Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Interesting Statistics

Sparks · 13-06-2003 8:26am

Don has done us the courtesy of coming here to discuss his side of the issue at hand...that being the statistical content on his website.

Bonkey,
While I certainly welcome Don's responses here, it's important to note that the criticisms that have been levelled at him concern his professional work. If you cannot stand behind your professional work, you have no business producing it in the first place. The statistics and views that Don has put forward into the public domain under the auspices of the ICT are at best biased, at worst factually incorrect and misleading and I don't see why he shouldn't have to face reasonable criticism of his work. That's the standard that any of us that produce material for the public domain are required to adhere to.

Don Radlauer · 13-06-2003 10:33am

Hobbes wrote:

quote:

1) See 30 November 2002. We have the name as Ashour Dab.

I select ALL and type in 30/11/2002 - 30/11/2002. Comes up no matches.

I just tried again. With everything set to ALL (i.e. specifying only the date) I get two incidents and a total of three fatalities - with "our guy" as the first one. Try again, and see if maybe there's something funky in the date format you're using.

quote:

2) I'm still checking on this one. The name you give isn't complete

I just pulled the three names from an ISM document off thier website. You should ask them to supply information or maybe fill in the blanks for bits.

ISM? Oh, Lord, be serious! ISM is one of the least trustworthy outfits in existence. We can check with PCHR (Palestine Center for Human Rights) or Red Crescent, or B'Tzelem - all of which are reasonably "serious"; but ISM is not worth having anything to do with. I'm on it, but give me a couple of days for this one - as it's already the weekend here in Israel, and our researchers won't be available 'til Sunday.

quote:

3) She's listed as Nuha Eswdan Makadma, killed 3 March 2003.

Again I get no matches. Maybe there is something funky going on with the search engine?

Again, I just checked again - and she's there. Has anyone else tried? The search engine isn't the most powerful, but it seems to give consistent results - for everyone else, at least!

Don Radlauer · 13-06-2003 10:55am

Clinton's Cat (who looks an awful lot like a gorilla for a cat) wrote:

quote:

Don would you like to comment on the number of Red Crescent Ambulance Crews Killed and shot at during the present Intafaeda?

[snip]
What is the Israeli Governments position on the targeting of Ambulances?

Would you care to elaborate on the circumstances of the death of
Dr. Khalil Sulieman?

1) I don't generally get closely involved in individual cases. My "job" in relation to the "Intifada" is demographics, rather than arguing case-by-case. So I'm reluctant to get started in this direction, since I generally make a point of not even looking at "leaves" in order to get a feel for the "forest".

That said: I have nothing specific to say about exact numbers of Red Crescent ambulances or staff shot/injured/killed during the present conflict. I will say this: The Geneva Conventions designate ambulances as "protected" (i.e. immune from attack) - but *only* to the extent that this "protected" status is not abused. As soon as ambulances (or other "protected" assets) are used to store or transport combatants or weaponry, they lose their "protected" status. As there have been numerous documented incidents where Red Crescent ambulances have been caught being used for such military purposes, any accusation that Israel has wrongly violated their "protected" status is legally void - that is to say, a crock of sh_t.

2) I'm not an Israeli government spokesman, so I'm not in a position to give out Israeli governmental "positions" on anything. My own "position" is as outlined above: that the Palestinian Red Crescent has abandoned their claim to "protected" status under the Geneva Conventions by allowing their ambulances and personnel to transport combatants and weaponry. As such, they are subject to search by Israeli forces - at least until and unless they are proven to have changed their policy of allowing themselves to be used perfidously for military purposes.

3) I don't recall the particular case - as I said, I don't normally get into individual cases. I'd limit myself to checking whether he's in the database, and whether we have him categorized correctly. Have you checked? If he's there, and listed as a Palestinian noncombatant killed by Israel, then we've done our job as researchers.

I make no claim that every Palestinian death was justified. I don't think you'll find any language in "An Engineered Tragedy", or in any of my posts, that exonerates Israel from all blame for all killings we've conducted. I am not a propagandist, or even an apologist. There are plenty of cases - and I mean hundreds, not a few - of Palestinians who should not have been killed by Israeli forces. As far as I'm concerned, the death of an innocent Palestinian is every bit as tragic as the death of an innocent Israeli, or for that matter of an innocent Irishman.

Don Radlauer · 13-06-2003 11:01am

Clinton's Cat asked:

quote:

Don another question for you, would you classify the assasination of Yitzak Rabin as a terrorist act ?

I don't see it in our database (on quick inspection); as it was pre-"Intifada", our DB isn't necessarily complete. (I'll check with our Webmaster whether it's in there someplace and I'm not looking in the right place. If it's not there, it should, I think, be added.) However, I'd say that the Rabin assassination does fit the definition.

Hobbes · 13-06-2003 1:13pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
Hobbes wrote:

quote:

1) See 30 November 2002. We have the name as Ashour Dab.

I select ALL and type in 30/11/2002 - 30/11/2002. Comes up no matches.

I just tried again. With everything set to ALL (i.e. specifying only the date) I get two incidents and a total of three fatalities - with "our guy" as the first one. Try again, and see if maybe there's something funky in the date format you're using.

Nope doesn't work. It's werid.

All fields set to ALL,

From: 30/11/2002 To: 30/11/2002

Comes up with "There were no matches for your search". I also tried...

Two different ISPs+Anonymizer (just in case).
11/30/2002
11/30/02
30/11/2002

All show no items. Anyone else try they get anything?

ISM? Oh, Lord, be serious! ISM is one of the least trustworthy outfits in existence.

That's odd because the other two that ISM listed were in your database as you said. You could also try HRW. Your right I did cut it short the last part was "Said" (thought they meant the English word).

Least trustworthy outfits in existance? Hardly, if anything they are a good bit better then some of the other sites. If I had mentioned ISM first would you dimissed it out of hand? Or actually checked up on it?

But there is definetly something funky with your search engine. I would at least think there would be a number of people under the Helecopter missile attack.

Don Radlauer · 13-06-2003 2:11pm

Dunno what's the problem with your not getting stuff from the search engine. Are you looking at the one you get to from Intifada Statistics? Maybe you're looking at the Terror Incident search screen - which looks at a different database.

Go to the Stats page, then click on Search Database - then let me know what results you get.

If that doesn't work, send me a couple of tickets (to Ireland, right?) and I'll see what's going on over there. Or you could come here and we'll show you around. Haven't had a guest killed yet!

As far as the missing woman, we'll continue to track her down. It's possible that that incident is genuinely missing, in which case we'll add it to the database. I'll make sure it gets followed up.

The victims of the most recent helicopter "targeted killing" attacks may not be in the last copy of the database that was updated to the server. We usually wait until the names, ages, and so on are published; so there's sometimes a lag. If they're not there yet, they'll be there early next week.

Don Radlauer · 13-06-2003 3:05pm

First off: Thank you, Bonkey - just as formally.

Second: So far, I don't think anyone on the board has disagreed with me in any way I found offensive, rude, or inappropriate. So nobody has any apologizing to do, at least on my account.

I'm actually very happy to have intelligent people disagree with me. I won't learn much from agreement; and reasoned disagreement helps me to see the weaknesses in my own thinking, and correct them.

(You'll all be happy to know that when I participate in pro-Israel forums, I'm often vituperatively castigated - not to mention flamed - for being some kind of left-wing anti-Zionist traitor. One person, to whom I have given up responding, accuses ICT of being a "front" for the European Union [he also seems to think Ariel Sharon is a sissy]; another accused me of being a Hamas supporter. Sigh - it's not easy being a moderate!)

