Andrew Sullivan Hearts Islamic Martyrs

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/06/01/andrew-sullivan-hearts-islamic-martyrs/

2010 June 1

by Alex Knepper

When it comes to Israel and its genocidal enemies, Andrew Sullivan is a master of moral equivalency. The man has it down to an art form, sort of like the way that children enjoy playing with their food. “Look, mommy, my Alpha-Bits say ‘I hate Israel’!” “Yes, we know, Andrew. We forgive you now for supporting the Iraq War.” He’s one of those guys who says “I have nothing against Jews, but…”

As a refresher: in the recent past, he launched into a mind-numbing exegesis over a slightly-misplaced religious metaphor from one of Netanyahu’s advisers to imply that Israel’s “paranoia” is equivalent to Ali Khamenei’s possibly-genocidal ambitions. Basically, Sullivan has decided a priori that all nations have essentially the same character, and so we should treat religious references by the Netanyahu in the same manner that we would treat reference that come from Khamenei’s regime.

His thought process looks nothing like it did six or seven years ago. I mean, this guy is guilt-ridden about ever having supported those blasted neo-cons. I knew that things had gotten bad when he plastered a picture of Edmund Burke, that exemplar of prudence, on his blog, as a testament to the intellectual lineage of — the Obama campaign! One can just imagine Burke cheering as the most powerful country in the history of the world elevates a man to the presidency who was just elected to a national body a few years ago. (It was no surprise, of course, when Sullivan endorsed Ron Paul, notorious for his anti-Semitic ties, for the Republican nomination.)

Sullivan, I think, digests his news via Twitter messages. It’s like he skims the headlines and decides that he’s got enough information to comment upon a story. (I mean, hell, he hardly can have time to read the news in between the dart-throwing sessions at the Sarah Palin poster above his computer.) I barely have it within me to ascribe to malice a statement so obviously, so utterly loaded with ignorance as this:

“Just imagine if a flotilla of anti-Tehran activists were attacked in international waters by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and that the Guards killed 16 or more of the civilians. What do you think Commentary would be saying then?”

Does he think that this is a scathing point? Really? He thought it worthy of a separate blog entry, at any rate. Well, let’s see what was omitted in this perverted piece of moral equivalence: the chanting about martyrdom and Jew-killing. The pistols, knives, and metal sticks. The initiation of violence. The violation of the (entirely justified) blockade also instituted by Egypt.

Translated from moral-equivalence-to-English: “Just imagine if a flotilla of anti-Muslim wannabe-martyrs chanting about the glory of their prophet’s murderous rampage against Muslims violated a blockade imposed on their country of choice because it elected an anti-Muslim genocidal terrorist organization to head its government. They brandished pistols and knives, and when the legitimately-elected government of that Muslim country sent its military to inspect the ship, the religious fanatics initiated violence — and in the chaos that ensued because of this, sixteen people ended up dead. What do you think Commentary would be saying then?”

Well, I would hope it would be outraged! (But let’s leave the outrage for the Jews and their evil neo-con allies, okay, Andrew?) But this would require a different script than the one that’s being used: Get mad at Israel first, ask question later.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

Editor’s Note: David Horowitz has a commentary on Andrew Sullivan’s willful blindness here.