Yeah, I’m sure Israeli propagandists have been plotting this for the last two years, they created a whole community of independent OSINT researchers who built up a solid reputation during the Ukraine war only so their lies in the upcoming conflict would be credible! Then the Israelis hacked the Al Jazira livestream and inserted AI generated video evidence that the explosion was actually caused by a failed rocket.
Or, and bear with me here, known liars Hamas lied.
On the one hand, anyone who has decided they have enough information to disregard further information is not intellectually or morally responsible here.
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On the other hand, I don’t think anyone is doing that. “Increasing level of certainty” is a bit confusing as a phrase: “certainty” is a binary state and can’t increase or decrease. If a person is moving toward a particular conclusion, based on new evidence, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.
I’m far from certain that the IDF or Hamas is telling the unvarnished truth. But new evidence is making it look likelier that IDF is telling the truth. I still am far from certain.
My thinking is that Hamas didn’t actually care. They realized they had a huge PR option and ran with it.
There seems to be a narrative that Hamas do nothing but lie, while the Israel Defence Forces are the guardians of truth.
For balance reasons, it should be noted that the IDF also have a long history of lying and engaging in cover-ups.
Here are some examples:
Killing of Palestinian medic Rouzan al-Najjar:
I’m not basing anything I’ve said on IDF statements but on independent reports.
That being said, I do consider the IDF much more reliable than Hamas, although that’s definitely not saying much. Even Donald Trump is more reliable than Hamas.
The IDF is subject to civilian oversight and reporting by a press that’s not afraid to challenge its claims (as evidenced by the Haaretz articles you linked).
The IDF is far from perfect. But comparing it to Hamas is simply laughable.
I disagree. That is black/white thinking.
The nuance I’ve seen here is that on the whole, Hamas (being an organization that has no elections and has a very authoritarian structure) is more prone to making stuff up to make themselves look good. This keeps the money flowing, especially to leadership who are (I understand) not even in Gaza.
While Israel has an elected government, responsible to the people and is under more scrutiny. Independent observers are able to gain more access to their information and data. The government will fall if they are seen to be lying about important information, especially concerning defense. The Hamas leadership is in no danger of falling, no matter what they say or do.
This is not to say that one side always lies and the other always tells the truth. Certainly every statement must be examined carefully and one needs the flexibility to change one’s mind when new data becomes available. Trouble is, the “new data” from Hamas is not subject to any scrutiny due to their administrative structure.
Israel has released audio that purports to be an intercepted phone call between two Hamas operatives where one is explaining to the other that it was a failed rocket, says it was launched by Islamic Jihad (which is a different militant group from Hamas), and describes the location the rockets were being launched from.
Obviously audio like this is easily faked, but between the blast “crater” (really just a tiny patch of torn asphalt) not looking anything like a bomb crater, the video that looks like a rocket falling and then fireballing, etc, every bit of actual evidence is now pointing to crashed rocket rather than Israeli strike.
That Hamas would leap on the tragedy as a propaganda opportunity, and that the propaganda would be readily swallowed by those predisposed to believe the worst of Israel isn’t the least bit surprising.
It will be interesting to see how (and if) news agencies who reported the propaganda uncritically and the people who believed and repeated that reporting walk back their statements.
A crashed rocket that did not even hit the hospital, but rather crashed into a courtyard/parking lot that was unfortunately populated by people seeking safety.
It will be interesting to see how (and if) news agencies who reported the propaganda uncritically and the people who believed and repeated that reporting walk back their statements.
Prediction: For the most part, they won’t bother.
One thing that would really help is if there were fewer defenders of IDF explaining why it’s just fine to send rockets into a hospital full of sick people. If, instead, folks were like, “The IDF would not do that, because that’s a war crime,” it might make people less likely to believe that the IDF would do that.
But yes, I hope that people will walk back their automatic blame of IDF here.
I just provided cites to various examples of the IDF lying. Has there been electoral accountability?
Please either refute the allegations of the IDF lying, or show where it has led to electoral accountability.
Raises hand.
That’s kinda what I’ve been saying all along.
And I completely agree with you. I’ve been complaining about the “let’s you and him fight” contingent since day 1 of this war.
I certainly think IDF lies. And i initially thought they bombed the hospital, and was relieved when they denied it. Not because i believed them, but because i was relieved that they publicly acknowledged that bombing a hospital is a horrible thing to do.
I think i posted above that whoever launched it, it was probably a rocket that went astray. (I posted that somewhere, maybe not here.)
It’s now looking like the evidence suggests it was a dud rocket fired from within Gaza. The only evidence I’ve seen for Islamic jihad is from IDF, so i give that low credibility. But there seems to be a lot of evidence it was a low-powered rocket fired from within Gaza.
And if some posters didn’t at first believe the brutal terrorists before any clear information was available, it would cause a lot less issues…
It is on a scale, we all acknowledge the IDF lies and has lies, we’re saying Hamas is far less trustworthy and horrible.
According to CNN, the US is pretty well convinced it was not the IDF, but the Islamic Jihad. I’ll try to find and link. please note, Hamas was corrected to Islamic Jihad
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/politics/us-intel-gaza-hospital-blast/index.html
Some of your sources are Israeli newspapers. Others cite Israeli media or Israeli human rights groups.
Israel is a free country and its journalists are critical of the IDF and of politicians literally all the time.
Hamas? Or someone firing from within Gaza? Because Israel is claiming it’s Islamic Jihad, a separate group from Hamas.
I appreciate that you’re saying that. It’s very easy to lose nuance in a horrific situation like this, and I think you’ve kept a focus on what’s true and what’s right, rather than on kneejerk supporting one ethnic group over another–not nearly enough people are doing that. So thank you for your posts. I’m learning a lot from them.
Definitely agreed. Too many folks think “support Palestinians” means “shit on the IDF”; and too many people think “support Israelis” means “defend any IDF action.” Both approaches make people highly susceptible to propaganda.
It’s interesting. In the alleged recording, the alleged Hamas people talk about the missile being fired from the cemetery next to the hospital. If one looks at the map, there is indeed a cemetery right next to the hospital.
However, the video clearly shows that the missiles were fired from some distance away from the hospital. I’d estimate at least a mile, possibly several miles away from the hospital. They certainly weren’t fired from next to the hospital.
Damn, you’re right. I saw that briefly this morning. Not Hamas but a group on that side.
The evidence I saw for IJP was independent - apparently there is video evidence of them shooting off rockets at the site from which the faulty rocket in the video seems to come from, timestamped such that it is very likely that they were the only ones shooting off rockets in that part of Gaza at that time. But obviously that’s still not fully confirmed yet.