Yesterday Meryl Yourish pointed out that despite the expected outbreak of violence in Israel, the death of Sheik Yassin has not led to "earthquakes" of revenge." James Joyner agreed that this could be viewed as a "positive sign" but added:
I'm afraid there's no "winning" this war in the short term. The supply of fanatics seems inexhaustable.
Joyner is a former Army intelligence officer and one of the most insightful bloggers I know. But he appears to accept one of the most basic myths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For, contrary to common misperception, the supply of suicide bombers is surprisingly limited.
In the past ten years there have been 99 suicide bombings in Israel. While it is difficult to estimate how many attempts were prevented, it is probably a safe estimate to assume the Israeli security forces catch 9 bombers for every 1 that slips through. That would average out to 100 people willing to become suicide bombers every year for the past decade. That is not, of course, an insignificant number. The damage and loss of life that would result if these terrorists were "successful" would be devastating. But when we look at the overall numbers the supply of willing martyrs is much smaller than might be assumed.
Before we can assess the pathology of the bombers, we should first look at the "normal" rates of suicide in the region. Israeli has a population of 5.1 million Jewish citizens, of which 350 people commit suicide each year. Another 1500 attempts are documented, though because of underreporting the actual attempts could be as high as 3,500 to 4,000. We can consider this the baseline for the number of potential suicides that would be expected.
The total Palestine population in the region is 8.7 million, with 3.7 million living in the West Bank and Gaza. The suicide rate for Palestinians, therefore, should be about the same (or even slightly higher) which would lead us to expect 2500 suicide attempts every year.
If we accept the "root cause" theory (the idea that hardships drive Palestinians to become terrorists) we should expect to find a large percentage of those already prone to suicidal tendencies to be willing to die for the cause. Considering all the privileges and benefits of martyrdom, the supply of bombers should actually exceed the number of people who would normally not be driven to take their own lives.
Yet the actual numbers show this is not the case. Each year (on average) .0000001% of the population becomes a bomber (1 for every 87,000 residents). If we consider that only the people from the occupied territories are willing to sacrifice their lives we find that the number only increases to .000002% of the population (1 for every 37,000 residents).
Why are there so few bombers relative to both the overall population and the number of regular suicides? The most likely explanation is that martyrdom appeals to only a small fraction of the population and has nothing to do with normal "root causes" such as economic hardship. Statistically, we should expect a fixed percentage of the Palestinian population to be susceptible to a "martyr complex" with the total numbers reaching a plateau level after the number is reached. Increases in "demand" for more bombers isn't likely to produce a corresponding increase in "supply", even when presented with additional incentives (i.e., Saddam's $25,000 bonuses for the bomber's family). While Hamas and Islamic Jihad may wish for more people to die for the cause, the recruiting pool appears to remain stagnant.
1
Maybe Allah will have to up the ante to 100 virgins, and bar-b-que ribs twice a week, in order to attract some more.
posted on 03.29.2004 12:10 PM2
Although I was technically an Army intelligence officer, I was branch detailed to the field artillery and never actually served an intel assignment.
I'm not advocating a root causes position, unless the root cause is radical Islam and/or anti-Zionism. I'm sure it's a small percentage of the society that are going to be willing to be suicide bombers. Still, there are enough to replenish those killed or captured. So long as there's enough to get off a successful attack every few weeks, the sense of terror is unlikely to be alleviated.
posted on 03.29.2004 12:25 PM3
1) Careful about the BBQ ribs. Pork, you know.
2) At some point, it is reasonable to infer that the supply of bombers will decline, as the courageous leaders who recruit them while hiding behind armor and clinging to life with every sinew, are knocked off.
But our perspective on this is very narrow- we are looking at a decade(s)-long process from a limited time window. Humans have limited and faddish horizons; if we keep up the battle instead of getting bored and pleading with Mr. Kerry for new daycare subsidies or government-issued wide-screen TVs, etc., the level of violence will eventually decline on a log-scale, calculus "limit"-approaching curve. In general, as the press gets bored and runs after the next sex or murder scandal, one vital element (publicity) will begin to disappear.
The problem ignored by the West as the virulent fundamentalists gestated is actually a bit older than we recognize (most often, attributed to the 1979 Iranian revolution). If one reads the works of Samuel Zwemer (Princeton professor and missionary to Islam whose brother was martyred by Muslims; a good source is "Islam- A Challenge to Faith") around the turn of the 20th century, he described the attitudes that needed to be addressed- and were ignored- back then.
We need to be patient and keep on keeping on.
posted on 03.31.2004 5:45 PM4
Well, I must say that your logic doesn't make much sense. In actuallity the palitinians should actually have a lower suicide rate. If you want an explanation read emile durkheim's "suicide". The numbers you are mentioning (i.e. making up) don't make any sense. I don't think that suicide bombers are really "wacko". I think that is stupifying the issue. I think that they are looking at themselves as warriors. Similar to how americans view G.I.'s in Iraq, and more specifically the ones that have died. We say that they are wackos when we continue a war on false information that doesn't have any weight. I am proud of the men and women that have died in iraq thus far and I know that there is going to be more to come. So don't belittle them by laughing at the other side.
posted on 04.04.2004 12:09 AM