Archive for the ‘Israel’ Category

Earlier today JDL-Canada organized a BBQ in Toronto. The great food and the conversations of members and friends contributed to the great time that everybody had. However, the main event of the evening was the presentation of a guest from Israel – Amotz Eyal, Director and Founder of the Tazpit News Agency. It’s hard to believe it, but Tazpit is the ONLY news agency that Israel has.

The introduction by Meir Weinstein, JDL’s Director concentrated on the current problems facing Israel, so it wasn’t very cheerful. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over Egypt, which means that they will militarize Sinai. Israel should’ve never given it away. When Israel had it under its control, Sinai served a buffer, but the government exchanged it for a piece of paper, which is now totally worthless. The Muslim Brotherhood already stated that is wants to make Jerusalem capital of Egypt. Egypt is even going to strengthen its alliance with Iran. In these difficult times the Jews are not united – some of them even call for boycott and sanctions against the settlements, they even accuse of anti-Semitism friends of Israel like Glen Back (for his criticism of Soros). That’s why it is so important to have people like Amotz Eyal, who expose the false propaganda.

Amotz Eyal, Director and Founder of the Tazpit News Agency

After that Amotz Eyal took over the stage. He is young (only 25 years old) but he achieved quite a few things in his life. He grew up close to Arabs and experienced firsthand their violence. His brother was injured when the family was forced to evacuate from a settlement. Later he served in IDF, taking part in most of their recent military operations. He founded the Tazpit News Agency which, as I already mentioned, is the only Israeli news agency (there was another one, but it was shut down about 20 years ago). In contrast, the Arabs in Israel have 5 news agencies.

The agency’s goal is to show the events as they really happen, defending the Zionist point of view. It operates by using exclusively volunteers (there over 100 of them). They show the good things about Israel and also cover what is done against the country.

In his opinion the PR (public relations) of Israel is poorly managed by the government. He has stated that earlier in his blog:

“Israel’s PR – many people are critical of the Israeli PR, and I think they should be. Israeli PR is defensive at all time, and at the most crucial moments it doesn’t function as it’s supposed to. Israel loves to complain, but she’s forgetting that the best defense is to attack. Not to attack back physically, but to attack the media, immediately after the flotilla departed.”

He shows us a few examples of Palestinian truth distortion. We see a crowd of settlers hurling stones at Arabs. It’s a video used by the Muslim propaganda against Israel. But this is just a small part of the real video – he shows more of it and we see that a large crowd (the target of the attack) is holding and beating a Jew. His rock-throwing friends confused the Arabs so he was able to escape.

Another one is the Al-Durra case, where a father and son were supposedly killed by IDF while trying to hide near a wall.

The notorious Al-Durra fake

(This obvious hoax, in which the father was “hit” by 12 bullets, but there was no blood on the scene, was debunked by Philippe Karsenty who fought for years the French television, which first released the video. He had a presentation about that at JDL last year.)

What Amotz found disturbing here was that after the video was released, the IDF commanders simply apologized for the “murder” as being a mistake. They never investigated what really happened.

However, the Arabs continued to use that hoax – in another picture they claim to show the unit that “killed” Al-Durra. However, they were so ignorant that they didn’t realize that the soldiers in the picture had weapons that shoot rubber bullets.

Next was one of the pictures used most by the Palestinian propaganda – the one with the little girl lying on the ground with a soldier pointing his machine gun at her with his boot on her chest.

Another Palestinian fake…

The picture was enough to create rage among the Arab fanatical idiots, which they expressed in their atrocious English:

“Azara Moulana: Allahu musta’an. May that shaytaan rot in hell!

Waleed Jaber: What if I did that..? Bankemoon will called the human right at me… I’m gonna Do the same thing to the Zionist.”

Again, Amotz had to deal repeatedly with the army to bring their attention to the hoax. Other than looking staged, the picture contains other clumsy attempt of falsification.

The wrong uniform…

The soldier is armed with AK-47, which has never been used by the IDF. As you can see in the picture above, the IDF uniform has a different colour and the shirt is always tucked in the pants, which doesn’t match the appearance of the “soldier” in the picture.

On another occasion, Tazpit photographers caught Arabs cutting their trees and later blaming that on Israel (the destruction of the olive trees by the Israelis is one of the favourite Palestinian sob stories).

“The Jews cut my tree!”

Another picture showed settlers with sticks attacking Arabs. For that action the Jews were arrested by the police and it took two weeks to vindicate them.

As you may have already noticed, the same pattern runs through all of the cases. When Amotz shows us the whole video, we see two Jewish shepherds (that’s why they carry sticks) who are attacked by a group of Arab baghead harpies armed with rocks. They try to protect themselves and eventually other Jews show up, but by that time the Palestinians had already taken their “incriminating” pictures.

And that is getting worse by the day – now IDF must avoid any conflicts in an area where there are Arab photographers, because they’ll always distort the truth. It’s a very simple scheme, which is illustrated by the picture below.

Most often on Friday, groups of women and children gather around Israeli soldiers and try to provoke them. Many people with powerful cameras (seen in the top part) follow every move of the army trying to get something that could be interpreted as a hostile reaction. That’s why the commanders have chosen the unfortunate path of least resistance – often in such cases the whole unit hides in a bunker rather than risking being blackmailed. That makes Arabs more aggressive and results in assault like the one shown below, where a soldier from IDF was injured by a rock:

It is hard to believe that the Israeli Government has neglected its public relations activities to such extent that it has left the Arabs with their five news agencies to misinform the world by manipulating pictures and films. Not only does that situation help the leftists and the Muslim fanatics to demonize Israel, but it also creates frustration among the friends and supporters of Israel. However, it looks like Tazpit is filling that gap slowly, but consistently.

Let’s hope that Tazpit gets enough support from the Israeli Government and the people to make a real difference.

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

The magazine of Japan Israel Friendship Association

Nazi flag in Tokyo

Being interested in Israel, I have always wondered about the attitude toward the Jews and their country among the Japanese. Having observed the polarization, which any discussion of the history and politics of Israel brings, I just wanted to know how those things cause the same fiery arguments in Japan.

Although I visit Japan frequently, I have never had enough time to explore the issue. This time our schedule was much lighter than usual, so I could spare a few days to delve deeper into the complexities of that question. I say “complexities”, because it is not easy for an outsider to figure out the way the Japanese think about the world beyond their borders.

I dare to say that I already have a good knowledge about the nature of that thinking, but in the case of Japan and Israel, many aspects may remain hidden, if you don’t get help from people who are actively involved in the relations between the two countries.

In my search for a reliable source of information, I was lucky to get in touch with the Japan Israel Friendship Association. Its Chairman, Dr. Akira Jindo, agreed to see me for a talk. We met at a Starbucks in Tokyo.  Very few people in Japan are as knowledgeable as him on the relations between Japan and Israel. He has been involved with the association since the 1960’s (it was established in 1966). Dr. Jindo travels to Israel about three times a year and even wears a watch with Hebrew numbers. He is a cheerful and optimistic person (he countered my doomsday prediction about the coming end of the EU with his belief that the countries in Europe will overcome their differences the way the USA ended the racial segregation).

His organization is very active, although the awareness about Israel is not that high in Japan. In 1973 they organized a demonstration in support of Israel during the Yom Kippur war and 3,000 people attended it. Now the association has on its board prominent scholars and some politicians.

He admits that the relations with Israel are not what they should be – due to its lack of natural resources Japan has been dependent on foreign oil imports. Since the 1970’s the Arabs have always used that dependency to force Japan to follow anti-Israeli policies, but have not always been successful. The mainstream media is also not supportive of Israel (with the exception of the Yomiuri newspaper), although they support China. The ruling Democratic Party, which emerged after the transformation of the defunct Socialist Party, is not very friendly with Israel either.

JIFA publishes a magazine called “Israel”, which covers the issues of mutual collaboration (you can see an issue in the picture at the top). The awareness about Israel rose tremendously when the Jewish state sent medical teams to the area affected by the March 11 earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

Those teams are still in Japan. This summer they are going to send 13 traumatized children from the devastated areas to Israel.

When I asked him about the anti-Israeli sentiments in Japan, he explained that although they are not widely held, they exist and breeding ground of those views are the Universities in Tokyo and Kyoto. The movement to boycott and demonize Israel is led by leftist groups, which are encouraged by leftist academics.

One of the leading scholars, who have a very strong position against Israel, is Yuzo Itagaki, who teaches international relations and Islamic studies at the University of Tokyo.

Since Dr. Jindo singled out Itagaki as a major influence, I decided to get more information about him. The next day I found an interview of his in English in which he explores the Islamic roots of modernization. Here are a few excerpts for your delight:

Itagaki: Issues concerning Islam–particularly the recent problems of Islamic fundamentalism–are usually viewed by non-Muslim people as anti-Western. Many Westerners consider Islam to be a form of new East-West confrontation or even as a conflict between civilizations. However, given a longer span of time, I believe that Islam was probably the starting point of “Western civilization” today. There was perhaps a tradition of monotheistic approaches going back before Islam to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but Islam emerged following that tradition. It was then and there that modern principles such as individualism, rationalism and universalism were systematized. Since the seventh century, a vast wave of Islam-inspired modernization in human history began, and eventually influenced the modernization of the West. If we consider Islam as a non-European religion that emerged from West Asia and treat it as being fundamentally different from things Western, we may be seriously misjudging its historical development.

……………………………………………………….

Hoshino: So you’re saying that modernization originated in the Islamic world, was disseminated into Europe, and eventually developed further into complex ideas on freedom, equality and humanity employed during, say, the French Revolution?

