NY pols' silence speaks volumes
Mum & dumb on pro-Hamas protests
PRO-terrorist demonstrators tried to cancel Christmas at Rockefeller Center Monday; there were scuffles, some arrests and a cop was injured — all in all, just another day in post-Oct. 7 Gotham.
So, what’s going on?
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have known. He saw things sooner than most, and he was among the first to note America’s growing tolerance for aberrative behavior. “Defining deviancy down” is what he called it — and that was three decades ago.
But what would the great man have thought about New York’s acquiescence in a slow-rolling celebration of Islamist terror — now about to enter a third month?
Defining depravity down, perhaps?
It was more than three years ago when New York responded to the looting of the iconic Herald Square Macy’s by painting political graffiti in front of Trump Tower — and then electing DAs who refuse even to prosecute shoplifters.
That was appalling, of course, but at least it was comprehensible: Everybody loves free stuff, the George Floyd riots were viewed as legit political acts — and New York politicians are notably more cowardly than most.
From bad to worse
But, of course, it always gets worse.
Consider that disgusting exhibition at Rock Center Monday evening, when hundreds of proIslamist demonstrators crowded in to mock one of Christianity’s holiest days — in support of Hamas, the perpetrators of 1,200 murders, and so much more, in Israel on Oct. 7.
Who targets Christmas Day for a celebration of coldly calculated mass murder, torture, hostage-taking and rape?
Can it get more depraved than that?
Perhaps. Who knows what these lovely folks are planning for New Year’s Eve.
Whatever it is, they reasonably can expect to get away with it. Official New York’s flaccid response to one pro-terrorist outburst after another — each a little more extreme, a bit more threatening — sends a most disappointing message.
Sure, the hard-pressed NYPD seems so far to be keeping things under control; it sure did at Rock Center on Monday.
And yes, people need to be free to demonstrate support for their causes — no matter how repulsive they may be.
But this has been going on for almost three months now; scarcely a day goes by without another rush-hour traffic disruption, a river-crossing blockade or a tourist-intimidating Midtown tantrum.
Moral cowardice
And all of it without strong moral censure from New York’s elected, religious or civic leadership.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announces that Jesus was Palestinian; or when a gaggle of city councilors show up wearing pro-Hamas T-shirts; or when iconic city celebrations are flamboyantly disrupted, you know whose side they are on.
Official disapprobation can be a powerful tool when it is deftly applied. But when it is warranted, yet doesn’t happen — well, that’s how depravity is defined down.
Pat Moynihan would weep over what has become of his hometown — but he saw it coming. For he understood that there is nothing morally redemptive about silence in the face of unadorned evil.