Statistical Analysis of Casualties in the Palestinian - Israeli Conflict,

[kat]

I find the analysis of the deaths of children about 3/4's of the way down, interesting, as well as tragic.

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=439

More on the deaths of children

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=16&x_article=346

 

[Zero]

It would have been better if CAMERA wasn't such a pro-Israel site...

 

[schwarzchildradius]

Oh I'm sure that Israel is very surgical when it comes to killing palestinians. The issue has more to do with geopolitical trade alliances than casualty statistics skewed for shock value however. The grossly uncivilized trade policies formulated by israel and america have caused far far more casualties worldwide than any number if suicide bombers. That's why we rule the world.

 

[Zero]

Anyways, this is apples and oranges. This is like comparing drug dealer shooting cops and innocents, to police gunning down civilians while chacing drug dealers. When looked at that way, NO statistical analysis is going to cover Israels crime against humanity.

 

[kat]

Originally posted by Zero
It would have been better if CAMERA wasn't such a pro-Israel site...

All sites and reporters have their own brand of bias, zero. If there's something erroneous about the facts presented, please feel free to offer corrections.


You continuously insinuate that israeli's purposely and unscrupulously target and gun down children on a weekly basis, I thought you might be interested in looking at the some of the various issues involved, factually based.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by kat
All sites and reporters have their own brand of bias, zero. If there's something erroneous about the facts presented, please feel free to offer corrections.


You continuously insinuate that israeli's purposely and unscrupulously target and gun down children on a weekly basis, I thought you might be interested in looking at the some of the various issues involved, factually based.

For you, 'factually based' means 'pro-Israel, all the time', at least based on that CAMERA website.

Israelis gun down civilians indiscriminantly...the difference between them and Palestinian terrorists is that 1) they are better at killing Palestinians, 2) any time a Palestinian picks up a gun to defend himself he becomes a combatant, 3) the Israeli troops act in an official manner, supported by US tax dollars, so we have a right to look at it more closely.

 

[plus]

Why are the vast makority of israli combatants killed 20 - 24?

Is this to do with conscription?

 

[damgo]

The majority of combatants anywhere would be in that age group I'd guess... but yeah, Israel does have mandatory military service, unless you're ultra-Orthodox.

 

[kat]

Originally posted by Zero
For you, 'factually based' means 'pro-Israel, all the time', at least based on that CAMERA website.

Israelis gun down civilians indiscriminantly...the difference between them and Palestinian terrorists is that 1) they are better at killing Palestinians, 2) any time a Palestinian picks up a gun to defend himself he becomes a combatant, 3) the Israeli troops act in an official manner, supported by US tax dollars, so we have a right to look at it more closely.

Well, again your response has fallen to insult and rhetoric, I specificly asked you to provide corrections to anything you disagreed with. Instead it appears that all your capable of is spewing forth hateful anti-israeli rhetoric without any factual or statistical support, apparently I should just shut up, stop posting my israeli loving rhetoric and take your word for it.

Maybe you should stop spewing hatred and support your position with facts and statistics.

 

[kat]

Originally posted by plus
Why are the vast makority of israli combatants killed 20 - 24?

Is this to do with conscription?

Conscription starts at 18, according to this article in the 15-19 year old range only 19 year old combatants have been killed, no 18 year old combatants have been killed. That would explain the higher concentration of 20-24 year olds.

 

[GENIERE]

Kat:

Leftists can rarely support positions with facts. Demagoguery is their only weapon. Show some pity, please.

Regards

 

[N_Quire]

Kat,
One person's facts are another person's opinions. What are facts and statistics without an ideological framework with which to make sense of them?

 

[Zero]

Hmmmm...if I don't bow down to pro-Israel interpretations of the facts, I am showing hate? If I don't bend over backwards to fit the statistics to put Israel in a positive light, I must be lying, huh?

And, of course, instead f thinking, you just say 'leftist', instead of using your brain.

 

[kat]

Originally posted by Zero
Hmmmm...if I don't bow down to pro-Israel interpretations of the facts, I am showing hate? If I don't bend over backwards to fit the statistics to put Israel in a positive light, I must be lying, huh?

And, of course, instead f thinking, you just say 'leftist', instead of using your brain.

Another post devoid of any facts or references (the term red herring comes to mind).
again, where are the facts and references to support your opinion?
Very simply, if you can offer no facts or reference your argument is unsupported opinion. please toss the rhetoric and support your statements, whether pro- or anti-, with facts and references.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by kat
Another post devoid of any facts or references (the term red herring comes to mind).
again, where are the facts and references to support your opinion?
Very simply, if you can offer no facts or reference your argument is unsupported opinion. please toss the rhetoric and support your statements, whether pro- or anti-, with facts and references.

I was using your facts and evidence against you...read it again. I simply said that comparing Suicide bombers to troops is like comparing apples and oranges, and stated several reasons why. If you don't like my reasons, argue against them, not at my 'hate'.

 

[kat]

Originally posted by Zero
I was using your facts and evidence against you...read it again. I simply said that comparing Suicide bombers to troops is like comparing apples and oranges, and stated several reasons why. If you don't like my reasons, argue against them, not at my 'hate'.

I'm not sure how you can use "my" facts and evidence against me, as I am not making an argument, only opening it up for discussion. I used the ICT statistics because it is the only one to date that I have found that identifies palestinians as combatants and non-combatants, and identifies deaths caused by palestinian against palestinian as separate. It's also the only one I see that really addresses the issues facing children on both sides. Including the tragedy of palestinian children, particularly young boys from not only israeli soldiers but the encouragement and recruiting of hezbollah, fatah and government propaganda. If you can find a comparable site for comparision I have no problem at all looking at it.

Also,I'm sorry, I don't quite see how drug dealers and cops are valid comparisions?

 

[N_Quire]

Take what you call bare facts, nothing but lists of numbers, now interpret them, but hang on, don't give that job to a Palestinian or an Israeli, give it to an American and not just any American but one without a dog in the fight. Give the job of interpreting data to someone who knows nothing of the conflict, its history, the reasons why 'a' hates 'b' and vice versa.

What happens next? People with a dog in the fight say that their special situation has not been taken into account, that the interpretation has to be weighted to take into account the holocaust or the murder of Palestinian refugees, etc, etc. In other words, there is no such thing as a completely dispassionate interpretation of facts. Your values, your background, your agenda, they all all play in.

 

[Hurkyl]

Kat isn't offering her own interpretation of facts, nor is she asking an independent to analyze them.

She's asking for you (that's a plural you) to provide facts and analysis.

 

[N_Quire]

But I'm too busy complaining to get my hands dirty with facts and analysis.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Hurkyl
Kat isn't offering her own interpretation of facts, nor is she asking an independent to analyze them.

She's asking for you (that's a plural you) to provide facts and analysis.

I DID provide analysis...but since it doesn't agree with thegeneral cheerleading for Israel, it is somehow invalid.

My point was, no matter how bad criminals are, the cops aren't allowed to kill children to getthem. In the same way, I don't care if every single Israeli is killed by a terrorist, the soldiers are NOT ALLOWED TO INDISCRIMINANTLY KILL CIVILIANS.

That is such a hard concept for so many people to understand...but, Israel is 'special', so the rules don't apply to them.

 

[Hurkyl]

I DID provide analysis

Where is it? You've not provided one shred of evidence that soldiers are indiscriminately killing civilians, and it's fairly daft to make such an unsubstantiated claim given the pretty strong evidence at the ICT site that such a claim is false.

 

[Zero]

Since both sites are rabidly pro-Israel, their data is assumed to be skewed. Neither site, in all the pages I looked at, ever ONCE showed a single thing that Israel has done wrong...which means that both sites are intentionally incomplete(lying may be too strong of a word)


First off, I have been discussing interpretation of facts...not the facts themselves. The Israelis killed three times as many Palestinians as they lost.

Secondly, who decides who is a non-combatant? Israel, of course...and as pointed out earlier, a Palestinian man who hears shooting and picks up a gun to defend his home could be mistaken for a combatant. If someone comes onto my property, in my land, they are an invader. Israelis in the occupied territories are easily seen to be invaders.

And again, my point...soldiers are not allowed to kill civilians, especially children. Not a single one. Any other attitude stikes me as being in support of genocide.

 

[Zero]

Or, let's look at another number provided...617 noncombatants killed by Israel. That is out of 1596 total Palestinian fatalities. That means that 40% of the people that Israeli soldiers killed were noncombatants. That may as well be a dictionary definition of indiscriminant.

 

[Hurkyl]

*gasp* so you can perform analysis. Since you're capable of such a thing, it makes one wonder what your motivation for waiting this long to do it, and pretending that you were doing an analysis up until this point.



Now that we're actually discussing the facts this may get interesting. Ignoring the "who's worse than who" topic (for now anyways), the thing that struck me most was the statistical distribution of fatalities.

Graphs 1.5, 1.6, 2.16, and 2.18 were particularly interesting, indicating that there have been extremely few Palestinian female fatalities.

The age distribution of Palestinian fatalities listed in graphs 2.21 and 2.22 shows a strong pattern as well.

These 4 graphs strongly indicate that there is a strong pattern in who the Israeli kill.



As for the percentage you state, 40% noncombatant fatality rate, I unfortunately do not know of a baseline against which I can compare (other than the Israeli fatality rate which I said I wouldn't use).



I've gone through the ICT page again, and I don't see the rabid bias of which you speak. The primary thesis, to me, seemed to be to characterize the past two and a half years of conflict into 4 distinct phases. The secondary point, to me, seemed to be to demonstrate the strong evidence that the Israeli are not out there randomly killing people. The article doesn't try to paint a rosy picture of Israeli actions, it mentions events like the "Israeli 'targetted' killing in Gaza", admits possible problems in Israeli field tactics, and explains some data via Israeli incursions into Palestinian Authority territory.

