We are more normal than you think

In a recent article of Ha'aretz' Mrs. Lili Galili presented the soon to appear "Book of Arab Society in Israel" (Sefer Hahevra Ha'aravit Biyisrael) edited by sociologist Dr.Aziz Haider¹ and published by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (מכון ון ליר בירושלים).

"It is commonly assumed that the best way to tell the story of a group of people is to relay on individual, human story. Data and numbers are considered dry and fail to rouse interest", Mrs. Galili tells us and adds, that she thinks, that this new book "dispels such assumptions".

Now that might work only for the more rational and oldfashioned kind of reader, but still, according to Mrs. Galili, the book seems to contain lots of interesting and lesser known facts. That sounds exciting enough for me. Here are 3 of them (1 implicit):

Science reveals lesser known findings

Since the '60s, the average fertility rate among Arab women decreased from 9 to 4.3 children. The average fertility rate of women in the Negev is particularly high - 8.7 percent, as opposed to 2.6 percent among Christian Arab women.

Another surprising statistic presented in the book, which contradicts traditional stereotypes of Arab society, is the large percentage of single women. Single women represent 17.4 percent of Arab-Israeli women aged 30-34, as opposed to 13.2 percent of Jewish women in the same age group. "In this instance, there is no difference between Christians, Muslims, and Druze women," Haider clarifies.

This should be a factbox and opinionbox respectively

Now it should be added that this Dr. Haider here is neither an Austrian cynical player on old antisemite values nor a Panarabian terrorist playing in newstyle antiisraeli Hintergründigkeiten but a sociologist not only at the above mentioned and linked Jerusalem Van Leer Institute but also at the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University.

It should also be mentioned that we here at tinytalk love scientific antiparanoia literature. It just makes us feel better and more confident in a world where way too many people don't know otherwise than playing the game on the base of disseminating their own fears and thereby provoking stengthening other peoples fears nearly all of the time. I would not have thought about writing this the last few years but here it comes: Thank you, Dr. Haider. Thank you also, Mrs. Galil. Sincerely yours. (reading inspired by a link on motzes' weblog.

¹Please note that other than the English edition of haaretz.com the Van Leer Institute gives the transcription of his name as "Haidar", which is more common and gives the english title of the upcoming book as "Arab Society in Israel: Population, Society and Education".

ANTSCD: The ultimate sophistication in PC marketing.

This demonstrational example is from a PC marketing history at kellyad.com (reading inspired by a link on tobi's weblog.