Is International Terror Caused by the Creation of Israel?

by Gunnar Heinsohn

“Terrorism will not be defeated without peace […] between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that the poison is incubated.” Tony Blair, 17 July 2003, to U.S. Congress.

Tony Blair is no Mel Gibson or Osama Bin Laden. He is no mortal enemy of the Jews of Israel. Yet, since his assumption is so deeply ingrained in the mind of mankind one has to look for a method to test it. Is there a factor in our multicausal explanations of the conflict not yet appropriately tested? That appears to be highly improbable. Yet, what about the extremely old fashioned way of counting superfluous sons? Can a body count shed light on the validity of Tony Blair's view?

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Conflicts 1949-2010 with at least 10,000 Fatalities.
Nations with Muslim majorities - all of them with youth bulges at the time of slaughter (in bold letters)

 1  40,000,000 Red China, 1949-76 (outright killing, manmade famine, Gulag, Muslim Uighurs)
 2  10,000,000 Late Stalinism, 1950-53; Post-Stalinism, to 1987 (mostly Gulag), more than 100.000 Muslims in Chechnya
 3  5,800,000 Zaire (Congo-Kinshasa): 1967-68; 1977-78; 1992-95; 1998-today
 4  4,000,000 Ethiopia, 1962-92: Communists, artificial hunger, genocides
 5  2,800,000 Korean war, 1950-53
 6  2,200,000 Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006 (civil wars, genocides); Dafur to today
 7  1,870,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91
 8  1,800,000 Vietnam War, 1954-75 (more than 90% Vietnamese, Allies)
 9  1,800,000 Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001
 10 1,250,000 West Pakistan massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh 1971)
11  1,100,000 Nigeria, 1966-79 (Biafra); 1993-today
12  1,100,000 Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000) + after retreat of Portugal 1976-92
13  1,000,000 Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88
14  900,000 Rwanda genocide, 1994
15  875,000 Algeria: war with France 1954-62 (675,000); Islamists/Government 1991-2006 (200,000)
16  850,000 Uganda, 1971-79; 1981-85; 1994-today
17  650,000 Indonesia: Marxists 1965-66 (450,000); East Timor, Papua, Aceh etc, 1969-today (200,000)
18  580,000 Angola: war against Portugal 1961-72 (80,000); after Portugal’s retreat (1972-2002)
19  500,000 Brazil against its Indians, up to 1999
20  430,000 Vietnam, after the war ended in 1975 (own people; boat refugees)
21  400,000 France in Indochina, 1945-54
22  400,000 Burundi, 1959-today (Tutsi/Hutu)
23  400,000 Somalia, 1991-today
24  400,000 North Korea up to 2006 (own people)
25  300,000 Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, 1980s-1990s
26  300,000 Iraq, 1970-2003 (Saddam against minorities)
27  240,000 Columbia, 1946-58; 1964-today
28  200,000 Yugoslavia, Tito regime, 1944-80
29  200,000 Guatemala, 1960-96
30  190,000 Laos, 1975-90
31  175,000 Serbia>Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, 1991-1999
32  150,000 Romania, 1949-99 (own people)
33  150,000 Liberia, 1989-97
34  140,000 Chechnya, 1994-today in independence war against Russia
35  150,000 Lebanon civil war, 1975-90
36 140,000 Kuwait War, 1990-91 (Arabs from Iraq and Kuwait, Allies)
37  130,000 Philippines: 1946-54 (10,000); 1972-today (Muslim Marxists, 120,000)
38  130,000 Burma/Myanmar, 1948-today
39 100,000 North Yemen, 1962-70
40  100,000 Sierra Leone, 1991-today
41  100,000 Albania, 1945-91 (own people)
42  80,000 Iran, 1978-79 (revolution)
43  75,000 Iraq, 2003-today (domestic)
44  75,000 El Salvador, 1975-92
45  70,000 Eritrea/Ethiopia, 1998-2000
46  68,000 Sri Lanka 1997-today
47  60,000 Zimbabwe, 1966-79; 1980-today
48  60,000 Nicaragua, 1972-91 (Marxists/natives etc,)
49  54,000 Arab wars against Israel, 1948-today (excluding the Israel-Palestine conflict; see 69) 44.000 Arabs; 10.000 Israelis
50  50,000 Communist North Vietnam, 1954-75 (own people)
51  50,000 Tajikistan, 1992-96 (secularists against Islamists)
52  50,000 Equatorial Guinea, 1969-79
53  50,000 Peru, 1980-2000
54  50,000 Guinea, 1958-84
55  40,000 Chad, 1982-90
56  30,000 Bulgaria, 1948-89 (own people)
57  30,000 Rhodesia, 1972-79
58  30,000 Argentina, 1976-83 (own people)
59  27,000 Hungary, 1948-89 (own people)
60  26,000 Kashmir independence, 1989-today
61  25,000 Jordan government vs. Palestinians, 1970-71 (Black September)
62  22,000 Poland, 1948-89 (own people)
63  20,000 Syria, 1982 (against Islamists in Hama)
64  20,000 Chinese-Vietnamese war, 1979
65  18,000 Congo Republic, 1997-99
66  19,000 Morocco: war against France, 1953-56 (3,000), Western Sahara, 1975-today (16,000)
67  15,000? "Tens of thousands of casualties and displaced" (Le Monde, 06-10-09). Yemen government against Huthi rebels.
68  14,000 Nigeria 2000 - 2010 (Muslims, Christians)
69  13,500 Israel-Palestinian conflict 1947-87 (5,000); 1987-91 (2,000); 2000-2010 (6,200: 80% Arabs, 20% Jews)
70  10,000 South Yemen, 1986 (civil war)

