In 1994 a “Jewish Settler” walked into a mosque and gunned down Arab worshippers. Media generally referred to Dr Baruch Goldstein as a “Jewish Settler” or a “crazed gunman”. One can still find old media references to him on the net. His doctor status was shocking but it was not the main thrust of the media labels at the time.
In July 2007 news headlines spoke of non-white terrorists with medical qualifications as:
Doctors caught in UK terror plot net (Sydney Morning Herald)
An Iraqi Doctor was led into court . . . (CBS)
We all know from near daily reminders that the horror of these men is that they are “doctors” — sworn to do no harm to life.
Yet one must question why the doctor status of the white American Jewish terrorist and mass killer was not so forcefully accentuated.
One is reminded of the Children Overboard mendacity of a few years ago — the Howard government finding a ready reception among the larger population to think of Arabs as somehow beyond the pale of humanity — without any of the normal standards of decency.
A Jewish killer is primarily a crazed gunman or jewish settler and his doctor status is secondary, almost apologetically applied; an Arab killer, if a doctor, is an Arab who knows no normal bounds of ethics — he is all the more evil for being a doctor.
As long as the western media continues to be oblivious to its implicit racism towards much of the Islamic world it will be supporting the imperialist attitudes and policies that are now after about a century are finally beginning to “blowback” on us.
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