Segacs’s World I Know

Well, the good news is, I’m back up and running again.

I had to reformat my hard drive this week, after all but killing my computer. To make a long story short, it rebelled against my attempt to upgrade my Windows version.

I did manage to revive it from life support, which, if I may say so myself, is pretty good for a technical nitwit like yours truly. I even rescued a lot of my documents and programs.

Sometimes, I do think the developers of Windows added a few “extra” settings to their software, though:

This unofficial, unsanctioned peace plan forged between naive Israeli moderates and manipulative Palestinian political figures is turning into a bigger disaster every day.

When I first heard about this about a year ago, I thought it was a bad idea from the start. I’d hoped it would disappear.

Unfortunately, it’s resurfaced – with a vengeance. This week, we hear people starting to refer to it as the “Geneva Accord”, giving it legitimacy that it does not deserve. To compound that, world leaders have been over themselves to ratify it. Even Colin Powell has agreed to meet with the plan’s authors.

Now, as if any more proof were needed to show that this is a catastrophically bad idea, Fatah has admitted that its main purpose is to divide Israel:

Fatah official Hatem Abdel Khader, who was deeply involved in the secret talks that spawned “Geneva,” told The Jerusalem Post Sunday the Palestinian side had helped author the agreement primarily in order to cause a rift in Israeli society and to undermine the Sharon government.

“Our aim was to create divisions inside Israel and block the growth of the right-wing,” the Post quoted Khader as saying.

Well there you have it. A plan not backed by the official elected Israeli leadership or even by the dictatorial Palestinian leadership, overwhelmingly opposed by both sides, and designed to weaken Israel.

For the record, I do think that the terms of this plan are likely to be more or less what the two sides end up agreeing on eventually. Israel will have to concede the settlements and allow East Jerusalem to become the capital of a future Palestinian state sooner or later. The Palestinians will have to renounce their goals of destroying Israel, whether through terror or through the equally transparent “right of return”.

But the bottom line is, you can’t circumvent leadership and the will of the people to sign a meaningless piece of paper behind everyone’s backs. There can only be one government with the political authority to negotiate, otherwise you have mutiny or civil war on your hands. Think about it: what would happen if tomorrow, some Canadian group without any elected authority decided to sign a deal with the US promising to give them Quebec?

If the Altalena was the test of Israel’s state control over its military, then this might very well be the test of state control over politics and external affairs.

As for the Palestinians, they have an even more fractured leadership and no true democracy, but the will of the people is to continue terrorizing Israel until they succeed in their goal of eliminating it, or die trying. Nobody really expects the Palestinians to hold up their end of any bargain struck based on the Geneva principles. This will merely turn into another Oslo; another Road Map… another propaganda tool for people to use against Israel to point out its “violations” while ignoring the Palestinian noncompliance. Only that this one goes much further than either Oslo or the Road Map.

This is a catastrophe for Israel, and the fact that so many people can’t see it appalls me.

The EU has come under fire for refusing to publish a report on antisemitism, ostensibly because of fears of the political fallout of telling the truth (namely that a large portion of European antisemitism is coming from the far-left and from the Muslim communities).

The Canadian Jewish Congress has released the report in defiance of the EU’s refusal, and it is available online. Read it here.

Small wonder the EU is so critical of Israel… it beats introspection any day of the week, doesn’t it?

Israel was forced to withdraw its proposed UN General Assembly resolution calling for the protection of Israeli children from terrorism, after it got sabotaged by Israel’s enemies (via Damian):

At the United Nations, the lives of Israeli children are worth less than the lives of Palestinian children, Israel’s ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman said Wednesday after he was forced to withdraw a resolution calling for the protection of Israeli children from terrorism.

[ . . . ]

On Nov. 6, the same committee adopted a similar resolution calling for the protection of Palestinian children from Israeli aggression by a vote of 88 to 4 with 58 abstentions.

The Israeli draft, the Jewish state’s first at the UN since 1976, was introduced earlier this month in response to numerous terrorist attacks that have targeted Israeli children, including a bombing at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa on Oct. 4 that killed 21 people, among them four children.

Gillerman withdrew the draft after a group of states from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), led by Egypt, demanded the inclusion of amendments that, if adopted, would have turned the draft into an anti-Israel resolution.

The list of amendments, cosponsored by Bahrain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, included deleting of the phrase “Israeli children” from the text and replacing it with “Middle East children,” and inserting references to Israeli “military assaults,” “occupation” and “”excessive use of force” ahead of all mention of terrorism. Even the title of the draft was changed from “The situation of and assistance to Israeli children” to “The situation of and assistance to children in the Middle East region.”

