Is Israel Committing “Genocide” or indiscriminately killing Palestinians in Gaza?
I’m tired of people going through this discussion without any accompanying facts or logic so I’m going to put some thoughts into one thread and people can decide for themselves.
To properly have this discussion, we first need to go through and understand Gaza casualty figures. Where they come from and what they show.
The current Gaza casualty figures are all provided by the Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry. In previous conflicts with Israel, the Gaza Health Ministry has used a system of collecting data from hospitals, ambulance services, and morgues (we can refer to this as the central collection system) to come up with casualty figures. Their numbers do not usually distinguish civilian vs. militant casualties, but they do typically provide a demographic breakdown. Those who defend using their numbers will point to the fact that the Gaza Health Ministry casualty numbers in previous conflicts, collected via the CCS mentioned above, have often been consistent with estimates from other sources.
However, there have been large errors in the demographic breakdowns and in claims on the portion of combatants killed when provided. Usually, some NGOs are also doing their own counts to confirm, which is not happening in this conflict.
In the current war, the Gaza Health Ministry started collecting casualties the same way via the CCS when the war began. They showed ~9K deaths before Israel launched their ground invasion at the end of October. Then, as the data below shows, the casualty rate dropped significantly in the CCS data after the initial period of fighting in November. What is also clear from the CCS data, as shown below, is the proportion of male casualties (the category most, but not all, Hamas militants would fit into) increased significantly over time.
Then the Gaza Health Ministry discretely changed its collection method in early November. They added a new source for data which they called “reliable media” reports that had not been used in the past. This is essentially reporting from local, mostly Hamas-controlled, media outlets regarding casualties and, as it turns out, also allows citizens to self-report casualties online. You can obviously see the challenge of getting accurate data with such a methodology. This new methodology gradually took over as the main source of casualty data for the GHM over time. You can see the shift below.
There is no way to check the reliability of the total casualty numbers being provided via this new methodology of reliable media reports, but there is clearly an issue with the data when you compare demographic breakdowns.
The portion of male casualties using the traditional CCS system has averaged around 51.7% of total casualties since November 3rd and trended above 70% in March. Meanwhile, the average portion of male casualties during that same period, according to the media report methodology, is only 8.4%.
That disconnect is impossible to explain and the latter number makes no sense in the context of an ongoing war. What’s even more revealing is that the percentage of female casualties is not that far apart in the 2 methodologies, but the data for Children vs Males is almost flipped. That’s really beyond red flag territory.
The reason this disconnect is important is that exactly who Israel is targeting is a central question in determining the appropriateness of their approach in the war effort.
So now on to the "genocide" question...
First, it is obviously inappropriate and absurd to compare what is happening to the systematic and purposeful eradication of Jews and other minorities during the Holocaust. As suggested by one podcast host recently, such a comparison requires complete ignorance about the numbers and method of killing during those events. More than a third of the world’s Jews were wiped out during the Holocaust to the point that the Jewish population has not fully recovered almost 9 decades later.
However, plenty of civilians were killed at the same time as the Holocaust during the war effort so what’s the difference between civilian deaths in a war and genocide?
The key element for genocide is not that a lot of people are killed, but the intent of those doing the killing. When civilians are killed in a war, that is not something to celebrate, but it is categorically different than the intended targeting and killing of a group of people for the explicit purpose of wiping out that group.
No reasonable person thinks allied forces bombing civilian areas in WWII were engaged in a genocide comparable to the Holocaust. Or that the U.S. army actions in Afghanistan or Iraq, despite tens (or hundreds) of thousands of civilians killed constitutes a genocide.
It is for that reason that South Africa was forced to include a bunch of out-of-context and misleading quotes from Israeli officials, often specifically targeted at Hamas, in their ICC complaint to argue the intent element of genocide in Gaza. Some examples of the quotes used: theatlantic.com/international/…
As @SpencerGuard has noted, Israel’s overall behavior during this war is inconsistent with an intent to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza. Especially given that they can actually wipe out most of Gaza in much less time than this war has gone on. An entity seeking to commit genocide would not usually provide advanced warning, evacuation routes, drop flyers, send text messages, provide aid etc. to the people they are trying to genocide..
