Gideon Polya, “BIG LIE EXPOSED - Comparing US & Palestine homicide rates” , MWC News, 11 July 2006, partly cached by Google.
BIG LIE EXPOSED - Comparing US & Palestine homicide rates
BIG LIES can be deadly, especially when relating to race, murder and geopolitics. Below are some startling statistics from authoritative sources that expose the “terror hysteria” propaganda for the continuing, illegal occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Israel as a BIG LIE.
Using authoritative US Department of Justice, UN Population Division, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Palestine Authority and Mainstream media reports, one can assess homicide rates for US African Americans and Whites and for Holy Land Israelis and Palestinians and then analyse the data in relation to Victims and Perpetrators. Israeli “state terrorism” homicide on Palestinians is horrendous – in terms of “annual homicide rate/million”, Palestinian on Israeli homicide (30.7 Victims per million Israelis each year) is twice that of US White on White homicide (15.2) but much lower than US Black on Black homicide (80.2) or Israeli on Palestinian homicide (261.2 Victims per million Palestinians per year).
Step aside from the “terror hysteria” and racism in much of the DAILY commentary about Israeli violence and Indigenous counter-violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and simply consider the conflict from the perspective of “Victims” and “Perpetrators” of HOMICIDE in the Holy Land.
In doing so it is useful to make a comparison with another exploitative, racist and violent multiracial situation for which adequate statistical data are available, specifically the United States of America.
Indeed the US comparison is useful because Israeli “terror hysteria” and racism, coupled with disproportionate influence of the Israel Lobby in Mainstream media and politics, has helped get the US embroiled in the Bush “War on Terror” that has so far committed the US to costs totaling $1-2 trillion and has so far been associated with total of 2.3 million post-invasion avoidable deaths and 1.8 million under-5 infant deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (as of March, 2006; see MWC News: , here and here ). Given that about half the civilians of these Victim countries are Children and three quarters are Women and Children, Bush’s War on Terror is in actuality a War on Women and Children.
UPDATED (JULY 2006) estimates of the cost of Bush’s War on Terror and the Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been made from UN Population Division data . The post-invasion avoidable mortality (avoidable or excess death) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories totals 0.332, 0.538 and 1.986 million, respectively; the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality totals 0.186, 0.417 and 1.582 million, respectively (about 90% avoidable and largely due to Coalition/NATO/Israeli non-provision of life-sustaining requisites demanded by the Geneva Convention); the post-invasion global opiate drug-related deaths total 0.5 million (largely due to US-Coalition/NATO restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry to currently about 90% of global market share); and 0.1 million avoidable US under-5 infant deaths (due to perverted US Administration policies). Compared to an estimated 3.4 million post-invasion avoidable deaths due to Israeli, US, UK, Coalition and NATO “state terrorism”, the number of Western Civilians murdered by Muslim-origin “non-state terrorism” over the last 40 (FORTY) years totals about 7,000 (assuming no Israeli or US complicity in the 9/11 atrocity) (see MWC News ).
WHITE, BLACK & OTHER HOMICIDE IN UNITED STATES
The US Department of Justice provides detailed Homicide statistics for the period 1976-2004 (see: here , and here ) for groups identified by them as Whites, Blacks and Others.
In 2004 the number of Homicides was 7,939 (Whites; 49.9% of the total), 7,557 (Blacks; 47.5%), 417 (others; 2.6%) and 15,913 (total number of Victims).
In 2004 the US population comprised 240.58 million Whites (81.2%), 38.36 million Blacks (12.9%), 17.38 million Others (5.9%) and 296.32 million in total.
In 2004 the “annual homicide rate/million of population)” was 33.0 (for Whites), 197.0 (Blacks), 24.0 (Others) and 53.7 (on average for the whole country).
In 2004, representing White, Black and Other as W, B and O, respectively, and “White perpetrators on White Victims “ as “W on W” etc, the breakdown of 10,327 identified Perpetrators was as follows: 4,758 ( 46.1%; W on W), 880 (8.5%; B on W), and 36 (0.4% (O on W); 358 (3.5%; W on B), 4198 (40.7%; B on B), and 1 (0.0%; (O on B); 21 (0.2%; W on O); 13 (0.1%; B on O); and 62 (0.6% (O on O).
In 2004, the identified Perpetrators comprised 5,137 whites (49.7%), 5,091 Blacks (49.3%) and 99 others (1.0%).
Major findings from this US Department of Justice analysis are that in 2004 offending rates for Blacks were over 6 times higher than the rates for Whites (no doubt relatable to the markedly different socio-economic conditions), and in the 1976- 2004 period 86% of White Victims were killed by Whites and that 94% of Black Victims were killed by Blacks i.e. most murders are intra-racial.
However this pattern dramatically changes when we go to the Holy Land.
ISRAELI & PALESTINIAN HOMICIDE IN HOLY LAND
As of JULY 10, 2006, since the beginning of the Second Intifada (September 2000), there have been 1,138 Israelis killed by Palestinians and 5,303 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers.
In 2003, the population of Israel was about 6.4 million and that of the Occupied Palestinian Territories 3.5 million.
