terrorism – Page 15

Gillerman: “call a spade a spade”

Dan Gillerman addresses the audience at Jewish National Fund Pacific Region’s Tu b’Shevat event Feb. 3 as emcee Geoffrey Druker looks on. (photo by Robert Albanese)

A former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations heaped praise on Canada and excoriated the United States during a candid speech here last week.

photo - Left to right, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, Mayor of Victoria Lisa Helps and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo — Left to right, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, Mayor of Victoria Lisa Helps and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo. *(photo by Julie Elizabeth)*

Dan Gillerman, who led the Israeli delegation at the UN from 2003 to 2008, was filling in for current Ambassador Ron Prosor, whose obligations kept him in New York. The occasion was the Jewish National Fund of Canada’s Tu b’Shevat event at Beth Israel on Feb. 3. He also spoke in Victoria at Emanu-El for JNF the next day.

Gillerman, who acknowledges that he has a penchant for political incorrectness and is now a private citizen free to speak his mind without the constraints of a diplomatic post, received a strong ovation when he called Canada “by far, the greatest friend Israel has in the world” and when he heaped praise on Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper as “probably the greatest leader in the world.”

His perspective on the United States was not nearly as positive.

“I think that what we are witnessing today is at least a perception, hopefully a wrong perception, of a weak America and a weak American president,” Gillerman said. Even a whiff of American weakness is a dangerous thing in the world, he said, with America’s enemies feeling that they can get away with murder and America’s allies believing that they cannot rely on the superpower.

Gillerman equates the contemporary situation of the United States with the advent of the First World War a century ago, which he says was due in part to perceptions of British weakness under Prime Minister H.H. Asquith. Gillerman contended that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would not do what he did in Ukraine and other countries would not do what they are doing elsewhere if they thought the United States would intervene.

On dangers facing Israel, Gillerman said that the most serious threats are not Hamas or Hezbollah, and not even Iran, which is pushing for nuclear capability. “They are not our most dangerous threats, because we can take care of them,” he said. “The two most dangerous phenomena we face today are appeasement and being politically correct.”

Trying to appease terror and the Iranian regime, as the world is doing today, Gillerman said, is very dangerous.

About political correctness, he said the world is “trying to find other words to explain what is happening,” other than identifying it as Islamic extremism and terrorism. “We have to call a spade a spade,” he said. “There is evil in this world. There is terror in this world. It threatens your country and every country in the world.”

On Iran, Gillerman characterized nuclear negotiations as “a weak America and a weak American president who wants an agreement at any cost.”

Gillerman said he had a conversation with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is South Korean. Gillerman said that the global powers dithered while North Korea prepared for nuclear weaponry then one day the world woke up to a nuclear North Korea. Gillerman said Ban told him that Iran is much more dangerous than North Korea.

“North Korea sought nuclear weapons out of desperation,” Gillerman quoted Ban as telling him. “While Iran is seeking them out of aspiration.”

Gillerman spoke of his close relationship with the late former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who appointed him ambassador to the UN. Gillerman’s background is not in politics or diplomacy, but business, and he was chairman of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce before his ambassadorial appointment.

He said Sharon warned him that the appointment to the UN would leave him lonely and facing hostility, but Gillerman said he later told the prime minister that he had been wrong. As Israel’s representative at the world body, Gillerman said, he operated on the knowledge that he represented a country that “is far, far better than most other member countries of the United Nations.”

Despite Israel’s isolation at the UN, one of Gillerman’s achievements during his time as ambassador was the proclamation of International Holocaust Remembrance Day every January. It was the first time that an Israeli-sponsored resolution was passed by the General Assembly.

Gillerman was speaking on the day that Canadian foreign minister John Baird announced his resignation from cabinet and politics. Gillerman said that he had spent several days with Baird recently in Davos, Switzerland, and had no indication that Baird was planning a major change.

“I think it’s a loss for Canada and a loss for Israel, but I wish him well,” Gillerman said, before once again praising Canada’s leaders.

“I think you have in Stephen Harper one of the greatest leaders in the world. Probably the greatest leader in the world and definitely the best friend Israel has in the world,” he said.

While the bulk of the former ambassador’s speech was ominous and pessimistic, it didn’t conclude that way.

“Despite all that, I am optimistic about the future of Israel,” he said near the end of his remarks. “I believe that the world is waking up.”

In the Arab world, he said, the fight between extremists and moderates will lead moderates to recognize that Israel is not the enemy. Comparatively moderate Arab states are as afraid of Iranian extremism and nuclear capability as Israel is – possibly more afraid – he said, and a regional agreement will emerge from shared interests.

“I believe we can reach a fair and lasting settlement with the Palestinians,” he said, adding that leadership is needed on both sides, and in the world, and that it must go beyond bilateralism. He predicted what he calls a “23-state solution,” an agreement between Israel and Arab countries that leads to lasting peace.

