Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

Wonder why this made the frontpage when other political articles die.

Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?

No, the rules haven't changed—they've been the same for many years. Let me try to dig up some past explanations.

Edit: here's one from a few months ago, which covers the principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815.

Re how we approach political topics on HN in general: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re how we deal with Major Ongoing Topics, i.e. topics where there are a ton of articles and submissions over time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re how we approach turning off flags: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re the perception that "HN has been getting more political lately" (spoiler: it hasn't - though it does fluctuate): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.

If you or anyone will check out some of those links and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

I've never discussed this topic with Garry and no one at YC has tried to influence how we moderate HN on this or any other political topic.

You might want to check out the part of the HN FAQ which explains that the moderators are editorially independent: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

I feel like parent probably meant Paul Graham. Garry holds polar opposite opinions (he blocked me on X because he had had made claims about what Intifada means, and as an Arabic speaker I felt compelled to point out the correct meaning).

In any case, I don't think Paul or Garry are interfering with the algorithm or moderation here.

maybe because we are two years into an event that will define the early 21st century.

Just wanna say this is the kind of day where I feel like I should send you a fruit basket or something for the work you do here.

Yep, I meant pg

C'mon man, the Charlie Kirk post stayed on the front-page for a pretty long time.

Looking at the official HN guidelines, it states that "Most stories about politics" is off-topic, and "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic".

Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?

Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?

I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.

Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.

For me, this is meaningful because for the first time a legitimate international body is calling this a genocide.

Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.

Francesca Albanese has held the genocide line since day one as the UN special rapporteur on israel and palestine

She's hardly impartial. Her husband worked for the Palestinian Authority.

Wether she is or not is not for me to decide - at any rate, her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?

And if you think the UN rapporteur is too biased to do their job correctly, why do you care what the UN does?

Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other. The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians". That idea was because Israel could name 17% of the casualties in Hamas registers as members of the organization. But assuming that every other casualty is a civilian is quite a stretch. For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills while he's aiming an RPG at them. For another, there are many other militant organizations in the strip, notably the Islamic Jihad. For a third, typically 75% - 90% of the casualties of war are civilians by the UN's own numbers.

I think you are the only good moderator on the internet.

Israel and Israeli businesses are an intractable part of the modern American tech scene. Mellanox, for example, is the cited reason Nvidia ships any datacenter-scale interconnect at all today. America's highest-tech defense contractors work in direct concert with Rafael et. al, and companies like Cellebrite are suppliers of US law enforcement.

When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.

With the amount of moderation that post seemed to be taking, I fully expected it to be killed quickly. Was pretty surprised it stayed up.

Ooh, can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?

Wait, you know people who were killed by Hamas? You can’t even pretend to be impartial.

> A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?

Personally, one aspect I always enjoyed about this site was how it was often an escape for me from the endless bombardments of political discourse that is constantly being shown/recommend to me on other platforms. I do understand the importance of the nature of these types of discussions, but I agree with you, I am not certain much honest debate is being had here.

In the n number of threads like this, I would be surprised if many leave with any of their opinions changed. All too often do people comment to soothe their own knee-jerk reactions rather than to facilitate understanding or intellectually challenge one another.

> There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.

That doesn't seem true to me. I'm seeing lots of opinions I don't agree with.

> When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.

If the topics and responses pertained to such a discussion, then that would be one thing. However, it seems like that is not what is being discussed in this topic nor comments section.

Yes, but as pg once put it, "note those words most and probably" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4922426). That was in 2012, btw, which shows how far back HN's approach to this goes.

That leaves open the question of which stories to treat as on topic, but the links in my GP comment go into detail about how we handle that.

I'm not saying we always make the correct call about individual stories. There will never be general agreement about that, since every reader has a different set of things they care about. But I hope we can at least make the principles clear, as well as the fact that they haven't changed.

What does the word Intifada actually mean? You have piqued my interest now.

Pages 51-54 contain a list of on-the-record quotes from the government itself. Those, at least, are not in contention.

> can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?

The point is that, as someone with limited stakes in this war and limited exposure to its history until recently, unbiased sources have been hard to come by. The entire definition of genocide has been politicised. That isn't a criticism of anyone doing it--language is a powerful tool, and it's fair game to try and bend definitions to one's advantage. But all that makes piercing the veil on whether this is the horribleness of war being selectively cited, or a selectively horrible war, tough.

