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

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

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11:11 PM
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met with leaders of the World Jewish Congress and stated his favourable position on Israel joining the European Union:

"In the future, Europe must include Israel," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is reported to have said at a meeting with World Jewish Congress leaders on Wednesday. "We look on Israel as a European nation to all intents and purposes: Cultural, economic and political." Italy takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency in July, possibly coinciding with the verdict of Berlusconi's 3-year bribery trial.

Ahead of the presidency, Berlusconi plans to visit Israel in the first week of June. "I will go to Israel to meet the prime minister [Ariel Sharon] and I will have no meetings with the Palestinian leadership," a WJC spokesman quoted Berlusconi as saying at the meeting.

He also pledged to promote sympathy for Israel in Europe, fight anti-Semitism, and work to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace.

[ . . . ]

In March 2002 Berlusconi surprised Europeans when he said that both Israel and Russia should join the Union.

Marco Pannella, an Italian member of the European Parliament and president of the Transnational Radical Party, is promoting the initiative, United Press International reports. On Tuesday he told reporters in Israel that support was growing in the European Parliament for Israel to join the EU.

Such a step, though distant in the future at best, would help drastically in reducing Israel's pariah status among the nations, largely imposed by its Arab neighbour states and their oil bribery. However, more importantly it means that the next president of the EU will be a much better friend to Israel, possibly ushering in a six-month period to try to reverse some of the negativity that has corrupted the body in the past couple of years.

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11:03 AM
The latest blow to the "but Hezbollah is just a social organization!" movement: Israel has stopped a ship full of smuggled illegal arms off the coast of Haifa:

The Dubai-based satellite television station al-Arabiya reported that the weapons were bound for Palestinians. It said Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz would give details of the incident later Thursday.

If the arms were bound for Palestinian areas, as was last year's shipment, it would deal another blow to a new U.S.-backed peace plan already battered by violence.

And yet when Canada finally got a clue and banned Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, they whined loudly that the government was duped by a "propaganda campaign":

Hezbollah said Canada has fallen for a disinformation campaign run out of Israel, and the decision to list the organization as a terrorist group will hurt Canada's image in the Arab world.

Sure, I suppse the rocket launches, weapons smuggling, and kidnappings are all part of the same "propaganda campaign" too, right?

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9:28 AM
Buried in today's Gazette, taking up a tiny two columns in the middle of yet another story comparing the life of a suicide bomber to the life of one of her victims, is an AP story with perhaps the most important news in the entire conflict: Palestinians demonstrating against terrorists:

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated Tuesday after a five-day Israeli invasion damaged farms and buildings, but in a rare twist, their wrath was directed at Palestinian militants for inviting the attack by firing rockets from their property.

Two hours after Israeli troops left, about 600 angry residents of the town of 35,000 took to the streets in a spontaneous protest, complaining that the militants had caused Israel to destroy 15 houses and uproot thousands of olive, citrus and date palm trees. It was a rare outburst; most Palestinian demonstrations are aimed at Israel.

The protesters blocked a main road with trash cans, rocks and burning tires in a show of outrage against the militants. Most of the rockets are launched at towns inside Israel by members of the militant Islamic movement, Hamas.

"They (the militants) claim they are heroes," said Mohammed Zaaneen, 30, a farmer, as he carried rocks into the street. "They brought us only destruction and made us homeless. They used our farms, our houses and our children ... to hide."

After decades of blaming Israel for the situation that extremists in their own population and government created, a small group of Palestinians is finally facing up to the fact that peace cannot exist alongside terrorism.

Why isn't the media jumping all over this? Why isn't a bigger deal being made out of this enormous turning point?

Sure, it's small. It's one demonstration against Hamas amongst hundreds against Israel. But the seeds of change need to start small before they grow into something larger. Yesterday, 600 people demonstrated. If enough people notice and it starts a tide, maybe tomorrow, there will be 6,000, and next week 60,000.

For all of Israel's security measures, terrorism will only be erradicated when the Palestinian people decisively state that they don't want it. And a few of them are apparently waking up to this fact. So why isn't this bigger news?

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9:24 AM
Once again, Gil Troy gets it right when he claims that there are no "good" or "bad" terrorists; they're all "bad" terrorists:

Of course, terrorism was supposed to be aimed at "legitimate" targets - Israeli kids munching pizza, American secretaries booting word processors, Australian teenagers bogeying in a nightclub. By exporting terror, the Saudi kingdom was supposed to be buying a certain immunity from it. In the more moderate Kingdom of Morocco, until this weekend, terrorism was something that happened elsewhere. But is anyone surprised that such a tactic, once perfected and applauded, could not be controlled? A society that can so demonize the "other" as to celebrate enemy deaths, risks distorting its political culture. A political culture that celebrates wading into crowds or apartment compounds and blowing up civilians wherever they might be, whoever they are, risks teaching its members that when arguments fail, it is OK to resort to violence, even against your neighbours.

[ . . . ]

Supporting terrorism comes with no immunity clause - those who support terror today risk being terrorist targets tomorrow.

The irony here, of course, is that people always love a weapon when it is useful for them, but wouldn't want their enemies to use it against them. We saw that as being the case with the Atom Bomb, for example. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had to acknowledge that they had enough weaponry to destroy the world hundreds of times over, and eventually began destroying some of their bombs. Now, we have another weapon - terrorism - that's much harder to control, contain, or destroy. And the parts of the world who have been encouraging and exporting it are only now facing up to the fact that they are targets, too.

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7:42 PM
American forces are trying to get Iraqi prisoners to talk by torturing them with Sesame Street: (via Tom)

Uncooperative prisoners are being exposed for prolonged periods to tracks by rock group Metallica and music from children's TV programmes Sesame Street and Barney in the hope of making them talk.

[ . . . ]

"They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That's when we come in and talk to them."

Well I grew up on Sesame Street and don't see any lasting effects - er - wait a second . . .

Barney, however, is definately torture. No question.

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9:42 AM
My old high school was vandalised over the weekend with antisemitic graffiti:

Staff from the United Talmud Torah elementary school and Herzliah High School in St. Laurent were busy removing anti-Semitic graffiti from their doors and windows yesterday.

The building that is shared by the two schools was struck by vandals overnight. They covered two entrances and several windows with messages including "Free Palestine" and "Die Sharon."

This is extremely unsettling and disturbing to me, who spent 5 years dragging myself to that building on a daily basis. I may have felt imprisoned by the endless math, chemistry, and Talmud classes, watching the endless seconds tick off the clock until the final bell . . . but I never felt threatened.

Luckily it was just a bit of graffiti - most likely written by idiot kids - but nevertheless, the swastikas and disgusting slogans that were pictured in the print version of the Gazette are cause for concern in light of the rise in antisemitism around the world. It's a reminder that, as secure as we may feel in our home and community, we're never really entirely safe.

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12:32 PM
The latest in a wave of suicide attacks in Israel has killed two more people in a mall in Afula, while the politicians keep at it like moths drawn to a flame. Every time an effort is made to restart peace talks, this happens.

And now the two sides are further than they were even two weeks ago from sitting down together. Sharon has cancelled his trip to Washington and imposed a general closure on the West Bank, in response to Palestinian terrorist groups having stepped up the frequency of their murderous attacks.

Innocent people keep dying while politicians try to force-feed peace to a population who clearly does not want it. It's disgusting.

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