I mean, you realise what a big claim you're making here, right? None of these three major organisations can be trusted when it comes to Israel?? Is there any organisation that has been critical of Israel that you consider a trusted source? Can you explain why you think they would be motivated to lie? Or to fabricate reports they've seen with their own eyes and documented? Because we can at least agree that Israel isn't perfect, right? That there are aspects of their government's behaviour of the past 50 years that have been wrong?
Yes, many respected news outlets got the details of the Al Shifa hospital bombing wrong. Or rather, they incorrectly believed unconfirmed reports. This is almost inevitable in war. As far as I'm aware, all of them admitted and corrected the error. Yes, you're right, lots of people had already used the story to further their agenda, which is also inevitable in war. But that doesn't make all mistakes a sign of untrustworthiness.
The stories about beheaded Israeli babies appear to have been false and are certainly unconfirmed, yet were also widely reported, even repeated by Biden. Israel themselves recently revised the figure of casualties in the Oct 7th attacks down from 1400 to 1200. I don't believe for a second they intentionally lied about that 1400 figure. I think they made a mistake, as, again, is almost inevitable in war.
Yes, there is an information war being waged, but that can't be allowed to mean that all information that doesn't flatter your side is a lie.
I have no bias against Israel. Actually, I spent over a month living there in 2019. I just came back from a visit to Jordan last month. I have friends in Israel. People there talked to me about the conflict back when I still thought of it as just some strange religious argument happening on the other side of the world. They told me about the suicide bombings and their fears for the future and the history of the region. They were angry and frustrated and scared. But the overwhelming sentiment is that they just want to live in peace and they want the Palestinians to do the same. They had no problem seeing that Israeli governments have done awful things over the years too. in fact, the allegations that you think fall glibly from my tongue first fell from theirs.
They told me about the blockade before I knew it existed. They told me about the treatment of Arabs in Israel. They told me about the terrible conditions in Gaza. I've also been to South Africa, I've seen the vast difference in the way that white and black South Africans live and lived. Yes, apartheid is a fair description.
Jews are being held accountable for Gaza because the Israeli blockade makes conditions in Gaza abominable for the people who live there. Yes, I understand why the blockade exists. I understand Israel is protecting itself from a very real threat, as it has every right to do. But I also understand that Israel isn't under threat from most of the 2 million people who they're currently bombing into oblivion. This is the dilemma.
Israel is forcing ~2 million people to suffer because of a threat of violence from the ~30,000 people in Hamas. To be crystal clear, I'm not saying Israel should open itself to that threat, if 30,000 people wanted to kill me and my family, I'd go to great lengths to keep them away too. But this is the issue that Israel needs to figure out; how to defend themselves from Hamas, and eventually remove them, without radicalising thousands more by killing their families and making them suffer in poverty. Because I don't think peace is possible while the blockade continues. And I don't think killing thousands of innocent people in Gaza is going to make Palestinians hate Israel any less.
