Israel judged by double standard

From The Calgary Sun, August 5, 2007, by EZRA LEVANT ...

Lebanese attack Muslim guerrillas with no concerns about Western public opinion

TEL AVIV -- A Western ally in the Middle East, armed with U.S. weapons, attacked Muslim guerrillas in a Palestinian refugee camp last week, killing seven.

Is that big news? The answer, this time, is "no".

No Western newspaper has run a banner headline about a "massacre," no emergency meetings of the United Nations have been convened, and Canada's deep thinkers on human rights, Michael Ignatieff and Louise Arbour, have not declared the military action to be a war crime.
That's because the Western ally rooting out terrorists was Lebanon, not Israel.

Since May 20, Lebanon has been engaged in a mini-civil war against Fatah al-Islam, which is just what it sounds like -- a Muslim terrorist group, holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp called Narh el-Bared. Killing Palestinians, including Palestinian terrorists, is normally fodder for at least half a dozen UN resolutions, investigations and accusations, and plenty of harrumphing from the CBC, BBC and Globe and Mail.

But only if the ones rooting out the terrorist are Israelis -- that is, Jews.
Lebanon's army is no different in any respect, other than that one fact.
Like Israel, it is a democratic state that is threatened by Muslim terrorists.
Like Israel, Lebanon is backed by the West.
It has recently received military aid from the U.S.

Lebanon's military action has been less careful than Israel, which would never have used artillery to root out terrorists from populated areas like refugee camps as Lebanon has done.
The Lebanese are not as concerned about the niceties of Western public opinion -- and the yawning silence of the West's scolds in the face of 200 casualties shows that Lebanon's assessment of the fickle nature of the media and the UN is accurate.

.....So, why the double standard?

Why are military strikes by Israel news, but not those by Lebanon?
Why is an Arab killed by a Jew news, but not an Arab killed by an Arab?
Why did the UN intervene to save Hezbollah from Israel, but the world shrug in apathy -- no, actually send arms -- to support Lebanon against another terrorist group?

There can be no other explanation beside an anti-Israel bias in the newsrooms and diplomatic salons of the world. This is no revelation; reading the speeches of Arab diplomats at the UN, or the official press of a dozen Muslim dictatorships is like reading old Nazi propaganda.

That explains the bias of the UN, Arabia and its shills.

But it surely cannot explain the double standard here at home of a hundred Canadian newspaper editors and TV producers.

Can it?