Andrew Jones Chief Wiggum sez – "That’s
the end of your Loony Tune, Drugs Bunny. You’re under arrest for
astro-vandalism." E-mail Jones at [email protected]. Click
Here for more articles by Andrew Jones
With the endless chatter surrounding the attacks, it seems
inconceivable that any angle should remain uncovered. But long
after Osama bin Laden announced the motivation for murdering
thousands, Americans who devote their lives to inciting support for
Palestinian statehood go unchallenged.
Two such organizations within our midst are the virulent student
newsmagazine Al Talib, and the Muslim Student Association. Neither
of these groups claims to focus solely on Palestine, yet their
unrelenting attention to that single issue speaks louder than
mission statements.
Every year the MSA, merrily clad in Palestinian flags and large
posters decrying U.S. policy in the Middle East, holds nasty
protests on behalf of a country and a people far removed from this
campus and our way of life. Their weeks-long campaign of
Judaism-bashing and outright lies about Israel is a yearly event,
not soon forgotten.
Well, let me be the first to tell campus supporters of Palestine
““ the jig is up.
These recent events have called you and your organizations into
question, and our eyes are on you. There can be no fence-sitting at
this time (that is, saying, “I support the U.S. but I still
want to see the liberation of Palestine”). Bin Laden has with
one stroke laid the issue clear ““ are you with us or are you
against us?
If it sounds like a loyalty test, it is. Bin Laden, by a single
act and subsequent intelligence regarding his motives, set the
cause of Palestine back by a generation ““ perhaps even
permanently discrediting it ““ while simultaneously casting a
web of suspicion on Muslims, and Arab Americans in general.
Arab groups, no matter where they lie, should be howling for
blood, having been roped into this mess by a man misappropriating
their religion. But so far, we hear only generalized condolences.
Or do we perhaps hear no condemnation, despite the loss of 6,000
lives, because you secretly feel that Americans
“deserved” what happened?
 Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Believe me,
you’ve got company. Even in this time of national crisis,
leftist, pacifist, pinko nincompoopery continues to flow forth from
the halls of student journalism. Your own student newspaper, the
Daily Worker, er … Bruin, saw fit to reprint one such
embarrassment (“Seek to understand, not avenge
terrorism,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, Sept. 23-26).
Is this journalistic endorsement of such stupidity why we hear
no real outrage, only vague bleating about “prayers for the
families affected by the events?”
Well, shocking as this may sound, academia is not America (thank
God), and America, as a whole, is armed for war. And it’s
about time we hear a growl from activist pro-Palestine groups
““ and for that matter, Muslims at large.
Massive twittery in the leftist press has carried the day since
September 11th. The most common perspective is the belief that
responding with violence ““ i.e., killing a killer ““
would only bring more violence. Well, for some reason, I
can’t recall any instances in which submitting to a
bully’s attacks dissuaded him from future violence.
Perhaps that’s the theory of international relations from
Make-Believe-Land in which passivism begets peace. The other
interpretation of the attack, one which is particularly shameless
and un-American, is that the attacks should serve as a wake-up call
and force a re-examination of our foreign policy in the Middle
East. How pathetic.
In the real world, our only option at this point is to hold
Israel, despite its flaws, that much closer to us. To do anything
less would be a lesson to any group with a grievance that violence
is an effective means of change. Should this viewpoint win out,
expect to see our own MEChA-level Murphy Hall to force recognition
of a new Aztlan localized entirely within the UCLA campus.
Of course, talk like that is probably a hate crime, the industry
for which, not coincidentally, cranked up as soon as it became
apparent that Middle Easterners were responsible for the
attacks.
Within days, the Bruin was doing its part to manufacture
controversy and advance its leftist agenda, while blood still
flowed from American wounds. For several days, the Bruin Web site
listed local ways to “help out” down a right-hand
sidebar. Notably absent was any link to a survivors-and-families
fund for those hurt or killed. But sure enough, without any
scrolling necessary, a large e-mail link was safely up ““
“Report a Hate Crime” it blared, and gave the address
[email protected].
Well, thank goodness somebody was considering the possibility of
anti-Muslim sentiment in the days following the attack! I
can’t recall any other Americans warning that turning on our
own would give a further victory to the terrorists.
Of course the link was absolutely necessary ““ without this
resource for reporting a hate crime by e-mail, the victims might
have had to turn to the police, who, as we all know, routinely turn
a blind eye to petty crimes like shootings and firebombings.
And thanks to hate crime legislation, it was also ensured that
crimes motivated by dislike for the victim’s ethnicity would
be, to coin a phrase, “more equal than others.” Murder
is just murder ““ but murder because of the victim’s
ethnicity is of course a more heinous deed than one motivated by
the mere desire to empty a wallet.
The hate crimes e-mail link, promoting and legitimizing that
peculiarly leftist invention, was in typical bad taste, and
demonstrated the general cant of student journalism at UCLA. Never
mind charitable relief organizations or 6,000 dead in the rubble of
the World Trade Center. The horrifying possibility that a single
Muslim might get the stink-eye while out in public would obviously
be the only real crime arising from the events of the past
weeks.