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When an Arab Kills an Arab It Is Not News

(Gatestone Institute) Douglas Murray - It has been estimated that the number of people killed in Syria since the uprising began now stands at more than 90,000. Estimates suggest that Israel's War of Independence in 1948 cost around 20,000 casualties in total on all sides - the highest figure for all the wars in which Israel has been involved throughout its history. Casualty estimates of the wars of 1967 and 1973 are similar: another 20,000 and 15,000 respectively. The smaller wars in Lebanon and Gaza in the years since add several thousand more to this sad total. But something is striking here. All the wars involving Israel, throughout its history, have caused at least 30,000 fewer deaths than have been caused in Syria in the last couple of years alone. Air and ground incursions in Gaza in recent years have on each occasion led to deaths that are a fraction of the number in Syria. Yet the world, and the world's press, and the world's protest movements have on every occasion mobilized in a way which seemed to demonstrate an obsession which is probably at best unhealthy, and at worst the expression of straightforward bigotry. All those people who claim that small incursions into Gaza were in fact a "holocaust," where are they now? If the death of a hundred people is a "holocaust," what is the death of 90,000? With Israel, every death is investigated, every movement protested against. Yet when it comes to the wholesale slaughter in Syria, there is just a single global shrug. We are forced to conclude yet again that when an Arab kills an Arab it is not news. Only if a Jew is involved does it make the cut. The writer is an associate director of the London-based Henry Jackson Society.
2013-03-11 00:00:00
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