Canada-Israel Committee counters criticism of Israel with homophobic tweet

Damn, looks like someone didn't read the memo about the "pinkwash" campaign. I am anxiously awaiting the non-stop press coverage demanding immediate resignations.

Well, given that I posted this story to the other thread hours ago, I would have thought there would have already been a letter-writing campaign organized to the CIC.  But apparently, they're not the target, again it's Jack Layton who's fallen down by not calling a news conference to criticize them.

The CIC are an abomination and should be condemned for their day-to-day work. No, OO, I don't write letters of protest to the CIC or CJC, because they are neither government nor someone I have any hope of influencing. I do, however, write letters to the editor on occasion, and articles in union bulletins, and posts on discussion boards, condemning their activities, because my audience is real people, not enemies.

Having said that, explain to me why Jack Layton should not stand up and condemn these people publicly - if only to defend: (a) his Deputy Leader; and (b) respect for LGBTQ folks.

Oh, for fork's sake. Could "some" forking babblers leave their forking egos at the forking door, just once, just once, and discuss the forking topic at forking hand without turning everything into a forking battle amongst their forking selves? This place is so forking impossibly meta I cannot cope, I truly cannot.

This is really unbelievable, in this day and age...

... not only that, its implications to the Pride Toronto Board are significant, as they pandered to an entity that is essentially spreading hate in respect to lesbians......

Bob Rae should be ashamed, as should all those on CIC. A formal apology has to happen and swiftly....

It's so sick, Michelle.

Yeah, other people have too, remind.  People closer to home than Rae.

I think that is Bill Siksay's portfolio when it involves homophobia.

Libby D would do best to keep the worst of the comments to bring up to discredit her distractors when they again raise their ugly heads.

I am sure that whoever runs against Rae would also want to get their hands on a few of them.

The listing of the offences to the amendments is amusing, is it not? (Much though I honour the USian Bill of Rights as a classic expression of basic principles and structures.) Some people are just so talking-pointy when they write, eh? Such a giveaway.

I wish to apologize for my outburst above. I don't usually burst out, and I was wrong to do that. Sorry, and hugs to all.

Good observation - and in fact, it's a standard, ritualized talking point for the Israel lobby - "you queers would be dead if you were in Gaza, but Israel is one big Pride celebration".

We should also recall that Mario Silva is a co-chair of the rabidly pro-Israel Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. They get their manual of talking points direct from the source. These are dangerous people.

And they're right...if we went to Tel Aviv Pride. Jersualem Pride is another story. But since when has being nice to gays inside Israel justified being nasty to Palestinians outside Israel?

Good point!  Although apartheid supporters claim it is.

?

Honestly, Ken, no one in the world has ever recognized the division of Jerusalem or Israel's right to any part of it - not even the U.S. The United Nations declared it as an international city under U.N. protection, with religious rights of the three religions protected. Joe Clark learned this truth to his embarrassment in 1979, as you may recall. Jerusalem - or more properly, Al-Quds, is not part of Israel.

Isn't the position that East Jerusalem would be the capital of a Palestinian state?

I wasn't aware that they now wanted all of Jerusalem.  If that is the case I stand corrected.

If the UN declared Jerusalem to be an "international city" (whatever that means - does that mean that if the bus schedule is off - I shoudl complain to Ban-Ki-Moon??) - then it also means that Palestinians have no right to it cannot make it their capital either.

ETA on second thought

The people who live in Jerusalem have "jurisdiction" over it. Right now there are something like half a million Israelis there - what do you recommend - deporting them all to Poland??

The Palestinians don't ven want west Jerusalem. How can you create an Islamic state under Sharia law if you have over 50% of the population who are non-Muslims?

"Palestine shall be committed to guaranteeing freedom of worship and access"

That's nice to hear - I wonder what happened to that sentiment during the 1948 to 1967 when the Palestinians controlled Old Jerusalem and went out of their way to desecrate Jewish religious locations even using Jewish gravestones to build roads for people to walk on. I;d like to believe that they have a more charitable attitude towards other religions now. Please provide some evidence that is the case.

This is indeed the danger of the "forget" everything prior to 67 position you are defending. Somehow you end up saying that the Palestinians "now wanted all of Jerusalem" as if this is some new "extra" demand, when in fact the present Palestinian position of accepting only East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state is a major concession on their part.

Sometime in the future, after you have stuffed everything that has happened between 1967 and the present because of some alleged "international consensus" you will be going on about how you are surprised that the Palestinians "now want all of Hebron" as the capital of the Palestinian state.

Greedy fucks, those Palestinians, always wanting what we are taking from them.

