The Official Israel-Gaza Thread

Robbie3000

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bnew said:

Web Summit loses Google, Meta, Intel, Siemens after founder’s Israel-Palestine post on X and apology

Major global tech brands including Google, Meta, Stripe, Intel and Siemens have all decided not to attend this year's edition.
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Web Summit loses Google, Meta, Intel, Siemens after founder’s Israel-Palestine post on X and apology​

Carl Franzen@carlfranzen

October 20, 2023 4:32 PM


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The controversy over Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrove’s posts on X (formerly Twitter) about the Israel-Palestine crisis is not subsiding anytime soon, despite his recent public apology.

This week, major global tech brands including Google, Meta, Stripe, Intel, and Siemens have all decided not to attend this year’s edition of the premier European tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, scheduled for November 13 through 16, according to The Irish Times. Google was one of the event’s leading sponsors, according to its website.


Web Summit — held annually since 2009 when it began as a small, grassroots inaugural meetup of tech enthusiasts in Dublin, Ireland, organized by Cosgrove, David Kelly, and Daire Hickey — has grown into Europe’s largest tech conference by attendance, and is known for bringing together both the startup and larger multinational scenes for networking and talks.

Cosgrove, who is Irish, posted on X on October 13: “I’m shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders & governments, with the exception in particular of Ireland’s government, who for once are doing the right thing. War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies, and should be called out for what they are.”



Many took his comments to be in reference to Israel’s response to theOctober 7 surprise dawn attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians at a music festival and in several towns, which involved mass deaths and kidnappings of the civilians. As a result, Israel swiftly declared war on the Hamas terrorist group based in Gaza andordered the evacuation of Palestinians living in northern Gaza, cutting off water and electricity to residents there as it performs military aerial strikes and prepares for a ground invasion. So far, 1,400 people in Israel have been killed and 3,700 in Gaza since this round of fighting began, according to NBC News. As VentureBeat has reported, some Israeli startupengineers and employees have been called back up to serve as reserves.

Several tech leaders responded to Cosgrove’s comments on the situation by quickly canceling their scheduled attendances at Web Summit in protest, among them Garry Tan, president and CEO of Y combinator, and Ori Goshen, co-founder of AI21 Labs.

Following those cancellations, Cosgrove published a written apology post on the Web Summit website earlier this week on October 17, stating: “I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused profound hurt to many. To anyone who was hurt by my words, I apologise deeply. What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that.”

However, he also doubled down on his assertion that “Israel should adhere to international law and the Geneva Conventions – ie, not commit war crimes. This belief applies equally to any state in any war. No country should breach these laws, even if atrocities were committed against it.”

He also attempted to explain his comments saying: “In my comments, I have tried to do exactly the same as [U.S.] Secretary [of State] Blinken and so many others globally: urge Israel in its response to the Hamas atrocities not to cross the boundaries of international law.”

Clearly, however well-intentioned, Cosgrove’s apology was not enough to keep big names in tech from pulling out of Web Summit 2023. It is unclear if they will return next year as the event hosts a new forum in Qatar.
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It’s like the lead up to the Iraq war all over again. Anyone speaking out against illegal and immoral military actions is silenced.
 
GnauzBookOfRhymes

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Here are the important quotes. Most of which I mentioned in my last post.

1. Bibi knew
Aligned politically with the country’s center left — he was the Labor Party’s candidate for defense minister in the 2015 elections — Yadlin attributed much of the blame for the catastrophe to the national distraction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the country’s judiciary: “Netanyahu got all the warnings — from his defense minister, from the chief of staff, from the head of intelligence, from the head of Shin Bet and from independent writers like me, like others — that this is weakening Israel deterrence and endangering Israeli national security.”
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2. IDF is going into Gaza, with overwhelming force.
At the end of this conflict, the lesson to every Palestinian should be, ‘If you attack Israel, the price is high. Your organization will be destroyed. Israel will not return all the territories.’ We are not going back to the 2005 line [of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza]. This should be the lesson of what he has done.
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3. He mentioned it above but here it is in more detail. Whatever land Israel takes, they're going to keep. If one or two KILOMETERS is being suggested publicly, it means it will probably be twice that.
Birnbaum: You said that Israel would not go back to the 2005 line. What do you mean by that? Will Israel maintain some sort of a buffer zone even after the invasion?

Yadlin: After the destruction of Hamas, we have no desire to control 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, but we have an obligation to ensure that a catastrophe like the 7th of October never happens again. So the way to do it is, as you mentioned, a buffer zone — a perimeter of one or two kilometers, well-mined with anti-tank obstacles, that will make sure that if there will be another intention to invade Israel, it is not going to be as easy as it was last time. And the idea that you pay in territory if you kill Israelis is also an idea that we want them to fully understand. But this is based on future security needs. Nobody in Israel will come back to live one kilometer from the border if there is no security zone that will ensure we have enough time to stop the next attack.
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This was strategic setback for anyone supporting two state solution.
Birnbaum: You’re a longtime supporter of the two-state solution. In your opinion, from an Israeli perspective, did what happened strengthen or weaken the case for a Palestinian state?

Yadlin: Weaken, dramatically. By the way, I’m a supporter of a two-state solution, but with zero military presence in the Palestinian state, because I know what the Palestinians want to do. We went through decades of terror, and exactly what happened on Simchat Torah is making me — a security hawk and political dove — even more strict on security. This attack will move the Israeli public even more to the right.
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Professor Emeritus

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Creflo ½ Dollar said:
If they was military hostages maybe the vibe would be different but the act of taking old women and releasing them just dnt sit right.

Only terrorists take old women and civilian hostages. It’s disgusting. Why celebrate something that modern militaries shouldn’t be doing anyway.
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Modern militaries make sure they kill the old women from a distance so they don't have to look at them. That's the "clean" way to commit atrocities in the 21st century, we're sick of all that in-person bullshyt.
 
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