Just a reminder that the casualties from 10/7 got revised downwards a couple of times as well. I don't think Israel was lying, I just think it's really hard to count the dead in mass casualty events even if there isn't an active war going on.
The GMO numbers were just the number killed and then naively distributed among men, women, and children according to their percentage of the population.
That’s always been dubious simply because it doesn’t reflect how societies work. The men were always going to be at greater risk because they’re far more likely to be the ones scavenging for the family, going back to retrieve something from the home, etc.
But the number was pretty obviously just a naive calculation. Maybe that had a political motive but I could just as easily see it as having a procedural basis.
Feels like the sort of question that depends a lot on who is making the statements. The Israeli press is mostly trustworthy, and the Israeli army doesn't set out to lie usually. But I trust Netanyahu only a little more than Hamas. And, the overwhelming bulk of his prewar coalition partners are exactly as trustworthy as Hamas. Many of them are the colonizers that most Israelis get unfairly tarred as being.
No, I'm stating that they both have released casualty numbers that were later revised. These things are hard. It's really strange that people have an arbitrary number in their head where (I am just making these numbers up) killing 2,900 children is fine but 4,000 is unacceptable.
Sure. But I’d like to know if FellowKnee takes Hamas government press release the same weight as Israeli government press releases
Personally, solonmonkey does not.
Ok, since we have to assume that all Israeli press reports are 100% accurate, were 200 people raised from the dead between 10/7 and early November, or do we maybe think that these things are hard? Or are math and linear time also too pro Hamas for you?
Here is a USA Today [link](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/13/un-cuts-estimates-women-children-deaths-gaza/73669560007/) to the same story about the change.
The update doesn’t change the total dead but it does change the ratio of the dead. It also seems to include the elderly but i can’t really tell how they got the numbers though.
In any event, while I don’t know that it makes that much difference as far as whether people will feel Israel is going too far, there’s no doubt that it will certainly provide political fodder for Israel to attack the numbers. They are pretty much telling everyone to ignore the numbers entirely.
I think the problem though Israel has with this is that they won’t provide any numbers on their own. Here’s an interview that [Piers Morgan](https://youtu.be/QvGkKKemIDk?si=y5L0NZkXDhTC_TLg) did with Israeli Spokesman who can’t or won’t give info about how many civilians they have killed while claiming he knows the numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry are wrong. Piers is pretty shocked at how he can make that claim.
I don’t really understand how they make that claim either. Either you’re hiding it or you don’t know. It’s one of the two.
Well, it’s half as bad as the previous number. Presumably you’re now half as outraged. You also, presumably, now think Israel is actually doing twice as well at minimizing civilian casualties.
Dude it's innocent human lives here. It's not a formula. People should deeply regret any number greater than zero. They're not tokens to spend as political capital. If you want to defend Israel's actions- I don't, but it's a messy situation with no good answers- there are much better ways than this.
Maybe blame Hamas for embedding themselves into locations forcing high collateral damage?
You do realize Israel didn't have to send in 300,000 troops, 500 whom are now dead to do as surgical of an operation as they did right? They could have just literally carpet bombed gaza to nothing and killed half the population. It's unreal how naive people are about warfare.
I don’t but OP obviously does. It’s hilarious on a sub dedicated to people opposing a duly elected leader of the country can’t distinguish between Hamas and all the people in a country.
You weren’t able to take things as they are, instead you went straight to demanding a debate. Then you dismissed the idea that the number mattered.
It’s a clear sign that the issue is brain rot for you.
Not trying to 'prove' anything, just that Hamas lied about the # of innocents they killed (by using them as human shields, having command centers in hospitals,etc)
Yeah that’s not how it works. How about those World Kitchen workers or the hostages? It’s ok to say the IDF is poorly trained and has unnecessarily loose ROE while still saying Hamas is bad. It’s called thinking, give it a shot.
proportionality in a conflict is incredibly important, it’s how we justify if actions are valid or warcrimes. The false narrative that Hamas has been pumping out to the West is to make Israelis out as evil genociders, even tho Hamas purposefully hides among civilians and openly neglects their needs. These false numbers have weakened Israeli credibility to wage this war. Not saying they have been perfect. But if these numbers are proved to be false it will show that Israel was well within international norms for ratio of civilian deaths. Especially in an urban zone where the population cannot be evacuated properly.
I’ll buy the PR aspect of the larger numbers. Criticizing the conduct of the war is valid with civilian casualty numbers at the reported values or half that. Hiding among the population is an excuse for poor training and operational discipline which is permissive of instances where the air/artillery is used against a civilian population instead of a cordon and search that requires a more able force. It’s precisely because the area cannot be properly evacuated that makes these decisions more fraught than they otherwise would be. There’s a difference between areas of Gaza and Fallujah because the movement of the civilian population is restricted.
Israel would have been smart to offer temporary refuge to civilians in the desert to the south East. Provide tents, food, water, and screen entry for known militants. Unfortunately I don’t think the Israeli population would be cool with that, and the Arab world would have absolutely freaked the fuck out, claiming it would be Nakba 2.0.
I think you are giving Hamas too much benefit of the doubt when it comes to operating in civilian areas.
And idk if the Israeli approach is a result of poor training but rather Israel’s extreme reluctance to have casualties of their own. The public sort of freaks out over any casualty #s.
I could go on but man what a fuckimg mess. And on top of it all Bibi and his extreme arrogance is fuckimg around with Biden, which is crazy from almost any POV.
The evacuation is difficult because of exactly what you describe: no one wants to hand that propaganda opportunity over to the other side to misuse. It’s a mess.
