Bashar al-Assad and Benjamin Netanyahu. Part One: The Scorecard.

I received this message the other day:

The subtext is that, were it not for the fact that Israel is a Jewish state, nobody would give a damn about what Israel was up to. After all, who talks about the slaughters going on in Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. etc? Who talked about Syria?

But across the world, these days, from South Africa to Ireland to Norway, the Middle East to Southeast Asia, to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Court of Justice, Israel and its leaders are denounced as war criminals.

Absurd! Outrageous. Nothing but rampant anti-Semitism. This is precisely the point of that bitterly ironic message above, equating Netanyahu to Bashar al-Assad. How ridiculous! How could anyone possibly compare Bashar al-Assad’s savagery against his own people to Israel’s righteous reply to the bloody Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023?

To be clear, I was horrified by al-Assad and his family’s incredibly murderous reign of terror. But I am equally appalled by the death and destruction that Netanyahu and The Israel Defense Forces have visited on the people of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas attack.

In that case, the comparison with al-Assad is not so outrageous.

Look at the statistics. Bashar Al-Assad was determined to use whatever force necessary to quash the uprisings that began sweeping his country in 2011. By the time he fled to Moscow on December 8, 2024, more than 620,000 Syrians had been slaughtered.

That toll represents 1.9% of the Syrian population of 22 million. A ghastly figure. It’s roughly the same percentage of Americans who perished in the U.S. Civil War, by far the most deadly in U.S. history.

But compare that death rate with the percentage of Palestinians living in Gaza who were killed by Israel’s forces responding to the Hamas attack. According to the Palestinian Health Authority, whose figures have been generally accepted, about 45,000 have been killed since October 7. That equals 1.95 % of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million. Estimates are that at least two-thirds of the dead were women and children.

They represent roughly 45 Palestinians killed for each Israeli who died on October 7. More than one hundred thousand Gazans have also been injured, maimed, and scarred for life. The majority are also women and children.

In other words, the percentage of Syrians massacred by Assad’s troops and supporters in fourteen years of bloody dictatorship is almost the same as the percentage of Palestinians in Gaza slaughtered by the IDF In 14 months.

Another comparison:

Because of the ghastly violence in Syria, more than half the population-- 13 million people--were displaced. Of those, 6.7 million fled their country: one of the most extraordinary flows of refugees the world has known.

The Palestinians of Gaza, however, have nowhere to flee. The bombs and missiles continue unabated. Hospitals and schools are flattened. Nowhere is safe. Snipers and drones are everywhere. The survivors are trapped in a surrealistic wasteland that looks like the movie set for a post-nuclear world. They are filled with despair; the only thing they wait for, they say, is to die.

According to one of the latest reports from Haaretz, “The extent of destruction is inconceivable. There is hardly a building left whole, yet despite this, Israel is still carrying out daily airstrikes, with the number of dead counted in Gaza approaching 50,000.

In reality, the number may be much higher since there are people who are not on the Health Ministry's registry or people still buried under the rubble….

Most of the remaining two million-plus residents in the Gaza Strip are waiting for their death every day. It could be a quick death, a result of an airstrike, or a slow one due to hunger or disease. It could be in a fight over a bag of flour or from being shot by a robber.

While in Israel, efforts are focusing on rebuilding, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are engaged in a life-and-death struggle every hour.

Talks about a deal to release the hostages are less relevant for them. The conversation is about who will die today and who tomorrow…Most of the populace in Israel responds with assent or indifferent silence since the process of dehumanizing Palestinians has succeeded: It doesn't matter what's happening in Gaza – the war is over.

Another comparison between Gaza and Syria: To defeat Muslim extremists, which they view as a menace in their own country, the Russians—along with Iran--came to Assad’s rescue.

They dispatched Russian soldiers and mercenaries, bombs and rockets, pilots, and sophisticated jets to smash the revolt. They also provided Assad with international cover, repeatedly lying about his using chemical weapons on his people.

Despicable!

No question about it. But, after all, what can you expect from the cynical Russian leader?

On the other hand, though President Biden constantly wrung his hands publicly over the slaughter in Gaza and deplored the civilian casualties, the Americans never used the power they had to end the slaughter. They didn’t dispatch trained pilots or boots on the ground. The Israelis had their own. But the Americans and their European allies continue to this day to provide international cover to Israel. More importantly, they continue to furnish Israel with the weapons to continue the bloodbath.

And the Israelis have enormous needs.

Already, as of April 2024, Israel dropped more than 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, far surpassing the tons of explosives dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II. An impressive feat: The entire Gaza Strip is the same size as Las Vegas.

Part two of this blog to come

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