The Astonishing Naivete of Aaron Patrick

Have the movers and shakers (AIJAC, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies) behind the rambamming of Australian journalists now decided, in the wake of the Sharri Markson affair,* that the rambammed should launch a propaganda offensive immediately upon their return, if not sooner?

This line of thought has been prompted by the sudden appearance of a rash of propaganda pieces by the most recently rambammed:

Sharri Markson: Iran missiles 'bigger threat than ISIS', The Australian, 17/11/15
Sharri Markson: Palestinian violence is 'in the national cause', The Australian, 19/11/15
Aaron Patrick: A ride on the Israeli lobbying machine, Australian Financial Review, 27/11/15
Ben English: Parallels of hate never meet, Daily Telegraph, 28/11/15 

Be that as it may, here are some gems from Aaron Patrick's Zioprop:

"On a recent Thursday a 23-year-old man shot in the arm by a sniper while driving joked around with five other Syrians packed into a narrow ward...The man - whose name the hospital asked me not to publish - couldn't bring himself to praise his protector. But he appeared very happy to be safe. 'Bashar Al-Assad told us all that Israel is the enemy,' he said."

The 'hospital' of course is Israel's Ziv Hospital, where mysterious Syrians, such as the gent above, show up for some of that world famous Israeli TLC before being packed off to resume whatever it was they were doing before being touched by the healing hands of Israeli angels.

But what interests me more is the highlighted utterance above. Despite the 1967 war in which Israel took the Syrian Golan Heights and which it continues to illegally occupy to this day, this mysterious Syrian, hailing from somewhere adjacent to the GH, apparently had to be told by Bashar al-Asad (What, personally?) that 'Israel is the enemy'? Seriously?

"The trips have attained almost legendary status in media circles."

What the hell does this mean?

Colleague: Just back from Israel, mate?
Aaron: Yep.
Colleague: You're a legend, mate.

"The care of these wounded is a potent symbol for the Middle East's first democracy. There are no Ziv hospitals outside Israel."

Oh really? What about this hospital in Turkey then?:

"Every day for the last 4 years, Mr Gharib has risen early to check his phone for the injured and dead. Now based in Reyhanli, just across the border from the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, he says the local hospital receives at least 60 seriously injured patients each day from Syria. How many are there today, I ask? He gets out his phone and counts: 17. And it is only midday." (Syrians crushed by clashing titans, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 28/11/15)

Now Aaron informs us that Ziv has treated 550 injured Syrians since February 2013. So how many has Reyhanli treated since then without any fanfare or media cheer squads? Extrapolating from the above figure of 60 per day for Turkey's Reyhanli Hospital over the period 2013-2015 that comes to potentially 65,700 seriously injured Syrians treated.

More like there's no Reyhanli Hospital inside Israel!

And so to the matter of "the Middle East's first democracy," here's Israeli democracy 101 just for Aaron:

1. From 1917-1948 the Zionist movement opposed representative government in majority Arab British Mandate Palestine because it would have led to a majority Arab (Muslim/Christian) government.

2. In 1948, after Zionist terror gangs (Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah) had reduced the Arab majority to a minority by ethnically cleansing 78% of Palestine, lo and behold and surprise, surprise, Israel emerged as a Jewish democracy.

"The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the greatest battles for global public opinion in history."

Yeah? Well, Aaron, has that prompted you to pick and read one, just one, only one, book on the subject? No? I thought not. Journalists these days...

"We received briefings... from a member of the Jewish settler movement.."

David Wilder, spokesman of the Jewish settlers in Hebron? - "He presents us with a context-free history of  the Jewish people that is a complicated mixture of half truths, outright lies, and racist paranoia." (A meeting with the spokesman of the Jewish settlers in Hebron, Alice Rothschild, mondoweiss.net, 24/10/12)

And you swallowed it, hook, line and sinker?

"Ruined Syria is barely a threat to Israel any more. The main danger is internal, from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where 1.8 million resentful Palestinians wait for their own nation."

Wait a minute! Israel has occupied, colonised and fucked over the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 48 years... but the Palestinians are the problem?!

"The status quo favours Israel..."

Aaron, mate, did you really have to go all the way to Israel to learn that the status quo favours the colonisers over the colonised?

"To impose a cost on the people that see as their occupiers, Palestinians attack, relentlessly."

Oh, so it's all in their minds, is it?

"'Why are they making us kill them?' said Sarit Zehavi, an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve. 'We don't want to kill them.'"

OMFG, Aaron, you can't see through this crap?!

"Palestinian culture celebrates the violence."

It's called resistance, Aaron. You expect them to celebrate their occupiers and colonisers?

"Nour Odeh, a former journalist and spokeswoman for the Palestinian authorities [sic]... essentially made a Marxist critique of Israeli policies, which she argues impose settlements on the West Bank to make life miserable for Palestinians and profits for settlers. 'This is not a housing issue,' she said. 'This is a colonial issue.'"

So, Aaron, pointing out that that the occupied and colonised Palestinians are, well, occupied and colonised makes one a Marxist? Maybe you should be writing for the Murdoch press?

Next post on Ben English...

[*See my 23/11/15 post The Day Sharri Markson Went Feral.]