That's the approximate ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed so far in the current violence between Gaza and Israel, according to this BBC article.
How can it have come to this? It is now over 6 years since the "Quartet" (US, EU, Russia and UN) published its first draft roadmap aimed at ending the Israel-Palestine conflict. It included objectives such as a focus on reciprocal steps towards peaceful co-existence; political, economic, humanitarian and institutional reconstruction over a three-year (!) period; Israel's withdrawal from territory it has occupied since 2000, and the establishment of provisional borders of a Palestinian state; an end to Israeli settlement in occupied territory; re-afirmation of the positions set out in UN resolutions 242, 338 and 1397; full, safe and unfettered access to Gaza and the WestBank for international and humanitarian personnel, and so on, and so on. In those respects, a cold-eyed assessment would have to conclude that the Quartet has made little, if any, lasting progress.
It also described how the Quartet, through an appointed Task Force, would support Palestinian efforts towards elections, judicial reform and the role of civil society. In that regard, the Quartet's biggest failure has been its inability to answer the question "how should the international community respond to the fact that, in elections whose legitimacy no-one has credibly questioned, the Palestinians elected Hamas?".
Hamas, there is no denying, is an organisation antithetical to some of the key participants in any lasting solution. In some respects, that is entirely unsurprising. The Quartet's failure to drive substantive progress in those areas the roadmap set out so clearly has, in Gaza, created conditions of economic and humanitarian desperation and institutional powerlessness. Political extremism and ruthlessness were bound to flourish. But it's equally clear that the strategy to date - of either ignoring or refusing to acknowledge Hamas - is not working.
Doesn't all experience tell us that, when democratic processes break down and those involved turn to violence, the breakdown is never resolved through that violence, but only through persistent and reciprocal engagement in the political process?
The boundary between 2008 and 2009 is an entirely arbitrary one - but it's as good a point as any at which to wish that the next year will bring substantive and lasting steps towards peace in the Levant.
Wishes aside: over the last 6 days, 175,000 people have signed a petition on the Avaaz website, here, which will be presented to the UN Security Council, the European Union, the Arab League and the USA. It calls for a halt to the bloodshed in Gaza and Southern Israel, and for real progress towards peace in 2009. The aim is to reach at least a quarter of a million signatories, and the petition is still open.
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