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 -
None of this is "rape", let alone "gang rape".
Also with the possible exception of the abuse/mocking/burning of female corpses basically all of these accusations would hold true if you replaced "Hamas" with "Israel".
Hard to avoid the conclusion that there's a double standard being applied here.
I feel like it's really not that difficult to make the cognitive leap from the assertion in one sentence "Hamas filmed and distributed themselves committing acts of sexual and gender-based violence", to the inference that the word "assault" in the following sentence is referring to sexual assaults. In fact, it's such an obvious cognitive leap that I think not making it could only be the product of motivated reasoning.
But if you insist on me excerpting other relevant portions of the report for you, you lazy sod, then so be it:
From the section "key findings":
From the section "operational preparation prior to the attack":
The word "rape" appears 309 times in the report, 29 of those as part of the phrase "gang rape". The section "Rape, gang rape, and other forms of sexual assault" is five pages long, while the section on "filming and digital dissemination of SGBV" is three pages long. None of this is open for debate.
It is so, so tiresome how you immediately pivot to arguments-as-soldiers mode. You demand evidence that Hamas did the things I claimed, I provide it, and you instantly pivot to "well Israel is just as bad so who cares". We weren't debating whether Israel was just as bad as Hamas, or who is worse: we were debating whether Hamas really did the things they filmed themselves doing and disseminated. It is a simple factual question, not an ethical one.
Only if your worldview depends on you failing to understand what's right in front of your nose. The rape, gang rape, sexual abuse, torture and humiliation committed on October 7th was exhaustively documented, perhaps an outright majority of it by the perpetrators themselves. If this Palestinian man really was raped by a dog belonging to the IDF, that event was not exhaustively documented by anyone, including the alleged perpetrators. Joo-posters have no trouble believing that the dog-rape occurred, but it seems no amount of documentary evidence will persuade them that Hamas really did the things that they filmed themselves doing and proudly disseminated. (By contrast, if the IDF filmed this Palestinian man being raped by a dog and distributed it on their own channels as a form of psychological warfare against Hamas and the Palestinians, I would have no trouble believing that it really happened. I'm not the one with the double standard.)
Look, you literally said
I ask for evidence of this happening and it turns out that, in fact, you have no such evidence whatsoever. No such livestream exists. You lied. You made it up. Why did you do that?
Instead you pivot to an "investigation" by an Israeli "Civil Commission" which, if we're being objective, should really be given about as much credibility as an "investigation" by the "Hamas Health Ministry". Yet even the "Civil Commission" doesn't claim Hamas live streamed themselves raping anyone; in the section actually covering "Filming and digital dissemination of SGBV" they don't even make that claim. They claim to have found secondary evidence of rape after the fact but even this dubious Israeli investigation isn't claiming to have it on video, let alone on livestream.
Why are we expected to unquestioningly believe Israeli war propaganda without debate, exactly? Putting aside the fact that it isn't even claiming what you claimed.
Nope, you made a false claim, you provided "evidence" from a dubious source that doesn't even back up your false claim and now you're going on a hysterical rant about things I never said.
I mean, if Hamas livestreamed themselves committing gang rape then surely a link to it exists somewhere, right? Why are you unable to provide this clear, irrefutable evidence that would instantly resolve this dispute, rather than paging through entirely secondhand Israeli war propaganda reports?
If you'd prefer me to amend my comment to "Numerous witnesses independently witnessed Hamas squaddies gang-raping women on October 7th; Hamas squaddies filmed and publicly disseminated footage of them assaulting, humiliating and sexually torturing women; but they did not, strictly speaking, livestream themselves gang-raping women", then fair enough. But this seems like just about the most macabre kind of hair-splitting I've ever encountered.
Even then, if a group of armed men surrounded a woman and collectively forced her to undress before humiliating and sexually torturing her, I think few people would object to characterising that as "gang rape", even if technically none of the men forcibly penetrated the woman with his penis. Likewise if the men in question were wearing GoPros on their person, I think few people would object to characterising that as "a group of men filmed/livestreamed themselves committing gang rape", even if, again, none of the men forcibly penetrated the woman with his penis.
But why am I even saying any of this? You've preemptively decided that any factual claim that makes Hamas look bad and portrays Israelis as victims is "Zionist propaganda". You've preemptively decided that any organisation advancing any factual claim that makes Hamas look bad and portrays Israelis as victims is therefore a sinister Zionist organisation. I might as well argue with a brick wall.
If this specific claim turns out to be untrue and you want to accuse me of having been duped by Israeli war propaganda, then go for it. But I didn't "make up" this claim. It did not originate with me.
Dude, it's right there. You said "Also with the possible exception of the abuse/mocking/burning of female corpses basically all of these accusations would hold true if you replaced "Hamas" with "Israel"."
There is the film Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre, which edits hundreds of hours of Hamas-produced footage into a 47-minute documentary. According to people who've seen it, some of the Hamas-captured footage implies sexual violence has recently taken place. Netanyahu defended the decision to publicly screen the footage on the grounds that, without doing so, people would deny or downplay the extent of Hamas's brutality. Sadly, it didn't have the desired effect, if your reaction is any indication.
In addition, the Civil Commission maintains a more extensive archive of footage, although for obvious reasons it isn't a publicly accessible database. They are planning to give access to academic and legal professionals over time. I look forward to the day when several of these individuals watch the footage, confirm that the linked report described its contents accurately, and get immediately dismissed as "Zionist shills" by you and your ilk.
Andrew Fox claims to have seen footage which was not included in the aforementioned documentary:
But I know you've already dismissed his account as lies.
I have a very hard time believing that the only reason you don't believe this report is that it's "secondhand information". I don't think you would immediately change your mind and accept that Hamas really did what they're accused of doing if you personally spoke to the people who attended Nova and confirmed to you the things they'd witnessed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link