Outrage

One of the things that the Left does, really, really well is—outrage. It's almost always directed at the wrong target, and it's almost always based on weak or non-existent facts. But since it's actually about moral preening, they don't seem to care.

Let's take the current anti-Israel "outrage" expressed by leftists and Islamists in Paris and London, on many American university campuses, and, more subtly, in much of the main stream media.

The wrong target. The left blames Israel, but the real culprit is Hamas. It's Hamas that purposely places its rocket launchers in places that civilians live and visit with the express intent using those civilians (including children) as human shields to protect their rockets from attack. When civilians die, it's Hamas who has put them in harm's way.

Non-existent facts.  In the Left's delusion view, Israel is a blood thirsty killer. Not only do Israelis have no right to protect themselves, but in trying to stop the rockets falling on their cities they must never, ever kill a civilian, even when Hamas places that civilian right next to a rocket installation. The Left conveniently forgets that Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers with the express intent of killing Israeli civilians. The Left refuses to recognize that the Israelis do everything possible to spare civilian lives—even when women and children are being used as human shields. They drop leaflets to warn people away, they first use "door knocker" weapons that explode on rooftops harmlessly to warn civilians of an impending attack and allow them the time to flee, they use smart munitions.

So ... an Islamist terrorist group launches over 1,000 rockets at a liberal, democratic nation and the left expresses ... well, the Left is silent. When the liberal, democratic nation defends itself, the Left expresses "outrage."

And that is the true outrage.

UPDATE-I:
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The Telegraph (U.K.) reports:

Christian families streamed out of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Saturday after Islamist fighters said they would be killed if they did not pay a protection tax or convert to Islam.

“For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians,” Patriarch Louis Sako lamented as hundreds of families fled ahead of a noon deadline set by Islamic State for them to submit or leave.

The warning was read out in Mosul’s mosques on Friday afternoon, and broadcast throughout the city on loudspeakers.

“We offer [Christians] three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract - involving payment... if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” the announcement read.

It said Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who the group has now named Caliph Ibrahim, had ordered Christians who did not want to stay and live under those terms to “leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate”.

Interestingly, the left and its MSM allies seem unable to express "outrage" at this barbaric, seventh century approach to another religion by Hamas' Islamist bretheren, ISIS.

UPDATE-II (7/22/14):
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As our president and his bumbling secretary of state express "concern" about the mounting death toll in the current hostilities in Gaza , they want to give the appearance of being even-handed. It's reasonable to ask why even-handed treatment of this conflict is appropriate, given that Hamas is an Islamist terrorist group (akin to ISIS in Iraq) that was 'elected' by the people in Gaza, who by the way, have their own independent entity that for eight years was NOT "occupied" by Israel, and is "blockaded" only because it continually tries to murder Israelis, blow up buses, and launch rockets at Israeli population centers. But the Obama administration and its trained media hamsters never let facts or reality get in the way of "the narrative."

Thane Rosenbaum nails the real issues when he writes:

Let's state the obvious: No one likes to see dead children. Well, that's not completely true: Hamas does. They would prefer those children to be Jewish, but there is greater value to them if they are Palestinian. Outmatched by Israel's military, handicapped by rocket launchers with the steady hands of Barney Fife, Hamas is playing the long game of moral revulsion.

With this conflict about to enter its third week, winning the PR war is the best Hamas can hope to achieve. Their weapon of choice, however, seems to be the cannon fodder of their own people, performing double duty in also sounding the drumbeat of Israeli condemnation. If you can't beat Iron Dome, then deploy sacrificial children as human shields.

Civilian casualties will continue to mount. The evolving story will focus on the collateral damage of Palestinian lives. Israel's moral dilemma will receive little attention. Each time the ledgers of relative loss are reported, world public opinion will turn against the Jewish state and box Israel into an even tighter corner of the Middle East.

All the ordinary rules of warfare are upended in Gaza. Everything about this conflict is asymmetrical—Hamas wears no uniforms and they don't meet Israeli soldiers on battlefields. With the exception of kaffiyeh scarves, it isn't possible to distinguish a Hamas militant from a noncombatant pharmacist. In Vietnam, the U.S. military learned guerrilla warfare in jungles. In Gaza, the Jewish state has had to adapt to the altogether surreal terrain of apartment complexes and schoolhouses.

There are now reports that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are transporting themselves throughout Gaza in ambulances packed with children. Believe it or not, a donkey laden with explosives detonated just the other day.

Where the "outrage" about the barbaric use of children as human shields? Where's the off-camera comment about Hamas' "pinpoint" use of little ones as PR tools? Where's the "concern" that Hamas won't accept Israel's right to exist but that Israel cannot be allowed to defend itself?

