There seem to be two fundamentally incompatible interpretations of "Never again" [1]. I thought it was a no brainer for universal adoption, but TIL that for some it means more of the same.
Unless someone gives me a genuine reason as to why people are flagging it and the people who are flagging it can come state the reason publicly, just as how I am able to defend that this should be talked about and discussed publicly. I will continue to re-post this.
I just want to raise awareness and not let censorship win.
This post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post. I hope I can convey that and I hope that the streisand effect plays a part here and people become well aware of this post.
@dang, can you please prevent such posts from getting flagged? Unless there is a reason as to why these might get flagged from a hackernews moderation standpoint, it feel as if a blatant misuse of the abuse feature.
> genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith
Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link. Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
> post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post
If it’s not political, it’s irrelevant. Gawking at humanitarian disaster isn’t a popular pass-time outside narrow bands of the internet.
If you’re posting it to effect change, it is political. That’s fine. But I’m also sceptical why this would be expected to change the balance of views on the wars in the region. IDF and Hamas—the former, probably due to resources, at larger scale than the latter—being horrible to captives is well established.
This subthread was originally in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557437 before we merged the threads. (I mention this because otherwise the bit about archive links doesn't make sense.)
Dang, can we post topical Ukrainian news stories now? Because it wasn't allowed for so long and all the strong wording around it not being allowed most people have probably given up, but it would be good to know if the seemingly new policy applies to all conflicts now or just Gaza/Iran seeing as you are now un-flaging conflict related threads.
> Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link
This wasn't the case with the previous post that I mentioned yet it got flagged
? . Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing.
I am editing this for that, thank you for suggesting this!
Edit: I can't edit the hackernews post, I am a bit sorry then to hackernews community for just sharing the archive.org link but I had accidentally pasted just the archive link instead, a bit sorry about that, perhaps moderators (if they wish) can change to this particular link or if someone wants to read it: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl...
> I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong
Did a physician ever evaluate the child? And were the neighbours’ accounts that the child was unharmed when handed over by the father to the IDF independently verified?
Torturing a toddler wouldn’t be out of character for the IDF right now. But just because something is believable doesn’t mean it’s true. The fact that nobody else is reporting on this should be cause for pause.
There are details here including quotations from an unnamed doctor. If feel you can't trust the media credentials of the Independent, you could contact them for the identity of the unnamed doctor (who they are likely protecting based on the nature of the conflict) and ask them directly.
The doctor is named in the article now, perhaps as part of a later edit.
Since people are questioning the objectivity of the other domain, we'll use this link you found for the merged thread. I'll put the original link in the top text.
Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas. Without an independent doctor, whose traits don’t make them biased on this conflict, how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny?
All we have to go on are the photos. And they seem more randomly shaped like shrapnel wounds than the round mark cigarette burns leave.
> Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas
All of this requires substantiation. Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
> how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny?
What does "accepted" mean in this context? I'm forming a personal opinion. Based on the preponderance of evidence–evidence you'll see, in this very thread, I was earlier sceptical of–it looks like serious people are putting their names to the opinion that this toddler was tortured.
> Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible.
That’s your opinion. I disagree. It’s not credible, because being a “professional” does not mean you are capable of ignoring your own biases, especially when they run deep as they do in this particular conflict. I’ll also point out that the medical opinion you’re referring to lacks any actual details. For example - if the injuries are consistent with a cigarette burn, what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones? Why is anything substantial conveniently omitted from all these stories, which instead all use the vague phrasing of “consistent with”? Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere?
Did you investigate it? If someone posted that Claude code created a new language that was typesafe and 50% more efficient for LLM coding and 20% faster for a human to review without any details about the language, would you not look it up?
No knock on you directly, just an observation about the attitude in our culture. If this is true a child was tortured, if it's false someone is lying and needs to be outed (with facts) so they are not trusted. Neither one is good but is no one looking into it?
Nope. Rejecting a source doesn’t mean I am obligated to investigate it. As I said, whether this is true or not doesn’t seem particularly politically relevant. It would be interesting to know. But purely for curiosity, not because I think it will have practical effects.
Because the lies are constant, relentless and the use and abuse of civilians by the islamo supremacists and the facist supporters is well documented.
Its also just the fact, that a ton of things that chomsky and co supported turned out to be vile, evil and mean landempires using emotional stories to "hack" the downtrodden and hopeless of the west. The support for russias invasion comes to mind and honestly it tainted all the stories told in a similar way by parties on the same side. Sometimes, evil things just run out of credits and the mask drops. And yes, you can be poor, a underdog and still be evil. And yes you can have a volksturm and hitleryouth die in droves and still be evil.
I generally don’t like something not related to tech in hacker news.
Humanitarian crisis is happening across the world. There were no posts here for Sudanese people. None for Nigerian Christians or Bangladeshi Hindus. Or is humanitarian crisis only happen when certain people are involved in them?
I have noticed this all across the wider web. Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them.
Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus. Sudan and Somalia have both been supported by the gulf countries. Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
> Pakistan is openly committing human rights violations against baluchis and have done it against Bangladeshi Hindus
Hello, I am an Indian (Hindu) person, I have made my stance extremely clear when the recent attack on India was done by terrorists in which there was a religious angle as well where Islamist extremist terrorists asked to recite an Islamic prayer otherwise they were shot.
That event has traumatized me as well, I may not have submitted it but there has always been a conflict between Hindus and Muslims after the British divided us.
I also support the baloch movement, in the sense that, Pakistani corruption/militarial aggression has severely underfunded the region while its get its resources extracted from.
So, if anything, according to your comment, you should feel like I should be against all of muslims.
but that is not the case, there are good muslims and bad muslims, just as how there are good jews and bad jews and just as how there are good and bad hindus
Essentially, religion doesn't play a role in good or bad but religion certainly extremizes the elements
In this case it was religious extremist agression from Israel (Jewish faith) to Islam/Palestine.
In our case it was religious extremist aggression from Islamist Extremist terrorist to India in pahalgam attack which had shook the nation to its core.
My point is, I can't/won't see Innocent people/kids dying, and yes, this goes beyond religion, for the most part.
I have also been aware of the sudanese people, its a real tragedy where UAE/Dubai are funding opposite sides and rape/murder/slaughtering of Innocent people are also happening, its really scary as well.
> Maybe start protesting and have same amount of human feelings for non Muslims as well.
I kind of do, It's just that Innocent Muslims are dying in higher proportions simply because they are in war-torn regions caused by Israel/US in this case of Iran/Palestine.
I genuinely want all wars to go over and have either an element of co-existence or mutual agreement for the most part.
> Only when Muslims suffer from hands of non Muslims, there are protests and posts in support of them.
There are vast numbers of posts about Ukraine and its attack by Russia. Daily I see many comments expressing human feelings for people across the spectrum, muslim, non muslim, male, female, et al.
I have seen posts about Palestine here much more than the one you got for the Nigerian Christians. The one you got is from 2025 even when the issue is still ongoing.
Maybe your impressions are muddied?
That error on your part aside, submission _topics_ here on HN are biased toward US / Western / English speaking tech interests and geographies ...
Hence the low low number of Chinese posts about tech in rural China, etc.
The topics that are posted, however (eg: Gaza, Ukraine in the political sphere) attract a breadth of viewpoints (both pro Israel and pro Palestine in the Gaza example).
Your post above essentially laments that everything is pro Muslim on HN.
It just proves again how White people think suffering is only for "WHITE PEOPLE", for other barbarian people, it doesn't matter.
Hackernews is dominated by white people and Indians, it's not surprising they support rape and all other crimes of Israel. If it was not the case, then this should have been surprising.
I am an Indian (Hindu), Ironically, People have accused me of only caring about only Muslim feelings (:
I don't stand with rape and all other crimes of Israel because I don't judge these actions by the religion of the victims and yes, even if that might mean that, that religion might have done the same to us (Pahalgam attack which shook the nation)
I think my point is, just because muslim extremism has impacted our lives doesn't mean that Innocent muslims, especially kids should be tortured. I am more than happy if everyone removes extremist element, period.
I have said this consistently here, but this goes beyond any religion. People are treating it as a muslim kid being impacted but I am seeing it as my kid being impacted.
This war started recently, the people living their didn't know this could happen to them
We dont know the future, what if something like this might happen to one of us where the enemy might be someone else, maybe even Extremist Islam
I have raised my voice against opresssion, I don't discriminate against who I speak or not as I try to speak against the wrong, as long as someone innocent is getting opressed, My heart goes out to them and religion shouldn't have to do too much with it.
My idea maybe is that too, that, if we show support of normal people even if religious differences collide, we can show that we are beyond religion and actually help bring down Extremism/will help them bring internal resistance too if something bad is done from their extremist side.
At some point, I believe in Humanity and sharing that Humanity, So its quite shocking to say, but, its best that we start treating muslim people as humans too.
Atleast that's what my religion has taught me personally, I really don't discriminate based on religion for the most part but I do understand why people might do that but I feel like all it does is seperate us even further and I wouldn't be able to have a coherent moral framework if I become hypocritical in who I criticize/don't and become partial to it.
The site moderators have said that they do not see @ mentions. If you want to reach them, use the email address on the contact page linked at the bottom of the page.
Re-submitting links to try to force attention to it is also not the correct approach. If you believe a story has been wrongly flagged, directly email the HN administrators with a link to the original submission.
It’s being flagged because it is one sided propaganda without any hard evidence of the claims being made. It follows a pattern of dubious claims being spread by pro Palestine news outlets until it then get picked up by others. All built on one unsubstantiated claim at the bottom of it.
It's anti-Semitic propaganda. The claims are tenuous and, while there's bad things happening to kids everywhere [0] somehow only things the IDF allegedly does get posted here.
I think even if they agree at first, this can be traumatic anyway. If I remember correctly, I read about Vietnam veterans that killed civilians including children out of anger and then were horribly traumatized. So both things can be true.
It's sort of mind-blowing to see 1940s being repeated. Of course both times the victim group were viewed as sub-human/barbaric "other"...
