Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel, recently had an op-ed entitled, “For Once, Hope in the Middle East.” Because the reasoning was so flawed, I was going to write a post about it, but a good reply was already written here.
One point worth emphasizing is this. Indyk says that because “violence is down considerably in the region,” it could be easier to make an agreement. But when Indyk says “violence,” he really means any violent act by Palestinians that harms Israelis. He cites the statistic that
the number of Israeli civilians killed in terrorist attacks has dropped from an intifada high of 452 in 2002 to 6 last year and only 2 so far this year.
He is right that the number of Israelis killed has decreased dramatically. 452 is too many lives lost over any amount of time, and 2 is clearly a huge improvement.
What does he forget to mention? Oh yes, the massacre in Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinians about 20 months ago. As Amnesty International put it,
The scale and intensity of the attacks on Gaza were unprecedented. Some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians who took no part in the conflict were among the 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
But since the only violence that matters is that which is carried out by Palestinians, I guess it wouldn’t be worth mentioning in his op-ed. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of people who are trying to mediate these talks.
Filed under: Israel/Palestine
