JB Globe

And the Arab response to Zionism was entirely predictable and understandable - because you would have had the same response if Zionists chose to establish Israel anywhere in the world, because it's a doctrine which dispossess whoever happens to live where the nation is founded. If the Roma of Europe ever decide to establish an independent state in their ancestral homeland of Rajasthan in India - you can expect a similar situation to arise, because you're "securing" one group of people at the expense of another. Bad comparison - black Americans are Americans, only a small fraction of Israelis can trace their history in Israel back beyond the 20th century - the creation of Israel involved massive migration of foreigners into the region, African American history in the US goes back much further, and they didn't have a say in their migration. Also - they were simply standing up for their constitutional rights, whereas the creation of Israel was one of several options available to secure the Jewish community post-WWII.

You can be so intellectually dishonest when you want to be, you know?

Than don't be selective about it. If you're going to criticize me, go and criticize August and others who make grand sweeping statements about complex groups of people and situations. I've made a career for myself so far by being discerning - frankly I consider my success a better indicator of my talents than your ignorant opinion, thanks. I'll put up my experience and knowledge about Islam against yours any day of the week, and as we've seen time and time again, I come out on top. Why? Because I actually do research as part of my job, so I know what I'm talking about. It's not rocket science - it's just what most people do before they start making statements on something - they learn about it in an objective fashion. You're lying again. I challenge you to find a single quote supporting this. This illustrates why I routinely wipe the floor with you on these debates - it's not because I'm some genius, it's just because you'd rather lie than do your homework - and that becomes obvious to everyone pretty quickly. Again with the grand sweeping statements that are so easily disproven - I can even do it in two words: Irshad Manji. There's a Muslim you can meet that fits your requirements.

If it were up to people like yourself, there would be no Italian Canadians today - domestic violence was a problem in Italian households up until the 60's and 70's. But after the first generation of children were born and raised in Canada, there was a huge shift towards more equal rights, and by the second generation, you'd be hard pressed to find any difference between Italian Canadians and Anglo Canadians on the issue of women's equality. Keep in mind that honour killings were legal in parts of Italy until 1981. It appears that the same thing is happening with the various ethnicities that are part of the Muslim community. If we followed your advice and restricted immigration to countries that are on-par with Canada concerning human rights, we'd have virtually no immigration because there are few nations which are up to our standard. Also - I think that those communities which adapt and reform themselves while in Canada serve a great purpose by inspiring reformers in their countries of origin that change is possible.

He's not simply stating facts, he's generalizing and simplifying to the degree that it becomes hateful. His argument is that Islam itself oppresses women, and seems to imply that the only solution is less/no Islam, meaning that he believes that Muslim societies cannot and cannot change to include equal rights for women. He also implies that the imagined entity he refers to as "the left" is silent on this, and that only the entity of "the right" is speaking out against this. This is utter bullocks - feminists are "left" and have been speaking out against the treatment of women in some Muslim countries for decades. Never mind the many Muslim feminists who push for equality and cite the Qu'ran as evidence (ie - the fact that Mohammed placed a women in one of Meccan societies' most prestigious and influential positions - The Arbiter of the Market). But for the most part they've managed to do it without maligning Islam as a whole, because they understand that Islam is not a stoic monolith and that it can and has been reformed on various issues in the past, and this is one issue that it can move forward on. But folks like August don't really care about improving the lot of women in Muslim countries, because they don't really care about women's rights. You'll notice their complete silence on other women's rights issues is pretty telling - they are feminists of convenience - when the opportunity presents itself to bash Islam through a women's rights perspective, out comes their inner feminist. But when we start talking things like Affirmative Action - they fall silent or take up the opposite position. In fact not a soul on this board who you and others malign as being part of "the left" has ever denied that there are serious issues regarding women's rights in Islam. The main difference is that we also acknowledge that there are some Muslim countries that have good records on women's rights - and that tells us that it's possible to be both Muslim and egalitarian towards women - it just takes effort and solidarity. And when you brand all of Islam as oppressive towards women, you essentially remove any chance for improvement, and you also send a message to Muslim women reformers that you're not going to help them, because you think that it's not possible to be a liberated Muslim woman. They should just become athiests, I suppose.

False choice. Working out a peace deal with Egypt and Jordan was one of the best things to happen to Israel's security and economy, the exact opposite of what you seem to be insinuating would happen should Israel pursue a less hawkish diplomatic position. Like I said, it's in Israel's long-term interests to get in-line with international law, and global opinion, and get a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Way to completely absolve the OP and your "side" in this debate of any responsibility. The reason no one wants to directly engage the central premise of this post is because it's pretty clear the OP is speaking from a position of utter ignorance, and makes good use of logical fallacies to try and cover that up. I think the reason you're fed up with all of this is because you can't seem to formulate the kind of argument that's supported by the kind of objective facts that stands up to critical analysis, and as a result, people pick it apart quite easily. If you want to make simplistic generalizations in 5 sentences or less - go to the comments section on The Star or CBC. If you want to actually construct an argument, than you'll have to put some thought into it.

