Gazastinian and West Bankian populations keep growing as leftists redefine ‘genocide’
The newest talking point from the Hamas apologists is that they are fighting not only against an Israeli apartheid and occupation but also against a Jewish “genocide” against the Gazastanians. The problem with this claim, of course, is that the Gazan population has grown ten times over 70 years. Faced with this challenging reality, Hamas apologists are busy redefining what “genocide” means.
For a good analysis of the lie behind the “genocide” claim, I recommend Milli Sand’s essay, which looks at population growth in Gaza and the West Bank. She also examines the mass slaughters across the world in recent years, none of which have raised a peep from Hamas supporters, leftists, and other people utterly bereft of any moral compass. Indeed, a meme that’s been making the rounds nails the issue.
This tweet does, too:
🚨 Breaking: Israel 🇮🇱 killed nearly one thousand civilians yesterday, many of them women and children!
— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) November 7, 2023
Sorry for the typo, they were killed yesterday in Darfur, Sudan 🇸🇩
Nobody cares.#NoJewsNoNews pic.twitter.com/EGbJKyzdx0
So, there is no historic mass extermination of Arab Muslims living in Gaza and the West Bank. Of course, any Jews unlucky enough to find themselves wandering into those territories will be slaughtered, and Christian Arabs have been systematically killed and uprooted (which makes it baffling to me why so many Christian Arabs support the Gazastanians and West Bankians).
But what about now? Are Gazans being massacred in unprecedented numbers during the current war? No. They’re not.
First, Hamas has repeatedly been caught over the years faking deaths and injuries:
Instead, Hamas is taking a page out of the Nazi playbook, which wildly overstated deaths from the Dresden air raids in an effort to make themselves look like the victims rather than the aggressors. For several reasons, the Gazan claims about deaths are risible:
We're happy to report his condition has been upgraded to alive. pic.twitter.com/0u7NHLgZbL
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) November 5, 2023
When you get your casualty numbers from the "Gaza Ministry of Health". pic.twitter.com/cgukGVf7Pm
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 30, 2023
If you're going to be a crisis actor, at least be a good crisis actor. These are Razzie candidates. https://t.co/CqUStcujnW
— Andrea Widburg (@Bookwormroom) November 10, 2023
Second, as Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has said, Hamas desperately needs civilian deaths, so it’s not going to be picky about whether people are actually killed or whether it’s able to sell inflated numbers to the West. It’s noteworthy that Haniyeh, rather than leading his troops, is sitting out the war in Qatar, where he enjoys the lifestyle of a multi-billionaire.
To achieve Haniyeh’s propaganda goals, Hamas has actually contributed to the number of civilian deaths, not just by placing its tunnels, weapons, and fighters in, around, and under hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings but also by straight out slaughtering those of its own people who don’t want to be grim statistics.
Third, Hamas lies about the number who have died, whether by inflating the actual numbers or listing as civilians people who are clearly combatants. I’ve included at the end of this post a careful study detailing the many fallacies behind the Hamas genocide claim.
Mostly, Hamas and its useful idiots on the left across the West can ignore the data as they insist that Israel is the real Nazi nation. However, occasionally, the fact that the Gazastanians and West Bankians have consistently grown in number, whether under Israel’s aegis or with Israel as a neighbor, has been impossible to avoid. So, what’s a good Jihadist or leftist to do? Simple: Redefine what constitutes “genocide.”
I stumbled across this because Jon Lovitz has been waging a valiant war on Twitter against American Hamas supporters. For example, he took on Katie Halper, a hard-left Jew who is busy demanding that Israel stop fighting the terrorist organization that wants to wipe out Jews “from the river to the sea” and who thinks Hamas is a humanitarian organization. The resulting back and forth generated Halper’s astonishing claim that “Reduction of population is not required to fulfill the definition of genocide.”
She’s great actually. You can do your genocide denial without trying to sic the dogs on Jewish women who simply don’t want thousands of innocents to be killed by a right wing ethnostate.
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) November 26, 2023
Reduction of population is not required to fulfill the definition of genocide.
— Katie Halper A Jew For #CeasefireNow (@kthalps) November 26, 2023
Well, that’s actually the exact definition of genocide: Trying to exterminate a race, as the Nazis did when they successfully slaughtered almost the entirety of Europe’s Jewish population. Or, as Hamas explicitly intends to do, a sentiment expressed in its slogan that “Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea.”
George Orwell, whose 1984 is no longer being read in Western schools, made it very clear that controlling language is the fundamental way to control people. Unlike all other animals, we make sense of the world and our relationship to others via words:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
In the left’s wonderful new world, “genocide” is simply a calumny to throw against disfavored groups like Jews and whites, irrespective of whether the people against whom they have allegedly committed this act grow or diminish in number.
Image: Internet meme by @stopterrornow.
The media and UN have parroted the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry "statistics" of 12,300 were killed, of whom 5,000 (40%) were children and 3,300 women (26%) with “more than 74% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza are children, women, and the elderly.
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
The Hamas ministry does not reveal how many of the men are civilians and how many combatants. Nor are reporters aware of the vast discrepancy between women and children casualties in 2023 and those who died in previous Gaza engagements on which the Hamas Health Ministry published
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
The New York Times noted that some ages in the population were “most likely to be militants.” Those ages are between 15 and 39 (although the Times erroneously omitted 15 to 19 men as combatants).
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Why such a vast change? First, after October 7, 2023, Hamas stopped giving details about the casualties’ age and sex. The unchallenged numbers issued by Hamas’ ministry and repeated by the press are fanciful propaganda statistics. pic.twitter.com/EAql82uWLi
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
The dead Hamas terrorists at just Kibbutz Be’eri numbered more than 30. (Be’eri counted more than 100 of its members dead, and dozens were kidnapped to Gaza.) pic.twitter.com/xmADUucT5L
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Al-Kidra uses a very broad definition of civilians, saying the term applies to anyone who has not been claimed by one of the armed groups as a member.4 [Armed Palestinian fighters rarely wear uniforms and can appear as civilians.] pic.twitter.com/YuNjojrltj
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Hamas’ fighters are not mainly in the 20-19 age range. Large numbers are also in the 15-19 age range, opening Hamas to charges of child soldiers. pic.twitter.com/HBQXi6kWaF
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Israel repeatedly warned North Gaza residents to evacuate their homes. Leaflets were dropped in their neighborhoods, and private phone calls made by IDF Arabic-speaking soldiers. An estimated 1 million Gazans took the warnings seriously and avoided becoming Hamas' human shields. pic.twitter.com/rVx0RCYqmk
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Two bombings by Israel in Gaza caused mass casualties, according to Hamas’ Ministry of Health: the purported destruction of the Al-Ahli hospital on October 17, 2023, and the bombing of the Hamas headquarters under the Jabalya refugee camp on October 31, 2023.
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Few bombs can cause so many casualties, and Israel has been cautious with its targeting. Then reports began to surface that the al-Ahli hospital was not hit, but its parking lot and the explosion failed to produce an expected crater from a bomb.
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported on October 31, 2023, that more than 400 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. Videos from the scene, however, show little rescue activity at the site pic.twitter.com/c6aohgF6M5
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023
Civilian deaths during war is tragic, but in the case of Israel’s attacks on Hamas, such deaths are inevitable since Hamas facilities and leaders hide behind civilians, under schools and hospitals, blocking civilians from evacuating then, reporting inflated casualty figures. pic.twitter.com/PBPJbOmHkf
— Jerusalem Center (@JerusalemCenter) November 26, 2023