This is incredible! Ms. Klein advocates open dialogue while labelling Israel as a country with apartheid policies. How does this promote dialogue? Not one word from Ms. Klein about the reasons Israel felt compelled to respond to the constant rocket attacks into civilian territory that have been going on for years and continue to this day. Not a word from Ms. Klein about Israeli Arabs having equal rights and elected members of parliament - does this smack of apartheid policies? Do the Arab countries grant the same rights to its Jews? Not a word from Ms. Klein about the shocking practices of the Muslim countries towards its women. Not a word from Ms. Klein about the Hamas policy of not recognizing Israel's right to exist. Where is the balanced view of the situation?Only Israel is the monster, only Israel can do no right in her eyes. I wonder how Ms. Klein would like to be a citizen of, and living in, an Arab country. Maybe if she did, she would realize which nations have apartheid policies.

Congratulations to Naomi Klein for having the courage to speak out against the Zionists. They're particularly angry at her because they can't call her an anti-Semite. Nothing threatens Israel's cheerleaders more than intelligent, rational Jews deciding Zionism is racist.

Ms. Shapiro, had you been at the forum you would have heard your specious arguments debunked. Israel is apartheid because: a) it dispossessed 750,000 Palestinians of their land and does not allow them back in the country; b) Arabs are denied nationality on the basis of being non-Jewish, and accorded second-class 'citizenship'; c) Arabs are denied property rights to 93% of Israeli land. This doesn't touch the tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children, that the Israeli state has murdered, well before Hamas began firing rockets.

Israel has as much right to exist as apartheid South Africa did.

While I agree that the Israeli state is apartheid-like, I wonder why it is that so few activists in Canada can ignore the ongoing apartheid that makes Native Canadians second class citizens in this country. Who's willing to give up our land in Toronto or anywhere with large populations so that Natives can have justice for the milliions murdered and dispossessed over the past 200 years. Why is there such vehemence against the Isrealis and so little when it comes to confronting their own privilege that comes on the backs of a dominated people?

Ms. Shapiro's comments are specious. 1. Israel had other options than launching a murderous attack which it knew would slaughter hundreds of non-combatants. Hamas offered long-tern truces over and over again as part of a deal that included lifting Israel's 2 year siege. 2. Do Israeli Arabs have "equal rights"? Absolutely not! Check the 2003 Orr Commission Report, which looked into the Oct., 2000 murder of 13 Arab Israeli citizens by police. Orr said Arab citizens faced a "stain of discrimination", that they "live in a reality of discrimination directed against them as Arabs", and that Israel must work for equality, especially in housing and land allocation, education, budgeting, and employment. Six years later, the Sikkuy Report noted in "social welfare, employment and education the gaps [still] are extremely wide, while in the fields of health and housing... [they] are lower." 3. Does Israel practice apartheid? Yes, without question it does - in the Palestinian territories. Ms.S. must be deaf. dumb and blind not to see it. 4. The issue here is *ISRAEL* - why compare it to Hamas or certain Muslim states? Should we rate Israel on the scale Ms.S. seems to claim for it? No - Israel is a democratic state predicated on Jewish morals and ethical values, supposedly with human rights and adhering to international law. Does Ms.S. want it to be otherwise? 5. Take your mythical blinders off, Ms.S. - see what's really going on!

Last I checked Arabs in Israel can vote and have representation in the Knesset. They can and do serve in the Israeli military. In short an Arab/Muslim living in Israel has more rights, benefits than say one living in Egypt, or Syria.

You can say that Israel has made mistakes in Gaza and the West bank etc. But the Palestenians have as well maybe bigger ones. Several times they have been offered peace and usually they have sabotaged it.

Under Arafat the PLO was dependent on the conflict going on. It got money support which it used to line the pockets of its leaders. I think Arafat died with like a billion dollars in various bank accounts. One reason Hamas supplanted the PLO was the corruption and incompetence of the PLO when they actually had to govern.

So the Israeli/Palestenian conflict is not strictly a case of Bad Israeli's/ Good Palestenians but its more complex to reduce it some simple image to compare Israel to a racist regime does no good.

Unless one just wants to draw attention to oneself

I find all this rage and fury against Israel suspect and I wonder what people are really angry about. When I go to english.aljazeera.com and read the essays demonizing Israel and the comments section, I'm struck by the incredible amount of name-calling, rage and ignorance regarding the history of Palestine/Israel. I'm sure that many of those who post their opinions have never met a Jew, an Israeli or a Palestinian in their life. Moreover, for all their unqualified support for Hamas and the Palestinians, I don't see them flocking to Gaza to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with their Arab/Moslem brothers and sisters. I feel the same about the Leftist poseurs in Toronto who get together during Israeli Apartheid week and make a lot of noise about how Israel is a racist apartheid state blah blah blah. For these folks, demonizing Israel is the latest flavour of the month to demonstrate one's Leftist cred. Next month, these folks will rally around another made-up issue to get all hot and bothered about. The bottom line is that unless you live in Gaza, Israel, or the West Bank and know the reality first hand, your opinions are based on hearsay. None of us in Toronto knows what's best for the Israelis and the Palestinians. It's up to them to sort it out. It's their choice. If they want to go on killing each other, there's nothing any of us can do to stop them. They created this problem, and it's their job to solve it. Anyway, considering all the significant injustice in the world today including the lack of human rights in China which affects 1.2 billion people, the brutal Chinese occupation of Tibet, the oppressive rule of the military in Mynmar, the murder of so many in Darfur, the ongoing civil wars in Sri Lanka and Somalia and the increasing chaos in Pakistan's tribal areas where the Taliban are exercising their muscle, this continuing focus on Israel and the Palestinians is out of all proportion and not important.

