Mark Steyn: The axis of evenhandedness

Western Standard (Canada) ^ | 08/22/06 | Mark Steyn

[Loud Mime]

Every liberal I talk to believes they are superior because they want good to happen....but they don't want to do it themselves. It's for government to do after banning all churches.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Mark Steyn ping!

[gcruse]

"And manages to add yet more muchable quotables, as if it's as easy as snagging flies in the outfield."

Steyn is a cross between Mark Twain and HL Mencken, a treasure for our times who goes incredibly underrecognized. Maybe he needs to write books; he surely needs to be on Fox News.

[goldstategop]

The average Israeli understands what the country's chattering classes do not: that self-loathing is a prescription for national suicide. And as much as Israel has been invaded by trendy post-ideological nihilism that manifests itself in the form of post-Zionism, most Israelis are far from ready to turn the off button and convert themselves into an Internet website. Pereo Israel -Velum Cado Super Occasus. It might be something to keep in mind, for if Israel can't defeat Islamofascism, the West won't be around for long.

( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)

[COUNTrecount]

Thanks.

[Paul Ross]

Here's the edge of the envelope on righteous indignation in print. Mark seems to have patented the words that exactly state the vileness against which he inveighs, without descending into the same pit of anger and hate. And manages to add yet more muchable quotables, as if it's as easy as snagging flies in the outfield.

Bingo!

I especially liked the label he coined "Europoseur" ...

Another home-run by Mark Steyn:

The only thing I would add is that the liberal editorialists that now smugly opine about the "mistake" of planting European Jews in the Mideast...draw this conclusion from a truly monumental historical ignorance.

Israel was primarily founded, and is still to this day composed, of refugees from Dhimmitude in the Middle East, and other lands of persecution...such as the Sharon family (then Scheinerman) which fled the Red Army in Russia. Many fled from Egypt, and various points around the Ottoman Empire, and even Iran, and India... to the British mandate of Palestine, a barren virtually unpopulated region, which England promoted as a Jewish homeland with the Balfour Declaration*...long before the United Nations "creation" of the State of Israel in 1948.

It is truly an embarrassment that the UK has waffled so much over that since. All this fence-sitting and murmuring and back-biting to placate the very oil-drenched Islamists who pretend to be civilized today. I postulate that any Muslim State which rejects Israel's right to exist...is per se not civilized. A perfect, and indeed, a Biblical litmus test of their own legitimacy, or lack thereof. And we in the West should beware those in our media and "leadership" who manifest such grave ignorance, and perpetuate and promote that ignorance, so as possibly to imperil our own status of civilization...and favor with Divine Providence.

* The first Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917: An official letter from the British Foreign Office headed by Arthur Balfour, the UK's official Foreign Secretary (from December 1916 to October 1919), to Lord Rothschild, who was seen as a representative of the Jewish people. The letter stated that the British government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".

[RobbyS]

The amazing thing is how ignorant the putatively Jewish Cohen is. He doesn't know that the majority of Israelis are of non-European origin, unless he wants to ignore history and include the Russians.

[Malesherbes]

As usual, Steyn looks reality directly in the eye - while others avert their gaze. Western civilization is faced with an existential struggle; most countries are AWOL, and little Israel struggles on.

[Paul Ross]

The amazing thing is how ignorant the putatively Jewish Cohen is. He doesn't know that the majority of Israelis are of non-European origin, unless he wants to ignore history and include the Russians.

Bump! My thoughts exactly.

[ichabod1]

They seem to be, yes.

[Tax-chick]

The present conflict then is chiefly of significance as a study in whether the least enervated of western nations is capable of seeing off the terrorist proxies of nuclear Islamists. Because, if Israel can't hold off a resurgent Islam, what chance Norway or Belgium?

Or the U.S.?

(I'll still be thin, under the chador ...)

[okie01]

to the British mandate of Palestine, a barren virtually unpopulated region, which England promoted as a Jewish homeland with the Balfour Declaration*...long before the United Nations "creation" of the State of Israel in 1948.

In civilized terms, it can clearly be said that the Jews enjoy "clear title" to Israel.

From the Ottomans to the Brits, via the League of Nations, and thence to the Jews -- with no costs charged to the Arabs.

The Arab neighbors may not like it but, if they were civilized, they'd live with it.

That they will not proves the point.

[Jocko from Canada]

Linda McQuaig wrote that Stephen Harper is "abandoning our traditional attempt at even-handedness in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

In a past column (June 4, 2006) Ms. McQuaig wrote and I quote: “ The Canadian Jewish Congress argued last week that this “right of return” would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This may be true. If it remained democratic, Israel might become a multi-religious and multi-ethnic state – like Canada – rather than being an exclusively Jewish State.

This to me is an indicator of the depth of McQuaid’s knowledge or ignorance of Israel as a society.
I toured Israel in May 2006 and I saw Arab Muslims in Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem to name just a few known towns. I met with Druze in their villages and saw the Bedouin encampments in the dessert. Christian’s archeological sites and churches are there all over the country!
Twenty percent of the country is composed of Arabs. They are, for the most part, the Arabs and their children who did not follow the directives of their brethren to leave Israel in the war of 1948. This was requested of the Arabs Israel to clear the way for the invading armies with a promise of returning to their homes after the Jews were destroyed.
They are for the most part still living in camps today because most Arab countries refuse to absorb them in their societies. About eight hundred thousand Jews chased out of their Arab homes were integrated in Israel during the same historical period.
Today, Arabs sit in the Israeli Parliament representing their people. Where in the Middle East do you see Jews in Government representing their people Ms. McQuaid?

The Canadian Government traditional even-handedness that she refers to is best demonstrated by our voting record in the UN when issues concerning Israel were raised. We are a nation that helped finance Palestinian text books to demonize the Jews and preached the destruction of Israel. That is the approach that McQuaid and fellow leftist travelers want Canada to resume.

Mark Steyn presents the facts on an intellectual level and with humor that McQuaid and company only dream of one day emulating!

[AmishDude]

So brilliant. With regard to Israel the "mistake", I have to be amused by the mindset: Those Muslims are crazy, so whatever we do, we shouldn't provoke them. We shouldn't have international relations defined by behavior toward the homeless.

And this is a great observation, too: Is it that we hold Israel to a higher standard? Or is rather that in the postmodern era Israel--unlike Canada, Britain, France, New Zealand--is the only western nation that's found itself fighting an existential struggle?

[91B]

Big bump for some really good Steyn.

[GMMAC]

PING!

[steveyp]

FYI Apparently Rush announced today (8/23) that Steyn would be his guest host tomorrow. There is a thread on the board about it.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[knighthawk]

Thanks for the ping. Steyn is so right again.

[Ruth A.]

Pinging myself to return and read when I have time to savor and think.