Showing posts with label Toronto Star. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toronto Star. Show all posts

Toronto Star admits 8 million Palestinians have stake in Palestine...

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In politics, as in life, virtue is not always rewarded. So it's cheering to see Tzipi Livni, the newly elected leader of Israel's moderate Kadima party, get a modest boost in the opinion polls for doing the right thing.

Livni was elected Kadima leader Sept. 17, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he was stepping down as the party's leader amid corruption allegations. Since then, Livni has been trying to cobble together a coalition to keep the government going, with her as prime minister. Kadima is the most popular party but has just 29 seats in the 120-seat Knesset or parliament. It needs partners to govern, such as Ehud Barak's Labour party and the religious Shas party.

The hard-dealing Shas leaders did manage to extract an offer from Livni to boost child support for large families, their constituency.

But Shas then overplayed its hand by demanding that Livni rule out sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians. That would have severely curtailed the ability of Israel's 5.5 million Jews to negotiate a deal to live in harmony with nearly 8 million Palestinians living in Israel itself, in the West Bank and Gaza, and in neighbouring states.

To her credit, Livni said No, and she asked President Shimon Peres to call a new election, expected early next year. Until then, Olmert will stay on as caretaker prime minister and Livni will remain foreign minister. Though few Israelis relish months of political uncertainty, there seems to be support for Livni's approach. While opinion is fickle, polls show Kadima pulling slightly ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party, which refuses any concession on Jerusalem and which had been ahead in the polls.

Given the turmoil in Israeli politics, U.S. President George W. Bush now seems fated to leave office in January without the peace pact he had hoped to broker. That may be for Barack Obama or John McCain to attempt. The best Olmert and Livni might accomplish is to sketch out the broad outlines of a future deal that would trade land for peace.

Still, Livni's principled decision to rebuff small-party extortion preserves Israel's options and keeps hope alive. Her defence of the nation's broader interest affirms her fitness for high office.

source
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Feedback on Palestine / Israel In Todays Toronto Star

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper's position that any
criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic may be politically
convenient for the Tories, but it's dangerously
simplistic as Canadian policy. By that logic,
disapproval of China's treatment of Tibet is
merely the extension of an anti-Chinese racism
that saw the carving up of that country by
Western powers and Japan, and the institution
of a head tax and a law to keep Chinese immigrants
out of Canada.

By this thinking, Western censure of Zimbabwe's
Robert Mugabe simply perpetuates a Europe-Africa
relationship that brought the slave trade and settler
colonialism. In fact, there is some truth to all of
these assertions. Nevertheless, anyone who cares
about justice or long-term peace cannot use one oppression
to justify another.
The expulsion of Palestinians from their land and
their ongoing subjection to illegal colonization and
draconian living conditions are not masked by
Harper's rhetoric about anti-Semitism.
If the Canadian government is to have any credibility
at home or abroad, it must approach these conflicts
with a sense of fairness and justice. Otherwise, it's
not fooling anyone.
Richard Fung, Toronto
Your article mentions the Jewish counter-
demonstration at the Queen's Park rally
commemorating Al Nakba. However, you neglected to
report on the Jewish groups at the rally that stand side
by side with the Palestinians.
Many Jewish people demand an end to the occupation,
the separation wall, the checkpoints where Palestinians
are humiliated, the siege of Gaza, the imprisonment
of Palestinian youth, and Israel's disproportionate
military attacks.
Judith Deutsch, Toronto
It is good to finally see that Canadian journalists and
politicians are speaking out against the racist,
meddling ramblings of the Israeli ambassador to
Canada, Alan Baker. His latest statement about the
threat to our values posed by Muslim Canadians and
his personal attack on an MP of Arab descent have
got to take the cake.
Haroon Siddiqui is right: If an ambassador from an
Arab country made similar statements about
Jewish Canadians, "We'd tell them to mind their
own business and not interfere in Canadian affairs.
" Why the double standard?
Linda Belanger, Ottawa



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Liberal Ignatieff's moral compass spinning like a propeller...

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C.F. Bernadotte
From a story written by Linda Diebel in today's Toronto Star
about Michael Ignatieff's act of contrition(for calling the IAF
airstrike on Qana in 2006 a war crime) before a Zionist
audience at Holy Blossom Temple;

"In defending the Liberal record, Ignatieff said:
"I tell you, Liberals stand with you, they always
have and they always will." Ignatieff added
that Jewish Canadians could count on a
Dion government.


"All hell immediately broke loose" after his 2006 remark,
said Ignatieff, which accurately describes the reaction to
his comment about Israel's bombing of the Lebanese
village of Qana and the deaths of dozens of civilians
during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

The remark, he said, led to charges of "intellectual
anti-Semitism" and cost him personally. It also cost
allies in the Liberal party, although he said he scoffed
at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's assertion it was
another example of Liberal indifference to Israel.