This report cuts through that. The evidence is compelling, albeit less primary than I'd have hoped. The writing is clear and impartial. (Though again, a lot of secondary sourcing.) It doesn't seek to answer who is at fault for what is, essentially, an intractable multigenerational conflict (even before we involve proxies). It just seeks to simply answer a question, and in my opinion, having now skimmed (but not deeply contemplated) it, it does.

The balance of evidence suggests Israel is prosecuting a genocide against the people of Palestine. That creates legitimacy for escalating a regional conflict (one among money, I may add, and nowhere close to the deadliest) into an international peacekeeping operation.

Unfortunately, all of this rests on a system of international law that basically all the great powers of this generation (China, then Russia, and now America and India) have undermined.

Conversely, some of us don't hang out on sites that are an endless bombardment of political discourse. That sounds awful. The HN approach seems uniquely useful. One or two post on an event, easily skipped over and ignored if you want with all the comments hidden behind clicking on that headline. Whole trees of comments trivially collapsed at will when they become uninteresting. It is actually a really great way of getting international news (including US news for me) and sampling opinions and commentary, even if it was not intended that way.

> her analysis seems to have been absolutely spot on if we are now recognizing it is a genocide, isn't it?

No, no more than someone who predicts a market crash every day is proven right the one time they nail it. The quality and objectivity of the analysis matters. Not just the conclusion.

I'm uninsterested in your credibility or opinion on wether or not it's a genocide.

Courts have ruled it is. The world has ruled it is. You can skirm all you want, in 6 months you'll say you always thought it was a genocide. Mark my words.

She didn't predict anything, she analysed evidence and arrived to the same conclusion as the ruling you qre recognizing today.

Odd you can't reconcile that both parties can be correct

A market crash is a one-time event. A genocide is ongoing. This would be like someone claiming since 2003 there was a pedo ring in the upper echelons of society and everyone calling them a liar until...

Because it's BS. The rules are secondary to someone's political agenda.

I believe that it means "a shaking" as in "to shake off". But Arabic is not my first language (nor my second, it's number 4).

And they are interpreted in the fashion most damning to Israel, whereas much worse on-the-record quotes from other bodies, notably those bodies which have demonstrated intent to destroy Israel, are interpreted more favourably.

What court has ruled this a genocide? The "top UN legal investigators" was a 3-person commission of the UN HRC.

  > she analysed evidence and arrived to the same conclusion as the ruling you qre recognizing today.

No, the UNHCR's conclusion is based on her report. Your argument is circular.

The evidence didnt exist day 1

It would be interesting to know how articles like this compared to the average article. How are the ratios of downvotes to upvotes, flagged to non-flagged, and comments to views? Are people who comment here positively or negative correlating to creating non-flaged/downvoted comments on other articles?

To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?

Many more downvotes and flags for sure. I can't answer your other questions without specifically looking into it, but my guess would be many more comments and much more negativity.

  > international peacekeeping operation

Just like those international peace keepers abetted Hezbollah, providing them intel and cover, even illuminating our assets via spotlights for Hezbollah?

Or just like those international peacekeepers who filmed Hezbollah breach our border, kill soldiers, abduct others? And then when this was discovered, refused to share the unedited video with Israel?

We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?

Yet buried 3 or 4 levels in the comments is where you find this post :)

you aren't using the word "intractable" right. meant "inextricable" maybe.

What do the word Führer mean? Foreign words used in English can be more specific than how they are used in their source language. Especially when they are used as proper nouns (capitalized) like "The [Second] Intifada".

> The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians".

Which means that at least 83% are.

[flagged]

fwiw I think y'all do a fine enough job of dealing with this difficult nuanced stance. I've noticed that when they stick around, it appears to be a combo of: this seems important enough, the community can probably have a civil conversation around this, people who don't participate will find learnings through the comments still. These 3 things always seem well satisfied, personally I appreciate the measured nature of this community and thank you and tom for the genuine work of trying to maintain the balances.

Nobody knowledgeable about the circumstances of that number could reasonably come to the conclusion you've come to.

