tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15627892.post8214701241766659596..comments2024-03-18T05:56:59.924-04:00Comments on Daled Amos: The Lies, The Researches And The Facts, About The Last War In GazaDaled Amoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17646808702899584547noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15627892.post-2052487795298251272009-09-25T16:00:30.345-04:002009-09-25T16:00:30.345-04:00Correction: I wrongly accused you of having misint...Correction: I wrongly accused you of having misinterpreted my demographic work - and forgot the fact that you were in fact quoting from Ben Dror Yemini rather than interpreting my research directly. What a shame - I'd been perfect all year, and now I'll have to fast on Yom Kippur after all!<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />-Don RadlauerDon Radlauerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06913661475277505087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15627892.post-27852680921057979982009-09-25T15:39:25.025-04:002009-09-25T15:39:25.025-04:00Dear Daled Amos:
You wrote that "between 900...Dear Daled Amos:<br /><br />You wrote that <i>"between 900 and 1,070 of the casualties (63% - 75%) were killed because they were involved."</i> As the author and lead analyst of the study in question, I would like to clarify that your statement is not quite correct. The demographic analysis of Operation Cast Lead fatalities does not establish that all the "excess males" killed were combatants, members of terror organizations, or anything else other than dead, young-adult, and male. What it does establish is that these people were specifically targeted by Israeli forces, rather than being killed by long-distance artillery fire, aerial assault, and other forms of attack that would result in more demographically indiscriminate killing.<br /><br />Given the kind of battlefield conditions that prevailed in Operation Cast Lead, young Arab men - particularly in groups - were often perceived as potential threats to Israeli forces simply because being a young Arab man was the only obvious distinguishing feature of enemy combatants. There is no doubt in my mind that a number of completely innocent young men were killed by Israeli forces because they were <i>incorrectly</i> perceived as military targets (as opposed to other young men killed accidentally as part of the "non-targeted" civilian population). Such killings do not constitute war crimes if the soldiers involved made appropriate good-faith efforts to distinguish between noncombatants and combatants; so these innocent "excess" male fatalities represent an unfortunate but - at least in most cases - unavoidable and legal consequence of urban combat against a non-uniformed enemy.<br /><br />Demographic analysis cannot determine how many of the "excess males" killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip were genuine combatants and how many were noncombatants; similarly, the work of my colleague Tal Pavel can establish a lower limit for the number of Palestinian combatants killed, but cannot provide a reliable total figure for combatants because there are too many cases about which too little is known. What our work did establish was that (A) as you reported, a large number of the Palestinians killed in Gaza were individually identifiable as combatants, either by their actions or by their affiliations; and (B) a clear majority of those killed by Israeli forces represented a targeted population (i.e. young males) rather than a non-targeted civilian population.<br /><br /><br />Best regards,<br /><br />-Don Radlauer<br />Associate, The Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT)<br />The Interdisciplinary Center, HerzliyaDon Radlauerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06913661475277505087noreply@blogger.com