A Tale of Massacre & Theft

If the following extracts from Stephanie Bunbury's interview with Israeli-American actress and director, Natalie Portman, are anything to go by, it looks like Australian moviegoers are in for a massive dose of Zionist propaganda:

"A Tale of Love & Darkness [2015] is adapted from a childhood memoir by Amos Oz*, the Israeli writer whose prominence on the world literary stage has him regularly tipped to win a Nobel prize." ('You need a great deal of ignorance to take on a a great challenge', Sydney Morning Herald, 24/10/15)

Question: Is there any Israeli writer out there not strutting around on "the world literary stage," or on the cusp of winning a Nobel prize?

Grumble: I do wish journalists would put quotation marks around the hype they lift from press releases.

"A Tale of Love & Darkness recalls the 5 years between 1945 and 1950. A Jewish state was re-established in what had been the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948."

Re-established?

Now that's straight out of the Zionist catechism! I refuse to believe that that word came unaided from Bunbury's pen. From a Portman press release, yes, but not from Bunbury herself. Be that as it may, Bunbury's responsible for its recycling.

I mean, does she seriously believe that a bunch of Russo-Polish nutters, such as Benjamin Miliekowsky, Ariel Scheinerman, David Grun and Chaim Weizmann (or Amos Klausner for that matter), to name but the top dogs, and their ugly little apartheid project in Palestine, are seriously connected to some fabled Palestinian kingdom, so lost in the mists of time that, try as they might, no archaeologist of repute can find any compelling evidence for it? If so, you've got to ask, does she also believe in the tooth fairy?

"As young Amos remembers that time, cocooned in a right-wing Zionist family,..."

OMG, Give me Guantanamo Bay any day!

"... the mood of elation and hope was only faintly shadowed by the angry despair of the Arab Palestinians outside that circle of nationhood."

Now WTF does that mean? Let me guess: Amos's Mum and Dad, their minds cocooned in a right-wing Zionist ideology, drank a toast to Menachem Begin and the boyz on hearing about their deeds of derring-do at Deir Yassin.

"[Portman] certainly understood the wide European antipathy to Israel, particularly over West Bank settlements; she has not held back on her own condemnation of Benjamin Netanyahu... With Oz, however, she clearly thought she was on safe moral ground; his central role in the peace movement and sustained opposition to the settlements have made him a hero of the Israeli left."

Oh did she now? So Portman has a problem with post-1967 Zionist settlers, but not with pre-1967 Zionist settlers? If so, could she please explain the subtle difference between, say, the Hebron massacre of 1994 and the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948? The simple fact is that, as far as indigenous populations are concerned, all European settlers, Zionist or otherwise, have only ever talked to the natives through the barrel of a gun.

"In Portman's film, the spirit of Zionism is intermittently represented in visions of a fit young man. He is simultaneously shown to be the kind of man Fania failed to marry - strong, determined, practical, cheerful - and a symbol of the nation's future."

Shouldn't that be a fit young man... carrying a gun?

"... the Zionists in this film are idealists, the good guys..."

Say no more. Is this the new Exodus? Is Portman the new Otto Preminger? God help us!

[*On Oz, see my 28/8/08 post Amos Oz, Oz, Oz, Oi! Oi! Oi!.]

Looking for Inspiration in All the Wrong Places

"Wyatt Roy will return to Israel this week to scour the high-tech powerhouse for inspiration for the government's innovation agenda. The Assistant Minister for Innovation will lead a group of about 50 entrepreneurs, industry representatives and government envoys on a week-long expedition of the upstart start-up nation... Mr Roy will lead the Australian delegation alongside Robogals founder and 2012 Young Australian of the Year, Marita Cheng." (Roy leading delegation to innovative Israel, Frances Mao, Sydney Morning Herald, 27/10/15)

Wyatt Roy was rambammed last year. For the gory details, see my 23/6/14 post Lib MPs Blown Away by Israel. See also my 24/6/14 post Lib MPs Not Quite Blown Away by Israel.

For 'start-up nation', see my posts Mephitic Odours at Monash University (7/4/13); Upstart Nation (11/1/11); Creative Destruction (23/4/10).

The Love Song of J. Pierre Trudeau

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two.
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use.
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous -
Almost, at times, the Fool.

"As I've said many times, before and after visiting Israel, standing up for Israel is more than just standing up for her security. It is also standing up for the very values and ideals that our two countries share - democracy, openness, tolerance, compassion, respect for the rule of law, and perhaps above all, the quest for peace. I want to reiterate that the Liberal Party of Canada will have Israel's back. Not because it is in our political interests to do so at home but because it is the right thing to do. I do want to emphasise the importance of having a political consensus in Ottowa across party lines. We must support Israel. Canada must remain a steadfast and true friend to Israel. The only way to accomplish that goal is to make sure that, regardless of our differences, all Canadian political parties are united in our support for a safe, secure and prosperous state of Israel." (Justin Trudeau, 6/4/14)

Ziobile in Australia, Ziobullets in Palestine

What the letters editor of The Australian deemed fit to print in yesterday's defecation:

"What is happening to the Middle East is a microcosm of what militant Muslims have in store for the entire world if they get their way. That is a caliphate devoted to the laws of Islam and the Koran. It rings true that when the Arab nations learn to love their children more than they hate so-called disbelievers, then the guns will be silent and peace will reign. Until then we had better perfect the art of warfare against these terrorists and their affiliates whose global tentacles are increasingly conspicuous everywhere." Aviva Rothschild, Caulfield, Vic

Note the twist on Golda Meir's old propaganda line:

"We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

BTW, here's the latest example of Arabs forcing Israelis to kill their children:

"Israeli soldiers murdered a Palestinian schoolgirl, unarmed, threatening no one. Israel called her a knife-wielding terrorist, the Big lie it repeats ad nauseam. Eyewitnesses called her a 'terrified' young girl. One said she was surrounded by 7 or 8 soldiers. They 'checked her belongings in a schoolbag,' he said. 'She looked like she was around 14 years old. She went through a metal detector. In the school bag they found nothing and asked her, 'Where's the knife?' She said, 'I don't have a knife.' Then they fired between her legs. She was terrified and moved back half a meter. She raised her arms in the air (again) saying 'I don't have a knife.' Then they shot 8 to 10 bullets, but I don't know exactly who was shooting. Then she fell on the ground.' Other eyewitnesses said soldiers prevented medical help from arriving to try saving her." (Netanyahu's latest ethnic cleansing scheme: forcibly displacing East Jerusalem Arab residents, Stephen Lendman, sjlendman.blogspot.com, 26/10/15)

'Insights' from Israel by Russell Matheson MP

I know, it's getting tedious but...

"Liberal MP Russel Matheson (Macarthur NSW) said he left Australia as a friend of Israel and returned 'a stronger friend." (Rambamites report back, Australian Jewish News, 16/10/15)

That's the general idea, Russ...

"I don't understand why the world is leaving Israel hanging dry."

Has no idea...

"Matheson said his visit to Beersheva [sic] was a highlight of the trip, commenting that the majority of the horses in the famous light horse infantry were trained at Menangle in his electorate."

Fascinating...

"He also noted the small size of Israel and the proximity of its neighbours could only be truly appreciated following a visit to the country."

Can't do the maths...

NB: Liberal MP Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, NSW), Labor MP Rob Mitchell (McEwan, Vic), and Senator Chris Ketter (QLD) "also participated in the trip," but did not, for whatever reason, sing for their AIJAC supper.

'Insights' from Israel by Terri Butler MP

For the 'insights' of Terri Butler, Labor MP for Griffith (QLD), we can dispense with the Australian Jewish News report quoted in the previous post and go directly to terributlermp.com for the full text of her report-back speech to her AIJAC handlers. (Speech to Australia-Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, 1/10/15)

Butler's not quite as agog as Bird but it's abundantly clear from her speech that she hasn't got a clue about this issue. Here's how she begins:

"I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet."

That anyone can utter the above words and participate in a propaganda tour to an apartheid state that not only denies the existence of its traditional owners, but ruthlessly applies itself to keeping them down (Palestinian Israelis, occupied Palestinians) or out (Palestinian refugees), is either the height of cynicism or, as I suspect, ignorance.

"Military service, and no doubt the feeling of a need to work together to defend against internal and external threats, gives rise to an enduring esprit de corps for young Israelis."

Does Butler know what fascism is? Can she not see that the above line could've been used to describe the Italian army under Mussolini or the German army under Hitler? Is she that ignorant?

Is she not aware that military service for Israelis involves little more than shoring up a near 50-year illegal OCCUPATION (a word which never passes her lips) - characterised by bloody murder, blatant land theft and rampant colonisation? Or, in the case of Gaza, 'mowing the grass', that cute Israeli euphemism for genocide?

In 37 years on this planet, with a university degree under her belt, can she still be as ignorant of the underlying colonial dynamic that underpins this international running sore as she was at birth?

Unbelievable!

"Mark Regev told us that Jerusalem to the Golan Heights was like the distance from Melbourne to Geelong."

Mark Regev, FFS. Well, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, he would say that, wouldn't he? And while we're at it that's the OCCUPIED Golan Heights, OK?

"... when we went to the hospital in the north..."

That's right, the one where Israel patches up al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists for yet more murder and mayhem in Syria! (See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.)

"The sentiment from government, Knesset members and academics with whom we spoke was that if sanctions had continued, the Iranian people would have demanded that the nuclear program cease in order to have those sanctions lifted."

What a flogging surprise! The Middle East's only nuclear-armed state wants the US, EU, Australia etc to turn the screw ever tighter on the Iranian people to force them into putting pressure on their leaders to drop, wait for it - a nuclear program. But can Butler see the manifest hypocrisy of this? Rhetorical question.

"This is a preference for the bird in the bush over the bird in the hand. One might think reasonable minds could differ, but all those with whom we spoke were firm in their views and unwilling to acknowledge the merit of alternative views."

Another surprise! Israeli officials are one-eyed! What penetrating insight is this? Who could possibly have guessed?
 
"We visited the settlement in the West Bank. Our host told us he lived there because it was a good place to raise children. I found that frankly unbelievable. He later told us that his children went to school with no Palestinian children. This segregation seems at odds with the already counter-intuitive statement that a settlement in the West Bank is a good place to raise children. It seems more likely that the settlements are tactical given they are, at least ostensibly, a major impediment to, or bargaining chip in, peace negotiations."

The settlement? You mean there's only one?

The settler told Butler his kids' school didn't have Palestinian students? What the hell does she think Israel is running in the OCCUPIED West Bank, a multicultural, inclusive, love-in? What a stellar insight: colonisers don't send their kids to the same schools as the kids of the colonised!

Then there's this deathless doozie: the settlements are "tactical"!

Really? Since when has a coloniser ever erected a structure for merely tactical reasons?

Hello, colonies are, like, forever... if the bastards can get away with it.

And get away with it they do, with Western politicians such as Butler and her mates, who wouldn't recognise the bleeding obvious if it hit them in the face.

Tomorrow: 'Insights' from Israel by Russell Matheson MP.

'Insights' from Israel by Sharon Bird MP

Some people just can't say 'no', but, blimey, can they sing on cue when asked. Meet the Rambamites who took part in AIJAC's Rambam study tour of Israel in July.

First off, there's Sharon Bird, federal Labor MP for Cunningham (NSW) and shadow minister for vocational education. Needless to say, Sharon was mightily impressed with Israel. No 20s/30s fellow-traveler on a propaganda tour of the Soviet Union ever sang the praises of the Workers' Paradise quite as sweetly as Ms Burd Bird sings the praises of the 'Jewish State':

"The uplifting and encouraging part was that people were profoundly determined to get on with their personal lives... I think that's a testament to a people who have unfortunately had to do that too many times."  (Rambamites report back, The Australian Jewish News, 16/10/15)

Just think. Everywhere else on the planet people are determined to get on with their personal lives, but only in Israel are they profoundly determined to do so! Their secret? Practise. They've unfortunately had to do it too many times!

What can she possibly mean by this? I guess it's got something to do with the Ay-rabs. After all, how distracting, even profoundly so, must it be to have to shoot them, blow up their homes, burn down their olive trees, and generally liberate the land from under them, while at the same time you're flat out chasing a dollar, popping out kids, fiddling with iphones and so on.

"The enormous creativity and innovation in Israel... the capacity to solve problems, the water issues, was astounding, to turn their ingenuity to supposedly insurmountable problems. We're trying to build innovation in Australia and you've got such a great model in Israel... I think you can learn a lot from that culture."

To take but one example. Just before Israel came into being, around 1947 to be precise, there were simply too many damn Arabs there. In fact, they were a majority in the land! Imagine! Luckily, the Jewish minority, born problem solvers to a man, were able to use their incredible ingenuity to solve this supposedly insurmountable problem.

Led by their Problem Solver-in-Chief, the ingenious David Ben-Gurion (formerly David Grun of Plonsk, Poland), they hit on an absolutely brilliant solution: to even up the numbers, to get a bit of demographic parity, hell, maybe even to turn a majority into a minority - the Holy Grail of solutions! - they simply drove the Arabs out and grabbed their land, no questions asked, all over Red Rover. Pure fucking genius!

Just imagine, if we took a leaf out of Israel's book and applied that kind of problem-solving nous to, say, Australia's hospital waiting lists, which just seem to grow longer and longer, leading to a supposedly insurmountable problem (since people seem to have this ridiculous idea that they have some God-given right to be cured. Talk about a sense of entitlement!).

Why not go for the Israeli solution?  Just bomb the bloody hospitals! Hey presto! No more waiting lists. I mean, think about it, any hospital waiting lists in Gaza?

"She said visiting Jerusalem was an extraordinary experience and noticed its contrast with modern Tel Aviv: 'It spoke to me about the richness of the Israeli experience, its depth and breadth'."

Now who'd have thought that Tel Aviv, built in the 20s, would be different to Jerusalem, which has been around, like, forever? Thank you, Sharon, for enlightening us on this.

You know, the amazing thing about the rambamming experience is that those who undergo it can look at Israeli-occupied/annexed Arab East Jerusalem, sometimes known as the Old City, and see only "the richness of Israeli experience." Interesting that.

OK, I'm off - profoundly determined to get on with my personal life.

Tomorrow: 'Insights' from Israel by Terri Butler MP

Emergency Protest: Stand with Palestine

Emergency Protest: Stand With Palestine

*End Israeli Occupation
*Dismantle Israeli Apartheid
*Tear Down the Apartheid Wall
*Lift the Siege on Gaza
*End Extrajudicial Killings
*Support Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS)
  until Israel complies with international law

When: Today, 5.30 pm
Where: State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Netanyahu Revises Genesis

Genesis 3 Benjamin Netanyahu Version (BNV)

1. Now the Mufti was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2. And the woman said unto the Mufti, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4. And the Mufti said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

9. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The Mufti beguiled me, and I did eat.

14. And the Lord God said unto the Mufti, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life:

15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return...

Tongue-Tied

In the world's greatest democracy, USrael, freedom of speech is de riguer - except for USraeli State Department spokesmen:

Q: But when the German government has to come out and say that what Netanyahu said was wrong; when the leadership of Yad Vashem has to come out and say that what he said was wrong; when the Israeli opposition leader, Mr Herzog, has to come out and say that what he said was wrong; shouldn't the US at least challenge the accuracy of what Mr Netanyahu said?

John Kirby: I think what we're trying to do here is take a larger view. And rather than get into a commentary on every word uttered and every action taken...

Netanyahu Revises Holocaust

Total immersion since birth in an ideology cannot but leave its mark on its victims. This is especially the case with those indoctrinated in the toxic ideology of political Zionism. False historical narratives, Goebbelsian talking points, endless spin and lies are dinned into their minds from cradle to grave, distorting their perceptions, blunting their capacity for moral judgment and critical thought, and turning reality on its head.

There is perhaps no better example of this than the current Israeli prime minister:   

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked controversy on Tuesday after claiming that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, planted the idea of exterminating Jews from Europe in Adolf Hitler's mind. In an address to the World Zionist Congress, Netanyahu said the Nazi ruler had no intention of killing the Jews, but only to expel them. 'Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (to Palestine),' Netanyahu said, adding that the Mufti told Hitler to 'burn them'." (Bibi absolves Hitler for Holocaust, thedailybeast.com, 21/10/15)

Watch how this one takes off among the true believers as their talking point du jour and rationale for the use of the mailed fist against the Palestinian slave revolt now underway.

For the facts on the Mufti of Jerusalem, click on the label below.

Justin Trudeau in a Nutshell

"The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses." - JT tweet, 13/3/15

And as Israel rained death, hell and the grave on Gaza last year, Trudeau Ziobabbled:

"Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately." 15/7/14

Every Word a Turd

Excreta from yesterday's Ziotorial in Murdoch's Australian, Knife attacks unsettle Israel: Palestinian youths have scant respect for Mahmoud Abbas:

"... stealthy stabbings striking at the heart of everyday life in Israel."

No interest here, of course, in the heart of everyday life under the Israeli jackboot in occupied Palestine.

