On 4 Aug 2002 at 1:52, Hermit wrote:
>
> A recent discussion on this list had a number of people asserting that
> a massacre had not occured - and arguing what a massacre really was.
> This is quite in line with the Jerusalem Post's recent headlines (a
> dreadfully unreliable news source, Ha'aretz is much less inclined to
> histrionics and bias).
>
> However the report (http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/index.html) does say
> that:By the time of the IDF withdrawal and the lifting of the curfew
> on 18 April, at least 52 Palestinians, of whom up to half may have
> been civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were dead.as well as (a) A
> total of 497 Palestinians were killed in the course of the IDF
> reoccupation of Palestinian area A from 1 March to 7 May 2002 and in
> the immediate aftermath;
>
> (b) Palestinian health authorities and the Palestinian Red Crescent
> Society reported approximately 1,447 wounded with some 538
> live-ammunition injuries (for the same period);
>
> Are 497 Palestinians a massacre? How about the 52 in Jenin? How about
> the 25 suggested civilians in Jenin? Are you arguing that this is not
> a massacre?
>
> At least we have some numbers to work from. Given that it has been
> argued that a massacre is a very subjective measurement, I decided to
> see how well the claim that 25 are not a massacre stood up to
> comparisons. First, I tried Columbine where the death toll, including
> the shooters, was 15. A quick Google for "columbine massacre" turned
> up 25,400 hits. It appears that Columbine was indeed a massacre. Then
> I went to the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com) website, and
> selected an advanced search for "massacre suicide", setting the date
> range prior to 1 April 2002. The volume of hits (it does not report
> how many, although it was in excess of the 50 hits which is the
> maximum selectable) indicates that this Israeli newspaper regularly
> uses the word "massacre" for death tolls of 4 or more people.
>
> So, for those arguing that there was not a massacre, it seems this is
> only true when the victims are not Palestinians. To appears that for
> some people, only Americans and Jews can be massacred.
>
This perspective would be more convincing had there not been TV
news clips of Palestinian fighters in Jenin before the battle bragging
about all the ambushes and booby traps they had set and how they
were looking forward to killing Israeli soldiers (something they
subsequently did, with the ais of ambushes and booby traps).
>
> Hermit
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
> Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=25934>
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