Members of Congress Repeat Hamas-Run Health Ministry Claim That Israel Bombed Hospital (Update Added)
[guest post by Dana]
I know it’s foolish, and I know that we are way beyond such naïveté, but it would be much healthier for the country if members of Congress waited for evidence before repeating unproven claims as if ironclad and indisputable. Of course I am referring to this report, Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says 500 killed in Israeli airstrike on hospital. Despite the assertion resting solely on the Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, that didn’t stop some members of Congress from, unsurprisingly, repeating it as of it were the God-honest truth:
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.
Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many… https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023
Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific.@POTUS needs to push for an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter. https://t.co/dPJ48dyDe8
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 17, 2023
File under: Exactly what we expect.
Meanwhile, Israel says not so fast:
Israeli President Isaac Herzog decried the deadly blast in Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City that he said was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket and criticized the media’s reporting on the tragedy.
“An Islamic Jihad missile has killed many Palestinians at a Gazan hospital, a place where lives should be saved,” Herzog said on social media.
The explosion was caused by a “failed rocket launch” from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, according to The Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Herzog denied accusations from Gaza officials blaming the IDF for the blast, which likely killed hundreds.
“Shame on the media who swallow the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, broadcasting a 21st century blood libel around the globe,” Herzog said. “Shame on the vile terrorists in Gaza who willfully spill the blood of the innocent.”
“Never before has the choice been clearer. Israel is standing against an enemy made of pure evil. If you stand for humanity — for the value of all human life — you stand with Israel,” Herzog said.
Peas in a pod: The people taking the word of the Gaza ministry of health that Israel bombed the hospital are the same ones who demanded evidence that Israeli babies were killed and beheaded, otherwise it never happened.
UPDATE ADDED: This morning we are learning that Israel was not responsible for the bomb at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza:
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council reaffirmed President Biden’s comments from early Wednesday that the U.S. government does not assess that Israel is responsible for Tuesday’s deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza City.
“While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” said the spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson.
Hamas immediately blamed Israelis for the blast, while Israel’s military said that part of a “barrage of rockets” fired by the Islamic Jihad militant group erroneously hit the area.
After arriving in Israel on Wednesday, Biden said he’d seen material that suggested the strike was “done by the other team, not you.”
This is a clip of President Biden in Israel:
US President Joe Biden suggests Israel was not responsible for a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza, telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that "it appears as though it was done by the other team" https://t.co/iW8YgGfaCr pic.twitter.com/iomMKLTg2P
— Bloomberg (@business) October 18, 2023
Anyway, it’s unsurprising that Israel was immediately and falsely accused of being responsible for the hospital bombing. It’s even more unsurprising that certain members of Congress, Big Media, and any number of institutions of higher learning immediately blamed Israel. It’s the go-to move for anti-Semites and/or those who view Jews as responsible for the ills of the world. It’s become easier to understand the sheer hate motivating the collective persecution of a people 80+ years ago, and continues to motivate today.
Exit question: What are the odds that Tlaib and Omar, media, and universities across the nation issue public apologies for their misplaced accusations? Meh, that would require a backbone and integrity. It’s easier to delete tweets, pretend they never blamed Israel, and stay their particular course of blame and denial…
Biden in Israel: "Hamas committed atrocities that recall the worst ravages of ISIS, unleashing pure, unadulterated evil upon the world. There's no rationalizing it, no excusing it. Period… it has brought to the surface painful memories & scars left by millennia of antisemitism" pic.twitter.com/mk5eX8LSKj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 18, 2023
UPDATE 2: This happened today:
I just asked @RashidaTlaib multiple times why she hasn’t deleted this tweet—and whether she has seen evidence that refutes it.
Rep. Tlaib refused to say anything as she rushed from the House floor to a car waiting to pick her up outside the Capitol building. https://t.co/HxvvgqKZyS
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) October 18, 2023
Running away seems her best option at this point. Anything but admit she is wrong in her assertion that Israel bombed the hospital. She subsequently mislead thousands of her social media followers with her false claim. And she further put Jewish men, women, and children at risk with accusations.
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (3e2200) — 10/17/2023 @ 2:57 pmIt is lawful to lie to infidels.
nk (1154ca) — 10/17/2023 @ 3:02 pmAnd not to make a joke of it, because it is not a joking matter, but it’s like the old saw: Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news. That’s why the media is eager to seize on these kind of stories and to be the first to do so.
nk (1154ca) — 10/17/2023 @ 3:19 pmThe New York Times is also complicit, as I mentioned here. They changed their headline quickly after, but the damage was done when antisemites like Tlaib and others ran with headline.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/17/2023 @ 3:22 pmI detest those two.
Time123 (912bff) — 10/17/2023 @ 3:47 pmAnyone know how gerrymandered their districts are? MI is doing new maps so maybe we can get rid of Tlaib.
I doubt that Israel is using bombs that size. It’s more like Hamas was storing explosives and ooops.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 3:58 pmMI is doing new maps so maybe we can get rid of Tlaib.
Perhaps letting her constituents know that not one dime of federal spending will be allocated there.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:00 pmIf once a man indulges himself in beheading babies, very soon he comes to think little of lying.
(You can find the original quote by Thomas DeQuincy here.
nk (d4dd8e) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:13 pmThe hospital deaths are horrific. We can’t know yet which side is lying. Tlaib and Omar’s repulsive demagoguery should surprise no one.
It’s plausible that either side bombed the hospital accidentally, but there’s only one side that plausibly could have targeted it deliberately. Cui bono? Not Israel.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:15 pmWe can’t know yet which side is lying.
There is a video of Hamas launching rockets over the hospital and in that exact time frame we see the explosion. (via Paul)
It looks like the hospital explosion was a large cache set off by a errant rocket. The explosion is more than what Israel usually uses.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:31 pmIF you look closely at the rockets being launched, it seems that one or two of them failed to launch completely.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:33 pmYes, I’m aware. That’s evidence, but it’s not conclusive.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:37 pmSpeaking of things that should come as no surprise, here’s a good piece on some unsurprising aspects of the 10/7 attacks and the ensuing reactions. I don’t agree with every word of it, but it makes a lot of good points.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:45 pmAdded to post because I’m really irked by these people and their sick hypocrisy and double standards for Israel:
Dana (6d80a9) — 10/17/2023 @ 4:50 pmThis is what you expect Israel to claim wither true or not. Arab street has already made up its mind. Critics say hamas rockets not that accurate mostly unguided. Blast was to big for hamas rocket and explosives were not stored in hospital if that is used as excuse. Israel will have to address this. @14 Dana conservative talk radio ignores revenge killing of 6 year old palestinian-american boy in chicago. Will only talk about dead Israeli children. Both sides don’t care.
asset (72a311) — 10/17/2023 @ 5:03 pmThere are some on the alt-right that don’t believe babies were decapitated by Hamas, believing it is war hysteria propaganda designed to inflame the West to start WW III, similar to false accusations that Iraqi soldiers committed “atrocities” against Kuwaiti babies in 1990.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 5:05 pmThe tragic death of civilians on both sides doesn’t make the sides morally equivalent. Every innocent death, Palestinian or Israeli, works to Hamas’ benefit and Israel’s detriment. Show me evidence of Israel deliberately targeting civilians, as Hamas does every day, and we can talk about “both sides.”
lurker (cd7cd4) — 10/17/2023 @ 5:40 pmI was in high school when they murdered the Olympic athletes in Munich. It helped shape my understanding of “aggressive panhandler”.
It must present a propaganda quandary to them, though. On the one hand, they want their bloodthirsty hordes to believe that they struck a horrific blow against the Jews. On the other hand, they don’t want the rest of the world to believe that they could be so evil and that they are the victims.
nk (675480) — 10/17/2023 @ 6:17 pmNot to be too cynical, but the other day there was a “strike” on a civilian evacuation route, but a slowed down frame by frame version of the video showed a stopped truck on the right, no bomb coming from above but plenty of explosion coming from the area near the stopped truck.
Who benefits from bombing a designated evacuation route more? The people who don’t want civilians to evacuate. Israel benefits more from having all civilians gone, even if a few Hamas slip out the back door
I also don’t believe that 500 were killed in the hospital explosion. The Palestinians have a bad habit of trucking bodies around for photo ops and to inflate the body count. The faster they can get the media to hit the magic 1300 number, they can begin to claim every death beyond that to be disproportional
steveg (8a0cef) — 10/17/2023 @ 6:36 pmRip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 5:05 pm
The New York Times doesn’t believe it either. They cite it as an example of where the details are wrong (because Hamas did kill babies and may have severed body parts.)
Indeed, it makes no sense. Decapitation is a ceremonial form of execution of adult hostages recorded for posterity, It was used by ISIS in Syria and earlier by al Qaeda’s Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/business/israel-hamas-misinformation-social-media-x.html
Sammy Finkelman (bcd381) — 10/17/2023 @ 6:53 pmRip,
your desire to tar a few random alt-righters with the bigotry of the mainstream academic left really is repulsive. You want to play the both sides game as you push your agenda.
But par for the course.
Carry on.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 10/17/2023 @ 6:55 pm@17 collateral damage has killed over 4,000 civilians mostly women and children including the rafah exit to egypt. The 6 year old palestinian-american boy stabbed to death in revenge killing. How does right wing talk shows ignoring it help hamas?
asset (72a311) — 10/17/2023 @ 7:02 pmI have no idea what you mean.
Carry on, clinger.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 7:06 pm“collateral damage has killed over 4,000 civilians mostly women and children including the rafah exit to egypt. The 6 year old palestinian-american boy stabbed to death in revenge killing. How does right wing talk shows ignoring it help hamas?”
The 6 year old’s murderer is in jail, will meet justice and, if not for committing his act in a blue state, would be destined for death row. Nobody is celebrating his act, or tweeting out support, and no university is justifying it as resistance. Are you disappointed nobody has lowered themselves to the left’s level?
lloyd (8ca7dd) — 10/17/2023 @ 7:34 pmI don’t need to see it done to know that if a baby or toddler is shot with an AK47 in the upper torso, the head could easily pop off. To me that is different than ritualistically taking a scimitar or other cutting tool to the neck of the child. And yes it is all horrible, but indulging in a ghastly ritual would have upped the decibel level
steveg (8a0cef) — 10/17/2023 @ 9:32 pmJust a couple of things then I’ll return to my previosly scheduled, sabbatical.
1) Israel absolutely IS using gravity bombs that would do this damage. They are using 500 to 2,000 lb bombs dozens a times a day, and they had F16’s actively in the battle space, but probably weren’t targeting it.
2) Most of Israel’s drone fleet is purely ISR and a few with TD pods (lasing), and the armed ones either fire Hellfire missiles or SDB 250lb or smaller. I talked to someone I know today from the IDF and and the 3 drones that were up were ISR only. Their only armed dron is the Heron TP, which has a max load of 551 lbs, or 2 SDBs.
3) Hamas doesn’t field a rocket with a large enough warhead to cause that damage…ALONE. There’s a decent probability that a Fajr-5 with a dud launch would still be loaded with rocket fuel, which is basically an explosive (~800 lbs) which most would still be onboard, and a 385 lb warhead. That is conceivable, especially be true if something like a delayed fuel truck was still offloading.
4) Hamas truck bomb.
At this point its more likely it was an errent bomb from the IDF. Next an errent rocket from Hamas. Less likely, an intentional targeting with either, whoops. Followed by a Truck bomb.
Again with a but…BUT, you’d need to get access to the site with forensics, and be trusted with your results. At this point, I don’t see any faction that is going to let that happen, or accept the results if they are counter to their stories in the 5 minutes after it happened.
So this is an escalation that could draw in a regional reaction, which could draw in a global reaction, which would escalate…and round and round we go. Fog of war is a real thing, and one of the problems with Gaza and Israel being in a phone booth is that you can respond in minutes when you should shut the ___ up and get some truth first. Neither party wants that, nihilists are winning, great 🙁
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 10/17/2023 @ 9:58 pmBased on this video you can clearly hear the missile as it impacts the hospital.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:07 pmThe WSJ has video where you clearly hear the missile impacting the hospital.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:09 pmSorry for the double post.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:10 pmIIRC, every time Israel goes after Hamas, a hospital blows up.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:26 pmThe WSJ has video where you clearly hear the missile impacting the hospital.
That does not mean it was an Israeli missile.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:28 pmColonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 10/17/2023 @ 9:58 pm
1) Hamas was firing missiles, intended for Israel, which appeared in a video to be aimed over the hospital. There’s a video.
2) One or two of those missiles appeared to fail shortly after launch.
3) A dozen or so seconds later there is the hospital explosion, in the same video.
4) If Hamas was storing explosives under the hospital — something Israel claims they do — then secondary explosions might occur.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/17/2023 @ 11:33 pm@32 It counts to the people who don’t matter (pro-Israel netanyahu supporters) and to the people who matter (the rest of the world including an ever growing number of younger americans) it doesn’t matter. They are starting to ask questions about how the babies in the kibbutz died.
asset (72a311) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:38 amNever said it did.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/18/2023 @ 4:56 amAny analysis has to substantively address the evidence that Israel has put forward. There’s either video and radar evidence or there’s not. Is it fair to not put the blast damage in terms of what was seen in the air and where it was coming from?
Could an IDF precision munition gone off target? Sure. But I’m with Kevin at this point. We’ve seen this drama before. It’s likely a misfire launched from Gaza…but it’s a misfire that is then taken to maximum advantage to stir up the Arab streets. The Israelis are hyper-sensitized to not make this sort of mistake…precisely because of how it will appear to Baghdad, Tehran, Amman, Damascus, and Cairo. I get fog of war and sometimes sophisticated stuff fails, but I also don’t put it beyond Hamas to blatantly lie to try and draw others into the battle.
AJ_Liberty (5f05c3) — 10/18/2023 @ 5:30 amIsrael’s response:
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/18/2023 @ 5:57 amThere’s a #5: Hamas was using the hospital as an ammo depot (as they’ve been known to do) and the Islamic Jihad rocket set off a larger explosion.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 6:19 amLast spring, Putin welcomed a Hamas delegation…
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 6:26 amAG put together a thread of video, pictorial and audio evidence. It appears the parking lot next to the hospital was hit while surrounding buildings are intact, and there’s no impact crater. There’s also an intercepted conversation between terrorists. Casualties claimed by Hamas appear to be wildly overstated.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 6:42 amYeah, from now on, any “war crimes” the Israelis is being accused of need to be meet with extreme prejudice until there’s uncontroversial evidence that substantiate the accusations.
Hamas, we knew they’re bs artists.
Everyone else fluffing Hamas as a source of truth simply needs to be outed as an anti-semitic a-hole.
whembly (5f7596) — 10/18/2023 @ 7:03 amAs I said, fog of war, a series of unfortunate events, nihilists, lack of trust, hair triggers, 500lb bombs in a phone booth. All of that leads to civilian targets. All of that leads to horrible outcomes and a tendancy to escalate before things are thought through.
Neither party has been overly cautious about civvies, human shields, the Palestinians have no ability to fight Hamas, or escape. The Israelies had no thought that 8/7 was a possibility, the intelligence agencies had a distinct threat focus on only what had happened before, and were focusing on domestic issues and the WB/Lebanon/Syria. This wasn’t unimaginable, it was just what Hamas has done before ramped up by 500X.
You don’t have to convince me that its a anti-Israel rocket, it’s believable, but at some point if the fighting is going to end at some point, this is one of those things that trust is going to have to be built. That or you just punt the next phase down the road for 10 years.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 10/18/2023 @ 7:10 amContinetti gets it. Russia and Hamas are both terrorist organizations seeking their own versions of a One State Solution, and fighting against Western civilization.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 7:15 amHere’s another example of New York Times bias regarding the bombing of the parking lot next to Ahli Hospital.
Not only was the headline misleading, saying “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say”, the photo was also misleading because that was not a picture of the hospital, which was clearly intact. This is a blatant case of pro-Hamas bias and journalistic malpractice.
I was listening to a Dispatch podcast yesterday, and I think it was Steve Hayes who said that one of the NYT contributors on the story worked with or for Rep. Tlaib, that she was an activist before she was a journalist. She should never have been given this assignment.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 7:56 amThis x’s 100.
NJRob (3520ae) — 10/18/2023 @ 8:18 amThey are starting to ask questions about how the babies in the kibbutz died.
I’m sure that claims that they were killed by Likud terrorists cannot be far behind.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 8:21 ambut at some point if the fighting is going to end at some point, this is one of those things that trust is going to have to be built.
I’m pretty much at “both sides trust a third party.” Preferably one with existing credibility to both Israel and the Palestinians, which leaves out the PLO.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 8:28 amA question for those who have watched different TV news programs than I have: Are the pictures you have been seeing of Gaza consistent with the claime that it has been a “hellhole” for years? (Mostly I have watched local TV news here (mostly for the weather), having long ago decided that — if you want to be well-informed — you should avoid watching the national programs, and spend your time in other ways.)
In the pictures I have seen of Gaza, there are healthy-looking people in good clothes, many automobiles, buildings that look solid, and so forth. There are parts of some American cities that look far worse.
Now, granted, living under Hamas would turn a city into a “hellhole” for anyone who values freedom, but that isn’t the claim that has been made, for years.
Jim Miller (520120) — 10/18/2023 @ 8:50 amUpdate added to post.
Dana (ba6139) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:05 amI’m trying to think of a third party both sides trust.
steveg (8a0cef) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:06 amHave winnowed it down to maybe Laos or San Marino
Reuters isn’t helping, starting with their opening paragraph.
One, a parking lot can count as part of a hospital, but “blast at a Gaza hospital” implies that the actual hospital was hit, and there’s no evidence. Two, “killed hundreds of Palestinians” is not established fact, it’s a claim by the Hamas. Disappointing, reading an opening paragraph of recycled unverified bullsh-t.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:18 amThis is good, and surprising given the source.
Dana (ba6139) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:24 amMatt Labash…
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:30 amJosh Marshall was thoroughly evenhanded, Dana, and I appreciate that, but given the massive overstatement of casualties at Al Ahli hospital, his comment that “an estimate three thousand people have died in Gaza during this war” is also thrown into question, because those numbers are coming a single sketchy source.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:37 amI agree, Paul, but I am still pleased with his objectivity and willingness to let truth be presented without conditions. We need more of this.
Dana (ba6139) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:41 amAlso, I’ve disbelieved the number 500. There is no way they could have counted bodies that quickly.
Dana (ba6139) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:42 amI doubt there will be any investigation while the war rages on.
Rip Murdock (dc18a3) — 10/18/2023 @ 10:31 amI’m trying to think of a third party both sides trust.
One of the best ways to “trust” someone is to know what their real interests are, and that they don’t want to screw themselves. There are several of those in the region.
When not enough of their interests are at risk, you create more interests for them to protect. That is what Israel and the US did with Egypt.
My current fave is Saudi Arabia. They have a clear interest in being seen as the savior of Gaza, if not Palestine (never mind they don’t actually care about the people there), and they can be made to have interests in trade with Israel, along with their security interests with the USA. And stopping Iran’s influence cold would be a nice bonus. Might require something bad happening to Hezbollah.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 12:04 pmAlso, they have the money to build something viable in Gaza, and perhaps the West Bank.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 12:05 pmKevin. I was thinking about the Saudi’s as well, but not sure they are trustworthy. As an Arab/Muslim Nation, they have a lot of navigation to do in order to work around their own conflicts of interest.
steveg (06ad40) — 10/18/2023 @ 1:00 pmI’m sure any Saudi oversight of Gaza and the West Bank would make them the targets of terrorism.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 10/18/2023 @ 1:42 pm2nd update added to post.
Dana (bf74b6) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:01 pmI finally saw the video during the day today: without any crater, not a 500lb bomb, not a truck bomb. A rocket with rocket fuel still onboard, and a moderately sized warhead would do this damage. At night, this would look way worse, due to the fireball, but that’s the fuel going up. That cars nearby only have minor damage is telling. At this point, unless they were housed in the car park, I’d doubt the death numbers.
Turkey makes a thermobaric version of a mk82 500lb gravity bomb, but we don’t, and as far as I can tell, no one else does either, and there really isn’t a normal case for an air fused/burst version. I don’t remember seeing a single use of anything but ground burst fused gravity bombs, but in built up areas we had moved to almost exclusively moved to SDB or reduced yield explosive versions. You’d still get 2klb bombs in the desert, and those things can cause injury or death up to a quarter of a mile away with debris and shrapnel. Heck, I really didn’t see much other than GBU44s in Iraq my last few tours, and those are tiny, like a 1 kilo explosive. One of the reasons is that we weren’t flying missions over the city going after troop concentrations with F-15/16/18s, mostly it was UAVs and you can rack 16 viper strikes on a Predator IIRC, and one of those has a very small blast radius. Of course that doesn’t mean none, you can still be the lottery winner and catch a piece of shrapnel pretty far off, but thats about as safe a “bomb” that your going to get, it’s bigger than a 40mm grenade or 60mm mortar, but much smaller than a HEAT round from a tank (120mm) which is kind of tiny compared to a 155mm artillery round.
So at this point, I’m ready to accept that it wasn’t Israel. I still have large concerns about the use of the large number of pretty darn huge dumb bombs the IDF is using, but without forward air C&C folks identifying targets, cheap dumb bombs are what they have, regardless of whether it’s using a precision guidance. If you are targeting a residential block because thats where Hamas or whomever is sheltering, you are going to get civilians too, who’s falt is that, not the civilians, but 85 years of back and forth fighting and shared hate does.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:26 pmhttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/technology/hamas-social-media-accounts.html
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:41 pmI recall reading that Hamas hit a hospital in Israel with one of their random rockets. It hit a pedestrian walkway between two buildings in Ashkelon I think, and no one was injured. (after all there are sirens)
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:43 pmI’m sure any Saudi oversight of Gaza and the West Bank would make them the targets of terrorism.
They already are, but they seem able to, ah, head it off.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:52 pmKevin. I was thinking about the Saudi’s as well, but not sure they are trustworthy.
Neither was Egypt, but the combination of getting back the Sinai (after losing it twice), plus the billions in aid from the US, made them reliable. Didn’t help Sadat any, but the peace proved lasting.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 2:55 pmAllahNick:
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 4:05 pmLinks:
AllahNick
And AOC, trying to avoid the unavoidable:
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 4:07 pmThe Saudi Mabahith will send your head home in a bowling bag and feed the rest to the jackals.
steveg (06ad40) — 10/18/2023 @ 4:49 pm@45 Idf refuses to confirm beheading of babies that is why questions are being asked.
asset (cd38b6) — 10/18/2023 @ 4:57 pm68 Thanks to latinx birth rate and demographics (nearly half the kids in school are minority. In the west its 3/4) AOC will become are president. Latinx girls have AOC as their role model.
asset (cd38b6) — 10/18/2023 @ 5:04 pm“Action on Armed Violence, a British NGO monitoring and researching the causes and consequences of weapon-based violence, says attacks on hospitals have been a consistent and devastating feature of Russia’s air campaign in Syria, and this inhumane tactic is now being seen in Ukraine. The pace of the targeting of health care facilities in Syria has been roughly consistent throughout, say analysts. But there have been notable upticks ahead of ground offensives, as well as before cease-fire and peace talks, they add.
In July and August of 2019, just as a ground offensive by Bashar al-Assad’s Russian-backed forces was ramping up, 40 health care facilities were struck in the northwest province of rebel-held Idlib. The hospital-targeting airstrikes coincided with a wide bombing and shelling campaign of civilian infrastructure, which left more than 800 civilians dead and hundreds more wounded in what U.N. officials at the time described as a “scorched-earth tactic.
What especially alarmed U.N. officials was that the GPS coordinates of the hospitals and clinics in Idlib had been shared by them with the Syrian government and the Russian defense ministry to try to ensure the hospitals would remain safe.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-hospital-bombings-idlib-un-doctors-russia-assad-attack-a8942076.html
steveg (06ad40) — 10/18/2023 @ 9:13 pmDoctors working in rebel-held northern Syria will no longer share the locations of medical facilities with the United Nations after doing so failed to stop them being targeted by airstrikes.
Some 25 hospitals have been bombed by Syrian government and Russian forces in the past month, as the two allies push an offensive against the last opposition bastion of Idlib.
The coordinates of nine of those facilities were shared with the UN, which passed them to Russia in an effort to protect them from being bombed and encourage some form of accountability for attacks. Instead, they also came under fire.
Latinx girls don’t date men who say “Latinx girls”
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 11:09 pmnearly half the kids in public school are minority.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/18/2023 @ 11:10 pmAOC president 2028 or 2032. The squad are girls role model. Generation z has highest percentage of democrat/green party voters and only half have turned 18. America majority minority by 2032 maybe sooner thanks to immigrants! Right when AOC is ready to run for president! By then texas will have turned blue. 2016 republican majority under 8% in 2020 under 6% 2024 4% to 3% 2028 1% 2032 BLUE STATE! Maybe more as voter suppression laws done aways with. Az 2016 trump wins by 60,000+votes (green party on ballot siphoning off 40,000 democrat votes 2020 Biden by 10,000 with democrats kicking green party off ballot. Madam president AOC soon.
asset (cd38b6) — 10/19/2023 @ 2:56 amAOC and the squad are all virulent anti-Semites.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 10/19/2023 @ 5:57 amGeneration z has highest percentage of democrat/green party voters and only half have turned 18.
The Boomers were pretty wild in the 60s and 70s. Things changed. Experience is a great educator.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/19/2023 @ 7:33 amHere’s another good part of Catoggio’s commentary, Kevin.
And this.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/19/2023 @ 8:04 amThe rocket was designed to kill Israeli civilians, after all, before it ended up killing Palestinian ones. Either way, the victims are casualties of a terror campaign aimed at innocents.
I’m pretty sure they don’t consider Israeli civilians as “innocents” any more than the Hamas killers did.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/19/2023 @ 8:13 amTlaib and Ilhan Omar don’t just believe the Palestinian lies.
They are invested in Palestinian lies and when they see factual evidence to the contrary they will fight back tooth and nail, disregarding truth.
Above I posted how Russia and Syria bombed hospitals, medical facilities in zones outside of Assad’s area of control. 25 in one month
steveg (06ad40) — 10/19/2023 @ 9:39 amI do not recall anyone storming the Russian embassies or protesting in western Europe, USA. Odds are good that Russia and/or Assad’s people have hit another medical facility within the last 10 days and no one cared.
Tlaib and Ilhan Omar will say nothing because they are also invested in anger. Anger towards Israel and the US exclusively and they have put all of the investment into that basket.
They haven’t protested the Chinese treatment of the Muslim Uighurs, the oppression by India of Muslims, the attacks on the Rohingya by the mostly peaceful Buddhists in Myanmar because that would be an investment that doesn’t pay off.
It’s like the LBJ “We’ll let him deny it” pigs anecdote.
And, like I said above, the man bites dog aspect which the media is always looking for.
Russian atrocities: Dog bites man.
nk (416a6b) — 10/19/2023 @ 9:54 amIsraeli atrocities: Man bites dog.
Ilhan Omar at the least posted a follow-up/reply to her Tweet/X Post stating that Israel and US intelligence deny that it was a result of Israeli action, and that there is unreliable information out there – while calling for a full investigation (starts at https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1714802305432682668). Hopefully she does better going forward.
Tlaib on the other hand has only doubled-down on her statements.
I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking, and one thing we must do is separate the “far left” from “progressive”. The far left is just like the far right: eager for violence and division. Progressives OTOH come from a place of universalist principles. It’s sort of like how the far right tries to assume the mantle of “conservative”: there’s nothing conservative about the far right, and their claiming of the label is harmful to principled conservatives. They’re all either useful idiots, or willing participants in a warped immoral mindset. We must minimize and defeat both sets of extremists.
Sam G (8d2ed1) — 10/19/2023 @ 11:18 amthat there is unreliable information out there
This from someone who accepted the word of people who killed babies in front of their mothers.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/19/2023 @ 11:45 amI didn’t say she was great.
Sam G (8d2ed1) — 10/19/2023 @ 11:47 amThe Iranian proxy Houthis just chucked 3 missiles at the USS Carney an Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer off the coast of Yemen. To be fair, it was could be their way of welcoming the USS Carney to the Red Sea, the USS Carney transited the Suez Canal yesterday so maybe it was just a 3 missile salute
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 12:17 pmNormally I’d dismiss the Houthi’s declaring that they were were entering the war against Israel as a very microaggression. The Houthi’s do answer to Iran, and hopefully Iran is just working through its list of minor proxies before they get to Hezbollah.
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 12:27 pmFor a little context…
I follow the news fairly closely, and I don’t recall any Days of Rage after those Syrian hospitals were struck by Russians.
Similarly in Ukraine. In 2022 alone, 250 Ukrainian hospitals–nearly one out of every ten–were hit with airstrikes by the Russian terrorist state.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 10/19/2023 @ 12:28 pmNow I see that the Navy is saying that the missiles were not launched at the USS Carney but were launched north and were intercepted anyway.
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 12:32 pmThis may or may not be true and is the type of lie the US uses to deconflict situations
Paul, that illustrates the “dog bites man” rule nk is noting for us.
Russian method of brutality is to do it so often themselves it becomes unremarkable.
Hamas misfired and Russia blamed Israel: “Russia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that a strike on a hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds of Palestinians was a shockingly dehumanizing crime and said that Israel should provide satellite imagery if it was not involved”
I’m sure a retraction is pending.
Then the Russians said this TODAY Wednesday about the USA: “The monstrous strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip is undoubtedly a war crime,” Medvedev wrote on his social media channel.
“And the final responsibility for it lies with those who cynically profit from wars in different countries and on different continents. Those who mindlessly hand out colossal money for weapons, loading their military-industrial complex. Those who deceitfully broadcast about their global mission to protect democratic values. The United States of America”
https://english.news.cn/20231018/190507da7afe40cf95ff754f8a8fbbe2/c.html
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:23 pmSorry not TODAY Wednesday
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:25 pmMore people forced to lie, or perhaps they negotiated a retraction in exchange for getting supplies back
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-aid-unrwa-united-nations-hamas-israel-45bfbfe
Stealing of humanitarian relief supplies also occurred in Ehiopia.
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:41 pmYes, Hamas. First they blamed Islamic Jihad, and later they blamed Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have separate command structures.
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:43 pmsteveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 12:32 pm
They may not have been targeted precisely. Or may have been – sort of – targeted at Israel.
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:47 pmSam G (8d2ed1) — 10/19/2023 @ 11:18 am
They haven’t reached the stage where they are trying to distinguish themselves from the pro-“Palestine” crowd the way liberals once tried to distinguish themselves from Communists, and fought against them for control of organizations.
Ronald Reagan was one of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 1:57 pm36.
I don’t think anyone was killed in the parking lot. The people who were killed were killed in the courtyard and that’s where you they took pictures of bloody blankets and backpacks and tattered clothing the next morning. (this all happened t 6:30 pm local time Tuesday – 12:30 pm EDT)
There’s something missing from the story but maybe the rocket broke up in flight and shrapnel landed in the courtyard plus fuel for a fire.
The hospital administration also accused Israel of having fired two projectiles that hit the fourth floor where there was a diagnostic center (and the ultrasound and mammography units) Israel said no it wasn’t them there then either.
Anything that hits a civilian target is apparently always attributed to Israel by Hamas, even though approximately 1/3 of their rockets fall in the Gaza Strip.
Sammy FInkelman (7a85f9) — 10/19/2023 @ 2:09 pmsteveg (06ad40) — 10/19/2023 @ 9:39 am
In Myanmar (Burma) the Buddhists are not so peaceful. They hardly know about the Uighurs, and the motivation by Xi Jingpin is different than you would find in other parts of the world. Legally, it’s genocide (elimination of a social group, even without mass murder)
Sammy Finkelman (7a85f9) — 10/19/2023 @ 2:21 pmhttps://www.newser.com/story/341601/heres-whats-known-about-the-gaza-hospital-blast.html
The translation says it was “us” which sounds like Hamas. President Biden said it was “the other team” (not wanting to say whether it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad exactly)
More:
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 2:40 pmPresident Biden scheduled to address the nation at 8 pm Eastern Daylight time. Which should definitely mean well before 9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMRs97QZY48
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/19/2023 @ 2:43 pmThis has been my view from the outset. In fact, I called it, not that it takes a genius. (No, Tlaib and Omar aren’t NGOs, but the anti-Israel hatred and bias are the same, and the unconstrained-by-evidence reactions equally predictable.) This isn’t the first time, even in this conflict alone, that Omar has spread scurrilous blood libels against Israel.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 10/19/2023 @ 3:39 pmSammy.
steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 7:54 pmMost American Buddhists have no idea what SE Asian Buddhists are capable of. Myanmar has some of the worst. (I’ve been there).
Here is the other side of the coin- it is hard to be a peaceful Buddhist around Muslims of a certain stripe unless they want to defy the self preservation instinct.
Hundreds of palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and their military guards along with two villages on the west bank in revenge killings. (Intercept, CNN, Al Jazeera and others.)
asset (b6a7fa) — 10/19/2023 @ 10:05 pmAsset really vetted those reports before posting, without links. I looked. It’s what you’d expect.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 10/19/2023 @ 10:49 pmI would like to give a shout-out to our generous host, Patterico, for maintaining this site; for his forbearance in allowing so many diverse ideas to be expressed. Thanks you, sir.
Thank you to Dana for being another Atlas, whose writing holds up the world of PP, and for JVW’s writings as well. Ah, to be young again!
All this, and still ad-free.
felipe (9bcc73) — 10/20/2023 @ 4:05 am100. steveg (d52ba7) — 10/19/2023 @ 7:54 pm
Theey basically haven’t been radicalized.
The main complaint against the Muslims is that they have more children, and otherwise, what that could portend for the future.
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 10/20/2023 @ 7:04 amKevin M (ed969f) — 10/19/2023 @ 10:49 pm
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been quoted as writing or saying (he didn;t say these exact words but it is like the famous Edmund Burke quote about good people doing nothing)
There are people who don;t seem to subscribe to that.
