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I agree with bagkitty here. I don't have to approve of Hamas to be allowed to protest how Palestinians are treated in the occupiued territories. I suspect that the Tamil Tigers are not exactly rah-rah about gay rights either - that doesn't mean we should look the other way when there are human rights abuses in norther Sri Lanka.
or when Cuba mistreats political prisoners...?
"I agree with bagkitty here. I don't have to approve of Hamas to be allowed to protest how Palestinians are treated in the occupiued territories. I suspect that the Tamil Tigers are not exactly rah-rah about gay rights either - that doesn't mean we should look the other way when there are human rights abuses in norther Sri Lanka."
But you must use politically correct speak.
"BTW: Getting back to the larger topic. What would people think if an annual event was started entitled "Islamic Homophobia and Misogyny Week"? Would you see it as a perfectly legitimate title for an event that was well within the bounds of debate in Canada - whether ytou personally liked it or not - or would you see it as thinly veiled "islamophobia" and gratuitously inflammatory?"
There would be endless vitriolic postings here and big tire-burning demonstrations elsewhere.
"Islamic" is not a government, idiot.
While all racists are idiots, not all idiots are racists.
Really.... how about the Islamic Republic of Iran...? Cretin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran
Well, before we get completely lost in tangents why don't we simply propose a "Misogyny and Homophobia in the Abrahamic Tradition Week" - lots of source material, no need to single out any of the big three, and we can pull in a few of the lesser known monotheistic groups too... Not only would it be more "politcally correct speak", it would be much more accurate, and would reduce the opportunities (though not eliminate them) for any one of the flavours to manipulate the theme to attack the blasphemers of one of the other flavours.
bagkitty, you are absolutley spot on. What a wonderful idea. Soon the defenders of Israeli apartheid can be condemning the feminazis for daring to examine mysogyny outside of the socially acceptable and culturally racist lens of Islamophobia. Maybe we can call it, God Hates Women Week.
Or when vicious empire central supports both Israeli terrorism against Palestinians and US-based terrorism against Cuba simultaneously. In which case it's our duty to attack the third political party in Ontario in protest of it all. We'll show US and Israeli hawks that they can't get away with imperialism so easily.
Okay Fidel, I am part of the way there, but at the first mention of "bourgeois decadence" I am leaving you and joining the angry mob with pitchforks and torches... we all have our breaking point.
Well I completely and thoroughly understand why western newz media and governments won't listen to Hamas. Apparently Hamas won't agree to meet three conditions for the road map to peace, the one which the UN, USA, Russia, and Israel hammered out and was formally accepted. One requirement is that Hamas has to accept the road map, which vicious empire central in Warshington and Israel reject by caveats and addendums but only reject it as long as Hamas renounces violence and recognizes Israel. And Hamas must accept that Israel and vicious empire central in Warshington can never recognize a Palestinian state, because that would mean allowing Palestinians to live a civilized existence. So I'm all for bringing down the third party in Ontario legislature as a result. They can't be allowed to continue supporting and enabling this imperialist setup from the supreme halls of power in Toronto. Let's teach the NDP a lesson on this one. It's more clear to me now. As clear as an unmuddied lake. As clear as an azure sky in the deepest of summer.
My cousin was a victim of a murder suicide (aka. "Palestinian resistance") while she was having lunch in a restaurant . So I have a problem with anyone proclaiming that they have a right to call for the eradication of another nation state or murder it's members. Especially when it is a double standard which was the whole point of my post which obviously anyone mired in ideology is blind to.
Why do we not see "Victims of Torture from the Fascist Islamic Republic of Iran week"? Why are you singularly obsessed with Israel whilst minimizing or ignoring atrocities of states much much worse? That is the point of the condemnation of IAW.
That's been answered endlessly in conversations like this but now we have a whole new rebuttal. When a member of my government announces that an attack on Iran is an attack on Canada you can be sure that I'll be taking a much closer look at Iran to see if it's the kind of country with whom I believe we should have that kind of relationship. It's our government which has singled out Israel for special attention.
If our "government", and I think we can use that word loosely, was at all concerned with genocide, rape and torture of more than five million human beings in one country, then we would be helping out the DRC. But the two countries' armies and mercenaries perpetrating much of the slaughter in the Congo are US proxies Rwanda and Uganda. So the NDP is way off base there in thinking our vicious toady old line parties in Ottawa would ever agree to ruffling Uncle Sam's feathers anywhere in the colonies and client states and especially not wrt Israel.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
But it's a rare opportunity to point out a similarity between the NDP and the two pro-Warshington/Israel parties for the sake of political expediency. And that's what really counts.
