In the Fine Tradition of Literary Antisemitism

"Canlit Responds, originally formed as the literary community’s protest against charges laid against demonstrators who disrupted the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize over it’s main sponsor’s substantial investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, has released a statement signed by 20 Canadian authors withdrawing their work from the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and refusing to participate in the Giller Foundation’s ongoing programming."

"Fifteen authors have pulled their 2024 fiction releases from contention for the prize. The other five signatories are authors who have prior relationships to the prize – one is a former Giller winner, and the remaining authors have either been shortlisted or longlisted for the prize."

"The letter states that the authors 'cannot abide [their] work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians'."

"The authors call on the Giller Foundation to 'use their organizational leverage to pressure their main sponsor, Scotiabank, to fully divest from Elbit Systems' and to 'cut ties with all funders directly invested in Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible'."

Atilla Berqi, Quill & Quire 

Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, says she will maintain her partnership with the bank despite protests from authors, several of whom have withdrawn their works from consideration. over the bank's investment in an Israeli weapons manufacturer. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

 

So it is that in their conscientious proselytizing for compassionate regard for the Palestinians in Gaza -- beset by an industrialist-military complex contiguous with the territory that Arabs who call themselves Palestinians insist is their exclusive patrimony of ancestral heritage although history documents the rightful indigenous population as 'Palestinian' Judaeans -- David Bergen, Noor Naga, Aimee Wall, André Forget, Catherine Hernandez, Farzana Doctor, Sheung-King, Jacob Wren, Nour Abi-Nakhoul, Colin Barrett, Frankie Barnet, Greg Rhyno, Jen Currin, Jess Taylor, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Julie Delporte, Kazim Ali, Lily Wang, and Sydney Hegele call upon the Giller Foundation to pressure  Scotiabank to fully divest from Elbit Systems.

 

 

Their stern voices condemning Israel as an occupier of Palestinian-designated territory -- above all, "Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians", is testimony to their deep ignorance of reality, much less that of history and a recognition of actual events as opposed to aggressive and malignant propaganda. That no fewer than 40 Canadian authors signed a letter protesting the Giller Prize representing a group specifically formed in support of protesters charged for disrupting the Giller Prize ceremony of the year previous speaks to utter arrogant sanctimony in a veneer of humanitarian concern for human life.

 

Tellingly, the group's 'progressive' ideological embrace condemning Israel for its temerity in assuming it has the right to defend itself from forty decades of violent hostility from a Palestinian population that feels in the aggregate that the Jewish state has no right to exist, speaks volumes about their love affair with antisemitism. Equating the Palestinian 'struggle' against an 'aggressor' with a legitimate nation's counter-struggle to deter murder-minded terrorists from claiming greater numbers of Jewish lives describes vulnerable victims of Jewish terror, a complete and deliberate inversion of reality.

 

Protesters are escorted out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto by police after interrupting the Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in November 2023. Three of them were later charged in connection with the disruption, CP24 reported. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Their intention to force Scotiabank as the major sponsor of the Giller Prize in literature to divest from Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms manufacturer, is merely a veneer to gloss over hatred of Israel and of Jews. Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank have long demonstrated their hostility toward Israel and Jews and done so at the behest of their leaders who have groomed them from cradle to grave to view Israel as an illegitimate nation squatting on Arab territory. The horrors of the October 7 mass atrocity masterminded by Hamas and joined by other terrorist groups such as the PLFP and PIJ had the full support of the larger population.

It is not Israel for which 'genocide' is a goal, but rather it is Palestinians supporting their terrorist groups whose purpose is the eradication of Israel from its heritage soil. Israel is living proof that a Jewish state is capable of viewing non-Jewish inhabitants of a Jewish state as citizens, be they Christian, Druze, Kurds, Bedouin or Palestinian Arabs. Along with the right of electing their own representatives to the Knesset (Jewish parliament) to represent their interests; to sit on the judiciary; to have full respect as members of important professions, to serve in the military as trusted colleagues.

Scotiabank may invest in an Israeli arms manufacturer as an astute financial choice for its investors, but it also invests in Boeing and Lockheed Martin as well as Raytheon Tech. If CanLit Responds views weapons manufacturing as deplorable, do they also call on divesting from those weapons manufacturers? Elbit after all, manufactures weaponry used by the United States and NATO countries as well as by Israel. U.S. weapons manufacturers supply planes and bombs; do they not also merit attention? 

Does it not disturb CanLit Responds that Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas deliberately place Palestinian citizens they reportedly care so much about in harm's way with a deliberate focus on numbers that they then use to stir the humanitarian concerns of groups like themselves? Their lens is so fixed on a belief of Israeli malevolence against Palestinians that they cannot -- or will not -- recognize that to Palestinian terrorists their own citizenry is expendable in their longer vision of annihilating Israel by any means possible -- including propaganda distribution to stir the rage of antisemites eager to isolate Israel on the international stage.

