This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Neither are what I requested, and neither are what are cited in the modern discussion of Israel and Palestine. The modern discussion says specifically there are immediate and frequent examples of Israeli soldiers outright murdering Palestinian civilians. A single example from 20 years ago that resulted in a full investigation and trial is none of these.
As for the other example:
A man who had every reason to lie said there had been no other gunfire. Had there been, it absolves the IDF. They would still be wrong to shoot the car, but they shot it because they were under fire and understandably assumed the worst. It's a casualty of war, it happens, it's not wanton murder. And to not make you think I take the IDF at their word, I never do, but they at least check. That article mentions the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, where the IDF admitted one of their soldiers fired at her. How many times has any Palestinian organization admitted a group they first claimed as civilians murdered by the IDF were in fact militants killed fairly? Has it happened a single time ever? If it hasn't, it's not because they've never lied about it.
That's the problem with articles, journalists wrote them. The writer of the second article is a person who is specifically motivated to defend Palestine and criticize Israel. I can't believe them, categorically, and again by the way, same for Haaretz or whatever Israel-favoring publications, I presume every sentence as untrue. This is why I ask for video.
What I am asking for is clear video evidence from the current Gaza War of a civilian being murdered. That they are objectively a civilian, so objectively civilian circumstances (Ideally, anyway, right now can't be held as a standard in Palestine) so a woman who could not possibly be concealing explosives or else couldn't be considered as in a place where that's a reasonable fear, or a child who can on-sight be determined as not carrying explosives--as this discussion can't be held faithfully without acknowledging one side employs women and children as suicide bombers--and that they are then clearly singularly targeted and shot. Ian Carroll, who I've liked clips by him, talks about it, Darryl Cooper, same, talks about it, IDF snipers wantonly dropping civilians, and it is those videos I have never seen, those videos I have looked again and again to find, and all I can ever get is people talking about the supposed incidents, not actually showing them. I don't want to watch them, but I need to know the truth more than I need to avoid the heartsickness from seeing the horror I already know is so much in this world.
What about the protests prior to the Gaza war where they gunned down a bunch of protestors from the other side of a fence?
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/02/no-justification-israel-shoot-protesters-live-ammunition
That should be a higher margin of 'israelis bad' since there was no major conflict going on at that time. I appreciate that civilians die in wartime. But we are approaching Tiananmen square level territory, just without the tanks or 'occupying a key area right outside of govt building' bit. And nobody outside the pro-Palestine people in the West seem to have ever heard of this, it allows a strange narrative of 'oh the Palestinians just woke up one day and decided to zerg-rush israel in the october 7 attacks' to emerge. If you shoot the protestors, it's going to weaken the 'peace' element. People are going to get grievances and be hateful when you shoot them.
It goes on and on and on... The Israeli military is, understandably, quite cruel and hateful of the Palestinians.
The event mentioned here is the 20-month long Great March of Return.
"Protestors" accepts framing and implies them as the righteous party. Week after week these groups showed up to "demonstrate" and week after week people there got shot and killed. At a certain point it's no longer "protesting," if it ever was, it's about optics, and if it's about optics, well -- TPOASIWID and the purpose of the Friday "protests" was to produce dead Palestinians.
"Gunned down" evokes imagery of incidents of massed concentrated fire at civilians, and that isn't right either. Across those 20 months, Israeli soldiers, I think almost all snipers did fire on Palestinians, totaling 9,204 injured and 223 killed. 46 are listed as "children" but the citation is "minors under the age of 18."
The one claimed definite child was this:
But even if this had been true, that a baby had died from tear gas inhalation, it wouldn't have been the IDF's fault someone brought a baby.
You will also find this recurrent. Any Palestinian aged 17 years, 364 days or younger is counted as a child. Children can use guns and toss Molotovs. 16-year-olds are not children and if one throws a Molotov at a soldier, whatever they get is what they deserve.
6,106 opportunities for video, or above, 9,204 total. Where the fuck is it? The absence is deafening. I am told to accept that thousands were unjustly shot and there isn't one single video? Not one single person over 20 months of "protest" thought "I should record this." Why would I accept this? I bet there is video, only it captures what I describe. A Palestinian tossing a Molotov or trying to breach the fence and getting their leg shot off or hit in the gut or groin or chest on a pass-through tumble from a kneecap.
As for that kneecapping, here's an interestingly candid article from Haaretz:
The sniper shot 42 people in one day, his partner 28. They're boasting or all but about shooting 70 people. I looked for video of this and found one: https://x.com/vic2pal/status/981095851010469888
Gunshot, he instantly falls, couple frames of the wound but it's not graphic. I think you'd have to know it's a gunshot wound to even make sense of it. (And of course you can't actually tell what's going on around him.)
