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Comment by jussij | Hacker News Reader

Israel can get all the detailed imagery it needs by just launching a reconnaissance aircraft or drone.

So on that basis I would say it only stops the Palestinians from getting imagery of the area.

Now considering the fact Palestine only has rockets and not missiles, I doubt that imagery is of much value to them.

Call me cynical, but I suspect the more important reason to keep these images blurred might be to stop the rest of the world from seeing what is going on.

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I have learned to demand a very high standard of evidence for conspiracy theories, so...let's see the evidence that there is some conspiracy between Google and Israel to hide what is happening there. For that matter, I am not even sure what you think Israel is hiding -- Netanyahu is not at all shy about settlements, the IDF calls people up to tell them when a bomb is going to be dropped on their building, and there are reporters and international observers all over the Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The article makes this very clear. There is no google-israel conspiracy. The limits on satelite resolution were dictated by the US government.

And the US government is dictated by a Israel-first policy. At least in view of the UNSC vetoes [0] and the weapons it supplies.

[0] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/43-times-us-has-used-veto...

The idea that a country might pass internal laws specifically to favour a foreign country is incredible, and gives the measure of how much the US is subservient to Israel's interests.

Beside the bipartisan powers-that-be in the US government, the media landscape is obsequious and willing participant too; see 'peace propaganda and the promised land (2004)' [0]. For instance, it didn't make it to the Paper of Record's newsworthiness that the NSA shares, per the Snowden revelations, US citizen's data with Israel [1][2]; to their credit, though, they lightly lament at occasionally getting used as an accessory to the war machine, outside the traditional route [3].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-2tEmqM1_E

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/report-nsa-sharing-u-s-citizens-data... It is hard to miss how the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is a lot more no-nonsense in tone and coverage than, say, the NYT.

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/world/middleeast/israel-g...

They are hiding the scale of it. Destroyed houses, trees, farms in Palestine. It is a map, it shows the scale immediately

I'm not sure about the immediate part. My area only updates every few years on Google maps, they don't exactly provide real-time data (and never meant to)

We don't have any evidence.

We do know that Israel has launched 1000 to 1500 missiles up until 10 pm pacific time.

Netanyahu has been blatant over taking back "theiir" land lately.

Netanyahu is in a very close political race.

I won't say what I thinking though out of respect for the rules.

I have learned to demand a very high standard of evidence for conspiracy theories,

Not a conspiracy theory at all - but rather a very sensible inference based on how state actors behave in the modern age.

I am not even sure what you think Israel is hiding

Blurry images make it much harder to assess, and verify the extent of the "unintended" casualties and property damage the current IDF campaign is causing (the term is in quotes because that's the language they rather gallingly use, as if they expect you and I to take it face value).

It's why they target news agencies such as AP. Now you can't get pictures on the ground. So we all have to rely on is low resolution maps to judge damage. "Security measures", or so they say.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

And plausible deniability only goes so far - shallow thought, propaganda only goes so far until it meets adequate critical thinking; reminds me of Jordan Peterson in his last book Beyond Order - it's the intelligent ideologue that's the most dangerous.

Yes.

Because no one there has a smart phone. Because they actually killed the journalist. /s

Of the course the obvious explanation is the correct one, the building housed military targets (Hamas operations etc) and it was destroyed.

IDF couldn't provide any evidence of Hamas' existence in that building, it was all over the media yesterday.

https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1394287848950427649

IDF provided the evidence to US intelligence, and apparently that hasn’t made its way to the US state department yet.

That is absolutely ridiculous. The US state department is on top of things. There is no way they do not have this information if it exists.

More info was sent: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SJA7sEZYd

"Blinken: U.S. received more info on Gaza tower bombing

American top diplomat says he cannot comment on further information received through intelligence channels on the destruction of the building that housed Associated Press, Al Jazeera offices"

I wouldn't say IDF couldn't provide. Classified evidence takes time to compile when being passed to foreign countries. If this was truly a Hamas operations office, it changes the whole picture.

The postman was late. It doesn't mean there's no evidence

https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1394631387265777666

I'm thinking as democracies we should not rely on secret evidence. I'll buy it when it's public, until then the burden of proof remains on them. It's okay not to kmow.

I don't understand. AP claims to have been using the building for years, and they didn't know that there were Hamas operations with them?

Not only that, but what is your proof to call it the correct explanation?

Don‘t discount a conspiracy just because the conspirators are incompetent. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Your average conspiracy usually has multiple layers of incompetents. If a conspiracy looks flawless, it is usually because there is no conspiracy.

Targetting a news organization might be a multi-purpose action, including to limit the amount of photos from the area. The fact that this action has resulted in even worse optics then the photos would have provided, and the fact that people on the ground are still a source of visual evidence for the destruction does not mean that there is no conspiracy, just that they are bad at it.

Given the absence of evidence of any Hamas activity in that tower, and given the clear motive improve the optics of IDF, I would say that both explanations hold at least the same ground.

I'm not seeing any shortage of pictures from the ground. I mean, I agree that targeting news agencies would be a step you would take if you wanted to prevent images from the ground but you would have to be far more sweeping in your approach. If the goal is to prevent news images from making their way out of Palestine this may be the most abject policy failure the world has ever witnessed.

The facts remain; Israel did bomb the offices of Al Jazeera and The Associated Press.

That action looks a lot like Israel targeting news agencies and the two news agencies involved have both raised their concerns about that unprecedented action by Israel.

> That action looks a lot like Israel targeting news agencies and the two news agencies involved have both raised their concerns about that unprecedented action by Israel.