Please make your substantive points without crossing into personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t know! But the point of peacekeepers is the belligerents lose their votes.

I think it always has the potential to be "intellectually satisfying" and there's an obvious 'tech' angle woven through it all. So much of it is tied to how information spreads and which technologies enable that. (And, how an actor can use technologies to their advantage).

I think that reference to "TV news" is outdated. Media has changed and there isn't even a clear division between what a media org puts on TV vs on the web.

And this sub-topic in particular (genocide ruling) isn't really getting a ton of mainstream news coverage -- many news orgs are deliberately distancing themselves from proper coverage. The story may exist on news sites, but it's not being surfaced.

One question went unanswered: Can we get an Epstein thread this week?

What about "there is war in the middle east, still/again" is remotely unique enough in the last century to be a defining moment of the half-century?

If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.

The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.

Yeah, that was pretty surprising. Usually political stories are flagged and buried pretty quickly.

Go look at the report and the org and the people in it.

There is nothing "legitimate" about it.

The head of this alleged body is a staunch anti-Israel activist who is not taken seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Pillay#Israel-Gaza_confli...

"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "

They have not.

Not to this degree in the last few decades. But I feel you are overall correct, it's just that the Internet allows for much bigger coverage of the details of the horrors committed, and it's interesting how governments around the world now fail so completely to shape the narrative.

It absolutely does have merit when the point is to highlight hypocrisy and bias.

They have - not in a final ruling, but in mutliple rulings adjacent, provisional measures for example. Feel free to read what the courtd have made public for all to see

The problem with the meaning of “intifada” is that in the US at least, and some other English-speaking countries, it has strong connotations of violence and terrorism dating at least to the 2nd Intifada. The “correct meaning” then becomes somewhat beside the point. Further, if someone in the US uses that term, when speaking in English, it raises a question of which sense they mean it in.

There’s no doubt that this is then used as a weapon against people like Mamdani for having used phrases such as “globalize the intifada.” But that’s going to be an uphill battle to “correct”, because you’re dealing with people who are already biased, are often unaware of their bias, and are interpreting things in a way that fits that bias.

Yeah it's worse.

The October 7th attacks were way worse than Hamas attacks that came before in recent history. The response was way worse than what has happened before in recent history.

And so both sides feel fully justified with their courses of action, because of what the other side did to them. That is the part that is so much not unique.

They have not.

https://x.com/Mr_Andrew_Fox/status/1783621258032136550

It's a basic need for people to feel safe. I wish that for everybody and most of all for the children of this world.

Legal judgements often make it to the front page of HN as they are as independent as we manage as humans. I don't feel having this post slanders Israel. It would be more interesting to understand what part of the UN investigation you disagree with.

> You owe Hacker News users two things, one a statement of what political content will be allowed and what won’t and two a declaration of your political boundaries.

They owe us nothing. Except perhaps sticking to their past commitments. You can always ask for a refund of your membership fee as last resort. HN is not a journalistic endeavour.

> I say this since I have never seen a pro-Israel post on this platform

Seems irrelevant as the OP is actually not anti-Isreal.

> but as an Israeli, I want to feel safe on my news platform

Having to see criticism of the actions of the government and military of the nation you live in when they step over ethical lines is not a threat to your safety. It's healthy.

Here's an interview with a UNICEF worker who has spent a great deal of time on the ground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0

This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of water, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.

This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas.

There's a very large list of actions that can only be targeted against the civilian population, and have aimed-at and realised a genocide.

When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished -- then your words indicating this is deliberate, given it could only be deliberate anyway, are interpreted differently, yes.

When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.

One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.

Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.

If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.

> Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other...

You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?

> For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills

Does it at least know who it is raping?

  The commission has previously found Israel to be guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including extermination, torture, rape, sexual violence and other inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, forcible transfer, persecution based on gender and starvation as a method of warfare.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-867600

Not a speaker either, but I understand “uprising” to be a better translation.

> When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished

Show me the evidence. You can find Arabic speaking influencers eating out in Gaza on social media. You can find security camera images of full supermarkets. The facts on the ground don’t match the narrative.

Far from withholding food, most of the food coming into Gaza now is via the Israel government, which is doing an end run around Hamas to get food to the people. Because Hamas, not the IDF, was shooting up aid trucks and taking all the food, both for their own use and to sell at inflated prices.

