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Justin Podur's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/justinpodur
Bio: Justin Podur is a writer and editor for ZNet (www.zmag.org), part of Z Communications, an alternative media organization dedicated to political analysis and support for movements for social change.... (More)

All Podur Blogs

What a grim field (Canadian politics and Israel/Palestine)

By Justin Podur at Oct 16, 2006


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A brief report from the stomach-turning exercise of watching Canadian politics. The liberal leadership race is unfolding and all candidates are competing to bend lower in obesiance to racism and contempt against Palestinians. How bizarre that Michael "not losing sleep over massacres" Ignatieff is now off to atone for calling a war crime a war crime. And Bob Rae, who scored cheap points by attacking Ignatieff for saying he wasn't losing sleep, got to score more cheap points by attacking Ignatieff for calling the Qana massacre a war crime. And how does Rae know that the massacre wasn't a war crime? Of course because he knows the intent of the Israeli military. Rae, like so much of the Canadian establishment, reads minds. He knows the Western minds of the Israelis would never deliberately kill civilians, so we have over a thousand accidents from the summer and hundreds of accidents piling up continuously in Gaza. He knows the Oriental minds of Hizbullah and so he can tell us that they deliberately killed civilians, even though they killed mostly soldiers who were invading their country, committing the ultimate war crime of aggression. But then, the Canadian establishment has never understood the concept of aggression, from the time that Lester B. Pearson criticized Vietnamese aggression against the French in Vietnam all the way to today. Nor does the Canadian establishment understand racism, including its own. Our culture allows a certain level and a certain kind of racism. Because of that permissiveness, racism against Palestinians, support for Israel's ongoing massacres and ethnic cleansing, carries no political cost in our society. One need not expect the likes of Rae or Ignatieff to have pangs of conscience, but it would be good if at some point their kind of contempt of people's lives and deaths met with the revulsion it deserved. I've explored that topic in the past. A while ago, as I was heading into an extremely busy period, I received a personal challenge to explore that topic again, something I plan to do in the coming days. More on that soon...
Person

re: all they have to do..

By Kissenger, Clark at Oct 30, 2006 20:42 PM

thank you hessan..for y ur highlites on jewish communities in Iran..

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Person

This for my brother Justin..

By Kissenger, Clark at Oct 18, 2006 21:46 PM

Justin, FYI, Bob rae has always been a liberal, actually the guy even married one of Chretien's daughter.. Bob Rae is ususally a reflected politician but if his stances are condemning lebanese and palestinians to suffering and if he support zionism, it is most likely that I will be against Bob Rae political motivations.. Justing where can I find more info on Michael Ignateff.. ( By the way one cool ontario politician I like is H. Hampton)

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Person

All they have to do?

By Kissenger, Clark at Oct 18, 2006 13:58 PM

Dear CrCn,

 

I ask you to let go of the bias that has taken over your mind and look at the facts. If you look a little open-minded and independently, you'll see that it's the Zionist state that doesn't want peace. There were several attempts from the Palestinians for creating two-state solutions and setting the Israel-Palestine boundaries and many UN resolutions trying to stabilize it, but it's always Israel that ignores them. Israel is the one occupying territories that are not its own, not Palestine. We are dealing with a very dangerous regime in Israel. They believe that God has promised them this land and want to live there (no problem so far), and are willing to bulldoze houses down before they are even evacuated and kill Palestinian children on there way to school to get their land (I think that's a problem). They are willing to do anything to just get these filthy Arabs out of there, and just get rid of them somehow.


I'm sure you don't get informed about the Palestinians that are killed these days. Surely they don't say anything about them on CNN or BBC. This silent murder of a couple of Palestinians each day is far worse than a suicide bombing that happens less frequently than once a month.

 

You think that all they have to do is “recognize the right of Israel to exist”? Well that doesn't suffice as far as Israel is concerned. The Zionist regime wants its land, it doesn't care about Palestinian rights. This is totally evident just by taking a close look at the recent history of Israel. Arafat has recognized the right for Israel to exist, and borders have been set, but they were simply ignored by Israel. It's really hard to miss the numerous resolutions condemning Israel and the US-supported ignorance of them.

