this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) called some of his colleagues’ quickness to blame Israel for the hospital blast in Gaza “disturbing” in a statement Wednesday.

“It’s truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza,” Fetterman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (15 children)

“Who would take the word of a group that just massacred innocent Israeli civilians over our key ally?” he added.

Anyone who knows the history of our 'key ally'.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And it looks more and more like Fetterman is right. That video showing the rocket launch from Gaza arcing back towards the hospital is pretty damning.

Israel should still be held to account for its oppression and subjugation of Palestine, but it's important not to forget that Hamas is a brutal terrorist regime that murders and "disappears" Palestinians who speak up against them. Hamas is not Palestine, and the Palestinians deserve better.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

Yeah frankly I'm tired of this rhetoric that you have to either be 100% pro Isreal or 100% pro hamas. It's possible to condemn Hamas while also condemning the treatment of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They've been killing off any members who supported peace with Israel for decades..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

A neutral third party should come in an subjegate both equally! /s

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anybody who has been through a war knows the term "fog of war" is absolutely accurate. The first story is rarely true. But, it's the first story, and it will be believed, due to bias confirmationm, even after it has been disproved.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

“A lie can get round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

But the truth is that these two sides have been killing each other since before my parents were born and I’m too sick of all of it to give a damn. Nothing will stop either of them so maybe if they kill each other entirely we will finally have peace in The Holiest Place on Earth.

Oh wait, no, Christians will still get into fights there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, if you want to forget about specific nations, they’ve been keeping this grudge sharp …since what? Late bronze age to early iron?

Sure the State of Israel has only existed for 75 or so years, but they have a much, much longer history than that- and both Palestinians and Israelites have a very old claim to the land- and both are more less equally valid.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Islam wasn't founded until 610 CE, which was almost 200 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Definitely not the Bronze Age and at best the late Iron Age.

Also, between then and now, Europe was a far more dangerous place to be a Jew than the Middle East. Pogroms were common in the Middle Ages, while cities like Jerusalem and Baghdad were multicultural and tolerant. After the siege of Jerusalem during the first Crusade, Christians massacred the Jews living there along with the Muslims.

This conflict specifically started with the Sikes-Picot Agreement in which the western powers reneged on their deal to establish an Arab homeland. But the real conflict didn't start until the UN's Partition Plan, which gave most of the land to the Jewish minority.

So, no, I don't think this goes back thousands of years. More like hundreds, with worst of the actual fighting in the last 76 years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

oh man. thank you very much for the sikes picot link. that is super interesting.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Both of you respond by showing your own bias. Bomb damage assessments happen all the time. There is really nothing to indicate that an Israeli bomb was used. There is all sorts of evidence that point to a rocket failure. You can leave it at that without blaming one party or another for problems. But, denial of reality is the problem.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This bomb was Hamas. Other bombs are Israel. Both sides have killed children over lines in the sand. Fuck that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This bomb was purportedly Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, but otherwise I don't disagree with what you said.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Actually it was probably a Islamic Jihad missile. They are another gang in Gaza. Let's put it this way...if you were disturbed when you thought Israel was to blame, yet you shrug off when Islamic Jihad is proven to have done it...they you just might need bias confirmation.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

What’s sad is all these media companies race each other to be the first one out there. In the digital realm it is simple to offer contractions and edits so they have no reason to wait until all the facts.

Just pump out anything that will generate engagement, who cares if most don’t see the retraction. They got their clicks so they don’t care

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/02/trump-campaign-bad-america-good-cbs

Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? This is pretty amazing.... Who would have thought that this circus would come to town?

But, you know--it may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS, that's all I got to say.

So what can I say? It's--you know, the money's rolling in, and this is fun.

  • CBS CEO
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yes its a real leap to link the people carpet bombing the area with a hospital being bombed.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They're being very indiscriminate and almost certainly committing a copious amount of war crimes, but what they are doing is not carpet bombing. If it was, there would be nothing left of Gaza by now, and one particular building being bombed would not be noteworthy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

They had actually stopped their air raids before this happened. I am not saying they aren't going to bomb more but I am pointing out that people jumped to point the finger suspiciously fast.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Maybe I’m crazy, but the series of events seems incredibly obvious from the videos linked in that article. A rocket is fired from a position far away from the hospital that seems typical of the ones used by Hamas. Israel intercepted it above the hospital and it broke apart. The explodey bit fell out of the sky and landed near the hospital, making a big boom and killing people.

This is what happens when you hurl deadly explosives at each other over densely populated areas. Everyone sucks here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I think it's the missile failing and breaking apart, I don't think interceptor missiles would be able to meet them so soon after launch

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

What we know

  • Israel had shelled the hospital 2 times before the attack on Oct 17
  • Israeli military had demanded the hospital evacuate multiple times before the attack on Oct 17
  • Israeli military has been hitting hospitals and civilian areas since Oct 17
  • The majority of the Palestinian rockets do not have the payload to do so much damage
  • Israeli government has consistently lied about these types of things in the past
  • IDF Digital Spokesman posted a tweet admitting responsibility for the attack, only to quickly delete it
  • The sound and damage is consistent with weapons Israel has, for example the MK84

So if we are just to do some basic considerations. Occam's Razor.

If Israel did not hit the hospital then

a) out of all the rockets to misfire, of which we haven't heard of any significant misfires up until now, it had to be the rare and few powerful ones that Palestinians have. This is a low probability event. Much more likely that in a barrage of rockets, the small ones misfire because the overwhelmingly majority is small

b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible. Another low probability event. Realistically, the vast majority of failed rockets would land in areas that are not strategically relevant or are not a humanitarian area.

c) this rocket just happens to land on the same exact hospital that Israel had attacked multiple times previously and had demanded evacuation of. another low probability event.

d) israel has been known on multiple occasions to outright lie about something when it looks like they are committing war crimes. during the killing of the journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh the playbook went like this..

