Just as the State of Israel is duty bound to protect its civilians, it must also protect its soldiers as much as possible - by Erez Tadmor

...However: "Once it has exhausted its efforts to distinguish between terrorists and nearby enemy civilians – and can no longer do so to the greatest extent possible – not only is the state not obligated to risk the lives of its soldiers in another attempt to make this distinction, it is prohibited from doing so just to minimize the danger posed to the terrorist's neighbors."

Erez Tadmor

Erez Tadmor..
Israel Hayom..
21 August '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/soldiers-and-terrorists-are-not-morally-equivalent/

Haaretz on Thursday published a scathing piece by former Meretz leader Zehava Galon, which ended in a call to "put down the tiger of Im Tirzu." Galon's rage erupted after bereaved parents, who were backed by Im Tirzu, lambasted Maj. Gen. Yair Golan over comments he made to premilitary academy cadets nearly a decade ago: "Due to the civilian population, yes, we assume certain risks, justifiably."

Golan's somewhat ambiguously worded statement shines a light on complex dilemmas and warrants public discourse. Where, in Golan's view, is the line between the need to avoid harming an uninvolved civilian population at all costs, and putting soldiers' lives at risk?

This is more than a theoretical exercise. There have been dozens of instances in recent decades – such as the battle in Jenin's refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield – when IDF soldiers paid with their lives because they were deployed house-to-house in a condensed urban environment, instead of shelling an area in advance or using bulldozers for the same job.

Galon apparently believes bereaved parents and Im Tirzu don't have the right to ask whether IDF commanders erred in these instances. Merely questioning the matter led Galon to claim Im Tirzu members "won't calm down until they turn the IDF into a militia of Cossacks."

While Golan's remarks were generalized and open to interpretation, Galon's position on the dilemma is unequivocal: If you don't want to become a Cossack militia, you must categorically prefer risking soldiers' lives over the lives of Palestinian civilians.

It's Time for Some Honesty. What Raqqa Says about Gaza’s Death Toll - by Evelyn Gordon

...And it’s also time for them to admit what a group of high-ranking Western military experts concluded in a comprehensive report on the Gaza war: faced with these difficulties, Israel’s success in minimizing civilian harm equaled or exceeded that of any other Western country. If more proof were needed, that 100-to-one difference in casualty ratios between Raqqa and Gaza certainly provides it.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
27 October '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/raqqa-says-gazas-death-toll/

Now that the battle to drive the Islamic State (ISIS) from its Syrian capital of Raqqa has ended, reporters are beginning to explore the devastation the fighting left behind. The information that has emerged so far sheds some interesting light on the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza in summer 2014. In particular, it utterly refutes the accusation by the UN and much of the Western world that Israel caused “appalling” and “excessive” Palestinian casualties.

Admittedly, that isn’t obvious at first glance. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 3,000 people were killed in Raqqa, including about 1,130 civilians, during the course of a four-month battle. In Gaza, according to UN figures, 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed in the course of just 50 days. And while there’s good reason to think the UN’s civilian casualty count is wildly inflated (the actual ratio of civilian-to-military casualties is probably around 1:1 or even lower), even Israel puts the total death toll at 2,125 people, comprising 936 combatants, 761 civilians, and 428 unidentified. That isn’t nearly as far below Raqqa’s figures as the conflicts’ relative duration might lead one to expect.

But that simplistic conclusion ignores two crucial factors. The first is that a comparison of raw numbers is meaningless; the relevant comparison is casualties as a proportion of the population. And by that measure, Raqqa’s casualty rate exceeded Gaza’s by as much as 100 to one. Here’s the math:

Holding Israel to an Impossible Standard

...perhaps of even more concern should be the fact that we appear to be moving toward a scenario in which every western war against terrorists will inevitably be held up as illegitimate. This report should begin by prompting world leaders to reconsider how they view Israel’s military activities. But then it should prompt some much deeper thinking about how they intend to fight and win their own wars while also holding Israel to the impossible standard that they currently do.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
15 December '15..

The debate about where the moral culpability lies for the casualties that resulted from the recent conflicts in Gaza is one that has been engaged in repeatedly, and is no doubt one that will be repeated the next time that Israel is compelled to undertake military operations in the Gaza Strip. In the case of the 2014 summer war in Gaza, both the U.N. and Amnesty International released reports slamming Israel for its role in that war. These purportedly impartial reports invoked the authority of human rights experts and international law in an effort to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the criminality of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Now, however, an 80-page report has been released by the international High Level Military Group that sets out a robust and evidenced case for why these other Gaza reports can be in large part discounted. As has been pointed out by Colonel Richard Kemp — one of the report’s authors — an assessment of Israel’s conduct during the Gaza operation ought to be undertaken with reference to the Laws of Armed Conflict, and yet most of the investigations into the Gaza conflict appear to have been conducted by those with woefully little military understanding.

The group, which includes senior military figures from the United States, Britain, France, India, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Colombia, concluded that Israel’s defense forces had gone far beyond the required level of care that a military is obliged to show when balancing the welfare of civilians against questions of military necessity. But crucially, this is by no means a finding that the Generals are entirely welcoming of. Rather, they point out that if this new rigorous level of humanitarian concern adopted by Israel comes to be accepted as the norm in the international community, then it will become impossible for other militaries to effectively fight future wars.

This is perhaps the most interesting matter raised by the report. Clearly Israel’s experience in Gaza has very profound implications for other democracies seeking to wage war against terrorist non-state actors. Terror groups who not only have no regard for international human rights law but that also have no fear of their international standing being tarnished equally do not need to worry about condemnation at the U.N. having repercussions such as the imposition of sanctions. In fact, these groups are clearly learning from Hamas tactics and seeing that it is possible to gain an advantage over western armies that restrain themselves in accordance with the stipulations of international law.

The Obama Double Standard on Civilian Casualties

...I don’t expect anything of people who think U.S. drone strikes are no less evil than Israel’s actions in Gaza. But the Obama Administration routinely defends its own civilian casualties as honest mistakes that occurred despite the strictest precautions. And to do that while simultaneously insisting that Israel’s can’t possibly be the same is the height of hypocrisy.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
06 May '15..

I know it’s been a busy two weeks, but I’m still waiting for that apology. I’ve been waiting for it ever since the U.S. admitted on April 23 to accidentally killing two Western hostages in Pakistan, and doubly so after a U.S. airstrike allegedly killed 52 civilians in Syria last Friday. Clearly, I don’t expect an apology for the fact that American forces are composed of men rather than angels, and therefore sometimes makes mistakes. But I certainly do expect an apology for the Obama Administration’s refusal to acknowledge that so are Israel’s forces. In the administration’s view, Israel never makes honest mistakes. If Israel inadvertently kills civilians in wartime, then it wasn’t trying hard enough not to do so.

We don’t yet know what happened in Syria, but the drone strike on an al-Qaeda compound in Pakistan is instructive. Administration officials told the New York Times that the CIA had “no idea that the hostages were being held there despite hundreds of hours of surveillance.” Yet they apparently can’t conceive of Israel — in the midst of a shooting war where decisions on whether to return fire must be made instantly, rather than with the benefit of hundreds of hours of surveillance — being similarly unaware that civilians were present at various sites it targeted during last summer’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Needless to say, American military professionals don’t share the administration’s view. The day after the White House announced the hostages’ deaths; Michael Schmitt and John Merriam published a summary of their detailed investigation into Israel’s targeting practices during that war. Schmitt, a professor of international law, heads the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and is considered a leading expert on the laws of armed conflict (LOAC). Merriam is a U.S. Army Judge Advocate and associate director of the Stockton Center. They were given unusual access to information, like targeting procedures that the Israel Defense Forces usually keeps secret; they were also allowed to observe IDF targeting cells at work and examine combat footage that hasn’t been publicly released. And here’s their conclusion:

Broadly speaking, we concluded that IDF positions on targeting law largely track those of the United States military. Moreover, even when they differ, the Israeli approach remains within the ambit of generally acceptable State practice … we found that their approach to targeting is consistent with the law and, in many cases, worthy of emulation.

They also pointed out that “the nuances of the Israeli approach … can only be understood in the context of the specific operational and strategic environment in which the IDF must fight.” And the complexities of that environment, which Israel’s critics largely ignore, go beyond such simple facts as Hamas’s penchant for launching rockets from civilian homes.

Good Question - Yemen and Gaza: Why the Different Reactions?

...But the almost certain silence in the United Nations about the attack on the refugee camp in Yemen is worth recalling the next time Israel is attacked for doing far less to protect itself. I don’t know the details about the Saudi attack, and perhaps it was carried out with care and precision. The point is, no one is going to bother to find out.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
31 March '15..






The Washington Post reported this today:

An airstrike killed dozens of people Monday at a camp for displaced people in northern Yemen, in what appeared to be the single deadliest attack since a Saudi ­Arabia-led coalition sent warplanes to target Shiite insurgents advancing across the country.

As many as 40 people died and about 200 were wounded in the attack on the Mazraq camp in Hajjah province, said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, which runs aid programs at the facility.

The Yemeni Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, accused the Saudi-led coalition of hitting the camp, located in an area under the control of the insurgents. Saudi officials did not confirm that. But, asked about the bombing, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, a coalition spokesman, asserted that the rebels were setting up positions in civilian areas and said that coalition warplanes had taken fire Monday from a residential area, forcing a “decisive response,” according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

So, taking fire from a civilian area in which shooters were hiding, the Saudis struck back. When Israel does that in Gaza, where it is the common practice of Hamas to hide in and shoot from civilian areas, and to store weapons in schools and hospitals (including those run by the United Nations), what happens? Israel is universally condemned. UN investigation commissions are appointed, and reports such as the egregious “Goldstone Report” (officially, the “The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict”) are issued. The UN Security Council holds special sessions, and the UN Human Rights Council adds additional “hate Israel” meetings to its usual list.

I cannot recall an incident where Israel struck at a refugee camp and killed 40 people all at once, also injuring 200 others, but I am willing to bet on the world reaction to this Saudi attack: zero. No meetings, commissions, no reports.

State and White House Versus Gen. Dempsey on Gaza

...QUESTION: Okay. But I’m still confused as to how you can reconcile the fact that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – who knows a bit about how military operations work, I would venture to guess; I don’t know him, but I assume that he wouldn’t be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff if he was – if he didn’t —

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
08 November '14..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2014/11/state-and-white-house-contradict-gen-dempsey-on-gaza/

When Israel launched Operation Protective Edge to stop the flood of rockets being launched at its cities, and particularly when it mounted a short ground operation to locate and destroy infiltration tunnels under the border, there was the predictable response from the UN, the NGOs and Israel’s usual critics that it was causing ‘disproportionate’ civilian casualties in Gaza. Surprisingly (or not), the Obama Administration and State Department joined the chorus.

You probably recall John Kerry’s sarcastic remark that Israel had carried out a “hell of a pinpoint operation.” And you may remember that back in July, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that “there’s more that could be done [by Israel]” to reduce civilian casualties. There are also reports of a particularly ‘combative’ phone call from President Obama to PM Netanyahu during the war.

All along, Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was saying that as a matter of fact, the IDF was doing an unprecedentedly good job in protecting Gaza civilians, even to the point of limiting its effectiveness against Hamas fighters:

Israel’s ratio of civilian to military casualties in Operation Protective Edge was only one-fourth of the average in warfare around the world, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Col. (res.) Richard Kemp told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee [on Sept. 3, 2014].

Kemp pointed out that, during the operation, there was approximately one civilian casualty for ever terrorist killed by the IDF, whereas the average in the world is four civilians for every combatant, and that, when taking into consideration Hamas’s use of human shields, this shows how careful the IDF is.

“No army in the world acts with as much discretion and great care as the IDF in order to minimize damage. The US and the UK are careful, but not as much as Israel,” he told the committee.

On Thursday, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, added his endorsement of the IDF’s attempt to limit civilian casualties in Gaza:

Were 96% of Gaza Dead Civilians? Erekat’s Latest Whopper

...Rettig Gur is right that the Palestinian leadership consistently seeks international pressure on Israel as a tactic to gain in an edge in negotiations. The leadership of the BDS movement, however, is not concerned with negotiations. It seeks to isolate Israel in order to undercut its legitimacy and ultimately crush its Jewish identity.

Image: CC BY Munich Security Conference
Tobias Kleinschmidt via Wikimedia Commons/em>

Alex Margolin..
Honest Reporting..
06 October '14..

One has to wonder why any reputable media outlet would invite the truth-challenged Palestinian official Saeb Erekat for an interview. It must be for the entertainment value of the outlandish things he’s bound to say.

And his recent appearance on Army Radio did not disappoint.

Erekat revealed that a full 96% of all Palestinians killed were civilians. The number well exceeds the figure cited by the UN, based mostly on reports by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which stands at around 75%. Israeli officials claim that just about half of the Gazans killed in the war were members of Hamas or other terror groups.

The dispute over casualty figures is likely to continue for many months. In fact, the ultimate winner of the Gaza war, at least in the court of public opinion, is the side that persuades the public that it acted with greater morality and care. And Erekat’s Big Lie is intended to bolster the Palestinian claim that Israel used excessive force in Gaza.

Erekat, of course, was the Palestinian leader who claimed that 500 Palestinians were killed in Jenin in 2002, when the number was actually far less than 100, alongside substantial Israeli casualties. According to Haviv Rettig Gur, these sorts of claims are part of a larger strategy, also championed by the BDS movement, that seek to isolate Israel internationally.

Trumping editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality at the BBC

...Indeed the price paid by Gaza’s civilian population for the actions of terrorist organisations embedded in their midst is a “heavy” and regrettable one. However – in contrast to the impression this anonymously written feature deliberately attempts to create – it is nevertheless no heavier than that paid by civilian populations in conflict zones elsewhere in the world. The BBC’s decision not to inform its audiences of that fact can only be attributed to political motivations being allowed to trump editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
30 September '14..

On September 1st the BBC News website published a feature titled “Gaza crisis: Toll of operations in Gaza” which has since become a frequent appendage to numerous other articles published on the website’s Middle East page. As we know, the BBC has stated that its online content is intended to act as “historical records” and hence the accuracy and impartiality of that content is of prime importance.Toll of Operations art

This particular feature opens with the following words:

“The number of civilians killed during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge offensive has raised international concern and condemnation.

Between 8 July and 27 August, more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, along with 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel.

The UN says the vast majority of Palestinian deaths are civilian. But figures from previous operations over the past six years in the densely populated Gaza Strip show it is not the first time civilians have paid a heavy price.”

Once again we see the BBC quoting “the UN” as though that body were impeccably objective, but with no effort made to inform audiences with regard to the very significant issue of the background to those UN statements and the political motivations involved.

(Continue)

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Why Israel and the Unasked Question on Syria

...The media should continue to focus its coverage on Syria on the question of whether the president’s actions are effective, not whether some accidents or mistakes by U.S. personnel resulted in civilian losses. But you can bet that the same sources will revert to the same stances they took this past summer when Hamas resumes its fight against Israel, as it will sooner or later. When it does, don’t expect any admissions by journalists that they are applying different standards to Israel than they did to U.S. forces. But that is exactly what they will be doing. The term by which such prejudice is usually called is anti-Semitism.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
24 September '14..

The unleashing of the campaign of U.S. air strikes on terrorist targets throughout Syria last night may be the beginning of an offensive that will, as President Obama claimed this morning, “take the fight” to ISIS. If so, the bombings must be judged to be a commendable, if belated instance of presidential leadership. But as even the president’s cheering section at MSNBC and other liberal strongholds suddenly take on the appearance of being “war lovers,” it’s fair to wonder about one question that was uppermost on the minds of most of the media this past summer when other terrorists were being pounded from the air: what about the civilian casualties and infrastructure damage?

Accounts of the attacks on ISIS targets as well as those on the Khorasan group speak of strikes on bases, training camps, and checkpoints as well as command-and-control centers in four provinces and having been in the vicinity of several Syrian cities. Many terrorists may have been killed and severe damage done to the ability of both ISIS and the Khorasan group to conduct operations. The first videos of the aftermath of the bombings show members of the groups digging out the rubble and seeking survivors of the attacks. The surrounding area appears to be one of built-up structures. While some of these bases and command-and-control centers may well have been in isolated places, it is likely that many, if not most, were in the vicinity of civilian residences. All of which leads to the question that almost no one, at least in the American media, is asking today: what about civilian casualties or damage to infrastructure facilities that might severely impact the quality of life of those who live in these areas?

If we are being honest, the answer to such queries is clear: we don’t know. American forces conduct such operations under rules of engagement that seek to limit if not totally eliminate non-military casualties. But even under the strictest limits, civilians are killed in war. It is also to be hoped that all of the strikes were conducted with perfect accuracy, but that is the sort of thing that generally only happens in movies. In real life, war is conducted in an environment in which a host of factors make perfection as unattainable as it is in every other aspect of life. Which means it is almost certain that at least some Syrian civilians (a population that may include supporters of the terrorists and some who are essentially their hostages) were killed and wounded last night.

If anyone were thinking about that fact today, you wouldn’t know it from watching any of the cable news networks. The impact of the strikes on individuals in Syria or any potential damage to civilian infrastructure is of no interest to the commentators or the anchors. Instead, the conversation about the attacks on terror targets focuses solely on how effective the strikes have been, the role of U.S. allies, and whether these actions will be followed up with sufficient ground force actions that will make it possible to truly defeat ISIS or any al-Qaeda affiliates currently running riot in the region. The only criticisms being voiced are those about the president’s lack of a specific authorization from Congress for these actions, whether U.S. forces will have to fight on the ground there, or if the attacks have gone far enough.

All this is in stark contrast to the reaction to Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza this past summer.

Handling a Seemingly Sisyphean Quest by Sarah Honig

...Often corroboration comes too late. In Operation Cast lead, Hamas insisted that all but 50 fatalities were innocent civilians. Years later it owned up that it lost between 600-700 fighters (which was what the IDF maintained all along). Unfortunately, the bigger and more blatant the lie, the harder it is to set the record straight. Still, Israel cannot neglect this seemingly Sisyphean quest for the truth.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
11 August '14..

The most effective weapon which Hamas wielded against Israel throughout Protective Edge was its manipulation of civilian casualty numbers and images. The cumulative impact was used to provoke hate campaigns against Israel and/or Jews worldwide and misrepresent Israel’s self-defense as a calculated massacre of helpless civilians.

Some of the ploys were cynical beyond belief.

Photos of dead bodies from the Syrian conflict were recycled as Gazan victims of Israeli malevolence. Even pictures of the Fogel family children, slaughtered inside their Itamar home in 2011 by Palestinian terrorists, were purported to show Arabs murdered by Israeli troops.

Footage from the emergency room at Shifa Hospital in Gaza was rerun continually as if chronicling brand new incidents. Patients brought in due to disease, accidents and domestic violence were all exhibited as casualties of deliberate Israeli barbarity.

But none of this rivaled the numbers game.

Practically all “martyr statistics” depended on the word of one man – Gaza Health Ministry spokesman, Dr. Ashraf al-Kudra. Unchallenged, he could raise numbers exponentially and capriciously.

His assertions became gospel, resonated religiously by most media organizations and he could finagle the ratios of combatants versus noncombatants, of children versus adults, of men versus women. Israel’s “disproportionality” canard, smacking of the anti-Jewish medieval blood libel, was thus crucially underpinned.

The upshot was that Hamas provided the so-called objective data with which Israel was walloped. It was Hamas which told foreign onlookers that Israel targeted principally small children and elderly women.

Gaza, Hamas and the Truth About Palestinian Casualties

...Anyone who truly cares about Gaza’s civilian population will draw the appropriate conclusions and concentrate their criticisms on the terrorist group whose genocidal ideology impels it to continue their fight their war against Israel’s existence as long as there are Palestinians left to be sacrificed.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
09 August '14..

Even after Hamas brazenly flouted the latest attempts to end the fighting in Gaza, demonstrators marched around the globe to protest what they and the Palestinians claim are Israeli war crimes. The crux of their critique is that the Israel Defense Forces has engaged in indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. But, as even some of the mainstream media is beginning to acknowledge, a deep dive into the statistics that are cited to damn Israel tell a different story.

As the Times of Israel notes the analyses of both the BBC and the New York Times of United Nations casualty figures show that those Palestinians killed in the fighting are disproportionately male as well as having a massive overrepresentation of men in the 20-29 age group that is most likely to be members of terrorist armed cadres.

These facts do not gainsay the fact that Palestinians of all age groups and both sexes have been killed in the fighting in the past month. The people of Gaza have suffered cruelly from this war of choice launched by Hamas.

But the point of the breakdown of the casualty figures is that when you stop obsessing about heart-rending pictures of dead and wounded children that have been running in a video loop on all the news channels and start asking serious questions about the age and gender of most of the casualties, the libels about Israeli “war crimes” don’t stand up to scrutiny. The talk about “indiscriminate killing” that is casually tossed about at demonstrations, on op-ed pages and in the debates between television’s talking heads (including some who falsely claim to be friends of Israel) is often taken as a given. But the facts tell us a very different story that vindicates Israel’s claims that rather than firing into civilian areas without concern for the consequences, their targets are the fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have been holding Gaza hostage since 2007.

The Additional Price of Israel’s Gaza Pullout in Palestinian Lives

...This Hamas strategy increases Palestinian casualties in another way as well: by magnifying the impact of any Israeli strike. Precision bombs can sometimes take out a building without touching the ones next to it. But precision strikes don’t work when the building they hit is booby-trapped or serves as a rocket warehouse; in that case, secondary explosions will create a much broader swathe of destruction. And Israel has no way of knowing when a target has been booby-trapped; Hamas doesn’t provide it with maps.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
04 August '14..

Last week, I noted that Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza has cost the lives of more Israeli soldiers than remaining in Gaza would have. But no less significant is the fact that Israel’s pullout has cost the lives of far more Palestinians than remaining in Gaza would have.

Here, too, a comparison to the second intifada is instructive. According to B’Tselem’s statistics, 1,727 Palestinians were killed in Gaza between September 2000, when the intifada began, and the August 2005 pullout. Since then, the numbers have soared. Another 1,271 Palestinians were killed between the pullout and December 2008, when the first Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began; 1,391 were killed during that war, and 481 between then and the start of the current war. That’s 3,143 Palestinian fatalities in total, and Palestinians claim another 1,600 or so have been killed during this war. So even if you assume, which I do, that B’Tselem’s numbers are exaggerated (it tends to believe Palestinian reports far too uncritically), the trend is undeniable: Since the pullout, Israeli-Palestinian fighting has produced more than twice as many Palestinian fatalities as the peak years of the second intifada did.

Moreover, as in the case of Israeli fatalities, this increase represents a sharp contrast to the trend in the West Bank, which the Israel Defense Forces still control: There, Palestinian fatalities have fallen from 1,491 between September 2000 and August 2005 to 395 in the nine years since August 2005, meaning annual fatalities have fallen by more than 85 percent (they haven’t dropped to zero because neither has Palestinian terror; terror attacks still kill Israelis every year, but the level is dramatically lower than at the height of the intifada).

The question is why Palestinian fatalities in Gaza have risen so sharply. The anti-Israel crowd will doubtless cite this fact as “proof” that recent Israeli premiers are even more bloodthirsty than “the butcher of Beirut,” as they fondly dubbed Ariel Sharon, the prime minister during the second intifada. But anyone not convinced that Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu are simply monsters who like eating Palestinian children for breakfast will have to consider the obvious alternative: Palestinian casualties have soared because the IDF’s departure from Gaza allowed terrorist organizations to entrench their rockets, tunnels, and explosives among the civilian population in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

In the current war, Palestinians have stored rockets in schools and launched them from hospitals and from amid civilian houses. They have built cross-border tunnels to attack Israel that pass under civilian houses and emerge straight into a mosque. They have booby-trapped civilian houses and even health clinics. In short, by embedding their war material among the civilian population, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have made it impossible for the IDF to target them without also hitting civilians.

Concerning Gaza's Civilian Casualties, the Truth is Very Different

...This sickening exploitation of their own people's suffering, and media's complicity in it, is nowhere more cynically demonstrated than in the operating theaters of the Gaza Strip. Without the slightest regard for life-saving hygiene, or for the care, privacy or dignity of the wounded, Palestinian officials enthusiastically hustle camera crews in to the emergency room as desperate surgeons battle for a bleeding and broken child's life.

Richard Kemp..
Gatestone Institute..
03 August '14..

"So are you going after innocent civilians or is it incompetence Colonel Lerner?" asks the interviewer, her face contorted with a contempt apparently reserved only for Israelis. Such shrill disrespect hurled at an American or British officer would alienate viewers, and, at an Arab commander, provoke accusations of racism.

This line of questioning – repeated across the networks on a daily basis – betrays a naïve and uncomprehending willingness to believe, and encourages viewers to believe, the absurd notion that the Israel Defence Force [IDF] is commanded and manned from top to bottom by psychopathic baby-killing thugs.

To suggest that military incompetence is the only explanation for civilian deaths other than deliberate mass murder reveals a breathtaking but unsurprising ignorance of the realities of combat.

Although rarely allowed to complete so much as a single sentence, Israeli attempts to explain IDF targeting policies are inevitably dismissed as laughable fabrication.

The truth is very different. The IDF has developed the most comprehensive and sophisticated measures to minimize civilian casualties during attacks against legitimate military targets.

Mandatory, multi-sensor intelligence and surveillance systems to confirm the presence or absence of civilians precede attacks on every target from the air. Text messages, phone calls and radio messages in Arabic warn occupants to leave. Air-dropped leaflets include maps showing safe areas. When warnings go unheeded, aircraft drop non-lethal explosives to warn that an attack is imminent.

Only when pilots and air controllers are sure that civilians are clear of the target will authorization be given to attack. When pilots use laser-guided munitions they must have pre-designated safe areas to which to divert the missiles in flight should civilians suddenly appear.

A Hamas military commander recounts on Palestinian TV how Israeli forces gave advance warning to him, to evacuate his home before bombing it. He goes on to describe how after the warning, he rushed to gather friends, family and neighbors on the roof of the building.

Two pictures showing Palestinian human shields gathered on buildings for which the Israel Air Force has given advance warning of a pending bombing.

Arguing the Palestinian side, making the case for barbarism.

...Or maybe he was just another victim of what I call the Palestine Effect: The abrupt and often total collapse of logical reasoning, skeptical intelligence and ordinary moral judgment whenever the subject of Palestinian suffering arises.

Ben Rhodes, a White House
victim of the Palestine Effect. mandel ngan/Agence France-Presse/
Getty Images

Bret Stephens..
Wall Street Journal..
28 July '14..

Of all the inane things that have been said about the war between Israel and Hamas, surely one dishonorable mention belongs to comments made over the weekend by Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

Interviewed by CNN's Candy Crowley, Mr. Rhodes offered the now-standard administration line that Israel has a right to defend itself but needs to do more to avoid civilian casualties. Ms. Crowley interjected that, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jewish state was already doing everything it could to avoid such casualties.

"I think you can always do more," Mr. Rhodes replied. "The U.S. military does that in Afghanistan."

How inapt is this comparison? The list of Afghan civilians accidentally killed by U.S. or NATO strikes is not short. Little of the fighting in Afghanistan took place in the dense urban environments that make the current warfare in Gaza so difficult. The last time the U.S. fought a Gaza-style battle—in Fallujah in 2004—some 800 civilians perished and at least 9,000 homes were destroyed. This is not an indictment of U.S. conduct in Fallujah but an acknowledgment of the grim reality of city combat.

Oh, and by the way, American towns and cities were not being rocketed from above or tunneled under from below as the Fallujah campaign was under way.

Maybe Mr. Rhodes knows all this and was merely caught out mouthing the sorts of platitudes that are considered diplomatically de rigueur when it comes to the Palestinians. Or maybe he was just another victim of what I call the Palestine Effect: The abrupt and often total collapse of logical reasoning, skeptical intelligence and ordinary moral judgment whenever the subject of Palestinian suffering arises.

For Hamas insiders it's all worth it

...Not for the first time, it's evident that the death and mayhem that results from Islamist hatred and jihad has cash at its heart.

Hamas insiders at 2012 Gaza rally: Things
have been working out surprisingly well
for them; not so great for ordinary Gazans
[Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 July '14..

An analytical piece with the improbable title "Meet the Hamas billionaires" appeared in Israel's main business newspaper, Globes, on July 24, 2014. It takes a close look at the extraordinary phenomenon of

how much the Hamas leaders, the Arab world's new tycoons, are worth, and how they, born and raised in refugee camps, who raise aloft the cause of their people's welfare, have become so wealthy and reclusive.

Authored by Ella Levy-Weinrib, it is largely based on original research by Dr. Moshe Elad of the Western Galilee Academic College in Acre. His career in the IDF included three decades of senior positions in Judea and Samaria.

Elad's thesis is that the founders of the Hamas terrorist organization accumulated phenomenal personal wealth from tapping into Islamic charitable sources. These initially came from Syria and Saudi Arabia. At a later stage, Iran took a major role that today has been eclipsed by the stupendously-wealthy rulers of Qatar.

He tracks the rise of the personal fortunes of several key Hamas figures.

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Truth, Propaganda and Casualties in Gaza

...So, during this war, Israel continued to accept Palestinians from Gaza for medical treatment–until this was blocked not by Israel but by Hamas, in another display of its disregard for the safety and health of Gazans. Of course that won’t stop the propaganda about Israel’s actions, including by the United Nations. But the facts are there for those who seek them out.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
16 July '14..

International concern for casualties in Gaza is growing, as the death toll there exceeds 200. And most of the casualties are civilians, say various left-wing and anti-Israel news sources–as well as, of course, Hamas itself. And, unsurprisingly, the United Nations: “77 per cent of fatalities since the start of Operation Protective Edge on 7 July have been civilians.”

This is almost certainly false, as a look at the numbers by CAMERA shows. The Gaza population has the predictable demographic qualities: half men and half women, many children, etc. If 77% of the casualties were civilians, we would see that reflected in the figures. If there is a huge over-representation of males of combat age in the casualty figures, it’s fair to assume that’s because Israel is targeting and hitting combatants. And so it is:

the fatalities are disproportionately [compared to the overall population] among young males, which corresponds with the characteristics of combatants….only about 12 percent of the total fatalities are female, though females make up half the population….the median age of Gazans is reported to be around 15. Males under 15 make up just 13 percent of the total fatalities even though they represent half of all males in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas want this battle to go on though it's going disastrously for them. Why?

...With each day, it becomes clearer that there's a limit to the patience of a population under fire and possessed of the technology and military power to carpet bomb the murder-minded zealots on the other side of the fence. But try explaining that to a Hamas leadership the key members of which are hiding out in comfortable, air-conditioned Qatar and other Gulf state locations, and in bunkers buried safely and deeply below Gaza's mosques and children's hospitals.

Hamas political head Khaled Mashaal in
his luxurious (and safe) Gulf state boudoir

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
16 July '14..

The Washington Post's editorial board ask the question that troubles many Israelis as the IDF continues to pound the Gaza Strip and as the jihadists fire more and more of the thousands of rockets stored in their repositories deep within the civilian infrastructure of their cities:

Hamas’s military campaign against Israel has been a dismal failure... [so] why would Hamas insist on continuing the fight when it is faring so poorly?

In "Hamas is playing a dangerous game with Gazan lives | The Post's View", published yesterday, they offer an answer. They say it's the only one that's plausible. They term it "stomach-turning"; most people would agree:

The Islamic movement calculates that it can win the concessions it has yet to obtain from Israel and Egypt not by striking Israel but by perpetuating the killing of its own people in Israeli counterattacks. More than 200 people, including a number of children, have already died in Gaza; Hamas probably calculates that more deaths will prompt Western governments to pressure Israel to grant Hamas’s demands.

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The disingenuous Gaza numbers game

...Zero – The number of civilians in this and future conflicts that will be protected as a result of the immoral and tendentious statements issued by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, OHCHR, Oxfam, Gisha and other NGOs.

Anne Herzberg..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
14 July '14..

Five days into Operation Protective Edge, the out-going UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a statement that the number of casualties in Gaza raises “serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”

In a similar vein, UNWRA Spokesperson Chris Gunness has a running commentary of casualties on his Twitter feed, including the plea to “Imagine being a 5 year old in #Gaza This is the 3rd terrifying bombardment in your short life. Where else have 5 year olds suffered thus?” These numbers and emotional appeals, however, are seriously misplaced.

If many civilians are being killed in Gaza, it is because Hamas is storing and launching deadly missiles from within populated areas and exploiting the population there as a human shield. Conversely, if even one civilian were to be illegitimately targeted, that single killing would be illegal.

Thus, the UN officials’ emotive statements are entirely disconnected from the legal and moral implications of Israel’s actions.

Similarly, many highly politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have issued overwrought statements on Gaza casualties, making unverifiable claims that the vast majority are civilians and blaming Israel again. These comments stand in stark contrast to the sterile, pro-forma and brief mentions of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, to the extent they are mentioned at all.

Amnesty International, for example, stated, “Since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in the early morning of 8 July, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians who were not directly participating in hostilities.”

Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted, “My daughter’s head here, my son’s arm there: Life for a #Gaza family under #Israel attack. Six children killed,” linking to a tendentious article out of the UAE.

Oxfam’s statement highlighted “civilians in Gaza, who are already impoverished by the ongoing Israeli blockade and account for the vast majority of those injured and killed in the violence.”

As in the past, media outlets have uncritically adopted these memes, focusing extensive coverage on the Gaza casualties, as if the real-time consequences of war were simply points in a video game.

Seeing increasing casualties, undoubtedly with women and children hurt alongside the Hamas fighters, pulls at heartstrings and makes for good headlines.

It is also an effective way for NGOs to maximize anguish and drive up influence and thus, donations.

Anyone Asking Why Gaza Doesn't Have Bomb Shelters?

...Gaza’s tyrants have plenty of money and material to build shelters. And they have built plenty of them. They’re just not for the people of Gaza...Hamas’ leaders and fighters are kept safe in a warren of shelters build deep underneath Gaza. There is also plenty of room there for its supply of thousands of rockets and other armaments. Moreover, they are also connected by tunnels that crisscross the length of that independent Palestinian state in all but name ruled by Hamas. Indeed, when you consider the vast square footage devoted to these structures, there may well be far more shelter space per square mile in Gaza than anyplace in Israel.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
13 July '14..

One of the key talking points by apologists for Hamas in the current conflict is that it isn’t fair that Israelis under fire have bomb shelters while Palestinians in Gaza don’t have any. Among other factors, he lack of shelters accounts in part for the differences in casualty figures between the two peoples. But somehow none of the talking heads on TV ever ask why there are no bomb shelters in Gaza.

There’s no question that Hamas is outgunned by Israel. The Islamist terror group that still rules over Gaza has thousands of rockets but Palestinians eager to cheer news of Israeli casualties have been disappointed as the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system has knocked down most of the rockets shot over the border from Gaza at Israeli cities in the hope that carnage will result. But even though Israel has gone to unprecedented lengths to avoid killing Palestinian civilians as it attacks the missile launch sites and Hamas command centers and ammunition storage areas that are embedded in packed neighborhood and especially in or around schools, mosques and clinics, some civilians have died. Given that the Israelis have pounded the Islamists with nearly a thousand strikes this week, the approximately 150 Palestinian fatalities is actually pretty low. But still, fewer Palestinians would have died had there been places for them to seek refuge during the fighting.

The assumption is that the Hamas-run strip is too poor to afford building shelters and safe rooms for its civilians, a point that adds to the impression that the Palestinians are helpless victims who deserve the sympathy if not the help of the world in fending off Israel’s assault on Hamas’ arsenal.

But the assumption is utterly false. Gaza’s tyrants have plenty of money and material to build shelters. And they have built plenty of them. They’re just not for the people of Gaza.

As is well known, Gaza is honeycombed with underground structures from one end of the strip to the other. This doesn’t only refer to the more than 1,400 tunnels that have connected Gaza to Egypt through which all sorts of things — including rockets, ammunition, building materials as well as consumer goods came into the strip until the military government in Cairo stopped the traffic. The chief problem facing the Israeli Defense Forces in this campaign is the same one they faced in 2008 and 2012 when they previously tried to temporarily silence the rocket fire. Hamas’ leaders and fighters are kept safe in a warren of shelters build deep underneath Gaza. There is also plenty of room there for its supply of thousands of rockets and other armaments. Moreover, they are also connected by tunnels that crisscross the length of that independent Palestinian state in all but name ruled by Hamas. Indeed, when you consider the vast square footage devoted to these structures, there may well be far more shelter space per square mile in Gaza than anyplace in Israel.

(Video) Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army?

...Al Jazeera "“Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli air force doesn’t bomb those areas?

LOTL..
31 March '14..




Posted in Honest Reporting's Israel Daily News Stream 30 March '14:

In an astonishing Al Jazeera Arabic video (via Tom Gross), news presenter Faisal Al-Qaseem says the Israeli (and French) armies have a better record at avoiding civilian casualties than Syria and Hezbollah.

“Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli air force doesn’t bomb those areas? Why doesn’t the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools or inhabited neighborhoods? Why does it shell even the areas of its supporters?”

The highly recommended Israel Daily News Stream of Honest Reporting is sent out once a day with any number of interesting short pieces and links. An excellent way to keep on top of what is being reported in the media, a free subscription which can be found by visiting their site at http://honestreporting.com/israeldailynewsstream/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 
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