Palestine: casualties and open thread

Here is the weekly summary that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights produced for the period 17-23 August, 2006, cataloguing major rights abuses inflicted on the Palestinians by the Israeli Occupation Forces in (and around) Gaza and the West Bank.
During the week, as PCHR reports, 30 Palestinians, including 3 children, a mentally disabled young man and a woman, were killed by IOF. The 30 included two who died during the week from wounds previously inflicted by the IOF.
The report added:

    the number of Palestinians killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip since 25 June 2006 has increased to 217, including 46 children and 12 women. In addition, 755 others, mostly civilians, including 203 children, 28 women, 4 paramedics and 6 journalists, have been wounded.

Figures available from the “Statistics” page on B’tselem’s website (click through the links in that first table there, and look down the right sidebar on the pages that up) tell us that from January1 through July 31, 2006, a total of 15 Israeli civilians and 3 Israeli security forces personnel were killed by Palestinians… while the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the OPTs and in Israel in the same period was 346.
And then, yes, there was Laura Blumenfeld’s spine-chilling article in the WaPo (and elsewhere) August 28, in which she told us how much the Israeli securocrats “agonized” over every single decision they “had” to make regarding the “targeted killings” of Palestinian suspects.
Including this, about former IDF chief of staff Moshe Yaalon:

    Almost every day, Yaalon had to decide who would live or die. “Who is a ‘ticking bomb’? Can we arrest him? Who is a priority — this guy first, or this guy first?” Yaalon recalled. Once a week, military intelligence and Shin Bet proposed new names. At first, the list was limited to bombers themselves, but several years later it expanded to those who manufacture bombs and those who plan attacks.
    “I called it ‘cutting weeds.’ I knew their names by heart,” Yaalon said. How many did he kill? “Oh, hundreds, hundreds. I knew them. I had all the details with their pictures, maps, intelligence, on the table… ”

We learn from B’tslem, that from January to the end of July this year, 16 Palestinians were the targets of Israeli assassination sqauds, whereas 31 Palestinians, total, were killed during these operations.
Maybe Yaalon could spend some of his time at the (AIPAC-affiliated) Washington Institute for Near East Policy reading the testimonies of former apartheid enforcers like Jeffery Benzien. Now there’s an (a-)moral community he could be a part of, where he might find people who would understand his “wrenching dilemmas”.
Of course, no word in Blumenfeld’s article about the people being targeted for assassination being given the benefit of anything like “due process under the law”….
Anyway, friends, because this is such a crucial and tragic subject, please keep the discussion here courteous and constructive.

22 thoughts on “Palestine: casualties and open thread”

  1. (AIPAC-affiliated) Washington Institute for Near East Policy
    Guilt by association = “constructive dialogue.” WINEP isn’t “AIPAC affiliated”.

  5. “As international human rights organizations decry the high toll of civilian deaths suffered in the Lebanon war, America’s main organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis is calling on the Israeli military to be less concerned with avoiding civilian casualties on the opposing side when carrying out future operations.”
    “[T]he rabbinical council said in a statement, ‘we believe that Judaism would neither require nor permit a Jewish soldier to sacrifice himself in order to save deliberately endangered enemy civilians.’”
    http://www.forward.com/articles/rabbis-israel-too-worried-over-civilian-deaths/
    Yeah, that’s the problem. The IDF has been too concerned about avoiding civilian casualties. After all, these Arabs aren’t fully human, are they? They don’t value life the same way Jews and Christians do, right? They all want to be martyrs anyway, so why not oblige them?
    Helena would want me to say “irony alert,” but this is the way some of the commenters here really think. (You know who you are)

  6. Just like Hezbollah isn’t “Iran affiliated.”
    Well, WINEP doesn’t receive any funding (let alone weaponry!) from AIPAC or from the state of Israel so your analogy fails on its most basic level. If Helena is suggesting that its scholars are fifth columnists (as she has with other “Lobby” affiliates [major irony alert!]) I’d wish she’d come out and say so. I can’t say innuendo like this does her or the causes she advocates any credit. It’s transparently McCarthyite.

