Bibi + Obama: I switched channels at the point when they began to talk one more time about America’s special relationship with Israel. I don’t know exactly whether it was irritation or nausea.
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In some recent correspondence I quoted a figure for the number of Palestinians in Israeli jails. The most recent reporting had been on Iran’s PressTV, which I wouldn’t consider a very reliable source. So I tried to get to the bottom of where the figures were from. It looks like the source was a March 8 article by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. They have a page with figures from March 8.
The Israeli human rights org Btselem, also keeps statistics. They have a page with tables of historical data up to the end of May 2010.
The PCBS gives a figure of 7,300 prisoners is from the PCBS. Btselem’s current figure is 6,338. I don’t know why these figures are different, but the good news is that the number has been going down since 2006.
PCBS, by the way have a link to Btselem; except that the link goes to Betselem.org and not, as should be, Btselem.org. The former link goes to one of those holding domains that seem intended to embarrass organizations into buying the domain. I’ve come to recognize them since they have a standard layout. But this time I was fooled for a few seconds.