...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
A crucial first step: One might have expected a Tory to introduce a bill to tame the Thought Cops. But nooo. As Ezra Levant reports, it took a Liberal to do the dirty work:
Keith Martin, a Liberal MP from Victoria, has introduced a private member's bill motion that is as groundbreaking as it is concise:
That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.
This is important for several reasons:
1. It's evidence that the "undernews" of the abusive, unaccountable conduct of the human rights commissions has caught the attention of at least one MP (we can assume Sen. Anne Cools is watching things, too).
2. That MP is a socially progressive Liberal (formerly a red Reformer), whose human rights credentials with the Left are impeccable. Not only has he made international human rights one of his causes in Parliament, but he has personally walked the talk, serving on various Doctors Without Borders missions.
3. If a progressive, young, hip Liberal MP from an urban seat feels comfortable proposing this motion, it is a sign that reforming these commissions is politically safe, even for a Conservative government still worried about being tagged as "anti-human rights". Martin is a political entrepreneur who goes for winning opportunities. He once ran for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance; he crossed the floor to the Liberals and was rewarded by them; he has a very friendly relationship with the press. The man picks political winners. That alone is a signal to other MPs that it's safe to stand and be counted on this fight.
4. By taking the initiative -- and beating other MPs, especially Conseratives, to the punch -- Martin will get some well-deserved credit for leadership. But he'll also make it easy for Conservative MPs, even the Conservative government itself, to "follow" his example, rather than to lead. In a way, Martin takes the political risk; by supporting him, the Tories are merely sensible and bi-partisan followers. He's the point-man.
5. The fact that Martin is a "visible minority" is irrelevant to most normal Canadians, but to the identity politics Left, it's a sign of his moral virtue, and thus makes him even more politically safe.
Congratulations to Martin for doing the right thing. But more than that: he has given the government itself a political opening to amend this awful law. The Conservatives should ensure that Motion M-446 goes to a vote, and every one of them -- as well as other MPs of good faith from every party that cares about freedom -- should join with Martin to make his amendment law.
When it comes to defanging the Thought Cops, I don’t care who gets the ball rolling, so long as someone—anyone—does. Kudos to Martin for having the, ahem, balls to be the one to do it.
War movies: The good, the bad, and the clueless.
Madness to their Methodism: One of those “progressive” churches renews its drive to divest from the “sinful” Jewish state. And, of course, it has nothing to do with an age-old animosity toward the original monotheists. From the Jewish Daily Forward:
Washington - Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish organizations and some mainline Protestant churches in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the “original sin.”
Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to “get a life” instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.
“This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches,” said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church.”
The divestment campaign, thought by many in the Jewish community to be dormant, is still active among mainline Protestant churches and is re-emerging as a main issue on the agenda of Jewish groups. Attempts to block the divestment drive, which began four years ago, have proved only partially successful. Interreligious dialogue efforts and public pressure managed to mute some churchwide calls for divestment, but other initiatives are still gaining support.
The Methodist meeting, held on January 25 in Fort Worth, Texas, was an initial orientation meeting for delegation heads who will lead their groups at the church’s quadrennial conference in April. Delegation leaders were presented with speakers both supportive and opposed to the draft divestment resolution, which calls for removing all Methodist pension fund holdings from Caterpillar.
“The United Methodist Church holds $141 million of pension funds in companies that sustain the occupation,” said Susan Hoder, a member of the church’s Interfaith Peace Initiative. “This has to stop. We have to cut our ties to the occupation.”
Hoder, who strongly favors passage of divestment measures, went on to claim that American taxpayer dollars are used to fund Israeli military. “A lot of this money goes into the pockets of Israeli military leaders and politicians who get rich while the population of Israel suffers,” she said.
With 11 million members, The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. The upcoming April general conference, the church’s main forum for making policy decisions, will first discuss the divestment resolution in a subcommittee. Afterward, the panel’s recommendations will be put to a general vote to make them official policy.
A spokesman for the United Methodist Church did not return calls from the Forward seeking comments on the divestment drive.
Arrangers of the pre-conference meeting last Friday in Fort Worth allowed a representative of the organized Jewish community to speak on the issue. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, told the Methodist delegates that the Jewish community was concerned about the resolution. “I told them that while they may think it is not anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish, for us it feels anti-Israel and feels anti-Jewish,” Greenebaum told the Forward after the meeting.
