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Hamas’ Gaza Casualties Can’t Be Trusted; Biden Was Right the First Time
News outlets have reported nearly 16,000 deaths in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, as Israel attempts to remove the group that slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, and many innocent Jews in the preceding years.
But Gaza casualty figures come from the Hamas-run health ministry.
Hamas’ full name is the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement. Its founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and a genocide of Jews. By 1995 the United States had designated Hamas — funded, armed, and trained by Iran — a terrorist organization.
The group’s casualty figures, usually said to comprise “mostly women and children” are used to destroy support for Israel on the world stage, and put pressure on President Joe Biden to let Hamas survive. The demand that Israel stop or reduce its campaign – dressed as concern over “indiscriminate” Israeli attacks, comes from administration staffers, congressional Democrats and America’s post-liberal, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish left.
So, the Biden administration, which botched the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, and failed to discourage Vladimir Putin before he launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, now attempts to direct and manage Israel’s war against Hamas.
There are good reasons to doubt statistics from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry (more on that below). But assume momentarily the casualty count is correct. Do likewise with Israel’s late November estimate that it had killed up to 4,000 terrorists. That leaves approximately 11,000 noncombatant Palestinian Arab fatalities.
Four thousand dead gunmen to 11,000 noncombatant fatalities is a proportion of 2.63 to 1. In 2015, the United Nations put combatant-to-noncombatant deaths caused by US and British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq at between 3:1 and 4:1.
And that’s assuming Hamas’ numbers can be trusted. But they can’t be.
After the 50-day Israel-Hamas 2014 war in the Gaza Strip, Gen. Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that Israel had gone out of its way to minimize non-combatant casualties, including by warning civilians of pending attacks in their neighborhoods.
The IDF has done the same in current fighting, dropping leaflets, making phone calls by Arabic-speaking IDF soldiers, and otherwise urging civilians to flee from Hamas targets. As Daniel Pomerantz pointed out, Israel even fired against Hamas soldiers to protect Palestinian civilians.
Numbers can lie
According to Lenny Ben-David, of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Hamas’ current figures are essentially “fanciful propaganda statistics.” That’s because after the 2014 war, which Hamas provoked by kidnapping and murdering three Israelis, its health ministry stopped specifying fatalities by age and sex.
Now Hamas lumps all Gazan deaths since October 7 together. This includes all Hamas terrorists; the approximately 750 who died of natural causes through November 30, per CIA calculations; the hundreds supposedly killed by strikes at the al-Ahli Hospital (by the errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile) in the Jabalya refugee district (more likely 40 to 50 combined as suggested by photographs); and an unknown number of “collaborators” killed by Hamas or its junior partner, the Iranian-supported PIJ.
In another analysis for the Jerusalem Center, “Hamas’ Numbers Warfare,” Prof. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, asked how it was that after the first five weeks of fighting, “neither the Hamas leadership nor the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported a single casualty among Hamas forces.” Further, “no one questioned how PMH reported 30,000 Palestinians wounded when the total number of hospital beds in all medical facilities in Gaza, including UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] clinics, did not exceed 3,000. So, where exactly are all the 30,000 wounded?”
Michael estimated dead and wounded Gazans at 50 percent of the total announced by Hamas-controlled officials, and “at least half of the number of dead and wounded are probably Hamas members..”
Next, former US intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance has noted:
16,000 dead? HOW DO YOU KNOW THESE KILLED FIGURES ARE TRUE?
The number of Palestinians casualties reported are almost IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE.
Yes, the number of KIA/WIA may ultimately be grievous but I predict these 1,000 KIA per day numbers are simply JUST MADE UP by HAMAS. WHO IS COUNTING DEAD & WOUNDED & MISSING?
We’ve seen one mass grave of 110 adults. Until the ceasefire there was no integrated medical reporting system or even Wi-Fi, right? How did Doctors collect & pass info on verified dead? Did they use couriers with notebooks? Signal flags? Carrier pigeons?
Outside of hospital tallies (& those directors have lied repeatedly about casualties) how do they know how many actually died outside of in their care? Where are they buried? Were HAMAS terrorist KIA numbers were included? Who is collecting & documenting the corpses in the streets. Where are they all buried? Are there over 160 mass graves (w/100 bodies) the world has somehow not seen?
Also how DID HAMAS KNOW all the exact names, ID numbers & family members on the list of 6,700 dead a week ago? Sorry. I don’t believe it. I worked Satellite imagery analysis on the Srebrenica massacre of 6,000 KIA & seen countable graves at ISIS’s & Mariupol’s mass grave sites. You can make a raw estimate from the mass graves. BUT WHERE ARE THEY IN GAZA?
Don’t tell me all victims are all buried under buildings. Then it’s just as possible the building was empty. Sorry It is just Impossible to verify ANY HAMAS health ministry death tolls. The media, NGOs & UN uses HAMAS figures.
President Joe Biden blundered in late October by confessing he was “disappointed in myself” for publicly doubting Hamas-issued Palestinian casualty counts. Biden made his initial, more pertinent public statement on the numbers on October 25, saying, “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.” He added that “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s a price of waging war.”
Blame not a game
Only a day later, American Muslim representatives were in the White House, urging the president to show more empathy for Hamas’ human shield/human sacrifice victims. That is, to pressure Israel to back off.
Shortly before the American Civil War, William T. Sherman, later Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s right-hand man as a general himself, served as superintendent of the Louisiana Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (now Louisiana State University). He thought Southern enthusiasm for secession was mad. He is said to have warned that secession would lead to war and war to massive death and destruction. It did, including his famous “march to the sea” that destroyed much of Georgia and South Carolina.
What does that have to do with Hamas and Israel? After October 7 and the IDF’s counter-attack, Hamas pledged to attempt more genocidal raids into Israel until the Jewish state and its Jews are destroyed. Israeli officials believe the organization started the war with approximately 30,000 gunmen. To eliminate future threats from Gaza and reestablish deterrence against the larger Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, the IDF will have to kill thousands more Hamas members. Given the choice the terrorists made to fight among Gaza’s civilians, that means many more noncombatant deaths.
Israel’s enemies invert the distinction between those sworn to murder Jews and Jews committed to defend themselves. Their progressive jargon fails to hide an antisemitic reaction that is both neo-Marxist and neo-Nazi. The White House must reassert that responsibility for noncombatant deaths in the Gaza Strip belongs to the Jew haters, not the Jewish state.
Eric Rozenman is communications consultant for the Jewish Policy Center and author, most recently, of From Elvis to Trump, Eyewitness to the Unraveling: Co-Starring Richard Nixon, Andy Warhol, Bill Clinton, the Supremes and Barack Obama! Opinions expressed above are solely his own.
The post Hamas’ Gaza Casualties Can’t Be Trusted; Biden Was Right the First Time first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.