"Even stolen elections have results that matter. The election that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole from the Iranian people last weekend is no exception. Its consequences are almost all bad. If any election is the prelude to conflict, with all the tragedy and terror that entails, this was it. First, the good news. Huge numbers of ordinary Iranians took serious personal risks to demonstrate their disgust at the demented rhetoric and sterile extremism their President and the mullahs behind him offer them. Everything that was good and decent and brave and creative about Iran was alive with hope in the days before the election, and in the heroic resistance afterwards." (Don't pin your hopes on change in Tehran, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 18/6/09)
***
"Five years after the 2009 post-election unrest in Tehran came under the world's spotlight, stunning footage was shown on Iranian state-owned TV showing Mir-Hossein Moussavi's chief voting inspector Abbas Akhoundi five days after the election telling a meeting of key campaign members of all the 4 presidential candidates with the Supreme Leader that there had 'basically been no election fraud' at work." (Historical footnote made public: key Moussavi campaign official admits to no fraud in 2009 election, farsnews.com, 4/1/15)
See also my 19/10/10 post Was Iran's Election Stolen?
Showing posts with label Ahmadinejad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ahmadinejad. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Friday, October 19, 2012
Now Where Have We Heard That Before?
"Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Ecclesiastes
"Ben-Gurion took the opportunity to reiterate his false accusation that 'Abdel Nasser declared day after day that Egypt was at war with Israel and he did not conceal his principal aim which was to attack Israel and wipe it off the face of the earth at the first opportunity.' Through repetition Israel maintained the currency of such charges in the West, although they have never been substantiated by a single documented quotation from Nasser. It is a clever tactic since it is impolitic for an Arab to deny making hostile statements about Israel. Being therefore unchallenged, such Israeli accusations tend, through incessant repetition, to become accepted." (Suez: The Twice-Fought War, Kennett Love, 1969, pp 640-641)
"Ben-Gurion took the opportunity to reiterate his false accusation that 'Abdel Nasser declared day after day that Egypt was at war with Israel and he did not conceal his principal aim which was to attack Israel and wipe it off the face of the earth at the first opportunity.' Through repetition Israel maintained the currency of such charges in the West, although they have never been substantiated by a single documented quotation from Nasser. It is a clever tactic since it is impolitic for an Arab to deny making hostile statements about Israel. Being therefore unchallenged, such Israeli accusations tend, through incessant repetition, to become accepted." (Suez: The Twice-Fought War, Kennett Love, 1969, pp 640-641)
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Great Moments in Sucking Up to Israel
In the latest twist in the unseemly contest between Obamanation and Mitt Romney to see just how low each can go in sucking up to the Israelis, Romney has announced that he would "press for an indictment of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on charges of inciting genocide." (Mitt Romney says he would indict Ahmadinejad for genocide incitement, guardian.co.uk, 29/9/12)
The announcement reportedly came "moments after a phone conversation with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu." (ibid)
What a surprise! Good one, Mitt!
But you're a bit slow, buddy. Our very own Kevin Rudd, once-upon-a-time Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and now not-so-humble backbencher, beat you to the punch years ago, also during an election campaign as it happens, that of 2007 to be precise.
For the curious story of how Krudd conceived (actually had it conceived for him) the risible idea of dragging the Eye-ranian president off to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a charge of inciting genocide but quietly, and much to the chagrin of our local Israel firsters, dropped the idea a year into his prime ministership, scan my posts under the label Rudd government below, beginning with Testing Time for Rudd (21/12/07) and ending with Unleashing the Zionist Settler Within (15/11/08).
And Krudd, remember, is the Great White Hope of the Australian Labor Party today. God help us.
The announcement reportedly came "moments after a phone conversation with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu." (ibid)
What a surprise! Good one, Mitt!
But you're a bit slow, buddy. Our very own Kevin Rudd, once-upon-a-time Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and now not-so-humble backbencher, beat you to the punch years ago, also during an election campaign as it happens, that of 2007 to be precise.
For the curious story of how Krudd conceived (actually had it conceived for him) the risible idea of dragging the Eye-ranian president off to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a charge of inciting genocide but quietly, and much to the chagrin of our local Israel firsters, dropped the idea a year into his prime ministership, scan my posts under the label Rudd government below, beginning with Testing Time for Rudd (21/12/07) and ending with Unleashing the Zionist Settler Within (15/11/08).
And Krudd, remember, is the Great White Hope of the Australian Labor Party today. God help us.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Was Iran's Election 'Stolen'?
For our ms media operatives, Iran's 'stolen' 2009 election is enshrined in the halls of received wisdom along with Ahmadinejad's alleged threat to 'wipe Israel off the map'*:
"The most extraordinary thing about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rock-star welcome in Beirut this week is that it would not happen in his own capital, Tehran. Millions in Iran believe Ahmadinejad stole last year's presidential election - the evidence is strong. While he still has support in remote and rural parts, in larger cities such as Tehran, Shiraz and Esfahan he is largely despised." (Ahmadinejad rock star welcome proves who's paying the piper, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/10/10)
The evidence is strong? Really? Please consider:
"There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite... The recently concluded, June 12, 2009 elections in Iran are a classic case: The incumbent nationalist-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 63.3% of the vote... The opposition led by Hossein Mousavi did not accept their defeat and organized a series of mass demonstrations that turned violent, resulting in the burning and destruction of automobiles, banks, public buildings and armed confrontations with the police and other authorities. Almost the entire spectrum of Western opinion makers, including all the major liberal, radical, libertarian and conservative web-sites, echoed the opposition's claim of rampant electoral fraud...
"What is astonishing about the West's universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of vote tampering was raised... As long as the Western media believed their own propaganda of an imminent victory for their candidate, the electoral process was described as highly competitive, with heated public debates and unprecedented levels of public activity, and unhindered by public proselytizing. The belief in a free and open election was so strong that the Western leaders and mass media believed that their favored candidate would win.
"The Western media relied on its reporters covering the mass demonstrations of opposition supporters, ignoring and downplaying the huge turnout for Ahmadinejad. Worse still, the Western media ignored the class composition of the competing demonstrations - the fact that the incumbent candidate was drawing his support from the far more numerous poor working class, peasant, artisan and public employee sectors while the bulk of the opposition demonstrators was drawn from the upper and middle class students, business and professional class.
"Moreover, most Western opinion leaders and reporters based in Tehran extrapolated their projections from their observations in the capital - few venture into the provinces, small and medium sized cities and villages where Ahmadinejad has his mass base of support. Moreover, the opposition's supporters were an activist minority of students easily mobilised for street activities, while Ahmadinejad's support drew on the majority of working youth and household women workers who would express their views at the ballot box and had little time or inclination to engage in street politics.
"A number of newspaper pundits... claim as evidence of electoral fraud the fact that Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote in an Azeri-speaking province against his opponent, Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri. The simplistic assumption is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests. A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, and obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters in the densely populated Tehran province... by gaining the vote of the middle and upper class districts, whereas he lost badly in the adjoining working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas.
"The careless and distorted emphasis on 'ethnic voting' cited by writers from The Financial Times and The New York Times to justify calling Ahmadinejad's victory a 'stolen vote' is matched by the media's willful and deliberate refusal to acknowledge a rigorous nationwide public opinion poll** conducted by two US experts just 3 weeks before the vote, which showed Ahmedinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin - even larger than his electoral victory on June 12. This poll revealed that among ethnic Azeris, Ahmadinejad was favored by a 2 to 1 margin over Mousavi, demonstrating how class interests represented by one candidate can overcome the ethnic identity of the other candidate. The poll also demonstrated how class issues, within age groups, were more influential in shaping political preferences than 'generational lifestyle'. According to this poll, over two-thirds of Iranian youth were too poor to have access to a computer and the 18-24 year olds 'comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all groups'. The only group which consistently favored Mousavi was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper middle class. The 'youth vote', which the Western media praised as 'pro-reformist', was a clear minority of less than 30% but came from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English-speaking group with a monopoly on the Western media. Their overwhelming presence in the Western news reports created what has been referred to as the 'North Tehran syndrome', for the comfortable upper class enclave from which many of these students come. While they may be articulate, well- dressed and fluent in English, they were soundly out-voted in the secrecy of the ballot box.
"In general, Ahmadinejad did very well in the oil and chemical producing provinces. This may have been a reflection of the oil workers' opposition to the 'reformist' program, which included proposals to 'privatize' public enterprises. Likewise, the incumbent did very well [in] the border provinces because of his emphasis on strengthening national security from US and Israeli threats in light of an escalation of US-sponsored cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan and Israeli-backed incursions from Iraqi Kurdistan, which have killed scores of Iranian citizens...
"What Western commentators and their Iranian proteges have ignored is the powerful impact which the devastating US wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had on Iranian public opinion: Ahmadinejad's strong position on defence matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense postures of many of the opposition's campaign propagandists.
"The great majority of voters probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity." (From Iranian Elections: The 'Stolen Elections' Hoax, in Global Depression & Regional Wars, James Petras, 2009, pp 190-193)
[* See my 29/2/08 post Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall. **This poll was acknowledged in Lyons' own paper but only by way of a dismissive commentary by The Times' Martin Fletcher: "'The fact may be that the re-election of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people want', the pollsters Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty wrote in The Washington Post." The best case Fletcher could make out for electoral fraud, however, was: "There is no proof that Mr Ahmadinejad's victory was secured by fraud, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence." (No proof of a fix, but much evidence, 19/6/09)]
"The most extraordinary thing about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rock-star welcome in Beirut this week is that it would not happen in his own capital, Tehran. Millions in Iran believe Ahmadinejad stole last year's presidential election - the evidence is strong. While he still has support in remote and rural parts, in larger cities such as Tehran, Shiraz and Esfahan he is largely despised." (Ahmadinejad rock star welcome proves who's paying the piper, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/10/10)
The evidence is strong? Really? Please consider:
"There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite... The recently concluded, June 12, 2009 elections in Iran are a classic case: The incumbent nationalist-populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 63.3% of the vote... The opposition led by Hossein Mousavi did not accept their defeat and organized a series of mass demonstrations that turned violent, resulting in the burning and destruction of automobiles, banks, public buildings and armed confrontations with the police and other authorities. Almost the entire spectrum of Western opinion makers, including all the major liberal, radical, libertarian and conservative web-sites, echoed the opposition's claim of rampant electoral fraud...
"What is astonishing about the West's universal condemnation of the electoral outcome as fraudulent is that not a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of vote tampering was raised... As long as the Western media believed their own propaganda of an imminent victory for their candidate, the electoral process was described as highly competitive, with heated public debates and unprecedented levels of public activity, and unhindered by public proselytizing. The belief in a free and open election was so strong that the Western leaders and mass media believed that their favored candidate would win.
"The Western media relied on its reporters covering the mass demonstrations of opposition supporters, ignoring and downplaying the huge turnout for Ahmadinejad. Worse still, the Western media ignored the class composition of the competing demonstrations - the fact that the incumbent candidate was drawing his support from the far more numerous poor working class, peasant, artisan and public employee sectors while the bulk of the opposition demonstrators was drawn from the upper and middle class students, business and professional class.
"Moreover, most Western opinion leaders and reporters based in Tehran extrapolated their projections from their observations in the capital - few venture into the provinces, small and medium sized cities and villages where Ahmadinejad has his mass base of support. Moreover, the opposition's supporters were an activist minority of students easily mobilised for street activities, while Ahmadinejad's support drew on the majority of working youth and household women workers who would express their views at the ballot box and had little time or inclination to engage in street politics.
