Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘izzy asper’

Israel Asper has passed away.

Asper, 71, was the owner of CanWestGlobal, the Canadian media conglomerate that owned, among other things, Global Television and the Montreal Gazette.

“The company feels a sense of profound loss on the passing of our founder, who distinguished himself as a visionary business leader, a caring leader in his encouragement and financial support of worthy causes, and as a champion of Israel,” a news release sent to staff said.

Unfortunately, Asper became a symbol to the anti-Israel crowd of every rotton Jewish stereotype in the book: a wealthy capitalist, owner of a company fuelling media convergence, and an outspoken supporter of Israel. It is my hope that, with his passing, they will maintain a modicum of respect for the man.

I highly doubt it, though. They haven’t demonstrated their ability to be respectful.

Asper was a controversial figure to some, but all he really did was become successful and then use his success to attempt to advance causes he believed in. He will be sorely missed.

It seems to me that those people angry about the antisemitic remarks made by the Lebanese Ambassador to Canada, Raymond Baaklini, are missing the point.

Baaklini made widely-criticized remarks in a local Arabic newspaper about the media being “controlled by Zionists”, and blamed the “Zionist party” for being responsible for pressuring the Canadian government to outlaw Hezbollah. His remarks ended with a not-so-subtle threat that “Canadians travelling in the Arab world shouldn’t wear Canada T-shirts.”

He repeated his disgustingly racist and threatening comments several times before issuing a so-called “apology” that was really nothing even remotely apologetic.

I am disgusted by these comments – but I don’t understand why people are shocked. It’s a pretty common accusation of Israel’s enemies, and Izzy Asper, owner of CanWestGlobal, is a favourite target of these morons. Just open any edition of the Link to see that accusation made – in print – dozens of times.

If Baaklini’s remarks are unacceptable – which they are – then they should be equally unacceptable for all the other idiots who say the exact same thing, day in, day out.