But not the video in the OP which demonstrates that the IDF were, in fact firing on aid workers and refugees as they had been accused of, and certainly not the hours of footage of the IDF brazenly taking human shields over the years while insisting they didn't, or the reports of the IDF arming settlers. Curious that you can't enumerate any of these, and you're happy to take at face value a claim the IDF makes but doesn't allow independent third parties to verify (a Hamas bunker w/ data center equipment directly underneath the UNRWA HQ in Gaza) while abjuring such behaviour.
Independent 3rd parties were brought in to verify, though.
I already said I don't condone any instances of legitimate war crimes. I don't think enumerating everything that has ever happened by either side is very useful. But it's a fact that both sides lie flagrantly about atrocities. Lots of the footage in the early days of the war that was claimed to be from Gaza was actually recycled from the Syrian civil war.
If you want me to start listing some BS that Israel has done, fine - the calendar stunt was ridiculous (if you have followed the conflict, you probably have heard of it). What goes on in the west bank is disgraceful. There are plenty of statements by Israeli politicians that are basically genocidal language (though you can play that game with most countries, random US politicians say psychotic shit all the time).
>Independent 3rd parties were brought in to verify, though.
Reuters was given an IDF escort as they were walked through the tunnel system, during which a room with some servers was called a Hamas data centre, and they nodded along. That's not quite the same thing.
>Lots of the footage in the early days of the war that was claimed to be from Gaza was actually recycled from the Syrian civil war.
Lots of footage that Hamas or advocates for Palestine released or Twitter randos? Not all of those things are equivalent to Israel making a claim.
A lot of that ambiguity would vanish if Israel did not have a habit of drastically overstating their case and quietly walking it back after they end up killing more journalists and toddlers than active combatants in hospital bombings. Also if reports didn't deliberately conflate 'armed man' with 'Hamas militant' and euphemize about the 'Hamas-run Interior Ministry' like that one does.
> Israeli forces dressed in doctors’ scrubs and women’s clothes have killed three Palestinian militants in an undercover operation in a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
You'll just only point out the Israeli war crimes?
I'm so tired of this conflict. Both sides can eff off. The Israelis under Netanyahu are basically ever bad stereotype of Jewish people made real, and the Palestinians are the "woe is me we are innocents" while being controlled by murderous thugs and just siphoning the aid they beg for.
Nobody actually wants peace, well, those that would be at the negotiating table don't. The Israelis want the Palestinians dead, the Palestinians want the Israelis dead.
Arafat has the last shot at peace. He allegedly walked away because of access to some religious shrines. That should tell you everything you need to know about this region. Just a bunch of religious nutheads going at it, and the rest of the world gets suckered into spending billions on it, which ultimately just goes to the religious nut heads.
And all of it only appears in headlines because of oil.
Not falling for an obvious distraction from the extremely blatant pattern of dehumanising Palestinians.
> In leaked recordings, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva — then head of Israeli military intelligence — stated that for every person killed on Oct. 7, “50 Palestinians must die,” adding that “it doesn’t matter now if they are children.” He described mass Palestinian deaths as “necessary” to send a deterrent message.
> Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s declaration of a “complete siege” on Gaza — cutting food, electricity, fuel, and water — was accompanied by explicitly dehumanizing language. Announcing the policy on Oct. 9, Gallant stated: “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s assertion that “an entire nation out there is responsible” further blurs the institutional line between civilian and combatant.
> Such statements do not determine individual targeting decisions, but they shape the environment in which those decisions are made: how civilian life is valued, how much civilian harm is expected to be scrutinized, and how much is implicitly excused.
Welcome to the Middle East. The Gulf War had 50x deaths on the other side. The repression of the IRGC against peaceful protesters had the same kind of imbalance. Its how governments assert dominance there.
Just look at the reaction of Iran's "leaders" to the USA's threat to attack them. They keep their narrative logic intact: we'll sink your ships, etc. These are fearless people who's power is derived from the appearance of power.
I find it incredible that these isolated comments, of which even the various UN-backed panels can only find a handful quoted without context, is the basis for an evidence for an intent of genocide.
Besides the fact that it's a very poor genocide that after the war has ended has 100,000 palestinians leave (mostly on medical or humanitarian grounds) out of 2M Gazans and when Israel is constantly accused of blocking them in.
Bear in mind that Israel is a democracy with proportional representation resulting in a coalition government so you are essentially accusing a the majority of the population of supporting genocidal intent based on a few out-of-context and unclear quotes from some individuals. For example Smotrich - a right wing nut IMO - party won only 5 seats out of 120 in the last election.
The PM, and the official statements overwhelmingly and repeatedly state that they were not targetting civilians, whilst also adding as has been proven that the entire strip was criss-crossed with tunnels (longer and more extensive than the London metro) with exits under schools and hospitals and that their attacks met the proportionaility test which is that the miltary advantage must be proportional to risk of civilians harmed. They said no strikes were indiscrimate, they were all against verified presence of hamas. You and I might find that ugly, vicious and can question if there was another way to fight Hamas, but illegal it aint.