He went on to say that if the Palestinian issue were settled, Arab states could calm their streets and become partners with Israel.

To those who say that the United Nations is a failed, useless organization, Gillerman described it as simply a building on First Avenue in Manhattan that is only as good as its tenants. Blaming the UN for the faults of its member-states is like blaming Madison Square Garden when the Knicks lose, he said. “It’s not the UN as an organization, it’s the world we live in.” The UN General Assembly has a “built-in immoral majority,” he said.

photo - Left to right, Frank Sirlin, president of Jewish National Fund Pacific Region, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo — Left to right, Frank Sirlin, president of Jewish National Fund Pacific Region, former ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman and JNF Pacific Region shaliach Ilan Pilo. *(photo by Robert Albanese)*

Prosor, the ambassador who was originally slated to attend, provided a video message that was screened at the beginning of the event. Singers from Vancouver Talmud Torah sang a song for Tu b’Shevat and King David High School students sang the national anthems. The event was emceed by Geoffrey Druker, Rabbi Jonathan Infeld welcomed visitors to the new Beth Israel building and Diane Switzer, board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, introduced Gillerman. Frank Sirlin, president of JNF Canada Pacific Region, spoke about this year’s Tu b’Shevat campaign, which will see trees planted along roads in Israel that are within range of gunfire from the Gaza Strip. The “green barrier” will help green the desert while shielding drivers and passengers from sniper fire. The JNF campaign includes two telethon sessions, on Feb. 15 and 22.

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.

Let’s talk about security, privacy

Last week, the federal government introduced proposed legislation intended to strengthen anti-terror powers of police, the intelligence service and the military.

The legislation would make it illegal to advocate or promote terrorism, would allow courts to remove terrorist propaganda from the internet, and make it easier for authorities to apprehend suspected terrorists before they act.

Civil libertarians waded in immediately. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, which is already engaged in litigation against the federal government over allegations of electronic surveillance without warrants, warned that the legislation would give new powers to security agencies that have “shamefully inadequate oversight and are hostile to accountability.”

The proposed legislation comes on the heels of two terror attacks in Canada last year by apparent lone wolves in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. In its press release announcing the measures, the government pronounced the world “a dangerous place” and reminded us that “Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism.” Fair enough.

But Canada is also not immune from the threat of government overreach. There is a very critical line and a democracy needs to struggle to find precisely the right balance around these issues. While a terror attack can come out of the blue and kill, threats to individual liberties tend to emerge more slowly and the harm they do is not as immediately clear.

Israel is probably the most illustrative example of a democratic society trying to balance individual rights with protection of civilians from determined terrorists.

The balance that Israel has struggled to find between the rule of law, protection of civilians and the preservation of core civil liberties has been one of the defining and divisive characteristics of Israeli life for decades.

Balancing the physical safety of civilians with the preservation of the freedoms that define that country invigorates a vibrant public discourse, an ongoing, hand-wringing, conscience-challenging debate that carries on with extraordinary passion in a vibrant political ferment.

Among the problems with applying the Israeli model to Canada’s is that, put simply, Canada is not Israel. Canada has had nothing even remotely comparable to the onslaught of terror attacks Israel has endured. Nothing should diminish the grief and determination we felt collectively after the two incidents last year in this country, but neither should we pretend that our society is under imminent threat of sustained, existential violence from ideological forces. That is simply not the case. Proponents of the legislation might say that we need to make sure that things do not get out of hand by getting ahead of it early. Perhaps. But then a wiser solution still would be to work with and support communities where radicalization is taking place, or threatens to take place, and empower the moderates and reformers to identify and help those at risk of succumbing to ideological extremism. There are other approaches as well.

We should not be lulled into any sense of complacency about the sort of world in which we live. But neither should we succumb to hysteria and assume that the sky is falling. Neither should we pretend that this is all white hat/black hat drama. In Canada and, especially, in the United States, in recent months, we have seen those in authority – police – shoot several innocent civilians. And we have plenty of examples of overreach by intelligence and security agencies that seem to view their constitutional limitations as mere suggestions. This may be a time to strengthen laws that protect our civilian populations from terrorists, but citizens should likewise ask when we will see legislation that ensures our civil liberties are as secure as our physical well-being.

Underpinning all of this discussion, though, is a problem far more immediate to Canadians: political polarization. Would it be too much to ask that, on an issue the federal government rhetorically insists is so extraordinarily urgent as protecting Canadians from terrorism, that they might reach across the aisle and work with opposition members, rising above partisanship to develop responses to genuine national security threats?

Imagine if, instead of a government-initiated security bill pushed through by a majority government, we engaged opposition parties and Canadian citizens to discuss and propose a consensus around these issues that balances the demand between our freedoms and our personal and collective security. That would be an exercise in democracy that would truly define the difference between the enemies who seek to destroy us and the values we cherish.

