This is all a decent argument and solid realistic points about the Muslim world’s anti-semitism.
But I still haven’t seen any convincing hard evidence of the rapes. And something about the beheadings and “cut off her breast and tossed it around”, but w/o any pictures or reports to back that up, doesn’t feel right to me. It feels more like something someone would make up, especially if they’ve read the Rape of Nanking, which describes a very similar atrocity (at least according to a friend who told me about the book, I can’t bring myself to read stuff like that).
This is also taking into account the background of some of the people who provided the most lurid details to the NYT, as pointed about the twitter thread I posted. Unless Max Blumenthal is just full of shit. I’m not super familiar with the guy.
And I think Hamas is evil and just the idea that two adolescent girls were killed “in embrace” with their mother is plenty enough to drive that point home.
I’ll admit I really am not following this as close as most of you here and I haven’t read the article. But what you posted is what the exchange sounds like to me.
Another thing I’m ignorant about and curious about: Are the people in Gaza alleging any rapes by the Israeli forces?
there won’t ever be any pictures that you ask for. many jewish communities adhere to the burial tradition to never force families into seeing their loved ones dead. this was discussed at length in the aftermath of oct 7th.
I’ve seen a decent number of pictures and videos of dead Israelis from Oct 7th, and I haven’t really been trying.
The NYT reviewed many hours of gopro vids from Hamas and didn’t report any rapes on them (maybe they were showing the murders but hiding the rapes).
Seems like if you had pictures of rapes for sure, you could show them to the NYT. It sounds like the NYT rape reports are largely hearsay and one shot of someone who might have been raped.
It certainly seems possible, even likely, there were some rapes in a day of mayhem like that. But the NYT piece makes it sound systemic, and I don’t know about that.
the NyT piece says they established evidence that rapes occurred in 7 locations, it’s hard to argue what constitutes systemic in instances with such violent crimes, but it doesn’t sound like hearsay. just to confirm on what you wanted in the previous post, you wanted to see those pictures personally/released publicly, or are you saying it would have been enough for nyt reporters to have seen those?
I would accept the NYT reviewing and describing them in enough detail necessary to establish rape. I don’t need to see them.
But the fact that some of their eyewitnesses reported beheadings in addition to rapes, and it seems in question whether this happened (in addition to the cut-off breast), makes me question the rapes that they confirmed through eyewitness testimony alone.
i’m going through the article right now. it talks about photographs from one instance, video from another, and lots of testimony from medics and witnesses. in the case from the rave the article cites multiple hiding attendees describing the same crimes. multiple first responders with corroborating accounts, and some even explained why they were not allowed to take pictures.
they mentioned four surviving victims, who did not talk to the reporters but the reporters talked to treating therapists of at least one, as well as other rape treatment experts, basically confirming that this is not unusual for victims at all.
dunno, to call this hearsay just seems unwilling to be persuaded.
It’s just how things are nowadays. If you feel like something is true, you believe media accounts. If you feel like something isn’t true, you disbelieve media accounts. In our post-truth world, everything is simultaneously true and fabricated by sinister forces depending on your own intuition in that moment.
If it already happened before, why would the conclusion be “it’s probably something that’s made up” and not “it’s probably something that happened again”?
It’s weird that we have video evidence of horrific 10/7 atrocities, then someone describes a similar atrocity that’s not on video, and the assumption would be “they’re lying.”
Well one of the NYT sources is this Yossi Landau guy who seems to have been pretty active reporting atrocities that haven’t been verified, like the 40 beheaded babies. So that gives me pause.
Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern region of Zaka, Israel’s volunteer civilian emergency response organization, told CBS News that he saw the bodies of beheaded children and babies, parents and children who had been tortured and had their hands bound, and “a lot more that cannot be described for now, because it’s very hard to describe.”
“Asked if they were decapitated, Kugel answered yes. Although he admits that, given the circumstances, it’s difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded, ‘whether cut off by knife or blown off by RPG,’ he explained,” the Media Line reported. (RPG stands for rocket-powered grenade.)
This feels like walking back to me.
I’ve avoided wading into this thread for a reason. I have zero answers. I’m more sympathetic to Israel’s position wrt to Gaza and Hamas than many in this thread and of course I abhor the killing of Palestinian civilians. I just think the verified atrocities are plenty enough to condemn Hamas.
One other thing though I don’t understand is how Israel can say “those settlements are illegal, we condemn them” but then not do anything about it. It’s not like they’re hard to find. Not that the settlements justify what Hamas did in any way. But the fact that any illegal settlements are ever allowed to exist w/o the govt doing something about it also seems unjustifiable.
Right. I can well believe that some of the Hamas attackers on Oct 7 did this sort of thing, or maybe some of the stories are made up, but ultimately who cares. Australian Special Forces have been definitely proven to have committed war crimes in Afghanistan, including executing prisoners as part of essentially an initiation ritual for newbies. This is a crime that should be dealt with harshly, but I don’t think it particularly reflects on Australia as a country or the justice or otherwise of Australia’s political aims. The sort of people who get sent in to do close-quarters combat are psychopaths across the board, this is not surprising.
It seems like you would be insane to believe that atrocities of one sort or another have not occurred on both sides. Where does that get us? Seems like nowhere. In a conflict like this atrocities are absolutely guaranteed to occur, like if anyone is actually deciding who to support in this by tallying up numbers of atrocities they are the dumbest people alive, this is all just meaningless political rhetoric.
Yeah powerful nations who want to enhance their Causus Belli against weaker nations have always embellished stories as part of the propaganda. Remember Iraqis ripping Kuwaiti babies from incubators? When the first hand account comes from witnesses who have a military role it is reasonable to be skeptical that the claims are not exaggerated.