Both the question put to her by Linsey Davis, and Kamala Harris’ answer, left much to be desired. Elder of Ziyon discusses what was so wrong with both the question and the answer, here: “The mistakes in ABC’s question about Israel to Kamala Harris, and more in her answer,” Elder of Ziyon, September 12, 2024:
Here is the question about Israel during the presidential debate Tuesday night:
LINSEY DAVIS: Turning now to the Israel-Hamas war and the hostages who are still being held, Americans among them. Vice President Harris, in December you said, “Israel has a right to defend itself” but you added, “It matters how.” Saying international humanitarian law must be respected, Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians. You said that nine months ago. Now an estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead. Nearly 100 hostages remain. Just last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there’s not a deal in the making. President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?
The question implies that Israel is not adhering to international humanitarian law. It is, and every expert that visits Israel and checks out the conduct of the IDF testifies to that, including an article published Wednesday in The Times of London.
See the published remarks on the IDF’s conduct in Gaza by three military men — British Colonel Richard Kemp, West Point Professor John Spencer, and British General Sir John McColl, former Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO — who have all been deeply impressed with Israel’s massive effort to minimize civilian casualties. For Kemp, the IDF is “the most moral army in the world.” For Professor Spencer, “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan.” For General McColl, the Israelis have instituted procedures to minimize civilian casualties that “are at least as rigorous as those applied in the UK armed forces. In addition, the Israeli military carries out civilian evacuations of war zones, forgoing the element of surprise, to which it would be entitled in armed conflict.”
Beyond that problem, who, exactly, “estimated” 40,000 Palestinians killed? The answer is – Hamas. Not only did Davis use the figure as if it is factual, but she also implied that most or all of those killed were civilians.
Linsey Davis should have attributed that figure of “40,000” to Hamas. Furthermore, she ought to have said that of those 40,000, the IDF believes that 18,000 of them were Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine combatants. Furthermore, 800 Gazans die each month from natural causes — diseases, accidents, etc.— so in 11 months of war, 8800 of the civilians who died did so from natural causes. Davis might have said “40,000 have died in Gaza, of whom about 13,200 can be confirmed as civilian deaths from the war. Like everyone in the mainstream media, she chose to mention only one figure — 40,000 — and seemed to imply, as Hamas wants us to, that these were all civilians.
Kamala harris’ [sic] answer was rehearsed and consistent with how the Democratic Party, the EU and now the UK look at Israel. And it is more problematic than the question was.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, let’s understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. Many of them young people who were simply attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And so absolutely, I said then, I say now, Israel has a right to defend itself. We would.
So far, so good. But not for long.
And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers.
But Kamala Harris should know that while civilian deaths are regrettable, it is impossible to avoid them in any war, and especially difficult in the conditions of urban warfare in densely populated areas, where the enemy deliberately embeds itself, its weapons, and its rocket launchers amid civilian areas and buildings, using those civilians as human shields. She should have the decency to recognize that in Gaza, the IDF has achieved a ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths of slightly less than 1:1, an unheard-of number in the annals of warfare. The average ratio in all the wars since 1945 has been 9:1; the Americans managed to attain a 4:1 ratio in Afghanistan and 3:1 in Iraq. But no one comes close to what the IDF has achieved in Gaza.
What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a cease-fire deal and we need the hostages out. And so we will continue to work around the clock on that….
No, the war must NOT “end immediately.” That would leave Hamas able to regroup, and to present itself to the Arab world as “still standing” despite the mighty IDF’s attempt to destroy it. New recruits in Gaza would join the terror group. Arabs outside Gaza would swell with pride at Hamas’s achievement; some would send money. Israel is prepared to grant a temporary ceasefire of six weeks, along with a swap of prisoners for hostages, but cannot allow Hamas to remain in power in Gaza, free to plan and launch attacks like that on October 7, as it has promised to do “again and again.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
President Trump did right by dinging Kamala for preferring her sorority event over presiding over the joint houses for Netanyahu’s speech. But he should also have noted the pressure that the administration is putting on Israel to ease up on Hamas, w/o releasing the hostages, despite the fact that Israel had accepted a ceasefire deal that included the release of hostages, but Hamas didn’t
All that said, whatever Kamala said about October 7th is likely to cost her votes in Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia and New Jersey. Just hope it’s enough to flip all those states
somehistory says
k harris is a snake who cackles like a wild hyena every time she is cornered for a real answer to a real question.
In the debate, she knew ahead of time what her questions would be and she knew she could lie, ramble, repeat phrases she had been fed, and her supporters would cheer.
Having weapons for defense only, engaging in defense only, leaves openings for the enemy to keep attacking until the ‘defendant’ is worn down. The hyena doesn’t give a fig about Israel. When she was asked the loaded question, she began by ‘let’s understand how we got here.’
She then neglected to say anything about hamas having burned babies alive and taken hostages, including children, the old and ill, and as they tortured some, made videos and posted them as a taunt to Israel. She never mentioned the families who were sitting down to breakfast, or parents feeding their infants and the ghouls of hamas invading homes, eating the breakfasts and killing kids in front of their parents, and parents in front of their kids.
