(Nov 8, 2023 10:57 AM)stryder Wrote: Considering the guy you've linked is shilling his books written on a pro-palestinian stance, it's only fair to say that hes "drank the kool-aid".
The problem has been that due to it being a warzone, Gaza has been hidden under the fog of war, the only information coming out is literally from those that are panicking and don't know whats going on. Hamas has likely used that to their advantage by exploiting social media. Thats why it's only death and destruction is being seen.
I doubt Hamas would admit to how many buildings it had pre-rigged with explosives (unknown to those that live there) which they intended to collapse on any invasion force. the only thing that would give that away is the size of the yield of explosion versus how much explosive yield was actually used trigger it.
'Drank the cool-aid'? Then I guess you can show he not lying Israeli PR has been the party making stories up to suit?
As for the last bit....
Is this other than pure conjecture? Any reliable evidence of Hamas sappers going around rigging buildings as 'death traps' for obviously an expected Israeli IDF ground invasion? Notice I said reliable. If you had read Cook's article cataloging a small selection of Israel's systematically lying propaganda, you will know not to quote Israeli slick PR front men/women as sources of 'reliable evidence'.
One obvious problem with that explosive rigging' notion is that Gaza city has been systematically reduced to rubble and scant any buildings left to be 'exploded' not already exploded via lavishly US funded Israeli overwhelming military power. Bombs, shells, rockets - the works.
BTW, Cook's piece left out the outlandish black propaganda lies re '40 beheaded babies' and others 'burned alive' by Hamas militants. All subsequently shown to be BS.
Just like WW1 atrocity propaganda that claimed German soldiers 'bayoneted babies' and 'worse'. Took years for the British government to finally own up to that lying.
Much more recently - First gulf war, we had the infamous 'Kuwaiti babies thrown out of incubators' lying BS. But Israel excels like no other.
Even affected Settler survivors claim IDF systematically shelled and machine gunned both Hamas militants AND Israeli citizens in the hours following the initial Oct 07 attack. In accordance with a standing doctrine of 'allow no hostage taking regardless of collateral casualties' apparently. It has a name but can't recall it now. So only some (doubtless large) fraction of the ~ 1400 fatalities ascribed to Hamas attackers were actually perpetrated by them.
Just to be clear - I never condoned the Oct 7 Hamas murderous rampage. It was barbarous and just plain stupid as they must have known there would be a massively disproportionate slaughter from the IDF. Probably ca 20,000 Palestinian civilian deaths by now and only way is steeply further up. Sheer desperation the motivator. As already covered by Ritter interview.
There is ongoing debate as to whether Israel was truly 'caught off guard'. I wrote this to a friend on that:
"It is equally a lie that Israel was 'taken by surprise' over the initial Hamas attack. In fact they were warned by Egyptian intelligence THREE DAYS PRIOR:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-inte...thing-big/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_e...onslaught/
Of course Israeli propagandists do what is natural and normal to them - bald face lie:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023...ef2ed70000"
Others with no pro-Israel bias do dispute the prior knowledge claim, but on balance I think the price of a 1000 or so lost settler lives was deemed OK for the greater objective of a final ethnic cleansing. Result - a 'pure' Zionist state as first accomplished step towards 'Greater Israel' - that Genesis 15:18 (I wrongly wrote Genesis 17:8 in an earlier post) Divine Promise to The Chosen People.