More importantly, the data speaks for itself. The numbers show that the claim of an intentional genocide doesn’t stand up to any level of scrutiny.
There are ~2.1 million people in Gaza. There were about 30-40K Hamas fighters at the start of the war. Hamas publicly said several months ago they had lost 6K+ fighters. Israel says the number is closer to 13k. U.S. intelligence estimated a range of between 20-30% of Hamas fighters had been killed as of several months ago.
For this discussion let’s take a conservative estimate of 10K Hamas fighters, which accounts for about 30% of the total deaths, based on the total casualty numbers from the Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry.
That still means lots of Gaza civilians have died in the war (A 2.3 to 1 civilian-to-militant ratio), but it makes it almost impossible to conclude Israel has been indiscriminately killing Palestinians in Gaza. Especially since the typical ratio of civilians killed in other conflicts that included urban warfare has previously been around 80%-90% and Hamas has specifically developed their military infrastructure within the Gaza civilian infrastructure to ensure Palestinian civilian deaths any time they are targeted. In fact, Hamas leaders like Ismael Haniyeh openly admit that they view Palestinian civilian deaths as a victory for their cause.
(I am not going to even get into Palestinians killed directly by Hamas/militant attacks as part of this discussion)
Just consider the math here: If about 1.5% of the population has been killed in Gaza during the war, but conservatively around 30% of those have been militants, how would that be feasible if Israel was just bombing and killing people indiscriminately?
If it was just random bombing, you would proportionally need to kill about 30% of the total Gaza population (~630K) to coincidentally take out 30% of the subgroup of Hamas’ militants. You can argue that one or another particular military action/strategy was wrong or that you don’t believe Israel should be trying to take out Hamas at all if there is this much collateral damage, but the indiscriminate claim just doesn’t stand up to any logical scrutiny. Based on the numbers, the attacks are clearly targeted at Hamas and the evacuations are clearly meant to minimize outside deaths.
The outcome, while tragic, is indicative of a complicated war that Hamas chose to start on 10/7, not a genocide that Israel is intentionally pursuing.
Hope that helps future discussions. I will provide links to the cited information in this week’s newsletter.
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Let’s talk about some information about TikTok and its parent company that few people seem to be mentioning right now.
Background: ByteDance is the China-based parent company of TikTok. ByteDance has several executives with direct connections to the CCP.
ByteDance executives have numerous connections directly to the Chinese Communist Party.
Key: China's 2017 National Intelligence Law mandates organizations like ByteDance and their employees must support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.
They are legally required to assist in any Chinese intelligence operation against Americans.
TikTok has spent years assuring Americans that American data is only stored in the U.S. and employees in China do not have access to it, but that has been exposed as a lie repeatedly.
Company recordings, documents, and admissions repeatedly have shown TikTok was lying.
It's worth getting into the details of the examples I cite here to demonstrate how CA governance has been a continuing disaster. They constantly pass progressive priorities and then spend years trying to undo the damage.
Action: CA passed AB5 in 2019. The bill would have essentially destroyed the gig economy and eliminated independent contractors by requiring them to be treated as and receive the benefits of full-time employees. Companies like Uber, DoorDash, etc., would all have been shut down because the leftists in charge didn't consider the consequences.
Response: The state then had to spend years and hundreds of millions of dollars fighting and undoing most of the law.
Voters stepped in with Proposition 22, which exempted app-based transportation and delivery drivers. $200 million was spent to pass that initiative.
Numerous lawsuits were filed, costing hundreds of millions, and many resulted in exemptions. AB 2257 also added numerous exemptions and changes to undo the damage.
They created a problem to appease progressive activists and then spent an insane amount of money trying to undo the damage.
Action: California initiated attempts to build a high-speed rail system in the early 2000s.
The initial estimate for the cost of a rail system that would connect LA to San Francisco and Sacramento was $33 billion. When the initial funding was approved in 2008, it was meant to be finished by 2020.
Response: Due to incompetence, California environmental regulations, construction issues, and a host of other mismanagement problems, all those initial estimates went out the window. It is now estimated that it will cost between $90-130 billion to complete. Now, they are refocusing on just building a small segment of the original route. The planned date for operation of that segment is now sometime between 2030-2033 (10-13 years after the whole thing was supposed to be done).
Action: California elected several District Attorneys in key cities who did not believe in incarcerating criminals or prosecuting most crimes. Key examples were George Gascón in LA, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and Pamela Price in Alameda County.
Response: As a result of the policies these DAs put in place, crime rates exploded, and criminals acted with impunity. The inevitable consequence was outrage from those communities and large recall efforts. Boudin was successfully recalled in June 2022. They tried to recall Gascón in 2022 but couldn't make the ballot. A lot of prosecutors quit his office due to his refusal to pursue criminals, and some filed lawsuits claiming he retaliated against them for speaking out against his policies. Gascón lost his re-election bid with his opponent getting 61% of the vote after running on undoing most of his policies. Pamela Price was recalled in the November election with 62.9% of the vote. You can look up the many examples of how much damage these DAs did, but all of them ended up being voted out by over 60% of their respective voting bases.
Here is AFT President Randi Weingarten, the person many would argue was most responsible for keeping schools closed during Covid, cheering on this pick.
This stuff is legitimately hilarious because it shows how little these guys know about anything.
Putting aside that Sinwar’s main combat experience is just murdering innocent people who couldn’t fight back and he died while trying to run away after hiding like a rat in tunnels behind women, children, and hostages…
Netanyahu didn’t just serve in the IDF, he was a captain in an elite unit that was injured in actual combat several times. Including when he was shot in the shoulder during the raid to take out the Black September terrorists who hijacked flight 571. He was one of 16 commandos who dressed as airline mechanics and took out the hostage takers during that raid. Whatever else you think about him, he was a legit badass who has the medals and scars to prove it.
Everything is an alternate reality. This guy would be afraid of blood while the guy who hid behind women and children, and literally was caught with money and fake documents near the border, was a brave fighter.
As a side note, Netanyahu’s brother was later the sole Israeli military casualty of the Entebbe rescue.
A hundred Israeli commandos flew to Uganda to rescue passengers on another hijacked flight.
They rescued 102 passengers after taking out all of the terrorist hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers.
The Chuck Norris Delta Force movie was partially based on that operation.
So just to clarify because I think it’s important to note:
The indictment alleges that the founders of the company, Lauren Chen and her husband, intentionally deceived the influencers mentioned below (seemingly Dave Rubin and Tim Pool) regarding the source of the funding.
“Founder 1” is Lauren Chen, who gained these contacts when she worked for RT between March 2021 and Feb 2022.
When they were trying to sign the influencers who recognized some red flags, the fake person they sold as the main investor in France set up a meeting but mistakenly tried to show up to it at the Moscow time for meeting. Then googled the time in Paris.
There has been a lot of discussion about whether Israel, a country w a nearly 20% Arab population with full legal rights, is an "apartheid" state.
But the accusation often comes from supporters of surrounding states and territories. So let’s look at some of those for comparison:
Saudi Arabia:
Religious rights- Saudi legal system based on Sharia law. All forms of public religious worship outside Sunni Islam are considered illegal. Converting from Islam is punishable by death. Christians and Jews cannot build places of worship.
Women’s rights- Women must obtain permission from a male guardian for most actions.
LGBT- Homosexuality is a criminal offense.
Qatar:
Religious rights- Qatar’s legal system is based on Sharia law. All forms of public religious worship outside Islam are considered illegal. Building non-Muslim places of worship is severely restricted.
Women’s rights- Women must obtain permission from a male guardian for most actions.