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Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world. And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more d

Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world. And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more densely populated than Gaza. Bnei Brak was hit by rockets this week. Can you link me to some articles that refer to "Hamas firing rockets on Bnei Brak, one of the most densely populated cities in the world"? Or "on israel, one of the most densely populated countries"? If not, my question for you is: why do we see this phrase so commonly in reporting on Gaza but not on other more densely populated areas?

golergka 5y ago
Same reason that this conflict always gets the same optics in international media — jewish lives are worth less. At first, as you don't want to believe it, you argue, you investigate, you really try to find any sane reason that while these things are happening on ground with you and your family, everybody else still sees a different picture, and then you just come to realisation that there's no other explanation for it.
- golemiprague 5y ago
  Indeed, there is also the discussion on "proportionality" or "civilian buildings" which never appears in any other conflict. When proportinality is discussed it is always some demand from Israel to equal number of total killed, not the actual proportion of militants killed vs. civilians. Nobody suggest that Israel should kill 10 civilians for each militant , which is the rate of Israeli killed by Gazans, one soldier and 10 civilians. Note also the diversion from "civilians" to "civilian buildings". Since the Gaza militant are operating from positions which are not distinuishable from regular civilian building the media now complains why those position are bombed. So now Israel is not allowed to kill militant because of the way the balcony looks. The more accurate and careful Israel become the media narrow the definition of what is a military target. Basically they demand different standards from Israel than from any other country, which is discrimination and therefore when directed to only one nation, racism. I am not surprised, media and politicians must cater for the growing Muslim population in western contry and to the overwhelming majority in social media, a billion Muslims vs 10 million Jews. Every claim by the Muslims is multiplied and reverberating by the echo chamber. So the media just follows to cater for them, it is a bit of decision besuiness and a bit of a political belief peppered with classic racism against Jews. If google had an option they would have been on the Muslims side with no hesitation, it is just the current laws that prevented them.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Israeli lives are worth at least $400 / year each to the United States, given the $3.3B annual aid and a population of 9M. Since 2007, when the US stopped economic aid, it's been entirely military aid. (https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR) In total, Afghanistan gets more, $4.9B, but that only comes to $129 per Afghan. (That's the "you break it, you bought it" plan, I guess.) The next highest is Jordan, $1.7B or $170 per each. (Yeah, we're paying for both sides of this dust-up.) So I think we can agree that Jewish lives are worth quite a lot. Just wish they could get along with their neighbors.
  - sequoia 5y ago
    Just to clarify: these are the neighbours that expelled all their Jews leaving them refugees in Israel and also tried to destroy the country and many of which have not stopped trying for its entire history. Getting along takes two.
    - tomcooks 5y ago
      Lol right, the rapist and the raped need to find a compromise
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > Just to clarify: these are the neighbours that expelled all their Jews leaving them refugees in Israel and also tried to destroy the country and many of which have not stopped trying for its entire history. Getting along takes two Sure, if you decide to start there. If you start a little further away, around WWI and before WWII, you have Jews settling lands where they were a small minority en masse, and after WWII mass migration there ( for very good reasons), and active Jewish and Arab boycotts for a UN proposed and unfair towards the Arabs partition of the land ( like murdering the UN negotiator by Jews). Israel doesn't help its case for peaceful coexistence, if there is even such a case, by illegally occupying, ethnic cleansing and resettling Palestinian lands. If Israel wanted peace, it is the main party that can actually do something about it, but they do the opposite, up to and including that Israel is a country for Jews in their constitution, while refusing to acknowledge Palestine is a thing. Where should the Palestinians go?
- deanCommie 5y ago
  But more Palestenian lives are being lost. Purely from a numbers perspective if you put aside all other variables or blame, wouldn't that explain why one side is being criticized extra right now?
  - LeoNatan25 5y ago
    How about criticizing Hamas, a terrorist organization, for shooting rockets at civilian populations of a country with one of the most advanced armies of the world? How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers? Seems like the media is willfully ignorant here. Then you have nonsense like: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hide-rockets-in-schools-but-israel-doesnt-have-to https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hid... Clearly this smells foul.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers? How about criticizing Israel, a country with one of the most advanced militaries in the world, for bombing civilians that can't defend themselves, in retaliation for very basic level attacks by a terrorist group Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from? Hamas are the bad guys, Israel are even worse because they could show restraint and not murder civilians, not evict Arabs and resettle their lands with Jews and all the other war crimey shit they do, yet they still do that, under a very corrupt leader that mostly stays in power with nationalistic and proto-fascistic rhetoric.
    - roelschroeven 5y ago
