You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective that Israel is the defender here. In reality, Israel is the aggressor, and Palestine is the state that has been under occupation and illegal blockade for decades. October 7th was an (illegal, abhorrent and criminal!) act of retaliation against previous Israeli aggressions, not an unprovoked attack. If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one would views it as legitimate for Russia to bomb a Ukrainian city back: Russia started the whole conflict and is expected to bear the consequences, until such a time as it stops the occupation.
In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders. It is fully within its rights to keep its border with Gaza closed, of course, but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea. There is also a good argument to be made for paying reparations to Palestine for the occupied territories and for the entire illegal blockade duration - though that is ultimately secondary. The thornier question is of course how to connect Gaza to the West Bank.
> You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective
This sort of swipe is against the spirit of the HN guidelines and particularly the spirit we asked commenters in this thread to keep. Please don't do this.
> If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one would views it as legitimate for Russia to bomb a Ukrainian city back
If Kyiv went into Russia to capture children and seniors after gunning down a rave, their Western backing would evaporate overnight. Russia would be vindicated in its claim that their neighbour poses a security threat.
Had Hamas hit military installations (demonstrating Israeli impotency) and taken hostages, but treated them well (taking the moral high ground as images of Nonna being served tea and falafel are juxtaposed with those of aerial bombardment), our conversation right now would be very different.
You're broadly right. One component of the solution must be an independent Gaza (if not Palestinian state). Another has to be reparations for the Nakba. Israel can be partly responsible, but the primary debtor should be the U.K. and possibly French. (Reparations for the blockade are needlessly divisive. Israel can always argue, legitimately, I believe, that it was Palestine's Arab allies who repeatedly attacked it first.)
> If Ukraine went into Russia to capture children and seniors after gunning down a group of kids partying, I'm pretty sure their Western backing would evaporate overnight. Russia, in some sense, would be vindicated in its claim that their neighbour poses a security threat.
That is an interesting thought experiment in itself. I'd like to believe you are right, but then I remember that there was virtually no condemnation when the daughter of one of Putin's propagandists was assassinated. There was also little interest to determine if Ukraine may have been behind the destruction of the dam that killed many innocent civilians. So, I'm not entirely sure how European and US opinion would have oriented.
> Israel can be partly responsible, but the primary debtor should be the U.K.--they are the ones who took the land and gave it to another
That is a good point, and I'm pretty sure other European states would have quite a bit to attone for to help set this right.
> there was virtually no condemnation when the daughter of one of Putin's propagandists was assassinated
Massive difference between targeted killing and broad slaughter. To put this on the other shoe, it's why we were never going to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan or Vietnam.
Yes, I didn't mean to equivocate. Unquestionably what Hamas did was much, much worse. Still, logically speaking, if we can excuse murdering one innocent civilian, we might have excused murdering a thousand as well.
There's a difference between deliberate targeting of civilians and collateral damage. The latter is acceptable, as the alternative is literally impossible.
> Had Hamas hit military installations (demonstrating Israeli impotency) and taken hostages, but treated them well (taking the moral high ground as images of Nonna being served tea and falafel are juxtaposed with those of aerial bombardment), our conversation right now would be very different.
Many would argue that this is EXACTLY what Hamas has done, no more, no less.
The fog of war is well named. There hasn't really been any VERIFIED evidence presented to independent media showing that Hamas deliberately killed civilians.
On the other hand, lots of evidence, from Israeli sources themselves, of zero babies murdered, zero rapes, Israeli tanks shelling Israeli civilians and Israeli helicopters shooting at Israeli civilians with hellfire missiles.
This is very much absurd. It is very clear that Hamas associated terrorists/militants killed many Israeli civilians on October 7th, and abducted some 100 civilian hostages. Abducting civilian hostages is a war crime just as much as killing civilians.
Even the sources you cite show the Hamas militants attacking entirely civilian infrastructure. Even if it is true that some of the Israeli victims were killed by the IDF inside Israel, it is still in response to Hamas attacks on a kibbutz, festival etc. - NOT military installations.
