Israel - Palestine discussion thread

[Scaff]

I do not understand this. This literally took me 2 minutes:

UNRWA Gaza chief John Ging promoted to senior UN post in NY

West Bank UNRWA head Barbara Shenstone also scheduled to leave position; replacements have not yet been chosen.

www.jpost.com

It's your post, the onus falls to you, not others. This has been repeatedly explained, and that's from 2011 and doesn't support your claims!

If the IDF claims are unsubstantiated, every death count is unsubstantiated too. It works both ways.

It really, really doesn't, and it's quite odd this needs to be explained.

The Times paywall has a workaround that I've explained before but I'm not sure if it's approved here (it's an archive site).

I know the work-around, currently the Wayback Machine doesn't have an archived version, and again the onus isn't on me to go hunting for it.

This is the relevant quote:

Thank you.

This should also be shown to those sixth formers with a binary view on the world - an actual slave of ISIS and captive of Hamas who says there was "no difference" between them:

ISIS sex slave snatched at 11 reveals she was fed cooked babies & held in Gaza

STARVATION started to set in four days after 11-year-old Fawzia Amin Saydo was brutally kidnapped by ISIS fighters. Handed plates of meat, she and dozens of other desperate women and children reali…

www.thesun.co.uk

Complains weirdly about "sixth formers with a binary view on the world" while using The Sun as a source, and you honestly have the gall to accuse others of 'being like MAGA'. First off the odds of me clicking on that and giving them traffic as on par with a source from The Daily Mail, neither are reputable sources, it's at least a step up from Reddit and Twitter, but we are talking a low bar here.

Oh and the 'context', you've still explained that either (because it wasn't context)

 

[HenrySwanson]

Complains weirdly about "sixth formers with a binary view on the world" while using The Sun as a source, and you honestly have the gall to accuse others of 'being like MAGA'. First off the odds of me clicking on that and giving them traffic as on par with a source from The Daily Mail, neither are reputable sources, it's at least a step up from Reddit and Twitter, but we are talking a low bar here.

Oh and the 'context', you've still explained that either (because it wasn't context)

I'm done.

You are discounting the lived experiences of a slave to ISIS and prisoner of Hamas because the source is The Sun. This woman was a child when she was raped, forced to become a mother, continuously pressured to convert to Islam and fed the remains of dead children. That you can't be bothered to seek out her story is more a reflection on you than me.

There is nothing more I wish to discuss with you.

Have a good day.

 

[Scaff]

I'm done.

I very much doubt it.

You are discounting the lived experiences of a slave to ISIS and prisoner of Hamas because the source is The Sun. This woman was a child when she was raped, forced to become a mother, continuously pressured to convert to Islam and fed the remains of dead children. That you can't be bothered to seek out her story is more a reflection on you than me.

There is nothing more I wish to discuss with you.

Have a good day.

Then you should have zero problem finding a credible source, it's not a negative reflection on me to require well sourced material, and providing it should be the minimum standard. Your source has a track record of having zero problem with inaccurate and false reporting and a very good reason exists why you will struggle to purchase it in the city of Liverpool.

 

[Imari]

You are discounting the lived experiences of a slave to ISIS and prisoner of Hamas because the source is The Sun. This woman was a child when she was raped, forced to become a mother, continuously pressured to convert to Islam and fed the remains of dead children. That you can't be bothered to seek out her story is more a reflection on you than me.

That you can't be bothered to seek out a version of her story that doesn't come from a source notorious for skewing and slanting stories as well as just making **** up because they feel like is entirely a reflection of yourself though.

I mean, why not just use Wikipedia? Is it because the way The Sun writes it makes for better outrage bait?

 

[Scaff]

That you can't be bothered to seek out a version of her story that doesn't come from a source notorious for skewing and slanting stories as well as just making **** up because they feel like is entirely a reflection of yourself though.

I mean, why not just use Wikipedia? Is it because the way The Sun writes it makes for better outrage bait?

Most likely because the Wiki piece clearly highlights what is known to be factual and what is uncorroborated.

 

[HenrySwanson]

That you can't be bothered to seek out a version of her story that doesn't come from a source notorious for skewing and slanting stories as well as just making **** up because they feel like is entirely a reflection of yourself though.

I mean, why not just use Wikipedia? Is it because the way The Sun writes it makes for better outrage bait?

The Sun is capable of spin, but are you accusing them of spinning direct quotes from an interview?

Be better.

Actually, no, you can stop hiding as I'll post it right here:

Fawzia's two brothers, aged seven and ten, were banished to a camp to be indoctrinated and trained as child soldiers.

Though they managed to escape, Fawzia endured years of violence and rape at the hands of vicious ISIS fighters.

She and dozens of other helpless women and girls were dragged to Tal Afar before being sent to Syria.

Fawzia revealed how they were starved for four days before heartless terrorists finally gave them something to eat when they made it to the city in northwest Iraq.

I always did what I was told because I was so young and very scared.
Fawzia

Speaking just after her release, she told The Sun: "They cooked rice and also meat and brought it to us.

"Because we were so hungry, we just ate what was on the table.

"While we were eating we knew something was wrong because the taste was weird but we just ate because we were hungry.

"After, we all had stomach ache and felt sick."

Ruthless IS brutes then revealed their heinous act.

"When we were done, they told us that the meat was from the babies," Fawzia said.

"There was a woman who had a heart attack at that moment and died.

"They showed us pictures of the beheaded kids and babies and said 'these are the kids you ate'.


"It is very hard but it was not our fault, they forced us but of course it is very hard for us that this happened. Nothing was in our hands."

Inconsolable mothers wept and screamed, realising why in Tal Afar they had been so callously separated from their babies.

One mother recognised her baby by their hand in photos they were shown, Fawzia recalled.

 

[Famine]

The Sun ... spinning direct quotes from an interview?

Be better.

And that's just how easy it is to do.

Love the posturing over behavioural improvement from the bad-faith bear though.

 

[Scaff]

The Sun is capable of spin, but are you accusing them of spinning direct quotes from an interview?

I'm stating as a fact that they have not fact-checked any of it (or if they have they've not bothered to include it), even Wiki is clear what has been verified of the account and what remains uncorroborated, and if you don't think that The Sun will present it a salacious manner to provide 'red-meat' to its target demographic then your incredibly naïve, and yes that includes editing quotes.

The Sun being capable of spin is also a massive understatement.

Edited to add: The only way you can effectively combat extremism is by being honest and open. And we do that by only presenting what we know as fact as fact, and by being clear about what is anecdotal and uncorroborated. Without doing so, the two become merged and all of it gets treated as propaganda, and right now you are one of the prime culprits for doing so here.

 

[HenrySwanson]

And that's just how easy it is to do.

Love the posturing over behavioural improvement from the bad-faith bear though.

Yeah.

It's not like other Yazidi have spoken about this years ago:

ISIS tricks starving Yazidi sex slave into eating own child: ‘We cooked your 1-year-old son that we took from you’

A Yazidi sex slave was deceived into eating her 1-year-old child after being starved for three days, a member of the Iraqi government said. Lawmaker Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi activist, told a TV statio…

web.archive.org

Believe women....no, wait, not those women!

 

[Famine]

Yeah.

It's not like other Yazidi have spoken about this years ago:

ISIS tricks starving Yazidi sex slave into eating own child: ‘We cooked your 1-year-old son that we took from you’

A Yazidi sex slave was deceived into eating her 1-year-old child after being starved for three days, a member of the Iraqi government said. Lawmaker Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi activist, told a TV statio…

web.archive.org

Believe women....no, wait, not those women!

Bad faith: I said nothing about the truth of the interview or article, just showed how easy it is to manipulate direct quotes to convey the opposite impression. You're pretending I did to strawman me.

Do you ever directly engage in good faith?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Bad faith: I said nothing about the truth of the interview or article, just showed how easy it is to manipulate direct quotes to convey the opposite impression. You're pretending I did to strawman me.

Do you ever directly engage in good faith?

You may not be, but others in this thread are.

EDIT: Lol. Example in the post directly below by a moderator. The caring left

Quotes can be manipulated, but how can those quotes possibly have been spun?

 

[Scaff]

Yeah.

It's not like other Yazidi have spoken about this years ago:

ISIS tricks starving Yazidi sex slave into eating own child: ‘We cooked your 1-year-old son that we took from you’

A Yazidi sex slave was deceived into eating her 1-year-old child after being starved for three days, a member of the Iraqi government said. Lawmaker Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi activist, told a TV statio…

web.archive.org

Believe women....no, wait, not those women!

Did you skip critical analysis in school?

