Opinion: Conflict with Hamas is rife with misinformation
One would think that, with Iran's brutality toward dissidents, China's internment of the people of Xinjiang, Syria's killing of hundreds of thousands in a bid to keep Assad in power and the mass slaughters in Darfur and other African countries, those claiming to be concerned about oppression would have ample targets for their outrage.
But while those horrors have only been met with occasional demonstrations in recent years, the protests and vitriol toward the only democracy in the Middle East, which is at war only after being provoked by a brutal terrorist attack, have been unrelenting.
Along with the protests has come a steady stream of misinformation, meant to deceive Canadians about Israel and its intentions.
Let me deal with some of the most common canards.
Myth 1: Israel has been committing genocide since 1948
Genocide means the deliberate annihilation of a race.
If Israel has been committing genocide, it is history's most incompetent attempt. The Palestinian population has more than tripled since 1948, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
If Israel had wanted to wipe out Gaza's entire population, it could have done so.
Instead, Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 per cent of the population, have more civil rights and legal protections than any others in the Arab world. They are represented at all levels of business and government.
By contrast, Hamas advertises the fact that its very goal is to wipe out the Jewish population of Israel so that "From the River to the Sea," as its genocidal chant puts it, there will be only Palestinians left when it is finished. It makes no secret of this wish — exterminating the Jews in the region is in its charter and constant pronouncements.
Myth 2: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza today
No war is without casualties, but Israel takes more steps to protect civilian lives than any army has in the history of warfare. This is despite justifiable anger at Hamas, which breached a peace treaty by coming over the border and killed 1,200 Israelis, committing atrocities against civilians in the process. Imagine how any other country would have responded.
Israel's conduct includes providing food to Palestinian civilians, providing fuel, (even though it knows it will be used against it in weaponry), demarking protected civilian zones to minimize casualties and warning through leaflets and cell phone calls before buildings are bombed.
None of these measures are perfect, but they represent more than any army in wartime has ever done.
As result of Israeli efforts to minimize human casualties, the ratio of combatants to civilians killed is approximately 1:1, according to Israel's assessment of the death toll. Updated figures from the UN (more on this later) are consistent with a similar split.
This is lower than many modern wars, including those waged by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, and significantly lower than previous major wars, where civilians were deliberately targeted (as in Dresden and Hiroshima).
Israel has managed this even though Hamas has embedded itself among the population, has hid its fighters in underground in tunnels (to which funding meant for constructive infrastructure has been diverted), has shot at civilians who try to leave conflict zones and has fired munitions from civilian areas to bring world attention to its side when civilians are inevitably affected.
Many of these actions are legally war crimes, as was the taking of hostages, which precipitated Israel's invasion.
Myth 3: The casualty counts reported by Hamas are accurate
Many western media outlets have taken casualty reports from Hamas at face value, especially those produced early in the war, which showed a disproportionate number of women and children were being killed.
But as Jesse Kline pointed out in the National Post last week, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of those figures.
One analysis by a professor from the University of Pennsylvania found that the figures rose in linear fashion — so methodically as to be statistically dubious — while the correlations between the number of women and children being killed did not compute.
Eventually even the United Nations cut its estimates for the number of women and children killed in half after switching its source from Hamas's government media office to its ministry of health.
Questioning the death tolls has been met with the same accusations of bias as questioning the motivation (and origins) of the protests that have gripped North American streets and campuses since Oct. 7. But there is plenty to suggest that the cultivation of anti-Israel attitudes at American universities has been going on for years, with countries like Qatar and Iran seeking influence through funding. Hardly a spontaneous outpouring.
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