Flit

AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL TREASURE DOES IT

AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL TREASURE DOES IT AGAIN

First off, I found Tim Blair's dissection of Robert Fisk extremely humourous (not for his lambasting of Fisk, which is too blunt to be funny, but for his caricature of "Broadsheet Writer"... I actually know writers who talk like that). Unfortunately, I really didn't find this piece to be Fisk at his most insane... (see previous posts for deeper bouts with sanity by the esteemed British writer). If nothing else, he does raise one obvious, uncomfortable parallel, the Algerian War of LIberation (1954-62).

You know, everyone seems to think about the ending of the colonial occupations after World War 2 as some kind of "win-win" scenario where everyone who lived ended up more or less where they belonged. Not so Algeria. The Israelis have been in Palestine, for 50 years, maybe a little more. The French were there for a century before they were kicked out: not just their army, but half-a-million settlers, men, women and children who had grown up and thought of themselves as Algerian. To them it was their homeland... in the same way that white South Africans see their country as home now. But they still left: it was either that, or die, in many cases. At least De Gaulle gave them all citizenship... otherwise they, too, would have joined the masses of the world's stateless refugees.

People are down on the French in particular for their attitude towards the Middle East. But it's an attitude informed by memory. If Camus and all the rest of the Algerian settlers were not entitled to a homeland in the Muslim world, why in heaven's name would the Jews be? In 1962, the Muslims won, and Western Europe lost... as a Frenchman living today you can either see that as a humiliating defeat of everything your country stands for (hardly an existentially comfortable stance for anyone), or you can conclude that maybe that time the Muslims had a point, and it was your own forefathers who were wrong to try to install a European-style settlement to the Muslim world. And if the latter, then opposing Israel for doing essentially the same thing is only being morally consistent.

That is, by the way, why I'm not optimistic about long-term outcomes in this regard. History is not on the Israelis' side. The white Algerians were driven out of Algeria... the white Rhodesians, the few that are left, are being hunted down in their homes... and the white Israelis, in the long view, face the stark choices of fighting and dying for their own (admittedly prosperous and democratic) Western colony, FOREVER, or abandoning it to find some hope for their children's children elsewhere. Anyone who thinks peaceful coexistence for Israel will ever be an option in our lifetimes or the next is deeply, deeply delusional. Just ask all those Algerian settlers in the cafes of Paris.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE Glenn

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE

Glenn Reynolds takes a run at Amnesty International for failing to condemn the Palestinian recruitment of children as suicide bombers. A couple problems with that:

1) There have been, that I can find, no successful suicide attacks by Palestinians under the age of 17. And if they're 17 or older, one could argue they're not children: the recruitment of 17 year-olds into armed forces is allowed by many modern nations, and is hardly what people are thinking about when they worry about "children soldiers." (The Canadian Forces recruits 17 year-olds, with parental permission).

2) The report in question that Reynolds links to does criticize BOTH the Israelis and Palestinian Authority equally for having a recruiting age as low as Canada's (!) -- not just Israel as Reynolds implies.

3) Further down, the same report does explicitly criticize the Palestinians for indoctrination of younger children in paramilitary youth organizations (ie, all the kiddie suicide bomber photos we've seen), along with a number of other Arab countries.

There's two issues here. The Palestinians are indoctrinating their children to hate. They are also encouraging their young adults to blow themselves up. The report in question calls them to account for the first if not the second, and properly exonerates the Palestinians of charges of actually using children for military purposes, given the lack of any evidence to the contrary. Given that it's a report about "children soldiers," they are therefore being entirely appropriate. Glenn should find another international organization to beat on.

VERY NICE PIECE OF NETCODE

VERY NICE PIECE OF NETCODE THIS

Props to Slate for finding this page. I'm amused by the premise of course, but what I'm really impressed is the ability to locate one's position on a road map in any of over a dozen countries, based on the entries in two regular text fields and a rolldown. Trust me: that's elegant.

YOU KNOW, JUST BECAUSE HE'S

YOU KNOW, JUST BECAUSE HE'S THE BOSS' SON DOESN'T MEAN YOU STILL CAN'T EDIT HIM, PEOPLE

Canadian democracy demands a united right in order to keep the Liberals in check. The next time they bypass protocols and buy $101-million worth of planes for the prime minister on a whim, claiming that his old plane flies like a Sam Snead slice, a united voice of opposition built by common vision, purpose and above all, good faith, should be heard from the Canadian right.

--Prime ministerial progeny Ben Mulroney writing words that make no sense. Face it, though: you wouldn't have edited him, either, now that father Brian runs your entire newspaper chain.