Sorry, but I just have to post this whenever I read about the Israeli/Palestine situation -

John Lennon:

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Yes, well the Israeli declaration of independence calls for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. You don't seem to find that so appauling.

And I wasn't saying "forget everything PRIOR to 67". 

Even in my early posts here on the subject, when I was more pro-Israel than I am now, I never said that(at least as far as I can recollect).

There needs to be major compensation to Palestinians for the dispossession and an admission that they were victims of a great injustice in 1948.  I'd even be willing to support some form of Right of Return.  There's nothing I've said on this issue for a very long time(and my position has changed since I've started posting here)to justfiy your conclusions about me.  I'd even be willing to consider a unitary state as a long-term goal...but there would have to be a reconciliation process(with a lot of reparations to Palestinians)before that would really work.  It wouldn't work right now because the animosity is too deep.

Why are you acting like I'm a Likudnik or something?

Anyway, all this stuff about Jerusalem is thread drift, and I'm sorry I participated in it. It would make a very interesting thread. The issue here is the Canada Israel Committee and its homophobic attack on Libby Davies. Should Jack Layton condemn it - or say nothing?

Oh Stock, me thinks you are deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room.

Ridiculous, Hamas has always affirmed the rights of minorities, including Jews and Christians in their proposed state. Indeed they ran several Christian candidates in the last elections. It's practically Qu'ranic law that provisions be made for religious minorities. Indeed their arguement is that Islam is far a more appropriate model for creating a  multiethnic state than Judaism, because Judaism makes absolutely no such provisions for minority rights.

Therefore there is no basis for your claim that Hamas proposes to impose a uniform religious state that enforces religous conformity.

I do try to ignore Unionist as much as possible - though I wouldn;t be so hard on him as to call him an elephant.

Egale is a bad example. They joined with the CJC to bar a Muslim cleric from Canada, based on phony "evidence" from the racist pro-Zionist CCD.

Jack Layton should consider speaking out publicly when his Deputy Leader has been called a "mouthy lesbian" by a registered Ottawa lobby group.

Is that rocket science?

It might interest you to know that Helen Kennedy the Director or Egale is a member of the Pride Day committee and cast one of the dissenting votes AGAINST preventing QAIA taking part in the parade.

And as I pointed out. If you actually bothered to read Hamas statements on this, and indeed their original charter they explicitly express the principle of a multireligious state, under Islamic guidance:

Hamas Charter

There is absolutely no foundation for your generalized and stereotyped hyperbole, exageration and libel, about mass expulsions of religious minorities.

I don't agree with this, but there is nothing in this that seperates it from the concept of a multi-ethnic state, defined under the banner of Judaism, as expressed in "secular" Zionism.

"f you actually bothered to read Hamas statements on this, and indeed their original charter they explicitly express the principle of a multireligious state, under Islamic guidance"

Oh I se, so under Hamas rule I can be Jewish or Christian or atheist as long as I'm under "ISLAMIC GUIDANCE". Sounds like Philipine dictator Ferdinand Marcos describing his regime as "guided democracy".

No, my question is how you can have an "Islamic state" if a majority of the population is not Muslim in the first place. I see two options: mass expulsion of all non-Muslims followed by an election, or a violent coup where a minority seizes power, suspends all elections and parties declares an Islamic state and simply imposes it on the non-Muslim majority (and also imposed it on the many Muslims who don't want to live in a theocratic state).

How else do you suggest creating an "islamic state" in a country where only a relatively small minority of the population wants one? 

@Stockybaba

Nope that wasn't your question. You changed your tack, sorry. Prevously you were simply misrepresenting the facts of Hamas's stated positions and pandering to Islamophobia.

However, more detailed statements by Hamas officials have indeed suggested that they would expect to win a democratic election in a future unified state, because the Muslim population will indeed soon outnumber all the rest. They presume of course that all Muslims would vote for them, which is doubful.

Sure I do. You just made it sound as if claiming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the propose Arab state was some new demand on behalf of the Palestinians, as opposed to recognizing that surrendering a claim to everything but East Jerusalem was a massive concession by the Palestinian leadership of Yasser Arafat.

Look, I made a mistake on that.  I wasn't intentionally implying that the Palestinians were asking for something they hadn't asked for before.  I just got confused on what their position was for a moment and I apologize for that.

But I would never, ever take the position that everything since 1948 should be swept under the rug.  That's not where I come from on this.

Can we please move on from this now?

Fair enough.  And it was never my intention to be a cog in that particular machine.  Are we ok between us now on this?

I'm not sure how much these debates about 48, 56, 67, really matter.  Ultimately the Palestinians and Israelis are going to have to negotiate an agreement with one another.

It would be in everyone's best interest to fully support a negotiated settlement ASAP.

" The point is that one party is not, and will never honestly approach a negotiated settlement, because it is simply not in its best interests to do so."

You're being very hard on the Palestinians - surely some of them want peace.

The other factor is probably the personal ambitions of the Israeli political elite. 

As long as the war goes on, they get to be world famous.

If it ended, would they matter to anyone, in geopolitical terms?

Look at it this way...

When's the last time anybody noticed that the Swiss defense minister showed up in Washington or Ottawa?

Demanding that someone enter into negotiations "without pre-conditions" is indeed a pre-condition. How is it that you just fell into the trap of demanding a condition upon Palestinian negotiators, without actually demanding that Israel shoud do the same... such as stop coming up with cheap ways of blocking negotiations, such as demanding "no pre-conditions" as a "pre-condition" for negotiation?

Why indeed do you put the onus upon Palestinians, when indeed they have essentially already made massive concessions on their original position, such as no explicit demand for the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, such as renouncing their claim to 70% of their historic homeland, such as agreeing to recognizing Israel's "right to exist".

In fact, all these three things were all pre-conditions to negotiations that Israel has demanded of Palestinians, before entering into negotiation, and in each case the Palestinians have agreed to these pre-condtions... but now, for some reason you seem to think it is Palestinian intransigence on key issues as "pre-conditions" for negotiations that is the block to a peaceful settlement.

So, how does Israel back out of negotiations? Simple. Demand no "pre-conditions", as a precondition.

Yes my friend it is precisely this kind of tortured logic that has dogged a peaceful settlement for many many years, and through many rounds of so-called peace negotiatios.

Logical if you assume that Israel is bargaining in good faith. Why should it? It gets what it wants simply by maintaining the status quo. I mean, seriously, you think this miserable Palestinian rebellion impacts Israel or its economy in any real way? Not at all. It is just one great big excuse to justify the billions and billions of dollars that flow into the Israeli military industrial complex from Uncle Sam.

The Syrian Threat

Yeah, so back on topic, gentlemen.

Here are more examples of homophobic and misogynist hate from supposedly enlightened and gay-loving Israel supporters.  I think the Canada-Israel Committee should have considered leaving their post about Libby intact - they were representing their constituency well, judging from the hate they're spewing on her Facebook wall and twitter!

I guess someone forgot to tell Michael Schonberger (Menachem) about the pinkwash campaign too!

Is this guy on the executive of the Canada-Israel Committee? If not, then he is just one of thousands of pseudo-anonymous cranks who spew their hate on talk radio and in the comments sections of various blogs. As much as I object to the Canada-Israel Committee, I'm not going to hold them responsible for what individual people who are not members of that organization choose to tweet. I would to have any of the progressive organizations I sympathize with be forced to take responsibility for nutbars to (for example) express support for the people who bombed the Royal Bank in Ottawa.

I don't hold the pro-Palestinian cause/community responsible for the viciously homophobic comments from the Khadr family and I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find posting from some fundamentalist Muslims that gays shoudl all be killed - so what? Tell me something I didn't know. The CIC shoudl be forced to apologize for what was put out under their rubrik. Its not their problem if one individual crackpot who has no ties to them chooses to tweet bigoted comments as an individual.

Yeah, Michelle, excellent point. The main difference between the CIC, and their homophobic pro-Israel ideological fellow-travelling commenters, is that the CIC only lets its guard down once in a while.

...and since when is "Menachem" part of the Canada-Israel Committee?

Well, I'll reiterate Michelle's challenge to Stockholm as well, so you can flag this too.

Stockholm's "analogy" made a whole bunch of stereotypical and privileged (false) presumptions, such as:

1. All Palestinians are Muslims.

2. The Khadrs have some identification with Muslims.

3. Afghans have something to do with Palestinians.

It comes from, and feeds, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racism.

Personally, I don't think Stockholm meant all this, but in stretching for an analogy, he gave birth to this monstrosity.

So, Michelle could just as well have said: "So Stockholm, Afghans and Palestinians are somehow the same"? Or the way she said it. Both very proper.

Explanations from Unionist and Cueball are acknowledged and heard. Cueball, thank you for explaining this to me. Clearly I missed some dot connecting. Michelle, apologies. I was too quick to judge and rash in my judgement. Mods, apologies for wasting time with the flagging. Please accept this as a by-product of youthful exuberance. In another thread someone said something about well-meaning youth saying "jaw-droppingly stupid" things, or something to that effect....

Its no different from the sweeping generalizations people make about Zionism.

Perhaps the solution would be as follows: 1) that people who are supporters of Israel refrain from labelling anyone who criticises Israel as being anti-semitic and 2) that people who are supporters of Palestinians refrain from labelling anyone who criticizes Hamas as being Islamophobic.

Until both of those conditions are met this topic will continue to be as toxic as ever.

Hamas claims to want to install an "Islamic state". I think its fair to look at other examples of "Islamic states" and see what that might mean. Judging from wehat it means in Saudi Arabia and Iran and Afghanistan - it ain't pretty.If you can show me examples of "Islamic states" that are wonderful liberal democracies where women have equal rights and where people are free to practice any religion they want - I'd love to hear about it and maybe I will then be less suspicious of what Hamas has in mind.

Similarly, if someone tells me that they want Canada to be a fascist state, I look at what fascism meant in Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy and Pinochet's Chile and I tend to think that fascism in Canada would eb something along those lines. If the leader of the Fascist Party of Canada said, we want to impose an explicitly fascist corporatist regime in Canada but don't worry it won't be EXACTLY like what Franco or Mussolini did - I don't think it would do much to assuage my fears and suspicions.

I'm not sure why you're quoting the Hamas Charter now since I think in the past you claimed that the Charter was menaingless and that no one took it seriously after it was pointed out that the Hamas Charter explicitly says the following:

"The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)."

Are we supposed to believe the charter or not - or are we only supposed to believe the parts that are not embarrassing to Hamas and make it look bad?

Here are some juicy tidbits from the Hamas Charter where the discuss the status of women and casually mention that Freemasons and Rotary Clubs are zionist front organizations (in later passages they claim that the Lion's Club and Kiwanis are also part of the conspiracy)- enjoy...

"The Muslim women have a no lesser role than that of men in the war of liberation; they manufacture men and play a great role in guiding and educating the [new] generation. The enemies have understood that role, therefore they realize that if they can guide and educate [the Muslim women] in a way that would distance them from Islam, they would have won that war. Therefore, you can see them making consistent efforts [in that direction] by way of publicity and movies, curricula of education and culture, using as their intermediaries their craftsmen who are part of the various Zionist Organizations which take on all sorts of names and shapes such as: the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, gangs of spies and the like. All of them are nests of saboteurs and sabotage. Those Zionist organizations control vast material resources, which enable them to fulfill their mission amidst societies, with a view of implementing Zionist goals and sowing the concepts that can be of use to the enemy. Those organizations operate [in a situation] where Islam is absent from the arena and alienated from its people. Thus, the Muslims must fulfill their duty in confronting the schemes of those saboteurs. When Islam will retake possession of [the means to] guide the life [of the Muslims], it will wipe out those organizations which are the enemy of humanity and Islam."

I never said that they want a Saudi Arabian style state. I simply said that since Saudi Arabia is one of the only other examples of an Islamic state in the world - it gives a hint of what Hamas might have in mind.

Aand I'm particularly outraged by how they slander the Rotary Club and the Lion's Club. What bigotted hatred from these people. How dare they!!!

By the way in another amusing passage in the charter they claim that Zionists were responsible for the French and Russian revolutions....if only it were so!

"slander by free association" by jove, you've invented a whole new concept. Why don't you write a formal definition of it and send it to the Oxford English Dictionary and see if they include in their next edition!

I support free association as a rule - but apparently Hamas doesn't want people to join the Rotary Club or the Lion's Club!!

What evidence is there that supporters of Israel are particularly homophobic and misogynist?

The attacks against Libby are unfair.

The idea that supporters of Israel are particularly homophobic and misogynist also seems unfair.

I'm not sure that their is much validity in these tweets.

Are these tweets in an any way representative of Israeli supporters?

Correction - you mean the Canadian Jewish Congress.

It would be great if Israel and Hamas and Fatah all had a bidding war whereby they all try to win over public opinion in the west by showing how gay positive they are. Hamas should get in the act and start "pinkwashing" the Gaza strip and hold a gay pride parade just to show the world how tolerant they are. It would be a great propaganda victory against Israel and would help stop Israel from being able to play the gay card.

Maybe Gaza City should bid to host World Pride 2011 and it would be a great way to showcase what a tolerant, gay-positive place a Hamas-ruled islamic republic of Palestine would be!!

My guess is that the people of Gaza might be a little too preoccupied with avoiding starving to death to put on an international festival of any sort.

edit: nevermind

And "Good Night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are"