Off and on, I have run either editorial comment or excerpts from Joe Farah's website www.WorldNetDaily.com Farah always projected himself as a genuine conservative and a journalist of the Old School.
In past years while I still lived in Central California, working as a freelance writer, Farah was the Executive Editor of the staunchly conservative Sacramento Union, a venerable paper which, nonetheless, went under on his watch in competition with the liberal Sacramento Bee.
The press around Farah was always complimentary, and when I learned four or five years ago that he had established an ostensibly independent website that quickly became extremely popular, I was glad and had a bit of a feeling that I had encountered somewhat of a casual old friend.
This feeling was even more reinforced when I saw a tape where Farah talked about three years' worth of harassment by the taxation bureaucrats that almost sunk his business and which prevented him from devoting his time to his Internet work.
Thus I believed him to be squarely on the conservative, traditional side and was only mildly disturbed when I saw that he linked prominently to columnists I consider destructive to Western civilization - as though they were his own. I thought at the time that he did it to increase the cyber traffic on his website.
About two or three years ago, one of his reporters, Sarah Foster, interviewed me. We had a long and entirely congenial telephone chat, and she promised to do a fair article. The topic was Freedom of Speech, in part related to my cancellation as a lecturer at Trinity College in Vermont due to pressure by some shrill Jewish students who took objection to the Zundelsite.
I never saw that article. I left some messages, but apparently it never ran.
I told myself the "Holocaust" was Farah's proverbial blind spot - or, perhaps, feigned nonchalance for tactical reasons. Until I saw the Farah article "Myths of the Middle East" - which was entirely pro-Israel, coming at the height of Israeli repression against their Palestinian minority.
Farah describes himself as an "Arab American" - but you would never know it from that article!
Below is a very recent Farah follow-up article to "Myths of the Middle East", replete with Zundelsite comments:
Farah:
I know. I know. You don't want to read anything that's not election related.
"Why is Farah wasting our time writing about academic freedom in Canada, of all things," you're wondering.
Just give me a few moments. I promise you it will be worth your time.
A Jewish student group, the Hillel organization at Concordia University in Montreal recently displayed one of my recent columns, "Myths of the Middle East," at its information table.
Zundelsite:
Hillel students are to the campuses what the Jewish Defense League is to the streets when it comes to promoting Jewish causes. That article must have entirely pleased them!
Farah:
The reaction to the mere appearance of this column in the university setting created a shock wave not unlike the one that hit the nation of Israel the day it was reprinted in the Jerusalem Post. The publisher of the Post told me: "Your column turned this country upside down." It was the talk on every radio and television program. Hundreds of calls came into the newspaper in response. I received more than 15,000 e-mails from the tiny nation of Israel alone!
Zundelsite:
Little wonder! Coming from an alleged Arab-American who bolstered Israel's cause at a time when Israel was just about universally criticized for its brutal treatment of the Palestinians must have seemed like manna from heaven for the beleaguered Israelis. That praise for Farah was as predictable as the "amen" at the end of a prayer!
Farah:
While the reaction of Israel to the column was overwhelmingly positive, Hillel and the Concordia campus are still reeling from the after-effects.
A few days after the column was displayed on a literature table, the Concordia University Student Union passed a resolution accusing Hillel of spreading material that was "racially, ethnically and religiously discriminating" for the mere dissemination of my article.
Zundelsite:
Looks like all those Moslems at Concordia finally got their act together - for once! Mr. Farah got a little taste of the blessings of multi-culturalism in Canada.
Farah:
Now, following that victory, the Concordia Student Union is preparing today to pass a resolution calling on Israel to respect U.N. resolution 242 and for Canada to cut diplomatic and economic ties with the Jewish state.
Zundelsite:
The whole world has implored Israel for decades to respect that UN resolution, along with many others. Did Israel care? Of course not! Saddam was bombed for less, and sanctions were applied for a decade!
Farah:
Meanwhile, I'm told by observers on the scene, no objections are raised about Arab and Muslim groups on campus continuously and systematically disseminating inflammatory information against Israel, Israelis and Jews.
Zundelsite:
You wonder who Mr. Farah's "observers" might be! If anything inflammatory would have been displayed by anyone on any Canadian campus, you can bet B'nai Brith would sic the Hate Police on them faster than they could say Allah-help-us!
Farah:
"This disturbing atmosphere at Concordia is not new," one of those observers tells me. "It went on when I studied there in the early '90s. I remember attending an 'Arab Cultural Week' exposition that left me shocked with what I saw. Being a descendant of parents coming from Arab countries ... I thought I would see the beautiful Arab culture on display. Perhaps I would see, I thought, belly dancers, or taste the various delectable foods of the region that I love so much, or hear the melodies of North African and Middle Eastern music that I cannot get enough of. Instead, I saw the display of anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda. All the material there (mostly books and photos) contained content that was vicious and entirely distorted. There was no couscous, no hummus, no falafels. There was no music from the revered Egyptian singer Um Kaltum or other well-known Arab artists. There was no display of traditional Arab wardrobes. The only culture on display was one of hate for Israel, as if that was what Arab culture was all about."
Zundelsite:
That part of Farah's article is so transparently self-serving and oozing in just the right words, one wonder who concocted it for Farah.
Farah:
That was a few years ago. Ruth Klein, the national director of the Institute for International Affairs of B'nai Brith of Canada, provides some insight into what the campus culture is like today.
"This move (against Hillel) is all the more ironic given the inflammatory anti-Israel propaganda that is being disseminated at Concordia and the ongoing taunting and harassment of Jewish students."
Zundelsite:
Taunting and harassment of Jewish students at Concordia or any other Canadian university would result in instant police action, arrest and prosecution for "hate crimes" in Canada. Ruth Klein, typical for most B'nai Brith spokespeople, engages in hyperbole. Farah peddles it uncritically.
Farah:
Excuse me, but I thought the university was supposed to be a place where the right to free expression in all its forms was tested. Whatever happened to academic freedom?
Zundelsite:
Well now! The shoe is on the other foot? Now that Israel is on the hot seat, academic freedom is trotted out?
Where was Mr. Farah and Hillel when Revisionist historian David Irving was intimidated by Canadian Jewish students in Ottawa in the early 1990s? Where was academic freedom as a journalistic cause when Ingrid Rimland's lecture was canceled on less than a 24-hour notice?
Farah:
Worse yet, in this case, what was condemned and stifled was an opinion piece written by an Arab-American journalist attempting to correct what I see as fundamental misunderstandings and misinformation involved in the Middle East peace process. It was a column reprinted in newspapers and magazines all over the world, translated into a dozen languages and widely available to anyone anywhere right here on the Internet. It has been debated on television and radio in the States and abroad.
Zundelsite:
Had the article even been slightly critical of Israel's actions or, at the very least, balanced, it would have been suppressed or given the silent treatment.
If Farah is, indeed, an "Arab-American" and not what they call in intelligence jargon an "activated journalistic sleeper agent", he has just found his niche.
Israel can certainly use the likes of such eager beaver "Arab-Americans" just now.
Farah:
It seems to me that by labeling a column written by an Arab-American "racially, ethnically and religiously discriminating" against, presumably, Arabs that the know-nothing student crusaders at Concordia have fallen into the deathtrap of political correctness.
If the facts of the Middle East cannot even be discussed rationally and intelligently on an otherwise peaceful university campus thousands of miles from Jerusalem, is it safe to have civil discourse on this subject anywhere?
Zundelsite:
Indeed. And what is this? Clap-trap? Cheap rhetoric? Might Mr. Farah be persuaded to testify in Zundel hearings about the need to be able to speak freely in a country where freedom of speech is proclaimed but suppressed?
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Thought for the Day:
"In revolutionary times the rich are always the people who are most afraid."
(Gerald White Johnson in "American Freedom and the Press")