Benjamin Disraeli is credited with the saying that there are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies and statistics. The legendary British statesman could have spotted another example of his adage in an article in the March 28 edition of the Washington Post about Israel's deployment of an anti-missile system to intercept rockets fired by terrorists in Gaza against civilian populations in southern Israel ("Israelis put in place anti-rocket system" by Janine Zacharia, page A6). As historical context for the deployment of an anti-rocket battery near Beersheba, Zacharia writes the following: "Israel launched a widely criticized bombardment of the...