I will provide an exceptionally well balanced explanation of the conflict, by Coleman Hughes, and it will evidence what all clear minded individuals have known all along: the conflict is propagandized by the same Left that hates America and Western Civilization.
1. .... Israelis don't want to conquer Gaza. In fact, they left Gaza voluntarily in 2005.
And they don't want to wipe Gaza off the map. If they wanted that, they could have done it any time in the last several decades. With their advantage and firepower, they could do it now in a matter of weeks. And you should ask yourself why they don't. Hamas, on the
other hand, does want to conquer Israel and wipe it off the map. And they would be happy to do what they did on October 7th to the entire country.
That's what I mean when I say that the two sides in this war are not the same.
There is a huge moral asymmetry between them and that matters.
2. "In my view, the deepest tragedy in the war right now is that both sides have committed war crimes. And in both cases, those war crimes are falling on Palestinian civilians. ....it's worth lingering over the asymmetry of war crimes even here. When an IDF soldier goes berserk, he commits a war crime. But every time a Hamas fighter shoots a bullet without wearing a uniform, it's a war crime. Hamas's entire MO is one big war crime.
...every war features war crimes, but usually each army commits those crimes against the enemy's population. In this case, the Palestinians of Gaza have received a double dose of the excesses of each side.
...when we hold Israel alone responsible for the civilian death toll in Gaza, a death toll that results directly from Hamas's barbaric style of warfare, we are implicitly holding Israel responsible for Hamas's war crimes against the Palestinians.
. ...the excesses both of the IDF and of Hamas fall on Palestinian civilians. But whose fault is that? Is it Israel's fault that its own civilians are incredibly well protected by defensive infrastructure like the Iron Dome and bomb shelters? Is it Israel's fault that Hamas has built one of the most extensive networks of underground bomb shelters in the history of warfare, but doesn't allow its own civilians to enter them?
3. ...the mainstream media bias on the topic. For instance, the New York Times released a story on July 24th entitled, "Gazans are dying of starvation." The article relied on testimony from several doctors working in Gaza as well as the Gaza Health Ministry. And it used that to build a case that deaths from starvation are on the rise. In the article, there was one photo that stood out. It was a photo of a mother holding an emaciated skeletal infant named Muhammad Zakaria al-Mutawak. This photo was displayed proaminently on the front page of the physical edition of the New York Times and made the rounds on social media. You almost certainly saw it. And importantly, it was the only photo in the article that clearly suggested starvation as opposed to chaotic hungry refugees.It wasn't long before sleuths on X discovered that there was another photo, which the Times chose to omit, of the boy and his mother next to his three-year-old brother, who clearly isn't starving. So, if there's no food, why is the three-year-old not also Finn?
It turns out this young boy didn't look emaciated because of starvation conditions. In fact, he was born with serious disease. Perhaps cerebral palsy or hypoxia. It's not yet clear, but 6 days after the article came out, the New York Times had to issue a correction
noting that the boy was born with unrelated health issues that account for his skeletal appearance. And by the way, he was treated for that condition in an Israeli hospital.
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, now if such crucial information could be left out of the original article, what other information was left out?
Now, think about what had to happen for the New York Times to publish that photo on its front page without the information that this particular child was born with serious disease.
(*There is no starvation!)
Recall that when there was an explosion at a hospital early on in the war, the same Gaza Health Ministry reported within minutes that exactly 471 people had been killed by an Israeli bomb that hit the hospital. And the New York Times reported this uncritically. Well, it turns out the true death count was less than half that number. The hospital itself wasn't even hit. It was the parking lot next to the hospital and...
...oh yeah, it wasn't an Israeli bomb. It was actually a Palestinian jihad rocket.
(Israel doesn't bomb hospitals!)
...the pipeline that's feeding you information about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is fundamentally broken, biased, untrustworthy, and weaponized against Israel.
4. Finally, I want to discuss the charge of genocide because this is one of the most serious charges made against Israel. It's also, in my view, one of the most absurd. Genocide is the physical destruction, not the metaphorical destruction, not the destruction of property, but the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part. Israel's aim in Gaza is not to destroy the Palestinian people as a whole, nor to destroy Gazin Palestinians in particular. How do we know this? Because even if we accept the Gaza Health's Ministry's numbers at face value, thatis 60,000 people killed in Gaza in about 22 months of war. That is 3% of Gaza's population.
And the IDF says that about 20,000 combatants have been killed. And that number is old, by the way. That hasn't been updated at all.
But for the sake of argument and fairness, let's just take both sides at their word for a moment. So 60,000 dead, 20,000 of whom are combatants.
That's about 3% of Gaza's pre-war population killed in 22 months of war.
If the IDF chose to destroy Gazins as a people, they could kill almost everyone in Gaza in a matter of weeks. So ask yourself, why haven't
they?
The Nazis killed 60% of European Jews. The Turks killed over 50% of Armenians. In Rwanda, something like 80% of Tutsis were killed in a 100 days. Those were genocides. And in legitimate cases of genocide in which a smaller percentage of people were killed, it was because the genocide didn't have the ability to kill more. Now, we know that Israel could easily kill 50% or 60 or 80% of Gazins in less than 100 days if they wanted to. But they don't. And that's really all you need to know to be sure that Israel isn't committing genocide.
(There is no genocide! )
5. While I believe that Coleman Hughes does a masterful job of putting the conflice in perspective, there is one short note from a documentary that interviewed West Bank citizens of Ramallah, at the real problem: a young lady, casually dressed, looked Western, was asked what should be the punishment for anyone who criticized Mohammad.....she said....
