In Black and White

Sometimes statistics don't lie; they lay things bare in black and white.

Dennis Prager writes of the statistics in the Israel-Arab Wars in the article, Explaining the Arab-Israeli conflict through numbers.

www.jewishworldreview.com For the many readers who have requested a brief synopsis of the moral arguments in the Arab-Israeli conflict, I offer the following list of numerical data.

Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: over 700
Number of times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran: 0
Number of Arab leaders who visited Jerusalem when it was under Arab rule (1948 to 1967): 1
Number of Arab refugees who fled the land that became Israel: approximately 600,000
Number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries: approximately 600,000
Number of U.N. agencies that deal only with Palestinian refugees: 1
Number of U.N. agencies that deal with all the other refugees in the world: 1
Number of Jewish states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 3
Number of Arab or Muslim states that have existed on the land called Palestine: 0
Number of terrorist attacks by Israelis or Jews since 1967: 1
Number of terrorist attacks by Arabs or Muslims since 1967: thousands
Percentage of Jews who have praised the Jewish terrorist: approximately .1
Percentage of Palestinians who have praised Islamic terrorists: approximately 90
Number of Jewish countries: 1
Number of Jewish democracies: 1
Number of Arab countries: 19
Number of Arab democracies: 0
Number of Arab women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": thousands
Number of Jewish women killed annually by fathers and brothers in "honor killings": 0
Number of Christian or Jewish prayer services allowed in Saudi Arabia: 0
Number of Muslim prayer services allowed in Israel: unlimited
Number of Arabs Israel allows to live in Arab settlements in Israel: 1,250,000
Number of Jews Palestinian Authority allows to live in Jewish settlements in Palestinian Authority: 0
Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning an Arab country for human rights violations: 0
Percentage of U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations: 26
Number of U.N. Security Council resolutions on the Middle East between 1948 and 1991: 175
Number of these resolutions against Israel: 97
Number of these resolutions against an Arab state: 4
Number of Arab countries that have been members of the U.N. Security Council: 16
Number of times Israel has been a member of the U.N. Security Council: 0
Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel: 322
Number of U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning an Arab country: 0
Percentage of U.N. votes in which Arab countries voted with the United States in 2002: 16.6
Percentage of U.N. votes in which Israel voted with the United States in 2002: 92.6
Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who defend Zionism and Israel: approximately 1.
Percentage of Middle East Studies professors who believe in diversity on college campuses: 100
Percentage of people who argue that the Jewish state has no right to exist who also believe some other country has no right to exist: 0
Percentage of people who argue that of all the countries in the world, only the Jewish state has no right to exist and yet deny they are anti-Jewish: approximately 100
Number of Muslims in the world: more than 1 billion
Number of Muslim demonstrations against Islamic terror: approximately 2

Who's Defying the World Court?

Who's Defying the World Court? - James S. Tisch (New York Jewish Week)

In 1975, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion on Morocco's claim to the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, finding the claim to self-determination by the indigenous Saharawi population to be superior. Morocco rejected the opinion and, thirty years later, negotiations continue on the status of Western Sahara. Sanctions were never enacted against Morocco for non-compliance.

Six years after the ICJ opinion, Morocco began to build a thousand-mile security barrier through the middle of Western Sahara to protect against Saharawi attacks. The 10-foot high earthen rampart is fortified with 1 to 2 million landmines that have killed or injured dozens of people.

In May 1973, New Zealand asked the ICJ to order France to end atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific. France responded that it did not consider the court competent to hear the case, did not accept the court's jurisdiction, and would not participate in any proceedings.

In 1974, the ICJ ruled against Iceland's unilateral expansion of its exclusive fishing zone, following a complaint by Britain. Iceland disregarded the decision because fishing represented such a large part of Iceland's economy that it was considered a national security interest.

In 1984, after the U.S. lost the jurisdictional decision on a Nicaraguan complaint to the ICJ, Washington withdrew from the proceedings.

In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court disregarded an ICJ order to stay the execution in Arizona of Walter LaGrand, a German citizen.
Israel is adjusting the route of the security fence following the decision of its own highly respected Supreme Court, which balanced Israel's need to prevent suicide bombings with the humanitarian concerns of Palestinian civilians.

Our Graveyards Hold the Reasons for the Fence

Ehud Barak on the ICJ ruling against Israel's fence.

If I was prime minister, I would look any foreigner in the eye and say, 'We have 900 reasons to build the fence between Israel and the West Bank. You can count the reasons in our graveyards, in our people killed by suicide bombers. We are entitled to do this, even if we have to defy the world'.

It's Not From Lack of Trying

The Persuasion Myth - Ralph Peters (New York Post)

It's a foolish error to imagine that, if we only find the right combination of reasoned arguments, we might convince the populations of the Middle East to love us and embrace our national values.

