And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani “militants” in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying “Islamic” or “Muslim” or “terrorist,” we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men.
We are enjoined to be “understanding,” and we’re doing our best. A Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there’s a phrase) originally from Somalia returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in the current climate, what’s the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad operational expenses? If that’s not “too big to fail,” what is?
Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel “vulnerable.” Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They’re the world’s fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he’s feeling “vulnerable,” he’s doing a terrific job of covering it up.
We are told that the “vast majority” of the 1.6-1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra’s estimate) are “moderate.” Maybe so, but they’re also quiet. And, as the AIDs activists used to say, “Silence=Acceptance.” It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam – “Allahu Akbar.”
I wrote in my book, America Alone, that “reforming” Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Koran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there’ll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there’ll be protests around the planet. But torture, rape and slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Bombay in the name of Allah, and that’s just business as usual. And, if it is somehow “understandable” that for the first time in history it’s no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, “worry about image.” Not enough.
THE DAY AFTER the assault on Bombay, The Toronto Star ran a column by Haroon Siddiqui, one of the last prominent defenders of the Canadian government’s powers of censorship under Section 13 of the country’s Human Rights Code. Apropos my now notorious book excerpt in Maclean’s, Mr Siddiqui writes:
Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Union, a lifelong proponent of free speech, told me:
‘Let’s just take one statement that Steyn made: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network.” I interpret that as saying that a significant number of Muslims support terrorism… How much worse can you get? Doesn’t that expose them to hatred? This looks to me like an awful exercise in rationalization by those who say this isn’t hatred.’
I’d be interested to know what’s in that ellipsis, since the quotation doesn’t quite jibe with the evolution of Mr Borovoy’s thinking on state censorship. But, assuming that he’s being quoted correctly, the day after a Muslim terrorist assault on key landmarks of a major Indian city that left dozens dead, saw British and American tourists taken hostage, and the city’s anti-terrorism chief and other municipal law enforcement figures gunned down on the street doesn’t seem the most tactful moment for Messrs Siddiqui and Borovoy to protest at Maclean’s even raising the subject of how many Muslims support terrorism and its goals. That’s an entirely responsible subject for the media to raise. And, given what’s going on in the streets of Bombay, it’s irresponsible for the media not to raise it – unless, that is, like Mr Siddiqui, you see yourself not as a journalist but as an enforcer for PC orthodoxy.
THE OLDEST HATRED
Gaza west
SPEAKING on the BBC’s flagship morning show, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British Ambassador to the UN, explains that the Hamas kill-the-Jews routine is nothing to worry about:
They are not intent on the destruction of Israel. That’s a rhetorical statement of resistance and not part of their program.
It’s like an Obama pledge to close Gitmo or withdraw from Iraq – just part of the meaningless banter of public discourse, but nothing that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Good to know. The rhetoric’s certainly catchy, though. Here’s a “pro-Palestinian” demonstration from Copenhagen:
Vi vil gerne dræbe alle jøderne verden over, alle jøder skal dræbes.
My Danish is a little rusty but I think that translates to: “We want to kill all the Jews everywhere, all Jews should be killed.” Still, you don’t have to know the lingo to get the opening shot from the demonstrators, helpfully chanted in English:
Down down, democracy!
Indeed. Meanwhile, in Alberta, the neo-Nazi Aryan Guard get the prestigious second place in Calgary’s “pro-Palestinian” parade. Presumably, they just dig the rhetoric, too.
In Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell “You are the brothers of pigs!”, and a protester complains to his interviewer that “Hitler didn’t do a good job.”
In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!”
In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!”
In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year’s Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from January 1st 2009, but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is unusually prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast “accidentally”.
In Toulouse, a synagogue is firebombed; in Bordeaux, two kosher butchers are attacked; at the Auber RER train station, a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, “Palestine will kill the Jews”; in Villiers-le-Bel, a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, “Jews must die.”
In Helsingborg, the congregation at a Swedish synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in; in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store; in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a synagogue; in Antwerp, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel, “youths” attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue.