Yves here. Ralph Nader’s estimate of the actual fatalities in Gaza is important in and of itself, for its political and humanitarian implications, but also as a critical thinking example. I have to admit to partly turning off my brain on this particular issue because this topic (the death count in various types of humanitarian crises) is so remote from my field of knowledge. Yours truly did point out that the official count was clearly understated due to the inability to count bodies under the rubble, and the Gaza health authority not attempting to make estimates, based say on reports of the missing.
I fell for Israel asserting that the Gaza health authority being an interested party and exaggerating the body count. That sounded wrong given the care they seemed to be taking. But what I completely overlooked, and Nader describes below, that the Gaza officials also have incentive to understate the fatality level, and appear to be doing so by not tallying the many deaths from disease and starvation.
By Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).. Originally published at Common Dreams
With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm, and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000?
Since the Hamas raid penetrated the multi-tiered Israeli border security on October 7, 2023 (an unexplained collapse of Israel’s defensive capabilities), 2.3 million utterly defenseless Palestinians in the tiny crowded Gaza enclave have been on the receiving end of over 65,000 bombs and missiles plus non-stop tank shelling and snipers.
The extreme right-wing Netanyahu regime has enforced its declared siege of, in its genocidal words, “no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicine.”
The relentless bombing has destroyed apartment buildings, marketplaces, refugee camps, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, roads, electricity networks, critical water mains—just about everything.
The U.S.-equipped Israeli war machine has even uprooted agricultural fields, including thousands of olive trees on one farm; bulldozed many cemeteries; and bombed civilians fleeing on Israeli orders, while obstructing the few trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt.
With virtually no healthcare left, no medications, and infectious diseases spreading especially among infants, children, the infirm, and the elderly, can anybody believe that the fatalities have just gone over 30,000? With 5,000 babies born every month into the rubble, their mothers wounded and without food, healthcare, medicine, and clean water for any of their children, severe skepticism about the Hamas Health Ministry’s official count is warranted.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, which he helped over the years, have a common interest in lowballing the death and injury toll. But for different reasons. Hamas keeps the figures low to reduce being accused by its own people of not protecting them, and not building shelters. Hamas grossly underestimated the savage war crimes by the vengeful, occupying Israeli military superpower fully and unconditionally backed by the U.S. military superpower.
The Health Ministry is intentionally conservative, citing that its death toll came from reports only of named deceased by hospitals and morgues. But as the weeks turned into months, blasted, disabled hospitals and morgues cannot keep up with the bodies, or cannot count those slain laying on roadsides in allies and beneath building debris. Yet the Health Ministry remains conservative and the “official” rising civilian fatality and injury count continues to be uncritically reported by both friend and foe of this devastating Israeli state terrorism.
It was especially astonishing to see the most progressive groups and writers routinely use the same Hamas Health Ministry figures as did the governments and outside groups backing the one-sided war on Gaza. All this despite predictions of a human catastrophe in the Gaza Strip almost every day since October 7, 2023 by arms of the United Nations, other besieged international relief agencies on the ground, eyewitness accounts by medical personnel, and many Israeli human rights groups and brave local journalists in that strip, the geographic size of Philadelphia. (Unguided Western and Israeli reporters and journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli government.) (See the open letter, titled “Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe,” to President Joe Biden on December 13, 2023 by 16 Israeli human rights groups that also appeared as a paid notice in TheNew York Times.)
Then came the December 29, 2023 opinion piece in The Guardian by the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Devi Sridhar. She predicted half a million deaths in 2024 if conditions continue unabated.
In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March 2, 2024 Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes:
The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine—a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid.
Tharoor quotes Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council: “We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions,” and “Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.”
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations lead humanitarian officer, said “Life is draining out of Gaza at terrifying speed.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to the Post, warned of an “‘unknown number of people’—believed to be in the tens of thousands—lying under the rubble of buildings brought down by Israeli strikes.”
Volker Turk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said, “All people in Gaza are at imminent risk of famine. Almost all are drinking salty and contaminated water. Healthcare across the territory is barely functioning,” and “Just imagine what this means for the wounded, and people suffering infectious-disease outbreaks… many are already believed to be starving.”
UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Doctors Without Borders are all relating that the same catastrophic conditions are getting worse fast.
Yet, and get this, in this article, the Post still stuck with the “more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the ongoing war began.”
Just like the entire mass media, many governments, even the independent media and critics of the war would have us accept that between 98% and 99% of Gaza’s entire population has survived—albeit the sick, injured, and more Palestinians about to die. This is lethally improbable!
From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.
Imagine Americans, if this powerful U.S.-made weaponry was fired on the besieged, homeless, trapped people of Philadelphia, do you think that only 30,000 of that city’s 1.5 million people would have been killed?
Daily circumstantial evidence of the deliberate Israeli targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructures requires more reliable epidemiological estimates of casualties.
It matters greatly whether the aggregate toll so far, and counting, is three, four, five, six times more than the Health Ministry’s undercount. It matters for elevating the urgency for a permanent cease-fire, and direct and massive humanitarian aid by the U.S. and other countries, bypassing the sadistic cruelty against innocent families of the Israeli siege. It matters for the columnists and editorial writers who have been self-censoring themselves, with some, like the Post’s Charles Lane, fictionally claiming that Israel’s military doesn’t “intentionally target civilians.” It matters for accountability under international law.
Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: What about Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki?
As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children, will continue for years.)
Respecting the more accurate casualty toll of Palestinian children, mothers, and fathers presses harder for permanent cease-fires and the process of recovery and reparations for the survivors of their holocaust.
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For a variety of different observations of news and the Palestinian elimination attempt, check out these 3 news organizations:
https://www.presstv.ir/ Iran
https://www.cgtn.com/ China
https://www.telesurenglish.net/ Venezuela
Found them this afternoon in an article about their being banned in the UK. Don’t want the “news” getting out I guess.
PS, Ralph has a great, weekly podcast: The Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Nobel Peace Prize????? Naw, let’s give one to Obama.
I lost all respect for Nobel committee and their prices after they gave Obama one!
I was an (almost) lifelong fan of RN and loved his Radio Hour podcast. But I lost all respect for him when he endorsed Biden over Trump a while ago (before the Gaza genocide). I certainly get how he doesn’t like Trump but Biden has symbolized *everything* Nader has campaigned against for Biden’s 50 years in politics.
Sigh.
The real question here is why do we need statistics and numbers. The women, children, elderly, handicapped, and other citizens of Gaza are real people. Death is not the worst thing that has happened to them. Death may be a release. They have been severely and sadistically tortured each and every day for about four months. They have been tortured in a real, physical, existential way for each and every hour of the past four months. They are over 2 million people trapped in a small cage, smaller than the rural county I live in, and tortured – and the torture will continue. We should not need academic numbers to understand how inhumane we are for supporting this genocidal holocaust. Americans have just participated in a referendum on continuous torture of 2 million people in a cage called Super Tuesday. The women, children, elderly, handicapped, men, etc. of Gaza lost. The real word to repeatedly refer to is torture, not death.
I agree with this comment. The world loves statistics and just the same as ‘likes’ it is a measurement system of how much attention we are told we should give to one thing or another. There is no humanity in statistics, no human rights in statistics! But here we are having to judge the severity of the genocide by numbers. One life lost is too much!
Statistics help understand the scope of the massacres, otherwise, Israel and the Jewish lobby can, as have been manipulating the narrative, will continue with abstractions and distractions. Much telling is the current cover article in The Atlantic magazine, which whitewashes the genocidal crimes and turns the story into poor us as the “golden age” in America comes to a close.. The fact is that this is Israel’s “final solution” plan to the Palestinians. Numbers provide a more clear picture in the minds of average Americans and the world.
The real question here is why do we need statistics and numbers
Statistics, numbers, and data are intentionally used to overwhelm people. This was the plan that was coming together at the end of the 1800’s. The plan was also to turn the entire world into one giant competition. And here we are.
True, the exact numbers don’t matter, and detract from the point that state-sponsored genocide is illegal according to US and intl. law – not to mention morally unacceptable to the vast majority of the world’s population. Unilateral sanctions are illegal as well and is a euphemism for siege warfare. Both of these result in large numbers of innocents being killed, directly or indirectly. That should be the main point.
Four months? They have been tortured every day, increasingly, for roughly one hundred years. Whole generations have slept through it.
Perhaps the statistics can help explain Netanyahu’s logic. Are his genocidal war crimes based on a ratio? So for every Israeli killed or kidnapped by Hamas, Israeli forces will bomb, starve, or torture 100 or 200 or 1,000 Palestinians. What’s the number Bibi?
The question is, how he arrived to that number? The 30,000 figure is backed by list of names and even that isn’t enough for the West to stop casting doubt on it. So if “Hamas run” ministry publishes 200,000 figure based on their mere appraisal of situation on the ground, I don’t think they will be able to put it on Israel.
If there is to be Clarity, an explanation of the term ” Mowing the Grass” as used in conversations in Israel would be Illuminating.
Whatever the number of Gazans (e.g., Hamas’ support structure) killed, it clearly isn’t yet a sufficient number to bring about (Iwo Jima or the Battle of Berlin are useful historic precedents, much more so than the Battle of Manila in 1945) unconditional complete surrender of Hamas in its entirety. This, not enough have died yet to bring about a long-lasting peace on that end of Israel. Let us hope that blessing will soon be bestowed (by Israeli courage and skill) upon the area.
African American writer Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man about the Jim Crow America attitude toward blacks and now Invisible Man 2024 can update for Palestinians. But then current America didn’t, in the main, show too much concern over the hundreds of thousand dead Iraqis. After all they knocked down our World Trade Center (oh wait).
But one could argue that the Iraqi slaughter as well was about Israel and the attitude of Madeleine Albright that “the price is worth it” (always) when it comes to our hegemonic delusions and those of our oh so influential clients.
Not just Israel, it transferred several trillions of dollars from the public coffers into the hands of private interests. Cui bono? Institutionalized corruption is the fancy term.
Ralph Nader is 90 years old, older than DT and JB yet he displays razor-sharp critical thinking skills.
He raises very compelling information regarding the ongoing genocide and death tolls. Bulldozing agricultural fields, olive groves, etc has been going on for many years in the WB as well but has been accelerated to truly genocidal proportions.