Third: Sparks, you brought up some interesting points regarding the Geneva Conventions. I intend to respond to them later, as it'll take quite some time. I rather doubt that we will come to a meeting of minds here, as our viewpoints are very different and (as no competent and universally recognized court has ruled on the matter) there is no authoritative "correct" reading of the relevant issues in the Conventions.

The statistics and views that Don has put forward into the public domain under the auspices of the ICT are at best biased, at worst factually incorrect and misleading...

Now I do take issue with this statement. I haven't seen you produce any data whatsoever to support this claim; and until you do so, you should not make it. While my particular interpretation of the statistics is a matter of judgement - and thus is subject to argument - the facts are another issue. A great deal of effort has gone into ensuring that our data is the best available; and while we can't claim perfection (and we correct the database whenever someone is kind enough to point out a genuine problem), we can and do claim that our database is the best, fairest one out there. I've yet to see anyone make a serious attempt to refute this.

There's not much point in arguing with you over the interpretation of our data; your viewpoint seems already to be firmly cemented in place, and I expect no amount of information I can provide is going to dislodge it.

I would like to quote a passage for your consideration:

...Meanwhile, I was shocked to see the images on
television of Palestinian children going to the
Muqata on the Day of the Child to support Arafat.

The Palestinian president is still talking about
shaheeds and he encouraged children to become
martyrs by telling them that one shaheed on earth
is considered by God as great as 40 shaheeds in
heaven. (This statement has not yet been
condemned by any organizations for the protection
of children.)

It seems Arafat is still encouraging Palestinians
to victimize themselves, an attitude that is
without logic or ethics. Instead of talking about
peace and life, instead of supporting
coexistence, instead of fulfilling the
consciousness of human beings, Arafat is calling
for death. It appears the nearly 2,500
Palestinians and more than 700 Israelis who were
killed during this intifada are not enough to
fulfill Arafat's political interests.

This is from an article in Haaretz by Bassam Eid, founder and director of the East Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG).

So while I may be a bit of a voice in the wilderness regarding my understanding of the "engineering" of this tragedy, I'm not entirely alone in my opinions.

Hobbes · 13-06-2003 3:50pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
Dunno what's the problem with your not getting stuff from the search engine.

It's "Kamla Abu Said", which shows up in google.

Ooh I see! You have a different search engine on a different page. You might want to make the link more noticeble as going from your first document it looks like the only database engine is the terrorist attack one. They also give different results.

This is from an article in Haaretz by Bassam Eid, founder and director of the East Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG).

However the article starts it story from a point. For example it doesn't explore the reason as to why children (or teenagers) would so easily be swayed.

It is one thing to listen to a person saying the other side is the enemy. It's another when the other side gives the speaker the evidence to prove the point.

Take NI history for example. Bloody Sunday and Internment did more to help recruit IRA people then anything the IRA could of done. In fact for a long time the IRA wasn't even taken seriously by the majority of Irish/NI people until civil rights issues sprung up.

This is why missile attacks, assinations and bulldozing homes are self defeating.

Clintons Cat · 13-06-2003 7:18pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
Clinton's Cat (who looks an awful lot like a gorilla for a cat) wrote:

quote:

Don would you like to comment on the number of Red Crescent Ambulance Crews Killed and shot at during the present Intafaeda?

[snip]
What is the Israeli Governments position on the targeting of Ambulances?

Would you care to elaborate on the circumstances of the death of
Dr. Khalil Sulieman?

1) I don't generally get closely involved in individual cases. My "job" in relation to the "Intifada" is demographics, rather than arguing case-by-case. So I'm reluctant to get started in this direction, since I generally make a point of not even looking at "leaves" in order to get a feel for the "forest".

That said: I have nothing specific to say about exact numbers of Red Crescent ambulances or staff shot/injured/killed during the present conflict. I will say this: The Geneva Conventions designate ambulances as "protected" (i.e. immune from attack) - but *only* to the extent that this "protected" status is not abused. As soon as ambulances (or other "protected" assets) are used to store or transport combatants or weaponry, they lose their "protected" status. As there have been numerous documented incidents where Red Crescent ambulances have been caught being used for such military purposes, any accusation that Israel has wrongly violated their "protected" status is legally void - that is to say, a crock of sh_t.

2) I'm not an Israeli government spokesman, so I'm not in a position to give out Israeli governmental "positions" on anything. My own "position" is as outlined above: that the Palestinian Red Crescent has abandoned their claim to "protected" status under the Geneva Conventions by allowing their ambulances and personnel to transport combatants and weaponry. As such, they are subject to search by Israeli forces - at least until and unless they are proven to have changed their policy of allowing themselves to be used perfidously for military purposes.

3) I don't recall the particular case - as I said, I don't normally get into individual cases. I'd limit myself to checking whether he's in the database, and whether we have him categorized correctly. Have you checked? If he's there, and listed as a Palestinian noncombatant killed by Israel, then we've done our job as researchers.

I make no claim that every Palestinian death was justified. I don't think you'll find any language in "An Engineered Tragedy", or in any of my posts, that exonerates Israel from all blame for all killings we've conducted. I am not a propagandist, or even an apologist. There are plenty of cases - and I mean hundreds, not a few - of Palestinians who should not have been killed by Israeli forces. As far as I'm concerned, the death of an innocent Palestinian is every bit as tragic as the death of an innocent Israeli, or for that matter of an innocent Irishman.

Don thanks for your reply,

I am curious as to the nature of the Violations of The PRC Ambulances that warrents the use of force against 118 vehicles. Resulting in the injury of 192 Emergency medical personnel.Could standard stop and search procedures be enacted against PRC Vehicles at Israeli Checkpoints without resorting to use of potentially lethal force?

Also i am curious as to the phrase "As there have been numerous documented incidents where Red Crescent ambulances have been caught being used for such military purposes, any accusation that Israel has wrongly violated their "protected" status is legally void - that is to say, a crock of sh_t."

Does this mean in your opinion that protected status no longer applys to any PRC Ambulances and are therefore they are Legitimate targets for members of the IDF?
since your site draws the conclusion and i quote... The fact that Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli actions do not, as a rule, follow the same pattern would seem to undermine claims that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian civilians.. ..Would it be improper to draw the conclusion based on analysis of the statistical data available that the IDF do however Target Ambulances of the PRC?

could you relay the numbers of violations by PRC crews and unaffiliated occupants reported by IDF units? a breakdown of violations by type would be useful also,for those unfamilliar with the specifics of the allegations.

I'm not an Israeli government spokesman, so I'm not in a position to give out Israeli governmental "positions"

Of course i appriciate that however in you first post you gave the impression that your research institute had strong links with former members of the security services and would thus be in a position to comment on the Israeli Governments policy my appology if this falls outside your remit.

Clintons Cat · 13-06-2003 8:16pm

Originally posted by Hobbes
FFS Clinton what do you think he was holding the gun or something?

Sorry hobbes where did i say that?

He runs the stats site, and is keeping track of everything as he said

It was a legitimate question based on dons assertation,here on the board,which i quoted, that Israeli's were not involved to any significant degree in acts of terrorism.I was wondering wether or not Don would consider the assasination of Yitzak Rabin an act of terror.Under the limited definition of an act of terror as provided by Don (and Contested by others) it could be argued that it was merely a criminal act rather than an act of terrorism,Since it could be argued that as the assassin was acting alone and without instruction or instigation of others and belonged to no proscribed organisations.

My personal view however would be that it was an act of terror based on a wider interpretation of what constitutes an act of terror.

It was a perfectly valid question to another member of the board,Which don answered to my satisfaction.I have no further questions on that matter.

Dons maintence of another website is not an issue with this regard.

(although I still can't find stuff in it, like Dr. Khalil Sulieman's death). ]

The Cicumstances of Dr. Khalil Sulieman's death can be found on the PRC site alongside statistics for injuries to Magen David Adom emergency health workers,which can be cross referenced at the Magen David Adom Site.

PRC Press Release march 4 2002

prc Press Release march 7 2002

Magen David Adom Press Release october 3 2000

Wanton Destruction Of Ambulances At Jennin General Hospital

Sparks · 13-06-2003 8:26pm

Don,

Third: Sparks, you brought up some interesting points regarding the Geneva Conventions. I intend to respond to them later, as it'll take quite some time.

I look forward to it.

I rather doubt that we will come to a meeting of minds here, as our viewpoints are very different and (as no competent and universally recognized court has ruled on the matter) there is no authoritative "correct" reading of the relevant issues in the Conventions.

I would dispute that no such court has ruled on the Convention. Even recently, we've seen the cases put to the Belgian court as an example. The Belgian court may be unpopular, but it is competent and universally recognised as legitimate, even if many parties only believe it should act within the borders of belgium.
However, the ICC would be my preferred court to have as the recognised court for the Conventions - but the actions of the US and Israel, amongst a small collection of countries, seem to spell trouble for the ICC.

Now I do take issue with this statement. I haven't seen you produce any data whatsoever to support this claim; and until you do so, you should not make it.

Don, I spent an entire post pointing out what I felt were those errors in your article "War Crimes and Gentleman’s Agreements".
I have not made any mention of your intifada statistics, Hobbes and the others have been discussing those sufficently.

While my particular interpretation of the statistics is a matter of judgement - and thus is subject to argument - the facts are another issue. A great deal of effort has gone into ensuring that our data is the best available; and while we can't claim perfection (and we correct the database whenever someone is kind enough to point out a genuine problem), we can and do claim that our database is the best, fairest one out there. I've yet to see anyone make a serious attempt to refute this.

The database was not what I was commenting on.

There's not much point in arguing with you over the interpretation of our data; your viewpoint seems already to be firmly cemented in place, and I expect no amount of information I can provide is going to dislodge it.

I'm curious as to what you believe my viewpoint to be. Apart from the Geneva convention and the policy of assassination we're seeing at the moment, I haven't expressed a viewpoint.

With regard to that quote, I am indeed shocked that UNICEF hasn't spoken out. They do fund PYALARA who are meant to try to prevent teenagers from going down that route, but it seems odd that they would not protest. I searched and could find nothing, not only on sites like DCI, but also on UNICEF. Oddly, I can only find that quote once as well - on belgian indymedia.
I simply don't understand why DCI-Palestine and DCI-Israel are both silent on this. Perhaps it's just a matter of time before it hits the news cycles?

bonkey · 16-06-2003 1:17pm

Don...

I have a question about the statistical breakdowns chosen for the website, and their relevance (lack of a better term) to giving a real picture of what's going on.

Let me explain.

At the moment, the statistics concentrate almost exclusively on the breakdown between combatant and non-combatant. More correctly, they seem to define this breakdown, and then analyse in detail the deaths of non-combatants.

It doesnt seem an unreasonable position.

However, there are clearly several different breakdowns of combatants which would seem to be telling as well, and these (from what I can see) appear to be completely missing.

For example...the basic underlying struggle is often simplified down to a basic concept of "Israel has a right to exist, and is defending itself from those who seek to deny them this through terroristic means". OK - thats fair enough, but isnt it just an extension of "any recognised nation has a right to defend itself".

Now, if that is the case, then there is clearly a possibility that some Palestinians are not attacking Israeli's because they feel Israel has no right to exist, but because those Israeli's are occupying Palestinian land. If Israel has a right to exist, and defend itself from aggression, then surely these people have a right to defend themselves from Israeli occupation/incursion or whatever "nice" term you wish to put on it.

In otherwords, lets say I were a Palestinian who tried to live my life in Palestine, nice and quietly. Then I hear that a chunk of Israeli soldiers, alongside some bulldozers, attack helicopters etc were entering my Palestinian town. If I go out and defend my homeland from armed invasion, your statistics would appear to classify me as no different to the suicide bomber who enters Israeli territory to kill innocent civilians. I'm not engaged in terrorism. I'm not comitting an act of aggression against a foreign nation. I am defending my home.

Now, while I recognise that such a distinction is impossible to make - as it is generally quite difficult to ask dead people about their motives, and the living can't always be truster - surely it is a very valid and telling distinction?

As a result, I would question how relevant or conclusive the statistics presented really can be, when one of the fundamental criteria on which most of them are based seems to be an excessive simplification of the "real" categories involved.

I accept that it is probably impossible to factor this distinction in any meaningful way as arguments over the ratio of "homeland defenders" vs. "terrorists fighting on home soil", or indeed which borders to use. However, at the same time, I would have felt that such limitations should be clearly spelled out, both at the initial outset and at the conclusion.

Would you not agree, or is there some reason why the discussion on statistics does not seem to dwell on the failings of the categorisations, but rather only on the conclusions one can draw from them? Or have I missed the section which clarifies the limitations and assumptions???

jc

Don Radlauer · 16-06-2003 9:06pm

Bonkey wrote:

Don...

I have a question about the statistical breakdowns chosen for the website, and their relevance (lack of a better term) to giving a real picture of what's going on.

Let me explain.

At the moment, the statistics concentrate almost exclusively on the breakdown between combatant and non-combatant. More correctly, they seem to define this breakdown, and then analyse in detail the deaths of non-combatants.

It doesnt seem an unreasonable position.

However, there are clearly several different breakdowns of combatants which would seem to be telling as well, and these (from what I can see) appear to be completely missing.

For example...the basic underlying struggle is often simplified down to a basic concept of "Israel has a right to exist, and is defending itself from those who seek to deny them this through terroristic means". OK - thats fair enough, but isnt it just an extension of "any recognised nation has a right to defend itself".

Now, if that is the case, then there is clearly a possibility that some Palestinians are not attacking Israeli's because they feel Israel has no right to exist, but because those Israeli's are occupying Palestinian land. If Israel has a right to exist, and defend itself from aggression, then surely these people have a right to defend themselves from Israeli occupation/incursion or whatever "nice" term you wish to put on it.

In otherwords, lets say I were a Palestinian who tried to live my life in Palestine, nice and quietly. Then I hear that a chunk of Israeli soldiers, alongside some bulldozers, attack helicopters etc were entering my Palestinian town. If I go out and defend my homeland from armed invasion, your statistics would appear to classify me as no different to the suicide bomber who enters Israeli territory to kill innocent civilians. I'm not engaged in terrorism. I'm not comitting an act of aggression against a foreign nation. I am defending my home.

Now, while I recognise that such a distinction is impossible to make - as it is generally quite difficult to ask dead people about their motives, and the living can't always be truster - surely it is a very valid and telling distinction?

As a result, I would question how relevant or conclusive the statistics presented really can be, when one of the fundamental criteria on which most of them are based seems to be an excessive simplification of the "real" categories involved.