They might be targeting those news agencies, but not for the purpose of suppressing images on the ground, which is what we were talking about. It's just implausible given the totality of evidence that that is the main concern. You can't just look at that one action to draw a conclusion when there is a massive amount of other contravening evidence.

More like they bombed a building which has offices of Al Jazeera and the AP among other things.

> you would have to be far more sweeping in your approach

Would you or could it be seen as deterrence?

> this may be the most abject policy failure the world has ever witnesse

I mean there are a lot of opeds in Hebrew (some lamenting this supposed failure) and Arabic press right now saying exactly that, so I wouldn't rule it out entirely.

> Would you or could it be seen as deterrence?

Given we are still seeing plenty of images out of Palestine and Gaza, even from news orgs, the current approach is plainly and objectively insufficient to the purported goal.

> Call me cynical, but I suspect the more important reason to keep these images blurred might be to stop the rest of the world from seeing what is going on.

No, not cynical. I will call it for what it is - baseless conspiracy.

It's certainly not baseless - and you provide no evidence that it is baseless, instead of finding the evidence claimed for it and then somehow proving it's not credible; ironic that your response is baseless.

The burden of proof is on the accuser.

I’m curious how Palestinian people live. I’d like to see the condition of their dwellings, infrastructure and resources eg water, roads, rail, ports, public spaces. I just want to get a feel for the place, like I can almost everywhere else. How can I do that?

Come and visit. As far as I understand, foreigners do not have much trouble visiting the West Bank.

Tourism in the State of Palestine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_State_of_Palest...

Not much trouble slipping into Palestine for a foreigner, but you do get interrogated on your way out of Israel right at the airport and if you say you went to the occupied territories you may get sent to the little room for further questioning, search or seizure of your belongings, notebooks, laptop, phone, etc. You might also get put on a list for secondary screening or outright ban if you want to go back. So think it though if you want to go to Palestine -- it is indeed considered a theatre of military operations by the occupying power

Street View is available in the West Bank area, for example in Ramallah and Jericho

How would Gaza compare with Ramallah and Jericho?

Parent provided some (albeit weak) basis for the conspiracy. Israel trying to hide the damage it is inflicting is a credible motive. Cynicism is a justified qualifier for the claim, baseless conspiracy isn’t.

> Now considering the fact Palestine only has rockets and not missiles, I doubt that imagery is of much value to them.

A high resolution image would be very useful to anyone who is planning a terror attack with suicide bombers, for example.

Just worth mentioning, street view is available and updated regularly within Israel main cities.

not without controversy, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View_in_Israel#I... "There was much controversy surrounding bringing Street View to Israel. The main one was the fear that terrorists could use the feature to plan attacks. Palestinian militants have previously admitted to using Google Maps to help plan attacks."

There was a post about this last week where someone said the reason is to prevent the widespread confirmation of Israels nuclear program. Everybody knows they have nukes, but officially the US denies knowing.

These images would provide fairly strong evidence of Israel's capabilities, hell Israel has spent years trying to claim satellite images of Iran prove they have a nuclear program.

here you go, all the nukes are right in here - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Negev+Nuclear+Research+Cen...

If that was the case why stop now? And why did they let parts unknown film in Palestine in 2013. The episode wasn't very pro Israel either. This a little to conspiracy theory for me.

I don't know the technical distinction between rockets and missiles. Hamas has some guided explosives that other people that know more about this than I do call missiles. They used to only have unguided rockets - not anymore, for at least 6 years.

"The Russian-made Kornet anti-tank guided missile, often called ATGM as an acronym, is accurate and effective. It has a range of around 5.5 kilometers and has been used by Hamas and other terrorist groups for years. In 2015, Hezbollah fired several ATGMs against Israeli Humvees on the border."

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/what-do-hamas-an...

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/why-anti-tank-missiles-pos...

Rocket is unguided. Missile is guided.

ATGM are missiles, but they are close range and used to attack vehicles (armored usually) - they are not useful for attacking long range or building/bases.

It would surprise me a lot if there were no people inside both Israel and Palestinians that has the resources and international connections to buy high resolution imagery or simply direct access to satellites. Given a few millions in capital and a few shell companies, finding a commercial entity willing to lend access to a satellite for a few hours seems likely, unless control over satellites are much more militarized than I might think.

>finding a commercial entity willing to lend access to a satellite for a few hours

The vast majority of satellites aren't made for this kind of mapping as far as I know. Of the ones that are most aren't private commercial projects. Wikipedia lists 6 such projects and i doubt their time is cheap enough to make it worthwile for Palestinian resistance. Israel is another matter but they'd probably just knock on the US door for those.

I think that you are right that the cost is too high compared to other cheaper alternatives, like reconnaissance aircraft on the Israel side. Keeping the images blurred removes the free option so military on each side has to spend resources on the problem. I am however skeptical that it fully stops anyone from getting access to mapping data.

I am a bit surprised however that there would not be more satellites that is commercial operated. I keep hearing about old weather satellites that gone past their period of commercial operation in favor of newer ones, and the old ones still having decent cameras and other sensors to provide maps of buildings and structures. With about 6000 satellites currently operating around the earth there should a pretty steady stream of old ones being replaced, and I would think many of them do get reused for new purposes.

>so military on each side has to spend resources on the problem.

I don't think Israel has to spend much if any. I think the blurring happens based on their request and i'm sure they still have access to unblurred satellite imagery. The only ones that could be hampered by this are the palestinians

If you read the article, it clearly states that high-resolution images are now available and permitted by US law:

> "As a result of recent changes to US regulations, the imagery of Israel and Gaza is being provided at 40cm resolution," Maxar said in a statement.

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