UN Halves Gaza Casualty Figures

In a turnaround, the UN has halved the number of civilian casualties it estimates have been killed in Gaza. It admitted that relying on Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry figures that were not confirmed in any way, was unreliable. The new figures themselves are only estimates.

In effect the number of civilian casualties are now reduced from the original Hamas estimate of 34,000 to about 17,000. But this does not include the number of Hamas and other combatants killed, which the IDF estimate to now be of the order of 15,000. It is unclear how many of these are included in the new UN figure. Also it has been pointed out that many people die of natural causes in 6-7 months, and it is unclear if these are also included in the new figure.

If this number is correct, that makes the ratio of combatants to civilians killed to be about 1:1, which is a very low ratio, compared to other recent wars. For example the common ratio quoted is around 9 civilians to one combatant killed in recent US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So the ratio in Israel’s war in Gaza is unprecedently low, although you would not realize this from the claims of an Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians claimed by South Africa in its case before the ICC and from the wild claims of pro-Hamas extremists on university campuses in the US and elsewhere.

Israel at 76

If you had told Israel’s founders in 1948, when there were scarcely 800.000 inhabitants, that we would still be waging a war for our survival in 76 years time, they would have been astonished. Surely they would have thought that by then the Arabs would have come to terms with the existence of a legitimate Jewish State. One of the criteria for the recognition and existence of a State is that it can defend its borders and its population. Israel has shown that it can do that over and over again, and yet they still attack us.

Since the founding of the State some 24,000 people have been killed in terrorist attacks, the latest 1,200 on Oct 7 by Hamas. They only managed to kill so many unarmed civilians, a war crime, by surprise, breaking a ceasefire agreement. We in Israel became complacent, thinking that Hamas would prefer to remain in existence and govern Gaza than attack and suffer the dire consequences. Now they know that while this attack was a terrible trauma for Israel, it presaged their own destruction.

Nevertheless, things have changed over time, clearly to Israel’s advantage. Israel now has 12 times the population since its founding, approaching 10 million. Israel’s technological edge has risen tremendously, as well as its military capability. While within Israeli society there are rifts and divisions, this is not as bad as the rift within Palestinian society, that has pitted Islamist Hamas in Gaza against the Palestine Authority ruled by nationalist Fatah on the West Bank. These two factions are irreconcilable.

It is noteworthy that Hamas, and its founding organization the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, are illegal in most Sunni Muslim countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE. They would all like to see Israel destroy Hamas, also because it is a proxy of Shia Iran, but they can’t come right out and say so because they must show support for the Palestinian cause.

Once Israel is finished with Hamas and the war comes to an end,, Saudi Arabia will make a normalization deal with Israel under the Abraham Accords. Not only is this in Saudi interest, but it will also get them a defense deal with the US. So by Israel’s 77th Independence Day we hope to see the situation significantly improved.

Project Cassandra

Project Cassandra was a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) operation that investigated the ties between the Hezbollah Lebanese Shia terrorist organization and drug trafficking connected to South America and around the world.

This all began with the assassination of Lebanese former President Rafik Hariri in 2005. It was commonly known that this had been carried out by a team of Hezbollah. To show its new-found strength Hezbollah attacked across the Israel border and kidnapped two IDF soldiers. This led in turn to the second Israel-Lebanon War of 2006, Lebanon and Hezbollah were decimated by the IDF and Lebanon was almost bankrupt. After some years signs of growth and building began to appear, and it was clear that this resulted from the influx of millions of dollars from Iran. Hezbollah was already a proxy of Iran, but by providing such funds Iran began in effect to take over Lebanon.

In investigating the source of Hezbollah’s new-found wealth, US agents discovered that money was also flowing into Lebanon, to Hezbollah, from South America and West Africa. In 2008, this led to the formation of the DEA Project Cassandra. The findings of this Operation were shown in a documentary with the same name “Project Cassandra” on the Deutsche Welle network (in English). To summarize, they found that Hezbollah became heavily involved in drug trafficking making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, through their contacts in Venezuela and Benin in West Africa.

In both cases Shia Lebanese emigrants to these countries played key roles. Drugs were shipped through Venezuela, with government involvement, to Europe and the US, where they were sold. This money was then laundered to buy thousands of cars, which were then shipped to West Africa, where they were sold and shipped out again, and the money was then transferred to Lebanon, to banks owned partly or fully by Hezbollah. The mastermind behind this arrangement was Imad Mugniyeh, Head of the Hezbollah armed forces. Strictly, any devout Muslim is not allowed to dabble in drugs, but Hezbollah still denies this.

