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Palestine's Missing Critics: Where's the Outrage for Ramallah's Atrocities?

[Wall Street Journal Europe] Editorial - Israel's harshest critics claim to champion the rights of Palestinians. So we're curious about the fallout, or lack thereof, from revelations that the Palestinian Authority regularly brutalizes its own in the West Bank while enjoying a steady flow of dollars and euros. A Mail On Sunday report detailed the Authority's regular use of beatings, whippings, attacks with electrical drills, and other methods of torture doled out to anyone seen threatening the authority of Fatah, the party of Mahmoud Abbas. Murder and rape are also commonplace. As Middle East analyst Tom Gross points out, the only news here is that a Western newspaper has bothered to write about it. As of Sept. 15, the European Union had delivered ?268 million to the Authority this year, and in July the U.S. extended an additional $200 million. So here's the state-of-play in the department of moral outrage. When Britain is accused of abetting U.S. interrogations, lawsuits, investigations, and threats to try Tony Blair for war crimes quickly follow. When Israel attacks Hamas in order to end rocket launches on its soil, it risks a session before the International Criminal Court. But when the West funnels billions to a Palestinian government whose abuses are brazen and ongoing, there is mainly silence.
2009-11-03 06:00:00
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