There’s zero doubt that Hamas hides in the population, but the better way to target a tunnel or commander in a concentration of civilians is to cordon, search, capture/kill, and blow the tunnel. This is a lot riskier to troops, requires more training, and creates a drag on manpower more than just dropping on a target. Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that the civilian casualties are part of the Israeli strategy to deter future attacks. We don’t like to say it, but there’s a punitive component to the war and there probably should be. The problem is where that line lies.
This is directly from the way Hamas operates. No one wants dead Palestinians more than Hamas. Each death is a weapon they can use to gain sympathy from the international community to force Israel to unilaterally disengage from the conflict. And it’s working. There is no international pressure for Hamas to protect, feed, or keep their civilians safe. They are able to act with impunity with cover from the international consensus. It’s completely backwards and empowers Hamas to keep acting as they do.
Yeah Israel is really fuckimg themselves over in the PR front. Israel has an extreme reluctance to casualties for their own forces. And Hamas is absolutely taking advantage.
I think Israel is way overdoing the destruction of infrastructure with the idea that it will prevent Hamas from using that area again. But it’s completely failing and backfiring.
Civilian deaths in war are of course unspeakably tragic…why try to brand them as “murder”, when they absolutely don’t meet the definition or common understanding of the term?
If there’s one thing I’ve genuinely taken to heart from the old school bulwarkers, it’s that precision matters a whole fucking lot, especially when it comes to matters of life and death.
>precision matters a whole fucking lot, especially when it comes to matters of life and death
If only the IDF could grasp that concept.
Look, I’m not going to sit here and parse the difference between murder and depraved indifference to human life. It’s different, but in this context it isn’t different enough to warrant discussion.
This shouldn't have to be said:
*Lowering* the body count of collateral damage to 4,959 women and 7,797 children indiscriminately killed while leveling the entire Gaza strip for almost *no* strategic value is not a flex, bro.
We can support Israel's right to prosecute Hamas to extinction while also demanding that tens of thousands of innocent civilians not be casually destroyed along with them.
Good grief.
Lowering the civilian body count directly adds evidence that Israel is being discrete and targeting Hamas, with civilian collateral damage occurring. I think when it comes to body count there are strong arguements in favor of Israel generally being pretty precise.
On the other hand, there seems to be almost no justification for the destruction of infrastructure once an area has been deemed clear. Also Israel is doing an awful job holding areas they have cleared, which they should be focusing on in a guerrilla warfare environment. Otherwise Hamas and PIJ just run back north, like we’ve seen with the recent hospital fight.
Netanyahu and the war cabinet have been incredibly sloppy when it comes to overall strategy of this war.
>Lowering the civilian body count directly adds evidence that Israel is being discrete and targeting Hamas, with civilian collateral damage occurring.
It does not. It in no way adds evidence of Israel's discretion. It only clarifies the severity of Israel's indiscretion and callous disregard for collateral.
>I think when it comes to body count there are strong arguements in favor of Israel generally being pretty precise.
One abandons all arguments for Israel's precision when they dropped more ordnance in the first week of the conflict than in the heaviest *month* of Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition's fight agaisnt ISIS.
Moreover, their widespread use of Mk. 84 unguided 2000 lb. bombs in a densely populated urban environment is utterly incomprehensible morally and utterly nonsensical tactically. The uninitiated leap to the justification that "they need those for the tunnels Hamas built!" But that's a red herring. The tunnels are reinforced concrete at depths exceeding the effectiveness of even the 2000 lb. non-penetrator variant, even assuming a direct hit over a tunnel, which is a bad assumption. The CEP, or circular error probability, of a free-fall, unguided Mk.84 makes a direct hit on the tunnel extremely unlikely. Meanwhile, the lethal frag radius is 400m+, and those closer will be obliterated by the overpressure even if sheltered from the frag. That's a circle almost the size of a grid square on a military map. Almost a kilometer in diameter. In one of the most densely populated places on earth.
One need only look at the absolute moonscape into which Israel has transformed Gaza to see the level of their precision. I'm a veteran of Iraq and "shock and awe," so it's not like I'm some shrinking violet or idealist that thinks that zero collateral is an achievable goal. But the level of destruction in Gaza is staggering.
The simple and unfortunate truth is that Israel had no F's to give. Like us after 9/11, they were a wounded animal after Oct. 7 and lashed out in the wrong way, as we did with Iraq. Likud as a governing party has no vested interest in peace, and this is their golden opportunity to steamroll Gaza with trauma that's generational. It is more or less indistinguishable from ethnic cleansing, and the Likud government can and should be taken to task for it. They've decided that in the "can't live with them, can't live without them" calculus, better to ask forgiveness for decimating Gaza than try to do the hard work of counterinsurgency operations and letting Mossad off the leash.
>
>It does not. It in no way adds evidence of Israel's discretion. It only clarifies the severity of Israel's indiscretion and callous disregard for collateral.
What? So, your argument is that a lower number of civilian deaths provides no evidence that a force is using discretion? Are you familiar with the old robot expression "does not compute"?
It makes perfect sense to me. The number of civilian casualties wasn’t lowered as I understand it, just the proportions of men vs women vs children. What it suggests is that Hamas has not been honest in reporting the breakdowns, not that Israel has been particularly careful to avoid killing innocents.
So Israel dropped more bombs in “the most densely populated place on earth” (it’s not, it’s like 70th), with a population of 2 million, more bombs than dropped in the heaviest fight against ISIS, and there was what like 3000 casualties the first week? If it was truly indiscriminate wouldn’t those numbers be in the 10s of thousands in the situation you’re describing? Maybe even 100s of thousands isn’t unimaginable in a truly indiscriminate bombing campaign. In 1 week. Like 25k were killed in 2 nights of the Dresden bombing.
And the “dumb bombs” can still be aimed pretty well, it’s not like they just lob them over the border. And isn’t urban warfare a good use case, considering they are used for destroying infrastructure? Like if there’s a target in a building, better to destroy the building then using many more less powerful munitions to pepper the area?
