By now, after reading my previous two posts questioning his virtual canonisation, it should be apparent that the late, former Australian prime minister, Bob Hawke, was, with his fatal decision to involve Australia in the brutal US-led Gulf War of 1991, very much the war hawk.
Of course, the impacts of war today are seldom confined to the immediate area of conflict, but consideration of their wider impact is of scant concern to those who, like Hawke, are hell-bent on waging them. One of those areas of impact is inevitably the home front.
The following three extracts, detailing the dark forces unleashed by St Bob here in Australia, come from academic Christine Asmar's invaluable essay The Arab-Australian Experience, in Australia's Gulf War (1992). Although the 'experience' she describes took place almost ten years before 9/11, it is chilling to note the sheer depth of Arabophobia and Islamophobia of the time, a phenomenon that Hawke cannot evade responsibility for unleashing, and one that continues to haunt us today with a vengeance:
"For Arabs born and brought up in Australia the experience of the Gulf War was shattering: 'I'd never thought of myself as anything but Australian', said Mary Rebehy, 'and suddenly I realised that some people had never accepted us as Australians at all'. Similarly, John Brennan of the Ethnic Affairs Commission told an audience at the University of Sydney of his shock at having to confront in Australia the 'reservoir of pathological loathing' towards both Arabs and Muslims. A writer to the Age expostulated: 'Australians be damned! They are an alien fifth column and should be interned'. Arab children were abused from passing cars as they walked to school and intimidated by fellow-students while at school, sometimes without teachers intervening. Muslim Arab women were spat at, abused, and had their headscarfs ripped off their heads... Islamic institutions such as the mosque and Islamic Centre at Lakemba in Sydney; the mosques at Preston and Coburg in Victoria; and a Muslim primary school in Perth were all subject to abusive calls, bomb threats and break-ins as were the premises of Arab organisations such as the Lebanese Women's Association and the Australian Arabic Welfare Council, both in Sydney. Many Muslim Australian women became afraid to leave home, even to go shopping." (p 65)
"A particular source of contention arose from the belief that ASIO (the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization) had carried out surveillance, and possibly even harassment of members of the Arab community. An article in the Bulletin in January 1991 claimed that ASIO had mounted 'an operation which has seen the surveillance of scores of Moslems living here, phone tapping, [and] a recommendation to intern certain people'. ASIO was reported to have claimed that 'NSW could be a target of Arab terrorist attacks or sabotage', and that six terrorist plots had been foiled in Australia during the Gulf War. Such reports encouraged the tendency to equate 'terrorist' with 'Arab'. Since no Australian of Arab origin has ever been charged with any crime involving political violence, the reports added to the Arabs' sense of being victimized. Responding to a claim that Muslims were behind attacks on Jewish institutions, the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board made it clear that 'there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any Muslim community is behind these attacks'. A large number of individuals in the Arab community, mostly political activists, reported that they had been visited by security personnel and questioned, although there was no suggestion of any physical harassment taking place. Some, however, alleged other forms of harassment and surreptitious surveillance. Whether true or not, those who believed such actions were taking place felt intimidated." (p 73)
"The widespread stereotyping of Arabs left a legacy of vulnerability and alienation. The experience of an unprecedented level of hostility has traumatized many Arabs in Australia, leading some to question the the Australian model of multiculturalism. In the words of Hassan Moussa, a prominent member of the community: 'The war has had a terrible effect on the community's sense of identity. Even today a lot of people are reluctant to say they are of Arab origin. It is very possible that the community may have become isolated and marginalized as a result of this crisis'. Ramsey Jebeile of the Australian Arabic Welfare Council has noticed that, after the Gulf War, Arab schoolchildren and their parents were showing an increased alienation, and a willingness to attribute any unwelcome developments at school to racist discrimination. Even more disturbing is the potentially self-fulfilling sense of hopelessness among school leavers about discrimination ruining their job prospects." (p 79)
To be continued...
Showing posts with label Anti-Arab Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Arab Racism. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Saturday, May 4, 2019
The Israelification of the NSW Police Force
How interesting:
"The NSW Police Force has been ordered to publish an apology and implement racial vilification training for senior officers after a tribunal found a police training exercise in October 2017 racially vilified Palestinians and Arabs and portrayed them as potential terrorists.
"'Exercise Pantograph' featured hundreds of police... at Sydney's Central Station as though they were responding to a terrorist event... During the exercise, two officers pretending to be 'active armed offenders' wore headscarves as they boarded a train, simulated stabbing and shooting people, held hostages, then tried to escape before being caught by police. The pretend offenders displayed the Islamic State flag during the exercise, pushed people to the floor, held train passengers at gunpoint, and held up their index fingers in a salute notoriously associated with Islamic State." (From Police to apologise for 'vilifying Arabs' in terrorism exercise, Georgina Mitchell, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/5/19)
No mention here, you'll note, of how the hapless commuters managed to cope with this kind of treatment, but, hey, who, in this neoliberal police state, gives a stuff about them? (Anyone btw who thinks my use of the term 'police state' a tad hyperbolic, might like to peruse the article NSW: moving to a police state, Ugur Nedim, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 19/9/16)
To continue:
"Yesterday, two members of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) found the headscarves were not necessary and would have been recognised by the public as keffiyehs, used by Palestinian and Arab communities. The use of the headscarves had the capacity to encourage members of the public to believe, 'Palestinians and/or Arabs were to be feared, despised, hated, and/or held in serious contempt as possibly or probably being terrorists', especially given that it was NSW Police who used them, NCAT found."
Now there's a backstory to this, but, predictably, you won't find anyone alluding to it in mainstream media outlets. For one thing their memory's too short. For another they're running scared.
As the posts filed under my 'NSW Police' label indicate, since the election of the Liberal O'Farrell/Baird/ Berejiklian NSW state governments (2011-), the boys in blue have displayed what can only be described as an extraordinary, even Zionist, interest in anyone in the state seeking to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.
But why? Maybe the following snippet provides a clue:
"Police officers in NSW will take part in a seminar where they will be taught about the threat of terrorism faced by Jews and Israelis, the history of Zionism and the Jewish community's connection to the Holy Land. The course... is being conducted by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) and the Communal Security Group (CSG) for members of the police forces' anti-terrorism unit." (Israel 101 course for police, The Australian Jewish News, 28/10/11)
My post on that is titled Israel 101 for Cops, 28/10/11, but feel free to read through the other 11 posts on this subject and be amazed at just how focused the NSW Police have been on pro-Palestinian activism. Oh, and enjoy your next train ride.
"The NSW Police Force has been ordered to publish an apology and implement racial vilification training for senior officers after a tribunal found a police training exercise in October 2017 racially vilified Palestinians and Arabs and portrayed them as potential terrorists.
"'Exercise Pantograph' featured hundreds of police... at Sydney's Central Station as though they were responding to a terrorist event... During the exercise, two officers pretending to be 'active armed offenders' wore headscarves as they boarded a train, simulated stabbing and shooting people, held hostages, then tried to escape before being caught by police. The pretend offenders displayed the Islamic State flag during the exercise, pushed people to the floor, held train passengers at gunpoint, and held up their index fingers in a salute notoriously associated with Islamic State." (From Police to apologise for 'vilifying Arabs' in terrorism exercise, Georgina Mitchell, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/5/19)
No mention here, you'll note, of how the hapless commuters managed to cope with this kind of treatment, but, hey, who, in this neoliberal police state, gives a stuff about them? (Anyone btw who thinks my use of the term 'police state' a tad hyperbolic, might like to peruse the article NSW: moving to a police state, Ugur Nedim, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 19/9/16)
To continue:
"Yesterday, two members of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) found the headscarves were not necessary and would have been recognised by the public as keffiyehs, used by Palestinian and Arab communities. The use of the headscarves had the capacity to encourage members of the public to believe, 'Palestinians and/or Arabs were to be feared, despised, hated, and/or held in serious contempt as possibly or probably being terrorists', especially given that it was NSW Police who used them, NCAT found."
Now there's a backstory to this, but, predictably, you won't find anyone alluding to it in mainstream media outlets. For one thing their memory's too short. For another they're running scared.
As the posts filed under my 'NSW Police' label indicate, since the election of the Liberal O'Farrell/Baird/ Berejiklian NSW state governments (2011-), the boys in blue have displayed what can only be described as an extraordinary, even Zionist, interest in anyone in the state seeking to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.
But why? Maybe the following snippet provides a clue:
"Police officers in NSW will take part in a seminar where they will be taught about the threat of terrorism faced by Jews and Israelis, the history of Zionism and the Jewish community's connection to the Holy Land. The course... is being conducted by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) and the Communal Security Group (CSG) for members of the police forces' anti-terrorism unit." (Israel 101 course for police, The Australian Jewish News, 28/10/11)
My post on that is titled Israel 101 for Cops, 28/10/11, but feel free to read through the other 11 posts on this subject and be amazed at just how focused the NSW Police have been on pro-Palestinian activism. Oh, and enjoy your next train ride.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
White Shite
You know in your bones that if a celebrity scholar gets an entire (broadsheet) page to strut his stuff, a thumbs-up editorial, and a glowing introductory article in Murdoch's Australian, that something's seriously amiss. I'm talking here about The Australian's new poster boy, Eric Kaufmann.
Just to fill you in, here's part of the glowing intro by Bernard Lane:
"The political Left is unlikely to succeed in its attempt after the Christchurch Muslim massacre to reimpose politically correct taboos on immigration debates, says an international expert on the rise of right-wing populism. In the war of words after Christchurch, Left activists and Muslim firebrands [!!] have attacked conservative politicians and media outlets for supposedly arming the Australian-born accused killer with bullets of xenophobia and hate speech... 'The Left is trying to use Christchurch to delegitimate the conversation [!!] about Muslim integration and immigration - this is no more intelligent than the Right using jihadist attacks like Charlie Hebdo (in Paris in 2015) to demonise Muslims,' London-based political analyst Eric Kaufmann told The Weekend Australian.
"In his book White Shift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, he argues the success of the populist Right in the West is driven by rapid ethnic change and the white majority's fear for its identity, not by the economic misery of workers 'left behind'. He offers a surprising idea for taking the heat out of culture conflict in the West and easing polarisation in politics. Until recently, mainstream parties had followed the Left's 'anti-racist taboos' on criticising multiculturalism or immigration, thereby gifting votes to Donald Trump, Brexit and a host of parties such as One Nation, he said. With actual racism in decline [!!], the post-1960s Left had widened the definition of racism and demonised white majorities, unwittingly serving as 'a force multiplier' for the populist Right.
"Professor Kaufmann, from Birkbeck College, University of London, predicts immigration trends will see minorities outnumber whites in the US by 2050, with Australia going 'majority-minority' one or two decades later. He said it was not racist for whites, like any other ethnic group, to expect their interests to figure in the trade-offs of immigration policy. Parties such as One Nation actually made white terror attacks less likely because they served as a democratic safety valve for the angst of white majorities [!!], he said. He said there was a danger of more white terror if conservative white insecurity about immigration was forced back underground. But far-right attacks such as last month's massacre of Muslims in New Zealand were 'rare and not really on the rise'.' (Left losing migrant high ground, 6/4/19)
Not at all rare, however, are Western massacres of Muslims in the Middle East by white majority Western 'defence' forces, cheered on, or tacitly supported, by their white majority base at home, but these of course are nowhere mentioned in Kaufmann's calculus.