And even if the site is rabidly pro-Israel, numbers don't lie. If the presentations are wrong, then you can reinterpret the numbers to show that. Simply dismissing the entire article as being biased isn't sufficient.



I'm not an Israel fanboy; it just happens that on the one side I've seen in-depth throrough analysis that demonstrates that the Israeli's aren't so bad, and on the other hand the arguments I see on Israeli being "evil" are oversimplified appeal mostly to emotion and not reason. What I see is essentially (to greatly simplify things):

"Israel is bad: see fact A!"
"Israel isn't so bad, sure there's fact A, but fact B mitigates that."
"Israel is bad: see fact A!"

without a "fact C" supporting the "Israel is bad" camp, or at least a sound debunking of the fact B explanation, the only rational conclusion I can make is that the "Israel is bad" camp doesn't have a sound argument.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Hurkyl



As for the percentage you state, 40% noncombatant fatality rate, I unfortunately do not know of a baseline against which I can compare (other than the Israeli fatality rate which I said I wouldn't use).

You don't need a baseline. A professional military organization is killing almost as many noncombatants as combatants,. That is at LEAST severe incompetence.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zero
You don't need a baseline. A professional military organization is killing almost as many noncombatants as combatants,. That is at LEAST severe incompetence.

Not incompetence, terrorism - by the Arabs. The Arabs use human shields to MAXIMIZE their own civilian casualties just like Saddam did. Thats a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Also, incompetece is one thing, but it can't be argued that the Arabs even TRY to target combatants. They specifically target civilians.

Zero, just to clarify, do you believe the numbers or not? And if not how far off do you think they are? And do you have any source for better numbers?

I frankly didn't read much of that site, but I just looked at the graphs. Unless the numbers are fabrications, graphs cannot be biased.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Not incompetence, terrorism - by the Arabs. The Arabs use human shields to MAXIMIZE their own civilian casualties just like Saddam did. Thats a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Also, incompetece is one thing, but it can't be argued that the Arabs even TRY to target combatants. They specifically target civilians.

Zero, just to clarify, do you believe the numbers or not? And if not how far off do you think they are? And do you have any source for better numbers?

I frankly didn't read much of that site, but I just looked at the graphs. Unless the numbers are fabrications, graphs cannot be biased.

That human shield thing...show me numbers, does that explain away a large percentage of the INNOCENTS GUNNED DOWN?(I have to use caps, no one here listens...)


And what about reports of Israeli soldiers shooting from behind Palestinian prosoners, using them as human shields?

 

[N_Quire]

What if your baseline, albeit an extreme one, is that Israel shouldn't be killing any Palestinians? It should be withdrawing from occupied areas and negotiating to set up a Palestinian state.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Zero
That human shield thing...show me numbers, does that explain away a large percentage of the INNOCENTS GUNNED DOWN?(I have to use caps, no one here listens...)

Another interesting point: innocents. Its tough to distinguish the combatants from the non-combatants in this fight (on one side, anyway). So if anything the numbers we get show HIGHER than actual non-combatant casualties. They don't for example, take into account that a willing human shield is a combatant or that a 12 year old with an AK-47 is a combatant. After the dust settles all you see is a dead woman and child - so they are counted as civilian casualties since its tough to prove they are not.

And what about reports of Israeli soldiers shooting from behind Palestinian prosoners, using them as human shields?

I can't comment on reports I haven't seen.

In any case, I'm hearing the same thing as always from you, Zero - murder is justified (oxymoron) if its Israelis that are killed and facts that don't show the Israelis as the bad guys must be biased (or lies).

What if your baseline, albeit an extreme one, is that Israel shouldn't be killing any Palestinians? It should be withdrawing from occupied areas and negotiating to set up a Palestinian state.

I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly most people believe those are things the Israelis should be doing.

I had another thought last night (thats two this month already!). The peace proposals are generally termed "land for peace" deals. Ie, Israel gives up land and in return the Arabs stop being terrorists. Doesn't that imply that the Arabs are the agressors? Wouldn't signing such an agreement be tantamount to an admission by the Arabs that they are the agressors? They like to say they are "retaliating" though. Hmm...

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by russ_watters


In any case, I'm hearing the same thing as always from you, Zero - murder is justified (oxymoron) if its Israelis that are killed and facts that don't show the Israelis as the bad guys must be biased (or lies).

In any case, you show your inability to read what I actually post, Russ...do you need me to call you and read my posts to you slowly? Would it help if I dressed like Barney the Purple %@$#& Dinosaur? I've never said that Israeli losses are good...NEVER. Your subconscious fills that in so you can dismiss facts that conflict with your worldview, apparently. What I have said, repeatedly, is that the standards are different, because soldiers are professional, and terrorists are criminals. We don't let cops act like crooks, do we? Unless they are Israeli, I guess?



I used the stats Kat provided to prove my point that Israeli troops indiscriminantly kill noncombatants. Her stats came from a pro-Israel website...what more do you want?