ok, I've been told that for a blog to be a blog it should be updated every week. That's not going to happen just yet, but I was motivated this past weekend to keep it going. Seems like I'll be making an entry twice a year or so.

I saw something a few days ago which infuriated me and took me by surprise. As I left work I noticed a protest outside of the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth where Colin Powell was addressing the Jewish National Fund. The protesters were wearing Lebanese flags and accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid. As the protesters started jeering at the second-floor windows, I looked up to see an older distinguished-looking man enjoying hors d'oeuvres and sipping wine while popping the finger at the crowd.

There were two women next to me who stopped by to see what was going on, and couldn't believe the audacity of the stranger in the window, who was by that time accompanied by two women waving like beauty queens. I was shocked by the man's lack of respect for the protesters and decided to stick around to lend my support and learn a bit more about their plight. I picked up a flyer entitled "Israeli aggression is the heart of the problem" from a man wearing a Palestinian flag, and was informed of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinans which Israel massacred before stealing their land mid-century...

okay, so I'm a skeptic when it comes to propaganda, but I entertained the thought while I was there. In the recent Isreali-Lebanese conflict my heart was with the Lebanese civilans who were caught between the militant Hezbollah and the fed-up Israeli government in the midst of their own impotent government.

This is where my eyes were opened and my mind blown...

As I stood there thinking about how the Lebanese could eventually benefit from a weakened Hezbollah (thanks to Isreal's efforts), I was shocked to realize that the yellow and green flags that some men were waving were actually the flags of Hezbollah, and the innocent-looking women starting joining in a chorus of hate "down, down Israel. down, down, USA"

First of all, why were the people who were protesting racist policies and ethnic cleansing now calling for the downfall of entire nations? To me this is either hypocrisy or idiocy...

Second, how can these Canadian citizens so proudly support the terrorist organization which clearly (in the western eye) has caused Lebanon so much damage through intolerance, violence and hatred?

I wanted to shake some sense into these people, but knew that their vision of the world was as sensible and valuable to them as mine was to me, and this terrified me. It's comforting for us to think that in the end--once the facts have been presented--that everyone will come to see that our point of view was the best. I guess that's where the real problem lies.