Sorry if I'm being rude, but this sounds like a really bad joke.
"This building is the new place for your new startup, the burocracy is atrocious and humiliating; not people neither prime matters can enter or go out freely from here, and the entire place is systematically ravaged and firebombed each two or three years killing your workers, otherwise is fine."
"Last year this nice new zone is flattened and 'cleaned' of people... 1000 or maybe 2000 people were killed, I don't remember... and now we want you (again) to give us your money and effort to clean our mess. We need reclaim the area rebuilding this new free space ASAP to secure the place. Thanks"
Just being as cold blooded and logic as I can... Can someone provide a reason to invest in such unstable place? Will you advise someone to create his/her new startup in a warzone? Why?
If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I'm aware that I'm being sour and harsh, but in my opinion, and is just an opinion, the sort of Warsaw Ghetto that became Gaza, need a little more that well-meant investors and little kisses at this moment.
I don't want to get into a political argument - but I will say that helping Gazans by directly improving their quality of life (like the OP proposed) is neither mutually exclusive with, nor dependent on, helping Gazans by promoting their cause politically.
It is a defeatist stance to take, in general, that you should abstain from treating a symptom just because it won't also cure the disease and in that sense I think you are working against the cause of Gaza and doing a disservice to Gazans by dissuading people from offering assistance.
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
You're unfortunately correct (about the bombing, not about the excuses), but the children of Gaza need to go to school and the infirm and injured of Gaza need hospitalisation, so not building those facilities is worse than building them and watching them be destroyed a few years later.
Not to mention, empowering moderate and scientifically minded Gazans is probably one of the more productive things one could do to contribute to eventual resolution of the conflict.
I feel that casting all Palestinians as eternal victims with no control over their fate until Israel decides otherwise is pretty patronizing. You're basically denying their agency and labeling them as hopeless children.
This is the opposite of what the initiative is about - it's about bringing normalcy to a troubled region, and if you'd read FAQ you'd see they stress the (relative) safety and economic stability of Gaza. It's a far cry for the "Warsaw Ghetto" and the "Palestinians as cockroaches" that you're throwing around here.
>If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
Sounds good. When are we putting Hamas and other militant groups going to the ICC (because their local justice systems are so unable to promote justice)?
>We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
Seems fair to hold Israel to any standard every other country is held to. Do it!
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
If Israel meticulously bombed the schools and hospitals, would any be standing? They have a lot of bombs and the ability to target fairly precisely for a military- isn't it weird so many hospitals and schools are undamaged? The Israeli military are either incompetent or didn't meticulously target these places.
>with the silliest excuses.
What would an unsilly reason look like? Indiscriminate attacks on civilians doesn't seem to fulfill your requirements.
>There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I didn't know Israel controls all money going in to Gaza. I know they collect tax money on behalf of the PLO and monitor, along with Egypt, all good coming in (excluding those that are smuggled in of course). It's worth looking into how Israel's gets military aid- a coupon from the US government. They aren't stealing other people's money and spending it. Even the tax money they're withholding from the PLO is sitting in accounts, not being spent.
I could respond with snark and derision, but the short answer I will give is: you wanna help Gazans, and maybe help those who help Gazans. Socio-political or ethical network effect, if you will.
I know many Palestinians where I live and work. Many of them, even in their place of residence, are politically hampered into living in a country in the Arab world but not free to travel because they are devoid of political rights. If not because of their country of residents, the issuing body of their travel papers or passports, for many this is Egypt, was so destabilized until now Egyptian authorities would reply officially or otherwise to Palestinians for basic requests like passport renewal: go away, we're busy. And that went on for years.
I know of one person I work with who has a family in Gaza. Her family runs car shops and make decent money where I live. They have had their family's buildings knocked down twice in Israeli military ops in the last five years. They go back and rebuild every time. If we praise SV people for handling "tough problems", how is this not indicative of real entrepreneurship and determination to potentially solve other tough problems in ways we have not conceived? Lots of Africa is now doing WAPI and SMS entrepreneurship in light of limited network infrastructure and proving an interesting counterpoint to our mobile broadband-enabled view of digital startups. Shall we dismiss them because they have situations not much better or worse than Gazans in some of those cases?
