Segacs’s World I Know

Among the reactions to the Riyadh bombings, predictably, the only ones with any teeth are coming from the countries who have proven willing to back up their talk with action. Canada’s reaction is ringing especially hollow:

“I want to express my outrage at what happened in Saudi Arabia,” Chretien said.

He said some of the Canadians apparently were injured, but none died in the attacks in Riyadh.

Of the terrorists, Chretien said: “I think they will never win in using these tactics.”

He said there was no evidence Canadians were specifically targeted, saying the attacks were “against Westerners in general.”

Added Foreign Minister Bill Graham: “It is important we root out terrorism.”

And how exactly do you intend to do that, Mr. Graham? By sending peacekeepers armed with toy guns from Toys ‘R Us? By asking the UN to “pretty please” do something?

Ariel Sharon is making a symbolic gesture by agreeing to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Prime Minister. This gesture is more one of goodwill towards the US, particularly in light of Colin Powell’s visit to Israel, than it is to the Palestinians. But it’s also a signal that Israel would be willing to work towards peace . . . if a true peace partner exists.

Sharon is probably just as aware as anyone that Abbas (or Abu Mazen, as he is better known) is no more a partner for peace than the Pope is a candidacy for Chief Rabbi. But he has to at least give him this chance, or risk losing face internationally as the deal-breaker in this current push towards peace. Israel’s reputation in Europe is already rock-bottom, but Sharon needs to at least give the American plan a chance, because Israel needs American support. So Israel has to go through the motions, knowing full well that the Palestinians can never and will never hold up their end of the bargain. But when this latest effort falls apart, it’s important to Sharon’s government that it not appear to be Israel’s fault.

Abu Mazen, for his part, doesn’t seem to want to let Israel get away with this. He’s planned talks with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to – he says – try to talk them into halting attacks against Israel:

Abbas “will try to convince the Palestinian factions to end terror attacks…there is a chance that Hamas has changed its position and will agree to end attacks,” following the Iraq war and the ensuing US pressure on Syria to shut the offices of Palestinian groups in Damascus, Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said. “Of course these talks will not go on indefinitely,” he said.

Abbas is not naive, not by far. He didn’t get to be a senior member of the Palestinian Authority by being so innocently idealistic – or so innocent, but that’s another story. He knows full well that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will never agree to halt attacks. He also knows that they wouldn’t be able to carry them out without the backing of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. And at this stage, he can’t afford another all-out power struggle with Arafat, even if he wanted to – which, by all indications, he doesn’t.

It’s easy for Abbas to claim he “tried” to halt attacks, and then later to say he has no control over the extremist factions. And then to turn around and point the finger at Israel for whatever counter-measures the Israeli army needs to take in response to the inevitable step-up in attacks. In the meantime, Abbas will order his police force to seek out the terrorists and arrest a few token ones (probably with the full advance knowledge and consent of the terrorist leaders) and then blame Israel again when the talks fall apart.

Everyone knows this. But they all go through the motions anyway. *Sigh*.

Today’s the day when we celebrate those who gave us life . . . and who have been putting up with us ever since. Happy Mother’s Day!

Federal Conservative Deputy Leader Elsie Wayne’s remarks about gays and lesbians and how they should just “shut up” pretty much put the final nail in the Tory party’s already sinking coffin: (Via Damian Penny)

Elsie Wayne, the deputy leader of the Progressive Conservatives, said yesterday that homosexuals should “shut up” about their lifestyle and complained that Canadians should not have to tolerate gay pride parades, drag queens and same-sex marriages.

To me, the scariest part is all the comments on the National Post’s feedback page from people cheering on Elsie Wayne for her bigotry.

When will people learn that hatred masked in self-righteous morality is still hatred?

Global Television will be airing a documentary entitled Confrontation at Concordia, which will focus on the antisemitism on campus and on the tensions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian factions. The show will air tomorrow (Friday) at 9pm Eastern. (via Adam).

The Link is reporting that the lawsuit that Hillel launched against the CSU has been dismissed:

In a judgement delivered last week, Quebec’s Superior Court handed down a decision suspending Hillel’s lawsuit against the Concordia Student Union until it exhausts its options within the University to resolve its conflict.

Judge François Bélanger’s judgement cited the interventions of the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation as evidence that this issue is more a political one than one of racism or anti-Semitism. The judge also noted that the majority of CSU executives are themselves of Jewish origin.

It’s worth noting that the article text says that the suit has been “suspended”, while the headline reads “dismissed”. (Update: The headline has now been changed to read “Court Suspends Hillel Suit”. Think someone’s reading my blog?) As best as I can ascertain, the door is open for re-filing if Hillel satisfies the court that it has exhausted its options within the university. However, this doesn’t make much sense, since the university administration has no legal standing to intervene between Hillel and the CSU even if it wanted to. So I’m not sure what “options” the judge was talking about. The judge seemed to direct Hillel to approach the Board of Governers of the university, but even he acknowledged that the BoG has no power over the CSU:

The judge ruled that Hillel could approach Concordia’s Board of Governors, who according to him have “superintending and reforming power over all decisions affecting activities held at Concordia University or connected with the University,” adding that the Board would appear to have the power to issue sanctions, if not against the Union, at least against those students who run it.

But, the ruling added, because of political conflicts at the heart of the Union, the court would not force Hillel members to submit themselves to the CSU’s Judicial Board for a ruling.

Well, that last bit shows at least some minuscule amount of understanding about the workings of Concordia politics.

In a press release, the CSU’s VP Communications and favourite “we’re not antisemitic cause we have Jews in our admin” poster boy, Aaron Maté, claimed victory for the CSU on this matter:

“I welcome the Judge’s ruling,” said Aaron Maté, a CSU Vice President and 5th year Jewish student. “It’s an important victory for all of those who have been scared and intimidated to remain silent on the Israel-Palestine issue out of fear of being labeled with the serious charge of anti-Semitism or “self-hating Jew”. I hope that all members of the Jewish community, particularly Hillel and the leadership of the Canadian Jewish Congress, will recognize the serious damage that they are doing to our people by exploiting and undermining the meaning of anti-Semitism to intimidate and silence those who have the courage to defend Palestinian human rights.”

Oh yeah, cause Mate seems real scared and oppressed to me. Right.

It looks like the CSU and their buddies turned what was a straightforward case of an unjustified attack on Hillel into a political issue about the Palestinians, as they always do. And this time it seems they got away with it.

With the new CSU due to take office in a few weeks, some might argue that the whole lawsuit was moot in the first place. But that would be ignoring the principle of the thing. Hillel deserves nothing less than full reinstatement of funding, a sincere apology, and punitive damages for years of harassment and abuse. Obviously, this ruling is a serious setback to justice.

As expected, the news coverage of yesterday’s rally focused on the minuscule number of counter-demonstrators who, despite being vastly outnumbered and not affecting the rally, decided to show up to steal the spotlight.

The Gazette lead with the front-page headline “Pro-Israel Rally Targeted”, which was about as misleading as the photo of the maybe dozen counter-demonstrators surrounded by riot police. La Presse had better coverage, with a large photo of a boy draped in an Israeli flag and the headline “15 000 Juifs de Montréal fêtent Israel”. But the first paragraph of the article was again entirely dedicated to the counter-protesters. Only SRC relegated them to a tiny final paragraph, which even that is more coverage than they deserve. But the article itself showed the rally and related some of the words of the key speakers.

Update: For anyone who’s interested, MontrealMuslimNews has published its “take” on yesterday’s rally. You’ll notice that the article is filled with inventions, half-truths, and all-out lies. But then, the truth never seemed to bother them before. Absolutely disgusting. No matter so many of them hate Israel so much, if they’re buying this utter crap as truth.

I’m always impressed at large-scale community showings of support. Today, thousands of Montreal Jews (organizers say 15,000) came out to stand up, show our colours, and be counted. Religious and secular, young and – as the speakers tactfully said, “not so young”, Ashkenazi and Sepharadic, students, seniors, professionals, and working stiffs, from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum, all were there to wave the blue and white and to proudly exclaim that “Am Yisrael Chai!”

Buses from all over the city brought people to Phillips Square. Luckily, the weather began to clear up and the sun even came through briefly. In the square, people were singing, talking, circulating, and picking up posters and flags. We then began to walk slowly down Rene-Levesque to Place du Canada.

Unfortunately, it was necessary for us to be escorted by a large security contingent. I say unfortunately, because we ought to be able to show our support for Israel without having to worry about security. But since this does not reflect reality, the organizers took the necessary steps to ensure that the day would come off without incident . . . and they did an extremely good job. The rally was peaceful, orderly, and went off without a hitch.

The theme of the day was peace. Left-wing and right-wing may not share the same vision on how to achieve peace, but everyone agreed that the ultimate goal is none other than Shalom. During the speeches, frequent choruses of “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem” and other peace songs broke out. And a plane flew overhead, carrying the banner “Canadians Support Israel”.

Apart from that, the day was centered around celebrating our widespread community support, within Montreal, Quebec, and Canada. An Israeli choir of young teenagers opened the event with singing and dancing in Hebrew. Speakers and distinguished guests included Montreal Mayor Gerard Tremblay, Federal MP Irwin Cotler, Provincial MP Russel Copeman, two representatives of the Christian communities – one from the Black community and one from the Asian, and the keynote speaker, former Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard.

The speeches were short and most followed a similar pattern. In addition to some of the invited community guests, Israel’s ambassador spoke, as well as a representative of Hillel Montreal, among others. Most called for peace; all reaffirmed their pride in Israel and their absolute commitment to her existence and security.

Only when Lucien Bouchard made an indirect reference to the Road Map and talked about the need for a Palestinian state was there some uneasiness in the crowd. There is a strong desire for peace in the Jewish community, but there is also a massive distrust of the process and of the supposed peace partner. But Bouchard, for his part, stayed mostly on course, as did the other speakers. The whole idea was to focus on what unites us, not on what divides us. Most of the crowd probably did not vote for Bouchard, and many were probably out demonstrating against him and his sovereigntist ideas back in 1995 or even since. But today, people were happy to accept help and support from anyone willing to give it, no matter what other political issues they may disagree on. Lucien Bouchard is now a private citizen, albeit a prominent one, and he chose to take a stand today in support of Israel. Through MP Russell Copeman, Jean Charest’s government also lent its unequivocal support, thus uniting federalists and separatists, all standing together for Israel.

The rally closed with the singing of O Canada and of Hatikvah, and then the crowd dispersed rather quickly. On my way to the bus, I noticed a tiny group of perhaps a dozen pro-Palestinian protesters standing across the street, contained by riot police. They were outnumbered probably 1000 to 1 and I knew they were totally insignificant, but I was still dismayed to realize that the news reports on the event would likely focus on them and not on the main event. But I wasn’t about to let that bother me too much. They’re entitled to their views, but the sheer number of people out today waving the blue and white showed clearly where the widespread support lies.

Israel is 55 years old. Today is a day of celebration. As a number of speakers pointed out, it is also only one day after Yom HaZikaron, the remembrance day for the far too many who have fallen. We cannot celebrate independence without recalling the hard fight to preserve it. We must never take Israel – or our Atzmaut – for granted.

Here are some photos from today’s Yom Ha’atzmaut Rally in downtown Montreal, in support of Israel:

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