Augean Stables

Combatant/Civilian Casualties and the Moral Hysteria/Hypocrisy of the West

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1. To clarify, since our blog is the source for the claim, “The American left has much more energy to protest Israeli violations than those of its own country”:

   1)Enduring America has also paid a great deal of attention to the US drone attacks in Pakistan, expressing concern that the civilian casualties are undermining any policy aiming for stability and victory over insurgency;

   2)The blog cited above compared the official Israeli accounts, during Gaza, with the latest findings — from the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other organizations — of the civilian casualties caused by Israeli military action. The summary of the latest report was released yesterday (http://enduringamerica.com/2009/05/06/united-nations-report-israel-deliberately-fired-on-gaza-schoolsshelters/).

   I stand by the moral judgement in that blog, “There is no ‘but’ after the revelation of innocent lives taken by disproportionate and illegal military operations,” not as a specific condemnation of Israel but as a general criticism of any country or group (including Hamas, for example) killing civilians through such action.

   Comment by Scott Lucas — May 6, 2009 @ 8:29 am

2. It’s a classic strategy to impugn the worst to others in order to drive attention away from yourself. Doing it to the jews has also the advantage of demonizing them in preparation for their elimination, something which some of the left are oblivious to.

   When i was studying at northwestern, abu lughod was a professor there. one of his students internalized the anti-zionist stuff and kept demanding israel returns the occupied territories. one day i told her when americans return the US to the indians, israel will theirs. she was speechless and never talked to me again. she is now prof at u of kansas (i think) and i betcha she is indoctrinating her students with this crap.

   Comment by oao — May 6, 2009 @ 2:49 pm

3. here it is at work:

   http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/65021

   Comment by oao — May 6, 2009 @ 3:16 pm

4. and more:

   http://pryce-jones.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWM3OGRlZmI1MDNiODY2YmEyMjI3ZWVmYTdhMGFmN2U=

   Comment by oao — May 6, 2009 @ 3:18 pm

5. […] Another fellow blogger placed an interesting blog post on Combatant/Civilian Casualties and the Moral Hysteria/Hypocrisy of…Here’s a brief overviewFirst of all, at one level this needs to be understood in the context of what Charles Jacobs calls, the … After all, won’t that bring peace? […]

   Pingback by Topics about Last-words | Combatant/Civilian Casualties and the Moral Hysteria/Hypocrisy of… — May 6, 2009 @ 7:46 pm

6. […] This is infuriating There is a statistic in the David Kilcullen quote that Max excerpts below that I find absolutely arresting: […]

   Pingback by Bloodthirsty Liberal » More Media, Political Hypocrisy — May 6, 2009 @ 7:47 pm

7. […] Augean Stables » Combatant/Civilian Casualties and the Moral … […]

   Pingback by Akiza Izinski » Blog Archive » Second Battle of Manzanillo — May 6, 2009 @ 8:23 pm

8. A minor point. David Kilcullen, the outstanding counterinsurgency adviser to General Petraeus, certainly would have access to the best stats on the drone attacks outside of the Pakistani Tribal Territories, but he said “14 senior al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area.” My point is that it is unlikely that those 14 senior leaders were all killed in the company of only innocent civilians. I follow the reports of these attacks regularly on The Long War Journal and the usual accounting often includes ‘foreign fighters’ ie non Pakistani men of military age. The ambiguous group is Pakistani men of military age who may or may not be combatants and who don’t appear as a distinct group.

   Comment by Lorenz Gude — May 7, 2009 @ 11:14 am

9. Thinking About Anti-Semitism…

   Anti-Semitism is one of the most rapidly growing religions in the world fueled by Muslim and leftist rage. It is based on various paranoid delusions (the Jews control all the banks, the Jews are fascists, the Jews are genocidal oppressors)……

   Trackback by ShrinkWrapped — May 8, 2009 @ 10:20 am

10. LG, I don’t know all the circumstances of the Paki incidents. But we know that Hamas leaders deliberately surround themselves with non-combatants, especially boys so that attacks on themselves will produce the reaction that we have seen. That is, blaming Israel for killing innocents and for disproportionality. Of course, they also send boys into combat. All this is a violation of Geneva IV…

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 9, 2009 @ 2:31 pm

11. “I think there might be a double standard at work here.”

