Facts and logic do not work on the ideologues

Elder of Ziyon
09 January '11

Ha'aretz this morning (09 January) has another article that twists the facts of the Abu Rahma case. This one, by Gideon Levy, blames the IDF for what he thinks is clear evidence that Jawaher Abu Rahma's death, and he calls the IDF spokespeople liars.

Now there is no doubt that the IDF has not handled this as well as they should have. But what is even more clear is that there is no way that a healthy person with no other medical condition will be killed by a weak concentration of tear gas that hovered for a few seconds from between 150 and 500 meters away, depending on the version of the story.

So I commented on the story:

Never in history has anyone been documented of dying from CS tear gas inhalation outdoors - let alone from 150 meters away from the gas source. Never. It is essentially impossible to breathe in a lethal concentration of CS gas for the amount of time necessary for a healthy person to die in a ventilated area. Levy and Haaretz, by insisting otherwise, are the liars.

I received two responses. The first one was from Darwish:

Thank you for clearing that up. Now can you please list your credentials to lend support to your stated "facts."

So Ha'aretz has scientific credentials that I lack. I didn't know that.

The second one was:

How do you know all this? Researched intensively on tear gas use over the past 50 years have you? Doctorate in the subject? Even if this poor girl did have an underlying condition, it was evidently the gas which led to her death. Whether 99.9% of the population would not have died under the same circumstances is really not the issue. THe IDF should step up and take responsibility. Their constant evasion of responsibility is totally counterproductive.

So I answered:

Sources? Sure!
Physicians for Human Rights 1989 paper on tear gas
Archives of Toxicology vol 77 number 10 (misquoted by Haaretz on Friday)
BMJ June 2009
And, finally, Prof. Dr. Uwe Heinrich in his paper on CS at Waco said "There are no reports on human death related to CS exposure" in 2000.

Haaretz apparently doesn't let me put in URLs, but the reports are out there - IF you care about the truth and not simply finding fault with Israel.

(I had first tried putting in URLs to the blog, which Ha'aretz rejected.)

(Read full "Facts and logic do not work on the ideologues")

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