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Muslim atrocities, Muslim victims, our silence
By Bradley Burston

As Jews, we learn not to talk about it. We're taught, from an early age, that it's not our business. As leftists, we're taught to interpret it in the broader context, as the understandable outgrowth of occupation, of colonialism, of Western oppression.

So this month, when a Palestinian toddler named Hassan Abu Nada was killed in the crossfire of a Hamas-Fatah gunfight in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lehiya, we said nothing. His grandmother was wounded. This was none of our affair.

Just as in December, when Palestinians gunned down three children of a Fatah security chief, boys aged three to nine on their way to school. We knew better than to pass judgment, protest on their behalf, raise our voices.
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Just as we kept our opinions to ourselves when, in a Frankfurt court, a Muslim woman whose Muslim husband beat her and threatened to kill her, was denied a divorce. Judge Christa Datz-Winter ruled that "the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives," The New York Times reported. "The Koran, she wrote, sanctions such physical abuse."

Just as every morning, when the news of a fresh act of moral obscenity reaches us from Iraq, we swallow hard and shut up. On Sunday, for example, when a Sunni Muslim mosque was stormed, its minaret blown to pieces, and the structure set ablaze, in apparent retaliation for a suicide truck bombing the beside a Shiite mosque the day before.

Muslims should be able to worship without other Muslims blowing them to mist. Muslim children should be able to go to school and back without other Muslims shattering their bodies with automatic fire. Muslim women should be able to live their lives without worrying that their husbands are within their rights to beat them and threaten to kill them.

And we, as non-Muslims, should be able to say something about it.

Not a simple issue. Especially for those of us Jews and leftists who were educated at places like Berkeley, where we received our degrees in Selective Blindness, with a minor in Understanding the Roots of Violence when practiced by Muslims.

We were taught to sniff out, publicize, and condemn every instance of racism, violence, injustice, and humiliation practiced by Israeli Jews against Palestinian Muslims. And that was as it should be.

But we were also taught that it was racist to impose our Western values on the acts of Muslims, even, or especially, when it came to the most extreme of Muslims.

We can, with facility, therefore, comprehend all Muslim atrocities against Muslims in Iraq as the direct, understandable, and legitimate response to the American-British occupation.

We were taught wrong.

We can understand terrorism in Bali, in London, in the Twin Towers, as an outgrowth of anger over American expansionism and Israeli military repression.

We were taught wrong.

There are, of course, many Jews whose selective blindness works in the other direction, condemning Muslims at every opportunity, as though that made wrongdoing by Jews eminently forgivable and forgettable. As though we are somehow made moral by the moral failings of our neighbors.

This is what we should have been taught: Violations of human rights are violations of human rights, regardless of the cultural background of the perpetrator, regardless of the background of the victim.

This is what we should have retained: One way to demonstrate compassion for victims is to stop showing sensitivity to their tormentors. Even if both are Muslims. Because it's our business to cry out. Because the victims are human beings. Because villains deserve to be denounced.

We were taught to feel guilt, when we should have been taught that wrongdoing is the work of the wrongdoer.

In the end, those of us who excuse Muslim fanatics their outrages against their own, those of us who explain away their crimes by blaming them on the West, or on ourselves, are guilty of racism as well.

We are saying, in effect, that they cannot be considered responsible for their actions, as would any other human being.

We are saying, in effect, that we made them who they are.

We are saying, in effect, that the suicide bomber who kills his own, lacks the ability to discern right and wrong. We are also saying, in effect, that they can do what they like, to their own.

There is racism in our view, and megalomania, and arrogance, and cowardice, and weakness. Terrorists know this. They feed on it.

They were taught well.

_________________


Recent blogs:

Welcome to Settler Nation. Now, obey!
Hamas, the settlers' best friend
Name that war - Your chance to rewrite Israeli history
Israel needs a new anthem, one that Arabs can sing