Herzog's comments were taken widly out of context. It takes a very particular and pre-dermined POV to discount the actual Q&Q where there quote ignored the entire paragraph which gives it a different meaning and the very next question asked him to clarify the statement anout responsible and he immediately replied (all this within a couple of minutes of the same presser) his intent. As (e.g.) HuffPost reported: when a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say that since Gazans did not remove Hamas from power “that makes them, by implication, legitimate targets,” Herzog said, “No, I didn’t say that.”
Here's a transcipt of the presser:
Journalist: "You spoke very passionately about you saying that Israel was not retaliating but
targeting with regards to the operations in Gaza. But even President Biden, who spoke so personally
and passionately with regard to what was happening in Israel, spoke about the importance of the laws
of war. So, with that in mind, what can Israel do to alleviate the impact of this conflict on two
million civilians, many of whom have nothing to do with Hamas?"
President Isaac Herzog: "First of all, we have to understand there's a state, there's a state, in a
way, that has built a machine of evil right at our doorstep. It's an entire nation out there that is
responsible. It's not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved—it's absolutely not
true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza
in a coup d'état, murdering their family members who were in Fatah."
Journalist: "I am sincerely sorry for what is happening in Israel right now, but I have been listening
to your answers for the last few minutes and I am a little confused. On the one hand, you say that
Israel follows international law in the Gaza Strip and that civilians are protected; you say you are
very careful to prevent casualties. But at the same time, you seem to hold the people of Gaza
responsible for not trying to remove Hamas, and therefore by implication, that makes them legitimate
targets."
President Isaac Herzog: "No, I did not say that. I did not say that and I want to make it clear. A
question was raised about the separation of Hamas and civilians. I said that in their homes, there are
missiles shooting at us. If you have a missile in your kitchen and you want to launch it at me, don't
I have the right to defend myself? We have to defend ourselves; we have the full right to do so. Hamas
carries full responsibility and accountability for the well-being of the hostages and for the
situation they have brought upon Gaza."
Journalist: "But my question is: Are civilians in Gaza held responsible for not destroying Hamas and
therefore become legitimate targets?"
President Isaac Herzog: "I repeat again: there is no excuse for murdering innocent civilians in any
way, in any context. And believe me, Israel will operate and always operates according to the
international rules."
Gallant was speaking less than 48 hours after Oct 7 when feelings were very high and it's clearly fighting talk which (a) was referring to Hamas as animals not Gazans (b) he didn't actually ever execute that quoted extent of the seige in full utilities ran low but never the extended cut off that's implied (c) Israel didn't actually provide 100% of the water and electricity that was internal desalination run on stockpiles of fuel so it was clear that cutting off supplies does not immediately harm civilians.
Even in Halavi's case, he might be a right-wing nutter and meant what was reported but the head of army intelligence does not decide policy. And when you look at the original I don't think it would pass court of law. Israeli Channel 12 added the square brackets intent to "it doesn't matter now [if they] are children" but actually the original in hebrew was only "זה לא משנה עכשיו ילדים" [1] which could mean instead "it doesn't matter [to this argument the mention of] children" which is equally plausable in idiomatic Hebrew. Either way, his comments in full don't tick the boxes of genocidal intent.
> Besides the fact that it's a very poor genocide that after the war has ended has 100,000 palestinians
You seem disappointed. Anywho...
A common misconception is that genocide must involve a very large number of deaths on the order of hundreds of thousands or millions. But this is false. The perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War were found guilty of genocide despite the massacre’s death toll being less than 9,000. Hence the fact that “only” 70,000–100,000+ people have died in Gaza in no way refutes the charge of genocide.
> Gallant was speaking less than 48 hours after Oct 7 when feelings were very high
Genocidal feelings. Super normal.
> Even in Halavi's case, he might be a right-wing nutter
Nuts in highest military positions when warring with 4 or more states. Very normal, too.
> Bear in mind that Israel is a democracy with proportional representation resulting in a coalition government so you are essentially accusing a the majority of the population of supporting genocidal intent...
Perpetrating* a genocide, seems like.
Is the Gaza War a genocide? Two key features of the mortality data are consistent with that charge: first, unusually high mortality among women and children; second, the sudden and dramatic fall in life expectancy. In these respects, the war resembles the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides more closely than any other recent conflict involving the US or Israel.
> Is the Gaza War a genocide? Two key features of the mortality data are consistent with that charge: first, unusually high mortality among women and children; second, the sudden and dramatic fall in life expectancy.
To be fair, you'd also see this if your opponents were using human shields and hospitals for military operations, which Hamas has been documented as doing. This is not so clear cut.
That definition of 'human shield' is basically only used in this context by Israel and its advocates. If we adhere to it, the fact that Israel has military installations embedded in residential neighbourhoods ought to qualify, but it seemingly doesn't. And if one uses the most commonly accepted definition in IHL, Israel has a long history of participating in it. Is any of that fair?
Having military installations in residential areas is different than housing soldiers and civilians in the same buildings, using hospitals as bases for military operations and using medical transports remove weapons. It's not even a close comparison.
>Having military installations in residential areas is different than housing soldiers and civilians in the same buildings
It doesn't especially matter how different they are, since Israel's rather arbitrary definition includes both of those behaviours. Just like their definition of 'soldier', which, per their use of administrative detention, includes children as young as 12, and 'base', for which a dozen rifles spread out on a prayer mat often suffices.
Hamas is not a military since Palestine is not a state (courtesy of Israel itself), so what they're doing can't be classified as war crimes. If you want to accuse Hamas of war crimes, you first need to recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Palestine is recognized as a state by most of the world, including recent changes of mind in the UK, France, Australia, etc. I also take that position.
“These would be war crimes… if we were a state! Muahahahaha!” is not a position I’d be comfy espousing as a positive thing.
I am glad Hamas leadership saw consequences for their war crimes. I wish I could say the same for Netanyahu and his Cabinet.
> It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy… The following acts are examples of perfidy… The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status...
(Assassinating a paralyzed patient in a hospital is also not typically - ahem - kosher. Even if you're in uniform!)
If Israel wants to take that position, they’ll need to denounce the Nuremberg trials. “Crimes against humanity” were invented for them, as the Holocaust was legal under German law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip).
As the article indicates, prohibitions against perfidy and other war crimes predate the Conventions.
(And I’d note that, as occupying power, Israel is subject to other requirements.)
(And if this is truly your argument, “Hamas doesn’t have to follow the rules either” is the logical conclusion. Which makes whining about their uniforms a bit odd; there is no scenario where "Hamas has to follow the Conventions, but Israel does not" is a coherent position.)
Why was it decided that feigning of civilian, non-combatant status is bad? because it led to death of civilians who had no part in the fight; pretending to be your enemy's civilians bring no such issue. Although assassinating a patient is also not kosher it less relevant to the discussion about use of uniforms.
> Could you clarify where in the Geneva Conventions this very important exemption is stated?
The spirit of the law is more important then its letter. Also I think Israel never signed that part of the Geneva Conventions.
> Because people start shooting civilians thinking they're infiltrators, and even enemy civilians are protected persons.
When did that happened in the Israel-Arab conflict? (When did that happened elsewhere? It sounds like it should be very rare, people don't kill their own so easily?)
> Also I think Israel never signed that part of the Geneva Conventions.
You, earlier: "A lot of that ambiguity would vanish if Hamas did not have a habit of not putting uniforms in combat."
Now it's suddenly not a problem? I can't imagine Hamas signed the Geneva Conventions.
> It sounds like it should be very rare, people don't kill their own so easily?
German Jews in the 1930s/1940s would probably disagree.
> When did that happened elsewhere? It sounds like it should be very rare, people don't kill their own so easily?
I mean, the IDF killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza, while with their hands up and holding a white flag, because they thought they were infiltrators.
The spirit of the law is reducing the civilian cost of war. Its hard to argue that Israel's few incidents of wearing civilian clothes for special operations increased the odds of civilian costs compared to the same operation done in uniform. Meanwhile, Hamas's lack of uniforms has led to significantly increased civilian cost.
> Now it's suddenly not a problem? I can't imagine Hamas signed the Geneva Conventions.
As I already alluded to earlier, the principles and spirit are more important to me than the literal conventions and if somebody signed it. I will note that you brought up the Geneva Conventions not me.
> German Jews in the 1930s/1940s would probably disagree.
I'm confused to what you refer to and why you brought it up?
> I mean, the IDF killed three Israeli hostages in Gaza, while with their hands up and holding a white flag, because they thought they were infiltrators.
This is not an example to what I asked for, this wouldn't have happened if Hamas wore uniform, IDF wore uniforms, the held hostages civilians didn't but because they were in combat they mistook them for Hamas. What I want is Israeli citizens mistaken for an enemy combatant in Israel in a non-active-combat environment or Palestinians citizens mistaken for an IDF soldier in Palestine in a non-active-combat environment.
Me: "Because people start shooting civilians thinking they're infiltrators, and even enemy civilians are protected persons."
You: "When did that happened in the Israel-Arab conflict?"
This was in the Israel-Arab conflict, and as you acknowledge, "wouldn't have happened if Hamas wore uniform". It is a perfectly responsive example to your request, and clearly illustrates the potential harm to innocent civilians from violations of the rule.
I give up. We started this with "Do you understand the difference between being not in uniform in order to infiltrate enemy territory and being not in uniform in your own territory?" and I clarified again in the comment you responded to: "What I want is Israeli citizens mistaken for an enemy combatant in Israel in a non-active-combat environment or Palestinians citizens mistaken for an IDF soldier in Palestine in a non-active-combat environment."
I will explain one last time I'm not looking for examples of people being harmed from "general" perfidy but those analogous for what happened - a stealth raid infiltrating among an enemy's population, "people start shooting civilians thinking they're infiltrators" as you said. The hostages weren't infiltrators, the context was that they were in enemy territory against their will and active combat. This is quite different from an hypothetical west bank combatant shooting his fellow men in non-active combat because he thought they were IDF.
P.S I'm still confused about the German Jews in the 1930s/1940s comment.
Grossly asymmetric warfare promotes and "kinda" justifies guerilla tactics from one side. Necessity knows no law and all that.
Of course, that does mean the bigger side has to get dirty too, sometimes. Just not to the extent that Israel is, who clearly just want to cleanse the land in order to own it. I mean, this is Boer war territory, not (e.g.) Algerian war where torture was used but civilians were mostly left intact.
National Guard and HomeGuard in every allied country has a uniform.
The ones that don't are using what would be considered unlawful tactics these days.
You're an 'unlawful combatant' if you don't wear one: the Geneva Convention still technically applies to you, just not in any way you'd find comforting.
> The ones that don't are using what would be considered unlawful tactics these days.
The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation and exchanging volleys of fire. No true gentlemen does that!
> the British military and government frequently accused American colonial soldiers of violating the established "rules of war" (or the "laws of nations") during the Revolutionary War, largely because they viewed the conflict not as a war between sovereign nations, but as a rebellion. The British often regarded the Americans as unlawful combatants, or rebels, who used irregular tactics that disregarded traditional 18th-century European military etiquette.
> The British Army was very upset that ragtag riflemen in the American colonies kept running into the woods and shooting from behind cover instead of standing in a Proper Formation
The European war tradition was open fields and men standing in lines firing volleys from 50-100m, roughly. Americans fought in the French/Indian wars alongside Native Americans and picked up their hit-and-run tactics. They were also using rifled barrel Kentucky Longrifles that could hit a man-sized target at 250m (roughly). The Americans also would directly target officers, which was seen as cowardly/ungentlemanly.
Why should they play by some foreign made up book just because it would suit the oppressor who massively overpowers you in every aspect? Come on, lets get real, if you defend your homeland from invader any tactic is good tactic. Thats not some higher moral ground just basic logic.
Geneva convention is just a piece of paper, sometimes adhered to by some parties, and thats about it. And thats something coming from a person living and working in Geneva lol. russians keep breaking those rules every day for years on ukraine and not much is happening, is it.
The Geneva Convention wasn't written by oppressors to protect oppressors; it was written largely because of what happens to civilians and prisoners when there are no rules. The protections run both ways: your wounded, your captured fighters, your civilian population all benefit from it. Tear it up and you're not sticking it to the powerful, you're just guaranteeing that nobody on either side has any protection at all.
And yes, Russia breaks the rules constantly in Ukraine. The response to that is not 'therefore rules are worthless,' it's 'therefore we need better enforcement.' A legal system with imperfect enforcement is not the same thing as no legal system; by that logic you'd abolish murder laws because people still get murdered.
'Any tactic is a good tactic' is also, incidentally, exactly what the oppressor says.
> Why should they play by some foreign made up book just because it would suit the oppressor who massively overpowers you in every aspect?
If they refuse to abide by the "foreign book" that dictate the rules of conflict, then I'm not sure how they could legitimately use the foreign book's classification of genocide. Those rules are what dictate how to classify a genocide.
Well they don’t have to agree with all of it. The Geneva convention is (primarily) an agreement between parties that “we’ll follow these rules so we don’t end up killing civilians and razing cities to the ground”. When the opposing side is doing that, what good does it do you to say “but under subsection 17 b of paragraph 11…”
Of course not. It’s just as wrong for Palestinians to attack Israeli civilians as it is for Israelis to attack Palestinian civilians. If you review this whole thread, you have folks defending Israel, you have folks defending Palestine.
The only difference is that Israel is capable of genocide militarily, and is levelling Palestinian cities.
Because genocide is defined by wholesale targeting of civilians, but if the opposing side uses civilians as human shields then that definition can no longer be applied.
> Drastically overstating their case? Israel estimates tend to be pretty close to accurate. What's been walked back?
From the article we're discussing:
"The Israeli military was forced to change its story about the ambush several times, following the discovery of the bodies in a mass grave, along with their flattened vehicles, and the emergence of video and audio recordings taken by the aid workers. An internal military inquiry ultimately did not recommend any criminal action against the army units responsible for the incident."
What are you trying to convey? That concentration camps are good, actually? Or that people only feel otherwise today because they're liberal hypocrites?
My read of this account is that they're deeply conservative, and like to take every example of a terrible thing the current administration is doing as an opportunity to "both sides" it in order to attempt to normalize how bad the current administration is.
They have never condemned the current administration for doing this without also "whatabouting" the Obama administration.
So to answer your question, they will say they're doing the "liberal hypocrites" song and dance, but in reality they're working towards a case that "Actually concentration camps aren't that bad, because 'both sides' do them."
In practice most people actually on the left can recognize that the Obama administration (and the Bush, Clinton and Biden administrations) were deeply flawed, but they are still lightyears better than the Concentration camps of the current administration which are detaining children and separating them from their families based on which side of a line they fall on, on a map (or more likely, the color of their skin).
It's funny because Rick's examples always what-about the Obama administration which makes it likely a dog-whistle.
Rick, if you want to beat the allegations, please condemn the current administration for their actions if you think they're wrong. We already know what you think about Obama, so you can just call out the current administration without mentioning other administrations.
I am glad you feel that _I_ have a high level of compassion for my fellow humans.
If someone posts "but Obama" in response to a bunch of -hand written letters from children in what I consider to be a literal concentration camp- then I'm going to think that person has transcended a lack of "integrity" or "critical thinking skills" into becoming a literal monster.
This is the account's M.O. You can see my response above, but basically as far as I can tell they're deeply conservative, and they try and position themselves as a like "rational centrist" by doing this "both sides" Dance.
