Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Gazans still hold Israeli hostages, Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause [1], they're still fighting, the UN refused to distribute aid because they were getting attacked [2], and Israel unilaterally pulling out of Gaza and leaving them to govern themselves is literally what led to October 7th...
> Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause
The fact that Israel has no problem creating these civilian deaths is part of the problem. If you claim "human shields" you lose all credibly when you shoot nonetheless. It genuinely horrifying that you accept "well they made us kill all those kids".
This would be easy to see if you accepted the Palestinian people as, well, people.
> Again, what's your solution people?
Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
> Two states, stop holding a people in a perpetual refugee camp and you might be surprised and how much less they fight you. And, if you really have two states, then there's a framework for retaliation if it comes to that.
This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
So after 70 years of that it makes sense Israel are fed up with trying to ask for two state solution, because the other side will never agree that wont work, they have to solve it in another way.
> This was Israel's solution, its the other side that keeps rejecting this solution and has been rejecting it for many generations now.
Arafat and the PLA/PLO, let's be clear, were responsible for many terrorist atrocities. But let's not forget, their softening, and efforts at the negotiation table, put the Israel far right in a tough spot. Questions were really starting to get awkward - "Arafat is negotiating and making concessions, so why isn't Israel?"
That's when Netanyahu and his buddies decided that Israel needed to start supporting Hamas, because Hamas was more hardline than the PLO. And their rise would make it easy to deflect blame away from Israel for being unwilling to explore the peace process.
It's not even that. When Palestinians had widespread Arab support and their position was stronger, they kept on rejecting the two-state solution. Now, the situation is such that Israel can unilaterally get a one-state solution, so they're asking for a two-state solution.
Israel didn't pull out of Gaza, it simply moved its people to the border and continued its subjugation. They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out (to the point where they put the Palestinians on a diet with calorie counting at one point). That's not pulling out.
The border with Egypt was controlled indirectly, Egypt is a puppet state of the US. For a moment it wasn't and suddenly they got a military coup and nobody stopped them in the name of democracy...
>They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out
Israel blockades the ports and bombed the airport because missiles and weapons used to kill Israelis are shipped in at those places. These weapons in Gaza are not being used for defense. They are there to kill Israelis, period.
Weapons still get in, and then shit like Oct 7th happens - again, not in defense of Gaza, it was purely out of hatred of Israelis. Palestinians used to strap bombs to children and blew them up just to kill a few more Jews. Now they collect them and use them as human shields when they launch rocket attacks against Israel.
Yeah, the ports are blocked for good reason. Maybe Gazans could have tried diplomacy instead of terrorism, but they elected Hamas with a charter of exterminating Jews instead. I'm not sure how anyone could think that leads to prosperity - it leads directly to what's going on now.
The West Bank tried diplomacy, the PA is Israel's puppet and doesn't stop the settlements and the violence of those settlers. Americans have died at the hands of that settler violence protected by the IDF and ignored by the PA.
What has that gotten them? Turns out, there's no diplomacy with the terrorist regime of Israel
The PA launches rockets?? That's a first-time hasbara line. Other groups, sure, even from the West Bank, but they're not in power and it's minuscule compared to the violence of the occupation. The settlers, with the IDF in tow, literally just killed a well-known documentarian and, a week or so ago, a US citizen, and that's just the recent ones that are known enough in the US to get coverage here. Do a google search and you'll see the ratio of Palestinians in the West Bank killed to Israelis injured shows that Israel isn't interested in diplomacy, it's interested in subjugation.
> "They bombed Gaza's airport and implemented a land and sea blockade where they controlled everything that went in or out (to the point where they put the Palestinians on a diet with calorie counting at one point). That's not pulling out."
You're taking this way off the topic I was replying to about why the ports and borders in Gaza are blocked. It's because they are used to import weapons to kill Israelis (Jewish people).
But now you're moving goalposts and changing the topic because the truth is the people of Gaza want more weapons to kill more Israelis (Jewish people).
With this definition you might as well argue that bread is a lethal projectile that cannot be trusted in the hands of your neighbor. Gotta shut down the roads, and the borders, and the airspace, and the aid depots, and the trucks carrying aid, all because of weapons...? Some moving goalpost.
