I have autism, I am an analytic Virgo, a sound engineer with a lot of experience of sampling sound clips. I’m also a writer and teacher of English as second language, which means I deal with many foreigners, and I am a parent.
So; I have a lot of experience of identifying intended meanings behind what words are actually said.
In addition I’ve done negotiation training (thanks to UAE online workshops). Skills from that are about seeing through the bullshit to see what is really going on behind any given statement. What face people present to the world to hide who they really are and what they’re really up to.
Mostly I use this for counselling, which I have qualifications in. I’ve experience at police interviews to understand interrogation technique.
Also I regularly have to deal with Welsh women, which is why there’s a Dragon on the national flag. Everything they say about Dragons is true.
The above is the grindstone. The sharpness of the mind is the result. It’s more important than any egotism which distracts from clarity. I love clarity. Truth is my God.
I have put all those skills to good use in deconstructing this video. I believe it necessary to do so as a training exercise in critical thinking, if nothing else.
The hard critique can come across as cynicism because it is not aligned to any agenda other than cold, hard analysis with intent to expose Truth. I sometimes come under flak from people who have cognitive bias or are ‘us vs them’ thinkers orienting their morality and opinion around an imaginary line.
The Sift:
Identify what is an absolute, what is a conjecture, and what is a prejudice.
The purpose is to identify straight-thinking from crooked-thinking (title of book by Robert Thouless).
This the method I will apply while analysing the video.
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Video:
https://x.com/snakeappletree1/status/1960112814950945146?s=46
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Item 1:
Video clip “from the IDF” of alleged Hamas terrorist carrying an RPG launcher. No evidence we are seeing a Hamas terrorist carrying a weapon. It could be anyone.
Item 2:
0.28 Curious tech glitch. CGI ?
Item 3:
the interviewer Johns prompt to IDF General is so precise to the reply, it indicates this whole scene is scripted.
Item 4:
0.38 “Let’s just say”
is a ‘let’s play’ request to join him playing a game. It’s a moral excuse to lie.
Ref: Dr Eric Berne.
Item 5:
0.38 “long developed plan by Hamas…”
Is it? Prove that. What relevancy does the duration of planning have here?
Impact of statement; create suspicion of Hamas as devious planners.
Confession of awareness of speaker of ‘sly thinking’ projected and targetted at Hamas.
Apply logically to speaker himself for insight (standard analytical protocol).
Item 6:
“…to use international rules of land warfare against the Israeli’s”
Apply logical process of determining intended message.
Potential meaning one;
Hamas are obeying international laws.
Potential meaning two:
Hamas are manipulating international laws. Ref: Item 5.
Item 7:
“to be able to bring global pressure against the Israeli’s”
Hamas should have a human right to see the situation from their own perspective and to communicate that in hope the international community will understand their way of thinking. The same as what the General is doing.
In itself this fragment is a cold statement establishing context. As it’s a run-on sentence, it’s context is the preceding frame. Ref: Items 6 & 7.
Item 8:
“when they retaliated.”
Probable intended reference to Israeli’s as ‘they’.
‘when Israeli’s retaliated.’
Context: retaliation to a man carrying an object toward a building in a video presented to the public by the IDF.
Item 9:
“So. The tunnel network has been built according to all the information that has been made public.”
Made public by who? The IDF? Who else?
I have (without having searched for it) seen zero evidence of any tunnel network existing, nor of who built it if it does exist.
Item 10:
“So that its centred node is under these hospitals. This is where the nexus of where the tunnel network is.”
The tunnel networks junctions and possibly operational HQ and storage are under the hospitals.
Plural; hospitals. The hospitals are allegedly networked by tunnels.
Question; how far apart are the hospitals?
Item 11:
“And Hamas did this deliberately.”
Ref: Item 5 commentary.
Item 12:
“Now from the Israeli perspective, they are under international law, so they have to protect Humanitarian facilities. They cannot bomb hospitals.”
‘They’ refers to Israel.
Item 13:
“They have not bombed this hospital but they do have the right to self-defence.”
‘They’ refers to Israel.
Item 14:
“And they are going to have to go into these hospitals and get into those command nodes.”
Item 15:
“Maybe the command nodes will have been evacuated by then.”
‘Maybe’ is a legal word meaning ‘I use my authority to grant permission to myself’ however in this case because it’s an international English as second language and given the context, it is probable what he intends is not ‘maybe’ (legal) but rather ‘possible’ (proper English). A very common misuse of this specific word.
He’s not the commander of Hamas so he can’t order them to evacuate the tunnels.
However, we have no evidence here the tunnels exist, or that Hamas built them, or how the IDF know about them or suspect them. It is entirely on the say-so of the IDF General.
1.32
At this time an electronic device on the Generals desk caused reason for the General to be distracted while he continued talking. Distraction dissolves tension and redirects focus. It may be incidental and coincidental. It may be a tool of manipulation of attention. Both are possible.
Item 16:
“But there is a fight for this…”
‘This’ is non-specific.
We assume he intends whatever the most obvious meaning to the listener. Assumptions are errors.
What else could ‘this’ be referring to?
In English grammar the last given reference he mentioned to pin ‘this’ to is ‘the evacuation of the tunnels nodes’.
We know the General can think in terms of ‘nodes’ because he has just showed us that.
It applies also to deconstructing the language through use of grammar.
That’s a cute coincidence in this assessment of the sort which only assessors such as we are doing here may become aware of.
At this time we need to pause to take a breathe and to clarify what levels specifically we are working on here.
