I am so bloody sick of the kind of hatred instantiated in this article, where someone gets deplatformed not because of what they were going to say, which is bad enough, but simply because of who they are. From Cycling magazine we get a disgusting tale of a championship cyclist booted out of an International Women’s Day event, with her keynote speech canceled, explicitly because she was an Israeli, and one who fought—as was required for someone her age—for the IDF. Meet the accomplished athlete Leah Goldstein, whose crime was being Israeli:
This will be short and not-so-sweet, reflecting poorly on Canada. The details:
Former pro cyclist Leah Goldstein, who lives in Vernon, B.C, will no longer be the keynote speaker at an International Women’s Day event in Peterborough, On., in March, apparently because of her time spent working for the IDF. In September, she was offered the role and she accepted. However, in January, she was told she was being removed from the role.
Goldstein, 54, was born in Canada to Israeli parents. At 17, she moved to Israel, where she spent several years, and served her mandatory military service. In 1989, she was world bantamweight kickboxing champion. After an injury, she began cycling, riding for teams such as the Canadian squad, Symmetrics Pro Cycling. After her career in road cycling, she then began ultra-endurance cycling. In 2011, Goldstein took the victory in the women’s solo category of the Race Across America. Notably, she attained second place in the women’s group and fifth overall in 2019. However, it was in 2021 that she etched her name in history by winning the overall solo division, beating not just all the women, but men too.
On Thursday, after the decision began to circulate on social media the organization put out a formal statement saying that she would no longer be involved with the event, amid the Israel/Gaza war.
Look at this weaselly pronouncement!
“Our focus at INSPIRE has been and will always be to create safe spaces to honour, share, and celebrate the remarkable stories of women and non-binary individuals,” the statement read.“In recognition of the current situation and the sensitivity of the conflict in the Middle East, the Board of INSPIRE will be changing our keynote speaker.”
No safe space can be created with an Israeli Jew on the dais!
They don’t dissimulate in their explanation! By the way, Goldstein is also a professional speaker, so she doubtless would have given a good talk. She was of course greatly disappointed, but kept her dignity when reacting to this slight. (She was not, according to what’s below, going to speak about the war.)
It has taken me a while to wrap my head around your decision to remove me as INSPIRE’s International Women’s Day ‘Inspire Inclusion’ keynote speaker. I was hurt. I was angry. But most of all I was heartbroken,” she said. “I’ve been a speaker for nearly 10 years and have told my story in front of real estate agents, business managers, garbage collectors, CEOs, motorbike dealers, government agencies and many diverse women’s groups. Not once has someone (to my face, to the organizers, nor anonymously) ever claimed to have been offended by my presentation. Not once.”
During her speeches as a motivational speaker, Goldstein, frequently recounts how her mental resilience enabled her to triumph over injury, discrimination, and bullying in various arenas, including sports and her service in Israel. She proudly states her distinction as the inaugural female elite commando instructor in the IDF, alongside her tenure as an undercover police officer in Israel. However, she says her presentations are never political.
“I am zero political when I speak,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.“Honestly, there is nothing political about my presentation. I just talk about the crap that I went through and the crap that most women go through, and they still do, and how I handled it.”
Goldstein added she would never have a problem if a Palestinian woman spoke at a similar event.
“As a Jewish woman, I would never be offended if a Palestinian woman were to speak about her obstacles and life journey,” she aded. “I thought that’s what women were supposed to do for each other – listen and support!”
Indeed. Goldstein had one crime: she was a Jew who lived in Israel, even though she was born in Canada. Can this be seen as anything other than anti-semitism?
h/t: Paul
Blatant anti-Semitism and as Jerry said, simply for being who she is. Not anything she’s done. That’s as bad as it gets. Sissies!
I almost agree with: “That’s as bad as it gets.”
The next step, which would be worse, is violence against Jews (progrom-style).
Though I’m not surprised.
1. Most people are cowards. They may talk big, but when the chips are down we learn that they are bluffing. They are mostly concerned about leading a quiet and comfortable life.
2. The people who de-platformed the speaker may also have convinced themselves that people have a right not to be offended. (Never underestimate the stupidity of the woke.) No such right exists. If one were to implement a policy to the effect that, if someone takes offence, then the source of the offensive thing has to shut up or be de-platformed, it would not work because people would take offense strategically to silence their opponents. Public discourse and much else would come to a standstill.
In November 2020, Steven Guilbeault, Canadian minister of the environment in the liberal government of Justin Trudeau, made this astonishing statement on the most popular talk show in the French-Canadian province of Québec (Tout le monde en parle):
In English: You do have a right not to be offended.
He talked of “blessure”, but he did not mean physical injury. He made the quoted statement in a discussion about censorship in the media.
How can a minister in a LIBERAL government talk like this ??? Because the liberals in Canada are pretty woke.
How right you are. And we’re reminded of the “unthinkable” every day here on the Auschwitz Memorial. SICK sissies!
Shameful.
MacPherson’s Rule again.
This is sickening.
I heard about this from the United Jewish Appeal yesterday. I was trying to figure out what or who INSPIRE is but their website had been made private. Still is. Shame, shame, shame.
Believe it or not I know a few cyclists in Peterborough, including a leftie feminist activist we used to ride socially with years ago. She achieved some local prominence on the women’s racing circuit. If she’s behind this I am going to be some mad!
From Ms. Goldstein’s bio it seems she rather enjoyed her time in the IDF and in the police. Good on her!
What has happened to Canada?
It isn’t just this incident, it is a chain of Jew-hatred and more: things like that entire made-up event regarding remains of “indigenous” children found in schools an event to which its overclass can’t own up and admit forgery, to statements by Justin Trudeau, to the debanking of truckers and on and on…………
Indeed. Canada seems woker than the U.S. now, and I didn’t even mention a new political incident. . .
Which “political incident” Mr Coyne ? I know our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is 100% Woke.
I made a suggestion what the incident might be but my reply had 2 links in it and so is in moderation limbo 🙁
Here’s one link
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/law-crime-and-justice/criminal-justice/prosecution-service/media-statements/2023/24-04-bcps-announces-changes-to-the-hate-crimes-hat-1-policy.pdf
And the second link
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-prosecution-service-hate-crimes-1.7118693
This is may be the political incident Jerry refers to?
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/law-crime-and-justice/criminal-justice/prosecution-service/media-statements/2023/24-04-bcps-announces-changes-to-the-hate-crimes-hat-1-policy.pdf
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-prosecution-service-hate-crimes-1.7118693
British Columbia now has updated hate-crimes policies for the provincial prosecution service that infringe on the right to speak about some topics including so-called conversion therapy for minors experiencing “gender dysphoria”.
“Changes to the policy include:
• defining “hate crimes” for the purposes of the policy to include any of the following prohibited acts:
…
• conversion therapy offences”
The devil will be in the details as usual.
No, that’s not it.
We can soon expect some Canadian university groups to complain about the absence of chemical reagents, electrical units, or sub-atomic particles with First Nations names.
As a Canadian, I am ashamed and infuriated by this non-binary and safe space crap. It might be anti-semitism, but it sure is 100% Woke newspeak. What’s next ? You can’t give a public speech unless you are a vegan, in case there is one in the public who gets offended by a meat eater giving the talk ??? I wrote on Leah Goldstein Facebook page how sorry I was for how she was treated and to assure her it is not the majority of Canadians that think like this. Someone on her page wrote to the organizer of the International Women’s Day to complain of her removal (info@internationalwomensday.com)
Shame on ‘Inspire’ – what a misnomer!
I am shocked that such an inspiring athlete can be canceled because she is a Jew. The world is getting crazier by the day. Shame on Canada.
The whole situation is becoming sickening and especially here in the UK.
‘Controversial pro-Palestine chant ‘from the river to the sea’ was projected onto London’s iconic Big Ben last night.
The slogan scrolled across the Elizabeth Tower in big bold letters as pro-Palestine campaigners gathered outside the Houses of Parliament while MPs were embroiled in a chaotic Gaza ceasefire debate in the Commons.
Questions are being asked as to why the slogan was allowed to appear on the side of the tower, which some say insinuates the total removal of Israel.’ (dailymail.co.uk)
Needless to say our ‘police’ do nothing against the weekly pro-palestinian gatherings in London and elsewhere in the UK, that disrupt the routines of everyone else trying to go about their business. I’ve just heard tonight (Sunday) on the radio, that some Jewish families in London are already planning to leave the UK, permanently.
And speaking of Canada, I just saw this:
“U of Alberta’s “Anti-Racism Lab” held a talk and discussed whether people have “to die off” before decolonization can be achieved and at what point generational “white folk” colonization ends
UCalgary vice-provost of EDI Melinda Smith called it a “very good question”
https://twitter.com/cosminDZS/status/1760743399089430773
Well the white folks in countries where white is the indigenous norm better start planning to “decolonise” and deport all their non white immigrants. Oh but they cannot do this as it is racist.
