The Israelis started it off, on October 7th, at 1405, and then gradually dropped it to the current count of 1155. As of today, apart from the 51,000 they’re reporting as injured, the Gaza Health Authority has its own latest body count at just over 23,000 – of whom 10,000 are children and 7,000 women, plus an estimated 7,000 still under the rubble. That leaves 6,000 men, which is 1,000 less than the 7,000 Hamas fighters the Israelis claim to have killed. But this is reminiscent of Vietnam. If you’re male and we killed you you must have been a Vietcong. Likewise, then, if you’re male and we killed you you must have been a Hamas fighter.

But none of this is surprising. Not unlike in the Russia/Ukraine war, both sides in the propaganda war will want to inflate their civilian casualties and those of the enemy forces, and minimise their own military casualties. It’s all just a bit like “It’s just a flesh wound!” from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.

But what most strikes me about these thrusts and parries in this propaganda war is the purported relevance of the age and/or sex of the civilian victims. Apparently it’s much more of an atrocity to kill women and children than it is to kill men. Where are the outraged voices of the men’s rights activists in all of this? Or am I, as is my won’t, putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable?

Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: civilian casualties, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, men's rights, propaganda, Vietnam, war