August 20, 2003

MIDDLE EAST TERRORISM IDENTIFIED

The real problem, according to The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald, is conservative Jewish vigilantes:

There is concern about the growing number of terrorist attacks by right-wing Israelis opposed to the already faltering peace plan.

In the last two years, at least seven Palestinians have been killed and 19 wounded in unsolved shootings attributed to Israeli civilians in the West Bank, an Israeli security official said.

Seven in two years. So most of these murders took place before the “already faltering peace plan” began to falter. And what’s with the certainty that the killers were right wing and opposed to the peace plan? Didn’t the NYT just tell us that the killings were “unsolved” and only “attributed”?

Much lower in the story:

One of the few points of agreement is that attacks by Israeli civilians against Palestinians are rare. B'Tselem says Israeli civilians have killed 32 Palestinians in the last three years. In the same period, 328 Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinians inside Israel, and 190 more in the West Bank and Gaza.

Thirty-two dead in the last three years ... but only seven dead in the last two years. Somehow the NYT feels comfortable describing this declining rate as a "growing number of terrorist attacks".

Posted by Tim Blair at August 20, 2003 03:50 AM
Comments

I'm still waiting for the media to link the consuption of a Big Mac to the death of a Palestinian child.

Posted by: Murdoch Soft Eng Student at August 20, 2003 at 04:25 AM

'Murdoch Soft Eng Student', your comment brings to mind a ditty I wrote once:

There were scenes of terror in Sydney
As 27 year old Arthur Black
Accidentally swallowed a bomb
That was buried in a Big Mac.

That's about all I can remember - it just got worse from then on.

Posted by: TimT at August 20, 2003 at 11:13 AM

A few weeks ago, some self righteous morons in NYC were bothering Saturday pedestrians by shouting that 50 Palestinians a day are killed by Jewish Settlers.

Glad the number is smaller... like 1/50 of a Palestinian killed a day.

Damn reciprocals! I never understood them either, so I can't fault the Free Palestine geeks!

Posted by: Bob at August 20, 2003 at 11:49 AM

Its typical of the pro-Palestinian propagandists to reverse the situation and accuse Israel of the very thing the Palestinians are guilty of.

RACISM
ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE
VIOLENCE
INCITEMENT
NOT COMMITING TO PEACE

Posted by: Jono at August 20, 2003 at 06:38 PM

I have a few comments on the article.

Posted by: Yehudit at August 21, 2003 at 08:16 AM

Minor point here. The article notes that the seven dead over the last two years was the number of unsolved shootings attributed to Israeli civilians. The article then states that total number of dead over three years was 32.

Since one refers to the aggregate number and one refers to the number of unsolved shootings, there is no reason to assume that 25 Palestinians were killed in 2000 and that the rate is declining.

On the other hand, with rates that low, the sample size might not be large enough to determine if the rate is increasing or decreasing.

Posted by: Anticipatory Retaliation at August 21, 2003 at 10:17 AM