THEY JUST DON'T HURT LIKE WE DO

Marty Peretz:

I actually believe that Arabs are feigning outrage when they protest what they call American (or Israeli) "atrocities." They are not shocked at all by what in truth must seem to them not atrocious at all. It is routine in their cultures. That comparison shouldn't comfort us as Americans. We have higher standards of civilization than they do. But the mutilation of bodies and beheadings of people picked up at random in Iraq does not scandalize the people of Iraq unless victims are believers in their own sect or members of their own clan. And the truth is that we are less and less shocked by the mass death-happenings in the world of Islam. Yes, that's the bitter truth. Frankly, even I--cynic that I am--was shocked in the beginning by the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq. But I am no longer surprised. And neither are you.

Memo to Peretz: Listen, you racist gasbag: It's bad enough that your commitment to ideology has perverted your intellect to the point where you can casually consign millions of people to a lifetime of suffering by telling yourself, and us, that "it's their culture." It's bad enough that you're either too stupid or just don't care to recognize the classic tropes of anti-Semitism that constantly appear in your own hate-filled leavings. It's bad enough that we live in a society where a loudmouthed bigot can marry an heiress, use her money buy himself a magazine, install himself as editor-in-chief, and be considered an authority on anything, by anyone. But don't you ever, ever, presume to speak for me.