The sad reality is that Paypal doesn't serve these territories because they are "high risk" and also low income which means the amount of compliance officers they would have to employ to watch people in these territories and the regulatory penalties for accidentally letting a Hamas transaction slip through (these aren't easy to detect either as the government emphasizes that "terrorist financing" can be as little as a few hundred dollars at a time, in fact most terrorist financing prosecutions involve amounts < $10000) probably does not exceed the amount of fees they would earn.
Funny...PayPal is available to Israeli settlers residing in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. So it seems it is not the region...Western Union seems to be able to manage fine there: https://location.westernunion.com/ps?page=2&country=PS&q=Pal...
This is also why they don't serve Haiti, for example.
It's also not coincidental that this letter was just written, since only a couple months ago Hamas was forced to stop accepting Bitcoin donations because a number of their donators in the US were arrested after their contributions were arrested for sponsoring the terrorist group.
In fact it's such an unlikely coincidence, that some of the 11 US legislators that signed this letter are associated with non-profits who's donations seem to trickle into Hamas bank accounts...
People forget that just because a payment services is so entrenched and powerful that many people think of it more like a public utility doesn't mean it isn't just as amoral as any other company. Visa has shattered entire industries on a whim by deciding it was simply more profitable not to service certain classes of people or professions. Somehow they're allowed to do that. We need common-carrier rules for payment processors.
stuff like processing sex industry related payments isn't illegal but isn't supported by big payment processors so it's defacto illegal. govt indecision to regulate here allows them to make shots of how economy operates via monopoly power
Given the recent seizure of crypto accounts funnelling money to Hamas and Iran[0], this seems pretty sensible, to funnel more financial activity in the region onto platforms that have good AML/ATF processes.
Before all this they had legal and fair election where they elected a terrorist org: Hamas.
Stop infantilizing an entire people. They are adults with their own agency. They are responsible for the decisions they make.
The reason a terrorist group runs things there is because they want it to. In fact, if elections were held today, Hamas would lose… to Islamic Jihad because they’re more radical. Support for Hamas has been waning in recent years not because they’re a failed government but because they’ve failed to deliver serious harm to Israelis. The reason Iran is active there is because their interests are aligned (destroy Israel). The reason PayPal doesn’t operate there is because the AML/KYC would be much too expensive for the amount of money they could possibly make on entering that market. The reason these “lawmakers” are agitating for this is because they hate the state of Israel.
Well, I support neither Islamists, nor Israel. And I can see how Palestinians look like terrorist to someone from Israel. But I can understand that IDF looks like a terrorist organization when they drop bombs on your head. Point is, both sides take extremely violent actions which affect non-combatants, at least from time to time.
It’s hypocritical to take a side. They all suck, but the UN is too dysfunctional to change anything.
It’s gross moral equivocating to compare the two. The famous line that every Israeli knows is “If the Arabs laid down their weapons there would be peace, if the Israelis laid down their weapons they would all be killed.” This has been shown to be true again and again.
Only one side celebrates and encourages people to walk into a building full of random people and blow it up. Only one side handed out candy in the street when one of their own stabbed an entire family to death (including a 3mo baby). You are very wrong to compare the two and it shows either your ignorance or total disregard for human life.
It’s only relevant if you assume Israelis are superior to their neighbors. Why you don’t see the subjectivity of the statement is beyond me. What you’ve got understand is that both parties look kind of barbaric to an outsider.
it sounds like we need an anti-OFAC law. Instead of only telling companies who they can't transact with, tell them who they can't arbitrarily not transact with.
We need a financial bill of rights. Custody and payment rails should be like public utilities where everyone can use them regardless of your opinions about them.
I doubt (choose a figure at this point: Snowden, Assange, Palestinians, OnlyFans) needs to get worried about getting blacklisted financially because (choose a reason how they wouldn’t get financially blacklisted based on precedent, and then were blacklisted). Specific payment rails behavior has never mattered with this, it’s always about the ability existing as people jump across payment options.
