Who Let the Dog Out?

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist/ Thank God! The British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ Un-bribed, there's no occasion to." Humbert Wolfe

"It inflames their brains, they have spasms of involuntary behaviour, eventually go mad, froth at the mouth, and will bite the hand that feeds them." (Turkey may no longer be a friend of ours, 14/6/10)

Eretz - Let's Do the Mad Dog Again - Israel?

No. "Gaza has rabies."

Welcome to the howling nonsense of the Herald Sun's Alan Howe.

"Well, sort of. Actually, its disease is an infestation of self-loathing, ungrateful Islamists. But the symptoms and the prognosis are much the same."

Ungrateful Islamists? Hm... what the hell is he talking about?

"Right now, in a change that might yet develop into the greatest threat to those of us who choose to remain civilised, it seems Turkey may be incubating the disease. If Turkey, a full member of the world's most important security club, NATO, falls under the influence of the Islamists, we are all in trouble."

I see. Turkish activists join an aid flotilla to Gaza and are murdered by Israeli thugs and, hey presto, Turkey's the problem? And moving right along, the US encircles Iran with bases, and Israel threatens to nuke it every other day, and Iran's an even bigger problem?

"The United Nations last week voted in new sanctions against Iran, aimed at punishing the country whose nuclear program could easily be used to destroy Israel - and that's top of their agenda - before having a crack at any other democracies within rocket fire range."

Yes, Alan, but could Iran's democracy-destroying nukes be activated within 45' like Saddam's? And isn't it funny how Iran comes in at 104/149 in the 2010 Global Peace Index (see previous post) - 40 points more peaceful than the Middle East's only democracy?

"The lying tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stole last year's 'elections' in Iran, does not believe Israel, or any of its allies, should exist, and hopes to kill us all. Ahmadinejad was scraped like a piece of scum on to this earth in late 1956, and is embarked on a straight line to Hell, his only distraction being the slaughter of as many innocents as he can rack up in between. By his standards he's doing well. His agents are raping and killing their way through those Iranian kids brave enough to protest at last year's illegal election farce. Public executions, where innocents are slowly and agonisingly strangled, not hanged, from mobile cranes are a specialty. Don't think for a moment Australians aren't in his sights. Anyone who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury', he once spat out, a dribble of saliva suggesting he is more than unwell."

OK Alan, I give up. I've scoured the latest (9/6/10) Amnesty International report, From Protest to Prison: Iran One Year After the Revolution, and all I've managed to find is: "Some [protesters] have been detained in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Many have been tortured, including by beatings, rape and solitary confinement in small spaces for long periods."

Bad enough to be sure. But where are the mobile cranes used as makeshift gallows for Iranian protesters? Yes, mobile (is there any other kind?) cranes have been used to hang people in Iran. After a bit of googling, I managed to find the case of a teenage girl executed "for crimes against chastity." (It was actually the subject of a Four Corners doco screened on 7/8/06.) But that was in August 2004 before Ahmadinejad's presidency and years before the Green Revolution protests hit the streets of Tehran. Another instance involved two men convicted of murder (Iranian hangings 'hit new record', bbc.co.uk, 11/2/08).

Now Alan, if you have data on cases of the Ahmadinejad government hanging protesters, you need to contact AI at once so they can include them in their next report. Not that you have a problem with capital punishment though. I mean, didn't you comment just recently, May 3 to be exact: "Would we, as a community, be willing to invest in our judicial system the power for a judge to call for the end to a life? I find myself leaning that way sometimes." (Some crims are fit to kill)

OK - back to the Turks:

"Notwithstanding the extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli, and the strong bonds between Australia and Turkey that have grown from them, when it comes to the centenary of that campaign - less than 5 years from now - it is very possible we will be enemies once more. This time the stakes are much higher. We lost against the Turks in 1915. We cannot afford them to win in 2010."

Let me get this straight, Alan, we had an extraordinary and shared experience at Gallipoli in 1915, right? Best thing that ever happened to us, right? Made men of us, right? Even put balls on the sheilas, right? So why wouldn't we want a rerun? Surely you'd agree that our feckless youth need something a bit more spine-infusing than mowing down women and kids in Afghanistan? So what's the problem, mate? Bring it on! The sooner the better! And, if we want to make the most of our second extraordinary and shared experience, shouldn't we hope and pray Johny Turk whips our asses good like before, dig?

