Segacs’s World I Know

The foolishness of the “professional activists” at Concordia has never been more apparent than with the following comment, published in this week’s Link:

“I boycott everything that involves corporations,” said Jennifer Durocher, a first-year anthropology and history student. “I think everything in this world should be boycotted.”

Good. Let’s boycott everything. I’ll go first: I declare a boycott you.

Days like today, I owe a big thanks to the people who invented coffee.

Oh, and check out the new FAQ for this blog.

Now when we call terrorists “crazy”, it may take on a whole new meaning. According to Reuters, some Kuwaitis planning terrorist attacks have been getting themselves declared insane as a means of ensuring a lighter sentence if they’re caught, or throwing investigators off the trail. The article says that Kuwait is looking at reforming its mental health system to cut down on these false claims.

This is a gross abuse of the system, I agree. But then, do you really mean to tell me that someone who plots to murder hundreds or even thousands of innocent people should be considered mentally healthy?

Françoise Ducros, Chrétien’s “moron” communications director, has resigned. Unlike the first time she submitted her resignation, Chrétien accepted it this time. And not a moment too soon. Never mind the political fallout and the fact that Americans are claiming insult. But, I mean, come on, this woman’s job involved being able to be in a roomful of reporters and keep her personal opinions to herself. She blew it, so she’s outta there.

But Chrétien had better find a replacement fast. Otherwise, he’ll have to do his own spin . . . and the word moron may begin floating around a bit more freely, and a lot closer to home.

The Gazette published me again today . . . only they don’t even know it.

In a story about an SPHR event held at Concordia, reference was made to a comment by Fiona Becker published in the Link (Oct 8). Becker, a speaker at the SPHR event, is one of many people, some well-intentioned, some not so well-intentioned, to have been sucked in by the Palestinian propaganda machine in recent months. Travelling with a group of so-called “international human rights observers”, which is another way of saying observers who only get the Palestinian side of the story, she travelled to the West Bank and Gaza in September to witness supposed “human rights abuses” being committed by Israel. Her comment included the words “The unspeakable has been normalized”.

As I often do on the Link’s site, I posted a comment in response. The Gazette published this excerpt of it:

And what about the unthinkable act of a person walking into a crowded café, or onto a city bus, or into a shopping mall, or even a private home, and setting himself off as a human bomb with the only goal of killing as many civilians as possible? That, too, is unthinkable and has been sadly normalized.

My comment continued to say:

Did the human rights organization with which you travelled show you the other side of the picture? Did you see the families of the mourning Israeli victims? Did you get to meet the parents of a 10-month-old infant, who was shot dead by a sniper for the simple crime of being born Jewish? Did you witness the carnage at Hebrew University, after a bomb exploded in a crowded cafeteria? Did you ever think about the unthinkable atrocities committed not by the IDF, for whom every civilian casualty is regrettable, but by those who specifically target civilians simply because they are innocent?

You’re right, the unthinkable has been normalized.

In response to my comment, Becker posted the following (under the handle “terrortourist”):

Angry? Why? Because I didn’t witness suicide bombings? Because to talk of about what I witnessed is to somehow deny that which I didn’t? Where’s the logic? What did you want me to do? Sit in a crowded restaurant and wait to be blown up by a mad terrorist? [. . .] I went to “witness that which I knew was largely left unreported by the mainstream media.” I therefore wrote about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza, and not about 1948 Israel. The people who were murdered in Hebrew University got the coverage they deserve. [. . .] Unfortunately, this is not usually the case for Palestinians.

Such is the logic of the “terror tourists” like Fiona Becker, who are fed one side of the story by the Palestinian official propaganda machine, and the ultra-Left Israeli groups (like Gush Shalom) who are only so happy to oblige. To anyone out there who truly considers themselves human rights activists, it is not sufficient to ride around the West Bank and Gaza Strip with a Palestinian Authority representative as a tour guide. The phrase “international activist” has been cheapened to the point where it no longer has any semblance of credibility.

However, some efforts seem to be underway to clarify the picture. I would like to call attention to the following call to ride buses for Israel as an expression of solidarity with Israeli people. As Gerald M. Steinberg writes in the International Herald Tribune:

The images of peace campaigners getting on and off the buses in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other places, and taking the same risks that Israelis take every day, will send a powerful message to the bombers and their supporters. By visibly riding the buses, international peace advocates can also contribute to saving lives.

See, the so-called “activists” are always ready and willing to stand as human shields in front of Palestinian children throwing rocks, like Fiona Becker. But how many of them are ready to visibly stand in solidarity with Israeli civilians, symbolically stating to the Palestinian terror groups that “if you blow up this bus, you’re blowing us up too”? By eating in Israeli cafes, riding Israeli buses, and shopping in Israeli markets, international observers and activists could truly feel the “other” side of the story – the side, despite Becker’s assertions, that gets the least and the most biased press coverage of all.

Not all international observers need be Palestinian Authority puppets. I encourage people to spread the word about the Ride Buses for Israel movement.

According to Canadian Press reports, Israeli and Palestinian moderates are drafting a peace treaty behind the scenes. Both sides neglected to provide any details, except to say that the Palestinian refugee question is still a deal-breaker.

Even if completed, the 40-page document would have largely symbolic value since those negotiating it are not in positions of real power. However, it could serve as a guideline in future formal negotiations.

