Look Who's Got a Gong...

... in the Queen's Birthday Awards:

1 Order of Australia Companion in the General Division:

"Rachel Kohn, Mosman NSW. For distinguished service to the broadcast media, particularly radio, as a creator, producer and presenter, and to Jewish Studies."

Kohn, you may remember, ran a long-running series, The Spirit of Things, on the ABC's Radio National. Particularly memorable on that show was her platforming of Aaron Klein, author of a 2007 book with the following, excruciatingly grotesque, title: 'Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew!'

Then there was her 21/9/08 production, Ties that Bind: Jewish Australians and New Zealanders, for the ABC's Encounter program, in which she laments that "in Australia , there's little understanding... of that Jewish loyalty to Israel. Zionism is a term of opprobrium for so many Australian non-Jews," prompting her Rabbi interlocutor on the program to opine that "we're dealing with professional anti-Semites who who cloak their anti-Semitism by being unduly critical of Israel."

Just click on her label below and read the Klein interviews, and my 29/9/08 post The Lies that Blind.

2 Order of Australia Medal in the General Division:

"Robert Magid, NSW. For services to business and commerce, and to the Jewish community."

Now how coy is that description? Magid is the owner and publisher of that thoroughly Zionist rag, The Australian Jewish News.

Just click on his label below and read my 1/4/13 post Robert Magid's Guide for the Perplexed on his bizarre musing, The wrong of return, which appeared in The Australian Jewish News of 22/3/13. And, while you're at it, I suggest you also take in my 22/5/13 post 'When the Chips are Down': A Review on his lame anti-BDS satire, When the chips are down.

Et Tu, ECAJ & AIPAC?

Over at News Corpse, Greg Sheridan's fairly beside himself at the First Coming of King Bibi. Even Fairfax has plonked its useless bum on the proverbial fence for the occasion, with a pro (Anthony Bergin) and a con (Stuart Rees) on its opinion pages. But this week's (17/2) Australian Jewish News is strangely silent on the subject, no front cover pic of the Zionist Messiah, no editorial encomiums, nothing really.

Could this AJN report on page 3 possibly have anything to do with it?:

"Australian Jewish leaders have expressed concern over Israel's controversial new legislation on settlements, describing the law which would retroactively legalise an estimated 4000 West Bank settler homes built on privately own Palestinian land as 'troubling' and 'counterproductive'. In a joint statement, Executive Council of Australian Jewry [ECAJ] president Anton Block and executive director Peter Wertheim said the Regulation Law passed by the Knesset last week, which prevents the government demolishing the homes and forces the landowners to accept compensation, is 'very troubling'. 'It seeks to legalise retroactively outposts that were built on land in the West Bank that had been privately owned by Palestinians. At the time they were built these outposts were illegal under Israeli law,' Block and Wertheim noted. Stating that the law was enacted 'despite the opposition of the Attorney-General of Israel', they said, 'Both he and the Defence Minister, as well as many legal experts, are predicting that the law will be successfully challenged in the Supreme Court of Israel. We can only hope that occurs, reaffirming that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is a democracy governed by the rule of law'." (Leaders unsettled by settlement legislation)

OMFG, they're criticising Israeli colonisation here, folks! ECAJ is criticising core Zionist business, namely the theft and settlement of any and every bit of Palestinian land they can possibly lay their hands on!

So WTF is going on here? These boZos have spent their entire lives cheering on, and otherwise aiding and abetting, Israel's colonisation of occupied (River-to-Sea) Palestine, but this latest land grab is a bridge too far? C'mon, guyZ, talk about swallowing the proverbial camel but straining at the proverbial gnat.

But lest one think that the Zcales have at last fallen entirely from their eyes, Block and Wertheim are really only worried that "this episode will... have  the 'unfortunate effect of feeding the false narrative that settlements are the primary reason for the absence of peace and will provide the Palestinians with a further excuse to keep avoiding a return to direct negotiations with Israel'."

(As Yishai Fleisher, the International spokesman of the Jewish community of Hebron, said in the New York Times recently: "Israel never seems to have a good answer to accusations against the settlement enterprise. Whenever the claim that Israel stole Palestinian lands is heard, Israel's answers inevitably are: 'We invented the cellphone,' 'We have gay rights,' 'We fly to help Haiti after an earthquake.' Obvious obfuscation. And when pushed to explain why the much-promised two-state solution is perenially stuck, the response is always to blame Arab obstructionism." (A settler's view of Israel's future, 14/2/17))

But there's more:

"Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) national chairman Mark Leibler and executive director Colin Rubenstein said AIJAC believes the bill is a 'counterproductive and unwise piece of legislation aimed at pandering to fringe constituencies at the expense of Israel's integrity and image abroad'."

Whaaat?! Did they say "fringe"? As in 'lunatic fringe'? OMFG, they're calling Israeli colonisers, pioneers, FFS, who are merely doing what Zionist colonisers, formerly known as kibbutzniks, have been doing ever since Balfour gave them Britain's blessing in 1917, lunatics! Can you believe it?

Nonetheless, they too insist that "the Palestinian refusal to negotiate, not settlements" is "the biggest barrier to peace."

(Reread Fleisher.)

Seriously - well, not really - you've got to feel sorry for the current King of the Colonies once he gets to Sydney. Should Block, Wertheim, Leibler and Rubes draw too close to Caesar, will he fix them with his eye, and ask, Et tu, ECAJ & AIJAC?

Monoculturalism Masquerading as Multiculturalism

Break out the champagne! The Australian Jewish News has just been awarded 'Best Image of the Year' in the that section of the 2015 Premier's Multicultural Media Awards.

The criteria for the category reads: "An image that makes a strong statement or commentary on multiculturalism." (crc.nsw.gov.au/awards)

The winning image, featured on the front page of the current issue of the AJN (An iconic image), shows a crowd of Zionists waving Australian and Israeli flags in a Dover Heights Park last August against a backdrop of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

At the time, you'll remember, Israel's death machine was busy 'mowing the grass' in the Gaza Ghetto, an exercise which involved the unleashing of 49,000 tank and artillery shells over a 48-day period on the captive population, and which led to the deaths of 2,251, the wounding of 11,231, the displacement of 100,000, the destruction of 18,000 homes, the partial destruction of 80,000, the flattening of entire neighbourhoods, and the crippling of Gaza's key infrastructure.

Precisely what the image had to do with multiculturalism is beyond me, depicting as it does a bunch of comfortable, privileged, white Australians who apparently had no qualms whatever about coming out in support of the mass slaughter of an impoverished, ghettoised, refugee population by the death machine of a war-mongering, ethnocratic, apartheid state.

And this under the bizarre delusion that Palestine/Israel is really theirs, a sort of exclusive, Jews-only Club Med based on Palestinian Arab dispossession and exile.

Said AJN national editor Zeddy Lawrence of the photo:

"We are tremendously proud of [photographer] Noel [Kessel]. His picture captured the spirit of the community during one of the most challenging episodes in its recent history. At a time when anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment were peaking, the image showed that we would not cower. Instead, we would stand up in public, as proud Jews, proud Zionists and proud Australians." ( The AJN's photo finish)

Words fail...

Conflating the Unconflatable 3

'The Sewer' Mike Carlton calls it. Murdoch's Australian never misses an opportunity to slander the Palestinians:

"The same perversions [yes, this is from an editorial ostensibly about Man Haron Monis] have driven the unspeakable atrocities that have devastated the citizens of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. To peace-loving westerners, the bloodthirstiness of the Pakistani Taliban murdering 141 children and teachers is beyond comprehension. So is the capture, torture and sexual enslavement of Yazidi and Christian women in northern Iraq. The cruelty of Hamas terrorists using ordinary Palestinians as human shields, storing rockets and ammunition beneath homes, mosques and schools in the most built up areas of Gaza is another prime example." (Liberal-Left still in denial despite terror in Sydney: Like most jihad footsoldiers, Monis was a dysfunctional fool, 19/12/14)

It says everything about The Sewer that even The Australian Jewish News, wasn't going there - this time around:

"... one thing is clear - this was a man doing no one's bidding but his own. A rogue, demented operator at odds with the world and his religion, who exacted his terrible rage on innocents with devastating results. He was to face court on 40 sexual assault charges and stand trial for being an accessory to the murder of his wife. He was unhinged." (The lone wolf, editorial, 19/12/14)

AUJS Plays the Anti-Semitism Card

An important essay on the latest Zionist campaign to silence pro-Palestine activism on Australian university campuses from the Socialist Alternative paper Red Flag (26/8/14):

"Australian supporters of Israel have reacted to the growing hostility to the Gaza war with a hysterical campaign of slander and suppression against anyone who dares to criticise Israel.

