...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Cry me a River Nile: The Toronto Star’s Oakland Ross has an article about those mean old Israelis, and how they have “trapped” “innocent” young Gazans who merely want the chance to go and study abroad:

JERUSALEM–More than 400 would-be university students remain trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to leave for studies abroad – including one accepted at Ryerson University – and now the Israel Broadcasting Authority is refusing to accept paid advertisements calling attention to their plight.

"There's a clause in the broadcasting authority's rules that allows them to refuse a paid ad if the issue is `politically or ideologically controversial,'" said Sari Bashi, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization advocating freedom of movement for Palestinians.

"But it's not a controversial statement to say that everybody, including Gazans, deserves an education."

Gisha (which means "access" or "approach" in Hebrew) has appealed the IBA's decision, and yesterday a committee listened to the group's complaints but did not make a ruling either to uphold or reverse its refusal to accept the ads.

Bashi said a ruling might be announced as early as Sunday. She did not seem optimistic it would go in favour of the Gazan students.

Several of the stranded students intend to enrol in Canadian universities, Bashi said, including at least one who is hoping to study at Ryerson.

Bashi believes Israel's refusal to allow the students to leave is part of a strategy aimed at punishing all Gazans for the acts of a few.

Since the radical Islamist group Hamas took power in Gaza more than a year ago, Israel has sought to isolate the territory and its 1.5 million people, limiting fuel, food, and other supplies while sharply restricting the movement of people in or out of the narrow coastal strip.

Israel's critics decry the policy as a form of "collective punishment" that fails to distinguish armed Palestinian militants from the vast majority of Gaza's residents who are innocent of any wrongdoing…

Nasty Jews and their “collective punishment.” My letter:

Interesting how, in all these discussions of "collective punishment," it's always Israel, but never Egypt, that's guilty of the charge.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:07 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  13 September 2008 - 10:15

 

Scaramouche, you have nailed it. But consider that "responsibility for one's actions" is a mean, vile Western concept. Today's with-it intellectuals and academics couldn't possibly be expected to understand its universality.


Your garden-variety modern post-modern is also indescribably smug and sanctimonious (and too smug and sanctimonious to recognize this about themselves). They take a BENEVOLENT stance vis-a-vis their "expectations" of human beings born and bred in "less privileged" parts of the world. Hence, their tolerance for the brutality and injustice that is part and parcel of Islam, of which there exists NO "moderate" strain/branch/sect anywhere in the world.


Ain't it funny....

Anonymous

#2  13 September 2008 - 18:45

 

Giving people the benefit of the doubt...is a good way to lose the war.

scaramouche

Comments: