Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

""

The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

Think I'm the greatest thing since chocolate-covered strawberries? Think I'm certifiably insane? E-mail me at segacs2.at.yahoo.ca.

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Comments are open and unmoderated, although obscene or abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of segacs's world i know.

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5:09 PM
My heartfelt condolences to Damian Penny on the loss of his grandfather.

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9:46 PM
Regular reader Steve Brandon has a new blog worth checking out. (Plug, plug.)

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5:24 PM
Yet another reason not to vote ADQ.

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3:51 PM
Arafat likes to claim he's doing everything in his power to stop suicide bombings.

Hamas says Arafat is a liar.

The Palestinian Authority has not tried to stop the militant group Hamas from carrying out attacks - including suicide bombings - on Israelis, the group's spiritual leader said on Friday in an interview with Israeli TV.

The wheelchair-bound Hamas leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, said the Palestinian Authority did not actually help the group carry out suicide bombings, but gave tacit approval by doing nothing to stop the attacks.

When asked by an Israeli TV journalist what assistance the Palestinian Authority gave Hamas, Yassin, wrapped in a brown blanket, said: "They turn a blind eye or turn their back."

The full truth would include a discussion of the documentation discovered by the IDF where Arafat signed cheques directly over to fund terrorist groups. But then, that would be expecting honesty out of a terrorist leader.

Everyone knows the Palestinian Authority funds, supports, and encourages terrorism. There's nothing new here. But how long can Arafat ignore all the evidence against him and keep on crying innocent?

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3:47 PM
Saddam's report card. The UN nuclear agency has said it will be giving Saddam Hussein a grade of "B" on his co-operation with weapons inspections.

Gwozdecky said ElBaradei will tell the Security Council that Saddam's government has provided good access to inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction.

"Access and co-operation are good," he said. "We've been getting where and when we want to get, and we've been generally successful in getting what we need."

But ElBaradei also will say that the Iraqis "need to help themselves by coming forward" with evidence rather than waiting for the inspectors to sniff it out.

He said the IAEA chief also would make a case for additional pressure on Baghdad to encourage Iraqi scientists to consent to private interviews with the UN inspectors. So far, the scientists have refused.

Of course they're refusing. If they consent, and tell the inspection teams where the weapons are, it's like signing their own death warrant.

I wonder how the grading scheme works? Do Iraq's allies in the UN get to all vote A, and Iraq's enemies get to vote F, and they compromise on B? Are there points awarded for smiling nicely? Yes, sure they're co-operative . . . in leading inspectors to places where there are no weapons! Those idiots at the UN just don't seem to get it.

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12:36 AM
Margaret Wente adds her voice to the number of people pointing out that the Iraqis are conspicuously absent from the anti-war movements. Why? Because they want nothing more than to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

There's just one problem with all this lofty moral talk. So far as the Iraqi people are concerned, liberation can't come soon enough. This is a dreadfully inconvenient fact for peace protesters. So they ignore it.

[ . . . ]

There are many reasons to oppose a war. But the best interests of the innocent Iraqi people are not among them. And the sight of sanctimonious Westerners pretending to speak for them, and demanding that they be kept enslaved by the most brutal dictator outside North Korea, is not an edifying one.

War is terrible. But there are worse things. Just ask the people of Iraq.

This is not exactly an original observation, but it's one that tends to get lost in the shuffle.

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9:02 PM
New reader poll: Who's the greatest fence-sitter?

Jean Chretien on war against Iraq?

Mario Dumont on Quebec sovereignty?

Current Results

I know it's a tough question. Please, vote carefully.

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5:11 PM
Israel is going to the polls in 4 days, and the election has been fraught with scandals, mud-slinging, and all the dirty campaign tricks in the book . . . but guess what, it's still an election! In other words, the citizens get to choose between different candidates, and their vote counts! Note that it's the only country in the Middle East where this is at all possible.

Not an Israeli? Want to learn about Israeli democracy anyway? Register your mock vote at israelvotes2003.com.

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11:36 PM
The San Francisco Chronicle has released some disturbing poll results that show increasing antisemitic attitudes among Americans (via Sharkblog).

The poll results indicate, among other things, that:

• Nearly one third of Americans fear that a Jewish president may have divided loyalties when dealing with the state of Israel. (This apparently relates to the announcement by Senator Joseph Lieberman that he will seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2004).
  