I'll have more to say about his thesis in my next post, but will leave you to ponder the following key extract from his book, as it appears in The Australian of April 6:
"Ethnic nationhood, which restricts citizenship to members of the majority, is clearly a non-starter. But things aren't so black and white. There is a third possibility - ethno-traditional nationhood, which values the ethnic majority as an important component of the nation alongside other groups. Ethno-traditional nationalists favour slower immigration to permit enough migrants to voluntarily assimilate into the ethnic majority, maintaining the white ethno-tradition. The point is not to assimilate all diversity but to strike a balance between vibrant minorities and an enduring white Christian tradition." (White Fright: It's not racist to be attached to one's own culture)
Jesus Christ!
To be continued...
Just to fill you in, here's part of the glowing intro by Bernard Lane:
"The political Left is unlikely to succeed in its attempt after the Christchurch Muslim massacre to reimpose politically correct taboos on immigration debates, says an international expert on the rise of right-wing populism. In the war of words after Christchurch, Left activists and Muslim firebrands [!!] have attacked conservative politicians and media outlets for supposedly arming the Australian-born accused killer with bullets of xenophobia and hate speech... 'The Left is trying to use Christchurch to delegitimate the conversation [!!] about Muslim integration and immigration - this is no more intelligent than the Right using jihadist attacks like Charlie Hebdo (in Paris in 2015) to demonise Muslims,' London-based political analyst Eric Kaufmann told The Weekend Australian.
"In his book White Shift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, he argues the success of the populist Right in the West is driven by rapid ethnic change and the white majority's fear for its identity, not by the economic misery of workers 'left behind'. He offers a surprising idea for taking the heat out of culture conflict in the West and easing polarisation in politics. Until recently, mainstream parties had followed the Left's 'anti-racist taboos' on criticising multiculturalism or immigration, thereby gifting votes to Donald Trump, Brexit and a host of parties such as One Nation, he said. With actual racism in decline [!!], the post-1960s Left had widened the definition of racism and demonised white majorities, unwittingly serving as 'a force multiplier' for the populist Right.
"Professor Kaufmann, from Birkbeck College, University of London, predicts immigration trends will see minorities outnumber whites in the US by 2050, with Australia going 'majority-minority' one or two decades later. He said it was not racist for whites, like any other ethnic group, to expect their interests to figure in the trade-offs of immigration policy. Parties such as One Nation actually made white terror attacks less likely because they served as a democratic safety valve for the angst of white majorities [!!], he said. He said there was a danger of more white terror if conservative white insecurity about immigration was forced back underground. But far-right attacks such as last month's massacre of Muslims in New Zealand were 'rare and not really on the rise'.' (Left losing migrant high ground, 6/4/19)
Not at all rare, however, are Western massacres of Muslims in the Middle East by white majority Western 'defence' forces, cheered on, or tacitly supported, by their white majority base at home, but these of course are nowhere mentioned in Kaufmann's calculus.
I'll have more to say about his thesis in my next post, but will leave you to ponder the following key extract from his book, as it appears in The Australian of April 6:
"Ethnic nationhood, which restricts citizenship to members of the majority, is clearly a non-starter. But things aren't so black and white. There is a third possibility - ethno-traditional nationhood, which values the ethnic majority as an important component of the nation alongside other groups. Ethno-traditional nationalists favour slower immigration to permit enough migrants to voluntarily assimilate into the ethnic majority, maintaining the white ethno-tradition. The point is not to assimilate all diversity but to strike a balance between vibrant minorities and an enduring white Christian tradition." (White Fright: It's not racist to be attached to one's own culture)
Jesus Christ!
To be continued...
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
The US Love Affair with Arabophobic Hate Speech
We hear a lot these days about 'hate speech', that is, to borrow from at least one definition, "speech capable of instilling or inciting hatred of, or prejudice towards, a person or group of people on a specified ground [such as] race, nationality, ethnicity, country of origin, ethno-religious identity, religion or sexuality."*
Correct me if I'm wrong but the term seems to have been largely monopolised by supporters of apartheid Israel to malign and marginalise anyone who questions not just the criminal behaviour of that entity, but the legitimacy of the Zionist project in Palestine and the ideology of political Zionism which underpins it.** The implication is that this latter group in particular - anti-Zionists - are borderline, if not actual, anti-Semites, and, ipso facto, engaged in hate speech.
By contrast, the blatant Arabophobia, which set in in the US following the creation of Israel in 1948, is generally overlooked, and rarely recognised for what it is: hate speech
By way of illustration, read this passage from Leon Uris' best-selling Zionist propaganda novel, Exodus (1958):
"[The final disaster in Arab history] was brought about by fellow Moslems as the mighty Ottomans gobbled up their lands. Five centuries of corruption and feudalism followed. A drop of water became more precious than gold or spices in the unfertile land. The merest, most meager existence was a series of tortured, heartbreaking struggles from birth to death. Without water the Arab world disintegrated into filth; unspeakable disease, illiteracy, and poverty were universal. There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. It was a constant struggle to survive. In this atmosphere cunning, treachery, murder, feuds, and jealousies became away of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders. Cruelty from brother to brother was common. In parts of the Arab world thousands of slaves were kept, and punishment for a thief was amputation of a hand, for a prostitute, amputation of ears and nose. There was little compassion from Arab to Arab. The fellaheen who lived in abysmal filth and the Bedouin whose survival was a day-to-day miracle turned to the one means of alleviating misery. They became Muslim fanatics..." (p 228)
Now read these words from the trailer of thriller/horror story director Brad Anderson's latest film, Beirut***:
"Two thousands years of revenge, vendetta, murder. Welcome to Beirut."
Nothing has changed in 60 years! Strange place, the US where trenchant criticism of Israel is deemed hate speech, but few, it seems, bat an eyelid at rampant Arabophobic hate speech.
*This definition comes from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) website. It differs, however, in one respect from other definitions of hate speech on the web (legaldictionary.net, merriam-webster.com, and dictionary.cambridge.org) in its inclusion of the term 'ethno-religious identity'. Try as I might I can only think of one group that conflates religion and ethnicity. Guess who;
**It is worth keeping in mind here Israeli anti-Zionist activist Uri Davis' distinction between Judaism as a confessional preference and Zionism as a political programme: "Judaism is not Zionism. Judaism, as a confessional preference, should be strictly an individual matter, and, generally speaking... should not be the concern of the law. Zionism, as a political programme, is a matter of public debate. As noted already... 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 individuals and 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, and who regard this programme to be a negative political programme, are anti-Zionist in the same sense that those who for many decades opposed the political programme of apartheid South Africa (which ended in 1994) were, and it is to be hoped remain, anti-apartheid." (Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (2003), pp 11-12)
***Also on this film, see my 1/8/18 post One Movie Hollywood Will Never Make.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the term seems to have been largely monopolised by supporters of apartheid Israel to malign and marginalise anyone who questions not just the criminal behaviour of that entity, but the legitimacy of the Zionist project in Palestine and the ideology of political Zionism which underpins it.** The implication is that this latter group in particular - anti-Zionists - are borderline, if not actual, anti-Semites, and, ipso facto, engaged in hate speech.
By contrast, the blatant Arabophobia, which set in in the US following the creation of Israel in 1948, is generally overlooked, and rarely recognised for what it is: hate speech
By way of illustration, read this passage from Leon Uris' best-selling Zionist propaganda novel, Exodus (1958):
"[The final disaster in Arab history] was brought about by fellow Moslems as the mighty Ottomans gobbled up their lands. Five centuries of corruption and feudalism followed. A drop of water became more precious than gold or spices in the unfertile land. The merest, most meager existence was a series of tortured, heartbreaking struggles from birth to death. Without water the Arab world disintegrated into filth; unspeakable disease, illiteracy, and poverty were universal. There was little song or laughter or joy in Arab life. It was a constant struggle to survive. In this atmosphere cunning, treachery, murder, feuds, and jealousies became away of life. The cruel realities that had gone into forming the Arab character puzzled outsiders. Cruelty from brother to brother was common. In parts of the Arab world thousands of slaves were kept, and punishment for a thief was amputation of a hand, for a prostitute, amputation of ears and nose. There was little compassion from Arab to Arab. The fellaheen who lived in abysmal filth and the Bedouin whose survival was a day-to-day miracle turned to the one means of alleviating misery. They became Muslim fanatics..." (p 228)
Now read these words from the trailer of thriller/horror story director Brad Anderson's latest film, Beirut***:
"Two thousands years of revenge, vendetta, murder. Welcome to Beirut."
Nothing has changed in 60 years! Strange place, the US where trenchant criticism of Israel is deemed hate speech, but few, it seems, bat an eyelid at rampant Arabophobic hate speech.
*This definition comes from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) website. It differs, however, in one respect from other definitions of hate speech on the web (legaldictionary.net, merriam-webster.com, and dictionary.cambridge.org) in its inclusion of the term 'ethno-religious identity'. Try as I might I can only think of one group that conflates religion and ethnicity. Guess who;
**It is worth keeping in mind here Israeli anti-Zionist activist Uri Davis' distinction between Judaism as a confessional preference and Zionism as a political programme: "Judaism is not Zionism. Judaism, as a confessional preference, should be strictly an individual matter, and, generally speaking... should not be the concern of the law. Zionism, as a political programme, is a matter of public debate. As noted already... 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 individuals and 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, and who regard this programme to be a negative political programme, are anti-Zionist in the same sense that those who for many decades opposed the political programme of apartheid South Africa (which ended in 1994) were, and it is to be hoped remain, anti-apartheid." (Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (2003), pp 11-12)
***Also on this film, see my 1/8/18 post One Movie Hollywood Will Never Make.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
USraeli Policing
Jesus Christ...
"A Georgia police chief said an officer was justified in using a Taser to stun an 87-year-old woman after she failed to obey commands to drop a knife in her hand. Relatives said Martha Al-Bishara does not speak English and was merely cutting dandelions with a kitchen knife near her home in Chatsworth, about 85 miles north of Atlanta, earlier this month. Police held her at gunpoint before bringing her to the ground with a jolt from the electrified prongs of a stun gun. She was charged with criminal trespass and obstructing an officer." (Georgia police chief defends officer who used Taser to stun grandmother, 87, Associated Press/the guardian.com, 19/8/18)
Of course that has nothing to do with this:
"Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed rejected a demand from groups affiliated with the movement for Black Lives Matter to halt Israel's training relationship with local police departments... 'I happen to believe that the Israeli police department has some of the best counterterrorism techniques in the world,' Reed insisted. 'And it benefits our police department from that longstanding relationship.' It was an interesting choice of words considering that Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organizations, as well as the UN, have repeatedly condemned Israeli forces, including the police, for a range of human rights violations, particularly for their frequent extrajudicial executions of Palestinians. It was also recently revealed that Israeli police are authorized to use lethal force as a first resort against Palestinians they suspect might throw rocks, including minors. An internal police report exposed by the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz this month revealed that Israeli Border Police in Jerusalem 'deliberately provoke Palestinians' in order to get a violent response... The Atlanta Police Department has been sending personnel to Israel since 1992, as part of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange. GILEE... sends high-ranking public safety officials to Israel for 'counterterrorism' training every year." (Atlanta mayor rejects demand to end Israel police training, Rania Khalek, electronicintifada.net, 21/7/18)
"A Georgia police chief said an officer was justified in using a Taser to stun an 87-year-old woman after she failed to obey commands to drop a knife in her hand. Relatives said Martha Al-Bishara does not speak English and was merely cutting dandelions with a kitchen knife near her home in Chatsworth, about 85 miles north of Atlanta, earlier this month. Police held her at gunpoint before bringing her to the ground with a jolt from the electrified prongs of a stun gun. She was charged with criminal trespass and obstructing an officer." (Georgia police chief defends officer who used Taser to stun grandmother, 87, Associated Press/the guardian.com, 19/8/18)
Of course that has nothing to do with this:
"Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed rejected a demand from groups affiliated with the movement for Black Lives Matter to halt Israel's training relationship with local police departments... 'I happen to believe that the Israeli police department has some of the best counterterrorism techniques in the world,' Reed insisted. 'And it benefits our police department from that longstanding relationship.' It was an interesting choice of words considering that Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organizations, as well as the UN, have repeatedly condemned Israeli forces, including the police, for a range of human rights violations, particularly for their frequent extrajudicial executions of Palestinians. It was also recently revealed that Israeli police are authorized to use lethal force as a first resort against Palestinians they suspect might throw rocks, including minors. An internal police report exposed by the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz this month revealed that Israeli Border Police in Jerusalem 'deliberately provoke Palestinians' in order to get a violent response... The Atlanta Police Department has been sending personnel to Israel since 1992, as part of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange. GILEE... sends high-ranking public safety officials to Israel for 'counterterrorism' training every year." (Atlanta mayor rejects demand to end Israel police training, Rania Khalek, electronicintifada.net, 21/7/18)
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
More Reel Bad Arabs
When was the last wild Western you saw at the movies? That's right, I can't remember either. But hey, Hollywood's still churning out wild Easterns.