Yes, but I wouldn't be surprised if signing a meaningless letter an aide wrote gives better PR than pushing for a failed bill. And it's hard to imagine a pro-Palestine bill actually passing.
However they do have the power to end a boycott, either directly or indirectly (see the laws passed by various states regarding refusing to do business with Israel).
Just in a quick glance at the source it seems like simply poor or misleading phrasing on wikipedia. Looks like the poll wasn't "support/oppose" with 95% oppose but it was more like "do you support" with 5% yes.
However, it does not apply in this case because the U.S. does not recognize Palestine as a country, and if that changes, it seems unlikely that it would be a country friendly to the United States.
What would that law look like exactly? It couldn't single or PayPal and likely shouldn't single or Palestine to be sorry all the time and effort to get it passed.
That's a pretty serious step with the federal government directly limiting what every business can do. I'm not actually sure if that would even be constitutional given that it severely limits how potentially privately owned businesses set their own terms of use.
Defining what those limits are is entirely arbitrary, how do we pick a number that makes sense universally? Is that number adjusted for inflation, population size, business market share, etc? Does this only apply to financial service businesses, regulated financial institutions, or any business? What's the legal definition here for freezing an account?
Writing clear laws isn't an easy or fast process, especially when you're talking about a government regulation 300M+ citizens spread across 50 different states with their own laws.
> That's a pretty serious step with the federal government directly limiting what every business can do. I'm not actually sure if that would even be constitutional given that it severely limits how potentially privately owned businesses set their own terms of use.
I never said there isn't precedent for the government seeing some limits on what companies can do. It's important to note, though, that this is a constitutional amendment rather than a law and had a much higher requirement to pass.
This precedent would also be equating the civil rights protections within American borders with the rights of non-US citizens to use a company's payment service in a foreign territory. Not sure that is be comfortable comparing those two issues.
I wish lawmakers would urge (or force?) PayPal to actually give you a detailed reason when they freeze your account and effectively confiscate your money. I still have hundreds of dollars tied up in the limbo of "your account is frozen but we won't tell you why."
> your account is frozen but we won't tell you why
If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it. They also aren't allowed to give you your money back (incase the money is laundered).
The only way to get your money back is to get a court to order them to give it back. The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back. They won't contest it, they will just return your money and close the account.
That way, if it turns out that it wasn't your money, or you are a terrorist, paypal is no longer liable - they were just doing what the court ordered.
> If they suspect fraud, they aren't allowed to tell you about it.
That sounds like bullshit. Why would a mere suspicion of fraud, in the absence of a subpoena or court/gag order, mean that they aren't allowed to tell the account holder that they are suspecting fraud?
Correct. Look up the laws on suspicious activity reporting.
If they came back and said "oh, we banned you because you made multiple, small transaction to high risk countries", well then you could just not do it next time.
Monzo have a very informative article about it, explains what this looks like from the side of the bank. They are literally not allowed to tell you, and also the other interesting thing is that they see how skilled fraudsters are at social engineering - the kind of posts that sometime surface here on HN "my bank/google/paypal blocked my account and they won't help me!" - it's not that every one of them is a scam, but fraudsters are incredibly good at writing those across social media and putting pressure on companies to unblock them.
You assume malice. It's not. They're just covering their asses. They earn magnitudes more on the transaction fees of legitimate purchases than they could ever get from stealing money through that scheme. Not even considering that the frozen money isn't even theirs to use but a liability in their accounting.
Amazing how my bank never had this issue. I’ve sent ACH, wires, checks, and Zelles left and right with my major bank for years and years. No issues.
Yet my PayPal account that I used twice and had a $6 balance got closed permanently. Along with millions of others.
>You assume malice. It’s not.
Yes it is. Like many tech companies, they’ve “algorithm’d” something that used to take human investigation work. And their algorithm sucks. Their support sucks. This is all intentional so they can save money on labor. So they’re not stealing my money directly. So what? They’re freezing my funds and forcing me to take them to court so they can operate with lower labor costs. That’s theft — it doesn’t matter if they don’t use my money. If I rob you of some cash and then burn it, is it not still robbery?
