Conflict between Palestine and Israel escalates

Silvanus

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Did you use this same reasoning when evaluating the 40 beheaded babies hoax? Well, Hamas has done some atrocities while resisting Israeli occupation, so they probably really did behead 40 babies if some Zionist invaders whose government is actively prosecuting a genocidal siege, bombardment, and ground assault said so? The existence of that hoax and others is a very good reason to suspend judgment about more prima facie believable accusations.
The differences are numerous for anyone approaching this discussion honestly: the fact that one is pretty common in conflict, while the other is almost unknown; the fact that one was attested by numerous independent observers from survivor interviews, and the other wasn't.

The next several paragraphs are just runaway strawman bollocks, so we can safely skip that.

Anyway. That The Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent has intentionally perpetrated a hoax is one possibility, and one that should not be immediately dismissed given what we've seen in the New York Times (and its willingness to stand by its hoax); she resides in an apartheid state that is perpetrating a genocide, after all. One that has killed literally scores of journalists (and many of their families). But there are other possibilities: her sources could be lying. Her sources could be reporting false second hand information. Maybe some or all of it is true. The point is that you don't know and have not been provided sufficient evidence that you could know, and yet you speak with conviction.
Had to wade through a lot of faux-outrage to get to the actual positioning, but there it is: 1) Hoax, on the dubious grounds that *any* journalist is likely to be a state stooge, so we needn't have any credible evidence against the actual individual; 2) Crisis Actors, that charming old far-right trope; or 3) Truth. I'm glad you did swap insinuation for clearer accusation, at least.

And just to be clear, this is an insinuation. It is at least a little bit suspect if the Israeli government will tolerate your presence as a journalist. There, now it is plainly stated.
An approach you conspicuously abandon for other journalist-murdering states, of course, so this is a sheer double standard. Besides: You're reposting reports of atrocities perpetrated by the IDF on the basis of shite barrel-scraping sources like Twitter randos. A lot of them I believe happened, as do you. But they have no better evidence, and often worse, than sexual violence on Oct 7th.
 

Seanchaidh

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the fact that one is pretty common in conflict
That does not mean that it happened. To be believable is not to be true.

the fact that one was attested by numerous independent observers from survivor interviews
According to a newspaper article which is conspicuously light on detail and substantiation. And which includes apparent falsehoods. Amidst a variety of hoaxes with the apparent intention of demonizing Palestinians. Why render judgment in such a case? It is baffling that you insist on it. Have you contracted the brain worms particular to white country television debates that demand a condemnation of Hamas before one can say anything further?

2) Crisis Actors, that charming old far-right trope
Genocidal fascists lie. There happen to be a lot of genocidal fascists in Israel. They're doing a genocide as we speak, did you forget? But somehow that doesn't impact their credibility.

And neither does that, apparently.

An approach you conspicuously abandon for other journalist-murdering states
What other states have killed over 80 journalists in the span of just a few months? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/live...el-hits-city-in-lebanons-south?update=2710498

“In December 2023, CPJ reported that more journalists were killed in the first three months of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” it said.
Oh.

But The Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent appears to be cozy as can be. That must be nice.
 

Silvanus

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That does not mean that it happened. To be believable is not to be true.
Obviously. We're talking about differences in credibility between two different allegations, one of which is this.

According to a newspaper article which is conspicuously light on detail and substantiation. And which includes apparent falsehoods. Amidst a variety of hoaxes with the apparent intention of demonizing Palestinians. Why render judgment in such a case? It is baffling that you insist on it.
An article from a source with no track record of hoaxes-- making an allegation that a group would act in accordance with the way it has already been acting for decades. I'm making a judgement about the likelihood of an event for the same reason you make judgements about how likely it is that the IDF or US State Dept have engaged in atrocities: it would match their pattern of behaviour perfectly. Only, for all the failings of the sources I'm using, they remain a hundred times more credible than the utter dross you dredge from Twitter nobodies to substantiate yours.

Genocidal fascists lie. There happen to be a lot of genocidal fascists in Israel. They're doing a genocide as we speak, did you forget? But somehow that doesn't impact their credibility.
It does indeed affect their credibility. If I was relying solely on Israeli government or settlers as sources, you'd have a point.

What other states have killed over 80 journalists in the span of just a few months? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/live...el-hits-city-in-lebanons-south?update=2710498
Its not going to be very informative to compare an active warzone to somewhere that isn't. But the same source, the CPJ, counts Russia and China among the most dangerous places to be a journalist worldwide, for reasons ranging from mass arbitrary detention to murder. Its obviously not a competition-- but you don't extend the same standard.

Oh.

But The Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent appears to be cozy as can be. That must be nice.
"They're not dead so they're untrustworthy" is a hell of a take.
 

Seanchaidh

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making an allegation that a group would act in accordance with the way it has already been acting for decades.
you haven't actually established this.

if you search Google for 'does Hamas have a history of rape' or 'does Hamas have a "history" of rape' all the results (after numerous clicks of 'more results') are published after and are supposed to be about the events of October 7, 2023. But maybe your results are different for some reason; mine are filled with mainstream media atrocity propaganda like WSJ, NYT, The Guardian, etc.

On the other hand, 'hordes of black/brown rapists' is a racist trope that predates October 7.

Its obviously not a competition
you say that only because Israel is actually the worst by far in a world which has war zones aplenty. Israel is deliberately targeting journalists. But not that one. Probably because she's white and doesn't typically go places Israel is comfortable blowing to bits. But maybe there are other reasons as well! You don't know, and it is weird to insist on the reliability of someone in such a situation when their reporting is a piece of the fascist genocidal government's narrative and public diplomacy.

It does indeed affect their credibility. If I was relying solely on Israeli government or settlers as sources, you'd have a point.
You prefer your Israeli government and settler accusations laundered through a foreign correspondent residing in that same genocidal fascist state, yes. You haven't answered the question of what makes rendering judgment on this matter so damned urgent. My tentative diagnosis is Piers Morgan Uncensored brain worms. In any case, believing victims does not demand credulously affirming whatever accusations are thrown at a vulnerable group facing genocide.
 

Gergar12

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Meanwhile

AOC is the fifth most pro-Palestine congressman according to a spreadsheet found on Vaush's YouTube video.



At 6:17.
 

Silvanus

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you haven't actually established this.
In the same way you haven't 'established' the long IDF and US State Dept history of atrocity. As when you use those organisations' track records to inform the likelihood of their culpability, any honest speaker is well aware of what they are engaged in.

you say that only because Israel is actually the worst by far in a world which has war zones aplenty. Israel is deliberately targeting journalists. But not that one. Probably because she's white and doesn't typically go places Israel is comfortable blowing to bits. But maybe there are other reasons as well! You don't know, and it is weird to insist on the reliability of someone in such a situation when their reporting is a piece of the fascist genocidal government's narrative and public diplomacy.
It's not exactly 'insisting on reliability'-- there's simply zero actual evidence of the massive hoax you're alleging. All you can bring up is the fact that she's... not been murdered. The fact she's /alive/ is being treated as evidence of duplicity, as sick as that is. Meanwhile you offer enthusiastic support for other states that torture, imprison and slaughter journalists en masse, so long as they make the right noises and wave the right flags.

You prefer your Israeli government and settler accusations laundered through a foreign correspondent residing in that same genocidal fascist state, yes.
At least you've now exchanged insinuation for honest accusation: a gigantic conspiratorial hoax, without a single drip of evidence. All to protect the reputation of a group of far-right genocidal theocrats, they who massacred the Palestinian socialists with whom they purported to share power.
 
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Seanchaidh

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any honest speaker is well aware of what they are engaged in.
this is also not an establishment of Hamas having a history of deliberately using rape as a tool of war as is alleged. you hear plenty about knife attacks, shootings, and suicide bombings, though-- though not so much suicide bombing more recently. Will you elucidate this pattern of behavior, or is it just that you think killing is bad and raping is bad so if they do one bad thing they probably do another? That would be awfully tenuous.

It's not exactly 'insisting on reliability'-- there's simply zero actual evidence of the massive hoax you're alleging.
grant all your assumptions because they don't truly matter to the point and realize that you're still talking about wartime epistemology and the atrocity propaganda of a state that is engaged in mass murder using stuff like this as justification for that mass murder and you have enough reason to suspend judgment. by that reasoning alone.

you shouldn't even need to probe at the weakness of anonymous accusations or the fact that it's not substantial enough to be a massive hoax as there is very little actually presented. nor that we do know of a variety of other hoaxes and lies targeted at demonizing Palestinians. or the fact that witness testimony is occurring inside a genocidal fascist climate in which people are encouraged to help the government demonize Palestinians. Or that much of the supposed evidence comes from discredited institutions or individuals (i.e. they invented other hoaxes like 'fighters cut open the belly of a pregnant woman' or '40 beheaded babies' or 'baked a baby in an oven' etc. That last one actually seems to have happened, but it was 1948 and Zionist terrorists that did it to a Palestinian child named Abdel Rauf in Deir Yassin). Or is circumstantial. Or was apparently thrown away in the rush to bury the dead. Or the fact that some of the allegations of rape have been denied by other Israeli witnesses (e.g. at Kibbutz Be'eri). We also needn't bother talking about how Israel has stopped UN agencies from investigating the matter, instead only allowing Pramila Patten's mission that stresses in its report and press release that it is not investigative in nature and that verification, attribution, and an assessment of scale was outside of its remit; the UN report seems to establish a prima facie case-- there is a case to answer/defend, not the kind of proper verdict that you seem to desire for some reason.

All of this should be unnecessary to consider because it should be enough that you can decline to voice support for a premise that is being weaponized to justify the slaughter of Palestinians with the (material if sometimes not rhetorical) support of both of our governments irrespective of how plausible that premise sounds to you. You can reserve judgment rather than rushing to it. Or at the very least you can stop bothering me about my abysmal failure to agree with and amplify whatever atrocity propaganda has excited you most recently.

At least you've now exchanged insinuation for honest accusation: a gigantic conspiratorial hoax, without a single drip of evidence. All to protect the reputation of a group of far-right genocidal theocrats, they who massacred the Palestinian socialists with whom they purported to share power.
aside from all the other hoaxes and-- just see above. And still, where is the urgency in rendering judgment? I'd get it if you're some genocidal Zionist eager for liebensraum, but you're putatively on the side of Palestinians, so why be so eager to affirm atrocity propaganda aimed at dehumanizing them and justifying reprisal? It is baffling. Having an ax to grind against Hamas is no excuse for this-- and as far as I know, you're not Palestinian, so it's a bit weird apart from that to be so invested in their internal politics. Do you support Israel's military campaign insofar as it has killed members of Hamas (but not everything else)? Is that it? I just don't see why you think this is a matter that must be decided at this moment. There are pretty obvious reasonable doubts apart from the fact that what you are affirming is being weaponized to promote a catastrophic slaughter. I assume you disagree with that, but that just makes your conviction all the more confusing.

If I were uncharitable I'd suggest that you're just looking for something to disagree with me about. Your comments referring to other states lend some support to that theory, but I will dismiss it for now. As an aside, those comments are intensely weird given that I don't typically rely on the work of journalists living in those states anyway-- Ivan Katchanovski is a Ukrainian living in Canada, for example; maybe it's a little bit odd that Chrystia Freeland hasn't gotten some neo-Nazis to murder him. Probably not, though. But enough about other matters.