"A number of newspaper pundits... claim as evidence of electoral fraud the fact that Ahmadinejad won 63% of the vote in an Azeri-speaking province against his opponent, Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri. The simplistic assumption is that ethnic identity or belonging to a linguistic group is the only possible explanation of voting behavior rather than other social or class interests. A closer look at the voting pattern in the East-Azerbaijan region of Iran reveals that Mousavi won only in the city of Shabestar among the upper and the middle classes (and only by a small margin), whereas he was soundly defeated in the larger rural areas, where the re-distributive policies of the Ahmadinejad government had helped the ethnic Azeris write off debt, and obtain cheap credits and easy loans for the farmers. Mousavi did win in the West-Azerbaijan region, using his ethnic ties to win over the urban voters in the densely populated Tehran province... by gaining the vote of the middle and upper class districts, whereas he lost badly in the adjoining working class suburbs, small towns and rural areas.
"The careless and distorted emphasis on 'ethnic voting' cited by writers from The Financial Times and The New York Times to justify calling Ahmadinejad's victory a 'stolen vote' is matched by the media's willful and deliberate refusal to acknowledge a rigorous nationwide public opinion poll** conducted by two US experts just 3 weeks before the vote, which showed Ahmedinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin - even larger than his electoral victory on June 12. This poll revealed that among ethnic Azeris, Ahmadinejad was favored by a 2 to 1 margin over Mousavi, demonstrating how class interests represented by one candidate can overcome the ethnic identity of the other candidate. The poll also demonstrated how class issues, within age groups, were more influential in shaping political preferences than 'generational lifestyle'. According to this poll, over two-thirds of Iranian youth were too poor to have access to a computer and the 18-24 year olds 'comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all groups'. The only group which consistently favored Mousavi was the university students and graduates, business owners and the upper middle class. The 'youth vote', which the Western media praised as 'pro-reformist', was a clear minority of less than 30% but came from a highly privileged, vocal and largely English-speaking group with a monopoly on the Western media. Their overwhelming presence in the Western news reports created what has been referred to as the 'North Tehran syndrome', for the comfortable upper class enclave from which many of these students come. While they may be articulate, well- dressed and fluent in English, they were soundly out-voted in the secrecy of the ballot box.
"In general, Ahmadinejad did very well in the oil and chemical producing provinces. This may have been a reflection of the oil workers' opposition to the 'reformist' program, which included proposals to 'privatize' public enterprises. Likewise, the incumbent did very well [in] the border provinces because of his emphasis on strengthening national security from US and Israeli threats in light of an escalation of US-sponsored cross-border terrorist attacks from Pakistan and Israeli-backed incursions from Iraqi Kurdistan, which have killed scores of Iranian citizens...
"What Western commentators and their Iranian proteges have ignored is the powerful impact which the devastating US wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had on Iranian public opinion: Ahmadinejad's strong position on defence matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense postures of many of the opposition's campaign propagandists.
"The great majority of voters probably felt that national security interests, the integrity of the country and the social welfare system, with all its faults and excesses, could be better defended and improved with Ahmadinejad than with upper class technocrats supported by Western-oriented privileged youth who prize individual life styles over community values and solidarity." (From Iranian Elections: The 'Stolen Elections' Hoax, in Global Depression & Regional Wars, James Petras, 2009, pp 190-193)
[* See my 29/2/08 post Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall. **This poll was acknowledged in Lyons' own paper but only by way of a dismissive commentary by The Times' Martin Fletcher: "'The fact may be that the re-election of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people want', the pollsters Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty wrote in The Washington Post." The best case Fletcher could make out for electoral fraud, however, was: "There is no proof that Mr Ahmadinejad's victory was secured by fraud, but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence." (No proof of a fix, but much evidence, 19/6/09)]
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The View from South of the Border
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came so close to the Israeli border this week he could almost be heard on the other side, calling for 'the Zionists to be wiped out'." (Lebanon visit shows new balance of power, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/10/10)
However, his horns and forked tail, which cheekily flicked back and forth, could easily be made out, despite the great clouds of yellow smoke wreathing His Satanic Majesty's presence.
"... Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement that gives the impression of being driven by two overrriding ambitions: the annihilation of Israel and the piecemeal takeover of Lebanon..." (ibid)
My God, they're a worry. Have I got this right? Israel will be annihilated, but Lebanon will only get Cadbury's chocolate bar treatment?
"As in most other paramilitary organisations, a certain level of paranoia permeates Hezbollah, even its political wing." (ibid)
Even its political wing? Jeez, these guys really do need to chill out!
However, his horns and forked tail, which cheekily flicked back and forth, could easily be made out, despite the great clouds of yellow smoke wreathing His Satanic Majesty's presence.
"... Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement that gives the impression of being driven by two overrriding ambitions: the annihilation of Israel and the piecemeal takeover of Lebanon..." (ibid)
My God, they're a worry. Have I got this right? Israel will be annihilated, but Lebanon will only get Cadbury's chocolate bar treatment?
"As in most other paramilitary organisations, a certain level of paranoia permeates Hezbollah, even its political wing." (ibid)
Even its political wing? Jeez, these guys really do need to chill out!
"Mr Darwiche's workspace was more like a suite than an office. Thick carpet, mood lighting, a plush sofa or two and the requisite framed portrait of the Hezbollah secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, behind him. On another wall were framed portraits of Ragheb Harb, Abbas al-Musawi and Imad Mughniyah, all former Hezbollah leaders assassinated by Israel." (ibid)
Er... on second thoughts.
"It's such a cliche but you're only as good as your last story. People forget what was in the paper last week, let alone last year." Jason Koutsoukis (quoted in The art of reporting news, Rowena MacDonald, uow.edu.au) Not MERC, Jason.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Your Radio Israel
If you thought you were listening to ABC radio yesterday, specifically to the item Iranian president's Lebanon visit stirs unease on The World Today with Eleanor Hall, you were wrong. You were actually listening to Radio Israel (my comments in square brackets):
HALL: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long talked of wiping Israel off the map (1) - with or without nuclear weapons. And today in a highly provocative move (2) he's preparing to visit Hezbollah strongholds (3) in southern Lebanon. That will bring him barely two kilometres from the Israeli border. But even inside Lebanon the Iranian leader's visit is highly controversial (4) because many accuse Iran of interfering in Lebanese affairs. Middle East correspondent Anne Barker reports.
[(1) No anti-Iranian Zionist propaganda piece would be complete without this canard. (2) So? Even when he rolls over in his sleep it's a highly provocative move. (3) Arabs live in strongholds, Israelis in towns and cities. (4) So? Even when he farts it's highly controversial.]
BARKER: He's a man who inspires the extremes of devotion or hatred wherever he goes. [Whose hatred, Anne?] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Beirut to huge crowds who welcomed his first official visit to Lebanon. Thousands of Shi'ite Muslims lined the airport road waving Iranian flags and throwing flowers at the presidential motorcade. But most were supporters of Hezbollah [and Amal?]- the Shi'ite militia which relies on Iran for both funding and weapons and which shares Iran's hatred of Israel. [Really? Just because Israel's always threatening to nuke it?] Although at a press conference in Beirut president Ahmadinejad appealed to all Lebanese to resist the Zionist enemy. 'Iran and Lebanon have common points of view', he said. 'Both countries are against the occupation, aggressions and crimes committed by the Zionists'. Nevertheless the Iranian president's visit has instilled fear among Lebanon's majority non-Shi'ite population. Many [How many, Anne?] Christians or Sunni Muslims or the minority Druze believe that Iran through Hezbollah wields far too much influence on Lebanon's internal politics and government. A group of about 250 [Oh, that many!] politicians, lawyers and activists have written an open letter criticising president Ahmadinejad's support of Hezbollah and voicing fears that Iran is trying to drag Lebanon into a new war against Israel. 'Your talk of changing the face of the region and wiping Israel off the map', it says, 'makes your visit seem like that of a commander to his front line', the letter reads. It's that front line that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to visit today in a move that many in both Lebanon [250?] and Israel interpret as a deliberate provocation. The Iranian leader will visit Lebanon's south where Hezbollah militants wield control including villages along the border that were bombed by Israeli forces in the last war in 2006. There were reports president Ahmadinejad might even throw stones across the border in a symbolic show of Iran's defiance. Mark Regev is a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.
REGEV: The Iranians are showing the whole world that they have succeeded to dominate Lebanese politics through their proxy Hezbollah. They are forcing their agenda on Lebanon and are creating a hub for terrorism and a threat to regional stability. [And who better than Mark Regev to tell us about... Lebanon!]
BARKER: Even members of Lebanon's own government have expressed alarm at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit. [Members? Oh, you mean the Phalangist, Faris Said? Yes, I suppose that is more worthy of mention than reporting his meetings with both the Lebanese president and prime minister.] One politician has said the Iranian leader is seeking to transform Lebanon into an Iranian base on the Mediterranean. [Faris Said?] Others [No names, no pack-drill.] fear his visit will upset the fragile balance between competing religious and ethnic groups and set Lebanon on a new path to sectarian conflict. [Of course, Lebanon's fragile balance had nothing whatever to fear from Israel's 2006 attempt to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" (Dan Halutz) or its current threat to "destroy Lebanon's army in 4 hours." ('IDF can destroy Lebanon army within 4 hours', ynetnews.com, 27/8/10)]
HALL: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long talked of wiping Israel off the map (1) - with or without nuclear weapons. And today in a highly provocative move (2) he's preparing to visit Hezbollah strongholds (3) in southern Lebanon. That will bring him barely two kilometres from the Israeli border. But even inside Lebanon the Iranian leader's visit is highly controversial (4) because many accuse Iran of interfering in Lebanese affairs. Middle East correspondent Anne Barker reports.
[(1) No anti-Iranian Zionist propaganda piece would be complete without this canard. (2) So? Even when he rolls over in his sleep it's a highly provocative move. (3) Arabs live in strongholds, Israelis in towns and cities. (4) So? Even when he farts it's highly controversial.]
BARKER: He's a man who inspires the extremes of devotion or hatred wherever he goes. [Whose hatred, Anne?] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Beirut to huge crowds who welcomed his first official visit to Lebanon. Thousands of Shi'ite Muslims lined the airport road waving Iranian flags and throwing flowers at the presidential motorcade. But most were supporters of Hezbollah [and Amal?]- the Shi'ite militia which relies on Iran for both funding and weapons and which shares Iran's hatred of Israel. [Really? Just because Israel's always threatening to nuke it?] Although at a press conference in Beirut president Ahmadinejad appealed to all Lebanese to resist the Zionist enemy. 'Iran and Lebanon have common points of view', he said. 'Both countries are against the occupation, aggressions and crimes committed by the Zionists'. Nevertheless the Iranian president's visit has instilled fear among Lebanon's majority non-Shi'ite population. Many [How many, Anne?] Christians or Sunni Muslims or the minority Druze believe that Iran through Hezbollah wields far too much influence on Lebanon's internal politics and government. A group of about 250 [Oh, that many!] politicians, lawyers and activists have written an open letter criticising president Ahmadinejad's support of Hezbollah and voicing fears that Iran is trying to drag Lebanon into a new war against Israel. 'Your talk of changing the face of the region and wiping Israel off the map', it says, 'makes your visit seem like that of a commander to his front line', the letter reads. It's that front line that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to visit today in a move that many in both Lebanon [250?] and Israel interpret as a deliberate provocation. The Iranian leader will visit Lebanon's south where Hezbollah militants wield control including villages along the border that were bombed by Israeli forces in the last war in 2006. There were reports president Ahmadinejad might even throw stones across the border in a symbolic show of Iran's defiance. Mark Regev is a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.
REGEV: The Iranians are showing the whole world that they have succeeded to dominate Lebanese politics through their proxy Hezbollah. They are forcing their agenda on Lebanon and are creating a hub for terrorism and a threat to regional stability. [And who better than Mark Regev to tell us about... Lebanon!]