"The anger among Palestinian youths is part of a deep-seated culture of hatred being cultivated in mosques, schools and on social media."

No, nothing to do with mosques, schools or media. They're merely responding to rissing levels of Israeli military thuggery, settler-colonial violence, land theft, and economic deprivation. It's called blowback, dolt.

"There is no hint of Islamic State involvement in the attacks..."

Why mention it then?

"... but the use of knives, screwdrivers and even a potato peeler to stab Jews is grotesque."

Of course, there's nothing at all grotesque about the astonishing array of US-supplied ordnance in bulging Israeli arsenals, everything from skunk bombs to WMD.

"From their lair in Gaza..."

Oh FFS...

Tony Blair Just Couldn't Wait for Iraq War

Sensational revelations on Tony Blair and Iraq appeared in yesterday's MailOnline.

Typically, there was NOTHING about them on this morning's (6.30) ABC news*, so here are the MailOnline headlines and opening paragraph:

Smoking gun emails reveals Blair's 'deal in blood' with George Bush over Iraq war was forged a YEAR before the invasion had even started - despite claiming he wanted peace

*Leaked White House memo shows former PM's support for war at summit with US President in 2002

*Bombshell document shows Blair preparing to act as spin doctor for Bush, who was told 'the UK will follow our lead'

*Publicly, Blair still claimed to be looking for diplomatic solution - in direct contrast to email revelations

*New light was shed on Bush-Blair relations by material disclosed by Hilary Clinton at the order of US courts

"A bombshell White House memo has revealed for the first time details of the 'deal in blood' forged by Tony Blair and George Bush over the Iraq War. The sensational leak shows that Blair had given an unqualified pledge to sign up to the conflict a year before the invasion started. It flies in the face of the Prime Minister's public claims at the time that he was seeking a diplomatic solution to the crisis. He told voters: 'We're not proposing military action - in direct contrast to what the secret email now reveals." (Glen Owen & William Lowther, 18/10/15)

You can read it all at dailymail.co.uk. For now, here's the data from their useful graphic:

Secret: Memorandum to the President
From: Colin L. Powell, 28/3/02
Subject: Your meeting with UK PM Tony Blair, April 5-7, 2002 at Crawford

1. Powell starts his memo by outlining the intimate nature of the upcoming meeting between Blair and Bush at the President's Crawford ranch in Texas.

*"Tony Blair is looking forward to the time he and his family will spend with you at Crawford to deepen their personal relationship with you and Laura [Bush's wife]. Buckingham Palace's approval of the trip despite The Queen Mother's death attests to the importance the British government ascribes to Blair's meeting with you. Blair will want to discuss: Afghanistan; Iraq; the Middle East; Russia and Nato enlargement; and trade and development.'

2. He says Blair will back him on Iraq and present 'public affairs lines' as Bush's global spin doctor.

* "Blair continues to stand by you and the US as we move forward on the war on terrorism and on Iraq. He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause."

3. Powell then says that Blair eagerly proved his loyalty to Bush by sending British troops to Afghanistan even though UK military chiefs warned it was a risk.

* "Blair and the UK are in Afghanistan with us for the long haul. He readily committed to deploy 1,700 commandos, even though his experts warn that British forces are overstretched."

4. Again, he stresses Blair was already committed to Iraq War - even though he had not told MPs, the Cabinet or British voters.

* "On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary."

5. Powell says only TWO of Blair's cabinet ministers backed the war, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw - at the time Blair claimed they all did. And he denied most Labour MPs and voters opposed him.

* "Aside from his foreign and defence secretaries, however, Blair's Cabinet shows signs of division, and the Labour Party and the British public are unconvinced that military action is warranted now."

6. Smooth-talking Blair would persuade sceptics that flimsy claims that Saddam had WMDs were 'credible' and brush off claims that UN backing was needed. The UN is dismissed with contempt.

* "Blair may suggest ideas on how to make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace... [and] handle calls for a UNSC [Security Council] blessing."

7. Blair would say the Allies would prevent bloody chaos in Iraq 'the day after' Saddam fell. They did no such thing, there was bloody chaos.

* "[Blair will] demonstrate that we have thought through 'the day after'."

8. Loyal Blair would spare Bush's blushes by not making a public fuss about a US decision on import tariffs which had devastated Britain's steel industry.

* "We do not expect Blair to dwell on the steel decision."

9. 'Arrogant' Blair desperately needed Bush's endorsement because his domestic policies were failing in Britain.

* "Blair hit some domestic turbulence. Blamed at home for failing to fix inadequate public services, his (unpublished) poll numbers have fallen to below 50%. He is sharply criticised by the media for being too pro-US, too arrogant and 'presidential' (not a compliment in the British context) and too insensitive on issues of concern to voters."

10. Bush had to pretend Blair was his equal to enable him to convince sceptical British voters he was not America's poodle.

* "Blair knows he may have to pay a political price for supporting us on Iraq, and wants to minimise it. Nonetheless, he will stick with us on the big issues. His voters will look for signs that Britain and America are truly equity partners in the special relationship."

[* However, an item on the recreation of the 1915 'Coo-ee March' from Gilgandra to Sydney to suck Australians into joining the army to fight for Britain in World War I was broadcast.]

First the Smear, Then the Lie

The Guardian, under the new editorship of Zionist Jonathan Freedland, has sunk to new depths with the publication of a blatant propaganda piece by Israel's minister of public security, Gilad Erdan, on the latest surge in Palestinian RESISTANCE to the OCCUPATION of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Predictably titled The terror in Jerusalem is based on a lie (16/10/15), Erdan's piece focuses exclusively on desperate acts of Palestinian resistance, while completely ignoring the intolerable and always expanding STATE TERROR of Israeli occupation, colonisation and oppression which spawns them. Two features, both standard fare for Israeli PR, stand out.

First there's the vile smear, originally trotted out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to the UNGA last September ("Isis & Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree."):

"Just as Isis murders innocent people because of its extremist jihadi ideology, so is the case with Palestinian terrorism, which is based on the same murderous ideology."

Then there's the big lie:

"Amid all this incitement, the most inflammatory charge is the claim that Israel has some kind of plan to change the arrangements governing access to the area within the Old City of Jerusalem, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. This is a lie - and an irresponsible lie at that. I can state in no uncertain terms and on behalf of the government of Israel that my country is not seeking to change the status quo regarding the Temple Mount."

That 'assurance', like all Zionist assurances, has about as much credibility as the following whopper by Nahum Sokolow (1859-1936), one of the Zionist architects, along with Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), of the Balfour Declaration of 1917:

"It has been said, and is still being obstinately repeated by anti-Zionists again and again, that Zionism aims at the creation of an independent 'Jewish State.' But this is wholly fallacious. The 'Jewish state' was never part of the Zionist programme." (History of Zionism 1600-1918, 1919, I, xxiv-xxv)

Keep in mind that Sokolow's lie came just 23 years after the publication of political Zionism's seminal 1896 manifesto, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), by Theodor Herzl, political Zionism's founding father.

As for Zionist designs on the Haram ash-Sharif these are as old as political Zionism itself. Consider this disclosure by Weizmann:

"I have just remembered another of Samuel's remarks which I have not passed on to you; he said: 'We should rebuild the Temple, as a symbol of Jewish unity.'"

That comes from a letter written to Ahad Ha'am on 14 December 1914, and can be found in the collection The Letters & Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Vol VII, page 82. Herbert Samuel (1860-1963), of course, a British Liberal MP and Zionist Jew, would go on to become British Mandate Palestine's first High Commissioner from 1920 to 1925. 

What Zionists say in public is one thing. What they say in private (or occasionally blurt out) is quite another.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Haram ash-Sharif, with its Al-Aqsa Mosque and golden Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem's crowning glory, is as much at risk from destruction by Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) as the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra is from that other hideous sectarian entity, Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL).

Zionism in a Nutshell

"If I came with a bible in one hand and a rifle in the other, knocked on your door, and said: according to my bible, my family lived in your home 2,000 years ago, would you pack up your bags and leave?"  

Norman Finkelstein

Emergency Protest: Stand with Palestine

Emergency Protest: Stand with Palestine

*Palestinian access to Al-Aqsa Mosque
*End the siege on Gaza
*End Israeli apartheid

When: 1 pm, Saturday 17 October
Where: Sydney Town Hall

'Die You Son of a Whore. Die! Die!'

Well worth reading: Israel, the Media & the Anatomy of a Sick Society by Eric Draitser, counterpunch.org, 15/10/15. Here's an extract:

"The video of 13 year old Palestinian Ahmed Manasrah bleeding to death on the pavement of an East Jerusalem neighbourhood has been described as 'shocking,' 'disturbing,' and 'painful to watch.' The callous verbal abuse and insults from Israelis watching the child writhe in agony are variously characterized as 'heartless' and 'cruel'; and indeed they are. 'Die you son of a whore. Die! Die!' the Israeli onlookers can be heard shouting in the video which has since gone viral on social media.

