this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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They do look pretty similar to me, but can't say without numbers. Keeping in mind the population graph is a couple years old - half of a bar height - they both show a minor peak/inflection around age 30 that's maybe 2/3 of the major peak around 5. Babies seem to be spared from the bombing, but that could be fewer births or increased non-violent infant mortality.
IMO, it's not a great data set to claim Israelis are intentionally targeting children, but it is pretty good for saying they are not intentionally targeting military-age men.
Nobody implied they're intentionally targeting children with their bombing.
They're indiscriminately bombing all Palestinians. If they were targeting Hamas, and attempting to limit civilian casualties, you'd see a much higher proportion of adult males.
The post title asks you to look at the "biggest bar," which seems to imply that the biggest bars - children - must be targeted. OccamsTeapot population graph is important context because, as war-crimey as indiscriminantly bombing civilian populations is, intentionally targeting children feels so much like comic-book villany that people dismiss it as propaganda.
Your biases, poor reasoning, &/or poor grammar are showing.
"Biggest bar" = "highest proportion of casualties are children" (e.g. the data be like it do); NOT "IDF is targeting children".
Your false interpretation implies intent to target children specifically, but the correct interpretation ultimately implies indiscriminate murder, as any Palestinian civilians likelihood of being bombed by the IDF is almost the same as any "Hamas combatant" (e.g. genocide) — so much so that it just looks like their current population demographics.
Important points! It was just an off the cuff comparison
Agree completely. I don't think they're intentionally targeting children but it does not look like they are targeting any subgroup in particular.
My original intent was just to say it looks pretty close to what you'd expect if you just dropped bombs at random. I might look to find better data later on
Yeah, rereading your text, I may have confused all the negatives and inferred that you support the post's implication that they're targeting children, but I meant to comment on the data in the context of 'biggest bar,' not to criticize opinions. Seeing OP's chart, the first thing I wanted was a population chart, and I'm glad you'd already provided one.
I didn't even pay attention the post title for some reason, I just went straight to the graph! But yeah the population pyramid shows the issue with that claim.
Anyway, no worries and no harm done! I appreciate the clarification
It's just a very smart way to spread propaganda by using a real statistic out of context.
Of course "70% of the victims are either children or women" sounds horrible - until you realize that a majority of the population there in underage (and therefore children) and that Hama's is actively using underage children as soldiers - and if you look at the difference between the age structure and the casualties adult males are more likely to be victims than the other groups which are actually underrepresented.
That's because it is horrible. The vast majority of Israel's victims are innocent and that includes adult males, the vast majority of whom are also innocent.
Why is that tho?
What do you think has been happening there for 70 years to cause so many people to die either as adults or before becoming adults that could have resulted in this unique situation when practically every other country is facing aging populations and lower childbirth rates?
Why do you think all those children Israel has killed won't grow up to be adults?
And what do you think happened to all the children born in Gaza 20 years ago?
Almost all poor countries have a demographic like this.
Palestine is among the poorest countries in the world
So you are basically stating that since this graph looks like a countries' normal age demographic, Israel is randomly bombing cities without any discrimination, which is a war crime. We agree with you.
Hamas does not use children as soldiers. There would not be any reason for them to do so, as they lack weapons not manpower.
Only slightly. The reason is similar to how America conducted itself in Iraq. Every adult male is considered a valid target with zero evidence required.