[JuniperMesos]

> For example, on Oct 7, 1985, Palestinian hijackers took over the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Reading this on a delay in 2025, the story unfolded over weeks: first they threw an American in a wheelchair overboard, then US fighter jets forced the escape plane to land, leading to a military standoff between US Navy SEALs and the Italian Air Force. Unbelievably, the US backed down, but the later diplomatic fallout led the Italian Prime Minister to resign.

From the perspective of 2025, I can't help but think about the people I know today getting vocally angry about Israeli violence in the Gaza strip, and suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics - and I wonder how many of those people would be happy to throw an American in a wheelchair off a ship in the name of the Palestinian cause.

Reading the wikipedia article about this incident, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Lauro_hijacking , it seems like the hijackers murdered the guy in a wheelchair before they threw his body off the ship, and it's possible but unproven that they picked him in particular either because he was Jewish or because he was in a wheelchair. The hijackers involved were given long prison sentences, but many of them were released decades ago and have fought against US in other ways since then.

I mostly think of the Israel/Palestine conflict as one that I have no dog in - I'm not Jewish, Israeli, or Palestinian myself and have no ties to the region. Nonetheless, pro-Palestine political messaging is something that happens around me all the time today, and knowing that the conflict was happening 40 years ago and that some of the same things that were happening then are akin to what is happening now colors my opinion of what is happening now.

[V__]

Maybe this is just my bubble, but the messaging I get is that Israel should stop murdering Palestinian civilians and not that Hamas is somehow righteous in their actions.

[bigstrat2003]

What I tend to see is mostly an overlooking of one side's actions while condemning the other side, with different people favoring different sides. So you have people who make excuses for Hamas like "they are just responding to an existential threat" while strongly condemning Israel, and people who make similar excuses for Israel while strongly condemning Hamas. Personally I feel that there are no heroes and everyone sucks in this situation, except for the innocent bystanders on both sides who are being caught in the crossfire.

[Aeolun]

Ok, the big problem in this whole thing is assymetrical nature of the thing. The Israelli military is a military funded and shaped by the US one, and it’s a mammoth in all the ways that matter.

Hamas, after years of being supressed, is a group of militants with handguns.

The Isrealli response to those terrorist with guns killing and abducting some of their people, was to flatten and impose collective punishment on the whole country that those people came from.

I have no issues with them defending themselves, but I do with the disproportionate nature of what has been happening.

It’s especially ironic because the jews are one of the few people in the world that should have learned that lesson.

[cyberax]

The thing with Gaza is that HAMAS there had 20 years of unlimited power, wholly funded by the UN/US/Qatar aid. Gaza literally has no other significant income streams.

HAMAS spent this time to build a network of tunnels below the streets, and to stockpile ammo/explosives. They could care less about the people, using them only as human shields. They also actively brainwashed the population: https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/b1fjucpdgg

So what would be a "proportional" answer from Israel? They don't have any good options.

> The Isrealli response to those terrorist with guns killing and abducting some of their people, was to flatten and impose collective punishment on the whole country that those people came from.

To give you the sense of scale, HAMAS murdered 1195 people, and they also took 250 people as hostages (somehow pro-Palestinian protesters almost never knew about this!). And 1500 people is a HUGE number for a tiny country like Israel (Jewish population of 7200000). Scaled to the size of the US, this would be aroud 70000 people, many times the size of 9/11.

[xp84]

Not to mention that as soon as the IDF pulled out, Hamas immediately started dragging Palestinians out into the streets and publicly executing them for “collaboration” crimes real or imagined. The #1 killer of Palestinians is Hamas itself.

It’s pure cowardice that they fight the way they do, mixing all their military equipment with civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools, and they rely on propagandizing gullible Western liberals (as well as anti-semites) to get support for their murderous cause.

There is no way to fight them that doesn’t endanger civilians. And there’s no way for Israeli Jews to continue breathing without fighting Hamas. Anyone who doesn’t believe that is living in a fantasy.

[ebbi]

They executed them due to treason, a law that the USA also has.

The number of Palestinians executed is far less than those killed by Israeli aggression. Don't minimize the war crimes of Israel.

How far is the IDF office from civilian infrastructure?

Your comment reeks of propaganda - or severe misinformation at the least.

[Aeolun]

They murdered 1195 people, and on a country of 7 million? That is terrible you say?

How about murdering 17,000 children in a country with a population of 2M total?

Does that sound better?

Nearly one in 20 people in Gaza was murdered by the Israelli military. That’s an ridiculous number. Since Nazi germany managed about 10% of their occupied population in 5 years, I guess they were right on track to hit those numbers before (can’t believe I’m saying this) Trump thought it was necessary to intervene, whatever his reasons.

[cyberax]

Israel did not murder 17000 children.

[tptacek]

Hamas was an aspiring near-peer military force with a conventional order of battle and a multilayered supply chain. It obviously was not "militants with handguns".

(It hasn't been militarily meaningful for over 18 months; you could call it that today! If what you are, principally, is angry about war crimes in Gaza, you have ample evidence to muster without telling fairy tales about what the situation was in 2023.)

You can avoid a lot of trouble by avoiding sentence structures where the subject is "Jewish people" and the verb is "should (x)".

[dmurray]

> Hamas was an aspiring near-peer military force

This is beyond ridiculous. Israel is a nuclear-armed regional power with tanks, a modern navy, a state of the art air force, the best missile defence system in the world, and one of the best counterintelligence operations. It can project force thousands of kilometres away into Iran. Hamas is none of that.

Even on sheer manpower, sources from 2023 put Hamas at 3 to 30 times smaller than the IDF, depending on who you trust and how you count reservists. [0]

If Hamas had been a near peer to the IDF, the October 7th attackers wouldn't have been shootings and stabbings within 5 miles of the Gaza border, they would have been successful missile attacks on Tel Aviv or tanks rolling down the streets of West Jerusalem. Or do you think Hamas just wanted to start a limited war with border skirmishes and kept its real military might in reserve?

Perhaps "small arms" or "light weapons" would be more precise than "handguns", but Hamas's capabilities have always been closer to the latter than to Israel's.

[0] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231016-the-israel-ha...

[troupo]

> they would have been successful missile attacks on Tel Aviv

--- start quote ---

In January 2008 the border between Gaza and Egypt was breached by Hamas. It allowed them to bring in Russian and Iranian-made rockets with a larger range. In the first half of 2008, the number of attacks rose sharply, consistently totaling several hundred per month. In addition, Ashkelon was hit many times during this period by Grad rockets.

...

In 2012, Jerusalem and Israel's commercial center Tel Aviv were targeted with locally made "M-75" and Iranian Fajr-5 rockets, respectively, and in July 2014, the northern city of Haifa was targeted for the first time

--- end quote ---

> Perhaps "small arms" or "light weapons" would be more precise than "handguns"

Where "light weapons" are literally thousands of rocket launches against various targets in Israel.

Iron Dome exists due to "small lightly equipped militia" in Palestine.

[troupo]

> Hamas, after years of being supressed, is a group of militants with handguns.

I can't believe people still peddle this bullshit. Hamas are a well organised and a well-funded terrorist organisation that is also the governing body in Gaza.

So anything from "back alley" support from Iran to fingers in hundreds of millions in yearly humanitarian aid. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamas had total funding near the same level as IDF.

You don't get a separate "rocket attacks on Israel" Wikipedia entry with "just guns": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... You don't get to fire Russian- and Iranian-built Grad, Katyusha, or Fajr-5 and pretend "it's just a group of militants with guns"

[ebbi]

I'm assuming that bit you're quoting 'militants with handguns' was hyperbolic, but it serves its purpose to compare and contrast the two.