Itagaki: That is correct. The process of urbanization, commercialization, and politicization began to evolve full scale throughout the world in the seventh century. From there, the individualism and rationality that organize and process information based upon clear reason emerged.

You must be totally insane to claim that Islam systemized the modern principles of “individualism, rationalism and universalism”, but apparently the good professor is serious. Such blatant apologetics for the backward cult of Islam is hard to find even on a Palestinian terrorist discussion board.

People like Itagaki enable the lefty loons to stage protests against Japanese companies, willing to do business with Israel – in the case of Sanrio (the makers of the Hello Kitty stuff) the bullying failed, while other companies, like MUJI (a store chain) chickened out and decided not to open stores in Israel.

I also found out that along with the leftist hostility in Japan you can also find right-wing anti-Semitism. People like Ryu Ota and other writers regularly publish anti-Semitic books. Unlike the leftist, who can spread that poison in the university lecture halls, Ota and other like him don’t hold official positions and their influence is very limited. That doesn’t stop them from spreading the most bizarre Jewish conspiracy theories – from tracing the beginning of the “devastating” Jewish influence over Japan to the 7^th century to the “discovery” that the Portuguese who came to Japan in the 1500’s were actually disguised Jews, to the obligatory Rothschild conspiracy to take over the Japanese economy… it’s all there…

My next source in Tokyo was also very knowledgeable about Israel and the Jewish issues in Japan. He provided me with a wealth of materials, but since he is not a public person, I will respect his privacy and won’t say much about him.

He confirmed my suspicion that there is no anti-Semitism in Japan in the usual sense of the word (as a dominant attitude). Very little is known about Israel and the majority of the people are basically ignorant about it. The events in the country are covered by the Japanese media, but never on the front page. Few stories about Israel make it to the media. However, there is general curiosity about Israel. The lack of actual knowledge about Israel and the Jews doesn’t prevent Pakistan from being a viciously anti-Semitic country due to the domination of the murderous Islam.

He then added that if you push the media aside, it is nice for the Jews to work in Japan. There is a very small Jewish community, probably about 300 people, but the number is not permanent. It changes because many of those people are in the country temporarily. Those who live there permanently are first generation Jews (mostly American).

Although there is no anti-Semitism, Japan is a xenophobic country, but there is no hostility toward Jews.

I would like to add here a remark to explain what “xenophobic” means in Japanese context. Usually that term is linked to raging crowds with torches and knives, which burn and kill everybody who is different. Although the Japanese do not accept fully foreigners, they tolerate and respect them to the extent to which they follow and accept the Japanese values and traditions.

Those values include self-reliance – it is still shameful to be dependent on the government and get welfare payments. Many people, who are destitute, would do everything to get help first from their families before approaching the social service. Japanese resent everybody who doesn’t make an effort to be self-reliant, especially if he or she is a foreigner. That’s why Japan takes in so few refugees. The type of immigrant common in England – the lazy illiterate Pakistani Muslim who gets free food, free house and free healthcare – would be unthinkable in Japan. And if your values include taking breaks five times a day to lift your ass in the office or in the street, you’ll quickly find out that Japan is not the ideal country for you.

Since the Jews and most of the other Westerners have practically a zero chance to become freeloaders in Japan, they are respected and accepted.

However, in some popular books you may find some stereotypes about the Jews – like an analysis of the Jewish mind and its way of controlling business; tips on running a business in a Jewish way, etc. All of this could be seen as anti-Semitic (to a certain degree) in the West, but from the local point of view it may be interpreted as an appreciation of some special abilities, which are more appreciated than envied.

At the same time, in rare cases you can see some odd displays of anti-Semitism in the everyday life. My source had observed them and shared with me some of his archival pictures. In the pictures at the top and below you see a demonstration in Shibuya (Tokyo) against the government providing financial subsidies to foreigners. I don’t know why, but they displayed the Nazi flag.

The Nazi flag is still there

A year ago a scandal was caused by the appearance of the Japanese rock band Kishidan. The band members chose to wear uniforms of SS officers when performing.

Kishidan – the strange case of the singing Nazis

Don’t they feel hot?

The Nazi platoon rests…

Before that, in December 2010, the discount store chain Don Quijote (which somewhat resembles Honest Ed’s in Toronto), was selling Nazi costumes, with swastikas and a drawing of Hitler. The Simon Wiesenthal Center objected to it and the costume was removed.

The ill-fated Nazi costumes

Kishidan reminded me something I saw last year in Seoul, South Korea. One night I was walking the downtown streets looking for a place to eat. That is a difficult task, because there are dozens of restaurants and it’s hard to make a choice.

Finally I picked a fried chicken restaurant. Looking closely at the waiters’ uniforms, I realized that all of them included the Waffen SS sign (with an eagle and swastika). It turned out my source had the same experience at the same restaurant (he spent a few years in Seoul). Despite the requests of Christians and Jewish people the management refused to change the uniforms.

I asked the waiters, some of whom spoke English, if they knew what that sign means. None of them did. With their permission I took pictures of the uniform. Below you see the front and the back:

Your waiter is an SS man and an Englishman…

The happy SS chicken

I included the Korean pictures, because they clearly show the odd character of such displays in the Far East.  Take a look at the uniform, next to the sign of the murderous Nazi units we see a Union Jack badge with “England” written at the top. On the sleeve we have a small South Korean flag (you can‘t see it). And on the back is a happy chicken marching with a pint of beer.

Doesn’t that strike you as something strange and even carnival-like? Such an odd combination of symbols simply makes even the Nazi eagle look ridiculous. The same applies to the unusual presence of the Nazi flag at the demonstration. The Hitler drawing at Don Quijote looks more like Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, and I am not sure if any Nazi group would approve a bunch of punks leaping on stage in SS uniforms.

Of course, that doesn’t make those displays less offensive, but my point is that here we are dealing mostly with ignorance and insensitivity rather than some sinister Nazi worship. Yes, our world is more weird and complicated than one may expect.

Still, it looks like the things are progressing (although slowly) and the real story of Israel is spreading in Japan. I learned that recently the book of Alan Dershowitz “The Case for Israel” has been translated into Japanese and distributed to many libraries.

The saying “patience is a virtue” applies here even more – even in Western Europe and North America it’s so difficult to cut through all misinformation and lies about Israel and the Jews. In Japan, where many people are not even aware of problem, the revelation of the truth may take even longer.

The Jews have waited for nearly 2,000 years to restore their state – from the position of that really epic patience, waiting a few extra years until the others understand the truth about them wouldn’t seem that long…

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

JDL is ready to march...

The sunny and warm Victoria Day was perfect for this year’s UJA Walk With Israel event. This very popular initiative of the United Jewish Appeal attracts every year many thousands of people and brings in massive donations, which help fund many social and educational projects in Israel (mostly in Sderot, Eilat and Bat Yam).

The event is also an opportunity for many people to show their support for the most maligned and blackmailed country in the world, which is in reality the only beacon of democracy and progress in the Middle East.

Last year I missed the walk (and it was my first time to attend), so I was really surprised to see the huge number of people willing to walk (probably well over 10,000). It was a pleasure to be among so many happy and cheerful people. The experience definitely beat any Palestinian rally, where the somber participants can get excited only if somebody tells them how the next year they are going to take over “Al-Quds” and destroy the “Zionist Entity”.

Of course, even this walk didn’t avoid that type of people (more about this later).

We are already in the park

After meeting at Exhibition Place, we walked to the nearby park, already crowded, with thousands of people walking around.

The park is already crowded

Flags, people and signs

From the stage they announced the names of the politicians, who were present. We were greeted by Amir Gissin, the Consul General of Israel in Toronto:

Israeli Consul Amir Gissin

You could see people from dozens of organizations, carrying their signs, slogans and flags:

Even the Conservative Party had its representatives walking with Israel (for some reason I couldn’t find the NDP guys in the crowd):

Conservatives walk with Israel (no sign of Libby Davies)

And of course, SUN TV was there as well:

SUN TV

During the last few days I have been stumbling upon Muslim and gay events, dominated by hijabs and men in dresses, so it was nice for a change to see the real girls from Sole Power Productions singing and having fun:

The Sole Power truck show...

After the speeches ended and a young boy sang Hatikvah in a very touching way, we were ready to start the walk:

The walk has begun...

Everybody's walking...

The young people and the students kept chanting and singing:

Happy, shiny people...

Soon we reached the downtown area:

The downtown walk...

The whole itinerary was secured and well guarded by the Toronto Police. As I mentioned earlier, very rarely can you see an Israel-related event without a bunch of haters showing up. This walk wasn’t an exception.

It's nothing personal - we just want to spoil your walk

We came across a small group of deluded people trying to make their point. Basically, that was the same pathetic bunch of self-hating professional protesters, who never miss the opportunity to bash Israel (without a single Muslim among them). Their signs preached the same tired suicidal agenda, like ending the free trade between Canada and Israel; demolishing the wall; ending the imaginary apartheid, etc.

The police officers guarding them vastly outnumbered the “revolutionaries”. Members of JDL-Canada stopped their walk to confront them.

Do you really want to get rid of Israel?

It was a great verbal exchange, which the rest of the participants cheered while passing by. The confrontation didn’t change the mood as the walk continued:

The students walk...

The truck show is still going strong...

Crossing the street...

We passed two small parks where we could get more water, some snacks and see even more happy people in a great mood:

"Bounce with Israel"

It was a very long walk (I was told about 10 km) and the amazing accomplishment was that so many elderly people and small children managed to finish it despite the heat at noon. After we made a full circle and returned to Exhibition Place, there was a nice surprise waiting for us.

