Some More Thoughts on the Campaign

This time in the area of moral equivalence.  Governor Mitt Romney, Republican Candidate for President, said this in Israel the other day:

As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality….  And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture….

The Palestinians, of course, objected.  Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said

It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation.

Of course, he carefully elides some salient facts, for instance, the cheers of the Palestinians after 9/11 and the support expressed for suicide bombings thereafter.  Nor did he mention the reason for the occupation: Palestinian terrorism in the form of random rocket fire into Israel for the sole purpose of killing women and children.  At that, villages like Bethlehem and cities like Jerusalem are targets of terrorist attacks, and that random rocket fire still comes from unoccupied Gaza.

And there’s the American Left, that purports to see no difference between a Jewish culture that is a central part of our own heritage and a vibrant, freedom loving, and tolerant culture on the one hand and a Palestinian culture that thinks terrorism, the butchery of innocents, and the subjugation of women—to the point of condoning (mild) beatings of them by their husbands under Sharia law—on the other.

No, the two cultures are morally equivalent, so it’s wrong, you see—just wrong—to criticize one and praise the other.

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  1. Pingback: Some Thoughts on Culture | A Plebe's Site

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