Originally Posted by dhuey
Typical targets for Hamas and its ilk are city buses and local marketplaces. Israel's terrorists are trying very hard not to hit Americans and Europeans. It's not that they keep their promises or that they give a rat's arse about them. Rather, they hope to encourage Europe to put more pressure on Israel and to make Americans less sympathetic to Israel.
That's amusing but not wholly accurate; and it's certainly not precisely true.
If Israel's terrorists are trying very hard not to hit people of American or European affiliation, then one needs to explain how lobbing random rockets and hitting marketplaces avoids Americans and Europeans any more than it avoids Israelis and others there not of American and European affiliation? If anything, Israel's terrorists don't care who they strike as long as the blowback is low or non-existent.
Originally Posted by dhuey
A quiz for you, GU: since the Oslo accords in 1993, in which country were more Western tourists killed by terrorists? (Israel or Egypt) How confident are you in your answer?
Finally, let me clarify that I'm not suggesting in the slightest that Western tourists' lives count more in any sense. I'm focusing on that group because a large majority of FTers are Western, and many of them ponder the question that is the title of this thread.
I'm confident that more people of "European" origin were killed in Israel than in Egypt by terrorists since 1993. Shift from 1993 to 2000, and I'm confident that people of European descent were more likely to be killed in terrorist attacks in Israel than in Egypt.
Since 2000, "Western" visitors are safer from violence in Iran than they were in Egypt or Israel. Perhaps Iran is a better choice to visit than Egypt or Israel. After all, Iran's safe until Israel, Kurdish proxies, Bushists or Bushist proxies start unleashing violence there.