Comparative casualty figures
Some people railed against Israel for murdering Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but have remained quiet about the murder of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan army under similar circumstances. In a recent column I called them hypocrites, which indeed they are. But, what do you think is the ratio of civilian casualties in Gaza and the Tamil region of Sri Lanka? I've now got an answer to that question.
Without knowing the number of people killed, one would expect there would be approximately equal coverage in the media of the two conflicts, all other things being equal (which they are clearly not). But, actually, as anybody knows who watches the media or reads a newspaper, the amount of coverage of the Gaza conflict was about 10 times that of the Sri Lankan conflict. This is an estimate, but someday a budding journalism student will do a project on the actual number of column inches or screen time dedicated to both, and then we'll have the facts. But, until then I stand by a ratio of ca. 10:1. A rough test, how many times did you see a Tamil father carrying a wounded child into a hospital on the news, honestly not once, but a Gazan father, hundreds of times, repeated ad nauseam. That's not news, that's propaganda! And where are the comparable heartfelt appeals from the podium in Trafalgar Square for the lives of the poor civilians in Sri Lanka, if you can hear them you have better hearing than me.
Now, it appears that the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs actually had an estimate of the number of civilians killed in the northern Tamil region of Sri Lanka but refrained from publishing it so as not to embarrass the Sri Lankan Government. However, the number was leaked and we now know that there were a total of 9,924 civilian casualties between Jan and March 2009, including 2,683 deaths. I cannot confirm these figures, but they are the ones that have been reported as leaked from the UN agency.
Now the total number of deaths reported in Gaza has been agreed at roughly 1,300, of which the IDF in a detailed survey attributed ca. 750 to combatants and 253 to civilians (including men, women and children). Assuming that number to be correct, and not the inflated number given by the Palestinian medical service run by Hamas (of ca. 900 children dead), then the ratio of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka to Gaza is roughly 10:1!
That means that the media coverage, if corrected for the number of civilians killed, which is as good a basis as any, would be approximately 100:1 in favor of Gaza. Now why is that? Well obviously it's not based on the humanitarian deaths of civilians, for if it were, then Darfur would be in the news every day with ca. 100,000 killed there. No that doesn't matter, what apparently does matter is how the conflict fits into the leftist views of the media and the predominantly leftist groups demonstrating, including unionists, Muslims and liberals (and not a few Jews). Clearly these groups care almost nothing for Tamil lives, nor for the Darfurians, but the life of a Palestinian is much more valuable to them.
And the claim of "war crimes" has been levelled against the IDF, when it is one of the most scrupulous armies in the world when it comes to preventing "collateral damage", but I have not heard one claim of "war crimes" against the Sri Lankan mililtary. Perhaps I just don't read the right papers or watch the right news. Maybe some people feel that the Tamil Tigers are indeed terrorists and their supporters deserve what they get. But apparently this does not apply to Hamas, which is also recognized as a terrorist group, that uses civilians as shields, but as they said in the British demonstrations, "we are all Hamas now." I've yet to see a placard saying, "we are all Tigers now," someone might think it referred to golf!
Just to clarify, I am not in favor of the Tamil Tigers, they are terrorists who have killed many civilians in suicide bombings, and I doubt that an independent Tamil region would be viable. I support the Sri Lankan Government, but I still object to random killings of Tamil civilians by their armed forces. By comparison, I also support the IDF of course, and I do not believe that an independent Gaza, as a terrorist enclave, is viable or acceptable
Without knowing the number of people killed, one would expect there would be approximately equal coverage in the media of the two conflicts, all other things being equal (which they are clearly not). But, actually, as anybody knows who watches the media or reads a newspaper, the amount of coverage of the Gaza conflict was about 10 times that of the Sri Lankan conflict. This is an estimate, but someday a budding journalism student will do a project on the actual number of column inches or screen time dedicated to both, and then we'll have the facts. But, until then I stand by a ratio of ca. 10:1. A rough test, how many times did you see a Tamil father carrying a wounded child into a hospital on the news, honestly not once, but a Gazan father, hundreds of times, repeated ad nauseam. That's not news, that's propaganda! And where are the comparable heartfelt appeals from the podium in Trafalgar Square for the lives of the poor civilians in Sri Lanka, if you can hear them you have better hearing than me.
Now, it appears that the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs actually had an estimate of the number of civilians killed in the northern Tamil region of Sri Lanka but refrained from publishing it so as not to embarrass the Sri Lankan Government. However, the number was leaked and we now know that there were a total of 9,924 civilian casualties between Jan and March 2009, including 2,683 deaths. I cannot confirm these figures, but they are the ones that have been reported as leaked from the UN agency.
Now the total number of deaths reported in Gaza has been agreed at roughly 1,300, of which the IDF in a detailed survey attributed ca. 750 to combatants and 253 to civilians (including men, women and children). Assuming that number to be correct, and not the inflated number given by the Palestinian medical service run by Hamas (of ca. 900 children dead), then the ratio of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka to Gaza is roughly 10:1!
That means that the media coverage, if corrected for the number of civilians killed, which is as good a basis as any, would be approximately 100:1 in favor of Gaza. Now why is that? Well obviously it's not based on the humanitarian deaths of civilians, for if it were, then Darfur would be in the news every day with ca. 100,000 killed there. No that doesn't matter, what apparently does matter is how the conflict fits into the leftist views of the media and the predominantly leftist groups demonstrating, including unionists, Muslims and liberals (and not a few Jews). Clearly these groups care almost nothing for Tamil lives, nor for the Darfurians, but the life of a Palestinian is much more valuable to them.
And the claim of "war crimes" has been levelled against the IDF, when it is one of the most scrupulous armies in the world when it comes to preventing "collateral damage", but I have not heard one claim of "war crimes" against the Sri Lankan mililtary. Perhaps I just don't read the right papers or watch the right news. Maybe some people feel that the Tamil Tigers are indeed terrorists and their supporters deserve what they get. But apparently this does not apply to Hamas, which is also recognized as a terrorist group, that uses civilians as shields, but as they said in the British demonstrations, "we are all Hamas now." I've yet to see a placard saying, "we are all Tigers now," someone might think it referred to golf!
Just to clarify, I am not in favor of the Tamil Tigers, they are terrorists who have killed many civilians in suicide bombings, and I doubt that an independent Tamil region would be viable. I support the Sri Lankan Government, but I still object to random killings of Tamil civilians by their armed forces. By comparison, I also support the IDF of course, and I do not believe that an independent Gaza, as a terrorist enclave, is viable or acceptable
posted by Jack Cohen at 1:37 PM
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