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If conflict number 69 out of 70 conflicts with at least 10,000 casualties since 1950 is ranked as number 1 in need of an urgent solution to save the world, causes other than noble concerns for suffering may be at work. Since the Jews of Israel belong to the most persecuted ethnic and religious group in history, the mismatch between facts and their worldwide perception may force us to ask, again, if an anti-Jewish bias blurs the perception.

Around 11,000,000 Muslims suffered death by violence between 1948 and 2009. Of these, some 54,000, i.e., 0.5 percent or 1 out of 200 Muslims who were killed violently since 1948 died within the more than 60 years of fighting against Israel (1948-2010).

In other words, more than 90 percent of the 11 million Muslims perished in violence, since the creation of Israel, died in Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

A conflict would probably exist in Palestine as it does in territories with similar cases. Yet there are similar cases without bloodshed, e.g., Russian settlers in Latvia, as there are similar cases with bloodshed, e.g. Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara or Arab Iraqi settlers in Kurdish Iraq. There must be factor at work that can easily drive the Palestinian way of conflict resolution into a mortal mode.

The mortal mode can persist because well meant western aid – where nearly every newborn is provided for as a refugee – enabled Palestine to defeat Israel demographically. Gaza jumped from 200,000-240,000 inhabitants in 1950 to more than 1.6 million in 2010. In 2006, there were 640.000 Jewish boys under 15 against 1,120,000 Arab boys under 15 (West-Bank, Gaza Strip and Israeli Arabs combined). The last cohort with a Jewish majority – 30 to 44 years with 540,000 against 410,000 Arabs – has passed fighting age.

The death toll in the Israel-Palestine conflict remained low over six decades (1948-2009) because only one side tries to kill at random, whereas the Israeli side most of the time tries to defend itself with surgical strikes or targeted killing.

One could even say that the major factor for low Muslim casualties vis à vis Israel - as opposed to conflicts in which Muslims kill Muslims at random - is due to one side of the conflict not being Muslim.

Thus, it may be a good fortune for Palestinian Arabs that most of the time they must not turn against their own to consume their youth bulges but can turn the rage of their angry young men against Jews.

