See, my approach would be to turn this completely around. Israel should have apologized early on for killing 11,000 civilians in the first couple of days, with their death toll rising to over 150,000 as the conflict went on. That would leave the Palis completely in the dark. Their response would be to overstate the deaths as much as possible, but their numbers would still be under the IDFs’ numbers. At the “end”, when there might be a reckoning, Israel then says “So, we lied. We were just trying to demoralize them so they wouldn’t fight and be killed. So what? We’re giving a “proportionate response” to Palestinian lies.”
I agree with you. Israel should not enegage in this type of argument. As shown by the false ‘Jenin Massacre’ when the truth was indisputedly proven the press did not care and did not retract.
The point is not how many Gazans were killed but the Hamas tactics of using human shields, of actually encouraging people to stay in their homes after IDF warns they are going to blow it up, of even forcing civilians to stay in the line of fire, of parking munitions in schools and ambulances juxtaposed with the Israeli policy of minimizing its citizen’s casualties by building shelters and having a warning system.
So the number of Israelis actually killed is not the number for comparison. It is the number of civilians the Hamas rockets targeted that is the measure of the Hamas war crimes.
The West is playing by the terrorists’ rule book when they fight an assymetric war and start defending casualty numbers. The West needs to change the discussion and stop discussing casualty numbers. They should be publicizing tactics and refuse to discuss numbers.
Oooh, I like that!
Hmmm, Israel should also deny using gentically engineered biological weapons that turn Palestinian males homosexual. Categorically deny it. Repeatedly.
You are correct . Apologize for thousands and then just move on.