THE OUTRAGE OF SO MANY OUTRAGED PEOPLE OUTRAGES ME

Why is the world frightened by Israeli bombs alone?

The French philosopher and writer André Glucksmann asked this question in an article which originally appeared in Le Figaro on August 8, 2006. It was translated and published in The New Republic under the title "THE JERUSALEM SYNDROME" [the article is available to subscribers only]

It begins:

"The outrage of so many outraged people outrages me. On the scales of world opinion, some Muslim corpses are light as a feather, and others weigh tons. Two measures, two weights. The daily terrorist attacks on civilians in Baghdad, killing 50 people or more, are checked off in reports under the heading of miscellaneous, while the bomb that took 28 lives in Qana is denounced as a crime against humanity. Only a few intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Lévy or Magdi Allam, editor of Corriere della Sera, find this surprising. Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200 times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don't count - whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the West? This conclusion has its weak spots, because if the Russian Army - Christian, and blessed by its popes - razes the capital of Chechen Muslims (Grozny, with 400,000 residents), killing tens of thousands of children in the process, this doesn't count, either. The U.N. Security Council does not hold meeting after meeting, and the Organization of Islamic States piously averts its eyes. From that, we may conclude that the world is appalled only when a Muslim is killed by Israelis."

That's just the start.

It's well worth the read.