"What the Ahmed Manasrah video laid bare for the world to see is the inhumanity of Zionism, a Jewish supremacist ideology which necessarily places non-Jews in an inferior relation to Jews, which places less value on the life of the non-Jew. It is not simple hatred that motivated the disgusting comments from the onlookers, it is an ingrained, inter-generational sense of superiority bred of dehumanization of the Palestinian, and the Arab generally. This fundamental fact is only very rarely discussed, but it lies at the heart of the Palestine conflict. By seeing Arabs as subhuman, many Israelis are able to justify, often on an unconscious level, all forms of brutality, violence, and oppression."

Zionism Good, Homophobia Bad

We have a constant stream of Israeli Zionist apologists and boosters coming to Australia, all of whom subscribe, in one form or another, to such cherished Zionist values as Jewish supremacism, Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, occupation, colonisation, and oppression, but when one turns out to be, in addition, a blatant homophobe - well now, that's going too far. Beyond strange:

"Australia's main Jewish organisations have launched an attack on extremist Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin, who is visiting Australia to raise funds for a new political party. The former Likud Knesset member and deputy speaker is appealing to religious Jewish groups in Sydney and Melbourne to secure financial backing for his new party in Israel called Zehut (identity). Mr Feiglin wrote an article titled 'I am a proud homophobe' in 2009, and in August argued that the 'culture' of homosexuality threatened the status of the family, calling a gay parade in Jerusalem 'a clear example of coercion'. He has also called Palestinians a 'gang of bandits'. The newly minted chief minister and rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Benjamin Elton, said Mr Feiglin was not welcome... 'I'm absolutely opposed to any sexism, racism or homophobia.' This comes after a group of 11 Zionist, Jewish and LGBTI groups condemned Mr Feiglin's Australian visit, claiming his views were not representative of Jewish values." ('Proud homophobe' faces backlash, Judith Ireland, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/10/15)

Being Benjamin Netanyahu

Ever wonder what it must be like being Benjamin Netanyahu?

In public, you'd strut and swagger, glare and glower, and threaten the natives with more and more stick whenever they raised their heads:

"We won't accept that in our Jewish capital, or anywhere else in Israel, that people will throw stones at cars. Stones & firebombs are deadly weapons; they kill and have killed. Therefore, in recent days we have changed the open-fire orders for police in Jerusalem. Already over the weekend they used the new measures under the new orders and immediately hit those throwing stones and firebombs. We will continue to add forces in order to strike at rioters under a simple principle that we will begin to implement around and within Israel's borders: whoever tries to attack us, we will hurt him." (Netanyahu tweet, 20/9/15)

But at home, you'd keep your mouth shut and your head down if you knew what was good for you:

"Etti Haim, a former cook, said that the prime minister's wife hit her, and on one occasion refused to call an ambulance for an employee who had fainted. She said that Mrs Netanyahu had once thrown a tantrum because a member of staff had once unfurled a sun awning on the patio - on Benjamin Netanyahu's orders - showering the table, which had been set for dinner, with dust. 'We stood there terrified. She jerked the cloth off the table so that all the dishes, salads and pickles landed on the floor,' said Ms Haim, who was subpoenaed to testify. 'Then she said, 'You have 5 minutes to reset this table'.' Mr Netanyahu sat silently throughout the episode, trying not to make eye contact with the employee he had asked to lower the awning, Ms Haim said." (Benjamin Netanyahu's wife 'abused staff in drunken rages', Gregg Carlstrom, The Times/The Australian, 24/9/15)

My Michaelia Cash Nightmare

I didn't set out to write a post about Senator Michaelia Cash, Minister for Employment & Women. All I knew about her was the Hair, the Gear, and the hots for Thatcher. There was no reason to inquire further. What I knew was bad enough. But then I read about the case of Tahira Sajid:

"Single mother and asylum seeker Tahira Sajid is battling ovarian cancer while living in abject poverty in Sydney's southeast. But that is the least of her worries. 'My claim has been refused so I have to go back to Pakistan with my daughter by the end of next month, where I will have no support or protection,' the 45-year-old said. 'I will face harm if I go back.'

"When Ms Sajid's husband was threatened by the Taliban, the couple fled with their 8-year-old daughter Malaika to Australia in 2012. Ms Sajid said that she was then pressured into agreeing to a divorce.

"'Tahira has no financial support from her ex-husband or any other relatives and has the responsibility of taking care of her daughter and school expenses,' friend Fukher Batool, who has helped out with her rent and groceries, said. The parents have lived apart in Australia on consecutive bridging visas, but with Malaika they have been refused permanent residency and will be forced back to Pakistan, unless Ms Sajid's pleas are heard by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. 'If I go back to Pakistan, my ex-husband will take Malaika away. I don't have protection from anyone or the law there,' Ms Sajid said.

"Louisa McKimm of the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre represented Ms Sajid and her daughter until their case was rejected by then assistant immigration minister Michaelia Cash, on September 18, before Senator Cash changed portfolios following the leadership spill. 'It was the saddest day of my career telling Tahira that she was refused,' Ms McKimm said.

"Less than half of Pakistan's women were literate and it was unlikely that Malaika would receive schooling if she returned because she was female, she said, which meant Australia had obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to protect her right to education...

"Tahira is not of a high class; we are dealing with a woman who is going back to Pakistan single, her parents have passed away, she doesn't have a great education and she is very weak physically from the cancer battle,' she said. After surgery and an intensive course of combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy at Westmead Hospital, the ovarian cancer has been held at bay, but Ms Sajid said she would not get follow-ups if she left Australia's well-equipped healthcare system. As for Malaika, there's no doubt what she wants. 'I don't want to go back,' she said. 'I want to stay and learn'." (Cancer least of the battle for outcast Tahira, Gina Rushton, The Australian, 12/10/15)

Shit!  Rejected by... Michaelia Cash. Is the woman human, I thought?

Then I read this:

"A new agreement with Australia will allow Israelis to work Down Under, Dave Sharma, Australia's ambassador to Israel, announced on Wednesday. 'Aus just signed work and holiday visa arrangement with Israel,' Sharma tweeted. 'Young Israelis can now work + travel in Aus & vice versa.' The agreement provides for 500 work-travel visas to be awarded annually to Israelis and Australians between the ages of 18 and 30 for one another's country, Ynet reported Thursday..." (Australia & Israel sign mutual travel-work visa deal, Haaretz, 22/10/14)

As indicated, the Haaretz report didn't end there. It went on to say this:

"Criteria to receive such a visa include having done military or national service, according to Ynet..."

WTF is going on here?  Kick arse in Palestine, then R&R in Australia. Bombs away in Iraq and Syria, then R&R in Israel? The mind boggles.

And then, as I stopped shaking my head and resumed reading, there it was - that bloody name. Again:

"The deal was signed between Senator Michaelia Cash, Australia's assistant minister for immigration and border protection, and Shmuel Ben-Shmuel, the Israeli ambassador to Australia."

Following which, I read this from Cash's (Iron?) maiden speech:

"As a Liberal I believe in minimal government interference and that the role of government is to create and maintain a regulatory and taxation environment conducive to allowing the private sector to get on with the job." (2/9/08)

OSFBB: Open Slather for Big Business! Cash by name, cash by nature.

Then, finally, there was this, which took me back to poor little Malaika:

"Celebrating International Day of the Girl Child with our young female leaders@girlguidesaust" (The latest Michaelia Cash tweet)

International Day of the Girl Child... just 23 days after giving Malaika and her mother the flick.

Ain't She Sweet...

See her swagger down the street (finger on trigger)
Now I ask you very confidentially,
Ain't she sweet?

Ain't she ice?
Look her over once or twice.
Now I ask you very confidentially,
Ain't she ice?

Cast an eye in her direction.
Me oh my, ain't she perfection?

- with apologies to Ager and Yellen

"Ms [Sharren] Haskell, 31, was last month sworn in as a representative for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, fulfilling a political ambition that had flourished since her return to Israel three years ago. Ms Haskell spent almost 7 years living in Sydney, which she proudly calls her 'second home'. For a time she was even an Australian citizen, but Israel demands foreign citizenships be forfeited upon entering the Knesset... Ms Haskell said she had been impressed by Australian values. 'Respect the environment, respect other people, tolerance - you know, it gave me a different perspective about cultural things'... She has vowed not to be an invisible backbencher, and to use her international experience through her position on the Knesset's influential foreign affairs committee. She also wants to help broaden Israel's relations with Australia, which will be strengthened in the next month or so as the finishing touches are put on the first working holiday visa scheme." (From Bondi vet to Israel's 'snake pit', Jacob Atkins, The Australian, 5/10/15)

"As to peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Haskell said she trusted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to act according to political dynamics in the Middle East as well as Israel's security needs.'We have nothing to talk about now with the Palestinians,' she added. When they stop the violence, the stone-throwing, stop encouraging terrorism and calling terrorists 'martyrs', then maybe we can sit down and discuss." (Meet Likud's newest MK Sharren Haskell, israelnationalnews.com, 7/9/15)

"When she was inducted into the Israel Defense Forces, she decided to join a combat unit... Haskell says her years in the IDF at the height of the second intifada - including the terrorist acts, Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank and the fragile truce, were all instrumental in shaping her worldview. 'You stand at checkpoints, detain people, catch suspects, attend demolitions of terrorist houses, police demonstrations, and you just keep getting beat up. All the time." (How Likud's youngest MK went from the Peace Camp to the Right, Hilo Glazer, haaretz.com, 29/9/15)

"When it comes to political positions, she now speaks fluent 'Netanyahu-ese' ('How can you negotiate with someone who doesn't recognize you?': 'Here we condemn and there they name city squares after muderers.') She talks of feeling a special affinity with the West Bank, which began with her military service and is now only deepening." (ibid)

Great! So here's the lovely Ms Haskell, who has/had at least two homes (Australia and Israel), who is a card-carrying member of the Netanyahu Gang, and who has told the OCCUPIED Palestinians (who have only one home - providing it's not demolished or stolen by Israeli settlers), to STFU! and accept their lot, now planning to flood Australia with radicalised backpacking thugs* who've just completed their military 'service', including some who have been involved in the smoting of Palestinians hip, thigh**, and anywhere else they can put in a bullet or a boot.

Sweet indeed...

[*See my 19/5/15 post Fugly Israelis; **See my last post.]

Zionism: A Bullet to the Brain

Zionism is deadly, not just to those who stand in its way, but also to its true believers. A Zionist upbringing/education/brainwashing, absent any seed of mental rebellion or spontaneous recovery on the part of the indoctrinated, is the equivalent of having your brains blown out - at point blank range.

Think I'm stretching it? Not a bit:

"Yesterday I published a post about a video that showed Israeli plainclothes undercover soldiers restraining a Palestinian youth at a West Bank demonstration and shooting him in the leg at point blank range. The youth was clutching a small stone, but was otherwise unhurt. These undercover agents are called 'mistarevim' in Hebrew (meaning disguised as an Arab)... According to reports from several sources... journalists witnessed a group of mistarevim infiltrating a demonstration in the West Bank and then suddenly producing handguns, which they shot directly at Palestinian protesters.

"At one point two of the undercover troops grab one of the young Palestinian men and restrain him, while a third presses the barrel of his handgun to his thigh and pulls the trigger. The 'pop' of the weapon is audible. Uniformed soldiers punch and kick the wounded youth and then drag him away [...]

"An astonishing number of people looked at all this evidence and refused to believe what they saw. And they were upset with the messenger, too. Yesterday +972 editor Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man and I were inundated with testy emails and social media messages from people who demanded additional evidence proving the undercover agent had really pulled the trigger and shot the boy.

"The multiple witnesses, the videos and the photographs were not enough. Some claimed they did not hear the gun being discharged. Others claimed they saw the Palestinian youth walking after he'd supposedly been shot, which proved that the undercover officer had not really pulled the trigger. On Facebook, there were long threads of comments claiming the video was fabricated, a 'Pallywood' production [...]

"So now I have Jewish friends asking me nervously what they should think. They want to believe these practices are rare and are committed by outliers who act in contravention of established procedure. but that it not the case I tell them. It's not easy for them, because most Jews cherish the idea that Israel is somehow better, or that Jews wouldn't do things like that. Too many American Jews have outsourced their identity to Israel, and now they are not sure what to do with the creeping existential crisis." (When people can't believe their eyes, it's usually ideology, Lisa Goldman, 972mag.com, 9/10/15)

A Nugget of Truth in The Australian

Here are excerpts from a timely and trenchant opinion piece, It's high time that Australia told Israel a few home truths, by Peter Rodgers, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, published in yesterday's Australian:

"In September 2000, Israel's opposition leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, visited the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, a site of intense religious significance for Muslims and Jews (as the Temple Mount).

"Sharon's purpose was entirely political - a statement that a Likud government would never cede control of the area to the Palestinians. The visit helped trigger the second Palestinian uprising. When it ended, about 6,000 people lay dead, more than 80% of them Palestinian.

"Fast forward to 2015. As Israelis celebrated the Jewish New Year in September, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel led a group of the Likud Young Guard up the Haram al-Sharif, their self-proclaimed goal to 'assert Jewish sovereignty' over the area. Palestinians, not surprisingly, reacted with suspicion, hostility and, in some cases, violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a 'harsh offensive' in return, demonstrating once more that there is no greater double standard in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict than the issue of violence. Israel uses violence against Palestinians as a matter of course. It expects Palestinian quiescence and acts indignantly when this is not forthcoming [...]

"Late last month, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that the Palestinians would no longer abide by the 1993 Oslo Accords. These provided the flimsy scaffold for negotiation of Palestinian statehood. What was remarkable about Abbas's speech was that it took so many years for him to make it. Oslo's corpse had long lain in the morgue. All Abbas did was to invite a viewing.

"With depressingly familiar hype, Netanyahu slammed Abbas's UN speech for its alleged deceit and incitement. He urged Abbas to accept the offer 'to hold direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions'. That was a good one coming from a prime minister whose own preconditions include no Palestinian state ever, who plays godfather to the settlement movement, and who has now deemed it reasonable to use live ammunition against rock-throwing Palestinians.

"Australia has long been susceptible to the line that the Palestinians are not ready for statehood. The Turnbull government, with 7 others (including tiny island states such as the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu), opposed the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN. The opposition is not much better. The ALP conference last July decided at last to discuss possible recognition of a Palestinian state if there were 'no progress in the next round of the peace process'. As if there were a peace process or the faintest prospect of one.

"Australian governments have often spoken proudly of their friendship with Israel.

"It's high time that friendship was put in the service of peace by telling Israel a few home truths about the Gordion knot that is occupation and violence."

Now here's an excerpt from a letter in reply in today's Australian by Mike Tsykin, Elsternwick, Victoria:

"We remember that Israel is manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism. It is our war as well; we did not wish it, but it is fought in our streets. The best we can do is to continue supporting Israel. We are in this together."

What rubbish! Israel is not "manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism," it is manning the front line in Zionism's near 100-year war for Jewish supremacy and hegemony in historic Palestine.

Notice Tsykin's shameless conflation of the young heroes and heroines of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression with the murderous behaviour of our own politically illiterate, disaffected dupes of Islamic State propaganda. Just as Israeli Zionists have no qualms whatever in murdering any number of Palestinians - men, women or children - in their unrelenting push to control and dominate every square inch of Palestine, their cheer squads in Australia and elsewhere have no qualms whatever in stooping to any monstrous lie in order to shield them from justified criticism.

Einstein Israel Under Threat

In Einstein Israel, where every man, woman and child is a born genius, and where everyone would receive a Nobel Prize were it not for the fact that the rest of the world is so hopelessly anti-Semitic, a terrible affliction seems to have overtaken the collective brain, wiping out that most basic of mental operations, the ability to connect cause and effect.

Dr Gideon Levy, Israel's most respected psychiatrist (and Haaretz columnist), reveals the sheer scale of the problem:

"[There has been] 100 years of dispossession and 50 years of oppression... years in which Israel thought it could do anything and pay no price.

"It thought the defense minister could boast he knew the identity of the Dawabsheh murderers and not arrest them.

"It thought that nearly every week a boy or teenager could be killed and the Palestinians would stay quiet.

"It thought military and political leaders could back the crimes and no one would be prosecuted.

"It thought houses could be demolished and shepherds expelled, and the Palestinians would accept it all humbly.

"It thought settler thugs could damage, burn and act as if Palestinian property was theirs, and the Palestinians would bow their heads.

"It thought that Israeli soldiers could burst into Palestinian homes every night and terrorize, humiliate and arrest people.

"That hundreds could be arrested without trial.

"That the Shin Bet security service could resume torturing suspects with methods handed down by Satan.

"It thought that hunger strikers and freed prisoners could be rearrested often for no reason.

