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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9:54 AM
Speaking of the French, the coverage of the cease-fire collapse in the Mideast according to Le Monde is very telling in explaining France's attitudes towards Israel.

The entire article only mentions the suicide bombing that killed 20 and injured over 80, once - and in the sixth paragraph, in a single sentence (without any mention of the children killed and wounded). The focus was on Israel's "odious crime" (the article quotes Mahmoud Abbas in a sub-header) in its assassination of Ismail Abou Chanab, the Hamas terrorist responsible for the attack. The article presents Abu Chanab in a sympathetic light, as though it was an obituary, and clearly points the finger at Israel for "only giving the Palestinian Authority 24 hours" to react to terrorism before sending in the IDF. As if 36 hours would have made any difference . . . or 48 hours . . . or a week or a year, for that matter:

Mahmoud Abbas, le premier ministre palestinien, a été informé de l'assassinat d'Ismail Abou Chanab alors qu'il était en discussion avec John Wolf, l'émissaire américain chargé de la mise en application de la "feuille de route", le plan de paix international, qui venait de rentrer précipitamment de Washington en raison de la tournure prise par les évènements. "C'est un crime odieux qui sape nos plans d'action contre les activistes palestiniens", a regretté Mahmoud Abbas.

La veille, son gouvernement avait décidé de contrer le Hamas et le Djihad islamique, après l'attentat meurtrier de Jérusalem, mardi 19 août, qui a causé la mort de vingt personnes, blessant une centaine d'autres. Il restait à mettre au point certaines finalités en accord avec Yasser Arafat. Comme le dit un responsable palestinien, "le gouvernement de Sharon ne nous a même pas laissé 24 heures pour prouver le sérieux de nos intentions. Il a saboté nos plans et rendu un très mauvais service à Abou Mazen", le surnom de Mahmoud Abbas. Et cela d'autant plus qu'Ismail Abou Chanab avait été l'un des interlocuteurs privilégiés du premier ministre lorsqu'il s'était agi d'instaurer la trève.

Abbas "decided to act against terrorism"??? Yet another example of Le Monde parroting Palestinian propaganda as fact, without bothering to provide any context whatsoever. No wonder the French hate Israel, if they believe articles like this one.

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9:41 AM
The heat wave in Europe has cost over ten thousand lives in France alone:

The French funeral directors association said 10,416 had died during the first three weeks of August because of the heat wave and projected the death toll for the month from the heat wave would be 13,632.

The French government admitted Thursday as many as 10,000 people may have died in the heat wave.

Ten thousand. That's an incredibly staggering figure. How to even contemplate it, let alone explain it? And the fact that this is happening in a supposedly modern, Westernized country with plenty of water and medical care makes it all the the worse. How could the health authorities have been so slow to react?

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4:14 PM
In the grand tradition of renaming things after dead politicians, our very own Dorval Airport will be renamed Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport (via Paul Jané).

Sure, Trudeau was a major figure in Canadian history. But I'm getting really tired of all the endless renamings. If you want to dedicate something, build new stuff and name it after them in the first place. Or, at the very least, rename the Lionel-Groulx metro station before touching a perfectly benignly-named airport!

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3:50 PM
Virus annoyance: I'm getting really fed up with this W32.Sobig.F@mm virus. (Link is to a description and removal instructions, not to the virus itself!) I had to clean it off my dad's computer yesterday, and my own e-mail inbox keeps getting bombarded with hundreds of messages trying to send it to me. It's filling up my inbox and preventing me from receiving real e-mail. Plus it's annoying.

Supposedly this virus (actually a worm) de-activates on September 10th, which means that I guess I have to put up with this nonsense for another week and a half. *Sigh*. If only the people who created these viruses would devote their time and energy to something more productive . . .

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2:25 PM
Why don't we get a National Slacker Day?

Stressed-out Britons are set for a day of doing nothing as workers and managers alike are being urged to relax and slack off on Friday.

Organizers of National Slacker Day are calling on people to "stand up for your right to sit back down again" as a reminder that life does not revolve around the office.

