Talk:Israel Defense Forces/Archive 4

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Archive 4

Disinformation history

Given the current war and the use of disinformation coming from the IDF (as documented on the Wikipedia page for the war), I was surprised not to see a section about IDF disinformation on the current page. I think it's feasible to start one by finding verified sources for the various "IDF backtracked from Xyz" claims from before the current war. For example, finding sources (from Wikipedia internal) for the list of past events here: https://x.com/ayocaesar/status/1714536450723664235?s=46&t=5Pr4TVPNdylAEC9-O1__Rg The death of Shireen Abu Akleh and the IDF backtracking seems like an easy one to start with Hovsepig (talk) 17:09, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Neither relevant articles (2023 Israel–Hamas war and Disinformation in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war) seem to back up your claim, certainly not to the level of an organized and intentional disinformation campaign (as opposed to normal confusion at the immediate time of events, which is normal during any war). The claims, as written in the article, are either viral reports that didn't start from or were not supported by the IDF (indeed, many are anti-Israel, such as false claims that the IDF had destroyed the Church of Saint Porphyrius), did not seem to originate from the IDF as written in our articles (reports of sexual violence at the attack on the music festival, which were from an anonymous non-IDF source and the IDF is only said to claim they do not have any evidence to back up reports of sexual violence), etc.

The only claim that I'm seeing in either article that seems to have come from the IDF were claims of babies being beheaded, but those were from members of the IDF at the scene of the Kfar Aza massacre, and therefore likely do not represent an official statement made by the IDF leadership or following a supposed policy of disinformation on the part of the IDF. It seems more likely to be claims by individuals and possibly my previously linked to fog of war. All that an official IDF spokesperson said on the issue (again, as written in our articles) is that the IDF wasn't going to investigate further claiming it would be "disrespectful to the dead" (possibly an issue of Jewish funeral practices?). Even if the IDF members at the scene of the massacre had intentionally lied, rather than being confused or unintentionally incorrect, you would need to show that they were ordered to lie in order for it to be an IDF disinformation campaign, as opposed to the independent actions of individual service members. The "walking back" that is claimed in our articles is not claimed to be by the IDF, either.

To add a section on an intentional disinformation campaign would require reliable sources reporting that happening, and directly stating that it is an intentional campaign and not just confusion during wartime or just being mistaken/unintentionally incorrect. A random post on Twitter/X does not count as a reliable source. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 17:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

These seem to be misinformed topics... take what humor you can from this. 69.249.205.180 (talk) 14:26, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there is ample material to write up on the IDF's long history of disinformation and psyops. There are whole media channels out there, e.g. Abu Ali Express, transparently used to propagate content. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't see anything in that article explicitly (or even implicitly) stating disinformation. Even the small amounts of information that is in the article as originating from the channel is not said in our article to be false, intentionally or otherwise (it isn't said the be true in our article either, but that doesn't let us infer either way). Again, if we are going to include claims of a disinformation campaign, we need sources stating that such a campaign exists. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:14, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

What's all this talk of campaigns? It's not some sort of grand project: it's just the piecemeal pushing of misinformation as and when it suits the optics and PR. The IDF is notorious for changing its stories, as in the case of Shireen, where its initial claims proved to be a complete joke with further independent analysis. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:23, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Changing of stories does not imply an intentional act of disinformation. Whether you want to call it a campaign or a commonly used tactic, you still need actual evidence of intentional action of either. Having to change or correct information when more facts and evidence become available is not evidence of an intentional and willful act of disinformation. We don't say that Ukraine uses disinformation as a tactic in the Russo-Ukrainian War despite such problems as the attribution of responsibility for the September 2023 Kostiantynivka missile strike. Being wrong is not on its own evidence of a willful disinformation tactic. Unless reliable sources are provided stating that this is an actual tactic of the IDF, it should not be included in the article. Nor can it be inferred by citing specific examples where initial claims were incorrect, such as the case of Shireen. To do so would violate WP:SYNTH. I'd suggest looking at how it is reliable sourced in the Russo-Ukraine War article (regarding disinformation from Russia) for an example of how this would need to be done. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

But to clarify, how would you classify at least the Shireen case. The Wikipedia article on her death states the following:

"Israel denied responsibility for her death and blamed Palestinian militants, despite initial reports by her colleagues accusing Israeli soldiers. Israel later claimed it was possible she had been killed by either side, and on 5 September, admitted it was likely she was "accidentally" hit by its forces, but refused to undertake a criminal investigation.[7][8] The admission came after investigations conducted by international news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post concluded that she was killed by Israeli forces, with CNN finding that her death was the result of a targeted Israeli killing. Investigations by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and US State Department also found Israel responsible.[8]"

I can see your point on perhaps not using the term "disinformation". But doesn't the above paragraph imply either a) IDF lied, or b) IDF didn't know it killed Shireen but won't confess, or c) IDF just wants to deny a proven act.

