- Ms Kaye is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Mary Carlisle is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Prem Gill is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Nancy Flight is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Justin Everett is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- John Westover is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Nora Etches is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Edward Henderson is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Bharadwaj Chandramouli is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Dean Chatterson is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Marius Scurtescu is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Robert Parkes is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- James Murton is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Susan Doyle is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Vincent Strgar is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Helen Spiegelman is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Subir Guin is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Kimball Finigan is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Joanne Manley is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- David Leach is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
Samson as Suicide Bomber
Victoria choir cast the Hebrew icon as a terrorist. This helps?
Shaky premise for art.
The Victoria Philharmonic Choir delivered a spirited, rich and lush performance of Simon Capet's provocative interpretation of Handel's Samson Thursday night, and the evening concluded with a hearty and well-deserved standing ovation. The orchestra acquitted itself splendidly. Lead tenor Ken Lavigne, in the role of Samson, was spellbinding. Everything went off without a hitch.
The only evidence that there had been anything unusual about the event was the Victoria Police squad car that had been parked in front of the McPherson Theatre when the doors opened. And later, when the audience filtered back out onto Pandora Street, there was a local television news crew on hand.
Still, in the comfortable, ornate, and almost antique setting of the McPherson Playhouse, just three blocks from the oldest synagogue in Canada, in the middle of Passover, there were some of us in the audience who could not help but notice that what we were watching onstage was something more than just vaguely obscene.
You have to hand it to Capet, the Victoria Philharmonic's new artistic director. He's managed to do something with the story of the mythical Hebrew superman that nobody has ever attempted.
Samson has shown up in 1960s-era Italian muscleman movies, in Grateful Dead lyrics, in Christian bedtime stories, and in Marvel comic books. Peter Paul Rubens painted him. Michelangelo sculpted him. And since September 11, 2001, there has also been a great deal of highbrow hand-wringing in literary-criticism circles about how the Samson story must now be read, in light of everything that has happened.
But until Capet, nobody had figured out a way to use the Samson story to so completely turn things upside down as to reconstruct an important work of art to portray a Jew as a suicide bomber.
Grabbing onto Handel
You'd think it would require quite some talent to create something that does this, but the way Capet carries it off is actually quite subtle. The Samson libretto is almost exactly as Handel wrote it, but instead of keeping it set in the days of the Israelites' ancient oppression under the Philistines, the costumes and the minimalist stage props are meant to suggest Gaza, circa 1946. The Philistine guards wear British army uniforms.
In the old story, Samson, after a series of astonishing adventures, ends up blinded by his Philistine tormentors, and he uses his superhuman strength to bring down the roof of the Philistine temple where he is kept in chains. In so doing he kills not only his captors but himself.
In Capet's version, Samson's mother, Micah, slowly and carefully peels Samson's shirt from his body, and while the choir's voices ring out in a glorious chorus she unclasps her coat, retrieves a concealed explosives belt, gently girdles it around Samson's naked lash-scarred torso, and then helps him put his shirt on again. A few moments later, after Samson has been led away, a loud explosion and a bright light bursts from just offstage.
More than 100 suicide bombings have been carried out in Israel over the past 15 years. Suicide bombers have slaughtered hundreds of ordinary Israelis, almost all of them Jews. More than 7,000 Israelis have been injured in the attacks. The latest was carried out on Jan. 29 of this year when a suicide bomber detonated himself and incinerated three workers in a bakery in the southern city of Eilat.
Suicide-bomb victims commonly include bus passengers, taxi drivers, schoolchildren and pensioners, and patrons of pizzerias, nightclubs, and grocery stores. The main groups carrying out the attacks have been Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Since the ill-advised, tragically-executed, American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, suicide-bombing has emerged as the barbarism of choice among so-called Iraqi "insurgent" groups, most prominently Ansar al-Sunna, the Iraqi al-Qaida organization and the Islamic Army in Iraq. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka also employ suicide bombings, but they are an anomaly -- they choose mainly military targets, and they don't use the righteous cloak of Islam as cover. Here again, though, notice the Tamils are not Jews.
When news of Capet's intentions started making the rounds a few days ago, it might well have been put down as a case of just another earnest artist trying to make a classic text more relevant to current affairs. There would have been the obligatory spasm of tongue-clucking and eye-rolling and that would have been it.
But from the outset, it was clear that something a bit more shabby was involved.
Toppling pillars
It started when the National Post picked up a thoughtful article Sarah Petrescu had written for the Victoria Times-Colonist, in which Capet declared his intent to challenge contemporary conceptions of terrorism. Capet asked: "Is there any difference between pulling down a pillar or blowing a bomb?"
Capet told CBC News that he was struck by the persistence of this kind of violent act through history, and the Samson story cried out for a treatment that would make it relevant to contemporary events in the Middle East. "Samson could be any 'freedom fighter,'" Capet said. "Some say I'm brave, some say I'm anti-Israel or whatever, but that is OK. The point is to get discussion going."
He got discussion going alright, but not so much in the direction he wanted. It didn't help that the philosophy professor Shadia Drury weighed in. Drury had previously compared Samson to the 9-11 bomber Mohammed Atta. She called Capet heroic.
Capet also equated Samson's pillar-pulling escapade with the Zionist Irgun organization's 1946 bombing of the British headquarters in Palestine, at the King David Hotel. Capet pointed out that Irgun leader Menachem Begin went on to serve as Israel's prime minister and win the Nobel Peace Prize. So there you go: A terrorist can be a freedom fighter. It depends wholly on your perspective.
Suddenly, the Victoria Philharmonic was a newsmaker as far away as New York and Israel. The story was also showing up throughout the English-speaking blogosphere, thanks mainly to Little Green Footballs, one of the most widely-read conservative weblogs in the United States.
The Victoria Philharmonic's website "audience feedback" page immediately filled up with angry reaction, some of which was downright vile, and most of which was quickly removed. The Philharmonic's executive director Anne Mullens found herself subjected to grossly abusive e-mail messages that don't require description here.