Yet, the battle of Lebanon against the Palestinian town of Nahr el Bared (May to September 2007) with a total of nearly 500 dead, or the internecine slaughter between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza since 2006 (more than 300 casualties) may give a hint of what may happen if hatred can no longer be executed against Jews. When Israel, in December 2008, tried to end the missile attacks from Gaza the strip suffered 1,385 casualties. Those are considerable losses. Yet, if Israel had pounded Gaza the way Lebanon has pounded Nahr el Bared killing 273 Islamists out of a population of 30,000, Gaza – with a population fifty times larger – would have lost 13,650. If Israel had smashed Gaza like Syria flattened the old city of Hama where, in February 1982, some 30.000 of its 300.000 inhabitants were killed to annihilate the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood – “the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people” (Wright 2008, 243) – there would have been a loss of 150.000 in Gaza.

Yet, the battles of Nahr el Bared in Lebanon (May to September 2007) with more than 500 dead, or the intenecine slaughter between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza since 2006 (around 500 casualties) may give a hint of what may happen if hatred can no longer be executed against Jews.

Sources:

Brzezinski, Z., Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, 1993.

Courtois, S., ed., Le Livre Noir du Communism, 1997.

Heinsohn, G., Lexikon der Völkermorde, 1999. Heinsohn, G., Söhne und Weltmacht, 2006, 8th ed.

Rummel. R., Death by Government, 1994.

Small, M., Singer, J.D., Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816-1980, 1982.

White, M. Please click here for Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century (2003).

Wright, R., Dreams and Shadows : The Future of the Middle East, Penguin, 2008

*Gunnar Heinsohn (born 1943 in Gdynia/Poland; "summa cum laude" doctorates 1974 in sociology and 1982 in economics), serves, since 1993 as speaker of the Raphael-Lemkin-Institut at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research where he authored the first encyclopedia of genocide (Lexikon der Völkermorde; 1998; 1999, 2nd ed.), as well as an outline for an international body to monitor genocidal developments globally (Völkermordfrühwarnung / Genocide Watch, 2000 [1998]).

His study “Sons and World Power: Terror in the Rise and Fall of Nation (Söhne und Weltmacht; Zürich 2003; with 10th impression in 2008 a scholarly bestseller; Dutch, Japanese, and Polish editions in 2008) tries to illuminate the role of youth bulges in mega-killings of past, present, and future.

From 2005 to 2009, he gave lectures on the subject of youth bulges and violence to many German and international institutions He has published on the subject in the major newspapers and magazines of the German language area as well as in the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde, the Financial Times, the Weekly Standard, NRC-Handelsbald (Amsterdam), etc.

Together with Philippe Bourcier de Carbon (Paris), he was the only expert from continental Europe consulted for the study, The Graying of the Great Powers by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS; Washington DC 2008).

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Ethnic Butchery and Genocidal Massacres: Perpetrators and Bystanders to the Islamist Campaign to Get Rid of Bangladesh’s Hindus

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is an irrefutable fact, supported by decades of data. A consistent torrent of reports documenting anti-Hindu incidents in Bangladesh has bombarded anyone who had an interest in what is happening in the world’s seventh largest country. Those “incidents” included murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion (to Islam), child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration -- with government culpability.
Richard Benkin

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is an irrefutable fact, supported by decades of data. At the time of India’s partition in 1948, they made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Hindus were less than a fifth of the new nation’s people. Thirty years later, they were less than one in ten; and while current statistics do not yet exist, several estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent. Using demographic and other calculations, Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that about 40 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census.

During the same period of time, a consistent torrent of reports documenting anti-Hindu incidents in Bangladesh has bombarded anyone who had an interest in what is happening in the world’s seventh largest country. Those “incidents” included murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion (to Islam), child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration. And while Bangladeshi officials might assert—with only some justification—that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, in the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators of these atrocities. Successive Bangladeshi governments appear to have been passive bystanders, failing to exercise their sovereign responsibility to protect the life and security of all their citizens; and thus they have sent radical Islamists and common citizens alike a clear message that these acts can be undertaken with impunity.