"That Israel could destroy Gaza once every two to three years and Gaza would surrender and the West Bank remain calm.

"That Israeli public opinion would applaud all this, with cheers at best and demands for more Palestinian blood at worst, with a thirst that's hard to understand. And the Palestinians would forgive..." (Even Gandhi would understand the Palestinians' violence, Haaretz, 8/10/15)

Palestine/Israel Encapsulated

The problem is not that 'Israel lives in a tough neighbourhood.'

The problem is that Israel is living on top of somebody else's neighbourhood."

- George Galloway

The Tunnel Vision of Geraldine Brooks 2

I was sufficiently intrigued by Geraldine Brooks' Zionist myopia to check her out more fully. For what they're worth, here are a few bits and pieces I came across:

1) Geraldine Doogue interviews Brooks on the ABC's Compass program, 27/4/08 (The interpolations are mine.):

GD: Now you converted to Judaism from Catholicism. Why so?

GB: Well, actually from nothing. I had left Catholicism behind and I'd been cruising along as a merry atheist. And I guess I have to go back to my father. One of his great fascinations and passions in life grew out of the fact that during World War II he served in what was then Palestine. And because he was a passionate socialist leftie, he was of course attracted to the idea of the Kibbutz movement. And so this was very formative for him and this was one of the things that really animated him.

[So here was a bloke who mistook the colonising - think Jewish settlements today - Jews-only kibbutz movement for socialism, and ignored what was really going on in Palestine at the time. Zionist myopia seems to run in the family.]

I remember the first time I ever paid attention to a news story in the paper was during the Six Day War because Dad cared so passionately about all these places that he'd been to. And I remember when I was about 14 or 15 I would ostentatiously haul around these dog-eared copies of The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich. I could recite Yevtushenko's Babi Yar and I started wearing a Star of David. So there was this kind of engagement, I think, with the history of the Jews that remained a kind of interest of mine.

[Obviously, Dad didn't have the wherewithal to distinguish between Judaism and political Zionist triumphalism. Hence young Geraldine's rushing around, fantasising about a second holocaust, while Israel's engaged in its second great land grab (West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Sinai) of the 20th century. Now here we are, 48 years on, with Israeli settlements mushrooming, and there's no evidence that I can find that she's learnt anything new on the subject. Pathetic.]

And then, when I fell in love with a Jewish man [US writer Tony Horwitz], and we were planning to be married, I just couldn't bring myself to be the end of the line for his heritage.

[OMG, is she for real?]

GD: What do you mean?

GB: Well, Judaism is passed through the maternal line - a fact that I've always found engaging for its pragmatism as well as for its feminist implications - but if I had married him and not converted then our children would not be considered Jewish.

GD: Did he care?

GB: He didn't give two hoots! (They both laugh.) But it was just something that I felt that I wanted to do because I didn't want to be another instrument in the shadow of the Shoah, of destroying a Jewish family that had made it through the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans all the way to the end of the 20th century.

[OMFG, she is for real! The Romans FFS!]

2) You'll note the reference to feminism. Brooks is big on feminism, but some, to put it mildly, aren't too impressed. Here's an extract from the Australian-Palestinian novelist Randa Abdel-Fatteh's review of Brooks' 1994 book Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women:

"In perhaps the most astonishing display of veil fetishism in the book, Brooks reflects on her visit to Gaza, where it is as if a brutal military occupation does not exist. The reader is instead regaled with more stories about sexuality and veiling. Brooks says, 'The struggle had changed and so had Gaza. Driving from the huge military roadblock that divides the Gaza Strip from Israel, I hadn't seen a single unveiled woman.' It is astounding that Brooks, a feminist and journalist who purports to be concerned about the situation of Muslim women and human rights abuses, can only summon a comment about the veil in her assessment of her trip to Gaza. Brooks displays no interest in the impact of Israel's occupation on the lives of Palestinian women - the violation of their basic human rights, the impediments that the occupation places on their choices, freedom of movement, and their access to education and health services, as examples. What matters to the classic Orientalist is what Muslim women wear, and that any oppression they suffer must be due to Islam." (Griffith Review)

3) By their tweets ye shall know them: here's one of Brooks' from 18/6:

"Congrats. But please stop releasing balloons, which end up in the ocean killing marine life."

Now while this is a sentiment I agree with, I note that Israel's genocidal war on Gaza last year elicited not a peep/tweet from Brooks. Did she, I wonder, think about the women of Gaza she'd met in the 90s? Too busy dreaming of Davo?

Her retweeting of the following Horwitz tweet, however, is telling - of both:

"Iraq was always 3 nations and should become so again. Kurdistan already set, divide rest between Shiite and Sunni before it's full civil war." (14/6/14)

4) Horwitz, himself, is a little more forthcoming on Gaza. Here's his idea of an appropriate comment on the Gaza massacres:

"My Middle East peace plan. Text everyone to leave and pour sand over the entire region." (29/7/14).

And here's another example of his talent for smartarsery:

"Mideast progress: Miss Lebanon refers to photo-bombing contestant as Miss Israel rather than 'Miss Zionist Entity'" (20/1/15)

Needless to say, The Secret Chord was given the thumbs up in a review in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald and should sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Alas, such is the way of the world.

The Tunnel Vision of Geraldine Brooks 1

Just where on the Zionist dupe spectrum you'd place Australian expat, one-time journalist (SMH & WSJ), convert to Judaism, essayist and fiction writer, Geraldine Brooks, I'm not quite sure. I'll canvass some of the available evidence in my next post.

For now, however, I intend merely to examine two extracts from the promotional essay she's written for her latest novel, The Secret Chord, on the 'life' of the strictly legendary biblical King David.

The first is this:

"In the 1960s, Israel's then leader, David Ben Gurion, granted more than 240ha for this reserve with the idea of recreating an entirely biblical landscape - a facsimile of the land of 'milk and honey' that Joshua found when he led the wandering Hebrews across the Jordan River. But centuries of overgrazing had worn the land down to its rocky ribcage, so topsoil had to be trucked in to support the biblical species such as grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates that now flourish here." (Pilgrim's progress, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 3/10/15)

Now apart from the fact that a) all of those grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates flourished all over Palestine long before Ben-Gurion's backyard blitz and imported topsoil came along, and b) they continue to do so today in the Israeli-occupied West Bank (absent destruction by Israeli settlers, walls, and land-grabs), what strikes me here is Ben-Gurion's capacity for projecting his own Zionist fantasy of a biblical Hebrew Israel onto the contemporary Palestinian landscape - which he, of course, had ethnically cleansed, Joshua-style, of its indigenous Palestinian Arab owners in 1948.

The other thing that strikes me is that Brooks, it seems, has no problem with this - probably because she too appears to be engaged in the business of seeing only what she wants to see and ignoring the rest. Which brings me to this second extract:

"We visit a controversial dig that has uncovered buildings dating from the Davidian period, including one whose size, decoration and location suggest it may well have been associated with a leader of David's stature. But the dig runs under a Palestinian neighbourhood and the residents are angry and suspicious of the tunnelling beneath their homes. They watch, stony-faced, as our group lines up to tour the dig site. I want to see what kind of building might have been fit for a king in 900-and-something BC. The Bible says David built a palace from dressed stone and cedar from the forests of Lebanon, but I'm sceptical: what could they possibly have meant by 'palace' in the Second Iron Age? Turns out they meant... palace. The ruins suggest real opulence, with finely carved stonework and beautiful terraces... I'm glad to be able to put David into rooms such as these, to imagine him as a recognisable king rather than a simple tribal leader."

The ruins, of course, must have had a sign on them: Welcome to Dave's Place!

Of the fact that this tunnelling is taking place in ISRAELI-OCCUPIED Arab East Jerusalem, she speaks not a word.

The Palestinian residents' very real concerns are mentioned only in passing.

Obviously, Brooks has more important things on her mind... like, er, King friggin' David.

Yet what is really going on around her, and under her, the real story, is scrupulously ignored. Here it is:

"These tunnels, like those of Hamas, are being dug under a heavy cloak of secrecy. As with the Hamas tunnels, they serve as a tool for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are also being dug under the houses of uninvolved civilians. In this case Palestinians. However, while the Hamas tunnels have been described as serving terrorist purposes, these tunnels have been authorized by the Supreme Court of Israel, and all the relevant arms of the state have been mobilized in their support." (From the introduction to Orly Noy's interview with Israeli archaeologist Yonatan Mizrahi, Israel's very own tunnels of dread in Jerusalem, 972mag.com, 6/9/14)

On the subject of current archaeological practice, Mizrahi has this to say:

"Archaeologists have stopped digging tunnels because they understand that this technique does not help in understanding the development of the strata, the context of what one sees - what came before what, what was built over what, what are the connections between them. Actually, in many cases, it makes understanding our finds more difficult."

