Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘leftists’

… Coming to an Urban Outfitter’s near you!

Leslie has the scoop.

That’s one of those questions that people have stopped even trying to answer. But I wonder… why does nobody notice how senseless the marriage is between self-defined “liberals” and the “Palestinian cause”?

Why, when the Left claims to be for democracy, does it support an autocratic dictatorship over a free and democratic state?

Why, when the Left claims to be for women’s rights, does it support the Palestinians, who pay lip service to gender equity while still living in a society that doesn’t see very much wrong with “honor killings” of a woman who isn’t a virgin when she marries… instead of Israel, where women really do have equal rights in every sense of the word?

Why, when the Left claims to be for minority rights, does it support the Palestinians, who want an Arab-only state (no Jews need apply) instead of the pluralistic democracy that is modern Israel?

Why, when the Left claims to be for gay rights, does it support anti-gay discrimination as opposed to Israel, where (with the exception of marriage) gays have equal rights?

Why, when the Left claims to be for peaceful conflict resolution and against war, does it support the armed intifada and rationalize Palestinian suicide bombings?

How have the Palestinians become the media darlings of the Left, when only a few decades ago, the same idealistic people were rushing to Israel to go work on a kibbutz?

It seems like it should be so obvious as to be a no-brainer. And yet, from Europe to North America to Australia, left-wing groups, academics and student groups, unions and minority-rights groups are all rallying for the Palestinian cause of wiping out the only democracy in the middle east. Whether they claim to be for a two-state solution (but because they support the so-called Palestinian “right of return”, those two states are really both Palestinian), or a “one-state solution” (i.e. Jews as an oppressed minority in yet another Arab state in the mideast), they are, in effect, calling for Israel’s destruction.

Do they really not get it? Do they really have such a hard time seeing that the marriage between the Left and the Palestinians makes about as much sense as, say, the marriage between fundamentalist Christians and Israel? (Don’t get me started on that one…)

Because it seems to me that anyone with truly Liberal values would be first in line to support Israel. And even though this is hardly an original question, I think we ought to keep asking it until answers are forthcoming… until people realize that the motivations of certain groups are not what they may seem… until the Left has a crisis of conscience about its own habit of supporting murderous terrorists and dictators over democracies simply because it’s “fashionable”.

It is beyond me why Israelis were surprised at what went on at the Pro-Palestinian UN conference Anti-Israel propaganda fest held in New York yesterday:

Postcards of a Palestinian child dwarfed by the Israeli fence, slide shows of Palestinian humanitarian crises allegedly caused by the fence’s construction, informational leaflets printed by the anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta, and maps of “Palestine” from the river to the sea from 1920, minus the caveat that Palestine was never a state, were all on display yesterday at UN headquarters in New York, where delegates from across the globe gathered for the International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People.

The theme of the two-day conference was “End the Occupation!”

Ridiculous allegations were also levelled against the security fence, delegates were urged to overlook and excuse Palestinian terrorism, and Rachel Corrie’s mother was called up to speak. ADL chairman Abraham Foxman wrote a letter to Kofi Annan urging him not to support this conference, which – surprise, surprise – was ignored.

And people wonder why Israel doesn’t trust the UN . . .

Here’s more about the disgusting antisemitism in Paris among the anti-war movement and the far Left: (via Jonny)

Il aura fallu trois jours aux organisateurs des manifestations parisiennes contre la guerre pour condamner les agressions antisémites commises samedi dernier, en marge du cortège. Un retard qui vient s’ajouter au malaise ressenti par certains devant la tournure prise par le dernier rassemblement, à la tonalité plus pro-palestienne que pacifiste.

The article goes on to talk about a few specific incidents, including the Jewish student who was shoved and roughed up by ten or so protesters who were waving an American flag with a swastika in the colours of Israel in the place of the stars.

And the group of protesters holding Palestinian flags who went off in search of Jews wearing kippas at the association offices of Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist youth group. They beat one of them up, while shouting “Allah akbar”. Security personnel nearby refused to intervene. Not only that, but the whole thing was captured on film.

The reaction from France’s leftist political parties is summed up in this quote by Arielle Denis, co-president of the “Movement de la Paix”:

Elle reconnaît “une très forte sensibilité vis-à-vis de la Palestine et d’Israël” au sein du mouvement, mais estime que les positions anti-sionistes restent un phénomène “marginal”.

Marginal? Yeah, right.

Update: The Canadian Jewish News has more on this story, including further evidence on the habit of these groups to completely fabricate “fact” out of thin air:

CAPJCO, however, denied its activists were involved in the attack. Its president, Olivia Zemor, said her members had, once again, been attacked by Jewish extremists from Betar.

“We are going to be speaking to the police and asking for protection.” Asked to specify the number of injured from her own organization, Zemor said she did not know the “exact figure” before admitting that there had been no CAPJPO injuries.

Hmmm . . . sounds to me a lot like the fictitious claims that the “Zionists instigated the violence” in the case of the September 9th Concordia riots. It fits the same pattern of inventing the truth for propaganda purposes without a shred of evidence. Disguating, all of it.

Larry Elder writes in this week’s JWR about an overwhelming Leftist bias among professors at American universities:

On college campuses across America, teachers influence students by running down America, demeaning capitalism, exaggerating “oppression” against minorities and women, and denouncing Republicans in general and George W. Bush in particular.

Actually, there is a dangerous trend in the United States whereby secular universities are moving further to the Left, and Christian religious colleges further to the right. This is creating a divided society among the “leaders of tomorrow” because what happens to the secular right? The religious left? Most of all, what happens to the centre?

Education, ideally, isn’t learning facts but is learning how to think critically. However, anyone who pretends that education isn’t a form of brainwashing is kidding themselves. After three to four years studying in a university, faculty, or department with a certain ideological bent, most people are absorbed into it no matter what happens. If the education system is only giving half of the picture, that’s a giant failing.

