Yes, we are relying on the journalist and the news outlet in question and whether they have journalistic integrity. They would certainly have many contacts in the Middle East, including journalists, having undertaken journalism from there for many decades.
I suggest you read the Wikipedia page of the journalist, so you can decide whether you think he has journalistic integrity. I’ll quote a sentence or two, in case you can’t be bothered to read the article:
Alex Thomson is an interesting name for an Arab. I gather he grew up speaking the same Basingstoke dialect of Arabic as Hamas?
I’m implying from your sarcasm that you think Alex Thomson either made up the statement that he talked to two Arab journalists, or that he did talk to two Arab journalists, but that you can’t trust what they say for a reason that you have not specified.
Which is it then?
There are times when journalists need to protect confidential sources and must leave them unidentified. Why would a source who is merely commenting on the credibility of use of language need to be protected? When there is so much disinformation going around, why would a good journalist cite vague unidentified sources and expect us to take their word for it?
I’m completely open to the idea that it’s faked, but I’m only going to listen to direct evidence from an identified native speaker of the relevant dialect, whose independence and objectivity we can judge for ourselves.
There is no implication that he was protecting their identities. Where did you get that idea from? He just didn’t go into greater detail.
You seem to favor believing the IDF, whose vocation is not to tell the truth, but to win battles, and who have a well-recorded history of lying and cover-ups, over a well-respected journalist from a well-respected news organisation that undoubtedly has excellent journalistic contacts in the Middle East.
Could you explain in greater detail why that is?
I have already explained to you that my skepticism about unnamed sources claiming that the recording is “absurd” is merely because I do not believe that IDF are completely incompetent, not because of any preconception that they are honest.
Did the IDF intelligence officers who recorded the intercept provide their names to you? Why do you believe them over unnamed Arab journalists?
We are discussing the alleged audio recording of the Hamas operatives talking about the failed rocket, not videos of the rocket itself, which I am not disputing. My argument is that the authenticity of the audio recording is neither proven or unproven.
Goes hand in hand. Why fake a recording to show some minor point when the important point isn’t in dispute?
I hear lots of people saying This recording is fake. Even The failing NY-Times is writing / (not writing) about it.
SO SAD!!!
cofeve
flashback
Not regarding the recording, but this article discusses what may have happened at the hospital - that first photo is compelling - all of the buildings are still standing, burned cars are still upright, and no crater, suggesting the fireball/explosion theory has traction, as opposed to a missile strike. Unless the IDF has such a weapon at their disposal? It’s still horrible what happened, as I imagine people were crowding around the hospital thinking it was relatively safe. I doubt the upper number of casualties, but still the lower end is horrific.
This. It now seems that there’s strong evidence the missile was fired by someone in Gaza, and not by Israel. While it’s possible it was an intentional false flag, odds are it was just a tragic mistake.
I don’t care hugely exactly which group fired it.
FWIW I don’t dismiss this claim–but I don’t think there’s enough of a claim yet (at least from what I’ve seen in this thread) to evaluate. A journalist says that unnamed sources cast doubt on audio just isn’t specific enough to consider. I trust he’ll be bringing those specifics in a full story, with interviews with multiple experts who go on the record to explain their conclusions; when he does so, that’s when I’ll try to figure out if the claim makes sense.
Yes agreed. At the moment it’s just a journalist saying “some guys said”. We need to wait for more details before making a judgement.
I think what many are saying here is not “we dismiss this entirely” but rather “we cannot make a judgement on such thin evidence.”
If, say, Andrea Mitchell from NBC News mentioned on her show that she’d spoken to a couple of Arab journalists she knew and they said they had concerns over the authenticity of the audio recording for the reasons described, I’d trust her and her sources. I wouldn’t consider it necessary for her to spend the next few minutes of her show getting down in the weeds and doing a segment to discuss and explain all the nuances of Arabic accents, dialects, syntax and so on. I would wager that so few of the viewers would likely have the necessary understanding of the Arabic language to make sense of it all that it wouldn’t be a good use of time on her show. I’d take her word for it that that was the journalists’ opinion. Even if she spent some time to do a segment and convincingly demonstrated that the language, accent, dialect, syntax and tone were off, I don’t think that would prove that the recording was fake, at least in a forensic sense. Aside from the contents of the audio recording, its provenance means it’s essentially worthless as evidence, unless the identities of the people speaking could be conclusively proved.
I wouldn’t. Not until I had some other corroborating evidence.
I guess that’s where we differ then. I consider Andrea Mitchell to be an impeccable journalist with great integrity and judgment.
Nor would I. But this isn’t even that level–it’s a Xeet.
This may well be a forgery, in which case it raises even more interesting questions: who exactly created it? Who approved its release to the media?
But I want to hear from, say, a Palestinian linguist who’s willing to go on record.
These days, the job of a journalist (especially a television journalist) is to get more clicks and more eyeballs for the network. This has led to a situation where the “need for speed” frequently overrides a more measured approach, and often can lead to stories being released too quickly before all the facts have been gathered.
That’s just the way it is now, across all platforms and networks.
Well, it was then repeated on the Channel 4 evening news programme, linked to earlier in the thread.
Here’s an article summarizing it, which does not go into greater detail:
Yes, that would be interesting. That we do not have a deeper dive does not mean that the executive summary has no value, which is what many posters are claiming.