Damn traffic jams

[Re: Insect, l’Acadie Circle, July 30] Yes indeed, the traffic situation in this city is totally out of control and the Acadie circle sure does suck. Last week, while driving west on the 40, headed towards downtown, I got stuck in a huge traffic jam right next to the Acadie circle—at two a.m.!

How can there be a traffic jam in the middle of the night? That must take an extraordinary amount of incompetence and poor planning. It looked to me like the never-ending construction job that goes on in that constantly idiotic circle had simply been abandoned the second the whistle blew and the workers took off for their holiday. Orange pylons were scattered about randomly. There was no warning, no one there to monitor the situation. Just a whole bunch of pissed off and tired drivers.

Someone needs to seriously rethink the traffic flow in and around the island of Montreal.

>>Charlie Fletcher

[Re: “Thoughts on rush hour,” Front, News, July 23] In the last couple of months, driving in or out of Montreal has become a summer carnival of “barré.” From trottoir barré to rue barrée, to autoroute barrée and pont barré. We seem to be driving in never-ending circles from one barré obstacle to another.

I would like to contribute what I consider to be a logical solution to our yearly “barré” festival: I would propose that each summer from June to September, the entire island of Montreal would be barré both ways, in and out. To inform the public of the temporary non-driving conditions, billboards are to be placed at the exits and entries of every bridge leading in or out of the city, on which, in gigantic fluorescent letters, the word “BARRÉ” would be visible from miles away. 

Everyone would benefit. The maintenance work crews would be able to do the more than necessary infrastructure repairs. Montrealers will save a bundle by staying home, and so will the tourists, what with the recession and all.

And because not all tourists, or even Canadians from other provinces, would understand the meaning of the French word “BARRÉ,” perhaps out of consideration and courtesy, a loose yet concise English translation ought to be also posted: “You can’t get there from here!”

>>Ed Binder

Re-explaining Israel

[Re: “Explaining Israel,” Letters, July 30] The only accurate statement in Berry Merson’s description of Israel is that “It is a state of mind.” Today’s Jews are descendants of biblical Israelites only in the completely fictitious and fabricated Zionist mythology. This is because centuries of intermarriage and conversions make contemporary Jews as much related to biblical Hebrews as today’s Roman Catholics are to ancient Rome. Moreover, since many Jews of Palestine during the Ottoman period converted to Islam, Palestinian Muslims today are actually closer genetically to the Jews who always lived in Palestine than they are to the later-arriving European Zionists. So when the IDF slaughters Palestinians, it is likely killing people more related by blood to the original Jews of Palestine than Merson is. 

The claim that “Israel is essentially a sanctuary for Jews in a hostile world” is equally fanciful—and demonstrably false. Israel is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be Jewish. In fact, Jews are actually safer in Ahmedinejad’s Tehran than in Israeli-occupied Hebron. The ultimate irony is that they are also safer in Berlin than in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. A simple truism: military occupation inevitably provokes resistance.

The Jewish population of Palestine (what is now Israel and the occupied territories) at the time of the 1917 Balfour Declaration was a mere seven per cent of the 700,000 inhabitants. During the 1947 UN partition, there were only 650,000 Jews in Palestine compared to 1.3 million indigenous Palestinian Arabs, either Christian or Muslim. Yet under the partition plan, 56 per cent of Palestine was given for a Zionist state to people who constituted 33 per cent of the population and owned about six per cent of the land.

This forceful transformation of a predominantly Arab Palestine into a Jewish state sparked the conflict that still rages today. The continuing expansion of illegal settlements kills any prospect of a two-state solution and ensures unending hatred and bloodshed. But what do the Mersons of this world care? It is not they who will move to Israel and live with the consequences. Like all arm-chair Rambos, they are only brave with other people’s blood. And like all arm-chair Zionists, they are willing to defend Israel—to the last Israeli.

>>John Dirlik

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