I hope to see the supporters from both sides. I read through comments, will ask questions back and i will try to review proofs (unless overwhelmed by amount).
This should be seen as a debate where the win is defined by success of convincing me.
Current status: i am confused. I used to watch Bernie Sanders last year. Today i saw in yt his video about starvation in gaza. Then immediately I saw videos from BBC and CNN on the same theme, but their commentary did not match the videos they were showing. So first question is: is there famine in gaza? Who's fault it is (israel? Hamas? Un distribution programme?)?
This market is guaranteed to resolve either 100% or 0% in a month. If at the end of August I believe that everyone is faulty, then i will decide who is the greater evil.
Note, that this is not just about hunger, but also about war in general. I have seen over instagram people saying Israel wants eradicate palestinians. Is that true?
Update 2025-07-31 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator will share any related videos they watch in the comments to provide insight into the information influencing their decision.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has stated a preference for a "logical approach" in arguments. They find arguments based on conditional reasoning (e.g., "what will happen if...") and historical precedent more persuasive than arguments using what they describe as "loud words" (e.g., genocide, apartheid).
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has provided more specific details on what they find persuasive:
Claims using what the creator calls "loud words" (e.g., genocide, famine) require strong evidence.
A key test of Israel's intentions would be their reaction to a potential hostage-for-withdrawal deal.
The creator is currently skeptical that Israel controls food distribution after it has crossed the border into Gaza and is looking for evidence on this point.
The creator is seeking official statements from Hamas regarding their goals in the conflict.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator will only consider open-source information and will not view paywalled articles. Additional insights into their reasoning include:
Skepticism towards interpretations of evidence (e.g., polls) that infer intent beyond what is explicitly stated.
The presence of a large Arab population in Israel is seen by the creator as a counter-argument to claims of a general desire for ethnic cleansing.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is evaluating the question of whether Israel has provoked hunger in Gaza. They have specified a need for a high standard of evidence on this point, requiring a clear 'chain of information custody' with specific statistics and verifiable sources, rather than abstract media reports.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is skeptical of the reliability of polls conducted in Gaza during the conflict. They question how such polls can be methodologically sound and verifiable, suggesting arguments based on them will likely be considered unpersuasive.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is seeking arguments that address two new specific questions:
The possibility of Israel withdrawing from Gaza while building a more effective border defense.
The reasons behind Israel's security failure on October 7th.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has expressed skepticism that eradicating Hamas is possible. They reason that Hamas is an ideology (a "meme" in the original sense) that can continuously recruit new supporters, suggesting arguments based on the premise of eliminating Hamas may be unpersuasive.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is evaluating the long-term consequences of a potential hostage-for-withdrawal deal. A persuasive argument should address the question: What should Israel do after signing the deal?
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In a discussion about whether Hamas can be eradicated, the creator elaborated on their reasoning. They believe that ideologies (or "memes" in their words) that are based on emotion are more resilient and harder to extinguish than those that are not.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is now seeking arguments addressing the motivation for taking hostages, specifically why they were taken and what the aim was.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): When asking about the motivation for taking hostages, the creator has clarified they are interested in arguments concerning both Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners/detainees.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to accusations of bias, the creator has clarified their debate methodology. They state that their approach is to question and "confront" arguments from both sides to better understand each position, not as an indication of a pre-existing leaning.
Update 2025-08-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to a user's question, the creator clarified what is meant by 'supporting Palestine' for the No outcome. A successful argument for No must convincingly define which entity or group constitutes 'Palestine' in this context (e.g., a specific organization, the Palestinian people, a territory, etc.).
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to a question, the creator has stated that restricting press access is not, by itself, sufficient evidence to determine guilt. However, they are now seeking the pro-Israeli justification for this policy.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has questioned why people from Gaza post 'staged famine photos'. This signals a high degree of skepticism towards the authenticity of such visual evidence.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has expressed skepticism towards evidence presented by Israel of weapons found in hospitals, questioning if the evidence could be staged. They are seeking ways to verify such claims.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is seeking arguments from the pro-Israeli side to address the following questions:
When claiming to only target Hamas, does this imply the majority of those killed were armed combatants?
How do soldiers distinguish between a civilian and a Hamas member?
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified their resolution process in response to a user's question:
No single argument will be sufficient to resolve the market prematurely.
The market will run for its full duration to allow both sides to present their cases.
