Sword of Allah cuts both ways

Sword of Allah cuts both ways
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Dear Israeli Apartheid Week enthusiasts:
Greetings and congratulations on your ongoing fifth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, which I understand began at the University of Toronto in 2005 and has now spread to 40 universities around the world.

While I don't agree with your mindlessly simplistic likening of Israel to apartheid South Africa in its treatment of the Palestinians -- just as I would never describe the Palestinians as terrorists because that would be wrong and inhuman -- I also believe in free speech.

That's why I'm not calling for your event to be cancelled, or to have your posters depicting Israeli gunships swooping down on Palestinian children in Gaza taken down. That said, since the Sword of Allah cuts both ways, so to speak, I will be urging my alma mater to accommodate the following on-campus events next year at this time.
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Darfur Destruction Week: An examination of the slaughter in Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children have been forced from their homes, starved, tortured, raped and murdered in the world's worst ongoing human rights disaster and old, familiar pastime -- Muslims killing other Muslims.
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Iranian Intelligence Week: An exploration of the comedic stylings of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who unforgettably told a Columbia University audience in 2007 that Iran has no gays or lesbians. To wit: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country ... I don't know who has told you we have that."
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Syrian Bulldozer Week: A retrospective on the savage attack on the city of Hama by the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Hassad, during which thousands of innocent civilians died while Syrian forces mercilessly crushed a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. Particular attention will be paid to the bulldozing of the rubble, apparently the Syrian idea of "urban renewal."
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Hamas Hitler Week: A study and discussion of the similarities between the philosophies of Hamas and Hitler, drawing on the Hamas Charter and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. A special seminar will be devoted to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's support of Hitler and the Nazis during the Second World War.
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Pakistani Honour Killing Week: Examining the ... uh ... intellectual basis behind "honour killings" in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, described by Amnesty International thusly: "Women in Pakistan live in fear. They face death by shooting, burning or killing with axes if they are deemed to have brought shame on the family ... They are even murdered by their kin if they are raped, as they are thereby deemed to have brought shame on their family."
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Saudi Arabian Suicide Week: A study of the role played by Saudi Arabia in funding and exporting radical Islamist Wahhabi theology throughout the world, while many among its oil-rich ruling class would be the first to be beheaded for their decadent lifestyles, should Islamists ever seize power.
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Anyway, those are just some of the events I'm working on for next year. And not to worry. I doubt any of them will steal your thunder. Heck, you can just blame them all on the Jews ... oops ... I mean "on Israel" anyway, eh?

Shalom,
Lorrie Goldstein
lorrie.goldstein@sunmedia.ca