Stargazer points to peech who bares her heart and calls her a hypocrite. OK
Hey well, if the shoe fits. Funny Jaku, you have a lot of compassion for poor peech, almost none for Palestinians.
I wonder when you, Peech and prophet will ever consider how the state you support kills people, isolates people, blocks them from any decent life. Where is your compassion for them? Oh yes, you lost it in your many many many defenses of Israel.
Yeah, not going to work.
I hear that a similar motion will be brought forward in the House of Commons when they get back
Thankfully (in your case), I don't speak on behalf of the ONDP and I am not a member either. As I mentioned in this forum, if the ONDP had opposed the motion, it would have had to be prepared to deal vigorously with the opponents of the IAW. The NDP would have gained very little and lost a lot. It would have gained a few votes from people who care about the Palestinians but lost a lot of votes from people who just don't care about the Palestinians. The latter are the voters who live in northern Ontario and the industrial cities of Ontario.
Why would the NDP lose the support of people who don't care about the issue? They don't care.
Furthermore, if this is a matter of the NDP doing some political calculations on who they can throw under the bus, then I think people who care about Palestinians should simply not support the NDP. They've decided they don't want our support, so there should be no complaining from NDPers when they don't get it.
Peech wrote,
"Why do we not see "Victims of Torture from the Fascist Islamic Republic of Iran week"? Why are you singularly obsessed with Israel whilst minimizing or ignoring atrocities of states much much worse? That is the point of the condemnation of IAW."
Last year and the year before when I supported the British Columbia and Ontario referendums on voting reform, the opponents of STV and MMP attacked these systems. They never made any mention about the current First-Past-the-Post voting system nor did they suggest any alternative. They were not obligated to do so.
The IAW participants are not obligated to go through a checklist of other countries and advocate for better human rights and democracy in those places. If the opponents of IAW want a "Victims of Torture from the Fascist Islamic Republic of Iran Week," then they can organize such a week freely in Canada. I won't tell them that they will need to list other countries that have poor human rights records. I might even participate in their events.
Your first statement is correct and after that you're off the rails
the contortions, apologetics and attempts to prove wrong actions right whenever your pseudo socialist icons are involved are obvious and unnecessary. It was unconscionable for the NDP to join in a full frontal attack upon the Palestinian rights movement. And for you to support them in this.
I will suggest if the ONDP gets bogged down into discussing primarily the Palestinian/Israeli issue, then other issues will be put to the sidelines. For example, there is a strike at Vale Inco in Sudbury. The voters would probably want to hear what the NDP has to say about the strike and the economy in Sudbury. The Middle East is a low priority. Many voters may not care about the Middle East; they do care if their concerns about other issues get pushed aside.
Fidel, so that you don't conflate political support for criticism of actions, can I state that I can find what the NDP are doing is wrong, even if they are still a good party option?
Isn't it a bad idea to let them make this mistake AND uncritically support them in making it?
That is such an absurd argument. Are you seriously suggesting that if the NDP didn't go along, they'd be spending most of the election (more than a year away) defending themselves from the charges of "anti-Semitism" levelled at them by the Liberals and Tories?
Or that one party can deal with many issues at the same time. Charlie Angus is advocating hard right now for Vale Inco. No one is debating how hard NDP works. When the party you vote for starts to endorse positions that are more acceptable to the right than the left, this is when people question membership and/or voting for that party. Obama is doing bad now because he is throwing everyone under the bus. I don't think that's a good thing to do. And there are a lot of people pissed at this. We are pretty capable of being upset at a lot of things all at the same time.
I've already commented above that I disagree with Dinovo's pro-Israeli bias in the matter. But is it really pro-Israel and not just anti-combative wrt the Middle East situation? How will conservatives react? Liberals? US Republicans and Dixiecrats? I think they would react a lot more swiftly and take wicked-serious a Can-Am trade war and even trade sanctions at the federal level. This war of words is like a pinching contest between a beaver and an elephant, and we're not the elephant. I agree with "Zionist" Noam Chomsky when he says that activism should be focussed on crimes of the state. As in our state and that one south of us. I don't like what US hawks and fascists are doing in Israel and territories, but I don't like a whole lot more that they are directly and indirectly responsible for at the same time. Focussing on Israel must surely be comparable to pursing 9/11 "conspiracy theory" in that it's also a waste of time. We need to paint a big target on the side of the barn and try to nail it with a hard ball.