Muslim Collective Punishment
September 17, 2006, 1:27 pm |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
By Andrew L. Jaffee
Muslim “militants” today shot a Catholic nun 4 times in the back in Somalia. Yesterday and today, Islamic “minutemen” attacked/torched 7 churches in the West Bank, where Christians make up a tiny minority of the Palestinian population. Such “bravery:” plugging an old woman in the back and desecrating the holy places of minority groups. All because the Pope ended a recent speech in Germany with a “clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence, from whatever side it may come.” How were the nun and churches related to the Pope’s speech — collectively, that is?
When some crazed Palestinian homicide bomber blows up a cafe in Israel, the Jewish state often rightfully responds by bulldozing the murderer’s house. The professional Arab/Muslim victims and their left-wing supporters call this practice “collective punishment,” as these appeasers are drunk on moral relativism and anti-Semitism. But when Muslims reacted violently to a Danish newspaper’s publication of caricatures of Mohammed by burning embassies and killing other Muslims — thousands of miles away from Copenhagen — no one on the Left cried “collective punishment.” The nun murdered today was in Somalia to help people, the clarion calling of the Left, but they will not morn her. Her memory will be swept under the carpet with the rest of Islamist crimes, as well as those wrought by Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, etc.
The Pope has rightfully pointed out that Islam has a problem with violence. Muslims have reacted violently because they are angry about being accused of using violence, lashing out at people who had nothing to do with what the Pope said. Will the Left cry “collective punishment?” Of course not.
Related: Arab/Muslim World, Islam, Israel, Palestinians, War Against Islamo-fascism
September 19th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
[...] I have written at length about the absurdity of the Muslim reaction to the Pope’s recent speech. Muslims have proven the Pope’s point. Many have become angry and violent precisely because of being accused of being violent. And their violence is slowly but surely convincing more and more people in the West that Islam has a serious problem (that’s my empirical analysis). I have been amazed at the clarity of reporting on this subject, even from the Associated Press. Today, the Washington Post was willing to publish an ostensibly decent editorial on the Pope controversy, written by Anne Applebaum, definitely worth the read. But I find this piece disturbing because Applebaum mentioned the hate-group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) as if it were willing to honestly criticize Muslim extremism. CAIR is an unabashed apologist for Islamist terrorism. Applebaum is either euphemizing (politically correct), naïve, and/or ignorant about life in the real world: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing — and start uniting. … [...]