LIES, DAMN LIES, STATISTICS AND PALESTINIAN STATISTICS

by Seymour Kessler, Ph.D.

Bridges to Israel-Berkeley

In a press release issued by The Palestine Monitor on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the September, 2000 intifada, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative and Director of Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP), claimed that of the 3334 Palestinians killed during that period, some 82% were civilians. If true, it warrants urgent international attention. If, on the other hand, the HDIP assertion is false, it should be exposed for what it is–a baseless lie.

I examined the data on which Barghouthi based his claim (and I thank Charlie of HDIP for sending them to me) and found them less illuminating than one hoped. They raised more questions than they answered, particularly around the issue of civilian fatalities. Nonetheless, they merit some examination.

PALESTINIAN STATISTICS

The HDIP statistics on Palestinian fatalities are broken down first by time period and show a peak between October 2001 and September 2002 in which 1195 were killed. The average for each of the other three years was about 713 dead.

The Palestinian deaths are then segregated by the area or region where the death occurred and by age and gender of the casualty. In some cases the site of body injury and the munitions and caliber of the bullets involved, rubber-coated or not, are specified.

The data show that 209 victims were female, the largest proportion of deaths (about 45%) occurring in Gaza which was also the region in which 53% of the 621 children deaths occurred; the overwhelming majority among those between 11 and 17 years of age. The Palestinian data also show that 424 persons died in extra-judicial assassinations of which 43.9% were categorized as bystanders. Again, the Gaza region accounted for nearly 45% of those killed. Living in Gaza clearly is neither good for one’s health nor longevity.

The data do not make clear whether or not extra-judicial assassinations include Palestinian deaths at the hands of other Palestinians on charges of collaboration, etc. More important, the data totally fail to differentiate between civilian and non-civilian fatalilties. Thus, any statement about the proportion of civilians killed remains unsubstantiated. Requests for clarification on this point were not answered by HDIP.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

The reliability and validity of any data depend largely how the data were collected. Thus, it is of crucial interest to examine the origin of the HDIP numbers. A footnote reveals that the sources were accounts in daily newspapers as well as:

“...local witnesses, journalists, the Palestinian Ministry of Health as well as UPMRC [Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees] workers. This volunteered information is always checked with hospital records, local authorities...but most commonly with relatives.”

The degree to which these data reach objective standards of veracity is difficult to ascertain. Clearly, they were not collected in any systematic way, a factor which, for any data gathering enterprise, increases the margin of error and lessens their validity.

Journalists are not necessarily the best sources of information. They frequently rely on hearsay, wire reports and press releases for information and seldom have time to independently verify the accounts they learn about. Also, considerable evidence attests to the way reality is altered for political ends in the news coming from Palestinian sources. While other news agencies were reporting a differing picture, Al-Ahram Weekly reported as a fact that the:

"...number of civilian victims exceeds by far the number of resistance fighters killed. As for the injured, I can say that 99 per cent of them are innocent men, women and children," said Eissa Dhaher, Deputy Mayor of Jabalya.

Dhaher went on to accuse the IDF of "knowingly and deliberately" targeting civilians, particularly children."

Relatives too, may not always be the most accurate sources of information and may not have actually witnessed the situation in which a relative died. Take for example the following account from the Jerusalem Post describing a missile strike on October 8^th near Jabalya:

“Later Friday, an Israeli helicopter shot a missile at three terrorists as they tried to plant an explosive device northeast of the Jabalya refugee camp, a focal point of the offensive, the army said. The army said the missile hit at least two of the men.

One of those killed was Yasser al-Khatib, 18, a militant, hospital sources said. The second person killed was Mohammed Subuh, 17, who was in civilian clothes. Subuh's family said he was not a militant.”

It is far from clear that Mr. Subuh was not a militant who just happened to be in civilian clothes at the time of his death. He was on the scene and it would not be unreasonable to assume, with his unnamed companion, aiding and abetting the militant actions of Mr. al-Khatib or vice versa. In any case, Mr. Subuh was engaged in actions that the vast majority of civilians, around the world, do not engage in whatever his family says.

The clothing a Palestinian wears when brought to a hospital seems to be a major determinant in whether he or she will be categorized as a militant. Take the following typical account from the Associated Press:

An Israeli helicopter fired a missile Friday at militants planting an explosive device in the Jebaliya refugee camp, a focal point of the offensive, the army said.

Witnesses said the blast went off near a crowd of people gathered in the street, killing one man and severely wounding another. The men were dressed in civilian clothes and were not armed, medics said.

One wonders how the AP and the Palestinian public relations enterprise count such cases, civilians or combatants? By the time the medics became involved any weapons that might have been present were no longer on the scene. From the account, it is unclear whether independent witnesses verified that the men with which the medics were engaged actually were unarmed. That armed militants wear civilian clothing is sometimes noted in media dispatches.

Further doubt is cast on the “dress” issue by a statement by Samir Rantissi, a senior Palestinian official interviewed by Dr. Aaron Lerner of Information Middle East Resource Agency (IMRA). According to Rantisi all Palestinians are considered civilian–even if they are armed--with the possible exception of on-duty members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in official uniform. “Palestinians who hold a day job in the PA security forces enjoy civilian status while moonlighting in Tanzim, Islamic Jihad, etc.]”

This definition is so absurd it barely requires comment. Nonetheless, we need to remind ourselves that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Adopted on 12 August 1949 states (in Article 3) that the protection of civilian status covers persons who take:

“...no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause...”

Article 15 of the Convention also states that protection is given to civilian

“...persons who take no part in hostilities, and who, while they reside in [war or occupied] zones, perform no work of a military character”.

The latter Article may be particularly crucial to our understanding of how to read Palestinian and Israeli casualty figures. Individuals who take an active part in hostilities lose their status as civilians and so do those who plan, organize and direct activities designed to harm, kill or defeat an enemy. Regardless of garb, actions determine civilian status. Thus anyone who aids or abets militants loses his or her status as a civilian.

The press reports on the engagement of Israeli forces with Palestinian groups are replete with situations that strongly suggest that apparent civilians are engaged in behavior of a decidedly (or highly likely) military character. The tendency of the media is to describe clear cases of militancy using such terms as armed, fighters, guerrillas, gunmen, militants, resistance fighters and the like whereas ambiguous cases are simply described as Palestinians, implying civilian status. Take the following recent examples:

Palestinian guerrillas in black ski masks roamed the camp, laying mines and explosives at major intersections and street entrances. Fighters and residents also piled mounds of sand in the streets in an effort to stop Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers from entering residential areas.

Two Palestinians were shot dead...in Jabalya after they tried to throw grenades at IDF troops.

A group of Palestinians opened fire at the soldiers, who returned fire, causing the antitank rocket launcher to blow up and killing...one member of the group.

On Friday night, an unarmed man was shot and killed after he was sighted crawling on the road near the Kissufim-Gush Katif road in an off-limits zone. Army sources believe he was attempting to gather intelligence about IDF movements.

IDF troops on patrol in the southern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian man who was transporting explosive devices, close to the Sufa [crossing]....Another man fled the scene...

It is likely that Palestinian sources classify many, if not all, of these fatalities as civilians inflating the number of individuals categorized as civilians.

WHO VERIFIES CIVILIAN STATUS?

Increasingly, media reports rely on the word of “medics” to verify civilian status. A typical report from Reuters, for example, states:

Ninety-six Palestinians have been killed in 15 days of fighting. At least 54 of them were militants and most of the rest were believed to be civilians, Palestinian medics say.

Who exactly are these medics and how do they acquire and deserve their expertise to differentiate civilians from non-civilians? Are these physicians, nurses, ambulance drivers, emergency room technicians, hospital spokespersons? The term, medics, hides more than it reveals and raises many questions: What criteria are used in their determinations? And, most important, how objective are they?

If, as it increasingly appears, the officials of such major Palestinian health organizations as UPMRC have a political agenda to inflate civilian casualty figures in order to gain world sympathy for the Palestinian cause, then “medic” assessments surely cannot be accepted at face value. Nonetheless, let us see what ore might be mined from the reports we have.

Read carefully, the Reuters account contains a certain amount of hedging in the medics report: “most of the rest were believed to be civilians” [emphasis added]. In other words, ‘most–but not all–may be civilians–but we won’t swear to it since we’re not sure’. Clearly, no objective criteria were available to the medics–more or less they were guessing–but they were saying that some of those 42 “civilians” were also militants. The question is how many?

This issue was taken up by the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center at Heraliya. Both Israeli and Palestinian fatalities during the current intifiada were categorized into such groups as full combatants, probable combatants, violent protestors, unknown and various groups of non-combatants, etc. Full and probable combatants comprised over 54% of the total Palestinian fatalities. When uniformed non-combatants, suspected collaborators and protestors killed in unclear circumstances are removed from the overall total, civilians only accounted for about 17% of Palestinian deaths. About 21% of the fatalities could not be clearly categorized as non-combatants. This raises the possibility, that as high as 20% of fatalities claimed by Palestinian sources to be civilian fatalities may have been misclassified; they were actually militants.

ESTIMATING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

In a revealing footnote, the authors of the HDIP report state that between March 14, 2004 and August 31^st of that year, a period they describe as one of “relative calm”, 71 extra-judicial assassinations occurred “...including the killings of the two highest ranking Hamas leaders, Abdel Aziz Rantissi and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin....At least 26 of the 73 [presumably these two were excluded from the previous total] killed in assassinations were not Hamas leaders, they were not Al Aqsa Brigades or associated with any of the groups targeted for resisting the illegal occupation. They were women and children, innocent bystanders.”

Thus, roughly a third of the deaths by targeted assassinations in this short, “relatively calm” period of time, were alleged to be due to collateral damage; two-thirds of these actions succeeded to take out individuals even Palestinian sources admit were militants.

But what about a period of relative turbulence as, for example, the recent incursion into northern Gaza? One might expect, under such tumultuous conditions, civilian casualties and fatalities would increase dramatically. Here is a paradigmatic situation: An Israeli incursion into 9 sq km of Palestinian territory with tanks, heavy armor, missiles–the works. Now under these intense, close quarters, with booby traps, mines, anti-tank rockets, etc.; with civilians co-mingling indiscriminately with militants; fire-fights galore. This is precisely the kind of situation in which one might expect maximum civilian casualties, perhaps as high as the 82% alleged by Dr. Barghouthi.

Yet, in a recent article, Greg Myre of the New York Times stated (October 10, 2004) that :

In 11 days of fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have killed at least 90 Palestinians, including about 55 militants and 35 civilians, according to Palestinian hospital officials.

Thus, under conditions of high likelihood for casualties, at most only 39% of the deaths–keeping in mind that this group includes militants misclassified as non-combatants--were among civilians! This is half the figure quoted by Dr. Barghouthi and, in a simple 2x2 statistical test, not significantly different from the figure reported in the HDIP data for the March-August 2004 “calm” period. Even later data supplied by Palestinian sources and quoted in recent dispatches in Reuters and the Associated Press are statistically not significantly different from that basic datum. The vast majority of Palestinian deaths were among militants and members of militant groups, not civilians. Furthermore, it appears that the proportion of militant/civilian deaths seems to remain relatively stable over time and changing military conditions.

Despite media reports which repeat the same Palestinian hyperbole over and over again (“Nearly half the Palestinian dead...are reported to be civilians”), the proportion of civilian deaths is closer to one-third of Palestinian fatalities and if corrected for misclassified militants, may actually be lower.

What can and should we conclude? Any unnecessary death is tragic. But, Palestinian statisticians seem to care less about human anguish than in making political and diplomatic “brownie points”. The Palestinian civilian fatality data appear to be deliberately manufactured so that Palestinian victimhood is emphasized for propaganda purposes, not for the sake of revealing the truth.

It is no coincidence that Israeli data for the four years of the intifada, which by the way, carefully break down deaths by civilian and security forces, show that of the 989 Israeli deaths over 70% were among civilians. Not to be outdone by such data, Dr. Barghouthi had to fabricate a larger figure so that Palestinian suffering would not go unnoticed.

It is noted by anyone with human feelings. But also noted are the enormous numbers of Israeli civilians deliberately targeted by Palestinian terrorists and the tendency of Palestinian spokespersons to inflate the numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties and fatalities, not only at the expense of honesty, but as a way to dissemble their own human rights violations. This tendency also renders all information from Palestinian sources as suspect and lacking veracity.

If anything, the HDIP data corroborate the care taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties.

According to their data, female fatalities comprise 6.3% and children age 17 and younger some 18.3% of the total. ICT data are comparable. This group found that when combatants (almost all male) are removed from the total, about 8% of Palestinian fatalities were female. For perspective, according to ICT statistics, 31% of Israeli fatalities were among females; nearly four times higher. This accounted for nearly 40% of the Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians! Moreover, the age distribution of Israeli civilian fatalities is nearly random indicating that targets were chosen opportunistically and for their easy access by Palestinian terrorists.

Palestinian fatalities, on the other hand show a distribution by gender and age indicative of a nonrandom distribution. This strongly suggests that the allegations of indiscriminate targeting of women and children on the part of Israeli forces are completely untrue. Palestinian noncombatant fatalities are overwhelmingly (over 95%) among males, age 11 and over. This statistical pattern is understandable only if young Palestinian males are encouraged to or deliberately place themselves in situations of high risk, i.e., those involving military confrontation between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. If anything, self-selection is involved in Palestinian fatalities, not a deliberate targeting by the IDF.

Using data provided by B’Tselem one can compare Israeli and Palestinian fatalities of minors, 18 and younger. Deliberate targeting of the latter would suggest a major difference between the two. In absolute numbers Palestinian fatalities among minors are some five times larger than Israeli ones. Proportionally, however, fatalities of minors between September 2000 and September 2004 are only slightly elevated among Palestinians (19%) as compared to Israelis (18%) and do not reach a level of statistical significance. In short, the attempt to use fatalities of Palestinian minors to show the brutality of Israeli actions is an outright fraud.

The failure of the media to question the validity of Palestinian casualty data has created a false impression of an Israeli onslaught against Palestinian civilians. This failure is doubly tragic for, in truth, proportionally, Israeli civilian fatalities are significantly higher than Palestinian ones by more than 2:1, a fact egregiously suppressed by the UN and human rights groups and, shamefully, by most of the Western media.