Israel Matzav

When Muslims kill Muslims

There has been no organized protest within the Arab-Muslim world or in the West against the daily toll of Iraqi deaths due to this hate-driven insurgency.

Nor is Iraq the only place where Muslim violence against Muslims rages unabated. There is Darfur in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Algeria until recently, and hotspots in Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Palestine, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

How, then, might we explain why Muslim deaths seem only to matter to Arabs and Muslims -- and to apologists of Arab-Muslim politics in the West -- when they occur as a result of conflicts with the U.S. or Israel?

In witnessing worldwide protests over Lebanese deaths resulting from the recent Hezbollah-Israeli fighting, we might conclude it is politically acceptable when Muslims murder untold numbers of Muslims, but entirely unacceptable when they are collateral casualties of Israeli bombings.

This is the Orwellian reality of much of the Arab-Muslim world today, where Muslim and non-Muslim lives are too often seen as readily and contemptuously disposable -- except when they become handy tools of propaganda against Jews, Hindus and Americans.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:32 PM