You don't get to keep the money yourself. It sits on your balance sheet as a liability for 7 years, and eventually gets classed as a dormant account and gets paid to the state treasury.
"A financial institution is not allowed to inform a business or consumer that a SAR [suspicious activity report] is being filed."
Laws like this exist in many countries (including my own) that turn banks into agents spying their customers on behalf of the government. Calling it even a "bank secrecy act" is downright cynical.
I understand that law enforcement agencies need to be able to go after criminals but I think the balance between freedom and security has been way off for a long time already.
That's exactly the reason why Switzerland used to have the strictest bank secrecy laws world wide. It was not to become a safe haven for criminals but to maintain the financial freedom of its citizens.
The process is fairly simple - go to a small claims court, and ask the court to order them to give the money back.
Where I'm from you gotta file in person and there's a fee for filing and you pay someone to serve the defendant. Then you gotta show up at the court date. That's a bunch of fees and two days off from work before you even get a decision. I understand that this is the process, but it's not so simple for a lot of people to take days off from work, come up with money for fees (especially if their paypal is frozen), etc. It just doesn't serve the regular Joe all that well.
If you are engaged in money laundering then the very fact that your funds were frozen is enough of the tip-off. If you’re not then they might as well tell you about their suspicions. If you were mixed up in some money laundering scheme involuntarily you might even be willing to help the investigation
If the only confirm cases where the user isn’t suspected of money laundering, the non-confirmation becomes equivalent to confirmation that the user is suspected of money laundering.
Exactly. I spent 11+ years in a Fortune 500 financial services company, and my annual anti-money laundering training always stressed (and included one quiz question) that if you saw something fishy, escalate to Compliance, and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES share suspicions with clients. Even if some aspect of the regulation doesn't make much sense, you do not cross the regulators.
It does kinda seem like if it's flagged for investigation... like, eventually an investigation should happen, right? And then you either get your money back or are charged with a crime?
I get that that's not what actually happens, but it's pretty weird that it doesn't. They can't tell you about it because it's flagged for investigation. When's the investigation? Never.
The AML should really be update to something like...
Freeze the account, refer immediately to law enforcement, if LE doesn't take action within XX days, unfreeze the account.
AMLs exist for a reason. It's the "freeze the account with no end in sight" that's the real problem. It's not like freezing the account isn't going to tip off any actual money laundering operation, so the freeze is only partially doing what we want.
They have specific laws that BAN them from giving detailed reasons for why they froze your accounts. Giving you a reason, or sometimes even hinting that there might be a problem, would be classified as "tipping off", which is a federal crime and can land even the lowliest finance worker in jail.
People need to read up on AML (anti-money laundering) laws. They are a bit insane.
Know them because I've worked in regulated financial companies for years and have had to do the mandatory training about a dozen times.
So even if there are no suspicions of money-laundering, they can't tell you why the account is frozen? Because otherwise, if they won't tell you why, it must be AML?
Actually, PayPal's action are definitely not just hostile customer support but something about their risk protection (which includes US government data) has tripped off and they can't legally tell you (the legal term is "tipping-off"). PayPal has many questionable decisions but this one is not even PayPal's fault (or more alternatively the US government forces every financial institution to act hostile "in the name of [US national] security").
Edit: wow, downvotes for just plainly stating what actually happens? Thanks HN /s
I don’t understand why people keep their money inside these platforms. Surely if you are getting a lot of money, you should be depositing it in your bank regularly?
He said he had hundreds of dollars tied up. That is a fairly small balance for someone who does (did) a lot of business with paypal and is transferring it out regularly.
I've had absolutely terrible experiences with Palpal. Lawmakers should be urging everyone to use a better service, forget worrying about PayPal's ban.
The last straw for me was when they blocked a transaction of a few hundred dollars without any explaination. I was talking to a support rep for well over an hour, repeatedly being told that there is no security team at PayPal that can see why a transaction was blocked override the block. I was told the security system was a black box, they wouldn't transferred me to a supervisor, and the end result was a recommendation to try a different payment system like bank transfer.
This happened to be on the day we were selling our house. The buyer came in with a cash offer and a 7-day close. The inspection results came back after the paperwork was already drawn up, when they asked for a few hundred for electrical repairs it should have been easier to do that as an addendum rather that completely redoing the closing settlement sheet. I guess PayPal had better ideas.
> I've had absolutely terrible experiences with Palpal. Lawmakers should be urging everyone to use a better service, forget worrying about PayPal's ban.
I'd rather have the government enforce something like user-friendly free globally available instant payment and settlement system. Then none of these shady services would be required.
Fox example, a version of SWIFT, but instant, free and distributed.
This is available today and already used by millions. It's USDC/LUSD on Ethereum/Polygon/Tron (pick your chain based on desired cost and security requirements).
The US government will never endorse it or allow major banks to give their full support through because they want control over the network to "keep the bad guys out".
> This is available today and already used by millions.
> The US government will never endorse it or allow major banks to give their full support through because they want control over the network to "keep the bad guys out".
If I can't use it for bank to bank transfers or paying for things in a supermarket or another person, that means it is not available today.
I'd be happy for that system to exist in the private sector. Can't say I'd be too happy to see the federal government have a monopoly of all transaction data and censorship powers though.
That's not going to be possible, alone because there are countries like Iran or North Korea or maybe-countries like Palestine which are sanctioned for good reasons.
What good reasons? Kim Jung Un can send boats with gold bars. Meanwhile I can't send money without the bank asking me 'what ya gonna do with "your" money little friend?'
Just have the money in escrow for 30 days or whatever if fraud is a concern.
It is all about messing with us and showing who is in charge.
Which is orders of magnitude more complex than running a SWIFT transfer, which is the entire goal of the sanctions: make it as hard as possible for the sanctioned country to do anything. Everyone knows and we've seen it over the last years that it is possible to evade any sanction - hell, even over many decades like Cuba - but it is a serious incentive for any government to do as told.
> Meanwhile I can't send money without the bank asking me 'what ya gonna do with "your" money little friend?'
Most of that bullshit comes from the "war on drugs" and "war on sex work" which are completely different beasts than international sanctions, and I think we can agree on both of these being ripe for the scrap heap.
SWIFT ain't the only game in town, you should know that.
Plus, gold is redeemeable just about anywhere and easy/fast to exchange without need to identify yourself.
You are right for reduced complexity when transferring small amounts, the situation completely inverses once you transfer +6 digits. Gold is fairly portable and simple by comparison to carry across a borders.
NK might be a bad example on my part as it is such a strange state. I.e. I can't buy kimshi from some NK farmer. However, I believe the right to trade is more benifitial in the long term for mutual peace love and understanding etc. The states can circumvent the restrictions by being states and it hurts mainly the populace.
It's a legally mandated black box. Anti-money-laundering laws in the US make it explicitly illegal to even tell you that they suspect money laundering if they think you might be laundering money. (Source: 11+ years of anti-money-laundering training and quizzes in a Fortune 500 financial services company.)
They are legally required to be vague and/or lie to you if they think you might be laundering money.
So is there any viable alternative to PayPal at present (for individuals and small businesses)?
That doesn't have onerous documentation requirements (like submitting all your PII to some untrustworthy entity) and is not subject to the same arbitrary seizures and stonewalling?
People with loooong memories will say that Islamic Palestine arose after the forcible removal of Jewish culture from the area after the Jewish wars against Rome, at which point the Romans relabelled the area from Judea to Syria Palestina.
Therefore the idea that Palestinians are 'indigenous' is in contention, since the diasporic Jewish people retained their language and customs in the interim, and then sought refuge in their land of origin throughout the early 20th century and beyond.
Even the word 'semitic' describes a cultural (language) origin in the Middle East, so to describe Palestine as occupied (and therefore the Jews as being interlopers) is technically "antisemitic".
I don't think these things excuse the human rights abuses caused by the current state, but its opponents often call for its dissolution based on their 'rightful' ownership of the land which is a gray area.