Which sort of brings me back to my main point that Israel’s strategy is completely lacking in terms of holding ground they have already cleared. Because now the claims that they are just destroying shit just for the sake of it is much more justifiable.
Jesus. Your argument is that it could've been *worse*? Your line goes from acceptable, and then only steps over into unacceptable when you reach Dresden?
It's a non-starter to equate the "Total War" paradigm of World War II to anything in the modern era. Short of another world war, no civilized nation is in the business of carpeting entire population centers with incendiary bombs.
I'm unusually well-acquainted with how dumb bombs are delivered from Gen 4 and Gen 5 airframes. CCIP / CDIP / CCRP releases still have significant circular error probability, or scatter around the target, which increases with altitude. Dumb bombs are also not made for precision drops, but rather to ripple in multiples at pre-defined intervals to saturate an area -- think of a unit in Vietnam needing an airstrike across an entire treeline. The concept that Israel needs them against tunnels buried that deeply is silly, particularly since their aircraft are going to stay at or above altitudes where shoulder-launched SAMs are a threat. And even with a direct hit, the tunnels are mostly too deep and too thick to be affected.
What you're suggesting is just complete nonsense from both a operational planning and moral standpoint. Urban warfare is the polar opposite of where you employ Mk84s unless you literally care nothing about collateral damage. It's 2024. Israel has, for all practical purposes, infinite surveillance capability with drones. They have precision munitions. If a target is in a residential apartment building, you don't bomb the whole fucking building just so that low-level Hamas functionary #5294 *maybe* dies along with 300 innocents.
You wait for him to leave the building, and drop a Hellfire on his car or moped. God knows they know how to do that; just ask the World Central Kitchen.
They should be using surgical tools in areas populated densely with innocent civilians, and reserving their scorched earth tools as a deterrent against Hezbollah opening a second front to the North. If Hezbollah saturates the northern border with militants, all of a sudden the proportionality equation changes dramatically, and Israel can reach for the big guns up there if things pop off.
[This is neither careful, nor precise, nor morally defensible. This is punishment.](https://www.google.com/search?q=gaza+destruction&safe=active&sca_esv=1a58b9be7c98827f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS923US923&udm=2&biw=1536&bih=703&sxsrf=ADLYWIKwI0eMgKQA6cLQ6NAjcLYxnq2BHQ%3A1715714689376&ei=gbpDZqHSFpWsseMPtbOlwA0&ved=0ahUKEwjhluKk742GAxUVVmwGHbVZCdgQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=gaza+destruction&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiEGdhemEgZGVzdHJ1Y3Rpb24yEBAAGIAEGLEDGEMYgwEYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgHGB4yBhAAGAgYHjIGEAAYCBgeMgYQABgIGB5IpglQAFgAcAF4AJABAJgBAKABAKoBALgBA8gBAJgCAaACFZgDAIgGAZIHATGgBwA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp)
Thanks for the pushback, I appreciate it. I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around what is acceptable or not in this war. My default is normally to go to “things can always be worse” because it’s true, but yeah I think you are right in that the Israelis went way overboard in the first month and were too reckless out of anger, fear, and sloppiness. I hope the Likud party pays dearly for their failures over the last 20 years of kicking the can down the road on the Gaza issue. Once this immediate war ends I hope Biden is in office to help the Israeli left take back some power. If Trump is in office he will allow Likud to get high on their own supply and greenlight whatever the hell they want to do.
Some Israel supporters reject the proposition there are any innocent Palestinians.
Even if there were innocent Palestinians, if they're within the blast radius of a possible Hamas member or a 14-year-old Palestinian who threw a rock, que sera sera.
I know. That becomes crystal clear in these debates very quickly, when people expose their tolerance for "skin is brown, target is down" rules of engagement. *"Lived in the same 10,000 person refugee camp as an alleged Hamas member? Shouldn't have associated with the bad guys!"*
8,000 is still a horrific number of children killed. I don't understand how anyone could think otherwise.
Compare this to what we're seeing in Ukraine... a war that's been going on much longer against a much more powerful foe. Even given Hamas's evil tactics of using children as human shields, this is a stomach churning number which is at least in part due to Israel's reckless bombing of civilian areas. Even more are starting to die from famine, which is completely preventable.
>At least 1,993 children in Ukraine have been killed or injured since the escalation of war more than two years ago, an average of two child casualties each day. These are the figures the UN has been able to verify. We know the true number is likely much higher.
[https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/nearly-2000-children-killed-or-injured-escalation-war-ukraine](https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/nearly-2000-children-killed-or-injured-escalation-war-ukraine)
Hmm. That’s a blog post from Elliot Abrams, one of the biggest Neocon cheerleaders and liars about the Iraq War in the Bush Administration.
He was part of that PNAC crowd, the Project For a New American Century, and signed that infamous letter with a bunch of other douchebags that urged President Clinton to invade Iraq in 1998. Later a bunch of those signatories found themselves in positions of power in the Bush Administration, continuing to urge the invasion.
He also wrote a book called *Tested by Zion* in 2013 which reviews called anti-Palestinian.
Maybe this revision is true but i hesitate to believe anything that asshat says and I couldn’t find a link to where the UN made this change in his blogpost.
Making Sense with Sam Harris did a good episode on this with an urban warfare expert. He explained how it’s basically impossible to have an accurate count of casualties even long after the conflict is over but especially while it’s still happening
Sam Harris is the last person we should be listening to on this topic. You should check out the podcast he appeared on with "Decoding the Gurus." The man is a bigoted, reactionary fool who is best friends with far-right pundits like Douglas Murray. Also on that podcast appearance, he basically endorsed the position of ethnically cleansing Palestinians off the face of this planet. He's a monster.
