Hat tip Campus Watch and Elder of Ziyon
Juan Cole is a history professor at the University of Michigan. He is noted as a big supporter of the Palestinian cause and just about anything else Arab. Not surprisingly, he points out the fact that the three teenagers abducted and murdered on the West Bank were not only residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but "squatters". That's a good way to subtract some of the blame from his benighted Palestinian terrorists. Elder of Ziyon takes him to task for this and rightfully so. This piece also appears on Campus Watch.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/07/despicable-juan-cole-blames-jews-for.html#.U7RSKPldWSo
"The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli squatter youth whose parents usurped Palestinian land has produced a paroxysm of hatred and calls for reprisals in Israel.Whoever is responsible for it, the killing of the youth was a horrid and inexcusable crime, and the heart of any parent goes out to the bereaved families."
"Palestinian land?" How about disputed land, or how about Judea and Samaria? What country is Palestine, Mr Cole?
At any rate, that comment by Cole reminds me of the time (one of the times) the British twit and propangandist Ben White came to speak at UC Irvine, where I teach. I was in attaendance and recall when during the q and a, a Jewish couple asked him about a recent murder in the West Bank when members of two Jewish families who resided in one of those settlements were murdered. White's response was that they were illegal settlers. When the lady told him that they were Jewish human beings, White stated that, "Ok, they were illegal settler Jewish human beings."
This is how people like Cole and White, who should know better, react when they come to the defense of those Palestinians who have no regard for human life. They point out that the victims were "illegal settlers" or worse, "squatters". So much for their own humanity. I imagine that 75 years ago, these apologists would be talking about all the "suffering" that the 6 million Jews had caused the National Socialists.
As for Cole, he may have a name in the academic left, but in reality, his kind is a dime a dozen. Imagine: A university professor who is anti-Israel.
As to that portion of Cole's statement that Gary Fouse quotes from here, I fully subscribe to it. What else he may have said I do not know.
ReplyDelete"Some portion of my ancestors lived here 2000 years ago, maybe," is not a claim that trumps those who live there now, and whose more recent ancestors have lived there for one to ten centuries.
There was room for everyone if everyone had been reasonable, but nobody can demand with integrity that the residents of territory that became The British Mandate of Palestine by fiat of British and French imperial diplomats should suddenly disappear because someone who wants to move in finds their presence inconvenient.
What did you used to say about how immigrants should behave toward the culture of their hosts, Gary?