3 thoughts on “HAMAS’s Gaza Death Toll Data Undercuts the “Israeli Genocide” Claim”
pre-Boomer Marine brat
But the proclamations by Hamas’ Ministry of Truth are sacred, and therefore unquestionable. (do you really need a sarc tag?)
Technically, taqiyya is a Shi’a concept. The Sunni equivalent is muruna.
Both say, it’s proper to lie “in the name of Islam”.
IIRC, neither are found in the Quran. They were created in writings which came later. Writings which (in John Wansbrough’s perspective) were themselves created as a “salvation story” to justify things which had been done.
So if the proclamations by the Ministry of Hamas are sacred, the Western press is guiltless for repeating them, so long as they’re editorially cited as … “: health ministry”.
Good article and of course the genocide claim is wrong and outrageously so.
However, I wonder if you have missed the key number that proves just how wrong the claim is. Namely, the total dead as a percentage of the total population. The total dead, according to Hamas itself, are only just over 3% of the population of Gaza, and this includes natural deaths, that would have accounted for 1% or so. So the “war dead” in Gaza were 2% of the population (and overwhelmingly fighting age men, as you point out).
A real genocide in a small contained area like Gaza would result in a death rate of close to 100%. The Jewish population of Europe fell by 66% in the Second World War, and the Nazis had far less control over the whole of Europe than the Israelis had in Gaza. So the claim of an Israeli genocide in Gaza is not just wrong, but absurd.
Yes, I maybe should have mentioned that. From any historical perspective, it’s obviously a fatality proportion that does not indicate genocide, especially given the firepower available to Israel and, as you say, the confined space (plus the global insistence that all Gazans remain in the Strip because anything else would be “ethnic cleansing”). The difficulty is that the “international law” precedents, specifically the Srebrenica ruling, allow a “genocide” verdict even in cases where the number of slain represent a miniscule percentage of the overall population.
The jurisprudence ostensibly insists on a “significant part” of the population being killed to qualify as genocide, and one can certainly say Gaza is not that, but in the Srebrenica case it wasn’t either with regards to Bosnia’s Muslims. The ruling, however, redefined the targeted population as Muslims of Eastern Bosnia, and it was ostensibly a significant part of *that* population killed in 1995, despite the VRS evacuating three-quarters of the population to safety (the women and children). You can imagine an argument that some airstrike killed a “significant part” of “the Gazans of Nuseirat” or something.
My thought process was just to keep it brief, tightly focus on the internal issues with the HAMAS figures, and avoid the whole legal tangle on this front, not least because I’m currently doing something on the Bosnia decision itself.
But the proclamations by Hamas’ Ministry of Truth are sacred, and therefore unquestionable. (do you really need a sarc tag?)
Technically, taqiyya is a Shi’a concept. The Sunni equivalent is muruna.
Both say, it’s proper to lie “in the name of Islam”.
IIRC, neither are found in the Quran. They were created in writings which came later. Writings which (in John Wansbrough’s perspective) were themselves created as a “salvation story” to justify things which had been done.
So if the proclamations by the Ministry of Hamas are sacred, the Western press is guiltless for repeating them, so long as they’re editorially cited as … “: health ministry”.
… … … wow!
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Good article and of course the genocide claim is wrong and outrageously so.
However, I wonder if you have missed the key number that proves just how wrong the claim is. Namely, the total dead as a percentage of the total population. The total dead, according to Hamas itself, are only just over 3% of the population of Gaza, and this includes natural deaths, that would have accounted for 1% or so. So the “war dead” in Gaza were 2% of the population (and overwhelmingly fighting age men, as you point out).
A real genocide in a small contained area like Gaza would result in a death rate of close to 100%. The Jewish population of Europe fell by 66% in the Second World War, and the Nazis had far less control over the whole of Europe than the Israelis had in Gaza. So the claim of an Israeli genocide in Gaza is not just wrong, but absurd.
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Thank you.
Yes, I maybe should have mentioned that. From any historical perspective, it’s obviously a fatality proportion that does not indicate genocide, especially given the firepower available to Israel and, as you say, the confined space (plus the global insistence that all Gazans remain in the Strip because anything else would be “ethnic cleansing”). The difficulty is that the “international law” precedents, specifically the Srebrenica ruling, allow a “genocide” verdict even in cases where the number of slain represent a miniscule percentage of the overall population.
The jurisprudence ostensibly insists on a “significant part” of the population being killed to qualify as genocide, and one can certainly say Gaza is not that, but in the Srebrenica case it wasn’t either with regards to Bosnia’s Muslims. The ruling, however, redefined the targeted population as Muslims of Eastern Bosnia, and it was ostensibly a significant part of *that* population killed in 1995, despite the VRS evacuating three-quarters of the population to safety (the women and children). You can imagine an argument that some airstrike killed a “significant part” of “the Gazans of Nuseirat” or something.
My thought process was just to keep it brief, tightly focus on the internal issues with the HAMAS figures, and avoid the whole legal tangle on this front, not least because I’m currently doing something on the Bosnia decision itself.
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