I accept that it is probably impossible to factor this distinction in any meaningful way as arguments over the ratio of "homeland defenders" vs. "terrorists fighting on home soil", or indeed which borders to use. However, at the same time, I would have felt that such limitations should be clearly spelled out, both at the initial outset and at the conclusion.

Would you not agree, or is there some reason why the discussion on statistics does not seem to dwell on the failings of the categorisations, but rather only on the conclusions one can draw from them? Or have I missed the section which clarifies the limitations and assumptions???

jc

The essential point here is that we've made no effort to distinguish between "righteous combatants" and "non-righteous combatants" on either side - nor, for that matter, between righteous and non-righteous noncombatants. In order to avoid getting mired down in endless argument about the relative morality of the two sides' causes, we decided to limit ourselves to physical, reasonably verifiable facts.

As I think I explained in "An Engineered Tragedy", the term "combatant" does not mean "bad guy". It means someone who is taking an active part in violent struggle, for whatever motives. (The definition used, BTW, is in conformance with that used by the U.S. State Department.)

As an example: I carry a pistol, as (in addition to my job and other "hobbies") I'm a volunteer policeman. If I'm walking down the street and someone starts firing a Kalashnikov and kills me, I'm listed as a noncombatant. If I happen to be in police uniform at the time, I'm a Uniformed Noncombatant. BUT, if I see the guy with the Kalash before he sees me, and I draw my pistol to try to shoot him, and I subsequently get shot and killed, I'm a Full Combatant.

Similarly, we make no moral judgements when we assign "responsibility" for a given incident or fatality. "Responsibility" is purely physical: if in the preceding case I did succeed in shooting the terrorist, his death is recorded as "Israeli responsibility" even though it is the result of a shooting spree that he started. In this way, we try to avoid getting bogged down in endless arguments over who died because of his own side's evil aggression and who died defending his homeland against aggression; we simply talk about who was *physically* responsible for which death.

* * *

In reality, the distinction between combatant and noncombatant, while it frequently seems to be the biggest source of controversy regarding "An Engineered Tragedy", is not, in my opinion, the heart of the piece. Yes, we have (I think) shown that the figures typically quoted for Palestinian "civilian" deaths are misleading: If Israeli forces enter a Palestinian neighborhood to arrest one person and are attacked by Palestinians bearing guns, it is absurd to call the latter "civilians" when they are killed; and a clear majority of the Palestinian dead have been combatants by any reasonable definition of the term. But these "findings" weren't unexpected - before we started the study, we had already seen that Palestinian "irregular" combatants were being widely reported as "civilians".

The more interesting - and unexpected - findings relate to the nature of the noncombatant deaths on both sides. Normally, we expect a noncombatant to be an innocent victim, someone who died just because he or she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two groups of noncombatants in this conflict fit this category: Israeli noncombatants in general, and Palestinians killed as "collateral damage" in Israeli "targeted killings". In both these groups, we see essentially random age and gender distributions.

But if we look at Palestinian noncombatants as a whole (and even moreso if we remove the "collaterals" from the group), we see a completely different pattern: As reported in "A.E.T.", the fatalities are almost all male, and mostly conform to a well-defined age distribution. This is why I chose the title I did - the pattern clearly indicates that a very large portion of the Palestinian deaths in this conflict were "discretionary". That is, they were young people who were influenced to engage in confrontatory behavior that they well knew was dangerous, in a deliberate effort (on the part of Arafat and at least some of his subordinates) to create the appearance of a one-sided slaughter of innocent victims.

As material I previously quoted shows, there are others "in the know" who have reached similar conclusions. Unfortunately, it took a long time for the Israeli government to understand what was going on; in fact, I'm far from sure that the point has been properly understood even now. Most pro-Israeli types still don't "get it" - they hear about Palestinian "martyrdom" propaganda and think that Arafat is trying to recruit 12-year-old suicide bombers. In reality, he's recruiting "suicide propagandists".

* * *

I hope this in some way answered your question. I spent the day home sick, and I'm still a bit woozy; the fingers can type but I'm not at all sure if the brain is directing them intelligently.

Sparks · 16-06-2003 9:19pm

Don,

As an example: I carry a pistol, as (in addition to my job and other "hobbies") I'm a volunteer policeman. If I'm walking down the street and someone starts firing a Kalashnikov and kills me, I'm listed as a noncombatant. If I happen to be in police uniform at the time, I'm a Uniformed Noncombatant. BUT, if I see the guy with the Kalash before he sees me, and I draw my pistol to try to shoot him, and I subsequently get shot and killed, I'm a Full Combatant.

This directly implies that an on-duty, armed, uniformed member of the IDF is listed as a non-combatant if shot by a sniper, since they would not have fired on the sniper first.

This seems.... well, incorrect frankly.

Don Radlauer · 17-06-2003 8:09am

Sparks wrote:

This directly implies that an on-duty, armed, uniformed member of the IDF is listed as a non-combatant if shot by a sniper, since they would not have fired on the sniper first.

This seems.... well, incorrect frankly.

And it would be, if we worked that way. But we don't, as you would see if you read the study (and perhaps checked some incidents in the database).

A soldier on patrol is a combatant. If s/he gets caught flatfooted by a sniper, it doesn't matter - s/he was armed and was supposed to be alert to such things.

An armed civilian (or even a uniformed cop) walking down a Tel Aviv street is something else; s/he is not assumed to be combat-ready in the way a soldier is. Thus we draw the distinction that such a person isn't a combatant unless s/he takes the decision to take an active part in a confrontation.

Dr_Teeth · 17-06-2003 9:33am

If a young palestinian male throws a stone at a soldier and is shot, is he classed as a combatant?

Teeth.

Don Radlauer · 17-06-2003 11:49am

Dr_Teeth asked:

If a young palestinian male throws a stone at a soldier and is shot, is he classed as a combatant?

In general, no. Stone-throwers are classed as noncombatants, except for rare cases - for example, of someone dropping large rocks off a bridge at cars speeding by underneath. Such cases pose a genuine risk to motorists (and several have been killed or severely wounded by such dropped rocks), and thus someone killed while doing this could be considered a combatant. (I don't recall anyone actually being killed while dropping rocks on cars, BTW.) But kids throwing rocks at tanks, jeeps, or soldiers are noncombatants, as they don't pose any serious risk to their targets.

In addition, kids under the age of 13 or 14 (I forget which) are classed as noncombatants even if they were carrying a gun. As we don't consider kids so young as being capable of making an informed decision regarding the use of weapons, we don't regard them as being capable of choosing to engage in violence.

Kids older than this threshold *may* be considered combatants if they are throwing something more deadly than rocks - Molotov cocktails or grenades, for example. Even then, we're pretty selective; we try to go out of our way to give the benefit of the doubt to the Palestinians. We also don't take the IDF's word as 100% reliable. There have been cases where the IDF claimed that a Palestinian kid was throwing firebombs and the Palestinians claimed that the kid was throwing rocks, and in such cases, lacking any further evidence one way or the other, we'll classify the victim as "combatant status unknown". The latter classification is considered noncombatant. In fact, about 24% of all Palestinians killed are "unknowns" - and this is more than half of the total noncombatants in our database.

bonkey · 17-06-2003 11:56pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
This is why I chose the title I did - the pattern clearly indicates that a very large portion of the Palestinian deaths in this conflict were "discretionary". That is, they were young people who were influenced to engage in confrontatory behavior that they well knew was dangerous, in a deliberate effort (on the part of Arafat and at least some of his subordinates) to create the appearance of a one-sided slaughter of innocent victims.

