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Subject: Counter-Terrorism That Works
James Dunnigan    6/6/2004 11:31:56 PM

From September, 2000, to early June, 2004, the "Intifada" (as the Palestinians call the war with Israel) has killed at least  4,098 (3,107 Palestinians and 920 Israelis). Two thirds of the Israeli dead are civilians, most killed by suicide bombs. The rest of the Israeli dead are soldiers and police. On the Palestinian side, two thirds of the dead were combatants.

Israeli counter-terrorism efforts continue to succeed. Palestinian terrorists still attempt suicide bombings, but the Israelis are still detecting most of the efforts and stopping them early in the planning stages. The ones the Israelis don't detect are getting stopped by the tight border security. Israeli military operations in Gaza, to cut off the smuggling of weapons and bomb making materials from Egypt. The Palestinians are trying to cope with the successful Israeli intelligence system. But this is hurting the efforts to plan and carry out suicide attacks. Israel is still able to identify and kill, via missile attacks from helicopters, terrorist leaders. 

But the Israelis know that their efforts will spur the Palestinians to come up with countermeasures. It's all a question of who can adapt more quickly and effectively. If the Palestinians cannot keep up in this race, they will lose enough public support to render them irrelevant.

Israel has been negotiating peace deals with Palestinians they believe will not back terrorist attacks. While most Palestinians still back the fighting and the eventual destruction of Israel, most are also willing to work out a truce so that some of the economic damage done to the Palestinians can be repaired.

 
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Horsesoldier    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works   6/6/2004 11:46:34 PM
Israel is an example of CT that works? They've been absorbing losses from terrorists since 1948. That's winning? Good Christ.
 
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ilpars    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works   6/7/2004 7:23:24 AM
"From September, 2000, to early June, 2004, the "Intifada" (as the Palestinians call the war with Israel) has killed at least 4,098 (3,107 Palestinians and 920 Israelis). Two thirds of the Israeli dead are civilians, most killed by suicide bombs. The rest of the Israeli dead are soldiers and police. On the Palestinian side, two thirds of the dead were combatants. " According to this statistic Palestinian lost more civilians than Israel. 1/3 of 3000 is 1000 and 2/3 of 900 is 600. That is the bad side of statistics. They can be analysed to reach different results. The fact is there are victims on both sides. Palestinians war damaging much more themselves than it damages Israel.
 
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swhitebull    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works - ilpars   6/7/2004 11:34:25 PM
You miss the point - THe claims that the Israelis are targetting civilians is shown by all the research kept that show that the bulk of PALI deaths are military age men between the ages of 18 and 35, that is, those most likely committing terrorist acts. Whereas the Israelis deaths aredistributed evenly across all age and demographic lines, showing the deliberate targetting of israeli civilians. Its been written about extensively on these pages before. swhitebull
 
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ilpars    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works - ilpars   6/8/2004 1:04:48 AM
I miss the point because in the original post of James Dunnigan's; it is not understood that he was pointing on that. First of all there was not demographic numbers of age and sex categories of the death ones. My point was, in his post the numbers given showed or proofed nothing. If it was given like you said, it would show lots of things.
 
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swhitebull    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works   6/8/2004 9:50:45 AM
Ilpars - here are some of the sources used in Mr. Dunnigans's article. SP has written on the Israei war board extensively on the disparity and breakdown in casualties, but the topic is huge, so has been lost. Ive copied it and quote it quie often to those who com eo on the boards and cite how those mean bad Israelis are deliberately targetting Palestinian civilians, or why there should be more Israeli deaths. Here are some of the sources used - you can see for yourself the breakdown, and just WHY its important for the world to see these stats for what they really are - 65% + PALI casualties are identified as COMBATTANTS or combattant-related, while Israeli causualties are 75% civilian. SO the real question becomes - whose really targetting civilians? link Breakdown of causalities ? detailed analysis: link Highlight from the report: 4. Combatants and Noncombatants As noted above, the classification of victims into combatants and noncombatants is important in evaluating both their tactical and political significance. It is worthwhile to examine this classification in more detail. Graphs 2.9 shows the distribution of Palestinian fatalities among Combatant Level categories. Note that a substantial portion ? almost 55 per cent ? of Palestinian fatalities are either Full Combatants, Probable Combatants, or Violent Protestors. Of the remaining fatalities, a substantial slice are classified as ?Unknown?, meaning that their Combatant Level has not yet been determined. Ongoing review of existing reports, as well as addition data to be gathered, will, we hope, reduce the number of Unknowns With the more precise targeting of terrorists, the increasing failures of the PALIS to get through, either thru ?work-related accidents?, interception and termination, and the better Israeli intel, fewer civilians are dying and more and more of the Hamas , Islamic Jihad et al terrorists are being eliminated. This trend has only increased for 2004 in terms of PALI combatants dying, and fewer Palestinian civilians. swhitebull - pretty clear answer to that one.
 
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ilpars    RE:Counter-Terrorism That Works - swhitebull   6/9/2004 1:25:51 AM
"Breakdown of causalities ? detailed analysis" is a very interesting report. Thanks swhitebull. I have read it once. When I find time and info I also liked to compare the results with other counter-terorist wars.
 
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