It took them almost two weeks, but the Jerusalem Post finally apologized for the crazy editorial in which the paper called upon its readers to use the opportunity created by Anders Brievik’s terror attack to discuss Europe’s immigration policies.
Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere.
Better late than never, I guess. Still, even in this apology there is an interesting passage in which the Post struggle to deal with Brievik’s passionate endorsement of Zionism, and of some of the radical rightwing positions expressed by the Post’s own writers (He even cited deputy-editor Caroline Glick):
As Senior Contributing Editor Caroline B. Glick suggested in her column last Friday, the fact that Breivik’s warped mind cited a group of conservative thinkers including herself as having influenced his thinking in no way reflects on them.
“As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote. “Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.”
It later emerged that Breivik, a Christian radical, had posted on the Internet an extremely anti-Muslim manifesto that supported far-right nationalism and Zionism.
He apparently feared that a “Muslim colonization” of Europe would destroy Norway.
As Always, wise words from Glick. I am sure she applies the same standards when it’s necessary to separate Islam, for example, from the positions endorsed by certain terrorists. Or to tell the difference between support for the people of Gaza from endorsement of military actions taken by Hamas. I am positive that in such cases Glick shows the same restraint she now preaches for.