"On 26 July the Sydney Morning Herald published a courageous opinion piece by Mike Carlton in which he wrote: 'The onslaught is indiscriminate and unrelenting, with but one possible conclusion: Israel is not fighting the terrorists of Hamas. In defiance of the laws of war and the norms of civilised behaviour, it is waging its own war of terror on the entire Gaza population of about 1.7m people. Call it genocide, call it ethnic cleansing: the aim is to kill Arabs.'

"Carlton predicted a 'customary torrent of abusive emails calling me a Nazi, an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, an ignoramus' for uttering such self-evident truths. They arrived on cue. The Australian Jewish News ran an editorial calling for a boycott of Fairfax papers. Intense pressure was placed on Sydney Morning Herald management. And within a week, Carlton was suspended, after which he responded in the only honourable way and resigned.

"While SMH management tried to claim Carlton was sacked because he responded with choice words to a few of the hundreds of emails defaming him as a Nazi, there is little doubt that if this were about any other issue, he would still have his job.

"Two weeks later, a billboard in Melbourne that read 'Apartheid: wrong in South Africa, wrong in Palestine' was pulled by publicity company Oohmedia! following a flood of criticism. Oohmedia! declined to reveal to Red Flag who the 'interested third parties' were that forced its change of heart, but the Zionist Federation of Australia, on its Facebook page, was open in claiming that its campaign made the difference.

"On the same day, the NSW Supreme Court banned Palestine Solidarity Activists from protesting outside the Israeli Film Festival in Sydney.

"This followed on from a campaign by Zionist hackers to shut down pro-Palestinian websites in Australia, including the Red Flag website, which was the victim of a DDoS attack that put it offline for several days.

"But the most extensive aspect of the campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian voices has been that waged on university campuses by the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), in some cases in alliance with university administrations and right wing student union officials.

"AUJS describes itself as the peak body representing Jewish youth. Its spokespeople are frequently quoted in the press as authorities on anti-Semitism. But AUJS is not an apolitical organisation. Its website proudly proclaims that it exists to 'promote a positive image of Israel on campus.'

"AUJS accuses its enemies on campus of conflating Zionism with Jewishness, and with turning criticism of Israel into hostility to Jews. In fact, conflating Judaism and Zionism is precisely the political goal of AUJS. Slandering supporters of Palestine as anti-Semitic is its primary method for 'combating anti-Zionism' and fulfilling the project, outlined in the AUJS constitution, of 'actively advancing the interests of Israel.'

"The Australian Jewish News is an unabashed mouthpiece of AUJS propaganda. On 15 August it published a highly defamatory article repeating AUJS accusations against Socialist Alternative, without even bothering to get a response to the entirely unsubstantiated claims. Even Murdoch's mouthpiece, The Australian, usually goes through the form of journalistic norms before printing its hatchet jobs.

"AJN's article claimed: 'There are fears for the safety of Jewish students at universities across Australia, following a spate of verbal attacks and harassment, which resulted in at least one student being too scared to go to classes and AUJS suspending activities at one institution. Members of the Socialist Alternative are believed to be behind much of the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic vitriol aimed at Jewish students, who have been accused of supporting 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' in Israel.'

"Socialist Alternative unequivocally rejects the accusations of anti-Semitism and that our student activists have targeted Jewish students. It is a vile slander based on bare-faced lies. It has become clear to us that AUJS has adopted a conscious strategy of encouraging its members on campuses across the country to make unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism and 'targeting Jewish students' as a means to sabotage Palestine solidarity activism.

"AUJS members have filed a flood of complaints describing pro-Palestine events as 'anti-Semitic', while lobbying university vice-chancellors to ban pro-Palestine activism on campus.

"They have managed to get the vice-chancellors of Monash and La Trobe universities to send emails to all students that implicitly attacked pro-Palestine activists. At Monash, individual Palestinian solidarity activists are facing 'misconduct hearings' that threaten their right to study at the university. At the University of Western Australia, the Socialist Alternative club is fighting deregistration following false claims orchestrated by student Zionists.

"These latest attacks follow a string of other incidents. AUJS spokesperson Matthew Lesh claimed on 3AW Radio in Melbourne that Jewish students were physically ejected from a Socialist Alternative meeting at Monash University because they were Jewish. This is completely false. Not only were Jews welcome and encouraged to attend, but the talk itself was given by a Jewish member of Socialist Alternative.

"A small group of organised Zionists attempted to disrupt the meeting. They gave up after being told the meeting was for supporters of Palestine and they were not welcome. There is nothing unusual in this. Socialist Alternative has in many previous instances barred right-wingers who have attempted to disrupt our meetings. Even if you don't agree with this policy, it has nothing whatsoever to do with anti-Semitism.

"If AUJS were honest, it would admit that its campaign is not driven by concerns about anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish students, but concern that the tide of opinion is turning against Israel's war on Palestinians.

"Socialist students have played an important part in this process. At Monash University, Socialist Alternative moved a motion in the student council condemning Israeli war crimes and occupation. Similar motions, including endorsements of the BDS campaign, were taken up and adopted at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Sydney, Flinders University and Curtin University. A similar motion moved at La Trobe University was voted down in a heated council meeting.

"As Israel's crimes against humanity in Palestine are exposed to the world, support for the Palestinian cause will continue to grow. But if the last month is any indicator, this will also lead to ever more fanatical and dishonest campaigns by pro-Israel groups as they try desperately to defend the indefensible. It is crucial that these campaigns are resisted."

For a snapshot of the situation on US campuses, see 'Civility' is the Israel lobby's new weapon against free speech on US campuses, Ali Abunimah, electronicintifada.net, 7/9/14.

The Carlton/Le Lievre Backlash 5

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton, and cartoonist Glen Le Lievre, are predictably the latest "terror targets" for The Australian Jewish [sic: Zionist] News.

So heinous is their 'crime' that they've been the subject (along with Chanel 9's 60 Minutes) of a massive front page editorial bombardment in the August 1 issue. Here's the relevant bit:

"As for Carlton's column, that was altogether more insidious. Not only were we treated to baseless accusations of 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' on Israel's part, but then there was a subtle shift. These were crimes being committed by 'a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory'.

"This column was no longer about a country, this was about a people and a race - a people and a race who should know better because of what they themselves went through. In short, you Jews are the same as the Nazis, worse perhaps because you choose to ignore the lessons of your own history.

"How low can a columnist in a mainstream newspaper sink?

"And then, to illustrate the point, a cartoon featuring a big-nosed, bespectacled Jew, the kind that would have featured in Der Sturmer, wearing a kippah and with a Star of David scrawled on the back of his armchair - just in case it wasn't quite clear he was Jewish - pressing a remote control that detonates an explosion in Gaza...

"If you haven't done so already, consider cancelling your Fairfax subscriptions today." (MEDIA DISGRACE: Shame on those Australian journalists who are fanning the flames of hatred against Jews and Israel)

The confected outrage on display here highlights the always shifting goalposts of the Zionist propaganda game.

On the one hand, the targeted journalists (Carlton & Le Lievre) are slammed (a fave Murdoch/Zionist press word) for allegedly not differentiating between Israel and Jews in general. On the other, this accusation comes from a rag in which every effort, in every issue, in true Zionist style, is made to conflate being a Jew with support for Israel.

Settler Haters Hate

One of the most common and tiresome of expressions tossed around by Israel firsters is hate speech. In practice, the term is usually aimed at anyone who dares to speak out against Israeli criminality. Presumably, for these tossers, only critics of Israel indulge in hate speech. Not so.

