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United Kingdom10007 Posts
All these attempts to simplify the scale of the issues in Gaza are doomed to failure imo.
a: The death toll in Gaza is unknown. I already said this but we just don't know right now and it will be months after Israel let up their aggression before we can say anything about approximate numbers even.
b: There are other measures of how bad Gaza is. The general humanitarian situation facing the entire population for one. Usually in these wars there are possibilities of escape, or humanitarian aid, or medical help for the injured and sick. Israel has cut off basically all of those routes for the general population to get any assistance at all. That's why nearly every person living in Gaza now lives in poverty.
c: Due to the outright destruction of much of Gaza, any prospect of any economic recovery at all is completely dead in the water. There is no future for the Palestinians in Gaza. They have been ethnically cleansed. It might take some time for this to become apparent, but it will.
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Acro, we were referring to another battle of Grozny (1999-2000) that also has a wiki page with the numbers that we mentioned.
On April 07 2024 15:37 Elroi wrote:
I guess you could compare the conflict in Gaza with the conflict in the entirety of Chechnya but that would also give you between 3 and 10 times as many civilians killed. But the comparison is unfair since Chechnya is not close to being as densely populated as Gaza and the population wasn’t systematically used as human shields.
That sounds evasive though, yes this new thing would be unfair but what you did was also unfair. Since the large majority of the bombings were north, you would need to remove the number of people who went to the south of the Gaza Strip just like you removed the people who fled Grozny from the total. It isn't particularly impressive that Russia didn't kill the people who weren't in Grozny and it isn't particularly impressive that Israel didn't kill the people who weren't in Gaza.
There's also a few things to say about this reliance on percentages. First, it is harder to kill a large percentage of a large population, materially. There's a reason why San Marino was always topping the Covid death rates. It's going to be hard for you to be impressed by the losses sustained by China in a bombing, imagine how hard it is to kill 0,1% of China's population... And second, this is not really how people tend to speak about human deaths, you won't really hear what percentage of Israel's population was killed on Oct 7th or what percentage of the US's population was killed in 9/11. It is easier to take some distance when you think about 1,5 than when you think about 40000, but 40000 is just as real as 1,5.
And yes, after we move away from the numbers we can talk about genocide and human shields if you want, but imo the numbers is the strongest (and as such most interesting) part of your argument, as those two claims are so obviously bullshit.
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On April 07 2024 17:39 Nebuchad wrote:Acro, we were referring to another battle of Grozny (1999-2000) that also has a wiki page with the numbers that we mentioned. Show nested quote +On April 07 2024 15:37 Elroi wrote:
I guess you could compare the conflict in Gaza with the conflict in the entirety of Chechnya but that would also give you between 3 and 10 times as many civilians killed. But the comparison is unfair since Chechnya is not close to being as densely populated as Gaza and the population wasn’t systematically used as human shields. That sounds evasive though, yes this new thing would be unfair but what you did was also unfair. Since the large majority of the bombings were north, you would need to remove the number of people who went to the south of the Gaza Strip just like you removed the people who fled Grozny from the total. It isn't particularly impressive that Russia didn't kill the people who weren't in Grozny and it isn't particularly impressive that Israel didn't kill the people who weren't in Gaza. There's also a few things to say about this reliance on percentages. First, it is harder to kill a large percentage of a large population, materially. There's a reason why San Marino was always topping the Covid death rates. It's going to be hard for you to be impressed by the losses sustained by China in a bombing, imagine how hard it is to kill 0,1% of China's population... And second, this is not really how people tend to speak about human deaths, you won't really hear what percentage of Israel's population was killed on Oct 7th or what percentage of the US's population was killed in 9/11. It is easier to take some distance when you think about 1,5 than when you think about 40000, but 40000 is just as real as 1,5. And yes, after we move away from the numbers we can talk about genocide and human shields if you want, but imo the numbers is the strongest (and as such most interesting) part of your argument, as those two claims are so obviously bullshit.
I assumed we'd be talking about the more deadly of the sieges, given that the argument is that Gaza is the most horrendous siege in recent history? But mostly I'm just confused why this is even an interesting talking point. Gaza doesn't have to be more horrendous than Grozny or Aleppo to be a horrendous tragedy. People seem to take offense because this time it's us doing the sieging. Pointing to how Grozny or Aleppo were somehow worse seems like a pointless whataboutism to distract from the fact that Israel is acting with support of western nations, whereas Grozny and Aleppo were sieges the west criticized. Gaza is horrendous and ongoing. There is no need for it to be the worst siege in recent history for it to be worthy of our attention and outrage.
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On April 07 2024 18:04 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2024 17:39 Nebuchad wrote:Acro, we were referring to another battle of Grozny (1999-2000) that also has a wiki page with the numbers that we mentioned. On April 07 2024 15:37 Elroi wrote:
I guess you could compare the conflict in Gaza with the conflict in the entirety of Chechnya but that would also give you between 3 and 10 times as many civilians killed. But the comparison is unfair since Chechnya is not close to being as densely populated as Gaza and the population wasn’t systematically used as human shields. That sounds evasive though, yes this new thing would be unfair but what you did was also unfair. Since the large majority of the bombings were north, you would need to remove the number of people who went to the south of the Gaza Strip just like you removed the people who fled Grozny from the total. It isn't particularly impressive that Russia didn't kill the people who weren't in Grozny and it isn't particularly impressive that Israel didn't kill the people who weren't in Gaza. There's also a few things to say about this reliance on percentages. First, it is harder to kill a large percentage of a large population, materially. There's a reason why San Marino was always topping the Covid death rates. It's going to be hard for you to be impressed by the losses sustained by China in a bombing, imagine how hard it is to kill 0,1% of China's population... And second, this is not really how people tend to speak about human deaths, you won't really hear what percentage of Israel's population was killed on Oct 7th or what percentage of the US's population was killed in 9/11. It is easier to take some distance when you think about 1,5 than when you think about 40000, but 40000 is just as real as 1,5. And yes, after we move away from the numbers we can talk about genocide and human shields if you want, but imo the numbers is the strongest (and as such most interesting) part of your argument, as those two claims are so obviously bullshit. I assumed we'd be talking about the more deadly of the sieges, given that the argument is that Gaza is the most horrendous siege in recent history? But mostly I'm just confused why this is even an interesting talking point. Gaza doesn't have to be more horrendous than Grozny or Aleppo to be a horrendous tragedy. People seem to take offense because this time it's us doing the sieging. Pointing to how Grozny or Aleppo were somehow worse seems like a pointless whataboutism to distract from the fact that Israel is acting with support of western nations, whereas Grozny and Aleppo were sieges the west criticized. Gaza is horrendous and ongoing. There is no need for it to be the worst siege in recent history for it to be worthy of our attention and outrage.
I agree with all of that, yes. The initial argument by Elroi was about how those numbers indicate that it's foolish to talk about genocide, and clearly that logic doesn't work.
I just care about saying things that are true and it was at least interesting (to me) to compare Gaza to Mariupol or Grozny to see what we can and can't say with regards to the numbers, even if it isn't going to change any of my general positions on the conflict.
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What started this whole discussion is a very good example of how numbers can be compared either correctly (apples to apples) or incorrectly (apples to oranges) to paint various different pictures (if the numbers are accurate to begin with). The numbers can paint various different pictures from one extreme end all the way to the other end, and that leads to the creation of a story in people's heads that can be either fairly truthful or instead it could be a complete fabrication.
Point being, it's generally speaking an exercise in futility because so many mistakes can be made in the process. And these mistakes are usually sincere, meaning most people aren't trying to deliberately twist the numbers in a bad way, but they see the numbers and either think to themselves "this seems to support what I believe" or instead they think "this is surprisingly uplifting/upsetting and I want to believe it", and for those reasons they decide to post the numbers.
This can lead to a very distorted understanding of reality, so it's a pure gamble on whether it's useful, useless or even harmful information. But since the story fits someone's larger view of the world, people try to accept it regardless of all the faults in the math. The best approach is to reject the numbers and instead look at the facts in isolation.
Isn't it remarkable how Hamas managed to draw so much positive attention to the Palestinian suffering despite only killing 0.012% of Israeli people? It's but a scratch in the Israeli population! Finally Palestinians have a future to look forward to thanks to rapidly growing international support, and virtually no one had to die for it.
It's just so unfortunate that Israel is the literal demonic evil hell-bent on destroying the entire Arabic world, and we must support Hamas in their holy cause that will save the world.
Faulty math is a commonly used tool of apologists and fanatics. We need to be better than that and not fall into the same mental trap.
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lol I said that urban warfare is always extremely deadly and asked if some one knew an example where it had been any less deadly than in this so called “unprecedented” “genocidal campaign”. I wasn’t comparing this with grozny to make Israel look good; someone brought up grozny as an example of a less deadly urban siege (which it obviously isn’t).
Edit: you're right, that was unnecessary. I'll edit that.
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On April 07 2024 20:03 Elroi wrote:
lol I said that urban warfare is always extremely deadly and asked if some one knew an example where it had been any less deadly than in this so called “unprecedented” “genocidal campaign”. I wasn’t comparing this with grozny to make Israel look good; some idiot brought up grozny as an example of a less deadly urban siege (which it obviously isn’t).
Nebuchad corrected himself and clarified that the term "unprecedented" was in regards to more recent conflicts, and not anything dating all the way back to WW2 as you suggested. War generally used to be a lot more bloody than nowadays. That doesn't mean today's warfare is anything praiseworthy, including that of Israel.
And with "some idiot" you're referring to Salazarz. If you want to disrespect people, be upfront about it and name them so at least nobody has to sift through various comments to figure out who you're talking about. You're not above other people.
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On April 07 2024 16:51 Jockmcplop wrote:
All these attempts to simplify the scale of the issues in Gaza are doomed to failure imo.
a: The death toll in Gaza is unknown. I already said this but we just don't know right now and it will be months after Israel let up their aggression before we can say anything about approximate numbers even.
b: There are other measures of how bad Gaza is. The general humanitarian situation facing the entire population for one. Usually in these wars there are possibilities of escape, or humanitarian aid, or medical help for the injured and sick. Israel has cut off basically all of those routes for the general population to get any assistance at all. That's why nearly every person living in Gaza now lives in poverty.
c: Due to the outright destruction of much of Gaza, any prospect of any economic recovery at all is completely dead in the water. There is no future for the Palestinians in Gaza. They have been ethnically cleansed. It might take some time for this to become apparent, but it will.
Indeed, it’s a desperate situation on many levels.
One can but hope Israel and aid orgs, Hamas etc can get shit sorted to facilitate the delivery of aid ASAP. As bad as the bombing campaign has been, based on what I’ve read we’re fast approaching the time where starvation is going to be the big killer.
Not to mention the other impacts of starvation, included IIRC pretty irreparable damage on cognitive development in children.
And aye as per point C, which is the real differentiator from some of the other conflicts we’re tangentially discussing here. If Ukraine can hold against Russia, well there’s plenty to come back to if you’re a Ukrainian
This conflict could end today and it’s difficult to envisage much of a future for this generation of Gazans
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Call me a cynic but my first thought is "Netanyahu wants to keep the war going"
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On April 08 2024 02:00 Gorsameth wrote:
Call me a cynic but my first thought is "Netanyahu wants to keep the war going"
He wants the war to sprawl now in order to keep it going and stop him from losing power/ military support from the west. The attack on Iranian commanders didn't get enough press but the Iranian response to it definitely will.
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It makes a lot of sense. Hezbollah has huge capabilities in Lebanon and Syria. Around 100 000 Israelis are already displaced from the northern border because of the threat. Israel has also, historically speaking, had more success when being proactive (ie, the six day war) than being reactive (Jom kippur, oct 7).
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Amazing. All it took was one phone call and a veiled threat to cut off support.
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On April 08 2024 02:57 Elroi wrote:
It makes a lot of sense. Hezbollah has huge capabilities in Lebanon and Syria. Around 100 000 Israelis are already displaced from the northern border because of the threat. Israel has also, historically speaking, had more success when being proactive (ie, the six day war) than being reactive (Jom kippur, oct 7).
Aye, I mean war full stop isn’t any kind of desirable state of affairs of course.
But despite my heavy misgivings on how the Gazan conflict is being waged I can’t really find this particular move objectionable at all.
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On April 08 2024 03:09 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2024 02:57 Elroi wrote:
It makes a lot of sense. Hezbollah has huge capabilities in Lebanon and Syria. Around 100 000 Israelis are already displaced from the northern border because of the threat. Israel has also, historically speaking, had more success when being proactive (ie, the six day war) than being reactive (Jom kippur, oct 7). And I believe the UN had agreed to make that zone demilitarized but has done absolutely nothing and just allows hezbollah to fire their rockets into Israel and whatever else they want. I’m much more OK with the strikes on Iran military command and hezbollah than the ground assault on Gaza. @stealth hey look at that diplomacy works. (Some times 😅)
Another example of the issue with the UN being a largely toothless institution in and of itself.
Yeah agreed entirely here
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On April 08 2024 04:25 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2024 02:57 Elroi wrote:
It makes a lot of sense. Hezbollah has huge capabilities in Lebanon and Syria. Around 100 000 Israelis are already displaced from the northern border because of the threat. Israel has also, historically speaking, had more success when being proactive (ie, the six day war) than being reactive (Jom kippur, oct 7). Aye, I mean war full stop isn’t any kind of desirable state of affairs of course. But despite my heavy misgivings on how the Gazan conflict is being waged I can’t really find this particular move objectionable at all. You think Netanyahu expanding the conflict for his own personal/political goals isn't objectionable?
International pressure following the strike on the aid convoy is slowing down the Gaza operation and could force it to end entirely so he goes and opens up another front to keep Israel in a state of war, which he needs to stay in power.
(lets be clear, I have nothing against Israel striking Hezbollah, assuming they aim to minimize civilian casualties, my issue is with why Netanyahu is doing this now)
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EPT
