B’Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights Center giving these counts, admits that Palestinian casualties are likely much higher, but data collection is difficult.
Also, the figure does not include perhaps thousands of Palestinians who died because they couldn’t reach medical care due to Israeli road closures, curfews and the Gaza blockade.
It’s also difficult to imagine getting an accurate infant mortality rate. The CIA Worldbook ranks Gaza a scant percentage point below Turkey’s rate, but Gaza’s is still four times that of Israel. Babies who die at home go unreported because they cannot get to a hospital and aren’t counted in this figure.
While the rest of the world wakes up in the wake of the flotilla massacre, columnists like Will and Charles Krauthammer stay snugly wrapped in their pro-Israeli cocoon.
Tammy Obeidallah
Bradford
Only U.S. shocked by Afghan ‘secret’
As the furor over a Muslim rec center near Ground Zero wanes, are we now supposed to run around with our hair on fire over “Afghanistan’s dirty little secret”? Reading that the Defense Department was mystified by a sexual custom common in Afghan culture for at least eight centuries makes me feel more like crying.
If we invaded Afghanistan in a state of such ignorance seven years ago, it is no mystery that we failed to achieve our mission. It was a mission grounded in emotion and cultural blindness rather than facts.
Mary Combs
Dayton