We will likely never know an exact count, but we can be assured that the 30k number is far too low an estimate. It is absolutely horrific to think that 100s of thousands more will likely die, and the US will continue to send weapons, money and enable Israel.
The genocide in Gaza has fallen off the news cycle, while the parade of freaks (political candidates) is all over the mass media. Kind of ironic that: two senile, genocidal Zionist freaks are shoved in our faces while ongoing genocide is swept under the rug. At least in the UK, you have George Galloway to stir things up a bit.
The global majority must think that the US is a death cult: carpet bombing Korea in the 1950s, carpet bombing SE Asia in the 1960s and 70s, mass murdering millions of innocent people and leaving a toxic legacy of poison and unexploded ordinance to this day. And that was before the current crop of so-caled neoconservatives gained power. It was just good old fashioned imperialist foreign policy.
Then the US used “:shock and awe” to bomb Iraq into the Stone Age, mass murder another million plus people and leave it a failed state. Afghanistan is also starving, under siege warfare. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran etc. are under siege warfare. Siege warfare, as we see in Gaza, is even more effective to reduce the population (mass slaughter) than direct military attack. Libya was bombed, destroyed and turned into a failed state as well. Very little attention is paid to the death tolls resulting from siege-sanctions, for obvious reasons. The CIA orchestrated coups in Haiti, Honduras etc. Haiti is now a failed state.
We could go on, but killing innocent people abroad is always, as Albright said, “worth it” because the perps don’t pay, they profit. (in more ways than one).
Vicki Nudelman (Nuland-Kagan) resigned. She and her hubby are textbook examples of US warmongers: physically and intellectually repulsive, sheltered, spoiled, fat, bloated, cowardly sociopaths who would promptly soil themselves if exposed to a whiff of danger. Is there a psychologist in the house?
And they say the US is a beacon of freedom, democracy, freedom of the press, freedom of speech blah blah. What a bunch of BS. “to the victors go the spoils and the writing of history” After the inevitable collapse of the US Empire, there will be quite a different history of the British/American empires, I am certain of that (if humanity survives that is).
I predict the Israeli legal team at the ICJ will cite the “bomb them back to the stone age” statements in an attempt to establish that it’s normal and acceptable for politicians to openly express genocidal intent.
JonnyJames: And lest we forget, the ongoing genocide in Ukraine, which also has fallen off the news cycle.
The Western powers in their infinite wisdom got the attack that they had provoked for years and years. The population of what is left of Ukraine is now down to an estimated 25 000 000.
From the articles here at Naked Capitalism, I glean an estimate that there are 300 000 dead Ukrainian soldiers with 700 000 wounded, many with very limited prospects for a productive life.
Is it a death cult? Yes, of course it is a death cult. In particular, the U.S.-U.K. elites are a death cult.
As for “Toria” and her contemptible consort, they are the very banality of evil that Hannah Arendt keeps warning us about.
Yes, good points, of course Ukraine is part of this. And the willingness of the US/UK to provoke and bring us closer to the brink of nuclear war should not be forgotten. The Doomsday Clock reflects this as well. 90 seconds…
i first began to learn that the usa wasnt what the brochure promised from my 1976 edition of the encyclopaedia britannica…to their credit.
a little later, dad gave me a shortwave radio, and was horrified when i latched on to cuban radio, and listened to Granma and 4 hour speeches by fidel.
then there were the headshops, with their at first little dinky bookshelves of subversive tomes.
and then the college library at sam houston state…which had all kinds of information that one doesnt speak of in polite company.
so by the time the internet came along(1999, for me), i was already long a nonbeliever in american exceptionalism, nor the myths we tell ourselves about how virtuous and benevolent we are…to our own people, as well as to the rest of the world….and i set about attempting to fact check fidel, et alia.
it was a long slow process, at least subjectively(compared to the majority, it was quite rapid,lol)…but i am firmly anti american, now….and, like i said, i hate my country BECAUSE i’m a damned Patriot.
i do not want to be ashamed to be an american…but here we are…without a say in the matter, aside from “pick one of these pre-decided monsters”.
and yet they still text me asking for money.
have i been “radicalised”?
yer dern tootin i been radicalised…and by the very perpetrators who come up with such weasel-words for dissent and morality and ethics.
i withdrew my consent to be governed by evil creatures long ago…for whatever thats worth.
they cannot force me to bend the knee, nor to support their madness and machinery.
Short-wave radio, a wonderful gateway drug to the truth. Heard non-US sources many times over the decades and noted how different were the tenor and content of broadcasts. Now available in handy internet form.
Radio Havana Cuba, Granma, Speeches from El Comandante… OMG! you listened to the Soviet-backed commie Cubans?! Isn’t that illegal? lol.
I think I first saw this on the Granma English website first. Even those who didn’t like Castro will find it difficult to argue against his main points.
http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/castro/
that Fidel, in the flesh as it were,and presumably in his own words(his translator), was so very objectively different from anything i’d seen or heard about the man before that, made me think about everything i’d been told.
his commie propaganda worked on me…because it made more sense to me than what i got from my homeland,en toto.
IOW, he made a better case than any of our own politicians at the time.
and like my very favorite books, there were essentially footnotes,lol…avenues of knowledge that i could then pursue.
Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize lecture is one of the best descriptions I have seen about the US. And ince then, almost 20 years ago, soo much more has been added to the US tab…
And we Americans import this slaughter culture into our schools and malls with mass shootings equally and wonder why.
As you say, Yves, it’s a fearsomely complicated subject, made worse by different definitions. You may think that “death” is one thing, but in practice it’s several. The categories are at least (1) prompt deaths (2) deaths from wounds, sometimes after a period of days (3) death as a result of not being able to receive proper medical care (4) subsequent deaths from secondary causes (unexploded ordnance) (5) deaths from hunger (6) deaths from contaminated water/food:/infectious diseases (7) deaths from illnesses exacerbated by poor food or contaminated water etc. In addition, since the DRC and Iraq, death totals have included excess child miscarriages and neonatal mortality, and overall reductions in the birth rate. Depending on your definition, the figure for “deaths” may vary by a factor of five or even ten, if you compare “people who were actively killed” with “people who probably would not otherwise have died.” The often-quoted figure of three to five million deaths in the DRC depends on some abstruse calculations about all-cause mortality rates in the DRC in the 1990s, for which no reliable figures exist. The actual number of people directly killed was probably in the tens of thousands, and the argument is really about the number of excess deaths..
The usual picture is for early estimates to be very low, because data is missing, then for very high estimates to be put around by the media and campaigning groups, and finally for much lower figures to be generally accepted. This happened most notoriously with Kosovo in 1999, where figures of 100,000 dead were being bandied around. The most reliable figure is now accepted to be about 5000, including Serb police and civilians. The figure for Bosnia was progressively reduced from 300,000 to about 90,000, of whom around two-thirds were battle casualties. Darfur went through a similar trajectory. If you have the stomach for it, read Andreas and Greenhill, “Sex, Drugs and Body Counts,” for a good explanation of how complicated this all is, and how open to manipulation.
Aerial bombing is a very poor way of killing people: at one point in 1943, during the so-called Battle of Berlin, more British aircrew died than German civilians in the bombed cities. Casualties from that era have been steadily revised downwards, as we discussed a few weeks ago. So whilst the 30,000 figure is probably on the low side, and will be revised upwards, Nader’s figures, highly speculative as they are, only make any sense if you count literally everyone who has died in Gaza for any reason since October 8, and possibly not even then.
Given he doesn’t provide any kind of source for that number, it just seems to be a wild guess.
The Gaza Health Authority are scrupulous about only counting verified deaths – because Israel has a history of seizing on any mistake, no matter how trivial. So that 30,000 is a baseline figure. And at this point I would guess they lack the capacity to verify many of these deaths. There are barely any hospitals, most of the official records have been destroyed and many of the officials who did this work are probably incapacitated. Any Palestinian under rubble will likely not be counted, and there are no doubt many Palestinians dead in buildings that nobody dares approach for fear of sniper fire, or worse. And then of course the Israelis will be disposing of many of the corpses.
At some point we may get an excess death estimate, which may be very accurate due to the borders being closed. Conversely if the Palestinians are expelled from Gaza we’ll probably never know. Israel will never accept such a figure of course.
Israel will never accept such a figure of course.
Who cares what Israel accepts? Why does it matter? Why even mention it?
Did anyone with even a sliver of conscience care what figures Germany accepted during WWII?
As a counterpoint, let me refer to a fatality statistic that caused quite a long controversy in its time: how many people died because of the invasion of Iraq by the USA?
Wikipedia has a nice overview. To summarize, the number of people dead because of violence or the consequences of the invasion are as follows:
1) when tabulating “body counts”: from a low of 109032 (January 2004 to March 2009), to 110600 (March 2003 up to March 2009), to a high of 210296 (from March 2003 onwards);
2) when carrying out surveys (Lancet, PLOS, Iraqi family services), from a low of 151000 (March 2003 to 2006), to 460000 (up to June 2011), to a high of 654965 (up to June 2006).
In other words, a ratio of 4 – 6 between total estimate / body counts, even taking into account the difference in time-spans.
As such, given the sheer violence of the Israeli offensive, the estimate of Nader 200000 vs 30000 appears to be historically realistic.
This is rather what I was getting at. Figures for “deaths” are essentially meaningless without a definition. For political reasons, some figures are stressed if they are high, and some if they are low: it all depends what you are trying to prove. In Nader’s case I don’t think he has any real idea.
A constant in this subject is that birth-rates generally go down during wartime, because young males, in particular, are otherwise occupied and the majority of deaths are among them. This leads arithmetically to a decline in population, even if civilians are not themselves directly or indirectly affected. A deliberately ridiculous example would be Britain in WW2, where the population decreased by about 3,5 Million between 1939 and 1942. But these were not “deaths,” in the simple sense (total civilian and military casualties in Britain in WW2 were less than half a million, mostly concentrated in 1940-41 for civilians and 1944-45 for soldiers.) They were the result of most youngish males, and not a few females, bring conscripted for military service, and so not producing as many babies as normal. At least some of the calculations about deaths in Iraq include the same factors: not so much “dead” as “never born.”
