#Gaza / ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets
The #IDF attacked the #Gaza Strip during the war with the assistance of an #AI-based data system called "Lavender", which incriminated 37,000 men as potential #Hamas and Islamic Jihad (#IJ) activists. According to an investigation published by the local news site "Sikha Mekomit" publised also in The Guardian, in addition to using this system, intelligence sources stated that the army had set quotas for killing uninvolved civilians before certain assassinations.
According to two sources, in the first weeks of the war, the army approved strikes on junior operatives that could kill 15-20 civilians in addition to the targets. They said that attacks on such targets were usually carried out with "stupid bombs" that destroyed entire homes and killed their inhabitants.
[...] “This is unparalleled, in my memory,” said one intelligence officer who used Lavender, adding that they had more faith in a “statistical mechanism” than a grieving soldier. “Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7. The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier.”
[...] “Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally dropping the whole house on its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care – you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting.”
It was only a couple of months ago that trolls hosted with the poison machine at @babka.social were busy cleaning Mastodon from "antisemites", bullying voices critical of Israel. One of their bearded busy bees went as far as to claim that Local Call [Sikha Mekomit] was a Hamas-operated outlet 🙄 …
However, since then, the exceptional work of the guys at Local Call has been quoted by mainstream media outlets like The Guardian, and now even the New York Times, which with their pathetic record so far (i.e. the Anat Schwartz piece being the most obvious failure) would do well to thoroughly read everything published by Local Call and learn how investigative journalism is done.
So the baseless accusations against Local Call as a “Hamas mouthpiece” have been thoroughly discredited, as their reporting has been widely recognized and relied upon by international media. But this incident highlights the dangers of "poison machines" like @babka.social, @RememberUsAlways
and many others like them (Israel’s official social media setting the tone), who seek to delegitimize and silence critical voices on the Israel-Palestine conflict through smear tactics, and unfounded claims
#MediaBias / Jewish Insider wants WAPO's coverage of the Middle East to be more like that of NYT and WSJ ... 🤔
Jewish Insider claims the Washington Post is "under fire" for "repeated anti-Israel bias, systemic sloppiness in Middle East coverage."
The "fire" seems to be repeated claims by sources such as Jewish Insider editors themselves, Time of Israel and organizations such as #ADL, #CAMERA and few others.
No need to remind anyone who or what #ADL is and how it operates https://droptheadl.org/, but CAMERA (so called "Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America") is possibly even worse.
"To its supporters, CAMERA is figuratively - and perhaps literally - doing God's work, battling insidious anti-Israeli bias in the media. But its detractors see CAMERA as a myopic and vindictive special interest group trying to muscle its views into media coverage. ... To many in the media CAMERA is ... an advocacy group trying to impose its pro-Israeli views on mainstream journalism." --- The Boston Globe, Mark Jurkowitz observed https://web.archive.org/web/20090213190540/http://www.hnn.us/comments/8390.html
The most relevant part in the WAPO's editor's note, later added to the article, states:
"The article incorrectly said that all Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons had to return to Gaza to reapply after their permits expired. In fact, it was not always necessary for mothers to return to Gaza."
They also mention addition of comments from Israeli officials.
"Some" is not none, but WAPO correcting itself should be praised. Jewish Insider and the other critics mentioned though want to discredit yet another publication documenting Israel's #WarCrimes in Gaza.
Jewish Insider seem to claim that WAPO's coverage of Israel must be biased, because its tone and findings seem to be very different from that of NYT and WSJ. But, is that a bad thing?
Considering the NYT exploitative coverage of the unconfirmed systematic rape by Hamas militants (in which its reporter misled one of the victims' family) and the hit job on #UNRWA the #IDF ran in the WSJ, the Washington Post has really nothing to apologize for.
[cont'd] #MediaBias / The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé
[...] The fear among #NYT staffers who have been critical of the paper’s #Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity toward Palestinians, lack the experience with investigative journalism, and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter, but Schwartz did not commission herself and her nephew to report one of the most consequential stories of the war. Senior leadership at the New York Times did.
So who is Anat Schwartz?
She's an Israeli filmmaker with no prior journalism experience. She was assigned to work on a controversial New York Times investigation into alleged #Hamas sexual violence, despite lacking objectivity. She was paired with veteran Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, though she and Sella did most of the reporting.
She pushed for the Times story alleging systematic Hamas sexual violence to be published quickly to aid Israeli propaganda, despite lack of evidence. Furthermore, she relied heavily on testimony from dubious sources, like Israeli officials and #Zaka workers, who known for spreading false information. Even worse, she dismissed her own doubts and lack of forensic evidence to remain convinced of the sexual violence claims.
Schwartz had liked tweets saying Israel should "turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse" and that Palestinians were "human animals".
"New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack. The paper must explain why it broke its own rules by hiring a clearly biased writer who endorsed racist and violent rhetoric toward Palestinians."
Ben Norton wrote: 'Instead of investigating how it published a fake story on supposed Hamas "mass rapes", the NY Times is investigating... employees who leaked info about how its editors hired a racist Israeli propagandist to write the fake story to justify Israel's genocide.'