— Feature, Musings —03.18.2024 10:49 PM
My latest: they voted for a lie
Faked?
The death toll in Gaza was repeatedly cited by Canadian Parliamentarians on Monday as they voted on an NDP resolution to “officially recognize the state of Palestine” and demand an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Over and over, MPs claimed that 32,000 Gazans have been killed by Israel – most of them women and children. Over and over, they gave just one justification for recognizing a “state” that is run by a listed terrorist entity: the death toll.
But what if the death toll has been faked?
Because, almost certainly, it has been. Five reasons.
The source. There is just one (1) source for all of the numbers cited by Canadian Parliamentarians: the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 and took over the ministry, and ensured their own people ran it.
The ministry’s erstwhile director general, Medhat Abbas, answers directly to Hamas. Abbas has let Hamas store weapons in Gaza hospitals, operate out of them, and even keep Israeli hostages prisoner in some hospitals.
During World War II, Canada and its allies did not accept what the National Socialist German Doctors’ League had to say about casualties, because they had a vested interest in lying. Why would Canada now accept the word of a “health ministry” run by a terrorist organization?
The precedent. On October 17, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry declared, al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza had been bombed by Israel, and 500 people killed. It made headlines around the world.
The problem: it was a lie. The hospital was not destroyed – it still stands – and hundreds were not killed. And, most importantly, Israel did not do it.
The Palestinian side did. Human Rights Watch is no friend of Israel, but it has confirmed that a Palestinian “rocket-propelled munition” hit the hospital parking lot, not the hospital itself. On the Gaza Healthy Ministry death toll? Concluded Human Rights Watch: “[We are] unable to corroborate the count.”
Note, also, this important conclusion, which we will return to shortly: “[The Gaza Health Ministry death toll] is significantly higher than other estimates of killed-to-injured ratio, and appears out of proportion with the damage visible on site.”
The eyewitnesses. The first casualty of war is truth, of course. It is hard, if not impossible, to determine the truth on a battlefield.
That is the case in the Israel-Hamas war, too: neither side has permitted any truly independent body or media organization to enter the war zone. That has led to multiple governments and media organizations simply taking the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry at its word.
Is it a good idea, to accept the word of an organization whose master carried out the massacre of October 7 in the first place?
That’s a rhetorical question.
The statistics. Abraham J. Wyner is a professor of Statistics and Data Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Last week, he published an important analysis of the Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers in the magazine Tablet. Wyner carefully reviewed the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll claims and concluded:
“The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.”
Why? Wyner looked at the total number of Gaza deaths from the start of the war on October 27 to now. On a graph, the number grows by the same amount every single day, showing a perfect line going upward. Says Wyner: “This regularity is almost surely not real. One would expect quite a bit of variation day to day…the Gaza ministry is releasing fake daily numbers that vary too little.”
The mistakes. The Gaza Health Ministry appears to have another error that calls into question much of what they’ve claimed: the ceasefire.
Remember? There was a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas from November 24 to 30. A week, essentially, in which hostages released, humanitarian aid was received, and the fighting stopped. In that week, two strong critics of Israel – the United Nations and al-Jazeera – said two (2) Palestinians were shot and killed.
But the Gaza Health Ministry published data claiming that casualties continued to grow at an alarming pace during the ceasefire week. The ministry even claimed deaths had topped 15,000 during the truce period, and said that most of them were women and children.
How can that be? Who was killed, and where? Was the November ceasefire faked?
The fake, here, is just about anything said by the Gaza Health Ministry. And, tragically this week, many of our Members of Parliament took them at their word.
My question is simple: if it is all lies, why does the IDF still obstruct any and all attempts to independently verify? It would seem they stand to gain everything and and lose nothing to allow unfettered access to willing, accredited foreign journalists.
Unless, of course, they aren’t telling the truth either.
Good luck finding anything resembling “independent” media in this conflict. And if I remember correctly, didn’t the IDF do just that with the explosion at the hospital? Despite presenting video footage, there were still many that disputed Israel’s claim.
So maybe Israel figures it can deny verification and be blamed or provide independent verification and face the claims of fake news and still be blamed.
Warren,
I don’t trust the Health Ministry numbers any more than you do. However, the perception is one of having reached a saturation point in Gaza. No doubt, the actual casualties are far less than Hamas and others quote.
But my sense of it is that Biden has had enough of the killing of civilians thanks to foreign and domestic intelligence briefings. The death toll of civilians must be at least disturbing. So, I’m prepared to swing into line behind him and trust his judgment. Is there any greater longstanding gentile friend of Israel in the U.S. than Biden? I don’t think so.
Ronald –
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In this case, the easy answer is that neither side here is trustworthy. The alternative is to believe that Reuters, the AP, NBC, PBS, NPR, Sky News, BBC, the NY Times (and so many others- you get the picture) just all have it in for Israel and Jewish people, and as a result will accept any narrative thrown their way by enemies of the state. That is… unlikely, to say the very least.
Warren,
So, the Liberals amended the NDP motion on Palestinian statehood. This type of motion is not appropriate in the current political and military context. As long as the Gazan war is not resolved and Hamas has not been effectively dealt with, this is definitely not the time to be moving forward with this type of motion.
My bet is that Housefather will go independent. And maybe one more Liberal MP as well.
Joly’s announcement that Canada will stop sending arms to Israel suggests to me they’ve decided Ya’Ara Saks and Marco Mendicino are toast anyways so better to salvage what they can in Brampton and Mississauga. Mount Royal might actually be competitive if the Tories field a decent candidate.
Why do the NDP and Liberals believe Hamas when it comes to ‘casualties’, but totally ignore Hamas when they say the only solution is to kill Jews?
What is it about the ‘freedom of Hamas’ that they find so appealing?
a) killing Jews?
b) killing gays?
c) how they treat women?
Well, why do Conservatives insist on referring to every single starving Palestinian infant as a Hamas supporter?
What is so appealing about treating an entire race of people as terrorists-in-waiting?
If Hamas hadn’t launched the Oct 7 attacks, Palestinians wouldn’t be starving.
If Hamas hadn’t dug any extensive network of tunnels, and spent millions on weapons, Palestinians wouldn’t be starving.
75% of Gazans supported Hamas. They danced in the street celebrating the attacks.
It’s time for the left to realize that Hamas wants to kill Jews. It’s in the Hamas charter, and they have said that they want to repeat Oct 7 attacks again, and again, and again. Or maybe the left do realize this?
They do realize this. And they condemn Hamas. The difference is that they refuse to bow to the rhetoric that every single thing the IDF does is just, and any complaint about it is anti-semitic. Honestly, I don’t understand how the pro-Kahanist crowd doesn’t recognize that continuing to press that point is actively driving more and more people toward anti-semitism.
If you’re going to tell people your choice is to either appreciate the completely and utterly unnecessary starvation of the innocent as a “necessity,” or be labelled a Jew-hater (and make no mistake, that is EXACTLY what too many people are doing) – you might not like where that conversation ends.
The left could call on Hamas to surrender. Has Justin? Has Jagmeet?
The left could stop funding Hamas, an organization that has said they want to kill Jews.