This team in one day produced themselves 70 opportunities for video. Again, boasting or all but, "Yeah sometimes we hit people behind our targets. Bummer." Where's the video? We do know this happened, since both sides say it did. 70 opportunities from one team in one day for video of a bad shot.
Nothing.
From 2015, if something has supposedly happened more than 10,000 times and there isn't video of it, the simplest and only rational explanation is that it didn't happen. The excessively compassionate, I understand how their brains turn off, they just aren't the sort of people who can think past suffering, and that's often good. The inadequately cynical, who talk about how "you think you hate journalists enough but you don't," how much lefties lie, how the crusades were justified and Islam is shit and how much Muslims rape and marry their own cousins, how much human rights organizations are just masks for USAID State Department globohomo/lefty sinecures/looting public coffers, and how the UN is one giant fraud at best or Bilderberg NWO fronting at worst, to have their brains turn off on all of those things they loudly hate because of the word "Jew" is just fucking funny.
But, not an argument, and I'm not saying you're either of these. I'm only saying you should consider if you reached your position from pure reason as applied to evidence, or if you reached it because you read words that aligned with how you already saw things. That you felt convinced by those words when really you were flattered, and you think I might also be convinced. Words won't convince me, I am adequately cynical, I know both sides are nothing but liars, and that's why I want video.
Surely this should make you investigate your priors? If we accept that this happened but can't find video, then it shows that video isn't needed to prove something happened!
Firstly, I think there is video but we just don't see it since we're not in the Arab media-sphere, not on the right telegram channels. I've read some books and reports, that's enough. Here's one video of a prisoner being raped: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qmjGdzyj5BA
Furthermore, video footage is often misleading. It can be selectively edited or leave out context as we're both aware. Nobody is going to watch enough video to distinguish excecptions from standard, on the scale of armies and states.
Finally, the standard for believing that Israel acts with cruelty should not be high. We know there were violent protests when the Israelis started investigating torture of prisoners - protests against the prosecutions. This indicates that there's a good number of Israelis who are in favour of torturing prisoners, shooting prisoners.
I don't need live video to know that there's a lot of rape in South Africa, even if it's politically relevant in that many don't like blacks or the end of apartheid. Likewise with Venezuela. We don't need extensive evidence to prove it's a shithole. Some things are just straightforward and make sense. They can be derived from first principles.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think your demand is hard to meet simply because gore videos like this are not easily searchable. But that fact seems rather irrelevant to the question of whether or not these killings are happening. Unless the position is that these mainstream media outlets and human rights groups are lying about these deaths and the videos they allege to have of the events.
It's fair to argue they may not be easily searchable, they shouldn't be, but I'm not only saying I can't find them, I'm also saying I've never seen them in the wild, and I have every reason to think I would have. Darryl Cooper has specifically claimed, on X or Rogan or Tucker, that he has seen multiple videos of Palestinians being shot by snipers. He's former military, he knows people, it could be he's long had access to special channels, but that's not a satisfactory answer as it requires explaining why none have ever "breached containment."
Video is absolutely relevant. You understand this, a graphic video of a civilian murdered, such as a child being shot, would be an unparalleled optics victory for Palestine. I could believe most Palestinians would refuse to use so terrible a death even with what they would gain, but there are Palestinians who wouldn't refuse. Not even cynically, the virtuous who believe the world should know the truth and they show it in hope of preventing future deaths. It would mean convincing me and anyone else who would find video conclusive where words aren't.
My position is simple. Israelis are liars, Palestinians are liars, human rights organizations are liars, journalists are liars. There is total incentive to lie about everything by everyone involved. Israel to cover their ass, Palestine to maintain their existentially-required image of being the victim, orgs to justify their continued work or because they're aligned with Palestine, and journalists because they're journalists.
Palestine, actually, is waging effective fifth-generation warfare, their action is the optics of victimhood. Every civilian death is an attack, every civilian massacre is a major maneuver. This is the case regardless of the truth of their claims, as in if everything they claim is true and they aren't trying to do optics they just get them from their being attacked, it's the case as an emergent property. It's how they have to fight, it's all they have against an actual military. But because it's how they fight, it's exactly how they would lie.
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/10/video-shows-israeli-soldiers-executing-unarmed-palestinian-man/
This video shows the IDF talking about killing an unarmed man, and shows a man dead on the floor. The mood seems jovial.
It's the closest I can get to meeting your criteria. I can't find videos that show both the shooter and person getting shot, as that might be a rough thing to get on film.
Thanks for finding that, it is close, but actually that articles contains a link to a separate incident with clearer and potentially closer video. I'm surprised I didn't come across the second video since it contains exact terms I searched: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-forces-shoot-woman-with-child-holding-white-flag-video/
Priors updated. I'll look harder.
I think I should warn as graphic, in her being shot, falling, and a pool of blood forming, but too far for specific detail. "The fate of the woman is unknown," maybe they say that as a courtesy for hope.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link