She didn’t say a word about hamas needing to pay for what they had done. She didn’t say a word about what hamas was threatening to do….more Oct. 7’s, kill the hostages if Israel kept fighting, She didn’t say a word about Israel having a right to take offensive action in order to get the hostages released, to stop another Oct. 7, to bring the foul beasts of hamas to justice.
She also didn’t say a word about hamas using their own people as shields or that their own people took part in the Oct.7 massacre, as well as holding the hostages as slaves, to be tortured, raped, starved and murdered.
The question was rigged with half-truths and lies. The response was not an answer.
Both support the terror hamas unleashed….and will again if not eliminated…on Israel and her people.
Neither wars nor football games are won by defensive moves only. But, the hyena and her friend at the network are offensive. They believe it’s enough, because that’s what they wish to believe.
rick says
There is very difficult to determine exactly who is being killed in Gaza or the circumstances of the killing. As Israel often gives the actual names of the Hamas members it killed, they are a far better source than the Hamas sources which are routinely used. And considering that Hamas uses civilians as human shields the almost 1:1 ratio of combat vs. civilian deaths is even more than extraordinary. But only a few people on earth seem to be aware of this and almost all of them live in Israel.
The level of reporting on this war is horrible to say the less. When I read casualty figures in US papers like the WSJ, there is never even an attempt to distinguish between combat killed and civilian killed. It is always “5 children and 3 women” or “19 civilians”. According to US newspapers Israel has not actually killed any Hamas fighters. There is no mention of them in any casualty explanations. And when the moderator in the Trump/Kamala Debate said that “over 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza” no one, including Trump, offered a correction that almost half of the deaths are of combat Hamas members.
It seems it is too much trouble for Western reporters to separate the 40,000 into civilian and non-civilian casualties. So everybody now just says “40,000” or “more than 40,000”. The propaganda of Hamas is working.
No one says “If Israel is simply bombing everyone, then why isn’t the number of dead in the hundreds of thousands and not just 40,000?” This question is never posed. And with the landscape of Gaza looking like German WW II cities in 1945 with many places with no buildings at all standing and only rubble, the hundreds of thousands of dead figure would seem right. But not even Hamas dares to make that lie.
somehistory says
The U.S. government is still identifying human remains from WWII and Vietnam.
Until remains are identified, the person is “missing, presumed dead.” That’s many years after the wars were finally over. so the final count has not yet been made.
In the middle of a war, shells falling, people constantly on the move, who can be sure how many people there actually are?
And when did hamas do a census to know how many “civilians” lived in Gaza? hamas fighting members shouldn’t be counted as “civilians.” Leaders of the various hamas entities….like their so-called “health ministry,” shouldn’t be called civilians.
How could a group which spends its time hiding in tunnels, actually count the dead?
joanofark06 says
And there lies the reason, I do NOT trust any mainstream news, only alternative will I get my news from! How confused people would be, with reading both. From truth to lies, from lies to truth. After awhile, your brain is scrambled, on WHAT or WHO to believe!
It’s like the many number of different kinds of bibles out there. Satan had man make these all, with words/verses ALL changed, only to have Christians arguing with each other, on the meaning of this or that verse (with a warning from God about this subject).
Same for the many various religions/churches. Who or which one is the real one, the right one? And you wonder why, Christians are all so divided! But Satan LOVES the game!
somehistory says
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-blamed-for-oct-7-attacks-at-lib-dem-conference/ar-AA1qCmWl?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=35bc6037a8f244668d09edd9d6b6a4ee&ei=91
somehistory says
Part of the article
“Speaking on the same panel, Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, accused Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government of “genocidal aggression and violence”.
Demanding the immediate recognition of Palestine by the UK, Mr Zomlot said: “The UK, of course, also has a historic responsibility here. It does.
“It was the British Empire that started this entire issue in the first place, giving away our land without even consulting us. It is the UK that needs to own this responsibility.
“This is not about guilt or blame, it’s about responsibility. It’s about leadership and statesmanship, and acting to rectify that injustice that was inflicted on the Palestinian people in 1917.””
joanofark06 says
So this is a mainstream news reporting this…hmm.
Peacelover says
Kamala came on with all the smiling and grinning,trying to show confidence and superiority but in my eyes just looked like a laughing clown, There,I’ve been thinking it all this time and wanted to ‘say’ it and just did.
somehistory says
You said it well. She’s a fake; except for her ability to lie and evade the Truth. She’s expert at that.
Peacelover says
+ thanks somehistory and by the way,when I had typed the ‘just did’ bit and clicked to post,I did Not mean to say I had just done that out of pride. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. Just was just merely trying to state the fact I had expressed a thought that had been on my mind.
James Lincoln says
Yes, Peacelover.
A laughing clown.
And may I add, a fake, a phony, and a fraud.
All show – no substance – for the benefit of the Democrat clapping seals…
Peacelover says
+ thanks and totally agree
OLD GUY says
Do you suppose Kamala is another Soros plant? She has all the markings and background.
Geo. Soros is one of the worst people in the world and has had a negative effect on our legal system protecting criminals.
Kamala will follow his orders.