We think more highly of Jake Tapper than we do of the standard cable talking head, and I follow him on Twitter, but his take on the current Hamas-Israel conflict demonstrates his limitations in a big way. Yesterday he tweeted out a sympathetic Hamas propaganda point: “More Palestinian children killed in last 3 wks than Israeli troops killed in military ops since 2006.”
Maybe, but it’s a point that reflects Hamas’s criminal use of human shields as a means of war. It is therefore moronic. Even discounting Hamas’s use of human shields, however, Hamas’s civilian death statistics should not be taken at face value. They are a carefully nurtured tool of war.
Citing Bret Stephens’s Wall Street Journal column addressing this issue (“Palestine makes you dumb,” behind the Journal’s annoying subscription paywall), I tried to make this point in my own way and Tapper responded: “[W]e report UN figures. Are Israeli casualty figures propaganda?” Stephens takes up this point, but Tapper apparently ain’t got time to read. It is that response to which I replied: “You know the answer to that question. That is pathetic.”
The exchange partially appears below. I believe it is fully accessible here.
More Palestinian children killed in last 3 wks than Israeli troops killed in military ops since 2006 http://t.co/mdl6getGvN #TheLead
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 29, 2014
@jaketapper Why do you recite Hamas civilian casualty figures as gospel? They are propaganda.
— Scott Johnson (@scottwjohnson) July 29, 2014
@jaketapper You know the answer to that question. That is pathetic.
— Scott Johnson (@scottwjohnson) July 29, 2014
In truth, I believe that official Israeli spokesmen including those working on behalf of the IDF have proved themselves a more reliable source of news and information regarding this conflict than CNN.
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