ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

I wish politics articles wouldn't make it to the top page of Hacker News. There's already enough political discussion in a million other places.

Yes, and we won't let HN turn into a current affairs site, but this site has always had a certain amount of political content, and that's why this particular thread is happening. For more information, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146184 and the links there.

Is there a reason why Oct 7th (the massacre that started this escalation) was not discussed?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1696896000&dateRange=custom&...

I haven't gone back to check this, but I assume users flagged the posts and moderators didn't turn off the flags.

We only turn off flags when it seems like there's some basis and at least some chance for a reflective, substantive discussion. That isn't possible in the immediate aftermath of a shocking event like the atrocities of Oct 7—the reactions are necessarily going to be reflexive rather than reflective; completely understandably so—but the odds of any thoughtful conversation in that state of shock are basically zero.

Not that this thread or the related ones have been anything close to what I would wish for on HN, in terms of thoughtful conversation, but unfortunately we don't have the ability to make that happen, and not discussing the topic at all seems out of the question as well, so here we are with no good position and no solution.

>> We only turn off flags when it seems like there's some basis and at least some chance for a reflective, substantive discussion.

Mokay, but then can I grumble? I've posted several articles on the subject of the alleged genocide of the Palestinians by Israel's IDF, here on HN I mean, and they all got flagged and not unflagged. I took care to post opinions on both sides of the subject, e.g. this public statement by "over 800 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies" warning of potential genocide [1], and this NYT article by historian of genocide Omer Bartov, saying that genocide is not in evidence ("yet") [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38036236

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38228704

Those are articles by scholars who discuss the subject in the most dispassionate manner imaginable (Bartov is particularly a pleasure to read for his level-headed and erudite analysis, although it's obvious he'll find it very hard to admit genocide by his country which he clearly loves) and I'm pretty sure that means they satisfy the "curious conversation" goal you, dang, hold sacred (and it's good that you do).

So what's up? I've been posting this stuff for months and now the subject has exploded in mainstream discourse with the ICJ case, which makes it even more emotionally charged than before. Wouldn't it have been better to get a chance to discuss this before it got to this point?

And while I appreciate there's not one side that HN favours, the ability to flag anything anyone dislikes shapes the discourse in the way vocal minorities prefer.

Sorry for grumbling. I hope you know I respect and admire the work you've done to keep HN on the straight and narrow.