All over Montreal

Originally in the Daily, this news piece was also picked up in the
Concordian.

The rise and fall of Hadag Nachash

Rule #372 of hasbara: Be creative.

Excal (or Middle East Weekly)

Two in the opinions section ... one from Hasbara fellow, CFJS exec and all-around good guy Noah Zatzman, who writes an opinion piece:

Israel, I would contend, is one of the most free, open, liberating societies on earth.

And counter-balanced by this:

Why, if this was the reason for the displine, were five students sent disciplinary letters of warning for participating in a peaceful vigil that took place outside Vari Hall in October 2004, which disrupted no classes at all? (The vigil was a commemoration of victims of a recent Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.)

More on Israel in the music supplement, I'll blog it later.

New Blogger Welcome!

Welcome to new blogger Pete from McGill who is helping us out by blogging the Daily. If you want to blog your local campus paper, email us at aliza1019[at]excite.com.

World politics = front-page news at Western

Top news at Western is Abbas' election.

Arafat's death in Alberta

The Gateway at the Uof Alberta ran a list of Eastern leaders who made headlines this year, with Yasser Arafat posthumously making #3.

"3. Yasser Arafat provoked both sadness and relief with his passing at the age of 75. After over a month of false death reports and various rumours about his condition and location, Arafat was pronounced dead at 3:30am on
11 November in a French hospital.

In the days following his death rumours surfaced about a possible poisoning, but nothing was ever confirmed. As predicted, Israel refused to allow Arafat to be buried in the holy city of Jeruselam. Instead, his body was laid to rest in Ramallah where he lived in a compound, which in recent years had become his prison as dictated by Israel.

To Palestinians and other Arabs, his death was seen as the passing of a hero. To Israelis and American neo-conservatives, it was the passing of a terrorist and a murderer, as well as the removal of the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East. It remains to be seen if Arafat�s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, will succeed where Arafat failed in making peace with Israel. "

Arafat was many things, but he was never a Jerusalemite. Born in Egypt, exiled to Tunisia and imprisoned in Ramallah, he found the time to create a terrorist organization, pioneer suicide bombings and mismanage $6.5 billion dollars of foreign aid.

A prince of a fellow.

I should be writing a paper right now

In my editorial this week, I wrote about how Abu Mazen needs to rid himself of corruption in order for the Palestinians to get leaders who will build hospitals, not armies.

"It's time for us to stop making excuses for corrupt leaders. It's time to stop funnelling foreign aid that will only serve to further line the pockets of an elite regime."

In a "satirical" piece, the paper's left criticized York president Marsden as being too close to Israel, especially considering her recent visit to Israel.

"Participants in the rally criticized the administration's political relationship with Israel advocacy organizations. President Marsden has not yet publicly addressed these issues as she has been out of the country on a visit to Israel."

All right president Marsden!

And Randa Mouammar, who has written before, in an article about tsunami relief, notes briefly that Israel is, in fact, evil:

While the United States so kindly offered at first $35 and now $350 million to assist tsunami victims, it spends $8 million every hour on its occupation in Iraq and $3 billion per year on economic and military aid to Israel.

I wonder if Randa knows that Israel was one of the first countries to have disaster relief teams in tsunami-struck areas.

Meanwhile, back at McMaster...

An article about Judaism mentions Israel briefly:

“What’s coming across in the world nowadays as anti-Israel sentiment is unfortunately being translated into anti-Semitism. I understand criticism against a government or policies, but when it becomes criticism of an entire nation and people, that’s when it crosses the line,” deSilva adds.