Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[NoHolyCows]

You keep wrapping your evasions in philosophical language, but it’s just a shell game. You’re not clarifying the data; you’re dismissing it wholesale because it’s inconvenient to your position. You say you’re treating Gaza’s death toll as “unknown,” but you’re not treating it as unknown – you’re treating it as irrelevant. Every time the figures are raised, you pivot to claiming they’re fabricated or worthless, yet you never present an alternative accounting, only blanket dismissal. That’s not skepticism; it’s deliberate fog.

There's nothing to clarify, all along I have been saying we don't know as every source failed badly. Which is completely separate from the fact that I'm also treating it as basically irrelevant--proportionality is measured in combatants vs civilians, not in total numbers. War continues, casualties continue, duh!

You argue “some errors = the whole dataset is untrustworthy,” but that’s not logic, it’s motivated reasoning. Wartime death counts are always imperfect, from Dresden to Aleppo to Mosul. Nobody requires zero error to establish human toll. Your demand for absolute certainty is just a backdoor to absolve Israel of any responsibility by insisting no number is high enough unless it’s been hand-counted under ideal lab conditions in a war zone. You’re setting a standard no conflict in human history could meet.

Once again, you fail to understand. Errors in raw data are to be expected and it would mean nothing. Blatant errors in verified data make it clear it wasn't verified.

You then hide behind the idea that it’s “not your job to find solutions.” Fine. But if your entire posture is to reject every proposed ceasefire, diplomatic initiative, monitoring plan, or humanitarian corridor as unworkable, then admit it: you’re not interested in peace. You’re interested in justifying endless war. And you reveal that openly when you frame any ceasefire as a “big win for Hamas,” as though Gazan civilians are acceptable collateral to prevent Hamas from feeling emboldened. That’s not analysis. That’s moral surrender disguised as toughness.

I'm not going to reject everything. But I'm going to reject things that have failed. And I'm going to reject meaningless collections of buzzwords.

I am interested in the war ending--but ending because the hostages are returned. I see no reason for it to stop when the fundamental goal hasn't been met.

Finally, you pivot to rejecting the Arab Peace Initiative because it demands withdrawal from occupied territories and refugee rights under UN resolutions. Call it suicidal if you wish, but don’t pretend it was never a real proposal. It’s only “ludicrously stupid” to those for whom permanent occupation is the baseline. And your dismissal of it as Israel’s “suicide” exposes everything: to you, peace itself is a mortal threat if it requires equality, dignity, and land rights for Palestinians.

It was a "real" proposal as in somebody made it. It was not a proposal that could realistically be accepted.

And you fail to understand. That proposal gives Hamas the next election. The genocide follows soon thereafter. It would be the peace of the dead.

So no, this isn’t standard logic. It’s standard avoidance: dismiss the data, dismiss the solutions, dismiss the humanity of the victims, and then claim the moral high ground. That’s not truth-seeking. That’s choosing comfort over reality.

You keep failing to address what I'm actually saying.

Lauren,

No – I understand exactly what you’re saying. You’re just not hearing yourself.

You keep repeating: “We don’t know the numbers, and it doesn’t matter anyway.” That isn’t analysis. That’s moral abdication. If civilian deaths are irrelevant to you, just say it clearly: you don’t care how many die, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience your definition of victory.

And yes, the Arab Peace Initiative was real. You dismiss it as “peace of the dead” without offering any alternative except permanent war. That’s not realism. That’s surrender to violence as the only imaginable future.

You’re not being misunderstood. You’re being heard – and what you’re saying is exactly the problem.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

You keep calling out “evasions” when the only one evading here is you. You cite Geneva Convention IV Article 33 as though it’s some open license to declare everything Israel does illegal. But you’re twisting its meaning beyond recognition. Collective punishment, as you know, refers to deliberately punishing civilians for acts they did not commit — executing them in retaliation, bulldozing entire towns as retribution. It does not prohibit military action against combatants just because civilians are tragically in harm’s way. Pretending otherwise isn’t moral clarity; it’s moral grandstanding.

You correctly define collective punishment but do nothing to establish that it's happening.

You also cherry-pick Protocol I’s “excessive harm” clause but ignore proportionality analysis entirely. “Excessive” is measured relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. That is the law you keep citing but refuse to grapple with, because acknowledging it undermines your entire posture of legal absolutism.

The problem is how do you measure military advantage? I'm using the closest reasonable proxy--civilian/combatant casualty ratios.

Your next move is the tired moral relativism accusation: “You’re racing to the bottom by comparing Israel to other Western armies.” No, Lauren, that’s exactly how proportionality has always been judged. You’re the one erasing legal nuance to moralise from your perch, while ignoring that your preferred standard would criminalise every single NATO or US operation in modern urban warfare. You just don’t care, because consistency isn’t your goal — condemnation is.

Once again, you have the reasoning backwards. You are taking it as a given that Israel's actions are not acceptable and thus you say I'm wrong in saying that that means all US & NATO operations are wrong by the same standard.

You then trot out the “rules only matter when your enemy ignores them” platitude, which sounds poetic but collapses under reality. You think Hamas following no laws while using hospitals and schools as shields creates no legal complexity for Israel? That the Conventions were designed for two uniformed state armies facing off on an open field? You’re moralising in a vacuum. And you know it.

And you still don't get it. In honorable war neither side uses hospitals for military purposes and nobody hits them because of that. When they get used for military purposes they get hit.

You keep saying I haven’t shown collective punishment, but blocking food, fuel, and medicine for an entire population to pressure their rulers is exactly what collective punishment means. Calling it something else doesn’t change what it is.

You argue military advantage should be measured by civilian-to-combatant death ratios. That’s not how proportionality works. It weighs anticipated strategic gain against expected civilian harm. Reducing war to a body ratio is moral optics, not legal reasoning.

You accuse me of backwards logic on NATO comparisons. No – I’m saying your standard would condemn every Western urban operation. If that’s your stance, own it. But don’t pretend your outrage is rooted in neutral principle when it’s clearly selective.

Finally, you claim I “don’t get it” about hospitals. I get it perfectly. When a hospital is used for military purposes, it loses its protection. That’s the grim reality of war law, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You claim “I didn’t say famine is fake, just that bodies prove it.” That’s exactly the cruelty of your reasoning. You’re treating famine as real only when it becomes mass graves you can count. But famine isn’t just corpses. It’s immune collapse, organ failure, permanent cognitive damage in children. It’s parents skipping food for days so their kids get a single meal. You dismiss all of that because it doesn’t fit your cinematic standard of proof. That’s not skepticism. That’s moral anesthesia.

You keep saying, “If the prediction was wrong, then it was always wrong.” No. That’s like saying if a dam is about to break and engineers shore it up in time, the dam was never at risk. You confuse prevention with fabrication, then call it logic. What you’re really doing is absolving the siege by blaming those warning about its effects.

Except there was no prevention! Nothing was done, the claims got louder and louder, they couldn't produce the supposed multitude of bodies. They do a good job of parading bodies before the camera, but we have one case that's acknowledged medical, one (alive at the time of reporting) that's medical/supply--she can't get the specialty formula, not that she can't get food, and one AI fake. No pictures of the other 58 that supposedly died.

And you're descending into the realm of total fabrication as you would never have a situation of parents going without food for days so their child could have a single meal. (That is, unless Hamas demanded it.)

You insist “bad data proves everything is invalid.” No, it proves data is messy under bombardment, with no power, bombed-out hospitals, and destroyed ID systems. Your obsession with formatting anomalies ignores the basic fact: tens of thousands of human beings have been killed or maimed, and your first instinct is to discredit them rather than investigate. That isn’t analytical rigor. It’s engineered doubt.

You continue to simply assume Hamas is telling the truth about everything. I have no problem with a proper, impartial investigation but I recognize that there's absolutely no way that at present they could do a proper investigation.

And there's no doubt tens of thousands have been killed. Last I heard (and it's out of date by now) Israel claimed to have killed 20,000 combatants. There's "tens of thousands" right there.

You dismiss all famine warnings as apocalyptic hoaxes because “X date passed with no mass death.” But Gaza is not a doomsday cult prophecy. It’s a population under deliberate strangulation. Food insecurity is catastrophic. Malnutrition is endemic. Medical care is collapsing. And your response is: “Well, where are the bodies?” as if only visible corpses prove structural violence. That’s moral rot disguised as reason.

The claims are mass death. Over and over, but no bodies. Thus the claims are false.

You say “I reject Amnesty, HRW, UN rapporteurs, independent journalists—because they’re inaccurate.” But you accept IDF statements at face value, no scrutiny required. Your skepticism is selective and political. It’s not about truth. It’s about defending power from accountability.

I reject those organizations that have proven they are wrong. So far IDF numbers are normally within 10% when we can look back on situations and actually check. Thus I figure they'll be within 10% going forward, also.

You reduce entire apartment blocks bombed into dust to “math equations” about probable occupancy. You treat civilians as Schrödinger’s bodies: if you don’t see them, they weren’t there, so legality is restored. But proportionality isn’t just about numbers. It’s about foreseeability, precaution, and intent. Geneva doesn’t say “no civilians visible, fire at will.”

You keep blindly repeating stuff without understanding.

Yes, lots and lots of buildings have collapsed. Last I heard there were over 600 miles of tunnels mapped--that's going to translate to hundreds of miles of apartment blocks that fail because they were supported by tunnels. Those tunnels are a military target. It is completely irrelevant what buildings might be resting on it--they did their best to evacuate them which is all Geneva expects. You are not establishing a wrong with your continual repetition of it. And it's not "no civilians visible"--Israel called the people there, told them to get out, get their neighbors out. And the people there know that when the unknown voice on the phone that knows a lot about them advises them to do something that they need to pay attention.