_______________



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  1.   On atrocities, Jesus and Jews 09:28  |  Clickfool 30/03/07
  2.   ISRAEL`S FRIEND AND ALLY 09:32  |  indrajaya 30/03/07
  3.   There is a reason. 09:49  |  Rob Hill 30/03/07
  4.   You`re boring when you don`t talk about settlers 10:17  |  Ruben Misrahi 30/03/07
  5.   Indrajaya! 10:21  |  sg 30/03/07
  6.   Well Said, Bradley 10:26  |  Mark of Lewiston 30/03/07
  7.   Bosnia 10:31  |  sg 30/03/07
  8.   Indrajaya - Free Aceh & Papua 10:36  |  Leo 30/03/07
  9.   our silence ... 10:39  |  Madeleine 30/03/07
  10.   #1, German divorce 10:41  |  Igor 30/03/07
  11.   A very good article 10:45  |  Cord H. Kaldrack 30/03/07
  12.   Indrajaya-#1-What about christians in Indonesia? 10:52  |  Daniel Leopold 30/03/07
  13.   Extreme religion of any sort is a problem 10:57  |  Michael 30/03/07
  14.   STUPIDITY IS THE NO 1 ENEMY!! IT WILL BRING 11:08  |  paul harris 30/03/07
  15.   Political Correctness is not helpful 11:10  |  Mozie 30/03/07
  16.   Blame Islam 11:21  |  Hal 30/03/07
  17.   Ah yes, we taught them well 11:21  |  Marilyn 30/03/07
  18.   Burston bombs out on this one. 11:28  |  Star of David 30/03/07
  19.   Violations of human rights are violations of human rights 11:30  |  AV 30/03/07
  20.   Germany still has not found itself again 11:41  |  Mark B. 30/03/07
  21.   i agree 11:42  |  paulo2005 30/03/07
  22.   political correctness is dying in Europe 11:48  |  Mark B. 30/03/07
  23.   Subjective silence 11:49  |  Gabe 30/03/07
  24.   Muslim atrocities, Jewish silence, why? 11:51  |  dana 30/03/07
  25.   #17 Marilyn learns nothing 12:01  |  Fiona Wanganeen 30/03/07
  26.   clickfool no.1 12:14  |  michael3k 30/03/07
  27.   Hey PAUL 14 how about a campaign against religion? 12:20  |  Michael 30/03/07
  28.   thanks clickfool 12:21  |  Alon Fisher 30/03/07
  29.   Do what I say and not what I do 12:29  |  Ronnie Wolman 30/03/07
  30.   Physical abuse not allowed in Koran, but many like to think so 12:32  |  D. Aoun 30/03/07
  31.   ITS OK FOR THEM NOT FOR US?? 12:35  |  alonitzafoni 30/03/07
  32.   1#For clickfool 12:41  |  Alon Fisher 30/03/07
  33.   one more thing clickfool 12:43  |  alonitzafoni 30/03/07
  34.   #24 dana 13:14  |  gilbert 30/03/07
  35.   #17 marylin 13:22  |  gilbert 30/03/07
  36.   Mr. Burston finally gets it!!! 13:29  |  Lynn 30/03/07
  37.   "False Modesty" 13:31  |  Alicia 30/03/07
  38.   Timor East 13:32  |  ScotGuy 30/03/07
  39.   Mozie on Political Correct 13:33  |  Lynn 30/03/07
  40.   # 29 Ronnie Wolman 13:39  |  Lynn 30/03/07
  41.   Marilyn; keep focused! 14:04  |  Alicia 30/03/07
  42.   Bradley Burston, my Bradley Burston 14:25  |  christoph 30/03/07
  43.   Alicia 14:40  |  Alan 30/03/07
  44.   Bradley Burston, my Bradley Burston 14:45  |  christoph 30/03/07
  45.   #38 ScotGuy 14:48  |  Gilbert 30/03/07
  46.   LEFTIST COMPLICITY 14:51  |  GABE1 30/03/07
  47.   GENOCIDAL 14:53  |  GABE1 30/03/07
  48.   #24 dana 14:59  |  gilbert 30/03/07
  49.   Silence 15:09  |  GABE1 30/03/07
  50.   Differentiating between Good and Evil 15:11  |  Choni Davidowitz 30/03/07
  51.   #1 question 15:11  |  Ilan 30/03/07
  52.   muslim killing 15:12  |  real vision 30/03/07
  53.   Patronistic Leftist retardation 15:16  |  FOX 30/03/07
  54.   # 12, DANIEL LEOPOLD 15:16  |  indrajaya 30/03/07
  55.   Pompous Tripe 15:19  |  Ziggy 30/03/07
  56.   For alonitzafoni # 33 15:19  |  Clickfool 30/03/07
  57.   Australian rape crimes 15:25  |  Marilyn 30/03/07
  58.   # 1 Beware of Fake Clickfool. 15:26  |  Clickfool 30/03/07
  59.   Jews shouldn`t condemn 15:27  |  Tosefta 30/03/07
  60.   Mutating Left support nukes? 15:33  |  FOX 30/03/07
  61.   # 41 Alicia on the arrogance.. 15:37  |  Lynn 30/03/07
  62.   #24 Dana (not International) has it wrong 15:37  |  Hastaroth 30/03/07
  63.   The silence of Journalists 15:38  |  FOX 30/03/07
  64.   Atrocities SA versus SS 15:40  |  17 30/03/07
  65.   Star of David # 18 15:41  |  Lynn 30/03/07
  66.   THE DYING OF THE BLEATS 15:46  |  Brant 30/03/07
  67.   While any intelligent person would do well to reflect on the 15:47  |  Apartheid 30/03/07
  68.   You keep silence at your own peril 15:51  |  Benlolo 30/03/07
  69.   Indrajaya- you wouldn`t know kindness 15:51  |  ChanahS 30/03/07
  70.   # 7, SG