Turnbull & Pratt's Beersheba Duet

The Pratt Foundation-funded magazine, Beersheba: Legend of the Light Horse, that came with last Saturday's Weekend Australian, begins with two editorials, on facing pages, the first by PM Turnbull, the second by the Foundation's Anthony Pratt (son of the late Dick Pratt).

Predictably, Turnbull's is a transparently Zionist propaganda brew, which conflates, in complete defiance of the historical record, the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba (31/10/17), the Balfour Declaration (2/11/17) and the creation of the state of Israel (14/5/48):

"The charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba has inspired Australians for generations The veterans of the charge re-enacted it in Charles Chauvel's 1940 movie Forty Thousand Horsemen - a confidence booster for a beleaguered nation at war. As a young boy at boarding school in the early '60s I watched it again and again - we all imagined ourselves spurring our horses through the Ottoman fire, leaping across the trenches and onward to victory... Just weeks later, the Australians marched with General Allenby into Jerusalem, while in London the Balfour Declaration was signed, paving the way for the creation of the modern state of Israel. A century on, the city of Be'er Sheva is an oasis of technology and great practical ideas - a shining example of the best attributes of Israel and the Israeli people - ingenuity, resilience, and hard work. Today, Australia and Israel share these values. We have an unbreakable bond that is only getting stronger. As we honour the memory and sacrifice of the Anzacs of 1917, and in the years to come. Lest we forget." (Our unbreakable bond)

Apart from Turnbull's chronological confusion (the BD came before the takeover of Jerusalem), what is significant here is that in addition to his blatant fabrication of Australian and Palestinian history, he also appears to be embroidering on his own, personal history:

As Paddy Manning's biography of Turnbull, Born to Rule (2015), reveals, young Malcolm was packed off to a boarding school in 1963 at the age of 8. Curiously, in his editorial, Turnbull recounts watching Chauvel's Forty Thousand Horsemen "at boarding school in the early '60s...again and again." Now I can understand one of his teachers screening the film once, but "again and again"? WTF is going on here?

Quite apart from what repeated showings might imply about the teacher in question (some kind of obsessive military fanatic?), surely the inevitable chorus of 'Aw, sir, not again!' would deter any but the most foolhardy teacher from this practice. And as for Malcolm and his classmates imagining themselves "spurring our horses through the Ottoman fire, leaping across the trenches and onward to victory," Turnbull once disclosed that "I would struggle to find one positive memory of my time at boarding school... really it was a bleak, bleak period for me." (Manning, p 21)

As for Pratt's contribution, it reads like an echo of Turnbull's. (Or should that be the other way around?):

"Next Tuesday, October 31, 2017, Australia will mark the 100th anniversary of the victorious charge by 800 Lighthorsemen against the Turkish defences at Beersheba. The 'shock and awe' victory changed the course of Middle East history, and paved the way for Israel's establishment some three decades later. It's entirely fitting, therefore, that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will lead the Australian delegation at the Centenary commemoration services in Be'er Sheva, the modern Israeli city that has arisen around the former battleground, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin will represent Israel. In honouring the historic moment for both nations, I'd like to note that the Light Horse Centenary also has a personal significance for the Pratt family. While the Centenary's opening ceremony... is to be in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Beersheva, the concluding ceremony will happen at the Park of the Australian Soldier, just a few kilometres away in the same city. The Park, a Pratt Foundation initiative to honour Australia's military involvement in the Middle East at critical times in Israel's history,* was opened in 2008... " (A proud legacy)

The fact is that the Pratt Foundation's 'Park of the Australian Soldier' is really all about Israel. The Park is an integral part of a Zionist propaganda initiative, whereby a moment of Australian and Turkish military history has been appropriated and misrepresented as somehow uniquely enabling (and legitimising) the much later installation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

It should be obvious to all that the capture of Ottoman Beersheba by Australian forces in 1917 is being manipulated to fit the false Zionist historical narrative, primarily with a view to ensuring ongoing Australian diplomatic support for a pariah apartheid Israel in UN fora.

Turnbull, who hosted Netanyahu in Sydney earlier this year, could now, arguably, be described as the most Zionist of all Australian prime ministers, and a sycophant of the worst kind.  And the irony is that it only seems like yesterday that he was slamming opposition leader Bill Shorten (who, like Turnbull, is currently partying in Israel) in federal parliament as "the great sycophant of billionaires," and accusing him, specifically, of "sucking up to [the late] Dick Pratt." That was back in February this year.