The clearest endorsement of terror
This week will mark seven years since Daniel Pearl HY"D (may God avenge his blood) was murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, his father, Judea Pearl, expresses amazement at how 'normalized' terror has become in our culture by way of our politicians, our media and our universities (Hat Tip: Instapundit). But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed that every instance cited by Pearl is connected to Israel's conflict with the 'Palestinians.' That's not just because Daniel Pearl died with the words "I am Jewish" on his lips. I find this curious because in the past, Judea Pearl has argued that his son was like a Holocaust victim and not like a victim of Islamist terror. And yet - correctly this time - every instance of coddling to terror that he cites is connected to excusing terror directed at the State of Israel. It's not that there's a difference between anti-Israel terror and anti-Jewish terror. They are one and the same as we saw time and again in the pro-terror rallies during the Gaza war.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
What's important to remember - and I believe Mr. Pearl now really gets this - is that Jews (and Israel is just the excuse) are the canaries in the coal mine for jihadi terror. And once they finish with the 'Saturday people' - God forbid - they are going to come after the 'Sunday people.' People like Jimmy Carter and Bill Moyers are the useful idiots that help the jihadis along the way.
Read the whole thing.
More here and here.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:12 PM
5 Comments:
Carl - Ynet had a story about Iran's honoring Samir Kuntar last week. The most noteworthy thing about the event is that it stirred no protest from the world. Evil has gotten to be so prevalent that people are seriously debating whether mass murderers and serial killers should treated like civilized human beings.
The Hebrew Prophets were in no doubt about where G-d stood on evil: He hated it and expects Man to share His revulsion towards it. And the Psalms discuss how being cruel to to evildoers is to the merit of the righteous and reflects G-d's justice carried out in a corrupt world. See Psalm 58 for language to that effect.
Dhmmi Carter and the rest of the useful idiots who've made terror and violence respectable in Western societies are in truth a far greater danger than the terrorists they champion. For they destroy from within the G-dly spirit and moral will needed to resist and overcome the enemy from without.
The lesson in all this is evil must always be opposed and intolerance must be shown to it wherever it exists, in every time and place, everywhere.
Carl - yes, Israel is the miner's canary of civilization. If G-d forbid, Israel were ever destroyed, all hope of a righteous world would die along with her. We must have the fortitude to see evil for what it truly is and even Israel's leaders have been fools in showing to the cruel misplaced mercy. As the Prophet Samuel showed very graphically when he beheaded Agag in front of all Israel - here is what G-d wants to see done. He wants to see evil destroyed! And the deed is the essence of the message that also speaks to our own day.
Debbie Schlussel reveals a bit more of Pearls father
And Judea Pearl--in the seven years since his son's death--has sought to legitimize this same legitimization and appeasement of terrorists, even if he won't admit it.
In the years since his son's death, Dr. Pearl has focused on "promoting cross-cultural understanding." That is the stated purpose of the Daniel Pearl Foundation he set up.
To that end, he raises money for the Seeds of Peace camp, founded by Yasser Arafat's favorite biographer. The whole idea of the camp is the moral equivalence of terrorism's victims and its perpetrators. Islamic terrorists' kids tell off Israeli leftists' kids for several hours, and then they go canoeing or play volleyball together. Significant numbers of graduates of the Maine camp have become Islamic terrorists and homicide bombers, who kill Jews in Israel. The camp's most famous grad, Adam Shapiro, founded ISM (International Solidarity Movement), a group which sheltered British Al-Qaeda bombers the night before they blew themselves--and many innocent victims--up at a Tel Aviv bar. (The group was also caught sheltering an Islamic Jihad terrorist.)
A Wall Street Journal reporter friend of mine was aghast, during a visit to Seeds of Peace, when he watched counselors remain silent as Palestinian Muslim campers told Jewish campers that the Holocaust never happened. The Jewish campers, since their parents are leftists and didn't teach them anything, didn't have a clue how to respond or even know for sure if the Muslims were wrong. The counselors told the WSJ reporter that they could not intervene because "all viewpoints are legitimate and there is no right and wrong" at Seeds of Peace.
read the rest at the link
Yep. Judea Pearl and his son Danny and the entire leftist moral equivalence nonsense they helped to propagate is why the West is morally adrift and wherefore its leaders like Dhimmi Carter endorse terrorists and see nothing wrong with the enormous crimes they've perpetrated. And who keep apologizing for and making excuses for the death cult behind them they refuse to put a name to - Islam. Pearl and Islamist-pandering ilk are shocked at the "normalization of evil?" Puhleeaze, they can spare me the hypocrisy and self-righteous horror. They wouldn't know evil when it killed their own children. Perhaps someday, they'll figure it all out.
Thanks for that Hat Tip from Debbie Schlussel. Its greatly appreciated!
it is not for israel or its supporters to wax indignant about a form of warfare which israel pioneered.after the creation of state of israel,classical terrorism gave way to the outwardly more respectable terrorism, designed to cow and subjugate the palestinians. palestinian violence by contrast is reactive and small scale but more easily branded as barbaric.israel was built on terrorism and continues to glorify its terrorist today, eg marcelle ninio.
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