You are morally despicable if you cannot even acknowledge the issue with that. It has nothing to do with politics, you don't get to deflect the question because Israel's extremism makes you uncomfortable. We're gathered in this thread (with increasing frequency) because Israeli foreign policy leaves so much to be desired.
The parent is correct, regardless of how you or I wished it happened. Israel never pulled out, they crippled the Gaza strip because they wanted annexation more than peace.
They do see them as occupiers, and occupiers are people.
Israel on the other hand sees them as "animals" that need to be ethnically cleansed or killed. The words of their democratically elected officials, not mine.
Satanyaho is the longest serving PM (+17 years). Says a lot about Israelis.
Well the solution certainly isn’t letting an entire People starve to death?
By the way, I don’t see criticism of Israel, but Israel’s current extremist government. I’d even argue that supporting Israel means opposing that administration.
No, that's a logical fallacy. I can be against something obviously wrong without offering an alternative action. In fact, this is a case of "something needs to be done, this is something, so this must be done". Wrong. Doing nothing—not starving Gaza—was also an option; one that the Israeli government decided against. They are responsible for the current situation.
> "They are responsible for the current situation."
Pretty sure the people responsible are the ones hijacking aid trucks and causing security problems in distribution areas. Hamas has a long history of misdirecting aid from the Gazan population; stealing, oppressing, punishing, exploiting, and that's from before the war as commonly reported by UN sources and humanitarian groups over the years.
Maybe you place your trust in reliable media all over the world instead of random YouTube videos. Journalists are in Gaza right now, putting their life on the line to show you the ground truth—and you dismiss all that due to a channel called "travelingisrael"?
Are you familiar with the concept of ad hominem? It a logical fallacy in which one does not refute an argument directly - e.g. that if there were mass starvation, we would see groups of skinny starving people, and not singular children with genetic disorders that make them skinny - but rather one argues against the person making the argument (e.g the person making the argument is "random" and not a news source).
No. Do not "have faith" in media. The media gets things wrong constantly. Worse, it prioritizes narrative consistency and consensus over factual truth or ambiguity.
Sounds like "traveling gaza" is your preferred source over "traveling israel". No difference. Well, there's some differences... There aren't any foreign journalists in Gaza and the "truth" is certainly not a strong point in reporting lines from Islamist controlled war zones.
I certainly trust Reuters and AFP over a YouTuber, yes. Their local journalists have a track record of professionalism, they aren't activists under control of the Hamas. Besides, are you honestly proposing there's any kind of regime in control of Gaza right now..?
The Gaza Health Ministry is the main source of data you read about in Reuters and AFP. Hamas also runs a media office that provides official statements on airstrikes, casualties and other events. They have a history of suppressing and intimidating journalists, and they have a history of propaganda.
There are no foreign journalists in Gaza. The journalists you're referring to are Palestinian freelance journalists. Those journalists are working in a media landscape controlled by terrorists. For example they wouldn't be permitted to report back to Reuters about Hamas policing or regrouping.
"The solution is certainty not x" is not a solution. Saying "it's not x" is easy.
If you really believe that Gazans are being starved, then save them by coming up with a great solution for Israel. Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that Israel has decided to starve out Gazans in order to end the war. You have the choice to save them by offering a better solution. What is it?
"Not X!" is a copout.
Unfortunately for that perspective, finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict from the Israeli perspective.
It's not. I can be against the wrong thing because it's wrong. Following your line of argument, I could propose using eugenics to end inherited diseases and sterilise all affected. You disagree? Well, offer a better solution then! What is it??
X is "What do Israelis do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of Arabs on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want them and their children dead."
Ok, go. Two states? Palestinians overwhelmingly want one state. Build a wall? UN hates it. Leave them alone to do as they will? Israel ethnically cleansed Gaza... of Jews* and that didn't work.
> What do Israelis do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of [Palestinians] on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want them and their children dead...
Before we answer that: what do Palestinians do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of israelis on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly want Palestinians and their children dead.
Both of those concerns are covered at the link above, starting with the words, "Everything else...", because both of those concerns are less important than stopping war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
> What should Israel do?
Please take the time to read the post I linked above, and answer there, as it answers this question.
While you do that, consider expanding the question: "What should israel and Palestine do", since the 2 warring countries and their peoples are equal, have equal rights, and deserve equal protection.
