Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

the_cliff said:


I think a lot of Americans are waking up to the grip the Israeli's have over American politics. There's too much evidence for it to still be an anti Semitic conspiracy theory.
Click to expand...

Honestly, id be so tempted to punch him.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Agree. I hope they follow it up with 30,000 flags for the Palestinian, but somehow I doubt they will.
Click to expand...
I am completely for acts of showing solidarity and compassion to every innocent victim, regardless where they come from. That is a human thing to do.

I am sure there are many campuses where solidarity with Palestinians is expressed. I am happy for that. I also somehow doubt that you will find a follow up with the solidarity for Israel at the same place.

What I am not happy about is that this solidarity often metastasizes into verbal attacks, riots and violent rage against Jewish students, whom only guilt is...being Jewish. There is ton of accounts of that, etc. here, here, here (aiming vitriol at deaf students, wow). But why should the current generation of young Jews be any different to their parents...
 
Israel returns 47 bodies to Gaza after digging up graveyard
Israel has returned 47 bodies that had been taken from a graveyard in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis when its military stormed the compound last month.
The bodies are now being buried here in Tal as-Sultan, the western part of Rafah. They were decomposed beyond recognition and those without name tags could not be recognised by their relatives.

This is not the first time graves have been desecrated. Bodies keep being dug out and kept for a long time. This is a tragedy for the people who have already lost so much and the desecration of graveyards and bodies is a violation under international law.
The Israeli army examined about 400 bodies from the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. It said none of the bodies was of captives.
Click to expand...

Depravity on all levels.
 
Nice gesture but kind of an empty one, meaning the second tweet of course not the psychopathic leaflet.

They would be better off donating to UNRWA or finding a way to stop their countrymen from blocking the aid.
 
Idxomer said:
Nice gesture but kind of an empty one, meaning the second tweet of course not the psychopathic leaflet.

They would be better off donating to UNRWA or finding a way to stop their countrymen from blocking the aid.
Click to expand...

In what way is it an empty gesture?
 
Idxomer said:
I read about their intent to do that a few days ago and I wasn't sure how they expected to get the aid into Gaza. It seemed clear to me that they would be stopped.
Click to expand...

So? Have you been on a march in your city? If so, what did you expect it to actually do? What has it actually done?

Seems churlish to downplay what they're trying to do, considering what they're doing is significantly more practical in terms of actually trying to shift the dial, in essentially one of the only 2 countries that actually have influence, than I imagine basically anyone on here, and are doing it within an atmosphere far more hostile than those in which most of us are operating in.
 
I was a bit harsh though. Highlighting the contrast in the treatment toward them and the people blocking the aid is also a welcome move.
 
Idxomer said:
Nice gesture but kind of an empty one, meaning the second tweet of course not the psychopathic leaflet.

They would be better off donating to UNRWA or finding a way to stop their countrymen from blocking the aid.
Click to expand...
What a silly comment.
 
The Corinthian said:
Click to expand...



More of this "getting her to admit" bullshit. The UN Representative is completely candid and the answers to the journalist's questions aren't hidden at all. It's all right there, in her report:
[this is regarding the verification of evidence at Kibbutz Be'eri - this includes the evidence presented by Yossi Landau]

(64) The mission team examined several allegations of sexual violence. It must be noted that witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously. Some also stated to the mission team that they no longer felt confident in their recollections of other assertions that had appeared in the media.​
​
(65) At least two of the allegations of sexual violence previously reported were determined by the mission team to be unfounded, due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the information gathered, including first responder testimonies, photographic evidence and other information. These included the allegation of a pregnant woman whose womb had reportedly been ripped open before she was killed, with her fetus stabbed while still inside her. Another such account was the interpretation initially made of the body of a girl found separated from the rest of her family, naked from the waist down. It was determined by the mission team that the crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family. Allegations of objects found inserted in female genital organs also could not be verified by the mission team due in large part to the limited availability and low quality of imagery.​
​
Click to expand...
​
The twitter handle @zei_squirrel is also bullshitting when it comes to verification. The entire mandate of the UN team was to verify information according to an internationally agreed scale, or state where it could not (as above!). That the mission was not a fully fledged investigation does not mean it was incapable of fulfilling its appointed task.