As someone who is neurodivergent, Fetterman is a sociopath. It's not his bipolar leading him to do this, it's his obsession with power.
It's possible the head injury has some part in the particulars of how he's expressed himself lately, but he also has a history of supporting Zionism that wasn't obvious to me before now. But others were aware. He's a real piece of work. In retrospect it may have been a mistake to overlook certain indicators that he might be a bit racist, though they did seem kind of circumstantial. Not that what I think about him has ever had any material effect on anything.
 

Thaluikhain

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And still, where is the urgency in rendering judgment? I'd get it if you're some genocidal Zionist eager for liebensraum, but you're putatively on the side of Palestinians, so why be so eager to affirm atrocity propaganda aimed at dehumanizing them and justifying reprisal? It is baffling. Having an ax to grind against Hamas is no excuse for this-- and as far as I know, you're not Palestinian, so it's a bit weird apart from that to be so invested in their internal politics. Do you support Israel's military campaign insofar as it has killed members of Hamas (but not everything else)? Is that it? I just don't see why you think this is a matter that must be decided at this moment. There are pretty obvious reasonable doubts apart from the fact that what you are affirming is being weaponized to promote a catastrophic slaughter. I assume you disagree with that, but that just makes your conviction all the more confusing.
:rolleyes:
 

Silvanus

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this is also not an establishment of Hamas having a history of deliberately using rape as a tool of war as is alleged. you hear plenty about knife attacks, shootings, and suicide bombings, though-- though not so much suicide bombing more recently. Will you elucidate this pattern of behavior, or is it just that you think killing is bad and raping is bad so if they do one bad thing they probably do another? That would be awfully tenuous.
Sexual violence from Hamas before October 7th is relatively rare. That's not the point being made, that they did exactly the same thing before so they did it again. The point being made is when an organisation has a long history of indiscriminate violence and torture-- against both Palestinians and Israelis-- as well as lying about their own actions, then their denials or our assumptions that they wouldn't do XYZ awful act ring hollow.


grant all your assumptions because they don't truly matter to the point and realize that you're still talking about wartime epistemology and the atrocity propaganda of a state that is engaged in mass murder using stuff like this as justification for that mass murder and you have enough reason to suspend judgment. by that reasoning alone.

you shouldn't even need to probe at the weakness of anonymous accusations or the fact that it's not substantial enough to be a massive hoax as there is very little actually presented.
Quite a lot has been presented, and despite your dishonest characterisation of it all as gov propaganda, much of it is categorically not. A massive hoax would indeed be required, because you're essentially proposing the idea that dozens of independent and *Israel-critical* media groups, alongside volunteer organisations, women's organisations and NGOs, along with a large number of Crisis Actors, have all been engaged in a coordinated lying campaign. To benefit a government they have no connection to and frequently condemn. Aside from the fact that Israeli women's organisations had to bloody fight the Israeli government and Zaka to push an acknowledgement in the first place.

All of this should be unnecessary to consider because it should be enough that you can decline to voice support for a premise that is being weaponized to justify the slaughter of Palestinians with the (material if sometimes not rhetorical) support of both of our governments irrespective of how plausible that premise sounds to you.
If an allegation is used by some parties to further their own ignoble ends, then we should automatically disbelieve? Does this unprincipled approach apply elsewhere? Allegations of IDF violence have been used by genocidal theocrats to justify killing civilians, so we should apparently disbelieve those too?
 
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This is a problem when groups of people have grown to think they’re untouchable for so long, and that they can get away with anything. Imagine how often it’s happened pre-social media, before it could put a non-biased magnifying glass on whatever they choose. No matter how many journalists are killed, the truth will still be revealed little by little.
 

Seanchaidh

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Sexual violence from Hamas before October 7th is relatively rare.
Then 'the track record of Hamas' is not fucking evidence that they employed a strategy of mass rape. Somehow you still insist that it's relevant. Your idea that a denial 'rings hollow' is not evidence of anything whatsoever. Things like that are excluded from court proceedings for very good reason.