Before we answer that: what do Palestinians do about the fact of an extremely hostile population of israelis on their border who is dedicated to their destruction? Some are nice, sure, but most overwhelmingly
Why before we answer that? Why not just answer the question directly? Again, Before we answer that is a diversion.
But ok, for the sake of argument, let's grant that Israel despises Palestinians and if Israel stopped the aggression then there would be peace and harmony and 2 states and the border could be as friendly and porous as between the US and Canada.
Nevertheless, Israel believes that if it stopped fighting, the Israeli people would be overrun and slaughtered. Since you earnestly want to save Palestinian lives, and that is more important to you than hating on Israel, you have to say something to stop the fighting. Right here and now you have the ear of the nation of Israel, so you say what?
So, again, if you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over Israel bad then you are unserious.
> Israel believes that if it stopped fighting, the Israeli people would be overrun and slaughtered.
So does every genocidal perpetrator. It is not a surprise that someone committing ethnic cleansing or genocide will attempt to justify it as self-defense.
Fortunately, as explained at the linked post above, a unilateral claim of self-defense is not a serious justification for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
> Right here and now you have the ear of the nation of Israel, so you say what?
'The ear of' the perpetrator of ethnic cleansing and genocide is an unserious concept. Did the allies convince hitler to stop his holocaust by 'having his ear'? If you think so, then now is a good opportunity for you yourself to suggest how you would convince israel to stop their ethnic cleansing and genocide. You have the ear of the nation of Israel! What do you suggest? Remember:
- All people are equal, so your proposal cannot prioritize israeli interests, needs, or safety over those of Palestinians, or vice versa.
- Ethnic cleansing and genocide are bad no matter what, and worse than anything else anybody can do, and thus stopping it is more important than israel's military or political goals.
- "We will stop perpetrating crimes against humanity if..." cannot legally be used as a bargaining chip.
- As a good heuristic: if your proposal is serious, it would likely be able to gain majority support in the UNGA.
Your serious proposal is eagerly awaited. If you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over violate international law, commit crimes against humanity then you are unserious.
> it would likely be able to gain majority support in the UNGA
LOL. The UNGA that in 2022 issued 15 resolutions against Israel versus 6 against Russia, 1 against North Korea and 0 against China who is actually committing genocide, and is comprised of 22 Arab Muslim nations among others who, like you, think this is eminently reasonable and not at all obsessive? They wouldn't know a solution if it bit them.
Well, if you had a solution, you would have stated it by now. War it is, then, even though people like you will completely unseriously call it genocide. You have a lot of company, unfortunately.
Your opinion of the UN, as one person of billions, is noted, and your sharing it is appreciated. That said, their credibility exceeds yours, so your judgement of them is a bit moot.
Now, if you have no more answer to the conundrum than repeating over and over, violate international law, commit crimes against humanity, then you are unserious.
Perhaps the UN has more credibility than I. And yet, the UN has not formally accused Israel of genocide. I could write a similar patronizing "Your opinion is noted, but people with more credibility disagree with you" but I shall not. You should then however, by your own logic, concede that your accusations are without merit. While Francesca Albanese, special raconteur on Palestine has accused Israel of genocide, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Israel, Hungary, Albania and Argentina have officially lodged complaints over her overt anti-Semitic comments. She is not impartial, as is her mandate. Recently, the United States even sanctioned her, personally. She has credibility only with similar persons such as yourself.
Go ahead and have the last word. I will read it carefully.
We likely saw the same language being used in support of the holocaust, both from the perpetrators and sympathizers. I like to think we're all for not repeating that. So, no serious proposals from you, it seems.
I'll refer you back here for guidance on the matter:
In support of the Holocaust, we saw people attacking Jews as we do today. We saw the Arabs of Palestine allying with Nazis to smear and attack Jews, as we do today. As today, we had their Western enablers, such as yourself, accusing Jews - oops, I mean Zionists - of all kinds of horrible things. As today, we saw genuinely intelligent people agreeing with each other that Jews are just the worst.
The only difference between then and today is that Jews have an army. People like you hate that.
Occupying powers have a legal responsibility to provide aid to civilians in territories they occupy. They also have a legal responsibility to figure out the logistics. They also cannot commit war crimes. So the solution is for israel to do what they are legally required to do, and stop doing what they are legally proscribed from doing.
