by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n I<\/span>n Gaza the fighting between Fatah and Hamas has escalated to the point of all-out civil war, replete with dead women and children, kneecapping, and handcuffed prisoners thrown from roofs. Meanwhile in Lebanon, the Lebanese army continues to shell a Palestinian refugee camp, with who knows how many civilian deaths. Arab is killing Arab, Muslim is killing Muslim, and the world basically is shrugging its shoulders.<\/p>\n How different from the intense media attention and the U.N.\u2019s hysteria over Israel\u2019s attempt to root out terrorists in Lebanon last summer. This obscene double standard that strains out the gnat of Israeli self-defense while swallowing numerous camels of Muslim-on-Muslim violence cries out for explanation.<\/p>\n Certainly the scale of alleged Israeli crimes can\u2019t justify fifty years of international hatred and calumny. Since World War II, some 25 million people have died in various conflicts, only 8,000 as a result of Israel\u2019s attempts to ward off a chronic existential threat. In the last decade the slaughter in Sudan has claimed 250,000 lives, a brutal war of extermination with a religious and racist subtext that usually sends \u201cprogressives\u201d into fits of righteous indignation. And of course the current mayhem in Iraq, where Muslims are blowing up, torturing, and mutilating fellow Muslims, dwarfs even the lurid lies about Israel\u2019s behavior regularly circulated among Western liberals and leftists. Yet the supposedly new and improved U.N. Human Rights Council, like its predecessor the discredited Human Right Commission, last year voted to make a review of supposed Israeli \u201chuman rights abuses\u201d a permanent activity of every session. Unsurprisingly, in its first year the Council has issued twelve resolutions: nine condemnations of Israel, and three non-condemnatory resolutions on Sudan.<\/p>\n Objective assessments of Israel\u2019s misdeeds, then, cannot explain the double standard that vilifies a tiny country\u2019s attempt to survive the attacks of enemies sworn to its destruction. Larger cultural dysfunctions are at work, not least being the corrupt Western media. The major print and television media are filled for the most part with self-styled champions of \u201csocial justice,\u201d crusaders not for the truth but for \u201cprogressive\u201d ideologies in turn based on incoherent ideals and sheer ignorance of history. Their minds shaped by sentimental Third-Worldism, Marxist demonizations of \u201ccolonialism\u201d and \u201cimperialism,\u201d and arrogance about their own moral superiority, many Western reporters are easily turned into the chumps and shills of corrupt Arab regimes and Muslim jihadists. The Palestinian Arabs in particular have brilliantly exploited the useful idiots of the media to construct the narrative of brutal Israeli \u201coccupation\u201d of the Palestinian \u201chomeland,\u201d as documented by Richard Landes and Pierre Rehov, who have exposed the numerous blatant fabrications eagerly swallowed as fact by the media, such as the Jenin \u201cmassacre\u201d or the killing of the boy Muhammad Al Durah by Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n T<\/span>his irrational hatred of Israel on the part of many Westerners is dangerous and short-sighted, as is the failure to understand the true roots of Muslim hatred of the Jewish state. For the modern jihad against the West did not start on 9\/11, or even in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Its first major campaign took place in 1948 when the Arab states ignored a U.N. resolution and attacked a U.N. member state. As significant as this rejection of the Western-crafted international order was, the response of the West \u2014 leaving Israel to sink or swim \u2014 was even more important. By sitting on the sidelines while a Western democracy battled for its life, the West sent a message: that it would not intervene to protect a cultural brother and a legitimate state when attacked by autocracies and religious fanatics.<\/p>\n The failure to destroy Israel militarily two more times led to other tactics \u2014 disinformation, propaganda, phony negotiations, and especially terrorism. And once again, the Western flabby response emboldened the Muslim view of Western decadence and weakness. Suddenly Palestinian \u201cnational aspirations\u201d become the rationale for murdering Israelis, even though historically there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people. Shrewdly recognizing the West\u2019s media-fed obsession with suffering, the Arabs masterfully generate telegenic images that divorce reality from any moral and historical context. Understanding the West\u2019s Enlightenment fantasy of conflict resolution through discussion and \u201cagreements,\u201d the Palestinian Arabs play that game too, attending conferences and summits, issuing proclamations and \u201cframeworks,\u201d and signing various \u201caccords\u201d that they have no intention of honoring. Knowing that the West is infected with cultural self-loathing and guilt, they play the race card, the colonialism card, or the imperialism card as trumps more powerful even than historical fact or responsibility for the conditions they decry. And convinced that a secular West believes in nothing other than material comfort and security, they unleash terrorism as the ultimate demonstration of their own passionate commitment to their ideals, and of the West\u2019s spiritual bankruptcy.