Notice how what is presented as fact in the headline then turns into an anecdotal claim in the body text (a well known technique as 80% of people don't read beyond a headline). We have so much 100% documented evidence of war-crimes committed by ISIS that we don't need to present anecdotal evidence as if it were fact to do the job. It's clear that some people didn't learn the 'babies in incubators' lesson from the invasion of Kuwait.

Failing to present fact as fact and uncorroborated claims as anecdotal doesn't help, and one can be used to support the other (as long as it's clear which is which), but failing to do so, as both your sources fall foul of, doesn't help, and can backfire. The entire WMD debacle from the invasion of Iraq demonstrates how it can then be used as fodder for extremists. Note this doesn't mean that what is presented anecdotally is false (which is the conclusion you think we are making), rather that its currently uncorroborated, and should not be treated as fact until it is.

Edited to add: As an example closer to this threads actual topic, remember all the IDF stories about Hamas beheading babies on the 7th Oct attack? Yeah, the IDF had to backtrack on that after it was clear it was made up. Hamas committed enough atrocities on the day that it wasn't needed and yet the press lapped it up, reporting it as fact, and when it came out it wasn't accurate it starts to then undermine any claim they make about the attack.

Appeals to outrage help no-one but the extremists on both sides.

 

[Famine]

You may not be, but others in this thread are.

Yet you quoted and responded to me, knowing that I didn't comment on the truth of the article or interview but as if I had.

In people who haven't been perpetually arguing in bad faith, it'd be sloppy. But that's not you.

 

[Scaff]

EDIT: Lol. Example in the post directly below by a moderator. The caring left

Nice try, but no. From my original post, unedited and there from the moment I pressed Post.

"Notice how what is presented as fact in the headline then turns into an anecdotal claim in the body text (a well known technique as 80% of people don't read beyond a headline)."

"Note this doesn't mean that what is presented anecdotally is false (which is the conclusion you think we are making), rather that its currently uncorroborated, and should not be treated as fact until it is."

The first demonstrates how spin works (and both your sources did it), the second addresses directly the difference between fact and anecdote and how they can be spun if not presented correctly.

Lying about what I posted is about as bad faith as it gets.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Think about what this is saying to actual victims:

• I won't read your testimony because it's in a paper I don't like.
• OK, there's no way those claims could have been skewed/spun, but I'm still gonna need hard and concrete evidence that what you're telling me is true, even though another victim who has been through hell has said something similar, before I comment on what I am feeling in the event that you are telling the truth.

Imagine if we treated holocaust victims like this....
CSA victims....
Palestinians....

Instead of "I'm going to discredit this as best I can", can we not go with "**** that sounds awful, we really are fighting the scourge of humanity here if this is true".

 

[Famine]

I won't read your testimony because it's in a paper I don't like.

Try the more accurate: "I'd like a more neutral, reliable source for your testimony than the website for a paper known for misrepresenting and sometimes straight-up fabricating testimony, which contains only the exact amount and tone of your edited testimony as suits the writer and subeditor of this outlet."

Rather than, you know, misrepresenting what has been said to you.

Which wouldn't be bad faith...

 

[Scaff]

Think about what this is saying to actual victims:

• I won't read your testimony because it's in a paper I don't like.
• OK, there's no way those claims could have been skewed/spun, but I'm still gonna need hard and concrete evidence that what you're telling me is true, even though another victim who has been through hell has said something similar, before I comment on what I am feeling in the event that you are telling the truth.

Imagine if we treated holocaust victims like this....
CSA victims....
Palestinians....

Instead of "I'm going to discredit this as best I can", can we not go with "**** that sounds awful, we really are fighting the scourge of humanity here if this is true".

That would only be true if you ignore literally everything I posted, which is once again, bad faith.

Both of your bullet points are inaccurate and have no basis in the reality of my posts.

Are you going to continue to claim that I've said things I clearly haven't?

 

[HenrySwanson]

Why can't the response here be a normal, human, response. I.e.

"Whoa, what are we dealing with here. Poor her, she sounds like she's been to hell and back. Let me read what she's said in more detail and show some empathy".

Instead of:

Sun = BAD
ANECDOTAL
FEEDING EXTREMISM

It's, weird.

These are real people who have been through the most traumatic experiences known to man and because one had the misfortune of being interviewed by The Sun we largely dismiss what she says....

