So far about 1,200 Gaza Strip inhabitants and 55 Israelis died in the current hot phase of the Gaza conflict (BBC).
There are about 1,816,000 Gaza Strip inhabitants (World Factbook), 7,821,000 Israelis (World Factbook), 80,997,000 Germans (World Factbook) and 318,892,000 (U.S.) Americans (World Factbook)*.
The death toll in Gaza represents 0.0661% of the population. The death toll to the Israelis represents 0.0007%.**
The Gaza Strip death rate applied to Germany would be about 53,522 dead and applied to the United States it would be 210,722 dead.
The Israeli death rate applied to Germany would be about 570 dead and applied to the United States it would be 2,243 dead.
I don't think the Western attitude to the conflict parties or the main theme of Western news reporting on the killing does justice to this massacre.
I suppose the conflict could be 'solved' quite easily, if 'we' (the Western powers) only pressured the regime in Cairo to take back Gaza within a year or two. It would only take a UNSC decision (mandate that Gaza Strip is Egyptian and Egypt is responsible for it, also mandate demilitarisation with permitted paramilitary presence and UN observer mission), an EU/US air travel embargo (hits tourism) and a hiatus in U.S. subsidies to Egypt.
In parallel, the West could easily force Israel to yield the Golan heights (Syria is for sure no threat for years to come) with demilitarised status and UN observers (UNSC decision), and to completely withdraw from the West Bank within a year or two. The pressure required for this could not possibly exceed an air travel embargo, maritime blockade, a telecommunications cable and satellite blockade and a hiatus in U.S. subsidies to Israel, for Israel is 100% dependent on these lines of communication with the West.
All the decades of talking to two parties evidently gone crazy yields little because of the seriously fucked up regional and domestic dynamics in the Levante.
The lingering conflict is FUBAR regionally, but it's obvious that only Western tolerance for this status keeps it going on like this. The West could cut this Gordian knot if only it decided to get serious about it and force all parties gone crazy to yield.
But that's not what we do, for we're not serious about wanting peace in that region: Decades-old arrangements and prejudices still reign supreme, and actors from that region feed them.
S O
*: These statistics are for population, not citizens.
**: Israel is winning the propaganda war decisively, though. A few days ago the 24hr news cycle in Germany had the headline that the IDF fears a "9/11" style attack by Hamas - pure fantasy which paints Hamas as AQ-like terror group, but it was also a great distraction from what happens in reality. The mass media loved it, as it offered a spectacular headline. More recently, Israel fed to the media the fear that Hamas has still 10,000 rockets in storage and again, the mass media loved it and coined a 24 hr news cycle with it. I wonder whether they would consider a spectacular headline about Israelis stocks of bombs, howitzer shells and artillery rockets as newsworthy in light of the undisputable fact that Israel kills more civilians by orders of magnitude? I wonder rhetorically only, of course.
**: Israel is winning the propaganda war decisively, though. A few days ago the 24hr news cycle in Germany had the headline that the IDF fears a "9/11" style attack by Hamas - pure fantasy which paints Hamas as AQ-like terror group, but it was also a great distraction from what happens in reality. The mass media loved it, as it offered a spectacular headline. More recently, Israel fed to the media the fear that Hamas has still 10,000 rockets in storage and again, the mass media loved it and coined a 24 hr news cycle with it. I wonder whether they would consider a spectacular headline about Israelis stocks of bombs, howitzer shells and artillery rockets as newsworthy in light of the undisputable fact that Israel kills more civilians by orders of magnitude? I wonder rhetorically only, of course.
//No comments allowed for obvious reasons.//
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