Faster trains, please

[Re: “High-speed Montreal-New York rail,” Angel, Feb. 25] I can’t believe there isn’t a high-speed rail in North America. It takes like 10 hours to get to NYC from Montreal by train! That’s crazy. It’s only about a six or eight-hour drive, shouldn’t the train be faster and easier? Imagine what a good connection would do for tourism in this city! Montreal-Toronto’s not bad, a four or five-hour ride, I can live with that. But New York, the greatest city in the world, seems so far.

I used to live in Europe, where the inter-city train is quick, easy and cheap. I know that they are a lot less car-centric than North Americans are, but the price of getting to New York is way too high. That’s city’s expensive enough as is! Come on, government transport guys, get it together and make this thing happen. All aboard!

>>D. PETRILIOS

Lower Main is a dump

[Re; “Glut and strip,” News, Feb. 25] You know what? The Lower Main is a dump, and always was a dump. I can’t believe you guys are still getting all excited about it—a bunch of crappy hot dog places and a tranny strip bar are gonna go, big deal. It’s not as if this city suffers from a lack of fast food or peelers. The artists, or perverts, or whatever the hell they want to call themselves, can always find somewhere else to do their thing.

Big ugly buildings don’t excite me much either, but they’re better than a bunch of burned out and abandoned buildings. Parts of downtown Montreal really need to be fixed up, it isn’t all that great to be walking around there without anyone around except for a bunch of bums. This corner could be great, it’s just minutes away from the Jazz Fest, Just for Laughs etc. So why hold on to something that’s been dead for years anyway?

>>HARRY

Dirlik wrong!

[Re: “Dirlik, Frankel, Groves & more!,” Letters, Feb. 18] John Dirlik gets it wrong. The success of Zionism does not lie in the safety that Jews may or may not achieve in Israel. Zionism was successful: it gave Jews self-determination. Whether more Jews will die in Israel than in the diaspora, no one can tell. So far, the tally of Jews murdered at the hand of non-Jews is far in favour of Israel. Dirlik believes that Jews are more vulnerable in the Middle East, surrounded by ever-better armed enemies, than in other parts of the world. At least Jews have their own weapons, their own army and the ability and willingness to use them to defend themselves. For 19 centuries, the absence of such resources meant being totally defenseless in the face of genocidal hatred.

John Dirlik is wrong on a second count. There is no comparison between Zionism, a movement for national self-determination carried by secular and religious Jews alike (in fact more by the former than by the latter), and Wahabism, a form of religious extremism. Throughout his letter, Dirlik creates the false impression that the only Zionists in Israel are those who believe in land (or water) rather than in peace, who harbour messianic hopes or who otherwise push forward an expansionist agenda at the expense of Palestinian rights. But the Israeli left wing too is Zionist. Post-Zionists and anti-Zionists remain a small minority of the Jewish population. It is in fact in the name of Zionism and of the secular-humanistic ideals of its founders that many Israelis critique the policies of their own government.

John Dirlik is wrong on a third count. He cannot advocate, as he does indirectly, the end of a Jewish majority in Israel in the name of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. These values are not widely shared in the Middle East. Ending Jewish self-determination, i.e. Jewish domination in a state, will not bring tolerance and turn Jerusalem into Montreal. Rather, it will expose Jews to the will—to the ill-will, rather—of the Arab majority. To argue that this hatred is due entirely to Zionism is disingenuous, as any student of history can point out. And if Dirlik believes that Jews should give up on their own multicultural and cosmopolitan country, move out of their ancestral home in the Middle East and resettle in western states, let him say so. Perhaps he wants to invite Israelis to settle here in Canada, one country among others that is the product of a “bankrupt and blood-soaked ideology” of foreign settlement at the expense of aboriginal populations.

>>RAPHAËL FISCHLER

For as long as I can recall, Point Claire’s John Dirlik has been having letters printed in newspapers that are as close to the truth as Mercury is to Pluto (as far as planets are concerned). I encourage all to check into what he writes in order to see first hand how credible he is not.

>>MURRAY LEVINE

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!

Send your comments, compliments or criticisms to:

Letters to the Editor,
c/o Montreal Mirror,
465 McGill, 3rd Floor
Montreal, Quebec
H2Y 4B4

Letters to the Editor

All letters should include your name, address and daytime phone number.

If you wish to reach someone in particular, here's a list of people involved with the production of the newspaper and this site.