The giveaway that you've noticed, is they never actually condemn the existing administration without also comparing them to Obama (and for reasons beyond me, specifically Obama and not say, Biden, Bush 1/2, Clinton).
big hint: how many computer-literate people do you know that would put their whole-ass name as their HN handle, in 2026? none i'd professionally associate with, thats for sure
Having an excuse for why you still haven't filled out the fourth-quadrent "unknown unknowns", doesn't make you "better".
It's entirely possible to dislike BHO for racist reasons, just like it's possible to think both he and the Bushes are literal war criminals for consistent reasons.
I think GWB is a war criminal who had a better understanding of North/South migration than BHO. I still think both of them, and about anyone who supports DJT for any reasons, are pretty vicious.
And, like I said, literal all folks who like DJT and dislike BHO are birthers of various stripes. That's my lived experience. Maybe you're some kind of unicorn, who knows.
Obama's been a private citizen for nearly a decade, so inserting him into the conversation suggests your rubric for integrity and critical thinking skills is in grave disrepair.
I've read this before. The first time you posted this.
Your obsession with Obama and ignorance of current events are well known to me and everyone else who reads this site regularly.
Please make an effort to apply your purported critical thinking sklls and claimed integrity rather than reposting one article repeatedly.
Being unwilling to differentiate between two obiously different forms of badness—both in kind and in quantity—is intentional ignorance and is antithetical to the curious conversation expected of this community.
It'd be nice if Israel would let UN fact-finding missionaries or other independent research teams into Gaza to find out (in addition to not barring and/or killing humanitarian aid workers)
It’s perfectly normal for militaries to have press restrictions in conflict zones, for opsec among other good reasons. No one bats an eye when Ukraine does it for example.
1. Ukraine’s media restrictions are virtually non-existent when compared to those enforced by the Israelis in Gaza, including the intentional bombing of media offices. Keep in mind that Hamas has repeatedly called upon Israel to allow foreign press and NGOs to visit and see what’s happening on the ground.
2. The Ukraine war is a conventional war between sovereign nations with standing militaries with equivalent capabilities (air force, anti-air defenses, armored vehicles, bomb shelters, etc). The Gaza genocide is an onslaught by a sovereign nation with a well equipped military against a militant group in a dense urban area. Leveling entire city blocks when fighting against an opponent that has no air force or anti-air capabilities is not only unimpressive, but also breaks the principle of proportionality.
1. It's pretty much the same - no press in dangerous areas unless invited and escorted by the military. The only major difference is that Ukraine is >1000x larger, and has safe areas far from any fighting where such press restrictions aren't needed.
2. You're making a bunch of separate accusations without connecting them to the topic at hand, which was press restrictions.
No, they’re not the same, and (2) is very relevant.
Let me reiterate: Ukraine is a sovereign nation with a sovereign military that has the ability to enforce restrictions within its own territory.
To bring your bad analogy more in line with reality on the ground, imagine if Ukraine was still part of/occupied by the USSR/Russia, and Russia enforced press restrictions across all of Ukrainian territory during a Ukrainian insurgency. However, in this theoretical USSR, Ukrainians did not get Soviet citizenship, and were under a total blockade.
> The only major difference is that Ukraine is >1000x larger, and has safe areas far from any fighting where such press restrictions aren't needed.
But Israel never allowed press into the strip, even during “ceasefire” periods - like right now! This implies that Israel is not somehow paternalistically concerned for press safety; it simply wants a media blackout.
So no, this “major difference” is irrelevant when comparing restrictions between the two conflicts.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Universally, modern militaries don't like journalists wandering around near their assets.
> and Russia enforced press restrictions across all of Ukrainian territory
Your analogy isn't very different from reality. Russia does enforce press restrictions near military assets, including in occupied parts of Ukraine.
> However, in this theoretical USSR, Ukrainians did not get Soviet citizenship, and were under a total blockade.
That would seem very unfair, if Russia did it just because they're mean and not because this hypothetical Ukraine had launched tens of thousands of rockets at them. But I'm not sure what it has to do with press restrictions.
> even during “ceasefire” periods
The ceasefire was pretty much dead once Hamas attacked IDF soldiers in Rafah. Now it's just a lower-intensity conflict. Still not a great idea to have random journalists waltzing around and tweeting photos of military assets.
> it simply wants a media blackout
This is a funny explanation because there are millions of cameras in Gaza anyway, and this is the second most covered conflict (by metrics like article count) in all of human history. Not much of a "blackout" at all.
Alright, your good faith arguments have convinced me! To summarize:
On one side, two sovereign nations setting press restrictions in areas they control. Standard stuff.
On the other side, a genocidal state blockading a tiny strip of land for 20 years waging a campaign that has killed & maimed so many children that we have lost count unilaterally enforcing a total international media blackout. Also standard stuff.
Silly me, how could I even argue about this? It’s just so damn obvious! Sometimes, arguing with random anons on HN pays off :)
You're just changing the topic with unrelated accusations. How nice or mean you think a military is irrelevant to the fact that they don't like random journalists tweeting photos of their military assets.
Gaza population September 2023: 2.3 million. Gaza population September 2025: 2.1 million.
Hamas casualties make up only a portion of palestinian casualties; palestinian casualties make up only a portion of excess deaths; excess deaths make up only a portion of total deaths.
The next census will be in 2027. No one knows the population until then.