Neturei Karta's travelling comedy show

The crazy rabbis from Neturei Karta had assembled their own mini-rally. I stumbled upon them for the first time at the G20 summit a few years back. At the time they looked to me like a bad sketch from a CBC comedy, but soon I found out they were absolutely serious about their doctrine. As you can see in their display, they claim that the Jews are forbidden to have their state and Israel doesn’t represent the world Jewry. What takes the cake is the statement that the “Torah demands all Palestine be returned to Palestinian Sovereignty”. I wonder where in the Torah they speak about the fake Palestinian nation and its “representatives” PLO and Hamas. Does the Torah endorse the “Palestinian” flag they are displaying as well?

Those guys are even more suicidal than the BDS and Israeli Apartheid Week folks. It’s no wonder Ahmadinejad is always happy when they visit him in Tehran.

JDL confronts the crazy rabbis

Again, the Jewish Defense League took upon itself the task to make their rally more difficult than planned. The heated verbal exchange went on for almost half an hour with no signs of Neturei Karta changing their minds.

And it didn’t look like they could win any converts for their cause either. The people passing them by were laughing, taking pictures, and some even tried to explain to them why what they were doing was wrong. A few times some of the rabbis tried to mingle with the crowd, but the police that surrounded them stopped them each and every time (I guess for the sake of their own safety).

All in all, the event was excellent, despite the fact that my face went beet-red because of sunburn. Even the haters, who tried to disrupt the walk, were important for its success – the insane ideas, which they promote make you realize even better why unity and solidarity in the face of all destructive forces (Islamism, leftism or plain stupidity) are the only chance of Israel’s survival in this crazy world.

I hope to see even more people joining the walk next year. (And yes, Neturei Karta are welcome to show up again.)

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just spoke at the AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee). He covered the threat from Iran and the options of Israel to confront that threat. The position of his country on terrorism and other external threats has been very clear for decades, and that’s not why I am posting the video.

What I want to show is a true leader, who doesn’t mince his words, doesn’t build his speech with the caution not to offend this or other group or people (who hate you anyway) and is not afraid to affirm his position. Unfortunately, that type of leader is rapidly disappearing in the West, being replaced by spineless creatures, which try to show empathy and understanding toward barbarians, who hold knives to their throats. The best example – Barry Obama, who incessantly apologizes to delusional savages over every imaginable offence committed by the once great country of the USA.

Anyway, the speech is well worth watching:

On March 1 a discussion under the title ‘Media Perceptions of the Middle East’ took place at the University of Toronto. It was organized by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC). As with everything related to the Middle East, not only did the event provide insights and varying views, but it also caused an eruption of stormy passion among the participants, which made it even more interesting.

The four panellists included Michael Coren (Sun TV), Carole MacNeil (CBC), Jonathan Kay (National Post), and Tarek Fatah (journalist and radio talk show host), with Avi Benlolo, Presisdent of FSWC acting as a moderator.

Left to right: Michael Coren, Carole MacNeil, Avi Benlolo, Jonathan Kay, Tarek Fatah

The discussion revolved around several questions posed by the moderator, and the first one covered:

IS THERE A MEDIA BIAS IN THE COVERAGE OF THE MIDDLE EAST (AND SPECIFICALLY ISRAEL)?

According to Michael Coren, before 1973 the coverage of Israel was very favourable, Israel could do no bad. Starting with the Yom Kippur War things changed and during the last 20 years, especially in Europe, it became much worse. Carole MacNeil added that when journalists cover the Middle East, they often don’t want to touch a story, because the reactions could be unpredictable and they’ll be intimidated. She often did coverage of stories from that area for CBC, but was never censored – there is no bias in CBC. Her impression is that people in Canada usually are willing to stand with Israel.

In Jonathan Kay’s opinion, media bias against Israel is not such a problem anymore. There are several reasons for that: first, the wide spread of the Internet, which made it very difficult for the media to hide or distort facts. Second, a turning point were the Jenin events of 2002, where in a battle 13 Israelis and 55 Palestinians were killed, yet that was misrepresented in Europe as a massacre with thousands of victims, but in reality it was just Palestinian propaganda, which was revealed quickly. Third, the issue with the suicide bombers – that type of terrorism is so repulsive that nobody can applaud them, even the most fanatical leftists have no other choice but to distance themselves. Fourth, the Arab Spring – since those ground-breaking events unfolded, they became a much better story for the media than the tired Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tarek Fatah provided a wider perspective, stating that we often forget that the Middle East is not only Israel and Palestine – it’s appalling how other peoples are ignored (like the Kurds). The Arab Spring was misrepresented by journalist who knew nothing about the area. For example, they ignored the black people who were mistreated in Libya (he didn’t mean the black “mercenaries”, but the native population – 10% of the Libyan population is black). There are many other cases of ignorance. Saudi Arabia and Iran, which play significant role, are ignored as well – the Iranian missiles, which target Ormuz, are the real story, not Israel and the Palestinians.

Here Avi Benlolo noted that the Toronto Star has a certain bias – they provided a very positive coverage of the Gaza flotilla last year.

Jonathan Kay then remarked that the Toronto Star might be biased, but they had reporters in Libya. Besides, their columnist Haroon Siddiqui is a representative of the mainstream Muslim ideas.

That was enough to stir up Tarek Fatah’s emotions: “Mainstream” is a terrible word to use about Haroon – he defends Saudi Arabia, Ahmadinejad, and sharia law. The Toronto Star is very biased, some people even call it “Toronto Crescent”. Just like The Globe and Mail, which employs two hijab columnists, they look to hire strange-looking and hostile Muslims in order not to be accused in racism.

(I was really shocked by Kay’s remark – reading the Toronto Star almost every day, I see absolutely no reason to call Siddiqui “mainstream”. On every issue he writes about, he finds a subtle or blatant way to attack Israel or the West and to show how much better Islam is. In his recent article against the defunding of Palestine House, he defended their “logo” showing the whole territory of Israel as Palestinian land:

He even defended their celebration of the released terrorists in exchange for Corporal Shalit. And that’s just one article. Haroon is criticized overwhelmingly even by the Star’s lefty readership – often the paper turns off the comments under his articles.)

The second question discussed was:

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY NEWS ABOUT ISRAEL?

Carole agreed that the country receives a disproportionally high coverage compared to the size of its population. Among the many reasons are the constant threats against it, especially from Iran.

Michael Coren found a particular aspect that’s very important: Israel has a much more democratic way of treating journalists – they are allowed everywhere, except in areas with military secrets. Hezbollah, on the other hand, takes journalists to specific locations and tells them what to write. Many lefty college kids from the Western countries go to the West Bank to play heroes, because that is a safe area, where they don’t risk their lives (they would never go to Syria, where they can get killed).

Tarek Fatah pointed out at a very specific perspective – we often forget that Israel is attacked as a Jewish state; it is not even recognized by most Muslim countries as an independent state. Its situation is unique – for example, Iran wants to destroy it, no other country is in such position. Imagine if two European countries are in a similar situation – that would cause immediate outrage. That strange situation is reflected in Toronto Star’s anti-Israeli stand. The editorial content of the newspaper is appalling – they even romanticized the flotilla. (At this point Jonathan Kay whispered “Haroon!” to Tarek, apparently thinking it was a good joke.)

The next question covered

THE ISRAEL AND MIDDLE EAST SITUATION ON CAMPUS

Avi Benlolo started by noting that Israel is attacked in the universities as an apartheid state, which it is not, the comparison is absurd.

As a possible reason, Tarek Fatah stated that the supporters of Israel failed to affirm convincingly their point. There are many countries in the area, which are truly apartheid states. For example, in Saudi Arabia only Arabs can become citizens, while Pakistanis and blacks cannot and they are even mistreated. In Egypt, a Christian is not allowed to run for President. It’s wrong to single out Israel, while the countries with real apartheid problems are ignored.

Jonathan Kay added that this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) will be the most unremarkable in memory – when people are dying in Syria, it doesn’t make sense to have that week. However, it will be bad to ban the IAW, because we live in a free country. Most of the participants in IAW are not anti-Semites; they are actually veteran anti-racists from the 1970’s. They want to recapture their lost moral purpose, so they go to Gaza.

(Again, I have to disagree with Jonathan. Downplaying the vitriolic hatred, which is displayed during IAW both by speakers and participants, as a misguided hippy moral quest, is not correct. Portraying IDF as a bunch of vicious killers in a poster they sold at the University of Toronto last year, is simply poorly veiled anti-Semitism:

They even sold it at a premium price, because it was supposedly banned.)

Carole MacNeil then said that we should let the marketplace of ideas to decide what will happen. Michael Coren shot back right away – CBC doesn’t believe in marketplace of free ideas – in many of its programs the religious people are ridiculed. In his opinion, IAW is profoundly anti-intellectual. It doesn’t go into discussing the reality – the Israeli Arabs are part of Israel, it is absurd to compare Israel to South Africa. In the Haifa University about 30-35% of the students are Arabs, many with anti-Israeli sentiments. The real purpose of IAW is to create a climate of hostility and discomfort.

Then came the fourth question:

ARE THE JEWS THE GROUP THAT IS MOST TARGETED FOR HATE?

The participants went immediately into discussing hate speech. According to Tarek Fatah, when discussing hate and hate crime, we must have an open debate and not charge people with hate speech. Those people should be challenged openly in public.

Jonathan stated that the hate crimes against Jews are exaggerated – every little thing is reported and presented as a hate crime. In reality, Jews play a very important role in the universities – they have a good representation.

Michael Coren expressed his discomfort with the hate speech idea. For example the Mormons baptized Anne Frank – this is not strictly anti-Semitism. In Europe we have real attacks, conducted mostly by Muslims, while the rightists, who are often blackmailed, embrace Israel. IAW is not anti-Semitism, it’s an expression of a lack of empathy especially with the problems of Israel.

Then Avi Benlolo asked: why shouldn’t we consider the BDS movement anti-Semitic? In Michael Coren’s opinion, the people in that movement are radical minorities. There are not many Arabs, only aging white people.

THE “FIXER” INTERMISSION

After that the discussion drifted to the actual field coverage of the events in the Middle East. Somebody brought up the point that the limited budgets force the media to reduce the number of reporters. Carole MacNeil said that because of that the remaining journalists have to rely on local “fixers”. She obviously meant that those local people help in obtaining information about events.

At this point, Tarek Fatah expressed his displeasure with the term, saying that it implies an inferior position. Those people should be treated the same way as the Western journalists. Jonathan Kay tried to help out Carole by sharing an experience he had with a “fixer” in the West Bank. That Arab woman helped him arrange interviews with people, whom he would’ve never been able to see otherwise. On top of that, she had a souvenir shop in Ramallah, where JK spent over $500 on gifts and both of them were happy.

At this moment Tarek literally went ballistic – he said that both of them had a racist attitude toward the local people and Kay even treated his “fixer” like a pimp, because he paid her. Frankly, I wasn’t able to figure out the reason for his rage. Neither Carole, nor Jonathan had used the word in any racist context. In fact, if Tarek had the same reaction after Kay’s remarks about Haroon being “mainstream”, I would’ve supported him completely.

Michael Coren and Tarek Fatah

Tarek got up and said he wanted to leave; he couldn’t stay with people expressing such outrageous views. Coren tried to stop him, but after a heated verbal exchange Tarek left. His daughter Natasha tried to explain to Jonathan why the talk about “fixers” is racist and “paternalistic” and to make him apologize, but frankly she wasn’t very convincing. Jonathan Kay didn’t apologize.

The discussion heats up

Tarek Fatah leaves the building

Due to that exciting experience, we lost 20 minutes of the discussion.

That lengthened the question and answer session. Many were deeply concerned with the danger coming from Iran. There were a few Muslim students, who after the discussion went straight to MC with the usual questions. I didn’t hear everything, but remember how one of them, standing next to me asked him why the 6 million Palestinians living in Israel and under occupation are not allowed to mark their “Nakba”. When did they multiply to such numbers?

Michael Coren with the Muslim students

The discussion continues

Overall, it was a nice discussion, even with the “fixer” incident – a nice exercise in free speech, which makes you feel good that we live in a country, which is still free.

© 2012 Blogwrath.com

Happy Hanukkah!

Let the Wall always be a part of the undivided city…

It was a rocky week at the United Nations, dominated by the Palestinians’ offensive to bully their way into statehood.

Aside from the frantic diplomatic work behind the scenes, focused on advancing the viewpoints of the both opposing sides, we were treated to many speeches by world leaders. We even witnessed some genuine action – the people of the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan got into a real fight with the security of UN. Obviously, the Sultan of the New Ottoman Empire wanted to remind the kaffirs who calls the shots.

The “historic” speech of the Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas (whose term had expired long time ago) was nothing more than the usual whining about the “plight” of his people, mixed with meaningless phrases designed to avoid the discussion of any real issues about how his organization sabotaged every attempt to resolve the conflict through negotiations.

The little madman from Tehran, who employs the worst barber and tailor in the world, managed to attack in his speech again every Western value.

With his speech Barack Obama reminded everybody why he is totally unfit to be the President of the USA. His wishy-washy presentation, which he read, was carefully crafted to present no real opinion. While giving a lip service to the cause of Israel, he was careful not to offend his newfound Muslim friends.

It was sad to watch the leader of the once most powerful country in the world speak like a Swedish Green hippy.  I don’t know who advises him, but the advice he gets is bad – by trying to stay in the middle with no opinion, he is guaranteed to be disliked by both conservatives and lefties.   

Sadly, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the only one to bring up clearly all the issues the other leaders carefully avoided. It was an emotional speech, which showed his strong personal position behind the questions discussed.

He bluntly pointed out the real intentions of the Palestinians, which they hide behind the peace mask:

“President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.”

Then he went on to state the real issue Israel had with the Palestinian behaviour – the Arabs never wanted to give any guarantees about the safety of Israel. They don’t even want to acknowledge the Jewish state. While over a million Arabs live in that country, who are citizens, Abbas pledged that when the Palestinian state is established, he won’t allow a single Jew to live there.

That hostility is precisely the issue, which doesn’t allow the Palestinian leadership to be trusted. When coupled with the pathological anti-Semitism in the Muslim countries surrounding Israel, it is impossible to believe in the good intentions of the Palestinians if they don’t offer any tangible steps to resolve the security issue.

Every concession that the Jewish state has made, had been seen as a weakness and mercilessly exploited by the Palestinians. When the army withdrew from Gaza completely, it was taken over by the fanatics from Hamas, which resulted in thousands of rockets sent into Israeli territory.

If the Palestinians achieve the same independence in Judea and Samaria, that means even more problems. The terrorists will be able to shoot easily at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The promise that it would never happen is just a bunch of empty words – the Palestinian leadership has never, ever kept its word.

At first sight, such an attitude looks bizarre – PLO has rejected several offers made by Israel, which would’ve provided them with everything they wanted. However, the attitude becomes perfectly understandable when you look at it from the point of view of the real Palestinian goal, which is the destruction of Israel.

The other Arab nations tried to achieve that goal several times and the Palestinians are not different. Why should they accept peaceful solution, if they are sure that they’ll get the whole country? Of course, such a position is delusional, but most of their leaders are stubborn enough to perpetuate it.

They used to follow every power, which would promise help in the destruction. In the 1970’s Arafat was a secularist, true to the Soviet Union. He also sought the support of secular Arab leaders like Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.  When in 1990 he supported the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait that caused the suffering of hundreds of thousands of his own people, who were expelled from the Arab countries.

 When communism collapsed and it became clear that the secular help would not work, the Palestinians turned to the Muslim fanatics. That’s how Hamas became so powerful.

At the same time Palestinians are trying to delegitimize Israel through falsifying its history. With the help of the useful lefty idiots and organizations like UNESCO, they make pathetic attempts to deny the long and unquestionable record of the Jewish presence in the Holy Land.

Last year UNESCO went as far as denying the Jewish character of ancient Israeli holy sites. The old terrorist Abbas went even further and denied the historical and religious importance of the Western Wall for the Jews.

I am not sure if the Palestinian leaders sincerely think that they can destroy Israel, but the impasse caused by their stubbornness affirms their image of victims, which results in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to them, most of which end up in their personal banking accounts.

At the same time, millions of ignorant Palestinians are led to believe by the PLO and Hamas propaganda that the destruction of Israel is the only path toward solution of all their problems. Many of them still live as “refugees” in other Arab countries. They are used like pawns by their Arab hosts to discredit Israel and aggravate the conflict. And those are supposedly their Muslim “brothers”. Imagine what the outcry would be if Canada treated refugees the same way…

The West pretends that it doesn’t notice the absurd situation. The refusal of the Palestinians to recognize Israel is not the only problem they have. They can’t even stop quarrelling with each other before demanding statehood – there is no real reconciliation between Gaza and the West Bank.

The fact that the whole circus is played at the United Nations is a good indication of the bias and uselessness of that organization. Founded by delusional politicians to serve as a beacon for mankind’s progress, now UN is a cesspool of corruption and hatred controlled by the Muslim fanatics from OIC and the African dictators. Yet 75% of its budget comes from the contributions of five civilized countries, which often are attacked by the backward countries, which keep most of the budget money.

But the Muslims and their Western supporters fail to notice a very important fact – Israel must survive regardless of the sinister political games of UN. Simply there’s no other option. The demolition of the Jewish state would bring the same disaster that happened seventy years ago (especially when you consider the frightening levels of the modern anti-Semitism).

When a country is in a position of life or death, losing is out of the question. Israel is in such position. The troubling results of the “Arab spring” are more fanaticism and war, democracy is as far from the Arab countries as ever.

Israel must be supported, because the Muslim hostility that threatens it is going to turn against the West very soon.  

© 2011 Blogwrath.com

Meir Weinstein speaks at the protest against Theodore Bikel

4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.

4:10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up.

4:11 Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm alone?

4:12 If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
(Qoheleth / Ecclesiastes).

It is sad when people forget the Bible’s wisdom, which is readily available to everybody, who is able to read.  The words of the Preacher clearly say that it is impossible to survive without unity and mutual support (and almost everybody’s experience would confirm that).

It is strange that in the case of Israel there are so many people, who, for one reason or another, are willing to distance themselves from the country and even show hostility. Under normal circumstances, during peace, one may overlook their blindness, but right now such a position is unforgivable.

After the advance of the Muslim fanaticism in the Arab countries in the last few months, Israel is under an imminent threat. Every foolish call for boycott coming from prominent Jews, which they think would make them more popular among their lefty friends, is actually a blow against the safety and integrity of the Jewish state.

The purpose of today’s event, organized by JDL-Canada, was to reinforce that point of view. JDL protested the appearance of Theodore Bikel and his group in Toronto.

