9 ms·

...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?

richardfeynman 3y ago
Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.
- keefle 3y ago
  I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate. Not only have their numbers been fairly accurate in previous conflicts, but also many US officials believe them to be accurate if not underreported. It feels more like an Israeli attempt at using fog of war and the masses ignorance on the matter to soften the reaction and spread doubt about the real numbers. As this talking point was continously used by Israeli spokespersons even after US officials believed these numbers to be fairly accurate. I would be happy to be corrected, I wish the numbers are actually less, and would want this to be the reality. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    "I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate." How are the numbers generated?
    - SauciestGNU 3y ago
      Not the OP, but does it matter if I specifically know how the numbers are generated? I'll absolutely appeal to authority and accept that the United States, various United Nations agencies, MSF, etc accept these numbers as reasonably accurate and acknowledge that they're in a far better position to understand the provenance of the data than I'll ever be.
      - richardfeynman 3y ago
        Great - I'll rely on scientific thinking -- nullius in verba -- and ask questions I'd ask anyone else about how they gather their data, how they know what they claim to know, etc. You believe in the church when it says the sun revolves around the earth.
        SauciestGNU 3y ago
        I don't have the arrogance to assume I can become a domain expert in everything that happens. At the end of the day these people are dead. Killed by Israel. And the world's experts agree. One UN official explained how after previous conflicts they've engaged in post-hoc investigations to ascertain the accuracy of the Gaza health ministry numbers and found them accurate. It's unfortunate for Israel that the numbers make it appear that they're committing a genocide. There are any number of strategies Israel could employ other than indiscriminate mass slaughter. They'd rather deny the numbers than stop incrementing them.
        richardfeynman 3y ago
        Nobody is asking you to be a domain expert. When it comes to almost any other issue, people ask how and demand evidence. But when it comes to Hamas's claims of a certain number of dead, nobody seems to ask "How do they calculate it? Are they looking at morgue data? Are they doing photographs of mass burial sites, as Ukraine did? What is their method?" So people are asking you to be scientific and critical rather than to uncritically repeat the claims of a belligerent in combat. Finally, I'm not sure if you're saying this facetiously or if you genuinely don't know what Israel is capable of, or the lengths its gone to to reduce civilian harm but Israel is not doing indiscriminate mass slaughter. That's what Hamas did on October 7.
- JeffSnazz 3y ago
  > I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. None of this has any bearing on whether or not Israel's word is actually worth anything (...or Hamas's word, for that matter).
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    Yes it does. When the Hamas government lies in Gaza (say about a death toll) there is no one to question them or dispute their narrative. By contrast, in Israel, when the government lies it's a national pasttime to criticize and dispute them. For this reason, it's easier to tell when the Israeli government is lying than when Hamas lies.
- VagabundoP 3y ago
  >Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley With Netanyahu and other far right parties in power I'm not sure this is argument you think it is. Also not great numbers with the free press either: https://rsf.org/en/index https://rsf.org/en/index Better than some in the region, but not great. And the refrain gets old when used as a cover for Israels terrible actions, but it actively makes me ill nowadays, maybe not as ill as "IDF is the most moral army in the world" when I think about the tens of thousands of kids they have blown up (killed and injured) I suppose.
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    The blame for kids dying lies on Hamas for (1) recruiting child soldiers; (2) building weapons factories in children's bedrooms; (3) building terror tunnels under schools; (4) preventing civilians from evacuating from the north... I could go on. Not sure if you're a Hebrew reader, but you don't know what you're talking about with regard to journalism in Israel. Have you ever read Gideon Levy? There is tons of criticism of the government and its conduct in this war in Israeli media. Sorry these facts make you ill. Get better soon!
    - VagabundoP 3y ago
