On Friday night, twelve-year old Tamar Fogel came home to find both her parents, Ruth and Udi Fogel, two brothers Yoav (11) and Elad (four), and her three-month old sister Hadas murdered in their beds. They had had their throats cut and been stabbed through the heart.
That’s not shocking: There is no shortage of young Muslim men who would enjoy slitting the throat of a three-month old baby, and then head home dreaming of the town square or soccer tournament to be named in their honor.
Back in Gaza, the citizenry celebrated the news by cheering and passing out sweets.
That’s not shocking, either: In the broader Palestinian death cult, there are untold legions who, while disinclined to murder Jews themselves, are content to revel in the glorious victory of others.
And out in the wider world there was a marked reluctance to cover the story.
And, if not exactly shocking, that was a useful reminder of how things have changed even in a few years. On 9/11, footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets and handing out candy turned up on the world’s TV screens, and that rancid old queen Arafat immediately went into damage-control mode and hastily arranged for himself to be filmed giving blood. This time round there was no need for damage-control, because there was no damage: The western media simply averted their eyes from their Palestinian house pets’ unfortunate effusions. The Israeli Government released raw footage from the murders, but YouTube yanked the video within two hours. The hip new “social media” are developing almost as exquisitely refined a sense of discretion as the old Social Register.
As Caroline Glick writes:
A decade ago, the revelation that French ambassador to Britain Daniel Bernard referred to Israel as “that shi**y little country,” was shocking. Now it is standard fare.
Today the delegitimization of Israel is all but universal: Indeed, these days Palestinian leaders pay more lip service to the “two-state solution” than Europeans. On Israel’s national day, prominent Britons of Jewish background write to The Guardian to deplore the existence of the Jewish state. And “Israeli Apartheid Week” is multiculti Toronto’s gift to the world.
Demonstrating his uncanny ability to miss the point, the head of the Canadian Jewish Congress tweeted today:
Anonymity breeds ugliness online.
You would think even this sad, irrelevant fool might have noticed that the striking feature of today’s “ugliness” is how non-anonymous it is. Year on year, the world is more cheerfully upfront about its anti-Semitism. Maybe he could ask John Galliano, or Julian Assange.
But sometimes, as when a baby has her throat slashed, what’s not said is just as telling. Recently I was talking to a Hungarian Jew who lived in hiding in Budapest during the Second World War: By 1944, the pro-German government was running short of ammo, so they were obliged to get a little creative. They’d handcuff Jews together in a long chain, stand them on a bridge, put a bullet in the ones at each end, and then push them into the Danube to let the dead weight drag down the ones in between. You have to have a strong stomach for such work, perhaps almost as strong as for killing three-month olds. But, as my friend told his tale, I thought not of the monsters on the bridge, nor even those on the banks cheering, but about the far larger numbers of people scurrying about their business and rationalizing what was going on. That’s what made the difference, then as now.
UPDATE: Claire Berlinski, who is on the scene in Itamar, writes that Hadas was, in fact, decapitated:
Anyone who in any way tries to rationalize or minimize this or to suggest that this is a fitting punishment for anything needs to go out and look at a three-month-old baby and ask himself what it would take to climb over a fence, climb in a window, and cut off that child’s head.
