Comment by mupuff1234

I'm not denying individual soldiers committed atrocities. However if we go back to the actual news following October 7th, the claims were that the types of atrocities being claimed were claimed as widespread/systemic amongst the Hamas combatants. For example, there was absolutely no lack of claims of sexual assault, rape and other crimes against women, and in the coming months as more evidence surfaced, these claims have all been debunked thoroughly. Not only were they debunked, but many of the "journalists" working for Western media (NY Times for example) have been exposed as former IDF or other strong ties to the Israeli government. These are the types of "conflicts of interest" that would have caused any legitimate journalist to recuse themselves from reporting on.

> And if what you are trying to claim is true then where is the footage from Hamas that shows that?

Who do you think released the footage from the Hamas combatants? They were using GoPros and other cameras with local recording and when the militants were killed, the IDF took possession of the recording devices. How many devices were being used? How many minutes of footage were there from these devices? What aren't the contents of these devices released unedited in their entirety. To date all we have is basically a selectively edited 46 minute video released by the Israeli government that compiles everything they want us to see from October 7th and nothing they don't want us to see.

Between the myriad lies that have been debunked (40 beheaded babies, baby in an oven, rapes, etc.), every one should be demanding more primary unedited evidence of what happened so we can actually pass judgement based on evidence. A link to a video of testimonies from people that almost certainly served in the IDF at some point and possibly could still be reservists, is something that should be taken with a grain of salt. These interviews also came out in the days following the festival after such folks had been questioned about what happened and possibly prepped about what they should and should not say to the media.

In that 7 to 8 minute video, there's like 1 maybe 2 minutes of video showing actual actions of Hamas operatives. You have video of them shooting at something in the distance (at who is unknown). You have video of them shooting at cars driving towards them where you don't know who was inside and who was shot. You have video of them throwing grenades in a car and them being tossed out by the occupant of the car. You have video of someone being taken prisoner with zip ties. All of these are very short clips taken from longer footage and selective edited/disclosed. Where's the rest of the footage? What does the rest of the footage show?

Furthermore, the conceal carry license rate in Israel is estimated at 10%. This even exceeds the rate of 8.4% for the US. Approximately 6 to 7% of Americans served in the armed forces. 69% of Israeli men served in the IDF and 56% of women (2019 figures).

In the US, in the event a violent event involving firefights, there's a pretty good chance that a non-trivial portion of Americans of fighting age represent an armed threat or a potential threat with military training (e.g. initially unarmed but could pick up a rifle from a slain combatant and then present a threat). That likelihood is far greater in Israel than in the US.

Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that “there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass” when explaining why Japan would not consider trying to invade the US in WWII. That same sentiment applies to Israel and makes identifying friend or foe or non-combatant very difficult.

Compulsory military service is a double-edged sword. There are the obvious benefits for national defense, but it also creates a liability for all individuals of fighting age in the event of an armed conflict. Trying to judge an armed conflict in a country or region from a lens of a country of region where most folks are unarmed and have no small arms training is a fools errand. For example, if you're in California, you're from a region where 0.31% of the population has a conceal carry license. I would suspect that those with military experience and/or small arms training is similarly low.

It's pretty much impossible to judge how an armed conflict unfolded in a place with a wildly different reality in these respects. Just using the United States as an example, if an armed conflict were to occur some place like the Idaho panhandle, it would be very different than an armed conflict in San Francisco. Or pick any two places in the US with wildly different rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.

With all this in mind, the firefight videos I've seen are not really out of line with what I'd expect in any region with very high rates of conceal carry permits, firearm ownership, military service and small arms training.

> Hamas has all the incentives to show that it didn't commit war crimes, and yet we've seen nothing from them, which should raise an even larger suspicion.

Assume for a moment that they didn't commit war crimes (I don't actually believe this, but the hypothetical matters here). How do you demonstrate something that didn't happen? Selective video footage disclosure can only show things that did happen, not things that didn't happen. Only with holistic mass disclosure of all available video evidence existence can you actually start to infer what likely didn't happen.

What you could ask that is totally reasonable is why they haven't released footage showing what the IDF did that day? Did any of the Hamas combatants recording GoPro footage make it back with footage that shows the actions of the IDF. I think this is reasonable question to ask.

The biggest issue I see here is survivorship bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias). Those Hamas combatants most likely to have been engaged in gunfire with IDF soldiers, tanks and helicopters would have been the most likely to have been KIA, and their footage captured. The footage most likely to capture the actions of the IDF that day are the most likely to be in the possession of the IDF following the end of the armed conflicts that day. Those Hamas combatants that fled back to Gaza once they had a hostage before engaging with enemy combatants would have footage from that day showing their actions but not the actions of the IDF if they didn't exchange gunfire. What I want to know is what the IDF did that day. We can be certain the footage exists and we aren't being shown it. I understand why its being omitted, but everyone should be naturally skeptical of claims without that evidence.

Anyways, my main point is that we should be demanding all the raw unedited footage from October 7th from both sides. Without that, all we have is propaganda from both sides because we can't judge what happened holistically. We can only judge based on what we've been very selectively shown, which certainly isn't anything approximating the truth of what happened that day.