Right now there's a Wikipedia page called "allegations of war crimes against Israel" which sort of gets at IDF's controversy it how it argues against accusations of actions. But I would think there should be an article, that if not called "disinformation by IDF" than something like "accusations of disinformation by IDF" or "spread of false information by IDF".

I understand the concern of reducing bias in Wikipedia, but I would think that as an encyclopedia, it's important to acknowledge that the IDF is mired in controversy surrounding how reliable or unreliable it is as a source. After all, within the last week of the war the 2023 war page created its own section/page on disinformation in the war and the various splinter pages (like the Al-Ahli hospital explosion) already lists a trajectory of the IDF posting and then talking down material that was proved to be false.

What I suggest is an article that synthesizes a list of events (potentially just recycled from the rest of Wikipedia) where the IDF did the above yes-no games like with Shireen or the "here's a fake video that we'll remove"

And just so you know, the point of the tweet wasn't to say "let's cite the tweet" — that would be silly. But what I suggest is something like "let's double check the events mentioned in the tweet by finding them in Wikipedia and then synthesizing from there, eg the Shireen murder" — note that even Wikipedia calls it the "murder of Shireen Abu Khalil"

Hovsepig (talk) 06:26, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

But I can see why you think this counts as original research. But would that be more of an issue of "naming"? Because the other Wikipedia pages already have sections called "disinformation" Hovsepig (talk) 06:41, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Indeed other pages do, such as those I cited regarding the Russo-Ukraine War, but those sections are exceedingly well sourced regarding the allegations of intentional disinformation, and not simply "they got it wrong at the start," etc. As in your article quotes here on the Shireen case, where there is lots of stuff about things like NYT investigation about what happened, there was a similar NYT investigation about the September 2023 Kostiantynivka missile strike that found it to be caused by an errant Ukrainian surface-to-air missile. Yet, as our own article on the matter states, Ukraine has refused to accept that as the cause, and maintains that it was an S-300 missile fired by Russia. Despite this, we do not state anywhere that it is a willful act of disinformation on the part of Ukraine and we don't have a section in the Russo-Ukraine War article about Ukraine practicing disinformation in the war with Russia. However, we have copious amounts of information and article sections about Russian disinformation because we have a huge amount of reliable sources covering the fact that disinformation/misinformation is a common tactic by the part of Russia in the Russo-Ukraine War.

As it stands with the Shireen case, as our own article about her shows, the IDF has at least concluded that she was most likely killed by an IDF shot (looks from our article like they still claim it was accidental, and I don't personally know enough about the details to say one way or the other whether it was an intentional shot, and I don't think that its relevant to get sidetracked in that just right now). That's currently better than what Ukraine has done regarding the Kostiantynivka missile strike, which they still outright refuse to accept was the result of a Ukrainian and not a Russian missile, accidental or otherwise. Then there is the 2022 missile explosion in Poland which, again, Ukraine very quickly initially blamed on Russia, and as time has gone on, most intelligence analysis and investigations consider it far more likely that it was an errant Ukrainian S-300 surface-to-air missile. We still don't have a section in the Russo-Ukraine War article about Ukranian disinformation as a tactic, and unlike the Shireen case and the IDF, Ukraine doesn't even do the courtesy of changing their statements as more facts become available.

That you yourself can come up with three different scenarios for the IDF and the Shireen case ("a) IDF lied, or b) IDF didn't know it killed Shireen but won't confess, or c) IDF just wants to deny a proven act.") is part of the reason we can't put this in the article. This is a case of Wikipedia editors now trying to come up with their own explanations and not even being able to come down to one, and no reliable sources actually stating what the explanation is. It is not the place of editors to put in Wiki-voice what the editors think, as opposed to what the reliable sources say (as I pointed out invoking SYNTH and you did pointing our OR, we can't do this without proper sourcing). I would also point out that in none of your three scenarios do you acknowledge that the IDF does indeed say that she was most likely shot by the IDF. It is hard for them to "deny a proven fact" when they actual admit that the proven fact is most likely true.

