Heading Steadily Toward Brexit
"At the end of the day, you're still a bloody Jew. It's a good reminder that you are still a stranger in whichever country you are."
"I'm speaking as someone in his 70s. I don't think anyone in their 20s or their 30s would agree or understand. But, just remember, it's not a permanent home."
Joseph Deutsch, 74, retiree, Orthodox Jew, Golders Green, London
"Literally, if it were anyone but him, [we] would be Labour. He is extremely anti-Semitic."
"[She would be happy to vote for an earlier iteration, a Tony Blair or a Gordon Brown, but voted Conservative in protest]."
Tanya Ohana, 24, retail worker, Golders Green
"Even if Jeremy Corbyn leaves tomorrow or Friday, this could be generations before there's confidence and trust between U.K. Jews and the Labour party."
"The once great anti-racist party has vanished."
"The anxiety is really high, and it's genuine. This really is how the Jews feel. This is not a smear."
"It's heartbreaking to see all this here. We hope for a good outcome, but there's no good outcome. There's no winners, whatever the result of the general election."
Marie van der Zyl, president, Board of Deputies of British Jews
"Anti-Semitism in any form is vile and wrong. It is an evil within our society."
"There is no place for it -- and under a Labour government, it will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
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| Jeremy Corbyn (second from left) holding a wreath during a visit to the
Martyrs of Palestine, in Tunisia, in October 2014. (Facebook page of the
Palestinian embassy in Tunisia) |
Other than for the other very clear messages that have come through to the public and which have riveted Jewish attention to the sentiments, the expressions, the company he keeps and the moods he encourages within the Labour party that convince anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and the intelligence to interpret, that the Labour party has been well infiltrated with haters who have followed the example of their leader, a man who consorts with terrorists, finding them fine people, and who personally appears to believe that Jews are an evil menace.
An astounding number of British Jews, of a British community that has lived in Great Britain for at least a thousand years, are convinced there will be no place for them in the country of their birth and heritage, should Labour, with Jeremy Corbyn as its head, lead the country by winning the popular majority vote of the 12 December general election which was supposed to be all about Brexit but which has become suffused with a musty air of anti-Semitism.
When, in 2011 he appeared on Iranian television to state his belief of "bias" by the BBC when it claimed
"that Israel has a right to exist", this was one signal, but there were many before that, and many more to follow, none oblique nor nuanced, all clearly 'biased' in favour of rancid anti-Semitism. At the end of the day, however, Britain voted. Jews who despaired that most of their countrymen had no investment in the agony of their exposure to racist tropes that once again targeted Jews, had a reprieve.
The Conservative Party was given a mandate by the British voters to proceed with Brexit, and the European Union knows it now has the opportunity to bargain for a UK-EU trade agreement that will benefit both parties. The sigh of relief exuded by the Jewish community in Britain is echoed by that of the Jewish communities everywhere in the diaspora and Israel. But the bitterness at betrayal by Labour, and the fears that arose when Jews in Britain felt they were being ostracized will remain, and perhaps fade with time.
History...repeating itself...time and again...inexorably...distressingly...does it foretell the future?
"The relief among the Jewish community is palpable. And the gratitude."
"But as the days and weeks move on, there is something on which we will
reflect: the willingness of so many of our so-called allies to campaign
for and embrace Jeremy Corbyn."
Stephen Pollard, editor,
Jewish Chronicle newspaper
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Brexit, Conservatives, General Election, Labour, Majority Government, United Kingdom
The Canadian Identity
"We have a Canadian way of living, the rule of law, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our laws .... My proposal this morning is to preserve our Canadian identity and especially toward those who are building Canada of tomorrow, including new Canadians."
"It is critical that we make sure that new Canadians fully endorse the Canadian principles that are the foundation of our society."
"[This would of necessity include significant alterations in Canada's] integration model [for improved security and to uphold] fundamental principles."
"I believe we are ready in Canada for a robust and mature and serene conversation about our Canadian identity."
Conservative leadership candidate Steven Blaney
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| Conservative leadership candidate Steven
Blaney speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill Monday October
24, 2016 in Ottawa Adrian Wyld / Canadian Press |
The former Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness speaks from a platform of familiarity of what he speaks of, informed by his exposure and experience and unafraid to air once again attitudes and inspirations arising from that experience. As such, he will be the second contender for the Conservative leadership, another former Cabinet member of the government led by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper to express such opinions, held to be electorally toxic by his critics.
Those Canadians who voted to remove the Conservatives from power point to the former government's resistance to the divisive and abusive customs imported into Canada with a significant number of immigrants and refugees from the world of Islam. These have been new Canadians who bring their cultural-religious negatives with them to a host country offering them a new life and new opportunities and freedoms rather than leave them behind in the fractious countries they chose to leave for future opportunities.
When in fact, the Conservative vote in the last election was of a number similar to what they received for their previous majority government. The contending Liberals who won a majority in the 2015 election that removed the Conservatives from government did so by making a multitude of promises they have yet to fulfill, while many of those promises were directly lifted from the New Democrat playbook, causing NDP voters to switch alliances. It was by draining votes from the NDP that the Liberals achieved their majority.
Their share of the popular vote was not substantially greater than that of the Conservatives. And the great self-congratulatory fuss that new Prime Minister Trudeau made over how he advanced the cause of equality in appointing half his Cabinet positions to women represented an absurd claim of Canada emerging into a new 'feminist' era in view of the fact that Cabinet posts in the previous Conservative-led government were a dozen in number from a smaller elected field, representing important posts, as opposed to Trudeau's fifteen.
The Trudeau government's pledge to withdraw Canadian forces from the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State representing the Conservative government's fairly modest deployment of Canadian military in Iraq, turns out to be a move to leave instructors of the Peshmerga militias in force and to deploy greater numbers of Canadian soldiers on the ground while withdrawing the handful of Canadian warplanes from action, moves that constitute a greater danger to Canadian military personnel than that mandated by the Conservatives.
And at home the oath of citizenship must be respected by all candidates for citizenship expressing their preparedness to fully join Canadian society by revealing their faces while taking the oath. Wearing of a niqab or burqa is a belittling and an entitled, caustic rejection of Canadian values. Placing into law the baring of one's face on that and other serious, legal occasions as in giving testimony in court is simply a needed reminder to all of Canada's open-faced social-political mores of a free society.
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| Chris Young / Canadian Press The Liberals dropped the previous government's Supreme Court Fight over the wearing of the niqab at citizenship ceremonies |
That immigrants based on their religious belief and cultural experience feel free to disdain these essentially Canadian values speaks to their lack of commitment to Canada and to gaining citizenship and they should be denied the privilege. Mr. Blaney speaks of increasing funding to Canadian security agencies such as the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as is required in a global atmosphere of assault with impunity by Islamist jihadists.
Not to be alert to the security challenges facing societies that have weighted their populations with Muslim immigrants is to be in the position of Sweden, France, Germany, Austria, Norway and other European countries who must now allow for the diminishing of their heritage, values and culture lest they give offense to the growing, grumbling clout of Muslim groups demanding greater autonomy and respect for Sharia law over the prevailing indigenous laws and customs.
He has stated that it would be his intention should he be elected Conservative leader and contemplate the future of returning to the status of governing party, to strengthen the citizenship test administered to applicants to ensure they are more adequately tested on written and oral skills in the two official languages along with
"their understanding and appreciation of Canada's core principles". Long overdue to see that the oath of citizenship test be modified to reflect the intention of immigrants to abide by Canada's principles.
Labels: Canada, Conservatives, Government of Canada, Immigrants, Islamism, Liberals, Values
