Segacs’s World I Know

I’d urge you to read Leslie’s blog even if he wasn’t my cousin. But since he is, and I haven’t linked to him yet, my horrible familial guilt is kicking in.

Here’s an excerpt from today, on the Israeli Arabs who have been killed by Nasrallah’s rockets:

So what is that? Taking one for the team? Or are Israeli-Arabs considered traders? Inconvenient obstacles? Target practice?

I urge you to make Les one of your regular reads.

Two Montreal universities, Concordia and Université de Montréal, have announced that they will take in students who were supposed to be studying in Lebanon this fall:

With the largest population of Lebanese-Canadians on their doorstep, Concordia University in Montreal and the University of Montreal have reopened closed application processes to students stranded by the war in the Middle East.

The two Quebec universities say they are fast-tracking applications from students who had planned to attend institutions in Lebanon this fall.

“It’s important that the current generation still have access to education,” said Guy Berthiaume, vice-rector of development and alumni relations at the University of Montreal.

[ . . . ]

Since Friday, Berthiaume said they’ve received more than 100 calls, mostly from local Lebanese-Canadians and many who were recently evacuated from the war-torn region.

The university is waiving tuition for the exchange students and is also raising funds for them.

“They will need money to live, pay rent and buy food,” said Berthiaume.

Meanwhile, an Israeli-Canadian friend of mine is having trouble getting her student loan and bursary application sorted out, because her parents live in Haifa and they can’t send in a bunch of the related paperwork because they’re, you know, living in bomb shelters.

Don’t expect any special treatment or fast-tracking there, though.

Interesting interview transcript from FoxNews on the media coverage from Arab news outlets of the Israel-Lebanon war.

• The London Times reports that Iran is trying to mine Uranium in Africa, with the goal of importing it to make, well, I’ll give you three guesses. (Via IrisBlog).
• Related to the above, Mark C. at Daimnation links to this excellent editorial in the New York Times by a French writer explaining the existential threat to Israel that made the Lebanon war necessary. (Link requires registration).
• The big story making the rounds online, of course, is about the doctored Qana photos, a story that LGF has been all over for a couple of days now. Allison links to Reuters’ (belated) response to this fiasco. (My personal opinion? While I’m sure Reuters will end up with some egg on their face over this one, it won’t be nearly enough, and in fifty years people will still be quoting some of the exaggerations from Qana as fact, just as they’re still quoting the exaggerations from Deir Yassin today. And you know what else? I can’t even bring myself to get worked up about it, because symbols last longer than facts in any case, and innocent civilians were killed in Qana, and even though Hezbollah is deliberately doing much, much worse on a daily basis, the focusing on the conspiracies and exaggerations is going to ring hollow no matter what. But I’ve ranted about this already, so I’ll leave it at that for now.)
• And while the attention of the world is focused on Israel and Lebanon, things in Sri Lanka are getting worse. But is anyone noticing? When will 15,000 people will turn up in downtown Montreal to protest this war? (Oh, right, that’s just reserved for wars they can blame on the J-E-W-S).

On that note, time for bed.

Pieter at Peaktalk links to the latest news from the UK, where Tony Blair is fending off the leadership challenge from Gordon Brown as long as he can manage it.

Pieter’s not impressed and, as he rightly points out, the situation mirrors that of the Canadian Liberals a little too closely:

Many have pointed to the analogy with Canada where a defiant and successful ten-year stint in office was not sufficient for Jean Chrétien to ward off the coup by his former finance minister, Paul Martin. What is telling is that Martin’s successful attempt to dislodge Chrétien – who like Blair had long outlived his popularity – was not based on any justifiable policy difference or other quantifiable ideological rift, but on the simple logic that it was Martin’s turn. Not the greatest rationale for seeking the highest office in the land, and we have all witnessed the incredible mess that ensued as it became painfully clear that the absence of any sound content turned Martin’s tenure at Sussex Drive into an utterly forgettable one. It was a power grab for power’s sake, nothing more and nothing less.

It is too early to tell whether Brown’s move into Downing Street will yield the same sorry spectacle, but given the relatively late stage of Labour’s tenure and the strength of a resurgent conservative opposition, it may not be a very pretty one.

What is it with these finance ministers and their sense of entitlement, anyway?

Since I’ve never missed an opportunity to quote the West Wing, why start now? Here’s a quote from season four, shortly after Bartlet is re-elected for his second term, when Josh finds out that Vice-President Hoynes is already lining up precinct captains for the next election:

Josh: We got [Hoynes] on the ticket by convincing him it’s not his turn. We kept him out of the center ring ’cause it wasn’t his turn, and now…

Toby: There aren’t any turns.

