Why the Gaza death rate is so high
After the U.S. had gained its footing and was fighting back in WWII, no one was sitting in the back seat telling America to knock it off because German or Japanese, or even French civilians, were dying.
In all of Israel's wars, except the current one, the Jewish state has enjoyed a reputation of being a very careful, an almost gentle army. But not this time. This time is different.
What was the same was global reaction to the war as it unfolded. It followed the usual outline.
Arabs launch a surprise attack against Israel
The Israelis are surprised, and thrown back.
The world is aghast and is nominally on Israel’s side. The world weeps over the dead Jews.
Very much like what happened to the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1941, after the sneak attack by Japan. Or the attack by Arab terrorists on 9/11/2001.
The difference is this: After the U.S. had gained its footing and was fighting back in WWII, no one was sitting in the back seat telling America to knock it off because German or Japanese, or even French civilians, were dying. It is estimated 3,000 French civilians were killed on D-Day and 20,000 more during the Battle of Normandy. They were our allies. It could not be helped.
With Israel, it is always different. After a few weeks of fighting, the world calls upon the Jews to cease because of Arab casualties. And Israel always has stopped in the past, but not this time, even though Hamas was counting on amassing casualties. It helps their cause. Every death makes Israel look bad. Israel has a Hobson’s choice between acting, and not acting, and will be criticized either way.
Do you know what roof knocking is?
Roof knocking (Hebrew: הקש בגג; Arabic: صاروخ تحذيري)[1] or "knock on the roof"[2] is a term used by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to describe its practice of dropping low-yield devices on the roofs of targeted civilian homes in the occupied Palestinian territories as a prior warning of imminent bombing attacks to give the inhabitants time to flee. This is according to Wikipedia.
It is a policy to reduce civilian casualties against an enemy, Hamas, that illegally uses civilians as a shield, which is a war crime.
In another practice to reduce death, Israel has the cell phone number of almost everyone living in Gaza. The IDF often uses the phones to warn civilians to clear out of an area to be attacked.
Hamas embeds itself with civilians for two reasons:
1- To make Israel’s ethical army pause.
2- To heap blame on Israel when it is forced to strike military targets that are illegally placed near civilians, and civilian structures.
All of this is fact.
Another fact is that the number of Gazan deaths far outstrips other Israeli military operations. Why is the Gaza operation, known as Iron Swords, so different?
Here’s why: Hamas’ attack on (mostly) Jewish civilians on Oct. 7, 2023 represented the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
Since its founding in 1948, and being immediately attacked by five superior Arab states, Israel has not known a moment of true peace in more than 75 years. She is always under attack, and under threat of extermination by Iran.
While you consider the greatest loss of life in Israel’s history, since the Holocaust, consider too that in terms of numbers and percentage of population, it far exceeds America’s worst day — 9/11. For Israel, a country where most people know each other, or are related somehow, it was the equivalent of fifteen 9/11s.
Remember the shock and rage in America after 9/11? The shock, rage, and sense of loss was even greater in Israel.
Here I veer in supposition backed up by speaking to friends, family relatives who live there, and to members of the Israeli government I came to know during my three trips to Israel, which included visits to Gaza and the West Bank, and interviewing both Arabs and Jews.
The claimed 50,000 deaths is an obscenity. It is more than the casualties inflicted on Arabs by Israel in any other war. It may eclipse the total of Arab dead in all previous wars.
Why so high this time?
I hypothesize that the schock of the Oct. 7 attack was so traumatizing the IDF decided, fuck the velvet gloves this time. They want to kill us, we’ll give them a taste of their own medicine.
I don’t condone it, but I comprehend it. The numbers are hideous, and are hurting Israel's reputation in the world, but Israel can’t allow Hamas to remain in power, any more than we could have allowed Hitler to remain in power. Israel has no choice but to obliterate Hamas.
The high rate of deaths is a cause of rising anti-Semitism among those too lame to separate the state, from the leader, Bibi Netanyahu, who is nearly as unpopular in Israel as he is among Jews in the U.S. American Jews have no more to do with Israeli policy than Italian-Americans have to do with Rome’s.
So that is the big picture. Key takeaways are who started the war, and that is Hamas. And who benefits from the war, which is again Hamas. And if you have been paying attention, many brave Gazans have risked their lives to take to the streets to oppose Hamas rule.
But the killing will not end, it cannot end, until Hamas is decimated and destroyed to the point that it cannot attack Israel again, which it is pledged to do.
While Israel pulled the trigger, Hamas created the Gazans targets. Deliberately. The war can end whenever Hamas decides to surrender, and return the hostages. It has no hope of winning the war, none at all.
