Letter of the day, and Kelly McPoll-land finds a poll

First the letter :

"What is the difference between being told that you do not have the right to public assembly and being told that if you do assemble you run the risk of being injured or arrested? In the first instance, your right has been taken away. In the second, if you stay at home, you have given up your right. The only way to protect your right, therefore, is to assemble after all.

The caution to stay away came officially from the American government, but no Canadian authority contradicted this. The high fences, newly purchased crowd control devices and the assembly of an army of 19,000 security officers served to reinforce this warning, which was essentially a threat.

The most frightening thing that could have happened would have been if the streets of Toronto had been empty last weekend. That is the only reason I went to Queen’s Park last Saturday afternoon. As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

No one is looking for any sympathy, but the next time there is news coverage of demonstrators protesting against a stolen election and being beaten by riot police in some Third World country, let us give thanks for the rights we do have. They will continue to stand up for us as long as we stand up for them."

Patrick Heenan, Mississaugaas
~as posted in the Toronto Star and tweeted by the Divine Ms Z.

Good letter, huh?

Meanwhile over at NaPo, Kelly McPoll-land is delighted to report that after watching the same footage of the same guy smashing a window on the TV news dozens of times every night, 1,003 Canadians told an Angus Reid poll they were disgusted by what happened at the G20 demos :

Poll finds G20 protesters blew it big time

Respondents were asked about their feelings about the demonstrations that took place in Toronto during the G20 summit.
Two-thirds of Canadians (69%) are disgusted, 59% are ashamed, 57% are angry, and 54% are sad. In Toronto, the proportion of respondents who reported negative feelings was higher (Disgust 81%, Anger 74%, Sadness 65%, Shame 61%)

Notable that even at NaPo, more than half the commenters below McParland's article pretty much agree with the feelings expressed in that poll - although for entirely opposite reasons - and a number link to the Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 facebook page where over 36,000 members also have no difficulty at all articulating why they are disgusted, ashamed, angry, and sad.

Mediawatch - Bartending the Inquisition

The Ottawa Citizen recently ran an item under "News" entitled "End the Inquisition" in which the author equated the parliamentary committee on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan with Senator Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?", quotes the author, while condemning "wild accusations of torture and nothing in the way of proof" :

"... the public hears only from the accusers. Some of Canada's most distinguished citizens have been called war criminals."

It's really all about getting out of Afghanistan, he says, and "putting maximum pressure on the government to ensure there is no backtracking on the decision that Canada leave next summer -- and leave Afghans to their fate.":

"Prevailing opinion to the contrary, there is a strong argument that Canada's responsibility for detainees ends when they are handed over and that the onus is on Afghanistan, not Canada, to keep track of them and deal with them pursuant to Afghan law. "

The author wraps up by invoking Eisenhower :

"When he was elected president in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was the great hope for those who wanted to see an end to the human wreckage McCarthy caused.
But Eisenhower would not intervene. "I just will not, I refuse, to get into the gutter with that guy." It was a noble sentiment he later regretted.

Would that good people in our own time not wait too much longer to intervene."

The Ottawa Citizen then provides a short bio on the author :

"Paul Chapin is a former director general for international security at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University and a director of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute."

Dear Ottawa Citizen : Rather more relevant would have been the information that as director general of the Department of Foreign Affairs international security bureau from 2003 to the fall of 2006, Paul Chapin was once a proud author of the original 2005 detainee agreement, in his own words : "happy to take ownership". And, as noted in his CDAI bio : "Mr. Chapin developed the strategy to shift the centre of gravity of Canada’s peace operations in Afghanistan from Kabul to Kandahar."

PS I'm bothering you with last weekend's CanWest histrionics here because said "news" item is featured today on the front page of Jack's Newswatch, was mentioned twice by Peter MacKay in the House yesterday, and is currently being approvingly parsed by various, uh, milblogs.

Edited to add last link to Wherry, who was already on this earlier today.

Media blackout in North America

You would think that 528 people from 17 countries in a 150-vehicle convoy carrying hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies all the way across Europe to Gaza would rate at least one line somewhere in the North American press, wouldn't you? But you would be wrong.

You can read about the Viva Palestina convoy in Europe, China, Iran, Malaysia and Brunei; you can even read about it in Israel and Egypt; you just can't read about it in the North American press.

The story has hardly lacked for drama.
In December Egypt refused the convoy entry to Gaza unless it first obtained permission from Israel. 85 year old convoy participant and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein began a hunger strike in protest.

There's a nice business story in there too - Israel and Egypt held the #1 and #2 top spots for US military aid until Iraq took over that honour in 2004. Israel must spend 75% of its $3-billion a year in US aid on military hardware made in the USA.

And for a local angle - as related in comments at Creekside, a Canadian from the Gulf Islands is on that convoy and yet I can't find the expected CBC interview anywhere.

Crickets. Why is that?
I'm guessing that business angle above has trumped every other possible viewpoint and trickled down to put everyone off.

The convoy is due to enter Gaza tonight to deliver its 150 vehicles filled with medical and humanitarian aid.
Unlike the North American press, you can follow their story here, with detailed updates from the UK contingent here.
Buy a t-shirt in support here.

Canwest, Natty Post, CBC ... and Goldman Sachs

Canada's largest media company, Canwest Global Communications, aka AsperMedia, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in a deal that essentially would hand control to its US creditors :

"Canwest reached a deal with a key group of lenders - mainly U.S. and foreign distressed funds that own most of the company's bonds - which will give them control of most of the restructured media company. Current shareholders would own just 2.3 per cent of the shares of the new Canwest, effectively wiping out most of their value."

The filing covers Global TV and the National Post but thus far not Canwest LP - Canwest's major daily newspapers across Canada - or its 15 money-making tv specialty channels whose profit rose 41% to $53-million in the most recent quarter over last year.

In January 2007, Goldman Sachs - this Goldman Sachs - bankrolled 64% of Leonard Asper's purchase of of 13 Alliance Atlantis specialty TV channels :

"a level far above Canadian foreign media ownership limits. However the CRTC approved the deal after the partners persuaded it that Canwest - not its giant Wall Street financial partner - would have effective operating control of the TV channels."

On the other hand, as the G&M Investor blog Streetwise reported yesterday (italics mine):

"Financiers working with Goldman said that over the past year, the investment bank put forward programming ideas for the TV networks, and offered strategic advice on restructuring, but was ignored by CanWest management and its creditors.

One concept that’s been tossed around, but couldn’t move forward until CanWest recapitalization was set, would see Goldman Sachs provide programming and financial support to the conventional television network as part of a larger deal that reworks the entire ownership structure to more closely align all the TV holdings.

There are three hedge funds driving the CanWest restructuring, and two of them are U.S. money managers: GoldenTree Asset Management, Beach Point Capital Management, along with Toronto-based West Face Capital Inc. ... These funds are also Goldman Sachs clients."

So, CRTC, you still good with this?
Goldman Sachs was not supposed to interfere with the programming of the Food Network but now expects to "provide programming and financial support" to local TV news stations?

More complications : The National Post - which never misses a chance to slag the CBC - and the CBC are now sharing content :

"The Post [will] republish CBC sports stories in the online National Post and sometimes in the newspaper. The CBC will run daily financial stories and podcasts from the Financial Post in cbc.ca’s Money section."

Translation : the publicly funded CBC will move further right as promised to run corporate news daily, while the privately owned Natty Post will now be partly funded by our tax dollars.

And those remaining 12 national and 26 community Canwest papers?
Paul Godfrey, CEO of the National Post, says he has found backers for a buyout of them.

Who will own what we think now?

Cross-posted at Creekside

The National Post is having another one of its "Iran Eyes Badges for Jews" moments

You remember that one, no?

This time round the headline goes : Toronto Pride organizers ban anti-Zionist group
By Joseph Brean, National Post (excerpted)

"Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), an anti-Zionist protest group that made corporate sponsors squirm by flying banners at last year’s Toronto Pride parade, has been banned this year, along with any other group that would advance a political agenda.

“We will be very much more careful this year. We will make sure that we have a presence to ensure that people don’t slip into the parade,” Pride Toronto executive director Tracey Sandilands said today.
Her announcement came with a warning to grand marshall El-Farouk Khaki not to use his ceremonial position as a pulpit to promote an anti-Israeli boycott.

Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B’nai Brith Canada, today called for disciplinary action against Mr. Khaki, a founder of the national support group Salaam: Queer Muslim Community, because he spoke to a QuAIA event on the weekend."

Yeah, whatever, Frank.

