Today's Tent Talk

I can't tell you how often in recent years I have read or been told that we Jews need to have a "big tent."

And, no, it isn't a Barnum and Bailey or even a Cirque du Soleil sort of thing, although it certainly sounds like one.

The reason we need a "big tent," we are told, is so that every "progressive" Jew who is feeling left out (due to his/his "progressiveness," which apparently precludes support for Israel) can have a chance to dwell amongst the tribe.

But every time the "big tent" palaver comes up, my immediate reaction is that the real reason "progressives" want one is so they can herd us all in and shut us all up. ("Come into my tent, my big leftist tent, but leave your opinions and your voice at the door. And, oh yeah, ix-nay anything about the ihad-jay, 'kay?")

Caroline Glick, too, is fed up with the tent shtick. Here she is channeling "big tent" Jewry's misplaced (and misbegotten) rage:

For more than a decade, American Jews led by radical rabbis and thought leaders have been threatening Israel.

You are making us embarrassed, Peter Beinart and his supporters have said. We won’t be able to keep supporting Israel if you don’t succumb to all the demands that the PLO and Hamas are making. Their terrorism – that is, their “resistance to occupation” – is understandable.

Israel, they harangue, is losing American Jewry. We are progressives. We stand up for the oppressed against the oppressors. Israelis, you are oppressors and we won’t be able to stand with you and as Jews, we will stand against you.

We will seek common ground with anti-Semites like Roger Waters and Alice Walker and invite them to our most prestigious forums to speak. We will make common cause with terrorist supporters like Linda Sarsour and terrorists like Rasmea Odeh. We will show that we don’t hate Israelis by hosting EU-funded anti-Israel groups like Breaking the Silence at our synagogues and campuses. And we will insist we are pro-Israel and pro-peace and send our checks to J Street, a group that has never sided with Israel on anything.

Over and over again Israel has heard these voices, which are often well-paid and always well-covered by the media. Over and over we have listened to their threats of abandonment.

Rather than criticize them for their hostility and reject their threats, Israeli spokesmen, particularly from the Left, have tried to make these Jewish Israel bashers feel better about Israel.

True, we are “occupiers,” voices like  Haaretz’s former columnist Ari Shavit told his American audiences. But we feel really bad about it so please don’t hate us.

We love you so, please love us back. We are one.

The time has long since passed for Israel to begin a frank exchange with these people.

There are lines you cannot cross and still expect us to care what you think.

Sometimes those lines are crystal clear.

It's also crystal clear that the only way to get Pete and his ilk onside is to enter their "big tent" so that we can all get behind the project of collapsing the Zionist structure, the one they're so ashamed of. (For more on the phenomenon of the ashamed Jew, see UK novelist Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question). That's far too high a price to pay for their allegiance--or for the "honour" of commingling with them under some canvas.

Why Change "O Canada" In English When the French Version Is So Much Less PC?

Proving that it is actually good for something, the Canadian Senate is stymying efforts to change the lyrics of "O Canada." The "offensive" line in question: "True patriot love in all thy son's command," which the more "progressive"-minded want to amend to "In all of us command" so as to be more "diverse" and "inclusive."

Some senators, however, are calling the proposed change "clunky and pedestrian"--which, indeed, it is. And Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald, who's from Nova Scotia, makes a good point when he asks why we're so intent on changing the English version of the anthem when the French lyrics are so much more incendiary and politically incorrect--and no one is insisting we modernize them:

The Cape Breton senator also takes issue with the bill because it only changes the English-language version of the national anthem, even though the French words would have a hard time getting the "social justice warrior seal of approval." 

"Why should one official version of the anthem be exempt from re-examination?" MacDonald said. "It is, without question, an ethnic French-Canadian, Catholic, nationalist battle hymn, certainly non-inclusive, yet I am not offended. It is just part of Canada's history in song."

FYI, here are the French lyrics, translated:

O Canada!

