Who blew up the hospital in Gaza? Honestly, we don’t know

Truth is famously the first casualty of war. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, one of the most enduring and versatile wardrobe staples of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - The Gaza [hospital]( blow. - The House [speaker]( row. - The [denim]( status quo. - The [crime data]( hot potato. The Gaza Hospital Strike I’ve been thinking a lot about the truth lately. The first two or so hours of my work day are pretty much the same. I sit down at my desk. Log onto my computer. And then I read a lot, sifting through the noise of the day, aiming to provide you with the truth. But reading about the events rocking the Middle East is not an easy task. The cataclysmic scale and the heaviness of human loss is enough to make anyone’s brain go numb. And the muddled manner in which information is leaking out of the tragedy doesn’t help, either. Maybe you’re thinking: Buck up! You’re a journalist, you chose this profession. And yes, I did. But I would much rather be honest with you — a close second to truth, in my mind — than spit out some diatribe that lacks factual verity and moral clarity. “Truth, infamously, is the first casualty of war,” as Marc Champion [writes](. But truth is also a casualty of convenience. It’s convenient to be able to log onto Instagram or X and see what your friends are saying about the hospital strike in Gaza and say that it’s true. It’s convenient to hit the “repost” button and act as though you’ve done something productive. It’s convenient to sit at your desk, safe inside a towering skyscraper in Manhattan, looking at dozens of graphic photos of body bags on Getty Images and trying to decide which one is “appropriate” to put in a newsletter. It’s this one, I decided: People stand over bodies of Palestinians killed after a strike ripped through a hospital in central Gaza on October 17, 2023. Photographer: Dawood Nemer/AFP It’s not a normal Wednesday. And it wasn’t a normal Tuesday, either. But at this point, most people have chosen a side. And it’s getting increasingly difficult to find the truth, nonetheless deliver it to you. Let’s start with the numbers: The initial death toll from the strike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza is over 500 at this point, and many more bodies may be stuck underneath the rubble: “When it comes to the facts of the disaster, though, nothing is even remotely clear,” Marc says. After the errant rocket was fired in Gaza yesterday, Egypt and Saudi Arabia pointed to Israel as the culprit — raising the [risk]( that Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah might join the fight. Although Israel has the kind of heavy munitions that could collapse a hospital, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden have [blamed]( the attack on [Palestinian militants]( (not Hamas, but a group often aligned with them). Asking who is right is almost futile, explains Marc: “No matter what evidence emerges to the contrary, popular opinion across much of the world, especially the Muslim world, will remain convinced that Israel killed more than 500 people in a deliberate and heinous attack on a hospital, which amounts to a war crime.” Biden — now the [first]( US president to visit Israel during a time of war — was due to meet separately with Arab leaders during his trip. Those conversations have now been canceled, Bloomberg’s editorial board [writes](: “No regional leader can afford to be seen negotiating today with Israel’s most important ally.” US President Joe Biden sits with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023. Photographer: Miriam Alster/AFP Another truth: The tragedy is just the latest evidence of Hamas treating Palestinian non-combatants as pawns. As Bobby Ghosh has [written](, “the terrorist group deliberately hides out in densely populated areas, using the large numbers of Palestinians there as human shields.” Entire Gazan neighborhoods are trapped, [unable to leave]( for fear of retribution. This, of course, makes it difficult for Israel to [exact revenge](: “Even before the hospital explosion, scenes of Palestinian civilians wounded, killed or driven from their homes had rapidly shredded sympathy for Israel’s cause. To buy time, and to lessen the chances of the conflict spreading, it is in Israel’s interests to minimize civilian suffering,” the editors say. After meeting with Biden, Netanyahu at least seems [more willing]( to allow life-saving support to get to Gaza (as long as it doesn’t ends up in the hands of Hamas). A shield, according to Oxford’s English Dictionary, is “a broad piece of metal or another suitable material, held by straps or a handle attached on one side, used as a protection against blows or missiles.” Humans, of course, are not made of metal. They are made of flesh and bone, and when you use them as “shields” they cannot protect against blows or missiles. Now, 500 more have been lost to the war. Bonus Reading: Benjamin Netanyahu wants to be seen as a leader responding to a grave crisis, as if he played no role in its creation, but [future historians]( aren’t gonna let that slide. — Bobby Ghosh The House Is a Hot Mess Just as it’s easy to look at your receding hairline and blame it on your Great, Great, Great Grandmother Eunice, it’s easy to look at the current Congressional [clown show]( and blame it on the Constitution, a 236-year-old piece of parchment. “But the fault doesn’t lie with that document,” Noah Feldman [writes](. “The House’s dysfunction today is the product of the evolution of the American party system and the House’s own rules.” First of all, the writers of the Constitution could care less about the speaker of the House. They only mentioned the position one time, in Article I, Section 2, Clause 5, which says: “The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other officers.” What about the whole “you-are-second-in-line-for-the-presidency” thing, you might ask? That’s actually not in the Constitution; it’s in a 1947 statute about presidential succession. “The reason the framers paid so little attention to the role of the speaker is that they assumed everyone knew what it looked like,” Noah explains. It’s a reasonable assumption, considering the speakership derives from