Plus, the Palestinan expat community is wide and diverse, in the US, Europe, the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Asia. Misplaced or not, many non-Palestinian Arab communities would buy or donate to any Palestinian cause out of sympathy. Targeting them as a demographic could be viable. And frankly, using the famed "hustle as much as you hate" meme my friends throw around, I would milk that for all it is worth if I was Palestinian.
Just to be clear, this isn't in the article. So if you're trying to paraphrase, you did a really poor job.
Also, people in warzones deserve a helping hand to make them feel normal. It's not in conflict currently. Yes the blockade is bad, but technology is the type of startup that it effects the least.
Also providing humanity to Gaza does not exclude one from trying to bring Israel to court for its war crimes. The latter is just much, much, harder.
Sorry if this had lead to confusion. This is not a quotation, at least not in this sense. I'm talking about a joke and explaining the "joke" in the next paragraphs in a sarcastic (but honest) way, hence the use of quotes. It would have been really rude of me not quoting my text when I'm talking about thousands of people 'cleaned' from an area. Never was supposed to be taken as a literal extract from the web linked, of course.
Hi PValde, I agree with you the chances are very low and stakes are high when it comes to investing in a warzone, but it most probably works better to fight the odds and actually solve a problem as a startup.
I started 3 startups in North Iraq, perhaps not so much of a warzone these days, but still affected by all the drama coming out of it.
The problems I was facing were almost the same when I did my other startup in Sydney Australia, except there were some other odds added to it.
In fact Nokia Maps acquired my startup and it was we had such low burning rate / solving a real problem using proper technology.
So I guess investing in them would make sense at the end of the day if you know what and which ones to go for.
i wonder whether there are student exchange or similar programs between Israel and Gaza. Specifically in this case - my understanding that Israel has pretty booming tech scene and one would expect that sharing the experience with Gazans would be a win/win for both sides.
The only ways for foreigners to get into Gaza is when they work for an international humanitarian organization or when they are journalists. I run Gaza Sky Geeks and live in Gaza. I have seen Jewish Americans come frequently, both as humanitarian workers and as journalists.
Imon, what about remote work from gaza? how's the situation ? Because assuming there's the right talent and enough stability to work, this seems like something that could attract many employers, both from financial/talent perspectives and from the doing good perspective. And it could be very scalable, maybe even having real impact on the region.
As a developer from Israel, I'd like to participate in something like this — but I don't think that there's any opportunity for me to do this. From what I understand, even if someone tried to do something like that on the other side, they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this.
Do you have anything to back that up? I'd be interested in reading about it.
Edit: I can see there's an article here that sounds like the root of this sort of statement but I can't read any details because I'm in a really remote place with very little internet. Over the last couple of days I've discovered that the wired world no longer cares for those with 7kbs connections :-)
Yeah, it's things like this. Not the easies thing to google as Gaza doesn't exactly has any unbiased journalists; hopefully, I'll be able to provide you with some sources later in the evening.
That's sort of the point I was making though (even though I couldn't see the article, that's the story that seemed to dominate when I searched in Google).
On paper, that's "collaborating" with Isreal leading to execution (GP: "they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this").
I suspect that there was a (horrible) case like this that was promoted within Israel to drive the sort of talk that I was responding to. An incident is taken out of context, rebranded and sold as normal behaviour by a demon state.
I'd like to see the articles about people in Gaza being killed for getting support from people in Israel.
I think your desire to participate is commendable. I don't know anything about the safety risks of collaboration to Gazans, it's very sad situation and I appreciate that it's very complex and possibly dangerous. I'd certainly be interested to learn more.
Otherwise, I'd imagine (possibly naively) that remote mentoring would be something good.
If it were possible for you to participate - would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.
Thanks for your answer. Maybe my use of the word repercussions was a bit strong - I don't know much about attitudes there and I am asking out of curiosity, not as a challenge etc. In any case, it sounds like the general population are empathetic, and there would be little or no prejudice from your peers etc. These are small, but good things. So... if there were no risks of collaboration for Gazans, I assume there would be a lot more positive interaction between everyone?
It is illegal, but the sole reason is the risk for israelis. In 2000 or 2001 (I don't remember exactly) two soldiers took a wrong turn and got into a palestinian village by mistake; they were literally torn to pieces by an angry mob. If the risk would be gone, these rules would be gone too.
Still, I have a couple of friends who travelled to the territories illegally, with help from their local friends — just for sightseeing. Personally, I think that they were being reckless and stupid, but it's certainly not unheard of.
"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.
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.
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.
The terrorists just got reelected in Israel too. I'm always amazed that Israelis believe their government's propaganda about "human shields" used to excuse terrorist acts like the bombing of UN schools.
That is just sad. So I guess that only leaves them with one option and that is to eliminate the other side, since educating/mentoring is not in their interests?
I'm a little bit confused about whom did you mean by "they" and "other side" in this comment. The Gaza government (Hamas) and people of Gaza are NOT the same entity, and Israel and israelis have very different feelings towards them (unless they are retarded far-right racists).
I can't speak about the government — but the people are very interested. It's not the zero-sum game; the better the gazans and palestinians have it, the less power hate propaganda has over them, the less wars and acts of terror we'll have to endure.
Of course. I would argue that our hate level is very different — but I think that this is because of life level difference. Poor and hungry people have much more potential for hate. And that's exactly the reason why I'd want them to stop being poor and hungry (apart from basic human compassion, of course).
Ah, and the fact that Israel keeps Gaza under a total embargo, flattens it every two years or so, killing thousands of people - civilians for the great majority, and children- that doesn't play a role, huh? It's just poverty and ignorance... FFS.
And the action that prompted it to the action of the other side that prompted it before.. ad infinitum. The only way out of this loop is to ask yourself "who's occupying whose territory? Who's preventing the others from becoming a state? And who does the most killing"? And for all three questions, the answer is always Israel.
The questions that people sharing your position unfortunately don't ask themselves are different. Try "What actions can Israel do to change it" and "what will this result in", for starters.
Try to put yourself in Israel's place. Just imagine it for a minute. Israel disengaged from Gaza 10 years ago. What did it get in return? More security? Less attacks? Better relationship with organisations governing the territory? Would answers to these questions encourage you (you're in Israel place, remember) to make more steps like this?
If I were israel, I would say, I have to figure out what I want. Do I want the territory from the river to the sea? if so, we annex all the land and it becomes 1 person/1 vote and you have to accept that all the refugees return to the land. Israel doesnt want this because there will be an arab majority (I wonder how that happened...). That's what I would do if I were israel.
The Other option is 2 states (which is actually what is written in international law btw), 1967 boarders with east Jerusalem as the palestinian capital, stop occupation and remove all settlers, checkpoints, military bases, etc from palestinian territories and maybe no right of return to to refugees who's houses and land were stolen inside of what is now called israel. They will return to palestine 1967 boarder.
How about the acts of terror that Palestinians endure by israeli occupiers? Oh wait... Palestinians are not jewish so its okay... .they werent chosen by god to be shipped in from europe and the north america to get a free homeland.
I feel the fear of association to person-to-person humanitarian aid[1] is why we need to use community moderated, distributed, and anonymous tools[2] to monetize empathy.
We need to fund research, expression, and development without simply monetizing and recreating social contract barriers to entry as social media barriers.
To solve the pervasive language of hidden trauma[3] problems — so empathy is empowered over identity issues — we need less closed forms and more open fields. Taboo of sharing itself, is deeper than the digital divide.
Meta: I understood this, but dang, this comment was thick with obfuscation. Somebody told me once that many times you can tell the contentiousness of an issue by noting the impenetrability of the verbiage used to converse about it.
Nice idea, but not practical. Before the first intifada, a large number of Gazans worked in Israel. Afterwards, Israel put up security restrictions to prevent terrorism. Hamas also restricts travel to Israel since it's afraid people will develop positive attitudes to Israel or become collaborators.
So, what are conditions like? Is there a talent pool? Is infrastructure working (Do they have brownouts, are there a lot of people with internet)? Is it easy for investors to get their money in and out?
Lord - Conditions are no-doubt tough, but there is internet infrastructure, and there is most definitely talent. Brownouts do occur in the evenings. Gaza Sky Geeks also has a generator so that entrepreneurs in the co-working space can work late. Investing is not an issue. There's a new $9M fund that just formed to focus on Gaza.
Sorry if I'm being rude, but this sounds like a really bad joke.
"This building is the new place for your new startup, the burocracy is atrocious and humiliating; not people neither prime matters can enter or go out freely from here, and the entire place is systematically ravaged and firebombed each two or three years killing your workers, otherwise is fine."
"Last year this nice new zone is flattened and 'cleaned' of people... 1000 or maybe 2000 people were killed, I don't remember... and now we want you (again) to give us your money and effort to clean our mess. We need reclaim the area rebuilding this new free space ASAP to secure the place. Thanks"
Just being as cold blooded and logic as I can... Can someone provide a reason to invest in such unstable place? Will you advise someone to create his/her new startup in a warzone? Why?
To support people of Gaza through something really helpful and not politically laden, I'd guess.
If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I'm aware that I'm being sour and harsh, but in my opinion, and is just an opinion, the sort of Warsaw Ghetto that became Gaza, need a little more that well-meant investors and little kisses at this moment.
I don't want to get into a political argument - but I will say that helping Gazans by directly improving their quality of life (like the OP proposed) is neither mutually exclusive with, nor dependent on, helping Gazans by promoting their cause politically.
It is a defeatist stance to take, in general, that you should abstain from treating a symptom just because it won't also cure the disease and in that sense I think you are working against the cause of Gaza and doing a disservice to Gazans by dissuading people from offering assistance.
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside. Is reasonable to asume that if we pay again, the new schools and hospitales will be bombed again in the next two or three years, with the silliest excuses.
You're unfortunately correct (about the bombing, not about the excuses), but the children of Gaza need to go to school and the infirm and injured of Gaza need hospitalisation, so not building those facilities is worse than building them and watching them be destroyed a few years later.
Not to mention, empowering moderate and scientifically minded Gazans is probably one of the more productive things one could do to contribute to eventual resolution of the conflict.
It is possible to do both
I feel that casting all Palestinians as eternal victims with no control over their fate until Israel decides otherwise is pretty patronizing. You're basically denying their agency and labeling them as hopeless children.
This is the opposite of what the initiative is about - it's about bringing normalcy to a troubled region, and if you'd read FAQ you'd see they stress the (relative) safety and economic stability of Gaza. It's a far cry for the "Warsaw Ghetto" and the "Palestinians as cockroaches" that you're throwing around here.
>If we really want to help the people of Gaza we need first to put the people that killed children, women and innocent men of Gaza, in front of an international trial. And stop voting to them. Is as simple as that.
Sounds good. When are we putting Hamas and other militant groups going to the ICC (because their local justice systems are so unable to promote justice)?
>We need also to stop tolerating to be labelled as "anti-semitic behaviour" to bona fide criticizing Israel for breaking repeatedly a lot of international laws about human rights, each three years, and for treating palestinian people as human cockroaches.
Seems fair to hold Israel to any standard every other country is held to. Do it!
>In the last years USA and Europe were repeatedly urged to pay with trucks full of money the last "Gaza reconstruction". We paid for rebuilding exactly the same UN schools and hospitals that Israel bombed meticulously the last year, in some cases even with UN workers inside.
If Israel meticulously bombed the schools and hospitals, would any be standing? They have a lot of bombs and the ability to target fairly precisely for a military- isn't it weird so many hospitals and schools are undamaged? The Israeli military are either incompetent or didn't meticulously target these places.
>with the silliest excuses. What would an unsilly reason look like? Indiscriminate attacks on civilians doesn't seem to fulfill your requirements.
>There is also the problem that Israel controls the economy of Gaza, so there is not any guarantee that the money for palestinians will not be used instead in buying new bombs to replace that were dropped.
I didn't know Israel controls all money going in to Gaza. I know they collect tax money on behalf of the PLO and monitor, along with Egypt, all good coming in (excluding those that are smuggled in of course). It's worth looking into how Israel's gets military aid- a coupon from the US government. They aren't stealing other people's money and spending it. Even the tax money they're withholding from the PLO is sitting in accounts, not being spent.
I could respond with snark and derision, but the short answer I will give is: you wanna help Gazans, and maybe help those who help Gazans. Socio-political or ethical network effect, if you will.
