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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (14274)	12/23/2001 4:07:47 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, my experience is that even uneducated beggars have a deep understanding of basic math. The math I presented has been ignored by yourself and the Israeli political elite. That is the death rate of Palestinian civilians is too high wrt Israeli civilian death rate. It has been for a long time My main points: 1. The intifada is a PR war, not a ground war. 2. In a PR war, the side that gains world sympathy wins. 3. Therefore, higher Palestinian casualties are in themselves a good to the Palestinian cause, both to gain world sympathy and to commit Palestinians more firmly to the cause. 4. Therefore, Palestinian tactics have been designed to increase their own casualties, as well as to cause demoralizing casualties among the Israelis. Evidence of this: Inculcating a cult of martyrdom among the Palestinians, especially aimed at young children. This includes treating martyrdom as a great honor and paying stipends to the families of martyrs. In the beginning months of the intifada, there were many instances of young boys rushing to the front with rocks to seek glory and martyrdom. This slowed down as the military nature of this "intifada" (it's really a top-down action, not an ground-up uprising as the name implies) became established. Lately, the glory has been concentrated on the suicide bombers, whom Arafat deplores in English and praises in Arabic, whose death notices are printed as wedding notices in the PA papers (wedding of glorious martyr so-and-so to the 72 black-eyed virgins). Military tactics that include riflemen firing at armored outposts and tanks, which they cannot hope to take in a military sense but which will draw return fire. Backing boys with rocks with militia with guns, also to draw live fire. Hiding terrorists and arms factories in dense civilian neighborhoods, where Israeli reprisals will cause civilian deaths. Any premature explosions (which the Israelis refer to as "work accidents") can also be blamed on the Israelis. Lastly, the increasing emphasis on suicide bombing as the main weapon, since it's the hardest to stop. Though this may seem aimed at Israeli casualties, remember that most of the bombings don't work all that well; the bomber kills himself and only injures a few Israelis. But that still works to Palestinian advantage because there is no shortage of recruits. If you still doubt that the Palestinians would actually encourage their own high casualties, ask yourself this -- suppose the Israelis acted without restraint and shelled a Palestinian town in reprisal for a particularly bad suicide bombing, killing several hundred Palestinians. Which side would benefit from such an action, taking into consideration all diplomatic repurcussions?