was to have high casualties in order to protray Israel in the worst possible light. Kids throwing rocks at soldiers isn't a very bright battle tactic to inflict a lot of deaths on your enemy but it's a good way to get your own people killed. In a culture of martyrdom, that sort of thing feeds on itself. There seems to be an endless supply of people who're willing to die for their cause, especially those who think that is a one-way express ticket to eternal paradise.

Today, the kill ratio is about 3:1. That's still a pretty bad ratio but a damned sight better than 25:1.

In a comparison like this, raw numbers are often more meaningful than simple ratios. It seems many more people on both sides are dying today than back then. Here are some numbers from an Israeli human rights site of casualties on both sides through January of this year. It suggests that from December 1987 through Januard 2002, some 2,128 Palestinean civilians and security forces were killed by Israeli military forces, with another 126 Palestinean civilians killed by Israeli civilians for a total of 2,254 Palestinean deaths. In the same time, 179 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinean civilians, 109 Israeli military troops were killed by Palestinean civilians, and 24 Israeli military troops were killed by Palestinean security forces (Arafat's army by another name). That's a total of 312 Israeli deaths in the same time frame, or a kill ratio of 7.22:1.

3:1 can partly be explained by the fact that Israel is sending in a lot of tanks, and Merkava tanks at that, as opposed to infantry. It's damned hard to kill troops in a tank without some very good anti-tank weapons or a lot of explosives. The suicide bombers are mostly killing Israeli civilians and security guards for a simple reason - it's easier than killing Israeli military forces.