Where's the outrage for Ramallah's atrocities?
Wall Street Journal
02 November 09
Israel's harshest critics claim to champion the rights of Palestinians. So we're curious about the fallout, or lack thereof, from revelations that the Palestinian Authority regularly brutalizes its own in the West Bank while enjoying a steady flow of dollars and euros.
Senior PA official Haitham Arar was quoted in the Daily Mail more than a week ago openly discussing the abuses. That follows a Mail On Sunday report in January that detailed the Authority's regular use of beatings, whippings, attacks with electrical drills, and other methods of torture doled out to anyone seen threatening the authority of Fatah, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas. Murder and rape are also commonplace.
As Middle East analyst Tom Gross points out, the only news here is that a Western newspaper has bothered to write about it. At least some ink is spilled documenting Hamas's blunt methods, but much less has been made of Fatah's abuses since Yasser Arafat took over most of the territory in 1993. What's more, Western governments support the internecine violence with ever-increasing aid. As of Sept. 15, the European Union had delivered €268 million to the Authority this year, and in July the U.S. extended an additional $200 million.
The money will not stop now that Ramallah is no longer trying to hide the mistreatment. Westminster's one response has been to quietly send officers to the West Bank to train Authority forces on how not to torture prisoners.
So here's the state-of-play in the department of moral outrage. When Britain is accused of abetting U.S. interrogations, lawsuits, investigations, and threats to try Tony Blair for war crimes quickly follow. When Israel attacks Hamas in order to end rocket launches on its soil, it risks a session before the International Criminal Court. But when the West funnels billions to a Palestinian government whose abuses are brazen and ongoing, there is mainly silence.
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The Arab world and much of the West have enabled decades of dysfunctional and pathological behavior almost to the point of no return. The Palestinians, like the most malignant alcoholics and pedophiles, have come to believe that their behavior and the institutionalized hate, bigotry and calls to genocide that drive it, are both appropriate and healthy. They have made it clear that in order to be a “good Muslim” and a “decent” human being, all these malignant ideas must be embraced.
ReplyDeleteHow do the policy makers in the West address the pathology that motivates Hamas or Hezbollah, i.e. the bigotry and hate that is constantly projected outward toward the Jews?
First and foremost, the West must stop enabling the Palestinians and the Islamic world. They must cease surrendering key values and freedoms when challenged by that world. For example, in the interests of “peace” and “tolerance” many countries in Europe have already permitted the abrogation of freedom of speech and prosecuted those who merely criticize Islam. Meanwhile Islam and its fanatics celebrate the silencing of their critics by increasing their own hate-infested and bigoted rhetoric.
Second, the West enables these oppressive and destructive regimes and positively reinforces the underlying psychopathology by treating the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran et al, as if they are civilized and equal to leaders in the West. By granting respect for the bigoted ideas espoused by these leaders--e.g., holocaust denial and the need to “wipe Israel off the map”--as if it is perfectly ok and just a normal, healthy expression of their cultural identity—they give these leaders and their people the impression that their culture is equal to those in the West. Sadly, these dysfunctional regimes already have the grandiose fantasy that they are superior to the West.
The West must return to embracing and standing for the values and freedoms that have lead to their unquestioned economic and societal success and the greatest level of human happiness in the history of the world. We must not compromise those values of reverence for life or liberty; nor must we cooperate with those who would enslave the human mind and limit the pursuit of happiness in this world.
If peace is ever to come to the Middle East, we must treat the real and underlying issue, the hate and bigotry that permeates the region and which distorts and cripples the humans who live there.