Wars kill people, many of them civilians. That much we know for sure. Counting the dead in any war zone can be quite difficult. But death toll estimates are rarely subjected to media scrutiny–which makes the exceptions notable.
The war in Syria, for instance, is confidently estimated to have killed over 170,000 people, a third of them civilians. There are rarely substantive debates over whether that count is accurate, or whether it overstates or understates the toll on innocents.
But the death tolls coming out of Gaza are a different matter altogether. The New York Times and Washington Post both published critiques of the figures from Gaza, strongly suggesting that the numbers should be treated skeptically, mostly because the Israeli government says so.
On August 4, the Post‘s Paul Farhi presented the problem as a journalistic issue, noting that if the question is who has died in the war, “the answers emerging in Gaza are colored by charges of propaganda and media manipulation.” He explains:
Supporters of Israel say the raw casualty numbers coming from Gaza are suspect, both in size and in composition. They assert that the sources –the Hamas-controlled health ministry, pro-Palestinian groups, nongovernmental organizations–are partisan and have an incentive to inflate and distort the figures to influence international media accounts, and hence poison world opinion about Israel.
And, on the other side, “Palestinian and non-state organizations counter that they are making a good-faith effort to account for the dead amid difficult circumstances.” Farhi adds that the most widely cited figure from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is 1,888 deaths, but that only tells part of the story: “But that estimate is fraught with an important sub-issue: How many of those killed are Hamas fighters, compared with civilians?”
The group says 84 percent of the deaths are civilians, but Israel does not agree.
An Israeli government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said about half of those killed have been Hamas combatants, and the number could rise once Israeli intelligence sources vet all of names of those killed. This higher figure is consistent, he said, with what Israeli officials found in after-action investigations into Israel’s two most recent operations in Gaza, in late 2012 and in 2008-2009.
So there is a raging dispute: The pro-Israel side suggests a massive effort to conceal the truth (not only by “Hamas-controlled” agencies and “pro-Palestinian groups,” but also by the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations like the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem), but cannot explain how this is happening–unless you grant a government official anonymity to offer without explanation a remarkably different tally of the deaths, which the source says is consistent with its other investigations of itself. Both sides have their say.
In the New York Times (8/5/14), Jodi Rudoren offered a similarly muddled account that served primarily to bolster Israel efforts to deflect criticism of the war. Rudoren shows that there are several counts with slightly different findings, with estimates of the civilian toll ranging between 72 t0 84 percent of the total deaths.
Rudoren grants that Israel
has a very different assessment. The military says it took the lives of 900 “terrorists,” but it did not provide specifics beyond the 368 cases listed in 28 entries on its blog. Politicians have been saying that 47 percent of the dead were fighters, citing a study by an Israeli counterterrorism group that is impressive in its documentation, using photographs and Internet tributes, but analyzes only the first 152 casualties, when the assault was exclusively from the air.
So the Israeli account is that the numbers are very different. But this finding is based on some very limited counts, one of which Rudoren calls “impressive.” She also conveys the Israeli government’s point of view elsewhere, like when she notes that “it says that the ratio of combatants killed in a densely populated urban environment supports its assertion that it conducted the attacks as humanely as possible.”
Determining whether deaths are civilian or military is the heart of the matter. “No other number is as contentious as the ratio of civilians to combatants killed,” Rudoren explains. So what is the truth, then?
An analysis of the statistics provided by both sides suggests that a majority were probably noncombatants. Through last Thursday, according to a New York Times analysis of a list provided by the Health Ministry, more than a third were women, children under 15 or men over 60.
The Times does not dwell on this finding, or pursue it greater detail. Indeed, the paper immediately shifts the focus:
But the difference between roughly half the dead being combatants, in the Israeli version, or barely 10 percent, to use the most stark numbers on the other side, is wide enough to change the characterization of the conflict.
Rudoren then notes that some deaths were probably due to other factors:
Human rights groups acknowledge that people killed by Hamas as collaborators and people who died naturally, or perhaps through domestic violence, are most likely counted as well.
And then Rudoren observes that many of the dead would fall into the “population most likely to be militants”:
The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll: They are 9 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34 percent of those killed whose ages were provided. At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71 percent of the population and 33 percent of the known-age casualties.
The effect could not be clearer: Sure, it might sound like many of the dead were civilians, but here are some theories about how things might not be as they appear. It’s hard to make killing nearly 500 women and young children sound like a sign of benevolence, but the New York Times gives it its best shot.
Rudoren even wonders if there’s a way to accurately characterize Hamas deaths:
Then there is the question of who counts as a “combatant.”
There are uniformed men actively firing weapons. But Hamas also has political figures, members of its security service and employees of its ministries. In some eyes, anyone affiliated with the organization, which professes a goal of destroying Israel, is a combatant.
This claim is challenged by a Human Rights Watch researcher–and thus, like so much else, it is reduced to a conflict between sources.
But as NYU law professor Ryan Goodman (Just Security, 8/6/14) pointed out, there is relatively little debate among international law experts on this subject. He writes that the Times piece
analyzes the key legal issue without mentioning the existence of any international legal standard.
Indeed, a reader would not be faulted for concluding, after reading the story, that this is simply an amorphous area in which parties to a conflict and civil society groups might arrive at their own conclusions. Instead, the law of war is fairly well settled on this issue in many important respects.
Goodman notes that the widely recognized definition of legitimate targets under international law “excludes purely political leaders, religious figures, financial contributors and others without a fighting function.” Journalists should be glad that this is the case, because otherwise an op-ed columnist who “professes a goal” of eliminating Hamas would be considered fair game for a military attack.
These pieces are reminiscent of some of the problematic reporting about deaths in the Iraq War. Which might lead one to conclude that what makes a given death toll controversial is linked to who is doing the killing.
Doug Latimer
Kill ’em all
Then let our shills sort ’em out
Lewis
This strategy of downplaying civilian deaths was done already by the Wall Street Journal to protect Israel, also without any supplied evidence. Because it’s one thing to say there’s a legitimate reason to question the numbers if it’s been lied about in the past but Rudoren did not provide any examples. One that comes to my mind is a massacre of males young and old during the Kosovo war, which is usually called a genocide. The police forces there made the same claim, they were simply targeting terrorists.
William
To be sure, Hart’s latest anti-Israel hatchet job is absurd and produces the usual FAIR-induced whiff of desperation. Hart pillories the media for allowing Israel to challenge civilian casualty figures concocted by Hamas, whose terrorist organization could reasonably be described as the Baron Munchausen of statisticians.
More significant, Hart acknowledges the following in the opening lines of his article: “Wars kill people, many of them civilians.”
Sure, this may sound like a truism. But FAIR has long urged the opposite proposition when it comes to Israel. In short, FAIR has repeatedly accused Israel of committing a shocking crime merely by defending itself in wars in which civilians have inevitably perished.
Hart also points out the vast number of civilians who have died in the Syrian conflict. Will his next piece excoriate the mainstream media for paying so much attention to civilian deaths in Gaza relative to those in Syria? Don’t hold your breath.
William
Lewis, I thought I’d give you a hand. You asked for examples of lying about civilian casualties. I guess you’re unfamiliar with Operation Cast Lead, in the aftermath of which Hamas confessed it had dramatically inflated the number of civilian casualties.
Now do you get it?
David Star
As anyone who reads Peter Hart’s piece all the way to the end will discover, there are very good reasons for doubting the civilian casualty figures coming out of the Hamas-run police state in Gaza. If women, children, and men over 60 account for little more than a third of those killed, then that clearly undermines the endlessly-repeated claim that a vast majority of the dead are civilians. It also undermines Hart’s claim that the main reason offered for questioning the usual figures is “because the Israeli government says so.” Overall, Hart does a decent job of citing the arguments on both sides, but it is intellectually dishonest on his part to suggest that the pro-Israel arguments are baseless when his own article shows otherwise.
Luis
Rudoren’s logic seems to imply: “It’s cool if Israel killed hundreds of women and children…so long as a higher proportion of fighters also died.” Imagine if Mexico started shelling and bombing Texas and then, when international condemnation pleaded for it to stop its war crimes, it retorted “But proportionately, we’ve killed more American soldiers than those hundreds of civilians who died from our bombing.”
Of course, when one points out that Mexico also bombed a power plant in Texas, cutting off electricity to incubators in hospitals, the Williams of Mexico will be left standing there with perplexed expressions on their faces, mumbling something about rockets from Texas.
Of course, when in doubt, just remember that Palestinians don’t count as human beings (they want to wipe Israel off the map!) so it doesn’t really matter anyway, and do as William does: dismiss these non-humans as “concoctions” of Hamas.
Tee
It should be safe to say that the stockpiles of weapons possessed by the ruling elite of the world governments are meant to terrorize, control, and if needed inflict coersive pain and death on civilians, not enemy combatants.
Soldiers very seldom face off like they did in Vietnam. Now it”s drones, F16, helicopter gunships firing on “terrorist” or another word for civilians.
Don’t be surprised if Ferguson is a dress rehearsal of civilian control and killing in the US. The appear to be pushing this
Huw
Here is a thought experiment – and I don’t say it’s conclusive, it’s only an experiment.
I recall reading a story from the years of Western occupation of Iraq about an occasion when US troops decided to bulldoze an old farmer’s orchard because it potentially provided cover for insurgents. The old man, being a Middle Easterner, objected to having his ancestral orchard bulldozed and went and got his equally aged gun. The soldiers identified him as an “illegal combatant” and shot him dead.
Now, was he a “militant” or a civilian? No doubt if the United States was occupied by a foreign power – let’s say the Chinese, that seems more plausible than the Mexicans – you would hope that your menfolk would put up a bit of resistance, like that Iraqi farmer. But would they then all become “militants” and legitimate targets? Do only people who are utterly quiescent and unresisting count as civilians?
It doesn’t seem to me implausible that when Israeli soldiers invade Gaza, with their kindly customs of shooting the odd woman and child in the back, trashing people’s homes, killing their livestock, writing racist graffiti on the walls &c &c, a lot of self-respecting Palestinian men “of military age” feel obliged to fight back, just as ( I would imagine) a lot of self-respecting US men would in similar circumstances. That might explain why Israeli soldiers have reported that while some “Hamas fighters” have surprised them by being very well trained and disciplined, others have quickly run away under fire.
If my conjecture is right, a lot of the men “of military age” killed by the Israelis in Gaza may indeed have been armed and may have been trying to protect their homes and neighbourhoods – and yet not been soldiers of Hamas (or Islamic Jihad or Fatah or any other Palestinian resistance group) at all.
Does that stand up? What do you think?
john wolfe
It looks as if the Israelis have expanded the definition of “combatant” the same way we did in Vietnam; it includes anyone who works for the hated government. Thus, we had Operation Phoenix, a CIA tageted assasination program that erased 20,000 people who supported, but did not fight for, the Viet Cong. In a similar vein, Israel targets anyone in the elected Hamas government because their presence in what the Israelis label a “terrorist government” warrants their execution. That same mentality jusifies Israeli destruction of power plants, hospitals, civilian factories that employed hundreds, and radio and TV stations. A”total war” concept, with white phosphorous and depleted uranium shells thrown into these condensed urban fighting areas for deadly genetic measure. I mean, the Israelis were repeatedly warned about the exact location of the UN schools that were used to shelter homeless civilians, but still used US bombs and weapons to destroy them. They were given exact coordinates.
David Star
Luis’s comment shows he does not grasp the basic issues involved. No one implies that it is “cool” when civilians die but, as Peter Hart observes, many of those killed in war are civilians. That is true in all modern warfare, and it would be true in Luis’s example.
If the US attacked Mexico and Mexico responded by shelling US military bases in Texas, that would not be a war crime even if hundreds of civilians living nearby were also killed. The Mexican argument that “proportionately, we’ve killed more American soldiers than civilians” would be accepted as good evidence that Mexico was not targeting civilians or bombing indiscriminately.
The same goes for Israel. If it were attacking indiscriminately, the percentage (and absolute numbers) of women and children killed would be far higher. Given the difficulty of answering rocket attacks from urban areas, all the evidence suggests that Israel takes exceptional care to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible.
Israel does not dehumanize the enemy as Hamas does. A popular Hamas propaganda song calls Israel a nest of cockroaches to be exterminated. The only reason there are not more Israeli casualties is that, thanks to the embargo, Hamas does not have the weapons it would need to realize its genocidal dreams.
David Star
John Wolfe mistakenly refers to the “elected Hamas government.” There is no elected Hamas government in Gaza. Hamas did win parliamentary elections in Palestine, but it seized executive power in Gaza through an armed coup and installed a despotic regime.
It is also misleading to refer to Hamas as a “resistance” group, as Huw does. Hamas’s goal is not to resist occupation but to destroy the Jewish state. Israel already ended its occupation of Gaza and only imposed the embargo after Hamas illegally seized power, turning Gaza into an armed base for attacks on Israel.
Until Hamas is disarmed and Gaza demilitarized, it is unrealistic to expect Israel to pull out of the West Bank. Hamas would simply take over the West Bank and use it as a base for attacking Israel.
shell
I do not like to play the racist card but the people that I see that are permit to be killed is all of a dark color. So the kids and women become sex slave again. Please God help Us ALL! to love each other No matter how birth us to come in this world. Thanks again God for the Christian which as went to help out the country..