Quite a lot has been presented, and despite your dishonest characterisation of it all as gov propaganda, much of it is categorically not.
Nothing particularly reliable has been presented amidst a sea of lies and hoaxes that are actively being used to justify what increasingly looks like not just genocide but a rapidly escalating holocaust.

If an allegation is used by some parties to further their own ignoble ends, then we should automatically disbelieve? Does this unprincipled approach apply elsewhere?
An appreciation of context and the effect, however small, of your speech is not 'unprincipled'. In fact there are few things less principled than ignoring relevant context. But apart from that, you are not required to believe or have an opinion about literally anything. You actually can just acknowledge that you don't know something.

Allegations of IDF violence have been used by genocidal theocrats to justify killing civilians, so we should apparently disbelieve those too?
"Allegations of IDF violence" are, for one thing, a hell of a lot better documented and much less controversial. Much of the evidence of them is posted online by members of the IOF! And whatever you want to say about Muslim groups in Palestine, whether they are 'genocidal' or not, they do not have the power to do anything like the massive scale of slaughter and enforced starvation we're seeing Israel perpetrate against Gaza. So take that into account before you spout off about the barbarian rapist hordes.
 
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Silvanus

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Then 'the track record of Hamas' is not fucking evidence that they employed a strategy of mass rape. Somehow you still insist that it's relevant. Your idea that a denial 'rings hollow' is not evidence of anything whatsoever. Things like that are excluded from court proceedings for very good reason.
The track record of indiscriminate targeting of civilians, torture and terror doesn't speak to their character, eh? I think you'll find court proceedings frequently take someone's history of violence into consideration, even if the crime they're now accused of isn't exactly the same kind of violence.

Nothing particularly reliable has been presented amidst a sea of lies and hoaxes that are actively being used to justify what increasingly looks like not just genocide but a rapidly escalating holocaust.
If one automatically discounts all sources that say X, then the only available conclusion is that X has no evidence.

An appreciation of context and the effect, however small, of your speech is not 'unprincipled'. In fact there are few things less principled than ignoring relevant context. But apart from that, you are not required to believe or have an opinion about literally anything. You actually can just acknowledge that you don't know something.
Appreciation of such context is indeed vital. Yet if you're happy to ignore such context in some situations, and in others you're willing to use that context to draw unrelated conclusions, then something is amiss.

You can indeed acknowledge you don't know something. But that's not actually what you're doing-- you're drawing some pretty extreme insinuations against some parties, and arguing hard to exonerate others, then just tacking on a "Or maybe not who knows" at the end.

"Allegations of IDF violence" are, for one thing, a hell of a lot better documented and much less controversial.
....provided that one automatically disallows sources that argue X, on the basis that they're arguing X. You work backwards from the conclusion at every stage.
 

Seanchaidh

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I didn't think this was going to just be accurate. Did the crew and pilots read that Onion article?


It's just a flesh wound, it'll be OK

....provided that one automatically disallows sources that argue X, on the basis that they're arguing X. You work backwards from the conclusion at every stage.
no, they're actually just better objectively. testimony tends not to be anonymous, there's ample video and photographic evidence, it's often the perpetrators themselves posting it... way more volume, a track record that actually is "yes, they've done exactly this multiple times before, it is a clear pattern of behavior" and so on. in order to present the Oct 7 mass rape/strategy of rape allegation as just as credible you need to really try very hard.

Yet if you're happy to ignore such context in some situations, and in others you're willing to use that context to draw unrelated conclusions, then something is amiss.
In what other context is my government (and yours) materially responsible for facilitating a genocide, actively sending the bombs that it is being perpetrated with, supporting it diplomatically with vetos of ceasefire resolutions, and militarily with strikes on countries that are trying to stop the genocide? Mea culpa if I haven't been anti-American or anti-British enough to meet your standards.