I know many Palestinians where I live and work. Many of them, even in their place of residence, are politically hampered into living in a country in the Arab world but not free to travel because they are devoid of political rights. If not because of their country of residents, the issuing body of their travel papers or passports, for many this is Egypt, was so destabilized until now Egyptian authorities would reply officially or otherwise to Palestinians for basic requests like passport renewal: go away, we're busy. And that went on for years.
I know of one person I work with who has a family in Gaza. Her family runs car shops and make decent money where I live. They have had their family's buildings knocked down twice in Israeli military ops in the last five years. They go back and rebuild every time. If we praise SV people for handling "tough problems", how is this not indicative of real entrepreneurship and determination to potentially solve other tough problems in ways we have not conceived? Lots of Africa is now doing WAPI and SMS entrepreneurship in light of limited network infrastructure and proving an interesting counterpoint to our mobile broadband-enabled view of digital startups. Shall we dismiss them because they have situations not much better or worse than Gazans in some of those cases?
Plus, the Palestinan expat community is wide and diverse, in the US, Europe, the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Asia. Misplaced or not, many non-Palestinian Arab communities would buy or donate to any Palestinian cause out of sympathy. Targeting them as a demographic could be viable. And frankly, using the famed "hustle as much as you hate" meme my friends throw around, I would milk that for all it is worth if I was Palestinian.
Just my 2 cents.
Just to be clear, this isn't in the article. So if you're trying to paraphrase, you did a really poor job.
Also, people in warzones deserve a helping hand to make them feel normal. It's not in conflict currently. Yes the blockade is bad, but technology is the type of startup that it effects the least.
Also providing humanity to Gaza does not exclude one from trying to bring Israel to court for its war crimes. The latter is just much, much, harder.
In HN comments, please don't use quotes to look like you're quoting things that you in fact made up.
Sorry if this had lead to confusion. This is not a quotation, at least not in this sense. I'm talking about a joke and explaining the "joke" in the next paragraphs in a sarcastic (but honest) way, hence the use of quotes. It would have been really rude of me not quoting my text when I'm talking about thousands of people 'cleaned' from an area. Never was supposed to be taken as a literal extract from the web linked, of course.
I used to do this all the time early on at HN. It really bothers people, so I unlearned the habit. I'm glad I did.
Hi PValde, I agree with you the chances are very low and stakes are high when it comes to investing in a warzone, but it most probably works better to fight the odds and actually solve a problem as a startup.
I started 3 startups in North Iraq, perhaps not so much of a warzone these days, but still affected by all the drama coming out of it.
The problems I was facing were almost the same when I did my other startup in Sydney Australia, except there were some other odds added to it.
In fact Nokia Maps acquired my startup and it was we had such low burning rate / solving a real problem using proper technology.
So I guess investing in them would make sense at the end of the day if you know what and which ones to go for.
i wonder whether there are student exchange or similar programs between Israel and Gaza. Specifically in this case - my understanding that Israel has pretty booming tech scene and one would expect that sharing the experience with Gazans would be a win/win for both sides.
I don't think that is likely to happen given the conflict between the two countries.
Actually, on their "How do we get in an out of Gaza" section it says:
>>We currently cannot bring people to Gaza if you have a West Bank ID or Israeli passport. We can bring people who have an East Jerusalem ID.
Out of interest, I wonder if they accept Jewish mentors.
You have to be insane to be a jew get into a territory that is governed by organisation that basically has "kill all jews" in it's charter.
That was what I was thinking as well.
The only ways for foreigners to get into Gaza is when they work for an international humanitarian organization or when they are journalists. I run Gaza Sky Geeks and live in Gaza. I have seen Jewish Americans come frequently, both as humanitarian workers and as journalists.
Imon, what about remote work from gaza? how's the situation ? Because assuming there's the right talent and enough stability to work, this seems like something that could attract many employers, both from financial/talent perspectives and from the doing good perspective. And it could be very scalable, maybe even having real impact on the region.
As a developer from Israel, I'd like to participate in something like this — but I don't think that there's any opportunity for me to do this. From what I understand, even if someone tried to do something like that on the other side, they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this.
Do you have anything to back that up? I'd be interested in reading about it.
Edit: I can see there's an article here that sounds like the root of this sort of statement but I can't read any details because I'm in a really remote place with very little internet. Over the last couple of days I've discovered that the wired world no longer cares for those with 7kbs connections :-)
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/hamas-kills...
