NYT: Freed Palestinians were mostly young and not convicted of crimes (archive link) for an article that otherwise has a lot of fairly specific stats..."most had been in prison for less than a...
The Israeli government initially posted a list of 300 Palestinian teenagers and women who could potentially be released through the deal, and added 50 names to that list as the exchanges progressed.
...
The Israeli data shows that three-quarters of the released Palestinians had not been convicted of a crime. Most had been in prison for less than a year
for an article that otherwise has a lot of fairly specific stats..."most had been in prison for less than a year" is frustratingly vague. there's a big difference between 10 months in prison and 2 months, but both of them can be described as "less than a year"
37 were arrested during the Israeli military’s crackdown following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
alternate phrasing: the vast majority of the prisoners/hostages (90ish percent?) offered by the Israeli military were imprisoned for nothing to do with the Oct 7th attacks.
More than half of the cases were being prosecuted in Israeli military courts, which try Palestinians in the occupied West Bank but not Israeli settlers who live there.
a glimpse into the normal, everyday apartheid and second-class citizen treatment that has existed for years prior to Oct 7th.
Nearly all Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts are convicted, and those accused of security offenses can be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial. Israel has defended these practices as necessary for maintaining its security, but international human rights groups have widely criticized them as violating international law and said they are used to suppress Palestinian political activity and expression.
this should be printed out, framed, and put in the Both Sides Journalism Hall of Fame.
opinions differ as to whether holding people indefinitely without trial is good or not.
Dec 1st deleted article from the Jerusalem Post: Al Jazeera posts blurred doll, claims it to be a dead Palestinian baby (content warning that the article includes pictures of the dead Palestinian...
(content warning that the article includes pictures of the dead Palestinian baby)
some QAnon-level bullshit, claiming that a dead baby is a doll with zero evidence other than "I looked at the picture and it seems fake to me"
It is unclear if Al Jazeera had edited the footage themselves in an attempt to deliberately mislead the public or if they had shared the footage without properly researching the background.
irony is dead.
While this footage could not be located on Al Jazeera’s Arabic website, other footage was found with adults crying over the death of dolls.
and claiming that it's not just one picture, but some sort of widespread trend of Palestinians using dolls as props and claiming they're dead children.
this highlights the sort of mental gymnastics necessary to avoid a "are we the baddies?" moment.
Not directly related to the war, but perhaps others aren't aware that high prices for housing in Israel are a motivation for some settlers: Go West Bank: Israel Is Using the Housing Crisis to Lure...
Not directly related to the war, but perhaps others aren't aware that high prices for housing in Israel are a motivation for some settlers:
In recent years, around 900 young people who don’t own a home of their own have won the Housing Ministry’s lottery for a subsidized apartment in Ariel through the Mechir Lemishtaken (“Buyer’s Choice”) program. The city, which is largely secular, is the fifth-largest settlement and is considered the capital of Samaria, the Israeli name for the northern West Bank.
These winners beat out 37,600 other people who signed up for the lottery in this settlement. Fewer than a third of the registrants already live in Ariel; the rest come from all over Israel.
...
Dr. Shaul Arieli, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who was one of the initiators of the Geneva Initiative, a proposed model for solving it, says that these days, based on his latest research, “70 percent of the Israelis in the West Bank are ‘quality-of-life settlers’ and only 30 percent are ideological.”
Most of the people coming to the settlements for economic reasons in recent years have been ultra-Orthodox, he added, and they now constitute 40 percent of all settlers. Most live in Modi’in Ilit and Betar Ilit, and the rest in settlements like Immanuel, Ma’aleh Amos, Asfar and Tel Zion.
...
In selling subsidized apartments over the Green Line, Israel is clearly committing two violations of international law: the principle of temporariness of settlement in the territories, to which it is bound by the Geneva Convention, and channeling people into occupied territories by means of economic incentives.
Thousands leave behind American lives to join Israel’s war in Gaza (Washington Post) ... ... It's unclear to me if "not obligated to return" is true generally, or if this is some more narrow...
About 10,000 people living in the United States have reported for Israeli military duty after receiving draft notices, part of a larger mobilization of 360,000 troops, Israeli officials told The Washington Post. At least eight U.S. citizens have been killed while serving in Israeli security forces since the war began, according to the State Department.
...
In this case, most of the Americans who have joined the war effort have served previously in the Israel Defense Forces or remain IDF reservists. Historically, about 1,200 Americans serve in the IDF at a given time, according to a study published last year by the journal Sociological Forum. Many are, or become, dual citizens.
...
Mack, a Los Angeles native who had settled in Las Vegas, rotated through a variety of assignments earlier in his Israeli military career, primarily in the West Bank, another Palestinian territory. As a reservist living in the United States, he was not obligated to return, he said. But he was moved to do so after watching videos of the Hamas assault.
It's unclear to me if "not obligated to return" is true generally, or if this is some more narrow exception. That is, there are apparently "draft notices" but to what extent is it optional for Israeli reservists in the US?
(The soldiers interviewed in the story seem eager to go regardless.)
She was added Monday to an expanded list of prisoners approved for release under the deal and was among 30 Palestinian prisoners and 10 Israeli hostages due for release Wednesday.
...
Tamimi, born to a well-known activist family, rose to international prominence after footage of her slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers in her village of Nabi Saleh went viral in 2017 and she served eight months in prison on assault and incitement charges. Her imprisonment drew attention to the issue of Palestinian minors detained in Israeli prisons.
Tamimi’s most recent arrest came on Nov. 6, a month into the war with Gaza. She was one of several Palestinians who the Israel Defense Forces said were arrested in the West Bank in early November on suspicion “of involvement in terrorist activity and incitement.” The IDF shared a screenshot of what it said was a story posted on her Instagram account that contained violent threats toward settlers in the West Bank.
Tamimi’s mother, Nariman, denied the charges against her daughter, telling The Post that it was not written by Tamimi and that her daughter’s most recent Instagram account “was hacked 10 months ago.”
Tamimi’s father, Bassem, was arrested the week before, Nariman Tamimi said.
...
Dozens of Palestinians have been accused of terrorism or similar charges over messages posted on social media in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border attack inside Israel, something rights groups have criticized as a crackdown on free speech. According to one rights group in Haifa, Israel, hundreds of Palestinian Israelis have faced hearings at their workplaces or universities over their social media posts.
...
Tamimi’s image became a fixture on murals and posters around the globe after her 2017 arrest. Nabi Saleh, her village, had been the site of weekly protests since Jewish settlers confiscated some of the land in 2009.
Her defense said the soldiers were part of a group that had shot her cousin, Mohammed al-Tamimi, moments before the 2017 incident seen on video. A senior Israeli military official denied Mohammed had been shot, despite evidence from medical records and witness testimony, The Washington Post reported at the time.
...
Israel has described the Palestinian prisoners on the lists as “terrorists” in its communication with media organizations. The people on the list are accused of crimes ranging from throwing stones to attempted murder. Many of the people listed have not been formally sentenced, which could suggest that they have not stood trial. Some have been held in “administrative detention,” under which individuals in the occupied West Bank can be held without charge or trial indefinitely. Rights groups have raised concerns about a lack of due process in Israel’s judicial system, especially in the country’s military courts.
According to Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, almost a third of Palestinian prisoners are held under administrative detention.
I agree it's tragic and also abusive. The Israelis have not been acting in good faith in the West Bank. I'm not sure where you are from, if your we is about Israelis. I'm an outsider but with...
I agree it's tragic and also abusive. The Israelis have not been acting in good faith in the West Bank.
I'm not sure where you are from, if your we is about Israelis.
I'm an outsider but with family history benefiting from land settlement in the US.
The Israeli project to take Palestinian land is current, officially and unofficially supported and ongoing. It is violent oppression.
However I try to remember that the most extremist Palestinians really do want to end Israel. Israel accepted millions who were expelled from middle eastern countries and have no home to return to.
Same. If any good comes out of this terrible conflict, I hope it will be that attention can be paid to the needs and legitimate demands of West Bank Palestinians. They have been oppressed for a...
Same.
If any good comes out of this terrible conflict, I hope it will be that attention can be paid to the needs and legitimate demands of West Bank Palestinians. They have been oppressed for a very long time.
The first public visit by Qatari officials to Israel marked an extraordinary moment for the two countries, which have no official diplomatic relations. It also underscored the major role of the tiny emirate in bridging differences between the enemies.
“This is something we’ve never seen before,” Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said of the Qataris’ stay in Israel. “It’s the only external actor in the world with that much leverage on Hamas, because of its many years of support.”
The weekend mission was successful, and most of the team jetted home. But several Qatari mediators stayed behind to work with Israeli intelligence officials on extending the four-day truce, which was set to end Tuesday morning, according to a diplomat briefed on the visit who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity.
Those efforts apparently paid off, as Qatar’s Foreign Ministry announced Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend their cease-fire for two more days past Monday, raising the prospects of a longer halt to the war.
