MacLeod-ing the issue

The trio of Scott MacLeod, Tim McGirk and Andrew Lee Butters who write for Time Magazine might have the worst collection of anti-Israel activists writing for any American publication. I’ll call them the “terror troika,” given their enthusiasm for Hamas. MacLeod tries his hand at math.

Is the world reacting with sufficient outrage and urgency to the horrendous humanitarian toll in Gaza? When, in just 20 days, the Palestinian people have lost more than 1,000 dead– in per capita terms the equivalent of 30,000 American lives, 10 times the number who died on 9/11? That kind of extrapolation, by the way, is a favorite debate tool of former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He uses it to drive home how a few hundred Israelis killed in terrorist attacks is a national catastrophe for Israel. Few Palestinians are in doubt that they, too, have unjustly fallen victim to a staggering loss of life.

First of all MacLeod shows that he’s less than scrupulous about accuracy as he quotes casualty figures from Hamas. Stephanie Guttman cites that the inflated death toll when Israel fought Fatah in Jenin to show that the Hamas’s figures are propaganda and that to accept them is to be a dupe. Furthermore, MacLeod condemns Israel by the numbers alone. But let’s take an inflated number. Hamas is now claiming that 42 percent of those killed were civilians. That would mean that the equivalent of 17,500 soldiers were threatening the 860,000 Israelis living within 24 miles of Gaza. That’s roughly 12% of Israel’s population. Clearly the ratio of Hamas terrorists to civilians is higher than the Hamas claim, which was made to convince the incurious. And clearly, regardless of the number of people threatening Israel, no country in the world would tolerate such a situation.

Finally, the question of culpability for the deaths comes up. And again, MacLeod doesn’t care about the dictates of international law.and simply uses number to condemn. As Ralph Peter observed:

Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn’t kill them.

Hamas did.

Folks like the “terror troika” don’t apply international law evenly. It can be used a cudgel against Israel. But if it works against Israel’s enemies, then it’s conveniently ignored and numbers substitute for legality.

MacLeod and his colleagues at time are not motivated by a sense of justice. No one could misconstrue facts and law like this by accident. No, they are terrorist cheerleaders and staunch anti-Zionists. They believe that Israel is the one country in the world that is not allowed to defend itself. Most of all they are propagandists in the service of Hamas, they are not reporters.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.