Land of our forefathers

your brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.

Because your arm can wield the sword,

it is ready to carry the cross.

your history is an epic

Of the most brilliant exploits.

your valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights

Will protect our homes and our rights.

So you mean to say that no one is sweating what is essentially a French variation of "Onward Christian Soldiers" but we're going nuts about a single English "son's"?

C'est incroyable!

If we must tackle that supposedly pesky "son's," however, Senator MacDonald contends there's only one way to go:

"The proper and only acceptable pronoun substitution for the phrase 'All thy sons command' is 'All of our command,'" MacDonald said. "This is not opinion. This is fact.

Is it, though? To my ear, MacDonald's "fact" sounds every bit as as "clunky and pedestrian." If we must make a change (and I have yet to be convinced that we do), "As all of us command" sounds much better--and makes far more sense--than either "In all of us command" or "In all of our command."

"Security Issues" Scupper Hirsi Ali Oz Talk

Free speech took another hit today. Mark Steyn, a chap who has felt the wrath of the thought police, has a few thoughts on the injury:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Tour Cancelled
Citing security issues, the Somalian-born activist calls off her scheduled Australian tour...

Let's just expand that "Somali-born activist" précis a little. She's not a dead white male like me or Charles Murray. As someone once said, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is everything the identity-group fetishists profess to dig: female, atheist, black, immigrant. But, because she does not toe the party line on Islam, her blackness washes off her like a bad dye job on a telly anchorman - and so do her femaleness and godlessness and immigrant status. And in the end she is Charles Murray, or Geert Wilders - or even David Duke. A black Somali woman is, it turns out, a "white supremacist". 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is someone who fled genital mutilation and arranged marriage in a backward, barbarous society to come to the west and live in freedom. Her first stop was the Netherlands. But the director of the film she wrote, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in the street, and the man who shot him then drove two knives through what was left of his chest pinning to it a five-page death-threat promising to do the same to Ayaan. So she was forced to leave the Netherlands, and has lived with round-the-clock security ever since. Now she has to cross Australia off the list, too. Where's next? Can she speak in Sweden? Or Canada? Ireland or Germany? She left Somalia to live as a western woman, only to watch the west turn itself into Somalia, incrementally but remorselessly, at least as far as free speech is concerned.

Can she speak in Canada? I would like to think she still could. But I have my doubts.

"'Big Little Lies' Was, Above All Else, a Commentary on Gender Bias"

I read the book. I saw every episode of the HBO series. And I can say with absolute certainty that it was no such thing.

Above all else, it was a show about secrets and lies and the chasm that can exist between how one's life appears to others (and the face one presents to the world) and the reality of how that life is actually being lived.

The "gender bias" stuff is a whopping load of PC crapola, which, sadly, infests TV criticism too these days.

That said, with the notable exception of Zoe Kravitz, it was quite possibly the least "diverse" HBO show since Sex and the City.

Some "Mainstream" Canadian Imams Give Thumbs Up to Sharia-Decreed Amputations

They can do that (since, unlike a first time shoplifter in, say, Jeddah, they still have both thumbs).

How to Stand With Israel AND Stand Up for Free Speech

Kudos to Peggy Shapiro, who shows how it's done (my bolds):

Activists held an interfaith memorial service for the victims of a female Palestinian terrorist, scheduled to coincide with her speech before a gathering of an anti-Israel Jewish organization, one of the organizers told The Algemeiner on Sunday.

Peggy Shapiro, Midwest director of Israel education group Stand With Us (SWU), said that she rented out a private suite at Chicago’s Hyatt Hotel to hold the event during convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh’s appearance at the closing plenary session of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) National Member Meeting (NMM) at the same venue, because Shapiro believed JVP’s “unconscionable” decision to “honor the killer and erase the victims” could not go uncontested. 

