On the heels of ‘Blaming Israel for Abu Ghraib’:
In the Darfur region of Sudan, approximately 50,000 civilians have been murdered and more than 1 million displaced as a result of raids by Arab Janjaweed militias on the predominantly black African population of the province. The victimized black Sudanese believe that the Khartoum-based government of President Omar Hassan Bashir wants to give their land to his Janjaweed allies who, like him, are light-skinned Arab. The horrific genocide has been largely ignored until recently by major news outlets. Maariv’s Yaakov Ahimeir asks:
Perhaps the world’s timid reaction to the genocide in Sudan is because there is no Israeli angle, both the perpetrators and the victims are Moslems. Arabs killing blacks is less spicy than Israel building a barrier… Thousands of Moslem Africans are fleeing in the desert heat from Sudan into neighboring Chad. Every single man, woman, child and grandparent, scarred and hungry, has a personal tale of horror suffered at the hands of Arab oppression in Darfur.
Well, now there is an Israeli angle, and as outrageous as they come — the Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said he had ‘information that confirms media reports of Israeli support’ for the murderous clans and added he believed ‘a lot of Israeli contacts with the rebels’ would soon be revealed.
Moreover, the BBC World Service Radio’s main evening world news (August 3, 2004) played an unchallenged recorded interview concerning Sudan, in which it was stated that “the West under the influence of Zionism is pressuring Sudan while ignoring the dozens of people Israel massacres every day.”
Mark Steyn comments:
I see the next decade’s “Never again” story is here. Just as we all agreed the 1994 Rwandan genocide should never be allowed to happen again, so – in a year or two – we’ll all be agreed that another 2004 Sudanese genocide should never be allowed to happen again. But right now it is happening, and you can’t help wondering where all the great humanitarians are.
A letter-writer in response to Steyn’s article in the Australian asks:
Where are the 10 million protesters? Where’s the ISM? Where are the Rachel Corrie types? Are there going to be any human shields laying down in front of the janjaweed to protect the black farmers? Is it true that Sean Penn is planning a trip to the Darfur region to see if the Janjaweed are really as bad as the right-wing press claim?
The Arab League rejected any sactions against the Sudanese government, while the EU refuses to use the term ‘genocide’ to describe it.
(Hat tip: Tom Gross)