Here's the entire press conference sans the report summary:

If there was any desire on the part of @zei_squirrel to provide an explanation of verification vs investigation (rather than obfuscate and denigrate) then they would have found the follow up questions (@24.27) to the part they cite far more illuminating. The best question and answer on the difference between an investigation and a verification mission is available @3.46 - 8.40. An explication of the various verification levels themselves is available at the very start. Of course all this is available in the report too. The best questions put to Patten were from the Arab News Daily representative (@42.50 & @45.45). He gets the single best quote from the entire press conference regarding the veracity of Israeli government claims:
"The first letter that I received from the government of Israel talked about hundreds, if not thousands of cases of brutal sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children. I have not found anything like that."
Click to expand...
He also gets by far the most informative responses regarding Patten's concerns about the weaponisation of the report.

As an aside The twitter source you and @idoxmer are posting seems pretty antisemitic to me. Check out this bullshit:

"They know that Israel is a rape cult masquerading as a society". Yeah @zei_squirrel can feck off with that sort of shite.
 
Last edited:
Mike Smalling said:
Totally non-biased source.
Click to expand...

Biased, non-biased... mathematics doesn't care. Mathematics doesn't attack the messenger. Mathematics is all about the message.


Finally, on Feb. 15, Hamas admitted to losing 6,000 of its fighters, which represents more than 20% of the total number of casualties reported. Taken together, Hamas is reporting not only that 70% of casualties are women and children but also that 20% are fighters. This is not possible unless Israel is somehow not killing noncombatant men, or else Hamas is claiming that almost all the men in Gaza are Hamas fighters.
Click to expand...
 
Giggsy PO said:
For those of you who like mathematics, here is an excellent piece about why numbers from Gaza Ministry of Health doesn't add up. It is a longer read. Sorry.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
Click to expand...

So how many has died? 25k instead of 30k? You do know there are thousands under the rubble so even this 30k is an underestimate.

But back to reporting on casualties, the numbers in the past 17 years has been shown to be accurate. So...
 
Giggsy PO said:
For those of you who like mathematics, here is an excellent piece about why numbers from Gaza Ministry of Health doesn't add up. It is a longer read. Sorry.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
Click to expand...

This is clearly a very pro-Israel source. Nonetheless, I don’t think anybody would claim that reporting daily death figures during an ongoing genocide would be remotely simple. Quibbling over the exact numbers seems somewhat arbitrary given what we can all see is happening in Gaza. About 70% of buildings have been destroyed or damaged. The loss of civilian life is obviously huge.

The “Hamas run Health Ministry” has also previously published lists of names, ages and ID numbers of casualties. The article should maybe mention that. Those same ID numbers are controlled by Israel and after publication, it would have surely been easy to disprove if they had been in fact, made up.
 
ZupZup said:
This is clearly a very pro-Israel source. Nonetheless, I don’t think anybody would claim that reporting daily death figures during an ongoing genocide would be remotely simple. Quibbling over the exact numbers seems somewhat arbitrary given what we can all see is happening in Gaza. About 70% of buildings have been destroyed or damaged. The loss of civilian life is obviously huge.

The “Hamas run Health Ministry” has also previously published lists of names, ages and ID numbers of casualties. The article should maybe mention that. Those same ID numbers are controlled by Israel and after publication, it would have surely been easy to disprove if they had been in fact, made up.
Click to expand...
Plus as mentioned before, those figures are the bodies that have been found. It's unfortunate but the majority of people 'missing' are more than likely dead.
 
Giggsy PO said:
For those of you who like mathematics, here is an excellent piece about why numbers from Gaza Ministry of Health doesn't add up. It is a longer read. Sorry.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
Click to expand...

I really liked the mathematical part where they spelt out that a 'substantial' fraction of UNRWA staff in Gaza are affiliated to Hamas, in the process linking to an article saying that 190 UNRWA workers were Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives (while also being at pains to point out that literally no evidence was provided for this)...out of 13,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza.

Do you wanna do the maths on what 190/13,000 is as a fraction, even if you assume that its not totally made up?

The daily totals he has an issue with (from his own figures, which I don't have the time or energy to factcheck myself) range from 196 to 341, between 27th October and 10th November. These will be, by definition, amongst the hottest times of the war and there was not much variation in the severity of attacks during this period. Regardless, he claims that the average is 270 +/- 15%. Could someone explain to me how 196 (the lowest figure he himself provides) is within 15% of the average of 270?