If the Al-Ahli hospital explosion turns out to be an accident caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket falling short or veering off course, and Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, other Palestinian sources (possibly including the Palestinian Authority), and other Arab state governments refuse to accept that result (which, at the moment, seems to be backed up by US intelligence independently of Israel), would you want "disinformation" sections in those relevant Palestinian or Arab articles? Or would you want more explicit sources stating that there are intentional disinformation efforts/tactics/campaigns by Palestinian groups/State of Palestine/other Arab states? I would certainly hope you would want the latter as I certainly would want the latter as well. I doubt that PIJ and Hamas, no matter how much evidence is given to them, will ever want to accept the possibility that the explosion was caused by one of their own rockets and not an Israeli strike. Hell, that's even normal psychology on the part of people to not want to accept they could be personally responsible for such a tragedy, and I wouldn't want to see people being normal humans being put into articles as intentional disinformation without reliable sourcing to support it.

I'm going to go out on a limb and be a little controversial here, but Palestinians are human beings, Israelis are human beings, Hamas militants are human beings, PIJ militants are human beings (in a perfect world, the Hamas militants who killed so many hundreds or 1000+ civilians in southern Israel should get trials that all humans deserve, but war often doesn't allow for the proper treatment we would all like to have in a perfect world), IDF service members are human beings, government officials on all sides are human beings. Human beings make mistakes, human beings often come to quick conclusions without all of the evidence after tragedies, and sometimes have to correct themselves later. Human beings sometimes refuse to accept the truth later even when evidence is presented to them, because it's hard to admit you could be responsible (even unintentionally) for a tragedy. To claim disinformation as a tactic, we need actual sources saying that, and not just humans being, well, humans, with all of our graces and all of our flaws.

Again as an example of the type of sourcing we should be looking for before putting it in this article, let's look to the Russo-Ukraine (and these are barely a handful of our cited sources supporting the claim of intentional Russian disinformation). We have a RAND investigation regarding Russian disinformation campaigns preceding and during the annexation of Crimea, a Guardian article about Russia making fake films of Ukrainian attacks, an independent Russian press source about Russia's information war, a Guardian article about Russian troll farms spreading disinformation, an NYT article about Russian state TV intentionally spreading lies, a POLITICO article about Russia's information war, an NYT article about Russia intentionally spreading disinformation that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis, a New Yorker article about Russia's propaganda machine, and there are many, many more where these came from.

Obviously, I'm not expecting that we could find the same type of sourcing regarding the IDF, since what is even the accusation in this discussion about the IDF (I hope at least) doesn't reach anywhere near the same level of Russia's actions, but we need to have at least something approaching the detailed sourcing used for claims of Russian intentional disinformation if we are going to include that in this article, and given that Israel is not near as closed or totalitarian a state as Russia (Russia is scored 16 and "not free" while Israel is scored 77 and "free" on the World Freedom Index, Reporters without Borders ranks Russia as 164th for press freedom with a score of 34.77, and Israel as 97th with a score of 57.57), it should actually be easier for the international community and journalists from the Guardian or New York Times or what have you to investigate and find intentional disinformation tactics on the part of the IDF than it was for them to do so with Russia. But... no one is reporting these sources in this discussion. Instead, we seem mainly to be citing two events, the Shireen case and the Al-Ahli hospital explosion (the latter of which literally just happened, and during a war, where both sides are likely to quickly blame each other (as happens in most wars anywhere in the world) and the fog of war makes getting accurate information difficult). Two examples isn't a great way to build an article section regarding IDF disinformation.

As for your claim regarding the articles on the 2023 war and the hospital explosion showing a "trajectory of the IDF posting and then talking down material that was proved to be false," I'm just not seeing it. I've already addressed Disinformation in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war in my initial response to this discussion, and that article is largely listing anti-Israel disinformation that has spread viraly, or pro-Israel disinformation that didn't originate from the IDF at all (or not in an official capacity, such as just questioning some service members at the scene of a Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, with the actual official IDF statement correcting false information, and so is not evidence of IDF disinformation as a tactic). Most of the other pro-Israel disinformation that I saw in that article when this discussion started did not come from the IDF at all, and often it was the IDF correcting that false information that had been spread by others (e.g. the IDF never claimed that Hamas was using sexual violence as a weapon, and it was the IDF that corrected these reports saying that they had never seen evidence of that sexual violence). I find interesting/concerning from an NPOV perspective that the article now seems to have been sanitized of these cases where it was actually the IDF correcting the false information spread by others, even when that information was pro-Israeli. I may have to take it up on that talk page, since it seems to be POV pushing to remove the IDF actually setting the record straight, but keeping other stuff in place.

