Europe, Canada and US,

The McGill Daily reported a serious problem. “White tears” have increased sharply on campus "by 40% just in September this year". It's not tears from tear gas or shootings, as happens every day in the occupied territories, the result of routine Israeli acts of terrorism. No, heaven forbid. It is the tears of anti-BDS students who complaint about BDS activists, who see red when they see kippah wearing students with pro-Israel, anti-BDS buttons and posters.

It's a satire. An effective one. Good on you, Phlar Daboub. It hit home.

The anti-BDS activists are in a tizzy. Political science student Jordan Devon, the former president of Israel on Campus, said the satire mocks students who opposed BDS.“Our concerns about anti-Semitism are real,” he said. “This says that Jewish concerns are a joke. Yet Jews are the No. 1 victims of hate crimes in North America.”

Boo, hoo. Someone calling you names? Wake up, Jordan. Jews have never had it so good. Canada embraces Jews, they are at the top of the pecking order. They/you get spurious legislation supporting Israel passed in the twinkling of an eye. Grow up. This is not high school. Learn how to behave in public and you will not be called names.

Jordan quotes a 2015 Brandeis survey that shows 'alarmingly' that:

Q: Some political figures in Britain like Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Sajid Javid or Mayor of London Sadiq Khan have come into the top levels of  British government. These officials are Muslim but they are actually staunch supporters of Israel. What is your assessment of this?

We must be careful not to lump all such public figures into one heap. Sajid Javid refers only to his "Muslim heritage" and denies any religious affiliation now. So he is perfect for the British government. A nice Muslim-sounding name with no strings attached. He is a life-long conservative, was a big supporter of Margaret Thatcher, and is a banker to boot.

At a 'Conservative Friends of Israel' lunch in 2012, the Jewish Chronicle reported Javid as stating that "if he had to leave Britain to live in the Middle East, then he would choose Israel as home. Only there, he said, would his children feel the 'warm  embrace of freedom and liberty'". He will have a 'warm embrace' in hell when he meets his Maker.

In our last chapter on the reign of the Trudeau dynasty, we saw Trudeau jr at what may prove to be his high point, a coveted state visit to Washington, feted by Americans besotted with royalty, a warmed over 1970s Trudeaumania. No substance, but lots of pretty selfies and photo ops of North America’s ‘bromance’.


Syrian scam I


But already worrying signs are surfacing. Even as Obama addressed Canada’s parliament last month, another prominent America, ‘gay international’ activist Scott Long, told Torontonians about his nightmare three years in Egypt,

What looked to be a new window of detente between the US and Iran, following the signing of  the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program has quickly turned opaque. A US decree was issued to seize $2 billion in assets belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), holding Iran financially responsible for the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines at their barracks in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The funds in question have been blocked since the civilian trial in the bombing began in 2011, but awaited the final legal touch to bless the blatant theft. This came when the US Supreme Court recently upheld the Congress bill, with the approval of President Barack Obama.

This is truly alarming. It clearly is part of a tactic of goading Iran, pushing it in an attempt to bring Iran to heel. Either that or to undermine the deal. Perhaps Obama has had second thoughts about the deal.

Timeline long and tortuous

The sale of weaponized Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia has raised a heated debate in Canada, pitting so-called realists against people who expect trade to be conducted according to a minimum set of moral values. Outgoing Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's swan song was the $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which Harper boasted would provide 3,000 jobs.

A poll by Nanos Research showed that 60% of Canadians feel it is important to ensure arms go only to countries “that respect human rights” vs providing jobs to a few Canadians. The same poll showed that 86% hold a negative or somewhat negative view of Saudi Arabia. 

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Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and Cambridge in economics, he has been writing on East-West relations since the 1980s.

He has lived in both the Soviet Union and Russia, and then Uzbekistan, as a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer. Presently a writer for the foremost Cairo newspaper, Al Ahram, he is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Al-Jazeerah and Turkish Weekly, and is a commentator on Voice of the Cape radio.

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Eric's latest book The Canada Israel Nexus is available here http://www.claritypress.com/WalbergIV.html