Ya think?

I was trolling through the internet this morning and came upon a New York Times article entitled “In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace.” Hmm, insults . . . . Are those things like “You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny,” or “Those jeans make you look fat,” or “This is the shoddiest piece of work I’ve ever seen,” or “You’re doing a terrible job.” No, no, no. These “insults” have a richer flavor that makes them sound a little more like, well, yes, death threats:

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

I was all ready to write a long, snide post about the New York Times mind set that turns death threats into insults, and then thinks that it’s inexplicable that Jews would let a little thing like these “insults” get in the way of making nice with their neighbors. Just as I put my fingers to the keyboard, though, I found that Rick Moran got there ahead of me:

I wish President Obama all the luck in the world talking to these fanatical haters. Perhaps his pure goodness will so unsettle the thugs that they will realize the error of their ways and embrace their Jewish neighbors in friendship and peace.

More likely, they’ll spit in his eye and send a child to blow up a nursery school. But as long as the New York Times thinks that blood libels against Jews “complicates” Israel’s decision to defend itself against such hatred, there will be pressure brought to bear on the Jewish state to strike a deal with these murderous terrorists.

My sentiments exactly.