Daniel Pearl And The Normalization of Evil

by Judea Pearl - February 2nd, 2009 - Wall Street Journal

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?

Did you watch the video of Daniel Pearl's beheading? I did and it made me nearly vomit. It is hard to believe that it was seven years ago. The memory is fresh. So fresh. Tears came to my eyes as I agonized over the evil that men can do to one another. The tears are returning even now ...

As the years have gone by, the Pastor Martin Niemoller poem has come to haunt me more and more. Do you remember it?

In Germany, they came first for the Socialists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Socialist;
And then they came for the gypsies, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a gypsy;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then .. . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

It is not important what groups the Nazis came for. The real issue is that tyrants always pick us off one by one. You can substitute any groups and the Niemoller poem is just as powerful ... and just as true.

Any new version about the tyranny we currently face here in the West would start, "When the Islamo-fascists came for the press, I didn't speak up because I was not a member of the press." Daniel Pearl was the press and his death was intended to terrify the weak members of that estate, and the weak in society as a whole, into being extremely careful with any criticism. The BBC immediately abandoned calling the Islamo-fascists terrorists and still pamper them in writing about them. It seems to have worked.

Daniel Pearl was a brave man, a good man. I did not agree with all of his politics, but it horrifies me that these people could kill him in such a brutal way, and the result is a huge movement to stop fighting the people who killed him. The pacifists who elected Barack Obama are more horrified by criticism of these killers than they are of what they did to Daniel Pearl. They criticize the war against these people and want it stopped. How can man come to such a place in rationalizing evil?

God bless you Daniel Pearl. I hope that before this is over you have gotten a more just response to your death.