Hamas via MENA media companies is pushing the narrative of a famine because controlling the food supply is a primary means of extracting money from the population to further the war. Get Americans and Europeans to donate to starving Gazans, to fill the coffers of Hamas.

Here's an interview with a UNICEF worker who has spent a great deal of time on the ground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0

It's a bit of a catch-22.

Sending food wherever, leads to it being captured by Hamas / local militias (for lack of a better word) so you have to distribute where you can protect it.

But of course where you have soldiers is where you'll take fire.

Maybe she cared about your own people, you wouldn't engage in places where humanitarian aid was being distributed

I'd invite you to watch the interview, all of this is addressed. The israeli placement of 4 aid distribution centres (out of the required and initial 400) has nothing to do with hamas.

Even the Israeli military admits that there is zero evidence of Hamas stealing aid.

Yes, that is why I am asking.

Governments are still shaping the narrative, it's just that the ones that are most skilled and successful in manipulating social media happen to be the non-Western ones (Think about China controlling Tiktok, or the various Russia election influence theories).

When having a politically-controversial long-running Major Ongoing Topic with multiple unflagged submissions, is there any obligation to keep some semblance of balance over the submissions that get flags disabled? When the articles making the front page disproportionately favor one side, it is hard to not get the impression that these are the only articles on that issue getting flags disabled.

You could also read a ruling

Isn't the PA mostly funded by Israel? Hamas and PA loathe each other.

Ukraine War started 3 years ago in 2022, not two years ago. Or 11 years ago in 2014, if we count from the illegal annexation of Crimea.

The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.

They haven't ruled yet.

I also read what they published so far.

Bizarrely, it matches what the <checks notes> head of the ICJ said.

Who would have thought?

Haven't they recognised that the rights of Palestinians to be protected from genocide has plausibly been infringed upon? Which is what was said in that excerpt? Edit1: I'm specifically referring to all decisions regarding provisional measures

Edit0:Rulings are not only the final decision, feel free to chat with a lawyer

What more do you need? Indeed, there hasn't been a final ruling yet. What a gotcha!

Edit1: Also, please understand that the distinction you are pointing to is just saying : 1. Palestinians seemingly are being genocided 2. Israel has a responsibility not to ebact acts of genocide on the palestinians 3. Israel keeps failing at this goal and has even has it's leaders express genocidal intent.

Which is to say everything BUT the final ruling - that Israel has committed genocide - as final ruling can't be arrived to expeditedly even in the face of overwhelming evidence

Well yes, a shaking off would be an uprising. But the root of the word is literally the verb "to shake".

I'll give you another one you might like. The root of the word Shahid in Arabic is "witness". This is another term that Western media likes to use incorrectly.

Serious question: Has anyone accused (I’d say slandered but it’s besides the point) your nation of genocide on a platform you trust? Does your nation have mandatory conscription? Does your nation face mainstream media, politicians, artists, actors and other call to annihilate it? This post on Hacker News genuinely made me feel less safe here: not because of words or criticism (which I am the first to support and accept and encourage even) but because of lies being used to encourage the murder of Jews. The murder of Charlie Kirk isn’t a coincidence: we’ve reached a fever pitch where now many people that others should be murdered for their views and words and not for their actions

What is legal about this post? You are aware that the UN is not a legal body and by definition investigators are not judges. You’re actively reversing innocent until proven guilty here

  > You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?

No, I do not think that Navi Pillay is less competent than me. I do however see that she signed off on circular references. Her competence has little to do with her motivations.

  > Does it at least know who it is raping?

Yes. The single incident of rape - a group of soldiers ramming a broomstick up the ass of a captured terrorist who had murdered people - was done by known soldiers and they are being prosecuted. And we know the identity of the man who was raped.

You really have to both listen and understand.

The plausibility is that the Palestinians have a right to be protected from Genocide.

Which is why the court is hearing the case.

There was no decision on the plausibility of Israel infringing on that right, which is what you incorrectly make out of it.

To quote: "It did not decide that the claim of genocide was plausible".

Which is the exact opposite of what you are claiming.

https://x.com/mr_andrew_fox/status/1783621258032136550?s=61