Israel-Gaza war

[windjammer]

The most unhinged thing about Hamas it is that they are literally killings their own population with these missed missiles.

Truly insane degenerates.

[Meclazine for Israel]

The most unhinged thing about Hamas it is that they are literally killings their own population with these missed missiles.

Truly insane degenerates.

Israel are saying they are putting video footage evidence together on the civilian strike on the road last Friday:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67114281

If what the Israeli's are saying is true, these Palestinians were targeted by Hamas.

Israel don't ask civilians to migrate south for their own safety, then send a missile to blow those same people travelling on the road leading south. That makes no sense.

Hamas are running out of credibility here trying to keep civilians in the north in Gaza City.

[Estrella]

And this is - ladies and gentlemen - what genocide denial looks like - brought to you on real time by Atlas.

Having said all this, I don't exactly blame people for assuming the IDF was lying. It was my first instinct too. But sometimes things really are just horrific, senseless mistakes.

Especially disappointed in you, I expected better from you.

For all that I disagree with posters like Snowstalker, at least they’re capable of contributing something valuable to this debate and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without immediately insinuating that Israelis deserved it or screaming GENOCIDE GENOCIDE GENOCIDE at everyone who disagrees with them in the slightest. There’s a difference between even very strong opposition to Israel’s actions and being a left-wing Ben Gvir.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

And this is - ladies and gentlemen - what genocide denial looks like - brought to you on real time by Atlas.

Having said all this, I don't exactly blame people for assuming the IDF was lying. It was my first instinct too. But sometimes things really are just horrific, senseless mistakes.

Especially disappointed in you, I expected better from you.

For all that I disagree with posters like Snowstalker, at least they’re capable of contributing something valuable to this debate and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without immediately insinuating that Israelis deserved it. There’s a difference between even very strong opposition to Israel’s actions and being a left-wing Ben Gvir.

I'm on a Belgian politics forum too, they say the complete opposite of this forum, and i also highly value/credit like I do with Atlas (or used to). And you're saying completely opposite things at this point.

There's no evidence whatsoever right now, except for some tweets, that backs Israels/US claim. No evidence at all.

[dead0man]

I don't even understand what Laki(ng) is seeing in that post that makes it genocide denial.

[Old Man Willow]

And this is - ladies and gentlemen - what genocide denial looks like - brought to you on real time by Atlas.

Having said all this, I don't exactly blame people for assuming the IDF was lying. It was my first instinct too. But sometimes things really are just horrific, senseless mistakes.

Especially disappointed in you, I expected better from you.

For all that I disagree with posters like Snowstalker, at least they’re capable of contributing something valuable to this debate and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without immediately insinuating that Israelis deserved it. There’s a difference between even very strong opposition to Israel’s actions and being a left-wing Ben Gvir.

I'm on a Belgian politics forum too, they say the complete opposite of this forum, and i also highly value/credit like I do with Atlas (or used to). And you're saying completely opposite things at this point.

There's no evidence whatsoever right now, except for some tweets, that backs Israels/US claim. No evidence at all.

There certainly is, including the actual photographic evidence which shows that the incident doesn't resemble an airstrike at all, e.g. no crater.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

And this is - ladies and gentlemen - what genocide denial looks like - brought to you on real time by Atlas.

Having said all this, I don't exactly blame people for assuming the IDF was lying. It was my first instinct too. But sometimes things really are just horrific, senseless mistakes.

Especially disappointed in you, I expected better from you.

For all that I disagree with posters like Snowstalker, at least they’re capable of contributing something valuable to this debate and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without immediately insinuating that Israelis deserved it. There’s a difference between even very strong opposition to Israel’s actions and being a left-wing Ben Gvir.

I'm on a Belgian politics forum too, they say the complete opposite of this forum, and i also highly value/credit like I do with Atlas (or used to). And you're saying completely opposite things at this point.

There's no evidence whatsoever right now, except for some tweets, that backs Israels/US claim. No evidence at all.

There certainly is, including the actual photographic evidence which shows that the incident doesn't resemble a bombing at all, e.g. no crater.