Although a great entertainer, Bikel in the last few years has descended into attacking and defaming Israel, calling it an “apartheid” state and demanding its boycott.

In his speech, Meir Weinstein, the JDL Director, reminded everybody that such a position is destructive to the future of Israel. The country is under attack. Just a few days ago terrorists killed seven Israelis at the southern border.

Israel’s enemies are ready and willing to start an invasion. There are over 50,000 rockets pointed at Israel from different countries, which could be fired at any moment. Over the last several days, Hamas has fired over a hundred rockets into Israeli territory.

The Hamas leaders recently stated that they want to “restore” the borders of 1948, which means that they want the total destruction of Israel. The whole charade with the “Palestinian independence” is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide their aggressive intentions.

People like Bikel may think that they somehow “contribute” to peace, but their actions actually contribute to the demonization and weakening of Israel during one of the crucial moments of its history.

And here is the question we need to ponder: isn’t it time those intellectuals thought more about the consequences of their actions? The Arab terrorists may find them useful at the moment, but once Israel is destroyed, they’ll be the next to be slaughtered.

“If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Yes, we can’t withstand, if we are not together. Is this so difficult to understand?

© 2011 Blogwrath.com

The European division on the Japanese company Sanriojust announced that they were expanding their operations in Israel. The company owns the wildly popular Hello Kitty brand. Israel was the first Hello Kitty franchiser in the world, through the LDI company of Mapal Communications with CEO Yossi Fox.  In Israel Hello Kitty is present on over 200 products of local manufacturers, and is dominant in clothing and school accessories, but this is the first time stores are being opened.

When asked about the reason for the expansion, Roberto Lanzi, the president of the division, said: ”You [Israel] are one of the only countries which have survived the global financial crisis so well.” It’s no wonder – Israel is the only country in the region with a decent work ethics, where the government doesn’t have as a main objective stealing as much money as they can.

To be honest, Hello Kitty is one of those things that make me scratch my head and wonder who would buy those trinkets. However, the kitschy cat is a major obsession among the mighty Japanese girls, who move billions of dollars (or yen) of merchandise every year. Everybody who has visited Japan has probably noticed the power of the kawaii culture – the cult of cute in all of its expressions, which makes any cute products highly successful. Apparently
that culture is contagious, because now the Kitty could be found almost everywhere in the world.

Judging from the totally innocent merchandise, which, according to Lanzi, never conveys negative messages or violence, it would be hard to imagine that anybody could object the move. However, it attracted the attention of the BDS gang (the folks, who want to boycott, divest and sanction Israel).

In the past they used to go after serious targets like Hewlett Packard, which through their computers have some involvement in the defence of the country. Going against a company that sells plastic tchotchkes and has no involvement in anything substantial is not a sign of a strategy – it is a sign of anti-Semitism and pathological hatred for Israel.

In a letter to Sanrio’s management a certain Sarah Colborne, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (based in England), makes a passionate plea to keep Hello Kitty out of Israel by regurgitating the same old tripe about the UN resolutions and the settlements, which we have heard many times before.

“We believe it is time now for all companies including Sanrio to take a clear stand and refuse to be complicit in the occupation and war crimes committed by Israel. By trading in Israel, you are not only helping to maintain the financial viability of these illegal constructions, you are also lending them legitimacy.” She doesn’t elaborate on how the little kitten is complicit in the occupation. The myth of the war crimes is so discredited that it’s not even worth discussing.

That letter bears a striking resemblance to the letter of their Japanese BDS brethren, published in the Palestine Forum (many thanks to Toshie who translated the text for me). It’s not a wonder – those lefty fanatics act and think in the same way regardless of their colour, race, nationality or location. Their ultimate goal is to subjugate all of us to their dreary world where success is seen as a deviation from the collective spirit; humour is an offense; fun is prohibited since the planet is dying, and a hairy butch is the beauty queen.

The Japanese BDS folks lose all of their credibility in the very beginning, because they start with the whiny Kitty pasted on a photo of one of the most stupid and primitive hoaxes in history. The al-Duras (father and son)  shown in the picture, were supposedly shot at by the Israeli army – the father was hit by 12 bullets and his son was “killed”. In fact, nobody was killed or wounded, it was a scam to demonize Israel once again. It took a really brave man, Philippe Karsenty from France, to confront the hoax despite all the threats and harassment. You can read the detailed explanation here (h/t BCF). Last year I had the privilege to cover his lecture in Toronto on the same topic.

The Kitty sheds a tear for the al-Dura swindlers

Please click on the GIF image to see the alternating message.

After that they invoke the Sanrio’s moral “charter”, which is supposed to outline the company’s ethical principles. They are against stealing other people’s possessions, they oppose violence and lies and strictly adhere to the law.

The purpose is to show that Sanrio violates its own principles in Israel. Then the Japanese BDS loons ask several “devastating” questions to unmask the evil Hello Kitty tactics in the Jewish State.

They ask how they can open stores in a country, which has been condemned for its war crimes. (Only an organization like the UN, dominated by Muslim fanatics and African dictators can consider a war crime the self-defence from bombing.)

Then they want to know how Sanrio is going to operate in the settlements and deal with the Palestinian “discrimination” within Israel. It becomes even more interesting when they ask very specific questions.

How is the company going to respond, if they receive an order from the settlements? Are they going to deliver to the West Bank and Gaza? (Of course, if the buyers chip in to get their trinkets delivered by an armoured vehicle backed up with tanks.)

Is the company going to open stores in the settlements? Are they going to employ residents from the West Bank and Gaza? (Yes, if Sanrio wants to see the Hello Kitty junk flying around after a bombing, mixed with their customers’ body parts, they should consider an employee recruitment drive in Gaza.)

The question that takes the cake is about the possibility of Sanrio’s involvement with the Israeli military in a broad sense – either directly or through affiliated companies that conduct military research. Even the wildest imagination can’t picture the Israeli army adopting pink Hello Kitty themed tanks or soldiers in frilled uniforms wearing pink helmets decorated with Hello Kitty ribbons or any other similar atrocity.

But maybe those Japanese BDS loons are nice people who care about justice and are willing to hold Sanrio to their high moral standards.

The company operates stores in a few other countries in the region. It would be interesting to see what the BDS people think about that involvement.

The good people from Sanrio have provided us with an online shop locator in the Middle East. To save you time, I am going to tell you exactly how they are presented. They have 1 store in Bahrain, 2 in Kuwait, 1 in Lebanon, 3 in Qatar, 4 in Saudi Arabia, and 13 in the United Arab Emirates.

It looks like they are doing a very “good” job in adapting to the Muslim customs. In the article quoted in the beginning, the author writes that the owner showed him “an iPhone application for Muslims, requiring a subscription fee. It includes a prayer time alert, five times a day. Kitty plays the role of muezzin.” What a pious Kitty! Excellent! (As Mr. Burns would say.)

So how does Sanrio’s moral chart apply in those countries?

Let’s start in alphabetical order – during the “wonderful” Arab Spring scores of protesters were shot and killed in Bahrain with the help of their good neighbours from Saudi Arabia. How is that for not associating the company with violence?

Despite of its oil wealth, Kuwait is still a backward Muslim country. Just recently, an Islamic witch and politician, who is considered a Kuwaiti women’s rights activist, openly advocated the official re-introduction of the sex slavery laws as a way to fight adultery (h/t BCF). Young Christian slaves are supposed to be brought to the country to quench the appetites of the oversexed Kuwaiti brutes (of course, Muslims can’t be put in that position). For centuries, that was a common practice of the Turkish barbarians in the Balkan countries they occupied. If a woman defends that practice openly in a Muslim country, it means that there are many thousands of people there who support the idea. What does the Kitty think about that?

Lebanon’s government now is controlled by Hezbollah, which is a violent terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia is the poster boy for everything that’s wrong with the Muslim world – after all, Old Mo, the pedophile who established the cult they follow, left his footprint in the countryforever. Raping little girls in the form of marriage is still very popular. No Jews are allowed to reside there. The foreigners who practically run all the services and industries in the country are treated like vermin. The arrogant brutes from the UAE emirates are no different than Saudi Arabia in the way they treat non-Muslims. Last year their airlines even wanted to get a deal from Canada that would’ve put them in control of the air transportation in Canada. When the government refused to give them the rights, they kicked out the Canadian Air Force from their base in UAE.

Isn’t the whiny Kitty going to shed a tear as well for the people who suffer in those countries?

You may expect that the Japanese and British BDS idiots are aware of those problems and condemn Sanrio’s presence there. And you’ll be wrong. There is not a single remark about their involvement in countries where murder, child abuse, sex slavery, and oil-wealth induced arrogance are “nice” parts of the rich tapestry of the Muslim culture. So the BDS crowd doesn’t have problems with violence and sex abuse per se – it may attract their attention only if they could use it against Israel.

Come to think about it, the BDS people might be right – Israel is basically a peaceful and boring country (when it doesn’t retaliate against the Arab terrorists, who try to destroy it). What if Sanrio adapts to the Israeli culture? Here is what they get:

Yeshiva Kitty

See? It’s a yeshiva Kitty with a book. How boring!

Imagine the exciting opportunities that will open to them, if they expand their business into Gaza:

Jihad Kitty

Isn’t this great? That’s a kitty that can kick every kaffir’s ass and fight all Zionist oppressors it can get hold of.