Oh well, those lucky Brits have an excuse tomorrow. We'll just have to keep on slacking anyway, even without a "day" for it.

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11:13 AM
Lowering expectations:

There's a great scene from the West Wing (which, as regular readers will know, is one of my favourite shows) when C.J. tells Josh, Toby, and Sam that she's afraid that Governor Ritchie will win the election by "overcoming perversely low expectations":

I'm absolutely terrified we're going to lose the expectations game. You can't believe how many times I get asked what would be a win in the debates. At this point I feel like if and only if Ritchie accidentally lights his podium on fire does the President have a fighting chance.

Of course, on TV everything works out great for the main characters. But this is real life, and I can't help but thinking that the Palestinians keep "winning" the media war against Israel precisely because of those lowered expectations.

Everyone expects the Palestinians to break their word, violate truces, and send terrorists to murder children and babies. So when it happens, people claim shock for about 10 minutes and then promptly forget about it.

Israel, on the other hand, is held to a higher standard. As some argue it should be, because unlike the Palestinians, Israel is a democracy with lofty ideals about freedom and equality and human rights. So when Israel engages in self-defense, people are "disappointed".

Governor Ritchie may not have had to light his podium on fire to lose the debate against President Bartlet. But the Palestinian terrorists keep lighting themselves on fire . . . and winning the propaganda war. And it's precisely because of these lowered expectations.

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10:20 AM
More mideast absurdities as Hamas and Islamic Jihad both announce that they are ending the cease-fire with Israel "in response" to Israeli actions against their leadership. Hamas has also called upon Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas to resign.

Point #1: You can't "end" a cease-fire that never existed in the first place. Throughout the so-called hudna, both terrorist groups continued to carry out attacks against Israel civilians. This announcement only recognizes the actual state that has been in place all along.

Point #2: The statement that the ending of the cease-fire is "in response" to Israel's assassinations of a Hamas leader is hypocricy at its core. Of course, the world has a short memory. The Palestinians know that they can murder 20 innocent Jews on a Jersualem bus one day, including small children, and the next day claim that they're ending a cease-fire "in response" to Israel's retaliation, and that the world will blame Israel. As usual.

Point #3: Anyone who thinks Hamas's statement against Abbas will result in civil war is kidding themselves. Abbas won't fight back against Hamas. He hasn't shown the slighest bit of power or courage in taking on the terrorist groups since assuming his leadership role. He's been propped up by the US and the international community until now, but he's got no real power. And things can only get worse, as the inevitable showdown that Abbas has been avoiding is finally called by Hamas.

Sometimes I get so angry while writing this stuff up that I can barely find the right keys to type.

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10:12 AM
The US has announced the capture of "Chemical Ali", as Ali Hassan al-Majid is known. A cousin of Saddam Hussein, al-Majid may have information about weapons, or about Saddam's whereabouts.

These captures are far more than symbolic. To the Iraqi population, each is reassurance that the Ba'ath regime won't be coming back . . . and hopefully each arrest of one of the "most wanted" people will help them have more confidence in their future.

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2:16 PM
Still reading your horoscope daily? Well, you can stop now. 40-year-long research has concluded that astrology is a load of bunk:

Extensive scientific research over more than 40 years has finally confirmed what many always believed: that astrology is rubbish, and that it is based on the principle of deception. The research began in London in 1958, and has just been published in the current edition of the respected Journal of Consciousness Studies.

[ . . . ]

In the course of the study, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people over several decades - most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subjects should have had very similar traits. The babies were originally recruited as part of a medical study into how the circumstances of birth can affect future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March that year were registered and their development monitored at regular intervals.

Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts. The scientists failed to find any evidence of similarities between the "time twins", however. "The test conditions could hardly have been more conducive to success... but the results are uniformly negative," the research report said.

Yeah, we know that you never really believed in it in the first place . . . but hey, if the scientific community wanted to fund such a large-scale study to prove something that everyone already knows anyway, then I'm all for it. Keeps people employed.

