In a statement at the White House last week on Nov. 18, in light of lethal attacks on Kurdish forces in Iraq, President Obama said:
“Tragically, this is not the first loss of life we have seen in recent months. Too many Kurds have died. Too many ISIS fighters have died. I think it is important for both Kurds and ISIS fighters to try to work together to lower tensions and to reject violence. We have to remind ourselves that the majority of Kurds and ISIS fighters overwhelmingly want peace and to be able to raise their families knowing they’re safe and secure . . . ”
Too many Kurds have died. Too many ISIS fighters have died. What’s this moral equivalence between terrorists and victims, between ISIS beheaders and the Kurds? Absurd, no?
“ . . . it is important for both Kurds and ISIS fighters to try to work together . . . ” As in the lion lying down with the lamb?
“ . . . the majority of Kurds and ISIS fighters overwhelmingly want peace . . . ” Is not the evidence exactly the opposite?
Is not this entire statement a total obfuscation of the truth?
Actually, President Obama did not say what we just wrote that he said. Rather, he said this in a statement to the White House press pool about the cold-blooded murder of four rabbis and one Druze policeman [editorial below] in a synagogue last week in Har Nof, Jerusalem:
“Tragically, this is not the first loss of life we have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died. I think it is important for both Palestinians and Israelis to try to work together to lower tensions and to reject violence. We have to remind ourselves that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace and to be able to raise their families knowing they’re safe and secure. . . . ”
Context is critical. Of course, generally speaking, too many Israelis have died and too many Palestinians have died. But the context was the pogrom in Har Nof on Nov. 18, the very day the president made his remarks.
The context was the brutal killings by two members of a people who has propagated modern terrorism, the Palestinians.
The context was a pogrom that killed Jews, that invaded a house of worship, that left 26 children orphans, that aimed to brutalize, that used cleavers and knives and guns to cut down, ISIS-style, rabbis in prayer.
In that context, the president’s statement was a total obfuscation of the truth. In that context, it is deeply wrong, extraordinarily offensive and historically blind to say, “Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died.” Too many Palestinian terrorists have died? Jewish terrorists, such as Baruch Goldstein and his reprehensible mass killing of Palestinians in 1994, stand out precisely for their extreme rarity.
No, it is not important for both Israelis and Palestinian terrorists to try to work together.
No, the majority of Israelis and Palestinians do not overwhelmingly want peace. Where is the polling data that the majority of Palestinians want peace other than via the destruction of Israel?
What do you do, Mr. President, with the Palestinians dancing in the streets at the news that Palestinians slaughtered, quite literally, unarmed Jews at prayer?
Are these the Palestinians who “overwhelmingly want peace”?
On Nov. 18 at the White House, President Obama referred to senseless and brutal attacks on innocent Jewish worshippers. We would expect any decent person and any American president to say as much, to articulate what the president called an “obvious” condemnation. But why is it that when an ISIS fighter beheads an innocent American citizen, the president responds not with an obvious condemnation, but, quite appropriately, with a stronger, more visceral and morally unambiguous one, calling the beheading an act of “pure evil”; but when a Palestinian cuts off, not the head, but the arm, of an American citizen, leaving him to die in the pool of his own blood gathering on the floor, the president does not call it an act of “pure evil”?
Apparently, some American citizens are more equal than others, due to the fact that some terrorists are less evil than others.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
