« UN Claims 191,369 Killed in Syrian Civil War | Main | "Holocaust in Gaza" Hyperbole »
August 22, 2014
Amira Hass's Flawed Analysis of Gazan Civilian Casualties
On Aug. 22, 2014, Haaretz published an analysis piece by Amira Hass, "How many Palestinian civilians is a single militant worth?" claiming that 76.8% of the 2090 documented fatalities in the recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas were civilians. Hass discusses the controversy over the proportions of the fatalities in the Gaza Strip that are civilians and militants. Israel claims that Hamas is concealing the true number of combatants in order to generate international outrage at Israel. But Hass counters that this strategy "contradicts the deep Palestinian and Hamas ethos of pride over those who were killed fighting the Zionist enemy."
She then delves into the crux of the controversy, that a disproportionate number of the fatalities, admitted to by the Palestinians themselves, are male and young males at that. Hass writes,
Some journalists have challenged UN and Palestinian categorizations, asserting that the number of young men killed in Gaza was relatively high compared to their size within the population. The conclusion is that most of the men killed – and they are the right age to be engaged in militant activity – were indeed militants.
According to Hass,
This conclusion is faulty in not being aware that public space in Palestinian society in general and in Gaza in particular is appropriated mainly by men. The men go to the mosque early in the morning and the evening; only men go to funerals; men sit outside their homes on hot days and watch World Cup games, and men are the ones who run out to retrieve the wounded and dead immediately after an attack or go to get water during an attack. So, it is natural that the number of men killed would be higher relative to the population, and not only because this is the right age to join in the fighting.
Hass's argument is fractured and falls apart under scrutiny.
1) She asserts that the high proportion of males is due to their higher propensity for public spaces, but she offers no evidence that the Israelis preferentially target public spaces where crowds of men might routinely assemble. Without offering evidence that the Israelis indiscriminately target public spaces - independent of situations in which the presence of combatants have been confirmed - her assertion has no value. In fact, there is evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion. In light of the more than 5000 targeted missiles and thousands of artillery shells fired by the Israelis and only 2,000 Gazan fatalities that resulted, the evidence strongly indicates that the Israelis make every effort to avoid firing into public spaces occupied by random people. If Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling were routinely striking public spaces in a wanton manner simply to inflict casualties, the fatality count would be much higher.
2) While she offers an explanation - unsubstantiated as it is - why there are many more male fatalities than female, her explanation fails to address the age pattern of the fatalities. There is a spike starting at the age of 17 and peaking in the early to mid 20s which then rapidly diminishes. This pattern is more credibly explained by combatants than it is by Hass's observations that males attend mosques, funerals and hang out watching the World Cup.
3) She also ignores a crucial issue, that of distinguishing combatants in an urban environment where combatants do not categorically don uniforms. Under such circumstances, a so-called non-uniformed "civilian" who comes to the aid of a wounded combatant or serves as a look out or approaches soldiers despite warnings assumes a questionable status.
4) And finally, there is the issue of civilians serving as human shields. This is a separate issue from the discussion of disproportionate young males among the fatalities, but is crucial to the overall discussion of Gazan civilian fatalities.
In conclusion, Hass's attempt to discredit Israeli claims that combatants contribute a far higher portion of the fatalities than the Palestinian groups admit is not at all convincing.
Posted by SS at August 22, 2014 02:21 PM
Comments
H(+AM)ass says it all.
There is another lie
"The UN team, Palestinian human rights organizations and B’Tselem are
examining every fatality, seeing every body in the hospital, checking
every death report and talking to eyewitnesses, family members and
survivors."
There are 3 types of lairs:Lairs,Bigger Lairs and Haaretz Arab propagandist.
And the above is a certain cold blooded lie, unless all these people work for Hamas.
B'teslem are not in any Gaza hospital checking bodies.(which is sufficient to disprove her "argument")
+I don't know how can one know, examining the body of young male, if he was a member of Hamas.
Maybe Hass can explain.
+If the Arab males are out of the houses,
than any bomb dropped on a house should kill
Mostly women and children.
Posted by: Yenta Press at August 22, 2014 05:31 PM
Here is a great article which describes how Hass is basically a Palestinian spokeswoman.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/13112#.U_jO2_ldWXY
Op-Ed: License to Murder: It's Not Just Amira Hass
April 9, 2013
Amira Hass turned traitor long ago, and her case is one for the legal authorities. But is Hass the only journalist in the service of the “popular intifada�?? What about the other news media—are they doing their job?
The Palestinian Authority is the official body behind the recent “intifada�? of rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Haaretz journalist Amira Hass has long been the Palestinians’ unofficial spokeswoman. When she wrote an article legitimizing rock throwing, she was doing her part in the PA’s effort to stretch a defensive umbrella over the young brutes lobbing rocks and incendiary bombs.