At the same time, Greenebaum warned the Jewish community against overreacting to anti-Israel sentiments in the church. Protestant churches, he said, “care very deeply about their relations with the Jewish community.”
What prompted Jewish activists to take action was not only the renewed divestment drive but also a report from the women’s division of the Methodist church, which addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 225-page report, compiled by the Rev. Stephen Goldstein, attempts to outline the historical and current contours of the conflict, but according to Felson, the report amounts to “the most egregious thing that has crossed my desk that was not put out by an overt hate group.”
Among the statements in the report that irked Jewish community activists are a reference to the founding of the State of Israel as “the original sin,” a passage calling Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion an “extremist” and a passage defining Israeli actions as acts of “terror.” Discussing the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society, the Methodist report claims it has been the cause for “hysteria” and “paranoiac sense” among Israelis.
“Are we not called to testify when oppressors use their identity as the oppressed with stories of sixty years ago but through some failure of perception cannot see what transpires now in the shadow of the Holocaust?” the report goes on to ask...
The Longest Hatred continues, in a “new and improved” progressive/Islamist guise.
Bad moon rising: David Warren sees it. From the Ottawa Citizen (hat tip WriterMom):
Years have passed since there was genuine excitement at a State of the Union speech by President Bush, and Monday night's effusion was a long yawn. His focus has changed, by the eddying of events, from the grand foreign policy issues forced upon him at the beginning of his first term, to the desperate business of resisting an economic downturn towards the end of his second. That, he proposes to do by throwing $150 billion of tax money at the problem. There are very few politicians who will not act in this Pavlovian way, even among those with no elections left to lose.
American domestic policy is none of my business: I am interested in the survival of the free world. Yet I cannot ignore U.S. domestic politics, which have the power to enfeeble any policy initiative on the world stage. Mr. Bush's achievements on both fronts, home and abroad, are mostly invisible: the tax cut, the success in preventing any major terror attack on U.S. soil after 9/11, progress in co-ordinating the response of western governments to domestic Islamist threats, and what currently looks like victory in Iraq. Over against this: profligate and essentially "liberal" domestic policies that have disheartened the Republican base, and squandered the remaining "conservative" momentum from the Reagan revolution. And now, backsliding and retreat in foreign policy.
We (the U.S. and allies) are winning in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and losing everywhere else. The Syrians are now murdering independent Lebanese politicians with impunity. The pressure on Iran has been relieved. Pakistan is teetering towards a civil and military collapse from which only the Islamists can gain. Islamist demands for the imposition of Shariah, and for the legal persecution of religious minorities, have entered the mainstream of political life in countries that were once free of religious zealotry -- Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Islamist terrorists are winning effective control over the remoter Muslim-settled regions in many countries of Asia and Africa, creating streams of Christian refugees from the southern Philippines, of Buddhist refugees from southern Thailand, of Christians and Animists fleeing south across the breadth of Africa.
Saudi-sponsored Wahabi Islam is consolidating its hold over the mosques of the West, and radicalizing the huge Muslim immigrant communities that have congregated in almost every major European city. Across Europe, and increasingly in North America (and as we've seen in Canada in the obscene "human rights" trials of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant), the most radical Muslims exploit state multiculturalism to score victories over free speech and win pathetic apologies from anyone accused of the thought crime of "Islamophobia."…
As “radicalism” (a.k.a. jihadism) rises, so, too, does the Judenhass which—vicious circle—both fuels the “radicalism” and is its result.
"How I Hoped to Turn My Body into Slivers to Tear the Sons of Zion to Pieces, and to Knock with Their Skulls on the Gates of Paradise": Islamist “Feminism”.
Yabba DaBadu: On a visit to Israel, hip hop artiste Erykah Badu—who used to wear her hair covered in a capacious turban but who now seems to favour the Sideshow Bob look—said she approves of those those two “lovable” Jew-haters, Louis and Yasser. From the Jerusalem Post:
Sporting a huge, billowing afro and a T-shirt with an anti-Iraq war slogan, Erykah Badu expressed her support of black leader Louis Farrakhan and the Palestinian cause Thursday before a crowd of Israeli fans and journalists in Tel Aviv.
The Grammy-award winning neo-soul vocalist, 36, is in Tel Aviv to perform on Saturday night. She has also won acclaim for her acting roles in "Cider House Rules" and "House of D."
