New York Times Morally Confused by Synagogue Massacre

29906170001_3898124865001_thumb-645697987bded02d650f6a70670096d7This week’s terror attack in a Jerusalem synagogue evoked a 300-word unsigned editorial from the New York Times.

Seemingly, this was a straightforward case: two terrorists with a gun, axes, and knives entered the synagogue and proceeded to butcher peaceful, unarmed worshippers. But for the Times, nothing involving Israel is straightforward.

Yes, the Times called the attack a “bloody rampage” and said Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas “has a duty to make the moral case that such brutality and inhumanity can only bring shame upon the Palestinian people” (which, by the way, he’s never going to do).

But the Times also called the attack

a tragedy for all Israelis and Palestinians. The two communities appeared increasingly locked in a cycle of hatred and hopelessness, where chances for stability, much less permanent peace, seem nearly impossible.

… it also is part of an alarming wave of violence fueled by a dispute over a holy site in the Old City known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The drift of that could not be clearer: both sides are at fault, both evincing “hatred” and “violence” that make peace “nearly impossible.”

But is that really true?

The attack on the synagogue immediately killed four Jews, three of them rabbis; a fifth person—an Israeli Druze policeman who fought the terrorists—died the following day.

In addition to those five, six other people have been killed by Palestinian terror since October 22: a three-month-old Israeli girl and an Ecuadorian woman in a car-ramming attack, an Israeli Druze border patrolman and a 17-year-old Israeli youth in another car-ramming attack, an off-duty Israeli soldier in a stabbing attack, and an Israeli woman in a car-ramming/stabbing attack.

Another Israeli, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, survived an attempt to shoot him to death by a Palestinian terrorist. And three other soldiers were injured in another car-ramming incident that now also turns out to have been a terror attack.

Now, in those five weeks, how many Palestinians have been killed or injured in terror attacks? The answer, of course, is none. The only Palestinians killed in the “conflict” have been those shot by Israeli policemen or soldiers during or after attacks.

By this standard, the United States and ISIS have been “locked in a cycle of hatred” and violence. Innocent Americans have been killed by ISIS; ISIS members have been killed in U.S. air strikes. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

If you go back to last July 2, you’ll find a brutal murder by three Israelis of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy named Muhammad Abu Khdeir (supposed “revenge” for the earlier killing of three Israeli youths by Hamas members). The Israeli perpetrators of that crime, which shocked and horrified the whole country, are now in jail awaiting trial. The leader of the three was an individual so aberrant that he had earlier threatened to murder his one-month-old daughter.

Anyone who keeps track at all of this “conflict” knows the situation is very different on the Palestinian side, where murderers of Israelis—any Israelis—are systematically honored, glorified, and if possible, remunerated.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, behind the haze of disinformation and distortions of the New York Times and other big media, a sad but heartwarming event occurred in Israel.

Zidan Sayif, the 30-year-old Druze policeman who along with two other policemen fought the synagogue terrorists on Tuesday, paid for doing so with his life, and is survived by a wife and five-month-old daughter, was buried in the Druze village of Yanuh-Jat in northern Israel. The thousands in attendance included Druze notables and the Israeli president, internal security minister, police commissioner, and other officials.

And they also included hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews. The synagogue attacked on Tuesday was ultra-Orthodox. Although ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to be insular, they came out in appreciation of Zidan Sayif’s heroism as he and his fellow officers prevented what could have been a much larger massacre.

At the funeral, ultra-Orthodox Member of Knesset Eli Yishai said:

We all weep alongside the family. We are here to pay our last respects to a great hero who gave his life. . . . Your memory is forever engraved in our hearts.

Risha Segal, an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem resident, had earlier posted online:

We are calling for widespread solidarity throughout Israel, with an emphasis on gratitude. We will not be ungrateful and will show our thanks for those who sacrificed their lives for us. This is one of the most important principles in Judaism.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called Sayif’s father on Wednesday and said:

Your son’s bravery prevented many victims. On behalf of the citizens of Israel I want to offer my condolences for his death while fulfilling his duty. It is precisely at this time that you must raise your heads high with pride and know that the death of your son was not in vain. Thanks to him many citizens can now continue their lives. 

And Sheikh Moafaq Tarif, spiritual leader of the Israeli Druze community, had this to say at the funeral:

The entire Druze community lowers its head together with the families of the victims of the terrible massacre in Jerusalem, and we hope for safer, quieter days ahead. We must take our covenant of blood and turn it into a covenant of life. We are a peace-seeking people, and our sons serve this state and the entire public, and we will continue to do so.

The Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, too, could live peacefully with the Jews of Israel and other peace-loving peoples of the Middle East. They could work out their differences with Israel without ramming, shooting, hacking, and stabbing men, women, and children. Realizing that, though, seems beyond the ken of the New York Times.