The creator has stated that asking if a particular point is "enough" to sway their decision is unnecessary, as the process is designed to hear all arguments from both sides.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is evaluating arguments based on a hypothetical scenario posed in a comment:
Would Israel's airstrikes be permissible if they lacked the Iron Dome and were equally vulnerable to rocket attacks from Gaza?
This indicates the creator is weighing the role of defensive capabilities and the principle of reciprocity in their final decision.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to the argument that Hamas uses civilians as shields, the creator has established a specific standard of evidence:
The claim, considered a serious accusation by the creator, requires strong proof.
Persuasive evidence would include video footage, such as from a body camera or a drone.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified how they will resolve the market if they have a nuanced final opinion:
They will determine which side they are "closer" to overall by calculating a weighted average of their positions on all the sub-issues discussed.
If this final score is less than 0.5, the market will resolve No. If it is 0.5 or greater, it will resolve Yes.
This confirms the market will resolve fully to Yes or No, even if the creator's final view is very close to the middle.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to a question about their position on specific issues, the creator stated:
They have a pre-existing negative view of Israeli settlements, considering them a 'bad practice'.
However, they consider the issue of settlements to be a 'minor subproblem' in their overall evaluation of the conflict.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In an elaboration on their skepticism towards evidence of famine, the creator stated they believe more than half of the images they've seen on the subject are fake or misleading. They question if such content is part of a deliberate "discreditation campaign".
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has stated that they consider arguments using phrases like "it is clearly", "transparently", "they think", and "obvious" to be manipulations. Arguments using such language will likely be considered unpersuasive.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to the argument that Israel restricts press access for journalists' own safety, the creator has stated this is unpersuasive. They reason that accepting risk is inherent to the profession of a war journalist.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has stated that arguments about Israel not eliminating Hamas "in its infancy" are considered invalid. They are now seeking arguments that address two new points:
The root causes of Hamas.
Official sources, such as a blog, that detail Hamas's motivations and goals.
Update 2025-08-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is seeking arguments that address two new questions regarding drone technology:
Whether Israel uses pinpoint drone strikes for attacks in a manner similar to Ukraine, and the reasoning if they do not.
Why drone journalism is not permitted as an alternative if allowing traditional journalists is considered problematic.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to an argument to 'side with the civilians', the creator has clarified their evaluation framework:
The final decision will be a judgment of the entities of "Israel" and "Palestine" as whole systems.
These systems include policies, actions, and tendencies, not just the peacefulness of the majority of their populations.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is now seeking arguments that describe a hypothetical scenario in which Israel would consider the war a success and declare it over. This indicates that a clear and plausible 'endgame' is a factor in their evaluation.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): When evaluating hypothetical scenarios for an Israeli victory, the creator finds arguments that depend on Hamas choosing to negotiate or disarm to be unpersuasive. A persuasive argument should describe a path to success that does not rely on Hamas's cooperation.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): When interpreting polls on Palestinian support for the October 7th attack, the creator stated they will consider the possibility that respondents supported the general military operation without knowing or approving of the specifics of the attack against civilians.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): When evaluating hypothetical 'endgame' scenarios, the creator is now seeking arguments that include an estimation of the costs. A persuasive argument on this topic should include estimates for the time, resources, and human lives that a given scenario would require.
Update 2025-08-03 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to an argument that widespread access to information (e.g., via cell phones) means a population is well-informed about events, the creator finds this unpersuasive. They reason that "infobubbles" and confirmation bias can prevent comprehension, using the information environment in Russia regarding the war in Ukraine as an example.
Update 2025-08-04 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified that their decision is also being shaped by their own external research, conducted in parallel to reading the comments. They may form strong conclusions based on this research and have stated they will not present the proof or reasoning for these specific conclusions in the comments.
Update 2025-08-04 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified how they evaluate reports from international authorities like the UN:
The conclusion of a report will not be accepted at face value.
To be persuasive, a report must detail all of its intermediate logical steps so the creator can follow the reasoning.
The creator has previously found reports from OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) organizations to be a good example of this standard.
Update 2025-08-04 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): In response to an argument about the international recognition of Palestine, the creator has stated they view such an action as a 'cosmetic event'. Arguments based on diplomatic recognition are unlikely to be persuasive unless they can demonstrate a tangible short-term impact.
Update 2025-08-04 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is using the atomic bombing of Japan as a historical analogy to evaluate the current conflict. They are seeking arguments on two related points:
Whether the bombing of Japan was a reasonable action.
Whether a state's decision, made with expert input, should be automatically respected.
1,000People are also trading
Since historical comparison was mentioned.
Was nuking Japan reasonable?
@Primer since The decision was made by a country with advisors and specialists, should the decision be automatically respected?
Feel free to ask for any sources on claims, I don't feel like searching right now for each and every claim, but I can locate them if you have any specific requests that you don't believe.
Here's a Green Beret giving his testimony. https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cy8k8045nx9o
For a more personal spin, here he is telling the story of a child named Amir. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3kHIEa-lRjw
In a separate interview, he clarified that his whole operation was run by the IDF. The officers there were told that the IDF are their clients. So they are acting not to serve the good of the hungry civilians, but within the benefit of Israel. Israel drove out the existing aid (from the United Nations) and started sending in about a 60th of the food (from 500 trucks a day to 7 a day). People are starving.
The debate in the international criminal court is not whether mass killings are occurring, but whether it is being performed with the intent to eradicate. Legal scholars remark that South Africa's case is very strong.
Conservative estimates say that 60,000 people have died so far in Gaza. Studies say that these numbers are somewhere from 3-15 times higher if we include avoidable deaths that aren't direct killings due to the conflict. On the low end this is 180,000 deaths. The October 7th attacks killed maybe 2000.
Consider that Israel refuses to settle for a two state solution. The Palestinians merely want their country to exist. The Israelis want only their country to exist.
One might ask: what are the Palestinians doing that would possibly cause you to resolve it to yes? Unless, as the saying goes, every Israeli is worth a thousand Palestinians.
With this in mind, I expect to receive my money in short order :)
@thatcher1215 The Green Beret was, it seems, an employee angry that he was fired - "I could be your best friend or your worst nightmare; stop effing around. Put me back to work" https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-862669 I could go into all your other lazy claims, but come on, be a critical reader, even if it's for the side for you support.
@ShawnReynolds He claims he quit, and the GHF claims he was fired. I don't know why I would uncritically accept the GHF's claims here when it would be entirely in their best interests to lie.
Is there any military reason to destroy water desalination plants? https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/4/10/gaza-residents-share-fears-of-thirst-after-israel-destroys-water-resources
@mariopasquato Did you run a search to see what Israel is saying about this or do you take what Al Jazeera and Human Rights Watch feed to you for granted? Pipelines easily get damaged during all-out war, and Israel has worked to repair the pipelines every time this happened. See https://www.timesofisrael.com/water-desalination-quietly-returns-to-gaza-after-work-by-israel-and-pa/ And https://www.timesofisrael.com/gazans-say-renewed-idf-attacks-cut-off-clean-water-for-hundreds-of-thousands/
Since historical comparison was mentioned.
Was nuking Japan reasonable?
@Primer since The decision was made by a country with advisors and specialists, should the decision be automatically respected?
@Henry38hw Will answer this below to keep this for nuking Japan.
Edit: The AI seems to have gotten mixed up between the reference to my comment and the nukes on Japan.
@Henry38hw I think supporting the current war in Gaza is a sufficient but not necessary reason to side with Israel over Palestine, just as supporting nuking Japan is a sufficient but not necessary reason to side with the US over Imperial Japan.
@Henry38hw No, nuking Japan was not reasonable in circumstances where Japan was going to surrender to the USSR anyway. The nukes were used for post-war geopolitical positioning.
See this Foreign Policy article (archived due to paywall):
@OP Hiroshima was bombed the same day (Aug 9th) that the USSR launched its liberation of Japanese Manchuria. The bomb wasn't only to demonstrate American power to the USSR, but in the case of an American invasion of the home islands and such a politically unpopular casualty cost, America wouldn't be able to refuse the offer of Soviet troops in Japan as well, where they would arm the JCP as they armed the CCP in Manchuria.
@FergusArgyll It would have to be justified under intl law, and the most common legal wars are wars of self-defence (Ukraine v. Russia).
Then it would have to conform to all the various laws regarding conduct during war which in broad brushstrokes is meant to minimise unnecessary suffering. For instance, civilians are protected and must not be injured or killed deliberately or via collateral damage
@FergusArgyll Some UN military operations have been "humanitarian interventions" and likely can be classified as just wars. Some non-UN wars have also had similar justification and were largely ethical
For example, India's 1971 intervention, and possibly the 1990s Gulf War
In one noted incident, two USAF stealth planes bombed a bunker in Amiriyah, causing the deaths of 408 Iraqi civilians in the shelter.[265]
.....