"I come from across the water bringing light and hope," said Badu in her deep, languid voice. She commissioned a poster design especially for her visit to Israel, featuring a large hamsa - a traditional Middle Eastern good luck charm _ that appears to be growing out of her hair. At the bottom, the words for peace in Hebrew and Arabic appear side by side.
However, Badu could not name any Israeli hip hop artists. She explained that she identified best with the Palestinians and their hip hop scene, saying that they are a part of her "tribe" of hip hop.
"They use (hip hop) as a form of liberation, as a form of pre-resistance, as a form of therapy," Badu said.
Badu defended Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who has drawn fire over the years with pronouncements including praise for Hitler in a 1984 speech, for which he was censured by the US Senate, repeatedly denouncing Israel and the Jewish people and calling the pretense for the war in Iraq a "Zionist conspiracy."
The Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish group, has labeled Farrakhan's statements "bigoted and anti-Semitic." On its Web site, the ADL lists dozens of Farrakhan statements it considers anti-Semitic.
"(Farrakhan is) not an anti-Semite. He loves all people," insisted Badu. Her next album, "Nu AmErykah" will be released February 26, the date of Savior's Day, a main Nation of Islam holiday.
Israeli reggae-soul group Karolina and Funset, who will be opening for Badu's concert, posed for pictures with Badu after she spoke, then joined her in raising the "Black Power" raised-fist salute.
Charming. Just charming.
“I can most highly recommend the Wahhabis to everyone”: A target of gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia springs to her misogynistic nation’s defence after reading something she didn’t like in—of all places—the Jerusalem Post:
Hello Caroline Glick, I am a 20 year old female living in Saudi Arabia. My family and I used to live the United States for 13 years, until we decided to move back to be closer to our relatives. The other day, I was searching for articles on Google and I came across your op-ed on Laura Bush's recent visit to Saudi Arabia.
I am sorry to say but I was very disappointed with your article. You said things that are not true about my country. For instance, you mentioned that women in Saudi have no choice on who they marry, and that men can marry up to four women and divorce them just in a matter of words.
We do have a choice on who to marry. You do realize we live in the 21st century?! Both my sisters and brother knew their spouses before they were married, and I come from a relatively religiously committed family. My mother and father met through family outings in Saudi Arabia in the 50's. While it is true that men can marry up to four women, there are still consequences that comes with it.
First, this is a part of our religion which gives no one the right to mock us about it. Second, no sheikh (the equivalent to a priest) will allow a man to marry a second or third wife without conducting an interview with him to see what his reasons are. For instance, my uncle recently married a second wife. This second wife was a woman who's husband died and was in financial debt. My uncle did what he thought was right, after asking for his wife's blessing. If he had not received this blessing he would not have done it. Nor would he have done it if he had not realized how bad the situation this woman was in.
You also mention how no other religions can be practiced in Saudi Arabia. I want to point out this is the land that Islam was introduced in; the land the prophet was born in, the same land that contains Mecca and Medina, two of the holiest sites in Islam.
It makes sense not to allow another religion to be practiced in such a sacred place. As far as I know there is no mosque in Vatican City. I respect the fact that it is a sacred place for a religion, and I would expect to receive the same respect from others about my country.
AS FOR OUR education, it is well on its way to becoming one of the best in the world. We have a wide range of opportunities. The college I attend has marketing, accounting, media, nursing, special education, electrical engineering, architecture, management, finance, and psychology. Another college here offers law, graphic design, interior design, banking, Management information system and fashion design. Our public universities offer all departments of medicine, physical therapy, economics, media, sociology, religion, literature, translation and so on.
As far as I can see we are well-off, it is just a matter of what interests people. And no, contrary to what people assume, we are allowed to leave the house. Even without our brothers or fathers. It is a cultural choice whether a mother of father permit their daughters out without male supervision. Perhaps one in 15 families take a stringent position. I go to the beach, restaurants, parks, cafes, bowling...with my friends - males and females. Yes I do wear an abaya, but we do not necessarily have to cover our hair or faces; again this is a personal and cultural choice.
To be frank, abayas are not a big deal to us, we actually embrace it and design lovely abayas that portray our personalities. And yes, it was ridiculous for the French government to try and ban women from wearing scarves. Where is the freedom of choice there? Was this to protect the country from terrorists? Anyway, how did it transpire that head coverings came to be seen as symbols of oppression? I wish the world would stop judging us.
America is not perfect, Europe is not perfect, Israel is not perfect and yes even I admit the Arab Middle East is not perfect. We all have our flaws! What is the use of learning about the world if we all had the same way of living.
Our way is our choice. Nothing is forced upon us.
My advice to you, Caroline, is to befriend a Saudi. This is the best way to get to understand our culture. Or better yet, visit Saudi Arabia.
I did not write this to offend you or the Jerusalem Post, but to set the record straight. I live in Saudi Arabia. I laugh in Saudi. I am happy in Saudi. My life is not any different that it was in the United States.
One day my country will rise and shine above all, and I am sure when that happens the world will suddenly want to befriend us. Until then, I will do my part to correct misperceptions about our image. Thank you.
Editors note: The writer asked that her full name be kept in confidence.
Gee, I wonder why?
I like her advice about befriending a Saudi, though. Much nicer than the jihadis' advice about beheading a kafir.
As for one day her country rising and shining above all--sounds to me like a bit of unfriendly triumphalism is intruding on the procedings. Here's praying that the day when we're no longer dependent on Wahhabi crude comes long before the day we're forced to "befriend" (i.e. submit to) the risen, shiny Saudis.
A brilliant comparison: Hillary Clinton is Tracy Flick.
You remember Tracy, don't you? She was the scheming, hyper-ambitious brown-noser played by Reese Witherspoon in the movie Election.
Banking on terrorism: Rogue French trader Jerome Kerviel says the 2005 London bombings kickstarted his life of crime.
Cuteness alert: Baby giraffe.
Germany, 1938; Toronto, 2008: Yesterday at a local overpriced java emporium, I happened to overhear a student talking about the anti-racism rally she had taken part in at York University. She was going on and on about how “empowered” it made her feel. Every so often I caught a reference to “the Jews,” but I wasn’t sitting close enough to hear what they had to do with anything. An article in the Jewish Tribune fills me in:
TORONTO – A heated rally organized by York University’s Black Students’ Alliance (YUBSA), prompted by the discovery of vulgar anti-Black graffiti scrawled on its offices and adjacent spaces, became yet another podium from which to attack the Jewish state.
Racist graffiti on the doors of the YUBSA such as “all niggers must die,” coincided with the celebration of the birthday of the late Martin Luther King.
According to the organizers, the rally’s purpose was to reclaim spaces that had been violated and to challenge York’s administration, including president Mamdouh Shoukri, to work more vigourously to clamp down on violence on campus. However, its speakers began attacking Israel as an “apartheid state,” as well as Premier Dalton McGuinty – who they condemned because American New Black Panther leader Malik Shabazz was denied entry to Canada last spring – and Shoukri.
The Rev. Don Meredith, chair of the GTA Faith Alliance, told the Jewish Tribune: “Clearly what has taken place is absolutely disgusting. This deplorable act of racism against Black students has nothing to do with the state of Israel or with the university allegedly being racist. It’s clearly unacceptable to turn this into an attack against the premier. To turn what should have been a united call for action against racism into a global attack on the state of Israel is totally disgusting.
“I’m asking that the York administration lodge a full investigation into this, so that York students will feel secure in an institution of learning known all over the world. I understand some progress has been made in investigating the situation and finding the perpetrators [of the anti-Black graffiti], and I applaud that. We cannot condone anything like this, whether it’s an act of antisemitism or of racism.”
Meredith said he hopes to make contact with the university president…
Yeah, that’ll counteract the Wahhabi-funded poison that’s infested our campuses and is polluting young minds.
Memo to Black students: Despite what you’ve been told, you’re being the targets of racism does not preclude your ability to be racist. Your vile, fatuous and bigoted assertions about the world’s only Jewish state are clear evidence of that distressing fact.
Die hard Wahhabi habits: There is a racist apartheid state in the Middle East. It’s called Saudi Arabia. In that holy shmoly kingdom, they’re very particular as to who can—and cannot—enter. For example, no ape ‘n’ piggish Judeo-Zionist is allowed in, and no kaffir can visit the two holy shmoley cities of Medina and Mecca, lest their infidel cooties fly off their bodies and defile the holy shmoly surroundings. (And don’t get me started on the gender apartheid, a function of the Wahhabi’s Medieval, misogynistic world view.)
