The Tyranny of Deceit

In May 2010, a Turkish Islamist “charity” with close ties to terrorist organizations as well as Turkey’s ruling party sponsored a flotilla which it claimed was designed to “relieve suffering” in Gaza, but whose real intention was to support Hamas and demonize Israel. Yet, these same “human rights” organizations are silent in the face of atrocities being committed in Syria today, and have offered nothing to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people.

So, why is all this passion, all this anger and rage, directed at this one country? Why not at Hezbollah which has effectively orchestrated an Iranian-backed coup in Lebanon? Or at those who continue to persecute Christians in Libya, Syria and Iran?

Let’s call it what it is for those who arrogantly hold Israel to a standard of conduct to which no other nation in this world is held. Half a million men, women and children are slaughtered in Rwanda, and there is silence. The Chinese annihilate Tibetan culture, and there is silence. Tens of thousands of civilians are slaughtered in Chechnya, and there is silence. When the Muslim Brotherhood under Mohamed Morsi ruled Egypt and imprisoned the leading democracy advocate in the Arab world after a phony trial, and imprisoned U.S.-funded pro-democracy American workers, not a single student group in America called for divestiture from Egypt or rallied for the release of the imprisoned workers. Even Congress was incensed. But where were the student rallies?

Syria occupied Lebanon for a quarter century, choked the life out of its democracy, assassinated its political leaders, effected a coup d’etat through its Hezbollah proxy, sent Islamic terrorists over its borders to kill Americans and Iraqis, and has slaughtered thousands of its own people, and not one single student organization on our campuses rallied against the Assad regime or called for divestiture from Syria.

Iran uses its paramilitary Basij thugs to beat up student demonstrators in the streets of Tehran and squeezes the life out of that county’s embryonic democratic movement, and there is silence. Saudi Arabia denies its women the most basic human rights, and bans any other religion from being practiced publicly on its soil. So when is Saudi Apartheid Week?

These human rights violations and tragedies dwarf anything done by the Israelis, yet they fail to elicit the same degree of moral outrage that Israel evokes among its campus critics.