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The anti-semitic double standard

By Jonathan J. Ariel - posted Friday, 20 February 2015


Clearly the world is agog with delight by the way HM King Abdullah II of Jordan has answered the murderof Jordanian pilot First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh. In an appalling video, well produced for mobile devices by tech savvy foot soldiers of Da’esh (Islamic State), the pilot was placed like a rat in a cage, sprayed with a flammable liquid and set ablaze to an excruciating death.

Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Such were the shoutsof members of the public who caught the execution’s video as it was screened in a public square in the Da’esh stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. The public’s delight at seeing another human being burned to death demonstrates a troubling psychopathy shared by the al-Kasasbeh’s Da’esh butchers and Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen members 75 years ago.

His Majesty was in Washington DC meeting US President Barack Obama when he learned of this slaughter.

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Immediately he excused himself, wanting to return to the Jordanian capital, Amman, telling his American hosts, as he boarded the plane, that the Kingdom would pursue Da’esh until the ends of the earth and the end of time. Or to put it in his exact words “until Jordan’s military runs out of fuel and bullets.” With Obama promising to keep the Jordanian air force flying and armed (but refusing to provide Predator drones), HM has time, weapons and popular support on his side.

He promised: “retribution like ISIS hasn’t seen”.

And surprise, surprise the king actually kept his word. Unlike promises from the lips of some world “leaders” – for instance in Paris and Bruxelles - for who talk is cheap. And Jewish blood cheaper.

Before his private chef could deep fry some felafel balls, the King hung two terrorists who were hitherto enjoying Jordanian hospitality at Suwaqa Prison, some 80 kilometres south of Amman.

Da’esh had pretended to bargain for these two with the life of the pilot. Soon after the hanging, Da’esh felt the sting of the Hashemite’s missiles.

In the first few days of an air campaign, the Royal Jordanian Air Force destroyed 55 Da’esh targets, flying over 5,000 sorties. Air Force chief, Gen. Mansour al-Jabour, stated that about 7,000 Da’esh fighters have been killed, with the promiseof many, many more to come. Inshallah!

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In addition to combatants, non-combatants also die in war. Nearly two weeks ago we learned that an American prisoner, Kayla Mueller, held hostage by Da’esh, might have been killed by a Jordanian airstrike. Then again, maybe she was slaughtered some time ago and Da’esh could be using the attacks on it as a cover for its heinous crime.

While President Obama and others misrepresented this woman’s CV, the facts of her case are very distressing.  She wasn’t a peace activist as her parents claimed. She wasn’t trying to ‘make things better for everyone in the Middle East” as Obama asserted.  In fact, her work with the International Solidarity Movement and its great mates, Hamas, reveals she was unfortunately part of the problem: a friend of Terror Ltd.

Back to Jordan.

The world applauded HM’s response to evil. The “international community” acknowledged that Da’esh’s wickedness must have a price. And that price is collateral damage. Sometimes a great deal of collateral damage.

It was strange that discussions of Jordan’s response in the mainstream media (both in print and online) and in parliaments worldwide has omitted two words that were top of the pops last (northern) summer.

The words are a “disproportionate response”.

These two words were not heard. Not even once.  Not from left wing protesting masses from Lane Cove to Lakemba, not at university campuses from Macquarie to Murdoch, not from the (chuckle, chuckle, “independent”) Fairfax press and not from ABC’s Lateline program.

And certainly not from the United Nations.

In fact when Israel defended itself from Hamas mid last year, there was an occasion when Israel struck a UN run school in Gaza. Not surprising, after all, munitions depots for Hamas often double up as schools in Gaza. That event received blanket media coverage in Australia.

I lie. More like blanket, doona and bedspread coverage. 10 people died, three of which were members of Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon screamed at the time that the strike was "a moral outrage and a criminal act" that had to be "swiftly investigated." President Obama’s State Department, never missing a beat to criticise the Jewish state, on cue pronounced itself as simply "appalled." Indeed it was appalled that Israel dared defend itself.

But when Jordan struck Da’esh? No. Nobody is appalled. No ma’am. No condemnation when non-Jews retaliate. Not a peep from the spokeswomen of United States Department of State. Nor from the European Union. And from the main stream media? I doubt it.

Former NSW Premier and unelected Foreign Minister, Bob Carr was not seen on television this past week or heard on radio reprimanding the Hashemite Kingdom for its “disproportionate response.” Mid last year he was whistling a very different tune.

When three innocent teenagers in Israel were brutally murdered followed by rockets raining London Blitz-like on civilians throughout Israel, the nation’s attempts to protect itself from the barrage of Hamas elicited 24/7 condemnations from the “international community” for “disproportionate response.” Bob Carrwas loudest amongst low rent larynxes doing what very much looked like the bidding of the Arab Lobby.