<\/p>\n All these tactics first perfected in the jihad against Israel are being used in the other theaters of the war against the West. Yet we still persist in believing that the assault on Israel is a conflict distinct from jihad, or that jihadist terrorism is created by that conflict and would disappear if it were resolved, or that \u201cmoderates\u201d like Mahmoud Abbas genuinely accept Israel\u2019s existence and will peacefully coexist with a nation of despised former\u00a0dhimmi<\/i>\u00a0if only the Palestinians get their own state \u2014 all this despite the absence of any empirical evidence from the last fifty years that could support these fantasies.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of State scampers around the Middle East pursing the chimera of the \u201ctwo-state\u201d solution via \u201cframeworks\u201d and \u201croad maps,\u201d Israel is pressured to show \u201crestraint\u201d in the face of violence, and U.S. tax dollars are sent to Fatah, in the weird belief that it makes sense to help Fatah, who believe Israel should be destroyed in \u201cphases,\u201d prevail over Hamas, who believe Israel should be destroyed right now. In other words, we continue to validate the jihadists\u2019 estimation of our gullibility and weakness, which in turn convinces them that they can win and so should fight on. Why shouldn\u2019t they? After all, they\u2019ve been fighting Israel for over fifty years, and have been rewarded with the Sinai and Gaza. Why wouldn\u2019t they think Al-Andalus is next?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Bruce Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers In Gaza the fighting between Fatah and Hamas has escalated to the point of all-out civil war, replete with dead women and children, kneecapping, and handcuffed prisoners thrown from roofs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,757],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1qc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3003,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israels-fight-for-survival\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":0},"title":"Israel’s Fight for Survival","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Israel\u2019s fight for survival is not only against Hamas, Hezbollah, and their state sponsors Syria and Iran. Equally formidable, if more insidious, are those in the West whose virulent hatred of Israel imperils her existence. This antipathy among Western academics, commentators, and reporters is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1676,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-pathology-of-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":1},"title":"The Pathology of Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The surreal moral idiocy that characterizes hatred of Israel is illustrated daily by states whose actions are shrugged away by the international media. Consider the recent Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish militants who killed 24 soldiers at military posts near\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5507,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-stink\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":2},"title":"The Stink","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"What makes the worst lies in the Middle East acceptable? by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Remember Big Daddy in the movie\u00a0Cat on Hot Tin Roof? He kept walking around complaining about the \u201cstink of mendacity\u201d emanating from his dysfunctional family. I know how he feels, for every day the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1327,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/newt-challenges-the-myth-of-palestinian-nationalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":3},"title":"Newt Challenges the Myth of Palestinian Nationalism","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Newt Gingrich touched off a mini-firestorm when he told a Jewish television channel that the Palestinians are an \u201cinvented\u201d people \u201cwho are in fact Arabs,\u201d and \u201cwho were historically part of the Arab community.\u201d This simple statement of historical fact was of course met\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Palestine"","block_context":{"text":"Palestine","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/palestine\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7637,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/moral-equivalence-moral-idiocy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":4},"title":"Moral Equivalence, Moral Idiocy","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine Scenes all too familiar from the Arab conflict with Israel have followed the murder last Wednesday of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Mourners at his funeral\u00a0chanting the Muslim war-cry \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d as they carry the boy\u2019s\u00a0open coffin, the crowd shouting slogans like \u201cIntifada\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/6b682571-56c4-4ad7-adc6-c762abf878af-620x372.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3357,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/memo-to-the-general-free-speech-doesnt-kill-people-jihadists-kill-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":5468,"position":5},"title":"Memo to the General: Free Speech Doesn’t Kill People, Jihadists Kill People","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society Citizen control of the military is one of the most important foundations of political freedom. Rather than an instrument of a powerful autocrat or king, the army in a republic serves the collective interests, security, and policies of the state as determined\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5469,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions\/5469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}