And for those who suggest that civilians in Gaza are innocent victims? Rosenthal comments:

The people of Gaza overwhelmingly elected Hamas, a terrorist outfit dedicated to the destruction of Israel, as their designated representatives. Almost instantly Hamas began stockpiling weapons and using them against a more powerful foe with a solid track record of retaliation.

What did Gazans think was going to happen? Surely they must have understood on election night that their lives would now be suspended in a state of utter chaos. Life expectancy would be miserably low; children would be without a future. Staying alive would be a challenge, if staying alive even mattered anymore.

To make matters worse, Gazans sheltered terrorists and their weapons in their homes, right beside ottoman sofas and dirty diapers. When Israel warned them of impending attacks, the inhabitants defiantly refused to leave.

On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets.

That's the truth of it. But, of course, this administration doesn't do truth very well, and neither does the main stream media.

UPDATE - III (7/22/14)
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Guy Benson reports that a gay Jewish couple was assaulted at a pro-palestinian rally in Boston, by a group of leftists who align themselves with Hamas. He writes:

The mere presence of a gay pro-Israel couple at the rally “set off a hailstorm” of venom from Hamas supporters that would no doubt be national news by now if the epithets had been hurled by, say, Tea Partiers. (Incidentally, I’ve never been able to square the circle of grassroots Lefties’ anti-Israel attitudes. The tiny nation is an oasis of pluralistic democracy in an autocratic and oppressive neighborhood, it boasts a robust nationalized healthcare system, and it proudly protects the rights of women and gays. And yet many on the far Left aggressively side with Israel’s violent, intolerant — and in some cases, genocidal — adversaries. Why?) In any case, let’s forget about these Holocaust- and death-celebrating slurs, and ignore disgusting scenes like this [the Boston assault]. All Hamas is (currently) requesting in exchange for a ceasefire is an Israeli pledge to lift its blockade of Gaza, thus flinging open the floodgates for even more weapons to stream into the hands of terrorists, equipping them to launch additional salvos against Israeli civilians. That’s all. Palestinian violence, the apologists claim, is ultimately about policy disputes, so “peace” requires Israel to end the blockade. Or release terrorist prisoners. Or uproot its settlements. Or divide up its capital city. Or, you know, cease to exist. The demands and pretexts for violence may be slippery, but the goal remains the same: Annihilating the Jewish State.

And this from Jeff Jacoby of the very liberal Boston Globe:

America’s Israel-friendly consensus is splitting along the same left-vs.-right fault line that has polarized so many other issues. While support for Israel is overwhelming among Republicans and conservatives, it has been shrinking among Democrats and liberals. “The partisan gap in Mideast sympathies has never been wider,” reports Pew, with 73 percent of Republicans sympathetic to Israel in the ongoing conflict, but just 44 percent of Democrats. Respondents identifying as liberal Democrats were five times as likely as conservative Republicans to sympathize more with the Palestinians.
[emphasis mine]

Thus, is the Democratic Party losing its way on one of the great moral issues of our time.

It is truly ironic that so many American Jews strongly ascribe to leftist and/or Democratic base politics. Like many with similar affiliations, they argue that claims of an anti-Israel shift in Democrat base politics are simply untrue, despite clear evidence to the contrary. They refuse to see the clear but subtle anti-Israel bias that pervades the Obama administration.

It's funny, many of my Jewish friends and acquaintances state that they could never vote for a GOP candidate, because the base of the party is anti-gay or anti-women. I wonder, then, how they square voting for Democrat candidate when the base of that party is becoming increasingly anti-Israel.

UPDATE - IV (7/22/14)
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I think it's fair to say that if Israel placed military weapons inside one of its schools, there would be universal outrage. After all, at the very least, the explosives endanger the children. But when Hamas does it, not once, but twice, and not in one of their own schools but in a UN sponsored school—you know, the supposedly neutral UN—there is the sound of crickets. The US MSM? Not a mention. After all, it runs counter to the narrative. The administration—silence.

The Times of Israel reports:

For the second time in less than a week, rockets have been found in a school in Gaza operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the body said. “Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip,” the organization said in a statement issued Tuesday. “As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets. The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons.”

As it did the last time around when missiles were found in a school it operates, UNRWA said it “strongly and unequivocally condemns the group or groups responsible for this flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law.”

And what do all of the human rights advocates who are so, so concerned about palestinian children say about all of this? Absolutely nothing. Outrage is reserved for Israel alone ... and that's an outrage.