Capet then followed up with an interview on CBC's As It Happens, counseling an approach to terrorism based on "empathy" and "understanding," lest we leave ourselves with "no chance to reach across and make a conversation with these people." Then two Jewish choir members issued a statement about the rumpus declaring that "every hero is someone's terrorist as well as someone's child."
'More harm than good'
The Canadian Jewish Congress was having none of it. In its own statement, the CJC took Capet to task for insulting the Jewish community for the sake of being seen as edgy and progressive: "Artists have the right to their interpretations, and Mr. Capet is no exception. But using suicide bombings as the setting for his vision makes a mockery of the story of Samson by turning it on its head, and paints a picture of moral relativism that does much more harm than good."
Then Capet issued a statement expressing distress about "the violence and hatred that runs so palpably strong" in some of the responses he'd provoked, and he complained that some people "simply cannot discuss this Handel production without resorting to revenge and hate-fueled language that in some cases has even counseled violence against us."
This didn't exactly help elucidate the point that Capet said he wanted to make. After all, if suicide bombers are owed our "empathy" and "understanding," why aren't writers of vulgar e-mails?
And it just got worse when Capet endorsed a response from Eric Nagler, a 1960s-era American draft dodger, "actor, entertainer, speaker, writer, and relationship counselor," who wrote, in part: "If intimacy means into-me-you-see, then it doesn't mean into-me-you'd-better-see-the-problem-as-I-see-it. When I'm invested in changing my terrorist's beliefs I drift from intimacy into issue. The scariness of intimacy is me just being me and him just being him."
It goes on and on like that. I can't figure it out.
King David hotel attack
For Mark Weintraub, the chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress' Pacific region, the big question the whole controversy had raised was a simple but daunting one: Where does one begin? Weintraub said one of the most perplexing aspects of Capet's avante-garde experiment is the weird moral and historic continuity he attempts to draw between an ancient Hebrew culture-hero and the Zionists of the 1940s. It doesn't exactly make any obvious sense.
Samson is a mere "historic footnote" in the ancient Hebrew narrative. It's not as though Samson's actions are held up as some kind of moral standard by contemporary Jews. And the King David Hotel attack wasn't a suicide bombing. Dozens of innocents died, but to be accurate about it, Irgun issued several warning calls and made other attempts to clear the premises, and the action was condemned by the Jewish National Council.
Say what you like about it, the action was in a different category altogether from the act of walking into a disco with an explosive belt under your coat and blowing yourself up in the explicit hope of incinerating as many innocents as possible. If Capet really wanted to draw some analogy between the ancient Samson story and contemporary events in Israel, why stop the clock back at 1946?
Weintraub, having actually taken the trouble to pay attention to the rise of terrorism and suicide bombing in recent years, was reduced to pointing out the painfully obvious: "There is a culture that embraces death as a glorious thing that has been imposed upon a section of the Arab population -- where is Capet's projection there?" he asked. "There is something very deadly, very treacherous about this."
Weintraub also notices something else: "Art, historically, has never been free of politics, and artists have to be prepared to defend the politics of their art and engage in a dialogue about the politics of their art."
Conversing with Capet
After several unreturned telephone calls, I managed to catch up to Capet in the hours before Samson's Thursday night opening. He seemed genuinely surprised by the rumpus he'd set off. Capet comes from a long line of classical musicians and he's a product of Britain's Royal Academy of Music, so he's blessed with one of those posh "cut glass" accents, and he's charming and articulate. We spoke at some length.
No, he said, he honestly hadn't considered portraying Samson as, say, a member of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad. It never even occurred to him, he said.
Probably just as well, I thought. Rather than angry emails, the result may well have been Canadian embassies in flames from Jakarta to Beirut, given what happened in the Danish "Mohammed cartoons" affair. But Capet said the idea never entered the discussion, and the only logical choice was to cast Samson as a Zionist suicide bomber because Samson was an ancient Hebrew, and today's Jews owe their origins to the ancient Hebrews.
It was a strange conversation. On the one hand, Capet would stake out fairly clear positions, proposing "understanding" and "empathy" as the proper approach to take on the question of suicide bombing. But he'd just as quickly dodge the questions raised by this kind of thinking, insisting that the point of his experiment is just to provoke thoughtful debate.
It would go like this: "We're afraid of the peaceful solution because everybody's afraid of letting their guard down.... We should try to see things from their point of view and why they think they're right.... The previous ways of responding to terrorism have not worked, and maybe this is a better way."
But when he was pressed to elaborate, he'd happily abandon his positions: "I'm not saying my position is right.... I'm not going to stand by one point of view only on this."
And that's what it is about these controversies that tend to make people flip out just a tiny bit. There really are real-world consequences that arise from the politics we adopt, and it's embarrassing to have to answer Capet's original question by pointing out that, yes, there really is a difference between a character pulling down a pillar in a fable and a madman blowing up a bomb in a crowded bookstore.
Appropriate appropriation?
But that's just how far removed Capet's Samson is from the real world. Remember, what we're dealing with here is actually Capet's version of George Frideric Handel's version of John Milton's take on a Bible story about the exploits of somebody named Samson who, for all we know, may not be even remotely connected to persons or events that occurred in the real world.
More specifically, this is a British-raised musical director's contemporary reinterpretation of a version of the Samson story that was derived by a prolific, German-born English Protestant composer from a poem written by a delicate 17th century English low-church Protestant republican poet, whose version in turn comes from an Old Testament rendition of an ancient Israelite fable.
Forget the "political correctness gone mad" judgments Capet's version has invited. You could just as well call it a case of cultural appropriation gone mad for all that would help. But however you look at it, it's pretty hard not to notice that there really is a kind of madness about the entire escapade. It can't be avoided, no matter how painfully fair you try to be. And this madness actually is situated in the real world.
On Thursday evening, at the point in the oratorio when there's the loud explosion and the bright light flashes just offstage, several members of the audience were nearly jolted from their seats. I didn't notice how Mira Oreck reacted. She was sitting only a few rows back from the stage, in the middle. But we went out for a drink afterwards to talk about the performance.
Oreck works with Mark Weintraub at the Canadian Jewish Congress. She's the CJC's Pacific region director. She's worked on New Democratic Party election campaigns, and she came to the CJC after working with the Rainforest Solutions Project and other environmental and social-justice initiatives. She's not exactly the comic-book image of a dreary, conservative Zionist.