Hamas did not target the festival. It has since transpired that they did not even know that such a festival was taking place. They were making their way along a road, from one military base they had smoked, to the next one, and ran smack into it.
Cue pandemonium, and wild crossfire.
We DO have actual gun footage camera of Israeli Apache helicopters firing indiscriminately. Plus we have the testimony of those helicopter pilots, as reported by Haaretz, that they had no clue who was who, and they just emptied their weapon stores on anything that moved, and kept going back to base to reload and repeat.
ALL of the above is taken VERBATIM from Israeli sources, reported by the Israeli media.
You haven't looked at any of it. Just blindly repeating the same tired old narrative, long after it has been debunked.
After all, why is Israel BURYING all the forensic evidence (burned out cars, etc) in the desert? Or... you didn't know about either (widely reported even in the US)
And Hamas took hostages for the SAME reason they ALWAYS took hostages. To free the THOUSANDS of innocent Palestinian hostages languishing in Israeli dungeons. Or are you going to pretend that that's not true either?
For goodness sake, J Paul - the US State Dept official who resigned in protest gave interviews talking about EXACTLY THIS, and even shared cases that he personally was involved in where Palestinian child hostages were sexually abused/raped by their Israeli captors.
You can stick your fingers in your ears as long and as deep as you want. That's your problem. It doesn't have to be mine, or others who want to delve deeper and find out the truth.
So are you saying the numerous videos I've seen of Hamas shooting civilians dead, shooting assault rifles into homes, shooting drivers dead on the roads, beheading people, throwing grenades into shelters where women and children are cowering, etc, re all forged?
I'm saying that you haven't looked at any of the REAL reporting done, by REAL journalists, some of which I linked to above. Where they debunk much of this narrative.
While sourcing interviews on Israeli media, and the press.
Yes, there's plenty of snuff videos circulating on Israeli telegram channels. Funnily enough, they don't get circulated to reputable, independent, international press. There was one segment on the independent US Breaking Points channel (Ryan Grimm, of the Intercept), highlighting just how much fake misinformation is being spread on those very Israeli groups. Reported on TODAY!
And whenever IDF claims and videos DO get circulated to the international press, they get DEBUNKED within a day or 2. Too many to enumerate. From beheaded babies, to rapes, to bombing this hospital and that camp, to striping civilians making them pose as Hamas fighters, to hiding metal weapons in MRI rooms, to posting videos of fake Gazan doctors criticizing Hamas (later proven to be an Israeli actress, with name and film bio). And on. And on.
Every single thing I have stated, every single thing, is taken directly from reporting done by independent journalists in the West, referencing Israeli sources. You can pretend all you like - it's painfully obvious that YOU haven't taken the leap to look beyond your personal echo chamber to see what's being reported in the wider world.
And you prove that by not checking or referencing the many copious references and links to NEWS REPORTING that I (and I'm sure others) have given. You haven't tried to address any of the items I brought up (which themselves are just a small sample of a bigger body of work). Instead, you make up silly things I did not say, pretend I said them, and then exclaim fake indignation. That's possibly why you feel sick ...
If Hacker News can "tolerate" that from you, it can certainly handle my attempts at highlighting courageous journalism on here.
> but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea
This by the way is an important fact to bring up when the claim that "Israel left Gaza many years ago and the problem didn't improve". In actuality, they withdrew their occupying army but still kept up a blockade, including a literal cap to the number of calories allowed to enter the country, which I can only interpret as a population control measure. That's of course in addition to all the other stuff they kept doing, but that's probably a discussion for another day.
I'd note that the GP was careful to specifically mention Israel having withdrawn its military from Gaza which is true, so I'm not disputing the veracity of their claim on that specifically.
That is a weird tangent to take. The population size in Gaza nearly doubled in the last 20 years, reaching approximately 2 million (). If the sea blockade is a population control measure, it's a highly ineffective one. Did ever you stop to consider that it's, maybe, I don't know, to stop them from bringing in stuff to shoot at us?
