One can similarly become Palestinian by immigrating to Palestine (and "fitting in", which involves speaking Arabic etc). Arafat was born in Egypt, for example.
Does this refute the notion that Palestinians are from Palestine? I would say no. Similarly Jews are from Judea, despite the existence of a small number of converts with "impure" lineage.
It's like defining Germany as "a state that genocided various groups", or defining Irish nationalism as "a movement characterized by terrorist attacks against British civilians". Whether or not those claims are accurate, they're not defining features of the things we're trying to define.
And sure, most Zionists are not Jews because the Jewish population is too tiny to be a majority in almost any political category. Similarly most people who support Somaliland independence are not Somalilanders, but probably Indians or Chinese or something.
The zionist movement has never been peaceful, it has always aimed for violent expulsion of native populations from Palestine. One might argue that socialist or liberal zionism is not overtly jewish supremacist, but in practice they always were so I'd contest that. Unlike the irish they also did not have a reason to exterminate the palestinians specifically, whereas the irish have good reason to resist british influence.
So you agree that zionism is a movement mainly consisting of christians, you're just not aware that both christian and jewish zionists prefer to paint the movement as a jewish underdog and distract from things like the nukes and nuke carrying backers and the genocide and so on.
They have been reluctant to give up their homeland, you mean. Yes, resistance to occupation and genocide is usually to some extent violent, because the occupier is extremely violent to begin with.
They never actually had sovereign control over the land. It was controlled by Romans and then by the Turks and then by the British and when the British left it was basically up for grabs.
Sharing the land with european colonists that used terrorism and ethnic cleansing to remove and to a lesser extent subjugate the native population? Why would they?
If you're suggesting that a peoples' right to live in their homeland is forfeited as a result of immigration, terrorism or ethnic cleansing, that would be bad news for Palestinians. Gaza and WB Area A are Jew-free zones, and there were around 30k rocket attacks from Gaza alone.
Quite the opposite, I'm suggesting the palestinians still have a right to their homelands even though europeans have settled, terrorised and displaced them.
Yeah, what about "rocket attacks"? Are they somehow more devastating than the US-israeli armory? If someone spits in front of my feet, then I can have them watch while I beat their family to death?
It is really despicable the way people like you completely dismiss Hamas atrocities like what they did on Oct 7 2023 when 1,219 people were killed by the attacks: at least 810 civilians (including 38 children and 71 foreign nationals) and at least 379 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded. Israel exists and the Palestinians will never be able to defeat it and they are very stupid for trying and failing for 76 years.
Hamas's official position, expressed in its original 1988 charter and repeatedly affirmed by many of its leaders' statements and actions (including the October 7, 2023 attack), is to
destroy the state of Israel and establish an Islamic state in its place "from the river to the sea". The 1988 charter explicitly called for the killing of Jews as a religious duty.
It'd be nice if Israel would let UN fact-finding missionaries or other independent research teams into Gaza to find out (in addition to not barring and/or killing humanitarian aid workers)
It’s perfectly normal for militaries to have press restrictions in conflict zones, for opsec among other good reasons. No one bats an eye when Ukraine does it for example.
1. Ukraine’s media restrictions are virtually non-existent when compared to those enforced by the Israelis in Gaza, including the intentional bombing of media offices. Keep in mind that Hamas has repeatedly called upon Israel to allow foreign press and NGOs to visit and see what’s happening on the ground.
2. The Ukraine war is a conventional war between sovereign nations with standing militaries with equivalent capabilities (air force, anti-air defenses, armored vehicles, bomb shelters, etc). The Gaza genocide is an onslaught by a sovereign nation with a well equipped military against a militant group in a dense urban area. Leveling entire city blocks when fighting against an opponent that has no air force or anti-air capabilities is not only unimpressive, but also breaks the principle of proportionality.
1. It's pretty much the same - no press in dangerous areas unless invited and escorted by the military. The only major difference is that Ukraine is >1000x larger, and has safe areas far from any fighting where such press restrictions aren't needed.
2. You're making a bunch of separate accusations without connecting them to the topic at hand, which was press restrictions.
No, they’re not the same, and (2) is very relevant.
Let me reiterate: Ukraine is a sovereign nation with a sovereign military that has the ability to enforce restrictions within its own territory.
To bring your bad analogy more in line with reality on the ground, imagine if Ukraine was still part of/occupied by the USSR/Russia, and Russia enforced press restrictions across all of Ukrainian territory during a Ukrainian insurgency. However, in this theoretical USSR, Ukrainians did not get Soviet citizenship, and were under a total blockade.
> The only major difference is that Ukraine is >1000x larger, and has safe areas far from any fighting where such press restrictions aren't needed.
But Israel never allowed press into the strip, even during “ceasefire” periods - like right now! This implies that Israel is not somehow paternalistically concerned for press safety; it simply wants a media blackout.
So no, this “major difference” is irrelevant when comparing restrictions between the two conflicts.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Universally, modern militaries don't like journalists wandering around near their assets.
> and Russia enforced press restrictions across all of Ukrainian territory
Your analogy isn't very different from reality. Russia does enforce press restrictions near military assets, including in occupied parts of Ukraine.
> However, in this theoretical USSR, Ukrainians did not get Soviet citizenship, and were under a total blockade.
That would seem very unfair, if Russia did it just because they're mean and not because this hypothetical Ukraine had launched tens of thousands of rockets at them. But I'm not sure what it has to do with press restrictions.
> even during “ceasefire” periods
The ceasefire was pretty much dead once Hamas attacked IDF soldiers in Rafah. Now it's just a lower-intensity conflict. Still not a great idea to have random journalists waltzing around and tweeting photos of military assets.
> it simply wants a media blackout
This is a funny explanation because there are millions of cameras in Gaza anyway, and this is the second most covered conflict (by metrics like article count) in all of human history. Not much of a "blackout" at all.
Alright, your good faith arguments have convinced me! To summarize:
On one side, two sovereign nations setting press restrictions in areas they control. Standard stuff.
On the other side, a genocidal state blockading a tiny strip of land for 20 years waging a campaign that has killed & maimed so many children that we have lost count unilaterally enforcing a total international media blackout. Also standard stuff.
Silly me, how could I even argue about this? It’s just so damn obvious! Sometimes, arguing with random anons on HN pays off :)
You're just changing the topic with unrelated accusations. How nice or mean you think a military is irrelevant to the fact that they don't like random journalists tweeting photos of their military assets.
Gaza population September 2023: 2.3 million. Gaza population September 2025: 2.1 million.
Hamas casualties make up only a portion of palestinian casualties; palestinian casualties make up only a portion of excess deaths; excess deaths make up only a portion of total deaths.
The next census will be in 2027. No one knows the population until then.
It’s not clear that Hamas limits their counts to excess deaths. Even if they intended to, a lot of it is based on a web form, with not much validation besides basic checks that the person exists etc.
As with pretty much any conflict, there's a ton of uncertainly, and people shouldn't be recklessly speculating based on things like WhatsApp chats. Responsible casualty estimates would look more like Ukraine, where for example Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" (one significant digit) were killed in Mariupol.
You are the one who proposed birth estimates and casualty claims suggest population increased. How do you think population estimates work?
There is no census scheduled for 2027. Gaza (much like Israel) does not conduct full censuses on a regular schedule. Neither Gaza nor Israel have scheduled their next full census at this time. The most recent census for Gaza was 2017 (for comparison Israel's most recent was 2008). All population numbers of relevance are determined by statistical methods. For large numbers, this is perfectly adequate.
> As with pretty much any conflict, there's a ton of uncertainly, and people shouldn't be recklessly speculating based on things like WhatsApp chats.
