IDF: Only 250 of Gaza fatalities were civilians

[oberliner]

A continuing IDF investigation into the number of civilian Palestinian casualties during the Israeli offensive in Gaza indicated that only 250 of the fatalities were civilians.

The military estimates that between 1,100 and 1,200 people were killed during the offensive. Some 700 of are believed to be militants and most are believed to be Hamas operatives.

The IDF is still trying to ascertain the identity of the remaining fatalities, but security sources said many would probably turn out to be militants as well. "Hamas is familiar with the numbers and is doing everything it can to concealed them," said an IDF source.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3661940,00.html

[Chulanowa]

1. Same shit, different assholes

Did you also know that only 600,000 Jews died during the holocaust, and there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz?

:sarcasm: because I KNOW it'll be needed

[ProgressiveMuslim]

2. And that there are really no such thing as Palestinians?

Deny, minimize, deny... human nature is really grand, ain't it?

[Chulanowa]

3. They also FORCE Israel to kill Palestinian children

"Why you make me hit you baby? You know I love you, why you make me hurt you like this? Stop crying, it just makes me hit you harder!"

[oberliner]

5. This is comparable to Holocaust Denial?

Your comment aside, the IDF numbers are basically the same as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights numbers, except that the IDF only counts the women and young children as civilians.

It's really all about how you define the 500-600 adult men whom the PCHR categorizes as civilians but the IDF categorizes as Hamas militants.

PCHR has 895 civilian deaths - 281 children and 111 women among them. Children being defined as anyone under the age of 18.

Of course the fact that any children were killed in this conflict is absolutely awful.

[Chulanowa]

13. Absolutely

Denial of death for political points is the same, no matter the numbers involved.

I've seen the PCHR tally. It's 1,285 Palestinians. The IDF is claiming only 250 of those were civilians, as per the article we're talking about.

These are not "the same numbers".

Israel is basically claiming "everyone we killed who wasn't suckling or nursing deserved to die" and that is flat fucking wrong. It's also claiming that only a few hundred people were killed - also flat fucking wrong.

I wonder if Israel would feel the same if it were reversed and Hamas killed 6,039 Israelis (the same population percentage) and claimed only a very few of them were noncombatants.

[oberliner]

17. I strongly disagree

Denying the facts of the Holocaust which has been extensively documented and rigorously studied for decades is not the same as trying to ascertain the number of civilian casualties in a conflict in the weeks following the conflict.

The IDF and the PCHR both have very similar numbers. They come very close to agreement on the total number of Palestinians killed in the conflict.

The PCHR claims that 1285 is the total number of deaths. This is about the same estimate of the number of deaths presented by the IDF.

The PCHR claims that there were 895 civilian deaths.

The IDF claims that there were 250 civilian deaths (with some still to be identified).

The PCHR claims that 281 children were killed and 111 women were killed.

That leaves approximately 500 people who were neither children or women who the PCHR is counting among their civilian death count.

It seems that the IDF is claiming that this group is composed of Hamas militants rather than civilians and therefore should not be counted among the civilian death count.

The truth probably lies somewhere much closer to the PCHR report than to the IDF report. A lot of it depends on what exactly constitutes being a "Hamas militant".

For the IDF, I would think it means anyone associated with Hamas in any way. I would imagine that this is not the definition used by the PCHR when they ascertained their civilian count.

[EFerrari]

20. Don't Holocaust deniers usually engage in a series of torturous justifications

involving recalculations of populations and their disposition?

[oberliner]

21. Isn't there debate over the number of civilian casualties in Iraq? in Afghanistan?

There is no "torturous justification" being made here. Nothing is being justified. The IDF and the PCHR differ on the number of civilians killed. They both identify approximately the same total number of casualties.

Is there not an ongoing disagreement regarding exactly how many civilians have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? In Sri Lanka? Congo? Darfur?

Isn't there a wide range of divergent civilian casualty counts in all of these cases?

In Iraq, for instance, the number of civilians killed varies by the tens of thousands depending on the source. The number of civilian deaths in the War in Afghanistan also varies by several thousand.

Is any question related to civilian vs. non civilian casualties in any current conflict akin to Holocaust Denial?

Or is that charge just leveled when Israel is involved?

[EFerrari]

23. These controversies arise in any conflct but they are a feature of Holocaust denial.

Just as bigots claim they didn't know they "erred", then that it was a mistake and lastly, that they are victims of others.

I don't like comparing anything to the Holocaust. It's disrespectful and rarely accurate or useful. But institutional denial of suffering and death, and the form that denial takes is something to be alert to and aware of -- if we have learned anything at all.

[oberliner]

26. I think you are making a disingenous argument

There is no claim that these attacks did not occur or that they did not occur to the extent that the evidence suggests they did.

No one is questioning how many people were killed in the conflict.

