Melanie Phillips is an award-winning British journalist, who started out on the left and, over time, became more and more disillusioned by that side and has, in recent years, become more conservative in her thinking and writing.
Her latest commentary, just published in the New York Post (what? did you expect it in The Times???) is an excellent analysis of the hypocrisy so many leftists display in their juxtaposition of Israel and the rest of the world – in this case, Iran.
Here is how it begins:
Iranian protesters are showing courage in the face of tyranny — but Israel-obsessed liberals don’t seem to care
As the Iranian uprising continues to escalate, it’s been reported that hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime’s security forces.
The internet, phone signals and lighting have been cut, and it’s feared the killings are intensifying behind the blackout.
Yet the Iranian people have increasingly poured onto the streets to confront the regime’s murder and torture squads. There’s never been such a mass display of raw courage in the teeth of such vicious repression.
If the regime does fall, this will be a seismic event, reshaping the region and world politics. The insurrection might be the most consequential global event so far this century. Yet from Western liberals, there’s been little more than pursed lips.
There have been no demonstrations in support of the embattled protesters. People who screamed falsehoods about Israel’s “massacres” of women and children in Gaza have been struck totally dumb about the carnage of civilians being deliberately wrought in Iran.
Most Western media initially ignored the Iranian insurrection, then downplayed it as mere “cost of living” protests, and then began to amplify regime propaganda claims.
The reason is that the uprising is not just against the regime but against the repressive tyranny of Islam itself. This is intolerable to Western liberals, because it gets in the way of their fixed narrative that, when Islamists commit mass murder against the innocent, it’s justified resistance against Western-backed imperialism.
Such liberals simply cannot acknowledge the reality of Islamic terrorism and repression.
Their belief that the Israelis and Western imperialism are always the villains, and Muslims are always their victims, is essential to their self-image as morally virtuous people.
Is that true? Is looking the other way and rejecting what is actually happening in Iran compared to Israel/Gaza a required activity for leftists to convince themselves of their own virtue?
I’m sure there are people Ms. Phillips’ analysis does not apply to – just as I am sure there are very good, very decent Somalian refugees in Minnesota.
But I am equally sure that – like Somalian involvement in welfare and child care fraud – she is right so much of the time that the point she makes is entirely valid.
In any event, there is her analysis. You are the final judge and arbiter of what you personally believe. Did Melanie Phillips, for the most part, get this right?
That’s your call. You’ve already got mine.
