Segacs’s World I Know

Hillel is holding a vigil for the victims of today’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow (Monday) at 2:30pm at the Roddick Gates, corner Sherbrooke and McGill College.

I’ll be at work, but for those Montrealers out there who can make it, please spread the word. As the political fallout becomes the main story and the names of the victims relegated to mere statistics, it’s important to do whatever is in our power to make sure that these innocent lives are not forgotten.

A surge in violent crime in England has been raising eyebrows. Mark Steyn, in an attempt to dismiss gun control as ineffective that, incidentally, I disagree with, claims that within 2 years, the murder rate in London will exceed that in New York (via Damian Penny). And Tom’s comment was “Britain is falling apart. You might like to mention it in your blog.”

Well, Tom’s right, it does bear mentioning. In this past week alone there’s been a siege where police squared off with a hostage taker for over 11 days, negotiating and feeding the gunman Kentucky Fried Chicken. The hostage has been freed but the gunman is still refusing to surrender. Two women have been murdered, and their body parts found in plastic bags. Two men were stabbed to death in Bristol. A cab driver was murdered in Manchester. And the shooting deaths of two girls and injury of two others on New Year’s Eve who walked out of a club and into bullets apparently intended for gang rivals is leading to renewed calls for gun law reform.

Is there a full moon over there or something?

The Jerusalem Post is now reporting 22 dead and over 120 injured. CNN reports that many of the wounded are immigrant workers, who may be afraid to seek medical attention because they don’t have the proper papers to remain in Israel.

Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau said anyone injured, regardless of their legal status, should seek medical care.

“We have made it clear that we will take good care of anyone who will be taken to the hospital,” Landau said. “We’re going to see afterwards that they will be fully taken care of.”

There have been conflicting claims of responsibility, but the Israeli news sources appear to be saying that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is behind the attacks. What I find most baffling and sickening is how three different groups all tried to claim responsibility, as though they all wish it were them behind the attacks. Who in their right mind would be proud of having murdered 22 innocent people in cold blood? The whole concept of “claiming responsibility” for suicide attacks is utterly and completely twisted.

Israel’s response has been swift. The IDF has fired missiles at Gaza City. Details are still emerging about the specific targets.

There’s been another bombing in Israel.

Two homicide bombers blew themselves up near the central bus station in Tel Aviv, a crowded area where many foreign workers live. The Jerusalem Post reports that so far 20 people have been killed and over 100 injured.

For starters I’d like to add my condolences to the victims and their families. I’m not sure what makes me angrier: the way the international press is more concerned about Israel’s potential responses than about the attack itself, or the way the focus of the media is more on the political ramifications of the bombings, with respect to Israel’s upcoming election, than on the fact that twenty innocent people died horribly and uselessly.

The whole thing makes me sick.

Go submit your nominations for the 2003 bloggie awards. If you feel like you absolutely must vote for me, well, I won’t be too opposed (via Damian Penny, who, by the way, I also voted for).

The Raelians are claiming that a second cloned baby was born. Apparently there’s about as much evidence to support this claim as there is for the first supposed clone.

When travelling around Europe this summer, I absolutely fell in love with Paris. Which is why it’s so hard for me to accept that such a beautiful city is also such a centre for hatred of Jews. In the latest escalation of a long string of antisemitic incidents in France, a Rabbi has been stabbed in a Paris synagogue.

According to [Israel Radio] the assailant stabbed Rabbi Gabriel Farhi, 34, in the stomach, shouting “Allah Wakbar we will kill you” before running away.

[. . .]

Farhi told the radio that this was not the first time he or his family had been threatened and that very morning he had received a threat.

If this was an isolated event, that might be one thing. But France has managed to distinguish itself as an epicentre of hatred even among stiff competition. As Jeff Jacoby from the Boston Globe writes:

To be sure, some Europeans are shocked by the re-emergence of Jew-hatred all over their continent. But the more common reaction has been complacency. “Stop saying that there is antisemitism in France,” President Jacques Chirac scolded a Jewish editor in January. “There is no antisemitism in France.”

Sure, Monsieur Chirac, I guess it was that “other” kind of Jew-hatred.

As some of you may notice, I didn’t do any kind of “year in review” or other such summary of the year that was 2002. It’s my sense that there are enough of them out there for those of you looking for them, and besides, we all lived through 2002 and we all have our own memories, important events, highlights and low points.

I do have to point out for the sake of posterity, though, that while 2002 was the last palindrome year until 2112, don’t think that 2003 isn’t a cool year as well. Wednesday (er, I mean Thursday, thanks Bill) did have the distinction of being the date 1/2/3.

I suppose I should wish my sister a happy 20th birthday, since it’s now officially the 4th. Have a great one, kid!