Yet in Bangladesh, Senegal, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, they can be elected to lead their countries, so your characterization of the situation is completely absurd Are there problems? Of course. Is this a black and white issue where all Muslim women are ruthlessly oppressed? Absolutely not. What on earth are you talking about? What "lefitsts" defend these nations? And what is their argument? Either you're completely mischaracterizing what this "defence" is, or you're just making some baseless accusation that can't be backed up. And if this is true, it appears you didn't really bother to leave your expat compound, and get out on the street and talk to ordinary people before making gross assumptions about everything and everyone. But it does seem quite odd that someone who has such an enormous disdain for Muslims would travel and work so extensively throughout the Arab world.

I think it sends Israel the wrong message that as it continues to flout international law and opinion to a greater and greater extent, we respond by becoming friendlier and friendlier. I often make the argument that these Israeli policies (Gaza blockade, West Bank Settlements) are self-destructive by nature, so by condoning them or at least, ignoring them (which is the message we're sending by buddying-up) we're kind of enabling Israel to harm it's own long-term stability and security. And even if you're of the mind that Israel is a good, close friend of Canada's - Sometimes a good friend will get into a fight with a friend who's hurting themselves because it's the right thing to do.

I'm quite pissed off about the G20, for several reasons: 1 - The location chosen was one of the worst in terms of the amount of disruption it would cause to hold the summit there. There were other alternative locations that would have decreased costs and disruptions dramatically. Specifically - the Metro convention centre is right next door to SkyDome, CN Tower, and the downtown core, there are tens of thousands of people who live just a block or two away from it. The actual summit could have easily been held at the Direct Energy Centre or the brand-new Allstream centre both of which are at Exhibition Place (where they have the CNE) which is a location that is frequently closed off for events (like the old Toronto Indy) and has only a few entry/exit points to fence off. No residential buildings would have been affected by locating it here. As it stands my friend has a fence on two sides of his building, one of them being a triple-ring fence, and his building may be on lock-down for two days during the summit. 2 - The conservatives, in spite of the obvious, are trying to sell this summit as a big win to promote Toronto. They would've done a lot better trying to sell this thing as a favour Toronto was doing the rest of Canada, because it's pretty clear that the cons outweigh the few pros at least as far as the city is concerned. Many businesses are shutting down, it's going to kill festivals going on downtown like the Jazz Fest because people are steering clear of the mess. And all this talk about how "this will show off Toronto" is complete BS. Delegates are going to arrive by plane, get driven to their hotels where they're going to be on lock-down until summit-time when they'll be driven to the convention centre. There is not even a chance for them to experience anything outside of their hotel, car, and convention centre. The media too, will be on a self-imposed lock-down - they have their marching orders from their editors, who care ONLY about the summit, and could care less where it's being held, because they're not there to cover the city. Just go back and look at the reports coming out of Pittsburg, London - do any of those wax poetics about how great those cities are? No - they don't even mention them because they're too busy covering the summit and the protests. Frankly the cons look ridiculous every time they try to tell Torontonians that this is a win - they should've been selling it as an honourable sacrifice, for their own political sake. 3 - The money spent is not going to trickle down to all Torontonians. Case-in-point: Although the Feds have bought out several downtown hotels completely for the summit (Intercontinental, Royal York, etc) the guest rooms are only going to be 50-70% full (whereas usually at this time they're over 90%) and none of the meeting rooms at the hotels will be in use, but they're still paid for by your tax dollars. Why? Because they RCMP needs to sweep every room and lock it up so no one can sneak in and plant something. But of course, the hotels are still charging full rate . . . For an empty guest room which doesn't have to be cleaned, or a meeting room which doesn't have to be set-up, meaning lots of staff are going to be out of work and the hotels are simply pocketing all that profit. I learned all this from a friend of mind who stuck around at one of the big hotels downtown after I left following graduation from my program, he made manager eventually and also told me about this nugget: That a couple had a wedding scheduled already during the G20, and the feds bought-out their wedding so they would move it to another date. Meaning - they're getting a $150 000 payout of your tax dollars toward their wedding. Should be some party. 4 - The decision to not pay for property damage as a result of civil disobedience. Most insurance policies don't cover damage from protests-gone-wrong, so if someone torches a store with a molotov cocktail, that owner is going bankrupt, unless the cons pony up the money. This is a potential PR disaster for them if something bad does happen, they're either going to have to reverse their decision earlier to not allocate money for property damage in the G20 budget, or loose a ton of political face and refuse to pay out to businesses that are going under because of the fed's decision to have the summit next door to them.

And Israel's slide to self-isolation continues. It seems that there is a growing segment of the population in Israel that doesn't seem to care how they are perceived even by their staunchest allies. These Shas-Likhudniks are so caught up in a self-destructive form of ultra-nationalism that they can't see that they're setting themselves up for a huge blow to their international prestige, and international trade, which threatens the future of the country they claim to be so supportive of.