In order to attempt to interdict this drug trade, the Canadian-Lebanon Bank that was the major conduit for the drug funds, was closed by the DEA. Also, in 2008, Imad Mugniyeh was assassinated in Damascus, Syria, by a joint Israeli-American operation. This led to an attempt in 2008 by Hezbollah to capture the whole of Beirut and take-over the government. This resulted in Hezbollah, that out-guns the Lebanese Army, joining the government and in effect taking over power in Lebanon. That situation persists until today, while Lebanon is more bankrupt than ever.

Who are the victims?

Russian President Putin gave a speech at the Victory Day Parade of Russian Forces in Moscow, celebrating the victory against Nazi Germany in WWII. He accused the Western powers and especially NATO, of organizing an attack against Russia and said Russia’s defences were mobilized. He played the victim, hardly a word about Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, under the pretense that Nazis are ruling Ukraine, even though it has a Jewish President.

The Palestinians play the same game, they brutally attack Israel, unprovoked and by surprise, breaking a ceasefire agreement. They massacre 1,200 Israelis, that would be equivalent to ca. 8,400 Brits or 40,000 Americans, and take 250 hostages, and then they claim they are the victims of Israel’s defensive counter-attack. What would the US, UK or any other country do, but strike back to such an attack, just as the US did to the 9/11 attack that killed ca. 3,000 Americans, and the US killed tens of thousands of ISIS fighters as well as ca. 80,000 civilians in Iraq and Syria. No hint of restraint there, no claim of disproportionate force!

The IDF doesn’t need to be told to prevent civilian casualties, it does that better than any other military in the world. They established safe zones and camps for the civilians to avoid areas of conflict. They are also doing this in Rafah. It is totally contradictory for Pres. Biden to claim his defense of Israel is “ironclad” and then to impose an arms embargo on Israel. THis is a betrayal of his trust. Why? To save Palestinian civilians, who supported Hamas and celebrated the attack and murder of Israelis. Or to save Hamas? The net effect will be to empower Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and it will prevent a hostage deal that Biden has said he was working for. He comes across as indecisive, wavering and weak. Why should the Saudis, who are negotiating a defense deal with the US, trust him? No allies can.

Palestinian Casualties

It might surprise the many naïve students and hangers-on who are sitting in protest encampments around university campuses in the US and elsewhere to know that Israel has not killed the largest number of Palestinians. In fact various Arab and Muslim forces have killed far more. For example:

1. Jordan, in so-called Black September of 1970, when the PLO under Yasir Arafat threatened to take over Jordan from the Hashemite Bedouin monarchy and the Jordanian Army, Pakistan’s General Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq helped King Hussein carry out the massacre of 25,000 Palestinians, including many civilians., In fact, many Palestinians actually escaped and sought refuge in Israel at that time.
2. Lebanon: During the Lebanese Civil War, when Israel attacked the PLO during the First Lebanon War, on September 16-18, 1982, the Christian Phalangist militia attacked the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and massacred ca. 3,500 Palestinian civilians.
3. Kuwait: After Operation Desert Storm, 1990-91, which saw Iraqi forces defeated and pushed out of Kuwait by a United States-led coalition, more than 287,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait in March 1991 by the government. An unknown number of Palestinians,. certainly in the thousands, were killed in revenge attacks by Kuwaiti security forces for their support of Saddam Hussein’s prior invasion of Kuwait.
4. Syria: After intense fighting in April/May 2018, Syrian government forces captured the Yarmouk refugee camp, its population now reduced to just 100–200. An estimated 160,000 Palestinians were forced to flee the Yarmouk camp during the Syrian civil war. It is estimated that ca 40,000 Palestinians were killed, but the estimate could be much higher.
5. Egypt: The Gaza Strip was under Egyptian military rule from 1949 to 1967. During this time the Palestinian refugees and their descendants there were treated badly by the Egyptian military authorities. An unknown number of civilians died from lack of food and sanitary conditions. It was not until Israel captured the area in the 1967 Six-Day War that conditions improved, and then it became part of the Palestine Authority in 1994, until Hamas staged a coup in 2007.