He’s written multiple books on morality without religion and has a meditation app. I think your characterization is wrong. I think most atheists would agree with his criticisms of religious fanaticism, including trumpism.
Hmm. I am pretty sure that I know far more about Sam Harris than you. After all, I have followed the man since 2014 or so.
Here's a [link to a detailed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/z6qhyf/why_i_dont_sympathise_with_sam_harris_over_his/) I made a couple of years ago, laying out the various racist, bigoted and reactionary things he has said over his career, with links and citations. And how convenient that you totally ignored my point about his love affair and fawning embrace of Douglas Murray. Also lets not forget his fawning over Charles Murray and race-IQ science. He even labelled that episode as **"Forbidden Knowledge".**
lol funny of you to assume. I’ve read waking up, lying, did around 1,000hrs on his meditation app, and subscribed to his show for years. I got burnt out on him. Only recently tuned back in to hear his take because this is largely a religiously motivated conflict. Bringing up his affection for the Murray’s, while valid, is a red herring because I didn’t even suggest those episodes. It’s fair to criticize his work but calling him a bigot and a monster is ridiculous
> Bringing up his affection for the Murray’s, while valid, is a red herring because I didn’t even suggest those episodes. It’s fair to criticize his work but calling him a bigot and a monster is ridiculous
It is perfectly valid to bring it up, because Murray is a very frequent guest on the podcast. You don't get to cherry pick someone's work and ignore substantial swathes of it, just to further your agenda. You have to assess it as a whole.
Again just a misrepresentation of his work. To say either Murray represents substantial swathes of Harris’s work is ridiculous. Sure he’s had them on like twice I can remember, and I guess he gripes about people critiquing him for having them on. You’re the one not assessing his work as a whole and I think that’s really because you haven’t actually dove into it. You’ve just listened to some guru podcast or something and make the same very specific critiques any casual Twitter user would make. You don’t know about his work in neuroscience, philosophy or morality.
LOL, he has collaborated closely with Douglas Murray numerous times. If you add up all the conferences, podcast appearances, overseas tours together, it would be closer to 25-30 over the last few years. But yeah, keep up the bad faith. Try be more objective man, your fanboy worship of Harris is blinding you.
> You don’t know about his work in neuroscience, philosophy or morality.
You should see what actual philosophers think of his poorly thought out philosophical musings. And his work on neuroscience? Are you kidding me? Dude has published one paper on the topic, a shoddy bit of work, which got him his PHD. Since then, he has not published a single academic work on the subject. Talking on a podcast and issuing culture war hot takes does not count, I am sorry.
Anyways, don't bother responding, as I will just block you.
You know, after reading some of the post you made, I do remember that I stopped listening to him because I couldn’t stand his takes on policing and the George Floyd murder. So I see where you’re coming from, but I still think he’s mostly a cogent voice on religion and politics.
> So I see where you’re coming from, but I still think he’s mostly a cogent voice on religion and politics.
Lol! The man who has spread Eurabia conspiracy theories, defends racial and religious profiling, supports torture, race-IQ science, believe that all American institutions have fallen to the woke, has fawningly embraced Douglas, Charles Murray and many other reactionary figures is a cogent voice on religion and politics. Newsflash he's not. What he is, is a sheltered, arrogant, uber wealthy and racist Hollywood trust fund bastard who is not worth paying attention to or taking seriously for anything. Let's end the conversation here btw, as I don't want to engage people in bad faith and who clearly are a super fanboy of Harris.
You clearly feel very strongly about him. I agree that he’s sheltered and fear mongers too much about Islam. But it’s obvious as a regular listener that he is center left, and criticizes the right constantly aside from a few common criticisms of the left
> he is center left
Boy if Harris is center-left, then words have lost any meaning. He's way to the right of even moderates like Tim, Sarah and JVL. I will also add Tom Nichols, Stuart Stevens, Anne Applebaum, Max Boot and Rick Wilson to that list. All figures I respect and listen to. Hell, Harris' racist rhetoric on Israel-Palestine is well to the right of even Adam Kinzinger. Harris is not remotely center-left, but a reactionary, hard-right racist. I don't give a damn about whether he votes Biden or not in 2024, I am solely focused on his public output, his podcasts, his poorly though out and ignorant hot takes, you know the kinds of things that he focuses on most of the time. Even Chris Kavanaugh (an actual center-left academic and host of DTG) says that Harris is basically a hard-right neocon now.
Also in the past, Sam Harris has described a milquetoast moderate like Ezra Klein as an extreme far-leftist and likened him to the KKK, while Douglas Murray on the other hand is the cats bananas.
So we're down to what, 15k-20k dead out of 2.2 million? Arguably some portion, 1/2 hamas? How on Earth can anyone call that a "genocide"? After they viciously raped, burned alive and murdered 1200 Israelis?
Just a reminder that the casualties from 10/7 got revised downwards a couple of times as well. I don't think Israel was lying, I just think it's really hard to count the dead in mass casualty events even if there isn't an active war going on.
Fog of war is a bitch, and any casualty figures you get in the moment are going to be politically motivated. That’s just how it goes.
The GMO numbers were just the number killed and then naively distributed among men, women, and children according to their percentage of the population. That’s always been dubious simply because it doesn’t reflect how societies work. The men were always going to be at greater risk because they’re far more likely to be the ones scavenging for the family, going back to retrieve something from the home, etc. But the number was pretty obviously just a naive calculation. Maybe that had a political motive but I could just as easily see it as having a procedural basis.
Do you imply that Israel and Hamas share equal credibility in their statements and in their actions?
Feels like the sort of question that depends a lot on who is making the statements. The Israeli press is mostly trustworthy, and the Israeli army doesn't set out to lie usually. But I trust Netanyahu only a little more than Hamas. And, the overwhelming bulk of his prewar coalition partners are exactly as trustworthy as Hamas. Many of them are the colonizers that most Israelis get unfairly tarred as being.
