That Is Disgusting

It isn’t easy for an American organization – particularly one committed to a strong and secure United States, as JINSA has been for 26 years and remains today – to say that it is disgusted with our State Department. But we are and say so for the record.

It isn’t easy for an American organization – particularly one committed to a strong and secure United States, as JINSA has been for 26 years and remains today – to say that it is disgusted with our State Department. But we are and say so for the record.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a pizzeria in Jerusalem. The victims included five members of one family (two more were injured, one so badly she couldn’t attend the funeral of her parents and siblings), and a pregnant woman who was the only child of Holocaust survivors. They were not killed by mistake. Families and babies, they were the targets.

But Israel, to the relief of some and the dismay of others, actually tried to break the stupidly named “cycle of violence” by retaliating politically, not militarily. In an operation that killed no one and destroyed nothing, Israel claimed the Orient House and its sovereignty in Jerusalem, the united, eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people.

So, did the State Department thank Israel for its restraint or creativity in the middle of a war? Did the State Department note that Orient House – owned by the late Faisal Husseini – had been used, in violation of Oslo and subsequent accords, as the Palestinian “Foreign Ministry?” Did the State Department warn Arafat that the political elements of his dictatorship are legitimate targets when the military elements target and kill Israeli civilians? Did the State Department issue a reward for the masterminds of the killing of yet another American citizen who died because she was Jewish in the Jewish State?

Noooooooooooooo. The State Department criticized ISRAEL for a “political escalation” of the war the Palestinians started. The Secretary called for a “joint truce.” Note to the Secretary: There has been a “joint truce” since June 13th after Palestinian terrorists blew up 21 Israeli kids at a disco – it’s called the “Tenet cease-fire.” (Enough said about asking the CIA to do what it doesn’t do.) Since that time, 17 more Israelis have been blown up, six (including a pregnant woman) killed by snipers and two others murdered. Note to our readers: We count Wael Ghanem, an Israeli Arab killed by Palestinians as a “suspected collaborator.” His memory belongs among the victims.

This is all because State can’t admit that its “peace team” (most of which is still in place) backed a stinking, rotten “client.” Arafat is corrupt, dictatorial and damaging to American interests, no better for Palestinians than for Israelis. But we’ve made him our corrupt, stinking dictator. The boys in striped pants can’t stop PA terrorism because they are in bed with the chief PA terrorist, so they claim it can’t be done – “no military solution.” Israel either acquiesces in the murder of Jews, or retaliates and incurs the wrath of Foggy Bottom. When Israel retaliated bloodlessly, they changed the paradigm so that political payback is the moral equivalent of blowing up children eating pizza.

Moral equivalence encourages terrorism, and the State Department should never ever have been in that position. But it is, and here we are, and we are disgusted.