I Dare Call It Treason

I expect to see a lot of ineptitude from the Israeli media, but this dropped even my jaw to the floor. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gave Op-Ed space to Ahmed Yousef, a purported "senior political advisor to the foreign minister in the Hamas government." That sounds all official and statesman-like, doesn't it? I would refer to him as nothing more than a barbaric member of a mass-murdering terror gang, but that's the difference between Ha'aretz and me, I guess. (I can't help but wonder how many junior political advisors there are to the foreign minister in the Hamas government, but we'll save that chuckle for another day).

Nevertheless, the issue is not the veil that Ha'aretz throws over this murderer to make him seem like something other than a barbarian. It's that they gave him any space at all to spew his propaganda and to justify his mass murder. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the specifics of Israeli law when it comes to treason. I do know that the United States Constitution, which has one of the strictest definitions of treason in the world, speaks of providing aid and comfort to an enemy of the state during a time of war.

Nobody can rationally dispute that Israel is at war with Hamas, which denies its right to exist and claims the right to lob missiles and bombs at civilians without even the pretext of a military target. What greater aid and comfort can one provide to an enemy than giving him space in your own newspaper to disseminate his propaganda? I can only imagine what the reaction would have been if the London Times had opened up its editorial page to Joachim Von Ribbentrop in 1943. This is no different. Say what you will about Newsday or the New York Times, but they would never open up their Op-Ed page to Ayman Al-Zawahri.

This is sickening, and it is probably a serious crime at that. In a sane world, the person or people that made this decision to give the enemy space for his propaganda would be immediately arrested. But as I've said, we live in Bizzaro World. And in Bizzaro World, treason is cool, I guess.