dgrdon.bsky.social
Publisher and editor of The Grind in Toronto.
147 posts
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177 following
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There's still lots of good stuff in the issue, and we're replacing the junk we dropped. The print edition goes out June 20.
The delay means there's still time to place ads. Get your ad in before June 12. Contact ads [at] thegrindmag [dot] ca
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Always surprising to see there are still a few journalists left in the Postmedia network! Good on you for actually speaking with the aid organizations about this and not taking the Israeli government line.
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He also shredded the UN Charter.
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Quotes from former UN ambassador Gilad Erdan:
- "A humanitarian ceasefire means a terrorist-saving ceasefire"
- "Nothing exemplifies the UN's rotten values more than the advancement of a Palestinian statehood"
- "The word genocide is often thrown around here in a libelous context"
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I haven't seen any video of the alleged incident that led to it but this video is of the other arrest that evening. x.com/nurdogandiyo...
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Different view of police pushing someone down onto her bike. Vids via praxis_archives on IG.
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Correction: Gilad Erdan is the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, not current. His term ended in 2024. He was previously a government minister with the Likud party.
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Info is publicly available on AGPI's site.
Erdan's presence as featured speakers also used to be up on the Crystal Ball Gala site but all info on that site was taken down in the last few days. Shenwald wasn't mentioned on that site.
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A former or current IDF soldier is also scheduled to be there. Mordechai Shenwald was in the 401 tank brigade that invaded Gaza and was injured there. He will be playing violin at the AGPI event.
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Also I bet you won't hear Brady and Warmington cover this much deeper problem facing paramedics: the terrifying understaffing of services that severely threatens patient care every day. @thegrindto.bsky.social
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The effect of this manufactured ambulance/protest controversy is it takes the focus away from Palestine, away from Israel's bombing and the mass starvation, and instead fuels rage towards protesters here, including pushing a narrative that police go too easy on protesters.
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This manufactured controversy is a lot like the Mount Sinai moment, where people were making up all kinds of stuff. @thegrindto.bsky.social
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These guys made a controversy out of a hypothetical. The child wasn't in urgent medical distress. This child isn't actually their concern. Their concern is that the police aren't coming down harder on the Palestine movement.
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They were also protesting the ongoing Nakba, the current ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Israel, including bombings, the ground invasion and starvation. If the situation doesn't change on the ground in Gaza, an estimated 14,000 babies could die over the next year.
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In any case, people are now railing on the police for not coming down more harshly on the pro-Palestine rally.
This was a rally commemorating the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist militias to take the land and create Israel.
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The ambulance was initially called because the child was unconscious, but Brady finds out on his show that according to a family member they were "out of the woods" (a.k.a. doing okay) by the time the kid got in the ambulance. x.com/aliyapabani/...
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Soon after Brady's show, Warmington publishes this in the Toronto Sun.
The article acknowledges that the kid was okay and that Toronto Paramedic Services didn't see a major issue, but Warmington doesn't find that response satisfactory.
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You can see in the video the flashers were on but siren off (signaling that the patient had stable vitals), only using the siren when trying to get the cops' attention to figure out what to do. Other drivers were also not giving the ambulance priority. x.com/realitydocu/...
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These pro-Israel media guys blew it up into a big story. First, Brady made it a focus of his AM640 Global radio show on Tuesday and tweeted about it, fearmongering that this child was in crisis and put in danger because a pro-Palestine rally blocked an intersection.
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The Current analyst only briefly mentioned Abraham Accords but not about the significance of it (Israel has been central to Syria-US relations for decades). Instead, talked about Trump being a disappointment to Israel, which is ironic given what the Abraham Accords are.
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So, ending the sanctions and getting Syria to normalize with Israel (after 77 years of refusing to) brings Syria into the US sphere of influence big time.
And yes Trump also has ego-driven reasons for ending sanctions, but it would be naive to think that's *the* reason.
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The wider context that also wasn't mentioned on The Current is that, aside from Israel, the US' closest allies in the region are Saudi and UAE. Syria has for years been their enemy, more allied with Iran and Hezbollah. al-Sharaa seems keen to ally with US/Suadi/UAE/Israel.
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While many Syrians are understandably celebrating the end of these crushing sanctions (and the end of the brutal Assad regime), it would be interesting to know what they think of normalizing with Israel. The populations of Sudan and Morocco were against it.
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I wrote about that for @thegrindto.bsky.social.
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This lifting of sanctions in exchange for signing onto the Abraham Accords is almost the exact same tactic Trump used with Sudan. In that case, Sudan was on the US terror list and so there were sanctions by default. Sudan's leaders agreed in 2020 but haven't actually signed.
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The Current segment made it seem like the reason for lifting the sanctions was a mystery, another unknowable Trump anomaly.