The Big Middle Eastern Thread

[Harry]

 

 

[Azeem]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Harry said:

 

 

Kind of wild that the biggest surprise from this is that the hospital wasn’t even destroyed. Nor were there 500 casualties.

Kind of insane how the media sort of just rubbishes Russia’s claims in Ukraine, but was very quick to run with Hamas propaganda.

[MUFC]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

That hospital only has 80 beds and they claimed 500 people died when it exploded. And now we know it didn’t even explode.

Dangerous game being played by Hamas & Palestine’s health authority - because now we know they’ve lied about casualties once… hard to ever trust their numbers again.

[Stan]

55 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

That hospital only has 80 beds and they claimed 500 people died when it exploded. And now we know it didn’t even explode.

Dangerous game being played by Hamas & Palestine’s health authority - because now we know they’ve lied about casualties once… hard to ever trust their numbers again.

Guessing figures will be sketchy (how either Israel/Palestine will know straight away how many people have died when explosions happen in their territories I do not know).

And I'm not making excuses for Hamas - far from it. Just on a rational sense, 80 beds doesn't equate to = 500 people. But it wouldn't surprise me if the number could be high given the population density in small areas. Hospitals are bound to be overflowing with injured, wounded, family members, friends etc. Not to mention surrounding areas given the close proximity of other buildings. 

It's hard to trust either side on any matter with any release of info that comes out. Israel prevented food/water/electricity/fuel supplies coming into civilians for quite a long time, and Hamas are terrorists with an extreme agenda to kill anything in its path. 

Both claim their own 'we'll do right by our people' agenda. Without realising innocent lives are lost on both sides. 

[MUFC]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

24 minutes ago, Stan said:

Guessing figures will be sketchy (how either Israel/Palestine will know straight away how many people have died when explosions happen in their territories I do not know).

And I'm not making excuses for Hamas - far from it. Just on a rational sense, 80 beds doesn't equate to = 500 people. But it wouldn't surprise me if the number could be high given the population density in small areas. Hospitals are bound to be overflowing with injured, wounded, family members, friends etc. Not to mention surrounding areas given the close proximity of other buildings. 

It's hard to trust either side on any matter with any release of info that comes out. Israel prevented food/water/electricity/fuel supplies coming into civilians for quite a long time, and Hamas are terrorists with an extreme agenda to kill anything in its path. 

Both claim their own 'we'll do right by our people' agenda. Without realising innocent lives are lost on both sides. 

I mean sure maybe it was completely packed… but the hospital is still standing and it looks like it hit the car park. So even so… the figure of hundreds dead seems all the more unbelievable now.

The whole story, from the explosion, to the propaganda claims, to the way the media covered it, to the world’s slow reaction to more info coming out about it… it’s all proof that the fog of war is very real.

[Redcanuck]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

That hospital only has 80 beds and they claimed 500 people died when it exploded. And now we know it didn’t even explode.

Dangerous game being played by Hamas & Palestine’s health authority - because now we know they’ve lied about casualties once… hard to ever trust their numbers again.

Didn't the rocket explode in the parking lot where many had gone for refuge thinking the hospital is a safe place and it was the fuel still left in it that  exploded and caused a fire?   Resulting in more deaths outside the hospital than inside.

[Dr. Gonzo]

59 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

Didn't the rocket explode in the parking lot where many had gone for refuge thinking the hospital is a safe place and it was the fuel still left in it that  exploded and caused a fire?   Resulting in more deaths outside the hospital than inside.

I don't think we've gotten any clear answer to the casualties or the extent of the damage. We just know the hospital's car park was struck, many cars exploded. The images that can be verified of the aftermath of the explosion don't seem to have bodies, body parts, or even blood - so it's not really conclusive about the extent of human loss.

Some of the videos that went around online that purported to be from the hospital are from a previous year when Israel struck a hospital and caused mass casualties. So it's easy to understand why Hamas was quick to make the claim. And I'm not surprised about Al Jazeera being heavily biased towards Hamas, considering Al Jazeera and Hamas are both funded by Qatar - but I am shocked at western media taking Hamas's word at face value.

They're a terrorist group - terrorising Israelis and oppressing Palestinians with their rule. When it's the Kremlin, Russia is rightfully distrusted and viewed cynically by Western media. Why isn't that the same standard for Hamas? I understand the distrust of Israel public statements and the IDF, there's a history of them being misleading and openly hostile to the free press (they've got an awful track record of killing journalists reporting on their war crimes) - but why isn't Hamas held to the same standard? They've got a history of terrorism and human rights abuses. I think it is only right if both sides are given the same amount of distrust and the media takes more of an effort to present stories with more emphasis on what happened - even if that means we have to wait for more information to come.

World media rushing to report on this without enough factual information to give an accurate picture enflamed tensions in the Middle East. Israel's embassy in Jordan was flocked to. The US embassy in Lebanon is evacuating non-essential staff and family of staff. We're seeing hate crimes against both Jews and Palestinians on the rise in western countries. All because the world news rushed to report Hamas's spin pissing off a lot of people.

Is the IDF just working with the assumption that all the hostages are dead? I thought there would be more effort to recover hostages - it seems they are keen to sit back and keep the bombing campaign going. There's been no real update on the plan for what to do about the hostages. Last I heard about them was a Hamas spokesperson saying they have no way of knowing how many hostages are still alive or not.

[Redcanuck]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I don't think we've gotten any clear answer to the casualties or the extent of the damage. We just know the hospital's car park was struck, many cars exploded. The images that can be verified of the aftermath of the explosion don't seem to have bodies, body parts, or even blood - so it's not really conclusive about the extent of human loss.

Some of the videos that went around online that purported to be from the hospital are from a previous year when Israel struck a hospital and caused mass casualties. So it's easy to understand why Hamas was quick to make the claim. And I'm not surprised about Al Jazeera being heavily biased towards Hamas, considering Al Jazeera and Hamas are both funded by Qatar - but I am shocked at western media taking Hamas's word at face value.

They're a terrorist group - terrorising Israelis and oppressing Palestinians with their rule. When it's the Kremlin, Russia is rightfully distrusted and viewed cynically by Western media. Why isn't that the same standard for Hamas? I understand the distrust of Israel public statements and the IDF, there's a history of them being misleading and openly hostile to the free press (they've got an awful track record of killing journalists reporting on their war crimes) - but why isn't Hamas held to the same standard? They've got a history of terrorism and human rights abuses. I think it is only right if both sides are given the same amount of distrust and the media takes more of an effort to present stories with more emphasis on what happened - even if that means we have to wait for more information to come.

World media rushing to report on this without enough factual information to give an accurate picture enflamed tensions in the Middle East. Israel's embassy in Jordan was flocked to. The US embassy in Lebanon is evacuating non-essential staff and family of staff. We're seeing hate crimes against both Jews and Palestinians on the rise in western countries. All because the world news rushed to report Hamas's spin pissing off a lot of people.

Is the IDF just working with the assumption that all the hostages are dead? I thought there would be more effort to recover hostages - it seems they are keen to sit back and keep the bombing campaign going. There's been no real update on the plan for what to do about the hostages. Last I heard about them was a Hamas spokesperson saying they have no way of knowing how many hostages are still alive or not.

I believe the media gives Hamas a pass and are quick to jump on Israel because the mainstream media is left of centre and see this conflict in political terms of left v right.  People other than those personal involved who support Israel are seen as right of centre , religious Christians and Trump supporters, while support for Palastinians is seen as pulling for the under dogs and picked up by the Left and overeducated white liberals.  While it's hard to put a political spin on what Russia is doing, just seems old fashioned imperialism and the media hates colonialism.  Putin is supposed to be on the left but acts like a right wing dictator, so it's hard for the political types to pin him down.

Hard to say what Israel believes the situation is with the hostages,  it could be they are trying to actually locate the many different places they are being held. These places will be likeca maze and booby trapped, so Israel needs accurate information and that takes time.  I think if they believed all the hostages were dead , they would have already begun the ground attack.

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

I believe the media gives Hamas a pass and are quick to jump on Israel because the mainstream media is left of centre and see this conflict in political terms of left v right.

Well that's idiotic, the US has stood by Israel for decades regardless of which party has control. I also don't really think the mainstream media is left of centre tbh. It makes no sense for anyone with actual left-wing views to support a very religious terrorist group masquerading as an oppressive government, tbh. Hamas aren't freedom fighters, they're oppressors of Israelis AND Palestinians that explicitly promote genocide in their charter.

China's more left-wing than Hamas and China gets hounded by the media constantly. Iran backs Hamas in the fight and coverage of Iran in the west is basically: "these are backward people" - it's bizarre how Hamas get so much trust and credibility among the western media.

8 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

Hard to say what Israel believes the situation is with the hostages,  it could be they are trying to actually locate the many different places they are being held. These places will be likeca maze and booby trapped, so Israel needs accurate information and that takes time.  I think if they believed all the hostages were dead , they would have already begun the ground attack.

I think they aren't going to begin the ground attack until they're confident that Hamas is devastated from the blockade and bombing campaign. So my assumption is the aid getting into Gaza (which, I think is a good thing - there's 2.1m people there with about 1m of them being children; it's criminal to punish a whole population that lives under oppression from their "government" tbh) slows that schedule down a bit. But they did say if there's any evidence Hamas seizes any aid, the aid will stop.

Imo it's a 100% certainty that Hamas seizes the humanitarian aid, they need Gaza to have maximum suffering for their propaganda to have maximum effect. But I think that draws out the bombing campaign, which I think makes the situation for Gaza all the more bleak. Hospital beds are already scarce.

The IDF, if they're smart, would use the ground invasion (and likely subsequent occupation) to demonstrate some humanity to Palestinians there. Field hospitals could be set up and that should reduce some pressure that's put on the already overburdened medical professionals of Gaza. But I do worry about what a prolonged occupation of Gaza might mean. Palestinians have already lost so much in the last 7 decades - are they going to lose further land and further sovereignty?

Israel was insane to back Hamas when they first started - I can't see how their own history wouldn't have taught them that supporting Islamists wouldn't have been a massive security threat; even if the goal was to splinter PLO and Fatah. Israel needs to be doing all it can do to promote moderate voices in the Palestinian world; backing the ultra-devout was not a way to promote less aggression in the region.

I also hope that for Israel this means Netanyahu's career is finally coming to a close. He should never have been anywhere near as powerful as he's been in the decades after Rabin's assassination, purely because of his role in getting the man killed for pursuing peace. And for decades he's done all he can to shit all over Rabin's legacy and move the region further from peace. I know their government won't change during this wartime, but I'm hopeful the fighting dies down in the coming months (which is probably optimistic because of the realities of urban warfare) and he finally becomes politically irrelevant.

[Rucksackfranzose]

26 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

I believe the media gives Hamas a pass and are quick to jump on Israel because the mainstream media is left of centre and see this conflict in political terms of left v right.  People other than those personal involved who support Israel are seen as right of centre , religious Christians and Trump supporters, while support for Palastinians is seen as pulling for the under dogs and picked up by the Left and overeducated white liberals.  While it's hard to put a political spin on what Russia is doing, just seems old fashioned imperialism and the media hates colonialism.  Putin is supposed to be on the left but acts like a right wing dictator, so it's hard for the political types to pin him down.

Hard to say what Israel believes the situation is with the hostages,  it could be they are trying to actually locate the many different places they are being held. These places will be likeca maze and booby trapped, so Israel needs accurate information and that takes time.  I think if they believed all the hostages were dead , they would have already begun the ground attack.

Sorry but that's nonsense, the USA were always Israel's  most faithful companion independant of the political leaning of the respective government and you can't deny all of America's media outlet are very Israel-friendly, again regardless of their respective political leaning. By the way, what American left or liberals,? Even the most progressive Democrats I heard speaking were right of German conservatives politically.

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Rucksackfranzose

[Dr. Gonzo]

FFS can the IRI calm down. The Houthis have fired missles at a US warship.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/security-incident-involving-us-navy-destroyer-red-sea/story?id=104147141

[Redcanuck]

I guees we have far different views on what is left and right ,  I find all the mainstream media that I have access to in Canada, the US and the UK  ( i know there's Tory newspapers in the Uk) are left of centre, not far left but diffently on the left.

This time around if you look at the protests in the streets and on the university campuses,  other than people with Palestinian heritage it is left wing political groups  and individuals  protesting. In the pro Israel counter protests other than the Jews, you see right leaning individuals and groups.  Righly or not, in the West this conflict is being seen in terms of left v right as well as a conflict between Israel and the Arab world.  

Yes every American administration has been pro Isarel and remain Israel's biggest friend, and the US , British and Canadian media used to be, but they have changed over the last decade.   The BBC and  the CBC ( Canada) has forbidden their reporters and on air personnel from calling HAMAS terrorists.  In Canada there are more interviews on TV with Palestinians  than Israelis.  The reporters with the big three networks in the US constantly challenge the Israeli spokesman , but take everything the Palastinian spokespersons say as Gospel. 

 

yeah Rucksackfranzose, the political terms, conservative, socialist , left and right have different meanings in Europe and North American.  To me all European conservatives are too left for my thinking.

[Redcanuck]

26 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

FFS can the IRI calm down. The Houthis have fired missles at a US warship.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/security-incident-involving-us-navy-destroyer-red-sea/story?id=104147141

This could expand quickly.   Some in the US Congress will see this as an act of war by Iran.   Senile Joe is in an election year and he is no better than even in the polls.   Politi ans always think a good little war takes peoples minds of the domestic problems. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

27 minutes ago, Redcanuck said:

Yes every American administration has been pro Isarel and remain Israel's biggest friend, and the US , British and Canadian media used to be, but they have changed over the last decade.   The BBC and  the CBC ( Canada) has forbidden their reporters and on air personnel from calling HAMAS terrorists.

The BBC and CBC have adopted this policy because they have to tread a careful line with other groups some call terrorists, but others don't. Hamas is the elected government of Gaza too, granted they haven't held any elections since and killed off most of their biggest political opponents - which is why Fatah has 0 power at all in Gaza. But there's also PKK, which Turkey claims is a terrorist group... but the US, UK and Canada have all worked with them in the past. Perhaps most controversially is Canada, the UK, and the EU refusing to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group while the US has.

It's state media, they've got to reflect the language that the government has issued government employees to use while talking about these groups. I'd hardly call the BBC left-wing either, their political coverage of the UK seems to have them pretty firmly in bed with the Tories.

[MUFC]

https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1222992/gaza-orthodox-church-bombed/

[Cicero]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Iran's using this time of chaos to persecute the Baluchi minority in Zahedan province. They've kidnapped many people, some sources saying as many as 210. Meanwhile on their state media they're threatening for all of their proxies (Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, etc) to attack Israel on all sides. 

[Reluctant Striker]

19 hours ago, Redcanuck said:

I guees we have far different views on what is left and right ,  I find all the mainstream media that I have access to in Canada, the US and the UK  ( i know there's Tory newspapers in the Uk) are left of centre, not far left but diffently on the left.

This time around if you look at the protests in the streets and on the university campuses,  other than people with Palestinian heritage it is left wing political groups  and individuals  protesting. In the pro Israel counter protests other than the Jews, you see right leaning individuals and groups.  Righly or not, in the West this conflict is being seen in terms of left v right as well as a conflict between Israel and the Arab world.  

Yes every American administration has been pro Isarel and remain Israel's biggest friend, and the US , British and Canadian media used to be, but they have changed over the last decade.   The BBC and  the CBC ( Canada) has forbidden their reporters and on air personnel from calling HAMAS terrorists.  In Canada there are more interviews on TV with Palestinians  than Israelis.  The reporters with the big three networks in the US constantly challenge the Israeli spokesman , but take everything the Palastinian spokespersons say as Gospel. 

 

yeah Rucksackfranzose, the political terms, conservative, socialist , left and right have different meanings in Europe and North American.  To me all European conservatives are too left for my thinking.

 

19 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

The BBC and CBC have adopted this policy because they have to tread a careful line with other groups some call terrorists, but others don't. Hamas is the elected government of Gaza too, granted they haven't held any elections since and killed off most of their biggest political opponents - which is why Fatah has 0 power at all in Gaza. But there's also PKK, which Turkey claims is a terrorist group... but the US, UK and Canada have all worked with them in the past. Perhaps most controversially is Canada, the UK, and the EU refusing to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group while the US has.

It's state media, they've got to reflect the language that the government has issued government employees to use while talking about these groups. I'd hardly call the BBC left-wing either, their political coverage of the UK seems to have them pretty firmly in bed with the Tories.

I do think the BBC get their licence fee payer aim of neutrality fairly often. I do tend to notice 'left' moments of being very critical of Trump, of criticism of Conservatives doing routine media interviews with Union Jack flags, the coverage of racial tensions in America or India or wherever. And of extensively detailing the conveyor belt of Conservative & Boris failings.

And the tone has moved on significantly during my life. They are being criticised right now for referring to Hamas as militants rather than terrorists. We now have Ireland's PM sometimes appearing on Sunday morning political talk show. Not Sinn Fein leaders voiced over if & when given any screen time. etc.

But as a nation I sense plenty of Brits would generally look & sound 'right' to some. Many just tend to come across that way, I think. And all things recent history, even World Wars, some want to wrap up as all being 'right'

I do tend to think of right & left as more societal directions. I think it does get a bit confusing when some apply it to continents, the world & historic nation borders. And at the end of the day every border in the world was put there by colonial deals, war, mutual defence, etc. None of them because good, friendly vibes..

[MUFC]

 

[Stan]

 

 

[MUFC]

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, MUFC said:

 

Aren’t there over 100 hostages though? What about the rest of them?