Israel is lying about the number of its casualties in Gaza

Israel is attempting to craft an image of victory – using the brutal spectacle of mass arrests of civilians – as its military hides casualty figures from the ground war in Gaza, says Jon Elmer. “It does seem that Israel came out of the fighting pause and got feedback from their focus groups on what has to be done to build an image of victory that allows you to withdraw from this war with some semblance of at least operational legitimacy – because we know they’ve lost moral legitimacy, so they want to have a symbol of victory,“ Jon said. “For the Israelis, because they don’t have the operational or moral legitimacy to fall back on, their principal war-fighting strategy is to stay alive. And part of the brutality of the massacres in the Gaza Strip is cowardice – it’s cowardice of their soldiers who don’t want to go and risk themselves.“ Nora Barrows-Friedman, Asa Winstanley, Ali Abunimah and Jon Elmer of The Electronic Intifada were joined by academic Abdaljawad Omar,