Well, excuse me for saying this but, DUH. There’s a reason Israel hasn’t tried to introduce a GA resolution in over a quarter of a century. Israel should know better than to expect objectivity or even a modicum of fair treatment from a body dominated by its enemies, committed to wiping its existence off the map.

It won’t stop supposedly “neutral”, “objective” watchdogs and commentators from relying on the GA’s authority to criticize Israel, though, you can bet on that.

Only two days after the end of a week-long transit strike that created hassles for thousands of people, the Montreal Tranist Corporation announced plans to hike fares:

Transit users’ patience will be tried again as the Montreal Transit Corp. plans to unleash fare increases, including a $5 increase on the monthly regular bus pass come January.

A monthly pass would increase to $59 from its current $54, The Gazette has learned.

After a strike by its maintenance workers hobbled service last week, the transit agency will now hit bus and métro passengers on Montreal Island in the pocketbook as part of its 2004 operating budget to be tabled tomorrow or Thursday, sources said.

Is there anyone left out there who isn’t completely, totally fed up with public transit?

When it comes to Palestinian-organized events on campus, the rule of thumb seems to be no dissenting viewpoints allowed, as is evidenced by a planned conference at U of T that was cancelled at the last minute:

The conference had a six-point political basis of unity which conference participants must support in order to attend. The administration brought up two points they specifically objected to: unconditional support for the Palestinian right of return and the principle that a two state solution is not a viable option for the Palestinian people.

According to Susan Bloch-Nevitte of the department of Public Affairs, the conference’s basis for unity was exclusionary and therefore the university delivered an ultimatum: either abandon the basis for unity or abandon the booking.

[ . . . ]

The conference would have included sessions on the refugees’ right to return, the current situation in all of historical Palestine, women’s involvement and solidarity with feminists, and queer activism. Sunday would have been dedicated to a session on strategies for resisting what conference organizers called the “Israeli apartheid.”

Of course, conference organizers are, in typical fashion, up in arms denouncing the university’s “blatant trampling on students’ right to organize” and demanding apologies, yadda yadda yadda.

If you recall, pro-Palestinian students made (false) allegations that they weren’t going to be allowed to get tickets to hear Benjamin Netanyahu speak at Concordia last year… they even used it as an excuse for their riot. But apparently it’s ok to organize a conference where nobody but the most hard-line extremist viewpoint is allowed to be expressed, and people can’t even attend unless they’re committed to the destruction of Israel. And yeah, then they have the gall to be angry when their event is cancelled.

This is a very clear example of democracy, Palestinian-style: we have the right to put forth our hard-line views, they say, and you have no right to object or dissent. Our viewpoint matters, yours doesn’t.

(Via Bob).

The transit strike is over – and not a moment too soon:

The union representing 2,050 striking workers announced that more than 90 per cent voted in favour of the new contract with the Montreal Transit Corp. after learning the details in a closed-door meeting earlier in the day.

Transit service was to be gradually reinstated to full service throughout the day Sunday.

Montrealers had been forced to cope with limited bus and subway service during weekday rush hours and for two hours late at night since the employees walked off the job Nov. 16.

While a bunch of overpaid maintenance workers argued over pension allocations, thousands of seniors couldn’t get to doctors’ appointments, shift workers couldn’t get to jobs, and students couldn’t get to classes.

I’m glad the strike is over. But if I’d ever entertained the notion of giving up my car and becoming a more environmentally-friendly citizen by relying on public transit, this strike was a good reminder to forget it.

Yep, it was cold out there!

Today’s horrific bombings in Turkey aimed at British targets claimed the lives of 27 people and wounded hundreds. But they also did much more than that.

The terrorist networks carrying out these attacks are showing a marked shift in tactics. They’re looking to operate in countries not traditionally associated with terrorism, but where they can still gain a foothold – such as Morocco or Indonesia and now Turkey. And they’re also progressively upping the ante with their targets. Last weekend, they targeted Jews. Today they targeted the British. Who will be tomorrow’s target?

Martin Niemoller’s famous Holocaust-era quote comes to mind:

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

They come for the Jews first, because there are far too few in the world willing to speak out for the Jews. But the terrorists have become emboldened. They are realizing they can take on the Australians, like in Bali, or the British, like in Turkey, or even the Americans, like on 9/11.

Us Canadians tend to think like Niemoller did: nobody will ever come for us, we figure, because we make nice with everyone and do our fence-sitting act and don’t piss anyone off. So we have the luxury of not speaking out.

But if we don’t react when they come for the Jews, and for the Americans, and for the Australians, and for the British… who will speak for us when it’s our turn?