BARKER: Even members of Lebanon's own government have expressed alarm at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit. [Members? Oh, you mean the Phalangist, Faris Said? Yes, I suppose that is more worthy of mention than reporting his meetings with both the Lebanese president and prime minister.] One politician has said the Iranian leader is seeking to transform Lebanon into an Iranian base on the Mediterranean. [Faris Said?] Others [No names, no pack-drill.] fear his visit will upset the fragile balance between competing religious and ethnic groups and set Lebanon on a new path to sectarian conflict. [Of course, Lebanon's fragile balance had nothing whatever to fear from Israel's 2006 attempt to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" (Dan Halutz) or its current threat to "destroy Lebanon's army in 4 hours." ('IDF can destroy Lebanon army within 4 hours', ynetnews.com, 27/8/10)]
Friday, October 1, 2010
Once Were Radicals
Meredith Burgmann, one time anti-Apartheid activist, long time Labor member of the NSW Legislative Council (1991-2007), and now president of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), typifies the career politician for whom toeing the party line has become second nature.
Having secured a place as NGO representative on the Australian delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Millenium Development Goals, she writes, in a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece, "It has given me a unique opportunity to see the Australian delegation undertaking its international obligations for the first time under the leadership of [now foreign minister] Kevin Rudd." (Rudd's finest hour could be yet to come, 30/9/10)
Not to mention a unique opportunity to participate in the ritual giving of the finger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "I have participated in some political walkouts in my time, but none have matched the thrill of being part of the Australian walkout at the United Nations in the middle of the speech by the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alleging the September 11 attacks were an American conspiracy."
The Australian walkout?
As distinct from the American-orchestrated walkout? Who is she kidding?
Nor, as Burgmann claims, did the Iranian leader allege the September 11 attacks were an American conspiracy. If she had stayed, she might have heard Ahmadinejad outline 3 viewpoints on the subject and ask, pertinently: "Assuming the viewpoint of the American government, is it rational to launch a classic war through widespread deployment of troops that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people to counter a terrorist group?"
In addition, she might have listened to his equally pertinent words on the subject of Palestine:
"The oppressed people of Palestine have lived under the rule an occupying regime for 60 years, and been deprived of freedom, security and the right to self-determination, while the occupiers are given recognition. On a daily basis, the houses are being destroyed over the heads of innocent women and children. People are deprived of water, food and medicine in their own homeland. The Zionists have imposed 5 all-out wars on the neighboring countries and on the Palestinian people. The Zionists committed the most horrible crimes against defenseless people in the wars against Lebanon and Gaza. The Zionist regime attacked a humanitarian flotilla in blatant defiance of all international norms and killed civilians. This regime, which enjoys the absolute support of some western countries, regularly threatens the countries in the region and continues publicly announced assassinations of Palestinian figures and others, while Palestinian defenders and those opposing this regime are pressured, and labelled as terrorists and anti-Semites. All values, even the freedom of expression in Europe and the US are being sacrificed on the altar of Zionism. Solutions are doomed to fail because the right of the Palestinian people is not taken into account. Would we have witnessed such horrendous crimes if, instead of recognizing the occupation, the sovereign right of the Palestinian people had been recognized? Our unambiguous proposition is the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the reference to the vote of the people of Palestine to exercise their sovereignty and decide on the type of governance."
While Labor luvvies such as Burgmann shed few tears over Palestinians (at least that I'm aware of) they can get quite dewy-eyed over the memory of the sainted Dr H V Evatt, Labor foreign minister from 1941-1949, and chairman of the UN committee which proposed the partition of Palestine in 1947, arguably the dodgiest and most fateful colonial manoeuvre of modern times. Observing Rudd on the run, Burgmann fancies she's seeing a reincarnation of this Labor legend:
"As I watched Rudd pursue his relentless schedule of meetings it reminded me of a predecessor in the foreign affairs portfolio, Herbert Vere Evatt, during the early years of the UN. I wrote my masters thesis on Evatt and his fight to empower the small-and middle-sized nations at the UN. Evatt also punched above his weight. It seems to me there is much of Evatt's legacy in Rudd - burning passion, unlimited capacity for hard work, obsession with accountability and concern for the underdog. Perhaps, like Evatt, he will find his greatness in being foreign minister rather than being leader of the Labor Party."
Burgmann may be on to something here. Yet how typical of your Labor apparatchik to leave out Rudd's Zionism. This too harks back to Evatt, the name Rudd routinely drops at Zionist tea parties (See my 14/3/08 post The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 3).
Certainly, the following account of Evatt playing to a Zionist crowd in Sydney in 1949 contains more than an echo of Rudd's shameless claim that 'support for Israel is in my DNA':
"Dr H V Evatt's speech in the Paddington Town Hall, where he was given an enthusiastic welcome by Sydney's Zionist community, attracted a big audience. One could sense the happiness of the speaker when he gave his report on the part which Australia played in the ups and downs of events which led, in 1947, to UNO's decision to partition Palestine, and recently to the 'full recognition' of the State of Israel by Australia and other States. Several speakers expressed in dignified variations their sincere thanks to Dr Evatt for his great contribution to the settlement of the thorny problem of Palestine. One does not miss the mark if the motives for Dr Evatt's championship of the Jewish cause are ascribed primarily to his righteousness and sense of justice. By avocation a judge, Dr Evatt was perhaps more qualified than other members of the UNO Assembly to go into the roots of the Jewish problem. Having gained the conviction that our cause is a just one he upheld the principles which guided his judgment against all our adversaries. That he did not yield to temptations of expediency and opportunism although pressed by [British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest] Bevin's heavy political weight, will be gratefully recorded in the annals of Jewish history. It is noteworthy that Dr Evatt did not once mention Bevin's name throughout his address... From some of his remarks it became evident that our Minister of Foreign Affairs was well aware of the currents and cross-currents within the Australian people concerning the Palestinian problem. In this connection he paid special tribute to [Anglican Judeophile] Bishop Pilcher's upright stand for the cause of the Jews. The gathering was deeply touched when Dr Evatt respectfully referred to President Dr Weizmann, who in spite of his state of ill-health appeared before the UNO as spokesman of his people. When Mr Steigrad in his vote of thanks characterised Dr Evatt's speech as 'intimate, free and friendly', all listeners acclaimed the guest of honour who appeared to be as happy as only the righteous man can be. The friendly tone in which Dr Evatt referred to the leaders of the Sydney Zionists indicated his pleasure at their satisfaction with the course of the events." (Sydney's Jewish Community, Staedter & Kimmel, 1953, pp 87-88)
The amazing thing is though, whereas Evatt could perhaps be excused as having been too much under the influence of the Eurocentrism and colonialism of the time to fully grasp what he was aiding and abetting, Rudd, over 6 decades later, with the enormity of the crime which is apartheid Israel exposed for all to see, has no such excuse. Burgmann's silence on this aspect of the Evatt legacy does her little credit.
Having secured a place as NGO representative on the Australian delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Millenium Development Goals, she writes, in a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece, "It has given me a unique opportunity to see the Australian delegation undertaking its international obligations for the first time under the leadership of [now foreign minister] Kevin Rudd." (Rudd's finest hour could be yet to come, 30/9/10)
Not to mention a unique opportunity to participate in the ritual giving of the finger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "I have participated in some political walkouts in my time, but none have matched the thrill of being part of the Australian walkout at the United Nations in the middle of the speech by the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alleging the September 11 attacks were an American conspiracy."
The Australian walkout?
As distinct from the American-orchestrated walkout? Who is she kidding?
Nor, as Burgmann claims, did the Iranian leader allege the September 11 attacks were an American conspiracy. If she had stayed, she might have heard Ahmadinejad outline 3 viewpoints on the subject and ask, pertinently: "Assuming the viewpoint of the American government, is it rational to launch a classic war through widespread deployment of troops that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people to counter a terrorist group?"
In addition, she might have listened to his equally pertinent words on the subject of Palestine:
"The oppressed people of Palestine have lived under the rule an occupying regime for 60 years, and been deprived of freedom, security and the right to self-determination, while the occupiers are given recognition. On a daily basis, the houses are being destroyed over the heads of innocent women and children. People are deprived of water, food and medicine in their own homeland. The Zionists have imposed 5 all-out wars on the neighboring countries and on the Palestinian people. The Zionists committed the most horrible crimes against defenseless people in the wars against Lebanon and Gaza. The Zionist regime attacked a humanitarian flotilla in blatant defiance of all international norms and killed civilians. This regime, which enjoys the absolute support of some western countries, regularly threatens the countries in the region and continues publicly announced assassinations of Palestinian figures and others, while Palestinian defenders and those opposing this regime are pressured, and labelled as terrorists and anti-Semites. All values, even the freedom of expression in Europe and the US are being sacrificed on the altar of Zionism. Solutions are doomed to fail because the right of the Palestinian people is not taken into account. Would we have witnessed such horrendous crimes if, instead of recognizing the occupation, the sovereign right of the Palestinian people had been recognized? Our unambiguous proposition is the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the reference to the vote of the people of Palestine to exercise their sovereignty and decide on the type of governance."
While Labor luvvies such as Burgmann shed few tears over Palestinians (at least that I'm aware of) they can get quite dewy-eyed over the memory of the sainted Dr H V Evatt, Labor foreign minister from 1941-1949, and chairman of the UN committee which proposed the partition of Palestine in 1947, arguably the dodgiest and most fateful colonial manoeuvre of modern times. Observing Rudd on the run, Burgmann fancies she's seeing a reincarnation of this Labor legend:
"As I watched Rudd pursue his relentless schedule of meetings it reminded me of a predecessor in the foreign affairs portfolio, Herbert Vere Evatt, during the early years of the UN. I wrote my masters thesis on Evatt and his fight to empower the small-and middle-sized nations at the UN. Evatt also punched above his weight. It seems to me there is much of Evatt's legacy in Rudd - burning passion, unlimited capacity for hard work, obsession with accountability and concern for the underdog. Perhaps, like Evatt, he will find his greatness in being foreign minister rather than being leader of the Labor Party."
Burgmann may be on to something here. Yet how typical of your Labor apparatchik to leave out Rudd's Zionism. This too harks back to Evatt, the name Rudd routinely drops at Zionist tea parties (See my 14/3/08 post The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 3).
