Israel Matzav

Disgraceful: JPost apologizes to Norway

We are left, mouths agape, wondering whether an editorial like the one above would have been written a couple of months ago when David Horowitz was the JPost's editor-in-chief. I suspect not.

The editorial squarely condemned the attack, saying that “as Israelis, a people that is sadly all too familiar with the horrors of indiscriminate, murderous terrorism, our hearts go out with empathy to the Norwegian people.”

However, it also, inappropriately, raised issues that were not directly pertinent, such as the dangers of multiculturalism, European immigration policies and even the Oslo peace process.

“Your editorial, while insistently condemning the violence in Norway, shockingly and shamelessly attempts to offer justification for his extremist violent act of terror,” wrote Esam Omeish in one of many letters to the editor, several of which were published in the paper.

Steve Linde, the editor-in-chief, immediately posted the following statement on our website, JPost.com: “As a newspaper, The Jerusalem Post strongly denounces all acts of violence against innocent civilians. This editorial is not aimed at deflecting attention from the horrific massacre perpetuated in Norway, nor the need to take greater precautions against extremists from all sides.”

I did not read that JPost editorial as justifying the Norwegian terror attacks. But one would not be human if one did not wonder what might have caused a 'normal Norwegian boy' to become a mass murderer of his own people. While it might more appropriately have been done by Norwegians themselves and not in a JPost editorial, introspection after such a tragedy is a good thing and not an attempt to justify the act.

As Senior Contributing Editor Caroline B. Glick suggested in her column last Friday, the fact that Breivik’s warped mind cited a group of conservative thinkers including herself as having influenced his thinking in no way reflects on them.

“As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote. “Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.”

Then why, pray tell, did the Post allow Glick to be attacked by a member of the Norwegian government on its own editorial pages on Friday?

In today’s paper, we are publishing an opinion piece by Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, in which he thanks Israeli leaders “for their kind and comforting words” but expresses dismay over comments made by two Jerusalem Post columnists.

At the same time, he titles his column, “A time to heal.”

We echo his wish, and hope that the Norwegian government and people will accept the Post’s apology and forgive us for any offense or hurt caused by our editorial and columnists at this sensitive time.

Grovel, grovel, grovel....

Labels: Anders Behring Brievik, Barry Rubin, Caroline Glick, dhimmi, Oslo bombing, Utoya massacre

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:47 AM