Mideast war exposes ugle Europeans

[Glen22]

Mideast war exposes ugly Europeans
In France, Jew-bashing incidents are running at the rate of 12 per day

Mark Steyn
National Post
'The whole world is demanding that Israel withdraws," said Kofi Annan in Madrid last week, standing alongside various panjandrums from the EU, UN, U.S. and Russia. "I don't think the whole world, including the friends of the Israeli people and government, can be wrong."

Oh, I don't know. The "whole world" has a pretty good track record of being wrong, especially where Jews are concerned. Fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong, and never more so than when they're teamed with EU mouthpiece Chris Patten, UN human rights poseur Mary Robinson, the European Parliament (which has demanded sanctions against Israel), the German government (which has announced an arms embargo against Israel), the brand new International Criminal Court (which -- in its very first 24 hours! -- started mulling the question of "Israeli war crimes"), the Norwegian Parliament (which had a visitor thrown out of the building for wearing a provocative Star of David on his lapel), never mind the members of Calgary's "Palestinian community" who marched through the streets carrying placards emblazoned "Death To The Jews," a timeless slogan but not hitherto a burning issue on the prairies.

The only question now is whether the U.S. is a member of the Kofi set in good standing or whether it's a member mainly in the sense that Saudi Arabia is a member of the coalition against terror. A week ago, asked to define what Washington meant by Israeli withdrawal "without delay," Colin Powell replied that the Administration "does expect something to happen soon with respect to bringing this operation to some culminating point where you can start to see a movement in the other direction." Somehow I don't think that's what Kofi and Chris have in mind.

Seven days later, on the Israeli side, there was still nothing happening to bring to culmination the point for starting to move in the other direction, and General Powell seemed remarkably unimpatient about it. He did succeed, after a temporary postponement of their meeting, in getting "Chairman" Arafat to acknowledge that terrorism, when all's said and done, is a bad thing. This is an admirable first step, just as recognizing that smoking is unhealthy is the first step toward giving it up -- two, three, 20 years later. The Chairman, alas, will not be giving terrorism up any time soon, not when Saudi TV has just had a hugely successful charity telethon raising US$56-million for the families of Palestinian "martyrs." King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah both chipped in. One Saudi Princess donated both her Rolls and her ox, a double jackpot sure to inspire any West Bank suicide bomber hoping to transform his relicts into a two-car family. Maybe they'll make it a weekly show: Who Wants To Be A Million Air Particles?

So sooner or later General Powell will be flying home, his mission a failure in its stated goals (to reconcile Sharon and Arafat) and thus a grand success in its unstated ones -- to buy time, to allow Israel to clean out the terrorist enclaves while stalling Syria from using Lebanon to broaden the war. From Washington's point of view, Arafat and his incendiary adolescents are relatively unimportant. It's the potentially catastrophic fuse in northern Israel stretching back from Hezbollah through Beirut and Damascus to Teheran that the U.S. doesn't want lit just yet. Powell's mission is a sleight of hand, in which whether or not there's a ceasefire under his West Bank shell is less important than what's under his Lebanese and Iraqi ones. After all, this "engagement" was necessary mainly because of a scheduling conflict over scheduling conflicts: Washington had booked the Middle East for a war with Iraq only to discover the joint being used for some other guys' war. The U.S. would like a semblance of peace in the Middle East in order to launch a massive conflagration there.

Conversely, the Iraqis and Saudis need to keep this war going in order to postpone the next one -- hence, their generous subvention of the extensive infrastructure required to keep Palestinian schoolgirls loaded up with Semtex. As noted here a week ago, the Arabs only ever lose conventional wars, and this suicide-bomber business is going so swimmingly the last thing they want is to have to go back to primitive weaponry like tanks.

Meanwhile, what have we learned from this last extraordinary month? Not much about the Middle East, but quite a lot about Europe. What happens when Palestinian civilians strap on plastic explosives and head for Israeli pizza parlours? Europe says Israeli checkpoints for Palestinians are "humiliating." Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances permit themselves to be used as transportation for bombs and explosives -- and Europe attacks Israel for refusing them free movement. Documents are found signed by Arafat authorizing funding for a suicide bombing on a young girl's bat mitzvah, and members of the Nobel committee publicly call for taking back the 1994 Peace Prize -- from Shimon Peres. Synagogues are firebombed in France, Belgium and Finland, and the EU deplores the wanton destruction of property -- in Ramallah.

What the Europeans call "Muslim-Jewish tensions" on the Continent do not involve Jewish gangs attacking mosques or beating up women in hejabs, only Muslim gangs attacking synagogues and stoning a bus of Jewish schoolchildren. In France, Jew-bashing incidents are currently running at the rate of 12 per day, though the authorities seem positively insouciant about investigating them. In fairness, the Prime Minister did rouse himself last week. "No matter what is happening in the Middle East," said Lionel Jospin, "anti-Semitic acts are totally unacceptable" -- a formulation which, even as it disapproves of the assaults, somehow manages to validate their motivation. For, as Messieurs Jospin, Chirac and Vedrine have assured us, "what is happening in the Middle East" is the fault of the famously "shitty little country." France's leaders and their excitable Arab youth are, to that extent, on the same song sheet.

This is not virulently anti-Jew, just the familiar European urge to appease. France has nearly five million Muslims. If, from one million Palestinians, Hamas and Co. can recruit enough to blow up a couple of dozen Israelis every other day, how many recruits could they find in France from an unassimilated population five times the size? The Europeans are scared of their Muslim populations, scared of what perceived slight might turn them from shooting up kosher butchers to shooting up targets of more, shall we say, concern to the general population.

When the war with Iraq starts, we'll find out. No wonder Paris and Brussels are as keen to postpone it as Baghdad and Riyadh. The "whole world" is agreed that if anybody has to be blown up it might as well be the Israelis. Ah, those Jew troublemakers: Why won't they just lie there and take it?

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[wildernessvoice]

.....German government (which has announced an arms embargo against Israel).....

Well, we can pickup where we left off in 1945.

We'll have to get the damn tourist trappings off the Concentration Camps.

Phone the neutral Swiss.Get their banker on the telephone. More Jewish confiscated wealth comming through.

Ban the Book of Revelation from the Bible. It reveals the game plan.

Tell Ottawa one more time no Jewish immigrants.

Telegram the Bishop of Rome. Cancel the American Association of Pediphile Priests. We got Jews to deal with.

I would like to make a prophecy BUT if it dosen't come true I gotta let you kill me. Let me call it a guess.

The nations of Europe are going to suffer at the hands of terrorists from the middle east. Blood is going to run in their streets.

God is not mocked.He is prepared to curse those that curse the Children of Abraham.

[Barry Stagg]

Let us nominate the UN duo of Kofi Annan and Kurt Waldheim ( Nazi Emeritus) to organize this picnic.

[Glen22]

Wildernessvoice,

Why do you have to insult people? Do you think a "Bishop of Rome" and pedophilia comment has anything to do with the column? How do you think a Catholic would feel reading your shot? Catholics are conservatives too you know. So are Protestants, Muslims, Budhists, Jews, agnostics, athiests, etc,. When you insult one group you effectively marginalize yourself. They will automatically get their guard up and take any further comments from you accordingly. Sooner or later, no one will take you seriously. My problem is that people will not only take you as irrelevant, but the CA also. Do you think we can win the election by turning off so many people?

[wildernessvoice]

Ocham, tongue in cheek you buffoon.

Catholics might take offense, you say?. You nitwit, it was pressure from the Catholics across America that helped Pope John Paul decide to call the American Bishops to Rome to discuss something.

What is it? The problem of pediophile priests, you nitwit.

The faithful of the Holy Catholic Church have demanded this conference, you nitwit. The faithful of the church appealed to the Holy See to intervene on behalf of their children.

You seem to have a problem when I refer to the Pope as the Bishop of Rome. Why?

