Imagine for a moment, our safe, quiet communities in Grey and Bruce counties have been transported half way around the world and dropped right into the Middle East. And just for the sake of conversation, let’s say we are now in Syria.

Our cities are not safe or quiet any more, but torn by an internal civil war. Families have lost relatives when the government or somebody used chemical weapons on innocent civilians. The dead are buried, but the pain lives on.

The Jewish Daily Forward, along with the israeli paper Haaretz, is pretty good reading.

You can get the Forward on the web. (For EO, go to google, type in Jewish Daily Foward, push enter., Read. Think. Try to avoid forming conclusions before reading.)

The US state department sponsored a project to study Palestinian text books in the schools to see if they spread hatred of Jews.

The study group consisted of 17 scholars representing universities in the US and Israel. The scholars were both Jewish  (mostly Israeli) and Moslem.

On another thread Graeme commented

Have you any disapproval of the destruction of Iraq and Libya to get their oil? Would you rank that as better or worse than camping on a public square?

I am not going to revive the original Iraq invasion arguments, that would be ridiculous.  

On the subject of Libya, NATO was keen to help, but almost all of Libya's oil goes to Europe, not the US.

Middle Eastern Christians and antisemitism

By AYMENN JAWAD
08/01/2011 23:04

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=231998

Statements by Arab clerics reveal that blood libels are still very much alive.

Janes Weekly Defence Review has a strong reputation for reliability. Recently, it has reported that Israel has 100 to 300 nuclear warheads.Israel also has at least two submarines designed to launch nuclear missiles, with another being built.  It also has considerable stockpiles of chemical and bacteriological weapons. Oh, yes, the missiles have a range of over 11,000 kms.

With Israel's deliberate and public ihumiliation of  Ofama and Biden, by announcing they were stepping up the building of illegal settlements and thus destroying any peace talks, We have surely come to the end of a road.

Even an ass-kisser like Harper has said he regrets the Israeli move.

The United Church of Canada and the country's largest Jewish group will meet next week to try to salvage a relationship marked by nearly a year of unprecedented tension, the National Post has learned.

I found this rather humbling.

I knew that I was bad at geography, but dang...not this bad!

Check it out   www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html