From: Montreal Muslim News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Morelli gets the blame; Police chair should have tossed the hotheads, sides say
See also:
Hamilton Police Services Board's Chair succumbs to Zionist bullying
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/hamilton.htm
and
Speech by human rights activist prevented from being delivered by Chairman of Hamilton Police Services Board and Hamilton City Councillor Bernie Morelli
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/sept21speech.htm
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Morelli gets the blame; Police chair should have tossed the hotheads, sides say
The Hamilton Spectator
Sharon Boase
Friday 23 September 2005
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Adversaries who squared off at Wednesday night's raucous public meeting still blame each other for the "fiasco", but agree that Bernie Morelli messed up.
Had the Police Services Board chairman, who called the meeting to address Hamilton Police Chief Brian Mullan's controversial trip to Israel, enforced his own ground rules, the meeting would never have degenerated into a shouting match that had to be aborted, some are saying.
Morelli counters that he was forced to pull the plug on the meeting by the bad behaviour of those in attendance.
"There were clearly expressions last night that were extreme and, quite frankly, reflected the concept of hatred," Morelli told The Spectator yesterday. "It wasn't a functional issue but bad behaviour."
Mullan visited Israel in March with a group of Ontario police chiefs to learn about counter-terrorism. The Community Coalition Against Racism (CCAR), a small city watchdog group, and the McMaster University chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights complained about it.
Wednesday's meeting was meant to clear the air.
Only four of 18 people scheduled to speak made it to the podium before Morelli -- who was being screamed at by speaker No. 5 -- called it quits.
Would-be presenters are being asked to submit their comments to the Police Services Board by Sept. 30. Board members will address the trip complaints at its meeting next month.
Yesterday, members of the anti-trip faction -- who also condemn Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians -- said pro-trip audience members made it impossible for them to be heard.
"I thought Hamilton was a little better than this," said Dr. Graeme MacQueen, a retired religious studies professor at McMaster University who didn't get to give his presentation opposing the chief's trip.
Despite knowing in advance that many of the naysayers took issue with Mullan's trip on political grounds, Morelli didn't announce until the start of the meeting that addressing politics wouldn't be permitted, MacQueen said. And even though Morelli told people to be respectful, he never made good on threats to evict disruptive audience members, MacQueen claimed.
"At McMaster we had dozens of hot-topic seminars and presentations over the years -- including on the Middle East -- and we have never had one collapse into that kind of chaos," MacQueen said. "Mr. Morelli needs to take a fair bit of the responsibility for it."
Mullan defended Morelli yesterday, saying the meeting was a well-intentioned attempt to make good on the police board's motto of openness, dialogue and a commitment to learning.
"A lot of people talk about respect, courtesy and understanding, but there were individuals in that meeting who let their emotions get away from them and that disappointed me," Mullan said. "I thought they'd be better prepared for what they may hear in there."
Anti-trip presenters "unleashed vicious, anti-Israeli dogma, hate," said Dr. Lorne Finkelstein, an executive member of Hamilton's United Jewish Appeal Federation.
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights member Manal Khadar told the crowd: "The state of Israel is a state that has continually and traditionally carried out police tactics that would be labelled torture in Canada, that would be labelled illegal in Canada, that would be labelled terrorism itself in Canada."
Coalition Against Racism head Ken Stone said he thinks the trip will increase the incidence of racial profiling by police as well as endanger the lives of visible minorities in Hamilton. Those messages were designed to provoke the Jewish members in the audience who, unfortunately, went for the bait, Finkelstein said. "I feel they wanted to purposely disrupt the meeting in order to appear to be victims who were not permitted to speak."
Rev. George Horton, pastor at Stewart Memorial Church and a leader of Hamilton's black community, was disappointed he didn't get a chance to better understand why the trip is viewed as such a threat by its detractors. "It was a disaster," Horton said. Hamilton's anti-racism group, Strengthening Hamilton's Community Initiative, has "a huge amount of work to do," said Dr. Anne Pearson, a founding member.
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