• Nearly one in four Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 believe that Jewish control of the media distorts the news.
  
• Twenty percent of Democrats and Independents tend to "view Jews as caring only about themselves," compared to only 12 percent among Republicans.
  
• 34 percent of Americans agree that "Jews have too much influence on Wall Street.
  
• 37 percent believe that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus Christ.

The poll results were disturbing to Gary Tobin, President of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco:

Gary Tobin, the president of the institute, said the results appear to reverse a post-World War II and post-Holocaust trend of declining anti- Semitism in America.

The academic survey of 1,013 randomly selected adults was conducted from May 2-7, 2002. But Tobin suspects that the trend has only deepened since then because of the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the buildup toward a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"We're not saying that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic," Tobin said.

"But college campuses have become bastions of anti-Israelism. In places like Berkeley or Santa Cruz, the demonstrators' signs say 'Stop Israel' and 'Stop the Jews.' That's what we picked up in this survey."

To me, it's appalling that Tobin even had to include the disclaimer about not saying that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. That he had to say that at all indicates that Jews everywhere are on the defensive - about Israel, about our beliefs, our politics, and our identity.

This defensiveness is precisely what the existence of the State of Israel was supposed to eliminate. Zionism instilled a sense of pride in being Jewish, and all over the world, Jews no longer had to hide or be ashamed of their heritage. At least that was the theory.

The poll results are showing the opposite trend, though. And it's scary as hell.

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11:22 PM
FOX is starting a new season of American Idol. Could the music industry sink any lower?

What ever happened to the days when fame was based on talent, rather than the other way around? When artists were expected to be able to sing, write music, and play instruments? When image was a consequence, not a cause, of fame? When music had depth?

For those unaware souls, packaged music is a pet peeve of mine. But, combined with another pet peeve (reality television), it's all that much worse.

I know it sounds strange for me, as a marketing person, to complain about this. But come on, American Idol is nothing but a glorified karaoke contest. We're already so close to the point where creativity and art stop mattering in music. The "day the music died" doesn't seem so far off anymore, and it's a really dismal prospect to think what music will sound like in another ten years.

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11:15 PM
This glossary of blog terms at Samizdata made me laugh.

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10:17 PM
The Canadian Jewish News has a story about how increasing numbers of American Jews are breaking the traditional alignment with the Democratic party and moving rightward.

We are now experiencing "a very explosive moment in Jewish politics," one that is rocking the traditional Jewish affiliation with the Democratic party and creating an undercurrent of anti-Semitism, said Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic magazine.

[ . . . ]

For the left, the methods employed are of secondary importance to the otherwise justified anti-imperialist struggle, so the Palestinian use of suicide bombings are seen as no more than a "misguided tactic," Beinart said.

Beinart described how traditionally liberal U.S. Jews have recoiled from that view and how they are moving away from their traditional liberal affiliations.

[ . . . ]

With the outbreak of the current intifadah, "this consensus started to crack. The liberal media have gone in one direction and the Jewish community has gone in another. The liberal media have gone left and the Jewish community has gone right."

One of the reasons I find this so interesting is that I don't think much has changed on the side of the Republican party. All the reasons that many Jews didn't vote Republican before still exist. If anything, the party has become even more conservative. The party is still heavily mortgaged to interest groups such as the NRA and the far-right Christian lobby groups.

But now the same people who were wearing Gore-Lieberman kippot in shul on Rosh Hashanah 2000 are switching sides. And to me, what that indicates is not so much a shift in the population, but a shift in the issues.

Nobody agrees with a political party on every single issue. It's impossible. So people tend to focus on the issues most important to them at the time, and vote for the party that is closest in position to their take on those issues. There's no question that in the wake of September 11th, the outbreak of mideast violence, the escalating situation in Iraq, and the general shift in international politics, we're living in a different world. So while four years ago, people might have chosen the party they felt most closely reflected their views on social and domestic issues (i.e. the Democrats), now suddenly foreign policy is the key issue and the Republicans seem to have the more sensible position on that score.

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10:02 PM
B'nai Brith Canada is sounding the alarm about the rise in antisemitism in Canada.

The time for silence and passive acceptance is over. Now is the time to speak out. And now is the time to take back our universities.

Agreed.