I guess we'll just have to return to more solid and accepted methods of predicting the future . . . like religion. (I'd love to see the results of the scientific study that takes that one on . . .)

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2:11 PM
I am in complete agreement with Jean Chretien (for once) that the majority should not decide the fate of the minority. Chretien has stated that he thinks a referendum on gay marriage would be a bad idea:

"I've done some referendums. I'm not keen on that," he said, speaking to reporters in North Bay in the middle of a Liberal caucus meeting this week.

He said the reason Canada has a Constitution and the Charter of Rights is to protect the rights of minorities.

As well, he feels the job of elected officials is to make important decisions on issues such as gay marriages and to defend the rights of minorities.

"To have a referendum on these things, there would be no protection anymore."

In my opinion, this is the correct interpretation of the role of government, and anyone who is a minority in any way (which, I suppose, we all are in a sense) should defend this role.

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5:49 PM
Oh my god.



A suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus has killed at least 20 people - including small children - and wounded over 80 others:

The bomb exploded aboard a double-length city bus in the crowded, largely ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim near the border between east and west Jerusalem. The explosion damaged a second bus, Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said. The bus was mainly filled with religious Jews on their way home from praying at the Kotel.

Ambulance services said at least 30 people had been carried away from the scene. An Israeli spokesman said 26 people were seriously and critically injured in the bombing. Another 43 people sustained minor injuries.

Fifteen children between 2 weeks and 15 years old were taken to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital, according to Mor Yosef, the hospital's director-general.

They're killing our children again. And gloating about it. Hamas and Islamic Jihad were falling all over each other to claim "responsibility" for this attack.

The news media are all focusing on the death of the (fictional) truce. But a lot more died than an agreement that was never honoured in the first place. Innocent men, women, and children had their lives stolen.

The world was feeling pretty relaxed lately - quiet on the mideast front and all that. The Israelis knew better. Their news media was warning people to expect the worst in the coming days. The Israelis knew that this so-called cease-fire was just an excuse for these guys to regroup and plan their next attack.

I almost don't know what to say anymore. All the screaming about how bad an idea it is to keep making "concessions" that will encourage terror fall on deaf ears. I can't say I'm disappointed, either.

Just saddened. And angry as hell.

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12:16 PM
Lynn says No:

No.
There's a very simple response to palestinian claims of a "right of return" (ROR) to the pre-1948 homes of their ancestors or themselves in Israel.

No.

That's the answer and that will always be the answer. It's time the rest of the world made this perfectly clear and stopped leaving it to Israel to spell it out, time and time again. Despite the screaming, shrieking, ranting and raving, the claim has no basis, no legitimacy, no historical precedent. And no such "return" is going to happen while the State of Israel still exists.

She makes the point quite well that Israel cannot - and never will - accept a so-called "compromise" that effectively negates its right to exist as a Jewish state. It's a point underscored by this Ha'aretz editorial:

The Palestinian leadership would be well advised to take very seriously the united front in Israel that opposes a right of return. The most committed supporters of the Oslo Accords believe that a concession of refugees' right of return to Haifa can be traded fairly for a concession of Jews' right of return to Hebron. Israel, just like the PA and Arab states, should have an interest in the search for a just solution for hundreds of thousands of stateless, disenfranchised people who live in, and outside, refugee camps. But this solution cannot include a return of refugees to the State of Israel; instead, the return should be to the Palestinian state that will arise alongside Israel.

Virtually all Palestinian leaders have poorly served their own people by cultivating among refugees the illusion of a right of return to Israel, rather than courageously encouraging them to recognize that the establishment of a Palestinian state entails the relinquishing of hopes of returning to Israeli territory. With his irresponsible remarks, Sha'ath throws dust in Palestinians' eyes, and spoils prospects of forging an agreement, even with those in Israel who believe in compromise.

