Interesting review article in Commentary:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12201085_1

It highlights the dangers of drawing false analogies between totally different phenomena. You raise a lot of significant and well-thought issues (i.e. the self-loathing epithet tossed by Jews at Jews who are critical of Israeli policy, etc.). The problem with your post, Zalm, is that not everyone accepts your assumption that support for Israel is analogous to support for - your example, though you don`t expressly say so (unless I misunderstand you) - the Tamil Tigers or similar groups. I'll agree that some zionist Jews are fairly extreme. But as many of the more immoderate, anti-Israel posters on these threads have inadvertently demonstrated whenever this issue is discussed, Israel is up against forces which would be just as happy if all Jews in the Levant were rounded up & sent to Antarctica. Realistically, until the broader regional makeup undergoes a quantum shift in governmental/institutional composition, culture and policy, I don't see how Israel, the Israelis and international Jewry have any choice but to do more or less what they're doing.

Being Jewish is like being American these days. What to do when one's country is run by right wing idealogues? And how are those idealogues and their policies described by the media? Supporters will call critics of George Bush "anti-American". Yet in most cases, nothing could be further from the truth. Thus, supporters of Isreal's current refusal to broker peace will call critics either anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. Again, in most cases, this is unfair and inaccurate.

Proof lies in the readings of Noam Chomsky and Uri Avnery (http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en) and many others. Profoundly intelligent and thoughtful Jewish intellectuals who oppose the war. And don't forget the many, many ex-soldiers of Isreal of are calling for Peace Now.

Against this backdrop however is the very real rise in anti-Semitic conduct and behaviour. Which must also be addressed by people who are interested in truth, justice and the greater good. There is no question that anti-Semitic beliefs have caused catastrophic suffering in the world, and it is hoped that the facist policies of Germany and Italy in the 1930's and 1940's will NEVER be forgotten.

BUT...that does not entitle right wing idealogus in Isreal to treat people in Palestine the same way. Remember, Isreal has the ability to choose how to deal with Palestine. It is the far more powerful entity. Does it choose to deal with Palestine and its concerns with concern, or with contempt. And if Palestinians are treated with contempt, how will they react?

If coverage about Isreal is to remain accurate, it is better to refer to the politics over there in the same way we do over here: right wing idealogues like Olmert, Sharon, Bush and Stephen Harper believe in the use of force and the pursuit of war. Moderates in each of these societies oppose these policies and usually make up the vast majority of the population.

In order to ensure criticism of right wing Isrealis is not tainted by anti-Semitism, I suggest one simply read, and re-read, Chomsky, Avnery and the many other Jewish voices for peace, and you can't go wrong.

I know this is a bit off the subject but possibly Robin Williams has hit upon a plan for the U.S.

You gotta love Robin Williams......
Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin
Williams to come up with the perfect
plan. What we need now is for our
UN Ambassador to stand up and
repeat this message.

Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to
argue with this logic!)

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace
but I have not heard of a plan for
peace. So, here's one plan."

1) "The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good ole boys", we will never "interfere" again..

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave.We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here.. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers
or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6) The US will make a strong effort
to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else(like Canada ! or Oklahoma!). They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given
to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way , no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH...learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer
saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' "

Not funny, Jack's. Not funny at all.

Come to think of it - a better plan for peace would be for Israel to relocate - to say, Australia or even Canada or the U.S. Just as long as it relocates someplace other than the middle east.

Just a suggestion......

its bloody hilarious and even better, it should be true.

Al long as the Arab world and its apologists at the UN and in the Western Leftosphere continue to live in a "its everyone else's fault" mode, it will continue to be funny.

I for one would applaud the Americans for implementing "The Plan"

Not surprising you'd agree jammer603. Such a policy would have your Alberta area code enhancing its status as Americas chief oil supplier (even though there are now American Special Forces troops in the oil fields in Mexico) even more. Though, at $10/bbl you might need the same kind of subsidies from Uncle Sam that have been partly responsible for what's happened in the Middle East since 1967.

You're the funny one!

Fair-minded post, Jeffrey J., with the caveat that I don't see the Palestinian issue as "the" causal issue behind what Syria and other Middle Eastern countries are doing with their proxy-war. If the other Arab countries had really wanted to help the plight of their "Arab brothers" in the Palestinian refugee camps, they could have done so in a multiplicity of ways over the years. They've chosen this course of action as a multi-generational programme in regional power politics, because they couldn't achieve their ends by conventional military means in '48 and '67.

I'm not letting Israel off the hook, but I think Israel is genuinely trapped in a existential struggle with regional powers who simply see negotiations for peace as an interim contingency on the road towards achieving the goal of a Middle East without Israel.

I was once an avid reader of Chomsky, but I have since grown wary of him. He presents a necessary and invaluable theoretical critique on a range of relevant issues, I'll give him that, but little if any of his bigger ideas can actually be translated into real policy. Chomsky ultimately comes from an anarchist viewpoint which asserts that 'the system' must be unmade and reconstructed from the foundations. It's healthy to have such outside-the-box thinkers on one's bookshelf to help us questions our assumptions and conjure images of an ideal world. And implementing a political programme of social decontruction is an attractive idea to a wide array of bright, educated young people for a wide array of very understandable but totally misguided reasons. Notwithstanding his critique of Israel, Chomsky's ideas generally should stay on the page where they do the most good, and remain off the barricades, where good intentions almost invariably go wrong.

Well, as one of the more "immoderate" supporters of Zionist Israel here, nightbloom, you are certainly not above the gross distortion of truth. I don't recall any critical comment of the Zionist Occupation of Palestine suggesting even remotely that "the Jews" should all be shipped to Antarctica or any such place. Unless, of course, you are saying that the European homeland from which the vast majority of these folks came, and Amerika, to occupy Palestine is equatable with the Antarctic.

What I do recall actually hearing said by myself and others opposed to the Jewish theft of Palestinian lands and the creation of the Palestinian diaspora holocaust, UN sanctioned or not, is that first a European solution, where the Holocaust against the Jews and others crime actually occurred, would have been the more appropriate landscape for a compensation of this great crime. It was not appropriate that it should be dumped upon the poor Palestinians.

And that we are still here after this artificial creation of the so-called State of Israel, with European and US Empire support, is a demonstration of that. There is a tendency of the victim, in this case the Palestinians, to mount a resistance against their criminal victimization.

But even that said, which is entirely true if one is actually interested in real and serious justice, that the criminal should pay rather then carrying out further victimization of a third party. the dominant opinion of critiques of Zionist imperialism still was, including myself, that hopefully the European Jews of so-called Israel would recover their sense of just proportion and return to the 1967 borders, as a minimum. Then a peace with the majority Arab peoples of the region, including the semite Palestinians, might actually be possible.

Failing that, and allowing for the continuing bitterness and resentment which the Zionist Occupation of Palestine continue to insist upon creating for itself in the region, in league with the US Empire, we and I merely point out, that there is a line out there in space and time where a "peaceful resolution" which allows for a Jewish presence in what is actually Palestine, becomes impossible. And the Zionist state is treading awfully close to that line right now, if not already over it. For it is Israel and Amerika themselves who are silencing or marginalizing such moderate Arab voices as it is going to need in the end days here, and encouraging the rise of Arab militancy.

For I suggest, that once the US Empire is finally defeated in the Iraq and throughout the Middle East, as it most certainly eventually will be, which there is a need to face up to, and loses its appetite for continuing its empire adventure there, as did earlier British Imperialism, and withdraws its armed and financial support for maintaining the Zionist Israeli occupation, this latter entity is likely to thereafter quickly be overwhelmed as well. For you must know that, without Amerikan backing, all Arab and Palestinian attention will be turned from fighting and resisting it, to the only remaining thorn in the Arab side, that is the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

Get it straight, nightbloom. Tell the simple unvarnished truth. Draw the morally appropriate conclusions and the truth will set you free.

Let me get this straight nightbloom.

You're accusing Chomsky of being overly academic and out of touch with reality?

That really is quite funny.

Sorry I have to go, this could be interesting!

One would expect a piece written by Robin Williams to be smart and funny, which this lackluster synopsis of the Top Ten Sentiments Most Likely to be Heard on Right-Wing Talk Radio is not. Apart from the final quotation (an actual quip, sans original context, from his comedy act), Williams — a so-called "San Francisco liberal" whose left-leaning political views have angered conservatives and earned him billing on at least one Internet-posted "celebrity blacklist" — clearly did not write the thing.

see here: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-williams-plan.htm

Thank G-d for Israel. May Israel endure forever.

There are thousands of Palestinians who are able to escape the persecution they are routinely subjected to by other Palestinians through living in Israel. In Israel they do not need to fear for their lives: they are not imprisoned or beheaded or thrown off cliffs or buried under walls. So long as Israel exists there will be a haven for the endless victims of Islamofascism in the Middle East.

Thank G-d for Israel. May Israel endure forever.

You're accusing Chomsky of being overly academic and out of touch with reality?

That really is quite funny.

Sorry I have to go, this could be interesting!

Another effortless jibe posing as a post, Alcibiades. You used to be good, and even quite witty. When you feel like making the effort, Alcibiades, do please indulge us. Even Coyote has rolled up his sleeves to articulate his take on the subject in plain english. All you seem to do these days is monitor and police my posts with lazy one-liners.

My take on Chomsky stands, btw.

And I never actually said Chomsky was "out of touch with reality", nor that he was "overly academic". He's in touch with reality, all right. I was making a somewhat different point.

I said the ideas underlying his "big picture" critique don't translate into good, realistic or wise policy. He wants to open Pandora's Box and start tinkering with sub-code. You know my thoughts on that. His bigger ideas would be dangerous to implement, with unforeseen consequences. Having said that, a lot of his critique is invaluable - his thoughts on mass media and its warping of democracy in the information age, for example, have impacted my perceptions on that issue substantially.

Chomsky has his uses - Just don't use his material as a bible, the way a lot of young wannabe radicals do.

Is antisemitism on the rise in Canada? Is prejudice towards Moslems or Arabs on the rise in Canada?

The answer to both those questions: yes.

(I'm not sure if ye olde aryan nation — wingnuts holed-up in Doug Christie's Sooke bunker listening to Coast to Coast aside — are at all representative of the new antisemitism.)

Some people actually do still work nightbloom.

My point, as you well know, was directed at YOU, not Chomsky. Your own effectiveness as a critic is severely hampered by a rather limited range and a specific agenda – at least some of which boils down to, namely, sniping at the left.

My views on Israel/Palestine are well known to anyone who doesn't restrict their reading on this site to one or two particular threads. Repeating once again what I've already written would seem to me to open myself to the accusation that's so frequently (and probably justifiably) been thrown your way by Coyote and others - that I was becoming a one trick pony.

Military solutions, as so often demonstrated in the past, particularly ones 'funded' and sponsored from outside the main area of interest and conflict, are almost always doomed to failure. You have a long list from which to chose for examples.

Just as it was necessary for Americans to recognize that their (informal) support of the IRA was not going to be helpful to the solution of Ireland's difficulties; the current American (and alas Canadian) disinclination to acknowledge the fact that military support for the IDF has reached its breaking point as an effective way to 'solve' the demographic problems of Jews living in the middle of a sea of Arabs, Persians and Moslems.

Nazralla's statement yesterday accepting considerable responsibility for the incident which struck flint to the just-finished hostilities should be responded to in kind. A solution to this madness lies neither in demonizing Jews nor Arabs - but it does require courage of a non-military nature.

Your continual sidling up to the recognition that the current mode of operation is both immoral and ineffective seems always to be met by a recanting and a fall-back to your old militaristic sense. When you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

adamw - the new anti-Semitism is decidely Left in character. I actually can't believe what is now "socially acceptable" to say with regard to Jewish people provided one possesses Leftist credentials. Case in point below...

Coyote - just to be clear, your "unvarnished truth" is that you do not believe Jews should be shipped en masse to Antarctica...that would be a gross and unjust misrepresentation of your viewpoint...Rather, you want the Jewish population in the Levant be shipped en masse to America and Europe.

Do I have your unvarnished truth right?

Why do the zealots intentionally confuse criticism of Israel with anti-semitism? It is not the same. I do not love or hate Jews any more or less than any other group.

But I fear Israel and its fanatics.

What is the evidence that there is a rise in anti-Semitism on the left? Is criticism of the policies of the Israeli government the same as anti-Semitism? Is criticism of the Harper government policies anti-Canadian? Is criticism of George Bush anti-American?

Another thing you never tire of doing, when you're slapping down the left nighbloom, is taking someone (in this case Coyote) completely out of context.

His analysis with respect to the creation of the 'state' of Israel in the middle east as a 'western imposed' solution to a western problem and to assuage a lot of western guilt is far more nuanced than you give him credit for.

Now, I'm sure Coyote will speak for himself, but to accuse him of being 'anti-Semitic' without noting the totality of what he's written on the subject is completely unfair.

LOL - Alcibiades, you just did the same thing, only in longhand this time.

Anyway, you're the only one sniping here ("out of touch with reality", yada-yada). I'm just expressing my opinion on the subject matter and the marginal issues the thread touches on (like Chomsky).

No matter. Since you draw an analogy between the IRA and the IDF (?!?!), you might find the article I linked above (and again below) of possible tangential interest. It's not about Israel, it's about the phenomenon of well-fed, educated, integrated, westernized, pampered young muslim men turning to radicalism...and why they are not like the IRA.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12201085_1

Stick to the issues Gwest, and nevermind policing my alleged offenses and blasphemy towards the ideological Left...And blatant anti-Semitism (well beyond any reasonable critique of Israeli policy) has become socially acceptable in Leftist circles. Maybe you should check out what's being said - it makes Mel Gibson look good.

Could we get some evidence (examples) of blatant anti-Semitism on the left?

Left wing anti-semitism is utter BS, utter lying filth from people who cannot deal honestly with criticism. The ideological ancestors of the creeps who make these comments were 30 years ago ranting that "communism and socialism were Jewish". The left is anti-zionist, not anti-semitic and if anti-zionism is anti-semitic then I guess Jewsagainstzionism.com, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and a host of other anti-zionist Jews are anti-semitic.

I like the Robin Williams Plan.

Those are all very good questions, mjf, and they are the crucial center about which the defining difference between "the government" and "the people" spin.

Why are those who now speak up against the actions of government, wherever those ruling forces be, now being slandered themselves in an attempt to silence? Who, in fact are the real targets of defamation, as the state bears down its foot upon the throat of those who dare to speak up in criticism against it?

"People rarely win wars; governments rarely lose them. People get killed; governments molt and regroup, hydra-headed. They [governments] first use flags to shrink-wrap peoples’ minds and smother real thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the willing dead." Arundhati Roy

jewsagainstzionism.com's the most hopeful thing since apple pie on this issue, Anarcho. I hope everybody takes a look.

Let's see Hezbloodah is supported by Iran which is busily building a nuclear bom,b which could potentially destroy the mideast for anyone. Israel was created out of the best of peaceful intentions and formed on a vision of milk and honey and o make the desert bloom. What is Hezbloodah's vision?
Most of my family lives in Israel, descendants of Holocaust survivors, lovely people,who favour a Palestinain state, and have a depth and commitment and belief structure that make we in Canada infantile in comparison (one ony has to consider the comments of 'coyote' on this site-)

Lynn, you sound like a Spartacus Club propagandist when you write that way. No one is against rational criticism here.

But you should at least be able to tell the difference between criticism of Israeli policy and anti-Jewish prejudice. There's a lot of both floating around right now, so it's funny to see you blinking and staring about, pretending you don't see it. A lot of people would feel a whole lot better if Left ideologues were a little more diligent in drawing the distinction, and a little more honest in calling it when they see it. Your blanket denial above is no better than those who shout down reasonable criticism of Israeli policy with disingenuous cries of anti-Semitism. And for the record, advocating the dismantling of Israel and the wholesale deportation of Jews to America and Europe is not "rational criticism" (and give me any tripe about misinterpreting - your canine friend has made that insinuation on other threads before too). You don't fool me Lynn.

Anti-Semitism is like obscenity: you know it when you see it. I've been around it enough to see the difference.

The "Robin Williams Plan" is yet another urban legend http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe.php?incr=12&sp=3&catid=19&recid=250

ROTFL I sent my sister a link to Urban Legends and posted the cookies here.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/williams.asp

This is the correct link, or perhaps a really ripping lentil soup. The cookies from the link above are very good though.

For “anti-semitism” to have meaning, it must imply hostility to Jews as a whole. Anti-semites typically denounce a thinker as “Jewish” or try to reduce their opinions on the fact they are Jews. The following people are those that I admire and who have influenced me over the past 40 plus years of political activity. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Wilhelm Reich, Walter Benjamin, Harry Magdoff, Lucien Goldman, Murray Bookchin, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Sam Dolgoff, Paul Avrich, Simone Weil, Bob Dylan, Tuli Kupferburg, Alan Ginsburg, Abbie Hoffman. This list off the top of my head, a list not to different from most literate socialists and anarchists. Only a lying Nazi-like maggot-brain would claim that someone with a list like that is anti-semite.

Still waiting for evidence of anti-Semitism on the left.

"I'm not racist; I have black friends!"

Anarcho - You may not be an anti-Semite. In fact, I automatically assume you are not by default.

But why so defensive....Surely you haven't missed it. If you truly move in ideologically-motivated, organized and/or activist Leftist circles (as I am obliged to as an inevitable social reality) then you can't have missed it. It's there, it's an embarrassment to reponsible activists, and it's been fairly openly discussed in the media & academia (and not without some noisy contention, at that).

So why the surprise, shock, and victorian vapours over the issue...?

Nightbloom.
You still refuse to engage with the actual issue, in my view, and spend most of your time throwing smoke bombs. Like most militarists, your main objective is to be irritating and get into peoples eyes so they can’t see clearly.

By the way, I read your post. There's no doubt that western policies and policy failures in the middle east since 1914 have created a log of monsters - Islamists with Yorkshire accents just being one variety of them.

I wonder if you read the King Abdullah statement from 1947 that was posted by Avicenna on Tyee not very long ago.

http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html

I'd say it's been pretty bloody nerve-wracking to be Lebanese for the past 3 decades too; not to mention Palestinian.

Give the Palestinians one tenth of the (what is it $6 billion one way or another this year?) aid the US has funnelled into Israel since 1967 and there'd be deserts blooming in a lot of places outside Israel's pre-1967 borders.

that should be 'lot', not 'log' of monsters, btw - sorry.

Any examples of discussion of leftist anti-Semitism in academia?

mjf
you'll have to give nightbloom a little time. He'll come up with something. TO his credit it probably won't be the usual David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, anti-Ward Churchill stuff either.
It'll be along the lines of criticizing faculty statements in favour of boycotting Israeli academics at learned conferences - among other things.

dude, maybe checkout the ethnic cleansing of Jaffa before you embed the "milk and honey" concept too deeply into your psyche. For openers try the before and after populations regarding whether they were Arab or Jew before Israel so benevolently became a state on someone else's property.

You can find all of the Jaffa demographics on the web.

Benny Morris, a former IDF paratrooper pretty much tells the truth about how Israel became Israel. According to the New Left Review #26, March-April 2004

"...Morris lays out two unpalatable truths: that the Zionist project could only be realized by deliberate ethnic cleansing."

The truth is out there. Read Benny Morris, but don't take his word for it. Do your own research. He told the truth, but basically figured the ends justified the means when he was called a "self-hating" enough times.

Israel has the fourth or so most powerful military on earth, including nuclear weapons because without it they could never defend the original travesty, and despite being one of the richest nations in the area is today the world's greatest recipient of foreign aid.

What's wrong with this picture?

Do I have your unvarnished truth right?" asked nightblum.[/QUOTE

Well, first it won't be my decision to make, nor would I. And I do not particularly "advocate" for anything. That will actually be taken by the Arab world itself eventually, arising out of its experience with European Jewry and "the West", won't it? (In my view likely post the defeat of the US Empire policy and military in Iraq and elsewhere throughout the Middle East, where it AND Israel are both post WW2 intruders.)

That said, I certainly do not think it would be unreasonable of Palestinians and the other Arabs to expect that Europe will re-accept its own back into its loving and flowing with the milk of democracy and human understanding arms. (After-all, they have loved the Jews so much, where they have place them at arms length in Palestine in any case. :-) It was there problem in the first place, for which they failed to accept responsibility after the Holocaust they delivered upon the Jews. So it would not be an unreasonable expectation on the part of the Arabs that they will now stand up to the plate and accept responsibility for what they allowed and encouraged in the first place. (Delivering through the Zionists, a second Holocaust upon the Palestinians.) Germany has no less land to accede to the Jews I am sure than Palestinians, and it is more rightfully their problem anyway. I would think this should be obvious to any moral, reasonable and rational person.)

As it is, from an Arab/Palestinian perspective the Zionist Jews appear as a thief in the night who has broken into their house. So unless they are prepared to forgive this extremely violent thief, and have a spare bedroom they are of a good mood to give him, there is a natural justice, if nothing else, in the expectation that the thief will at least leave their home, if not stand trial for his/her crimes.

Which is not quite the same as me actually "advocating" for this solution.

The likely final determinant, depending on the degree to which Israel isolates and alienates the so-called Arab "moderates", will be the end result of a rising Arab Resistance engaged militarily with The West and the Zionist Occupation. It is likely, given the way things look from here, the outcome of this armed struggle over time will decide the matter in the end, as there seems no desire for a meaningful reconciliation on the part of the thief, Israel so-called, to allow any kind of natural justice to the Arabs/Palestinians.

Which is sad, because had the Jews engaged with the Palestinians quite differently than with their own "terror" in the early days of this, at least for some of them, there might today be quite a different relationship between the Jews and the Palestinians. As it is, the Jews have already "likely spilled and created too much bad blood between them.

We shall see.

That is more the unvarnished truth, as you already now know, and merely attempt to obfuscate with verbal soft shoe shuffling here. Which has been your longtime style around here.

My personal hope is that there can be a fair and equitable reconciliation between Arabs, Palestinians and Jews, even yet at this late hour. I am just not optimistic and given to speaking frankly.

But the real responsibility for this mess, as every Arab certainly knows, lies in the first place with the Germans and Europe, and increasingly over the post war years, with the US Empire and the Zionists.

