Seiff’s attempt to discredit the proportion of civilian Palestinian deaths is also completely irrelevant. For three reasons: (1) civilian deaths are notoriously discounted in the occupied territories; (2) the disproportion still shocks the conscience, and always has; and (3) it is now clear that a great majority of the Palestinians killed in the recent Gaza War were civilians, which only reinforces the moral weight of Khalidi’s point.

Furthermore, the notion that Israel is no longer an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, simply because troops and settlements on the ground have been removed, is simply fatuous. The Israeli military controls the air above the strip and all the borders that surround it. Even the Rafah crossing — which is supposed to be monitored by Egyptian military — is under the complete de facto, if not de jure, control of the IDF, which has acted directly to keep it closed. The Israeli Navy maintains a tight seal on Gaza from the sea. Israel has not followed its obligations under the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) — trade and traffic in humanitarian supplies into and out of Gaza are a pitiful trickle of what they used to be. The IDF tightly controls all movement of goods, all exports and imports, all immigration to and from the strip. Under international law, there is no question that this amounts to “effective control” and among practicing international lawyers the minority is very small indeed who would seriously state otherwise. Alvaro de Soto, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said this EXPLICITLY in his end of mission report in May 2007.

As to the above comment — there is no question that Gaza is largely composed of Palestinian Arabs forced to flee in 1948 from what are now southern Israeli towns. Anyone who has even a cursory background in the modern history of the region knows that some of the best sources to turn to for this information are eminent Israeli historians such as Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, and Ilan Pappe who definitively closed the book on this question through nearly three decades of work. I would direct you first to two works by Benny Morris: “1948: A History of the First Arab Israeli War” or “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.” These are lauded works of history and the idea that this is mere speculation on Khalidi’s part is a ridiculous notion.

Not mentioned in the dissection above is that Gaza’s population is largely comprised of Palestinian Arabs sent into flight from southern Israeli towns like Ashkelon, circa 1948. On what evidence does he base this claim or is this just speculation on his part?