Who’s working on this anyway? Sure, there are plenty of Leftist groups in Israel – both fringe groups and not-so-fringe groups – who faithfully take their delusion pills every morning and refuse to bury Oslo. But who are these so-called Palestinian moderates, and how have they managed to escape assassination by the terrorist groups as of yet?

As for the “symbolic value” of this treaty, that may be a slight overstatement. Back in cegep, myself and a friend drafted a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians for our final semester paper in a humanities course. Both of us were Hebrew-school-educated Jews – she took Israel’s side, I (ever loving the devil’s advocate position) took the Palestinian side – and we broke open a bag of potato chips and had a signed treaty by lunchtime, since both of us had other papers to write.

Working out the details was fairly easy, since both of us were essentially on the same side (i.e. the side of wanting to get an A in the course). The hardest part of that project was when a virus on my classmate’s computer threatened to corrupt our final document. And I bet that it still has more symbolic value than this so-called treaty being reported by the press.

I wish peace were as easy as writing a few words on a piece of paper and shaking hands. There are an awful lot of naive idealists who wish the same. Unfortunately, Oslo’s lessons have taught us that the only road to peace is the hard one, bumpy and full of sharp turns and forks. True peace can never be achieved in spite of populations, but only with their support. Until the Palestinian people stop indoctrinating their children to be martyrs, to hate Jews, and to blame all their woes on Israel, a real peace is not possible. Until Israeli society resigns itself to making the necessary concessions, a real peace is not possible.

Until the Israeli and Palestinian people really, truly want peace, and are willing to make the necessary changes to their own societies and ways of thinking, then a so-called treaty won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is drafting a convention on fighting suicide bombers, which it hopes to present to the international community.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the document would seek international consensus on legitimate ways of fighting suicide attacks. It is to be submitted to the United Nations, but a date has not been set, they said.

On the surface, this appears to be a smart move. Israel is condemned by the international community at every turn when it tries to fight suicide terrorism on its own. This would, in effect, be a means for Israel to legitimize its methods at fighting terrorism, and to avoid the constant barrage of international criticism that rains down after every Israeli counter-move. Furthermore, it could serve as a roadmap for other countries, as suicide bombing inevitably spreads to their shores.

However, I can’t help but wonder what idealists are left in the Israeli government who are naive enough to still put faith in the United Nations. Once screwed, once shy. Twice screwed, twice shy. Three times screwed, give up already, the UN hates Israel and probably always will! I hate to say this, but like almost all of Israel’s moves of late, this one’s bound to backfire, as the UN will then have an excuse to condemn Israel for any counter-measure that does NOT appear in the final version of the convention. And since the convention is unlikely to include any measures that will prove effective, Israel will have effectively tied its own hands.

Who’s running political strategy over there anyway?

Deals with the devil go from the absurd to the ridiculous. In a statement to the press, Ari Fleischer, speaking on behalf of the White House, praised Saudi Arabia as a “good partner in the war on terrorism”. This despite the fact that it’s common knowledge that the Saudis support and finance Palestinian terrorism, and anyone without blinders knows that they did in the case of September 11th as well.

They say that war makes for strange bedfellows, and this time is no exception. But as the US tries to line up Arab support for possible war against Iraq, I can’t help but think of Tevye’s line in Fiddler on the Roof: “If I bend that far, I break”. See, the problem with Mideast politics is that the Arab nations have no concept of loyalty or alliances. They’re willing to switch sides at the drop of a hat (or a coin). It takes a panel of experts just to figure out who’s against whom and who’s supporting whom. Whereas Israel has been a stable and consistent ally to the United States, unwavering in its support.

In their zeal to outst Saddam, the Americans are forgetting who their friends are, and are making deals with the devil that will almost certainly come back to haunt them. The vision is as shortsighted as they come, and can only lead to disaster.

Justin Slotman agrees with Juan Non-Volokh that the term “suicide bomber” is more accurate than the term “homicide bomber” to describe Palestinian terrorists who attack innocent Israelis. The argument is that it’s redundant to say “homicide bomber” because the mere act of bombing is homicide in itself.

And it is jarring to hear Laurie Dhue start talking about “homicide bombers” on Fox News. It’s a cutesy little term, loaded down as it is with well-intentioned there’s-no-two-ways-about-this condemnation of a horrible kind of terrorism. But stick with suicide bombers, it’s just better English.

On the one hand, I see what he’s saying. However, there’s been a tendency of the general media to talk about the number of casualties on the Israeli and Palestinian side just as numbers, without stressing who these people were. By the numbers alone, it would appear that 3 times more Palestinians have been killed in the past two years as Israelis. But none of these reports specify how many of the Israelis killed were innocent victims, and how many of the Palestinians were the bombers who blew them up along with themselves. In fact, a full two-thirds of the Israeli casualties have been civilians (and most of the soldiers, even, died in cowardly ambushes and attacks, not in battle) while a full two-thirds of the Palestinian casualties have been terrorists, gunmen, or other fighters.

In this sense, “suicide bomber” is almost as bad as saying “freedom fighter” or “martyr” – it gives them a glory and legitimacy that encourages these attacks to continue.

Language is political. Make no mistake about it. They haven’t. Why else do you think they’ve been winning the media war?