Blame the Jews!

Pro-Palestinain extremists and anti-Semitic bigots inappropriately equalize the two sides in the Israel-Arab/Palestinian conflict. Here are some examples of this:

1. Israelis are carrying out genocide against the poor Palestinian people. There is not and there never has been any “genocide” of the Arab peoples living in what was former British Palestine. In fact their numbers have increased significantly since the founding of Israel (explain this!) There are cases of people being shot and murdered by the IDF, but only in rare cases was that deliberate when they were not terrorists. For example, in the current conflict in Gaza, it is estimated by the Hamas Ministry of Health that ca. 35,000 people have been killed. But, the IDF has estimated that they have killed ca. 15,000 Hamas and other combatants. That leaves a maximum of ca. 20,000 civilians. If we assume that number is correct, and it is probably an exaggeration, that gives a ratio of combatants to civilians of 1:1.3. This is a very low ratio, compare that to the usually quoted figure of 1:9 for the same ratio in all recent US actions in the Middle East (including the Iraq War, the Afghan War and the war against ISIS), where the figure of civilians killed varied around at least 100,000 in each conflict. Before lecturing us put your own house in order. No actual evidence has been presented that there is anything like a genocide occurring in Gaza.
2. Israel is starving the Palestinians in Gaza by preventing the delivery of food and other supplies. Such accusations are based on propaganda, not facts. When food supplies started to be delivered by trucks, Hamas and other gangs were hijacking the supplies and selling them on the black market. Israel took over the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing partly to prevent this, but it was Egypt that then stopped the deliveries by trucks, not Israel. The US then asked Israel to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to trucks instead, but Hamas fired rockets at this crossing killing four IDF soldiers. Thus the crossing was closed temporarily. The US built at great expense (m$325) a jetty to deliver food by sea from Cyprus. The State Department was forced to admit that none of the food delivered in the first shipment reached any Palestinian civilians, because it was all hijacked. They asked for IDF assistance in protecting the trucks from the jetty. However, the jetty broke apart in the bad weather and has been virtually useless.
3. It is common for the enemies of Israel to refer to Jews as “Nazis.” To illustrate the difference, before the development of the concentration camps during WWII (1942-45) in which the Nazis murdered ca. 4 million Jews (!), they killed the Jews by shooting them. This has been called “the Holocaust by bullets,” by Father Patrick Desbois, a French Roman Catholic priest who has investigated and researched this subject. In his two books “The Holocaust by Bullets” (2008) and “In Broad Daylight,” (2015) he describes the ca. 20,000 or so massacres that the Nazi einsatzgruppen (special forces) carried out deliberately in eastern Europe during 1941-43 killng ca. 1.5 million Jews How anyone in their right mind can compare this to what has actually happened between the Arabs and Israel is beyond belief. It can only be described as anti-Semitism.
4. Let’s bring peace by recognizing a Palestine State. Many countries have taken this step, but it is based on a flagrant falsehood. Namely most of the countries involved (including Spain, Ireland and Norway) have stated that they support a “two-state solution,” but none of them acknowledge that any Palestine State will NOT recognize Israel and will NOT agree to live “side-by-side in peace” with Israel. This has never been their intention. How the supposedly serious leaders of these coutnries can live with this self-deception is incredible. Such a recognition of a Palestine State, without a deal negotiated between Israel and this supposed State, is totally ludicrous.
5. What about the Jewish terrorists? There is a strong tendency to equate the terrorism that is carried out against Jewish Israelis with that supposedly carried out by equivalent groups of Jewish “settlers’ in the West Bank.’ An example of this was the article called, “The Unpunished” published by that well-known newspaper the New York (Palestine) Times. But such a story simply does not carry any journalistic weight. How many people have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists? It grows into the thousands, including the 1,200 killed on Oct 7, and many since. How many people have been killed by the terrible Jewish “terrorists”? You can count them on the fingers of your hands! This equivalence is simply a fiction, invented by clever propagandists to delegitimize Israel. It is a lie and reeks of anti-Semitism.

The Bias of the Leftist Media

Regarding the rescue mission of the four hostages last Saturday, BBC anchor Helena Humphrey asked IDF spokesperson and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Jonathan Conricus, “did Israel warn the Palestinians before the rescue operation?” If that isn’t a stupid question, what is? How naieve can you get? I also saw Yalda Hakim, a CNN anchor ask an Israeli officer “why did you carry out this raid when there were so many civilians present, the US wouldn’t have done that?” Is that supposed to be neutral journalism, furthermore her assertion isn’t true, the US is notorious for killing civilians, remember “shock and awe,” while the IDF is well-known to take all precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

Perhaps most egregious is the reaction of Australian Professor Ben Saul, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism. He accuses the IDF of “perfidy” in carrying out their hostage rescue, for having pretended to be Palestinians and aid workers, in order to get close to where the hostages were being held in a civilian neighborhood. What nonsense, does he think they should have come in holding up signs saying, “we’re not really Palestinians, we’re really IDF”!

Nevertheless, here are some answers to the questions:

1. If you warn terrorists of an impending attack they will kill the hostages!
2. The hostages were held in a civilian apartment by “journalist” Abdallah Al-Jamal, who was killed, and his family, with Hamas guards (using human shields is a war crime).
3. 84% of Palestinians in Gaza supported the Hamas massacre on Oct 7.
4. Hamas has distributed guns throughout civilian locations in Gaza.
5. When the attempt to rescue the three male hostages was detected, a large number of civilians took up arms against the IDF, they ceased to be civilians and became combatants.
6. The IDF needed a back-up squad to extricate the rescuers and the hostages, resulting in more Hamas casualties.
7. It is not possible to know how many died, certainly the Hamas figure is an exaggeration that the liberal media should not accept, but repeat.
8. In any such rescue mission the rescuers face death, and indeed one Israeli officer Arnon Zmora was killed (many rescue operations are unsuccessful, eg. Pres. Carter’s attempt to rescue the US hostages in Tehran).

The leftist media turned the story from a successful brave hostage rescue mission, into a humanitarian murder of civilians by the Israeli forces, typical Hamas propaganda. The lesson is, if you don’t want civilian casualties, don’t take hostages and don’t put them in a civilian environment.

Collateral Damage

PM Netanyahu apologized for the unfortunate mistake made by the IAF in attacking an encampment of civilians in Rafah. Although a precision guided missile was used in the attack that killed two major terrorists, the subsequent fire killed 45 (presumably including the terrorists). This was not intentional, but was an example of the collateral damage to civilians that occurs in war. Israel neither wanted nor started this war, that was initiated by the surprise brutal massacre by Hamas of 1,300 Israeli civilians that occurred on Oct 7, 2023.

Here are some other examples: 1. During the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, the Grdelica train bombing occurred on 12 April, 1999, when missiles fired by a USAF fighter bomber hit a passenger train while it was passing across a railway bridge over the Grdelica gorge, south of Belgrade, Serbia. Estimates of the death toll run as high as 60.

2. In May, 1999, the Lužane bus bombing occurred when missiles fired from an RAF helicopter targeted a bridge in Kosovo, north of Pristrina, but hit a bus killing 46 civilians. Among the victims were 14 children. NATO did not always meet its legal obligation in selection of targets of attack.

3. The Haska Meyna wedding party airstrike was an attack by US forces on 6 July, 2008, in which 47 Afghans were killed. The targeted group was escorting a bride to a wedding ceremony in the groom’s village in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan. The US government denied that civilians were killed in the incident, but the Afghan government determined that 47 civilians, including the bride, had been killed.

No military is immune from such unfortunate incidents, so it is better not to be “holier than thou.” There is a tendency to apply a higher double standard to Israel that others do not meet. that is clearly based on anti-Semitism. The IDF actively attempts to avoid such civilian casualties. Note that this encampment was NOT an IDF declared safe zone, as claimed by Hamas. The IDF is forbidden to act in such self-declared safe zones.

The Deaths

The accusation against the IDF that it carried out a “massacre” of 350 Palestinians at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis is another example of fake news by the forces of Hamas and their supporters in Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media outlet. Not only does the IDF deny any such incident, but it is well known that the Gazans, where there is very limited space, have routinely buried their dead from the hospitals in the grounds of the hospitals. This was true in the Shifa hospital in Gaza City and it is also true in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis where 35 were buried. So the bodies being displayed by Hamas are those that have been buried for some time in that graveyard and dug up. Another example of anti-Israel propaganda that the media likes to report.

Some 1,200 Israelis were massacred by Hamas and their civilian supporters in Israel on Oct 7. Of these some 340 were IDF soldiers, either in uniform or not. Another 260 IDF soldiers have been killed in the fighting in Gaza and some on the northern border in fighting with Hezbollah for a total of over 600. The IDF estimates that 13,000 Hamas terrorists have been killed out of the estimated 30,000 fighters it supposedly had before the war. Since Hamas does not give a figure for its combatants killed, if we subtract this figure from the official Hamas figure of a total of 33,000 “civilians” killed, this leaves the actual figure of civilians killed close to 20,000, the lowest civilian to fighter ratio in any modern war (the US in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, killed many, many more civilians, an estimated total of ca. 4 million). These statistics refute any claim of “genocide” on the part of the IDF. If they really wanted to carry out genocide why wouldn’t they attack the 1.5 million defenseless civilians in camps in southern Gaza?

A lot has been said about the Palestine Authority (PA) taking over Gaza after this war. But the PA is not only corrupt and incompetent, it also uses terrorism against Israel. The Biden Administration talks of a “revitalized” PA, but so far there is no sign of such a thing, only a shuffle of the Government by the 87 year old dictator Mahmud Abbas. He has to go, and all his cronies, before the PA could be considered even minimally responsible enough to govern Gaza, let alone the PA itself.

Biden Wrong Again!

President Biden was dead wrong when he accused PM Netanyahu of pursuing his own private policy on Gaza. He was in fact wrong on three counts, This is what Biden said: “He [Netanyahu] has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas, but he must, he must, he must, pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. He is hurting Israel more than helping Israel…it is contrary to what Israel stands for and I think it’s a big mistake.” His motivation for saying these things is no doubt US politics, due to the left-wing of the Democratic party and his concern for the upcoming election.

First of all, as PM Netanyahu replied, these are not exclusively HIS policies, but are the policies of his Government, agreed to by the War Cabinet and the IDF. Further, a poll published on i24 News shows that 75% of Israelis agree with the policy of continuing the war in Gaza and specifically in Rafah to both destroy Hamas and try to release the hostages. Further Biden said that Netanyahu must not cause “another 30,000 Palestinian deaths.” But, this figure is the one put out by Hamas for civilian casualties, and does NOT include any Hamas fighters or other combatants. The IDF claims to have killed at least 12,000 Hamas terrorists, so that the maximum civilian casualties could be about 18,000, and this is probably a fantasy figure made up by Hamas to gain sympathy, and the civilian casualties are probably less than 10,000, in a very crowded area (my guess is as good as theirs, the US President would not rely on an al Qaeda or ISIS statistic)). Furthermore, the IDF is working to keep civilian casualties down, but the US in recent similar wars has caused far more collateral damage, In the Iraq war ca. 100,000 civilian deaths, in Afghanistan ca. 70,000 deaths and ca, 85,000 in the war against ISIS. Although Biden was not President during these American conflicts, he was later Vice-President. This is known as the pot calling the kettle black.

Can someone tell me why the US is so much more concerned about Palestinian civilian casualties than Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani and any other enemy that the US has fought? The only explanation that I can come up with is that when it’s the enemy of the Jews they get special consideration all around the world. There were no such demonstrations on behalf of those enemies of America! It boils down to good old-fashioned anti-Semitism.

Terrible Toll of War

Monday saw the most terrible toll of IDF soldier’s lives lost in one day since the war against Hamas in Gaza began. 24 soldiers were killed, almost all reservists who volunteered for service to their country. The worst incident occurred only 600 meters from the Israel border where demolition experts were planting mines in two buildings to remove them as former observation posts for Hamas operatives. The mines detonated prematurely, collapsing the buildings on the 19 soldiers inside. It has been reported that an RPG fired by two Hamas terrorists initiated the blast. At the same time a tank nearby was hit by an RPG killing 2 soldiers. Meanwhile 3 other soldiers were killed in action in western Khan Younis, the most dense area of that city.  If this toll occurred to US army personnel is would be equivalent to ca. 720 deaths. 

Even though this is a terrible toll of death for the small country of Israel, it is considered that this accident of war cannot be allowed to deflect the country from its overall aim of defeating and destroying Hamas, after the terrible attack that massacred 1,200 Israelis and while there are still 136 hostages held in Gaza. Most Israelis agree on this, and the government is going ahead with the war in Gaza, and also counter-attacking Hezbollah over the northern border into Lebanon.

Although this level of loss is unsustainable, fortunately the war in Gaza is in its so-called third phase, where the major targets of limited. Once Khan Younis is flushed out there really only remain Rafah and the Egyptian border region. This may take another month or two. It should be noted that previous estimates of Hamas casualties did not include the estimated 1,200 terrorist captured and the ca. 1,000 injured (probably more with minor injuries). Adding these to the total of 9,000 estimated Hamas deaths during the war and ca. 1,300 killed on Oct. 7, that comes to a grand total of 12,500 Hamas terrorists put out of action, which is about 42% of the total number of 30,000 fighters that Hamas was estimated to have at the start of the war. This is certainly enough to render Hamas militarily ineffective, although it does not actually destroy its whole military and administrative apparatus.