But why stop there? Hello Kitty can transform the whole Hamas business. It might become the cute face of those savages:

Introducing the Hello Kitty Martyr Brigades

Who could get mad at that cute face? Wouldn’t you feel better if the insane Palestinian sadists, who blew up your school bus, are now called the Hello Kitty Martyr Brigades? Leaving that sticker on site will provide the cute, nearly human image that the terrorists so desperately crave.

Joking aside, the vicious campaign against Sanrio brings the BDS movement to a new low. Fighting cartoon characters has never been a sign of good mental health.

With their European headquarters located in Germany, the company exposes itself to the growing wave of anti-Semitism, which the hippy leftovers, who rule Western Europe, pretend not to notice.

Maybe it’s worth to remind everybody that over 60 years ago, Germany had a chancellor with a funny moustache, who was the undisputed pioneer and master of the early BDS movement.

The new BDS idiots appear to be very worthy and diligent pupils of their teacher.

How long would it take before we see the second edition of the Kristallnacht?

© 2011 Blogwrath.com

Prof. Barry Rubin speaks at a Speakers Action Group event in Toronto

Thanks to the efforts of the Speakers Action Group last Friday we had the opportunity to listen to a remarkable speaker – Professor Barry Rubin. He is the director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA). He is also author of many books on the Middle East issues.

He started with the statement that a titanic battle is going on in the Arab countries and the Middle East, which became more visible with the recent revolutions in the area. There are three groups, which define the face of that battle – the first one is Al Qaida. Although it is often in the news, it is not
the most important one. Its importance has diminished in the last few years.

The second one, which is very important, is Iran and its alliance – Syria, Hezbollah, the Shia movements, etc. The third chief group is the Muslim Brotherhood, especially in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Despite of having been suppressed for years, now the movement is rising into a prominence.

Right now this is the most important struggle in the world, although most governments and the mainstream media don’t recognize that fact. An example of that blindness is the situation in Lebanon, where recently they formed a new government with 60% representation of the Muslim extremists from Hezbollah. The change was mentioned in New York Times, but with the remark that the movement is gaining “some influence” in the government.

The situation is not much better when they discuss Turkey – the creeping Islamism of the Prime Minister Erdogan is usually ignored and its potential consequences never analyzed.

Reality is often distorted – recently TIME magazine carried an article explaining how well the Christians are treated in Egypt.

The Islamists are definitely making advances, although in Prof. Rubin’s opinion, they will be eventually defeated.

The forces involved and the indifference of politicians and media create the background for the events that took place during the last six months. While everybody was praising the “Arab Spring”, the Muslim Brotherhood declared a war against the West. They openly said that the West will be defeated, because it is weak. With the prospect of gaining real political power, they will be able to put their threats into practice.

The first country we need to watch is Egypt. Read the rest of this entry »

There was a time when Barack Hussein Obama looked like a wonderful guy ready to bring happiness and prosperity to everybody. It was in 2008 when he needed the support of every imaginable ethnic or political group, because the outcome of the upcoming presidential election wasn’t clear at all.

Jews were one of those groups. Trying to get their donations and political support, Obama was throwing at them generous promises for unconditional support of Israel, guarantees for the indivisibility of Jerusalem, lasting peace, fair to all sides, etc. etc.

Of course, even then there were lonely voices, which doubted his rhetoric and pointed out his lack of principles. After all, he spent years at the church of
the racist Jeremiah Wright, he got and endorsement from the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and he counted a former Marxist terrorist among his friends.

But the desire to have the first politically correct black President blurred the vision of the US voters. And now they are paying for that. It’s not only the horribly mismanaged economy, forced to pay for unsustainable programs, it’s also the disastrous foreign policy.

Case in point is Obama’s Mideast speech this week.  It was strange, to say the least – all those promises to Israel and the Jews made in 2008 are gone. He paints a picture of the Middle East, its problems and their solutions, which is in a striking dissonance with reality.

Obviously, he is urged to react to the so-called “Arab Spring” in a way that would please the “revolutionary masses”. After praising what happened over there as the best thing since the sliced bread, he mentions what measures we need to see applied in those countries:

“We support a set of universal rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders – whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran.”

Is this some kind of dark humour? Free speech and freedom of religion are totally incompatible with the Muslim tradition. The people of Egypt overwhelmingly support the death penalty for apostasy and total sharia control. The only country where those values were applied to certain extend was Turkey and only because Ataturk practically banished Islam from public life. However, the Islamist government of Erdogan is working very hard to “correct” the situation.

Then Obama makes sure that the previous paragraph shouldn’t be taken too seriously. America need not interfere too much, in fact it must stay in the shadows while allowing the Islamists to do whatever they want: Read the rest of this entry »

Colonel Bentzi Gruber during military action

The Israeli army is one of the most demonized entities in the world. With the false information fed to the gullible Western media by Palestinian terrorists and baby-killers we have reached the point where the right of Israel to defend herself is widely questioned.

That’s why I found admirable the initiative of The Speakers Action Group to let somebody first-hand experience cover the issue. The speaker they had on April 7 was Colonel Bentzi Gruber, a veteran of IDF, who served as a commander for over 30 years. Now he runs a computer company in Israel.

Colonel Gruber speaking in Toronto

He started by stating the propaganda, which comes from the left – that there are a lot of lies about IDF, which are presented as units for killing babies in Gaza.

To make the truth easier to understand, he continued with laying out the framework, which determines the many decisions that must be made in field by the IDF. The time to make a decision is very short, in most cases you have only 8 seconds. Then he showed a video to support his point.

In the first few frames we see a suicide bomber in a jeep near a Gaza crossing point. At that moment we don’t know if he is a bomber, he is a smiling, happy looking fellow, but the experienced members of the military know what is going to happen. He is coming from Gaza and his purpose is to cross the border toward the road on the other side, where a school bus is about to pass by as scheduled. That road is very close to Gaza, only 200 m away. The bomber’s goal is to hit the bus and blow it up with the explosives loaded in his jeep.

The border is well protected by soldiers who are supposed to shoot. Some of them are observing the area from a tall tower-like structure. In order to cross, a car should go through something like a ditch, thus slowing down its speed. As the school bus approaches the crossing area, terrorists in the Gaza village start to shoot at the soldiers in order to distract them and let the jeep cross. They are partially successful: during the shooting   the jeep manages to cross the border. But it’s too late, the bus is already about two miles away, so the driver has to change plans – he decides to hit a target in the nearby Israeli village.  Anything is good – store, school, whatever…

The army alerts the village that a possible terrorist is headed in their direction. A villager, who is a lawyer by profession, decides to confront the terrorist. He gets on his Hummer, driving toward the terrorist’s jeep. We see both cars getting closer to each other. The Arab figures out that he is not going to reach his goal, so he decides to make the “best” of the situation – he hits the Hummer and blows up his load. In the explosion, both cars are destroyed. The terrorist is  blown to pieces, but the lawyer miraculously survives. However, that local hero loses his legs.

This is not a thriller, this is the everyday life in Israel, courtesy of the Palestinian terrorists. Read the rest of this entry »

Israel was the first country to offer help to Japan less than an hour after one of the strongest recorded earthquakes followed by tsunami devastated parts of the country. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Japanese government with his offer for assistance.

Of course, you can find that reported in the Western mainstream media, at the time they were more interested in the propaganda of the Palestinian terrorism (under the code name Israeli Apartheid Week).

Shortly after the offer was made, Israel sent a delegation, which included 50 medical staff and 18 tons of aid for the victims of the disaster. Israel was the first country to send medical aid. The medics set up their field hospital in Kurihara, in Miyagi prefecture.

The country delivered 10,000 coats, 6,000 blankets and several thousand pairs of gloves. It also sent 300 Geiger counters to help monitoring the increased levels of radiation after the nuclear plant disaster. The counters were supplied by Rotem Industries, a firm that supplies technology to Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona (I wonder if they are on the lefties’ boycott list).

Without any doubt, the help will be highly appreciated by the Japanese people. No need to deliver the goods in unmarked containers (something the Muslim fanatics in Pakistan wanted done for the US aid).

Hopefully, the Japanese mainstream media would learn something from those events. They are notorious for their bias against Israel, based mostly on ignorance and partially influenced by the Palestinian lies.

It is a surprise to those journalists that the help came from a highly developed and prosperous country, which owes everything to the labour and ingenuity of its people. Israel is not the military camp they erroneously believe it is.

Even the poor people from Kandahar, Afghanistan, after being abused and killed for decades by Taliban savages, found a way to collect donations to help Japan.

No help is coming from the Hamas and PLO terrorists (although they have more than enough money). Neither the rich and lazy Gulf Arabs are sending anything (they didn’t send anything to Pakistan either). Wait, I forgot, there is not a single Arab university capable of educating specialists qualified to work in the difficult conditions in Japan. The oil money buys all the engineers, teachers, drivers, and slaves needed in the Gulf. Too bad you can’t export them.

It is hard to imagine that anything can surprise us in the violent history of the Middle East. However, there are events that may shock even a callous person.

Few days ago a family of five, living in the Jewish village of Itamar  were brutally butchered in their sleep. Udi Fogel, 36, his wife Ruth Fogel, 35, and three of their children, Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, who was only 3 months old, were stabbed by intruders in their home.

It was late at night on Saturday. The guards, who were protecting the village, registered intrusion twice – something jumping over the fence. They assumed that the problem was caused by animals. And they were partially correct. Animals really jumped the fence, but they were Palestinian animals armed with knives.

Once they reached the Fogel house, they quickly stabbed the two boys, and then killed the father and the baby who was lying next to him. Only the mother wasn’t asleep, when she came out of the bathroom, the killers confronted her and murdered her as well. Fortunately, they missed two children.

