Here is a terrific piece by Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on the Wall Street Journal's recent hatchet piece on Israel and the Christians of Bethlehem:
In this holiday season, there are journalistic conventions one comes to expect: stories lamenting the commercialism of Christmas; stories summing up the 12 months gone by and predicting the direction of the New Year; and stories blaming Israelis for the problems afflicting the Holy Land.Reuters, the BBC, McClatchy, ABC News -- in recent days, all have run pieces in the last category. But the one that troubled me most appeared in the Wall Street Journal -- my favorite national daily newspaper -- on Dec. 24. It was written by Ken Woodward, a religion writer whose work I've long respected. But in this instance his subject was not religion but foreign affairs, and what he produced was the usual anti-Israeli dogma.
His op-ed was headlined: "The Plight of Bethlehem: Why Christians can't visit the holy shrines in Jerusalem." The first thing to note is that, according to Palestinian tourism officials, 450,000 foreigners will have visited Bethlehem by the end of this year -- a 50 percent increase over the 295,000 who came last year. Every hotel room was filled. Among the tourists on Christmas Day were 7,000 Israeli Christian Arabs. Fadel Badarin, the chief of the Palestinian tourism police, declared that in 2007 "the tourism situation in Bethlehem was great."
The low point for tourism to Bethlehem came in 2002. Then-Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat had turned down the peace offers forged by President Clinton during his last days in office. Arafat went on to launch a wave of suicide bombings against Israel, a terrorist assault known as the al-Aqsa Intifadah. At one point in that conflict, Palestinian terrorists took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and used the Christians inside -- including nuns and priests -- as human shields.
Yet Woodward argues that Israel "cannot blame the Christians' dire circumstances" on the Intifadah because "Muslims are suffering just as much as the tiny Christian minority." Does Woodward actually believe militant Islamists spare ordinary Muslims from suffering? Does he not know that the majority of victims of Islamist terrorism -- in Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere -- have been moderate Muslims?
Woodward also seems unaware of the extent to which Bethlehem's Christian population has declined since 1995 -- the year Arafat's Palestinian Authority took over the West Bank and Gaza as part of the Oslo Accords. Arafat quickly fired the city's Christian politicians and replaced them with his cronies.
Conceding that "Israel, of course, must protect its security," Woodward nevertheless slams Israel for doing so. He singles out the security barrier separating the Christian village of Beit Jala from the Jerusalem neighbor of Gilo. Woodward fails to mention that Palestinian snipers had used locations in Beit Jala to shoot at Israeli men, women and children in Gilo. On my first trip to Israel, in 2002, I visited Gilo. The residents had indeed erected a concrete barrier to stop the bullets. On it, they had painted a mural of Beit Jala -- to remind them of the neighbor it had become too dangerous to look upon.
Read it all.
The mainstream media, again distorting the facts on Israel, making the terrorists the victims, trying to pull down the security barrier, not caring that it is protecting the lives of innocent civilians. Even with the barrier, two Israeli sightseers were shot and killed today in cold blood. Yet the propaganda machine of the Muslim world churns out its lies on Israel and the MSM laps it up, especially at Christmas. Why doesn't the MSM cover Christians attacked and killed by Muslims in Bethlehem, in Lebanon, in Egypt, indeed all over the Arab and Muslim world? How many years do we have to sit back and read these conjured-up distortions about Bethlehem? What do the Palestinian Muslims need to do to finally be seen for who they are? Why are the gatekeepers of the news covering up for them? The answer is that many in the media support the Islamic agenda because of its anti-Americanism and do not want to sway public opinion against it with the facts. The rotten apple reporters, of which we have many, are misinforming us, weakening our morale, emboldening the enemy, and ultimately, they are leading us all into a big war by diligently creating opposition to anything that will thwart the march of Islamic fascism. Finally, the lid will blow off with a big explosion.
You are being very charitable with Ken Woodward. He is not ignorant of any fact you mentioned. Because these facts that don't match his belief system, they are minimized, marginalized, explained away, or just plain ignored. His conscience feels better if he lies by omitting facts, instead of telling falsehoods.
Ken Woodward should know that the bottom line on any suffering by Muslims in territory held by Israel is due to the intrasigence and hatred by much of the Muslim world for the existence of any Israel whatsoever from 1948 onwards. Anything short of this realization is just blaming-the-victim thinking, a thought process always replete with a whole host of errors, running the gamut from false assumptions to fallacious conclusions.
From the article:
"Does Woodward actually believe militant Islamists spare ordinary Muslims from suffering? Does he not know that the majority of victims of Islamist terrorism -- in Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere -- have been moderate Muslims?"
Never have I seen a war like the one in Iraq where the enemy used the tactic "if you American invaders don't get out we will kill even more of our people until you do."
Am I the only one who sees this?
On November 2, I left Israel after spending almost two weeks with a Jewish family that has lived on the West Bank for more than twenty years. From my bedroom window, I could see Nablus.
Daily my host and I would take excursions throughout Israel. Each day we would travel through a Palestinian village on its lone main road. Every time, my Israeli friend would tell me that he was most frightened by that part of our journey. Although we were in and out of that town in less than two minutes, I could sense his dread. Unlike him, I saw nothing to fear. That was before Annapolis.
Weeks after I returned to the USA, I received word of the murder of a 29 year old Israeli and father of two from Kedumim. My Israeli friend knew the man and his family. What was chilling to me was that, on that same road the same night as the killing, my friend was driving his older daughter to the airport in Tel Aviv. He was on the road exactly 30 minutes before the murder took place.
Knowing what I do after having witnessed the reality of the threat to Israelis first hand, I am disgusted with Condy Rice and blinkered journalists like Woodward. It pains me to think that the truth matters so little, that the Palestinian leaders are seen as legitimate peace partners. Those who might be would suffer the same fate as Bhutto.
BarryK: Thank you for your first-hand account. Reading it made me think again that the Israelis made a big mistake back in 1967 by not expelling the Arab population in the West Bank and then annexing it to Israel proper. Land acquisition this way has been done time and time again by the victorious side in war. As an example, western Poland used to be eastern Germany----and will never be part of Germany again. And who could argue the point that not engaging in expulsion and then annexation has proved to be the better option?
Anti Semitism in its most vile form.