Yes, political factors weigh heavy and the problems with coming up with hard numbers are real. The numbers for WWII are interesting in the context of numbers commonly accepted in the Shoah/Holocaust – of course this subject is so highly politicized, one can’t talk about it in polite company.
On the other hand it doesn’t really matter much if 150k or 1.5 million died, were not born etc in Iraq as a result of the US/UK war and occupation, for example. The wasn’t necessary and many innocent people were killed, many war crimes were committed. Assange is being persecuted for just exposing a few.
As I have mentioned before, there is NO internal USA movement to make reparations to Iraq for all the damage done simply because “Saddam might have WMD’s”.and the USA pitched that it was justified in invading Iraq as a consequence..
And the USA styles itself as a fair minded, decent and religious nation.
One can imagine how the USA would react if another nation preemptively bombed cities in the USA because the USA MIGHT bomb a foreign nation first.with its store of WMD’s.
Other nations could justifiably view the USA as an ever present threat to their well-being as demonstrated by past USA military actions..
A lot of lives lost and destruction, one could suggest the USA elite wants to make sure the USA can never downsize the military because other nations might seek vengeance.
At least some of the calculations about deaths in Iraq include the same factors: not so much “dead” as “never born.”
Not the studies I mention above.
They all focused on the excess deaths by violence and health issues (as consequences of the war). There did not attempt to estimate the reduction in births due to the war or the demographic evolution of the population as a whole.
In other words: from the historical precedent, Nader’s figure of 200000 guessed fatalities, compared to the 30000 definitely confirmed ones by the Gaza Health Ministry, appears reasonable.
Ever since he was a young man making GM so irate about his expose’ of their crummy cars, that they sent out private detectives to dig up dirt about him and even paid women to try and get him in a honey trap, Ralph has been causing “good trouble.”
Well done, Mr. Nader.
I heard there is a 92-year old Nazi still lurking about. So, I mean, we better take care of him first. Also, Israel needs more reparations from Germany and the world.
Unless and until the Jewish state of Israel and its leaders and functionaries are put on trial before the world the way Germany was, nothing will change.
If, ten or fifteen years from now, the Jewish state of Israel – which is supported by all the Jewish communities around the world with a few quite vocal exceptions – is still basically itself without having gone through any trials and convictions before the world, and without having to pay reparations to the Palestinians…well, then we will know with absolute certainty that all the old canards about their power are true.
> I heard there is a 92-year old Nazi still lurking about. So, I mean, we better take care of him first
Not an exaggeration — Ursula Haverbeck is 93 years old and Germany has again sentenced her for wrongthink.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-93-year-old-holocaust-denier-sent-back-to-jail/a-61336650
I have no idea whether Ralph Nader is near correct, but I am reminded how terrible war can be many years before a proper understanding. Though America was not at war with Cambodia during the Vietnam years, it was learned too many years later that there was more tonnage of bombs dropped over Cambodia than all the bomb tonnage dropped in WWII including the nuclear bombs:
http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf
May 12, 2007
Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War
By Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan
The data released by Clinton * shows the total payload dropped during these years to be nearly five times greater than the generally accepted figure. To put the revised total of 2,756,941 tons into perspective, the Allies dropped just over 2 million tons of bombs during all of World War II, including the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 15,000 and 20,000 tons, respectively…
* In 2000
I don’t think this is correct. Hamas are scrupulous about their figures because Israel will use even tiny errors as a way to discredit them. Their figures are the lower limit on the deaths and should be treated as such. At least that many people have died. The real figure is obviously far higher (though I have no idea where he got 300,000 from. It’s not impossible, but I’d like to see his work).
and the whole exercise has been filmed by lots of random people on both sides and then sent directly into everybody’s feed.
the giant explosions, the rubble to the horizon…let alone the humans(and babies)shaking and covered in blood….all that will stick to zionists like tar and feathers, henceforth…but we’ll never know the extent of it…a precise number of bodies.
is israel(if they win, which i consider unlikely at this point–they’ve come out of the closet and revealed themselves as monstrous) gonna pick through the riprap theyve made of gaza and do forensic analysis?
i seriously doubt it…they’ll push it all into the sea, and build a resort on top of the new land.
if they lose?…who will do that work?…and what will become of the place, itself, if israel is no longer a thorn in the side of the islamic world?
a large, parklike holy shrine , is my guess.
on par, but below, of the temple mount where Mohamed’s horse’ footprint is.
Just out from the WaPo:
U.S. floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct
Washington has approved more than 100 separate military sales to Israel since its invasion of Gaza, even as officials complain Israeli leaders have not done enough to protect civilians
The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.
The triple digit figure, which has not been previously reported, is the latest indication of Washington’s extensive involvement in the polarizing five-month conflict even as top U.S. officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel’s military tactics in a campaign that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells. Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/
I don’t accept genocide or deliberate crimes against humanity by any group that is involved – I also do not accept excuses or reasoning that makes it OK or less egregious. I do not accept excuses or reasoning that exempts or enumerates any quantum of genocide or deliberate crimes against humanity in effort to quibble, extend or provide salve to minimize these atrocities. I do not, and will not support any politicians in the USA who have enabled, and supported genocide through inaction and deeds, or those who crassly speak with forked tongue.
