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Monday, April 18, 2016

Today is Prisoners' Day

I learned that today is "Prisoners' Day", a day set aside by the Palestinian Authority to point out the number of people held in jail by Israel.  Do you know how many Palestinians are in Israeli jails?  The answer is 7000 according to the reports about Prisoners' Day.  I tried to figure out if this included Israeli Arab citizens in jail or just those who live in the territories, but the reports did not specify this.  In fact, I wonder how accurate these reports actually are, given the track record of the Palestinian Authority in the past.  They exaggerate everything.

Let's assume, however, that there are 7000 prisoners.  These are 7000 men and women being held in jail.  Murderers and thieves are included in this number.  Terrorists are included in this number.  It's every Palestinian prisoner in jail.  So is this a large number?  Let's put it in context.  According to the Palestinian Authority, there are 4.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli control.  For a contrast, let's look at the state of Delaware.  It has just under one million people, but guess how many prisoners there are in the Delaware correctional system?  That's right, there are roughly 7000 prisoners being held by the state of Delaware.  That means that the average person in Delaware is almost five times more likely to be in prison than the average Palestinian.  And last time I checked, there were no terrorists attacks being undertaken in Delaware.

The truth is that the number of Palestinian prisoners is actually quite low for the population.  Prisoners' Day ought to be an embarrassment to the Palestinian Authority.

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