Solvent Contra Nugget
Re: “Arguments ever present in the West Bank” – Salim Mansur (The Nugget, Aug 6, 2010)
Everyone who follows world affairs is used to disappointing coverage of Israel’s occupation of Palestine in the corporate media. However, sometimes disappointment gives way to anger, when such violence is done to the truth pertaining to the suffering of the Palestinian people, that one cannot keep one’s emotions in check. And then sometimes such a fantastical web of bullshit is spun around the facts on the ground in Palestine that one cannot respond with anything but utter bafflement…
Such is the case with Toronto Sun columnist Salim Mansur’s shamelessly absurd article that The Nugget published this past weekend.
In this column, Mr. Mansur identifies the two main causes of the suffering of the people of Palestine. Here is a quick summary:
1) The corruption of Palestinian leaders. Mansur writes: “ordinary Palestinians (are) fed on a diet of half-truths and endless lies by their leaders.” He goes on to say that, “visiting with Palestinians is also an invitation to hear their bitterness about Arab leaders”, and “they speak of how the Palestinian leadership resembles Ali Baba and his 40 thieves robbing the people of the money that has poured in as aid from the West.”
Mansur portrays Palestine as being afloat in cash that apparently aid organizations just hand over to the leaders of Palestine who turn around in live in luxury amongst the misery of their people. Salim has apparently gleaned this knowledge from his travels there, so it would be nice if he took a picture to back up statements like this: “There is money here, plenty of it, and those who have it are not hesitant to flaunt it”, and “New cars, beautiful residences, fancy stores and restaurants will startle any outsider arriving here with his head filled by the mainstream media in the West about the misery of the West Bank.” Perhaps he is actually referring to the Israeli settlements that are constantly springing up in the wake of the bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes, but it is hard to tell what exactly he is talking about, as nothing he says is substantiated.
2) The lack of a functioning democracy. Again, quoting Mansur: “The term limit of the president and the legislative assembly has expired, and no new elections are scheduled to provide Palestinians with any say on how they are being governed.” Here’s more: “In effect those in authority have no mandate, and their fear that Hamas will likely win an election whenever held underscores the contempt of ordinary Palestinians for Mahmoud Abbas — the president of the Palestinian Authority – and the men around him.”
I wonder at the intellectual integrity of a man who would cite the election of Hamas in Gaza, a party whose whole ideology is based on the will for Palestinian liberation from the clutches of Israel, as merely a reaction against the existing Palestinian power structure. Also, it is hard to criticize the government in the West Bank for not holding an election that would certainly result in the election of Hamas, because I’m sure everyone remembers what happened to the voters of Gaza the last time they expressed their democratic will in an election. Israel bombed the hell out of them for choosing Hamas, closed them off from the rest of the world and won’t allow basic human necessities to reach them.
Thankfully Palestine has a saviour… a friend that protects them from themselves and those who seek to exploit them. Salim Mansur contends that : “If it were not for Israel in the middle, the war of words between the two Palestinian entities, … would become a ghastly shootout between the Iranian proxy in Gaza and mafia dons receiving protection money from the West and its Arab allies in the West Bank.”
Thank goodness for Israel protecting Palestine from itself, and Iran. I am sure the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank wake up every morning thankful for the protection of Israel. Only the most noble of friends would invest billions of dollars to build a 25 foot wall to completely enclose neighbours and in the soldiers to guard it. Israel graciously prevents any Palestinians from leaving without their approval. Israel not only decides what can enter Palestine, but generously confiscates a percentage of all international aid, of course, to protect the Palestinians from having too much food and medication. Israel protects the fragile democracy in The Gaza Strip and instructs the citizens how to vote properly by launching massive bombing campaigns when they elect a government that Israel does not approve of. Israeli soldiers, as a sign of their benevolence, even teach the children of Palestine the value of an education by shooting at them while they attempt to go to school. Friends are great. Palestine is to be envied.
Salim Mansur has set the new world record for absurdity in his reckoning of the political situation in Palestine, and I am baffled at what kind of man could write something like this, and what kind of newspaper would publish it.
This guy is saying that the only thing standing between Palestine and utter catastrophe is Israel. Not even Benjamin Netanyahu has the gall to say something like that.
I will not go on to contradict Mansur here; it shouldn’t be necessary. I will point out that it is unfortunate that we live in a community that has one newspaper, and that it does not take its responsibility to present us with a balanced view point more seriously. Salim Mansur is decidedly unbalanced … in fact his balance is so off, that he may be described as unstable.
- Bob Kismet