"Politicians can't expect to hold the trust of citizens unless
they own up to things we've done wrong," he said.
Ignatieff suggested, instead of using the term "war
crime," he might better have noted Israel "may have
failed to comply with the Geneva Convention of the
laws of war."

Or, he said, he might have said Israel "has the right to
defend itself but had to avoid civilian casualties.""
full text;
Ignatieff's inititial reaction to the Israeli airstrike
was that he "didn't lose any sleep over it." Then, when
that appeared a little callous, he admitted that possibly
it might have been a war crime. Now he want's to
rebrand it a failure "to comply with the Geneva
Convention of the laws of war"(I'm not certain how that
differentiates it from a war crime).
Even for a Liberal, that appears pretty morally capricious...


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Canada makes Israel's MFA "very happy"

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C.F. Bernadotte

Sigh...hard to believe this is the same
country that led the charge against South
African apartheid 25 years ago.


"JERUSALEM–A United Nations panel voted
overwhelmingly this month to condemn Israel for
a recent armed incursion in the Gaza Strip that
claimed more than 120 lives, many of them civilian.
Thirty-three member countries of the 47-seat
UN Human Rights Council endorsed the resolution,
which accused Israel of war crimes in its ongoing
battles against Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Those in favour of censuring the Jewish state included
China, India and Russia. Thirteen countries abstained,
among them seven European governments.
But one nation stood alone against the denunciation of
Israel, and that country was not the United States –
Israel's leading foreign supporter – or even Israel itself,
for neither country has a seat on the human rights body.
Instead, the lone dissenter was Canada.
"We're very happy that we see things in a similar way,"
Carmela Shamir, deputy director of the North America
division at Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said
in an interview last week.
"Canada has adopted several times in recent
months very brave positions."
People are beginning to take notice."
full story;

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"Can calm staunch blood?"

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The TorStar has an interesting definition of 'calm'; only
4 Arabs extra-judicially executed(a fith killed in a separate
incident doesn't even merit mention);
C.F. Bernadotte
"JERUSALEM–It was another day of war in the Holy Land, mixed
with just a trace of peace, as some spoke of a possible ceasefire
while others warned of bloodier conflicts to come.
Israeli security forces were put on high alert across
the country last night, after an attack outside a
restaurant in Bethlehem by special units of the
Israeli military that left four Palestinians dead.
The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad retaliated
today by firing rockets from Gaza against the Israeli
border town of Sderot in what it described as an
"initial" response to the Bethlehem raid.
Three of the dead were from Islamic Jihad, while the
fourth belonged to al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas administration leader
Ismail Haniyeh set out his conditions for a potential
ceasefire with Israel following nine months of almost
daily clashes between the two sides that have caused
hundreds of deaths, almost all of them Palestinian.
Appearing in public for the first time since a deadly
Israeli incursion earlier this month in which more than
120 Palestinians were killed, Haniyeh yesterday proposed
to stop firing rockets and mortars at Israel in exchange for
an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza, the lifting of
punitive economic sanctions, and the opening of the territory's
borders with Israel, sealed to all but humanitarian supplies since
Hamas took power in Gaza last June."
full story;
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Alan Baker's letter needs a response ! Please write.

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This article appeared in today's Toronto Star
and is biased and slanderous. It demands a
prompt reply from the member organizations
of the Palestinian National Voice.
Khaled

Also people should be speaking out!
The way of terror and the response
TheStar.com - comment -
The way of terror and the response
March 07, 2008

Alan Baker
Day after day Canadians are treated –
whether through footage on their TV screens or through
the reports from correspondents in Jerusalem, Ramallah
or Gaza – to what they are told is a "tit-for-tat" or "cycle
of violence." Canadians see the ongoing, daily spectre of
missile attacks on the Israeli towns of Sderot and
Ashkelon and suicide bombings carried out by
Hamas or other terror groups from the Gaza Strip,
and the response by Israeli forces to such terror attacks,
directed against the bombers and the terror infrastructure.
Canadians are shown people getting killed and wounded.

But there is something very wrong and misleading in
presenting this situation as a "cycle" with equal
components. The equation, so glibly presented
through the Canadian media to Canadians,
between pure, deliberate terror on the one hand,
and the attempts to prevent it on the other, is
misguided, misleading and creates in itself an
utterly false and unfair equivalence.

Hamas and the other terror organizations
functioning under its control and supervision in
the Gaza Strip are involved in directing the daily
rocket firings, which wilfully and deliberately
target Israeli homes, schools, hospitals, religious
seminaries and kindergartens for the singular
purpose of terrorizing and killing as many
Israelis as they can.

Death is their only motive. That is the way
of terror. That is what happens when they fire
40 or 50 rockets every day in the hope that all
will kill. It is deliberate and indiscriminate, and it
is directed to terrorize a civilian population. It is
not merely illegal and immoral, but it is a violation
of the most basic norms and principles of
international law. As such it is a war crime of
the first dimension, going against all accepted
norms of civilization.