If it's the real thing you want, try beating the following vile rant by Netanyahu speechwriter, Dror Eydar, published in the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israeli tabloid, Israel HaYom (Israel Today).  It is, if you will, the textual counterpart of those flag-draped Israeli mobs currently roaming the streets of Jerusalem looking for Palestinians to do over.

Where did I find this gem? Tellingly, in this week's Australian Jewish News!

To spare you the full technicolour yawn, I've settled for extracts of same, interspersed with my own comments:

"What has the death culture that surrounds us sought to sell in the past 100 years? Look around: there are no Jews in Iraq and no 'territories' in Syria, and nevertheless the angels of death gleefully slaughter each other. No science and no industry and no inventions that will benefit humanity. Just death..." (Seeing our enemies for what they are, 4/7/14)

And why are there no Jews in Iraq? Because Israel, having rendered 78% of Palestine Arabrein in 1948, had homes and land to spare. The solution? Uproot Arab Jewish communities wherever possible. (Just click on the Arab Jews label below for details.)

As for "no 'territories'" in Syria, Eydar seems to have forgotten all about the Israeli-occupied SYRIAN Golan Heights.

"If we don't realise that the executioners who pack the condemned into cattle trucks and lay them by the dozens or hundreds in ditches and put them to death amid devilish ululations, and if we don't get that this bunch is operating on our borders, and that its successes encourage our own local death culture, we will have to pay heavier prices in the future."

Notice how Eydar has no compunction whatever in smearing the brutalised victims of Israel's occupation as cut from the very same cloth as takfiri executioners?

"We must employ full force against the emissaries of the death culture, those who aid them, their military and civilian infrastructure, their sources of funding, their families, their clans, and anyone who knows something but just nods his head and keeps quiet."

Gee, has anyone been left out? Every Palestinian man, woman and child is guilty in the eyes of this hate-monger.

"Instead of trying to understand..."

Who needs a brain?

"... we should look at it as a natural phenomenon. No-one negotiates with cancer cells - we fight to dig them out at the root. If new ones appear? We'll fight again. And if, heaven forbid, again? We'll fight again. That's our fate. In the past 150 years we have learned to grasp a scythe with one hand and a sword with the other."

"Cancer cells"? The chutzpah of it all:

Eydar's East European Jewish caliphate fanatics, under the patronage and protection of His Britanic Majesty's government, invade and colonise the poor, war-torn, non-European land of Palestine (1917-48).

By 1948, having reached critical mass and muscle, they send most of the natives packing.

Then, resting only long enough to digest their homes and lands, and beat their scythes into swords (1948-67), they snap up the rest of the natives' patrimony in 1967, sending yet more of them packing in the process.

Those who remained came under occupation, while bit by bit being relieved of their land, which was colonised by messianic American Jewish caliphate fanatics, who - immune to such subtleties as the phenomenon of psychological projection - took to referring to the natives as, among other things, "cancer cells."

"Aah, the accusers said, they're settlers, so it's understandable... but that's just it - we're all settlers. Not just in the hills of Samaria and Judea, but also in Tel Aviv. In the eyes of our neighbors and some parts of the world we are all people who stole a land that wasn't theirs."

You said it, Dror.

"This blood libel is spread every day by anti-Semites and haters of Israel, as well as by useful idiots among us."

Hm... So anything other than the official, albeit false, Zionist narrative is now a "blood libel."

Hey, here's an idea: maybe dissenters from the party line could be charged with the crime of  ZND.

ZND? Zionist narrative denial!

But wait, I'm sure the legislation is already in the pipeline.

"But this is the truth: We are settlers because we returned to settle our forefathers' inherited land. It's simple. This country was a wasteland that waited for its rightful descendants for 2000 years, like a mother keeping her milk for her true children, like a woman waiting endlessly for her lover who disappeared."

Oh, FFS, spare us!

Using Force, Rewriting History & Getting Away With It

In an opinion piece in Tuesday's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, international editor Peter Hartcher concluded his commentary on the the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre as follows:

"As it did 25 years ago in a very different situation, China is using force, rewriting history, and getting away with it." (China muscles its way to power, 3/6/14)

(The present tense is using refers, of course, to the recent sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a Chinese vessel in the South China Sea.)

Whatever this formulation's applicability to China, however, I was struck by how well it summed up Israel's modus operandi: using force, rewriting history, and getting away with it.

Thank you, Mr Hartcher.

But typically, not in a million would Hartcher, rambammed in 2009 and 2011, ever say any such thing about the apartheid state, its long history of murder and mayhem, its false historical narrative, and its Scarlet Pimpernel-like ability to evade censure and sanction.

To take just two recent examples from The Australian Jewish News of history rewritten:

1) A supplement to the AJN last month, Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) 2014-5774, leads with a two-page spread A journey through history, by Nathan Jeffay.

Essentially a tourism ad, the only history we get here is:

a) that "the modern Jewish state" was established on May 14, 1948.
b) that an attack by Arab armies followed the above.
c) that three "Zionist militias" (the Palmach, the Etzel "paramilitary organisation, also known as the Irgun and commanded by the man who became Israel's 6th Prime Minister, Menachem Begin," and the "hard-line Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang") made this glorious event possible.

What we don't get is any mention of Palestinians or the fact of their ethnic cleansing at the time.  They are completely absent from Jeffay's journey through history.

2) An article by Uri Butnaru, The forgotten refugees, in the AJN of 23/5/14. This begins:

"The decision by the Canadian parliament earlier this year to recognise the refugee status of 850,000 Sephardi Jews forced to leave Arab lands such as Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Libya between 1948 and the early 1950s is another small step towards justice. Being the son of an Iraqi Jewish refugee, it gladdens my heart that in a small way the world is starting to understand that there was suffering on both sides of the conflict, sparked by the establishment of Israel in May 1948 - it wasn't just the Palestinians who were dispossessed and displaced. Sephardi Jews from Arab lands had to leave everything behind, their homes and all their possessions. But while not one of the 22 Arab countries that could have taken in the displaced Palestinians did so, for the Sephardi Jews there was one tiny country in the world that welcomed them with open arms."

Butnuru's is, of course, a propaganda piece premised on a false equivalence, namely that both Palestinians and Arab Jews were "refugees," sharing a similar experience and fate (summed by Butnuru as "dispossession and displacement") and that Israel's sole involvement in the matter extended to nothing more than merely "welcom[ing] them with open arms."

A Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) report from March 28, 1950 gives the lie to this:

"Premier David Ben Gurion returned today from his 3-weeks leave and tonight will attend a joint session of the Israel Cabinet and the Jewish Agency executive, called to explore the possibilities of the immigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel after they are permitted to leave Iraq." (Ben Gurion returns from vacation; discusses immigration of Iraqi Jews to Israel, jta.org)

The key word here, of course, is immigration. Broadly, while the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland by Zionist forces, Arab Jews emigrated from Iraq with more than a little help from Ben Gurion and friends.

Now I could stop here, but let's go on and explore some of the differences between the experiences of Palestinian refugees on the one hand, and Iraqi Jewish emigrants on the other.

Here, for example, is a description of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian port city of Jaffa in late April, 1948, courtesy of our aforementioned Israeli 'paramilitary' chieftain, Menachem Begin:

"Then a strange phenomenon was revealed before our eyes: the mass flight from Jaffa. Arab civilians and a variety of Arab 'fighters' suddenly began to leave in panic. There appear to have been two causes for this epidemic flight. One was the name of their attackers and the repute which propaganda had bestowed on them.* The Beirut correspondent of the United Press cabled that when the first boat-load of refugees arrived there from Jaffa they reported that the information that this attack was being made by the Irgun had thrown the population into a state of abject fear. The second factor was the weight of our bombardment. I do not know exactly how many [mortar] shells we sent into Jaffa. Yigal Yadin, Operations Officer of the Haganah, told me afterwards that we had not been sufficiently economical with our precious shells. The total load was certainly very heavy." (The Revolt: Story of the Irgun,1952, p 363)

[*A veiled reference to the Irgun's Deir Yassin massacre of April 9, 1948.]

Nothing even remotely comparable happened to Iraqi or any other Arab Jewish community.

To stick with the example of Iraq's Jews, news of Zionist atrocities against Palestinian civilians in 1948, the Iraqi army's involvement in the war against a Zionist takeover of Palestine, and the existence in Iraq of an armed Zionist underground, all combined to foster the view that Iraqi Jews constituted a potential 5th column for Israel.

