Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Threviel]

And apparently Hamas is more credible than Israel.

No wonder accusations of anti-semitism go around when even normally level headed user here seem to want to believe the Hamas lies without any evidence and demands an unreasonable amount of evidence from Israel. I don't think there are any anti-semites here, but the anti-semite propaganda sure does seem to do a number on lots of people, directly and indirectly.

I have a hard time believing the UK, France or the US has the same requirements on proofs when dealing with batshit insane terrorist groups.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I will hold off on believing anything about the hospital bombing pending some experts reporting on the IDF evidence—but on balance it seems unlikely this was Israel.

No cratering at the hospital, looks like a large incendiary blast in the parking lot. All the information that has come out from the moment this story broke has been additional pieces bolstering claims the rocket was fired from Gaza, that it was a Gazan rocket, and there has been no additional evidence of Israeli planes in the area, of Israeli airstrikes at the time of the bombing, etc.

[Grey Fox]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

[Threviel]

Yeah, distrusting Israel is sensible, but one should take anything coming from Hamas/Gaza authorities as lies until proved otherwise.

[Sheilbh]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

I don't think people were trusting Hamas but the way the media reported them. This is an example of why I'm not sure the media can simply debunk disinformation/misinformation or "fact check" our way to reality. But what they can do and I think they should do is admit uncertainty and explain the process of how they report something that is uncertain. That might in this case have led to a radically different framing of last night's news - which has had real world impact from cancelled meetings with Biden to really cynical use by countries like Iran. It would, I think, have looked a bit more like - this has happened and blame is circulating on social media, we cannot at this point with any confidence attribute responsibility and maybe explaining how they get to that degree of confidence.

I've heard journalists talk about how so many accusations of bias or conspiracy that they get are actually basically a misunderstanding of how journalism works or just reporting conventions. I think they need to be clearer about that bit even if it erodes their position as an authoritative voice (not least because I think it's pretty eroded in society).

[crazy canuck]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

Once again, please stop equating the terrorist organization HAMAS with all Palestinians.

I would not trust a thing HAMAS says. But I don't extend that distrust to all Palestinians.

[OttoVonBismarck]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

I don't think people were trusting Hamas but the way the media reported them. This is an example of why I'm not sure the media can simply debunk disinformation/misinformation or "fact check" our way to reality. But what they can do and I think they should do is admit uncertainty and explain the process of how they report something that is uncertain. That might in this case have led to a radically different framing of last night's news - which has had real world impact from cancelled meetings with Biden to really cynical use by countries like Iran. It would, I think, have looked a bit more like - this has happened and blame is circulating on social media, we cannot at this point with any confidence attribute responsibility and maybe explaining how they get to that degree of confidence.

I've heard journalists talk about how so many accusations of bias or conspiracy that they get are actually basically a misunderstanding of how journalism works or just reporting conventions. I think they need to be clearer about that bit even if it erodes their position as an authoritative voice (not least because I think it's pretty eroded in society).

Yeah. Like to be honest, for us forum posters and such ilk, Israel has been waging a large bombing campaign inside of Gaza. It was a reasonable assumption at first brush that if a hospital got bombed it was probably the IDF--I don't believe the IDF is deliberately targeting hospitals, but every war America has ever fought, we have had bombings go wrong. Either intel or targeting data gets a target wrong and we bomb something we weren't supposed to, operator error occurs, technical failures occur etc.

But I'm not speaking to millions of people like the BBC, NYT, or other media that ran really heavy with the "IDF kills 500+" narrative. In fact even on the forums I post on I was taking the position of "well let's see", which apparently was more reticence than a lot of the Western media had.

One thing I notice is NYT has been really "loose" with the headlines on its war liveblog, which that headline is often on their front page of their website. I get that a live blog may not be scrutinized in terms of journalistic standards as much as a piece of "edited reporting", but when you have as big an audience as some of these Western media, I think you have an obligation to be really careful with what sort of "hot takes" you're blasting out to millions.

[Grey Fox]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

Once again, please stop equating the terrorist organization HAMAS with all Palestinians.

