This blog has little to do with religion and nothing to do with the middle-east situation, but I've seen some anti-Israel-bashing posts creep into the Comments section which is unfortunate.
It is true that Quebec is a hotbed of Israel-bashing, where left wing unionists like Gérald Larose and communist sympathizers like Amir Khadir perpetuate a campaign of vilification of Israel in the media as if the rest of the world was a Garden of Eden and Israel was the only thorny bush.
Among sovereignists, he's a bit of an anomaly, a free thinker who was sacked from his newspaper job at Le Quotidien du Saguenay-lac-St-Jean, as a columnist for writing an unflattering piece denigrating the Quebec environmental movement and its messiah Steven Guilbeault. He continues to pontificate on his own blog which is one of the most important and interesting examples of free-thinkers, unbound by party politics and loyalties.
Here he takes on the 500 Quebec artists who signed a letter condemning Israel and calling for a boycott;
"A call from Montreal artists to support the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid…" LINKMr. Brassard replies;
For those who read French find the original post HERE
The ZARTISTES Furious Over Israel
(note: 'zartistes'- a disparaging term for 'artists')
Ah, these sweet, left wing Quebecois zartistes, how predictable they are!!
How constant and unequivocal is their indignation! How eminently selective!
If Israel were to disappear (as desired so ardently by these Teherani stools), where would our leftist zartistes, so sensitive to human suffering, manifest their compassion for human misery?
Fortunately feeding their compassion, is the oppressed Palestinians, massacred, starved, locked up ... and to stimulate their indignation even further, there are the Jewish oppressors, murderers, starvers and jailers!
But tell me, what do you do for the Tibetans, Sudanese, Tamil, Congolese, the North Koreans, Burmese, Zimbabweans, the Copts, the Christians of Iraq and Pakistan, all persecuted, bullied and murdered?
They're nothing but 'Small Fry!' Our zartistes will not be distracted by these lowly whiners!
Their job, their mission, is to defend the Palestinians, victims 'par excellence' of the entire galaxy, and especially those in Gaza.
500 of them have signed an open letter expressing solidarity with the Palestinians, mistreated by the "Jews-with-no-heart-and-no-soul", calling for a boycott of Israeli products and calling for sanctions against the Jewish state.
I went through the list of the 500. Almost all are zartistic 'nobodies.' Except a few. As Richard Desjardins, for example. This is hardly surprising since the Guru of Abitibi is a well known leftist, eco-pacifist, anti-globalization, anti-American, pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist.
But what saddened me is to see the name of Gilles Vigneault among the petitioners.
Gilles Vigneault! How Sad!
How can he ignore that the people of Gaza are in no way subjected to "a chronic shortage of electricity, fuel, food and other commodities?" Even during the military operation of 'Cast Lead,' against Hamas terrorists, the supply line to the Gaza Strip never really stopped.
Gilles Vigneault. How can he say that Israel has turned Gaza into a giant prison? Has he forgotten that the Israeli army left the Gaza Strip in 2005?
And if Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are in prison, it is the one established by the Hamas extremist fanatics who impose a bloody tyranny steeped in hateful antisemitism so vicious that it is surprising that the 500 freedom-loving zartiste petitioners, never noticed?
Gilles Vigneault must be aware that he utters a horrible lie and demonstrates an appalling intellectual dishonesty when he proclaims that Israel has created "a system of institutionalized racism and segregation that resembles apartheid South Africa"
This is a charge so vile and so villainous that only the demonization of Israel can explain its presence in the cultural, media, politicians and intellectuals in the West.
"Israel," writes Pierre-Andre Taguieff, embodies the West for anti-Westerners, imperialism for anti-imperialists, infidels for the Islamists and racism for pro-Palestinians. It combines all the negative stereotypes. It is seen as the ultimate state, which should disappear so that man can be delivered from evil. "
How, exactly does Israel impose apartheid in the Gaza Strip, where it exercises no authority?
On its own territory, there is no racist policy, no discriminatory system. The State of Israel is a democratic state where Arab Muslims are full citizens, enjoying all the rights and fundamental freedoms for all and are represented in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
But, the anti-Zionists scream- "There is the Wall! The security fence! How horrible! What a disgrace!" Even the Pope is upset.Hmmm. That was certainly unexpected!
Before they choke with indignation, they should ask themselves this one simple question: why is there a fence?
Benedict XVI, during his trip to the Middle East, saw fit not to raise this essential issue because the answer is as simple as the question.
Before the "Israeli apartheid wall," as the beautiful souls of the petitioners describe, the terrorists crossed the border easily, wrapped with explosives and would blow themselves up on the terraces of cafes, buses, cafeterias of universities, public places, in the middle of bustling markets. After the construction of the fence (a fence because it is more than a wall), the aim has been largely achieved: the level of security for Israeli civilians, has increased considerably.
It is true that terrorists now favour rockets fired indiscriminately at Israeli towns. This has compelled the Jewish state to resort to other means of protection that include sirens and shelters.
How is it that the security fence Israel has become the "Wall of Shame" 'par excellence'? Because it is far from alone. There are many others, the walls of separation between the U.S. and Mexico, between Morocco and the Sahara between India and Pakistan, between Botswana and Zimbabwe, between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Cyprus, Ireland, and between Thailand and Malaysia.
Why is the indignation of the Western left exclusively focused on the 'monstrous Israeli Wall ?
Because they are Jews who have erected it to protect themselves from Islamist terrorism. And because the Western left is anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.
Dear Gilles Vigneault, if Gaza is hell now, know that it is the rotten fruit of the culture of hatred and violence in which the Palestinian population have swam in, over the ages.
Palestinian youth are indoctrinated, fanatisized, and fuel the hatred of the Jews, while worshipping a pathological version of Islamist terror.
Know that Hamas and other Islamist hordes are solely responsible for the confinement of Palestinians in Gaza.
By signing this petition, you behave as useful idiot (in the words of Lenin), "idiot" because you do not comprehend the fundamentally totalitarian, obscurantist, terrorist, barbaric, draconian nature of the nazislamism of Hamas. "Useful," because you are a cog in the machinery of propaganda and disinformation of the Islamofascist Caliphate of Gaza. It's deplorable and pathetic on behalf of a great poet like you.
-Jacques Brassard
It's not that often a sovereignist takes such a public stance in favour of Israel and it's not often that anyone uses such strong language in doing so.
Now before we all get into a pro-Israel/anti-Israel slug fest, the point of this post is not really about Israel.
It is about the labeling of sovereignists as left-wingers and federalists as conservatives.
The sovereignty debate in Quebec has redefined people as what they may or may not be, based solely on their position on sovereignty.
But the reality is a little different, within the two camps there lies conservatives and liberals.
We federalists are certainly not a homogeneous lot marching in lockstep with the policies of the Quebec Liberals and the federal Tories. Far from it. We are a diverse group that share a fundamental belief in Canada, but the similarities probably ends there.
The same truths applies to sovereignists, who are also tarred by the same brush and considered radical leftists by most in the English media. It is not true.
A group of famous Quebec conservatives who are generally aligned with the sovereignist camp known as the "Lucides' wrote a devastating indictment of Quebec society in an open letter that demonstrated that there is no consensus among sovereignists over liberal/conservative values.
We Quebeckers, whether sovereignists or federalists cannot be defined by one issue alone, even if it is the biggest issue.
But we are.
Editors Note. Gratuitous comments in support of Israel or Palestine, unrelated to the article above will not be posted. This blog is not about the Middle East.