...death.
Use that as your prism through which to view the two sides.
1. .... Israelis don't want to conquer Gaza. In fact, they left Gaza voluntarily in 2005.
And they don't want to wipe Gaza off the map. If they wanted that, they could have done it any time in the last several decades. With their advantage and firepower, they could do it now in a matter of weeks. And you should ask yourself why they don't. Hamas, on the
other hand, does want to conquer Israel and wipe it off the map. And they would be happy to do what they did on October 7th to the entire country.
That's what I mean when I say that the two sides in this war are not the same.
There is a huge moral asymmetry between them and that matters.
2. "In my view, the deepest tragedy in the war right now is that both sides have committed war crimes. And in both cases, those war crimes are falling on Palestinian civilians. ....it's worth lingering over the asymmetry of war crimes even here. When an IDF soldier goes berserk, he commits a war crime. But every time a Hamas fighter shoots a bullet without wearing a uniform, it's a war crime. Hamas's entire MO is one big war crime.
...every war features war crimes, but usually each army commits those crimes against the enemy's population. In this case, the Palestinians of Gaza have received a double dose of the excesses of each side.
...when we hold Israel alone responsible for the civilian death toll in Gaza, a death toll that results directly from Hamas's barbaric style of warfare, we are implicitly holding Israel responsible for Hamas's war crimes against the Palestinians.
. ...the excesses both of the IDF and of Hamas fall on Palestinian civilians. But whose fault is that? Is it Israel's fault that its own civilians are incredibly well protected by defensive infrastructure like the Iron Dome and bomb shelters? Is it Israel's fault that Hamas has built one of the most extensive networks of underground bomb shelters in the history of warfare, but doesn't allow its own civilians to enter them?
3. ...the mainstream media bias on the topic. For instance, the New York Times released a story on July 24th entitled, "Gazans are dying of starvation." The article relied on testimony from several doctors working in Gaza as well as the Gaza Health Ministry. And it used that to build a case that deaths from starvation are on the rise. In the article, there was one photo that stood out. It was a photo of a mother holding an emaciated skeletal infant named Muhammad Zakaria al-Mutawak. This photo was displayed proaminently on the front page of the physical edition of the New York Times and made the rounds on social media. You almost certainly saw it. And importantly, it was the only photo in the article that clearly suggested starvation as opposed to chaotic hungry refugees.It wasn't long before sleuths on X discovered that there was another photo, which the Times chose to omit, of the boy and his mother next to his three-year-old brother, who clearly isn't starving. So, if there's no food, why is the three-year-old not also Finn?
It turns out this young boy didn't look emaciated because of starvation conditions. In fact, he was born with serious disease. Perhaps cerebral palsy or hypoxia. It's not yet clear, but 6 days after the article came out, the New York Times had to issue a correction
noting that the boy was born with unrelated health issues that account for his skeletal appearance. And by the way, he was treated for that condition in an Israeli hospital.
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, now if such crucial information could be left out of the original article, what other information was left out?
Now, think about what had to happen for the New York Times to publish that photo on its front page without the information that this particular child was born with serious disease.
(*There is no starvation!)
Recall that when there was an explosion at a hospital early on in the war, the same Gaza Health Ministry reported within minutes that exactly 471 people had been killed by an Israeli bomb that hit the hospital. And the New York Times reported this uncritically. Well, it turns out the true death count was less than half that number. The hospital itself wasn't even hit. It was the parking lot next to the hospital and...
...oh yeah, it wasn't an Israeli bomb. It was actually a Palestinian jihad rocket.
(Israel doesn't bomb hospitals!)
...the pipeline that's feeding you information about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is fundamentally broken, biased, untrustworthy, and weaponized against Israel.
4. Finally, I want to discuss the charge of genocide because this is one of the most serious charges made against Israel. It's also, in my view, one of the most absurd. Genocide is the physical destruction, not the metaphorical destruction, not the destruction of property, but the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part. Israel's aim in Gaza is not to destroy the Palestinian people as a whole, nor to destroy Gazin Palestinians in particular. How do we know this? Because even if we accept the Gaza Health's Ministry's numbers at face value, thatis 60,000 people killed in Gaza in about 22 months of war. That is 3% of Gaza's population.
And the IDF says that about 20,000 combatants have been killed. And that number is old, by the way. That hasn't been updated at all.
But for the sake of argument and fairness, let's just take both sides at their word for a moment. So 60,000 dead, 20,000 of whom are combatants.
That's about 3% of Gaza's pre-war population killed in 22 months of war.
If the IDF chose to destroy Gazins as a people, they could kill almost everyone in Gaza in a matter of weeks. So ask yourself, why haven't
they?
The Nazis killed 60% of European Jews. The Turks killed over 50% of Armenians. In Rwanda, something like 80% of Tutsis were killed in a 100 days. Those were genocides. And in legitimate cases of genocide in which a smaller percentage of people were killed, it was because the genocide didn't have the ability to kill more. Now, we know that Israel could easily kill 50% or 60 or 80% of Gazins in less than 100 days if they wanted to. But they don't. And that's really all you need to know to be sure that Israel isn't committing genocide.
(There is no genocide! )
5. While I believe that Coleman Hughes does a masterful job of putting the conflice in perspective, there is one short note from a documentary that interviewed West Bank citizens of Ramallah, at the real problem: a young lady, casually dressed, looked Western, was asked what should be the punishment for anyone who criticized Mohammad.....she said....
...death.
Use that as your prism through which to view the two sides.