Now, see, this is where I have to come back to the base assumptions.

You have shown that there is a definite pattern. Uncontestably.

What you have not shown - but have deduced - is the reason for this pattern. This deduction is entirely based on (once again) overly simplified assumptions by discarding the moral considerations etc.

For example - in a male dominated society, who is more likely to physically oppose invasion or occupation? The women? Hardly.

So, if we deduce that by nature of the societal behaviour that the people likely to be fired upon are going to be male, that those most likely to physically oppose the Israeli's are male....it is hardly a surprise that the figures show that the vast majority of fatalaties are male.

It doesnt show provocation by Arafat, nor any devious conspiracy on the part of the Palestinians, no more than it shows a specific gender-targetted extermination policy on the part of the Israeli's. It does not show a deliberate effort on the part of the Palestinians to portray themselves as poor victims no more than it shows a deliberate effort on the part of the Israeli's to shoot to kill at the slightest provocation.

Statistics do not show motive. They show trends which can do no more than lend support to possible theories. Your trends do not prove your theory, as they can be applied equally to other theories.

Furthermore, the more simplistic the base assumptions, the more incomplete and inconclusive the model will be. You can offer any reason you like for choosing the statistics you do, but to be credible, you must also clarify and recognise the limitations imposed by those assumptions.

I don't mean to lecture you on statistical relevance - I'm sure you're well educated in it - but surely you have to admit that your conclusions are not the sole and inevitable conclusion of your trend-analysis.

jc

Don Radlauer · 18-06-2003 3:09pm

Bonkey, the problem with your argument is twofold:

1) Your description of Palestinian behavior implies, in effect, that the Palestinians are either crazy, stupid, or at best completely incapable of handling their own testosterone levels. Were I a Palestinian, I'd be highly offended.

You claim that male Palestinians are killed because they "physically oppose invasion or occupation". But this doesn't make sense when we're talking about noncombatants. These consist mostly of kids and youths with rocks (and sometimes pipe-bombs or Molotov cocktails, and sometimes nothing at all), confronting one of the world's best-equipped militaries. What's the point of throwing rocks at a Merkava tank? (Another point: You're saying, in effect, that the vast majority of those we've classified as noncombatants were, in fact, combatants. Are you sure you want to defend such a position?)

For an act of "defense" to be worthy of the name, there must be some reason to think that it may be successful. When kids throw stones at Israeli soldiers and tanks, there is no question that A) their acts are futile in that they pose no significant risk to Israeli forces; and

the kids themselves incur a substantial risk of serious injury or death.

If this is "physical opposition", something is seriously wrong!

As I see it, guerilla/terror attacks - even suicidal attacks - make a degree of sense from the Palestinian perspective, since they offer a reasonable probability of costing Israel more than they cost the Palestinians. But participating in riots or throwing rocks at tanks offers no such advantageous risk/reward ratio; it has substantial risk, with no obvious reward.

2) While you are correct in saying that statistics cannot prove a particular motive (and I think "A.E.T." reflects that fact), I believe that the statistics do show that a large number of the Palestinian fatalities in this conflict are the result of *some* motive - that is, that they reflect a combination of Palestinian deliberate behavior and Israeli stupidity, rather than simply Israeli random shelling or bombing of Palestinian areas. Once we've established that much - at least tentatively - we can search to see what possible motives might account for the Palestinian side of the equation.

As I think I demonstrated above, I don't think much of "physical opposition" as an explanation for most Palestinian noncombatant deaths. It just doesn't work as a rational decision; and I refuse to believe that so many ordinary Palestinians behave in a comletely irrational manner.

While I can't rule out other motives than "suicide propaganda", there are some good reasons to take this hypothesis seriously:

A) Parsimony. This hypothesis seems to account for a good deal of Palestinian behavior over the course of this conflict without bringing in any mystical, unobserved causative factors. As I'll detail in (B) below, there is a substantial amount of evidence for exactly the kind of indoctrination and propaganda campaign I'm suggesting. And the only "sensible" goal for such a campaign is a high fatality count - Arafat's "million martyrs".

Evidence. Various media watchdogs (including Palestine Media Watch, http://www.pmw.org.il - check out their "Ask for Death" feature) have documented repeated Palestinian TV commercials and programming glorifying "martyrdom", aimed at adolescents and pre-adolescents.

One classic that appeared early in the conflict showed Mohammed al-Dura in heaven, extolling his fellow kids to follow him. Remember that Dura (who may well have been killed by a Palestinian bullet, not that that's relevant here) was the archetypal innocent victim: He wasn't even throwing rocks or rioting at the time of his death. Why would the Palestinian Authority want to induce kids to follow this example?

Remember, too, that Palestinian media are closely supervised by Yasser Arafat's associates. Palestinian TV in particular is tightly controlled; so anything potentially controversial that has appeared on Palestinian television, especially material that has been endlessly repeated, has to have been approved by the highest echelons of Arafat's government. Certainly nothing Arafat himself has said would cast any doubt on this hypothesis - his own words, as I quoted a couple of days ago, are entirely consistent with a strategy of using "martyrs" for propaganda purposes.

bonkey · 19-06-2003 11:22am

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
1) Your description of Palestinian behavior implies, in effect, that the Palestinians are either crazy, stupid, or at best completely incapable of handling their own testosterone levels.

So, you're saying that the implication that these people are stupid - or at least doing something incredibly stupid - is a flaw in my argument?

Tell me - how smart would you rate someone who decides to go out and deliberately try and get themselves killed because of an ad they saw on TV telling them to do so?

If my argument is flawed because I have not credited all of these people with the greatest of intelligence and cunning....surely then your own argument is at least equally flawed for the exact same reason. You have the same people carrying out teh same stupid acts, only now they're doing it because someone else told them it would be a great thing to do...and used tv ads as one means of convincing them of this.

You claim that male Palestinians are killed because they "physically oppose invasion or occupation". But this doesn't make sense when we're talking about noncombatants.

So are you saying that the Israelis are mostly killing people who are not actually doing anything? That there isnt even provocation for shooting them?

(Another point: You're saying, in effect, that the vast majority of those we've classified as noncombatants were, in fact, combatants. Are you sure you want to defend such a position?)

No, I'm not saying that as all. Given that you just posted a clarification of why the rock-throwing kid isnt a combatant, I hardly need to explain the logic to you

If I had wanted to infer these people were combatants, I would have used the term "combat" or "combatant".

For an act of "defense" to be worthy of the name, there must be some reason to think that it may be successful.

Agreed, and if I had used the term "act of defense" this would be somewhat relevant. I used the term "physically oppose" very deliberately, because I do not accept the base assumption that this must be an act of defense. Its for the same reason I avoided using the term "combatant" - its not the applicable term

When kids throw stones at Israeli soldiers and tanks, there is no question that A) their acts are futile in that they pose no significant risk to Israeli forces; and the kids themselves incur a substantial risk of serious injury or death.

Well, actually, point B is only uncontestable when you believe that one of the best-equipped armies in the world feels threatened enough by these stones to have to shoot at the people throwing them (which would then refute point A). Well - there are also a number of alternate, less charitable explanations , but I'm sure I don't need to iterate through them - we've all heard them before.

If this is "physical opposition", something is seriously wrong!