It’s not clear that Hamas limits their counts to excess deaths. Even if they intended to, a lot of it is based on a web form, with not much validation besides basic checks that the person exists etc.
As with pretty much any conflict, there's a ton of uncertainly, and people shouldn't be recklessly speculating based on things like WhatsApp chats. Responsible casualty estimates would look more like Ukraine, where for example Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" (one significant digit) were killed in Mariupol.
You are the one who proposed birth estimates and casualty claims suggest population increased. How do you think population estimates work?
There is no census scheduled for 2027. Gaza (much like Israel) does not conduct full censuses on a regular schedule. Neither Gaza nor Israel have scheduled their next full census at this time. The most recent census for Gaza was 2017 (for comparison Israel's most recent was 2008). All population numbers of relevance are determined by statistical methods. For large numbers, this is perfectly adequate.
> As with pretty much any conflict, there's a ton of uncertainly, and people shouldn't be recklessly speculating based on things like WhatsApp chats.
Numbers of deaths aren't being estimated from WhatApp chats. The most widely agreed upon estimates are based on morgue data, which if anything should undercount the actual death toll as plenty of bodies never make it to a morgue operated by health professionals. These health professionals are the same ones giving the birth rate estimates.
> Responsible casualty estimates would look more like Ukraine, where for example Zelenskyy said "tens of thousands" (one significant digit) were killed in Mariupol.
That's not what one significant digit means. That is an order of magnitude estimate. I believe everyone is in agreement that the death toll of the gaza war was likewise in the tens of thousands. 1 significant digit would indicate how many tens of thousands. For example, death tolls for Mariupol range from between 20,000 and 90,000. Estimates for Gaza range between 60,000 and 100,000, or roughly half the band for Mariupol. Note that Ukraine does not have access to Mariupol to investigate, as the war is still ongoing, whereas we are several months past the ceasefire in Gaza. Based on pre-war numbers, natural deaths unrelated to the conflict should be a rounding error at this resolution.
Certainly the claim that the population increase is proof of anything is absurd.
2027 is the expectation, since it's supposed to be at least every ten years.
> Numbers of deaths aren't being estimated from WhatApp chats.
Unfortunately they are. [1] was based on messages in "X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram". An example of content they scraped is [2], but they also included non-public chats in WhatsApp etc.
> The most widely agreed upon estimates are based on morgue data, which if anything should undercount the actual death toll as plenty of bodies never make it to a morgue operated by health professionals.
This isn't the case even for GHM's official counts. Anyone can report a Gazan "martyr" or missing person on a web form right here [3]. Those get included in GHM's counts, if they pass basic checks like the existence of that name and ID.
> That's not what one significant digit means.
I think the concept still applies, though I should have said zero significant digits, since "tens of thousands" implies an exponent but zero digits of the mantissa. But my point is that responsible estimates involve acknowledgement of uncertainty.
> I believe everyone is in agreement that the death toll of the gaza war was likewise in the tens of thousands.
Most of Israel's critics are not satisfied with Hamas' ~70k casualty figure, and seek out higher estimates like the aforementioned one that used WhatsApp chats. For example, a HNer yesterday wrote "They've killed people in the hundreds of thousands in Gaza now."
Estimates of birth that rely on the mid-2023 figure and deliberately ignore Israel's systematic dismantling of the health and food systems in Gaza and the drop in fertility levels.
>the casualty count that Hamas claims
The Gaza Health Ministry's count is widely regarded as an underestimate, but mostly by people who don't refer to it with a dogwhistling caveat.
>you assume I fall into some political bucket, when I almost certainly don't (I am not American and I don't follow American media). I don't use any social media other than HN and a couple private group chats.
This is pretty meaningless; one can share an ideology with an official they did not or even cannot vote for, and can do so even if they don't have Twitter.
Are you implying that because I am pointing out how the HN guidelines state crime and other topics that trample curiosity are off-topic, I share some ideology with some American official that condones child porn?
Whatever the guidelines state, those other topics are frequently discussed without much rancor which you refuse to confront. But anyway, all I was saying is that that specific line item is a non-sequitur.
> without much rancor which you refuse to confront
I was responding to the "why is this post flagged?", and you changed scope to "justify all moderator decisions across the platform". Consider that you may have a sensitivity to certain topics that I do not. It seems like you see something I don't.
I'm not condoning all moderator decisions. I'm not remotely familiar with all posts on HN. I'm only considering this one post and acknowledging how this topic is clearly trampling curiosity and that it seems reasonable to me that it's been flagged given the spirit and word of the HN guidelines.
Of the posts I am familiar with, there have been several cases when a thread was flagged that at first seemed on-topic but after reflecting I realized the comments had gone off the rails and that's why it was flagged. This decision seems very much in line with other cases I've seen, but I can't justify all decisions nor am I position to even judge them.
> But anyway, all I was saying is that that specific line item is a non-sequitur.
It actually wasn't, though I could have been more clear about why it was relevant. Where people get information and what tribe they feel they belong to changes how they interpret new information. The reason I brought it up is because I was getting the sense from multiple replies to my comments that some people were assuming I (and the moderators) wanted to censor the underlying concern about Grok as if I was a part of the American culture/political war. I was just trying to clarify I am not a part of that and want nothing to do with it.
