Another terror attack, and another media outlet reinvents language. Jeffrey Goldberg writes in the Atlantic blog:

This is from a Reuters story on the Jerusalem bombing earlier today:

Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian strike. It was the first time Jerusalem had been hit by such a bomb since 2004.

Those Israelis and their crazy terms! I mean, referring to a fatal bombing of civilians as a “terrorist attack”? Who are they kidding? Everyone knows that a fatal bombing of Israeli civilians should be referred to as a “teachable moment.” Or as a “venting of certain frustrations.” Or as “an understandable reaction to Jewish perfidy.” Or perhaps as “a very special episode of ‘Cheers.'” Anything but “a terrorist attack.” I suppose Reuters will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by referring to the attacks as “an exercise in urban renewal.”

The mind reels.

Approximately one hour after more than 30 people were injured and at least one was killed in a pipe bomb attack in Jerusalem, the Popular Resistance Committees issued a statement praising the attack. They weren’t alone in their praise of the attack.

Just another example of how the social media can be used to foment contempt.

A follow up on our earlier post about incitement:

“The U.S. State Department issued an explicit condemnation of the naming of a square in a West Bank town for a Palestinian terrorist,” JTA reports.

“We condemn this commemoration of terrorism and have conveyed our deep concern about this incident to senior officials in the Palestinian Authority and have urged them to address it,” Mark Toner, the State Department’s spokesman, said March 17. “We underscore that all parties have an obligation to end any form of incitement.”

The statement was more definitive than one issued earlier in the week by a State Department official who said the Obama administration was seeking clarification on the matter.

Jewish groups, including the foreign policy umbrella body of the Jewish community, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, had complained that the earlier statement did not go far enough.

Toner’s statement appeared to be a response to those complaints: Toner is the most senior spokesman at the State Department, and he led his briefing with the statement instead of reserving it as a response to a reporter’s question — a signal that the State Department uses to convey priority.

Page six.

That’s where the New York Times placed a brief AP article about photos of American soldiers “posing with the corpse of an Afghan civilian they are accused of murdering.”

Why does this American newspaper continue to be less concerned by alleged atrocities by American soldiers then it was by rumors of indiscriminate killings by Israeli troops?

As we noted a couple of years ago in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed, the New York Times published on the newspaper’s most prominent space — page one, above the fold — unsubstantiated (and later discredited) allegations of misbehavior by Israeli troops. This, while it repeatedly buried, or even ignored, reports of similar and worse atrocities by renegade U.S. soldiers.

Whether you call it an inexcusable double standard, or simply discrimination against the Jewish state, it reflects poorly on the newspaper’s standards.

Every once in a while, the editors of Israel’s Ha’aretz give us a revealing glimpse into their thought processes, helping us make sense of the newspaper’s all-too-frequent willingness to resort to error and distortion to defame the Jewish state.

A couple of years ago, for example, then-editor of Ha’aretz David Landau (currently the Economist‘s correspondent in Israel) told Condoleeza Rice and others that Israel “wanted to be raped” by the U.S., and that he’d personally enjoy watching it.

Now, we have the editor of Ha’aretz weekend magazine supplement announcing that the slaughter of the Fogel family filled him not with sympathy toward the attacked, nor disgust toward the attacker, but rather bitter disdain for Israel and its mourning.

In a series of posts on his Twitter account, editor Shai Golden portrayed Israelis as hypnotized in exaggerated, joyful reaction to the murders, and wide-eyed in anticipation of an impending massacre of Arabs:

“These crazy rivers of kitsch will soon be colored blood red. It’s the only path people here know.”

“The joy with which people come together around the mourning rites for the Fogel family is like a workshop for national bonding that comes before another round of bloodletting. We only understand blood.”

“When you’re standing over the fresh graves of slaughtered children you’re always right. God help us in the face of all this righteousness we Israelis are clinging to with such emotion.”

“Sex, like settlement, is a violent and intrusive act. It’s a matter of Jews having sex with the earth and discovering in it beauty and holiness. When it comes to both sex and settlers, people are necessarily deviant.”

(Via Latma)

On March 10, viewers of C-SPAN’s morning show, Washington Journal, heard vilification of Jews, Israel and U.S. policy by callers responding to the topic “Today’s hearing: Islamic radicalization in U.S.” The topic referred to the first day of U.S. House hearings, entitled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response,” led by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter T. King, (R-NY).

Non-commercial C-SPAN, funded by the members of the cable-television industry (such as Comcast) but operating autonomously under a board of directors drawn from the industry, is watched weekly by what it claims are tens of millions of viewers, generally tolerates, without challenge, verbal attacks on Jews, Israel and as well, U.S. foreign policy supportive of the Jewish state, on its Washington Journal call-in talk show 7-10 AM daily. Journal moderators (and guests) typically tolerate anti-Jewish, anti-Israel tirades. No other religious/ethnic/national group is subjected to a steady dose of abuse on C-SPAN.

Only one of the 15 Journal callers during this segment on Muslim radicalization lambasted Islam or Muslims. “Darwin,” asserting that most of the previous Journal callers on this day were ignorant of the teachings of the Koran (the Muslim scriptures), said: “…to annihilate Christians and Jews. That’s the instruction of the Koran.” But three callers directly attacked Jews/Israel. Two of the three, like callers to previous Journal broadcasts, vented animosity toward U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Jew to run on a major party presidential ticket (Democrats – Gore/Lieberman in 2000).

