Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Problematic Use Of B'Tselem Statistics

For the purpose of an academic paper I'm writing, I needed to find out how many Jewish terrorist attacks against Palestinians there have been. Statistics about the Arab-Israeli conflict are notoriously hard to come by, and endlessly debated. However, the common method has evolved to cite B'Tselems statistics. As such I went to the B'Tselem statistics page found the following summary (the list is up to operation Cast Lead):

The Fatalities' data can be shown either by the date of the event in which they were hurt or by the date of their death. Since some of the fatalities died of their injuries days, weeks and sometimes months after they were hurt, choosing the view affects the distribution of data.
Data by the date of event, 29.9.2000-26.12.2008
Occupied Territories
Israel
Gaza StripWest BankTotal
Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces
29991790478969
Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
441452
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
39200239492
Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians
9714624389
Foreign citizens killed by Palestinians
1071737
Foreign citizens killed by Israeli security forces
46100
Palestinians killed by Palestinians
4741346080
Palestinians executed by the Palestinian Authority
82100
Palestinians executed by the Hamas Government
000

I then clicked on "Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians" where there is a description of how each person died. Here are two of the descriptions from 2008:

Mahmoud Khalil 'Abd al-Fatah Sabarneh
20 year-old resident of Beit Ummar, Hebron district, killed on 24.01.2008 in Kfar Ezyon, Bethlehem district. Additional information: Killed by gunfire of teachers in a yeshiva after he entered the yeshiva area with another armed person and stabbed the instructors.

Muhammad Fathi Yunes Sabarneh
21 year-old resident of Beit Ummar, Hebron district, killed on 24.01.2008 in Kfar Ezyon, Bethlehem district. Additional information: Killed by gunfire of teachers in a yeshiva after he entered the yeshiva area with another armed person and stabbed the instructors.
In other words - Palestinians killed by Israeli Civilians includes those Palestinians that were committing terrorist acts at the time.  When you think about it, the title is clear enough - it is counting people killed by civilians, and not civilians killed. However, I highly doubt anyone would realize that the list includes terrorists, unless he goes and examines the cases. Additionally, for some reason, B'tselem does not count Israeli deaths in the same manner. It clearly separates between Israeli soldiers and civilians killed.

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