That is not evidence.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But you should want things to be as it appears they are as it means the number of dead will be vastly fewer (even if, all the same, distressingly high).

[LAKISYLVANIA]

But you should want things to be as it appears they are as it means the number of dead will be vastly fewer (even if, all the same, distressingly high).

Wanting what we want to hear to be true is not always the truth. That's called wishful thinking.

This is what our domestic Belgian media says

Media source: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/10/18/wat-weten-we-over-de-inslag-op-het-al-alhi-ziekenhuis-in-gaza/

Our qualitative domestic media does not attribute the bombing to an Israeli attack and casts doubt on Israel and USAs claim.

But it is certain that it is now only a matter of theories. “In such cases it takes a long time to arrive at conclusive statements. Often there is little information available, researchers are not given access and there is a lot of misinformation going around. As long as there is no access, I fear we will not know," says Bolder.

[Middle-aged Europe]

German qualitative domestic media come to conclusion, based on available OSINT data, that the Palestinians likely did it:

https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/israel-hamas-krankenhaus-102.html

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't even understand what Laki(ng) is seeing in that post that makes it genocide denial.

I certainly didn't intend it as such. I think that the broader Israeli strategy is still oriented towards ethnic cleansing (more plainly so than it was last week, to be blunt) and that that's unacceptable to say the very least. But there's that and then there's specific things that they, apparently, did not do.

[Donerail]

And this is - ladies and gentlemen - what genocide denial looks like - brought to you on real time by Atlas.

Having said all this, I don't exactly blame people for assuming the IDF was lying. It was my first instinct too. But sometimes things really are just horrific, senseless mistakes.

Especially disappointed in you, I expected better from you.

For all that I disagree with posters like Snowstalker, at least they’re capable of contributing something valuable to this debate and condemning terrorism and antisemitism without immediately insinuating that Israelis deserved it. There’s a difference between even very strong opposition to Israel’s actions and being a left-wing Ben Gvir.

I'm on a Belgian politics forum too, they say the complete opposite of this forum, and i also highly value/credit like I do with Atlas (or used to). And you're saying completely opposite things at this point.

There's no evidence whatsoever right now, except for some tweets, that backs Israels/US claim. No evidence at all.

There certainly is, including the actual photographic evidence which shows that the incident doesn't resemble a bombing at all, e.g. no crater.

That is not evidence.

I'm not sure if something is being lost in translation or if you are just being deliberately obtuse, but "evidence" is any information — photographs, videos, expert opinions, and so on — that make some factual version of events more or less likely.

For example, a photograph of the aftermath of a bombing is evidence. If there's a large, deep crater, it is more likely that there was an airstrike. If, as here, there is a small, shallow crater surrounded by a bunch of burned-out cars, the account of an airstrike is less likely. Same for the surveillance footage, the Al Jazeera footage, and efforts to geolocate that footage. None of these things are definitive, but what we know generally lines up more with a failed rocket launch than with an airstrike.

You, meanwhile, have provided no evidence, and have instead wandered into this thread to make baseless allegations of "genocide denial" because you have again decided to outsource your own critical thinking to some Belgian politics forum. Not a smart move for your continued tenure on this web site.

[CumbrianLefty]

I hate how the worst people are on the right side of the argument in this conflict.

The fact this post can be interpreted several ways tells you all you need to know, really.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Some are suggesting from the photograph that casualties may also be overstated, but without a look inside the hospital (and knowing thousands of people were sheltering in the hospital and on the grounds last night) I'd hesitate to draw any conclusions there.

Yes, that seems like hopium to me. Outright denying that this was a mass death of civilians just doesn't connect with reality.

I think we can all agree that it's a pleasant surprise that Donerail and I were too pessimistic here.

[CumbrianLefty]

It certainly did not help Israel's narrative when they ordered the hospitals to evacuate and threatened to bomb them in the past few days.

Yeah, Israel really showing that they weren't the villain at this particular hospital on this particular day.

This is the key thing—an evidence-based approach to this specific enormity exonerating the IDF does not mean that the broader Israeli approach is Okay, Actually.

