Quantitative Data Analysis of Genocidal Dynamics in Palestine

Description

Amidst the first live-streamed genocide (Sooliman, 2023) and in the context of the long history of ethnic cleansing and violence in Palestine committed by the apartheid state of Israel and its colonial precursors (Khalidi, 2020; Pappe, 2007), in this project we dissect the dynamics (patterns of behavior) of genocide and resistance in Palestine over the past two and a half years. We describe how spatio-temporal patterns of the ongoing violence and resistance in Gaza and the West Bank can be mapped employing linear and nonlinear quantitative data analysis tools. Over 16 thousand events (video clips) published on the genocide.live website (Databases for Palestine, 2025) are employed. This unprecedented archive of location-date and thematic specific tags offers a rough quantitative proxy for the progression in time and space of murders, forced displacement, harassment, assaults, detentions, starvation, and other forms of genocidal aggression, as well as the corresponding contours of resistance against genocidal violence as represented in the database. The results will be used to describe quantitatively the dynamics of genocide, to detect slowly varying changes in those dynamics over time and space, to provide a tool for short-term predictions of future genocidal actions and to support efforts to enforce legal accountability. Processing and analyzing the data requires three steps. First, the data are converted to a form where they can be quantitatively analyzed and subjected to a series of quality control checks. Second, the data are analyzed using linear methods, specifically Canonical Correlation Analysis (Härdle and Simar, 2007) to find correlations between combinations of genocidal event categories. Additionally, nonlinear time and spatial series forecasting is used to recover the phase space of the principal variables of genocidal dynamics and to test the degree of their nonlinearity and rate of dissipation (Abarbanel et al., 1993). Third, the processed analyzed data will be mapped, graphed and interpreted to provide information about the dynamics of genocide and for predictive and legal applications. -->Abarbanel, H.D., Brown, R., Sidorowich, J.J. and Tsimring, L.S. (1993) The analysis of observed chaotic data in physical systems. Reviews of modern physics, 65(4), 1331-1392. -->Databases for Palestine. (2025). Genocide.live [Dataset]. https://databasesforpalestine.org/ -->Härdle, W. and Simar, L. (2007). Canonical Correlation Analysis, Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis. 321–330. -->Khalidi, R. (2020). The hundred years' war on Palestine: A history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company. -->Nabulsi K quoted in Ahmad, A. and Vulliamy E. (2009, January 10). In Gaza, the schools are dying too. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-schools -->Pappe, I. (2007). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications. -->Sooliman, I. (2023, October 24​). Consent for Genocide in Gaza is Manufactured. Mail and Guardian​​​​​​https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/opinion/2023-10-24-consent-for-genocide-in-gaza-is-manufactured/ Research Team: Janin Guzman-Morales, Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice, Marlene Brito-Millán, Loyala Chicago University, Jessica Ng, Princeton University, Amrah Soloman J, University of California, Santa Barbara, BT Werner, University of California – San Diego and Scientists For Palestine