And your final move: redefining war crimes as mere “undesirable outcomes.” Under international law, systematic, foreseeable, and preventable harm to civilians—even incidental—crosses the line when precautions are ignored or military gain is outweighed by human cost. You wave this away with “Pretty much, military use = valid target.” That’s not what Geneva says. That’s what every violator of it claims.

No, it's you defining normal consequences of war as war crimes.

You even quoted your error: "preventable". That doesn't mean you can't shoot, it means you do your best to avoid harming civilians when you shoot.

And while Geneva doesn't spell out military use = valid look it over--most parts spell out that the protection does not apply to military use. You keep overlooking those parts.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Let me lay it out clearly:

Clear as mud. You missed.

In the analogy, there’s a terrorist holding a baby with a mirror behind them. You shoot at the terrorist, but the bullet hits the mirror and kills the baby. The question isn’t about moral blame alone. It’s about criminal liability. Who gets convicted?

No. The scenario I laid out the mirror is between you and the baby, you don't know it's there. You shoot back at the person (who is actually off to the side not in the line of fire) shooting at you, the bullets pass through the mirror and hit the baby. You see a person shooting at you, no signs of a baby.

Your argument about collective punishment again ignores the actual legal standard. Geneva doesn’t define collective punishment purely by consequences. It focuses on intentional punishment of civilians for acts they didn’t commit. If civilian suffering results from military operations targeting combatants, it falls under proportionality analysis, not automatic classification as collective punishment. You blur these lines deliberately to moralize rather than analyze.

And here you have no idea what "punishment" means.

You cite tens of thousands of civilian deaths, UN and WHO statements, and the US State Department critique as proof that Israel is “worse than a good guy.” You miss the point: moral outrage is justified by tragedy, but legal culpability is assessed by intent, targeting decisions, precautions taken, and proportionality. You’re collapsing moral horror into legal guilt without examining those criteria. That isn’t clarity. It’s rhetorical shortcut.

Try again. I said Israel is several times better than the good guys.

Finally, your last swipe about me “running from facts” is projection. You call data anomalies irrelevant because conditions are hard. But sloppy data under bombardment isn’t surprising. Claiming it’s still carefully verified is the problem. And no, my skepticism isn’t faith-based rejection. It’s refusal to accept casualty numbers as gospel when they remain static, unadjusted, and are published by parties with known propaganda incentives—especially when even Hamas spokespeople contradict the ratios your narrative demands.

Ok, you get at least part of it. You weren't getting it before. It's unverified data straight from Hamas.

But you have the propaganda bit backwards. It's Hamas engaging in the propaganda.

Lauren, your preaching isn’t fact. It’s moral condemnation repackaged as argument. You dismiss every challenge as blasphemy and call that integrity. But real integrity tests its beliefs against inconvenient truths. You haven’t done that here. You’ve just built a moral fortress to keep your certainty unchallenged.

NHC

This whole thing comes down to you trying to hold Israel to an utterly impossible standard.

I expect Israel to behave as well as the other western powers. In practice, they do far better.

 

[NoHolyCows]

You say “We only hear about the terrorist prisoners.” That’s precisely the issue. You’re relying on what you’re told by the party doing the imprisoning, ignoring that “terrorist” is a label they can slap on anyone—kids with rocks, activists posting online, journalists exposing corruption. In your framework, accusation becomes guilt. That isn’t justice. That’s authoritarianism rebranded as security.

One-sided? No--we know which ones because they're the ones that Hamas wants returned. Hamas isn't asking for the others.

Then you dismiss Mandela by calling him a terrorist. That’s not an argument. That’s rote historical amnesia. The powerful always call the powerless who resist them terrorists until they’re forced to rewrite the narrative decades later. You’re just reciting the party line of every regime that ever faced an independence movement.

He was a terrorist, but for the right cause so a lot on the left loved him. And it's not a matter of who writes the narrative--it's usually quite easy to tell them apart.

Terrorist: the intended target of the weapon is believed to be civilian in nature.
Freedom fighter: the intended target of the weapon is believed to be military or government in nature.
Look at the pattern.

Your targeting “test” collapses under its own hypocrisy. Israel’s record isn’t theoretical—it’s visible in burned-out aid convoys, medics in body bags, and children dug out of rubble. You say you won’t demand investigations because you “know there’s no way to conduct one.” That’s convenient. If you refuse to examine evidence, of course you’ll find none. Your approach isn’t truth-seeking. It’s a preemptive excuse to absolve your side no matter what.

You aren't giving any means to conduct the investigation. Hamas will lie. Israel is going to consider what they based their decision on a military secret unless there's something blatant.

Then you flip international law on its head. You argue it’s fair to assume people are combatants unless proven innocent. No. That is exactly what the Geneva Conventions exist to prohibit. The burden of proof is on the attacker to establish a military target—not on the corpse to prove it didn’t deserve to die. Your inversion of this standard isn’t just grotesque; it’s legally and morally bankrupt.

No, you still have a problem with the category "unknown". I'm saying that in a situation with that much perfidy a "civilian" label means basically nothing. Actions, not labels.

You scoff at mass grave data because “paperwork didn’t survive an airstrike.” The coldness of that logic is staggering. Entire families are being buried under collapsed homes, and your first instinct is to dismiss their deaths because Hamas didn’t submit notarized casualty forms to meet your selective standard of proof. That’s not skepticism. That’s deliberate blindness.

What in the world are you talking about???

I'm saying the biggest mass grave I recall Israel pointed to a photo of the open grave long before the IDF occupied the area.

You rewrite history by claiming the occupation began with Arab armies attacking Israel in 1948. You ignore what preceded that: land purchases riddled with evictions, British colonial partitioning against local wishes, decades of Zionist militias driving Palestinians from their homes. History didn’t start the day you choose. Violence didn’t appear in a vacuum.

The Jews bought up a lot of land from absentee landowners. Perfectly legal, why do you have a problem with it?

As for that colonial partitioning--it was against the wishes of one group, but supported by the other group. And the partition pretty much was dividing the area up with each group getting the areas they were a majority in, with some edge smoothing in both directions.

You blame Arafat for peace collapsing, ignoring the context of settlements expanding, borders tightening, and negotiations designed to produce surrender, not sovereignty. One man walking away doesn’t erase decades of structural injustice.

You keep citing irrelevancies. Arafat was offered almost everything he asked for. The sane thing to do is either accept or counteroffer. You don't walk unless the negotiation was a sham.

And your final cartoon claim that Palestinians are violent for a paycheck betrays the emptiness of your worldview. You reduce an entire people’s rage, grief, and desperation to mercenary greed. No one straps themselves into hopelessness for cash. They do it because they’ve been cornered, generation after generation, until death becomes cheaper than life.

You don't realize what it's like. You don't do what Hamas wants, what are you going to do? Hamas controls the jobs. It's a standard tactic for raising cannon fodder and the people have no realistic option but to cooperate.

You say Hamas only wants “terrorist prisoners” returned, as if that proves guilt. No – it proves who Hamas prioritizes, not who actually committed violence. You’re still outsourcing justice to enemy PR lists.

Calling Mandela a terrorist “for the right cause” just shows how flexible your labels are. Your neat definitions ignore that state militaries also target civilians, yet never get called terrorists. Your moral categories are conveniences, not principles.

You say investigations are impossible so there’s no point trying. That’s the logic of impunity. If Israel classifies evidence as secret and Hamas lies, then under your standard, civilians can be slaughtered without accountability because no proof is ever “possible.”

You argue perfidy voids civilian status. No – it voids specific protections in direct misuse, not blanket humanity. Geneva exists precisely to stop people from being redefined as combatants because your side finds it easier to kill them.

You dismiss mass grave data by pivoting to one photo Israel debunked. That’s not addressing the reality of mass graves. It’s cherry-picking a rebuttal to avoid acknowledging widespread death.

You frame pre-1948 land purchases as purely legal while ignoring the mass displacements and militias enforcing them. Legality under colonial frameworks doesn’t erase injustice. That’s basic history, not ideology.

On Arafat, you reduce failed negotiations to a single decision while ignoring decades of conditions engineered to make sovereignty unattainable. Walking away from a poisoned deal isn’t sabotage. It’s refusing surrender.

Finally, you say Palestinians cooperate with Hamas out of fear. Maybe some do. But your refusal to recognize oppression as a driver of resistance reveals everything: you see them only as pawns or puppets, never as people pushed to a point where death feels like the only agency left.

NHC

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You keep accusing me of abandoning principle when what I’m actually doing is refusing to replace principle with moral theater. You talk about “atrocity” as if merely naming it proves its source, intent, and solution. But atrocity isn’t self-explanatory. It demands forensic clarity, not just rhetorical outrage.

I didn't think I needed to name it. Obviously, 10/7. Are you saying that's not an atrocity?

Your analogy to WWII is telling. You say Hamas is like Japan refusing surrender, implying that maximum civilian suffering is simply the natural endpoint of their defiance. But that’s not an argument for necessity—it’s an admission that your strategy is based on crushing resistance through collective punishment, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were. You’re not describing inevitability. You’re justifying it.

I'm recognizing reality rather than holding out for some magical answer.

You dismiss structural violence as “faith-based answers” while calling the blockade mere “war.” But blockades that cut off food, fuel, and medicine to civilians are by definition collective punishment under international law, regardless of whether you find that inconvenient. Repeating “it’s just war” is not moral realism—it’s moral surrender to cruelty.

And once again, you do not know what Geneva says.

Israel is only required to permit it if it's only going to the civilians. And that is unquestionably not what's happening. And Israel is permitted to dictate the details of how it's handled.