Did the UK blockade Ireland when the IRA was routinely conducting terror attacks in Northern Ireland? Did Spain institute controls on the amount of calories that could be imported into its Basque region when the separatists there were routinely committing acts of terror?
Some behaviors are simply unacceptable - and the current blockade has been found to be illegal by the UN time and time again, or at least would have been without US vetos.
declassified documents revealed how in a 1987 meeting British officials raised the prospect of erecting a physical border along the entire frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic
The IRA is a good example of how to deal with terrorism. You don't compromise. You don't have Northern Ireland back to the Irish and bow to terrorism. Instead you strike hard and eventually they'll make peace.
The Gaza blockade is not about the border wall. It's about preventing any access into or out of Gaza over sea or over the Egyptian border.
The equivalent would have been to erect a border wall, then send the British navy to intercept any ship going into or out of Ireland, and signing agreements with other EU countries to ensure they enforce the same terms for air travel. This is what Israel is doing to Gaza.
> The IRA is a good example of how to deal with terrorism. You don't compromise
I'm Irish. That's not an accurate description. There very much was a compromise, on all sides. One that both sides in the current conflict could learn from.
Well they starved them during the potatoe famine. All this who started the tit for tat is futile.
Stable government in power is needed. Which then can reduce violence by agreements stepping back in lockstep from violence.
Pre requisite for that are stable societies not ramping up for loopdeformation showdowns.
The IRA was a terrorist group, not the official government of Ireland. During WW2 the Allies did in fact blockade Germany.
The blockade is legitimate and justified. The Palestinians do things like take water pipes sent as aid - which were allowed to be imported - dig them up and turn them into rockets. What do you think they'd do if they were able to import more freely?
> take water pipes sent as aid - which were allowed to be imported - dig them up and turn them into rockets
This is not true. They did dig up pipes to make rockets, but they were the pipes from Israeli settlements. Settlements that Israel destroyed so Palestinians couldn’t inhabit them
> What do you think they'd do if they were able to import more freely?
Be more at peace, feel like they matter, like the world cares about them and that they can be a part of it without having to ask for permission from Israel
If anything, the end of the blockade would probably bring more peace and stability to everyone in the region
The IRA was also not being fought by the Irish government.
Blockades are an act of war, so yes, it's not unexpected or illegal that the Allies were blockading Germany while at war. But Israel is claiming not to be at war with Palestine (or at least was before the current invasion). They in fact keep claiming that military occupation of Palestine ended 20 years ago.
The fact that Hamas can turn water pipes into rockets is somewhat irrelevant. The obvious fact is that, as long as it is impossible for Palestinians to live a prosperous life because of this occupation, some part of their population will want to retaliate. Peace in the region can't start without ending this blockade. Israel's Iron Dome can already protect from huge numbers of Palestinian rockets. It is generally the Palestinians who are defenseless in the face of Israeli attacks (as can be seen in the current invasion, as well as past protests and retaliation).
So instead of Hamas digging tunnels to protect themselves they could be digging bomb shelters? Or should they not have a duty to protect their own people. They don’t even provide education or healthcare to their own population instead they use that money to line their pockets and build pipe bombs. How many Hamas billionaires are there?
In this context the UN is simply the governing body of international law. It holds no mechanism of enforcement and is wowed to non-interference and impartiality. When the UN finds a blockade illegal it simply means that it violates the international laws it self has set. You can think of this like a supreme court ruling inside your own jurisdiction, just between states as opposed to people.
There is no bias here, just law and interpretations on these laws.
If this were the security council that would be another issue however.
The "blockade" was Israel protecting its borders once Hamas seized control. And it's not a blockade as one side borders Egypt.
For much of the time, Israel allowed goods through the tough restrictions on what types of materials were allowed in started once Hamas started tunneling into Israel to commit attacks.