But what's this? In the comments section below the NaPo article, Pride Co-Chair Mark Singh shows up :

"In response to concerns about political messaging in the Pride Parade, Pride Toronto released a statement outlining its position on this issue. This article incorrectly claims that Pride Toronto has banned political messages from the Pride Parade."

followed a few comments further on by a letter copied from Pride director Tracey Sandilands, source of the quotes for NaPo mischief :

"WE WILL NOT BE TAKING SIDES IN ANY POLITICAL ISSUE AND WILL NOT BE BANNING ANY GROUP that participates within the boundaries of the laws of Canada and our anti-discrimination policy.
Also, at no time in our interview did I say anything about ‘warning' El Farouk.

I would appreciate it if you could amend this before final publication.
Regards
Tracey Sandilands,
Executive Director

Well that would seem clear enough.
However, undaunted by requests from both a Pride Co-Chair and the Pride director he interviewed that his bogus article be fixed - not to mention the picture gracing the front page of the Pride Toronto website clearing showing the "End Israeli Apartheid" banner - NaPo reporter Joseph Brean replies in his own comment section that he stands by his article :

"I am the author of this article. It was my decision, approved by editors, to use the term "ban" to mean that QuAIA, which marched in last year's parade, will not be permitted to do so this year. [snip]
Anonymous accusations that this article, which presents comment from people on all sides of this issue, is "false" and that I am "intentionally spreading lies" are silly and wrong."

So there you have it - accusations from the source of his article that said article is "false" are "silly and wrong".

Well done, NaPo. Some traditions die hard, don't they?
Bring on the Transparent Badges for Atheists !

h/t Rabble, Mycroft in comments at the NaPo article, and the divine Ms Z posting at BreadnRoses, who promises a column on this at The Star tomorrow..

Cross-posted at Creekside

Update : From Antonia Zerbisias column today, as promised.

"So it's pretty rich when the language of gay oppression is used against Toronto's Pride parade, to be held June 28, by another group that purports to champion human rights. Especially a group that is openly aligned with anti-gay rights Christian fundamentalists such as Charles McVety, Canada's most vocal lobbyist against same-sex marriage, and John Hagee, who claimed God sent Hurricane Katrina to stop "a homosexual parade."

This is what happened last week when B'nai Brith issued a news release asserting that the gay community's "agenda" was being "hijacked by anti-Israel agitators."

Napo appears to have got caught carrying some editorial water for Dimant. Somehow I suspect this is not over.

Summit of the Americas : On not getting "all bogged down in ideological diatribes"

Prior to the Summit-of-the-Americas-of-34-countries-minus-Cuba, Steve said he wasn't sure if he'd want to see another one take place, "because they tended to get all bogged down in ideological diatribes" :

"There are some countries that want to keep fighting the Cold War and frankly wars that go a lot farther back than that."

Like the United Fruit Company?
After urging a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, he said :

"… we don't turn a blind eye to the fact that Cuba is a communist dictatorship and that we want to see progress on freedom, democracy and human rights as well as on economic matters."

Indeed, ALBA - the trade group comprised of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras, Cuba, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - had a few points of its own to make about progress, freedom, democracy and human rights, including the embargo of Cuba.
ALBA has said it will not sign the Summit Declaration until they are addressed.
Excerpted :

• Capitalism has provoked an ecological crisis by subordinating the necessary conditions for life on this planet to the dominance of the market and profit.

• We question the G20’s decision to triple the amount of resources going to the International Monetary Fund, when what is really necessary is the establishment of a new world economic order that includes the total transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO [World Trade Organisation], which with their neoliberal conditions have contributed to this global economic crisis.

• We condemn discrimination against migrants in all its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime.

• The solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises have to be integral and interdependent. We cannot resolve a problem by creating others in the areas fundamental to life. For example, generalising the use of agro-fuels can only impact negatively on the price of food and in the utilisation of essential resources such as water, land and forests.

• Basic services such as education, health, water, energy and telecommunications have to be declared human rights and cannot be the objects of private business nor be commodified by the World Trade Organisation. These services are and should be essential, universally accessible public services.

• [E]liminate interventionist practices such as covert operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at destabilising states and governments, and the financing of destabilising groups. It is fundamental that we construct a world in which a diversity of economic, political, social and cultural approaches are recognised and respected.

• The legitimate struggle against narco-trafficking and organised crime, and any other manifestation of the denominated “new threats,” should not be utilised as excuses for carrying out acts of interference or intervention against our countries.

Hugo Chavez presented Obama with a book : "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" and suggested that the next Summit of the Americas be held in Cuba.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa described the summit declaration as "light" in that it "does not reflect the economic crisis we are experiencing, which is not a temporary crisis but a crisis of the capitalist system, and that the document suggests solutions by legitimising those responsible for the crisis, for instance, the International Monetary Fund."

I found their declaration of dissent on a website in Australia.
I really think space for some small mention of these entirely reasonable views from over a fifth of the participating summit countries could have been found somewhere within our own rhapsodic media accounts of Steve spending 15 minutes in a hotel kitchen service corridor with Obama.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Stonewall Wally Oppal starts his re-election campaign

CanWest today : RCMP officers may be charged in Dziekanski death

"The four RCMP officers who Tasered a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport may face charges in his death, B.C.’s Attorney General said Monday.

"Nothing is final . . . particularly where we’re getting more and more evidence elicited on a daily basis," Oppal told the CBC, referring to the inquiry evidence. "So it may well be, at the end of the day, the people in the criminal justice branch could re-examine this."

Really, CanWest? Are you quite sure that's what he said?

Because what I'm remembering is that all three levels of Executive Management in the Criminal Justice Branch watched exactly the same Paul Pritchard video footage the rest of us saw and after comparing it to Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson's statement in which he claimed 12 times that Dziekanski swung the stapler at them and had to be stunned twice before being wrestled to the ground, they announced that the video supported the officers' accounts. They then mustered the gall to issue this unanimous statement on December 12, 2008 :

"There is a substantial body of independent evidence which supports that the Officers in question were lawfully engaged in their duties when they encountered Mr. Dziekanski, and the force they used to subdue and restrain him was reasonable and necessary in all the circumstances.

In light of this independent evidence, there is not a substantial likelihood of conviction in this case for any of the offences considered, in fact, the available evidence falls markedly short of this standard."

And that available evidence hasn't changed, has it?
So what did Stonewall Wally Oppal actually say today?

CP (Italics mine) :

"RCMP officers who testified at the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport could still face charges after the inquiry but so far there is nothing to suggest that might happen, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said Monday.

"It's always the case in any determination where we decide that no charges were warranted that if there was new evidence and that new evidence was appreciably different then in those circumstances charges could be laid," Oppal told The Canadian Press. "But we're talking theory here."

"(The criminal justice branch) said at that time there would be no charges and all I said is that if new evidence emerges there's always a possibility to lay charges, but I didn't specifically say in this case it would happen," said Oppal.

Oppal said he's "not prepared to buy in" that there was a significant change in evidence and there were false statements made."

Care to revise your bullshit headline now, CanWest?
Everyone else ... as you were.

Electioneering for the May 12 BC Election apparently started in earnest today with Wally suddenly remembering his seat is up for grabs too.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel

Once upon a time it actually meant something to accuse someone of anti-Semitism; lately it has just come to mean 'Shut up.'

Challenging the Commonplace :

This statement was rejected by both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail (as an op-ed). Please help this important statement get into broad circulation - pass it on to your networks (faculty, community, MPs, university presidents, unions, etc.). You might also write to the papers, expressing your dismay that they have chosen not to publish it.

March 10, 2009
Over 150 Jewish Canadians have signed a statement expressing their concerns about the campaign to suppress criticism of Israel that is being carried on within Canada. The signatories include many prominent Canadians, including Ursula Franklin O.C., Anton Kuerti O.C., Naomi Klein, Dr. Gabor Mate, and professors Meyer Brownstone (recipient of Pearson Peace Medal), Natalie Zemon Davis (former president of the American Historical Association), and Judy Rebick.

The signatories are particularly concerned that unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism deflect attention from Israel's accountability for what many have called war crimes in Gaza. They state that B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have led campaigns to silence criticism of Israel on university campuses, in labour unions and in other groups. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff unquestioningly echo the views of these particular Jewish organizations.

The signatories strongly state that they are against all expressions of racism. While firmly committed to resisting any form of prejudice against Jewish people, their statement explicitly states that these spurious allegations of anti-Semitism bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. The statement underlines the immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people due to the severe poverty, daily humiliations, and military invasions inflicted by the State of Israel.

Statement: Jewish Canadians Concerned about Suppression of Criticism of Israel

We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy "Never again" means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.

