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This little article is about the massacre of Bedouin towns in Palestine during WWI by a group of New Zealanders and Australians. Notice how the historian found his information – by pouring through oral history recordings of the incident.Massacre that stained the Light Horse
This is revisionism at its best. I particularly like how he besmirches the reputation of the entire Light Horse and then throws out the caveat at the end that it was just a few who did bad things but implies that the rest did not police their comrades and so are equally at fault. This is not history, this is character assassination.The problems with this piece are:1. Imprecision in numbers; between 40-120. We are to believe that there is a possible variance of 80 bodies in an incident this small. This is especially2. One corroborating story in an oral history of unknown veracity.3. A journalist, not a historian, is making the claim.4. The author makes the claim that because compensation was paid for the destruction of the village then that is de jure proof that the massacre happened.This quote is the best in the whole piece:
"This doesn't detract from the amazing things that the Light Horse did, but if we want to embrace the heroics we need to accept the unpleasant truths, too."
This last sentence is essentially what the revisionists and postmodernists have been saying for the past twenty-thirty years. That we have to accept past evil as part of who we are, thereby implying that the same capacity exists today and is latent in western society. Yet they never acknowledge that other cultures are capable of just as much outrage as the west. It is as though only westerners have ever slaughtered innocents or destroyed towns and villages. This story is one with the supposed myths about smallpox covered blankets and the slaughter of millions of meso-americans by the purposeful introduction of European diseases.This article is trash but it will get a willing audience in today?s ill educated populace that has been schooled to accept the word of the media as gospel truth. It besmirches the actions of thousands of good men by the actions of a few. Articles like this are one of the reasons I despair of the survival of western society, especially western scholarship. There is absolutely no scholarly or journalistic rigor put into this piece yet now many people will begin to believe that their ancestors were monsters.
This is revisionism at its best. I particularly like how he besmirches the reputation of the entire Light Horse and then throws out the caveat at the end that it was just a few who did bad things but implies that the rest did not police their comrades and so are equally at fault. This is not history, this is character assassination.The problems with this piece are:1. Imprecision in numbers; between 40-120. We are to believe that there is a possible variance of 80 bodies in an incident this small. This is especially2. One corroborating story in an oral history of unknown veracity.3. A journalist, not a historian, is making the claim.4. The author makes the claim that because compensation was paid for the destruction of the village then that is de jure proof that the massacre happened.This quote is the best in the whole piece:
"This doesn't detract from the amazing things that the Light Horse did, but if we want to embrace the heroics we need to accept the unpleasant truths, too."
This last sentence is essentially what the revisionist and postmodernists have been saying for the past twenty-thirty years. That we have to except past evil as part of who we are, thereby implying that the same capacity exists today and is latent in western society. Yet they never acknowledge that other cultures are capable of just as much outrage as the west. It is as though only westerners have ever slaughtered innocents or destroyed towns and villages. This story is one with the supposed myths about smallpox covered blankets and the slaughter of millions of meso-americans by the purposeful introduction of European diseases.This article is trash but it will get a willing audience in today?s ill educated populace that has been schooled to accept the word of the media as gospel truth. It besmirches the actions of thousands of good men by the actions of a few. Articles like this are one of the reasons I despair of the survival of western society, especially western scholarship. There is absolutely no scholarly or journalistic rigor put into this piece yet now many people will begin to believe that their ancestors were monsters.
Interesting take on the article. Good point - what authority does a journalist have doing a book on history? Not to say that one cannot, but it raises the question of how much credence should we give to such a person.
I am not saying that journalists cannot write good history, some can indeed. I am making the point that we should expect the same rigor in fact checking from them as we would from an academic historian. For that matter, we should expect rigorous fact checking in a journalistic article as well. That is one reason so many people no longer trust the media, they have proven time and again that are not to be trusted.
