Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘imshin’

Too busy to blog at the moment, but never fear: there is so much worthwhile reading out there that you can keep plenty busy.

Allison and Imshin pointed me towards Lisa’s story of how she came to Israel. I’m completely hooked. You will be too. So far, she’s got parts one, two, three and four.

While you’re over at Imshin’s, read this post about Hannah Senesh.

Damian has this disturbing story about how Russian nationalist lawmakers want to “investigate” and ban Jewish organizations. Meryl has more.

And in case you’re still looking for more to read, check out the Jewish and Israeli blog award nominees. While you’re there, vote for your favourites and check out some of the ones you may never have heard of.

Back to regularly-scheduled programming as soon as possible.

If you’re not reading Imshin regularly these days, you should be. Here’s an example of why.

While you’re at it, you can vote for her or Allison for a BlogAward, even though it’s pretty much a lost cause for anyone in that category. And while you’re at the blog awards site, vote for Meryl Yourish, not just because she asked for endorsements, but because she’s also the source of a lot of the material you read here – and a very witty writer to boot. And the best Canadian blog category didn’t see fit to include yours truly (who am I kidding anyway?) but you can definitely kick a vote or two in for Damian.

Turns out I’m not the only lefty in the blogosphere… in a post reminiscent of this one. You just watch: one day we shall dominate.

Alan has the follow-up on the UNRWA story, namely that Kofi Annan is backing Peter Hansen, the corrupt agency head who freely admits employing terrorists, among other things. I can’t claim to be too surprised at that one.

Debbye has thoughts on the CBC’s “Greatest Canadian” contest, something I’ve tried to avoid watching because I knew it would make me very very angry. Judging by the top 30, it seems we’re propagating our own stereotypes as a nation, voting in hockey players, any popstar or movie star with crossover American success, and iconofied politicians. The fact that this is a contest where Don Cherry can place in a top 10 alongside Alexander Graham Bell should say it all. *Sigh*.

Imshin is absolutely required reading, lashing out at those who believe that Israel should not exist. She also points to this article, published in the Guardian, about anti-Americanism and antisemitism in Europe.

And this is a little late, but Burnside has packed in his keyboard. Another casualty of the blogosphere. He’ll be missed.

Here’s what Meryl has to say about it:

A Jewish community center in Paris was burned down last night. The police suspect arson. But there is no anti-Semitism in France.

[ . . . ]

How can that be? Anti-Semitism is not a big problem in France. Chirac said so. He even chastised Ariel Sharon for saying that it was.

Read the rest.

On a related note, Imshin has a disgusting travesty of justice for an 11-year-old Jewish boy who was beaten up by Arab classmates who shouted antisemitic jeers at him while they beat him. The school expelled both attackers, but then their parents sued the schoolboard and the ministry of education. Subsequently, both boys were allowed back into school, and damages ordered paid to them.

The ministry of education and the parents opposed this decision in an appeal court. Imagine what will happen to the Jewish boy if he sees his tormentors back in school. The execution of this judgment means in fact expelling the victim from the school. The judgment will be rendered in August, when all France is on vacation, and the lawyer of the parents is very pessimistic, based on many recent cases in France where complaints about anti-Semitism were minimized and usually dismissed by the French courts. In this case, the administrative court judged that, based on the accused boys declarations, the anti-Semitic acts, even though recognized by the authors, were not numerous enough to justify expelling the authors form school. So, for this French court, a certain level of anti-Semitism, even though illegal (it is against the law in France to proffer anti-Semitic or racist remarks in public), is acceptable.

But no, Meryl’s right, of course: there’s no antisemitism in France.

Update: Bad news for France but good news for the Israeli tourism industry.

I haven’t been able to post as much as I’d like to lately, due to being very preoccupied with work and with other stuff in my life. So in the meantime, here are some must-read links:

If you’re not reading Imshin, you should be. She has been blogging in her typically insightful fashion lately about Shavuot and Zionism’s true meaning, and about antisemitism at Berkeley.

LGF has the photo that proves just how little the UN can be trusted in the mideast. And Meryl has some biting commentary on the latest news emerging from Israel.

In Canadian news, the election talk that seems to be dominating the airwaves. But Damian Penny and David Janes have a disgusting story of racism interfering in custody cases that proves just how dangerous these “PC” policies can be for innocent children. As for the election, Paul Jané comments on the Liberals’ transparent scheme to make ridiculous healthcare promises at the eleventh hour that they clearly have no intention of keeping. (Anyone else remember the “no more GST” promise? Remind me again why I keep voting for these guys?)

