Ramallah Reasoning of the Day

The "12th annual Palestine International Festival of Dance and Music" rocked out in Ramallah last week. True, there was a brief power failure, yet the band played on.

Still, it was censored: The group Boney M. -- a 1970s German disco quartet -- was asked to skip one of its biggest hits, a cover of the reggae song "By the Rivers of Babylon." That's because the song starts:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down/
ye-eah we wept, when we remembered Zion

Festival organizers said the reference to Jews returning to the land of Israel would be "inappropriate."

Two points:

1) As Leo Rennert at American Thinker observes:

This censorship, mind you, did not occur under Hamas rule in Gaza, but in Ramallah, the "capital" of the Palestinian Authority, recognized as a trustworthy "moderate" peace partner by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

So much for selling a two-state solution!

2) The lyrics are from Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

This passage recounts the "Babylonian captivity," when Jews were ejected then returned to Israel in the sixth century B.C. Now, Islam accepts most of the Bible, see Qur'an 3.3, including, specifically, the Psalms, see Qur'an 21.105:

Before this We wrote in the Psalms, after the Message (given to Moses): My servants the righteous, shall inherit the earth."

So, shouldn't Psalm 137's narrative be beyond disputation or doubt, see Qur'an 2.2? Or is the Qur'an law except when it's inappropriate for Islam?

Conclusion: Palestinian policy is grounded on the presumption that Jews are last-second squatters lacking historic and continuous links to the holy land. This is false--but even so-called "moderates" prefer shutting their senses to settling the peace. Or even listening to reggae.

(via reader Warren)