DAVID TWERSKY
589
Dissent and Commentary
Given the importance to Israel of Western, and especially
American, public opinion, the negative reactions to this war have
been a matter of some concern. Many people, ready to believe the
worst about Israel, accepted the vastly inflated statistics of killed and
wounded put out by the pro-PLO Red Crescent organization. Hav–
ing spent the month of June between Tyre and Beirut, that is, up
and down the relatively heavily populated western coastline, I real–
ized all along from the numbers for homeless being tossed around
(BBC stayed with six hundred thousand into July) that much of the
world was out of touch with the reality of the war. The U. N. refugee
organization, UNWRA, finally set the number at forty-seven thou–
sand. That is a lot of homeless people, and the destruction of their
homes is surely a tragedy, but it is hardly the same as six hundred
thousand.
If
the tragedy is great no matter what the number, then
why was there this constant harping on the numbers Israel killed,
wounded, and made homeless? And if the crime-if crime it is–
becomes greater in proportion to the greater numbers, then surely
those who, like Barry Commoner, signed ads citing the seven hun–
dred thousand figure should now publicly back off. The ten thou–
sand killed and the forty thousand wounded have turned into under
one thousand killed (the Israelis say under five hundred) and a few
thousand wounded. Yet, despite the fact that some journalists, nota–
bly David Shipler of the
Times,
have corrected the figures, the earlier
charges still stick around. The big lie. An advertisement in the
International Tribune
two weeks ago featured an international cast,
including Melina Mecouri and Studs Terkel, who had signed a pro–
test that compared Beirut under seige to Dresden and Hiroshima.
It
also made the completely false assertion that the number of dead in
Beirut are countless. This is utter nonsense. Was Studs Terkel in
Beirut? Perhaps he should go to Lebanon with his famous tape
recorder and do an oral history of how many Lebanese were actually
killed by the PLO and by the Syrians in
1975-1976;
he might run
out of tape. The same ad quotes "news reports" as placing "the
number of killed and wounded at over forty thousand." This ques–
tion of the numbers, what Edward Luttwak has called "The Num–
bers Game," cannot be played only when it is to Israel's discredit.
If
the high numbers indicate Israeli ferocity, the truthfully low num–
bers we now have indicate something else .