Certainly, the following account of Evatt playing to a Zionist crowd in Sydney in 1949 contains more than an echo of Rudd's shameless claim that 'support for Israel is in my DNA':
"Dr H V Evatt's speech in the Paddington Town Hall, where he was given an enthusiastic welcome by Sydney's Zionist community, attracted a big audience. One could sense the happiness of the speaker when he gave his report on the part which Australia played in the ups and downs of events which led, in 1947, to UNO's decision to partition Palestine, and recently to the 'full recognition' of the State of Israel by Australia and other States. Several speakers expressed in dignified variations their sincere thanks to Dr Evatt for his great contribution to the settlement of the thorny problem of Palestine. One does not miss the mark if the motives for Dr Evatt's championship of the Jewish cause are ascribed primarily to his righteousness and sense of justice. By avocation a judge, Dr Evatt was perhaps more qualified than other members of the UNO Assembly to go into the roots of the Jewish problem. Having gained the conviction that our cause is a just one he upheld the principles which guided his judgment against all our adversaries. That he did not yield to temptations of expediency and opportunism although pressed by [British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest] Bevin's heavy political weight, will be gratefully recorded in the annals of Jewish history. It is noteworthy that Dr Evatt did not once mention Bevin's name throughout his address... From some of his remarks it became evident that our Minister of Foreign Affairs was well aware of the currents and cross-currents within the Australian people concerning the Palestinian problem. In this connection he paid special tribute to [Anglican Judeophile] Bishop Pilcher's upright stand for the cause of the Jews. The gathering was deeply touched when Dr Evatt respectfully referred to President Dr Weizmann, who in spite of his state of ill-health appeared before the UNO as spokesman of his people. When Mr Steigrad in his vote of thanks characterised Dr Evatt's speech as 'intimate, free and friendly', all listeners acclaimed the guest of honour who appeared to be as happy as only the righteous man can be. The friendly tone in which Dr Evatt referred to the leaders of the Sydney Zionists indicated his pleasure at their satisfaction with the course of the events." (Sydney's Jewish Community, Staedter & Kimmel, 1953, pp 87-88)
The amazing thing is though, whereas Evatt could perhaps be excused as having been too much under the influence of the Eurocentrism and colonialism of the time to fully grasp what he was aiding and abetting, Rudd, over 6 decades later, with the enormity of the crime which is apartheid Israel exposed for all to see, has no such excuse. Burgmann's silence on this aspect of the Evatt legacy does her little credit.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
File Under Disinformation
Such is the grip of his obsession with Israel, that Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor extraordinaire of The Australian, felt compelled to embed the following sentence in an 'opinion piece' otherwise devoted to North Korean missile testing: "Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded [to Obama's outstretched hand] with a speech that contemptuously said the Jews control US foreign policy." (Kim's nuclear reaction, 25/4/09) Presumably he meant Ahmadinejad's Durban II speech. (See my 23/4/09 post Australia Dumps on Durban 2) And presumably he meant this particular sentence in that speech: "Was not the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies in the then US administration in complicity with the arms manufacturing countries and the possessors of wealth?" File under disinformation.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Australia Dumps on Durban 2
Let's first get 'Adolf' Ahmedinejad's speech at Durban II out of the way. Yesterday's Murdoch fishwrapper predictably called the Iranian president's rather unremarkable speech an "anti-Semitic tirade." (UN Integrity Damaged: Australia was right to have no part of Durban II, The Australian, 22/4/09)
Now, whether you love him or loathe him is irrelevant. Is his speech "anti-Semitic" as alleged? Let's take a look at some of the wording:
"Following World War II, [a number of powerful countries/the UN Security Council] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering and they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine. And, in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."
It would be more accurate to say that such powerful countries as Britain and the United States were instrumental in enabling Zionist forces to ethnically cleanse Palestine in 1948, and that the suffering of European Jewry at the hands of the Nazis provided a pretext for same. However, that the ethnic cleansing was motivated by the desire to achieve a Jewish majority in what had been, up to that point, a non-Jewish majority land, and that this makes it an inherently racist endeavour, is incontestable and cannot be smeared as anti-Semitism.
"The Security Council helped stabilize the occupying regime and supported it in the last 60 years, giving them a free hand to commit all sorts of atrocities. It is all the more regrettable that a number of Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to defending those racist perpetrators of genocide while the awakened-conscience and free-minded people of the world condemn aggression, brutalities and the bombardment of civilians in Gaza. The supporters of Israel have always been either supportive or silent against the crimes."
Pointing out that Israel has received disproportionate support from former and current imperial powers is hardly anti-Semitic. Nor can accusing it of genocide* be so described.
[*Article II of the Genocide Convention defines this crime as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" by "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."]
"World Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religions and abuses religious sentiments to hide its hatred and ugly face."
Israel promotes itself as a Jewish state, representing not simply its own citizens, but Jews the world over. It also works assiduously to conflate the faith of Judaism with its Zionist political program. Recognising this is hardly the stuff of anti-Semitism.
Yet another Zionist beat-up from the self-styled Heart of the Nation.
In today's Durban II beat-up, however, we actually get the drum on the toings & froings of our foreign minister, Stephen Smith. (See my 20/4/09 post Australia Dumps on Durban.) Foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan begins his usual Zionist tirade by banging on ludicrously about that "vile and hateful anti-Semitic jamboree" Durban I of 2001: "Israel was demonised not just for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories but uniquely as a racist state. The very idea of Zionism - a Jewish state in the Middle East was denounced as racist." (Boycott is a triumph of principle over hate)
For some perspective, here's what Durban I's Declaration & Program of Action (DPA) actually said about the Palestinians: "We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent state" (Article 63); "We call for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region" (Article 64). The Palestinians were also included on a list of "Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerence." Even the Holocaust got a mention. OK, so Sheridan gets it wrong yet again - surprise, surprise. But there is some gold in his propaganda dross:
According to Sheridan, when this fearsome anti-Semitic talk was dropped from Durban II's draft declaration, but not that document's reaffirmation of Durban I's DPA, the Dutch and the Australians got going. Over to you Greg: "A Russian, Uri Boychenko, chaired the overall preparatory effort and laboured mightily to clear up the text. He got most offensive things out, except the first paragraph's ringing declaration that Durban II reaffirmed Durban I. Thus, although there were no obnoxious references to Israel in the final text, the reaffirmation of Durban I meant that its positions were re-endorsed. Boychenko could not get this out because the Organisation of the Islamic Conference said it would boycott the conference if it was removed... Meanwhile the Dutch put in a heroic effort to substitute a shorter, better text that did not contain the reaffirmation. On March 12, Smith... said Australia would not be attending unless the text was fundamentally changed and Canberra was convinced the conference would not be misused as an anti-Semitic hate fest in the way the first conference was. In the following few weeks, the Dutch asked Smith to make a final decision until their efforts on the text were exhausted. Having an important group of countries, including Australia, still up for grabs, as it were, gave the Dutch extra leverage in their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to fix the Durban II declaration and make the conference workable. Smith co-ordinated his actions with the Dutch foreign minister, with Clinton, and with a number of his other counterparts. When it was clear the text was irredeemable, a cascade of nations pulled out. First there was Italy, then the US, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany and Poland... as an Australian I am proud of our actions."
How revealing is that? I ask again, why is the Australian foreign minister doing Israel's dirty work?
Now, whether you love him or loathe him is irrelevant. Is his speech "anti-Semitic" as alleged? Let's take a look at some of the wording:
"Following World War II, [a number of powerful countries/the UN Security Council] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering and they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine. And, in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."
It would be more accurate to say that such powerful countries as Britain and the United States were instrumental in enabling Zionist forces to ethnically cleanse Palestine in 1948, and that the suffering of European Jewry at the hands of the Nazis provided a pretext for same. However, that the ethnic cleansing was motivated by the desire to achieve a Jewish majority in what had been, up to that point, a non-Jewish majority land, and that this makes it an inherently racist endeavour, is incontestable and cannot be smeared as anti-Semitism.
"The Security Council helped stabilize the occupying regime and supported it in the last 60 years, giving them a free hand to commit all sorts of atrocities. It is all the more regrettable that a number of Western governments and the United States have committed themselves to defending those racist perpetrators of genocide while the awakened-conscience and free-minded people of the world condemn aggression, brutalities and the bombardment of civilians in Gaza. The supporters of Israel have always been either supportive or silent against the crimes."
Pointing out that Israel has received disproportionate support from former and current imperial powers is hardly anti-Semitic. Nor can accusing it of genocide* be so described.
[*Article II of the Genocide Convention defines this crime as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" by "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part..."]
"World Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religions and abuses religious sentiments to hide its hatred and ugly face."
Israel promotes itself as a Jewish state, representing not simply its own citizens, but Jews the world over. It also works assiduously to conflate the faith of Judaism with its Zionist political program. Recognising this is hardly the stuff of anti-Semitism.
Yet another Zionist beat-up from the self-styled Heart of the Nation.
In today's Durban II beat-up, however, we actually get the drum on the toings & froings of our foreign minister, Stephen Smith. (See my 20/4/09 post Australia Dumps on Durban.) Foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan begins his usual Zionist tirade by banging on ludicrously about that "vile and hateful anti-Semitic jamboree" Durban I of 2001: "Israel was demonised not just for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories but uniquely as a racist state. The very idea of Zionism - a Jewish state in the Middle East was denounced as racist." (Boycott is a triumph of principle over hate)
For some perspective, here's what Durban I's Declaration & Program of Action (DPA) actually said about the Palestinians: "We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent state" (Article 63); "We call for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region" (Article 64). The Palestinians were also included on a list of "Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerence." Even the Holocaust got a mention. OK, so Sheridan gets it wrong yet again - surprise, surprise. But there is some gold in his propaganda dross:
According to Sheridan, when this fearsome anti-Semitic talk was dropped from Durban II's draft declaration, but not that document's reaffirmation of Durban I's DPA, the Dutch and the Australians got going. Over to you Greg: "A Russian, Uri Boychenko, chaired the overall preparatory effort and laboured mightily to clear up the text. He got most offensive things out, except the first paragraph's ringing declaration that Durban II reaffirmed Durban I. Thus, although there were no obnoxious references to Israel in the final text, the reaffirmation of Durban I meant that its positions were re-endorsed. Boychenko could not get this out because the Organisation of the Islamic Conference said it would boycott the conference if it was removed... Meanwhile the Dutch put in a heroic effort to substitute a shorter, better text that did not contain the reaffirmation. On March 12, Smith... said Australia would not be attending unless the text was fundamentally changed and Canberra was convinced the conference would not be misused as an anti-Semitic hate fest in the way the first conference was. In the following few weeks, the Dutch asked Smith to make a final decision until their efforts on the text were exhausted. Having an important group of countries, including Australia, still up for grabs, as it were, gave the Dutch extra leverage in their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to fix the Durban II declaration and make the conference workable. Smith co-ordinated his actions with the Dutch foreign minister, with Clinton, and with a number of his other counterparts. When it was clear the text was irredeemable, a cascade of nations pulled out. First there was Italy, then the US, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany and Poland... as an Australian I am proud of our actions."
How revealing is that? I ask again, why is the Australian foreign minister doing Israel's dirty work?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Unleashing the Zionist Settler Within
Some relatively sensible comment - for the mainstream media - from the diplomatic editor of The Age:-
"...the very notion of Australia hauling [Ahmadinejad] off to front a criminal tribunal was just a stunt. Labor hatched the scheme in opposition, got a few headlines for its trouble, then allowed a respectable time in office to pass before dumping the idea. The whole episode is illustrative [of the extent of influence, quite contrary to the national interest, of the pro-Israel lobby on LibLab] because it shows governments need not be hostage to bad policy. And to reinforce the lesson, another bad policy went by the wayside last weekend, but one more substantive and not of Labor's making. The issue is how Australia votes on key resolutions put before the United Nations relating to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory [sic]. It is a complex and delicate area - hardly a surprise when dealing with this conflict. Each year a series of resolutions are put to the General Assembly, broadly demanding Israel fairly treat the Palestinians. And for years, the vast majority of the world, including Australia, has mostly voted in favour. Only Israel voted against all of them, the US against most, as did a few of its client states including the US Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia. To put that in proper perspective, it usually added up to a majority of about 160 countries standing against 6 or 8. Australia's position changed in 2003 when the Howard government switched tack, flushed as it was with the neo-conservative zeal of the Iraq war and annoyed by a critical finding in the International Court of Justice against the wall Israel has built to fence off the West Bank. So for the past 5 years, Australia has been offside with the international community. Remarkably, this meant Australia abstained from a call for Israel, the occupying power, to abide by the Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians, leaving us in pretty miserable company. Australia has now gone back to the majority, and voted in favour of applying the Geneva Conventions. Australia also dropped its opposition to a call for Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territory. This is a risky move for the Government, but an important one. Upsetting Israel is the obvious danger, annoying some in Australia's Jewish community is another - not to mention being seen to abandon the US, Australia's principal ally... Israel was apparently well aware of Australia's intentions before the vote and has no great concerns over the shift. So, why make the change? For one thing, it is the right approach. Australia can be a friend to Israel and at the same time firmly impress upon Tel Aviv the need to abide by international standards. But there is also another interest at play - the Government's campaign for a UN Security Council seat in 2013-14. During the failed bid in 1996, Australia lost a crucial bloc of votes from Islamic states, and informed circles aware of the events at the time blame the then new Howard government for taking a hopelessly pro-Israel stance. Having kept up its opposition to the UN resolution on the Geneva Conventions, the Government would have no chance of winning a seat at the table. The switch should not be interpreted as a compromise. If anything, Australia's former position compromised our international standing." (How to reverse bad policy: The Government has successfully changed tack on Iran & Israel, Daniel Flitton, The Age, 14/11/08)
This was followed by the following hilarious whine on the letters page (15/11/08), from a Robert Friedman of Caulfield North, that inadvertently sends the message that, yes, up to this change of vote, Australia has in fact been Israel's lapdog: "It is important to note that of the '160-odd countries' that voted for the resolutions, about 60 are members of either the Organisation of Islamic States or the Arab League or both. [Well, that invalidates their vote, now doesn't it?] Where Australia used to act on its own conscience [Gimme a break!], we now appear to have fallen in line to enhance our chances of a temporary seat on the Security Council. Still lapdogs. Just a new master."
