Nov 29

Nov 29 Visualizing Death

Demonstrations, Protest, Public Declarations

You can be pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, but civilian death is civilian death, and it is tragic, which is as equally true for the 1,200+ Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7th, as it is for the 15,000+ residents of Gaza who have been killed to date. Today, students attending UIC held a ‘demonstration’ on the the campus’ Geothermal Well Field—immediately east of University Hall, where the Chancellor’s office is located on the 28th floor— illustrating the magnitude of the carnage in Gaza.

When I arrived shortly at 2:30 PM, the students had already ‘planted’ over 12,500 white flags, each with a name of a person who was killed in Gaza since October 7. While I was there, the students planted more flags. By 5:00 PM, the organizers expected that each of the 15,000+ people killed to date would be memorialized with a flag bearing his or her name. During the six-hour event, students and others read the 15,000+ names aloud, while strong wind gusts gave life to the thin pieces of paper representing the dead.

Since the beginning of the war, I have heard plenty of people question the death toll continuously updated by the Gaza Ministry of Health (GMH), which is an agency of the Hamas-controlled government. Three weeks after the October 7 attack, President Biden questioned the death count in an ill-advised and much criticized statement, stating, “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.”

Countless commentators have weighed in on the accuracy of the numbers. While the exact number is unknown— bodies remain under concrete structures that pancaked when hit by Israeli bombs and missiles—the 15,000+ number is most likely a reasonable approximation.

On November 7, the PBS Newshour published an article entitled, What is the Ministry of Health and How Does It Calculate the War’s Death Toll? In it, PBS describes how Palestinian doctors and other health care workers determine and update the daily count, including a description of a “color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition,” that the Ministry provided to the Associated Press. Israel assigns each resident of Gaza an ID number so that it can track the population.

PBS reports that in prior conflicts, the GMH’s count has been consistent with the U.N.’s count, offering the following comparisons:

2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.

2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.

2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry also undertakes post-conflict counts, with PBS indicating parity between the GMH’s count and the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s counts associated with prior conflicts. Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine Director said that the GMH “figures are professionally done and have proven reliable,” but he noted that the GMH’s numbers do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

But there is no need to quibble further. Israel, in its relentless pursuit of Hamas, has killed thousands of civilians—’collateral damage,’ in the sanitizing words of war. Whether the actual number is 7,500 or 30,000, it is still unfathomable.

As regular readers know, I have now attended close to a dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrations since October 7. More than a few have been impressive events, marked by large turnouts, noisy chants, fiery speeches, and strikingly colored flags and signs. Yet, today’s demonstration was by far more the most impactful one.

The quad-like field serving as a pincushion for all those flags was eerily quiet. No “From the River to the Sea” chants offered by thousands in unison. No red or black colors, just the fading green in the grass that in spots was turning winter brown. The flapping small, white flags silently screamed all that needed to be said. Those flags were mesmerizing. I could not look away.

As I reviewed my photographs tonight, I was disappointed, but not surprised by my disappoint. Despite spending over two hours photographing the flags from every imaginable angle, including lying on my stomach and taking the elevator to the 28th floor of University Hall—I thank the chancellor’s staff and the philosophy professor who assisted me—I knew that I just wasn’t doing the display of death ample justice, but I don’t think anyone could do any better. You had to see it with your own eyes, as you stood in the bone-chilling cold that has descended on Chicago too suddenly this year.

As for the students: many wore keffiyehs. I asked one in passing if that is the normal garb. She told me that today was designated ‘keffiyeh’ day. I never saw a large congregation of students at the ‘flag’ site. At times, I wondered whether exams were over, and winter break had already started. Five to six students stood around the person reading the names. At one point, I saw maybe 10 students planting freshly inscribed flags. Of course, there were the passersby, who stood with their phones out, most likely recording videos of the scene, before moving on.

The Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine has announced its weekly demonstration for this week—1:00 PM Saturday at Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive. It may already be too late, but at some point the Coalition should consider a similar display of flags and reading of names at a more conspicuous location.

Despite my overall favorable impression, the effort at UIC was marred by one glaring omission. Why were there not 1,200+ flags for the Israeli civilians murdered by Hamas on October 7? Do the students hold those who were going about their daily lives responsible for the acts of the current Israeli government and the governments that preceded the current one? The students may shallowly respond with a resounding “Yes,” as idealistic youth holding a single-minded viewpoint often do. But give them ten years, when they have jobs, families, and aging parents. Then they will realize that the bulk of the people comprising humanity are not political. They want to provide for their families, spend time with their children, and watch a football game—either American or International—on a weekend afternoon—and hit a pub or hookah lounge Saturday night.

Is the omission of Israeli names a sign of campus anti-Semitism that we have heard so much about over the last eight weeks? Maybe so, if in the students’ calculus, one civilian’s death is more tragic than another’s, particularly if the degree of “gravity” is dependent on religious or ethnic affiliation. Advice to the students: As a lawyer, I can tell you that your position would have far more creditability and resonance if the Jewish casualties were included. You would look like '“bigger” people, rising above what are minor distinctions, thereby treating all the dead as belonging to humanity.

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