Written by Jesse Paikin, Contributor
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
http://www.excal.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1317&Itemid=2
Edward Corrigan's letter to President Lorna Marsden regarding the university's alleged "suppress[ion of the] discussion of Palestinian human rights" is a fine example of the right to free speech that we so value at our university and in our country. It is also an example of the drivel masquerading as newsworthiness that so frequently invades Excalibur.
I do not wish to jump back into the ongoing Israel vs. Palestine debate, however, I will briefly address one of the issues that Corrigan raises, as I feel that it is important to present the inherent flaws in his argument.
The most disturbing argument Corrigan presents is his belief in Israel's "ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs", which he believes is "a crime not unlike the one committed against Jews in the WWII". Here, Corrigan resorts to an emotional attack
rather than the constructive criticism that he states he is an ardent supporter of.
Corrigan chooses to ignore the fact that Israel's actions are most certainly not racially motivated and are not carried out with some sort of systematic "final solution" in mind, as he suggests. His correlation is flawed and offensive, and is only designed to provoke an emotional response. This is a prime example of the repeated techniques used by many anti-Israel propagandists. Flinging facts and figures back and forth doesn't hurt people, so instead they use emotional attacks, with such disturbing falsities such as "apartheid state", "ethnic cleansing" and "Nazi-like". These attacks have no place in the arena of constructive criticism and intellectual debate.
The ongoing Israel vs. Palestine debate has apparently shifted from the rotunda of Vari Hall to the pages of Excalibur. It is not hard to ponder why. Those of us who remember how outrageous the atmosphere was in the past are simply tired of the shouting and screaming matches, where the loudest and most provocative voices determined the winner. People got tired of the spectacle and stopped watching. The likes of Corrigan, who are more interested in provoking emotional responses than in stimulating intellectual debate, have been searching for a new arena for their circus-like antics. And they have found it - on the opinion pages of Excalibur.
This in mind, I have been wondering for months if people are just as tired of reading the fights on paper as they were tired of the fights in Vari Hall. Perhaps Excalibur should commission a poll.
This all being said, Excalibur is to be commended for valuing free speech and for keeping the many voices of this debate in some sort of balance. I would hope that future debaters do not waste their valuable right to free speech by flinging intellectual feces at each other.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Is this a balanced article? I'm interested in people's thoughts.
January 16, 2006
The Things That Have Not Changed
By Fareed Zakaria
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756413/site/newsweek/
The graveyards are filled with indispensable men, Charles de Gaulle once remarked. Ariel Sharon would seem to be the exception, one who truly became irreplaceable in his final years. Everyone seems to agree that his passing from the political scene would change everything, opening up a political void and jeopardizing the prospects for progress between the Palestinians and Israelis. But perhaps de Gaulle was right, even in the Middle East.
Sharon came to hold the view that he is now firmly associated with-unilateral disengagement with the Palestinians-extremely reluctantly. Withdrawal from Gaza was always a left-wing idea. In fact, the Labor Party leader, Amram Mitzna, campaigned on it in the 2002 election. Sharon rejected any such thinking, believing firmly in a "Greater Israel," one that he had risked his life conquering and building.
What changed his mind were demographic realities-namely the prospect that as the Palestinians multiplied, Jews would become a minority in their own country. Add to this a political reality: Israelis had soured on the dream of a Greater Israel-because they saw that it came with Palestinians in it. The Israelis wanted out. Sharon, a shrewd politician, recognized these trends and followed them.
These realities persist with or without Sharon. That is surely why his new party, Kadima, continues to poll as well as it did weeks ago, even though Israelis know now that Sharon may not lead it. Kadima fills a political vacuum. The Likud position remains a flat refusal to give up land, which the Israeli public thinks is implausible. The Labor Party, on the other hand, opposes unilateralism, arguing for a negotiated comprehensive settlement with the Palestinians. Israelis think this is naive. "The Palestinians cannot deliver, but we cannot stay," says Israeli politician Alon Pinkus. "These are the two pressures that will shape any Israeli government's approach." That means some kind of unilateral disengagement.
To be sure, Sharon's role was vital. He was the one leader who could break the taboo on returning land and evacuating settlers. Israelis trusted him to implement a difficult policy. He had credibility on the right, with the security forces and with key segments of the electorate. His probable successor, Ehud Olmert, actually advocated withdrawal from Gaza well before Sharon did, but would still face a huge challenge in executing any new moves. The West Bank is far more important to the Israeli right than Gaza was, and perhaps most important, Olmert is not Sharon.
Even with this large caveat, I do not believe that Sharon's absence would prove to be the crucial stumbling block. That's because the great obstacle to progress in the Middle East is no longer Israeli intentions but rather Palestinian capabilities. The big story that no one wants to admit yet is that the Palestinian Authority has collapsed, Gaza has turned into a failed state and there is no single Palestinian political organization that could create order in the territories and negotiate with Israel. Palestinian dysfunction is now the main limiting factor on any progress in the peace process.
There were many hopes that Gaza could become a model of what the Palestinians would do once liberated from occupation. Last week The Christian Science Monitor reported on the new scene: "As the first year devoid of an Israeli presence since 1967 dawns," it wrote, "armed militias roam the streets freely, foreigners are kidnapped with regularity, and the measure of a man in this coastal territory is not his political title, or even the size of his house, but the number of AK-47-wielding bodyguards he employs."
Some of these problems are not all of the Palestinians' making. Israel has ruled them harshly and disrupted their political and economic life, and some of these disruptions continue even in Gaza. Goods have to be loaded and unloaded at checkpoints, people checked and rechecked, all of which imposes huge costs on normal activities. But whatever the past and whatever the constraints, the fact remains that Gaza lacks a single authority, a functioning government, and as a result is in a "state of anarchy," in the words of The Christian Science Monitor. This is not the model that people had hoped for.
If the United States and the international community are looking to push along the peace process, the urgent need is to build Palestinian governing capability. Without that, Israeli intentions do not matter. If the Palestinians can get their act together, the spotlight will inevitably shift to the Israelis. And then the United States should urge Israel to continue in the direction that Ariel Sharon has pointed toward, separating itself from the Palestinian population in a process that inevitably will result in a Palestinian state on more than 90 percent of the territories captured in the 1967 war. A sense that this is what Sharon would have done eventually will be essential in moving to that settlement. In that sense, he might still prove to be utterly indispensable.
The Things That Have Not Changed
By Fareed Zakaria
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756413/site/newsweek/
The graveyards are filled with indispensable men, Charles de Gaulle once remarked. Ariel Sharon would seem to be the exception, one who truly became irreplaceable in his final years. Everyone seems to agree that his passing from the political scene would change everything, opening up a political void and jeopardizing the prospects for progress between the Palestinians and Israelis. But perhaps de Gaulle was right, even in the Middle East.
Sharon came to hold the view that he is now firmly associated with-unilateral disengagement with the Palestinians-extremely reluctantly. Withdrawal from Gaza was always a left-wing idea. In fact, the Labor Party leader, Amram Mitzna, campaigned on it in the 2002 election. Sharon rejected any such thinking, believing firmly in a "Greater Israel," one that he had risked his life conquering and building.
What changed his mind were demographic realities-namely the prospect that as the Palestinians multiplied, Jews would become a minority in their own country. Add to this a political reality: Israelis had soured on the dream of a Greater Israel-because they saw that it came with Palestinians in it. The Israelis wanted out. Sharon, a shrewd politician, recognized these trends and followed them.
These realities persist with or without Sharon. That is surely why his new party, Kadima, continues to poll as well as it did weeks ago, even though Israelis know now that Sharon may not lead it. Kadima fills a political vacuum. The Likud position remains a flat refusal to give up land, which the Israeli public thinks is implausible. The Labor Party, on the other hand, opposes unilateralism, arguing for a negotiated comprehensive settlement with the Palestinians. Israelis think this is naive. "The Palestinians cannot deliver, but we cannot stay," says Israeli politician Alon Pinkus. "These are the two pressures that will shape any Israeli government's approach." That means some kind of unilateral disengagement.
To be sure, Sharon's role was vital. He was the one leader who could break the taboo on returning land and evacuating settlers. Israelis trusted him to implement a difficult policy. He had credibility on the right, with the security forces and with key segments of the electorate. His probable successor, Ehud Olmert, actually advocated withdrawal from Gaza well before Sharon did, but would still face a huge challenge in executing any new moves. The West Bank is far more important to the Israeli right than Gaza was, and perhaps most important, Olmert is not Sharon.
Even with this large caveat, I do not believe that Sharon's absence would prove to be the crucial stumbling block. That's because the great obstacle to progress in the Middle East is no longer Israeli intentions but rather Palestinian capabilities. The big story that no one wants to admit yet is that the Palestinian Authority has collapsed, Gaza has turned into a failed state and there is no single Palestinian political organization that could create order in the territories and negotiate with Israel. Palestinian dysfunction is now the main limiting factor on any progress in the peace process.
There were many hopes that Gaza could become a model of what the Palestinians would do once liberated from occupation. Last week The Christian Science Monitor reported on the new scene: "As the first year devoid of an Israeli presence since 1967 dawns," it wrote, "armed militias roam the streets freely, foreigners are kidnapped with regularity, and the measure of a man in this coastal territory is not his political title, or even the size of his house, but the number of AK-47-wielding bodyguards he employs."
Some of these problems are not all of the Palestinians' making. Israel has ruled them harshly and disrupted their political and economic life, and some of these disruptions continue even in Gaza. Goods have to be loaded and unloaded at checkpoints, people checked and rechecked, all of which imposes huge costs on normal activities. But whatever the past and whatever the constraints, the fact remains that Gaza lacks a single authority, a functioning government, and as a result is in a "state of anarchy," in the words of The Christian Science Monitor. This is not the model that people had hoped for.
If the United States and the international community are looking to push along the peace process, the urgent need is to build Palestinian governing capability. Without that, Israeli intentions do not matter. If the Palestinians can get their act together, the spotlight will inevitably shift to the Israelis. And then the United States should urge Israel to continue in the direction that Ariel Sharon has pointed toward, separating itself from the Palestinian population in a process that inevitably will result in a Palestinian state on more than 90 percent of the territories captured in the 1967 war. A sense that this is what Sharon would have done eventually will be essential in moving to that settlement. In that sense, he might still prove to be utterly indispensable.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
An island of calm in a stormy sea
The responses to the Ha'aretz articles on Sharon's stroke are typical. Most offer prayers for a speedy recovery. Too many claim that this is G-d's punishment for evacutating Azza. Some people just try to spark up the typical Israel vs. Palestinians debate.
This response stood out. It's by a guy named Raymond Blumenthal from somewhere in New York. Read it and think...
~~~~
Sharon is a complicated person. He is not only one of Israel's greatest Generals but ranks as one of the world's military leaders. I respected him as a General but was not happy with him in his early days as a politician. He was a proponent of settlements, not understanding of the Palestinians and used a heavy hand with some of Israel's neighbors.
But one thing made him different from most other leaders in the Middle East. He learned. He understood that Israel could not go on doing what it was doing to the occupied territories. Israel had to rethink its way in the world and its future. Like the good General he was, he realized that sometimes you must retreat and reformer your lines before you continue.
He, more then most other people, felt that giving up Gaza would be painful but it had to be done. Was he not partly responsible for the capture of Gaza and the settlements? Those who lament over the loss of Gaza are shot sighted. They only see one small part of what is Israel. Gaza would never be part of Israel. What I worry about is the Israel of today, not the one of 2000 years ago.
He made many mistakes in the past, and if he recovers, he may make a few more. But remember what he has done has always been for the good of Israel and its people. He doesn?t deserve the abuse of some religious zealots who want to live in the past.
This response stood out. It's by a guy named Raymond Blumenthal from somewhere in New York. Read it and think...
~~~~
Sharon is a complicated person. He is not only one of Israel's greatest Generals but ranks as one of the world's military leaders. I respected him as a General but was not happy with him in his early days as a politician. He was a proponent of settlements, not understanding of the Palestinians and used a heavy hand with some of Israel's neighbors.
But one thing made him different from most other leaders in the Middle East. He learned. He understood that Israel could not go on doing what it was doing to the occupied territories. Israel had to rethink its way in the world and its future. Like the good General he was, he realized that sometimes you must retreat and reformer your lines before you continue.
He, more then most other people, felt that giving up Gaza would be painful but it had to be done. Was he not partly responsible for the capture of Gaza and the settlements? Those who lament over the loss of Gaza are shot sighted. They only see one small part of what is Israel. Gaza would never be part of Israel. What I worry about is the Israel of today, not the one of 2000 years ago.
He made many mistakes in the past, and if he recovers, he may make a few more. But remember what he has done has always been for the good of Israel and its people. He doesn?t deserve the abuse of some religious zealots who want to live in the past.
Monday, January 02, 2006
A Brave Priest
| In a Past Life... |
 You Were: A Brave Priest. Where You Lived: Burma. How You Died: Decapitation. |
Freedom Rock
| You Are a Freedom Rocker! |
 You're stuck in the 70s - for better or worse Crazy hair, pot soaked clothes, and tons of groupies Your kind showed the world how to rock Is that freedom rock?... Well turn it up man! |
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