>I was responding to the "why is this post flagged?", and you changed scope to "justify all moderator decisions across the platform".
The actual question in the top-level comment you replied to is "why is this post, and other posts that discuss potential malfeasance from X/Grok regularly flagged?" It is implicit from follow-ups that appealing to the guidelines does not wash except as a thought-terminating cliche. In that sense I guess you are right, the topic can derail intellectual curiosity.
> I was getting the sense from multiple replies to my comments that some people were assuming I (and the moderators) wanted to censor the underlying concern about Grok as if I was a part of the American culture/political war.
The current iteration of techno-optimism characteristic of a lot of this site's userbase may have originated in SV, but it isn't the exclusive province of Californians. That's most likely what is being referred to.
The GP's accusations of gatekeeping and dishonesty led me to deduce he was making assumptions about political leaning rather than a more respectful interpretation being to protect intellectually curious dialog.
Then parent made a comment about how political categorization doesn't matter when I can share an ideology with a political official out side of my jurisdiction.
So I think I reasonably asked a clarifying question about whether I was being assumed an ideology for my stance of the interpretation of HN guidelines. I asked this because I couldn't see any other reason why parent would have brought up ideology or made that comment.
This is certainly not sealioning. I am not trolling, I am not harassing, I am not demanding evidence or attempting to disrupt dialog. I was only trying to clarify parents point and reason for introducing ideology into the dialog.
If I zoom out and look at the whole thread, I can take a more generous view of your criticism and acknowledge that I could have been more direct rather than leading through questions. I still don't think that's sealioning, but I wasn't as clear and patient as I could have been or want to show up here. I am doing my best and trying to get better.
The issue I think is that the HN guidelines have two different sets of criteria for on-topic and off-topic. With a bit more time to reflect, it seems like the people who think this submission is on-topic are only looking at the on-topic criteria set and not really considering the off-topic criteria set.
They also aren't considering the spirit of the guidelines to foster intellectually curious dialog and avoid topics that derail it.
The comment two up from the one you replied to was not my best and does warrant some criticism, and I think that's the one that probably triggered you to make the sealioning accusation, even though I disagree with that particular classification.
> The idea that it does not foster curiosity comes from a very particular place
Spell it out for me please. What exactly are you accusing me of? This entire thread has been hostile to me but keeps beating around the bush. Are you saying that HN mods and I are protecting Grok in a biased way?
> This post is bullseye dead center in bounds for a HN post.
It definitely isn't, as it hits multiple criteria for off-topic as stated clearly in the HN guidelines.
> They also aren't considering the spirit of the guidelines to foster intellectually curious dialog and avoid topics that derail it.
Yes they are. We considered it and came to a different conclusion than you. We believe that this topic does foster intellectually curious dialog and your insistence that we don't is frustrating.
> Not if the topic consistently devolves away from intellectually curious dialog. There are clearly a lot of charged emotions and strong opinions across most of these comments.
IMO, this is the core problem. Charged emotions and strong opinions are not the opposite of intellectually curious dialog. An insistence that conversation play out like an abstract game separated from all feeling is anathema to useful communication, in my opinion. People are not better, smarter, or more interesting by being dispassionate. Especially when the topic is wide scale mass abuse and harassment. Feelings are not bad.
Okay, well my goal here was to communicate a benefit of the doubt most respectful interpretation of the moderators decision, and how it can be justified by the official HN guidelines.
While I could have been a lot more clear from the start, I think I've done my part. You can disagree with me and assume bad faith if you want. That's your choice.
It's revealing that you're repeatedly framing your decision as someone else's. Did you not see the flag button that you yourself pressed? And I'm assuming you did press it, because you so vehemently argue in favor of flagging this submission.
> It's revealing that you're repeatedly framing your decision as someone else's
Yes it's revealing that I was confused about how HN works.
I did flag it, and I don't deny that. I explained in another comment how I thought it was 70/30 off/on topic. However my confusion stems from the fact that I thought moderators made the final decision to flag a submission. I just read about it and now realize that users drive flagging which alerts moderators and then they choose whether to set it as dead. At least now that's how I think it works.
So yes, a lot of my comments didn't make any sense. All of my interpretation of the guidelines I stand by, but my misunderstanding about the flagging mechanism totally skewed a bunch of my comments and I no longer agree with them. If I could, I would edit them.
I feel pretty silly about all of this. Part of the reason I was so adamant about my stance is that I've had comments flagged in the past, which at the time I felt wasn't appropriate (I really thought fell within the guidelines) and I mistakenly thought the moderators had done. So over time I adapted my interpretation of the guidelines, which is what I was representing here.
Now I realize I was being censored by who knows who based on their interpretation of the guidelines, or who knows why, not the people who run this site. Worse, I let it bias how I use the site and now propogated that pattern out on to others.
I really don't know what to think about all this as there is a lot to unpack and reflect on, but I've unflagged this submission.
Thanks again for clarifying how flagging works for me it's made a big difference.
I found the piece rambling and incoherent, but I don't really see how this follows. This is an individual Jordanian founder who made a political statement. That's not really the same thing as the deep integration between the Israeli state, Zionist organizations, and big tech.
