Thursday, February 14, 2008

BRIGHT LIGHT IN THE VANCOUVER SUN

Sometimes we come across an illuminating piece of writing that helps us to understand. This opinion piece by Terry Glavin in the Vancouver Sun is brilliant not just because of the way it exposes the vile and nasty nature of the work of Greg Felton who was unwittingly invited to participate in a Vancouver public library's Freedom to Read Week event but also because it sums up the message of the Blank Pages which seeks to expose the use of a similar but more subtle methodology in our media.

"In Felton's words, Hamas is not an Islamist death cult animated by that classic anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's the equivalent of the French resistance during the Second World War, the 'passionate defender of Palestinians.'

"There are no suicide bombings in Felton's lexicon. There are only 'sacrifice bombings.' Israel itself is a creation of the Nazis. It's the 'Zionist Reich.'

"And that's the sort of ugliness that rushes in the moment the word 'Israel' is mentioned in certain fashionable company these days. Martin Amis settled on the words "secularized anti-Semitism" to describe it.

If those aren't the right words, then words fail me."

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