  7. The Israeli Armed Forces (IDF)
    – launched 5,000 missiles, totaling over 135,000 missiles, bombs 5-ton bunker-buster bombs and cluster bombs as well as anti-personnel phosphorus bombs each day into Lebanon for 27 days and artillery shells.
    – During the last 7 days of the war Israel launched 6,000 bombs and shells per day – over 42,000, for a grand total of 177,000 over a heavily populated territory the size of the smallest state in the US.
    – In contrast, the Lebanese national resistance launched 4,000 rockets during the entire 34-day period, an average of 118 per day.
    – The ratio was 44 to 1 – without mentioning the size differentials, the long-term killing effects of the thousands of un-exploded cluster bombs (nearly 50 killed or maimed since the end of hostilities) and Israel’s scorched earth military incursion.
    The Jewish Lobbyists publish
    – the number of Israel’s civilian dead as 41, forgetting to mention that only 23 were Jews,
    – the remaining 18 were members of Israel’s Arab Muslim and Christian minority who constitute around 20% of the population.
    – The disproportionate number of Israeli Arabs killed was a result of the Israeli government policy of providing shelters and siren warning systems to Jews and ignoring the security needs of its Arab citizens.
    – The proportion of civilian deaths to soldiers was 41 to 116 or 26% of the total Israeli dead (but if we only consider Jewish Israelis and IDF members the proportion 23 to 116 or 16% of the Jewish dead were civilian.)
    – Clearly the Lebanese resistance was aiming most of its fire at the invading IDF. In contrast,
    – in Lebanon, of the 1,181 so far known to have been killed, 1088 were civilians and only 93 were fighters. In other words 92% of the Lebanese dead were civilians –
    – over three times the rate of civilians killed by the Lebanese resistance and almost 6 times the rate of Jewish civilians killed (the only ones who count in the Lobby’s propaganda machine).
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14762.htm
    – To put it more bluntly: over 47 Lebanese civilians were slaughtered for each Jewish Israeli civilian death.

  8. John C.,
    After all, these Arabs aren’t fully human, are they? They don’t value life the same way Jews and Christians do, right?
    Read this just last week

    refers to Arabs as “a cult of murderers, savages, and a loathsome nation whose prophet is a false prophet.”
    In the article, published in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper “Hassidic World”, author Yitzhak Ben-Zvi writes that “the Arabs are a people
    similar to donkeys… they are a vile nation of savages… they have a great desire to murder and are even worse than the Nazi enemy.”
    The article analyzes Torah rulings, and presents the alleged opinion of a Jewish scholar, who claims that “the hatred and cruelty of the Arabs, may they be damned, towards the Jews surpasses even that of the Nazis,” and that “the hatred to the Arabs should have naturally been etched in our hearts.”

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3295985,00.html

  9. Put more bluntly, Salah, all a good indication of why Hizballah was criminally reckless in messing with a much stronger Israel.
    In terms of the civilian casualties within Israel, maybe your source finds it important, but most Israelis don’t differentiate those killed on the basis of their religion or ethnic background!

  10. John C.
    these Arabs aren’t fully human, are they? They don’t value life the same way Jews and Christians do, right?
    Haredi writer accused of racism, slander

    refers to Arabs as “a cult of murderers, savages, and a loathsome nation whose prophet is a false prophet.”

    In the article, published in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper “Hassidic World”, author Yitzhak Ben-Zvi writes that “the Arabs are a people similar to donkeys… they are a vile nation of savages… they have a great desire to murder and are even worse than the Nazi enemy.”

    The article analyzes Torah rulings, and presents the alleged opinion of a Jewish scholar, who claims that “the hatred and cruelty of the Arabs, may they be damned, towards the Jews surpasses even that of the Nazis,” and that “the hatred to the Arabs should have naturally been etched in our hearts.”

  11. Israelis don’t differentiate those killed on the basis of their religion or ethnic background!
    JES, you should be ashamed being blind to the degree to deny what Israeli from governmental levels (laws) to normal writer in Israeli newspaper, Are you really living in Israel? Where are on this planet?
    Go and read carefully, don’t be put your personal attack on me go read JES….do your home work well…
    Read the above, read this if you miss your homework…
    because they aren’t JewsBusiness owners in north can’t get special loans because they aren’t Jews

  12. JES, is this might-makes-right argumentation here or what? … why Hizballah was criminally reckless in messing with a much stronger Israel.
    So should we say that the ANC was “criminally reckless” in messing with a “much stronger” apartheid regime (which cracked down and killed many hundreds more SA ‘Blacks’ than ever the ANC’s military killed ‘Whites’)… or just like the FLN in Vietnam was “criminally reckless” in messing with a “much stronger” US Army… or the Algerian FLN was “criminally reckless” in taking on the “much stronger” French army… or, or, or…
    I guess there are a few things about anti-colonial struggles that you just haven’t understood, JES. Including crucially, that the question of what level of casualties are supportable for the cause (though always, always deeply mourned) and what level might be judged “criminally reckless” is a determination to be made by and within the bereaved society itself– and most certainly not by people in the society that has just quite immorally and wantonly killed those large numbers of children, women, and men.

  13. Helena,
    All I am trying to say is that comparisons of the numbers of killed and wounded does not tell us anything about “justice”. It tells us only about relative strength.
    Earlier, you asked about what needs to be done to move forward with negotiations toward peace. I think that one of the first steps is not to make facile comparisons and inappropriate characterizations as you have done here.