I thought what word to use in the title to describe those people. “Animals” would be offensive to real animals, because even the most vicious of them don’t kill the young of their own species. “Monsters” is way too abstract, and it looks like “savages” fits the situation best. Savages defy logic for they are ready to commit even the most heinous atrocities acting upon their primitive beliefs.

Shortly after the murders, the militant wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, took responsibility, but then withdrew their statement. It is very possible that they did it. After all, they are a bunch of cowards, who specialize in killing women and children at close range. That shows how “peaceful”  the terrorist organization created by Arafat the thief is.

Hamas is not far behind. As soon as the news reached the world, the people in Gaza celebrated the murders – there are even pictures showing militants handing out baklava and other sweets to commemorate the atrocity.

All that shows how deeply rooted evil is in the Muslim fanatic’s mind. It takes a really perverted mind to do that – to enter a house and specifically target little children stabbing them repeatedly. And it takes even deeper depravity to rejoice and celebrate those killings. Palestinians are really a morally bankrupt group of people. Other than the pro forma condemnation by a minor official from the Palestinian Authority, nobody else expressed any condemnation.

The Arabs always complain that the Israeli Army does the same to the Palestinian children. But IDF has never targeted children. All of those casualties are carefully planned by the Palestinian militants to create an effect of outrage on the bleeding hearts, who send them money.

Children and students are used as shields by Hamas in Gaza, where missiles are launched from schools.  Children are sent to throw rocks against the soldiers in the West Bank, while the cowardly terrorists hide behind them. Many of them are groomed to be suicide bombers and we would’ve heard more about them, if it wasn’t for the wall that stops them from blowing themselves up. Israel has never targeted children, although the lefties use it in their propaganda:

The lies of the leftist propaganda

This is a really vicious and cowardly misrepresentation, but hey – what’s the problem? Such propaganda worked for Hitler, it will work for the Palestinian terrorists and their lefty supporters.

At the same time, the murders committed by Arabs are very real:

The grim reality of the Palestinian terrorism

The most disturbing fact is that the world leaders who support the Palestinian “cause” didn’t say a word to condemn the atrocity. The lefties didn’t respond either, but that’s normal in their case, even though they will be the next to die if Islam comes closer to dominance. This only confirms that the growing anti-Semitism is very real.

Hopefully, that would be a wakeup call for Israel – it is beyond clear that you can never achieve peace with such savages, they simply can’t be trusted.

This is what the supporters of the one-state solution secretly want – by uniting all territories and bringing in the 7 million descendants of the Arabs who left in the 1940’s, all Jews would end up like the Fogel family. Living in slumber and trusting cold-blooded murderers would only bring a new Holocaust.

© Blogwrath.com

That fact is disturbing because Galilee is undisputed Israeli land. (Or shall I say that so far the lefties and the Arabs have not come up with a “theory” to dispute its ownership?)

In his introduction Meir Weinstein, JDL-Canada’s Director, that the problem is just a part of what Israel is facing now. With the new events in the Middles East, the anti-Israeli forces are getting more and more active. The hypocrites who call for boycott of Israel never seem to notice the rampant intolerance in the Arab countries. If one looks at the historic sites in Israel, he may notice many Christian and Arab sites, but very few Jewish. That’s because the Jewish heritage has been deliberately destroyed through the centuries. From that point of view, it is important to support Nathan Eisner’s organization in its work to keep Israeli land from being taken over.

Meir Weinstein, JDL-Canada

Mr. Eisner started his presentation with an enlightening documentary. For centuries, Galilee has been abandoned land of rocky hills and swamps. The Arabs living nearby never had any interest in it. When Mark Twain visited in the late XIX century he made a notice of the depressing landscape.

Nathan Eisner from B’Ahavat Yisrael

Things started to change in the early 1900’s when the first Jewish settlers started to arrive. Without any machinery, through hard work they transformed the rocky desert into agricultural land. They dried the swamps and many suffered from malaria while doing that enormous task. Once the dirty work was done, the Arabs started to show up in the area looking for jobs.

With the increase of the Arab population, the problems increased. Showing total disregard for property, they began to build illegal buildings right in the middle of agricultural land. Soon the buildings multiplied to become villages. Read the rest of this entry »

JDL protests the hate fest

The heavily advertised anti-Israeli event titled SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE: EXPOSING ISRAELI APARTHEID AND THE VIOLATION OF PALESTINIAN RIGHTS took place this evening in Toronto. At the last moment, the location was changed from OISE to the George Ignatieff Theatre. As promised, JDL was there to protest.

The audience consisted of mostly white middle-aged people and students. There were very few Arab men and not a single hijab-wearing girl, who are usually a fixture at such events. That was very surprising: did even Muslims abandon that movement?

During the whole presentation, the voices of the JDL protesters who were determined to make their point, could be heard clearly inside.

The speakers were sitting at a table on the stage covered with a white tablecloth with blue one on top of it. Ironically, the combination resembled the Israeli flag although it probably wasn’t done on purpose.

Originally there were 5 speakers scheduled to appear, but the only one who possessed some resemblance of credibility, the Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias chickened out and didn’t show up. Maybe she had the revelation that appearing with a bunch of loons was not in her best professional interest.

However, the rest had no problem appearing. They were Khaled Mouammar from the Canadian Arab Federation, Tim McCaskell (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid), Jenny Peto (Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid), and Vivian Douglas, activist from Students against Israeli Apartheid.

The moderator, a feminist teacher of sociology from the Mississauga campus, started by stating that even after the Gaza “massacre” ended, the Palestinians are still discriminated, which caused the boycott against Israel to continue (at that moment Peto started to applaud followed by the most of the audience). The BDS movement expanded after the Gaza events. Then she read the list of the organizations, which endorsed the event, an odd collection of extreme leftists, self-loathing Jews, unions and Muslims.

To make sure that everybody understood that the insanity was the main rule of the gathering, she announced that she would conduct “equity chairing” – meaning that during the Q&A session in the end the first ones allowed to speak would be women, queers and “persons of colour”. Everybody caught using a camera or interrupting the speakers will be kicked out. Well, it was nice to know that the feminazi thinking is alive and kicking at the University of Toronto.

The first one to speak was Khaled Mouammar. He was presented as having been an activist for over 30 years. He even served at the Refugee Board and now he is the head of the Canadian Arab Federation. I suppose he is a Canadian citizen, but recently he lobbied openly against his own country when Canada took steps to get a seat on the UN Security Council (that was probably the best thing Khaled has done in his life, because Canada has no place in an organization controlled by religious fanatics and third-world thieves). Read the rest of this entry »

Actually, that’s not true. Or better said, it’s only partially true.

Israeli archaeologists really discovered such a tooth in the prehistoric cave of Qesem located in central Israel. The cave was discovered in 2000. They have never found human remains that old before. The oldest bones found before are only half that age.

The title is supposed to express my premonition about what is to be expected to happen with that discovery. The Palestinians are willing to claim as their own every artefact on the territory of Israel, no matter how unsubstantiated and ridiculous those claims are. That’s no wonder, since they desperately try to fill up with events their made-up history.

The Western Wall is Palestinian property and has no significance for the Jews.

The Dead Sea scrolls are Palestinian (they never bother to explain why the ancient “Palestinians” wrote in Hebrew).

The Rachael’s Tomb is a Muslim mosque.

No other, but Arafat claimed that Jesus was the first Palestinian martyr, although he didn’t comment on why Jesus visited synagogues so often.

There is no reason to believe that the tooth would have a different fate. Either Hamas or Fatah will state how it proves that the Palestinians existed in Israel 400,000 years before the Jews. Abbas will claim sovereignty over the cave and make it an inseparable part of the “Palestinian State”.

And the tooth will get its own museum paid for by the European benefactors of the Palestinians… 

Another laughable statement of the “Palestinian Authority” was made public few days ago. It received quite a coverage in Israel, but it didn’t get enough attention in the West.

Somebody named Al-Mutawakil Taha, a “deputy Palestinian information minister” stated that the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem (the “Wailing Wall”) is a Muslim property and has no link to Judaism. That was not a random personal statement; it was an official endorsement of a “study” conducted on the issue.

Stay away from my wall!!!

The news doesn’t provide details about the nature of the study. Was it historical, archaeological or judicial? Whatever its nature, judging from the level of the Arab scholars, it is safe to conclude that it was another clumsy attempt to falsify history, which Arabs learned from their Soviet mentors (who were really good in that business).

Well, it is true that almost the entire Palestinian leadership consists of past or current terrorists, who have little or no real education, so interpreting history is not their strongest specialty.

However, to claim that the Western Wall is not Jewish can’t be accepted seriously even by the most ignorant of them. The Temple of which that wall was a part, stood and flourished in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, thousands of years before the Arab camels entered the Negev desert.  The fact that they forcefully erected a mosque over the Temple doesn’t give any legitimacy to their claim. Read the rest of this entry »

The world media is bombarded almost daily with news and videos about the constant “suffering” in Gaza. Clowns like George Galloway and pseudo-scholars like Norman Finkelstein have built their careers on exploiting that information.

Rarely do we have people who dare question the authenticity of that news. One of those people is Philippe Karsenty, a businessman, media consultant and politician, who decided to abandon the tranquility of his life and pursue the truth about the Middle East. Other than clear conscience, he hasn’t derived any benefits from his pursuits.