How much damage has those Russian and Iranian built rockets done in Israel? How many tanks do Hamas have? How many fighter jets do Hamas have? How many nuclear weapons do Hamas have?

The fact is, Hamas is a product of being a military in a territory that is subject to blockade by Israel. You can say Israel left Gaza in [insert year], but the fact of the matter is that a blockade has been there up to now.

And so if Hamas was a democratically elected government of Gaza, with the opportunity of becoming a 'Singapore' of the Middle East and having full agency (as Israel claims), why is it outside the bounds of reasonableness that they do acquire weapons from Russia and Iran, just like any other country in the world does for their own military needs?

[troupo]

> How much damage has those Russian and Iranian built rockets done in Israel?

Enough for Israel to build Iron Dome. Iron Dome literally exists because these "poor militants with handguns" were firing hundreds of rockets per month at targets in Israel. From Wikipedia:

--- start quote ---

In January 2008 the border between Gaza and Egypt was breached by Hamas. It allowed them to bring in Russian and Iranian-made rockets with a larger range. In the first half of 2008, the number of attacks rose sharply, consistently totaling several hundred per month.

--- end quote ---

The rest of your message is a non-sequitur on top of non-sequitur.

Hamas is not, and never has been "militants with handguns". They are, and have always been, a well organised organisation with huge funding.

Agan. Wikipedia.

--- start quote ---

Hamas has reportedly accumulated over $12 million per month from taxes on goods imported from Egypt into Gaza as of 2021. Iran provides some $100 million annually to Hamas and other Palestinian groups

--- end quote ---

These are just some estimates. Actual numbers are likely to be significantly higher.

[iN7h33nD]

Exceptionally well put. I had to comment that this is exactly my take on this and I couldn’t have put it better in such a palatable few sentences.

[FridayoLeary]

Check out Israels geography. If those "militants with handguns" hadn't gotten themselves distracted massacring people at a festival, they may well have reached Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in a couple of hours. As it is it's practically a miracle there wasn't a mass uprising of armed palestinians in the West Bank and Israel proper.

Your "assymetrical" point is especially bizzare. Palestinian terrorists have shown nothing but tremendous willingness and enthusiasm for attacking jews with literally anything they can lay their hands on including screwdrivers and vehicles. The total imbalance of forces doesn't deter them at all. Why would they having more weapons or Israel less change anything?

The main reason large portions of the strip has been flattened is because Hamas built tunnels underneath it.

You say it's disproportionate, but spend a couple of hours reading up israels history and geography. You might arrive at some conclusions about the nature of Palestinian terror (if the parent story wasn't enough). I doubt you could come up with literally any other solution. The only one i can think of is a mass evacuation of the gaza strip. It would have prevented a huge amount of deaths.

I think the main lesson jews learnt from the holocaust is not to rely on the rest of the world to help them when they are in trouble. I have absolutely no idea why you would think they must prioritise the moral lessons they learned above their own safety.

[ivape]

There’s objective facts about the two combatants. One weighs more and hits harder. The bigger one argues that a fight is a fight, and should be allowed to use their full fury.

In full anarchy, the bigger person is rational. Regardless, the bigger person seeks to make some semblance of a case of why their perspective is not immoral, and they mostly can’t. It’s not both rational and moral (as much as they want delude themselves out of moral accountability), it is simply just rational which means one actor is truly psychopathic.

[wredcoll]

> Personally I feel that there are no heroes and everyone sucks in this situation, except for the innocent bystanders on both sides who are being caught in the crossfire.

Wow, what a daring and brave opinion. I'm in awe that you're willing to share it publically!

Like, a bunch of my local social media bubble has been talking about "media literacy" and "illiteracy" and related concepts and this is a great example.

If, for example, someone is telling you that a publically terrible act of violence by someone associated with palestine is probably a response to previous israeli actions, they are not, in fact, secretly trying to imply that the terrorist is a hero.

They're simply trying to explain the likely consequences of actions.