And speaking of the Ruddies' decision "annoying some in Australia's Jewish community," it looks as though, at least for the moment, their self-styled leaders are gritting their teeth and holding their fire":
Labor's Member for Israel, Michael Danby, has reportedly called the decision a "mistake," while the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) are "disappointed and concerned." (UN vote switch sparks debate, The Australian Jewish News, 14/11/08). The AJN's editorial construed it as "a bit of tough love that never hurt anyone," but warned that "should Australia change its voting position once again, 'the gloves will be off', according to one Australian Jewish leader." Watch your back, Kevvie, there's a Rhambo out there!
The bleeding obvious in all of this is that none of the above have the courage of their Zionist convictions. None of them, to my knowledge, have come out and said clearly what they really think - in the manner, for example, of Nadia Matar, "the combative leader of the radical Jewish settler movement Women in Green, [who] has a message for Kevin Rudd. 'The incredible audacity of you', she shouts from her home in Efrat, a Jewish settlement... in the West Bank... 'Who are you to tell me I am not allowed to build here, in my homeland?... Jews are allowed to build in France, in New York, in Australia, but I am not allowed to build here? This is my land... Be very careful', Mrs Matar warned of any further attempts by Australia to put pressure on the Israeli settler movement. 'Don't force us to do something. Not because I need your help - I have God on my side. Just for your own sake, because you might be next'." (Israeli anger that burns brightly, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 15/11/08)
Mrs Matar, who hails originally from Belgium, is surely the authentic voice of Zionism here. No mere grumbling that Kevvie's change of tack is mistaken/disappointing/concerning for her. Why then aren't our local Zionist 'leaders' shouting from the rooftops their support for a Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan - if not the Euphrates (Zionism ain't what it used to be)? Why aren't they proudly and publicly defending their courageous settler brethren in the West Bank? Why aren't they coming right out and saying, Geneva Conventions be damned, latter-day Amalekites have no rights in our land? Why aren't they lashing Rudd as the latest reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain? Why, oh why, are they so coy about unleashing their inner Zionist settlers?
"...the very notion of Australia hauling [Ahmadinejad] off to front a criminal tribunal was just a stunt. Labor hatched the scheme in opposition, got a few headlines for its trouble, then allowed a respectable time in office to pass before dumping the idea. The whole episode is illustrative [of the extent of influence, quite contrary to the national interest, of the pro-Israel lobby on LibLab] because it shows governments need not be hostage to bad policy. And to reinforce the lesson, another bad policy went by the wayside last weekend, but one more substantive and not of Labor's making. The issue is how Australia votes on key resolutions put before the United Nations relating to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory [sic]. It is a complex and delicate area - hardly a surprise when dealing with this conflict. Each year a series of resolutions are put to the General Assembly, broadly demanding Israel fairly treat the Palestinians. And for years, the vast majority of the world, including Australia, has mostly voted in favour. Only Israel voted against all of them, the US against most, as did a few of its client states including the US Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia. To put that in proper perspective, it usually added up to a majority of about 160 countries standing against 6 or 8. Australia's position changed in 2003 when the Howard government switched tack, flushed as it was with the neo-conservative zeal of the Iraq war and annoyed by a critical finding in the International Court of Justice against the wall Israel has built to fence off the West Bank. So for the past 5 years, Australia has been offside with the international community. Remarkably, this meant Australia abstained from a call for Israel, the occupying power, to abide by the Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians, leaving us in pretty miserable company. Australia has now gone back to the majority, and voted in favour of applying the Geneva Conventions. Australia also dropped its opposition to a call for Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territory. This is a risky move for the Government, but an important one. Upsetting Israel is the obvious danger, annoying some in Australia's Jewish community is another - not to mention being seen to abandon the US, Australia's principal ally... Israel was apparently well aware of Australia's intentions before the vote and has no great concerns over the shift. So, why make the change? For one thing, it is the right approach. Australia can be a friend to Israel and at the same time firmly impress upon Tel Aviv the need to abide by international standards. But there is also another interest at play - the Government's campaign for a UN Security Council seat in 2013-14. During the failed bid in 1996, Australia lost a crucial bloc of votes from Islamic states, and informed circles aware of the events at the time blame the then new Howard government for taking a hopelessly pro-Israel stance. Having kept up its opposition to the UN resolution on the Geneva Conventions, the Government would have no chance of winning a seat at the table. The switch should not be interpreted as a compromise. If anything, Australia's former position compromised our international standing." (How to reverse bad policy: The Government has successfully changed tack on Iran & Israel, Daniel Flitton, The Age, 14/11/08)
This was followed by the following hilarious whine on the letters page (15/11/08), from a Robert Friedman of Caulfield North, that inadvertently sends the message that, yes, up to this change of vote, Australia has in fact been Israel's lapdog: "It is important to note that of the '160-odd countries' that voted for the resolutions, about 60 are members of either the Organisation of Islamic States or the Arab League or both. [Well, that invalidates their vote, now doesn't it?] Where Australia used to act on its own conscience [Gimme a break!], we now appear to have fallen in line to enhance our chances of a temporary seat on the Security Council. Still lapdogs. Just a new master."
And speaking of the Ruddies' decision "annoying some in Australia's Jewish community," it looks as though, at least for the moment, their self-styled leaders are gritting their teeth and holding their fire":
Labor's Member for Israel, Michael Danby, has reportedly called the decision a "mistake," while the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) are "disappointed and concerned." (UN vote switch sparks debate, The Australian Jewish News, 14/11/08). The AJN's editorial construed it as "a bit of tough love that never hurt anyone," but warned that "should Australia change its voting position once again, 'the gloves will be off', according to one Australian Jewish leader." Watch your back, Kevvie, there's a Rhambo out there!
The bleeding obvious in all of this is that none of the above have the courage of their Zionist convictions. None of them, to my knowledge, have come out and said clearly what they really think - in the manner, for example, of Nadia Matar, "the combative leader of the radical Jewish settler movement Women in Green, [who] has a message for Kevin Rudd. 'The incredible audacity of you', she shouts from her home in Efrat, a Jewish settlement... in the West Bank... 'Who are you to tell me I am not allowed to build here, in my homeland?... Jews are allowed to build in France, in New York, in Australia, but I am not allowed to build here? This is my land... Be very careful', Mrs Matar warned of any further attempts by Australia to put pressure on the Israeli settler movement. 'Don't force us to do something. Not because I need your help - I have God on my side. Just for your own sake, because you might be next'." (Israeli anger that burns brightly, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 15/11/08)
Mrs Matar, who hails originally from Belgium, is surely the authentic voice of Zionism here. No mere grumbling that Kevvie's change of tack is mistaken/disappointing/concerning for her. Why then aren't our local Zionist 'leaders' shouting from the rooftops their support for a Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan - if not the Euphrates (Zionism ain't what it used to be)? Why aren't they proudly and publicly defending their courageous settler brethren in the West Bank? Why aren't they coming right out and saying, Geneva Conventions be damned, latter-day Amalekites have no rights in our land? Why aren't they lashing Rudd as the latest reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain? Why, oh why, are they so coy about unleashing their inner Zionist settlers?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Party Line
The party line: "Ahmadinejad seems to have moved to a more stump-speech style of anti-Semitism that bears a strong resemblance to Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda from the 1930s." (A hard line on Iran, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, The Australian 18/10/08)
The reality: "Zionism, which brought 'the people without land to a land without people', in fact implied the dispossession of Palestine's Arabs. Previously, anti-Semitism had been a negligible factor among the Arabs; there was little trace of it in the Ottoman world, where Jews and Muslims coexisted harmoniously. But even as European anti-Semitism dwindled, so it seemed to grow in the Middle East, fed by racial and religious myths imported from the defeated European Right. What has emerged is not at heart a racial antagonism but a political one - an anti-Zionism which takes Israeli rhetoric at face value by conflating Israelis and Jews. This is very different from the old inter-war European variety. The Nazis were not much bothered with Jews' political opinions; what counted was race. If anything, Zionists were the one kind of Jew that right-wing Europeans were prepared to deal with, since both sides desired the same thing - the departure of the Jews from Europe. Precisely the opposite is true for Arab opinion: conspiracy theories flourish, and so does Holocaust denial, but the real target is Zionism as a political doctrine." (Anti-Semitism is not the real danger to Jews today, Mark Mazower*, The Times, 27/11/03)
[*Professor of History at Columbia University & author of Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe]
The reality: "Zionism, which brought 'the people without land to a land without people', in fact implied the dispossession of Palestine's Arabs. Previously, anti-Semitism had been a negligible factor among the Arabs; there was little trace of it in the Ottoman world, where Jews and Muslims coexisted harmoniously. But even as European anti-Semitism dwindled, so it seemed to grow in the Middle East, fed by racial and religious myths imported from the defeated European Right. What has emerged is not at heart a racial antagonism but a political one - an anti-Zionism which takes Israeli rhetoric at face value by conflating Israelis and Jews. This is very different from the old inter-war European variety. The Nazis were not much bothered with Jews' political opinions; what counted was race. If anything, Zionists were the one kind of Jew that right-wing Europeans were prepared to deal with, since both sides desired the same thing - the departure of the Jews from Europe. Precisely the opposite is true for Arab opinion: conspiracy theories flourish, and so does Holocaust denial, but the real target is Zionism as a political doctrine." (Anti-Semitism is not the real danger to Jews today, Mark Mazower*, The Times, 27/11/03)
[*Professor of History at Columbia University & author of Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe]
Friday, May 23, 2008
Kevin Bonhoeffer vs Adolf Ahmadinejad
Just how far out on a limb is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd prepared to go in support of Israel? Further than anyone else it seems. Our leader's bizarre quest for the scalp of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president (see my earlier posts Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall, 29/2/08 & Testing Time for Rudd, 21/12/07), apparently remains alive - long after such neocononsense bit the dust in the US, Canada and the UK.
The matter most recently surfaced (where else?) in The Australian of 14/5/08 under the heading Iranian leader in Rudd's sights: "The Rudd Government is preparing a case to take [the Iranian president] to the International Court of Justice for 'inciting genocide' and denying the Jewish Holocaust. Australia is the only nation pursuing Iran's despotic leader who had threatened to 'wipe Israel off the map', through international laws... Attorney-General Robert McClelland... confirmed yesterday the Government was seeking legal advice on taking Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ."
