Sunday, October 03, 2004

An outrage. The New York Times has an article on the Palestinian Intifada today accompanied by a graphic showing the total casualty toll for both Israelis and Palestinians since Sep. 2000. But there is one distinctive feature of this lousy graphic: for Israelis, the NYT offers a breakdown of Israeli victims into civilians and soldiers, but for the Palestinians, no such distinction or breakdown is offered, thereby leaving the reader with the impression that all Palestinian victims were terrorists. But notice that some Palestinians (including civilians) have been killed by "Israeli civilians." What does that mean. If those Israeli "civilians have killed Palestinians then they must be armed, and that means that they are no more "civilians" but armed thugs or combatants. But such is the (il)logic of US media. Armed Israelis are civilians, and unarmed Palestinians are "terrorists." Such is the nature of this Zionist state in the Middle East, the security of which will be firmly protected by Kerry and Bush. As if this is not enough, Thomas Friedman is back pontificating after several months of absence. Maybe this will finally explain to you why Angry Arab is angry.