Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

On the right the outrage over the slaughter of the Fogel family continues:

The mainstream media is trying to whitewash the whole thing by dehumanizing the murdered family while neglecting to reveal the motive behind the killings (jihad & killing Jews for jihad). And just as they did after the islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Palestinians celebrated in the streets over the death of innocents who were killed in the name of allah, holding carnivals and handing out sweets.

Why is the MSM keeping it quiet, I suspect they understand the decapitation of infants doesn’t sit will with the general public.

Israellycool notes that Glenn Beck managed to cover it:

And notes the celebrations by Palestinians.

The 12 year old survivor words to the prime minister when he visits should fill us with shame:

Even those of us who do not speak any Hebrew can catch the word “America” in the only sentence uttered by the tearful child, in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s presence: “Ma yikreh im taaseh mashehu, az America taaseh lecha mashehu!?” (What will happen if you do anything, America will get at you!?). In other words, this child has concluded that Obama’s America would not permit her prime-minister to “do anything”

Perhaps its because the first response of the administration was to hit Israel for building:

The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was “deeply concerned” by Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements, calling the Israeli enclaves “illegitimate” and an obstacle to resuming direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a defiant response to a deadly attack on a settler family over the weekend, Israel swiftly approved the construction of between 300 and 500 new homes in major West Bank settlement blocks. Jewish settlement construction is at the crux of the current impasse in peace efforts.

Yeah why should the Obama administration be deeply concerning about beheading infants, he doesn’t even give the lip service that is offered in Libya. Meanwhile Hamas being Hamas has two different messages, one for those reading in English:

Palestinian National Movement Hamas official Ezzat Al-Rashak said that the movement is not responsible for the murder of the five family members from the Itamar settlement.

Al-Rashak confirmed that harming children is not part of Hamas’ policy, nor is it the policy of the resistance factions.

He also confirmed that the possibility that the incident was carried out by settlers for criminal motives should not be ruled out. [emphasis added]

And one for those reading in Arabic:

But on the Arabic section of the website, an article was published praising the attacker as a ‘mujahid’ and deriding the slain Jews as “Zionist usurpers.” What’s worse, at the time I checked there were 34 comments on the article posted by readers, all praising the attack and the attacker (I translated the first 17 or so). Curiously, while the Hamas statement in the English article raised the possibility of the act being carried out by settlers, in the Arabic article there’s no doubt that the attacker was a Palestinian ‘mujahid’.

And the comments left by readers in Arabic are even worse.

Yet among all this gloom, a tiny glimmer from a reporter on the scene:

I went to Shchem today, and was very surprised. People on the street were willing to condemn the murder unequivocally, in Arabic and in Hebrew, with no embarrassment, in front of the camera, and even identify themselves. [He shows some examples]. I’ve been covering the Palestinian territories for years, but this I’ve never seen before. In the middle of town, publicly, people had no compunctions openly to condemn the murder of children.

The post gives several possible reasons for the change and ends with this:

This is all speculative, and possibly wishful thinking. Yet I’m not certain. Over the past few months, perhaps a year, I’ve been wandering a lot through East Jerusalem, and occasionally through parts of the West Bank, and the calm and normality have been striking. I’ve also had more simply normal human interactions with Palestinians than in many years. Something may be happening – unreported in the media, in a dynamic which contradicts the endless chatter of the diplomats – but potentially very important.

If so, it needs to be carefully and warily nurtured. Carefully, warily, and nurtured. And patiently.

If this is ever going to change the Arabs have to change. I’d like to think this can happen.

Update: Jeff Jacoby on the topic in the Globe. What is says is not as interesting as the number of comments deleted by the Globe, if you read the comment and responses around then it tell an interesting story. Nothing is more dangerous to the left’s public image than their uncensored opinions.