Rudd's total isolation on the matter was only emphasised in the same report by this serve from former foreign minister Alexander Downer*, no slouch in sucking up to Israel: "Mr Downer accused Mr Rudd of knowingly misleading the Australian public and the Jewish community with a 'ghastly stunt' that he knew could not be carried out and would only undermine Australia's diplomatic standing."
And in the same issue, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan opined fatuously that while such a move "is almost certain to fail," it is "nonetheless... a noble endeavour worthy of every support." [In an attempt to answer the question on everyone's lips - Why doesn't Israel itself try hauling Ahmadinejad before the ICJ? - Greg avoided the obvious answer (How would it look for the country that gave the finger to the ICJ in 2004 over its judgment calling for the dismantling of Israel's Apartheid Wall to now be running a case there?) and helpfully explained that Israel "does not want to invest big diplomatic and political resources into a process that will probably fail, or even if it has some partial success will probably produce only a slap on the wrist for Ahmadinejad." Ergo, Australia can "invest big diplomatic and political resources into a process that will probably fail," because, according to Greg, taking up the legal cudgels on behalf of Israel would be "a righteous act."]
Next day, The Australian quoted Rudd himself: "It is not just... hyperbole from the bully pulpit of Tehran. It is the roll-on effect across the Islamic world to those who listen to Iran for their guidance. I think this is dangerous stuff. The world community should unite against it... They are an incitement of international violence and what we have said in the past is that we will take legal advice... on whether there is a profitable way forward here through the appropriate international legal mechanisms, and we'll study that advice carefully." (PM hits at Iran 'bullies')
How can it be that a supposedly intelligent Rudd, who has publicly acknowledged that the Iraq war was based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, has now fallen for a new set of lies about Iranian WMDs, and added his voice to the neocon/Israeli clamour for yet another disastrous war?
It is tempting to read between the lines and conclude that he is simply waiting for "legal advice" which will allow him to wriggle out of his idiotic pre-election promise to the Israel lobby (see my 29/2/08 post, Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall for a discussion of the promise's political context). If the assessment of Dr Adam McBeth of Monash University's Castan Centre for Human Rights Law is correct, that would be a logical deduction. McBeth has described the attempt as "pointless," and is quoted as saying, "I presume they [Rudd & McClelland] are doing this for political reasons and saying what a particular constituency wants to hear." (The Australian Jewish News, 23/5/08)
There is, however, another, more troubling explanation for Rudd's standing by (so far at least) his promise. What if he genuinely believes in what he's doing?
In an essay, Faith in Politics, published in The Monthly of October 2006, Rudd professed his unstinting admiration for pre-war German theologian and "muscular" Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote of Bonhoeffer's defence of German Jewry and stated that "For Bonhoeffer, whatever the personal cost, there was no moral alternative other than to fight the Nazi state with whatever weapons were at his disposal." In sketching "an alternative vision for Australia's future," Rudd conjured up "an Australia that becomes a leader, not a follower, in the redesign of the rules of the international order that we helped craft in 1945, to render future genocides both intolerable under international law and impossible under international resolve... The time has well and truly come for a vision for Australia not limited by the narrowest of definitions of our national self-interest. Instead, we need to be guided by a new principle that encompasses not only what Australia can do for itself, but also what Australia can do for the world."
Heady stuff. Could Rudd's professed desire to "redesign... the rules of the international order" in the interests of eradicating genocide with "whatever weapons [are] at his disposal" be the motive for his quixotic quest? (Certainly, Rudd declared earlier this year that Australia is aiming for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2013, and Israel has been quick to announce its support for such a move.) If so, Rudd would very much appear to be labouring under a host of dangerous delusions, no doubt stoked by hardline Zionists both within and outside his government. These would include the idea that Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and that he is actually planning a nuclear holocaust against Israel. Not to mention Rudd's self delusion that he is some kind of antipodean Bonhoeffer out to nobble Adolf Ahmadinejad any which way.
Is there no-one among his minders with a sufficient grasp on reality to tell the guy that Ahmadinejad's alleged call to 'wipe Israel off the map' is a mistranslation (see my 29/2/08 post Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall) and that Nazi Germany was then, but this is now? For all our sakes, let us hope so.
*You'll be pleased to know that Downer has just received the American Jewish Committee's Ramer Award for Diplomatic Excellence.
The matter most recently surfaced (where else?) in The Australian of 14/5/08 under the heading Iranian leader in Rudd's sights: "The Rudd Government is preparing a case to take [the Iranian president] to the International Court of Justice for 'inciting genocide' and denying the Jewish Holocaust. Australia is the only nation pursuing Iran's despotic leader who had threatened to 'wipe Israel off the map', through international laws... Attorney-General Robert McClelland... confirmed yesterday the Government was seeking legal advice on taking Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ."
Rudd's total isolation on the matter was only emphasised in the same report by this serve from former foreign minister Alexander Downer*, no slouch in sucking up to Israel: "Mr Downer accused Mr Rudd of knowingly misleading the Australian public and the Jewish community with a 'ghastly stunt' that he knew could not be carried out and would only undermine Australia's diplomatic standing."
And in the same issue, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan opined fatuously that while such a move "is almost certain to fail," it is "nonetheless... a noble endeavour worthy of every support." [In an attempt to answer the question on everyone's lips - Why doesn't Israel itself try hauling Ahmadinejad before the ICJ? - Greg avoided the obvious answer (How would it look for the country that gave the finger to the ICJ in 2004 over its judgment calling for the dismantling of Israel's Apartheid Wall to now be running a case there?) and helpfully explained that Israel "does not want to invest big diplomatic and political resources into a process that will probably fail, or even if it has some partial success will probably produce only a slap on the wrist for Ahmadinejad." Ergo, Australia can "invest big diplomatic and political resources into a process that will probably fail," because, according to Greg, taking up the legal cudgels on behalf of Israel would be "a righteous act."]
Next day, The Australian quoted Rudd himself: "It is not just... hyperbole from the bully pulpit of Tehran. It is the roll-on effect across the Islamic world to those who listen to Iran for their guidance. I think this is dangerous stuff. The world community should unite against it... They are an incitement of international violence and what we have said in the past is that we will take legal advice... on whether there is a profitable way forward here through the appropriate international legal mechanisms, and we'll study that advice carefully." (PM hits at Iran 'bullies')
How can it be that a supposedly intelligent Rudd, who has publicly acknowledged that the Iraq war was based on lies about weapons of mass destruction, has now fallen for a new set of lies about Iranian WMDs, and added his voice to the neocon/Israeli clamour for yet another disastrous war?
It is tempting to read between the lines and conclude that he is simply waiting for "legal advice" which will allow him to wriggle out of his idiotic pre-election promise to the Israel lobby (see my 29/2/08 post, Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall for a discussion of the promise's political context). If the assessment of Dr Adam McBeth of Monash University's Castan Centre for Human Rights Law is correct, that would be a logical deduction. McBeth has described the attempt as "pointless," and is quoted as saying, "I presume they [Rudd & McClelland] are doing this for political reasons and saying what a particular constituency wants to hear." (The Australian Jewish News, 23/5/08)
There is, however, another, more troubling explanation for Rudd's standing by (so far at least) his promise. What if he genuinely believes in what he's doing?
In an essay, Faith in Politics, published in The Monthly of October 2006, Rudd professed his unstinting admiration for pre-war German theologian and "muscular" Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He wrote of Bonhoeffer's defence of German Jewry and stated that "For Bonhoeffer, whatever the personal cost, there was no moral alternative other than to fight the Nazi state with whatever weapons were at his disposal." In sketching "an alternative vision for Australia's future," Rudd conjured up "an Australia that becomes a leader, not a follower, in the redesign of the rules of the international order that we helped craft in 1945, to render future genocides both intolerable under international law and impossible under international resolve... The time has well and truly come for a vision for Australia not limited by the narrowest of definitions of our national self-interest. Instead, we need to be guided by a new principle that encompasses not only what Australia can do for itself, but also what Australia can do for the world."
Heady stuff. Could Rudd's professed desire to "redesign... the rules of the international order" in the interests of eradicating genocide with "whatever weapons [are] at his disposal" be the motive for his quixotic quest? (Certainly, Rudd declared earlier this year that Australia is aiming for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2013, and Israel has been quick to announce its support for such a move.) If so, Rudd would very much appear to be labouring under a host of dangerous delusions, no doubt stoked by hardline Zionists both within and outside his government. These would include the idea that Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and that he is actually planning a nuclear holocaust against Israel. Not to mention Rudd's self delusion that he is some kind of antipodean Bonhoeffer out to nobble Adolf Ahmadinejad any which way.
Is there no-one among his minders with a sufficient grasp on reality to tell the guy that Ahmadinejad's alleged call to 'wipe Israel off the map' is a mistranslation (see my 29/2/08 post Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall) and that Nazi Germany was then, but this is now? For all our sakes, let us hope so.
*You'll be pleased to know that Downer has just received the American Jewish Committee's Ramer Award for Diplomatic Excellence.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship 2
"Judaism is not Zionism. Judaism, as a confessional preference, should be strictly an individual matter, and, generally speaking, like other individual preferences (such as musical, culinary or sexual preferences), should not be the concern of the law. Zionism, as a political programme, is a matter of public debate...the political Zionist school of thought and practice is committed to the normative statement that it is a good idea to establish and consolidate in the country of Palestine a sovereign state, a Jewish state, that attempts to guarantee in law and in practice a demographic majority of the Jewish tribes in the territories under its control. Such individual bodies as are, for instance, committed to the values of open society, democracy and the separation of religion from the state; who, therefore, disagree with the political aims of this particular political programme, are anti-Zionist in the same sense that those who for many decades opposed the political programme of apartheid in South Africa (which ended in 1994) were, and it is to be hoped remain, anti-apartheid." Uri Davis, Apartheid Israel, 2003, pp 11-12
I reported in a January 18 post, Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship, that the Rudd Government had voted in the UN against funding for the 2009 World Conference against Racism (or Durban II). The forthcoming WCAR has been a pet peeve of the Israel lobby ever since the 2001 WCAR correctly* equated Zionism with racism, and the associated WCAR NGO Forum even more correctly* declared Israel a "racist, apartheid state" which should be subject to the imposition of sanctions.
In January, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) reportedly met with "representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)" and was hoping to meet Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, to "ask about ways to prevent anti-Semitism [sic: anti-Zionism]" at the 2009 WCAR and "work out the mechanics of our relationship in the future."
Update: Under the header, Uniting to stop Durban repeat (15/2/08), The Australian Jewish News informs us that a joint ECAJ and Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) delegation have met Israeli Ambassador, Yuval Rotem, and Smith, "who flagged his intention to visit Israel later this year [But of course!]."
The report continues: "The community leaders presented Smith with a submission outlining their concerns about next year's conference [eg that the UN allegedly promotes anti-Semitism "by condoning the distinction between anti-Semitism and Israel-phobia."], including their ambivalence over recent reports indicating the Rudd government intended to work more closely with the UN...[God forbid that Australia should be "work[ing] more closely with the UN"!]...[Phillip] Chester (ZFA) said that while Smith was not ready to commit one way or another to Australia's participation at Durban II [OMG, he's got the wobbles!], he did ask that the community leaders keep in touch with him. 'The minister is maintaining a wait-and-see approach', Chester said, adding that he feels the Australian Government will eventually support the position of the Jewish community...[The Israeli] ambassador [said] that, while [he] has not made a formal submission to the Australian Government to ask it not to attend Durban II, he has encouraged community leaders to lobby hard."
There you have it: now that the lobby has succeeded in persuading the government to deny funding to the 2009 WCAR, the push is on to have it implement Israel's anti-UN agenda and (like Canada) boycott the conference entirely. Will Smith cave in? Watch this space...