To set the record straight, it was established that the so called "kidnapping" of the two IDF soldiers was in reality a capture inside Lebanon.
Fouteen publicationscarried the story including Forbes.com and the Christian Science Monitor among them.

In light of the below,aside from the Seattle shooting, how can one differentiate between real anti-Jewish acts and those done either to engender sympathy or to make Jews in countries other than Israel feel unsafe.

Police arrest Jewish former employee in connection with recent arson attack on Jewish community center in Paris, suggesting that attack was not neo-Nazi act as originally assumed; if man is found guilty, it would be third case in under two months in which apparently anti-Semitic acts turned out to be work of disturbed individuals seeking attention, rather than neo-Nazis or others pursuing anti-Semitic agenda; hoaxes threaten to overshadow hundreds of real acts of anti-Semitism that have occurred this year in France
August 31, 2004

Truman since you into demographics what percentage of what is now called Canada was white before confederation?

Thank you, Alcibiades. You've pre-empted me. And as I've said once or twice before, I'll take any compliment - even the backhanded ones

;-)

Of course, it goes a little further than that, as far as the professoriat is concerned. You should hear what doesn't get reported in the minutes.

mjf, you can do your own homework. I'm just surprised everyone here is still denying it.

And just to balance the scale a bit as well, there's this poignant history of the East Jerusalem YMCA. Just to make the point, which should be unnecessary, that there is, and was, a wide range of positive action among Palestinian refugees. They weren't - and still aren't -all concerned only with blowing up pizzerias in Tel. Despite the egregious and thoroughgoing efforts to characterize them that way. They sure as hell could use a bit of that Yankee swag though.

http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/Printerf.cfm?Docid=57#JerichoDecember1948

I am surprised that after all this discussion of anti-Semitism on the left, no evidence has been offered. Could it be that there is none?

Perhaps you should have posted the whole article nana. Anyone who doesn't subscribe to Times Select won't be able to use the link. Anyway, here it is:

Nightgloom sez, "But why so defensive....Surely you haven't missed it. If you truly move in ideologically-motivated, organized and/or activist Leftist circles...then you can't have missed it. It's there, it's an embarrassment to responsible activists, and it's been fairly openly discussed in the media & academia (and not without some noisy contention, at that).
I am fairly well known in the anarchist and libertarian socialist movements. I have many international contacts, have contributed to many publications and had my stuff translated into at least 6 languages. Though not a member of any group, I am a sympathizer of NEFAC and the IWW. I spend at least an hour a day reading the socialist and anarchist press (mostly on line) in three languages. I am still in contact with most of my old comrades from the '60s and '70's, all of whom remain progressive. I cannot recall reading or hearing anything that I would regard as anti-semitic.
As for “openly discussed” , well the slur has been broached and promoted by neocon media and neocon academics for sure. No one else takes such slanders seriously.
Not “defensive”. It is just such a grotesque insult, but I suppose it is par for the course from the same people who claim criticism of US foreign policy = anti-Americanism, or that critics of the Us invasion of Iraq are Saddam-lovers. No, I shouldn't get angry, I should laugh at people who have to stoop so low to defeat our movement, who have to engage in Nazi-like mud-slinging because they cannot contest us using logic and empirical evidence. And now I must go. I will be back next week...

nightbloom:

So better bad intentions than good?

I'm not up on my Chomsky, but I think he advocates a two-state solution to the israel/palestine conflict. Do you feel that this is not a viable option?

Any suggestion of a single state solution encompassing all of present day Israel and West Bank and Gaza strip, where Jews, Moslems, Christians and non-believers could live freely and settle wherever they wish, in a SECULAR democratic state? A single state would be the best deterrent to attacks from outside.
I know this is asking a lot from some of the participants in this conflict but there are historical examples of former mortal enemies now living in peace.

mjf
Hasn't got a hope in the present atmosphere - eventually maybe. In the interim, there's more to be worried about just in terms of holding onto the status quo. Witness this piece from today's Haaretz (posted in two sections):

here's the last bit:

Italics mine.

I should also have underlined this, from the above:

The correct way to achieve security was and remains strengthening the pragmatic Arab-Israeli coalition vis-Ã*-vis the fanatic Arab-Iranian coalition.

Alas, the trees are disappearing in the forest once again, and we're arguing about whether or not the "left" (whatever the hell that is anymore?) is mordantly anti-Semitic.

Pathetic.

Ditto here too, comrade. Though I am less in touch than I used to be. And I've been around the left for one hell of a long time as well. The main variant of anti-Semitism which I hear, from the religious, especially Christian zealots, looking to the End Days, and the Neoconazis seeking to ally their white-asses with them, is anti-Arab anti semitism. (The Arabs are the real "Semites" here, including the Palestinians. The Jews have been many nations and cultures, though mostly European, for the last 2000 years. What "Semite" blood was in 'em, so to speak, has been severely diluted over the interim. To say nothing of "culturally".)

Though mjf, I might indicate that I disagree, in a most friendly and respectful manner, with my friend GWest, and agree with you. In the short run here, for the immediately foreseeable future, GWest is likely right: The single secular state solution doesn't stand the chance of a snowball in Hell.

That said, I agree with you. I think that in the end, if the assumption I make of an impending major US Empire defeat in Iraq and throughout the Middle East is found to be correct in "future history", and their military and financial support is as a consequence withdrawn from so-called "Israel", the Zionist Occupation just "might" find itself no way out of its then "new predicament", where it is at risk of being almost certainly overwhelmed by a militant pan-Arabism, then itself might move to advocate for a place in a single, secular, predominantly Arab state. That is, within a democratic Arab majority. (Especially if the choice is that, or back to ground zero in Europe. Though many would certainly opt for this as well, no doubt.)

It may seem like a long shot now, on the Arab side as well, as they are just getting their "military option" act really rolling, but over time, when everyone is really wearied of warring, they too might just rise to the bait of such a single secular state which allows for the return of the majority Palestinian diaspora, now in near concentration camp conditions and a drain on many Arab states which surround so-called Israel.

But I agree with you, a single and secular state with an Arab majority and a Jewish minority is likely to be proven the best possible outcome at the last hurrah. And it would establish a new and important precedent in the Arab regions, as a kind of added bonus; a secular, non-religious state with a democratic majority rule.

As this current conflict arrives to its final conclusion eventually, and it will, I suggest, it is the best and possibly only way that European Jewry dressed up as "Israeli" will then be allowed to remain in the Semite Middle East, and arrive at a kind of peace with the Arab/Palestinian majority of Palestine.

First though, we have to continue to see what develops out of this period, with rising Arab militancy and a guerrilla/Hezbullah style of resistance, which is destined to continue to grow everywhere in the Middle East in my view, with the US Empire occupation of Iraq, and the effect of that outcome on the capacity and will of the Zionist Occupation to continue to defy the reality of its long term strategic position vis a vis these overwhelming Arab numbers.

Ah - so the anti-Semitism of the Left is really a neo-Con conspiracy, is it? And we all know who controls the neo-Cons, don't we...

Puhleeze.

Look, it's hilarious that you're even denying it. I can only assume that anti-Semitism has become so socially acceptable and nonchalant that you don't even see it when it hits you in the face.

You don't have far to look. I refer you to your comrade-on-the-barricades, above. He incriminates himself with each post, and only one other person on this thread has called him on it.

The single state model is unworkable. So-called Right of Return is a non-starter. Even the two states idea is going to be a hard thing to get off the ground. The Palestinians don't have the slightest idea how to run a legitimate government - they're going to need a lot of international (and Israeli) assistance. I suspect the other Arab countries (except for Jordan and Egypt) don't actually want a viable & successful Palestinian states, because that's one more lever lost in the bid for regional hegemony.

I'm still pivking my jaw up from the floor:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=TRE20060828&articleId=3085

Nightbloom, If I, who was raised RC but had a maternal Irish Jewish grandmother have The Right of Return to Israel, why do not those who were born there...the Palestinians who fled because of Irgun massacres not have it?

As to your saying that the Arabs don't want a viable Palestinian stae because it messes up theirbid for regional hegemony, google Eretz Israel...from the Nile to the Euphrates. Yours is an example of the constant projection of motive that goes on with both Israel and its loyalists.

nightbloom:

Yes we do... The truth is I control the neoconservatives.

But seriously, who does control the neoconservatives? I'd like to know.

Coyote:

The term Anti-Semitism, as far as I am aware, refers specifically to intolerance of Jews. Their ethnic makeup is irrelevant.

Coyote --

This post is deleted because it crosses the line, bringing in Nazi-evocative language to characterize another poster's position. This is not appropriate in any Tyee discussion, especially in this one. I ask you as well to put an end to the discussion of who is truly Jewish or 'Semitic.' The subject is how it feels to be Jewish today. Your comments are off topic. -- Tyee editor

If you are talking historical and ethnic accuracy, you are wrong....

COYOTE: this line of discussion does little or nothing to address the concerns of people who are Jewish today, and, in my view, verges on a racist line of argument. Tyee editor

AIPAC--American Israeli Public Affairs Committee is virtually running American Foreign Policy. The war in Iraq was for the protection of Israel. Nothing else makes any sense--not oil, not WMD, not even Bush wanting to avenge his dad.

Hopefully the internet will help change this bizarre circumstance. Too much of big media is in the hands of Lobby loyalists.

Israel's terrorism in Lebanon was to frighten the Lebanese population into dealing with Hezbollah, and to get the United Nations or Nato or the EU to protect them from their local enemies.

They succeeded in the second goal apparently.

Anti-Semetic certainly means, for example, quite a different thing to an Arab, who is closer to the actual "Semite", than to a Jew, or we in the West in our smugness, I concede.

We in the West tend to want to think that we get to define everything, and thence frame the discussion, but that is quite another thing from "accuracy".

IMHO, the problem is the same one that the humble but wise early American settlers pointed out way back when -- i.e. the vicious cycle of institutionalised violence linked to religious rivalries and thus the need to separate Church and State. If Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc were all just Middle Eastern democracies vs. Jewish States or Muslim Theocracies, things would be a heck of a lot simpler.

But they're not and that's their choice and they're entitled to it. So why don't we all just leave them to get on with bashing each other other the heads with their religions if that's what they like to do?

I'm stunned by the energy wasted on this never-ending debate and I for one am going for a beer.

Carry on now...

Who were the Semites?

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/semites.htm

And from the Catholic Dictionary.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13706a.htm

Understand the real history, not the imaginary one of such as nightblum and his merry band of neoconazi and Zionist anti-Arab bigots.

He wants the Jews in Palestine, along with such Christian fundamentalists as Pat Buchanan et al, so that they can have the End Days of Revelation, and the Second Coming (not cuming) at the end of the world proceed and that bibilical "prophecy" fulfilled. (Gimme a minute. I'll stop laughing.) Scarcely the basis for a rational analysis and understanding, or the determination of a prudent course of action pertainant to the real Middle East, in the real living world, as opposed to a religious ideological construct.

Gerhardius:
The cookie recipe sounds good!

Also, your Snopes link shows that the logjams of this world have based their beliefs on a fiction..............(I think that makes him a right winger all right...!)

Let me see if I got this right:

1] The Jews run the banks of the world;
2] The Arabs control the oil;
3] The Scots control the scotch....

Man, no wonder the US doesn't want them to actually get together!

Sooo, the Jewish lobby has finally reached with its influence into the discussion on these Tyee threads has it.

Sehr interresant. :-)

I'm new to this site so it'll take me a little while to get aquainted but already...Nightbloom...you crack me up.
Have you ever listened to yourself?
"Chomsky has his uses"..
.Chomsky is a man with opinions which most think he articulates rather well.He's not a hair-dryer or kitchen utensil.
"Don't use his material as a bible". You mean the bible provides us with un-varnished truth?!
"Antisemitism is like obscenity..You know it when you see it" Oh really...And what does obscenity look like? Did you find anything obscene in the bombing of Lebanon ? If so do you think that Israel had to be obscene to be believed ? Or is your view of obscenity restricted to sexual mores?
As for the guys? who saw merit in what has been passed as Robin Williams views....Oh dear oh dear...Now that is obscene .....given the current situation.

nightbloom
Now that I have a minute and the smoke from your grenades has cleared, I think that this statement of yours:
little if any of his bigger ideas can actually be translated into real policy.
can be easily translated into my conclusion that you were accusing Chomsky of being
"overly academic and out of touch with reality?" And, coming from you that was certainly humourous.

I'd also suggest that you skated blithely by the statement posted above, for which I thank Avicenna, of King Abdullah.

Why was that?

Coyote:

I repeat my statement above that ethnicity is irrelevant. Anti-semitism has a specific definition, independent of the words it is composed of.

I withdraw my comment.

Interesting nightbloom, how you have managed to link anti-Semitism with the Left in your comments? You don't fool me, either nightbloom , quite the clever little ploy. Working on your next dissertation? What next in your grand obsession... serial killers "of the Left", no doubt?...psychopathic clowns "of the Left", notorious cheerleaders "of the Left" run amuck... "singing nuns of the Left" run wild?

What you call anti-Semitism by posters here has largely been a historical perspective that makes very clear that from its inception the implementation and exclusivity of a Jewish state at the loss of the Palestinian homeland, was bound to invoke a constant state of instability in the Arab world, leading to the irrationality and madness of war, which both the US and Britain have used so well to their own advantage... and to further serve their interests in the Arab world.

The Israel air force launched 7,000 attacks on Lebanon, 71 bridges destroyed, airports, oil tanks, roads, water supply....all bombed, 15,000 homes destroyed. Lebanon's infrastructure intentionally targeted...an infrastructure crucial to civilian survival...with over 1,000 civilian deaths.

(From Seymour Hersh we learn this attack was planned quite some time ago, with full knowledge of the US and later on with amerikas's darlin'...the ever-complicit Mr. Blair.)

In this regard, I think benalbanach, above, rightly defines the real meaning of obscenity.

We were condemned for calling all Muslims terrorists. We thought this out and realized that wasn't the case. So we zeroed into a word " Islamofacist "
Now it's reasonable to expect the same from the other side.
Separate the Jews into " normal Jews " and Zionist Fascists, now maybe we can have a dialogue.

Other side Ron? What the hell are you talking about? 'You' zeroed in on a word! Give me a break; you rely entirely upon others for your facile and hateful analysis. Your only interest in this debate is poisoning the well.

There is a difference between criticizing a state and the actions of its government and demonizing a whole people. That's true no matter what the subject matter - not that you'd know it. You are blind to reality and deaf to nuance.

You should be embarrassed to make the analogy you have above. I wonder if you realize who you actually are when you look at yourself in the mirror each morning.

One day I hope we’ll actually have a free and independent press in this country again.

Why be so vague ( nuanced ) about what side you are on, or anyone is on. Are you a politician?

Ron.
Because that's the real world.

It's not a question of sides. You're the one who sounds like a politician - pretending that a complicated world can be summed up into neat parcels of us vs them.

I'm on the side of telling it like it is, and not pretending that I have the keys to the kingdom. Simple.

You're only here to dump poison in the well, just like your girlfriend ann coulter.

I read her words from the other day exulting about the fact that there are thousands and thousands of Iraqis being killed each month in the Middle East: What more do you need to know about someone who wallows in blood like that? Obscene!

Frequent and public declarations to the effect of "we denounce Israeli violence directed at the people of Palestine and Lebanon and are pushing for peaceful solutions" - and banners outside of synagogues and events should prevent any anti-Israeli backlashes. Anti-semitism is an entirely different matter and will never really go away as long as there are still humans on Earth. Hate is universal. Not common, but widespread, and universal.

Guys & Gals (Gals & Guys): IN world politics, there is no right or wrong -- there is ONLY the biggest stick. Thing about that stick though, is that it seldom stays in any one hand for long.........

Coyote, funny that you got slapped down for calling people Nazis in a story about Jews, you use the word in other posts constantly, to demean and belittle. You are a Holocaust denier, aren't you?. Actually I have no idea what your beliefs are in regards to Jewish deaths in Nazi Germany, just threw that in cause that is the kind of shite you do all the time. Hows it feel? Do you deny it? Do you beat your wife still, or have you stopped? Yes or no answer please.

Ann Coulter, Ron I hope she is not your girlfriend, when you get her pants off you are going to be in for a nasty suprise. Hint, the adams apple was your first clue.

Rick;
The biggest stick is still in the hands of western democracies. I would like it to stay that way.

There is always a mixup in words describing animosities to Jews. They are not interchangable. One who is a Jew like Norman Finkelstein (HOLOCAUST ENTRPRISE and BEYOND HUTZPAH) and criticizes another Jew or Israeli government is called Jew hater. Non Jew doing exactly the same is called antisemite (curious because Palestinans are also Semites, by ethnic origin). I propose to stop using word antisemitism, which is too general, used by Hitler to exterminate all the Jews, (maybe except some rich bankers like Openheimer and helpers of the Nazis like Jabotinski). There are much more specific words like anti-Zionist, being used by many very orthodox Jews, or anti-Israeli, for those who do not approve military adventures of Israeli government. There is no surprise that public sentiment follows news from abroad. There were anti-Japanese and anti-German repressions during the WWII. There were voices of sympathy towards Poland during SOLIDARITY uprising and towards US after WTC attack. It is a great responsibility of the government of any country to evoke good public image to their country. Recently Israel failed in a game won by Hezbollah. Canadian Jews and those who may only look like a Jews pay the price. Let's wait for some good news from Israel, like unilateral decision to disarm their arsenal of nuclear weapons and, illegal against civilians, cluster bombs. That could improve our opinion.

Lat
Look like Jews/
Like Sammy Davis Jr., Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Karl Marx, Phil Spector, Charlie Watts, Levi Strauss, Leon Trotsky, Leonard Bernstein, Erica Jong,Naom Chomsky, Irving Berlin, Dianne Feinstein, Jona Salk, Allen Greenspan, Alicia Silverstone, Karl Marx, Alan Dershowitz, Allan Greenspan, Sigmund Freud, Barry Goldwater.
Jesus Christ?
I don't think that Israel is going to quit anytime soon. Sorry.

Ron
You've fallen for it too. This is about a country, Israel. It is possible to criticize a country and a government without demonizing a people, a race or a religion. Strictly speaking, Goldwater was only half-Jewish and Sammy Davis Jr. was a convert; oh, and you named Allan Greenspan twice and didn't mention that he was also a follower of Ayn Rand - perhaps a more important factor in forming his philosophy than his Jewish roots.

The sad fact of the matter is that non-Jewish Arab Israelis are second class citizens in their own country. The same thing we used to do to Chinese, Japanese and East Asian Canadians - as well as our First Nations. But Israel is a young country, with the help of G-D they may come around eventually...just like we did.

Just as it’s possible, even for you, to criticize the actions of some Muslims without demonizing every Muslim and pretending that they have their eyes on your standard of living - That’s your lesson for tonight Ron. Sleep on it!

nightbloom, this statement of yours is recycled right-wing pablum and I for one expect better from you, based on your history here, than something I've heard from Rush.

One could just as easily say the West created Israel because of their guilt and rather than use their own land and resources to fix the problem they themselved created they foisted the whole ball of wax onto a group that didn't even see it coming let alone have the resources to fight back.

And as for your claims concerning the "anti-Jewish left" sans examples, again this tone is beneath you. lynn nailed it, I half-expect you to write an article on how urban serial killers tend to be lefties although again you'd lack examples. There are many anti-Israel voices on the left, I'm one, but there are very few anti-Jewish voices.

But if we are going to play the racism card then I suggest you take a long look at the anti-Moslem voices on the right. Not just anti-Iranian, or anti-Palestinian, but anti-Moslem, anti-Arab etc Because that is one area you won't have trouble finding examples of.

Spot on G

Lynn - Whatever. You really figured me out there. The secret's out of the bag. I'll have to report back to the Jewish neo-con cabal that my cover is blown, as your buddy expressed so eloquently. I mean really, is this comment even vaguely witty to you:

Sehr interresant. :-)

You are as tolerant of his anti-Semitism as you are of his misogyny and homophobia.

Alcibiades - You always look for nefarious motivations in your opposition. I simply didn't get around to your link, and then forgot about it, but thanks for the reminder and will do so when I have a moment.

Frank said:

One could just as easily say the West created Israel because of their guilt and rather than use their own land and resources to fix the problem they themselved created they foisted the whole ball of wax onto a group that didn't even see it coming let alone have the resources to fight back.

But someone did say precisely that on this thread, Frank. Why is the united indignant front of the Left on this thread so selective in its responses?

The victorian vapours by the ideologues on this thread are laughable. Not a single one of you has simply owned up to it. Why not just acknowledge the reality and disavow it - it's so much simpler. The last generation of Conservatives had to do it all the time. I actually didn't expect my comments to provoke such a hailstorm of brazen denial. I think part of it must be the Left's schizoid relationship with religion and culture, of which the Jews are in large part the origin of both in the West. Who knows - perhaps that's giving the Left too much credit.

In any case, we all know there's more than just "rational critique" of Israeli policy in today's Left's reponse to the Jewish reality.

Belated thanks Tommymore for your clarification...(supposed Robin Williams comments)
One of the things I love about this site is the necessity to get your facts straight.

nightbloom
Of course there's anti-Semitism around but it's hardly the exclusive paranoia of the left or the right. The simple fact of the matter is that at some point Israel is going to have to get busy and start treating its Arab citizens and neighbours a lot better than it has been treating them, with a few exceptions, since 1948. There's plenty of blame to go around but most of it ought to land on the west and you know it…we laid the table.

Whether it's been a result of ignorance, greed, or neglect, successive generations have treated the middle east as their sandbox; rewarded their friends and taken all the oil they needed - mostly at prices they felt like paying. We’ve created family cabals in some countries, supported brutal dictatorships in others and cut the throats of anybody who disagreed with us.

That such treatment and attitudes have led to a lot of heat for the nominal representatives of the West in the region, and even you can't deny the fact that that's the role Israel has been playing, is hardly a surprise. Given the fact that from the very start of the Israel experiment the Palestinians have felt robbed and usurped what would you expect.

The left hasn't created this situation and it's both unfair and dishonest to suggest that it's wrong for the left, the right, or the centre to criticize it. Truth will out.

Unfortunately, instead of actually dealing with practical and workable and pragmatic ways to address these issues - including providing for the Palestinians even one tenth of the gross value of aid that's poured into Israel to buy weapons, (weapons for God’s sake nightbloom, billions of dollars a year, not to even mention the other aid and private support flowing into Jerusalem and Tel every year), critics like you dismiss their interlocutors as anti-Semitic. It's just another shameful example of using the big lie to avoid reality and you, of all people, ought to know better. It’s time for the west to put its money where its mouth is. Israel’s embarrassment and Hezbollah’s soul searching provides a unique opportunity to make some progress here – instead all I hear and read in the Globe and Mail is a lot of folderol about how influential Jews are deciding to support Stephen Harper. This is so pathetic it’s beyond words and you hang around here throwing brickbats at the ‘LEFT’. Get real.

It's nerve wracking to be someone who thinks these days.

G West:

He must have had trouble sleeping at night, trying to implement AR's philosophy and finding it not to work......

......but of course, collecting several hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary, regardless of the outcome, helps soothe the angst.......

RickW
He was pretty young when he moved in to Rand's little ummm ...commune! I think there were other attractions besides the 'philosophy'.

Because its not my reality. If there was widespread anti-Jewishness on the Left it would be easy to find. Instead the most you could dig up would be a few humanities profs who strongly dislike Sharon and Netanyahu. That's not a big deal. As I said before, accusing the left of anti-semitism without real-world examples is very Rush. Its an attempt to stifle debate of Israeli policy because without left-wing voices in that debate there is no debate.

Since the debate on the right doesn't deal with the origin of the problem or bother looking at the big picture its up to the left to point out that Israel's existence is the centrepiece of the problem. That the discussion has to acknowledge that first or its pointless. But the right refuses to even discuss it and simply labels anyone who raises the point as being anti-semitic.

One may as well claim that I'm anti-Hutu since I blame their attempted genocide of the Tutsi as being the key issue when discussing tensions in Rwanda. Ignoring what happened to the Tutsi and simply asking everyone to move on and look to the future would be as misguided there as it is when discussing the origin of the Palestinian issue. What the right fails to understand is that the existence of other Arab countries doesn't mean the Palestinian problem is their problem any more than the existence of other black African nations would be considered the solution to the problem of tensions in other black African states.

Just to let at least you folks know that David Beers, Editor of Tyee, and I have had a bit of a falling out, basically around my views on the Arab-Israeli issue, and out of that my views especially on the the history of the conflict and the underlying sources/responsibilities for the conflict. David's position being that my views, for some in the background somewhere I presume, because he doesn't say who, are "/reminiscent/" of "Nazi times" . (And I really do appreciate that for some, this is all very painful for them. But time does move on, and we _*all*_ with it.)

Yet, that my views are in fact reminiscent of such, I certainly most stoutly deny. It's mostly just that there has been such a preponderance of sympathy for Israel and the Jews in this country, that to to attempt to balance that now with an equal concern for Palestinians and the Arabs, and to objectively present their case, in these neoconservative times, cannot but be alarming to some, I suspect.

Though I have known for awhile on Tyee, of course, that there is a body of opinion that seems to resent, even become alarmed at a deep examination of the underlying historical, political, economic root issues to the Middle East situation, especially in Palestine-Israel. Which seems to have finally come to a head and put sufficient pressure on David Beers to instruct me that I am to stay away from these sensitive areas in future: to censor me in terms of what I can and cannot discuss with the other readers and writers of Tyee.

Like I say, which has been coming on for awhile, and about which I am, while disappointed of course, certainly not exactly surprised. It is part of the nature of the times that are evolving.

Which I have informed David that I will not do. I will not submit to any Tyee or other Thought Control Police. And there is little point, in my view, writing for Tyee at all if I am going to have to submit to this kind of censorship, for I see nothing "inaccurate", inappropriate, and in any otherwise "factually" incorrect about the positions I very carefully take.

So, until or unless David Beers and myself can work this situation out, which I have doubts about, for he does seem genuinely determined, I will not be writing in the pages of Tyee any further. Though I certainly will be looking for an alternative forum, for sure.

Now, all that said, to here, David has "pretty much" left me alone to freely express my views, which I insist are neither racist or especially "ant-Jewish" per se. What has brought this so suddenly about, I can only speculate of course. But someone, or some group viewpoint is obviously sufficiently alarmed, is the only assessment I can make, that makes sense, to have put sufficient pressure on David to begin to try and control/censor me. Which in a way, I suppose, is a kind of back handed compliment to the power and rationality of some of the positions I take . :-)

This may resolve itself, of course, by my sense gleaned from David is, not. A deep critique of Israel, and a similar deep examination of the history and the issues around the Palestinian issue is not going to longer be tolerated in Tyee. It alarms too many folks with some manner of influence over David Beers, in my view .

A good day to you all. I simply wanted you all to understand why I may not appear in the pages of Tyee for some time to come, if ever again. We shall see. 8-) It has been a pleasure to engage with many of you nonetheless.

Coyote

It’s clearly time for a strong dose of Orwell. From The Prevention of Literature, written in 1946:

The journalist is unfree, and is conscious of unfreedom, when he is forced to write lies or suppress what seems to him important news: the imaginative writer is unfree when he has to falsify his subjective feelings, which from his point of view are facts. He may distort and caricature reality in order to make his meaning clearer, but he cannot misrepresent the scenery of his own mind: he cannot say with any conviction the he likes what he dislikes, or believes what he disbelieves. If he is forced to do so, the only result is that his creative faculties dry up. Nor can he solve the problem by keeping away from controversial topics. There is no such thing as genuinely non-political literature, and least of all in an age like our own, when fears, hatreds, and loyalties of a direct political kind are near to the surface of everyone’s consciousness. Even a single taboo can have an all-round crippling effect upon the mind, because there is always the danger than any thought which is freely followed up may lead to the forbidden thought.

….A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never permit either the truthful recording of facts, or the emotional sincerity, that literary creation demands.

He goes on, a few lines later…

Our own society is still, broadly speaking, liberal. To exercise your right of free speech you have to fight against economic pressure and against strong sections of public opinion, but not, as yet, against a secret police force. … But, what is sinister, as I said at the beginning of this essay, it that the conscious enemies of liberty are those to whom liberty ought to mean most. The big public do not care about the matter one way or the other. They are not in favour of persecuting the heretic, and they will not exert themselves to defend him. They are at once too sane and too stupid to acquire the totalitarian outlook. The direct, conscious attack on intellectual decency comes from the intellectuals themselves...a bought mind is a spoiled mind. [Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Vol. IV]

Coyote,
I have seen your name around this neck of the woods,but don't know what you said that could be so bad.I would like to know[hedleyg@shaw.com].You probably know this but the Jews run and own most of the news media in New York and have for many years.Is it therefore any wonder that the US is so favourable towards Israel and anti everybody else in that area [except Saudi Arabia of course].I hope thats not going to be the case here.Maybe the editor needs to explain his actions?
I really don't know the history,but it seems to me that bach in 1956 the US,UK and maybe the USSR got together and decided to relocate the holocast victems into Israel a land that did not belong to them.Maybe that land belonged to Palestien I don't know,perhaps somebody could put me straight.But in any event did anybody ever consult with the surrounding peoples,I suspect not.You don't put a mongoose and a snake in the same cage without a strong wall between the two.
A friend on mine went on a holiday to Irael 2/3 yrs ago and told me that he felt that the Jews treated the Lebonese like dirt.
Just a thought but why weren't the Jews relocated back to Germany and Poland.
Robin Williams maybe on the edge but a lot of really smart people are and his remarks posted above I think are not just funny,they are right on the money.

Oh, Gwest, puhleeze -

Free speech is responsible speech. "Free Speech" does not mean carte blanche to enact the verbal equivalent of shitting in the middle of the public square while shouting at civil society to hand you free toilet paper, or license to close off conscience while you masturbate your ego all over the by-standing citizenry. That's sociopathy, not free speech. I mean really, let's get a few things straight here.

Save your Orwell for a good cause, Gwest, and find yourself a real martyr for free speech. It ain't that guy.

RESPONSE TO COYOTE:

The issue is not Coyote's 'deep examination of the underlying historical, political, economic root issues to the Middle East situation' but rather, as I patiently explained higher up in this thread, your use of Nazi-evocative language to berate and characterize other commenters on this site, as well as your repeated assertion that the word anti-Semitism has no meaning. That borders on racism and certainly breeches the standards of conversation requested of all who register to comment on The Tyee. Tyee readers should be aware that Coyote has in a personal email and now publicly on this site falsely accused me of bending to some outside pressure. I have not. The decision to spend valuable time and energy editing Coyote's comments is mine alone, though I wish I didn't have to. Coyote has declared in the same email that he had decided to stop commenting on The Tyee. That is his decision. I will remind, as well, that Coyote and the some 4,000 others registered to comment on The Tyee have agreed to abide by simple groundrules including refraining from defamatory and racist comments. If Coyote cannot do so, he will be blocked from commenting on this site.

Sure did!

Sure did!
so you play the "whatever" card...

yuck

Tyee Editor,
Explanation sounds fair to me.I must admitt I did not read all the posts above.

Bob-the-Cat -

Don't hang your shit on me.

It's just unfortunate he has so many apologists on this thread, and that his view have become normative in certain ideological circles.

Hey, we all signed the same agreement for the right to post here. So cry me a river.

Now pull up your pants and go find your own toilet paper.

Christ nightbloom, you're calling the kettle black here imo. You've gone on ad nauseum about how anti-semitic most of the tyee regulars are. Then when asked for examples you wax poetic about how the left is in denial. Then when you're called out you spew venom. At least coyote gets to the point whether or not you agree with his word choices.

And I disagree with the Tyee. Coyote may use harsh language, but I have not seen anything that would make me label him a racist.

nightbloom....whatever

[

I suggest Mr. Beers read Franks's comments and the excellent piece from Orwell that G West provided.

It is a critical time in our world and "a deep examination of the underlying historical, political, economic root issues to the Middle East situation, especially in Palestine-Israel" as Coyote states means just that. It is does not mean a nice superficial skim, that bullies and censors into silence any deeper questioning of these critical issues.

Coyote was introducing a much needed perspective, and as it has proved a risky one to present. In his words:"We in the West tend to want to think that we get to define everything, and thence frame the discussion, but that is quite another thing from "accuracy"."

And yet it is interesting that when we criticize the Israeli government and nightbloom links our criticism to anti-Semitism, this appears to be a-okayyy with The Tyee. Not that I am proposing censoring he who blooms in the night, I don't believe in it, just that it is interesting what now flies on The Tyee and what does not. Anyway, nightbloom does quite a good job exposing himself all on his own.

Nighbloom,
Obviously, I disagree.

The kind of elitism that enables you to claim You are the arbiter of what is or is not fair comment is as offensive as censorship itself. I think I've read enough Orwell to know where he'd line up in this debate.

However, be that as it may, the editor's claim can hardly be verified since the 'offending' material has been expunged, I'd conclude my comments on this sordid episode by suggesting that there is a bit of a double standard underway on these pages:

If you and the other readers will look at the comments thread appended to the
6 Lessons from the London Airline Bombing Plot s story, I think you'll find remarks there, written by an occasional contributor to this site, that also overstep the defined bounds of decorum and politeness defined for posts and comments. I think you'll also find those statements are uncensored.

I'd prefer no censorship, but if there must be censorship let it at least fall equally and consistently.

I don't know if there's an agenda behind all this, but I'm certainly beginning to wonder.

A must read:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/zanda.cfm

Zionism and Anti-Semitism

Yes, I agree, ubiquitous, and here is the eloquent Avicenna on a recent thread, shining a light on the "meaning" and "definition" of Semite and anti-Semitism. The very same issue Coyote was addressing about the West's obsession "to define and frame everything in their own way...which as he points out "is quite another thing from accuracy".

Avicenna:

"I would first like to correct the definition of Semite (or the continually errant manner in which the term "anti-semitism") has been used throughout this... "discussion" (for want of a better word) - especially when it comes to bashing Coyote's measured response(s).
A Semite refers to "one of a people believed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah. Later the term came to include the following peoples: Arabs; the Akkadians of ancient Babylonia; the Assyrians; the Canaanites (including Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Phoenicians); the various Aramaean tribes (including Hebrews); and a considerable portion of the population of Ethiopia...." Arabs and Jews are both Semites - and closer in kin to each other than any other group - which makes this bloodshed all the more remorseful. Before Britain (God's official real estate agent) handed Palestine over to the Jews (having suffered the slings and arrows in Europe) - Jews and Arabs lived as one. It wasn't until the military state of Israel was born (alongside the profit margin of the US's arms manufacturers) that peace in the Middle East became an extinct phenomenon. Neither the Lebonese nor the Palestinians are defined by a singular faith - both have a mixed population of various Muslim sects and Christians - but the basis of Israel's raison d'etre is defined by its religious exclusiveness - which is used as its basis of territorial entitlement. This isn't about votes - and it goes beyond right and wrong - it is a matter of justice and humanity, and if this unfolding disaster was put before a fair court where reason prevailed - one doesn't need a degree in objectivity to come to the conclusion that the chronic marginilization, bloodshed, and discrimination both the palestinians and now the lebonese have been assaulted with is unjustifiable - if not criminal. No heaven on this earth for any of them."

Wrong - I said no such thing. I started with a general observation about the anti-Semitic undercurrent that has re-emerged on the political Left (hardly a unique observation) - an observation that elicited a united front of denial on the part of a core-group of posters here. Fine. Moreover, I went out of my way to de-personalize my observation in several of my posts. My only specific allegation of anti-Semitism towards a participant here was with regard to a single poster (on this and an earlier thread, actually).

So let's get the facts right please.

I'm just shocked that a collection of presumeably smart & literate & 'progressive' people not only can't recognize Jew-baiting when they see it, but that they actually spend an entire thread trying to justify it. Why is that? I certainly don't regret calling him on it. All I did was call a spade a spade. You're firing your criticism in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm not going to discuss him since he's chosen to absent himself from the thread.

Coyote:

Fair enough, but these bizarre theories of ethnicity concerning who is a "Semite" and who is not is not relevant. And besides, the tone of your posts was hardly diplomatic. Anti-semitism, like all forms of intolerance, is a sensitive issue, so treat it as such.

As far as I know, the term "Semitic" refers to a group of languages, anyway, and is not intended to refer to an ethnic group.

Nightbloom:
This is what coyote actually said, copied from above:

And this is what you posted nightbloom:

You dislike Coyote because he gets in your face nightbloom; because he won't fall for your academic spin and intellectual gloss. You both recognize the real politick of the situation on the ground and, on the basis of your post, above, you are as indictable for an ad hominem attack on Palestinians and Arabs as he is for anything he's posted relative to the Jews. But of course you'd call it Realism. I think it has another name and prejudice wouln't be too strong as a description.

In fact, as the above posts show, this argument between you is almost totally 'personal' and not about ideas at all.

In my view.

Jimmy - He's gone - leave it alone.

They don't get it. Even the smarter ones seem to think there's a conspiracy going on. Pretending to be a victim of conspiracy is eminently preferable to being wrong, I suppose.

Paranoia used to be the domain of the Right - Times have sure changed.

Gwest - Get back on topic. I said I'm not discussing him in his absence.

I am on topic.

Did you read the stuff Shannon Rupp posted on the other thread?

get off it nightbloom. When you address specific people, be it gwest or lynn or coyote or whomever, and then rip into a tirade about the "left", it's not hard to connect the dots.

Thanks G West

That one stuck out for me as well G West but hey..
whatever...I guess we must be of a similar idealogical bent or something.. you know unenlightened homophobes or coyote acolytes. Maybe we are of the
lumpen proletariat or..what was that one about the "masses"? Was it " ungulate masses"?
Anyway..whatever..I gotta go throw up.

When I read the title of this piece, the first instinct was a giggle born on the back of irony - if you think being Jewish is bad, try being an Arab at the airport. I then read on - and grimaced a few times in empathetic pain as Coyote banged his head trying first to correct the meaning of the word "semite" - and the hypocrisy of this whole western white wash - to no avail. Like Columbus reaching India of the New World and declaring the First Nations "Indians" - the Zionists plopping themselves on Palestine declare themselves Semites - as an ethno-based validation of their right on someone else's property (the British being real estate agents of biblical proportions). However, ignorance has an unfortunate tendency to perpetuate itself (especially with the help of blooms that take place in the night), and we have some posters on this thread insisting that the ethnic-based root of the word "semite" needs to be overlooked in this instance (a notable example of the implementation of the concept of "truthiness") - and consider it only in the context of its use of perpetuating the myth of anti-semitism meaning any criticism of Israel (or Jews in general). This brought to mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKtEqVVlVZs - a great little illustration on the power of words.

Lynn, Frank, Nana, G West etc - I solute your efforts to yank off those perception-altering goggles of those who think that there is anything remotely just in the actions induced by the Zionists. The injustice and humanitarian crisis was too much for many European Scientists to tolerate that for the second time in history they had drafted a very controversial manifesto calling for the boycott of Israeli scientists - the only other time this was even considered was against the apartheid country of South Africa. The Arabs don't have anything against Jews, per se - they likely would have a problem even with the self-proclaimed descendents of Zeus if they barged their way in onto their homes and lives - glittering in American armaments and ghettoing the true population of Palestine in such dispicable conditions - robbing not only land but both their future and stability. It doesn't seem to have been a palatable pill to swallow - and the nausea continues with all this verbal vomit.

Just ending with the note on the talk given by Barrie Zwicker on the media's failure on reporting the truth about 9/11 (7:30 pm at Nelson and Burrard, Aug 30th). Mayhap see you there?

Thank heaven, nightbloom, this is not your academic common room. People may well be disinclined to suffer your arrogance and mean spiritedness a little less readily. As for staying on topic, I've seldom seen that as a pre-eminent concern of yours in a wide variety of other circumstances.

Get over yourself!

As the church lady would say nightbloom, "How conveeeeenient"!

I agree ubiquitous, and lynn.

I also feel that Coyote's perspective is often essential in the valued perspective necessary to get "the whole picture" on a particular issues.

He is way more then the sum of the occasional edgey words he posts Mr. Beers. IMO, he is a valued contributer to the The Tyee. Thanks for you time...

Peace,

RTB

Avicenna

By "plopping" do you mean the creation of Israel? The term "anti-semite" has been around for at least a hundred years. I don't think they ever used that "ethno-based" justification.

Sorry, I meant to write in point form:

- By "plopping" do you mean the creation of Israel?

- The term "anti-semite" has been around for at least a hundred years.

- I don't think they ever used that "ethno-based" justification.

Alcibiades - My posts are neither arrogant (at least no more so than anyone else with a strong opinion on these threads) nor mean-spirited (I certainly haven't dealt out epithets and personal slurs to the extent and volume with which I've had to swallow them on these threads). There's a difference between critique and mean-spiritedness. I've critiqued your opinions & ideology; I've never been mean sprited to you. See the difference? It is not surprising that you continue to confuse the two - Gwest does the same - the failing seems pervasive here. To some extent, your inability to make the essential distinction dovetails into the controversy here - the inability to distinguish between rational critique of Israeli policy (or everyone's policy in the Middle East) and ad hominem anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting (and queer-baiting...that too has been an issue in the past).

But strain your eyes and ears for a moment....Still no condemnation of anti-Semitism here, even in the most general and innocuous of terms.

It's a sad vindication of the point I started out with on this thread. You might not agree with it, but you've done your bit to confirm it.

Avicenna:

I assume you are talking about me :)

"Semitic race" derives from 19th theories of race, which not too many people take serously.

I can't see how using the term "anti-semitism" to mean (as was originally intended and has always been used) intolerance of Jews perpetuates this myth.

Fine nightbloom,

Everyone else agree with this statement?

Anti-semitism, in the current and conventional sense, meaning a prejudice or hostility towards people of the jewish faith, is abhorrent.

Avicenna:

Is this true? If it is, I find it disgusting that something like that could be even contemplated. Scientists in Israel and their government are not one and the same.

Nightbloom my friend, you're full of it and I've had just about enough of your one-sided prejudice. Here's what I posted a day ago on the other thread - the 6 lessons one -

Don't you think? At this time, with Israel in disarray from its disastrous foray into Lebanon, with an international force arriving mostly from Europe and with some indications that Hamas and the PLO are starting to get along, a gesture from the current target of the Americans’ most vehement ire might actually be constructive.

Even people of the progressive left need to recognize that every problem has complexity and requires compromise from both directions.

And while you're over there, nightbloom, and I really hope you will go over and read what's posted - you'll also find Alcibiades clear and unequivocal denunciation of anti-Semitism.

I know you'll apologize.

jimmy_laroux
Moreover, why would you feel that way?

Was it disgusting to even contemplate an embargo against the apartheid state of South Africa?

Was it disgusting to raise sanctions and restrict trade all these years against the sovereign state of Cuba?

Was it disgusting to contemplate the invasion of Iraq for the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction?

Was it disgusting to even contemplate cutting off all aid to the Palestinian Authority after the democratic process elected a government that the west didn't agree with?

A bit of a double standard don't you think/ we're talking about discussing the idea of asking some Israeli scientists not to attend a learned conference.

Bit of a double standard, wouldn't you agree?

Perhaps you don’t really believe in free speech either.

I think we can simply declare that the political Right hates Moslems in general and Arab Moslems in particular. Examples abound if you google it or watch tv.

So let's all continue to justify occupying foreign countries and blowing up Moslems on the grounds that Moslems are at best, incapable of running their own governments and at worst, all terrorists and that that is simply reality, not racism.

Oh and if you disagree you're an anti-semite planning a new Final Solution.

Real anti-semitism would be saying that Jews were incapable of running a functioning gov't. Funny how saying the reverse is not censored here.

Anti-semitism, in the current and conventional sense, meaning a prejudice or hostility towards people of the jewish faith, is abhorrent.

ubiquitous, yes. But I don't see why other groups shouldn't receive the same treatment. Why is it okay to slander Arab Moslems on the Tyee? Does the Tyee support the slander of Arab Moslems or just ignores it?

As for Coyote, if calling someone a name on this board gets you banned then I have a list of people who do nothing here but disparage people and groups, and Nemesis\Elliot is at the top of it.

Within the current articles there's a comment about "faggy lawyers". Why is that not edited? Does the Tyee consider it a true statement or an untrue statement within acceptable bounds?

G West:

I said why in my post.

I don't see your double standard... Are you saying because all of this other stuff happened that it's okay to blacklist (or whatever you want to call it) Israeli scientists?

I would say it is a double standard to ask Israeli scientists not to attend because of the actions of their government while allowing, say, Egyptian, Turkish, Chinese, and especially US scientists to attend. Although these European scientists may have done this, I am not sure.

I shall miss Coyote and I can't help wondering what he said that was supposedly in need of censorship.

I forswear the use of the term Anti-Semitesince it is meaningless. It refers to a language group to which both Arabic and Hebrew belong.

The terms Anti-Zionist and Anti-Jewish will be what I use, because they mean different things.

The term "Semitic" was first used in English in the early 19th century, initially referring to languages but later to peoples while the term "anti-Semitism" was first used in the 1880's. Both terms came from German. The term "anti-Semitism" may well be flawed by not including other "children of Shem" or "member[s] of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs" but the definition and usage of the term is well established in current times to refer specifically to anti-Jewish or Judeophobic activity.

This reduction of the entire debate to questioning widely accepted usage of a term is completely absurd. Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? No, not unless one broadens the term "anti-Semite" to an absurd extent...kind of like the usage of fascist and communist on these boards. Ideological debate is essentially a meaningless barrage of words that can have no specific meaning except to those on one's own side, buzzwords intended to rally the troops rather than any meaningful dialogue. It does not matter which end, side, planet or whatever one is on, but once the formulaic diatribes and rampant ad-hominem attacks begin all hope is lost for the thread. I must admit I do enjoy the throwback comments that creep up from time to time, some stuff right out of Soviet or US propaganda from the 50's but the best of it is straight out of Plekhanov.

I disagree with the censoring of Coyote's comments, but I recognise that it is well within the stated regulations of the Tyee. I do not believe that he is anti-semitic, although I do believe that the debate about the meaning of the term is flawed. It is a tactic used by many who deny the Holocaust as a "nudge wink" type thing: "I love Arabs, how can I be an anti-Semite?" There really is no debate about the accepted meaning, except with the arbiters of the English language. While you are there ask them why we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway; or why INexplosive means it won't explode but INflammable means it will burn; or why anti-Americanism means anti-USism. The language has problems piled upon problems exacerbated by the varying influences of religion and ideology as they attempt to enforce their usage to frame the debate. When definitions are debated there can be no further discussion, perhaps we could switch to German but many folks here use German words only to denote "fascism" ie "Herr Harper."

Sometimes I mull over the changes all of us and our predecessors have gone thru is coming to our dear Canada, deciding what to leave behind and what to keep, deciding what to pick up again and what to leave alone. I guess that a part of the rush to enlist for the Great War was the fact that a lot of us were recently from the UK. From time to time we see, and some of us experience, urges to become involved in something happening in the old country. Certainly there was a lot of excitement a year or so ago about the election challenge in Ukraine. Recently we've heard of various pressures on people about civil war in Sri Lanka.
So Jewish Canadians are likely as all over the map as the rest of us when these pressures come to call.
I think tho that there is a special pressure regarding Israel because the B'nai Brith and Canadian Jewish Congress spokespersons keep sounding as if they represent Tel Aviv rather than te broaad spectrum of opinion that there membership in Canada has. We do have the odd person here who would like to say that the BB and CJC do not accurately represent their views,...but they dasn't want to do it too loudly.
And so there is that pressure of others assuming that you already have a hard line view regarding the actions of a far away nation that is not your homeland...Canada is.

Nana:

Look it up in a dictionary.

Gwest, it's not about me. I always have to remind you of that, for some reason.

This thread has affirmed my initial point. It's not "one-sided prejudice" on my part - it's bona fide fact now.

It's not my fault someone chose to call me a nazi ("neoconazi" - I've been slapped with that one at least a hundred times on these threads...now that's "mean-spirited", Alcibiades) and called for the deportation of Jews out of the Levant, and then tried to pretend that anti-Semitism is a fantasy or some sort of nonsensical semantic trick (and don't tell me this isn't exactly what was insinuated and repeated by others on the thread). Why wasn't that poster "full of it" in your books, Gwest? Why hasn't anyone here cut-&-pasted his posts for criticism, I wonder? You say I have a one-sided prejudice - Geez, look to the splinter in your own eye.

Again, the strained and shrill apologetics from the Leftist ideologues on this thread only affirm my initial point. A potent anti-Jewish undercurrent has emerged on the political Left, and has actually become normative in some Leftist circles, and this blight should be identified and disavowed by responsible people irrespective of political stripe.

This "closing ranks" I'm seeing here is a little atavistic, in my opinion.

I totally agree with you Frank. We've also heard ronny erwin lament about the virtues of western society as far, far superior to any other society on Earth - then, and very simplistically, turn any criticism of the Bush administration into anit-American. My question was a tongue in cheek remark to nightbloom who, it seems, just wanted someone on the supposedly anti-Semitic left to condemn anti-Semitism.

Gerhardius:

I agree, and that is why I feel it is so important to be precise about using words correctly.

And as far as i can see nightbloom, we're still waiting for some responsible person to identify the anti-Jewish sentiment epitomized by the political left.

nightbloom

Methinks you are mistaken about the leftist anti semitic conspiracy. The lefties used to say a few things about apartheid during the bad old days in South Africa, but it was kind of tough to label them then...what were they going to do, claim the lefties were communists?...With lefties making observations about apartheid practiced by Israel it is easier to label them as anti semitic. Saves having to argue the actual issues! It means getting into the kind of red herring stuff that coyote got in trouble for pursuing.
Another tactic that you might be interested in , tho, nightbloom, is the recent attempts to link Hezballah to Nazism. (I tell you, I just can't keep up with who the latest hitler is.) If this tactic works out, why in no time at all we'll have the Palestinians responsible fo the Holocaust.

So, I think that labeling critics of Israel's actions anti semitic is a red herring to escape talking the actual actions going on over there.

No nightbloom, it IS about you when you throw around the kind of blanket statements you constantly utilize instead of actual debate.

No one, repeat no one, personalizes things here more than you do. And, no one, repeat no one, more consistently ignores the complexity of views on the left. You just slagged Alcibiades above here and ignored what he wrote on another post after it had been clearly pointed out to you. Not only is that dishonest, it's intellectually lazy and you do it all the time. You did it yesterday too with respect to the piece from King Abdullah – you conveniently ignore anything that you disagree with.

Jimmy_laroux

The point is that there is very little else that people can do these days with respect to making their views known about what is going on in the Middle East. It may well be unpalatable to you that individuals have to suffer the consequences of what their governments do, but, given the difficulty that one has finding a way to criticize what's going on in the Middle East these days it's not difficult to understand why some university professors might 'discuss' some kind of symbolic action to bring their feelings to bear on the question.

In a world where one can overlook the fact that sanctions against a democratically-elected Palestinian government are causing hunger and shortages for a lot of innocent women and children I find it hard to get too upset about a few 'hurt' feelings.

As a matter of fact, I can point out a number of Israeli academics who are also very critical of their own government.

Is that chicken stealing, cat eating insulter Coyote really gone? He called me a Nazi many times on different threads, I can't say I'm sorry to see his sorry ass go, see ya.

macsasquatch - LOL - good to see someone on this thread still has a sense of humour! Thanx for the pointer (not!). Actually I'm still trying to get over the recent attempt to link poor Nightbloom to Nazism!

Gwest, you always respond along the lines of "oh but it IS about you"...but no really, it isn't. No, really.

And no one "slagged" Alcibiades, nor have I 'personalized' this thread in the slightest. I actually like you two - I just wish both of you would get back to posting good stuff instead of indulging nonsense or trying to act as my gadflies. I mean, criticize away by all means, but enough with the "arrogant" and "mean-spirited" and "slagging" tripe - those words are meaningless when you cast them at me after you and Alcibiades cheered on and/or otherwise provided apologetics for anti-Semitic, homophobic and mysandrist posters simply because they share your ideological stripe (and not necessarily on this thread alone either).

Oh, btw macsasquatch:

I agree in principle, but that's actually not what went on here.

BS nightbloom,
You said above here that no one from the left had condemned anti-Semitism and that is a bold faced lie.

If you'd read the material I pointed out to you you'd know it.

If that kind of comment isn't slagging then I don't know what is.

coyote
I am not a regular contributor on this site but I will miss your comments.
I, too, would be interested to know for what you were censored.
If there is a racial bias here perhaps you could create your own website where ideas an be discussed freely without fear of censorship. It seems, as Frank points out, that anti-Arabism is quite acceptable on this site. Somebody should be able to present the Arab side of the story which you seem willing and able to do.
I did not read anything in any of your posts that could be construed as "anti-Semitic". Your analysis of the situation in the ME is sound and the presentation, as always, lively and entertaining.
Perhaps the solution is to leave this site. Maybe Big Ed, Duncan(Sask Farmer) GWest, Frank, Lynn and all the other free thinkers will follow leaving the likes of Elliot, IAMClueless to stroke nightbloom's puffed-up intellectual ego.
If you would send me the offending post I'd appreciate it.

You are, nightbloom after all is said and done, the same fellow who's been screaming about the anti-Semitism of the academic left who, when confronted by mjf's and ubiquitous's, among others, repeated requests for a little evidence of this egregious thing says and I'll paraphrase because I haven't time to find the actual quote: 'find it yourself'.

That's exactly what's been going on here. And as for personal insults, you've been pretty 'liberal' with those too as bob the cat and others will attest.

You might not like the fact, but you are at the very centre of what's happened here today...and please, spare me the phony 'I really like you guys stuff' it's stale.

G West:

Other than asking Israeli scientists not to attend conferences? Are you being serious? All this does is hold back the exchange of scientific ideas.

And what about the double standard I mentioned in my previous post? If it's done for the Israelis, why not the Turks or Columbians or Americans?

A bit beside the point... Do you think that blacklisting them will make them more or less likely to side with their government?

jimmy_laroux
I don't know. It wouldn't be my way of registering disagreement.

But.

That is not the point surely. People, out of frustration, do foolish things. That is, unfortunately the nature of humanity - my remark about the Israeli academics was meant to imply that they might find boycotting an activity they had some sympathy with - that's all.

Faced with what we take, as humane beings, to be inexcusable or inexplicable actions by our elected governments we can do little else than find some way to protest.

Are anti-war marches a waste of time?

Were the protests against the war in Vietnam beside the point?

It was official policy of the US government in 1945 to hold back scientific knowledge to Soviet scientists about the atom bomb - but I guess that's okay because it permits a government we agree with to extend its suzerainty over a government we see as evil.

Was it okay to boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow, or for the eastern bloc to boycott the Los Angeles games? These are, surely, symbolic acts. As for the danger to scientific knowledge, I think that’s not in any danger. If you’ve ever been to a learned conference you’ll know that the material presented there is always available both in journals and on line – mere banishment from a conference is not going to set back the quest for a cure for cancer more than a nanosecond.

This is far from a perfect world.

I have all kinds of sympathy for every Israeli soldier who risked his or her life during the recent war in Lebanon but I'm not prepared to pretend that Israel, as some would have us believe, is blameless and not deserving of criticism. Nor am I willing to sit still while someone advances the idea that the other side in this conflict is not represented and defended by young men and women who bleed and suffer too.

I find the boycott somewhat foolish myself but that is only my opinion - I don't agree with suicide bombings either. It is certainly no evidence of wide-spread anti-Semitism in academia – despite what nightbloom might say.

Anyway, here's a little clip of an IDF regiment during a raid on an Lebanese village. You'll have to copy it and paste it into a new window - for some reason it won't launch when you click on it. When I finished watching it, I couldn't help but think that there must be better ways to solve our problems:
http://switch248-01.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=209947&ak=63628786

I hope it works.

Hashing and re-hashing the Balfour Declaration or the war of '67 or the ... is a waste of time. And worse, it is a waste of energy which might be used constructively. I highly doubt the average hungry person in any of the regions which have been mentioned so easily so far here really gives the first part of a toot about that. I do think kidnapping Lebanese inside the borders of Lebanon is just a bit much, and I know in my heart that carpet bombing entire villages of innocent people in order to maybe get maybe six or seven angry people who maybe do and maybe don't support Hizzbollah is more than I can stomach. I am sick and tired of excusatory bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of hearing "has the right to defend herself" when that apology is used to defend the deaths of children huddled in raw terror in a basement. The Zionist-Amerikkkan alliance has committed the equivalent of international war crimes and it is a sick commentary that we all know they will not have to answer for it. All this bumph and wah wah being thrown about by people with too much time on their hands isn't going to help anyone anywhere. Amerikkka needs a pitbull to help hang onto the pipelines and dominate the oil fields and that is what it is really all about and we all know it we're just too terminally polite to come out and say it. All the little people, regardless of nationality or political loyalty will be thrown into the shrub chipper and turned to liquified grue if that's what it takes for the cartel to continue to haul in the billions of profit. Iran is not building an atom bomb for chrissake, they are years and years and YEARS away from being able to even think about that, all they've managed is to get to 3% radioactive strength and for chrissake that won't even de-salinate water let alone explode. The US has nukes, Israel has nuke, India has nukes, Pakistan has nukes "all gods chillun got nukes" but we're going to walk the precipice of a third world war because Iran wants to have nuclean powered electrical plants? Get real. It's a friggin excuse to go in, kick ass and control their oil, too.

The arstles orchestrating this don't give a rat's furry back end if the dead are Palestinian, Iraqui, Iranian, Lebanese, Syrian or Hottentot as long as they are dead, dead, dead and the oil continues to flow. With pipelines coming from Kurdistan, Uzbekistan, Thisisstan and Thatisstan, taking oil oil oil to the oil hungry technologically emerging China, the biggest market to be seen anywhere.

While pettifogging debate about something that happened or didn't or was badly reported or not at all back in the year ZOT continues, children are being chopped to shreds. And all the hot air and skilled debating tactics are mere evasive avoidances . We have allowed ourselves to be turned into a pack of peeping toms, watching video images of children being brought out of the rubble in bits and pieces. Click on this link and see the guts dangle in the dust, click on that link and see how the head has been smashed..****!

I have grandchildren, they have brown skin and black hair, they have huge black eyes, they are soft and warm and cuddly, they are loving and gentle and enjoy being rocked to sleep and I'll bet you anything so did the kids who were blown to mush. And I do not care who you are or for what supposedly lofty ideal you do it, if you slaughter my grandchildren I promise I will drink your fuckin' blood, and that of every member of your family. And I have more in common with a grandmother in whatever country than I have with the sick puss bags who sit in offices and plan this kind of nauseating endeavor.

Jesus Christ can't they just whip'em out, lay'em on the table, get out the measuring tape and find out which of the swingin' dicks is the longest and get it over with before they kill every living thing on the planet?

G West:

And we should point out that it is foolishness whenever it happens.

I sure hope not. But I was not commenting on the effectiveness of the boycott at raising awareness, but rather the fact that there are many much more constructive ways of raising awareness. Anyway I think the publicity it will generate will be negative.

The double standard does not help the perception that there is.

Maybe not much. They have conferences for a reason, though, so it's not as though journal papers alone are equivalent.

I'd like to thank Gerhardius for giving the actual definition of Semite - not that it did much good - but some still call First Nations Indians (shrugs philosophically). I said anti-Semitism is a myth because it is a nonsensical concept given the meaning of the word (and what is a word if it has no meaning?) - especially when applying it to the disdain (alright, downright angst) of those having a social conscience (who many here seem to equate with the left) seem to regard the military apartheid state of Israel. This is why Nana declared a prohibition on the wrongly applied term. Anti-semitism was used to describe the intolerance of the Nazis towards the Jewish people - but they (the Nazis) didn't even get their own ethnicity right (they fancied themselves "Aryans" - when most with a modicum of education know refers to the Central Asians from Caucasia - or, as they are known today, Iranians) - so who is surprised they were possibly wrong about the Jews in Germany being of true Semitic origin? The Jews were persecuted in Europe - and now the cycle of abuse continues as Isreal does unto others as they were done unto (chronic victim syndrome). Ironic - there is anti-Semitism in the Middle East - and it is displayed by the heinous action of Israel most recently in Lebanon - and over the last 50 years or so of their destructive wrath on the people of Palestine. "I'm not my brother's keeper" rings a different truth in light of this sorry state of affairs.
And, yes, jimmy_laroux, I don't make up stuff (I can understand your questioning facts on this board - where blooming hot air can blow some fowl smog somewhere left of centre) - there was a call for a boycott of Israel http://ucdivest.org/newsitems/europeanboycott.php by scientists.

I utterly reject that. I started off with a simple observation, which has been borne out by this thread. We're all responsible for our own actions, and our own words, Gwest. Coyote breached the terms he agreed to, and then flouted his agreement again after fair warning.

I have breached no agreement nor said anything unwarranted here. My offense is that I refuse to swallow your garbage. If you can go through this thread and still argue that anti-Jewish sentiment has not become normative within some Leftist circles, then you need to go find reality. I still can't believe you're still defending that guy...and then you have the gall to turn around and blame me for that loud mouth's fck-up. Get a grip.

But then I guess you're being true to the liberal-Left's cardinal vocation: Blame.

As I told Bob the Cat: Don't hang your shit on me. Buckle up and wipe your ass on your own shirt, Gwest, not mine.

Nothing like the eloquence of a grandmother. Accolades your way, anne cameron.

climber, you refer to people as "faggy lawyers" or having hairy-armpit girlfriends from Commercial Drive.

Elliot calls teachers terrorists.

Ron Erwin calls everyone that's against the war in Iraq, terrorists.

TaxCutter calls women who need affordable daycare a "bunch of 12 year old sluts".

And now nightbloom has said the Arabs are incapable of governing themselves.

None of those statements were ever edited or even got a warning. Yet who gets banned? Coyote.

If the left leaves the Tyee comment section there is no comment section. It'll be nothing but another Ezra Levant site.

Maybe not at all, in my view

Learned Society Conferences are important for many reasons: mostly social ones. Also a good place to flog your cv if you’re looking for a change.

The point, and especially around this subject, is that there is such an aura of prissiness about it that a whole range of dialogue is just dumped in the dustbin because it's dismissed by people who are more interested in advancing a cause than debating the realities on the ground. It's as if we're all standing around with our hands over our ears screaming.

Anne Cameron's post above is the most honest thing here, in my view, and you sure couldn't call her politically correct.

We can stand around pointing out what we think is foolishness as much as we like - I don't think it gets us very far. By the way, I think it's foolish because it is a waste of time and effort - not because I disagree with the emotion and sentiment behind it.

I don't think you really have a point. If it’s not possible to criticize Israel without being accused of harboring anti-Semitic feelings (and sometimes I fear that’s the case) then we are in very, very bad shape. And if Jewish people in Canada have to fear for their safety because someone might threaten them because of their religion then we’re in even worse shape.

All of us shutting up about it is not going to help and platitudes about pointing our how open-minded and fair we are won’t help either.

Posting to this site isn't going to change much other than make some of us feel a little better and provide that subtle frisson that many feel when we see our own words in print.

If the people who think pushing for a boycott of Israeli academics is worthwhile I'm not going to second guess them - at least they're doing something.

Which is more than the rest of us are.

nightbloom
Take a quick look back at your own posts...just the ones between us: Go to the 6 lessons site and read what went on there. You are so far out of shape on this issue that you're reduced to toilet paper jokes.

Elliot, the uber-troll, and Deep Forbidden Lake trade insults, DFL gets banned. Elliot? Not even a slap on the wrist.

GhostMachine and his leftist rants? Banned.

On it goes.

The answer is a site where we on the left can actually discuss things without constantly being attacked by trolls and we leave the Tyee to the anti-Moslem, anti-women, anti-poor, anti-education, anti-everything brigade.

Avicenna:

If by "Semitic" you mean a language group, you are correct.

If by "anti-Semitic" you mean intolerance toward people who speak a Semitic language, you are incorrect. Again, crack a dictionary.

I think the confusion might be over the fact that "anti-Semitic" is (I think this is the right term) non-compositional. Its meaning is not derived from the meaning of its subparts.

So, you say it is a myth because of it's meaning, but that it also has no meaning. And, if I understand you, it is also a myth because it assumes that criticism of the actions of the Israeli government is equivalent to anti-Semitism.

I totally reject that equivalence, as, I'm sure do most people writing on this thread.

Saying anti-Semitism is non-sensical or a myth is just plain out of tough with reality, not to mention very offensive.

Also, "Aryans" is another 19th century racial term that not many people take seriously.

The message above (not the one for nightbloom) is meant for jimmy_laroux - I should have noted - a number of other posts interjected. Sorry

Excuse me, but why shouldn't Israeli scientists not be invited to a conference if the organizers don't like their politics?

Who are we in Canada with our terrorist list to complain about that kind of behaviour? Its not like we're inviting Hezbollah scientists or politicians over to Montreal for drinks.

I'm pretty sure not everyone in the world likes us either and if they don't want to invite us out for a night that's their prerogative.

G West:

Did you read any of my posts on the topic of asking Israeli scientists not to attend conferences?

We are back to the double standard I've mentioned in my previous posts. It's not just that Israeli scientists have been asked not to attend, it's that *only* Israeli scientists have been asked not to attend (as far as I've heard on this thread). Although I agree with your point ingeneral.

We get to read other people's opinions on the matter, often opinions that we would not hear elsewhere. Isn't that enough?

Sometimes it's easy to mistake action for progress.

Dear Jimmy,
Although in the overall scheme of things it is a moot point - the moot point I was really trying to make is that in actuality (regardless of the fact whether Jews crying - "woe me the victim - awaiting my saviour" - agree or not) - Arabs are Semites! Yes, truly they are - not only their language - but their whole freakin' geneology is one genetic point off the Hebrew scale. Semites spring from the fruitful loins of Shem: "Shem was the progenitor of the south-western nations of Asia, being the father of Elam (Persia), Ashur (Assyria), Arpachshad or Arpachaxad (according to Josephus, Chaldea), from whom descended the Hebrews and Arabs, Lud (Lydia) and Aram (Syria)." It is unfair to overlook his other children when inciting the racism against his pedigree, eh? Heck, I would like to throw my gene into the semitic pool - it may come up with some decent inheritance (although, I hope it doesn't include goat carcass as I am a vegetarian). If you still refuse to agree with me, I guess I'll just have to live with the fact that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - unless, of course, if you are in the desert.

