As expected, the news coverage of yesterday’s rally focused on the minuscule number of counter-demonstrators who, despite being vastly outnumbered and not affecting the rally, decided to show up to steal the spotlight.
The Gazette lead with the front-page headline “Pro-Israel Rally Targeted”, which was about as misleading as the photo of the maybe dozen counter-demonstrators surrounded by riot police. La Presse had better coverage, with a large photo of a boy draped in an Israeli flag and the headline “15 000 Juifs de Montréal fêtent Israel”. But the first paragraph of the article was again entirely dedicated to the counter-protesters. Only SRC relegated them to a tiny final paragraph, which even that is more coverage than they deserve. But the article itself showed the rally and related some of the words of the key speakers.
Update: For anyone who’s interested, MontrealMuslimNews has published its “take” on yesterday’s rally. You’ll notice that the article is filled with inventions, half-truths, and all-out lies. But then, the truth never seemed to bother them before. Absolutely disgusting. No matter so many of them hate Israel so much, if they’re buying this utter crap as truth.
Sari, This may interest you. Montreal Jewish Film Festival
http://www.mjff.qc.ca/en/home.cfm
Montreal Muslim News is a racist Islamist site which deserves to be ignored. The site does not represent Muslims.
Never said it did, Wadi.
I didn’t say that you did but someone who reads the phrase “Montreal Muslim News” will think that the opinions expressed on the site are the opinions held by regular Muslims.
My point is simply to not even mention them as they deserve to be ignored.
Wadi, care to back up your argument with some evidence?
You know, it’s interesting how Abdul Rahman practically spits out “Zionism” and “Zionists” — and goes to great lengths to tag Zionism as the real enemy, not some set of Israeli policies.
Which is one of the things that makes his article sound like some Syrian government press release. But it got me thinking: similar contexts are practically the only places I hear the word Zionism, much. So, a rant:
Maybe it’s time for Jews to take back Zionism. Take me. I’m a strong Zionist — I support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t disagree with many Israeli government policies now and in the past. Nor does it mean I agree with many of the actions around how Israel was founded, even, and I certainly think that the larger history of Israel’s foreign diplomacy and relations with Arab countries have been disasters they needn’t have been.
Heck, it doesn’t necessarily mean I think that a separate Jewish state was the best way to realise this self-determination. Under different circumstances, a federal structure a la Belgium might have worked much better, in my opinion. The only thing I suppose unconditionally is the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, in other words.
At the same time, I absolutely believe that a full-fledged state of Palestine, living in peace and security, is necessary and that it needs to be accomplished, as quickly as possible. Call me a member of what I believe to be at least a sizable chunk of Jews in Canada and elsewhere: a pro-Palestinian Zionist who believes in a two-state solution. (continued…)
(…continued) The most effective way to silence our constituency, though, is to declare the enemy to be “Zionism”. The rhetorical motivation of that move is always at least one of two things: to deny Jewish existence as a people, or to deny that people’s right to self-determination. And its rhetorical implications is always opposition to a two-state solution — after all, isn’t one of the two states meant to be Israel, and the other Palestine? — and, instead, support for Israel’s elimination.
When politicians in Arab League member countries do that, it’s no surprise; they couldn’t care less about Palestinians, but care a great deal about their political careers, and this works for them. But when probably well-meaning folk do this because they think stigmatizing Zionism will somehow secure peace and a Palestinian state, I believe them to be misguided — in other words, I don’t think they *really* mean that Jews aren’t a people, or that that people doesn’t have the right to self-determination. And even if they do, I think that once they rethink things, they’ll realise why that racist attitude has nothing to do with peacemongering.
So maybe the solution is for us to resist the temptation to arch our backs against the wall. When someone starts smearing Zionism we can politely ask what it is they have against a two-state solution, and why they believe Israel shouldn’t have the right to exist alongside Palestine.