OK thanks for the answer I guess. That seems like a lot of technical scaffolding to disqualify the use of a common, useful, and mostly accurate shorthand description of the current political arrangement there. I will continue to call it an occupation and continue to get called antisemitic for that probably.
Sadly, its use in politics has shifted the term from referring to a brand of hatred to simply meaning that you do not agree with Israel's claims of victimhood.
This is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Imagine "supporting the state but not everything the government does" in Germany in 1938, or South Africa in 1980.
Orthodox Jews by vast margins support Israel, you've been a victim of disinformation. There is a tiny sect of ultra-Orthodox that don't, but even the vast majority of the ultra-Orthodox are pro-Israel. Support for Israel amongst Jews in general is somewhere north of 90%.
Zionism is simply support for a Jewish state in Israel, not necessarily for settlers. The vast majority of the center-left political groups in Israel consider themselves Zionists, while being rabidly anti-settler. For example, the left-wing protests against judicial reform in Israel used the Israeli flag as their symbol — because they're Zionists, and believe the judicial reform undermined Israel. (The right wing and religious counterprotests also used the Israeli flag as their symbol, since they're also Zionists, and believe the current judicial system is detrimental to Israel.)
Even some right-wing Israeli political parties have been anti-settler while pro-Zionism, e.g. Ariel Sharon's Kadima party that forcibly evicted all settlers from Gaza at gunpoint, destroyed the settlements there, and ended Israeli occupation of Gaza (the "unilateral disengagement") in 2005.
"Orthodox Jews by vast margins support Israel, you've been a victim of disinformation. "
Possible, there is lots of disinformation going on. My wording also might have been bad, but by my definition and understanding orthodox jews aim for a 100% jewish state. And Israel is not 100% jewish, but tries a mixture as they also have arab and beduin population with voting rights. So orthodox jews surely mostly support Israel as being mostly jewish, but they rather would support a 100% jewish Israel state.
"By my understanding Orthodox Jews aim for a 100% Jewish state"
Most of my family is Orthodox, I was raised Orthodox, and have a pretty clear understanding of Orthodoxy's views on Israel (which is generally pro-Israel). You are confusing various ultra-Orthodox (also called "Haredi") sects, some of whom are anti-Zionist, but not for the reasons you're giving — in fact, the largest anti-Zionist Haredi sect (although "largest" here is still only ~100k globally), the Satmar, are specifically against Israel being Jewish because they view pre-Messianic Jewish states as contrary to Jewish law. The Neturei Karta, an even smaller but more extreme Haredi sect (~5k adherents globally), go so far as to politically support dismantling Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.
These are pretty niche groups within Orthodoxy, though, which is ~2MM globally; nearly all sects of which support the State of Israel.
Thanks for clarifying, I definitely should have used "Ultra-Orthodox" then.
The extremists are usually just the loudest and the most extreme phrases get the most media coverage with usually bad context, ... which can be summed up as missinformation, I fell for.
>> Being a Zionist is simply supporting a Jewish state not everything the government does.
> (and orthodox jews don't recognize the israeli government as truly legitimate anyway)
Edit: a sibling comment questions the accuracy of the assertion that the majority of orthodox Jews support the Israeli state. I have no idea, so setting that point aside:
Definite/indefinite articles matter. "A Jewish state" is not necessarily "The Jewish State"/"modern State of Israel". I suspect support for "a Jewish state" and modern Israel is rather correlated, but not 1.0.
Just like being anti-Trump doesn't mean you're anti-American, being pro-Israel doesn't mean being pro-Netanyahu (or pro whatever the government is at any specific time). I would guess that considering yourself a Zionist does actually correlate like 0.95+ with being pro-Israel, but "pro-Israel" doesn't correlate very well with specific Israeli government regimes or policies, and that many people are both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine at the same time (e.g. most two-state-solution supporting Jews). For example, Yesh Atid voters in Israel are very pro-Israel, but very anti-the-Netanyahu-government (they are the largest opposition party), and Yesh Atid explicitly supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
No - it's not because they specifically support the settlers.