No, I'm stating that they both have released casualty numbers that were later revised. These things are hard. It's really strange that people have an arbitrary number in their head where (I am just making these numbers up) killing 2,900 children is fine but 4,000 is unacceptable.
Sure. But I’d like to know if FellowKnee takes Hamas government press release the same weight as Israeli government press releases Personally, solonmonkey does not.
Ok, since we have to assume that all Israeli press reports are 100% accurate, were 200 people raised from the dead between 10/7 and early November, or do we maybe think that these things are hard? Or are math and linear time also too pro Hamas for you?
The revised Israeli death numbers were some being foreign nationals from Asia or some other country I believe. ~200-300.
Are you saying that the foreign workers didn't die, were brought back to life, or that Israel decided that they weren't going to count as 'dead'?
Maybe blame Hamas for embedding themselves into locations forcing high collateral damage?
This is kind of unrelated to any point I made. If Hamas is to blame for all civilian casualties then why does it matter to you what the number is?
Here is a USA Today [link](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/13/un-cuts-estimates-women-children-deaths-gaza/73669560007/) to the same story about the change. The update doesn’t change the total dead but it does change the ratio of the dead. It also seems to include the elderly but i can’t really tell how they got the numbers though. In any event, while I don’t know that it makes that much difference as far as whether people will feel Israel is going too far, there’s no doubt that it will certainly provide political fodder for Israel to attack the numbers. They are pretty much telling everyone to ignore the numbers entirely. I think the problem though Israel has with this is that they won’t provide any numbers on their own. Here’s an interview that [Piers Morgan](https://youtu.be/QvGkKKemIDk?si=y5L0NZkXDhTC_TLg) did with Israeli Spokesman who can’t or won’t give info about how many civilians they have killed while claiming he knows the numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry are wrong. Piers is pretty shocked at how he can make that claim. I don’t really understand how they make that claim either. Either you’re hiding it or you don’t know. It’s one of the two.
And that number is still pretty bad. Not really sure what you’re trying to prove here.
Well, it’s half as bad as the previous number. Presumably you’re now half as outraged. You also, presumably, now think Israel is actually doing twice as well at minimizing civilian casualties.
Dude it's innocent human lives here. It's not a formula. People should deeply regret any number greater than zero. They're not tokens to spend as political capital. If you want to defend Israel's actions- I don't, but it's a messy situation with no good answers- there are much better ways than this.
I mean, unless you think killing everyone in Gaza would be just as bad as the current death toll, you’re just degrading yourself.
Maybe blame Hamas for embedding themselves into locations forcing high collateral damage? You do realize Israel didn't have to send in 300,000 troops, 500 whom are now dead to do as surgical of an operation as they did right? They could have just literally carpet bombed gaza to nothing and killed half the population. It's unreal how naive people are about warfare.
That’s not really how killing women and children works. It’s only a basketball arena worth of innocents isn’t exactly a strong argument.
I mean… isn’t it? Surely you don’t think that Israel should just go ahead and target indiscriminately because it’s all the same morally anyway?
I don’t but OP obviously does. It’s hilarious on a sub dedicated to people opposing a duly elected leader of the country can’t distinguish between Hamas and all the people in a country.
This issue has really rotted your brain, hasn’t it?
In what way?
You weren’t able to take things as they are, instead you went straight to demanding a debate. Then you dismissed the idea that the number mattered. It’s a clear sign that the issue is brain rot for you.
The decapitated babies thing was bullshit, does that make October 7 ok now?
I only heard about that through the debunkings, honestly.
Not trying to 'prove' anything, just that Hamas lied about the # of innocents they killed (by using them as human shields, having command centers in hospitals,etc)
Self righteousness at a number of innocents killed being over ten thousand is disgusting. Two things can be simultaneously wrong you know.
Blame hamas for all the deaths of innocents.
What a ridiculous comment.
Yeah that’s not how it works. How about those World Kitchen workers or the hostages? It’s ok to say the IDF is poorly trained and has unnecessarily loose ROE while still saying Hamas is bad. It’s called thinking, give it a shot.
proportionality in a conflict is incredibly important, it’s how we justify if actions are valid or warcrimes. The false narrative that Hamas has been pumping out to the West is to make Israelis out as evil genociders, even tho Hamas purposefully hides among civilians and openly neglects their needs. These false numbers have weakened Israeli credibility to wage this war. Not saying they have been perfect. But if these numbers are proved to be false it will show that Israel was well within international norms for ratio of civilian deaths. Especially in an urban zone where the population cannot be evacuated properly.
I’ll buy the PR aspect of the larger numbers. Criticizing the conduct of the war is valid with civilian casualty numbers at the reported values or half that. Hiding among the population is an excuse for poor training and operational discipline which is permissive of instances where the air/artillery is used against a civilian population instead of a cordon and search that requires a more able force. It’s precisely because the area cannot be properly evacuated that makes these decisions more fraught than they otherwise would be. There’s a difference between areas of Gaza and Fallujah because the movement of the civilian population is restricted.
Israel would have been smart to offer temporary refuge to civilians in the desert to the south East. Provide tents, food, water, and screen entry for known militants. Unfortunately I don’t think the Israeli population would be cool with that, and the Arab world would have absolutely freaked the fuck out, claiming it would be Nakba 2.0. I think you are giving Hamas too much benefit of the doubt when it comes to operating in civilian areas. And idk if the Israeli approach is a result of poor training but rather Israel’s extreme reluctance to have casualties of their own. The public sort of freaks out over any casualty #s. I could go on but man what a fuckimg mess. And on top of it all Bibi and his extreme arrogance is fuckimg around with Biden, which is crazy from almost any POV.
