As soon as I quoted numbers I knew someone would dispute them. Which is fine. It’s terribly hard to find accurate anything anymore. But the point was to emphasize the enormity of the death toll. And the point of doing that was to try to appeal to the human in us all. I think you may have missed that. I will add one more thing, because I think you may have missed this as well: I am not apologizing for either side. I said above, both are bad actors. I am however, advocating for the children. And that was the point.
Just for a moment, let’s forget history, other than that associated with the current conflict. Last October Hamas perpetrated a vicious attack on Israel. That’s a fact. Most of the international community agrees with Israel’s right to defend itself. Another fact. Since the attack, though, Israel has killed nearly 35 thousand in Gaza, with 70% of them reported to be women and children. According to the organization, Save the Children, nearly 14 thousand of those killed are children. That’s 40%. For some perspective, the WWII child death toll was about 3% of all deaths. And yes, the circumstances are very different, but I think I have seen sufficient cause to call Israel out for atrocities. An international court can, and should, do due process, but Israel’s got a lot of explaining to before being allowed to wash its hands. Nothing antisemitic here. I’d call out Canada or the Netherlands, or Cuba for the same behavior. History provides us with context, but war crimes are war crimes. Hamas is also guilty of war crimes especially the murders of nearly 1,200 Israelis, and over 240 kidnappings on October 7. Maybe part of the problem here is that both sides are bad actors. There’s no one for us to sympathize with, so we retreat to whatever our tribal norm is. We’re smarter than that. Let’s grow up a little and take the blinders off our eyes.
As soon as I quoted numbers I knew someone would dispute them. Which is fine. It’s terribly hard to find accurate anything anymore. But the point was to emphasize the enormity of the death toll. And the point of doing that was to try to appeal to the human in us all. I think you may have missed that. I will add one more thing, because I think you may have missed this as well: I am not apologizing for either side. I said above, both are bad actors. I am however, advocating for the children. And that was the point.