Danger, danger everywhere

June 4, 2009 - 10:02 AM by · 4 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, War 

Tel Aviv bathers live in fear of sand rash.

Tel Aviv bathers live in fear of sand rash.

Israel is nestled among the illustrious ranks of Iraq, Afghanistan; Somalia, Sudan and Chad as the most dangerous countries to live in – at least according to something called the Global Peace Index.

The annual ranking of 144 of the world’s nations based of how peaceful they are perennially places Israel near the bottom of the list, with countries like New Zealand and Iceland fighting it out for the safest (New Zealand edged out its competitor this year, with Iceland’s financial collapse evidently pushing its residents closer to derangement which influenced its drop to fourth place.)

The index was collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit for a think tank called the Institute for Economics and Peace. It uses a weighted mix of 23 criteria, including foreign wars, internal conflicts, respect for human rights, the number of murders, the number of people in jail, the arms trade, and degrees of democracy (The US is ranked number 83 and Britain is 35 – last for the third year in a row is Iraq). Even Iran (99) and Syria (92) are allegedly safer than Tel Aviv.

It’s kind of bizarre to find us ranked so low, given that criteria. I could see it if we were looking at benchmarks like susceptibility to sun dehydration, or possibility of heart attack due to pushy, obnoxious neighbors, or likelihood of stroke due the number of commercials during Channel 2 programming.

But Israel dangerous like Pakistan and Congo? Unless you’re in Sderot (and when was the last time someone was injured by a Kassam there?), a settler living in an illegal outpost, or a Palestinian terrorist in the scope of the IDF, I don’t think so. Of course, all that could change if Iran makes good on its threat to annihilate the Jewish state, or if Hamas or Hizbullah decides to raise their profile in their agression against us.

But right now, if Israel is the fourth most dangerous country in the world to live in, someone had better tell these people on the beach.

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