Friends and Fans of Israel

They're everywhere, it seems, in every damp and dark nook and cranny, under rocks and slimy creek beds: up they pop, where you least and most expect them.

They're the fringe element of most respectable groups of protesters and they become the mainstay of those marching in solidarity against whatever it happens to be that Israel does at any given time, whether finally lashing back at those who attack it, or just doing its best to remain low-key, unnoticed, going about its business of behaving like a well-adjusted member of the international community.

The latest assaults on the country's reputation as the sole liberal democracy within the Middle East are taking place throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Possibly in Africa too, who knows? Protests, demonstrations, marches, they all have their utility when a core group comes together with the intention of singling out the State of Israel and her people, for pointed accusations edging right into slander.

The simple fact is, Israel can do nothing whatever without the world peering in her windows, condemningly.

It has become a useful substitute for anti-Semitism, to claim that one is righteously anti-Zionist, and that to express that opinion in whatever terms deemed necessary, politely or vilely, is to exempt one's intention from expressing that everpresent, but ungracious predilection toward hatred of Jews in a more general way.

Racism is unacceptable in most of today's societal politically-correct mores, deemed to be too raw, too discriminatory, too impolite. But anti-Zionism, now that's another story altogether.

Entirely justified by the brutality with which Israel zips up her borders, enclosing them with walls to safely encircle her population from atrocities. Atrocities to Jews, to the population of Israel, but somewhat less so to those who support the need to demonstrate to the Jewish state, time and again, that she is not welcome where she sits.

The "struggle" against "occupation" will continue. Israel remains an occupier by the very reality of her existence on land the Arab world claims for Islam. Palestinians will remain mortally aggrieved at the very idea of partition, and world opinion hovers protectively, over the perceived legitimacy of that aggrievement.

Some of the world. Canada, for example, remains the sole country that decided to cast its vote against the most recent United Nations condemnation of Israel for her defensive assault against the Gazan government dedicated to its destruction. European countries daintily abstained, as did Israel's great patron and defender, the United States.

Canada is my country, and for this I remain proud, although I don't need this affirmation of Israel's rightful place within the world community to remind me of my pride in my country.

In those demonstrations of anger against Israel for her long-overdue determination to defend herself against the violent assaults of Hamas, signs are hoisted aloft equating Israel with terrorism, fascism, apartheid. Whereas she is, in reality, the leading democracy within the international community whose population is daily terrorized by committed jihadists whose fascist declarations against her legitimacy are well known within a region that practises its own special version of apartheid.

These denunciatory parades of like-minded protesters chant demonizing phrases, and incite and provoke hatred against an ever-embattled nation encircled by countries whose suspicion and distrust of her renders her utterly vulnerable to the temper of the day. What is utterly amazing is that among members of various unions there are also present those affiliated with the Archdiocese of Montreal's Social Action Office.

Young thugs burn Israeli flags, "chanting burn, burn, Israel". A woman is seen on video screaming "Jewish child, you're going to f------ die, Hamas is coming for you".
Fully exploiting any opportunity good fortune situates within their communities to vent their hatred of the Jewish fact. Tender regards from the community.

When, just a few months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, I searched among my friends and neighbours for someone to accompany me to a peace march in February in downtown Ottawa, no one was interested in my invitation. Then my Egyptian neighbour decided he would attend, after all. On that bitterly cold and windy day, we marched in a peace process, together, a motley crew of protesters.

Among whom were those who bore aloft signs denouncing Israel. Apropos of what, exactly...?

It hardly matters the occasion for a protest, somehow hatred-addled and spite-filled social troglodytes will mar the process by their hateful presence.