Israel - Hamas war XIII

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

Given that you are convinced that the IDF is evil

Did you read the additional paragraph I added?

1 minute ago, Ran said:

The IDF removed from duty and reprimanded multiple soldiers who, for example, filmed themselves acting inappropriately in a mosque. 

And how are they dealing with the people filming themselves torturing others?

[Ran]

12 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

 

And how are they dealing with the people filming themselves torturing others?

Presumably similar actions are taken. Why would they reprimand one group and not the other? They have rules about conduct, just as any modern military. Doesn't mean bad shit doesn't happen.

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

I'd rather they prevail in the conflict than Hamas, and you should too.

Hoping they prevail over Hamas and hoping they stop killing civilians isn't mutually exclusive, unless you've decided all the civilians in Gaza should be treated as Hamas.

[kissdbyfire]

Interesting and illuminating interview w/ a former IDF soldier.

 

[Tywin et al.]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

No, we won't. 

At that point we'll have nothing new, only the same (probably uncounted) bodies under rubble, the same prisoners that the IDF says are Hamas, and the same reasons to believe that they are lying, because they cannot possibly say with any of these bodies or people that they can reliably determine how many are or are not Hamas, and they have a strong motivation to inflate the numbers. 

It's not a case of there being 'no better information' as Hmmm puts it: it's a case of there being no information that should be relied on at all, because no reliable information on this can exist in the circumstances. If you think, as Hmmm seems to, that we should rely on the IDF numbers because they're the best we have, that is not a rational choice but a political one, because the IDF numbers cannot possibly be reliable, any more than the Hamas ones can. 

We probably won't even get a remotely accurate estimate of total casualties, let alone a meaningful number of how many Hamas fighters were killed. 

I guess we just disagree. My belief is once the fighting stops, assuming that happens in the not too distant future, is that experts will be able to identify a fairly accurate death toll and by using intelligence figure out just how much of Hamas Israel took out. There's obviously going to be a lot of grey area, but a nuanced discussion including that should paint a fairly accurate picture. 

And no, I wouldn't rely on the IDF, just like I wouldn't rely on anyone under the thumb of Hamas. That's why I mostly want to wait until reasonable third parties can start assessing things on the ground after the fighting stops.

4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

 but the actual time they were being held hostage was more or less humane given the conditions that Israel has imposed on Gaza. 

 The fuck it was. Every account was that it was awful. The best thing you can point to is that they were allowed to go to the bathroom, but every time they had to wait a few hours after they asked to. 

[Tywin et al.]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Hoping they prevail over Hamas and hoping they stop killing civilians isn't mutually exclusive, unless you've decided all the civilians in Gaza should be treated as Hamas.

It kind of is. There really is no way to defeat Hamas without also killing a lot of civilians given their tactics and how dense the population is. Like I've said several times, there are only bad options. 

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

there are only bad options.

I understand what you’re saying but I don’t really agree here. Even if there are no good options at the moment, there are bad and worse and worst and atrocious options available. And sadly it seems that this Israeli government has decided that atrocious options is the way to go. 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

And sadly it seems that this Israeli government has decided that atrocious options is the way to go. 

Nonsense. The atrocious option is the "this is genocide", "carpet bombing", "indiscriminate" caricature, the one where the death toll would be in the six figures and climbing. I can look back at people throwing out various six figure death tolls in the early days of this conflict, on this very forum, and it was obviously wrong then.

There is no way to perfectly preserve civilian life in this conflict. They mitigate it, a lot. Could they do more? Maybe yes, maybe no, depends on who you ask and what information you look at and what your views are. But they could certainly do much less than they are doing, and they aren't, so these attempts to exaggerate the conflict just make the argument seem absurd.

[Kalbear]

6 hours ago, Ran said:

The ratio of civilian dead to militant dead would be on the order of 10:1, which it obviously is not.

You cited data that it should be in urban areas - are you going back on that?

Also, I don't know how obvious it is to say that the ratio isn't 10-1. We have Israel saying that it's closer to 3-1, but they obviously have a very large interest in inflating that. We have the hamas numbers indicating only total deaths. Why would you think it's absolutely clear that hamas deaths are not in a 1-10 ratio to civilian ones?

 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

Hoping they prevail over Hamas and hoping they stop killing civilians isn't mutually exclusive, unless you've decided all the civilians in Gaza should be treated as Hamas.

Ran did seem to have a Freudian slip in an earlier iteration of this thread that the IDF had not yet defeated the Palestinians. Not Hamas, but, rather, the Palestinians. That definitely caught my eye, though I believe @mormont also was the one who first noted that. 

[Tywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You cited data that it should be in urban areas - are you going back on that?

Also, I don't know how obvious it is to say that the ratio isn't 10-1. We have Israel saying that it's closer to 3-1, but they obviously have a very large interest in inflating that. We have the hamas numbers indicating only total deaths. Why would you think it's absolutely clear that hamas deaths are not in a 1-10 ratio to civilian ones?

 

Like I just posted, NBC was comfortable saying that at least 5,000 of those killed are Hamas soldiers. And we don't exactly know if they're including the 1,500 or so that were killed in Israel. All the numbers are just guesses. 

