Israel Matzav

The disproportionality canard

We all know that the claims that Israel was disproportionate in its attacks on Gaza is a canard. We all know that compared to what other countries have done during wartime, the IDF is the most humane army on earth. Still, it's important to see it in black and white.

"There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher."

Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, BBC News, May 31, 1999

It was in these words that the official NATO representative chose to respond to criticism regarding the numerous civilian casualties incurred by the alliance's frequent air attacks during the war in Kosovo between March and June of 1999. He insisted NATO planes bombed only "legitimate designated military targets" and if civilians had died it was because NATO had been forced into military action. Adamant that "we try to do our utmost to ensure that if there are civilians around we do not attack," Shea emphasized that "NATO does not target civilians...let's be perfectly clear about that."

However, hundreds of civilians were killed by a NATO air campaign, code named "Operation Allied Force" - which hit residential neighborhoods, old-aged sanatoriums, hospitals, open markets, columns of fleeing refugees, civilian buses and trains on bridges, and even a foreign embassy.

Exact figures are difficult to come by, but the undisputed minimum is almost 500 civilians deaths (with some estimates putting the toll as high as 1500) - including women, children and the elderly, killed about in 90 documented attacks by an alliance that included the air forces of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Turkey, Spain, the UK, and the US. Up to 150 civilians deaths were reportedly caused by the use of cluster-bombs dropped on, or adjacent to, known civilian areas.

By contrast, the military losses inflicted by NATO on the Serbian forces during almost 80 days of aerial bombardment, unchallenged by any opposing air power, were remarkably low - with most estimates putting the figure at less than 170 killed.

Meanwhile, NATO forces suffered… no combat fatalities! This was mainly due to the decision to conduct high altitude aerial attacks which greatly reduced the danger to NATO military personnel in the air, but dramatically increased it for the Serbian (and Kosovar) civilians on the ground. Moreover, the civilian populations of the countries participating on Operation Allied Force were never attacked or - even threatened - in any way by Serbian forces.

The article's author, Martin Sherman, concludes that the NATO allies actually sought disproportionality - the same 'crime' that they now accuse Israel of committing (look at that list of countries - with the exception of the US, every one of them was highly critical of Israel during Operation Cast Lead, and in the US the Obama administration ordered Israel to withdraw before it took power).

NATO kept its casualties at zero by bombing from the air and not sending in ground troops. Had Israel behaved as NATO did, it could have conducted saturation bombing in Gaza and destroyed everything with no Israeli casualties. All of our military casualties came in the ground attack - half of them by 'friendly fire' that was trying to avoid 'innocent civilians.' Those NATO countries that criticized Israel are all guilty of rank hypocrisy.

Still don't believe it? Here's a list of NATO attacks on Kosovar civilians in April and May 1999, when, by the way, Bill Clinton was President of the United States. (By the way, this chart does not appear in the YNet article - Sherman sent it to me directly). Decide for yourselves (click to enlarge):

Sherman also has some advice for the morons who run Israel's government.

For Israel to prevail in the crucial battle for public opinion it must go on the offensive. It must convey confidence and conviction in the fundamental moral validity of the nation's actions. It must not shy away from resolutely repelling unjustified slander and from reprimanding malicious slanderers.

It should not shrink from convening all the NATO country ambassadors in a public forum, open to the international media, and sternly point out how unacceptable "stone throwing" is for residents of "glass houses," how inadvisable it is for "pots" to accuse "kettles" of being black, and to firmly demand - in appropriately discreet diplomatic terms - that they "put a sock in it." [Livni missed her chance to do that yesterday. Can any of you imagine her doing that? I can't. Of course, if Hillel Neuer had been there... CiJ]

It should not refrain from confronting unprincipled correspondents who concoct malevolent fabrications against Israel, and unambiguously convey to them that gross lack of professional integrity and balance will not be tolerated, and that excessive abuse of journalistic privilege will result in its withdrawal. It should be made clear to those in the international media who reside in Israel but insist on portraying it in an unfair and unfounded light that they will have to cover events in the region while residing in some Arab country – where they presumably will find society less objectionable and less defective.

It should not hold back the resources required to assertively – even coercively - replace political correctness with political truth in the international discourse on the Middle East in general and on the Israel-Palestinian conflict in particular. It must bring these truths to the attention of political opinion-makers and of politically aware publics across the globe – if need be by circumventing hostile and obstructive editorial bias by means of prominent, paid infomercials in major media channels.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:35 AM