But there's more: "[Robert] Goot (ECAJ) told the AJN they also discussed the pattern of voting in the UN...Labor's pre-election posturing to legally pursue Iranian President Ahmadinejad [See my post, Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall]; and the unsolved kidnapping of 3 Israeli soldiers over a year ago...We were entirely satisfied with the minister's response on all those topics." Indeed!
It is always interesting to learn just who gets access to the minister's ear (and comes away "entirely satisfied with the minister's responses") and who gets knocked back. In February, 60-year old Rebiya Kadeer, exiled spokeswoman for the brutally oppressed Uighur people of China's Xinjiang region arrived in Australia to communicate her people's plight. Ms Kadeer, however, couldn't get within cooee of the foreign minister's ear and had to be content with DFAT officials. (See Exiled voice wants Games to cast light on repression, Hamish McDonald, SMH 21/2/08) Australia's Israel lobbyists, on the other hand, advocates for another specialist in screwing the wretched of the earth, have no such trouble.
*See my earlier post, Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship for a discussion of these matters.
I reported in a January 18 post, Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship, that the Rudd Government had voted in the UN against funding for the 2009 World Conference against Racism (or Durban II). The forthcoming WCAR has been a pet peeve of the Israel lobby ever since the 2001 WCAR correctly* equated Zionism with racism, and the associated WCAR NGO Forum even more correctly* declared Israel a "racist, apartheid state" which should be subject to the imposition of sanctions.
In January, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) reportedly met with "representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)" and was hoping to meet Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, to "ask about ways to prevent anti-Semitism [sic: anti-Zionism]" at the 2009 WCAR and "work out the mechanics of our relationship in the future."
Update: Under the header, Uniting to stop Durban repeat (15/2/08), The Australian Jewish News informs us that a joint ECAJ and Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) delegation have met Israeli Ambassador, Yuval Rotem, and Smith, "who flagged his intention to visit Israel later this year [But of course!]."
The report continues: "The community leaders presented Smith with a submission outlining their concerns about next year's conference [eg that the UN allegedly promotes anti-Semitism "by condoning the distinction between anti-Semitism and Israel-phobia."], including their ambivalence over recent reports indicating the Rudd government intended to work more closely with the UN...[God forbid that Australia should be "work[ing] more closely with the UN"!]...[Phillip] Chester (ZFA) said that while Smith was not ready to commit one way or another to Australia's participation at Durban II [OMG, he's got the wobbles!], he did ask that the community leaders keep in touch with him. 'The minister is maintaining a wait-and-see approach', Chester said, adding that he feels the Australian Government will eventually support the position of the Jewish community...[The Israeli] ambassador [said] that, while [he] has not made a formal submission to the Australian Government to ask it not to attend Durban II, he has encouraged community leaders to lobby hard."
There you have it: now that the lobby has succeeded in persuading the government to deny funding to the 2009 WCAR, the push is on to have it implement Israel's anti-UN agenda and (like Canada) boycott the conference entirely. Will Smith cave in? Watch this space...
But there's more: "[Robert] Goot (ECAJ) told the AJN they also discussed the pattern of voting in the UN...Labor's pre-election posturing to legally pursue Iranian President Ahmadinejad [See my post, Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall]; and the unsolved kidnapping of 3 Israeli soldiers over a year ago...We were entirely satisfied with the minister's response on all those topics." Indeed!
It is always interesting to learn just who gets access to the minister's ear (and comes away "entirely satisfied with the minister's responses") and who gets knocked back. In February, 60-year old Rebiya Kadeer, exiled spokeswoman for the brutally oppressed Uighur people of China's Xinjiang region arrived in Australia to communicate her people's plight. Ms Kadeer, however, couldn't get within cooee of the foreign minister's ear and had to be content with DFAT officials. (See Exiled voice wants Games to cast light on repression, Hamish McDonald, SMH 21/2/08) Australia's Israel lobbyists, on the other hand, advocates for another specialist in screwing the wretched of the earth, have no such trouble.
*See my earlier post, Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship for a discussion of these matters.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Ahmadinejad: Our Part in His Downfall
In December last year I drew attention to what must surely have been the loopiest of pre-election promises by any Australian politician: then Oppostion Leader, Kevin Rudd's promise to charge Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad under the Genocide Convention." (See my post, Testing Time for Rudd)
This bizarre promise surfaced in the context of electioneering in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, held by Howard Government minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Wentworth has the largest number of Jewish voters in Australia, and Turnbull, although not Jewish, was as reflexively supportive of Israel as any of Howard's ministers. How was Rudd to get around this? Maybe it's not enough to have your candidate (George Newhouse) both Jewish and Zionist, so why not outbid Turnbull for the Israel vote by...targeting Israel's current bete noire, Ahmadinijad? At least, that is what I imagine happened. Prior to uttering The Promise, however, it was all pretty much shadow boxing:-
The Australian Jewish News had informed its readers back in December 2006: "Likud leader [and former Israeli PM] Binyamin Netanyahu and a group of top American and Canadian lawyers are spearheading an international bid to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for genocide at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. 'We must cry 'gevalt' before the entire world', Netanyahu said. 'In 1938, Hitler didn't say he wanted to destroy [the Jews]; Ahmadinejad is saying clearly that this is his intention, and we aren't even shouting. At least call it a crime against humanity. We must make the world see that the issue here is a program for genocide'. Concurrently - and in coordination with Netanyahu - a group of top legal experts met in New York to claim that Ahmadinejad's incitement against Jews violates the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, speakers said...'We will try the law. We will try politics. We will try everything', said Alan Dershowitz, a prominent attorney and professor at Harvard Law School [& defender of OJ Simpson & Zionist propagandist extraordinaire (The Case for Israel) & torture advocate]. 'But if they fail, we will use self-defence'. In addition to seeking an indictment of Ahmadinejad in the International Criminal Court, Professor Dershowitz disclosed that he and Irwin Cotler, a Canadian legislator and prominent human-rights lawyer [& Chief Council of the Canadian Jewish Congress, aka Canada's Israel lobby], were preparing a brief to justify military pre-emption if legal efforts don't work." ('Indict Ahmadinejad for genocide', 22/12/06)
Then, quite coincidentally and entirely off his own bat, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister (now attorney general) Robert McClelland told the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) that: "Labor wants Australia to lead a push to have the United Nations Security Council refer the Iranian leader to the International Court of Justice over his statements about 'wiping Israel off the map' and denying the Holocaust. He said a charge of incitement against Ahmadinejad would 'move the international legal system from punishing genocide post-facto to preventing it before it occurs'. Secondly, it would seriously undermine Ahmadinejad's international legitimacy and his standing at home. The preparation of formal changes [sic] and the process of hearing would require Ahmadinejad to justify his inflammatory and destabilising posturing and rhetoric', he said." (Charge Iranian president with inciting genocide - Labor minister, The Australian Jewish News, 9/3/07)
That same month, Melbourne Ports Labor MP Michael Danby tried to table a motion calling on the Howard Government "to bring Ahmadinejad to account through the United Nations and International Court of Justice over his calls for the destruction of the Jewish State," but alas "another motion criticising the recent political violence in Zimbabwe got the nod ahead of Iran on the agenda." (Danby's Iran motion stalled, AJN, 30/3/07) Danby was no more successful in September "because a full schedule meant that Indi MP Sophie Mirabella's motion calling for the release of 3 Israeli hostages took precedence..." Talk about in on the act! Way to go, Sophie! And then, rain, in form of the federal election of 07, stopped play.
The Australian House of Representatives may have given Danby the brushoff, but its US counterpart was taking the matter much more seriously, voting in June 2007 by 411-2 votes to "implore" the UNSC to charge Ahmadinejad with violating the Genocide Convention. A piece by former Israeli ambassador to the UN and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dore Gold in The Jerusalem Post (21/6/07) describes how the campaign to get Ahmadinejad was hatched by Dershowitz, Cotler, John Bolton (outgoing US ambassador to the UN, and American Enterprise Institute neoconman), and an Israeli legal team at a December 14, 2006 meeting sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs at the offices of the New York Bar Association. Gold also tells how two British MPs invited Netanyahu, Dershowitz, Cotler and the aforementioned Israeli legal team to address the House of Commons; how, by June 2007 69 British MPs had signed up to "urge" the Blair Government to table a resolution at the UNSC demanding Ahmadinejad be tried for incitement to commit genocide; how, on March 5 2007, shadow minister McClelland, even quicker off the mark than the Brits, had called on the UNSC to do the same; how, in April 2007, the Canadian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Rights adopted the same motion; and how half a dozen US states were divesting from companies doing business in Iran.
Gold's final paragraph is most revealing: "For years, Iran and its allies have tried to systematically delegitimize the State of Israel through fictitious charges about 'Israeli war crimes'. The time has come for Israel to counter with a campaign of its own, which unlike the accusations of its adversaries, is firmly grounded in international law and a growing consensus of increasingly significant international opinion." There you have it: Israel has never committed war crimes, all allegations of same are pure fiction authored by "Iran and its allies" (including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'tselem?), we're not gonna take it no more, and we're hitting back with one helluva PR campaign against the current Hitlerian scourge (no, worse!), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Even though Rudd had foolishly turned the Netanyahu/Dershowitz/ Cotler/Bolton/McClelland/ Danby folie a six into an election promise, I concluded my earlier post thus: "Sheer madness of course, but will Rudd have the ticker to buck a promise to the Israel lobby he should never have made in the first place?"
Newspaper says...'No' - if the Sydney Morning Herald report, Caution at Iranian overtures (Jonathan Pearlman, 27/2/08), is anything to go by: "The Rudd Government is proceeding with a plan to charge Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with inciting genocide and has rejected a call by the Iranian ambassador to split from a United States-led push for harsher sanctions. The office of the [now] Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, said yesterday the Government was pursuing its election commitment to bring international criminal charges against Mr Ahmadinejad over his Holocaust revisionism and his calls to wipe Israel off the map...'On the possibility of taking legal action against the Iranian president, the Australian Government is currently taking legal and other advice on this matter', said Mr Smith's spokeswoman, Courtney Hoogan." Maybe, just maybe, that's code for 'We're currently working on the legalese necessary to drop this hot potato'. One can dream...
Beyond the obvious questions - Is this in Australia's interest? Is it even in Israel's interest? Haven't Smith and his staff got anything more important to do? Isn't the Genocide Convention designed to tackle actual cases of genocide, rather than alleged intentions to commit same? What are we doing in bed with the likes of Netanyahu, Dershowitz, et al? Why are we reading from Israel's delusional PR script? - could it possibly be that, despite an army of bureaucrats, minister Smith is still unaware that Ahmadinejad's alleged call to wipe Israel off the map is a hoax? Let us review the matter:-
Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo is always a reliable guide in these matters. Of the abovementioned congressional vote, he wrote: "Now, I hold no brief for the Iranian ranter - whose jeremiads against the West are in the category of Borat-like humour - but this seems [only seems, Justin?] like yet another example of political pandering and congressional grandstanding that bears little, if any, relationship to reality. To begin with, the resolution is motivated by a mistranslation of a speech given by Senor Ahmadinejad, in which he cited the Ayatollah Khomeini and seemed to call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Yet, as Jonathan Steele, and Farsi-speaker and Middle East expert Prof. Juan Cole make very clear, that is not what the Iranian President said, or intended to say. Ahmadinejad...said the current regime in Tel Aviv will be 'wiped off the page of time'. It was a call for 'regime change' not genocide - but, never mind. Like most war propaganda, which is almost never related to reality except in the most tenuous sense, the point is not to tell the truth but to characterize the enemy in a particular way. With Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert in Washington to ramp up the Lobby's ferocious campaign to get the US to attack Iran - or at least credibly threaten to - the pro-Israel forces on Capitol Hill were out in full force, herding their congressional supporters into a massive display of obedience with a whopping 411-2 vote." (The End of Dissent? 22/6/07)
If minister Smith and his department are aware that the allegation is groundless, then an entirely reasonable and unsurprising surmise would be that, like the Howard Government before them (although to give Alexander Downer credit, he was never prepared to go where Smith is now proposing), the Ruddies are mere putty in the hands of the Israel lobby. After all, Rudd has been rambammed twice (2003 & 2005); has rhetorically gone where no American politician has and declared that his support for Israel is "in my DNA"; has been personally congratulated by Israeli PM Olmert on his election victory; and has pledged to undergo a third rambamming in his first term of office.
