Posted on 04/12/2002 9:54:05 PM PDT by Jean S
Since President Bush now has two sets of standards for which victims of terror can be avenged, I have a question for him:
What’s the difference between American victims of terrorism and Israeli ones?
Despite a cornucopia of well-fertilized lines from U.S. officials, it’s time to be intellectually honest. There is only one difference: The second group is Jewish.
That’s the only reason the U.S. can get away with scolding Israel for attempting to nip terrorism in the bud, while go full-speed ahead in Afghanistan.
Sure, Ari Fleischer and the rest of the White House spinsters can cast this situation through various phony prisms to make their limp case for this ludicrous double-standard regarding the response to mass-murder. They can say—as they do—well, Arafat won a (undeserved) Nobel Peace Prize, so we should deal with him. They can pontificate on how Arafat took part in (phony) peace negotiations in the past. They can come up with a million and one excuses and distinctions without a difference.
But despite self-flagellating U.S. diplomatic statements to the contrary, Israel is dealing with the same enemy as we are—the same enemy that utilizes the same unjustifiable, unacceptable, unconscionable tactics.
The Bush Administration claims it’s a different enemy—that Bin Laden is different from Bin Arafat or Bin Hamas or Bin Hezbollah. But they represent multiple heads of the same incubus—an anti-Western, Saudi- and Saddam-funded, Islamist incubus. If FOX News’ recent reports--that over 30 Al-Quaida fighters were on the ground assisting Palestinian militants and suicide bombers—aren’t enough evidence of that, how about Al-Quaida files purchased, vetted, and excerpted by the Wall Street Journal back in January?
A frightening summary of the files, obtained on the market in Kabul, published in the Journal, and posted on MSNBC.com, details the activities of the “Shoe Bomber,” Richard Reid--referred to by his alias, “brother Abdul Ra’uff.” Before trying to blow up a US-bound December flight from Paris with his high-tops, Reid went to Israel to try to do the same on an El-Al flight. About a month before 9/11, Reid a/k/a Ra’uff was casing out suicide bombing opportunities for Bin Laden’s Al-Quaida in Israel. It’s more than enough evidence that the identical group that blew up the WTC towers was looking for sites to blow up in Israel—and is likely heavily involved there now, beyond the 30-odd Bin Laden fighters.
In the files, Ra’uff reported to Al-Quaida superiors on the prospects for blowing up the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. He wrote that it would be an incredible moral victory for Al-Quaida Muslims. Just as blowing up the WTC was. He also reported on Israeli bus stations, noting which colors of buses carried the most Jews and would be the best bombing targets.
Same terrorist group, same types of targets. The only difference is the religion and ethnicity of most of the victims. As for Arafat, not only is he working in unison with the Al-Quaida crowd, but there’s ample intelligence he took part in the 1993 WTC bombings, and the 2001 version on 9/11. Senator Charles Grassley--later chided for disclosing information in Secretary Rumsfeld’s intelligence briefing to Congress--told the press that the briefing yielded solid intelligence that Arafat’s Fatah played a role in the WTC/Pentagon terror. And lest we forget, Arafat’s minions certainly cheered it on video, for every Al-Jazeera viewer to join along with at home.
There is no difference between Arafat’s actions and Al-Quaida’s; between Arafat’s victims and Al-Quaida’s. And there should be no difference in the response thereto.
But the double-standard against a proper response by Israel is allowed to proceed because anti-Semitism is more prevalent today than it has been since the era of the Third Reich. Sadly, Arafat’s Islamic World supporters are not the only active fomenters of the same venom spewed by the Nazis. The so-called “peacemakers,” the allies of the U.S. in Europe and elsewhere are showing signs of their revolting behavior that gave rise to Hitler.
Opinionjournal.com excerpted the Norwegian newspaper, “Dagbladet,” which reported that a friend of Norwegian Parliament member Jan Simonsen, was ordered yesterday by Parliament security guards to remove his jacket because a Star of David was displayed on the chest pocket. After the man, Ingmar Tveitt, talked in the Parliament restaurant with Parliament members he was sought out by security guards who asked him to come with them 'because they had received reactions' to Tveitt's Jewish star symbol. The guards escorted him to change his “offensive” clothing.
