Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - #2

1. A Different Approach - In my Israel advocacy work, I do not for a moment think that my (sarcasm on) highly sophisticated and brilliant blog entries (sarcasm off) is going to convince the hard-core anti-Israel types to suddenly see the light - that is highly unrealistic and would be a waste of resources.

My goals are much more modest - (a) to provide support and information to pro-Israel people who may not have the time or inclination to sift through all the developments regarding Israel, Judaism and so on, and (b) to try to convince people who are not necessarily pro-Israel but who have an open mind about Israel and are willing to engage in honest debate that a lot of what is thrown about regarding Israel is disingenuous, dishonest or just plain incorrect.

Therefore, in various circumstances, I think that approaches that are not confrontational but which show the commonality of Canadian and Israeli values are very useful. Here is one example - Jewish group tries to counter anti-Israel activity on campuses.


2. The US and Israel - Some things to ponder:
3. Experts - One of my favorite sayings is that an expert is a man who knows 100 ways to make love to a woman but doesn't know any women, so - here is an interesting article >>>>>> How to tell when a Mideast Expert is lying - Haaretz - Israel News.


4. Do We Need A Shoah Memorial In Atlantic City? - Atlantic City boardwalk to get a Holocaust memorial - strikes me as strange.


5. This Is Controversial - I am sure that this article will make some people wonder whether I have lost my head - and no, I do not like his use of the term apartheid - Declare Independence. Free Israel. End the Occupation - Haaretz - Israel News - but in the interest of intellectual honesty, I think that it deserves to be read and critiqued, rather than ignored or dismissed.

6. What If Achmed Woke Up One Day To Discover He Is Really Avram? - Fiddler on the mosque


7. Hitler Parodies - Not sure if I posted about this before. One used to be able to go to YouTube and search for clips that parodied Hitler's reaction to any number of current events - most often I had seen it in terms of sports events (Hitler reacts to Kovalev signing with Ottawa). The parodies are based on a very dramatic scene from the excellent movie Downfall that chronicles the last days of Hitler in the bunker in Berlin, with subtitles appropriate to the parody being superimposed on the clip.

But is the stuff funny? Personally, I do not think so, and I consider myself to have fairly broad taste. Here is one perspective - Close Read: The Downfall of “Downfall” : The New Yorker. Oh, and in late breaking news - YouTube has removed these parodies from its site - CANOE -- CNEWS - Media News: Hitler 'Downfall' parodies removed from YouTube.

The best thing to do is watch the movie - it is excellent.



9. The Palestinians - Here are a variety of articles:
10. Egypt - Not sure I agree with everything in this article, but I think that basic premise is correct - Egypt a ticking time bomb | Eric Margolis | Columnists | Comment | Ottawa Sun




12. Jewish History In Budapest - In Budapest, Jewish history came looking for us

13. From The Left - I take this to be an exercise in intellectual honesty - CIC Scene » Speech by Spanish Activist Pilar Rahola: The Struggle of Israel is the Struggle of the World

14. There's A Lot Of Truth Here, Too - CIC Scene » Exposing the Unholy Alliance of Israel Haters





17. Jaffa Gate - Jerusalem reopens popular Old City gate - Yahoo! News - proving that the Palestinians can complain about anything.


18. Hockey News - I have been a fan of the Montreal Canadiens since 1968 - generally a rewarding time frame, but not so much lately. In this year's playoffs, the Habs are facing Eastern Conference champion Washington and its high-powered offence led by Alexander Ovechkin. Pretty much all predictions were that Washington would kick the daylights out of Montreal for 4 games before moving on to the next round.

But it has not worked out that way. Montreal goaltender Jaroslav Halak has been nothing short of phenomenal in allowing Montreal to battle back from a 3-1 series deficit to force a deciding Game 7 tomorrow night in Washington. Here's hoping the Habs can do it one more time!

Here is some amazing video of Halak's handiwork:

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - Cranky Mini-Blog

As is a usual thing for me to do, I spent part of my day Sunday surfing the Net for interesting news and opinion pieces. One story that happened to catch my eye was the one below in the Toronto Globe & Mail about Canadian activist Nellie McClung - who lived from 1873-1951 - here is her Wikipedia biography.