Oreck is a confident and cheery sort of person, but she freely admits that she can't walk down a street in Vancouver and see an unattended backpack without feeling a split-second shock of fear that it might be a bomb, or without thinking about her sister, a teacher who lives in Israel.
In the late 1990s, Oreck was attending Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a beacon of peace in the Middle East. It's a place where Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists, Arabs, Russians, South Americans and just about everyone in between learn together and live together and study the affairs of the world in common and in peace.
One of Oreck's chums at Hebrew University was a 24-year-old student from the University of California at Berkeley. "Her name was Marla Bennett. She was so great. A total peacenik," Oreck said. "That was such a tragedy."
On July 31, 2002, a suicide bomber walked into the student cafeteria and detonated himself. Marla Bennett was one of seven people killed.
Oreck said she thought the Victoria choir was splendid, and it would have been an altogether delightful evening had it not been tainted by the fatuous narrative Capet decided to impose upon Handel's masterpiece.
'Murk or madness'
This leads us to the reason why there is nothing cutting-edge or nuanced or refreshing about the contribution Capet makes to the "debate" about current events in the ancient land of the Israelites and the Philistines.
It's utterly conventional, unimaginative, and sadly commonplace. It's actually a textbook case of the "wishful thinking" described by the progressive American essayist Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism.
Capet's Samson is just another eruption of that fatally naïve misconception among a certain class of artist and intellectual -- and most pathetically, among the much of the left -- that Berman calls "a faith in the rationalism of all things."
Its real-world consequence has been a crippling incapacity to recognize the mass pathology at work in the phenomenon of suicide bombings. It's the failure to see it for what it is: a death cult. It's an irrationalist, anti-modern savagery that has rather noticeably singled out Jews for the construction of its corpse-heaps, just as it singles out Palestinian children for the work of executing its grisly business.
We'd all like to think that we can reason with suicide bombers. In the real world, we can't, and we simply cannot go on "expecting the world to act in sensible ways," as Berman writes, "without mystery, self-contradiction, murk or madness."
Suicide bombers aren't asking for our empathy, they don't particularly care if we understand them, and they don't want to be reasoned with. They want to kill the Jews. They want to kill Simon Capet. They'd be pleased to kill pretty well any of us.
But good for Capet, and good for the Victoria Philharmonic Choir, for providing an opportunity to point this out, and for demonstrating that there is a sound that's louder than the most angelic oratorio on earth.
It goes boom. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
- Death in Remand: a Tyee Inquiry
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Death In Remand: 'A Gut Feeling'
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- Why Blackberry's Embrace of HTML5 Is Good Karma
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- Death in Remand: A Jail Crammed with Risk
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
49
Login or register to post comments
James Burns
5 years ago
Bias showing
Quite a long article there Glavin. Interesting that you make no mention of the numbers of innocent Palestinian civilians murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces, while detailing the numbers of Israelis murdered and even injured by suicide bombers. But you aren't noted for being fair where muslims are concerned. Just the opposite in fact.
Capet's trope about Samson is not original. Take a look at the 2005 documetary "Avenge But One of My Two Eyes" by Avi Mograbi a jewish Israeli filmmaker. You can see a review here:
http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=416
Of course Capet being a non-jew in Canada is a far easier target of the slander of antisemitism than a jewish Israeli who has recorded on film the treatment Palestinians suffer daily. Yes suicide bombing targeting innocent Israeli civilians is a disgusting crime, but so is the routine murder of innocent Palestinian civilians by the IDF.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Truman Green
I'm fairly certain that the ratio of murders is about 10 to 1 with the Israelis in the lead. Unless, of course, murder from the air or a sophisticated army tank doesn't really count as the kids are not really blown up, shot, burned to death and otherwise slaughtered when the Israelis drop bombs from Boeing bombers and F16s.
Of course suicide bombing is a death cult, but at least the bomber doesn't intend to run away and hide or fly away from the carnage at fifteen hundred miles an hour as Israeli death pilots did in Lebanon, and as tank soldiers do when they smash their way through Palestinian villages, destroying everything in sight.
doggone
5 years ago
Skill and Talent
On both sides of this argument.
Exactly what would Paul Newman do if the high tech (control of the sky) situation was reversed world wide?
Imagine the President of Iran sending AWACs any where in the world and blowing neocons to smithereenes on their private golf ranches.
You tell me if his mommy would not be happy to sneak him a belt
zalm
5 years ago
Any equivocation of the King
Any equivocation of the King David Hotel massacre with one in the streets of Tel Aviv is merely semantics. People, including Jews, died in both. That Irgun and the Jewish National Council attempted to deflect responsibility for the deaths from themselves afterward with various prevarications about warnings and deniability is of no moment - nearly every senior official in all three branches of the Jewish national resistance armies knew what was going to happen, and did nothing to stop it.
That's as disgusting as Izz al-Masri blowing his ass up in the Sbarro pizza parlour in TA. All the yap-yap in the world about the King David being a legitimate "military target" is as insane as claiming all Israeli Jews are legitimate military targets because they have to serve in the military.
For Glavin to claim otherwise, as his twists and whingings do in this silly piece is to trivialize the suffering of anybody but Jews.
I would expect nonsense out of Mark Weintraub - it's his job to spin Israeli PR in the best possible light to legitimize the illegal Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in violation of the Mandate. I would expect him to take the meaning out of art, and reduce it to a simple parable - good against evil.
But Glavin, truly experienced at drawing nuanced shades of grey - this is utterly disappointing. To miss the point of the desperation of the hero, tormented by his accusers, using the most devastating means possible to overcome adversity and avenge himself, is just incomprehensible.
Capet is right. The temple means nothing to modern society - it's just another building being pulled down. The bombing of Ely, or of St Paul's during the Blitz, were less shocking for their crimes against the belief and meaning of British society than they were for the crimes against architecture and history. A new symbol needs to be found for the devastating meaning in Samson's act, and if it isn't to be found in the object of destruction, then let it be found in the method.
