Segacs’s World I Know

If I have to listen to the Canadian media glorify traitor Mordechai Vanunu or refer to him as a “whistle-blower” one more time, I think I’m going to be sick.

The sappy, melodramatic images of Vanunu’s “first taste of freedom” and the way that the reports tacitly vilify the Israeli government for continuing to impose restrictions on him are all spinning a tale of the little hero against the big bad government. But as Meryl points out, Vanunu is a scumbag who doesn’t deserve any of it:

And by the way, a person who exposes illegalities at work, such as unsafe workplace practices, is a whistleblower. A person who reveals nuclear secrets of a nation is a traitor. It’s another example of the subtle anti-Semitism of the world media. Imagine, if you will, an American who went to the press about some of our secret weapons programs. Or who told the world about, say, the neutron bomb while it was still being worked on.

Somehow, I don’t think he’d be hailed as a “whistleblower” when he got out of prison. In fact, he’d still be in prison, despised by one and all as the traitor he is.

Most Israelis are hoping that Vanunu screws up so he can be sent back to prison. I can’t say I blame them.

Vanunu, who was born Jewish but converted to Christianity, has also said on the record numerous times that he wants to see Israel destroyed. He wasn’t heroically relaying truth to the world; he was actively collaborating with Israel’s sworn enemies in a bid to destroy the country.

Whistle-blower? Yeah, right!

And Harry uncovers the shocking news that Vanunu’s exclusive luxury digs are being paid for by the BBC.

Shocking? Not really, when you think about it. But don’t feed me crap about the wonderful BBC and its wonderful “objectivity”, k? Just don’t try it.

Looks like Yasser Arafat missed the day in kindergarten when they teach you how to share:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is considering canceling the post of prime minister in response to the understandings reached between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush over the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, senior PA officials in Ramallah said Wednesday.

Nope, I guess Arafat’s kindergarten skipped the sharing lessons in favour of the “how to hate Jews and Americans” lessons. Arafat learned his well.

Canada recognizes the Armenian Genocide:

Canada’s House of Commons rejected appeals from Foreign Minister Bill Graham by adopting a resolution to recognize that Turkey, Canada’s ally in NATO, committed genocide in Armenia in 1915.

The 301-seat House of Commons voted 153 to 68 in favour of the resolution, thanks to support from many members of the governing Liberal Party. Several MPs said Graham had asked them to vote down the measure during closed-door Liberal meetings.

The motion recognized Turkey’s alleged genocide as “a crime against humanity.”

It’s about time.

Tell me something: why is denying the Holocaust a despicable hate crime, but denying the Armenian Genocide “smart politics”?

A million and a half lives were wiped out. Why are governments so afraid to say so?

I know some of you will probably post angry messages and comments here, telling me I’m only looking at one side of the picture and that Turkey’s position is that there was a multi-faction war going on, and that no genocide occurred, and blah blah blah.

Yeah, and the gas chambers were just showers, right?

The fragile situation in the Middle East, coupled with the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO and one of the few countries in the region that has a friendly peace with Israel, has meant that this issue keeps getting pushed back onto the back burner. We can’t piss off our friends cause we have to deal with our enemies, right?

Wrong.

You don’t fight evil in the world by turning a blind eye. You fight evil by denouncing it. And it’s never too late to do the right thing.

The Canadian House of Commons should be commended for this vote of courage. It’s taken far too long. Here’s hoping more governments will follow suit.

Today’s suicide bombing in Iraq killed 68 people including 17 children. It was most likely Al Qa’eda’s handiwork:

“They just blew up innocent Iraqis,” Bush told reporters in Washington after the almost simultaneous car bombs hit three police stations in Basra and two more struck a police academy in Zubair, a mainly Sunni town 15 miles further south.

No excuses about occupation can justify the murder of innocent children. This is disgusting.

Also today, another suspected Al Qa’eda attack – this one in Riyadh:

A suspected al Qaeda suicide car bomber destroyed a security forces building in the Saudi capital Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 148 in the first major attack on a government target.

The attacks are happening because Al Qa’eda is fighting a war that the world seems determined to deny exists. You can’t negotiate with a group whose only acceptable endgame is having you and your entire way of life eradicated. They’re not attacking the “occupation” of Iraq or the U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia; they’re attacking the potential for democracy in the Middle East. They’re scared as hell that democracy might take root or even become a success someplace in the Arab world. And they’re determined to do everything and anything to stop it.

Israel’s security fence is doing a good interim job of cutting down on attacks within its borders. But we can’t build a wall around the entire world. No, sooner or later this war will need to be fought and won.

Fans camped out last night for Habs tickets for round 2 of the playoffs, which went on sale today at noon.

The Admission site was busy all day, and so were the phone lines. The tickets, selling at ridiculously inflated prices, sold out within an hour or two. Even the furthest seats were all gone by mid-afternoon, for all three games – including game 6, which may not even happen.

