Brandis & Turnbull Put Boot Into SMH

That valiant crusader for FOSEEP (freedom of speech everywhere except Palestine), Attorney-General Senator George Brandis, might struggle with the term 'Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory'*, but he sure-as-hell knows that federal parliament is Israeli-occupied territory. Hence:

"I thought the [Le Lievre] cartoon was deplorable... I would have thought a responsible media organisation would have a very good look at itself when it publishes a cartoon (of) the kind we haven't seen since Germany in the 1930s.'... Asked if the cartoon amounted to racial vilification and could encourage or incite others to hate Jews, Senator Brandis said: 'It certainly constitutes a racial form of stereotyping. I think The Sydney Morning Herald... ought to be very careful about the almost overtly anti-Semitic tone some of their commentary, including their editorial cartoon, have adopted'." (Brandis slams Fairfax newspaper over 'anti-Semitic' cartoon, Darren Davidson, The Australian, 4/8/14)

(What a God-sent opportunity, BTW, for Brandis to make up for the grief he'd given the lords of the Israel lobby over his move to kill off Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act!)

Another government politician exceedingly mindful of the fact that federal parliament is Israeli-occupied territory is Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Which explains this quite extraordinary intervention:

"It is understood... Turnbull rang [Herald editor Darren] Goodsir to lambast him for running the cartoon, which he deemed anti-Semitic and offensive to many of his constituents in his eastern Sydney electorate." (ibid)

Meanwhile, back in the real world, aka Gaza:

"Mohamed Badran is just 10 years old but already he has lost more than most people will lose in a lifetime. He is the only surviving member of his immediate family of 10 following an Israeli airstrike on his home in the crowded Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza on July 30. Doctors are now trying to save one of his eye sockets so he can have at least one prosthetic eye, but so severe is his head injury that even that is touch and go. Mohamed has no idea that his parents, brothers and sisters are gone, says one of his doctors, Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a volunteer reconstructive surgeon working at Gaza's Shifa Hospital. He is also unaware he is blind. 'He keeps asking why we have switched the lights off,' Dr Abu-Sitta says. 'Mohammed is going to need at least 10 surgeries to reconstruct his eye socket,' he adds, warning: 'Israel is creating a generation of disabled adults... and for these kids, there is no one left to care for them'." (Health crisis looms amid carnage, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/8/14)

[*See my 7/6/14 post Lap Dancing for Israel.]