"Even the cross . . . was a judgment seat. For the Judge was set up in the middle with the thief who believed and was pardoned on the one side and the thief who mocked and was damned on the other. Already then he signified what he would do with the living and the dead: some he will place on his right hand, others on his left."
- St. Augustine (Tractates on the Gospel of John 31:11) "For as the Son was judged as a man, he shall also judge in human form." - St. Augustine (City of God, 20.30)
The long arm of anti-Semitism now extends even to You Tube. Lawrence Soloman at The National Postexplains:
YouTube has censored “We con the world,” a parody that mocks the portrayal of the Free Gaza Flotilla as a humanitarian mission. The parody, which went viral, logging three million views in less than a week and has Russian, French, Portuguese, Hebrew and English versions, is a take-off of “We are the world,” the 1985 pop single produced in aid of humanitarian relief for Africa.
YouTube’s reason for shutting down the video sensation?: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc,“ YouTube tells those who try to access the parody.
This claim by YouTube is itself a con. As YouTube well knows, parodies are not subject to a copyright claim. To add to the absurdity of YouTube’s claim, YouTube carries numerous other parodies of “We are the world,” – a search on the YouTube site of “We are the world spoof” turns up 5,100 results.
YouTube’s real problem with this viral hit is the virus of anti-Semitism. “We con the world,” which portrays terrorists on the Gaza flotilla’s ship, the MV Mavi Marmara, explaining how they’ll con the world, hits too close to home for many Hamas sympathizers, who mounted a successful campaign to cow YouTube.
Is this the first time anti-Israel politics have gotten to YouTube? Sadly, no.
This isn’t the first time that YouTube succumbed to pressure from terrorist sympathizers. In 2008, YouTube yanked footage showing the conduct of the Israeli Defense Forces during its invasion of Gaza, which also didn’t fit the storyline of Hamas sympathisers.
But the pro-Israel forces are fighting back against the attempted demonizing of Israel by the Leftist-Islamofascist axis. Today Prime Minister Stephen Harper turned up the heat on Hamas-sympathizer Libby Davies:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper stepped up the pressure on the NDP’s Libby Davies to resign her position as her party’s deputy leader on Wednesday, accusing her of making “extremist” statements about Israel that were similar to the language used by terrorist organizations.
“The deputy leader of the NDP knew full well what she was saying,” Mr. Harper said during the daily question period in the House of Commons. “She made statements that could have been made by Hamas, Hezbollah or anybody else with no repercussions from that party whatsoever.”
It is high time that the anti-Israel Leftists in Parliament were held accountable for their support for a genocidal death cult that is in the process of trying to destroy Israel and Western civilization. They deserve a lot worse than what they got today. They are the ones whose extreme and violent views deserve to have no audience.
Libby Davies, MP for Vancouver East and Deputy Leader of Canada's officially socialist New Democratic Party, was caught on tape stating that Israel's occupation is the longest in the world, dating back to 1948. So she was saying that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state in the Middle East. Here is the YouTube video:
So now Canada has its very own Helen Thomas. Davies looks a bit like a deer caught in the headlights in this video, perhaps because she usually inhabits the echo chamber of the Left and has no idea how to defend her extremism when quizzed by someone skeptical of her liberal orthodoxy.
A firestorm ensured, which is at least something. The Ottawa Citizen ran an editorial criticizing her entitled "Haters' Test" and Prime Minister Harper has called on Jack Layton, the NDP leader, to fire Davies. Davies posted this defensive, ostensible "apology" on her website entitled "Libby's response to inflammatory editorial":
I am writing in response to your June 11 editorial which refers to a video of me recorded last Saturday, and posted online (Hater's, Ottawa Citizen, June 11, 2010).
My reference to the year 1948 as the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was a serious and completely inadvertent error; I apologize for this and regret any confusion it has caused.
I have always supported a two-state solution to the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have never questioned Israel's right to exist and the Palestinian’s right to a viable state.