Definitely not! Instead great efforts are made in plays & films to make it look as if Britain has always been diverse!
You are correct. It makes me annoyed when fictional series set in the 1950s in rural England have major parts played by either black actors or some other so called marginal group. Talk about historical inaccuracy. I grew up in this time and I never saw any of these people and even going to London it wasn’t common. The thing I remember most about London in the early 1950s were the bomb sites, they were very common !
As Najma Sharif so eloquently expressed it on October 7th, “what did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers.”
They really do mean ethnic cleansing.
https://twitter.com/najmamsharif/status/1710689657757769783
Hated because she’s Israeli. There’s little more that one can say (except to add, of course, that she’s also a Jew).
Unfortunately now typically Canadian under Turdeau. Woke king of the American continent, north and south!
She should have claimed “transgender” then the woke brigade would not have dared to commit Turdeau “ transphobia hatred” and she could have carried on.
Since INSPIRE celebrates the stories of “non-binary individuals”, perhaps they suspected Leah Goldstein of being too binary. She does live near Kelowna, B.C., which used to be a source of spectacularly bad wine.
To me, this feels more like cowardice than hatred or anti-Semitism.
Should I judge any country by the actions of individuals? Would I judge the USA by, say, the antics of the Harvard leadership?
WTAF?!
O Canada.
“There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.” Substitute kind and unkind for good and bad and you’ve described how women in a group can behave normally. Add DEI into the mix and the oppressor/oppressed framework we’ve thoroughly discussed and we can watch these women who highly value compassion ruthlessly deplatform a woman who is suddenly a member of a newly clarified out group rather than a proud athlete who was the first of her gender to win an athletic event. It’s human nature and more annoying than dangerous unless the underlying attitude leads us to justify turning a blind eye to or participating in shameful or possibly worse behavior.
Dr. Coyne isn’t the only one sick and tired of this bullshit. Arguably most Canadians are too and the result of “Left” parties pandering to Puritanical Fake Left idiocy like this will be more Conservatives getting elected and several steps backward in progress on Climate change and more hate and discrimination against the “marginalized” identities which the PFL pretend they want to “make safer’.
What marginalized identities do you think conservative parties in Canada will foment hate and discrimination against? That is a serious accusation. What do you even mean by that? We can leave climate change aside as an unnecessarily partisan issue to bring up here but the worst thing that Canadians worry that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will do is reduce the amount of federal transfer money shoveled into provincial health ministries to run our version of Medicare For All. Politically he probably can’t touch that “third rail” any more than any other politician has ever been able to (and has said he won’t.)
In fact the Overton Window in Canada is so narrow, he probably can’t do very much at all. Governments change in Canada because the voters eventually get sick of seeing the same tired old faces on the news all the time, so we elect some new ones we ain’t got sick of yet. I suspect that if the Liberals were to suddenly depose JT and install someone less divisively virtue-signaling, they’d win a comfortable majority in the next election which doesn’t have to be till next year anyway. They wouldn’t even have to purge the party of Hamas sympathizers the way UK Labour is having to do.
We stumble from landslide through a couple of decaying minority governments to landslide like a drunken sailor on a rolling deck but the actual policies change little. (Remember in representative first-past-the-post systems with three and a half parties, small changes in voter sentiment reproduced across 338 three-way races can produce large changes in seats won, …and lost.) Most of the policy winds that blow in Canada come from far, far away, which we have little control over. Managing them is all we do. Sometimes with concerted, diligent effort we can make things worse.
Besides, there is no evidence that this INSPIRE affair has anything to do with the Liberal Party of Canada, other than that having “non-binary” in the blurb about International Women’s Day suggests that it is on the long list of subversive organizations the Liberal government likes to give money to. It’s really just indicative of the zeitgeist here I think.
Less important than whether or not I agree with Leslie here is the fact that there’s so much CanCon on this web site Jerry should be getting a sub$idy from the CRTC.
I’m not complaining.
I deplore this cancellation. But should there be tolerance always? Suppose a birders’ conference invites to speak one who is revealed to have belonged to the Nazi Party. There will be people in the audience who wish not be present with a Nazi, or former Nazi. Now I’m conflicted. Help me out; what’s the right answer? (BTW, I doubt she was excluded only for being a Jew; I imagine that her IDF past was determinative, tho maybe that membership was not by her choice.)