You say there are no viable solutions because “professionals haven’t proposed them.” That’s historically false. The Kerry Framework, the Arab Peace Initiative, unilateral ceasefires, UN-administered demilitarized zones—these have all been tabled and shelved because Israel’s leadership deemed them too politically costly. You dismiss them not because they don’t exist, but because accepting them requires giving up domination as a policy tool.

I said viable solutions. Once again you're throwing out things that are proven not viable.

Your fixation on Iran as the singular puppet master is geopolitical reductionism. Yes, Iran funds and arms militant groups. But Palestinians aren’t drones programmed by Tehran. Their rage didn’t begin with Iranian wire transfers. It began with dispossession, blockade, statelessness, and daily humiliation. Iran exploits that rage, but it didn’t invent it.

It began without any of the things you blame it on. It began with a very simple cause: Islam lost land to the Jews.

Look at it like domestic violence. What happens when a woman leaves her abuser? That's exactly what the Jews did.

You invoke Northern Ireland to argue diplomacy only worked after funding was cut off, ignoring that what ended The Troubles was power-sharing and political inclusion. You cite South Africa to argue they moved from one boot to another, ignoring that dismantling apartheid remains a historic moral necessity despite post-transition failures. You’re using flawed aftermaths to argue against just struggle itself.

Which in no way addresses the fact that they're worse off now than then.

Same as Hamas is far worse for the people in Gaza than Israel was.

You insist you see distinctions between combatants and civilians, but your definitions dissolve under scrutiny. You treat children as potential fighters, hospitals as default bunkers, ambulances as likely combat transports. That’s not discernment. That’s institutionalized suspicion. Geneva exists precisely to restrain that reflex.

I treat them as what they act like.

And your final swipe that I live in a world of magical solutions betrays your defeatism. You think acknowledging Iran’s role absolves Israel of moral agency in Gaza. It doesn’t. States are accountable for what they choose to do, even under external pressure. Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe not because “Iran made it so,” but because decades of policies—occupation, blockade, de-development—engineered it into one. Iran is a malign actor, yes. But you invoke it like an incantation to shut down responsibility for everything else.

Iran deliberately made it so. It used to be the weathiest non-oil Arab nation. That's not good for recruiting cannon fodder, thus the Second Intifada that cratered their economy.

Lauren, the difference between us isn’t realism versus idealism. It’s your moral fatalism versus my refusal to accept that human decency is optional when enemies are vile. You keep saying “there are no solutions.” That’s because you’ve pre-emptively rejected every path that doesn’t involve domination, displacement, or indefinite siege. That isn’t realism. That’s a worldview where cruelty becomes strategy and tragedy becomes proof of its own necessity.

NHC

I am not saying there are no solutions. I'm saying no realistic solutions have been proposed. I'm willing to listen to something realistic, but the magic spells of the left don't work. (And neither do the magic spells of the right.)

But you are blindly repeating Hamas talking points as if they are reality. You'll never understand if you can't see the reality.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious they're made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Israel doesn't claim to know.

I very much doubt we will ever have correct numbers because too much bad data has been created, no way to figure it out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You keep quoting Geneva as if it’s a loophole manual rather than a humanitarian treaty. The purpose of Article 23 is clear: to protect civilians from starvation and deprivation during conflict. Yes, it lists conditions – but those conditions are not a blank check to block aid indefinitely. They’re safeguards to ensure aid reaches civilians while addressing legitimate security concerns. Nowhere does it say that if there’s any risk of diversion, you can let an entire population starve.

You keep acting like it says much more than it does.

And yes, Geneva imposes alternative obligations. If direct passage isn’t feasible, parties must seek arrangements to ensure civilians still receive aid. That’s the principle of proportionality and necessity woven throughout the Conventions and customary IHL. The law isn’t silent on mass suffering just because direct delivery is complicated.

Where?

You keep repeating, “There isn’t always a good answer. The side with the power isn’t always responsible.” But there is an answer in international law: the party with control over the territory bears obligations toward its civilian population, whether it likes it or not. Israel controls the crossings, the airspace, and the sea. That comes with legal and moral duties no matter what Hamas does.

So? Geneva's clear. Allow aid if it's not being diverted. It's being diverted. That's that.

You pivot to Hamas shooting people picking up aid. Do you think that negates Israel’s obligations? It doesn’t. Both can commit violations. That’s how law works. Hamas blocking aid doesn’t absolve Israel of its duty to let aid in. Israel’s blockade doesn’t absolve Hamas of its abuses. You keep acting like international law is a scoreboard where one violation cancels the other. It isn’t. It’s a set of minimum rules designed to stop war from descending into total moral collapse.

That's not what Geneva says.

And that’s what this is about. You want so badly to believe there is no answer because admitting there is would force you to confront what’s being done here. This isn’t about loopholes in Geneva. This is about the deliberate starvation of a trapped population. And no amount of legalistic parsing will cleanse that.

I'd love an answer. It's just nobody proposes anything that's not shit.

Because in the end, law aside, this is simple:

When a child dies of hunger with trucks of food waiting at the gate, no moral theory or legal citation justifies it.

You say, “Nobody’s denying they happened. The question is what was under those bombs, something that satellite footage can’t answer.”

Hidden assumption: the truck can proceed from the gate to the child. In this case, that's utterly false.

That’s the eternal dodge. Yes, satellites can’t see inside buildings, but when hospitals, refugee camps, and schools are repeatedly hit, when coordinates are shared with the IDF precisely to avoid strikes, and when aid convoys are targeted despite clear markings and pre-approved routes, your “what was under the bombs” defense collapses. You’re not asking an honest question. You’re grasping for any possibility that will let you look away from what those bombs did.

Sharing coordinates doesn't mean Hamas doesn't try to exploit the situation.

And the problem with the aid convoys is deviating from the routes because they're under Hamas control.

And your fallback – that reports are “tainted by Hamas” – is just as empty. When the U.N., WHO, U.S. intelligence, and Israel’s own statements converge, the claim that it’s all one big Hamas propaganda show is nothing more than denial dressed as skepticism.

What Israel statement?

The others are all just parroting the bad Hamas data.

You then pivot to radicalization, claiming oppression isn’t necessary, only perception – like with Incels. But here’s the difference you conveniently ignore: Palestinians aren’t isolated young men angry about dating rejection. They are a people living under occupation, blockade, bombardment, and daily humiliation. That’s not “perception.” That’s structural reality.

And if, as you say, perception radicalizes, what do you think happens when the perception is reinforced by bombs falling on schools and children pulled from rubble? You can’t reduce this to a psychological quirk when every day’s lived experience validates their rage. Comparing a besieged population to Incels isn’t just ignorant. It’s dehumanizing.

You are acting as if radicals proves they came from your wrong of choice. My point about incels is that radicalization doesn't require wrongs, it's perception that matters. Put enough effort into radicalization, you'll find takers.

 

[NoHolyCows]

You say “they voted for Hamas, so they chose war” is justified. That’s collective punishment by definition. You’re holding two million people responsible for a single election under siege, where the alternative was a corrupt Fatah government propped up by the occupier. Imagine applying that standard anywhere else in the world: punishing an entire civilian population for the ballot they cast under duress. That isn’t justice. It’s retribution with a bureaucratic veneer.

No, it's the logical consequence. They chose war, they got war.

You pivot to your anecdote about parents in India crippling their children to beg, as though this horror justifies treating Palestinians as complicit in their own slaughter. It’s a grotesque analogy that reveals more about your contempt for their humanity than it does about Hamas’s cruelty. You’re essentially saying: because Hamas is evil, every child under its rule forfeits their right to life. That’s not logic. That’s collective damnation.

It's a matter of showing what horrors parents will inflict in order to survive.

You insist “history starts in 1948 with Arab invasions.” Convenient. You erase the dispossession, the expulsions, the massacres like Deir Yassin that preceded the declaration. You erase the British colonial engineering that set this up. Your history starts where it suits your narrative and ends wherever Israeli accountability might begin.

Deir Yassin--prime example of why Geneva requires fighting in uniform. Soldiers shoot at that which looks like what shoots at them.

You claim Palestinians never offer real peace. Yet Israel’s own archives confirm it walked away from negotiations while expanding settlements, moving goalposts endlessly. And when Arafat walked, you froze history there forever to avoid asking why the “peace process” was structured to preserve domination, not end it.

Where did Israel walk???

Note that refusing to make concessions for talks is not walking.

Your contempt for B’Tselem and UN data is telling. You dismiss them not because they’re wrong but because their findings inconvenience you. You never apply the same scrutiny to IDF statements or settler organizations. Your skepticism is selective, weaponized, and fundamentally dishonest.

I dismiss B'Tselem because I've seen too many of their deceptions.

And the UN is simply repeating Hamas data.

You argue that minors aren’t necessarily civilians because demographics show Hamas uses teens. That’s an admission that you’re comfortable treating all youth as potential combatants. International law says children are protected. You say demographics override that. That is not the law. That is profiling. You’ve inverted Geneva to suit your security dogma.

No. It's an indication that I consider combatant status more important than age. We deduced that they are using children based on the demographics of the dead. And since then they've indirectly admitted it on occasion.

You rationalize sniping medics, journalists, and wheelchair users by conjuring conspiracies that Hamas fakes it all. It’s the same rhetorical move as every power that kills civilians and then calls them enemy actors. You demand impossible proof for their innocence, but accept rumor and insinuation as enough for their guilt.

You continue to blindly trust everything Hamas says.

I say things are fake when by far the most logical explanation for the data is that Hamas faked it. We catch them often enough (the fakes do not need to be good to get the world to baa) that we consider fake to be a possible explanation.

And then your final claim: “They’ve always chosen war.” That’s not analysis. That’s your refusal to see their choices beyond violence. They’ve tried elections—Israel blockaded them. They tried diplomacy—Israel stalled and expanded settlements. They tried international appeals—ignored. They tried mass nonviolent protest—snipers met them at the fence. You call it a choice when it’s a corridor with every exit sealed.

Lauren, you’re not defending law. You’re defending a structure that strips agency, dignity, and humanity from an entire people, while calling it security. That’s why your worldview isn’t moral clarity. It’s moral anesthesia.

Tried elections? What election?? That's purely an internal matter, Israel doesn't control Palestinian elections.

Diplomacy? You keep acting as if it's some magic spell. There needs to be a reasonable offer. Hamas has never even offered peace, it's always been about peace for now.

Yes, snipers met them at the fence. Had they not Hamas would have used it to invade. And Hamas did use sending civilians against the fence to die as part of the preparation for 10/7.

You say “They chose war, they got war.” No, Lauren. Children didn’t choose ballots. Elderly didn’t choose Hamas. You’re defending punishing millions for a vote under siege. That isn’t logic. It’s collective retribution.

You justify your India analogy as “showing what horrors parents inflict to survive,” but your context was blaming Palestinians for Hamas’s cruelty. You erase their humanity to make their deaths feel justified.

You pivot on Deir Yassin to uniforms, ignoring the massacre itself. Geneva requires uniforms, yes – it also prohibits executing civilians. You erase that because it shatters your moral framing.

You demand “Where did Israel walk?” Camp David, Taba, Annapolis – each ended with settlement expansion, not compromise. Refusing concessions while annexing land isn’t negotiation. It’s conquest with a diplomatic façade.

You dismiss B’Tselem because it’s inconvenient, not disproven. And UN casualty counts are cross-verified by multiple agencies. Calling it Hamas propaganda is your shortcut to avoid accountability.

You admit you prioritize combatant status over age. That’s a confession: you’re comfortable treating children as lawful targets if it suits your threat perception. That’s not law. That’s moral collapse.

You excuse sniper killings by claiming fakes. Yet none of your examples prove fabrication – only your refusal to consider evidence that challenges your narrative.

You say Palestinians never tried elections. Hamas’s 2006 election was internationally monitored. Israel’s immediate response was blockade. Your claim they “never offered peace” ignores Hamas’s multiple ceasefire proposals, rejected out of hand. You justify snipers at protests by claiming Hamas uses civilians as shields – as if that excuses firing on unarmed demonstrators.

Lauren, every answer you give is an escape hatch from moral responsibility. You’re not analyzing. You’re rationalizing a worldview where no Palestinian death ever counts enough to matter.

NHC

 

[Swammerdami]

The war started in 1948. What has changed since that would make those conditions (remember, the only condition was the existence of Israel--war was instantly declared before it did anything) no longer result in war? Whether you can find additional causes since does not change this basic problem.

I honestly cannot imagine what your argument is. Can you please construct a paragraph of logic reasoning connecting the dots that will explain your obsession with 1948? Remember your own apparent claim that actions by Israel and Hamas or "Arabs" during the years 1949-2025 will be irrelevant if your logic is sensical. One wonders then why you focus so much attention on misdeeds of Hamas.

You dismiss Israeli atrocities while dwelling on your hatred for the actions of "Arabs." I guess you feel that Israeli actions in 1948 were entirely GOOD, and the actions of "Arabs" entirely EVIL, and that this makes the ensuing 77 years irrelevant. I think objective observers would have a more nuanced position about 1948, but I hope we needn't litigate that. After all, you're talking of a time when the GRANDFATHERS of the present combatants were still babies.

Thanks in advance for the paragraph of logic reasoning (titled "1948 is the be-all and end-all") so that we have a chance to figure out WTF your point is. While you're doing that, may we have a second paragraph explaining why 1917 doesn't qualify as "the be-all and end-all"?

Or was there a be-all and end-all even before 1917? Did the "Arabs" forfeit all claim to Palestine when their alleged ancestor Esau/Edom renounced his birthright voluntarily circa 2050 BC:

29 Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. 30 And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” 32 Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” 33 Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

 

[NoHolyCows]

You claim “I didn’t say famine is fake, just that bodies prove it.” That’s exactly the cruelty of your reasoning. You’re treating famine as real only when it becomes mass graves you can count. But famine isn’t just corpses. It’s immune collapse, organ failure, permanent cognitive damage in children. It’s parents skipping food for days so their kids get a single meal. You dismiss all of that because it doesn’t fit your cinematic standard of proof. That’s not skepticism. That’s moral anesthesia.

You keep saying, “If the prediction was wrong, then it was always wrong.” No. That’s like saying if a dam is about to break and engineers shore it up in time, the dam was never at risk. You confuse prevention with fabrication, then call it logic. What you’re really doing is absolving the siege by blaming those warning about its effects.

Except there was no prevention! Nothing was done, the claims got louder and louder, they couldn't produce the supposed multitude of bodies. They do a good job of parading bodies before the camera, but we have one case that's acknowledged medical, one (alive at the time of reporting) that's medical/supply--she can't get the specialty formula, not that she can't get food, and one AI fake. No pictures of the other 58 that supposedly died.

And you're descending into the realm of total fabrication as you would never have a situation of parents going without food for days so their child could have a single meal. (That is, unless Hamas demanded it.)

You insist “bad data proves everything is invalid.” No, it proves data is messy under bombardment, with no power, bombed-out hospitals, and destroyed ID systems. Your obsession with formatting anomalies ignores the basic fact: tens of thousands of human beings have been killed or maimed, and your first instinct is to discredit them rather than investigate. That isn’t analytical rigor. It’s engineered doubt.

You continue to simply assume Hamas is telling the truth about everything. I have no problem with a proper, impartial investigation but I recognize that there's absolutely no way that at present they could do a proper investigation.

And there's no doubt tens of thousands have been killed. Last I heard (and it's out of date by now) Israel claimed to have killed 20,000 combatants. There's "tens of thousands" right there.

You dismiss all famine warnings as apocalyptic hoaxes because “X date passed with no mass death.” But Gaza is not a doomsday cult prophecy. It’s a population under deliberate strangulation. Food insecurity is catastrophic. Malnutrition is endemic. Medical care is collapsing. And your response is: “Well, where are the bodies?” as if only visible corpses prove structural violence. That’s moral rot disguised as reason.

The claims are mass death. Over and over, but no bodies. Thus the claims are false.

You say “I reject Amnesty, HRW, UN rapporteurs, independent journalists—because they’re inaccurate.” But you accept IDF statements at face value, no scrutiny required. Your skepticism is selective and political. It’s not about truth. It’s about defending power from accountability.

I reject those organizations that have proven they are wrong. So far IDF numbers are normally within 10% when we can look back on situations and actually check. Thus I figure they'll be within 10% going forward, also.

You reduce entire apartment blocks bombed into dust to “math equations” about probable occupancy. You treat civilians as Schrödinger’s bodies: if you don’t see them, they weren’t there, so legality is restored. But proportionality isn’t just about numbers. It’s about foreseeability, precaution, and intent. Geneva doesn’t say “no civilians visible, fire at will.”

You keep blindly repeating stuff without understanding.

Yes, lots and lots of buildings have collapsed. Last I heard there were over 600 miles of tunnels mapped--that's going to translate to hundreds of miles of apartment blocks that fail because they were supported by tunnels. Those tunnels are a military target. It is completely irrelevant what buildings might be resting on it--they did their best to evacuate them which is all Geneva expects. You are not establishing a wrong with your continual repetition of it. And it's not "no civilians visible"--Israel called the people there, told them to get out, get their neighbors out. And the people there know that when the unknown voice on the phone that knows a lot about them advises them to do something that they need to pay attention.

And your final move: redefining war crimes as mere “undesirable outcomes.” Under international law, systematic, foreseeable, and preventable harm to civilians—even incidental—crosses the line when precautions are ignored or military gain is outweighed by human cost. You wave this away with “Pretty much, military use = valid target.” That’s not what Geneva says. That’s what every violator of it claims.

No, it's you defining normal consequences of war as war crimes.

You even quoted your error: "preventable". That doesn't mean you can't shoot, it means you do your best to avoid harming civilians when you shoot.

And while Geneva doesn't spell out military use = valid look it over--most parts spell out that the protection does not apply to military use. You keep overlooking those parts.

You say there was no prevention, just no bodies. But famine isn’t just corpses. It’s stunted growth, organ failure, kids with permanent cognitive damage from starvation. You dismiss all that because it’s not cinematic enough for your proof standard. That isn’t skepticism. That’s moral blindness.

You insist Hamas lies about everything, yet cite Israel’s combatant death claim as if it’s gospel. If you admit tens of thousands are dead, don’t pretend this is purely about bad data formatting. You’re using “fog” to justify refusing to care.

You reduce famine warnings to false prophecies because “no mass graves.” You don’t want to see mass death, so you define it out of existence.

You reject Amnesty and HRW because they’re inconvenient, but accept IDF figures with 10% grace. That’s not analytical rigor. That’s power loyalty dressed up as critical thinking.

You treat Gaza’s collapsed apartment blocks as math problems, ignoring that real humans live above tunnels. Geneva doesn’t say “evacuation calls = free fire zone.” It requires proportionality, foreseeability, and restraint. Blowing up entire civilian blocks because Hamas dug underneath is military logic, not humanitarian law.

Finally, you keep insisting Geneva’s “preventable” standard just means call ahead. No – it means don’t bomb if civilian harm outweighs gain. Your reading isn’t legal. It’s just moral convenience to justify anything as long as it’s labeled strategic.

You’re not analyzing. You’re rationalizing, so you never have to face what this war is actually doing to real people.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Let me lay it out clearly:

Clear as mud. You missed.

In the analogy, there’s a terrorist holding a baby with a mirror behind them. You shoot at the terrorist, but the bullet hits the mirror and kills the baby. The question isn’t about moral blame alone. It’s about criminal liability. Who gets convicted?

No. The scenario I laid out the mirror is between you and the baby, you don't know it's there. You shoot back at the person (who is actually off to the side not in the line of fire) shooting at you, the bullets pass through the mirror and hit the baby. You see a person shooting at you, no signs of a baby.

Your argument about collective punishment again ignores the actual legal standard. Geneva doesn’t define collective punishment purely by consequences. It focuses on intentional punishment of civilians for acts they didn’t commit. If civilian suffering results from military operations targeting combatants, it falls under proportionality analysis, not automatic classification as collective punishment. You blur these lines deliberately to moralize rather than analyze.

And here you have no idea what "punishment" means.

You cite tens of thousands of civilian deaths, UN and WHO statements, and the US State Department critique as proof that Israel is “worse than a good guy.” You miss the point: moral outrage is justified by tragedy, but legal culpability is assessed by intent, targeting decisions, precautions taken, and proportionality. You’re collapsing moral horror into legal guilt without examining those criteria. That isn’t clarity. It’s rhetorical shortcut.

Try again. I said Israel is several times better than the good guys.

Finally, your last swipe about me “running from facts” is projection. You call data anomalies irrelevant because conditions are hard. But sloppy data under bombardment isn’t surprising. Claiming it’s still carefully verified is the problem. And no, my skepticism isn’t faith-based rejection. It’s refusal to accept casualty numbers as gospel when they remain static, unadjusted, and are published by parties with known propaganda incentives—especially when even Hamas spokespeople contradict the ratios your narrative demands.

Ok, you get at least part of it. You weren't getting it before. It's unverified data straight from Hamas.

But you have the propaganda bit backwards. It's Hamas engaging in the propaganda.

Lauren, your preaching isn’t fact. It’s moral condemnation repackaged as argument. You dismiss every challenge as blasphemy and call that integrity. But real integrity tests its beliefs against inconvenient truths. You haven’t done that here. You’ve just built a moral fortress to keep your certainty unchallenged.

NHC

This whole thing comes down to you trying to hold Israel to an utterly impossible standard.

I expect Israel to behave as well as the other western powers. In practice, they do far better.

Lauren, you’re not holding Israel to a Western standard — you’re lowering that standard until anything is excusable. You keep shifting the mirror, the baby, the bullet, the meaning of punishment — anything to make sure no action is ever too much to justify.

Your own words prove the point: you call mass civilian death just “better than the good guys,” shrug at sloppy data because it’s “from Hamas,” and dismiss every law meant to protect civilians as unrealistic. That’s not integrity. It’s moral permission slip after moral permission slip.

Keep telling yourself it’s clear. It’s clear alright — clear what you’re willing to look away from.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

You keep accusing me of abandoning principle when what I’m actually doing is refusing to replace principle with moral theater. You talk about “atrocity” as if merely naming it proves its source, intent, and solution. But atrocity isn’t self-explanatory. It demands forensic clarity, not just rhetorical outrage.

I didn't think I needed to name it. Obviously, 10/7. Are you saying that's not an atrocity?

Your analogy to WWII is telling. You say Hamas is like Japan refusing surrender, implying that maximum civilian suffering is simply the natural endpoint of their defiance. But that’s not an argument for necessity—it’s an admission that your strategy is based on crushing resistance through collective punishment, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were. You’re not describing inevitability. You’re justifying it.

I'm recognizing reality rather than holding out for some magical answer.

You dismiss structural violence as “faith-based answers” while calling the blockade mere “war.” But blockades that cut off food, fuel, and medicine to civilians are by definition collective punishment under international law, regardless of whether you find that inconvenient. Repeating “it’s just war” is not moral realism—it’s moral surrender to cruelty.

And once again, you do not know what Geneva says.

Israel is only required to permit it if it's only going to the civilians. And that is unquestionably not what's happening. And Israel is permitted to dictate the details of how it's handled.

You say there are no viable solutions because “professionals haven’t proposed them.” That’s historically false. The Kerry Framework, the Arab Peace Initiative, unilateral ceasefires, UN-administered demilitarized zones—these have all been tabled and shelved because Israel’s leadership deemed them too politically costly. You dismiss them not because they don’t exist, but because accepting them requires giving up domination as a policy tool.

I said viable solutions. Once again you're throwing out things that are proven not viable.

Your fixation on Iran as the singular puppet master is geopolitical reductionism. Yes, Iran funds and arms militant groups. But Palestinians aren’t drones programmed by Tehran. Their rage didn’t begin with Iranian wire transfers. It began with dispossession, blockade, statelessness, and daily humiliation. Iran exploits that rage, but it didn’t invent it.

It began without any of the things you blame it on. It began with a very simple cause: Islam lost land to the Jews.

Look at it like domestic violence. What happens when a woman leaves her abuser? That's exactly what the Jews did.

You invoke Northern Ireland to argue diplomacy only worked after funding was cut off, ignoring that what ended The Troubles was power-sharing and political inclusion. You cite South Africa to argue they moved from one boot to another, ignoring that dismantling apartheid remains a historic moral necessity despite post-transition failures. You’re using flawed aftermaths to argue against just struggle itself.

Which in no way addresses the fact that they're worse off now than then.

Same as Hamas is far worse for the people in Gaza than Israel was.

You insist you see distinctions between combatants and civilians, but your definitions dissolve under scrutiny. You treat children as potential fighters, hospitals as default bunkers, ambulances as likely combat transports. That’s not discernment. That’s institutionalized suspicion. Geneva exists precisely to restrain that reflex.

I treat them as what they act like.

And your final swipe that I live in a world of magical solutions betrays your defeatism. You think acknowledging Iran’s role absolves Israel of moral agency in Gaza. It doesn’t. States are accountable for what they choose to do, even under external pressure. Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe not because “Iran made it so,” but because decades of policies—occupation, blockade, de-development—engineered it into one. Iran is a malign actor, yes. But you invoke it like an incantation to shut down responsibility for everything else.

Iran deliberately made it so. It used to be the weathiest non-oil Arab nation. That's not good for recruiting cannon fodder, thus the Second Intifada that cratered their economy.

Lauren, the difference between us isn’t realism versus idealism. It’s your moral fatalism versus my refusal to accept that human decency is optional when enemies are vile. You keep saying “there are no solutions.” That’s because you’ve pre-emptively rejected every path that doesn’t involve domination, displacement, or indefinite siege. That isn’t realism. That’s a worldview where cruelty becomes strategy and tragedy becomes proof of its own necessity.

NHC

I am not saying there are no solutions. I'm saying no realistic solutions have been proposed. I'm willing to listen to something realistic, but the magic spells of the left don't work. (And neither do the magic spells of the right.)

But you are blindly repeating Hamas talking points as if they are reality. You'll never understand if you can't see the reality.

Lauren,

You keep calling my perspective “magic spells,” but really, it’s just refusing to accept that cruelty is the only way forward. You say you’re open to realistic solutions, but every time one is offered, you dismiss it as naïve because it requires Israel to give up the comfort of control.

You reduce Palestinian rage to some inherent hatred, ignoring decades of blockade, occupation, and daily humiliation that fuel it. That’s not realism. That’s just choosing the version of history that absolves your side of responsibility.

You blame Iran for Gaza’s misery, as if bombs, walls, and economic strangulation were minor details. Iran exploits despair, yes. But despair had to exist first.

You say you treat children, ambulances, and hospitals “as what they act like.” But that’s the problem. You see every risk as proof of guilt and every civilian as a threat to be managed, not a person to be protected. That’s not clarity. That’s surrendering to fear.

And when you call basic human rights “Hamas talking points,” you reveal everything. These aren’t slogans. They’re the bare minimum of decency any side should uphold, no matter who they’re fighting.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

You keep quoting Geneva as if it’s a loophole manual rather than a humanitarian treaty. The purpose of Article 23 is clear: to protect civilians from starvation and deprivation during conflict. Yes, it lists conditions – but those conditions are not a blank check to block aid indefinitely. They’re safeguards to ensure aid reaches civilians while addressing legitimate security concerns. Nowhere does it say that if there’s any risk of diversion, you can let an entire population starve.

You keep acting like it says much more than it does.

And yes, Geneva imposes alternative obligations. If direct passage isn’t feasible, parties must seek arrangements to ensure civilians still receive aid. That’s the principle of proportionality and necessity woven throughout the Conventions and customary IHL. The law isn’t silent on mass suffering just because direct delivery is complicated.

Where?

You keep repeating, “There isn’t always a good answer. The side with the power isn’t always responsible.” But there is an answer in international law: the party with control over the territory bears obligations toward its civilian population, whether it likes it or not. Israel controls the crossings, the airspace, and the sea. That comes with legal and moral duties no matter what Hamas does.

So? Geneva's clear. Allow aid if it's not being diverted. It's being diverted. That's that.

You pivot to Hamas shooting people picking up aid. Do you think that negates Israel’s obligations? It doesn’t. Both can commit violations. That’s how law works. Hamas blocking aid doesn’t absolve Israel of its duty to let aid in. Israel’s blockade doesn’t absolve Hamas of its abuses. You keep acting like international law is a scoreboard where one violation cancels the other. It isn’t. It’s a set of minimum rules designed to stop war from descending into total moral collapse.

That's not what Geneva says.

And that’s what this is about. You want so badly to believe there is no answer because admitting there is would force you to confront what’s being done here. This isn’t about loopholes in Geneva. This is about the deliberate starvation of a trapped population. And no amount of legalistic parsing will cleanse that.

I'd love an answer. It's just nobody proposes anything that's not shit.

Because in the end, law aside, this is simple:

When a child dies of hunger with trucks of food waiting at the gate, no moral theory or legal citation justifies it.

You say, “Nobody’s denying they happened. The question is what was under those bombs, something that satellite footage can’t answer.”

Hidden assumption: the truck can proceed from the gate to the child. In this case, that's utterly false.

That’s the eternal dodge. Yes, satellites can’t see inside buildings, but when hospitals, refugee camps, and schools are repeatedly hit, when coordinates are shared with the IDF precisely to avoid strikes, and when aid convoys are targeted despite clear markings and pre-approved routes, your “what was under the bombs” defense collapses. You’re not asking an honest question. You’re grasping for any possibility that will let you look away from what those bombs did.

Sharing coordinates doesn't mean Hamas doesn't try to exploit the situation.

And the problem with the aid convoys is deviating from the routes because they're under Hamas control.

And your fallback – that reports are “tainted by Hamas” – is just as empty. When the U.N., WHO, U.S. intelligence, and Israel’s own statements converge, the claim that it’s all one big Hamas propaganda show is nothing more than denial dressed as skepticism.

What Israel statement?

The others are all just parroting the bad Hamas data.

You then pivot to radicalization, claiming oppression isn’t necessary, only perception – like with Incels. But here’s the difference you conveniently ignore: Palestinians aren’t isolated young men angry about dating rejection. They are a people living under occupation, blockade, bombardment, and daily humiliation. That’s not “perception.” That’s structural reality.

And if, as you say, perception radicalizes, what do you think happens when the perception is reinforced by bombs falling on schools and children pulled from rubble? You can’t reduce this to a psychological quirk when every day’s lived experience validates their rage. Comparing a besieged population to Incels isn’t just ignorant. It’s dehumanizing.

You are acting as if radicals proves they came from your wrong of choice. My point about incels is that radicalization doesn't require wrongs, it's perception that matters. Put enough effort into radicalization, you'll find takers.

You say Geneva “doesn’t say much more than it does,” but it says exactly what you ignore: that aid must reach civilians unless there is direct, concrete evidence it will be used for combat. Suspecting diversion isn’t the same as proving it. Blocking food because some might end up with fighters isn’t legal. It’s collective punishment.

You ask where Geneva imposes alternative obligations. It’s in the principle of humane treatment embedded throughout – if direct passage fails, arrangements must be made. That’s customary IHL codified through decades of case law you keep waving away because it complicates your absolution.

You shrug that Israel’s control comes with obligations but dismiss them instantly by claiming “diversion.” That’s not law. That’s a blank check to starve civilians under the pretext of security.

You insist Hamas abuses erase Israel’s duties. No. That’s not how law works. Both can violate simultaneously. Your worldview treats it like moral algebra: Hamas bad, therefore Israel’s ledger is clean. Reality doesn’t work like that.

You say you’d love an answer but reject every proposal as “shit.” Maybe because any real solution requires giving up the comfort of domination.

You claim food trucks can’t reach kids anyway. That’s the trap you defend: blockade starves them, Hamas exploits them, and your solution is to shrug because fixing it isn’t neat.

You dismiss bombings of hospitals and aid convoys with “Hamas exploits them.” Even if true, it doesn’t erase obligations to verify and protect. “They might abuse it” is not a license to turn humanitarian corridors into free-fire zones.

You ask “What Israel statement?” Israel itself has acknowledged civilian casualties and confirmed strikes on sites later shown to be civilian. You ignore these because it punctures your “all Hamas propaganda” excuse.

Finally, your incel analogy fails because radicalization under occupation isn’t just perception. It’s lived reality reinforced by daily brutality. Incels imagine oppression. Palestinians endure it. Pretending there’s no difference is moral laziness rebranded as analysis.

NHC

 

[bilby]

You say you’d love an answer but reject every proposal as “shit.” Maybe because any real solution requires giving up the comfort of domination.

 

[NoHolyCows]

You say you’d love an answer but reject every proposal as “shit.” Maybe because any real solution requires giving up the comfort of domination.

View attachment 51287

To Lauren

 

[DrZoidberg]

Gaza has, since PA and then Hamas, took over been a dysfunctional shit show.

If the Gaza administration is a dysfunctional shit show during peace time, why would they now during a war, have any hope of accurately calculating who died.

Gaza is now overrun by the IDF. Making admin harder.

There's plenty of evidence that Hamas has been manipulating numbers.

There's been evidence that Hamas has been aquiring journalist accreditation for fighters just to manipulate the data of dead journalists.

Any Hamas official, is also a Hamas fighter.

The UNRWA aid administrators are Hamas fighters, some of which took part of the 7/10 attacks.

Any Hamas fighter, the moment they hit the ground, is made into a civilian casualty statistic.

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Another factor is that Gaza has no legal entry or exit point. They haven't had that for many years. Any entry or exit will therefore be undocumented. Making it impossible to know who lives there.

I have a Palestinian friend who told me how their family did. This was in 2015. They'd go to Egypt, go overland in a smuggler car, bribe border guards, and enter. They had to do this every time. In or out. They said it was safe. But just incredibly annoying.

My point is that there was no way, before 7/10 for Hamas to ever know who is actually living in Gaza. All they ever could do was guesstimate.

The medical system is not working now. There's no medical infrastructure with this information

You say Gaza has always been a dysfunctional shit show, so why trust its casualty numbers now.

I don't. I don't trust any numbers.

But here’s the problem with that framing: you’re using Gaza’s poverty, isolation, and destroyed infrastructure – conditions imposed in large part by the blockade and repeated bombardments – as proof that its people can’t even count their dead.

Gaza is poor because Hamas cares more about maintaining control over it than the wellbeing of Gazans. They're willing to murder and terrorise any Gazan to maintain control. They're a truly vile, evil and psychopathic regime.

And have support by expat Palestinians. Which truly is mind blowing. Resistance to Hamas is low. Because Palestinians have a tribal thinking and do not criticise any organisation working for the destruction of Israel. Making it easy for an organisation like Hamas to control Gaza... no matter how much crazy, psychopathic shit they do to their fellow Palestinians. Palestinians seem to be too poisoned by hate of Israel to prioritise a sane government dedicated to their own welfare. That's the tragic reality of this conflict

That’s not an argument. That’s dehumanization masquerading as skepticism.

Adjective soup. You write as if you're a spoken word poet preparing to take to the stage.

You say “there’s plenty of evidence Hamas manipulates numbers,” but you don’t cite any. You mention fighters getting journalist accreditation to pad dead journalist counts. Where’s your evidence? Because every major strike killing journalists has been confirmed by their employers and international press organizations. Are Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, and NBC all in on Hamas’ scheme?

Journalists write what information they can get. People are interested. There's very little verifiable information. So they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pay attention to who they are quoting when presenting numbers.

There's a relationship between the data the journalist is using and what narrative the article is spinning.

You claim “any Hamas official is also a fighter.” That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda designed to erase the category of civilian altogether.

You're a loony. Hamas is a military islamofascist regime. They do not separate civilian from fighter. They follow no ethical code. They respect no one. They don't care about any lives.

They're also clinging to power in Gaza using terror and violence.

Stop being a tool of fascism

Under international law, a civil administrator is not a combatant unless directly engaged in hostilities. Calling them fighters doesn’t make it true – it just justifies killing them in your mind.

Hamas doesn't give a fuck about international law.

In the 7/10 attack Hamas used systematic mass rape as a weapon of war.

Do you seriously think Hamas would give any power in Gaza to anyone who wasn't a 100% loyal fighter?

You say UNRWA staff are Hamas fighters, some of whom took part in October 7th. Israeli intelligence alleged some staff involvement, but you generalize that to the entire organization, whose aid convoys are coordinated with Israel daily.

No. Early on in the conflict IDF sent the UN intel on verified Hamas fighters who took part in the 7/10 attack, who then were the civilian Hamas officials in charge of distributing UN aid.

That's when the UN shut down aid deliveries to Gaza. They refused to continue until those officials were replaced. Hamas was then unable to find a civilian Hamas official who the IDF didn't have verifiable evidence was directly involved in the 7/10 attacks. They eventually managed to sort this out. No, the evidence IDF presented was not made public. But the UN response made headlines, back then. It must have been true.

IDF has since managed to find information on that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas, and in practice a wing of the Hamas government. They did not make the information publicly available. That's when Israel shut down all aid into Gaza and decided to become the sole aid agency delivering aid to Gaza. Because they judge that other aid organizations are unable to control who gets aid, ie Hamas are in control of the aid.

If you actually cared about civilian welfare, you wouldn’t cheer the destruction of the only institution providing food, shelter, and education to children in Gaza.

Who is cheering? Not me.

You argue that Hamas “both lowballs and overshoots” death counts. Which is it?

Its both

You’re claiming their numbers are too low and too high in the same breath to avoid acknowledging that mass death is happening. That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual evasion.

No. Its acknowledging the reality. Hamas has no method with which to collect accurate information. They're just pulling numbers out of their ass

You say Gaza has no legal entry or exit, so no one knows who lives there. Yet the population is registered by UNRWA, Israel, and Egypt for aid, border permits, and family reunification tracking.

Yeah. Best efforts. Still not particularly accurate

Your anecdote about a friend smuggling through Rafah doesn’t erase the fact that population data is well established. It just shows how desperate people are under siege.

If you think the data is well established, that just means you don't care about reality. That makes it hard to have a serious conversation with you

Finally, you say the medical system has collapsed so casualty counts are meaningless. But you ignore that the numbers are compiled not just by hospitals but by civil defense crews recovering bodies from rubble, by international aid organizations, and by satellite evidence of mass graves. Israel itself has never denied mass casualties – it just blames Hamas.

