WAR IN UKRAINE VS WAR IN THE GAZA STRIP — BENCHMARKS
As I analyze the two wars underway, my practice is to look for similarities and disparities. I want to suggest that the war in Ukraine provides a benchmark for evaluating what is unfolding in Gaza. Let me start with civilian casualties because I believe that is a critical variable that is going to work in favor of Palestinians and against Israel.
The ubiquity of social media around the world makes it very difficult to obfuscate what is taking place on the ground in the two wars. Since the start of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Western intelligence has been working with Kiev to push social narratives portraying Russia as a gross violator of human rights. The “massacre” in Bucha last year is a case in point. Ukraine and the West repeatedly have accused Russia of bombing schools and hospitals and showing no regard for civilian casualties. One big problem, however. We have never seen a flood of images and videos like those coming out of Gaza showing the mangled bodies of children, women and elderly. Is anyone prepared to argue that Russia has been purging these images taken on territory controlled by Ukraine? The facts don’t support that position.
If Russia really had caused a massive number of civilian casualties I believe we would have seen those photos and videos all over the internet. We have not. We know that Ukraine and the West accused Russia of bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupolallegedly filled with pregnant women. Subsequent information proved that the expectant mothers had been evacuated from that hospital well before Russia hit it and that members of the Azov battalion had taken shelter there. Since then we have had no further legitimate claims of Russia bombing a hospital filled with civilians.
It is a dramatically different picture in the Gaza Strip. There is a veritable tsunami of photos and videos of dead and wounded civilians. Here are two recent examples:
If you compare civilian casualties in Gaza with civilian casualties in Ukraine since 2014, what is taking place in Gaza is horrific. Take the Donbass for example:
The overall number of estimated deaths in the war in Donbas from 6 April 2014 to 31 December 2021 was 14,200–14,400. This included about 6,500 pro-Russian separatist fighters, 4,400 Ukrainian fighters, and 3,404 civilians.
I am not trying to minimize nor disparage the loss of life in the Donbass, but the fact is that Israel, in the space of two weeks, has killed more civilians than Ukrainian forces killed in 7 years. That disparity may explain why the world paid so little attention to the fighting in the Donbass between 2014 – 2021. The body count, as measured over time, was inconsequential. Not enough blood to justify news coverage.
That is not the case for the Palestinians and the nations of the world outside of the Western orbit, who are paying attention and protesting in the streets and through diplomatic channels. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, there was empathy and outrage over the killing of Israeli civilians. Rightly so. But from October 10, the sympathy index has shifted dramatically from Israel to the people of Palestine.
War is not just a matter of which side can do the most killing. There also is a political dimension that must be taken into account and Israel seems oblivious to the fact that it is losing the PR battle and losing it badly. Does this mean that Hamas has a more effective, more powerful information warfare capability than Ukraine and the West combined? I do not think so. Hamas is reaping the benefit, some would argue cynically, of the consequences of Israel’s continuing attacks on civilian targets.
Israel shows no signs of backing away from its current strategy. It warned the Al Quds hospital on Saturday to evacuate, a clear indication that Israel intends to strike the facility. According to an Al Arabiya correspondent, “The administration of Al Quds Hospital in Gaza refuses to evacuate the building.” If Israel follows through on its threat it is likely that hundreds of Palestinian civilians will be added to the mounting casualty list. This may help Bibi Netanyahu’s political position in Israel, but it is likely to further enrage the Arab and Muslim world. The mere act of bombing a facility named Al Quds (the Holy) will be viewed by Muslims as a metaphorical attack on the Al Quds Mosque in Jerusalem, which Hamas cited as the predicate for its attacks on October 7. The emotions driving Israel, as it seeks revenge for the attacks on October 7, is matched by the emotions of Hamas, the Palestinians and their supporters around the world. This goes beyond the Arab and Muslim world.
It is foolish and dangerous to engage in military operations based on the premise of who is the most pissed off. Jews, not just Israelis, genuinely believe they are the aggrieved party and that failure to act forcefully, without mercy, will leave them facing a new Holocaust. Most Israelis have zero interest in trying understand why the Palestinians are now flocking to support Hamas. On the other side of the coin, the Palestinians also believe they are the victim of Israeli colonialism and see this current fight as an existential battle. Sadly, I think most Americans have embraced the Israeli view and are unwilling to entertain any claim of justification from Palestinians and other Muslim countries. Russia and China, along with other members of BRICS, are positioned to act as neutral mediators. Whether they will is another question.
My conclusion? I think we are set on a trajectory of murderous escalation that is likely to spread beyond the boundaries of the Gaza. Many Western analysts, in my opinion, are making a dangerous assumption that Muslim and Arab nations, as they did in the 1967 War and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, will act rationally and stay out of this fight. We are in new, uncharted waters and this war could very well spin out of control.
Iran, for example, reportedly has put its missile force on alert and could provide supporting fire for beleaguered Palestinians. That would mark the start of World War III. Turkey’s Erdogan, although a member of NATO, also has signaled that the West must make good on its promises to the Palestinians. If the West fails to act to stop the carnage I can envision a scenario where Turkey will act against the interests of America and NATO. So much for the ballyhooed unity of NATO.
It is one thing to call for “cooler heads to prevail.” What worries me is that emotions are so inflamed on both sides of the issue that the chances of finding an off-ramp are diminishing with each passing day. We may be on the verge of witnessing a debacle like the 1956 Suez Crisis (aka the Second Arab–Israeli war) but on a far more massive and deadly scale. If it comes to that I fear that the United States, like the United Kingdom in 1956, will emerge weaker and permanently damaged. Its status as the pre-eminent super power force shepherding events in the Middle East could be demolished. Those are the stakes.