Israel launched a dozen attacks on UN troops in Lebanon, says leaked report

From the UN report [1]:

>In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.

>The mission team examined several allegations of sexual violence. It must be noted that witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously. Some also stated to the mission team that they no longer felt confident in their recollections of other assertions that had appeared in the media.

>It was determined by the mission team that the crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family. Allegations of objects found inserted in female genital organs also could not be verified by the mission team due in large part to the limited availability and low quality of imagery.

How does any of this information from the report lead you to believe that the allegations of mass rape are 'very credible'?

See this interview from Pramila Patten who is the special representative that wrote this report [2]

>“May I just ask, why not put the responsibility and blame the atrocities quite simply on the perpetrators and say, ‘it was Hamas who did it?’” the host demanded.

>Patten replied that the mission of her visit to Israel was “only for the purpose of gathering and analyzing information,” not for attributing alleged crimes to any perpetrator.

>“It is pretty clear who did it, after talking to survivors who returned – it wasn’t the Belgians who did it,” chortled the host.

>“I think it’s up to your government to give access, and that was one of my first recommendations,” Patten responded.

I would suggest you stop peddling these baseless allegations as these lies are being used to justify civilian massacres to this day.

[1] https://tinyurl.com/2px6tp6v

[2] https://tinyurl.com/bddbu29s

Worth considering that in terms of relative size, Israel has a population of 10 million, Jews in the world number ~14 million.

Whereas the Arab world, which tends to be relatively anti-Israel, numbers ~220 million. And Muslims, which tend to be anti-Israel as well, number 1.2 billion.

So just in terms of number of voices, the natural pro-Israel voices [1] are vastly outnumbered by the natural anti-Israel voices.

Think about how this impacts what you hear, how this impacts the votes in the UN (which is not democratic but votes are by country), how this impacts economic reactions (number of consumers), etc.

[1] This is a sweeping generalization, but it is statistically true that Jews are usually pro-Israel and Arabs and Muslims are usually anti-Israel. With other religions/ethnicities it's more complicated.

No, you're the one making imaginary false dichotomies. See your last paragraph:

> Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.

You're now making a false dichotomy - Israel can choose to prosecute the war differently, but it doesn't, implying that they are choosing to kill human shields on purpose.

The reality is that you're coming up on the spot with a dozen ways to defeat an insurgency, without taking into account that they are just as smart and just as motivated as you, and planned for years to make them impossible to hit without significant civilian casualties. This is incredibly well documented.

Sure, you can pretend there is always a secret third option - and there sometimes is. And there sometimes isn't. And the more you let militants using civilians as human shields deter you, the more the militants are incentivized to use human shields, so even in a best case scenario, you're kicking the can down the road.

None of this is to say that Israel's actions are perfect or even good - that's a separate argument. But imagining that Israel has a magic way to do what it wants to do and eliminate Hamas - which many people support it doing and agree it has a right to do - imagining there is some magic way this could get done without hurting civilians is, frankly, incorrect.

Hamas had enough weapons to kill 1200 Israelis in one day so it's not some helpless entity. It was armed to its teeth. It's only after almost 800 additional dead Israeli soldiers and a very bloody war that Hamas lost most of its power.