Eugene Kontorovich is professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, specializing in constitutional and international law. He is director of Scalia Law School’s Center for the Middle East and International Law. Before coming to George Mason, he had been a professor at Northwestern University School of Law for 11 years.
In the interview with RT below, Professor Kontorovich “explain[s] why Israel is not violating international law with its strikes on Gaza.” The video was “[t]aken down for a day by YouTube for violating unspecified community standards.”
The video was brought to my attention by Washington Free Beacon stories — one (May 17) on its removal, one (May 18) on its restoration. In the second story, the Free Beacon reports that YouTube blamed “automated systems” for the removal of the video.
“As part of our response to COVID-19,” YouTube explained, “we are temporarily relying more on technology to help with some of the work normally done by reviewers. In this case, automated systems removed content that did not violate our policies, and we worked to quickly reinstate it.”
Professor Kontorovich condenses an informative truth blast into the six minutes of the video. One is left to wonder what “automation” triggered its removal and whether adjustments been made. One guesses not.
Mainstream news organizations report Gaza casualties based on numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry. That’s what the AP does (“At least 219 Palestinians have been killed in the current fighting, including 63 children and 36 women, with 1,530 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians”). That’s what the New York Times does (“More than 200 Palestinians have been killed and 58,000 displaced in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza”). That’s what FOX News does (“214 Palestinians have been killed so far”).
And that’s what the RT interviewer does. Professor Kontorovich does not concede the reliability of the number. Rarely is it noted that the Gaza Health Ministry is itself an arm of Hamas, which has a long record of lying about casualties and statistics.
Credit to @jaketapper for citing casualty numbers in Gaza and then adding “according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, which the US designates as a terror organization.”
— David Hazony (@davidhazony) May 18, 2021
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.