“It really can’t get any worse than honoring a murderer, alongside other speakers who are proponents of more genocide,” she said, referring to the panelists featured with Odeh, including Linda Sarsour, who has called Zionism a form of racism. 

In the JVP NMM program, Odeh and Sarsour are touted as among “the most dynamic, powerful, and visionary community and faith leaders of our time.”

Shapiro said her program was held in a guest room, because JVP directed the Hyatt to refuse to rent space to SWU at the hotel’s large convention center. The service featured religious exercises led by local rabbis and pastors, and letters from the families of Odeh’s victims, Leon Kanner and Edward Joffe, read by SWU representatives. 

“I’m a really strong proponent of free speech, even stupid speech, even hate speech. So, we aren’t using JVP’s tactics; we didn’t disturb their event, and shout down their speakers, like they do to ours,” Shapiro said. “We are respectful and mature, and we are calmly responding to something just so inherently wrong.” ...

Not just wrong. Not just misguided.

Evil.

Jewish Quislings for Islam-Style Peace, i.e. the "peace" that will be in effect once Jewish sovereignty over Israel (land claimed in perpetuity for Allah) is defunct.

A pox on 'em all.

Update: Speaking of Islam-style "peace," a dude named Quran (seriously, that's his name) told the JVP quislings how Palestinians planned to achieve it:

A new “Nakba,” or catastrophe, is underway for the Palestinians, Quran said, and Palestinians therefore need new tactics that go beyond those used in the past. 

“We’re going to occupy the occupation; we’re gonna build barricades; we’re gonna bring thousands of people there,” Quran said. “And if we manage to liberate this land, if we manage to stop the plans from going forward there, we will stop them from going forward everywhere.”

"Them"? Which "them"?

The Zionists? The Jews? All infidels?

Going strictly by the words inspiring Mr. Quran (passages from the book for which he's named), the answer, obviously, is "yes," "yes" and "yes."

Toronto Police Chief's Sane Approach to "Sanctuary City" Madness

The Toronto Sun's Sue Anne Levy got Chief Mark Sanders to explain how cops get around that "sanctuary city" stuff:

The police chief said despite calls by refugee advocates to stop reporting illegals engaged in criminal activity, they’re “bound by law” to do so. 

Saunders said in keeping with his forces “don’t ask” policy, officers certainly don’t round up people on “status and status alone.” But when someone is involved in a crime, investigators have to do a full check of their status — and the public expects that. 

“The policy we have is ‘don’t ask’ not ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’ he said 

“My officers will not ask status we are trained not to ask that question.” 

I asked Saunders to weigh in on Toronto’s Sanctuary City policy, put in place in 2013 and reinforced by Mayor John Tory, also a police services board member, at a Jan. 31 photo-op. 

The city’s policy advises staff not to report illegals accessing city services to federal immigration authorities — should they become aware of their status. 

The suggestion is that police do the same. 

Saunders, however, is adamant officers will “investigate fully” if criminality is involved. 

“If there is somebody who shouldn’t be here who is shooting at other people it would only make prudent sense for us to deal with that from the criminal perspective and the status perspective,” he said. 

“I don’t want citizens to be shooting up the city so I don’t want people who don’t necessarily have the status to be shooting up the city, either.”

Makes sense to me, chief.

Witchy Woman

Kathleen Wynne as Maleficent?

Hey, works for me. But pace Rex Murphy, I find nothing supernatural about her decidedly earth-bound and immensely corrupt and destructive shenanigans.

I Got the Sea Horse Right Here, the Name Is Paul Revere...

April Fool's!

Update: Party poopers in Sweden and Norway ditch April Fool's Day because of "fake news."

Justin Trudeau, Defender of ISIS Supporters' "Rights and Freedoms"

Should a person who supports ISIS be allowed to work at a Canadian airport? In the wake of revelations about ISIS followers working at the Montreal airport, Justin Trudeau, useful idiot extraordinaire, thinks we should have a discussion on the subject.