Perhaps it’s too much to expect in an election year.

Stand against extremism

(image from abouddandachi.com)

On Jan. 27, commemorations were held worldwide in remembrance of the Holocaust. Seventy years after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, these remembrances are as necessary as ever, as evidenced by the past year’s rising tide of antisemitic attacks the world over. And while it may be impossible to stop every terrorist attack everywhere in the world, the manner in which societies and individuals react to such atrocities is just as important as “killing the bad guys.”

A case in point would be the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in early January. In the aftermath, a massive two million-strong march was held in the heart of Paris in support of freedom of expression. The phrase #JeSuisCharlie became the most widely used hashtag in Twitter’s history. To meet the increased demand from multitudes of first-time readers seemingly eager on making a statement against extremism, the publication run for the magazine’s Jan. 12 issue was increased from 60,000 copies to three million, and increased again to five million, and, again, to seven million copies.

Marches, Twitter campaigns and a massive surge in readership. Yet, largely relegated to the background was the fact that Jews were specifically targeted during those three terrible days in Paris. Indeed, for months before the Paris terrorist atrocities, Jews in much of Europe had been subjected to a relentless wave of vicious antisemitic attacks. An atmosphere of raw, unchallenged hatred for all things Jewish preceded the events in Paris, and the warning signs were there for anyone who cared to pay attention. When Jews in Denmark trying to hold an event calling for religious coexistence are chased off the streets by “Allahu akbar”-screaming, black-banner-waving thugs, then very soon someone will get it into their head to try to kill Jews in Paris.

Marches, Twitter campaigns and millions of new readers. Momentary, short-term reactions to a very long-term problem, one that has been building up for years. In the wake of such atrocities, it is natural for individuals to feel a strong need to act. And nothing reputes terrorism as effectively as making a stand with its intended targets and victims: by making a stand with the Jewish communities of Europe and the world over.

One effective, long-term method of displaying solidarity with Jewish communities worldwide is to show the same enthusiasm for their publications as the world has displayed for scooping up issues of Charlie Hebdo. To repudiate global extremism, one only needs to act on a very local level.

Salom, the Turkish Jewish weekly tabloid, isn’t exactly an easy publication to find in Istanbul unless you know where to look. But with a circulation of just a few thousand, it has for almost seven decades managed to put out a highly professional and relevant newspaper (far more substantial and better produced than the hopeless Syrian regime mouthpieces Al-Baath or Al-Thawra, even with the resources of the state), and over the years some of Turkey’s most prominent writers and journalists have written for it. Over the years: over the span of no less than 68 years.

A community, any community’s, newspaper is a chronology and journal of the times and events of that community’s history and its place in the world, the events that they were affected by or had an effect on, the opinions, hopes, dreams and fears of that community’s individuals. As a source for a history of the times, websites don’t come close.

And few things strike at the heart of a community’s sense of safety or belonging as attacking or intimidating its publications. For a community to lose its publication would be a devastating blow to its sense of identity, history and continuity within the larger society it inhabits.

And so, when a community is under sustained attack from fringe extremist elements, one of the best long-term demonstrations of solidarity is to adopt that community’s publications. And it was in this spirit that millions of people around the world suddenly felt a compulsion to own a copy of Charlie Hebdo, regardless of their opinions on the merits (or lack thereof) of the paper’s contents over the years. In the aftermath of a terrorist event, ordinary people are driven to respond with an act that loudly and clearly expresses their rejection of and revulsion at the attack.

Marches are all very well and good, but it is highly unlikely that the scale of the January Paris march will ever be repeated for years to come. Twitter hashtags? Very fleeting and very much of the moment. A long-term response is necessary to support a community under long-term threat.

And, while Jews in one’s local community may not face the same level of violence and intimidation as Jews in other parts of the world, the nature of global antisemitism is such that Jews anywhere can, at anytime, become targets from any source, no matter how distant or remote the threat may seem, as evidenced, to take a recent example, by the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s threats to strike Jews anywhere in the world in retaliation for its recent high-level losses in Syria.

Not everyone can be a Lassana Bathily, the Mali-born employee of the Hyper Cacher, the targeted Paris kosher supermarket, who saved countless lives by hiding customers during the attack. Individuals can still achieve a great deal by standing with those whom extremists would target, however. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever suffer a terrorist attack ever again, but let’s not wait until after an atrocity to express “Je suis (insert latest victims here).” Society’s embrace and acceptance of its minorities are the surest shield and protection against opportunistic acts of hate against those minorities. Terrorism thrives in an atmosphere and environment of unchallenged and unchecked hatred.

Holocaust commemorations are held just once a year, and by the time a society feels compelled to respond to atrocities in its midst with million-person marches, it is probably too late, extremism has already dug its roots deep into that society. Extremism is more effectively fought on the individual level, with small, daily acts of kindness towards those that may be vulnerable, and the ostracizing of those groups and individuals who are hateful in their speech and behavior (I’m looking at you George Galloway, you shameful carpetbagger). Global extremism is most effectively fought by very local acts of consideration.

In this day and age, fighting extremism can be as simple as buying a newspaper. Salom.

Aboud Dandachi is a Syrian blogger based in Turkey. He has been cited on issues relating to the Syrian conflict on the BBC, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Al-Arabiya and Turkiye Gazetesi. This article originally appeared on his blog From Homs to Istanbul, which can be found at abouddandachi.com. It is reprinted with permission.

Clues to the end game

On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat/Flash90)

Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others? The easy answer is the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for the attack. But the wider view suggests Hezbollah’s state sponsor: Iran.

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah’s actions represent “an attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.” According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against

Israel in Syria’s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.

“This is actually an Iranian project,” Karmon told this reporter. “They have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of whom are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.”

On Jan. 28, Hezbollah fired five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy approximately 2.5 miles inside Israel’s border with Lebanon. A day earlier, less sophisticated mortars were fired from southern Syria into Israeli territory, with no damage reported.

In response to the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “Whoever is behind today’s attack will pay the full price.” Netanyahu – like Karmon – stressed that the attack points back to Iran, adding, “with the assistance of Hezbollah, Iran has been for some time trying to open another front against Israel on the Golan Heights. We are acting with force and determination against these attempts.”

“Because of the weakness of the Syrian regime, the Iranians are now permitted to have a foothold directly on Israel’s border, which until now they didn’t have,” Karmon explained.

Israel is widely believed to be responsible for a Jan. 18 airstrike against that foothold in southern Syria, which killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including notorious Hezbollah commander Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian general Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.

Karmon believes the airstrike “was a message sent by Israel” to forewarn Iran and Hezbollah not to continue their military efforts in Syrian territory.

The retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah following the deadly airstrike were widely expected. That the more sophisticated Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon and not Syria provides a strong indication that the Syrian position is not as well-stocked with weaponry as southern Lebanon – a zone that was supposed to remain completely demilitarized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which arranged for the cessation of hostilities following the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

“Resolution 1701 calls for complete disarmament in southern Lebanon and, yet, Hezbollah, instead of disarming, they have amassed some 80,000-90,000 missiles,” Karmon said.

“Now, they want to achieve the same equation in southern Syria. If Israel does not stop them, and there are two to three years with relative quiet, with only occasional penetrations of our border and sometimes mortar fire and so on, a kind of ‘war of attrition,’ then all of a sudden we will find ourselves staring at 5,000-10,000 missiles,” he said.

Turkey under scrutiny

Paris terror suspect Hayat Boumedienne’s recent escape from France to Syria has renewed concern about Turkey’s ability and willingness to prevent terrorists from transiting through its territory.

Boumedienne is the romantic partner and alleged accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly, who was shot dead by police after killing four people in a kosher supermarket and shooting a police officer in Paris on Jan. 9. Airport footage shows Boumedienne’s arrival from Madrid to Istanbul on Jan. 2, and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu said she crossed the border to Syria six days later.

Turkey has been the subject of intense criticism from Western governments and commentators over its perceived lack of effort in stemming the flow of foreign fighters crossing its borders. However, some think this isn’t quite fair.

“I think it’s somewhat of a misplaced criticism,” said Sinan Ülgen, a scholar at Carnegie Europe. Though the Turkish government may have formerly looked the other way at the activities of Islamist groups because of a desire to bring down the Assad regime at any cost, “that policy by and large had changed by April 2014,” according to Ülgen.

At that time, Interior Minister Efkan Ala made an effort to enhance border security, “having realized the risks of getting into that sort of relationship with extremist groups,” said Ülgen. However, researcher Gareth Jenkins says it’s still very easy for foreign fighters to cross through Turkey.

“When you look at the ease with which [terrorists and would-be fighters] are able to go back and forth across the border, there still isn’t a full clampdown,” Jenkins said. “It’s not as easy as it used to be, but it’s still pretty easy.” He said he recently personally witnessed fighters in a Turkish village near the Syrian border. “There were jihadists sitting around waiting to go across.”

With some 40 million tourists visiting Turkey every year, border security is no easy task, but Jenkins says security forces could be doing a lot more. He claimed that difficulty over border security isn’t the only reason for Turkey’s failure at curbing the flow of foreign citizens seeking to join the ranks of ISIS and other groups.

Ignorant conspiracies

After the murders in Paris this month, it did not take long for the forces of conspiracy to switch into high gear.

Among those in the anti-Israel movement were people who suggested that the murders had been perpetrated by Israeli agents and that it was a frame up to besmirch Muslims. Greta Berlin, a leader in the Free Gaza movement and one of the most prominent anti-Israel campaigners, posted a statement on her Facebook page shortly after the murders at the French satirical magazine: “Mossad just hit the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in a clumsy false flag designed to damage the accord between Palestine and France…. Here’s hoping the French police will be able to tell a well-executed hit by a well-trained Israeli intelligence service and not assume the Muslims would be likely to attack France when France is their friend. Israel did tell France there would be grave consequences if they voted with Palestine. A four-year-old could see who is responsible for this terrible attack.”

Such comments should exclude people like this from legitimate dialogue on the issues, yet the world continues to grant them impunity to spread their theories. And, as perverse and disturbing as the conspiracies from such anti-Israel activists are, there are more absurd and apparently common views expressed on the street in the Paris suburbs where large populations of immigrants from Muslim countries live in economic stagnation. It took an American reporter no time at all to find more fantastical theories; for example, that the attacks were carried out by magical, shape-shifting Jews who morphed themselves into figures resembling Arab terrorists and perpetrated the evil acts.

As extraordinarily outlandish as the latter allegation is, it is no more removed from reality than the former. And both represent a somewhat alarming reality in contemporary discourse. There are conspiracy theories with some traction that say “the Jews” invented ISIS, perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and are in cahoots with the Freemasons to control the media and levers of power. Moowahahaha.

We should be cognizant that these ideas exist and pay attention to the impact they may play in the global dialogue about Israel (and anything else involving Jews). And, we should be vigilant and thankful for the organizations that monitor and condemn these notions. At the same time, we need to maintain perspective. While these ideas may seem widespread, they are generally (though not always) held by the ignorant, the ill-informed and the undereducated. Notably, these ideas seem most prominent in places where democracy has not been permitted to flourish, and autocrats will – and do – exploit these sorts of things for their purposes. Most of the people who carry these poisonous thoughts, however, cannot even exert their influence at the ballot box.

We return to comments by Jonathan Kay when he visited here more than a year ago now. Kay, then the editorial page editor of the National Post and now editor of The Walrus magazine, insisted that these voices have been marginalized. In the halls of power – or even of country clubs and polite society – where antisemitism once held sway – these ideas are dismissed along with the people who espouse them. To subscribe to them is to relegate oneself to the D-list of civil dialogue.

It is important to acknowledge, on the one hand, guttersnipe who purvey ludicrous, hateful ideas and, on the other, the progress that has been made against bigotry among the people who determine policy in our country and among our democratic allies. Outside these circles are all sorts of ideas that are beyond the realm, but in the places where bizarre anti-Jewish conspiracies still hold sway, antisemitism is merely one among a disturbing host of societal ailments.

There is a quote that seems appropriate here, and it is doubly attributed – to the American presidential confidant Bernard Baruch and children’s writer Dr. Seuss. Whichever man originated it, the sentiment applies: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

Finding beauty on travels

After a three-month travel adventure with the purpose of seeking beauty wherever I went, many thoughts raced through my mind. I had quit my job, gone on the road, run out of money, and had no clue what came next. I couldn’t have predicted that a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life with a perfect stranger would change my life. But it did.

A tall man stood behind me in line at passport control in the Sydney airport. He started to chat with me, wondering where I was going. Grinning, I explained I was returning home after wandering around Australia and New Zealand solo. He was heading to Wales.

Grant was part of an elite Australian special-forces team. Somehow we got into a serious conversation, keeping busy until our flights by walking together around the airport. It was August 2004.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Grant said with confidence.

“How can you be so sure?” I replied.

“I know it. I have seen it every day of my life. It’s just how the world works.”

“Do you really believe that?” I wondered. “How do you know that things happen for a reason? Maybe things happen and we give them reason, and not the other way around.”

I recalled every detail of how I spent Sept. 11, 2001. I was working for CNN as a field producer on Lou Dobb’s show, Moneyline. My job had started a few weeks prior and I was thrilled: the low drama of financial news was perfect for me. I distinctly remember a conversation with my father about this feature of my new job at the end of August 2001.

“I can do this,” I said. “The markets go up and down; there’s no blood and guts in these news stories.”

A short time later, I was a witness to Sept. 11, and I can’t think, let alone write, about it without having tears in my eyes.

In a state of shock, I watched smoke pour out of the enormous gash in one of the World Trade buildings. Soon after, the tower started to collapse as I watched, and my brain screamed, “There are people in that building and you are watching them die and there is nothing you can do!” I have never felt such anguish and helplessness. With these thoughts now racing through my mind as we wandered the airport, I asked Grant, “Where were you on Sept. 11?”

He spoke solemnly, “I’ll never forget Sept 11. My mother died in my arms at the hospital, and then my brother and I heard the news.”

I was surprised. As I was watching my city fall apart, his world was also breaking into pieces thousands of miles away. Soon after that difficult day, Grant was one of the Australian servicemen who went to fight the war in Afghanistan.