I grant Capet the freedom to refresh the meaning of violent destruction in our lives at a time when we find nothing important except hedonism and the pursuit of consumption. That others, including Glavin, are not prepared to grant him the same freedom without calling him an anti-Semitic genocidal maniac is nothing short of disgusting.
No one's death is trivial, Terry.
zalm
5 years ago
Anomaly? Or just an anal syllogism?
Anomaly,Terry? You mean, like Japanese kamikaze pilots or Kaiten torpedos? Like Chechen separatists? Like Kashmiri insurgents on the Indian parliament, or Tamil Tigers on Rajiv Ghandi? Like the Kurdistan Worker's Party against Turkey's institutions? Our own Sikh Babbar Khalsa in India and International Sikh Youth Federation in Canada?
This is a form of warfare recognized by military historians as asymmetric warfare, concerned with delivery systems capable of defeating a superior enemy's defenses. It does not utilize idiots or children, but rather dedicated, educated, highly-trained individuals with sincerity of purpose to act in this manner to achieve military targets of high value.
This, Terry, every military planner and intelligence officer knows in every nation of the world, yet you persist in mythologizing the "idiot Arab child" as unwitting tool of an unscrupulous force of bandits. What makes you so knowledgeable when Shin Bet takes the opposite view?
www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/usscole/jir001020_1_n.shtml
Unfortunately, in the eyes of the planners of these bombings, everyone is now a military target. Just like in the good old days of warfare in Europe in the 17th & 18th centuries.
This is your worst writing ever, Terry. It's pure spin, and shitty spin at that. Come up with something better next time.
RickW
5 years ago
History........
.....is a pleasant fiction, and one that is written by "the winners". I wonder how many times "throughout history" that it has been altered?
Certainly the pap we are taught in schools is Eurocentric to the 'n'th degree.
http://www.1421.tv/
Capitalism
5 years ago
James Burnes
Get your head out of your a$$. What is with you people supporting the Palenstinians, Syrians etc. You clearly don't know any of the facts.
There are not two sides on this one. There is right and wrong. You are Wrong.
mopled
5 years ago
Oh, my gawd
The Israelis are occupying both Syrian and Palestinian lands. It's been obvious since '67 that they've been after "Lebensraum"
Interesting parallel, no?
bob the cat
5 years ago
hi cappy
one thing is a fact ..its Palestinians buddy..not Palenstinians.
If you`re gonna "tell it like it is" like Don Cherry and Terry Glavin..hey " Ya gotta get that spellin right!"
As bad a writer and propagandist as Glavin can at least spell.
bob the cat
5 years ago
following quotation from Ian
following quotation from Ian Buruma's
review of Berman's book 'Terror and Liberalism' in the New York Review
of Books -
'Policies based entirely on revolutionary ideals can only end in
zealotry', Berman says. 'There is something in the tone of Berman's
polemic that reminds me of the quiet American in Graham Greene's
novel, the man of principle who causes mayhem, without quite realising
why.' ... 'Berman calls himself a liberal, but it is hard to
distinguish him from the more radical neoconservatives, whose mentors
under Reagan mixed up Straussian conservatism with the revolutionary
zeal of their Trotskyist origins'.
I think the criticism might equally be applied to Glavin.
flattax
5 years ago
bob the cat
you attack a spelling mistake because you lack the intellectual capacity for a rebuttal.
Do you have anything of value to add to this discussion? I don't think so.
flattax
5 years ago
bob the cat
not sure how that copy and paste quotation full of throwaway terms from the soviet era is relevant to anything.
Again, come up with some original thoughts here...
bob the cat
5 years ago
discussion flattax? original thought? intellectual capacity?
Didn`t notice much discussion taking place here flattax...now mount your soapbox and rave on fool..rave on.
zalm
5 years ago
Cappy, you're in over your head
You have no idea what's going on in the middle east, so on this thread, you should bow out and let the people who have at least studied the history of the region - preferably from both sides - hash this one out. And for heaven's sake, try to learn something. Read book or two. I can recommend a dozen that treat the situation relatively even-handedly.
And you, with all your professed love for the free markets, shouldn't be slinging those stones. Michael Neumann (Trent U) wrote an excellent article on how the blind support for Israel and it's political aims distorts not only the world markets, and wastes resources, but corporations have figured out that supporting Israel makes no economic sense for business either. He says:
http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann11182005.html
So unless you've got a twisted Christian Zionist bone in your body that you haven't told anybody about, you're out to lunch on this one.... right along with Harper and his crazed-Christian Stock-boy who have just formed their new Canada-Israel Whitewash Committee To Send Billions To Israel To Buy Bombs and Bullets.
Sheesh! Not even the Israelis want the kind of help this committee gives. They've completely ignored this "Alliance".
Canadians haven't, however.
Indeed, a recent Globe and Mail Strategic Counsel poll, showed an overwhelming majority of Canadians - 77 percent - favoured a neutral foreign policy in the Middle East, and a plurality of Canadians - 45 percent - disagreed with the Harper government's favouring of Israel. In Québec, 61 percent disagreed with Canada's recent foreign policy tilt towards Israel. Jewish interests both in Israel and Canada are best served by peace...
When even The Nation thinks Harper’s an idiot, you know it’s time to leave the ship.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/hedges
Bobb999
5 years ago
28 to 1 Palestinian vs. Israeli deaths '06
As Truman points out, the stats reveal that
Palestinian civilian deaths at the hands of Israeli shells and bullets far outweighs Israeli deaths from Palestinian suicide bombers and rockets. In '06, there were reportedly 28 Palestinian deaths to every 1 Israeli (660 vs. 23)! Yes, suicide bombing is criminal,
but the stats suggest state terrorism carried out by the Israeli military is far worse, killing far more innocent people.
And no, they weren't "asking for it".
There's a lot of "blame the victim", and "the devil made us do it" rationalizing going on by apologists for Israeli aggression.
From a BBC report:
Palestinian deaths rose in 2006
About half of those killed by Israeli forces were not involved in hostilities.
Israeli security forces killed 660 Palestinians in 2006 - three times more than in 2005, according to an Israeli human rights group.
B'Tselem, which monitors human rights in the occupied territories, said the figure included 141 children.