I've travelled quite a bit and lived abroad in non-Western nations, and satire is alive and well in virtually all of them, and where it's not - it's because of a lack of freedom of speech, not because "those dumb savages don't get it" You sound like a complete idiot. Why do you sound like a complete idiot? Because you're making grand sweeping statements about things you know absolutely nothing about. I would sound stupid if I threw up a thread that read: "Quantum Physics is BS!" because I don't know anything about physics. For the life of me, I can't understand why people like you set yourselves up to look like fools, is it a complete and utter lack of self-respect, so that you don't care how bad you look? Just stick with what you know, and ask questions about what you don't know, that's how you learn. It's not that difficult to do.

Link to the footage You can watch the raw footage or an edited 15 minute version. It should be noted that the earlier IDF video of the incident that everyone was waving around like it was the one and only truth wasn't accompanied by any raw footage - which meant that no one could verify just how much or little of a hack-editing job it was.

Still can't find a real source? Than why do you keep trying? Maybe it's better to just give this one up buddy, you're making yourself look like a fool . . . ^^^ - SWC is strongly Pro Israel, they are not an objective source, and they weren't present at the protest. ^^^ That one's blank. ^^^ A columnist who wasn't present at the rally. So we've learned that there were a few people waving what? Less than a dozen Hezbollah flags? Out of 15 000 people? A terrorist rally, that does not make. Give this up - just like you gave up trying to find evidence of Canadian Islamic charities sending money to Hamas.

You've made up your mind in advance that are going to blindingly support the neo-con/fundamentalist position on Israel no matter what the incident is. I gave this situation a few days for the facts to come to light before making up my mind. If I wait 4 months, nothing new is going to come out - that investigation Israel is planning is going to be as objective as most of their investigations on politically sensitive incidents are: not very.

Glenn Beck? You could've linked to Deshowitz, but you chose that rodeo-clown to represent the hardline Israel supporter position? This was the moron who claimed there was an anti-Israeli bias in American media and that no networks other than Fox were showing IDF video of the flotilla incident . . . Except they were (Great Daily Show Bit) . . . The man is either completely disconnected from reality, a blatant propagandist, or an opportunist. He is not someone you should be turning to for informed opinion.

Especially the ones that are Jewish Zionists like Goldstone. He's been undercover for 50 years. He's playing the long con.

Agreed. What's pathetic is the hacks who are taking Israel's word as gospel, even though any Israeli will happily admit that their government practices misinformation as part of a propaganda war. To them, information is just another part of the battlefield in an epic war of survival, hence lies become justified in this conflict in their minds. Even after the two initial justifications the deputy foreign minister made in the first press conference following the incident (that the organizers were linked to Al-Qaeda, and that the ships were carrying weapons) have been proven to be false and without any base, people are still jumping up and down to swallow whatever the Israeli government tells them is the current version of the truth. I guess if you live in a completely polarized world filled only with good guys and bad guys - the notion that everyone involved in this conflict has dirty hands just doesn't fit into your narrative, and you'll go to great lengths to avoid dealing with that reality, even if it means being childishly naive.

Oh, it absolutely disproves something - it disproves your claim that this was a "terrorist rally" full of Hezbollah supporters and flags. If the reporters who were there, didn't even mention in their reports that they saw a few flags, that means that there were little to none actually present - meaning, there were so few it was not newsorthy. If 15 000 people hold a rally about any given cause, and a dozen wave a flag of a certain organization - it's not indicative of the rest of the participants. I mean you can't even find one report from anyone who was present at the rally to back up your claims. The only things you've come up with so far is the accusations of the Israeli ambassador, and an editorial in the Post, not an article on the rally in the Post, but an editorial from an un-abashedly pro-Israeli editorial board. Why don't you go find an actual article before you make up your mind about what actually happened? Oh, and we'll forget that claim about Canadian charities donating money to Hamas, right?

Not if the blockade amounts to collective punishment, which is illegal.

This is footage seized from the journalists on board the ship. Don't be naive and think that the IDF isn't selectively editing this stuff to the max. This IS the Middle East after all . . . And again, for the record, the way Israel boarded this vessel goes against their OWN standard procedure, which has worked numerous times before WITHOUT INCIDENT. I think the IDF certainly deserves some blame for the gung-ho recklessness of this incident - and the Israeli public seems to think so as well.

Two can play at this idiotic game of yours . . . Kach party supporters celebrate Flotilla Deaths in front of Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdhKqGoMJms&feature=player_embedded There, now all Israelis are officially bloodthirsty monsters, right?

So what you're saying is Hamas is a group of douchebags who would rather advance their own agenda than the lives of their own people? Great. You're about a decade or so late on that one.

According to the Israelis. We're never going to know what really happened.

I saw a picture of a guy driving a Mercedes in India once. That means there's no poverty there.