My travels have prevented me from following the situation in the Middle East very closely, but what I have seen lately has amazed me. People are, for instance, bemoaning the death of Palestinian youths (and adults) killed by Israelis. What they fail to note is that these killings occurred after the Palestinians (often teenaged boys) were trying to kill Israeli soldiers or civilians using knives, rocks, or cleavers. Other Palestinians are trying to run down Israeli civilians using cars. In other words, the latest wave of “violence” against Palestinians seems to involve mostly self-defense against Palestinian terror attacks.
Yet the world ignores this. Some people in fact appear to fault Israelis for trying to defend their own lives. Newspaper headlines are ambiguous, like this one from today’s ABC News (click on screenshot to go to article). There’s ambiguity about the “attack,” but in fact the two Palestinians were trying to attack Israeli soldiers with knives:
Here’s a headline from the BBC, which was changed three times in an hour after complaints that it was misleading (I suspect it was deliberately misleading, like the one above):
Who were the two men killed? Not Palestinians. They were these two, stabbed to death in the Old City:
Other horrific attacks on Israelis citizens? How about two parents, Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, shot to death in their car in front of their four children in the back seat—children aged 4 months, 4 years, 7 years, and 9 years. Did you hear much about that? I didn’t. Here are the victims:
Perhaps the best summary of the situation I’ve seen has been an editorial in, of all places, the Harvard Crimson, a piece called “Deafening Silence.” I’m not going to cite Israeli opinion pieces, even though their op-eds should be considered at least valid enough to merit a read, even if one doesn’t agree with their content or feel that their views are impartial. But I guarantee there will be those who will also discount the Crimson editorial because it’s written by someone with a Jewish name, Rachel Huebner. But there are links in her piece that allow you to check everything for yourself. A snippet:
But the world is silent.
Imagine that terrorists were stabbing to death Americans who were on their daily walks to the supermarket. Imagine that terrorists were driving their cars into crowds of New York commuters waiting for the train. Imagine if driving on a Chicago highway were dangerous because a lynch mob could surround your car at any moment. Imagine having to kiss your family members goodbye each morning, unsure if you would survive the day. The world would not be silent.
Israel is experiencing an onslaught of vicious terrorism. The attacks are terrorizing the entire country. Citizens have begun sleeping with knives on their bed tables and young parents are drafting wills for their preschool children.
But the world is not listening. Newspapers have failed to document the extent and nature of the egregious murders on their front pages. World leaders have yet to issue condemnations of Palestinian aggression. One could watch a variety of daily news shows and be unaware that anything out of the ordinary has been happening in Israel.
Indeed! If Obama’s said anything about this, I don’t know about it. All we hear are tepid calls for “restraint.”
Until I did a bit of digging the last two days, I had no idea what was going on. And although I’ve repeatedly called for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and for a two-state solution. I don’t see that happening now, for both Hamas and Fatah seem to want the complete extirpation of Israel. This is a dilemma. Further, although Israel has condemned the execrable acts of its own citizens, like the revenge killing of a sixteen-year old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and has tracked down and jailed the Israeli perpetrators, Palestinian authorities (and, of course, imams and other Muslim clerics) not only fail to condemn the violence, but encourage it and glorify the terrorists. Do you think the Palestinian authorities will find and jail those who stab and hack Israeli citizens, or run them over with cars? Don’t make me laugh.
Have a look at this video (one of many you can find without breaking a sweat), in which a Palestinian cleric, speaking on Al-Aqsa television, the official Hamas television channel, says “not a single Jew will remain on this land.” and “We will not leave a single one of you, alive or dead, on this land. By Allah, we will dig up your bones from your graves and get them out of this country.” That, of course, means Israel. If this kind of venom were spewed against Muslims in, say, the U.S., do you have any doubt that people would rise up against such horrible, violent bigotry? But of course it’s ignored because, after all, it’s okay when Palestinian state media says this kind of stuff.
Or if Israeli television called for the total extirpation of Palestinians in such a way, is there any doubt that Americans would put it on the front page of the New York Times, and the world would condemn Israel? Of course they would. But it’s okay when the Palestinians do it.
Huebner continues:
The world must not only condemn the horrific acts of terror; we must also condemn those responsible for inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority is one group that we must demand be held accountable. In a recent speech on Palestinian TV, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated: “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven.” He called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount “by any means possible” and declared that Jews “have no right to defile [Al Aqsa Mosque] with their filthy feet.” Days later, he declared the Oslo Accords void in a speech at the United Nations. Throughout the recent wave of terror, Fatah, Abbas’s party, has delivered leaflets in Palestinian towns praising the terrorists, and Fatah Twitter accounts have glorified the attacks. This week, a knife-wielding Gaza cleric called upon his congregants to stab Jews and “cut them into body parts.” He urged some to “restrain the victim, while others attack him with axes and butcher knives.”
The condemnations are not going to happen, for the Western media, as well as some atheist bloggers, have adopted a narrative in which any atrocity committed by a Palestinian is to be ignored or whitewashed (or even blamed on Israel), while vilifying Israeli soldiers and civilians for daring to defend themselves. Yes, the situation is complicated, and there’s a lot to be said for and against both sides (see this thoughtful Daily Beast article, “Inside the Mind of Israel/Palestine”, by Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim). But one thing is certain: these knife, car, and cleaver attacks are terrorism, and their victims had every right to defend themselves. Arguments about the Temple Mount are NO justification for killing. Make that two things that are certain: the other is that the Western media will continue to ignore or downplay the Palestinian terrorism.
I don’t know what the solution to the Israel/Palestine situation is, but I know hypocrisy when I see it. If you’re going to condemn Palestinian citizens killed by the IDF, even accidentally, you must also condemn Israelis citizens deliberately killed by Palestinian terrorists. Why this hypocrisy exists—well, I’ll leave you to discuss it below. Just remember, liberals have a proud tradition (at least until recently) of being open to the possibility that they might be wrong.
