Terrorism excused

Following yesterday's terrorist massacre at a Jewish religious highschool in Jerusalem, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen enters the mind of a murderer to make excuses:

...the school was no ordinary seminary. It was the ideological cradle of the settler movement in the West Bank, which could be the reason it was targeted.

(Via: Stephen Pollard)

Commenter Adam B. on Pollard's blogpost, expands:

The notorious Mr Bowen went further on tonight's 6 o'clock news, saying that the killer's house was in sight of the security barrier, thus providing yet another justification for the murders. We even see the murderer's lovely family, and are told that they think he killed because of the situation he grew up in (well there was no barrier when he was growing up, was there Mr Bowen?)

We don't see the victims' families, nor hear what they have to say. He rounds it off by pretending that the killer targeted the yeshiva because of links to the settler movement, as if no Palestinian would ever commit acts of terror otherwise. Do the restaurants and cafes that have been blown up have links to the settler movement, Mr Bowen? He really is a sick, twisted individual, who uses his privileged position to spread animosity towards the Jewish State. Even when Jews die, they are the ones to blame. And we are forced to pay for this intellectually impoverished and morally inverted tripe.

Jeremy Bowen has a history, of sorts.

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Update: Looks like Bradley Burston from the Jerusalem Post was reading my mind when he wrote:

Spare us the righteousness of those who condemned Baruch Goldstein for entering a holy place with an assault rifle and murdering Palestinians, but who can understand why a Palestinian might do the very same thing,

Open your eyes.

Last week, when Israeli forces drove into Gaza, and some 120 Palestinians were killed, many of them were gunmen, but with children making up another sixth of the total, one grieving father spoke with quiet eloquence, saying "Other places in the world, when this happens, there is a great outcry. When this happens here, the world is silent. No one cares."

He's right. The world has grown content to let Palestinians die. The reason is not simple callousness. And it is not, as Hamas proclaims to its followers in Gaza, that the Jews control the world media and world finance, and thus Western government as well.

The reason is terrorism.

The world has grown weary of the Islamist's creed, that only the armed struggle can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the only proper resolution is the end of Israel.

Even the Israeli left, which for decades championed the Palestinian with courage and determination, has, in large part, had it with the Palestinians. The reason is terrorism. The reason is murder. The reason is that the rulers of Gaza are people who see an intrinsic value in the killing of Jews for the sake of increasing the number of dead Jews in the world.

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Marty Peretz responds to the above: "Palestinian fervor is not an idea"

What they justifiably expect from the civilized world is that it understand that Palestinian fervor is not an idea -- and certainly not an idea of justice. It has no ennobling vision for itself which is why it thrills to the shedding of Jewish blood. Imagine an enemy whose delirium in hatred suffices it to train its children for suicide -- but, of course, suicide that takes many other lives, as well.

Israel has once again seen its innocents murdered, eight of them yesterday. And in the aftermath, a grand fest in Gaza and in the West Bank where children handed out candies in celebration. Don't they realize that they are poisoning their own society? They are actually killing it.