One of the things that I find most frustrating in certain types of discussions is the idea that we can't do something that will improve the lives of large numbers of people on the off chance that a bad person won't get punished or someone undeserving will be rewarded.

It's entirely probable that the solution that improves the lives of the most people in that region will also involve quite a few awful people not getting punished.

[jrmg]

In this and so many things now I fear that we’re discarding the idea that “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.

[Aeolun]

I’m not sure if I’d put the balance there, but certainly not at “it is better that a hundred innocents suffer than than one guilty person escapes”

[wredcoll]

The point of course is that it's not about whether or not guilty people escape.

It's about making people's lives better. Improving the world. Increasing the net total happiness. That sort of thing.

If you actually apply logic and empiricism with that as your goal you quickly realize that punishing guilty people is frankly orthogonal.

This is definitely something I have found to be a major divider among people, in the very literal "there are two types of people" sense.

Very frequently having some system of punishments and then applying those punishments has some useful effect towards the ultimate goal of better lives for everyone. But, as should hopefully be obvious, the point is the better life goal, not the punishment part.

People get very obsessed with the idea of people "getting what they deserve" and so rarely seem to consider any goal beyond satiating the desire for suffering.

Everyone loves the classic "moral dilemma" of torturing one child to provide for millions and similar, but perhaps instead what we should be asking is "would you let an awful evil pedophile go free if it meant a better life for hundreds of other children"? That seems like a fun way to get people's heads to explode.

[samdoesnothing]

I think it varies. I've seen everything from people simply caring about the wellbeing of Palestinian civilians to rabid Hamas supporters and everything in between. I think it's easy to get stuck in an environment where you mostly see views that align with your own or are the complete opposite (with a corresponding dunk) and it's easy to get rage baited.

[jl6]

There’s a lot of ideological snap-to-grid.

[wredcoll]

Also we're a bunch of strangers making very short comments, it's hard to convey the entire nuance of one's opinion on a complex topic.

[tacitusarc]

This is a fantastic analogy for ideological preferences.

[graemep]

It does not help that people feel passionately about these things on the basis on media reporting.

As I said in another comment, my own experience of living in two countries, and reading media from a few others, is that it inaccurate, sometimes wildly so. Sometimes dishonestly so - and dishonesty often comes from simple laziness.

[almosthere]

Maybe Hamas should also stop killing them too

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7okhHGRgfpQ

[V__]

I mean obviously yes.

[jl6]

News is often highly decontextualized, to our detriment. This site is a nice idea, because seeing echoes of today in old news is a starting point for adding a little bit of context back in. A lot of people live in a permanent rage-state induced by the simple good vs evil narratives that are so easy to spin when the context is obscured. These narratives break down when you start to piece together why events unfold the way they do.

[squigz]

It's been going on for a bit longer than 40 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_co...

[mastazi]

I am Italian, that was one of the proudest moment in our history.

The Achille Lauro episode was an example of Italy choosing what's best for the region rather than what's best for the people across the Atlantic. Hundreds of hostages' lives were saved by the actions of the Italian Government that day.

For context, in the post WW2 era, hundreds of Italian civilians were killed in accidents caused by US military operations in Italy, and our spineless leaders did nothing. In many cases they actively helped covering up the truth. Two of many examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash

[watersb]

FWIW I was watching a warfare simulation game on YouTube yesterday, and the players were talking about the 1998 Cavalese cable. I remembered reports of it vividly; as a student pilot, one of my recurrent nightmares is of massive electrical cables everywhere, flying through that and trying to escape.

It was far worse for the people on that cable car. It was awful then and still awful now.

[andrepd]

> From the perspective of 2025, I can't help but think about the people I know today getting vocally angry about Israeli violence in the Gaza strip, and suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics - and I wonder how many of those people would be happy to throw an American in a wheelchair off a ship in the name of the Palestinian cause.

I'm quite unsure what this is trying to imply. Israel committed genocide in Gaza, this much is established, and even the skeptics about the word "genocide" admit at least "war crimes". How does knowing that there terrorists from that place murdererd a person in a wheelchair in 1985 change one's view about that?!

May I remind you that Israel murdered over one hundred people in Gaza for over two years. Some of those were even in wheelchairs. Would you like a link to videos, uncensored ones? Double-tap attacks on hospitals? Maybe the screams will not let you sleep at night.

--

Nobody sane would perform the reasoning "Irish terrorists killed hundreds of British people in the 70s and 80s" ergo "the British army should destroy 85% of buildings in Ireland". But apparently s/Ireland/Palestine/ and it's a normal acceptable thing to say!

Finally, "suggesting that this violence has implications for US politics", of course it does. Israel is a major US ally and gets billions of dollars in funding. Of course it has implications on US policy, from diplomacy to finance.

[delis-thumbs-7e]

With that same logic me objecting to Iraq War I supported Saddam’s terror regime. Just because you think Israel actions are bloody genocidal war crimes does not mean that Hamas terror is justified or that some guy in a wheel chair should be killed. Yes, there is some young people who seem to get all of their information from social media and have absolutely no understanding of what is happening - they support Hamas, or claim that US have no dog in the fight.

Palestina-Syria was a term coined for the region by Emperor Hadrian after the destruction of the Second Temple, so 40 years is nothing in the timeline of this whole conflict. The modern Zionism goes back to the 19th Century and the Israel occupation and oppression of Palestinians at least to 1948. So no, this skirmosh at the sea gave you very litlle understanding of why things are like they are, why the violence continues and how US has been funding this conflict the whole time.

If you actually want to understand what this conflict feels for a regular Palestinian just trying to live, listen this interview: https://pca.st/episode/4f0099d2-2c6e-4751-b1e1-e0913fa25734

[qntmfred]

do you have any suggestions for those who want to understand what this conflict feels for a regular Israeli just trying to live

or Israelis 40 years ago today

or 75 years ago

or Palestinian Jews 100 years ago

etc

[komali2]

Read diaries of anyone heteronormative living in a collapsing empire.

The Israeli experience is swayed heavily by decades of supremacist propaganda which is unfortunately becoming baked into the religion. I've had a surprising number of conversations with Israelis about politics that at some point involved them mentioning Israelis being "god's chosen people."

Even Israeli progressives have to couch opposition to war in desire to get the hostages back, or they'll face incredible social blowback. Not to mention those with religious oppositions to serving in the military are propagandized as "not contributing to Israeli society," since the only valid way to do that is commit violence on behalf of the State.

[bodhi_mind]

A lot of Israelis who reference “God’s chosen people” aren’t claiming superiority in the way it’s often interpreted abroad. In Jewish tradition, “chosen” historically means chosen for responsibility, not privilege. The phrase “light unto the nations” captures this: it’s about modeling ethical behavior, justice, and compassion, not dominating or controlling others.

Understanding this helps separate the original ethical meaning of “chosen” from the way it’s sometimes misinterpreted in political discourse: it’s meant to be a call to moral responsibility, not a claim of inherent superiority.

[komali2]

> chosen” historically means chosen for responsibility, not privilege.

> moral responsibility

Yes, this is identical to how it was stated by the three separate Israelis I had this conversation with that said it exactly this way.

I ask genuinely if you understand this:

Do you see how believing that a supreme being has granted "your people" a moral responsibility could easily lead to any actions "your people" do being ipso facto "moral" by definition of the fact it's performed by "your people?"

Do you see how just the mere separation of people into "chosen by god (even just to live better)" and "not chosen by god (not responsible for living better)" can easily create a supremacist ideology?

Do you understand that, from a scientific perspective framed in sociology and anthropology, there's no such thing as a Jewish person or non Jewish person in any externally consistent definition, that the definition is only enforceable by internal justifications, and that therefore it's arbitrary who is chosen and who isn't? And therefore exploitable by supremacists? See: e.g. Whiteness; Jews are white when it's convenient, and nonwhite when not convenient, same for Italians, Irish, Catholics...