As for the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, I'm sorry, but I just don't see any examples of what you claim to be "lists a trajectory of the IDF posting and then talking down material that was proved to be false." Can you show them to me? The article, as written when I just read it, shows the IDF being very consistent with their information and not taking anything down. The closest I can find is a tweet from the Israeli government Twitter account that was edited and later removed, but that wasn't the IDF, it was the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Again, I'm just not seeing the reliable sources being presented, and I'm not even seeing these "lists a trajectory of the IDF posting and then talking down material that was proved to be false" that you claim exist in these other articles. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 14:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

You make sense Hovsepig (talk) 16:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Defense or defence

The article uses both, but I believe it should be defence, défense is French 2A02:A03F:65F1:4A00:207C:CB76:A119:C311 (talk) 15:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:ENGVAR, an article clearly about a single significantly-Anglophone country/culture should use their conventions, or else retain a consistent style of English. Per Languages of Israel § English and online anecdotes it would seem that in Israel nowadays American English spelling and accents have displaced those of British English, although there are some usage exceptions. I can't find at a glance any official or unofficial documentation of modern Israeli English conventions. Perhaps WP:WikiProject Israel wants to weigh in? Meanwhile the American spelling is "defense", and the house style of say the Times of Israel is "defense" (but their copy editors seem to be inconsistent in enforcing this, like with this AFP story they bought). SamuelRiv (talk) 16:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

IDF’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians reduces it to…

Hi, I have a question: What is the main goal of a terrorist organisation? To terrorize people so they turn against their state and by doing so supposedly achieve their goals. Isn’t that what the IDF is doing by bombing Gaza indiscriminately and hoping that the people turn against Hamas? So IDF has reduced itself to a terrorist organisation, right? Please change the article accordingly. Thank you! 176.237.52.74 (talk) 13:00, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion, but we do not based article content on the original research of users. See MOS:TERRORIST. If you have independent reliable sources (and a lot of them) that say the IDF is a terrorist organization, please offer them. Note that we don't say Hamas is a terrorist organization for the same reason(though we note which countries do). 331dot (talk) 13:04, 18 October 2hospitals

But is not the indiscriminately killing of civilians, targetting hospitals and blasting of whole housing blocks all the evidence a human rights court might need to prove that the IDF is acting like a terrorist organization? And does not punishing a whole people prove that Israel is acting like a terrorist nation?

You've been told why. Also, Wikipedia is not a human rights court and doesn't decide for said courts what is or is not evidence. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 13:23, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay, leaving aside any mention of the courts, does not the human rights outrages carried out by the IDF strongly indicate that Israel is acting like a terrorist state?

P.S: Is the needless undertone to your reply an attempt to shut down unwelcome debate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.166.214 (talk) 12:23, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk pages are not for debate on subjects to begin with. We cannot put content into articles except that which is covered in reliable sources, and we cannot make our own conclusions not specifically stated in said sources. This was already all stated by 331dot but you ignored it. This isn't a debate. If you want to have a debate, there are many other websites catered to that. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 12:29, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Then again, if you want people to use the 'Talk' page to help make an article 'the best it can be' - why prevent them from getting involved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.75.4 (talk) 19:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

No one is, but doing so can only be done within the rules of this website. What you are suggesting violates the rules of this website, so you are being told "no" --OuroborosCobra (talk) 20:19, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Media and Culture Theory - MDC 254

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Curry7524 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Mosbug1 (talk) 02:23, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Why is there not a human rights violation or war crimes section?

See topic 69.249.205.180 (talk) 14:25, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

It does not seem difficult to surfance trivial evidence of this. 69.249.205.180 (talk) 14:29, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Check the "see also" section, and you will note that there is an entire article dedicated to the subject. It does not need to be duplicated here. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 15:28, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes there is the page Israeli war crimes, but I do think a section on this article about IDF war crimes and criticism would be reasonable. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@IOHANNVSVERVSOuroborosCobra In fact, WP:SUMMARY style demands that there should be a subsection in the parent article.

Incidentally, just published in the New York Times: "Stripped, Beaten or Vanished: Israel’s Treatment of Gaza Detainees Raises Alarm" Andreas JN466 12:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

so who wants to write it LegalSmeagolian (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

It is one good example of undue weight section. And all content if relevant should be included in the body of the article and not to create undue weight sections.178.222.28.123 (talk) 03:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)