But I digress. There's that other, closet Ahmadinejad, that Trojan Horse, Recep Erdogan, lying in wait, ready to pounce:

"The Turks own the story of Troy. You think they'd know a Trojan horse when they saw one [Er, Alan, you're not suggesting he's actually a Greek agent, are you?]... No matter what colours [Erdogan] has tried to show since gaining power, his true ambitions became clear when he supported last month's so-called Freedom Flotilla of boats carrying what they claimed was aid to the people of Gaza. In a stunt organisers knew would end in tears, 6 vessels carrying 663 deluded 'friends' of Gaza attempted to sail there without authority to deliver 'aid'. Gaza, which is in the grip of the terror movement Hamas, is rightly blockaded by both Israel and Egypt, the most influential Islamic nation in the region, because its aim is to export radical Islamic revolution to those countries that might be susceptible - and to destroy those that aren't. The almost non-stop rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are all the evidence you need."

In the grip? Yeah, as in Australia is in the grip of the Rudd government.

Rightly blockaded or illegally blockaded?

"Interestingly, the Turkish Muslim men on board - their subservient women presumably behind burkas at home where they belong - had not just prepared themselves to become 'martyrs', they appear to have had some combat training, not blinking at the grenades that would have you and me shocked and seeking cover. In any case, they were hardly seeking to become martyrs in the noble Christian sense of persecuted believers being killed for daring to keep faith in Christ while being taunted for their religion; these are angry, murderous blokes hell-bent on provoking a response from a democracy - just like Australia's - obliged to protect its borders and people... Three of the four Turks killed in the encounter sought martydom, according to their relatives and friends. Apparently they had prayed to Allah to grant them their wish. In the end, Allah seems to have done rather less than the Israeli Defence Forces, which took on most of the heavy lifting to dispatch these fellows to the hereafter."

Presumably, Alan? Why presumably? It's because they're Muslims and everyone knows how dreadfully Muslim men treat their women, right? If only they could learn to respect their women as much as Aussie men respect theirs: "Some of our most exploited women are top athletes, a painful example being those playing beach volleyball at the Olympic level. Organisations that should be devoted to promoting, policing and protecting the sport instead insist the women players must dress, well barely, to titillate male television audiences." (Women lose their roar, Alan Howe, Herald Sun, 14/3/10)

Only 4 Turks killed, Alan? And here's me thinking it was 9! But then Alan's a quality journalist and I'm just a niggling blogger, so what would I know?

And gee, some Turkish activists prepared themselves for martyrdom. Really? Martyrdom? As in "somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organisation..." (wikipedia). OMG! They knew they were messing with the Israelis - the Israelis for God's sake! - and the thought actually crossed their minds that they might be returning in a body bag? How paranoid can you get?

But seriously, Alan, that bit about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom, that's not really in the Guardian report (Flotilla raid: Turkish jihadis bent on violence Israel claims, 2/6/10) you got this martyrdom stuff from, now is it? Let's see what was actually said: One activist said he'd "dreamed" he was going to be a martyr. Not in the sense of wanting to be a martyr, Alan, but, ominously, going to be a martyr. The brother-in-law of another said, Allah gave him a death he desired. Couldn't that perhaps be Turkish for something as simple as, If I'm going to die (and aren't we all) I'd prefer it to be in a good cause? And the third had "dreamt of becoming a martyr." As in had a dream about his fate? Or as in dreamt of winning Lotto? Who knows? Certainly not you, Alan. One thing's for sure though, whatever these martyrs thought of martydom, there's not a jot of evidence for your prattle about praying to Allah to grant them martyrdom.

Finally, Alan reminds us of the Awesome Evil that this "flotilla of fools" was out to aid and abet:

"[F]our Kassam rockets were launched into the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. No one was killed, but that wasn't the plan. For Hamas, and the possibly reluctant recruits it has exploited in the blighted region it intends to restore to the Stone Age, it was business as usual."