I agree with you completely, Mr. Steyn. Our President goes golfing and yammers about schoolyard bullying, while the response from the rest of the (sic) civilized world is also non-existent. And it is Christians, as well as Jews, who are being murdered. A few headlines from just the last three weeks:
March 10, 2011: AINA.com, "9 Christians Killed, 150 Injured in Attack by 15,000 Muslims and Egyptian Army"
March 10, 2011: Compass Direct News, "Islamic Mob Burns Down Church in Egypt"
March 9, 2011: Associated Press, "Christian-Muslim Clashes in Egypt Kill 13"
March 8, 2011: The Washington Post, "A Blow to Religious Freedom in Pakistan"
March 7, 2011: ZENIT.com, "Opposing Anti-Blasphemy Laws is Dangerous, Says Aide"
March 7, 2011: CatholicExchange.com, "Eyes Wide Open: A New Martyr for the Faith"
March 2, 2011: The Washington Times, "Pakistan Minister Murdered for Criticism of Islam Blasphemy Law"
March 2, 2011: New York Times, "Vatican Condemns Killing of Christian Official in Pakistan"
March 2, 2011: Yahoo.News, "Gunmen Kill Christian Pakistan Government Minister"
March 1, 2011: Catholic Online, "Catholic Flee Libya, Church Responds with Prayer, Charitable Works"
February 25, 2011: CNSNEWS.com, "Plight of Christian Converts Highlights Absence of Religious Freedom in Afghanistan"
February 25, 2011: breitbart.com, "Italy Arrest 6 for Stirring Hate vs. Pope"
February 25, 2011: Yahoo.News, "Al-Qaida No. 2 Alleges Incitement by Egypt's Copts"
February 24, 2011: Catholic News Agency, "Muslims Set Fire to Christian Town in Bangladesh"
One could go on, but what's the use? Few seem to care.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is a horrible story. How any decent person could justify doing this is beyond me. What is disturbing is if you raise the barbarity of this, some turn it around and say the U.S. is just as bad when it bombs civilians by mistake in war zones. The difference, of course, is the U.S. does not target civilians (especially children) and certainly does not go out and kill families with knives like what happened in this case.
Of course, part of the reason this story is not getting reported (outside a few right wing sites and in Israel) is the crisis in Japan overwhelms it in the news cycle (understandably). But Richard Reed is right, there is this constant understatement for attacks on Jews and Christians by Muslims.
I find it so insulting, so condesending, that it is suggested Christians will suddently go out and harm innocent Muslims if the news of Muslim attacks is too inflamatory. But what is sad is how the Muslim world is not horrified by this and condemning the perpetrators as the monsters they are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Israelis don't even care. If they did, Gaza would look like Iwate Prefecture right now. There is enough news going on in the world for them to slip in a few carpet bombings with minimal whining.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm waiting for a statement from Ron Paul.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis isn't a clash of civilizations, rather, it's civilization confronted by savagery.
YouTube and Facebook banned the images, but this was found on the net - awful, obviously, but the grandparents agreed to allow them into the public domain to demonstrate the quality of Israel's 'partner in peace':
External Link
"Meanwhile in Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.
Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy “is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.” "
Hat tip PJTatler.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSobering.
Mr. Steyn gives eloquent voice to good men's disgust.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEvery time I go into a museum with an exhibit on the Holocaust, adorned with placards of "Never Again," I get a little sick inside. Indeed, it is happening again, only the polite and "culturally sensitive" aren't supposed to notice. And if you do take note, they're not so polite nor sensitive -- to you for naming their shame.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePenny, I've been to both sides -- to Israel, and to the West Bank. I'm Jewish.
There is civilization on both sides (usually the secularists) and there is barbarism on both sides (usually the very religious). The very religious on both sides have butchered civilians and denied one another's fundamental humanity.
Unfortunately, on both sides, the religious are out-breeding the secular. The results will not be good.
Also, it's worth remembering: This was an inhuman crime, perpetrated by an inhuman person. But the community that was attacked is an illegal settlement that denies the humanity of the Palestinian people. What happened to this family was absolutely evil, but it doesn't make the community they came from any less abominable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSometimes I can't help but hate the world. The apocalypse can't be any worse than a baby having her throat cut in her own bed. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" and it can't come soon enough because I am choking on my own rage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen will the UN issue a resolution condemning this violence? When will the imams issue fatwas against the murderers and terrorists who besmirch the name of Islam with their evil violence?
Wait. I know. When Michael Moore becomes a Republican.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI saw some of the pics before they were pulled. Nasty stuff.
