Liberal contenders slam Harper for 'anti-Israeli' accusation

[betsy]

And of course, his next move only bolstered up my argument.

"Ignatieff set to visit Israel

Oct. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM

LOUISE BROWN

STAFF REPORTER

After days of controversy over remarks he made about the Middle East, federal Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff says he will visit Israel next month to "learn first-hand" about the Israeli view of the bombing of a Lebanese village. "

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...id=970599119419

And I could only but agree with Rae....although I keep in mind that this kind of bravado on Rae's part is a little bit too late...considering he was one of those who kept silent about the Liberal foreign critic.

Iggy goes accusing Israel outright of war crimes....and then he goes on a mission to "learn first hand?"

I thought you learn the facts first before making any judgments.

“Does that mean that he is now going on a fact-finding mission after he was emphatic on declaring it a war crime? Isn't it a little too late for that?” asked B'nai Brith vice-president Frank Dimant.

Mr. Rae said: “It's good of him to listen to the other side after he's made his judgment. It sounded to me like he did reach an unqualified judgment on the television show.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/National/

So take your pick. Anti-Israel or anti-Semite?

Maybe he is neither. It's just probably all about votes....and he'd considered Israelis or Jews...are expendable.

He is back-tracking...only because of Harper. If Harper did not make that accusation, you think Iggy will go through all the trouble of finding out the facts about this war?

That's why this should be an eye-opener for all minority groups. You just never know when the time will come...when you're considered "expendable."

[M.Dancer]

Homicide bombing is the proper term for "suicide bombing". The death of the bomber is incidental to the bomber's goal, which is killing people.

Yeah but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and is sometimes redundant.....you certainly wouldn't call some one who fails to kill a Vandalism bomber......

Besides..what makes the suicide bomber different is the delivery system.......When the IRA were planting bombs, no one called them homicide bombers.......

.....

[Figleaf]

[.

Edited July 22, 2007 by Figleaf

[M.Dancer]

I'm talking about Harper and his comment about the Liberals....that they were not baseless comments at all!

They already shown to be baseless and without merit. You seem to be blind to reality...one candidate is jewish and resigned from the NDP over their position on Israel....then I gave you the official position of the party......if you continue to ignore I will just assume you are dishonest.

[Higgly]

Oh puh-lease. When has Israel sent suicide bombers in to attack discoteques or restaurants in any of the surrounding countries that host terrorists?

Israel sent 'agents' to plant bombs in mailboxes and cinemas in Egypt shortly after the 1948 war in order to destabilize the Nasser government. Will that do?

[Higgly]

George Bush is pro-Israel and he bought into an Iraq policy that was essentially drafted for Benjamin Netanyahu by Paul Wolfowitz.

Nice loadup with code words and code names.

Thanks. Do you deny it is true?

This warrants a comprehensive response.

The Jews seem to be the only group that people find reasons are not sufficiently "exploited" or "disadvantaged" to deserve rights, such a state, and self-determination. Every single African or Asian tinpot leader of an "independence" movement, just about, received a state, combined with, at world expense, a national airline, UN seat, and armed forces. Indeed, rather than develop their countries, most of these leaders diverted almost all the aid they received, or resource revenues, into the military, either for self-preservation (the leaders', not the countries') or for conquest. There is, in point of fact, very little "national" significance to most African or Asian boundaries. The boundaries were chosen to correspond with colonial boundaries. The given excuse was to aoid bloodshed. The real reason was to ensure a lucrative role for the leader, including receiving booty from the UN. No one on the left has questioned Mugabe's right to rule a state, or questioned Zimbabwe's boundaries, for example. Mugabe is no doubt a very wealthy man, measured in Swiss Bank accounts. Zimbabwe is a country with no historical or ethnic basis other than boundaries laid down by the British.

Similarly, when Biafra, a Christian and animist enclave, sought to secede from Nigeria, and use the oil wealth to better the people, the Leftists in the West were quite content to allow Nigeria's dictator to starve the Ibo tribesmen into submission, and wage a bloody war against them. Where is the outrage?

During WW II an unholy cabal of leftists and rightists butchered the Jews for no other reason than their religion. There were survivors in the camps. Does anyone rationally think the Jews could have returned to the very villages where their neighbors identified the victims as Jews so they could be rounded up and placed on trains to virtually certain death?

The land that is now Israel was largely festering swamps and desert during the mid-1800's. The land was largely owned by absentee Ottoman landlords. The Zionist movement raised money and purchased much if not all of this land on the open market. They invested labor, money and love. Arabs came, drawn by employment opportunities.

This land was a natural place for the Jews, displaced by the Holocaust, to move to. As it is, the land promised them was reduced by more than half in the early 1920's, with Transjordan being severed to give the tinpot leader of the "Hashemites" a kingdom. They themselves were a minority. Then, in 1947, as Britain prepared to dump the mandate, even more land was taken off, to attempt to appease the Arabs. In the interim, immigration had been restricted at the same to as Britain, Canada and the US largely slammed their doors. Thus, 6 million people, utterly trapped and without an exit, were killed.

Now, the rest of the world wants to sever even more land from the Jewish State, to appease the Arabs yet again. Keep in mind, the Arabs have never stated that any round of surrender would be the last, and that they would live side by side, in peace and recognition, with a remaining rump of Israel.

Meanwhile, the Arabs are on the march against the West elsewhere. On September 11, 2001, October 2002 (Bali), March 11, 2004 (Spain), and July 11, 2005 (London) the West has endured horrific attacks. The attacks were aimed, simply, at killing as many innocent people as possible.

In view of this history, posters have the gall, the "chutzpah" (a Yiddish expression that translates roughly into the emotions one would feel towards a murderer who kills their parents pleading for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan) to suggest, by use of code words and Jewish names, that the US's policy is being run by Jews? What is wrong with the West's superpower, for once, doing what is good for the West rather than what is good for those that would deprive us of our freedoms, or kill us?

Have these posters no decency or common sense?

With respect to the Zionists buying some of not all of the land - at the time of the UN partition resolution, it is estimated that about 10% of Palestine had been bought in this way.

With respect to the African countries you cite, almost all of them are populated by the people who were there when the boundaries were drawn.

The tinpot leader of the Hashemites you seem to care so little for was, along with his father and son, the first to make and honour agreements with Israel - both before and after the 1948 war. Like many Israelites, you make the mistaken assumption that all of Palestine belonged for some reason to the Jews.

Your statement about severing more land from the Jews no doubt refers to the West Bank which was never given to them by anybody and which is by general world agreement occupied territory. It is illegal under the Geneva convetions for Israelis to settle there and there are UN resolutions telling Israel to leave (242 for starters).

The people who bombed Bali were Indonesians and Philippinos, not Arabs. Why not check into the others and report back.

Is the bit at the end supposed to be (finally) your response to my question? Facts are: The policy of attacking Iraq and taking out Saddam Hussein was first proposed by Paul Wolfowitz in a paper he wrote while working in Richard Perle's group for Netanhayu. Wolfowitz then went to Defense where he tried to sell Bush Senior on the idea. He did manage to sell Cheney and Rumsfeld who eventually sold Bush Junior. Not surprisingly you blow it out of proportion into somebody trying to say Israel runs US policy. Suits your sob sister/persecution complex agenda I suppose.

[Higgly]

If one believes, as I do, that the Old Testament is pretty good oral history..

Yeah I particularly like the parts about staffs turning into snakes, voices coming out of burning bushes and mannah falling from heaven.

[Figleaf]

If one believes, as I do, that the Old Testament is pretty good oral history..

Yeah I particularly like the parts about staffs turning into snakes, voices coming out of burning bushes and mannah falling from heaven.

Don't overlook the 'history' of men who lived for hundreds of years, or the superman who couldn't take a haircut, or the time YHVH tried to kill a guy but failed, or the woman who turned into salt, or the guy who got eaten alive and lived to tell about it ...

[Higgly]

So let me be blunt. Everyone knows for the last ten years, the Liberal Party adapted the French foreign policy approach in the Middle East and in an attempt to portray itself as neutral actually became bias bending over backwords to the trendy politics of the day which was to never under any circumstance

criticize Hebollah or Hamas or terrorism directly and bluntly but to use neutral words.

Actually what they did was abide by the pertinent UN resolutions and Geneva Conventions.

The Liberal party coasted on the fact that it was the party Jews would vote for simply because in the past the Tory party traditionally was the party of elite wasps who did not like playing golf with Jews but would tolerate them if they needed an accountant, dentist or perhaps a hernia operation at Shuldice Clinic.

So now all is forgiven.

Of course fundamentalist Christians tend to be very pro-Israel on foreign policy so that adds to the paradox.

It is because they believe that once the Jews return to the land of their forefathers, the final judgment will be nigh at which time, Jews will have the option of converting to Christ or being cast forever into darkness. These people are idiots.

As for Steven Harper.... he has consistently supported the Oslo accord formula, i.e., that Palestinians be given a state in the Gaza and West Bank.

Too bad none of the Israeli leaders since Rabin feel that way.

Harper is not a Bush clone. If someone bothers to read what he writes and says they will see he is more balanced in his approach to the Middle East-the fact he is not afraid to come right out and say terrorism is wrong is being used to label him a Bush clone and that is intellectually lazy.

He hasn't spoken out against the new law in th US which means Canadian citizens will be subject to imprisonment and deportation without right of habeus corpus. Even Blaire asked for and got this for Brits from Bush.

What all the LIberal candidates should have clearly stated when asked about this issue was simple; they should have stated that what Hamas and Hezbollah do are acts of terror and deliberate in nature and constitute crimes against humanity. What the IDF does in reply can not be equated on the same moral terms. The IDF unlike Hamas or Hezbollah wear uniforms and are readily indentifiable. Their mandate unlike the mandates of Hamas or Hezbollah is not one to wipe out all Palestinians. Hezbollah and Hamas have charters calling on the genocide of Jews world-wide. The IDF's mandate is to defend the safety of its citizens period.

How about when the IDF was Haganah and Irgun? How did they behave then?

No one now questions rockets were launched from Qana. Hezbollah has even admitted it. Israel has three choices; i-do nothing as civilians die and the silence is then construed as weakness which causes an increase in furthr attacks, ii-use commando attacks where soldiers have to enter into civilian homes, hospitals, moques, schools in search of the terrorists and engage in a cat and mouse game of attrition where civilians will die, or iii-shoot back at the last known missile launch coordinates.

The rockets were fired from locations more than 200 meters away from where the civlians were seeking shelter. That's quite a mis-fire.

Case in point, when the Syrian Army went into villages in hot pursuit of the Muslim Brotherhood, unlike Israel it did not warn the civilians first to flee, nor did it choose to use commandoes trying to enage in

limited pin point precision attacks. It simply went in and killed 10,000 civilians within a few hours.

Same thing happened in Algeria when it was fighting political terrorists in its country.

I don't recall anybody here defending the Hama massacre. Who was fighting who in Algeria?

And I will say it again because it needs to be said, no it is not right Palestinian civilians or Lebanese civilians must die, just as it is wrong Israelis die. The way to stop this is to say it like it is-the cause for this is terrorism and we must all universally condemn it and simplistic answers as to bad and good and black and white do not work.

Including yours.

[betsy]

Although saying Iggy's comment being not "anti-Israel" is also debatable....but we're just not referring to Iggy's comment, are we?

Harper's slur was in response to Iggy's comment. Absent Iggy's comment, Harper's comment is even more inexplicable.

I must have missed out on something here from you....but I read back and all I ever saw was you negating or refuting what some of us have said...and some of us had provided links as to where we've based our arguments. So far, yours are just purely personal opinion.

Why is Harper's comment "even more inexplicable?" What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?

[Figleaf]

Although saying Iggy's comment being not "anti-Israel" is also debatable....but we're just not referring to Iggy's comment, are we?

Harper's slur was in response to Iggy's comment. Absent Iggy's comment, Harper's comment is even more inexplicable.

... Why is Harper's comment "even more inexplicable?" What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?

'

Becaaaause -- if Iggy had never made the 'war crime' comment, then Harper would have even less basis (and no occasion) to call Liberals 'anti-Israel'.

[betsy]

Although saying Iggy's comment being not "anti-Israel" is also debatable....but we're just not referring to Iggy's comment, are we?

Harper's slur was in response to Iggy's comment. Absent Iggy's comment, Harper's comment is even more inexplicable.

... Why is Harper's comment "even more inexplicable?" What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?

'

Becaaaause -- if Iggy had never made the 'war crime' comment, then Harper would have even less basis (and no occasion) to call Liberals 'anti-Israel'.

He may not have had the occasion then...but he definitely had the basis.

[betsy]

Becaaaause -- if Iggy had never made the 'war crime' comment, then Harper would have even less basis (and no occasion) to call Liberals 'anti-Israel'.

So now you're admitting Harper has some basis...only less IF Iggy had never made the comment.

BUT...Iggy DID make the comment! So you must therefore think Harper has MORE than less basis!

AND....he therefore had the occasion...AND ample other occasion!

[M.Dancer]

If one believes, as I do, that the Old Testament is pretty good oral history..

Yeah I particularly like the parts about staffs turning into snakes, voices coming out of burning bushes and mannah falling from heaven.

The mannah part is a verifiable and natural phenom.......

[Figleaf]

Although saying Iggy's comment being not "anti-Israel" is also debatable....but we're just not referring to Iggy's comment, are we?

Harper's slur was in response to Iggy's comment. Absent Iggy's comment, Harper's comment is even more inexplicable.

... Why is Harper's comment "even more inexplicable?" What do you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?

'

Becaaaause -- if Iggy had never made the 'war crime' comment, then Harper would have even less basis (and no occasion) to call Liberals 'anti-Israel'.

He may not have had the occasion then...but he definitely had the basis.

Absolutely not. No basis. It was utterly incorrect, wrong, false.

[Figleaf]

[

Edited July 22, 2007 by Figleaf

[Black Dog]

jbg Oct 12 2006, 09:01 PM

I know that the Liberal PM King was anti-Jewish, and that subsequent PM's, except Pearson and to a lesser extent Trudeau, were not much of an improvement. I also kow that Chretien moved the Liberal Party sharply against Israel.

You seem a mite confused. The terms Jew and Israel are not interchangeable.

jbg Oct 13 2006, 08:20 PM

The Jews seem to be the only group that people find reasons are not sufficiently "exploited" or "disadvantaged" to deserve rights, such a state, and self-determination.

Sez who?

The land that is now Israel was largely festering swamps and desert during the mid-1800's. The land was largely owned by absentee Ottoman landlords. The Zionist movement raised money and purchased much if not all of this land on the open market.

False. By the end of 1947 the percentage of Palestine purchased by Jews was less than 7 percent; Jewish land purchases accounted for only 10 percent of the proposed Jewish state; and Jews made up less than one-third of the population of Palestine.

This land was a natural place for the Jews, displaced by the Holocaust, to move to. As it is, the land promised them was reduced by more than half in the early 1920's, with Transjordan being severed to give the tinpot leader of the "Hashemites" a kingdom.

This was the result of the conflicting promises of the Balfour Declaration and the earlier Husayn-McMahon understandings, which stated the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state under Hashemite rule in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine.

They themselves were a minority. Then, in 1947, as Britain prepared to dump the mandate, even more land was taken off, to attempt to appease the Arabs.

Yet the Jews (still a minority) were allotted the majority of the land.

In the interim, immigration had been restricted at the same to as Britain, Canada and the US largely slammed their doors. Thus, 6 million people, utterly trapped and without an exit, were killed.

Yup. An appalling chapter in our history and one that seldom gets mentioned. These countries supporrted Israel because they didn't want more Jews of their own.

Now, the rest of the world wants to sever even more land from the Jewish State, to appease the Arabs yet again. Keep in mind, the Arabs have never stated that any round of surrender would be the last, and that they would live side by side, in peace and recognition, with a remaining rump of Israel.

Who are "the Arabs" you refer to?

Meanwhile, the Arabs are on the march against the West elsewhere. On September 11, 2001, October 2002 (Bali), March 11, 2004 (Spain), and July 11, 2005 (London) the West has endured horrific attacks. The attacks were aimed, simply, at killing as many innocent people as possible.

Again: who are the Arabs? You're talking about a very small minority, yet you use the broad term Arabs. Why?

What is wrong with the West's superpower, for once, doing what is good for the West rather than what is good for those that would deprive us of our freedoms, or kill us?

Way to misstate the premise.

As far as those "human rights groups" where are they with the world's real atrocities, the Janjaweed in Sudan, Iraq during the Hussein era, etc.? Where are they in Russia, where people who oppose the government are now dieing strange, violent deaths?

On the ground, trying to bring these issue's to the public's attention. Orgs like HRW and Amnesty are often the only western voices talking about these unknown conflicts and crimes. A so-called "extreme leftist" like you should know that.

So the answer is, I have spent blood, sweat and tears to help real poor, disadvantaged people, and worked arm and arm with them.

Just as long as their not Arabs, anyway.

There are not 100's of deaths at US stampedes. There were recently 29 deaths in a Pakistani stampede as a routine service was letting out. Some little girl tripped in the doorway, triggering the stampede.

Something more fundamental is at work and it's not a reality you enjoy knowing.

We get it: you think Arabs are animals.

I have zero confidence in the objectivity of those groups, for reasons I have previously outlined. To summarize, in Israel and other open societies, these groups can pry, investigate, even use freedom of information laws to gain access to governmental archives on their so-called violations. Ever try doing that in Saudi Arabia? In open couintries, the worst that happens if a story is inaccurate is that some government official tries to set the record straight. In Saudi Arabia, the "human rights activist" is separated into a head, and the body from the shoulders on down.

Doesn't that kind of undermine the point that groups are "singling out" Israel? IOW, Israel's crimes are more easily uncovered. That's not an idelogical issue, it's a practical one. It's also worth noting that many groups do great work even under oppressive regimes and in appalling conditions. they were on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq before many of y'all could find either on the map.

Oh puh-lease. When has Israel sent suicide bombers in to attack discoteques or restaurants in any of the surrounding countries that host terrorists?

Why would they when they have F-16s and Apaches?

Homicide bombing is the proper term for "suicide bombing". The death of the bomber is incidental to the bomber's goal, which is killing people.

As oppossed to othe rkinds of bombing (for example, aerial bombardments) where the intent is to give the target a 1,000 lb steel and explosive hug.

[Black Dog]

betsy

Oct 13 2006, 11:39 AM

Post #26

Well I don't think Harper's comments are baseless.

Politically Incorrect

The new anti-Semitism and the Liberals

by Arthur Weinreb, Associate Editor, Canada Free Press

March 8, 2004

The "new" anti-Semitism is the expression of hostility against Jews by expressing that hostility not at the Jews themselves but at the State of Israel. Unlike the "old" anti-Semitism that came mainly from those on the right of the political spectrum, the "new" comes primarily from the left; the liberal elite who condescendingly speak it in the name of anti-racism and anti-colonization. This type of anti-Semitism is politically correct. When those that espouse these anti-Semitic sentiments are challenged, they defend themselves by saying that they are merely criticizing Israel, something they have every right to do, and not the Jewish people themselves. (Hmm. So I wonder, how is one suppossed to tell the difference?)

