Friday, March 26, 2010

B'nai Brith Wants Book Removed

B’nai Brith Canada calls for removal of anti-Israel propaganda from recommended reading list for school children

TORONTO, March 25, 2010 – B’nai Brith Canada has called for the removal of The Shepherd's Granddaughter, a vehemently anti-Israel book targeting students in grades seven and eight, from the recommended reading list of Ontario public school libraries. The one-sided work of fiction, which demonizes the Jewish State and was brought to B’nai Brith Canada’s attention by a concerned parent, is currently being recommended by teachers and librarians in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).


I have no idea what this book is about. FWIW, here's the Quill & Quire profile. And here's a review from CM magazine. Whoopsie! I see the issue: the book "presents events from the Palestinian perspective."

BURN IT! BURN IT!

Mind you, BB is fine with Ann Coulter.

64 comments:

Timothy Friesen said...

I hope this gets picked up by the main stream media. It seems the B'nai Brith is trying to curtail the free speech of these librarians.

Anonymous said...
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Tof KW said...

Timothy Friesen said...
So it is lies and propaganda?

And how is that different from the POV of the Likud Party?
Pot ... Black ... Kettle?

Tof KW said...

Sorry Mr Friesen, I clipped your name instead of the troll ... BCL you can delete this if you like too.

sharonapple88 said...

Heres' he review on The Shepherd's Granddaughter from Quill and Quire.

Another interesting article from the School Library Journal.

From the article: "As one student said, "It made me stop and see there might be more sides than just one." Maybe there are three sides - one for each side and then one for the truth that no one can see. "

Sort of interesting that she lived in a kibbutz and stayed with Palestinian families when she was researching the book.

bigcitylib said...

Your cool, ToKW. Its a bit too early for Fred, though.

sharonapple88 said...

Bleh, sorry for duplicating the Quill and Quire link. My bad. Going off to drink some coffee.

Dr.Dawg said...

This follows another attempted book-censoring a couple of years ago:

Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak.

Discussion of the issue here.

Ti-Guy said...

Too bad some organisations can't be declared terrorist for their psychological terror.

bigcitylib said...

Harry's alive!

Robert G. Harvie, Q.C. said...

While the "Red Maple" list is certainly nothing that a right-wing propogandist would recommend, ie) "Lunch with Lenin" helping us "understand" the complexities of the drug world - from farmers who "rely" on the opium trade and kids who by marijuana for their arthritic grandmother (wink).. book burning is book burning.

Better response:

Request age-appropriate reading that you believe provides a balanced perspective.

Oh.. and BCL.. I'm assuming you AGREE that Ann Coulter should have been allowed to spew her babble at U of O?

bigcitylib said...

R.G.,

She was allowed. As far as I'm concerned, her organizers bunged up royally by securing room too small for the crowd that showed up, and then blamed the protesters. This is based on any number of accounts from people at the event, including reporters, some Coulter sympathizers, and police.

Unfortunately, "Free Speech Under Assault" makes an easier editorial topic than "Ottawa Conservatives Fail In Attempt To Rent Room".

Harry Abrams said...

BCL said: "Harry's alive!"

You call THIS..livin'?

I was looking forward to a reading somebody anybody's blog thread that didn't have the word C-O-U-L-T-E-R in it this morning. So I'm very disappointed with your blog today.

bigcitylib said...

I'm slowly weaning myself off her. But its hard to go cold turkey.

Marky Mark said...

I'm wondering if the same school is exposing students to the Danish cartoons.

I think that's the issue here, including with Coulter.

Netanyahu at Concordia? Riot.

Coulter at U of O? A ridiculous criminal hate speech warning in advance of her visit and then possibly acts and omissions which prevented her from speaking.

A Holocaust "revisionist" and 9/11 kook at Vancuver Public Library as part of "Reedom to Read" week? No problem (and no riot).

Israel Apartheid Week? No biggie (and no rioting).

Uncomfotrable as it may be, there is a troubling pattern. Yes, Coulter may have done her part to make it look like she was effectively shut down (which she denies), but the reason she can do do with some plausible cover is that the pattern is undeniable.

Tof KW said...

Hey Rob, top of the morning to you.

Free speech isn’t a left/right issue. If you look through all the posts on this over the past few days, there is pretty much an overwhelming consensus here that indeed she should be allowed to spew her racist, anti-Canada diatribes. Denying it only makes her a free-speech martyr – which is pretty much what Ezra was planning here all along with this UofO stunt. Frankly, I think her lecture should have been broadcast over the CBC/CTV news channels live. A Q&A session would be nice too, with an explanation on her past comments about how Canada is ‘lucky’ to be allowed its existence on this continent.

I also took note of how she hopes how everything west of Calgary is saved from the ‘loony liberals’ out east. We old school Red Tories really enjoy being called socialists by populist, neo-liberal racist windbags.

bigcitylib said...

Marky,

The email ("ridiculous hate speech warning") was a private missive to her from Houle. Unless you think Houle leaked it himself, who do you think bears responsibility for it winding up in the NP? I can give you a hint, if you like.

The Netanyahu thing is from a bit before the time when I cared about stuff like this, so I can't really comment on that.

The Israeli apartheid thing attracted condemnation provincially and of course an attempt was made federally. A much bigger deal than a private email advising a speaker as to the state of hate speech laws in Canada. The fact that there weren't riots this year (and aren't most years) is probably due to the fact that there is no significant Mid-East conflict going on this year. The 9/11 kook I know nothing about.

So, in short, I don't percieve a pattern here.

Marky Mark said...

BCL,

I think there is a death struggle going on in terms of how we discuss the ME here. There is intimidation on both sides with the nature of the intimidation being different----but intimidation it is on both sides.

I don't generally agree with what BB does on the ME but the list in question is one of "recommended" books and I'm not clear on why an instrument of the state in fact should be recommending what sounds like a one sided account of a foreign conflict. If the recommendations include countervailing views then I still question why any of these texts are being suggested, but then at least it's not one sided.

But overall let's be clear--opponents of Israel want though BDS to brand Israel as an illegitimate enterperise, from the film festival to IAW to good sold at Mountain Equipment Coop to really anything you can think about. And BB and others want to brand that very effort as anti-Semitic.

I agree with the leak aspect of the Houle letter but there isn't a shred of a plausible argument that what Coulter says is criminal hate speech in Canada. She would never e charged and if charged the charge would be thrown out in a nanosecond.

So my question is: why does Coulter get that letter in advance of an appearance and do other conrtoversial events that create discomfort--such as Israel Apartheid Week-receive like letters from academic administrators?

I think we all know the answer to that question and that's the issue for me.

bigcitylib said...

Actually, I'm not sure we DO know the answer to that question. Others might have recieved similar letters and simply not leaked them to the media. In any case, the odds of Michael Moore (for example) actually saying anything that resembles hate speech are far lower than in the case of AC.

Also, assume a work context. You are Jewish and the boss starts babbling about your perfectability. Or you are Muslim and the boss starts babbling about taking a camel. That MIGHT rate an HRC complaint, no?

Ti-Guy said...

-but intimidation it is on both sides.

I don't see anyone threatening to vilify and defame me for speaking out about the lack of human rights, democracy, economic and social justice or the establishment of religious theocracy in the Middle-East, MM.

In fact, there's no dearth of that in our mainstream media. Ask anyone who has an informed opinion about the region; I'm sure they're aware of all the issues. Some just become a different priority at times (like when the US and its allies are occupying two countries in the region, actions by which hundreds of thousands of people are being injured and killed.

Ti-Guy said...

By the way, MM, what's this incident you're referring to:

A Holocaust "revisionist" and 9/11 kook at Vancuver Public Library as part of "[Freedom] to Read" week?

Marky Mark said...

Ti-Guy,

Greg Felton spoke at the VPL within the last couple of years. U of O isn't responsible for the VPL and vice versa but the contrast is notable.

One source here.

Harry Abrams said...

The Van library thing would have referred to Greg Felton I think.

he and Mother Teresa Coulter should partner up and take their act on the road. If they sold souvenir fridge magnets they'd probably make enough to pay for a vacation at a walled-in community somewhere in the Tropics during malaria season.

Robert G. Harvie, Q.C. said...

BCL.. as you say, there has been a refreshing sense of unity, to some extend, from those on each side of the spectrum who might be described as less than extreme..

And, as I blogged, cudos to the Association of University Teachers for calling out the school for sort of trying to pre-empt Coulter's babble.

In an interestin way, however, people like Ann Coulter and Ralph Galloway do us a favor, because they force us to examine our position from a rational as opposed to a ideological perspective.

I can't very well support keeping Ralph Galloway out of the country but argue in favor of Anne Coulter or George Bush coming to Calgary.. and vice versa.

..and the suggestions from the B'Nai Brith, as happens with some regularity, overstate the case - but remind us, as parents, of our obligation to inquire as to what our children read and then take the responsibility to discuss with them what they get out of it.

Easy to just attack a school and tell them to burn some books. Being an involved parent takes some effort.

Ti-Guy said...

Greg Felton spoke at the VPL within the last couple of years. U of O isn't responsible for the VPL and vice versa but the contrast is notable.

Maybe to a hyper-attentive paranoiac with no sense of perspective. How do you even manage to remember stuff like this? The whole wave of anti-francophone rhetoric that popped up during the period leading to the last referendum is just a blur to me now.

Anyway, libraries collect all kinds of objectionable material. It really is the last place anyone should think of protesting based on sensibilities, political or otherwise. You won't get a group of more highly-educated, more informed and stauncher opponents of censorship than librarians when it comes to documented information.

I've never heard of Greg Felton. Judging from his web site, he looks like a standard leftist activist to me, although that standard has been shifted decidedly in the last decade from mainstream to extreme at least in the minds of right wingers and "Eustonian liberals."

Ti-Guy said...

And, as I blogged, [kudos] to the Association of University Teachers for calling out the school for sort of trying to pre-empt Coulter's babble.

You do realise that both the note from the provost and the scolding from the CAUT are both pro-forma exercises in ass-covering, I hope.

If not, you are politically naive.

Ti-Guy said...

Oh, and Rob..."Ralph" Galloway?

Please, don't make me beg. Go read a book.

Marky Mark said...

Knock off the personal stuff Tiggy.

And as for Felton, spend a bit more time there before you come out with something so wildly false. He thinks Jews are Khazars and don't descend from Biblical Jews, thinks the Hoiocaust is a myth and that "Zionists" collaborated with the Nazis to make sure it occurred.

And the issue isn't that a libray stocked his book but that he received a platform for Freedom to Read Week when you know there wouldn't be the same thing done for, say, the cartoons.

Ti-Guy said...

Knock off the personal stuff Tiggy.

I can't...not when it's central to the argument.

And as for Felton, spend a bit more time there before you come out with something so wildly false. He thinks Jews are Khazars and don't descend from Biblical Jews, thinks the Hoiocaust is a myth and that "Zionists" collaborated with the Nazis to make sure it occurred.

Sources? Not that doubt you necessarily, because I have heard those things from other antisemites in sheep's clothing before, but like I said, I don't know who this guy is.

In any case, it's seems like a distraction from the matter at hand, but then again, that's what you're good at.

bigcitylib said...

TG,

Felton is pretty clearly a left anti-semite. I think you can find him writing for "The Charger" these days. But yeah, he's a know quantity and takes it beyond criticism of Israel into the crazy.

Marky Mark said...

I'm not wasting my time linking to his columns
which will serve only to bring him mere.

Your central point is nothing more than "you're right but I discount you're being right" because it's inconvenient and doesn't fit my preconceived notions.". Either that or a Napleonic complex. Either way it led you to side with the loonish and anti-Semitic arthurdecco for years so you wear it buddy.

Ti-Guy said...