In France, Molotov cocktails and arsonists hit synagogues in Kremlin-Bicetre and Marseilles and flammable material is found in the Strasbourg-Cronenbourg Jewish cemetery. The Maccabi Bondy French-Jewish soccer team is attacked, as is a Paris school bus of Jewish kids. None of these victims are Israeli, and they aren’t in allegedly occupied territory, but they are attacked anyway. Because they are all Jewish. Even in Michigan--where Arabs and Muslims have their third highest population concentration outside the Middle East and claim they’ve fallen victim to post-9/11 harassment--only 4 anti-Muslim/anti-Arab crimes were reported in 2001, but 19 anti-Semitic ones, according to The Detroit News.
But these attacks on Jews, and a President unwittingly pawning off terrorism in the Middle East as a Jewish problem that’s acceptable--unworthy of a swift, harsh, military response--misses the point.
The latest Time Magazine, like President Bush, doesn’t get it, either. The April 8th issue features a story instilling fear in the reader that if we don’t remain “even-handed” against Israel, we’ll feel the Islamists’ wrath here in the U.S. The headline: “Could Suicide Bombings Happen Here?”
What was September 11th . . . a garden party? Suicide bombings are already here. And, whether it’s here or in the Middle East, it’s not acceptable against Americans or Jews.
Look at a map of the world. From North Africa, clear across the globe, through the Middle and Near East, over the southern belly of Russia and the Indian subcontinent, all the way to the Phillipines - wherever there are Muslims, there is conflict and war.
Muslims are killing and enslaving Christians, Jews, Hindus, and any others that do not profess to Islam.
This is war. The Muslims want it, the Saudis are financing it. The West needs to wake up to the reality of it.
Appeasement and accomodation by the West is viewed as weakness and encouragement by the Muslims. We would live with them in peace, but they want war. What else are we to do?
This is a war of civilizations.
Like a thousand years ago, it's Christendom being threatened by Islam. It's the same war that was fought by Charles the Hammer and Vlad the Impaler. It took 1300 years for it to reach America. It's here on our shores now. It looks a little different, the players have changed, but it's the same war.
Like I said before, just ask the Serbs...
Same tired tune all over FR. Same lies and propaganda.
Here's a clue: Saudi Arabia should be the next axle to be taken out.
They are duplicious, and NOT our allies.
Israel's dealing with the terrorists will serve us well as we move on the Iraqis, Iranians, and the Saudis.
We will remake them in our own image.
In a few short years the Middle East will become irrelevant as oil fields elsewhere are developed. In the meantime, the oil weaapon will not be used simply because the oil producing countries need to sell it. So they have been stating just this week.
Get over Sharon. He's just one man.
There is only one difference: The second group is Jewish.
BINGO! We have a winner!
Our government is saying that because you are murdering Jews, Yassir ole pal, we will cut you some slack! Sickening!
What next Al Qaida action against the U.S. is required for you to realize that war has already been declared? 9-11 has already happened and you're still asleep.
It appears that no matter what the Islamic radicals do, you won't admit that the Saudis share in their actions. Arafat, OBL, Saddam, the Ayatollas, the Wahhabis, Al Qaida, and the House of Saud are all cut from the same cloth.
They are Muslims who are convinced that Allah has annointed them with the ultimate truth, and that truth allows them to declare jihad against anything that stands in their way. Anyone who is not Muslim can be lied to, cheated, deceived, killed, enslaved, used for the furtherance of Islam.
They will not let us live in peace. They unfailingly, relentlessly, will try to undermine our civilization, our safety, our well being. Threats like that cannot be bargained with, they can only be eliminated.
Should we do it now, or should be wait until they acquire nuclear parity?
I prefer to take the larger, longer view: radical Islam is the greatest danger to the West and its institutions since the Crusades. Combatting it will be a problem - socially, economically, philosophically, politically.
I believe the lines are already drawn and that the call to arms has already been sounded.
No, Arafart is doing that and we are blaming Sharon.
Same result, different logic. We no longer have the
luxory of definig good terrorists and Bad terroists,
(However foolishly we arrive at those distinctions)
If Bush the elders statement last week, didn't worry you,
then go on back to sleep. The loud noises will eventually
wake you up.
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