This is the truth the Washington Post thinks you can’t handle. Does Hamas use civilians as human shields? Uh, yeah. Does Hamas indiscriminately murder civilians as a way of making a political point? Uh, yeah. Should this be said out loud? Uh, no.
“Explains” WashPost editorial page editor David Shipley, “Our section [of the Post] is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times,” Shipley wrote. “In this spirit, we have taken down the drawing.”
Gee, I thought the idea of the editorial page of a newspaper was to tell readers what the newspapers editors—and a number of other “contributors”—thought was, you know, the truth. Instead, apparently, it’s to avoid saying anything that might offend anyone. Which, I have to say, offends the Hell out of me. My hat is off to cartoonist Michael Ramirez for coming up with more truth than the Post can handle. Unfortunately, that seems to be an awfully low bar.
I don’t think I can pass as an uncritical admirer of Israel, not to mention the American Israel Political Affairs Committee, aka AIPAC, but I do know a murderer when I see one. I will even point out, as I have in the past, that Israel’s hands are far from clean, frequently engaging in “targeted”, rather than untargeted, murders, aka “assassinations”, as has the U.S. But responding to wrongs with more wrongs—especially ones as bloody and vicious as the recent outrages, simply encourages the cycle of blood. And we need to get off it. My frequent bête noir Dan Drezner is speaking a shocking amount of truth regarding this matter.
Afterwords
Now, I know that the particular beef with the cartoon, as Dave explains, is not the “theme” but rather the fact that all the (Arabian) people in the cartoon are made to look ugly—the noses, of course, being a particular problem—and I can understand that, but the point of a cartoon is to be pungent. If Hamas didn’t murder so many people, this wouldn’t be a problem.
