Een oorverdovende stilte

Van vele kanten ontving de redactie het artikel "Latest attack on Jews brings a deafening silence" van Rosie Dimanno. Het artikel verscheen in de Toronto Star, daags na de bloedige aanslag op het Paradise Hotel in Mombasa. Wij plaatsen het hier in de oorspronkelijke, engelse versie.

heir children, their elderly, their scholars, their farmers, the diaspora of their tribe – all targets, at home and abroad. Shopping for food, riding a bus, strolling across a campus, dining as families in restaurants, dancing in clubs, worshipping in synagogues. Not a blessed place in all the world is safe.The carnage in Kenya last Thursday is only the most recent atrocity but no doubt history will recall it as a defining moment in the modern-day Holocaust of Jews – a point where all buffers of presumed security were breached, when the war of attrition against Israëlis went extra-territorial, crossing geographical borders and moral boundaries. Those shredded bodies of vacationers who believed themselves somehow beyond the reach of homicide bombers are sad testament to the reality of their predicament. And the poor victims who were not Jews, the Kenyan dancers welcoming new arrivals to a holiday hotel, they were but expendable bit-players, the collateral damage of Jew-hating terrorism.Palestinians might revile Israëlis as oppressors and occupiers, might bleat to the international community for redress of their political grievances. But Palestinians the world over aren’t hunted down like dogs. Arabs the world over aren’t targeted for extermination. Muslims the world over aren’t murdered in packs. Humankind would not stand for it. The Pan-Arab alliance would not stand for it. Islamic countries would not stand for it.Imagine, if Zionist terrorists armed with shoulder-held rockets had attempted to bring down a Saudi airplane, as unidentified militants had attempted to blast an El Al flight out of the sky over Kenya, simultaneous with the Mombasa bombing – a two-pronged attack suggesting sophisticated planning and a network of operatives, with the fingerprints of Al Qaeda all over it. The reverse scenario – Jew on Muslim – would be grounds for war, for a unified assault on Israël. And the West would be hard-pressed to interdict, to mollify.Ah, but these are just dead Jews. And we are accustomed to their dying.I have been waiting, in the days since Thursday’s abominable attack, for just one word of sympathy, of pity, from the Muslim world. One note of commiseration to emanate from inside the thousands of mosques, one hint of regret and empathy from commentators ever ready to assail any Israëli misstep and aggression. But the silence has been deafening.Islam, that great religion of peace, has had nothing to say of more murdered Jews. That silent majority that disapproves of extremism, that argues the Muslim faith has been ill-served by militants who’ve twisted every article of the Islamic faith ? not a murmur of renunciation of those who commit such travesties in their name. Where is the rage?If little in the way of revulsion might have been expected from the hostile nations that surround Israël, then surely a word of consolation from moderate Muslims in the West might have been forthcoming. Yet I’ve heard nary an utterance from the very same agencies and organizations, purportedly representing Muslims and Arabs, that are so vigilant about pouncing on any perceived racism or intolerance against their people, even in this country. Nothing from the Canadian Islamic Congress, nothing from the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association, nothing from the Palestinian-Canadian Student Society, nothing from the Canadian Arab Friendship Association, nothing from the Canadian Society of Muslims. To name a few.Only the beleaguered Palestinians themselves, in a poll taken before Thursday’s tragic events, have expressed weariness with the whole campaign of violence aimed at Israël, this as one lone voice ? a potential successor to Araf