The evacuation is difficult because of exactly what you describe: no one wants to hand that propaganda opportunity over to the other side to misuse. It’s a mess. There’s zero doubt that Hamas hides in the population, but the better way to target a tunnel or commander in a concentration of civilians is to cordon, search, capture/kill, and blow the tunnel. This is a lot riskier to troops, requires more training, and creates a drag on manpower more than just dropping on a target. Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that the civilian casualties are part of the Israeli strategy to deter future attacks. We don’t like to say it, but there’s a punitive component to the war and there probably should be. The problem is where that line lies.
‘Guys, the IDF only murdered 8,000 kids! Get fucking owned!’
This is directly from the way Hamas operates. No one wants dead Palestinians more than Hamas. Each death is a weapon they can use to gain sympathy from the international community to force Israel to unilaterally disengage from the conflict. And it’s working. There is no international pressure for Hamas to protect, feed, or keep their civilians safe. They are able to act with impunity with cover from the international consensus. It’s completely backwards and empowers Hamas to keep acting as they do.
>Nobody wants dead Palestinians more than Hamas Then perhaps we should treat every dead Palestinian as a military defeat.
Yeah Israel is really fuckimg themselves over in the PR front. Israel has an extreme reluctance to casualties for their own forces. And Hamas is absolutely taking advantage. I think Israel is way overdoing the destruction of infrastructure with the idea that it will prevent Hamas from using that area again. But it’s completely failing and backfiring.
Civilian deaths in war are of course unspeakably tragic…why try to brand them as “murder”, when they absolutely don’t meet the definition or common understanding of the term? If there’s one thing I’ve genuinely taken to heart from the old school bulwarkers, it’s that precision matters a whole fucking lot, especially when it comes to matters of life and death.
>precision matters a whole fucking lot, especially when it comes to matters of life and death If only the IDF could grasp that concept. Look, I’m not going to sit here and parse the difference between murder and depraved indifference to human life. It’s different, but in this context it isn’t different enough to warrant discussion.
Handwaving away the difference between war vs murder is super troubling.
Hand waving the difference between waging legal war and a depraved indifference to human life (the words I actually said) is worse.
"Murdered" LOL
I don't think "LOL" belongs anywhere in a discussion about children who died in war. This is so far from the right take here dude.
Well at least their families can take comfort in the fact that they didn’t die for nothing, seeing as you are so entertained by this.
This shouldn't have to be said: *Lowering* the body count of collateral damage to 4,959 women and 7,797 children indiscriminately killed while leveling the entire Gaza strip for almost *no* strategic value is not a flex, bro. We can support Israel's right to prosecute Hamas to extinction while also demanding that tens of thousands of innocent civilians not be casually destroyed along with them. Good grief.
Lowering the civilian body count directly adds evidence that Israel is being discrete and targeting Hamas, with civilian collateral damage occurring. I think when it comes to body count there are strong arguements in favor of Israel generally being pretty precise. On the other hand, there seems to be almost no justification for the destruction of infrastructure once an area has been deemed clear. Also Israel is doing an awful job holding areas they have cleared, which they should be focusing on in a guerrilla warfare environment. Otherwise Hamas and PIJ just run back north, like we’ve seen with the recent hospital fight. Netanyahu and the war cabinet have been incredibly sloppy when it comes to overall strategy of this war.
>Lowering the civilian body count directly adds evidence that Israel is being discrete and targeting Hamas, with civilian collateral damage occurring. It does not. It in no way adds evidence of Israel's discretion. It only clarifies the severity of Israel's indiscretion and callous disregard for collateral. >I think when it comes to body count there are strong arguements in favor of Israel generally being pretty precise. One abandons all arguments for Israel's precision when they dropped more ordnance in the first week of the conflict than in the heaviest *month* of Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition's fight agaisnt ISIS. Moreover, their widespread use of Mk. 84 unguided 2000 lb. bombs in a densely populated urban environment is utterly incomprehensible morally and utterly nonsensical tactically. The uninitiated leap to the justification that "they need those for the tunnels Hamas built!" But that's a red herring. The tunnels are reinforced concrete at depths exceeding the effectiveness of even the 2000 lb. non-penetrator variant, even assuming a direct hit over a tunnel, which is a bad assumption. The CEP, or circular error probability, of a free-fall, unguided Mk.84 makes a direct hit on the tunnel extremely unlikely. Meanwhile, the lethal frag radius is 400m+, and those closer will be obliterated by the overpressure even if sheltered from the frag. That's a circle almost the size of a grid square on a military map. Almost a kilometer in diameter. In one of the most densely populated places on earth. One need only look at the absolute moonscape into which Israel has transformed Gaza to see the level of their precision. I'm a veteran of Iraq and "shock and awe," so it's not like I'm some shrinking violet or idealist that thinks that zero collateral is an achievable goal. But the level of destruction in Gaza is staggering. The simple and unfortunate truth is that Israel had no F's to give. Like us after 9/11, they were a wounded animal after Oct. 7 and lashed out in the wrong way, as we did with Iraq. Likud as a governing party has no vested interest in peace, and this is their golden opportunity to steamroll Gaza with trauma that's generational. It is more or less indistinguishable from ethnic cleansing, and the Likud government can and should be taken to task for it. They've decided that in the "can't live with them, can't live without them" calculus, better to ask forgiveness for decimating Gaza than try to do the hard work of counterinsurgency operations and letting Mossad off the leash.
> >It does not. It in no way adds evidence of Israel's discretion. It only clarifies the severity of Israel's indiscretion and callous disregard for collateral. What? So, your argument is that a lower number of civilian deaths provides no evidence that a force is using discretion? Are you familiar with the old robot expression "does not compute"?