      How about criticizing both Hamas and Israel for shooting rockets at civilians? Blame can go both ways. On top of that, many people, me included, criticize Israel for illegally occupying Palestinian territory, stealing houses from Arab Israels, and generally treating Palestinians as second-rate citizens and worse. There's simply no excuse for that. Imagine yourself in a situation like that. Whatever you do, whoever you complain to, the situation only gets worse. You're helpless against enormous injustice. While I don't condone violence, I do understand why people resort to violence when everything else fails.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  I'm sorry to hear you're living through violence. That sounds horrible, and I hope you and your family are safe. I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. They are not the same. I oppose the Israeli government's policies and actions towards Palestine, but that does not mean I wish harm on you or your family, nor does it mean I don't see and value the Israeli lives lost during this conflict. There ARE other explanations for it.
  - golergka 5y ago
    > I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. No. I'm saying that putting israeli government under a completely different set of standards than any other country in the world cannot be explained with anything else rather than pure anti-semitism.
    - M277 5y ago
      What different standards do you mean?
      - golergka 5y ago
        I've never, in any other conflict, witnessed a public opinion on the side of the aggressor. I've never, in any other conflict, seen an army that's not fighting overseas, but is desperately trying to prevent massive loss of life in it's own population, accused of "disproportionate" response — even though it would take measures to prevent any casualties that are completely unprecedented in world practices and makes achieving it's goals (see above) significantly harder. I've never in my life seen calls for genocide of entire nation (that's exactly what "from the river to the sea" means, if you're not aware) widely supported through out the world. Every time this conflict happens again, I can't help but realise that if it was not for IDF, my family would have long have been brutally killed, and all those first-world liberals who're so busy fighting for their causes wouldn't even mind.
        5y ago
- gataca 5y ago
  looks like you hit a nerve by correctly diagnosing the situation.
woodpanel 5y ago
Since this question revolves around words and their effect… "most populated" > "crammed" > "jailed" > "the new warsaw ghetto" there must be a word that describes your question of why: The word you're looking for also describes what's enabling the cognitive dissonance of putting Gaza in the same category as a Singapur, a Tokio or Hong Kong without blinking: Economic powerhouses that draw talent from developing and developed nations worldwide vs. a town with an economy that only consists of NGOs, the Hamas and UN-Organizations (The wage gap between ordinary gaza citizens and those working for the state is 50%). But instead of owning that word, it's easier to just keep uttering "Israel is bombing one of the most densely populated places in the world".
- geofft 5y ago
  What's the phrasing you'd prefer? "Children were once again murdered in cold blood in Gaza, a metropolis that could be just like Singapore, Tokyo, or Hong Kong given its dense population and prime geographic location, were it not under constant military oppression from a country whose illegal nuclear weapons program is more successful than that of North Korea"? I think a lot of people would find that uncomfortably partisan, so news organizations tend to self-censor, unfortunately.
  - three14 5y ago
    Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in cold blood". That's just not what those words mean.
    - geofft 5y ago
      Can you explain why I am misusing the phrase? I believe it to be objectively accurate. Again, that phrasing might make people uncomfortable. as I wrote above. I understand that, and I understand why people desire to censor it. But I don't believe it's incorrect, which is another thing entitely.
      - 5y ago
amadeuspagel 5y ago
> Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world. You're looking at the second table, which includes only the 100 most populous countries. If you look at the main table, which includes all countries, Israel is #17.
- sequoia 5y ago
  Good point, thank you.
nl 5y ago
> And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more densely populated than Gaza. This is only because the term "city" is used inconsistently around the world. Bnei Brak is part of the district of Tel Aviv, and most geographers would consider it part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo urban agglomerations[1]. The absolute size of an area puts a ceiling on the density - roads etc take up space, and the larger the area the more likely it is to include freeways, or hit geographic features that limit density. It would be better to think of it as a 7 sq km district, and as such its density (29,345 people per square km) isn't particularly high[2]. Looking at districts with similar geographic size Imbaba in Cairo is 8 square km and has a density of 177,038 per square km, or Güngören in Turkey is 8 sq km and has a density of 41,349 people per km. If we look at similar populations (204,639) then Manhattan Community Board 7 (population 207,699) has a density of 42,387 people per sq km, or Zaveri Bazar (pop 202,922) has a density of 114,001 people per sq km. So yes, Bnei Brak is dense, but not especially so by comparable urban area standards. [1] https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/characteristics-of-urban-agglomerations-in-different-continents-history-patterns-dynamics-drivers-an https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/charact... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_popu...
- smileybarry 5y ago
  Bnei Brak is part of the "Tel Aviv metropolitan area" but it's not part of the city of Tel Aviv, in the classic meaning: it has its own municipality, budgets, taxing system, etc. Counting it as the same city in any meaning would be wrong as the two have very different goals re: neighborhood design, density, commercial business focus, events, city services, etc.
  - nl 5y ago
    It's part of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_District https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_District Many "cities" have political structures similar to what you describe.
throwaway5412 5y ago
> If not, my question for you is: why do we see this phrase so commonly in reporting on Gaza but not on other more densely populated areas? One difference is that most of its residents aren't allowed to leave, from my understanding.
- banannaise 5y ago
  On top of that, most of its residents, whether they are allowed to leave or not, are also stateless, which essentially locks them out of much of the developed world.
Siira 5y ago
Because most people are stupid, and this level of truth-bending will not be punished.