Bravo Naomi !

Palestinians are victims of Israeli aggression.There should be peace in the world and state terrorism should be eradicated from this world.In these days I am in search of a good internet phone because I want to talk to my family abroad.

Naomi Klein is an example of a modern leftist. She is someone who writes on a lot of topics, but is knows relatively little about all of them. I wish that she would be an example for modern leftists, and stick to one issue. This would allow her to speak logically about her issue, and let other individuals speak logically about individual topics.

If one were to break down her talk, you would realize that her introduction is 4 minutes and 56 seconds. Her first subpoint of the goals of popular education re: communication lacks any firm support for her perspective. She does not cite any sources, and she just talks from her mind. She stutters a lot, and speaks in irrelevant anecdotes and generalities to cement herself as an important person. It is off topic, and irrelevant. By 7:35, almost halfway through, she has not said anything.

She then goes onto a discussion of Apartheid without defining her term. She also includes the words genocide, war crimes etc....and laughs at equality while championing empathy. She then says that "we will not give an inch" which is in direct contrast to the topic of empathy.

She concludes by giving advice to be suspicious about those spreading hate within the inside and outside. She then attacks the Jewish Defence League and mocks The National Post. By the end of her speech, she has still not said very much, but does take one last jab at the Israel Community. She invokes the holocaust and the idea of "never again", which is almost a complete bastardization of the terminology.

Klein is not a genocide historian, a middle east expert, nor a reliable resource on Canadian Jewry. So, why is she talking about this?

Naomi Klein's speech is another example of oversimplified/generalized North-American take of a complex geopolitical issue. Contrary to what Mrs. Klein thinks what the reasons are for the criticism/attacks received by the Israeli Apartheid Week committees, it is not because of the "success of the threat of this movement" - to me, it is the disarming notion of how easily people are persuaded into a kind of pop activism that when confronted on the supported issue, many are reduced to a couple programmed responses and justifications as a result of oversimplification of complex topics such as this.

Like what M. Anthony said above, her speech is constructed to persuade crowds through a peripheral cues (with reference to strong emotional imagery and with carefully-chosen rhetoric that subtly primes anti-Israel sentiment) rather than through central/cogent arguments. This is the problem that I have with the Israeli Apartheid Week campaign as well as its (hopefully) unintended effects.

As a student at both Guelph and UBC, I have seen how this Israel Apartheid Week campaign has played out on both university campuses. Granted that any crime against humanity should be faced with justice, it is how Israeli Apartheid Week chooses to carry out its campaign towards impressionable crowds specifically through the promotion of arbitrary boycotts, the strategic use of imagery visualizing race and identity, and the (unintended?) effect of perpetuating prejudice that is REALLY troublesome.

The push/choice to boycott Israel and Israeli academics and cultural institutions (most recently by the United Church of Canada) is an unacceptable way of addressing this issue. Most justify the campaign as anti-apartheid and not anti-Israel/Israeli/Semitic, so why promote a boycott that targets these groups? Consumer boycotts may work, but promoting boycotts (especially towards Israeli academics) as a way of garnering serious attention towards the resolution of a geopolitical issue (despite that the resolution to this issue depends on open dialogue and communication) is counterproductive and overall, borderline stupid. Coupled with the reliance on carefully selected imagery to strategically trigger specific strong emotional responses, it's a sleazy way of getting the media and the public's attention. It's sleazy because it primes people with anti-Israeli sentiment which affects how people take in relevant information about this issue which also in effect (indirectly) perpetuates prejudice (I've seen it amongst my peers as well as unwarranted acts of aggression at campus Hillels) from a movement that intends to seek justice and equality.

It never ceases to amaze me to see the left get into bed with Islamist. I guess their mutual hatred of jewish people is strong enough to bring these two sides together. Israel is far from perfect but when one deals in reality and not la la land agruments things become clear. The Arab street needs the palestinians so they have a scape goat to divert anger and hatred. To call Israel an "apartheid" state is disengenious and offensive. Arab Israelis have all the same rights as jews do in Israel.

Palestenians have no "right of return" Those that stayed originally in 48 are now all citizens. Those that left at the behest of Arab generals, in order to make the exterminating of the jews, easier have forfieted their rights. I would rather live in Israel anyday then the hell holes that surround it. Save for Lebanon.

Naomi - I missed you at the 2009 Israeli Aprtheid Week activites because I wasn't there. Slowly over the past ten years my beliefs and understanding of Israel are changing. It was such a sad realisation when I began to read about and speak to people representing the Arab and Palestinian communities. I no longer beleive that this is a massive complex issue. It's quite simple - Israel needs to move back to the green line of 1967. I have visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron)on two occasions and have travelled through Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. Perspective. Travel a little and you no longer have to rely on biased media. The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is growing and I will be added among the many others in attendance at the 2010 Israeli Apartheid Week activites.