Jan 3rd, 2011
by F. Grey Parker
Well, it was just a matter of time before Marty Peretz, publisher of The New Republic, came slinking back to the discourse on the Middle East. After his tremendous blunders earlier this year in which he first seemed to argue that American Muslims should be stripped of their 1st Amendment protections and then issued an "apology" that only made matters worse, he was relegated to untouchable status in every forum where he once commanded attention.
He needed just the right moment, maybe even a catastrophe, to get back in the game.
The latest wave of terrorist murder against Egyptian Coptic Christians provided him with an opening he simply couldn't resist. This radical Islamist violence is the worst in a decade, the victims are not Israeli Jews and his profile has been low enough in the last few months that he seems to have thought it was time to try and reclaim some of his lost legitimacy. From the first line, Marty Peretz totally fails.
"Yes, of course. The majority of Muslims are against terror killings of Christians. Maybe even a big majority. But the fact is there is little evidence and, in fact, almost no evidence of revulsion at what has become the distinctive imprint of Islam in the modern world. Alright, I'll note the most important caveat: it is not Islam but Islamists and Islamism that are at fault in this ongoing outrage. But Still! Wouldn't you think there'd be a protest or two somewhere in the arc of Muslim Faith that stretches from Indonesia to Morocco and southwards to the deepest reaches of Africa?"
Really? Sigh...
It wasn't very hard to find a good deal more than a few shows of solidarity “in the arc of Muslim faith.” One just has to actually look. In a matter of minutes, we found examples here, here, here, here, here and here.
This information didn't flood our screens, slam our in-boxes or dominate the chatter in the echo chambers.
There is a lot we don't see and Marty Peretz knows it. We don't see our young men and women getting their arms and legs blown off everyday. But it is happening. We aren't shown Iraqi, Afghani and Pakistani children drenched in blood every day. But they are. We also don't click through channel after channel of ordinary Muslims, Christians and Jews throughout the region who get up, have breakfast, kiss their spouses and children and go on about their business. But they do.
It does not benefit our corporate masters or their profit-making permawar to share these moments with us. For the same reason, we are not shown Muslims of literal good faith standing up and speaking out on behalf of Christian victims in countries that not only have no protections for that sort of expression but often actively seek to destroy those who do. By his reasoning, because we do not see it, it is not happening.
This being America in 2011 and not 1967, he should know better. In fact, as he has been so active a participant in oversimplifying the Middle Eastern discussion as well as sanitizing it's presentation, I suspect his comments to be knowingly false. There is little evidence presented stateside of almost anything in that part of the world that doesn't adhere to the official version. In fact, there really hasn't been in the last 20 years. One generally finds more unbiased footage from The Middle East in an hour of Al Jazeera than in a month's worth of CNN, MSNBC and The Murdoch Device combined.
Next time, I hope that Marty Peretz simply looks before declaring that there is nothing to see.
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