Sorry Team Democrat and Team Republican —- just because I am forced to choose between either a Dem or Repub does not mean I shall choose either – I will pick whomever is neither.
Makes me sick
Honest questions.
How is Hamas feeding its military wing? They are still inflicting heavy casualties on Israeli forces.
Is the population of Gaza willing to watch it’s children die to prosecute an unwinnable war?
So far, it seems like the Palestinians are willing to watch their babies die and Hamas is willing to continue to fight on the ground as the population starves. These are choices they are free to make. I do not know what I would do.
Gaza’s population does not have a lot of time left. An outbreak of any disease will decimate its population. They are malnourished enough to cause something like Measles to turn deadly. I believe it has a 10% mortality rate in malnourished children but a 0.002 mortality rate in healthy children.
The Palestinian civilians have no choice here. Hamas, IJP, etc. have the guns and other military hardware and the training. The Palestinian civilians can’t do much or anything about Hamas, IJP, etc. decisions and actions. The GoI ( Government of Israel) has choices here about how to respond. And the GoI is making its choice of choices known by the actions it and its personnel are taking.
The DC FedRegime Gov could freeze the flow of bombs, etc. to Israel in mid-flow. Actually, probably Biden his own self could give the order to freeze the flow. So far he has not done so. The ” vote uncommitted” movement is part of a effort to get him to do so by creating the threat of an electoral cost to him for not doing so . . . . or at least for not doing something anyway.
If the Palestinian civilians of Gaza became so embittered by the outcome of choices made by Hamas, IJP, etc to where they decide that Hamas, IJP, etc. have totally lost the Mandate of Heaven, could they do a thing about it anyway? ( I have read hints that some of the Palestinians are beginning to ask themselves and eachother . . . why didn’t Hamas build us any deep and strong bomb shelters for an Israeli response of this sort? That may be a sign of the Hamas/IJP’s Mandate of Heaven beginning to fade. But even if so, what are the Palestinians supposed to do about it anyway)?
I am autistic….I honestly do not understand how that is passive aggressive.
I’m not taking the line that the war will end when Arabs love their children more than hate the Jews.
I’m just wondering how Hamas is feeding its soldiers and if Palestinians have considered this option. I no longer watch the feeds on tik tok etc…Ive have watched enough dead baby videos.
ive thought about that…what would i do in some random Palestinian’s shoes….while going about my purpose here, on the farm.
i honestlt think i would take up arms(see: Judges “and he took up the jawbone of an ass, and he slew them”, etc—thats the sigil of my House,lol)
and long, long ago.
if all thats been happening there, had been happening here…yeah…i’d be lobbing grenades, man.
nobody should hafta put up with what those people have put up with.
and this is from somebody who supported the aliyah…found those stories inspiring, as intended,lol…just not how they ended up being…which is essentially the worst kind of new neighbors.
zionists made a choice, way back…and not all of them, mind you…to be asshole neighbors.
of note, perhaps, that every bad neighbor ive had has been backed up in some way by the ptb/gov/mafia(which are sometimes the same thing, more or less—is out here,lol)
but genpop usually gets tired of it…especially when such folks over reach…and then they are curtailed…or run off.
israel…like ukraine…should end as a state.
they’ve caused far too many problems in the world…over long timescales.
and that prolly has to happen first, before the world tackles the USA! problem.
“Honest questions.”
There are no honest questions, only incorrect and improper assertions with question marks attached in the attempt to hide an argument. No honest questions at all.
“Violence in everyday behaviour, violence against the past that is emptied of all substance, violence against the future, for the colonial regime presents itself as necessarily eternal. We see, therefore, that the colonized people, caught in a web of three-dimensional violence, a meeting point of multiple, diverse, repeated, cumulative violences, are soon logically confronted by the problem of ending the colonial regime by any means necessary.
This violence of the colonial regime is not just lived on the level of the soul, but also that of the muscles, of the blood. This violence that wills itself to be violent, which becomes more and more boundless, irreparably provokes the birth of an internal violence in the colonized people and a just anger is born that seeks to express itself.
The role of the political party that takes the destinies of this people into its hands is to curtail this violence and to channel it by providing it with a peaceful platform and a constructive basis, since for the human spirit which contemplates the unfolding of history and which tries to stay on the ground of the universal, violence must first be fought with the language of truth and of reason.
But it happens, alas – and there cannot be anyone who does not deplore this historical necessity – it happens, I say, that in certain enslaved regions the violence of the colonized becomes quite simply a manifestation of his strictly animal existence. I say animal and I speak as a biologist, for such reactions are, after all, only defensive reactions reflecting a quite banal instinct of self-preservation.
And the achievement of the Algerian revolution is precisely to have culminated in a grandiose way and to have caused a mutation of the instinct of self-preservation into value and truth. For the Algerian people, the only solution to this heroic struggle at the heart of which they had to crystallize their national consciousness and deepen their attribute as an African people.
And no one can deny that all this blood spilt in Algeria will definitely serve as leaven to the great African nation.
In certain colonies, the violence of the colonized is the last gesture of the hunted man, meaning that he is ready to defend his life. There are colonies which fight for freedom, independence, for the right to happiness. In 1954, the Algerian people took up arms because at that point the colonial prison became so oppressive that it was no longer tolerable, because the hunt was definitely on for Algerians in the streets and in the countryside and because, finally, it was no longer a question for the Algerian of giving a meaning to his life but rather of giving one to his death.
