
points - such as 'The territories are "Disputed" not "Occupied"' - used to
justify such censorship even on this page.

~~~
otisfunkmeyer
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but being a big fan of Starbucks who would
like to be a moral/ethical person, can you explain why you are not a customer
of Starbucks or provide a link or two? Would be much appreciated thanks.

~~~
ucee054
Starbucks's founder/CEO sends money to Israel. I don't want my coffee money to
subsidize him doing that.

[http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.h...](http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020614_fisk_starbucks.html)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz>

~~~
alan_cx
And Marks and Spencer?

~~~
ucee054
M&S hawks Israeli produce:

[http://www.boycott-israel.co.uk/business-links/133-marks-
and...](http://www.boycott-israel.co.uk/business-links/133-marks-and-spencer)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marks_%26_Spencer#cite_note-53>

Unfortunately I can't refer you to a comprehensive information source on
companies supporting Israel, but you might find more information by googling
for "jews for boycotting israeli goods" or "boycott divestment sanctions"

I did find references to several other companies at
<http://www.inminds.com/boycott-israel-2012.php>

~~~
berntb
Sigh... I flagged the article. Please keep stories like this off HN, it is bad
enough with the language wars people.

(I follow the Middle East conflict a bit, because it is informative to compare
my Swedish media with BBC/NY Times. News items such as Pallywood or torture
between Palestinian groups are literally censored.)

The basic reason I started to care a bit is because I find it depressing when
people hate and demonize a whole democracy with very heterogeneous political
life.

Especially if said people never criticise neither rocket artillery against
cities nor the glorifying of bombing/shooting children at close range. (No, it
is not the Israeli side that do that.)

I have also _never_ seen any criticism from these people of the Arab world's
way of destroying the Palestinian refugees' lives, by refusing to integrate
them. This is arguably worse than anything Israel has done, even in your
description of Israel.

And to start talking about organised Jewish propaganda controlling a country's
media is straight up disgusting. It smacks of the muslim world's copying of
traditional anti semitic hate propaganda.

Then we have the muslim world's support of the mass murders in south Sudan,
which in number of dead etc must be a thousand times worse than even your
description of Israel. Talk about astronomical double standards for different
groups...

I could continue for a while, but this won't change your opinions. You "know"
that it is OK to ignore racist hate propaganda etc etc, since it is done
against the evil ones.

~~~
Andrew_Quentin
How did we get from Palestine to the Muslim world? The article is about Israel
and Palestine - nothing to do with the Muslim world.

~~~
berntb
>>How did we get from Palestine to the Muslim world?

I answered what uce0054 wrote about in the comment tree above, mainly
demonizing and double standards.

Edit: If you don't really think it is relevant that the main critics of Israel
mistreat the Palestinians much more than Israel, it is funny... but not
surprising. I've never seen that from an Israel-critic.

------
electic
Israel = Jerks

------
rnrlrn
off topic and annoying. anti-Israel agendas on hnews. the article is 2% about
renewable energy and 98% Israel bashing, typically ignoring the Israeli point
of view. shame

~~~
TeeWEE
If somebody would write an article in nazi germany about how the jews dont get
the food and the electricity they wanted than that would be an anti-nazi
article. however that doesnt mean is annoying or factual wrong.

~~~
rnrlrn
it also wouldn't belong on a tech site. what's annoying is that non tech
articles get posted just for furthering Israel hatred and only a few call it
out. then Israelis feel besieged and everybody wonders why. your reference to
ww2 is fitting though not for the reason you think, but because like then,
Jews were picked out for special treatment, except today we're called
Zionists, so as to be politically correct

~~~
TeeWEE
Zionists think they are the chosen ones right? Isnt that similar to some other
idealogies?

Actually I am not pro palestina or anti isreal. I just think that religion in
its generality does not promote peac and understanding. A world without
religionbwould be a better place.

~~~
coolestuk
Zionism was a secular movement. I'm not a jew, and I'm an atheist. I believe
in religion being removed from the public sphere. And I'm also a zionist.