=========

In other news, one of the latest polls of Palestinians has shown a marked change in opinion:

Home | PCPSR

www.pcpsr.org

 

[TexRex]

lol. lmao.

 

[Famine]

Why can't the response here be a normal, human, response.

You mean like... finding a more trustworthy source instead of insisting that people's stories are being dismissed on the basis of you posting from sources known to be agenda-driven, inaccurate, and sometimes entirely false?

That'd be normal. This weird pretence that people are saying other things than what they're actually saying is... well, weird.

And still bad faith.

 

[Scaff]

Why can't the response here be a normal, human, response. I.e.

"Whoa, what are we dealing with here. Poor her, she sounds like she's been to hell and back. Let me read what she's said in more detail and show some empathy".

Instead of:

Sun = BAD
ANECDOTAL
FEEDING EXTREMISM

It's, weird.

These are real people who have been through the most traumatic experiences known to man and because one had the misfortune of being interviewed by The Sun we largely dismiss what she says....

=========

In other news, one of the latest polls of Palestinians has shown a marked change in opinion:

Home | PCPSR

www.pcpsr.org

Again, literally no-one has said anything even close to this.

Stop Making Things Up.

 

[inCloud]

You are discounting the lived experiences of a slave

Whole page of denial of ISIS crimes. Gosh

 

[Danoff]

Why can't the response here be a normal, human, response. I.e.

"Whoa, what are we dealing with here. Poor her, she sounds like she's been to hell and back. Let me read what she's said in more detail and show some empathy".

Instead of:

Sun = BAD
ANECDOTAL
FEEDING EXTREMISM

Henry, I think you need to take the response you got at face value. They are skeptical of the sun. It is a valid point that publications sometimes present photos of alien babies and made up junk like that. It gets clicks from shock and outrage.

We don't live in a time where you can believe everything that a publication puts forth. Skepticism is warranted and should be expected. This story might actually have happened the way the sun reported it, and the alien baby could exist, but no one would know because the only person who published it has a long history of publishing stuff like that. And you have to come to terms with that. But if it's true, I would suspect that a more reputable source would cover it.

I've been tricked on here into believing stuff that was made up. It's easy to have happen.

Edit: You should also be concerned about confirmation bias. If you look for this kind of story to confirm what you think you know, the internet is full of disreputable sources that will give you something to confirm it. If nothing else, do the exercise in scrutiny for your own piece of mind.

 

[UKMikey]

There are indeed a number of cross-references cited on the Wikipedia page for Fawzia Amin Sido:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawzia_Amin_Sido#Accusations_about_Hamas_and_ISIS

"Hamas is ISIS" was first asserted by Benjamin Netanyahu near the end of the 2014 Gaza War.[24] The comparison was criticized and mocked by some Israeli journalists.[25][24] Neyanyahu followed this by saying, "Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas", in a 2014 speech at the United Nations.
[26]

Israeli Major General Yoav “Polly” Mordechai accused Gaza of helping ISIS by providing medical care to people wounded in the Sinai conflict.[27] Egypt accused Hamas of assisting ISIS in the Sinai, but in public the two groups had a violently hostile relationship (see below).[28][29]

In 2016, the Head of the Department of Political Science at Hebron University,[30] said it was "dangerous" to conflate Hamas and ISIS.[26]

In the first days of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip in 2023, The Jerusalem Post quoted Benjamin Netanyahu saying, "They are savages. Hamas is ISIS", the article then highlighted some alleged similarities in the groups' influences identified by Dr. Harel Chorev (from the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University).[31] Chorev compared ISIS's Yazidi slaves to the hostages Hamas and their allies took,[31] and wanted to exchange for as many Palestinian prisoners of war as possible,[32][33] while keeping some hostages to use as human shields to deter Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders.[34]

Talal Abu Zarifa – a leader from the DFLP, a secular faction allied to Hamas – said Israel was using the comparison to ISIS to "justify its annihilation of Palestinian people and bloodshed".[35]

International military experts,[36] and mainstream international media,[37] pointed out major differences, particularly relating to nationalism, Shia Islam, Christianity in Gaza, democracy, and destruction of cultural heritage.[36] ISIS want a purely theocratic system of government without any element of democracy, and ISIS violently attack Christians, whereas Hamas participated in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election and the Hamas-led electoral list that won the election included a Palestinian Christian running for the Christian reserved seat in Gaza City.[38][39]

Note that the above isn't an attack on Fawzia Amin Sido, or a denial of her account of what happened to her. Neither is it a denial of ISIS's or Hamas's crimes. However, I think it may provide context to a discussion about the Israel/Palestine conflict.

 

[Scaff]

Whole page of denial of ISIS crimes. Gosh

Let's see if that's true...

We have so much 100% documented evidence of war-crimes committed by ISIS

...it's not, as such please refrain from lying.

 

[MatskiMonk]

If nothing else, do the exercise in scrutiny for your own piece of mind.

You said that in your conversations with him, he seemed genuinely concerned about free speech, I'd bet that in those conversations he never posted things from the Legislation, the Sentencing Council or the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, i.e. the facts, and most likely posted 'news' articles or subjective discussion, and YouTube videos. Scrutiny doesn't seem to factor in to his arguments, only re-iterating what the algorithm has shown him.

 

[Danoff]

You said that in your conversations with him, he seemed genuinely concerned about free speech, I'd bet that in those conversations he never posted things from the Legislation, the Sentencing Council or the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, i.e. the facts, and most likely posted 'news' articles or subjective discussion, and YouTube videos. Scrutiny doesn't seem to factor in to his arguments, only re-iterating what the algorithm has shown him.

Well I think he believes it.

I've seen entirely too many people get sucked into believing what the algorithm shows them. I think @HenrySwanson is a smart person who is fully capable of bringing a new level of scrutiny and discipline to his positions. I also think that he's exposed himself to the same style of persuasion that he brings to this forum. He brings it because he finds it convincing.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Henry, I think you need to take the response you got at face value. They are skeptical of the sun. It is a valid point that publications sometimes present photos of alien babies and made up junk like that. It gets clicks from shock and outrage.

We don't live in a time where you can believe everything that a publication puts forth. Skepticism is warranted and should be expected. This story might actually have happened the way the sun reported it, and the alien baby could exist, but no one would know because the only person who published it has a long history of publishing stuff like that. And you have to come to terms with that. But if it's true, I would suspect that a more reputable source would cover it.

I've been tricked on here into believing stuff that was made up. It's easy to have happen.

Edit: You should also be concerned about confirmation bias. If you look for this kind of story to confirm what you think you know, the internet is full of disreputable sources that will give you something to confirm it. If nothing else, do the exercise in scrutiny for your own piece of mind.

I know precisely why it's the response here.

Imagine we had an account of a Palestinian's mistreatment at the hands of the Israelis reported by Al Jazeera. Would it be dismissed outright before being read. Would there be no value to it at all? What if it was that person's only available in-depth interview? Their story wouldn't be shared, atrocities would go, in effect, unreported. Considering there was an Al-Jazeera opinion piece posted in this thread with a response saying that it rightfully shouldn't be considered part of their editorial process, should we have ignored it all together because Al Jazeera may have links with Hamas and is funded in part by Qatar - a country that has financed Hamas?

My response to finding such a story? Post and absorb the details, show compassion while recognising it may not be gospel. I wouldn't spend post after post ignoring the actual claims and instead fighting the poster on why it's untrustworthy.

Do we ignore the testimony of a victim of the Armenian genocide if it's in the Daily Mail?

It's ridiculous and inhumane to me, but I'm probably in a minority thinking that here.

You said that in your conversations with him, he seemed genuinely concerned about free speech, I'd bet that in those conversations he never posted things from the Legislation, the Sentencing Council or the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, i.e. the facts, and most likely posted 'news' articles or subjective discussion, and YouTube videos. Scrutiny doesn't seem to factor in to his arguments, only re-iterating what the algorithm has shown him.

I do not know what this means.

 

[Famine]

Do we ignore the testimony of a victim of the Armenian genocide if it's in the Daily Mail?

Having already explained to you that this is not what's happening, that it's a deliberate (bad faith) mischaracterisation, and telling you what's actually happening, it's beyond vile that you're still pretending otherwise.

You've had enough reminders and chances. Take a week off and come back when you've learned to stop lying.

 

[Danoff]

I know precisely why it's the response here.

Imagine we had an account of a Palestinian's mistreatment at the hands of the Israelis reported by Al Jazeera. Would it be dismissed outright before being read. Would there be no value to it at all? What if it was that person's only available in-depth interview?

I don't know. But it doesn't change anything about the Sun or needing to bring some scrutiny to the story. This is "appeal to hypocrisy" in a "counterfactual".