Blowback: The Times has a fine report on Human Khalil abu Mulal al-Balawi, the Jordanian doctor who killed 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan, that relates his rage over the Gaza massacres. More evidence of the absence of official accountability. Unless and until the U.S. acknowledges the merits of the Goldstone report, there will, alas, continue to be violent outbursts of this character. The Times:
"He [Balawi’s brother] described Mr. Balawi as a “very good brother” and a “brilliant doctor,” saying that the family knew nothing of Mr. Balawi’s writings under a pseudonym on jihadi Web sites. He said, however, that his brother had been “changed” by last year’s three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians.
The brother said that Mr. Balawi was arrested by the Jordanian authorities after volunteering with medical organizations to treat wounded Palestinians in Gaza. The family is itself of Palestinian origin, from a tribe in the Beersheba region."
I wonder how long the mainstream media will continue to treat this angle as a sidelight and not a main event. 9/11, the recent Fort Hood massacre, the murder of Bobby Kennedy– all had a Palestinian angle. Still the dots remain unconnected, the elephant unreported. Now it feels like the third intifada has started, and it’s a global one. Something’s got to give. It’s time for Chris Matthews and Jon Stewart to end the hypocrisy.
