Standing Alone, Proudly

The world community weighs in as they are wont to do, on their opinion with respect to Israel's response to the ongoing assaults by Gazans' duly elected government representatives, Hamas, on the territorial integrity of the Jewish nation, on the right to life of its people. Pro-Palestinian rallies and protests take place everywhere in the world, including in Canada. Where, at one such rally in Montreal, people chanted in Arabic, "Palestine is ours, the Jews are our dogs".

Whereas, when pro-Israel rallies take place, those in attendance, defend the right of Israel to protect itself and its citizens from the violence expressed against the state and its people from viciously anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Islamists. The nature and character of those expressing solidarity with Israel is far different from the vile nature of those who challenge the country's right to exist. An expression of peace, patience and acceptance, instead of violent disavowal.

In France, where Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish populations reside, there have been more than 55 anti-Semitic incidents in the last several weeks. Synagogues firebombed, vandals spraying anti-Israel graffiti on places of worship. England and other European countries are struggling to contain violent backlashes against Jewish presence in their countries; proxies for anti-Israel protests, or just combined anti-Semitism with a blatant hatred for Israel, inviolably symbolic of a Jewish national presence.

And, of course, the United Nations and its various supporting arms must make their positions known, as well. The UN Human Rights Council passed yet another anti-Semitic resolution; the vote coming out as 33 to one, with 13 abstentions. Thirteen European member-countries of the Council felt comfortable in choosing neither yay nor nay. One country alone exercised principle, integrity, morality and its obligation to fair judgement.

And that country was Canada, standing in firm solidarity with Israel, confronting the menace that Hamas represents not only to Israel but to the world community, and fin the process affirming Israel's right to respond to violent provocation. The Hamas Charter expounds on its purpose for existence through Article 7: "The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'the Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews [killing the Jews], when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees...."

This primeval and primitively grotesque assertion of dominance over another people expressed time and again by fanatical fundamentalists in the world of Islam serves no purpose, has no value in the present world. It should have died a slow and lingering death of neglect long before the present time. Instead it is proudly and fondly delivered from the dark recesses of anti-human pathology to stand as a vicious "right" of Islamic rule.

Israel, with its independent judiciary occasionally finding in favour of potential enemies of its own state; with its assertively wholesome peace activism; with its pronounced collective sense of fairness and its liberal democracy stands alone and isolate, as an island of promise in an otherwise bleak landscape of disentitlement, autocracy, legislated exploitation and psychical poverty.

The anti-democratic, strong-arm, totalitarian, and theist-dominated regimes that deny opportunity, advancement and freedom to their people, denying them their obligated human rights, stand in contrast to that of the State of Israel. But even they, with notable exception, do not within their unexposed public spaces support the vile blood-letting and dedicated death-dealing of the fanatic jihadists, simply because they too are targets.

The current government of Canada, in unhesitatingly, stalwartly standing in defence of Israel, and in denial of the collective condemnation undertaken by the UN Human Rights Council, stands alongside Canada's earlier decision to boycott the upcoming reprise of Durban I, seeking to isolate, condemn and further victimize Israel. Such is my country.