I ended up covering terrorism and the Sept. 11 story for two years. It got to me. My usual happy-go-lucky cheerful disposition disappeared. Covering funerals and sad stories daily left a deep imprint on me. I needed a change. I wanted to see the beauty in the world, the happy moments, the positive. I read books by every optimistic self-help guru I could lay my hands on, including books by the Dalai Lama. However, the book that made the most impact on me was an Australia and New Zealand guidebook. So, I put my math skills to good use, reached into my savings account and soon after found myself – and my backpack – at a Victorian-style hostel in Auckland, New Zealand.

Down Under was the perfect place to embrace a new worldview; to fill my head with beautiful images to counter the horrible ones. I hitched rides from perfectly lovely strangers, drank pure water from ancient glaciers that I hiked, and dared myself to do anything and everything interesting, including scaring myself to death skydiving with my new travel friend, Dave Ellis.

I admit, the night before I was scheduled to jump, I tossed and turned, praying for it to rain. I wished I could back out of my commitment without appearing to be terrified. I was afraid of heights and scared out of my mind. But, my sense of adventure got the best of me, as it usually does, and I went ahead with the leap.

Dave and I became the best of friends after jumping out of a perfectly good airplane 12,000 feet above Queenstown, New Zealand. Later in the trip, he invited me to come explore Perth, Australia, after I had toured that country’s east coast. Traveling without a plan but with cash in hand left me open to seeing where the world would take me.

It was a great suggestion. That said, a less-than-desirable five-hour-plus cross-country flight from Brisbane squished in between two larger-than-life rugby pIayers brought me to my destination.

One night while in Perth, I was invited to Dave’s parents’ house for dinner. His British grandmother, Bette Ellis, told me about her life and how she had met her husband in Jerusalem in 1946. Leonard was in the British military. They traveled the world together. She was an adventurous lady filled with energy and, as a youngster, an avid dancer.

Her world was forever changed on Feb. 28, 1967, when she was nearly killed in a terrorist bombing in Aden, Yemen, where she was living at the time. The bomb exploded at a cocktail party she was attending. The two women right next to Bette and with whom she had just been speaking, were killed. She survived but was left a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down.

The Ellis family was torn apart. Her youngest son, David, was sent to England to be looked after by Bette’s sister. Her husband Leonard suffered from extreme guilt because he had left Bette at the party as he was called away to work. They eventually divorced, and she became a single parent to three children. Leonard went on to have years of health difficulties and passed away at age 62 from cancer.

In the most unlikely place on the planet I would have imagined, I had come face to face with terrorism again, and the effects it had, even 40 years later, on a family. Once again, my heart was ripped to shreds over how one act, one moment in time, can shatter and splinter a person and a family forever.

The story stuck with me, and I emailed Dave’s father, Alex, to interview him. He wrote, “Thanks for the interest in Mum’s story. Yes, the impacts may go on for years and in many cases are difficult to cope with whereas the public interest tends to be more about the event and the immediate impacts. In many ways, there are almost forgotten victims of such attacks. Mum was a very strong person and led a very active life considering the extent of her injuries. Her story is certainly one of strength and hope but there is no doubt that many other victims have not fared as well.”

He continued, “Coincidentally, Mum passed away, and the date is very easy for us to remember as it was 11 Sept.”

Shocked and teary-eyed, I couldn’t help but wonder about the timing. While more than 13 years have passed since Sept. 11, 2001, for many, it is as if it happened yesterday; for some, the scars of this terrorist act will remain and be felt for generations. Even though Bette had passed away years after the 2001 attacks, this sad date still had resonance, personally, nationally, globally. She was a woman with a staunch will to live, and her family, a role model of love, made the best of a tragic situation.

I don’t know if I believe that things happen for a reason, but I do know that giving them purpose is all most people can accomplish. So, the next time you travel, be open to the world and its wisdom. Even in learning of others’ heartaches and tragedies, there is some hope to be found. On your journeys, if you are truly lucky, you might make lifelong friends like I have in the Ellis family, friends who will restore your vision of the world, and show that good can triumph over evil.

Masada Siegel is an award-winning journalist and photographer. Follow her at @masadasiegel and visit her website, masadasiegel.com.

Multiculturalism only solution

The murder of 12 at Charlie Hebdo and the murder of four at a kosher supermarket in Paris last week were not just examples of mass murder, violence to which we as a society have become sadly accustomed. These were deliberate attacks on the core values of a free, democratic, pluralist country.

We have long feared that the West might not respond in a stalwart way to such an incident, so the massive march in Paris Sunday, featuring world leaders, was an inspiration and a signal of hope that the people of France will stand on guard for the values of civilization that are epitomized by the rallying cry of that country’s revolution: liberté, égalité, fraternité.

What happens next will truly impact the future of our democracies. On the one hand, there is the potential that media will legitimately and understandably take baby steps in the direction of self-censorship, for fear that gun-wielding self-proclaimed editors will burst through the doors and kill everyone in range.

On the other hand, there is the potential that, in an effort to prove the opposite point, media (and now, with social media, everyone is a publisher) will saturate the discourse with material that is offensive to Muslims. Already, there has been a spike in attacks against mosques in Europe. Extremists on both sides could enflame this situation badly.

More optimistically, voices of reason, like those on the streets of Paris and at the Vancouver rally last week, may more positively affect the course of events.

Freedom of expression is paramount. In a democracy, where rights come with responsibilities, we would hope that people, including media, would use this right responsibly. Yet, even if they don’t – and it is both outrageous that we have to say it and that it is also at the absolute root of this discussion – there’s no case where gunning offenders down or bombing them is justifiable.

Freedom of expression is central to this discussion but, in a way that seems far too obvious to even state, the bigger issue is that people shouldn’t kill people. The four Jewish men who died at the supermarket are not martyrs to free expression. They are martyrs to just being Jewish.

Ultimately, events will probably lead more people in Europe to conclude, as many have already, that multiculturalism is a failed experiment. Certainly, multiculturalism is imperfect, as is any human endeavor. But it remains the best answer, given the unthinkable alternative, which is racial nationalism of the kind we have seen too much.

More bluntly, multiculturalism is unavoidable. We need to make it work. We cannot run to our corners and demand – what? – that they – whoever “they” are – stay on their side of the world and we – who are “we”? – should stay on ours? Because that is, effectively, the only alternative to multiculturalism. And that is plainly impossible, even if it were desirable in some cases. In today’s world, more than ever before, we are truly one people. We need to start acting in ways that reflect this reality.

There is a great deal of anger and incivility in the world today. In the car, in customer relations, certainly on the relative anonymity of the internet, the things people are saying to one another are rife with intolerance, divisiveness and rage. There are no laws that force us to be civil. Yet, there is a spectrum of the way human beings treat one another and many of us probably envision ourselves as more civil than we may deserve to self-regard.

Good citizenship is not only an obligation for newcomers, remember, it is a duty for all of us. As the people who marched in Paris demonstrated, like those around the world who have stood up, including here in Vancouver, acts of inhumanity are precisely the catalysts for us to redouble our own humanity.

Israelis buy more guns

Yoram Issachar, who owns a contracting company in Jerusalem with his father and two brothers, has carried a Baretta 765 for the past 25 years. He works in Jewish communities on land Israel acquired in the West Bank, employing 15-30 Palestinian laborers, and carries the gun for his protection. Now, after the attack in Jerusalem that killed four worshippers and a police officer, he plans to upgrade to a larger gun. Immediately after that attack, he said, he took out his gun and cleaned it to make sure it was ready for use.

“I want to buy a Glock because each bullet is larger, and it shoots faster,” he said. “It will give me more security if I need it.”

He’s only used the gun once. In 1992, several young Palestinians threw stones at his car as he drove through the Palestinian town of El-Bireh, damaging his car although he was not hurt. Angry, he jumped out of the car and pursued them, opening fire at their legs, although he did not hit them.

In the wake of a series of attacks that have left 11 Israelis dead over the past weeks, Israelis are lining up to get a gun licence. Those who already have licences are carrying their guns with them more often. The Israeli government has asked everyone who has a gun to carry them in public, to help reinforce Israel’s security situation, and some who would leave their guns at work, such as security guards, are urged to bring them home.

“People are nervous after recent events, and anyone who has a gun should carry it around rather than leave it at home,” Yakov Amit, the director of the gun licensing department for the Ministry of Public Security, told the Media Line. “We want as many people as possible to be able to respond to an attack.”

Amit said there are about 300,000 guns held legally in Israel – half of them by individuals such as Issachar who carry them for self-protection, and the other half by security guards at public institutions. Israelis must demonstrate a need for the gun, and pass a psychological test as well as a shooting test before they receive a licence. The licence must be renewed every three years.

In the past decade, there have been a series of incidents in which people have been killed by guns at home, either in accidents or intentionally. At least 16 women have been killed by their partners using licensed guns, since 2002, according to women’s groups. Yet, Israelis who carry guns say they make them feel safer.

“When I moved to Israel in 1976 from Memphis, Tenn., I brought two hand guns with me,” said Alon Kirschner, a physiologist. “In Tennessee, if you don’t have a gun by the time you’re 8, you’re considered a sissy.”

The Klinghoffer controversy

Even if you’re not a fan of opera, you may have heard about the worldwide dust-up over the recent staging by the New York Metropolitan Opera of The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams, an eminent American composer. (The opera closed Nov. 15.)

The opera is based on the 1985 hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, by Palestinian terrorists demanding the release of their allies from Israeli jails. Tragically, one of the passengers, a retired Jewish American named Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered and tossed overboard, along with his wheelchair.