TeeJae
David Starr’s comment (geez, David, could you have picked a more pro-Israel moniker?) “shows he does not grasp the basic issues involved.”
For example, he conveniently forgets the IDF’s TARGETED strikes of the Palestinian boys playing soccer on the beach when he states, “all the evidence suggests that Israel takes exceptional care to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible.”
And perhaps he also forgets that Israel routinely dehumanizes Hamas as an uncivilized, barbarous, terrorist organization (including the people of Gaza since they voted for them) when he makes the erroneous claim that “Israel does not dehumanize the enemy as Hamas does.”
As such, he would do well to gain some perspective by reading this: http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/victim-colonial-settler-shifting-paradigm-israel
David also forgets about the existence of Israel’s numerous bomb shelters and Iron Dome program when (falsely) crediting the embargo as “the only reason there are not more Israeli casualties.”
He also has his history wrong (or perhaps is just in denial) regarding Hamas’ win of the free and fair election in 2006. Even President Carter, the UN and most of the international community recognize Hamas’ win as legitimate.
David also denies present day reality, instead choosing to invoke an outdated charter that no longer represents Hamas’ current objectives with regard to Israel: http://www.globalresearch.ca/hamas-ready-for-peaceful-coexistence-with-israel-within-the-borders-of-1967-interview-with-hamas-leader-khaled-meshaal/4192
History is showing you’re on the wrong side of it, David. The world is finally waking up to the oppressive and terrorist state that is Israel.
john wolfe
David Star is lying, and he’s even using a fake name.
Hamas did win, for better or worse, in the 2006 elections. Their opponents fought against their victory by armed force, using US money and arms to keep Fatah in power. Yet, the US asked for the very elections that brought Hamas to power, the same ones Jimmy Carter helped supervise. Carter said that Hamas fairly won.
The US didn’t expect these results, and neither did the Israelis. So, before Hamas could govern, Israel made sure it would fail by sequestering trade receipts, limiting imports and aid, and tightening control over the water and mineral resources offshore. They admitted they wanted Gazans “on a diet”, to get just enough calories to avoid starvation.
So, “David Star” is upset that a besieged and blockaded people reply with force against those who forced the Gazans into subsistence before Hamas even took office. When Gazans aren’t firing rockets, the siege is just as devastating as when they do. Israeli wants to weaken Gaza, and that’s why they used the 3 settler deaths as a pretext to inflict more damage, though all the while they admitted that they had no proof Hamas sponsored the kidnapping and execution of those settlers. What inflamed Israel was the Hamas/ Fatah reconciliation, which would have given the Palestinians a unified government. That’s why Israel attacked and went on its terrorist rampage. They wanted to make sure that coalition wouldn’t work.
Israel even invented a reason for its incursion when it claimed to be taking actions to find the settlers alive when Israel knew all along they had perished.
The same folks who blew up the King David Hotel and killed UN envoy Bernadotte are running Israel today.
I
Luis
David Star’s comments show the he is shamelessly shilling for Israel and playing fast and loose with the facts.
He claims that Hamas wasn’t elected because it came to power in a coup. He conveniently leaves out that this was a COUNTER-coup after the party was illegally overthrown by the American favourites, following Israeli and American refusal to recognise the choice of the Palestinian people. David apparently thinks that if the United States nullifies an election and engineers a coup, then said election never happened and that only subsequent events matter. What gives, David?
“No one implies that it is “cool” when civilians die”
US media pundits and Israel officials, Israel academics and Israeli citizens have been saying precisely this for weeks. When Palestinian civilian deaths are not attributed to Hamas, we hear aspersions cast over whether they are “really” civilians. By this logic, no one in Israel is really a civilian, as everyone, in some capacity, facilitates the IDF. So thank you, David and other apologists for Israel, for legitimating attacks on Israeli civilians. David, being a Zionist apologist with no real conception of Palestinians as human beings, laps up all the assumptions about Israeli humanity towards Palestinians. Ironically, he ends up cheer leading war crimes and crimes against humanity in doing so.
“If it were attacking indiscriminately, the percentage (and absolute numbers) of women and children killed would be far higher. Given the difficulty of answering rocket attacks from urban areas, all the evidence suggests that Israel takes exceptional care to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible.”
David, bless him, thinks that critics of Israel claim that Israel is going all-out to kill as many Palestinians as possible. In fact, what Israel is doing is going on one its periodic tantrums to let the Palestinians know what happens when they resist being oppressed and occupied. Israel is more than happy to slowly torment and kill a few Palestinians here, kidnap and torture a few Palestinians there, destroy their property, bulldoze a few homes every so often, slowly encroach on Palestinian land, and generally chip away at Palestine. Israel could hardly afford, in PR terms, to actually kill as many Palestinians as possible. But its current strategy allows it to claim that it isn’t involved in a genocidal enterprise – and people like David can lap this up and regurgitate it like loyal mandarins. After all, people like him are capable of believing, even after Israel bombs Gaza’s only power plant, that Israel takes “special care” to avoid killing civilians. Perhaps the power plant was wearing a suicide belt and had to be destroyed in order to protect Palestinian babies in incubators. All we know it, it was the fault of Hamas. Had to be. Israel says so.
“Israel does not dehumanize the enemy as Hamas does. ”
Of course it does. A cursory look at the blood-curdling pronouncements of Knesset and Likud Party members, Israeli academics, IDF members, and Israelis dancing in the streets because “there’s no school tomorrow in Gaza” attests to this. That David ignores all this doesn’t erase it.
William
FAIR ADVISORY – STUNNING REVELATION!!
ASTUTE FAIR READER HAS DETERMINED THAT “DAVID STAR” IS A FAKE NAME!!
AS ONE FAIR READER GASPED, “I THOUGHT HE WAS RELATED TO MY COUSIN, STAR OF DAVID, OR MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, SHIELD OF DAVID – NOW IT TURNS OUT THAT ‘DAVID STAR’ IS NOT A REAL NAME!!”
PETER HART CALLS FOR CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR TO BE AWARDED TO FAIR SLEUTH.
WORLD STUNNED!!
William
WACKY WORLD OF JOHN WOLFE- GENUINE GEMS!!
REALITY: As U.S. President, Jimmy Carter was known for reactionary policies like championing an anti-labor tight-money economy and deregulation. He also cozied up to the brutal Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
WACKY WOLFE: Jimmy Carter gave a stamp of approval to Hamas – it’s no worse than the Mujahideen!
REALITY: The Nazi Party and its right-wing allies won a majority of seats in the 1933 German parliamentary election.
WACKY WOLFE: Hamas did well in the 2006 parliamentary elections, and so it must be legitimate!! If Israel had backed off, this could have been a Gaza version of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington!”
REALITY: Hamas’ charter says all Jews should be killed and Israel destroyed.
WACKY WOLFE: Israel is sequestering trade receipts and limiting aid. That’s not fair – Israel should be helping its genocidal enemies!
REALITY: Hamas says the only solution to the Palestinian problem is Jihad, and all negotiations are a farce.
WACKY WOLFE: Israel won’t accept a unified Hamas-Fatah government as a partner for peace – a group hug would be the answer!!
REALITY: “Moderate” Abbas praised the release of a Palestinian prisoner who murdered a Holocaust survivor with an ax. He will receive a special stipend for his accomplishments.
WACKY WOLFE: Israel is terrorist!
REALITY: 70 years ago, the Irgun bombed the King David Hotel.
WACKY WOLFE: O.K., it was 70 years ago…and the Irgun gave a warning before the attack…and the hotel housed the headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine…and most of the Jewish political leadership condemned the bombing. But it’s all I’ve got – Deir Yassin is all played out!
FAIR READERS – YOU, TOO, CAN LOOK FOR GENUINE GEMS FROM THE WACKY WORLD OF JOHN WOLFE – JUST PERUSE ANY OF HIS INCOHERENT RANTS – IT’S FUN!!
William
APOLOGY FROM FAIR:
Dear FAIR readers:
Hamas has now admitted to kidnapping the three Israeli teenagers. All along, since the latest conflict began, we’ve claimed that Israel fabricated Hamas’ culpability for this heinous act.
To put the matter simply, we were wrong. We were desperate to find a way to demonize Israel and exculpate Hamas.
In the future, we will resume our original role as progressive media watchdog – no longer will we be content merely to spew anti-Zionist propaganda.
Again, our deepest apologies for misleading our readers and for slandering Israel.
Sincerely yours,
Peter Hart and Jim Naureckas
**NOTE: JUST KIDDING!! NAURECKAS AND I WILL CONTINUE TO LAUNCH SCURRILOUS ATTACKS ON ISRAEL AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY!! –PETER HART