Tech employment had hockey stick growth from 2016-2021 and I suspect the number of HN users followed that curve. My guess is that the ratio of comments/users is the same or perhaps even slightly lower than 2016.
It is sad, but Hamas leaders may just regard all this as a worthwhile sacrifice for their greater cause of Palestinian liberation.
> History has shown that Palestinian lives mean nothing to the Arab world.
They do care. They talk about it every day. They sponsor a good part of the aid. Not letting Gazans out is mostly because Israel may not allow them back in again.
I'm not saying palestinians are a priority to the Arab leaders. They are just doing what is safe for themselves. So no wars or economic blockades. Actually, the Houthis and Hezbollah are doing just that, and they are labeled as terrorists for it.
> What the benefit is to Israel to starve 1.1 million people to death. It would be a good way to turn the entire world against them.
The EU foreign policy chief and the UN said it simply: "It is probably used as a weapon of war." If what Israel had already done did not turn the entire world against them, why do you (or why would they) think this will? Because of the horrors of 7/10, Israel now believes it has carte blanche. It was bad before, but now almost all limits are off.
There is a recurrent misunderstanding in this conflict, where people think it is a religious war. It's not. It's plain old landgrabbing and pillaging. The best historical parallel it's not the crusades. It's what happened in the Americas after Columbus arrived here. The indigenous people got decimated and the remnants expelled because people from far away felt entitled to take their lands, and had the means to do so.
Also, we see lots of comparisons between Gaza and Ukraine, but one important difference, as pointed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb[1](the author of Black Swan), is that despite being an anachronistic expansionary nationalist, Putin views Ukrainians as Russians and wants to forcibly incorporate them in his nation. On the other hand, the Israeli regime considers Palestinians as just vermin to exclude, displace and exterminate. Once they are forced out of Gaza, the chance they will be allowed to return is zero.
>Putin views Ukrainians as Russians and wants to forcibly incorporate them in his nation.
You couldn't be more wrong. Putin's goal is to exterminate the Ukrainian people. Russia has been trying to do that for over a century. Taleb needs to read some history, preferably not Russian written.
>we see lots of comparisons between Gaza and Ukraine, but one important difference
You missed the other important difference, Ukraine never attacked Russia, Hamas/Gaza attacked Israel.
One correction, the entire palestinian territory was attached by israel, forcefully. It's as if ukraine attacking its own territory, which it does now, because the russians are ruling those parts. Not to mention the massacres committed against the people in 1948, as part of foundation. And the continued discrimination. EU and US are sanctioning people who settle in westbank now. Is Russia going to Kiev and attaching homes from the Ukrainians, and giving to people from Moscow?
I think there are so many important differences it that any comparison is bound to be unhelpful.
To name a few:
- Ethnic differences: Ukrainians and Russians have a lot of shared heritage, while Arabic Jews have largely assimilated into the European settlers, so there is not a lot of shared heritage between Israel and Palestine.
- Size of respective military: While the Russian military is an order of magnitude larger than the Ukrainian one, the Israel army is several orders of magnitude larger than any armed resistance of the Palestinians.
- International recognition: While both the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are internationally recognized Palestinian territory, and the Palestinian Authority is the recognized government of Palestine, Palestine is merely an observer state of the UN, not a full member like Ukraine. And importantly powerful western nations don’t recognize Palestine as a state (even though most of the world does).
- Nature of armed resistance: Palestinian resistance is done by non-state actors using guerilla tactics, while Ukraine has a conventional military controlled by the state.
- Control over territory: Ukraine controlled most of its own territory before the war, Palestine only controlled Gaza, and only partially, and the the limited control was held by a political organization which is distinct from the internationally recognized one.
I think if we want to look for comparisons, we don’t actually need to go all the way back to the crusades, it is enough to look at European colonial warfare post WW2. Where Europe was desperately trying to hold on to their colonies, e.g. in Algeria or Kenya in the 50s, Vietnam in the 60s, Angola in the 70s, etc. Even Northern Ireland in the 90s (although Ireland in the early 20s is more like it).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb actually started his tweet by saying:
> Comparisons between Ukraine and Gaza are bad verbalisms.
Also that is just not true. Looking at the Mongol culture, they don’t share religion, language roots, architecture, dances, hunting practice, literature, economy, sports etc. with Russia. However Ukraine—while distinct—has a lot in common.
Russia shares a tiny bit of history and some of the gene pool with the Mongols, however Russia shares a lot more of it’s history and much much more of its gene pool with Ukraine. And also the gene pool is a very unimportant—if any—part of shared heritage.
Also today : More than 800 serving officials in the US and Europe have signed a statement warning that their own governments' policies on the Israel-Gaza war could amount to "grave violations of international law [1]
FYI, You can now have 6 years of major android upgrades for 200$ with the A16 [1]
[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=13346&idPhone...