The Israeli public largely supports this, given that Israel is a western democracy, it's not surprising that the state behaves in a way that matches the hearts and minds of its people.
If your thesis is: Israel is a democracy, democracies always do what the majority of the public want in every detail, therefore Israelis are evil in their hearts, then thank goodness you're talking about Israelis!
Not to excuse violations of human rights in Israel... but it's not like Iran is any better [1], and Hamas and the other groups that joined in on Oct 7th also committed copious amounts of sexual violence [2], and hostages claimed being sexually abused as well [3].
Iran isnt' getting tax dollars from the united states to commit their 6e|\|0c|de.
Its 2026 and its now controversial to say that a adherence to broad respect for human rights should be a minimum bar for being considered a proper western democracy.
edit for those downvoting: I did flag but thought Id point out the guidelines for those unaware [0]
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
The Israeli public largely supports this, given that Israel is a western democracy, it's not surprising that the state behaves in a way that matches the hearts and minds of its people.
If your thesis is: Israel is a democracy, democracies always do what the majority of the public want in every detail, therefore Israelis are evil in their hearts, then thank goodness you're talking about Israelis!
Anyone else and you'd be a racist, right?
The majority[^0] of the israeli population wants ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/2025-05-22/ty-article-mag...
https://archive.is/20251220181301/https://www.haaretz.co.il/...
Not to excuse violations of human rights in Israel... but it's not like Iran is any better [1], and Hamas and the other groups that joined in on Oct 7th also committed copious amounts of sexual violence [2], and hostages claimed being sexually abused as well [3].
Truly no side is innocent here.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/22/iran-security-forces-rap...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_violen...
[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/04/middleeast/israeli-hostag...
Iran isnt' getting tax dollars from the united states to commit their 6e|\|0c|de.
Its 2026 and its now controversial to say that a adherence to broad respect for human rights should be a minimum bar for being considered a proper western democracy.
Impressive mental gymnastics to go from the topic of sexual abuse to a criticism of democracy - oh no, "western democracy".
Is there a prison where it doesn't happen?
Why is this on HN?
edit for those downvoting: I did flag but thought Id point out the guidelines for those unaware [0]
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html