Discussion thread for the Hamas Attacks Israel thread, October 2023

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
6178

…Hamas was also the government. It has a police force: those police are not terrorists. It also has healthcare workers: those healthcare workers are not terrorists. It also has accountants and lawyers and people who push buttons in the office: those people are not terrorists. And they also had a military: and regardless if some governments declared that military were terrorists or not, there was no evidence that al-Shariff was serving at the time he was targeted and killed.

In fact the evidence showed very much the opposite. Which is why organizations like the CPJ state quite categorically that he was a journalist. I followed him on Twitter. He was on air all of the time. He was supposed to be “a Hamas operative in charge of rocket launching.” When do you think he had time to do that?

Where is the evidence? Because again, nations don’t have the right to conduct extrajudicial assassinations. You call him a “terrorist.” What act of terror was he guilty of?

This isn’t a hard question. Life shouldn’t have so little value. Why was he killed? Because of a line in a spreadsheet? There must have been more than that.

6179

Because Israel desired to expel/eliminate all journalists from Gaza.

6180

Debatable. Very debatable.

This is a funny joke. You are seriously trying to claim that he was tweeting too much to have time to fire rockets? By this logic, the US doesn’t have a president right now. You see how much he’s on Twitter? When do you think he has time to run a country?

6181

Trusting assertions from Israeli intel with zero independent confirmation would be a joke if it weren’t so tragic.

6182

It really is amazing how easy it can be for dishonest and murderous organizations like this Israeli government/military/intelligence to get otherwise decent people to support/rationalize/excuse mass murder and other atrocities against civilians.

6183

…paywalled.

I mean, yes! Not just tweeting, but live streaming wherever he went.

He was literally a reporter in a warzone.

If you were claiming that the President of the United States was ALSO a super secret CIA operative in charge of launching rockets, I wouldn’t believe you. It would be the same if you claimed Christiane Amanpour was a super-secret sniper, or Dr. Sanjay Gupta was a super-secret spy. I’d ask you: when did they have the time to do that?

So why should we believe that al-Shariff was "a Hamas operative in charge of rocket launching? "Who do you think has the burden of proof here? Because it certainly isn’t me.

6184

And that makes it impossible for him to also fire rockets because…?

He was literally a Hamas terrorist.

No, I’m pointing out that your argument of “he was tweeting too much to be a terrorist” is nonsense. The President of the United States has plenty of time to both tweet and be president, and al-Shariff had plenty of time to both tweet “journalism” at you while commanding a rocket brigade.

6185

…again: who has the burden of proof here?

Under what theory of international law are we allowed to extrajudicially murder people just because their name allegedly appears on a list and it isn’t impossible they may or may not have done something?

How exactly does one prove their innocence here? Tell me how they do it. Tell me how I avoid getting a bomb dropped on my head if my name happens to end up on a list because I got injured back in 2017.

The burden of proof isn’t on me, a random person on the internet. The burden of proof are on the people with the bombs and the means to kill anyone they like with a click of a button.

His name allegedly appeared on a spreadsheet. A reminder: this is ALL they had.

They claimed that Anas Al-Sharif was a super secret head of a terrorist cell. They accused Hossam Shabat of being a super secret sniper. They accused Hamza al-Dahdouh of being “a terrorist operating an aircraft that posed a threat to IDF troops.” They said the strike that killed Fatma Hassouna targeted “a Hamas member involved in attacks on its soldiers and civilians.”

There is a pattern here.

And the burden of proof isn’t on me. It’s on the people doing the killing.

You can’t claim he was “literally a Hamas terrorist” when you haven’t produced any evidence he was literally a Hamas terrorist. You are alledging he was a Hamas terrorist. I’ve asked for evidence, and you have failed to provide it.

Does the President of the United States also have plenty of time to both tweet, be president AND be a super secret leader of a CIA terror cell that fires rockets?

Because it’s doing the full-time-job thing that is relevant here. Being president is a full-time job. Being a journalist in a war zone is a full-time job. He was a journalist working for Al Jazeera. He was on TV as often as any other full-time war correspondent AND was often live-streaming his location.

Again: the burden of proof isn’t on me. If you are going to claim that he was also “commanding a rocket brigade,” the burden of proof is on you. Because that is a serious allegation. We should take it seriously. Because we are talking about taking someone’s life here. We can’t take that on a whim.

And a reminder: out of the over 200 journalists still on the CPJ list, this is the one that has the most evidence. This is the best that they’ve got. A spreadsheet.

6186

If one’s name is on a list of Hamas terrorists, my recommendation for them is to go outside and wave at the nearest Israeli drone, to make targeting easier.

He’s on a list of Hamas terrorists. That is evidence, whether or not you like it.

No, I haven’t; you’ve just decided that evidence stops being evidence if “Zionist” hands touch it. Hamas’ internal documentation of who is and is not a Hamas member is, in fact, by definition, evidence.

