Blaming Israel for terrorism completely misses the point

Link to Backman apology

Good for The Age's editor, Paul Ramadge, for apologising in print for the anti-Israeli rant by columnist Michael Blackman, which appeared in the paper last weekend. But no amount of apologising can disguise the obvious: if Blackman's beliefs are not held by senior staff at the paper, why did his piece appear? Some of Blackman's ideas are easily dismissed, such as his suggestion that Israelis are arrogant. Like the rest of humanity some are, some aren't. Some of his examples are less eccentric than inane, such as his statement that the peaceful Parsees of India are interested in the welfare of others, where Israelis are not. Some of his suggestions are outright offensive, such as his statement that while Israel has a right to defend itself from rocket attack, it has brought the Gaza crisis on itself by oppressing the Palestinians. And some are egregiously incorrect, such as his argument that Muslim hatred for Israel had nothing to do with religion. Nonsense. Hamas terrorists attacked Israel from Gaza until Israel's armed forces stopped them because Hamas is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel - no ifs, no buts.

But Blackman's rhetoric is less ridiculous than reprehensible in the way he argues that the Israelis have brought the wrath of all Islam on their heads - and ours - because of the way the Jewish state treats Palestinians. "Israel's utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all. We have paid for Israel's failure with bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali and even the loss of the World Trade Centre in New York," Blackman wrote.

Undergraduate, ill-informed nonsense. There is no doubting the rage of millions of Muslims all over the world at the condition of the Palestinians. But this is a convenient cover for Islamic terrorists who hate everybody, including Muslims, who do not share their evil interpretation of the honoured religion of Islam. And the terrorists will use any explanation that is convenient to justify their ideologically driven killing. Osama bin Laden used to say US bases in Saudi Arabia affronted his faith, but he did not call off al-Qa'ida when the US left the kingdom. And, short of every Jew leaving the country, there is nothing Israel can do to placate Hamas and its allies. There is no evidence that Blackman hates Jews, but people who do will endorse his arguments and continue to cloak their anti-Semitism in a faux concern for the Palestinians.

What is most alarming about the way this nonsense appeared in The Age is that it demonstrates the accepted wisdom among Australians who believe that in supporting Hamas they are barracking for the underdog. This is the equivalent of thinking fondly of the Confederacy because it fought the evil US army. Whatever the intellectually immature editors at The Age who published Blackman's piece think, Islamic terrorists want to kill all the Israelis, and then start on everybody else whose opinions annoy them.