A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges

Now here's a surprise. Not:

"Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures... [I]n March 2013... Israel started admitting injured Syrians for medical treatment in Safed and Nahariya hospitals. The Syrian ambassador to the UN complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only treatment of the wounded but also other aid. Israel at first asserted the injured were civilians reaching the border of their own initiative and without prior coordination because they could not obtain suitable treatment in Syria. Later, as the numbers increased, Israel said it was coordinating with civilians but not opposition groups. However, the reports reveal direct contact between the IDF and armed opposition members... Observers remarked in the report distributed on June 10 [2013] that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side." (UN reveals Israeli links with Syrian rebels, Barak Ravid, Haaretz, 7/12/14)

Now I've already raised the question (in my 3/9/13 post Our Man in Tel Aviv 2) of why Australia's ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, was peddling Israeli propaganda in Murdoch's Australian last year. Just to remind you:

"About 72 Syrian patients have been admitted to Ziv Medical Centre [in Safed] since February [2013]... They have harrowing stories and horrific injuries. Suffering from shrapnel and bullet wounds, burns and crush injuries, they have somehow managed to limp to the border with Israel, from where they are then transferred to Ziv Medical Centre... On the day I visited, I saw how doctors had managed to save the leg of an 8-year-old girl from amputation by use of some of the most advanced surgical techniques and injury treatment protocols... Ziv hospital is a profound example of humanity and decency at its most compelling. It is Israel at its very best, and a side of Israel that the world too rarely acknowledges." (Origin no bar to Israeli lifesavers, Dave Sharma, 31/8/13 - See my 3/9/13 post Our Man in Tel Aviv 2 for the Full Monty.)

That question, still unanswered, takes on a whole new urgency, it seems to me, in light of the Israeli support for anti-Asad (pro-?) forces reported by UN observers (not to mention our latest intervention in Iraq extending at some stage to include Syria). Surely, the Australian public is entitled to know whether these UN observer reports were available to DFAT, and hence to Sharma and his staff last year?

If so, then the question arises of Australia's knowing participation in an Israeli cover-up:

Haaretz: "Israel at first asserted the injured were civilians reaching the border of their own initiative and without prior coordination..."

Sharma: "... they have somehow managed to limp to the border with Israel... "

If not (ie, assuming that they have only just become available, didn't anyone - DFAT, Sharma, Sharma's staff - smell a rat? I mean, can they really be that clueless?

Oh yes, and why hasn't the above UN/Haaretz revelation been reported in the Australian mainstream media? After all, to borrow Sharma's words: "It is... a side of Israel that the world too rarely acknowledges."

How true!