zlacker

>>ilamon+(OP)
You can see this happen out in the open when Paul Graham (or anyone else) posts statistics about who's been killed, raw footage... he's immediately swarmed by people, some major players in the industry, accusing him of "antisemitism", which it most definitely is not.

>>smooth+Fw
It was certainly interesting to see Paul Graham, famous for his skepticism of China's COVID numbers, immediately embrace the Gaza Ministry of Health's death toll, without understanding how they themselves generate it.

>>richar+wB1
...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?

>>JeffSn+MF1
Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas.

In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.

>>richar+QG1
> Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press

Israeli law allows news censorship by the IDF. Currently, if you are a news outlet working in Israel, you have to pass your war coverage by them [1,2] even the CNN is forced to do this [3]. I don't know, but you seem to have a strange definition of free press. Should I list some of the series of scandals of IDF caught laying in the past to complete the picture? Just remember that they tried to convince people that the words [Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday] in Arabic are Hamas members names [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor

[2] https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi...

[3] https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo...

[4] https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20231116-...

>>bluish+aS1
Can you name a country that doesn't allow news censorship by their military during combat? The same exact thing happens with US journalists embedded with the US military. It's obvious operational security. I'm guessing you don't speak hebrew, but Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists.

>>richar+mz4
> Israeli journalists are even more critical of their government than American journalists.

Free to criticize but get jailed by the 100s: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-jo... (that's not free press)