Since its debut in 1991, the opera has aroused condemnation by some who claim that the opera merely glorifies antisemitism and Palestinian terrorism. On Oct. 20, a few hundred people protested outside the Met, led by politicians such as Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor. One Jewish leader spoke of protesting “until the set is burned to the ground.” Under censorship pressure, performances of The Death of Klinghoffer have been relatively rare since 1991, and the Met decided to cancel its usual cinecast to movie theatres.

The Klinghoffers’ daughters continue to condemn the opera, as they believe it “rationalizes, romanticizes and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father…. Terrorism cannot be rationalized. It cannot be understood.”

What’s the cause of the condemnation? The opera begins with a chorus of exiled Palestinians that acknowledges the forcible eviction of Palestinian Arabs in 1948: “Of that house not a wall was left to stand / Israel laid all to waste.” (This is followed, though, by a chorus of exiled Jews, which acknowledges Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, and the great sense of hope accompanying a return to the Holy Land.) Later, one of the hijackers briefly mouths antisemitic comments about Jews getting fat off poor people, and criticizes both British and American society: “America is one big Jew.”

However, Adams’ opera (with a libretto by Alice Goodman, who was raised a Reform Jew) has been widely hailed as a fine work of art. For example, on Oct. 21, Anthony Tommasini, the respected New York Times music reviewer, called Adams’ opera “a searching, spiritual and humane work.”

… those who consider this opera as an opinion-editorial or a speech are missing the point of a work of art that has despair, solitude and love at its core….

I am in sympathy with Tommasini. I’ve carefully watched the London Symphony Orchestra production on DVD, winner of the Prix Italia, and found the opera to be powerful, spiritual, lyric – and not a screed against Jews or Israel. There’s an attempt at balance in recalling the background of the conflict that on the whole succeeds, and a rather profound exploration of the roots of a common sense of exile, despair and misery in the Mideast. Adams himself has noted that the “situation … is much too complex to fall into one easy answer or another.” In any case, those who consider this opera as an opinion-editorial or a speech are missing the point of a work of art that has despair, solitude and love at its core – like most operas, “a song of love and death,” in the words of Peter Conrad, an opera scholar.

It seems to me there are three key points, above and beyond the obvious one that censorship of art is virtually always wrong, and is a familiar tactic of totalitarian states.

First, the opera does not romanticize or legitimize the hijackers. While there are some fleeting complexities attributed to one or two of them, which is to the credit of the work, they are portrayed as brutal, hysterical thugs on the boat – “punks” as Mrs. Klinghoffer calls them. When the ship’s captain suggests to the most articulate hijacker that he speak to his enemies of his misery, the hijacker demurs and posits death as the only outcome. Palestinian activists assault and pour acid on the face of a young Arab woman who is deemed too Western.

Certainly, the boat’s bystanders are not the mortal core. One Swiss grandmother with her grandson in tow comments with satisfaction, “At least we are not Jews.”

Actually, the moral core of the opera – the heroes, if one can use that term – is the Klinghoffers. Leon delivers a brave, outspoken speech against terrorism to one of the hijackers, condemning those who would throw gasoline around a loaded bus and burn it. His wife’s eloquent lament that ends the opera is a tribute to the love and resistance to evil of ordinary people.

Second, as with other art works, the portrayal of a character’s attitudes, declarations or motivations is not an endorsement of these. In Ulysses by James Joyce, for example, a repugnant Irish nationalist is given outrageous lines against Jews, but Joyce obviously meant these words to express his disgust with such bigotry. Joyce’s Jew Leopold Bloom rather abashedly follows with his condemnation of hate and injustice.

Third, the idea that “terrorism … cannot be understood” leaves me uneasy. For example, to analyze and to understand Nazism is not to condone or accept it. Our understanding of bigotry and evil has come a long way since the early 1960s with the thousands of works by scholars on Nazism and the Holocaust. In the words of two Holocaust scholars, “We must look into the abyss to look beyond it” (Robert Lifton); “Explaining is not excusing; understanding is not forgiving” (Christopher Browning). If people come away from the opera with insights into what Adams calls the complexities, all the better.

In the end, the opera shows us that in a sense we are all in the same boat, whether it be the Achille Lauro or a larger craft. We share a pervasive sense of isolation, exile and despair that perhaps can be mitigated by the humble love of which Mrs. Klinghoffer sings.

Goodman’s libretto includes the point that “Islamic fundamentalism flourishes in a climate of despair.” She has the captain of the ship observe the “comprehensive solitude” of the characters on the boat. “Evil grows exponentially…. Violence speaks a single long sentence inflicted and endured in hell by those who have despaired.” Given the two solitudes, sadly, there’s more than enough despair to go around among the many peoples of the Middle East.

Gene Homel teaches liberal studies at the B.C. Institute of Technology, including a course on the Holocaust. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, and has published numerous articles on history, politics and culture.