Back to my post. Let me guess. The Swiss bankers. Yes, I must not offend these vipers that held Jewish money from the heirs because they couldn't produce death certificates.You are right. I certainly wouldn't want to offend this group of outstanding people. "..and so you don't have a death certificate for your 143 year old grandfather? I'm sorry, we will hold his money for him until he drops in and signs some papers.."

Oh, and I wouldn't want to offend those bastards in Ottawa that turned Jewish refugees away. Why not? Hell, they might be the founding members of the Reform Party? Get a life, Ockahm.

Last I my post might offend the tourist industry in Germany. You stupid ass, they butchered people in these sites. So, I should worry about offending them? You are a joke, Ockham, a real joke!

Hell, I'm different than you. I hope I offend some people that allowed the conditions to exist for the Holocaust.

I hope I offend some people that made a profit as the result of the Holocaust!

I hope I offend some people that remained silent during and AFTER the Holocaust. [ 04-16-2002, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: wildernessvoice ]

[Glen22]

"Buffon"? "Nitwit"? "Get a life"? "Stupid ass"?

Why must you resort to this level? Can you not support yourself without it?

I posted an article that itself was critical of some western opinion on Israel and you take it as an opportunity to insult people. I almost think I must be wrong to agree with someone of your class on this issue. Do you honestly get by in life with this attitude? Even if you do, do you think it will win the next election? Or, do you care? Maybe you don't care if we win the next election. Maybe winning the next election is not as important as insulting as many people as possible. Or, are you trying to keep us from winning the next election?

When Whig dropped by I thought it was a blessing. He brought many us of together, we found common causes and I thought Whig reminded us what the grander plan was. Then I thought it was almost too good to be true. Perhaps Whig was an imposter. Perhaps he was one of us disguising himself as a loonie leftie to bring us together. Now I wonder if you aren't a plant of the left. Just as a "Whig" can do good among conservatives, posts like yours do harm.

[Ipberg]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="geneva , Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="3" face="geneva , Arial">Originally posted by wildernessvoice: I wouldn't want to offend those bastards in Ottawa that turned Jewish refugees away. Why not? Hell, they might be the founding members of the Reform Party?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="3" face="geneva , Arial">???

The Mackenzie King Liberal government ordered ships carrying Jewish refugees to turn away. That was a dark moment in Canadian history and you'll never hear a Liberal today talk about it. As for the Reform Party, I think it was in 1991 that Walter Droege and some other neo-Nazis who had signed up were expelled.

[Glen22]

It pains me to post such an irrelevant article yet sensitive subject to a POLITICAL discussion, but I thought you should know. Whig said something interesting (now look at what you made me say) he said you can confuse a fanatic by presenting him with facts. Hopefully this will not confuse you but educate for the purpose of one less insult in your arsenal:

Catholic clergy far from only abusers:U.S. survey

Most church sex crimes blamed on Protestant volunteers

Richard Foot
National Post, with files from The Christian Science Monitor

More U.S. children are sexually abused in Protestant churches, by church volunteers, than by Roman Catholic priests, according to a nine-year survey of U.S. churches.

The national study, by Christian Ministry Resources, contradicts the assumption, created in the United States by a recent series of sex-crime scandals, that Roman Catholic clergy are responsible for most of the sex abuse taking place in churches.

Catholic prelates from Florida to Massachusetts are reeling from a spate of accusations this year that they failed to take action against child-molesting priests. There is growing pressure on Bernard Cardinal Law, head of the archdiocese of Boston, to resign over his handling of child sex cases involving priests.

Last month, the scandals prompted the Pope to call for a renewed sense of priestly virtue.

Because only 5% of U.S. churches are Roman Catholic, the vast majority of abuse allegations come from Protestant organizations, according to the survey by Christian Ministry Resources, a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 U.S. congregations.

CMR has conducted annual surveys since 1993, asking 1,000 U.S. churches about incidents of sexual abuse.

The survey did not break down the results by denomination, so it is not clear whether there was any higher incidence of abuse allegations in one church or another.

Experts say Protestant churches are more likely than Catholic ones to report and reveal cases of pedophilia.

"Protestants are less reluctant to come forward because they don't put their clergy on as high a pedestal as Catholics do with their priests," says Dr. Anson Shupe, an Indiana University professor who has studied church abuse.

