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-By Warner Todd Huston

Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent and Tel Aviv Bureau Chief, has been known to hail Palestinians as “victims” before. He has also been known often to blame Israel for all the ills suffered by Palestinians, so Fletcher is an expert at assigning blame while excusing the behavior of Palestinians. Here is a story that fits in perfectly with Fletcher’s penchant for blaming everyone but the guilty party along with extolling the supposed victimhood of the Palestinians.

Fletcher’s tale starts with the pitiful story of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot in the neck by an “Israeli soldier” paralyzing him from the waist down. He was shot because he and his other young friends were throwing rocks at Israeli security forces. Apparently, those security forces had had enough of that nonsense.

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza – Yusuf Tayem is a victim, yet he is ultimately a story of inspiration. In some ways, he’s a victim of his environment – both Palestinian rhetoric and Israeli occupation – which encouraged him to throw stones at Israeli soldiers. All the kids did on the way back from school. In America, kids may ride a skateboard home. In Gaza in 2001, kids threw stones.

Notice how Fletcher excuses violence on the part of these Palestinians as innocent, kid stuff? It certainly may be common for these kids to constantly be attacking Jews, but it isn’t “normal” or excusable behavior. And it certainly shouldn’t be behavior whitewashed by comparing it to American kids skateboarding! Fletcher just shows his broken moral compass with that line of pap.

I should also like to point out that we are taking the claim that this boy was shot by an Israeli soldier on faith, here. Do I doubt the boy’s story and Fletcher’s reporting? Of course I do. After all, the MSM has given us story after story about Israeli depredations that never happened. So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t take this Palestinian’s or this journalist’s word as gold.

One day, the stone-throwing turned especially nasty and an Israeli soldier fired back, shooting Yusuf, who was 12 years old at the time, through the neck, leaving him paralyzed below the waist. That’s when we first met him – lying in his bed, pale and weak, saying, although I didn’t believe him, that he was glad he could make this sacrifice for Palestine.

Is it just me, or would this boy have escaped being shot in the neck if he wasn’t trying to attack Jews? And the foolishness that the child was “glad he could make this sacrifice for Palestine” is nothing to admire but is evidence of the sick, twisted world of Palestinian hatred on full display. Yet, here is Fletcher acting as if this “victim” is someone we should all get to know and admire.

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