Dear Avicenna,

I don't even know where to begin with your last post. So I won't.

Sincerely,

jimmy_laroux

jimmy
In general, as I think I've made clear, I have no real problem with 'asking' Israeli scientists to stay home although I doubt it'll do much good - on the other hand, I can't disagree with what Frank said either.

I think the way Borys Wrzesnewskyj was demonized for his statement relative to aid for Hezbollah was as narrow minded and as anything that's been said here. I notice his free speech isn't being defended much by anyone. What's that an example of?

The observations by our Prime Minister in his statements about Israel and Lebanon should be so empathetic!

Frank, once I used the term, "faggy lawyer", its true, once. I am sorry, that wasn't nice. I used the words "g/f with hair under her arms", what is the problem here? I find it disgusting, some women (womyn) see it as empowering. Coyote used the words neocon nazi, nazi, bootlicker, goof etc, constantly. He also advocated smashing ruling class heads, I believe. So now, by using his insults in a debate about about Jews, a very touchy subject for some, he finally got slapped down, good, and good riddance.

climber
bit of a double standard don't you think?

In a day and age where cuss words are sprinkled more generously into most conversations than pepper on a steak it seems a little hypocritical not to ban everyone who uses that kind of language - that was the point Frank was trying to make. You just provided a ready example - there are, as he wrote, many others.

G West, thanks for pointing out the elephant in the room. The hypocrisy of the criticism lauded on Wrzesnewskyj speaks volumes - especially given the crap that came from Harper's hooligans comparing Hizbollah to Nazis. We need people like Wrzesnewskyj who can still call it like he sees it in gov't - or else we'll just end up as an extension of the miserable Bush administration (I'm still living in the fantasy land that we're not yet part of the neocon empire where humanoids without a ticker in their heart are rare beings). I would jump for joy if the NDP took him in - the Liberals have lost their identity.

Frank:

But it's not about a person's politics, it's about their country of origin, right?

Is there a Hezbollah University with Hezbollah scientists as faculty members?

jimmy
that's just boiler plate. Eventually the British had to sit down with Sein Fenn and the Irgun and the Americans had to talk to Ghadaffi. The sooner people start talking and stop shooting the better. Most Eurpopean nations haven't banned the political wing of Hezbollah. Shutting the door on someone is a sure way to create problems.

Here's a little paragraph written the other day by Uri Avnery you might want to consider:

Of all that has been said about the Second Lebanon War, these are perhaps
the most important words.

The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and
destruction in Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home,
from Indonesia to Morocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and
Berlin. Not for an hour, not for a day, but for 33 successive days - day
after day, hour after hour. The mangled bodies of babies, the women weeping
over the ruins of their homes, Israeli children writing "greetings" on
shells about to be fired at villages, Ehud Olmert blabbering about "the most
moral army in the world" while the screen showed a heap of bodies.

Israelis ignored these sights, indeed they were scarcely shown on our TV. Of
course, we could see them on Aljazeera and some Western channels, but
Israelis were much too busy with the damage wrought in our Northern towns.
Feelings of pity and empathy for non-Jews have been blunted here a long time
ago.

But it is a terrible mistake to ignore this result of the war. It is far
more important than the stationing of a few thousand European troops along
our border, with the kind consent of Hizbullah. It may still be bothering
generations of Israelis, when the names Olmert and Halutz have long been
forgotten, and when even Nasrallah no longer remembers the name Amir Peretz.

RE FRANK'S COMMENT:

"None of those statements were ever edited or even got a warning. Yet who gets banned? Coyote."

Coyote was never 'banned.' He chose to declare that he will no longer comment. He did so after a few lines of his voluminous comments on this site were edited because he used 'Nazi' and related terms to describe people who say anti-Semitism exists. Please, some perspective.

Re: Frank's comment

So it's all right for a pseudonymous poster to refer to an individual, or class of individuals, as a 'fag' or ‘faggy’ but not a 'nazi'.

Just trying to get the terminology straight.

And this,

from Shannon Rupp, the other day, is also okay and doesn't require editing.

I still think Orwell has it pretty well dead to rights and in the proper perspective.

'Nerve wrakcing now' to be Coyote I guess...

Lets keep in mind one salient fact: Israel has the right to exist. aThis truth is dispuited by the majority of arab and persian muslims. Anywhere u have Muslims you have poverty (with a bow to our wonderful and progressive Ismaili's) and dictators who distract their people from the fact that they have no job/future or hope by promoting hate of Israel. This Israeli leader is incompetent and has conducted a very flawed and wicked campaign and I am would wager that most Jews are uncomfortable with him. But when it comes down to the short strokes I support Israel's right to exist.

And we can ask much the same about other states. State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

Noam Chomsky

and their pernicious aspects should be overcome...

And so do I garryw. But not necessarily in the way it currently 'exists' relative to its neighbours or even to some of its own citizens.

The piece I posted above, from Uri Averny, an Israeli, goes further - as follows:

The whole Zionist enterprise has been compared to the transplantation of an
organ into the body of a human being. The natural immunity system rises up
against the foreign implant, the body mobilizes all its power to reject it.
The doctors use a heavy dosage of medicines in order to overcome the
rejection. That can go on for a long time, sometimes until the eventual
death of the body itself, including the transplant.

(Of course, this analogy, like any other, should be treated cautiously. An
analogy can help in understanding things, but no more than that.)

The Zionist movement has planted a foreign body in this country, which was
then a part of the Arab-Muslim space. The inhabitants of the country, and
the entire Arab region, rejected the Zionist entity. Meanwhile, the Jewish
settlement has taken roots and become an authentic new nation rooted in the
country. Its defensive power against the rejection has grown. This struggle
has been going on for 125 years, becoming more violent from generation to
generation. The last war was yet another episode.

WHAT IS our historic objective in this confrontation?

A fool will say: to stand up to the rejection with a growing dosage of
medicaments, provided by America and World Jewry. The greatest fools will
add: There is no solution. This situation will last forever. There is
nothing to be done about it but to defend ourselves in war after war after
war. And the next war is already knocking on the door.

The wise will say: our objective is to cause the body to accept the
transplant as one of its organs, so that the immune system will no longer
treat us as an enemy that must be removed at any price. And if this is the
aim, it must become the main axis of our efforts. Meaning: each of our
actions must be judged according to a simple criterion: does it serve this
aim or obstruct it?

According to this criterion, the Second Lebanon War was a disaster.

FIFTY NINE years ago, two months before the outbreak of our War of
Independence, I published a booklet entitled "War or Peace in the Semitic
Region". Its opening words were:

"When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a 'safe haven' in Palestine,
they had a choice between two ways:

"They could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who sees himself as
a bridge-head of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives', like the
Spanish Conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonists in America. That is
what the Crusaders did in Palestine.

"The second way was to consider themselves as an Asian nation returning to
its home - a nation that sees itself as an heir to the political and
cultural heritage of the Semitic race, and which is prepared to join the
peoples of the Semitic region in their war of liberation from European
exploitation."

As is well known, the State of Israel, which was established a few months
later, chose the first way. It gave its hand to colonial France, tried to
help Britain to return to the Suez Canal and, since 1967, has become the
little sister of the United States.

It's long so I'll post the rest following.

But after every huge step forward, there came an Israeli step backward. It
is as if the transplant rejects the body's acceptance of it. As if it has
become so accustomed to being rejected, that it does all it can to induce
the body to reject it even more.

It is against this background that one should weigh the words spoken by
Assad Jr., a member of the new Arab generation, at the end of the recent
war.

AFTER EVERY single one of the war aims put forward by our government had
evaporated, one after the other, another reason was brought up: this war was
a part of the "clash of civilizations", the great campaign of the Western
world and its lofty values against the barbarian darkness of the Islamic
world.

That reminds one, of course, of the words written 110 years ago by the
father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the founding document of the
Zionist movement: "In Palestine…we shall constitute for Europe a part of the
wall against Asia, and serve as the vanguard of civilization against
barbarism." Without knowing, Olmert almost repeated this formula in his
justification of his war, in order to please President Bush.

It happens from time to time in the United States that somebody invents an
empty but easily digested slogan, which then dominates the public discourse
for some time. It seems that the more stupid the slogan is, the better its
chances of becoming the guiding light for academia and the media - until
another slogan appears and supersedes it. The latest example is the slogan
"Clash of Civilizations", coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1993 (taking
over from the "End of History").

What clash of ideas is there between Muslim Indonesia and Christian Chile?
What eternal struggle between Poland and Morocco? What is it that unifies
Malaysia and Kosovo, two Muslim nations? Or two Christian nations like
Sweden and Ethiopia?

In what way are the ideas of the West more sublime than those of the East?
The Jews that fled the flames of the auto-da-fe of the Christian Inquisition
in Spain were received with open arms by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The most
cultured of European nations democratically elected Adolf Hitler as its
leader and perpetrated the Holocaust, without the Pope raising his voice in
protest.

In what way are the spiritual values of the United States, today's Empire of
the West, superior to those of India and China, the rising stars of the
East? Huntington himself was compelled to admit: "The West won the world not
by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its
superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this
fact, non-Westerners never do." In the West, too, women won the vote only in
the 20th century, and slavery was abolished there only in the second half of
the 19th. And in the leading nation of the West, fundamentalism is now also
raising its head.

What interest, for goodness sake, have we in volunteering to be a political
and military vanguard of the West in this imagined clash?

There's more, be patient.

The Second Lebanon War is considered by many as a "War by Proxy". That's to
say: Hizbullah is the Dobermann of Iran, we are the Rottweiler of America.
Hizbullah gets money, rockets and support from the Islamic Republic, we get
money, cluster bombs and support from the United States of America.

That is certainly exaggerated. Hizbullah is an authentic Lebanese movement,
deeply rooted in the Shiite community. The Israeli government has its own
interests (the occupied territories) that do not depend on America. But
there is no doubt that there is much truth in the argument that this was
also a war by substitutes.

The US is fighting against Iran, because Iran has a key role in the region
where the most important oil reserves in the world are located. Not only
does Iran itself sit on huge oil deposits, but through its revolutionary
Islamic ideology it also menaces American control over the near-by oil
countries. The declining resource oil becomes more and more essential in the
modern economy. He who controls the oil controls the world.

The US would viciously attack Iran even it were peopled with pigmies devoted
to the religion of the Dalai Lama. There is a shocking similarity between
George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The one has personal conversations
with Jesus, the other has a line to Allah. But the name of the game is
domination.

What interest do we have to get involved in this struggle? What interest do
we have in being regarded - accurately - as the servants of the greatest
enemy of the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular?

We want to live here in 100 years, in 500 years. Our most basic national
interests demand that we extend our hands to the Arab nations that accept
us, and act together with them for the rehabilitation of this region. That
was true 59 years ago, and that will be true 59 years hence.

Little politicians like Olmert, Peretz and Halutz are unable to think in
these terms. They can hardly see as far as the end of their noses. But where
are the intellectuals, who should be more far-sighted?

Bashar al-Assad may not be one of the world's Great Thinkers. But his remark
should certainly give us pause for thought.

Now that's a lot more polite and nuanced than what the Coyote has been saying here and it's coming from an Israeli but it's essentially the same message. And I don't have too much trouble with it either. Those people who accept Stephen Harper's appreciation of this situation, to my way of seeing things, ought to be doing a little more soul-searching as well.

This was published, by the way, on August 28 of this year.

You know what...sometimes, one just has to voice their opinion 'cause sometimes, right or wrong, its all we have... so here's mine.

The tyee has come to be one of my most favorite places to go online, simply because David Beers has was it takes to put out excellent stories (with some 5 star reporting, I might add.) Some of his regulars are my favorites. Rafe and Donald Gutstein come to mind with the regulars, point is, there is some real talent and straight shooters here.

As well, there are some true writers here, in commentary land

Avicenna:
I've really come to admire your heart and intelligence. And you are so young!!! What are you doing knowing so much and caring for all of the right things at such an early age? I'm blown away by your maturity.

G West & Frank:

You are both true blue scribes, natural born. Both of you know that to get to the pure truth of it, it takes work and that means in literary terms, research. Few people are your match on such a wide range of topics. And Frank, I've yet to see anyone wear as many hats as you. Your perspective of the big picture is nothing short of awesome.

Lynn:
You are my favorite. I have yet to read anyones comments that cut to the chase as quickly as your own. I'm not sure what you do for a living, but if it isn't writing best sellers or editorials, your talents are wasted. You've impressed me the most, not just with your intelligence, but with your soul. You are simply put, wise.

anarcho, bob the cat, Chris H (yah, we had our fallouts me and Chris, mainly because he was right and I was wrong is the truth of it) RTB, Trueman, Fiat Lux, and so many others I like so apologies for not mentioning them...

The tyee does have its family and even when we disagree, to which I disagree with Capitalism, IMAC, Elliot and others, their perspectives are needed and flush out the truth, albeit, not because they told it.

Censorship is like putting on rosed colored glasses, pretending that people who think and live in ways we don't won't made public, don't exist. But they do exist... and when its "in your face", there is one of two choices. Go along with it or accept it... or "face it back".

Which brings me to Coyote "the trickster". What would we do without him? His style of writing, his own wisdom and unwaivering ability to not back down from his own principles (not yours, not mine, not even Gods, but his own) makes him the Jewel of the Tyee. And why? Because his opinions can't be bought. He's his own man, something that is indeed a rarity in this world.

If I had a wish, it would be for him to see the principles of God from the head himself. There is nothing like "validation" concerning what family we do belong to, or who's principles Coyote often (though not always) mirrors.
David Beers (of whom I have tremendous respect for), Coyote, (the same goes for you) make peace. You both need each other more than you realize.

And nightbloom... you have let me down the most. I can only hope the last part of the year from you is better than the first.

Hey Climber..do you shave your armpits?

What about the hair on your back, it's every bit as disgusting. as is the hair across your shoulders. I'm not fond of the hair on your chest and belly, either.

Your double standard regarding women is disgusting.

Is David Beers going to suggest to you that you stop being disgusting?

Maybe Coyote went over the top; some others here go there regularly. And you, Climber, seem to dwell over the top much of the time.

I pulled away from posting anything on Tyee for a number of months because I felt it was insular, it was half the time out of control, and increasingly irrelevant. I went to Rabble, to EnMasse and to BreadnRoses. Debate there is much more civilized and not the least bit tame or boring and for sure nobody gets away with anti-woman crap.

So many people so ready to leap up and froth at the mouth in a debate over the term anti-semite and nobody calls Climber on his anti-woman shite. And you guys wonder why increasing numbers of women are just walking away from The Tyee?

Frank said:

Frank, grow up. I said no such thing. Go back and read the sentence, as well as the one that follows it.

The Brain - My offense here was to point out that that the ideological Left is having "Jewish Problem" at the moment that has little or nothing to do with rational critique of Israeli policies. I'm afraid this thread has confirmed it. You guys are getting totally hysterical here. I mean really, is that an obituary you're writing over there?

As for Coyote's signature style - didn't it ever occur to you that maybe his calling people whom he disagrees with 'Nazis' all the freakin' time wasn't a good idea, particular considering the subject matter under discussion? Have you ever spoken up? He's been calling me a Nazi on a semi-regular basis for nearly a year now. I certainly don't recall anyone leaping to my defence each time he tossed an epithet, indulged in gratuitous name-calling, homophobic slurs (don't make me list them - smiley faces don't make it right) and just got downright "mean-spirited". I tried to play nice with that guy. The man's a bully with no respect for anyone who doesn't follow his party line, while coddling everyone who gave him a wide berth or applauded his antics. I feel no need to indulge that.

It is you guys who have made a poor display in this debate. None of your anti-Semitic conspiracy theories even came close to addressing the subject of the article, btw. Did you even notice that? Let's look at that title again, boyz & grrlz:

Nerve Wracking Now to Be Jewish
Fears of becoming a target. Exploding Middle East rocks sense of security in BC.

You're the ones (not all of you, but certainly the core-group) who should be embarassed.

I end with the same simple point I started with: The political Left is manifesting an anti-Jewish current at the moment which has nothing to do with rational critique of Israeli policy (as most of you tried to claim).

That's pretty straight forward. So stop the apoplectic fits, victorian vapours, hysterical accusations, name-calling, and nefarious apologetics and just move on.

nightbloom
I think, in the absence of any actual evidence that the 'political left' - (whatever that is, and it certainly isn't Tyee posters) - is manifesting an anti-Jewish current at present is as insulting as calling people the kinds of things that were edited out of Coyote's posts.

That's the problem with free speech, although you can't and haven't backed up your allegations with anything other than bold face type, I have to let you go ahead and say whatever you like. I could go back with a fine-tooth comb and post volumes of ad hominem and misogynistic passages from stuff you've written here in the few months I've been paying attention. However, I'm not going to bother.

I'm not going to bother because it wouldn't make any difference and I'd just be wasting my time. In fact, nightbloom, you're the one who ought to move on. You want the prerogatives of free speech but you can’t stop reveling in the fact that someone else has come a cropper of the arbitrary enforcement of a double standard.

As to this sentence: "That's pretty straight forward. So stop the apoplectic fits, victorian vapours, hysterical accusations, name-calling, and nefarious apologetics" - you might want to take that same advice to heart.

nightbloom, just admit it, you're on yet another one of your many commie witch hunts.

Sure, here it is

You and the Tyee have no problem with that statement because its not about Israel.

So lets see, if I said the Israelis don't have the brain capacity to run a lemonade stand let alone a government you would say what? You'd scream anti-semite and spend the next 3 days fanning yourself as you tried to overcome your breathless moral outrage.

If I say that your view of the Middle East is at best the equivalent of a 2 hour conversation with a guy that just watches Fox News in a pub in Oromocto you'd be offended. Though I don't know why since it appears your education on the subject is confined to Wikipedia and CNN.

You complain because Coyote called you a nazi and claim the rest of us are guilty for not defending you yet I've never once seen you rise to defend one of us when right-winger calls someone a Stalinist, communist, Trotskyite, Marxist-Leninist, Saddam lover, tree-hugger, slut, bitch or whatever. So not only do you not defend us you have no problem calling us names like anti-semite yourself while still wrapping yourself in the flag of outrage. And TaxCutter calling a woman on here a slut predates Coyote calling you a nazi. He didn't get banned for that and why should he, its no worse than anything Elliot has ever said. SDGreen (who was on here before I was and was the first person I argued with) calling other people Marxists and comparing us to Cambodian communists also predates Coyotes calling you a nazi. So don't act like Coyote started it.

Forget decorum, let's just all call each other whatever comes to mind. I have one kid out of high school and one in elementary so I'm up on all the latest buzzwords.

But remember, anyone who argues with Elliot will be banned, he's the Son of God around here.

Anne, calm down, I love women, I cannot stand hair under womens arms, it grosses me out, just how I feel. It was the first and only time I have ever said something like that here, its not like I used the C-word, I didn't use it to insult, just used the decription to stereotype treehuggers.
No big deal, I never called people Nazis and I never advocated smashing in peoples heads like Coyote. He insulted and belittled those who did not share his narrow party line, fact. I have lowered myself to insult people here, never at the same level of hate and meanness or using such nasty terms as Coyote, I am sorry and will try to do better.

Nightbloom, do you think there's even a remote possibility that you have referred to people as "anti-semitic," who in fact do not deserve that description--and who harbour no hostility or resentment towards any particular ethnic group?

The reason I ask, Nightbloom, is because I used to cringe everytime Coyote used that word "neoconazi," to describe people on the right with whom he disagreed. But in all sincerity, I don't think you should get off completely unscathed in this unfortunate incident due to your continually referring to people as "anti-semitic," as part of your oft-stated mantra that the Left is somehow currently infested with anti-jewish bigotry.

I, for one, am not antisemitic, but I have a big problem with the "Lobby's" influence in American foreign policy--even believing that it was Israeli influence that goaded the Bush administration into attacking Iraq--not weapons of mass destruction or oil. And to be called antisemitic for this evaluation, which I believe I have come by honestly, seems a completely unnecessary insult, and equals Coyote's "neoconazi."

Personally, I don't think there's a single anti-jewish person or nazi on this forum, and I think both of you should be admonished, not just Coyote.

Tyee Editor,

Okay, so Coyote is going into self-imposed exile.

Yet you never answered my question, is it okay on the Tyee to call people anti-Semites as nightbloom did? You'd think that since Nazi is considered by the Tyee to be worse than calling people terrorists, faggy lawyers and sluts that its possible anti-Semite might also be considered verboten.

I doubt that its just me that thinks its McCarthy-esque to log on to the Tyee and be told I have to acknowledge the errors of other leftists without evidence being offered and in fact told that I'm part of an ant-Semitic movement and I should start googling names myself while Comrade Coyote is put up against a wall for using the term nazi.

Climber: your claim that you love women rings false. Hair under a woman's arms grosses you out. Your attitude grosses me out.

You want me to calm down. I wish you'd smarten up.

Maybe when you shave your body hair... and stop calling people tree huggers...and stop deliberately being a total arstle...I won't feel as strongly negative toward you.

garryw,

Israel has no right to exist, any more than the state of Palestine or Trans-Jordan. Even Canada cannot claim it has the right to exist. If tomorrow the natives and Quebec all decided to separate and take 50% of the land mass with them they could and most countries of the world would support them and recognize them faster than you can say anti-Semite.

Israel's inability to get along with those whose territory it took over as well as its neighbours means its existence is endangered and I doubt it will survive if overrun. At best the Israeli future will be a military state on a hair trigger constantly defeating its enemies or hopefully having just enough time to evacuate its people before they're slaughtered. No one is going to rescue Israel from millions of angry neighbours that have lived under the IDF jackboot.

Thanks Brain, glad to see you're still around.

To all, from now on anyone who is a Roman Catholic will be called an anti-Semite instead. The justification for this is history, especially that of the Inquisition, need I say more? Any RCs who claim not to be anti-Semitic will have to first acknowledge the crimes of other RCs. If you don't know these crimes you will have to google them yourself and then acknowledge and apologize for them. Anyone who finds this offensive is in denial and probably a raving anti-Semite already anyway so denying it simply confirms that you blame the Jews for the Crucifixion. This will not be tolerated.

Word of the day is slut. Can you say slut? Sure, I knew that you could, or at least I knew Elliot and TaxCutter could. I want the rest of you to learn this new word and refer to each other in this manner as much as possible when not calling each other terrorist and anti-Semite. Don't worry about what the word means or whether the person you're referring to actually is one because the Tyee has decided that even calling women "12 year old slut" is totally cool. Just don't call them a nazi-slut, that's verboten. Cardinal nightbloom will have further instructions for us all in the morning.

Gee its nice to be back from holidays.

Boy, things have taken a turn south on this thread.

I will admit to not reading much of Coyote's material, because I don't have much time and he's voluminous and often irrelevant, with witless wanderings about Mrs Minx calling him to bed etc. But that's also true for several frequent contributors on this site, so I stand exposed as a part-time lurker with little at stake.

But as a former contributor to VanIndymedia, (and, incidentally the only one who slam-dunked the infamous arch-Zionist Morley Harper several times, despite getting several severe kickings in return) I recognize the turn this conversation was taking, and I suspect Beers did too.

The VanIndymedia exerience is an excellent example of what happens on an unmoderated site - people saying things they don't really mean. Everyone does it. Fascist behaviour deserves to be pointed out for recognition wherever it occurs. Naziism similarly. But there's a world of difference between the two, and conflating the two was leading to shouting matches, not intelligent discussion.

Thank you David for cutting it off, however and whyever you did it.

But just as nightbloom's Hasbara school of obstructive Zionist defence admits no wrong, neither does Coyote's seminar in abusive language and attitudes. I use the same language as Coyote does, but only to guys on the shop floor, or to the tools I'm using, and certainly not as often, or I'd end up with a wrench sticking out my head. Of all his posts I'd read, (which is to say, the shorter, more-to-the-point ones) more than 25% were of that nature. The next phase in the disease of verbal diarrhoea is rectal-cranial inversion, and it isn't pretty...

I can't say the same thing about anyone else here.

I'll gladly disassemble nightbloom or any other pro-Zionist gadfly when it's a significant issue, and when I have the time (say, nightbloom, didn't I meet you on VanIndymedia once? At the Grind, 25th and Main?) but I actually do have a life.

That's why I didn't bother with nightbloom's canard about Palestinians not being able to govern themselves, despite a two-hundred year history of self-governance when they were part of the Sanjaks of Berytus and Jerusalem, paying homage to the Ottoman empire and governing all aspects of city life including defence, property disputes, wills, caring for the poor and free votes for men and women. That the Ottomans tried to prevent any further expressions of democratic governance does not negate the fact that it was a significant part of Palestinian life through the 1800s up to the First World War. That and I can't find the book that told me that - Anne xxxx from a community college in Ontario because it's in storage with most of my library.

Life goes on, people! Spend more time reading real books and less time gabbing on this forum. This Semite - anti-Semite thing is a prime example. Thank you Gerhardius for clearing it up.

But, nightbloom, I will take issue with your first comment at the top of the thread. I have no patience with Daniel Johnson, a panderer in the Daniel Pipes mode, who is NOT hesitant to use the term Nazi whenever it suits him. Which is plenty often. He's like Coyote, resorts to demonization and insults when arguments fail him. A poor model for you.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=e3157f0d-21ad-41e9-b26e-a3c06a460e73

...climber, you said it was soooooooooooooooooo bad for Coyote to use the word "...goof". Oh, ouch, yeah "goof", bad, bad. Give me a break dude. Coyote, unlike you, was not insulting to women and homosexuals. As a women myself, I take offence to your comments about armpit hair. You might not find it attractive, but, that opinion does not belong on an Enviromental Blog. It might belong on a Loggers Blog, I don't know, but not here... Unbelievable.

Anyways, good call anne cammeron...

Peace

RTB

Zalm - thanks for returning a calmer tone to the debate.

In my defence, I'll say that I've been on the receiving end of Coyote's abuse, slurs and name-calling over the past year far more than anyone else currently on this thread. Usually most of the posters here egg him on when he get on one of his kicks, so I'm not inclined to be sympathetic. And I genuinely do believe that man is an anti-Semite, as well as - as well as a homophobe and a misgynist). This is based on his own accumulated statments over the past year, which is all I have to go on, since I don't know him personally. And to re-iterate: he is the only specific person I've referred to as an anti-Semite on this thread. Moreover, I don't accept Franks & Gwest's attempt to relativize my comments re. Coyote with his year's worth of slurs and abuse on everything from homosexuality, nazism, and Roman Catholicism. He's crossed the line many, many times...much to the delight of some of the regulars here.

And btw, the irony here is not I'm not a Zionist in any real or commited sense. We didn't even get to that. All I said was that anti-Semitism is becoming normative in certain circles on the political Left. That sparked a semantic tangent on the part of some posters (including Coyote) to the effect that anti-Semitism is a fantasy that doesn't actually exist, and Coyote went a step further to suggest to assert some bizarre eugenics argument that even the Jewish people don't really exist. That's just plain dumb.

So I agree this thread is a little nutty, but I don't see how I am responsible for that, or how I can be equated with Coyote. I'm simply a somewhat bewildered by-stander to the conflicted and confused self-contortions of the ideological Left.

Cheers!

And you said you wanted to let it go and that it wasn't about Coyote and you weren't going to mention that poster any more. Remember? Guess that was like most of your writing nightbloom - suffused with selective recall. You might want to roll back up here a few months and remember one or another of your attacks on women, or upon your real antagonist - anyone who thinks religion is a useless crutch. You used to make a good point now and again, but lately, not so much.

As someone put it yesterday, this has been highly personal from the start and not from just one point of the compass. In addition, that last sentence this morning - just above here - could be as aptly trotted out as a description of whatever confused and conflicted point of view (I can't recognize it as a coherent philosophy) you're presently pushing. What a hater, in my view. You should be proud.

Cheers!

Nightbloom, you've repeatedly accused the Left of being poisoned by anti-semitism.

In fact, a bit of scrolling will find the following which you thought so important that it should be in bold print:

"The political Left is manifesting an anti-Jewish current at the moment which has nothing to do with rational critique of Israeli policy (as most of you tried to claim.)

I don't believe this is a true statement.

It reminds me of being called anti-American and a communist by some engineering students when I was debating the Vietnam War at UBC back in the sixties.

And I also think that you have demonstrated a sufficient degree of intelligence to make one suspect that you don't actually believe that most of us who have problems with Israeli policy regarding its neighbours, or American foreign policy regarding Israel are "anti-Jewish."

There's nothing particularly original about this kind of approach, Nightbloom. It's called "demonizing your opponents"--or "McCarthyism."

And I wish you would cut it out.

One day our creator/s sent down an emissary who criated religion and after completing his work he rubbed his hands together, polished his horns,wagged his tail and when back up to watch the fun.

H.G., there's a good article in the 'Onion' newscomedy magazine on how religion's working to bring comfort and solace to the religionized in the middle east. I think there's a link down the right side of the Tyee home page.

You mean this one, Truman? It actually is pretty good:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51849

A lot of you that frequent this site are obviously very smart and some well researched.But I think that there is a force here that perhaps many of you dont see.Its called "social mood".
In 2000 we came out of a 100yr bull market and today we have either finished or are in the process of finishing the FIRST correction of the first leg down of the biggest bear market this world so far will ever see.If you have read about the "dirty 30's",well you aint seen nothing yet.Multiculturism, which encompases religion, while being a wonderfull idea will not flower in this time.I could go on for ever explaining this but if you are interested go to a web site "socionomics.com" and "elliottwave.com"

H.G.
I hope you're wrong, but fear you're right - about the direction things may start to take. One does the best one can, under the circumstances. Grand theories, happily, usually make more sense 50 or 60 years after the fact. Always good to remember that.

Alcibiades - that's because Gwest and others actually said I was responsible for Coyote's B.S., remember? So it's necessary to recap the history. I was happy to leave it alone, but I don't feel obligated to take hits like that in silence. Alcibiades, you seem willing to bend & twist anything so long as it mutes criticism of your ideology. I find you and Gwest have both become so knee-jerk and compulsive in your resistance to any criticsim of the Left that you'll say almost anything. You've lost your perspective. You're the ideological counterpart to the "Christianists" you (correctly) criticise. I've transgressed your chosen religion, and you're acting just like an offended religionist does. I'm happy to leave it alone, but the writing's on the wall, my friend.

Truman - If there isn't an anti-Semitism problem then why did the Editor feel he had to intervene, and why did the rest of the goon squad here not only act as his (Coyote's) apologists but also feel motivated to insinuate that a (Jewish) conspiracy was at work? Even Gwest insinuated precisely that. Coyote violated the terms of the agreement (not for the first time, in my opinion) and no collective paranoid delusional fantasy by a clique of web bloggers can obfuscate that fact.

The writing's on the wall, guys.

I'm pretty sure that no one here suggested a generalized Jewish conspiracy nighbloom. A polical conspiracy yes; one that props up an arbitrary Israeli state, but a ethno/cultural/religious based conspiracy? No.

I don't agree nightbloom.

And I think a lot of the other regular people who inhabit these pages would agree with me. I'm not the ideological counterpart of anything - ever - and I'm no apologist for Coyote - he always managed just fine on his own. Unlike you, who are constantly calling out for someone else to rescue you from the varmint's depredations. And, unlike you, he makes the kind of hard choices one has to when one actually believes in principles and aren’t just playing games.

Just because you've succumbed to a devotion to the 'forms' of dissent and the facile language of academia doesn't necessarily imply that your propaganda is any more relevant or truthful than anyone else's. In fact, quite the contrary. As to violating the terms of the agreement, I can recall several dozen times that you've done that too. Your apologetics at this stage of the game are beyond lame.

It's time you grew up and started to behave like a man rather than the child you apparently want to continue to be.

As for GWest, I wouldn't try to put words in his mouth either.

For my own part, if you'd taken the time to actually read the comments on the '6 things' article you'd see quite clearly that I condemned anti-Semitism clearly and often. If you were any kind of an honest and truthful interlocutor, you'd have noticed that – it was pointed out to you more than once - and acknowledged it. Instead, you continue with your usual childish ranting. It's tiresome and it's wrong.

You should ban yourself in shame.

LOL - Alcibiades, sometimes you out-do yourself. I've never called anyone to my rescue - rather, I've simply pointed out that everyone here was fine with all his low-blows provided they were aimed at someone else.

Looking back, the insult/tactic/slur that got under my skin the most was when he insinuated that I was a paedophile (during a discussion of Roman Catholicism). You think I walked away from that discussion with a smile on my face? Not. Did I take in stride for the 100th time - You bet your sorry ass I did. There are limits.

Sorry, but I'm not receptive in the slightest to what you're saying. You'd be a little more credible in my eyes if you'd been a little more even-handed in your responses over time.

So why don't you stop trying to be my own personal gadfly / shrink / moralist and just write something about the article at hand for once (reminder: "Nerve Wracking Now to Be Jewish"). As if there's anything written by the goon squad here that actually addresses Jewish anxieties rather than feeds them.

And I have nothing to be ashamed of. I haven't hidden behind anything, and I've been far more up-front in these debates that you have, in terms of my positions and how/why I arrived at them. Maybe you should stop hiding behind that rancid cynicism you think is idealism and get a little more engaged.

p.s. I have no idea what article you're referring to, tho I'm sure I should - I'll have to take a look again - but as usually you impute nefarious and dishonest motivations. I'll check out your oft-trumpeted disavowal of anti-Semitism if it will make you happy, but to be clear this actually isn't about you, even though you seem to be taking it personally.

Alcibiades,
Sorry to say but things have already started.Unfortunately the US with the support of the UK in Iraq have openned a can of worms that they will not be able to put the lid back on.Social mood has already started to turn black.Pornography is a growing business and explicit sexual activities can be watched on non restricted channels.Movies are becoming more violent.Protectionism is on the rise and free trade will fail[good thing as far as I can see].Corporate and political corruption is rampant.Intollerance is growing in leaps and bounds,just look at this thread.Unfortunately the 3rd world war started 6yrs ago,and frankly I am surprized that we have'nt reconised that the same things that started the last one:GREED IDEALISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM are all raising their ugly heads again.Rember that the low self esteam and poor economy was the catalyst that let those three things grow in Germany.
Once the US gets down to that level which I am sure it will all hell is going to break loose.

Fact is the Tyee staff had no problem when TaxCutter said "Why should I pay higher taxes because a 12 year old slut can't keep her legs together" or said to a female poster "your daughter sounds like a slut" among other choice personal attacks he liked to throw around. The same TaxCutter that nightbloom received high praise from for a vicious attack on a figure he didn't like. TaxCutter wasn't banned or even edited and nor did nightbloom say a word against him.

Whether its Lewis Swift, Deep Forbidden Lake or Ghost Machine the Tyee bans leftists who make outrageous statements or needless personal attacks but coddles those on the right that do the same thing. Elliot, TaxCutter, Ron Erwin/IAMC or the old Jean Binette (edited only once for a unsubstantiated personal attack on Harry Lali in spite of a long history of personal attacks on other posters) have repeatedly violated the supposed rules of decorum yet obviously those rules only apply to left-wing posters.

Coyote posted actual arguments which were often sprinkled with words like nazi, neocon, bootlick and braunshirt. Elliot/Nemesis on the other hand only posts the personal attacks, he doesn't bother with sprinkling them through a reasoned argument, he skips the arguments and keeps his posts to a few lines of invective. He's never been banned.

The conclusion is obvious, when rules don't apply to all they shouldn't apply to any.

Now I'm going to go have a good cry because sdgreen called me a Khmer Rouge wanna-be. I'm emotionally scarred because of it, might have to go into therapy, I even feel a faint coming on.

Frank - Reality Check Please (for the 'nth time):

COYOTE WAS NOT BANNED

The debate tends to be pretty free here. The problem (in my opinion only) is that you have a core group who have become a little too comfortable with the echo-chamber they've created. So you get cliques emerging that are quite happy to let each other get away with murder so long as they back up the party line. The cult-like defence of an anti-Semite and homophobe on this thread is a little concerning.

As a relative new comer and a return vistor[I moved away because of the lack of civillity] to this site.ENOUGH ALL READY,some of you are like a lot of street kids who can't make a point without F ing and B ing,because that's just what all this neo this and nazi that,is.Grow up and stop spoiling some interesting dialog.

Correction Frank, Ron Erwin was already once banned for (I believe) referring to people with down syndrome as being "out to lunch". It's hard to draw a line in sand and say these insults are ok and these insults are not. I think that we're all guilty of throwing insults around. My take on it is that it's cowardly to insult those who cannot defend his or herself. Coyote, as I've stated before, may use harsh language, but it's always directed towards those who should be able to defend themselves with a reasoned response. I have found that the insults thrown around by elliot, ron erwin, et al. (and I don't include nightbloom here) are cowardly; that is, they are directed at vulnerable members of our society, or they are drive-by postings of unreasoned and unsupported invective. For that, I believe that they should be censored from time to time. If you’re going to call someone an idiot, back it up!

Anyway, I think that this is an important discussion – perhaps for another thread – because how do we balance free speech vs. libelous, racist, sexist, ethnocentric rantings?

nightbloom, the problem as I've been trying to get across for the nth time is that its all one-way. This site allows assholes like Elliot and TaxCutter who come here for no good reason that I can find except to attack people. They're not banned and they're not edited. (yes, Coyote wasn't banned, but he was edited)

Are you telling me you don't have a problem with TaxCutter's or Elliot's statements about women and teachers? Or the new guy's (climber) statement about lawyers, which I see he has now apologized for? I realize TaxCutter has praised you on a book review thread but I'd still like to hear from you that you think his statemens that I quoted above are obscene, much worse than being called a nazi and should at the very least have been edited and should have got him banned.

ubiquitous,

Are you sure? My recollection was that Ron attacked a Tyee story and David Beers said enough, why do you bother coming here then etc and that's why he was banned the first time.

Exactly.

So when will the editor address nightbloom's accusations of anti-Semitism to posters on this site?

As ubiquitous points out:

"

And then there is the Tyee's contributor, Shannon Rupp's hate-filled remarks on the terror -bombing site? When will the editor address those?

And I also remember redrivergirl and myself being called Eichmann and Himmler by the right-wingers on this site when we criticized Israel's attack on Lebanon.....again, met only by silence from the Tyee editor.

I don't believe in censorship, but if you're going to apply it, then apply it with a sense of integrity... either equally or not all.

nightbloom
I disagree.

I just went back over the thread attached to the 'Papal Hypocrisy' story from, I think it way May of 2006. Your recollection doesn't jibe with mine. Surprising? No! And that’s just one example – there are many more.

That you haven't followed up on a whole lot of other things is also hardly surprising; neither is the fact that you consistently tar the 'left' with the same ad hominem brush every time the going gets tough.

As to this not very subtle dig, I don't think there's much in the field of underhanded discourse that YOU haven't mastered:

It ain't necessarily all about you either fella - as to the point that Coyote has withdrawn rather than submit to arbitrary editing and censorship - you seem to have missed that point entirely.

Some more reading you ought to do before hitting the bold button.

should read "not at all".

..and thanks, the Brain, for the kind words. It has been an equal pleasure reading you here and getting to know you through your words as well.

Cheers,

lynn

Frank, I think that it was a culmination of everything, but I recall Beers/Tyee Editor blasting Erwin for calling a Down Syndrome person as being "out to lunch". I also remember too that Erwin was asked why he bothers to comment on the Tyee.

I'm changing my tag to nazislut.

I cant't believe I read the whole thing. I have been away for several days and was intrigued to see that this topic (and further 'editings' ) is ongoing.

It is true that nightbloom's racist slander that Palestinians are not able to govern themselves (without Israel's help!) is not any danger of getting 'edited.' Not that I would ever demand it be, like the founding fathers of America, I believe in freedom of speech.

But there is no 'conspiracy' or 'agenda' or 'double standard) or anything like that.

I'm also intrigued by editor David Beers choice of articles here. First off, it is a puff piece that doesn't really say anything or add anything to the debate. Nothing is really cited to back up the central claim that "antisemitism" (whatever it is) is on the rise here in BC.

MacSasquatch is right: "Labelling critics of Israeli actions anti-semitic is a red herring to escape talking the actual actions going on over there."

In this context, this article is like dangling bait.

No conspiracy there either.

So Lynn, lemme see - you acknowledge that Coyote's statements violated the terms of agreement for participationon this site and just want tit-for-tat ...? Or you don't acknowledge or concede anything and just want to re-direct the issue onto the alleged sins of those you dislike?

What exactly are you trying to say?

And btw, your having to put up with one or two unwarranted asides (which is wrong in any case, let me be clear on that) is not comparable to (random example here) me being called a Nazi on a semi-regular basis over the past year, so get over yourself. As with Alcibiades and a few of the other regulars here, your complaint would have a little more credibility in my eyes if you'd been a little fairer and even-handed along the way.

Call it karma.

Happy International Day of the Disappeared everyone.

There is just one short step from being 'edited' to being 'disappeared.'

In honour of this occasion (and within the context of the dialogue of this thread i.e. the supposition there is a virulent new strain of 'anitsemitism' emerging in some fringes of the left that needs to be censored) I am posting an anniversary article by Eric Margolis on some of the forgotten disappeared:

by Eric Margolis

Five years ago, I wrote a column about the unknown Holocaust in Ukraine. I was shocked to receive a flood of mail from young Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian descent telling me that until they read my article, they knew nothing of the 1932–33 genocide in which Stalin's regime murdered 7 million Ukrainians and sent 2 million to concentration camps.

How, I wondered, could such historical amnesia afflict so many young North-American Ukrainians? For Jews and Armenians, the genocides their people suffered are vivid, living memories that influence their daily lives. Yet today, on the 70th anniversary of the destruction of a quarter of Ukraine's population, this titanic crime has almost vanished into history's black hole.

So has the extermination of the Don Cossacks by the Soviets in the 1920's, and Volga Germans, in 1941; and mass executions and deportations to concentration camps of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Poles. At the end of World War II, Stalin's gulag held 5.5 million prisoners, 23% Ukrainians and 6% Baltic peoples.

Almost unknown is the genocide of 2 million of the USSR's Muslim peoples: Chechen, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Tajiks, Bashkir, Kazaks. The Chechen independence fighters today branded "terrorists" by the US and Russia are the grandchildren of survivors of Soviet concentration camps.

Add to this list of forgotten atrocities the murder in Eastern Europe from 1945–47 of at least 2 million ethnic Germans, mostly women and children, and the violent expulsion of 15 million more Germans, during which 2 million German girls and women were raped.

Among these monstrous crimes, Ukraine stands out as the worst in terms of numbers. Stalin declared war on his own people. In 1932 he sent Commissars V. Molotov and Lazar Kaganovitch, and NKVD secret police chief G. Yagoda to crush the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to forced collectivization

Ukraine was sealed off. All food supplies and livestock were confiscated. NKVD death squads executed "anti-party elements." Furious that insufficient Ukrainians were being shot, Kaganovitch "the Soviet Adolf Eichmann" set a quota of 10,000 executions a week. Eighty percent of Ukrainian intellectuals were shot.

During the bitter winter of 1932–33, 25,000 Ukrainians per day were being shot or dying of starvation and cold. Cannibalism became common. Ukraine, writes historian Robert Conquest, looked like a giant version of the future Bergan-Belsen death camp.

The mass murder of 7 million Ukrainians, 3 million of them children, and deportation to the gulag of 2 million (where most died) was hidden by Soviet propaganda. Pro-communist westerners, like the New York Times' Walter Duranty, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot, toured Ukraine, denied reports of genocide, and applauded what they called Soviet "agrarian reform." Those who spoke out against the genocide were branded "fascist agents."

The US, British, and Canadian governments, however, were well aware of the genocide, but closed their eyes, even blocking aid groups from going to Ukraine. The only European leaders to raise a cry over Soviet industrialized murder were, ironically, Hitler and Mussolini. Because Kaganovitch, Yagoda and many senior communist party and NKVD officials were Jewish, Hitler's absurd claim that communism was a Jewish plot to destroy Christian civilization became widely believed across fearful Europe.

Not at all, people like Jean Binette had left the Tyee even before you and Coyote started your feud. Nemesis/Elliot and sdgreen and Sir John A. also predate your feud with Coyote. Lewis Swift, DFL and GhostMachine were also banned before that feud. So I see no reason why its only you that can claim some injury along the way. To have credibility claiming we should have stepped on Coyote's toes you would have had to have done the same with your entourage when the invective was aimed at us and you weren't a target yet.

Besides, Coyote used to call me and Stuart nazis too before he realized we were on his side for the most part. Geez, years ago, both he and Stuart called me a bootlick and a braunshirt in almost every post for saying the leadership of the HEU had their head up their ass if they thought they were going to win the battle they were having with the gov't at the time.

Being called a name really isn't the end of the world. But unfair application of the rules are worth fighting about.

Alcibiades - Why don't you post on the subject matter at hand and let old battles be. Wrong thread, btw.

You're pursuing a bit of a personal vendetta yourself, there, and have been for a while. My critique of the Left is what it is. You can take it or leave it. Some of your tangential commentary is starting to sound a bit manic tho.

Frank - The application of the rules has not been unfair - that's your delusion. You and Lynn seem to be inventing a grievance rather than taking responsibility. A little to much "Oppression Narrative" here...It's become a reflex.

What entourage!? You mean I actually had a bona fide entourage for once in my life, and nobody told me?

Cripes, I wouldn't even know what having an entourage feels like! :-P

The jewish community has every reason to feel nervous. The Israeli army just levelled Lebanon and killed over 1,300 people. Hezbollah is no better; firing unguided rockets at cities is an equally despicable act of mass murder.

It is pointless to argue about who started it. The real question to me is who should repair the damage? I suggest that the U.N. get the Israel to rebuild the damage they did in Lebanon, and force Hezbollah to fix the damage they did in Israel.

It is just a dream, since there is no agency to enforce that kind of punitive measure, but there was once a time that the U.N. itself was just a dream. If the world community started to think in terms of liability for war damages, perhaps the politicians and the armies would think twice about reloading. This is one war where the cause and effect are easy to correlate.

What is there to lose? The business-as-usual approach offers no solution but the sight of Israelis rebuilding schools in Lebanon, and Palestinians rebuilding apartment blocks in Israel would be a sign of change. It might even defuse the retaliation. Since they were responsible for most of the deaths and damage, perhaps Israelis should show a good example. It would be an excellent project for those moderate Israelis to volunteer their services.

nightbloom
As to whose been called names and slandered around here, as I've said, nightbloom, your memory is pretty selective. Not that I care, but Coyote and I took some pretty nasty swipes from woody on one of the book threads - I think it was the one about bad science - not very long ago.

TO woody's credit he realized he'd gone too far and apologized. As Frank's noted above, Coyote's vituperation was more about style than content anyway. That was why I posted the reference to the papal hypocrisy thread - you might care to have another look. It had nothing to do with what's apparently set you off.

As to the sexuality thing, as I've said before, it's a human rights question and let's leave it at that. You must acknowledge you hardly ever fail to find a way to interject it into every conversation. Your thing I guess. Your patent blindness to the one-sidedness of this editing controversy is not so easily explained.

delusion? I'm not the one claiming the left is anti-Semitic nor am I the one deluding myself into believing I'm the only person the the Tyee that's ever been called a name.

Nor am I the one making the racist statement that Palestinians can't govern themselves.

Nor am I the one that can't see what's wrong about TaxCutter's various statements toward the female gender.

Give the current jargon a rest, every 2nd word really doesn't have to be a catch phrase.

Ah, so Coyote calling you a nazi is worse than what's gone on with other people because only you matter. Fine, the sun shines out of your ass, I'm so thrilled to finally know that.

Continued from above:

Take home lessons from this long discussion:
1) There has been no EVIDENCE provided of anti-semitism on the Left;
2) Accusations of anti-semitism do not require proof and are used to deflect legitimate criticism;
3) Fifty years ago I chose the Left because of the quality of their arguments. This discussion confirms that choice.

Alcibiades - Not every thread (re. the sexuality thing), but certainly where it's relevant to the issue or tangent at hand, yes. It's also one of two reference-points I have for my encounter with the Left (i.e. University and Identity/gender politics). So my experience is diffent, but equally valid. I make no apologies. You have your touchstone, I have mine. That still doesn't mean I somehow "asked for it". And I really tried to humour the guy for a while. I'm not whining tho - I can take it any which way.

BUT -

I just think it's nonsense for people to make him out to be some kind of saint or martyr, and then blame me for things going haywire, or blaming the Tyee for doing their job. They've got liabilities in this, unlike us...so maybe - just maybe - is wasn't such a good idea to say stupid things stupidly, make clumsy racial-loaded insinuations, or toss politically/racially/culturally loaded epithets in such a casual and self-indulgent manner.

D'ya think?

nightbloom, here's what I think:

It may come as a surprise to you, but I don't believe you're really the centre of this issue.

If you got around these threads a little more and saw the kind of abuse - and not just stylistic bombast, which, if you could take your eyes off the mirror for more than a minute, was Coyote's stock in trade - that the rest of us take here on a daily basis you might understand why this latest arbitrary excision has people fighting mad.

Furthermore, your own palpable glee upon learning that someone - for whom you never failed to take an opportunity to swipe at yourself (sometimes arbitrary sometimes not) - was not going to be around here for the foreseeable future as a result of an arbitrary and ill-considered decision (in my view) was as disgusting as anything I've seen or read lately.

Get over yourself. It you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd be a genius. Instead of posting jargon you might want to actually ascribe to some of the platitudes you post about how noble you actually are and how your objective is simply to establish a new and relevant dialogue toward workable community values and standards as a replacement for the traditional philosophic discourse of the Christian West, which of course, is a muted and highly compromised effort because of its denial and obfuscation of the scared feminine.

Coyote was no saint or martyr, but he is an adult. And he’ll be missed.

As for labels, I'm sick and tired of the way you accuse me - either directly or by implication - of being an anti-Semite. If it happens again I expect it to be edited. I’ll stick with Orwell – he’s my kind of socialist. He believed in free speech – not some kind of half-hearted effort at ‘balance’.

2) Accusations of anti-semitism do not require proof and are used to deflect legitimate criticism;

And here is the absolutely perfect example.

ADL Calls Amnesty International Report "Bigoted, Biased, And Borderline Anti-Semitic
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/4878_62.htm

You've got to read it to believe it....Israel is the victim again.

KJC could you please post the link to the Eric Marolis piece? It's a keeper.

By the way, israel supports the Turkish position on the Armenian Genocide.....it never happened.

it's here Nana:
http://www.ericmargolis.com/

The ADL press release on the Amnesty International report does not provide a link to the original document or provide direct quotes, so it is not possible to easily evaluate the claim of anti-semitism.

Gwest, stop being silly. You're the one who made the absurd accusation that I was responsible for Coyote throwing a hissy fit and taking off in his helicopter because his crap finally caught up with him (and he was not banned).

You & Alcibiades been suffering an accumulation of bile for a while now, so I'm glad you can get it off your chest. But there's no glee here - it's just karma, so get off it. What do you expect - crocodile tears? That would be hypocritical.

And I dunno what you're on about, saying I claim to be "noble" or whatever. You're projecting something that's not there. Anyway, if you can't stand my posts that much, then just don't read them. Simple as that.

Nightbloom
We've done it to death. Further conversations about who did what to whom and whenwill be not only boring, but might seem to be a deliberate ploy to keep us off topic.

climber, who I wouldn't otherwise quote, has a saying that might be apt right now. As he'd put it, I call BS on more of your self-centred prose.

This is what you said afte I posted some appropriate George Orwell:

I think it pretty much indicates the level of sophistication you're up to.

And, as to the satisfaction you preened upon learning that your main antagonist wouldn't be around anymore, remember this:

We all know what you meant. If you imply the same kind of thing again I expect it to be edited. In my view, you're a phony!

MJF
Israel/Lebanon

Deliberate destruction or "collateral damage"?
Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGMDE180072006

LAST COMMENT:

Frank, GWest, Nightbloom, et al:

This will be my final attempt to bring some perspective to this discussion. I edited a few words of the tens of thousands posted by one Tyee commenter because, in thread following on a story about how it feels to be Jewish, he chose to claim that anti-Semitism does not exist and in the process berated those who say it does as 'Nazis'. I deemed this to border on racism, as I explained in the edit, and of course he was free to repost using language that didn't cross that line. Instead he chose to quit the site. That's his decision. Some people seem to confuse his choice with repressive censorship by me. People are given huge latitude on this site to say what they wish and are only asked offer their opinions without racist or defamatory language.

The other criticism seems to be one of 'balance.' In the past people of various ideological stripes have been contacted offline, edited or, in a few cased, banned, because they refused to abide by the Tyee's simple standards. One, who was quite conservative, was eventually banned after making slurs against black people and people with mental disabilities. But you are unrealistic about my time, resources, and capability if you expect me to pore over every word of every post and render Solomon-like judgements in perfect accord with the inevitably varied standards of 'balance' held by every Tyee reader.

I will continue to edit comments that I deem racist or defamatory. Yes, that I deem necessary, because as the creator and editor of this site it falls to me to uphold, as best I can, the site’s standards.

That's it, except to note how depressing it can be to create a forum such as The Tyee and see Nightbloom, GWest, Frank and other seemingly intelligent people use it to exchange petty, personal insults rather than contribute constructive analysis or related information to the journalism provided.

Tyee editor.

My comments stand.

If nightbloom, Shannon Rupp or anyone else initiates another bout of ad hominem accusations about posters here being anti-Semitic because they disagree with the current policy of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians or if they think that Arthur Koestler might have had something interesting to say in a book he wrote in the 1970s then I assume they will be edited too. I'm sure it's a tough job. But the perspective from this side of the fence is valid too.

On the other hand, while I can understand your proprietary interest in this venture, I'd say without the cooperation of many diverse people it wouldn't be the success it has come to be. These issues cut both ways.

That said, I'm more than prepared to drop the matter. The one-sidedness that I and others have noticed is not imaginary. Most of us appreciate the Tyee and would like to continue to make it a worthwhile effort. But it takes some maturity and responsibility on all sides to achieve that.

That made my afternoon! The topic of any Tyee article that touches upon Israel, Federal politics or anything US is rarely the topic of the discussion within 10-20 comments. In this case the debate completely devolved into an inane refusal by some to accept the prevailing usage of the term anti-Semitism.

Could you define for us the prevailing usage of anti-Semitism? Thanks

Thankfully it is not up to me to define the language. These are from a few common online dictionaries:

1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.
American Heritage Dictionary

n : the intense dislike for and prejudice against Jewish people
Princeton University Wordnet

hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group
Websters Dictionary

hostility to or prejudice against Jews.
Compact Oxford English Dictionary

hate or strong dislike of Jews, or actions that express hate or dislike of Jews
Cambridge Dictionary of American English

behavior discriminating against Jews: policies, views, or actions that harm or discriminate against Jews
Encarta Dictionary

an attitude of hostility towards JEWISH people and JUDAISM. Religiously it has been linked to the BELIEF that "the Jews" as a race were responsible for the death of JESUS. This belief has been repudiated by most CHRISTIAN theologians and was rejected by the SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL (1965-1966).
Hexham's Concise Dictionary of Religion

I can transcribe the OED definition if anyone would like, after I get home later this evening.

Gerhardius

I stated that I preferred to use the terms Anti-Jewish or Anti- Zionist, so that there would be no misunderstanding of meaning. I do that because the use of the term Anti-Semitism conflates the two above. Even Colin Powell stated that it is not Anti-Semitic to be critical of Israel, yet you have seen the ADL reaction to the Amnesty report(links above)

I guess what I'm trying to say is not that it doesn't have a meaning, but that it might be time to retire it so that it can no longer be used as a weapon.

Last year, describing someone as a Neocon was called Anti-Semitic in some quarters.

Gerhardius,

Thanks for providing several definitions of anti-semitism.
The definitions clearly state that anti-Semitism is aimed at Jews.
They do not say that it applies to criticism aimed at the government of Israel.
It is nice to have this point settled.

Gerhardius,
I'm not one, as a rule, to quote either from the dictionary or Wikipedia, although - as your definitions above point out - such reference works have their uses.

There is, however, something I found in Wikipedia yesterday while I was musing about the state of this particular discussion (and one other currently on the website) and I'd meant to post it at the time.

Anyway, here it is now:

The law states:

Godwin's Law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. [1]

Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin argues in his book, Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions[2], the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and Wikipedia discussion pages.

Enjoy!

Tyee Editor,

Slurs against one's sexuality or personality should be in the same league as racism. Calling someone an anti-Semite without any evidence should also be in the same league. As should be calling someone an Eichmann or a terrorist.

My point is that if only open racism brings down the editor's hammer just tell us that now. If so, fine, I'm all for open uncensored debate and can put up with constant name-calling. But I need to know the rules so that I can engage on an even playing field and not see Deep Forbidden Lake banned after an argument with Elliot when both were equally guilty

Gerhardius,

But what is the definition of slut?

Is Israel to be free from criticism, and continually excused from its actions, because they have faced the horror of persecution in the past?

Do horrific experiences in ones life confer upon you rights that supercede the rights of others?

How long does the special right of those once victimized excuse them from accountability? How long (a day? a year? 999 years? )are their actions to remain beyond question?

Is a person who recognizes that a victim is now victimizing others, to be penalized for speaking up for the rights of those now being victimized?

Is all criticism of Israel motivated by anti-Semitism?

Whoa, I am not touching that one!

Godwin's Law has been joined by another measurement:

in an online discussion, once a comparison is made to the Nazis or Hitler the probability of Godwin's Law being mentioned approaches one.

From Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" 1946

For those of us who value freedom, religious or otherwise, being called an anti-Semite for criticizing the political actions of a state is right up there with being called a pedophile.

I am still waiting for Mr. Beers to address nightbloom's continual accusations of the anti-Semitism of the left on this site when they criticize the political policies of Israel.

Gerhardius

I don't suppose Orwell is among the things George Bush has read this year. I wonder which kind of 'democracy' he sees as going on in Iraq right now. The Times says 48 died there today:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/world/middleeast/31iraqcnd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Apparently the list does include more than one biography of Lincoln and, among others, these:
Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb)

Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss (about the late all-star Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder)

Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power by Richard Carwardine

Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural by Ronald C. White Jr.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks

Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky (discussing how polio affected the United States in the mid-20th century)

The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

The Stranger by Albert Camus

from US News and World Report

What a ridiculous band of ideologically blinkered ninnies.

Are any of you hypocrites & apologists actually going to address the topic of this article, or are you going to continue the hysterical apologetics for that nasty old fart.

I didn't hear much "rational critique" of Israel from the principle ringleaders here, and I still don't.

Lynn, where was your moral outrage then, I wonder, when your vicious friend did precisely that? I mean really, Lynn, don't be such a jackass. And he wasn't criticizing Israeli policy, which you would know if there was an honest bone in your body. If you goons had actually stuck to that line, we wouldn't be in this controversy. So don't play dumb with me, Lynn.

That's an impressive reading list. You telling me Bush read all that, or does Bush have an official reader that gives him the Reader's Digest version before bed?

I'm not actually sure Frank, apparently he and Karl Rove are in the middle of a competition to see who can read the most books - at this point Bush is in the lead.

I have a vision of him with text on his knee and a comic book laid out inside.

and speaking of nerve-wracking......and just to put this in perspective...in a perspective that We in the West understand...in terms of "us":

Re: The Israeli attack on Lebanon:

Imagine if one bridge was bombed into oblivion in the US?..how about ten bridges?...that would definitely make CNN's "breaking news" of the direst proportions .

70 bridges were bombed into oblivion in Lebanon by Israel.

Imagine the US under one air attack? What would the colour code be? How about one hundred attacks by an enemy air force? Wow, Wolf Blitzer would be in overdrive...."end of world declared".

Israel launched 7000 air attacks on Lebanon.

Imagine if 15,000 thousand of our homes were blown to smithereens in BC and over one thousand of us died in our homes...many little children. Think that would be nerve-wracking?

Those are the numbers of civilian homes bombed in Lebanon and civilian deaths. War crimes as determined by the Geneva Convention. Think that would be nerve-wracking?

I'm leaving out the widespread bombing of roads, airports, crucial water and oil supplies...but let's back to the 70 bridges. That's a lot of bridges....makes you realize the scope of things.

Then remember those big numbers for the losses endured by Lebanon....and and what a small country Lebanon is. Think of the kind of horrible devastation of crucial infra-structure that must mean.

Then remember the big country that always has Israel's back...

....talk about nerve-wracking.

from Amira Haas, in Ha'aretz August 30, 2006:
Can you really not see?

By Amira Hass

Let us leave aside those Israelis whose ideology supports the dispossession
of the Palestinian people because "God chose us." Leave aside the judges who
whitewash every military policy of killing and destruction. Leave aside the
military commanders who knowingly jail an entire nation in pens surrounded
by walls, fortified observation towers, machine guns, barbed wire and
blinding projectors. Leave aside the ministers. All of these are not counted
among the collaborators. These are the architects, the planners, the
designers, the executioners.

But there are others. Historians and mathematicians, senior editors, media
stars, psychologists and family doctors, lawyers who do not support Gush
Emunim and Kadima, teachers and educators, lovers of hiking trails and
sing-alongs, high-tech wizards. Where are you? And what about you,
researchers of Nazism, the Holocaust and Soviet gulags? Could you all be in
favor of systematic discriminating laws? Laws stating that the Arabs of the
Galilee will not even be compensated for the damages of the war by the same
sums their Jewish neighbors are entitled to (Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz , August
21).

Could it be that you are all in favor of a racist Citizenship Law that
forbids an Israeli Arab from living with his family in his own home? That
you side with further expropriation of lands and the demolishing of
additional orchards, for another settler neighborhood and another
exclusively Jewish road? That you all back the shelling and missile fire
killing the old and the young in the Gaza Strip?

That's because our arguments dealt with the core issue which you don't want to talk about. Instead you attempt to frame the debate by declaring everything off the table except for anti-Arab views.

The core issue that you refuse to discuss of course and which starts you yelling anti-semite at everyone is Israel's existence.

That's the only way I'd ever play with you...

more, continuing the above, from Ha'aretz:

Could your mind really be so washed with the security excuse, used to forbid Gaza students from studying occupational therapy at Bethlehem and medicine at Abu Dis, and preventing sick people from Rafah from receiving medical treatment in Ramallah? Will also you find it easy to hide behind the explanation "we had no idea": we had no idea that the discrimination practiced in the distribution of water - which is solely controlled by
Israel - leaves thousands of Palestinian households without water during the hot summer months; we had no idea that when the IDF blocks the entrance to villages, it also blocks their access to springs or water tanks.

But it cannot be that you don't see the iron gates along route 344 in the West Bank, blocking access to it from the Palestinian villages it passes by. It cannot be that you support preventing the access of thousands of farmers to their land and plantations, that you support the quarantine on Gaza which prevents the entry of medicine for hospitals, the disruption of electricity and water supply to 1.4 million human beings, closing their only outlet to the world for months.

Could it be that you do not know what is happening 15 minutes from your faculties and offices? Is it plausible that you support the system in which Hebrew soldiers, at checkpoints in the heart of the West Bank, are letting tens of thousands of people wait everyday for hours upon hours under the blazing sun, while selecting: residents of Nablus and Tul Karm are not allowed through, 35-year-olds and under - yallah, back to Jenin, residents of the Salem village are not even allowed to be here, a sick woman who
skipped the line must learn a lesson and will be purposefully detained for hours. Machsom Watch's site is available for all; in it are countless such testimonies and worse, a day by day routine. But it cannot be that those who are appalled over every swastika painted on a Jewish grave in France and over every anti-Semitic headline in a Spanish local newspaper will not know how to reach this information, and will not be appalled and outraged.

As Jews we all enjoy the privilege Israel gives us, what makes us all collaborators. The question is what does every one of us do in an active and direct daily manner to minimize cooperation with a dispossessing, suppressing regime that never has its fill. Signing a petition and tutting will not do. Israel is a democracy for its Jews. We are not in danger of our lives, we will not be jailed in concentration camps, our livelihood will not be damaged and recreation in the countryside or abroad will not be denied to us. Therefore, the burden of collaboration and direct responsibility is immeasurably heavy.

Lynn wrote:

If one has ever criticised Israel, one can hardly suggest that Israel is free from criticism.

This is a rhetorical question. It is a statement that is phrased as a question.

This presumes that the entire Jewish people, rather than the state of Israel (i.e., "THOSE once victimized"), have a "special right," something which is a matter of conjecture rather than a statement of fact.

Apparently so. Ask Peter Tatchell about the threats he has received from various motley leftists whenever he protests the treatment of Palestinian gays and lesbians. I guess it must be sexier to protest the plight of the Palestinians rather than to protest the plight of the Palestinian victims of the Palestinians, which, you know, just isn't that cool. Or it's complicated. Or it takes place within a cultural matrix of oppression. Or whatever. Specious arguments which apply to and excuse everyone but "the Jews," it seems.

It is when it refers to Israel in the plural.

Posted this over a year ago but what the hey, it shows the Israeli IDF attitude towards Arabs.

Watchtower
‘It’s a little girl. She’s running defensively eastward’
Operations room
‘Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?’
Watchtower
‘A girl of about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death’
Captain R (after killing the girl)
‘Anything moving in the zone, even a three-year-old, needs to be killed’

An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.

The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun’s magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a “security area” on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.

A tape recording of radio exchanges between soldiers involved in the incident, played on Israeli television, contradicts the army’s account of the events and appears to show that the captain shot the girl in cold blood.

The official account claimed that Iman was shot as she walked towards an army post with her schoolbag because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb.

But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.

Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a “girl of about 10″ who was “scared to death”.

The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.

At that point, Captain R took the unusual decision to leave the post in pursuit of the girl. He shot her dead and then “confirmed the kill” by emptying his magazine into her body.

The tape recording is of a three-way conversation between the army watchtower, the army post’s operations room and the captain, who was a company commander.

The soldier in the watchtower radioed his colleagues after he saw Iman: “It’s a little girl. She’s running defensively eastward.”

Operations room: “Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?”

Watchtower: “A girl of about 10, she’s behind the embankment, scared to death.”

A few minutes later, Iman is shot in the leg from one of the army posts.

The watchtower: “I think that one of the positions took her out.”

The company commander then moves in as Iman lies wounded and helpless.

Captain R: “I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over.”

Witnesses described how the captain shot Iman twice in the head, walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Doctors at Rafah’s hospital said she had been shot at least 17 times.

The army’s original account of the killing said that the soldiers only identified Iman as a child after she was first shot. But the tape shows that they were aware just how young the small, slight girl was before any shots were fired.

The case came to light after soldiers under the command of Captain R went to an Israeli newspaper to accuse the army of covering up the circumstances of the killing.

A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had “not acted unethically”.

However, the military police launched an investigation, which resulted in charges against the unit commander.

Iman’s parents have accused the army of whitewashing the affair by filing minor charges against Captain R. They want him prosecuted for murder.

And then this update

Following the developments, the court ordered the release of Capt. R. from custody and the return of his weapon to him. He will go back to the division and receive details of his future post.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2005/02/07/killing-a-13-year-old-even-a-three-year-old-needs-to-be-killed/

Peter Tatchell? The left-wing murderer of Kilfedder?

Its not like leftists are the only ones that have ever disagreed with that guy's tactics.

And, it seems to me I read that the Worldpride Gay festival in Jerusalem was also cancelled. Might possibly have had something to do with the united front response of conservative/orthodox Muslims, Christians and Jews. I wonder?

Worldpride, hey, its nothing to be proud of. Now homophobia rears it ugly head, that should be good for many days of hand wringing here, funny stuff. Another hot and touchy topic, lets see, homos, Natives, violence in lesbian relationships, the list is getting longer, I cackle at the p.c. b.s. it is so entertaining.

climber
did you hear that California just passed legislative limits on emissions?

The agreement marks a clear break with the Bush administration and puts California on a path to reducing its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020.

The bill still needs lawmakers' approval, but that appears likely, given that Democrats control the Legislature.

The deal gives Schwarzenegger a key environmental victory as he seeks re-election this fall.

from the NYTimes

They marched anyways, Alcibiades. Not sure what that has to do with the thread, unless you see this as a religious issue. We're seeing the same tiresome alignment here, so all it proves is that Jerusalem is not unlike the rest of the world in this regard. Incidentally, Bluenose made a good point about some victimization being politically useful to the Left, while others downright inconvenient to it.

Lynn, why don't you comment on the topic of the article instead of tossing dumb one-liners or re-hashing the headlines, which we're all well aware of?

What you and the rest of Coyote's apologists still don't seem to appreciate is that this article is about Canadian citizens who are Jewish living here in BC. It's actually not directly about Israeli policy. And it's certainly not about deporting the Israelis out of Israel, or about the eugenics of Jewishness, or the absurd proposition that anti-Semitism doesn't really exist except as a semantic fallacy.

You seem to be holding Canadian Jews - maybe all Jews, I dunno - responsible for overseas injustices. Isn't this in the slightest bit prejudicial? Aren't you being blind, unfair...and maybe just a wee bit "anti-Jew", like your friend?

Nor is it anything to be ashamed of. I always liked the Monty Python tribute to gay loggers myself.

yes and the right wingers such as yourself have never ever done so. What a fucking crock.

Then why don't you talk about the issue instead of bringing up Israel?

Didn't zalm pretty well cover that subject matter in his very first post on this thread?

I trust he won't mind my bringing it up to the front of the line - at least the part of it that seems to be most relevant at this time:

The credit to the Jewish community in Vancouver is that so many of them have been able to undergo this process of self- and community-examination without being slain by the friendly-fire of "self-hating Jew" epithets slung so often by their more dogmatic relatives elsewhere in Canada and the US.

May the Jewish community here and elsewhere in the world continue to rediscover the wisdom of Isaac Luria's Kabbalah and eventually aid their brothers and sisters in the Middle East to come to a just resolution, one that simply seems unthinkable for their Maimonidean counterparts now living there.

The "left-wing murderer" of Kilfedder. Indeed. The integrity of that comment is a wonder to behold. A little wonder. Little wonder (if that comment is at all representative ) that we now have a Conservative government and are likely to have another one in the near future.

Not quite.

Not quite "conservative/orthodox Muslims, Christians and Jews," but more like "Muslims and conservative/orthodox Christians and Jews."

Adherents of Orthodox Judaism (not all of whom are stridently anti-homosexual) comprise around 15 percent of world Judaism. Most of them live in Israel. The rest of Judaism is remarkably open in its approach to gay men and lesbians with many affirming congregations and rabbis. Adherents of Sunni Islam (most of whom appear to be virulently anti-homosexual in a casually violent kind of way) comprise around 80 percent of world Islam. The minority Shia are at least as homophobic as the Sunni and do not even regard homosexuals as human. These two groups comprise the majority of Muslims worldwide, i.e., normative, mainstream Islam.

The opposition to Worldpride has come from a minority of Orthodox Jews and an overwhelming majority of moderate, mainstream Muslims. Oh, and a few fundamentalist Christian churches.

But let's not let the facts get in the way of the spin.

Similar articles could be:

Nerve Wracking Now to Be Pashtun: Exploding Afghanistan rocks sense of security in BC

Nerve Wracking Now to Be Sri Lankan: Exploding Sri Lanka rocks sense of security in BC

Nerve Wracking Now to Be Arab: Exploding Middle East rocks sense of security in BC

Nerve Wracking Now to Be Congolese:

..or Lebanese , or Iraqi, or Kurd, or, or Punjabi, or Tibetan, or Venezualan,...

I guess any of us in the position of watching a conflict or crisis in a land we have connection to, that causes political ripples here would feel a little edgy.

It is hardly surprising that an issue which is so conflicted for Jews - as it clearly is - would be equally difficult for non-Jews.

If the members of Zalm's community can find ways to maintain their own equilibrium without the kind of name calling that's gone on here and still understand that this is fundamentally an issue of long-standing unfairness and injustice relative to the Palestinian people, then there may be hope for those here who have, I'd venture to say, the same result at heart.

And I guess you weren't spinning Bluenose!

Except that the extreme Left does it as an expression of ideological gesturism in the name of solidarity with the poor and the oppressed. Which is even more emetic than when the extreme Right does it. Because the Left claims to know better. And it should. And it doesn't. It hasn't for a long time now. And it's not likely to in the foreseeable future either.

And where exactly did I say that?

No, I am speaking about the injustices of the state of Israel. Did I even mention Jews? No.

Understand the difference? One is the government of a country. The other is a person of a certain faith.

I will make this clear for you, nightbloom. I am speaking of the policies of a government... in a country.... called Israel. Get it?

Now go ahead and try to warp that into some kind of leftist anti-Semitism...c'mon, nightbloom, twist it and warp it. After all, that is your way...between the incessant whining that is.

Goodnight, all.

You guessed right! Goodnight!

I'll use a climber on that bluenose and call BS

A guy in the UK that runs for the labour Party and has a venetta against closeted British guys means the election of Harper in Canada? You may want to point your browser to GrabbingAtStraws.com and bounce that one off them Einstein.

Except you Bluenose who had to reach for a Palestinian attitude toward gays in which to find an issue to use against the Left. While you were wrapping yourself in the flag of solidarity with the oppressed gays of Palestine I'm surprised you didn't trip over your own hypocrisy.

Lynn, he doesn't. He can't separate the idea that Jews and Israel are separate topics.

Liberal/Conservative, Olmert/Nitanyahu.
The liberal won the last democratic election in Israel.
We are all paying the price or such a stupid decision.
Nitanyahu would have crushed Hizbollah. Game over. Now we are faced with a liberal PM whom the citizens have already written off as a weak lib loser.
I can't wait for the next democratic election in Israel to take place. Hopefully we will get the real deal next.
I see Kofi is looking for Israel to cease the blockade on Lebanon. The blockade set up to prevent Iran from supplying more weapons to Hisbollah through Syria and Lebanon.
The UN plan asks Israel to allow further shipments of arms from China, Russia and Iran to continue.
Why do we continually accept weak resolutions from the UN to affect our future security.
Is it called Liberalism?

No doubt it is difficult to support Israel unequivocally these days; from the Guardian:

Israel faced a stinging rebuke from the UN yesterday when the world body's humanitarian chief expressed shock at the "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Kofi Annan called for a rapid end to the conflict in Gaza.

Jan Egeland said civilians were facing "massive problems" returning home because of as many as 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs, most of which were dropped in the last days of the war.

"What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland said. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance."

Earlier, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, called on Israel to end its closure of the Gaza Strip and to halt the fighting that has claimed the lives of more than 200 Palestinians in the past two months.

Yesterday Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians in air strikes and gun battles around the Shijaiyeh neighbourhood of Gaza City. One of the dead was a 14-year-old boy who was in a crowd watching the fighting. At least two others were militants, doctors said. The Israeli army said it found a large tunnel for smuggling that ran 150 metres towards a cargo crossing.

Israel's military incursions into Gaza have been overshadowed by the conflict in Lebanon. But Palestinian officials say more than half of those killed in the past two months have been civilians - among them 39 children killed in July alone.

Ron, we were just talking about you earlier. I had no idea you insulted black people and kids with Down syndrome.

But I see now you're back to your usual anti-Moslem bit. Good thing Bluenose showed up, he's been anti-Moslem for a long time on the Tyee. You may remember he called you a Satanist once, hope you're over that.

As for the UN are you denying that organiation its "right to exist" while at the same time demanding that Hezbollah's "right to exist" be crushed?

And by the way, I'm on pins and needles to hear how it is you're suffering under the yoke of the Israeli PM's political leanings. Did he "liberate" your city block perhaps?

Yes Frank, that Monty Python skit is funny, I don't actually log, although my job is totally dependent on clearcutting. So, whatever, anyways, funny and pathetic how much bitching, insulting and crying is on this thread. Keep it up, are we having fun yet? Alchibades, California, fuk em, hypocrital mutts, screwing shit up since the '70s, I hear they are also pushing for a ban on two stroke engines. Tree hugging new agers who import power and water cause they are too good to have thier own damns. Vancouver, soon to be L.A. north, more and more so each day, gross.

By the way Ron, where do you want the supporters of Hezbollah to go after their being crushed? Someone might call you anti-Hezbollah you know, or even anti-Lebanese or anti-Moslem or perhaps Bluenose is right and you're anti-Christian too.

Of course the educated elites know all about the Israeli lust for power and dominance…Unlike the good Germans in the 1940’s, who claimed they didn’t see the smoking chimneys or the grim trains, today images of devastated apartments and slaughtered children were visible, easily accessible and followed by well-publicized reports by all the human rights groups on Israel’s crimes against humanity. They knew and supported Israel’s crimes before and after the ceasefire – and they proudly chose to endorse the war, the policies and the state as true accomplices after the fact.

Yet the Jewish Lobby tells us that Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two soldiers across the Israeli border was the detonator for a full-scale invasion. Numerous sources around the world even dispute the Israeli account of a Hezbollah cross-border attack. According to the big business US magazine Forbes (July 12, 2006), the French news service AFP (July 12, 2006), the respectable Asia Times (July 15, 2006) and the Lebanese police, the Israeli soldiers were captured within Lebanon in the area of Ai’tu Al-Chaarb, a Lebanese village a few kilometers from the Israeli border.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14762.htm

The Lobby and the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon: Their Facts and Ours

By James Petras
The article also points out that the disproportionate number of Israeli Arab casualties was due to Jewish only air raid shelters. Lovely!....but it's not a racist state.

But its like a car wreck isn't it? You can't ignore it can you?

As for California I don't think they have any undammed rivers left do they? Anyone know?

We agree, the Lower Mainland is butt ugly but the Liberal plan of some more cement and glass with a cool roller derby dome sinking into the muck of Richmond will make it so pretty.

As for Monty Python, they don't care what your job description is they just wanna know if you have one of those cool lumberjack shirts and live in the "forests of British Columbia".

Frank, you are throwing me softballs tonight.
It's obvious that the Israeli's had an opening to defend themselves on account of the fact that Hizbollah captured two of their enlisted ( A word nobody else in the area has to worry about.)
Enlisted. Do you yhink Islamofascists have anything close to an enlisted log.
I don't think so.
I am not one to get sucked into the Islam Fascists viewpoint.
The West is going to pull the gloves off, if we want to protect our standard of living.

I think Islamofascists might qualify as name calling here at Tyee Ron. I guess you haven't bothered to read Nana's post up above here on this thread...about where those soldiers were captured - such things don't seem to make much on an impression on you Ron. WHy not?

Generosity is my middle name Ron, its the mood I'm in.

True except for one other group, non-Israelis. You see, Israel finds the time, when they're not shooting 13 year old girls for sport, to capture lots of Arab guys, even Palestinian politicians. Yet I didn't see Hamas level Tel Aviv. They may have really really wanted to and if BC Lotteries had such a game I would definitely bet on that possibility but the fact is, they didn't.

You don't have to, just think to yourself how ticked off you'd be if someone took your land, bombed your neighbourhood and killed members of your family for 50 years. Somehow I'm willing to bet most of us would be "fascists" after that 50 years.

Pull the gloves off? Does this mean we might start dropping bombs and sending the army into Moslem countries? Say it ain't so! Because I for one am sick and tired of 13 year old Palestinian girls going where they're not supposed to be and depriving me of my bacon for breakfast.

Frank;
Thirteen year old girls? You are passionate for the protection of thirteen tear old girls?
Do you mean those thirteen year old girls that were slaughtered at the soccer stadium?

before this thread dies I just wanna post this

nightbloom said long ago...

and Coyote replied

I think we should play "The Way We Were" as we read that, or maybe "Seasons in the Sun" eh?

It came from one of my favourite threads. Was that really only 6 months ago?

Oh, I see the boys in the band are queuing up "Don't Go Changing"...

Or spread 100,000 unexploded bomblets across the countryside. How much worse can it get? I know you don't care what the United Nations is saying about conditions in Lebanon now, but then you really don't care about anything outside of yourself, do you Ron?

I guess protecting your standard of living is more important than other peoples’ lives. I hope that word doesn't get round your neighbourhood Ron - some of those people in the categories you don't like might think that was a little unfriendly...and certainly unCanadian. You are a Canadian aren't you Ron...or does that Alberta pedigree usurp your Canadian citizenship?

Quite

Actually I meant the story of the one I posted above that was shot in cold blood by the IDF even though they knew she was no threat.

But it applies to all 13 year old girls Ron. Even the ones Taxcutter says are.. well you know.

Yeh, I even remember a discussion on religion that actually seemed to end on a moderately positive note between those two. 'Those were the days, my friend.
We thought they'd never end....
We'd sing and dance for ever and a day...

and all that

But then, Frank, you know the doctrinare Left is blind and deaf to such things.

I'm pouring a stiff drink and shutting this thing down; good health to the Coyote and you too Frank.

And to you Ron, an emetic - compliments of bluenose. You can look it up.

Thanks alci, and to both you and Coyote too and even to my old friend nightbloom who I had always had respectful arguments with till this thread

Nite all

Nightbloom, I don’t know if Coyote is anti-Semitic or not, but hearing you describe yourself as “not a Zionist” but using every argument Zionists use, I don’t believe for a moment that you’re not. If you truly are not, then you’re farting in the elevator and it’s rude. Get lost - this isn’t your thread.

And for you to suggest that

when your only evidence for same is our 'collectively-lefty' failure to spank Coyote for what are his strongly but singularly held opinions, then that’s just rude too. The last person who tried that on me and my peers was my Grade 10 English teacher, and it didn’t work then either. I’m not my brother’s keeper, especially when there’s a more dangerous issue out there. You, playing slippery eel and trumpeting the Big Lie like Goebbels in a garbage can.

What’s the real story here? It’s not why so many guys and gals in a diner line up on one side or the other in Vancouver or Moose Jaw and proceed to throw bricks at each other, but why so few in other countries, including the Middle East where the lyin’ and the dyin’ is really going on, are doing the same.

Few have addressed the issues the larger Jewish world faces with the Zionist colonialist mentality and how they fear it could backfire on all of them. Few (if any) have asked why Ahmedinijad is now the Great Satan to the Western press, when nearly 40,000 Jews mostly in Baghdad give lie to every translation used in North American press and wire services about the character and aims of Iran with respect to Jews, both its own, and Israel's.

And now Clueless just weighed in with his hoary haul of non-sequiturs. I’m done here. Thanks for the support Alc.

Horrendous proof-reading. Since when does Baghdad have anything to do with Iran? I meant Tehran, of course.

From what I have read, it is Ironic that what is happening in the settlements of non-Jews close to Israel's border, is close to what was taking place in Nazi occupied countries in Europe during WWII. The Israeli military presence - backed by its government - uses the discriminating tactics, in many cases, similar to those of Nazi Germany.
The rounding up of political dissidents speaking out against Israel occupation in Southern Lebanon is an example. In fact, it is my understanding that a Hezbollah raid to rescue these prisoners, prompted the conflict.

JACK'S
It was not a 'Hezbollah raid" into Israel, it was an Israeli raid into Lebanon that led to the capturenot "kidnapping"
of the 2 Israeli soldiers and was the justification of the Israeli bombing of the infrastructure of Lebanon...and according to documentation by S.Hirsch,the US and Israel were just looking for an excuse to wipe out 15 years of reconstruction in Lebanon. Read the article in my last posting.

I've included a short pastiche of commentaries/critiques from both the Left and Right, approaching the issue from a number of angles, including from the anti-Zionist perspective. As you can see, the troubling issue of resurgent anti-Semitism on the ideological Left is not new, and has been widely discussed (not without contention, of course). Again, I find it surprising that anyone genuinely involved in political or anti-war activism on that side of the political spectrum can credibly claim to be dumbstruck by the issue at this late juncture:

Wikipedia: 'New Anti-Semitism'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_anti-Semitism

'Anti-Globalism's Jewish Problem':
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=2791

'What is left anti-semitism?'
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/5041

Conference: 'FACING A CHALLENGE WITHIN:
A Progressive Scholars' and Activists'
Conference on Anti-Semitism* & The Left
http://www.facingachallenge.com/
(Paper abstracts available here: http://www.facingachallenge.com/academic_papers,_specifics.htm)

'Pragmatic Anti-Semites':
http://www.jr.co.il/articles/anti-semites.txt

'Singling Out Israel?'
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4838

'Graffiti On History's Walls':
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/031103/3anti_7.htm

'On left anti-semitism and the special status of Israel':
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=3597

Being Leftist and Anti-Semitic in Germany
http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-32.htm

Essays expressing the Left's failure to reach out to the Jewish community:

(1) How to strengthen the Palestine Solidarity Movement by making friends with Jews
http://colours.mahost.org/articles/austriangoldman.html

(2) Fear and loathing
Too often Judeophobia is discussed in abstract terms. Lucy Michaels brings the anguish that some Jews feel into sharp focus.
http://newint.org/features/2004/10/01/jewish-community/

'Should We Be Worried About Anti-Semitism on the Left?'
http://hnn.us/articles/1323.html

Commentary: 'The British Left Goes Anti-Semitic':
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_7_23_02td.html

Judy Rebick: 'Is anti-semitism an issue for the Left? '
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-01/03rebick.cfm

Asma Agbarieh: 'Flirting with Anti-Semitism' January 11, 2004
Translated from Arabic, a historical analysis that appeared in Israel's 'Challenge' Magazine outlining the historical, moral, and strategic reasons why anti-semitism is the wrong response to Israeli atrocities
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4824

'History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism'
http://publicculture.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/18/1/93

Anti-Semitism in Anti-War Movement (report-back on founding conference of the UFP)
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/83079/index.php

Alcibiades - a couple unrelated linx of possible interest pertaining to by-gone Tyee discussions:

A few words on being 'anti-war' from the venerable Fr. Daniel Berrigan:
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/nt083006.htm

A commentary re. Tim LaHaye's odious 'Left Behind' novels, with discussion of LaHaye's political connections/activities/motivations:
http://www.nthposition.com/thenovel.php

Thanks Nana....

It was very informative. Obviously, the Israelis can do coverup with the best.
It's a sad state of affairs when one cannot trust the national media to give honest reporting.

And for critics of Israeli policy specifically, who may not be particularly interested in the subject of this particular Tyee article, but who are looking for insight into the motivations and mentality of Israel's civilian and military leadership, I can recommend a fairly solid source of analysis that routinely taps policymakers and military scholars close to government:

http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/volume9_2.html

Their current lineup of publicly available analyses is as follows:

Israeli Government Policy and the War's Objectives.
Yehuda Ben Meir

Israel’s Home Front: A Key Factor in the Confrontation with Hizbollah.
Meir Elran

Artillery Rockets: Should Means of Interception be Developed?
Yiftah Shapir

The Ayatollah, Hizbollah, and Hassan Nasrallah.
Ephraim Kam

The Ethnic Conflict in Lebanon and the Future Status of Hizbollah.
Aiman Mansour

Hizbollah and the Morning After: Guerilla, Terror, and Psychological Warfare
Yoram Schweitzer

Reactions in the Arab World: Blurring the Traditional Lines.
Emily Landau

Possible Resolutions to the Conflict in the North.
Shlomo Brom

Deterrence and its Limitations.
Yair Evron

Israel’s Conflicts with Hizbollah and Hamas: Are They Parts of the Same War?
Mark A. Heller

Dispelling Beliefs: The War in Lebanon as a Test Case.
Zaki Shalom

Back to Ground Rules: Some Limitations of Airpower in the Lebanon War.
Noam Ophir

The Crisis in Lebanon: An Interim Assessment.
Zvi Shtauber

So, I check out the first article in the list directly above and this is what I find:

Beside the lie of Hizbollah initiating the the war, the cop out of inexperienced ministers would be really funny, were it not so tragic.
Nightbloomnext time you bring us material to prove a point...read it first please to see whether it is relevant or not. None of the articles listed above seem to have anything to do with the point you are trying to make.