Counting cost of spin
Re:"Hamas is threatening the future of all
Palestinians"(Opinion July 14)
The article evokes the issue of the obsession
with the macabre body count that is a Hamas(and indeed Palestinian)tactics and Western media outlets are more than happy to jump on the bandwagon. This is because nothing oils better the anti-Israel propaganda machine than the horror of the numbers of the dead. My words are not meant to condone the death of even one single civilian. Every effort must be made to avoid the killing of innocents.
The BBC is a good example of cooperating with an often dubious dead count. While its reporters know fully well the propaganda behind the vastly inflated numbers of Palestinian civilian victims, they will quote them at face value. A modest evaluation would set the real numbers at roughly half of what the Hamas reports to the outside world.
It is relevant to recall that during the several years of Hamas’bombing campaign of Israeli buses, cafes and schools in the early 2000s there was no such body count by either the BBC or other Western media. Obviously , such numbers would not serve the Palestinian propaganda machine
ANDY LEITNER