Numbers of deaths aren't being estimated from WhatApp chats. The most widely agreed upon estimates are based on morgue data, which if anything should undercount the actual death toll as plenty of bodies never make it to a morgue operated by health professionals. These health professionals are the same ones giving the birth rate estimates.
> Responsible casualty estimates would look more like Ukraine, where for example Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" (one significant digit) were killed in Mariupol.
That's not what one significant digit means. That is an order of magnitude estimate. I believe everyone is in agreement that the death toll of the gaza war was likewise in the tens of thousands. 1 significant digit would indicate how many tens of thousands. For example, death tolls for Mariupol range from between 20,000 and 90,000. Estimates for Gaza range between 60,000 and 100,000, or roughly half the band for Mariupol. Note that Ukraine does not have access to Mariupol to investigate, as the war is still ongoing, whereas we are several months past the ceasefire in Gaza. Based on pre-war numbers, natural deaths unrelated to the conflict should be a rounding error at this resolution.
Certainly the claim that the population increase is proof of anything is absurd.
2027 is the expectation, since it's supposed to be at least every ten years.
> Numbers of deaths aren't being estimated from WhatApp chats.
Unfortunately they are. [1] was based on messages in "X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram". An example of content they scraped is [2], but they also included non-public chats in WhatsApp etc.
> The most widely agreed upon estimates are based on morgue data, which if anything should undercount the actual death toll as plenty of bodies never make it to a morgue operated by health professionals.
This isn't the case even for GHM's official counts. Anyone can report a Gazan "martyr" or missing person on a web form right here [3]. Those get included in GHM's counts, if they pass basic checks like the existence of that name and ID.
> That's not what one significant digit means.
I think the concept still applies, though I should have said zero significant digits, since "tens of thousands" implies an exponent but zero digits of the mantissa. But my point is that responsible estimates involve acknowledgement of uncertainty.
> I believe everyone is in agreement that the death toll of the gaza war was likewise in the tens of thousands.
Most of Israel's critics are not satisfied with Hamas' ~70k casualty figure, and seek out higher estimates like the aforementioned one that used WhatsApp chats. For example, a HNer yesterday wrote "They've killed people in the hundreds of thousands in Gaza now."
Estimates of birth that rely on the mid-2023 figure and deliberately ignore Israel's systematic dismantling of the health and food systems in Gaza and the drop in fertility levels.
>the casualty count that Hamas claims
The Gaza Health Ministry's count is widely regarded as an underestimate, but mostly by people who don't refer to it with a dogwhistling caveat.
- You could say that antisemites are a cause of Zionism, but that doesn't mean they intentionally support it. Not all antisemites are of the "go back to Palestine" type.
- Just as "antisemitism" doesn't actually mean hate of Semetic people, "antizionism" doesn't actually mean opposition to Zionism. Instead it developed into a rather separate hate movement. Many antizionism ostensibly support a 2SS, which would mean they actually support rather than oppose Zionism, but are nonetheless part of the antizionism movement.
There's nothing supremacist about Zionism, it's just the support of Jewish self-determination. Efforts to twist it into something nefarious are just propaganda with no etymological basis.
Think about what you're saying. Zionism the idea that a particular ethnic group (the Jews) will have the authority to determine what happens in their country (Israel). That is a textbook case of ethnic supremacism. And that's not even mentioning the violent expulsion of the Arabs that this de facto entailed.
Most Zionists have a goal of preserving a Jewish majority for pragmatic reasons - history has shown that it's the only way to ensure the safety of Jews. That's not a supremacist ideology at all.
Moreover, no country is perfect, and we shouldn't have double standards just for Israel. Can you identify any other Middle Eastern country that compares favorably, in terms of diversity and tolerance of all religions and ethnicities?
"Judaism" sometimes refers to the religion, but many Jews are not religious. Jews are a group of people from Judea, hence its historical name. Some dispersion to other regions doesn't change where a group of people is from.
