Given the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, many in Canada have been dismayed, not by the predictable and uncritical enthusiasm for all things Israeli from the Harper regime, but by the relative silence or complicity demonstrated by the two major opposition leaders, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair; both have amply
Continue readingTag: Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Politics and its Discontents: Imagine If Our Politicians Had This Kind Of Honesty And Integrity
The Irish Senator and internationally recognized human rights activist, David Norris, delivered an eminently powerful speech concerning Gaza in the Irish Parliament on, July, 31st. In his speech Norris criticizes human rights violations of Israel carried out with the support of the United States and complacency of the international community.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: John Oakley Hosts Harper Clone
Many thanks to The Salamander, who, in his response to a post from last evening, sent along this link to the John Oakley Show. On the show, the Reverend Charles McVetey, as unhinged and extreme an evangelical you are ever likely to encounter, explains the evangelical Christian validation for Stephen
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Part 2- "They Didn’t Get Back To Me"
Yesterday I wrote about the plight of Salma Abuelaish, the eight-year-old girl whose family moved to Canada from Gaza and became Canadian citizens five years ago. Having accompanied her father, a physician, back to Gaza this summer so he could render medical assistance and she could visit with her cousins
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Obscenity Called Gaza
The New York Times’ columnist, Richard Cohen, offers some brilliant insights into the Gaza conundrum, a place he calls, “an open-air prison for 1.8-million people.” “…more than 300 children are dead, killed in a month-long Israeli bombardment. Each of those children has a name, a family. Several were killed in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: How Not To Answer A Question
Texas Governor Rick Perry provides an expert technique lesson in the following video: Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Canada’s Searing Moment of Clarity
I hope you didn’t miss it. The events of the past month in that distant corner of the world, the mid-east, shone a light of fierce brilliance on our own Canada that exposed an ugly side of our country for all to see who would not look the other way.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Truth No Amount of Propaganda Can Hide
The following pictures of the devastation in Gaza wrought by the Israeli onslaught are all from Al Jazeera: Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is the Washington Post Even Trying Anymore?
My brother sent me a link to a photo-essay in The Washington Post said to depict an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. It’s a nice story as these things go. The homeowner receives a friendly call from Israelis telling him to get out of the building immediately as it’s about to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Harper’s Policy On Gaza: The Canadian Toll
While the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza is almost incalculable in turns of human suffering and loss of life, there is another casualty in all of this, one that is far less obvious and, in the eternal scheme of things, I suppose, of lesser consequence: Canada’s psyche and
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair – Soft on Terrorism
Let’s begin with the definition of “terrorism.” Merriam-Webster offers up a fairly standard definition: “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal.” That sounds exactly like what is going on in Gaza right now. That is
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Dahiyeh – It’s How Israel Wages "Peace"
“We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.” – Major-General Gadi Eisenkot, IDF. That was Israeli strategy in the 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: If All You Had Were Useless Rockets, Would You Be Firing Them?
A timely and invaluable reminder of what it means to be a Palestinian in Gaza under the yoke of the Israeli military. This is a report of a calculated and brutal murder of a 13-year old Palestinian girl by Israeli troops outside a refugee camp in 2004. As I recall,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Zionism Does Not Excuse Gaza
There are some self-identified Liberals (and New Democrats) who proclaim their support for Israel in its current butchery in Gaza and they tend to do it in the name of Zionism. Zionism comes in many shapes and flavours, so many that its meaning is often unintelligible. The New York Times’
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is There Anything Wrong With This Picture?
The Obama administration’s $225 million request to aid Israel during its war with Hamas may not be enough, warned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday afternoon. So far, no word about humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, who so far have suffered over 1000 civilian deaths. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Gaza – A Suggested Solution
Further to that piece Friday on how Israel’s radical rightwing shift is brutalizing Israeli society, I stumbled across this: http://forward.com/articles/202558/israeli-professor-suggests-rape-would-serve-as-ter/ And I found this insightful and well footnoted piece from The Nation on AlterNet debunking Israel’s (and our own) narrative on the Gaza invasion. http://www.alternet.org/world/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked?akid=12060.103986._jtkpX&rd=1&src=newsletter1013185&t=5 When an Israeli, of all
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Massaging The Message: How A Republican Has Helped Israel Justify Its Invasion Of Gaza
The Independent reports on how an American Republican pollster and political strategist has helped Israel sell its recent invasion of Gaza, drawing upon a playbook [that] is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe. Written by the expert
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: It Wasn’t Hamas – And Israel Knew That From the Get-Go.
We all know that Israel used the kidnapping/murder of three Israeli teens, that it blamed squarely on Hamas, to whip up support for its brutal invasion of Gaza. It’s been claimed that Israeli intelligence knew the teens had been killed shortly after they were kidnapped but withheld the information to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Our Monochromatic Political Leadership
The images are graphic and heartbreaking – buildings reduced to rubble, maimed and dead children strewn among that rubble, families fractured, lives broken beyond repair. Were it not for the distancing effect that television news inevitably brings, the pictures would be overwhelming, leaving room for nothing but despair. Thus is
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Justin, You Need to Read This
While Justin Trudeau’s pandering Liberal Party may praise Israel’s “commitment to peace,” Israeli society is displaying a darker, brutal face. Lisa Goldman, director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the Washington think tank, New America, writes of an Israel utterly at odds with Trudeau the Lesser’s obsequious drivel. Goldman writes of,
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