    Hamas are much better at press releases and media stuff generally than are the Taleban.

    Comment by Don Cox — May 10, 2009 @ 8:33 am

12. Nu, so now we Jews are “super whites”?

    Who knew?

    This is doubly ridiculous especially since a lot of us are black and brown and the White Supremacists consider us “mud people” which coming from them is a compliment and of course we were exterminated as an “inferior race” by the Nazis not so long ago.

    So oy. This is hand in glove with absurd comparisons of Israel and the Nazis. It is both disgusting and ridiculous.

    Anyhow as to civilian casualties in war: this was somewhat less of a problem when wars were fought on battlefields by uniformed armies. However even under those circumstances the toll of civilians was huge - victors often plundered, murdered, raped and took slaves and people also died from having lost their providers and from the attendant poverty, famine and disease that accompany war.

    Therefore I think maybe we should all try to find some other way of dealing with our differences - no matter how careful an army is when instruments of killing are employed people are going to suffer and die.

    If NGO’s point out the toll of war I think that is to the good. Perhaps it will lead us to knocking off the violence.

    I also think we should get a grip. 50,000 people at least died in Dresden in one night - some put the total much higher.

    The toll in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - from just one bomb apiece - was around 220,000 combined, including deaths from radiation poisoning.

    It is notable that these were deliberate attacks on civilians as were most of the “area bombing” raids over Germany and the occupied areas of Europe, especially those carried out, at night, by the British.

    Ditto the fire-bombing of Tokyo; similarly the Axis powers didn’t care how many people they killed - everybody was fair game - some twenty million died in the Soviet Union alone - and some groups were deliberately targeted for enslavement and extinction as we all know.

    Millions of Poles were killed by the Nazis, millions of Jews, gypsies, dissidents and other undesirables - I don’t know how many people died in China or other parts of the Asian theatre. I do know my uncle died in the Aleutians - was there a family untouched anywhere in the world?

    I am glad actually that people are fussy about casualities now. We should be - each life is precious and I am not fearful of human rights organizations that deplore violence.

    I am fearful and concerned about unfair targeting of CERTAIN armies, which in the case of Israel is representing and protecting the Jewish homeland and therefore is charged with the defense of people who have been targeted repeatedly and just a few decades ago were murdered in huge numbers especially relative to the small size of the global Jewish population.

    It should be obvious that anti-Jewish prejudice is a problem here - it is built into the equation and is part of the rationale for the war against Israel.

    NGO’s should be aware of that - and they should be especially careful not to inspire bigotry which in the past has erupted into the hysteria of pogroms, expulsions, systematic oppression and finally the Shoah.

    Finally, I would demur with the OP that this is a “white/black” issue. I don’t think the race of America or Israel is the problem, since both are clearly mixed - indeed Europe is too now.

    Also I think we should be careful not to buy into the “all white” “nationalism” of some rising neofascist parties in Europe OR anti-American, anti-European bigots who see us merely as “white” and not as people.

    I do think there’s an issue concerning the perception of the West in much of the world, which is hypocritical.

    Crimes of the West are considered worse than crimes in Africa, by Muslims, or in Asia - note the lack of coverage, generally, of the terrible toll in Sri Lanka - genocides and mass murders, mass starvation and deprivation due largely to war in Asia and Africa are just coldly noted if at all - and this is a sort of double bigotry: bigotry against the West, and bigotry against the victims of violence whose own brothers or neighbors attack them, sometimes with genocidal intent.

    It also implies that Asians and Africans, Muslims and other non-Westerners are not civilized to begin with; thus acts of barbarity by them are only to be expected - and this is an appalling and wrong-headed idea.

    We hear the inverse about Israel and to some degree the US, as in: Well The Jews Should Know Better - meanwhile every excuse is made for violence directed at Israel or at the West in general - indeed the Dalai Lama was on Fareed Zakariah today saying we should consider Bin Ladin’s emotional state and talk to him about his viewpoint and his grievances, which have caused him to be a terrorist.

