World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, has published a study on the effects so far of the Israeli air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip done by by Yagil Levy, a sociology professor at the Open University of Israel. Unfortunately, the newspaper is behind a subscription lock, so I am relying on the coverage of the study offered by The Guardian. The conclusions of the study are sobering:

“The aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found….

“In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Levy described as ‘unprecedented killing’ for Israeli forces in Gaza. The ratio is significantly higher than the average civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead, according to Levy.

“’The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,’ Levy concluded. ‘The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.’”

Unfortunately, calls for a cease-fire were thwarted by a US veto at the UN Security Council. The US was the only dissenting vote against the resolution, much to the chagrin of important US allies as reported by the Washington Post:

“Washington’s allies, including from the Western and Arab worlds, largely reaffirmed their support for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip — distancing themselves from the Biden administration’s decision Friday to block a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.

“The U.S.’s veto of the resolution, which also would have called for the release of hostages and for humanitarian access to Gaza, drew condemnation from some world leaders Saturday.

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the veto made the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinians and complicit in ‘genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces.’ Others, including Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders, echoed the idea that U.S. has become complicit in the deaths in Gaza.

“U.S. allies, including France and Japan, also expressed disappointment that the resolution had not passed.”

The US has cast a veto on many occasions since 1954 and 34 of those vetoes were to support the Israeli position in the Israel-Arab dispute. According to the Associated Press. “U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the resolution ‘imbalanced’ and criticized the council after the vote for its failure to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, or to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself. He declared that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and ‘only plant the seeds for the next war.’”

The US veto is indefensible. The Gaza Health Ministry only counts bodies and thus far it has collected over 17,000. The number of bodies buried in the rubble remains unknown and will likely never be known. The vast majority of the dead are women and children. And the Israeli objective of “eliminating” Hamas remains unattainable.