Comment by LorenPechtel
7 hours ago
Some facts about that number:
1) It's the total death toll from all causes, including natural causes.
2) The majority of those "journalists and media workers" were Hamas propaganda people.
3) UNRWA had a higher proportion of it's people identified as terrorists than the population at large.
4) It's what Hamas claimed, without any means of verification. Israel showed about 4k were unquestionably false. Hamas also claimed 10,000 buried in the rubble--which never changed. Then when they started digging after the war only some hundreds were found--and Israel caught them planting bodies to be found.
And, fundamentally, the death toll proves nothing. Blame war on the side that chooses to fight, not on the side that is successful at fighting. Typically they are one in the same as most countries will not launch a war they don't expect to win. But when a little guy goes and tries to beat up a big guy and gets pounded it's still the guy who started it that's in the wrong.
1) It's not. In fact, most scholars agree these numbers are way lower than the real one, as those are only the confirmed deaths.
2) Source? The only places where I can read about it are in far right Israeli or American communications.
3) Source? It seems like Israel was interested in labelling UNRWA as a terrorist organization at some point, but there is no evidence to back up their claim. After all, the IDF is known to shoot at journalists and humanitarian aid workers in their strategy to starve Gaza, so it makes sense they would try to discredit the org.
4) I can't find what you're talking about.
I think it would be more honest if you simply stated that you are fine with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, rather that argue about who started what while ignoring the century that Israel's settler-colonial project has existed. This isn't country vs country, this is well-funded colonizer vs colonyzee. More akin to the American expansion over natives territory. Did native American attacks back then justify the US in killing them all? Of course not. Same thing here.
Hamas's existence is at least explainable (if not excusable) in the light of a Palestinian population that feared for its lives, and was vindicated in the last few years in thinking that Israel was out to kill them all. Because it is.
> it would be more honest if you simply stated that you are fine with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza
You guys have been arguing in good faith and interestingly. You undermine your credibility with insults.