The Toronto Sun's Candice Malcolm, for one, is gobsmacked by such obviously screwy thinking:

When asked by a reporter if individuals expressing extremist views should be allowed to continue working at our country’s airports, Trudeau’s response was remarkable for its lack of clarity and courage.   

“I think that's part of the kind of conversations we have to have as a society,” said Trudeau.  

“Keeping people safe is paramount important, but defending our rights and freedoms is as well, and making sure we do that in the right way.”  

You can’t make this stuff up. Trudeau wants to have a national conversation about whether terrorist sympathizers and ISIS supporters should be able to work in strategic locations at our national airports.  

He wants us to consider the rights and freedoms of terrorist sympathizers and ISIS supporters in order to strike the right balance between our safety and their freedom to do what? Support jihad?  

Trudeau is becoming a parody of an apologetic leftist who believes terrorism is our fault and zealous Islamists and jihadists are simply misunderstood...

Actually, he isn't in the process of "becoming" a useful idiot. For anyone who cared to notice, the rank opportunist arrived at that "parody" destination some time ago.

Update: Dear Useful Idiot Extraordinaire--we need to have a national conversation about this.

Update: Not to alarm you or anything, but laptop bombs may be able to sneak through airport security

Update: He doesn't mention Justin Trudeau by name, but Hugh Fitzgerald is describing our clueless PM to a T here:

Many non-Muslims have not wanted to look too closely into Islam. It’s upsetting. They choose to believe that Islam is “peaceful” and “tolerant” (as Muslim apologists keep assuring them). That’s a comforting fiction, but also dangerous, as it minimizes the menace, and keeps too many in the imperiled West whistling in the dark. It is especially disturbing to see those in positions of power, who are supposed to instruct and protect us, choose rather to dismiss Islamic terrorism as “having nothing to do with Islam,” or as being carried out by “misunderstanders of Islam” (Barack Obama). Others declare that Muslim terrorists “defame” Islam (General Mattis), or insist that what those terrorists do constitutes a “perversion of the faith” (General McMaster, Theresa May). No matter how many times Muslim terrorists declare quite clearly the justification for their attacks by quoting from the Qur’an and Hadith, no matter how many learned clerics similarly justify these attacks by citing Islamic jurisconsults, many Infidels still refuse to connect Islam to Islamic terrorism, and further declare that anyone who does so is guilty of Islamophobia, an unpardonable offense in today’s topsy-turvy world.

Update: Must-see TV for the clued out and clued in alike--CNN's doc on the former Christian choir boy in Belgium who "reverted" to Islam and took up the cause of jihad.

(Image via Blazing Cat Fur)

Muslim Woman Sets Singer Alicia Keys Straight Re Her "Sexualized" Niqab Photo

Is there anything dumber and more clueless than a Western infidel woman who upholds symbols of oppression because she thinks it shows how "tolerant" and "progressive" she is?

Let's consider the subject while viewing this image:


Clearly, on the topic of Islamic cover ups for chicks, Alicia is as dumb as they come. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:

In a series of tweets, Shireen Qudosi, who has authored articles for The Federalist, explained why Keys's post is severely tone deaf and offensive to Muslim women like herself.

In an interview with Faithwire, Qudosi had more to say on the matter.

'I’m a Muslim woman who holds on to what’s beautiful about my Eastern heritage, while also forging a new American Muslim identity,' Qudosi told Faithwire in an email. 'When Alicia Keys romanticizes the niqab under the banner of diversity, she promotes the most savage and barbaric Arab tribalism that sees women as something to be possessed and contained. When I see good-intentioned people call primitivism beautiful, that’s as offensive as someone saying American slave history was ‘beautiful and diverse.'[. . . ] 

'America is built on diversity, but not all ideas are equal and deserve sanctuary — especially those that don’t mirror American values,' she continued. 'The niqab has no place in American society. It should never be entertained let alone glorified.'

Now, that's smart!