Understanding The Palestniian-israeli Conflict

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Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Phyllis Bennis

It’s more a primer than a full-lenght book and is available from tari.org. Tari provides scholary studies oriented towards understanding the present social, cultural, economic and political issues confronting Middle Eastern societies.

I read the book hoping that it would be a concise and unbiased source of scholarly information. I was disappointed. If someone wants an overview of the current situation and history, it provides that. Unfortunately it does so from a highly biased perspective, ie the Palestinians are innocent and Israel are evil and bad.

As an example the booklet says that the deaths to Palestinians during the 2nd “intifada” (the recent spate of violence starting in 2000) outnumber deaths to Israelis four to one. Fine. That may be factually true. What the book does not tell you however is this:

1. The Palestinian death count includes Palestinian murders who were suicide bombers and those that blow themselves up accidently while making bombs to kill innocent Israeli women and children.

2. The Palestinians have willfully tried to kill many more Israelis than they have been successful in killing. Israeli authorities have been successfull in stopping many if not the majority of attempted Palestinian murders of Israelis. The moral culpability is the same whether attempted murder is successful or not.

3. Fewer Israelis wind up dying when attacked by Palestinians because Israel has a very advanced and sophisticated medical system to deal with that kind of emergency. Many more would have died had such medical care not been available. Moreover, Israel has offered the same medical services to all victims of the conflict, but the Palestinian authorities have refused and many more Palestinians have died as a result.

While Palestinian people have suffered a lack of medical care, Palestinian leaders have been stealing them blind. Arafat’s personal fortune exceeded $300 million.

4. Palestinian terrorists typically target women, old men and children by bombing them with suicide bombers on buses, in night clubs, in schools, in markets etc. Israelis typically target Palestinian military or terrorists and their installations. Unfortunately, the terrorists locate their bomb making installations next to grade schools and the like knowing full well that reprisals will result in the accidental deaths of innocent Palestinians. They count on it. The Palestian strategy reliies on killing innocent (non-miltary) Israelis and then having the Israelis respond by killing Palestinians so the Palestinians can claim victimization. On the other hand Israeli militrary targets are purposely located far from civilans.

If you are looking for an overview of the situation, then it suits the purpose but I would caution that it is highly slanted and all the conclusions are suspect.