Now here's an intriguing one. A Malaysian politician has issued a thinly veiled threat of mob violence against that country's Chinese minority by warning them not to become like American Jews.

Reports the Associated Press:

Ahmad Ismail, a district chief in the United Malays National Organization ruling party, claimed that the Malay majority was losing patience with minorities, particularly ethnic Chinese politicians.

"I urge the Chinese not to become like the Jewish in America, where it is not enough that they control the economy, but they also want to dominate politics," Ahmad told a news conference late Monday in northern Penang state.

"Consider this a warning from the Malays," Ahmad said. "The patience of the Malays has a limit. Do not push us against the wall, for we will be forced to turn back and push the Chinese for our own survival."

Ahmad is facing an as yet unspecified punishment for these blood-curdling remarks. But this is not the first time that the Chinese minority has been threatened by a leading politician. And it is not the first time that the...More >>

Canada's Carpenters' Union has just passed a motion at its annual conference condemning boycotts of Israel.

As Ucall Powell, President of the Carpenters' District Council of Ontario says,

Unlike many neighbouring countries, Israel has an active trade union movement that participates freely in Israeli society. Supporting a boycott or sanctions against Israel risks reinforcing terrorist groups and does little to encourage the wellbeing of workers in the region.

Exactly. Read the rest here. A pity not all unions are as sharp as the Canadian carpenters.

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Another day, another set of histrionics from Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Tony Blair and activist with the "Free Gaza" movement - a group which, despite its name, is careful not to make any criticisms of Hamas.

After talking darkly about the dangers posed by the IDF in making the journey to Gaza by boat, the shipmates made it into the Hamas-controlled Strip without so much as a boat search, much less a torpedo. Most of the activists left last week; Booth and a few others stayed on, apparently to do "human rights work." This did not include any declarations of solidarity with those striking Gaza teachers facing a Hamas purge.

Now she's complaining that she can't leave Gaza (check this aptly-entitled post on Fresno Zionism). The Israelis won't let her in via the Erez crossing. The Egyptians won't let her in via the Rafah crossing.

Hold on! The Egyptians? But isn't Gaza totally blockaded by Israel?? No surprises for guessing how Booth gets around this conundrum: the Egyptians aren't letting her through because of Israeli pressure.

As for...More >>

Hot on the heels of the Jenna Delich affair, yet more leaks from the UCU's activist list have made it into the blogosphere, allowing those of us who are not members to gasp and marvel at the increasingly bizarre state of debate inside the UK's academic union.

Modernity carries a detailed article about the remarks of one Keith Hammond of the University of Glasgow. Here's a taste:

• Nazi analogies - "The conditions in the Aida camp square with the conditions of the Warsaw ghetto."
• Israel as an inculcator of evil from cradle to grave - "The whole Israeli education system - from nursery to university - is embedded in the Israeli obsession with war as some sort of ‘defence’ against who knows what … The minute I tried to probe the fears of the Israelis I met the conversation moved into something that I can only describe as a dreadful mix of possibly real and totally unreal anxieties about Europe in the past, Biblical history, contemporary Judaism, work, land and the American dream … These conversations were a gush of insecure and often irrational
...More >>