According to these estimates at least 80,000 Palestinians have been massacred by various Arab forces at various times. Did anyone demonstrate against these actions? This is far more than even the Hamas estimate of 33,000 civilians in the current Israel-Gaza war, which is an obvious exaggeration because it does not include terrorist combatants. That number is estimated by the IDF at at least 13,000 So the maximum number of Palestinians civilians killed in the so-called “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza is currently at most 20,000. But, non-Hamas estimates put this actual number closer to ca. 5,000.

The IDF just had its soldiers calling people in Rafah to evacuate in order to save their lives, and Israel has provided an extra 40,000 tents in a designated safe area. So much for the claim of an Israeli “genocide” in Gaza!! A US Defense Department evaluation concluded that there is NO genocide by Israeli forces in Gaza. Also, Israel opened the Kerem Shalom crossing to humanitarian supplies, butlast week Hamas fired 14 rockets at the Kerem Shalom crossing killing 4 IDF soldiers and damaging the crossing. Then when Israel was forced to close the crossing, Hamas claimed they were not sending humanitarian aid into Gaza. What hypocrisy!

The Numbers

While the occupations and take-overs of campuses throughout the US and the world have made a great deal of noise and garnered media attention, they are carried out by a very small minority of extremist students. The more noise they make and the more excessive their actions the larger they seem. Most large Universities have student populations of 20-30,000. These encampments usually have a range of 200-1000 people, on average say 400. Of these approximately half are not students, but outside professional agitators, who organize and lead the protests. So they contain about say 200 students on average out of say 20,000 students, or 1% of the student population. Certainly not enough to take very seriously.

On the other hand, this kind of wide-spread pro-Hamas, anti-Israel movement generates a large upswell of anti-Semitism among the general population, where it is always present, both from the extreme right and left. Individuals will take knives and guns and explosives and try to kill Jews, particularly in synagogues, community centers and randomly on the streets. This naturally engenders fear in Jews, who will start leaving their home countries in the West and immigrate to Israel (aliyah).

Numbers released by the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel for Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut, which is next Tues), show that the population of Israel grew by 189,000 over the past year. This is made up of 196,000, babies born (Israel is a very young country) and 37,000 made aliyah (at the same time there were 60,000 deaths). Compare this with the statistics released by the IDF, that since Oct 7, the start of the Gaza war with Hamas, 711 were killed in combat (637 soldiers, 39 emergency responders, 68 police and 6 security personnel). Although these are large numbers for a small state, the fact is that the immigration far outweighs the loss of life due to the war. The population of Israel has now reached 9.7 million people, 7.2 million Jews (74%), 2 million Arabs (21%) and 564,000 other (5.7%). This is 12 times the population at the beginning of independence in 1948 (806,000) The population is expected to top 10 million next year.

During WWII Nazi Germany occupied some 20 European countries, only three of which protected their Jewish citizens, namely Denmark, Bulgaria, and Albania. In Denmark, the diplomat in charge of the German occupation, George Duckwitz, warned the resistance a day before that all Jews were to be arrested and deported. As a result a movement was organized overnight to channel the over 7,000 Danish Jews to the coast and transport them in fishing boats to Sweden. Over 90% of Danish Jews were saved. In Bulgaria and Albania, the local Christian denominations supported by high government officials opposed the deportation by train by hte German occupiers of the Jewish populations. This proves it could be done.

As long as the governments of the Western countries remain democratic, there is little danger of a similar Holocaust as happened in Europe during WWII. But, the treatment of Blacks in the US over centuries shows that a supposedly democratic country could also persecute a racial minority. My question in relation to the US, after months of these pro-Hamas encampments, where is the FBI and the other arms of the US Government in exposing the malign people and institutions behind this clearly organized movement? Why aren’t people being arrested and deported from the USA? Is there collusion, or is it simply incompetence?

Boomerang Effects

I believe the university take-over demonstrations and anti-Semitism on campuses will have three boomerang effects:

1. The first will be to antagonize the majority of the US population against the radical protesters and lead to an increase in support for Israel. Although the campus take-overs are very newsworthy and dramatic, they are carried out by a small minority of extremists many of whom are not students or even affiliated with the schools in question. Most Americans are against such violence on campuses and clearly distinguish between peaceful support for a Palestinian cause and support for a terrorist group such as Hamas, and also Americans oppose such violent slogans as “Death to Israel”, “Death to America” and the vandalism and costs of these well-funded so-called protests. The burning of American flags and desecration of American historic statues only serve to cause a negative reaction.
2. The support for the Republican Party and the reelection of President Trump will be assured by the way that most University administrations have handled these uprisings. They have cooperated with them for far too long and allowed them to fester and then the need for the police to go in and clear them out has shown their basic violence. There is no doubt that the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party has been complicit with these extremists and this has left President Biden in a weak and untenable position. It was an embarrassment that Biden said nothing about the chaos on US campuses for 2 weeks and then where was his moral outrage? These protesters raised the Palestinian flag over their encampments. As a result more American Jews will vote for Trump rather than Biden in the Presidential election.
3. If the naïve demonstrators expect anything to change in regard to Palestine or Israel due to their actions they are sorely mistaken. They can go on protesting as long as they like, but there are many facts that they fail to take into account. First, Israel and Jews have been in far worse situations in the past and we will continue to do what is in our best interests. And we have among the best military forces in the world. Second, the Palestinians are caught down a hole (just as the Hamas leadership is underground), they can’t recognize Israel and deal with it, and their only response is violence, and this hasn’t worked for them and never will. The belief that trying to force institutions to divest from Israel will make any difference is illusory, most have only a few percent of their funds invested in Israel and anyway money goes where it can make the most profit. Israel has an innovative technological economy and the Palestinians have nothing and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Satire of Campus Protests

Herb Keinon of The Jerusalem Post has written a satirical article in the Friday paper on the current US campus protests, entitled Hamas chic: the misguided bid of campus protesters to relive the ’60s. In it he skewers the ignorant and naieve students who support and even glorify Hamas, who are the worst kind of genocidal thugs, who murdered hundreds of unarmed civilians at a peace music festival, who burnt and decapitated babies alive, who mutilated people and whose main aim in life is to kill Jews.

The title comes from the phrase “radical chic” that Tom Wolfe coined to describe the attitude of rich, liberal (Jews) like Leonard Bernstein and his wife, who held a fundraiser for the Black Panthers in their luxurious Park Avenue apartment. Later it was revealed how the Black Panthers were little more than a gang of thugs starting in Oakland, CA, who stole funds donated to their cause and murdered people who disagreed with them (see for example: Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr., 2013)

At least the student protesters of the 60’s had a very real concern for their own country involved in a largely futile wat in Vietnam. It was acceptable to be a “peacenik” then, but these protesters are not only not demonstrating for peace, they are demonstrating against Israel, a recognized state of the UN, that they want to be destroyed and its 7 million Jews to be murdered. Their slogans include “from the river to the sea Palestine shall be free,” “Death to Israel,” “Death to America,” as well as other choice phrases. And why? To support the “poor, downtrodden Palestinians,” who are serial losers, and who in any case usurped Jewish Land and have received billions of dollars in aid that was used for building tunnels and buying weapons, while their people starved,

It has been revealed that the Israel Government under PM Netanyahu had the ill-conceived notion that if they allowed Qatar to pay billions of dollars to Hamas in Gaza that this would somehow “civilize” them. And by giving the Palestinians the right to enter Israel to work would make them less prone to extremism. It was a false expectation and a failed policy. So much for the false accusation of “genocide” in Gaza, its simply a propaganda lie, like most of their false beliefs.

These US campus protests will fade, the Arab/Muslim extremist agitators should be deported, the students involved should be expelled from university and their lives should be permanently ruined for their incredible lapse of judgement in becoming involved in this circus and waving Palestinian flags. Their belief in a Palestinian State to replace Israel is immoral, futile and illusory. They will have accomplished nothing and we shall laugh at them.

The Hamas Attack was not a Holocaust

Perhaps Yom HaShoah in Israel is a time to take up the issue of comparing the Hamas attack on Israel on Shabbat Oct. 7 Simchat Torah to the Shoah. First it must be said that the Shoah, the Holocaust of Jews in Europe during WWII, was a crime sui generis. It was an attempt to annihilate a whole race of people, unarmed civilians, that led to the coining of the word genocide. The final toll of Jews murdered over a period of 5 years was ca. 6 million, a third of all Jews in the world before the war. Given the relative scope of the Shoah and the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of 253 hostages, clearly there is no comparison.

There are two things that the Shoah and the Hamas attack have in common, one is the intention of the attackers to murder, rape and destroy as many Jews as possible, including babies and children. The second was the source of their hatred, a variation on anti-Semitism, evil hatred of Jews, although the sources may have been a bit different, they share that hatred in common. There were no written orders to the terrorists of Hamas to try to establish a Palestinian state, no their orders were purely and simply to kill as many Jews as possible.