      The blame for the kids dying lies firmly with the IDF/Israeli government. They have agency and they have made a choice to seal borders, cut off food, water and electricity, and bomb the living shit out of a captive population. Hamas have their own crimes they can answer for. I wouldn't mind if the leadership of Israel, IDF and Hamas were dragged before the ICC war crimes. Lock them all up, tbh. Reporters Without Borders are a widely recognised and reputable organisation. Here's the direct link to the entry on Israel: https://rsf.org/en/country/israel https://rsf.org/en/country/israel
      - richardfeynman 3y ago
        At the beginning of 1945 the allies had most of germany occupied. The nazis didn't surrender, and the allies killed countless german civilians until they did. Who was responsible for their deaths? The allies or the nazis? Also, reporters without borders is not at all reputable. Here is one of countless rebuttals to their position: https://www.camera.org/article/using-journalists-lives-as-currency-another-cynical-hamas-ruse/ https://www.camera.org/article/using-journalists-lives-as-cu...
- bluish29 3y ago
  > Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press Israeli law allows news censorship by the IDF. Currently, if you are a news outlet working in Israel, you have to pass your war coverage by them [1,2] even the CNN is forced to do this [3]. I don't know, but you seem to have a strange definition of free press. Should I list some of the series of scandals of IDF caught laying in the past to complete the picture? Just remember that they tried to convince people that the words [Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday] in Arabic are Hamas members names [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor [2] https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-media-censor https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi... [3] https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo... [4] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-idf-claims-to-find-list-of-hamas-names-but-it-s-the-days-of-the-week-in-arabic https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-...
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    Can you name a country that doesn't allow news censorship by their military during combat? The same exact thing happens with US journalists embedded with the US military. It's obvious operational security. I'm guessing you don't speak hebrew, but Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists.
    - ignoramous 3y ago
      > Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists. Free to criticize but get jailed by the 100s: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-journalist-numbers-near-record-high-israel-imprisonments-spike/ https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-jo... (that's not free press)
- IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
  A liberal democratic state? You consider likkud a liberal party? I suppose Irgun was liberal too.
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    That's like saying America isn't a liberal democratic state because of Trump and the republican party. Israel is a liberal democracy, far more liberal than America, and there were hundreds of thousands of people who marched against Netanyahu.
    - JeffSnazz 3y ago
      Israel has a parliamentary system, no? It seems appropriate to blame the parties that forms the coalition for the behavior of the state, and there's certainly no shortage of illiberal actions Israel has done against their own citizens in the last three months to point to. Regardless, our (USA) parties are in fact the biggest blockers to our functioning correctly as a liberal democracy. One is desperate for votes from anyone, the other party is terrified to pass anything or imagine any kind of future that isn't a slightly less grim version of what the republicans offer. Just by our ability to come to a consensus and do things as a country, we seem to have ground to a complete halt. So yea, people should be a lot more critical of whether or not we're actually espousing the democratic ideals we claim.
      - richardfeynman 3y ago
        Friend, Israel has a shitty party in power and a shitty prime minister in power, but that doesn't mean it's not a liberal democratic state. It's pretty obvious that you don't know much about Israel. Do you know that the kibbutzim that were attacked on october 7 were full of people who used to go to Gaza to drive gazans to Israeli hospitals? I myself have donated to gazans and marched with palestinians for decades. I will not stand silent as people who know much less than they think they do make overconfident statements maligning Israel.
        3y ago
loeg 3y ago
For example, Hamas claimed that an Israeli bomb struck a Gazan hospital and killed 500. Later the consensus viewpoint is that (1) it was a failed Gazan rocket launched at Israel that malfunctioned, and (2) it struck in a parking lot and the death toll is likely much, much lower. Hamas, a terrorist organization that repeatedly launches rockets at Israeli civilians, does not have a ton of credibility.

richardfeynman 3y ago

Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.

keefle 3y ago
I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate. Not only have their numbers been fairly accurate in previous conflicts, but also many US officials believe them to be accurate if not underreported. It feels more like an Israeli attempt at using fog of war and the masses ignorance on the matter to soften the reaction and spread doubt about the real numbers. As this talking point was continously used by Israeli spokespersons even after US officials believed these numbers to be fairly accurate. I would be happy to be corrected, I wish the numbers are actually less, and would want this to be the reality. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  "I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate." How are the numbers generated?
  - SauciestGNU 3y ago
    Not the OP, but does it matter if I specifically know how the numbers are generated? I'll absolutely appeal to authority and accept that the United States, various United Nations agencies, MSF, etc accept these numbers as reasonably accurate and acknowledge that they're in a far better position to understand the provenance of the data than I'll ever be.
    - richardfeynman 3y ago
      Great - I'll rely on scientific thinking -- nullius in verba -- and ask questions I'd ask anyone else about how they gather their data, how they know what they claim to know, etc. You believe in the church when it says the sun revolves around the earth.
      - SauciestGNU 3y ago
        I don't have the arrogance to assume I can become a domain expert in everything that happens. At the end of the day these people are dead. Killed by Israel. And the world's experts agree. One UN official explained how after previous conflicts they've engaged in post-hoc investigations to ascertain the accuracy of the Gaza health ministry numbers and found them accurate. It's unfortunate for Israel that the numbers make it appear that they're committing a genocide. There are any number of strategies Israel could employ other than indiscriminate mass slaughter. They'd rather deny the numbers than stop incrementing them.
        richardfeynman 3y ago
        Nobody is asking you to be a domain expert. When it comes to almost any other issue, people ask how and demand evidence. But when it comes to Hamas's claims of a certain number of dead, nobody seems to ask "How do they calculate it? Are they looking at morgue data? Are they doing photographs of mass burial sites, as Ukraine did? What is their method?" So people are asking you to be scientific and critical rather than to uncritically repeat the claims of a belligerent in combat. Finally, I'm not sure if you're saying this facetiously or if you genuinely don't know what Israel is capable of, or the lengths its gone to to reduce civilian harm but Israel is not doing indiscriminate mass slaughter. That's what Hamas did on October 7.
JeffSnazz 3y ago
> I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. None of this has any bearing on whether or not Israel's word is actually worth anything (...or Hamas's word, for that matter).
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  Yes it does. When the Hamas government lies in Gaza (say about a death toll) there is no one to question them or dispute their narrative. By contrast, in Israel, when the government lies it's a national pasttime to criticize and dispute them. For this reason, it's easier to tell when the Israeli government is lying than when Hamas lies.
VagabundoP 3y ago
>Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley With Netanyahu and other far right parties in power I'm not sure this is argument you think it is. Also not great numbers with the free press either: https://rsf.org/en/index https://rsf.org/en/index Better than some in the region, but not great. And the refrain gets old when used as a cover for Israels terrible actions, but it actively makes me ill nowadays, maybe not as ill as "IDF is the most moral army in the world" when I think about the tens of thousands of kids they have blown up (killed and injured) I suppose.
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  The blame for kids dying lies on Hamas for (1) recruiting child soldiers; (2) building weapons factories in children's bedrooms; (3) building terror tunnels under schools; (4) preventing civilians from evacuating from the north... I could go on. Not sure if you're a Hebrew reader, but you don't know what you're talking about with regard to journalism in Israel. Have you ever read Gideon Levy? There is tons of criticism of the government and its conduct in this war in Israeli media. Sorry these facts make you ill. Get better soon!
  - VagabundoP 3y ago
    The blame for the kids dying lies firmly with the IDF/Israeli government. They have agency and they have made a choice to seal borders, cut off food, water and electricity, and bomb the living shit out of a captive population. Hamas have their own crimes they can answer for. I wouldn't mind if the leadership of Israel, IDF and Hamas were dragged before the ICC war crimes. Lock them all up, tbh. Reporters Without Borders are a widely recognised and reputable organisation. Here's the direct link to the entry on Israel: https://rsf.org/en/country/israel https://rsf.org/en/country/israel
    - richardfeynman 3y ago
      At the beginning of 1945 the allies had most of germany occupied. The nazis didn't surrender, and the allies killed countless german civilians until they did. Who was responsible for their deaths? The allies or the nazis? Also, reporters without borders is not at all reputable. Here is one of countless rebuttals to their position: https://www.camera.org/article/using-journalists-lives-as-currency-another-cynical-hamas-ruse/ https://www.camera.org/article/using-journalists-lives-as-cu...
bluish29 3y ago
> Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press Israeli law allows news censorship by the IDF. Currently, if you are a news outlet working in Israel, you have to pass your war coverage by them [1,2] even the CNN is forced to do this [3]. I don't know, but you seem to have a strange definition of free press. Should I list some of the series of scandals of IDF caught laying in the past to complete the picture? Just remember that they tried to convince people that the words [Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday] in Arabic are Hamas members names [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor [2] https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-media-censor https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi... [3] https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo... [4] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-idf-claims-to-find-list-of-hamas-names-but-it-s-the-days-of-the-week-in-arabic https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-...
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  Can you name a country that doesn't allow news censorship by their military during combat? The same exact thing happens with US journalists embedded with the US military. It's obvious operational security. I'm guessing you don't speak hebrew, but Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists.
  - ignoramous 3y ago
    > Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists. Free to criticize but get jailed by the 100s: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-journalist-numbers-near-record-high-israel-imprisonments-spike/ https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-jo... (that's not free press)
IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
A liberal democratic state? You consider likkud a liberal party? I suppose Irgun was liberal too.
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  That's like saying America isn't a liberal democratic state because of Trump and the republican party. Israel is a liberal democracy, far more liberal than America, and there were hundreds of thousands of people who marched against Netanyahu.
  - JeffSnazz 3y ago
    Israel has a parliamentary system, no? It seems appropriate to blame the parties that forms the coalition for the behavior of the state, and there's certainly no shortage of illiberal actions Israel has done against their own citizens in the last three months to point to. Regardless, our (USA) parties are in fact the biggest blockers to our functioning correctly as a liberal democracy. One is desperate for votes from anyone, the other party is terrified to pass anything or imagine any kind of future that isn't a slightly less grim version of what the republicans offer. Just by our ability to come to a consensus and do things as a country, we seem to have ground to a complete halt. So yea, people should be a lot more critical of whether or not we're actually espousing the democratic ideals we claim.
    - richardfeynman 3y ago
      Friend, Israel has a shitty party in power and a shitty prime minister in power, but that doesn't mean it's not a liberal democratic state. It's pretty obvious that you don't know much about Israel. Do you know that the kibbutzim that were attacked on october 7 were full of people who used to go to Gaza to drive gazans to Israeli hospitals? I myself have donated to gazans and marched with palestinians for decades. I will not stand silent as people who know much less than they think they do make overconfident statements maligning Israel.
      - 3y ago

loeg 3y ago

For example, Hamas claimed that an Israeli bomb struck a Gazan hospital and killed 500. Later the consensus viewpoint is that (1) it was a failed Gazan rocket launched at Israel that malfunctioned, and (2) it struck in a parking lot and the death toll is likely much, much lower. Hamas, a terrorist organization that repeatedly launches rockets at Israeli civilians, does not have a ton of credibility.