22-Dec-15: Has a Hamas terror insider just been thrown out of Turkey?

Al-Arouri addresses a global gathering of Islamic scholars in Istanbul's
Cevahir Hotel, August 20, 2014, and claims credit on behalf of Hamas
for the abduction and murder of three Israeli boys in Gush Etzion
some weeks earlier [Screen shot]

If the name Saleh Mohammad Suleiman Al-‘Arouri is not familiar to you, it should be.

Saleh Al-Arouri is in the news this evening because, according to reports published today, the senior terrorist, Hamas politbureau member and Islamist preacher has just been expelled from Turkey. News reports today say this is in accordance with an Israeli request in the context of the re-normalization of relations between the two countries. But there are differing versions of what has just happened.

According to the Ynet version today,

Israel established al-Arouri's expulsion from the country as a condition for achieving full reconciliation between Ankara and Jerusalem. Al-Arouri's "voluntary" departure was agreed upon during the meeting between Hamas' political chief, Khaled Mashal and Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last Saturday. Nevertheless, Erdogan clarified to close associates that he had no intention of closing Hamas' offices in Turkey and would not stop his financial and moral support of Hamas, as Israel requested...  It was also agreed upon that al-Arouri would be expelled from Turkey and that talks about laying a gas pipeline between Israel and Turkey would soon begin. [Hamas leader expelled from Turkey | Ynet, December 22, 2015]

One of the founders of Hamas, Al-Arouri is a veteran of Israel's prison system where he spent 15 (some say 18) years. On release in 2007, he was expelled to Syria. Hamas' offices in Syria were shut down in 2012, at which point he and several terrorist colleagues were welcomed to Turkey. We have had occasion to write several times about the savagery over which he presided from there:

• 11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising
• 27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved
• 30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters
• 11-Sep-14: Freeing terrorists: The price in human lives lost and in justice perverted keeps getting clearer

On August 20, 2014, speaking from the principal dais at a gathering in Istanbul of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Al-Arouri publicly confessed that Hamas was behind the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenage boys some weeks earlier, an act of terror that ignited passions right across the spectrum of Israeli public opinion. (The global association of "scholars" has its own YouTube channel. His speech, in Arabic with English-language subtitles, is online.)

It seems Turkey's decision to separate itself from Al-Arouri is not intended for full disclosure, if Ynet's sources are right:

Turkish media were asked Monday to not publish the reason for al-Arouri's expulsion from the country. Newspaper editors were told that the official reason given would be that he left of his "own free will"... [Ynet]

The same sources say the terrorist is likely to take up residence in Qatar where several of his Hamas colleagues are luxuriously ensconced already, or - which seems less likely - in Lebanon.

The Jerusalem Post offers a different take. Quoting Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper, it says today that Al-Arouri left Turkey several months ago "so as not to embarrass Turkey, which was facing big pressure from Israel and the US Administration”, and is now "shuttling between Qatar and Lebanon... The source also denied that Turkey had banned Al-Arouri from entering the country".

In Turkey, credible reports have been circulating for months that Al-Arouri had already moved elsewhere. Hurriyet Daily News, in an August 12, 2015 report headlined "Hamas leader Arouri not in Turkey" quoted officials from that country's foreign ministry saying not only that he was no longer a resident of Turkey but never had been. The same report quotes Israel's Channel 10 News saying in early August pretty much what Ynet and the Jerusalem Post have reported as news today - that

Turkey had bowed to pressure by the United States and ordered al-Arouri, who Israel has accused of organizing terrorist attacks in the West Bank, to leave the country... [Hurriyet, August 12, 2015]

Why did Turkey agree? Because, according to the August 2015 report, that was one of the Western prerequisites for Turkey’s entry into the coalition of forces fighting ISIS. (Personally, we're not persuaded.)

A respected Turkish newspaper, Today's Zaman, tells things over a little differently, asserting that

Turkey and Israel have agreed that Salah al-Arouri, a senior leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, who has been living in Turkey will not be allowed to operate from there...  The AK Party's recent change of heart towards the Israelis came after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signaled when returning from a trip to Turkmenistan earlier in December that the region would benefit from Turkey and Israel's rapprochement... ["Turkey says talks to mend ties with Israel positive, no change in preconditions", Today's Zaman, December 22, 2015]

Whatever the fine details, if the Islamist savage is now involuntarily on the move and no longer able to call Turkey home, we can hope something good might yet come of it.

10-Jun-13: The terrorists and the eye of the beholder

Atwan last week: Click here for the video clip

We have just viewed a short video clip [here] of an Egyptian television interview translated from Arabic to English on (and by) the excellent MEMRI website.

In it, Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of a London-based Arabic paper called Al-Quds Al-Araby ("Arab Jerusalem"), speaks about one of his favourite themes, Osama Bin Laden and how he was not what people think he was.

MEMRI headlines the video: "Bin Laden Was Only Half a Terrorist". It went to air a week ago.

If you support the Palestinian resistance, you do not consider [Bin Laden's attacks] terrorism. But if you are with America, Europe, and Israel, you do consider it terrorism. It depends on your definition of terrorism... Whoever fights America and its enterprise in the region, and whoever fights Israel and the American occupation, is not considered a terrorist by me... Are you trying to destroy me [spoken to the interviewer while laughing happily]?

We have written here several times before about Abdel Bari Atwan. For instance, "18-Oct-12: This is not an attack on Abdel Bari Atwan"; "4-Dec-10: Should this man be accorded the respect due to an objective, professional journalist?"; and "16-Mar-08: The unindicted co-conspirators".

The man's terrorism-friendly views, his repeated public embrace of the language of racism, should not take him outside the circle of viewpoints that get to be heard in open, democratic societies like ours. His values may be what they are, but that's no reason to let them impact on ours. He is what he is and his very publicly applying the term "Uncle Tom" to the current US president - as one example among many - should not change that.

Even as we watch him giggling [here] at the Egyptian interviewer's questions about Bin Laden and the very flexible way he approaches the question of who is and who is not a terrorist, it's worth reminding ourselves that this should not be a reason for suppressing his voice. On the contrary: we need to hear voices like that of Atwan; it speaks for a large constituency. It's authentic and it is representative. If more people would view last week's TV interview, then more would understand the depths of the man's cynicism and the hypocrisy, prejudice and hatred that inform it.

Our problem with Atwan is the free ride he gets in the respectable media. Why this happens is not entirely a puzzle, but bothersome nonetheless. We think anyone who reads English translations of his Arabic outbursts will ask themselves how he keeps getting invited back as some sort of objective regional expert.

Relative to the repugnance of his views, Atwan gets an astonishing amount of respect in the television, radio and newsprint world. Note the quality of the venues that regularly give him a platform: BBC News over and again; Al Jazeerah; BBC Dateline; BBC News Review; RT ("Russia Today"); Chatham House London; The Guardian, The Scottish Herald, Gulf News and others. Amnesty International is among the world-class not-for-profits that provide Atwan with a thoroughly unjustified and damaging megaphone.  

Please take a moment to watch Atwan chortle here about Bin Laden

"He was half a terrorist (laughs). He was fighting for some causes... When he was fighting the US... he was not a terrorist. That is my view."

Half a year ago, we wrote (in "18-Oct-12: This is not an attack on Abdel Bari Atwan"):

We don't say Atwan should be shut up or shut out. Many of us live in free societies, and obnoxious views like his are part of the price. What we do say is that presenting him as a sober and objective stakeholder in the robust public marketplace of ideas is irresponsible, dishonest and disingenuous. His viewpoints on terrorism alone should have been enough to remove him from mainstream broadcast media years ago. The fact that he keeps on popping up suggests a serious degree of systemic prejudice at work inside Bush House and other such places of huge global influence.

Not comprehending what terrorism is and what it does to us is far from a rhetorical or atmospheric issue. Atwan is not the problem. He's a mere symptom, and the problem is lethal.

10-Nov-12: Diplomacy, resistance and bringing the Oslo accords to an end

Abbas Zaki speaking candidly on Al Jazeera's
Arabic edition September 23, 2011 [Video Source]

If you are interested in seeing the generations-long conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory of Israel, Palestine and Jordan move towards a peaceful solution, you might find the developments of this past week a touch depressing.

Palestinian Authority officials went public this week with declarations that they plan to seek non-member statehood status at the United Nations over the objections of American, European, and Israeli diplomats. Khaled Abu Toameh writing in the Jerusalem Post [here] quotes Palestinian Authority officials saying the PA will ask for a UN vote soon, possibly on November 15 or 29.



Abbas Zaki (that's him over on the right), who at an earlier stage earned his living as the Palestine Liberation Organization's man in Lebanon and today serves on Fatah's central committee, is quoted this week in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Araby newspaper saying

"Once we become a recognized state, we will go to all UN agencies to force the international community to take legal action against Israel..." 

What does he mean?

Abu Toameh explains that the move "violates decades of Palestinian commitments to pursuing peace with Israel from within a bilateral framework". He quotes Zaki saying the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel

"will cease to exist the day after the UN votes in favor of upgrading the status of a Palestinian state to non-member... November 15 marks the anniversary of the declaration of a Palestinian state in Algeria in 1988. November 29 marks "International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinians..." Zaki said that once the status of a Palestinian state is upgraded, the Palestinians would be able to pursue Israel for "war crimes" in the International Criminal Court."

Leaving the fighting words aside, there are other voices among the Palestinian Arabs who understand the downside. A TIP analysis published Friday says 

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is known to be against the move, and was even rumored to have resigned in protest of the pursuit. Fayyad is said to be concerned that Palestinian unilateralism will trigger withdrawals of American and Israeli financial support, causing severe economic contractions in the West Bank.

Financial support is one thing. But we think there's another that is more important. TIP says the PA's muscle-flexing (our expression, not theirs) raises doubts about the credibility of

repeated assertions by Palestinian leaders that their unilateral U.N. campaign is designed to enhance rather than damage peace talks. Zaki's words will more specifically reinforce concerns that Palestinians intend to use unilateral statehood a pretext for abandoning the Israeli-Arab peace process, risking widespread regional destabilization, and as a mechanism for waging diplomatic warfare against Israel, potentially politicizing and undermining international law... PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Ra'fat warned that Israeli diplomatic retaliation would permit Palestinians to "escalate popular resistance," rhetoric considered by analysts to be a euphemism for terrorism against Israel.

You might want to review some background ["Violence for adults"], courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch, about what the PA and its leadership mean when they talk about "resistance". It throws some light on what some Israelis mean when they say, with no small justification, that there is no partner on the Palestinian Arab side, for peace.

This seal is attached to the
PA's letter this week to UN States
[the letter in PDF form is here]

The PA has circulated a letter, still unpublished [you can see it online here as a PDF - hat tip to CHA and Inner City Press; and here as text], drafted by the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN. It describes Palestine's non-member statehood status move and outlines the delegation's requirements. It starts with a long list of formalistic platitudes, like 

"stressing the importance of maintaining and strengthening international peace founded upon freedom, equality, justice and respect for fundamental human rights... Affirming the right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders (etc)"

Resistance is not mentioned in their draft proposal. But it's worth noting that the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations (which issued the letter to the UN) used to be called something else [source]: the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.

Also recall what the same Abbas Zaki said when he last made minor headlines in the global media a year ago. Here's an excerpt from his interview with Al-Jazeera, aired on September 23, 2011 [the video with English subtitles courtesy of MEMI is here]

The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end... Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama... All those scumbags. Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset... If one says that one wants to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.  I want the resolutions that everybody agrees upon. 

Do you imagine the member states of the United Nations might care to see Zaki's commentary before making a decision on a PLO upgrade?

And if, against all the odds, they saw it, do you think it would change their view? Sadly, the outcome of multi-lateral debates criticizing Israel have been predictable for decades. Recall the wry insight of a past Israeli foreign minister and ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban, who said [source] with only a small degree of humour:

"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."

