Path: utzoo!mnetor!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Joe Clark's speech to the CIC
Message-ID: <1988Mar15.024839.27444@lsuc.uucp>
Date: 15 Mar 88 07:48:37 GMT
References: <560@auvax.UUCP>
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 65
Summary: Clark is wrong

In article <560@auvax.UUCP>, louis@auvax.UUCP (Louis Schmittroth) writes:
> I wish to commend Joe Clark on showing the courage of his convictions
> in his speech to the Canada-Israel Committee.  It is refreshing to see
> a politician who will say the same thing to both South Africa and
> Israel (Canadian branch) when he sees (and we all see) violations
> of human rights.

It would be refreshing to hear him say something about 100
other countries whose violations of human rights are far more
severe.

> Of course if you consider Palestinians non-human, the there can't
> be any violation of their "human" rights.  They are at least animal
> and from what I have seen, the SPCA would object to the treatment.

No-one is suggesting the Palestinians aren't human.  Israel's
policy has been one of restraint.  Why do you think only 40
Palestinians have been killed so far?  In almost any other
country (and certainly any country in the Middle East), rioters
throwing rocks and threatening the lives of soldiers would suffer
far greater casualties.

What happened in India, with Sikh riots in the Punjab?
Hundreds of dead in a matter of a few days? Thousands?
Israel's mistake, if anything, is that by acting with restraint
they've allowed the riots and relatively minor causalties to
continue for weeks, which lets the problems "build up" through
the Western media.

Where were Joe Clark and Louis Schmittroth when Syria wiped
out the entire population of Hama (20,000 people) a few years
ago?  What about the Iran-Iraq war, with its millions of
casualties?  What about human rights abuses in 30 countries
in Africa, or throughout Eastern Europe?  Central America?  Kampuchea?
Afghanistan?  Panama?  Fiji?  Can you say "double standard"?

Yes, there have been some excesses in the actions of Israeli
soldiers.  Yes, the violence is regrettable.  I don't enjoy
hearing or reading about Palestinian Arab deaths.  But I have
little sympathy for the Arab cause, the victim of its own actions.
The Arabs have consistently refused to accept the existence of
one tiny Jewish state in their midst.  The Palestinians could
have had their state in 1947.

And I cannot agree with those who, sitting in safety in Canada,
can purport to tell Israel how to handle riots.  Remember that
in 1970, it took only two kidnappings and a murder to trigger
the War Measures Act and the arrest of hundreds.  And Canada
is hardly in danger of being pushed into the sea.

Toronto Star, March 14, 1988, page A4, reporting on a demonstration
in Toronto on Sunday:
	"We must have truth, justice and war, war, war
	until Palestine is liberated from Zionism and U.S.
	imperialism," Imam Bilal Muhammad told the cheering
	group. "We don't want part of the pie, we want the
	whole thing."

Given that that's the Arab point of view, there's nothing
to negotiate about. Israel's only choice is force.  We Jews
have learned the hard way that we have to take care of ourselves.

David Sherman
-- 
{ uunet!mnetor  pyramid!utai  decvax!utcsri  ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave