TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2023
Differently stated, Who didn't?: Who killed the hundreds of people at the hospital in Gaza?
At present, opinions differ. This is the current state of play as reported by the New York Times:
Israel and Hamas Blame Each Other for Blast at Gaza Hospital That Killed 500
Hundreds of people were reported killed by a strike at a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night where thousands of civilians reportedly had been sheltering.
The Gazan health authorities said the blast had been caused by an Israeli airstrike; the Israel Defense Forces said it was caused by a rocket fired by a Palestinian armed group that malfunctioned after launching.
The health ministry in Gaza said the number of casualties was expected to rise. Many civilians were sheltering at Ahli Arab Hospital, better known as Al-Ma’amadani, before it was hit. . In the past, rockets fired by Palestinian armed groups have occasionally malfunctioned and hit civilian neighborhoods.
The Civil Defense in Gaza said medical teams were overwhelmed and unable to respond adequately because the hospital was so badly damaged.
Today, we approach the mayhem from a new direction. We ask you this:
Within the news organs of our own blue tribe, how much have you heard about this general matter in recent years, or earlier this year? Or have we received only pleasing pablum about Donald J. Trump being hauled off to jail—pablum designed to please?
We misunderstand our own moral state. As Bob Dylan asked in 1963, "Who killed Davey Moore?"
His answer: Who didn't kill Davey Moore? To revisit the moral conundrum, you can just click here.
Quite routinely, we misassess our alleged moral greatness here in our own blue tribe. According to scholars, this doesn't mean that we're bad people. It means that we're people people.
Background: Who the heck was Davey Moore? For background on this young man's death, you can just click this.
Somerby today complains because Gaza and Hamas were not being discussed on days when there was no immediate crisis in that area. That brings us back to the difference between in-depth coverage of issues and breaking news/current events. The former which occurs in magazines and books and institutes and monographs in scholarly journals and eventually college classes, and the latter occurs in print newspapers, online newspapers, cable news and broadcast news. Distinct from this exists a sphere of opinion writers who produce analysis, editorials, propaganda and disinformation. That is how it works on the left and mainstream sources. On the right, opinion and disinformation are mixed with occasional news reporting to produce an unreliable mishmash of propaganda in favor of right wing political and conspiracy theories and public figures who exist to make money. Trump captures all three of those spheres.
ReplyDeleteSo, his complaint that the current events news media does not talk about Gaza every day is specious. There is not sufficient bandwidth to spend every day discussing issues that are NOT breaking news, in anticipation that something might change and bring those topics back into the news again. Somerby also throws in demands to cover local news on national channels too. That only happens when a local event has national interest or consequences, not whenever something happens locally. Thus many murders to do not get national attention, but when one represents a national problem (such a police killing of unarmed black men during traffic stops, or a mass shooting targeting a specific racial or ethnic group, or a child abduction at a national park) then it gets broader coverage.
Somerby wants to pretend that the left only cares about Trump and that's why Hamas wasn't discussed before their sneak attack on Israel. That's ridiculous because Hamas and Trump have been sharing the headlines this week without one preventing the other from being discussed at all. And discussing Trump doesn't mean people don't care about casualties in a Gaza hospital bombing at all. People can and do care about both.
"Who killed the hundreds at the hospital?"
ReplyDeleteThe article Somerby posted describes attempts to assign responsibility for a destructive bombing with Israel and Gaza both pointing fingers at each other. Somerby might have pointed out that this argument concerns only the proximal cause of the deaths and injuries, not the ultimate or distal cause. When discussing behavior, it is helpful to distinguish two kinds of causes:
"A proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the "real" reason something occurred."
In this situation, both sides are using rockets and bombs to kill people and destroy buildings. Either could have caused the destruction and neither is innocent in a proximate sense because something was destroyed by each side using such weapons. That makes it foolish to point the finger at each other, unless the weapons are so accurate and foolproof that they could have targeted non-civilian objects, making the hospital destruction deliberate. Israel suggests a malfunction on the Gaza side, denying deliberate atttack on a hospital as a target.
But the article itself and Somerby both ignore the distal cause. That is clearly the attack by Hamas that started the escalation to a shooting war and inspired the retaliation, which is not only predictable but within Israel's right to do. In that sense, Hamas brought on the attack on their own people, including this Hospital. It makes Hamas guilty of not only their own attacks on Israelis, but the retaliation as well.
In a longer view, it might be argued that Jews who emigrated to the area caused the actions by Hamas by "colonizing" a territory they considered theirs. But the problem with this long a view is that it obscures intent and diffuses responsibility to the point of being meaningless as an explanation or motive for any subsequent action. Jews would not have predicted or expected the resistance to their state by Arab nations or the specific people now in Gaza. Relying on such vague ultimate causes makes no sense. I could say that if the neanderthals hadn't crossed into Europe, the vikings might not have colonized Iceland and fealty to Denmark would never have happened, and thus attack every remnant of Danish culture in Iceland would be justified. But that would not only be silly, but people who live there don't feel that way about the influence of other nations on their history.