    In other words, it is assumed that a) The West Should Know Better but b) non-westerners must have a good reason for their violence and we should talk to them and try to understand it.

    These factors, all these built-in emotional and ideological biases, the NGO’s should consider when making their reports, along with taking extreme care not to buy into every story they hear especially if it involves Israel.

    And, the weight of rationale for violence should be carefully considered: the claim for example that Arabs have a G*d-given or legal right to violence against Israel, but self-defense by Israel is “too violent” or “disproportional” - this is highly suspect.

    And now,in Afghanistan some US military commanders have alleged that Taliban militants blew up women and children with grenades then paraded the bloody bodies through the streets, claiming they were victims of the NATO forces.

    Sound familiar?

    Unfortunately things like this have happened before and I think the NGO’s should be vigilant for this sort of crime at the same time they decry violence in general, and deplore the loss of innocent life in war.

    Comment by Sophia — May 10, 2009 @ 4:05 pm

13. Isn’t it heartwarming that we have young Scotty boy to stand up for our morality, standing in high dudgeon over war crimes, pontificating like a pontiff, preaching prechi-precha, holier than thou and than moi ומתחסד?? Scotty boy knows all about war crimes and guilt and so on. The world is in safe hands. There can’t be any problem with all that oozing and flowing morality and high ethics. But but but. Does Scotty have his facts straight???

    Dear Scotty, do you really think that UN reports can be accepted at face value about anything?? You post a link about Israel “deliberately” targeting a UN school in Gaza. Could the truth be somewhat different from what the UN or Hamas says, not to mention other professional “do-gooders” like Amnesty (but not for Pollard), like HRW and Oxfam and so forth and so on?? I hope that I have enough hankies to weep over Gaza and those mean Israelis. And one last thing, Scotty [imagine me looking like the actor Peter Falk wearing my battered fedora, standing at the door like Lt. Colombo, asking one last question of the perp], where does the funding come from, Scotty, for all the good work, all the holy preaching of Enduring America??? Does it come from an interested party or a disinterested party? Or the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or the Junior League??

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 11, 2009 @ 9:48 am

14. Sophia, you and RL have put your fingers on the results of a successful cogwar [cognitive warfare] campaign. The endeavor of changing the commonplace perception of the Jew, no longer an Oriental as we were considered in the UK 100 years ago, but now “superwhite,” whiter than white. When I was a kid I used to hear that Jews were “niggers turned inside out” [also said about Italians].

    Then in the mid to late 1960s, “leftist” agitators and “revolutionary” rags used to write that Israel had set up a state in the country of a “non-white people.” Note the insinuation here [only an insinuation, which makes it harder to refute] that Jews were “white” or “ultra-white.” I realized the purpose of this kind of agitprop and was quite annoyed since my family on both sides were mainly on the swarthy side. My mother used to proudly tell me that her father’s Yiddish-speaking friends used to describe her to him as: Shvarts-khen-evdik [darkly attractive, darkly charming]. Her father was actually brown-skinned although Caucasian in his features. But this whole campaign was very subtly managed and was capable of changing direction and values. I believe that this campaign started in the late 1940s, after WW2, and has been going on ever since. I believe that it is based in Britain –for various reasons. One success of the campaign is its creation of a “palestinian people” that never existed in history. The political power of this campaign has been nearly overwhelming.

    Note that on one hand, the “left” calls us “colonial oppressors” and “invaders” in the Land of Israel. On the other hand, the neo-Nazis, as Sophia says, label us “mud people.” Both hold us to be alien to where we are. So we are the ultimate aliens, at least in the perceptions induced by psywar [cogwar]. See link for an example and more discussion of this issue:

    http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-anti-zionism-and-old.html

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 11, 2009 @ 10:26 am

15. What RL writes about the American “left” could doubly be said about the British “left.” After all, I am not aware that any of the Brit Left get unduly worked up over the Dresden bombing [estimated 200,000 killed]. We know a Jewish woman from Transylvania, from Cluj [Kolozsvar]. Her mother was killed during WW2 by British bombing. So Brit bombing killed Jews too. But none of the Allied powers had any spare bomber aircraft to drop a few bombs on the gas chambers at Auschwitz, although they knew what was there. The bbc withheld info that it had about the ongoing Holocaust. This is not to mention the blockade on Jewish refugees coming into Israel.