On archaeological finds at the site:

"On the professional level, it is true that any time you dig you find something. They revealed an ancient water tunnel, a section of a street and other such remains, certainly in the Western Wall Plaza. This is unquestionably an experience for the tourists, but on the level of archaeological research, the information that can be obtained from these excavations is almost worthless."

On the extent of the tunnelling:

"There is digging all the time. There are excavations carried out by the Elad* foundation from the Pool of Siloam to Givati Parking Lot, and actually all the way to the Mughrabi Bridge. It is a never-ending project. The digging goes on all the time, in an attempt to enlarge the underground space."

[*On Elad, see my 6/4/14 post Archaeology with Attitude.]

On the fears of Silwan's Palestinian residents:

"This is indeed the most amazing story. Actually, there are two aspects: one, the very fact of digging under the houses of residents... and then there is also the political aspect, which is much more dangerous than the story of the Hamas tunnels... The inhabitants of Silwan live in a village where Israeli settler activity has been ongoing for 20 years, and then one day they discovered that there had been digging going on underneath them. They always knew they were being 'dug under' in the metaphorical sense, and one day they discovered it was physical, too. And so, they say the most human thing possible, something that Israelis today can perhaps empathize with more: 'We are afraid. Someone is digging under our house. We do not know who is digging, how much, how deep, how this threatens the house, what will happen tomorrow.' They know nothing. They do not know if tomorrow a settler will emerge from under their house and say 'This room is mine'."

On the ultimate purpose of all this Zionist madness:

"I think the ultimate goal of these tunnels is to create an Israeli-Jewish Jerusalem. This is how I understand the excavations: digging under reality, strengthening the national narrative. They understand that the tunnels are a central tool to prevent a political solution in the area of the Historic Basin. For the Elad association, Silwan is the City of David; this is what it has come to do and this is what it is doing, above ground and underground... [Elad] wanted to advance [settler] construction in Silwan, but the Antiquities Authority prevented them from doing so, claiming that one could not build in an archaeological site. This was in the 1990s. Over time the policy changed. So, when the Elad association understood that it couldn't have massive construction here, it joined the Antiquities Authority with the aim of reaching an Israeli consensus through archaeology and the history of the Israeli people."

Of all this, incredibly, Brooks has NOTHING to say.

To be continued...

Redirections

"'The Assad regime has been diabolically bad for Syria,' Julie Bishop said at the UN. [...] Indeed so. [...] [W]hich makes Bishop's remarks bizarre. 'However, we're dealing with reality and the fact is we need a political solution.' She went on to say 'the reality is President Assad is still in Syria, the reality is Russia is backing President Assad... We can have some optimism that Russia's involvement is positive' [...]"

So writes Elliott Abrams in No peace in Syria until Assad regime is deposed in The Australian of 1/10/15.

Abrams' appended bio reads:

"Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign relations in Washington. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser in the administration of George W. Bush."

How reassuring. The bloke who gave us regime change in Iraq!

As you'd expect from a supporter of Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL), Abrams is big on the Sunni/Shia divide:

"To Sunnis, the Alawite Assad regime is a Shia force backed by Shia militias - sent to kill Sunnis."

He concludes his piece thus:

"The question for us is, do we step back and allow this [mass killing and amazing brutality in Syria] or do we give Syrians the wherewithal to fight for their country? Even now... non-jihadi rebels control parts of the country. They could do better if they had real help instead of the small and embarrassing efforts the US and a few other countries have made. The surest way to keep Islamic State alive and growing is to do a deal with Russia and Iran and keep Assad in power. Under those circumstances it will continue to recruit Sunnis, and its narrative (as well as that of Jabhat al-Nusra... the al-Qa'ida affiliate) will continue to be 'help us, only we are trying to fight for Sunnis.'... [W]e should recognise that Assad is a gift to the worst Sunni terrorist groups. Peace in Syria cannot come while he is in office."

Even now... non-jihadi rebels control parts of the country. Can you spot them by the flowers in their hair?

Abrams has real form.

He's one of the neocon (more correctly, ziocon) brigade (Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and the rest), who were instrumental in bringing down Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2003, and dividing the country along sectarian lines.

And didn't that work out well? For Israel (the point of the whole exercise) yes, but Iraqis...

Anyway, let's return to those heady days of shock and awe to see how we got here.

Back then, thanks to Abrams and his mates, the US had a DIRECTION: topple Saddam, empower Iraq's Shiites, and unleash Shia death squads on Iraq's Sunnis.

But guess what? Out of the blue, entirely unforeseen, Shia Iran was in like Flynn! WHOOPS!

Time for a REDIRECTION: Undermine Iran by mobilising Sunni (Wahhabi brand) Saudi Arabia against Iran's allies in Syria (Asaad) and Lebanon (Hezbollah). Great idea - just as long as Saudi-funded, Sunni (Wahhabi brand) jihadis were giving Assad and Nasrallah curry, that is.

But guess what? Out of the blue, entirely unforeseen, OMG! What's this? In Iraq and Syria too! Wahhabi ISIS???!!! SHIT!

Time for another REDIRECTION: Hello, Iran?

OK, got the picture?

Now here's Abrams, as deputy national security adviser, one of the boosters of the DIRECTION and co-author (along with Dick Cheney & Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser) of REDIRECTION No. 1, taking issue with our part in REDIRECTION No. 2. What this bozo doesn't seem to realise is that, whether it's Jules or Tanya at the foreign policy helm, we'd follow the US to Hell and back if asked. Hell, even if we weren't asked.

For the full picture, I recommend Seymour Hersh's The Redirection (newyorker.com, 5/3/07)

James Petras on Jewish Supremacism 3

Conclusion

"The record provides no historical basis for the claims of Jewish Supremacists.

"What has been cited as the disproportionate 'Jewish genius' turns out to be a two-edged sword - demonstrating the best and the worst.

"Claiming a monopoly on high academic achievement must be expanded to owning up to the Jewish authors of the worst financial and foreign policy disasters - they too are 'high achievers'.

"Donations from financial billionaires, all 'geniuses', have financed the war crimes of the Israeli state and made possible the expansion of violent Jewish settlers throughout occupied Palestine - spreading misery and displacement for millions.

"In fairness, the most notorious Jewish swindler in contemporary America was even-handed: 'Bernie' Madoff swindled Jews and Goys. Hollywood moguls and New York philanthropists - he wasn't picky about who he fleeced.

"The latest fashion among Jewish Supremacist 'geneticists' is to extol the discovery of uniquely special 'genes' predisposing Jews to experience the 'holocaust' and even inherit the experience of suffering from long dead ancestors. Such 'scientists' should be careful. As Jazz artist and essayist Gilad Atzmon wryly notes: 'They will put the anti-Semites out of business'.

"Ultimately, Jews, who have assimilated into the greater society or not, who intermarry and who do not, are all products of the social system in which they live and (like everyone else) they are the makers of the roles they decide to play within it.

"In the past, a uniquely disproportionate percentage of Jews chose to fight for universal humanist values - rejecting the notion of a chosen people.

"Today, a disproportionate percentage of educated Jews have chosen to embrace an 'ethno-religious' Supremacist dogma which binds them to an apartheid, militarist state and ideology ready to drag the world into a global war.

"Never forget! Racialist supremacist doctrines led Germany down the blind alley of totalitarianism and world war, in which scores of millions perished.

"Jews, especially young Jews, are increasingly repelled by Israel's crimes against humanity. The next step for them (and us) is to criticize, demystify and stand up to the toxic supremacist ideology linking the powerful domestic Zionist power configuration and its political clones with Israel.

"The root problem is not genetic, it is collective political dementia: a demented ideology that claims a chosen elite can forever dominate and exploit the majority of American people. The time will come when the accumulated disasters will force the American people to push back, unmasking the elite and rejecting its supremacist doctrines. Let us hope that they will act with passion guided by reason." (petras.lahaine.org, 4/9/15)

James Petras on Jewish Supremacism 2

Challenging the Myths of Jewish Supremacists

"There are serious problems regarding the claims of the Jewish Supremacists.

"For centuries Jewish 'wisdom' was confined to textual exegesis of religious dogma - texts full of superstition and social control, as well as blind intolerance, and which produced neither reasoned arguments nor contributed to scientific and human advancement.

"Jewish scholarship of note occurred among thinkers like Spinoza who revolted against the Jewish ghetto gatekeepers and rejected Jewish dogma.

