"there are none so blind as those who will not see”
For the record, this is a short note to debunk the blood libel published on EUobserver.com on 7 Oct 2024 (on the 1 year anniversary of the worst massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, none the less), claiming that “Israel has killed some 120,000 people in one year of war using a mix of military aggression and starvation, but even if the violence ended on Monday — the first anniversary of 7 October — the final death toll will be vastly higher. “
First, let’s lay the rules of how we argue, down. There is no dismissal of a source by simply labelling it as X or Y. The ‘credibility multiplier’ can be adjusted based on how reliable a source is based on its track record, evidence, and other factors, while the underlying claims must be refuted by actual evidence.
Second, taking and presenting every Hamas/Hezbollah/IRGC etc. claim on face value as a legitimate source of information while dismissing or framing every IDF communication as propaganda may serve your subscribers/funders needs, but it doesn’t help in getting closer to the truth.
Third, I have no hopes of changing your mind. Facts do no such thing, especially when the narrative you claim as your ‘truth’ is part of your identity. I am simply calling on you to respect basic journalistic deontology, and to stop pushing lies and cherry-picked factoids for ideological purposes (unless that is how you aim to “support European democracy”, as per EUobserver’s declaration).
Fourth, once we establish the facts, these are inseparable from the subsequent moral questions linked to them, namely that of intent, and therefore responsibility. Just like in law, there is a fundamental difference in how an action is judged if it was deliberate vs. negligent vs. entirely unintended. These are not questions for the opinion column (there you may publish rants and distortions with an even lower moral bar), these have a major impact on your choice of headlines, words, and presentation of information in your main columns.
1. Death toll
Even the UN OCHA, which gets its input directly from Hamas (Orewellian name: “Gaza Ministry of Health”), claims 41k (they are even contradicting themselves) 34.344 identified deaths (the rest is ‘assuming’) all the while we know that Hamas has a clear interest in inflating the number to the greatest possible extent.
Somehow the UN just halved the number of children Hamas/UN claimed to have been killed.
Even if we take this number at face value, at least 40%, possibly up to 60% of these deaths are that of militants/terrorists (including, tragically, many “children” between 12-18 are in fact part of the militia with Kalashnikovs etc. - see more under point #3 below on the responsibility).
Here is a well documented (and never refuted) thread on how Hamas reclassifies terrorists' age from 19 or 18 to 17 so they will be considered 'children' in the death count.
Many identified deaths are not attributable to the IDF or Israel: there are several proven cases of Hamas directly killing Palestinians being included. Natural deaths are included in the UN statistics too. There are also a number of provably false records, so even this number seems to be a high estimate at best.
The “Lancet lie”: how a “letter to the editor” (not a peer reviewed study) was turned into a propaganda piece.
The most well documented takedown of the UN/Hamas lies, with detailed calculations, evidence, and arguments.
Lebanon: so far the toll is around 700 people, not including the IRGC-backed Hezbollah terrorists. I assume you don’t consider them civilians.
How did EUobserver's Andrew Rettman (and his editor) get to 120k ?! Seriously.
2. Claim of starvation
The UN’s own Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) first claimed ‘famine is imminent’ then quietly revised itself that there is nothing of the sort (“The FRC does not find the FEWS NET analysis plausible").
Review of a COGAT analysis, based on peer reviewed study, finds more calories entering Gaza than before the war. (What’s true though is that Hamas terrorists are well documented to steal these supplies to drive up black market prices and to induce shortages.)
See chart below, copied from the above sources, if you want to check UN numbers contradicting themselves and the famine libel.
3. Who is responsible
This is more prone to interpretation though it shouldn’t be.
Hamas attacked on 7 Oct 2023 and deliberately committed premeditated war crimes against almost exclusively civilians that are beyond description. It holds 101 hostages to this day. Israel’s response is not legally or morally a ‘military aggression’ or ‘genocide’, even according to the ICJ.
The intent of Sinwar, Nasrallah (peace be upon him), Khameini and all their militants (and 50-70% of Gaza civilians, according to polls and events on 7 Oct 2023) is the declared and de facto annihilation/extermination of their Israeli neighbors (20% of whom are actually non-Jews, mostly Muslims). The IDF’s intent, as proven by facts on the ground, is to minimize civilian casualties (which obviously doesn’t mean that they can avoid these altogether, but when this happens, e.g. WCK and similar tragedies, a military investigation is conducted. Have you ever heard of any similar investigation, or even just declaration, from Hamas?). And don’t come with the hateful fascist rhetoric from Smotrich et al., which is despicable but has no actual impact on how the IDF and the war cabinet conducts its war operations.
If a terrorist entity like Hamas builds 400+ km of tunnels by stealing (sorry, re-allocating) European and US taxpayers’ money to wage a genocidal war against its neighbor by hiding its militants there while not allowing its civilians in so that they are deliberately exposed to the retaliation after its terrorists carried out a brutal rape, burning, kidnapping of their enemy, deliberately targeting Israeli civilian population, then it’s not difficult to understand who is responsible for the subsequent casualties.
When Hezbollah, armed/financed by the fundamentalist, genocidal IRGC, starts launching rockets literally the day after 7 Oct 2023 into Israel and sends, since then, 8,000 of them, and Israel decides to take them out a year later in history’s most targeted military attack (pagers, walkie-talkies etc.), it’s not difficult to understand that it is morally and militarily justified.
Unless, of course, EUobserver wants and desires the Islamist fundamentalists to eliminate Israel. That’s also a position to hold, however despicable, but then it shouldn't consider itelf a journalist but a fundamentalist activist. In which case you they look into the mirror and ask whether, perhaps, EUobserver has “some ingrained loyalties” (as I was told when flagging the lies)…?
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