Additionally, I have interviewed dozens of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees living in largely illicit colonies throughout North and Northeast India. In describing the attacks that forced them to leave their ancestral homes, they made it very clear that their attackers were not necessarily members of radical Islamist groups. Instead, most were neighbors or otherwise everyday Muslims. They also reported with near unanimity that when they went to the police and other local officials for help, they were advised to drop the subject and “get out of Bangladesh.” Last February, I interviewed a family that just crossed in to India only 22 days before. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father being beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of Muslims. Local Muslims also raped their 14-year-old daughter. The perpetrators were simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family and seize their land.

Often the most “successful” cases of genocide and genocidal massacres accompanied by mass expulsions occur when a small cadre of true believers incite average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority that they otherwise would not dream of committing. At a 1996 public rally, for instance, former and future Prime Minister Khaleda Zia fanned anti-Hindu flames by warning Bangladeshis that Hindus threatened to take over the country; saying that the traditional Hindu wail, “uludhhwani,” would soon replace the traditional Muslim call to prayer. There might be no Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a slow motion and process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority little known to the western world.

This is the fatal flaw in US and western policy in this region that provides an ideological basis for ignoring the ethnic massacres and expulsions of Bangladesh’s Hindus. The investment of outside actors, notably the United States, in the success of the current Awami League government in Dhaka rests on uncritically accepting its claim to be “pro-minority” and different from previous military-backed and BNP-led governments. Yet, fifteen months after taking office, the Awami League government has not been able to move Bangladesh away from its previous abuses. Anti-Hindu actions and the government’s complicity have continued unabated.

During the first two months of Awami rule, serious anti-Hindu occurred on the average off one and a half per week. They included religious desecration, land grabs, beatings, kidnapping, rape and murder. The crimes were religiously based; that is, the victims were targeted because they were Hindu; and the government did not prosecute them. This passive role appears to signal that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party would not interfere with the Hindu community’s destruction. The onslaught has continued throughout 2009, and last spring saw what can be described only as an anti-Hindu pogrom in the nation’s capital. Its western supporters in government, NGOs, and the media were champions in making sure that these abuses were not publicized. The Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council, for instance, reports a total of 13 similar incidents in March and April. Other NGOs, including Bangladesh Minority Watch and Global Human Rights Defence, as well as both vernacular and English-language newspapers, concur. Yet, media outside of Bangladesh did not pick up any of them.

Let’s take as an example that anti-Hindu pogrom in Dhaka. In March and twice in April, a community of approximately 400 Hindus was reportedly going about its business when “hundreds of Muslims” suddenly descended on them and demanded they quit the homes where they and their families had lived for the past 150 years. Witnesses also report that police watched passively while attackers beat residents and destroyed a Hindu temple. The Bangladeshi Government said no anti-Hindu pogrom occurred, and the cover up moved from local police to the Dhaka police chief to an Awami League MP. Several human rights groups, as well as my own network, conducted extensive investigations and confirmed the attacks. Many residents remain homeless; and the Bangladeshi Government has not even bothered to deny that Hindus were beaten, some religious desecration occurred, or that police were present during the attacks. We also confirmed that the area attacked was located directly behind a police station and the Temple only about 18 m from it; yet, the police did nothing to stop its destruction. Police also justified the land grab under Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act, which has fueled the seizure of Hindu lands for over 35 years. Yet, except for some local Bangladeshi papers, The Daily Pioneer of India, and some blogs; the media ignored it.

