by Daniel Greenfield, GATESTONE • February 4, 2024
The funeral of Israel Defense Forces Capt. Harel Itach, who fell in battle against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, on December 31, 2023 in Netanya, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
- The moral calculus between the Allies and the Nazis in WWII did not change based on how many German civilians were killed in the bombings and artillery shelling on the road to Berlin. The morality of the American Civil War was not measured in civilian deaths, and neither is any other.
- A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war: only one of the two sides was engaged in a total war of extermination.
- On October 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. The number games are meant to be a distraction from that simple fact.
- Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.
The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”
That’s all the more impressive since, even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.
“The Times cites its own claim that, “numbering the dead correctly is virtually impossible”.
“Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, warned that truth is the first casualty of war. And accurate casualty counts are the first and final casualty of every conflict.”
But what do these statistics provided by mainstream and legacy news media really say? What is their intent? Is it to convey the truth as accurately as possible? Is it to convey a message?
These statistics and the righteous indignation that accompany them are meant to convey the message that Israel is a nation of killers. The message is loud and clear. There is no context, there is no comparing those lost on either side of the war with other wars. There is only one point to these articles and that is to smear the reputation of Israel. These are libelous attempts to make people around the world think Israel is the aggressor instead of the victim in this conflict.
Here are the thoughts of one Israeli:
Israel: Can you recognize Israel’s right to exist & make peace treaty?
Hamas: No
Israel: Can you stop launching rockets?
Hamas: No
Israel: Can you prevent terror attacks?
Hamas: No
Israel: Can you release Israeli hostages?
Hamas: No
Israel: Ok, we’ll protect our citizens.
Hamas: Genocide.