Israel supporters claim that UNICEF data proves that ‘there was no famine in Gaza.’ Their proof? Arm measurements. They point to mid-August data showing that fewer than 15% of children had upper-arm circumferences small enough to count as malnourished. Because those figures were “unweighted” — not adjusted for age — they argue that the UN exaggerated hunger, since younger children naturally have smaller arms. They also insist that UN models predicting over 10,000 starvation deaths were disproven when fewer than 200 were recorded. The UN, meanwhile, claims that famine wasn’t declared off arm size alone. Food consumption, mortality rates, and household surveys all pointed to a population on the edge of collapse. And gathering data in a war zone where aid convoys are bombed and families are displaced is hardly a lab-grade exercise. In other words: Israel’s defenders are cherry-picking one data point from one week in August and calling it the whole story. That same pattern of statistical gymnastics shows up again when the subject turns from hunger to death tolls. Supporters of Israel also refute death numbers, claiming that Israel has killed “only” 1.5 civilians to every combatant, “an almost unheard-of level of care for civilians by the Israeli army.” But that figure hinges on a redefinition of who counts as a combatant. During the Obama years, U.S. policy was to count every military-age male as a combatant to justify droning civilians. Israel does this too. They do not provide proof of guilt for people they kill or imprison and when they are caught killing journalists or medics, they apologize and promise to look into it. So even if we accept the most conservative death count at 70,000 Palestinians killed, that means more than 35,000 of them were civilians. Is this what we would call an “unheard-of level of care for civilians”? Pieces like that function as moral anesthesia. They take something unbearable, like tens of thousands dead, famine, siege, and wrap it in comforting language for readers who don’t want to feel implicated. The message isn’t “here’s what’s happening,” it’s “you don’t have to question your side.” That’s the story the numbers were written to tell. The post Israel’s Fuzzy Math: How “Precision” Kills 35,000 Civilians appeared first on Redacted.