Friday, November 17, 2023

the media is focusing so overwhelmingly on these hospitals because the msm (which is one of the least reliable sources on the internet) has walked right into a pile of propaganda that was served up to it by taking advantage of it's drive towards clickbait sensationalism. western media is overwhelmingly capitalist; it wants to drive ad revenue. what hamas is doing is giving the media what it wants, click bait, which is driving the coverage it wants.

the reality is that this isn't at all ambiguous. it's been known for years that hamas operates out of schools, and they have been increasingly operating out of the hospitals. it's not just israeli intelligence claiming this, it's also us/nato intelligence as well as independent groups and ngos. 

hamas consequently has a clear motive to frame the issue in such a way as to victimize them, but it is not at all clear why israel would carry out these attacks, or why the pentagon would support their claims. the pentagon's use of israel is strategic; i can imagine few things less strategic than wantonly attacking a hospital or a school. further, israel has legitimate targets it needs to focus on. it makes no sense to think they'd spend all of these resources on blowing up a hospital (in the mean time, letting hamas get away) when they've stated what the goals of the operation are with such clarity and precision. if they are spending so many resources on controlling the hospital, it's because they think hamas is in there.

this is annoying because it's not just propaganda, and it's not just anti-jewish propaganda, and it's not just anti-jewish propaganda with deep anti-semitic tropes that are obviously being exploited for click bait (baby killing) but it's anti-jewish propaganda with anti-semitic tropes that takes almost no effort to deconstruct and discard as what it is.

the idf is a fallible human institution and it may turn out to have made an error, but the evidence is not pointing in that direction at the moment. further, some criticism at a granular level is no doubt warranted. however, even if they turn out to have been wrong, it makes no sense to accuse them of wantonly attacking hospitals, or to accuse the americans of supporting them doing it. this is clearly propaganda, and you may have fallen for it because the mainstream media walked right into pre-packaged click bait that was intended to manipulate it, and which is what it actually exists to sell, not balanced or truth-seeking journalism.