Following a dangerous path toward endless violence

UN Watch in the News

Brian Jones, The Telegram (Canada)
February 1, 2008

In hindsight, I don’t know which decision was more stupid: not going to Stonehenge when I was in England, or not going inside the Great Pyramid when I was in Egypt.

The tunnel leading into the centre of the Great Pyramid is apparently one metre wide by one metre high, and you have to crouch or crawl, surrounded by countless tonnes of stone, all the way to a slightly larger burial chamber deep within.

No thanks. The thought of it gave me the creeps.

Instead, I opted for a camel ride. For 10 American dollars, it was a typical tourist-trap venture, but turned out to be worth twice the price, because it offered a spectacular view of the pyramids with nothing but a mile or so of desert in between. (Strangely enough, the pyramids are ringed on the other side by Cairo suburbs.)

It isn’t likely that I’ll ever get another chance to overcome my gutlessness and crawl in. I’m glad I saw the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings and Old Jerusalem when I did, because these days the Middle East can’t be high on many vacation lists.

It isn’t only the level of violence in the region that has changed.

Two decades ago, it was common for young people to spend months living and working on an Israeli kibbutz. When I was travelling around Europe in 1984-85, I met lots of Canadians, Americans and Australians who were either going to, coming from or considering a temporary stay on a kibbutz.

Youthful idealism apparently no longer includes support for the “kibbutz movement,” as it was once known. Leftists – such as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, the NDP, and various unions and student groups – are now more likely to criticize and blame Israel, rather than endorse joining a kibbutz.

Zapping Zionism

This week, Louise Arbour — formerly a judge on the Supreme Court of Canada, and currently the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights — threw her estimable support behind an Arab-sponsored declaration that, according to CanWest News Service, “commits to the elimination of Zionism.”

If you’ve been thinking about planning a Christmas or Easter holiday to the Holy Land, you might want to postpone it for the foreseeable future.

Arbour’s actions were reportedly in support of a human-rights charter for several Arab countries, such as Algeria, Jordan, Libya and Syria, and the Palestinian territories.

(Predictably, Islamic Sharia law would take precedence over the proposed human-rights charter. The CanWest report made no mention of the West’s erstwhile ally, Saudi Arabia, or whether the charter would enable women there to drive cars or have jobs or worship Jesus.)

We are long past the days when people could say, as many often did, “I’m not anti-Semitic. I’m just anti-Zionist.”

Even Amnesty International — no great friend of the Jewish state, ironically — expressed concern about the charter’s aim of “rejecting” Zionism.

It has been, and remains, a politically charged term. It was one thing to reject Zionism in, say, 1890 or 1920 — i.e., to oppose the movement of Jews back to their ancestral homeland — but in 2008 the rejection of Zionism essentially entails denying the legitimacy of Israel as a state.

Powerful people such as Arbour tread a dangerous path. At a time when the West should be unequivocally supporting Israel against its many enemies, they hem and haw and fudge and say, to all intents and purposes, “I’m not anti-Semitic, but …”

Just in case Arbour hasn’t noticed, the vast majority of violence in the world today can be traced to Islamic fundamentalists’ jihad against Zionism, or, to put it more clearly and bluntly, their hatred of Israel.

Actions such as hers will merely help prolong and extend the violence.

As for the pyramids, hopefully they’ll still be there, if and when my great-great-grandchildren ever deem it safe to visit that part of the world.