Cute how you refuse to apply similar terminology to the Israelis when they commit war crimes documented by reputable intl orgs and bodies. And where the systematic destruction of an entire territory with tons of evidence, images, verifiable data is still considered by you as "uncritically accepting statements by fucking Hamas, people...""...a bunch of degenerate murderers and liars with an obvious incentive to deceive me. Condemning Israel's actions does not require uncritically accepting statements by fucking Hamas, people..."
Looks like the US's most precious ally is about to drag it into another war. Never have the actions of a so called "ally" been more destructive to its main benefactor than that of Israel. Get ready for $100s of billions more sucked up that parasitic leech of a country to 'defend itself' from those fucking "terrorists" in their response. And get ready for another Sept 11 equivalent act as they view the US as an enabler of the mass murder of their people. And get ready for more dumb-fucks who question "why do they hate us?"Nah... the only reason anyone is using pagers in an era of cheap and cheery smartphones is because they can't be tracked. And that means Hezbollah. The fact that Iran's ambassador got hit in this operation is just cherry on the top.
Sounds like a chunk of Hezbollah's command and control network was silenced on the eve of Israeli operations against them.
It’s frankly weird that you keep asking me how this helps Hamas, I give you an extremely straightforward answer to it, and you pretend it didn’t happen.First you were bold, it was clear you would require 'proof of innocence' to believe the figures:
Then when asked why this would help them, you got vague:
Vaguer still and an attempt to shift the goalposts to talking about the conflict in general and their goals:
Then an attempt to get back on topic, you doubled down but still did not supply any argument of substance:
Another attempt to shift the topic to talking about the conflict in general:
It was a really simple question I asked: How does fudging the figures *directly* help Hamas. I'm already perfectly open to entertain the possibility that it *might help in some way* so vagueness (e.g. "PR") is of no use to convince me or anyone else here. Anyone who actually gives a shit about Palestinians getting slaughtered en masse isn't going to swayed any further one way or the other if the figure is any other number of thousands dead.
The sad, cold fact is that it does not matter how many Palestinians are butchered by Israel, just like if the Nazi regime had solely been about rounding up the undesirables in Germany and slaughtering them en masse then WW2 would very likely never have happened. The West set the destruction of Palestine into motion decades ago, they're cool with it. *Maybe* it's a red line for the West if Israel attempts to expand beyond Palestine, maybe not. As long as Israel is getting weapons and funding from the West, its neighbours know that there is no chance of defeating Israel (unless Israel can be convinced to do something incredibly stupid like literally deplete its entire human force vs. Gaza). Israel can play the long game, they will no doubt agree to a ceasefire before their reservists have completely had enough of this shit, wait a few decades while continuing to slowly consume Palestine with militarised police tactics and settler violence, then when a few generations have replenished their forces, they'll find an excuse to restart the rapid destruction of Palestine. Israel has the luxury of time. I don't believe that Hamas has that same luxury.
If you had read the thread you would know my position is that we shouldn’t trust either Hamas or Israel’s numbers so I’m not sure what your point is here.To be fair, Hamas' casualty/death numbers have historically been closer to the figures reported by reputable sources prior to Oct 7th. While Israel has always lied about or manipulated the data. So already your argument isn't completely correct. In the case of the numbers being reported, it would seem Hamas has more credibility than Israel. All you have to do is look at the data if you're not blind 😉
Ahhhh so you DO understand my point, you just disagree with it. That’s fine, now we can discuss!I'd go so far as to argue that Hamas fudging the casualty figures has great risk and little benefit. The risk to their already less-than-stellar reputation is that virtually everyone would be sceptical about any information coming out of Gaza, and the little benefit is that anyone who doesn't already have their nose so far up Israel's ass already knows that thousands of civilians are dead thanks to Israel.
It’s frankly weird that you keep asking me how this helps Hamas, I give you an extremely straightforward answer to it, and you pretend it didn’t happen.
What you really seem to be saying is that you disagree with me, which is fine, but you should just say that instead.
I am being completely serious when I say I don’t know how to make my point any simpler. The more casualties the worse Israel looks, the worse Israel looks the better for Hamas. This is why basically every combatant accuses the other side of war crimes, etc. The entire rest of the world seems to understand this concept - I’m not sure what you are missing.
The importance of something is irrelevant as to whether or not it is true.I didn't miss anything, I'm just surprised that given your strength of feeling about taking Hamas's word for the *entirely plausible and IMO likely lowball* casualty figures that you didn't have a more compelling argument as to why it's so important not to take their word for it. I'm thinking, "really? Is that all you've got?", but if that's the totality of your argument then that's all that I'm going to get. I keep thinking I might have missed something when you say that you've already laid out your argument and I keep ignoring it so I re-read everything and there's basically ah heck-all there.
So you think Hamas is reporting accurate figures out of Gaza not because they think it helps their effort but out of a commitment to archival accuracy?The only thing that results from Hamas publishing their figures is that it adds to the wealth of evidence that the state of Israel is committing war crimes / genocide. *Maybe* that total wealth of evidence occasionally makes America say to Israel behind closed doors, "could you maybe tone down the obvious 'got to kill them all vibes' you're giving off", but overall it's achieved jack shit. Ireland and South Africa have denounced Israel which I'm sure has Israel shaking in their boots. AFAIK the major players in the world either don't care or are profiting from Israel's actions.
Ahhhh so you DO understand my point, you just disagree with it. That’s fine, now we can discuss!
If I understand you correctly you are saying Hamas would report numbers accurately because they think maintaining reporting credibility is important. That would only matter if Hamas thought information coming out of Gaza would be helpful to them in some way which is, wait for it, PR, exactly the thing you said doesn’t matter.
It is a bit funny how you stumbled into agreeing with my fundamental theory here, you just think Hamas cares about PR differently. Lol.
So you think Hamas is reporting accurate figures out of Gaza not because they think it helps their effort but out of a commitment to archival accuracy?
I’m going to register my sincere skepticism on that one.
You’re so close to getting it, haha.Let's say the UK government has just released some unremarkable unemployment statistics: The figures seem perfectly plausible, the release of those figures isn't going to change anything, it's just a normal part of government information reporting to the public. However, the government was then found and proven to be knowingly falsifying the figures. Being caught damages their credibility.
I don’t even know what this means. If you meant to state that in this reporting Hamas has a different goal than archival accuracy what is it?I'm thrilled to hear about your latest expression of baseless scepticism.
You’re so close to getting it, haha.
So let’s walk through this. Why does credibility on this issue matter to Hamas in your opinion?
I don’t even know what this means. If you meant to state that in this reporting Hamas has a different goal than archival accuracy what is it?
So you are saying they are reporting accurately for PR purposes, a thing you claim doesn’t matter.Not on this issue. Credibility in general. Credibility is not easily re-gained once lost. Lying about casualty stats in a (already thoroughly demonstrated) futile attempt to garner sympathy would be a great way to toast any future efforts that rely on good will / trust.
I have a very common sense opinion that belligerents shouldn’t be trusted when they make statements about conflicts they are participating in for reasons I assume are obvious.You have a very strong opinion that Hamas's figures should not be trusted, but your argument about why it's so important not to trust them holds no water and yet you persist in arguing.
So you are saying they are reporting accurately for PR purposes, a thing you claim doesn’t matter.
Or is it that PR matters, just not when it comes to casualty figures?
I have a very common sense opinion that belligerents shouldn’t be trusted when they make statements about conflicts they are participating in for reasons I assume are obvious.
Regardless you didn’t answer my question. What is Hamas’ goal in reporting accurate information? Is it PR? Archival accuracy? Something else?
This is definitely one of those ‘I don’t get what you don’t get’ situations.Really? Is it not pretty evident as to how over estimating the casualty #s can benefit them?
It's not exactly rocket (no pun intended) science.
I will need it explained again, yes.I didn't say PR doesn't matter. If you really need that facet of my position explained again then this is futile.
Thank you for bringing up Ukraine and Russia as you perfectly prove my point. Nearly all independent observers believe Ukraine’s count of Russian casualties is exaggerated. Why would Ukraine do this? For PR, of course! Russia is even worse, routinely putting out ludicrous figures.I'd say your position isn't common sense at all when expressed in a generalised fashion as you just did. For example, I believed Ukraine when they asserted that the Russian Army was at their borders, and I believed Russia when they kept rumbling on about needing to do something about Ukraine, however I didn't believe Russia's basis for its complaint.
When the news broke of Hezbollah's pagers exploding, I believed that it happened however I was sceptical of their announcements of civilian casualties; not because I believe there were none but because I think in that scenario there's a reasonable basis for assuming that political spin might be involved, and I'm happy to revise my opinion as more evidence comes out. However, when it's a known fact that most of Gaza has been reduced to ruins by Israel over nearly a year, I think it's more than a little obvious that there are going to be tens of thousands of civilian casualties at the very least. Believing otherwise is absurd, to think that apartment complexes, shops, office blocks, schools, hospitals, houses got levelled but somehow hardly anyone was home on each occasion!
So you genuinely believe Hamas’s reporting is accurate due to their desire for archival accuracy.If you want to call an accounting of the dead to the Palestinian people, "archival accuracy" then sure, but I regard it as perfectly normal reporting for any governmental organisation to do.
You've been suckered into another useless argument with fsk where the greater picture as to whats going on (where clear evidence of mass casualties not dependent on what Hamas says) is short-shrifted to a minor point of deflection of what Hamas says. He only focuses on things he feels safe to argue about and leaves out all other critical stuff that is over his head or is unable to argue about.I didn't miss anything, I'm just surprised that given your strength of feeling about taking Hamas's word for the *entirely plausible and IMO likely lowball* casualty figures that you didn't have a more compelling argument as to why it's so important not to take their word for it. I'm thinking, "really? Is that all you've got?", but if that's the totality of your argument then that's all that I'm going to get. I keep thinking I might have missed something when you say that you've already laid out your argument and I keep ignoring it so I re-read everything and there's basically ah heck-all there.
The only thing that results from Hamas publishing their figures is that it adds to the wealth of evidence that the state of Israel is committing war crimes / genocide. *Maybe* that total wealth of evidence occasionally makes America say to Israel behind closed doors, "could you maybe tone down the obvious 'got to kill them all vibes' you're giving off", but overall it's achieved jack shit. Ireland and South Africa have denounced Israel which I'm sure has Israel shaking in their boots. AFAIK the major players in the world either don't care or are profiting from Israel's actions.
I will need it explained again, yes.
You are just trapped and you know it.Then let's not.
My position involves understanding some context and nuance which is apparently going over your head.
Chaser:"Good PR" doesn't do jack shit.
Do you care to explain?I didn't say PR doesn't matter.
I know multiple Americans that carry pagers still.Nah... the only reason anyone is using pagers in an era of cheap and cheery smartphones is because they can't be tracked. And that means Hezbollah. The fact that Iran's ambassador got hit in this operation is just cherry on the top.
Sounds like a chunk of Hezbollah's command and control network was silenced on the eve of Israeli operations against them.
they are terrorists of course and deserve to be maimed /s , they are the defacto government in southern Lebanon and are in charge of quite a bit of civilian infrastructure, and you know who still uses pagers quite a bit? doctorsI know multiple Americans that carry pagers still.
You are just trapped and you know it.
Do you care to explain?
I was simply pointing out how you went from 'PR does jack shit' to arguing against the idea that Hamas would fudge the numbers...because it would be bad PR. Now we've graduated to 'of course some PR is useful just not this because of some arbitrary measure of success I invented.'Honestly dude, if that's the entirety of your grasp of my argument then I don't even know where to begin.
According to Hamas, 40k Palestinians have been killed post Oct 7th. AFAIK, at no point in history has a governing party ever looked good for having that many civilians massacred on their watch. Israel had less than a thousand civilians killed by Hamas and I don't think that anyone on this thread would take bets on Netanyahu being in power in 12 months' time. Israel's politics are in a pretty chaotic state despite the fact that they are easily winning this particular conflict.
Publishing these figures does not turn 40k dead people into any kind of win. Those who knew the dead Palestinians are likely going to blame someone and it's not just going to be Israel, is it. If the figures were fudged to "only be" 5k/10k/20k to try to avoid blame from Palestinians it's not going to help much because the Palestinians know their loved ones *actually* died and probably are still going to blame Hamas at least in part. 40k Palestinians that Hamas were meant to protect. If the figures were fudged to be an overestimate, time has already proven that what you think is "good PR" has done jack shit in the world in general. I say "jack shit" because a meaningful metric of measuring the good it's done would be for example that it has stopped the slaughter, caused sanctions to be imposed on Israel, and/or forced the UN to deploy peacekeeping troops to protect Palestinians.
Of course there is such a thing as "good PR", most marketing execs live by the notion that any news is good news, but believing in absolutes is usually a pretty absurd position.
This is my last word to you on this topic. I honestly don't have any idea whether you're acting the way you are out of incompetence or malice, but I really don't give a shit. No doubt you'll post some other context-free quote of mine as your latest "gotcha", feel free if that's what floats your boat.
Sage advice.Put some effort into it!
Well, if you had read my post closely, my point is in spite of Hamas being a terrorist organization, they have way more credibility in terms of the numbers. There's actual evidence. So, anyone leaning on taking those numbers seriously would have a standing. So you can't both sides the stats in this specific situation, my guyIf you had read the thread you would know my position is that we shouldn’t trust either Hamas or Israel’s numbers so I’m not sure what your point is here.