The State Department Still Plays Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist

The State Department has defined Anti-Semitism. It has even published a report on Global Anti-Semitism. But the State Department will always be the State Department--it may find cases of Anti-Semitism in Hamas, but the PA...they're moderates: nothing to see here. Writing in The National Review, Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, finds that

The omission is especially surprising because just a few days ago, the American Jewish Committee released a study showing the PA’s schoolbooks characterize Jews in “hateful” and “derogatory” language, cite the Protocols of Elders of Zion as a legitimate source of historical information, and omit any mention of the Holocaust. (State’s report did contain one vague mention of the fact that in the 1990s, Holocaust denial “became commonplace in popular media in the Middle East, particularly in the Palestinian Authority” — without any acknowledgment that most of that so-called “popular media” is government-controlled).

The State Department’s report defined anti-Semitism as including “allegations about Jews such as . . . Jews controlling the media” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to the Nazis” (pp. 6-7). Yet among the numerous anti-Semitic cartoons that the report reprints, one did not find, for example, the August 13, 2007 cartoon in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, of a hook-nosed Jew with prominent side-curls controlling the Arab media, or the March 4 cartoon, titled “Gaza’s Holocaust,” featuring an Israeli attack helicopter with its propeller in the shape of a swastika. (Expanding on that theme, a new Holocaust Exhibit has just opened in Gaza, featuring depictions of Israel throwing Arab babies into crematoria.

The State Department has sidestepped the contradiction of portraying the PA as a moderate peace partner while Americans sue them for the murder of their loved ones--no sense in bringing up how deep the PA hatred for Israel and Jews really goes.

Technorati Tag: Palestinians.