18-Oct-12: This is not an attack on Abdel Bari Atwan

The editorial page of today's "Al-Quds Al-Araby"

Nearly two years ago, here on this blog, we posted an article we called "4-Dec-10: Should this man be accorded the respect due to an objective, professional journalist?" 

It opened with these words:

As newspaper editors go, Abdel Bari Atwan gets more than the average amount of prominence. Given the nature of his political views, he gets a surprisingly respectable degree of respect from such mainstream media channels as NPR, Sky News, CNN and the BBC (who call him Abdel-Bari Atwan) which have hosted him frequently and which, for reasons which can only leave us wondering, present him as an objective observer on events in this part of the world...

We then quoted a small handful of offensive, racist and/or hate-based statements attributed to Atwan over a period of some years. (There are plenty to choose from.) We ended this way:

Atwan said the March 2008 point-blank, cold-blooded shooting-massacre by a Palestinian Arab gunman of eight unarmed high school students, most of them aged 15 or 16, at Jerusalem's Mercaz HaRav yeshiva "was justified"... Atwan says the celebrations in Gaza that followed the massacre symbolized "the courage of the Palestinian nation." [Source: The Jerusalem Post] Depending on where you stand, justifying a terrorist massacre is not the worst of crimes. On the other hand, given what is at stake when it comes to defeating the practitioners of terror and their supporters, is Abdel Bari Atwan the kind of person who should be given public platforms in highly prominent settings? Or is Abdel Bari Atwan simply the innocent victim of some atrocious misquoting? 

To be blunt, any intelligent observer reviewing the work product of this toxic man realizes it's not about misquoting. On his Wikipedia page, there's this revealing anecdote:

Following an October 2003 article in which Atwan claimed that the U.S. is to blame for the Arab world's hatred of it, a Yemenite journalist and columnist for the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Munir Al-Mawari, stated: "The Abd Al Bari Atwan [appearing] on CNN is completely different from the Abdel Bari Atwan on the Al Jazeera network or in his Al Quds Al Arabi daily. On CNN, Atwan speaks solemnly and with total composure, presenting rational and balanced views. This is in complete contrast with his fuming appearances on Al Jazeera and in Al Quds Al Arabi, in which he whips up the emotions of multitudes of viewers and readers." [Wikipedia's source]

Now, today, there's a report [Times of Israel] that Atwan's London-based daily paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, one of the world's leading Arab-language dailies and a news channel that focuses on Palestinian issues (the name literally means 'Arab Jerusalem'), has run an editorial entitled “The only thing left is to send them to the gas ovens.”

The piece is unsigned, but the Twitter handle of editor-in-chief Atwan (@abdelbariatwan) appears at the bottom. He dominates the paper as its editor since 1989. Here's a taste:

‘The Israeli army, through its inhumane treatment of over two million Palestinians besieged by land, sea and air, reminds us of similar treatment by the Nazi army of Jewish inmates in the Nazi camps. The only difference is that the Israeli army hasn’t sent the Palestinians to the gas ovens, at least not yet’

Holding out Israel's defence forces as equivalent to the Nazis, and their intentions as genocidal, is not his invention. Other foaming-at-the-mouth polemicists and unadorned antisemites do it a lot and have done for years. And as our title suggests, we're not attacking Atwan here. The man is what he is.

What we are taking this opportunity to criticize, this time with the disgusting Nazi analogy of today's Atwan editorial in mind, is the way in which this unpleasant individual with his noxious views continues to be given public platforms in respectable places.

We think this can only be because the people in those places (a) don't know what he writes in Arabic, (b) don't care or (c) share Atwan's self-opinion (on his website) that this is actually a function of his "lively and passionate debating style".

Examples of the respectable places that give Abdel Bari Atwan a platform? His website lists some of them here: BBC News (as recently as two weeks ago); Aljazeera; BBC Dateline; BBC News Review; RT ("Russia Today"); Chatham House London. 

His website describes him as "a regular contributor to a number of UK, US, Middle Eastern and Turkish publications including 'The Guardian', 'The Scottish Herald', 'Gulf News' and 'Star Gazet'". 

These are the people who need to be criticized. 

We don't say Atwan should be shut up or shut out. Many of us live in free societies, and obnoxious views like his are part of the price. 

But what we do say is that presenting him as a sober and objective stakeholder in the robust public marketplace of ideas is irresponsible, dishonest and disingenuous. His viewpoints on terrorism alone should have been enough to remove him from mainstream broadcast media years ago. The fact that he keeps on popping up suggests a serious degree of systemic prejudice at work inside Bush House and other such places of huge global influence.

4-Dec-10: Should this man be accorded the respect due to an objective, professional journalist?

Is Abdel al-Bari Atwan the kind of person who should be given
public platforms in highly prominent settings?  

As newspaper editors go, slick Abdel al-Bari Atwan gets more than the average amount of prominence.

Given the nature of his bluntly-expressed political views, he gets a surprising amount of respect from mainstream media channels including NPR, Sky News, CNN and the BBC (who call him Abdel-Bari Atwan) who host him frequently and which, for reasons which leave us wondering, present him as an objective observer on events in this part of the world.

Knowing what's on the public record (see an earlier blog article of ours: "16-Mar-08: The unindicted co-conspirators"), this might be surprising. He's far from objective as a cursory look at his output shows.

Mr. Atwan edits a London-based Arabic-language newspaper called Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The paper takes a robustly nationalistic Arab line and has several notable scoops to its name. In August 1996, it was the first to publish a fatwa, or declaration of war, "Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". The author was Osama bin Laden.

In October 2003, after Atwan wrote that the hatred directed towards the United States by the Arab world is the fault of the United States itself, a US-based, Yemenite journalist and liberal columnist called Munir Al-Mawari who writes for another London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, made some interesting observations:

"The Abd Al-Bari Atwan [appearing] on CNN is completely different from the Abd Al-Bari Atwan on the Al-Jazeera network or in his Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily. On CNN, Atwan speaks solemnly and with total composure, presenting rational and balanced views. This is in complete contrast with his fuming appearances on Al-Jazeera and in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, in which he whips up the emotions of multitudes of viewers and readers."

We have been pondering those two faces of Atwan since learning that he is going to be honored by being invited to lecture publicly at the London School of Economics this coming Monday. (Source: "Terror supporting' Arabic-daily editor to speak at LSE")

The honor extended to this rather edgy journalist has aroused some controvery. Indeed, on his own personal website (the one where he describes himself as a "highly respected author" - and he would certainly know), Atwan claims at least some the uglier quotations attributed to him are false:

"I did not say any of the things listed on the Wikipedia site... They are false allegations, part of a smear campaign against me".

So in the interests of an open public record, and in the hope that someone attending the Atwan lecture in London might get the great man to go on the record and actually repudiate them, here are some Atwan statements that can be found in various online locations.

On one hand:

"I do not endorse or in any way support al-Qa'ida's agenda… I utterly condemn the attacks on innocent citizens in the West". [Source: The Secret History of Al-Qa'ida, Abdel Bari Atwan, Abacus (2006), ISBN 978-0-34-912035-5, p1]

On the other:

"The events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power."
Source: BBC

Sadam Hussein (who murdered countless numbers of Arabs and Iraqi Kurds) should be honored for preserving "the unity of Iraq, its Arab and Islamic identity and the coexistence of its different communities". Source: Africa News, December 31, 2006

In the case of war, Iran will retaliate against its Arab neighbors, American bases in the Gulf and "Allah willing, it will attack Israel, as well... If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."
Source: Wikipedia, referring to an interview in Arabic on Lebanese ANB television station, June 27, 2007 (also referred to in this Jerusalem Post article). The actual video clip (in Arabic with English subtitles) can be seen here. (Keep in mind that Atwan explicitly denies he said what is recorded in this video. He calls them "false allegations, part of a smear campaign".)

