The media frequently report that Israeli military action in Gaza is responsible for 23,000 dead Palestinians. Our President, as expected, is beginning to go wobbly in his support of Israel as his political left flank turns up the heat to persuade him to stop providing aid and comfort to our ally because of the toll.
Progressive supporters of the Palestinian cause - a cause adumbrated in the chant "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," i.e. Israel will be exterminated - demand a cease-fire in Gaza, citing the 23,000 casualties as their proximal reason, but also wishing, perhaps, to prevent Israel from destroying Hamas.
So what are we to make of the figure of 23,000 fatalities?
First, it's a number provided by Hamas itself, a group willing to commit the most horrific atrocities. It's hard to believe that this group would draw the moral line at lying if it would be to their benefit to inflate the number of deaths.
Second, the figure does not distinguish between Hamas militants and civilians. The Israeli Defense Force estimates that 9000 of the deaths have been militants killed in combat.
That leaves 14,000 "civilian" deaths. I put "civilians" in quotes because many Palestinian "civilians" took part in the horrors of October 7th and have assisted and cheered Hamas as they've perpetrated their atrocities.
In any case, as British Colonel Richard Kemp says in a recent tweet, the UN calculates that the civilian to combatant death ratio in conflicts around the globe is 9:1. In Gaza the IDF seems to have achieved a ratio of only 1.5:1, a fact which evinces remarkable restraint.
In the run-up to the Normandy invasion in WWII the allies bombed German-occupied French villages and towns, killing 50,000 French. In the campaign to take the Philippines back from the Japanese, 100,000 Filipinos were killed in Manila alone by allied shelling.
Given that Hamas has hidden behind civilians, killed many of their fellow Palestinians themselves, built their tunnels under civilian buildings, used civilian structures such as schools and hospitals as sites from which to launch their rockets and store their weapons, it's really commendable that the IDF has been able to keep the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths so low. It's a testament to Israel's commitment to do all they can to protect Palestinian civilians.
It's too bad our media doesn't do a better job of letting people know Israel's side of the 23,000 dead Palestinians all of whom would be alive today if Hamas simply surrendered at the outset and gave back it's hostages.