The latest is called Beirut (directed by Brad Anderson), and Fairfax reviewer, Jake Wilson, weary of "youth-oriented blockbusters and Oscar-mongering prestige," has given this "human-scaled entertainment for adults" three-and-a-half stars.
First, the where and the when:
"Beirut... a period espionage thriller set against the background of Lebanon just before its 1982 war with Israel... " (Finally, a thriller for adults, The Sun-Herald, 29/7/18)
Hello? Lebanon's 1982 war with Israel?
Y'all remember that one, don't you? You know, when the Lebanese Army blitzkriegged its way to Tel Aviv, laid siege to the city, bombed and shelled it from land, sea and air for 3 long months, and then pulled back to northern Israel which it occupied until forced out by the heroic Israeli resistance in 2000?
Good one, Jake.
But no, seriously, Jake may not have his history the right way around, but he's still cool, OK, because he's (albeit dimly) aware that SOMETHING IS AMISS WITH THIS FILM:
"More shrewdly realistic than the average Hollywood political thriller, Beirut remains open to accusations of self-involvement, if not outright racism, in its privileging of an American of an American point of view. [Former American diplomat] Mason commands our sympathy throughout, while the 'foreign' characters are menacing or inscrutable. Ultimately, you might wonder if this is really a film about Middle Eastern politics at all, or if this is merely a pretext for exploring how one middle-aged white guy negotiates his midlife crisis."
But, hey, why let a little Arabophobia spoil your night out:
"Then again, is there any reason it can't be both?"
The latest is called Beirut (directed by Brad Anderson), and Fairfax reviewer, Jake Wilson, weary of "youth-oriented blockbusters and Oscar-mongering prestige," has given this "human-scaled entertainment for adults" three-and-a-half stars.
First, the where and the when:
"Beirut... a period espionage thriller set against the background of Lebanon just before its 1982 war with Israel... " (Finally, a thriller for adults, The Sun-Herald, 29/7/18)
Hello? Lebanon's 1982 war with Israel?
Y'all remember that one, don't you? You know, when the Lebanese Army blitzkriegged its way to Tel Aviv, laid siege to the city, bombed and shelled it from land, sea and air for 3 long months, and then pulled back to northern Israel which it occupied until forced out by the heroic Israeli resistance in 2000?
Good one, Jake.
But no, seriously, Jake may not have his history the right way around, but he's still cool, OK, because he's (albeit dimly) aware that SOMETHING IS AMISS WITH THIS FILM:
"More shrewdly realistic than the average Hollywood political thriller, Beirut remains open to accusations of self-involvement, if not outright racism, in its privileging of an American of an American point of view. [Former American diplomat] Mason commands our sympathy throughout, while the 'foreign' characters are menacing or inscrutable. Ultimately, you might wonder if this is really a film about Middle Eastern politics at all, or if this is merely a pretext for exploring how one middle-aged white guy negotiates his midlife crisis."
But, hey, why let a little Arabophobia spoil your night out:
"Then again, is there any reason it can't be both?"
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Israel's Megaphone of Hate
One word beloved of Zionist propagandists is 'incitement', as in 'Palestinian anti-Semitic incitement'. But look who's really doing the incitement:
"Every 46 seconds an Israeli Jew publishes a racist or inciting comment against Arabs on Facebook and other social networks, a new study finds. According to the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh), which published its Index for Racism & Incitement on Social Media last week, 60,000 active Israeli social media users published at least one racist post against Arabs in 2016. According to the study there were over 675,000 such posts in the previous year, published at a rate of one post every 46 seconds - a dangerous increase from 2015, when 280,000 racist and inciting posts were published.
"7amleh's study also focused on the correlation between remarks made by high-level government officials and the amount of inciting posts. One can see a clear increase in the number of racist posts against Arabs following every inciting remark by a member of the government. The sharpest spikes in racist posts came following remarks by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Arab citizens, following the fires that raged across Israel and the West Bank in November 2016, which leaders blamed on nationalistically-motivated arson... Another sharp increase was felt throughout the trial of Elor Azaria, an Israeli soldier who was found guilty of killing an incapacitated Palestinian in Hebron early last year. [...]
"7amleh's report was a result of repeated accusations by Israeli politicians that Palestinians take part in incitement against Israel Jews on social media. These accusations led to the arrests of Palestinian activists, often when they had committed no such crime. According to 7amleh, Israel is putting pressure on companies such as Facebook and Google to reveal data on its users so as to make it easier to track and arrest them. According to human rights organizations, over 200 criminal cases have been opened against Palestinian activists who have been accused of incitement on the internet... " (Israelis post anti-Arab racism online every 46 seconds, study finds, Rami Younis, 972mag.com, 13/2/17)
"Every 46 seconds an Israeli Jew publishes a racist or inciting comment against Arabs on Facebook and other social networks, a new study finds. According to the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh), which published its Index for Racism & Incitement on Social Media last week, 60,000 active Israeli social media users published at least one racist post against Arabs in 2016. According to the study there were over 675,000 such posts in the previous year, published at a rate of one post every 46 seconds - a dangerous increase from 2015, when 280,000 racist and inciting posts were published.
"7amleh's study also focused on the correlation between remarks made by high-level government officials and the amount of inciting posts. One can see a clear increase in the number of racist posts against Arabs following every inciting remark by a member of the government. The sharpest spikes in racist posts came following remarks by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Arab citizens, following the fires that raged across Israel and the West Bank in November 2016, which leaders blamed on nationalistically-motivated arson... Another sharp increase was felt throughout the trial of Elor Azaria, an Israeli soldier who was found guilty of killing an incapacitated Palestinian in Hebron early last year. [...]
"7amleh's report was a result of repeated accusations by Israeli politicians that Palestinians take part in incitement against Israel Jews on social media. These accusations led to the arrests of Palestinian activists, often when they had committed no such crime. According to 7amleh, Israel is putting pressure on companies such as Facebook and Google to reveal data on its users so as to make it easier to track and arrest them. According to human rights organizations, over 200 criminal cases have been opened against Palestinian activists who have been accused of incitement on the internet... " (Israelis post anti-Arab racism online every 46 seconds, study finds, Rami Younis, 972mag.com, 13/2/17)
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
His Advice & Mine
"The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 27 of those people are from second and third-generation Lebanese-Muslim background." Peter Dutton, Immigration Minister, 21/11/16
The advice I have is that of the unknown number of people who have been charged (or should have been charged) with terrorist-related offences against the indigenous inhabitants of this country, just about every one is from a first, second, third, fourth, and fifth--generation Anglo-Christian background.
The advice I have is that of the unknown number of people who have been charged (or should have been charged) with terrorist-related offences against the indigenous inhabitants of this country, just about every one is from a first, second, third, fourth, and fifth--generation Anglo-Christian background.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Land of the Not Free & Home of the Not Brave
Michael Singh's Valentino's Ghost: Why We Hate Arabs (2015) "is an epic documentary that resituates the whole question of anti-Arab/-Muslim stereotyping as a matter of the 'special relationship' between the US and Israel... " (Valentino's ghost makes comeback after 4 years of suppression, Terri Ginsberg, mondoweiss.net, 27/12/15 )
Which explains why it's encountering censorship in USrael, land of the not free and home of the not brave:
"... perhaps the most troubling instance of the film's censorship was evidenced by Singh's encounter with PBS's [Public Broadcasting Service] David Fanning... Singh simultaneously transcribed one of his revealing telephone conversations with Fanning...
FANNING: I agree with your premise and your arguments, but I will do everything I can to block the broadcast of your film on WGBH or in fact any other PBS affiliate in the country.
SINGH: Why is that?
FANNING: Because it'll piss off my rich Jewish friends.
SINGH: So this huge subject will remain under the rug?
FANNING: It's not a huge subject. You can cover your premise in about 4 minutes. What will you do for the next 50 minutes?
SINGH: I actually have enough material for a 3-hour miniseries.
FANNING: How are you going to fund that?
SINGH: I don't know. Get grants.
FANNING: And if you get Arab money, I'm going to find you out.
SINGH: What about Holocaust films made with Israeli money?
FANNING: That's OK. Not a problem.
SINGH: That's a double-standard.
FANNING: Yup. It's a double standard, and you're going to have to get used to it.
SINGH: That's hypocritical
FANNING: Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
SINGH: That's the opposite of PBS's mission. In fact, it is a violation of their charter for the money people to influence filmmakers editorially.
FANNING: That's the way it is, and if you quote me, I'll deny it.
Which explains why it's encountering censorship in USrael, land of the not free and home of the not brave:
"... perhaps the most troubling instance of the film's censorship was evidenced by Singh's encounter with PBS's [Public Broadcasting Service] David Fanning... Singh simultaneously transcribed one of his revealing telephone conversations with Fanning...
FANNING: I agree with your premise and your arguments, but I will do everything I can to block the broadcast of your film on WGBH or in fact any other PBS affiliate in the country.
SINGH: Why is that?
FANNING: Because it'll piss off my rich Jewish friends.
SINGH: So this huge subject will remain under the rug?
FANNING: It's not a huge subject. You can cover your premise in about 4 minutes. What will you do for the next 50 minutes?
SINGH: I actually have enough material for a 3-hour miniseries.
FANNING: How are you going to fund that?
SINGH: I don't know. Get grants.
FANNING: And if you get Arab money, I'm going to find you out.
SINGH: What about Holocaust films made with Israeli money?
FANNING: That's OK. Not a problem.
SINGH: That's a double-standard.
FANNING: Yup. It's a double standard, and you're going to have to get used to it.
SINGH: That's hypocritical
FANNING: Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
SINGH: That's the opposite of PBS's mission. In fact, it is a violation of their charter for the money people to influence filmmakers editorially.
FANNING: That's the way it is, and if you quote me, I'll deny it.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
A Leigh Sales Pitch for Israel 1
On Thursday night, the 7.30 Report's Leigh Sales interviewed Gideon Raff, perpetrator of the Israeli television series, Prisoners of War (screened on SBS in 2013).*
What can I say? It was basically a Sales pitch - for Israel.
I'm going to devote two posts to it. For the first, I merely wish to vent on the following gobsmacker by Raff, which, need I say, went completely unremarked by Sales:
"I found that the term prisoners of war actually applies to all of [the Israeli prisoner's family], and maybe even to all of us as a country in Israel."
Oh, FFS... and your jailers are?
So fanatical Israeli colons steal someone else's land, destroy their homes, drive most of them out into permanent exile, and occupy, murder, imprison and torture the rest on a daily basis... and Raff's telling us it's his mob who are doing it tough...?!
Just imagine someone out there trying to get the ABC or SBS to screen a television series on imprisoned Palestinians. (Yes, I know it's a tautology.):
Palestinians, you say? We'd love too, but...
Well, let's say that somewhere out there, in some parallel world, on some parallel ABC or SBS, something called Palestinian Prisoners of Israeli Terrorism & Apartheid - there are around 6,000 at the moment - actually gets a run, one of its prisoners could perhaps be someone like... Rasmea Odeh.**
Never heard of her?
OK, here's a new poem about her by the greatest activist singer-songwriter of our time, David Rovics.*** Says it all really:
Rasmea was born in Palestine a year before she had to flee
Her family left their home at gunpoint - since then she's been a refugee
She lived a hard life in the camps, her dad had to move away
Try to support his family from way out in Michigan, USA
When Rasmea was first arrested, not much older than a kid
There had been a bombing, and the next thing the authorities did
Was round up the whole neighborhood - 500 women, children and men
They tortured Rasmea - they only stopped when
They extracted their confession - she did what she had to do
Having no idea when her ordeal would be through
After 10 years in a dungeon, in the land of stolen fates
She was sent to Jordan, from where she moved to the United States
Rasmea made a life here helping refugees like her
Adapting to their new lives and the people they once were
Until her home was raided because she once checked the wrong box
For not mentioning the confession produced by the electro-shocks
Again Rasmea was arrested - once again stripped of citizenship
Some drink deeply of their freedom - some only get a little sip
The fact that she was tortured was not considered of import
Only Israeli military evidence was recognized by the American court
Now they say they will deport her from the city on the lake
They say that 20 years ago she made a technical mistake
They say Rasmea is a terrorist, but I'd say it would seem
Rasmea Odeh is the victim of a terrorist regime
Coming up: A Leigh Sales Pitch for Israel 2
[*See my 21/1/13 post 'Prisoners of War': Those Bloody Arabs Again!;**Visit justice4rasmea.org & the Free Rasmea Now FB page; ***See my 20/6/12 post Holy Land 5.]
What can I say? It was basically a Sales pitch - for Israel.
I'm going to devote two posts to it. For the first, I merely wish to vent on the following gobsmacker by Raff, which, need I say, went completely unremarked by Sales:
"I found that the term prisoners of war actually applies to all of [the Israeli prisoner's family], and maybe even to all of us as a country in Israel."
Oh, FFS... and your jailers are?
So fanatical Israeli colons steal someone else's land, destroy their homes, drive most of them out into permanent exile, and occupy, murder, imprison and torture the rest on a daily basis... and Raff's telling us it's his mob who are doing it tough...?!
Just imagine someone out there trying to get the ABC or SBS to screen a television series on imprisoned Palestinians. (Yes, I know it's a tautology.):
Palestinians, you say? We'd love too, but...
Well, let's say that somewhere out there, in some parallel world, on some parallel ABC or SBS, something called Palestinian Prisoners of Israeli Terrorism & Apartheid - there are around 6,000 at the moment - actually gets a run, one of its prisoners could perhaps be someone like... Rasmea Odeh.**
Never heard of her?
OK, here's a new poem about her by the greatest activist singer-songwriter of our time, David Rovics.*** Says it all really:
Rasmea was born in Palestine a year before she had to flee
Her family left their home at gunpoint - since then she's been a refugee
She lived a hard life in the camps, her dad had to move away
Try to support his family from way out in Michigan, USA
When Rasmea was first arrested, not much older than a kid
There had been a bombing, and the next thing the authorities did
Was round up the whole neighborhood - 500 women, children and men
They tortured Rasmea - they only stopped when
They extracted their confession - she did what she had to do
Having no idea when her ordeal would be through
After 10 years in a dungeon, in the land of stolen fates
She was sent to Jordan, from where she moved to the United States
Rasmea made a life here helping refugees like her
Adapting to their new lives and the people they once were
Until her home was raided because she once checked the wrong box
For not mentioning the confession produced by the electro-shocks
Again Rasmea was arrested - once again stripped of citizenship
Some drink deeply of their freedom - some only get a little sip
The fact that she was tortured was not considered of import
Only Israeli military evidence was recognized by the American court
Now they say they will deport her from the city on the lake
They say that 20 years ago she made a technical mistake
They say Rasmea is a terrorist, but I'd say it would seem
Rasmea Odeh is the victim of a terrorist regime
Coming up: A Leigh Sales Pitch for Israel 2
[*See my 21/1/13 post 'Prisoners of War': Those Bloody Arabs Again!;**Visit justice4rasmea.org & the Free Rasmea Now FB page; ***See my 20/6/12 post Holy Land 5.]
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Go Back To Where You Came From
"'I just want to live a respectable life here as a human; I just say, welcome us,' Ammar Mershed says in one of the most moving scenes in the new series of the award-winning Go Back to Where You Came From... Mershed is a Palestinian refugee from Iraq, encountered by some of the opinionated group early in the first episode. He's a deeply sincere but jolly and hospitable man now working as a teacher's aide. His family has settled in western Sydney's Bankstown, part of the world's 5 million stateless Palestinians." (The turnaround, First Watch, Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian Review, 25/7/15)
Graeme Blundell's sympathetic sketch of Palestinian refugee Ammar Mershed is most unusual for a Murdoch rag. What a pity it isn't longer.
If I may take the liberty of adding the missing details:
Back in 1948, the Mershed family was driven out of their Palestinian homeland by the fanatical forces of Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) and never allowed back. In those grim days, if any Palestinian refugees were caught by JSIL gunmen trying to return to their homes and lands, they were labelled 'infiltrators' and simply shot out of hand. (Ditto today, 67 years later.) The family found their way, somehow, to Iraq, where Ammar was born.
Then in 2003, Ammar, now with a family of his own, was displaced yet again after a cabal of JSIL-linked US neocons, having risen to giddy prominence in the administration of George W. Bush, persuaded that dumbarse and his cronies that Iraq should be next on his to-do list after Afghanistan. And so Ammar and his family found themselves once more on the run.
Somehow they ended up in Australia, where occasionally he'd encounter racist bogans who'd tell him to go back where he came from. But what could he do? He couldn't tell them that he came from Palestine and would give his right arm to go back there if he could, because he knew that the idea of a refugee actually wanting to go back to where he came from was simply too hard for these mental defectives to understand. They'd just think he was nuts, or trying to be funny, and get even more aggro. And anyway, some of them had actually taken to waving JSIL flags at Reclaim Australia rallies.
So whenever these grubs crossed his path and shot their mouths off, Ammar had little choice but to grin and bear it, retreat to the safety of his public housing digs in Bankstown, focus on the little map of Palestine, lovingly carved from the wood of an olive tree, which hung on his living room wall, and say to himself: Next year in Jerusalem.
Graeme Blundell's sympathetic sketch of Palestinian refugee Ammar Mershed is most unusual for a Murdoch rag. What a pity it isn't longer.
If I may take the liberty of adding the missing details:
Back in 1948, the Mershed family was driven out of their Palestinian homeland by the fanatical forces of Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) and never allowed back. In those grim days, if any Palestinian refugees were caught by JSIL gunmen trying to return to their homes and lands, they were labelled 'infiltrators' and simply shot out of hand. (Ditto today, 67 years later.) The family found their way, somehow, to Iraq, where Ammar was born.
Then in 2003, Ammar, now with a family of his own, was displaced yet again after a cabal of JSIL-linked US neocons, having risen to giddy prominence in the administration of George W. Bush, persuaded that dumbarse and his cronies that Iraq should be next on his to-do list after Afghanistan. And so Ammar and his family found themselves once more on the run.
Somehow they ended up in Australia, where occasionally he'd encounter racist bogans who'd tell him to go back where he came from. But what could he do? He couldn't tell them that he came from Palestine and would give his right arm to go back there if he could, because he knew that the idea of a refugee actually wanting to go back to where he came from was simply too hard for these mental defectives to understand. They'd just think he was nuts, or trying to be funny, and get even more aggro. And anyway, some of them had actually taken to waving JSIL flags at Reclaim Australia rallies.
So whenever these grubs crossed his path and shot their mouths off, Ammar had little choice but to grin and bear it, retreat to the safety of his public housing digs in Bankstown, focus on the little map of Palestine, lovingly carved from the wood of an olive tree, which hung on his living room wall, and say to himself: Next year in Jerusalem.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
From Leeton to Libya
The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday led with a report on the accused killer of Leeton High school teacher Stephanie Scott. In it we learned that the accused:
"[Vincent] Stanford maintained a secret online life, hiding behind fantasy characters to indulge his obsession with computer games, violent videos and neo-Nazi propaganda." (Secret life of accused killer, Rachel Olding & Nick Ralston, 14/4/15)
None of which, as you'd expect in a case such as this, would have come as much of a surprise. One item, however, further into the piece, did. I've rendered it here in bold:
"In between the dozens of Stargate video clips that he 'liked' on YouTube, he also liked pro-Nazi clips, clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and clips about the 2011 military science fiction shooter game, Gears of War 3."
Clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi... Really?
So, taking these words at face value, we're expected to believe that, in addition to being a closet neo-Nazi obsessed with tales of "violent galactic warfare," Stanford had a soft spot for Colonel Gaddafi, as opposed to, say, the NATO air raids that brought his regime down and sealed his fate.
Are we seriously to believe that he took time out from "indulging" his aforementioned "obsessions" to admire the fact that Libya under Gaddafi ranked No. 1 in Africa on the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index in 2010? Or is it more likely that he merely 'liked' the Israeli-made video parody of Gaddafi that went viral in 2011?*
If so, who is responsible for the words "supporting Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi," which distort the truth of the matter by introducing into it an element of gratuitous Arabophobia?
[* The so-called 'Zenga Zenga Song'. See my 14/3/15 post If Only We Had Gaddafi to Kick Around Some More.]
"[Vincent] Stanford maintained a secret online life, hiding behind fantasy characters to indulge his obsession with computer games, violent videos and neo-Nazi propaganda." (Secret life of accused killer, Rachel Olding & Nick Ralston, 14/4/15)
None of which, as you'd expect in a case such as this, would have come as much of a surprise. One item, however, further into the piece, did. I've rendered it here in bold:
"In between the dozens of Stargate video clips that he 'liked' on YouTube, he also liked pro-Nazi clips, clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and clips about the 2011 military science fiction shooter game, Gears of War 3."
Clips supporting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi... Really?
So, taking these words at face value, we're expected to believe that, in addition to being a closet neo-Nazi obsessed with tales of "violent galactic warfare," Stanford had a soft spot for Colonel Gaddafi, as opposed to, say, the NATO air raids that brought his regime down and sealed his fate.
