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Jewish
blood has always come pretty cheap as far as much of the world is
concerned.
And not just during the Holocaust. After all, now that Palestinian
terrorists are back to picking off Israelis a few at a time - back to
their usual string of "little murders" instead of a few big
ones - where is the world's outrage now?
The outrage that greeted Israel's military incursion into the West Bank
after a homicide bomber slaughtered 19 Israelis and wounded 120 on March
27, just as Jews in a Netanya hotel were sitting down to celebrate
Passover.
But for weeks before that, the homicide bombers had been picking off
Jews a few at a time. Just as they, and Palestinian gunmen, are now.
Where, then, was the world's condemnation of this almost daily
terrorism? Where is it now? Where are the UN resolutions? The human
rights groups? The unions? Bill Graham?
Why, following the Passover Massacre, when Israel finally responded to
weeks of provocation, was it only then that the media rushed in, only to
be taken in by Palestinian propaganda that there had been a
"massacre" in Jenin.
A massacre in which, as long-time Mideast correspondent Tom Gross has
documented in his definitive piece - "Jeningrad" - the media
were only too happy to report that "3,000" Palestinian
civilians had been killed by rampaging Israeli soldiers, who had then
hidden the bodies by bulldozing them into mass graves. Then
"3,000" suddenly became "500" and finally, 56, all
but a handful armed Palestinians who had died in fierce door-to-door
fighting in which 23 Israeli soldiers had also been killed. And the
media?
Few even admitted how badly they had been fooled, let alone reported
that the real story of Jenin was that the Israelis had kept civilian
casualties low by risking their own soldiers' lives.
Then, early in May, another huge homicide bombing, with the murderer
originating in the Gaza strip. It killed 15 Israelis outside Tel Aviv.
Once again, the world expected Israel to move into Gaza at a huge cost
to human life. But Israel held back. Where was the world's praise for
this remarkable show of restraint? Perhaps we missed it. But somehow, we
doubt it.
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