Atwan said the March 2008 point-blank, cold-blooded shooting-massacre by a Palestinian Arab gunman of eight unarmed high school students, most of them aged 15 or 16, at Jerusalem's Merkaz HaRav yeshiva "was justified." Their school is to blame, Atwan claims, by "hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists". Atwan says the celebrations in Gaza that followed the massacre symbolized "the courage of the Palestinian nation." Source: The Jerusalem Post

Depending on where you stand, justifying a terrorist massacre is not the worst of crimes. On the other hand, given what is at stake when it comes to defeating the practitioners of terror and their supporters, is Abdel al-Bari Atwan the kind of person who should be given public platforms in highly prominent settings?

Or is Abdel al-Bari Atwan simply the innocent victim of some atrocious misquoting?

16-Mar-08: The unindicted co-conspirators

The frustration and sadness most Israelis feel in the face of acts of cold-blooded murder like the massacre of schoolboys (see "Terrorism. Their world. Our world.") at a religious seminary in Jerusalem is great.

Seeing how certain other people react makes those feelings even deeper.

Here's a striking example. The editor of an influential British Arab newspaper said yesterday that the celebrations in Gaza that followed the Merkaz Harav murders symbolized the "courage of the Palestinian nation." He is Abd al-Bari Atwan, the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi (pictured at right). If, like us, you frequently tune in to BBC World or CNN or SKY News, you'll likely recognize him; he frequently appears on all of them as a "moderate" analyst on news emanating from the Arab world and the Israel/Arab conflict.

Far from being a moderate or objective observer, this highly prejudiced individual has a long track record of partisan and deeply offensive statements directed against Israelis. The winner of Honest Reporting's 2007 Annual Award for Worst Pundit, he attracted attention in April 2007 for saying: "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."

What does yesterday's Bari Atwan statement say about his own people?

If it's true that the courage of the Palestinians is best symbolized by an armed man, carrying an Israeli identification and with an Israeli pay-check in his pocket, walking into a school library and aiming his sophisticated and powerful weapons deliberately and coldly at children, then that "courage" is not courage at all but mere religiously-inspired hatred and zealotry.

How much "courage", in the conventional sense of the word, did it take? He's hardly the first person to commit an act of suicide - this takes no courage. And he is not the first to couple his courage with his hatred. History is filled with examples of the power of hatred. It is not a function of courage but the opposite. Whatever it was that enabled the murderer to carry out the massacre of unarmed children, courage is the last word you ought to be reaching for. In a civilized world, the brutal shooting of unarmed children in a school library ought to be the last quality a nationalist like Atwan would want to attach to his people. But we've learned that civilized categories of behaviour and of politics don't always apply when people like Atwan take the stage.

When you call this hatred courage, you are inspiring others to do the same thing. And precisely this kind of moral confusion is what stands at the heart of the world's struggle against terror. For while some parts of our civilized societies call for action against the terrorists wherever they are, other parts of our civilized societies are encouraging it and making it a "safe" and understandable choice.

This editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi says he will not condemn the Jerusalem murders. In fact he's quite frank about the fact that he's OK with the killings (see "Mercaz Harav attack was justified"). That's his choice; it's hardly controversial. He joins the United Nations Security Council which could have come out with a firm denunciation of the massacre last week, but somehow did not (see "Libya blocks condemnation of Jerusalem attack").

Condemnation by itself achieves nothing. It has to be accompanied by action. But a deliberate failure to condemn inhuman actions like the massacre of the students in the Merkaz Harav library is a powerful and meaningful statement. It encourages, justifies and legitimizes the action and ensures there will be more in the future.

This is more than a moral failure. It is a criminal act of incitement for which our civilized societies apply legal sanctions.

Unfortunately the moral confusion which accompanies terrorism today will ensure that this British Arab journalist and many others like him will not only not be subject to sanctions but will continue doing damage as invited, objective "moderates", politely given airtime by uncritical, unquestioning program presenters.

For this, it is not possible to forgive the operators of BBC, Sky, CNN, Australia's ABC and other major media channels. Without them, Atwan would be just another in a depressingly long line of spewing partisans on one side of a very bad-tempered argument. But by giving this spokesperson for terror with a global platform and equipping him with the credentials of moderation, they are complicit in an appalling process. It's a process that threatens not only the lives of Israelis and our neighbours but also people in other places which are targeted by the global jihadists.

In other words, everyone.