Still Delusional After All These Years

Still Delusional After All These Years

Bruce Thornton

Recently Barack Obama opined on Israel’s war with Hamas, and predictably reprised all the received wisdom that our politicians on both sides of the aisles have indulged since 9/11. One comment in particular evoked one of the more dangerous takes on the conflict with modern jihadism – that this venerable doctrine of Islam is some sort of heresy or extremism that doesn’t represent Muslims worldwide.

In the context of the current war with Hamas, according to ABC news, Obama said of Israel’s campaign, “‘There are people right now who are dying who have nothing to do with what Hamas did,’ Obama said, making the distinction between Palestinians who live in Gaza and the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.”

We’ll pass over the mendacious euphemism “the militant group Hamas,” and the implication that the accurate description “terrorist organization” is merely a prejudiced slur by U.S. security agencies. More important is Obama’s variation on the cringing and dishonest phrase “nothing to do with what Islam,” an echo of the Western apologists after 9/11 who regularly chanted this lie.

The use of this duplicitous formula transcends political party. After 9/11, the Bush administration no doubt thought that such rhetorical distortions would pacify Muslims and show them that we’re “not at war with Islam.” Verbal preemptive cringes abounded in Bush’s speeches, such as the following: “Our enemy [al Qaeda] doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion…All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of Islam…It’s a faith based upon love not hate.”

In the current crisis, such distortions of jihad like Obama’s serve to cast Hamas as victims, and to demonize Israel for its alleged callous disregard of innocent lives, as Obama implies. But “innocence” is not so simple, not when the enemy is utterly indifferent to their own peoples’ security and lives, and hide their weapons in schools, tunnels under hospitals, mosques, apartment buildings, and other civilian infrastructure. Moreover, Hamas has the support of about half of Gazans, who voted Hamas into power in 2006. Nor was there any mystery about Hamas’s genocidal violence, which is codified in its founding covenant.

No surprise, then, that many “civilians” took part in the massacre on 10/7. Photographers embedded with Hamas terrorists have publicized the carnage with photos that appeared in Western media like AP, the New York Times, Reuters, and CNN. The media watchdog website HonestReporting wondered, “Is it conceivable to assume that ‘journalists’ just happened to appear early in the morning at the border without prior coordination with the terrorists? Or were they part of the plan?” And wouldn’t that make those reporters and media outlets “accomplices in crime,” as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said?

Indeed, according to the Coalition for Jewish Values managing director Rabbi Yaakov Menken, “What we now know is that ‘civilians’ drew maps for Hamas, guiding them to each house, to each child, to each pet…‘Civilians’ came after the terrorists to murder and kidnap those who had been spared,’” and “‘civilians’ were embedded with the terrorists to report on the atrocities committed. Also, ‘civilians’ deliberately gather around the terrorists, even, barbarically, bringing their children.”

For the moral truth is, if a man stands behind his family and shoots at yours, and you return fire in self-defense, killing members of his family, then the moral culpability is his for putting them in danger in the first place. We need to stop pressuring Israel to value the enemy’s civilians more than their own, and speaking the truth about jihad is a good place to start.

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