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  • ShalomFreedman

    The NY Times editorial staff does not have a clue as to the real situation in the Middle East. Their hypocritical and foolish false symmetry between the Israeli and Palestinian communities in regard to promotion of violence is clearly and convincingly exposed in this article.

    • tickletik

      So? Let’s hold them to it. Since they obviously think murdering innocent men women and children is no different than shooting someone who is trying to kill you. we may as well view the world in the same way as the NYT. In fact we can even tell the NYT staffers that they are aggrieving our beliefs and principles and we may have to act like their Arab heroes in response.

    • John Pallyswine

      The NY Times knows exactly what it is doing. The NYTimes is another instrument in the Anglo American control of the world to calm everyone and lie to keep the world at war.

      Remember Walter Duranty: In a New York Times article dated 23 August 1933, Duranty wrote, “Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda….”.

  • hitz

    How about an opera at the Met about the massacre that shows happy singing axe murderers?

    • tickletik

      Why not? Since they have opened that door. Let us make operas about what a good idea it would be to terrorize and kill Arabs

  • tickletik

    We are missing the point. According to the NYT there is no effective difference between defending yourself from violence and wantonly butchering innocent people in their place of prayer.

    So let’s start an ad campaign telling everyone that the NYT clearly believes it would be OK for us to start butchering innocent Arabs

    • Yehuda Levi

      You are right.

      The moral equivalency argument that the left always comes up with is that self defense is equivalent to murder.

      There is no “cycle of violence”. There are innocent Israelis being murdered by Palestinian Arabs and Israelis killing Arabs in self defense.

      All of our military attacks against ISIS by air which kill hundreds of muslims – is this also a “cycle of violence?”

      • Schlump

        True.

        Self-defense is a Right. Murder is a crime. They are as different as grapes and rocks.

  • UCSPanther

    The NYT has always been morally confused when it comes to Jewish history, a pattern that goes back to WWII.

    They were said to have had an allegedly pro-n azi slant, allegedly tried half-heartedly to deny the Holocaust shortly after it was exposed, condemned the formation of Israel, and has consistently sided with the Palestinian cause.

    And this is supposed to be a newspaper that antisemites say is part of the “Great Zionist Conspiracy”?

    It’s about as pro-Zionist as PressTV…

    • Yehuda Levi

      It is not moral confusion, it is support for leftist ideology that the NYT is endorsing.

      The leftists have made common cause with Islam (since they are both leftwing ideologies who hate the West) and the NYT is one of their primary propaganda tools.

      Regardless of how horrific their behavior, leftists will have more respect for Muslims than Christians or Jews.

      • Schlump

        True.

        Their support for the Chechens showed that.

      • UCSPanther

        They certainly had more respect for Hitler than for the victims of his regime.

        The NYT also condemned the angry townsfolk who forcibly ejected the corrupt administration of McMinn County, Tennessee in 1946 after their complaints of blatant election rigging went unheard for nearly a decade.

        Goes to show that if it is morally dubious at best, the NYT will more than likely support it.

  • tickletik

    It finally clicked with me what is going on here. Leftists are simply a pack of gutless miserable traitors. They are such swine that they won’t even stand up for themselves. They are total cowards. The author of the article referenced above was such an utter coward he could not even sign his own editorial advocating cowardice

    That’s what this “cycle of violence” nonsense is. Why is it a cycle? Because we don’t surrender. We don’t even strike back because these wretched pathetic cowards would go into hysterical paroxysms of terror if we fought back the way we should.

    Do you understand? It cannot be said enough times – These people are such traitorous cowards, they can’t even stand up for themselves. all they know how to do is to hide behind those of us who are normal and healthy or manipulate us into destroying each other. Which is exactly why they desperately want us to bend over quivering in abject surrender just like they do every day of their miserable lives.

    Look at this video of Jon Stewart, hipster par excellance, after 9/11. When I first saw this video, I didn’t get it. At first I thought “wow, he has a lot of compassion” Now I realize something far different. That isn’t the video of a man who feels pain for the suffering of his city. That’s the video of a coward. When an attack occurs, a normal psychologically healthy man feels rage and a desire to fight, to punish his offender, to stand up for his loved ones and make sure his enemies learn he is not a “free lunch”. When a gutless nerd like the one below is assaulted, it weeps and supplicates in terror.

    http://youtu.be/SXcmc2AZ6ZE

  • FactsRule

    honestreporting.com has been exposing the extreme bias of the long-discredited NY Slimes for decades.
    There are at least 84 pages of lists of NY Times outrageous garbage at
    honestreporting.com/page/1/?s=%22ny+times%22&submit=Search

  • Hard Little Machine

    The Times morality is crystal clear. Always has been. It’s a genteel antisemitic newspaper. Nothing confusing about that.

  • Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

    You are too kind. The New York Times is the enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. There is no moral ambiguity here. This is not beyond their ken.