"Notable scientists emerged in the context of working and studying with non-Jews in non-Jewish institutions - the universities and centers of learning in the West. The majority of world-renowned Jewish scholars integrated and contributed to predominantly non-Jewish (Muslim and Christian) and secular institutions of higher learning.

"Historically, highly talented individuals of Jewish origin succeeded by renouncing the constraints of everyday Jewish life, rabbinical overseers and Jewish institutions. Most contemporary prestigious scientists, including the frequently cited Nobel Prize winners, have little or nothing to do with Judaism and their contributions have everything to do with the highly secular, integrated culture in which they prospered intellectually - despite expressions of crude anti-Semitism in the larger society.

"Secondly, Jewish Supremacists persist in claiming 'racial credit' for the achievements of individuals who have publicly renounced, denounced and distanced themselves from Judaism and have dismissed any notion of Israel as their spiritual homeland. Their universal prestige has prevented them from being labeled apostate or 'self-hating'. Albert Einstein, often cited by the Supremacists as the supreme example of 'Jewish genius', denounced Israel's war crimes and showed disdain for any tribal identity. In their era, Marx and Trotsky, like the vast majority of emancipated European Jews, given the chance, became engaged in universalistic organizations, attacking the entire notion that Jews were a 'special people' chosen by divine authority (or by the latter-day Zionists).

"Thirdly, Supremacists compile a very selective list of virtuous Jews, while omitting areas of life and activity where Jews have disproportionately played a negative and destructive role.

"After all, is it Jewish 'genius' that makes Israel a leading exporter of arms, intrusive, high-tech spy systems and sends military and paramilitary advisers and torturers to work with death-squad regimes in Africa and Latin America?

"Among the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize are three Israeli Prime Ministers who waged wars of ethnic cleansing against millions of Palestinians and expanded racist 'Jews only' settlements throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. These include Menachem Begin (notorious career bomber and terrorist), Yitzhak Rabin (a militarist who was assassinated by an even more racist, Jewish terrorist), and Shimon Peres. Among Jewish-American Nobel 'peaceniks' is Henry Kissinger who oversaw the brutal and illegal US war in Indo-China, causing 4 million Vietnamese deaths; who wrote the 'template for regime change' by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Chilean President Allende and condemned Chile to decades of police state terror; and who supported Indonesia's destruction of East Timor.

"In other words, these Nobel recipients, who Supremacists cite as 'examples of Jewish Supremacy', have sown terror and injustice on countless captive peoples and nations - giving the Nobel Peace Prize a dubious distinction.

"Among the greatest billion dollar swindlers in recent US history we'd find a disproportionate percentage of American Jews - curiously not mentioned by the Supremacists in their usual litany: Bernard Madoff pillaged over $50 billion from his clients, Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Marc Rich are well-known names, adding the distinction of 'Jewish genius' to a list of financial mega-felons.

"Among the less respectable notables whose material successes have been tarnished by personal weaknesses, we have the billionaire and pedophile pimp, Jeffry Epstein; IMF President, rapist and debaucher, Dominic Strauss Kahn; entrepreneur and 'nudist' Dov Charney; New York Governor and 'repeat customer, Elliot Spitzer; Congressman and exhibitionist Anthony Weiner; and the fun-loving sports impresario who brought down FIFA, the piratical Chuck Blazer. Curiously, none of these extraordinarily successful notables have been cited as examples of Jewish Supremacy.

"As we contemplate the millions of war refugees driven from the Near East and North Africa, we should credit the role of US neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologues and policymakers - a disproportionate percentage of whom are Jews. Millions of Chilean workers suffered as Milton Friedman and his Chicago Boys 'advised' Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on dismantling the welfare state (even if it required the murder of trade unionists!). Ayn Rand (Alyssa Rosenbaum) and her fanatical free market epigones have savaged all progressive social legislation and turned the most retrograde forms of selfishness into a religion of 'superiority'!

"The disastrous US war against Iraq was largely organized, promoted and justified by a disproportionate percentage of US Jews (Zionists), including leading policymakers in the Bush and Obama administrations - Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Dennis Ross, Martyn Indyk, David Frum, Shulsky, Levey, Cohen, Rahm Emanuel etc. They continue to push for war against Iran and should be seen as the 'godfathers' of the tragedies of Iraq, Syria and Libya from which millions have fled.

"The biggest financial crisis since the great depression was largely due to the financial policies of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. The trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street by Ben Shalom Bernacke and Stanley Fischer, while Janet Yellen ignored the plight of millions of Americans who lost their homes because of mortgage foreclosures.

"In sum, Jewish Supremacists should proudly take credit for the American Jews who have been disproportionately responsible for the largest economic and foreign policy failures of the contemporary period - including the horrific suffering these have entailed! 

"Back in the more normal world of crime, Russian-Jewish mobsters dominate or share supremacy with the Italian Mafia in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and scores of cities in between. They display their unique genius at extortion and murder - knowing they can always find safe haven in the 'Promised Land'!

"On the cultural front, the finest Jewish writers, artists, musicians and scientists have emerged outside of Israel. A few may have immigrated to the Jewish state, but many other intellectuals and artists of note have chosen to leave Israel, repelled by the racist, intolerant and repressive apartheid state and society promoted by Jewish Supremacists."

To be continued...

James Petras on Jewish Supremacism 1

Is there anyone so wise to the ways of the world as James Petras? Rhetorical question.

Here's Part 1 of my 3-part serialisation of one of his most recent essays, The Doctrine of 'Superior People': The Bond Between Israel & World Zionism. Forget the claret, it's the clarity you need:

Introduction

"The single greatest feat of Israel and its overseas missions has not been material success, or the military conquest of millions of unarmed Palestinians, it has been ideological - the widespread acceptance in the US of a doctrine that claims 'Jews are a superior people'.

"Apart from small, extremist rightwing sects who exhibit visceral anti-Semitism and denigrate everything Jewish, there are very few academics and politicians willing to question this supremacist doctrine. On the contrary, there is an incurable tendency to advance oneself by accepting and embellishing on it.

"For example, in August 2015, US Vice-president Joe Biden attributed 'special genius' to Jews, slavish flattery that embarrassed even New York's liberal Jewish intellectuals.

"Israel's dominant role in formulating US Middle East policy is largely a product of its success at recruiting, socializing and motivating overseas Jews to act as an organized force to intervene in US politics and push Israel's agenda.

"What motivates American Jews, who have been raised and educated in the US, to serve Israel? After all, these are individuals who prospered, achieved high status and occupy the highest positions of prestige and responsibility. Why should they parrot the policies of Israel and follow the dictates of Israeli leaders (a foreign regime), serving its violent colonial, racist agenda?

"What binds a minority of highly educated and privileged Jews to the most rabidly rightwing Israeli regime in history - a relationship they actually celebrate?

"What turns comfortable, prosperous American Jews into vindictive bullies, willing and able to blackmail, threaten and punish any dissident voices among their Gentile and Jewish compatriots who have dared to criticize Israel?

"What prevents many intelligent, liberal and progressive Jews from openly questioning Israel's agenda, and especially confronting the role of Zionist zealots who serve as tel Aviv's fifth column against the interest of the United states?

"There are numerous historical and personal factors that can and should be taken into account to understand this phenomenon. In this essay, I am going to focus on one - the ideology that 'Jews are a superior people'. The notion that Jews, either through some genetic, biologic, cultural, historical, familial and/or upbringing, have special qualities allowing them to achieve at a uniquely higher level than the 'inferior' non-Jews. We will proceed by sketching the main outline of the Jewish supremacist ideology and then advance our critique.

"We will conclude by evaluating the negative consequences of this ideology and propose a democratic alternative.

Jewish Supremacism

"Exponents of Jewish Supremacism (JS) frequently cite the prestigious awards, worldly successes and high honors, which, they emphasize, have been disproportionately achieved by Jews.

"The argument goes: While Jews represent less than 0.2% of the world population, they have produced 24% of the US Nobel Prize winners; over 30% of the Ivy League professors and students; and the majority of major US film, stage and TV producers.

"They cite the 'disproportionate number' of scientists, leading doctors, lawyers and billionaires.

"They cite past geniuses like Einstein, Freud and Marx.

"They point to the founders of the world's great monotheistic religions - Moses and Abraham.

"They lay claim to a unique learning tradition embedded in centuries of Talmudic scholarship.

"Jewish supremacists never miss a chance to cite the 'Jewish background' of any highly accomplished contemporary public figure in the entertainment, publishing, financial fields, or any other sectors of life in the US.

"Disproportionately great accomplishments by a disproportionate minority has become the mantra for heralding a self-styled 'meritocratic elite'... and for justifying its disproportionate wealth, power and privilege - and influence.

To be continued...