If We Killed Them, They Must Be Guilty

Alan Dershowitz, the most vocal critic of Walt and Mearsheimer's report on the USA's pro-Israel lobby, argues (in the LA Times) that civilians being killed in Lebanon today deserve what they get:

The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit.

How Orwellian is this:

Every civilian death is a tragedy, but some are more tragic than others.

If, like me, you find such crap offensive, write to letters@latimes.com and ask them why they published it. For example:

Sir or Madam,

Alan Dershowitz's article "Civilian Casualty'? It Depends" is the most offensive piece of Orwellian dissembling I have read in a long time (and he has some very stiff competition these days).

Why on earth does an otherwise decent paper like the LA Times publish such blatantly racist nonsense?

Would you publish racist propaganda which took a similar stance against Israelis? Or against Americans? I don't think so. Yet Dershowitz's article is clearly on a par with the anti-Semitic texts disseminated by neo-Nazis, or the self-justifying propaganda of Osama Bin Laden.

Shame on you.

When two US academics recently criticized the excessive role of the pro-Israel lobby in US politics, Dershowitz was their most vocal public critic. I can only assume the same lobby has excessive sway in the LA Times newsroom as well.

Regards,

YOUR NAME HERE

(Story via Atrios and The Washington Monthly.)

UPDATE: This article is not just morally repugnant but also factually ignorant, given how Israel is deliberately targetting innocent civilians. Even white flags are failing to protect Lebanese families obeying the Israeli "order" to flee the south:

Reports continued to come in of Israeli targeted air strikes against civilians trying to comply with Israel's orders to flee their villages along the border.