At least 322 had taken no part in hostile acts, the group said.
In the same period, the number of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis has fallen - 23 [there's that damned "Demolition #23" again!]Israelis were killed in 2006 compared with 50 last year.
The Israeli military renewed large scale ground operations in the Gaza Strip after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross border raid in June.
Throughout the year, the Israeli military has used air strikes and shelling in an attempt to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets into Israel.
Since June, Israeli troops have killed about 405 Palestinians in Gaza, including 88 children. More than half of the casualties were civilians, B'Tselem said.
As of November, 9,075 Palestinians were being held in Israeli jails. This number included 345 minors, it said.
Of these, 738 (22 minors) were being detained without trial and without knowing the charges against them, the group said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6215769.stm
lynn
5 years ago
Death and Madness
Glavin writes:
Isn't that precisely Capet's point?
Imposed on a section of the Arab population alone? And only on them? I think not.
As both Truman and Bobb999 note the real stats on Israeli aggression go often unreported or they are conveniently overlooked.... and the stats themselves reveal a much different picture than the "tidied up" one presented for world viewing.
And talking about death culture...from 1949-2001 the death culture of the US has aided Israel to a total of $94,966,300,000 - meaning the total presently is way, way upwards of 100 billion dollars. For this Israel serves and protects US interests in the region as part of the US imperialist project...and has become the, if not one of the most militarized societies in the world.
So let's quit pretending what most of that US aid money to Israel was specifically targeted at achieving.... and what the resulting massive arms build up did to the delicate balance that is the Middle East.
driftwolf
5 years ago
Excuse me, your bias is showing.
The author writes: "More than 100 suicide bombings have been carried out in Israel over the past 15 years. Suicide bombers have slaughtered hundreds of ordinary Israelis, almost all of them Jews. More than 7,000 Israelis have been injured in the attacks."
The author leaves out the fact that in that same time period, the Israeli military has KILLED well over 5000 Palestinians, including women and children. I note that nobody seems to have bothered counting the wounded, but low estimates put that number in the tens of thousands. I also note that Israeli numbers include minor scratches, by the way, so are heavily inflated for propaganda value. It was surprisingly difficult to get even basic estimates for Palestinian casualties and injuries, so only low estimates are given, whereas the Israeli numbers are very easy to find out and heavily used in their propaganda. Nothing like a complicit, biased press that would rather sell soap than do research, is there?
The Israelis don't feel the need to use suicide bombing to achieve their military goals because the Israelis have a heavily armed, well provisioned, and well funded military to do their killing for them. Whereas the groups doing the suicide bombing thing have very few resources. Personally, I find BOTH means of killing to be equally completely offensive.
I think the Samson thing was basically an accurate modern portrayal. After all, he killed himself to kill his enemies. Not flattering, but accurate.
dirk
5 years ago
Terry said"Suicide bombers
Terry said"Suicide bombers aren't asking for our empathy, they don't particularly care if we understand them, and they don't want to be reasoned with. They want to kill the Jews. They want to kill Simon Capet. They'd be pleased to kill pretty well any of us.
.........................................
'O',so thats what its all about.They just hate Jews and want to kill Jews because they are Jews,no other reason....
So I guess theft of most of their land(75%),and a brutal occupation,and continual building of more settlements on what land they have left(25%),by European settlers,has nothing to do with anything.hmmmm
And what's the difference between a bomb delivered by a F-15 or an Apache helicopter, than one delivered by a man.
The end result is the same,the death of innocents.
The vast majority of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombs and bullets have been innocent.And the same is true of Israelis killed by suicide bombs.
So in actuality the difference is only in the method of delivery.
Both result are the same:death,misery and injustice...
But there is also the underlying and undeniable truth that Palestinians have neither stolen,nor occupied any other peoples land and are reacting to a situation forced on them from outside,of which they had no say in the matter.
People have a right to defend themselves and to resist occupation.
Does this make death by suicide bomber any less tragic,of course not.
But it does clearly show there is more going on than just blind irrational hatred of Jews in general.
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to see the connection.
RickW
5 years ago
dirk
It's only the land with the water under that Israel wants. Is that so bad......?
http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/McCallin_blooms.cfm
mopled
5 years ago
The Samson Option
Isn't it interesting how Glavin never mentions the obvious.
The Federation of American Scientists site notes: Strategically, Israel uses its long-range missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft (and, some say, submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missiles) to deter both conventional and unconventional attacks, or to launch "the Samson Option", an all-out attack against an adversary should defenses fail and population centers be threatened. In addition, despite Israel's insistence that it "will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East," these systems represent an effective preemptive strike force.
Maybe we're supposed to forget about the above and substite Glavin's meme. I think the object of the column is obfuscation.
Truman Green
5 years ago
Truman Green
Whenever I think of 'suicide' in relation to Israel I think about the reality of a tiny nation (smaller than the City of New York) continually tormenting 200 million of its Arab and Moslem neighbours by insisting upon maintaining a state based upon an exclusivist ethic--a homeland for a special tribe of people. This has to be a suicidal approach to statehood, at least in the long term.
IAMC
5 years ago
A tiny nation
Jealousy, is the driving force behind the enemies of this tiny nation of Israel.
It's amazing what riches these people have harvested from this small strip of land with ever shrinking borders.
Bring on the Saudi peace plan. Israel will still be able to sustain themselves.
Democracy is an important ingredient to be added to the Middle East.
Compare the land mass that isn't in Israel, in this region.
What have these people outside of Israel accomplished for their people?
Whenever Jews defend themselves, it's called murder by someone.
Is it because the USA supports Israel, that it results in hate by extension by the left?
Why does the left seem to support anyone that is against the West, even if they are objectionable even to their own sensibilities?
This doesn't baffle us, it only spells out where the choices are not blurred whatsoever.
What can you do but laugh and cry at the same time.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Quote:Say what you like
How does Glavin figure? If Glavin is implying that Irgun was not a terrorist organisation then he is either a fool or a liar (or more probably both).
Glavin is in true form here:
So if I follow correctly: Capet is part of "The Left" and since Capet is a twit, "The Left" in general is composed of twits, ex pede Herculem. Actually, that basically describes the structure of the entire essay (minus the glib condemnation of suicide bombing at the end). I think I've seen the same rhetorical device used in another Glavin essay I've read. Also, I'm impressed at how many fallacies were packed into just the one sentence in the above quote.
And Terry Glavin is a party to the deepest thoughts and desires of Palestinian suicide bombers? Oh do enlighten us, Mr. Glavin, do! Just a "death cult", eh? How wise! But no mention of the history of the conflict, no attempt to address the effect of a brutal 40 year occupation? No? Too bad, perhaps next time. Until then we will have to be satisfied with the insightful diagnosis of "They want to kill the Jews" as the root cause of suicide bombing.
Does Glavin actually get paid to write these essays for the Tyee?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Quote:Asked by a French
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larbi_Ben_M%27Hidi
IAMC
5 years ago
You said jimmy
" If we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us "
To do what?
Kill us?
You are drawing the battle lines jimmy. now come out and fight.
Bring in the women's baskets you coward.
This thread is certainly bringing out the cowardly left wingers who hide behind terrorism in order to use terrorism against our western democracies as a last resort to their inability To mount any kind of logical argument.
Go home you losers, and tune into CNN,CBS, ABC. NBC. CBC for your comfort.
You lib's are not going to partner with the terrorists, without us noticing and decrying as evil.
Cariboo
5 years ago
Red Herrings?
Is 'suicide bomber' the best point of focus here?
For instance, if Samson brought down the philistine's temple on their heads, what is the temple that this Victoria Samson is bringing down?
The temple of art? The temple of individualism? Both together at once, because they are often seen as the same thing, anyway?
Claiming an artistic or individualistic defense would seem to be more than a little coy, then, wouldn't it?
I mean, for one thing, destroying 'art' in a piece that succeeds, apparently, as art? Seems to me like a piece of decoration, then. I think you're right, Terry, to ask us to be angry about that.
Claiming he wants to initiate debate, without wishing to engage in debate, puts Capet himself, seemingly, in the role of suicide bomber.
Curious, then, that he sets the story in the events of 1946, rather than in contemporary terms, and sets it in Israel, rather than here, in Canada, in Victoria, right now.
And what is the suicide bombing supposed to achieve? Did Israel destroy itself by forming itself in 1946 Palestine? Is that what he means to say? If so, it's an oversimplication, not to mention logically incoherent. Let's hope that's not what he intended.
He did get the materialistic representation of spiritual elements right, sort of, or would have had the bomber belt not been so intrusive to the production, at least as you've described it. If he really wanted this to work as art, rather than as a doorway out of art, as a shock, then I think he might just have needed the theme to be consistent throughout, both in terms of staging, and in terms of logic.
I'm not apologizing for Israel's actions in the Middle East, or for those of Israel's enemies. I'm just pointing out that as a piece of art (and politics), this production appears to have some fatal inconsistencies.
best
Harold Rhenisch
mjf
5 years ago
Suicide bombers?
There is an interesting picture here:
[url=http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/gallery/G1941WGU.htm]
Go down the thumbnails, eleventh row, the two young women.
mjf
5 years ago
Try again
Let us see if it works this time, try clicking on this partial link:
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/gallery/G1941WGU.htm
Bluenose
5 years ago
The Exclusivist Islamic Republic of Dhimmihood
Truman Green wrote:
An exclusivist ethic? A special tribe? Give me a break. There is only one "Judaic Republic" in existence whereas there are several "Islamic Republics" in the world. European Jews for the most part had to integrate into the modern world: until relatively recently, they had no "Republic" of their own to go scurrying back to once they'd made all the money they wanted to make in the decadent, degenerate West so many Muslims claim to despise. Hate the values, love the money, honey! Yes it's deplorable the way the state of Israel treats the Palestinians: no wonder ideological extremism finds such a welcome home among them. And what have the multi-millionaires of the Middle East done to help the Palestinians?
Muslims not only live in, but also have official status in the following regions:
Southwest Asia: Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and several non-Arab nations, e.g. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran
Africa: North African countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt; Sub-Saharan countries like Mali, Nigeria or Senegal, and East African countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Sudan
The Balkans: Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina
Eastern Europe: parts of Russia and Ukraine (especially in the Crimea), and Gagauzia in Moldova
Central Asia: Afghanistan, formerly Soviet states like Uzbekistan
South Asia: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives
Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia
The countries of Southwest Asia, and many in Northern Africa are considered part of the Middle East.
Also worthy of mention are provinces of Kosovo in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Ingushetia, Tatarstan, Bashkiria in Russia, Muslims are in the majority.
Muslims are the majority in Xinjiang, Ningxia and Qinghai provinces of People's Republic of China.
Some definitions would also include the sizable Muslim minorities in:
several countries of the European Union (especially France and Germany)
several regions of Russia, other than ethnic republics above
India
Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines
The United States, Guyana, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Brazil, Argentina and Canada
Congo-Kinshasa, Burundi, Malawi, Republic of South Africa, Zambia, Cameron, CAR, Uganda
Crimea in Ukraine
BC Mary
5 years ago
mjf - what's your point?
I thought the young woman on the right looked a lot like Queen Elizabeth II, of the time.
Pls explain.
mjf
5 years ago
What is my point?
The caption to the picture of the two women raises a few rather obvious questions, given the context of the picture. What is the difference between resistance and terrorism? Can Glavin's words "mass pathology at work" be applied to these two women, and others like them? What is the definition of suicide bomber? Can the words suicide bombers be applied to any person of any religion or political affiliation who hides explosives on his/her person with intent to harm? Does it depend on the target? Does the cause for which you are willing to die define whether you are a resistant or a terrorist? Then who decides?
Those are not new questions, they have been rehashed many times. Then: Does Glavin's column throw any new light on this sugject?
nightbloom
5 years ago
I noticed with pleasure that
I noticed with pleasure that the gay press has picked up Glavin's earlier Tyee article on the peculiar alliance between the hard-core anti-war Left and reactionary Islamist elements. It ran in a recent edition of Capital Xtra. It was a refreshing contribution from outside the juvenile echo chamber of queer journalism.
On a tangential note, Pink Triangle Press has once again stumped for the gay drug circuit...This annoys me to no end. The Conservatives have cut federal funding to that bloated drug-fest, Montreal's notorious week-long Black & Blue Circuit Party "festival", and the gay press actually includes it on their Harper rap sheet along with the Harper government's cancellation of the new Portrait Gallerying and its renegging on the Kelowna Accord.
Unreported revenues for this event must run in the hundreds of millions. The Hell's Angels have the corner on that nasty market. It still amazes me that this event is officially endorsed by the tourism ministries in both Quebec City and Ottawa. Money talks, and does it ever! The gay drug-circuit phenomenon (of which Montreal's Black & Blue is one of the most successful) has been an unmitigated disaster for urban gay communities clear across North America. The gay press should be ashamed of its chronic sycophancy to the organized crime elements behind this phenomenon.
Con job
HARPER WATCH / 60 reasons for Harper's failing grade
http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1&STORY_ID=2848&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=2
James Burns
5 years ago
Nightbloom your self-absorbtion is showing
So I guess Nightbloom you've decided enough time has been spent on suicide bombing, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and now it's time to talk about a totally unrelated topic that concerns you.
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
IAMC: Quote: To do
IAMC:
No, kill French people in the 1950s, of course. I assumed when I posted that quote that the reader would have at least a passing acquaintance with 20th century history. But for you, here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_war_of_independence
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
IAMC: Quote:You are drawing
IAMC:
Yeah, okay, I'll fight you, you coward. Meet me at the SW corner of Cambie and Ash tomorrow at noon and I'll fight you, bare-knuckles. Bring it on!
Booker
5 years ago
Bring it on
I do believe he'd try ;-)
nightbloom
5 years ago
Glavin's articles
JB: Nope. I simply noticed that the gay press had picked up one of Terry Glavin's Tyee articles and syndicated it. Then I noticed they were also running this other piece detailing the Queer Left's rap sheet of alleged sins committed by Stephen Harper. I just find it very telling that they included the decision to cut funding to one of the biggest meth-fests in North America - an annual windfall for organized crime of titanic proportions - and that they placed this decision upon the same moral level as the cancellation of the Portrait Gallery, the gutting of other cultural projects, and minor concessions to socially conservative Christian groups.
It dovetails into my broader argument about the totally amoral lengths the liberal-Left will go to in their efforts to further consolidate and pander to their constituencies among marginal groups.
thomasfolkestone
5 years ago
IAMC the real cowardly loser here...
Jealousy, is the driving force behind the enemies of this tiny nation of Israel.
It's amazing what riches these people have harvested from this small strip of land with ever shrinking borders.
Riches harvested? Methinks you must mean riches imported? About US$100Billion worth of "aid"? Plus "Israeli Bonds" from Jews living outside of Israel?
Jealousy? Jealous of what? Of your innate superiority in the eyes of God? Pull the wool over your own eyes!
Who is the cowardly one making threats on this message board? Who is the loser? In your mind, I am for watching CBC. But in you're mind I'm jealous of your riches, as well....
How reassuring to see the Jewish right still has such a paucity of debating skills. Go Jewish left! Power to the rebel Jews!
Truman Green
5 years ago
Truman Green
While you're bragging about Israel's accomplishments, IAMC, try to remember that it is the biggest recipient of foreign aid, not only in the world today but in the history of the world. And not only on a per capita basis but by a dollar amount. As for animosity towards Israel being borne of jealousy, and not its policies, you may be correct on a limited basis. I suspect that there are a few who are jealous of Israel's ability to get the United States to destroy its enemies.
IAMC
5 years ago
US aid to the Palestinians
The United States , through the USAID , 1.7 billion dollars since 1993.
This is only the USAID that I am talking about
This doesn't represent all the legitimate aid, or aid raised in the US by other organizations.
What are we getting for this?
Mostly it's ripped off by Muslim extremists
These Palestinians want to live in the dark ages. In fact they want you to live in the dark ages.
It's logical for the US to support Israel, over the alternatives.
What part of my argument is flawed?
I am curious for the reaction to my question.
Bluenose
5 years ago
Huh?
Nightbloom wrote:
Not just tangential but wholly unrelated to the topic under discussion.
Are you an equal-opportunity critic or is your invective solely reserved for your ideological opponents? What about the totally amoral lengths the reactionary-Right will go to in their efforts to further consolidate and pander to their constituencies among socio-economically privileged groups?
In relation to Glavin's column, this is an extract from an article by David Hirst:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1851713,00.html
Jay Currie
5 years ago
Taste
Glavin pretty much nails the cultural lunacy of Capet's deliciously "provocative" invocation of Samson as a suicide bomber. You could not want more in a Hampstead/Pinter Brit Left interpretation of an Old Testament story. It is so wonderfully corny that the poor bugger had to travel all the way to quaint old Victoria to find an audience which would have seen this as "edgy".
"When even The Nation thinks Harper’s an idiot, you know it’s time to leave the ship.
www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/hedges" says an earlier commentor.Yup, more yokels in BC than most anywhere. Talk of the Groucho. Yo, rube, did you think Harper was up there with the Gorable at the top of the Nation hit parade? A hint, Naomi Klein writes the same column week after agonizing week in the Nation. It is not a magazine noted for its support of conservative causes.
The tell on this one is, as Gavin points out, that just in case his audience was even thicker than he was counting on, Capet actually has mum strap on the dynamite.
It is, in principle, possible to update masterworks and impose a contemporary narrative on an ancient story. But it takes a light hand to pull this trick off.
The "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" routine degrades one of the great works of both literary and musical art we are lucky enough to have in the English canon. Capet's politics are simply naive, his artistic sense and his lack of respect for the privilege of presenting the work of his betters is insulting.
Which is unfortunate as Capet is otherwise a simply brilliant musician and director - jobs he should stick to and leave the lame political gestures off the table.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Tangential tangents
Yup, it was off topic. I was just using my monthly freebie. The cathartic side-benefits make it all worthwhile =)
freebear
5 years ago
Religious Hullabaloo!
