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Getting all these reports about atrocities, I wonder if the conflict in the area has grown more brutal over the decades or if this is just business as usual. I'

Getting all these reports about atrocities, I wonder if the conflict in the area has grown more brutal over the decades or if this is just business as usual. I'm in my late 30s, growing up in the EU, the conflict in the region was always present. I don't remember hearing the kind of stories that come to light these days though, indiscriminate killings, food and water being targeted, aid workers being killed. I get that it's hard to know what's real and what's not and that we live in the age of information, but I'm curious how, on a high level, the conflict is developing. Does anyone got a good source that deals with that?

dfxm12 3y ago
Most of the mainstream media has historically glossed over the atrocities, but it is impossible to ignore them today because of what we see live on the scene thanks to smaller outlets having a broader reach and social media. It's mostly business as usual. The technology makes the brutality more efficient, though: Describing human personnel as a “bottleneck” that limits the army’s capacity during a military operation, the commander laments: “We [humans] cannot process so much information. It doesn’t matter how many people you have tasked to produce targets during the war — you still cannot produce enough targets per day.” ... By adding a name from the Lavender-generated lists to the Where’s Daddy? home tracking system, A. explained, the marked person would be placed under ongoing surveillance, and could be attacked as soon as they set foot in their home, collapsing the house on everyone inside. “Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” A. said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.” Using Google search, you can search new articles in previous years. You'll find older articles about Israel killing aid workers, for example. This is from 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/24/israel-claims-aid-worker-shot-dead-by-troops-was-palestinian-militant-gaza https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/24/i... The interesting thing about how this conflict is developing is that this story is full of quotes from Israeli intelligence. Most plainly say what they're doing. Western outlets may put a positive spin on it (because our governments generally support Israel), but the Israeli military themselves are making their intentions clear: https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-admits-military-carrying-233151647.html https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-admits-military-carr...
xk_id 3y ago
The weaponisation of online media for manipulating the perception of global audiences about the conflict, has definitely ramped up recently. For example, the official Twitter account of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted videos of muslim preachers appearing to denounce lgbt culture during public service in Palestinian mosques. Hamas themselves are denying their involvement in the 2023 massacre and accusing Israel of staging the graphic footage that was disseminated. This greatly polarises the debates on social media and it’s much more common now to see people who are deeply invested emotionally in the narrative of either side.
myth_drannon 3y ago
[flagged]
- f38zf5vdt 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - myth_drannon 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - f38zf5vdt 3y ago
      That was, of course, sarcasm.
- tdeck 3y ago
  Who was beheaded? The "40 beheaded babies" turned out to be a lie. The people burnt alive on October 7th were likely from the IDF firing tank shells at homes. Many of them turned out to be Palestinian once forensics were done. Not one of the rape claims seems to be substantiated by any physical evidence and when an Israeli journalist called all the hospitals, morgues, and trauma hotlines they found the number of reported rape victims was zero. At least here in the US the media were happy to report these lies (you know, the kind of shocking and dehumanizing lies that are always used to ramp up a genocide) and then very muted in any kind of correction.
  - myth_drannon 3y ago
    [flagged]
kjkjadksj 3y ago
When the US dropped napalm indecriminately over the vietnamese jungle or absolutely leveled dresden in one bombing run or unleashed nuclear hellfire over japan, they probably killed a lot of journalists and doctors and food workers as well. Interestingly, western media did not beat itself into a frenzy over it at the time. Its easy to get cynical about it all seeing how easily narratives are manufactured and controlled to serve political ends.
- segasaturn 3y ago
  > Interestingly, western media did not beat itself into a frenzy over it at the time Western mainstream media has been very passive when covering the current situation in gaza, especially when you contrast it with how they covered the war in ukraine just 2 yrs ago. Its just that social media has allowed people to break through the canned media narratives.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    > Western mainstream media has been very passive when covering the current situation in gaza Just FYI, all the examples I mentioned I read on our public broadcaster's website.
    - slim 3y ago
      to summarize : the level of brutality is on par with vietnam, the media are shying away like in the vietnam era, but this time there is internet that broke the blockade and forced them to report
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Media coverage of the Vietnam war was one of the decisive factors in the eventual US Withdrawal, and was a key part of the NVA's strategy. WW2 was a considerably different war in scope, origin, and patterns of escalation.
- archagon 3y ago
  I believe the bombing of Dresden was controversial and elicited pushback in the media, though it's not surprising that reactions may have been muted given the apocalyptic nature of the war. The use of napalm in Vietnam triggered widespread protests.
machina_ex_deus 3y ago
[flagged]
- kevingadd 3y ago
  They've proven a lack of interest in the hostages. They've actively refused deals that involved the return of the hostages, and repeatedly carried out operations that put the hostages in danger.
  - myth_drannon 3y ago
    Hamas will never return hostages on its own. It needs them to stay in power as insurance against destruction by Israel. Unfortunately, that means an offensive into central Gaza camps where some of the hostages are believed to be held and also Rafah ...
- throwaway7351 3y ago
  [dead]
- hnav 3y ago
  9/11 killed 3k people
  - machina_ex_deus 3y ago
    3k out of 300 million, so 1 in 10000. 1k out of 8 million is 1 out of 8000. Every person in Israel knows someone who knows a victim personally. Think how deep this trauma is to Israel.
    - gnatman 3y ago
      OK, now do 37k out of 2 million
    - someotherperson 3y ago
      The civilian count of October 7th was 695 people. Not that that makes it any better, but it's about a 50% increase to push it to 1000. The population of Israel is about 9.5 million. So your actual ratio is closer to 1 in 13500 or so. If we're keeping the scales, then an October 7 situation happens in the Gaza strip every time about 170 die. I think if you look the numbers of the current and historical conflicts it might help shape perceptions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dfxm12 3y ago

