oints of view >> Send letters to: letters@thejewishnews.com Essay Editorials unfortunate 'ivilian Virthrris The Population Falloff Df European Jewry Dissecting AP's probe into Israeli airstrikes triggered by Hamas. s the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague considers pos- sible war crimes during Israel's summer war with the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Associated Press (AP) has released findings of its exami- nation of 247 Israeli airstrikes on homes there. The airstrike findings are eyepopping. Of 844 Palestinians killed, the youngest to die was a 4-day-old girl and the oldest was a 92-year-old man. Kids younger than 16 comprised a third of the dead; 19 babies and 108 pre- schoolers were among the 280 youngest victims. Those numbers are heart- rending. AP affirmed Israel's position toward the 50-day war: That the Jewish state tried to avoid Palestinian civilians, but couldn't because Hamas hid weap- ons, fighters and command centers in neighborhoods. Hamas' intent clearly was to bump up the civilian death toll, which has proven the dominant postwar issue, to drive the international com- munity against Israel. The 2014 tunnel-spurred war was the third and most perni- cious between Hamas and Israel since 2008. Under international rules of war, according to AP, homes are off limits unless used for military purposes. Israel maintains it attacked only verified war targets. Palestinians allege Israel struck without regard for civilians. Israel further maintains it aborted strikes when civilians appeared and delivered warn- ings so civilians could evacuate. A j Gaza Strip. The onslaught has killed dozens of Israelis of all ages and has put ordinary Palestinians in harm's way as a propaganda tool. Ultimately, Hamas must be held accountable for the deaths of the very people it is supposed to protect — and for the deaths of Israelis in southern towns caught in the line of Hamas rockets. Israeli army spokesman Lt. Peter Lerner put it candidly to AP: "While loss of civilian life is regrettable, combating a terrorist organization with semi-state capa- bilities that conceals those capa- bilities within and beneath homes, schools, hospitals and mosques is the reality of urban warfare." AP described its review, published in early February, as "the most painstaking attempt to date to try to determine who was killed in strikes on homes in the Gaza war even as Israel's army and Gaza mil- itants have refused to release information about targets and casualties." The inves- tigation included witness interviews, attack-site visits and a casualty compilation. Of course, statistics gathered through Palestinian sources are suspect for manipulation geared toward downplaying the role of terrorist combatants and raising the civilian casualty count. Hamas provoked Israel into war via relentless rocket fire since taking power in Gaza in 2007. Beyond The Numbers It's tragic that 508 of the dead in the air- strikes, just over 60 percent, were children, women and older men, all presumed to be civilians. Also slain were 96 confirmed or suspected terrorists, just over 11 percent of the total, though AP acknowledged the actual number could be higher. Despite the unnerving high body count among Palestinian civilians, the fact is Hamas provoked Israel into war via relentless rocket fire since taking power in 2007 in the 42 February 26 • 2015 JN ews have left Europe in alarming numbers since 1960, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Washington-based Pew sug- gests various reasons for the postwar population tumbling: inter- marriage, acculturation, aliyah. Due to the Holocaust in the 1930s and '40s, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population were slain — leaving the continent a shell of the bastion of Jewish life and protector of Jewish heritage it once was. Worldwide, the Holocaust stole the lives of 6 million of the 16 million Jews then alive. Most of the world's Jews today live in Israel and America, where the num- ber of Jews is up. But the trend since 1960 in Europe is daunting. Europe — fighting economic, political and religious turmoil — has seen its Jewish population plummet from 2 million in 1991 to 1.4 million now. In contrast, 3.2 million Jews lived on the continent in 1960, 15 years after World War II and 12 years after the rise of the modern State of Israel. It wasn't so many generations ago that a majority of Jews called Europe their home. In 1939, 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe — 57 percent of the world total. European Jews now represent about 10 percent of our global head count of 14 million. Not surprisingly, much of the decrease is in Eastern Europe and areas of the former Soviet Union — unstable regions for a long time, especially amid the repressive will of Putin-led Russia. And don't discount the flood of immigrant Muslims into Western Europe in recent years; it also may have hastened Jewish flight. Law-respecting Muslims have assimilated into the European way of life. But those radical- ized by political Islam — often young, impressionable, poor and rebellious — arrived indoctrinated to disrupt, deceive, incite and terrorize. ❑ What Lies Ahead Israel might be prosecuted before the unpredictable Netherlands-based ICC, but Hamas certainly should be if the preliminary look into alleged atrocities triggers a full investigation with charges. Also at risk of prosecution is President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, which initiated the ICC review; Abbas signed a treaty seeking ICC membership despite the P.A. not being an internationally recognized sovereign state. Abbas' Fatah party feigns political modera- tion toward Israel, citing security coopera- tion. Yet Fatah not only entered into a unity pact with llamas, but also promotes incite- ment and violence against Israel and glorifies the murder of innocent Israelis by branding dead terrorists as "martyrs" serving Allah. ❑ We're A Global People I sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused a European uproar with his blunt, overreaching pronouncement from Jerusalem that embattled European Jews — reeling from terrorist attacks in France and Denmark that left five Jews, among others, dead — should move en masse to Israel. Former Israeli President Shimon Peres, long a respected Israeli statesman, served up a wiser, less- contentious view when he said last week in New York: "Come because you want to live in Israel. Jews can live all over the world. Just keep your children Jewish." He said make aliyah because you want to, not out of fear. His remarks in a discussion with Times of Israel edi- tor David Horovitz were in sharp contrast with those Shimon Peres of Netanyahu. After the Denmark attack, which killed a Jewish volunteer security guard at a Copenhagen synagogue, Netanyahu, seeking re-election on March 17, declared: "We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe. I would like to tell all European Jews and all Jews wherever they are: Israel is the home of every Jew." It would have been more statesman-like for Netanyahu to invite immi- gration among diaspora Jews seeking it because of ancestral ties (a noble reason), while also saying Israel would support and assist European nations ravaged by anti-West and anti-Jewish terror so Jews there who sought to stay could do so amid less angst and danger (a noble gesture). Yes, Israel is the Jewish ancestral homeland. But Jews as a people count as theirs not just Israel, but also the Jewish diaspora. ❑