I would not trust a thing HAMAS says. But I don't extend that distrust to all Palestinians.

I did not equal them. I wrote "&" there to distinguish the two from each other. I will continue to distrust all Palestinians, especially those leading them from exile.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

In related news, but I'm sure one of our resident Frenchman will deal with it more extensively in the French politics thread (assuming we have one): apparently Nupes just imploded because melenchon likes Hamas too much.

Edit: stupid tiny mobile keyboard and its evil twin, autocorrect

[crazy canuck]

While Israel is not blindly trustworthy don't trust Hamas & the Palestinians on anything. They will lie, they need to. They have no friends.

Once again, please stop equating the terrorist organization HAMAS with all Palestinians.

I would not trust a thing HAMAS says. But I don't extend that distrust to all Palestinians.

I did not equal them. I wrote "&" there to distinguish the two from each other. I will continue to distrust all Palestinians, especially those leading them from exile.

I am confused. If you distrust all Palestinians, why are you quibbling about my criticism of you saying you distrust all Palestinians?

[Gups]

But I'm not speaking to millions of people like the BBC, NYT, or other media that ran really heavy with the "IDF kills 500+" narrative. In fact even on the forums I post on I was taking the position of "well let's see", which apparently was more reticence than a lot of the Western media had.

Obviously I haven't seen all of the BBC's output but the two news reports I saw on TV yesterday and teh radio reports I listened to were that a hospital had been badly damaged, there were claims of up to 500 dead, Hamas was claiming it was a missle strike by IDF, IDF had not yet commented.

[The Minsky Moment]

I distrust all news presenters on Fox News because of their editorial bias and selection.

I do not equate Bill Hemmer with Laura Ingraham.

Both those statements can be true.

[HVC]

I distrust all news presenters on Fox News because of their editorial bias and selection.

I do not equate Bill Hemmer with Laura Ingraham.

Both those statements can be true.

I would assume Fox News would be super pro Israel. A large portion of their audience are no doubt millennialists.


*edit*

I mean it's separate from your point, just musings.

[Sheilbh]

But I'm not speaking to millions of people like the BBC, NYT, or other media that ran really heavy with the "IDF kills 500+" narrative. In fact even on the forums I post on I was taking the position of "well let's see", which apparently was more reticence than a lot of the Western media had.

Interesting thread from John Burn-Murdoch on part of this issue here:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1714648538746118265

TLDR many big news organisations don't have OSINT or data teams (though some do) despite the fact that this is a key part of journalism in the modern world. I'd add, crucially, that it's also the information that the public will often find easily accessible online/being shared on social media so the media's role in explaining and interpreting is really key. Even when organisations have those teams they are treated warily as they're often younger and have skills /backgrounds that is very different from more "traditional" journalists so they're not as relied on/used as they could be in an emerging situation. Again I think getting comfortable with explaining uncertainty is really important (and perhaps even more important) when a situation is moving quickly and very unclear.

So when you're in a situation like this which is rapidly developing, fog of war etc - the fall back is correspondents reporting what a "source" or a "spokesman" has said and providing commentary on videos circulating on social media. Most media organisations either don't have the team to really guide them, or don't trust them enough to favour their run (which is also less definitive and likely more slow) over a prominent reporter's sources.

As I say I think this is part of a wider social shift where we are swimming in information and increasingly the old media standbys of "someone told me", vox pops with witnesses etc needs to be supplemented with more prominent analysis of all that information. Especially because the raw information is so often available to us all on social media which causes us to doubt the traditional media's stories.

I'd add that aside from any of this the BBC reporter saying live that it was hard to see what it could be except for an Israeli bomb because of the size etc was just a general editorial clusterfuck. There's places and times when reporters should be invited to speculate. Breaking news, without confirmed facts that's clearly very significant isn't that time.

[Razgovory]

In related news, but I'm sure one of resident Frenchman will deal with it more extensively in the French politics thread (assuming we have one): apparently Nupes just imploded be melenchon likes Hamas too much

Huh?