Here is the story from the Globe & Mail - in my opinion, the thrust of the story is that Winnipeg human-rights lawyer David Matas does not believe that Ms. McClung should be honored for related to female suffrage in Canada because she was also a prominent supporter of eugenics - defined here but which I understand to be the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans with the goal of improving the species. The Nazis were obsessed with eugenics and it formed the basis of their racial theory - and pretty much everyone knows how that turned out.

So far, so good, so to speak - the article briefly canvasses a variety of perspectives and concludes with a discussion that - surprise, surprise - not every who is honored has a perfectly clean background that would not offend anyone.

But the story does not end there, David Matas is not just any human rights lawyer - he is senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada.


Many online sites allow readers to post comments. If you have ever read posted comments, you know that they range from A to Z. It did not take long to see where the comment section headed. Here are some examples (edited for format but not for spelling, grammar or content):
"Mr. Matas is senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada. His going back into hisotory to critize Nellie is inappropriate. He could be more relevant if he protested the current situation in Isreal and Gaza."
"Mr. Matas' connection to B'nai Brith should have been up front in the article. Winnipeg is set to be the home of a the Asper Holocaust museum, a pro-Jewish, pro-Israel information tool. It is expected that school children and tourist visitors will receive a very pro-Jewish biased account of world history and be given 'acceptable' views to take away. It takes incredible chutzpah to oppose the modest statue of McClung in Winnipeg while building the collosal $265 million museum with a $22 million annual operating cost. Mr. Matas motivations aren't innocent."

"Who cares what Matas says? Nellie McClung was a Canadian hero, albeit one with flaws typical of her time - a hundred years ago. Matas is an apologist for a racist theocracy - today."
"Dear Sean Smith; thanks priceless. Matas got an orde of Canada for what? For being a rabid Zionist and supporter of greater Israel expansion at the cost of Palestine Apartheid and occupation? Not in my name. If Anne Ross (wife of Bill Ross former Mayor of Winnipeg and deserved recipient of the order of Canada) was alive, she would be very upset with the fact that any dick and harry is getting an order of Canada. David Matas is an apologist for the Zionists' behaviour, the world over."
"If it is true that Mr. Matas is the senior legal counsel for B'nai B'rith, then his statements reek of hypocrisy. He is condemning a women from a century ago for her ideology while he is supporting and defending human rights abuses against living people today. I am sure Mr. Matas has many excuses for his beliefs and actions, but that does not make them any less repugnant and, ultimately, on the wrong side of history. Using Mr. Matas' own standards, we can pretty much bet that there will not be any statues erected in his honour in 70 years time. During WWII, Winston Churchill engineered a famine in India that killed hundreds of thousands of people. He did this in order to attack and punish the Indian nationalist movement. Beyond being a mass murderer, Churchill was also a blatant racist. A similar charge of racism can be made againt most famous European figures of the past 200-300 years. Abraham Lincoln was a racist by the standards of today. He may also have been deliberately complicit in actions taken to worsen the genocide of native peoples. If we did fairly evaluate almost any historical figure, there would be very few statues of anyone, anywhere. If Mr. Matas ever comes up for his statue, I hope that he is evaluated on more than just his shameful support for the oppression of the Palestinians. I hope that the entirety of his life's work is taken into account."
"When David Matas decides to investigate Israeli abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip then he can comment on Nellie McClung. Until then, his comments on the failures of others are rank hypocrisy."
"One "David Matas, senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada." This man should go to work on Israel's PR disaster instead. Let the lady's honour friend."
Many more flagrant comments were removed by the moderator, including one that referred to Mr. Matas seeking to being "so-called Nazi war criminals" to justice when he could instead seek to bring "Israeli war criminals" to justice and one that talked about how Mr. Matas should instead spend his time protesting the "...demeaning role of women in Jewish society."

In my experience, this is no isolated occurrence. Follow the comments posted below an article, and you will see the pattern repeat itself time and again.

Regular visitors to my blog know that I often cite Natan Sharansky's 3D test for determining whether an anti-Israel comment is fair or really antisemitic. In fact, I am currently engaged in an ongoing debate about this with a very good friend (whose opinion I deeply respect) who takes issue with that test.

