Post Publishes Colleagues Letter

Hey, occasionally the Post shows integrity. The Post published a letter from friend of the blog, Leo.

Way to go Leo.

Unequivalent Intifada Tolls
Saturday, October 16, 2004; Page A21

In summing up the Palestinian intifada [news story, Oct. 5] your paper notes that 2,800 Palestinians and about 1,000 Israelis have been killed and that the Palestinian death toll now is rising much faster than Israel's. But such figures by themselves present a distorted picture because they fail to explain the far higher civilian casualty rate among Israelis because of the terrorist tactics of such groups as Hamas and Hezbollah.

For example, when two Israeli children are killed in Sderot by a Palestinian rocket, you count them as Israeli fatalities. When two suicide bombers blow themselves up in Beersheba, you add their deaths to the Palestinian toll, in effect equating the killing of preschoolers with the deaths of homicidal fanatics out to kill as many innocents as possible.

By using only gross fatality figures, your paper draws a moral equivalence between a culture that exalts suicide bombers as heroic martyrs and defensive measures against terrorism that seek to minimize civilian casualties.

-- Leo Rennert

Bethesda