Recently Rambammed

Sarah Ferguson: How do you account for [the Israel lobby] wielding so much power?
Bob Carr: I think political donations and a program of giving trips to MPs and journalists to Israel.
7.30 Report, 9/4/14

Remember Paul Howes' flirtation with horticulture, TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine)? Well, ever since Paul left off linking Israel and Palestine (LOL) and took up a position with KPMG last year, TULIP seems to have withered, judging by the sad state of its Australian website. 

So where's a Labor lad/ladette to get his/her Ziofix these days? No problem! Meet TULIP's successor AILD (Australia Israel Labor Dialogue), which aims "to promote and foster dialogue and fraternal links between the Australian and Israeli Labor parties" (aild.org.au)

AILD, you'll be pleased to know, had its first rambam last month:

"In the first mission of its kind, the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue has hosted a group of 11 members and officials of the Australian Labor Party on a Study Mission to Israel."  (ALP on an Israeli study mission, jwire.net.au, 24/12/14)

Just for the record, the lucky 11 were:

Paul Frayne (Office of Andrew Giles MHR), Kent Rowe (ALP Secretary NT), Mitchell Wilson (NSW ALP Organiser), Jessica Malnersic (President NSW Young Labor), Tim Hammond (Barrister), Adam Slonim (AILD), Kaila Murnain (Assistant Federal Secretary ALP NSW), Michael Vaughan (Office of Tanya Plibersek MHR), Greg Holland (ALP candidate NSW state election), Rose Butler Jackson (Assistant Secretary NSW ALP), Michael Borowick (AILD chair & ACTU Assistant Secretary).

Hm... Rose Jackson, who, like federal opposition deputy leader Tanya (Once Was Warrior) Plibersek, had to recant her views in order to climb the greasy pole. (Just click on the Rose Jackson and Tanya Plibersek labels below.)

Hm... Office of Tanya (Once Was Warrior) Plibersek.

Hm... Assistant Secretary, ACTU.

Here's some of what they got up to:

"The group spent a week touring Israel being briefed by academics, journalists, and policy advisers, the Australian Embassy, the Knesset and spent a morning in Ramallah meeting the Palestinian Authority and PLO spokespeople. Mission highlights included meeting the leadership of the Israeli Labor Party, touring Sderot and the Gaza border crossing, visiting Gush Etzion, and seeing first hand the work of Australian doctors at the Tzefat hospital treating Syrian child casualties of the civil war."

Hm...

Note how a cup of coffee with the PA is always part and parcel of these Zionist propaganda tours, yet has bugger all impact on the rambammed. What happens I wonder? Do the rambammed a) play with their phones? b) roll their eyes? c) stare out the window? d) dream of the long liquid lunch that awaits back in Jerusalem? e) nap? f) all 5?

Note how the Australian Embassy is part of (complicit in?) the exercise.

Note how the carry on at Ziv Hospital, Israel's cover for its intervention in Syria, has become part of the program. (See my 12/12/14 post A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges.)