Sorry if I'm being rude, but this sounds like a really bad joke.
"This building is the new place for your new startup, the burocracy is atrocious and humiliating; not people neither prime matters can enter or go out freely from here, and the entire place is systematically ravaged and firebombed each two or three years killing your workers, otherwise is fine."
"Last year this nice new zone is flattened and 'cleaned' of people... 1000 or maybe 2000 people were killed, I don't remember... and now we want you (again) to give us your money and effort to clean our mess. We need reclaim the area rebuilding this new free space ASAP to secure the place. Thanks"
Just being as cold blooded and logic as I can... Can someone provide a reason to invest in such unstable place? Will you advise someone to create his/her new startup in a warzone? Why?
I could respond with snark and derision, but the short answer I will give is: you wanna help Gazans, and maybe help those who help Gazans. Socio-political or ethical network effect, if you will.
I know many Palestinians where I live and work. Many of them, even in their place of residence, are politically hampered into living in a country in the Arab world but not free to travel because they are devoid of political rights. If not because of their country of residents, the issuing body of their travel papers or passports, for many this is Egypt, was so destabilized until now Egyptian authorities would reply officially or otherwise to Palestinians for basic requests like passport renewal: go away, we're busy. And that went on for years.
I know of one person I work with who has a family in Gaza. Her family runs car shops and make decent money where I live. They have had their family's buildings knocked down twice in Israeli military ops in the last five years. They go back and rebuild every time. If we praise SV people for handling "tough problems", how is this not indicative of real entrepreneurship and determination to potentially solve other tough problems in ways we have not conceived? Lots of Africa is now doing WAPI and SMS entrepreneurship in light of limited network infrastructure and proving an interesting counterpoint to our mobile broadband-enabled view of digital startups. Shall we dismiss them because they have situations not much better or worse than Gazans in some of those cases?
Plus, the Palestinan expat community is wide and diverse, in the US, Europe, the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Asia. Misplaced or not, many non-Palestinian Arab communities would buy or donate to any Palestinian cause out of sympathy. Targeting them as a demographic could be viable. And frankly, using the famed "hustle as much as you hate" meme my friends throw around, I would milk that for all it is worth if I was Palestinian.
Just to be clear, this isn't in the article. So if you're trying to paraphrase, you did a really poor job.
Also, people in warzones deserve a helping hand to make them feel normal. It's not in conflict currently. Yes the blockade is bad, but technology is the type of startup that it effects the least.
Also providing humanity to Gaza does not exclude one from trying to bring Israel to court for its war crimes. The latter is just much, much, harder.
If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I'm aware that I'm being sour and harsh, but in my opinion, and is just an opinion, the sort of Warsaw Ghetto that became Gaza, need a little more that well-meant investors and little kisses at this moment.
I don't want to get into a political argument - but I will say that helping Gazans by directly improving their quality of life (like the OP proposed) is neither mutually exclusive with, nor dependent on, helping Gazans by promoting their cause politically.
It is a defeatist stance to take, in general, that you should abstain from treating a symptom just because it won't also cure the disease and in that sense I think you are working against the cause of Gaza and doing a disservice to Gazans by dissuading people from offering assistance.
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
You're unfortunately correct (about the bombing, not about the excuses), but the children of Gaza need to go to school and the infirm and injured of Gaza need hospitalisation, so not building those facilities is worse than building them and watching them be destroyed a few years later.
Not to mention, empowering moderate and scientifically minded Gazans is probably one of the more productive things one could do to contribute to eventual resolution of the conflict.
I feel that casting all Palestinians as eternal victims with no control over their fate until Israel decides otherwise is pretty patronizing. You're basically denying their agency and labeling them as hopeless children.
This is the opposite of what the initiative is about - it's about bringing normalcy to a troubled region, and if you'd read FAQ you'd see they stress the (relative) safety and economic stability of Gaza. It's a far cry for the "Warsaw Ghetto" and the "Palestinians as cockroaches" that you're throwing around here.
>If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
Sounds good. When are we putting Hamas and other militant groups going to the ICC (because their local justice systems are so unable to promote justice)?
>We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
Seems fair to hold Israel to any standard every other country is held to. Do it!
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
If Israel meticulously bombed the schools and hospitals, would any be standing? They have a lot of bombs and the ability to target fairly precisely for a military- isn't it weird so many hospitals and schools are undamaged? The Israeli military are either incompetent or didn't meticulously target these places.