We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics. Charges that those organizing Israel Apartheid Week or supporting an academic boycott of Israel are anti-Semites promoting hatred bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. We believe this serves to deflect attention from Israel's flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.

B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have pressured university presidents and administrations to silence debate and discussion specifically regarding Palestine/Israel. In a full-page ad in a national newspaper, B'nai Brith urged donors to withhold funds from universities because "anti-Semitic hate fests" were being allowed on campuses. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have echoed these arguments. While university administrators have resisted demands to shut down Israel Apartheid week, some Ontario university presidents have bowed to this disinformation campaign by suspending and fining students, confiscating posters, and infringing on free speech.

We do not believe that Israel acts in self-defense. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, receiving $3 million/day. It has the fourth strongest army in the world. Before the invasion of Gaza on 27 December 2008, Israel's siege had already created a humanitarian catastrophe there, with severe impoverishment, malnutrition, and destroyed infrastructure. It is crucial that forums for discussion of Israel's accountability to the international community for what many have called war crimes be allowed to proceed unrestricted by specious claims of anti-Semitism.

We recognize that anti-Semitism is a reality in Canada as elsewhere, and we are fully committed to resisting any act of hatred against Jews. At the same time, we condemn false charges of anti-Semitism against student organizations, unions, and other groups and people exercising their democratic right to freedom of speech and association regarding legitimate criticism of the State of Israel.

Signatories


Related quote :

"Two years ago, an American friend took me on a helicopter ride from Jerusalem to the Golan Heights over the Palestinian West Bank. He wanted to show me how vulnerable Israel was, how the Arabs only had to cross 11km of land to reach the sea and throw the Israelis into it. I got this message but I also came away with another one. When I looked down at the West Bank, at the settlements like Crusader forts occupying the high ground, at the Israeli security cordon along the Jordan river closing off the Palestinian lands from Jordan, I knew I was not looking down at a state or the beginnings of one, but at a Bantustan, one of those pseudo-states created in the dying years of apartheid to keep the African population under control."
~Michael Ignatieff, The Guardian, April 19, 2002

Dear Canadian Media : Last call for slagging the coalition

... before parliament returns from its 53 day hiatus - after sitting for only 12 days following Steve's October surprise election - due to what the NYTimes headline referred to as :
"Canadian leader shuts Parliament in bid to keep power"

and generally being on hols/in election mode since June last year.
.
How's that coalition slagging going, by the way? Just give me the last couple of days worth :

Calgary Herald : Coalition power play no longer makes sense to grits

.
NaPo : The coalition is dead.

.
Gazette : Gilles Duceppe might be sorry he backed coalition

.
Guelph Mercury : Ignatieff should denounce coalition

.

NaPo again : Time to put coalition corpse to rest

AP : Coalition forces kill 15 shepherds
Oh, sorry, scratch that last one. Wrong coalition - that one's our coalition in Afghanistan

.
First prize, for the best gratuitous reference to Obama in the cause of slagging the coalition, goes to Don Martin in NaPo :

"President Barack Obama is right. It's time to set aside childish things.
Specifically for Canada, that means an end to that coalition..."

NaPo also snags second prize for "The opposition does not care about Canada" , a compendium of reader's comments - half of which blame the media for promoting the coaliton!
And so it goes ...

.
With thanks to April Reign for the coalition logo

Cross-posted at Creekside

Vancouver area cops : "We don't like brown people", allegedly

Last night's TV news coverage of the three off-duty Vancouver area cops arrested for robbery and assault of a newspaper delivery man early Wednesday morning featured the snippet that police were investigating the possibility that the three cops had perhaps been slipped some kind of drug.

Really?
What kind of drug causes three innocent police officers to allegedly rob a newsie and kick him repeatedly in the head while allegedly yelling, "We don't like brown people" ?
What kind of drug would make them allegedly threaten him with a TASER™ and other appalled bystanders with violence after allegedly commandeering a corvette for their alleged convenience?
And the police who allegedly told the victim not to talk to the media? Were they also slipped a drug?

Feel free to add as many more "allegedly's" as you think the situation requires, given that there were witnesses to the beating, including the taxi driver who witnessed the entire event and the municipal workers who attempted to stop it with shovels.

B.C.'s Attorney General Wally Oppal on Friday asked the public to "keep an open mind."
Vancouver Chief Const. Jim Chu says "the public should have confidence in the police investigation":

"For the sake of preserving the public's respect and belief in the integrity of that process, I believe it is important to reassure them on this matter."

