Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Josquius]

Corbyn has previously supported withdrawing from NATO (he thinks NATO should be disbanded as alliances increase risk in his view) and unilateral nuclear disarmament as well as opposing US bases in the UK/talking about having them shut down.

The party forced him to not quite go all in on that stuff. But I think whoever was US President would find the prospect a little concerning.

To be fair, that's far less mad of a thing to say pre 2022 than post.

Though given he was still saying it after 2014 it's not that much benefit of the doubt he deserves.

Though again to give him credit the one actual good thing I'd have to say about him is he was a democrat when it came to representing the party average rather than just his fringe views.

I do want to see that alternate reality where president trump meets pm Corbyn....

[Sheilbh]

Trump would love the idea of shutting down NATO and closing all the US bases overseas.  And he would have no problem with the UK shedding its nukes.

The left-right divide is real, but there is plenty of room for agreement on the axis of crazy and crazy.

Fair. It might even have been the pretext.

To be fair, that's far less mad of a thing to say pre 2022 than post.

I'm not sure that's true. The world was the same. The world pre-2022 is what resulted in the world post-2022.

Though given he was still saying it after 2014 it's not that much benefit of the doubt he deserves.

He's been saying it since the 80s. But you're right the foreign policy - NATO, EU is really the only area where the moderate wing were able to win and force Corbyn to at least modify his position slightly.

[crazy canuck]

After the fall of the Soviet Union, even NATO was trying to figure out what NATO should be doing. Many were questioning what if any role it had.  Hindsight is marvelous but not very helpful in analyzing the valid policy options that were open without the benefit of hindsight.  Unless, of course, one believes that all outcomes are inevitable, and our actions don't impact the future. But that's another philosophical discussion.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - although Corbyn's views don't change. He opposed NATO when first election in 1983 and that is constant through to 2023.

I think it also depends on perspective. I think that was a debate within the west of the west. But every single central and eastern European country made joining NATO a priority and all of them did. So I think there was less doubt about its purpose there - in every case, I think, NATO membership preceded EU membership. Partly because it's less demanding, but also, I suspect, because there was a view in CEE (and possibly Brussels?) that you needed to get security sorted before you could EU accession.

[Josquius]

I think NATO was in a particularly hard place in the 00s more than the 90s.
It found a place... But that place was in being used for dodgy America military adventures abroad.

I do get why it seemed increasingly pointless before Russia invaded Ukraine - the main challenge was from China afterall which is outside natos scope then there was a lot of hope for EU military integration (christ those ignorant shit heads in 2016 with their EU army nonsense... If only that were remotely practical! Had one going on about sitting in trenches on the Russian front. Which in hindsight... Maybe not so mad as it seems excepting the EU part)

Hell. Pre financial crisis even China wasn't seen as much of a problem. Liberal economics would definitely lead to democratic reform.

I wouldn't dismiss people calling for an end to nato completely in that period. It was a valid discussion.


Though I wager my reasons (expansion beyond the north Atlantic) are different to theirs (just have no weapons and everything works out. And American imperialism boo. Oh. Brown envelope of rubles. Lovely)

[Zoupa]

This gets worse and worse the more you read it...

source:
https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1750123648533324158?s=20
https://t.co/BHtOr7BfTk

Israeli intelligence secretly surveilled officials in Gaza's Health Ministry to check if their data on the number of civilians killed in Gaza is 'reliable', Israeli intelligence sources told us.

The army found the numbers are reliable and now regularly uses them internally in intelligence briefings.

According to two sources, Israeli intelligence has no good independent measure of the total number of civilians the army killed in Gaza, making the Health Ministry's data their main source of information.

One reason for this is that officers conducted hundreds of AI-directed assassination strikes against suspected low-level Hamas operatives, usually by destroying entire homes and killing entire families – a practice we previously termed a 'mass assassination factory'. There was often no bomb damage assessment (BDA) for these strikes, meaning there was no check on who and how many civilians were killed. This routine post-strike check was skipped to 'save time'.

'I don't know how many people I killed as collateral damage. We only check that information for senior Hamas targets,' one source said. 'In other cases I didn't care. I immediately moved on to the next target. The focus was on creating as many targets as quickly as possible. That's why I trust the Health Ministry in Gaza more than the IDF for these statistics. The army just doesn't have the information.'

[Barrister]

This gets worse and worse the more you read it...

source:
https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1750123648533324158?s=20
https://t.co/BHtOr7BfTk

Israeli intelligence secretly surveilled officials in Gaza's Health Ministry to check if their data on the number of civilians killed in Gaza is 'reliable', Israeli intelligence sources told us.

The army found the numbers are reliable and now regularly uses them internally in intelligence briefings.

According to two sources, Israeli intelligence has no good independent measure of the total number of civilians the army killed in Gaza, making the Health Ministry's data their main source of information.