But Alan, didn't your News Limited colleague over at The Australian, John Lyons, write on June 12: "It's generally accepted now - even by Israel - that Hamas has halted rockets. The war of last year wrought such terrible consequences for Gaza and its 1.5 million people that more retaliation is the last thing Hamas wants now. 'We have declared a unilateral ceasefire', senior Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef tells Inquirer in an interview in his office. 'The priority now is how to take care of our people after the war'?" (Running the Gaza blockade)

Ripples Three

The ripples continue to spread from Mossad's assassination of Hamas freedom fighter Mahmoud al-Mabhouh:

1) Propaganda postponed:

"Plans for a special screening of an Israeli-made film to MPs at Parliament House in Canberra have been put on hold amid fallout over the forged passport affair. The Israeli film, Noodle, was to be screened later this month at an event organised by the Australia-Israel Parliamentary Group and the Israeli embassy. Films are not regularly featured in Parliament, but politicians and media have been invited to the screening billed as a chance 'to celebrate Israeli culture'. But Israeli ambassador Yuval Rotem and the chairman of the parliamentary group, West Australian senator Glenn Sterle, decided the furore surrounding the use of forged Australian passports... made the timing unsuitable... This screening has been postponed until June... The film Noodle tells the story of an Israeli flight attendant, Miri, twice widowed as a result of Israel's wars." (Israelis use noodle to postpone film, Daniel Flitton, The Age, 4/3/10)

Hm... I wonder when the next Palestinian film is being screened at Parliament house.

2) Howard, Howes, Howe... What is it about this syllable?

Remember my definition of rambamming? To be sponsored by smooth-talking Israel lobbyists in Australia on a grooming session conducted by tough-talking PR people in Israel with a view to the sponsored adopting the missionary position for Israel when required in Australia. The author of what you are about to read, Herald Sun columnist, Alan Howe, was first rambammed in 2005 (courtesy of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE)), was at it again in June last year (ditto), and, matters Ozraeli being what they are at the moment, has been pressed into service to divert us all with his trademark shockjockery:

(a) Brain-squirming hatred for Palestinians/stomach-churning love for Israelis...

"Here are the latest scores in the war on terror... Israelis 1, Palestinians 0. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a virtueless scrap of humanity, is dead. All good so far. But how he died and who killed him have now become the story. On the evening of January 19, 4 people entered the Palestinian's room at the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel using an electronic device that decoded Mabhouh's pass. The assassins ambushed their target, injected him with a paralysing sedative and then suffocated him using a pillow. It was all over in 10 minutes. Nothing in the room was disturbed. The killers left calmly, leaving the door locked - from the inside. The agents - and another 23 colleagues who joined them as plotters, spotters and decoys - then headed for the airport, flying to Asia and Europe. That's a slick operation. You have to stand in awe at the audacity of the planning and the courage of the men - and one woman - who volunteered for it... Al-Mabhouh had been gloating recently about how he killed 2 Israeli soldiers in 1989. He had a brain-squirming hatred for the Israelis who claim evidence that he spent his days smuggling rockets into Gaza. Ever since the Israelis retreated from their territory and left the locals to their own devices Gazans have thanked their neighbours with an almost ceaseless volley of deadly rockets. Just days off turning 50, al-Mabhouh knew he was a worthy target for assassination. Usually, he travelled with a team of bodyguards, but they couldn't get seats on his flight, which was said to be the first leg of a weapons-buying trip to Thailand." (We're safer, why argue?, Herald Sun, 7/3/10)

(b) Mossad, like, shits all over our security services...

"[W]e sent a small team from the Australian Federal Police to investigate the passport issue. Uh-oh. That's asking for trouble. Yet to recover from the laugh-a-minute leadership of Mick Keelty, the ALP is capable of almost anything. Within hours of arriving in Tel Aviv, these keystone clowns had screeched out of the underground car park beneath the Australian embassy there, hit a woman riding a bicycle and sped off. The Mossad team also can be said to have done a hit and run, but I know who I'd want looking after my interests... If Australia's security services had to defend Israel, surrounded as it is by Arabs who attack it regularly and who with a few Persian nutters running Iran - all of them united under the Koran - now plan its nuclear destruction, Israelis would clog their country's airports seeking a quick exit. Even that brave people would know the game was up." (ibid)

Sorry to mention this Alan, but the car was "being driven by the Australian embassy's Israeli driver..." not your "keystone clowns." ('Monty Python' AFP team slammed after hit-and-run, Jason Koutsoukis, SMH, 5/3/10)

(c) Ah yes, those Persian nutters. Mabhouh was just a proxy. Gird your loins for the coming sedation and smothering of Tehran:

"Security in Israel is no joking matter. Except to the United Nations, which last year hosted a conference against racism unforgivably inviting the unpredictable Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. He ranted about how the Holocaust never happened [1] - he doesn't want anything overshadowing the modern nuclear holocaust he plans. [2] It's bad enough that the UN cannot get international action to make a rogue state such as Iran adhere to its Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons. [3] So, mostly alone [4] but always threatened, Israel is forced to police its own future. Its defence must always be in its own hands. That's why, on a Sunday afternoon in June 1981, using US-provided satellite pictures it sent in its American-made fighter jets to bomb and destroy Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility just outside Baghdad. The nuclear plant - being built using technology supplied by the West's most unreliable 'ally', France [5], was near completion, but was to have been used only for the peaceful generation of power. Saddam Hussein had promised. At the time, Israel's critics condemned it for trying to be the region's police, and pointed out that it had long been suspected that Israel itself was moving towards becoming a nuclear power. Golly, why would it be doing that? [6] Quietly, over the years, after having breathed a sigh of relief, most of the world came to understand what a favour that little country had performed for them. [7] These days attention has turned [8] towards Iran and its development of a nuclear program. This, too, is to generate power. Then why hide it at terrific expense under the desert? Gaza is an Iranian proxy state where that country's hate for the West is played out in fights against Israel. [9] This is the War on Terror. Iran is the terror. [10] Its Gaza agents are the terrorists. We must kill them. [11] And next on the agenda is Iran's nuclear plant." [12] (ibid)

[1] No, he didn't, Alan. See my 23/4/09 post Australia Dumps on Durban 2
[2] If he's planning to nuke Israel, that means he's planning to nuke Palestine as well. Go figure.
[3] At least Iran has signed the NPT. Israel?
[4] Apart from a certain superpower.
[5] France, eh? You mean the same unreliable country that had developed a nuclear weapons program with Israeli input in the 50s, and went on to help Israel develop its own in the late 50s/early 60s?
[6] Notice the implication that Israel was moving towards becoming a nuclear power because of Saddam - who didn't become president of Iraq until 1979.
[7] Evidence?
[8] Shouldn't that be has been turned?
[9] Gazans couldn't possibly have their own grievances against Israel, now could they?
[10] Iran is the terror? So Iran is dispossessing and occupying another people? Throwing cluster bombs and white phosphorus around like confetti? Dispatching death squads to the 4 corners?
[11] We - we - must kill them?
[12] I'm confused. Whose agenda? Our agenda?

Hm. Here's a question for you, dear reader. Which Australian churnalist do you think wrote the article Richard Pratt: Paragon of Philanthropy for the AICE magazine Rhapsody: Linking Culture between Israel & Australia, Jan-Mar 2008?

3) Yet another Ozraeli innocent whose life will now be shattered - shattered! - by the (ahem) theft of his passport. How much more of this can these brave people take?

"The latest Australian thought to have had his identity stolen [!!!] by the team behind the Dubai assassination of a Hamas commander is an old friend of another Melbourne man named as a suspect last month. On Saturday Joshua Aaron Krycer became the latest Australian living in Israel to be caught up in the fallout over the January hit that has sparked a diplomatic storm between Israel and many of its allies. Mr Krycer's friend, Joshua Daniel Bruce, was named 2 weeks ago along with 2 other people from Melbourne as suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh." (Identity theft case grows as another Australian named, Reid Sexton, The Age, 10/3/10)

What a coincidence!

Awesome Israelis & Godawful Gazanazis

Herald Sun columnist Alan Howe was a member of DPM Gillard's entourage to Israel in June. So unbelievably awesome did he find the World's Most Vibrant Nation that he decided to stay on to chart its Epic Struggle against the Forces of Darkness bent, as usual, on its Utter Annihilation.

Alan's latest column, Stone-age ambition (20/7/09), is a Searing Expose of the Pain & Suffering of the Heroic Inhabitants of "the world's most bombed city," Sderotingrad [Move over Stalingrad, Hamburg and Dresden!], as they stoically endure Wave after Wave of Gazanazi rocket attacks: "On most corners there are simple concrete bomb shelters, smaller versions of the ones in their schools where the shelters also serve as playgrounds, a prime Arab target, of course. No one in Sderot [and Alan's interviewed all 20,000 of them!] drives around listening to CDs or the radio. They are permanently tuned to the possibility they'll hear a calm, disembodied woman's voice announcing 'Tseva Adom' - Code Red. Because they have got just seconds to get from their vehicle to a shelter, seat belts are never worn. No one has a shower unless there is someone else in the house, no point in smelling like roses with a homemade missile about to reshape your roof... Almost a third of the people of Sderot are being treated for psychiatric illness." The horror! The horror!

As for the Evil Roof-Renovating Gazanazis, Sderotingrad's elevation to the status of "world's most bombed city" is the least of their vile accomplishments! Did you know that these Spawn of Amalek have also been "the first to bomb themselves back to the Stone Age"? Pretty fiendish, eh? Alan reveals that, in the "festering malevolence" that is their Gazan Lair, they had actually been "praying for" Operation Cast Lead, knowing that if only they could "goad the Israeli army into an indiscriminate response," they'd reap a bountiful PR crop of..."dead schoolkids." The dirty bastards!

But hang on, surely the Awesome Israelis didn't fall for that, did they? Fraid so. The Cunning Gazanazis, of course, got just what they wanted, a bumper crop: "[T]he most insightful moment of [the conflict] was captured on film: a Hamas hero, trying to evade Israeli fire, picks up a small child by the scruff of the neck as 'cover' as he runs from one side of the street to the other." The dirty bastard!

But hang on, didn't Alan just say something about an "indiscriminate" Israeli response? Yes? So here we have the Godawful Gazanazis goading the Awesome Israelis into an indiscriminate response - but using their own Gazanazikids as human shields to guard against same. This didn't quite add up, I twigged. Surely a mere human shield's not going to stop an indiscriminate response. So I googled for that film clip Alan had found so insightful. No trace. Alan, please? I typed in "scruff of the neck" but all I could find was a reference to an Israeli colonel testifying before an Israeli court that "a slap, sometimes a punch to the scruff of the neck or the chest, sometimes a knee jab or strangulation to calm somebody down is reasonable." (The truth walks into a court in Jaffa, Michael Sfard, forward.com, 10/6/09). And I typed in "human shield" only to find out that Amnesty International had not only cleared Hamas of this despicable practice, but fingered the IDF instead. (Amnesty: Israeli troops used children as human shields in Gaza, antiwar.com, 1/7/09) Blimey, was I confused!

But then, I thought, who am I but a mere blogger, one given, in the words of Alan's boss, John Hartigan*, to "the trivialisation and corruption of serious debate." Who am I to cavil with a Quality Journalist like Alan? I should have been a pair of ragged claws... etc, etc. [*See my 2/7/09 post Corrupting serious Debate]

Truly, Alan's Israeli handlers should be proud of the man. He's a credit to them. Still, if I may venture a criticism - not of him, but them: Why, if they wanted Australians to gain the maximum insight into the Trials & Tribulations of Sderotingrad, didn't they put him in touch with Yad Ezra V'Shulamit. That's right, Yad Ezra etc etc. You see, Sderotingrad is not only bigger than Stalingrad, but bigger than Stalingrad and the Ukrainian famine combined: "What are people feeling in southern Israel today? Fear. Tension. And hunger. The Jewish residents of Sderot, Netivot, Be'er Sheva and Ofakim are literally starving, afraid to risk their own lives to go in search of food and, just as likely, not finding it. 'Shops are closed, businesses are closed, and more than 200,000 people don't know where their next meal is coming from', says Ariel Lurie, founder and executive director of Yad Ezra V'Shulamit, which is trying to ease the humanitarian crisis in Israel's southern cities under fire... Yesterday, as a Yad Ezra V'Shulamit volunteer handed out bread, groceries and chickens in a Sderot bomb shelter, a man told her the conversation he had overheard between his wife and son. There were only 2 pieces of bread left, and a little soup. 'You eat the bread', his wife had said. 'No, you eat it', the boy replied. 'No, I want you to eat it', the wife insisted. The argument went on for some time, as neither wanted to risk his life to go get more food. In the end, they decided to eat the soup and to save the bread for the next day." (Yad Ezra V'Shulamit feeds hungry residents of southern Israel, Haaretz, 13/1/09)

See what I mean? Mark Regev seems to be losing his touch.