So unless the MSM can provide other evidence that Gaza's population is over 2 million , they need to report this accordingly.
If they cant keep themselves in line then people will.
@AkomoCombine I was just about to ask about this because I read 2 million with half of them being children.
I wondered if numbers were inflated and I wondered why they wouldn’t get their children out of there when warned if safety is only 20 miles away.
This is an info graph from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), updated September 2023.
There are 2.2 million, give or take. This info graph focuses on poverty & mobility. Other UN data measures the population as 40% under 15, around 50% under 19.
Video & on-the-ground reports show civilians terrified because they don't know if IDF can be trusted. There *are* civilians hit while evacuating. None of this is as easy as it looks.
@MLClark @AkomoCombine thanks for clarification. I understand being terrified. I just know if it were me, I’d walk the six hours, if I had to. They had to have known this was coming, given what happened on the 7th. But you raise important points about not trusting the IDF. I imagine there is also shock and difficulty getting people who are elderly and disabled out. How much time was there between the attack and the warning? And how much time was there to leave? And what agencies help?
Originally, there was a 24-hour evac warning for 1.1m people in the north. After 70 civilians were killed on a corridor IDF had called safe, people got *scared* and didn't know who to trust.
Hospitals also immediately warned that they wouldn't be able to move many patients, and would be sheltering in place.
Today, there was a report of around 130 preemie babies across Gaza, and only 6 neonatal units. So, some evac is *really* tough. Civilians will keep dying in this.
In one of my recent pieces, I wrote about fundamental attribution error: it is *very* normal for human beings, when witnessing suffering go on for a long time, to turn from sympathy for the suffering to anger at them for how uncomfortable their suffering makes us feel. We start to blame them for their suffering instead.
This is human.
We want an explanation that alleviates our pain & eases our discomfort for not being able to more.
But all of this is just... grief. 🫂
yes, the stages of grief include anger.
@MLClark you are reminding me of my “a-ha” moment about Psychology (Social Psychology specifically). Initially I had “Why” questions. And it dawned on me, “why” is a a bottomless pit that lends itself to subjective interpretation. The better question is “what” as in “what do people tend to do”, “what can be predicted based on studies”, or “what is effective in changing opinions for better outcomes”. @Museek @AkomoCombine
@MLClark @Museek @AkomoCombine
This explains a lot and is something to think about.
@MLClark @AkomoCombine thank you for clarifying. I need to take a fresh look at the timeline of events. I do see what you’re saying. It is awful. I imagine there are many factors I don’t take into consideration, as well, not being familiar with the region.
Above all else, I think we can just thank our stars that we're not in a position where we have to make such a decision ourselves. I know whenever I've turned on the taps or had a hot shower these last two weeks, I've been thinking *hard* about how much comfort we take for granted.
You both have good hearts to be so frustrated.
*None* of us wants civilians to die while every effort is made to stop the perpetrators of terrorist actions.
We're all doing the best we can.
i find myself doing that too. gratitude+guilt. the current combo.
I so appreciate your ability to name what you're moving through, Holon.
It's an affirming practice, and one (for me, at least) strengthened by the knowledge that we're not doing it alone.
no, we're a multitude 🤨🤣🤣🤣
@MLClark It's a desperately sad situation. How many innocents (especially Palestinian children) must die before the madness stops? Madness didn't save anyone after 911. It only created more madness
@EdgeOErin @MLClark There's a huge difference: Hamas is essentially a state - a government unto itself - whereas al-Qaeda was/is, to the best of my knowledge, pretty much purely a clandestine terrorist organization (in many ways similar to organized crime gangs).
Hamas, from what I gather, is much larger (in terms of manpower/resources) and more organized than al-Qaeda ever was.
Comparing the Israeli response to these attacks with the US response to 9/11 is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
@IrelandTorin @MLClark We've yet to see what the Israeli response will be, so we shall see. The war against terror became an unrecognized Crime Against Humanity, but I hope that is not what happens in Gaza.
It's never apples-to-apples, but it bears remembering that the US didn't go after al-Qaeda directly. It went after the Taliban - a state, governance structure - with an express desire to root out all possible training enclaves for future terrorism in one go. It was the Taliban, as Afghanistan's leaders, that the US started bombing on October 7, 2001.
So, not the same - but that doesn't mean we can't still pay attention to our history, and keep its lessons in mind.
@MLClark @IrelandTorin The Taliban are scum, and likely impervious to education/rehabilitation. I wonder how many innocent Afghan's died during that "war." NOTHING was gained from it. It did, however, provide fuel for Terrorism, as will Israel's attack on Gaza, if not measured. Also, the 9-11 attack was mostly carried out by Saudi's, who somehow, despite MBS being a murderer, is somehow considered an ally
There's a lot of analysis looking back on that era. US intelligence didn't realize at the time, but attacking the Taliban drove al-Qaeda into other spaces where it could rebuild, unfortunately.
The war yielded around 243,000 casualties, including 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians, and many military and police forces from US allies. Afghan citizens who survived were left in a state of abject poverty - and, of course, the Taliban returned.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan
@MLClark @IrelandTorin Thanks for the facts. No fault of us, but I most feel for Afghan women and girls who are denied education and opportunity. It's so sad
That's the big take-away, I think.
It's okay to just sit with how sad and awful it all is.
The push to rationalize that awfulness away doesn't help much - and can definitely make things worse, by diminishing active pain.
The simple fact is:
We're all in pain right now--for good reason, if differently.
And that pain, at least, reminds us that what makes us human is still alive.
Small comfort, some days, but still... a precious gift.
Thanks for grieving with me.
@EdgeOErin @MLClark Part of me has always sorta wondered if it might not be possible to weaken [or even destroy] regimes like the Taliban by a) find a way to help oppressed women undo the brainwashing & get murderously angry about their predicament, then b) find a way to covertly arm them [eg: like the Allies did by dropping Liberator pistols in occupied France, but ideally much less noticeable].
Hard to find a better assassin than the target's spouse. Now imagine if they all acted at once...
@MLClark @EdgeOErin I think the problem there was that trying to get to al-Qaeda via the Taliban... was like carpet-bombing an area trying to hit one hay bale.
IMO it's not really feasible to root out all possible training enclaves for future terrorism, especially at once... you'd need to annihilate basically every theocratic & ultranationalist state on Earth, not to mention at least a few neo-Nazi/cult compounds in the US/Canada & elsewhere.
Trying would cause unimaginable collateral damage.
@MLClark @EdgeOErin I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the idea of dropping the hammer on neo-Nazi/cult compounds (would probably prevent a lot of suffering in the long run), but the rest... would be way too much for even the US to tackle, and that's not even factoring in the geopolitical ramifications.
There are way too many theocratic and ultranationalist states for a military solution to work. Instead... mass psyops to try to weaken the *ideas* causing terrorism are a better bet.
@Museek
(I know. It would be *so* much easier for all our consciences if it were. We get frustrated and we want simple, decisive ways to apportion blame amid atrocity like this, because our humanity hurts to see humans hurting. It's a sign of our care for life, that we get so frustrated that everyone can't just "do the thing" to make it all end right away. It's a sign of a good heart to be upset.)
@AkomoCombine