That isn’t about me being smart. Really it’s just about reading the article.

You can’t just say

delete all images off of each device

and seriously expect me to not point out that’s not what the article says, after I specifically asked that. Either information is accurate, or it is not. Factuality is important, especially these days. It’s not some minor detail, either, had all the images been deleted, it’s likely my overall argument would’ve been incorrect based on the actual evidence.

Then it is no longer necessary to keep bringing it up. It’s frustrating when everyone pretends I’m trying to defend Israeli positions or something instead of simply pointing out that in this one particular case, it’s unlikely to be some coverup conspiracy despite everyone’s rabid wishes for it to be one. The IDF commits plenty of war crimes, but that does not make everything they do another one.

I frankly don’t care if I convince you or not. I am not trying to sell something. I am, however, not going to be swayed away from what I think is correct, either. You all are absolutely trying to sell something, and I ain’t buying.

Yes, for the third time, the intimidation was very egregious. I have not been talking about the intimidation, except to say it is extreme and wrong. I have been talking about photo deletion, and how militaries feel about photography, not just in Israel, but lots of places.

Regarding where the actual combat is occuring and where the fronts are, maybe you’re right, I’m not sure on that part. It doesn’t change any procedures around opsec, though. An army guy isn’t going to make a judgement about what he should do based on where his base is, he’s just going to follow whatever doctrine his superiors give him for opsec, which in the IDF is probably very harsh. I have a feeling the IDF does not limit it only to the very frontmost positions, especially when a drone is not limited to only targeting those.

Forward positions are forward positions, it doesn’t need to be top secret for basic no-photography rules to apply.

I agree that all the harassment and intimidation was egregious, though. That part has nothing to do with security in any way I can think of.

All were examined, many photos were deleted. Not all photos were deleted.

I’m honestly not so sure. I agree all the intimidation was very egregious, but beyond that I think you’re drawing an odd distinction between Ukraine checking phones and cameras if necessary and the IDF doing it.

Also did they delete all the images? I don’t recall the article specifying that all of them were deleted. That would also be unusual I’d think.

You can interpret personal photos that way, certainly. That is not necessarily what it means though. A selfie is a personal photo after all.

I’m not justifying military force against a nation anywhere. Nor am I really justifying anything, just because something is common does not make it just. I’m saying that the “they’re covering up a warcrime by deleting photos” line of thought is unlikely, based on what we’ve seen.

Seems to me that everyone else is bending over backwards a lot, lot more than I am. Thinking the personal photos cannot have been from this trip is an unusual requirement.

Not a waste of time at all. Nothing wrong with people having strong feelings, or helping them see through those feelings. I was young and fiery once too. It also does remain important to push back against propagandistic spin when we encounter it, even if it’s popular.

Because it doesn’t make sense. Your leader being a megalomaniac does not mean every soldier is, that’s not how life works. You cannot paint any whole group of people based on the actions of some of them.

Personal photos can contain identifying landmarks in them, and are thus still subject to opsec. If I take a selfie in a certain spot with a tree in the background, it can be determined where I was based off that tree. It’s no different from how the backgrounds of photos posted to the internet can get the subjects doxxed regardless of them not intentionally giving out their info. This is prevented by blurring out all backgrounds when posting photos near a military position. Or can just delete the photos.

As I said earlier, I’m loyal to trying to be objective. Not to identifying what I think are bad guys and automatically heaping every bad thing I can think of on them. I don’t do that with Russia, China, the US or Israel. I don’t do it to anybody. I try to figure out the truth, instead of just thinking “those are bad guys, bad guys do bad guy things”.

It also helps that I’ve heard of non-Israeli cases of people not being allowed to take footage of or photograph around military positions, so that part of it is actually normal.

I never said I wasn’t making any assumptions. That an army would follow sound opsec principles while they are in a state of conflict is an assumption after all.

This does fully explain the deletion, though, while anything else has to twist around to explain why a journalist isn’t reporting on potential war crimes while still reporting on other bad behavior.

edit: If you can’t see how obvious this is, I’m afraid you’ve probably been indoctrinated with a severe bias. I’m the only one here saying Israel absolutely commits war crimes, this just isn’t a good example of another one. Details are important and all that.

Yeah, that I agree with. The behavior beyond the deletion of the photos alone was very egregious. Blatant intimidation.

Intimidation is probably part of it, for sure. The only thing that fully explains the deletion of the photos is opsec, though. Frankly, we should assume the IDF absolutely is maintaining opsec, and will absolutely forbid any footage of their forward operating positions from going public as much as they possibly can. That should be a standard procedure for any military engaged in combat, and any exceptions to it should be surprising.

No, those are absolutely war crimes. I am not saying the IDF does not commit war crimes. I am saying this BBC reporter would have told us if he witnessed any, and as such, this specific case probably has a different motive of the many possibilities.

Don’t mistake my attempts at objectivity for support for the IDF. I just don’t automatically assume the worst possibilities.

I don’t deny the overall sentiment, but we should still try to stay fact-based. It’s not about benefit of any doubt, nobody deserves that in any military conflict. It’s about the evidence we’ve been presented. If there were some war crimes caught by the BBC reporter, he likely would have said so. I doubt Israeli threats would dissuade him from doing his job when he’s brave enough to go reporting there in the first place. The IDF would have a hard time reaching him if he were to move safely back to Britain.

Loyalty to logic and factuality is more important than which side we support in conflict. If we cannot maintain a loyalty to reality, we don’t deserve to overcome our opponents in the first place. We’ve become too much like them.

While I have little doubt that the IDF has intentionally targeted journalists in Gaza to cover up war crimes, in this specific case it does seem to be about militant authoritarian sentiment and base security in an age of fpv drone attacks.

Publicly available footage of your base could put you and your friends lives at risk. We see the Ukrainians frequently taking great care to make sure the locations and layouts of their forward operating positions are not able to be geolocated from their media releases.

If this were happening in Gaza or the West Bank, I think your take would be more likely. But happening in Syria makes it less so.

Also just doctrine being subject to rapid change to suit changing realities during times of war. As an example, we can look to WW1 to see rapidly changing doctrines as it became understood to be necessary, like when the maneuver warfare of the Napoleonic Era quickly shifted to trench warfare.

I think it’d be much smarter to simply use the piece of equipment when its capabilities suit your needs, than treat it like a weirdly-shaped ICBM.

You think they just sit on the runway until someone needs to drop a nuke? So, when Trump redeployed our B-2s to the Indian Ocean, he must’ve been preparing to nuke the Houthis?

Not off the top of my head. Cooking is frequently a recreational hobby though, it’s essentially an art form. So I think it’s about equally likely that dancing, painting or making music fade away.