The State Department’s swift condemnation of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s remarks during a non-public shiur to his followers is yet one more example of the Obama administration’s mindset when it comes to the Middle East.

One does not have to concur with either the timing or the substance of Rav Yosef’s remarks to appreciate that the urgent way they were treated by the American government was in startling contrast to the routinely hesitant and belated comments concerning anti-Israel incitement by Palestinian governmental officials.

As has been widely reported, this past Saturday night, in the course of his regular address to his followers, Rabbi Yosef referred to the traditional Rosh Hashanah segulah simonim recitations that include the line “may those who hate us be finished.” He then reportedly noted that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians hate Israel and that God should therefore bring a plague upon them.

On Sunday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat promptly claimed Rav Yosef was advocating the “genocide of the Palestinian people,” and called the remarks “an absolute insult to our efforts to progress the peace process.”

A few hours later a State Department spokesman issued a statement along the same lines:

We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef which are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace. As we move forward to relaunch peace negotiations, it is important that actions by people on all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it.

It was to be expected that the Palestinians would try to make as much hay as possible over Rabbi Yosef’s comment. But the State Department? Rav Yosef is not a member of the Israeli government and his comments at a private religious gathering certainly can have no impact on the upcoming talks. The statement of Prime Minister Netanyahu is directly in point:

The words of the rabbi do not reflect my approach or the position of the Israeli government. Israel comes to the negotiating table out of a desire to proceed with the Palestinians to an agreement that would end the conflict and ensure peace, security and good neighborly relations.

But the transparent effort to kowtow to the Palestinians is not the only thing wrong with the State Department’s reaction. It stands, as mentioned above, in direct and illuminating contrast to its passive or nearly non-existent reaction to actual incitement by the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

On March 11, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with much fanfare, renamed a central public square in Ramallah in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, the woman who in 1978 helped carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history, which left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children. Yet it was not until March 22 that the U.S. government was heard from. The comment came in an address by Secretary of State Clinton to the AIPAC conference in which she said that the naming of the square after Mughrabi “glorifies violence and insults the families on both sides [emphasis added] who have lost loved ones over the years in this conflict.”

So it took 11 days for Ms. Clinton to react to this outrageous tribute to a vicious mass murderer by the allegedly moderate head of the Palestinian government, and even then she couldn’t bring herself to focus exclusively on the outrage perpetrated against Israel.

It took three more weeks – by this time it was nearly a month since the Mughrabi dedication – for the State Department to address it directly in a statement by spokesman PJ Crowley:

We strongly condemn the glorification of terrorists. Honoring terrorists who have murdered innocent civilians, wither by official statements or by dedication of public places, hurts peace efforts and must end. We will continue to hold Palestinian leaders accountable for incitement.

All right, better late than never, we guess. But as reported by the PA official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on July 3, upon the death of Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, one of the masterminds of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, President Abbas sent a telegram expressing condolences to the Oudeh family, saying:

The deceased was one of the prominent leaders of the Fatah movement and lived a life filled with the struggle, devoted effort, and the enormous sacrifice of the deceased for the sake of the legitimate problems of his people, in many spheres. He was at the forefront on every battlefield, with the aim of defending the [Palestinian] revolution. What a wonderful brother, companion, tough and stubborn, relentless fighter. [Emphasis added]

Pretty strong stuff, glorifying a killer of innocent Israelis. Certainly encouragement to other Palestinians to do the same thing. Yet in the almost two months since Mr. Abbas made those comments, we he have head no comment from the Sate Department.

And then on August 18, Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad honored Amin al-Hindi, believed to be the last surviving planner or participant in the Munich massacre, with a state funeral. The Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported, “President Mahmoud Abbas attended the funeral, reciting passages of the Quran in al-Hindi’s honor.” Not a word has been heard from Secretary Clinton’s shop.

And of course there’s the continuing incitement against Israel contained in official Palestinian textbooks and the vituperation that regularly streams from the Palestinian mosques that are closely regulated by the PA. And, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch, the approximately 100 places and events in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas named for some 46 terrorists. All greeted with silence from the State Department.

Even those tempted to jump on Rabbi Yosef’s remarks should recognize the perfidy in play here and appreciate Israel’s predicament in the coming talks as it looks for support – or even just a fair shake – from the administration of Barack Obama and the State Department of Hillary Clinton.

Copyright 2008 www.JewishPress.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 and is filed under opinion. You can leave a response.