Pajamas Media blogger Roger Kimball doesn’t really want to visit those two burgs. He just wants us to notice that, us being kafirs and all, we couldn’t visit even if we wanted to.
High time to start to start a Coaltion Against Saudi Apartheid, I say. (Mi CASA es su CASA?)Too bad, unlike those anti-Zionist efforts, we don’t have that Wahhabi moolah to get it going.
Louise retreats: It seems the UN High Commish for human rights hadn’t read and understood the entire Arab charter when she gave it her thumbs up the other day. She now concedes that the part calling for the eradication of “racist” Zionism could be somewhat, er, problematic. From the National Post:
UNITED NATIONS - Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, backed away yesterday from what appeared to be unqualified support for a new pan-Arab human rights charter that includes a commitment to eliminate Zionism.
The former Canadian Supreme Court justice had said in a statement that she welcomed the Arab Charter on Human Rights, a document critics say equates Zionism with racism, and some believe seeks the destruction of Israel.
In a new statement, Ms. Arbour said her Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has long been troubled by several of the "rights" enshrined in the charter, which goes into force in mid-March.
"Throughout the development of the Arab charter, my office shared concerns with the drafters about the incompatibility of some of its provisions with international norms and standards," the new statement said. "These concerns included the approach to the death penalty for children and the rights of women and non-citizens."
In addressing the Zionism references, Ms. Arbour touches on the UN General Assembly's repeal of its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. "To the extent that [the charter] equates Zionism with racism, we reiterated that [it] is not in conformity with [the 1991] General Assembly resolution, which rejects that Zion-ism is a form of racism and racial discrimination," she said.
"OHCHR does not endorse these inconsistencies. We continue to work with all stakeholders in the region to ensure the implementation of universal human rights norms."…
The only “universal human rights norms” the non-Zionist entities in that region are interested in implementing are sharia ones. Hence the reason for the conflict there and elsewhere in the world.
All the rage in the EU: Bruce Bawer, author of that superb examination of Europe’s Islamization, While Europe Slept, reports that gay-bashing has become a popular activity among certain, ahem, elements of the EU community. (Chick-bashing and Jew-bashing being quite popular, too.) What’s spurred the dramatic rise in the number and of virulence of such incidents? In a word: multiculturalism:
One day last month, I gave a talk in Rome about how the supposedly liberal ideology of multiculturalism has made possible the spread in Europe of the highly illiberal ideology of fundamentalist Islam, with allto its brutality and – among other things – violent homophobia. When I returned to my hotel, I phoned my partner back home in Oslo only to learn that moments earlier he had been confronted at a bus stop by two Muslim youths, one of whom had asked if he was gay, started to pull out a knife, then kicked him as he got on the bus, which had pulled up at just the right moment. If the bus hadn’t come when it did, the encounter could have been much worse.
Not very long ago, Oslo was an icy Shangri-la of Scandinavian self-discipline, governability, and respect for the law. But in recent years, there have been grim changes, including a rise in gay-bashings. The summer of 2006 saw an unprecedented wave of them. The culprits, very disproportionately, are young Muslim men.
It’s not just Oslo, of course. The problem afflicts most of Western Europe. And anecdotal evidence suggests that such crimes are dramatically underreported. My own partner chose not to report his assault. I urged him to, but he protested that it wouldn’t make any difference. He was probably right.
The reason for the rise in gay bashings in Europe is clear – and it’s the same reason for the rise in rape. As the number of Muslims in Europe grows, and as the proportion of those Muslims who were born and bred in Europe also grows, many Muslim men are more inclined to see Europe as a part of the umma (or Muslim world), to believe that they have the right and duty to enforce sharia law in the cities where they live, and to recognize that any aggression on their part will likely go unpunished. Such men need not be actively religious in order to feel that they have carte blanche to assault openly gay men and non-submissive women, whose freedom to live their lives as they wish is among the most conspicuous symbols of the West’s defiance of holy law.
Multiculturalists can’t face all this. So it is that even when there are brutal gay-bashings, few journalists write about them; of those who do, few mention that the perpetrators are Muslims; and those who do mention it take the line that these perpetrators are lashing out in desperate response to their own oppression…
Memo to Maclean’s magazine: Best not invite Bawer to write a cover story along these lines lest some sensitive “multiculturalists” take offence and complain to one or more of Canada’s bodies of Thought Cops.
