I hesitate to share this link to an article in The Atlantic by Graeme Wood because part of me wishes I hadn’t read it. It’s Wood’s account of a screening the Israeli Defense Force held yesterday for journalists, which featured “43 minutes of raw footage from Hamas’s October 7 attack.”
Wood quotes IDF Major General Mickey Edelstein, who explained why the IDF held the screening: “What we shared with you, you should know it.”
I’m not active on Twitter anymore, and I’ve been grateful for that these past few weeks because there’s a lot of disturbing video circulating, as Wood notes. Last week on TV, I accidentally saw a clip of Hamas terrorists killing someone’s dog. It wasn’t a guard dog, just a friendly, goofy farm dog loping forward with a wagging tail to check out the strangers arriving at its home.
I’ve got a soft spot for dogs, so that clip just about broke me. I’ve tried to avoid any video related to what happened in Israel and what’s happening in Gaza ever since because it’s unbearable to me to think about it. But I do wonder what responsibility we have as human beings to bear witness to atrocities. I don’t know.
Reading Wood’s description of what he saw is going to haunt me indefinitely; I can’t imagine what it was like for Wood and the other journalists who watched it, let alone the people who experienced it. Sickening doesn’t begin to cover it. But I’m also glad I read it. Like Edelstein said, we should know it.
Open thread.
SpaceUnit
Let’s pull the pin on a shit grenade and discuss Zionism.
JPL
And just like that, Emmers dropped out.
RedDirtGirl
Thank you for posting this. I didn’t want to read it, but I forced myself to. It is powerful, and mercifully short.
Suzanne
@SpaceUnit: Aaaaaaaaand…. I’m out! Enjoy!
Jeffro
@JPL: and they’ll keep dropping out, nominee after nominee, until they realize that they’re really two parties now: the follow-and-protect-trump-at-all-costs party, and the old GOP.
JPL
The leader of Hamas is in his comfortable home in Qatar. He could order those who committed the atrocities, to turn themselves in. That would spare some of the citizens of Gaza, but he and the other members of Hamas don’t care about life.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
Right behind ya. Time to go talk myself into thinking the Phillies won’t fuck up tonight’s game seven.
Damien
@SpaceUnit: Which one? Or is the shit grenade the entire concept of Israel’s right to exist?
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
You’re a smart, kind, empathetic person. You can understand something is an atrocity and take whatever action you can to help without personally seeing it. Heaping trauma on yourself doesn’t help anyone else. Don’t watch that shit.
dlwchico
Supposedly playing Tetris for a bit after seeing a disturbing video will help keep your brain from holding on to that memory, or something like that.
SpaceUnit
Ladies and gentlemen we have a taker! My work here is done.
@Damien:
Karen S.
@JPL: Haha. Yeah. Next!
JaySinWA
@dlwchico: Is that some sort of blocking strategy joke, or is that a real thing?
JPL
so much news today
from mastodon
Ex-Chief of Staff Mark #Meadows granted immunity, tells special counsel he warned #Trump about 2020 claims: Sources – ABC News #legal https://abcnews.go.com/US/chief-staff-
lollipopguild
@JPL: They are dropping like flies….. literally.
Damien
@SpaceUnit: I guess…good job then?
ColoradoGuy
What’s painful is that is that a certain percentage of humans are genuine monsters, with no compassion or fellow-feeling for humans or any living thing. Worse, our political systems worldwide reward these people, and they command followings of thousands or millions of people who want to go along for the ride.
The myths of vampires are slightly off the mark: they actually do exist, but they don’t suck blood; they suck life itself, and revel in mayhem and destruction. Charles Manson and Jim Jones were amateurs; Pol Pot, Putin and Hamas are the real pros, because they made what they did into a political philosophy, and commanded thousands of loyal followers.
Martin
I don’t think that says enough, to be honest.
I’m a big believer in confronting the real actions that we have on the world. But you don’t do that for the sake of doing it. There’s a HUGE difference between lawmakers considering gun regulation or ER doctors learning how to treat gunshot victims seeing video of a child being killed with an AR-15, and forcing a parent to watch the video of their child being killed with an AR-15. Among other things, the latter is a war crime, while the former can be informative or educational.