Most of the mainstream media has historically glossed over the atrocities, but it is impossible to ignore them today because of what we see live on the scene thanks to smaller outlets having a broader reach and social media. It's mostly business as usual. The technology makes the brutality more efficient, though: Describing human personnel as a “bottleneck” that limits the army’s capacity during a military operation, the commander laments: “We [humans] cannot process so much information. It doesn’t matter how many people you have tasked to produce targets during the war — you still cannot produce enough targets per day.” ... By adding a name from the Lavender-generated lists to the Where’s Daddy? home tracking system, A. explained, the marked person would be placed under ongoing surveillance, and could be attacked as soon as they set foot in their home, collapsing the house on everyone inside. “Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” A. said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.” Using Google search, you can search new articles in previous years. You'll find older articles about Israel killing aid workers, for example. This is from 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/24/israel-claims-aid-worker-shot-dead-by-troops-was-palestinian-militant-gaza https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/24/i... The interesting thing about how this conflict is developing is that this story is full of quotes from Israeli intelligence. Most plainly say what they're doing. Western outlets may put a positive spin on it (because our governments generally support Israel), but the Israeli military themselves are making their intentions clear: https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-admits-military-carrying-233151647.html https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-admits-military-carr...

xk_id 3y ago

The weaponisation of online media for manipulating the perception of global audiences about the conflict, has definitely ramped up recently. For example, the official Twitter account of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted videos of muslim preachers appearing to denounce lgbt culture during public service in Palestinian mosques. Hamas themselves are denying their involvement in the 2023 massacre and accusing Israel of staging the graphic footage that was disseminated. This greatly polarises the debates on social media and it’s much more common now to see people who are deeply invested emotionally in the narrative of either side.

myth_drannon 3y ago

[flagged]

f38zf5vdt 3y ago
[flagged]
- myth_drannon 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - f38zf5vdt 3y ago
    That was, of course, sarcasm.
tdeck 3y ago
Who was beheaded? The "40 beheaded babies" turned out to be a lie. The people burnt alive on October 7th were likely from the IDF firing tank shells at homes. Many of them turned out to be Palestinian once forensics were done. Not one of the rape claims seems to be substantiated by any physical evidence and when an Israeli journalist called all the hospitals, morgues, and trauma hotlines they found the number of reported rape victims was zero. At least here in the US the media were happy to report these lies (you know, the kind of shocking and dehumanizing lies that are always used to ramp up a genocide) and then very muted in any kind of correction.
- myth_drannon 3y ago
  [flagged]

kjkjadksj 3y ago

When the US dropped napalm indecriminately over the vietnamese jungle or absolutely leveled dresden in one bombing run or unleashed nuclear hellfire over japan, they probably killed a lot of journalists and doctors and food workers as well. Interestingly, western media did not beat itself into a frenzy over it at the time. Its easy to get cynical about it all seeing how easily narratives are manufactured and controlled to serve political ends.

segasaturn 3y ago
> Interestingly, western media did not beat itself into a frenzy over it at the time Western mainstream media has been very passive when covering the current situation in gaza, especially when you contrast it with how they covered the war in ukraine just 2 yrs ago. Its just that social media has allowed people to break through the canned media narratives.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  > Western mainstream media has been very passive when covering the current situation in gaza Just FYI, all the examples I mentioned I read on our public broadcaster's website.
  - slim 3y ago
    to summarize : the level of brutality is on par with vietnam, the media are shying away like in the vietnam era, but this time there is internet that broke the blockade and forced them to report
anigbrowl 3y ago
Media coverage of the Vietnam war was one of the decisive factors in the eventual US Withdrawal, and was a key part of the NVA's strategy. WW2 was a considerably different war in scope, origin, and patterns of escalation.
archagon 3y ago
I believe the bombing of Dresden was controversial and elicited pushback in the media, though it's not surprising that reactions may have been muted given the apocalyptic nature of the war. The use of napalm in Vietnam triggered widespread protests.

machina_ex_deus 3y ago

[flagged]

kevingadd 3y ago
They've proven a lack of interest in the hostages. They've actively refused deals that involved the return of the hostages, and repeatedly carried out operations that put the hostages in danger.
- myth_drannon 3y ago
  Hamas will never return hostages on its own. It needs them to stay in power as insurance against destruction by Israel. Unfortunately, that means an offensive into central Gaza camps where some of the hostages are believed to be held and also Rafah ...
throwaway7351 3y ago
[dead]
hnav 3y ago
9/11 killed 3k people
- machina_ex_deus 3y ago
  3k out of 300 million, so 1 in 10000. 1k out of 8 million is 1 out of 8000. Every person in Israel knows someone who knows a victim personally. Think how deep this trauma is to Israel.
  - gnatman 3y ago
    OK, now do 37k out of 2 million
  - someotherperson 3y ago
    The civilian count of October 7th was 695 people. Not that that makes it any better, but it's about a 50% increase to push it to 1000. The population of Israel is about 9.5 million. So your actual ratio is closer to 1 in 13500 or so. If we're keeping the scales, then an October 7 situation happens in the Gaza strip every time about 170 die. I think if you look the numbers of the current and historical conflicts it might help shape perceptions.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]