Not to mention: Hassidic Jews in Israel refuse to participate in the military. Other Israeli Jews say this is traitorous to the Jewish people, not doing their part to keep Jews safe. Some Israelis say horribly racist things about Palestinians, comparing them to animals and openly calling for their extermination. Others don't. Which Jewish people are correctly implementing the moral responsibility set forth by the Jewish god?

[bodhi_mind]

You’re right that claims of being “chosen” can be misused, but in classical Judaism it means chosen for personal moral responsibility, not automatic virtue or supremacy. The phrase “light unto the nations” emphasizes modeling justice, compassion, and humility through your own actions. Anyone who interprets it as justification for harming others or claiming inherent superiority is a fringe distortion, not representative of Jewish teaching.

[rixed]

Reminds me of the Frenchs and their "pays des droits de l'homme", although I don't believe it's been as operational as the "chosen people" in practice.

[delis-thumbs-7e]

If you have read any newspaper or media publication for past 75 year, you have got their view. Or any of the several films Hollywood has produced about the subject, ever heard of Spielberg?

[tehjoker]

Here’s a good starting point for learning about the situation:

“Our Genocide” by an israeli human rights organization https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide

This book too:

“The 100 Years War on Palestine” by Rashid Khalidi https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War-Palestine-Coloniali...

[komali2]

> From the perspective of 2025, I can't help but think about the people I know today getting vocally angry about Israeli violence in the Gaza strip

It's really just a question of if collective punishment is ethical, which I say it isn't, and whether genocide is ever justifiable, which I say it isn't.

[muzani]

I remember someone sharing news about companies like Shell fearing boycotts. So they restructured and sold or moved the companies they had out of Israel. Turns out the news was dated several decades ago.

There were always peaks where different people held different opinions about the conflict. When they were startups, they'd be vocal about genocide or say, renting out stolen land on Airbnb. As they become bigger and raise more money, they start taking selfies with Voldemort.

[nashashmi]

> I wonder how many of those people would be happy to throw an American in a wheelchair off a ship in the name of the Palestinian cause.

Not sure I follow. Are you upset at the Pro-Palestinians? Today? Do you think that throwing a person in a wheelchair off a boat makes it ok to be silent about Israel's genocide? or makes Pro-Palestinians bad?

Your opinions of what is happening now should be a bit more comprehensive and in-depth than the opinions and perceptions of the public from 40 years ago. Social media as it is known today was non-existant. And news in mainstream media was well controlled and manipulated, and less independent, yet had the facade of professionalism and integrity. So there was a lot of news about Palestinians that just were not reported, and if they were reported, were in subdued form.

[sillyfluke]

I'm trying to wrap my head around coming to this bizarre conclusion from these two news items that are 40 years apart. It is incredibly difficult to come to anywhere close to similar conclusion when considering it with any seriousness.

Ok, so I'm squinting my eyes and trying to imagine...Ok, so I'm an American in the 1940s just reading a news article about the discovery of extermination camps in Germany by allied forces. They just discovered these camps and they don't know yet quite how many people were killed. WW2 has just ended, information is just coming out, slowly. Incidentally I also subscribed to a magazine that prints daily news from 28-30 years ago and I coincidentally also just read, in a news items from 1915-1917, that some group of people calling themselves Zionists, whatever that means, killed a Swedish anthropologist in Palestine who was living with a Arab tribe that was being harrased by the group when attempting to intercede on the tribe's behalf.

And I'm supposed to think what exactly from these two tidbits of information? That Jews seem to have been on this violent chosen people gambit for a quite a long time and that the Nazis had a point?

Or maybe instead of answering that you can just ask the one in three Jews in New York who voted a pro-palestinian mayor into office why they didn't know any better. New York, incidentally a city that supposedly only rivals Tel Aviv in the number of Jewish residents residing in it.