There always is a tipping point, we are ever so much working towards it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI only saw the story in one area and perhaps it was eclipsed by the tsunami according to some minds. But tha antics of celebrities and the mindlessness of certain tv shows and even sports themselves continue to be covered with a fervor. It is wrong, so very wrong, that this story did not get its proper presentation but in the back alleys. Not to sound dismal but the societies that do not demonstrate solid and consistent values are prone to be destroyed from that vacuum. Meanwhile, a lot of families will be torn asunder as sacrifices until that grand tsunami to destroy mindless societies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I thought not of the monsters on the bridge, nor even those on the banks cheering, but about the far larger numbers of people scurrying about their business and rationalizing what was going on. That’s what made the difference, then as now."
I thought much the same a few years ago in a different situation: "And if Terry Schiavo’s repellent husband succeeds in murdering her, I wonder if you, whoever you are, will remember in the middle of your brief Christmas musings on the Star over Bethlehem, that in America a woman weeps because you had things to do and errands to run and political opinions and your fixation on what you want and what you think you deserve, and so you couldn’t be bothered to help call down the fury of the citizenry on the heads of the self-righteous and power-mad judges who would leave a mother laden with a grief that cannot be comforted."
It's that same vast indifference that pole-axes now. Innocents slaughtered on one side, their guards spread so thin; men-become-Orcs on the other - and inattention and inertia occupies the vast room between. Passive evil.
Do you think it might set the Great Sagging Blob afire when it's finally infants HERE that get stabbed to death?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe NY Times be damned...they didn't get this on the front page of their website for 24 hours and even then it was a small article, forget about the Gaza celebration. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the whole escapade put a twinkle in Nicholas Kristof's eyes. Didn't he write not all that long ago that we should apologize to the Islamic World?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" and it can't come soon enough because I am choking on my own rage.
Yeah; what he said.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@entropyhouse: "I thought much the same a few years ago in a different situation: "And if Terry Schiavo’s repellent husband succeeds in murdering her..."
I think it's morally repugnant to equate the two situations. Unless your concept of consciousness denies the necessity of a brain, Terri Schiavo was not a sentient being. She was incapable of feeling pain or pleasure and lacked any sense of self or the outside world. For obvious reasons, the suffering of an entire family of conscious humans is a much greater tragedy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@RPMcMurphy: I think it's morally repugnant to equate the two situations. Unless your concept of consciousness denies the necessity of a brain, Terri Schiavo was not a sentient being. She was incapable of feeling pain or pleasure and lacked any sense of self or the outside world.
If those things about Terry Schiavo's mental state were true, you might have a point. From what I saw, that point is debatable. I do not take the fact that the ultimately killed her as an indicator, because they would have killed her in any case.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA 3 month old baby is, in the eyes of many here in the U.S. on the left, simply a 4th trimester fetus. And we all know how a fetus is treated here on the left.
For the rest of us it's an abomination. This whole story is angering, sad, as well as a warning.
I guess it's almost as bad as holding hearings about radical Islamic terrorism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Televangelist
"But the community that was attacked is an illegal settlement that denies the humanity of the Palestinian people. What happened to this family was absolutely evil, but it doesn't make the community they came from any less abominable."
You're kidding, right? Are you one of those "prominent Britons of Jewish background writ[ing] to The Guardian to deplore the existence of the Jewish state."? Good for you.
@RPMcMurphy
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe learned for sure about Schiavo's true status _after_ her autopsy (and as I recall we could only know for sure after an extensive autopsy). It's not unreasonable to equate the two based on the knowledge you have before all the facts are in especially when those facts are not knowable without Schiavo dying first.
Thank you Mark.
“ only saw the story in one area and perhaps it was eclipsed by the tsunami according to some minds. But tha antics of celebrities and the mindlessness of certain tv shows and even sports themselves continue to be covered with a fervor. It is wrong, so very wrong, that this story did not get its proper presentation but in the back alley”
I assure you that if a Jew had murdered an Arab by that the Media would find ample time to cover it, so you're 100% correct. I think that its more than apathy, I think that the rationalizations noted by Claire Berlinski are done because those rationalizing and drawing false moral equivalency between a murdered Jewish baby and a settlement are glad that Jews were murdered.
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