The Ukraine war has a better civilian casualty ratio for a bunch of reasons that are not "Israel is evil and trying to slaughter civilians":
- Soldiers on both sides wear uniforms.
- When they can, Ukraine defends from trenches away from civilians.
- When urban combat seems unavoidable, Ukraine evacuates their civilians.
- Ukraine is a vast country, with plenty of safer areas to move to.
- Other countries have also accepted large number of Ukrainian war refugees.
Gaza is the opposite: Hamas fighters disguise as civilians, they defend mostly from urban areas, they never attempt to evacuate civilians (sometimes the opposite), it's a small territory, and no countries are accepting Gazan war refugees in significant numbers.
There's no military on the planet that could fight Hamas in Gaza without causing significant civilian harm.
Third party observers have observed endless bad behavior from Ukrainian forces. Amnesty International even called them out, in spite of the inevitable blow back it would (and did) receive, for actively locating their military forces in residential areas, launching strikes from civilian areas, turning schools and hospitals into military bases, and more. [1] Ukraine's response was tantamount to saying that rules don't matter for them, because they're the defender and not the aggressor.
Given these behaviors Russian forces would be justified in just carpet bombing these sort of areas that Ukrainian forces are entrenching, but they have chosen not to. By contrast that is precisely what Israel does, and also what the US does not only in WW2 but e.g. in Iraq and Afghanistan where killing dozens of civilians to get somebody who might be an enemy is considered a justifiable engagement.
And again this gets back to what I just said about this not even necessarily being about morality or ethics. Israel is in a vastly worse place now than it was on October 8th 2023, and it's unlikely things will be improving for them in the foreseeable future. Behaving good in war is simply in one's own best interest on any sort of timescale beyond the immediate.
I disagree with this premise. There are many examples of Russia striking civilian gatherings or infrastructure.
For example their Hroza village strike killed 59. If we're trying to be charitable to Russia, it's possible they knew of some important off-duty officer present in Hroza. But with our limited public info, there were no signs of any valid military targets. Can you name any IDF strike that looks worse than that?
> Israel is in a vastly worse place now than it was on October 8th 2023
There was no way Israel could have fought Hamas without significant civilian harm and bad PR. The choice was to fight a very messy war against an enemy that disguises as civilians, or leave them alone to plan the next Oct 7.
As Golda Meir put it: "If we have to choose between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image."
Exceptions don't define the rule, the rule does. Israeli estimates put the military wing of Hamas at having up to 17,000 members before the war. They've killed people in the hundreds of thousands in Gaza now.
In WW2 partisans would intentionally induce brutal retaliations precisely because they thought it would expose the character of the occupier, garner support for themselves, radicalize the population, and generally further their interests. And they were right. It's paradoxical because those retaliations were intended to enforce control, yet they invariably achieve the exact opposite - a recurring theme throughout history. Again getting back to the point I'm making - the reason to behave good in war is because it's in your own best interest.
> Israeli estimates put the military wing of Hamas at having up to 17,000
Where did you see that estimate? Some estimates were ~40k, with many more recruits added during the war. And not everyone attacking the IDF was Hamas-affiliated. PIJ alone had thousands of fighters, and as we saw on Oct 7, sometimes random Gazans join in on fighting too.
> They've killed people in the hundreds of thousands in Gaza now.
Hamas themselves claim ~70k, which already includes fighters and non-combat deaths. There are a lot of questionable works trying to embellish the numbers. One of them used garbage data like WhatsApp chats. Another ended up with an estimate of 380k deaths for age 0-5, which is impossible since there were never that many in Gaza.
It's interesting to compare to Ukraine, because we don't see the same desperate attempts to embellish numbers there. Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" were killed in Mariupol, which is one significant digit; he didn't pretend to have more precision than that. He didn't send out a Google form so that they could claim a specific (but dubious) count. We didn't see a bunch of Western academics desperately trying to justify higher death counts.