If you want to change the mindset of another culture, your only hope is to "lead by example," to demonstrate the incontestable superiority of your approach until it sinks in.

The Muslim populations of Eurasia don't want our logical explanations for their failures. They want revenge for self-created disasters. They want excuses for the inadequacy of their social, political, and economic regimes. Arab civilization, especially, has backed itself into a historical corner where it deteriorates by the day.
The downtrodden don't want sober analysis. They want someone to blame. And the United States (along with Israel) fits the bill perfectly - facts be damned.

These People Can Be Good Neighbors?

A poll of Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and Israeli Arabs released in Washington on Wednesday was conducted by two polling firms, the Public Opinion Research of Israel and The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion.

http://www.luntz.com/Survey_102103.pdf

59% percent of Palestinians believe that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created.

80% of Palestinians say that, under those circumstances, the Palestinians should not give up the "right of return."


96% of Israeli Jews say the people who piloted the planes on September 11 were terrorists, while 37% of Palestinians share that view.

26% of Palestinians believe Israelis planned the 9-11 attacks.

42% of Palestinians and 61% of Israeli-Arabs stated that they support the people who are attacking Americans in Iraq. Zero percent of Israeli Jews said they did.

Which nation or people is the single greatest threat to world peace?
Israeli Jews: Iran-52%, Palestinians-8%, Iraq-7%.
Israeli Arabs: U.S.-40%, Israel-26%, Palestinians-5%.
Palestinians: Israel-51%, U.S.-36%, Other-1%.
In the war between the U.S. and Saddam Hussein, whom did you support?
Israeli Jews: U.S.-95%, Saddam-0%.
Israeli Arabs: U.S.-19%, Saddam-38%.
Palestinians: U.S.-10%, Saddam-74%.
Hamas is a terrorist group.
Israeli Jews: Agree-98%, Disagree-1%.
Israeli Arabs: Agree-27%, Disagree-59%.
Palestinians: Agree-13%, Disagree-81%.
Favor a future Palestinian state governed by Sha'ria (Muslim) law.
Israeli Jews: Favor-7%, Don't favor-82%.
Israeli Arabs: Favor-57%, Don't favor-37%.
Palestinians: Favor-69%, Don't favor-25%.

42% of Palestinians and 61% of Israeli-Arabs stated that they ‘support’ the people who are
attacking American troops in Iraq right now. Zero percent of Israeli Jews hold that view.

Fully 90% of Jews in Israel strongly agree that Hamas is “a terrorist group,” compared to
only 16% of Israeli-Arabs and 5% of Palestinians.

99% of Israelis consider bombings of Israeli buses and restaurants to be acts of terrorism,
while only 10% of Palestinians would agree.

46% of Palestinians characterize Israelis as the ‘enemy’ and 31% believe that Allah wants
Muslims to fight Jews. Moreover, 59% of Palestinians feel Hamas and Islamic Jihad should
NOT give up their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel were to leave all territories,
including East Jerusalem, and grant statehood to the Palestinians.

Palestinians, Israeli-Arabs and Jewish Israelis all overwhelmingly believe that democracy is the best form
of government. However, each group defines “democracy” differently. Nearly 8 in 10 Jews in Israel believe that
their political system should be a ‘democratic regime in which all the political ideas are represented.’ When asked
exactly the same question, only 33% of Palestinians agreed. In fact, one in five Palestinians support the
establishment of an Islamic single-party government.

[Last year the Tulkarm Shahids Memorial
Soccer Championship For Children was named
After Abd Al-Al Baset Odeh, who killed 30 Israelis
in a suicide bombing. Is this a good thing or a bad
thing?]
Israeli Jews Israeli Arabs Palestinians
A GOOD THING ------ [15%] [71%]
A BAD THING ------ [70%] [13%]
DON’T KNOW ------ [15%] [17%]


[Last year the Tulkarm Shahids Memorial
Soccer Championship For Children was named
After Abd Al-Al Baset Odeh, who killed 30 Israelis
in a suicide bombing. Is this a good thing or a bad
thing?]
Israeli Jews Israeli Arabs Palestinians
A GOOD THING ------ [15%] [71%]
A BAD THING ------ [70%] [13%]
DON’T KNOW ------ [15%] [17%]

Market Forces and the Energy Industry

The Real Energy Situation

All That Gas!

By VIJAY V. VAITHEESWARAN

Energy is simply too important to be trusted to the marketplace. That is the unquestioned first principle of energy policy today. And to judge by the grotesquely pork-laden energy bill that Congressional leaders are polishing up right now, Republicans and Democrats see perfectly eye-to-eye on this matter.

Just consider the arguments offered by those who say markets and energy don't mix. It seems the oil's running out -- so we must subsidize domestic supply in order to keep our SUVs humming. Oh, it appears we've got a big shortage of natural gas too -- and we'll never meet our green goals without subsidies for clean-burning gas.

