This comment relates to the Monday night Bulwark podcast with Charlie Sykes and Will Saletan, and more specifically the general problem with accepting casualty numbers in Gaza from the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health. EVERY time that Palestinian casualties are cited, there is a lazy caveat attached that says that figures from the Min…
This comment relates to the Monday night Bulwark podcast with Charlie Sykes and Will Saletan, and more specifically the general problem with accepting casualty numbers in Gaza from the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health. EVERY time that Palestinian casualties are cited, there is a lazy caveat attached that says that figures from the Ministry of Health are suspect because the Ministry is controlled by Hamas.
I've had a persistent pet peeve on this approach to the Palestinian casualty/death numbers as reported by the media, because it's just lazy and disingenuous journalism. Why?
1) The Hamas controlled Ministry of Health has been releasing casualty numbers with full names, ages, and ID numbers. You're telling me that not a single news agency or conglomerate news group would find it POSSIBLE to use the names, ages, and actual fucking ID numbers to independently verify the claims? Let's remember that a whole bunch of competing media conglomerates were able to divvy up this type of work when it came to the Snowden data leak which was infinitely larger. But apparently Western media finds 10-15k numbers too time intensive to even bother?
2) Why isn't it that hard to investigate those numbers conclusively? I'm sure there are a lot of readers here who think that any data the Hamas run Health Ministry has released is garbage data that has no reliability. There are three significant problems with that "argument":
i) The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been operating in those small territories for such a long time, that they've developed a very sophisticated civil service. Why? Well, because they need to adjudicate property rights in extremely dense areas. And having valid accurate death certificates is integral to such endeavours.
ii) You wont' believe me on this one unless you look it up. Independent aid organizations have found that the numbers provided are generally accurate. Guess who else has also used those numbers and found them to be generally accurate? The Israeli government.
iii) Hamas is releasing the ID numbers of every casualty. How hard is it to investigate them?
For all I know, big media agencies are currently working to use Hamas-provided data to confirm or dispute the numbers provided by Hamas, but I've seen no evidence of that.
It seems to be part of the pro-Israel bias in news coverage to dismiss casualty levels on the Palestinian side as inherently unreliable, even though Hamas is giving reporters all the data they need to be able to do some ACTUAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING to see whether the numbers are in fact reliable (which they will be).
I think Israeli numbers would be similarly accessible by journalists and likely more reliable, but it's not be necessary because Israeli family members have been (rightly and righteously) been advocating for the release of their family members.
Baby decapitation claims have unfortunately not been verified, and Will Saletan himself noted in the podcast that there is no evidence of a single Israeli baby being beheaded on October 7.
But the greater point in that regard is that the distinction is morally and factually irrelevant (subject to a caveat). The lack of evidence that babies were beheaded is pretty irrelevant given that there is indisputable evidence that entire families were burned alive on October So babies were not decapitated, but they were burned to death with their families.
The caveat I mentioned above is merely that Israel has a history of fudging the facts to their benefit, so their claims should be taken with a grain of salt, all the moreso since a lot of the Israeli military aparatus is being controlled by hard-right Ministers who openly refer to Palestinians as animals.
This comment relates to the Monday night Bulwark podcast with Charlie Sykes and Will Saletan, and more specifically the general problem with accepting casualty numbers in Gaza from the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health. EVERY time that Palestinian casualties are cited, there is a lazy caveat attached that says that figures from the Ministry of Health are suspect because the Ministry is controlled by Hamas.
I've had a persistent pet peeve on this approach to the Palestinian casualty/death numbers as reported by the media, because it's just lazy and disingenuous journalism. Why?
1) The Hamas controlled Ministry of Health has been releasing casualty numbers with full names, ages, and ID numbers. You're telling me that not a single news agency or conglomerate news group would find it POSSIBLE to use the names, ages, and actual fucking ID numbers to independently verify the claims? Let's remember that a whole bunch of competing media conglomerates were able to divvy up this type of work when it came to the Snowden data leak which was infinitely larger. But apparently Western media finds 10-15k numbers too time intensive to even bother?
2) Why isn't it that hard to investigate those numbers conclusively? I'm sure there are a lot of readers here who think that any data the Hamas run Health Ministry has released is garbage data that has no reliability. There are three significant problems with that "argument":
i) The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been operating in those small territories for such a long time, that they've developed a very sophisticated civil service. Why? Well, because they need to adjudicate property rights in extremely dense areas. And having valid accurate death certificates is integral to such endeavours.
ii) You wont' believe me on this one unless you look it up. Independent aid organizations have found that the numbers provided are generally accurate. Guess who else has also used those numbers and found them to be generally accurate? The Israeli government.
iii) Hamas is releasing the ID numbers of every casualty. How hard is it to investigate them?
For all I know, big media agencies are currently working to use Hamas-provided data to confirm or dispute the numbers provided by Hamas, but I've seen no evidence of that.
It seems to be part of the pro-Israel bias in news coverage to dismiss casualty levels on the Palestinian side as inherently unreliable, even though Hamas is giving reporters all the data they need to be able to do some ACTUAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING to see whether the numbers are in fact reliable (which they will be).
I think Israeli numbers would be similarly accessible by journalists and likely more reliable, but it's not be necessary because Israeli family members have been (rightly and righteously) been advocating for the release of their family members.
Baby decapitation claims have unfortunately not been verified, and Will Saletan himself noted in the podcast that there is no evidence of a single Israeli baby being beheaded on October 7.
But the greater point in that regard is that the distinction is morally and factually irrelevant (subject to a caveat). The lack of evidence that babies were beheaded is pretty irrelevant given that there is indisputable evidence that entire families were burned alive on October So babies were not decapitated, but they were burned to death with their families.
The caveat I mentioned above is merely that Israel has a history of fudging the facts to their benefit, so their claims should be taken with a grain of salt, all the moreso since a lot of the Israeli military aparatus is being controlled by hard-right Ministers who openly refer to Palestinians as animals.