Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
The specificity of that type of killing mattered to people when it happened, and was cited by multiple posters as the difference between Israel and Hamas killing babies (as in, “Israel drops bombs that kills babies, but that isn’t the same as beheading a baby”). Why did it matter then when it was “true” if it doesn’t matter now that we don’t know if it was?
The truth matters, and while it doesn’t ultimately matter if spreading this kind of unverified info hurts Hamas’ reputation (because it’s terrible and nobody cares about protecting their reputation), it does matter if people are going to get on top of the soapbox and wax poetic about believing unverified information. Because that’s ultimately a forgivable thing, or it isn’t, and if we’re saying it’s unforgivable and actually has some connection to hate for Israel… well, the most pro-Israel people have done it too, so it doesn’t actually hold.
Since we’ve already established and discussed the moral difference in types of killing ad nauseam in this thread, it probably does matter. If the morality of Israel’s response is going to be justified by the barbarism of Hamas’ actions, the level of barbarism does matter.
And here’s this, for whatever it’s worth:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/...aded-by-hamas/ |
There's no doubt that Hamas was going door to door and killing all civilians, including babies. Whether they stopped to behead anyone or simply just shot them and burned them alive, is really not all that important.
There remains a very large moral difference between the two military forces.
It was also never the Israeli government that stated that 40 babies had been beheaded. What happened, was soldiers stating that 40 babies had been killed and other evidence of beheadings. Reporters then misinterpreted that as 40 babies beheaded.
Meanwhile Hamas, and various other Palestinian authorities in Gaza, stated that an Israeli rocket leveled the hospital and killed 500 people. None of these claims were true. It wasn't an Israeli rocket. The hospital wasn't leveled. 500 people did not die.
There's also, for some inexplicable debate, continuing debate in the press about what "really happened" at the hospital bombing. Much of this debate will be interpreted as Israel being responsible, which is actually fueling anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish violence across the world.
Did the specific cause of death of the infants affect the Israeli response? Highly unlikely, Israel, after the attacks, was going to take out Hamas.