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Politics : The Palestinian Hoax -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (3273)	1/14/2003 9:23:54 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 3467

Baaklini says what the Arab world thinks George Jonas National Post Monday, January 13, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT I think we should be thankful for straightforward souls like Lebanese ambassador Raymond Baaklini, who last week unburdened himself of the view that Canada has been pressured by "the Zionist party" and the Jewish-controlled media to designate Hezbollah as an outlawed terrorist organization. We should be thankful because, unlike more clever or sophisticated folk, people of Mr. Baaklini's ilk don't beat around the bush. What's in their hearts is on their tongues. While artful anti-Semites, like giant octopuses, shroud their ideas in great, murky blobs of ink, uncomplicated Neanderthals like Mr. Baaklini come right out with them. We don't have to surmise what they or their audiences really think; they tell us. Mind you, the Lebanese ambassador is not without subtlety. Before he stopped talking to the press, Mr. Baaklini explained to the National Post that the remarks he made in an interview with the newspaper Sada al Machric were meant for an Arabic audience, and he might have phrased them differently if he were addressing English readers. Then -- presumably under the impression that the Post wasn't part of the English-speaking press -- Mr. Baaklini enlarged on the views contained in his remarks to his Arabic audience. "I wanted to say exactly," he explained to the Post's Stewart Bell, "that 90% of the mass media in Canada is controlled by Jews or Zionists, and those Jews and Zionist, they are also supported by other organizations in the States." What I find so gratifying about the Lebanese ambassador's remarks is that they confirm at least two things that commentators dubbed "right-wing" in the media, myself included, have tried to point out for years. One is that the contemporary Arab world, along with much of the Western left that supports it, is permeated by the crudest, most primitive kind of anti-Semitism; the kind one would have assumed didn't exist outside the yellowing pages of the late Nazi propaganda sheet Der Stürmer. Another is that Arab leaders often say one thing in Arabic and another in English -- unless, of course, much as they might want to, they just cannot tell a lie, like George Washington or Mr. Baaklini. Another part of the ambassador's observations also contains a grain of truth. When it came to Arab or Muslim "militants," Canada's simian government could see, hear, or speak no evil for the longest time. Jean Chrétien and his Cabinet had to be pressured into designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization -- not by a "Zionist party" or a Jewish-controlled media, but by the weight of facts and a groundswell of public opinion. Considering that in November, 2002, Canada's Foreign Minister Bill Graham was still busy explaining why the "social and religious" wing of a terrorist organization like Hezbollah is different from its military wing, Mr. Baaklini is hardly wrong when he speaks of pressure. He's only wrong when he attributes the pressure to a Jewish conspiracy instead of a belated triumph of common sense. Now that Mr. Baaklini's opinion has hit the fan of publicity, Mr. Graham is outraged. He has ordered Lebanon's envoy to explain himself. A number of non-governmental organizations, from the Canadian Jewish Congress to the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation, have also been adamant that the Minister should inform Mr. Baaklini that such comments are "completely unacceptable" in Canada. So far Mr. Baaklini has been sticking to his guns. He has neither retracted his comments nor apologized for them. I hope he continues to stand firm -- or pigheaded, which may be a better word in his case -- because apologies and retractions only muddy the water. The problem with the Lebanese ambassador isn't that he speaks his mind, but that his mind is what it is. Apologies and retractions can only cover this up; they cannot alter it. Mr. Baaklini's mind isn't unique and it isn't an aberration. He shares his mind with many others in the Arab and Muslim world. He shares it with the state-controlled TV media in Egypt whose executives scheduled a 30-part series called Horseman Without a Horse, based on a notorious 19th-century Russian forgery entitled Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to play during the month of Ramadan. He shares it with Muslim educators from Syria to Pakistan who teach their pupils that Jews are "apes and pigs." He shares it with the Saudi government-controlled daily Al Watan that wrote in a two-part article on Dec. 8-9, 2001: "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world." The simple truth is that in the Arab/Muslim world Mr. Baaklini's views are the norm. This doesn't necessarily mean that his views are adopted by every Arab or Muslim, or even by a majority of Arabs and Muslims. It only means his views have enough weight and momentum to carry the day. The Middle East has become the repository of the vilest anti-Semitic propaganda ever since Adolf bin Schickelgruber published Mein Jihad. It may comfort us to pretend that it isn't so, but if we're as honest as Mr. Baaklini, we'll face it and move on from there. © Copyright 2003 National Post