Before someone yells "Godwin!", read the Wikipedia page about that law, Godwin himself said it's fine to mention Nazis when it's actually a comparable thing.
If you have 3 hours, there's a documentary you can watch, about a man who was part of a government-sanctioned killsquad to kill a lot of "communists" in 1960's Indonesia: The Act of Killing (available at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDeEObjR9Q ).
It's sort of understandable why the defenders of the genocide have to keep defending it. Stopping doing so today would mean admitting that until yesterday you've been defending utter inhumanity.
A review:
> Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a challenging documentary. It is not only difficult to watch, but it also probes into one of the most grotesque aspects of human nature: the capacity for self-delusion in the face of horrific atrocities. This isn’t a film about history, facts, or statistics; it’s about the memories of the men who killed, the stories they tell themselves, and how they continue to live with the horrors they’ve inflicted on others. The film’s power lies in its ability to take the viewer beyond a surface-level understanding of evil and into the psychological abyss of those who have committed atrocities—and seemingly moved on with their lives.
>"The claims that the IDF abused a toddler are completely unfounded and serve Hamas propaganda." The spokesperson said.
>"On the contrary: The toddler was brought by a Hamas operative into a dangerous area to be used as a human shield.
Same old denials as usual, aren't they getting tired? These spokespersons don't know anything, their only job is to deny that anything happened. Which does work a lot if there are no witnesses or video. Same deal with the ambulances or journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh.
Deny. Deflect. Gaslight. Obfuscate. And if irrefutable evidence emerges, they deserved it. Weaponised narcissism by a country.
Well that was depressing. While I already held these opinions I had some hope that what I believed wasn't true, because I didn't like what that would say about the us. A lot of people are going to have their 'are we the baddies?' moment in the near future.
Someone had submitted the same article and I was reading that article and I was in complete and utter shock and then I reloaded the hackernews page and I saw the post flagged.
I really don't know/wish to know what your ideology is, but why this struck my mind was the imagination that this could've been my kid or this can be your kid, to whoever is reading this within wars and the brutality of this.
I just can't out of good faith, let that discussion be ended, it is worth talking and worth submitting again. I have also archived the web page on archive.org
"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind"
I just can't help but think, have we already lost mankind/(humanity?) in cases like these.
I wish for everyone to stay safe and hopefully, this time around, this post doesn't get flagged.
Ignoring the possibilities bots and engagement for disingenuous purposes, there are many people who benefit from the status quo, still other horrible people who support it, and still others who patronizingly declare certain topics must be censored for some fanciful, tone-deaf ideals that fail to meet the moment. All will be remembered how they failed to stop suffering, destruction, and calamity or possibly cheered it on. There is no right or left, only right and wrong and ultra-rich vs. everyone.
Well, TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel and in favor of Islamism. It’s a propaganda outlet for Erdogan. Other outlets repeating it - Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, etc - are all propaganda outlets and extremely biased on the topic of Israel and Gaza.
And Honest Reporting’s description of this situation seems accurate. What evidence is there really? It seems like one person’s claim is being laundered through many pro Palestine news outlets. That’s basically what this Honest Reporting article says, and that part seems irrefutable.
> TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel
Sure. I called that out, too [1]. Two bad sources doesn't a good source make [2].
> in favor of Islamism
Islamism in its formal sense [3] falls into the same category as Christian nationalism in Europe and America, Hindutva in India and the current governing ideology of Israel's government. I am not personally in favor of marrying religion and politics. But I'm not going to discard someone's opinion about something just because they believe that.
I agree with the principle. However, the Honest Reporting article isn’t actually making any particular claim and isn’t a “source” in the same way, right? Their article is just pointing out the flaws in the widely-circulated claims from pro-Palestine news media and reasons to be skeptical of those claims.
As for your comparison of Islamism to others - I feel it goes too far in framing these various movements as the same, as these all are different in their goals and the level of intolerance against other beliefs. One key difference - Islamism (the political movement) is much more prevalent among Muslims than Christian nationalism is among Christians. And it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely. Sam Harris has spoken about this in length if you want to hear it from others. Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”. The recent reframing of “Hinduness” into a pejorative is just a vague racist-tinged political attack against a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers. The intersection of many eastern religions with politics, to whatever extent they exist, are far less of a threat to free societies than the supremacist versions of Christianity and Islam.
> it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely
Within their relevant geographies, so does, it seems, the other movements.
I agree that Islamism is currently more in power and more violent, extreme and ridiculous than those others. But again, I’m not discarding anything they say as a result of it.
> Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”
As it’s practiced it has involved excusing and in many cases encouraging murderous riots. (Islamism parsed literally also sounds innocuous.)
> a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers
This is revanchism. All extremists do it. Islamists and Christian nationalists want a return of their golden ages.
- Flour massacre
- World Central Kitchen drone strikes
- Gaza aid distribution massacres
- Rafah paramedics massacre
- Targeting of journalists
- Forced starvation
- Crop destruction
Israel will deny all of those. But the world have seen it with their own eyes.
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