The Government Took 102 Minutes to Do What I Could Do in 12

Terrorist-funding George Galloway inadmissable to Canada

A recent report by the Globe and Mail maintains that Citizenship and Immigration Canada took less than two hours to rule that British MP George Galloway was inadmissable to enter Canada to give a series of speeches.

Many Canadians, knowing the facts of the case, would have taken less than two hours to make such a decision.

The story alleges that Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was involved in the decision, via an email sent by his communications director to bureaucrats at the ministry.

The report will almost certainly help those predisposed to argue that Galloway was ruled inadmissable due to political reasons snowball this story into a freedom of speech outrage.

And the truth be told, they may be right about whether or not politics played a role in his inadmissability. Sorta.

As Terry Glavin points out, Galloway has been far less than truthful about his decision to donate 25,000 pounds sterling to Hamas.

More recently, Galloway has claimed the money was given to the Gazan ministry of health. It seems that doctors salaries had been going unpaid until Galloway's intervention.

"I didn’t give any money to Hamas, I gave it to the ministry of health in Gaza to pay for the salaries of the doctors and nurses who hadn’t been paid," Galloway insisted. "By the way, we’re talking about 20 odd thousand pounds, not millions. It’s a symbolic donation. I gave it to the ministry of health in Gaza and I’m proud to have done so."

The problem is that Galloway was lying.

When Galloway actually made the donation, he portrayed it rather differently.

I, now, here, on behalf of myself, my sister Yvonne Ridley, and the two Respect councillors – Muhammad Ishtiaq and Naim Khan – are giving three cars and 25,000 pounds in cash to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh," Galloway announced in a televised address. "Here is the money. This is not charity. This is politics."

Considering that Hamas is a banned terrorist organization in Canada, providing them with 25,000 pounds violates both the letter and spirit of the law.

Moreover, Haniyeh was not the Prime Minister at the time when he accepted that money from Galloway. He had been fired as PM by Gaza President Mahmoud Abbas, and has been unlawfully occupying that office ever since.

At the time of Haniyeh's dismissal, Hamas was known to be torturing and murdering Fatah members that had been scapegoated for the 2007 setback experienced by Palestinian militants when Israel responded to a number of rocket attacks with military incursions into the Gaza strip.

(For their own part, Fatah wasn't any better during the conflict.)

But as it stands, it turns out that it very much was politics that influenced the decision to rule George Galloway inadmissable to Canada. Trick is that it was Gallowya's own politics, as he himself defined them, not Jason Kenney's.

It shouldn't have taken nearly 102 minutes for Citizenship and Immigration Canada to rule George Galloway inadmissable. It should have taken approximately 12 minutes -- maybe even less.

Will Canada's Palestinian Community Please Stand Up?

Hamas' targeting of Fatah sparks international... silence

When Israel opened its military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza strip, the international reaction was nothing if not predictable.

Foreign leaders declined to touch the matter with a 50-foot pole, while anyone with even the slightest bone to pick with Israel took to the streets in protest.

But now that Israel has withdrawn from the Gaza strip, Hamas has reportedly taken the aftermath of the conflict as an opportunity to settle some scores with their political rival, Fatah.

Reportedly, up to 40 members of Fatah have been arrested, tortured and killed by Hamas militants, who accused those individuals of collaborating with Israel.

One would expect that those concerned about the human rights violations that allegedly took place during Israeli offensive are rushing to the streets again, this time to protest human rights violations by Hamas.

Think again.

Predictably, there is no outrage over Hamas' actions. But this lack of outrage has some serious implications for the credibility of many protest organizations.

As an example, consider the case of Independent Jewish Voices, an organization of (allegedly) anti-Zionist Jews. "We see it as a major war crime, an atrocity, a massacre, a genocide," IJV coordinator Diana Ralph insisted.

In the same interview, Ralph seems to overlook the criminal actions of Hamas. "We know that Israel has actually announced that one major wing of this assault is a propaganda war," she insisted. "They’re refusing to allow journalists into Gaza, they’re trying to portray Israel as the victim here with lots of press about the Qassam rockets landing on people in Sderot and other places nearby, poo-pooing the disproportionate damage. It’s pretty clear."

Yet if one were to accept Ralph's arguments that Israel's actions in Gaza were war crimes, there would be no question that those in Fatah who have allegedly collaborated with Israel are accessories to those crimes.

As such, the proper course of action would be for those individuals to be arrested and arraigned for war crimes, not be executed in hospitals or schools by Hamas militants.

Yet in the wake of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, there seems to be very little objection to Hamas' actions from those who protested Israel's actions so rigorously.

This is nothing new. In 2007, one year after Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, there was nary a peep when Lebanese forces fought it out with Palestinian militants with a refugee camp square in the middle.

Instead of using ground troops to minimize casualties amongst the refugees, Lebanese forces surrounded the camp with tanks and artillery and bombarded the militants -- much like Israel's objectionable use of tanks and air strikes against Hamas militants hiding out amongst civilian centres.

There were no mass protests then, there seem to be no mass protests now.

Will Canada's Palestinian community please stand up?

Please?




Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Walker Morrow - "Hamas Moves on Fatah 'Collaborators'"

Ezra Levant - "Stop the massacre in Gaza"

Putin's Hands in the Honeypot?

Kasparov: Putin may be planning to stir the Middle Eastern pot

In a column published in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Gary Kasparov issues a stern warning about the machinations of "petrodictators" -- authoritarian regimes that rely on oil revenue to sustain themselves.

As usual, Kasparov's target is Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "Russia and its fellow petrodictatorships are in dire need of a way to ratchet up global tensions to inflate the sagging price of oil," Kasparov writes. "Petrodictators, after all, need petrodollars to stay in power. The war in Gaza and the otherwise inexplicable skirmish with Ukraine over natural gas have helped the Kremlin in this regard, but $50 a barrel isn't going to be nearly enough. It will have to reach at least $100 and it will have to happen soon."

Kasparov writes that the current financial crisis has hit Russia extremely hard. With the memory of 1999's Ruble collapse fresh in the minds of most Russians, a mixture of fear of a recurrence is mixing with state controls on dissent -- complete with "anti-extremism" laws -- to create what could be a very unstable and dangerous political situation in Russia.

"Russians are ready to take to the streets," Kasparov writes. He also notes that if they do they'll likely be met by the paramilitary police forces controlled by Russia's interior ministry.

Kasparov worries that Putin may be attempting to engineer tension between Iran and Israel. "Open hostilities between Iran and Israel would lift the price of oil back to a level that would allow Mr Putin and his gang to keep funding the crackdown," Kasparov writes. "Israel's anxiety over Iran's nuclear-weapon ambitions is the most vulnerable link in a very weak chain."

Iran and Israel have never needed Russia to engineer tension between the two states. In fact, Iran's support of terrorism and Islamic militancy in the Middle East is very much at the heart of the current Israeli operations in Gaza. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has provided Islamic militant groups with funds and weapons, and even helped supervise Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel in 2006.

Under such circumstances, it may only be a matter of time before Israel decides to deal decisively with Iran.

While Iran was busy helping Hezbollah incite a war in Lebanon, Russia was busy in the region, too -- discussing the sales of military helicopters and armoured personnel carriers to Hamas.

Russia has also been involved with the Iranian nuclear program, helping the Iranians build a nuclear reactor that could, in future, be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

This is certainly at odds with the stance of the United States and the European Union -- the countries that had imagined Russia would be a good post-Cold War ally -- on this issue.

Russia's track record in dealing with rogue states should not be considered encouraging. Yet many western leaders foolishly continue to look to Russia to take the lead in dealing with these states.

"There persists a very damaging myth in the West, spouted by politicians and the press, that says Russia's assistance is needed with Iran and other rogue states," Kasparov explains. "In fact, the Kremlin has been stirring this pot for years and has a vested interest in further increasing turmoil in the region. The Hamas/Hezbollah rockets, based on the Russian Katyusha and Grad, are not delivered via DHL from Allah. It doesn't require the guile of a KGB man like Mr. Putin to imagine a way to accelerate Iran's nuclear program, which has been aided by Russian technology and protected by the Kremlin from meaningful international action."

"It is time to bury the failed model of dealing with the world's antidemocratic and bloodthirsty regimes," Kasparov writes. "The real change we must effect in 2009 is toward a new global emphasis on the value of human life. Anything less confirms to the enemies of democratic civilization that everything is negotiable. For Mr Putin that means democracy; for Hamas it means Israel's existence. The Free World must take those chips off the table."

Kasparov also notes a significant difference between Israel and Hamas.

"Israel has the capability to annihilate Gaza to secure the safety of its people, but it chooses not to do so because the Israelis value human life," Kasparov continues. "Does anyone doubt for a moment what Hamas would do if it had the power to wipe out every one of the five-and-a-half million Jews in Israel? Hamas should not be considered less a villain simply because it does not as yet possess the means to fulfill its genocidal agenda."

Yet the indecisive agenda pursued by many western leaders undermines their own ability to insist they respect human life and revere human rights.

"The leaders of Europe and the U.S. are hoping that the tyrants and autocrats of the world will just disappear," Kasparov writes. "But dinosaurs like Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and Iran's ayatollahs are not going to fade away by natural causes. They survive because the leaders of the Free World are afraid to take a stand."

In fact, the shameful and well-established -- places such as Rwanda -- method of waiting for genocides to be effectively over and then picking up the pieces afterward is only further proof of this.

"Years from now, when Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is either dead or deposed, his legacy will lead to another genocide trial in The Hague. Why don't Western powers, many of whom are condemning Israel's action in Gaza, take action now to stop the extermination in Zimbabwe instead of waiting a decade for a trial?" Kasparov asks. "Criticizing Israel is easy while rescuing Zimbabwe is hard. Choosing the path of least resistance is moral cowardice. It does not avoid difficult decisions, it only postpones them."

While Kasparov is right to urge action these issues -- and would be right to urge action on many others, such as Darfur -- on this particular note Kasparov has made a key logical fallacy.

With the United States engaged in Iraq and NATO as a whole engaged in Afghanistan, western leaders haven't consistently chosen the path of least resistance. The easy thing to do in Afghanistan, for example, would have been to drive the Taliban out of Kabul then let them fight it our with the Northern Alliance over who would control the country.

Choosing to rebuild Afghanistan was not the path of least resistance. In making this decision, western leaders knew full well they were choosing a very difficult path.

Russia has proven to be a valuable ally to NATO in Afghanistan. Then again, there is no question that Russia considers solving the Afghan dilemma to be crucial to their national security.

But some may argue that the litmus test of a state's foreign policy intentions isn't what they do when their national security is at stake, but rather what they do when their national security isn't at stake.

Russia's interests in the Middle East could be considered fairly modest by the standards of oil-importing countries. As an oil-exporting country, however, Russia has a tremendous economic interest in the Middle East.

There's little question that tension in the Middle East -- and the accompanying high oil prices -- is very much in Russia's economic interest. Having few national security-related interests in the region allows them to dabble there at the west's expense.

Gary Kasparov is right about the overall point of his column: it's time for western leaders to stop giving Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev a free ride.

Nice Teaching Job You've Got There

...Be a shame if something happened to it

The Canadian Union of Public Employees has a message for any Israeli academics who may want to teach or speak on unveristy campuses in Ontario:

Condemn Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip. Or else.

CUPE drafted the proposal as a response to a December 29th attack on an Islamic University in Ghaza.

"Attacking an institution of learning is just beyond the pale," CUPE Ontario President Sid Ryan announced. "They deliberately targeted an institution of learning. That's what the Nazis did."

Of course Ryan is overlooking the fact that Hamas is widely known to use schools and hospitals as hideouts for their fighters, normally using the occupants of those buildings as human shields or to provoke international outrage when those buildings are attacked.

Reports that the University was being used to store weapons for Hamas remain unconfirmed.

But as debate over Israel's actions in Gaza become a matter of intense international debate, as they so often do, CUPE's move to force Israeli academics to denounce Israel's actions would ultimately have the effect of limiting this debate on University campuses across Ontario.

Moreover, Ryan is overlooking an important issue underlying the permanent state of affairs between Israel and its various Islamic militant foes: that is, a state of total war.

Canada has not been at a state of total war for well over 60 years. While Ryan's criticism may suit an ordinary country under ordinary states of warfare, but Israel is no ordinary country and its conflict with Hamas is no ordinary conflict.

If anything, perhaps Ryan should consider condemning the University in question should claims that it was storing weapons caches for Hamas turn out to be true. After all, any institution of higher learning that agrees to store weapons certainly surrenders its sancrosanct status.

While an air strike is most certainly an unsuitable method for dealing with such situations -- a special forces strike provides additional safety for civilians, although there are never any guarantees in war -- any University that chooses to provide material support to a combatant becomes a legitimate target in war time.

Academics -- be they Israeli or otherwise -- have the right to hold such an opinion if they so choose. For Sid Ryan to imagine that he can coerce them into saying otherwise is dangerous for the academic climate of any university.