Goldi Steiner and Philippe Karsenty

He presented his findings on November 11 at the Toronto Zionist Centre. The event was organized by the International Free Press Society and their short introduction stated the importance of freedom of speech to protect the overall freedom in our society. The task is difficult. While people like Galloway get wide publicity, fighters for freedom speech like Vilks are ignored. During his visit to North America, all but one of his four events were cancelled due to alleged security issues, even FBI didn’t want to get involved. Self-censorship is rampant in the official media. That’s why Karsenty is important, he has stood for the truth and was sued for that. Read the rest of this entry »

It was reported last Wednesday that Israel’s ties with UNESCO were suspended.

The reason for that measure was that UNESCO or The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization decided to declare Rachel’s Tomb a mosque.

UNESCO demanded  that the Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which is a site where other  Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs have been buried as well, be removed from Israel’s National Heritage list.

Both of them are located in Bethlehem and Hevron respectively and are an inseparable part of Israel’s over 4,000-year history. They existed long before the creation of the Muslim religion.

For those who follow the strange decisions of the UN and its “cultural” arm UNESCO that’s not surprising at all.

Both organizations are dominated by Muslim fanatics, who take every opportunity to demonize and discredit Israel. The rest of the votes belong to corrupt African dictatorships that have no interest in impartiality. Both organizations are totally useless.

Robbing Israel of her past is just a small part of the general anti-Judeo-Christian bias of UN. By bullying the richer countries, they are trying to extort whatever concessions they can get.

There is nothing new in that policy of UNESCO. In the past they were dominated by the Communist countries and their satellites (many of which were Arab countries). Their outrageous behaviour caused the USA and Great Britain to suspend all ties with UNESCO in the 1980′s.  That was an enormous blow, because both countries were large donors.

At the time, the Communist couldn’t stop whining and blaming the “imperialists”, because they didn’t have the money to match the budget losses.

The USA and Great Britain didn’t compromise, because Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were leaders with self-respect and dignity. Now things are very different, these countries are led by the community organizer Obama and the pro-Muslim Cameron.

At present, UNESCO is sinking even lower. Last year when they were supposed to elect a new Director, after long deliberations, they left two contenders to compete: Farouk Hosny, an anti-Semitic Egyptian “artist”, and Irina Bokova, a Bulgarian Communist. What an amazing dilemma!

Bokova won, despite the fact that she came from a clan responsible for the suppression of the art and culture in Bulgaria. Her father Georgi Bokov was not only a press censor, but was also personally involved in the murder of a prominent Bulgarian anti-Communist journalist.

What can you expect from an organization, which considers such people as potential leaders?

It is more than clear that culture will be the last thing on their minds. Politics is all that matters to them. And of course, the “Palestinian Authority” is sly enough to take advantage of the situation.

Let’s hope that the leaders of Israel have the dignity of Reagan and Thatcher and stick to their decision. The attempt to strip Israel of her history is an attempt to destroy her present.

Do you remember the hostage crisis in Lebanon in the 1980’s? At the time, fanatics from what later became Hezbollah, abducted several Westerners  and held them as hostages for years.

One of them was Terry Anderson, a journalist, who in 1985 was abducted from a Beirut street, locked in the trunk and taken to a secret location. He spent six years and nine months in captivity and was released only in the end of 1991.

Well, as usual history repeats itself. Now we have the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the same situation. He was abducted by Hamas terrorists in 2006 during a cross-border raid.

He has been kept at a secret location (probably in Gaza) ever since. As a condition for his release, Hamas wants from Israel to release more than 1000 convicted terrorists from its prisons.

All attempts to visit him or to communicate with him, made by diplomats and his family have failed.

Now Magen David Adom Israel has started a petition to pressure Hamas to allow the Red Cross contact with Shalit (in accordance with the Geneva Convention). The organization is a member of the International Red Cross Movement and Red Crescent Movement.

If you support the international law and believe in justice, you can sign the petition at the following link below. So far, the petition has been signed by over 82,000 people:

http://www.mdavisitshalit.org/

On October 28, 2010, Norman Finkelstein delivered a lecture in Toronto sponsored by CJPME (Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East). He is an American Jewish scholar, who has been a supporter of Hezbollah, Hamas and few other questionable organizations. At the event he proudly displayed on his jacket’s lapel a pin with the Palestinian flag (thus the title of this post).

For his support of those Muslim extremist organizations, they have bestowed upon him the highest possible “honour” in their hierarchy of values – that they consider him a non-Jew. That’s very similar to what Hitler did. In the cases when he reluctantly wanted to keep a Jew, who was useful to his regime, he used to resolve his moral dilemma by declaring him or her an “Honorary Arian”. That was the case with the conductor Herbert von Karajan’s wife, who was of Jewish background. We could only guess what would have happened to those “Honorary Arians”, had Hitler survived beyond 1945 and they were no longer needed.

The audience was the usual assortment of the types of people common for such an event. There were numerous ladies with hijabs (but unfortunately no niqab/burkas), angry looking young Arab men, tattooed lefties with purple or orange-coloured hair, nostalgic old hippies with white hair, and many others that wore different versions of that ugly chequered scarf, which Arafat utilized to hide his baldness.

Although the organization that put together the event claims that they are supporters of peace, the image they created at the beginning was anything but peaceful. The lady who opened immediately directed the audience’s attention to their website’s “BDS Centre”, i.e. the boycott page. Right now they are boycotting the Mountain Equipment Co-op for its links with Israeli companies. (So far the boycott has been an utter failure, rejected both by the co-op and its customers. No wonder, how can the lefty cyclists afford the higher prices of other bike retailers?)

Read the rest of this entry »

In November of this year we will mark the 20^th anniversary of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York. The fact that he is not forgotten and that his life and work still produce strong emotions of admiration in his supporters and hatred in his enemies is a testimony to the power of his personality.

JDL-Canada organized a memorial in his honour on October 26. It began with a prayer for Rabbi Kahane and a reading of quotes from his speeches and writings, which are still relevant. He had a simple message that was rooted in reality, he believed that Israel should remain a Jewish state in order to survive.

In an emotional presentation, Meir Weinstein, the National Director of JDL-Canada, summarized the work of Rabbi Kahane. He created the Jewish Defence League, which with its practical work has contributed to the Jewish cause more than many other personalities and organizations (like the Nazi hunters for example). In the early years of Israel, the young Jews knew what they were fighting for. Later, other people thought that they would have a better chance if they try to achieve Israel’s goals through diplomacy. Because of that, Kahane was ostracized, his road was lonely, but later the reality showed that it was the true road.

Read the rest of this entry »

Salomon Benzimra and Goldi Steiner

The tiny piece of land where modern Israel is located is one of the most disputed territories in the world. From the late Roman Empire through the crusades in the Middle Ages to the modern-day conflicts, dozens of different countries, movements and religions had clash in order to take control over it.

It is nearly impossible for a side observer to figure out who is right and who is wrong. Due to the ill political will of many sites involved in those conflicts, it is hard to dig out the truth hidden in obscure documents and forgotten meetings and conferences. This thankless task has been pursued for years by Salomon Benzimra, a tireless researcher whose new presentation titled Restoring Factual Evidence in the Middle East Conflict, took place at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies (Toronto) on October 25, 2010.

It was an event organized by Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights (CILR) founded by Goldi Steiner, who was also present. The hall was fully packed with listeners eager to hear the truth on the Middle East. Read the rest of this entry »

Raphaella Segal, Assistant Mayor of Kedumim, gave a talk at the Toronto Zionist Centre, October 19, 2010. Kedumim is an Israeli settlement located in the so called West Bank.

Meir Weinstein from JDL-Canada introduced the speaker. In his short introduction he mentioned that the people like Raphaella have worked under unbelievably harsh conditions to build modern communities, schools, agriculture and industry. He stated that the word “settlement” is not a good term, it implies that Israel is moving to other people’s territory and that land actually belongs to Israel (you can get much better idea about the legal status of Israel from Salomon Benzimra’s research on the topic).

There is no doubt that the problem with the settlements has been distorted for many years. If you believe the Arabs and the “progressives”, the average Israeli settler is a huge man with a long beard and a big black hat. He lives in a large house stolen from the Arabs and probably keeps Palestinian children caged in the basement. He doesn’t work because he receives an unlimited supply of money secretly provided by the Illuminati. His only job is to roam the hills armed with his Uzi machine gun and kill defenceless Palestinians.

As usual, the truth is different. The settler we saw was a petite woman with a charming smile (and without a gun). She is ordinary in almost every way, except for her passion about her country, which came out of almost every word she spoke. Raphaella Segal was born in South Africa, her parents brought her to Israel as a child. One of the founding members of Kedumim, she has 9 children, 7 of which are married, and over 30 grandchildren (despite that, she still looks young).

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I attended a lecture organized by the Speakers Action Group and the Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Association. Prof. Richard Cravatts’s presentation was titled The Campus War against Israel and dealt with the rising anti-Semitism in the American and Canadian universities.

Prof. Cravatts has a very successful career teaching marketing and advertising at the Boston University. He has the classical academic look, thoughtful and logical in his speech and is impeccably dressed Yet he has chosen to follow the thankless task of exposing hatred (publishing over 300 articles on anti-Semitism), which makes him hated in many circles, a position that he would have avoided if he stuck to his original career.

On the other hand, have you heard about the coal mine canary?  Long time ago the mining workers would carry down into the mine caged canaries. If poisonous gases leaked into the mineshaft, the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners.

So what is the link between these two things? Is Cravatts the coalmine canary? Yes, to some extend, but there is much more to that metaphor, which makes it much more disturbing. We will come back to it, but let’s first see what Richard Cravatts had to say.

Read the rest of this entry »