But that's not actually what you're doing-- you're drawing some pretty extreme insinuations against some parties, and arguing hard to exonerate others, then just tacking on a "Or maybe not who knows" at the end.
It is a product of your weird recalcitrance on accepting that it is actually absolutely fine to suspend judgment rather than just believe whatever dubious claims are made that are being used to justify mass retaliatory slaughter; there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical, and I'll be the first to admit that some are better than others-- that I indeed let my sociological imagination run wild insofar as finding those reasons. But they all exist and are reasonable doubts in light of the weakness of the case and the relatively small number of people whose credibility is on the line (and the apparent deterioriation of the importance of credibility in English language mainstream news reporting careers, depressingly).

It is in fact weird that you trust a British newspaper's Jerusalem correspondent implicitly when other newspapers of around equal mainstream reputation have published (and republished) hoaxes about this conflict. And it is good to recognize that Zionists lie about as well as they breathe. There are in fact numerous reasons to suspend judgment apart from the fact that demonizing Palestinians while they are being slaughtered in their multitudes with the material support of your government kind of makes you complicit in a small way in genocide. The case presented so far in some cases has been denied by witnesses, in others relies on anonymous testimony and/or secondhand accounts, and still others is circumstantial; no proper investigation has been allowed to take place. The case is built on a lot of supposition and innuendo. Speaking with certitude is just a mistake as far as basic epistemology, never mind the fact that it is taking place amidst a deadly mass murder of the people being vilified. That's why your position is so confusing: you shouldn't be certain even before you take into account some very good reasons for skepticism to be heightened. And you still haven't answered what makes a positive judgment on this matter so damned URGENT that you must bother me about suspending judgment. What are you worried is going to happen if Hamas (and the other Palestinians who joined in Al-Aqsa Flood) are not condemned for sexual violence right at this moment?

It is urgent for pro-Israel messaging:


But that's not what you're about. So your insistence is baffling. Or are you just trying to have an argument about another issue that relies on contested (and in this thread unstated) assumptions about that other issue that I have already made clear I'm not going to argue about in this thread? Are you trying... again... to distract from the point of this thread with a personal vendetta?
 

Silvanus

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no, they're actually just better objectively. testimony tends not to be anonymous, there's ample video and photographic evidence, it's often the perpetrators themselves posting it... way more volume, a track record that actually is "yes, they've done exactly this multiple times before, it is a clear pattern of behavior" and so on. in order to present the Oct 7 mass rape/strategy of rape allegation as just as credible you need to really try very hard.
Again using basic journalistic safety practices-- the protection of sources-- to cast aspersion. And in truth, we have plenty of photographic and video evidence of Hamas hyperviolence dating back decades-- but then what's the point, when you'll automatically assume its doctored/acted?

In what other context is my government (and yours) materially responsible for facilitating a genocide, actively sending the bombs that it is being perpetrated with, supporting it diplomatically with vetos of ceasefire resolutions, and militarily with strikes on countries that are trying to stop the genocide? Mea culpa if I haven't been anti-American or anti-British enough to meet your standards.
In short: The involvement of the Americans or British is a requirement for criticism. Its always odd to hear it out loud; usually a double standard is at least obscured under one or two more layers.

It is a product of your weird recalcitrance on accepting that it is actually absolutely fine to suspend judgment [...]
You haven't suspended judgement and are not encouraging the suspension of judgement. That's a fig-leaf, affixed to the end of endless screeds of pure unsubstantiated allegation in one direction, and uncritical absolution in the other direction.
 

Seanchaidh

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You haven't suspended judgement and are not encouraging the suspension of judgement. That's a fig-leaf, affixed to the end of endless screeds of pure unsubstantiated allegation in one direction, and uncritical absolution in the other direction.
This began with you raising a stink about the fact that I suggest we should suspend judgment about unclear accusations that are being used to justify a genocide. I have defended the idea that we should both suspend judgment. Now go away, you're not interesting.