Comments on: Unholy War out of kilter

By: Everett Benson

Everett Benson — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 03:21:48 +0000

Cynthia, all those videos you have watched, and the media emphasis on them, reflect and funnel Hamas claims. Hamas is a cult of death, and rejoices in it, using its own people and children as cannon fodder — so it is less than nothing to them to murder truth as well. Some of those horrendous videos have been found to emanate from the Syria conflict, not the Israel-Gaza one at all. Others relate to the Operation Cast Lead, now re-furbished as anti-Israel propaganda in the current conflict. Even regarding the true videos, no terrorist young men are ever shown; it is always only about children. The Hamas leaders have instructed media that all victims must be described as “civilians, and especially as innocent civilians.” Non-innocent people used as human shields must never be described as such. The journalists in Gaza have been threatened with death if they deviate from Hamas objectives, so they obediently parrot the Hamas claims as truth — until they leave Gaza, when they have been interviewed by Israeli journalists as confirming Israel’s claims about responsibility and Hamas use of human shields. How many of those children, and other casualties, were caused by the at least 10% of the 2,000 rockets shot from Gaza that fall short inside Gaza, are never mentioned nor even estimated — it is always Israel’s fault. How many are protesters, shot as “Israeli collaborators,” we are also not told — they too are amongst the “innocent civilians killed by Israeli missiles.”

In fact, children casualties in the Gaza conflict remain one-third their percentage of the Gazan population. Only 20% of casualties are women. Over all, 80% of Gazan casualties are males, including a small number of children and elderly, but overwhelmingly males of fighting age, with high spikes in the twenties. In short, most of these “civilians” are terrorist militants killed in battle. Actual militants killed according to the IDF number about 800, and this conforms to other statistical analyses. The most recent UN estimate of total confirmed Gazan dead is around 1,160 (not the 1,670 figure given by the Gazan Ministry of Health, which almost all media sources trust implicitly as gospel truth, despite evidence of frequent double or even triple listing of the same names). Even aside from the IDF estimate, statistical analysts have concluded that 60% of the dead were terrorist militants killed in action, and only 40% are “civilians.” This would make the civilian ratio similar to the one in the Gaza Cast Lead campaign of 08-09, and the lowest in world history relating to counter-terrorist, counter-insurgency operations.

By: Liat

Liat — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 03:32:24 +0000

Cynthia, Without meaning disrespect to you, I must state that your sentiments are fantasy and not helpful to the ongoing conflict in any way. Nobody sees the plight of the Gazan children as ‘fake’ – their tears are real, as are their dead bodies. You do not seem to take into account though, the advantage Hamas makes of this situation with its own people, poisoning the world view with their focus on it and their rhetoric, while they contribute to their people’s demise themselves with their intransigent and relentless intent of annihilating the Jews of Israel and taking the land for themselves, no matter the cost … no matter how many of their children die in the process. Just as their trained teenage suicide bombers died for their cause, these children of all ages die due to their decision-making.
That Jews in the Diaspora could use their influence to make sure that we all participate in a peaceful solution is almost a ridiculous thing to say, in that it is meaningless in its generality, so distanced from reality as to be sentimental in the worst possible way. Can you not understand that there is no possibility of peace while the Palestinians do not even recognise the State of Israel and call for the death of Jews, educate their children to hate Jews in order to propagate the situation for future generations to come? There is nobody to negotiate with, therefore we must fight for our lives.
I certainly don’t intend to lambast you for what you write – it’s an act of courage to commit your words to this posting and I can sense your sincerity – however, I urge you to confront the real problem that exists and must be acted upon and resist giving in to the despair war creates.

By: Cynthia Godfrey

Cynthia Godfrey — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:01:08 +0000

As a mother and grandmother, with dear friends living in Israel whose young men and women are probably in the IDF, I write this comment with deep heartbreak and sorrow, and knowing full well that my words will be lambasted by my fellow Jews within Australia and elsewhere.
So I am taking risk, however, I cannot believe all the media reporting is that one sided and that the young children crying and suffering injuries I have seen are ‘fakes’. So with that said I loathe and despise those within Israel and Hamas who deem it acceptable that innocent young lives are being destroyed or the usual remark ‘collateral damage’.
Even if the children in Gaza do survive, the hatred they will carry within their hearts for the rest of their lives will never leave them. Hamas will have even more recruits and suicide bombers for their despicable ideology.
As a fervent Zionist in my younger years and one of the original members of the Group for Soviet Jewry, and having experienced anti-Semitism from a young age, I well remember the days of the end of WWII and seeing the first newsreels of the concentration camps, I was 8 years old.
When hatred is ‘fertilised’ by more deaths there will never be peace, on either side, however, that said, in any vicious situation, some one has to make the first move, it happened in Cyprus in the 1970, and it had happened in Northern Ireland, the scale was certainly not the same, but the carnage was real.
Surely as Jews in the Diaspora, we must use our influence not by saying who is right and who is wrong, but making sure that we all participate in a peaceful solution, no matter what the odds are.
Alternatively all of us throughout the world are going to be eventually involved in a much greater bloodier conflict which no one will be able to stop. May the Good Lord have mercy on all of us!