The exact sources and numbers one wants to use don't really matter. You're right that there's a high uncertainty, but only in details. The overall picture is quite clear and consistent. In Gaza, Israel is primarily killing civilians under the pretext of seeking out a relatively small number of Hamas militants. And they have killed a significant percent of the entire population of Gaza, which only had a total population of ~2 million.
For instance the Lancet carried out a study using a variety of sources for cross-referencing, including things like obituaries, and found ~70k deaths in the first 8 months of the war, a war that's now been going on for years. And those deaths they measured were also only those caused directly and immediately by Israel due to traumatic injury. Famine, disease, despair, an other such deaths are not counted and bring it up substantially higher.
Politics in the US waxes and wanes, increasingly between extremes. Israel has already alienated itself from one 'side' in America, and is gradually doing the same with the other. Consequently, the fate of Israel in the future is more uncertain than ever - imagine an Israel not only lacking US support, but with an antagonistic US government in charge. And they also aren't exactly making friends with Russia or China. Making enemies of the world as a micronation is generally not a wise path to go down.
As for Ukraine, there's similarly a clear picture. There's no doubt that civilians are being killed but there's also no doubt that the vastly overwhelming majority of all deaths are military. So the situations simply aren't comparable.
How could relocation within the same territory be ethnic cleansing? By that logic, I was ethnically cleansed by our fire department due to an approaching wildfire. Ethnic cleaning also wouldn't imply genocide anyway.
> So the Warsaw ghetto wasn't ethnic cleasing because they stayed in Poland?
I suppose you have a point, my framing was off. But the IDF asking people to leave a dangerous area is much closer to a fire evacuation than a ghetto where residents are broadly denied freedom of movement.
> Did they leave people of certain ethnicities out of the evacuation?
Neither did. IDF couldn't care less about someone's skin color either, just that they're in a dangerous area. Jews would have been asked to leave just like anyone else, had they not already been ethnically cleansed from Gaza in 2005.
> How exactly do you expect Israel to fight a war without creating dangerous areas?
Forced displacement is a war crime. 90% of Gazans have been displaced, with up to 3/4 of the area under interdict (and the areas outside that were still bombed quite regularly). War certainly comes with some inherent danger, but beligerents have responsibilities to civilian populations, especially ones in territories they occupy.
> The target population they sought to evacuate is just whoever resided in the combat area, which is not an ethnicity.
This is not an argument made in good faith, and you know it.
With a very important exception for the security of civilians. It's much better to ask civilians to leave before a major military operation than to just start the operation with all the civilians there.
Or do you have a different suggestion for what Israel should done? Just left Hamas alone after Oct 7?
> beligerents have responsibilities to civilian populations
Of course, but you haven't identified any particular responsibilities that were not met here.
> This is not an argument made in good faith, and you know it.
Do you have an actual argument for why what look like standard measures to minimize civilian harm were actually some backdoor ethnic cleansing scheme?
> Israel was still occupying Gaza, according to an ICJ ruling
That's not what the court said. Its language was
> In light of the above, the Court is of the view that Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has not entirely released it of its obligations under the law of occupation. Israel’s obligations have remained commensurate with the degree of its effective control over the Gaza Strip.
As it often does, the court used intentionally ambiguous language to try to get a majority of judges on board. But the most natural reading seems to be a novel idea that occupation is non-binary, and Gaza lies somewhere on a spectrum of being occupied or not.
No, Gaza was considered definitively occupied again starting in 2007, after Israel instituted air and sea border control, and control of its 2 land borders with influence on its Egypt border as well
UN reports have consistently referred to Gaza is occupied; your point about the ambiguity of the ICJ's 2004 ruling is noted, but it looks like UN's policy was to provisionally consider that a claim that Gaza is still occupied, while in 2022 or early 2023, requesting the ICJ put out a clarifying advisory opinion.
Does this refute the notion that Palestinians are from Palestine? I would say no. Similarly Jews are from Judea, despite the existence of a small number of converts with "impure" lineage.