Hamas and Civilian Casualties

Was looking through my “Blog Later” links (which is full to bursting) and found this post by Michael J. Totten.

Some very good points.

Not only do Israelis have a harder time figuring out who is a target and who needs protection, we all have a harder time identifying those who have already been wounded and killed. Hamas says mostly civilians have been wounded and killed in the fighting in Gaza, but its fighters look just like everyone else. They can trot out the bodies of two dead terrorists in front of the cameras and say they’re civilians, thus easily fooling just about anyone. The number of civilian casualties, therefore, appears much higher than it really is. But even if that weren’t the case, far more civilians are being killed in this war because Hamas is fighting dirty.

Then there’s the multiple photos & videos of people who are clearly acting, posed, and/or being rushed to hospital in high drama for extremely minor injuries.

Israelis, in the meantime, go far out of their way to avoid harming the civilians of Gaza. They have even developed weapons for precisely this purpose.

“A new Israeli weapon,” Erlanger writes, “is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis are countering with a missile designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called ‘a knock on the roof’.”

If Israelis were targeting civilians, as Hamas and hysterical critics like to claim, it ought to go without saying that they would never have developed a “weapon” that scatters civilians away for their own protection.

Activists, professors, journalists, bloggers, and other uninformed individuals may believe Israelis kill civilians either negligently or on purpose, but even Hamas knows that’s a lie. Otherwise, Hamas would not ask “civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb,” as Erlanger reports.

Hamas knows the truth but uses its lie as a weapon. And it works. Millions all over the world believe Israel massacres civilians in Gaza and that claims to the contrary from the military are disinformation and smokescreen.

How many people believe that Israel is responsible for the flotilla deaths, in spite of all the video evidence blowing away any suggestion that the flotilla was peaceful?

Israelis, by contrast, don’t use human shields to deter Palestinian rocket attacks. The very idea is absurd. Hamas aims at civilians on purpose, as much as it can aim its crude rockets. A congregation of Israeli human shields would only make a bulls-eye at which Hamas could aim.

Indeed.

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Jenin

Many still believe that Israel conducted a massacre in Jenin in 2002.

It was interesting to read in Wikipedia today just how thoroughly that myth has been debunked. (I guess the “may have been civilians” doubt may be because 21 terrorists dropped their guns when they were shot!)

As part of the operation, which involved incursions into West Bank cities and towns, Israel targeted the refugee camp of Jenin, after it deemed that the camp had “served as a launch site for numerous terrorist attacks against both Israeli civilians and Israeli towns and villages in the area”.^[3]

During the fighting, rumors of a massacre circulated.^[4] While Jenin remained sealed during the invasion, stories of civilians being buried alive in their homes as they were demolished, and of smoldering buildings covering crushed bodies, spread throughout the Arab world. A large area in the camp was destroyed as a result of the fighting but subsequent investigations found no evidence to substantiate claims of a massacre. The final death toll was 52 to 56 Palestinians, of whom 5-26 may have been civilians. 23 IDF soldiers were also killed in the fighting.

I guess we’ll see with the current situation.

It’s sad to see otherwise sane people start hyperventilating about a “genocide” or “holocaust” when reports start mentioning that any number of civilians have died, no matter the nature of those reports. Time will tell as to how the figures from this latest episode stack up.

Still, it’s amazing how many people can’t get the idea that Israel has the moral and legal right to fire back at those who commit war crimes by deliberately firing indiscriminately towards civilians. It’s also amazing that they can get away with talking about how Israel is “targeting civilians”, given the lengths they go to, and the antics of Hamas.

Because all civilians deaths in this conflict can be placed at the feet of Hamas.

The EU disgusts me

When they pull this sort of betrayal.