They are the ones who mortally wounded baby Adelle Biton. They are the ones who seriously injured musician Itzik Kalah’s wife, Tziyona, four months ago near Beitar Ilit. Both events occured in the so-called settlements blocs: the Palestinians do not discriminate.
Posted by: Ken Kelso at August 23, 2014 01:35 PM
Amira Hass is a well known supporter of Palestinian terrorism.
After Hamas mass murderer Yassin was killed in 2004, Amira was horrified that Israel would kill this Islamo fascist who ordered thousands of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
Hass says this in the article.. The targeted assassination will bring us closer to a respite and to Palestinian surrender.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/another-red-line-is-crossed-1.117726
Another red line is crossed
Amira Hass
March 24, 2004
------------------------------------
Amira would prefer Palestinian Nazis continue to slaughter Israeli civilians with no response from Israel.
I just hope Yassin did not die instantly. I hope he felt the pain of his limbs being torn off, just as the hundreds of Jews who had there limbs torn off by homicide bombers.
The PR shots of Yassin in his wheelchair will be remembered by those that don't see the crippled bodies of all those that he ordered to be bombed by Hamas.
Yassin was a mass murderer of the same ilk as Saddam Hussein. Saddam never killed a Kurd he just inspired others to do his dirty work.
Just to inform Amira terrorism went down 90% since this murderer Yassin was killed.
Posted by: Ken Kelso at August 23, 2014 01:37 PM
What sickens the Israel haters like Amira, is that Jews now can fight back
So killing Jews for sport and slitting the throats of sleeping Jewish babies is no longer consequence free for the Muslims.
Amira Hass was one of the promoters of the Jenin Massacre Hoax in 2002.
Amira claimed Israel buried Palestinians in the rubble of Jenin in 02.
Even after it became known how the Palestinians made up the whole massacre, Amira refused to retract her Jenin massacre claims.
Let me put exactly what Amira said
http://www.zcommunications.org/what-kind-of-war-is-this-by-amira-hass
'What kind of war is this?'
AMIRA HASS
Haaretz, April 2002
It is still impossible to know how many people are buried under the ruins in the Jenin refugee camp, where the smell of decomposing bodies mingles with the stench of garbage and the scent of geraniums and mint.
-----------------------------------
Lies Lies Lies and more Lies by Amira.
There was no decomposing bodies. This was all Pallywood lies.
Amira again caught lying as she did when she was sued for her lies in Hebron.
----------------------
Frimet Roth who lost her daughter in the Sbarros massacre in 2001.
Read what she wrote about Gideon Levy and Amira Hamas
Frimet hits it right on the head about their hypocrisy.
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1339
The Enemies' Children
Frimet Roth
November 28, 2006
Gideon Levy, who writes for Israel`s pre-eminent daily, Haaretz, fancies himself a champion of the weak and vulnerable. The day after my child`s cold-blooded murder by a Hamas bomber, Levy wrote the following in his weekly piece detailing Palestinian suffering:
"These children, every child in the world should have protection as though he were a VIP. Every child in the world is a VIP"
Levy did not mention the seven Jewish children whose graves were dug that day because he did not mean those children. He never does.
Levy`s colleague, Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist who lives in a Palestinian town, Ramallah, was equally indifferent to my child`s murder. The first piece she published in Haaretz after the Sbarro massacre made no mention of the fifteen victims.
Instead, it was an emotive tirade about the Palestinian right of return, reminding her readers of two major Jewish settlements close to Jerusalem that she fears "won`t be evacuated": the city of Maaleh Adumim and the Jerusalem satellite community of Givat Ze`ev.
Murdered Jewish children do not move Hass either.
-------------------------
Amira Has wont even criticize Palestinians when Israelis are lynched by them.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10038#.U3tLhPldWZk
Haaretz has been diligently undermining Israel’s claim to the moral high ground by placing victims of terrorism on the same plain as their barbaric perpetrators. Nahum Barnea, no rightist, of Yediot Aharonot wrote in November of 2000 that there are Israeli reporters who do not pass the “lynching test�?. These are journalists who could not bring themselves to criticize the Palestinians even when two Israelis were savagely murdered by a Palestinian pogrom in Ramallah. Which journalists? Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, and Akiva Eldar of Ha’aretz
--------------------------
Amira Hass who's been a proven liar.
Ha’aretz was sued after Hass wrote that Jewish residents of Hebron kicked, spat on, and danced atop the body of a dead Palestinian terrorist, just shot and killed by soldiers after he threw a grenade at them. There was a video to show Hass lied.
Posted by: Ken Kelso at August 23, 2014 01:40 PM
Guidelines for posting
This is a moderated blog. We will not post comments that include racism, bigotry, threats, or factually inaccurate material.