Context matters. From the link, the only real context we are given:
I have not seen anyone argue that what Hamas did wasn’t sadistic and what IDF solders do is sadistic. But this argument is simply PR. This is the ‘not the worst kid in the world’ argument, applied to a country’s military. That’s now how this works. How is the magnitude of individual Hamas members actions here relevant? I mean, if it was less sadistic, Israel would still have sufficient justification to arrest, prosecute, or even kill as an enemy combatant that Hamas member. I haven’t seen anyone argue against that, so what’s the point of that video then? The only point I can think of is that it’s a justification not for killing that person as an enemy combatant (something they had without the video) but as cover for why the IDF have killed 3,000 children as collateral damage – no, the IDF didn’t LOOK to kill those kids, but they did kill those kids – please don’t compare us to them, because our motivations are different, even if our ability to rain death from above is sufficiently superior to rack up a higher body count. That act on video is so barbaric that dead children can be justified as acceptable losses. That’s the only real argument I think the IDF can offer here since nobody is questioning their right to pursue justice. What’s being questioned is their right to pursue vengeance, and that video seems designed to propagandize the press to provide them that cover.
Am I wrong? Can anyone provide an argument for why that video needed to be shown in this context other than as a kind of moral cover for what the IDF has done or is expected yet to do?
Geoduck
@JaySinWA: It is something people seriously propose. No idea how well it actually works.
Tony Jay
Really timely release, this, because I for one have been looking forward to someone countering the omnipresent narrative that Hamas are a bunch of absolutely great guys who didn’t do nuffink wrong and stuff. Honestly, it’s been everywhere. Marches, protests, newspaper editorials; I’m surprised the Hot Hunks of Hamas calendar hasn’t dropped yet because it’s almost Christmas and that will fly off the shelves.
Sarcasm holstered, nothing more to say.
Kayla Rudbek
@JaySinWA: real thing. Apparently it interferes with rumination about the disturbing memories.
So video games healing the brain instead of rotting it…
cain
@JPL: Will Fox News help Meadows gaslight everyone so he can continue the rightt wingery grift?
cain
@ColoradoGuy:
Imagine how many of those “soldiers of God”, Gaza residents are stuck in that prison with. Trained to remove humanity from your enemy. That ultimately does things to your life view.
They and the other paramilitaries there – probably lording over everyone. Ugh ugh
Princess
Thank you for posting on this.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay: My kid’s cohort seem to distill things to “Israel v. Palestine” with little historical context or knowledge of the vast cast of characters.
This cohort was also born when Afghanistan (US edition) was already going, were infants when Iraq was invaded, and had the US in two, then one shooting wars 90% of their lives so can probably be forgiven for the lack of knowledge, since Israel and Palestine have been mostly off the front pages during that time, at least as compared to 1960 – 2000.
“Who are Fatah, who are Hamas, who are Likud, who are Hezbollah, what is Temple Mount? GO!” would get some really weird essay answers.
ETA When we took our last troops out of Afghanistan I reached out to the kid and congratulated her that for the first time in her life, our country was not at war. She was perplexed at my statement.
JPL
@cain: Emmers dropped out too soon. Everyone else is a denier and who ever gives the speech for Jeffries is going to nail them.
Bupalos
I spent enough time in and after grad school grappling in granular human detail with the blood-soaked history of Eastern Europe. It changed me. It brought depression to my door for a bit. Anymore I think there’s absolutely no upside to me drinking in these kind of horrors. Humans can be utterly inhuman. It’s shocking because life can be so joyful and beautiful and because that joy and beauty is really the common norm even amidst poverty and tension and chaos and circumstances so much harder than the vast majority of us ever even have to think of. I think there is some humanizing effect in really fully understanding and dealing with these shocks of evil and working them through and remembering this truth on the other side.
But personally, I’ve done my time. I haven’t read a single description or seen a single video and do not plan to.
cain
@JPL: Yep. Denying an election will likely get the house folks from purple districts to do a thumbs down.
The freedom caucus is going to make things difficult as they don’t give a shit. Even if we go through a shut down – I think they will get reelected even after a prolonged shut down.
pluky
@JPL: I wouldn’t get too comfortable. The leash is off Mossad. They didn’t get a rep for relentless efficiency for nothing.
cain
@Bupalos: Trauma can do some horrific things to people.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: This kind of thing is why I tended to avoid things like the video of ISIS beheading hostages, even when people urged me that I had some kind of obligation to see them.
