Soccer Dad

Post pre-election stress syndrome

UPDATE: Welcome Dhimmi Watch Mediacrity, Little Green Footballs, IRIS, White Pebble, SerAndEz, JudeoPundit Daled Amos, Boker Tov Boulder Tel-Chai Nation and Villagers with Torches readers. Thank you for stopping by! Look around and you might find other items of interest.

It's hard to know where to begin.

The Washington Post published an incredibly dishonest editorial yesterday "Preelectionn turmoil." But what can you say about an editorial whose high point is:

Already, too, democracy is showing its benefits. Faced with the possibility of defeat by Hamas, Fatah has been forced to overhaul the aging and corrupt cadre left behind by Yasser Arafat and install young reformers at the top of its legislative list. Their leader, the Israeli-imprisoned Marwan Barghouti, published a remarkable letter in Palestinian newspapers Friday apologizing for Fatah's mistakes and asking voters for another chance. Hamas itself is showing some pragmatism: Its newly elected council members supported the election last week of a Christian woman as mayor of Ramallah, the most important West Bank town.

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"Israeli-imprisoned?" How about "Convicted murderer?"

Note that Fatah's not apologizing for the killing of Jews even after being granted legitimacy on the basis of foreswearing violence. Terror against Jews doesn't much bother the editors of the Post.

But there's a silver lining here. True moderation. In a government where Christian have been driven from their homes, one has been designated a mayoral candidate. Wow!

But if Bethlehem is any indication the Christian mayor will simply be window dressing:

Christians are no longer the majority of the 30,000 inhabitants of the city, as they always were in the past The Muslims are now more numerous than the Christians in the same proportion that the mosques exceed the churches, by a margin of 15 to 10.

The mayor of Bethlehem is still a Christian, as always. Eight out of the fifteen seats on the city council are still reserved for Christians. But in the latest municipal elections, which took place in May of 2005, a coalition with crucial support from the Muslims of Hamas emerged victorious.

The leader of the Hamas contingent in the municipal council of Bethlehem, Hassam El-Masalmeh, exalts the suicide attacks against the Jews, and asserts that these will continue until all of Palestine, including the territory of Israel, is under Palestinian control.

Oh yes, and there's one more item:

The general plan of Hamas also includes the imposition of a special tax, called al-jeziya, upon all of the non-Muslim residents in the Palestinian territories. This tax revives the one applied through all of Islamic history to the dhimmi, the second-class Jewish and Christian citizens.

So this is what the Washington Post hails: a murderer who apologizes for corruption and the relegation of Christians to second class citizens. And this is what the Washington Post hails as the "success of democracy?"

Another success that the Post's editors hail:

On Friday protesting policemen stormed and briefly closed the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the opening of which has been one of the few successes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The implications of the next sentence show how hollow that success is:

Israel has meanwhile declared the northern tip of Gaza a buffer zone and subjected it to regular artillery fire in an attempt to stop the launching of rockets at nearby Israeli towns; yesterday two Palestinians were killed.

Where, pray tell, are those rockets coming from? Could it be that the parts for manufacturing them are now moving freely through Rafah? Certainly the people who are in charge of deploying them are:

The sources said that at least 45 Hamas and Fatah fugitives have returned to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah terminal since it was handed over to the Palestinian Authority four months ago.

Among those who returned to the Gaza Strip are Ahmed al-Milh and Fadel Zahar, brother of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. Fadel Zahar was deported from the Gaza Strip in 1991 along with three other top Hamas operatives: Imad Alami, Mustafa Kanu, and Mustafa Liddawi. He spent most of his time in Sudan and Syria, where other Hamas leaders are located.

Rafik al-Hasanat, another senior member of Hamas who has been wanted by Israel for more than a decade, arrived through the Rafah crossing in October. Hasanat belonged to Izzaddin al-Kassam; he fled to Egypt in 1993 after he learned that the IDF was searching for him because of his involvement in terror attacks. Since then he has been hiding in Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Jordan.

And of course the article reports that the PA simply lets these wanted terrorists pass through.

And of course the editorial also hails Hamas's truce:

Though it has mostly refrained from violence since early last year Hamas has refused to disarm or alter its doctrine denying Israel's right to exist.

"Mostly refrained?" What were those numbers again?

Counting just those terrorist attacks after the 'truce' there were 23 terrorist attacks in 2005 resulting in 46 deaths and 260 injuries.

So a terrorist organization that mostly refrained from terror, but didn't stop it completely, and kept its ideology and materiel intact pressures a convicted murderer to condemn corruption but not terror from his jail cell is a victory for democracy? How's that again?

Like the silly observers who think the suit fits perfectly the editors of the Washington Post willfully ignore all the signs that terror and not democracy is winning.

Why it's OK if Jews are being killed. It's OK if Christians are being subjugated. But don't dare prevent terrorists from joining the government.

This attitude is beyond the pale. How can a newspaper of such repute descend into such self parody?

Challenge: Bloggers (or other writers) would anyone like to join with me and write either an op-ed or a letter to the editor and write a response to this irresponsible editorial?

WATCHER'S COUNCIL: As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting this post for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

UPDATE: In an exchange of e-mails, commenter Golden Jerusalem wrote:

I've lived in Israel for the past 8 years, so nothing really surprises me any more when it comes to the staggering dishonesty and gross bias of the media.

When I go to visit abroad (I'm originally from Denmark) I often meet people who want to discuss the Israeli-Arab conflict (usually as soon as they learn I'm from Israel). 9 times out of 10 their impression of what is happening here is completely skewed because the media reports are so inaccurate, even false.

It's hard sometimes to face the ignorance and keep trying to explain the facts to people. I do try my best to do some decent "ha'sbera" on this country's behalf, but boy is there a lot of ignorance and bias to deal with.

It saddens me to say that IMO a lot of it is rooted in age-old anti-semitism, even among the "tolerant" and enlightened Danes, where you wouldn't perhaps expect the phenomenon to be so prevalent.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Media Bias.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at January 2, 2006 5:28 AM | TrackBack