As the article mentions, Saudi Arabia is aiming to build its own deep integration with big tech, which Masad is enthusiastically participating in despite the Saudi government's own human rights issues. (He argues, quite conveniently if true, that the Replit tools he sells to the Saudi government won't be used for any of the bad stuff.)
This clarifies things, thank you. I've gotten the impression that Masad doesn't have a very coherent worldview so I doubt he has given this contradiction much thought.
Both sides of...what? I'm confused. Is the idea "all these people have a lot more money than I think they'll ever need and it makes me mad"? Me too. Just don't see how it's relevant.
The idea is that as money gets so concentrated, so does real political power. And with that concentration of political power comes extreme disregard for the opinions of the masses. I think it's a fair argument that the world has always catered to the will of rich people, but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich, and so much wealth is concentrated in so few.
More plainly on my part, though I'm worried sounds like berating when the comments are viewed consecutively: what does that have to do with the article we are discussing?
> “There was an aspect of, like, ‘Fuck the system,’” Masad said. “‘We need to remake civilization.’”
No matter what the political views, running into "real" money radicalizes most people and gives them the impression that they reached a superior evolutionary stage that uniquely entitles them... no, demands from them that they bend society and human civilization to their will, reshape it in their image, make it better because they are better. A sort of messianic complex.
This is the famous horseshoe paradox that says extremes are closer to each other than to the center. They might look completely different in their views but in reality they're back to back in the same place. 2 sides of the same coin. Different imprint, same value.
> but the difference now is that rich people are so unfathomably rich...
Compared to when? How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated?
As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants). The mid-20th century was an era of mass prosperity in the US and parts of Europe, but it was an anomalous few decades, not the norm.
> How many times in history has wealth been less concentrated?
Mostly all of them! There have been periods where inequality dropped, but mostly it's been rising since at least the 1300s. I'm on mobile and can't link research, but there are a few papers that investigate this.
> As far as I'm aware, for almost all of history post-agriculture, wealth was highly concentrated while the average person lived in abject poverty (think: kings vs peasants).
And yet it was less unequal than now, an era where we've managed to use technology to concentrate wealth at an unprecedented scale. No longer is the richest person you know the king who collects your taxes next door, now it's a SV trillionaire on the other side of the world.
What does "Zionist" mean to you? I honestly don't understand what it means when Israel has existed as a Jewish state for 76 years and seems likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
The podcast The Empire Never Ended has recently finished a rather good series on Meir Kahane, one of the most important influences on contemporary zionism:
It's like defining Germany as "a state that genocided various groups", or defining Irish nationalism as "a movement characterized by terrorist attacks against British civilians". Whether or not those claims are accurate, they're not defining features of the things we're trying to define.
And sure, most Zionists are not Jews because the Jewish population is too tiny to be a majority in almost any political category. Similarly most people who support Somaliland independence are not Somalilanders, but probably Indians or Chinese or something.
The zionist movement has never been peaceful, it has always aimed for violent expulsion of native populations from Palestine. One might argue that socialist or liberal zionism is not overtly jewish supremacist, but in practice they always were so I'd contest that. Unlike the irish they also did not have a reason to exterminate the palestinians specifically, whereas the irish have good reason to resist british influence.
So you agree that zionism is a movement mainly consisting of christians, you're just not aware that both christian and jewish zionists prefer to paint the movement as a jewish underdog and distract from things like the nukes and nuke carrying backers and the genocide and so on.
They have been reluctant to give up their homeland, you mean. Yes, resistance to occupation and genocide is usually to some extent violent, because the occupier is extremely violent to begin with.
They never actually had sovereign control over the land. It was controlled by Romans and then by the Turks and then by the British and when the British left it was basically up for grabs.
Sharing the land with european colonists that used terrorism and ethnic cleansing to remove and to a lesser extent subjugate the native population? Why would they?
If you're suggesting that a peoples' right to live in their homeland is forfeited as a result of immigration, terrorism or ethnic cleansing, that would be bad news for Palestinians. Gaza and WB Area A are Jew-free zones, and there were around 30k rocket attacks from Gaza alone.
Quite the opposite, I'm suggesting the palestinians still have a right to their homelands even though europeans have settled, terrorised and displaced them.
Yeah, what about "rocket attacks"? Are they somehow more devastating than the US-israeli armory? If someone spits in front of my feet, then I can have them watch while I beat their family to death?
It is really despicable the way people like you completely dismiss Hamas atrocities like what they did on Oct 7 2023 when 1,219 people were killed by the attacks: at least 810 civilians (including 38 children and 71 foreign nationals) and at least 379 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded. Israel exists and the Palestinians will never be able to defeat it and they are very stupid for trying and failing for 76 years.
Hamas's official position, expressed in its original 1988 charter and repeatedly affirmed by many of its leaders' statements and actions (including the October 7, 2023 attack), is to
destroy the state of Israel and establish an Islamic state in its place "from the river to the sea". The 1988 charter explicitly called for the killing of Jews as a religious duty.
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/national/etc. battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which side of which battle you are or aren't on.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/national/etc. battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which side of which battle you are or aren't on.
More accurately, a Zionist descendant of Raphael Lemkin was working with Zionist organizations to abjure their characterization of the Gaza genocide as a genocide.
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