The Iraqi government initially reacted by seizing the property of Iraqi Jews known to be in Israel, and some Jews began leaving Iraq illegally by December 1948. When restrictions on the emigration of Iraqi Jews were lifted in March 1950, a spate of mysterious bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad followed, leading to a mass emigration, mostly to Israel, from May to August 1950. Evidence points to the work of Zionist terrorists seeking to speed up the process. (See my posts Greg Sheridan: Charmed by Israel's 'Most Dangerous Politician', 21/12/07; Shameless Israeli Propaganda at the WaPo, 3/12/14)

Israel's foreign minister at the time, Moshe Sharett, crowed in a telegram that "[The emigration] is striking vindication persistent and daring efforts of Mossad Ha'Aliyah [underground Zionist movement for encouraging emigration] which in long years of underground work... succeeded creating movement which breathed new spirit into traditionally submissive Iraqi Jewry." (quoted in Jewish Property Claims Against Arab Countries, Michael R. Fischbach, 2008, p 56)

To return to our opening theme: aggression in spades, rewritten history on a grand scale, and getting away with it every time. Israel makes the Chinese look like mere amateurs.

From Diversionary Programs to Diversionary Propaganda

In its never-ending quest to defend the indefensible, The Australian Jewish News, in its February 14 issue, launched no less than 5 attacks (+ editorial & front page) on Four Corners' recent exposure of Israel's mistreatment of Palestinian children, Stone Cold Justice. (See my 10/2/14 post Murdoch Beds Aunty.)

The grubbiest, for me at least, was that by lawyer George Newhouse. Billed as "the head of Shine Lawyers social justice department" and one-off "advocate for Aboriginal youth in detention in WA (Wilson v Francis [2013] WASC 157)," his was a cynical attempt to use an entirely unrelated issue - Aboriginal detention rates in Western Australia and the Northern Territory - in order to divert attention from Israel's "systematic abuse and torture"* of Palestinian youths:

"The Four Corners program highlighted the disgraceful treatment of Palestinian youth in the Israeli military youth justice system but they also reported the news that the Israeli government and its military has accepted that reform is required and will take steps to improve military youth justice and detention. That's more than can be said for the governments of Western Australia and the Northern Territory who refuse to address the problem. Things are so bad that the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Chairperson Warren Mundine called for a national summit on Aboriginal justice issues and the soaring incarceration levels... It's time for UNICEF and Four Corners to investigate the treatment of Aboriginal children in youth detention in WA. Until then one might take a jaundiced view about the ABC's internationalist position on this vital issue." (We need to look in our own backyard)

So that's it then. The trigger-happy lads of the WADF (Western Australia Defence Force) are running amok in Aboriginal communities, ripping kids from their beds in the dead of night and secreting them in detention centres, where they're subjected to abuse and torture designed to elicit false confessions of stone-throwing and/or agreement to act as spies and informers.

Well, no.

Since Warren Mundine is Newhouse's cited authority here, let's explore what Mundine has to say about the issue of Aboriginal youth in detention.

The following text, from ABC Radio National's The World Today (Jobs not jail for troubled Indigenous youths: Mundine, 9/1/13) appears to be the source for Newhouse's reference to Mundine but, as you'll see, beyond Newhouse's cherry-picked reference to "soaring incarceration levels," it has little or nothing to do with the content of the Four Corners program:

Samantha Donovan: One of Australia's most prominent Indigenous leaders is calling for a national summit on Aboriginal justice issues to reverse soaring incarceration levels...
Emily Bourke: What's driving this increase?
Warren Mundine: I'm critical of all governments over the years and critical of the Aboriginal leadership... We are looking at the wrong end. We're looking at the jail end of it... We are trying to make culturally appropriate prisons, you know... where people get in trouble, they go on the culture camps. What we should be doing is the complete opposite. We need to be putting diversionary programs in that focus on keeping kids in the classroom and getting into jobs.
Emily Bourke: Warren Mundine says going to jail is a badge of honour for some young Aboriginal men and he also concedes some find it easier and even more appealing to go to jail... Warren Mundine says police and magistrates are hamstrung.
Warren Mundine: I do feel for the legal and also for the policing end because there are not options or supports for them to actually do these diversionary programs. We've got these silly ideas of black prisons and culturally appropriate prisons... We've got to get away from that and we've got to say let's have black classrooms... black jobs... and lets have commercial activity happening in Aboriginal communities rather than the jails.

Clearly, this business resembles Israel's abuse of Palestinian kids about as much as the proverbial chalk resembles the proverbial cheese.

More recently, Mundine is quoted in The Australian as saying:

"What I discovered when I headed Generation One was that there's about 40-50,000 people not in the Centrelink system or in employment so what they're doing is they're living off their families and humbugging... They get into criminal situations. We don't just say 'no dole', we've got to put in place processes to make sure they don't go into criminal activity'." (Youth missing from system, says Warren Mundine, Patricia Karvelas, 15/2/14)

Nor, it seems, does Mundine have any issue with the West Australian government:

"Mr Mundine said he had secured the support of the West Australian Corrective Services Commissioner... and the state government to try out the diversionary plan to tackle the incarceration rate. 'Everyone supported it'... he said."

The lengths Zionists will go to shield the object of their devotion from justified criticism is quite extraordinary. This includes, as we see here, the cynical manipulation of one indigenous issue in order to distract us from paying attention to another.

[*See my 18/4/13 post The UN Goes to Water.] 

Misrepresenting the Evian Conference of 1938

The Australian Jewish News spins the 1938 Evian Conference:

"A Melbourne rabbi is hopeful the 75th anniversary of the Evian Conference on Jewish refugees will prompt the federal government to formally acknowledge Australia's lack of action at the time. Exactly three-quarters of a century ago this month, representatives of the Western allies met at Evian-les-Bains in France on the initiative of US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to develop a policy for absorbing Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. But the Evian Conference turned out to be an abysmal failure, with almost no country making any significant commitment to increase their intake of Hitler's hapless victims... When Britain's notorious White Paper on Palestine emerged in May 1939, virtually closing the gates of the Jewish homeland, the fate of European Jewry was sealed. In July 1938, as country after country remained non-committal to the plight of the Jews, an Australian representative at the conference, Thomas White... stated: 'It will no doubt be appreciated also that as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large-scale foreign migration.' Australia partly relented and later accepted some 15,000 Jewish refugees." (75 years since the world shut us out, 19/7/13)

Note here how Palestine, then still a country with an overwhelming Arab majority which had just waged a bitter 4-year campaign of armed resistance against the British/Zionist policy of flooding its homeland with East European Jews, is brazenly referred to, in true Zionist style, as "the Jewish homeland".

Note how Britain is claimed to have "closed the gates" of Palestine with its 1939 White Paper when in fact it merely reduced Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the following 5 years in a belated attempt to satisfy the legitimate Arab demand for an end to the kind of mass Jewish immigration designed to convert the Arab majority into a minority in its own homeland.

And note how there is no mention whatever of the key role of the Zionist movement in scuppering the conference because it had no interest in German Jews going anywhere but Palestine. (For the details, just click on the Evian label below and read my 21/11/11 post Laying Siege to German Jews.)

A rare dissenting letter in The Australian Jewish News of July 26 by Professor Bill Rubinstein of Caulfield South, Victoria, refuses to toe the AJN line on this issue:

"Your article and editorial regarding the 75th anniversary of the Evian Conference is seriously misleading. Rather than closing the doors to Jewish refugees, after the Anschluss with Austria (March 1938) and Kristallnacht (November 1938), most of the world allowed in more Jews than before; Evian was irrelevant to this process. Britain let in up to 75,000 Jewish refugees, mainly in 1938-39, the most famous of whom was Sigmund Freud... The United States admitted more than 100,000 Jews as immigrants between 1938 and the end of 1941. Australia's reluctant decision to admit 15,000 refugees from the Reich (when this country's total population was only 6.5 million) was the first time Australia had admitted any refugees. About 72% of Germany's Jews actually left Germany before the Nazis (not the democracies) closed the door. However, more than 95% of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust were not in Germany, but in other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe, especially Poland, the USSR, Hungary, and the Netherlands. Before the war, these Jews were not refugees, not under Nazi rule, and were irrelevant to the Evian Conference, which exclusively concerned Germany. Any Jew in the USSR who expressed a wish to leave Stalin's utopia would have been shot or sent to a gulag. Polish Jewry was divided into 3 main factions: the Zionists, the Bund, and Agudas Israel (the strictly Orthodox party), the latter two being fierce opponents of Zionism. The Bund advised its followers to stay where they were and to fight anti-Semitism through an alliance with the Polish working class. Obviously, they could not have known what the fate would be of Jews trapped under Nazi rule, and neither could the Western democracies."