Pray that sanity prevails and the tried and true Australian politician's distinction between core and non-core promises comes to our rescue.
Postscript: Speaking of jeremiads, cop this from Senor Sheridan: "The odds are against a US strike on Iran under any circumstances, and I would say the odds are even against an Israeli strike. But either or both are much more likely if it looks like Obama will win." (This is no time for a celebrity in the Oval Office, The Australian, 28/2/08)
This bizarre promise surfaced in the context of electioneering in the Sydney seat of Wentworth, held by Howard Government minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Wentworth has the largest number of Jewish voters in Australia, and Turnbull, although not Jewish, was as reflexively supportive of Israel as any of Howard's ministers. How was Rudd to get around this? Maybe it's not enough to have your candidate (George Newhouse) both Jewish and Zionist, so why not outbid Turnbull for the Israel vote by...targeting Israel's current bete noire, Ahmadinijad? At least, that is what I imagine happened. Prior to uttering The Promise, however, it was all pretty much shadow boxing:-
The Australian Jewish News had informed its readers back in December 2006: "Likud leader [and former Israeli PM] Binyamin Netanyahu and a group of top American and Canadian lawyers are spearheading an international bid to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for genocide at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. 'We must cry 'gevalt' before the entire world', Netanyahu said. 'In 1938, Hitler didn't say he wanted to destroy [the Jews]; Ahmadinejad is saying clearly that this is his intention, and we aren't even shouting. At least call it a crime against humanity. We must make the world see that the issue here is a program for genocide'. Concurrently - and in coordination with Netanyahu - a group of top legal experts met in New York to claim that Ahmadinejad's incitement against Jews violates the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, speakers said...'We will try the law. We will try politics. We will try everything', said Alan Dershowitz, a prominent attorney and professor at Harvard Law School [& defender of OJ Simpson & Zionist propagandist extraordinaire (The Case for Israel) & torture advocate]. 'But if they fail, we will use self-defence'. In addition to seeking an indictment of Ahmadinejad in the International Criminal Court, Professor Dershowitz disclosed that he and Irwin Cotler, a Canadian legislator and prominent human-rights lawyer [& Chief Council of the Canadian Jewish Congress, aka Canada's Israel lobby], were preparing a brief to justify military pre-emption if legal efforts don't work." ('Indict Ahmadinejad for genocide', 22/12/06)
Then, quite coincidentally and entirely off his own bat, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister (now attorney general) Robert McClelland told the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) that: "Labor wants Australia to lead a push to have the United Nations Security Council refer the Iranian leader to the International Court of Justice over his statements about 'wiping Israel off the map' and denying the Holocaust. He said a charge of incitement against Ahmadinejad would 'move the international legal system from punishing genocide post-facto to preventing it before it occurs'. Secondly, it would seriously undermine Ahmadinejad's international legitimacy and his standing at home. The preparation of formal changes [sic] and the process of hearing would require Ahmadinejad to justify his inflammatory and destabilising posturing and rhetoric', he said." (Charge Iranian president with inciting genocide - Labor minister, The Australian Jewish News, 9/3/07)
That same month, Melbourne Ports Labor MP Michael Danby tried to table a motion calling on the Howard Government "to bring Ahmadinejad to account through the United Nations and International Court of Justice over his calls for the destruction of the Jewish State," but alas "another motion criticising the recent political violence in Zimbabwe got the nod ahead of Iran on the agenda." (Danby's Iran motion stalled, AJN, 30/3/07) Danby was no more successful in September "because a full schedule meant that Indi MP Sophie Mirabella's motion calling for the release of 3 Israeli hostages took precedence..." Talk about in on the act! Way to go, Sophie! And then, rain, in form of the federal election of 07, stopped play.
The Australian House of Representatives may have given Danby the brushoff, but its US counterpart was taking the matter much more seriously, voting in June 2007 by 411-2 votes to "implore" the UNSC to charge Ahmadinejad with violating the Genocide Convention. A piece by former Israeli ambassador to the UN and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dore Gold in The Jerusalem Post (21/6/07) describes how the campaign to get Ahmadinejad was hatched by Dershowitz, Cotler, John Bolton (outgoing US ambassador to the UN, and American Enterprise Institute neoconman), and an Israeli legal team at a December 14, 2006 meeting sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs at the offices of the New York Bar Association. Gold also tells how two British MPs invited Netanyahu, Dershowitz, Cotler and the aforementioned Israeli legal team to address the House of Commons; how, by June 2007 69 British MPs had signed up to "urge" the Blair Government to table a resolution at the UNSC demanding Ahmadinejad be tried for incitement to commit genocide; how, on March 5 2007, shadow minister McClelland, even quicker off the mark than the Brits, had called on the UNSC to do the same; how, in April 2007, the Canadian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Rights adopted the same motion; and how half a dozen US states were divesting from companies doing business in Iran.
Gold's final paragraph is most revealing: "For years, Iran and its allies have tried to systematically delegitimize the State of Israel through fictitious charges about 'Israeli war crimes'. The time has come for Israel to counter with a campaign of its own, which unlike the accusations of its adversaries, is firmly grounded in international law and a growing consensus of increasingly significant international opinion." There you have it: Israel has never committed war crimes, all allegations of same are pure fiction authored by "Iran and its allies" (including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'tselem?), we're not gonna take it no more, and we're hitting back with one helluva PR campaign against the current Hitlerian scourge (no, worse!), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Even though Rudd had foolishly turned the Netanyahu/Dershowitz/ Cotler/Bolton/McClelland/ Danby folie a six into an election promise, I concluded my earlier post thus: "Sheer madness of course, but will Rudd have the ticker to buck a promise to the Israel lobby he should never have made in the first place?"
Newspaper says...'No' - if the Sydney Morning Herald report, Caution at Iranian overtures (Jonathan Pearlman, 27/2/08), is anything to go by: "The Rudd Government is proceeding with a plan to charge Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with inciting genocide and has rejected a call by the Iranian ambassador to split from a United States-led push for harsher sanctions. The office of the [now] Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, said yesterday the Government was pursuing its election commitment to bring international criminal charges against Mr Ahmadinejad over his Holocaust revisionism and his calls to wipe Israel off the map...'On the possibility of taking legal action against the Iranian president, the Australian Government is currently taking legal and other advice on this matter', said Mr Smith's spokeswoman, Courtney Hoogan." Maybe, just maybe, that's code for 'We're currently working on the legalese necessary to drop this hot potato'. One can dream...
Beyond the obvious questions - Is this in Australia's interest? Is it even in Israel's interest? Haven't Smith and his staff got anything more important to do? Isn't the Genocide Convention designed to tackle actual cases of genocide, rather than alleged intentions to commit same? What are we doing in bed with the likes of Netanyahu, Dershowitz, et al? Why are we reading from Israel's delusional PR script? - could it possibly be that, despite an army of bureaucrats, minister Smith is still unaware that Ahmadinejad's alleged call to wipe Israel off the map is a hoax? Let us review the matter:-
Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo is always a reliable guide in these matters. Of the abovementioned congressional vote, he wrote: "Now, I hold no brief for the Iranian ranter - whose jeremiads against the West are in the category of Borat-like humour - but this seems [only seems, Justin?] like yet another example of political pandering and congressional grandstanding that bears little, if any, relationship to reality. To begin with, the resolution is motivated by a mistranslation of a speech given by Senor Ahmadinejad, in which he cited the Ayatollah Khomeini and seemed to call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Yet, as Jonathan Steele, and Farsi-speaker and Middle East expert Prof. Juan Cole make very clear, that is not what the Iranian President said, or intended to say. Ahmadinejad...said the current regime in Tel Aviv will be 'wiped off the page of time'. It was a call for 'regime change' not genocide - but, never mind. Like most war propaganda, which is almost never related to reality except in the most tenuous sense, the point is not to tell the truth but to characterize the enemy in a particular way. With Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert in Washington to ramp up the Lobby's ferocious campaign to get the US to attack Iran - or at least credibly threaten to - the pro-Israel forces on Capitol Hill were out in full force, herding their congressional supporters into a massive display of obedience with a whopping 411-2 vote." (The End of Dissent? 22/6/07)
If minister Smith and his department are aware that the allegation is groundless, then an entirely reasonable and unsurprising surmise would be that, like the Howard Government before them (although to give Alexander Downer credit, he was never prepared to go where Smith is now proposing), the Ruddies are mere putty in the hands of the Israel lobby. After all, Rudd has been rambammed twice (2003 & 2005); has rhetorically gone where no American politician has and declared that his support for Israel is "in my DNA"; has been personally congratulated by Israeli PM Olmert on his election victory; and has pledged to undergo a third rambamming in his first term of office.
Pray that sanity prevails and the tried and true Australian politician's distinction between core and non-core promises comes to our rescue.
Postscript: Speaking of jeremiads, cop this from Senor Sheridan: "The odds are against a US strike on Iran under any circumstances, and I would say the odds are even against an Israeli strike. But either or both are much more likely if it looks like Obama will win." (This is no time for a celebrity in the Oval Office, The Australian, 28/2/08)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Testing Time for Rudd
In an opinion piece in The Age [Under Rudd, Australia can tackle the Middle East positively, 21/12/07] Amin Saikal, professor of political science and Director of the Centre for Arab & Islamic Sudies at ANU, aired his views on the "challenges" facing the Rudd Government "if it is to make a constructive contribution to building a peaceful and stable West Asia and Middle East."
With respect to Iran, he averred that in light of the US Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran had halted its nuclear program in 2003, the Rudd Government should "act from an informed position and distance itself from the Bush Administration's narrow geopolitical agenda to pave the way for possible military action against Iran no matter what."
Absolutely - except that in an ALP election ad for its failed candidate, George Newhouse, in the seat of Wentworth, we read: "Iran poses a threat to Israel. No guesswork is involved in this claim. We know it to be true from the direct, on-the-record threats of the Islamic President Ahmadinejad. Kevin Rudd's proposal is to charge Iran's president under the Genocide Convention." (The Australian Jewish News, 9/11/07)
Sheer madness of course, but will Rudd have the ticker to buck a promise to the Israel lobby he should never have made in the first place?
With respect to Iran, he averred that in light of the US Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran had halted its nuclear program in 2003, the Rudd Government should "act from an informed position and distance itself from the Bush Administration's narrow geopolitical agenda to pave the way for possible military action against Iran no matter what."
Absolutely - except that in an ALP election ad for its failed candidate, George Newhouse, in the seat of Wentworth, we read: "Iran poses a threat to Israel. No guesswork is involved in this claim. We know it to be true from the direct, on-the-record threats of the Islamic President Ahmadinejad. Kevin Rudd's proposal is to charge Iran's president under the Genocide Convention." (The Australian Jewish News, 9/11/07)
Sheer madness of course, but will Rudd have the ticker to buck a promise to the Israel lobby he should never have made in the first place?
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