The Heart of Darkness

The masthead of Murdoch's 'flagship' paper in this country, The Australian, loudly proclaims itself to be The Heart of the Nation.

Now I'd only be inclined to go along with that claim provided that the adjective 'dark' preceded the noun 'heart'. Or, even better (and with apologies to Joseph Conrad), that it was replaced altogether with the words 'The Heart of Darkness', as befits the paper's status as the mouthpiece of the Abbottoir and all that is vile and retrograde in this country.

So what has provoked this little exercise in calling a spade a spade? What else but Ean - with an 'E' - Higgins' latest EXCLUSIVE:

"Sydney academic Jake Lynch's promotion of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign [BDS] has discriminated against all Israelis in the same fashion as a pub owner hanging out a sign saying 'No Jews or Blacks Allowed', the lawyer leading a lawsuit against him will argue. Andrew Hamilton, representing the Israel-based legal action group Shurat HaDin, has submitted a sweeping statement of claim to the Federal Court alleging Professor Lynch has directly discriminated against academics, but also helped deprive all Israelis of cultural, educational, and professional opportunities."  (Lynch like 'publican denying blacks, Jews', 28/12/13)

OMG! This is news? This is journalism? Seriously?

No, this is advocacy, pure and simple. The Heart of Darkness has donned the mantle of media-advocate for the plaintiff, and is getting in on the act even before the case is underway.

Call me sheltered, but I simply cannot for the life of me remember a media outlet intervening in a legal case in this fashion before. Of the 19 paragraphs that make up this pseudo-report, just one (1) is given over to a statement by the defendant. Extraordinary.

To return to those opening paragraphs. The simple fact of the matter here is that the pro-Palestinian BDS campaign is little more than a reaction to the behaviour of an apartheid state which, having booted out Palestine's non-Jews and stolen their lands and possessions, has put up a sign (known officially as the Law of Return) which reads, in effect, 'No Non-Jews Allowed'. 

Needless to say, on Planet Zion, reality is invariably reversed. Strange things happen there. Anti-racists, for example, are labelled racists by the supporters of a state based at its most fundamental level - the level of who gets in and who gets all the perks that come with getting-in, as opposed to those who don't - on biology.

On Planet Earth (how weird that this has to be emphasised time and again), it is Professor Lynch, not Andrew Hamilton (or Akiva as he likes to style himself), who, as a backer of BDS, stands against institutionalised racism, discrimination and exclusion.

As to those poor Israelis deprived by Professor Lynch of "cultural, educational, and professional opportunities," get ready to cry the proverbial river:

"Shurat HaDin alleges two academics [Dr Leonard Hammer & Dr Mordechai Kedar], who have joined the case as plaintiffs, have been adversely affected by Professor Lynch's policy [because]... [t]hey are people who quite realistically may want to be a visiting scholar at [Professor Lynch's] Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies..." (ibid)

"Shurat HaDin's statement... says two of the applicants, David Hans Lange and Jonathan Bose, and their wives were 'deprived of the opportunity to attend the local Israeli public performances of Elvis Costello' because a scheduled performance in 2010 for which they had tickets was cancelled 'due to implementation of boycott calls'." (ibid)

The Heart of Darkness bleeds for these miserable wretches.