Posted on 10/30/2003 3:35:10 PM PST by anotherview
Ignoring Jewish Humanity
by Bruce S. Ticker
Oct 31, '03 / 5 Cheshvan 5764
On Saturday, I learned of the Israeli soldiers who were murdered in their sleep in Gaza, where they were stationed to protect their fellow Jews. Two of them were 19-year-old women and the other a 20-year-old man. I saw a photo of one victim and thought how cute she was. If she lived in America, she probably would have been sleeping in her college dorm room. On a given Saturday night, she might be dating her future husband and father of her children instead of going to war.
None of this will happen now, of course.
This is one of those moments when the struggle in Israel strikes home. These are my people dying and those three Israeli soldiers were barely adults when they died.
Later Saturday, I watched much of the demonstration against the war in Iraq. Of course, the subject of Israel was raised a number of times. None of it was positive. Just the other week, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused the Jewish people of running the world.
Conveniently left out of both these talks was any word of Israeli deaths. This is how insensitive these people are. They are such so-called advocates for the Palestinians that they ignore the human costs for Jews.
Frankly, I’m not sure who scares me more – the Malaysian prime minister or the speakers at Saturday’s rally.
Mahathir’s words are old news by now – “Today the Jews rule the world by proxy: They get others to fight and die for them.”
Yeah, right. Tell that to the families of the three dead Israeli soldiers.
What’s especially creepy about this guy is that Mohamad may not have uttered the anti-Semitic comments because he believed them, but to satisfy the perceptions of Malaysia’s Muslim majority, whom he needs to keep the economy growing.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explained it this way: “Now Mr. Mahathir thinks that to cover his domestic flank, he must insert hateful words into a speech mainly about Muslim reform. That tells you, more accurately than any poll, just how strong the rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in Southeast Asia has become.”
That also suggests another weakness: These Muslim and Arab leaders lack the will to educate their people. When they should be preparing their people for relations with the West, instead they pander to protect their power base.
Thousands of miles away, just 130 miles south of my home, tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the war in Iraq and, in the process, bash Israel.
A half-dozen simplistic references were made against Israel. One Palestinian activist claimed that a Palestinian state will be “an anchor for nonviolence.” If that’s true, the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza have been getting precious little practice at “nonviolence.” It may be no surprise that a Palestinian activist would say something along these lines, but if he really cared about his people, then he would be making a serious outreach to supporters of Israel in seeking a peaceful settlement.
Also not surprising was the appearance of a rabbi’s daughter, Ora Wise, who said of the barrier being built between Israel and the West Bank, “This weapon of mass destruction must be torn down.” What she neglected to mention is that the wall is being constructed to prevent suicide bombers from penetrating into Israel and murdering 20 of her people in an instant.
Wise has clearly given much thought to her attempts to help the Palestinians, but it is nonetheless disingenuous of her to ignore the murders of Jews.
These are all cases of selective sensitivity.
Bruce S. Ticker
Bruce Ticker is a freelance writer and former journalist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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