Tickled Pink

The Australian's Christian Kerr is tickled pink to report that:

"Sydney University students are expected to move to overturn support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement when their representative council meets this week."* (Student body rethinks anti-Israel boycott, 6/5/13)

Note how it's always the "anti-Israel BDS", suggestive of party-pooping negativity at best, vile anti-Semitism at worst?

No reader would ever guess, from a 'report' by Kerr and friends that BDS is actually pro-Palestinian rights and pro-international law, IOW a mechanism to help bring about 3 fundamental, long overdue and incredibly positive changes:

1) ending Israel's ILLEGAL occupation and colonization of all Arab lands [occupied in 1967] and dismantling the ILLEGAL West Bank wall;

2) recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3) respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

"BDS supporters... claim the Technion works closely with the Israeli government and military, and weapons manufacturers in Israel."  (ibid)

Note the sly, mendacious use of the word 'claim', with its connotation of still-to-be-proved.

So what does the Technion's website says:

"[I]ts graduates are cited to have provided the skills and education behind the creation and protection of the State of Israel." (About Technion)

The very creation and protection of the State of Israel! Couldn't be clearer really, but just to ice the cake:

"Technion's workshops supplied vital weapons and equipment for the Jewish self-defense [!!!] fighters of the Haganah - everything from cartridge clips and gun parts to signaling keys for lamps and wireless radios. Through the 1930s and 1940s, almost every student at Technion played a role in clandestine military efforts. Students descended into the 100-meter well in the school's courtyard to test weapons out of hearing range of British authorities; they practiced firing pistols in a basement corridor where the sound would be drowned out by the clamor of industrial machinery. During the 1948 War of Independence, Israeli fighters relied on 'Ilioff cocktails' - mass-produced, hand-thrown bottle bombs invented by Technion's Professor Alexander Ilioff. This was just the start of a long, productive partnership between Technion and the Israeli Defense Forces that would provide the young state with everything from night vision goggles to an entire aerospace industry." (Technion Nation: Technion's Contribution to Israel & the World, Amnon Frenkel & Shlomo Maital, 2012, p 42)

"Opponents say the Technion works regularly with Arab institutions... In an open letter to the SRC last week, the Technion student union said nearly a fifth of its numbers were Arabs."  (ibid)

Funny though, you can trawl the Technion's website till the cows come home but nowhere are these assertions corroborated, let alone adduced as a selling point.

Nor is any of the following highly relevant data likely to find its way into the pages of the Australian:

"Under the anodyne classification of 'applied sciences', Technion's research accomplishments read like a what's what of science fiction, full of unmanned drones, pilotless surveillance gizmos and driverless bulldozers. The Jerusalem Post reports that Technion's D9 unmanned armored tank performed so magnificently during Israel's massacre of 1,400 Gazans in the 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead that the IDF doubled its order. Journalist Max Blumenthal reported about the drone plane based on the dragonfly, with a 9-inch wingspan and 8-inch body. According to a quote Blumenthal cited from the American Technion Society website, 'The plane's relatively low speed enables it to easily enter rooms through small windows and to send back photos from a miniature camera.' Technion personnel have worked on means to track human eye movements in collaboration with Elbit, a key developer of Israel's apartheid wall, illegal under international law, that slices through the occupied West Bank. Technion is also a global expert in developing mini-robots capable of traversing rubble and planting bombs, as well as building 'surveillance snakes' whose goal is to explore tunnels that are crucial for transporting desperately needed banned goods into blockaded Gaza, where 1.6 million Palestinians barely scrape by. In this era of neoliberalism, Technion's invention of clever military gadgets that require minimal labor is a budget-cutter's dream come true. Not surprisingly, Palestinians aren't the only victims of Technion's 'applied sciences'. North America's own apartheid wall along the US-Mexico border uses surveillance technology developed by Technion. And stealth drones that the US has used to such deadly effect in Pakistan are also developed by Technion." (NYC's deadly deal with Israeli apartheid, Sherry Wolf, indypendent.org, 20/1/12)

Sounds like the road to Orwell's 1984 could be paved with Technion inventions. But then, would Rupert Murdoch want it any other way?

Now, as it happens, the Australian's mini-me, the Australian Jewish News is also tickled pink to report that:

"A Jew and a Palestinian are working together to counteract 'damage' done by the University of Sydney's SRC's recent decision to boycott the Technion... SRC representatives Palestinian-Australian Fahad Ali and Jewish-Australian Joel Einstein have moved to counter the recent motion to sever all ties with the [Technion] as part of the international BDS movement. Ali and Einstein's counter-motion asserts a two-state solution is 'the ultimate goal', and 'argument and vilification of either side' is disruptive to peace and 'contribute[s] nothing'... Ali approached Einstein about drafting a counter-motion... 'I wasn't comfortable with continuing the motion when its flaws became evident... I was really unhappy the motion passed and wanted to reverse the damage. The counter-motion will reaffirm the SRC's commitment to supporting both Israeli and Palestinian students. There's no sense of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians on campus. We're good friends. People who aren't invested want to impose their views on us'." (Palestinian, Jew unite to reverse student BDS motion, 26/4/13)

WTF?!

Where's this Ali bloke coming from? What's this 'damage' he keeps referring to? What are these mysterious 'flaws' he's so uncomfortable with? And what's all this banging on about 'Israeli students' and 'Israelis on campus'? Is Sydney University under Israeli occupation or what?

Is Comical Ali for real or is he just taking the piss?

Could he perhaps - and I admit to standing on the wilder shores of speculation here - be yet another of the Technion's sinister creations, a BDS-busting 'Palestinian' robot, remotely controlled by some Dr Frankenstein from a secret room deep within the bowels of that institution?

Watch this space...

[*See my 17/4/13 post If They're Good Enough for the Technion...]

Confected Outrage Over a Boy-cott

The drama queens of the Israel lobby would have us believe that they are SHOCKED to learn that someone's kid/little brother was not only present at last Tuesday's protest against a proposed Max Brenner outlet at UNSW, but that the child (around 8-10 judging from the photograph featured on the front page of this week's Australian Jewish News) was "brandishing" (Ziospeak for 'holding' when someone they don't like is doing it) a sign reading 'Max, Max, Murderer!':

"They are raising a young child on myths and prejudice and planting the seeds of hatred with reckless disregard for the ultimate consequences. They have learnt nothing from history," ranted Peter Wertheim of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. "It is deplorable to see a young child being indoctrinated with falsehoods and hatred," echoed Yair Miller of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. ('Planting the seeds of hatred', AJN, 3/5/13)

"[I]t's hard to respect people who allow their children to brandish such offensive signs at such a young age," intoned the the AJN editorialist piously. "If more time was invested in teaching youngsters about tolerance and peace, instead of promoting conflict and hate, such scenes - and indeed the scenes we see in the Middle East on all too frequent a basis - would perhaps be less common." (What are they teaching?)

God forbid that our kids should know that consumer choices have real consequences. That there is often a connection between Big Business and War. Or that, in this instance, Max Brenner "sweetens [the] special moments" of troops who gun down Palestinians, young and old, with monotonous regularity and get away with it every time. (See my 12/7/09 post How Sweet It Is.)

The sheer humbug of such voices is breathtaking.

