To the Editors:
Facts surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are almost universally contentious, with misleading and inaccurate information often used to present one side or the other in a favorable light. In Dan Knecht '05's column, "The Israeli Balancing Act" (The Dartmouth, Jan. 6) he inaccurately stated "only one percent of all suicide bombers are successful." More sober Israeli and Jewish media outlets, such as the Jerusalem Post, report the figure being around 51 percent. Knecht's statistic represents the number of attempted suicide bombings about 50 times greater than is generally accepted. In a similar misrepresentation, many Palestinians and their sympathizers would tell you that almost all of the bombings are carried out successfully.
Similarly inaccurate is the statement that "the majority of those killed by army incursions and targeted assassinations are known terrorist leaders, bomb crafters, and suicide bombers en route to detonate a bus or caf." The vast majority of the Palestinians killed by the Israeli army are not directly involved in suicide bombings (in planning, preparation and execution), rather they are unarmed civilians as well as armed militants killed during army operations in Palestinian cities and villages.
It is easy to get caught up in one-sided representations of Israel and Palestine and to give credence to inaccurate, extreme and misleading "facts." Having just returned from Israel and the West Bank, I know that one-sided information is taken to extremes by both sides as they struggle to justify their own violence. As long as such information is listened to, accepted, and passed on, there will be no approaching the truth of what is happening in Israel and Palestine.
