Off the rack

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE FACT THAT INDIGO DID NOT INTEND TO BLOCK THIS ISSUE:

The June-July issue of Free Inquiry mag was removed from the shelves at Indigo, Chapters and Coles stores across Canada. The editors are mystified as to the reason. I think they're being naive. (The boldface and link are mine.) Here's their letter to Indigo CEO Heather Reisman, as released to the media late this afternoon.

We have been informed by our distributor that Indigo, Chapters, and Coles stores across Canada declined to shelve the June-July 2006 issue of Free Inquiry magazine. This came at about the same time that the June issue of Harper’s Magazine - containing reproductions of the twelve Danish “Muhammad Cartoons” and commentary upon them by Pulitzer Prizer-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman - was likewise barred from your shelves. Oddly, it came after our previous, April-May issue of Free Inquiry - which reproduced four of the twelve Danish cartoons - was, as best we can determine, shelved normally. We are also given to understand that Free Inquiry is now being inspected in advance on an issue-by-issue basis to determine its suitability to be shelved.

        First, we are dismayed when a distinguished bookselling organization such as yours - an organization that is, quite literally, in the business of facilitating free speech - stoops to censorship, whether before or after the fact. Whatever their potential to offend, the Danish cartoons had such important cultural and political consequences that all North Americans deserved the opportunity to examine the cartoons and judge for themselves. That many North American media quailed from republishing them is regrettable; that Indigo and its subsidiaries have refused their customers the opportunity to view them - at least, in the June Harper’s - is lamentable.

        In addition, we are dismayed when a major retailer behaves in a way that sends incoherent messages in the marketplace. Indigo and its subsidiaries refused their customers the opportunity to view the Danish cartoons in the June Harper’s, having previously permitted them to purchase the issue of Free Inquiry including some of the cartoons. Then customers were denied the opportunity to purchase the next issue of Free Inquiry. We are left to wonder whether the censorship of our June-July issue was in retaliation for our having published the cartoons in our previous issue, or whether it was motivated by some controversial content in the June-July issue itself. Presumably the controversial item was not Edward O. Wilson and Arthur C. Clarke, among others, congratulating one of us on attaining his eightieth year. Was it scholar Eileen McDonagh’s presentation of a novel defense of abortion rights? Or perhaps the article by controversial ethicist Peter Singer defending the cartoons and condeming the jailing of David Irving for Holocaust denial?

        Ms. Reisman, we find your organization’s behavior in regard to Free Inquiry most disappointing - not just because we abhor arbitrary restrictions on the free exchange of ideas, but also because we are perplexed by restrictions whose purpose seems incomprehensible. We would be most intrigued to know the reason why the June-July Free Inquiry was blocked from your shelves, and why our publication is now subject to issue-by-issue review. Free Inquiry has never retreated from controversy; if the things your organization objects to in our content turn out to engage the core values our organization exists to promote, we will simply have to content ourselves with reaching our Canadian readers through other venues. At present, however, we can do little more than scratch our heads over what your organization’s course of conduct in regard to Harper’s and our magazine might signify.

        We eagerly await your reply.

        Sincerely,

Paul Kurtz                                             
Founder and chair, the Council for Secular Humanism
Editor-in-Chief, Free Inquiry

Tom Flynn
Editor, Free Inquiry

(Note that the Borders chain in the U.S. banned the issue with the cartoons in it.)

Anyway, I read Singer's piece about David Irving and noted this:

Yet, the outcome of the publication of the Danish cartoons ridiculing Muhammad was a tragedy. More than a hundred people died in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, and other Islamic countries during the ensuing protests and riots. In hindsight, it would have been wiser not to publish the cartoons. The benefits were not worth the costs. But that judgment is, as I say, made with the benefit of hindsight, and it is not intended as a criticism of the actual decisions taken by the editors who published them and could not reasonably be expected to foresee the consequences.

To restrict freedom of expression because we fear such consequences would not be the right response. It would only provide an incentive for those who do not want to see their views criticized to engage in violent protests in future. Instead, we should forcefully defend the right of newspaper editors to publish such cartoons, if they choose to do so, and hope that respect for freedom of expression will eventually spread to countries where it does not yet exist.

Unfortunately, even while the protests about the cartoons were still underway, a new problem about convincing Muslims of the genuineness of our respect for freedom of expression has arisen because of Austria's conviction and imprisonment of David Irving for denying the existence of the Holocaust. We cannot consistently hold that it should be a criminal offense to deny the existence of the Holocaust and that cartoonists have a right to mock religious figures. David Irving should be freed.

It's tough to argue with that logic. But those who gleefully published the offending cartoons will find a way, no doubt.

Now before some of you jump down my throat, as I know you will, note that I most definitely acknowledge that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, along with six million other Europeans, whether Roma, gays and lesbians, political prisoners or people the Nazis simply didn't like. I am friends with Holocaust survivors. I have seen the numbers tattooed on their arms and the haunted looks that remain still in the eys of many of them. I am friends with the children of Holocaust survivors. I know what it's like for them.

And I take second place to nobody on the history of the Holocaust.

Finally, a deeply personal admission: I called the  diary I kept as a young girl -- I have it still -- Anne, as an homage to Anne Frank's Kitty.

So please stick to the facts of the case here: If indeed Free Inquiry was banned by Reisman because of that Singer article, was it a justified banning? If so, why?

UPDATE (July 8): Today's Globe and Mail reports that the blocking of the magazine was inadvertent.

Joel Silver, senior vice-president of print procurement for Toronto-based Indigo Books and Music, telephoned Tom Flynn, the editor of Free Inquiry, with the news late yesterday afternoon.

According to Mr. Flynn, the Indigo executive "gave me a sort of a stammering apology, said that the June-July issue was blocked by accident, and that they have contacted [Ajax, Ont.-based Disticor Magazine Distribution Services] to send it through again."

<SNIP>

Calls by The Globe and Mail to four Indigo executives, including Mr. Silver, were not returned yesterday.

Mr. Flynn said from his office in Amherst, N.Y., that the June-July Free Inquiry will be available at Indigo for only about two weeks because the August-September edition already has been printed.

Indigo's Mr. Silver told him the issue would be sold "as normal." The retailer usually takes between 300 and 500 copies of each issue.

Mr. Flynn speculated that Indigo's apparent ban may have been prompted by a Free Inquiry editorial by the Princeton bioethicist and animal-rights activist Peter Singer titled "The Freedom to Ridicule Religion -- and Deny the Holocaust."

Mr. Flynn also suggested the apparent censorship may have been "in retaliation" for Free Inquiry's reproduction, in its April-May issue, of four of the 12 hotly contested cartoons that a Danish newspaper published last year satirizing the Prophet Mohammed. Their appearance in Free Inquiry went undetected by Indigo until late May when the retailer unleashed a storm of controversy by banning the June issue of another U.S. publication, Harper's, which had published all 12 Danish cartoons.

Comments

[the wrestler]

The presence of "Pulitzer Prizer-winning cartoonist" Art Spiegelman should tip us off to what is actually going on here.

A few years ago, Spiegelman publicly scolded fellow underground cartoonist R. Crumb for one of Crumb's many strips that used African-American cariactures. Spiegelman's reasoning was that they went too far, pointing out that this particular cartoon was later posted on a racist website.

Yet, here we have him *defending* cariactures of another culture. The only explanation I can come up with is hypocrisy.

The whole episode stinks, especially all the high moral posturing.

[Maz]

Censorship, coupled with a fear and distrust of ideas, is as Canadian as maple syrup; so, too, is Canadians posturing as the advocates of freedom of expression, often without any apparent sense of contradiction or hypocrisy. For example, Peter Gzowski once interviewed novelist Margaret Laurence after he learned a Pentecostal church in Lakefield, Ontario, which was the novelist's hometown, objected to Grade 13 students being assigned The Stone Angel to read in their English course because of its 'sexual' content. Gzowski was quietly steamed during his interview with Laurence. But, a bit later on, at the time when a memoir by the Mossad turncoat, Victor Ostrovsky, By Way of Deception, became an international bestseller and profoundly controversial and very headline-making, co-author Claire Hoy tried to get onto Peter's
show Morningside to discuss it, but was rebuffed. When I wrote to Morningside to ask why, exactly, considering that often books of far, far lesser interest were discussed on Peter's radio show, the answer I got back included the explanation that producers at Morningside had refused to review the Ostrovsky memoir on-air out of - wait for it - 'a need for sensitivity.' Which of course is a codeword for the kind of cowardice that breeds self-censorship. There are examples galore of this kind of double standard here in our fair dominion. When, in the fall of 1992, the maverick Brit
historian David Irving was being hauled from jail to courthouse, he was shown on the news holding a pen aloft in his handcuffed hands and commenting to reporters: 'They put me in handcuffs; they were afraid I might write something.' As I recall, no one was
particularly upset by this, as though Canada was a frigid version of Albania and censorship was normal and writers in handcuffs a
natural everyday occurrence.

[sooey]

i quit shopping there when she took out the comfy chairs and put a bunch of scented crap for sale in their place.

[David Demchuk]

I am always baffled about what people "don't get" about the Muhammad cartoons. The issue is not the cartoons themselves, it's the editorial choice to run the cartoons.

People create offensive material every day. People create newsworthy offensive material every day. Editors make decisions every day about whether to run newsworthy offensive material in their papers, on their news broadcasts and on their websites.

When the Paris Hilton sex video was released, we did not suddenly have grainly night-lit images of Paris Hilton giving a blowjob in newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts and on legitimate news websites. It's not that the images weren't available, God knows. And it's not that they weren't newsworthy. But it was well and widely understood that they were offensive, and that news audiences would be appalled.

This was not sufficiently understood by the news editors who ran the Muhammad cartoons--or else it was fully understood and they just didn't care, or thought they were being "progressive provocateurs". They weren't. They were being stupid and offensive.

Also: Muslims are not puzzling over the concept of freedom of speech (at least not any more than anyone else is) when we allow the publication of the Muhammad cartoons and lock up David Irving. Lots of people have been locked up over the years for espousing unpopular beliefs, in free countries and otherwise. Mr. Irving's unpopular beliefs are demonstrably false, and hateful, and are designed to incite hate and possibly violence towards a certain identified group of people. Free speech has its limits, and these are some of them.

Is this really so hard, or are people just being willfully, mischievously ignorant? If so, stop--it's tedious.

[sooey]

yabbut, running the cartoons after the reaction to them became news was the right thing to do. of course, being an irksome git - i would say that, wouldn't i...

[Larry Joe]

I think your argument breaks down right, about, here; "And it's not that they [Paris Hilton Videos]weren't newsworthy."

Sorry. They just weren't.

A better analogy might have been the Janet Jackson breast-flashing incident except that it would have pretty much destroyed your argument. Such as it is.

As for Antonio's question, the "banning" is justified to the extent that Indigo has the right to choose what it will sell. Conversely, we all have the right to decide where we shop. I'll shop at a bookstore which is not afraid of ideas, even really bad ones.

[Maz]

As I write, Israel is using its save-our-soldier shtick is an excuse for the Israeli army to rampage through that most miserable of Bantustans, the Gaza Strip, using their tanks and jets, helicopter gunships and navy gunboats (firing from off-shore, slaughtering picnicking Palestinians) in order to de-fang and de-claw any Palestinian resistance to hegemonic Israeli rule over the lives of ordinary Palestinians; intending, to once and for all, break the back of any Palestinian resistance. The late Gen. Raphael Eitan was the Chief of Staff of the Israeli armed forces when he uttered these ominous, revelatory words (cf. The New York Times, April 14, 1983): 'When we have settled the land [i.e., the occupied Palestinian territories], all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.' It is, to my mind, this endemic, racist contempt Israelis have for Arab life than enables them to be able to casually slaughter (8 civilians out of 21 killed, according to a news report out today) such large numbers of them. When a top Israeli army general comfortably employs what Israeli statesman Abba Eban decried as 'the rhetoric of extermination' you understand what a deeply ugly mindset it is that underpins Israel's latest invasion of the Gaza Strip. Which brings me to my point, Antonia. You were most eager to assure readers that you believe in the orthodox version of the Holocaust. No sweat! Meanwhile, the Israeli armed forces are razing Gaza ... (edited by Antonia to take away some hyperbole.) I can't conceive of a greater instance of cognitive dissonance than this. Can you? It's surreal beyond the wildest imagingings of a Salvador Dali strung out on acid.

[Todd]

I think Reisman cited staff safety for pulling it. Assuming that's not BS, I have to look askance at the reaction she thought staff would have to deal with.

Larry Joe said:

"As for Antonio's question, the "banning" is justified to the extent that Indigo has the right to choose what it will sell."

I like to be reminded of this on occasion: that owners have power over consumers as well employees. Applies to a whole host of commodities (like news), eh?

And we don't always have the luxury of consuming somewhere else (nor do we always have knowledge that we should).

I can't help but wonder if the proponents of Absolute Free Expression at Free Inquiry would cheer a crowd of people demonstrating Absolute Free Expression by burning all the mags they could buy in a pile outside the publisher's head office while holding up cartoons of the editors and writers in various uncomfortable situations or grossly caricaturizing someone they care deeply about (parents, children, spouses, etc).

Bourgeois philosophers . . . .

[sooey]

welllll... reisman/schwartz ARE backing ignatieff, todd. one man's free expression could be another man's torture, i guess.

[Maz]

Antonia, Just a small point I thought of, when I noticed you had 'edited' my post. Censorship goes on all the time in journalism: they call it 'editing.' And a last anecdote. Last February, over my lunch-hour, I wandered into the McNally Robinson bookstore on the Stephen Avenue Mall in downtown Calgary. The store had mounted a display of books, such Steinbeck's novella, 'Of Mice and Men,' which were banned at one time or other, to honour 'Freedom to Read Week.' It was around this very same time the M R bookstore was in the news for refusing to carry an issue of The Western Standard that contained 3 of the 'Muhammad' cartoons. The Orwellian doublethink this display involved struck me as a quintessentially Canadian bit of folklore. You know: A big 'Yes!' to free speech -- but with lots of fencing for 'if', 'and' and 'but' to be included to protect a few privileged brands of 'sensitivity'. O Canada ... the true north strong and (sometimes) free.

[Antonia Z.]

I hear you Maz and you know I am sensitive to your point. However I did not want to start WW3 over a comparison that I believe was over the top. We're not there ... yet.

That said, I will be addressing your concerns soon, on my terms, since this is my blog, or at least the Star's, and I have to deal with the inevitable fallout.

I am sure you get my drift.

[Maz]

Maz to Antonia: I absolutely get your drift. Your blog, your call. No sweat! A note, though, about being 'over the top.' I think that you'll agree (as a diligent student of 20th century history) the oft-used Saddam-is-Hitler equation was way over the top, yet it did not stop 101 very prominent opinion- and decision-makers from making it in order to stir up war-fever from August 1990, when Saddam took Kuwait, to the present. See: If you're a VIP, if you matter enough, it is OK to be 'over the top' - others will even repeat what you say, so that, with a lot of repetition, will come a then-it-must-true sense of conviction. Thus: Saddam is Hitler; Saddam has WMDs, has 'Drones of Death'. We must all beware of Saddam's doomsday mushroom cloud. Etc., etc. It all enters 'the national conversation,' as they say. But, my being 'over the top', allegedly, well, that has to get edited out. Different strokes, eh?
Horsewink.

[arthurdecco]

"I hear you Maz and you know I am sensitive to your point. However I did not want to start WW3 over a comparison that I believe was over the top. We're not there ... yet." posted by Antonia Z

I beg to differ, Antonia. Maybe we as citizens of Canada aren't there yet, but for the Palestinians who have born the brunt of this appalling and escalating racist and military violence, they've "been there" for decades - suffering through undisputed war crime after war crime at the bloodied hands of Israel, their sponsors and back-up bullies.

If state terrorism this blatant was being implemented against a subject population by any other country than Israel, bombs would be dropping on the perpetrators as we speak. News headlines all over North America would be shrieking in outrage at these wanton destroyers. You know this to be true. Look what has happened to Iraq, fer chrissakes! Crushed and rendered. For what exactly?

As to the "inevitable fallout" that is sure to touch you and indirectly, all of us who KNOW what is going on in Palestine - when is it going to be time to start shoving back at the liars and bullies and pamphleteers and religious zealots and, yes, the Money Men that always seem to get the last word on any subject remotely connected to the unacceptable and inexcusable behaviour of the Zionists?

How much is too much?

If Haaretz can say these things, why can't I?

And why can’t Maz? And everyone else I know who shares our opinions on the horrific war crimes being brought to bear on the civilian population of Palestine, whose only crime has been to own the land the insatiable and immoral Zionists covet?

Btw, did you read the editorial in your very own Toronto Star the other day that read like it could have been written by Olmert? You know the one I mean. I almost barfed. Atkinson Principles? What Atkinson Principles?

I'm sure you get my drift.

[johnnykap]

artdeco: I wonder if the Atkinson Principles are anything like the Weider Principles. Joe Weider took the most basic weightlifting concepts and called them all "principles". Oh well, he made a ton of dough and hey, he's Canadian. As for the Palestinians, the solution to their problems lies within their own control. They need to take responsibility for their own actions and turn away from the ideology of jew hating and try to drag themselves out of the stone age. They've been given aid for years that they whiz away because of their inherent corruption. The jews receive aid, too, but look at the contributions they make to society. I was at Home Depot a few weeks back and was looking for one of those water collector things you stick at the end of a drainpipe. Guess where it was made? Israel. Hard to believe they can gather the resources to manufacture trinkets like that when everyone around them wants them dead. Maybe that's a lesson the Pals can learn. I trust we are in total agreement from this point on.

[johnnykap]

Maz, we are in agreement on one thing. There's nothing like Sal Dali on acid. All those bendy clocks and weird stuff. Neato. Miss Z was correct to censor you however. Your over the top rhetoric has no place in a civil society. Let the participants in the middle east determine their own outcome without your interference. They live there. They know what's best. You wouldn't want a bunch of Pals and Israeli's telling Canada what to do. So let them work it out themselves. If you love something, set it free...

[Todd]

johnnykap said:

"They need to take responsibility for their own actions and turn away from the ideology of jew hating and try to drag themselves out of the stone age."

While Palestinians are as prone to falling into anti-semitic ignorance (if not more so, given their situation) as any Canadian, don't you think you're equating anti-semitism with hating very real overlords and oppressors who happen to be jewish?

[sooey]

ti-guy? johnny kap also wants to: "Let the participants in the middle east determine their own outcome without your interference." so back off, 'kay?

[johnnykap]

Todd, here's the difference between the jewish outlook and the palestinian outlook. Read this twice if necessary. The Pals knowingly elected a government whose stated policy is the destruction of Israel. If they had the ability to do so, everyone on this blog, no matter what side of the fence they are on, knows they would do so in a heartbeat. The Israelis on the other hand, have the power and weaponry to obliterate every Pal in their region. But they don't. Does that tell you something about their differences? The Pals are a lot like liberals in one sense. They don't want to take responsbility for their own actions. They love blaming someone else for their own problems.

[Maz]

johnnykap, you must be a good mind-reader, since Antonia was moved to 'censor' (to use your verb, as opposed to 'edit') my allegedly 'over the top' rhetoric, there's no other way you'd know what I'd written. But as I already said, Canadians are by and large a censorship-friendly lot even as they pretend otherwise and it's normal and natural and, indeed, very Canadian, in a sense, that you would approve of her doing this. I was going to wish you a belated Happy Canada Day, johnnykap, but feel now that I have forfeited that right by falling out of lockstep with the currently prevailing structure of socio-cultural, religio-political taboos. It is a bad place to be, of course; and, unfortunately for me, there
is (as yet) no re-education camp in a far-off Baffin Island Gulag where I might be sent so authorities could arrange, ideologically speaking, to properly align my ass with the back of my head.