Not from them an admission that Israeli kids are groomed from day 1 for conflict and hate:

"This very cute kid who'd regularly visit our [army] post decided that he didn't like Palestinians walking beneath his house, so he took a brick and threw it at this girl's head. Kid's there do whatever they want. No one does anything about it. No one cares. Afterward, his parents just praised him. The parents there encourage their children to behave like that. There were many cases like that. Eleven-, twelve-year-old Jewish kids beat up Palestinians and their parents come along to help them, set their dogs on them - there's a thousand and one stories." (Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010, Breaking the Silence, pp 308-309)

Nor from them an admission - let alone an expression of concern - that the abuse of Palestinian kids by Israeli soldiers, police and intelligence personnel has reached alarming proportions.

Here, for example, is the opening paragraph of the Christian Peacemaker Teams' recent report, Occupied Childhoods: Impact of the actions of Israeli soldiers on Palestinian children in H2 during February, March & April 2013:

"The recent mass arrest of 27 Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers on March 20, 2013 is a shocking example of the violation of children's rights in H2 (the portion of Hebron under Israeli Military control) in and near the Old City neighborhood of Hebron. Sadly the event is not an isolated incident. The suddenness of the arrest and the fact that it was not precipitated by a specific incident but was instead an attempt to round up as many children as possible in order to question them make the incident particularly egregious. Unfortunately children living in H2 are subject to experiences which violate their rights as children on a daily basis. Since the start of February human rights workers in Hebron have witnessed and documented 47 detentions and/or arrests of children age 15 and under by Israeli soldiers. A UNICEF document* released in February, 2013 describes the arrest, interrogation and detention by the Israeli army, police and security agents of approximately 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17 each year, throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)." (cpt.org)

What hypocrites!

[*See my 18/4/13 post The UN Goes to Water.]

Mike Kelly's Mission Impossible

OK, so Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in extremis, chose to keep her job rather than go down fighting for Israel. After all, her job description is Prime Minister of Australia.

But that doesn't mean she's happy about it. No way! She just can't make it through the day without a whiff of those irresistable Zionist pheromones. So wouldn't you think Israel's fifth columnists here would appreciate what a pickle the poor woman is in, show a little understanding and cut her a little slack?

But, alas, that's not how it is with this lot. Empathy is not exactly their strong point. You empathise with them, not vice versa, OK? No, she'll have to beg their forgiveness for Australia's criminal abstention in the UN vote on Palestine's observer status.

Her first attempt was a ringing declaration in the Australian Jewish News of December 7 to the effect that her party's historic friendship with Israel is quite simply beyond debate. (See my 9/12/12 post The Prisoner of Zion.)

But a one-off grovel is never enough in this kind of relationship. Which is why she's charged her faithful retainer, 'Clanking Colonel' Mike Kelly, with the mission of interceding on her behalf.

And so, in a 2-page spread in the latest edition of the AJN, Kelly's not only gone cap in hand and hand on heart to plead the lady's case but even taken the trouble to review the history of Labor's dedication to the "Australia/Israel relationship" from go to woe. Be that as it may, it's Kelly's spin on the offending abstention that we're interested in here:

"In the end the decision to 'abstain' was taken to convey the nuance required by the situation that, while the Australian Government acknowledges the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for statehood, our position on how that is to be achieved remains unchanged. Within the Labor caucus there were different views on this issue. This discussion was not driven by domestic political considerations but on what was the best option for achieving the two state solution. The Prime Minister ultimately presented to the Caucus her final view that we should 'abstain' and this position was unanimously supported by the Caucus without further debate. No argument was put to the Caucus to vote 'yes' and such a proposal would have been overwhelmingly defeated. It is utterly false and repulsive to suggest that this vote in any way indicates a dilution of Labor's committed support for Israel, based as it is on a proud and unmatched tradition, or that the Coalition is in any way a stronger supporter. Under the Government, and particularly within my own portfolio of Defence, the relationship with Israel has been taken to unprecedented levels and we are seeking to elevate it further. This has been to the great benefit of our effective operational capacity in Afghanistan and the enhancement of our Force Protection. There is no stronger friend of Israel than this Government. We face the same enemy and we have the same fervent hopes for peace. From time to time friends will differ but a healthy level of disputation is only a reflection of the nature of Israel itself, and what makes it so worthwhile defending." (Labor's abstention explained, 18/1/13)

Wow, the power and the passion! Now who wouldn't be moved by that?

The editor of the AJN, that's who!

In his capacity as editorialist, he excoriated the colonel for "resorting to enough spin to make us giddy" and accused him of concocting "a tortured rationale of how abstention means Labor's view on Palestinian statehood remains unchanged." And then, as if that wasn't enough of a lashing, he went for our ex-military lawyer's jugular with this: "to state... that 'there is no stronger friend of Israel than this [Gillard] government', is a lawyer's argument that stretches the bounds of credibility."

Well, I never! Talk about shooting the messenger.

Now the Palestinians have long been aware that Hell hath no fury like a Zionist scorned, or even looked at sideways, but not, apparently, the Kellys and Gillards of this world. Sometime down the track maybe, after sober reflection, but never while enjoying the spoils of office, that's for sure.

OK, so Kelly's plea to kiss and make up went down like the proverbial lead balloon but, be that as it may, there's still much in it to interest the serious student of the political hurly burly:

Note, for example, the spin Kelly puts on Gillard's rout: "The PM ultimately presented to the Caucus her final view that we should 'abstain' and this position was unanimously supported by the Caucus without further debate." You'd think from this that Her Highness had never, at any stage, been less than on top of the matter. Oh well, I guess all the other accounts of what went on can be junked now. (For those, see my posts While You Weren't Looking 1&2 (1 & 3/12/12); Julia the Downhearted (6/12/12); and The PM Who Put Her Job On the Line for Israel (18/1/13).)

Then we have Kelly's reference to Israel's contribution - presumably the drones mentioned in my 12/12/09 post Head-Shaking Stuff 2 - to our 'Force Protection' in Afghanistan. Where would we be without them?

Finally, there's that line about facing the same enemy. Foreign Minister Bob Carr, in his earlier incarnation of NSW Premier, once had the occasion, bless him, to remind the then Iraq-based Colonel Kelly - who had taken it upon himself to intervene in the entirely domestic matter of Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi being awarded the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize - that "[he] ought to understand the mission. The Australian mission in Iraq is not to engage in war with the Arab world or the Palestinians but to remove Saddam Hussein and find and destroy weapons of mass destruction." (Army critic of peace prize angers Carr, Nick O'Malley, SMH, 3/11/03) Seems Kelly still thinks we're at war with the Palestinians, and anyone else Israel doesn't like the look of for that matter.

Theatre Review: 'Delivered At Last'

"According to the Jerusalem Post, 5,000 schoolchildren were to gather in the main square in Tel Aviv and smash their war toys with hammers. In exchange they would get goodies and peace toys. The first war toy would be smashed by the city's mayor. For all we know it could be a plastic F-111 from a cereal carton. Simon Louvish read the story out loud. 'I can't write satire about Israel any longer,' he said. 'It's not possible - all you need do is report.'" (Jewish jokes no laughing matter, Hugh Hebert, The Guardian Weekly, 1986)

The latest 're-enactment' - Delivered At Last - by the consummate drama queens over at Chutzpah Productions Inc., is a worthy successor to their earlier production, United In Battle.

As with the latter, Delivered At Last was rightly accorded front page treatment in last week's edition of The Australian Jewish News. (Who could possibly forget, in the AJN of November 9, the tear-inducing cover photograph showing a party of Australian Light Horse Association pilgrims, clad in imperial clobber, sitting astride their neddies and proudly carrying Australian and Israeli flags before the gates of Beersheba - sorry, Beersheva? Who could forget the paper's pulse-racing headline, United in battle, and the spine-stiffening text which followed: "Ninety-five years after the Australian cavalry defeated the Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Beersheva, the landmark charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade was re-enacted in modern-day Israel. The event re-emphasised the historic ties between the two countries"? Ah, golden memories...)

Not to be outdone this time around, the AJN of December 14 featured four descendants of 30s Aboriginal activist William Cooper, ranging in age from the teenage to the eighty-something, standing solemnly against a backdrop of Aboriginal and Israeli flags.

Delivered at last trumpets the banner headline, which is followed by the words: "In 1938, Aboriginal leader William Cooper was turned away when attempting to deliver a petition to the German Consulate protesting the treatment of European Jewry in the wake of Kristallnacht. Last week, his grandson tried again..."

