Bin Laden's Victory
The number of civilian casualties in Gaza, its context, its causes and its impact.
The numbers
A CNN report cited an Israeli official claiming that killing two civilians for every militant was a tremendous achievement given the nature of urban combat in Gaza.
The UN says there is no reason to doubt Palestinian casualty figures, which currently stand at nearly 19,667 killed, with 8,000 children and 6,200 women.
Let us assume that all the men are Hamas fighters and that none of the children are teenaged combatants. (Some of the men are not Hamas fighters, but some of the children are quite possibly child soldiers). This would leave the civilian death toll at 14,200 human souls in two and a half months.
Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces killed a much bigger proportion of Syria’s population than Israel has in Gaza - 1.67% of the Syrian population compared to 0.62% of Gaza’s population.
However, that is an unfair comparison - the Syrian civil war continued for over ten years, while the Gaza war has been going on for just 2.5 months. The number of monthly civilian casualties in Gaza is twice the average number of civilian casualties in Syria.
Already, the number of civilian casualties in Gaza is 40% higher than the total number of civilian casualties in Ukraine between February 2022 and November 2023. In Ukraine, 560 children have died, according to the UN, during 21 months of combat. In Gaza, it’s 8,0000 children in 2.5 months of combat. This is unprecedented.
Things become harrowing is when the casualty figures are adjusted for population size as well as time, however. As a veteran Middle East analyst with some experience of Israeli wars, including wars against my own country, I do not use the word harrowing lightly.
The IDF is responsible for killing civilians at 19 times the rate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, when adjusted for population size and duration of the conflict. Assad is widely perceived as a genocidal maniac.
Syria is under extreme sanctions that prevent it from rebuilding, as reconstruction is perceived as being a reward for Assad’s misbehaviour (Assad personally is unaffected by sanctions, even though he is personally sanctioned. It is Syrian civilians who are paying the price).
During the Syrian civil war, militant movements with ideologies similar to that of Hamas hid in urban areas, and the Syrian government sought to push hostile civilian populations out of their homes. (Indeed, for the first few years of the war, Hamas sided against Assad and its leadership left Damascus as a result).
The differences between the two conflicts are Syria’s size and the fact that refugees were able to flee to neighbouring provinces and countries - which reduced civilian casualties in Syria - and Syria’s lack of precision guided munitions, which increased casualties.
The IDF is responsible for killing civilians at 228 times the rate of Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia is under sanctions that have been so intense that they damaged European industry and living standards, as well as the West’s diplomatic position globally.
Deliberate policy.
It is inconceivable that this death toll is not deliberate.
First, Israel has total aerial surveillance over Gaza, including heat sensing and visual cameras. Israel can also monitor all communications in Gaza, meaning that any mobile phone’s location is known. If there are mobile phones connected with three different families, Israel knows that there are three families in this location.
Second, Israel is using an AI system that gives the IDF an estimate of the expected civilian casualties before attacks are conducted. Israeli planners know in advance of any strike what level of civilian casualties to expect. Indeed, Israel bombs buildings due to the psychological effect that this has and with the aim of breaking the civilian population’s will. This is referred to as the Dahiyah Doctrine, and is an official policy of the Israeli armed forces. That doctrine specifically mentions disproportionality.
Third, Israel has access to the most accurate munitions in the world. It does not have an accuracy problem. Footage of buildings under attack shows jets successfully destroying one building completely, while an adjacent building is left standing. In other cases, Israel manages to strike one floor or one room in a building, leaving the others intact.
There are two possible aims here, which are not mutually exclusive. The first is to punish Gazans so severely that Hamas would never dare conduct an attack like that of 7 October again. The second is to bring about a situation where Palestinians have no chance to organise their lives, turning them into a dependent, unemployed, homeless population that is incapable of mounting political or military resistance to future expulsions. The attacks on hospitals in Gaza, which had become nodes of civilian life, are consistent with that objective.
The expulsion of Palestinians aligns with statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, with articles by Israeli MK Danny Denon (a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and a member of the ruling Likud Party) and MK Ram Ben-Barak (former Director of Ministry of Intelligence and Ministry of Strategic Affairs) and by the sitting minister of intelligence, and with the aspirations of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Deporting - or, more accurately, ethnically cleansing - at least some of the Palestinians is not a fringe position in Israel - it is the publicly and often proudly declared position of various cabinet members and of Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving, democratically elected, prime minister. This is a statement of fact, and is not an attack on Israel - I have said that both sides are seeking to ethnically cleanse the other, as I explain below.
Dangerous Thoughts
Even though Israel is killing civilians at a much, much higher rate than Russia, there is absolutely no one in the Western world comparing Netanyahu to Putin, which is itself pretty stunning. Putin and Russia would appear in a much more favourable light if this was done.
I would like my readers to consider how the media treats Western politicians who support deporting illegal migrants. Look no further at the media portrayal of President Donald Trump. His rivals depict him as a white supremacist threat to democracy, and his supporters are reviled as ‘deplorable’.
The Israeli politicians mentioned above are not advocating the expulsion of illegal migrants - Israel does that regularly and without fanfare - sometimes trying to send illegal migrants to the West.
Instead, Israel is advocating the expulsion of native Palestinians, who are descended from ancient Canaanites and Hebrews.
The discrepancy in the nature of narratives spun around those who advocate sensible migration policies - no illegal migration, manageable legal migration levels, emphasis on capacity, social cohesion and integration - and those who advocate ethnically cleansing Palestinian natives is spectacular.
The discrepancy in the world’s treatment of Putin and Assad on the one side, and Israel on the other, is also rather staggering, when the numbers are examined coldly. There are more considerations than the numbers, but the numbers also do matter, as do the stated objectives of policymakers.
The pro-Western parties that want to keep Europe and the Anglosphere majority white European - just as Israelis want Israel to be majority Jewish, but without deporting any natives - see this discrepancy, and their relations with Israel may deteriorate massively as a result. Alternatively, they may make common cause with Israel, and adopt similar policies against their migrant populations that fail to integrate.
The Muslim world sees this discrepancy most clearly, and is responding by supporting Hamas and turning against the West. Even UAE media, which is the fairest in the Middle East, is against Israel due largely to the level of civilian casualties.
This includes Muslim migrants to the West, who naturally identify with their Palestinian co-ethnics and co-religionists. Relations within newly-diversified Western societies will worsen for the foreseeable future. There is no going back from this.
There are no longer British or French or American Muslims. There are Muslims who are in Britain, and Muslims who are in France. The hope of cohesion and integration has been dealt a decisive blow by the manner in which Western governments have supported Israel and acted to sometimes silence criticism of it.
It is worth recalling that the war in Gaza cannot be run without massive American political, military and technological support. There have been tens of American flights into Israel carrying military equipment, and a number of British flights. Muslims in the West know this.
The September 11 attacks were intended to create a permanent split between Muslims and the West, to strengthen Islamic identity, to make clear the eternal conflict between Islam and Christendom, and to kill the post Cold War liberal moment, especially in the Muslim world.
The September 11 attacks were intended to highlight an alleged Crusader Jewish alliance against Islam, in which Muslims were constantly treated unfairly, whose lives have lower value, and where the West allows itself anything while hiding behind principles that it rarely adheres to and that it never applies to Israel.
Bin Laden won, and the objective of the September 11 2001 attacks has been fulfilled. Bin Laden will continue winning until there is a modicum of consistency that is applied to Israel, Russia, Syria, and other global conflicts.