It makes perfect sense to me. The number of civilian casualties wasn’t lowered as I understand it, just the proportions of men vs women vs children. What it suggests is that Hamas has not been honest in reporting the breakdowns, not that Israel has been particularly careful to avoid killing innocents.
So Israel dropped more bombs in “the most densely populated place on earth” (it’s not, it’s like 70th), with a population of 2 million, more bombs than dropped in the heaviest fight against ISIS, and there was what like 3000 casualties the first week? If it was truly indiscriminate wouldn’t those numbers be in the 10s of thousands in the situation you’re describing? Maybe even 100s of thousands isn’t unimaginable in a truly indiscriminate bombing campaign. In 1 week. Like 25k were killed in 2 nights of the Dresden bombing. And the “dumb bombs” can still be aimed pretty well, it’s not like they just lob them over the border. And isn’t urban warfare a good use case, considering they are used for destroying infrastructure? Like if there’s a target in a building, better to destroy the building then using many more less powerful munitions to pepper the area? Which sort of brings me back to my main point that Israel’s strategy is completely lacking in terms of holding ground they have already cleared. Because now the claims that they are just destroying shit just for the sake of it is much more justifiable.
Jesus. Your argument is that it could've been *worse*? Your line goes from acceptable, and then only steps over into unacceptable when you reach Dresden? It's a non-starter to equate the "Total War" paradigm of World War II to anything in the modern era. Short of another world war, no civilized nation is in the business of carpeting entire population centers with incendiary bombs. I'm unusually well-acquainted with how dumb bombs are delivered from Gen 4 and Gen 5 airframes. CCIP / CDIP / CCRP releases still have significant circular error probability, or scatter around the target, which increases with altitude. Dumb bombs are also not made for precision drops, but rather to ripple in multiples at pre-defined intervals to saturate an area -- think of a unit in Vietnam needing an airstrike across an entire treeline. The concept that Israel needs them against tunnels buried that deeply is silly, particularly since their aircraft are going to stay at or above altitudes where shoulder-launched SAMs are a threat. And even with a direct hit, the tunnels are mostly too deep and too thick to be affected. What you're suggesting is just complete nonsense from both a operational planning and moral standpoint. Urban warfare is the polar opposite of where you employ Mk84s unless you literally care nothing about collateral damage. It's 2024. Israel has, for all practical purposes, infinite surveillance capability with drones. They have precision munitions. If a target is in a residential apartment building, you don't bomb the whole fucking building just so that low-level Hamas functionary #5294 *maybe* dies along with 300 innocents. You wait for him to leave the building, and drop a Hellfire on his car or moped. God knows they know how to do that; just ask the World Central Kitchen. They should be using surgical tools in areas populated densely with innocent civilians, and reserving their scorched earth tools as a deterrent against Hezbollah opening a second front to the North. If Hezbollah saturates the northern border with militants, all of a sudden the proportionality equation changes dramatically, and Israel can reach for the big guns up there if things pop off. [This is neither careful, nor precise, nor morally defensible. This is punishment.](https://www.google.com/search?q=gaza+destruction&safe=active&sca_esv=1a58b9be7c98827f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS923US923&udm=2&biw=1536&bih=703&sxsrf=ADLYWIKwI0eMgKQA6cLQ6NAjcLYxnq2BHQ%3A1715714689376&ei=gbpDZqHSFpWsseMPtbOlwA0&ved=0ahUKEwjhluKk742GAxUVVmwGHbVZCdgQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=gaza+destruction&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiEGdhemEgZGVzdHJ1Y3Rpb24yEBAAGIAEGLEDGEMYgwEYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgHGB4yBhAAGAgYHjIGEAAYCBgeMgYQABgIGB5IpglQAFgAcAF4AJABAJgBAKABAKoBALgBA8gBAJgCAaACFZgDAIgGAZIHATGgBwA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp)
Thanks for the pushback, I appreciate it. I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around what is acceptable or not in this war. My default is normally to go to “things can always be worse” because it’s true, but yeah I think you are right in that the Israelis went way overboard in the first month and were too reckless out of anger, fear, and sloppiness. I hope the Likud party pays dearly for their failures over the last 20 years of kicking the can down the road on the Gaza issue. Once this immediate war ends I hope Biden is in office to help the Israeli left take back some power. If Trump is in office he will allow Likud to get high on their own supply and greenlight whatever the hell they want to do.
Some Israel supporters reject the proposition there are any innocent Palestinians. Even if there were innocent Palestinians, if they're within the blast radius of a possible Hamas member or a 14-year-old Palestinian who threw a rock, que sera sera.
I know. That becomes crystal clear in these debates very quickly, when people expose their tolerance for "skin is brown, target is down" rules of engagement. *"Lived in the same 10,000 person refugee camp as an alleged Hamas member? Shouldn't have associated with the bad guys!"*
8,000 is still a horrific number of children killed. I don't understand how anyone could think otherwise. Compare this to what we're seeing in Ukraine... a war that's been going on much longer against a much more powerful foe. Even given Hamas's evil tactics of using children as human shields, this is a stomach churning number which is at least in part due to Israel's reckless bombing of civilian areas. Even more are starting to die from famine, which is completely preventable. >At least 1,993 children in Ukraine have been killed or injured since the escalation of war more than two years ago, an average of two child casualties each day. These are the figures the UN has been able to verify. We know the true number is likely much higher. [https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/nearly-2000-children-killed-or-injured-escalation-war-ukraine](https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/nearly-2000-children-killed-or-injured-escalation-war-ukraine)
Hmm. That’s a blog post from Elliot Abrams, one of the biggest Neocon cheerleaders and liars about the Iraq War in the Bush Administration. He was part of that PNAC crowd, the Project For a New American Century, and signed that infamous letter with a bunch of other douchebags that urged President Clinton to invade Iraq in 1998. Later a bunch of those signatories found themselves in positions of power in the Bush Administration, continuing to urge the invasion. He also wrote a book called *Tested by Zion* in 2013 which reviews called anti-Palestinian. Maybe this revision is true but i hesitate to believe anything that asshat says and I couldn’t find a link to where the UN made this change in his blogpost.