[johnnykap]

Sooey, by the way, thank you for your support in your most recent post. I'm beginning to think I've been a little hard on you. Unless of course, you were being sarcastic. Ti-guy, please write a post requesting that Sooey start utilizing emoticons so we know when she's serious or not. Chop chop...

Maz, I was only kidding about over the top rhetoric. I'm sure it was perfectly fine. You were probably just being passionate. I agree with you that Canada has too much censorship. I mean, you've got hate speech in Canada. What is that if not censorship? You guys need a constitution like the US one. BM the PM tried to fix the one Trudeau saddled you with but he (PET) made it essentially unamendable. Nice legacy. I can't really imagine anyone reading these posts getting offended by anything anyone writes. Lib or neocon, we're all in the top 1% of society that cares enuff to be involved. Even Sooey. I do have a question about the Baffin Island Gulag. Is that anything like Camp Gitmo, in Cuba? A terrorist's tropical relief from the stress of Jihad? I love that Limbaugh has turned that into a successful line of clothing and accessories. But I love even more that it drives the libs crazy. Have a great Saturday nite everyone!!! I'm going to see Stomp. I'll send you all a full report later. Please remain motionless until such time as I have had a chance to create it.

[Todd]

Mr. (A?) Kapp said:

"The Pals knowingly elected a government whose stated policy is the destruction of Israel."

Why do you think they did this?

"If they had the ability to do so, everyone on this blog, no matter what side of the fence they are on, knows they would do so in a heartbeat."

Let's deal in truth and fact, rather than fear-mongering.

"Hamas' declarations since the 2006 legislative elections

Although Hamas omitted its call for the destruction of Israel from its election manifesto, calling instead for "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem," several Hamas candidates insisted that the charter remains in force.[10][48]

On February 8, Hamas head Khaled Mashal speaking in Cairo had clarified that "Anyone who thinks Hamas will change is wrong", stating that while Hamas is willing for a ceasefire with Israel, its long term goal remains: elimination of Israel by Islam via a jihad against what Hamas sees as Zionist Jewish settler-colonial invaders in all of what he called Palestine.[49]

However, on February 13, 2006, in an interview in Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the same Khaled Mashal declared that Hamas would stop armed struggle against Israel if it recognized the 1967 borders, withdrew itself from all Palestinian occupied territories (including the West Bank and East Jerusalem) and recognized Palestinian rights which would include the "right of return". This was the first time that Hamas even talked about an eventual stop to armed struggle. But Mashal continued to refuse to acknowledge the Road map for peace, adopted by the Quartet in June 2003, "since nobody respects it". The Road map projected the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in 2005. [50]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Hamas.27_declarations_since_the_2006_legislative_elections

"Hamas-Fatah to implicitly recognize Israel
View Larger Image

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen leaves his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Friday, June 23, 2006. Abbas continues his negotiations with Hamas to accept a proposal that implicitly recognizes Israel as a way to reduce tensions. While talks with Hamas continue, Abbas has scheduled a July 26 referendum on the proposal if the negotiations fail.
Photograph by : AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi
Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, June 27, 2006
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The rival Hamas and Fatah movements agreed on a plan implicitly recognizing Israel, a top Palestinian official said Tuesday after weeks of acrimonious negotiations aiming to lift crippling international aid sanctions."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=ef94e75c-269c-4f2b-8d1b-3fc4d706eaca

At the very least, Hamas seems to be deciding what to do next (amazing that it only took the kidnapping of their duly elected officials, collective punishment and invasion by an occupying Israel, blatant murders by the Israeli armed forces, and coercive force by the wealthy, liberal/conservative West).

"The Israelis on the other hand, have the power and weaponry to obliterate every Pal in their region. But they don't. Does that tell you something about their differences?"

It tells me the Israelis can be circumspect when they want to be (and now they don't want to be); they hold the whip, and everyone knows it.

Besides, a "captive" populace who has to eat makes for a great cowed and cheap labour force, and the zionist plan has always been more in favour of forcible transfer than mere liquidation of the native population.

"The Pals are a lot like liberals in one sense. They don't want to take responsbility for their own actions. They love blaming someone else for their own problems."

I take it you're one of those men who, upon hearing about a woman getting raped, rolls his eyes and asks what kind of dress and makeup the victim was wearing.

Or are you just a zionist?

(And don't edit that out, Antonia; it's not an insult but a position.)

[Stephen Reeves]

There is something I don't understand, Hamas have been complaining that they are broke, yet they can afford to fire rockets into Isreal(they are not cheap),instead of feeding their people.
They destroy the infastructure that Israel left them, Egypt like Isreal builds a wall to keep them in.(in fact Egypt the smart guys they are, refused to take Gaza back).

[Stephen Reeves]

Eh Todd,
re your quote below.

"I take it you're one of those men who, upon hearing about a woman getting raped, rolls his eyes and asks what kind of dress and makeup the victim was wearing."

Yea but the left is better at blaming the victim, they done that after 9/11 and the London Bombings.

[arthurdecco]

"Or are you just a zionist?
(And don't edit that out, Antonia; it's not an insult but a position.)" Posted by: Todd

The fact that Todd had to ask Antonia, (who is fairer and more reasonable than god appears to be these days), to leave his last sentence (but for the plea) in his post tells us all we need to know about the totally FUBAR'd ceiling-on-the-floor media spin machine that controls opinion in this country.

And this is precisely why the average Canadian knows almost nothing about what is happening on the ground in Israel and Palestine. If they were being kept honestly informed about this never-ending war, even if only by our publicly-owned, but clique-controlled CBC, they would be outraged, support for the state of Israel would plummet, and our government would be forced to intercede on behalf of the Palestinians, overrun and forced to act by the sheer will of the Canadian people.

How long are all these voices I hear moving through life going to be suppressed by callous and cowardly, almost casual slurs like “anti-semite”, brick-walled by the editors of the letters pages of every major newspaper in the country, (with the exception of a few token submissions of the most mild criticism of Israel imaginable!), forced to endure loathsome personal attacks on our character, our morality, our ethics, and our parentage simply because we’re appalled by the senseless, contemptuous, racist violence against even the weakest members of the Palestinian population by the American funded and supported Israeli Military Machine when we post our opinions on blogs like Azerbic?

How long?

I hope you let me slide by with this one, Antonia. This is a subject that needs to be discussed.

Yesterday!

[Maz]

Anotonia has owed to a youthful fascination with the person of Anne Frank. She - and others here - might find this excerpt of interest. This backgrounder for it includes the site of the September 1982 Chatila Massacre in Lebanon, perpetrated against hundreds of weak defenceless Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christians - but very much enabled to do so by Israeli Jews, then militarily occupying Lebanon.

Excerpted from Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation [Andre Deutsch: London, 1990, pp. 398-399]:

I sat in his office [of Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Bruce Kashdan] the Israeli flag on its roof, and asked him what he thought the dead of the Holocaust might have said had they seen Chatila. What would Anne Frank have said? Her diary, which I first read at school as a 12-year-old, showed that she believed in the essential goodness of humans. She died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, after being betrayed to the Nazis ... What would Anne Frank have said, I asked, if she had walked with me through the entrance of Chatila on the morning of 18 September and had seen what I saw there?

Kashdan thought about this for a long time. 'Well,' he said, 'I don't think she would have understood it. Lebanon is so complex a place.' We looked at each other. He must have known how unsatisfactory, how weak his answer was. Anne Frank had written with disgust of how the Germans planned to 'cleanse' Utrecht of Jews. 'As if the Jews were cockroaches,' she had written in her diary, employing the same word that General Rafael Eitan would use to describe the Palestinians of the West Bank shortly after his retirement.* No, I doubted very much if Anne Frank would have failed to understand what happened at Chatila. I had a shrewd suspicion what she might have said. And so, I think, did Kashdan...

* Speaking to an Israeli Knesset committee in 1983, Eitan boasted that after Israel had further multiplied its West Bank settlements, ' all the Arabs will be able to do is scuttle around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.' See The Times [of London], 15 April 1983.