January 13, 2009
"This isn't about Jews. It's about you."
Have you been paying attention to the protests -- many of them in enlightened, liberal, Western democracies -- that feature enraged mobs spewing threats against Jews that are more explicit than anything Hitler himself said?
Mark Steyn posts in National Review's The Corner about who these Third Reich redux rallies are really targeting.
"Les Juifs sont nos chiens" or "The Jews are our dogs": The enthusiastic chant on the streets of Montreal, along with cries of "Hezbollah! Nasrallah!"
It's easy to think all this stuff is just about the Jew troublemakers, and who cares about them, right? But the thuggery on display in western cities is meant to intimidate not the despised Jew dogs but a more general audience - and it seems to be doing the job. Powerline notes the bizarre response from the French government to a Molotov cocktail attack on a synagogue in St-Denis:
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France has faced a "very clear increase" in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks since Israel started an offensive against the militant group Hamas in Gaza on Dec. 27.
Would it be too much for a French reporter to ask Mme Alliot-Marie to provide an example of an "anti-Muslim attack" since December 27th? None seems to have been reported in the French press, unlike the daily attacks on synagogues, kosher butchers, schools and individual Jews in Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, etc. So the Interior Minister would appear to be promoting a wholly false equivalence. Why would she do this?
Well, halfway through the Montreal video, you'll briefly see the demonstrators taunt the police, daring them to enforce their authority. For a clearer picture, look at this "pro-Palestinian" protest in London and the Metropolitan Police retreating in the face of a crowd jeering, "Run, run, you cowards!" and "Fatwa!"
The west's deluded multiculti progressives should understand: In the end, this isn't about Gaza, this isn't about Jews. It's about you.
It really is about the multiculti libs, their inability to suss out who bears responsibility for the death and destruction in Gaza. The so-called progressives like to accuse conservatives of being simpletons, unable to grasp the subtleties and distinctions of foreign policy and international affairs, but it seems to me that it requires a special kind of moral and intellectual retardation to blame the victims -- the Israelis -- for the simple act of saying, "Enough! No more missiles. No more children cowering in shelters. 6,000 missiles fired into our nation ; no more."
There's nothing to be gleaned about the character of the players in the latest flare up in the Middle East: Hamas and its supporters go out of their way to target innocents on both sides, with missiles aimed at civilians, and missile launchers set up near Arab schools, hospitals and markets. Dead Israelis are a bonus, really, for the larger goal, the juiciest reward is more dead Arabs for Hamas to put on display for the Western media.
Israel, on the other hand, continues to use 21st-century technology to limit civilian casualties, calling ahead to warn civilians to get out of the area before the rockets arrive.
Remember the distinction: Israel does everything it can to limit the number of civilians killed and wounded; its Arab enemies do everything in their power to kill and maim civilians.
Steyn's ultimate point about the protests is one that continues to resonate, hours after I first read it:
"The west's deluded multiculti progressives should understand: In the end, this isn't about Gaza, this isn't about Jews. It's about you."
The response -- or lack thereof -- from the liberal left is as revealing as the threats themselves.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 13, 2009 07:12 AM
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