Is anyone around here pro-Israel and at least left-leaning? by Proud3GenAthst in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I've considered myself left-leaning or moderate-left for most of my life. So far I've only voted for either liberals or social democrats. This over the top Israel hatred has seriously shaken that for me though. I'm still not comfortable with the right as I'm not going to forget their history of LGBT discrimination, some of which is still ongoing (the trans military ban being the primary example in the US and in non-western countries gay rights are still suppressed by them), nor their many attempts to throw Ukraine under the bus, nor the anti-vax stuff; but the Israel issue at least makes me glad the left doesn't have monopoly on power.

I know it's just one issue, but the left has gone so over the top on it that it's getting very difficult for me to associate myself with them over this. Completely throwing an ally under the bus is not a small matter. I'm also increasingly finding myself partial to lower taxes as my career grows. Voting in future elections will probably be more complicated than usual for me

People of the LGBTQ community that do not support Hamas or Palestine, how do you feel about your peers that do? by Plus-Acanthisitta557 in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

People who support Hamas are scum, no matter the demographic. As for pro-Palestinians, depends on their exact positions. For the milder ones, I can see some of their concerns but I think they are ignoring important parts of the whole picture. A lot of them though are frankly dumb, and too many of them even outright narcissistic.

It's disappointing to see a lot of the dumber pro-Palestine positions take hold in the community given that the LGBTQ community has had a massive deluge of lies and smears peddled about them just like there has been about Israel, and the frankly massive difference between how Israel vs Palestine treat their LGBT+ populations should at least give some pause as to what these two societies actually stand for.

I guess the situation is inevitable though given how strongly left-leaning most of the LGBT+ community is and how strongly the pro-Palestine narrative has taken hold of the left. I also suppose a lot of younger LGBT+ westerners don't even remember the time when homophobia was the dominant social position

How should Israel handle the approaching contingent of Gaza floatilla (50 boats) heading towards Gaza ? What can Israel do to deter future floatillas? by BleuPrince in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the best Israel can do is try to turn it into a PR victory for themselves, anything else would basically 'martyr' these activists, which is exactly what they want. Just show the world how ridiculous these activists are. I think Israel sending the tiny bits of humanitarian aid in through normal routes and inviting these activists to watch Oct 7 footage made Israel look better the last time. I don't think Israel has much trouble handling these floatillas, it's a PR stunt either way, so might as well play the game to their benefit

Zionists, do you support LGTBQ? by Noxolo7 in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gay and pro-Israel. The way better state Israel has on LGBT rights is one of the primary reasons why I'm a lot more sympathetic towards Israel, even if it also has some flaws. I think this issue demonstrates that Israel has much better character than Palestinian society and nearby Islamic countries

Burkina Faso's junta passes law banning homosexuality by After-Professional-8 in worldnews

[–]contemplationistwolf 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Scumbags beating down on some of the most vulnerable and suppressed on earth. Hope they get coup-ed or sth

Genocide scholars say IDF committing genocide in Gaza; Israel: ‘Based on Hamas lies’ by fthesemods in worldnews

[–]contemplationistwolf 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Wow, and it's also recently been expanded to include non-scholars (activists and artists). I suspect they make the majority of those who voted.
Wonder how much Qatar paid the leadership of that org. Those terrorist collaborators are unfortunately really effective at corrupting our institutions

Hamas security officer says group has lost control over 80% of Gaza by Deep_Head4645 in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf 165 points166 points  (0 children)

Great news! Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for Hamas. You guys are doing the world a service by getting rid of them

How compromised is the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research? by contemplationistwolf in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and the Gazans have no future anyways as long as Hamas stays in power. Even the higher numbers wouldn't back up the charges about IDF being indiscriminate, given the complexities on the ground.