Sept. 11, we're told, made it clear that we need a crash government program for energy "independence" to avoid a 1970s-style supply crisis. After all, this month marks the 30th anniversary of the Arab oil embargo, which, everyone remembers, drove our economy to its knees and left us with shortages and long lines at gasoline stations.

What a load of hogwash. Energy is vital, but interstate trucking, banking, telecommunications and air travel -- all industries subject to vigorous market forces -- are critical to the economy, too. Food is even more necessary to life than energy. However, every country in the world save North Korea has vigorous competition among grocery stores, open-air bazaars, street-corner bodegas and the like. Besides, there's absolutely no energy supply crisis in America today.

The oil is not about to run out. In fact, there are more proven reserves today than there were three decades ago. As for drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, there's too little oil there to impact global markets or the price at our pump. Oil independence is unachievable for a country that consumes a quarter of the world's oil but which sits atop barely 3% of the world's reserves. Yet the independence notion is invoked to justify the energy bill's massive subsidies for ethanol, an environmentally unfriendly gasoline additive much favored by corn farmers and the politicians who crave their votes.

There's far more natural gas left in the world than there is oil. Still, Congress wants to throw tax money at a pipeline to bring Alaska's considerable reserves of gas to the lower 48 states. There's no need. Recent price spikes have already spurred plans for various projects to get liquefied natural gas to America. And if prices actually stay high, the industry will build a pipeline from Alaska without subsidy.

Similarly contorted arguments -- remember the big Northeastern blackout caused by the supply problem? -- are being used to justify handouts for research into clean coal, liability insurance for nuclear power and tax credits for wind. Never mind that the lights did not go out as the result of a deficit of electrons. Human error, computer glitches and a failure to invest in the grid -- not any lack of electricity supply -- appear to have been the culprits.

The farce in Washington ignores the main lesson from the Arab oil embargo: Market forces matter, even in as distorted an enterprise as energy. In fact, the entirely predictable workings of the market thwarted the embargo -- oil that the Arabs sent to European countries outside the embargo was merely diverted to America. As for those long lines at gasoline stations during the '70s, the culprit was the anti-market energy policy adopted by America beforehand. Price controls, bureaucratic edicts on oil allocation and laws that tried to distinguish between "old" oil and "new" oil led to those painful shortages, not the embargo.

Let's get the government out of the game of rewarding politically connected suppliers and picking technology winners, and back to its only legitimate role in energy: being a vigilant policeman on the regulatory beat. If we scrapped the subsidies and fixed the other market distortions that benefit energy incumbents, we might even spur a wave of innovation in new technologies that heralds a clean energy revolution.

Both parties in Congress have let down the nation by coming up with such an energy bill. If President Bush has any faith at all in the power of markets, he must veto this monstrosity the moment it lands on his desk.

Mr. Vaitheeswaran is the environment & energy correspondent for the Economist and author of "Power to the People," just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Updated October 27, 2003

Why the War on Militant Islam Is WW IV

Daniel Pipes describes why our efforts against militant Islam are WWIV.

Militant Islam distinguishes itself from any other contemporary political movement in the magnitude of its ambitions, seeking not just to influence the adherents of one religion or control one region. Rather, it aspires to unlimited and universal power. Only Islamists have the temerity to challenge the liberal world order in a cosmic battle over the future course of the human experience. This translates into a worldwide battlefield.

Terrorism, in other words, is just one dimension of a war that has many fronts and takes many forms. Violence is an important symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Other methods might include acts of violence by loners, smuggling, rioting, lawful street demonstrations, raising money, teaching, proselytizing, intimidating, and even running for elected office. These methods complement each other, constituting the sophistication and reach of militant Islam. The battleground includes Muslim-majority countries as well as countries like Argentina where Islam is a minor presence.

Militant Islam's varied and persistent offensive is often missed in the focus on Al-Qaeda and other well-developed networks. A look at the daily rhythm of the war makes this clear. Here are some top-of-the-news stories from a random
two-week period in late 2002; note that Al-Qaeda-style terrorism makes up just a portion of the general assault:

a.. November 20, Saudi Arabia: An Islamist burns down a McDonald's near Riyadh.
b.. November 20, Nigeria: Muslims rampage in the north, shout "God is great," and attack Christians,[5] leading to 215 deaths, after a Nigerian fashion writer named Isioma Daniel comments on a planned beauty pageant in Nigeria that
the Prophet Muhammad "would probably have chosen a wife from among [the contestants]."[6]
c.. November 21, Kuwait: A policeman in a patrol car flags down two American soldiers driving along a desert highway, ostensibly for speeding, then shoots and seriously injures them.
d.. November 21, Lebanon: An Islamist murders an American nurse and missionary, Bonnie Penner, as she opens her clinic for the day.
e.. November 21, Indonesia: Imam Samudra, the self-acknowledged organizer of the Bali attack on October 12 that killed more than 180 people, is seized.
f.. November 21, Israel: A Palestinian Islamist suicide bombs an Israeli bus, killing eleven and injuring dozens.
g.. November 22, France: Police arrest five Islamists, including Redouane Daoud (who escaped from a Dutch detention center in June), and accused them of providing logistical support to Islamists engaged in jihad.
h.. November 24, India: Islamists attack a Hindu temple in Jammu and Kashmir, killing at least twelve people and injuring fifty.
i.. November 24, Pakistan: Security forces arrest three men attempting to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan in a truck carrying hundreds of mortar rounds and antitank rockets hidden under bags of dry fruit.
j.. November 24, Jordan: Islamist rioting in Maan leads to one death and several wounded.
k.. November 25, Nigeria: Mahamoud Shinkafi, the deputy governor of one Nigerian state, announces that "the blood of Isioma Daniel [the fashion writer] can be shed."[7]
l.. November 26, Hong Kong: Three Islamists of South Asian origin appear in court for extradition hearings on charges they sold drugs to raise money to buy missiles for Al-Qaeda.
m.. November 26, Malaysia: Authorities arrest three suspected members of the Indonesian group Jemaah Islamiyah, accusing them of planning suicide missions against Western embassies in Singapore.
n.. November 26, United Arab Emirates: A customs officer fires on a U.S. military helicopter but misses.
o.. November 26, France: Prosecutors place five men of Algerian origin under investigation for "criminal association with a terrorist group" connected to shoe bomber Richard C. Reid.
p.. November 27, United States: Prosecutors accuse Jesse Maali in Orlando, Florida, of having financial ties to Middle Eastern organizations that advocate violence.
q.. November 28, Turkey: Parliament approves a government formed by the Justice and Development Party, a watered-down Islamist party.
r.. November 28, Kenya: Islamist suicide bombers kill three Israelis and ten Kenyans in an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa; also, two missiles just miss a commercial Israeli airliner with 271 on board on takeoff from Mombasa.
s.. November 28, Belgium: Police arrest Dyab Abou Jahjah, head of the Arab European League, an Islamist group, on grounds he incited two days of Muslim rioting in Antwerp.
t.. November 29, Pakistan: A pro-Taliban Islamist wins the elections and takes charge in a key province.
u.. November 30, India: In a surge of violence in Kashmir, Islamists kill ten and wound more than twenty in four separate incidents.
v.. December 2, Holland: Four Islamists believed linked to Al-Qaeda go on trial in Rotterdam, charged with planning attacks on U.S. targets in Europe, including the embassy in Paris.
w.. December 3, Germany: A Berlin court case reveals that an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that led the September 11 attacks had the business card of a Saudi diplomat based in Berlin.
x.. December 3, United Kingdom: British authorities in Manchester arrest Hassan Butt, who had claimed to have recruited some two hundred British Muslims to fight for the Taliban.
y.. December 3, Germany: Aeroubi Beandalis, one of four Algerians accused of plotting to blow up a French Christmas market in 2000, admitted to a court in Frankfurt that he was intending to turn pressure cookers into bombs.

This range of activities implies that an effective defense cannot be limited to disrupting networks of violence. The forces must include anti-Islamist Muslims as well as non-Muslims, intellectuals as well as special forces, teachers as well as police officers, filmmakers as well as forensic accountants.

The 10 states with the worst deficits per capita

Source: Sean Gupta, AEI

Budget Busters The 10 states with the worst deficits per capita State Deficit per capita 2000 vote California $985 D Connecticut $679 D New Jersey $664 D New York $626 D Oregon $615 D Massachusetts $568 D Minnesota $542 D Wisconsin $436 D Maine $400 D Delaware $372 D Source: Sean Gupta, AEI

Opinionated

Lou Dobbs on other countries' opinions of the US.

A recent opinion survey in the Middle East showed that Arab attitudes towards the United States are at an all time low, and of course we know what the French and Germans think of us.

So how concerned should we be? In my opinion, not very. Unjustified negative opinions of the United States are far from a new phenomenon.

"Such is the destiny of a great power," says Fouad Ajami, professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "We sit astride the world, we protect the world, and the world takes this protection and bemoans the protector."

Ajami says we should consider the possibility that some of the recent polls may have been conducted by people who find it politically advantageous that America is more unpopular now, in the post-Iraq-war era.

Interesting Statistic

Via Aish

Los Angeles, with a population of 3.6 million, averages about 750 murders annually, or 21 per 100,000. By contrast, during the height of Palestinian violence (2002-03), Israel's population of 5 million experienced 930 murders (810 from terror), or 7 in 100,000.