According to our politicians, Abbottoir and Israel have heaps in common. Abbottoir's new Prime Headkicker, Tony Abbott, for example, has even declared that "Australians are all Israelis."
I simply cannot comprehend, therefore, how our two countries could have come up with such widely divergent choices as these:
The 2014 Australian of the Year is Indigenous man, Adam Goodes, who "wants to help break down the boundaries between races and won't rest until all Australians are treated as equals." (Goodes has racism in his sights, Adam Gartrell, au.news.yahoo.com, 25/1/14)
The 2014 Israeli Person of the Year, on the other hand, is the Israeli soldier "who protect(s) all of us 24/7 by fighting against terror." ('Jerusalem Post' Person of the Year: The Israeli soldier, jpost.com, 26/1/14)
Now if I may may be allowed, as an expert here, to translate the above from the Israeli language, Hasbara - a tongue notorious for veiling and obscuring reality - into plain English, it'd go something like this:
The 2014 Israeli Person of the Year is the Israeli soldier 'who protects our colonial-settler land-grab (1948-2014) by separating, confining, obstructing, intimidating, abusing, robbing, beating, arresting, gassing, shooting, shelling, and bombing the Indigenous Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories 24/7.' (For just some of the gory details see my 5/12/12 post As Though They Owned the Place.)
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