Pity Manuel Zelaya. Not only has the leftist been turfed from Honduras's presidency, he is now apparently being hunted down by futuristic Jewish commandos.
Zelaya was thrown out of Honduras on June 28, after he tried to hold an illegal referendum. In recent days, he snuck back in, and promptly holed up in the Brazilian embassy. This is where the sinister Semites come in: According to Zelaya, his cramped quarters are under siege from "Israeli mercenaries" armed with what a Miami Herald interviewer describes as "high-frequency radiation" and "toxic gases" that "alter [Zelaya's] physical and mental state."
For their part, Israeli government sources in Miami "could not confirm" the presence of Zionist agents. But I'd say Zelaya's claim is credible: From Tegucigalpa to Toronto, there's no doubt that a lurid obsession with Israeli villainy has altered the "mental state" of many a socialist.
Indeed, this toxic obsession -- let us call it Zelayonism -- has become the leading form of psychosis on the left side of the political spectrum.
Your typical Zelayonist typically appears normal on the surface. He has a job and friends. But let the subject of Israel come up, even glancingly, and he begins babbling uncontrollably. Symptoms include softness of the brain, bizarre conspiracy theories and a vulnerability to ancient prejudices of a...more creepy variety.
I'm not equating Zelayonism with racism, mind you. But sometimes, it comes close.
Sid Ryan of CUPE fame is a Zelayonist. So are the leaders of the United Church. Another leading Canadian Zelayonist is Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star. A few months back, her own newspaper censured her in print for inappropriate remarks about the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Now, she's at it again, targeting MP Irwin Cotler -- husband to an Israeli woman, and the proud father of a daughter who happens to have served in the Israeli army two decades ago (and is now a mother of four living in Montreal). Harkening back to the McCarthy-era types who demanded "loyalty tests" of Jews and Catholics, Zerbisias used her Twitter account this week to tell her 2,000-plus followers: "MP Irwin Cotler's children join IDF [link to video of Cotler speaking] Which country are you loyal to, sir?"
The notion that Western politicians are secretly in the thrall of the Knesset -- a key tenet of Zelayonism -- is disturbingly common. On Thursday, Eye on the Hill blogger Elizabeth Thompson posted a federal government press release critical of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi--and then added, ominously, "Interestingly, it was sent to reporters only a couple of hours after Prime Minister Harper met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."
Cue spooky music.
One would think that Judaism inoculates you from Zelayonism. But the notion that Zelayonism is a "gentile disease" is a myth. Left-wing Jews typically contract the condition in college, as they seek to demonstrate their left wing bona fides and moral independence to shocked parents and friends.
Sometimes, the condition sets in as early as high school. Naomi Klein's Bat Mitzvah speech, for instance, (delivered at age 12) was "about Jews being racist."
Over time, Zelayonism metastasizes. In Klein's case, the spreading malignancy was on display in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine -wherein she argued that rich Israelis are so evil that they secretly cheer on the suicide bombers who attack Jews in cafes and restaurants. "The rapid expansion of [Israel's] high-tech security economy created a powerful appetite inside Israel's wealthy and most powerful sectors for abandoning peace in favour of fighting a continual and continuously expanding War on Terror," she writes. "It is not a coincidence that the Israeli state's decision to put 'counter-terrorism' at the centre of its export economy has coincided precisely with peace negotiations."
Again with the spooky music.
But wait. Are those "Palestinian" terrorist acts even perpetrated by Palestinians? Fellow conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph, a leader of a Toronto group called Independent Jewish Voices -Naomi Klein's close ally in the recent campaign against the Toronto International Film Festival-doesn't think so. In 2008, she declared that "there's lots of evidence that suicide bombings and violence coming from Palestinians are often planned, and directly provoked, by the Israeli government." When you're afflicted with acute-phase Zelayonism, all the world's evil can somehow be traced to Israel -even the evil directed at Israel itself.
Sometimes, epidemics of Zelayonism afflict whole demographic groups. Exhibit A is John Greyson and "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid," who've turned Zelayonism into a prominent theme of Toronto's annual gay pride parade. For these loud and proud gentlemen, the foolproof antidote to Zelayonism would be to have them stage their Queer march in Ramallah, Riyadh or Damascus, and see what sort of reaction they get.
I, personally, would never endorse such a final solution to stem the Zelayonist outbreak. But one does suspect that the few survivors would come back with a renewed appreciation for the charms of Tel Aviv.
The battle against Zelayonism isn't hopeless. Though a cure remains elusive, the symptoms can be managed. Jane Fonda, for instance, was one of the plum celebrities who put her name to the so-called Toronto Declaration prepared by film-festival opponents. But when she actually read the thing -with its description of Tel Aviv as a sort of shrine to evil "built on destroyed Palestinian villages" -she recanted.
If Hanoi Jane can have a change of heart, why not Nablus Naomi -or even Zelaya himself ?
Take off the tinfoil hat, el presidente: The Israelis and their magic mind-control machine have all gone home.
Over time, Zelayonism metastasizes. In Klein's case, the spreading malignancy was on display in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine -wherein she argued that rich Israelis are so evil that they secretly cheer on the suicide bombers who attack Jews in cafes and restaurants. "The rapid expansion of [Israel's] high-tech security economy created a powerful appetite inside Israel's wealthy and most powerful sectors for abandoning peace in favour of fighting a continual and continuously expanding War on Terror," she writes. "It is not a coincidence that the Israeli state's decision to put 'counter-terrorism' at the centre of its export economy has coincided precisely with peace negotiations."
Again with the spooky music.
But wait. Are those "Palestinian" terrorist acts even perpetrated by Palestinians? Fellow conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph, a leader of a Toronto group called Independent Jewish Voices -Naomi Klein's close ally in the recent campaign against the Toronto International Film Festival-doesn't think so. In 2008, she declared that "there's lots of evidence that suicide bombings and violence coming from Palestinians are often planned, and directly provoked, by the Israeli government." When you're afflicted with acute-phase Zelayonism, all the world's evil can somehow be traced to Israel -even the evil directed at Israel itself.
Sometimes, epidemics of Zelayonism afflict whole demographic groups. Exhibit A is John Greyson and "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid," who've turned Zelayonism into a prominent theme of Toronto's annual gay pride parade. For these loud and proud gentlemen, the foolproof antidote to Zelayonism would be to have them stage their Queer march in Ramallah, Riyadh or Damascus, and see what sort of reaction they get.
I, personally, would never endorse such a final solution to stem the Zelayonist outbreak. But one does suspect that the few survivors would come back with a renewed appreciation for the charms of Tel Aviv.
The battle against Zelayonism isn't hopeless. Though a cure remains elusive, the symptoms can be managed. Jane Fonda, for instance, was one of the plum celebrities who put her name to the so-called Toronto Declaration prepared by film-festival opponents. But when she actually read the thing -with its description of Tel Aviv as a sort of shrine to evil "built on destroyed Palestinian villages" -she recanted.
If Hanoi Jane can have a change of heart, why not Nablus Naomi -- or even Zelaya himself ?
Take off the tinfoil hat, el presidente: The Israelis and their magic mind-control machine have all gone home.