A Harvard University study released in June 1991 predicted that there would be tens of thousands of additional Iraqi civilian deaths by the end of 1991 due to the "public health catastrophe" caused by the destruction of the country's electrical generating capacity. "Without electricity, hospitals cannot function, perishable medicines spoil, water cannot be purified and raw sewage cannot be processed,". The US government refused to release its own study of the effects of the Iraqi public health crisis.
....
An investigation in 1992 by Beth Osborne Daponte estimated about 13,000 civilians were directly killed in the war, while another 70,000 died indirectly from the war's other effects
.....
US policy regarding media freedom was much more restrictive than in the Vietnam War.[349] The policy had been spelled out in a Pentagon document entitled Annex Foxtrot. Most of the press information came from briefings organized by the military. Only selected journalists were allowed to visit the front lines or conduct interviews with soldiers. Those visits were always conducted in the presence of officers, and were subject to both prior approval by the military and censorship afterward.
.....
Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) critically analyzed media coverage during the war in various articles and books, such as the 1991 Gulf War Coverage: The Worst Censorship was at Home.[360]
......
-- Wikipedia gulf war
@Trazyn I don't think we can say every single country that ever engaged in war in human history was evil, even though I can find atrocities in all of them. How do you reconcile that?
@FergusArgyll I would indeed say that they have all been at least partially evil, though some less severely so e.g. the allies were less evil than the axis in WW2, the republicans were less evil than the francoists in the Spanish civil war, rojava were less evil than ISIS in the Syrian civil war etc.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_War_II_Casualties.svg#mw-jump-to-license
Even though the axis civilian deaths are huge, it's undeniable that the allied civilian deaths are vastly more
@TheAllMemeingEye And are you really saying that this civilian count differential is the important reason why the Allies were less evil? In the Korean War, the US and South Korea by most estimates killed more than five times as many civilians as North Korea and China (and possibly more than ten times as many). Were they five times as evil? This methods strips out all relevant context and details.
@ShawnReynolds it's a fairly good proxy in most cases. Killing innocent civilians is evil by itself, but I would intuitively expect it to be a fairly good predictor of the general tyranny of the regime as well. If what you say about the Korean war is true then that big of a differential genuinely makes it ambiguous who the worse villain was, especially when you also consider South Korea doing dictatorship and concentration camps for the next few decades.
@FergusArgyll We simply look at intent and proof of trying to not be evil
This is why to prove a crime there must be intent but even with innocent intent if you kill someone it's a crime
War is famously a racket and there will be collateral etc
@TheAllMemeingEye But even if South Korea were a liberal democracy (which they became eventually), you would argue that they and the US are still much greater evils - just because they killed more civilians. Part of the reason they killed more civilians is because South Korea conducted some massacres during the war, and I'd understand if that shaped the calculus a lot. But the main reason is because the US had air power, and North Korea did not. And when China intervened, the war was conducted over North Korean territory. The US bombed all North Korean cities to the ground, and they did not always issue carefully calibrated evacuation orders to civilians like Israel does, so there were far more casualties. It seems strange to let technical factors like who has more air power, the location where the fighting is occurring, etc, to shape your opinion on who is better or worse.
@Trazyn That's a completely different discussion i.e. someone who's simply anti-war - war is not the answer etc.
We're focused on a specific conflict & my question is how does this war compare to how wars actually go. At what point do you boycott a country for war crimes they committed? At what point can you support them full throat-dly even though they commit war crimes?
I personally would have been proud to fight for the US in ww2 even though they firebombed a huge amount of civilians. Do you think that's wrong?
@FergusArgyll It would depend on theseverity of the war crimes and the intentions at play. I'd say in this case it's pretty egregious that there's 50,000 deaths, apartheid, and other severe crimes against humanity.
It also depends on the alternative. Not supporting the Allies against Nazis would mean less support to end the Holocaust and defeat would mean a fascist world order which is evil so I'd commit strategically necessary war crimes. Were the firebombings necessary? Perhaps. Is indiscriminate bombing, killing civilians, blockades, apartheid a good military strategy to eradicate a terrorist threat? No. Either kill them ALL because if you don't and keep giving them grievances to exploit for recruitment then they'll never stop.
We can also have metrics to determine when a state has crossed the line. For example the ratio of combatants to civilians killed (1:2 for gaza) but then also the fact that there is mounting evidence proving malice and wrong intention.
@ShawnReynolds it seems very appropriate to penalize the stronger side (e.g. the one with air power) in this sort of calculation. With great power comes great responsibility.
@mariopasquato So you would say the US was the worse side of the Korean War, more so than North Korea?