Will There Be Mass Protests Against The Murder of 14 Afghan School Children?

e.g., the Indian Embassy bombings in Kabul did little to outrage the Middle East

The Israelis are striking Gaza for a second day, and protesters from across the Arab world are lining up with a vengeance. From Tehran to London, the usual ruckus of anti-Zionist rhetoric can be heard loud and clear. Like the fat woman at a club, this blog steers clear of taking an opinion on the Israeli/Palestinian issue, since a small strip of land with few resources in which three major religions lay claim might prove troublesome for discussion. But the Middle Eastern outrage at Israel, has failed to materialize as terrorists murder their own fellow Muslims (with the exception of Iraqis).

Recently, 14 schoolchildren were murdered by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan. The grisly video of the attack can be viewed here. Are there going to be imams in Saudi Arabia and protesters in Cairo gathering to condemn this atrocity? Highly doubtful. IraqPundit has some sharp insight on why this is the norm in a post entitled "Right Civilians, Wrong Civilians":

Arabs are ready to protest when the U.S. does something wrong (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo). Arabs are ready to protest when civlians get killed by the U.S. or Israel. But rarely if ever do they protest when some hate-filled extremists kill civilians. I'm talking about Iraqi civilians. I don't recall huge demonstrations against the suicide bombers and other extremists in Iraq responsible for the murder of most civilians.

The Arab Street accepts the extremists as noble fighters. They see them as decent fellows who had no choice but to turn violent in the face of injustice. And because they are noble fighters, people forgive them when they kill civilians. On Friday a Hamas rocket killed two Palestinians kids. Poor children didn't know they were the wrong kind of civilians.

That's the injured Palestinians' problem. They're the wrong kind of civilians. This Arabic report says Hamas admits that they are preventing injured from going to Egypt for treatment. The principled Hamas leaders say it's not fair of Egypt to open Rafah crossing just for the injured, they should open it for fighters and smugglers as well. Too bad for the injured, they must be sacrificed for the cause.

The frustrated Arab Street is angry that their voices are ignored. I agree they have much to protest about when it comes to their nasty regimes. People have every right to be angry about Abu Ghraib, etc. But perhaps if the Street objected to the killings of all civilians, more people would listen.

The fact that much of the world's Islamic community forgoes condemning terrorism and accepts them as "freedom fighters" represents, in some ways, a strategic communications failure on America's part. When people in the Middle East still overwhelmingly believe that the U.S. or Israel was behind 9/11, it is obvious that we are not succeeding in enabling moderate messengers in troubled regions rife with terrorist activity. This will be a serious diplomatic challenge for the incoming Obama administration, and I hope he doesn't shrug off this key component of our current efforts to curb terrorism.