I am not here to comment on the wisdom or insanity of Weizman's move, nor the merits or lacks of each case. But I found it very instructive to listen to the spokeswoman for the B'Tselem human rights organization on the radio last evening.
B'Tselem is an alleged human rights organization, whose name means "In the image". They have long championed the cause of Arabs in Israel, and have even defended the Arab penchant for committing crimes against Jews in Israel. They have never made any secret of their loathing for Jewish rights to the Land of Israel, nor of their simple hatred for anything Jewish. Yesterday was no exception.
When interviewed on Kol Yisrael radio, the spokeswoman for B'Tselem said that she found it unconscionable that President Weizman would shorten the sentences of these Jewish criminals. She stated that murder of Arabs was unacceptable and that anyone who committed such a crime should be made to serve out the complete sentence. When the interviewer asked her about the sentences of Arabs that were shortened, and the one Arab who was even set free, her response was "I have not heard of any Arabs serving jail sentences for murder in Israel".
Now, I will ignore the patent absurdity of this last statement. Despite the fact that Israel has set free in excess of 10,000 Arab prisoners through various agreements as part of the Oslo process, many of whom have gone on to join the Palestinian Army, and quite a few of whom have then committed further terrorist attacks, there are still plenty of Arab murderers left in Israeli prisons. But it is instructive to note that B'Tselem either does not know these people exist, or chooses not to know about them. Alternatively, B'Tselem does not consider what these people did to be wrong and refuses to call them murderers.
What is most instructive to note, however, is that B'Tselem is quick to denounce the commutation of sentences for murderers who are Jewish, but refuses to relate to the same treatment of Arab murderers. They conveniently forget that in this instance, equal treatment was dealt to criminals on both sides of the issue. Instead, B'Tselem chooses only to accuse where the prisoners who benefited were Jews.
It is high time that organizations such as B'Tselem stop their hypocrisy. They continue to give the Israeli left a bad name. Frankly, B'Tselem would do much more good for the left if they just simply packed up their bags and went home, never to be heard from again. Such hypocrisy as shown by B'Tselem yesterday shows just how immoral the left can be sometimes when they choose to support Arab terrorists over Jews in the Jewish homeland. When B'Tselem shows such unabashed hatred for Jews, one is forced to wonder what they are doing in Israel in the first place.
Copyright 1999. Reproduction in print or electronic format by permission only.