…
The million Europeans living in Algeria pose particular problems. The colonists in Algeria are afraid of the Algerian nation. Physical fear, moral fear. And this double fear translates into aggressivity and severely homicidal conduct. At the base of this behaviour we find 1. a very powerful guilt complex. ‘If the Algerians’ they say ‘should one day rule Algeria, they would certainly do what we colonists have done, and make us pay for our crimes’; 2. there is also a certain Manichaean conception of humanity which would always divide it into oppressors and oppressed.
…
But on 8 May 1945, almost fifteen years ago, the Algerian people marched in the main cities of Algeria to demand the release of certain political detainees and the application of human rights on the national territory. At the end of the day, 45,000 dead Algerians were buried. These figures, which revolt any conscience, are the figures recognized by the government of the French Republic. Until now, not one Frenchman has been brought to justice to answer for any one of those 45,000 dead.
What we are saying is that we need to close our ranks. It is necessary that our voice should be powerful not only by being vigorous but also for the concrete measures that could be taken against this or that colonial state.
African comrades, may the day never dawn where we can still see in 24 hours 45,000 African citizens swept away by colonial barbarism!
We must really make the white settlers hesitate and the nations that support them.
In Angola, where 200,000 Portuguese rule by terror. In Rhodesia, where the monstrous face of racism shows itself with unparalleled violence. In Kenya, where our valiant brother Jomo Kenyatta rots in prison and where the settlers do not despair of fighting a final and victorious battle.
The settler such as one finds in Algeria, in Angola, in Kenya, in Rhodesia and in the Union of South Africa is obstinately hostile to any attack on his supremacy.
…
No, the violence of the Algerian people is neither a hatred of peace nor a rejection of human relations, nor a conviction that only war can put an end to the colonial regime in Algeria.
The Algerian people have chosen the unique solution that was left to them and this choice will hold firm for us.
General de Gaulle said: ‘We must break the Algerian people.’ We reply: ‘Let us negotiate, find a solution that is commensurate with contemporary history. But know that if you want to break the Algerian people, you will have to accept seeing your armies break themselves against the rampart of the glorious Algerian soldiers.'”
Why We Use Violence, Frantz Fanon
Another honest question: Who has the power to stop it in their hands?
Isn’t concern trolling via passive-aggressive victim blaming passe’ yet?
Well . . . Biden has the power his very own self in his very own hands. He could , as Commander In Chief, give all the military support materiel logisticians who are moving bombs and bullets to Israel to immediately freeze that movement in mid-move.
im a lil stoned, here…so just tossing out thangs(ie: i got stoned with you all)
i can see a path to russia wrapping up ukraine, and either them or maybe china, since the palestinian genocide is ongoing, stepping up and declaring that they recognise a de facto Palestinian Republic, or something…and then declaring that that state is under their aegis.
radical move, from civilisations that are , really, not really known for radicalism over milennia(save for those 2 instances,lol)
but i remember the tremble in the voices of cnn/msdnc people when the russian army rumbled into serbia….
might give pause to the belligerents.
and if we’re gonna have WW3 anyways….might look good to history(if anyone survives) to stand up against genocide.(the standard defense of WW2 in the west, at least)
anywho…i grew some pretty decent, stony, weed last year…not dick in dirt like what we get from colorado, or wherever.
lol.
Cite all the slaughters perpetrated by all other nations and peoples of the 20th and 21st century as a mitigation of what Israel, its government and its people, are busily about that you wish, I cannot recall an instance in which mass murder was so heartily approved as is the case here.
Who will dare to take on the US? And there are so many alliances being sorted that will after all prove financially very beneficial to the participants. Israel is courting and being courted by Saudi Arabia and both are foes of Iran. So many players, so much money to be made, so many ‘friends’ to be made. Morality and ‘rule of law’ do not have weight anymore. Finance has weight. Gaza is a devastating revelation of the workings of power in the world. “Might makes right” – who will dare to take on the US?
It never occurred to me to think the Gaza Health Authority was overestimating death numbers because ” Hamas”. They are civil servants. I just supposed that they “are” Hamas in the same way that civil servants in Saddam Hussein era Iraq “were” Baath . . . because it was an absolute job requirement to “be” Hamas ( or “Baath”) if you wanted a job anywhere in civil service or health service or etc.
I suspect the Israeli hasbara-masters know that when they say we shouldn’t trust Gaza Health Service numbers because “Hamas”.
Biden is a zombie. He is a drooling craven fool.
And Congress, the MassMediaCartel, and both parties are in lockstep. There’s a lot of Zombies out there. And don’t forget the vassal-sycophants in the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan etc.
Not expecting an ‘LBJ March 31,1968 announcement’ tonight, especially the “… and may God bless all of you” flourish.
Actually, it doesn’t matter if the number is 30,000 or 200,000.
If one is not outraged after 1,000 Gazan deaths, they will not be outraged after 1,000,000 deaths, because, as you know “Isreal has a right to defend itself.”