But because they don't give a fuck. The Palestinians are far too small in number (and most especially political clout) for them to make any accommodations for. Especially if it upsets public opinion in that larger (and infinitely stronger) country they have the misfortune of being surrounded by.
They're giving service to Israeli settlers in Palestine but not Palestinians in Palestine.
There's nearly 4 million Palestinians in Gaza & the West Bank, and about 7.15 million Jews in Israel. By contrast, there are 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and 9,000 settlers in Gaza.
The State of Israel (including Area C under the Oslo Accords) had a population of ~9,650,000, of which ~7,100,600 are Jewish (for reference, about 600,000 are settlers in Area C, 250,000 of whom are in East Jerusalem). ~3,990,000 Palestinians (Muslim & Christian) live in Areas A and B. If Israel were to annex Areas A, B, and C, the total population would be ~13,650,000, with 7,100,000 Jewish people and ~6,550,000 Muslim + Christian + Druze people [1]. So, a slight majority would still be Jewish, but that would completely change the demographics of the nation.
The recent change is because numerous Palestinian organizations have stopped accepting Bitcoin as Americans donating via crypto have been arrested for supporting terrorism.
100%. I don't use any payment/money apps and my life hasn't skipped a beat. If friends complain, I tell them to write me a check or give me cash. Works just fine.
Unlike the Russians facing issues due to the actions of their government? Do you think they are all guilty, all deserving of sanction and economic hardship? Of course not, but what's the alternative?
OK, so your ministers are targeted, but everyday citizens are not. It's now trivial to work around sanctions and they don't matter at all. When your sanctions are symbolic, that's fine. When they're meant to actually have an economic impact, that doesn't work. There's an argument for fomenting dissent against the government causing the sanctions, too. If there were good, easy solutions, it wouldn't be the conflict that it is.
"It's now trivial to work around sanctions and they don't matter at all."
Putin did not dare to travel to south africa. The Oligarchs cannot use their Yachts anymore and their international assets are frozen(and they are not happy about it). That sounds like pretty effective targeted sanctions to me.
No one claimed that sanctions alone will stop the war.
And ALL of the russians are under sanctions since 2014 btw. and that clearly did not prevented the big war, or made Putin less powerful. So if anything, this refutes that sanctions against a whole population are helping.
No, it doesn't, because you don't know what the world would have looked like if there were no sanctions. If the impact of the sanctions delayed the war or forced Russia to go in with fewer supplies then the sanctions absolutely had a measurable impact. Just because Putin has strong authority now doesn't mean he wouldn't have been stronger without sanctions. Your arguments have no basis in reality.
"If the impact of the sanctions delayed the war or forced Russia to go in with fewer supplies then the sanctions absolutely had a measurable impact."
If is key here. You claim there is no alternative to broad sanctions, yet they have been shown to not work (preventing war). And that they delayed the war, you show no proof or indications. If Putins plan was all out war from the beginning, then why would he have waited at all? And sanctions targeting special military supplies are a different thing from sanctioning the civilian population.
So what exactly is your argument based in reality?
It's hard to call either Hamas or Fatah democratically elected - there haven't been elections since 2006, and Hamas actually ran a coup the following year to seize power after they lost in the parliamentary elections.
Even if there are some who would benefit from this (and they have plenty of others methods), should we make it easier for terrorists to transfer money through Paypal?
Is it really domestic when the effective governing body in Gaza and some of the West Bank is Hamas? Should we not sanction countries ruled by terrorist organizations?
I'm fine with that as long as the definition of terrorism is objective and not ideological/political. What objective definition of state terrorism applies to Palestine but not the state of Israel?
You're comparing apples and oranges. The counterparts to the government of Israel would be the PA and Hamas, not "Palestine".
There is no objective measure of terrorism since that designation is a political one. You can look at the objectivity of the criteria but the choosing of the criteria is unavoidably political. The question is not whether or not the definition is objective, but whether or not it is fairly applied. How would you describe a government that pays the families of "martyrs" who blow themselves up in coffee shops and restaurants, not despite but for their actions?