Are we seriously to believe that he took time out from "indulging" his aforementioned "obsessions" to admire the fact that Libya under Gaddafi ranked No. 1 in Africa on the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index in 2010? Or is it more likely that he merely 'liked' the Israeli-made video parody of Gaddafi that went viral in 2011?*
If so, who is responsible for the words "supporting Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi," which distort the truth of the matter by introducing into it an element of gratuitous Arabophobia?
[* The so-called 'Zenga Zenga Song'. See my 14/3/15 post If Only We Had Gaddafi to Kick Around Some More.]
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Religion or Race?
In arguing against the tendency of Islamophobes to claim that because Islam is a religion they can't, therefore, be considered racists, Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, unfortunately puts his foot in it with this:
"The distinction between race and religion is a complex one... the two can overlap. For example, we consider anti-Semitism to involve a form of racism, even though Jewishness involves a religious identity. This is because Jewishness also has an ethnic character; Jews consider themselves to be a people." (Distinction between religion and race should not make bigotry respectable, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/11/14)
Jewishness has an ethnic character?
Says who?
Jews consider themselves to be a people.
Which Jews?
The truth is that anti-Semites invariably consider Jews to be 'a people', as do political Zionists. To the extent that both believe in biology as the key determinant of a person's identity, and discriminate against others on that basis, both exhibit racism.
As Shlomo Sand explains:
"The State of Israel defines me as a Jew, not because I express myself in a Jewish language, hum Jewish songs, eat Jewish food, write Jewish books or carry out any Jewish activity. I am classified as a Jew because this state, after having researched my origins, has decided that I was born of a Jewish mother, herself Jewish because my grandmother was likewise, thanks to (or because of) my great-grandmother, and so on through the chain of generations until the dawn of time. If chance should have had it that only my father was considered a Jew, while in the eyes of Israeli law my mother was 'non-Jewish', I would have been registered as an Austrian..." (How I Stopped Being a Jew, 2014, p 2)
And where does this biological determinist nonsense lead? Shlomo Sand again:
"There is a close link between the identification of Jews as an ethnos or eternal race-people, and the politics of Israel towards those of its citizens who are viewed as non-Jews, as well as towards immigrant workers from distant lands and, clearly, towards its neighbours, deprived of rights and subject for nearly 50 years to a regime of occupation. It is hard to deny a glaring reality: the development of an essentialist, non-religious identity encourages the perpetuation of ethnocentric, racist or quasi-racist positions, both in Israel and abroad." (p 7)
As for Islamophobes, scratch one and you'll invariably find an Arabophobe underneath.
"The distinction between race and religion is a complex one... the two can overlap. For example, we consider anti-Semitism to involve a form of racism, even though Jewishness involves a religious identity. This is because Jewishness also has an ethnic character; Jews consider themselves to be a people." (Distinction between religion and race should not make bigotry respectable, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/11/14)
Jewishness has an ethnic character?
Says who?
Jews consider themselves to be a people.
Which Jews?
The truth is that anti-Semites invariably consider Jews to be 'a people', as do political Zionists. To the extent that both believe in biology as the key determinant of a person's identity, and discriminate against others on that basis, both exhibit racism.
As Shlomo Sand explains:
"The State of Israel defines me as a Jew, not because I express myself in a Jewish language, hum Jewish songs, eat Jewish food, write Jewish books or carry out any Jewish activity. I am classified as a Jew because this state, after having researched my origins, has decided that I was born of a Jewish mother, herself Jewish because my grandmother was likewise, thanks to (or because of) my great-grandmother, and so on through the chain of generations until the dawn of time. If chance should have had it that only my father was considered a Jew, while in the eyes of Israeli law my mother was 'non-Jewish', I would have been registered as an Austrian..." (How I Stopped Being a Jew, 2014, p 2)
And where does this biological determinist nonsense lead? Shlomo Sand again:
"There is a close link between the identification of Jews as an ethnos or eternal race-people, and the politics of Israel towards those of its citizens who are viewed as non-Jews, as well as towards immigrant workers from distant lands and, clearly, towards its neighbours, deprived of rights and subject for nearly 50 years to a regime of occupation. It is hard to deny a glaring reality: the development of an essentialist, non-religious identity encourages the perpetuation of ethnocentric, racist or quasi-racist positions, both in Israel and abroad." (p 7)
As for Islamophobes, scratch one and you'll invariably find an Arabophobe underneath.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Israeli 'Democracy'
The Sydney Morning Herald's international editor, Peter Hartcher, is reliably shallow on the subject of the Middle East:
"One measure of [autocratic Arab rulers'] success was that while the number of democracies in the world trebled in the 30 years to 2005, none of the new democracies was in the Middle East, according to Freedom House." (Oppressed Arabs waiting for spring, 16/9/14)
Of course, you wouldn't expect Hartcher, a twice-rambammed journalist (2009/2011), to question Israel's much-trumpeted 'democracy'.
That's why the following perspective, by Israeli-Australian political scientist Marcelo Svirsky, is so useful. It comes from his fascinating new book, After Israel: Towards Cultural Transformation:
"Ask any political scientist... to choose just one principle or practice as the litmus test of democracy. The overwhelming majority will say fair elections... This wide consensus is reflected, for instance, in the way in which popular empirical indices measure the presence and depth of democracy. Freedom House places the electoral process as one of its major categories for rating democracies... The Economist Intelligence Unit's 'Democracy Index'... also favours in its calculation of the index the qualities of the electoral system... This is not the place to discuss the extreme bias of these organisations because of the way in which they construct their methods. These are fundamentally questionable mainly because they compare regimes with a particular image of democracy consistent with empire's neoliberal values and interests. In their ideological constitutive assumptions and methods, these empirical systems of measurement fail to rank countries such as Cuba or Venezuela appropriately, while at the same time they are blind to the different variables that should be taken into account when assessing regimes such as Israel's... How Western 'democracy indices' manage to avoid measuring the fact that for nearly half a century Israel has held under military occupation about 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, has kept Gazans under siege since 2007, and discriminates against its 1.6 million Palestinians by ethnocratic means - this is a wonder that defies reason." (pp 181-82)
"One measure of [autocratic Arab rulers'] success was that while the number of democracies in the world trebled in the 30 years to 2005, none of the new democracies was in the Middle East, according to Freedom House." (Oppressed Arabs waiting for spring, 16/9/14)
Of course, you wouldn't expect Hartcher, a twice-rambammed journalist (2009/2011), to question Israel's much-trumpeted 'democracy'.
That's why the following perspective, by Israeli-Australian political scientist Marcelo Svirsky, is so useful. It comes from his fascinating new book, After Israel: Towards Cultural Transformation:
"Ask any political scientist... to choose just one principle or practice as the litmus test of democracy. The overwhelming majority will say fair elections... This wide consensus is reflected, for instance, in the way in which popular empirical indices measure the presence and depth of democracy. Freedom House places the electoral process as one of its major categories for rating democracies... The Economist Intelligence Unit's 'Democracy Index'... also favours in its calculation of the index the qualities of the electoral system... This is not the place to discuss the extreme bias of these organisations because of the way in which they construct their methods. These are fundamentally questionable mainly because they compare regimes with a particular image of democracy consistent with empire's neoliberal values and interests. In their ideological constitutive assumptions and methods, these empirical systems of measurement fail to rank countries such as Cuba or Venezuela appropriately, while at the same time they are blind to the different variables that should be taken into account when assessing regimes such as Israel's... How Western 'democracy indices' manage to avoid measuring the fact that for nearly half a century Israel has held under military occupation about 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, has kept Gazans under siege since 2007, and discriminates against its 1.6 million Palestinians by ethnocratic means - this is a wonder that defies reason." (pp 181-82)
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
J'Accuse
One of the most appalling Arabophobic/Islamophobic/Ziophilic so-called opinion pieces ever to appear in the Australian press (and that includes the Murdoch press!), has resulted in the letters editor of the offending paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, printing just one (1) critical letter in response, and that from a person of Arab background. I have little doubt too that that was severely edited. (There was another, one-sentence letter, of little substance.)
The Arabophobic etc I refer to is of course that by Herald calumnist (no spelling mistake here) Paul Sheehan, the subject of Monday's post.
The key question here is this: Were there any other critical responses?
If so, why did the letters editor, given the opinion editor's appalling lapse in allowing Sheehan's poison onto the opinion pages in the first place, not at least have the decency to print a number of critical responses?
If not, what does the absence of any critical response to Sheehan's toxic emission from Herald readers, apart from Mr Kazak, tell us about the readership of the paper? That they found nothing of any offence in it or its equally appalling graphic? That, God forbid, they even agreed with it? In which case, one can only ask: where the hell is this society of ours heading?
Here is Ali Kazak's lone letter:
"Paul Sheehan still thinks Muslims are under his bed ('Arab spring yields to Muslim winter' January 6). He does not mention the fact the deplorable sectarian conflict we are witnessing in Iraq is the result of the war against Iraq launched by America and its allies, including Australia, nor did he mention the explosives and car bombs are also blowing up mosques and killing Muslims, so what is the surprise about the blowing up of churches and synagogues as well? No one is immune from sectarianism.
"Sheehan's admiration for Israel is making him blind to the facts of the Middle East and to Israel's Jewish extremism, gross violations of human rights and war crimes."
The Arabophobic etc I refer to is of course that by Herald calumnist (no spelling mistake here) Paul Sheehan, the subject of Monday's post.
The key question here is this: Were there any other critical responses?
If so, why did the letters editor, given the opinion editor's appalling lapse in allowing Sheehan's poison onto the opinion pages in the first place, not at least have the decency to print a number of critical responses?
If not, what does the absence of any critical response to Sheehan's toxic emission from Herald readers, apart from Mr Kazak, tell us about the readership of the paper? That they found nothing of any offence in it or its equally appalling graphic? That, God forbid, they even agreed with it? In which case, one can only ask: where the hell is this society of ours heading?
Here is Ali Kazak's lone letter:
"Paul Sheehan still thinks Muslims are under his bed ('Arab spring yields to Muslim winter' January 6). He does not mention the fact the deplorable sectarian conflict we are witnessing in Iraq is the result of the war against Iraq launched by America and its allies, including Australia, nor did he mention the explosives and car bombs are also blowing up mosques and killing Muslims, so what is the surprise about the blowing up of churches and synagogues as well? No one is immune from sectarianism.
"Sheehan's admiration for Israel is making him blind to the facts of the Middle East and to Israel's Jewish extremism, gross violations of human rights and war crimes."
Monday, January 6, 2014
Paul Sheehan Dishes It Up
Here's celebrity chef Paul Sheehan's true-and-tried recipe for old-fashioned Arabophobic/ Islamophobic stew.*
It's so easy, anyone can do it! All you need do is chuck a teaspoon each of the following fresh ingredients into a large pot of bile water, stir vigorously, and bring to the boil:
Car-torchings - France, Muslim
Armed takeover of city - Iraq, Muslim
Attacks on churches - Iraq, Muslim
Car bomb - Lebanon, Muslim
Sunni Muslim fundies vs Shia Muslim fundies, Syria
Taliban resurgence - Afghanistan, Muslim
Violence - Egypt, Muslim
Armed militias - Libya, Muslim
Rebels - Central African Republic, Muslim
Hotel bombing - Somalia, Muslim
Nukes - Iran, Muslim
Missiles - Hezbollah, Muslim
Then add lashings of Israeli propaganda:
"'We have entered a new era of chaos, the Arab Spring has given way to the Muslim winter,' Israel's Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said during a recent visit to Sydney. 'The Arab world has never been more unstable. The Muslim winter is here to stay.' The facts support him. Israel is surrounded by repression, dysfunction, stagnation, medievalism and open war among Muslim populations."
And the latest in HOT Israeli chilis ('Actually, these HOT Israeli varieties have a decidedly aphrodisiac effect on me': Paul)
"Putting to one side [Bennett's] ardent Zionism, there are simply no politicians in Australia with a resume like his: former commando in the Israeli Defence Forces; still a major in the reserves; a law degree from Hebrew University; self-made multi-millionaire after founding two cyber security companies; the former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu; the founder of The Jewish Home party that won 12 seats at the last election. He is aged just 41."
Bulk up the brew with bucketfuls of Israeli hysteria and hype, courtesy of The Jerusalem Post:
"'[I]nexplicably... we see... the surreal spectacle of the relentless advance of a grotesque two-state juggernaut of failed formulae and disproven dogma, undeterred by the death and destruction left strewn in its wake, edging ever-closer towards its inevitable destination of catastrophe and chaos...'" aka the 'peace process'.
"'Israel could soon be facing the daunting prospect of a vast radicalised Islamist expanse stretching from Iran westward, pressing on its eastern frontier. Whether that frontier is the Jordan Valley or the indefensible 'Auschwitz' pre-1967 lines is a matter of life or death for Israel and Israelis'."
Chuck in - why not? - a bomb explosion in Prague and a death sentence in Gaza - no, not the Israeli variety - it's all grist to the (propaganda) mill.
Blend the above until it smells just right - say, like a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli phosphorus bomb or two have just been dropped on it, or maybe a Cronulla Beach pogrom.
Finally, top with the following gormless question and apropos-of-absolutely-nothing statement: "What does all this mean? The peace process is a facade."
Serve across two (2) Herald opinion pages and top with humongous Michael Mucci** graphic of a swarthy, frowning face wrapped in Palestinian keffiyeh and an arm brandishing a Kalashnikov submachine gun mysteriously emerging from a cloud.
Enjoy, bogans!
[*Arab spring yields to Muslim winter, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/1/14; ** One of Michael's listed "passions," you'll be pleased to know, is "The promotion of Human Rights through the visual arts," michaelmucci.com]
It's so easy, anyone can do it! All you need do is chuck a teaspoon each of the following fresh ingredients into a large pot of bile water, stir vigorously, and bring to the boil:
Car-torchings - France, Muslim
Armed takeover of city - Iraq, Muslim
Attacks on churches - Iraq, Muslim
Car bomb - Lebanon, Muslim
Sunni Muslim fundies vs Shia Muslim fundies, Syria
Taliban resurgence - Afghanistan, Muslim
Violence - Egypt, Muslim
Armed militias - Libya, Muslim
Rebels - Central African Republic, Muslim
Hotel bombing - Somalia, Muslim
Nukes - Iran, Muslim
Missiles - Hezbollah, Muslim
Then add lashings of Israeli propaganda:
"'We have entered a new era of chaos, the Arab Spring has given way to the Muslim winter,' Israel's Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said during a recent visit to Sydney. 'The Arab world has never been more unstable. The Muslim winter is here to stay.' The facts support him. Israel is surrounded by repression, dysfunction, stagnation, medievalism and open war among Muslim populations."
And the latest in HOT Israeli chilis ('Actually, these HOT Israeli varieties have a decidedly aphrodisiac effect on me': Paul)
"Putting to one side [Bennett's] ardent Zionism, there are simply no politicians in Australia with a resume like his: former commando in the Israeli Defence Forces; still a major in the reserves; a law degree from Hebrew University; self-made multi-millionaire after founding two cyber security companies; the former chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu; the founder of The Jewish Home party that won 12 seats at the last election. He is aged just 41."
Bulk up the brew with bucketfuls of Israeli hysteria and hype, courtesy of The Jerusalem Post:
"'[I]nexplicably... we see... the surreal spectacle of the relentless advance of a grotesque two-state juggernaut of failed formulae and disproven dogma, undeterred by the death and destruction left strewn in its wake, edging ever-closer towards its inevitable destination of catastrophe and chaos...'" aka the 'peace process'.
"'Israel could soon be facing the daunting prospect of a vast radicalised Islamist expanse stretching from Iran westward, pressing on its eastern frontier. Whether that frontier is the Jordan Valley or the indefensible 'Auschwitz' pre-1967 lines is a matter of life or death for Israel and Israelis'."
Chuck in - why not? - a bomb explosion in Prague and a death sentence in Gaza - no, not the Israeli variety - it's all grist to the (propaganda) mill.
Blend the above until it smells just right - say, like a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli phosphorus bomb or two have just been dropped on it, or maybe a Cronulla Beach pogrom.
Finally, top with the following gormless question and apropos-of-absolutely-nothing statement: "What does all this mean? The peace process is a facade."
Serve across two (2) Herald opinion pages and top with humongous Michael Mucci** graphic of a swarthy, frowning face wrapped in Palestinian keffiyeh and an arm brandishing a Kalashnikov submachine gun mysteriously emerging from a cloud.
Enjoy, bogans!
[*Arab spring yields to Muslim winter, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/1/14; ** One of Michael's listed "passions," you'll be pleased to know, is "The promotion of Human Rights through the visual arts," michaelmucci.com]
Saturday, April 20, 2013
The Saudi Marathon Man
by Amy Davidson
The New Yorker, 17/4/13
"A 20-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn't alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and 3 were killed. But he was the only one who, while in hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in 'a startling show of force', as his fellow tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a 'phalanx' of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for 5 hours ('I was scared') before coming out to say that he didn't think his friend was someone who'd plant a bomb - that he was a nice guy who liked sports. 'Let me go to school, dude,' the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn't been living with a killer.
"Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man's name tweeted out, attached to the word 'suspect'? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction - so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. 'Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,' President Obama said. 'They helped one another, consoled one another,' Cameron Ortiz, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then 'tackled' him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.
"What made them suspect him? He was running - so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb - as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead - a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange.
"What happened next didn't take long. 'Investigators have a suspect - a Saudi Arabian national - in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings.' That's the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. the 'Saudi suspect' - still faceless - suddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who weren't saying much of anything, disputed the report - sort of. 'Honestly, I don't know where they're getting their information from, but it didn't come from us,' a police spokesman told TPM. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. 'Person of interest' became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs website, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant 'sword'. At an evening press conference, Ed Davis, the police commissioner, said that no suspect was in custody. But that was about when the dogs were in the apartment building in Revere - an inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions.
"'There must have been enough evidence to keep him there,' Andrew Napolitano said on 'Fox & Friends' - 'there' being the hospital. 'They must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,' Steve Doocy interjected. 'If he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?' Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be 'something' - maybe he appeared 'deceitful'. As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some 'racial profiling', but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: 'Was he a real student, or was that a front?'), she asked, 'What's the story on his ability to lawyer up?'
"By Tuesday afternoon, the fever had broken. Report after report said that he was a witness, not a suspect. 'He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,' a 'US official' told CNN. (So were a lot of people at the marathon.) Even Fox News reported that he'd been 'ruled out'. At a press conference, Governor Deval Patrick spoke, not so obliquely, about being careful not to treat 'categories of people in uncharitable ways.'
"We don't know yet who did this. 'The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,' Richard Deslauriers of the FBI said early Thursday evening. In a minute, with a claim of responsibility, our expectations could be scrambled. The bombing could, for all we know, be the work of a Saudi man - or an American or an Icelandic or a person from any nation you can think of. It still won't mean that this Saudi man can be treated the way he was, or that people who love him might have had to find out that a bomb had hit him when his name popped up on the Web as a suspect in custody. It is at these moments that we need to be most careful, not least.'
"It might be comforting to think of this as a blip, an aberration, something that will be forgotten tomorrow - if not by this young man. There are people at Guantanamo who have also been cleared by our own government, and are still there. A new report on the legacy of torture after 9/11, released Tuesday, is a well-timed admonition. The FBI said they would 'go to the ends of the earth' to get the Boston perpetrators. One wants them to be able to go with their heads held high.
"'If you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil - that's it. Selflessly. Compassionately. Unafraid,' President Obama said. That was mostly true on Monday; a terrible day when an 8-year-old boy was killed, his sister maimed, two others dead, and many more in critical condition. And yet, when there was so much to to fear that we were so brave about, there was panic about a wounded man barely out of his teens who needed help. We get so close to all that Obama described. What's missing? Is it humility?"
The New Yorker, 17/4/13
"A 20-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn't alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and 3 were killed. But he was the only one who, while in hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in 'a startling show of force', as his fellow tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a 'phalanx' of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for 5 hours ('I was scared') before coming out to say that he didn't think his friend was someone who'd plant a bomb - that he was a nice guy who liked sports. 'Let me go to school, dude,' the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn't been living with a killer.
"Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man's name tweeted out, attached to the word 'suspect'? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction - so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. 'Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,' President Obama said. 'They helped one another, consoled one another,' Cameron Ortiz, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then 'tackled' him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.
"What made them suspect him? He was running - so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb - as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead - a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange.
"What happened next didn't take long. 'Investigators have a suspect - a Saudi Arabian national - in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings.' That's the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. the 'Saudi suspect' - still faceless - suddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who weren't saying much of anything, disputed the report - sort of. 'Honestly, I don't know where they're getting their information from, but it didn't come from us,' a police spokesman told TPM. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. 'Person of interest' became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs website, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant 'sword'. At an evening press conference, Ed Davis, the police commissioner, said that no suspect was in custody. But that was about when the dogs were in the apartment building in Revere - an inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions.
"'There must have been enough evidence to keep him there,' Andrew Napolitano said on 'Fox & Friends' - 'there' being the hospital. 'They must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,' Steve Doocy interjected. 'If he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?' Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be 'something' - maybe he appeared 'deceitful'. As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some 'racial profiling', but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: 'Was he a real student, or was that a front?'), she asked, 'What's the story on his ability to lawyer up?'
"By Tuesday afternoon, the fever had broken. Report after report said that he was a witness, not a suspect. 'He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,' a 'US official' told CNN. (So were a lot of people at the marathon.) Even Fox News reported that he'd been 'ruled out'. At a press conference, Governor Deval Patrick spoke, not so obliquely, about being careful not to treat 'categories of people in uncharitable ways.'
"We don't know yet who did this. 'The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,' Richard Deslauriers of the FBI said early Thursday evening. In a minute, with a claim of responsibility, our expectations could be scrambled. The bombing could, for all we know, be the work of a Saudi man - or an American or an Icelandic or a person from any nation you can think of. It still won't mean that this Saudi man can be treated the way he was, or that people who love him might have had to find out that a bomb had hit him when his name popped up on the Web as a suspect in custody. It is at these moments that we need to be most careful, not least.'
"It might be comforting to think of this as a blip, an aberration, something that will be forgotten tomorrow - if not by this young man. There are people at Guantanamo who have also been cleared by our own government, and are still there. A new report on the legacy of torture after 9/11, released Tuesday, is a well-timed admonition. The FBI said they would 'go to the ends of the earth' to get the Boston perpetrators. One wants them to be able to go with their heads held high.
"'If you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil - that's it. Selflessly. Compassionately. Unafraid,' President Obama said. That was mostly true on Monday; a terrible day when an 8-year-old boy was killed, his sister maimed, two others dead, and many more in critical condition. And yet, when there was so much to to fear that we were so brave about, there was panic about a wounded man barely out of his teens who needed help. We get so close to all that Obama described. What's missing? Is it humility?"
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Glutton for Punishment
Never again!
Will I bother watching television that is.
I foolishly broke last week's resolution not to watch the 2nd episode of the Israeli (returned) POW drama, Prisoners of War, on SBS on Saturday night, and for my pains learned that our two Israeli prisoners, while in Arab hands, had been stabbed with screwdrivers, attacked with axes (or machetes?), beaten while suspended from the ceiling, beaten while hooded, given electric shocks, and terrorised by three different kinds of mock execution - being put before a firing squad which uses blanks, being hung by the neck but cut down before death from asphyxiation takes place, and having an unloaded rifle placed in the mouth and discharged.
Such are Israel's dream Arabs.*
Then, at 8:30 pm on Monday night, I listened gobsmacked as an ABC2 television voice (female) introduced Louis Theroux's 2011 BBC documentary about Israeli settlers, Ultra Zionists, with these words:
"This program is about Israeli settlers who put their lives on the line to fight for what they believe in."
I nonetheless pressed on, and for my pains was 'rewarded' with hearing the gormless Louis a) ask a settler if he was "partially responsible" for Palestinian hostility towards settlers; and b) ask a Palestinian if he felt "a bit sorry" for them.
I swear - never again!
[*"[Prisoners of War] explores the lasting personal effects of the trauma of war and terrorism without promoting demeaning stereotypes of any group, or lapsing into propaganda." Peter Wertheim, executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), quoted in Acclaimed Israeli drama hits SBS, The Australian Jewish News, 25/1/13.]
Will I bother watching television that is.
I foolishly broke last week's resolution not to watch the 2nd episode of the Israeli (returned) POW drama, Prisoners of War, on SBS on Saturday night, and for my pains learned that our two Israeli prisoners, while in Arab hands, had been stabbed with screwdrivers, attacked with axes (or machetes?), beaten while suspended from the ceiling, beaten while hooded, given electric shocks, and terrorised by three different kinds of mock execution - being put before a firing squad which uses blanks, being hung by the neck but cut down before death from asphyxiation takes place, and having an unloaded rifle placed in the mouth and discharged.
Such are Israel's dream Arabs.*
Then, at 8:30 pm on Monday night, I listened gobsmacked as an ABC2 television voice (female) introduced Louis Theroux's 2011 BBC documentary about Israeli settlers, Ultra Zionists, with these words:
"This program is about Israeli settlers who put their lives on the line to fight for what they believe in."
I nonetheless pressed on, and for my pains was 'rewarded' with hearing the gormless Louis a) ask a settler if he was "partially responsible" for Palestinian hostility towards settlers; and b) ask a Palestinian if he felt "a bit sorry" for them.
I swear - never again!
[*"[Prisoners of War] explores the lasting personal effects of the trauma of war and terrorism without promoting demeaning stereotypes of any group, or lapsing into propaganda." Peter Wertheim, executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), quoted in Acclaimed Israeli drama hits SBS, The Australian Jewish News, 25/1/13.]
Monday, January 21, 2013
'Prisoners of War': Those Bloody Arabs Again!
On Saturday night, I watched the first episode, on SBS television, of the 10-part Israeli television series, Prisoners of War (Hatufim), often cited as the inspiration for its US counterpart, Homeland*- yet another facet, albeit this time in the cultural domain, of that most peculiar political phenomenon, the Israeli tail wagging the American dog.
Both entertainments, of course, draw on, and feed into, the fears and prejudices of the deeply Arabo- and Islamo-phobic societies which produce them, so it should come as no surprise, at least as far as the first episode is concerned (the only one I intend watching BTW), to know that those into whose hands the eponymous prisoners had fallen are portrayed as diabolical monsters who have no compunction whatever when it comes to messing with Israeli minds or torturing Israeli bodies.
Now I may be wrong, but, given the anti-Arab racism that pervades Israeli society, I'd expect the malignity and brutality of our heroes' captors to remain a key feature of the entire series.
While most of the episode centres on the human interest story of people, essentially presumed dead, coming back to life after a prolonged absence (in this case 17 years) and impacting uncomfortably on the lives of families, most of whom have moved on, a paranoid dimension is introduced with the concept of the Manchurian Candidate - namely, the unsettling idea that these prisoners have been captured by an enemy so irredeemably evil that they stand every chance of being transformed into virtual zombies and reprogrammed as enemy agents. The paranoia emerges early in the episode; as one of the 2 Israeli POWs, Nimrod, is about to board a plane for the journey home, his Arab handler farewells him with the words: "Do you remember everything we talked about? God be with you."
That the POWs have been tortured, both physically and mentally, is established in episode one. Nimrod, for example, while attempting to make love to his wife for the first time in 17 years, flashes back to electroshock sessions in captivity. The other prisoner, Uri, whose girlfriend had given up on him to marry his brother, flashes back to the time when, in the fourth year of his imprisonment, he'd been taken from his dungeon, presumably for the first time, and placed in a room furnished with washbasin, mirror, couch and platter of food. A disembodied Arab voice is heard, saying to the scruffy, fearful man: "This is a gift, from us to you."
Uri peers at his face in the mirror - his first glimpse of himself in 4 years. He stuffs himself with food - his first real feed in 4 years. He even crams pieces of fruit into his pockets for later consumption - his first fruit in 4 years. He sits on the couch, picking up an Israeli magazine that's been put there for him - his first Hebrew-language read in 4 years.
When he comes upon an article with the headline Cheating on an entire nation, we know at once that it is through these cruel means that he first learns that his girl has married his brother. Surely, surely, those merciless sons of Amalek could have spared him this!
So there you have it: hellish torture and deprivation of every conceivable kind from beasts posing as men!
Needless to say, exactly what kind of murder and mayhem our 2 prisoners were perpetrating in Lebanon in the first place doesn't figure. Unless, of course, they were doling out sweets to kiddies, patting them on the head and generally impressing on them what wonderful guys Israeli soldiers are.
Apropos that, I draw your attention to the blurb in Saturday's Australian by TV critic Ian Cuthbertson, who'd selected Prisoners as his 'pick of the week'. Apart from recommending it as "gripping television of the first order," Cuthbertson hilariously refers to our POWs as "abductees captured behind enemy lines in Lebanon."
Finally, a last gloomy thought. Is it just me or are you too wondering whether SBS's screening of Prisoners is by way of penance for screening The Promise in December 2011?
[*See TV's most Islamophobic show, Laila Al-Arian, salon.com, 16/12/12.]
Both entertainments, of course, draw on, and feed into, the fears and prejudices of the deeply Arabo- and Islamo-phobic societies which produce them, so it should come as no surprise, at least as far as the first episode is concerned (the only one I intend watching BTW), to know that those into whose hands the eponymous prisoners had fallen are portrayed as diabolical monsters who have no compunction whatever when it comes to messing with Israeli minds or torturing Israeli bodies.
Now I may be wrong, but, given the anti-Arab racism that pervades Israeli society, I'd expect the malignity and brutality of our heroes' captors to remain a key feature of the entire series.
While most of the episode centres on the human interest story of people, essentially presumed dead, coming back to life after a prolonged absence (in this case 17 years) and impacting uncomfortably on the lives of families, most of whom have moved on, a paranoid dimension is introduced with the concept of the Manchurian Candidate - namely, the unsettling idea that these prisoners have been captured by an enemy so irredeemably evil that they stand every chance of being transformed into virtual zombies and reprogrammed as enemy agents. The paranoia emerges early in the episode; as one of the 2 Israeli POWs, Nimrod, is about to board a plane for the journey home, his Arab handler farewells him with the words: "Do you remember everything we talked about? God be with you."
That the POWs have been tortured, both physically and mentally, is established in episode one. Nimrod, for example, while attempting to make love to his wife for the first time in 17 years, flashes back to electroshock sessions in captivity. The other prisoner, Uri, whose girlfriend had given up on him to marry his brother, flashes back to the time when, in the fourth year of his imprisonment, he'd been taken from his dungeon, presumably for the first time, and placed in a room furnished with washbasin, mirror, couch and platter of food. A disembodied Arab voice is heard, saying to the scruffy, fearful man: "This is a gift, from us to you."
Uri peers at his face in the mirror - his first glimpse of himself in 4 years. He stuffs himself with food - his first real feed in 4 years. He even crams pieces of fruit into his pockets for later consumption - his first fruit in 4 years. He sits on the couch, picking up an Israeli magazine that's been put there for him - his first Hebrew-language read in 4 years.
When he comes upon an article with the headline Cheating on an entire nation, we know at once that it is through these cruel means that he first learns that his girl has married his brother. Surely, surely, those merciless sons of Amalek could have spared him this!
So there you have it: hellish torture and deprivation of every conceivable kind from beasts posing as men!
Needless to say, exactly what kind of murder and mayhem our 2 prisoners were perpetrating in Lebanon in the first place doesn't figure. Unless, of course, they were doling out sweets to kiddies, patting them on the head and generally impressing on them what wonderful guys Israeli soldiers are.
Apropos that, I draw your attention to the blurb in Saturday's Australian by TV critic Ian Cuthbertson, who'd selected Prisoners as his 'pick of the week'. Apart from recommending it as "gripping television of the first order," Cuthbertson hilariously refers to our POWs as "abductees captured behind enemy lines in Lebanon."
Finally, a last gloomy thought. Is it just me or are you too wondering whether SBS's screening of Prisoners is by way of penance for screening The Promise in December 2011?
[*See TV's most Islamophobic show, Laila Al-Arian, salon.com, 16/12/12.]
Saturday, November 3, 2012
What the Reviewers are Making of 'Last Dance'
I'm sorry, readers, but Last Dance is an itch that just won't go away.
1) Australian-Lebanese actor Firass Dirani speaks to SBS reporter Michelle Hanna about his role in 'Last Dance', a confronting movie on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 29/10/12:
"[Dirani] said this was a role he could not pass up. 'I thought OK, they're throwing this at me, why not do the best possible fundamentalist fanatical there is,' says Dirani."
They're throwing this at me, so I'm going to give them their money's worth!
"[T]he films message of mutual understanding may inspire some. 'I don't think it will change the hearts and minds of anybody who takes a firm position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,' says Professor Kevin Dunn from the University of Western Sydney. 'But for the rest of us, I think it might mean that we can have a slightly more rounded understanding of the protagonists involved in those debates and why they come to have the very firm and fixed views that they have.' Dunn is however concerned about the stereotyping of Muslims. 'The way in which we aren't given a sense of how much of a minority this person would be, how unlikely this event would be,' he says. 'Most Muslims in this country are ordinary day to day Australians who have ordinary day to day concerns.'"
A slightly more rounded understanding? Yeah, spittle-flecked, foaming, fundamentalist fanatical, anti-Semitic Palestinian terrorist takes kindly, compassionate, super-smart, Holocaust-surviving, son-bereft, elderly, greying JEWISH MUM hostage. Oh, and I almost forgot to add NURSE.
2) Last Dance (2012), Louise Keller, urbancinefile, 1/11/12:
"It is the comment of a mother to another mother's son that epitomises the essence of this tense film that addresses the cultural differences that form the world's deepest divides."
Excuse me?! Anglo/American-backed Zionist fanatics hijack your homeland and your dogged refusal to acquiesce in the theft boils down to a mere cultural difference between you and them? Sorry if I did my block there, Louise, what was that you were saying about mothers?