>with the silliest excuses.
What would an unsilly reason look like? Indiscriminate attacks on civilians doesn't seem to fulfill your requirements.
>There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I didn't know Israel controls all money going in to Gaza. I know they collect tax money on behalf of the PLO and monitor, along with Egypt, all good coming in (excluding those that are smuggled in of course). It's worth looking into how Israel's gets military aid- a coupon from the US government. They aren't stealing other people's money and spending it. Even the tax money they're withholding from the PLO is sitting in accounts, not being spent.
Hi PValde, I agree with you the chances are very low and stakes are high when it comes to investing in a warzone, but it most probably works better to fight the odds and actually solve a problem as a startup.
I started 3 startups in North Iraq, perhaps not so much of a warzone these days, but still affected by all the drama coming out of it.
The problems I was facing were almost the same when I did my other startup in Sydney Australia, except there were some other odds added to it.
In fact Nokia Maps acquired my startup and it was we had such low burning rate / solving a real problem using proper technology.
So I guess investing in them would make sense at the end of the day if you know what and which ones to go for.
Sorry if this had lead to confusion. This is not a quotation, at least not in this sense. I'm talking about a joke and explaining the "joke" in the next paragraphs in a sarcastic (but honest) way, hence the use of quotes. It would have been really rude of me not quoting my text when I'm talking about thousands of people 'cleaned' from an area. Never was supposed to be taken as a literal extract from the web linked, of course.
i wonder whether there are student exchange or similar programs between Israel and Gaza. Specifically in this case - my understanding that Israel has pretty booming tech scene and one would expect that sharing the experience with Gazans would be a win/win for both sides.
Nice idea, but not practical. Before the first intifada, a large number of Gazans worked in Israel. Afterwards, Israel put up security restrictions to prevent terrorism. Hamas also restricts travel to Israel since it's afraid people will develop positive attitudes to Israel or become collaborators.
The only ways for foreigners to get into Gaza is when they work for an international humanitarian organization or when they are journalists. I run Gaza Sky Geeks and live in Gaza. I have seen Jewish Americans come frequently, both as humanitarian workers and as journalists.
As a developer from Israel, I'd like to participate in something like this — but I don't think that there's any opportunity for me to do this. From what I understand, even if someone tried to do something like that on the other side, they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this.
Do you have anything to back that up? I'd be interested in reading about it.
Edit: I can see there's an article here that sounds like the root of this sort of statement but I can't read any details because I'm in a really remote place with very little internet. Over the last couple of days I've discovered that the wired world no longer cares for those with 7kbs connections :-)
Yeah, it's things like this. Not the easies thing to google as Gaza doesn't exactly has any unbiased journalists; hopefully, I'll be able to provide you with some sources later in the evening.
That's sort of the point I was making though (even though I couldn't see the article, that's the story that seemed to dominate when I searched in Google).
On paper, that's "collaborating" with Isreal leading to execution (GP: "they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this").
I suspect that there was a (horrible) case like this that was promoted within Israel to drive the sort of talk that I was responding to. An incident is taken out of context, rebranded and sold as normal behaviour by a demon state.
I'd like to see the articles about people in Gaza being killed for getting support from people in Israel.
I think your desire to participate is commendable. I don't know anything about the safety risks of collaboration to Gazans, it's very sad situation and I appreciate that it's very complex and possibly dangerous. I'd certainly be interested to learn more.
Otherwise, I'd imagine (possibly naively) that remote mentoring would be something good.
If it were possible for you to participate - would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.
The terrorists just got reelected in Israel too. I'm always amazed that Israelis believe their government's propaganda about "human shields" used to excuse terrorist acts like the bombing of UN schools.
"the terrorists that have power in Gaza". You start from the wrong premise. You're defining them terrorists because that allows you to dismiss their fight as "terrorism". Given that Israel is an occupying power in Gaza (yes, "in January 2012, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General stated that under resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, the UN still regards Gaza to be part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory") the combatants in Gaza are freedom fighters.
There are several things wrong with your argument. Usually, I don't respond to things like this — but I have come to learn that commenters on Hacker News are unusually reasonable and intelligent people, so I decided to make an effort and explain all things wrong with this statement.
(These are separate and atomic arguments, which don't depend on each other logically).
