Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Perspectives on Global Conflict - 90% of Muslim War-Dead Killed by Fellow Muslims, only 0.3% in Wars with Israel
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, October 08, 2007
The Arab-Israeli conflict is often said, not just by extremists, to be the world's most dangerous conflict - and, accordingly, Israel is judged the world's most belligerent country.
For example, British prime minister Tony Blair told the U.S. Congress in July 2003 that "Terrorism will not be defeated without peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is able to confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people the case for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel." This viewpoint leads many Europeans, among others, to see Israel as the most menacing country on earth.
But is this true? It flies in the face of the well-known pattern that liberal democracies do not aggress; plus, it assumes, wrongly, that the Arab-Israeli conflict is among the most costly in terms of lives lost.
To place the Arab-Israeli fatalities in their proper context, one of the two co-authors, Gunnar Heinsohn, has compiled statistics to rank conflicts since 1950 by the number of human deaths incurred. Note how far down the list is the entry in bold type.
Conflicts since 1950 with over 10,000 Fatalities*
3 - 4,000,000 Ethiopia, 1962-92: Communists, artificial hunger, genocides
5 - 2,800,000 Korean war, 1950-53
6 - 1,900,000 Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006 (civil wars, genocides)
7 - 1,870,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91
8 - 1,800,000 Vietnam War, 1954-75
9 - 1,800,000 Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001
12 - 1,100,000 Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000) + after retreat of Portugal 1976-92
13 - 1,000,000 Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88
14 - 900,000 Rwanda genocide, 1994
15 - 875,000 Algeria: against France 1954-62 (675,000); between Islamists and the government 1991-2006 (200,000)
16 - 850,000 Uganda, 1971-79; 1981-85; 1994-present
17 - 650,000 Indonesia: Marxists 1965-66 (450,000); East Timor, Papua, Aceh etc, 1969-present (200,000)
18 - 580,000 Angola: war against Portugal 1961-72 (80,000); after Portugal's retreat (1972-2002)
22 - 400,000 Burundi, 1959-present (Tutsi/Hutu)
23 - 400,000 Somalia, 1991-present
24 - 400,000 North Korea up to 2006 (own people)
25 - 300,000 Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, 1980s-1990s
26 - 300,000 Iraq, 1970-2003 (Saddam against minorities)
27 - 240,000 Columbia, 1946-58; 1964-present
28 - 200,000 Yugoslavia, Tito regime, 1944-80
29 - 200,000 Guatemala, 1960-96
30 - 190,000 Laos, 1975-90
31 - 175,000 Serbia against Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, 1991-1999
32 - 150,000 Romania, 1949-99 (own people)
33 - 150,000 Liberia, 1989-97
34 - 140,000 Russia against Chechnya, 1994-present
35 - 150,000 Lebanon civil war, 1975-90
36 - 140,000 Kuwait War, 1990-91
37 - 130,000 Philippines: 1946-54 (10,000); 1972-present (120,000)
38 - 130,000 Burma/Myanmar, 1948-present
39 - 100,000 North Yemen, 1962-70
40 - 100,000 Sierra Leone, 1991-present
41 - 100,000 Albania, 1945-91 (own people)
44 - 75,000 El Salvador, 1975-92
47 - 60,000 Zimbabwe, 1966-79; 1980-present
48 - 60,000 Nicaragua, 1972-91 (Marxists/natives etc,)
50 - 50,000 North Vietnam, 1954-75 (own people)
51 - 50,000 Tajikistan, 1992-96 (secularists against Islamists)
52 - 50,000 Equatorial Guinea, 1969-79
53 - 50,000 Peru, 1980-2000
54 - 50,000 Guinea, 1958-84
55 - 40,000 Chad, 1982-90
56 - 30,000 Bulgaria, 1948-89 (own people)
57 - 30,000 Rhodesia, 1972-79
58 - 30,000 Argentina, 1976-83 (own people)
59 - 27,000 Hungary, 1948-89 (own people)
60 - 26,000 Kashmir independence, 1989-present
61 - 25,000 Jordan government vs. Palestinians, 1970-71 (Black September)
62 - 22,000 Poland, 1948-89 (own people)
63 - 20,000 Syria, 1982 (against Islamists in Hama)
64 - 20,000 Chinese-Vietnamese war, 1979
65 - 19,000 Morocco: war against France, 1953-56 (3,000) and in Western Sahara, 1975-present (16,000)
66 - 18,000 Congo Republic, 1997-99
67 - 10,000 South Yemen, 1986 (civil war)
This grisly inventory finds the total number of deaths in conflicts since 1950 numbering about 85,000,000. Of that sum, the deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1950 include 32,000 deaths due to Arab state attacks and 19,000 due to Palestinian attacks, or 51,000 in all. Arabs make up roughly 35,000 of these dead and Jewish Israelis make up 16,000.
These figures mean that deaths Arab-Israeli fighting since 1950 amount to just 0.06 percent of the total number of deaths in all conflicts in that period. More graphically, only 1 out of about 1,700 persons killed in conflicts since 1950 has died due to Arab-Israeli fighting.
(Adding the 11,000 killed in the Israeli war of independence, 1947-49, made up of 5,000 Arabs and 6,000 Israeli Jews, does not significantly alter these figures.)
In a different perspective, some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, or 0.3 percent, died during the sixty years of fighting Israel, or just 1 out of every 315 Muslim fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.
Comments: (1) Despite the relative non-lethality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its renown, notoriety, complexity, and diplomatic centrality will probably give it continued out-sized importance in the global imagination. And Israel's reputation will continue to pay the price. (2) Still, it helps to point out the 1-in-1,700 statistic as a corrective, in the hope that one day, this reality will register, permitting the Arab-Israeli conflict to subside to its rightful, lesser place in world politics.
THE JERUSALEM POST
Nov. 30, 2007
This week the Bush Administration legitimized Arab anti-Semitism. In an effort to please the Saudis and their Arab brothers, the Bush administration agreed to physically separate the Jews from the Arabs at the Annapolis conference in a manner that aligns with the apartheid policies of the Arab world which prohibit Israelis from setting foot on Arab soil. Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs.
At the meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called her Arab counterparts to task for their discriminatory treatment. "Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand? Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?" she asked pointedly. Israel's humiliated foreign minister did not receive support from her American counterpart. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who spent her childhood years in the segregated American South, sided with the Arabs .
Although polite enough to note that she doesn't support the slaughter of Israelis, she made no bones about the fact that her true sympathies lie with the racist Arabs. As she put it, "I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness ." Rice's remarks make clear that for the Secretary of State there is no difference between Israelis trying to defend themselves from a jihadist Palestinian society which supports the destruction of the Jewish state and bigoted white Southerners who oppressed African Americans because of the color of their skin .
It is true that Israel has security concerns, but as far as Rice is concerned, the Palestinians are the innocent victims. They are the ones who are discriminated against and humiliated, not Livni, who was forced - by Rice - to enter the conference through the service entrance.
The Bush administration's tolerance for discrimination against Israel was not merely ceremonial. Diplomatically , the conference was equally prejudicial. At Annapolis, the US joined the Arabs in placing the lion's share of blame for the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians on Israel....."
This was a shameful week for America, and worse for Bush. It was a betrayal of the war on terror the Administration claims to be fighting. Hamas, Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia are all on the other side of this war, while Israel, their victim, is a frontline state in the battle for freedom.
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