October 19, 2014
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CANADALAND
#53 Why I Hate Talking About Israel
Norman Spector is Canada's former ambassador to Israel. He was also the publisher of the Jerusalem Post. Conversations about Israel-Palestine are invariably bummers, but for Norman, Jesse makes an exception.

Episode Rundown

00:00 860 of you amazing people are keeping this show going. The Patreon

04:17 Paul’s tweet

07:03 “I’ve been talking to people about Israel my whole life and I don’t know to what end. I have never engaged in a conversation about Israel where any person has convinced the other person about anything.” Jesse

07:43 “Israel makes journalists butt-holes contract.” Jesse

11:43 “I use to walk around on foot in Gaza. I mean until you walk into a refugee camp and see the sewage, the raw sewage in the streets, you really don’t appreciate what Gaza is all about.” Spector

12:45 “Canada’s position since 1946-47 has been in favour of a two state solution. It’s as simple as that, and Hamas isn’t.” Spector Canada rolls with Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, and the United States against 165 other countries in a recent vote about the two state solution.

16:03 “I think generally journalists tend to not lead public opinion. They would prefer to see an opposition party take a position, whatever the issue.” Spector

16:40 The End of Liberal Zionism piece Jesse brings up.

17:19 “First of all I don’t really care what North American Jews think of Israel, Liberal or Conservative. It’s really beside the point.” Spector

19:07 Kishka’s sound delicious. Though I doubt it’s the type Spector is speaking about.

21:29 “If you want to do Israeli politics, go over to Israel.” Spector

21:50 “The Israeli-Palestine conflict is a very small part of what’s going on here. There’s a disproportionate amount of attention. There’s a disproportionate amount of media presence. There’s a disproportionate attention of the media to this conflict compared to other conflicts in the world.” Spector. I don’t think Mr Spector can the be judge on how to use the word of disproportionate. A Definition is in order. Disproportionate: too large or too small in comparison with something else.

24:45 “You either break down in despair like Gerald Caplan did in the Globe and Mail and say it’s never going to be resolved…Or you try maintain an optimistic perspective which is a two state solution.” Spector

28:30 New Jersey of course does not represent Israel. The article Jesse spoke about.

29:26 “This does challenge some basic notions the Jewish people everywhere have about ourselves as a moral people. To have been oppressed and to now find ourselves in the role, whether it’s our fault or not. As the permanent oppressor or at least the occupier, that is a challenge to a Jewish self.” Jesse

31:05 The song Spector brings up, Ein Li Eretz Acheret

35:00 “What do you know, that you can now tell me about what the Prime Minister can allow or disallow when it comes to CBC coverage?” Jesse

“You must know about the Terry Milewski affairt and APEC? (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Spector

“Yeah, When (Jean) Chrétien criticized Milewski’s coverage of APEC and the CBC suspended him” Jesse

“No government likes the coverage it gets, let’s just start from that proposition. And that goes for Obama and any Canadian Prime Minister, people don’t like to be criticized ok. But there’s a line where a Prime Minister office that it feels it’s gone much too far and will let it be known to the CBC. And the CBC will crack and it cracked on Milewski on APEC. They benched him. They didn’t support him, the CBC fundamentally is a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy has survival instincts.” Spector

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