Nothing would be seen as good enough. We are in a war, and that includes information war, that means constantly attacking the credibility of your enemy, even if what they’re saying is true.
Releasing IDs, and photos of each body, to create a somewhat morbid wiki death would probably go a long way to establishing credibility.
But again they would be attacked, because we are in the information war phase.
Getting third parties in there to certify the deaths would help, but the UNRWA is deliberately not doing that, because they don’t want to be political.
So whatever the ultimate death toll will be, it’ll be contested hotly for decades to come. All will be able to agree on is a lot of people died, but not exactly how many…
As much as I agree, I don’t think the main factor now is the fog of war. Seems like it’s the White House deliberately removing credibility from a governing entity, which didn’t echo well at all, and diplomatically could be seen as giving the middle finger to Gazan civilians are already invisible in their suffering. Biden made them even more invisible. He didn’t say that the numbers were inflated (as far as I recall), but that they cannot be trusted at all. This is very different from saying, “take these numbers with a grain of salt”.
War is war. Even if the information is 100% accurate and true and undeniable, the war playbook says you deny it, say the enemy is lying, and undermine their credibility at every turn.
War is not about accuracy, it’s not about fairness, it’s not about law, it’s about winning.
I agree with your overall point but take issue with referring to the hostilities in Palestine as a “war”. We do not say that Nazi Germany was at war with Jewish People. We call it genocide. This is extermination of a civilian population.
Palestine does not have a standing army. Calling it a war normalizes the actions of Israel.
I was wondering what it is that the health ministry would have to do to be seen as credible. What would be good enough?
Nothing would be seen as good enough. We are in a war, and that includes information war, that means constantly attacking the credibility of your enemy, even if what they’re saying is true.
Releasing IDs, and photos of each body, to create a somewhat morbid wiki death would probably go a long way to establishing credibility.
But again they would be attacked, because we are in the information war phase.
Getting third parties in there to certify the deaths would help, but the UNRWA is deliberately not doing that, because they don’t want to be political.
So whatever the ultimate death toll will be, it’ll be contested hotly for decades to come. All will be able to agree on is a lot of people died, but not exactly how many…
As much as I agree, I don’t think the main factor now is the fog of war. Seems like it’s the White House deliberately removing credibility from a governing entity, which didn’t echo well at all, and diplomatically could be seen as giving the middle finger to Gazan civilians are already invisible in their suffering. Biden made them even more invisible. He didn’t say that the numbers were inflated (as far as I recall), but that they cannot be trusted at all. This is very different from saying, “take these numbers with a grain of salt”.
War is war. Even if the information is 100% accurate and true and undeniable, the war playbook says you deny it, say the enemy is lying, and undermine their credibility at every turn.
War is not about accuracy, it’s not about fairness, it’s not about law, it’s about winning.
Deny, deny, deny, until you believe.
I agree with your overall point but take issue with referring to the hostilities in Palestine as a “war”. We do not say that Nazi Germany was at war with Jewish People. We call it genocide. This is extermination of a civilian population.
Palestine does not have a standing army. Calling it a war normalizes the actions of Israel.