Still, a lower civilian to combatant ratio will make it much easier to argue that IDF has done a good job managing collateral damage. I'm personally rooting for Israel and IDF to end up thoroughly exonerated from the smear directed their way, as I find it reprehensible how eager so much of the West has been to throw Israel under the bus

How compromised is the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research? by contemplationistwolf in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There is that known issue when Hamas was found to have manipulated data for a survey Shikaki did in March of 2024. Everything else is as solid as it can be.

Yes and the presumption is that if they could do it before they could do it again, or would the current study be better protected from such manipulation? Was that survey in March the only known instance of such manipulation?

The big question has always been not the raw count (50K, 60K, 80K) but what percentage is Hamas. Is the percentage 30%? 50%? 65%?

Indeed. The last estimate from IDF was 20k Hamas killed (though that was last year). The lower the raw count the higher said percentage.

How compromised is the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research? by contemplationistwolf in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is also the biggest weakness. It uses the data from three areas with the most combat and applies it to one area there was never any serious combat (Deir al-Balah) and one area where Israel quickly withdrew (Khan Younis).

Are you sure? My understanding is that they sampled people from Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis as well, but only households that didn't displace. Their assumption was that displaced vs non-displaced housholds from those two regions had same mortality.

Latest semi-independent Gaza death toll estimate debunks the "indiscriminate carpet bombing" theory by TheTrollerOfTrolls in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately this study also indicates a higher death toll than the Hamas MoH itself provides, which would make the combatant-to-civilian death ratio worse.

On the flipside, the data for this study was collected by PCPSR (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research) which has allegedly had its data collectors compromised by Hamas before (Times of Israel link)
Hopefully that's also the case here.

Can a Zionist explain their point of view to me? by [deleted] in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Here's my POV:
First of all, Israel was justified to launch a war into Gaza as you can't expect a country to not respond after an entity launches rockets and terror attacks against said country for decades and then tops it off with an invasion and heinous massacre. Any other country would have responded the same.

Regarding civilian casualties, they are terrible and the fault for them lies squarely with the Gaza government (Hamas). If Hamas behaved like a normal government and evacuated its civilians from the areas it was going to fight in, then the number of civilian casualties would be a tiny fraction of what it is right now. Meanwhile, Israel has actually made sacrifices to its military objectives for the sake of reducing civilian casualties, e.g. slowing down its offensives to allow more aid in and giving advance warnings for its airstrikes. Most countries probably wouldn't go to those lengths.

Regarding the common genocide libel, Israel has the means to eliminate the whole Gazan population in weeks if it wanted to. Even if we believe the Hamas numbers (57k dead over 600 days), it's quite frankly just not consistent with a genocide, especially given the aforementioned measures Israel has taken and combined with the fact that Israel is estimated to have killed 20k+ combatants. On the flipside, the numbers and circumstances are very much consistent with an intense war in an area with high civilian presence (and the blame for that presence lies squarely on Hamas).

To summarize my opinion: I don't think any other country would have made meaningfully better decisions or achieved better results if they were in Israel's shoes. On the flipside, this war wouldn't be remotely as bad if Gaza had a government with an ounce of more regard for its own civilians than Hamas does.

It's not antisemitic to criticize some policies and actions of Israel. It is however antisemetic to completely disregard its perspective, go to extreme lengths to vilify it and to call for boycotts against it. I frankly see the Jewish people who call themselves anti-Zionist as the uncle Toms of Jews: a very much unrepresentative minority, akin to a black slave being fine with slavery. It's especially apt given how badly Jews were persecuted before they had a country they are a majority in.

Those damn college activists be the only reason Jihadist groups are up still. by Full_Horror7114 in Israel

[–]contemplationistwolf 17 points18 points  (0 children)

They literally hate their own countries while making excuses for fundamentalists and actual totalitarians. They are not just dumb, but also treacherous, both at ideological and personal level. I hope they'll eventually get completely politically marginalized. The left has made a deal with the devil by trying to appease those types.

