The horrific story of the Jordanian hotel bombings has had legs way beyond your average case of Islamofascist mass murder. We’ve seen continuing coverage in the world media of various aspects and repercussions, biographical backgrounds on the bombers, protests by Muslims and candle light vigils, the New York Times actually using the world “evil” to describe the nature of what took place; even a personal visit to the scene by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Of-course the despicable nature of the murders justifies this kind of attention, but I must admit to wondering why this particular atrocity has garnered so much more of it than comparable cases of continuing Islamist violence in Iraq, Bangladesh, Israel, Indonesia - and, well, you name it. That it was largely Muslims being killed by fellow Muslims is one angle, but obviously that’s happening on a daily basis in Iraq. Literally thousands of Shia have been killed by the al-Qaeda/Sunni insurgency in that country.

Well, today’s column by Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun makes it all clearer for me, drawing out as he does the particular ramifications of this event for Palestinians.

A suicide bombing in Hadera, Israel, on October 26 that killed five people inspired the usual Palestinian joy: Some 3,000 people took to the streets in celebration, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” calling for more suicide attacks against Israelis, and congratulating the “martyr’s” family on the success of the attack.

But Palestinian Arabs were uncharacteristically morose after three explosions went off on November 9, killing 57 persons and injuring hundreds, in Amman, Jordan. That’s because, for the very first time, they found themselves the main victim of those same Islamist “martyrs.”

The massacre at a wedding in the Radisson SAS hotel ballroom took the lives of 17 family members attending the nuptials of what the London Times called a Palestinian Arab “golden couple, beloved of their prominent Palestinian families and friends.” The bombing also killed four Palestinian Authority officials, notably Bashir Nafeh, head of military intelligence on the West Bank.

After two decades of doling out this horror against Israelis, some of whom were also attending festive events (a Passover dinner, a Bar Mitzvah), Palestinian Arabs, who form a majority of the Jordanian population, unexpectedly found themselves on the receiving end.

And, guess what: They did not like it.

You may remember the statement that “al-Qaeda in Iraq” made immediately after the bombings, saying they had carefully selected the targets since they were:

“a backyard garden for the enemies of the religion, Jews and Crusaders … a filthy place for traitors … and a center for prostitution.”

That had to give the bereaved Palestinian elites and their allies a particularly warm feeling.

So, clearly a strategic error by Zarqawi and friends; a case of callous and vicious butchery that is actually being characterized that way, almost universally … as indeed it should, along with all the cases where the victims are not Palestinian.

There can only be one ultimate explanation for all this, of-course.

“The explosions in Jordan are a suspicious matter. Most probably the Zionist regime (Israel) was behind them,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters yesterday.

The times they ain’t a-changin’ that much.

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