One reason for this is that officers conducted hundreds of AI-directed assassination strikes against suspected low-level Hamas operatives, usually by destroying entire homes and killing entire families – a practice we previously termed a 'mass assassination factory'. There was often no bomb damage assessment (BDA) for these strikes, meaning there was no check on who and how many civilians were killed. This routine post-strike check was skipped to 'save time'.

'I don't know how many people I killed as collateral damage. We only check that information for senior Hamas targets,' one source said. 'In other cases I didn't care. I immediately moved on to the next target. The focus was on creating as many targets as quickly as possible. That's why I trust the Health Ministry in Gaza more than the IDF for these statistics. The army just doesn't have the information.'

So the source of the story is a Hebrew news site "Local Call".  Google Translate continues to give amazing translations.  The source in the story are "two Israeli intelligence sources".

It's one of those where I have no idea if this is a reputable source or not.  I'm not exactly an expert on Israeli news outlets.  I've heard of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post, and Local Call isn't either of those outlets...

[The Minsky Moment]

What the article says is that IDF Intelligence has no reliable means of assessing the death toll so they use the GHM estimates which they assume to be reliable for that purpose.  They do not use - and in fact reject - the Gaza authorities' estimates for how many of those killed were militants.  Mr. Abraham neglected to mention the latter point in his summary.

[Josquius]

What the article says is that IDF Intelligence has no reliable means of assessing the death toll so they use the GHM estimates which they assume to be reliable for that purpose.  They do not use - and in fact reject - the Gaza authorities' estimates for how many of those killed were militants.  Mr. Abraham neglected to mention the latter point in his summary.

Surely doing this you'd run into problems defining militant. I imagine there's a lack of paperwork even amongst the groups for who belongs to them and they're quite unofficial.

This gets worse and worse the more you read it...

source:
https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1750123648533324158?s=20
https:// as possible. That's why I trust the Health Ministry in Gaza more than the IDF for these statistics. The army just doesn't have the information.'

So the source of the story is a Hebrew news site "Local Call".  Google Translate continues to give amazing translations.  The source in the story are "two Israeli intelligence sources".

It's one of those where I have no idea if this is a reputable source or not.  I'm not exactly an expert on Israeli news outlets.  I've heard of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post, and Local Call isn't either of those outlets...
[/quote]

Typical. After months of the ardent Israel fans trying to shit on Palestinian numbers because Hamas runs the ministry of health.

[The Minsky Moment]

Surely doing this you'd run into problems defining militant.

Huge problems because they wear civilian clothes, inhabit civilian buildings and deliberately blend in.

[Barrister]

Typical. After months of the ardent Israel fans trying to shit on Palestinian numbers because Hamas runs the ministry of health.

What's "typical"?

Zoupa posts a link.  I comment that I've never heard of this source and don't know whether to trust it or not.  I didn't say it was "fake news" or anything - I just didn't know.  It's a mystery.

I mean surely that's just good media hygiene?

I mean that's the issue with the internet - anyone with a couple of bucks can get a domain name and start publishing news.  You have to be aware of what you're looking at.

If you (or Zoupa) have more information about the reliability of "Local Call" I'd be happy to review it.  My own googling turned up very little.  That's always a red flag, but admittedly since it publishes in Hebrew it's hard to search in English.

[Barrister]

Surely doing this you'd run into problems defining militant.

Huge problems because they wear civilian clothes, inhabit civilian buildings and deliberately blend in.

I know you know this Joan, but for others...

Hamas very deliberately does not follow the "rules of war".  They deliberately target Israeli civilians, and they similarly try to take steps to maximize their own civilian casualties as it both fits their religious POV but feel it helps them in the wider PR cause.

[Josquius]

Typical. After months of the ardent Israel fans trying to shit on Palestinian numbers because Hamas runs the ministry of health.

What's "typical"?

Israel actually using the Palestinian numbers and thinking they're fine.

[Barrister]

Typical. After months of the ardent Israel fans trying to shit on Palestinian numbers because Hamas runs the ministry of health.

What's "typical"?

Israel actually using the Palestinian numbers and thinking they're fine.

Again - that's if you can accept "Local Call" as a reputable news source citing anonymous sources.

Can you?

[Zoupa]

I can't read Hebrew, but from what I can gather it was founded in 2014 and sounds lefty-ish.

Local call It is an online magazine of field news, commentary and culture, powered by a collective of writers and writers, photographers and photographers.

Local call It is home to an activist press stemming from a commitment to democracy, opposition to occupation and striving for peace, equality, social justice, transparency and freedom of information – but serves no party, political movement or platform.

Local call Co-founded by "972 – for the Advancement of Civil Journalism", Just Vision, and the ActiveStills Photographer Collective, and co-published by Just Vision and 972. The views expressed on the site represent only their writers and not the local conversation as a whole.

Alongside grants from private foundations and donors, the site exists and maintains its independence mainly thanks to our readers and readers.

They seem to have mainly Israelis and Palestinians on staff. Nothing screams at me "fake news!!!!" in their other stories, but their editorials are peace-and-love (more or less).