Le Monde,
on page 4 of today’s issue (dated June 3-4, 2018), carries an article by its
journalist Marie Bourreau entitled: “At the UN the United States vetoes a
resolution on Gaza”. Addressing the recent bloody events there, she writes: “Washington
holds the Islamist movement – which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 – as
solely to blame for the violence having left more than one hundred dead and
4,000 wounded since March 30”.
Can anyone
imagine the reaction of the French if, in some part of their country, those in
charge of a minority having come to settle in the country had, in approximately
thirty days, caused over 1,600 civilians to be killed and another 59,000 wounded?
Whatever
Israeli and American officials may think, the land of Palestine belongs to the “Palestinian
Arabs”, irrespective of the different religions practised amongst them. Of
course, Palestinian leaders might care to open up their country to some
foreigners, but not to foreigners who would persist in conducting themselves as
rulers and masters shedding others’ blood at will. The heads of numerous international
Jewish and Zionist organisations, for their part, are bad shepherds who have
been playing with fire and lies for far too long.
If the
number of Israeli casualties is assumed to have been zero, how can the Israelis
and their American allies possibly
ascribe full responsibility for the massacre to the Islamist movement
called Hamas? If, in their view, any responsibility did lie with Israel, would such
slaughter be nothing but a trifle? Perfectly kosher? Another little misadventure
of God’s chosen people? The Palestinians will have to “pay” for it, “make
amends” for it. Chutzpah! This word designates, with regard to lying, a degree
of arrogance, audacity, self-assurance and shamelessness worthy of admiration;
for example, the chutzpah of the youth who, at his trial for the murder of his
parents, claims the right to an orphan’s pension, sobbing.
NB: This edition of Le
Monde seems to me to have been closed, at the latest, at noon on Sunday
June 3. By “more than one hundred dead”, I have assumed 110 victims but an AFP
dispatch of the same day gives, for its part, the figure of 124. I write “more
than 1,600 [French] civilians […] killed” because the number obtained by ratio of
population is 1,624, and “another 59,000 wounded” since the corresponding figure
is 59,012. Searching on Google for the number of inhabitants of the two
countries I found, for Palestine (West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip),
4.55 million and, for France in 2018, 67.2 million. The mathematics professor
to whom I have shown these numbers has been kind enough to make the necessary
calculations, replying with the following two equations and their products,
which the reader will surely appreciate: 110 ÷ 4.55 x 67.2 = 1,624 dead; 4,000
÷ 4.55 x 67.2 = 59,012 wounded. I recommend that my foreign correspondents, in
turn, calculate the numbers for their respective countries that would
correspond to the Palestinians killed and wounded in the period in question of
about thirty days, and ask them to be so good as to send me their results.
June 4, 2018