The IDF is not denying any suffering or death.

This is trying to determine the civilian casualty count in the days after the conflict took place.

How did the PCHR decide who was a militant and who was a civilian in its casualty count?

They obviously had some criteria to make that distinction - what was it? How does it differ from the IDF's criteria?

[EFerrari]

30. No, I'm not at all. I have correctly pointed out that Holocaust deniers

are often disingenuous -- the very thing you accuse me of -- and instead of denying the Holocaust outright, simply make serpentine arguments that play with numbers as if those numbers don't mean anything.

As if these arguments can prevent them for being known for what they are.

[oberliner]

31. There are no "serpentine arguments that play with numbers" happening here

There is no relationship between this discussion and Holocaust Denial. By trying to create one, you are being disingenuous.

Trying to create a record of who was killed and whether they were civilians or combatants is something that Hamas, the IDF, the PCHR, and other groups are doing.

[EFerrari]

32. No. *I* am not being disengenuous in any way.

And please don't bring out the record keeping argument because we both know that record building and keeping is no measure of good will. At least, I hope we both know that very, very clearly.

[oberliner]

34. Peace be unto you

I think it's ridiculous to compare the IDF claim about the civilian casualty count to Holocaust Denial. You obviously do not agree.

I guess we'll have to leave it there.

[Chulanowa]

36. You really think the IDF is trying to ascertain the number of civilian deaths, don't you?

No. It's trying to minimize the number and then make the argument that most of them deserved death anyway, in order to whitewash a shameful violation of law and human rights.

The total numbers of dead - and perhaps more importantly to some, the races of the people killed - may be different, but the intent and practice we are seeing here is no different from the tactics of holocaust deniers.

Claim it was only 60,000 Jews; Claim it was only 850 Palestinians
Claim that the vast majority of the slain Jews were communists or criminals or other "rightful" enemies of the state; Claim that the vast majority of slain Palestinians were terrorists or militants or enablers and other "rightful" enemies of the state.
Claim that there were no gas chambers and no crematoriums; Claim that there was no white phosphorus and no shelling of safe-houses
Claim that the Nazis did their best to keep the prisoners healthy; Claim that Israel is very restrained in its responses

I'm sorry if you can't see the parallels like I do. I think it's just that you don't want to see them.

[oberliner]

37. You really think this is a legtimate comparison, don't you?

The IDF estimates show approximately the same casualty count as the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The UN initially only considered women and children to be casualties because they could not determine which adult men were Hamas militants and which were civilians.

Hamas has claimed that a certain number of those killed were militants. The IDF believes that Hamas underestimated that count and that more of those killed were militants. Various groups, including the IDF, are trying to come up with as definitive count as possible.

The IDF did an investigation into the use of white phosphorous, determined that it had been used, and announced those findings.

I'm sorry that you are so keen on comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and/or the Holocaust Denial movement. I think the fact that you are quick to come to this particular parallel is, in itself, much more informative than the parallel itself.

[Chulanowa]

41. In that I believe both to be propaganda seeking the same result, yes

As I have said for a third time now. Perhaps you should print it for reference. What I am seeing from you is a stubborn unwillingness to see what I am saying, while you rail in righteous indignation over what you imagine me to have said.

1,300 (ish) dead Palestinians. You're going to tell me that the IDF is correct, that only 250 of those were civilians? You're going to tell me there's no smell of propaganda lingering around that figure? You keep latching onto the PCHR report. That report says 281 of the dead are children. If one overlays the IDF report over the PCHR report - as you are so keen on doing - we learn that at least 31 children, and every other single person killed was a Hamas terrorist.

That is propaganda, and it's so fucking obviously propaganda, that I have to believe you are consciously lying to yourself just to try to argue the damn point.

[tom_paine]

4. The Israeli Leadership are Bushie Liars, shameless and grotesque as Bushie Liars.

They use the Bushie Lying Templates, and Bushie Propaganda strategies. Hell, for all we know they invented them for and with the Bushies.

I strongly suspect that the Israeli People have no more say in ruling their country than we do. We KNOW what the Bushies, American, Israeli, or likely BOTH (through their usual dodge of the "lone gunman patsy") to Yitzhak Rabin.

Q: Why could they pull off a straight-up JFK/RFK/MLK murder Op, when they haven't dared to pull of a straight-up Murder Op here in the States since MLK?

A: Because it hadn't been done before, and it is becoming clear that one of the tyrant's age-old rules of Murdering Peasants is that you only do it three times in a row, because after three times in a row, people start to get vaguely suspicious.

This rule may have changed slightly, now that the Internet exists, but I think the rules are pretty much the same. Tyrants get a Free Pass for their First Major Political Murders, because it only happened once, you see, and so it COULDN'T have been the Bushies.