Yeah, it's things like this. Not the easies thing to google as Gaza doesn't exactly has any unbiased journalists; hopefully, I'll be able to provide you with some sources later in the evening.
I'm sorry but that article has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Every country on earth executes informants.
That's sort of the point I was making though (even though I couldn't see the article, that's the story that seemed to dominate when I searched in Google).
On paper, that's "collaborating" with Isreal leading to execution (GP: "they'd risk execution for "collaboration" if they did this").
I suspect that there was a (horrible) case like this that was promoted within Israel to drive the sort of talk that I was responding to. An incident is taken out of context, rebranded and sold as normal behaviour by a demon state.
I'd like to see the articles about people in Gaza being killed for getting support from people in Israel.
Heres the problem. Most israeli don't care about palestinians. 87% of israelis supported the massacre of palestinians in gaza. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israelis-sup...
I think your desire to participate is commendable. I don't know anything about the safety risks of collaboration to Gazans, it's very sad situation and I appreciate that it's very complex and possibly dangerous. I'd certainly be interested to learn more.
Otherwise, I'd imagine (possibly naively) that remote mentoring would be something good.
If it were possible for you to participate - would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
> would you risk repercussions for collaborating from other Israelis?
What? I think that most of the Israelis, including the extreme right, would agree with me and help me, given the opportunity. We hate the terrorists who have power in Gaza and keep the people as hostages and human shields, but we want to help the people themselves, if anything.
Thanks for your answer. Maybe my use of the word repercussions was a bit strong - I don't know much about attitudes there and I am asking out of curiosity, not as a challenge etc. In any case, it sounds like the general population are empathetic, and there would be little or no prejudice from your peers etc. These are small, but good things. So... if there were no risks of collaboration for Gazans, I assume there would be a lot more positive interaction between everyone?
If all effects of warmongering and racist propaganda (on both sides, to different extent) were to disappear too, definitely.
(BTW, I may not represent an average israeli — living in TLV, more leftist, less racist part of the country.)
But you use the same EXACT propaganda that the far right uses. 87% supported the massacre of palestinian civilians in gaza. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israelis-sup...
Isn't it illegal for Israeli citizens to enter the West Bank? [0] Would the same rules not apply for Gaza?
[0] These signs are quite famous, but I know the rules on them are not always enforced - however I still assume they are being honest http://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Isra...
It is illegal, but the sole reason is the risk for israelis. In 2000 or 2001 (I don't remember exactly) two soldiers took a wrong turn and got into a palestinian village by mistake; they were literally torn to pieces by an angry mob. If the risk would be gone, these rules would be gone too.
Still, I have a couple of friends who travelled to the territories illegally, with help from their local friends — just for sightseeing. Personally, I think that they were being reckless and stupid, but it's certainly not unheard of.
It's illegal for Israeli citizens to enter zone A of the West Bank, which is a set of noncontiguous land masses within the West Bank.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank_Areas_in_the_Oslo_II_...
"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.
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.
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.
The terrorists just got reelected in Israel too. I'm always amazed that Israelis believe their government's propaganda about "human shields" used to excuse terrorist acts like the bombing of UN schools.
The UNRWA has found rockets in their schools on multiple occasions:
http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-...
There were no rockets in the UN schools that IDF shelled while thousands of people were taking shelter.
That is just sad. So I guess that only leaves them with one option and that is to eliminate the other side, since educating/mentoring is not in their interests?
I'm a little bit confused about whom did you mean by "they" and "other side" in this comment. The Gaza government (Hamas) and people of Gaza are NOT the same entity, and Israel and israelis have very different feelings towards them (unless they are retarded far-right racists).
Exactly, Israeli government is not interested in mentorship of the people of Gaza.
I can't speak about the government — but the people are very interested. It's not the zero-sum game; the better the gazans and palestinians have it, the less power hate propaganda has over them, the less wars and acts of terror we'll have to endure.
Sadly, I suspect that statement could have just as easily come from the mouth of someone in Gaza regarding Israel.
Of course. I would argue that our hate level is very different — but I think that this is because of life level difference. Poor and hungry people have much more potential for hate. And that's exactly the reason why I'd want them to stop being poor and hungry (apart from basic human compassion, of course).