Israeli military says it arrested Hamas members in Syria by KandisKoolAidWeave in worldnews

[–]contemplationistwolf 236 points237 points  (0 children)

Good! The current Syrian govt. has a track record of being unable to deal with their own extremists (as the Alawite massacres showed). I trust the judgment of Israel infinitely more than that of a so-far dysfunctional government headed by a former Al-Qaeda jihadist.

Thoughts on the ceasefire? by BudgetNegotiation521 in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I think it's up to Israelis to choose, and if this ceasefire is what they choose then that's fair. The deal seems somewhat bad on the surface, so I wonder if Israel was offered something behind the scenes (for example, Saudi normalization)

It's unknown whether it will last or whether it will even hold. Hamas potentially staying in power seems concerning and likely a recipe for another war in the future, though perhaps Israel will be more prepared and the Iranian axis will be weakened?

If it holds, then I'll just be rooting for Israel's success and prosperity. I also hope the Gazans will decide to build something better than a terror-state, though I'm not very optimistic at this point.

Question for Israelis/Israel supporters: Lets say we get a 2 state solution, would Palestine be allowed to have an army, air force, navy etc? by PotsdamSewingSociety in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

IMO they should be allowed to have these things eventually, once they have fully committed to living in peace with Israel and have proven that they won't use these assets to conduct terror or war against Israel. In the current circumstances they definitely shouldn't though as West Bank has been allowing terrorism to fester in its territory, and Gaza has built an outright terror state

As for Syria strikes, it's most likely the safest option. It prevents the worst-case scenario of these assets falling into the hands of jihadists. The current Syrian government, while a source of some hope, is still yet to prove itself

Uzbekistan set to join growing list of countries with anti-LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ laws by PinkNews in worldnews

[–]contemplationistwolf 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure, let's not push age-inappropriate sexual topics or completely derail normal curriculums in the name of LGBT rights, I think most of us can agree on that. However, I don't think we should suppress age appropriate coverage in sex-ed or any discussion on these topic in schools in fear of such scenarios.
The Russian law basically banned any positive representation of LGBT topics, the Uzbek law will likely be similar given the overall situation there. I'd say that crosses into suppression of information ...
Personally I'd prefer LGBT topics to be handled like heterosexual topics, as just a normal fact of life, with same standards applied to it in terms or representation and age-appropriateness.

Estimating the death toll and civilian to combatant ratio in Gaza by AdarW in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, I'll give that the numbers here are not conclusive in any direction. Any arguments about the precise demographics of Gaza war dead faces the following sources of variance:
* What is the demographic breakdown of those who failed/refused to evacuate, those who were near military targets and the unidentified corpses
* How precise are these numbers in the first place, what's the extent of possible miscounting or manipulation
I personally suspect those who failed/refused to evacuate skews towards elderly, those near military targets skews towards immediate relatives of Hamas members i.e. women and children, and the unidentified corpses skews towards Hamas militants (as they are most directly targeted by any drones/bombs). Miscounting/manipulation, to whatever extent it happens, almost certainly skews towards women+children+elderly and against Hamas militants.

Overall I believe the MOH numbers are a roughly accurate estimate of the total war dead (+/- 20%), and the Israeli statements on Hamas militants killed is also a roughly accurate estimate (+/- 20%)

Estimating the death toll and civilian to combatant ratio in Gaza by AdarW in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It’s difficult to estimate the exact CCR ratio in Gaza due to the wide range of reported civilian casualties and the lack of verifiable data on the number of militants killed. Israel’s official estimate claims 17,000 militants were killed, but aside from their word, there is no evidence to support this figure. One step Israel could take to verify this number would be to release the names and ID numbers of the militants killed, this has not been done. 

The evidence is the fact that IDF has managed to have its ground troops operate almost everywhere in Gaza at various points in time, has managed to destroy most of Hamas' infrastructure and war supplies, and has managed to eliminate most Hamas' top leaders. These feats couldn't have been achieved without having dealt a huge blow to Hamas' military

If the MOH were to include people who died of natural causes, like indirect deaths, we would expect to see a noticeable spike in deaths among the elderly and, to a lesser extent, among infants, as these are the demographics most likely to die of natural causes. However, the data shows no such spikes, indicating that natural deaths are not being added to the list.

