With much thanks to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, what follows is a new spin on a very old subject matter…
– The unemployment rate for Israelis is 10.4%.
– The unemployment rate for the civilian Palestinian population ranges between 37 – 67%.
– There has been 1 Israeli home destroyed by Palestinians.
– There have been 16,638 Palestinian homes destroyed by the State of Israel.
– There are 6,445 injured Israelis.
– There are 26,758 injured Palestinians.
Slightly less than 1,000 Israelis have been killed since the beginning of this Intifadah.
Nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of this Intifadah
Considering America’s history of *cough* justice, it would make complete sense that the world’s foremost economic super power would help the impoverished victims of an occupation that is 56 years old, providing them with funding for food, medicine, infrastructure renewal projects, construction of homes, and generating more employment opportunities…
But unfortunately, that is not the world in which we live. And so because we live in a society where there is no comprehensive understanding and embracing of "global citizenship", the following should come as no surprise.
American tax dollars maintain and proliferate the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory by providing exhorbetent amounts of money to the State of Israel (and for good measure, with some extra coin to the NGOs who work with the Palestinian population): On a daily basis, the USA provides the Israeli government and military with $15,139,178.00 (remember this 15 million is a daily amount, not annually, not bi-monthly, not tri-yearly, but daily). And, oh yeah: The USA is also generous enough to provide Palestinian NGOs with $568,744.00 daily.
If you pull out your calculator, you discover that:
– For every 1% of the unemployed Israeli population, America provides $1,513,917.80.
– For every 1% of the unemployed Palestinian population, America provides, at most, $1,5371.50.
Or if you prefer…
– For every injured Israeli, America provides $2,348.98.
– For every injured Palestinian, American provides $21.26.
Or if you prefer…
– For every Israeli home destroyed, America provides $15,139,178.00
– For every Palestinian home, America provides $34.18.
Or if you prefer…
– The US provides the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land with approximately $3 a day per Israeli citizen, whereas the Palestinian NGOs receive a whopping $0.12 a day per Palestinian civilian.
…and what this last statistic means is that for the powers that be inside of the United States of America:
1 Israeli life is 25 times more worthy than 1 Palestinian life.
Quantification, it’s a beautiful thing.