Ah, and the fact that Israel keeps Gaza under a total embargo, flattens it every two years or so, killing thousands of people - civilians for the great majority, and children- that doesn't play a role, huh? It's just poverty and ignorance... FFS.
Well, an objective, educated person would link this reaction to the action that prompt it.
And the action that prompted it to the action of the other side that prompted it before.. ad infinitum. The only way out of this loop is to ask yourself "who's occupying whose territory? Who's preventing the others from becoming a state? And who does the most killing"? And for all three questions, the answer is always Israel.
The questions that people sharing your position unfortunately don't ask themselves are different. Try "What actions can Israel do to change it" and "what will this result in", for starters.
Try to put yourself in Israel's place. Just imagine it for a minute. Israel disengaged from Gaza 10 years ago. What did it get in return? More security? Less attacks? Better relationship with organisations governing the territory? Would answers to these questions encourage you (you're in Israel place, remember) to make more steps like this?
If I were israel, I would say, I have to figure out what I want. Do I want the territory from the river to the sea? if so, we annex all the land and it becomes 1 person/1 vote and you have to accept that all the refugees return to the land. Israel doesnt want this because there will be an arab majority (I wonder how that happened...). That's what I would do if I were israel. The Other option is 2 states (which is actually what is written in international law btw), 1967 boarders with east Jerusalem as the palestinian capital, stop occupation and remove all settlers, checkpoints, military bases, etc from palestinian territories and maybe no right of return to to refugees who's houses and land were stolen inside of what is now called israel. They will return to palestine 1967 boarder.
How about we start there. No justice, no peace.
Palestinians ans Gazas will be able to get everything they want from Israel if they follow two steps:
1) Get a government that can be trusted to follow on promises
2) Promise to stop trying to kill us
That's pretty much it. We don't need the land, we don't need the walls, we don't need missiles.
"less acts of terror we'll have to endure.".. smh
How about the acts of terror that Palestinians endure by israeli occupiers? Oh wait... Palestinians are not jewish so its okay... .they werent chosen by god to be shipped in from europe and the north america to get a free homeland.
I feel the fear of association to person-to-person humanitarian aid[1] is why we need to use community moderated, distributed, and anonymous tools[2] to monetize empathy.
We need to fund research, expression, and development without simply monetizing and recreating social contract barriers to entry as social media barriers.
To solve the pervasive language of hidden trauma[3] problems — so empathy is empowered over identity issues — we need less closed forms and more open fields. Taboo of sharing itself, is deeper than the digital divide.
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-person-to-person-humanitarian...
[2] http://www.getaether.net
[3] http://www.amazon.com/The-Unsayable-Hidden-Language-Trauma/d...
Meta: I understood this, but dang, this comment was thick with obfuscation. Somebody told me once that many times you can tell the contentiousness of an issue by noting the impenetrability of the verbiage used to converse about it.
Cryptology and psychology are related.
Equally cryptogrammar and cryptoempathy.
Nice idea, but not practical. Before the first intifada, a large number of Gazans worked in Israel. Afterwards, Israel put up security restrictions to prevent terrorism. Hamas also restricts travel to Israel since it's afraid people will develop positive attitudes to Israel or become collaborators.
There are constant collaboration efforts, though with the West Bank rather than Gaza (which is ruled by Hamas):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2013/07/24/peace-th...
Awkward domain name in this context.
So, what are conditions like? Is there a talent pool? Is infrastructure working (Do they have brownouts, are there a lot of people with internet)? Is it easy for investors to get their money in and out?
Lord - Conditions are no-doubt tough, but there is internet infrastructure, and there is most definitely talent. Brownouts do occur in the evenings. Gaza Sky Geeks also has a generator so that entrepreneurs in the co-working space can work late. Investing is not an issue. There's a new $9M fund that just formed to focus on Gaza.
Check out the Indiegogo page - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-gaza-s-only-startup-.... It has a ton of info
they only thing i can see being a good opportunity in Gaza is something like capsule hotels.
they'd be impossible to hide rockets in and when they nearby buildings are destroyed they'd get new customers.
Israel could be guaranteed the neutrality of those buildings so as to never be targeted.