 

These people are not against Jews!!! That's totally wrong! They are against Zionism. They don't want to 'kill Jews' as you claim. When have they said such a thing? Just take a look at the Jews living in Iran:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5367892.stm


You are right, the solution to this problem is very simple, but all such attempts to implement them were vetoed by the United States. just take a look:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/usvetoes.html

It's horrible! The whole entire international community wants a peaceful end to this conflict, but it's always the US, the big bully with a right to 'veto', that gets in the way. Take a look at the votes on the second column! The US is always standing alone... it's always something to one!


I hope you're not here to just make a fight. You won't get anywhere calling people 'bigots'. I kindly ask you to take a closer look at this situation, and I hope you'll understand it all.


Hessam Azadmanesh


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Person

Racist comparing to who? It

By Kissenger, Clark at Oct 18, 2006 11:23 AM

Racist comparing to whom? It is meaningless to make blanket accusations without context. Tribalism was the norm in human history and racism is not uniquely a Western phenomenon. But at least in the West it is universially regarded as wrong and efforts are made to overcome it, at least the label "racist" means something in the West. "The West" is not the only one guilty of colonialism. While you are talking about Iran maybe you should consider how it became muslim in the first place. While we see the Arabs as "victims" today(which they mainly are, though not always of "the West") perhaps we should remember they too had their haydays of Empire building. An article about Muslim immigration opines that Muslim immigrants are having a hard time in Europe pyschologically partly because it is the first time in history that Arab muslims arrive in a strange land not as conquerors. A gross simplification for sure, but there is some truth to that. Colonialism was a standard way of nation building, some were better at the game than the other. But the idea that colonialism is morally wrong was a concept developed by the "evil West". Other cultures complain about colonialism only when they happened to be on the recieving end. The critique of colonalism as an institution was a Western innovation.No one else, not the Arabs, not the Chinese, not the Japanese apologize for their imperial past like Europeans. The West should not make apologies for the industrial revolution anymore than the human species should apologize for its existence. There are indications that homo sapians once indulged in canibalism and it might have sped up our evolution in some ways. I think the beneficence of the West is often exaggerated, but on the other hand I don't agree with the mindless demonizing and masochistic self fellating fest that is almost standard fare here on Znet either. "The West" is not monolithic. It has produced some of the worst robber barons, but it has also gave birth to some of the most progressive ideas that continue to inspire oppressed people around the world.

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Person

The only thing the Arab

By Cclausen, Crcn at Oct 17, 2006 11:43 AM

The only thing the Arab world has to do is say "Israel has a right to exist.  Jews have a right to live in Israel." But the Arab world refuses to do so. Instead, the Arab world sanctions groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and the PA which explicitly call for the killing of Jews. And there are the apologists in the West like the left wing here at Znet, Indymedia, A.N.S.W.E.R. et. al.  You talk about the "poor Palestinians" who have been bombed, killed, etc., yet you fail to recognize that THEY and their muslim brethren have refused peace.  Are the Israelis supposed to let the Palestinians simply try to kill them and not do anything in return?  Your answer is "yes." Just like when the national socialists marched through Europe.  You also fail to recognize that the Palestinians could have had their own country long ago, either by agreement with their fellow Arabs, or through negotiated peace deals.  But they chose war instead. Even the Edward Said chair at Columbia - no friend of Jews - has expressed this. But the hardcore bigots of left won't recognize it.

 At least the Klan and the Nazi party has the balls to admit who and what they are. You on the other hand, prefer to cloak yourself with the veil of the political left.

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Person

If you don't think that the

By Cclausen, Crcn at Oct 17, 2006 10:41 AM

If you don't think that the threat of suicide bombers and quassam rockets is a daily threat in Israel - weapons that specifically and ONLY target civilians whose only crime is being Jewish - you are woefully a)ignorant, b) a biggot.  Which is it?

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Person

The West is racist?  You

By Cclausen, Crcn at Oct 17, 2006 09:47 AM

The West is racist?  You show your ignorance.  The West is built on the notion of tolerance and equality.

Have you read the Hizzbolah charter? It EXPLITCLY calls for the kiling of Jews and the destruction of a legitmate country?  This is acceptable to you?

You Sir, or bordering on bigotry.  Worse, you and blinded by your own rage. 

A serious question, you obviously side with an ideology that want to destroy the non-muslim world. What then, are you doing living in the west?

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