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UN Admits Hamas Lied on Casualty Numbers; But the Damage Is Done
An Israeli tank maneuvers, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza Border, in southern Israel, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Numbers are funny things.
After shouting about Israel and “genocide” — and touting Hamas’ casualty numbers with no verification and obvious flaws — the UN changed its mind this weekend. The old numbers (up to May 6, 2024) looked like this:
34,735 dead, including over 9,500 women and over 14,500 children. [You could, if you wished, extrapolate the number of men/terrorists, but the UN wasn’t going to help you.]
The new numbers (May 8, 2024) are:
24,686 people, including 10,006 men, 4,959 women, and 7,797 children
The UN blames “the fog of war.” Baloney.
There is always fog, but the UN acceptance of Hamas casualty figures led directly to South Africa’s complaint to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide. The ICJ declined to say there was genocide, but Israel was still smeared again across the international media.
The UN and others ignored the work of John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, and a follower of the nuances and statistics of Israel’s war in Gaza. He has given a master class over the past six month on evaluating military to civilian casualties in urban warfare, and the unprecedented steps that Israel took to minimize those casualties.
His numbers boil down to this:
The current (March 31) Hamas-supplied estimate of over 31,000 does not acknowledge a single combatant death (nor any deaths due to the misfiring of its own rockets or other friendly fire). The IDF estimates it has killed about 13,000 Hamas operatives, which would mean some 18,000 civilians had died, a ratio of roughly 1 combatant to 1.5 civilians. Given Hamas’ likely inflation of the death count, the real figure could be closer to 1 to 1. Either way, the number would be historically low for modern urban warfare.
According to other sources, Spencer notes, civilians usually account for 80-90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the AP reported some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.
How did it happen that theoretically neutral/reliable sources including the AP, Reuters, NPR, the UN itself swallowed those blatantly false Hamas numbers whole and ignored an actual expert in the field?
Oxfam reported that the death rate in Gaza was higher than any other major conflict in the 20th century.
On October 7, Hamas and its friends entered Israel and killed 1,163 people — a verified number. The victims included a baby who died 14 hours after birth, and a 94-year-old woman. The world was horrified by the numbers and the manner of their death, which included rape, torture, and the burning of people alive.
The world was similarly horrified to discover that 240 people, including Americans, had been dragged into Gaza — most living but some already dead.
Israel’s initial military response was met with a degree of understanding around the world.
Hamas had a dilemma — but also a war strategy to turn the tables.
Having built its military infrastructure under streets, houses, schools, mosques, and UNRWA facilities, Hamas was assured that Israeli action to clear those spaces of terrorist operatives would kill the human shields sitting above. (Especially after Hamas warned Gazans not to flee and fired on Palestinian civilians using the “safe passage” route.)
In fact, Hamas planned it that way. The more civilians that died, the more Israel would be seen as an out-of-control monster, killing the defenseless in retribution. Committing “genocide.”
And Hamas’ strategy worked.
The first big test was at the Al-Ahli Hospital, where an explosion killed people outside the building. The Gaza Health Ministry (run by Hamas) claimed 500 dead from an Israeli air strike on a protected site. Media around the world went with it. Later evidence showed it was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket aiming for Israel, and that the casualty figure was closer to 50 than 500.
At that point, the “narrative” changed: “I don’t think the question will ever get fully resolved using open source intelligence,” an assistant professor of political science opined. If actual evidence won’t let you blame Israel and politics won’t let you blame Hamas, best to call it foggy and move on.
That’s how it worked. And the numbers caused the flood.
In January, it was the ICJ.
In February, President Biden said Israel’s response was “over the top,” and began to institute sanctions on individual Israelis and Israeli companies that he intimated were only the beginning.
And, indeed, in May, as Israel geared up for the Rafah battle, the administration announced the withholding of weapons already approved for delivery by Congress. There was also the blackmail/bribe strategy of offering Israel intelligence information if it would limit its incursion. The UN vote elevating Palestinian status was likely a way member states could slap at Israel without repercussions.
Israel is likely to do what it has to do to defend its people. The UN through UNRWA has already shown itself to be an accessory to Hamas and a participant in Hamas war crimes — both in Israel and against its own people. Later, when the “fog of war” dissipates, and the outcomes are closer to the John Spencer model than the Hamas model, the UN should find itself in the dock.
The number change is an attempt to deflect its guilt.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.
The post UN Admits Hamas Lied on Casualty Numbers; But the Damage Is Done first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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