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The pro-Israel information war

jackpoulson.substack.com

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Re: The pro-Israel information war

#851

Post by pazimzadeh »

ristlane wrote: post #150
pazimzadeh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he tweeted a while back the number of palestinian vs israeli children who have died since october 7 there were way more palestinian children who had died, and some didn't like that being broadcast

Nobody wins in a conflict like this. If Hamas is defeated, and their successors don’t launch missiles at Israel, then there will be peace. Judging by past examples, those who strive peacefully for social justice have been the most successful in attaining it.

Sure, and maybe if we just find use some more antibiotics, or find the perfect antibiotic, then we will somehow get rid of antibiotic resistance?

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#852

Post by turquoisevar »

hedora wrote: post #839
turquoisevar wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a reason why Goldbloom charted “change in likelihood” instead of simply showing sentiments in the chart. The reason is that if you look at the raw data he made available[0], the differences in sentiment between platforms are statistically insignificant. To say nothing of conflating anti-Israel sentiments with antisemitism. > US views skew pro-israel, and GenZ is closer to 50/50 The latest Gallup[1] says it’s…

The poll asked if they backed their current military action. That’s not the same as being pro- or anti-Israeli. In fact, less Israelis support the war than any of the American groups you mentioned. Only 29% support the war, with 49% against. (Note: the poll you cite doesn’t allow for unsure, making the numbers incomparable. I worded the above to count unsure as “not supportive of”. If you count them as “supporting”,…

> That’s not the same as being pro- or anti-Israeli.

That’s the relevant question: are you pro- or anti-Israel in their actions against Palestine? I doubt that a poll exists that just asks, “Are you pro- or anti-Israel?”.

Perhaps some polls ask about the military action and polls that ask about the settlements in the West Bank or maybe polls that ask about the general treatment of Palestinians, but to say that a poll about the military action doesn’t measure any form of pro- or anti-Israel sentiments is a bit odd.

> In fact, less Israelis support the war than any of the American groups you mentioned. Only 29% support the war, with 49% against.

I take it the Reuters article you linked to is your source for this. Still, that article talks explicitly about polling the opinion on a ground invasion, which is even more specific than “military action.”

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#853

Post by megous »

wk_end wrote: post #576
rowanseymour wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape and torture were not featured [1] in the recent propaganda movie Israel screened to select people in the West, so there's no reason to believe such footage exists. 1. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1729487180630786219

That's possible. I'm aware that Hamas filmed much of what they did, and that they committed rape and torture in addition to murder; I'm not aware of the contents of much of the footage available because I'm, frankly, too squeamish to seek it out or watch it myself. Do you think this substantively detracts from my overall point, though?

What's available that I've seen falls into several categories:

- Uniformed Gazan fighters (not just Hamas/Al-Qasam, but also PIJ's Saraya Al-Quds, PFLP and some others) breaking the fence infrastructure (cams, remote controlled sentry gun towers, fence walls, fence itself, drone footage, preparations the night before - it shows that fighters of various groups commingled quite a bit). Fighters attacking Israel's military installations (border crossings, destroying some stationary military vehicles not manned at the time, etc.)

- Gazan fighters running around, or riding on motorcycles and pickup trucks, shooting at people and vehicles from small arms, and kidnapping people. This is the bulk of actual action in available footage.

- Footage of masses going from Gaza and looting settlements in Gaza envelope.

- Some grenade throwing into enclosed spaces with people inside.

- Almost no footage of fighters fighting with Israel army's armor, almost no footage of torture.

- No footage of child killings (there's some footage where only parents were killed and children left living). Small children were ~1% of killed victims on Oct 7, so lack of footage is not surprising.

- IDF killing a group of people that was apparently surrendering.

- Videos of IDF attack helicopters shooting at crowds of people and cars.

Footage of aftermath:

- Lots of footage of dead, burned bodies, either in cars or in houses. It's not clear who these people are a lot of the time, or who caused the fire, or how they died. (Israel overcounted its casualties by ~2 hundreds, due to misidentification of burned bodies.)

- At least 7 videos of corpse abuse by Israelis in the aftermath.

Oftentimes it's clear who's doing what, whether fighters or mob. Sometimes it's not.

Lot of "barbarity" of "Hamas" as portrayed in the media or even by some politicians, is made up/overblown (oven baked babies, 40 beheaded babies, children/people collected together tied and burned alive intentionally, ...). It seems to be designed to show that Hamas is way different in humanity than IDF, or whatnot, but it just ends up throwing doubt on other eyewitness descriptions of gruesome things that may be truthful.