Very recently, Israel increased significantly the number of work permits for Gazans to work in Israel in the mistaken belief that Hamas and Gazans were getting comfortable with improved economy and this would gradually lead to deradicalisation and eventual peace. The other estimated the humanity of Hamas who it turns out were actually planning barbarism.
> And it's not a blockade as one side borders Egypt.
The fact that Israel has an agreement with Egypt governing that border crossing and preventing imports other than as approved by Israel undermines the "its not a blockade because one border touches Egypt" argument.
In this certain case, it is. The aggressions (during this round) started on October 7th by Hamas. You can replace "defense" with "response" / "retaliation" / or "zionist agressions" if you're reading certain news sources. I will admit that the my background affected my word choice to some extent.
The history of this conflict is a lot more complex than the occupier/ occupied framing would imply. For one, there was a Jewish presence here for centuries, not to mention the ancient kingdom of Judea. But I find these discussions unconstructive usually since they seem to get into these "he hit me first" kind of arguments. I agree that a two state solution is what we should be striving for. Humans are creative, if the will was there, we would find a way to connect Gaza and the West Bank (tunnel/bridge/whatever), do some territory swaps as needed, divide Jerusalem, etc. The plans for this exist, it's the leadership that's failing (on both sides).
Bizarre is viewing Israel as "oppressor" for disengaging entirely from Gaza, dismantling is own Israeli settlements despite massive protests by the seller movements, and only imposing a blockade once a terrorist group took absolute control (and threw Gays and Fatah opponents off rooftops to their deaths)
Not to mention the "blockade" is in fact Israel closing its own borders and Gaza has a third border with another country (Egypt).
> Not to mention the "blockade" is in fact Israel closing its own borders and Gaza has a third border with another country (Egypt).
Gaza has sea access, but Israel doesn't allow any ship to dock into Gaza or leave Gaza - this is blockading Gaza's own sea borders, not closing Israel's. Egypt's border with Gaza is also controlled by Israel through a treaty - Egypt can't unilaterally open its border to Gaza without breaking its treaties with Israel.
> Bizarre is viewing Israel as "oppressor" for disengaging entirely from Gaza,
Israel didn't disengage entirely from Gaza, it maintains a murder zone inside Gaza, and has murdered unarmed peaceful protestors in Gaza within that murder zone.
>In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders.
What would be the solution of that independent state went to war and attacked Israel again? Would you agree at that juncture that Israel would be within its rights to destroy and conquer that state?
No, there is no allowance in international law for conquering and destroying a state. If you are attacked by a different state, you obviously have the full right to defend yourself and destroy the military installations used to attack you. You have a right to attack back and seek regime change and impose terms that ensure another attack can't happen, and even seek reparations.
But you do not have the right to attack the civilian population or to take their land. Even if you think they were for the war. The allies didn't conquer and destroy Japan or Germany. They didn't divide their territories among themselves (even the separation of Germany still left two sovereign states).
We have also learned from the end of WW1 and WW2 that investing into the old enemy state to make it happy and successful is in fact a MUCH better solution for lasting peace than pounding them into submission and trying to sap their economy. If Israel had sought a Marshall-plan like solution for Gaza after the Yom-Kippur war instead of a military occupation for the following 30 years, perhaps Hamas wouldn't have won the 2005 elections in the first place.
I think the compairison to Japan and Germany is interesting, although there are obvious differences.
Both Japan and Germany had major civil cities leveled and gave unconditional surrender in WWII, and were occupied.
Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former statehood. It was administered by the allies for 5 years and permanently lost 25% of its territory (compared to its 1937 pre-war borders.) It took 25 years post WWII for Germany to be admitted to the UN.
Japan was Occupied and administered by US military for 7 years following the war, and parts of the Japanese home islands are still administered 70 years later. Japan Lost multiple territories it had held for more than 60 years before WWII started.
I think that what we learned from WWII and subsequent wars that you need unconditional surrender and acceptance for any real nation building to take place.
Perhaps Palestine needs their equivalent to Germany's first post-war chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who accepted that Germany lost, and was willing look forward and not back.
