Gaza War, Part 3

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I couldn't get through the NY Times article. The brutalization of women was planned and carried out in multiple locations on 10/7. Not only is Hamas and its supporters a death cult but it is filled with rapists.

Where were the protests, the signs, the marches for these women? Michelle "bring back our girls" Obama? Susan Sarandon? UN Women? It's like rape has become fashionable again when the victims are Jews.

The sexual abuse of women on 10/7 or on any other day is horrific and disgusting. I'm sure everyone here wishes none of that ever happened.

It's sad that the initial reports were met with guarded skepticism, but consider that we were also told that 40 babies were beheaded, a baby was baked in an oven, and dead babies were found hanging on a clothesline. These stories proved to be untrue. The more lurid and preposterous the claim, the less likely it was to be true, even though some assertions were allegedly based on "eyewitness testimonies" (which were later retracted). We also heard that Palestinian militants had burned many people alive. It turned out, and Israelis who observed the events of the day confirmed this, that in fact the IDF had done most, if not all, of the burning, including burning hundreds of Palestinian militants to death (as has been pointed out, they "did not burn themselves").

Unfortunately, Israel is currently led by some ethically challenged people. To put it bluntly, they lie. A lot. Given Israel's lack of credibility, it would be naive to unquestioningly accept any of its assertions. Israel's moral challenges also make it difficult to believe so-called confessions of rape by captured militants. Israel beats "confessions" out of its detainees, so these "admissions" cannot be assumed to be valid in every case.

Additionally, there is no available forensic evidence of rape. In a Times of Israel report, it is claimed that "physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses by Israel’s overtaxed morgue facilities." Additionally, "the government has not released explicit footage or pressed rape survivors to share their stories. Nor have the forensic services released formal reports on whether their findings were consistent with sexual abuse."
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/).

I think it likely that, sadly, women were raped on 10/7. I think it equally likely that some of the rape stories we have been told are fabricated. It would be entirely out of character for Israel not to lie about rape, given that it has lied about virtually everything else and is particularly prone to lying about being victimized.

Wow. To me, a non-Israeli and non-Jew, this just reads as horrific sexual rape and torture apologia. I find your entire screed genuinely chilling. You probably don’t even care how vicious you sound, but it’s awful.

You know what I did immediately after 10/7? I went to Hamas’ own telegram channels and watched their own videos, which they kept up until they realized how bad it made them look. You obviously did not and obviously don’t care anyhow, given that the victims were Jewish. I will never forget what I saw. Never.

Did you see any videos portraying rape on the Hamas channels? I am genuinely curious.

Your assessment of my sentiments is entirely incorrect. I have never apologized for rape or torture, and I clearly call sexual abuse "horrific and disgusting," so your conclusions are unfounded. When I point out that the claims of babies being beheaded and hung on clotheslines are false (as in, people lied), this does not mean I don't care about beheading babies or hanging them up with the laundry (in truth, I strenuously object to roasting children or pinning them, either dead or alive, to clotheslines.) It means I have a commitment to the truth. Similarly, I am not detracting from the severity of rape when I point out that Israel has very little credibility, so it would be naive to blindly believe everything it claims (I did acknowledge that I think some of the claims are probably accurate). Perhaps you could try to separate my disinclination to embrace lies as support for whatever is being lied about?

If someone tells you that they met Elvis last Monday and Bigfoot last Tuesday, you could be excused for being a little skeptical if they told you they met Justin Bieber on Wednesday. While it's possible the latest claim is true, one might wonder if this person is prone to hallucinating or is perhaps just plain telling porkie pies.

If I may say so, it seems to me people with an agenda are being rather theatrical and performative about some of Israel's claims. We were all expected to work ourselves into a lather, despise Palestinians, embrace Israel unconditionally, celebrate massacring children in Gaza, and fall about clutching our pearls and collapsing on the fainting couch because Hamas baked a baby in an oven and hung dead babies on a clothesline, except ... that didn't happen. Why would we be stupid enough to blindly believe anything else Israel claims after that? And why would proof of such extreme stupidity be "chilling" or "vicious"? And why would one's very well-founded skepticism indicate lack of sympathy for the victims in the unlikely event something Israel claims actually turns out to be true?

Terrible, cruel, and unjust things undoubtedly happened on 10/7. I don't think anyone denies that. However, the Israeli authorities lie so compulsively that one would have to be extremely dull-witted or childlike not to want some independent verification of anything they tell you.

That’s a lot of words to say “I’m a vicious anti-Semite who freely uses the most ancient of anti-Semitic tropes.”

Do you realize just how awful you sound to rational people who aren’t gleefully stewing in anti-Semitism day in and day out? I’m genuinely curious, to quote you.

- non-Jew, since obviously if I were Jewish you’d start going on about the protocols of Zion or whatever. And I feel dirty even talking to you, like I’m giving credence to someone who would have watched the Hamas videos for fun.

You may be surprised to learn that I am a secular Ashkenazi Jew, but that's neither here nor there. Many orthodox Jews oppose Zionism in general and the current Israeli government in particular. Don't let that get in the way of trying to win a cheap point by screeching about antisemitism (which is antisemitic in itself).

What is relevant is that nobody has answered my question about rape videos. Do they or don't they exist? And why do you throw up smokescreens of insults rather than trying to address my arguments? Well, we know why, but couldn't you at least try to be honest enough to address my actual statements instead of lying about them? When you so obviously lie about and misrepresent what I have said, why do you expect me to naively believe anything else you might say?

Nobody has addressed my point about the lying. Given that the 40 beheaded babies/baby baked in an oven/babies on clotheslines stories were, well, flat-out lies, why is is "antisemitic" to wonder how true similar stories might be? It's the lying, stupid. When someone lies and lies and then lies some more, you start to wonder about the credibility of every story they tell. Kind of like when someone screams "antisemitism" again and again and again some more, you start to wonder if maybe they're trying to bury the truth under all that faux indignation and hysteria. Prove me wrong. Show you have some integrity and explain to me why I should believe the chopped-off-breast story when so many other stories have turned out to be lies. What differentiates that story from the babies-on-clotheslines story? Why would it be unreasonable to want some sort of verification, given that so many of these stories turned out to be false?

And please don't tell me I'm "denying atrocities" because I "hate Jews" or any similar dishonest and evasive craziness. I acknowledge that atrocities occurred. I even said I think there were probably rapes and that rape is "horrific." I am not dismissing unverified claims. Some may very well be true. Under the circumstances, however, I would simply like to see some sort of authentication before I make up my mind one way or the other. What is your problem with that?

Since you’re so fixated about the lying, let’s start with your lies first. Give me hard and solid proof that Israel — specifically Israel, not an individual Jew unless you are taking the position that one Jew speaks for all of Israel — but that “Israel” (your words) said that there were specifically 40 beheaded babies, a baby baked in an oven, and a baby on a clothesline. Show me where “Israel” as a single entity lied repeatedly about every single one of these, because that’s your assertion: that “Israel,” not an individual, not an entity in Israel, not an individual Jewish reporter, not a Jewish extremist, not even the IDF, but that “Israel” itself lies. So show me that proof. Find me the evidence that singular Israel collectively and repeatedly lied. You say it happened as a fact and you’ve repeated that “fact” over and over. So show me your mountains of evidence.

Spoiler alert: you are lying.

And yes. I will call out antisemitism when I see it, and it’s profoundly antisemitic to repeatedly and chillingly talk about how “Israel” lies all the time. That is the most ancient of antisemitic tropes and your anger at being identified for using that trope is not my problem.

Well, that's easy. Poor, old Biden (of whom I am inordinately fond, but I think he needs to step down) shuffled home from Israel talking about beheaded babies after meeting with Netanyahu, who speaks for ... Israel. Netanyahu also showed Blinken photographs of the charred remains of a child, leading him to believe the child was burned by Hamas. We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military. This article provides more details: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-28/ty-article/.highlight/in-a-perfect-storm-of-deceit-and-denial-netanyahus-lies-start-to-collide/00000189-98fa-d5eb-abcb-f9fe850c0000
And more of the same: https://hebhjamal.substack.com/p/a-list-of-israeli-lies-propaganda

Israel has discredited itself. Recent polls in Israel show that Israelis increasingly distrust Netanyahu. His ratings are plummeting and his nationalist base is beginning to desert him. There's a better than zero chance he may end up in jail on corruption charges, which might be the best thing to happen to Israel in a long time.

Why are you spreading false Hamas propaganda, and wild conspiracy theories that 10/7 was some kind of false flag staged by the IDF?

Now I'm truly puzzled. Where do I claim that 10/7 was staged by the IDF? This is (yawn) another straw man. Let me guess -- you will follow up with another ad hominem? Can I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF AND also believe that the babies on a clothes line stories is untrue? Or are you insisting that IF I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF, I must ALSO believe the babies-on-a-clothesline IS true? Do you understand that, as someone above just pointed out, two claims need not be mutually exclusive?

Wow. You really are a piece of work. Right above this,

"We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military."

Unreal that anyone would try and claim that the 10/7 violence was Israeli military when we have HOURS AND HOURS of Hamas video showing it was in fact Hamas.

Stop playing dumb games here. You are really failing badly here.

She has no evidence that the IDF did any of the burning of Israel civilians just like she has no evidence that IDF stated “40 beheaded babies” anywhere. I hate calling her a she, because that would imply that she could potentially be a mother, and that would be the greatest tragedy.

There is ample evidence that “some” of the 10/7 damage was caused by IDF. That evidence is witness reports of helicopter and tank fire, the damage that can only be caused by tank and helicopter shelling, and burned bodies of Hamas militants who most assuredly did not self immolate.

What there is evidence of is that IDF responded to the Hamas attack on 10/7, killed many of the Hamas attackers, and that a few civilians were caught in the crossfire. But what there is NOT evidence of is that IDF was somehow responsible for a majority of the Israelis killed and burned. And again, there would have been ZERO people killed and burned if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7. Hamas was, and still is the party responsible for the violence. And, the bombing would end if Hamas capitulated and surrendered. No amount of "but Israel..." will change that. None.

Not the person you're responding to but to throw in my two cents. Israeli leaders have been caught out lying so many times that they have earned widespread distrust (including from many Israelis). This is NOT the same as pretending Hamas is all sweetness and light. It simply means many of us don't take every story coming out of Israel at face value.

How to apportion responsibility for the current tragic situation is a different but worthy debate. It has been percolating for a very long time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Jews were not the only victims of Hamas on 10/7, so how can you infer that PP is being antisemitic?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Those Palestinian children would still be alive today if Hamas hadn't brutally and violently raped and tortured and murdered and mutilated its way through 3 dozen towns in southwest Israel. For me that's a vastly more important point than "who remembered what and in how much detail."

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Oh, brother! Another straw man! I'm losing interest and patience, but ... what Hamas "false claims and conspiracy theories" have I supposedly repeated? I've been calling Israel out about "false claims and conspiracy theories" (like the beheaded babies, etc.). Can you understand that many of think Israel is currently run by a bunch of fascists AND Hamas is a thoroughly unsavory enterprise? A AND B is not the same as A OR B.

It’s remarkable how often you post that you are losing patience yet continue to come back to spread straight-up Hamas propaganda.

I keep hoping in vain that one of the nitwits posting these claims will actually argue intelligently and in good faith. You have dashed my hopes with another stupid and dishonest assertion. Please at least reflect on this: A AND B ARE BOTH TRUE is not the same as ONLY EITHER A OR B CAN BE TRUE. If you can understand this, you might begin to develop the ability to see nuance.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I couldn't get through the NY Times article. The brutalization of women was planned and carried out in multiple locations on 10/7. Not only is Hamas and its supporters a death cult but it is filled with rapists.

Where were the protests, the signs, the marches for these women? Michelle "bring back our girls" Obama? Susan Sarandon? UN Women? It's like rape has become fashionable again when the victims are Jews.

The sexual abuse of women on 10/7 or on any other day is horrific and disgusting. I'm sure everyone here wishes none of that ever happened.

It's sad that the initial reports were met with guarded skepticism, but consider that we were also told that 40 babies were beheaded, a baby was baked in an oven, and dead babies were found hanging on a clothesline. These stories proved to be untrue. The more lurid and preposterous the claim, the less likely it was to be true, even though some assertions were allegedly based on "eyewitness testimonies" (which were later retracted). We also heard that Palestinian militants had burned many people alive. It turned out, and Israelis who observed the events of the day confirmed this, that in fact the IDF had done most, if not all, of the burning, including burning hundreds of Palestinian militants to death (as has been pointed out, they "did not burn themselves").

