There is no
genocide in Gaza. No genocide and no starvation. There is suffering, but there
is no genocide, and there is no mass starvation. The available data simply does not
support these accusations. And I’m not talking about that coming from Israeli
sources.
The latest
figures from the Palestinian side were published in the WP. They place the
total number of killed Gazans at 60,000. 18,500 of whom are children ages 0 to
18. 60,000 in an intense armed conflict that last 21 months cannot be a
genocide. The annual growth rate of the population in the Gaza strip is in the 40,000s (2.02% a year).
44 to 46 thousands added each year, mostly through births. This means that during
these nearly 2 years of brutal war, between 80,000 to 90,000 souls were added. In
a genocide the targeted population decreases in size. And not by a few
percentages.
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| From the CIA factbook. |
The data
published in the WP is selective. Only children, and no division by gender. But
it is useful. It points out that these 18,500 are 31% of the total death count.
Less than a third. This is important because among the general population this
age group, 0-18, has a share that is close to half. This means that they are
underrepresented in the total death count. In a genocide “casualties are not
equally distributed by age. Commonly the youngest bear the brunt.” This is the
observation of Professor Tadeusz Kugler from Roger Williams University. He
wrote that in the paper “The demography of genocide.” A study of the Rwanda
genocide. [It was published in August of 2016 by the Oxford university press. It is in
a book called “The economic aspects of genocide, mass killings, and their
prevention. Edited by Charels H. Anderson and Jurgen Brauer.] This was an
observation of the crisis in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia. And when we zoom in on
the details published by the WP, we see how that is not the case in Gaza. The
breakdown by age shows a higher death count among the elder teen, and a lower
one among younger persons. It shows a steady rise from age 11, 976 dead, to age
17, 1,218 dead. The youngest clearly don’t bear the brunt.
Who does bear the brunt can be learned from an analysis of earlier data done by Gabriel Epstein. His analysis compares the death toll of each age group to its share in the general population. It shows that males ages 15 to 49 are overrepresented in death toll. While younger boys, and all female categories from age 0 to 49, are underrepresented. The entire spectrum of combat age males bears the brunt. As to be expected from a situation known as war. But not a genocide. The fact that categories of age and gender that are both large and more vulnerable are underrepresented shows that the IDF efforts to avoid harming noncombatants is overly successful.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that this is not a random
occurrence. Last year professor Mike Spagat from the University of London
published an article under the damming title, “Netanyahu is wrong about IDF clean record.” Ironically it included the following paragraph. “41.2% of the
death listed in the latest MoH list were males between the ages of 15 to 69. Few
victims outside this demographic could be combatants.” This is an acknowledgement that this data
challenges his claim. To work around it he introduces a guess that estimates
that half of these males are civilians. He does not say what this guess is
based on. But can the numbers of civilian males killed in each category of age, (Not including the older ones, that are also small in size),
be much bigger than that of females from the same age category? When we go back
to Gabriel Epstein’s analysis, we see that there is no uniform relation between
the genders. Between ages 10 to 54 the relation is mostly beyond 2:1. And
between ages 30 to 39 it is mostly beyond 3:1. This suggests that the share of
civilians in each category of males between the ages of 15 to 59 is less than a
half. This is an estimation, but at least it is based on data relevant to this specific crisis. That estimation
keeps combatants as the largest category. The ones that carry the brunt of the
deaths, as to be expected in war.
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| Mike Spagat Bil'amien words. |
Let’s be
clear, the choices here are not between genocide and paradise. There is
suffering, a lot of it. But it is not genocide. The people we see every day on
the news from Gaza are war refugees, trapped in a war zone for 2 years. And
that is inhumane. In the long run this could have disastrous consequences. And
the long run is now. They are trapped because no one wants to let them out of
the strip. No one except Israel. For Israel it will be easier to fight Hamas
without civilians used as human shields and other forms of cover. But the
international community has other concerns. All of them political. They need to
come to a decision. Israel has done its part in protecting the lives of Gazans.
The above record shows that. Whether one likes to admit it or not. Israel
expected to do everything; it cannot do everything. The civilians that have
died show the limit of Israel’s capabilities in protecting them. The only way to avoid a greater crisis
is to let them out. Political consequences and other concerns should be taken into
account while doing it. But not as a reason to prevent it. It is all a matter of leadership.
