naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
There's a lot of mid-information social media users that don't really get updates as they come around, and it hasn't helped that a lot of the initial pushback came as complete denial (Hamas spokesman saying that their soldiers wouldn't hurt women or children) or in ludicrous ways (that LA Times moron). A lot of more casual observers just saw the initial confused claim, then people getting dunked on for a bizarre claim that the photos of some of the baby corpses were a photoshopped live dog, without the intermediate bit bringing the specific claim from "40 decapitated babies" to "at least some decapitated babies and a lot of children killed in other ways".
It wasn’t an initial confused claim, though, it was atrocity propaganda, which requires a stable phrase to repeat and a visual image. An IDF spokesperson doesn’t accidentally say “40 babies decapitated”.
I don't think he was a spokesperson per se, but the report did seem to originate from an Israeli soldier on the ground -- there were pictures of him on Twitter that I saw.
It's this guy -- I can't find the tweet that I was thinking of, nor be arsed to dig through the wayback machine for initial headlines which certainly conveyed the impression that there were many decapitated babies killed in some sort of daycare, with the number forty prominently featured.
Anyways, the soldier talks about plural babies and women decapitated, and the PM's spokesperson also talked about multiple babies and toddlers beheaded at that kibbutz -- so far as I can tell there's zero. So whether the claim is forty or just 'some', it seems to be a lie being promulgated pretty high up in the Israeli government, presumably to gin up support for a brutal response.
I haven't seen anything that convinces me that they cut the head off of even one person, nevermind any babies -- so your second motte is still a lie AFAIC.
Also I think you are overlooking how media ops work -- the thing is kicked off by some official-ish motte like 'i saw babies, toddlers and women decapitated -- there were forty dead babies taken out of there' and then other operatives working for the same org promulgate the bailey version specifically, citing the motte and drumming up fear and outrage.
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Notes -
There's a lot of mid-information social media users that don't really get updates as they come around, and it hasn't helped that a lot of the initial pushback came as complete denial (Hamas spokesman saying that their soldiers wouldn't hurt women or children) or in ludicrous ways (that LA Times moron). A lot of more casual observers just saw the initial confused claim, then people getting dunked on for a bizarre claim that the photos of some of the baby corpses were a photoshopped live dog, without the intermediate bit bringing the specific claim from "40 decapitated babies" to "at least some decapitated babies and a lot of children killed in other ways".
It wasn’t an initial confused claim, though, it was atrocity propaganda, which requires a stable phrase to repeat and a visual image. An IDF spokesperson doesn’t accidentally say “40 babies decapitated”.
An IDF spokesperson didn't say "40 babies decapitated".
I don't think he was a spokesperson per se, but the report did seem to originate from an Israeli soldier on the ground -- there were pictures of him on Twitter that I saw.
Did he say "40 babies decapitated"?
It's this guy -- I can't find the tweet that I was thinking of, nor be arsed to dig through the wayback machine for initial headlines which certainly conveyed the impression that there were many decapitated babies killed in some sort of daycare, with the number forty prominently featured.
Anyways, the soldier talks about plural babies and women decapitated, and the PM's spokesperson also talked about multiple babies and toddlers beheaded at that kibbutz -- so far as I can tell there's zero. So whether the claim is forty or just 'some', it seems to be a lie being promulgated pretty high up in the Israeli government, presumably to gin up support for a brutal response.
Sure - but if you're going to complain about imprecise accusations, it's fair to ask for precision in the complaint.
Motte: Hamas killed children horribly.
Bailey: Hamas decapitated 40 babies.
It's entirely fair to object to those two claims being blurred and conflated. But it's the same kind of dishonest to fudge the lines between:
Motte: A soldier said "They cut head off children."
Bailey: An IDF spokesman said 40 babies were decapitated.
I haven't seen anything that convinces me that they cut the head off of even one person, nevermind any babies -- so your second motte is still a lie AFAIC.
Also I think you are overlooking how media ops work -- the thing is kicked off by some official-ish motte like 'i saw babies, toddlers and women decapitated -- there were forty dead babies taken out of there' and then other operatives working for the same org promulgate the bailey version specifically, citing the motte and drumming up fear and outrage.
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