Why? You said that for it to be an "act of defense", it had to have a chance of success. Are you now saying that an act of "physical opposition" must also have a chance of forcing the invaders out in order to be considered worthy of the name as well?

In that case (Just so we can stop this dance, cause my feet are getting sore)...what term should I use for an act which is designed to show that you do not wish the occupiers to remain, as opposed to one which is designed to actually get them out?

But participating in riots or throwing rocks at tanks offers no such advantageous risk/reward ratio; it has substantial risk, with no obvious reward.

And the people we typically see involved in this are - for lack of a better term - angry young men.

Look around the world. There is no shortage of people doing stupid things, getting hurt (sometimes even killed) for no obvious reward. In your terminology, there is no advantageous risk/reward...and still they do it. Why should Palestine be any different?

As I think I demonstrated above, I don't think much of "physical opposition" as an explanation for most Palestinian noncombatant deaths. It just doesn't work as a rational decision; and I refuse to believe that so many ordinary Palestinians behave in a comletely irrational manner.

But you see nothing irrational in suggesting that they will forget how stupid the life-threatening action they perform is once they have been given some exposure to media etc. extolling the virtue of getting killed, and they cleverly decide to give it a go by carrying out this action?

Which ever way you argue it, what they are doing is stupid....and yet this is only a flaw in my argument???

While you are correct in saying that statistics cannot prove a particular motive (and I think "A.E.T." reflects that fact)

Where does it reflect it? I see the bit where it informs the reader how to read a graph correctly - thereby assuming that the reader is unfamiliar with some of the basic pitfalls of mathematical presentation - but I see no accompanying clarification about the shortfalls or limitations of statistical analysis in general.

For example : right at the end we see :

The fact that Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli actions do not, as a rule, follow the same pattern would seem to undermine claims that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian civilians.

OK - "seem to undermine" is obviously not presenting something as proof, but at the same time, you don't explain why this is the most logical conclusion to be reached.

I would have said that the patterns show that Israel is not engaged in indiscriminate targetting of Palestinian civilians. Indeed, there is a high correlation between the gender/age of Palestinian combatant and non-combatant deaths.

There's a peak of 15-20 year old male combatants...and lo and behold there's a peak of 15-20 year old male non-combatants.

There are some explanations offered for this - one which effectively says "maybe later analysis of the Phases by Incident Type will be more revealing", and the other says "A very high proportion of young males is taken to indicate that many of the fatalities likely resulted from confrontations that the victims could have avoided." Neither of these failings rules out rules out what we could term "Angry Young Man Syndrome" (or AYMS for short?). Neither rules out the possibility of profiled targetting by the Israelis. And yet you draw one conclusion over these others....its as if there is only one conclusion which can be drawn.

No mention of the other possibilities, if only to rule them out. No discussion of why the conclusion is the most logical. Simply a choice of wording which does not state it as fact.

Bear in mind that we're dealing with a readership who has a large enough contingent of maths "non-literati" that they need to be told how to read graphs. Now all of a sudden, they're smart enough to deal with the subtleties of understanding the limitations of statistical analyses because the one conclusion offered wasnt phrased as an absolute???

At the end of the day, I guess we'll have to differ on this one. I think there is a wealth of information in your article, but I'm not convinced its delivered in the most objective and balanced manner possible. Obviously, you believe in your work and its quality.....so I doubt we'll ever reach consensus here. I still appreciate you discussing it though

jc

Dr_Teeth · 19-06-2003 11:36am

Don, are you able to tell what percentage of Israeli non-combatant deaths happened beyond the green line?

Ie the number of deaths of Israelis who were armed to the teeth and lived in the illegal settlements in the occupied territories vs those were killed in Israel itself? And the same for Palestinian non-combatant deaths?

Teeth.

The Corinthian · 19-06-2003 12:25pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
But participating in riots or throwing rocks at tanks offers no such advantageous risk/reward ratio; it has substantial risk, with no obvious reward.

I disagree. It actually makes excellent propaganda. Had you considered the effect Palestinian children rising against the Goliath (please excuse the analogy) of Israeli tanks has when beamed to the television sets of the West?

Don Radlauer · 19-06-2003 12:50pm

Teeth asked:

Don, are you able to tell what percentage of Israeli non-combatant deaths happened beyond the green line?

Ie the number of deaths of Israelis who were armed to the teeth and lived in the illegal settlements in the occupied territories vs those were killed in Israel itself? And the same for Palestinian non-combatant deaths?

First, some comments on your question: Not all "settlers" are armed. In fact, I'd say that a solid majority (I don't have percentages" of the "settler" population doesn't carry weapons at all, much less being armed to the - you should pardon the expression - teeth.

Also, your expression "the illegal settlements" is inaccurate and shows that you have pre-judged an issue which has never properly been adjudicated. Now this is off-topic as far as statistics and demographics go, but I'm somewhat knowledgeable on the subject, so...

There is actually a very strong case for the legality of the settlements in general, and an even stronger case for the legality of a subset of these in particular. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, enacted at the San Remo Conference in 1921 (give or take a year), designated *all* of Palestine as an area for the development of the Jewish Homeland. Particularly, *all* of Palestine west of the Jordan River was designated as the *minimum* area for Jewish settlement. Note that the United Nations Charter specifically recognizes League of Nations mandates as legally valid, and that no legally-binding instrument has ever been enacted which would invalidate this Mandate. So any comments or decisions about the legality of settlements must be made against the background of the Mandate, which encourages "settlements" and sets the eastern border of the Jewish Homeland as the Jordan River - at a minimum.

Many areas in what is now the "Occupied Territories" were in fact acquired (that is, bought and paid for) before 1947 for Jewish inhabitation. Some of these parcels of land were settled - including Gaza settlements and the Gush Etzion settlements south of Jerusalem - and others had not yet been settled at the time of the War of Independence. (Alfei Menashe, where I live, is built on one of the latter parcels of land.) In the course of the 1948 War of Independence, Jews were forced to flee the Gaza and West Bank communities - even though these were completely "legal".

The 1949 "Green Line" border was only an armistice line, and never had any legal significance beyond that. The Arab states never recognized it as having any legal significance, since they didn't recognize Israel. (You can't recognize the borders of a country you don't recognize as having any legal existence!) Only Great Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank. In fact, Israel's claim to this territory was, and is, stronger than anyone else's.

In this sense, the Territories are not technically "occupied" under the terms of the Geneva Conventions - in that they are not territory of one Contracting Power occupied by another Power. While this is something of a "technicality", it is relevant in relation to other "technicalities"; that is, while I wouldn't attempt to weasel out of legitimate humanitarian obligations because of the fact that the Territories are "disputed" rather than "occupied", the distinction is crucial when discussing issues such as rights of settlement.

The whole notion that the Geneva Conventions deem the "settlements" to be illegal relies on one sentence tacked onto the end of Article 49, which deals mostly with "Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not." The final sentence reads, "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." That's it. There's nothing about preventing *voluntary* settlement of civilians in occupied areas.

The background to this Article is that criticism was leveled at the Red Cross after the Holocaust: Why hadn't the "humanitarian" organization been able (or willing) to do more to prevent or mitigate the genocide against Jews and others? The problem was that "international law" as embodied in the Geneva Conventions and other treaties had very little to say about what countries did inside their own borders. After World War II, the Convention on Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War attempted to mitigate this "protection gap". The Convention still couldn't say much about what Germany (or another country) might do inside its own borders; but at least the drafters of the Convention could say something about the Axis countries' practice of deporting their own Jewish citizens, as well as Jews in occupied areas, to concentration camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

In other words, the very sentence that is now being used to try to evict Jews from their homes in the Territories was actually drafted in response to the eviction of Jews from their homes in Germany, France, Hungary, and so on.