The ICJ Hearings on Genocide

I watched part of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings on genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. I am not a lawyer, but I thought that the South African case in the Hague was vague. In effect they showed no actual evidence of genocide, They only quoted statements by right wing Ministers that were only matters of opinion that had no legal significance, and by PM Netanyahu when he quoted the Bible about Amalek, not exactly strong evidence. Then they also quoted the Hamas Health Ministry number of 23,000 civilians killed, without pointing out that this includes all the combatants and terrorists that the IDF had killed (estimated now at ca. 10,000). So if 13,000 civilians have been killed that does not amount to genocide out of a population of 2.3 million. They also quoted an exchange of messages between the two states in which the S. African Minister of Justice accused Israel of genocide and Israel’s Foreign Minister asked for a meeting to discuss it. In their presentation the S. African lawyers mentioned Hamas only once, as if they did not exist in this case.

The Israeli case was much more fact-based. Not only that the Israeli lawyer pointed out that in order for the Court to have jurisdiction it requires that there be a dispute between the two countries that are both signatories to the Genocide Convention. But as mentioned, the exchange between the two countries never amounted to a dispute. There was an accusation and a request to discuss it, before S. Africa applied to the Court. Also, S. Africa wants to deny Israel the right to fight against Hamas in Gaza because it claims the IDF is committing genocide, without any evidence to support that claim. The Israeli lawyer quoted members of the War Cabinet, the only ones allowed to make actual policy for the war, that the war was solely against Hamas and not against the Palestinian people.

Of course, the most compelling evidence was the genocidal unprovoked attack by Hamas terrorists and others on Israeli sovereign territory on Oct 7, and Israel’s right under international law, that S. Africa denies, to defend itself and its citizens. Also the actions that Israel took to avoid civilian casualties: 1. Setting up humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee south to avoid areas of conflict and establishing safe zones; 2. Dropping millions of leaflets in Arabic telling the population where to go to avoid the fighting; 3. Making phone calls to hundreds of thousands of Gazans warning them that they were in danger and must move south to survive. There is a clause in the Geneva Convention of War in 1949 that says that once warnings have been issued any civilians that remain in areas of conflict and are killed cannot be regarded as deliberate killings.

Also the lawyer showed evidence of people in civilian clothing, without any form of uniform, shooting at Israeli soldiers, and multiple cases of Hamas armaments being stored and used in civilian apartments, schools, UN buildings, mosques and hospitals. They quoted the Head of one hospital as saying that Hamas terrorists operated freely from his hospital. They also showed evidence of Hamas terrorists using ambulances to get around, and the use of children and women carrying babies as lookouts. In general Hamas use the civilian population as human shields. Nevertheless the IDF has issued orders that civilians are not to be shot at unless the soldier’s life is in danger.

As far as I can judge there is no case for Israel carrying out genocide of the Palestinian population, rather this is a case of S. Africa, an ally of Hamas, bringing a political case in the ICJ because Hamas, that is not a state, cannot do so. It has also been pointed out that Palestine (the Palestine Authority) is recognized as a State by the UN, and could have brought this case itself, but did not do so. Unfortunately, although there appears to be no case for charging Israel with genocide, the connection has been made, whatever the court decides, and this will be used to deliberately tarnish Israel’s reputation, as was done previously by the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution at the UN, that was later revoked. 

Density of Population

It is commonly stated and believed by most that Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, even the most densely populated! In fact this is not true! According to readily available statistics, Gaza is no more densely populated than any large city, for example it has roughly the same density of population as London, and is less than that of Paris. 

Gaza’s population density is about 5,500 people per square kilometer. But this is much less than other entities, such as Macao (China) that is the most densely populated place on earth with a density of over 21,000 ppsk. Other places that have a greater density of population than Gaza are Monaco (18,500), Singapore (7,800), Hong Kong (7,000) and Gibraltar (6,000).

Now why bother to quote these figures? Because it is often stated in relation to Israel’s coutner-attacks on Gaza that it is the most densely populated place on earth and that means that the IDF is killing more civilians. This is simply not true. The Hamas Ministry of Health gives ca. 20,000 for the current total of deaths of civilians in Gaza, but they give NO figures for Hamas terrorists killed by the IDF, which are in fact the target of their attacks. If we take the current Israeli estimate of Hamas terrorists killed as 8,000, plus ca. 1,300 killed in Israel on Oct. 7-8, that makes ca. 9,300 killed, meaning the actual figure for Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza is probably at most 10,000.

You may consider this a lot, but consider that the civilian population overwhelmingly support Hamas, that they also attacked the Israeli villages on Oct 7 and murdered civilians, that they celebrated the Hamas “victory” on Oct 7 and they are also involved in the fighting. The IDF has been surprised not only by the greater extent of the tunnels than they had expected, but also by the general distribution of weapons that they find in almost every apartment and house. Under the circumstances the civilian toll in Gaza is a lot less than the civilian toll exacted by US military actions in Iraq (ca. 100,000 killed) and Afghanistan (ca. 70,000 killed).