I can accept it if I’m shown evidence. I’m a scientist, I need data and a sound hypothesis to change my mind. I don’t care about personal experience or lived truth when I’m trying to find objective truth.
If you’d like to sum up my reply as three words, that’s up to you. If you want to believe that I’m taken by propaganda, that’s fine too, but it’s more than a little bit intellectually lazy. There are laws that define war crimes. In my reading of them, and many others’, there is between little and no room for the evidence we’ve seen to amount to anything other than a war crime. At least a huge amount of compelling evidence the other way would be needed to exonerate. Take for example the footage we’ve seen of entire square kilometers of Gaza completely flattened by building. There we have evidence of the war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure except if there’s also evidence that all of it was a Hamas base. Now, it seems unlikely that this is possible, unless everyone in Gaza is a member of Hamas. Another extraordinary claim which would require extraordinary evidence to be borne out.
In general, my view on the situation in Israel has been that there are no good guys. In recent days, though, I’m watching a democratic state ally of my country committing horrific crimes against humanity, with weapons provided by my country and other allies. Hamas never had my support. Netenyahu’s Israel has lost it.
If you are a scientist then I’ll ask you to consider two things. How often do people talk to you about your expertise and get it wrong and how does that make you feel? Imagine if it’s an ethical issue.
Occam’s razor is how you handle what you see without sufficient evidence. What we are seeing is exactly what I would expect to see with a professional army taking two cities defended by 40,000 trained defenders with years to prepare. This includes the information space. Why would you think differently?
I don’t expect to see anything, that’s the point. That causes bias in your thinking. The evidence I have seen fulfils the criteria for war crimes, as I pointed out in my bullet-point list above. I accept that there can be excuses for these actions, but only when there is sufficient evidence to prove the extraordinary case. Now, we have seen the evidence that Israel has done these things, but we haven’t seen the evidence that there are extraordinary factors. Occam’s Razor requires that the explanation for an effect should contain as few agents as possible when considering the unknown causes. Adding in a tunnel network, or a Hamas base where there is no evidence for one is in violation of Occam’s Razor. The simple explanation is that Israel is being indiscriminate in its attacks. As supporting factors, Israel has attacked indiscriminately and illegally in the past, and Israel has lied to the international media and community in the past.
When people ask me about my expertise I get excited that I get to talk about it. If someone were to refuse to believe me I would find it funny.
The tunnels are extremely well documented. Absence of solid evidence for an underground base would actually support the approach that Israel took. Otherwise they would simply bomb it. This is consistent with current doctrine and so evidence in support of their approach.
How do you feel about people who are ideologically opposed to your field and also ignorant?