The survey suggests most alleged pedophiles operating within churches are not priests, but volunteers.

In 1999, for example, 42% of alleged child abusers were volunteers, about 25% were paid staff members [including clergy] and 25% were other children.

No similar surveys appear to have been carried out in Canada.

However, Loretta Merritt, a Toronto lawyer who has represented victims of pedophiles, says the finding that some church volunteers are the most frequent perpetrators does not surprise her.

"What often happens is, you have someone who is a pedophile, and they place themselves in positions where they have access to children -- a large number of potential victims.... They go wherever children congregate," said Ms. Merritt, a partner with the firm Torkin Manes Cohen Arbus.

"I'm not sure it works that way for leaders of religious organizations, but volunteers within those organizations may operate that way."

In Canada, the worst cases of institutional child abuse were not caused by ordained religious leaders, Roman Catholic or otherwise. Many -- such as the abuse of children at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and the abuse of boys at the Kingsclear reform school in New Brunswick -- occurred at secular institutions.

Other high-profile cases that have involved churches -- from the reign of terror of Christian Brothers at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland to the abuse committed by John Gallienne, the former choirmaster at St. George's Anglican Cathedral in Kingston, Ont. -- were not the crimes of priests but of volunteers and non-ordained adherents.

In addition, most of the people convicted of child abuse at native residential schools in Canada were not members of the clergy, but dormitory supervisors and other staff members employed by churches and the federal government.

The U.S. survey also shows that the number of abuse allegations reported by churches each year is beginning to decline. The peak year for allegations was 1994, with 3% of churches reporting an allegation of sexual misconduct compared with just 0.1% in 2000.

Some say this is because churches have in recent years introduced tough preventive measures, partly to protect themselves against financially debilitating lawsuits. Two years ago, for example, the United Church of Canada, this country's largest Protestant denomination, began demanding police background checks of incoming clergy.

Both Protestant and Catholic organizations in Canada now also have written policies reminding members that the law requires people, including clergy, to report child-abuse allegations to police.

"It may be today that there's less institutional abuse than there was 30 years ago, because the institutions are becoming educated about it," Ms. Merritt said. "Rather than 'passing the trash,' as they once did, institutions are now aware of their responsibilities and the liabilities associated with that kind of non-action."

rfoot@nationalpost.com

[Ipberg]

This was an innteresting article but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread! It could start a thread of its own.

[Glen22]

You're right Ian and I try not to go off thread, but in response to WV, I thought it was worth while. People like this do great harm to restoring conservativism in Canada and sometimes they get under my skin. Oh well, no one said it would be easy ... <img border="0" alt="[NoLibs]" title="" src="graemlins/libnot.gif" />

[Barry Stagg]

"lies,d***n lies and statistics."
Richard Foot's article is accurate as far as it goes but may be a product of Disraeli's old adage: "lies,d***n lies and statistics". Foot has done a few stories on Mount Cashel and I have spoken with him professionally in that regard. My suspicions are that the Churches are, quite understandably and legitimately, attempting to rehabilitate their public images and material of this sort tends in that direction. Clergy crimes are qualitatively distinct from those of volunteers and shake the pillars of these instituitions. Forests of statistics should not obscure this.

[Glen22]

Well, seeing as though we've strayed off topic (maybe it wasn't a good topic anyway):

You're right Barry. When clergy commit these crimes they produce a different wound than when volunteers do. We place a spritual trust with them and as a result we place our clergy on a higher level than say a choir leader. When this breach of trust occurs it wounds on a deeper level.

(IN AN ATTEMPT TO RETURN TO TOPIC) Yet this is a crime that exists in just about every profession or institution that has access to children. It's a societal problem, not any individual one. When WildVoice made this insult with all the others, I remembered reading this article and thought he should too. We don't accuse every hockey coach, police officer, teacher, Boy Scout leader, with pedophilia so it's unreasonable to attack any one particular church. What his motives are, I can't say, but I thought it shouldn't go unchallenged.

Sorry for going off topic.