On Israel, Some Pretend to Hear No Evil — Others Condemn It

Photo by: Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Crises tell us a lot about who people really are.

Do you praise your opponents when they take praiseworthy action at a critical moment? Do you hold your own allies accountable? Can you find it within yourself to forsake your perceived political interests for the good of the country?

The vicious terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas in Israel last weekend is no exception. Indeed, if any such time called for blind praise of righteousness and condemnation of evil, it’s the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Jews because they are Jews.

And yet, while some have distinguished themselves on this front this week, others have failed the test miserably.

On the correct side of this divide stand conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY).

After the biggest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust occurred on Saturday, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Cori Bush (D-MO) suggested that the victims of the attack were to blame for their fate.

“I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity,” wrote Tlaib in a statement that, remarkably, failed to make mention of Hamas or their barbarism.

“The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance,” continued Tlaib, implicitly blaming the Jews for their own, unimaginable suffering.

Statement from ⁦@RepRashida⁩ Tlaib pic.twitter.com/1GdpREtLqZ

— Melissa Nann Burke (@nannburke) October 8, 2023

Bush meanwhile, called for a cease-fire after the attack while also urging the United States to cease providing Israel with the military aid it needs to defend itself.

“We must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending U.S. government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid,” she wrote.

Torres, to his eternal credit, minced no words in his blistering statement on Tlaib and Bush. “Shame on anyone who glorifies as ‘resistance’ the largest single-day mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust,” said Torres. “It is reprehensible and repulsive.”

For his part, Shapiro deserves credit for cutting through Tucker Carlson’s obfuscation of the atrocities committed by Hamas.

During an episode of his show featuring Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Carlson attempted to minimize the gravity of what had happened in Israel by comparing it to the drug crisis in the United States, causing Shapiro to condemn him on Wednesday.

“It is not alike for drug smugglers to smuggle drugs over the border, which someone then takes and shoves into their arm and then they die of an overdose. That is not the same thing. I promise you, it is not the same thing as a terrorist breaking into your home and murdering your children in their beds in front of you and dragging your wife off to be raped in Gaza,” argued Shapiro. “That is not the same thing. Pretending that is a moral, it’s a moral blight. It’s idiocy. It’s just moral stupidity at the highest level.”

Not everyone can be so clear-eyed. Ramaswamy responded to Carlson’s repugnant rambling not by rebuking it, but by doubling down on it and suggesting that supposedly disproportionate concern for Israel was the work of “financial and corrupting influences.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also failed to display any moral courage when he professed not to be aware of Tlaib, Bush, and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) incendiary anti-Israel comments in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Wednesday.

Asked by a reporter what he made of his Democratic colleagues calling for a cease-fire, the cessation of U.S. aid to Israel, and their characterization of the world’s only Jewish-majority state as being ruled under apartheid, Raskin demurred.

“Well, I just I haven’t seen any of those. And all that I’ve heard is a very powerful consensus that we need to stand by Israel as it defends itself,” he insisted.

Condemning Hamas is easy. What’s more difficult for America’s self-interested political class is holding their Western enablers accountable.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.