Felton is pretty clearly a left anti-semite. I think you can find him writing for "The Charger" these days. But yeah, he's a know quantity and takes it beyond criticism of Israel into the crazy.

Good to know.

Now, back to the matter at hand: B'nai Brith and censorship. Is it time to declare the organisation a source of psychological/emotional/intellectual terror?

Yes? No? Those are your only choices, so choose wisely.

Ti-Guy said...

Your central point is nothing more than "you're right but I discount you're being right" because it's inconvenient and doesn't fit my preconceived notions.". Either that or a Napleonic complex. Either way it led you to side with the loonish and anti-Semitic arthurdecco for years so you wear it buddy.

Oh, we're back to that, are we?

You are an obsessive compulsive. I'm starting to wonder whether you and AD are really just one commenter.

Certainly, the rapid onset of a temper tantrum seems oddly familiar.

Marky Mark said...

"Certainly, the rapid onset of a temper tantrum seems oddly familiar."

It isn't a temper tantrum. You won't deal with the substance. Ever. Why should Felton get a platform at the VPL and why are those who ask that question obsessive compulsive? You have no answer. Just as you have no answer for your years (yes, years) of coddling an unambigous amti-Semite while saying you liked hinm for being honest. So why don't you equally like Ann Coulter and admire the honesty of her anti-Muslim screeds?

Tof KW said...

Now, back to the matter at hand: B'nai Brith and censorship. Is it time to declare the organisation a source of psychological/emotional/intellectual terror?

I would have difficulties to agree to that, however I would say BB has become little more than an extension of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud coalition.

Harry Abrams said...

"Now, back to the matter at hand: B'nai Brith and censorship. Is it time to declare the organisation a source of psychological/emotional/intellectual terror?"

OK, that and TG's blathering reminds me why I didn't bother reading or participating in this blog for a number of months.

Adios Muchacho.

Ti-Guy said...

You won't deal with the substance. Ever.

And you're always dictating what the substance should be. Like bringing up someone I've never heard of and an event that occurred in the relatively distant past as comparable to events like Netanyahu at Concordia or IAW or Ann Coulter at U. of Ottawa in an attempt to argue some type of political hypocrisy or inconsistency.

In your mind, they might all be related, but not necessarily in anyone else's. Personally, I take the scale of something into account when judging whether it's a matter of public interest or not, which is all I generally care to discuss with other people.

Ti-Guy said...

OK, that and TG's blathering reminds me why I didn't bother reading or participating in this blog for a number of months.

Have you ever participated? You show up once in a blue moon, call everyone antisemites, then flounce off.

I guess you're just not capable of carrying on a sustained argument for an issue more complex than book banning.

Too bad for you.

Marky Mark said...

OK, then as for the substance, I don't understand why a double standard is tolerated. Forget blogs and the personal stuff that you introduced: why should Netanyahu be prevented from speaking at Concordia, Coulter receive a warning about hate speech and organized events opposing IAW be prohibited due to the extra security costs when Felton of all people (and he's not a leftist and wouldn't say that he is) gets air time, IAW proceeds without a Coulter like warning (as far as we know) and the Muhammad cartoons be shunned? This is a legitimate and interesting issue and yet any time I have raised it you have chosen to label it as eveidence of OCD.

Ti-Guy said...

I would have difficulties to agree to that, however I would say BB has become little more than an extension of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud coalition.

My somewhat sardonic quip hit a nerve with Harry though, didn't it?

I think intellectual terrorism might be something we need to address in this glorious Age of Information.

Marky Mark said...

"I think intellectual terrorism might be something we need to address in this glorious Age of Information."

Which is why Coulter shouldn't have been on the receiving end of it albeit in a manner that played right into her hands.

Ti-Guy said...

Marky Mark said...

OK, then as for the substance, I don't understand why a double standard is tolerated. Forget blogs and the personal stuff that you introduced: why should Netanyahu be prevented from speaking at Concordia, Coulter receive a warning about hate speech and organized events opposing IAW be prohibited due to the extra security costs when Felton of all people (and he's not a leftist and wouldn't say that he is) gets air time, IAW proceeds without a Coulter like warning (as far as we know) and the Muhammad cartoons be shunned?


