Here we go again. In July 2024 the Lancet published a claim by three academics that the death toll in Gaza could be up to 186,000. That figure was, as the academics behind it themselves revealed, was effectively plucked out of thin air. It was reached by taking the 37,396 figure supplied at the time by the Hamas Ministry of Health – itself hardly an impartial source – and concluding that it was “not implausible” to estimate that the figure could end up being 186,000 deaths at some point in the future.
That “not implausible” conclusion was reached by a method that would be amusing, were it not a matter of life and death. The academics took 37,396 and simply multiplied it by five – an entirely arbitrary multiplier. Why five and not four? Why not 6.4? Why not 87.3? Why not 32? The entire calculation was worthless. But the Lancet chose to give it huge publicity, and it took on a life as fact. Zarah Sultana – of course – wrote: “The Lancet – the most prestigious medical journal in the world – conservatively estimates that the death toll in Gaza could be 186,000 or more. That’s 8% of the population”. The “Gaza Genocide” entry on Wikipedia still cites the figure.
That the Lancet chose to publish the claim was no surprise. For a journal of medicine, it has a long history of bias and tendentious smears when it comes to Israel. In July 2014, for example, while Hamas rocket’s rained down on Israel, The Lancet published an “Open letter for the people in Gaza”, in which Israeli academics were labelled “complicit” in “war crimes” because they were academics working in Israel. In response, hundreds of other academics, including many British physicians, signed a letter in response accusing the Lancet of “numerous vicious and deliberately inflammatory falsehoods, omissions and abusive dishonesty, which have no place in any responsible publication.”
Four years later the Lancet ran an article by one of the signatories of the 2014 “open letter”, arguing that Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians was justified: “Palestinians militarily occupied by Israel are enduring chronic exposure to Israeli violence (including threats to their survival) and are rightfully resisting oppression and injustice.”
And so here, indeed, we go again. Yesterday the Lancet reported that the death toll for the first 16 months of the Gaza war was 75,000, over 25,000 more than the figure cited by the Hamas Ministry of Health: “The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict”.
I am not here to impugn the authors of the study. For all I know they may be motivated solely by a desire to seek the truth, and may have no animus at all against Israel. That is, one might say, “not implausible”.
On the other hand, deciding to publish their findings in the Lancet leads to something one might also say – a certain suspicion. Because if there is any journal less reliable when it comes to objective reporting and commentary on Israel, and known as such, I have yet to come across it. The Lancet is not so much prone to including lies and smears about Israel as suffused with hatred for anything to do with Israel.
But the issue here is not just the report itself about Gaza casualties. It is the shameless hypocrisy in how the Lancet’s reports are themselves then reported. The claim of over 75,000 deaths by last January in its latest calculation has been everywhere today. The BBC (of course) has been reporting it as fact, as have most news outlets. Contrast this with the BBC’s total refusal – as with many other outlets – to accept as fact the clear death toll in Iran. Obviously reliable sources make clear that many tens of thousands of Iranians have been slaughtered by the regime, but still the BBC refuses to even suggest that more than 7,015 people have been killed, using a number from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Yesterday, for example, BBC Verify published this: “The number of people killed during the protests is not fully known, but US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has confirmed, external the deaths of 7,015 people, and the arrests of more than 53,000.”
The BBC is perfectly happy to let its viewers and readers conclude that the death toll in Gaza in a war fought against Hamas is accurately calculated in a report published by one of the most biased journals on earth. But when it comes to Iranians being slaughtered by the mullahs, it won’t even suggest that the claims of the protestors might be correct.
Still, if it allows the BBC send Lyse Doucet to Tehran to report that, “It’s a public holiday today and in Tehran it feels like a family festival”, all’s well, eh?
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