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9:18 PM
Jaggi Singh update: He's been arrested yet again, this time in connection with the Netanyahu protests on September 9th. I must say it's about time. Even I spotted him on the escalator from the the footage on the CBC news segment. How many arrests is that now, Jaggi? 5? 10? 20? Are you going to blame "brutal police" and the Jews- er- Zionists every time?

But I guess McGill thought that Concordia was having all the fun, because Singh give a talk at McGill today about Global Migration. I'm sure the McGill-ites were oh-so-thrilled with his presence, too. (Insert sarcasm here.)

My favourite quote comes from the quasi-paper, Rabble News:

"Why is 'Gaza U' a derogatory term?" Singh asked during yesterday's speech. "Concordia should be proud to be compared to Gaza." He praised the resistance of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and other occupied territories, and said that the struggle of Concordia students in the face of repression is important, but it cannot be compared to the heroic efforts of the Palestinian people.

Singh has also said that he felt the rioters on September 9th at Concordia "had no choice but to riot" and also that he thinks that suicide bombings are a "completely understandable response" to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Doesn't this guy just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Sheesh!

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8:55 PM
Elana S. agrees with me about the death penalty. And here I was thinking I was the only one . . .

Wow, those folks over at RightWingNews are gonna revoke my award or something!

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7:36 PM
It is friggin' FREEZING outside!!!

I wish this cold snap would break so I can go skiing already!

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7:33 PM
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that a Palestinian soccer tournament has been named after a suicide bomber.

The Palestinian Authority has decided to commemorate the memory of Abdel Baset Odeh, the Hamas terrorist who carried out the Pessah night suicide bombing in Netanya's Park Hotel last year, by naming a soccer tournament after him.

Thirty people were killed and dozens wounded in the attack, which triggered Operation Defensive Shield.

The PA's ministries of sports and education have been naming tournaments after Palestinian "martyrs" for several years. But the decision to honor Odeh surprised many Palestinians because of his affiliation with Hamas.

Next time the Palestinian Authority claims not to condone Hamas, or says that children are not being taught to hate, remember this.

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3:50 PM
When you don't like how the facts make you look . . . change 'em!

At least, that's the attitude of many of the pro-Palestinian supporters of the September 9th Concordia riot. They've been engaging in a fair amount of fact-twisting and outright fabrication of the truth lately, with the two main lies being the following:

1) Claims that what happened wasn't really a riot at all, but a few isolated incidents of violence or rowdiness amidst an overall peaceful protest.

2) Claims that "both sides" were equally involved in the rioting, and that the pro-Israeli people who were there to hear Netanyahu speak were somehow engaged in just as much violence than the pro-Palestinian side.

Usually, when these people fabricate facts, it's not so obvious because they're talking about events on the other side of the world and events that happened decades ago. So many of their lies get successfully passed off as truth. But this time, they're talking about events that happened not even six months ago, right here in Montreal. There's media footage, security tapes, and plenty of eyewitness testimony to contradict their bullshit. But this doesn't seem to bother them at all. Why? Because they realize the dirty little secret that if you repeat a lie often enough, people begin to accept it as truth.

So the next time someone presents you with supposed "evidence" of so-called "atrocities" going on in Israel or anyplace else, this should serve as an example of little credibility they really have.

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3:34 PM
Anyone who thinks that passive appeasement will work in Iraq obviously isn't following the developing situation in North Korea very carefully. Now, North Korea says it will regard any UN Security Council sanctions as an act of war. That's a threat not to be taken lightly, given North Korea's nuclear weapons development.

If we wait around for Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, I somehow doubt he'd even give the world a warning. With one push of the button he'll obliterate Israel, attack the United States, and probably take over many of his neighbours. I mean, we're talking about Saddam Hussein here.

The world has a responsibility to see to it that Iraq never develops nuclear weapons. If it is allowed to, G-d help us all.

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10:20 AM
According to Elana S., I was the Site of the Day on RightWingNews.com.

I guess now would be a good time to re-state my positions on certain issues: Pro-choice, against religion in public schools, pro-gun control, and pro-social programs.

I will resist being labelled until the end!

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10:19 AM
For anyone not aware, the Gazette's parent company CanWestGlobal has been engaged in a war of words with the CBC about its media bias on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. CanWestGlobal has pointed a finger at the CBC for refusing to use the word "terrorist" and for reports that are biased towards the Palestinians. The CBC has counter-accused CWG of being biased towards the Israeli side. And most Canadians have dismissed the exchange as inter-media rivalry.

