Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Sure it is. I don't think it deserves immediate disqualification from candidacy but it's pretty extreme. Here's the quote:
“One could argue that Israel’s intention was always to ethnically cleanse the region — there are direct quotations proving this to be the case. Guess we just sweep that under the rug. A minority of Palestinians are bombing buses in response to what appears to be a calculated effort to commit a war crime.”
I don't think it's at all fair to say that Israel was attempting to ethnically cleanse a region and I'm totally unaware of any such quotations. It also implicitly justifies bombing that deliberately targets civilians. I think it's absolutely fair to say this guy is completely out to lunch.
That being said, anyone who refers to these sorts of comments as "anti-Semitic" is an idiot and frankly should be prevented from participating in discussions on this topic henceforth.
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Controversial, but not really extreme, and very little isn't controversial in discussing Israel and the Palestinians. Ilan Pappe, who is well-regarded as a leading historian on the region, has
a whole book just on the topic of Israel's intent to ethnically cleanse the region. This alone shows that Wheeldon's statement that “
One could argue that Israel’s intention was always to ethnically cleanse the region — there are direct quotations proving this to be the case." is true.
Anyways, I really don't want to derail this thread into another discussion of Israel and Palestine, so I'm happy to leave it at that and for other discussion to take place by pm or in another thread. My main interest in posting what I did was to comment on Canadian political environment rather than to take sides on Israel and Palestine.