15 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Ran did seem to have a Freudian slip in an earlier iteration of this thread that the IDF had not yet defeated the Palestinians. Not Hamas, but, rather, the Palestinians. That definitely caught my eye, though I believe @mormont also was the one who first noted that. 

I fear Palestinians are moving closer to Hamas. It's just one poll, but it's far worse than the last one I saw cited here:

Quote

Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was correct in launching the October attack, the poll indicated

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514

AP is a solid source and those numbers are depressing. 

[Zorral]

For those who wish us to view Palestinians as vermin.

A doctor went to Gaza to help. What he saw there still haunts him.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/15/gaza-ghassan-abu-sitta-recollections/

Quote

 

.... We lost one of our colleagues, Dr. Medhat Saidam. He was a plastic surgeon. His sister came with her children to the hospital because she had to evacuate her own home. So he decided to take her to his house because his sisters and brothers were at his house, and he thought he was in a safer neighborhood. A few hours later, the house was bombed. We knew that he was killed, and [thought] everybody else had been killed. And then a day later they [rescued] his wife and his three children. And the wife was injured in her foot. Eventually, we managed to get them to stay in an office in our department in the burns unit. You see [his] 12-year-old turning into the man of the house, the adult of the house. And because he’s the eldest of his siblings, and his mom is injured, he’s doing the errands and keeping them and taking them to the bathroom and talking to us to help get stuff for them. And you can see the kid trying to become a man.

One day there was a barber around al-Ahli, lovely guy who ended up staying and helping out, just as a health-care assistant. He came to us and said he wanted to shave everyone, because we were all turning into cave men. We went to one of the rooms on the top floors of al-Ahli, which was partly destroyed. We all sat waiting for our turn in front of the mirror and he cut our hair and shaved our beards. He had brought his whole gear with him. And suddenly, everybody’s mood is picked up by this act of great generosity.

Suddenly, the conversation flowed. We started talking about normal things and cracking jokes and making fun of, you know, the cut or the hair or the ones who have gray hairs and those who don’t. All of this. Suddenly there’s this oasis of normalcy that you find yourself in, that kind of takes you back. ....

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unguided ‘dumb bombs’ used in almost half of Israeli strikes on Gaza
The revelation, disclosed in a U.S. intelligence assessment, emerged as American officials press Israel to take a more targeted approach to its military campaign

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/14/israel-unguided-dumb-bombs-gaza/

Quote

 

Almost half of the munitions Israel has used in Gaza since the war began have been unguided bombs, a U.S. intelligence assessment has found, a ratio that some arms experts say helps explain the conflict’s enormous civilian death toll. The revelation comes as U.S. and Israeli officials engage in intensifying conversations about the sequencing of military operations in the two-month conflict.

The Israel Defense Forces has fired more than 29,000 air-to-ground munitions into the Palestinian enclave since Oct. 7, and only 55 to 60 percent of them have been precision-guided, according to a new assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The rest were what are known as “dumb bombs,” said two people familiar with the assessment who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.

The use of so many unguided bombs, first reported by CNN, is a concern among humanitarian groups and others amid growing calls inside and outside the United States for Washington to condition any further military aid to Israel on the immediate reduction of civilian deaths. ....

 

 

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I haven't heard many public comments from the hostages and again we're short on much proof of life info from the remaining ones. 

Well then, how do you know what you stated previously about rapes of Israeli women post Oct 7th?  Major contradiction here.

[Ran]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

I fear Palestinians are moving closer to Hamas. It's just one poll, but it's far worse than the last one I saw cited here

I missed that people thought this was some sort of "Freudian slip". Hamas are Palestinians. Are they  actually some foreign aggressor that has taken over Gaza that I'm unaware of? No. 

I don't know, though, that the poll should be read as straightforwardly as some would like. There's distinctive differences between opinion in the West Bank, where Hamas is lionized more (because they don't suffer under the boot of Hamas), whereas in Gaza... for example, way more people in Gaza -- 37% -- think October 7th was a mistake than they do in the West Bank, where the number is just 12%. 

Of course, a lot of them seem to not believe Hamas committed any war crimes at all, so to the degree that there is a deep ignorance (wilful or otherwise) should be taken into account when considering their responses.

The last and most interesting thing to me is that a clear majority of Gazans would prefer something other than Hamas running the Gaza Strip after the war ends -- including some small percentage who appear to have actually said they hope the Israeli Army stays in charge(!)

[Zorral]

And yet, however, "Israel" isn't supposed to be used, but rather, "Bibi&Coetc." when speaking of the atrocities that are being committed upon Palestinian civilians over decades and decades in both the West Bank and within Israels itself. over whose deaths and maiming numbers in Gaza the supporters of murdering and maiming the Palestinian civilians are determined to wrangle eternally, because somehow that makes what is being done by "Bibi&Coetc." even right this minute, reported all over the world, and even 'reprimanded' by President Biden, as keeping us from noticing or believing the horrific toll of death, maiming, trauma and destruction.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/14/israel-unguided-dumb-bombs-gaza/

Quote

Nearly 18,800 people have been killed and almost 51,000 wounded in Gaza over the past two months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Under international law, weapons are considered indiscriminate if they cannot be directed at military targets.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Zorral

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Nonsense. The atrocious option is the "this is genocide", "carpet bombing", "indiscriminate" caricature, the one where the death toll would be in the six figures and climbing. I can look back at people throwing out various six figure death tolls in the early days of this conflict, on this very forum, and it was obviously wrong then.