Statistics released by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in November showed that 106 municipal police officers were guilty of misconduct between Oct. 1, 2006, and Oct. 1, 2008. That's about, um, one per week.

Previous Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham was found guilty of discreditable conduct for failing to cooperate in an RCMP investigation into allegations of police brutality. He "retired" in August 2007 and came back out of retirement to become Chief of Police of Victoria on Jan 1st this year.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Israel faces UN war crimes probe

Mother and child, Zeitoun, south-east Gaza.

First the Israeli army drops the leaflets warning Palestinians to get out of their homes because there will be an air raid. Then they pack 110 of them, half of whom are children, into a single-storey house in Zeitoun, south-east Gaza, "for their safety". Then they bomb the house. Repeatedly. Then they refuse to allow medical teams to evacuate the wounded.

Israel faces UN war crimes probe
The UN, which has called for an "immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from Gaza" (Security Council Vote 14-0, US abstaining), has called for an investigation.

The Guardian totals it up :

"The UN put the Palestinian death toll at 758, of whom it said 42% were women and children – 60 women and 257 children. Around 3,100 Palestinians have been injured.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed bringing the Israeli death toll to 13, of whom three were civilians.

"There is no safe space in the Gaza Strip – no safe haven, no bomb shelters, and the borders are closed and civilians have no place to flee," said a report from the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. It said three quarters of Gaza's 1.5 million people had now been without electricity since Sunday, and 800,000 Gazans had no running water.

"The UN relief and works agency, by far the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza, suspended its operations yesterday, after Israeli forces opened fire on a UN-contracted convoy collecting food aid from the Erez crossing in north Gaza. One man was killed and two others injured. Later , a marked UN convoy of two armoured vehicles was hit by Israeli troops when they stopped to try to recover the dead body of a Palestinian UN staff member during a scheduled three-hour ceasefire."

I wonder what was so difficult to figure out about a white truck with a big red cross painted on the roof. Perhaps that 14-0 UN resolution for complete withdrawal from Gaza was to blame.

The Guardian again :

"15,000 Gazans are sheltering in UN schools because they have been forced to flee their homes in the face of the Israeli air and ground offensive, or even ordered out by Israeli troops. The UN has opened 27 of its schools as shelters."

So far Israel has bombed two of them, despite the UN giving the GPS coordinates to the IDF, claiming they were countering mortar fire from the vicinity of the school. However as we read inthe Israeli paper Haaretz :

"UN: IDF officers admitted there was no gunfire from Gaza school which was shelled ... all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself. "

And what's the reaction in Canada?
Michael "empire-lite" Ignatieff in The Star yesterday:

"Liberal leader echoes Tory government, blames Hamas for `organizing, instigating rocket attacks'

"Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Israel is justified in taking military action to defend itself against attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
"Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself," he told reporters in Halifax yesterday after speaking to a forum of business leaders on the economy.
"Israel has been attacked from Gaza, not just last year, but for almost 10 years," Ignatieff said. "They evacuated from Gaza so there is no occupation in Gaza."

Horrifying and disgusting, I know, but not particularly surprising and all points we dispensed with yesterday.
Blog reactions to Iggy's tripe were swift : POGGE , PSA at Canadian Cynic, Dr.Dawg, Runesmith, Beijing York
Iggy actually did have more nuancey things to say than CP and the Star suggest, as transcribed by supporter James Morton, but Iggy's pro-Israel lines are the familiar AIPAC quotes that the Canadian press will recognize and parrot.


So where are we getting our Gaza news, apart from a Canadian pro-Israel press and "The Megaphone"?
And where is the outcry from journalists that they have been denied access to Gaza?
If you follow no other links here today, please be sure to click this one at Sudbury Against War and Occupation - Justin Podur : Turn Off the Canadian Media, Please :

"Modern Western armies, like those of Israel, the US, and Canada, think of information as part of warfare. They expend tremendous time and resources mobilizing support for their violence. They do this by controlling information, disallowing independent journalists (as Israel is doing), using embedded journalists, and running a massive public relations machinery designed specifically to deliver arguments and propaganda for the foreign press and for foreign consumption.

There is a special machinery just for Canadians, and a special strategy to sell war in Canada. There was one for the Iraq war, there is one for the Afghanistan war, and one for Israel's wars as well. What is so unusual about the media environment today is that all this expense, all this media machinery, can be circumvented by anyone in its target audience by the simple click of a mouse. So click away."