When did Canada, the US or the UK turn into Cuba or North Korea? We’ve got politicians getting elected because of who their fathers were (*ahem* Dubya), politicians assuming it’s their “turn”, and power being handed over as though it was someone’s to hand.

Memo to the British Labour Party: Pieter’s right. The Canadian Liberals haven’t recovered from the Chrétien-Martin fiasco, and surely there’s a warning in there somewhere for you as well.

Today was one of the deadliest for Israel so far in this war. Two rockets that crashed into buildings in Haifa, killing three and injuring dozens, have prompted this response from Shadi Mzawin, an Israeli Arab whose sister and grandparents was injured by the attacks:

“I hope Nasrallah gets a rocket between the legs for what he is doing to me here, for harming grandma and grandpa.”

Meanwhile in downtown Montreal, fifteen thousand people turned out to protest and spew the usual rhetoric:

A demonstration billed as a protest for peace assumed a distinctly anti-Israeli flavour Sunday as protesters denounced the Jewish state for killing hundreds of Lebanese.

[ . . . ]

While many participants claimed they weren’t singling out either side in the bloody conflict, some carried placards that linked Israel to Nazi atrocities during the Second World War.

“Israel learned from Hitler and the student has surpassed the master,” read one sign.

If those fifteen thousand people truly desired peace, they’d be out there echoing Shadi Mzawin’s calls to put an end to Nasrallah, once and for all.

Went to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop this afternoon. And I must say: absolutely brilliant!

This much-touted bilingual cop caper is an over-the-top parody of every shopworn Two Solitudes cliché in the book, with a whole lot of Québécois swearing thrown in for good measure. Anyone who takes this movie too seriously, and goes looking for minor things such as plot, suspense, logic or insight into human nature will probably be disappointed. But if you want to see some equal-opportunity bashing in two languages, then it’s highly worth the price of admission.

I hope some of you reading this in the ROC will go see this little gem when it’s released in theatres across the nation. Patrick Huard has perfect comic timing and one of those rubber faces and I hope this is the film to finally give him some much-deserved crossover success. Colm Feore is good at comedy – who knew? And Louis-Jose Houde steals every scene he’s in. The hockey plot as a backdrop is ludicrous, of course, but that’s kind of the point. It’s self-aware parody, and should be viewed as such.

Oh, and Rick Mercer’s imitation of Don Cherry is priceless.

The lack of posts about the Lebanon war in the past few days has nothing to do with there being nothing to blog about. On the contrary.

But I’ve had to shut down for a few days, to block out that whooshing noise that goes to my head every time I turn on CNN or read too many of the headlines in the papers. I get too angry, too depressed, too weary of the downwards spiral and the feeling that somehow we’ve been here before and we’ll be here again, far too many times.

I’m lucky enough to have the luxury of taking a breather here. A luxury not afforded to people currently in Haifa or Beirut. In the meantime, there’s certainly no lack of options for people looking to get some opinion, editorial or perspective on the events of the past few days. I won’t even post a reading list; there are far, far too many to list.

I think this is just terribly sad:

Citing threats against his life and the safety of his family, Tarek Fatah the controversial communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress resigned Thursday.

[ . . . ]

”I am doing this because I fear for my life and the safety of my family,” he said. ”I’ve had enough, I’ve spent too much time dodging the bullet.”

Fatah’s outspoken opinions for the MCC’s liberal views have continually upset the Muslim community, and in the past month he has been the subject of an e-mail campaign aimed at the Canadian news media.

[ . . . ]

Along with his resignation, Fatah has filed a report with the RCMP detailing what he says are a number of threats he has received since 2003. A police investigation is under way.

Fatah has been attacked both physically and verbally, he said at an Islamic conference in Toronto in 2003, dozens of young Muslim men mobbed him while a cleric shouted out that he had insulted the Prophet Muhammad’s name. In 2006, he said, he was accosted on Yonge Street by a man who accused him of being an apostate. His car windows were smashed.

I’m as angry as anyone when the media paints entire communities with one brush, as though there was only one “Jewish viewpoint” or “Chinese viewpoint” or something. Nonsense. We’re in Canada, in a free society, and there are incredibly diverse viewpoints within cultural and ethnic communities.

But increasingly, when people in Canada’s Muslim community try to speak up with views that the most extreme hard-liners don’t like, they fear for their lives. Not just in Canada. Around the world.

Tarek Fatah has been one of the most high-profile politically Liberal Muslims in Canada. And the price he pays for having views that don’t toe the extremist line? Death threats. Intimidation. Enough that he feared for his life.

How can we expect the voices of moderation to drown out the voices of hate, when the voices of hate intimidate those of moderation into silence?