Bloviations: Another day, another utterance about Israel’s impending demise from Iran’s tiny, hairy mullah-thingy. Today’s rant—Ahamdinejad tells West: Accept Israel’s ‘imminent collapse’—is in the grandiose tradition of this one—Ahmadinejad at Holocaust conference: Israel will 'soon be wiped out'—and this one—Ahmadinejad: Annapolis failed, Israel doomed to collapse.
I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to sense a pattern emerging.
I liked this comment from someone named 'The Judge':
"`imminent collapse of the Zionists...` blah blah blah.... How very paranoid that the leader of one of the World`s most oil rich nations should single out a little country the size of Wales! Funny how the civilized World is calling for sanctions, & this little squirt of a man is ranting on & on & on... I wager the Iranian mad mullah regime will fall within the next decade & that Israel, sorry, the Zionist entity, will prevail. What a pathetic speech."
Louise’s “Final Solution” for the Jewish state: Go figure—it’s the same as the Arabs’. From the National Post:
UNITED NATIONS - Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has thrown her support behind a major pan-Arab human rights charter that commits to eradicating Zionism.
Some critics say this is code for the destruction of Israel, but in a statement from her Geneva headquarters, the former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada welcomed the coming into force in mid-March of the Arab Charter on Human Rights.
"Regional systems of promotion and protection can further help strengthen the enjoyment of human rights, and the
charter is an important step forward in this direction," she said.
While the document demands respect for a host of internationally recognized human rights, its references to Zionism trouble leading human rights activist groups, including Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists (IJC) and UN Watch.
Its preamble speaks of "rejecting all forms of racism and Zionism," alleging they violate human rights and threaten international peace and security.
Article 2 of the 53-article charter says, "all forms of racism, Zionism and foreign occupation and domination [should be] condemned and efforts must be deployed for their elimination."
"These provisions cannot be dismissed as harmless rhetoric," UN Watch said in a letter sent on Monday to Ms. Arbour asking her for "clarification" of her support for the charter…
I’d say Arbour’s intentions are pretty clear. Like her Arab overlords, she wants the Jews of Israel to submit—and cease to be.
Just call her Loulou, She-Wolf of the Arab League.
Update: I just sent the following e-mail to Sandy Martin, President of Canadian Hadassah-WIZO:
Dear Ms. Martin,
In 2000, Hadassah-WIZO Canada honoured Louise Arbour, then a justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, with its Woman of Distinction Award. In January, 2008, Ms. Arbour, now the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, sided with the bullies of the Arab League who hold her Human Rights Council in its iron grip, and, according to a report in the National Post, is backing “a major pan-Arab human rights charter that commits to eradicating Zionism.”
In other words, the woman whom Canada’s pre-eminent Zionist women’s organization once held in its highest esteem has joined with Israel’s enemies, and has committed to its destruction.
Ms. Martin, I urge CHW to take a stand against this despicable statement, one which poses such a grave threat to Israel’s continued existence. Tell Ms. Arbour—who proudly lists her 2000 award on her C.V.—that CHW no longer considers her to be a “woman of distinction”; that, in fact, she is a woman whose actions and statements regarding Israel must be condemned in the strongest terms possible by all those who deplore the Arabs’ strong-arm tactics, and who support the right of the Jewish people to continue living in freedom and sovereignty in their ancient, ancestral homeland.
Yours very truly,
My Name (A third-generation member of Canadian Hadassah-WIZO)
Read all about it: Mo Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress and the four budding lawyers who complained to several human rights commissions have accused Maclean's magazine of--wait for it--"Islamophobia." But after reading their complaint, posted on the CIC website, it seems obvious that the complainants are suffering from a clear-cut case of Maclean'sophobia (a.k.a. freespeechophobia).
Dear Ayman—what’s up with that fugly forehead icky?: Al Qaeda’s number two invites questions from the world wide ether. From the Ceeb:
Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, who co-founded the terrorist group with Osama bin Laden and has a $25 million US bounty on his head, wants to talk to his fans on the web.
Intelligence experts said Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian medical doctor believed to be hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, instructed three al-Qaeda websites to invite jihad (holy war) sympathizers to ask him questions. More than 2,500 questions were submitted.
