The Galloway message

Editorial

Watching George Galloway Monday night was like seeing a combination of Orwell's Big Brother and a professional wrestler. The British MP, banned from entering Canada, was beamed up from New York. The bombastic and witty former Labor party rebel – now a leader of his own maverick extremist rump – goaded the Canadian government for trying to shut him up.

Barred from entering Canada for his alleged support of terrorist groups, Galloway appeared anyway, using easy-to-access technology that is taking away from Canada's federal government the ability to determine the ideas Canadians hear.

The support-for-terrorists accusation seems to be based on Galloway having led a convoy from Britain of 300 volunteers, 110 vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks, food and medical supplies, which he ceremoniously handed over to the leader of Gaza in a ritual of solidarity.

"As it happens, I am not a supporter of Hamas," Galloway said Monday night. "But I am a supporter of democracy."

Hiding behind the case that he was not cavorting with terrorists but merely dealing with the "democratically elected" government of the Palestinian people is fine, as far as it goes. But why then not the same see-no-evil deference to the democratically elected government of the Canadian people that prevented him from coming to Canada? Why not the same resigned acceptance that the democratically elected powers have spoken?

The great benefactor of the Palestinians outlined the riches he and his entourage brought to Gaza, then disingenuously and rhetorically asked: "Does that sound like aiding and abetting terrorism to you?"

Well, responsible humanitarians would make sure such resources were reaching the people for whom the donors intended the gifts. During the Gaza operation, Hamas was stealing medical supplies intended for civilians and diverting them for exclusive use in treating their own injured terrorists and their use of ambulances as cover for terrorist operations is incontrovertibly evident to anyone with access to Google. So, yes, that does sound like aiding and abetting terrorism to us.

Galloway's surprisingly affable style hides the horror of his positions. His repeated use of variations on the phrase "Zionist occupational government" pays homage to the neo-Nazi and white supremacist liturgy and Galloway, who reminded the audience that he has served 23 years in Parliament and been elected five times, knows exactly the fire with which he is playing.

Galloway is an example of the emerging European phenomenon of the left meeting the far right in common cause on issues particularly of foreign policy – often those involving Jews.

On Monday, Quisling Jews were trotted out, as they increasingly are, by anti-Israel extremists. Galloway repeatedly referenced the Jewish women and men who support his cause, relying on the ancient defence that proximity to even self-loathing Jews is an inoculation against anti-Jewish prejudice. And before the screening of Galloway's speech by the anti-Israel crowd at the University of British Columbia, the long-winded local activist Mordechai Briemberg ensured the audience that "Jews have nothing special to do with this issue" – as if the ancient Jewish longing for our homeland is somehow extricable from modern Zionism – and assured those in the audience who might be having a twinge of self-doubt about the fanatical certainties being expressed that, "it is not a complex issue": it is a simple case of Zionism imperialism oppressing an indigenous population.

Oh, and despite the proliferation of online and print media technology that gives any and every semi-literate the ability to gain worldwide audiences for their own blogs, zines, newspapers and choppy films, Zionists, in their view, still manage to control the media and the very thought processes of the guileless and vulnerable unwashed. My but we're a powerful little tribe.

"We are faced in Canada with a new movement of McCarthyism, with Zionist McCarthyism," warned Briemberg.

But the Zionists' supposed control of the media and who can cross the border offends Galloway only in practice, not in principle. He is not opposed to stifling free expression. He opposed French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen's entry to the United Kingdom a few years back. Galloway noted that he does not believe in absolute free speech and sees reason to prevent categories of people from expressing themselves. "But I do not fall into that category," he said, apparently oblivious to the ironies and pitfalls of his position. The problem with censorship, in the end, is that it's always other people who do not deserve to be heard.

Even ideas as contradictory and immoral as these deserve airing, if only so they can be effectively refuted. By making Galloway a cause célèbre, the government of Canada ensured, as Galloway triumphantly pointed out, that the largest audience possible now knows who George Galloway is. On the positive side, we also better understand his toxic ideas.

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