This is not about one terrible event, but about a system of legalized ethnic cleansing that has proceeded non-stop for decades and which places every one of Bangladesh’s 13,000,000-15,000,000 Hindus at risk. For despite Government protestations to the contrary, normal legal protections are suspended for Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh who are often subject to arbitrary actions by the Muslim majority. Moreover, the nominal law enforcers have become enforcers of lawlessness, abetting crimes against minorities and sending a message that Bangladesh is a country where the law gives Muslims preferential treatment even if it means ignoring elementary standards of justice. (The Eighth Amendment to Bangladesh’s constitution declared Islam the official state religion and gave rise to numerous preferential policies and actions that has made Hindus and other minorities second class citizens.)

One would expect that the onus would fall on Bangladesh to convince the rest of the world that it is not guilty of ethnic cleansing and tolerating bigotry. Yet, the opposite seems to be the case. For no major human rights body has acknowledged the seriousness or even the existence of this quiet case of ethnic cleansing (as I have termed it because of the world’s silence). Whether it is Amnesty International or the United Nations Human Rights Commission, they have devoted far more energy and resources to criticizing the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, than they have to the plight of Hindus—whether in Bangladesh; Pakistan, where they have been reduced from almost a fifth in 1965 to one percent today; Malaysia, which is engaging in a particular vicious attack on Hindus and Hinduism; or even the smaller nations of Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, or Bhutan. The latter has been expelling Hindus to refugee camps in neighboring Nepal since the 1980s. It is no wonder that several have suggested an anti-Hindu bias on the part of these rights groups.

There is no internal dynamic in successive Bangladeshi governments to put an end to the atrocities or even the Nuremburg-like laws of discrimination. University’s Professor Abul Barkat has demonstrated both major parties have benefited materially from them and used the spoils to strengthen their patronage base. The only way things will change is when some outside force makes it clear that the negative consequences from continued ethnic cleansing are more painful than the political cowardice that keeps it going. So far, no one—not India, the United States, the United Nations, or anyone else—has stepped up to take a principled stand.

Conclusion
Genocidal scenarios result from human choice and bystander indifference. What we have in Bangladesh are genocidal massacres and expulsions resulting from incitement and actions of non-governmental perpetrators and inaction by governmental bystanders, and the indifference of the outside world. This essay states the case for setting in motion actions to hold the Bangladesh Government accountable for its Responsibility to Prevent and Protect, in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Richard Benkin PhD is a human rights activist, author, and speaker. Over the past five years, he has among other things freed a journalist from imprisonment and torture in Bangladesh, forced Bangladesh's notorious RAD to release an abductee unharmed, halted an anti-Israel conference in Australia, and raised the issue of Bangladesh's ethnic massacres and expulsions of Hindus in Washington and other capitals. His many publications on abuse of human rights in Bangladesh are listed on the website of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He recently returned from a trip to India where he won verbal support from several political and Lok Sabha officials, addressed universities and large public gatherings, and established a communication conduit with the highest echelons of the Bangladeshi government. Dr. Benkin has also received verbal support for US Congressional hearings about the Bangladeshi Hindus. In 2005, Benkin received a meritorious award from the US Congress for his work.

According to Benkin, after a trip to Bangladesh which capped his successful effort to free a political prisoner, a group of Bangladeshi Hindus contacted him and asked for his help. Although he knew something about their persecution, Benkin immersed himself in research about the subject and vowed to stop it. Since then, he has met with victims and victimizers, gathering information and getting it to US leaders, and working for action.

Benkin is President and a founder of Forcefield, a human rights NGO, described as "non-agenda driven," in contrast with other human rights organizations. Its first human rights case is that of Bangladesh’s Hindus.

Please click here for a fully referenced pdf version of this article.

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"Go Ahead My Son and Become a Great Shahid," Says the Mother

The following are excerpts from a children's TV show about tales of child martyrdom, which aired on Al-Quds TV (Lebanon) on January 21, 2010.