With its close ties to the United States — it hosts the largest American military base between Europe and Japan — its communication with Israel since 1995 and its support of blockaded Gaza to the tune of what estimates suggest is more than $1 billion since 2014, Qatar is uniquely positioned to break deadlocks in the cease-fire talks, which also involve the U.S. and Egypt.
...
The emirate has hosted an overseas Hamas political office since 2012, allowing Qatar to wield some influence over the militant group’s decision-makers. Top Hamas officials, including the group’s supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, live in Qatar.
Qatar says Hamas’ political office in its capital, Doha, came about at the request of U.S. officials who wanted to establish a communication channel, just as Doha had hosted Taliban offices during America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.
...
Qatar’s minister of state for international cooperation, Lolwah Al-Khater, became the first foreign official to visit the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday. She used the pause in fighting to survey the disputed influx of aid, meet wounded Palestinians and talk with Wael al-Dahdouh, Gaza bureau chief of Qatari-funded Al Jazeera, who lost his wife, son and grandchild in an Israeli airstrike. The pan-Arab broadcaster, which has more cameras in Gaza than any other news outlet, has dominated Arabic coverage of the war.
New satellite images commissioned by the BBC reveal the extent of destruction across northern Gaza, before the start of the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The satellite images were taken last Thursday, just before the suspension of hostilities came into force, following weeks of Israeli air strikes and on-the-ground fighting. Separate satellite data analysis also provides a snapshot of the destruction across the whole of Gaza.
Drone footage and verified video also show buildings and entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble. While northern Gaza has been the focus of the Israeli ground offensive and has borne the brunt of the destruction, widespread damage extends across the entire strip.
...
The Vice President reiterated that under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza. The Vice President discussed U.S. ideas for post-conflict planning in Gaza including efforts on reconstruction, security, and governance. She emphasized that these efforts can only succeed if they are pursued in the context of a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people towards a state of their own led by a revitalized Palestinian Authority and have significant support from the international community and the countries of the region. The Vice President made clear that Hamas cannot control Gaza, which is untenable for Israel’s security, the well-being of the Palestinian people, and regional security.
The U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced it has imposed sanctions on several dozen Israeli settlers believed to be involved in attacks against Palestinians, banning them from traveling to the U.S.
A report on some utter awfulness regarding babies (heavy trigger warning) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/03/gaza-premature-babies-dead-nasr/
A report on some utter awfulness regarding babies (heavy trigger warning)
Here's an archive link for the Financial Times story. I'm reminded of an early story about a warning from Egypt: Egypt warned Israel of Hamas attack days earlier, senior US politician says (The...
Here's an archive link for the Financial Times story.
I'm reminded of an early story about a warning from Egypt:
Sure, we don't know and we're not doing the investigation, so this is just about imagining scenarios, not ruling them out. Insider trading is a common scenario, easily imagined when people are...
Sure, we don't know and we're not doing the investigation, so this is just about imagining scenarios, not ruling them out.
Insider trading is a common scenario, easily imagined when people are trading on nonpublic information. Someone with some sort of connection to Hamas could get information somehow? Someone wealthy might not think it's wrong at all to profit from an attack. It might even be an attack they're indirectly funding?
So it seems entirely reasonable to think it might be Hamas, or someone closely associated.
But a friend or relative getting a tip is a common scenario too. And apparently Egypt thought something big was going to happen?
When enough people knew, it can be hard to narrow it down that way.
Yes, agreed. I think it breaks down even for careful readers of the same source. If you look closely, there are signs, even in the headlines: That question mark means they don't know. Reading the...
Yes, agreed. I think it breaks down even for careful readers of the same source. If you look closely, there are signs, even in the headlines:
Did Hamas Make Millions Betting Against Israeli Shares Before October 7 Massacre? - Haaretz
That question mark means they don't know. Reading the op-ed confirms they don't know:
While the source of the putative information leading to the short selling isn’t known, it plausibly originated in Hamas circles: “Our findings suggest that traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events,” they wrote.
(Notice the word plausible and how the quote says nothing about Hamas.)
For the other article:
Study finds Hamas may have profited
Or they might not have.
The article itself is worse, but at least it links to the study.
This is bad, but it's not unusually bad. It happens all the time when newspapers report on studies. It's just, you notice more with a hot-button issue where you're already skeptical. We don't read nearly as carefully when it's something we already believe or don't care about.
(Meanwhile, newspapers that really are being cautious will get accused of both-sides-ism.)
Matt Levine has a somewhat more careful analysis that links to a better article: From that article: Those aren't the kind of "quoting conventions" I imagined as a programmer. The two authors of...
Matt Levine has a somewhat more careful analysis that links to a better article:
All in all this strikes me as inconclusive: There was abnormal trading in the ETF, but the ETF is tiny; there was basically one day (Oct. 2, a week before the attacks) with $12 million or so of trades, and otherwise the ETF traded a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth per day in the two weeks before Oct. 7, below its usual daily volume. “While the magnitude of additional trading in the Israeli ETF is abnormal, it is not large in absolute terms, likely owing to the limited trading volume and liquidity in that ETF,” they write. They place more emphasis on the trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, but here is a report claiming that they overestimate that trading due to a mistake about quoting conventions. And there is some US option trading, where they say that “the evidence we present is consistent with substantial block trades that occurred on October 2 rather than ordinary market-making activity.”
I have trouble imagining Hamas calling an options market maker to do block trades. But I also don’t really understand why outside tippees would have advance knowledge of the attacks and do all their trading a week ahead of time: Wouldn’t a more ordinary model involve information leaking out over time and leading to increased trading in the days leading up to the event? But, anyway, there you go, some people apparently did make some money trading ahead of the October 7 attacks.
From that article:
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange EVP head of trade Yaniv Pagot has told "Globes" that the findings of a US research study claiming that investors carried out major short trades on Israeli shares, with an emphasis on Bank Leumi (TASE:LUMI), are inaccurate and divorced from reality.
Bank Leumi shares are among the most traded on the TASE and were at the heart of the research published on December 3 by Robert J. Jackson Jr. of the New York University School of Law and Prof. Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School. They found a sharp and significant rise in short sales of Bank Leumi shares as well as ETFs that track Israeli companies in the days preceding the surprise Hamas attack on October 7.
Pagot says, "What the researchers did in the study was to assume through lack of familiarity with the local market that share prices in Israel are quoted in shekels rather than agorot (100 agorot equals a shekel). From this there were many mistakes. In the research they took the increase in the short sales balance on 4,500,000 shares. The researchers estimated that the price per share fell from NIS 734 instead of 734 agorot or NIS 7.34. Therefore they calculate a profit of NIS 3.2 billion (in Leumi shares) when in practice the profit was only NIS 32 million. The researchers magnified the loss per share 100 times. This is a fundamentally mistaken assumption."
He adds, "There is also a lack of understanding of what happens on the capital market in Tel Aviv. If we assume that somebody carried out a huge short sale in a share, whoever made such a short sell would be completely transparent to the local regulator because he has to sign a share lending agreement with a TASE member. So would somebody from Hamas or a straw company acting on their behalf sign a share lending agreement on the TASE? Even if somebody wants to borrow shares worth NIS 500 million, they need to identify themselves to a bank and take out a credit framework. So the bank need information on who is involved. There are matters like money laundering etc. In other words, there could not be such a scenario. It is regrettable that the researchers did not check with Israeli TASE members and they could have asked how these things work in Israel."
Those aren't the kind of "quoting conventions" I imagined as a programmer.
The two authors of the paper are American and the first author was formerly head of the Security and Exchange Commission, so I guess it goes to show that even experts can make mistakes if they don't have local knowledge. I guess it's good that they published their findings (with a question mark), so that others could come along and correct them.
(Unlike most of us, they probably could have asked about it privately, but then there would be no discussion and we couldn't read about it.)
As an outsider who isn't interested enough to investigate, I just hope someone I read will share the good stuff. And if the corrections need correcting, I expect one of Matt Levine's readers will notice, write in, and I'll hear about it that way.
A new McCarthyism is being enforced around the Israel-Hamas conflict.
NYT: Freed Palestinians were mostly young and not convicted of crimes (archive link)
for an article that otherwise has a lot of fairly specific stats..."most had been in prison for less than a year" is frustratingly vague. there's a big difference between 10 months in prison and 2 months, but both of them can be described as "less than a year"
alternate phrasing: the vast majority of the prisoners/hostages (90ish percent?) offered by the Israeli military were imprisoned for nothing to do with the Oct 7th attacks.
a glimpse into the normal, everyday apartheid and second-class citizen treatment that has existed for years prior to Oct 7th.
this should be printed out, framed, and put in the Both Sides Journalism Hall of Fame.
opinions differ as to whether holding people indefinitely without trial is good or not.