The associated targets this group of Israel-haters focus on, from the Azraeli Foundation, Indigo and Audible all support the ancient homeland of the world's Jews reborn. As why would they not? Since diaspora Jews from antiquity to the present have always faced the headwinds of antisemitism to survive -- and millions did not survive. A people whose existence is barely tolerated and between lulls of tolerated co-existence face dread times of resurgent threats, hate and existential violence. 

CanLit Responds is just yet another of the many groups that have arisen in the past to the present, to exalt themselves as principled humanitarian examples of global compassion for the oppressed and whose identity as warriors for justice is beyond question. The target of their wrath and condemnation just always happens to be Jews, a mere coincidence that speaks to the tired old, but always-useful contention that Jews are responsible for whatever occurs that reflects human dysfunction. 

A protest at November's Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto sparked calls from authors for the prize to cut ties with the bank, because of its investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. On Thursday, more than 20 authors pulled their books from consideration for this year's prize. (Rob Gillies/The Associated Press)

 

Benjamin Netanyahu Goes to Washington -- Again

"America and Israel must stand together. When we stand together something really simple happens: We win, they lose."

"These protesters that stand with [the terrorist Hamas group] they should be ashamed of themselves.""

"I have a message for these protesters: When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the House chamber.   Win McNamee/Getty Images/

Standing before Congress on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah defended his nation's Gaza war as a necessary act to eradicate an evil enemy who slaughtered over a thousand people on October 7, when thousands of Hamas operatives, terrorist allies and ordinary Palestinian citizens  flooded into Israel in a well-rehearsed, organized day of terror, of mass rapes, mutilation, sadistic torture, slaughter of infants, children, the elderly, and hostage taking of Israelis into Gaza to be  used as prisoner-exchange pawns.

Protesters converged on Washington for the express purpose of excoriating the Israeli Prime Minister and of claiming Israel to be intent on genocide in Gaza, while championing the nobility of Hamas's strike for liberty against an Israeli juggernaut intent on strangling Palestinian statehood ambitions. Mr. Netanyahu is very well aware of Palestinian aspirations gearing toward the destruction of Israel and its ancestral landmass forming the base of the longed-for Palestinian state, expressed in the protests clamouring for 'intifada' and 'final solution'.

Israel, he assured the lawmakers, both Republicana nd Democratic who applauded his presence, must continue n Gaza until such time as "total victory" has been achieved. He spoke with derision of the large number of protesers against the war that Palestinians brought on themselves; the roiling protests on college campuses throughout the United States along with those taking place on the streets including outside the Capitol where he spoke.

Initiating his remarks with acknowledgement of President Joe Biden, he praised the president's efforts. More lavish praise was reserved for former president -- currently the Republican presidential contender -- Donald Trump "for all he's done for Israel". Outside the capital, tall steel barriers were in place, with police making use of pepper spray against the thousands of anti-Israel protesters who rallied nearby.

House Speaker Mike Johnson received Mr. Netanyahu warmly, along with the other Republican lawmakers who had arranged for his speech in the House chamber. A bipartisan standing ovation recognized Mr. Netanyahu's importance as a major ally in the Middle East for the United States. This appearance represented the fourth address by Mr. Netanyahu before a joint meeting of Congress by a foreign leader.

On the downside, and surprisingly undiplomatic, over fifty Democrats made the choice to boycott Mr. Netanyahu's speech. Vice-President Kamala Harris was among those who chose to be elsewhere rather than courteously receive the Israeli prime minister and hear out his speech to Congress. A shameful exercise in discourtesy and a shallow political statement of antagonism, more's the pity.

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters and police clash at Union Station in Washington DC. Photograph: AFP/Getty

 

American Universities Under Command of Palestinian Demands

"[Protesters over the weekend were] calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel [while some protesters shouting out antisemitic slurs were not students]."

"Jews are scared at Columbia. It's as simple as that."

"There's been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism."

Nicholas Baum, 19, Jewish freshman, Jewish Theological Seminary

"We saw signs indicating that Israel should be destroyed", reported U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning who had visited Columbia along with three other Congressmen, as she spoke with reporters following her tour of the Morningside Heights campus. At Columbia University an email was forwarded to staff and students that many classes at its Morningside campus would be hybrid for the rest of the semester where possible.

Cal Poly Humboldt closes classes for rest of semester

 

"Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students' learning and all the required academic operations", the email explained. Facing intense scrutiny over whether they are seriously involved in protecting their students, faculty and staff against antisemitism since the deadly October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel, college leaders also deal with criticism from others claiming students' right to speak is being denied, political protests being censored.

A New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD as anti-Israel protesters continue their riotous protests and police across the United States are called in to deal with them. Students barricaded themselves within a building at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University, reflecting the surge in anti-Israel, 'pro-Palestinian' demonstrations getting out of hand and endangering Jewish students on campus with threats and isolation.

Students have set up encampments on university property, moving into tents as part of their dedication to protesting against Israel and for terrorism as a form of freedom and liberation from oppression. Students demonstrating that they can form opinions and mount protests without the least idea of what it is they are protesting. Called in by university administrators, police were busy clearing out the protesters only to have them return and once again set up their tents and encampments despite students and faculty members' arrests.

In desperation, universities locked down buildings so that "key cards will not work". People are urged to stay away from the "dangerous and volatile situation" at Siemens Hall, Cal Poly Humboldt, explaining they are "deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters", urging them to "listen to directives from law enforcement ... and to peacefully leave the building." Humboldt for Palestine posted that students had "taken" Siemens Hall, listing demands, including the university divesting from any associations with Israel.

"The barriers were breached by protesters, many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU [who exhibited] disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behaviour [refusing to leave when told the protests would be disbanded. Assistance was then requested from the NYPD", explained NYU spokesman John Beckman adding that 'several antisemitic incidents' had been reported.

NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy and his officers being chased and surrounded by protesters Monday night while trying to get inside the NYU Catholic Center after arresting one of them. Peter Hambrecht

Swedish Freedom of Expression

Indian Muslims protesting in Sweden    Associated Press

"In Sweden, we have the freedom of expression."

"We also respect people who have a different opinion and the fact that it may hurt some feelings."

"We have to look at the law. That is what we do."

Helsingborg Sweden local police Chief, Mattias Sigfriedsson 

"[The Swedish government] strongly rejects the Islamophobic act committed by individuals in Sweden."

"[The burning of a Koran] in no way reflects the opinions of the Swedish Government."

Swedish Government statement

"I think it is exceptional and extremely inappropriate for the government ... to criticize an individual demonstration carried out by a person who, by all accounts, has stayed within the bounds of the law, who has only used his constitutional freedom of expression."

Nils Funcke, Swedish freedom of speech advocate

"It is a very serious situation for Sweden."

"We have foreign powers, like Russia for example, which spread information in Arabic about this."

"We have Turkey, which is using it for leverage in the NATO debate."

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert, strategic adviser, Center for Societal Security, Swedish Defense University

 

"In general, the Swedish Security Service sees how authoritarian states like Russia use proxies in order to destabilize or influence Swedish public opinion and decision-making."

Swedish Security Service

Salwan Momika protesting outside a Stockholm mosque on 28 June to ‘express [his] opinion about the Qur’an’. Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images

Sweden is in a diplomatic and political uproar in the wake of a string of requests for approval of protests involving the destruction of sacred religious texts after an Iraqi Christian immigrant burned a Koran outside a Stockholm mosque during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. The man had decided to destroy a copy of Islam's scriptures in a display of his feelings about the Qur'an. Sweden is nominally protestant, but it is a secular society which believes in freedom of expression.

The event has dragged Sweden into a greater issue complicating its application to join NATO, a decision it took following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the credible belief that it might be next. Any country wishing to join the military alliance can do so only with the unanimous consent of NATO's member nations. And thus far, both Hungary for reasons of its own have refused Sweden's request, and Turkey for stated reasons of charging Sweden with sheltering Kurds which Turkey refers to as terrorists, Turkey's sworn enemies.

 

Condemnation in response to the copy of a Koran being destroyed, were immediate and widespread in the Muslim world. A debate is now swirling in Sweden regarding limits of Freedom of Speech, with Swedish police having received new requests by individuals who would like to burn the Qur'an, as well as the Jewish Torah and the Christian bible. Bans are being urged on Sweden by Muslim countries, with Pakistan calling for a daylong protest in defence of the sanctity of the Koran.

The irony here is that in Pakistan there is a standing death sentence in law against any form of blasphemy against Islam, its Prophet or Allah. Christians have been stoned and clubbed to death by hordes of raging Muslims in Pakistan as punishment for insulting Islam. Many Swedes insist that even offensive criticism of religion should be permissible in the Scandinavian Lutheran nation, and any notion of re-introducing blasphemy laws should be resisted.

When police in Stockholm earlier in the year attempted to stop Qur'an-burning protests they were overruled by a court stating such actions were protected by Swedish law. It was that decision which directed police to allow last week's protest where a Christian from Iraq burned the Qur'an on an important Muslim holiday leading Muslim leaders in Sweden to deplore the incident.

In Baghdad, the Swedish Embassy was stormed by angry protesters, while the Organization for Islamic Cooperation condemned and criticized Swedish authorities for allowing the Koran to be burned. Pakistan has asked the U.N. Human Rights Council to schedule a special session on the issue. The current controversy is reminiscent of the fury faced by Denmark in 2006 after publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that led to Danish consulates and embassies being torched, with cartoonists facing death threats.

Now, suddenly Sweden has taken placatory steps toward Turkey in its decision to charge a Kurdish man, Yahya Gungnor, with terrorist financing of the Kurdish PKK. The PKK is Turkey's avowed enemy and Turkey returns the feelings with emphatic fury. The Kurdish man was sentenced by the Stockholm District Court to four-and-a-half years in prison for the crime of financially supporting the PKK. After his prison term he is to be expelled and banned from returning to Sweden. 

Turkey will be pleased.

Demonstration front of the Swedish Embassy, Tehran, Iran    Associated Press

Parents, Call Your Children Home!

Still from video: Violent riots continue to erupt at night in the French capital of Paris and nearby suburbs after police shot and killed a 17-year-old driver on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

"At 1:30 a.m., while I was at the city hall like the past three nights, individuals rammed their car upon my residence before setting fire to it to burn my house, inside which my wife and my two young children slept."

"While trying to protect the children and escape the attackers, my wife and one of my children were injured."

"[I have] no words strong enough to describe my emotion towards the horror of this night [and thank police and rescue services for their help]". 

Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, commune in Paris southern suburbs

 

"[Initial findings of a police investigation suggest a flaming car] was launched to burn down the pavilion [entering Jeanbrun’s property at around 1:30am local time]."

"Hitting a low wall, the vehicle stopped… before it could reach the veranda of the house. Only the front gate was hit, along with the family’s vehicle."

"[The mayor’s wife and two children, aged 5 and 7, fled through the back garden. While running away, the mayor’s wife hurt her shin which] appears to be broken."

"Every effort will be made to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

Prosecutor Stéphane Hardouin  

A police officer enters the house of L'Hay-les-Roses mayor, outside Paris, Sunday, July 2, 2023. Young rioters clashed with police and targeted the mayor's home with a burning car as France saw a fifth night of unrest sparked by the police killing of a teenager Christophe Ena / AP

Parents of the rioting youth, mostly Black and those of Algerian heritage, have been urged by French President Emmanuel Macron to keep their teens at home. Restrictions on social media have been proposed, to help in the battle to quell rioting that has been steadily spreading across France in the wake of the fatal police shooting of the unlicensed 17-year-old driver who ran a red light and refused to stop for motorcycle traffic police. A confrontation took place when the youthful driver defied police orders to emerge from the yellow Mercedes he was driving.

 

Video footage captured two police officers confronting the youth, both holding guns. Sound on the video implicates both officers in the shooting to death of the defiant teen; one shooting him dead, the other encouraging the fatal shooting. The shooter is in custody, accused of what amounts to manslaughter. The shocking event triggered instant reaction from the Paris suburban areas known as banlieues, effectively ghettoes housing a poverty-stricken immigrant class that has failed to integrate into French culture and society.

 

Charges of racism in the past and lack of government interest in uplifting the banlieue residents from unemployment and poverty, saw the government spending millions of euros to improve public transit for the residents, to hire minority members for the police, to encourage youth to attend schools and universities, but none of these efforts have materially altered their prospects nor the culture of hostility and violence that runs rife through these  underprivileged communities.

 

The death of the 17-year-old Algerian teen has had an oversized impact on the wild nature of housing-project youth who welcome any opportunity to break out in paroxysms of violence, taking to the streets, setting vehicles and shops ablaze, looting and defying authority. The government has deployed upwards of 40,000 police officers responding to the rioters -- who have erected barricades, lit fires and shot fireworks at police -- with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. An estimated 270 police officers have been injured in these violent confrontations.

 

And some 3,000 rioters have been arrested for their part in the violent confrontations. No figures have been offered for the number of protesters injured. Although the declaration of a state of emergency was thought to be imminent after cabinet meetings and no cessation of the nightly riots, none was in fact declared although a complete shutdown of all public bus and tram services cross-country was ordered. That kind of transit shutdown to protect transportation workers and passengers had already been passed in the Paris region. 

 

Protesters march during a rally in Paris on Thursday night. (AP/Aurelien Morissard)

President Macron identified social media platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok as playing a "considerable role" in fuelling copycat acts of violence throughout the unrest taking place this week. A type of sympathy riot was said to have occurred in Sweden, where youth there of the same class emulated their French counterparts. Iran delighted in messaging France that it should take care not to overextend the violence it was committing against peaceful protesters.

"[A third of the individuals arrested were] young people, sometimes very young], it's the parents' responsibility [to keep their children at home."

"We sometimes have the feeling that some of them are living in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them."

President Emmanuel Macon

Armoured police vehicles rammed through charred remains of cars flipped and set ablaze in Nanterre, where the teen known as Nahel was shot to death last week. Pascal Prache, the Nanterre prosecutor explained that officers attempted to pull Nahel over because he appeared so young, driving a Mercedes with Polish licence plates in a bus lane, running a red light to avoid being stopped, before he got stuck in traffic.  

 

 Dozens of towns and cities across the country have experienced rioting, extending as far as Brussels, the capital of Belgium where several fires were brought under control and about a dozen rioters were detained. Groups of people hurled firecrackers at security forces in several of Paris neighborhoods. The 12th district police station was attacked, shops were looted along Rivoli street near the Louvre museum and at the forum des Halles, largest shopping mall in central Paris.

 

Bans were ordered on the sale and carrying of powerful fireworks. Sales of canisters of gasoline, acids and other chemicals and flammable liquids were also banned. And the end of the rioting is as yet nowhere in sight.

 

Firefighters extinguish burning vehicles during clashes between protesters and police after the death of Nahel M. in the Paris suburb of Nanterre in France on June 28, 2023. (Reuters/Stephanie Lecocq)

The French Population Revolts!

"[For the French] it was never about the age of retirement, but the balance between work and life."

"I don’t think in the history of the Fifth Republic, we have seen so much rage, so much hatred at our president."

"And I remember as a young student, I was in the streets of Paris in May ’68, and there was rejection of General de Gaulle but never that personal hatred."

"He [French President Emnanuel Macron] failed to sell his logic and rationality."

French political scientist Dominique Moïsi

French trade union officials take part in a demonstration in Paris on May 1, 2023, after the government pushed an unpopular pensions reform act through parliament.  Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

Once the state grants a privilege it takes a courageous -- or foolhardy -- government to revoke that privilege. Once an entitlement is given, it is taken for granted, and it is the rare population in a wealthy country that can be persuaded that such privilege be surrendered, even if the state insists it cannot afford what it terms is an unneeded luxury for its working population, that the nation's treasury burdened by the cost will be unsustainable. The French are extremely dedicated to their privileges; long vacation time, generous sick leave -- and early retirement. 

 

Re-elected in 2022, President Macron will not face election again until 2027. The standoff of the outraged public against a government determined to claw back some of the benefits that are the  highest in the OECD has become bitter and protracted. On Monday, May 1st, traditional Labour Day in many countries, the scheduled protests had an enormous turnout. 

 

Prefacing the protest French police gave due warning of a high risk of violence. In the event, there were 291 detentions across the country, 90 in Paris alone. Over one hundred police officers were injured in the May Day protests, 19 in Paris; one policeman with serious burns from a Molotov cocktail.

Policemen look on during Monday's demonstrations, with fierce clashes between security officials and protesters leading to dozens of arrests.   Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

 

French unions have joined the fray, leading to work stoppages, and uncollected garbage piling up on the streets. The French voting public see France’s Constitutional Council having raised the nation's retirement age from 62 to 64 as a hugely unacceptable attack on the French way of life, what they insist is the balance between private and public life. The enraged public simply will not have it. Until that time when tempers hot with rage, cool enough to finally accept what the government feels is inevitable. Or not.

French police faced off with hundreds of anarchists in Paris, clad in black, along with other cities during the union-led protests while hundreds of thousands of other workers staged their Labour Day rallies across Europe. In France, demonstrators pelted Paris police with Molotov cocktails and fireworks. Building materials were torched and bus stops smashed. 

Those protesters who were satisfied with marching peacefully, shouted at police responding with tear gas. Water cannon was used to extinguish a fire that blackened windows of nearby apartment buildings. When a fiery projectile struck one officer he was left badly injured. In Lyon and Nantes vehicles were set on fire, while business premises were trashed, leading to the arrest of close to 200 people. These are anything-but lawful protests against a duly elected democratic government.

 

Demonstrators at the May Day labour march, a day of mobilization against the French pension reform law, in Nantes on May 1, 2023.  Stephane Mahe, Reuters

"I invite all French men and women... to go out and catch the sun, to tan while pushing their baby strollers in the streets of Paris and the rest of the country."

"We are making sure 2023 goes down in the country's social history."

Francois Ruffin, member of parliament for the hard-left France Unbowed part

 

Dividing a Nation

"[In Israel at the present time] judges are appointed by the president [an otherwise-ceremonial executive position] on the advice f the judicial selection committee, composed of nine members including three Supreme Court justices and two representatives of the Israel Bar Association."

"Given that Supreme Court appointments require the consent of seven members the legal profession maintains a de facto veto over the makeup of the court, a situation unique to Israel."

"The proposed legislation would turn the committee into an 11-member panel, six of which would be controlled by the governing coalition. The bill was amended earlier this week to give the government control over the first two Supreme Court appointments that come up during its tenure, but require the support of an opposition member for a third and both a judicial representative and an opposition MK for a fourth"

Jesse Kline, National Post

 

"We are on the path toward a dangerous collision in Israeli society. We are in the midst of a crisis that endangers the basic unity between us. Such a crisis requires us all to act responsibly."

"When there's an opportunity to avoid civil war through dialogue I, as prime minister, am taking a time-out for dialogue."

"[I remain determined to pass a judicial reform but in the interim we opt for] an attempt to achieve broad consensus."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

           

Israel's fifteen-member Supreme Court is free to serve until age 70. Given the notoriously short term governments thanks to the electoral system of proportional representation, and the number of political parties representing every facet of Israeli society, governments have a tendency to instability. When elections take place, the party receiving the most votes of a fractured total vote count representing all the competing parties with their partisan interests, must seek a coalition in support of a shared government to gain sufficient seats to govern.

In the instance of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, with him as head having received the the most votes, alliances were made with right-wing parties, chief among them the ultra-orthodox. Prime Minister Netanyahu was minded in agreement with his government partners to make judicial reforms for the purpose of reasserting elected government authority in enacting legislation, often usurped by the unelected social-justice-focused Supreme Court. 

PM Netanyahu & Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Flash90)

The previous government and its coalition partners were focused on the left. In the last general election a majority of voters indicated they were intent on a change of government. Which was not hugely celebrated by the outgoing government whom the electorate had just 'fired' from office. They viewed the current government's move to amend the appointment capabilities of the judicial selection committee inconvenient to their perspective, in the process muting the authority taken by the Supreme Court to challenge the elected government.

Claiming that such a change would deleteriously affect the nature of Israel's democracy and neuter the Supreme Court, the opposition in the Knesset set about persuading their supporters among Israel's left wing that should this change take effect, their rights would be impacted and the country they love would be democracy-impaired, while the government in power would become increasingly autocratic. The protests began, with thousands and tens of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets in protest.

While Prime Minister Netanyahu sought repeatedly to reassure the protesters that Israel's democracy would remain unchanged, asking for patience, the opposition continued to incite people to remonstrate and the protests continued and grew with people expressing their vehement denial of the government to proceed with legislating the change it envisioned to deter the Supreme Court from its activist agenda, impairing government initiatives.

Before long, reservists in the Israel Defence Forces joined the protests, refusing to show up for duty. Then the pilots began their agitation, refusing as well to allow the government to proceed with its plans. Historically the Israeli Supreme Court played an important role in protecting the rights of Arab-Israeli citizens, of women, of non-Orthodox Jews and of the gay community. Now, thanks in part to the agitation caused by the Knesset opposition so recently tossed out of power, protesters believe this work of the Supreme Court would become imperiled.

 

There is also suspicion that forces outside the country have been involved in supporting and promoting the protests; specifically charges have been made that the U.S. State Department is involved. Infamously, during the Obama administration, in his earlier stint at government, Benjamin Netanyahu was treated with contempt and diplomatically insulted repeatedly. President Joe Biden, Barack Obama's successor in the Democratic Party, inherited all the anti-Netanyahu bias of his predecessor.

 

A Democratic-ruled United States is in no mind to see a right-wing Israeli government interacting with it. The situation in Israel has become seriously destabilizing. All the more so when members of its military, as professional an army as any of the best anywhere in the world, is facing mass insurrection. A nation surrounded by terrorist groups, funded as proxies by the Islamic Republic of Iran with its stated goal of destroying the Jewish state is not in a good place when it cannot function to its full professional capacity. 

 

Hamas and Hezbollah have both tested the waters of this sea-change in the professionalism of the IDF. Exploratory forays by each were apprehended but if the situation in Israel continues to deteriorate further, chaos will erupt, leaving the country vulnerable both to its own destabilizing hysteria with political/sectarian factions becoming ever more polarized, and from the exterior always prepared to take any advantage they can detect to pursue their agenda of violence.

With Monday's decision to explore further negotiations with the official Israeli opposition in an effort to cool down the fires of partisan outrage over a decision by the new government to bring the outsize influence of the Supreme Court into line with those of most other democratic nations of the world, the impasse must come to a mutually agreeable conclusion, one that will forestall further disintegration of civil discourse and continue imperilling the nation.

Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan outside the parliament in Jerusalem, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

"Waging War Against God"

"Last night [Dec. 12] the brutes of the Islamic Republic attacked #MajidrezaRahnavard’s grandmother’s residence, arresting his uncle and brother for a few hours. They took away all the banners and flowers for the ceremony and then forcefully evicted the family from their own home."

"The Islamic Republic held #MajidReza’s “trial” 13 days ago. 3 days after conviction and sentencing by the “court” of first instance, he was executed for “Waging war against God.” Please don’t be silent."

"They allowed #MajidRezaRahnavard’s mother to visit him, and didn’t speak of execution at all. She left smiling and hoping that her son would be released soon. This morning she arrived when her son’s murderers were burying his dead body alone."

1500Ootasvir_en

7-year-old Hasti Narouei was also from the Baluch community. This picture shows her wearing a traditional Baluchi dress. According to local activists, Hasti was hit on her head by a tear gas canister. She suffocated. HAALVSH

 

The public furor over the murder of a young Kurdish woman arrested by Iran's Morality Police for what they construed as a moral offence when she wore her hijab too loosely, revealing a few strands of hair, led to a courageous uprising in Iran's Kurdish geography that rapidly spread in moral indignation and numbers until every major city in the country hosted its own protests against the human rights abuses that the theocracy forced on its people in the name of the faith of Shi'ite Islam. 

In efforts to speedily put down the growing insurrection where enraged Iranians called for "Death to Khamenei" and the end of the Islamic Republic, the Basij, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was  tasked to counter the protestors using any means useful to the purpose. Predictably, this has led to unrestrained brutality on the part of the Basij, motorcycle-driving 'police', not known for gentle remonstration. Close to 500 people have been killed while protesting so far, by the Iranian Security Police.

Two days ago Iran executed a second prisoner who was convicted for crimes they claim were committed during protests challenging the theocracy. He was publicly hung from a construction crane. A grim medieval punishment meant to give warning to all other protestors that this could be their fate as well. Majidreza Rahnavard's execution followed a month after he was charged of the fatal stabbing of two members of the Basij paramilitary.

 

Speedy 'trials' followed by the death penalty obviously considered an effective method of cooling the ardour of the public in its attempts to unseat the ruling theocracy. According to Iranian activists, a dozen people, perhaps more, have already been sentenced to death at closed-door hearings. 488 people have been killed since the demonstrations broke the complacency of the Ayatollahs in mid-September. Authorioties have placed another 18,200 people in detention.

The Mizan news agency under the country's judiciary influence, published images of Rahnavard hanging from the crane, hands and feet bound, black bag covering his head. In front of concrete and metal barriers to hold back a gathered crowd, masked security force members stood guard early Monday morning in the city of Mashhad, a Shi'ite holy city located east of Tehran.

The hanged protestor, according to the newspaper, had stabbed two security force members to death in Mashhad, wounding four others. State television aired footage of a man chasing another around a street corner then standing over him and stbbing him after he fell agains a motorbike. Another video showed the same man stabbing another in quick succession with the assailant finally fleeing. State TV iterates the man with the knife was Rahnavard.

The dead men were identified in the Mizan report as "student" Basij, the paramilitary volunteers deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters who have been resisting and fighting back. After Majidreza Rahnavard's execution, state television showed him in the courtroom where he declares  his hatred for the Basijis following video clips he had seen on social media of the forces beating and killing protesters.

Activists speak of Mashhad of hosting strikes, of shops closed and demonstrations that began over the death in custody on September 15 of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Rahnavard was convicted in Mashhad's Revolutionary Court, tribunals that have been criticized internationally for disallowing those on trial to have their own lawyers, much less see the evidence against them.  Rahnavard was convicted of 'moharebeh', meaning "waging war against God". 

"[The public execution of a young man so soon after his arrest indicated] a significant escalation of the level of violence against protesters."

"Rahnavard was sentenced to death based on coerced confessions, after a grossly unfair process and a show trial.This crime must be met with serious consequences for the Islamic republic."

"[There is] a serious risk of mass execution of protesters [as thousands were in custody]."

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director, Iran Human Rights, Oslo, Norway

Iranians protest the death of Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police last month, in Tehran, on October 27.  Stringer/Middle East Images/File

 

China's Gross COVID Miscalculation

"They've just painted themselves into a corner that's going to be hard to get out of."

"Whatever you do, at some point you will get a pretty scary surge of infections."

"What China has done is frittered away the benefits of the vaccination program."

Dr. Paul Hunter, professor of medicine, University of East Anglia, U.K.

 

"[China faces a] great challenge. If they open up, if they don't stick to the zero-COVID strategy anymore, there will be a huge wave of infection among their population, and it's a big-population country."

"Their health-care facilities or capacity will have to be transformed before encountering that kind of challenge [a need for more medical resources to handle the fallout of a failed policy]."

"I do think they have to have second thoughts about getting away from the zero-COVID strategy."

Yi-Chun Lo, deputy head, Centers for Disease Control, Taiwan

 

"He [Xi] owns the [zero-COVID] policy. It's very difficult for anyone to come to him now and say, 'Sir, we have to change our approach, because this is having a huge impact on the economy'."

Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, 2012 to 2016

 

"China might prove to be the major contributor to global COVID-19 deaths in 2022, perhaps exceeding one million."

"The virus is apolitical and will spread where immunity walls are low."

"In China, ideology now is driving everything."

Dr. Prabhat Jha, executive director, Centre for Global Health Research, St.Michael's Hospital, Toronto

A protester reacts as he is arrested by police during a protest against China's COVID-19 pandemic measures, on a street in Shanghai on Nov. 27. (The Associated Press)

Government authorities in Beijing -- above all China's President Xi Jinping -- have miscalculated. The country teeters on the precipice of pandemic disaster and that is because the manner in which its leaders directed their no-holds-barred campaign to eradicate the SARS-CoV-2 virus is about to backfire. The country's population now engaging in mass protests have shown their political masters in the Chinese Communist Party that people can be pushed only so far. That's the social dimension of the zero-COVID policy.

 

Then there is the inadequate number of vaccinations all carried out with made-in-China-inferior-efficacy vaccines, and the decision that ensuring all senior citizens be adequately vaccinated as a priority was never made. True, the country where the virus originated and where its leaders' reaction was faulted for good reason, has had a low infection rate and death count in comparison to most other countries of the world. Quite an achievement.

 

But its cost is gathering steam and preparing to explode. The lack of widespread infections has led to a lack of natural immunity. And the result of all those issues; low infection rate/no herd immunity; low vaccinations of the elderly, use of an insufficiently effective vaccine. represents a failure to calculate the scientific/medical fallout of that decision-making. 

 

Chinese police officers block access to a site in Shanghai where protesters opposed to China's strict 'zero-COVID' policies had gathered on Nov. 27. (The Associated Press)

It is now assumed that should the country's zero-COVID policy be abruptly called off, a tsunami of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and death would follow.  There are now two options left to the government; continue the zero-COVID policy whose end is unforeseeable, and risk enraging the public even further and face a crumbling economy, or drop the policy and suffer the consequences of a pathogen run amok with few natural immunity constraints to block its advance.

 

President Xi is proud of the fact that China has suffered so few deaths to this point, particularly in comparison to the massive death count in the United States during the worst waves of the onrushing pandemic, now quelled to a steady-state. Researchers at the University of Toronto, UBC, Johns Hopkins, Oxford and others analyzed previous studies to reach the conclusion that vaccination is effective at serious illness prevention and death.

 

They also concluded that the after-effects to the general population of infections is even more helpful in disease prevention through acquired antibodies while a combination of both; hybrid immunization, represents the most lasting shield against severe COVID-inspired illness. Prior to the gross population wide vaccination, lockdown and mask controls were important.

 

At this point, loosening restrictions, bearing in mind the more transmissible Omicron variants now circulating while broad infections took place, the benefits of hybrid immunity also resulted. Contracting COVID -19 in consideration of widespread vaccinations became less risky to human health. So while China has vaccinated 89 percent of its population, zero-COVID policies remained where large areas saw isolation of people at home or in government facilities -- reflecting a few cases.

 

It was working-age adults that Beijing targeted for immunization, leaving older Chinese residents most likely to fill up hospital ICUs or die from COVID largely unvaccinated. Half of the over-80 population in China has been immunized. And then there is the matter of the vaccines, with those most powerful proving their cutting-edge efficacy with the use of mRNA shots as well as adenovirus vaccines. China decided it would not import any of the mRNA vaccines and use only home-produced counterparts with far less proven efficacy.

For all practical purposes a flood of seriously ill COVID patients has the potential to completely overwhelm hospitals in China where there are roughly four intensive-care beds per 100,000 people, compared to 13 in Canada and 34 in Germany. And while Beijing has finally signalled it is is prepared to loosen some restrictions, the potential for a grave fall-out from their past severe and ill-thought-out mandates creates an aura of uncertainty about the possible outcome.

 

A protester shouts slogans against China's strict 'zero COVID' measures in Beijing on Nov. 28. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)