Philip Greenspun has posted a thorough, objective and generally unbiased (but lengthy) summary of the issues surrounding the conflict between the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the relevant geopolitical issues over the past two thousand years. I've read more than my fair share of propaganda over the years (from both sides), and this piece is simultaneously the most complete and most unbiased summary I have ever read.
From the conclusion:
Terrorism is theater. Terrorism will taper off if people lose interest in news coverage of acts of terror. It is tough to ignore a spectacular event such as the destruction of the World Trade Center but we can do our share by ignoring newspaper and television stories about run-of-the-mill terrorism. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like a traffic accident on Interstate 95: a tragedy for the handful of people involved that wouldn't have affected the rest of us if we hadn't slowed down to gawk. The last couple of years have been the most violent and even so the number of people killed on both sides has been about 1000 per year. Shouldn't this many deaths provoke our sympathy and interest? If we're motivated by humanitarian concerns there are richer opportunities for saving lives right here at home. For example, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans are killed every year by medical malpractice (To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, Kohn et al, 2000). The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reports that 41,821 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. in 2000, at a cost to the economy of $230.6 billion, not including intangibles such as physical pain or reduced quality of life. Many of these deaths could be prevented with simple engineering, information system, and procedural improvements. If we want to be unselfish and help foreigners we might look at malaria, a preventable disease that kills between 1 and 3 million people each year.On a similar note, an Australian tourist recently noted that Baltimore's mayor set a goal to reduce the number of homicides in that city to less than 300 per year. That number is larger than the number of homicides in all of Australia in any given year. (I haven't looked into the numbers here, but they feel sadly correct.)
Re:Australia's homicide rate
ziggy on 2003-04-16T13:17:59
At least as far as the Aussie stats are concerned.The official statistics indicate that the Aussie tourist was more or less correct.:-) For Baltimore City, there were 259 murders in 2001 and 252 in 2002. The Mayor's goal was to bring the total count to 175. Even if the numbers don't match, it's interesting that they are so close.
I don't know what the statistics were for 2000, nor do I see what the stats are for Baltimore County overall. Given the overall homicide trends in the US, it's quite possible that the comparison was correct a couple of years ago.
Re:Australia's homicide rate
Damian on 2003-04-17T05:36:56
Perhaps a clearer comparison is of the respective national per-capita homicide rates for typical westernized, English-speaking countries (per million of population, year 2000):To me the most interesting aspect of this comparison is that the US rate was actually down considerably on the previous decades (in 1980 it was 102, in 1990 it was 94).New Zealand: 2 *
Ireland: 9 * * * *
Great Britain: 12 * * * * * *
Australia: 16 * * * * * * * *
Canada: 18 * * * * * * * * *
United States: 55 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Re:Australia's homicide rate
ziggy on 2003-04-17T12:56:52
Wow. By this measure, Canada is nine times more violent than New Zealand, and about a third as violent as the US. From this we can determine that Hobbits and Elves do not like to play violent sports like Curling, Ice Skating, Hockey or (American) Football.These statistics also indicate that Australians are slightly less interested in sports than Canadians.
:-)