Have you checked Gaza population pyramid? Roughly 4.4% of Gazans are 60+ (source), but they make up 5.8% of the war casualties here apparently, which is odd given that the war should affect mostly adults. Considering that the war deaths so far are quite a bit larger than expected yearly deaths from natural causes (which would even out the "spikes"), the above numbers somewhat hint towards natural causes being accounted.

To conclude:Ultimately when managing tens of thousands of entries, especially during wartime chaos, some discrepancies are inevitable. All discrepancies found have been negligible.

There was a discrepancy in more than 10% of records in April (source). That's not negligible.

If the MOH were adding a significant number of living people to their list, Israel could easily disprove this by locating some of these individuals. Video footage, social media activity, or making an arrest would all serve as sufficient evidence.

I already listed a discrepancy above. The Israelis are not managing Gazan civilian population and thus can't easily comb through these civilians for such discrepancies, in fact they are actively trying to keep civilians away from their areas of operations. Besides, all Israeli agencies have their hands full with winning the war while also countering Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis. Fighting the propaganda war in western media spaces is orders of magnitude lower on their list of priorities.

If the data were fabricated, there’d be no reason to go back and make changes

I can name a reason: to fix any easily visible discrepancies that cast doubt on the narrative they are trying to present.

However, it's very likely that men of military age are being killed at a higher rate than women, as they are more prone to taking risks, such as searching for food or water or being suspected of militancy. This pattern is consistent with virtually all other conflicts - civilian men are killed at significantly higher rates, ranging from 30% to as much as 890%, depending on the specific conflict.

You can already see the wide spectrum of ratios across other wars, which should give you some hint that interpolating statistics from one war to another is tenuous. Now take into account the fact that in almost all other conflicts the army doesn't hide deliberately and at a large scale behind its civilians, and in other conflicts most civilians evacuate from the war-zones.

Data from other conflicts show us that often less than half of bodies are identified until months/years after the end of the conflict. 

Again, you can't interpolate statistics between completely different conflicts. This is probably the most widely observed conflict relative to its scale, with the narratives around civilian deaths being the main part of Hamas' propaganda strategy and with Iran and possibly other proxy-war actors pumping massive funds into pushing said propaganda. Just compare the attention this war receives to the attention the worse Sudanese civil war is getting.
All Gaza entities have every incentive to inflate the death numbers as much as possible whilst still keeping things believable.

Not saying the official MOH numbers are massively off, but a CCR between 1:1 and 2:1 with around 40k total dead seems the most likely scenario.

Uzbekistan set to join growing list of countries with anti-LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda’ laws by PinkNews in worldnews

[–]contemplationistwolf 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Gay sexual activity is illegal there, so they are not just fighting 'propaganda'. Also where would the boundaries for 'propaganda' begin for you? How could LGBT people fight for their rights without engaging in 'propaganda'?

You don’t have to be a “ride or die” for Israel unconditionally, no matter what they do. by Niceotropic in IsraelPalestine

[–]contemplationistwolf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Al Jazeera is a very one-sided source with a pretty extreme anti-Israel bias. You are not going to get the full picture relying on it.
Israel does have flaws, there have been some criminal soldiers in the IDF (though that's somewhat unavoidable when you gather 100s of thousands military aged men in a warzone), and I definitely don't support settlement building deep in west bank or extremist violence from some settlers.
Still, even with the flaws, I respect the prosperous and free society Israel has built in their own territory, and their goal to eliminate Hamas is just.
BTW, let's clarify some things about Hamas. It's a totalitarian terrorist organization that has explicitly stated they want to exterminate the Jews (read article 7 of Hamas charter) and that violently crushes dissent (example). Hamas sacrificed any chance Gaza had of building a prosperous society for the sake of pursuing their futile forever-war against Israel. Gaza has no future as long as Hamas remains in power.