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| Middle East |
| Commentary: Is indifference to the fate of the Palestinians growing? |
| 2003-01-06 |
| The "progressive" Left assumes, without practically any debate, that the Palestinian cause is a just one, and that the Palestinians hold the "moral high ground" over Israel. Before the resumption of the "Intifada" and 9/11, it was certainly possible to make a defenseable case that the Palestinians had suffered some historic injustice and were entitled to some sort of redress. Have the Palestinians, by their own actions, squandered whatever moral capital they might have had? Two of the Internet's more prominent commentators seem to think so. James Lileks, in Monday's "Daily Bleat," has this reaction to the Tel Aviv suicide bombing: [After describing his wife's near miss with an inattentive driver,] If I turned on the TV and I saw people celebrating the car wreck that killed my daughter, I think I would go mad. I think I would claw my eyes until everything was red. I would want to call down hell on their heads. Every time I think I’ve had it I find that there are still a few jots of sympathy left - and by "sympathy" I mean that last weary civilized impulse that makes you stay the hand of your inner beserker. I don’t think I’m alone in this. It doesn’t mean there’s now a vast angry mass advocating for the immolation of those who want to scour the earth clean of Jews. No. But before I didn’t care what happened to the people in the organizations that arrange these attacks. Now I don’t care about what happens to the culture that permits it. Approves of it. Defends it, sanctions it, shelters it, sings it praises, names streets after the men who do it. I’m done. I don’t want to hear the word "but" in any sentence uttered by a PLO / Fatah / Al Aqsa / Hamaz / Hezbollah apologist. I don’t want to hear the phrase "cycle of violence" used outside the context of a gang fight at the Tour De France. I never want to see Arafat asking for anything anywhere any more. I don’t want to see people on the West Bank cheering as clumsy Scuds lumber over their heads in February, because I know they’ll head to Israeli hospitals when the germs hit them, and I know they’ll be admitted for treatment. I’m not saying I wish them ill. But the line of people I care about now is very, very long. The apologists and supporters of the bombers can get behind the 100 wounded I never met. The 20 who died. The one who was the child of a father my age. And when it’s their turn to ask for my sympathy, I’ll probably point to the line with 3000 New Yorkers, and kindly request that they head to the back. I felt much the same way when I saw the videos of Palestinians celebrating on 9/11. Whatever sympathy I had for the Palestinian cause vanished, never to return. Steve DenBeste, the proprietor ofUSS Clueless, is even more blunt: [I]ncreasingly I'm finding myself feeling as if the world would be better off if someone went in and shot every damned one of them and piled the lot in an unmarked grave. After reading about yet another Palestinian atrocity, I find myself thinking, "Fuck it. Nuke Ramallah. Then nuke Nablus. And if that doesn't help, bulldoze Gaza. And once that's done, put all fifty surviving Palestinians on a freighter, tow it out to sea, and let them become someone else's problem." I know that's wrong. I know it could never happen, and that it will never happen, and that it should never happen, and I would never actually advocate anything like that. But what I'm finding is that every time I read about a Palestinian being killed by the Israelis, my first emotional reaction is, "Good riddance." I've reached the point where I feel nothing at all when I read about them dying. I have reached the point where I don't care at all, not even slightly, about their pain and hardship. They have ceased to be persons to me. I'm no longer even interested in hearing their side of the story. Sometimes I read about someone's death, someone I don't know, someone far away, someone from a different country and different culture, I find myself grieving a bit; I can imagine them as a real person, and I mourn the loss of something valuable and important. I don't do that for Palestinians anymore. Emotionally, I no longer think of Palestinians as "valuable and important". . . . "Death before dishonor" is one thing. But "Death, just because" is something else. It really is a question of the extent to which we should strive to protect them from themselves and their own urge to self-destruction, and how much sacrifice we should make to give them a better life which they themselves don't seem to want. . . . When you face a group which seeks genocide, does reactive genocide become more acceptable? Your humble narrator suspects that this attitude is more widely held than most people realize. The only reason that Arafat and the Palestinians are still alive and living in the "occupied" territories is a sense of restraint imposed by the innate decency of the majority of Israelis. If Israeli public opinion shifts much further in the direction Den Beste describes, that restraint could vanish. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #17 They don't care about their own lives, they certainly don't care about the lives of the Jews. There is only one thing the Pals care about. Sharon should state that if another attack occurs the Al Aquas Mosque will be levelled. The arabs will rant and rave and pull out their hair but they will believe him. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-07 15:47:57 |
| #16 At what point do the suicide attacks from individual palestinians become attacks from collective Palestine society? So at what point does it take for Israel to turn individual attacks into a collective response? Do we accept that Jews in 1930 Germany had no more direct responsibility for the Holecaust than Americans had for 9/11? But Palestinians as a society are directly responsible for their current action? The only way to destroy evil is to exorcise it, completely. |
| Posted by: john 2003-01-07 12:40:39 |
| #15 Having their own State may be more of a punishment than a reward for the Paleos. The odds of civil war would increase drastically. Israel could cede some arab parts of Israel to ease the late 21st century demographic threat. There are other benefits. Of course, the country could become a haven for terrorists but that is little different from what it is now. |
| Posted by: mhw 2003-01-07 08:07:49 |
| #14 tu3031: The world would be definitely better off, provided they disappeared the way you specified. Alas, this is real life, and "getting there" from "here" in any practical way is going to cost mega-billions in psychic dollars. You can't expect the israelis to not stink when they're done cleaning out this particular barn. The israelis haven't come to the point that they're prepared to pay that cost and smell that way. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-01-07 07:03:45 |
| #13 "When that happens there will be a lot of Palestinians in Jordan." After trying to take over Jordan once, Jordan does not want them back. Both Egypt and Jordan were offered the territories back after the 72 war, (with minor changes due to defense considerations) and both said "no". Every Palestinian in Kuwait was kicked out after Desert Storm. No one, not even the Arab states, wants them. Whether they realize it or not, they have become the Jews of the Middle East, and may be subject to the same kind of "dispora" imposed on the Jews by the Romans. Then, in 2000 years, maybe they will get their own state. Perhaps Palestinian is Arabic for "sucker" |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-01-07 04:21:00 |
| #12 tu3031 asked, "Just what do they contribute to the world that would be missed?" Arabs would miss having a proxy and be forced to fight their own battles. They wouldn't like that. |
| Posted by: Arthur Fleischman 2003-01-06 17:22:07 |
| #11 Whatever sympathy I had for the Palestinians had been running low long before 9/11. But watching them celebrate that day officially put the idea of a Palestinian state out of its misery. Whatever Israel decides to do in the West Bank and Gaza won't elicit a reaction from me. If Israel decides to empty both, I'll just shrug and pour myself another Haut-Medoc. |
| Posted by: Christopher Johnson 2003-01-06 17:07:21 |
| #10 I think a growing majority of Americans no longer care for the Palestinians one way or another. It will take longer for the Europeans to get to the same karmic reststop. When that happens there will be a lot of Palestinians in Jordan. |
| Posted by: Harry Flashman 2003-01-06 16:30:07 |
| #9 Rhetorical question. If we all woke up tomorrow morning and the Palestinians had disappeared off the face of the earth, would humanity be better off or worse off? Just what do they contribute to the world that would be missed? Anybody? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-01-06 15:25:59 |
| #8 Remember what happened to Sodom and Gommorah, you fuckwits... |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-01-06 15:25:24 |
| #7 Sorry to date myself and come off sounding like some long lost 'time lord', but I havent had a whole lotta time for the palestinians since they came on the world stage back at the munich Olympics in 1972. What have they done to make themselves worthy of my support since then? attack Rome airport, blow up airliners to world over, Throw Leon Klinghoffer in his wheelchair off of the achille lauro, turn all of lebanon into a hellish wasteland. I feel sorry for their children, but Im tired of trying to feel sorry for them. can you imagine what will be the result if Israel ( or the US for that matter) is ever attacked by WMD's? Do they really think that they will be alive for more than the 20 minutes it will take for ICBMS to get there? Sad. truly Sad. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-01-06 14:31:44 |
| #6 Update: similar commentary from the Anti-Idioterian Rottweiler and the Spoons Experience. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-01-06 13:47:48 |
| #5 The Palestinians have chosen to make war almost exclusively on civilians. Their calculated gamble is that the more Westernized state of Israel would imitate the lackluster, weak willed European states and cave in to the terror. The Palestinians lack any evidence that terror against civilians has ever worked. It is a case of "If we believe it hard enough, it will come true." Israel today is reluctant to act to end the Intifada with overwhelming force, since it could appear to be a campaign of "genocide". It also labors under the weighty burden of the memory of the Holocaust, and the vow that it will never happen again. I suspect that the solution that the Israelis will adopt will involve the total and complete extermination of the Palestinian leadership, all the politicos from Arafat on down. This will reduce the intifada, but only a change in belief systems will end it. The Palestinians must come to know, to believe, that they cannot win it all. The elimination of Israel is not going to happen. And Europe is not, by any means, the measure of the determination of the Israelis. The Palestinians should understand that a majority of Israelis count their descent from non-European Jewery, most of whom fled generations of living in Arab countries. And they will treat the Palestinians as their brother Arabs have, brutally and without mercy. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-01-06 12:46:22 |
| #4 Yeah. On 11Sept2001, the PLA made every effort to prevent the filming of the Palestinian celebrations, but that ululating witch still made it out over the satellites. Arafat's belated blood donation and Peter Jennings' justification did nothing to blunt the impact of that image. It sounds like I'm not the only one who will remember her for the rest of his life. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-01-06 12:44:20 |
| #3 Sorry; I didn't think the blockquote tag was going to shrink and trash Mike's quote: "I felt much the same way when I saw the videos of Palestinians celebrating on 9/11. Whatever sympathy I had for the Palestinian cause vanished, never to return." |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-01-06 12:26:31 |
#2 I felt much the same way when I saw the videos of Palestinians celebrating on 9/11. Whatever sympathy I had for the Palestinian cause vanished, never to return. My feelings precisely. When I saw that vile Palestinian |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-01-06 12:24:36 |
| #1 The Palestinians have been seeking justice...perhaps they should start to fear justice. |
| Posted by: Pink & Fluffy 2003-01-06 12:24:16 |