I've also multipled the average (270) by 16 (the number of days he provides in his own table at the bottom) and it comes out to 4320. Which aren't any of the numbers he provides as total casualties in his own table and certainly not anywhere near the 'Hamas reported' casualty figures.

I was going to ask you the same question I ask everyone who says these casualty figures are made up. Which is OK then, how many do you think have actually died? I assume, like those others, you won't answer either. But then I saw that the author of the article himself posits his own conclusions. The 'best' case scenario for him is that 24,000 have died, of them 12,000 combatants. The 'worst' is almost 29,000, of whom 12,000 are combatants.

Its also interesting that he uses the fact that this war is different in scope or scale to other previous wars as a reason why the casualties would be less than previous ones? or that international observers are absent from this war (and fails to mention the obvious reason why).

Perhaps I'm an idiot but could you make the maths make sense to me?
 
For what it's worth a Swiss war journalist who came back from Israel came to a similar conclusion in a recent radio interview. He also thought that the ratio of combatant loss to civilian loss is likely no where close to being correct.
 
Goldfiessli said:
For what it's worth a Swiss war journalist who came back from Israel came to a similar conclusion in a recent radio interview. He also thought that the ratio of combatant loss to civilian loss is likely no where close to being correct.
Click to expand...

What were his sources?
 
If the mathematics are unassailable, then the author Abraham Wyner is welcome to publish his findings on an actual scientific journal where they can be peer-reviewed and responded to by other statisticians.
 
africanspur said:
I really liked the mathematical part where they spelt out that a 'substantial' fraction of UNRWA staff in Gaza are affiliated to Hamas, in the process linking to an article saying that 190 UNRWA workers were Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives (while also being at pains to point out that literally no evidence was provided for this)...out of 13,000 UNRWA staff in Gaza.

Do you wanna do the maths on what 190/13,000 is as a fraction, even if you assume that its not totally made up?

The daily totals he has an issue with (from his own figures, which I don't have the time or energy to factcheck myself) range from 196 to 341, between 27th October and 10th November. These will be, by definition, amongst the hottest times of the war and there was not much variation in the severity of attacks during this period. Regardless, he claims that the average is 270 +/- 15%. Could someone explain to me how 196 (the lowest figure he himself provides) is within 15% of the average of 270?

I've also multipled the average (270) by 16 (the number of days he provides in his own table at the bottom) and it comes out to 4320. Which aren't any of the numbers he provides as total casualties in his own table and certainly not anywhere near the 'Hamas reported' casualty figures.

I was going to ask you the same question I ask everyone who says these casualty figures are made up. Which is OK then, how many do you think have actually died? I assume, like those others, you won't answer either. But then I saw that the author of the article himself posits his own conclusions. The 'best' case scenario for him is that 24,000 have died, of them 12,000 combatants. The 'worst' is almost 29,000, of whom 12,000 are combatants.

Its also interesting that he uses the fact that this war is different in scope or scale to other previous wars as a reason why the casualties would be less than previous ones? or that international observers are absent from this war (and fails to mention the obvious reason why).

Perhaps I'm an idiot but could you make the maths make sense to me?
Click to expand...

You notice that the figure that doesn't change is the one given by IDF, the 12000 combatants, criticism of the Health ministry is that they don't make that distinction so it doesn't come from gazans. How do they know without doubt how many combatant have been killed when they levelled entire neighborhoods and were in a guerilla context?
 
The article makes some good points and there are a few decent arguments there, certainly some things that can be disputed about numbers, etc.

The problem is that the author uses these points to reach a conclusion that is quite dubious and unbelievable based on the totality of evidence we have.

This calls into question whether the author is not just doing his own form of misleading via numbers.
 
Last edited:
Iker Quesadillas said:
If the mathematics are unassailable, then the author Abraham Wyner is welcome to publish his findings on an actual scientific journal where they can be peer-reviewed and responded to by other statisticians.
Click to expand...

Goldfiessli said:
For what it's worth a Swiss war journalist who came back from Israel came to a similar conclusion in a recent radio interview. He also thought that the ratio of combatant loss to civilian loss is likely no where close to being correct.
Click to expand...
Here have a read
No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health

Published december 06, 2023

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext
 
You must log in or register to reply here.