The truth about numbers that demonize Israel

A reader has sent me a link to a demonizing anti-Israel website. I won’t tell you its name. I don’t want to encourage you to visit the site.

In an internet world where the number of visits to (or, ‘hits’ on) a website can enhance legitimacy, I have no interest in helping Israel-haters spread their hate or watch their numbers of viewers go up. Instead, I’ll tell you what they say. Then, I’ll comment.

The site in question uses vertical bar charts to compare Israel with ‘Palestine’. It uses these graphics to ‘prove’ how unspeakably brutal Israel is.

The first bar chart compares the number of Israeli and ‘Palestinian’ children killed between September 29, 2000 and May 15, 2015. The numbers state that, during this time-frame, ‘Palestinians’ killed 133 Israeli children. Israelis, meanwhile, killed 2,060 ‘Palestinian’ children.

The message is, those Israelis have no concern for human life. They kill ‘Palestinian’ children indiscriminately.

These numbers remind me of a recent anti-Israel campaign. That campaign, run out of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Information (can you say, ‘Ministry of Propaganda’?), stated that Israel had killed a ‘Palestinian’ child every three days for 13 years, 2000-2013. The Ministry’s message was explicit: ‘Palestinian children are still subject to attacks by the Israelis and Jewish settlers on an almost daily basis’.

However, when you look in detail at the deaths, you discover that almost all of them were concentrated into three ‘events’: wars between Israel and Gaza in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014. Each of these ‘wars’ were started by Hamas shelling Israeli civilians; and when Israel finally stood up to defend itself, Hamas used children as human shields. It also used school buildings as weapons depots and launching sites. Hamas did this deliberately, daring Israel to attack.

Hamas’ goal was to entice Israel to kill civilians and children—or do nothing while Hamas fired rockets at Israeli civilians. This tactic put Israel between the proverbial rock and hard place.

As a sovereign state, Israel has the right to defend itself. It did—and Hamas used the resulting casualties to demonize Israel, just as this website illustrates.

It’s an unspeakably cynical use of the death-of-your-own (which you caused) in order to support your hatred for another. But then, that’s the ‘Palestinian’ specialty: kill your own, blame the Jews.

In case you didn’t know, international law is clear: the party responsible for the death of human shields is the party that control those ‘shields’. That party is Hamas.

A second bar chart states that ‘Palestinians’ had killed 1,195 Israelis in this 14.5 year period. The chart also shows that Israelis had killed 9,131 ‘Palestinians’.

Again, a look at the details for these deaths is revealing:  almost all of the ‘Palestinian’ deaths occurred in hostile confrontations initiated by ‘Palestinians’.

There’s a qualitative difference here which this anti-Israel site ignores. Those Israelis were murdered by terrorists. The ‘Palestinians’ were killed because they—or their masters—had attacked Jews or Israel, and Israel was defending itself.

This—and other anti-Israel websites—use these numbers to ‘prove’ to you that Israelis are brutal oppressors who kill indiscriminately over a long period of time. But what these stats really show is what happens when Arabs who teach raw Jew-hate and who celebrate a cult of death initiate suicidal and homicidal hostilities with Israel: they and their followers get killed.

Political essayist (on youtube video) Pat Condell is credited with reminding us that, ‘if Arabs laid down their arms today, there’d be peace tomorrow. If Israel laid down its arms today, tomorrow there’d be no Israel’. We all know what that means. It means the moment Israel stops defending itself, the streets would run red with Jewish blood.

It’s morally disgusting that someone should start a war, get their people killed, then blame the victim for those deaths. But then, that’s the ‘Palestinian specialty’: do something stupid, cry ‘innocence’.

Another chart shows the number of injuries each has caused. In this time-frame, ‘Palestinians’ have injured 11, 412 Israelis. Israelis, meanwhile, have injured 72,504 ‘Palestinians’.

Again, this is supposed to ‘prove’ to you how brutal the Israelis have been. But it only illustrates what happens when you start something you know you can’t finish. It also shows how many Israelis have been harmed by terror attacks specifically aimed at civilians.

The charts continue: UN Resolutions Targeting Israel and the Palestinians, 1955 – 1992; Current Number of Political Prisoners and Detainees; Daily U.S. Military Aid to Israel and the Palestinians, Fiscal Year 2013. There are other charts, but you get the picture: the numbers ‘prove’ that Israel is a warmongering, brutal killing machine.

But the warmongering, killing and indiscriminate attacks are almost all one-sided: Arab against Jew. The websites that demonize Israel misrepresent truth. They distort reality. They entice you to hate.