England’s House of Commons, which has been picking speakers since before 1367. Clearly, “the dysfunction is caused by the combination of House rules and polarized partisanship,” he argues. And the only way to fix that would be to change the rules to make it possible for the House to operate even when it is without a speaker — an impossibility at the [present moment](. So, yeah, the entire operation is in gridlock! And flaming the Founding Fathers isn’t going to change that. Blue [Jeans]( Bravo’s Real Housewives reunions (hosted by Andy Cohen) are basically the Met Gala of reality TV. Without fail, the ladies show up in full-on glam, sometimes even going so far to coordinate the hues of their outfits. To give you a better idea, here’s what the cast of the Potomac version wore earlier this year: Image Credit: Clifton Prescod/Bravo The outfit reveals have become iconic at this point in the franchise. So you can imagine the [utter dismay of the internet]( when fans learned that Jenna Lyons — New York housewife and former president of J.Crew — wore JEANS to the reunion. And they weren’t some fancy $1,000 pair of jeans from The Row or Khaite. They were Levi’s. Image Credit: Bravo Insider I, personally, find her look to be chic. Plus, the subversion of expectations is delightful, although many [disagree](. Jeans have always been controversial, despite denim being one of our most enduring and versatile wardrobe staples. And perhaps the biggest controversy is hidden in plain sight, Lara Williams [writes](: “With more than 1 billion pairs sold every year, the fabric also comes with a heavy environmental cost.” Given the consumer data we got yesterday, the appetite for denim isn’t letting up anytime soon. John Authers [says]( retail sales are up by 0.6% on the month, which may sound like a small amount, until you realize analysts were expecting that figure to be in the ballpark 0.1%: So let’s take a step back and consider Ms. Lyon’s pair of Levi’s: They were probably born in a series of random cotton fields somewhere in India, China, the US, Brazil or Pakistan. The process to spin the yarn and dye them (with indigo that’s often laced with toxic pollutants!) is a lengthy one that costs the planet dearly. A pair of [501 jeans]( — a signature cut of Levi’s — uses nearly 3,000 liters of water by the time it hits the shop floor and emits 20 kilograms of CO2e. “Of course, many of these problems aren’t restricted to denim production. Cotton is used in about half of all textiles. But the ubiquity of blue jeans makes them a powerful symbol. What will it take to turn them green?” Lara asks. Supply chain transparency is key. We should be able to pick up a pair of pants and know exactly where they came from. But making denim’s origins completely traceable is going to be difficult: “A yarn could contain cotton from hundreds of small farms,” Lara explains. Gathering minute details about every aspect of the assembly line is an expensive process, and one that many brands aren’t willing to embark on. Until we’re willing to define what a sustainable pair of jeans looks like, the denim industry will remain as controversial as Jenna Lyons. Telltale Charts If you were to go up to an FBI official and ask them whether they released their 2022 [US crime statistics]( yet, they’d tell you, “Yes! We published those numbers this week.” But they probably wouldn’t mention that their [new reporting system]( prevented them from including numbers for Miami and New York and includes some clearly wrong numbers for Chicago and other cities. That’s why Justin Fox [gave up]( on trying to muddle through the data, which was a crime scene in and of itself. It’s part of a larger issue in America: Our crime statistics are so suss that nobody knows whether they’re living in a “safe” city or not. “This summer Gallup [made]( [headlines]( with [a poll]( that asked respondents to say whether or not they considered it ‘safe to live in or visit’ each of 16 large American cities. As others have pointed out, the results [didn’t exactly square]( with the murder statistics,” he writes. Yet another item to file into the folder of Extremely Suss Things is India’s “informal” workforce. Three out of four of the country’s nonfarm workers are in proprietorships and partnerships, AKA “informal” enterprises that allow employers to keep workers under the radar. As it stands, “social-security benefits that are crucial to make labor feel economically secure remain available to only 54% of a narrow group of people who’re lucky to work for a salary,” Andy Mukherjee [writes](. Something’s gotta give, he argues. By 2050, India’s elderly population will swell [to 350 million]( — more than double of what it is today. Without a strong safety net, the cohort has little chance of saving up for old age or medical emergencies. Trouble is, policymakers are treating informal work merely as a byproduct of tax evasion, but it’s far more complicated than that. Further Reading Free Read: Pairing the [fall flu vaccine]( with the new Covid-19 booster was never the best idea. — F.D. Flam Free Read: [Effective altruism]( is as bankrupt as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. — Clive Crook How to solve the problem of [looted art]( in major museums. — Howard Chua-Eoan China’s “[sea turtles](” — overseas Chinese who returned home — need to pick a side. — Shuli Ren Don't expect long-term [interest rates]( to ease anytime soon. — Bill Dudley The EU’s ambition to become a [bond benchmark issuer]( is faltering. — Marcus Ashworth If Europe is going to help China on the climate, it needs to be [a trustworthy partner](. — David Fickling Artificial intelligence isn’t going to [cause]( the market to crash. — Tyler Cowen ICYMI Michael Lewis [talked]( to Matt Levine about SBF. The [price]( of a Jeep has jumped. Stress is [eating us]( from the inside out. Tesla’s Cybertruck got a [delivery date](. Kickers Feeling sad? Get [a cat](. We have a new [hottest pepper](. Gen Z doesn’t read [cursive](. [Offal]( isn’t so awful after all. Austin Butler’s [moving on]( from Elvis. The [agritourism]( industry is alive and well. Lettuce Be My Last Words A haiku for you: [$44 salad](? [Pink lettuce](? [Oil change](? Notes: Please send radicchio and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](