Merely criticizing the government of Israel is, of course not anti-Semitic. Canadians have the right to be critical of Israel as they have the right to criticize any other country, including Canada. The anti-Semitic aspect of condemning Israel comes into play when that country is held to a much higher or different standard than other countries are.Yet the authour's next point contradicts this one...

It occurs, for example, when people vigorously criticize Israel for erecting the security fence while remaining silent on the gross human rights violations of other countries that routinely engage in such things as slavery, use of child soldiers, torture and political repression.In other words, "it" occurs when Israel is held to the standard of other western democracies and not third world crap holes.

[jbg]

# ISNA urges all Muslims in the U.S. and Canada to exercise the utmost self-control and to never let their understandable anger lead to any un-Islamic and irresponsible act towards their fellow citizens. In fact, they should continue their ongoing dialogue with their Christian and Jewish friends, many of whom have condemned Israel’s terrorism perpetrated under the guise of “self defense”.

# ISNA condemns any act of deliberate or reckless targeting of innocent non-combatants by any party to the conflict.

Isn't that so nice. When my ancestors came over from what's now Ukraine, Poland and Czech Republic, I'm sure there were lots of groups they were "angry" with. The Christians (Catholics in Poland, Russian Orthodox in Ukraine, and G-d only knows what in the land now the Czech Republic) must have made their lives lots of fun to drive them to emigrate to the New World. Imagine, leaving a place where one's families have lived generations, where they knew their neighbors, to board ships (usually spending their last pennies) to escape persecution.

And then, starting in 1938, the Germans began to slaughter, in unimaginable numbers, our people who stayed in Europe. You would think that would get some Jews "angry". When was the last time you heard of the Jews foresaking work, foresaking building their communities, or the US or Canada as the case may be, to engage in full time riots, violence, or venting of anger?

I am equally sure that most people that came to Canada or the US had at least some scores to settle, relating to the "old country". Do any on here even know what those scores were about?

Why does "ISNA" even have to "condemn any act of deliberate or reckless targeting of innocent non-combatants by any party to the conflict"? Shouldn't the "conflict" have been left far behind? If these people are Canadians, should they not be supporting Canada's foreign policy?

[Higgly]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, eh jbg?

[jbg]

The tinpot leader of the Hashemites you seem to care so little for was, along with his father and son, the first to make and honour agreements with Israel - both before and after the 1948 war. Like many Israelites, you make the mistaken assumption that all of Palestine belonged for some reason to the Jews.

Your statement about severing more land from the Jews no doubt refers to the West Bank which was never given to them by anybody and which is by general world agreement occupied territory. It is illegal under the Geneva convetions for Israelis to settle there and there are UN resolutions telling Israel to leave (242 for starters).

Did anyone demand that the West Bank be given "self-determination" when it was under Jordanian rule?

[jbg]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, eh jbg?

No, I want forceful condemnations. Not that weak garbage. And encouragement to join the mainstream culture of Canada.

[Higgly]

No, I want forceful condemnations. Not that weak garbage. And encouragement to join the mainstream culture of Canada.

And of course we all care very much what you think jbg.

[Higgly]

Did anyone demand that the West Bank be given "self-determination" when it was under Jordanian rule?

In fact it was an option considered by Israel and Jordan. It was what the people living in the West Bank wanted. Jordan and Israel decided not go go that way because it was not in their best interests. The PLO got so upset they tried to overthrow the Kingdom of Jordan. But of course that was 50 years ago.

These days, even George Bush has decided that the Palestinians should get their own state and self-determination. Do you not get good reception under that tinfoil hat? Maybe you haven't heard.

[jbg]

In fact it was an option considered by Israel and Jordan. It was what the people living in the West Bank wanted. Jordan and Israel decided not go go that way because it was not in their best interests. The PLO got so upset they tried to overthrow the Kingdom of Jordan. But of course that was 50 years ago.

You misunderstood me, perhaps on purpose. I meant between 1948 and 1967 where were the demands for "Palestinian self-determination"? Hint, they didn't use the term "Palestinian" back then.