It is clear from the context that Article 49 addresses the forcible transfer of civilian populations, and not the voluntary resettlement of civilians. Had the latter been intended, the language would have made this clear; and such a prohibition would have been put into a separate Article, not tacked onto the end of Article 49.

"Settlements" in the Territories have been created either on land that had previously been bought on the open market for the purpose of Jewish settlement, or on public land. No settlement in the Territories, to my knowledge, has been built on land that was owned or inhabited by Palestinians.

* * *

Note that I am not saying that Israel should hold onto the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. I am, in fact, in favor of giving up a majority of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip - because it's in our interest to set clear borders between the Jewish State and the Palestinians. However, that is not the same as saying that "the settlements" are "illegal". They are not.

Now, to answer the question you actually asked: We can categorize fatalities by where they occurred, as well as by where the individual victim lived. We don't, however, have a "flag" in the Casualties table to indicate whether a particular location is in the Territories; so while I can easily generate statistics for incidents based on whether they occurred in Israel (i.e. inside the Green Line), the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip, I can't easily generate statistics for "settlers" as opposed to "non-settlers".

The distinction is significant, in that "settlers" have been killed in terror attacks inside "Israel proper", and residents of "Israel proper" have been killed when they went on visits, shopping trips, or whatever, inside the Territories.

(The vast majority of Palestinian noncombatant deaths have taken place inside the Territories - which is pretty much what you'd expect. I'd say it's well above 99%.)

We thought about breaking down our statistics based on location, but we decided, at least for now, not to do so. As your own question plainly shows, the fact that a given incident occurred beyond the Green Line will inevitably be used to delegitimize the victims. I, for one, do not see how the death of a 7-year-old girl in a van is any more or less tragic just because she was on one side or another of a 55-year-old armistice line. (The Voice of Palestine, by the way, reported the latest death as that of a "Female Settler" - no mention was made of her age, or the fact the "settlement" she lived in was Haifa.)

Don Radlauer · 19-06-2003 12:57pm

The Corinthian wrote:

quote:
Originally posted by Don Radlauer
But participating in riots or throwing rocks at tanks offers no such advantageous risk/reward ratio; it has substantial risk, with no obvious reward.

I disagree. It actually makes excellent propaganda. Had you considered the effect Palestinian children rising against the Goliath (please excuse the analogy) of Israeli tanks has when beamed to the television sets of the West?

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make!!! That's why I call these people "suicide propagandists" - because that's exactly what their "leadership" is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, most Israeli leaders seem to be very slow to realize this.

The Corinthian · 19-06-2003 1:12pm

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
This is exactly the point I'm trying to make!!! That's why I call these people "suicide propagandists" - because that's exactly what their "leadership" is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, most Israeli leaders seem to be very slow to realize this.

Apologies - the trouble with scanning posts while on the phone to a client

I concur with you.

Don Radlauer · 19-06-2003 1:42pm

Bonkey wrote:

So, you're saying that the implication that these people are stupid - or at least doing something incredibly stupid - is a flaw in my argument?

Tell me - how smart would you rate someone who decides to go out and deliberately try and get themselves killed because of an ad they saw on TV telling them to do so?

If my argument is flawed because I have not credited all of these people with the greatest of intelligence and cunning....surely then your own argument is at least equally flawed for the exact same reason. You have the same people carrying out teh same stupid acts, only now they're doing it because someone else told them it would be a great thing to do...and used tv ads as one means of convincing them of this.

Let's try to make it simple:

I maintain that in general, people do things because of motives that make some kind of sense to them at the time. While a person's deeds may seem profoundly irrational when judged by *my* standards, they generally make sense when judged by the standards of the person who did them.

Faced with behavior that seems not to make sense, the racist says, "These people are stupid/irrational/silly/whatever." The non-racist says, "These people are probably no stupider than anyone else. Their behavior is most likely indicative of some belief/value system different from mine, according to which what they're doing is rational, goal-seeking behavior. This system may itself be 'wrong', but those imbued with its precepts can't be expected to see that until/unless the system itself is changed."

In other words, you, the European liberal (I assume you're more-or-less liberal) are accusing the Palestinians of stupidity and/or irrationality. I, the supposed evil racist Zionist (and a "settler" to boot!) am saying that the Palestinians are just as smart as anyone else, but that they are imprisoned within a very faulty value system.

It's quite true that you or I would not engage in suicidal behavior because of a TV ad. (Or would we? How many on the board smoke cigarettes? I don't, but then I don't watch all that much TV.) That's because we're both members of societies where such behavior is contrary to all we're taught. But for Palestinian kids, it's not just one or two TV ads interrupting a steady diet of Western-style life-affirming values. These kids have been brought up on a steady diet of martyr-worship; they get it in their school textbooks, from their religious and secular teachers, on the radio, on the TV. They actually collect "martyr" medallions, with pictures of famous "martyrs" on them. These are their greatest heroes.

Get this into your head: the leadership of the Palestinian Authority has done everthing in its power (and that's a lot in a dictatorship!) to make an entire generation of young people into a weapon to be used against Israel. The values these kids are being fed are *nothing* like yours or mine. Whereas most Israelis groan inwardly (or outwardly, for that matter) when we hear about innocent Palestinians killed in Israeli "targeted killings", these kids have been taught to be morally comfortable with the most horrific suicide bombings, and to perceive their own "martyrdom" as a desirable goal. And, perhaps most sadly of all, the kids who are most likely to go out and get themselves killed are precisely the good ones, the ones who want to win the approval of their parents, peers, and teachers. These are the kids who should be the Palestinians' most valuable asset in building their nation; and instead, they're being squandered on a propaganda war with Israel.

In order to have any real understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you need to accept, at a "gut" level, that you're not dealing with a bunch of dark-skinned Irishmen who happen to be behaving strangely. You need to accept that (A) the Palestinian "leadership" (or at least Arafat and his allies) is nothing whatsoever like the leadership of Ireland, Israel, or other Western countries; and (B) ordinary Palestinians behave in a rational, goal-seeking manner, just like people anywhere else. Forget this "global village" crap; resurrect the concept of foreignness, and realize that Israel and - to a much greater extent - Palestine are foreign countries.

As long as you view the Palestinians (or the Israelis, for that matter) as "defective Irishmen", you'll never understand what's going on here. You'll never understand why peacemaking here is so damned difficult, because you'll write off behavior driven by the most fundamental values and beliefs as "irrationality".

DadaKopf · 19-06-2003 2:07pm

Am I to assume that the martyr complex internalised by Palestinaians is an attempt to galvanise political opposition through the personalisation of war whereas Israeli political military opposition is achieved through rationalisation and depersonalisation?

Don Radlauer · 19-06-2003 2:43pm

DadaKopf asked:

Am I to assume that the martyr complex internalised by Palestinaians is an attempt to galvanise political opposition through the personalisation of war whereas Israeli political military opposition is achieved through rationalisation and depersonalisation?

Maybe. <g>

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure. Could you flesh out the question a bit? I think I kind of see where you're going, but I'm not 100% certain; and I don't want to attempt an answer until I'm sure I understand the terms you're using, and their implications.

