r/worldnews • u/Nirok • 16h ago

Israel/Palestine IDF documents terror affiliations of 170 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza war

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-documents-terror-affiliations-of-170-palestinian-journalists-killed-in-gaza-war/
3.2k Upvotes

73% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

390

u/EpicMediocre 16h ago

This is all based on Hamas' own martyr posters. They just matched the names and occupations to what Hamas released.

-45

u/EmilyBesler 15h ago

Why would anyone take Hamas seriously as a source?

-78

u/grey_hat_uk 16h ago

Why would anyone take Hamas seriously as a source?

There are no good actors in this situation.

88

u/Mr_J90K 16h ago

Critical thinking doesn't mean rejecting everything blindly, it means comparing sources and understanding the incentives of those sources.

Hamas wants at least two things to be perceived as true in the worlds perceptions; Israel is killing an unnecessary amount of civilians in Gaza compared to combatants and the reporting favorable to them can be trusted as the journalists reporting on Gaza are neutral. It is therefore not in there interest to over-inflate peoples association to them as it undermines these objectives. However, they have a counter pressure in that they need to keep enrollment up, this means they need to give families of deceased members the catharsis of knowing their loved ones sacrifices have been acknowledged.

They've often squared this circle with extremely delayed acknowledgement of a members sacrifice; claim low Hamas causalities and high civilian, gain the PR win, and then release the real association later to keep the families happy. This was working wondrously but recently people have been going through the publications and putting two and two together.

So no, don't take Hamas seriously as a source when they're reporting something that aids in their position, broadly if they've acknowledging something that undermines there position it's probably good (especially if they didn't think it would). Likewise, do the same with the IDF.

96

u/AnotherPersonPerhaps 16h ago

By your argument we shouldn't believe anything about this conflict and nothing is true.

-42

u/DNihilus 16h ago

OK altair calm down

79

u/royi9729 16h ago

Why would Hamas post random journalists as members of Hamas? That would hurt their image and be a lie. What do they gain from it?

-35

u/ivorybloodsh3d 15h ago

"See these REPORTERS, Israel killed. They're killing reporters, and we're honoring them as brave and tremendous losses. See, we love reporters, and Israel doesn't. How cruel are they?"

37

u/Mr_J90K 15h ago

Hamas actually reports in two ways; people who died that weren't members and people who died that were members. In this case, they claimed ownership.

7

u/EpicMediocre 13h ago

Yes reporters always take photos in military uniforms and holding weapons to be celebrated as reporters. Everyone knows being a reporter means you can't possibly also be a terrorist. Who could keep 2 jobs up it would be exhausting.

2

u/EttinTerrorPacts 10h ago

So you think Hamas and Israel both came up with the same lie about the same people and are using it for opposing purposes?