Hamas keeps sending Qassam and other rockets towards Israel, indiscriminately targeting everything while using human shields to defend launch and command sites in a clear violation of international law. On top of that come suicide bombers targeting civilians, which is clearly and indisputably terrorism, and on top of that they pay off the families of martyrs and terrorists, thereby creating a massive financial incentive.
Israel isn't free from blame - particularly the actions of Ben Gvir and friends or the expansions of settlement activity are reprehensible and completely unnecessary provocations - but nothing they do is even remotely as bad as what comes out of Palestine.
> Should we not sanction countries ruled by terrorist organizations?
Correct.
The punishment should fit the crime. Being born in a location run by a terrorist organization is not a crime.
This idea of group punishment is a very slippery slope and I believe you've already slide down it. As I pointed out in the previous comment, there are domestic terrorists in the US. And I'll go even further, members of the US current government have argued that other members of that government attempted a coup. Can't get much stronger claims of being ran by a terrorist organization than that.
A good example of sanctions is the recent US ones vs Russia. It's almost entirely targeted towards individuals and property/companies associated with those individuals who promote/support invading Ukraine. (War being the crime, sanctions being the punishment).
w.r.t. PayPal, afaik they're not the only payments organization so I'm fine with them not providing service as it's not like the Palestinian's have no alternative. (As opposed to say the only grocery store in a region refusing to sell food to a homosexual).
> The punishment should fit the crime. Being born in a location run by a terrorist organization is not a crime.
The problem is, as soon as you remove the sanctions, Hamas will use that to collect funds to buy more weapons to send off to Israel.
The only way to achieve actual, lasting peace in Israel and Palestine is to get an Arab country as a guarantor that Israel won't be attacked - but Hamas is so deeply connected with Iran whom everyone else in the region intensely dislikes that no one will take on that role.
Why would an Arab country guarantee Israel won't get attack? They literally want that land for themselves and went to war over that.
Actual people are the ones giving money to Hamas. Those people can and should be sanctioned. The people that aren't shouldn't be. It's a simple concept.
As long as the one deciding that is the US, the one that conveniently ignores the deeds of their allies in the region when they're not busy themselves destabilizing it and toppling their heads of state, no.
Israel actually does multiple levels of warning before issuing strikes against shared civilian/terrorist infrastructure including leaflets, audible warnings and so on, and only then fires a payload.
Palestine has dropped more rockets on their own people than Israel has even sent their direction.
I mean per the article, Palastine has banks with corresponding US banks to handle transfers. So, ordinary people of those territories can use their banks.
What kind of hurdles does someone need to overcome to transfer money to a Palestinian through the bank? Banks deal with the same OFAC requirements that PayPal does.
Nothing specific to Palestine on the country programs, but OFAC explains further that our sanctions are much more complicated than country-by-country here:
My guess is they don't want to piss off the Israeli government—or the elements in the US government who see blindly supporting Israel as an axiomatic good.
these aren’t solders on either end. If a Palestinian non combatant resident kills an Israeli child. The Palestinian or their surviving family will get a payment.
And yes, many Israeli children have been killed through such programs.
I don't understand the confusion on this topic. One side will pay the family of a suicide bomber that murders innocent civilians, the other won't. It's not complicated.
War is ugly, but as a global society we do have some idea about the difference between combat and terrorism. Firing rockets indiscriminately into a civilian area is not combat. Hiding your guns, bombs, and bases inside of civilian buildings is not some idle decision.
The biggest losers of the Palestinian propaganda machine are the Palestinians themselves, and they are not the ones funding it. They are victims of this proxy war. It's a terrible situation, and it will continue to be terrible so long as it being a terrible situation is a precondition of the funding the terrorist governments receive. Hence, PayPal's ban.
"I don't understand the confusion on this topic. One side will pay the family of a suicide bomber that murders innocent civilians, the other won't. It's not complicated"
Not complicated?
Just compare the civilian casualties on both sides. Afaik they are way higher on the palestine side.