And that of course is the crux of the issue. Because even those in the Arab world who speak about lofty principles like recognition of Israel don't mean the Israel that we know. They really mean that they'd accept an Arab, Islamic Israel - renamed Palestine, of course, and where the Jews would live as a minority. To them, the notion of Jewish nationalism is an illegitimate one, even as they prop up Palestinian nationalism by funnelling millions to terrorist networks.

The so-called "right of return" was invented as a Plan B, in case Plan A (military annihilation of the "Zionist entity") failed. Plan A has been attempted over and over, and each time Israel has emerged victorious. So it's no surprise that Plan B has been taking center stage lately.

It's the same old song and dance. And anyone who doesn't recognize it as such is either willfully ignorant or just blind.

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11:24 AM
The bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad is proof of just how bad things have gotten on the ground in Iraq. At least one person was killed and over 30 injured, including some high-level U.N. officials.

Logic would dictate that the Saddam-loyalist factions still active in Iraq would want to direct their anger at the Americans, not at the United Nations. So this, of course, begs the question of who was responsible for today's attack? And why? After all, the U.N.'s role in Iraq has been humanitarian, not military.

Was the HQ attacked because it was a "soft target"? Because it was a way to attack foreigners? Was the attack by a group angry with the U.N.'s resistance to Iraqi intervention? (That last seems highly unlikely). Was it all a big mistake?

Details may emerge in the coming days that clarify it . . . but don't count on it. Iraq is in a state of mess right now, and it will probably take some time to get all the threads sorted out.

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9:20 PM
Strange bedfellows:

Isi Lieber, the senior Vice-President of the WJC, writes a glowing editorial singing the praises of Israel's new friends, Evangelical Christians:

Now it has suddenly dawned on us that there are probably 60 million Evangelical Christians in the United States and that they represent our staunchest supporters and friends. In fact, in recent years concern and devotion for Israel have become one of their highest priorities.

While I realize the sensitivity of looking a gift horse in the mouth, let me be candid about how uncomfortable - and that's putting it mildly - the whole thing makes me.

Here is a story that is hardly new and that has been developing for a while. Some people, like Lieber, are from the "who cares about their motives, they're helping us, and we sure could use all the friends we can get" school of thought. I see where they're coming from. But that doesn't mean I have to agree, or to like it.

Evangelical Christians are, of course, as free to practice their brand(s) of religion as anyone else. That doesn't mean I have to like it when they start preaching to me about being "saved". Nor do I have to overlook the fact that most of these millions of supporters of Israel are only doing so because they believe that the second coming of the Messiah will result in the conversion of all of us Jews to Christianity.

Frankly, the cowtowing and compromising of the principles of Israel - and indeed of Judaism - to these so-called "new friends" reminds me of the kid in the schoolyard who's so lonely that he'll attach himself to anyone willing to show the least bit of attention, even if he's the laughingstock of the group.

The pragmatic approach would say that Israel can't afford to dismiss the friendship of perhaps the most powerful lobby group that can influence the American government to see things in a favourable light. However, conscience would dictate that Israel can't afford to overlook other things. The power of the religious right in the US means that other items on the Evangelicals' agendas, aside from support of Israel, include encouragement of school prayer (Christian of course), denying homosexual rights, and trying to change the law to outlaw abortion, to name a few. And I can't help but wonder if, sooner or later, Israeli lobbyists will realize that when you sell your soul to the devil, so to speak, it comes at a very steep price.

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9:04 PM
Note to self: never go to the hairdresser on a bad hair day with the instructions "I'm sick of my hair, do something different".

Ah well, I suppose it'll grow back . . . eventually.

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3:32 PM
Whoever else was inconvenieced by the big blackout, Jean Chretien was making damn sure that Shimon Peres made it home for his birthday celebrations:

Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres made it home to celebrate his 80th birthday despite the huge power cuts in north America after Canadian premier Jean Chretien sent his personal jet to rescue him, reports said.

I wonder if Chretien would have been so quick to send his private jet to rescue, say, Ariel Sharon or Benjamin Netanyahu?

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2:13 AM
Well, the South Park song was wrong: it's Blame Ohio.

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