POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is the second trashiest thing Margaret Wente has ever written, and that is saying something because she occupies herself with a great deal of trash.
Apart from insulting brave humanitarians, the underlying theme here is a quieter re-statement of the idiotic assertion that the very selectivity of people's interest in Israel-Palestine displays their anti-Semitism.
People should show more concern about North Korea? First, North Korea is an absolute government. Israel claims to be a democracy, and with that word “democracy” goes a lot of associated concepts about human rights and ethical government, else it wouldn’t be a claim worth making, but we plainly see endless abuse and refusal to honor human rights by Israel.
Ms Wente truly ought to register as a lobbyist for Israel.
Readers may be interested in the following.
Ms Wente's all-time great piece of idiocy critiqued at:
A critique of the moral-trash theme of selectivity buried in her current piece:
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"Nor should the people of Gaza be punished for the incompetency of its leaders as Ms Wente so kindly suggests."
True, except that no one has ever demonstrated Hamas as incompetent.
Quite the opposite appears to be the case, Hamas has held its people together after more than three years of brutal, illegal blockade and that after Israel's inhuman assault called Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel killed 400 children and a thousand others.
I'd say Hamas has shown the qualities of British leadership during The Blitz.
True, except that no one has ever demonstrated Hamas as incompetent.
Quite the opposite appears to be the case, Hamas has held its people together after more than three years of brutal, illegal blockade and that after Israel's inhuman assault called Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel killed 400 children and a thousand others.
I'd say Hamas has shown the qualities of British leadership during The Blitz.
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"Could someone quote a reliable source giving the total of Israelis killed by Hamas rockets or incursions? In the game of numbers, numbers matter."
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg
The rockets - overgrown homemade fireworks - have never been proven to have killed anyone, although while Israel was wading through the blood of 400 children and a thousand others in Operation Cast Lead, it claimed that about ten Israelis were killed, a claim like so many from Israel never substantiated.
By the way, just one fact is most telling here. The United Nations' Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Richard Falk, a distinguished American academic and a Jew, only recently published the fact that Israeli forces have killed 1,335 Palestinian children since the year 2000 in their various incursions, suppressions, and brutal policing.
Now, there is a real record of achievement of which to be proud, Ms Wente.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg
The rockets - overgrown homemade fireworks - have never been proven to have killed anyone, although while Israel was wading through the blood of 400 children and a thousand others in Operation Cast Lead, it claimed that about ten Israelis were killed, a claim like so many from Israel never substantiated.
By the way, just one fact is most telling here. The United Nations' Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Richard Falk, a distinguished American academic and a Jew, only recently published the fact that Israeli forces have killed 1,335 Palestinian children since the year 2000 in their various incursions, suppressions, and brutal policing.
Now, there is a real record of achievement of which to be proud, Ms Wente.
The stuff of democracy to be sure.
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"And it is interesting that in UK, France and Canada you have Conservative governments and then all of them including US Congress and Senate creating special committees to fight anti-Semitism."
"...anyone even tangentially linked to it can kiss his/her career or life good-bye."
Apologists for Israel use the term "anti-Semitism" in exactly the way the late Senator Joe McCarthy used "communist" or "pinko."
The technique is called demonizing and intimidating your opponent, and the intention is to stop people from even considering your opponent’s arguments and observations.
Never mind dealing with the facts and arguments of your opponent, just label him as something filthy.
Israel does this with the word "terrorist" also.
It labels people who oppose its ghastly policies as "terrorists," conveniently forgetting that Israel itself was founded in the terror of the Irgun and Stern and other murderous gangs and forgetting, too, that there is only one source of regular assassination, illegal arrest, property theft, and constant abuse of 4 million people in the Middle East, and that source is Israel.
We have all heard of narco-states, but I believe today it is right to describe Israel as a mafia-state, a state where the government itself murders whoever it thinks worth murdering and steals whatever it thinks worth stealing.
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"Meanwhile the country is bounded on all sides by hostile nations, much larger than itself."
Who chose this troubled location?
Who established their beach head, as it were, with the horrors of the Irgun and Stern gangs?
Who has attacked every neighbor it has, and some two or three times?
Who keeps 4 million people in a state of abuse and a lack of any rights at all?
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"Since ceded to the Israels after WWII, a land of mostly wandering shepherds has been transformed into a modern, vibrant, productive land."
First, no one ceded that land to Israelis.
What authority did the British Empire have giving away the homes and farms of others?
Transformed into a vibrant, productive land?
First, Israel is the most subsidized entity on earth.
It has received hundreds of billions - yes, billions - in subsidies from the United States and others.
The U.S. government gives about $500 per year per Jewish citizen of Israel, and it has done so for decades.
The U.S. also gives priceless technical assistance and access to intelligence and cooperative projects of every description.
Germany has poured tens of billions in reparations into Israel, rightly so in view of past crimes, but still an immense subsidy.
American Jewish organizations have also poured tens of billions into Israel.
Israeli Americans enjoy the special privilege of dual citizenship, something the United States is averse to for others, and this means they can freely travel back and forth transferring technology and other huge benefits.
Its economy only flourishes because half of its trade is with the United States, enjoying as it does a privileged free-trade agreement that would be the envy of any small country.
Its agriculture only flourishes because it diverts the water of others in this dry region.
Then what does it do with the stolen, precious water?
It grows things like tomatoes and clementines to send all the way to the United States, a place with tons of capacity to grow such things.
The real economic cost of this agricultural nonsense is immense. The replacement cost of water in Israel is reflected in its desalination plants (also subsidized) which produce some of the world's most costly water.
