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Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

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Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#301

Post by JumpCrisscross »

llm_trw wrote: post #217
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a refutation of the specific claim regarding Al Jazeera journalists doubling as Hamas agents?

I never understand how people will make the case that the other side is evil without showing that their side isn't also evil. Yes, sure, Israel is committing war crimes. This whole thing started because Hamas attempted to commit textbook genocide and has 80% support along the West Bank population. The US set half a million Japanese on fire for less. There is not a country in the world that wouldn't be doing what Isra…

> not a country in the world that wouldn't be doing what Israel is doing in Israels position

Many would do it better. To my knowledge, there have been zero prosecutions of misbehaving soldiers on the Israeli side. Netanyahu should be removed from power—his chaos created the opening for Hamas, and he’s tainted as a partisan in America. And insisting on a permanent military occupation of Gaza is such a stupid thing to commit to ex ante.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#302

Post by archagon »

samatman wrote: post #296
archagon wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of any second-order effects, the truth on the ground is that many thousands of innocents are suffering, and I have a hard time seeing any societal configuration where civilians can be legally blown up or starved en masse as anything but immoral. If a terrorist government is embedded in your population centers, it should not be legal to raze those population centers in retribution.

[flagged]

Things are very simple in my eyes. If tens of thousands of innocents are dying without an end in sight, there is a bleed that needs to be stemmed immediately. It does not matter who started it or whether the crisis is being used as propaganda or leverage. The truth is on the ground.

It would be great to "defeat Hamas" as a solution, but I'm not sure how that's feasible at this point without razing Gaza.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#303

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wolverine876 wrote: post #273
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a refutation of the specific claim regarding Al Jazeera journalists doubling as Hamas agents?

Where is the burden of proof here? I generally think that militaries and governments in international relations, and especially regarding warfare, are not trustworthy; they will lie if it helps them. Israel in particular focuses on information for the Western public (which I'm sure they would agree to; they even have a word for it, and especially in this war (they are well-organized and there is plenty of recent jour…

This was honestly the first I heard of it, so no opinion yet. That said, OP put forward evidence and the comment I responded to basically put forward that governments lie.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#304

Post by JumpCrisscross »

falcor84 wrote: post #276
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any other examples from history where the goal of combatants was (or at least appeared to be) to maximize the destruction of their own side? Every false flag operation designed to rally support for a conflict.

I'm not quite clear on what you're implying here, but in any case I would prefer to find an example of a prolonged war rather than an isolated false flag operation.

> I would prefer to find an example of a prolonged war rather than an isolated false flag operation

During the Chinese civil war, the Maoists let the Nationalists take a shellacking when convenient. And while I wouldn’t say America was conducive to civilian deaths on “our” side in Vietnam or Afghanistan, it clearly wasn’t something we optimised for: our priority was protecting our troops.

Hamas is a paramilitary. It serves its own forces. The civilians of Palestine aren’t “its” people; they’re a battlefield element.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#305

Post by philwelch »

hmcq6 wrote: post #43
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10% would be considered an extremely high death rate for soldiers involved in the fighting. Even 2.5% for healthcare workers is ridiculously high. Hamas based their operations where conventional rules of war prohibit fire. That makes comparing casualty rates incredibly difficult. (To my knowledge, nobody else has done this so comprehensively. Though given its success, I expect it to be emulated. Which unfortunately…

This is unfounded. I'm still waiting on a single shred of evidence to drop about the AP building from 2-3 years ago https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israe... > Which unfortunately means prohibitions on bombing hospitals, schools and places of worship are now obsolete. Even if Hamas was fighting from hospitals and schools that is not how this works. Israel would be required to give those schools…

Former AP reporters have come forward and admitted that not only was the AP well aware of Hamas’ presence and activity in the building, but that from time to time, armed Hamas men would burst into their offices demanding they not report on some of those activities.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/ho...

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#306

Post by belorn »

falseprofit wrote: post #263
zizee wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying this war has a higher civilian casualty ratio that other wars? Sadly history shows that civilians have been casualties of war at high rates compared to combatants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio

That article suggests the average ratio to be 1:1, so yes this war has a higher ratio.

The US defined combatant in their latest wars as any male killed over the age of 14, so the ratio is a bit up to how people choose to define combatant vs civilian.

The wikipedia article should be read as a starting point in understanding how extremely unreliable those numbers are, and how much it depend on how people define combatant and civilian.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#307

Post by g-b-r »

jll29 wrote: post #79
g-b-r wrote: post #26

Besides the statistics I advise anyone to also look at the reports of how the individual deaths happened, I've seen them very little discussed in western media. There's often enough evidence to show an extremely likely deliberate killing (usually with weapons that Hamas doesn't have). Journalists have been killed outside of the Gaza strip as well. Just make your own informed opinion. Furthermore, there have been so f…

War is nasty, it brings out the worst in people. Look at this, listen to their laughter while conducting their "work": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw (2007) "The video shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad after they are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, a…

It can have a very wide range of nastiness

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#308

Post by ClumsyPilot »

erokar wrote: post #251
ars wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has also been one of the deadliest wars for civilians in general. That's not actually true. The ratio is similar to other wars. Civilians die in war, they die a lot. War sucks. But Gaza is not unusually deadly compared to other wars.

Compare it to the Russia/Ukraine war. Not even close. In any case Israel is not conducting a war, they are conducting a massacre.

The double standards are pretty breath-taking - Russia's conduct in Ukraine was labelled a genocide, but Israel's conduct is comparatively white-washed.

While the initial cause for war is obviously different, that does not justify war crimes.

I don't think western-brained folks realise how bad this looks to the rest of the world. For example to India, and the amount damage it does to the West's reputation.

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#309

Post by m000 »

ryanwhitney wrote: post #69
mcgeez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Citation needed]

Is there irrefutable proof of it in the current conflict? Unless something leaks from the IDF, we'll never know. But there are well-respected news orgs and NGOs identifying patterns of it. “CPJ is deeply alarmed by the pattern of journalists in Gaza reporting receiving threats, and subsequently, their family members being killed,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “The killing…

[flagged]

Re: Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

#310

Post by wolverine876 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #303
wolverine876 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the burden of proof here? I generally think that militaries and governments in international relations, and especially regarding warfare, are not trustworthy; they will lie if it helps them. Israel in particular focuses on information for the Western public (which I'm sure they would agree to; they even have a word for it, and especially in this war (they are well-organized and there is plenty of recent jour…

This was honestly the first I heard of it, so no opinion yet. That said, OP put forward evidence and the comment I responded to basically put forward that governments lie.

> the comment I responded to basically put forward that governments lie

I appreciate you seeking something substantive, but in this case, doesn't that simplistic assertion still effectively discredit government claims?

I remember reading US government claims re Afghanistan and Iraq - where they were under much less pressure than the Israeli government today: Did that strike kill civilians? The answer was always 'no' until someone could prove 'yes' - you learn that the 'no' didn't mean anything.

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