    Curious, isn’t it, that today the Brit Left plays along with the Establishment’s cogwar and psywar propaganda??

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 11, 2009 @ 10:38 am

16. See the discussion with Richard Millett of Israel Connect at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scdgbHpH3bM

    Comment by Scott Lucas — May 11, 2009 @ 6:05 pm

17. Oh, the British so-called Left is amazing. Harry’s Place is must-reading.

    Oy.

    There are several comment threads dedicated to the awful “Seven Jewish Children” and many about the tolerance of the Brits for radical Muslims - Hamas was invited to speak to Parliament - whereas Jews feel unsafe walking down the street.

    This is not to defend the neofascist parties of course - they scare me deeply - but the demonstrations against Israel during the Gaza incursion were hideously ugly and definitely, real antisemitism is becoming more and more mainstream and to see “progressives” perpetrating it is doubly nauseating.

    Here’s a thread about that:

    http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/05/12/john-mann-and-bernard-henri-levy-stand-up-to-antisemitism/

    It’s hard to understand this unless, as Eliyahu points out, one understands the British point of view toward Jews in the 1930’s and also toward the Yishuv and the survivors postwar, and also toward Israel right from day #1.

    And of course anti-Jewishness is centuries old as in the rest of Europe, Jews were frequently bloodied, robbed, even expelled from England, accused of so many vile deeds - of being such vile, inferior people -it’s prevalent in literature even in modern times. One of my favorite authors - Durrell - was a dreadful antisemite - it was distressingly common among the intelligentsia, still is I think. Lord knows what is said among the aristocrats - oy -

    Meanwhile it’s difficult to argue that Arabs aren’t romanticized at the same time they’re infantilized - we’re told Hamas doesn’t really mean what it says, for example - and the image of “Arab” conjures darkly handsome men on lovely horses, with falcons on their wrists - contrast that with Shylock!

    This sets up a double whammy: Fagin or “The Jew of Malta” vs the romantic figures out of “Lawrence of Arabia” - we can win? I don’t think so!

    Papers like The Guardian simultaneously moralize about Israeli “racism” and publish openly antisemitic articles and cartoons and the “Comment is Free” discussion threads are disgusting. Churchill’s play would be appalling in any case but she compounds the disaster by referring specifically to “JEWISH” children, not even Israeli children - onto whom she projects the insides of her own mind - has she even spoken a wide array of Jewish people? Has she talked to real Israeli moms and dads? I DOUBT IT.

    Jews - and now Israelis - aren’t people - Israel is a Goliath, a terminator, a Nazi, a thing.

    Unfortunately this is spreading from Britain to the US and also from organized efforts like “Electronic Intifada” and probably from the far right too. It is hard to tell them apart when it comes to Jews.

    This was inevitable I guess, with the Internet making good ideas and bad so easily accessible - also - many ‘net users are young and don’t know any history. Of course the alarming Professor Robinson incident mentioned above is a prime example of very young people being grossly misled by a power figure - this is disturbing.

    So is the general ignorance displayed in that LA Times comment thread - there are several statements of the “Arabs are Semites” variety which make me want to scream. We are obviously at square #1 - no wonder the subject of antisemitism can’t be intelligently discussed!

    Comment by Sophia — May 12, 2009 @ 11:12 pm

18. As far as the Dresden bombing though - there is indeed controversy to this day concerning that and other (mis?)deeds of “Bomber” Harris.

    Britain was in truly dreadful shape and the only weapon at hand were the planes. The fighters had managed to defend against the German attacks but as far as taking the war to the Germans - and also trying to defend the convoys - it was left to the bombers.

    British Bomber Command, like the US Air Forces, suffered horrendous losses during this obviously all-out war and even today, reading objectively, it’s hard to see what else could have been done to break the German will to wage war. Even with Germany in absolute ruins, invaded by the Soviets from the East and the Allies from the West, there was fear that some Nazis would hold out in the mountains and in fact, even after the surrender, a contingent in Norway didn’t give up until finally confronted by a British expedition and that was finally that.

    American forces, like the Eighth, my dad’s group, flew in the daytime - a fact that astonished the Brits and resulted in even more horrendous casualties. We did indeed attempt to focus on precision bombing however due to the generally dreadful conditions, the fighters and the flak and cloud cover sometimes reaching 30,000 feet or more, “precision” was a relative term.

    In the end the US stopped trying to have each bomber focus on a specific target and instead, everybody in a flight bombed on the leader, ie only the lead plane(s) had bombadiers and the rest released on his signal. Thus we were actually pattern-bombing and got a lot of civilians.

    That said, targets of military value were the prime objective of the US forces - both transportation and oil/synthetic oil refineries and of course arms factories were key to stopping the German war effort.

    Harris argued however that demoralizing the civilian population was also a key to ending the war. I am not sure that he was wrong. I think most of the German people were totally committed to the war although there were some anti-Nazis, and they died along with the others - along with women, with kids -

    Anyway, it was many years before a memorial was erected to the British Bomber Command and when it was unveiled protesters splattered it with blood.

    Reading about the war, what the Nazis did and intended and how the British fliers suffered and died - that desecration of the memorial upset me. It reminded me too of the dreadful way American Vietnam vets were treated - true, the war was horrible and most of us saw little sense in it - but to target the vets, most of whom had been drafted?

    I wonder if we’ll ever reach the point where war is simply unthinkable. I hope so. Meanwhile we’re dealing with apparently deliberate attempts to create not only violence but violence designed to target Jews.

    As long as this is the case there is little hope for peace in the Middle East - when “the enemy” is demonized like this why would anybody want to make peace? The incitement just seems endless and increasingly vicious.

    Comment by Sophia — May 12, 2009 @ 11:13 pm

19. Eliyahu (#13)- There is no funding for “Scotty boy’s” blog- I know because I built it. We use a free Wordpress theme and basic hosting, and the whole thing is done on a budget of next-to-nothing. Isn’t this the norm for most blogs?

    Comment by Mike Dunn — May 13, 2009 @ 6:51 am

20. It’s hard to understand this unless

    anti-semitism is one of the easiest things to understand. what can be easier than the instinct to scapegoat when one fails?

    Comment by oao — May 13, 2009 @ 3:02 pm

21. As long as this is the case there is little hope for peace in the Middle East - when “the enemy” is demonized like this why would anybody want to make peace?

    but that’s exactly the point of demonization: to disable any potential of any peace. hamas understands this pretty well. iranians do too. as to fatah, even if some of them would consider peace, they are trapped by all the demonization they practiced and risk life to even try it.

    Comment by oao — May 13, 2009 @ 3:06 pm

22. OAO, it’s not only Iran & Fatah and Hamas etc that demonize Israel. The professional British press does it too. [and not only the British, ever listen to NPR or VOA in Spanish?]. That’s why, if mike dunn and Scotty are not getting a subsidy from the British Foreign Office, then they are surely underpaid.

    Mike & Scotty, you fellows may think that you have the best intentions in the world [assuming that mike is being truthful about being non-profit and non-subsidized]. However, your ignorance of the history of the Middle East, of British policy towards the same, of Arab history and Jewish history and Western attitudes towards both Jews and Arabs make you unfit to make judgements about what is going on now. I would also say that you are ignorant of current events. It is time to carefully study the Muhammad al-Durah case from the archives of this blog and on the Seconddraft website. Until then, bear in mind that ignorant opinions, no matter how deeply felt, do not deserve to be listened to. May I immodestly invite you to visit my site too and complain to me about my posts and opinions that you don’t like?

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 14, 2009 @ 8:57 am

23. OAO, it’s not only Iran & Fatah and Hamas etc that demonize Israel.

    you can’t possibly suspect me of the illusion that only those demonize israel, can you? that they do so would not bother me one bit if the west did not do it too. it’s the west’s participation in it that spells disaster for israel and itself, not the barbarism of islam.

