>>The uprising, now in its fourth month, has claimed more than 350
>>lives, most of them Palestinian.
>
>Isn't this an amazing sentence? "The uprising...claimed lives." No
>responsible parties anywhere! In fact, you could read it as implying
>that those who started the uprising brought it on themselves!
In The New York Times, the crimes of official allies, on the rare occasions when they are mentioned at all, are stated in the passive voice. When Suharto finally stepped down, they said (quoting from memory) "over a million people died under his rule." I'm sure the actual number of those who died when he was dictator was much greater than that, but it was about a million (excluding the Timorese) that he ordered killed.