Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Terror in Jerusalem

The New York Times doesn’t understand. It believes that no one else does either.

Editorially, the Times does not understand why terrorists attacked a Jerusalem synagogue yesterday:

There is no comprehending the murder of four men, including three rabbis, at a synagogue complex in a neighborhood of West Jerusalem on Tuesday.

They were civilians, unarmed and at prayer in a religious sanctuary when two Palestinians, residents of East Jerusalem, went on a bloody rampage with a gun, knives and axes before being killed in a shootout. Two Israeli policemen were also wounded in the gun battle, and one later died of his injuries.

Like President Obama, who condemned the attacks, the Times takes the opportunity to draw a moral equivalence between Israelis and the Palestinians who were, lest we forget, celebrating the attack:

But it is also a tragedy for all Israelis and Palestinians. The two communities appeared increasingly locked in a cycle of hatred and hopelessness, where chances for stability, much less permanent peace, seem nearly impossible.

One suspects that drawing a moral equivalence, thereby demonstrating a cowardly inability, on the part of the Obama administration and many other Western democracies, to denounce Palestinian terrorism for what it is bears some responsibility for what happened.

By way of comparison, the Wall Street Journal had no problem understanding what happened on its editorial page:

To understand why peace in Palestine is years if not decades away, consider the Palestinian celebrations after Tuesday’s murder in a Jerusalem synagogue of five Israelis, including three with joint U.S. citizenship. Two Palestinian cousins armed with meat cleavers and a gun attacked worshipers during morning prayers, and the response was jubilation in the streets.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, while Hamas praised the murders as a “response to continued Israeli crimes.” The main obstacle to peace isn’t Jewish settlements in the multireligious city of Jerusalem. The barrier is the culture of hatred against Jews that is nurtured by Palestinian leaders.

As for the larger political issues, the Journal explains them clearly:

The goal of this new jihad is to frighten Israelis into agreeing to a divided Jerusalem, a chief Palestinian demand in the peace talks that recently collapsed. Yet it is only under Israeli rule that all religions have been respected in Jerusalem. On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world should not be dividing cities.

President Obama condemned the attack, but his government has also done harm by denouncing Israeli construction in municipal Jerusalem. The George W. Bush Administration guaranteed in a 2004 letter to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that a future peace deal would require some West Bank border adjustments depending on the reality on the ground. In 2009 Hillary Clinton said the Bush letter had no standing, thus encouraging Palestinian hope for a divided Jerusalem.

Of course, Obama and Clinton were not the only Western leaders to direct their rhetorical fire first and foremost at Israeli buildings.

Is it not ironic that Israelis have been chastised for construction while Palestinians have been given a pass on their politics of deconstruction?

In addition, Hillary Clinton has allowed the Palestinians to believe that they might still use terror to gain a piece of Israel. Their goal, evidently, is to dismantle and destroy Israel, one piece at a time.


2 comments:

Sam L. said...

"Moral Equivalence" is the leftist trope for "We don't like one side, but we won't say that."

Lastango said...

The Bushies don't get a pass on this. Bush/Rice maneuvered to have spineless sock-puppet Olmert become prime minister, worked with him to conduct phony wars which were strategic and tactical defeats for Israel, and then armed the Palestinians. Thanks for nothing, George and Condi... off to the dustbin of history with you both.

"This is what happened in Hezbollah’s war with Israel in 2006. During the fighting, Hezbollah alleged that Israel killed a great number of Lebanese civilians in Kfar Kana. Those allegations caused then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to effectively end US support for Israel’s war effort. Rice quickly coerced Israel into accepting ceasefire terms that paved the way for Hezbollah’s takeover of the Lebanese government."

http://carolineglick.com/how-to-win-in-gaza/

And just for fun let's have some moral equivalency:

"Ignoring Fatah's obvious involvement in terror and increasingly overt support for Hamas's missile war against Israeli civilians, Bush overrode a Congressional ban on the transfer of $150 million to Fatah. Similarly, in her visit to Egypt this week, Rice announced that the administration was overriding a Congressional decision to block the transfer of $120 million to Egypt due to its refusal to prevent Hamas weapons smuggling operations from Egypt.

...Rice announced that the US will be giving $148 million to UNRWA in 2008 - this despite the fact that UN refugee camps in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria and Jordan are all hotbeds of terror recruitment, training and indoctrination. She ignored Hamas's widespread popularity in Palestinian society, called for Israel to step up its humanitarian aid to Gaza, and defended the Palestinians as victims. As she put it, "Hamas … in effect, holds the people of Gaza hostage in their hands."

Rice... then intimated that in the midst of Fatah's open support for Hamas's Iranian-supported open war against Israel, she expected Israel to take action to demolish the communities its citizens have built in Judea and Samaria claiming, "We do need to have improvements on the ground. We do need to have the parties meeting their roadmap obligations."

Some Israelis and supporters of Israel attribute Rice's irrational championing of Palestinian statehood to anti-Israeli bigotry. These voices cite Rice's penchant for drawing parallels between white supremacists in the pre-Civil Rights Movement era American South and Israeli soldiers carrying out counter terror operations in Judea and Samaria. By repeatedly invoking this morally and factually perverted comparison, they claim that Rice exposes a deep-seated animus towards the Jewish state and its citizens."

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0308/glick030708.php3

There's plenty more at the last link, but the character limit prevents pasting it here. There's a ton more out on the web too.