Now (via reader Stuart Rothman), the CBC's mideast correspondant, Neil Macdonald, has been implicated in a media bias scandal. Macdonald, by the way, was a key opposer to the Canadian government's decision to ban Hezbollah, and apparently holds strong person anti-Israel views. He tried to hatch a plan to embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon . . . but it backfired on him.

Macdonald spearheaded a drive to boycott the prime minister's annual party for members of the Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents 300 foreign correspondents working in Israel. Macdonald wrote to fellow FPA members, suggesting that "on an official level, let the FPA send a single representative to the reception. Meanwhile, I intend to be absent. And I urge my colleagues to find other work that day, too."

Macdonald's scheme was to have Prime Minister Sharon show up to an empty banquet hall.

In the end, 300 journalists packed Jerusalem's David Citadel Hotel on January 20 -- and it was Macdonald who was embarrassed.

Whether or not this drives the CBC to modify its policy, Macdonald has obviously overstepped his bounds as a reporter. The CBC is a primary news source for many Canadians, and this blatant bias against Israel is no small matter. Millions of Canadians are forming decisions based on what they see on the CBC.

Visit the Honest Reporting story for contact info for the key people at the CBC, and let them know how disgusted you are by this.

Update: Neil Macdonald is denying these allegations now. He claims that he merely supported the call for the boycott, not tried to organize it. Apparently, Macdonald, along with other members of the FPA, are angry because Israel revoked the credentials of some members of the Palestinian press with links to terrorist organizations.

But no, I suppose supporting terrorist reporters wouldn't be biased, right Neil?

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11:57 PM
The poll on Canada.com's Montreal site is asking: "Do you think students should be expelled for taking part in the anti-Netanyahu protest at Concordia University?"

Seems the rioters and their supporters have gotten wind of the poll because the total is running 55.38% No right now.

If you have a minute, head on over there and vote. Not only should people invovled in a hate-spurred riot be expelled, they should be arrested and tossed in jail.

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2:43 PM
Initial reports from the mainstream media are starting to filter in about the two simultaneous protests at Concordia today. Stay tuned for a more in-depth perspective and (hopefully) some photos.

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10:47 AM
A new poll suggests that the stage is shifting in Canadian politics. The Liberals are far and away still the most popular party, and are even gaining support. The second-place Canadian Alliance has dropped to 4th place, the formerly marginal Conservatives have jumped to second, and the NDP is up in third place.

The good news is that the Bloc Quebecois is virtually disappearing from the scene in terms of popular support - although it is sure to keep winning several stronghold seats here in Quebec due to the riding system. But with the NDP and the Conservatives virtually neck-and-neck in second place, the prospect of a Liberal government and an NDP opposition are - needless to say - quite disconcerting. Not that I expect that to happen . . . but the trend is an unhappy one.

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9:52 AM
Update on The National's story on Concordia: Read the transcripts here.

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11:54 AM
Finally, some sensible commentary about the anti-war protestors over on the Link's website. This by reader Adam Barken:

Being against the war means being for the mantenance of the status quo. Which means being for the the Hussein regime to remain in power. Which means more brutality, more torture, more stealing of public money for private palaces, etc.

Or did I miss it when these same protesters from last weekend rallied to decry the Hussein regime? Did I miss some big march in the last decade where they protested Husseins' actions since the Gulf War? It couldn't be that the only care any of you have for the Iraqis is in direct proportion (and opposition) to what the US thinks and does, could it? You couldn't possibly be so reactionary, could you?

Unless someobody shows me the anti-war plan to oust the Hussein regime, I will remain convinced that the protests are objectively (if unintentionally) pro-Saddam -- pro-torture, pro-enslavement, pro-genocide. Because anything that keeps him in power assures the Iraqi people that what they will get is more torture, more slavery, more mass slaughter.

And I am well aware of the possibility of high casualties in the event of invasion, but I offset this with the knowledge of how many Iraqi, both inside and out, are praying for just such an intervention to save their country.

What do you anti-war folks use to offset the knowledge that you're arguing in effect for the ongoing subjugation of the Iraqi people?

What he said.

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