Gaza in Proportion

In this day of information saturation, you would imagine that easily-obtained numbers, showing the relative might of the Gaza Strip and of the State of Israel would be prominently featured in a box  next to news coverage of the recent re-re-re-re-ignition of the conflict between Israel and the Gaza strip. I touched on this in the last post. Herewith some additional data:

Gaza Strip Compared to Israel
			Ratio
	Gaza Strip	Israel	Gaza	Israel
Population (mil)	1.657	7.941	1	4.79
Per capita GDP ($)	3,100	31,467	1	10.15
Area (sq. miles)	139	8,019	1	57.69
Population per sq. mile	11,921	990	1	0.08

The tabulation shows differences between the Gaza Strip and Israel in terms of population, per capita Gross Domestic Product, area, and population density. Nearly 1.7 million people in Gaza occupy a mere 139 square miles, with some 11,900 per square mile. Compared to the inhabitants of Gaza, Israel’s population is ten times richer, has nearly 5 times more people, and nearly 60 times more area. Israel’s density is less than a tenth of Gaza’s.

What follows next is a map of both. Alas, the Gaza strip is virtually invisible. I’ve provided an arrow that points to it.

Now the spectator populations across the world, looking at this, and reading the hyped coverage in the media—where the oppressed and one might say suffocated population of Gaza is the chief villain, might well say, Hmmm…