Animosity toward Jews must be acknowledged in this situation, and few of us feel that it is a valid justification for the hatred directed toward Israel by Arab nations, which makes this situation the fault of those harboring the hate, not those defending themselves from it. And Somerby has no interest in discussing that or anything else directly responsible for what Hamas did to Israel.
Our newspapers are not responsible for bombing any hospitals, nor for stoking hatred of Jews, nor for the actions of the Palestinians. I am pleased that they are focused on diplomacy and humanitarian interventions and not engaged in yellow journalism, as might have occurred in past centuries.
Somerby's main beef is that the newspapers are telling readers what Trump did, how he is misbehaving daily as he tries to incite violence against those in our justice system, and Trump's attempts to crawl back into office so that he can perhaps avoid going to jail. People need to hear what is happening in order to prevent right wingers from voting for him and be assured that his conviction is warranted and not politically motivated. That's why readers need to hear the details as they evolve. It prevents them from believing right wing lies.
Ask yourself why Somerby wants to stop that coverage on cable and in print. The media are doing their job in a democracy, which is to inform the public about the candidates and the election process. Why would a serious person want to interfere with that?
thanks for your thoughtful comment about the hospital bombing in Gaza, @5:53
DeleteIf you don't think Somerby is a serious person, why do you keep reading him?
DeleteThe Zionists took the land and expelled the inhabitants.
DeleteThat’s a lie.
Delete"Ask yourself why Somerby wants to stop that coverage on cable and in print."
DeleteI asked myself that, and the answer I got was it's not true that Somerby wants to stop the coverage; he just thinks there should be less of it.
Where did he ever say that?
DeleteI don't see any statement that he just wants less coverage or that coverage of other topics can coexist with Trump coverage. He is complaining about the Trump coverage -- that's all, none of the words you have put into his mouth.
DeleteWhenever Somerby complains that there is no coverage of anything else, just Trump all the time, it is easy to prove that is not true, to find coverage of other subjects. Several of us have posted these other examples in comments. So Somerby's complaint is not even true and has been repeatedly debunked. The same for when he complains about newspaper coverage instead of cable coverage.
No one has disputed that Somerby complains about the Trump coverage all the time -- but that is all you have found.
Why, in the name of David in Cal, do people think Somerby is a Right-winger, just because he continues to repeat things that have been debunked multiple times?
DeleteI guess what they say is true: You can lead an Anonymouse to the truth, but you can't make them accept it.
DeleteCorby is adorable.
ReplyDeleteCorby is wonderful.
DeleteMy media is reporting
ReplyDeleteEven pro-Gaza outlets have reported that the hospital was struck by a misfired rocket which also set off more terrorist weapons stored in the hospital.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/10/17/did-hamas-rocket-misfire-just-take-out-a-hospital-in-gaza-city-n2629969
Storing explosives in a hospital. Horrible, but not surprising.
I see this war as a battle between civilization and barbarism.
Wipe out all Palestinians, eh, David?
DeleteBetter, bring the Palestinians of of barbarism and into the modern world.
DeleteBut, whatever you do, don't let them drag us back into the barbaric world.
Untermensch, yes, David?
DeleteDuring World War II, when the western Allies were fire-bombing German cities, the Nazis called them barbarians.
DeleteThose firebombings were schemed out by one Douglas Evill, senior air commander.
DeleteTrue story.
The face of Evill:
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Evill
Robert Sapolsky says neither Palestinians nor Israelis have free will.
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/free-will-is-mankinds-biggest-myth/
That doesn’t absolve them. They are responsible for their actions.
DeleteConsider two propositions:
DeleteA. I have free will.
B. Robert Sapolsky exists.
I am more certain of A than of B.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCrime rose under Trump and is falling under Biden.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/10/the-all-vibes-politics-of-crime
Norman Finkelstein and Katie Halper discuss human shields.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMTuRM8d28o
Somerby’s moral greatness stems from the fact that he pities Trump. Those who wish to see Trump held accountable are morally inferior.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Somerby discusses almost nothing but Trump and ignores non-Trump reporting is not indicative of his lack of concern with those other events, whereas the reverse is true for other people.
Or something.
It would be cruel to jail Trump.
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/donald-trump-is-showing-strong-signs-of-dementia/
Slow your roll. Trump is a candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination. Trump might be acting like he has dementia, for the votes.
DeleteIsraeli intelligence submitted evidence that the rocket that struck the hospital came from Hamas. Thus proving that Hamas does not care about it's own people.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Israel's deep state says so, who as Americans who support everything that comes from the FBI, CIA, and our other alphabet government agencies, could argue that?
DeleteThey completely missed a massive invasion that had to be planned for years, but this one they cracked immediately.
DeleteSure. As Bob says: anything is possible.
It was an accident. Hamas didn’t intend to bomb the hospital. One of their rockets misfired.
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