Juan Cole on Israel's invasion of Gaza

Djehuty - very important seed. According to the latest UNICEF Reports (2006) (see: (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) the annual number of under-5 infant deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territories totals about 3,000. Of these infant deaths, about 2,400 (80%) are avoidable and due to war criminal Israeli non-provision of life-sustaining requisites demanded unequivocally by the Geneva Conventions (see: (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).

About 200 Israelis are murdered each year by Palestinians (if American Jews went to live in South Chicago they would experience a similar death rate – indeed it would go up substantially if they embarked on a racist, proto-Nazi, Israel-style policy of imprisoning, defaming, robbing, torturing, traumatizing, ethnic cleansing and large-scale murder of African Americans). In "response", each year the Israelis kill about 1,000 Palestinians (including 200 Palestinian children) and wound 9,000 (for detailed documentation see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ).

Adolph Hitler demanded that the death ratio of "enemy civilians executed"/"German soldiers killed by partisans" should be 10 (as in the Ardeatine Caves Massacre in Italy in 1944). Indeed the overall "death ratio" of "Allied civilian deaths"/"Axis military deaths" in World War 2 was also about 10.

How do the Israeli "death ratios" compare with those of the Nazis? The post-September 2000 "death ratio" of "Palestinians killed by Israelis"/"Israelis killed by Palestinians" = 5,144/1,113 = 4.6, about half of the "death ratio" advocated by Adolph Hitler.

However before you think that the Israelis are somehow "nicer" than the Nazis you also have to take "non-violent deaths" into account (thus about 1 million of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis died from deprivation rather than from explicit violence). Thus the total number of "avoidable deaths" each year in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is at least 3,400 (1,000 killed by Israeli soldiers plus 2,400 avoidable under-5 infant deaths). The resultant "death ratio" of "Palestinian deaths"/"Israeli deaths" = 3,400/200 = 17 – vastly exceeding the "enemy civilian"/"Axis military" death ratio advocated by Hitler and indeed resulting overall in World War 2.

The destruction of key infrastructure and removal of power for 0.7 million Palestinians in the latest Israeli barbarity in Gaza will stop ambulances reaching victims and prevent hospitals from functioning. Leaving aside those actually killed violently by Israelis, the number of "non-violent avoidable deaths" (e.g. infants in power-less humidicribs etc) will soar.

This violence is ostensibly happening because some unknown Arabs have kidnapped one Israeli soldier for a week – whereas Israel has violently and illegally imprisoned 4 million Palestinians for 39 traumatizing years in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (a "Prison" in the words of outstanding Jewish American scholar and humanitarian Professor Noam Chomsky).

Peace is the only way. International sanctions and boycotts are the only way to bring the racist, Goebellsian, war criminal, human rights-abusing, mother-abusing, child-killing, proto-Nazi Israeli Establishment to heel.