No I don’t. And if I do watch those videos I’m not sure they will take me to a good place mentally or morally in terms of what I decide to support. Bad things have happened before as a result of such shock treatment.
I’m sure there are going to be the usual arguments that Hamas is using “human shields” to protect their terrorists, as justification for collateral damage. It does strike me as less of a defense when everyone is already crammed into this densely populated tiny space. It puts the IDF in an impossible position, but Israel is not without responsibility for that themselves.
(I also wonder sometimes if everyone in Rosslyn and Pentagon City counts as a “human shield” for the US military command apparatus. I’ve heard it argued that, the grotesque method they used to do it aside, the hit on the Pentagon on 9/11 was of a legitimate military target, but of course it was one surrounded by civilian office buildings and shopping centers.)
JPL
@pluky: I hope they succeed.
Ken
@JPL: I suppose the intra-caucus vote will start over with the other seven, and whittle it down to another 97 X, 88 Y, 35 Other, 2 Present candidate. Really the only interest left is whether they go down in flames before or after bothering with a vote of the full House.
Ken
By the way, a suggestion: http://www.balloon-juice.talk.politics.mideast.com. It worked in the old days….
trollhattan
@Bupalos:
Have read a lot on WWII and little on “The Great War” aka WWI, and am addressing that ATM with Gilbert’s complete history.
The brutality is horrifying–both that made possible by industrialization and the utter savagery conducted on the battlefield and against civilians away from it.
IOW there’s little new under the sun, just fancier technology, fewer horses.
ColoradoGuy
Having 1~2% of the population as unfeeling psychopaths is more or less manageable; the real problem is about 20~30% are suggestible to mass hypnosis, and become followers. That’s where the real damage and trauma come from.
Bupalos
@Ken: it would be pointless and I think the R’s can admit that. There’s an increasingly clear divide between the fire eaters and “moderates” (which anymore just means those oposing insurrection.)
This dosn’t bode well, it’s likely to mean the moderates go extinct since they face actual elections instead of engaging in 2 months of competitive red-meat hate-speech every 2 years.
grubert
The uglier truth is that the vast majority of humans can be made into monsters..
Only a tiny fraction are born thus..
Jackie
@JPL: Hmmm… how will this effect his not guilty plea in Georgia?
bjacques
It’s horrific having these monsters bursting out of Gaza and coming for your children. Now imagine being Palestinian with the same monsters living in your midst and that they’ll probably come back to live beside you if they’re not “martyred”. The contention that ordinary Palestinians had any choice in supporting Hamas these past 17 years is meaningless. Imagine the kind of Israel politicians who thought they could make pets of Hamas. Both of those concepts are probably too much of a leap for the IDF guys running that snuff film.
The IDF should be attacking Hamas from the top, not the bottom. Go Munich on them and Qatar, Dubai, Lebanon, Turkey, and any other country sheltering their leaders and financiers can get fucked. Then chuck Bibi, Ben-Gvir, and Smeagol naked into Gaza City.
EDIT: And CNN just showed a bunch of chucklefuck West Bank settlers in a militia attacking Palestinians even now. WTF??
JPL
@Jackie: Since he already has a deal with Jack, I don’t think Fani should give him one. It’s time for him to do some time.
just my opinion though
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin: Thanks for articulating that. I have a friend, former IDF. Was active duty during one of the many bloodlettings, saw lots of action. Left Israel, became US citizen, never looked back. He was saying to us over dinner last week almost exactly what you wrote in that post, based on what then was already coming out in the press. He said it’s PR to make the vengeance OK and that they basically do nothing to prevent “collateral damage.” Just an N of 1, but it’s his story.
ColoradoGuy
@grubert: No, I think it tops out around 30~35%. The rest find it very unpleasant or even horrifying, but they are trapped in the same society and cannot escape.
There is a multigenerational effect … look at the former Slave States and the deeply embedded racism of the white population, centuries after the Slave Era. I think you could go a little further and say there are entire swaths of the world that are still de facto feudal societies that never experienced the Enlightenment … Russia, for example.
Ruckus
@ColoradoGuy:
I went to school (and even occasionally church) through HS with one of the Manson girls and if he could get her to do what she did for him, he may not be a country level shitheel but he was no slouch in that department, and only one level down.
Anoniminous
Ruckus
@Martin:
Am I wrong? Can anyone provide an argument for why that video needed to be shown in this context other than as a kind of moral cover for what the IDF has done or is expected yet to do?
No, you are not wrong.
Geminid
@bjacques: It’s Hamas’s military leadership which lives in Gaza that planned and executed this operation, not the politico-diplomatic leadership living in Qatar. Israel might eventually go after the 2nd group, but it’s the military leadership and the fighters they command that Israel intends to attack first, with a ground invasion.
TriassicSands
I won’t comment on the Israeli-Hamas situation. It has been allowed to reach this point. There is enough guilt and responsibility to envelop the planet.
As for the Republican’s apparently endless clown show — it seems to be almost as intractable as the murderous Middle Eastern barbarism. Will any of this have a measurable impact on next year’s elections? I doubt it. Most Americans aren’t paying attention to this and even if they were tens of millions aren’t equipped to make responsible judgements about what to do.
Trump waddled down his golden escalator eight years ago and, now, after showering the country with his pestilence, he’s still the most likely nominee in a field of hopeless wannabes.
Pestilence: 1. a contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating
2. something that is destructive or pernicious
Examples: Bubonic plague; Donald Trump; the Republican Party
Brachiator
I used to walk down to a news stand which carried newspapers and periodicals from all around the world. It always struck me how US publications would typically show less graphic photos of disasters, crimes and war, while some European and international publications would present far more explicit photos. Curiously some people would insist that censored footage was preferable because more graphic material could be more “inflammatory.”
This is just prelude. I don’t know. But I have thought a lot about the images I have seen of the Hamas attacks. One oddity. I have seen video footage of mirar and missile attacks on buildings in Ukraine, in Israel and in Gaza, and feel somewhat distanced from it because I have never been in a similar situation.
But I could immediately relate to video footage of the attacks of the young people at the music festival because I have attended similar outdoor events. Also, sadly, I know some of the places we have seen in the news of mass shootings in California, in Las Vegas and elsewhere. I could easily see myself running for my life. And I have had moments of anxiety when friends and loved ones talk about going to various events. I always hope that nutcases with guns decide this is where they will become infamous.
At the festival attacks I noted how much current technology captures horrific events. Not just smart phones. Dash cams showed people running, trying to hide under vehicles, being shot anyway.
Of course people wanted to label the perpetrators as terrorists. But I thought about how terrorist bombers sometimes kill themselves, in part in an attempt to elicit sympathy for their cause.
But the video footage I have seen is far more predatory. You see a planned, coordinated attack. You see people deliberately hunted and survivors deliberately displayed as if they are trophies.
I watched a video at the BBC news site. A security camera at a kibbutz captured video of armed Hamas terrorists trying to get under a security gate. They can’t do it and hide in the security gate office. When a car drives up and activates something to open the gate, the terrorists rush out and kill the occupants of the vehicle.
I learned that the kibbutz had safe rooms where people tried to hide. I associate safe rooms in the US with wealthy people. It is amazing to learn that this is part of the life of average people.
I cannot watch the complete video of any of the attacks. But I try to watch enough to get a sense of what is happening.
The video footage from parts of Gaza, of the results of rocket attacks are appalling. There seems to be restrictions on journalists sometimes, preventing them from going into certain areas.
I have no idea of how any of this can easily be resolved. Unless, I guess, that people on all sides decide that it is enough.
In my lifetime there have been a number of places where there seemed to be no answer to ongoing conflicts. Kashmir, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, South Africa, Israel and the West Bank, Sri Lanka. Some conflicts have been resolved. Some are still ongoing.
RedDirtGirl
@Martin: thank you for articulating that. I didn’t see it that way, but you make a compelling argument.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Martin: I agree with you 100%.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Well, there are still people who are disputing whether the actions of Hamas were as bad as the origin reports stated. Or those who argued that Hamas only attacked military targets.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin: You’re speaking for me, Martin. I fully approve.
KrackenJack
I avoid things like that because 1) They are traumatic and 2) They light up our lizard brains and trigger a torture-them-and-everyone-they-know-to-death response.
Neither one is helpful. Terrorists seek to trigger an excessive response from the state.
Showing this to journalists is the IDF eagerly playing their part in the plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Hamas is doing precisely what benefits Bibi the most. As Adam has pointed out, they need each other.
Geminid
@Geminid: A component of Hamas’s political leadership was based in Istanbul the last few years. The Israeli knew this but that did not stop them from mending ties with Turkiye two years ago.
Now there are conflicting reports about why those Hamas officials abruptly left Istanbul on October 7, the day of the attacks. One story is that they left because Turkish officials told them they could not protect them from Israeli retaliation. The Turkish President’s office said no, the Hamas officials left because they wanted to be in Qatar with Mr. Haniyeh and the rest of the political leadership. Sources close to Hamas said the departure was voluntary and not under duress.
Turkiye is used to security threats. It has long exerted tight security measures to protect the country’s political leaders from retalition by the PKK, which Turkiye has been fighting since 1984. So maybe instead of telling the Istanbul Hamas leaders that Turkey could not protect them, Turkish officials told them it would not protect them, and that it was time to go.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Not disputing that. Martin asked for a reason other than his explanation as to why the IDF was showing these images. I offered one. It doesn’t negate Martin’s potential explanation, but some things happen for more than one reason.
Yarrow
@JPL: There must be some bad oppo intel on Emmer for him to drop out like that. Or TFG threatened his family or something.
Betty Cracker
@Martin:
I don’t think you’re wrong — the screening was a PR event on one level for sure, and congratulations for ferreting out that angle.
But I think it’s morally obtuse to reduce it to that entirely. These atrocities happened. We need to know that.
We need to understand what’s happening to innocent people in Gaza too. Jesus fucking Christ, I didn’t think that needed saying.
Dangerman
Mark Meadows is a flipper, too? Damn it’s been a shit week for Donald.
ETA it’s like no one wants to go to jail for him.
Geminid
@Yarrow: Or maybe Emmer and his allies believed the Republicans who told them they would not vote for him, and saw that seeking a vote on the House floor was pointless.
bjacques
@Geminid: I get that, but going after civilians who had nothing to do with the attack —well, it’s giving Hamas a dose of its own medicine. And the hostages are dead anyway if Bibi & Co carry on like this. And diplomatic and political cover are as vital to Hamas as bullets and rocket components. Hamas leadership are a legitimate outlet for the bloodlust of some Israelis, who used to be famous for that kind of thing.
Pounding Gaza just makes Palestinians more likely to join Hamas, while decapitating Hamas might give the Palestinians some relief for once instead of the 10:1 reprisals we’re seeing once again.
sphaerenklang
Yeah, there are lots of things we need to know, all at once, and the IDF is not gonna help us with the vast majority of them.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Perhaps this is true for the media and for some Western observers.
But there is no difference between justice and vengeance to innocent Palestinians who are caught up in this conflict.
And yes, you can talk about the motivations of IDF. But there are others who also are instigators, and others who deliberately keep the conflict going.
grubert
@ColoradoGuy: well, not going to argue numbers.. but with things like WW2 Germany or southern lynch mobs.. seems the vast majority are at least supportivly accepting of monsters from their tribe.
Which some would consider monstrous
dlwchico
@JaySinWA: supposedly real. Google ‘tetris and trauma’ and you’ll find many articles about it.
JPL
@Yarrow: Behind closed doors, 26 republicans came out against him. He was never gonna win them over.
grubert
Oh, and one of my long-running disputes I have with a buddy. My take:
The Enlightenment was over-rated. Bigly.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
1000 pound bombs do not have 10000 framers per second 360 degree (including down) go-pros; if they did, we would, with access, be able to watch hundreds of living human bodies in Gaza being torn apart, entirely or only partially, by high explosives and shrapnel, in slow-motion. (Many thousands more, including many children, will die, but with bad or no camera angles.)
But even if we did have such recordings, the IDF would not release those videos.
No One of Consequence
@Martin:
I don’t think you’re wrong and I appreciate your summation. That pretty much summarizes my thoughts too. I hate this whole thing. Hamas and the people (if not die-hards) they talked into doing what happened on the 7th is barbaric. Beyond that though, intentionally sadistic. Over-the-top sadistic.
All of which may be true, but not one iota of which excuses the willful death of more innocents. Of any tribe. Of any people.
Substitute a family for a nation, and even then vengeance would not be tolerated against innocents of the ‘enemy’ family.
We are all God’s Children or NONE of us are. There is no third option here. If one holds the divine in reverence, then one will argue they hold themselves and their people(s) as God’s Children. It’s not an exclusive group. It’s the Absolute Inclusive.
From that point, either you respect God, or you Kill God’s Children. There is no other third option.
I don’t get that this is not at once pushed more, nor that it’s obviousness escapes those claiming Righteous Murder in God’s Name.
This species is not making a good argument for continued existence.
And on that happy note: Peace,
-NOoC
Matt McIrvin
@ColoradoGuy: About 80-90% will tacitly approve of atrocities when prompted with sufficient trauma, especially if they’re not prepared in advance to resist it.
NobodySpecial
Hamas leadership doesn’t care because they’re sharing drinks with the money men in Qatar.
Hamas officers and soldiers don’t care because they desire to hurt Israel any way possible and think they’re dead men regardless of what happens.
Israel doesn’t care because Gaza and the West Bank are Sabra and Shatila scaled up, and they had zero problem with that.
Palestinians are going to be reduced to the exact conditions of the Kurds and everyone wants that to happen.
Fuck it, just put an ACTUAL Iron Dome over the whole of it and let them kill each other without any interference. Then we can quit pretending we give a shit.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@JPL: 3..2…1.. “I don’t know Mark Meadows. I’ve never met him. I wouldn’t know what he looks like if he was standing next to me.”
PJ
@trollhattan: A million people were killed in Rwanda with machetes.
geg6
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA):
This.
Meanwhile, in good news, it seems Meadows flipped. Jack Smith gave him immunity and he’s been interviewed several times and has testified in the grand jury. Shit is hitting the fan and ketchup is hitting the wall.
Bill Arnold
@Anoniminous:
Thank you for that Terry Pratchett quote.
(Just ordered “Thief of Time” after reviewing the wikiquotes for it. Looking forward to it.)
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Perhaps, but I’ve not seen that outside of the conspiracy theory crowd, and there’s really no point trying to persuade the people that believe RFK Jr is about to rise from the dead.
I don’t argue that there are such people, but I think those people are already fringe enough that a government agency is free to ignore them. Put more directly, none of the reporters the IDF invited would be advancing such an argument. Further, the reporters the IDF invited likely have already observed the real effects of the act and interviewed people affected. I can’t imagine there is any person we would consider a professional journalist that isn’t not only already aware of what occurred (it’s been weeks now) but have observed things they don’t feel needs to be shown to their audience. So this must have been a very preaching to the choir kind of press event, and yet, they felt the need to hold it.
I suppose another angle here is that the IDF is trying to manage their PR because they may not agree with the political objectives here, but cannot come out in opposition to those objectives. The military is not a free agent here – in Israel as in the US, they answer to civilians. That would sort of shift the framing away from the IDF specifically and toward Israeli leadership more generally.
Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive to what happened in the US in 2003, with the administration making similar emotional appeals to cover up for planned actions that certainly in hindsight we recognize as unjustified (to put it mildly).
And to be clear here, I have no strong objection to a Mossad agent putting a bullet through the back of the skull of any of the Hamas attackers. I would prefer a different approach, but in situations like this we are not usually afforded that different approach. At the very least that kind of approach tends to not inflame things unlike the headlines that the IDF are currently generating. I would prefer if Israel were taking actions in such a way that naturally gave them a PR win.
Sister Golden Bear
@JaySinWA: Yes, playing Tetris immediately after a traumatic event can potentially prevent PSTD by “strategic, selective interference with the consolidation of recently triggered visual memories occurs via the demand on the player’s limited visuospatial working memory resources.” In laypeople’s language the game requires enough concentration that the brain has limited resources to store memories of the traumatic event. Still needs additional study, which I believe is under way.
As far viewing horrific videos, just because the world needs to bear witness, doesn’t mean you have to be the one who does. If you don’t want to, there’s nothing wrong with not doing so. Back when I was reporter covering cops and courts, I saw and wrote about some real nightmare fuel stuff. It changes you.
Omnes Omnibus
They did have major news organizations run with a story that they bombed a hospital on little to no evidence. They might be feeling a bit of a need to over document their claims. Also, I would take issue with your claim that it is only fringe elements who dispute the specific actions of Hamas on Oct. 7. OTOH I doubt we will see eye to eye on this, so this conversation has probably run its course.
Alison Rose
@Martin:
Have you somehow missed the groups and individuals (not conspiracy theorists) that were praising Hamas’ attack as a victory of rising up against colonizers? That are operating from a place of near-complete ignorance about the racial elements and historical facts regarding the region, and cheering on “brown people taking on white people”?
bookdragon
@Martin: “I mean, if it was less sadistic, Israel would still have sufficient justification to arrest, prosecute, or even kill as an enemy combatant that Hamas member. I haven’t seen anyone argue against that, so what’s the point of that video then? ”
If you haven’t seen anyone argue against that, you are nowhere near American college campuses or quite a lot of places around the world.
I would love to have a magic wand that would whisk Hamas and only Hamas into a convenient spot in the Negev where the IDF could take them out (and yes, I mean dead or alive, because I have about as much sympathy for them as for the RuZZians who committed atrocities in Bucha. Yeah, I’m a bad liberal). However, neither I nor anyone else has that magic wand. So what is it you expect Israel to do? Sit back and say ‘Sure, you stormed in, murdered, raped, tortured, tied kids together and burned them alive, and then posted video of it because you were Proud. But hey, there’s no way we can come get you or the hostages you’re holding without killing anyone else, so… guess we just have to give you pass. Don’t do it again, eh? Please?’
This whole incident reminds me yet again that Israel, and Jews generally, are the only people absolutely forbidden to defend themselves.
Geminid
@bjacques: There is a lot to what you say, but I’m pretty sure Israel’s political and military leadership see this matter differently. Yesterday Politico Magazine published an interview with former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin. He said of Israel’s war aims:
Yadlin is still highly connected to Israel’s security establishment, having served as head of the influential Institute for National Securities for ten years after he retired from the IDF. His words convinced me that a ground invasion of Gaza is a matter of when, not if.
I think Yadlin would reject your assertion that the IDF will be “going after civilians.” He would likely say “no, we are going after armed soldiers and they are the ones keeping civilians in Gaza City.” Yadlin claimed the civilians are there under duress, in violation of the laws of war requiring combatants to evacuate civilians in harms way.
The interview is wide ranging, and is titled “‘Netanyahu Got All the Warnings,’ Says Former Head of Military Intelligence.” The “warnings” referred to in the title were not warnings specific to the October 7 attack, but warnings the PM got from the IDF Chief of Staff, the heads of Shin Bet and Mossad, and individuals like Yadlin, that his reckless drive to weaken Israel’s judiciary was “weakening Israel’s deterrence and endangering Israeli national security.”
Mr. Yadlin spoke to other matters including Hezbollah and the potential for US military involvement if a full scale war erupts between Israel and Hezbollah.
He also spoke of a potential peace settlement. Yadlin described himself as a “security hawk and a political dove,” and said he believed there must be a two state solution. But he insists that any Palestinian state must not be armed, because “we know what they want to do to us.”
Geminid
I want to thank Ms. Cracker for posting on such a difficult and contentious subject. That took guts, but I have come to understand that being a front pager for this forum takes guts.
bookworm1398
Some of the comments here make me wonder, are people aware that the Hamas fighters who carried out the attacks are (almost) all dead. I say almost because no one has an exact list and there may be a couple who retreated back to Gaza. But generally, they’re dead.
There are a few leaders who must have known about the attack but didn’t personally fight so they are alive. A dozen or so.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ruckus:
I agree.
WaterGirl
@bookworm1398: Why do you think that? Or how do you know that?
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: How does it change anything if true?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: If true, there’s even less of an excuse for brutality.
If true, they have already gotten retribution against those who carried out the attack.
Geminid
@bookworm1398: Early on, Israeli authorities made some expansive claims about the casualties inflicted on the attackers, but I think a lot of the Hamas fighters and the civilians who joined their raid made it back into Gaza. Some stayed to fight it out with the IDF on Israeli territory, but many came back to prepare for the fight inside Gaza that they know is coming.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: How does it not change anything?
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: There already is no excuse for brutality. It makes little difference because this was not simple crime where catching and punishing the perpetrators solves the problem. It was an attack by an organization, Hamas. Action against the organization as a whole is warranted. That action should be proportional and within the Law of Armed Combat, but the idea that nothing should be done because the frontline people who carried out the atrocities are mostly dead is ludicrous. People planned and ordered it. People are probably planning and training for another action.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: It might change something if all the strackers were killed (I don’t think they were). But this was not a rogue operation; it was planned by the leadership that stayed behind with hundreds and probabably thousands of fighters who are preparing for the Israeli counterattack they intended to provoke.
If some gang lord sent a four men to shoot up a club in your neighborhood, you would not be satisfied if the cops managed to kill the four men; you would want them to go after the masterminds and their organization, rather than wait for them to send another half dozen men to shoot up a restaurant. You might not see it this way with regards to the Gaza crisis, but that is how Israelis see it.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Hamas as an entire organization has a stated goal of eradicating all Jews. Not just in Israel. All Jews worldwide. It’s not like only the ones who enacted the atrocities on October 7 were the bad ones.
Not every member of al-Qaeda was on the planes on 9/11. Doesn’t make the rest of them less complicit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: The MSM’s impulse to “both sides” everything that comes along is collateral damage for both the Israelis and the Palestinians of the evil of Broderism. Also their inability to not jump to conclusions based on first reports, which both you and I know is something one should never do.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree with what you said.
The only thing is, I assumed since the frontline people who carried out the atrocities are mostly dead that Israel had already found them and killed them.
Maybe I had that wrong?
WaterGirl
@Geminid: @Alison Rose: @Omnes Omnibus:
Nodding.
Cynnthia MOORE
@Villago Delenda Est: This is the problem
No One of Consequence
@bookworm1398:
A good number of them I am sure met their end, but I doubt very much the hostages drove themselves, or kidnapped themselves, or controlled themselves into Gaza…
Even a 1:1 ratio of kidnapper to hostage, there’s approx 200 right there?
(edited to add: Fair points all made after that post. I should have read through to the end before chiming in. Bad lurker etiquette. It doesn’t matter materially if those kidnappers have all met their end or not. More death won’t bring anyone back or remove any of the horror from those still alive who experienced. However, **THOSE** actors, the kidnappers, are not innocent, imho. They have earned what karma has in store for them. All arguments of Palestinian plight aside, and I am sympathetic to most arguments about that plight.)
Noskilz
A very grim situation that is seems set to become much worse.
I had the impression that the cartoonish barbarism involved was deliberately done with an eye to making sure the Netanyahu administration would act rashly in ways that would leave it internationally isolated and perhaps with the idea of encouraging a poorly planned invasion of Gaza. Doesn’t mean that is the right impression, just how it struck me.
It still feels very underwear gnomey – like somewhere along the way all the elaborate planning in preparing for the attack gave way to handwaving and just hoping some neighboring country would want to pitch in on its behalf. We don’t know all the details – and some of the claims that have been made about what Hamas was trying to do on Oct 7 just sound a bit weird (like holding that territory – really?) – but if there were some kind of formal preparations and agreements, that would make it sound less insane if no less monstrous. As it is, it just sounds like a way to get thousands, if not tens of thousands of people killed with nothing much to show for it on the off chance some of Israel’s crankier neighbors might want to get involved.
Paul in KY
@Martin: Doesn’t need to be shown (as you say) for Israel to pursue to ends of Earth the murderers. Maybe it was shown to let people who might be favourable to or ignorant of that brand of Wahhabist ‘islam’ Hamas practices how exactly that creed treats ‘non-believer’ humans.
Paul in KY
@NobodySpecial: The Hamas ‘soldiers’ are not that at all (IMO). They are suicidal would be murderers who know or figure they’ll be dead very soon & just want to kill as many Israelis as they can before they die. No real strategery there.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Hamas has had plenty of opportunities to learn about urban warfare from reporting on tbe battles of Aleppo, Fallujah and other places like the West Bank town of Jenin. They will mount a well-organized and capable defense. If Hamas and other militias mean what they say, they will try to inflict as many IDF casualties as possible.
The IDF knows this, but according to former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin* they are determined to end Hamas control of Gaza. This will be a very violent battle which will go on for days and perhaps weeks.
* see #81
Paul in KY
@Noskilz: If Hamas thought that murdering kids & whatnot (and making sure it was documented) was going to ‘isolate Netenyahu’, then they are even stupider and more tone-deaf than I thought (and I think they turn both of those up to 11, in general).
Paul in KY
@Geminid: I was talking more about the gangs that attacked the fest/kibbutzes/etc.
I would assume they do have some professionals in their organization.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: A picked force of Hamas professionals led the October 7 attack. It was well planned and carefully timed. A lot of riffraff trailed them, but those amateur bandits never could have gotten anywhere on their own.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: See your point.