  • Deny something happened
  • OK, something did happen but it was the Palestinians who did it. Here's a video that proves it
  • OK, it wasn't the Palestinians. We don't know who did it
  • OK, we did it but it was an accident because Palestinians were shooting at us. USA does an "investigation with Israeli data" and finds that it was totally accidental and not deliberate.

Independent investigation show that the killing was likely deliberate and nobody was shooting at the Israelis at the time of her death. She was shot in cold blood, in what some people believe is a targeted killing. But at this point, both the US and Israel refuse any criminal investigation.

This playbook, coincidentally, looks very similar to the US's response to their airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan. Deny, blame the Afghanis, eventually concede it was them and claim it was an accident. No criminal investigations.

Turns out countries that openly preach about their "humanitarian values" have a lot of incentive to lie when events like this get mass media coverage. So, is this a low probability event or a high probability? I don't know.

e) the digital spokesman for the israelis openly admitted to the bombing and then quickly deleted the tweet. is it because he was mistaken or because he was told to delete the tweet? high probability or low probability? I don't know.

Let's do a little formula. LPE = low probability event, UPE = unknown probability event

LPE x LPE x LPE x UPE x UPE

Let's try some different values to get a broad estimate.

LPE = 20% UPE = 50% 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.2 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.002 = 0.2%

LPE = 50% UPE = 80% 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 0.08 = 8%

LPE = 80% UPE = 90% 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.9 * 0.9 = .41 = 41%

So depending on how likely you believe the above events, you can estimate a different probability. For example, if you think that the chances of the Palestinians having their rocket misfire over virtually the worst possible spot it could have is 80%, you may reach a different conclusion than if you believe the chances are actually let's say 20%

The point of the exercise is to show that there's a lot of reason to believe Israel did it and there's a lot of reason to believe Israel is lying (including making up videos, like they've done in the past), and there's a lot of reason to believe the US is blindly backing up their lies (like they've done in the past)

Please don't mistake this for some sort of serious scientific attempt at proving the Israelis wrong. It's just a thought exercise to illustrate the point that for this to have been the Palestinians, there would have had to be a lot of little coincidences. Which CAN happen. Unlikely events happen all the time. But in situations like this, I think we have to be realistic and look at the simplest answer. I personally think it's very likely Israel did it. I don't know, and I don't think we'll ever know.

But maybe in some time we'll have an independent investigation and Israel will ultimately own up to it. Only time will tell.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (14 children)

This is a LOT of mental gymnastics (and made up bullshit) when there is tons of actual, real-world evidence that a terrorist's misfired rocket damaged the hospital, and that the terrorists lied about the casualty numbers.

This is Q-cult level nonsense just to avoid reality man

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Dude, they did MATHS, that's science™.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Math only provides accurate conclusions if the starting assumptions are correct. If you put bullshit in, you get bullshit out.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That explains the bullshit

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I was fully ready to believe Israel was responsible for it because it fits their MO, but the evidence is compelling that it was indeed a misfired rocket. The small crater we’ve seen in photos combined with the large fireball on video is consistent with a small warhead and a hefty charge of leftover propellant. Yes, the probability of such an accident occurring is low, but not zero.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yes, the probability of such an accident occurring is low, but not zero.

I'm actually surprised these sorts of accidents don't happen more often, considering the primitive rocket technology they're using.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (13 children)

A small crater doesn't mean Israel didn't bomb it. There are ways to blow up bombs that doesn't leave much of a crater. For example, check out this video I just uploaded on imgur. It's a proximity blast - once it gets to a certain elevation above the ground it blows up. This does damage but doesn't leave a crater.

Also, I uploaded another video which was a sound comparison between the typical Hamas rocket as compared to bombs equipped with the US's JDAM system. JDAM is just a way to turn "dumb bombs" into "smart bombs". read more here. Listen to the sound difference here.

This doesn't prove anything conclusively, but there is a lot of discussion on the OSINT communities on twitter going on right now and yesterday about this attack on the hospital. There are a lot of smart people arguing for both sides, and I'm not smart nor an expert. In lieu of an independent investigation, I'm going to default to probably Israel just based on my above comment.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible.

didn't it land in a parking lot? in the pics of the npr article it was at least a building-length away from the hospital

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

here's a map of the area showing a rough radius of what the explosion damaged

we can see the center is somewhere around the parking lot. however, there is damage to the southern roofs of the buildings 45m away. so while perhaps the center radius of the explosion was on top of the parking lot, the reach of the bomb certainly touched the hospital

however, the reason it killed so many people (i think 500 is probably exaggerated for propaganda, real number probably closer to ~200) is because a lot of people were sheltering outside this hospital around that parking lot. for example west of the parking lot there were many people sleeping on blankets and such. people on the second story of the hospital also got killed.

it's really hard to get an objective view of the situation right now because the propaganda wings of both sides are out in full force.

here's a video by aljazeera- https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1714984258358391057

coincidentally the only news outlet that caught the whole thing live

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

it’s really hard to get an objective view of the situation right now because the propaganda wings of both sides are out in full force.

Yeah and that's made significantly more challenging when you begin from a position of "blame Israel" and outright lie about multiple "facts"

There is no way you are both closely following the situation (as you imply) and also believe this to be true

b) out of all the places to land, it lands precisely on top of a hospital in precisely a way that kills as many people as possible.

Truth comes more readily when you stop lying to confirm your own biases

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I find Fetterman’s allegiance to an apartheid state disturbing.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The mass murder of Palestinians in the last 2 weeks is not disturbing however

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