Also doesn’t count the missing, not just as yet unrecovered from the rubble, but the deliberately “disappeared”. Some are returned after days, weeks, torture etc to serve as examples, including medical workers taken from hospitals. Some are seen on Israeli soldier DIY snuff films on TikTok. Not to mention the deliberate desecration of cemeteries. And then there are deaths that are not reported to the remaining centres, whatever the cause, particularly of children and elderly eg family just burying their own quietly wherever they died.
Erasure of cultural artefacts, burning historical documents, is part of ethnic cleansing, not just make life uninhabitable, but erase all evidence of their existence of ever having been there, including paving new roads, destroying, libraries, municipal records, museums, art galleries, cemeteries, ancient historical antiquities etc..
Im reminded of the story of one of the ancient Egyptian queen/pharoahs .. following her 30-year rule, everything… monuments, statues, inscriptions, written records on scrolls, tablets, were deliberately wiped off the face of the earth. It was only when her very well hidden tomb was found in the 20th century that part of the story came out.
The deaths and disappearances in the West Bank are also not being counted, along with the massive increase in settler violence and demolition work and reconstruction.
But it is not all going Israel’s way, just mostly. They are also understating Israeli soldier casualties. The Axis of Resistance are increasing their controlled escalation to Phase 2, according to Alistair Crooke since Phase 1 of 4-5 months of low intensity pot-shot strikes havent helped in pressuring Israel to back off. Moving up to moderate intensity strikes from Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon for another 4-5 months? Iraq hit Haifa’s energy grid, Yemeni using heavier firepower on shipping, Hezbollah taking out important military targets in the Golan. I guess we really dont want to see Phase 3.?
Israeli economy is tanking, some international boycotts are succeeding in causing pain, and their latest Budget has introduced austerity measures, cuts to social welfare programs etc and around 500-1,000 Israelis per month are leaving on one-way tickets.
Attrition of Israeli (and by extension, US) military equipment, forces etc must start hurting at some point and force a “strategic withdrawal”. But as somebody I cant recall said, the Israeli govt has 3 political Parties in coalition, the Right, the Far Right, and the Ultra Right. Removing just Netanyahu wont change their govt policy, and Israeli opinion polls have the majority supporting the action. (I guess the minority are voting with their feet, and if possible, thinking its time to “get out of Dodge”)
See the popularity of Israelis blocking the Aid trucks at the crossings, holding rave parties, with bouncy castles for the kids, eating ice-creams (like Biden).
Phase 2 may not work in time to save many Palestinians, but i cant see Israel coming out unscathed whatever they decide.
Norman Finkelstein it seems, also according to some interviews done by judge Napolitano.
quote on X
Thank you, Ralph Nader, for throwing water in our faces.
How could the death rate in Gaza not be of this magnitude given the terrible devastation that is on view daily? Babies and children cannot survive long when their bodies are starved and then wracked by illness from exposure and contaminated water.
Five-year olds in Gaza have reportedly been telling doctors that they would prefer death to medical treatment that simply prolongs their terror and agony. The callous disregard for their suffering being exhibited by the U.S. (mis)leadership is utterly revolting. The failure of China to marshal the UN General Assembly against the Security Council and the U.S. veto is nearly as shameful.
Sounds like the Gazan government Hamas that represents Gazan residents shouldn’t have started the current war they’re in. Like starving Japanese in August 1945, their suffering is 100% on the head of their government. The clear answer is for their government to go ahead and surrender, bringing an end to the war and its privations.
Gazans being inexplicably predominantly unshakeable supporters of the Hamas government, to the point they want the war to continue indefinitely (they just want to win it), likely most Gazans will need to be expelled from living within 100 miles of Israel for there to be peace there.
Of course. All is the fault of the Palestinians for daring to live, to elect a government the USA disdained, to keep fighting for justice in their own stolen land, to reproduce, to keep alive their hope despite the powerful of the world allowing/ encouraging genocide and the perpetrators pretending to be victims.
Or maybe, just maybe, ‘Israel’ will go kaput.
Hamas’ attack on October 7 was a military operation, not a “terrorist attack”, as Scott Ritter has argued persuasively. It should be seen as directly analogous to the Warsaw Ghetto uprisings, seen then and now as heroic resistance to genocidal oppressors. I think it’s still an open question the extent to which the IDF and Netanyahu had prior knowledge of the attack, and let it happen in order to justify their final solution to the Palestinian “problem. We do know that their claims of rapes and beheadings were lies from the beginning. If Nader’s reasonable estimate is accurate, as seems likely, this time the whole world is watching in real time, as the death cult that is the West puts a period on its hegemony.
Yikes. So collective punishment is an acceptable action in today’s world. Who knew?
I guess the Gazans expect more of us than we are currently demonstrating.
In our little NC town two of us stood with signs in the traffic circle, then another and another… the important bit is the surprisingly large number of affirming honks and thumbs up, indicating a condition not unlike hyperconcentration in a solution,
where a single crystal prompts crystallization.
A stunning level of reports pretending generosity of IDF troops and bombs is vigorously deployed, so we are like the experimental test mice in an actively manipulated maze. Like the mice our consciousness has been researched and quantified to a couple of percentage points and is being actively plied.
We still have the other two percentage points to work with, and the “no preference” vote in the primary indicates a rising percentage of resistance.