golergka 5y ago

Same reason that this conflict always gets the same optics in international media — jewish lives are worth less. At first, as you don't want to believe it, you argue, you investigate, you really try to find any sane reason that while these things are happening on ground with you and your family, everybody else still sees a different picture, and then you just come to realisation that there's no other explanation for it.

golemiprague 5y ago
Indeed, there is also the discussion on "proportionality" or "civilian buildings" which never appears in any other conflict. When proportinality is discussed it is always some demand from Israel to equal number of total killed, not the actual proportion of militants killed vs. civilians. Nobody suggest that Israel should kill 10 civilians for each militant , which is the rate of Israeli killed by Gazans, one soldier and 10 civilians. Note also the diversion from "civilians" to "civilian buildings". Since the Gaza militant are operating from positions which are not distinuishable from regular civilian building the media now complains why those position are bombed. So now Israel is not allowed to kill militant because of the way the balcony looks. The more accurate and careful Israel become the media narrow the definition of what is a military target. Basically they demand different standards from Israel than from any other country, which is discrimination and therefore when directed to only one nation, racism. I am not surprised, media and politicians must cater for the growing Muslim population in western contry and to the overwhelming majority in social media, a billion Muslims vs 10 million Jews. Every claim by the Muslims is multiplied and reverberating by the echo chamber. So the media just follows to cater for them, it is a bit of decision besuiness and a bit of a political belief peppered with classic racism against Jews. If google had an option they would have been on the Muslims side with no hesitation, it is just the current laws that prevented them.
mcguire 5y ago
Israeli lives are worth at least $400 / year each to the United States, given the $3.3B annual aid and a population of 9M. Since 2007, when the US stopped economic aid, it's been entirely military aid. (https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR) In total, Afghanistan gets more, $4.9B, but that only comes to $129 per Afghan. (That's the "you break it, you bought it" plan, I guess.) The next highest is Jordan, $1.7B or $170 per each. (Yeah, we're paying for both sides of this dust-up.) So I think we can agree that Jewish lives are worth quite a lot. Just wish they could get along with their neighbors.
- sequoia 5y ago
  Just to clarify: these are the neighbours that expelled all their Jews leaving them refugees in Israel and also tried to destroy the country and many of which have not stopped trying for its entire history. Getting along takes two.
  - tomcooks 5y ago
    Lol right, the rapist and the raped need to find a compromise
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > Just to clarify: these are the neighbours that expelled all their Jews leaving them refugees in Israel and also tried to destroy the country and many of which have not stopped trying for its entire history. Getting along takes two Sure, if you decide to start there. If you start a little further away, around WWI and before WWII, you have Jews settling lands where they were a small minority en masse, and after WWII mass migration there ( for very good reasons), and active Jewish and Arab boycotts for a UN proposed and unfair towards the Arabs partition of the land ( like murdering the UN negotiator by Jews). Israel doesn't help its case for peaceful coexistence, if there is even such a case, by illegally occupying, ethnic cleansing and resettling Palestinian lands. If Israel wanted peace, it is the main party that can actually do something about it, but they do the opposite, up to and including that Israel is a country for Jews in their constitution, while refusing to acknowledge Palestine is a thing. Where should the Palestinians go?