I do not always agree with what B'nai Brith says - I think that sometimes the organization reacts too reflexively to characterize something as being an antisemitic incident. However, in this case, my take is that the manner in which the comments on this article quickly became focused on Israel and its alleged misdeeds is a very clear example of an ulterior motive and a poorly hidden agenda - antisemitism.

In my humble opinion, of course. Thoughtful comments welcome.
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010 #2

1. Check The Calendar - Nope - it's not April Fools' Day - so explain this >>>>> Vacationing a human right, EU chief says



3. Check His Sanity - Pajamas Media » Danny Glover: Hero to the Media, Villain to the Intelligent - Mr. Glover (who I admit loved in Bat 21 and in Silverado) suffers from having hung around with Mel (I'm Not An Antisemite) Gibson in 4 Lethal Weapon movies - unless of course he is like President Obama who hung out in a Chicago church at the foot of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and never heard anything untoward.......



4. Check That Total - will the revision of history never stop? First president owes library $4,577 and two books - CNN.com - we though that George Washington was an honest guy. His ghost better be careful - Mr. Bookman the Library Cop from the Seinfeld episode (one of the funniest scenes ever IMHO) might be on his tail...


5. Check That Guest List - Hey, this was supposed to be a secret!!! Are the people who 'really run the world' meeting this weekend? - Haaretz - Israel News




8. Check That Foundation - Cracks in the bedrock of U.S.-Israel relations? - The Globe and Mail - lots of criticism of Israel but amazing how there is no criticism of any Palestinian or Arabic - like there was never any attempt (attempts) to wipe our Israel, no coordinated and deliberate series of attacks on Israeli citizens, no intransigence at the bargaining table and so on - and the comments to the article reflect the usual bunch of misinformed posters.

9. Check That Apartheid - Canadian sailor to return Saudi medal - Full Comment - that's right - GENDER APARTHEID - but not Israel - Saudi Arabia! As one commenter on the story points our - where is Naomi Klein? Where is Judy Rebick? Where is Judy Haiven? Where is CUPW? Where is CUPE? And all their lefty buddies??? SILENCE!! That's known as hypocrisy!!



10. Check Out The Axis Of Awesome - mild language warning.....but funny:

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - mini Yom Haatzmaut Edition


It is time to mark the 62nd birthday of the amazing country of Israel. I will do so as they do in Israel - by first remembering the tremendous sacrifices that were necessary to establish and maintain the State.

1. Sacrifice - Israel's most important resource is people. And many of those people have given their lives in defence of the State. In a tiny country, where military service in mandatory, the loss of people (often the young) is felt very acutely. In fact, since 1860, 22,684 soldiers and terror attack victims have been killed and scores more wounded.


I have been in Israel for Yom HaZikaron - it is a very moving and emotional time - even for visitors from the Diaspora. Here are a few pictures from my collection.








2. Accomplishments - think of what Israel has accomplished in 62 short years despite constant existential threats and imagine what it could achieve if there were a genuine peace in the region. This video is 2 years old, but you'll get the idea.


3. Herzl's Dream - Continuing Herzl’s dream

4. Vital Statistics - News from Israel, Ynetnews

5. The Beauty of Israel - A variety of randomly selected pictures:














6. More Israeli Beauty - can't do a posting about Israeli beauty and leave out Israeli supermodels Bar Refaeli and - Esti Ginzburg - just wouldn't be right - don't worry, the pictures are tame - (and to female readers - when you do your own blog, you can find pictures of handsome Israeli men to post!)

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

1. I Thought He Was Interested In Nuclear Physics, Not Biology - How does the world just sit there while this waste of DNA utters this type of guttersnipe trash?

2. On The Subject Of Iran - meanwhile, on the subject of developments in that thugocracy:

3. General David Petraeus - More on this American General, "designer" of the Surge - The Professor of War Politics Vanity Fair

4. Human Rights Developments - a number of stories on this topic.




7. When All Else Fails, Blame Israel - You may recall that a couple weeks ago I had strongly objected to an allegation in a letter published in the Halifax newspaper that blamed most of the world's hostilities on Israel's unwillingness to make a fair peace with the Palestinians. After much editing, the letter finally appeared in last Sunday's newspaper - the final version is here:

"I was offended by the anti-Israel comments in Jack Warkentin’s April 3 opinion piece.