Everything else (hostage return, feelings of safety, etc) is:
1. Less important, and
2. Equally applicable to both israel and palestine
Finding a good solution means diving in and understanding the conflict beyond israel's perspective: There is simply no legal or moral justification for the atrocities we see here. None whatsoever.
This is a gross oversimplification. Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities. The idea that this conflict has a good guy bad guy and is simple has done more disservice to an outcome than almost anything else.
That is a valid opinion, and I also have an equally valid opinion, that it is a gross undersimplification. Our two valid opinions cancel each other out! :)
> Hamas has used aid drops as attack points and military refueling opportunities.
This may be true, or it may be false (israel forbids journalists from reporting from Gaza and often attacks them) but it is included in the "everything else" referred to in the above post. Nothing Hamas does detracts from israel's obligations I mentioned. That's why it's not a "gross oversimplification".
Besides, israel has been systematically using aid points as attack points.
So because it's a copout, let's go and do X which will make it impossible to then do Y and Z that may have been far preferable than X.
That's not a copout, sure, but what is it? I suppose the polite, technical term is "opportunity cost"? Kill tens of thousands of people: ensure you can never make peace with their relatives.
That would probably require some serious infrastructure to set up secure food distribution points, which I'm assuming isn't easy because the locations have to change as the evacuation areas also constantly changimg. From the video it looks like they only have some berms and small fences so I'd imagine it's a dangerous security situation.
Although having way more food/distribution points might help reduce the violent mobs.
Do you realise how incredibly cynical you sound? We're not discussing the finer details of a logistical challenge here, but the fate of people starving to death. People that by and large are innocent.
Also: It'd require infrastructure that did exist before the IDF destroyed it. To feed people that weren't hungry before Israel blocked humanitarian aid. Don't reverse the guilt.
> If you really believe that Gazans are being starved
This is so disgusting. There is an endless flood of proof from reliable media all over the world. It's a fact, not a matter of belief.
> Let's hear what you think Israel should do.
A government with members that are publicly outspoken for a genocide in Gaza simply cannot be trusted on this issue. It's like letting the wolf pack guard the sheep pen and hoping they will handle the situation responsibly. They will not.
You want to hear my solution? Israel should elect new leaders that aren't as empathically crippled, allow foreign (and domestic) help into Gaza, stop all actions of war, and get into talks with Abbas. Israel should incorporate and take responsibility for Gaza as a part of Israel, following Herzl's vision of Israel as a pluralistic state. A one-state solution is inevitable if there is ever supposed to be peace.
But this isn't going to happen. Instead, Gaza is out for a long, slow death by attrition; Israel is once again going to build illegal settlements and occupy territory, and wage war against local militias.
Is it an eye for an eye or 10,000 eyes for an eye? It was the Hamas military that committed the first war crimes attacking civilians. Netanyahu is committing war crimes in response starving the entire population. That is unacceptable.
> 39% in Gaza supported the attacks by Hamas into Israel in October 2023 that triggered the conflict, 32 percentage points lower than six months earlier[1].
If 71% civilian supports some group, then it is not a terrorist group but a government, and using Gazans isn't an overreach.
Hamas claimed non-Hamas groups and some civilians held hostages. Some hostages were found in captivity guarded by "civilians". Groups like PIJ held hostages.
So what's a nice catch-all term for the above groups?
> Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
At a minimum stop funding them, stop selling weapons to them, at an absolute minimum repeal the rules against boycotting them. Yes that wouldn't be a complete solution but it would be a step in the right direction.
>Criticizing Israel is in vogue but what's the solution?
Return the refugees to their land and disband the settlements (west bank too). Cash payouts for palestinian refugees to rebuild their homes whether returned to previously occupied lands or just needing to rebuild gaza itself.
After reintegrating the civilian population they can go on an anti hamas witch hunt. And Hamas can be put on trial at the hague next to bibi and gvir. Easy.
> Ok. So you stop bombing. How do you get the hostages back?
I'm assuming "the hostages" you're referring to are the tens of hostages held by Hamas and the thousands of hostages held by israel. I've provided an answer to this question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44718080
> not a real answer
According to who? Seems like a real answer to me, and I'm not sure you're the grand supreme decider of real answers :)
How do you get the hostages back with the bombing?
Oh, you are going to say, "that's to prevent future fighters from capturing future hostages", I guess?
But wait, we know that today's bombings are making future fighters, so, really, what's the plan??
You know, the evening of the 9/11 I remember spending the whole night depressing, thinking "omg, now the US are going to wage war all around the globe, my son will grow up in a terrible place". Because how could the military behemoth answer in any other way? And sure enough, that's what happened.
After the 7th of October, I had similar thoughts: "omg, now Israel is going to act stupid and make Jews hated again".
I've lost friends who had to leave my country because of antisemitism. I've also had my life threatened by right wing extremist zionists. So at least take my words on this: The first and most natural answer to violence and hated is more violence and hatred, universally. If that's not what you want for the next generation make the first move to stop it.
There's an offer from Hamas on the table for a total ceasefire and release of all hostages. The solution is to accept it. If at any point Hamas will break the agreement, Israel is free to attack again.
Some people seem to believe that eliminating the entire Gaza population is the solution. Either by deportation, or simply by killing all of them. There is a German word for such a solution, 'Endlösung'. We don't want that again.
Hope some day Muslims (in all Arab countries) just accept the right of Israel to exist. Else, this attack/retaliation dynamic will continue for ever, with people taking sides from a blob of propaganda channels disguised in news platforms.
stop bombing, killing, and starving civilians for starters; the long-term solution is the two-state solution but you can't get there if the population is either dead or scattered (which is what Israel successfully did in 1948 and is now trying to finish it off)
So don't do this "what's the solution??" while tens of thousands are being killed and starved.
This is actually a valid question*, although you probably won't like the answer.
One side will concede in a war if there are no gains to be had, and conceding will stem the losses. So at a minimum, the side that wants a victorious peace has to credibly promise not to kill the women and children of the other side. At the moment, Israel is unable to credibly promise that, and it's difficult to see how in the short term it can generate any such credibility. So external parties such as the US need to form part of the commitment mechanism. Under both Biden and Trump, the US has neglected it's responsibility to do that.
*Apart from implying that civilian Gazans are responsible for the hostages
Why? It would be terrible politically for Israel to keep attacking Palestine if Palestine and hamas agreed to peace. All of the ambiguity of right and wrong would be gone.
But Israel does that constantly, because they say the peace that Hamas agreed to doesn’t count. And the peace offer that Israel is waiting for is basically every male over 16 handed over for interrogation as Hamas members, with the chances of survival for actual Hamas leaders being about none.
Almost like starting a war is risky, and that by doing so you should weigh the consequences of you losing that war. Why would Hamas leaders expect to survive this war? Are they so cowardly that they would genocide their people to escape justice? If the people of gaza are going to be sacrificed by the IDF, or sacrificed by Hamas, at what point do they turn on Hamas as the weaker of the two?
Do you think USA would agree to peace with Nazi Germany or Japan without being allowed to root out all the Nazis or Japanese extremists? WWII was ended in an extremely brutal way, but it did work and effectively ended the genocidal extremism in both Japan and Germany.
Israel has been subjugating Palestinians and killing them for over 75 years. They're still killing Palestinians and stealing their lands in the West Bank too.
Hamas is bad, but Israel has done much worse to Palestinians over the last 80 years. The mass murders committed by the Israeli forces are much bigger than anything Hamas has ever done.
The only real solution is for the rest of the world to treat Israel the way it should be treated: a genocidal entitiy comitting mass murder.
Criticizing Nazi Germany was also "vogue" at some point and sympathisers of the third Reich had similar justifications for "self-defense" against Jews.
There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilian "administrative detainees" who would love to know why you're not as concerned about them being held.
Gazans still hold Israeli hostages, Hamas has publicly stated that more civilian deaths helps their cause [1], they're still fighting, the UN refused to distribute aid because they were getting attacked [2], and Israel unilaterally pulling out of Gaza and leaving them to govern themselves is literally what led to October 7th...
1 - https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/middleeast/sinwar-hamas-israe...
2 - https://www.wfp.org/news/un-food-agency-pauses-deliveries-no...
Edit - I love it. Down votes instead of responding to this comment's question. Again, what's your solution people?
Edit 2 - is this really a good use of the flagging tool? Is this what HN is about?