Note also how this moment occurs at exactly the same moment a device on the Generals desk causes a distraction.
Most people assume this is irrelevant and paranoid conspiracy theory, rejecting the idea of holistic interpretation of synchronisation timed events as having any relevance whatsoever.
In the culture of holistic analysis we describe such moments as ‘nodes’.
The very same trigger word used by the General.
‘but there is a fight for this’
What ‘this’ ?
Attention?
Cohesion?
Tunnels?
Nodal moments?
We are getting distracted here.
Item 17:
“…and there is a concern about this by the Israeli’s, to try to avoid the global implications of what they’re doing.”
Which ‘they’ is he referring?
The assumption is he means Hamas in this sense, although correct grammar indicates he is still referring to Israel. It paints a different picture.
At face value the General has stated the IDF are concerned of what might happen if (what the General is presenting as) ‘the Hammas narrative’ gains precedent in the world.
Hammas are not available to comment. The entire context is from the IDF general.
The word ‘concern’ has a precise meaning. He did not say ‘worried, anxious, disconcerted, aware, etc’.
‘Concern’ means ‘we are putting our attention on it’. It’s another word like ‘maybe’ where it does not necessarily mean what the listener automatically assumes it to mean.
‘There is a node the Israeli’s are putting their attention on’
Going back to re-assess the other possibility of what was intended by ‘they’, we can interpret the Generals statement as;
‘there is a concern about ‘this’ (ref: items 14 15 16) by the Israeli’s, to try to avoid the global implications of what they (Israeli’s) are doing.’
This is the proper grammar interpretation of the actual spoken words.
Depending which Item he is referring to;
14 go into the hospitals
15 evacuate nodes
16 fight
we again get an entirely different statement.
Now you can see why tunnel-nodes is a profound symbolism for identifying and transmitting ‘meaning’ from one person to another, even when using the same language.
Item 18:
“But they’re still bound by the laws of land warfare.”
Israel would find it much easier to wipe out Hamas if they were not bound by the international laws.
That Hamas narrative might be equally listened to by the international community makes it more difficult for Israel to justify breaking or requesting exemption from international laws.
There is a subtle plea here by the IDF to be granted exemption from international laws by the international community.
IDF see it as necessary so they can more easily wipe out Hamas. They have not said it in plain terms, however it is implied by the existence of this video and the statements made by the IDF General.
All of this is entirely on the say-so of the IDF General.
The only ‘evidence’ to back up his statements is of a man waking toward a building carrying an object.
‘Bound’ is a word which means both ‘tied up’ and ‘on a determined path to’. It indicates both ‘restriction’ and ‘intentional’. In context of ‘bound by law’ it’s a double-edged statement. It’s also a familiar social phrase, he could fall back on using it in that as a commonly accepted frame of reference as to what he is talking about without meaning anything suspicious by it, falling on one side of the line or another. Plausible deniability is invoked as a subtext. It’s a slippery choice of words. Especially in relation to warfare where ‘all is fare in move and war’ is another common social phrase for contextualising complexities. Plausible deniability is invoked as a subtext.
Item 19:
“So we have one side that’s legally trying to deal with an enemy, you have the other side which is cynically exploiting international law.”
The wonder of this statement is it is non-specific which side is which, which side he is associating with which moral stance.
Drawing from background sources not involved directly in this video, it’s evident that both sides are saying the same thing about each other.
This is why we need to be very careful assessing what it is each side is saying and what ‘evidence’ they are presenting to back up their claims.
The value of my assessment here has some merit toward that effort.
The IDF general is virtue signalling. That’s the face value assessment for item 19. However, the cynic in me asks what if it’s the converse? Apply logically to speaker himself for insight (standard analytical protocol). IDF General uses the word ‘cynic’. What if he is saying;
‘The one side (Hamas) is legally trying to deal with an enemy, the other side (Israel) is cynically exploiting international law.’
If that is the case, has publicly stated what the IDF are doing in such a way as to confuse the international community into supporting Israel even despite telling them he is manipulating. Ref: commentary for previous items.
This might seem at first a twisted approach to interpreting the IDF Generals statement and intended statement as ‘making black into white’.
The deconstruction and analysis of every point he has stated does - and trusting my process of analysis to be valid and insightful, I stand by it and I state it DOES show how the reliance on use of our assumptions as opposed to clinical analysis, assumptions that he is talking about a thing he might not be taking about - can easily lead us to be deceived into believing black is white.
What we think he says and what he actually said are not the same story.
That is what I am presenting here.
The findings of my assessment using the standard protocol.
Item 20:
“to put its own people at risk and use them as hostages.”
Both sides have historically done that and blamed the other for doing that.
I do not have evidence immediately at hand to validate this.
At this stage he is again virtue-signalling and shaming his stated enemy.
Ref: Item 1 (‘let’s play a game’).
Item 21:
“That’s what this is really about.”
So you say.
Again, what ‘that’ is he referring?
18 bound by laws
19 legal vs illegal - virtue signalling.
20 hostages
Item 22:
“John.”
Use of first name to make it personal which is a persuasive salesman tactic to encourage people to believe in the speaker.
Familiarity; Ref: item 3
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FTR
I am politically agnostic. I am non-partisan. My job is not to be liked or disliked. My job is to provide cold hard analysis including assessing from as many angles as possible necessary to comprehend the whole picture. Please do not harass, accuse or resent me with your own personal dogma, beliefs and opinion. We would get much further being friends.
