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Intellectual dishonesty caused the experts to misread the Gaza military situation
[BehindTheBlack] Before Israel began its full scale ground assault on Gaza and the Hamas tunnels two weeks ago, the general consensus from practically every expert interviewed or writing about the attack assumed it would be long, hard, and difficult, taking many months before Israeli troops were able to take control of the Gaza strip and render Hamas impotent.
Which, IMO, explains why Biden's admin was so slow to constrain Israel - thought they've plenty of time.
...All the experts generally predicted the offensive would take months, and would involve huge casualties on the Israeli side.

I however predicted that the offensive, though not easy, would unfold far faster than these predictions.

...Why did I get it right, and these military experts get it wrong?

Before I answer that question we must also look at one other fact. Since the start of the offensive the mainstream media, including the links above, have consistently accepted on face the high and terrible casualty numbers — numbering so far over 10,000 with 40% claimed to be children — given to them by the same Hamas health organization that had falsely claimed Israel had bombed a hospital and killed 500 people (Israel didn’t bomb the hospital, it was a Hamas rocket. It also didn’t hit the hospital but its parking lot. The casualties from the rocket are now estimated to be between 10 to 50.)

No reliable news source should even repeat any further claims made by such demonstratively unreliable source, and if they do, the claims should be carefully framed as very unreliable.

That distrust should be underlined by the general absurdity of these Hamas casualty claims. Based on the fighting and the number of Israel casualties and the various reports, it appears no more than 1,000-2,000 people have so far died — from both sides — and it is very likely almost none have been children considering Israel’s never-ending relentless effort to avoid civilian deaths.

The media however has routinely shown little if any skepticism of Hamas’s claims. For example, this is how Reuters reported the numbers yesterday:

Palestinian officials said 10,569 people had been killed as of Wednesday, 40% of them children. Israel says 33 of its soldiers have been killed.

No caveats, no sense of any skepticism of the Hamas claims. In fact, the entire Reuters article depends highly on Hamas sources, and takes them all at their word, despite the fact that we know they lie, and their claimed numbers make no sense if you spend even a few seconds thinking about them.

And it is here you have the answer to my question above. Even if we assume the experts and these news sources are trying to do an honest job, they themselves have either been conned or have fooled themselves into accepting Hamas’s claims in all things. Hamas says Israel killed thousands? It must be true! Hamas claims it is a powerful fighting force well prepared to maintain a guerrilla war against Israel for years. It must be true! Hamas has a noble cause and Israel is an occupier. It. must. be. true!

...While good analysis of any major news story should not accept on face value any claims by the participants, it most certainly must not accept the claims of a source known to lie. And yet, the mainstream press and the experts it has relied on have accepted and continue to accept what Hamas tells them, with no skepticism, to the point that several media sources (Reuters, CNN, AP, and the New York Times) allowed themselves to be used by Hamas as propaganda outlets. Their blind passion to get the story combined with their willingness to repeatedly accept the words of an organization not only known to repeatedly lie but to rape, torture, and slaughter women, children, and babies caused them to misread the situation badly.

Others might not be so kind, and will instead say this poor analysis was because many of these news organizations and the experts they relied on have taken sides. They see Hamas as the good guy and victim, and Israel as the bad guy and oppressor. Thus, their analysis is warped because they assume Israel is lying and Hamas is telling them the truth.
The Woke are the enemy. Isis, Hamas, and every other pack of Marxist-Mohammedans wouldn't last for 5 minutes without the woke running interference for them!

Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2023-11-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=683467