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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8514 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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One of my bullshit detector modes is applying the "Cui bono?" rule: If true, who benefits from it?

I don't see a tactical or political advantage for Israel to be doing this as a matter of policy: Committing high-value troops to take out low-value targets? And certain carry a highly negative publicity penalty? What's Israel's ROI on assassinating pre-teens?

On the other hand, we know that Israel's enemies love to play the Victim PR game, exaggerating and even inventing tragedies that cast a shadow on Israel's claim of moral legitimacy. What's the Hamas ROI on shooting a few of their kids in the head if it means widespread outrage aimed at Israel? While it's hard for me to imagine such a craven tactic*, Hamas has more to gain from this than Israel does. If they're faking the shootings, the ROI for them goes up even more.

  • I also can't imagine the craven tactic of positioning military assets in schools and hospitals, but we know Hamas does this and that Israel appears to take greater care to avoid civilian casualties. So these priors also lean me further toward: "If it's happening, Hamas is doing it." Alternatively, it could be a rogue Israeli soldier who has snapped, but seems unlikely to be a sanctioned military effort.

There is not much PR value in publicly declaring your support for inserting sticks into prisoner's rectums, but Israeli politicians do it anyway. One can only imagine what this fellow says in private.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-idf-palestinian-prisoner-alleged-rape-sde-teinman-abuse-protest/

Why is it so hard to believe that many Israelis really hate Palestinians, that your natural thought is not 'Oh the Israeli soldier shot the enemy civilian' but 'Hamas is shooting their own children in the head to make Israel look bad'?

Hatred is a thing. In Israel, hatred clearly has a constituency, votes and gets elected. It follows that they are also in the military.

It is very unlikely to be a sanctioned tactic. I hope no one read my post as implying such. What’s more likely, IMO, is that an extremist element of Israeli society has entered the military and is committing atrocities unpunished. This already occurred with the craven sexual torture of Hamas prisoners of war, tacitly approved by leading “far right” Israeli politicians who lobbied for the perpetrators to go unpunished. And the calls for these extremist actions have been made by a Rabbi who specifically trains up orthodox Jewish soldiers.

I have a hard time buying that IDF leadership is directly instructing its soldiers to shoot young children on sight, but, per your clarification, I absolutely believe that if a minority of IDF soldiers were doing this in a fit of rage and frustration, IDF leadership would probably look the other way unless it became really egregious.

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