There's an article in Haaretz about this problem: https://archive.ph/2023.12.03-221527/https://www.haaretz.co....

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#854

Post by esjeon »

Animats wrote: post #383

Some of this information war seems to be intended from keeping the US from considering a third option - sitting this one out. One U.S. State Department official resigned over this when he saw Israel's weapons shopping list.[1] The US could provide humanitarian aid, but not military aid. Cut military aid to Israel. Maybe still provide Iron Dome reloads, but that's about it. Bring in a hospital ship off Gaza, to care f…

AFAIK, US cannot just "sit out", because the Israel-Palestine conflict can negatively impact the US-Saudi relationship. Even though Saudi shares some common interests with Israel (i.e. Iran), it simply can't look away from the sufferings of Muslims in Palestine, given its role as a major power in the Islamic world.

Also, if Israel takes the control of the Gaza Strip, a lot of refugees will spread in the region, creating more tension in the long-term. I deem this more sensitive than the religious strife, because it can leave concrete, direct, and explicit marks on the neighboring societies.

I think the best scenario for US is that Israel eventually stands down and falls back to the pre-war state - that is, no Israel control over the Palestinian territories. Israel won't have much choice here.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#855

Post by jltsiren »

creato wrote: post #842
jltsiren wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scale is the most important factor when talking about the harm done. A dead person is dead, regardless of if it was murder or manslaughter. Criminal punishments are more about the social consequences than about the crime itself. If someone gets X years in prison for crime A and another person gets 2X years for crime B, it doesn't mean that crime B was twice as bad. It only means that after taking a large number of fa…

Intent matters, and disregarding it disables your ability to determine right from wrong. If someone attacks you and you kill them by acting in self defense, you absolutely would hope that the people judging you for your actions would consider your intent. You would probably feel you don't deserve to spend a moment in handcuffs, let alone night in jail, let alone go through a criminal trial, let alone be sentenced, ev…

Right and wrong are kind of irrelevant in international politics. When there are no enforceable laws, no shared values, and no expectations of justice, justifications don't really matter. Consequences and reciprocity become more important. If you do something because you think it's justified, others will do similar things if they think their actions are justified. It doesn't matter what the others think about the justifications of your actions or what you think about the justifications of their actions.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#856

Post by Gibbon1 »

slibhb wrote: post #776
mastrsplyntr wrote: post #395

Why is America so fixated on Israel? Groups like AIPAC and the Israeli lobby seem to be steering U.S. policies in ways that don't necessarily benefit the U.S., while potentially harming its interests. Here's what's at stake: This alliance seems to be turning about two billion people and dozens of muslim-majority nations against America, driving them towards alliances with countries like China. American taxpayer money…

It's not just America. Everyone is fixated on the Jews (for or against). There's plenty of ethno-religious conflicts all around the world but the world only cares about one of them. Also, "lobbying" is a boogeyman here. Americans support Israel for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with lobbying. Israel is a settler society, it's a country of immigrants, much like the US. Israel has a rule of law, it's a d…

The people whining about the Israeli-Gaza war sure don't care about Boko Haram killing 300,000 children in the last dozen years.

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#857

Post by lostsock »

mhalberstram wrote: post #610
grumple wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I could not confirm your claim that Hamas called for murdering Jews globally. Could you please share a source? My feeling is that media controlled by people - like TikTok - tend to be pro-Palestinian, whereas media controlled by institutions tend to be pro-Israeli (with the exception of the majority of ONGs and human right organizations). > it gets amplified by 1.8 billion people whose holy book calls for attacks on…

[flagged]

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#858

Post by fxd123 »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #699
fxd123 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason why you created an account specifically for this comment thread?

I live in the bay. I'm an engineer. I've read HN for years. This topic hit home for me enough to get me to comment whereas normally I was a lurker

I didn't ask where you live, but ok?

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#859

Post by fxd123 »

ChumpGPT wrote: post #658
fxd123 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you imagine that all it took for her to lose her job was "“Freedom for Palestine”. Which she said after Israel was a victim of a terrorist attack. Quite tone deaf, no?

Tell me do you think the Palestinians deserve their own country?

Yes, as long as they can avoid shooting rockets at their neighbors. Which is sadly not the case right now

Re: The pro-Israel information war

#860

Post by cma »

xenospn wrote: post #719
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget about stretching the American military thin against China (our real political foe) and the fact Israel has illegal nukes and is willing to end humanity if they ever lose their homeland.

What’s an illegal Nuke?

He might have been thinking of how aid to Israel in the US is illegal under a law which prohibits aid to nuclear states that aren't party to the non-proliferation treaty.
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