Open Thread Wednesday

I really can’t waste time engaging on this any further. You seem to be rather paranoid and defensive over the presentation of simple facts like the existence of wealthy political lobbies that support Israel or the fact that their barbarism is completely one-sided (1000 Israelis killed in October vs. 33,000+ Palestinians now). But I don’t think either of us will change the others’ mind.

Nice

AIPAC is the Israel lobby, true, not the “Jewish lobby.” But AIPAC is evil incarnate.

It’s another sad day Sandy. When journalists like yourself who work and write at publications like The Nation, show their unsourced, true opinions and remove any veneer of impartiality. I’m glad to know where you stand, but incredible sad to call you my neighbor.

I don’t understand how you can side with a governement that was chosen by its people and puts in its charter that it wants to annihilate another nation. Have you read it: I quote article 7 “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”” or their total rejection of peace, now quoting Article 13 of the Hamas Charter “”[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.”

How is it that you would propose negotiating with people actively seeking your death and who outright reject any notion of peace?

There was a ceasefire on Oct 7th and Hamas broke it. They broke it because htey never believed it in as was proscribed in their charter.

Instead, talk with the millions of Arab citizens who live in peace and freedom in Israel. They can be gay , straight, drive cars, be doctors, or do anything they want with their lives, as the good readers of The Nation would want.. Good luck with that in Gaza. You will be executed and dragged through the street if you are gay. You have no chance to vote. And your “govt’ will shoot you for any perceived slight.

As for the numbers you cite. I’d trust The Wall Street Journal before I trust what Hamas says. I really wish reports were still impartial and would look for their own sources vs. just parroting what’s heard. Here’s what was published last week in the Wall Street Journal

“Hamas’s Casualty Numbers Games
Journalists and Joe Biden lend credence to bogus counts from the Gaza Health Ministry.
By David Adesnik
April 4, 2024 5:12 pm ET

As Israeli troops batter Hamas and drive its surviving forces to the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry has etched in the public mind a statistic that casts Israel’s war of self-defense as a bloodbath: 70% of the dead in Gaza are women and children, the Hamas-run ministry says, and more than 30,000 lives in total have been lost. Is it true?

President Biden, who pledged in October that Israel would never stand alone, has recently talked about “red lines” to prevent the Jewish state from eliminating Hamas’s final stronghold—because, as Mr. Biden put it, “they cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead.”

Mr. Biden isn’t alone in taking Hamas’s numbers at face value. The United Nations also relies on the Health Ministry’s data. The U.S. news media include the ministry’s latest numbers in its daily updates on the war. In October the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor vouched for Hamas, writing: “Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements.”

Yet in a series of lengthy reports, the ministry admits that the figures the media treat as authoritative rely in part on reporting from . . . the media. The ministry says its casualty counts include two types of fatalities: those recorded by medical facilities and those reported by “reliable media sources.” In its March 31 report, the ministry attributes 15,070 of the dead, or 45.9%, to news reports. From which outlets? The ministry never says.

Its choices are limited, since Gaza has no independent media. It has networks like al-Aqsa that are extensions of Hamas and other armed factions. It has Al Jazeera, the Qatari state network that describes the atrocities of Oct. 7 as an “incursion” and denies that any “widespread and systematic” sexual assault took place. Western outlets report from Gaza, but they rely on the ministry for their casualty data.

Initially, the ministry’s data earned the confidence of foreign journalists because Gaza health officials had direct access to information from local medical facilities. Yet the ministry’s reports concede there has been an “interruption of communication” with many hospitals in the strip—meaning those from which Hamas withdrew amid the Israeli offensive. At present the ministry receives fresh data from only two facilities, both in southern Gaza.

While acknowledging the issues with its data, the ministry hasn’t made much effort to educate those who rely on its numbers. It distributes its statistical reports via Telegram, a social-media app, and only in Arabic. The ministry’s daily updates don’t disclose underlying issues with the data.

All the same, an enterprising correspondent with a willingness to question the dominant narrative could easily have found and translated the reports. Gabriel Epstein, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, did this soon after the ministry published its first statistical report in December. He found that the deaths attributed to “reliable media sources” consisted almost entirely of women and children. Of the 6,629 fatalities attributed to media, 1,941 were women, 4,678 children and only 10 men.

Over time, media reports have accounted for an ever larger share of the ministry’s data. Of nearly 11,000 fatalities reported between Jan. 1 and March 31, the ministry derived 77.7% from media reports. Adult males account for only 9% of fatalities attributed to the news, even though Gaza’s sex ratio is close to even and more than half its residents are adults.

If one removes the questionable data from the ministry’s numbers, it becomes clearer that Israel has made considerable efforts to minimize the war’s effect on civilians, while Hamas continues to use hospitals as fortresses. Instead of drawing so-called red lines for a U.S. ally, as if it were a threat to American values and interests, Mr. Biden should encourage Israel to dispatch Hamas swiftly, since the terror group has brought nothing but misery to Gazans and Israelis alike.

Mr. Adesnik is director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

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I don’t think it’s hypersensitivity. It’s deflection.

“Unsourced”? Just whom do you think you’re talking to? Ha.
What do you want? Date of the last elections in Palestine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Palestinian_legislative_election
Palestinian demographics?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine
Just ask. I can back up anything I say.

No one is fact checking election dates, Sandy. What is unsourced and unfounded opinion is “evil incarnate”. This type of hyperbole and statement only adds fuel to a fire and is morally objectionable. Has AIPAC raped women? Mutilated and burned children, no, but Hamas has and you know that to be true. Hamas is the true evil