New Democrats have long called for a peaceful, negotiated end to the conflict where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side with secure borders. This is a policy I fully support.
I reject the allegation that I hate Israel, and I reject the assertion that I said that Israel is illegitimate or an abomination. Neither are true.
I wish to express my sympathy and outrage for the families and friends of those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the horrendous attack today by Israeli Defence Forces against the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
This deadly assault on peace activists, who only wanted the people of Gaza to receive the basic necessities of life, is shocking and unconscionable and demands an immediate investigation and response by the International Community. The illegal siege on Gaza, now in its 3rd year, must be ended.
The Government of Canada must speak out and make it clear that Canada condemns all such actions against innocent people who are peace activists. The hundreds of participants in the Freedom Flotilla who have now been detained by Israel must be released.
As someone who has visited Gaza twice, mostly recently in August 2009, I have witnessed first-hand the devastation of the siege on Gaza and its 1.6 million inhabitants.
Like Rachael Corrie and other internationals who have given their life for peace and justice for Palestinians, we honour their life’s work and will continue to work for peace and justice in the Middle East.
She expects Israel to let Iranian ships dock in Gaza and unload anything they want, knowing full well that what they want to unload is deadly rockets to fire at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities - rockets that would maim and kill thousands of civilians. How do we know this? Because Hamas is committed to destroying the State of Israel and has attacked before. If the Gaza blockade is lifted, the result will be war and the people of Gaza will suffer far more than they are suffering now. The blockade is not preventing aid from reaching Gaza - only weapons. The blockade actually is in the best interests of the people of Gaza and if Libby Davies were really concerned for peace or for the ordinary people of Gaza and Israel then she would not be supporting Iran and Hamas against Israel on this issue.
So when a committed, long-term Hamas supporter inadvertently allows the mask to slip and says on tape that she is really against the existence of the Jewish state itself and then quickly reverses field and claims that the opposite is true, we are left with the dilemma of deciding which time she was lying. Logically, she was either saying the opposite of what she meant on tape or she was lying in her "apology." But her track record and her actions make it more likely that her apology is not the full truth.
She should be fired not because she made a slip of the tongue, but because her whole attitude toward Israel is consistent with that slip. Supporting Hamas itself should be good enough reason for her to be fired. Such a person does not deserve to be in the House of Commons. I hope the people of Vancouver East will send her into retirement with Helen Thomas at the earliest opportunity.
He summed up the thought of the Church Fathers and is revered by Catholics and Protestants alike.
The Goal of This Blog
Having been influenced over the past two decades primarily by Karl Barth and John Howard Yoder, I have recently been reading St. Augustine, Dostoevesky, Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. I am trying to be a catholic Evangelical and am finding myself becoming more conservative in both politics and theology in the process.
As I re-launch this blog, the goal is to "think out loud" about what it means to be faithful to Jesus Christ in the midst of the culture of death that is so prevalent in the modern West.
In particular, I want to think about the relationship of the thought of St. Augustine and that of John Howard Yoder. Yoder has been influential on my thinking for over 15 years, but I have become convinced that in order to critique modernity effectively we must go back to the pre-modern giants of the Faith and recover Augustinian - Thomistic classical orthodoxy. If we do that, do we have to abandon Yoder's theology? Is Yoder determined by modernity, despite his best intentions? Or do St. Augustine and Yoder have much more in common than one might think?
I teach theology and ethics at Tyndale University College in Toronto and I serve part-time as "Theologian in Residence" at Westney Heights Baptist Church. I firmly believe that theology is done from and for the Church and is for the people of God, not for an academic elite alone.
In 2001 I published "The Politics of the Cross: The Theology and Social Ethics of John Howard Yoder" and in 2005 I published: "Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective." I am currently at work on a book on the doctrine of God with a (new) working title: "The Triune God and the Acids of Modernity."
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