Two years ago Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times got in trouble when she observed that Palestinians in Gaza were “ho-hum” about their children’s deaths. Well it turns out she was warm: Israelis and Americans are “ho-hum” about Palestinian children’s deaths. Former NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg went to Israel to accept a “Jewish values” prize and in a long article in the New York Times, there wasn’t one word about the killings of two unarmed Palestinian youths a week before at a demonstration, a story that has gone round the world.
From the Times, the award:
Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman who served three terms as mayor of New York, was the one receiving — and then returning — the first-ever Genesis Prize, which honors achievement steeped in what it calls “Jewish values.”
Instead of pocketing what to him might be considered pocket change, Mr. Bloomberg and the Genesis organization announced a global competition with 10 prizes of $100,000 available to entrepreneurs ages 20 to 36 with big ideas, also based on Jewish values, to better the world…
What are Bloomberg’s Jewish values?
Mr. Bloomberg, 72, visited Israel frequently while in office, and he has donated millions of dollars to Jerusalem institutions, financing a hospital wing named for his mother and an ambulance center named for his father…
Mr. Bloomberg said his religiously observant parents had inculcated Jewish values around the dinner table, and he identified those qualities Thursday night as “freedom, justice, service, ambition, innovation.”
“The values I learned from my parents are probably the same values that, I hope, Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists learned from their parents,” he said at an earlier appearance. “They’re all centered around God put us on Earth and said we should take care of each other. We have an obligation not to just talk about it but to actually do it.”
Freedom and justice? But that’s what those young men want who were at the Nakba Day demonstration last week. Shouldn’t Jews be talking about that? I think they should.
Jay Leno was there too. Hosting the prize ceremony. I guess Americans are ho-hum about Palestinian children’s deaths, too:
Mr. Leno, 64, is not Jewish and had not been to Israel before Tuesday, when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This is just like a Hollywood awards show but with fewer Jews,” Mr. Leno cracked Thursday night. Taking note of the preshow buffet featuring falafel, gefilte fish, goulash and roast lamb, which was billed as “Jewish cuisine from around the world,” Mr. Leno said it was “what is known in New York as a deli.”
He made light of the recent sentencing of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to six years in prison for taking bribes, but avoided the political minefield of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians except to say that the “least popular boys’ name” is “John Kerry,” a reference to the secretary of state.
More Jewish values:
Candidates for the $100,000 prize [announced by Bloomberg with his prize money] need not be Jewish, though the video promoting it showcased an all-Jewish cast of achievers, including Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Marc Chagall, Levi Strauss, Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Silverman.
Again: not a word about the killings of two Palestinian youths protesting an illegal occupation, days before. A shame.
“Israelis and Americans are ho-hum about Palestinian children’s deaths”
They are largely ‘ho- hum’ about ANY Palestinian deaths………….
Or any Arab/Muslim/African deaths anywhere…
Not just ‘a shame’, it is shameful. The end result of a deliberate campaign of Islamophobia/GWOT run amok.
Phil — you missed the creme de la creme! (So to speak.)
“The values I learned from my parents are probably the same values that, I hope, Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists learned from their parents,” he said.
HE HOPES?!?!? He hopes other children have been taught, by their parents, the same values? Values that would enable them to visit a country the whole world sees as in blatant violation of international law, a country whose soldiers get to kill rock-throwing children w impunity — and did just that week! — and not say a word about it?
Wow. And I thought Giuliani was bad.
Let me remind the commenters here about another brutal murder that took place, which was another example of the ho-hum reaction by the zionist media in the US, and conveniently forgotten, even when similar murders take place:
Iman Darweesh Al Hams (1991 – 5 October 2004) was a 13-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fire near a military observation post in a “no-man’s” zone near the Philadelphi Route on 5 October 2004, inRafah in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF commander of the soldiers who shot her was accused by his comrades and Palestinian witnesses of using automatic fire to deliberately shoot her repeatedly, a subject which was brought into investigation.[1] During trial, he expressed no regret over his actions and said he would have done the same even if the girl was a 3-year-old.[2] Human rightsgroups cite her death as one of several incidents which illustrate a “culture of impunity” in the IDF.[3] Some key witnesses later recanted their testimony.[4] The commander was charged with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by an Israeli military court but was found not guilty.[5] Later a Jerusalem district court found the claim that he had shot her multiple times to verify her death to be libelous and required the journalist and television company who had circulated the report to air a correction.[6]
Overview of the incident
Soldiers said they opened fire on the girl because they initially thought she was planting a bomb,[7] although the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat.[8] After she was hit, soldiers claimed the unit’s commanding officer went up to her and kept on shooting her,[9] despite their pleas to stop.[7] No explosives or weapons were found on the girl’s body.[10] A search of her bag revealed that it was filled with textbooks.[11]
The soldiers then explained how while Iman was lying wounded about 70 m from the Israeli guard post, the commander fired two bullets at her head from close range.[13] They also stated that the commander returned to her body again, put his weapon on the automatic setting, and emptied his entire magazine into her body, disregarding their objections over the walkie-talkie.[13] One of the soldiers said:
“We couldn’t believe what he had done. Our hearts ached for her. Just a 13-year-old girl … How do you spray a girl from close range? He was hot for a long time to take out terrorists and shot the girl to relieve pressure.”
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_Darweesh_Al_Hams
Some who wear the uniform of Israel’s armed forces, seems sadistic, and criminally insane.
A real danger to unarmed, occupied people, who are under their mercy.
They seem to get away with their ruthless crimes, and found not guilty.
Ho-hum all right.
Mostly, I’m not surprised. Israeli Jews and Americans simply don’t care that these boys were murdered in cold blood. In fact, I would bet that the majority would either approve of it as cold blooded murder (“meh, they’re not Jews, just Arabs, so their lives are meaningless.”) or would make excuses, even where those excuses are patently false (“oh, they must have been terrorists who were a threat.”)
Phil, you keep referencing “Jewish values” on this site and expressing dismay that those values aren’t exercised when it comes to the Palestinians. Frankly, from what I can see, the vast majority of the world’s Jews don’t give a damn about those values, except to pay lip service to them, when doing so would benefit the Palestinians.
“Phil, you keep referencing “Jewish values” on this site and expressing dismay that those values aren’t exercised when it comes to the Palestinians. Frankly, from what I can see, the vast majority of the world’s Jews don’t give a damn about those values, except to pay lip service to them, when doing so would benefit the Palestinians.”
I agree, Woody. Phil, what are “Jewish values?” This seems very tribal and narrow. Most religions in the world have similar values and laws for right behavior. If anything, as Woody has said, the majority of the world’s Jews have demonstrated contempt for these values by condoning (through words, deeds or silence) the almost 70 year genocide in Palestine. imo, as a non-Jew, the ONLY Jews with any moral authority to speak about Jewish values are those who have condemned the creation of israel, ethnic cleansing and it’s crimes against humanity from its inception- groups such as Neturei Karta http://www.nkusa.org/. If you want to have a discussion of values that should apply to everyone, from the perspective of Jewish religious teachings, I recommend that you interview Rabbi Weiss of Neturei Karta. He and many others in his organization have been outspoken against zionism since its inception and have been persecuted by the larger Jewish community for upholding Jewish values.