The novel, "Dreaming of Palestine," mounts a fiery case against the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians, whom Miss Ghazy portrays as pitiable victims of unrelenting terror.

American Indians before the Civil War were usually depicted as innocent symbols of the pre-industrial world or as pitiable victims whose peaceful existence had been shattered by the encroachment of the white man.

When a man decapitates half a dozen people, he's explained away as another pitiable victim of childhood abuse.

Charlie McKenzie is al chemically transformed from a run-amock CIA agent to a pitiable victim deranged by pain, confused by drugs, befuddled by alcohol, and inflamed with a righteous passion for justice.

He is, if the story is to be believed, pitiable victim of fetal-alcohol syndrome.

It was strange, but ... sometimes Steel seemed like Flenser's most pitiable victim.

The adventures led to satirical encounters with the real world with the hero either becoming the pitiable victim or the rogue who exploited the vices of those he met.

He let the most adept abusers of power in a generation taunt him into making them appear to be the pitiable victims of his own abuse of power.

LEAD: The most pitiable victims of Africa's oldest war are three million Ethiopians trapped on battlefields and facing starvation.

So it was certainly a breakthrough for decency, and perhaps for peace, when Presidents Bush and The most pitiable victims of Africa's oldest war are three million Ethiopians trapped on battlefields and facing starvation.