6187

…his name wasn’t on a list of Hamas terrorists. And that document hasn’t been independently verified.

Under what theory of international law is this enough to order an extrajudicial killing?

He is allegedly on a spreadsheet that showed back in 2017 he got injured. The other screenshots are too pixelated for me to be able to actually read. That evidence hasn’t been independently verified.

This isn’t enough.

I haven’t mentioned the word “Zionist.” I don’t even care about that. Please withdraw this accusation.

It isn’t evidence they are a terrorist.

6188

It literally was.

OK.

“Extrajudicial Killing”? It’s a war, governed by the Law of Armed Conflict. As a rocket brigade commander, he was a combatant.

What other term would you use for a Hamas rocket brigade commander?

6189

…I’ve shown everyone what the actual evidence was. here it is again.

This is NOT literally a list of terrorists.

It’s an over-pixelated screenshot that you can’t even read properly.

He was a reporter. He wasn’t a combatant.

He wasn’t a rocket brigade commander. He was a reporter.

He wasn’t a Hamas rocket brigade commander.

6190

It literally is though.

…you realize, of course, that “there was no evidence presented” is in fact a very different claim than “I don’t like how pixelated a picture of the evidence was”?

Then why did Hamas’ own interbal documentation list him as a combatant? Pretty strange.

These aren’t mutually exclusive in amy way, shape, or form. You’re not supposed to have reporters take on a combat role, but Hamas does all sorts of things that you aren’t supposed to do.

Then why do Hamas’ own documents label him as one?

6191

…you realize that I’m asking for evidence they are a terrorist and not just a name on a list?

This wasn’t a list of “terrorists.” It was a phone number. It was a list of people that were injured in 2017. It was a payroll.

The IDF claims it’s a list of terrorists. But all I see are a phone number, a payroll, and a list of people injured in 2017.

You are claiming they were a terrorist. What terrorist activities did they take part in? What terrorist activities did they plan? You claim he was a Hamas rocket brigade commander. How many rockets did he fire? Who did he shoot them at? In what way was he a combatant?

Tell me exactly what it said and what dates it refers to.

There is plenty of evidence he was a reporter. There is no evidence he was a rocket brigade commander in this current conflict.

Concession he was a reporter accepted.

And there is zero evidence he took on a combat role.

After those documents have been independently verified and confirmed to be “Hamas documents” then we can talk about this more.

A reminder: out of the over 200 journalists that have been killed by the IDF since the start of this conflict, this pixelated screenshot of a spreadsheet is the best evidence they’ve got. They’ve got nothing else. The IDF wants us to believe that these journalists were terrorists for no other reason except they said so.

That isn’t good enough. These were warcrimes. Atrocities. These journalists should not be dead.

6192

…your name being on Hamas’ internal list of Hamas terrorists is indeed evidence that they are a terrorist. Even if the people who published the list are “Zionists”.

It literally was though.

A list of Hamas terrorist injured during Hamas operations, yes.

The IDF is correct.

Do you think Hamas keeps lists of people who were injured on someone else’s payroll, or are you finally admitting that your precious ‘reporter’ was indeed injured while on Hamas’ payroll?

I love that you think that this is a concession. A reporter who is a combatant terrorist is worse than a generic terrorist in much the same way that a pedophile who is a teacher is worse than a random pedophile without authority over minors.

:roll_eyes:

And how exactly do you imagine that will happen? Will Hamas verify them? Name one conflict where the military waits on ‘independent verification’ for military intelligence being accepted by a random guy in New Zealand or an NGO group before acting?

Terrorists who pretend to be journalists should be swiftly dispatched.

6193

Could someone just post a decent scan of all the pages of this infamous document? Then everybody can see exactly what it says and whether it looks authentic.

6194

Only someone who accepts IDF statements as gospel without need of independent verification could possibly accept this.

6195

I think these are the files:

Note that none of these have been independently verified, and the Guardian has called them “an unconvincing dossier of unverified evidence on Sharif’s purported Hamas links, [which] failed to address how he would have juggled a military command role with regular broadcast duties in one of the most heavily surveilled places on Earth.”

IMO there’s absolutely no reason to accept them as anything more than fabrications. The IDF hasn’t even tried to offer anything more convincing, and very obviously these could have easily been forged.

6196

Very interesting to look back at this article from Nov 2023:

It was prescient. Israel lost this war almost 3 years ago. They’re just getting weaker and weaker. They couldn’t even defeat Hamas. And now they’ve lost to Iran too.

6197

Moderating:

@Babale, drop it. It’s evidence for you. It’s not evidence for @Banquet_Bear. You’ve both gone round and round on this point sufficiently. You can’t force Banquet_Bear to accept it as evidence any more than **Banquet_Bear can force you to not accept it as evidence. Move on.