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Hanoch Daum
Photo: Rafi Deloya

Obama’s false comparison

Op-ed: President says both Palestinians, Israelis suffer, but fails to name culprit - Arab terrorists

Barack Obama is a good guy; a guy who shows empathy. He is pained by the suffering of Israelis, but also by the suffering of Palestinians.

 

For Obama, Israeli parents who lost their children and Palestinian parents who lost their children are two sides of the same equation. The conflict exacts a symmetric, bloody toll from both sides. That’s true, of course: The pain felt by parents who lost their children is the same.

 

However, according to the same line of thought, the suffering of the children who lost their parents in the September 11 disaster is similar to the pain felt by bin Laden’s young children after they lost their father, who was killed without a trial.

 

Although this pain is universal, Obama represses the fact that while children on both sides suffer, the culprits can only be found on one side of the equation.

 

Why did Obama not have pity for the young al-Qaeda children when he ordered the bin Laden assassination? It’s not because he doesn’t care about children, but rather, it’s because protecting American citizens is more important to him.

 

In the exact same way, Israel too must safeguard its own children. When it imposes a blockade on the Gaza Strip it protects the children of Sderot, and when it strikes terror cells it protects school buses.

 

Gaza’s children suffer because of it, but there is a fundamental difference between the suffering of Gaza kids and that of Sderot’s children: The children of Sderot are suffering as result of harsh, direct Palestinian belligerence. Palestinian terrorists are trying to deliberately hurt them. The children of Gaza, on the other hand, are suffering indirectly, only because Israel needs to defend itself.

 

Obama is right to say that the suffering of Israel’s bereaved parents is related to the suffering of bereaved Palestinian parents, but the link is as follows: Both sides are suffering as result of Palestinian terrorism.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.20.11, 10:34
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