This article in the Washington

This article in the Washington Post has caused some controversy. It describes how Palestinian terrorists have used homicide bombings as a “smart” tactic to “level the playing field” previously slanted in favor of Israeli military dominance. It is fair to say that the article is tolerant, even admiring, of the Palestinians’ mass murder strategy. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs considers it “cold blooded” and appalling; Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit agrees that the article exemplifies the Post’s double standard. Sasha Volokh, on the other hand, says “What’s wrong with this article?…I LOVE this sort of military analysis….I’m personally rather sick of the view that you need to express a view on the morality of the practices you’re describing, especially in news reporting.” Well, I too am something of a military strategy buff, but it’s hard to imagine Ulysses Grant–my personal hero–coming back to life and saying, “Murdering civilians–If only I’d thought of that!” And I can imagine a world in which newspapers don’t intimate any view of the morality of the events they describe, but it isn’t this world–certainly not the world of the Post. When the My Lai massacre was in the news, did the Post engage in a dispassionate discussion of whether this new strategy of murdering civilians would be cost-effective? When the non-existent Jenin massacre was dominating the news, did the Post publish any articles about how a strategy of killing civilians might “level the playing field” in Israel’s favor? In its endless articles about the possibility of war with Iraq, does the Post ever neutrally consider the idea that bombing large numbers of Iraqi civilians might be a “smart” tactic to win the war? It is hard to imagine any other context in which mass murder of random civilians, as a way-station on the path to genocide, would meet with the Post’s breathless approval. Having said all of this, I should add that I like the Post. I consider it the most respectable voice of the Democratic Party. Apart from the political scene, it publishes many excellent articles of general interest. It is biased, of course, but it rarely if ever engages in the kind of rank falsification that characterizes the New York Times on almost a daily basis. Still, the double standard that the Post in particular, and the Democrats in general, apply to Israel and the United States is absurd.

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