Who woulda thought that the Habs would be in round 2 while the Sens and Canucks would be at home licking their wounds? There’s no denying that hockey fever is in the air here in Montreal, and some fans are even looking ahead to the finals and even the Cup.

Still, Tampa Bay is no walk in the park. They were the #1 team in the league during the season, and they knocked over the Islanders as though they were, well, the Rangers. The Canadiens have their work cut out for them.

Here’s hoping we can rise to the challenge. Go Habs!

I must apologize. I posted for the five days leading up to today, but couldn’t find the time during the day to post on the actual day. Strange, isn’t it? I found the time to watch the hockey game, but not to write about the six million. What does that say about me?

But today was Yom Ha’Shoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day. See Lynn and Imshin for some poignant reflections. And while you’re at it, pay a visit to the Yad Vashem website and see some of the exhibits currently showing in the museum.

Never Forget.

HABS WIN GAME 7!!!

Next victim: Tampa Bay. Habs all the way! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

A Jerusalem Post editorial asks the question. The big question. Really, the only question: what has humanity learned from the Holocaust?

Jews have been tireless in using the Holocaust to teach about man’s inhumanity to man. Has it made a difference? Ask the 1.7 million Cambodians slaughtered between 1975-1979 by communist lunatics. Ask the over 800,000 Rwandans cut down by machetes — in a mere 100 days — in 1994.

Clearly, efforts to universalize the lessons of the Holocaust have utterly failed. Would a forced visit of Hutu killers through Washington DC’s Holocaust Museum saved a single Tutsi?

No one predisposed to genocide will be shamed into human decency by exposure to Schindler’s List. More than that: Even humanists who mourn Hitler’s Jewish victims have, in the blink of a relativist eye, condemned Israel for eliminating Ahmed Yassin, though he was single-mindedly committed to a new genocide.

[ . . . ]

We are loathe to equate today’s foes with the Nazis. But as Yad Vashem’s Yehuda Bauer has argued, “Nazism, Stalinist communism, and radical Islam are different from each other, but they also have a certain similarity: All three aim, or aimed, at exclusive control over the world, all three oppose or opposed all expressions of democracy, and all three attacked Jews…” On this day, it is worth remembering that in Mein Kampf Hitler predicted terrorism and force would be victorious over reason.

The battle continues.

To that, we can add the Armenian Genocide, the hundreds of thousands (or more) killed in the Congo, the “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, and the thousands of North Korean “political prisoners” being subjected to untold horrors in the Gulags. These are, sadly, only a few examples.

Was it realistic to say “Never Again” after the Holocaust? How could it be, when millions of years of human history teach us that the one thing human beings keep doing is finding new ways to instill horror and cruelty on one another? How could we think that the Holocaust would scare humanity straight, when it was only the “next step” in a long line of massacres, wars, and the wiping out of entire peoples?

There’s still an emotional connection to the Holocaust today. The events of 50 or 60 years ago are close enough in time that there are still survivors to tell their tales, to share their pain and to remind us. There are still memorials standing where the death camps once were. We can visit them, witness them.

But how long until the Holocaust becomes just another dry chapter in a history textbook, too remote in time for emotion? How long until future generations talk about it with the same detachment as they do the Crusades, or the Roman conquest?

Never.

Because maybe we haven’t learned. We haven’t figured out “Never Again” and perhaps we never will. But we have figured out Never Forget.

We haven’t forgotten the events of two or three thousand years ago. We’ve been observing holidays, retelling stories and prayers, tearing our clothing on Tisha B’Av and reciting the story of the Exodus on Passover. We weep over events of two thousand years ago with the same emotion as though they happened yesterday.

If there’s one thing us Jews have, it’s a very long collective memory. It unites us as a people as we remember the chapters of our shared history.

And if it hasn’t ensured a “Never Again”, then we have at least ensured that we will “Never Forget”. Maybe it’s a first step.

Oh, there’s the usual calls for revenge for Rantisi’s assassination… and far be it for me to take them lightly, given the number of innocent Israeli deaths that Hamas has caused. But the fence seems to be doing its job, and we haven’t seen the promised large-scale revenge for Yassin’s death as of yet (thank G-d) and in general, people seem to be a lot less worried this time around. Easy for me to say cause I don’t live in Israel, but the current Maariv poll is running 69% in favour of continuing to target the Hamas leadership, and the editorials don’t seem nearly as full of predictions of doom as they were after Yassin was killed.

In the meantime, the assassinations are having their desired effect it seems, because Hamas is running scared. They’ve appointed but refused to name their new leader, because they’re afraid he will also be assassinated. Of course, having secret leadership means it’s harder for them to turn their leader into a politician within the Palestinian community, or into a public figure. It means the Israeli policy is making them afraid. It means it’s working.