Unfortunately, Israel is currently led by some ethically challenged people. To put it bluntly, they lie. A lot. Given Israel's lack of credibility, it would be naive to unquestioningly accept any of its assertions. Israel's moral challenges also make it difficult to believe so-called confessions of rape by captured militants. Israel beats "confessions" out of its detainees, so these "admissions" cannot be assumed to be valid in every case.

Additionally, there is no available forensic evidence of rape. In a Times of Israel report, it is claimed that "physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses by Israel’s overtaxed morgue facilities." Additionally, "the government has not released explicit footage or pressed rape survivors to share their stories. Nor have the forensic services released formal reports on whether their findings were consistent with sexual abuse."
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/).

I think it likely that, sadly, women were raped on 10/7. I think it equally likely that some of the rape stories we have been told are fabricated. It would be entirely out of character for Israel not to lie about rape, given that it has lied about virtually everything else and is particularly prone to lying about being victimized.

Wow. To me, a non-Israeli and non-Jew, this just reads as horrific sexual rape and torture apologia. I find your entire screed genuinely chilling. You probably don’t even care how vicious you sound, but it’s awful.

You know what I did immediately after 10/7? I went to Hamas’ own telegram channels and watched their own videos, which they kept up until they realized how bad it made them look. You obviously did not and obviously don’t care anyhow, given that the victims were Jewish. I will never forget what I saw. Never.

Did you see any videos portraying rape on the Hamas channels? I am genuinely curious.

Your assessment of my sentiments is entirely incorrect. I have never apologized for rape or torture, and I clearly call sexual abuse "horrific and disgusting," so your conclusions are unfounded. When I point out that the claims of babies being beheaded and hung on clotheslines are false (as in, people lied), this does not mean I don't care about beheading babies or hanging them up with the laundry (in truth, I strenuously object to roasting children or pinning them, either dead or alive, to clotheslines.) It means I have a commitment to the truth. Similarly, I am not detracting from the severity of rape when I point out that Israel has very little credibility, so it would be naive to blindly believe everything it claims (I did acknowledge that I think some of the claims are probably accurate). Perhaps you could try to separate my disinclination to embrace lies as support for whatever is being lied about?

If someone tells you that they met Elvis last Monday and Bigfoot last Tuesday, you could be excused for being a little skeptical if they told you they met Justin Bieber on Wednesday. While it's possible the latest claim is true, one might wonder if this person is prone to hallucinating or is perhaps just plain telling porkie pies.

If I may say so, it seems to me people with an agenda are being rather theatrical and performative about some of Israel's claims. We were all expected to work ourselves into a lather, despise Palestinians, embrace Israel unconditionally, celebrate massacring children in Gaza, and fall about clutching our pearls and collapsing on the fainting couch because Hamas baked a baby in an oven and hung dead babies on a clothesline, except ... that didn't happen. Why would we be stupid enough to blindly believe anything else Israel claims after that? And why would proof of such extreme stupidity be "chilling" or "vicious"? And why would one's very well-founded skepticism indicate lack of sympathy for the victims in the unlikely event something Israel claims actually turns out to be true?

Terrible, cruel, and unjust things undoubtedly happened on 10/7. I don't think anyone denies that. However, the Israeli authorities lie so compulsively that one would have to be extremely dull-witted or childlike not to want some independent verification of anything they tell you.

That’s a lot of words to say “I’m a vicious anti-Semite who freely uses the most ancient of anti-Semitic tropes.”

Do you realize just how awful you sound to rational people who aren’t gleefully stewing in anti-Semitism day in and day out? I’m genuinely curious, to quote you.

- non-Jew, since obviously if I were Jewish you’d start going on about the protocols of Zion or whatever. And I feel dirty even talking to you, like I’m giving credence to someone who would have watched the Hamas videos for fun.

You may be surprised to learn that I am a secular Ashkenazi Jew, but that's neither here nor there. Many orthodox Jews oppose Zionism in general and the current Israeli government in particular. Don't let that get in the way of trying to win a cheap point by screeching about antisemitism (which is antisemitic in itself).

What is relevant is that nobody has answered my question about rape videos. Do they or don't they exist? And why do you throw up smokescreens of insults rather than trying to address my arguments? Well, we know why, but couldn't you at least try to be honest enough to address my actual statements instead of lying about them? When you so obviously lie about and misrepresent what I have said, why do you expect me to naively believe anything else you might say?

Nobody has addressed my point about the lying. Given that the 40 beheaded babies/baby baked in an oven/babies on clotheslines stories were, well, flat-out lies, why is is "antisemitic" to wonder how true similar stories might be? It's the lying, stupid. When someone lies and lies and then lies some more, you start to wonder about the credibility of every story they tell. Kind of like when someone screams "antisemitism" again and again and again some more, you start to wonder if maybe they're trying to bury the truth under all that faux indignation and hysteria. Prove me wrong. Show you have some integrity and explain to me why I should believe the chopped-off-breast story when so many other stories have turned out to be lies. What differentiates that story from the babies-on-clotheslines story? Why would it be unreasonable to want some sort of verification, given that so many of these stories turned out to be false?

And please don't tell me I'm "denying atrocities" because I "hate Jews" or any similar dishonest and evasive craziness. I acknowledge that atrocities occurred. I even said I think there were probably rapes and that rape is "horrific." I am not dismissing unverified claims. Some may very well be true. Under the circumstances, however, I would simply like to see some sort of authentication before I make up my mind one way or the other. What is your problem with that?

Since you’re so fixated about the lying, let’s start with your lies first. Give me hard and solid proof that Israel — specifically Israel, not an individual Jew unless you are taking the position that one Jew speaks for all of Israel — but that “Israel” (your words) said that there were specifically 40 beheaded babies, a baby baked in an oven, and a baby on a clothesline. Show me where “Israel” as a single entity lied repeatedly about every single one of these, because that’s your assertion: that “Israel,” not an individual, not an entity in Israel, not an individual Jewish reporter, not a Jewish extremist, not even the IDF, but that “Israel” itself lies. So show me that proof. Find me the evidence that singular Israel collectively and repeatedly lied. You say it happened as a fact and you’ve repeated that “fact” over and over. So show me your mountains of evidence.

Spoiler alert: you are lying.

And yes. I will call out antisemitism when I see it, and it’s profoundly antisemitic to repeatedly and chillingly talk about how “Israel” lies all the time. That is the most ancient of antisemitic tropes and your anger at being identified for using that trope is not my problem.

Well, that's easy. Poor, old Biden (of whom I am inordinately fond, but I think he needs to step down) shuffled home from Israel talking about beheaded babies after meeting with Netanyahu, who speaks for ... Israel. Netanyahu also showed Blinken photographs of the charred remains of a child, leading him to believe the child was burned by Hamas. We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military. This article provides more details: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-28/ty-article/.highlight/in-a-perfect-storm-of-deceit-and-denial-netanyahus-lies-start-to-collide/00000189-98fa-d5eb-abcb-f9fe850c0000
And more of the same: https://hebhjamal.substack.com/p/a-list-of-israeli-lies-propaganda

Israel has discredited itself. Recent polls in Israel show that Israelis increasingly distrust Netanyahu. His ratings are plummeting and his nationalist base is beginning to desert him. There's a better than zero chance he may end up in jail on corruption charges, which might be the best thing to happen to Israel in a long time.

Why are you spreading false Hamas propaganda, and wild conspiracy theories that 10/7 was some kind of false flag staged by the IDF?

Now I'm truly puzzled. Where do I claim that 10/7 was staged by the IDF? This is (yawn) another straw man. Let me guess -- you will follow up with another ad hominem? Can I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF AND also believe that the babies on a clothes line stories is untrue? Or are you insisting that IF I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF, I must ALSO believe the babies-on-a-clothesline IS true? Do you understand that, as someone above just pointed out, two claims need not be mutually exclusive?

Wow. You really are a piece of work. Right above this,

"We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military."

Unreal that anyone would try and claim that the 10/7 violence was Israeli military when we have HOURS AND HOURS of Hamas video showing it was in fact Hamas.

Stop playing dumb games here. You are really failing badly here.

She has no evidence that the IDF did any of the burning of Israel civilians just like she has no evidence that IDF stated “40 beheaded babies” anywhere. I hate calling her a she, because that would imply that she could potentially be a mother, and that would be the greatest tragedy.

There is ample evidence that “some” of the 10/7 damage was caused by IDF. That evidence is witness reports of helicopter and tank fire, the damage that can only be caused by tank and helicopter shelling, and burned bodies of Hamas militants who most assuredly did not self immolate.

What there is evidence of is that IDF responded to the Hamas attack on 10/7, killed many of the Hamas attackers, and that a few civilians were caught in the crossfire. But what there is NOT evidence of is that IDF was somehow responsible for a majority of the Israelis killed and burned. And again, there would have been ZERO people killed and burned if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7. Hamas was, and still is the party responsible for the violence. And, the bombing would end if Hamas capitulated and surrendered. No amount of "but Israel..." will change that. None.

Not the person you're responding to but to throw in my two cents. Israeli leaders have been caught out lying so many times that they have earned widespread distrust (including from many Israelis). This is NOT the same as pretending Hamas is all sweetness and light. It simply means many of us don't take every story coming out of Israel at face value.

How to apportion responsibility for the current tragic situation is a different but worthy debate. It has been percolating for a very long time.

Yes, both sides lied. And continue to lie. But that doesn't change the fact that Hamas is still the primary party responsible for the violence and fallout. None of this would have happened if Hamas hadn't engaged in its violent attack on 10/7.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't get through the NY Times article. The brutalization of women was planned and carried out in multiple locations on 10/7. Not only is Hamas and its supporters a death cult but it is filled with rapists.

Where were the protests, the signs, the marches for these women? Michelle "bring back our girls" Obama? Susan Sarandon? UN Women? It's like rape has become fashionable again when the victims are Jews.

The sexual abuse of women on 10/7 or on any other day is horrific and disgusting. I'm sure everyone here wishes none of that ever happened.

It's sad that the initial reports were met with guarded skepticism, but consider that we were also told that 40 babies were beheaded, a baby was baked in an oven, and dead babies were found hanging on a clothesline. These stories proved to be untrue. The more lurid and preposterous the claim, the less likely it was to be true, even though some assertions were allegedly based on "eyewitness testimonies" (which were later retracted). We also heard that Palestinian militants had burned many people alive. It turned out, and Israelis who observed the events of the day confirmed this, that in fact the IDF had done most, if not all, of the burning, including burning hundreds of Palestinian militants to death (as has been pointed out, they "did not burn themselves").

Unfortunately, Israel is currently led by some ethically challenged people. To put it bluntly, they lie. A lot. Given Israel's lack of credibility, it would be naive to unquestioningly accept any of its assertions. Israel's moral challenges also make it difficult to believe so-called confessions of rape by captured militants. Israel beats "confessions" out of its detainees, so these "admissions" cannot be assumed to be valid in every case.

Additionally, there is no available forensic evidence of rape. In a Times of Israel report, it is claimed that "physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses by Israel’s overtaxed morgue facilities." Additionally, "the government has not released explicit footage or pressed rape survivors to share their stories. Nor have the forensic services released formal reports on whether their findings were consistent with sexual abuse."
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/).

I think it likely that, sadly, women were raped on 10/7. I think it equally likely that some of the rape stories we have been told are fabricated. It would be entirely out of character for Israel not to lie about rape, given that it has lied about virtually everything else and is particularly prone to lying about being victimized.

Wow. To me, a non-Israeli and non-Jew, this just reads as horrific sexual rape and torture apologia. I find your entire screed genuinely chilling. You probably don’t even care how vicious you sound, but it’s awful.

You know what I did immediately after 10/7? I went to Hamas’ own telegram channels and watched their own videos, which they kept up until they realized how bad it made them look. You obviously did not and obviously don’t care anyhow, given that the victims were Jewish. I will never forget what I saw. Never.

Did you see any videos portraying rape on the Hamas channels? I am genuinely curious.

Your assessment of my sentiments is entirely incorrect. I have never apologized for rape or torture, and I clearly call sexual abuse "horrific and disgusting," so your conclusions are unfounded. When I point out that the claims of babies being beheaded and hung on clotheslines are false (as in, people lied), this does not mean I don't care about beheading babies or hanging them up with the laundry (in truth, I strenuously object to roasting children or pinning them, either dead or alive, to clotheslines.) It means I have a commitment to the truth. Similarly, I am not detracting from the severity of rape when I point out that Israel has very little credibility, so it would be naive to blindly believe everything it claims (I did acknowledge that I think some of the claims are probably accurate). Perhaps you could try to separate my disinclination to embrace lies as support for whatever is being lied about?

If someone tells you that they met Elvis last Monday and Bigfoot last Tuesday, you could be excused for being a little skeptical if they told you they met Justin Bieber on Wednesday. While it's possible the latest claim is true, one might wonder if this person is prone to hallucinating or is perhaps just plain telling porkie pies.

If I may say so, it seems to me people with an agenda are being rather theatrical and performative about some of Israel's claims. We were all expected to work ourselves into a lather, despise Palestinians, embrace Israel unconditionally, celebrate massacring children in Gaza, and fall about clutching our pearls and collapsing on the fainting couch because Hamas baked a baby in an oven and hung dead babies on a clothesline, except ... that didn't happen. Why would we be stupid enough to blindly believe anything else Israel claims after that? And why would proof of such extreme stupidity be "chilling" or "vicious"? And why would one's very well-founded skepticism indicate lack of sympathy for the victims in the unlikely event something Israel claims actually turns out to be true?

Terrible, cruel, and unjust things undoubtedly happened on 10/7. I don't think anyone denies that. However, the Israeli authorities lie so compulsively that one would have to be extremely dull-witted or childlike not to want some independent verification of anything they tell you.

That’s a lot of words to say “I’m a vicious anti-Semite who freely uses the most ancient of anti-Semitic tropes.”

Do you realize just how awful you sound to rational people who aren’t gleefully stewing in anti-Semitism day in and day out? I’m genuinely curious, to quote you.

- non-Jew, since obviously if I were Jewish you’d start going on about the protocols of Zion or whatever. And I feel dirty even talking to you, like I’m giving credence to someone who would have watched the Hamas videos for fun.

You may be surprised to learn that I am a secular Ashkenazi Jew, but that's neither here nor there. Many orthodox Jews oppose Zionism in general and the current Israeli government in particular. Don't let that get in the way of trying to win a cheap point by screeching about antisemitism (which is antisemitic in itself).

What is relevant is that nobody has answered my question about rape videos. Do they or don't they exist? And why do you throw up smokescreens of insults rather than trying to address my arguments? Well, we know why, but couldn't you at least try to be honest enough to address my actual statements instead of lying about them? When you so obviously lie about and misrepresent what I have said, why do you expect me to naively believe anything else you might say?

Nobody has addressed my point about the lying. Given that the 40 beheaded babies/baby baked in an oven/babies on clotheslines stories were, well, flat-out lies, why is is "antisemitic" to wonder how true similar stories might be? It's the lying, stupid. When someone lies and lies and then lies some more, you start to wonder about the credibility of every story they tell. Kind of like when someone screams "antisemitism" again and again and again some more, you start to wonder if maybe they're trying to bury the truth under all that faux indignation and hysteria. Prove me wrong. Show you have some integrity and explain to me why I should believe the chopped-off-breast story when so many other stories have turned out to be lies. What differentiates that story from the babies-on-clotheslines story? Why would it be unreasonable to want some sort of verification, given that so many of these stories turned out to be false?

And please don't tell me I'm "denying atrocities" because I "hate Jews" or any similar dishonest and evasive craziness. I acknowledge that atrocities occurred. I even said I think there were probably rapes and that rape is "horrific." I am not dismissing unverified claims. Some may very well be true. Under the circumstances, however, I would simply like to see some sort of authentication before I make up my mind one way or the other. What is your problem with that?

Since you’re so fixated about the lying, let’s start with your lies first. Give me hard and solid proof that Israel — specifically Israel, not an individual Jew unless you are taking the position that one Jew speaks for all of Israel — but that “Israel” (your words) said that there were specifically 40 beheaded babies, a baby baked in an oven, and a baby on a clothesline. Show me where “Israel” as a single entity lied repeatedly about every single one of these, because that’s your assertion: that “Israel,” not an individual, not an entity in Israel, not an individual Jewish reporter, not a Jewish extremist, not even the IDF, but that “Israel” itself lies. So show me that proof. Find me the evidence that singular Israel collectively and repeatedly lied. You say it happened as a fact and you’ve repeated that “fact” over and over. So show me your mountains of evidence.

Spoiler alert: you are lying.

And yes. I will call out antisemitism when I see it, and it’s profoundly antisemitic to repeatedly and chillingly talk about how “Israel” lies all the time. That is the most ancient of antisemitic tropes and your anger at being identified for using that trope is not my problem.

Well, that's easy. Poor, old Biden (of whom I am inordinately fond, but I think he needs to step down) shuffled home from Israel talking about beheaded babies after meeting with Netanyahu, who speaks for ... Israel. Netanyahu also showed Blinken photographs of the charred remains of a child, leading him to believe the child was burned by Hamas. We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military. This article provides more details: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-28/ty-article/.highlight/in-a-perfect-storm-of-deceit-and-denial-netanyahus-lies-start-to-collide/00000189-98fa-d5eb-abcb-f9fe850c0000
And more of the same: https://hebhjamal.substack.com/p/a-list-of-israeli-lies-propaganda

Israel has discredited itself. Recent polls in Israel show that Israelis increasingly distrust Netanyahu. His ratings are plummeting and his nationalist base is beginning to desert him. There's a better than zero chance he may end up in jail on corruption charges, which might be the best thing to happen to Israel in a long time.

Why are you spreading false Hamas propaganda, and wild conspiracy theories that 10/7 was some kind of false flag staged by the IDF?

Now I'm truly puzzled. Where do I claim that 10/7 was staged by the IDF? This is (yawn) another straw man. Let me guess -- you will follow up with another ad hominem? Can I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF AND also believe that the babies on a clothes line stories is untrue? Or are you insisting that IF I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF, I must ALSO believe the babies-on-a-clothesline IS true? Do you understand that, as someone above just pointed out, two claims need not be mutually exclusive?

Wow. You really are a piece of work. Right above this,

"We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military."

Unreal that anyone would try and claim that the 10/7 violence was Israeli military when we have HOURS AND HOURS of Hamas video showing it was in fact Hamas.

Stop playing dumb games here. You are really failing badly here.

She has no evidence that the IDF did any of the burning of Israel civilians just like she has no evidence that IDF stated “40 beheaded babies” anywhere. I hate calling her a she, because that would imply that she could potentially be a mother, and that would be the greatest tragedy.

There is ample evidence that “some” of the 10/7 damage was caused by IDF. That evidence is witness reports of helicopter and tank fire, the damage that can only be caused by tank and helicopter shelling, and burned bodies of Hamas militants who most assuredly did not self immolate.

What there is evidence of is that IDF responded to the Hamas attack on 10/7, killed many of the Hamas attackers, and that a few civilians were caught in the crossfire. But what there is NOT evidence of is that IDF was somehow responsible for a majority of the Israelis killed and burned. And again, there would have been ZERO people killed and burned if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7. Hamas was, and still is the party responsible for the violence. And, the bombing would end if Hamas capitulated and surrendered. No amount of "but Israel..." will change that. None.

Not the person you're responding to but to throw in my two cents. Israeli leaders have been caught out lying so many times that they have earned widespread distrust (including from many Israelis). This is NOT the same as pretending Hamas is all sweetness and light. It simply means many of us don't take every story coming out of Israel at face value.

How to apportion responsibility for the current tragic situation is a different but worthy debate. It has been percolating for a very long time.

Yes, both sides lied. And continue to lie. But that doesn't change the fact that Hamas is still the primary party responsible for the violence and fallout. None of this would have happened if Hamas hadn't engaged in its violent attack on 10/7.

Given what Israeli settlers have been doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, we can't say for sure that this wouldn't have happened if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't get through the NY Times article. The brutalization of women was planned and carried out in multiple locations on 10/7. Not only is Hamas and its supporters a death cult but it is filled with rapists.

Where were the protests, the signs, the marches for these women? Michelle "bring back our girls" Obama? Susan Sarandon? UN Women? It's like rape has become fashionable again when the victims are Jews.

The sexual abuse of women on 10/7 or on any other day is horrific and disgusting. I'm sure everyone here wishes none of that ever happened.

It's sad that the initial reports were met with guarded skepticism, but consider that we were also told that 40 babies were beheaded, a baby was baked in an oven, and dead babies were found hanging on a clothesline. These stories proved to be untrue. The more lurid and preposterous the claim, the less likely it was to be true, even though some assertions were allegedly based on "eyewitness testimonies" (which were later retracted). We also heard that Palestinian militants had burned many people alive. It turned out, and Israelis who observed the events of the day confirmed this, that in fact the IDF had done most, if not all, of the burning, including burning hundreds of Palestinian militants to death (as has been pointed out, they "did not burn themselves").

Unfortunately, Israel is currently led by some ethically challenged people. To put it bluntly, they lie. A lot. Given Israel's lack of credibility, it would be naive to unquestioningly accept any of its assertions. Israel's moral challenges also make it difficult to believe so-called confessions of rape by captured militants. Israel beats "confessions" out of its detainees, so these "admissions" cannot be assumed to be valid in every case.

Additionally, there is no available forensic evidence of rape. In a Times of Israel report, it is claimed that "physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses by Israel’s overtaxed morgue facilities." Additionally, "the government has not released explicit footage or pressed rape survivors to share their stories. Nor have the forensic services released formal reports on whether their findings were consistent with sexual abuse."
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/).

I think it likely that, sadly, women were raped on 10/7. I think it equally likely that some of the rape stories we have been told are fabricated. It would be entirely out of character for Israel not to lie about rape, given that it has lied about virtually everything else and is particularly prone to lying about being victimized.

Wow. To me, a non-Israeli and non-Jew, this just reads as horrific sexual rape and torture apologia. I find your entire screed genuinely chilling. You probably don’t even care how vicious you sound, but it’s awful.

You know what I did immediately after 10/7? I went to Hamas’ own telegram channels and watched their own videos, which they kept up until they realized how bad it made them look. You obviously did not and obviously don’t care anyhow, given that the victims were Jewish. I will never forget what I saw. Never.

Did you see any videos portraying rape on the Hamas channels? I am genuinely curious.

Your assessment of my sentiments is entirely incorrect. I have never apologized for rape or torture, and I clearly call sexual abuse "horrific and disgusting," so your conclusions are unfounded. When I point out that the claims of babies being beheaded and hung on clotheslines are false (as in, people lied), this does not mean I don't care about beheading babies or hanging them up with the laundry (in truth, I strenuously object to roasting children or pinning them, either dead or alive, to clotheslines.) It means I have a commitment to the truth. Similarly, I am not detracting from the severity of rape when I point out that Israel has very little credibility, so it would be naive to blindly believe everything it claims (I did acknowledge that I think some of the claims are probably accurate). Perhaps you could try to separate my disinclination to embrace lies as support for whatever is being lied about?

If someone tells you that they met Elvis last Monday and Bigfoot last Tuesday, you could be excused for being a little skeptical if they told you they met Justin Bieber on Wednesday. While it's possible the latest claim is true, one might wonder if this person is prone to hallucinating or is perhaps just plain telling porkie pies.

If I may say so, it seems to me people with an agenda are being rather theatrical and performative about some of Israel's claims. We were all expected to work ourselves into a lather, despise Palestinians, embrace Israel unconditionally, celebrate massacring children in Gaza, and fall about clutching our pearls and collapsing on the fainting couch because Hamas baked a baby in an oven and hung dead babies on a clothesline, except ... that didn't happen. Why would we be stupid enough to blindly believe anything else Israel claims after that? And why would proof of such extreme stupidity be "chilling" or "vicious"? And why would one's very well-founded skepticism indicate lack of sympathy for the victims in the unlikely event something Israel claims actually turns out to be true?

Terrible, cruel, and unjust things undoubtedly happened on 10/7. I don't think anyone denies that. However, the Israeli authorities lie so compulsively that one would have to be extremely dull-witted or childlike not to want some independent verification of anything they tell you.

That’s a lot of words to say “I’m a vicious anti-Semite who freely uses the most ancient of anti-Semitic tropes.”

Do you realize just how awful you sound to rational people who aren’t gleefully stewing in anti-Semitism day in and day out? I’m genuinely curious, to quote you.

- non-Jew, since obviously if I were Jewish you’d start going on about the protocols of Zion or whatever. And I feel dirty even talking to you, like I’m giving credence to someone who would have watched the Hamas videos for fun.

You may be surprised to learn that I am a secular Ashkenazi Jew, but that's neither here nor there. Many orthodox Jews oppose Zionism in general and the current Israeli government in particular. Don't let that get in the way of trying to win a cheap point by screeching about antisemitism (which is antisemitic in itself).

What is relevant is that nobody has answered my question about rape videos. Do they or don't they exist? And why do you throw up smokescreens of insults rather than trying to address my arguments? Well, we know why, but couldn't you at least try to be honest enough to address my actual statements instead of lying about them? When you so obviously lie about and misrepresent what I have said, why do you expect me to naively believe anything else you might say?

Nobody has addressed my point about the lying. Given that the 40 beheaded babies/baby baked in an oven/babies on clotheslines stories were, well, flat-out lies, why is is "antisemitic" to wonder how true similar stories might be? It's the lying, stupid. When someone lies and lies and then lies some more, you start to wonder about the credibility of every story they tell. Kind of like when someone screams "antisemitism" again and again and again some more, you start to wonder if maybe they're trying to bury the truth under all that faux indignation and hysteria. Prove me wrong. Show you have some integrity and explain to me why I should believe the chopped-off-breast story when so many other stories have turned out to be lies. What differentiates that story from the babies-on-clotheslines story? Why would it be unreasonable to want some sort of verification, given that so many of these stories turned out to be false?

And please don't tell me I'm "denying atrocities" because I "hate Jews" or any similar dishonest and evasive craziness. I acknowledge that atrocities occurred. I even said I think there were probably rapes and that rape is "horrific." I am not dismissing unverified claims. Some may very well be true. Under the circumstances, however, I would simply like to see some sort of authentication before I make up my mind one way or the other. What is your problem with that?

Since you’re so fixated about the lying, let’s start with your lies first. Give me hard and solid proof that Israel — specifically Israel, not an individual Jew unless you are taking the position that one Jew speaks for all of Israel — but that “Israel” (your words) said that there were specifically 40 beheaded babies, a baby baked in an oven, and a baby on a clothesline. Show me where “Israel” as a single entity lied repeatedly about every single one of these, because that’s your assertion: that “Israel,” not an individual, not an entity in Israel, not an individual Jewish reporter, not a Jewish extremist, not even the IDF, but that “Israel” itself lies. So show me that proof. Find me the evidence that singular Israel collectively and repeatedly lied. You say it happened as a fact and you’ve repeated that “fact” over and over. So show me your mountains of evidence.

Spoiler alert: you are lying.

And yes. I will call out antisemitism when I see it, and it’s profoundly antisemitic to repeatedly and chillingly talk about how “Israel” lies all the time. That is the most ancient of antisemitic tropes and your anger at being identified for using that trope is not my problem.

Well, that's easy. Poor, old Biden (of whom I am inordinately fond, but I think he needs to step down) shuffled home from Israel talking about beheaded babies after meeting with Netanyahu, who speaks for ... Israel. Netanyahu also showed Blinken photographs of the charred remains of a child, leading him to believe the child was burned by Hamas. We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military. This article provides more details: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-28/ty-article/.highlight/in-a-perfect-storm-of-deceit-and-denial-netanyahus-lies-start-to-collide/00000189-98fa-d5eb-abcb-f9fe850c0000
And more of the same: https://hebhjamal.substack.com/p/a-list-of-israeli-lies-propaganda

Israel has discredited itself. Recent polls in Israel show that Israelis increasingly distrust Netanyahu. His ratings are plummeting and his nationalist base is beginning to desert him. There's a better than zero chance he may end up in jail on corruption charges, which might be the best thing to happen to Israel in a long time.

Why are you spreading false Hamas propaganda, and wild conspiracy theories that 10/7 was some kind of false flag staged by the IDF?

Now I'm truly puzzled. Where do I claim that 10/7 was staged by the IDF? This is (yawn) another straw man. Let me guess -- you will follow up with another ad hominem? Can I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF AND also believe that the babies on a clothes line stories is untrue? Or are you insisting that IF I believe that 10/7 was NOT staged by the IDF, I must ALSO believe the babies-on-a-clothesline IS true? Do you understand that, as someone above just pointed out, two claims need not be mutually exclusive?

Wow. You really are a piece of work. Right above this,

"We now know that those burned on 10/7 were almost certainly burned by the Israeli military."

Unreal that anyone would try and claim that the 10/7 violence was Israeli military when we have HOURS AND HOURS of Hamas video showing it was in fact Hamas.

Stop playing dumb games here. You are really failing badly here.

She has no evidence that the IDF did any of the burning of Israel civilians just like she has no evidence that IDF stated “40 beheaded babies” anywhere. I hate calling her a she, because that would imply that she could potentially be a mother, and that would be the greatest tragedy.

There is ample evidence that “some” of the 10/7 damage was caused by IDF. That evidence is witness reports of helicopter and tank fire, the damage that can only be caused by tank and helicopter shelling, and burned bodies of Hamas militants who most assuredly did not self immolate.

What there is evidence of is that IDF responded to the Hamas attack on 10/7, killed many of the Hamas attackers, and that a few civilians were caught in the crossfire. But what there is NOT evidence of is that IDF was somehow responsible for a majority of the Israelis killed and burned. And again, there would have been ZERO people killed and burned if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7. Hamas was, and still is the party responsible for the violence. And, the bombing would end if Hamas capitulated and surrendered. No amount of "but Israel..." will change that. None.

Not the person you're responding to but to throw in my two cents. Israeli leaders have been caught out lying so many times that they have earned widespread distrust (including from many Israelis). This is NOT the same as pretending Hamas is all sweetness and light. It simply means many of us don't take every story coming out of Israel at face value.

How to apportion responsibility for the current tragic situation is a different but worthy debate. It has been percolating for a very long time.

Yes, both sides lied. And continue to lie. But that doesn't change the fact that Hamas is still the primary party responsible for the violence and fallout. None of this would have happened if Hamas hadn't engaged in its violent attack on 10/7.

Given what Israeli settlers have been doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, we can't say for sure that this wouldn't have happened if Hamas hadn't attacked on 10/7.

FFS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Those Palestinian children would still be alive today if Hamas hadn't brutally and violently raped and tortured and murdered and mutilated its way through 3 dozen towns in southwest Israel. For me that's a vastly more important point than "who remembered what and in how much detail."

Well, yes. That is true. But the “shock and trauma” PP who said that the stories of sexual torture cannot be true because of the graphic and extreme detail remembered by the eyewitnesses should also be holding the Palestinian parents who watched their children slowly bleed out to that same standard. Is she prepared to “gently point out” that those parents are liars, the way she did for the sexual torture victims? Or is this only a peculiar memory deficiency suffered by a specific group of women on 10/7, but miraculously not experienced by Palestinian parents who describe the horrific deaths of their children in extreme detail?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Jews were not the only victims of Hamas on 10/7, so how can you infer that PP is being antisemitic?

The PP is talking specifically about discrediting the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture and rape in the NYT, which were from Jewish women. She is discrediting the accounts because they are apparently too horrific and too detailed, based on some frankly nonsense pop psychology about “shock and trauma,” but apparently a special kind of “shock and trauma” that specifically only causes Jewish women victims to not be truthful in their memories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

I don't know if I'm "the PP," given that there are multiple people posting anonymously here. Probably not, as I didn't say this, but I haven't seen anyone else make these claims either. I've also seen a lot of blatant misrepresentation of what people have actually said, and I suspect this may be more of the same.

Posters in general need to stop lying about what people are saying. They embarrass themselves when they do this. Too many people make up stories and then try to put words in people's mouths. The complaints about straw man fallacies are valid. I have not seen anyone flat out deny that rape occurred on 10/7. If I'm wrong, please show me the post I overlooked. I did see a poster say she was skeptical of some of the stories because of the lies we've heard about beheaded babies. Skepticism is not the same as denial, and we should all be skeptical of every claim. This means we should keep an open mind and base our opinions on evidence rather than making up evidence to support our opinions. We need to be wary of forming opinions based on lies. There are some absolutely bizarre lies floating around the Internet about babies baked in ovens, etc. so withholding judgment makes more sense than usual under the circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Oh, brother! Another straw man! I'm losing interest and patience, but ... what Hamas "false claims and conspiracy theories" have I supposedly repeated? I've been calling Israel out about "false claims and conspiracy theories" (like the beheaded babies, etc.). Can you understand that many of think Israel is currently run by a bunch of fascists AND Hamas is a thoroughly unsavory enterprise? A AND B is not the same as A OR B.

The issue is how you want this to all end-the dismantling of Israel's Jewish majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Those Palestinian children would still be alive today if Hamas hadn't brutally and violently raped and tortured and murdered and mutilated its way through 3 dozen towns in southwest Israel. For me that's a vastly more important point than "who remembered what and in how much detail."

Well, yes. That is true. But the “shock and trauma” PP who said that the stories of sexual torture cannot be true because of the graphic and extreme detail remembered by the eyewitnesses should also be holding the Palestinian parents who watched their children slowly bleed out to that same standard. Is she prepared to “gently point out” that those parents are liars, the way she did for the sexual torture victims? Or is this only a peculiar memory deficiency suffered by a specific group of women on 10/7, but miraculously not experienced by Palestinian parents who describe the horrific deaths of their children in extreme detail?

I'm not the poster who brought up the rape stories but would point out that nobody is denying that Palestinian children have been killed. But that said, a handful of anecdotes are not a replacement for data on how many people were killed, by whom, and for what reasons, and the lies happening there are the more significant story. We know that the Hamas health ministry has routinely been exaggerating death tolls, giving double, triple, quadruple or more than the actual number, we know that there have been instances where Hamas shot and killed Palestinians, we know that there have been instances where images and footage have been faked, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

Those Palestinian children would still be alive today if Hamas hadn't brutally and violently raped and tortured and murdered and mutilated its way through 3 dozen towns in southwest Israel. For me that's a vastly more important point than "who remembered what and in how much detail."

Well, yes. That is true. But the “shock and trauma” PP who said that the stories of sexual torture cannot be true because of the graphic and extreme detail remembered by the eyewitnesses should also be holding the Palestinian parents who watched their children slowly bleed out to that same standard. Is she prepared to “gently point out” that those parents are liars, the way she did for the sexual torture victims? Or is this only a peculiar memory deficiency suffered by a specific group of women on 10/7, but miraculously not experienced by Palestinian parents who describe the horrific deaths of their children in extreme detail?

I'm not the poster who brought up the rape stories but would point out that nobody is denying that Palestinian children have been killed. But that said, a handful of anecdotes are not a replacement for data on how many people were killed, by whom, and for what reasons, and the lies happening there are the more significant story. We know that the Hamas health ministry has routinely been exaggerating death tolls, giving double, triple, quadruple or more than the actual number, we know that there have been instances where Hamas shot and killed Palestinians, we know that there have been instances where images and footage have been faked, and so on.

We also know that Hamas has been taking most of the humanitarian aid going into Gaza for itself, which is leading to Palestinian civilians dying for lack of medical supplies, for lack of food and other critical needs. We also know that UN is screwing up shipments and distribution, which is also leading to Palestinian civilians dying. But yes, sure, let's put all the blame solely on Israel and call them evil - or better yet, point the finger at Joe Biden or Antony Blinken or whoever else.

SMH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.

Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”

It’s certifiable

It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?

It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.

This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."

I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.

DP

Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.

Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.

That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.

Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.

Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.

Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?

The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.

DP

The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

You just did call everyone involved a liar.

I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.

DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.

Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.

In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.

I don't know if I'm "the PP," given that there are multiple people posting anonymously here. Probably not, as I didn't say this, but I haven't seen anyone else make these claims either. I've also seen a lot of blatant misrepresentation of what people have actually said, and I suspect this may be more of the same.

Posters in general need to stop lying about what people are saying. They embarrass themselves when they do this. Too many people make up stories and then try to put words in people's mouths. The complaints about straw man fallacies are valid. I have not seen anyone flat out deny that rape occurred on 10/7. If I'm wrong, please show me the post I overlooked. I did see a poster say she was skeptical of some of the stories because of the lies we've heard about beheaded babies. Skepticism is not the same as denial, and we should all be skeptical of every claim. This means we should keep an open mind and base our opinions on evidence rather than making up evidence to support our opinions. We need to be wary of forming opinions based on lies. There are some absolutely bizarre lies floating around the Internet about babies baked in ovens, etc. so withholding judgment makes more sense than usual under the circumstances.

Okay, since you’re now scrambling backwards to distance yourself from what you wrote, let’s go for exact quotes. Is this you?

I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.

If it’s you, are you prepared to say exactly what you wrote here about the Palestinian parents who have described the slow deaths of their children in vivid and horrific detail? Or will you also “gently point out” that their shock and trauma does not lend itself to vivid and detailed memories, and question their detailed memories of their children’s deaths? Do the parents’ stories “not make sense” to you because of the extremely severe trauma they described?

If not — if you aren’t going to also imply that these parents are liars the way that you implied the Jewish eyewitness accounts of sexual torture are liars — why not? Why the double standard?