Diane Weber Bederman

Western Arrogance may lead us to Armageddon

There is an assumption in the West that with enough "love" and money Islamic countries will change their ways. They will see the light of Western culture. The arrogance, or the ignorance, or the willful blindness, or all three, that played a role in "Deals with the devil" takes one's breath away. July 15, 2015, the day after "The Deal" was signed these human rights organizations- Center for Supporters of Human Rights, United for Iran, Südwind: All Human Rights for All in Iran, Iran Human RightsDocumentation Center, Impact Iran, Ensemble Contre La Peine de Mort (ECPM), Arseh Sevom, and Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation- said "Tuesday's breakthrough shows change is possible." After all "Iran's president came to office on a two-pronged platform of alleviating economic sanctions and improving human rights." Well, Iran's President did get the economic sanctions removed by agreeing to the rules put on the table by Obama and friends.

Is that Progressive? Or regressive?

I recently listened to a programme on the CBC about the killing of twins in some Nigerian tribes. This has been going on for some time. I found references from the early 1990s “In Abuja, it is believed that the birth of a set of twins is a sacrilege which brings misfortune both to the family and the village, they see twins as children formed by the devil and therefore are evil. They are poisoned or strangled after they are forcefully taken from their mothers by masquerades that the women are not allowed to see. The ritual continues by building altars on the walls of their huts to the spirits of the slain babies and sacrifices are made to ward them off from returning.”

How to create killers and other haters

Tabitha Southey wrote in the Globe and Mail that “killers don’t just spontaneously generate.” She was referring to Dylann Roof, the man who murdered nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. In her opinion Roof became a racist killer from the literature he read-on-line, specifically from the Council of Conservative Citizens whose information about black/white relationships was, to put it nicely -skewed. Well deceitful. Actually hateful. The false information could push someone over the edge into “action” against people of colour. And it did.

“We must fight without fear and without mercy against our enemies”

I met Israel’s newly elected Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the offices of the Minister of Justice, a rather nondescript building, located in East Jerusalem. Her office is spacious but simply furnished. The wall behind her desk is filled with books. Her desk was clear except for some platters of vegetables and carafes of water for the many people she sees each day.

Quick fix for healthcare in Canada-stop the banking hours!

We have doctors who are unhappy with remuneration and Personal Support Staff just unhappy. We have wait times for MRI’s and hip and knee replacements. People with mental illness are kept waiting up to a year for a psychiatrist. I believe I have a quick-fix for our health care needs in Ontario, if not all of Canada.

CBC provides new definition for balanced reporting

Last March I once again contacted the CBC regarding their bias-this time against the Harper Government’s response to the Supreme Court ruling allowing the right to wear the niqab during the citizenship ceremony. The Harper government is appealing the decision. For two days CBC Metro Morning with Matt Galloway pushed back against the government with interviews from people who are in favour of wearing the niqab.

By word and deed Muslim extremists are terrorizing the West into submission-the meaning of Islam

We have watched as Western media pilloried Pamela Geller for creating an event that put the spotlight on the intolerance of Islam, especially in the West. Osama Siblani, publisher of “Arab American News,” the largest and most widely circulated Arab American publication in the United States stated: “Let me talk a little bit about ISIS. ISIS is a hate group exactly like Pamela Geller. She is drawing killers, she makes killers, she is inviting killers to come in.” … “She is worse than ISIS.” We allow Muslim extremists to attack free speech against Islamic practices while we tolerate the demeaning and denigrating of Christianity and Judaism in the name of free speech. Double standard? Or fear? Whatever the reason we are permitting others to destroy our democracy.

Riots in America

President Obama has responded to the riots in Baltimore by blaming the media. "One burning building will be looped on television over and over and over again, and the thousands of demonstrators who did it the right way, I think, have been lost in the discussion."

If I were a Muslim I'd be embarrassed

One cannot talk about Muslims or Islam without being accused of racism or religious hatred when in fact it is about culture. We must not speak badly of Islam or Muslim for fear we may upset Muslims and they become radicalized and commit acts of terror. I suggest media pundits have promoted Islamophobia to shame those of us who see the danger in aspects of Islam into keeping quiet.

The media chooses to vilify Israel and the Jewish people

We are now hearing confirmation from many sources, including Amnesty International, that Hamas committed war crimes against Israel during Operation Protective Edge. 'Misfired Hamas rockets' killed children in Gaza "Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militant groups during last summer's conflict in Gaza amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International says."

Obama: Time to go back to the ethic, defend all democracies and reclaim western values

It is said that one should hold ones friends close and ones enemies closer. Then there is betrayal of ones friends. Barack Obama is President of the free world because the President of the United States takes on that role. He’s betraying his friends. Or sacrificing them.

A woman's right to choose

Vardit Ravitsky is an associate professor in the Bioethics Program at the School of Public Health, University of Montreal. She became a mother at 43 and is now advocating for the Quebec government to pay for all IVF treatment for women over 43. It seems in Quebec the health minister wants to limit free IVF to women under 42. (note : I have no idea why this is happening)

Where is the land of Israel?

This past weekend Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail opined on the "situation" in Israel. He is nostalgic for the Rabin years "to bring things back to pre-1967 normalcy." It would be "a solution based on mutual compromise, ratified in the Oslo accords of 1993 and 1995."

Welcome to the New Journalism Where Media Mob Mentality rules.

What are our expectations of the media? Mine are rather simple; fact check before printing because in this age of instant messaging you can't take back an error; and base editorial opinions on facts-facts that are relevant to the argument.

Yippee! It’s Anti-Israel Apartheid Week; no, it’s Israel Apartheid Week

Yippee! It’s that time again. That exciting university-condoned Jew-bashing time of year.

The Emperor Knows He Has No Clothes

The Leader of the Free World has come to see that he has no clothes and realizes that the leader of the Jewish people is the one to stand up and point

Sex Ed 101 What is the meaning of Consent?

The short answer to what is the meaning of consent? It means saying Yes-verbally and/or with gestures. Now, one would expect that 13 year-olds would know the meaning of YES as well as the meaning of NO. Hard to believe in the 21st century we need courses in the school curriculum to explain the meaning of these two words. Not only words, but now we must teach our young people how to read body language.

Obama, Eichmann and The Banality of Evil

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." --Martin Luther King, Jr. Two years ago Adelle Biton was hit by a rock when the family car was attacked outside of Ariel in Samaria by Arab terrorists. They had hurled rocks at the vehicle causing it to veer off the road and crash headfirst into a truck. Adelle was left with severe neurological damage.

Who will save the Christians of the Middle East?

A few days ago Prince Charles lamented about the death of Christians and Christianity in the Middle East, particularly in Syria. He told the BBC he fears there will be “very, very few” Christians left in the Middle East after the turmoil wracking the region. “But at the same time I fear that the problems in the Middle East are not going to go away immediately…And so there is a danger that there is going to be very, very few left.” He said, and rightly so, that the plight of Christians persecuted by Islamic extremists was “a most agonizing situation.” And he noted they were only one of many minorities in trouble around the world. Lots of talk.

Yes, they were "randomly selected" Jews

“It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris,” Obama said, as if Islamic violence was random rather than targeted. As if killing Jews was something new in the 21st century, something that happened because the West bombed Afghanistan and then Iraq and now is fighting against ISIS. As if Muslim countries have a history of being open and tolerant to all.