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by konmok 296 days ago
Yes, you acknowledged the correction elsewhere. However, when questioned about the 6.6% figure by another user, you literally just replied "I was quoting a fact". Perhaps you meant the fact about the number of exits to Egypt, but to me, that appears highly misleading, perhaps intentionally so.

I think oscaracso makes a very good point as well. In a country as vast as India, you can find almost anything you need without leaving its borders. Less so with Gaza.

1 comments

So in other words you said I didn't acknowledge the correction, but I did acknowledge it, twice. I then modified it to point out that there were 500k exits from gaza out of a population of 2 million, something I'm glad you now don't dispute, because it gives lie to the whole "open-air prison" narrative.
No, that's not what I said. Once again, you are not being careful with your words, and as a result what you say has only a tenuous relationship to the truth. Yes, you acknowledged your mistake, yet you still insisted upon that incorrect figure later, to a different person in a different subthread.

As for the 500k figure, I'm not interested in disputing it since it's just as irrelevant as your 6.6% figure, for reasons I've already mentioned. But since you insist, I'll list them out again:

1. That figure is listing total exits, not distinct exiting individuals. Since most of those exits were made by workers and traders (who might cross very frequently, maybe daily), there is good reason to believe that the number of distinct exiting individuals is vastly lower. For example, if everyone crossing was a daily trader, the true number of exiting individuals would be smaller by a factor of 365. Of course, not everyone making the crossing is a worker or trader, only most of them, and we don't know how often they cross.

2. That figure does not distinguish exits by Palestinians, Israelis, or other citizens, so it has no bearing on whether Palestinians are trapped in Gaza or not. Many Israeli workers also cross into and out of Gaza constantly.

3. This figure is from before October 7, and movement is more restricted now. But, since you are focusing on the use of the term "open-air prison" before the massacre, I won't count that against you.

By the way, I certainly don't insist on calling Gaza an "open-air prison", that's far too imprecise for me. I simply object to the way that you misinterpret facts to support your argument.

> 2. That figure does not distinguish exits by Palestinians, Israelis, or other citizens, so it has no bearing on whether Palestinians are trapped in Gaza or not. Many Israeli workers also cross into and out of Gaza constantly.

I don't believe Israelis entered Gaza in 2022. In fact, cases where mentally ill Israelis entered Gaza ended in them being held as hostages by Hamas

Look, I can see we're straying from a discussion of facts to a discussion of what people said, which is not productive. I'm glad you now know that there were >500,000 exits per year from Gaza to Israel and Egypt in 2022, and don't dispute that figure. You're reduced now to accepting that figure, and trying to find a large and arbitrary number to divide it by. Fine by me. Whatever you divide it by, there were logged exits, so it wasn't a prison. In fact, many of the people who exited Gaza to Israel are known to have mapped the kibbutzim for Hamas's attack.

Similarly, I'm glad you now know that there are somewhere between 100 and 180 births per day in Gaza, depending on the month and source you trust. (I did provide 2025 data, you just overlooked it.) Whichever figure you choose--100 births/day or 180 births/day--you're now reduced to accepting that there were tens of thousands of births in Gaza, something you hadn't even considered before. And I know you didn't consider this before given how incredulous you were of this basic fact that you asked for sources multiple times. You also have no counter-proposal or alternative source on how many births there were. But it doesn't matter to me.

When it comes to the death count, you need this to remain higher than the official health ministry count (which includes natural deaths and has other problems), so you offer the widely debunked theory that there are thousands of nameless, faceless, odorless bodies under the rubble - something for which there is no primary evidence. Your skepticism goes in one direction. Exercise for you: try treating the pro-palestinian narrative with that attitude and see how far you get.

For my own part, I used to lead pro-palestine rallies, and at the beginning of the war I even paid to help smuggle a Gazan out through one of the Rafah crossings some commenters here say don't exist, but then I tried to... y'know... apply equal skepticism to both sides.

>For my own part, I used to lead pro-palestine rallies, and at the beginning of the war I even paid to help smuggle a Gazan out through one of the Rafah crossings

No you didn’t. Or you’re saying you cared enough to hold rallies but now you just so happened to have developed “skepticism” once Israel started the genocide. And now you parrot hasbara talking points. Yeah nah.

> once Israel started the genocide

Israel started the genocide not later than 1968. Pretending that the genocide is a novel phenomenon starting after the Oct. 7 attacks is a propaganda point actively pushed by those under the sway of Iranian propaganda that is designed to align with and subtly reinforce, among those not already aligned with the Palestinian cause, Israeli propaganda that what is described as genocide is a response to the Oct. 7 attacks, because Iran's interest is not in ending the genocide, but in ensuring that it continues while leveraging it for propaganda cover for its own geopolitical interests in the region.

Hahaha, Google a population chart of Palestinians since 1968. It's been one of the fastest growing populations in the world. Some genocide.
What do you know? I have pictures for proof. I've been involved in the movement since 2002.
Post them then
also, they're not Israeli taking points, they're facts.