This is already an atrocious option. But yes, it could be more. That being said it is clear to me at least that given Israeli officials rhetoric the main constraint is not wanting to actually preserve life, its making sure other actors in the area are not compelled to respond and escalate more.

But just so we are clear - if the death toll does reach 6 figures you will consider that genocide or an atrocity? 

I'll also point out that this sounds a lot like the rhetoric about how people overreacted during the pandemic because the death rate wasn't as high, ignoring that it wasn't as high because of actions taken. Israel didn't want to let any aid in. They didn't want to let fuel in. They didn't want to tone down their attacks. Saying people were alarmist when said alarm mitigated harm is foolish.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

There is no way to perfectly preserve civilian life in this conflict. They mitigate it, a lot. Could they do more? Maybe yes, maybe no, depends on who you ask and what information you look at and what your views are. But they could certainly do much less than they are doing, and they aren't, so these attempts to exaggerate the conflict just make the argument seem absurd.

Again they could just nuke Gaza. That doesn't mean they are acting with particularly commendable restraint any more than Russia in Ukraine is. 

And again, whether you think they can act with more restraint than they have it is important to acknowledge that there are only a couple groups of people in the world who think they are acting with sufficient restraint or are being too careful - the extreme right wing folks who openly call for all Palestinians to die, and Israel's right wing government.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

48 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I fear Palestinians are moving closer to Hamas. It's just one poll, but it's far worse than the last one I saw cited here:

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-poll-wartime-views-a0baade915619cd070b5393844bc4514

AP is a solid source and those numbers are depressing. 

Why do you fear that? That sounds like great news for anyone here hoping to ease their conscience about Israel's horrific actions against Palestinian civilians and looking for further excuses to justify it. 

 

43 minutes ago, Ran said:

I missed that people thought this was some sort of "Freudian slip". Hamas are Palestinians. Are they actually some foreign aggressor that has taken over Gaza that I'm unaware of? No. 

Be careful. You're in danger of equiovcating now between Hamas and Palestinians while committing a categorical error. Hamas may be composed of Palestinians, but Palestinians are not Hamas. The Freudian slip being referrenced was in regards to the IDF defeating the Palestinians rather than the IDF defeating Hamas. 

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Nonsense. The atrocious option is the "this is genocide", "carpet bombing", "indiscriminate" caricature, the one where the death toll would be in the six figures and climbing. I can look back at people throwing out various six figure death tolls in the early days of this conflict, on this very forum, and it was obviously wrong then.

That's curious, because right now a six-figure death toll looks more realistic than ever, and the main reason why it is uncertain would be -imho- thanks to US or international intervention - neither of which is truly guaranteed at this point.

Not only is there very little doubt that Netanyahu would be perfectly comfortable with a six-figure death toll, but it's still not absolutely certain that this isn't in fact one of his objectives.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

There is no way to perfectly preserve civilian life in this conflict. They mitigate it, a lot. Could they do more? Maybe yes, maybe no, depends on who you ask and what information you look at and what your views are. But they could certainly do much less than they are doing, and they aren't, so these attempts to exaggerate the conflict just make the argument seem absurd.

I admire the courage of standing for an unpopular opinion, but at some point you run the risk of being the puppet of someone else's propaganda. In this case, it's quite clear that you're swallowing Israeli propaganda, "hook, line, and sinker," as the expression goes.

The hard truth is that there is little exaggeration going on here (some, sure, but not as much as you say). The death toll is already atrocious and constitutes a crime against humanity. Netanyahu is a far-right leader with genocidal intent. These are well-documented facts, not mere impressions or feelings. The details border on the academic, and I'm not sure what you seek to gain by subbornly clinging to positions that threaten to deprive you of any moral standing. At this point, I truly believe you should acknowledge the fact that you don't know how far Netanyahu will take this, and that it's quite possible he will prove you wrong. Before he does.

[Rippounet]

47 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'll also point out that this sounds a lot like the rhetoric about how people overreacted during the pandemic because the death rate wasn't as high, ignoring that it wasn't as high because of actions taken.

It's actually worse than that. The figure that was often used (and widely ridiculed) at the start of the pandemic was around 1 million deaths for the US.
Edit: for accuracy's sake, the highest predictions were between 1 and 2 million.
The death toll turned out to be 1,189,353.
And that's despite the actions that were taken.

I would argue that a six-figure death toll still looks likely for Gaza despite the actions that are being taken.
For starters, we don't even know how long this will last, but the Israeli defense minister did say yesterday (or was it the day before?) that we shouldn't think in terms of "months," so saying that the initial predictions were exaggerated or worse is, at this point, not wise.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Rippounet