Hobbes · 19-06-2003 3:05pm

That's because we're both members of societies where such behavior is contrary to all we're taught.

Are you so sure? You have just explained that pretty much all Palistinian children are terrorists. That's how it reads to me.

That simply isn't the case. As for being force fed to become terrorists. Who do you think is helping them? Israel.

It's one thing to say one side is evil. It's another when they give the person proof. A child may be a child but they are certainly going to believe it when they see missiles fired into crowds, or thier homes bulldozed and family or friends shot.

But then the same can also be applied in reverse. Putting suicide bombers onto buses and cafes isn't going to help matters.

At one point both sides have to stop seeing each other as the enemy. That is only going to happen when one side goes totally out on a limb and ends the violence regardless of the reprocussions.

By saying something like...

these kids have been taught to be morally comfortable with the most horrific suicide bombings, and to perceive their own "martyrdom" as a desirable goal.

You have already set up a mental roadblock in dealing with them.

Let me share a personal experience.

I've lived in a good few countries. When growing up I lived in Ireland + England.

When in England, one day in school the teacher is explaining the Union Jack and the colours. Someone asks why there is no green for Ireland at which point the teacher replies "We tried to let Ireland join the United Kingdom but they were more intrested in blowing things up".

This is a school teacher in England (at the time UK/NI troubles were around thier highest). No explanation of Irish history or anything.

Around the same time I (and a few other Irish in the class) had to be escorted home by teachers for fear of being beaten after the IRA decieded to put a nail bomb in Hyde park killing 7 horses and 4 people. You think we had anything to do with that or agreed with it? No, yet we were being treated as such by the public.

Likewise in Ireland you got the other end of the spectrum. Having to get protection from people upset with what the British did and being called British (for having just a British accent). If anything the Irish were worse in that respect as it happened on nearly a daily basis while in England the majority were totally apathetic until something happened on the mainland.

Funny enough I still had problems being Irish with a British accent when in Northern Ireland when I was older. While the majority (and I say the majority) of Northern Ireland people are the nicest you could meet, there are small pockets where the whole attitude of people changed when they found out I wasn't British. On both sides. It was sickening. Heck I even one time had an armed escort in a British airport for I guess being Irish and being on the wrong plane at the wrong time (At time I had no clue what was going on, and thought it was just normal airport security).

Truth be told after some research both sides were pretty much as bad as the other, but both were selective in how they are portrayed in day to day life and history. Things like for example that the British Army was sent into Northern Ireland to actually protect the Catholics from attacks, not the other way around. Or the civil rights abuses. Then you had the IRA glorifying the cause by tying itself into the civil rights abuses. The British practically helped recruit the majority of the IRA in it's actions.

My point is (which is repeated numerous times). If you want the children to stop believing the proproganda you have to show it in your actions. Children certainly aren't stupid, in fact probably see through the bull**** better then most adults. They also most certainly shouldn't be treated like terrorists out of hand.

Don Radlauer · 19-06-2003 3:45pm

Hobbes wrote:

You have just explained that pretty much all Palistinian children are terrorists. That's how it reads to me.

That simply isn't the case. As for being force fed to become terrorists. Who do you think is helping them? Israel.

It's one thing to say one side is evil. It's another when they give the person proof. A child may be a child but they are certainly going to believe it when they see missiles fired into crowds, or thier homes bulldozed and family or friends shot.

But then the same can also be applied in reverse. Putting suicide bombers onto buses and cafes isn't going to help matters.

At one point both sides have to stop seeing each other as the enemy. That is only going to happen when one side goes totally out on a limb and ends the violence regardless of the reprocussions.

By saying something like...

quote:
these kids have been taught to be morally comfortable with the most horrific suicide bombings, and to perceive their own "martyrdom" as a desirable goal.

You have already set up a mental roadblock in dealing with them.

I never said that all, or most, Palestinian kids are terrorists. What I said was that they've been carefully groomed as weapons against Israel; but I didn't mean that all, or most, of them would be suicide bombers or the like. I perhaps erred in assuming that you'd assume I was a reasonable person.

When I talk about weapon-hood, I'm not talking exclusively about terrorism. I'm also talking about "martyrdom" for propaganda, and, more generally, about attitudes that make the prospect of peaceful (not to mention friendly) coexistence impossible. Arafat and his cronies have done everything they can to prevent any rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians; and the "weaponization" of young Palestinians is part of this strategy.

You are right, however, in that Israel has done a lot to help Arafat in this effort. I hope I've made it clear that I'm not an apologist for all Israeli actions and policies! Home demolitions, roadblocks, and all the other "stuff" going on makes it very easy for the Palestinians to think of us as evil.

Everyone (or you, at least! <g>) seems to see Israel as the party that can "go totally out on a limb and end the violence regardless of the repercussions." This only sounds easy! The problem, as we've seen many times over recent years, is that there are very powerful forces among the Palestinians that don't want us to be all warm and fuzzy towards them. The terrorist organizations are primarily concerned not with the welfare of ordinary Palestinians, but with their own organizational well-being and power. They thrive best when Israel acts in a heavy-handed, oppressive manner; and so they do what they can to make sure we act that way.

So, when we lift a closure on Palestinian City X, the terror groups make sure to mount an attack as quickly as possible from that city; they've even been known to claim that an attack emanated from newly-un-closed City X when in fact the attack came from another place entirely. The point is that Hamas, Jihad Islami, and so on love the closures and curfews, and try hard to punish us whenever we try to lift them.

So we have to assume that any time Israel eases up on the security measures it has imposed on the Palestinians, we will quickly see an increase in deadly terror attacks. Now, in a perfect world, it might be better to suffer such "repercussions" quietly - and in fact, we often do so when the number of "repercussed" Israelis is small. But we have a very hard time absorbing the impact of major attacks, such as "successful" bus bombings, without a response. Keep in mind that we Israelis have our "baggage" as well - part of which is the legacy of a couple thousand years of being powerless in the face of persecution. After all this, especially the Holocaust which happened only sixty years ago, we have a very hard time being quiet, passive victims.

Further, there is no particular indication that the Palestinian terror groups would easily fall for the "trick" of turning the other cheek. If one suicide bombing failed to get us to "crack down" on them, I strongly suspect that another would quickly follow. How far out on this limb are we supposed to climb? And, for that matter, can you give any example of a nation or people that has behaved in the manner you prescribe?

I do think your approach would work if the Palestinians tried it. I even think this is what Abu Mazen (or Mahmoud Abbas, if you prefer) would like to see happen. Were terrorism to stop (or at least radically diminish, with Palestinian forces acting vigorously against the terrorists), Israeli "security" measures would quickly stop as well; the majority of the Israeli electorate genuinely does want peace, and our politicians know this. The problem is that it will be very difficult for the Palestinians to stop terrorism, unless Abu Mazen is willing to confront the real possibility of a civil war.

Even were Sheikh Yassin to issue a fatwa condemning all attacks on Israelis, it might not help. Indoctrination has gone so far that were Hamas to declare an end to terror, you might well see a new group splitting off to continue attacks - sort of a Hamas equivalent of the "Real IRA".

I don't actually claim to have any "magic answer" to this problem. My own small attempt to mitigate the tragedy is to try to reduce the effectiveness of the Palestinian propaganda-through-victimization campaign, and increase awareness on the Israeli side that our oppressive security measures actually harm our long-term interests.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Interesting Statistics

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