Watch how quickly this disappears from the front page despite getting the most upvotes.
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Israel is an ally of every country in the west. People say "stop criticizing them because you can't do that until you complain about every other problem on earth first!" and it's a very strange, conditioned behavior not seen when problems pertaining to any other country are brought up. And the big difference between Iran and Israel: Israel isn't cut off from the world economically, and in some places (many US states), boycotting them is even illegal.
None of my tax dollars or purchases fund the Iranian government. Lots of our money funds Israel against our will. That's why people get angry.
The US does support Israel but this is a story about the UK. The UK does not support Israel and even partially boycotts Israel at the moment.
If you're American then your tax money e.g. funds Egypt. Egypt is a dictatorship, no human rights, involved in the Sudan civil war where millions are dying. Not a beep on Hacker News.
EDIT: Not to mention the billions of dollars, including indirectly to Hamas, coming from the west.
And I apologize in advance to any Egyptian readers out there, but Egypt has a very low reputation these days. I've not once seen a positive comment about the country in these past 10 years. Nobody is flooding in to defend Egypt when their problems are brought up and saying "Before you criticize Egypt, what about..."
And if you hold your country to the standards of, as you said, oppressive dictatorships that support brutal wars, that's a low standard and will attract criticism.
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/07/uk-sent-isra...
"UK defends partial Israel arm sales ban"
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2np2l5mlko
Partial arms sales ban is not an ally in my book. Many countries sell arms to other countries they are not even close to being allied with.
EDIT: Also count for me how many anti-Egypt stories made HN front page over the last 2 (or 10) years and how many anti-Israel stories made it.
> I've not once seen a positive comment about the country in these past 10 years.
We are not talking about positive comments (even though I'm sure we've seen some) we're talking about Israel being singled out for attack and being denied the right to defend itself against Hamas.