Sunday, February 05, 2006

The Dhimmi Post



In its Saturday editorial, "Democracy's Consequences", The Washington Post asserts:
...But more extreme measures by Israel, Egypt or others to prevent the formation of a Hamas cabinet, or strangle the Palestinian territories with a cutoff of tax revenue or essential services, would likely only strengthen the Islamists or trigger a resumption of terrorism.

Oh, really? As if giving money to the terrorists won't encourage them? My opinion on this matter was stated over a year ago: Nothing for the Palestinians! There are plenty of newspaper articles around (just look at last week's NY Times article describing tunnelling-for-dollars) that make it clear that the Arabs of Palestine support terrorism partly out of profit; indeed, other avenues of material gain are cut off, unless the terrorists receive a share of the revenues.

As long as external funds and materiel - for the U.N. agencies and "non-governmental organizations" have long been compromised and penetrated by terrorists - undermine a "normal" market economy, the Palestinians will remain rent-seeking welfare addicts with machine guns. Even if Hamas continued to demand a rake-off on Arab business, they would then have to concentrate on increasing trade, rather than warring upon Arabs and Jews.

Later on, the Post adds:
Democratization in the Middle East will inevitably mean that Islamists and others with anti-Western agendas will have the chance to compete for power -- and occasionally to govern. If so they will be forced to choose, as Hamas now will, between ideology and pragmatic success, and suffer democracy's consequences if they fail.

What are "democracy's consequences"? The Post doesn't elaborate. Advocating a cutoff of aid makes perfect sense.

Unless, of course, you are a newspaper with reporters on the scene. Don't you want to cover a war zone without your reporters getting kidnaped and executed? So the dhimmi editors of the Washington Post may be writing as they do just to ensure profits and secure their personnel. I doubt they tell themselves that; they just whip up justifications to make themselves look better, no matter what logical contradictions and ethical conflicts are involved. The result is that the public is misinformed and reasoning becomes confused.

*

Winston Churchill survived as a newspaper columnist and parliamentarian between the two world wars. Although it would have benefited him financially, he never accepted Hitler's invitations for an interview.

Churchill knew what Hitler was well enough. If Churchill's audience went badly, he would have been accused of poisoning British-German relations. If the meeting went well, Churchill would have had to support Hitler's agenda; at the very least he would have appeared in a photograph exercising good manners with a monster and lending him legitimacy.

Throughout his interwar period, Churchill strove to maintain moral clarity. Do the reporters and editors of the mainstream media today even understand this concept?

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