deanCommie 5y ago
But more Palestenian lives are being lost. Purely from a numbers perspective if you put aside all other variables or blame, wouldn't that explain why one side is being criticized extra right now?
- LeoNatan25 5y ago
  How about criticizing Hamas, a terrorist organization, for shooting rockets at civilian populations of a country with one of the most advanced armies of the world? How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers? Seems like the media is willfully ignorant here. Then you have nonsense like: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hide-rockets-in-schools-but-israel-doesnt-have-to https://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5912189/yes-gaza-militants-hid... Clearly this smells foul.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > How about criticizing Hamas for shooting these rockets from civilian centers? How about criticizing Israel, a country with one of the most advanced militaries in the world, for bombing civilians that can't defend themselves, in retaliation for very basic level attacks by a terrorist group Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from? Hamas are the bad guys, Israel are even worse because they could show restraint and not murder civilians, not evict Arabs and resettle their lands with Jews and all the other war crimey shit they do, yet they still do that, under a very corrupt leader that mostly stays in power with nationalistic and proto-fascistic rhetoric.
  - roelschroeven 5y ago
    How about criticizing both Hamas and Israel for shooting rockets at civilians? Blame can go both ways. On top of that, many people, me included, criticize Israel for illegally occupying Palestinian territory, stealing houses from Arab Israels, and generally treating Palestinians as second-rate citizens and worse. There's simply no excuse for that. Imagine yourself in a situation like that. Whatever you do, whoever you complain to, the situation only gets worse. You're helpless against enormous injustice. While I don't condone violence, I do understand why people resort to violence when everything else fails.
kennywinker 5y ago
I'm sorry to hear you're living through violence. That sounds horrible, and I hope you and your family are safe. I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. They are not the same. I oppose the Israeli government's policies and actions towards Palestine, but that does not mean I wish harm on you or your family, nor does it mean I don't see and value the Israeli lives lost during this conflict. There ARE other explanations for it.
- golergka 5y ago
  > I see you conflating criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with opposition to Jewish lives. No. I'm saying that putting israeli government under a completely different set of standards than any other country in the world cannot be explained with anything else rather than pure anti-semitism.
  - M277 5y ago
    What different standards do you mean?
    - golergka 5y ago
      I've never, in any other conflict, witnessed a public opinion on the side of the aggressor. I've never, in any other conflict, seen an army that's not fighting overseas, but is desperately trying to prevent massive loss of life in it's own population, accused of "disproportionate" response — even though it would take measures to prevent any casualties that are completely unprecedented in world practices and makes achieving it's goals (see above) significantly harder. I've never in my life seen calls for genocide of entire nation (that's exactly what "from the river to the sea" means, if you're not aware) widely supported through out the world. Every time this conflict happens again, I can't help but realise that if it was not for IDF, my family would have long have been brutally killed, and all those first-world liberals who're so busy fighting for their causes wouldn't even mind.
      - 5y ago
gataca 5y ago
looks like you hit a nerve by correctly diagnosing the situation.