But there was a fundamental difference in that while the Shoah was largely successful during war time in Europe with many collaborators of many nations, the Hamas attack had limited success. This was because there was immediate resistance, Israeli Jews with guns fought back, men left their homes with guns and shot Hamas terrorists. IDF units and police forces fought back.

For example the furthest the terrorists penetrated into Israel was to Ofakim, a small town about 10 km from the Gaza border and 5 km from Beersheva. About 30 terrorists reached there, and although they also killed about 30 civilians there, the local police, with a female commander and some IDF soldiers, killed them all. If they had not been stopped they would have been followed by more more terrorists and they might have reached Beersheva and if they had encountered me they would have killed me and I would not be writing this.

Although it took many hours for organized resistance to appear in the form of IDF units, they soon destroyed all the Hamas terrorists in Israel, estimated at some 1,500 (less those that escaped back to Gaza). Israel then defended itself by counter-attacking Hamas in Gaza. It should be noted that the first action of the Israel-Gaza war was initiated by Hamas, Israel was not expecting nor seeking such a war. I and many others wish that the IDF had not stopped its advance south in Gaza months ago and had gone directly into Rafah to finish Hamas off. It was mainly President Biden who withdrew support for Israel to “finish the job.” He bears responsibility, despite his support for Israel, for weakening Israel’s position and delaying the Rafah operation, that will cause many more Israeli casualties because of the delay.

Its true that there might have been more civilians casualties, but the Hamas estimate of 34,000 civilians killed that the media keeps touting as if it were fact, is a gross propaganda number. Israel estimates that it has killed some 13,000 Hamas and other terrorists, and that the civilian casualty count is less than 10,000. Some of you may think this is a high number, but it is small compared to other wars, for example, the US killed an estimated 2 million civilians in Vietnam, 100,000 in the Iraq War and ca. 70,000 in the war against ISIS (the Islamic State). Assad’s forces killed 500,000 civilians in the Syrian civil war, and in the Sudanese civil war it is estimated that 1 million have been killed and according to the UN some 20 million are in danger of starvation. Not only is everything relative, but why is there a double standard, one for Israel and one for the rest of the world including the US?

Hamas rejects truce offer

Hamas has effectively rejected what has been described by the US as a generous truce offer by Israel. Hamas is sticking to its demand that Israel agree to a permanent ceasefire and withdraw all its forces from Gaza in exchange for a partial hostage deal. They know that Israel cannot accept this, and so they have rejected Israel’s offer of a 40-day ceasefire and have withdrawn their delegation from Cairo. Apparently the US gave Hamas an understanding that Israel would agree to a permanent ceasefire, but they were speaking for themselves not for Israel.

The hostage families will be upset and will call PM Netanyahu many bad names, but he is right, he must be concerned first and foremost with the survival of the State of Israel before that of the hostages, and we have no idea how few of them are still alive. If he agreed, then Hamas would declare victory and would still be able to retake over the Gaza Strip and could then mount another attack when they are ready, as they have threatened to do again and again. It makes no sense to once again allow Hamas to survive and wait for the next attack in a year or two as has happened about 4 times in the past. Israel cannot live with genocidal regimes on its borders.

Netanyahu warned Hamas that if they did not accept this offer within a week then the Rafah operation that Israel has been preparing will be given the go ahead. Consequently, because they have rejected the offer, the Rafah operation in now expected to start soon. It is noteworthy that the US is against the Rafah operation, mainly because there are about 1 million refugees in the area. But, Israel has formulated a plan to remove most of them and many have already left, and a large tent encampment has been prepared. Today Hamas launched 14 rockets at the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, that Israel opened in order to increase humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The unexpected attack from the Rafah area killed four IDF soldiers and wounded a further 9. Israel was forced to close the Kerem Shalom crossing and stop aid supplies from entering Gaza there.

At the same time Hezbollah launched 40 rockets into northern Israel, causing property damage but no casualties, since everyone has been evacuated. Israel currently has about 150,000 evacuees still from the Gaza envelope and the Lebanon border area. It is expected that since the diplomatic mission by the French to move Hezbollah forces beyond the Litani River, according to UNSC resolution 1701, has failed, that at some point Israel will be forced to expand its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon in order to force them back from its border. When this will happen is unknown, but it may have to wait until after the Rafah operation.