On page 3, under the header Righting a past wrong, we are reminded of the now familiar story* of how, on December 6, 1938, the 77-year-old Cooper led a protest march to the German Consulate in Melbourne where a 2,000 signature petition, protesting the 'cruel persecution' of Jews in Germany, was refused by the German consul-general.

[*Familiar at least to readers of this blog. See my posts on the lobby's first William Cooper production: Insufficiently Righteous (2/8/10); Record Rambam (25/10/10); The ABC of Zionist Propaganda (12/12/10).]

The AJN then goes on to describe the 're-enactment' as follows:

"Last Thursday, Jewish, indigenous and other Australians walked in Cooper's footsteps - from Footscray to the city - with Cooper's 84-year-old grandson Uncle Boydie Turner joining the crowd to deliver a replica of his grandfather's petition to Germany's honorary consul-general, Michael Pearce. An estimated 30 people began the walk at Footscray, with another 180 joining en route as they marched on the former address of the German embassy at Collins Street. Cooper's great-great-grandson, Kevin Russell, was at the front of the pack waving a trio of flags - Aboriginal, Australian and Israeli - which were bunched at the top, where a Magen David was attached. Some protesters carried a placard protesting Nazism. At the completion of the walk, the crowd streamed onto the steps of the former German embassy (which now houses a restaurant and law offices). Cameras took aim and all fell silent as an emotional Turner, donning a royal blue Jewish National Fund peak hat, read the petition aloud: 'We protest wholeheartedly the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government in Germany.' Accepting the petition, Pearce disparaged the former German consul-general. 'I am pleased to right the wrong committed by the German consul on this spot exactly 74 years ago when he refused to accept the original from Turner's grandfather, William Cooper,' he said. Pearce is awaiting a formal response to the petition from the German Foreign Office."

While the above description of the march reveals an explicit Israeli connection, a feature too of CPI's earlier production, their restraint in not including a contingent of gun-toting IDF terrorists, or a (death) squad of Australian passport-toting Mossad agents, or even a Merkava tank or three, is an indication of the company's professionalism, irresistable as these touches must have been for them

I note in passing CPI's use of that magic crowd-swelling technique whereby the initial 30-something marchers were joined at strategic intervals, presumably out of side streets, by other groups of like-minded individuals who just happened to be carrying the appropriate placards and flags. Why was their no musical accompaniment, though? Certainly, there is no mention above of what should have been obligatory, the old shofar and drum, the volume and tempo of which could have been upped in the style of Ravel's Bolero with each new addition to the procession, thus adding immeasurably to the drama of  it all.

It is left to the AJN's editorialist to spell out the show's moral significance. Under the stirring title When good men stand up, we read:

"Thanks to Cooper, there exists a genuine affinity between the Aboriginal and Jewish communities that has yielded some surprising results. Just last week an Israeli educational program, which is being used in Australia to lessen the literacy and numeracy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in rural communities, was celebrated, while Jewish advocacy for Aboriginal rights has become commonplace. One of the themes often discussed in Jewish circles is that Jews, with our first-hand knowledge of persecution, are obliged to advocate on behalf of the world's persecuted and promote peace, tolerance and love."

But, needless to say, 'good' without 'evil' is a bit like your yin without your yang, somehow lacking, and so the canny editorialist, in tune with his audience, wheels out Australian Zionism's Devil du jour, CPACS' Professor Jake Lynch - "an unashamed supporter of the global Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel" - under the - you guessed it! - title When bad men stand up.

Now how neat is that? It's three cheers for William Cooper and interminable boos and hisses for Jake Lynch.

A final word on Delivered At Last. Some reviewers - certainly not I! - may quibble that the entire production, with its Israeli props, smacks of little more than the shameless appropriation and exploitation of the memory and legacy of a remarkable indigenous Australian, with the sole aim  being to distract its audience from Israel's crimes against another indigenous people. Some may even go so far as to claim that - and how far-fetched is this? - it is part of a desperate attempt by Israel's  fifth columnists in Australia to project their brutal settler-colonial venture in Palestine as a legitimate, indeed indigenous, striving for self-determination in an ancient homeland.

But enough of such churlishness, if the AJN says "Jewish circles" are out there flashing the peace sign, singing All You Need Is Love, and ministering to the needs of the wretched of the earth, who am I to disagree? And anyway,  tis the season to be jolly, no?

The Fur's Flying

The Australian Government's support for the Palestinian Authority's successful push for observer status in the UNGA sure has the fur flying on the editorial/letters page of this week's Australian Jewish News (7/112/12). And it's not just the government that's come under attack:

Is this, for example, the first ever criticism of an Israeli government by the AJN's editorialist?:

"Following Israel's response [ie, more settlement building] to the Palestinian statehood bid is like watching a person cut off his nose to spite his face... Israel's response has been childish and ill thought out." (The wrong response)

And even the AJN itself is copping stick. Here, Ameinu president Johnny Baker takes umbrage at last week's front cover which featured a photograph of foreign and defence ministers Bob Carr and Stephen Smith and the 'proceed-to-the-naughty-corner-IMMEDIATELY' accusation: You've let us down:

"The provocative and ill-conceived 'You've let us down' front cover of last week's AJN will do very little to enhance the standing of the Jewish community in the public arena. It is a classic case of how not to win friends and influence people. By pointing an accusing finger at politicians who have been consistent friends and whose cardinal sin was to advocate a stance taken by many prominent Israelis, The AJN has outflanked our communal leadership in expressing its outrage... Sorry AJN, but this time you have let us down."

Of course, Terry Davis of Lindfield, NSW isn't having any of this. He's gunning instead for Bob Carr, the bloke who dared to move the ALP from blind to tough love of Israel, and, in so doing, is apparently now up there in the ZDI (Zionist Demonology Index) with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hasan Nasrallah:

"One has to admire Bob Carr's ambition. In my view, as premier, he wrecked NSW, and now he's trying to do the same to the whole of the Middle East."

But my favourite letter has to be this touching tribute to mateship from Michael Danby MP, Labor's unofficial Minister for Israel, lamenting the lack of media limelight accorded his tag-team buddy, Clanking Colonel* Mike Kelly, who, Danby assures us, fought valiantly in the ranks of the blind luvvies** against Carr's yea-saying and abstaining tough luvvies:

"In the rush of events last week, mention that my parliamentary colleague, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Dr Mike Kelly AM, was one of the key stalwarts in defence of the pro-Israel position was overlooked. In fact Mike Kelly, Senator Glen Sterle and myself, were appointed by the right faction of the ALP Caucus to put proposals to Senator Carr. Unfortunately, Senator Carr would not agree to our suggestions. Dr Kelly was at every meeting with me, strongly arguing the case. I will never forget his steadfastness."

Shows you how clueless the 'right faction of the ALP Caucus' must be, pitting the 'Clanking Colonel' against Carr. Labor history - let alone history - is obviously not their strong point.

Actually, it doesn't look as though Danby's exactly flavour of the month at the AJN these days. How else to explain why his letter was immediately followed on the page by the following kick-arse correspondence from David Rosenberg, South Caulfield, Vic.:

"Labor and its leaders have now lost the plot in the foreign affairs department. Julia Gillard hasn't the courage of her own convictions to stand up for Israel in her left-dominated cabinet. As Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr swirls his way around the world, he has certainly picked up some communicable communication diseases from the United Nations, denigrating Israel at every opportunity. As John Faulkner has recently called for Labor parliamentarians to try to at least pretend to be ethical and to appear honest, Michael Danby sitting member for Melbourne Ports now has to ask himself: As the point man for Jewish representation, has he the courage of his own convictions? The party has left you, Michael; if you stand for anything, it's time to make a stand for the Jewish community at large. Leave the party, it's time."

Et tu, David?

[*On Carr and Kelly, see my 9/9/11 post The Pits; **On Labor's blind love (or 'falafel') faction, see my 30/11/12 post Pro-Israel Deadenders in Federal Labor. ]

What a Pity Lieberman Speaks Fluent Israeli

Sometimes (well most of the time actually) I just don't understand The Australian Jewish News. No sooner had I registered (in my previous post) my amazement that former Argentine military supremo Jorge Videla speaks fluent Israeli, than I came across the much more extraordinary spectacle of an  AJN columnist expressing amazement that Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, does too:

"Avigdor Lieberman has such a way with words. Israel's ultra-controversial Foreign Minister went to visit el-Zamouk last week, a Bedouin town in southern Israel, to emphasise the fact - much to residents' anger - that the government considers it illegally built. His subtext was to point out that unauthorised structures in the village are still standing, even though, to his disappointment, the state has begun evacuating Jewish settler homes that are illegally built on Palestinian land. As Lieberman spoke to reporters, an Arab lawmaker, Taleb el-Sana, came to heckle him. 'You have no business to be here,' el-Sana said. 'You are persona non grata in the Bedouin communities. You act like the mafia.' Did Lieberman continue in a dignified manner? Or come up with a witty response? Nope, instead he threw out that stock insult that members of the Israeli right love to throw out at Arabs with whom they have a conflict. 'You are a terrorist,' he retorted." (The things Liebermans say, Bob Meiser, 6/7/12)

If only Lieberman had displayed a bit of the old Jewish wit instead of speaking fluent Israeli, then it would have more than made up for the bulldozing of Bedouin homes, right Bob?

Nakba Day Backlash 3

Streets of hate screamed the front page headline of the May 18 Australian Jewish News.

My trembling fingers turned the page, expecting a suitable follow up, such as Jack-booted pro-Palestinian storm troopers smash Jewish-owned shops in Sydney CBD, but found only Hezbollah flags fly at march. A bit of a let down that one, but on I pressed, my already bloodshot eyes scanning the opening paragraph:

"Pro-Palestinian protestors [sic] compared Israel to Hitler, waived Hezbollah flags and were joined by one of Australia's most infamous neo-Nazis when they marked Al-Nakba Day on Tuesday night. Less than 200 people turned out for the protest in the centre of Sydney; however, they forced NSW Police to stop traffic as they marched along George, Market, Pitt and King Streets."

OMG, all of that? They didn't?!

Afraid so, as the AJN's fearless reporter, Joshua Levi, went on to confirm:

"A female spokesperson at the rally quoted Hitler when she alleged that Israel is spreading lies about the Palestinians. 'Hitler said that the great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one and that is what Israel is doing'."

Good God! Doesn't she know that Israel alone decides who quotes Hitler and the manner in which he is quoted?

"[Patrick] Langosch also said he didn't have a problem with people waving Hezbollah flags, despite the fact it is considered a terrorist organisation by the Australian government."

A terrorist organisation? Young Joshua has obviously not read my 11/3/10 post Who's Afraid of Hezbollah?

"However, [Langosch] seemed to sing from a different tune..."

Er, I think that's 'hymn book', Josh.

"... when it came to one of Australia's most infamous neo-Nazis, Ross 'The Skull' May, who marched with the protest. 'Ross May was not there as part of our demonstration' [, said Langosch]. 'He was informed that he was not part of the demonstration and he was not welcome... because he is a known neo-Nazi'."

Ross 'The Skull' May? You're kidding me! You mean he's still alive? Or is this - like - an Elvis sighting?

OK, so he tags along? My God, even, such is their chutzpah, Zionists do that:

"Ruby Jacenko, a 22-year-old who was at the rally to show her support for Israel and reject claims by the marchers, said she didn't feel safe. 'I had two older men go out of their way to intimidate me so I stayed nice and close to the police', Jacenko said."

Ruby Jacenko? You're kidding me! You mean the proud bachelorette, lifestyle blogger and occasional drama queen who beats up on little sister, Roxy, drives a top-of-the-line Range Rover, sports a white gold Rolex and carries a Fendi bag?

Frankly, I'd be more worried about the two older men. Those Fendis can do some damage in a crowd  let me tell you!

Man! Ross and Ruby - separated by less than 200 people!  Who'd have thought? Can you see now why I sooo love the Australian Jewish News?

But there was more... The AJN is a gift that just keeps on giving. There was the AJN 's editorial, The oxygen of publicity.

"Rally organiser Patrick Langosch even thanked the police force for its intervention. 'The NSW Police have done more to get people to this demonstration then [sic] we could ever hope for', he told The AJN at the rally. But just in case the police didn't do enough to help them publicise their cause, NSW Supreme Court Justice Christine Adamson served up a little more assistance in her ruling."

Now let me get this straight. Someone - no names, no pack-drill - puts the plods up to this, but it's the plods and Justice Adamson who *cop* the criticism! That's chutzpah for you.

Games Zionists Play 2

The Australian Jewish News, The Australian's Mini-Me, is a veritable compendium of Zionist narcissism, parochialism and tunnel vision.

This week's issue contains a magazine format insert called Preparing for Pesach.

On page 10, under the heading Let these people go, we are told that "Pesach celebrates the Israelites' freedom from oppression in Ancient Egypt. As you sit in appreciation around the seder table this year, take a moment to consider the plight of people who continue to experience repression and tyranny as their human rights are violated."

And which people exactly have been singled out, by whoever was responsible for Let these people go, for the special consideration of those seated around the seder table this year?

Well, here they are: 1) The women of Burkina Faso; 2) Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and the over 2,200 political prisoners in that country; 3) Iranian women; and 4) Migrant workers in Malaysia.

At the foot of the page we read that "This information was published courtesy of Amnesty International Australia."

Did it ever occur, I wonder, to those at AI who supplied the information used in this piece to the AJN, that they were aiding and abetting a truly blatant display of Zionist hypocrisy?

What About Me?

Well there's a little boy waiting at the counter of a corner shop
He's been waiting there, waiting half the day
They never ever see him from the top
He gets pushed around, knocked to the ground
He gets to his feet & he says
[CHORUS]
What about me, it isn't fair
I've had enough, now I want my share
Can't you see I wanna live
But you just take more than you give

"While it is understandable that the Japan earthquake and tsunami disaster and the US-led airstrikes on Libya would dominate world news of late, it's difficult to shake the feeling that there is an underlying lack of interest in the press to aggressively report news that would portray Israel in a sympathetic light." (Editorial, BDS, bombs & rock 'n' roll, The Australian Jewish News, 1/4/11)

Boo hoo.

'An Element of Political Content'

Ho hum - until, that is, you get to the bit I've highlighted:

"A father has won the right to stop his children from taking part in Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies after a couple agreed they should be able to make their own religious choice. The mother wanted her children to participate in their bar and bat mitzvahs - ceremonies that mark the beginning of boys and girls taking responsibility for their Jewish faith. But the father, a Catholic who irregularly attends church, wanted them to choose their own religion in a 'voluntary and informed' way, once they were of sufficient age and maturity. The stoush played out in the Federal Magistrates Court in Melbourne where the separated parents... asked the court to determine the religious future of their 3 children... [The mother] had enrolled the children in a religious youth group for two hours each Sunday but [the father] was concerned the groups had 'an element of political content' and wished for the children not to attend." (Father wins right to stop children taking part in Jewish ceremonies, Belinda Kontominas, Sydney Morning Herald, 7/7/10)

Now what could the father possibly be referring to? Such a mystery!

And one which only deepens when you read the account of this case in The Australian Jewish News (July 9) - because there's no mention whatever of the youth group or that mysterious element of political content.

Hmm...

Still, nothing beats the high comedy of the AJN's front page - a close-up shot of a gavel about to descend; a headline - Judge denies bar mitzvah; and, piece de resistance, the following: "A mother's wish for her three children to have bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies was scuttled this week after their Catholic father took the matter to court. Is this a case of a judge overruling God?"

A judge overruling God - G-D for God's sake! - chumitz!

The last time a group of Australian sectarians tried running that line in public was at Hizb ut-Tahrir's recent Sydney conference - and they came under the immediate scrutiny of The Australian's current* Muslim-finder, Sally Neighbour, and were subjected to thundering headlines (not to mention the obligatory, denunciatory editorial) for their pains: "[Visiting British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif] said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole law-maker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on 'secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom'." (Muslims told to shun democracy, 5/7/10)

But then, to borrow Orwell, all sectarians are equal, but some sectarians are more equal than others, right?

[*Remember Richard Kerbaj?]