Tommy Friedman weighs in on Islam and the Pope. For those who don't subscribe to Times Select, Peking Duck has posted the column in full.
... Whenever people asked me how I'd know if we'd won in Iraq, I said: when Salman Rushdie could give a lecture in Baghdad. I'm all for a respectful dialogue between Islam and the West, but first there needs to be a respectful, free dialogue between Muslims and Muslims. What matters is not what Muslims tell us they stand for. What matters is what they tell themselves, in their own languages, and how they treat their own.
See also Thousands attend HAMAS rally in Gaza
Hamas lawmaker (sic):"We vow to God never to recognize Israel, even if we all die."
Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters attend a rally in support of the government and rejecting the recognition of Israel in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip September 29, 2006. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA)
The MSM was all over this rally in a Gaza refugee camp. Canada.com called it a "show of strength."
Yet when "tens of thousands" rallied in New York City in solidarity with Israel, the Drive By Media was Conspicuously Absent, even though you would think it was a much more convenient location.
One might conclude from this that the mainstream media is full of Jew-hating bigots... but Jabotinsky put it so much more elegantly in 1911 (decades before Israel became a state):
“We are hated not because we are blamed for everything, but we are blamed for everything because we are not loved.”
I will certainly rejoice when Salman Rushdie can give a lecture in Baghdad, but in the meantime "how they treat their own" is not my primary concern. I don't understand why it would be Thomas Friedman's, either ... unless, of course, he's hoping to be loved.
I can't really blame him if he is.
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