Vancouver, Blue River Restaurant, and a McGill's Sociologist bizarre theory on Israel and anti-Semitism: CBC is so superior to all US media. It with pain that I am forced while traveling to consume an amount of US TV news that is not good for my health. While in the US, I only get exposed to it while driving (through satellite radio). I watched Christiane Amanpour do some "reporting" from Iraq this morning. Does this really pass as "foreign news reporting"? It is celebrity reporting, without a doubt. It would not be much different if you send Mariah Carey or Orlando Bloom to cover Iraq, and probably Carey would be better informed. When Amanpour is reporting, SHE is the story; the foreign country, the people, the "elections" are mere props for her to walk before the camera and offer the most vapid observations about foreign policy that never deviate from the narrow parameters of the Democratic-Republican divide. A divide that is much less of a divide if you look at it from outside (geographically and ideologically speaking). And the persons in Iraq who were interviewed before the CNN camera had the same realness and authenticity to their voices as White House-managed photo ops' characters. Those Iraqis who speak to CNN (mostly in English but some in Israeli-translated Arabic) are Iraqis that I rarely see on Arab media. I realized today that even the pro-US/pro-Saudi Al-Arabiyya, which I regularly criticize, cover the story much better. Perhaps because they don't rely on Amanpour, and their correspondents do roam the streets freely, and without the usual bevy that accompanies US correspondents (US forces, cooks, chefs, cleaners, potato slicers, body trainers, interpreters, editors, carpenters, etc). And why have elections in Iraq? Why the expense? Just ask Grand (not really) Ayatollah Sistani. His verdict always (miraculously) matches the popular vote. When Sistani says "yes" it is a national yes, and when he says "no" it is a national no. So from now on I propose that elections in Iraq are managed as follows: you send one person (accompanied by a UN observer so that Annan can do what he does best, provide the legitimacy and cover to obscure the US moral pudendum) and on national TV, that person would ask Sistani: "Is it a yes or a no, o great Ayatollah Sistani?" Don't you think that it would be equal and much cheaper than those costly and gimmicky election rituals? And do you notice how many of those rituals the US likes to hold (every few months) to give an image of a "process" as if the US knows what it is doing, and in order to give the American public an image of democratic fruits in Iraq. Unfortunately, it works. For some reason, the American public is always impressed when it sees the Iraqi genetic ability to dip the index finger in ink. They never knew that. Americans never knew that Iraqis can on their own dip their fingers in ink. It is way too complex a process for the Iraqi people, assume many Americans. Some fingers I saw today looked like it was dipped in blueberry juice, but who cares. As long as Bush can have images to lift up his sagging political fortunes. I then stumbled across a sociologist from McGill University on a program called "Israel Today" (not to be confused with another show called "Israel last Thursday"). The guy was basically making that silly point about criticism of Israel amounting to anti-Semitism. His argument was so weak, and so did not impress his host, that he introduced a new element to that charge. He argued that any attention to Israel (beyond a certain level approved by him presumably) would be anti-Semitic. Of course, he was not being sincere: because when US and Western press gave the most fawning and favorable coverage to Israel after its creation--read destruction of Palestine--nobody complained. None of the Zionist advocates complained about too much attention to Israel. It is only the negative coverage that displeases him--so it the quality of coverage, and not the quantity that really bothers him. But what bothered me about the esteemed professor was his weak or non-existent logic. He so badly needed an Elementary Logic course. I mean if I decide to devote my life to human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, I would be accused of Anti-Arabism, or anti-Islamism? It must be that, as he is saying that if you devote "more attention than permitted" to Israel, you are then anti-Semitic. But look at it differently. ADL and other Zionist organizations also devote way too much attention to developments in Israel, much more than they do to any other country, but that would not be considered anti-Semitic by the criterion of the sociologist in need of logic training. I said it before, and I say it again: one's position on Israel does not determine whether one is anti-Semitic or not. You can be pro-Zionist AND anti-Semitic, and that applies (in my opinion--and to the opinion of a stranger who is sitting next to me in this internet cafe on Main St--to many Christian fundamentalist groups in US whose views on biblical prophecy are indeed anti-Semitic. You can say that the pro-Zionist policies and actions of Great Britain after WWI (including as we now know well of Lord Balfour) were motivated by anti-Semitism. Yet, you can be opposed to the very idea of Israel or to the idea of Israel IN Palestine (as Maxime Rodinson once said that he is not opposed to a Jewish state on the moon, and by that he means that some people may be opposed to a Jewish state "in that place" but not necessarily in any place anywhere) or the idea of a Jewish state in general as some Orthodox Jewish sects do, without being anti-Semitic. Of course, you can be opposed, as I am, to any state with a religious label, especially if its founding had displaced another volk, as Israel has. Zionist can't deny that fact, and that is why they had to subscribe to the notion of the inferiority of "the other" and that explains Golda Meir's remarks about the "non-existence" of the Palestinians. She meant their non-existence as "superior us." This is not to say that some opponents of Israel are not also anti-Semitic, like neo-Nazis and others. But not all opponents of Israel are. You have to find out and study 1) discourse; 2) motives. The esteemed professor introduced "consequence" as a factor, meaning that if one's views resulted in too much attention to Israel then it is anti-Semitic. Let me say this in conclusion: it does not bother me in the least that pro-Zionist propaganda has gotten to be much more stupid, much more crude, much more illogical, much more ignorant, much more bereft of facts and evidence, than any other time in Zionist history. In fact, I like that, perhaps because I know that among world public opinion support for Israel exceeds that of the Palestinians only in US, Israel (and Russia recently). Keep this quality of propaganda and in few years Israel would become popular only in Israel. The dishes at the Blue River restaurant in Vancouver are just great. They reminded me of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, only better and less pretentious.