Attacks Against Israelis: The World’s Silence Is Deafening

Attacks Against Israelis: The World’s Silence Is Deafening

Double Edged Racism 

For "Palestinians" And Jews

The Western Media  Drips It Like A Nosebleed

Huffington Post and Times of Israel
David Harris
October 11, 2015
For days now, I have been watching in dismay as Israeli citizens face random attacks, some deadly, by Palestinian assailants on the streets of their cities and towns. Children have been orphaned, parents have lost children, and some survivors are doubtless scarred for life.
I have been waiting to see whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose false claims about Israel supposedly changing the status quo at a Muslim holy site helped trigger the unrest, would seek to calm the situation or inflame it still further.
I have been following the journalistic acrobatics of some mainstream media, such as the BBC and The New York Times, which seek to avoid calling a spade a spade in reporting what’s happening, blurring the distinction between who are the arsonists and who are the firemen.
I’ve been observing the international community largely languish in silence or, at best, issue mealy-mouthed statements calling for “restraint” on both sides, hewing to the 50-yard line.
And I’ve been wondering, not for the first time, what it would take for the world to wake up and acknowledge — without equivocation, resort to moral equivalence, or diplomatic gobbledygook — that Israel, the lone liberal democracy in the Middle East, is facing violence that must be condemned unequivocally, and that it, like any other nation, has the obligation to defend itself.
It’s striking how, when it comes to these issues, some otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people in government, media, or think tanks, just shut down their critical faculties. Instead, they resort to a Pavlovian response mechanism that essentially rejects any possible legitimacy for the Israeli position and blindly defends whatever Palestinian narrative comes along.
In this mindset, if Israelis are being shot or stabbed, they must have done something to “deserve” it.
If Israeli authorities mobilize the army and police to stop the terrorism, then, by definition, Israel is using “excessive force.”
No matter how inflammatory President Abbas’s speeches at the UN may be, he is a man of “peace.”
No matter how many times Israeli leaders call for face-to-face negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel is always branded as the “obstacle” to peace.
Isn’t it long overdue to get real, see things as they actually are, and stop living in a world of self-imposed illusions and falsehoods?
Undoubtedly, some of the individuals who express these views, and the institutions they represent, are ideologically blinded. Down deep, they just can’t abide the notion of Jewish self-determination, even as they place the Palestinians on a political pedestal.
But there are others who hope to see a two-state accord, allowing both Israelis and Palestinians to pursue their national aspirations alongside one another, and I have no reason to doubt their sincerity.
Yet I do question their strategy.
While they do not hesitate to push, prod, and criticize Israel when they believe, rightly or wrongly, that Israel isn’t acting in the spirit of a two-state vision, they’re too often deafeningly silent when it comes to Palestinian behavior — including right now.
This double standard is the height of condescension or, indeed, infantilization.
By indulging the Palestinians, rationalizing their every misstep, coddling their leaders, going along with their unilateral steps at the UN and elsewhere, ignoring incitement and glorification of “martyrs,” and excusing every turndown of an Israeli two-state offer, these presumably well-intentioned actors are making the achievement of a two-state agreement less, not more, likely.
After all, if the Palestinians aren’t held to a higher standard of conduct (or are quietly believed to be incapable of it), how in the world could they ever responsibly govern a state of their own, and not become yet another volatile, undemocratic Arab nation?
And if that’s the prospect, why would Israel, already facing a region in turmoil that only promises to get still more so, now conclude that the Palestinian leadership can be a reliable partner for peace?
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