"The mother answered:… 'I have brought you up to become a hero and defend the homeland with weapons'"

Story teller: "Asmaa decided to become a teacher when she grew up, and to get married and have many children, whom she would teach to love the land – in keeping with her father's final will – and from whom she would form an army that would defend the homeland... Even though she had hoped to have many children, Allah gave her only one boy, whom she named Mujahid. She brought him up like all children. He was raised on the love of the land, and he looked forward to the day when he would become like his grandfather and uncles. Whenever he heard the boys of the Intifada throwing stones, he would ask his mother to join them. His mother would answer: 'Go. May Allah be with you. Help your brothers.' Mujahid would go and throw stones and Molotov cocktails at the enemy's army. In the evening, Asmaa would wait for his return on her doorstep, and he would tell her of the day's heroic actions...

"One evening, Mujahid returned home alone. He went up to her, kissed her hand, and said: 'Mother, I would like to tell you something.' The mother said: 'Go ahead, Mujahid.' Mujahid said: 'Most of the guys who went to school with me during the Intifada have joined the ranks of the armed resistance, and I am ashamed that I am not with them.' The mother answered: 'Why aren't you? I have brought you up to become a hero and defend the homeland with weapons.' Mujahid said: 'I went to the commander of the armed squad, and asked to join him, like all my comrades, but he said to me: Mujahid, go to your mother, and bring us a note that she agrees to you joining us.'"

"The commander was happy, seeing this great mother who was willing to sacrifice her life and the life of her only son"

"Asmaa did not write the note, but said to her son: 'Come with me.' She walked and walked, all the way to the home of the commander of the resistance. She said to him: 'You asked my son to bring you a note from me. I stand here before you, telling you that I agree, but on one condition: that I can help you as well.' The commander was happy, seeing this great mother, who was willing to sacrifice her life and the life of her only son. He said to her: 'You will be the mother of all the resistance fighters.' Thus, mother and son began working in the service of the resistance.

"One day, Mujahid came home sad. His mother asked him: 'What is wrong, my son?' He said: 'The resistance is preparing a fidaai operation. Some of my friends were selected for this operation, but not me. That's why I'm sad.' The mother put on her coat, and hurried to meet the resistance commander. She said to him: 'I let my son join you so he could carry out heroic operations.' The commander said: 'This operation is difficult, and the people who carry it out might be martyred. We know that Mujahid is your only son, and we don't want you to lose him.' The mother answered: 'Mujahid is not my only son. All the boys of the resistance are my sons, my army. Mujahid is the one who will carry out this operation.' The commander had to agree, in the face of the mother's insistence."

"Asmaa … said to everyone: 'Eat sweets; today is a day of rejoicement for me – the mother of a martyr'"

"Mujahid and his mother waited for the day of the operation. Finally, the day arrived. Mujahid feared that his mother would be sad when he died, but she said: 'Don't worry, my son. Go and show them who you are.' She prepared his clothes and his weapon, and asked Allah to grant him success. Mujahid set out after kissing her hands, with her eyes set on him. She sat for a long time, waiting for news... The boys came out of the tunnel, and into the place of the occupiers. They lay in wait for a large car. Suddenly, explosions were heard, and bullets were raining down. A few minutes later, it was reported on the radio and TV: 'A squad of young men miraculously broke through an Israeli roadblock. They clashed with a patrol, and killed all its soldiers. Two of the squad members were martyred. One of them is called Mujahid.'

"When Asmaa heard that Allah had granted her son the honor of martyrdom, after he had given the enemies a taste of bitterness, she began to ululate. People gathered around her, thinking that there was some wedding. She said to them: 'Yes, this is the wedding of my son the martyr, who has followed in the footsteps of his grandfather the hero.' Asmaa carried on her head a tray of sweets, and said to everyone: 'Eat sweets. Today is the wedding of Mujahid. Today is a day of rejoicement for me – the mother of a martyr, the daughter of a martyr, and the sister of martyrs. All of them will vouch for me on Judgment Day.'"


Source: MEMRI, Middle East Media Research Institute (March 25, 2010). Children's Show on a Lebanese Channel Encourages Mothers to Sacrifice Their Children. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4058.htm

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