April 2003

Hello friends,

As you know, Canada and Israel didn't participate in the war against Iraq. Some people argued that there is a strong French influence on Canada's foreign policy, and that is why they didn't join the US. I think the Canadian army is trained more toward peace missions. Was there any French pressure on Israel? A large portion of the war was on the TV front. It was interesting to see the differences between different stations. US stations like CNN or CBS covered the progress of the "coalition forces". They almost said "the allies". I think Saddam had a larger coalition, but the word "coalition" was already in use. So he couldn't present his "coalition", and that is why he lost the war (at least on the TV front). The BBC news brought the stories of the British troops near Basra. In CBC news (Canadian), there were stories on civilian casualties, humanitarian aid campaigns and anti-war protests around the world. US stations had very advanced 3D graphics. They showed a gallery of animations of advanced weapons to increase the support of the population in the war. They presented charts of war plans on digital maps. I thought I would never see missile protected zones again, but they showed the famous three circles around missile sites on TV. I don't think the stations could do that by themselves. I believe they got these graphic animations from the army, which gave me some ideas on what graphic capabilities they have. You can imagine the IDF contributing to improve the graphics of the news. They spent hours explaining what the range of each airplane is and what kind of bombs each airplane carries. They fed the viewers with so many complex military details that no one could discover what is really going on. Anyway, it was not optimal time for war promotions on TV. Every year on March there are final games for the colleges' basketball league. They call it March madness. There are several games every day, and most of them are very exciting. You can watch the NBA stars of the next decade. On the first day of the war, when it was unclear whether Saddam was killed, the TV presenter said something like: "Many viewers called and asked what about the tournament. We are sorry that we interrupted the game with a special coverage of the war...".

You have probably heard about the SARS. In the greater Toronto area, 13 people have died, about 200 people are sick, and 1200 people were ordered into quarantine. That includes several doctors. The health authorities imposed strict regulations on visitors in several hospitals as well as funerals of the victims. The attitude of the health authorities in Canada is to take full responsibility for the health of the population. For example, they advise everyone to take a flu shot. They made a simple calculation how many working days this shot will save, and offer it for free. Although the winter here was very cold, and I came from another country, I had less flu than I usually had in Israel, because the population here is immuned. In a similar spirit, in order to protect its computers, the University of Toronto signed an agreement with Symantec allowing every student to download and install Norton antivirus at home for free. However, there is no cure for SARS at the moment. So far, all SARS cases were far away from where I live, but there are several major hospitals close to the university, which have some connections to the medical school, and they might have SARS patients which I don't know about. One speaker has even canceled his talk at the department because his employer has imposed a ban on travel to SARS-affected areas. The outbreak of the disease in Toronto shows how this city is connected to everywhere, including Asia. Anyway, up to now I have seen only two people walking in the street with masks on their faces. So we don't go with SARS masks the same way you don't go with gas masks (and the other way around).


How did you see the war in Iraq? Do you think it was different from what people saw from the other side of the world?


Ady.