Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Just that regardless of your political inclinations, you need to be extremely ignorant of the complexity of the situation in the Middle East to be able to make such clear cut statements about what's justifiable and what's not.

Disclaimer: I live in Israel.




Please correct me if I'm wrong: within living memory, a large area of land already occupied by many humans was unilaterally declared not to belong to them anymore, and they were largely either forced out or subjugated to make way for a different batch of humans who wanted to live, literally, in their houses.

My nation did something very similar to the Native Americans more than a century ago, and it's now universally regarded as an atrocity.

Of course none of this means that suicide bombers are justified or that Israeli children are war criminals. The world is more complicated than that, as you say; whole generations of innocent Israelis have now grown up on that land, and no more deserve to be forcibly displaced than the original occupants did. But I've never heard a convincing justification as to why the occupation was morally justified in the first place, and it doesn't become more justified with time.



Yes. Drawing conclusions based on isolated events, without attempting to understand the reality or the context in which those things happen, and without hearing the other side of the story, is a good indicator of ignorance.


About this particular event's "other side of the story", see [0].

"[Read Zuaiter] did not try to seize the gun of a soldier as Israelis claim, an eyewitness at the scene said Tuesday. The Israeli army stated after the killing that the ''the terrorist'' (= the judge) attacked a soldier with an iron rod while crying ''Alalahu akbar''."

Also, the article shows that this kind of incident is not so 'isolated' as you say.

Disclaimer: I work with young people who left Israel.

[0] http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/israel-kills-...


isolated events? I can keep on posting links for the next few days, if you want me to...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: