The Nation & Palestinian/Israeli Death Tolls
Media Bias
| January 20, 2003
| Tim
Tonight I was reading "Israel's Dangerous Crossroads" in The Nation magazine when I came across this tidbit on Sharon's ability to provide Israeli security:
Sharon has not delivered on any of his promises. During the past two years, more than 700 Israelis have been killed, with more than 4,000 wounded (the corresponding figures for Palestinians is about 1,800 killed and more than 20,000 wounded)...
I noticed the reflexive need to include Palestinian mortality figures, even in an article which is focused on internal Israeli politics and security. I had a hunch, and decided to see if I could dig up some more information on these numbers. (Yes, I suspect I'm probably the last person in the blogosphere to do this excercise, but, well, what the heck...)
I discovered this very interesting article (and shorter summary, more recently updated) from the Institue for Terrorism and Counter-Terror (ICT), which broke the numbers down.
Hunch confirmed: The death tolls lumped combatants and nocombatants together (in combat situations, the Israeli army was clearly more effective), and included Palestinian suicide bombers, Palestinian victims of Palestinian suicide bombers, Palestinian "collaborators" killed by other Palestinians, and death by natural causes in with genuine noncombatant casualties.
Its a bit like lumping WWII concentration camp death tolls in with German combatant and noncombantant casualty figures, and labelling the mass "Germans Killed" and placing it alongside "Allies Killed". Its not that the numbers are wrong, per se, but rather are misleading: when trying to form an opinon about the morality of a state, the number innocent deaths is a meaningful statistic; their military kill ratio against other combatants connotes something altogether different.
A few highlights:
- 80% of Israelis killed were non-combatants; compare with 19% of Palestinians. Doing the math, this is 560 dead Israeli noncombatants, versus 361 Palestinian noncombatants.
- 55% of Palestinians killed were full/partial combatants or violent protestors; only about 20% of Israelis were in this same category.
- "Palestinians are directly responsible for the deaths of at least 253 of their own number -- more than one out of every eight Palestinians killed."
- "Women and girls account for 31 percent of all Israelis killed in the conflict, and almost 40 percent of the Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians. Palestinian fatalities, in contrast, have been consistently and overwhelmingly (over 95 percent) male."
- "Palestinians have killed at least 174 noncombatant Israelis aged 45 and over, while Israelis have killed 65 Palestinian noncombatants in the same age bracket. The ratio is 2.7 to 1."
- A large number of Palestinians were killed under "unknown" circumstances: 23% or 437. I count these neither as combatants nor non-combatants. The reader may make either assumption and go over my previous numbers, adding these bodies in according to their personal prejudices.
Where did you get these "facts" from? Your figures smell a bit like bullcrap to me. All of the information that i have gathered is quite contrary to your so called highlights. Its a bit difficult to believe that 80% of Israelis killed were non-combatants, when all isreali citizens are required to serve in the isreali military at the age of eighteen.
Dan,
It has now been two years since I wrote this, but it appears to me that all the stuff in the "highlights" come from the two links I've provided. You're welcomed to read the articles and decide for yourself.
Of course what I'm quoting here sounds different than the standard account -- that's why I let people know about data the media doesn't present. If the media were better, they'd present both the sides of the story to you, and I wouldn't have to do this.
But where there are two sides to a story, it's up to you to try to figure out which one is correct. Sometimes that takes research and thought. Like maybe even clicking a link or something, at least as a starting point.
Looks to me like these numbers are in line, since they show information the media hid, and not vise-versa. If you are able to find something that refutes this, feel free to post it. I wasn't able to.
I have no idea if 80% of Israelis are members of the army, but it wouldn't suprise me. The situation in Switzerland is similar.
A "combatant" isn't someone who is sometimes in the army, or has been to a few weeks' training, or is a veteran, or some kind of reservist. A "combatant" -- had you read the article -- is defined as someone who is in combat when they are killed. They are someone holding a gun and trying to kill someone. Not someone who is eating pizza with her family when the terrorist's bomb kills every man, woman, and child present.
(Otherwise, it would also be impossible to commit terrorism against the Swiss: there would be almost no "noncombatants" to kill, since they, also, have near-universal conscription.)
But why bother with these sorts of quibbles? Simply decide that all "facts" you don't like are untrue and move along. That seems to be the popular technique on the left these days.
you seem to be missing the point that the palestinians are obviously not going to be as able to attack efficiantly simply because of the immense power difference between the 2 countrys thanks to america's non conditional backing of israel
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Where did you get these "facts" from? Your figures smell a bit like bullcrap to me. All of the information that i have gathered is quite contrary to your so called highlights. Its a bit difficult to believe that 80% of Israelis killed were non-combatants, when all isreali citizens are required to serve in the isreali military at the age of eighteen.
Posted by: Dan Goldberg on February 14, 2005 09:02 PM