Ezra on the two Canadians released from Egyptian prison

[Glacier]

The Media Party has two new heroes: Tarek Loubani and John Greyson. A search of the CBC's website shows more than 5,000 stories on the two men. By contrast, lowly Nelson Mandela only has 2,000 mentions.

So, who are these saints? The Media Party says Loubani is a doctor and Greyson is a filmmaker, and they're being held in an Egyptian jail without charges.

That's part of the story. Here's the rest:

Loubani is, in fact, a doctor from London, Ont. He calls himself a Palestinian refugee, though he came to Canada from Kuwait, where he was born. But it's politically sexier to say you're Palestinian.

Loubani is an extreme activist. When a Canadian cabinet minister was announcing a grant to help people with disabilities, Loubani stormed into the press conference, disrupting it, shouting about how he's a refugee from Palestine. Even though he's been in Canada since he was a child. And he's a rich doctor, doing just fine.

Loubani just wouldn't leave the press conference, even when security guards asked him to. He kept shouting like a crazy person until police escorted him away.

So, sure, he's a doctor. But he's also a professional protester, an extremist activist. Who went to Egypt in August. Who would go there in the middle of a civil war? A trouble seeker, of course. He says he was trying to go to the Gaza Strip, a little piece of land ruled by Hamas, the terrorist group that is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

That's why he was arrested by Egyptian police. They're at war with the Muslim Brotherhood right now.

Loubani and Greyson have been happy boosters of Hamas before, with Greyson involved in running an Israeli naval blockade of the Hamas forces in Gaza.

It's technically accurate to call Greyson a filmmaker. But it is more informative to mention he's a leader of the extremist group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid - the anti-Israel group that has marched in the gay pride parade in Toronto. Which is odd, because Israel is the only country in the Middle East where homosexuality isn't a crime and where they actually have a gay pride parade, too.

The punishment for being gay in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip is the death penalty.

Greyson is obsessed with sex. He makes movies about his obsessions, with titles like Urinal and After the Bath. He explores his sexual feelings about Pierre Trudeau. Of course he's a professor at York University.

So, yes, Loubani is a doctor. And yes, Greyson is a filmmaker. Are those really the most relevant facts to report about them? Or is it more relevant to point out they are anti-Israel propagandists and activists who have made common cause with the Muslim Brotherhood's Hamas wing for years - not just in the streets of Toronto and London, Ont., but in Gaza itself?

That these men are not mainstream or moderate. It's lucky they were arrested by the Egyptian military, which only held them - as Canadian police would do, if foreign provocateurs came to town in the middle of a massive riot.

They're lucky they weren't arrested by the more enthusiastic members of Hamas' religious police. They might not be as tolerant of Greyson's sexuality as Canada is. They might not be as tolerant of Loubani's free speech as Canada is.

But there's another story here: You just can't trust the Media Party to give you the straight facts, can you?

[alfred2]

Thanks for the post, they should rot in jail, why does the media not tell the whole truth about these idiots.

[Atomoa]

Greyson is obsessed with sex. He makes movies about his obsessions, with titles like Urinal and After the Bath.

Aside from Ezra going for yet another slander case against him, why is "Urinal" and "After the Bath" associated with sex (aside from in Ezra's mind)

Just another excuse to bash anyone talking smack against Israel. Groan, Ezra.

[gordon_as]

So , you have watched both of those movies and they were completely nonsexual ?

[sobrohusfat]

Besides, the films and their content aren't really the point of the article.

...and, Ezra continues to be awesome.

[grammafreddy]

Besides, the films and their content aren't really the point of the article.

...and, Ezra continues to be awesome.

What's the point, then? Is the point "Awesome Ezra"? I'll agree, he's definitely on a smirking mission to feed his ego. He has an army of researchers and writers so they may be more "awesome" than he is. Unfortunately, Ezra only views issues from one perspective and usually fails to look at any other opposite facts that are contrary to what the "smirk of the day" is.


One certainly can't call him balanced reporting, can one?

Sometimes he reminds me of a little kid bouncing around needing a bathroom desperately.

[hobbyguy]

The conclusion of the article, basically the stereotype of "lamestream" media, is of course, incorrect. Just a right wing meme.

http://globalnews.ca/news/789967/who-are-john-greyson-and-tarek-loubani/

Hardly a glowing portrait of these two, but factual rather than taking Ezra's trash talking approach. He also twists things a bit, in that Loubani i from a Palestinian family that fled to Kuwait, and came to Canada from there. So Loubani calling himself a Palestinian seems to be correct - unless of course you choose use hyperbole as part of you normal writing method.

These two guys are "out there" politically, and I might not want them as friends, but that does not excuse the hyperbole. That is simply a tactic to dismiss another's thoughts without understanding, or even attempting to understand.

[logicalview]

I actually agree with HG's post for the most part, this article was a bit of a stretch, as Ezra has to appeal to his Sun TV viewers and make things seem worse than they really are sometimes.

There was one thing about these two radical leftists that bothered me though, that Ezra touched on - it is quite obvious that they were smuggling a drone or two drones to Hamas, and when caught, cooked up a lie about delivering medicine in Gaza hospitals. That isn't cool, as Hamas are evil, and by proxy, anyone who helps them is evil too. These two losers should answer for their actions on that, but of course, that will never happen, as the CBC was so busy turning them into folk heroes and champions of freedom or whatever that they can't now go and look seriously at the nefarious true purpose of this trip without looking incredibly stupid. It's too bad that our media in Canada, at least the majority, always has to try and turn these radicals into heroes before they even bother to find out what they are really up to or in to when they get arrested. The journalistic integrity in this country needs a reboot - Ezra is far too supportive and apologetic for the right, but the CBC and other networks are far far too supportive and apologetic for the radical left. That has to stop.

Late last night Tarek Loubani and John Greyson were released from jail in Egypt.

They had been held without charge following their arrest at a deadly riot in Cairo in August.

Their release comes after diplomatic pressure from John Baird, the foreign minister. That will be difficult to swallow for Loubani and Greyson, who are left-wing extremists. The last time Loubani met a Conservative cabinet minister, he screamed at her so insanely, security guards had to be called, and when they couldn’t get him to leave, police arrested him.

Israeli police had to arrest Loubani too. Loubani and Greyson are serial, professional protesters who engage in anti-Israel protest tourism.

Greyson was part of the “flotilla” that tried to break the Israeli naval blockade of the terrorist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

And that was their problem: these two elite, effete Canadian activists — Loubani is a wealthy doctor in London, Ont., and Greyson is a filmmaker and professor in Toronto — came to believe that all police were as gentle as Canadians and Israelis.

So it was a shock when, after their arrest in Cairo, Egyptian authorities treated them like rioters, as opposed to preening media celebrities.

MORE: Tarek Loubani and John Greyson freed from Cairo prison

At any moment, there are about 2,000 Canadians in foreign jails. Like Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen who has been in a Chinese prison since 2006. But he hasn’t made stylish soft-porn movies like Greyson, or led a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. Celil is a Muslim like Loubani, but he isn’t a Palestinian who rails against the Jewish state. (Loubani isn’t Palestinian either — he was born in Kuwait, and has been in Canada since he was a kid. But he calls himself Palestinian.)

That’s why Canada’s Media Party unanimously closed ranks behind Loubani and Greyson, and demanded their release — despite their confessed participation in a riot.

If only Celil had chosen a different country as his jailer. See, the Media Party likes China too much.

What were Loubani and Greyson doing at that Cairo riot? We’ll likely never know. But their website — created by fans back in Canada — published a startling statement just last week.

Loubani and Greyson said they believed charges against them were imminent. So they wanted to release some news about themselves first, before the Egyptian government did.

As in, there was a secret they had been keeping, even from their friends. And it was this:

“We were carrying portable camera gear (one light, one microphone, John’s HD Canon, two Go-Pros) and gear for the hospital (routers for a much-needed WiFi network and two disassembled toy-sized helicopters for testing the transportation of medical samples).”

Having a microphone and a movie camera make sense — Greyson is a filmmaker. That’s not a secret, or a damning fact.

But what about the other part — the two small remote-control helicopters? With two GoPro cameras — tiny video cameras that can be carried on those drones?

That combination — a four-propeller drone, plus a GoPro video camera — had been used by rebels in the Libyan civil war, too.

Were Loubani and Greyson trying to smuggle them to Hamas in the Gaza Strip? Or did they use them in the Cairo riots?

If there was nothing untoward, why did they withhold that information until last week?

Even more bizarre is the excuse Loubani and Greyson offered: that they were planning to use these drones to deliver medical supplies in the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, which has “very rugged terrain.”

But Al Shifa is much like any big-city hospital in Canada: busy, with hallways full of doctors, nurses, orderlies, and patients on gurneys. It has elevators to get between storeys and doors on patient rooms.

Delivering medicine at that hospital by remote control helicopter drone is absurd. It’s a joke. It’s physically impossible.

What were they really doing over there? Why were they in a riot?

The Media Party is passionately incurious. And now that the two celebrity activists were released without charge, we’ll likely never know.

http://ezralevant.com/2013/10/what-is-the-truth.html

[maryjane48]

its not proven it was for a drone, delivering medicine by remote helicopter would be a good idea and the americans are working on those types of things now to

[hobbyguy]

Besides, if Hamas wants remote control helicopters, they can get them cheaply out of China. Hardly difficult to get hold of technology.

[sobrohusfat]

...delivering medicine by remote helicopter would be a good idea ...

Sure, delivery by air or sea into Gaza is so much more sexy than the usual boring old land route.

Look Gramma!...the face of our future Prime Minister:

[logicalview]

its not proven it was for a drone, delivering medicine by remote helicopter would be a good idea and the americans are working on those types of things now to

it would be nice if instead of radical leftists making excuses for the actions of other radical leftists, the CBC and other mainstream media would do their jobs and actually investigate stories instead of just turning undeserving boobs like these two clowns into "heroes", just because they were arrested in a riot they had no reason to be in in the first place. The other day I had to watch that complete idiot Terry Milewski of the CBC shouting at Harper again like he always does, trying to "get to the bottom" of that Brazil espionage story. If that butthead Milewski and the rest of his idiotic brethren at the CBC were at all interested in actual journalism, they'd have dug into why the two "heroes" didn't divulge they were carrying drones. They would have looked at these two losers and their ties to Hamas. But they didn't. And that's why the CBC sucks.