Author: Steven Plaut
Publication: FrontPageMagazine.com
Date: October 15, 2002
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=3830
I certainly do not mean to detract
for an instant from the horror and outrage over the Bali bombing, but at
the same time I cannot leave without comment the dramatic differences in
the reactions of the world to the Bali bombing and the countless Arab atrocities
against Jews.
Not a single media outfit has referred
to the perpetrators of the Bali bombings as "activists" or "militants".
Not even the BBC and CNN. Indeed, both uncharacteristically used the "T"
word to refer to the bombers. CNN even called it "an atrocity" and not
a protest.
If it turns out that the car bomb
was triggered by suicide terrorists, no one in the world will include those
dead terrorists in the total body count of the "tragic affair".
Not a single commentator has been
insisting that if the terrorists resorted to such violence, then surely
they must have legitimate grievances.
Not a single commentator has been
insisting that if the terrorists resorted to such violence, then surely
they must be fighting for a just cause.
Not a single commentator has been
insisting that if the terrorists resorted to such violence, then surely
it must be because they are so desperate and mistreated. And no one demanded
that Australia ask itself what it has done wrong to earn such hatred.
Not a single commentator has been
insisting that Indonesia and Australia need to open dialogue and negotiations
with the terrorists because - after all - there is no military solution
to the problems of terrorism.
The Nobel Prize Committee has not
suggested that the perpetrators of the bombing be awarded a Peace Prize.
Harvard and Berkeley professors
did not call for the preventing of future bombings like Bali by divesting
from Australia, nor did they collect petitions demanding that the demands
of the bombers be met.
Jimmy Carter has not rushed to Bali
to endorse the demands of the bombers.
Student demonstrators in Berkeley
did not stage mock street theater representations of the bombings, showing
the Australians as villains.
Hollywood stars did not declare
that only withdrawal from occupied Australia is the solution.
The University of Michigan and Colorado
College have failed so far to organize Solidarity with the Bali Bombers
Conferences.
The newspapers have not been telling
Australians that they brought it all on themselves for being racist and
insensitive and obstinate.
No one has yet proposed allowing
the terrorists to set up their own state in New South Wales.
No one has described the Bali bombing
as "resisting occupation".
No progressive liberal churches
or synagogues have offered to host the spokeswoman for the Bali bombers.
No one has described the Bali bombers
as moderates who need to be cultivated lest really radical Islamist terrorists
gain power.
So why is world's reaction to the
Bali atrocity so untypical? Why so different from its reactions to Jews
being blown to pieces by PLO terrorists and their associates? And if the
perpetrators now pretend that they blew up Bali to protest Israel's "occupation"
of "Palestinian" lands, how long will it take for the progressives of the
world to demand that Israel be destroyed to appease the Bali bombers and
prevent more such violence?
(Steve Plaut teaches at the University
of Haifa.)