"'If the world was run by mothers, there would be more sons,' says Jewish Holocaust survivor Ulah to Sadiq, the fugitive Muslim terrorist..."
Now how deep is that?! If only Golda Meir and Tzipi Livni were running the show no mother's son would be getting killed, right?
"[Ulah's] swarthy, bearded assailant mutters his dastardly violent pledges against the Jews in Palestinian Arabic until Ulah reveals she understands his language. She had lived in Israel after leaving Germany before the war."
Wait up! What's that? Before the war? So she's not a Holocaust survivor? But don't let a mere bagatelle like that distract you. The incredible thing is this: Ulah, naturally, speaks German. She arrives in Palestine/Israel, where she has to learn Hebrew from scratch. Tough ask, right? However, not only does she learn Hebrew, but she goes the extra mile and learns Arabic as well! And who knows, maybe even Sanskrit. And all the bloody darkie can manage is a mutter!
3) Review: Last Dance, Mark Naglazaz, The West Australian, 1/11/12:
"Sadiq counterattacks by arguing he is not a terrorist but a soldier fighting to free his Palestinian homeland..."
Just a minute! In Melbourne?
"... from Jewish occupation... "
Just a minute! By Melbourne Jews? Face it, Sadiq's a friggin' fruitcake!
"Gradually Sadiq and Ulah start to open up to each other about their respective histories and tragedies, revealing a series of parallels that make each look upon the other with new eyes."
Ah, so Sadiq arrives at an understanding not only that coloniser and colonised are on a par, but that a woman who was born in Germany and now lives in Melbourne, and who, thanks to Israel's magical Law of Return, can come and go as she pleases, has as much of a right to live in Palestine/Israel as he does, except for the fact that, thanks again to Israel's magical Law of Return, he cannot go there because he's not a Jew? I see...
4) MIFF Review: Last Dance (2012, Dir. David Pulbrook), Michael Scott, cuedotconfessions.blogspot.com.au, 9/8/12:
"While the majority of the population of this here planet of ours may not be completely conversant with the intricacies of the Israel question, there can be no denying that it has been one of the defining conflicts of our grandparents' time, our parents' time, our time, and more likely our children's time and our children's children's time. From the outside looking in, it is often reduced to a simple question of religion or land. Inside Israel, inside Palestine and inside their respective diaspora, it is a complex gridlock of religion, homeland, history, ingrained intolerance, guilt, pain, loss, and generations of learnt hatred, suspicion, misunderstanding and pride."
Now come on, Michael, it's not that complicated! What part of this tweaked Ambrose Bierce definition of the word 'aborigines' do you not understand?:
[Palestinian] aborigines, n. 'Persons deemed of little worth by European imperialists found by thrusting European Zionist colons cumbering the soil of a newly liberated (1918) Ottoman land. With a little help from Great Britain (and later the United States) they soon (1948) cease to cumber; they fertilize.
"Sadiq and Ulah's dialogue concerning the war in their homeland..."
Just a minute, Michael! Their homeland? Ulah was born in Germany, spent some time in occupied Palestine, and now lives happily ever after in Australia. Only in the Zionist imagination is Palestine her homeland.
"... is distractingly trite. Curiously, Pulbrook dodges the hard hitting parallels between the the Jewish occupation..."
Jewish? Israeli, yes. Zionist, yes. But Jewish?
"... and the Holocaust experience, opting instead for frustratingly resolute 'penny-dropping' zooms and some well-meaning, pie-in-the-sky pacifism - if only the Israel problem were so easily solved."
Ah, Michael, now you've done it! You've hinted at a parallel between that mere historical blip, the wiping of Palestine off the map (1918-?), and the seriously unique Holocaust. That's a red line for card-carrying Zionists. Watch out for stormy weather, mate.
"... in the end, the excellent performances and accomplished production values cannot compensate for its bloodless script and overly reductive approach to the Middle Eastern conflict."
You've certainly hit the nail on the head there, Michael.
5) When victims of conflict come face to face, Jake Wilson, 1/11/12, smh.com.au:
"The bombing is merely a tacky pretext for a stagy hostage drama involving an elderly Holocaust survivor and a jihadist in flight from the law. Once these two begin to talk to each other, it's clear we're in for a session of rote debate on the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine conflict, leading, as in a David Williamson play, to the revelation that we're all human after all... The script feels misjudged: mutual understanding is encouraged, but viewers who equate Islam and terrorism will, if anything, find their prejudices reinforced."
Way to go, Jake.
And the morning after the Sadiq/Ulah love-in?: The Murdoch press and the shock jocks whip the Australian public into a paroxysm of Islamophobia; Sadiq ends up in the slammer for life; and Ulah eventually shuffles off after bequeathing her flat to the Jewish National Fund, which uses the proceeds of its sale to fund the 'redemption' of land in the Negev Desert once the aboriginal Bedouin (who - can you believe it? - had the audacity to think it theirs) have ceased to cumber it...
1) Australian-Lebanese actor Firass Dirani speaks to SBS reporter Michelle Hanna about his role in 'Last Dance', a confronting movie on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 29/10/12:
"[Dirani] said this was a role he could not pass up. 'I thought OK, they're throwing this at me, why not do the best possible fundamentalist fanatical there is,' says Dirani."
They're throwing this at me, so I'm going to give them their money's worth!
"[T]he films message of mutual understanding may inspire some. 'I don't think it will change the hearts and minds of anybody who takes a firm position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,' says Professor Kevin Dunn from the University of Western Sydney. 'But for the rest of us, I think it might mean that we can have a slightly more rounded understanding of the protagonists involved in those debates and why they come to have the very firm and fixed views that they have.' Dunn is however concerned about the stereotyping of Muslims. 'The way in which we aren't given a sense of how much of a minority this person would be, how unlikely this event would be,' he says. 'Most Muslims in this country are ordinary day to day Australians who have ordinary day to day concerns.'"
A slightly more rounded understanding? Yeah, spittle-flecked, foaming, fundamentalist fanatical, anti-Semitic Palestinian terrorist takes kindly, compassionate, super-smart, Holocaust-surviving, son-bereft, elderly, greying JEWISH MUM hostage. Oh, and I almost forgot to add NURSE.
2) Last Dance (2012), Louise Keller, urbancinefile, 1/11/12:
"It is the comment of a mother to another mother's son that epitomises the essence of this tense film that addresses the cultural differences that form the world's deepest divides."
Excuse me?! Anglo/American-backed Zionist fanatics hijack your homeland and your dogged refusal to acquiesce in the theft boils down to a mere cultural difference between you and them? Sorry if I did my block there, Louise, what was that you were saying about mothers?
"'If the world was run by mothers, there would be more sons,' says Jewish Holocaust survivor Ulah to Sadiq, the fugitive Muslim terrorist..."
Now how deep is that?! If only Golda Meir and Tzipi Livni were running the show no mother's son would be getting killed, right?
"[Ulah's] swarthy, bearded assailant mutters his dastardly violent pledges against the Jews in Palestinian Arabic until Ulah reveals she understands his language. She had lived in Israel after leaving Germany before the war."
Wait up! What's that? Before the war? So she's not a Holocaust survivor? But don't let a mere bagatelle like that distract you. The incredible thing is this: Ulah, naturally, speaks German. She arrives in Palestine/Israel, where she has to learn Hebrew from scratch. Tough ask, right? However, not only does she learn Hebrew, but she goes the extra mile and learns Arabic as well! And who knows, maybe even Sanskrit. And all the bloody darkie can manage is a mutter!
3) Review: Last Dance, Mark Naglazaz, The West Australian, 1/11/12:
"Sadiq counterattacks by arguing he is not a terrorist but a soldier fighting to free his Palestinian homeland..."
Just a minute! In Melbourne?
"... from Jewish occupation... "
Just a minute! By Melbourne Jews? Face it, Sadiq's a friggin' fruitcake!
"Gradually Sadiq and Ulah start to open up to each other about their respective histories and tragedies, revealing a series of parallels that make each look upon the other with new eyes."
Ah, so Sadiq arrives at an understanding not only that coloniser and colonised are on a par, but that a woman who was born in Germany and now lives in Melbourne, and who, thanks to Israel's magical Law of Return, can come and go as she pleases, has as much of a right to live in Palestine/Israel as he does, except for the fact that, thanks again to Israel's magical Law of Return, he cannot go there because he's not a Jew? I see...
4) MIFF Review: Last Dance (2012, Dir. David Pulbrook), Michael Scott, cuedotconfessions.blogspot.com.au, 9/8/12:
"While the majority of the population of this here planet of ours may not be completely conversant with the intricacies of the Israel question, there can be no denying that it has been one of the defining conflicts of our grandparents' time, our parents' time, our time, and more likely our children's time and our children's children's time. From the outside looking in, it is often reduced to a simple question of religion or land. Inside Israel, inside Palestine and inside their respective diaspora, it is a complex gridlock of religion, homeland, history, ingrained intolerance, guilt, pain, loss, and generations of learnt hatred, suspicion, misunderstanding and pride."
Now come on, Michael, it's not that complicated! What part of this tweaked Ambrose Bierce definition of the word 'aborigines' do you not understand?:
[Palestinian] aborigines, n. 'Persons deemed of little worth by European imperialists found by thrusting European Zionist colons cumbering the soil of a newly liberated (1918) Ottoman land. With a little help from Great Britain (and later the United States) they soon (1948) cease to cumber; they fertilize.
"Sadiq and Ulah's dialogue concerning the war in their homeland..."
Just a minute, Michael! Their homeland? Ulah was born in Germany, spent some time in occupied Palestine, and now lives happily ever after in Australia. Only in the Zionist imagination is Palestine her homeland.
"... is distractingly trite. Curiously, Pulbrook dodges the hard hitting parallels between the the Jewish occupation..."
Jewish? Israeli, yes. Zionist, yes. But Jewish?
"... and the Holocaust experience, opting instead for frustratingly resolute 'penny-dropping' zooms and some well-meaning, pie-in-the-sky pacifism - if only the Israel problem were so easily solved."
Ah, Michael, now you've done it! You've hinted at a parallel between that mere historical blip, the wiping of Palestine off the map (1918-?), and the seriously unique Holocaust. That's a red line for card-carrying Zionists. Watch out for stormy weather, mate.
"... in the end, the excellent performances and accomplished production values cannot compensate for its bloodless script and overly reductive approach to the Middle Eastern conflict."
You've certainly hit the nail on the head there, Michael.
5) When victims of conflict come face to face, Jake Wilson, 1/11/12, smh.com.au:
"The bombing is merely a tacky pretext for a stagy hostage drama involving an elderly Holocaust survivor and a jihadist in flight from the law. Once these two begin to talk to each other, it's clear we're in for a session of rote debate on the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine conflict, leading, as in a David Williamson play, to the revelation that we're all human after all... The script feels misjudged: mutual understanding is encouraged, but viewers who equate Islam and terrorism will, if anything, find their prejudices reinforced."
Way to go, Jake.
And the morning after the Sadiq/Ulah love-in?: The Murdoch press and the shock jocks whip the Australian public into a paroxysm of Islamophobia; Sadiq ends up in the slammer for life; and Ulah eventually shuffles off after bequeathing her flat to the Jewish National Fund, which uses the proceeds of its sale to fund the 'redemption' of land in the Negev Desert once the aboriginal Bedouin (who - can you believe it? - had the audacity to think it theirs) have ceased to cumber it...
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