Get Rhiannon! 3

The latest round of the Australian's witch hunt against those elements of the NSW Greens sufficiently informed and principled to support the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid continues apace:

"A cameo appearance by a Greens state MP at a meeting of a far-left group has highlighted divisions within the NSW Greens. Eyebrows were raised within the party by the presence of upper house MP David Shoebridge at the annual Socialist Alliance conference in Sydney last weekend. The Green-Left [sic] website reports Mr Shoebridge was present to deliver 'greetings' from the NSW Greens." (MP's visit to far-left meeting roils Greens, Imre Salusinszky & James Massola, 2/2/12)

A cameo appearance... highlighted divisions... eyebrows raised... roils Greens.

Say it isn't so! Fair dinkum, comrade Shoebridge! If only you'd cameo-ed at, say, the annual conference of the state Liberal Party instead, said divisions would have been lowlighted, raised eyebrows remained as they were, and choppy waters returned instantly to calm.

But be still my leaping eyebrows, Salusinszky's really just introducing another promo for Sally Neighbour's Monthly essay on the NSW Greens, with a bit of reassurance by former Greens MLC Ian Cohen to the effect that the Greens are "not left wing or right wing," but "the whole bird," and a "party source" who followed him with: "The balance of power is shifting towards the national centre. There is a fight back... but the extremists are losing."

Then, yesterday, churnalist Christian Kerr was back for another stab at the Mother of All Comrades:

"When The Weekend Australian detailed Greens senator Lee Rhiannon's activities as a propagandist for the Soviet Union as a contributor to and editor of the Soviet-supported magazine Survey in the 1980s and early 90s, her reaction was to fudge."

This provided the opportunity for a rehash of his ASIO "revelations" of February 1, and a raising of the old eyebrow thus:

"Rhiannon seems to have moved seamlessly from the role of Soviet propagandist at Survey, 'a monthly digest of trends in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries', to loyal member of the Greens, [which] political rebirth raises questions of her credibility."

Kerr, who seems to have moved even more seamlessly from the role of Liberal Party staffer and propagandist (2008) to loyal employee of Rupert Murdoch (2008) without any credibility issues whatever, then gave the floor to Michael Danby, the Labor member for Melbourne Ports and "just one of several parliamentarians who have raised the issue." Danby, as a card-carrying Zionist and the ALP's go-to man for all things Israel, trifling matters Kerr correctly neglects to mention, also has no credibility issues.

In fact, as reported by Kerr, the great man's expressed solicitude for all victims of Soviet crimes (with the exception, of course, of those Palestinians who lost their lives and/or homes as a result of the Soviet's timely provision of arms* to the Zionist gangs engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948) is an absolute credit to him.

And when Danby, as reported by Kerr, calls on Rhiannon to publicly express "regret" for "the harm caused by [her] years of advocacy and activism for the Soviet regime," it would surely be churlish for anyone to suggest he do the same for his many more years of advocacy and activism for the apartheid regime of Israel. Oh, yeah.

[*On [24 May, 1948], the Israeli army had received a large shipment of modern, brand new 0.45-calibre cannons from the Communist Eastern bloc. Israel now possessed artillery unmatched not only by the Arab troops inside Palestine, but by all the Arab armies put together. It should be noted that the Israeli Communist Party was instrumental in arranging this deal." (Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006, p 144)]