Israel does not wilfully and deliberately target
civilians, schools, homes and hospitals. Israel
has no reason to harm any Palestinian wishing
to live peacefully. Israel is obliged – through a
very basic need for survival – to defend its
citizens against the very terrorists who are
actively engaged in firing the rockets and
operating the suicide bombers,
and only them.

Israel does not indiscriminately target civilian
homes, but targets those who send the suicide
bombers and equip them with their fatal
packages. Israel does not target schools,
mosques and hospitals – even when they
are perfidiously used by terrorists as a shield
for firing missiles. But tragically, because
Hamas deliberately places its operatives among
the civilian population, innocent Palestinians are
harmed in the crossfire, and Hamas uses the news
agencies and correspondents to make sure that
Canadians are treated to this very selective
point of view.

If there were no daily, deliberate rocket-fire
against Israeli towns and villages; if the industry
of importing missiles, weapons and ammunition
from Egypt were to be stopped; if the ongoing
and prevalent industry of terror-planning,
rocket-building, ammunition-manufacturing and
jihadist religious incitement and glorification
were to give way to normal industries and
economic growth; if the psyche of hatred and
terror that prevails over the Gaza Strip were to
give way to a psyche of peaceful coexistence,
culture and bonvoisinage, then Israel would have
neither justification nor need to respond to terror
and to defend its citizens.

There is no cycle of violence. But there is terror
and the response thereto. If there were no
Hamas terror, then there would be no need for
an Israeli response. If the Palestinians were to
seriously take responsibility over the territory
they control and do what any normal territorial
neighbour is expected to do – prevent the use of
its territory for terror and violence against its
neighbour – then Israel would have no cause to
defend itself.

No reasonable people can be expected to suffer
constant, daily barrages of missiles and the
deliberate murder of its civilians without the
right to defend itself. This is all the more evident
after yesterday's tragic killing in the heart of
Jerusalem.
Alan Baker is the Israeli ambassador to Canada.
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Letter to Toronto Star and other Media re : Alan Baker

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March 8, 2008

Gary D. Keenan
Vancouver, B.C.

Dear editor

Ambassador Alan Baker's assertion that "No reasonable
people can be expected to suffer constant, daily
barrages of missiles and the deliberate murder of its
civilians without the right to defend itself" would be
irrefutable if Israelis and their leaders were in
fact, "reasonable" (The way of terror and the
response, Mar. 8.)

Instead, through its control of the Gaza Strip's
entrances, exits, airspace and sea access while
imposing a cruel embargo that constitutes illegal
collective punishment reminiscent of the Warsaw
ghetto, Israel has created the world's largest prison.
How can anyone be surprised that its long suffering
inmates have risen up against their oppressors using
whatever means they can, including primitive and
generally ineffective rockets?

Abandoning reason, humanity and hard-won international
law, Israel continues to retaliate with criminally
disproportionate land and air attacks resulting in the
deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, including many
non-combatants, women and children.

Any reasonably informed rational person understands
that the root of the conflict is Israel's
illegal and brutal occupation of Palestinian and other
Arab lands it invaded in 1967.

Yours sincerely

Gary D. Keenan
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Israeli Violations Documented 28 Feb to March 5

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Toronto Star answers the call... Comparison of Front Page news stories

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C.F. Bernadotte

ltamar Eichner(Ynetnews.com);
"Israel has decided to take advantage of Thursday's
bloody terror attack in Jerusalem in order to launch
an aggressive campaign against Hamas.

Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that the political echelon
instructed the Government Press Office to distribute
the shocking images from the yeshiva shooting worldwide,
including pictures of holy books perforated with bullets,
a blood-stained praying shawl and the terrorist's
body inside the yeshiva.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister
Tzipi Livni decided that the Foreign Ministry would
work to convey the Israeli messages to the international
community.

Livni spoke to a large number of foreign ministers and
expressed the State of Israel's abhorrence over the
deadly attack."full text;
Attached is jpeg of front page of today's Toronto Star.

For comparison I have attached the front pages for Mar 1
(day after 18 Arabs killed in Gaza), Mar. 2(day after 30
Arabs killed in Gaza), and Mar 3(day after 39 Arabs
killed in Gaza).





















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Toronto Star In Canada downplays civilian casualties in Gaza

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In today's Toronto Star, in an report buried on page 3
of the 'World' section that should have been headlined
"Barak Goes Berserk", (but intead was titled "Israel warns
Gaza militants of major ground offensive"), reporter
Oakland Ross writes that "Most of the dead were thought
to be combatants", then goes on to state"fatalities in Gaza
included an infant and at least two children, according to
Palestinian sources.Four youths under 16 and identified by
Palestinians as non-combatants were reported killed in another
Israeli strike yesterday."(?) Most news agencies are putting
yesterdays's death toll at 10 militants and 8 civilians
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