Absolutely.

And that means Israel's "broader approach" both currently and in the longer term.

But HAVING SAID THAT, there is no doubt a number of supposedly reputable media outlets really did get it wrong last night. Was it as simple as the need for outrage clicks over actual accuracy? Ironic if it turns out to be that impulse - rather than climate change, say - that brings our civilisation to epochal disaster.

(to be clear, however bad it gets the present conflict is unlikely to do that - but in the future.....)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The wording of Biden's "other team" comment strikes me as unpleasantly flippant, by the way.

[CumbrianLefty]

The wording of Biden's "other team" comment strikes me as unpleasantly flippant, by the way.

I don't disagree, but can also sort of see why he did it.

[kwabbit]

The IDF and Hamas do really get judged by different standards. The IDF does often operate in a cruel and callous manner to Palestinian civilians, but only by Western standards. They at least go through the motions to reduce civilian casualties, yet their failure to prioritize that above else is what gets them criticism. In trying to operate as a member of the West, however, they are still not insane enough to drop a bunker buster on a crowded hospital.

Hamas, on the other hand, has made it their mission to essentially maximize civilian casualties. Their MO is to indiscriminately fire rockets into Israel, without any ability to aim them, most of the time killing more of their own civilians than Israelis. Destroying the bridge across Wadi Gaza, concentrating civilians near likely Israeli targets, lying wholesale about Israel targeting the hospital are all actions so incomprehensible by Western standards that they escape without massive condemnation, as if Western journalists are attuned to only pick up a certain frequency of war crimes and some actions by Hamas have 'waves' too large for them to comprehend it.

With the hospital, the two theories were that Israel did indeed bomb the hospital and it was a foremost example of Israeli disregard for civilian life or that Hamas misfired the rocket and lied about 500 people dying as a propaganda tool. Western journalists had trouble comprehending that the Ministry of Health, comprised of typically honorable in the West medical professionals, would lie about something of such magnitude, so they reported on it without verifying the claim in the first place.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian speaks during a joint press conference with Lebanon's caretaker foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib (not pictured) in Beirut, Lebanon, October 13, 2023.(Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

"Time is OVER!"

https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-shares-chilling-message-israel-gaza-hospital-explosion-kills-500-time-over

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/time-is-up-iranian-official-threatens-to-unleash-terrorist-proxies-on-israel-says-multi-front-war-inevitable/

"The Iranian official provided the interview after returning to Tehran from meetings with terrorist leaders throughout the region."

Can I use the term "sabre-rattling"?

Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, the man he has to contend with.

President Joe Biden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhnDPNwUhQ

You cannot ask for a better speech from the ol' boy than that.

[AtorBoltox]

Could this hospital allegation be considered a modern day blood libel?

[Aurelius2]

Could this hospital allegation be considered a modern day blood libel?

Personally I don't like throwing that term around so casually. This was aterrorist propaganda ministry spouting terrorist propaganda (and unfortunately much of the western media being absolute suckers and believing it at face value). That's a very different issue than the old libelous allegations that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood in rituals. Jews are the only ones to have to deal with that type of libelous claim, but terrorist orgs spouting lies is far from something only Jews face.

I don't blame others for seeing it as a continuation of that pattern though.

I also hope this incident makes observers, and media orgs, far less automatically trusting of whatever the hell the Gaza Ministry of Health says. The "Gaza Ministry of Health" is Hamas. The way this incident has unfolded makes me even more skeptical of their claims over the past week than I had been before.

[lfromnj]

The wording of Biden's "other team" comment strikes me as unpleasantly flippant, by the way.

His senility probably made him forget Hamas or who the other team was.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The wording of Biden's "other team" comment strikes me as unpleasantly flippant, by the way.

His senility probably made him forget Hamas or who the other team was.

Well, not the Hamas, but the Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been accused of bombing the hospital. That being said, it hasn't actually been confirmed that it was the PIJ, specifically.

[GALeftist]

Seems like the blast was 1. caused by a faulty or intercepted rocket and 2. probably did not kill hundreds.

[Meclazine for Israel]