Limited space does not allow me to reply to his allegations about Israel’s seizure or control of Palestinian lands. I will focus instead on his assertion that Israel’s "refusal to negotiate a just peace … with the Palestinians" (which ignores any question of Palestinian responsibility) is the "root cause of much of the world’s hostilities."

To which hostilities does he refer? To name but a few: the Russian-Georgian dispute? The Russian-Chechen dispute? The war in the Congo that leaves 45,000 people dead every month? The Sudanese civil war and the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur? The civil war in Somalia that has reduced that country to a lawless no-man’s land? The tensions between North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, or China and Taiwan? Afghanistan? Shia and Sunni Muslims murdering each other all over the globe?

Mr. Warkentin would have readers believe that if only Israel would make peace with the Palestinians, all of these problems would simply vanish — a truly breathtaking assertion.

The serious issues of the Israeli-Palestinian interaction deserve much better analysis."

In any event, here is a much more detailed and articulate response from Professor Barry Rubin - Gloria Center: The Middle East's Biggest Con-Game: Claiming Israel is the Cause of the Region's Problems [Article]



9. An Elephant In The Room - that few in the West care to address - Promoting a Genocidal “Peace” | FrontPage Magazine - maybe this is because of the considerable history of antisemitism (albeit generally not genocidal antisemitism) that has existed since after the death of Christ - more on that in the next item.


10. Constantine's Sword - I may have posted about this before. I have just finished (last night in fact) this in-depth study of the history between the Catholic Church and the Jews written by former Paulist priest James Carroll. The book is not some summer novel you tear off while at the beach - it requires a lot of attention and concentration - and I see that I will have to read it at least one more time.


While generally familiar with the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Shoah (more so), I did not have a good grasp of the extent of Church-driven antisemitism over the centuries. As well, it was depressing to learn of the many times when there were leaders of the Church who were prepared to depart from the antisemitism of the Church but were not followed.

In any event, Mr. Carroll lives in Boston and published this article in advance of Easter. Obviously that was a few weeks ago, but the message continues to be relevant - Preach peace in Holy Week - The Boston Globe.
"This week, Christian preachers must preach against these texts. Christians must hear these texts as if they are themselves Jewish, having foremost in mind that Jesus never stopped being a faithful Jew. If Christians had remembered that, and measured both their doctrines and their behavior against their Lord’s undying love of his own people, the history of the last 2,000 years would be very different."
11. Then There Is This Disgusting Bastard - The Associated Press: Bishop convicted for denying Holocaust - did I hear that Mel Gibson is going to play him in the movie??? (relax - there's no movie).

12. Polish Tragedy - Last week, the plane carrying a Polish delegation to an ceremony to mark the massacre in the Katyn Forest crashed, killing the Polish President and a very large number of senior politicians, military leaders and bureaucrats. Here are some reflections on that tragedy seen in the light of the event being commemorated.

14. The Pacific - The miniseries "The Pacific" continues on HBO Canada this evening with Episode 6. It is clearly different from the "Band of Brothers" series in the same way that the Pacific Theatre of Operations differed from the European Theatre. Here is a concise overview of the Pacific War by the excellent Victor Davis Hanson - VDH's Private Papers:: Remembering the Pacific War.


15. Reflections on Yom HaShoah - one thought to throw into the mix before we move on to Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut. I think that it is very important to consider and talk about the Jewish life in Europe that was obliterated by the Nazis. For good reason we hear a tremendous amount about how Jews died, but we rarely talk about how they lived - I think that this is a theme that needs much more attention. Check out this article - Recovering Ashkenaz


16. Woe Canada - various news items with a Canuck-ian twist:
17. Good Advice - this excerpt from The Italian Job pretty much sums it up:


so in that context - Volcanic plume has far reaching effects on the weather, Earth. Mother Nature rules when she wants!

18. Moron Alert - Worker falls after sawing off branch in a 'Laurel and Hardy'-style accident - and then, of course, seeks legal recourse from the Hotel. I guess that common sense is in short supply. Which reminds me of the following (there's even a tree-cutting guy!):


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