Leaving the Bring the Hostages home rally at Victoria Square in downtown Montreal, my daughter was carrying an Israeli flag on her shoulder as we walked to our parked car. “Murderer” shouted a passerby. In the upside down world of the bleeding hearts, the 'murderers' are those people who support a democratic nation defending its values and freedoms by trying to bring terrorist hostage-takers to justice.
In spite of the fears, it was an entirely peaceful event. The Montreal police was out in force, on horseback, and fully equipped in riot gear. But they spent most of it in their cars. If there were counter-protesters I didn’t see or hear them. Someone remarked that at the pro-Palestine rally last week outside Concordia University, there were quite a few Jews and Jewish groups present. There were even Jewish speakers. “Can you imagine Palestinians showing up at a ‘pro-Israel’ rally where Hamas was denounced? Let alone one where a Palestinian spoke? Couldn’t happen. If that doesn’t sum up the difference between the sides, I don’t know what does?”
Of course, that is the ultimate point. As a democracy, Israel is accountable to its citizenry. The ‘leadership’ of the Palestinians, insofar as there is any leadership at all, more like militant factions, is completely unaccountable. In fact they use the Palestinian people to pursue their organizational political goals, and are mainly accountable only to their patrons in Tehran. The old criminal adage applies, 'Follow the money'. In this case, those who are duped into supporting the Palestinian 'cause' are in reality siding with the oppressive theocrats in Tehran. But not only is Israel accountable to its citizens, as a member in the community of nations, it's also subject to international standards and pressures.
Over the decades the Palestinian power-holding class has become expert at manipulating international public opinion to gain sympathy. The use of human shields serves three very effective purposes. It protects the terrorists and their infrastructure physically. It creates human fodder for their international campaign for sympathy. And it terrorizes and subdues their own population. For the terrorist organizations there is no downside to creating a humanitarian disaster, and actually plenty of upsides.
Holding Hamas and the other militant Palestinian factions accountable is the only moral imperative at this time. It will be cheered by all parties who actually have a stake in the conflict, including the Palestinians.
3 comments:
Was also at rally… what was notably different this time was the friendliness of the police… they were young, smiling, spoke English and French and seemed very positive towards the crowd… last time when I attended a rally at Dominion Square downtown, the police were older, angry looking and hostile to our group… the police actually told us to return home via a route that would have taken us into the midst of a hostile crowd… we decided on our own to go a different route.
I only noticed about 4 sad looking anti us people…. ( didn’t read their signs) plus one person on Queen Victoria’s cenotaph draped in an Israeli flag carrying a Palestinian flag… bizarre…
It's very good and very important that you are recording your thoughts, feelings and experiences. Please keep the moral clarity coming!
When we went to a pro-Israel rally in Toronto, I was mostly uninspired by the lip service from one politician after another. What really touched me was the large contingent of Persian/Iranian-Canadians that were at the rally in support of Israel and the Jewish community. Their Iranian flags flew next the Israeli flags. Undoubtedly they all had their own personal horror stories of life under the regime, which they escaped by coming to Canada. Their words of love and support, not coming from the podium, but spoken to us as we passed them on the way out, definitely hit me in the kishkas. Here was a people who understood moral clarity.
That’s heartening to hear that there were Iranians at the rally in Toronto. Not in Montreal. I think in Quebec, which has a history of overt antisemitism, and also radical leftist student politics, not to mention a culture steeped in their sense of their own colonial victimization, means it’s a generally more pro-Palestinian mindset.
Post a Comment