Don't ask me. I don't consider Netanyahu or Coulter authorities on anything but the politics of propaganda. And I've never participated in IAW, although I support people's right to organise campaigns of divestment, same as I did with South Africa. That the word "apartheid" has been seized, on, all of a sudden, as indicative of hatred or antisemitism just goes to show how weak and desperate the counter-campaign is, despite the resources at its disposal.

Marky Mark said...

Don't ask me. I don't consider Netanyahu or Coulter authorities on anything but the politics of propaganda. And I've never participated in IAW, although I support people's right to organise campaigns of divestment, same as I did with South Africa. That the word "apartheid" has been seized, on, all of a sudden, as indicative of hatred or antisemitism just goes to show how weak and desperate the counter-campaign is, despite the resources at its disposal.

Perhaps. And I resist the notion that anti-Semitism is rampant on the Left. But when the people I've raised show up, either in real life or in an online debate, it's worth pushing back. I'll never understand why that is even a bit controversial or a rationale for an accusation of OCD.

And to make it up to me perhaps you should go online and sponsor me in the Harry's 5K walk for prostate cancer so that I not only beat Jack Layton to the finish line but best him in fundraising as well.

(If you really want sources for Felton's columns I'll post them but that will lead him to come to this discussion, which he may do already given your link to his site. And if he is even a fringe part of the Left, I would rather vote for Harper. But he isn't.)

Ti-Guy said...

And to make it up to me perhaps you should go online and sponsor me in the Harry's 5K walk for prostate cancer so that I not only beat Jack Layton to the finish line but best him in fundraising as well.

I'll think about it. I know where to donate, if I do.

Robert G. Harvie, Q.C. said...

oops.

My bad.

George Galloway.

Ralph Galloway, former UN director for aid to Palestinians, is obviously someone else.

Yariv said...

It never ceases to amaze me the way in which some choose to revise history.

I recall back in the 1980s when I was going to Waterloo University the hub bub around the Merchant of Venice. Cenosors cried that Jewish groups like Canadian Jewish Congress wanted to ban or censor the play from schools. Only those who actually were interested in the facts understood that the Congress simply asked that the play be taught age appropriately. in grade 12 as opposed to grade 9.

Once again Dawg tries to revise history with "Three Wishes". And once again the Jewish community and the CJC are misrepresented. Twenty five years later I am married with children.I read "Three Wishes" when the controversy broke out to see what the argument was about. On the jacket of the book, which I am looking at as I write this, it states very clearly that the book is best taught at a grade 6 level or higher This was the CJC position. It was never to ban.

A simple trip to Google would have helped Dawg from becoming a revisionist with wrong facts.

http://www.cjc.ca/2006/04/19/students-need-context-when-topics-are-sensitive/

Anonymous said...

Taking Yariv's suggestion to heart I searched the CJC site and found this excellent op-ed which deals head on with 3 wishes and the CJC position.

http://www.cjc.ca/2006/03/23/putting-books-in-the-right-hands/

Seems to me that Dawg owes us a bit of an apology.

Dr.Dawg said...

Seems to me that Dawg owes us a bit of an apology.

"Us?" Well, now. Finally.

There was never a call for a complete banning, unlike the present book, or the Corrie play, or the Seven Jewish Children play,or the photography exhibit in Montreal, or the art exhibit in Toronto, or...well, you get the idea.

Anybody would think that Sue and Yariv were trying to deflect. Naw, couldn't be.

But I'm at a loss what I should be apologizing for. I provided a link that set out matter of factly what happened in Toronto in 2006. It was an admittedly limited form of censorship, but censorship it assuredly was.

Bernie Farber was indignant enough about the c-word that he wrote to the papers about it at the time, but more recently (as in the examples above) this attempted cake-having-and-eating has been abandoned.

Harry Abrams said...

More dissembling by the good Doktor as he tries to cover another exposed distortion.

Call him on it once too often on his own website and he'll ban you just like did me.

Do me and yourself a favour TJ. Don't send me fun "little news tidbits" and don't darken my email inbox anymore. Thanx.

Anonymous said...

Dawg: "But I'm at a loss what I should be apologizing for. I provided a link that set out matter of factly what happened in Toronto in 2006. It was an admittedly limited form of censorship, but censorship it assuredly was."

Dawg, with respect, asking that a book be taught age-appropriately is simply not the same as censorship. You see books like "Catcher in the Rye" are taught in senior highschool as opposed to elementary school, would you say then that it is banned or censored for grade 3 students? For a smart guy you are being very silly.

Dr.Dawg said...

Harry was banned--after a warning--for defaming me as an "anti-Semite." Not to mention for his implicitly racist attitude towards the Palestinians.

No one else in this crowd has been banned, because they know how to behave, while deeply disagreeing with me on occasion. Unlike Harry, they engage, argue in good faith, and avoid trolling.

Sue:

As noted, I did post an explanatory link. But I think many of us are a little tired of being told by professional lobby groups what is "appropriate" reading in the schools. Let the school boards and the curriculum developers decide. Not Bernie Farber, with all due respect.

And what of the more recent bans I mentioned? Why are you skipping over those? Do you defend them? Should B'nai Brith determine everything we are to see and hear?

Anonymous said...

Dawg:

You seem to forget that we live in a participatory democracy. CJC, Farber even you have the absolute right to put forward an opinion, to lobby and to avocate in any legal manner possible. Frankly I find it pretty distatseful that you would rag on Farber for simply suggesting that a book be taught exactly in the manner that the author and publisher suggested.

As for Bnai Brith, I reject and always have outright calls for censorship of books unless there are severe issues of racism, hatred or xenophobia. I believe their position on The Shepard's grnadughter is wrong

Harry Abrams said...

"implicitly racist attitude towards the Palestinians."

Now that's a bald-faced untruth if I ever saw one.

Examples please? Good luck finding them, because there aren't any. I have no special axe to grind against the Palestinians. I'm for a reasonable 2 state solution.

Half of my postings were about correcting distortions and dismissing what Dawg and his cohorts THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THINKING.

Harry Abrams said...

On second thought, I don't want to air any more of my differences with Mr. Bagley here again too.

We had a pretty fair falling out over what Apartheid Week Israel is and Jews living or moving into East Jerusalem.

If anybody wants to form their own opinions of who is right or wrong they can look back on those threads on his blog, see how the comments played out.

I really don't want to spend any more time around here answering to "do you still beat your wife" type questions like we see above in this thread.

We probably have some things in common , but name calling and little high school head games doesn't help anybody and wastes valuable time and focus.

Dr.Dawg said...

Your attempt to deflect from the ugly reality of East Jerusalem evictions, Harry, told me everything about you that I need to know.

When I raised the fact that a former Speaker of the Knesset and a number of Jews joined with the Palestinians to protest the literal throwing of families onto the street, and that the settlers who took over the houses sang songs, caught on video, celebrating the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein, your response was--what?

To call me an anti-Semite.

I'm generally a polite sort, Harry, but fuck you. Sorry, BCL.

Harry Abrams said...

Dawg, you completely ignored the facts that these "evicted" people were evicted for refusing to pay rent. Unlike their other Arab neighbors in an identical situation who managed to reach a balance with the Jewish owners of these places who could prove legitimate ownership. The "evicted ones" also chose to camp pitifully on the sidewalk all day and then go home to the East Jerusalem apartment that the PA had arranged for them. I don't know what kind of songs the new people might have been singing. Goldstein was a deranged murderer. And the atrocity that he committed was a number of years ago. That you would try to tie that my tail without even confirming it first was inappropriate to say the least.

sharonapple88 said...

Is this the case you two are discussing?