Watch the video clip of “Anita’s” anti-Semitic monologue which included:

I am Republican. I wanted to vote for George Bush, but I felt that there would be a war because I was told that Republicans usually engage in war and I couldn’t vote for him but I would not vote for Joe Lieberman with Al Gore because I felt that the Jewish interest was there and that was not the interest in America that we should be looking at. I happen to be Muslim-American …

Watch the video clip of “Consuela’s” conspiracy-spinning tirade which included:

I want to say something about Peter King. What is his proof of this radicalization that he is speaking of, that he is proposing here? And talking about him and Lieberman – I mean, do the American public get the connection here? You’re talking about a lot of Jewish influence here on the Americans to kind of put us against – Christians against Muslims – and you’ve got this Jewish influence that’s causing this…What about the Zionists – what is being promoted in the Jewish synagogues? What is being said there? Because there is a lot of xenophobia about radicalization that’s going on here in Baltimore…

Watch the video clip of “Khalid’s” long, nearly uninterrupted anti-Israel, anti-U.S. ramble which included:

I would like to say “salam aleichem” to all the Muslims in the world. I just wanted to touch on a couple points. The first thing is, if any Muslim in the world believes that America is going to apply justice to any Muslim anywhere in the world … all you have to do is look at Palestine. Palestine is the model of how America, the European Union, and all the other European countries treat Muslims… [In the video clip, notice that the moderator terminated the lengthy, monotonous tirade only when it became abundantly clear that the caller could continue venting his animosity indefinitely.]

It’s not simply wrong for C-SPAN to welcome callers who, regardless of announced topic, excoriate Jews and Israel, especially when the network allows no other minority group or nation to be so attacked, it’s intolerable. Cable television viewers should e-mail, call or write your cable service providers and urge them to call for an end to such “hands off anti-Jewish prejudice” by Washington Journal since a portion of your cable fees supports C-SPAN.

It has been approximately five days since five Israelis, including a three-month old baby, were murdered in their homes in Itamar. No one has any real doubts that the attack was perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists despite a denial from Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki who, according to Haaretz…

said no Palestinian had ever murdered an infant or civilians in such a manner, either for nationalist causes or in revenge, “which raises doubts regarding Israel’s haste to accuse the Palestinians.”

Even Haaretz isn’t buying this.

Malki seems to have forgotten the dozens of attacks carried out by Palestinian terrorists – intent on killing children, women and old people. In November 2002, Sirhan Sirhan entered a house in Kibbutz Metzer and murdered a mother and her two children, aged 4 and 5, after killing another man and woman. This is just one example of several.

Given the horrific details of the murder, it would seem reasonable that the churches in the U.S. that were so quick to condemn Israel in the past few years as it responded to attacks on its citizens from Gaza and Lebanon and during the Second Intifada would offer a word of condemnation of this most recent attack itself. The killer (or killers) slit a little baby’s throat.

Yes, the tragedy in Japan has attracted a lot of attention and justifiably so. But in light of the manner in which mainline churches in the U.S. have directed so much of their attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict in recent years – with most of their criticism directed at Israel – a word of comfort on behalf of the Israeli victims and a word of admonition to Palestinian leaders would seem obligatory.

Snapshots readers know where this is headed.
(more…)

In the wake of the Fogel family slaughter, Jerusalem Post‘s Caroline Glick writes a hard-hitting piece about today’s anti-Semitism. Discussing the uncaring reaction of much of the world to the brutal murders, Glick points out unpleasant truths about “Palestinians’ genocidal hatred of the Jewish people” as well as the hatred of “enlightened peoples of Europe, and growing numbers of Americans, have no interest in hearing or seeing anything that depicts Jews as good people, or even just as regular people.”

It isn’t that the beautiful people and their followers suddenly decided that Jews are not their cup of tea (or rail of cocaine). It’s just that we have reached the point where people no longer feel embarrassed to parade negative feelings towards Jews.

Canada’s immigration minister and its opposition leader have strongly condemned Apartheid Week as “hateful” and “ignorant.”

The National Post quotes Minister Jason Kenney:

“These activities can cultivate an atmosphere exactly the opposite of one that is open to the free exchange of ideas and the development of the mind with the aid of facts and logic,” he said. Repeatedly singling out and condemning Israel year after year creates a “hateful environment” that “offends not only our sense of fairness, but also our core Canadian values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

And Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff

said it’s time activists stop comparing Israel to South Africa, where apartheid was in place for approximately 45 years and finally abolished in 1993. He, too, released an official statement Monday condemning the week as a “dangerous cocktail of ignorance and intolerance” that threatens “the mutual respect” of Canadian society.

But then, what else would one expect from Canada (aka the “maple leaf entity”), a fellow apartheid state?

Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens asks:

Just what kind of society thinks it’s “natural” to slit the throats of children in their beds?

And answers:

The same society that has named summer camps, soccer tournaments and a public square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman who in March 1978 killed an American photographer and hijacked a pair of Israeli buses, leading to the slaughter of 37 Israeli civilians, 13 children among them.