woodpanel 5y ago

Since this question revolves around words and their effect… "most populated" > "crammed" > "jailed" > "the new warsaw ghetto" there must be a word that describes your question of why: The word you're looking for also describes what's enabling the cognitive dissonance of putting Gaza in the same category as a Singapur, a Tokio or Hong Kong without blinking: Economic powerhouses that draw talent from developing and developed nations worldwide vs. a town with an economy that only consists of NGOs, the Hamas and UN-Organizations (The wage gap between ordinary gaza citizens and those working for the state is 50%). But instead of owning that word, it's easier to just keep uttering "Israel is bombing one of the most densely populated places in the world".

geofft 5y ago
What's the phrasing you'd prefer? "Children were once again murdered in cold blood in Gaza, a metropolis that could be just like Singapore, Tokyo, or Hong Kong given its dense population and prime geographic location, were it not under constant military oppression from a country whose illegal nuclear weapons program is more successful than that of North Korea"? I think a lot of people would find that uncomfortably partisan, so news organizations tend to self-censor, unfortunately.
- three14 5y ago
  Whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve over its current bombing campaign, you aren't going to convince anyone if you misuse phrases like "murdered in cold blood". That's just not what those words mean.
  - geofft 5y ago
    Can you explain why I am misusing the phrase? I believe it to be objectively accurate. Again, that phrasing might make people uncomfortable. as I wrote above. I understand that, and I understand why people desire to censor it. But I don't believe it's incorrect, which is another thing entitely.
    - 5y ago

amadeuspagel 5y ago

> Looking at the country list, I see Israel is the #5 most densely populated country in the world. You're looking at the second table, which includes only the 100 most populous countries. If you look at the main table, which includes all countries, Israel is #17.

sequoia 5y ago
Good point, thank you.

nl 5y ago

> And Bnei Brak is the #5 most densely populated city, far more densely populated than Gaza. This is only because the term "city" is used inconsistently around the world. Bnei Brak is part of the district of Tel Aviv, and most geographers would consider it part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo urban agglomerations[1]. The absolute size of an area puts a ceiling on the density - roads etc take up space, and the larger the area the more likely it is to include freeways, or hit geographic features that limit density. It would be better to think of it as a 7 sq km district, and as such its density (29,345 people per square km) isn't particularly high[2]. Looking at districts with similar geographic size Imbaba in Cairo is 8 square km and has a density of 177,038 per square km, or Güngören in Turkey is 8 sq km and has a density of 41,349 people per km. If we look at similar populations (204,639) then Manhattan Community Board 7 (population 207,699) has a density of 42,387 people per sq km, or Zaveri Bazar (pop 202,922) has a density of 114,001 people per sq km. So yes, Bnei Brak is dense, but not especially so by comparable urban area standards. [1] https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/characteristics-of-urban-agglomerations-in-different-continents-history-patterns-dynamics-drivers-an https://www.intechopen.com/books/urban-agglomeration/charact... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_popu...

smileybarry 5y ago
Bnei Brak is part of the "Tel Aviv metropolitan area" but it's not part of the city of Tel Aviv, in the classic meaning: it has its own municipality, budgets, taxing system, etc. Counting it as the same city in any meaning would be wrong as the two have very different goals re: neighborhood design, density, commercial business focus, events, city services, etc.
- nl 5y ago
  It's part of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_District https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_District Many "cities" have political structures similar to what you describe.

throwaway5412 5y ago

> If not, my question for you is: why do we see this phrase so commonly in reporting on Gaza but not on other more densely populated areas? One difference is that most of its residents aren't allowed to leave, from my understanding.

banannaise 5y ago
On top of that, most of its residents, whether they are allowed to leave or not, are also stateless, which essentially locks them out of much of the developed world.

Siira 5y ago

Because most people are stupid, and this level of truth-bending will not be punished.