This was Imshin’s chillingly prophetic observation, just yesterday:

It was not that they were such good liars

It was not that they were such good liars, they actually weren’t at all coy about their true aims, even if they neglected to share them with us in English and in Hebrew, keeping it for their own audiences, in Arabic, it was more that we wanted to believe them so very much. We wanted peace so desperately that we didn’t want to see that the Palestinian leadership was taking us for a royal ride.

[ . . . ]

I can clearly remember watching Arafat, freshly arrived in Gaza, standing on a balcony and saying horrible, hateful, inciting things to a cheering crowd, and I remember feeling very humiliated and worried at the time. Don’t worry, everyone said, the Palestinian people will soon be having such a ball, they’ll just love their independence and newfound affluence so much, that it will have to work. So I didn’t worry. More fool me.

Because it didn’t work, did it? Those bastards stole all the money and what they didn’t they spent on arms and on teaching hatred. Terrorist organizations flourished. No independence for the Palestinians. No affluence. (And no peace for us). Conned by their leaders. Again. And so were we.

The crazy thing is that we’re still the bad guys at the end of it all. It’s us that are the Zionazi hate mongers. It’s us that are the danger to World Peace.

Even some Israelis still don’t get it.

How can we possibly make people understand, when we ourselves, couldn’t, wouldn’t see it for so long? We only saw it when it came crashing down on us, literally.

How can we possibly make people understand, when these are people who don’t have access to the facts that we did have access to; when these are people who, on the most part, only have access to the clever lies, to the devious disinformation, to the unabashed distortion of history.

With little chance of persuading the world that we are the underdog here, that we are the endangered species, that we’re not paranoid, they really are after us, what choice do we have but to be strong and tough, stronger and tougher, strongest and toughest? We have no choice, and that’s the sad truth.

There’s no peace on the horizon.

Imshin wrote that yesterday evening. Less than 24 hours later, a dozen more innocent people were dead in Jerusalem. With every one of these attacks, a few more people come to the same realization: that there’s no peace on the horizon, not with this gang of liars. Not with people who claim to condemn terrorism out of one side of their mouth, and cheer it on and enable it out of the other side.

How many more innocent people will have to die before the rest of the world gets it too?

While I’ve been procrastinating, others have been posting.

Damian has the latest on the politician who just won’t leave office, and Paul has a few thoughts on the corruption within the Liberal government under said politician’s leadership. Steve has the shoot-an-FLQ-terrorist video game . . . and the offended reaction of a bunch of separatists with way too much time on their hands. And Occam’s Toothbrush has a link to a George Jonas story in the National Post on the real problem in the Palestinian society. (You’ll note that, unlike Jonas’s horribly sexist article on why women should be flattered to be groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, this article has a web link).

Allison has a few thoughts on how the Israeli government can step up its PR by recognizing the contribution of bloggers to the pro-Israel effort. Lynn has a brutally honest article by what passes for a “human rights activist” in Jordan (read: someone who wants to destroy Israel). And Imshin helps Lynn figure out what Israeli turkeys say. (Personally, judging by the menus at most Israeli restaurants I’ve ever been at, I’d guess they probably say something like “I don’t want to be schnitzel!”)

I was over at Imshin’s blog and I decided to check out the Hebrew section, where spotted a link to this essay by Scott at AMCTLG.com entitled “The Stand”. It’s one American’s view about why supporting Israel is so important. If it were up to me, it would be required reading:

I stand with Israel. In the endless finger-pointing game of “who shot first? Who stops shooting first?” I point my finger squarely at the Arab world, and wait with Israel for them to make the first real move. I admire Israel, because it is a ridiculously small country with ridiculously brave people.

At this point most other authors would say, “if you don’t agree with me you’d better just skip the rest of this.” I almost did just that. But I changed my mind. If you don’t agree with the sentiments above I want you to read the rest of this very slowly. I want you to understand how stupid and ignorant you are. I want you to understand that being “for Jews but against Israel” is a contradiction that reeks of anti-Semitism. I want you to get so angry your blood fizzes. Because you see that’s how angry I am right now, and I feel like sharing.

Read the rest. Yeah, even you who disagrees. You know who you are.