We got your letter. Initially, my thought was that you were young firebrands who wanted to shake up the world. Then I re-read what you wrote. And I thought about it for a while. Then I thought some more. And then I concluded you are propagandistic and are inclined to be anti-Israel.
You’re propagandistic because you think, despite blatant evidence to the contrary, that Israel did anything other than fight a justified war that exceeded the humanitarian standards of the Western notions of war. Just to be clear, Israel exceeded, not violated, humanitarian standards. It’s easy to see if you apply some critical thinking.
Hamas said there were 65,400 casualties from the war. That’s an unreliable number, given that it was produced by a terrorist organization trying to score propaganda points against Israel (which apparently worked.) Hamas “backed up” that number by producing lists of names. That number includes every last death in Gaza for the last two years, regardless of cause. Hamas acknowledged that. Hamas said its lists included non-combat deaths. That means it includes natural deaths and infant mortality that have historically been about 6,000 and 800, respectively, per year in Gaza. That leaves 58,600 Gazan deaths from the war. Let’s stop with the adjustments there, even though the lists are riddled with additional overcounts and errors (some say up to another 4,000 inaccuracies due things like including names of people who died pre 10/7). So, let’s just leave the overcount of 58,600. That number doesn’t separate out the terrorists Israel killed, either. Israel says it killed 25,000. So that leaves 33,600 arguably civilian deaths.
That means there were 1.3 civilians killed for every 1 terrorist killed. That ratio is the lowest (that’s a good thing if you value civilian life) ever recorded in any urban war, not to mention an urban environment with over 350 miles of terror tunnels in a war started by a terrorist group that admittedly uses human shields. It’s so unbelievably low. No other conflict is close. So there goes the whole claim of genocide, cruelty, disproportionality or any other nonsense.
I know you’re thinking, “Israel is lying when it says it killed 25,000 terrorists.” And that leads me to my next point. If you believe Hamas’ numbers but don’t believe Israel’s numbers, that means you have an inclination to be anti-Israel. I don’t know how you came to think that way. The Tidewater Jewish community didn’t teach you that. Maybe your hatred of Netanyahu has irrationally metastasized into a hatred of Israel. Maybe you’re ashamed of being Jewish or want your non-Jewish antisemitic friends to accept you.
Need more proof that you are anti-Israel? The claim of famine is false on its face. Only someone looking for a fact-free excuse to make Israel look bad would allege it. One essential element of the IPC definition of famine is that there are 2 deaths per 10,000 people per day from a lack of food. If there were 1,000,000 people in Gaza City, that would mean 200 deaths per day in Gaza City. Hamas’ own report (in other words, terrorist propaganda) was 212 deaths over 7 months in all of Gaza from lack of food.
I don’t know how you turned out this way. By “this way,” I mean predisposed to believe Hamas over Israel. But I care. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have told you what I think. And just to make sure it sinks in, I’ll say it again: you’re propagandistic and you’re anti-Israel. Get your act together. If you do, maybe I’ll listen.
A member of Tidewater’s Jewish community
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