:rofl:

Don't you just LOVE the way we peasants, as a group, almost ALWAYS behave the way the Bushies expect us to. You can thank the evil uses to which the sciences of psychology and the as yet unnamed but no less real science of psycholinguistics, for the deep understand by tyrants of the people they abuse.

The Israeli People are almost as naive about their Bushie Leaders and their abject murderous criminality, as Americans were in the 50s, I think. As a result, Rabin's being Freeped by a "lone gunman", also being the first straight-up Bushie Murder Op of their own Internal Bushie Enemies, was greeted by little no skepticism on the part of the Israeli Subject Populace.

I also suspect that, like the Bushies, previous generations of Israelis had qualms using CIA/Mossad techniques against the mass of their own people, I also suspect those qualms retreated as the Bushies, both American and Israeli, grew more unchecked and powerful. And now both American and Israeli nations are under the yoke of Bushies, although one hopes Obama can break this paradigm while at the same time the Bushies fear to straight-up murder him.

All these things I suspect, and most of the time these last 8 years, most of my suspicions have been proven 100% correct. Everything from Iraqi Oil pipelines being left purposefully unmonitored (they may still be) to the fact that the NSA was literally recording and storing everything, or as close to everything as the technology will allow, and by now that's probably pretty close.

But suspicion is not certainty.

[cali]

6. Nope. I'm not buying it. I don't buy any information about the deaths in Gaza

from either Israel or Hamas.

[azurnoir]

7. So were they only counting the the ones under 10 ? n/t

[slipslidingaway]

8. Only 250 Israeli citizens killed in the last few weeks - sound better

I do not believe the numbers, but just imagine if the headline were reversed.

[oberliner]

9. What is your argument?

That people in the US would make a bigger uproar about Israelis killed than about Palestinians killed?

Certainly, I would agree that is true.

However, in other parts of the world, I think people make a bigger uproar about Palestinians killed than about Israelis killed.

Would you agree?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. In the Arab word possibly; in the west not.

In America and Europe, certainly, Israeli deaths receive massively more attention than equivalent numbers of Palestinian deaths.

It's hard to compare, though, because Israel kills so many more Palestinians than vice versa that one might say that Israelis being killed by Palestinians is rare and hence newsworthy, while Palestinians being killed by Israel is just an everyday occurrence...

[slipslidingaway]

12. Yes, of course there would be a bigger uproar in Congress and

our media...maybe the rest of the world is trying to counter our bias.

[oberliner]

16. Or maybe we are countering the bias of the rest of the world?

Certainly seems like it's the whole world vs. US and Israel at times in the UN for instance.

[EFerrari]

19. If the whole word is trying to tell you something, it might be time to listen. n/t

[oberliner]

22. The whole world told the Jews to go screw themselves not too long ago

I'm glad the US did not listen.

[EFerrari]

24. I have no comment on that bit of obfuscation.

[oberliner]

25. Just because the majority of the world's leaders hold an opinion doesn't mean it's right

That is what I meant to communicate.

[bunnies]

11. So, out of the (at least) 280 dead children... 30 were Hamas?!

Lying fucking liars. :nuke:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/01/26/in_gaza_palestinian_children_bear_deep_scars_of_war/

[oberliner]

15. Can someone be 17 and a Hamas militant?

I believe the IDF counts some teenagers among the Hamas militants that the PCHR considers children. It is conceivable that someone can be both under 18 (ie a child) and a Hamas militant.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. Western definitions of children and their rights does play in most of the world

[IndianaGreen]

14. Does the IDF count the Palestinians as one person, or one fifth of a person?

The similarities to colonial America as amazing, including the quartering of IDF in Palestinian homes which is one of the things the Bill of Rights made sure wouldn't happen again.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

29. Its one for one. Their might be an issue with age, but its clearly 1 of 1

[ohio2007]

18. Reporters allowed access to the hospital,morgue or doctors records by now ?

They seem rather ....silent,
Even al Jazeera should be all over those #'s

[ProgressiveProfessor]

27. Not sure how that would help...how do you at an autopsy tell a Hamas militant from a civilian?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

35. Locate a penis.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

33. Oberliner, does it make a qualitative difference to you morally if the civilian deaths were "only"

250?

Dude, sort the threads by name and look at the title of the stuff you post. I'll paraphrase.

Minimize
Minimize
Outright Deny
Blame Hamas
Minimize
But Hamas is worse
Deny
But the Congo is worse
Minimize
Hey we're not as bad as Tutsis
Deny
Minimize
It's not *quite* apartheid

[oberliner]

38. Killing more civilians is worse than killing fewer civilians

Of course every civilian death is tragic, especially that of children, but I would think that everyone would agree that the fewer civilian casualties the better.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

39. Fewer dead is better. The categorizing you are doing is a head game. nt

[Idealism]

40. According to the U.N., Around 450 women and children were killed

So... yeah.