Silence and condemnation

Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007.

More specifically, 250 Greenwich Street.

It’s where the World Trade Center used to stand.

The street is going to be renamed.

Its new name: Osama bin Laden Plaza.

You may not have heard about this. No international protests. No public demonstrations about the unsuitability of naming the site after a terrorist and mass-murderer of civilians. No debates in the UN Security Council. No hasty meetings convened between the US and EU to discuss the aggressive tone of this deliberate insult, no inter-governmental agreements on how best to punish the decision-makers behind this tasteless, counterproductive measure. No UN comment on how this unnecessarily subverts attempts to bridge cultural, political and religious divides.

The reason for the silence?

Perhaps it’s because the US prizes consistency. After all, the US signally refused to comment on – let alone condemn – the Palestinian Authority for naming the public square outside Ramallah town hall in honour of terrorist and mass-murderer Dalal Mughrabi, who a number of years ago killed 38 Jewish civilians in Israel, including 13 children. The dedication of the town square was scheduled to coincide with US Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to the region.

Before we go any further, let me clarify that there are no plans to rename the Twin Towers site. It was merely a ruse to make a point. But that point, however, is still frighteníngly valid. Why the US silence on dedicating a town square to a terrorist and mass-murderer? The US is, after all, bankrolling the Palestinian Authority and even arming and training its fighters. Does the US administration really feel so comfortable with this decision by its protégé?

Not only was it not Joe Biden’s policy to comment on the decision, he did not actually have time to comment on it – he was too busy “condemning” Israel for wanting to build apartments for Jews in a part of Jerusalem that even the Palestinian Arabs recognize will always remain part of Israel, whatever the shape and details of a possible future final-status peace agreement.

Interestingly, neither Joe Biden nor Barack Hussein Obama nor Hillary Clinton has ever spoken out against the unsuitability of China building apartments for ethnic Chinese in Tibet, after first transferring one million Tibetans out of their ancestral home and carting them off to China, with one million ethnic Chinese taking their place in Tibet.

So perhaps it has nothing to do with consistency, after all.

Perhaps it’s simply a question of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton - as well as Israel's Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu - being held to ransom by a pathetically immature US president.

(With thanks to Yaakov Kirschen, Israel, who regularly publishes exquisite social and political commentary in cartoon form in the Dry Bones Blog: http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/family-relationship.html)


A president who is tough on his nation’s colleagues and allies, but soft on his nation’s enemies. A president who sets greater store by personal prestige than by strategic sensibilities. A president who has keener affiliations with the Muslim world than with the Western world.

Incomprehensively, Obama keeps trying to force Israel to pay the price for Palestinian Arab intransigence. "Intransigence"? Yup. This week the Palestinian Arabs - both the extremist Islamist Hamas and the extremist secular PA - joined forces to launch a violent yet comically named "Day of Rage" (read also here) to protest Israel's rebuilding of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem. This is the synagogue that the Palestinian Arabs destroyed in 1948. Absorb it: the Palestinian Arabs are protesting the rebuilding of a Jewish religious site that they destroyed, and claim that by doing so they are protecting the freedom of their own religious sites. So much for adherents of what is constantly being touted as the "religion of peace". Read here an unguardedly honest view of one Muslim cleric on the implications of his own religion. (Hat tip to blogger Loganswarning).

No comment from Obama, Biden or Clinton on this either. They seem to have an innate inability to comment on any negative steps taken by Muslim regimes or on any expressions of Muslim extremism as stemming from ... well ... Islam.



Of course, perhaps the US administration is simply far too busy cowering in the face of the increasingly strident position being taken by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Turkey.

See a common denominator?


For expert analysis from a broad range of perspectives, read the following:
Naomi Ragen
Barry Rubin
Yossi Klein Halevy
Noah Pollak
David Frum
Michael Fenenbock
Washington Post

Is Barack Hussein Obama the only politician to focus unfairly on the Jewish people and on Israel?
Here's what's going on in Sweden: Read Rosie DiManno in The Star.

From this blog:
Swedish Prime Minister Candidate Sacrifices Swedish Jews' Security for Muslim Votes by guest writer Peter Rubinstein
Turkey's Erdogan and Sweden's Reepalu: Twin Souls

Strange priorities

You’re at work.

A murderer from the next town breaks into your home, slaughters your entire family and while he is in the process of breaking into your neighbour’s home to continue on his rampage, the police arrive. The murderer resists arrest, starts shooting at the officers and is himself killed in the exchange of fire.

The murderer’s home town marks this event by naming the main town square fronting Town Hall in honour of the murderer. Schoolchildren are taught about the murderer’s heroic deed and encouraged to aspire to the same heights of achievement. The international community remains silent.

It doesn’t take long before more lethal attacks are carried out.

To stem the carnage, a fence is built between the two towns to prevent repeat offences. There is an immediate international uproar. Any protective fence should only be built around the houses of the intended victims, not in locations which would prevent the perpetrators from getting to their victims in the first place.

A few years later, some new houses are built in and near the homes of the increasing numbers of murder victims. Once again there is an immediate international uproar. The fallout is far-reaching.

The construction of the new apartments comes under scrutiny. Not by Town Hall where the buildings are to be constructed – we’re not talking zoning laws, infrastructure construction and utility installation – but by the UN Security Council.

There is still no discussion on the suitability or otherwise of naming town squares and educational establishments in honour of mass-murderers.

This scenario is not a figment of Kafkaesque imagination. It is unfortunately hard reality.

The West Bank town of El Bireh recently named its town square in honour of a Muslim Palestinian terrorist who slaughtered 38 Jewish civilians in Israel, including 13 children. The ceremony was scheduled to coincide with the arrival in the region of Joe Biden, the US Vice-President. Neither he nor US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton had any comment on the suitability of this event. This silence is scarcely surprising since many public facilities such as streets, schools and sports tournaments in the West Bank are named in honour of Muslim Palestinian mass-murderers – accompanied by thunderous silence on the part of the US and the rest of the international community that bankrolls the West Bank regime of Mahmud Abbas.

The event thus passed without comment by the visiting US dignitaries.

However, both Joe Biden (read the Telegraph and Guardian on the subject) and Hillary Clinton have been scathing in their condemnation of Israel’s decision to build a number of apartments for Jews, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Israel and the US.

Some analysts regard this imbalance in responses as both revealing and cathartic – finally Israel understands what it is dealing with in the latest US administration. There is no longer any need for Israel to pretend that it has an honest and impartial broker in Washington.

Barry Rubin offers a refreshingly straightforward insight into what the US administration actually wants and believes in when it comes to Middle East policy.

So too does Daniel Pipes.

Half a world away, meantime, Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmö, continues to witness the exodus of Jews as extremist mayor Ilmar Reepalu continues to encourage Islamist aggression against the city’s Jewish residents. Mayor Reepalu maintains that if Jews “choose” to flee Malmö that is their business, and goes on to note that it is quite understandable that Swedish Muslims hate Swedish Jews owing to events in the Middle East.

At least Reepalu is not alone in his views. Yesterday Egypt announced that it would ban the public rededication of a refurbished Cairo synagogue. Egypt’s few remaining Jews are to be penalised for allegations of "aggression by Israeli authorities against Muslim sanctuaries" in Israel. Reepalu must be feeling that he is being vindicated where it really matters.

Public facilities dedicated in honour of Muslim mass-murderers by what the US and the EU insist are Israel’s “partner for peace”. Jews penalised for protecting their lives with fences where the fences do most good. Jews banned from celebrating the rededication of a synagogue in Egypt. Jews chased out of Swedish cities by Islamist extremists. And Jews excoriated by the US for building apartments.

The politics of topsy-turvy priorities is getting very confusing. Yet at the same time increasingly clear.