The “endogenous homicide rate/million” in Israel (i.e. independent of Palestinian non-state terrorism) is about 14.1 per million (see: here and here ).
The “annual homicide rate/million” in the Arab countries Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia is 1.0, 4.0 and 11.2, respectively (see: here ). Let us take the highest value (11.2) as an approximation of the “endogenous Occupied Palestinian Territory homicide rate/million” (i.e. independent of Israeli state terrorism).
Using the above data we can calculate average “annual homicide rate/million” for Israelis in the post-September 2000 period as 30.7 ( Israelis by Palestinians), 14.1 (Israelis by Israelis) and 44.8 (in total; as compared to 53.7 for the US).
The “annual “annual homicide rate/million” for Palestinians in this period is 261.2 (Palestinians by Israelis), 11.2 (Palestinians by Palestinians) and 272.4 (in total; as compared to 53.7 for the US and 44.8 for Israel).
Translating this into “average annual homicides” we can estimate 196.5 (Israelis by Palestinians; 68.5% of total Israeli Victims), 90.2 (Israelis by Israelis; 31.5%) and 286.7 (in total); 914.2 (Palestinians by Israelis; 95.9% of total Palestinian Victims), 39.2 (Palestinians by Palestinians; 4.1%) and 953.4 (in total).
We can then see that of the “average annual homicides” totaling 1240.1 in the Holy Land, from the perspective of VICTIMS 286.7 (23.1%) have been OF Israelis and 953.4 (76.9%) OF Palestinians – however in relation to PERPETRATORS, 1004.4 (81.0%) have been BY Israelis and 235.7 (19.0%) have been BY Palestinians.
SUMMARY
The Holy Land has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 (the “independence” of Gaza is an extraordinary fiction because it is surrounded by Israeli armed forces and subject at will to egregious Israeli military violence).
To the extent that 50% of the people of this Israeli “Prison” are Children - and 75% Women and Children – the force applied by Israel to assert its illegal control should be commensurate with that applied in civilized countries to restoration of order in a Women’s Prison or a Children’s Prison. In reality the force has been excessive and accompanied by grossly excessive mortality and morbidity.
Since the September 2000 commencement of the Second Intifada, 23.1% of Homicide Victims in the Holy Land have been Israelis and 76.9% Palestinians; however 81% of these Homicides have been due to Israelis and 19% due to Palestinians.
In contrast, in the United States in recent times, while the African American community has been disproportionately subject to Homicidal violence (47.5% of total Homicides in 2004 while representing only 12.9% of the population), in 2004 only 8.5% of White Victims were killed by Blacks and only 3.5% of Black Victims were killed by Whites.
However similarities exist between homicide complicity in the Holy Land and United States. Thus the CIA funded drug abuse and armed gang violence in American cities associated with its support for Contra terrorism (see: here ). Further, Al Qaeda was funded by the UK, the US and their surrogates (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) for a dozen years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the Holy Land, Mossad (external intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal intelligence) initially supported Hamas as a religious counterweight to the secular Fatah and PLO (see also: here, here and here ).
The US Establishment has a major responsibility for disproportionate Homicide affecting the African American community through lack of proper policing, lack of social equity and the legacy of the secret US policy of arming urban gangs and promoting cocaine abuse.
The disproportionate and horrendous Homicide of Palestinians by Israeli “state terrorism” is in stark contrast to the BIG LIE promulgated by complicit Mainstream media of devastating and monolithic Palestinian “non-state terrorism”. Homicide due to Palestinian “non-state terrorism” is indubitably REAL and indubitably WRONG – but is far smaller than Israeli “state terrorism”-linked Homicide. Thus, in terms of “annual homicide rate/million of Victim population”, Palestinian on Israeli homicide (30.7) is twice the incidence of US White on White homicide (15.2) but much lower than Black on Black homicide (80.2) or Israeli on Palestinian homicide (261.2).
If the US, formally believing in “all men are created equal”, were to follow the disproportionate and racist Israeli example it would be using its Army, Navy and Air Force to shell, bomb and shoot up African American urban ghettoes in response to urban “non-state terrorism” in major American cities.
Palestinian “non-state terrorism” has roots in secret Israeli support for Hamas in the 1980s and is utterly counterproductive – it is assisting violent Ultrazionist acquisition of Palestinian land leading to further extension of the Apartheid-style occupation of the West Bank and an impending, unilateral imposition of an unsustainable, racist and vile Bantustan solution on the long-suffering Palestinian people. There is an horrendous disparity between 3.4 million avoidable deaths associated with the Israel-fomented and US-led War on Terror and the number of Western civilians killed by Muslim-origin terrorists over the last 40 years that presently totals 7,000 (noting that this latter figure assumes no active or passive complicity of Israeli or US agencies in the 9/11 atrocity.)
The Israeli BIG LIE over “terror” has contributed to “terror hysteria”-driven compromising of Western civil liberties, horrendous carnage in the Middle East and Central Asia, and diversion of First World countries from the REAL problem of global avoidable mortality that currently totals 16 million avoidable deaths every year.