Family of 17 Victims of Jordan Attack Unanimously Blames Israel

Newsweek photo misses irony of suicide bomb victims posing in front of suicide bomber photos

Approximately half the victims of last week's terror attack in Jordan were Palestinians, some Jordanian citizens and some residents of the West Bank. I watched the reactions in the Arab world and heard their denunciations of the bombing, but not even one person thought to compare the wanton slaughter of Jews and the wanton slaughter of Muslims. Most protested the fact that Muslims had the audacity to murder other Muslims, not over the fact that innocents were killed. The message was frighteningly clear: there is nothing wrong with terrorism in-and-of-itself. The mistake in the current instance was the religious makeup of the targets....

This warped logic has led Arab journalists and statesmen to blame Israel for terror attacks in Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh, for the pogrom Muslims carried out on the Copts in Egypt, for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and of course ? the September 11 attacks in the United States. One British reporter traveled to the West Bank village that was home to 17 of the victims. Near the mourning tent, he spoke to family members and asked them who they thought was responsible for the massacre. Every single one blamed Israel. They had internalized the message that Muslims wouldn't have murdered fellow Muslims, and so it must have been Israelis.