    However, your ignorance of the history of the Middle East, of British policy towards the same, of Arab history and Jewish history and Western attitudes towards both Jews and Arabs make you unfit to make judgements about what is going on now.

    turns out the most ignorant in the west are also the most vociferous. that’s because without knowledge and reason to restrain them they can spew any nonsense. that’s why i called one of my articles “the escape from the tyranny of knowledge and reason”

    Comment by oao — May 14, 2009 @ 2:28 pm

24. The West’s collaboration in the lies [par exemple, France2 & the al-Durah incitement] is what is most dangerous, as you recognize.

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 14, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

25. The West’s collaboration in the lies [par exemple, France2 & the al-Durah incitement] is what is most dangerous, as you recognize.

    not just the lies, even that would not be a serious problem. the propping up of the barbarians, particularly each time they self-destruct.

    Comment by oao — May 16, 2009 @ 3:23 am

26. Eliyahu,

    Re your claim re “ignorance of the history of the Middle East, of British policy towards the same, of Arab history and Jewish history and Western attitudes towards both Jews and Arabs make you unfit to make judgements about what is going on now”….

    I guess if writing three books on history of US and British policy towards the Middle East, having good friends and partners in Israel and other Middle Eastern partners, and relying on evidence rather than polemic on current events constitutes ignorance, guilty as charged….

    When you deal with a specific instance on our site re the reports and coverage of Gaza, then I’ll be glad to reply. Until then, I wish you well.

    (But do feel free to put a good word in for me with the British Foreign Office! Man’s gotta eat, you know…)

    Scott Lucas

    Comment by Scott Lucas — May 16, 2009 @ 11:08 am

27. S Lucas, to be sure I have not read your books. You might supply a list of titles and subject matter. But you take this admonitory, scolding attitude towards Israel re the Gaza War, basing yourself on false accounts of civilian death rates, etc. Now the Augean Stables site has provided much info and argumentation against the kind of reports that you seem to be relying on. Further, any treatment of the subject of Gaza must not avoid reporting the genocidal principles of Hamas as demonstrated both in its charter and in the local TV broadcasting that go on in Gaza, not to mention the genocidal mosque preaching, etc. Further, I don’t know how you wrote about the bombing of the Islamic university of Gaza, but quite a few academics self-righteously called this bombing an attack on academic freedom, a war crime, etc etc. In fact, the Islamic U of Gaza was/is a site of rocket research, development, and production as well as of storage of rockets and explosives and other weapons. How did you write up that story?

    As to your books on the history of Brit policy in the ME, it is necessary to point out –Did you?– that the UK had a pro-Arab, pro-Muslim policy in that region from the early 1920s. Think of Britain and the expulsion of the Greeks from Smyrna [1922], of the Assyrian massacre in Iraq [1933], of the Baghdad Farhud against the Jews, which Brit troops outside the city could have stopped but did not for two days. The Farhud ought to be seen in the context of Anthony Eden’s speech urging formation of the Arab League. They took place within days of each other [1941]. Do you make that connection or did you describe the 1939 “White Paper on Palestine” as a form of Brit collaboration with the Holocaust, at least objectively speaking? Judging from tony blair’s feverish heaving and churning on behalf of a “2 state” final solution and his pro-Hamas intrigues since 2002 at least, the British govt has not lost its taste for aiding genocide of the Jews.

    as to the UK Foreign Office, there are too many UK agents/diplomats/journalists/”human rights” operatives/ here in Jerusalem. But I try to avoid them if I can. However, if I am ever in a position to recommend you for a subvention, I will.

    Happy times.
    Eliyahu

    Comment by Eliyahu — May 16, 2009 @ 6:02 pm

28. I guess if writing three books on history of US and British policy towards the Middle East, having good friends and partners in Israel and other Middle Eastern partners, and relying on evidence rather than polemic on current events constitutes ignorance, guilty as charged….

    you are judged here by what you are saying here. if that is anything similar to what you wrote in your books, then eliyahu’s assessment stands.

    anybody can publish anything today. i mean, consider mearsheimer and walt or finkelstein!

    the value of friends and partners in israel dependes on who they are and what they know. there are a lot of ignoramuses in the israeli left.

    as to evidence, benny morris and the other “new historians” also relied on “evidence”, except it was fabricated or distorted or inconvenient one ignored.

    you want to be taken seriously demonstrate here that you are not ignorant and/or stupid. you haven’t to this point and throwing books as some kind of basis of authority is not substitute for your comments.

    Comment by oao — May 17, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

29. Eliyahu and oao,

    Risking repetition, I would be happy to engage in a critique of any specific incidents cited in the reports on casualties in Gaza and on other incidents (and in Enduring America’s coverage of those events), rather than setting them aside for visceral hatred of the Israeli Left/Benny Morris/etc.

    For example, on the Islamic University in Gaza story (which we noted at the time amidst rolling updates on the Gaza War), many universities — in the US, the UK, and Israel as well as Palestine — can be considered as sites “of rocket research” because of their work in physics and engineering.

    That is different, however from being a site of “development and production”. I would be interested in any evidence that rockets — especially Grad rockets — were being made in the University buildings that were hit.

    As for writing books, I certain agree that they (even when they refer to some of the British attitudes that Eliyahu mention) are no guarantee against being ignorant or stupid. But I would think that, before throwing around claims of ignorance or stupidity (as opposed to throwing books), the sensible action would be to read them first?

    Comment by Scott Lucas — May 18, 2009 @ 6:22 am

30. oao,

    as to evidence, benny morris and the other “new historians” also relied on “evidence”, except it was fabricated or distorted or inconvenient one ignored.

    You should have mentioned Ilan Pappe’s student’s doctorate was revoked when they came to discover that his thesis was based on non-factual data.

    Comment by Cynic — May 18, 2009 @ 9:48 am

31. You should have mentioned Ilan Pappe’s student’s doctorate was revoked when they came to discover that his thesis was based on non-factual data.

    i am not surprised.

    i was getting my BA at Haifa U when pappe was there. he had a reputation.

    Comment by oao — May 18, 2009 @ 3:20 pm

32. lucas,

    For example, on the Islamic University in Gaza story (which we noted at the time amidst rolling updates on the Gaza War), many universities — in the US, the UK, and Israel as well as Palestine — can be considered as sites “of rocket research” because of their work in physics and engineering.

    please, give us a break. this does not merit attention.

    But I would think that, before throwing around claims of ignorance or stupidity (as opposed to throwing books), the sensible action would be to read them first?

    reread my comments. the argument was made on your comments here, not your books.

    i am motivated to read books based on some evidene here which promises them to be enlightening. your comments here to this point are discouraging, not motivating.

    Comment by oao — May 18, 2009 @ 3:26 pm

33. oao,

    I have offered the evidence presented on Enduring America, including the articles cited in my original comment “compar[ing] the official Israeli accounts, during Gaza, with the latest findings — from the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other organizations — of the civilian casualties caused by Israeli military action”. For historical background, I have offered the evidence in books and articles (some of which speaks to Eliyahu’s points) that are easily accessible. On the one claim put to me (re Islamic University of Gaza), I ask the sincere question as to the evidence of rocket development, production, and storage.

    It is your choice to substitute invective for any consideration — and thus substantive discussion — of points too important to be swept away by polemic. This is only “enlightenment”, however, for someone who keeps intellectual curtains tightly drawn.

    Comment by Scott Lucas — May 19, 2009 @ 5:40 am

34. I think Scott deserves more substantive responses. This is a key test. Let’s put data to data and see where the discussion goes.

    Comment by Richard Landes — May 19, 2009 @ 7:06 am

35. […] And there was more on “double standards“: […]

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36. […] Visit the Augean Stables and learn about Combatant/Civilian Casualties and the Moral Hysteria/Hypocrisy of the West. […]

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38. […] problem extending to the US all the good will and best intentions in the world. He obviously knows nothing about their terrible record in targeted killings (especially under Marc Garlasco’s inspired leadership), including right […]

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