Are Arabs worth less?

A report suggesting that Israel ‘understated’ the number of Palestinians killed during its last invasion of Gaza is hardly a surprise. More surprising is that if accurate, it changed the value of Palestinian life.

In February 2009 Israel’s Prime Minister said the country would respond with “disproportionate” force to renewed rocket attacks by Hamas militants.

This breaks one of the conventions - or unwritten rules if you like - of the international community. This is the principle of “proportionality”, which serves to limit the risk of escalation when disputes occur.

There is, however, a second reason why “proportionality” is important. Without it, the value of human life becomes uneven. Some humans become more equal than others to misquote Orwell. It is down to maths. Let me explain.

Israel stated that the Gaza invasion in the New Year was a response to rockets falling on its territory. In the tit-for-tat of Middle-East politics, Palestinians claim that these rockets were themselves responding to Israeli oppression. And this in turn, says Israel, was prompted by earlier Palestinian outrages. And so on.

But in this case let us go with Israel and imagine that the rocket attacks were entirely illegitimate and unprovoked.

What damage did the rockets falling on Israel from Gaza since 2001 actually do? Highly inaccurate, they are indiscriminate weapons of terror, forcing civilians to scramble for shelters near the border on a regular basis. Thousands of mortar rounds and rockets have caused more than 400 injuries. A total of 15 Israeli civilians have been killed (source: Wikipedia).

According to the Israeli army, the latest major incursion into Gaza cost 1,166 Gazans their lives. Of these 709 were Palestinian militants or police and 295 were civilians.

The report by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem puts the figure at 1,387 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military. These include 773 civilians, 330 combatants and 248 police. Of the civilians, B'Tselem estimated that 109 women and 252 children under the age of 16 were killed.

Now the math. Let us assume, as the Israeli army does, that all Palestinian police might be considered enemy combatants. The outcome of this particular “disproportionate” response was to equate 15 Israeli civilian lives with those of 295 Palestinians.

So according to the Israel’s own figures, the outcome of its policy has been to imply that an Israeli life is worth 19.7 times as much as that of a Palestinian.

If you believe B'Tselem, the news is worse still for the relative value of Arab life. Run the maths – 15 deaths equated with 733 deaths - and an Israeli life is worth 51.5 times as much as a Palestinian.

It can’t be nice knowing that your life – in practical terms – is valued at between 2% and 5% that of your fellow human across the wire. Where’s the proportion in that?

Photo: © Stefania Zamparelli