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 10/20/2023 @ 7:16 amAs I expected, some of the people reported to have been taken as hostages to Gaza were killed in Gaza, probably because their captors had an excess of them or too many to guard.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-abbey-onn-carmela-dan-noya-killed/
There is individual responsibility here too. They could have been set free instead of killed, and in once case I think they were, probably against orders.
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 10/20/2023 @ 7:28 amOn October 7, I think Hamas killed excess captives, The Israeli government was just pretending that they were all taken hostage to Gaza.
\\https://www.timesofisrael.com/taken-captive-8-members-of-an-extended-family-on-kibbutz-beeri
Sammy Finkelman (b434ee) — 10/20/2023 @ 7:36 am97.I wrote:
Actually the translated transcript says both “us” and “Islamic Jihad,” but it does not state that as fact, but rather what they are saying
U.S. intelligence would not absolutely rely on a secondhand report by a member of Hamas that doesn’t even state as fact that it was Islamic Jihad, and of course, he could say “us” even if it was, because they work together and are really just different branches of the same organization.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/gaza-hospital-bombing-israel-shares-footage-of-hamas-islamic-jihad-discussing-failed-rocket-launch-that-killed-500-11697621886093.html
The NYT reported that the hospital also has that name:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/us/politics/biden-israel-trip.html
The BBC thought the cemetery was some distance away.
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/20/2023 @ 12:48 pm97.I wrote:
Actually the translated transcript says both “us” and “Islamic Jihad,” but it does not state that as fact, but rather what they are saying
U.S. intelligence would not absolutely rely on a secondhand report by a member of Hamas that doesn’t even state as fact that it was Islamic Jihad, and of course, he could say “us” even if it was, because they work together and are really just different branches of the same organization.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/gaza-hospital-bombing-israel-shares-footage-of-hamas-islamic-jihad-discussing-failed-rocket-launch-that-killed-500-11697621886093.html
The NYT reported that the hospital also has that name:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/us/politics/biden-israel-trip.html
Sammy FInkelman (1d215a) — 10/20/2023 @ 12:48 pmThe New York Times ran two more stories on this (trying to explain and somewhat undo the credence they gave Hamas – although they were still doing that in one story yesterday, giving a “he said, she said” summary)
On Sunday they raan on page 2 a News Behind the Story article about how heb hospital story was covered by various outkets) and on Monday they ran a front page story bout Hamas’ unwillingness to provide proof that Israel struck the hospital, and its dubious answers to questions,
But the NY has so far not stated flatly about anything that Hamas claimed, that t was “without evidence” or that it claimed “falsely” like they do with Donald Trump.
Sammy Finkelman (23306a) — 10/24/2023 @ 8:43 am110. RE: Links to the two articles mentioneed above.
The first story, about how the story developed, did not appear Sunday and I can’t find it now. Maybe after searching through all my old papers. I was sure this was on page 2. Before this week they were running a number of stories about this. The NYT is bothered by its coverage of this
This is the link to the second story about Hamas’s non-credibility about the hospital.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-hospital-evidence.html
This is another half-error. The main part of the missile struck in the parking lot but probably nobody was killed there. There were after all, parked cars there, not people in tents. People were killed in courtyard ad there were signs of that that there in the morning, even though the bodies had been taken away.
And today the New York Times published an Editor’s Note on page A15 (the last page of the first section is A20)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/pageoneplus/editors-note-gaza-hospital-coverage.html
The New York Times is much more careful with Republican inspired anti-Biden stories, even if they have circulated widely elsewhere.
Sammy Finkelman (e0dccb) — 10/24/2023 @ 2:26 pm110. 111.
It’s in Friday’s paper, page A2 I found it in the library (easier)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/business/media/hospital-blast-gaza-reports.html
Sammy Finkelman (e0dccb) — 10/24/2023 @ 4:38 pmNYT is stilll poring over the hospital disaster
Bottom line: The explosion was not caused by the presumably Islamic Jihad rockets that have been pointed to, and neither was it caused by anything Israel fired, but the Israelis have no idea what they are talking about.
They pointed to their own Iron Dome antimissile as having been fired by Islamic Jihad and caused the explosion, but it was theirs but probably did not enter Gaza airspace and in any case exploded two miles away from the hospital and almost certainly did not cause the damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html
The NYT is mixed up. The parked cars and the courtyard are two different locations.
he NYT says that something from Israel indeed hit the hospital the previously (but not Thursday but “three days before” which was Friday)
but it was an illumination artillery shell.
We’re left with no cause and a hugely exaggerated death toll.. It would seem either to be fuel from Hamas or Islamic Jihad rocket caused a fire, or Hamas caused the whole thing with a bomb.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/26/2023 @ 2:33 pm97.
When did they announce it? Before or after? That could be part of the coverup.
The reason everybody says it was Islamic Jihad is because of this thing:
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/gaza-hospital-bombing-israel-shares-footage-of-hamas-islamic-jihad-discussing-failed-rocket-launch-that-killed-500-11697621886093.html
But this could be an internally circulated lie by Hamas.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/26/2023 @ 4:19 pmThe number of rockets fired from Gaza has gone way down.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 10/26/2023 @ 4:34 pm