←back to thread

Reflections on Palantir

(nabeelqu.substack.com)
479 points freditup | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
botanical[dead post] ◴[] No.41866170[source]
[flagged]
jiggawatts ◴[] No.41866431[source]
It's interesting to watch these "talking points" bouncing around when there's a politically charged topic like the war in Gaza. (For reference: I have no skin in the game and support neither side.)

Having said that:

65% killed being women and children is because of the demographics of Gaza, not because of any specific behaviour by Israel other than just "being at war" with their neighbours.

It's a talking point used by a people supporting one of the two sides, blithely ignoring the realities of a complex situation.

The reality is that 50% of Gaza's adult population if female, and nearly 50% of their population is below the age of 18! In other words, their population is 75% "women and children".

In any other war, that 65% statistic would be a sign of deliberate and malicious targetting of innocent non-combatants. In the Gaza war it is the sad but usual level of collateral damage that one might expect in urban fighting. Not to mention that this number would be even lower, but is as high as it is because of human-shield tactics used by HAMAS.

The people that use this 65% statistic often do so with the knowledge that people listening to it don't know the demographics of Gaza or the vile actions of HAMAS. They're trying to convince those listening through deception. Their cause may be just in their eyes, but does that justify this kind of false debate? It's in the same category as claiming 500 people died when "Isreal bombed a hospital" mere minutes after the incident, which turned out to be a failed HAMAS rocket that landed in the parking lot and killed maybe half a dozen people.

Yes, what Isreal is doing is bad, but not "murdering women and babies on purpose" bad!

replies(5): >>41866589 #>>41866772 #>>41869239 #>>41872991 #>>41873403 #
arczyx ◴[] No.41866772[source]
> Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.

https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024

> Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities,

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/un-commissio...

replies(1): >>41867100 #
jiggawatts ◴[] No.41867100[source]
I can’t speak knowledgeably about the first point (I doubt many people can, fog of war and all that) but it is well known that Hamas set up command centres in or under hospitals to use them as human shields.

Are you telling me that Hamas deserves none of the blame?

replies(1): >>41867505 #
arczyx ◴[] No.41867505[source]
> it is well known that Hamas set up command centres in or under hospitals

This is patently false. Israel single-handedly claimed this without any evidence other than CGI render. Think about it, ALL hospitals in Gaza has been bombed by this point, but have you ever see the actual footage of Hamas command centres?

Also pretty sure there was no Hamas involved in the case below:

> In one of the most egregious cases, the Commission investigated the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab, along with her extended family, and the shelling of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance and killing of two paramedics sent to rescue her. The Commission determined on reasonable grounds that the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division operated in the area and is responsible for killing the family of seven, shelling the ambulance and killing the two paramedics inside. This constitutes the war crimes of wilful killing and an attack against civilian objects.

Also for the first point, you can read more about it in NYT (if you have the subscription) here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/opinion/gaza-children-dea...

Some people accused it as fake, but NYT themselves had rigorously verified the evidences and found it to be true: https://www.nytco.com/press/response-to-recent-criticisms-on...

replies(1): >>41874433 #
jiggawatts ◴[] No.41874433[source]
US intelligence agencies agreed with Israel, journalists that have never stepped foot in a Gaza hospital disagreed. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle: just because injured combatants are taken to a hospital doesn’t necessarily mean that that hospital is a military command centre. However at least one hospital was more than likely (but not certainly!) used as such.

The tunnels under the Al Haifa hospital were built by Israel and are widely acknowledged to exist.

Do the other hospitals have bunkers and tunnels? I doubt it. They would not be easy to add after initial construction.

replies(1): >>41875396 #
arczyx ◴[] No.41875396{3}[source]
The American medical professionals who served in Gaza certainly disagree with Israel. Do you believe them or do you believe the same Israel who made up "40 beheaded babies"?

> The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.

> We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder.

replies(1): >>41876721 #
1. jiggawatts ◴[] No.41876721{4}[source]
Are they working in these hospitals only with the approval and permission of HAMAS, or are they free to voice an independent opinion without fear of reprisal from armed militants in the middle of a war where a doctor with their head blown off is just a statistic?

I'm not just saying this as an argument, this kind of bias in reporting from volunteers in war zones is common. There was some war in Africa where medics from Doctors Without Borders got in serious trouble because they spoke up about atrocities. If I remember correctly, some were abducted and/or killed. I do remember the head of MSF saying in an interview that they have a policy of keeping quiet because "that's what it takes to be allowed to provide services" under those conditions.

Also: "not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities".

Israel was saying that HAMAS had built tunnels under the hospitals, which doctors would not have been allowed into and would not have seen. They most probably told the truth, but that truth may just what they saw... they just didn't see the tunnels.

Last but not least: How would they know if activity was "militant"? HAMAS generally does not wear uniforms!

PS: I do think that at most one hospital might have been used as a HAMAS office... for something. Quite possibly a military medical office, coordinating care for the wounded or something similar. I wouldn't be surprised if Isreali drones saw 'x' HAMAS members walk into the hospital and hence they marked it as a "HAMAS office" based on that intelligence alone. (I always assume there's idiots on both sides of a war. It's an effective and accurate model of reality.)

replies(1): >>41887442 #
2. arczyx ◴[] No.41887442[source]
> Israel was saying that HAMAS had built tunnels under the hospitals

If the tunnels are under the hospitals, why bomb the hospitals then? It won't destroy the tunnels. It will only destroy the hospitals.

IDK what else to say, for some reason you are eager on believing that the same Israel who invented 40 beheaded babies, and the US intelligence who lies about Iraq WMD, are somehow a beacon of truth, despite them never providing a shred of evidence.