  14. just like the FLN in Vietnam was “criminally reckless” in messing with a “much stronger” US Army… or the Algerian FLN was “criminally reckless” in taking on the “much stronger” French army… or, or, or…
    The obvious problem with these analogies is that Hezbollah’s recent aggression was international, & not part of any national liberation movement, since Lebanon was and remains uncolonized.
    All I am trying to say is that comparisons of the numbers of killed and wounded does not tell us anything about “justice”. It tells us only about relative strength.
    Unfortunately these are synonymous to some. Strength = responsibility = culpability.

  15. In terms of the civilian casualties within Israel, maybe your source finds it important, but most Israelis don’t differentiate those killed on the basis of their religion or ethnic background!
    This Israeli impartiality is even more true for those killed outside the Green & Blue lines. (Many) Israeli’s don’t differentiate those killed on the basis of their religion or ethnic background; whether Lebanese, Palestinian, Shia, Sunni or Christian, as long as they are no Israeli’s, (many) Israeli’s don’t give a damn. The same is true for age; whether child, adult, parent or grandma, the Israeli Air Force doesn’t discriminate between them. All can be pulverized, as long as they are no Israeli’s. It’s even true for time; Israel doesn’t differentiate between the present and the future. That’s why it littered the ground in Lebanon with clusterbombs, which are picked up by playing children, who are then blown up, long after the war itself.

  16. messing with a much stronger Israel.
    “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”
    Moshe Dayan…..
    Some one of you calls your strength as a “Mad Dog”!!
    Good this your state, so how you thing Mad Dog understand the humans and care about them…
    If the state built on racial bases and behaved racially with human when they are live, why should they stop there behaviours when they dead?
    Did you read the history of the colonies around the ward how racially and inhuman treated others?
    move forward with negotiations toward peace
    Before talking about peace and all this sweet words, why then Israel blockages of the Lebanon coast?
    Whey they make the live miserable for millions Lebanon’s and you asking for peace? Which peace you talking about? Weak up guys the Mad Dog one day will die….

  19. “WINEP doesn’t receive any funding (let alone weaponry!) from AIPAC or from the state of Israel”
    Vadim, since you know so much about WINEP, perhaps you would care to tell us exactly where its funding DOES come from. As far as I know, WINEP has never disclosed that information.

  20. September 1, 2006
    Two new entires in the echo chamber’s “hall of memorable blogging.”
    These by two true masters of double-speak.
    All I am trying to say is that comparisons of the numbers of killed and wounded does not tell us anything about “justice”. It tells us only about relative strength.
    Posted by: JES at September 1, 2006 11:13 AM
    Unfortunately these are synonymous to some. Strength = responsibility = culpability.
    Posted by: vadim at September 1, 2006 11:33 AM
    This reminds me of an Israeli government spokesman who was interviewed on CNN during Israel’s massive assaults on Jenin, Ramallah, and Bethlehem in the spring of 2002. All the world understood at that moment the tragic unfolding consequence of Israel’s “might makes right” policies extending back more than fifty years. But this Israeli media spin doctor still had the chutzpah to tell American viewers “you are not seeing what your eyes tell you they see.”
    CNN cameras showed Israeli tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets clearly firing into civilian areas, but the Israeli government spokesman (any relation to JES?) had this to say:
    “Israel is not the aggressor here; we are not the threat to civilians, we are not the threatening strong power you think you see… period. Your viewers must understand that the Palestinians are far more dangerous with their sucide bombers. On television it just looks like Israel is stronger and more agressive because your network’s cameras show our tanks and helicopters in action. And tanks and helicopters just look bigger.”
    At that moment I thought “Americans may just be the most gullible people in the world.” Our eyes and ears deceive us. Israel is not a brutal violator of humanitarian standards and international law. Israel is neither the military aggressor nor an occupier of other people’s land. No matter what violence or injustice Israel commits, it simply can not be recognized by Americans as the brutal religious ethnic/national apartheid state that it is.
    Irony alert.
    No, JES is not making a “might makes right” argument. No, Vadim does not have to understand that strength truly bears greater responsibility; and when responsibility suffers a major break down, it does carry greater culpability. Here at the JWN comments section JES and Vadim, like Israel in the American-based community of nations, get to have a rare club membership. In this club they get to keep acting like incredibly moronic amoral beings, and the rest of us pretend “our eyes deceive us.”
    JES and Vadim and the lobby’s echo chamber (which Walt and Mearsheimer rightly point out is a loose network of individuals who think along similar religious ethnic/national lines to serve a particular political project) have not been making false and distorted arguments for more than two years on this website.
    No, of course not. JES, Vadim, and friends are great guys. They always make the sharpest, most logical and rational analysis.
    MAJOR IRONY ALERT.

  22. Helena…
    I hope you have a chance to comment on today’s LA Times article…Palestinians Begin to Direct Blame Inward which presents evidence that the US/Israeli starve and kill strategy may be working. I have long believed that Hamas should have moved to dissolve the PA, a sentiment shared by Palestinian- American friends

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