The same Bob Carr who refused to call Hamas a terror organisation with the aim of genocide, even as the governments of many countries including Australia, New Zealand and Canada do. Yes, the same Bob Carr who fleeced NSW taxpayers$100,000 at the tail end of his premiership gallivanting off to the United Arab Emirates, for no good reason. And to rub taxpayers’ noses in it, he had no shame in taking Mrs Carr along for the ride. On our dime.

But I digress.

Whenever the Jewish state is fighting for its survival, chronic delegitimisation of the Jewish state occurs as a matter of course.

During the Gaza conflict the leftist media counted bodies daily and if more people died among the jihadis committed to annihilating Israel than their intended victims, then naturally Israel was “disproportionate” in its response. Fairfax Media for its part published cartoonsunremittingly excoriating the victim of terror, Israel. Such artwork would surely have found favour with Joseph Goebbels.

Funny how accusations of “disproportionality” have never been made in any other conflict in history. Not only has it not been used when a nation defends itself, but not even when a nation over reaches and engages in unspeakable crimes.

The expression was not used to describe conduct when Iraq fought Iran. Not when the Royal Air Force bombed Dresden. Not when King Leopold II of Belgiumliquidated up to 15 millionAfricans. Not when the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocideon 1,500,000 Armenians. Not when Spanish invaded the Americas. And not when Operation Iraqi Freedom resulted in over 150,000 civilian deaths.

Israel’s warning to Gaza residents before firing missiles was not enough to satisfy the “international community”. Never mind that nobody else in history has given advance warning of impending strikes. I don’t recall the Japanese warning Australians of the bombing of Darwin on Feb 19, 1942 or warning the residents of Honolulu about Dec 7, 1941.

Did the Royal Air Force warn Dresdeners that their city would soon be pancaked 70 years ago this week?

If more died on the side of the barbarians, Israel was charged with “disproportionate response”. Even if ample warnings were given. By that asinine logic, the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden should not have occurred. The price for us not bombing? The Third Reich and Imperial Japan would now happily enslave us all.

“Disproportionate Response” has been labelled the biggest sin under the sun and Israel alone amongst the nations has been charged with war crimes. Even when its existence was under threat from Allah’s willing warriors, be they from Gaza or the West Bank.

One Jordanian pilot. 7,000 killed in response so far. Yet no one has:

a)      cried “Disproportionate Force”;

b)     nobody has referred the matter to the UN Security Council for sanctioning;

c)      nobody has referred the matter to the International Criminal Court for war crimes investigation;

d)     no demonstrations against the Hashemite Kingdom have taken place nor are planned and

e)      no calls to boycott Jordan’s exports have been made.

 

Why? Good question.

Even friends of Jordan can all see that its response is out of all proportion. After all, unlike Israel, Jordan is not faced with immediate threat from terrorists.

But the ”international community” is with the Hashemite Kingdom because it agrees that Jordan is merely doing what every country should do and would do in a similar situation. Every one other than the Jewish state.

Self-defence is fürJudenverboten. How dare the Jews stand up for themselves? Have they learned nothing from the ghettosof World War II into which where they were corralled like emaciated pigs into sties before being slaughtered?

In the history of war, no people threatened by an aggressor and fighting for their very existence have ever been vilified for utilizing their full forces to prevail – with one exception. Not the United States when it dragged Hiroshima and Nagasaki all the way back to the Stone Age. Not the Red Army for its behaviour in the Great Patriotic War. Only Israel is guilty when it chooses not to capitulate or die.

Today the Jewish people face four major challenges.

First, a deep-rooted well fertilised old fashioned tried ‘n tested, reliable European anti-Semitism.

Second, an Arab Lobby-funded Jew baiting machine.

Together these make for a very potent mix of old experience and new money.

Third, demonstrated double standards in media reporting.

Fourth, they are again subjected to emotive and historically false claims where they are made to look like the perpetrators of evil, or a people “inviting” anti Semitism when in fact they are the victims of terror.

When viewed in this light, the European and Islamic imperative is to remove the Jew from society. Every society.

Jews are criticised for what they do and targeted for who they are. The fact that they have survived for thousands of years against great odds is indeed galling to some. And the establishment of a non-Islamic state in the Middle East is too much to bear for many.

In the 1930s many Nazis and even non-Nazis berated the Jews of Europe to “get the Hell out of Europe and go, just go to Palestine”.

Now their grandchildren insist the Jews stop defending themselves against the terror groups of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority and demand the Jews “get out of Palestine”. By “Palestine” of course they mean today’s “Israel”.

So what the bigots are saying is that while the Jews must leave “Palestine”, they  are clearly not welcome in Europe.

Other than 6 feet under, where exactly do the bigots propose the Jews go?

And that’s the point.

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About the Author

Jonathan J. Ariel is an economist and financial analyst. He holds a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He can be contacted at jonathan@chinamail.com.

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