The poor judgement of the Brit journalist

Richard Cohen:

In Iran, the government overturned the convictions of six men who, among other things, killed a young couple because they were walking together in public. In China, local authorities seized about 60 women and forcibly aborted their pregnancies. In Russia, the Putin government expanded its control of the media. In Cuba . . . oh, well, you already know. But what you may not know is that given such a vast palette of injustice and depredations, the British National Union of Journalists made a truly original move: It singled out Israel to boycott.

The boycott, mind you, is not a journalistic one. Instead, it will extend to lemons and melons and that sort of thing. The boycott was issued as "a gesture of support for the Palestinian people," some of whom, as it happens, abducted a BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston. One group has claimed that it executed him, although no proof has been offered. Suffice it to say the situation is dire.

What possessed the journalist union's board -- in a vote of 66 to 54 -- to take such action? The question is worth posing because it followed a similar vote last year by British academics (later rescinded) to avoid, under pain of death or something, their Israeli colleagues. And, more important, it is yet another bleat, in Europe and in this country, from people and organizations that, for good reasons and bad, have simply had it with Israel. Why won't the pushy Jewish state shape up?

...

But Sudan kills by the score in Darfur and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe beats his opponents to a pulp, and in almost all of the Arab world there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In Israel there not only is, but the press is as rambunctious as can be found anywhere.

The British journalists say they are moved by the plight of the Palestinian people, and they are right to be. But the misery of a Gazan or a West Banker is not solely Israel's doing. The government of Gaza is the political arm of a terrorist organization, and if the West Bank is suffering -- and it is -- the cause is not only Israeli land lust but also a morbid Israeli fear of terrorism. British journalists would no doubt approve similar measures if London's city buses had not once but repeatedly been blown to smithereens by passengers with the exact fare and belts of explosives.

...

The British journalists, like the academics before them, dare to tread where an army of goons has gone before. If they do not recognize the ember of anti-Semitism still glowing within them, they ought to park themselves before a mirror and ask why, of all the nations, they single out Israel for reprimand and obloquy. This business of assigning to Jews a special burden, for seeing in them more of mankind's bad qualities and less of its good, has a dark and ugly pedigree: the Chosen People, again -- and again in the wrong way.

Irrational blaming of Jews is certainly not new, but it will never solve the Palestinians' problems. For the most part they are problems of their own making and the dependency society created to support them in a ghetto existence.

The main reason their circumstances are so wretched is they have become a beggar society living off the charity of others rather than their own commerce. Donations from the UN, the US , the Euros, and some Arab states is their primary source of revenue and it appears to subsidize a terrorist mentality where producing human ordinance is the most valued product.

The fact is if the Palestinians could get over their own irrational hatred to Jews and get own with their lives they would have a much more productive society.