I never said casualty counts are meaningless. There's just wide error margins

The reality is this: dismissing every death count as “just made up” is comforting if you don’t want to face the moral implications of what’s being done in Gaza. But bodies don’t vanish because you question paperwork. Parents burying their children aren’t statistics to them. They’re the final proof.

No, that's not why. Try having another guess

Because in the end, this isn’t about whether Hamas counts perfectly. It’s about the fact that there are too many bodies to count.

NHC

Which is a tragedy. One dead person is a horrific tragedy.

Let's just hope Israel wins this war ASAP. So more people won't die

You say you don’t trust any numbers. Fine. But understand what that really means: if you refuse to believe any data, you leave yourself with nothing except assumptions shaped by your own fears and loyalties. That’s not realism. It’s intellectual surrender dressed up as skepticism.

You're doing the black and white fallacy.

Independent observers are doing the best they can = most reliable numbers. Still huge error margins

Israel = are low balling numbers. They sit on the only reliable numbers, because they control most of Gaza, and have an effective inteligence gathering organisation. Its been clear from the start that they had better data on Gaza than Hamas' own administrators. But because it's war and Israel reporting lower numbers than it is, is good for morale.

Hamas are not in a position to know any real numbers. Certainly not now. Right from the start they've been reporting casualties suspiciously fast. Clearly they're just making up numbers. Taking the biggest number that sounds believable and just running with it. To illustrate that is when Independent observers come up with a higher number than Hamas. Now why would they ever do that? Because they have no idea. They're just making shit up.

You blame Gaza’s dysfunction entirely on Hamas, ignoring the blockade, bombings, economic strangulation, and decades of occupation that created the vacuum Hamas exploited. Yes, Hamas is brutal and corrupt. But your narrative pretends they emerged in a void, not in a cage built by external powers and filled with despair.

Hamas has in their charter to destroy Israel. And its not just something they say. Why would Israel put up with a neighbour like that?

You didn't think of that, did you?

You brush off the accusation of dehumanization with “adjective soup.” It’s not poetry. It’s calling out the mindset that erases real people into collective blame. When you write off two million people as tribal, hate-poisoned sheep unworthy of sympathy, you’re not analyzing. You’re just justifying indifference to their deaths.

Its just your limited imagination preventing you from understanding other points of view than your own.

Your ideological position puts you in a place where you never need to take risks. You never need to take a stand for anything. Whoever takes any initiative, or succeeds with anything, I think, you will condemn.

This thinking is rampant in the progressive world today. Its just cowardice imho.

You say journalists are scraping the barrel for data, implying they’re complicit in falsehoods.

No, they're doing their actual job. This is what they do.

They're clearly quoting the source. Every time.

Pay attention.

But you provide no evidence that major newsrooms are inflating deaths. You dismiss their verification processes because acknowledging them would undercut your claim that no one knows anything.

You're a loony. I suggest you think about this demand for a bit

You call me loony for distinguishing fighters from civilians. Under international law, that distinction isn’t optional. Hamas ignoring it doesn’t mean Israel can. Otherwise, we abandon every principle of proportionality and non-combatant immunity. You call that naive. I call it the line between war and slaughter.

Yes, you're a loony. I have no idea how you managed to make the above make sense in your head.

You bring up 10/7 rapes to prove Hamas’s evil. No argument there. But war crimes by Hamas don’t erase legal obligations from Israel. That’s the foundation of humanitarian law: you are bound to it even when your enemy isn’t.

Sure. I just challenge that Israel is committing war crimes. I think they're doing a great job.

You cite unverified Israeli intelligence about UNRWA infiltration as proof the entire organization is a Hamas front. Meanwhile, Israel itself continues to coordinate with UNRWA for aid distribution even during this war. Your narrative overwrites reality to preserve a clean villain without complication.

No.

You say “who is cheering” the destruction of UNRWA. You are. Every time you call them a Hamas wing without evidence, you lay rhetorical groundwork to justify targeting the only institution feeding children under siege.

You're a loony

You claim Hamas both overcounts and undercounts deaths. That’s not logic. That’s an all-purpose excuse to deny any number they produce, no matter what it is. It’s not intellectual rigor. It’s an escape hatch from moral responsibility.

I think it is intellectual rigour

You argue Gaza’s population data is inaccurate because of smuggling and border chaos. Of course it’s imperfect. All warzone data is. But you treat imperfection as license to dismiss all quantification, because counting deaths risks confronting what you’ve chosen not to see.

I do?

You concede casualty counts have wide error margins, then use that uncertainty to imply there may be no mass death at all. But error margins don’t erase the baseline. They just acknowledge warzone reporting isn’t precise to the last digit.

No, I don't. Black and white fallacy again

Finally, you say “One dead person is a horrific tragedy. Let’s hope Israel wins ASAP so more people won’t die.” But if one death is too many, why cheer a strategy guaranteeing thousands more? That’s not hope. That’s just resignation wrapped in moral theater.

I'm cheering the side that will lead to less death overall. Right now, Israel is the only side to back in this.

Hamas is still chanting "from the river to the sea".

Because in the end, refusing to trust any number is comforting only if the alternative is facing what those numbers represent: an entire population ground between rockets and bombs, and the fact that no ideology justifies burying children under rubble.

Try thinking again

That’s not spoken word poetry. That’s reality. You don’t have to like how it sounds to admit it’s true.

NHC

For a person called No Holy Cows, you have a lot of holy cows. You talk like an evangelical preacher telling me about God and the Truth

 

[DrZoidberg]

You say you’d love an answer but reject every proposal as “shit.” Maybe because any real solution requires giving up the comfort of domination.

View attachment 51287

To Lauren

View attachment 51289

That comic strip is applicable to anyone on this forum. Are you enjoying your exceptionally windy glass house?

 

[NoHolyCows]

Gaza has, since PA and then Hamas, took over been a dysfunctional shit show.

If the Gaza administration is a dysfunctional shit show during peace time, why would they now during a war, have any hope of accurately calculating who died.

Gaza is now overrun by the IDF. Making admin harder.

There's plenty of evidence that Hamas has been manipulating numbers.

There's been evidence that Hamas has been aquiring journalist accreditation for fighters just to manipulate the data of dead journalists.

Any Hamas official, is also a Hamas fighter.

The UNRWA aid administrators are Hamas fighters, some of which took part of the 7/10 attacks.

Any Hamas fighter, the moment they hit the ground, is made into a civilian casualty statistic.

And finally, independent reviews have suggested that Hamas has both low balled and overshot the numbers dead. The reason is that it's virtually impossible to know the true civilian casualty rate in Gaza. I don't think Hamas knows how many Palestinian civilians have died. I think their numbers are just made up.

I also don't think Israel knows either. It'll take years of peace, if ever, before we have the correct number.

Another factor is that Gaza has no legal entry or exit point. They haven't had that for many years. Any entry or exit will therefore be undocumented. Making it impossible to know who lives there.

I have a Palestinian friend who told me how their family did. This was in 2015. They'd go to Egypt, go overland in a smuggler car, bribe border guards, and enter. They had to do this every time. In or out. They said it was safe. But just incredibly annoying.

My point is that there was no way, before 7/10 for Hamas to ever know who is actually living in Gaza. All they ever could do was guesstimate.

The medical system is not working now. There's no medical infrastructure with this information

You say Gaza has always been a dysfunctional shit show, so why trust its casualty numbers now.

I don't. I don't trust any numbers.

But here’s the problem with that framing: you’re using Gaza’s poverty, isolation, and destroyed infrastructure – conditions imposed in large part by the blockade and repeated bombardments – as proof that its people can’t even count their dead.

Gaza is poor because Hamas cares more about maintaining control over it than the wellbeing of Gazans. They're willing to murder and terrorise any Gazan to maintain control. They're a truly vile, evil and psychopathic regime.

And have support by expat Palestinians. Which truly is mind blowing. Resistance to Hamas is low. Because Palestinians have a tribal thinking and do not criticise any organisation working for the destruction of Israel. Making it easy for an organisation like Hamas to control Gaza... no matter how much crazy, psychopathic shit they do to their fellow Palestinians. Palestinians seem to be too poisoned by hate of Israel to prioritise a sane government dedicated to their own welfare. That's the tragic reality of this conflict

That’s not an argument. That’s dehumanization masquerading as skepticism.

Adjective soup. You write as if you're a spoken word poet preparing to take to the stage.

You say “there’s plenty of evidence Hamas manipulates numbers,” but you don’t cite any. You mention fighters getting journalist accreditation to pad dead journalist counts. Where’s your evidence? Because every major strike killing journalists has been confirmed by their employers and international press organizations. Are Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, and NBC all in on Hamas’ scheme?

Journalists write what information they can get. People are interested. There's very little verifiable information. So they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pay attention to who they are quoting when presenting numbers.

There's a relationship between the data the journalist is using and what narrative the article is spinning.

You claim “any Hamas official is also a fighter.” That’s not analysis. That’s propaganda designed to erase the category of civilian altogether.

You're a loony. Hamas is a military islamofascist regime. They do not separate civilian from fighter. They follow no ethical code. They respect no one. They don't care about any lives.

They're also clinging to power in Gaza using terror and violence.

Stop being a tool of fascism

Under international law, a civil administrator is not a combatant unless directly engaged in hostilities. Calling them fighters doesn’t make it true – it just justifies killing them in your mind.

Hamas doesn't give a fuck about international law.

In the 7/10 attack Hamas used systematic mass rape as a weapon of war.

Do you seriously think Hamas would give any power in Gaza to anyone who wasn't a 100% loyal fighter?

You say UNRWA staff are Hamas fighters, some of whom took part in October 7th. Israeli intelligence alleged some staff involvement, but you generalize that to the entire organization, whose aid convoys are coordinated with Israel daily.