Is there any reason to believe that a Palestinian state with full control of its borders would not immediately begin the process of accumulating weapons to repeat Oct 7? Hamas has never affirmed Israel's right to exist.
Treaties and UN involvement could be arranged to help guarantee this.
However, what is clear is that Israel's current approach is not working to ensure its security, and that in the last few decades it has only succeeded in turning the population of Palestine ever more bitter against them. So, unless they are prepared to wipe them out entirely, what possible hope is there in continuing in this direction?
Say Hamas is successfully eliminated. Every single Hamas leader and soldier is killed or captured. Is there any reason whatsoever to imagine that people in Gaza could return to their bulldozed and bombed "homes" and feel friendly towards Israel? Or did this incursion all but guarantee that the next generation of Gazans will feel even more justified in defying Israel?
And note, the same question is true of Hamas' monstrous attack - no doubt the vast majority of those hurt by the Hamas attack will feel justified in hating and fearing Gaza and Hamas. It's just harder to ask the ones being oppressed to just bear with it in the hope their oppressor might stop.
UN has assisted Hamas in the past, there is no reason to believe it would be any different this time. The history didn't start on October 7th, what has happened on October 7th is the violence went over the threshold in which Israel would believe intent of international community and instead is handling it themselves despite the uproar.
The history before October 7th is generally that for every Israeli civilian killed by Palestinian terror attacks, there have been 2-5 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers or police, at least in the last 20 years or so. Even the monstrous Hamas attacks from October 7th don't reverse the death toll comparison (and that's before the invasion).
So, if anything, a more accurate description is that October 7th was a boiling point where Palestine retaliated for decades of oppressive killings.
But the reality is that neither is the right framing. The October 7th attacks on innocent civilians aren't justified or justifiable. The following invasion and widespread murder of innocent civilians aren't justified or justifiable.
A ceasefire and peace deals must be imposed to keep the situation under control. All those who have caused the death of civilians, both in Hamas leadership and Israeli leadership, should face international justice, and new leaders should be installed that are committed to a lasting peace process.
It sounds like you're advocating that some multi-national force take over the entire region and set up authoritarian governments, because with democracy, the people in both these places are going to choose violence.
It is not authoritarian to take aggressive war off the table. In a modern constitutional democracy, the people can only express their will in the bounds of the law. Killing Israeli or Palestinian civilians is obviously illegal under any constitution imaginable (including the current constitutions of Israel and Palestine). So, a fully democratic government who represents the will of its people could nevertheless be bound not to attack it's neighbor.
Also, I'm not seriously advocating for this. It's a fantasy that has no chance whatsoever of happening. But it is probably the only sort of thing that could bring a quick end to this conflict given the current parties in power.
I don't follow at all. Killing civilians in a war is not illegal under any constitution I'm aware of; only killing your own citizens is, generally. Israel already has a fully democratic government, so I'm not sure what you're proposing to do here. And while Gaza is obviously not democratic, if someone did set up a fully democratic government there, and the people voted for Hamas as their leaders again with their stated aim of attacking Israel, then nothing changes. Maybe I'm missing something in your proposal idea, but history shows that people in democratic societies can and will vote for warmongering leaders.
Your original comment said that leaders committed to peace should "be installed". That doesn't sound democratic in the least. And here you say that "it is not authoritarian to take aggressive war off the table". When you're talking about outside forces forcibly taking over these places governments and "installing" new leaders, that's the definition of authoritarianism. Israel's leaders were already democratically elected, and obviously they're not peaceniks, and if Netanyahu suddenly died of a stroke, I think it's naive to think the Israelis would now vote for peaceniks. And I think it's very unlikely that Gazans, given a new vote, would choose peaceful leaders either, though I could be wrong of course.
In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders. It is fully within its rights to keep its border with Gaza closed, of course, but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea. There is also a good argument to be made for paying reparations to Palestine for the occupied territories and for the entire illegal blockade duration - though that is ultimately secondary. The thornier question is of course how to connect Gaza to the West Bank.