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Iggy bans Lib MPs from Gaza rallies?
January 5, 2009 - 1:39pm
http://canadian-firebrand.blogspot.com/2009/01/liberal-mps-gagged-on-gaza.html
Quote:
I've just heard word from a reliable source that Liberal MPs have been instructed not to speak at Gaza solidarity rallies with the threat that if they do their nominations forms will not be signed for the next election. I wonder if Liberals have been given the same instruction in relation to pro-Israel rallies?
I didn't see any politicians in Winnipeg either
EDIT: I should say, any elected politicians. I saw some people from both Communist Parties
Unfuckingbelievable seriously, has the pro_israeli lobby got that much power that it holds everyone hostage?
___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"
Who do we elect though? I'm sorry if I'm being Manitoba-centric here, but I can't think of any elected politician in Manitoba that has been vocally critical of Israel in recent years. At least two of the Manitoba NDP MPs (Pat Martin and Judy W-L) as well as the provincial government and many MLAs have been very supportive of Israel.
I don't think there is any party in Canada which opposes Israeli apartheid and supports Palestine, aside from the Communist Parties
Not all that surprising, given Iggy's statement:
...which is indistinguishable from that of the Bush administration.
It appears Harper can no longer use Israel as a wedge issue in the Jewish community.
It's not the lobby ... it's the war industry ... You know ... the corporate controllers of all governments world-wide, who get governments to do their dirty genocide jobs for them.
It's not politics, not religion ... it's just 'business', imo.
Not the whole story; I doubt Iggy is telling his MPs to avoid all anti-war rallies, just these ones. I could be wrong about that, I suppose.
But the NDP might be able to, since of course not all Jews are Zionist fuckheads, and oppose this brutal assault. Can we at least get it straight here, on this website, of all websites, that a great many Jews are really uncomfortable with being associated with this kind of brutality, and that Jews do not block vote in support of Israel?
I would estimate that more Jews have attended the protests against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, than have appeared at the so called counter-demonstrations. Its quite apparent that most responsible Jewish leaders in Canada are low profiling their involvement with the present assault on the people of Gaza.
For example, in the reporting that the Star did on the rally in Toronto the only spokesperson who the Star interviewed was Meir Weinstein, the organizer for the neo-Fascist extremist Jewish Defence League. Even the scurilous Bernie Farber of the CJC was not available for comment, apparently.
That, in and of itself, says something about how Jews feel about what is going on at this point in time.
The easiest way to disprove the statement is to find a Liberal MP who has spoken to a Gaza rally.
All I can say is that this is what rally organizers were told.
That doesn't disprove anything. Not everyone is going to support these rallies. I would be dismayed if a political party took this sort of stance, (with the exception of Harper's party who might be expected to resort to this sort of tactic). I would need more than your assertion that this was what rally organizers were told. The mess in the middle east needs a lot more critical thinking and reason and a lot less jumping to conclusions. There has been enough of that already.
What is so strange about a party telling its MPs which issues to speak publicly about, which ones to stay quiet about, which events to attend, and what to say?
They tell them how to vote in the Commons, don't they?
I don't get what the fuss is here. The egregious and horrendous thing is Ignatieff's public position on the Gaza situation. If he needed to order his caucus not to speak at rallies, it means he's afraid that the caucus stand may not be monolithic on this point. That's good news.
I agree with you for the most part. However the Harper Conservatives almost certainly made inroads in the Jewish community with their Israel stance. It is not anywhere near a majority of the community - the plurality are still Lib - but it was significant enough to get Peter Kent elected in the riding of Thornhill, for instance.
That being said, the NDP statement isn't as critical of Israel as they were circa 2002 but their statement is light years better than that of Ignatieff, which is identical to the Bush administration. In fact it is Ignatieff who is taking the "lead" - Iggy's statement dates Dec. 29 and that of Lawrence Cannon - which is basically identical - dates Jan. 4. Stephen Ignatieff indeed.
I wish - but that's not accurate.
Cannon's original statement, which Iggy basically copied, was issued December 27, 2008, as reported right here on babble by jrose.
Let them fight over who's the egg and who's the chicken. I agree, the NDP is still light years ahead. The wedge may indeed change.
I think actually the "support for Israel right or wrong" line plays better with non-Jews than it does with Jews. Jews have become a kind of cause celebre for non-Jews who want to give themselves tollerance street cred.
Harpo and Iggy can paint themselves as true defenders of civil liberties by sticking by Israel. All of which is supported by the general feeling of sympathy because of what happened in the last war (note I am saying "the last") and our grandiose conceptions of ourselves as defenders of the weak, and our role in liberating Western Europe from tyrrany.
Defending Israel (and therefore Jews) is the ideologically sanctioned way that one can express ones "good intentions", and is unassailable as such because of the unique circumstances in which our cultural concept of Jewishness comes into the context of the present day.
Jews, on the whole, (Zionist and otherwise,) are far less enamoured of all of that because most are fully cognizant of the reality, which is that European Christians basically abandoned them when not directly persecuting them, knowing full well that the Allies fought WWII because it was forced on them, not because they wanted to save anyone from concentration camps.
But yes, defending Israel is like a tollerance "get out of jail free" card for the gentile right, and that patriotic sentiment and sense of moral righteousness is precisely the market they are playing into among non-Jews, not the "Jewish vote", because for most white Christian anglos Israel and Jews are synonymous.
Would it really hurt them so much politically to do the right thing, take some leadership, and inform Canadians?
Would it really hurt them to say that (as I understand it from some links on here) over 500 civilian and Hamas deaths* in the last week is unacceptably disproportionate to the 4 Israeli (soldiers?) deaths in a year of Palestinian rocket fire into Israel?
*Not distinguished. If anyone finds a properly distinguished death toll for Gaza citizens and military, let me know.
These maps are informative.
Week 2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7811189.stm
Week 1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7805808.stm
And this ...
ISRAEL'S SELF-DEFEATING GAZA OFFENSIVE
By Gideon Rachman
Financial Times (London)
January 5, 2009 -- 19:04 GMT [11:04 PST]
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34c5a426-db49-11dd-be53-000077b07658.html
By sending ground troops into the Gaza Strip, Israel has crossed a line that brings it perilously close to strategic failure.
Just as with the Lebanon war of 2006, an air bombardment has failed to stop rocket fire into Israel -- and has been followed by a ground invasion. The Israeli government says it has learned the lessons of its stalemated war with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia. Gaza is more hospitable terrain than southern Lebanon; Hamas is militarily weaker than Hezbollah; Israel is better prepared and is using new tactics.
Maybe so. But what are Israel’s strategic needs? The first is the protection of Israeli citizens; the second is the re-establishment of Israel’s deterrent power; the third is the preservation of international support; and the fourth some prospect of durable peace. Each one of these objectives is now in peril.
By sending the army into Gaza, Israel has probably ensured it will lose many more lives than the four killed by Hamas rockets in the year before the conflict started. It is, of course, the job of the military to take casualties to protect civilians. But Israel’s is a citizen army. The point has not been lost on the Israeli public. A poll taken early in the conflict found more than 70 per cent support for bombing Gaza -- but just 20 per cent support for a ground invasion.
full text here ... http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8256/35/
Cartoon illustration here ...
http://media.ft.com/cms/eaa615ec-db52-11dd-be53-000077b07658.jpg
And this ...
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=98768"Our message to the Zionist community is this - your leaders are spilling your blood to win an election," he said, referring to snap legislative polls called for February 10. Various analysts have said that the Israeli bombardment is geared to drum up support for politicians in the coming polls.
omigod this is so sick ...
:(
This is what struck me about that last one Saga:
Par for the course for some third world backwater of the kind that lives in the world of Rudyard Kippling. Donkeys, Camels, Arabs all swirl together in the imagination as the backdrop of a poor and backward people fed on superstition and ignorance by their religious mentors... but wait...
Gaza was not like that 50 years ago. Gaza was an up-to-date and modern city and something of a mediteranean resort, with one of the most highly educated populations in the Arab world.
It's a "crime against civilization" as the director of the recently flattened Americas Institute stated after his school was targetted by the IDF. Israel has reduced the people of Gaza to riding around in donkey carts, slowly at first and then in ever increasing strides over a period of 40 years of occupation.
But the Doug's of the world "can't blame" the politicians.
That's right on the money Cue. I was thinking to myself while reading/listening to some of the apologists for the ethnic cleansing in Gaza that this is a form of white liberal guilt syndrome (WLGS). There is still 1000+ of antisemitism embedded in the European gentile consciousness and the overwhelming guilt of the holocaust. These manifest themselves in some as unfettered support for Israeli colonialism. The theocratic state of Israel could even been born of WLGS as some European anti-Semites (i.e. politicians) made amends for their widespread support of Nazism in a way that would not require any change or transformation on their part.
People should be aware that when they get that "those poor people" feeling that they should first look at how they are implicated in the poverty of others before they try to "help".
I agreed with Unionist that we should not be suprised by Iggy's hardline with MPs but should see the brighter side of things - there must be some dissention in the Liberal Party. Wierd, not often that a Liberal will disent on actual issues when there are internal party sqaubbles to occupy every waking hour.
So this is still just a thread based on hearsay and your personal beliefs. You need to back up your assertions that what you allege is based on fact.
Hahaha! Tortureboy, being touted as a "human rights activist"! :D :D
Maybe. But if we keep seeing shit like this that amy change. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024263.php#comments
I certainly don't want to attend anything where I'm called a "product of pigs" and told that "Hitler didn't do a good enough job." This in Toronto.