Good advice and excellent alternative recommendations to be found there.

P.S. Signed the Amnesty International Canada petition yet?
Speak out for peace and the people in Gaza because the ConservaLiberals aren't going to.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Gaza : a premeditated humanitarian disaster

Six children were killed when this mosque was levelled, one of several mosques hit, along with schools, hospitals, government buildings, police stations, television stations, prisons and the women's wing of the Islamic University.

Israel has extended its naval blockade of Gaza from six nautical miles to 20 nautical miles, preventing humanitarian aid and protest vessels from trying to break the siege.

Foreign reporters and Red Cross medical emergency teams have been denied access to Gaza.
Power lines have been cut. One and a half million people lack water, fuel, food and medical supplies.

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, says there is no crisis.

The US has just blocked a UN Security Counsel ceasefire resolution.

Chris McGreal writes in The Observer from Jerusalem about the PR campaign to ensure that Israel's war was seen not in terms of occupation but of the west's struggle against terror and confrontation with Iran.

"Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN until a few months ago, was brought in by the Foreign Ministry to help lead the diplomatic and PR campaign. He said that the diplomatic and political groundwork has been under way for months.

"This was something that was planned long ahead," he said. "I was recruited by the foreign minister to coordinate Israel's efforts and I have never seen all parts of a very complex machinery - whether it is the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the prime minister's office, the police or the army - work in such co-ordination, being effective in sending out the message."

Hand in hand went a strategy to remove the issue of occupation from discussion. Gaza was freed in 2005 when the Jewish settlers and army were pulled out, the Israelis said. Israel portrayed Hamas as part of an axis of Islamist fundamentalist evil with Iran and Hezbollah. Its actions, the Israelis said, are nothing to do with continued occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza or the Israeli military's continued killing of large numbers of Palestinians since the pullout.

Lobby groups, such as the British Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom) in London and the Israel Project in America, were mobilised. They arranged briefings, conference calls and interviews. The Israeli military posted video footage on YouTube. Israeli diplomats in New York arranged a two-hour "citizens' press conference" on Twitter for thousands of people. At the same time, Israel in effect barred foreign journalists from witnessing the results of its strategy.

Continued...

Cross-posted at Creekside

Push polling for deep integration

A mere four days after foisting John Ibbitson's paeon to deep integration on us, the Globe and Mail is at it again, this time reporting on a poll which purports to show that :
"Canadians want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to work more closely with a new U.S. administration" and
"Canadians expect their government to work closely with the U.S. on international problems".
According to the poll, 62% of Canadians would even "adopt American regulatory standards if it would ease restrictions at the border".

As Ibbitson also proclaimed, the reason why this will all be ok is : "Canadians are excited about the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency".
Obama, a fine orator whose speeches move me to tears but whose voting record is thus far still hovering around that of Stephen Harper, is apparently the new deep integration selling point to Canadians.

The G&M refers to the institute which commissioned the poll, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, merely as a "Calgary-based institute".
Rather more useful would have been the information that CDFAI is a lobby group funded by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and "defence contractor" General Dynamics, beneficiary of millions of dollars in arms contracts due to Canadian participation in the U.S war on terra.

The article also quotes "Colin Robertson, senior fellow with the institute", but fails to mention "he was a member of the team that negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States", information freely available on his CDFAI bio, or that currently Mr. Robertson has been seconded by DFAIT to Carleton University to direct the Canada-US Project, along with fellow continentalist Derek Burney :

Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement under a New Administration
Purpose: To develop a blueprint for a joint Canada-US agenda focused on bilateral and global prosperity and security issues.

Included among its listed "themes" are :

• Canada-US defense cooperation (with US spelling of defence)
• The North American energy-environment nexus
• Cross-border regulatory cooperation
• Scope and issue areas for greater bilateral cooperation in the Americas

Unsurprisingly, these are the same issues addressed in the CDFAI poll, happily reported in the G&M as Canadians, despite their "healthy skepticism of the Americans", nonetheless enthusiastically supporting greater ties.

Thanks, G&M. As CDFAI is holding a one-day conference in Ottawa today - What Does it Mean to Be Good Neighbours? - including Robert Pastor, Vice Chair of the 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America and author of Toward a North American Community, I expect we'll be hearing more of the same from you again quite soon.

Cross-posted at Creekside