1. You assume that "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" are mutually exclusive definitions, while one of them refers to the organisation methods and the other to organisation goals. Deliberately (this is very important word) attacking civilians and trying to increase civilian death toll in order to create a state of terror is, by definition, a terrorist tactic.
2. You go from "UN regards" to "objective fact" pretty easily. This implies that you hold UN as organisation to be of highest authority and consider it's opinion true by default. This approach needs some backup. All other things considered, you could write it as "UN regards them as freedom fighters" (which UN doesn't). Or "by UN logic".
3. You assume that these organisation goal is freedom from perceived (not debating this point now) occupation. However, that's not what they state. These organisations state that their goal is (1) destruction of state of Israel and (2) murder of all jews, primarily living in these territories (but not limited to them). If these organisations succeeded in their stated goals, they, of course, would get "freedom from occupation" (as they perceive it), but it would only be a byproduct of their mail goal, which can not be described other than genocide.
And finally, just out of respect for anonymous commenter on the site that I keep in a very high regard. Just in case you really want to keep a reasonable, logical, healthy discussion, and not a flame war. When you try to put a positive spin on these terrorist organisations, 99% of israelis wouldn't even consider responding to you. Because when you start telling people that organisations with motto "kill all jews" are misunderstood good guys, you don't seem like a guy worth having a discussion with.
Thanks for your answer. Maybe my use of the word repercussions was a bit strong - I don't know much about attitudes there and I am asking out of curiosity, not as a challenge etc. In any case, it sounds like the general population are empathetic, and there would be little or no prejudice from your peers etc. These are small, but good things. So... if there were no risks of collaboration for Gazans, I assume there would be a lot more positive interaction between everyone?
It is illegal, but the sole reason is the risk for israelis. In 2000 or 2001 (I don't remember exactly) two soldiers took a wrong turn and got into a palestinian village by mistake; they were literally torn to pieces by an angry mob. If the risk would be gone, these rules would be gone too.
Still, I have a couple of friends who travelled to the territories illegally, with help from their local friends — just for sightseeing. Personally, I think that they were being reckless and stupid, but it's certainly not unheard of.
That is just sad. So I guess that only leaves them with one option and that is to eliminate the other side, since educating/mentoring is not in their interests?
I'm a little bit confused about whom did you mean by "they" and "other side" in this comment. The Gaza government (Hamas) and people of Gaza are NOT the same entity, and Israel and israelis have very different feelings towards them (unless they are retarded far-right racists).
I can't speak about the government — but the people are very interested. It's not the zero-sum game; the better the gazans and palestinians have it, the less power hate propaganda has over them, the less wars and acts of terror we'll have to endure.
I feel the fear of association to person-to-person humanitarian aid[1] is why we need to use community moderated, distributed, and anonymous tools[2] to monetize empathy.
We need to fund research, expression, and development without simply monetizing and recreating social contract barriers to entry as social media barriers.
To solve the pervasive language of hidden trauma[3] problems — so empathy is empowered over identity issues — we need less closed forms and more open fields. Taboo of sharing itself, is deeper than the digital divide.
Meta: I understood this, but dang, this comment was thick with obfuscation. Somebody told me once that many times you can tell the contentiousness of an issue by noting the impenetrability of the verbiage used to converse about it.
So, what are conditions like? Is there a talent pool? Is infrastructure working (Do they have brownouts, are there a lot of people with internet)? Is it easy for investors to get their money in and out?
Lord - Conditions are no-doubt tough, but there is internet infrastructure, and there is most definitely talent. Brownouts do occur in the evenings. Gaza Sky Geeks also has a generator so that entrepreneurs in the co-working space can work late. Investing is not an issue. There's a new $9M fund that just formed to focus on Gaza.
"This building is the new place for your new startup, the burocracy is atrocious and humiliating; not people neither prime matters can enter or go out freely from here, and the entire place is systematically ravaged and firebombed each two or three years killing your workers, otherwise is fine."
"Last year this nice new zone is flattened and 'cleaned' of people... 1000 or maybe 2000 people were killed, I don't remember... and now we want you (again) to give us your money and effort to clean our mess. We need reclaim the area rebuilding this new free space ASAP to secure the place. Thanks"
Just being as cold blooded and logic as I can... Can someone provide a reason to invest in such unstable place? Will you advise someone to create his/her new startup in a warzone? Why?