World Opinion

It has been troubling to see all the anti-Zionism and anti-Israel stuff coming from all quarters. The UN Human Rights Commission is a farce. It is an exclusive club which apparently exists only to point out the supposed transgressions of the Jewish State of Israel. From the Commission's point of view, those in Darfur, Tibet, Burma, the Congo, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and other places are just out of luck. There is apparently no need to condemn the Sudanese, the military leaders of Burma and human rights violators elsewhere, for the only human rights violations in the world are being done by the Israelis. Never mind that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have committed more human rights violations against their own people. And of course, the suicide bombers, those who fire the Qassam rockets, the stone throwers, and others who seek to murder and maim Israeli citizens can be excused by the standards of the UN Human Rights Commission.

For the past two Shabbats, I've been reading Rabbi Telushkin's Jewish Wisdom. On the section regarding anti-Semitism, I found this to be very interesting:

Anti-Semitism: The Double Standard

The fellows who say to you, "I expect more of the Jews." don't believe them. They expect less. What they're really saying is, "Okay, we know you're a bunch of ravenous bastards, and given half the chance you'd eat up half the world, let alone poor Palestine. We know all these things about you, and so we're going to get you now. And how? Every time you make a move, we're going to say, 'But we expect more of the Jews, Jews are supposed to behave better.'"

Jews are supposed to behave better? After all that has happened? I would have thought it was the non-Jews whose behaviour could stand a little improvement. Why are we the only people who belong to this wonderful exclusive moral club that's behaving badly?
---Philip Roth, The Counterlife, pages 178-179

A prime example of this type of thinking is Jimmy Carter. This kind of thinking is harmful to all. It promotes and enables those who seek to murder Israelis indiscriminately. The Qassams Palestinian terrorists fire at Israel are not aimed at military targets: They are aimed at civilians. This is a clear violation of International Law. And yet, when these violations, 7,000 since 2000, occur, there are those who try to justify them and say, "Look at the harm the Israelis have done! Those poor, poor, Palestinians have no choice!". The thing is, they do have a choice. There would be peace now if the Palestinian terrorists stopped their murderous attacks. There would be peace now if radical Palestinian imams would stop preaching hate. There would be peace now if Palestinian text books taught more science, true history, and less hatred of Israelis.

If the Palestinians were to be held to the same standards as Israelis, there would be peace now.