[berntb]

Regarding the killed children -- wasn't the people doing a revenge murder of a Palestinian teenager sentenced to long jail sentences when they got caught?

The Palestinian terrorists are declared martyrs, mural paintings are done, their relatives get a pension from PLO -- while caught Israeli murderers are sent to jail..?

It do seem like equivalent sides, as you claim... :-)

[justin66]

> The Palestinian terrorists are declared martyrs, mural paintings are done, their relatives get a pension from PLO -- while caught Israeli murderers are sent to jail..?

Judging from the public reaction in Israel to the manslaughter conviction of Elor Azaria (polling suggests something like 67% want him pardoned), some segment of the Israeli public isn't above sticking up for its murderers.

[mattip]

Yes things are getting worse, the cinfkuct is wearing patience thin, and, as of today, he had not been pardoned. But there will be no streets named after him, he will be dishonourably discharged from the military, and he will not be generally celebrated as a hero. He is viewed as yet another victim, except by some extremists who get a lot of screen time.

Now can we get back to discussing supporting the coding academy in Gaza?

[justin66]

Wow, yes. Point taken.

[cnlevy]

I personally want him pardoned because of the context (recurring knife attacks on military and civilians), but he is certainly not an hero in my view.

Being discreetly discharged from the army for miscondcuct is probably what would have happened if not for the filming that triggered a PUBLIC trial.

After all, the state gave him a weapon, and indicts him when he uses it ? Part of the responsibility is on the state itself.

There are precedents to these kind of incidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(filmmaker): The army did say that the soldier would be disciplined for violating the rules of engagement and for changing his account of the incident.

[berntb]

You are not contradicting my point. He is still going to jail.

The sympathy for due process of terrorists will wear thin in most democracies. Afaik, most countries with continuous terror problems throw out the law book.

This is a quite logical result, since the point of terror is to get a fear and horror reaction from the civilian population to influence them. Scared voters make politicians hysterical, so everything is done to stop the situation. (Democracies seems to be even worse here, since voters are more important than non democracies.)

Afaik, this goes for USA, Germany, Israel, Britain, Spain, etc. (I saw claims from some English guy that they did it different regarding IRA, then some other GB guy contradicted and listed some English laws. Let's call that example uncertain.)

[justin66]

> You are not contradicting my point. He is still going to jail.

Israel undeniably has a better and more principled legal system than whatever the Palestinians have under the occupation. It's admirable that they found this guy guilty in the face of public opinion.

Insofar as your "mural paintings" statement spoke to the cultural differences, I think it's important (and unbelievably sad) to note that the difference when it comes to acceptance of bloody murder is just a matter of degree. All the parties involved have been degraded by this conflict.

Another poster wrote that this kind of argument takes away from the discussion of the good that's being done there, and I believe he's right, so... :)

[berntb]

"just a matter of degree"? OK, let's look at it then:

Side A is officially antisemitic in their founding document (Hamas) and TV programs (even for children!); they literally took inspirations from the 3rd Reich. They condone murders of civilians (even children) and pay pensions to the family of killed murderers. They have expelled all members of side B. They persecute members of side B everywhere on the planet where both groups live in the same society.

Side B have racism from individuals, which is officially condemned by a democratically elected government. They throw murderers of civilians in jail. 20% (?) of the population in side B are really part of side A, with no expulsions (except once in a bad civil war, when both sides did it, almost 70 years ago).

And so on, there are lots of examples.

You can dismiss this as "just a matter of degree". But then note that there is also "just a matter of degree" in Celsius between Antarctica and Hawaii.

When do "double standards for different sides" go over the limit to the definition of stronger terms?

(Edit: If you're going to argue that persecution and hatred of Jews are excusable because of X, note that more Jews were expelled from the Muslim world than Palestinians that fled from the Nakba. And multiple times more land was stolen from them than the total area of Israel.)

[iblankm]

Why are we talking about Side A and Side B at all? Each of those is a vast overgeneralization. Israelis are diverse, as are Palestinians/Gazans. It's easy to make broad generalizations until you actually meet people on both sides and understand their human context.

Have you ever met a Gazan (outside of any military situation, if you're Israeli and had to serve)? If not, check this out since it may be the closest you can get... I don't think these people are ones you'd have any reason to dislike or want to punish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJtZekhROE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_w1aoJgO8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nAkx4n0yUU

[justin66]

> If you're going to argue that persecution and hatred of Jews are excusable because of X

If it seemed to you that anything I wrote intended to argue that persecution and hatred of anyone is "excusable because of X", this was rather a waste of time.

Which is of course a surprise, since discussion of the Palestinian conflict online is ordinarily so productive...

[berntb]

That was just answering a common bad argument in advance.

I wrote it INSIDE "()", AS AN EDIT. since that was the only thing you could comment on, sad...

EDIT: I used a ":-)" three comments ago as a mark of irony. Well, justin66 have no serious answer, so I end it here.

Edit 2: Justin66 seems to downvote my comments in this old discussion now, with multiple accounts... 15+ downvotes on old and new comments in 20 minutes. That is what happens when people lack both a serious argument and maturity. (Easy to find for HN mods..)

Edit 3: detaro -- The karma is irrelevant. And I should be equally ashamed as justin66 for needling whai I hope is a teenager when he have dearly held wrong opinions. Enough.