The questions range from "Why hasn't there been another attack on America?" to "How do I join al-Qaeda?" A would-be volunteer from Britain asks al-Zawahiri whether he should go to Iraq or Afghanistan to fight or to wage jihad at home.
Ned Moran, who monitors the internet for the Terrorism Research Center in Washington, said al-Zawahiri's initiative is a thinly disguised recruiting campaign.
"It would be analogous to a teenager in Canada receiving fan mail from their favourite rock star, engendering a connection that would make them a more devoted follower," he said.
Most of the questions have been from men, but there were a few from women. The theme of their questions was that while they were proud of their husbands who had gone off to fight and die, they'd been left at home with kids feeling useless.
One woman asked al-Zawahiri what he thought of creating an all-female brigade.
The websites are no longer accepting submissions, and said the questions are being forwarded to al-Zawahiri, whose responses will be posted on the internet soon.
You mean I’m too late with my query? Rats!
Say “cheesy”: I have absolutely no interest in watching the sorry spectacle of pop tartlet Britney Spears losing her looks and her marbles—with one exception. I was fascinated to learn, courtesy the Gawker blog, that Brit’s latest slimy squeeze—a paparazzo named Adnan—has dabbled in trick fauxtography for the Palestinian propaganda machine:
…Back in 2006, a Reuters freelancer named Adnan Hajj got the agency into a bit of trouble by crappily photoshopping some extra smoke into a photo of the Israeli Defense Force attacking Beirut. Another manipulated Hajj photo was found, Reuters dropped him, and eventually fired a responsible photo editor.
Critics (and there are plenty!) charge that the 2006 controversy and this more recent example of, at the least, complicity in photo-staging, is proof of Big Media anti-Israel bias. We think it's more like a bias towards more dramatic photos. But it's also Reuters' unfortunate bind in covering overseas crises: they have to rely on folks who have to live there.
Mohammed Salem needs access from Hamas to continue doing his job. Hamas needs attention from western media like Reuters to drum up sympathy and stay in power. Reuters needs dramatic content. Basically, the entire situation is more or less exactly like Britney Spears, her pet paparazzi exploiters, and the media-celebrity complex. The poor Palestinian people are Britney, and Hamas is creepy Svengali lover/manager Sam Lufti.
We are all TMZ now.
I have to disagree with that assessment. Some of us are TMZ. But others of us are much more LGF.
How low can the UN go?: David Frum writes that the impending Durban II conference on racism may well represent the international body's nadir. From FrontPage Magazine:
To call anything the United Nations does a "new low" does an injustice to all the previous "old lows."
How do you do worse than pass a resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism on the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht, as the UN did in 1974?
We have already witnessed attempts to put the UN bureaucracy to work as an international enforcer of Islamic definitions of blasphemy.
Still, even by the sordid standards of the UN, the 2001 Durban "antiracism" conference was a record-breaker. Denouncing racism while conference attendees sold copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion--breathtaking.
Now, however, the UN faces a new challenge. Was the 2001 anti-racism conference truly the very worst it could do? Or could it push the boundaries even further, explore new depths? At Durban, the UN had allowed an antiracism conference to be hijacked by anti-Semites. But what if it allowed anti-Semites to organize a conference from the very start? What if it made hatred of Jews and the annihilation of the Jewish state the very organizing principle of the conference? Now that truly would be a record low.
And so it happened. The UN has been at work organizing a "Durban II" to be held sometime in 2009. The organizing committee for the conference is chaired by Libya--with seats offered to Iran and Cuba. Preparatory meetings have been scheduled for Jewish holidays, in an effort to prevent pro-Israel groups from participating.
In December, 41 Western countries voted to shut off funding for Durban II. These countries pay the UN's bills--but the non-paying majority has the votes. This week, Canada gallantly announced it will not attend the Durban II "circus of intolerance," in the scornful words of Jason Kenney, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism.
Let's hope that Canada's example inspires other democracies to follow.
But let's also understand more clearly what is at stake at Durban II.
In the first planning session for Durban II back in August, Pakistan's representative declared: "The defamation of Islam and discrimination against Muslims represent the most conspicuous demonstration of contemporary racism and intolerance ? It is regrettable that the world media has allowed defamation and blasphemy in this form?"
