[Udik]

"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.

[golergka]

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.

[Udik]

1) You might be right in saying that terrorist and freedom fighter are not mutually exclusive definitions. But the importance you attribute to the methods doesn't convince me. Partly because there's an obvious overlap between regular military actions and terroristic actions. I could cite the infamous Dresden bombing, or the Hiroshima and Nagasaki ones. Were those military or terror attacks? Was Israel's attack on Gaza in 2014 a military or a terror attack, given that 3/4 of the victims were civilians (among which 550 children, 300 women)? Is more of a terrorist an Hamas combatant who launches a rocket in the direction of a city, knowing perfectly that most probably it won't cause any victims (he should be very stupid to think otherwise), or the pilot of a jet that knows that 3/4 of his victims will be civilians? To be totally frank with you, I think that most "terrorists" would much prefer to be able to fly fighter jets and surgically bomb only the enemy's combatants, at least with the precision demonstrated by Israel in Gaza. So for you it is a difference of methods; for me, it is a difference of means.

2) It's often repeated that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, and what it got in return? Only hatred and terrorism. Well, this make it sound like Israel made peace with Gaza and gave it absolute freedom, but this is completely false. Israel removed its settlers from Gaza, but retained total control over its airspace, maritime access and all borders. Would you call Israel free if Iran had complete control of your airspace, coasts and borders? Oh, no, what an idea! Israel would be under siege! And so it is for Gaza. After Hamas won democratic elections in Gaza in 2006 (with an electoral platform that among other things renounced the call for the destruction of Israel), Israel shut the borders of Gaza preventing the flow of people and goods. As a consequence of that, 70% of Gaza's workforce are unemployed and 80% of its residents live in poverty.

3) I don't know where you're getting this idea that the goal of Hamas (I suppose you're talking about Hamas) is to "murder all the Jews". The original charter of Hamas, dated 1988, calls for the end of Israel but stresses, in two separate articles, that it "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned". (Yes, Judaism is explicitly included). It's an extremists' manifesto, no doubts. But no murdering of the Jews as far as I can see. Then, in the elections of 2006, the electoral platform explicitly renounced the (political, not physical, which was never even contemplated) end of Israel and embraced a two states solution. Now, consider Likud, which just won another election in Israel. Its charter states that Likud flatly opposes a two-states solution, and it wants to gain to Israel all land west of the Jordan. Its leader Netanyahu was elected just the other day after promising that with him no two states solution was possible. Who's calling for the demise of the other?

As for the Israelis that wouldn't even respond to me.. well, seen the results of the recent elections, I doubt that the majority of Israelis are even vaguely aware of what the reality of the situation is and of what would be a balanced point of view. Israel is very rapidly losing the sympathies of the western world - a good part of which it had never earned with its actions but were just the results of the west's sense of guilt. Israelis seem hypnotized by some desire of revenge and total military victory, and completely incapable of seeing their own faults. Nothing good can come out of it, for anybody.