Fast fact #5: Between September 29, 2000 and August 31, 2010, 1,084 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, including 124 minors. [25] During the same period, 6,408 Palestinians were killed by Israelis, including 1,315 minors. [26] These statistics, reported by B’Tselem Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reflect the extreme disparity in the capacity of the two parties to inflict trauma, loss, and death through acts of violence.

• Israel’s military dominance is largely a result of U.S. largesse through military aid, as well as access to sophisticated U.S.-designed military technology. As former Ambassador Charles Freeman explained in a July 20, 2010 address at the Nixon Center, “Israel gets pretty much whatever it wants in terms of our top-of-the-line weapons systems, and we pick up the tab.” [27]
• Media analysts find that while comparative casualty statistics reveal that Palestinians are relatively defenseless in the face of Israeli military dominance, mainstream news organizations do not report the disparity, instead describing it as “a ‘conflict’ between ‘two sides’.” [28] Analyst Patrick O’Connor writes that “Despite the fact that they have vastly inferior weapons, are killed in much greater numbers than Israelis, live under Israeli occupation and are having their land taken from them by Israelis, Palestinians are generally portrayed in the US as the aggressor.”[29]
• The implications of skewed reporting on the conflict range well beyond a misrepresentation of the tragic body-counts. O’Connor warns that “the US corporate media is actively shaping the information reported to the US public to Israel’s advantage, and promoting the view that Hamas and Palestinian terrorism are the sole problem in Israel/Palestine. Without more balanced reporting from establishment media outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times, US policy and public opinion on Israel/Palestine are also unlikely to become much more balanced.” [30]

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[25] B’Tselem, Statistics
[26] B’Tselem, Statistics
[27] Freeman, Charles. “Israel; asset or liability?” Prepared remarks delivered at the Nixon Center, July 20, 2010
[28] O’Connor, Patrick. “Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians passes unreported,” Electronic Intifada, November 4, 2006
[29] O’Connor, Patrick. “Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians passes unreported,” Electronic Intifada, November 4, 2006
[30] O’Connor, Patrick. “Crisis in US media coverage of Gaza,” Electronic Intifada, July 5, 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4910.shtml