Roger Cohen Whitewashes Terrorists Again
Roger Cohen makes no secret of his bias against Israel. He writes about his acute shame over Israel’s military operation to end Hamas rocketing into Israel, while, at the same time, whitewashing Muslim terrorists and jihadists. Don’t pay attention to what Iran, Hizballah or Hamas say and do, he repeatedly writes. It’s all Israel’s fault.
Lately, Cohen has been speeding up the pace of his rhetoric sanitizing Muslim terrorists while condemning Israel.
On Feb. 19, 2009 (“Reading Khamenei in Tehran“), Cohen urged:
[Obama] must recognize that the “terrorist” label is an inadequate description of the broad movements that are Hamas and Hezbollah, and change the Israel-can-do-no-wrong policy that precludes a two-state solution.
On March 2, 2009 (“Iran, the Jews and Germany“) Cohen declared again:
The equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.
And in his latest column “Middle East Reality Check” he writes:
Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.
“Hallelujah!” he exults about an interview in Al Jazeera with a British Foreign Ministry spokesman who “admits” that Hizballah is a “political phenomenon.” Cohen then attempts to whitewash Hamas:
Precisely the same thing could be said of Hamas in Gaza. It is a political phenomenon, part of the national fabric there.
What about Hamas’ anti-Semitic charter that is predicated upon the killing of Jews and destruction of the Jewish state?
The 1988 Hamas Charter is vile, but I think it’s wrong to get hung up on the prior recognition of Israel issue. Perhaps Hamas is sincere in its calls for Israel’s disappearance — although it has offered a decades-long truce — but then it’s also possible that Israel in reality has no desire to see a Palestinian state.
If anyone needs a Middle East Reality check, it is Cohen himself. Here are some basic facts about Hamas which Cohen should learn. Perhaps that would help him overcome his personal embarassment about the Jewish state.
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