Imagine there is no heaven!
And no religion too! (Thanks John Lenon).
And if one warring party asks for God's blessing, and so does the opposing warring party, what does God do?
Blesses the weapons manufacturers?
zalm
5 years ago
Ummmm....logical, Ron?
IAMC:
According to WRMEA (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - a group of US foreign policy officers who have formed their own information and lobby group), aid to Israel since 1993 is more than $36 billion, for which the US has gotten back a few contracts worth less than a billion for military and computer hardware. Net loss, $35 billion. How does this compare to Palestinian aid through USAID? Seems to me the less aid you give out the better...
It IS illogical for the US to support Israel. Did you miss reading the reply to Cappy above? Where it says:
USAID provides material relief supplies to projects it undertakes, supplies that are manufactured in the US. By USAID's own figures to Congress, more than 93% of all aid dollars allocated by USAID to any project are spent in the US, either on the Beltway lobbying, or in factories in the US.
That means less than $100 million actually makes it to Palestine, to be "ripped off" as you so politely put it. Most aid donors, including CIDA to a certain extent (which works through a variety of relief agencies active in the countries receiving the aid), attempt to spend the dollars in the nation receiving the aid, to make those dollars go around as much as possible.
But not USAID, which was set up by Kenndy as a political arm of Congress. There, its mandate is to get the best political spin for its dollars, and to ensure that money is spent at home.
Actually Sam Bahour has an excellent breakdown of USAID's work in Palestine, which he freely says has done some good. (He's a Pal businessman with strong independantist leanings.)
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0205aidboycott.html
http://www.wrmea.com/us_aid_to_israel/index.htm
Palestinians are a pretty secular society - certainly over 50%, and quite well-educated too, by the standards of the 2/3rds world. There are a bunch of religious extremeists among them, but so there are among Canadians and Americans too. You ought to try to find out about the people you so casually castigate.
zalm
5 years ago
Dhimmihood, Bluenose?
What's your point? That one brand of religion has been more successful at promoting itself among the nations than another? Both are based on illogical absurdities.
The "Judaic tribe" is no more or less deserving of special treatment than Kurds, Laz or Circassians in Turkey are, or Parsis or Punjabis in India. Or any of a hundred other tribes with a claim to ethnic self-determination going back hundreds to thousands of years.
It's important not to mix up the stories of the Bible with the actual history of the Habiru, the ancestral peoples to the religious tribe of Jews. Modern Zionism has benefitted greatly from the confusion generated in peoples' minds between the religious roots and the actual history of the Jews - not surprisingly, as they wrote the most confusing texts.
Whether Jews slew the Amalekites and wiped their tribe from the face of history, or whether the Muslims slew the Parsis and very nearly wiped them from the face of history attaches no greater value to one than the other. Both claim to follow a vengeful God with nothing better to do than to slay his creation. A reprehensible thought, no matter where it occurs.
That the Zionists have gotten the Americans, and now Canadians to buy into this line of thought indicates how limited our relative level of education, morality and common sense really is, in comparison to other peoples in the world.
Maggie M. Thornton
5 years ago
Ill-advised American overthrow of Saddam
"Since the ill-advised, tragically-executed, American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, suicide-bombing has emerged as the barbarism of choice..."
Here's the definition of ill-advised:
British Mandate for Jewish state: sabotaged by British Palestinian-leanings.
Palestinian charters and constitutional mandate that Israel will not exist.
United Nation's failure to uphold each and every UN resolution that truly pertained to world peace.
France, Germany and Russia Oil for food scandal that placed them in the dishonorable position of refusing to support UN resolutions.
The above Samson production is just another artistic attempt to rewrite history. Beautiful, stirring, adept at beginning dialogue - it may be. The dialogue began long, long ago.
There is no case for Israel being occupiers. They have a legitimate claim for land and have passively accepted what was given, defended what was given, taken more in desperation, only when Islam attacked.
Maggie
Maggie's Notebook
Frank
5 years ago
Samson and Terry
Sounds to me like the reaction to the Samson production from the usual suspects (like Terry Glavin) just proves Capet was right to do it.
Funny that Glavin now calls it "ill-advised" since he supported it. But then again I wouldn't take his advice on anything so I can see why he wouldn't want anyone else to listen to him either.
zalm
5 years ago
Ill-advised?
Here's another definition - one with a picture attached, and it ain't pretty:
Psychotic American far-right blogger who can't wait to start a war in the whole Middle East posts to a left-wing Canadian site.
Christian Zionism, a discredited religious nutbar theory gains credence in the late 19th century Britain, seriously addles the minds of two diplomats, who then proceed to render nugatory the Mandatory agreement the whole Parliament of Britain made with the Holy Land to preserve the boundaries, civil institutions and rights of all the people in Palestine, in favour of some equally nutbar Zionists from Vienna and Fribourg who figure the best way to counter discrimination in Europe is to set up their own country and either co-opt or drive out the inhabitants there.
Despite numerous resolutions to the contrary, the minority of idiots holding the balance of political power in Israel's Knesset seize more Palestinian land, pissing off more and more of the world's billion-plus Muslims, and a serious number of Christians and secular humanists in the process. Israeli idiots then maintain they have the right to do so, and further encourage the military to launch pre-emptive strikes on anybody they feel might threaten them in the future.
The US government, held hostage to the balance of power by a few nutbars, elect to support the only government in the Middle East that cannot guarantee them any oil, the lifeblood of their economy. After copious support of dictators in Arab countries in an attempt to gain security over same oil for more than fifty years, same American government decides this is bad policy, and elects to start a war between the two by encouraging the most volatile elements on each side to sharpen their rhetorical swords on each other, and to single-handedly refuse to allow the UN to do its job of enforcing peace in the region.
Aforementioned right-wing American blogger needs to study some serious history instead of making it up on the spur of the moment before posting another word to any site outside the "Merican heartland.
...not that I believe any such Maggie Thornton is trolling Tyee - it's a hotlink from one of the resident shit-disturbers. Too shit-nosed to post under his or her own name. Won't stand up for a proper debate. No knowledge of history except what was begat in the Bible.
God, the Canadian education system is such a failure, sometimes.