Since October 7, the date of the pogrom in Israel, I can’t stop thinking about Guy Nantel and his vox pops.
Yes! Everyone and their brother-in-law has their opinion on the Hamas-Israel conflict.
Except that I would be curious to know how many of these armchair analysts know the basics of what is going on there.
ISRAEL-HAMAS 101
Over the years, the brilliant comedian Guy Nantel has shown us how poor the knowledge of geography, history and politics of certain Homo quebecensus was.
There are people who don’t know what country is south of Canada! They don’t even know how to place Quebec on a map of Canada!
Now imagine if they were asked to place Gaza on a map of Israel or Israel on a world map.
If they were asked to name the Arab countries having a common border with Israel.
I would dream that Guy Nantel would ask those who claim that Israel imposed an “apartheid” regime for the definition of the word “apartheid”. I expect a lot of “Um… like, like, it’s full, yeah, like…”
If “voxpopés” don’t know who wrote Lafontaine’s Fables, I’m sure they wouldn’t be able to answer questions like “What is the religion of the Jewish state?” or “In which territory is Gaza City located?”
For his most recent vox pop, Nantel unearthed ostrogoths who didn’t know how to tell the time on a clock. Yes, yes, they didn’t know what time it is when the little hand is on four!
If Guy Nantel, accompanied by bodyguards, intervened between pro-Palestine demonstrators and pro-Israel demonstrators, imagine the pearls he could collect…
He could find us specimens who wear the black and white Palestinian headscarf but who don’t know who Yasser Arafat was.
Images of Montreal went around the world last week. A lady wearing a Palestinian scarf and a Palestinian flag (but not being Palestinian herself) chants a slogan on the corner of Metcalfe and Sherbrooke. Except that it shouts “From the nation to the sea” then “From the mountains to the sea” instead of the real slogan which is “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. And she has no idea, anyway, what this river is. (This is the Jordan and the sea is the Mediterranean).
You can have a strong opinion about Israel.
But the least we could do would be to find out more instead of stupidly spouting slogans that we don’t understand.
THELMA AND SUSAN
Speaking of speaking rubbish, American actress Susan Sarandon apologized for saying at a pro-Palestinian rally that “American Jews who are learning about fear now have an idea of what it’s like.” ‘be a Muslim in this country.’
In her apology she said: “My clumsy wording implied that until recently Jews had not experienced persecution, when that is false.”
I have a question for this actress, who calls herself a feminist: why didn’t she have a word of solidarity with the Israeli women, victims of gang rape on October 7?