These are more than mere words. We have already witnessed attempts to put the UN bureaucracy to work as an international enforcer of Islamic definitions of blasphemy.
Not “attempts.” Successful endeavours, now firmly entrenched and rolling along.
Palestinian workopolis: In the bizarro world of Reuters, one is apparently supposed to feel sorry for Gaza “smugglers” who suffered a reversal of fortune when that wall was breached:
This was a bad week to be a Gaza smuggler.
When militants smashed open Gaza's border wall last week, many people in the Hamas-run enclave went on a shopping spree in Egypt -- bad news for the men who make fat profits smuggling goods made scarce by an Israeli-led blockade.
Dozens of underground tunnels crisscross the frontier between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and tunnel operators make thousands of dollars per night by smuggling in everything from medicine to weapons, and even people.
Tunnel owner Abu Yassin said a customer cancelled a $150,000 job to smuggle 15 tonnes of medicine into the Gaza Strip on the night Hamas gunmen blasted open the border fence and shoppers streamed into Egypt. Since then, business has been dead.
"People bought all they needed by crossing the border in daylight and for free. We have had no business for a week," Abu Yassin told Reuters in the border town of Rafah, declining to give his full name.
Israel and the United States have been pressing Egypt to seal the tunnels to prevent militants, especially Hamas Islamists, from stockpiling weapons and longer range rockets to fire into Israel.
Despite the pressure, Abu Yassin said smugglers had dug out more tunnels since June, when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip and Israel tightened sanctions on the territory.
Some 1,000 Palestinians work in the smuggling industry and have dug around 200 tunnels along the border, Abu Yassin said.
"You need at least 30 or 40 people to work with you. It is a very risky job and a very profitable one, too," the 46-year-old said. "Weapons are as cheap and as easy to find as tomatoes in Gaza these days."
Tunnel cave-ins and accidents are commonplace.
Tunnellers said Hamas warned them to stop any work in the tunnels before militants blew up the fence last week.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to take control of Gaza's breached border with Egypt as part of a deal to sideline its Hamas rulers.
"If Rafah crossing would open properly for trade, I may quit tunnelling," Abu Yassin said…
What, and miss out on such meaningful and lucrative employment?
First Carolynne Wheeler’s little old keffiyah maker in Hebron is being put out of business because of cheaper Chinese textiles, and now this--a sidelined "smuggling industry." Oh, well. If times get really tough, here's always film piracy, making cheap knock-offs of designer bags, and selling penis enlargers over the internet.
Obama’s mixed (and amorphous) messages: Barack Obama’s stance re Israel is a bit of a muddle, to say the least. On the one hand, there’s this, his recent letter to the U.S.’s UN ambassador:
Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,
I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order.
I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condenm the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel...
All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this... Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians.
The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks... If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.
On the other hand, Obama has opined that Israel should be cleft in two to accommodate a “contiguous” Palestinian state. From israelinsider:
Palestinian refugees do not have a "literal" right of return to Israel, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Monday. He did not clarify whethered that implied they had a moral, metaphorical, legal or other non-literal right to return to Israel.
More controversially, Obama said he supported the division of Israel into at least two parts by a Palestinian state.
The stunning comment came as Obama struggled to articulate his stance on key Mideast issues in dispute. "The right of return [to Israel] is something that is not an option in a literal sense," Obama said, but then went on to say that "The Palestinians have a legitimate concern that a state have a contiguous coherent mass that would allow the state to function effectively."
A land corridor between Gaza and the West Bank would effectively cut Israel in half, making it incoherent and non-contiguous, divided into northern and southern portions by the Palestinian land-mass Obama supports. The Democratic candidate didn't explain why it was legitimate for the Palestinians to have a coherent and contiguous territory at Israel's expense.
"The outlines of any agreement would involve ensuring that Israel remains a Jewish state," Obama said, but provided no details about how that would be achieved. He reiterated his support for a two-state solution, but said, "We cannot move forward until there is some confidence that the Palestinians are able to provide the security apparatus that would prevent constant attacks against Israel from taking place." He provided no details on how that would be achieved.
Probably because he doesn’t have any details. Probably because no one has those details.
For the most part, however, the clean favoured, imperially slim JFK-for-today sticks to the amorphous and the squishy, as quoted in the Telegraph:
The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.
It’s about the past