When the IDF bombs a refugee camp, to take out one terrorist, they still consistently hit bystanders.
And before the IDF was military dominant, plain terrorism from the israeli side happened as well:
There are many more Israeli civilian casualties as a result of terrorist action. Though there are Palestinians who have been killed by Palestinian terrorists as well. But I would add them to the tally of civilians casualties of palestinian terror. Not clear where you’re getting that more palestinians have died from terrorism.
The IDF doesn’t regularly bomb refugee camps to take out one terrorist. They often have precision strikes that take out a single person. The IDF has very often canceled a strike due to civilians/children getting too close.
The first link appears to be an actual battle that was rebranded a massacre for optics. In an active battle during a war non-combatants will die. Calling that terrorism is simply dishonest.
The 2nd link was blown wildly out of proportion, a group of Israelis rioted and burnt down… a junk yard. The before and after don’t look that different. This was again a large effort by anti-semetic western media to paint the Jews as in the wrong and totally ignore the multiple murders/terrorist attacks committed by the local Arab population in the very recent past (as in same day). This was an angry mob response to an unjustified killing…hmmm does that sound familiar, are you calling the 2020 protests terrorism?
This is as simple as it gets: the Arabs take every chance they get to murder Jews. The Jews take great pains to defend themselves and protect all life in the vicinity. Do they fail sometimes and kill someone unintentionally? Sure but they also hold themselves to account, and take every (even unreasonable) effort to only target those who are actively threatening other people’s lives.
I don’t think you’re being honest in your argument.
"The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been tracking deaths in the conflict since 2008 and its data shows that 5,600 Palestinians died up to 2020 while 115,000 were injured. 250 Israelis died during the same period while 5,600 were injured."
5600 vs 250
But sure, that text alone does not cite exactly who was killed, but even if you also count teenagers who throw rocks at walls as terrorists - then I still doubt you get a higher israeli death toll.
"The 2nd link was blown wildly out of proportion, a group of Israelis rioted and burnt down… a junk yard. "
And killed someone and wounded 4.
"In an active battle during a war non-combatants will die. Calling that terrorism is simply dishonest."
"Some of the Palestinian Arabs were killed in the course of the battle, others while trying to flee or surrender. A number of prisoners were executed, some after being paraded in West Jerusalem, where they were jeered, spat at, stoned, and eventually executed.[1][5][6] In addition to the killing and widespread looting, there may have been cases of mutilation and rape"
And this really does not sound like just ordinary combat casualties to me. Also are you aware of the context? The villagers were trying to defend their homes. They lived there. Why did they had to go away to make room for Israeli settlers? This is the core of the Palestine grief as far as I understand. They lived there and then they had to go away and live now in a prison without rights. I don't think the conflict can ever be resolved by just stating they are all terrorists. Now quite some of them are, sure, but maybe there are reasons, why they became that way?
> The IDF has very often canceled a strike due to civilians/children getting too close.
If that's true how did this happen as a single example of many:
"Israel stated it fired on the school in response to militant gunfire believed to be coming from al-Fakhura. A UN inquiry said that there was no firing from within the school and there were no explosives within the school."
That appears to have been during an active conflict, not a precision strike. I’m not saying no civilians have ever been killed. I’m saying Israel takes great pains to protect civilian life.
You cherry picked a paragraph that makes it appear that Israel bombed a school, instead what actually happened was Israel returned fire at a location near a school, and the UN agrees it was fine.
> Firing rockets indiscriminately into a civilian area is not combat. Hiding your guns, bombs, and bases inside of civilian buildings is not some idle decision.
Dude this has happened in every war since at least WW2
Survivorship benefits are paid to survivors of a dead loved one. It sounds like OP is alleging that Palestinians can get paid for killing Israeli children. Those are very different ideas, I'm curious why you think that's a survivorship program.
The UN and Geneva Convention define "combatant" and "non-combatant". Being uniformed is merely the ethical thing to do. Combatants also don't necessarily need to be armed, like in the case of spotters who have killed or mamed far more people than most folks realize, including civilians.
