Posted on 07/17/2014 10:58:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
One of the most common and misleading tactics deployed against Israel by its critics is to compare the number of dead Israelis and dead Palestinians, and use the figures to portray Palestinians as victims of Israeli aggression.
Vox's Max Fisher, who is on a campaign to convince people that Israel bears primary responsibility for the absence of peace in the region, pushed the argument this week to show that the conflict was “lopsided.” The Legal Insurrection blog has rounded up other examples of liberals and critics of Israel making similar arguments emphasizing comparative death totals.
In a sense, it's understandable why opponents of Israel seek to make such arguments, because it allows them to flash a simple statistic that could be persuasive those who are uninformed about the actual details of the conflict. But no objective observer should take moral arguments rooted in raw casualty statistics seriously, and below, I've given five reasons why.
1. Comparative death totals don't say much about the morality of the various sides in a conflict If you want to talk about lopsided death totals, check out this chart of German and American deaths during World War II.
According to the National World War II Museum, the war claimed between 6.6 million and 8.8 million German lives, compared with 418,500 American lives. That translates into a ratio of German to American deaths of at least 16 to 1, and as high as 21 to 1. Yet nobody is going to argue, based on these statistics, that Nazi Germany should be able to claim the moral high ground over the U.S. in the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
THE FIVE REASONS:
1. Comparative death totals don’t say much about the morality of the various sides in a conflict
2. Raw totals don’t differentiate among civilians and terrorists
3. Israel takes tremendous precautions to protect its own citizens
4. Palestinian terrorists put their civilians in harm’s way
5. The reality of Israel’s military edge actually shows that it’s acting morally
“1. Comparative death totals don’t say much about the morality of the various sides in a conflict If you want to talk about lopsided death totals, check out this chart of German and American deaths during World War II.”
“According to the National World War II Museum, the war claimed between 6.6 million and 8.8 million German lives, compared with 418,500 American lives. That translates into a ratio of German to American deaths of at least 16 to 1, and as high as 21 to 1.”
That is one of the most unsound and illogical arguments I have ever read.
They only compare US deaths to German death, but conveniently exclude the death among other nations that fought against the Germans.
Are the writers at the Examiner really that obtuse, or do they believe their readers are illiterate?
Hamas has no allocated NO MONEY FOR building GAZA BOMB SHELTERS.
Tel Aviv has 214 bomb shelters.
Comparative death totals are only useful in comparing the quality of the two sides weaponry.
One has respect for life, the other doesn’t.
Conveniently cherry-picked statistics is kindof the point of the argument. It doesn’t undermine it, it gives it more depth.
Evil should have a greater number of deaths.
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