UNDERSTANDING
THE GOLDSTONE REPORT

The civilian casualty count plays a major role in the world’s reaction to OCL.  Almost all expressions of shock, outrage, and condemnation of Israel for everything from “disproportionate response” to “war crimes” cites the terrible toll of civilian casualties inflicted on the Palestinian population.  Initially, all figures of civilian casualties either came from Palestinian sources (e.g., the Hamas-run Ministry of Health), or from NGO volunteers and UNWRA sources which emphasized the civilian catastrophe.  Eventually, the most widely used statistics came from a list of 1414 named dead provided by PCHR, of which, they claimed, 1180 were civilians (or 83%).  Other counts differed somewhat: B’tselem claimed that their study revealed 1387 dead, of which 773 were civilians.   The Israeli army issued its own count: 1166, 709 combatants, 295 civilian and 248 police, or (if one includes the police as combatants), 82.7% combatant casualties.

But statistics, despite their seeming “factual objectivity,” can be misleading.  In this case there were four major problems.

• Inflation of civilian count: The PCHR civilian count was systematically inflated by designating Hamas members, as civilians and including the  hit on the first day.  This may be in part because Hamas systematically tries to downplay and hide its own casualties. A systematic search at Hamas and other Jihadi websites revealed that 348 of those listed as civilians were, in fact, listed as members of these groups. 

• Definition: many organizations, including B’tselem, used a severely restrictive definition of combatant, so that even Hamas militants who were not actually in the act of firing on the Israelis.  As a result, one comes out with statistics that make no sense: among the category of children (under 18) most likely to be involved in fighting (11-18), more than three times as many boys were killed as girls, and for 18-29, four times as many (whereas, were they randomly killed civilians one would expect, as with children under 11, similar numbers for both sexes). 

• Police: Both the Palestinian sources and B’tselem count the police as civilians.  But the vast majority (78%) of policemen killed during Operation Cast Lead were members of terrorists groups whose exploits are detailed at the Al Izzadin al Qassam Brigades website. The Goldstone Report takes pains to define the police force as purely civilian, despite the ignoring evidence that proves otherwise and characterizing Israel's initial airstrikes at the Hamas police stations as an unjustified attack on civilians. 

• Perspective: Even if one accepts the PCHR’s figures, a 1:3 ratio of military to civilian casualty rate may seem high, but in comparison with other cases of warfare conducted in urban areas, it’s among the lowest ratio on record.  The recent US-led drone attacks on Pakistan there has been a 1:15 ratio (50 combatants to 780 civilian dead).  According to the British military expert Richard Kemp (whom Goldstone chose not to hear:

I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza.

The Goldstone Report came out with civilian statistics that resemble closely those of the NGOs – Palestinian, Western and Israeli.  They took no account of the volume of hard evidence that undermined those numbers, and they drew the same severe conclusions about Israeli recklessness as had their sources.  Indeed, one might argue that the civilian statistics the Goldstone Report adopted play a key role in their most serious charge: that Israel targeted civilians and therefore that they may well be guilty of crimes against humanity.

For a review of all the material and a list of "civilian" combatants, see Elder of Ziyon, "More of those civilians killed in Gaza"

For an interactive site with all the links to the Jihadi sites, see Casualties of truth: how the PCHR lies about the casualties of Cast Lead.