Here’s an interesting story for the “tolerant’ left to chew on. It tells the tale of an American citizen (Issam Akel) who “broker(ed) the sale of a house in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to Ateret Cohanim.” A Jew. An act that under Palestinian law is punishable by death. A story virtually ignored by the media.
Ben Weingarten at the Federalist explores the silence.
In spite of all the significant threads coming together in the imprisonment and potential beating of an American by an autocratic regime for allegedly flouting an anti-Semitic law, the Western media and political class have been largely mum. There is no echo chamber lauding Akel’s putative bravery, nor haranguing Mahmoud Abbas and the PA for their brutality. There is no chorus lobbying for sanctioning the PA with the full force of the U.S. government. Rest assured, Akel’s face will not grace the cover of Time as “Person of the Year” anytime soon.
Khashoggi, Khashoggi, Khashoggi!
Ben opens his piece with the clamor over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. The press lionized Khashoggi while using his execution to smear Trump ala our diplomatic relationship with his Saudi Arabian “killers.” The media also ignored (or at least tried to hide) Jamal’s ties to Qatar. And how he was using that arrangement to smear Suadi Arabia through his job at the Washington Post.
Text messages between Khashoggi and Maggie Mitchell Salem, an executive at Qatar Foundation International and a former State Department official during the Clinton presidency, show she “at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government.”
Khashoggi was a propaganda mouthpiece for an enemy of The Kingdom. And while he didn’t deserve to be tortured or murdered he wasn’t the free-thinking voice of freedom painted by the Press. He was advancing the priorities of one set of authoritarians over another.
He is also rumored to have ties to Iran and its interests if that matters.
#Resistance
American Citizen Issam Akel, Weingarten reminds us, “allegedly acted as a private citizen. He was also not writing something controversial, he was allegedly abrogating an unjust law.” Speaking truth to power, if we want to invoke the Leftist talking point. A man who lived in and among Palestinians by choice, starting his own little #Resistance. Hey, this law is dumb.
He was arrested and beaten. Probably tortured. And he could die.
How would Democrats like to spin this? 1) Yes, the press should be covering this and doing what they can to help a US citizen. 2) No, we agree that selling property to Jews in Palestine should be punishable by death. A third option, doing and saying nothing, is option two.
Wait, you hadn’t heard about it? Perhaps you should ask your media why?