For example, in this week’s online version of the Link, an article discusses the possibility that Sheila Copps may run for the leadership of the Liberal party. An online user poll then asks students if they would vote for her as prime minister. The options – while predictably lame – don’t give any choice for students who wouldn’t because they find her too far to the left – only not left enough.

Concordia’s campus politics reflect a similar picture. There’s no left, right, and center in most CSU elections. There’s only left, lefter, and leftest. Of course, this is a union election, so that’s to be expected to some extent. But it does create a particular problem where the most left-wing slates automatically have an entire platform essentially custom-written for them. All they have to do is steal the latest ideas from socialism and – voila – a platform built on “human” (read: Palestinian) rights, aid for the poor, disabled and homeless, fighting for gender advocacy, support services, anti-corporate control on campus and in the media, and lower tuition. They don’t even have to think about it, and in an election campaign their issues come across as credible, well-researched, and powerful.

Anyone running in opposition has two choices. They can present a clear alternative to them by putting forth a more right-wing platform, which is immediate political suicide. Even a hint of it is enough to kill a campaign. Take last year’s CSU elections for example. The main group opposing the current extremist CSU was tarnished with allegations of being “right-wing” even though its politics probably fell slightly left of the NDP. The other alternative is to put forth a sort of non-platform, with issues that seem to be much less important. Either way is recipe for disaster.

Students who believe that tuition should be raised in order to improve education quality, those who don’t mind and even welcome advertising in the bathrooms, and those who believe that a person should be hired on merit, not skin colour, to administrate the university find that they are quickly drowned out. For professors, it’s even worse; academia being what it is, hold the wrong views and profs find themselves ostracized, unpublishable, and virtually unemployable.

I’ve said many times that too far Left is just as bad as too far Right. What is happening on university campuses deserves some attention.

Jaggi Singh now claims that his arrest in Israel wasn’t a publicity stunt.

“This was not a publicity stunt,” he said yesterday. “I did not come here to get arrested – I came here to write stories. In late 1999 to 2000 I spent three months in India doing exactly the same thing. But nobody heard of it because they didn’t decide to deport me.”

Yeah, right.

Singh is drawn to publicity like a moth to a flame. Now he’s levelling accusations that he was beaten while in lockup in Israel awaiting deportation.

Liar.

Think about it: the Israelis clearly have no motive whatsoever to beat him up or harm him in any way. But Singh has plenty of motive to portray Israeli police as “brutal”. Actually, I think the word “brutal” is pretty much synonymous with any police anywhere – and with any Israeli anywhere – in Singh’s mind, so he must have seen the opportunity to make up charges against Israeli police as too good to pass up.

Whatever the case may be, Singh was seeking this arrest from the day he stepped off that plane in Tel Aviv. Press releases abounded – most probably written in advance – to chronicle Singh’s detention at the airport, the Israeli court’s subsequent decision to allow him into Israel conditionally, Singh’s blatant violation of those conditions and his “come and get me” attitude, and finally, his inevitable arrest.

Singh has demonstrated that he has no problem bending or completely manufacturing the truth. This goes directly to his credibility and says that we should take whatever he says with not only a grain of salt, but a whole shaker full.

In the time since I started this blog, I haven’t exactly shied away from controversy in my postings. But with all the issues being debated – Mideast politics, Concordia politics, the US and potential war on Iraq, terrorism – I seem to be getting the most critical e-mails about my post below on Jim Turnbull and the Canadian gun lobby.

Now, the gun registry’s got problems and it might not be the most popular viewpoint out there to oppose those opposing it, but come on, this is far from the most controversial topic that’s come up here! So I wondered why it’s getting so much attention. Then it came to me: because I’m pro-Israel, people assume I must be right-wing in my politics and that I’m therefore a supporter of what our neighbours to the south call the “right to bear arms”.

Simply put, I attracted a right-wing readership with my main topic of discussion, and then alienated them by doing a 180 on an issue that I happen to disagree with them about. Don’t get me wrong, I agree to disagree – some of the smartest bloggers I know want to toss the gun registry out the window (check out the links on the lefthand side of this page) and it’s not like I don’t understand where they’re coming from. But I have to ask sometimes: what does wanting more restrictions on gun ownership and licensing have to do with supporting Israel?

Anyone notice anything strange about those combinations? They don’t logically follow. And I categorically reject the idea that we need to pick a side and go along with all the pet issues that have come to represent one side or another.

In my FAQ, I specifically state that I don’t identify with either the Left or the Right. My views are simply my views, and I think that the real hypocritical thing is to change them simply because the political stage has shifted in one direction or another. If I said I was a Liberal, and tomorrow all Liberals decided that their new pet issue was opposing all people with orange socks, and I disagreed with that, then it would be silly to go along with it simply because of a label, wouldn’t it?

I take issue with the Left for its overspending of our tax dollars, its hatred of anything with a profit motive, and its absolutely disastrous foreign policy – especially when it comes to the Mideast, but in general as well.

I take issue with the Right for butting into our private lives in issues of abortion, gay rights, and religion, and its insistence that the right to own a gun is more important than the right for the next guy not to get shot, and its refusal to associate rights and freedoms with responsibilities.

Most of all, I take issue with people who assume that it’s a spectrum of “either-or” and that everyone has to pick one side or the other.

So I’m just going to keep on saying what I think, without worrying about whether it’s fashionable on the Left or on the Right, and trust that people out there reading can recognize the difference between labels and views. I also happen to hold an inkling – maybe naively idealistic – that if we can just get past these labels, and pick and choose the good from both sides, maybe we can get somewhere closer to where we want to be as a society.