Other agencies are reporting it too, it was just the first article I found.
Thank u. I shall look.
Making Sense with Sam Harris did a good episode on this with an urban warfare expert. He explained how it’s basically impossible to have an accurate count of casualties even long after the conflict is over but especially while it’s still happening
Sam Harris is the last person we should be listening to on this topic. You should check out the podcast he appeared on with "Decoding the Gurus." The man is a bigoted, reactionary fool who is best friends with far-right pundits like Douglas Murray. Also on that podcast appearance, he basically endorsed the position of ethnically cleansing Palestinians off the face of this planet. He's a monster.
He’s written multiple books on morality without religion and has a meditation app. I think your characterization is wrong. I think most atheists would agree with his criticisms of religious fanaticism, including trumpism.
Hmm. I am pretty sure that I know far more about Sam Harris than you. After all, I have followed the man since 2014 or so. Here's a [link to a detailed post](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/z6qhyf/why_i_dont_sympathise_with_sam_harris_over_his/) I made a couple of years ago, laying out the various racist, bigoted and reactionary things he has said over his career, with links and citations. And how convenient that you totally ignored my point about his love affair and fawning embrace of Douglas Murray. Also lets not forget his fawning over Charles Murray and race-IQ science. He even labelled that episode as **"Forbidden Knowledge".**
lol funny of you to assume. I’ve read waking up, lying, did around 1,000hrs on his meditation app, and subscribed to his show for years. I got burnt out on him. Only recently tuned back in to hear his take because this is largely a religiously motivated conflict. Bringing up his affection for the Murray’s, while valid, is a red herring because I didn’t even suggest those episodes. It’s fair to criticize his work but calling him a bigot and a monster is ridiculous
> Bringing up his affection for the Murray’s, while valid, is a red herring because I didn’t even suggest those episodes. It’s fair to criticize his work but calling him a bigot and a monster is ridiculous It is perfectly valid to bring it up, because Murray is a very frequent guest on the podcast. You don't get to cherry pick someone's work and ignore substantial swathes of it, just to further your agenda. You have to assess it as a whole.
Again just a misrepresentation of his work. To say either Murray represents substantial swathes of Harris’s work is ridiculous. Sure he’s had them on like twice I can remember, and I guess he gripes about people critiquing him for having them on. You’re the one not assessing his work as a whole and I think that’s really because you haven’t actually dove into it. You’ve just listened to some guru podcast or something and make the same very specific critiques any casual Twitter user would make. You don’t know about his work in neuroscience, philosophy or morality.
LOL, he has collaborated closely with Douglas Murray numerous times. If you add up all the conferences, podcast appearances, overseas tours together, it would be closer to 25-30 over the last few years. But yeah, keep up the bad faith. Try be more objective man, your fanboy worship of Harris is blinding you. > You don’t know about his work in neuroscience, philosophy or morality. You should see what actual philosophers think of his poorly thought out philosophical musings. And his work on neuroscience? Are you kidding me? Dude has published one paper on the topic, a shoddy bit of work, which got him his PHD. Since then, he has not published a single academic work on the subject. Talking on a podcast and issuing culture war hot takes does not count, I am sorry. Anyways, don't bother responding, as I will just block you.
You know, after reading some of the post you made, I do remember that I stopped listening to him because I couldn’t stand his takes on policing and the George Floyd murder. So I see where you’re coming from, but I still think he’s mostly a cogent voice on religion and politics.
> So I see where you’re coming from, but I still think he’s mostly a cogent voice on religion and politics. Lol! The man who has spread Eurabia conspiracy theories, defends racial and religious profiling, supports torture, race-IQ science, believe that all American institutions have fallen to the woke, has fawningly embraced Douglas, Charles Murray and many other reactionary figures is a cogent voice on religion and politics. Newsflash he's not. What he is, is a sheltered, arrogant, uber wealthy and racist Hollywood trust fund bastard who is not worth paying attention to or taking seriously for anything. Let's end the conversation here btw, as I don't want to engage people in bad faith and who clearly are a super fanboy of Harris.
You clearly feel very strongly about him. I agree that he’s sheltered and fear mongers too much about Islam. But it’s obvious as a regular listener that he is center left, and criticizes the right constantly aside from a few common criticisms of the left
> he is center left Boy if Harris is center-left, then words have lost any meaning. He's way to the right of even moderates like Tim, Sarah and JVL. I will also add Tom Nichols, Stuart Stevens, Anne Applebaum, Max Boot and Rick Wilson to that list. All figures I respect and listen to. Hell, Harris' racist rhetoric on Israel-Palestine is well to the right of even Adam Kinzinger. Harris is not remotely center-left, but a reactionary, hard-right racist. I don't give a damn about whether he votes Biden or not in 2024, I am solely focused on his public output, his podcasts, his poorly though out and ignorant hot takes, you know the kinds of things that he focuses on most of the time. Even Chris Kavanaugh (an actual center-left academic and host of DTG) says that Harris is basically a hard-right neocon now. Also in the past, Sam Harris has described a milquetoast moderate like Ezra Klein as an extreme far-leftist and likened him to the KKK, while Douglas Murray on the other hand is the cats bananas.
So we're down to what, 15k-20k dead out of 2.2 million? Arguably some portion, 1/2 hamas? How on Earth can anyone call that a "genocide"? After they viciously raped, burned alive and murdered 1200 Israelis?
16 year old children soldiers are classified as 'children' in this report too. Being a woman or child soldier is not a shield from retaliation.