Dec 1st deleted article from the Jerusalem Post: Al Jazeera posts blurred doll, claims it to be a dead Palestinian baby
(content warning that the article includes pictures of the dead Palestinian baby)
some QAnon-level bullshit, claiming that a dead baby is a doll with zero evidence other than "I looked at the picture and it seems fake to me"
irony is dead.
and claiming that it's not just one picture, but some sort of widespread trend of Palestinians using dolls as props and claiming they're dead children.
this highlights the sort of mental gymnastics necessary to avoid a "are we the baddies?" moment.
Dec 2nd tweet from the Jerusalem Post
Not directly related to the war, but perhaps others aren't aware that high prices for housing in Israel are a motivation for some settlers:
Go West Bank: Israel Is Using the Housing Crisis to Lure Israelis Into Becoming Settlers
(Haaretz, Feb. 2023) (archive)
...
...
Most settlers on the US frontier were also economically motivated. The result was genocide.
Thousands leave behind American lives to join Israel’s war in Gaza (Washington Post)
...
...
It's unclear to me if "not obligated to return" is true generally, or if this is some more narrow exception. That is, there are apparently "draft notices" but to what extent is it optional for Israeli reservists in the US?
(The soldiers interviewed in the story seem eager to go regardless.)
Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi freed from Israeli prison in latest exchange (Washington Post)
...
...
...
...
I agree it's tragic and also abusive. The Israelis have not been acting in good faith in the West Bank.
I'm not sure where you are from, if your we is about Israelis.
I'm an outsider but with family history benefiting from land settlement in the US.
The Israeli project to take Palestinian land is current, officially and unofficially supported and ongoing. It is violent oppression.
However I try to remember that the most extremist Palestinians really do want to end Israel. Israel accepted millions who were expelled from middle eastern countries and have no home to return to.
Same.
If any good comes out of this terrible conflict, I hope it will be that attention can be paid to the needs and legitimate demands of West Bank Palestinians. They have been oppressed for a very long time.
Qatar is the go-to mediator in the Mideast war. Its unprecedented Tel Aviv trip saved a shaky truce (AP)
...
...
Nearly 100,000 Gaza buildings may be damaged, satellite images show (BBC)
From the US Vice President's Office
U.S. imposes visa ban on Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinians
A report on some utter awfulness regarding babies (heavy trigger warning)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/03/gaza-premature-babies-dead-nasr/
Here's an archive link for the Financial Times story.
I'm reminded of an early story about a warning from Egypt:
Egypt warned Israel of Hamas attack days earlier, senior US politician says (The Guardian, October 12)
There don't seem to be any news stories about it since then, though?
Yeah, I meant to say that I didn't see any followup to the story about Egypt. These are good links.
Sure, we don't know and we're not doing the investigation, so this is just about imagining scenarios, not ruling them out.
Insider trading is a common scenario, easily imagined when people are trading on nonpublic information. Someone with some sort of connection to Hamas could get information somehow? Someone wealthy might not think it's wrong at all to profit from an attack. It might even be an attack they're indirectly funding?
So it seems entirely reasonable to think it might be Hamas, or someone closely associated.
But a friend or relative getting a tip is a common scenario too. And apparently Egypt thought something big was going to happen?
When enough people knew, it can be hard to narrow it down that way.
Yes, agreed. I think it breaks down even for careful readers of the same source. If you look closely, there are signs, even in the headlines:
That question mark means they don't know. Reading the op-ed confirms they don't know:
(Notice the word plausible and how the quote says nothing about Hamas.)
For the other article:
Or they might not have.
The article itself is worse, but at least it links to the study.
This is bad, but it's not unusually bad. It happens all the time when newspapers report on studies. It's just, you notice more with a hot-button issue where you're already skeptical. We don't read nearly as carefully when it's something we already believe or don't care about.
(Meanwhile, newspapers that really are being cautious will get accused of both-sides-ism.)
Matt Levine has a somewhat more careful analysis that links to a better article:
From that article:
Those aren't the kind of "quoting conventions" I imagined as a programmer.
The two authors of the paper are American and the first author was formerly head of the Security and Exchange Commission, so I guess it goes to show that even experts can make mistakes if they don't have local knowledge. I guess it's good that they published their findings (with a question mark), so that others could come along and correct them.
(Unlike most of us, they probably could have asked about it privately, but then there would be no discussion and we couldn't read about it.)
As an outsider who isn't interested enough to investigate, I just hope someone I read will share the good stuff. And if the corrections need correcting, I expect one of Matt Levine's readers will notice, write in, and I'll hear about it that way.