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The only thing this will result in is even more funding for Hamas, and possibly even money laundering for Iran.


You do not believe that there are any Palestinians who might have legitimate uses for PayPal?


But they made the misstake of being born at the wrong place.


Unlike the Russians facing issues due to the actions of their government? Do you think they are all guilty, all deserving of sanction and economic hardship? Of course not, but what's the alternative?


"Of course not, but what's the alternative?"

Targeting only the people in charge?

Targeting everyone is a good recipe of uniting them all behind the bad ones.


OK, so your ministers are targeted, but everyday citizens are not. It's now trivial to work around sanctions and they don't matter at all. When your sanctions are symbolic, that's fine. When they're meant to actually have an economic impact, that doesn't work. There's an argument for fomenting dissent against the government causing the sanctions, too. If there were good, easy solutions, it wouldn't be the conflict that it is.


"It's now trivial to work around sanctions and they don't matter at all."

Putin did not dare to travel to south africa. The Oligarchs cannot use their Yachts anymore and their international assets are frozen(and they are not happy about it). That sounds like pretty effective targeted sanctions to me.


I thought the point of sanctions was to discourage whatever behavior caused the sanction to be implemented in the first place.


No one claimed that sanctions alone will stop the war.

And ALL of the russians are under sanctions since 2014 btw. and that clearly did not prevented the big war, or made Putin less powerful. So if anything, this refutes that sanctions against a whole population are helping.


No, it doesn't, because you don't know what the world would have looked like if there were no sanctions. If the impact of the sanctions delayed the war or forced Russia to go in with fewer supplies then the sanctions absolutely had a measurable impact. Just because Putin has strong authority now doesn't mean he wouldn't have been stronger without sanctions. Your arguments have no basis in reality.


"If the impact of the sanctions delayed the war or forced Russia to go in with fewer supplies then the sanctions absolutely had a measurable impact."

If is key here. You claim there is no alternative to broad sanctions, yet they have been shown to not work (preventing war). And that they delayed the war, you show no proof or indications. If Putins plan was all out war from the beginning, then why would he have waited at all? And sanctions targeting special military supplies are a different thing from sanctioning the civilian population.

So what exactly is your argument based in reality?


Hamas is their democratically elected government. They have no excuse. Is there no way to leave Palestine if you don't support Hamas?


It's hard to call either Hamas or Fatah democratically elected - there haven't been elections since 2006, and Hamas actually ran a coup the following year to seize power after they lost in the parliamentary elections.


Even if there are some who would benefit from this (and they have plenty of others methods), should we make it easier for terrorists to transfer money through Paypal?


Literally do a web search for any first world country and domestic terrorism and you'll find an instance of it.

The argument you have made also implies that USA should be disconnected from PayPal.


Is it really domestic when the effective governing body in Gaza and some of the West Bank is Hamas? Should we not sanction countries ruled by terrorist organizations?


I'm fine with that as long as the definition of terrorism is objective and not ideological/political. What objective definition of state terrorism applies to Palestine but not the state of Israel?


You're comparing apples and oranges. The counterparts to the government of Israel would be the PA and Hamas, not "Palestine".

There is no objective measure of terrorism since that designation is a political one. You can look at the objectivity of the criteria but the choosing of the criteria is unavoidably political. The question is not whether or not the definition is objective, but whether or not it is fairly applied. How would you describe a government that pays the families of "martyrs" who blow themselves up in coffee shops and restaurants, not despite but for their actions?


Hamas keeps sending Qassam and other rockets towards Israel, indiscriminately targeting everything while using human shields to defend launch and command sites in a clear violation of international law. On top of that come suicide bombers targeting civilians, which is clearly and indisputably terrorism, and on top of that they pay off the families of martyrs and terrorists, thereby creating a massive financial incentive.

Israel isn't free from blame - particularly the actions of Ben Gvir and friends or the expansions of settlement activity are reprehensible and completely unnecessary provocations - but nothing they do is even remotely as bad as what comes out of Palestine.


I'll just drop this here, and say nothing more:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart...


> Should we not sanction countries ruled by terrorist organizations?

Correct.

The punishment should fit the crime. Being born in a location run by a terrorist organization is not a crime.

This idea of group punishment is a very slippery slope and I believe you've already slide down it. As I pointed out in the previous comment, there are domestic terrorists in the US. And I'll go even further, members of the US current government have argued that other members of that government attempted a coup. Can't get much stronger claims of being ran by a terrorist organization than that.

A good example of sanctions is the recent US ones vs Russia. It's almost entirely targeted towards individuals and property/companies associated with those individuals who promote/support invading Ukraine. (War being the crime, sanctions being the punishment).

w.r.t. PayPal, afaik they're not the only payments organization so I'm fine with them not providing service as it's not like the Palestinian's have no alternative. (As opposed to say the only grocery store in a region refusing to sell food to a homosexual).


> The punishment should fit the crime. Being born in a location run by a terrorist organization is not a crime.

The problem is, as soon as you remove the sanctions, Hamas will use that to collect funds to buy more weapons to send off to Israel.

The only way to achieve actual, lasting peace in Israel and Palestine is to get an Arab country as a guarantor that Israel won't be attacked - but Hamas is so deeply connected with Iran whom everyone else in the region intensely dislikes that no one will take on that role.


Why would an Arab country guarantee Israel won't get attack? They literally want that land for themselves and went to war over that.

Actual people are the ones giving money to Hamas. Those people can and should be sanctioned. The people that aren't shouldn't be. It's a simple concept.


As long as the one deciding that is the US, the one that conveniently ignores the deeds of their allies in the region when they're not busy themselves destabilizing it and toppling their heads of state, no.


PayPal's withdrawal from Palestine isn't required by the US.


PayPal isn't sanctioning any state, they do not have the power to do that. The comment I'm responding to is talking about sanctions.


1,100

That's how many explosive rockets Palestine fired at civilian targets in Israel in 2022.

Sorry but that isn't remotely equivalent.


Now please count how many rockets, bombs and other munitions Israel fired at civilian targets in Palestine.

Because it's also > 0, then by this logic we must ban all Israeli from accessing financial services.


Israel actually does multiple levels of warning before issuing strikes against shared civilian/terrorist infrastructure including leaflets, audible warnings and so on, and only then fires a payload.

Palestine has dropped more rockets on their own people than Israel has even sent their direction.


What should ordinary people in the territories do?


I mean per the article, Palastine has banks with corresponding US banks to handle transfers. So, ordinary people of those territories can use their banks.


If they can just use their banks, why was PayPal created?


Why stop there, if they could use Bank A why does Bank B exist?

PayPal does not uniquely solve any problem.


What kind of hurdles does someone need to overcome to transfer money to a Palestinian through the bank? Banks deal with the same OFAC requirements that PayPal does.


Get rid of Hamas instead of shooting rockets at Israel?




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