Israel Matzav

Rauf's double standard on terror

The Emergency Committee for Israel has issued a statement on the Ground Zero 'victory' mosque.

How do you know someone really isn’t a “moderate” on the question of Islamic radicalism? When he endorses a double standard for terrorism — appearing to condemn it when it is directed against Americans, refusing to condemn it when directed against Israelis.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, a self-styled champion of moderate Islam, was recently asked whether he thinks Hamas is a terrorist organization. “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question,” he replied. When pressed, he insisted that “I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy.”

But surely there should be no middle ground when it comes to Hamas, just as there can be no middle ground when it comes to Al-Qaeda.

Hamas is an Islamic supremacist group that has murdered dozens of Americans and hundreds of Israelis. Hamas leaders routinely call for genocide against Jews, refer to them as vermin and bacteria, and broadcast TV shows teaching their children that their highest ambition should be the slaughter of infidels. On September 11th, 2001, as Americans recoiled in horror at the murder of thousands, members of Hamas were throwing candy in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank to celebrate.

Let's go to the videotape.



Here's more from ECI:

The employment of Mr. Rauf by the State Department lends American credibility to a disturbing trend in the West: the idea that terrorism against Israelis falls into a different and less objectionable category from terrorism against other people. This may be fashionable in Europe, but the United States does not embrace an Israel exception to the unacceptability of suicide bombings.

One of the most important messages the United States can deliver to the Middle East is that there is never a justification for jihadist murder, whether in New York, Madrid, London — or Tel Aviv. It is clear from Mr. Rauf’s statements that when he travels abroad at U.S. taxpayers’ expense he is not delivering this message.

No, he is not. Was that President Obama's intention in appointing him? Perhaps.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:40 AM