Posted on 01/02/2003 5:00:04 PM PST by Nix 2
Blaming the Jews - Again
Bruce S. Ticker
02 January 2003
I still remember two striking elements of the Yom Kippur War. The Arabs invaded Israel on the most solemn day of the year observed by Jews. The outcome looked dismal and the silence from the United Nations was deafening. The tables turned within three weeks, as Ariel Sharon’s forces almost had Cairo surrounded. Then the United Nations intervened to end the conflict.
The contradictions and hypocrisy persist to this day - literally. The Arabs don’t care about disrupting Jewish observances, and so often the world places the onus on the Jews.
Witness a handful of incidents in just the past weeks:
Amid angry protests of detentions of Middle Eastern immigrants in the United States, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) member Sabiba Khan told the Associated Press in recent weeks, “Muslims are now guilty until proven innocent.” When did Khan or any Muslim-American leaders condemn the Passover Seder bombing that claimed nearly 30 lives? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. I certainly don’t recall them speaking out against any terrorist act during a Jewish observance. What is the chance that any of them will come forward, with no coaxing, to denounce the murders of four Jewish seminary students at a Sabbath dinner last week (Dec. 27)? God forbid, no pun intended, if you act against Arabs on a religious basis. No silence then.
The past week or so also witnessed a mini Israel blame-a-thon. When the Palestinians delayed their elections, who did they blame? “We cannot hold these elections, simply because the Israeli side has obstructed our efforts to have it, through the occupation, incursions, closures and siege,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in the New York Times.
A near-empty Bethlehem on Christmas day was the focus of many news stories. The Associated Press cited the two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence and the recent reoccupation by Israeli troops as th reason.
In a long piece about teen-age Arab-Italian author Randa Ghazy, the New York Times quotes her thus: “I’m not racist. I’m angry - angry with the Israeli government. This doesn’t mean that I hate the whole nation.” Ghazy expresses no anger toward the Arab regimes that have continued their hostility toward Israel and neglected to improve the lot of the Palestinians. Nor does she express any anger toward the Palestinian extremists who started the current senseless war.
And while President Bush, the United Nations and European leaders pursue a three-year timetable for a Palestinian state, Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Yassin outlined his own timetable during a rally in Gaza City: “Resistance will move forward, jihad will continue, and martyrdom operations will continue, until the full liberation of Palestine. The Zionist entity will fall within the first quarter of this century.”
An independent Palestinian state next to Israel would sure come in handy to meet Yassin´s schedule.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a freelance writer and former journalist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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