The Fallacy of the counts of Israeli and Palestinian deaths - Claudia Chaves

 

The Fallacy of the counts of Israeli and Palestinian deaths

Claudia Chaves

I keep seeing in the media these “counts” of Palestinians killed and Israeli killed since the Hamas attacks of October 7^th.  They are totally misleading. They are disinformation. For one thing, no distinction is made between the Hamas terrorists and the supposed uninvolved civilians (more on that later).

Publicizing the numbers without clear explanations and context is propaganda against Israel’s very justified need to eliminate a threat to its citizens from an army that vowed “to do again and again what it did on October 7, until Israel is destroyed”.

To make matters worse, the numbers on the Palestinian side are reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health – a completely unreliable reporter dictated to by Hamas.

It is estimated that Hamas had 30,000 to 40,000 terrorist fighters (and Islamic Jihad some other number). Clearly the Israeli army would seek to kill any of them who keep fighting – and it will spare the lives of any who surrender, as several hundreds have. Terrible as it is, these Hamas/Islamic Jihad people are THE ONES WHO ATTACKED AND VOWED TO KEEP COMMITTING THOSE ATROCITIES NON-STOP.

So I am totally in support of all of them getting killed unless they surrender. That means, by the disinformation “counts” that get published, 30000 or 40000 “Palestinians” killed, Yes, the attackers, killed in realistic and unquestionable self defense, Are you shocked? Would YOU kill in realistic and unquestionable self defense , or allow yourself and your family to be killed instead?

[Gaza has not been occupied by Israel for 18 years, and the populations could have flourished with all the aid it got plus the excellent agricultural infrastructure that Israel left for the population and other opportunities it afforded its citizens. Instead, all resources were funneled to building a sophisticated military machine. Hamas has been in conflict with the Palestinian Authority government, after the coup staged against the PA in 2007. And if you need to know the history of why it became “attached” to Israel, you can research that – but the bottom line is that Egypt did not want it back when Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement, though Gaza was under Egypt’s administration before the war that Egypt started and then lost. Egypt still doesn’t want it, because of the theocratic ideologies of most of the population.]

As to the Palestinians considered “civilians” or “not involved”: How many of the households -- where stores of armaments are being found -- cooperated with Hamas because of fear of them, how many because of allegiance, maybe the father from allegiance and the rest of the family for fear… Who knows? How many willingly served as human shields for Hamas and were glad to have them build their military machine under or in their children’s schools, their mosques, their hospitals, their neighborhoods? And how many did so out of fear of being killed by Hamas, or their families targeted, if they refused? Hard to say. They have been indoctrinated by Hamas and others since babes, so it is hard to know. At least one Israeli kidnapping victim, a child of 12 years, reported being beaten by mobs of Palestinian civilians as he was brought into the Gaza Strip. Are those people who beat him so “uninvolved”? Or their glee at beating a 12 year old child is a clear sign that they identify with his kidnappers and want to take part in the “action”?

A complicated question, but nevertheless, the Israeli army has been as careful as is humanly and technologically possible to avoid harm to them, while endangering its own soldiers in order to be that careful. No army in the world has shown the willingness to do so, nor has done so – while their governments and media speak of “indiscriminate Israeli shelling” -- speaking thus for reasons of their own internal politics and marketing, knowing perfectly well that this is the opposite of what the Israeli army is doing. 

The bottom line that all the world and its media need to be truthful about is that if they, and all of us, want to save the lives and welfare of the civilian population in Gaza, then Hamas needs to immediately stop attacking Israel with the missiles they continue to fire, and they have to immediately return all the kidnapped people, alive and well. Hamas chooses not to do that. The blood of all the non-involved citizens of Gaza is on Hamas’ hands, for using them as human shields and for continuing to attack Israel and refusing to return those kidnapped.

The world leaders, human rights organization and media that do not clarify and emphasize who is truly responsible for civilian deaths --  and instead blame Israel, -- continue the antisemitic propaganda they have been broadcasting for at least 30 years, in collusion with the terrorists.

 

Claudia Chaves chaclaud@gmail.com

Claudia Chaves is an Argentinian-Israeli social psycotherapist now living in the US, a long term activist in various progressive causes including unmasking and countering anti-Semitism