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

The Turkish regime: poor linguistic skills, even poorer at mathematics

Turkey is widely regarded by historians the world over as being responsible for genocide.

In the early 20th century, Turkey, then under Ottoman rule, attempted to wipe out the Armenians, massacring more than one and a half million civilians in an attempt to create a nation ethnically cleansed of Armenians.

Now Turkey is outraged that a US congressional committee has approved a statement categorizing Turkey’s mass-killing of Armenians as genocide.

Turkey has been similarly accused of attempted genocide against its Kurdish minority.

Turkey’s Armenian and Kurdish populations have both been decimated as a result of the country’s policies of ethnic cleansing and documented genocide as well as ongoing discrimination.

In response to the US congressional resolution, Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador to Washington.

Against this backdrop, it needs to be remembered that Turkey has consistently accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian Arabs.

Also against this backdrop, it needs to be noted that from an original population of just under 160,000 in 1948, the Arab population of Israel has grown to just over 1.5 million. This is a ten-fold increase.

At the same time, the Arab population of Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) has grown from about 460,000 in 1948 to 2.5 million in 2009, increasing almost five and a half times its original size. In the Gaza Strip, the Arab population grew from 83,000 in 1948 to 1.4 million today, an almost 17-fold increase.

These are the results of the “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” that according to the Turkish regime Israel has carried out on the Arab population. Facts notwithstanding, the Turkish regime continues to maintain that Israel is guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The Turkish regime apparently has a problem not just with rudimentary vocabulary but also with elementary grade-school mathematics.

The Islamist-leaning Turkish regime really does believe it is proper for one yardstick to be applied to Muslim nations, and for a totally different one to be applied to Jews and Christians.

It is refreshing that the US, at least, is finally prepared to use the English language properly.


Relevant link from this website:
Boycott and ethnic cleansing

What exactly do the Palestinians want?

Question:
When is it OK to demolish a Muslim graveyard in order to use the property to build factories, shops, banks and offices?
Answer:
When Muslims in Jerusalem want to make money. (Read the Palestine Post from November 22, 1945 for proof.)

Question:
When is it an insult against Islam to build on a derelict former parking lot that happens to be located beside a Muslim graveyard that is guaranteed preservation as a holy Muslim site for all time to come?
Answer:
When Jews in Jerusalem want to build a museum dedicated to inter-religious tolerance and cohesion. (Read also a press release on the subject by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as well as comments by Elder of Ziyon and Elder of Ziyon again for more detailed background.)

Palestinian Arab hypocrisy knows no bounds when it comes to exploiting every opportunity to express anti-Semitic feeling and to preventing any form of bridge-building in the name of tolerance, respect and peace.

The Israelis create, the Palestinians talk about creating (as far back as1945) but they actually create nothing. Instead, all their resources are invested in curtailing development and destroying potential – both their own and that of their Israeli neighbour.

There is one thing, however, that the Palestinians are good at creating – their own version of history. This explains why, more than 60 years later, they are still in the same situation today that they were back then.

In order to truly understand how they ever got themselves into this position in the first place, read their own explanation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch of the creation of the Palestinian Arab refugee problem instead of a second Palestinian Arab nation alongside the original Palestinian Arab nation of Transjordan, later renamed Jordan.

In the Palestinian Arabs’ own words:



More than 60 ears on, the Palestinian Arabs still lack the will to admit the truth, recognise the cynical manipulations and historic miscalculations of their leaders and abandon their drive to dismantle the Jewish state of Israel. The creation of the second Palestinian Arab state in the Jewish provinces of Judea and Samaria was simply never on the agenda, even though it encompassed the ethnic cleansing of all Jews at the same time as more than 20 percent of the population of the Jewish state consists of both Muslim and Christian Arabs. They always wanted and still want more.

How much more? The Palestinian Arabs do not agree for the Jews to have any part of the Jewish homeland at all. That is why it was regarded as perfectly acceptable to demolish a Muslim graveyard and build a commercial centre on its hallowed ground – if the plans were submitted by Muslims.

At the same time as it is regarded as an insult to build a museum dedicated to tolerance and peace beside a protected Muslim graveyard – if the plans are submitted by Jews.

Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor at the Jerusalem Post, puts it very succinctly: the Palestinian Arabs do not want peace. They cannot afford to take any steps towards peace because that would automatically mean relinquishing their ultimate aim – the destruction of their Jewish neighbours. Read the exact words that Zahir Muhsein, PLO Executive Committee Member, uses to deny the existence of a Palestinian people whily detailing the strategy for destroying the Jewish state. This explains why the highly secular Palestinian Authority – already an entity without any legal standing according to Palestinian electoral legislation – is so keen to embrace religious bigotry if that weapon can be used against the Jewish state.

The Palestinians continue cementing the conflict into permanency through their disparaging, racist way of viewing and treating their Jewish neighbours. As a result, peaceful resolution and mutual respect are more distant prospects than ever before – even after more than 60 years.

The Palestinian Arabs and their Jewish neighbours deserve a far better fate.

To find out just how divorced the Palestinian Arab mainstream is from reality, read Barry Rubin's most recent article entitled "Why Isn't There Peace? One Reason: Few People Know How Much is Being Offered".

It's an eye-opener.


Relevant links from this blog:
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict? Get a Grip on the Facts
Look who supports a Palestinian state in place of Israel: is Sweden anti-Semitic?
Swedish foreign minister represents Palestine
Pop quiz for peace
Reality Check for the EU
Swedish Foreign Minister’s Crusade against the Jewish State
Double-dealing or mere incompetence?

“The law is a ass”

Charles Dickens knew a thing or two.

His use of English grammar as expressed through the words of the inimitable Mr Bumble, might seem quaint by today’s standards, but there’s nothing wrong with his perception, his clarity and his honesty. Here’s what Charles Dickens wrote in “Oliver Twist more than 170 years ago but with direct relevance to events playing out before our eyes to this very day.

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

Note the last few words: “…the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience”.

The modern world seems to have an undying penchant for ignoring the lessons of experience.

Question: When is the law not the law?

Answer: When it applies to the Arab world.

Sudanese dictator and genocide practitioner Omar Hassan al-Bashir is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest order issued on March 4 this year. He has been accused of giving Arab Muslim militias a free rein and active logistical and political support in the genocide of three to four hundred thousand black Africans and the forced expulsion of almost three million people from their homes in a massive – and widely reported – ethnic cleansing drive.

Democratic countries the world over are sworn to implement al-Bashir’s arrest should he step within their jurisdiction. Within the Arab world, however, he travels freely.

Not only that, he is given the full red-carpet treatment as an honoured head of state. Even by countries as apparently “pro-Western” as Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

There’s an increasingly serious disconnect between the abysmal ethical record of the Arab world where black Africans can be slaughtered with impunity, and the moral code of the democratic world which lives by certain minimal standards of decency and civilised behaviour.

Some of the worst offenders on human rights issues are being unquestioningly protected by the Arab world. Saudi Arabia gave shelter to disgraced dictator and mass-murderer Idi Amin. Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s grand welcome in Qatar is merely the latest in a string of similar travesties of justice and moral lapses in the Arab world.

The Arab world’s compact refusal to implement the law is not just a warning about the fragility of the legal system as it is openly flouted. It also calls into question the civilized world’s continued willingness to deal with a major global political and economic bloc that openly demonstrates its contempt for the most basic foundations of civilized society.

Yet these are the people with whom we do lucrative business, every single day. What price black African lives?

Related articles in English:
Washington Post, New Republic, Jewish World Review, Newsweek, MidEastWeb, Melanie Phillips, 2, Världen Idag, JPost, YahooNews,

Related articles in French:
Le Figaro,

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SvD, Nyhetskanalen, HD, GA, SVT, DN, NT,

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