Doing It For Israel at The Australian

Whether it's a column on Australia's defence industry, or merely a book review, if it's Rupert you're writing for, wherever possible one should render service to Israel.

Kudos to Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan and Miriam Cosic in this weekend's Australian:

"Apart from a superpower such as the US, or a government-directed industry like that in Russia or China, or an independent strategic manufacturing capability born out of desperate necessity such as Israel..." (Warships well worth protecting, Greg Sheridan)

"Loewenstein's journalism is controversial. His anti-Israel stance has alienated him from many, and the names offering advance praise for this book - John Pilger, Bob Brown, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein - will make some eyes roll." (Decency denied in our name, Miriam Cosic - reviewing Loewenstein's Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World)

Other journalists at the Australian could take a leaf out of Sheridan's and Cosic's book in this regard. For example, political editor Dennis Shanahan opened his page one lead story thus:

"Tony Abbott has declared fixing Australia's greatest 'national failure', dire indigenous disadvantage, will be one of his personal priorities if he wins office, and has secured the agreement of former ALP president Warren Mundine to deliver generational change."  (Abbott; my pledge to close gap)

Now wouldn't the following have been better?

Tony Abbott, inspired by Israel's passion to close the economic and social gap between its Bedouin citizens in the Negev and Israelis as a whole, with bulldozers if necessary, has declared that fixing Australia's greatest 'national failure', dire indigenous disadvantage, will be one of his personal priorities if he wins office, and has secured the agreement of former ALP president and Yachad scholarship beneficiary* Warren Mundine to deliver generational change.

I rest my case.

[* Investigation of Israeli Programmes to counteract communal/individual welfare dependency, 2006.]