No. Early on in the conflict IDF sent the UN intel on verified Hamas fighters who took part in the 7/10 attack, who then were the civilian Hamas officials in charge of distributing UN aid.

That's when the UN shut down aid deliveries to Gaza. They refused to continue until those officials were replaced. Hamas was then unable to find a civilian Hamas official who the IDF didn't have verifiable evidence was directly involved in the 7/10 attacks. They eventually managed to sort this out. No, the evidence IDF presented was not made public. But the UN response made headlines, back then. It must have been true.

IDF has since managed to find information on that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas, and in practice a wing of the Hamas government. They did not make the information publicly available. That's when Israel shut down all aid into Gaza and decided to become the sole aid agency delivering aid to Gaza. Because they judge that other aid organizations are unable to control who gets aid, ie Hamas are in control of the aid.

If you actually cared about civilian welfare, you wouldn’t cheer the destruction of the only institution providing food, shelter, and education to children in Gaza.

Who is cheering? Not me.

You argue that Hamas “both lowballs and overshoots” death counts. Which is it?

Its both

You’re claiming their numbers are too low and too high in the same breath to avoid acknowledging that mass death is happening. That’s not skepticism. That’s intellectual evasion.

No. Its acknowledging the reality. Hamas has no method with which to collect accurate information. They're just pulling numbers out of their ass

You say Gaza has no legal entry or exit, so no one knows who lives there. Yet the population is registered by UNRWA, Israel, and Egypt for aid, border permits, and family reunification tracking.

Yeah. Best efforts. Still not particularly accurate

Your anecdote about a friend smuggling through Rafah doesn’t erase the fact that population data is well established. It just shows how desperate people are under siege.

If you think the data is well established, that just means you don't care about reality. That makes it hard to have a serious conversation with you

Finally, you say the medical system has collapsed so casualty counts are meaningless. But you ignore that the numbers are compiled not just by hospitals but by civil defense crews recovering bodies from rubble, by international aid organizations, and by satellite evidence of mass graves. Israel itself has never denied mass casualties – it just blames Hamas.

I never said casualty counts are meaningless. There's just wide error margins

The reality is this: dismissing every death count as “just made up” is comforting if you don’t want to face the moral implications of what’s being done in Gaza. But bodies don’t vanish because you question paperwork. Parents burying their children aren’t statistics to them. They’re the final proof.

No, that's not why. Try having another guess

Because in the end, this isn’t about whether Hamas counts perfectly. It’s about the fact that there are too many bodies to count.

NHC

Which is a tragedy. One dead person is a horrific tragedy.

Let's just hope Israel wins this war ASAP. So more people won't die

You say you don’t trust any numbers. Fine. But understand what that really means: if you refuse to believe any data, you leave yourself with nothing except assumptions shaped by your own fears and loyalties. That’s not realism. It’s intellectual surrender dressed up as skepticism.

You're doing the black and white fallacy.

Independent observers are doing the best they can = most reliable numbers. Still huge error margins

Israel = are low balling numbers. They sit on the only reliable numbers, because they control most of Gaza, and have an effective inteligence gathering organisation. Its been clear from the start that they had better data on Gaza than Hamas' own administrators. But because it's war and Israel reporting lower numbers than it is, is good for morale.

Hamas are not in a position to know any real numbers. Certainly not now. Right from the start they've been reporting casualties suspiciously fast. Clearly they're just making up numbers. Taking the biggest number that sounds believable and just running with it. To illustrate that is when Independent observers come up with a higher number than Hamas. Now why would they ever do that? Because they have no idea. They're just making shit up.

You blame Gaza’s dysfunction entirely on Hamas, ignoring the blockade, bombings, economic strangulation, and decades of occupation that created the vacuum Hamas exploited. Yes, Hamas is brutal and corrupt. But your narrative pretends they emerged in a void, not in a cage built by external powers and filled with despair.

Hamas has in their charter to destroy Israel. And its not just something they say. Why would Israel put up with a neighbour like that?

You didn't think of that, did you?

You brush off the accusation of dehumanization with “adjective soup.” It’s not poetry. It’s calling out the mindset that erases real people into collective blame. When you write off two million people as tribal, hate-poisoned sheep unworthy of sympathy, you’re not analyzing. You’re just justifying indifference to their deaths.

Its just your limited imagination preventing you from understanding other points of view than your own.

Your ideological position puts you in a place where you never need to take risks. You never need to take a stand for anything. Whoever takes any initiative, or succeeds with anything, I think, you will condemn.

This thinking is rampant in the progressive world today. Its just cowardice imho.

You say journalists are scraping the barrel for data, implying they’re complicit in falsehoods.

No, they're doing their actual job. This is what they do.

They're clearly quoting the source. Every time.

Pay attention.

But you provide no evidence that major newsrooms are inflating deaths. You dismiss their verification processes because acknowledging them would undercut your claim that no one knows anything.

You're a loony. I suggest you think about this demand for a bit

You call me loony for distinguishing fighters from civilians. Under international law, that distinction isn’t optional. Hamas ignoring it doesn’t mean Israel can. Otherwise, we abandon every principle of proportionality and non-combatant immunity. You call that naive. I call it the line between war and slaughter.

Yes, you're a loony. I have no idea how you managed to make the above make sense in your head.

You bring up 10/7 rapes to prove Hamas’s evil. No argument there. But war crimes by Hamas don’t erase legal obligations from Israel. That’s the foundation of humanitarian law: you are bound to it even when your enemy isn’t.

Sure. I just challenge that Israel is committing war crimes. I think they're doing a great job.

You cite unverified Israeli intelligence about UNRWA infiltration as proof the entire organization is a Hamas front. Meanwhile, Israel itself continues to coordinate with UNRWA for aid distribution even during this war. Your narrative overwrites reality to preserve a clean villain without complication.

No.

You say “who is cheering” the destruction of UNRWA. You are. Every time you call them a Hamas wing without evidence, you lay rhetorical groundwork to justify targeting the only institution feeding children under siege.

You're a loony

You claim Hamas both overcounts and undercounts deaths. That’s not logic. That’s an all-purpose excuse to deny any number they produce, no matter what it is. It’s not intellectual rigor. It’s an escape hatch from moral responsibility.

I think it is intellectual rigour

You argue Gaza’s population data is inaccurate because of smuggling and border chaos. Of course it’s imperfect. All warzone data is. But you treat imperfection as license to dismiss all quantification, because counting deaths risks confronting what you’ve chosen not to see.

I do?

You concede casualty counts have wide error margins, then use that uncertainty to imply there may be no mass death at all. But error margins don’t erase the baseline. They just acknowledge warzone reporting isn’t precise to the last digit.

No, I don't. Black and white fallacy again

Finally, you say “One dead person is a horrific tragedy. Let’s hope Israel wins ASAP so more people won’t die.” But if one death is too many, why cheer a strategy guaranteeing thousands more? That’s not hope. That’s just resignation wrapped in moral theater.

I'm cheering the side that will lead to less death overall. Right now, Israel is the only side to back in this.

Hamas is still chanting "from the river to the sea".

Because in the end, refusing to trust any number is comforting only if the alternative is facing what those numbers represent: an entire population ground between rockets and bombs, and the fact that no ideology justifies burying children under rubble.

Try thinking again

That’s not spoken word poetry. That’s reality. You don’t have to like how it sounds to admit it’s true.

NHC

For a person called No Holy Cows, you have a lot of holy cows. You talk like an evangelical preacher telling me about God and the Truth

You accuse me of black-and-white thinking while insisting Israel’s data is gospel and Hamas’s is fabricated fiction. That’s not nuance. That’s just flipping the switch entirely in one direction to avoid discomfort.

You say Hamas’s charter justifies blockade and bombing. Their charter is vile, yes. But a document isn’t an airstrike. Real people live under that rule. Pretending two million lives are just an extension of a paragraph on paper isn’t realism. It’s moral laziness.

You claim my refusal to dehumanize Palestinians is cowardice. No – it’s refusing to surrender my humanity in the name of someone else’s vengeance. That’s not ideological. That’s basic decency.

You defend journalists as doing their job while dismissing their casualty verification as worthless. Pick one. Either their reporting means something, or it’s propaganda. You can’t hide behind both.

You call me loony for distinguishing civilians from fighters. International law calls that the foundation of war ethics. Your dismissal says more about you than it does about me.

You say Israel commits no war crimes because they’re “doing a great job.” Doing a “great job” at war doesn’t erase obligations to civilians caught underneath. That’s the line between moral force and brutality.

You shrug off UNRWA’s existence with “no,” ignoring that Israel itself coordinates with them for aid. That’s reality. Your refusal to engage with it is intellectual laziness wrapped in snark.

You call it “intellectual rigour” to claim Hamas both overcounts and undercounts deaths. No. That’s just a failsafe to reject any number that challenges your comfort.

You say “I do?” when called out for dismissing population data, as if feigned ignorance is a rebuttal. It isn’t.

You accuse me of black-and-white fallacies again while insisting your position is purely pragmatic. But cheering a strategy that buries thousands more children to “prevent deaths later” isn’t pragmatism. It’s moral surrender rationalized as strategy.

And finally, you call me a preacher with holy cows because I refuse to treat children under rubble as abstractions. That’s fine. Call it preaching. I’d rather preach decency than sermonize indifference.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

You say you’d love an answer but reject every proposal as “shit.” Maybe because any real solution requires giving up the comfort of domination.

View attachment 51287

To Lauren

View attachment 51289

That comic strip is applicable to anyone on this forum. Are you enjoying your exceptionally windy glass house?

Glass houses, huh? Yours is built on “Hamas is evil, so anything we do is justified.” Throw all the comics you want – it doesn’t make that any less hollow.

NHC