In the early 1970s, the Israeli courts awarded two Jewish associations ownership of the compound based on land deeds that were a century old. The Palestinian residents were allowed to stay on as protected tenants on the condition that they paid rent to the Jewish groups.

Rejecting the court ruling, many of the Palestinian families refused to pay rent, making them eligible for eviction. Their lawyer claimed that the Jewish land deeds were forged but was not able to convince the Israeli courts.

....
The Ghawis came to Jerusalem as refugees from the village of Sarafind, now Tzrifin, in central Israel. But they, like other Palestinians across the 1967 lines, cannot go to court to reclaim lost property because of what some describe as an asymmetry in the Israeli law.

In 1950, to protect the new Jewish state from the claims of the Palestinian refugees, Israel enacted the Absentees’ Property Law. It essentially strips Palestinians of any rights to property left behind in what is now Israel if they were in enemy territory, including East Jerusalem, between November 1947 and May 1948.


Seems more complicated than a situation of people not paying rent.

Dr.Dawg said...

There's a lot more. Whether it's rent or building permits or flat-out expropriation, every excuse has been used to drive families from their homes to make way for settlers:

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2009.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/PSLG-7RMB33-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf

Harry knows all this very well.

With respect to "rent" (protection money would be a better term) imagine that the US annexes Windsor. Old documents show up proving that your home in that city really belongs to Americans. You can only appeal to an unsympathetic US court. You are allowed to stay in your house until the matter is settled, but have to pay "rent" to US authorities.

You refuse--after all, it's your house. The court rules against you, and you are forcibly removed by US marshals from the only home you have ever known. While you sit on the street and worry about your kids, some newly-arrived Russian emigres move into your house.

That's the exact analogy to what's been going on in East Jerusalem. The fact that Harry dishonestly talks about "rent," when it's all about ethnic cleansing, goes right to the implicit racism I was referring to earlier.

Harry Abrams said...

So all Israelis are "settlers" eh Dawg?

Even in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem.

And I suppose this phrase was to make sure that your fans understood that the Jews who owned the apt. sang praises of a deranged murderer, and I was in league with them. Sorry, that doesn't sweep under the rug too well.

" the settlers who took over the houses sang songs, caught on video, celebrating the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein.

Also you consistently single out Jews and Israel for this kind of approbation, when variations of it still go on all over the world in the wake of armed conflicts, without comment or comparison.

A fellow I did business with made a trip to Romania to reclaim an ancestral home that was confiscated by the now defunct Communist government.I don't know what songs he was supposed to sing.

Dr.Dawg said...

Here's my post, in case anyone here is misled by that sinuous creep:

http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2010/03/east-jerusalem-protest.html

Funny how so many Jews on the ground in East Jerusalem disagree with Harry. They know what's going on. But, of course, so does Harry.

East Jerusalem, as my earlier link notes, is annexed territory into which civilian settlers are being moved, contrary to international law.

Harry Abrams said...

News Flash!

John Bagley Returns his Ottawa home to Algonquin First Nations.

Marky Mark said...

As far as Jerusalem is concerned, before 1967 the Jordanians refused access to Jewish holy sites to Jews. And Jews were ethnically cleansed, the old fashioned way (by murder) from other places like Hebron. There was no BDS or anti-"apartheid" movement against the Jordanians, let alone against the "Palestinians" who hadn't yet been named as such.

All of this took place in the atmosphere of an Arab League boycott against Israel on the basis that self-determination for Jews was not OK. Still no BDS movement or "apartheid" type protests by those committed to social justce.

And I'm curious what will cross Obama's mind tonight when at his "universal story" Passover seder he gets to the age old high point of "next year in Jerusalem."

Ti-Guy said...

Do me and yourself a favour TJ. Don't send me fun "little news tidbits" and don't darken my email inbox anymore. Thanx.

Who's TJ?

Dr.Dawg said...

John Bagley [sic] Returns his Ottawa home to Algonquin First Nations.

Umm...I wonder if Harry followed the remorseless logic of that suggestion, if he was trying to draw parallels?