The Herald Finally Discovers 'Balcony Over Jerusalem'

John Lyons' Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir (1917) is the most important book ever written on the existence and modus operandi of Australia's under-the-radar Israel lobby since Antony Loewenstein's 2006 My Israel Question.

Curiously, although it's been in the bookshops since July, the Sydney Morning Herald has so far ignored it - that is, until yesterday. Instead of the merited full review, however (and for reasons best known to those responsible for the book reviews in the Herald's weekend Spectrum), it was relegated to the following mere mention:

"On the balcony of their house in Jerusalem, foreign correspondent John Lyons and his wife, Sylvie Le Clezio, watched history unfold. 'Our balcony became our private time machine. We could fast-forward from the biblical past to the troubled present. We could see tear-gas being fired at Palestinians and rocks being thrown at Israeli soldiers.' From this box seat, Lyons ventured out into the Middle East covering the war in Syria, the downfall of Colonel Gaddafi and the Arab Spring. But it his reporting on the slow-motion tragedy within Israel and the occupied territories, and the public relations war waged by the Israeli government and media to keep its citizens and the rest of the world in the dark that gives this engrossing book its spine and force. 'If the whole world could see the occupation up close, it would demand that it end tomorrow'." (Fiona Capp, In Short Non-Fiction)

It has to be said here: it isn't only "the Israeli government" that keeps us "in the dark" on this issue - it's also the gutless, self-censoring Fairfax press.

The Glass Wall

Back in August last year, journalist and writer Tim Robertson couldn't help but notice something missing in Morry Schwartz's Saturday Paper:

"There's been high praise for the Saturday Paper... the paper's commentary is insightful and well-informed: it has a stable of some of Australia's best writers... and it's a welcome addition to the Fairfax/News Ltd duopoly that's been one of the great scourges of Australian democracy... Nonetheless, the Saturday Paper's coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza has been conspicuously, well, non-existent. As the death toll rises and more atrocities are committed, the Saturday Paper's pages remain, to date, devoid of any comment. One might consider this highly unusual. After all, it's long been left to independent Left-wing media to support the Palestinian cause in the face of the grossly more powerful Israeli state and its supporters here in Australia. But for long-time readers of The Monthly, which, like the Saturday Paper, is published by Morry Schwartz, the coverage might not come as such a shock. (Mr Schwartz also publishes Black Inc. and the Quarterly Essay.)" (Excerpt from Palestine & the Saturday Paper, overland.org.au, 1/8/14)

Robertson went on to quote John Van Tiggelen, former editor of the Saturday Paper and now staff writer at The Monthly, speaking at the June 2014 Wordstorm Festival in Darwin. (Since Robertson's original quote is highly edited, I've reproduced the Van Tiggelen quote below more fully):

"I have to be careful here because I still get most of my wage from The Monthly. But, um, it's very different from Fairfax. I have to be honest here and say that at Fairfax, at the Good Weekend writing the long features, I never experienced political interference... Whereas when you work at a small publication, and it doesn't matter whether it's Graeme Wood at The Global Mail or Morry Schwartz... at The Monthly, you work very closely with a publisher and things do get spiked and you have raving rows about what goes through and what doesn't. And there are certain glass walls set up by the publisher that you can't go outside of. And we were talking about it beforehand with Antony [Loewenstein] - one of those is Palestine. [The Monthly's] seen as a left-wing publication but the publisher is very right-wing on Israel. He's Jewish, um, and he's very much to the Benjamin Netanyahu end of politics. So you can't touch it. We just don't touch it. There's just a glass wall goes around it." (abc.net.au/tv/bigideas, 25/6/14)

Robertson concludes correctly that the editorial regime which prevails at the Saturday Paper (and by extension at Schwartz's other publications such as The Monthly and the Quarterly Essay) "is no different to the Murdoch press' universal support for the Iraq War (though the scale is smaller): top-down, institutionalised censorship based on the political beliefs of one individual," adding that "It's fundamentally undemocratic and undermines the whole notion of a free press."

But that's not all - apart from being destructive of journalism per se, the erection of glass walls (and the phenomenon of self-censorship that accompanies it) leaves the consumer of that journalism in something of a quandary.

Take, for example, the following passage from Van Tiggelen's admiring profile of Labor's Tanya Plibersek in The Monthly of November 2014:

"If deputy leaders didn't get to choose their portfolios, foreign affairs might have eluded Plibersek. Her reputation has been built on tackling social issues, such as homelessness, domestic violence and discrimination. More significantly, she is of the Left, a faction less inclined to bipartisanship (and, specifically, to pro-Israel views) than the portfolio generally demands. Back in 2002, in an otherwise sharply argued speech dismantling the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Plibersek described Israel as a 'rogue state' for its flouting of UN resolutions. She also called its then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, a war criminal. Today, though, you'd be hard-pressed to find a crack between the Government and the Opposition on security or Middle East policy. Plibersek has long recanted her comments on Israel and appears to be in lock step with the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, on the matter of Australia's renewed military engagement in Iraq."

Take that highlighted bit. I may be wrong but Van Tiggelen seems to be suggesting that, but for the references in the speech to Israel, the speech was fine. And yet he makes no attempt to explain why those references are in any way problematic. More importantly, what about his failure to probe the issue and circumstances of Plibersek's recantation of those references, surely a matter that goes to the very heart of Plibersek's intellectual and moral courage? I mean, isn't that what any journalist worth his salt would do? Could Van Tiggelen be self-censoring or Schwartz red-penciling?  Who is really speaking here, Van Tiggelen or Schwartz? See the problem?

Doing It For Israel at The Australian

Whether it's a column on Australia's defence industry, or merely a book review, if it's Rupert you're writing for, wherever possible one should render service to Israel.

Kudos to Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan and Miriam Cosic in this weekend's Australian:

"Apart from a superpower such as the US, or a government-directed industry like that in Russia or China, or an independent strategic manufacturing capability born out of desperate necessity such as Israel..." (Warships well worth protecting, Greg Sheridan)

"Loewenstein's journalism is controversial. His anti-Israel stance has alienated him from many, and the names offering advance praise for this book - John Pilger, Bob Brown, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein - will make some eyes roll." (Decency denied in our name, Miriam Cosic - reviewing Loewenstein's Profits of Doom: How Vulture Capitalism is Swallowing the World)

Other journalists at the Australian could take a leaf out of Sheridan's and Cosic's book in this regard. For example, political editor Dennis Shanahan opened his page one lead story thus:

"Tony Abbott has declared fixing Australia's greatest 'national failure', dire indigenous disadvantage, will be one of his personal priorities if he wins office, and has secured the agreement of former ALP president Warren Mundine to deliver generational change."  (Abbott; my pledge to close gap)

Now wouldn't the following have been better?

Tony Abbott, inspired by Israel's passion to close the economic and social gap between its Bedouin citizens in the Negev and Israelis as a whole, with bulldozers if necessary, has declared that fixing Australia's greatest 'national failure', dire indigenous disadvantage, will be one of his personal priorities if he wins office, and has secured the agreement of former ALP president and Yachad scholarship beneficiary* Warren Mundine to deliver generational change.

I rest my case.

[* Investigation of Israeli Programmes to counteract communal/individual welfare dependency, 2006.]

Q&A, September 17

Q&A next Monday, the 17th is a must-view.

The advertised line up includes Ilan Pappe, Israeli historian and author of must-read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006); barrister Irving Wallach, a former head of the Revisionist Zionist youth movement Betar and the Zionist Youth Council of Australia; Greg Sheridan, The Australian's foreign editor and no stranger to MERC readers; Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney; and Robyn Davidson, an Australian author.

Considering that the first 3 speakers at least have an interest in the Middle East conflict in common, I can't really understand the inclusion of Moore and Davidson, neither of whom have an interest in the issue that I'm aware of. More relevant would have been at least one Palestinian Arab speaker and maybe anti-Zionist blogger and journalist, Antony Loewenstein, who has never appeared on Q&A, for reasons best known to its producers.

Noting Pappe's expertise on the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, I recall a May 2009 Q&A stoush between Guy Rundle and Sheridan. Rundle had cited another Palestinian Nakba scholar, the Israeli historian Benny Morris, and referred to "dozens of massacres of Palestinians in 1948." Sheridan, who probably wouldn't know Benny Morris from Betty Boop, responded: "all rubbish... just rubbish." (See my 9/5/09 post Sheridan: Nakba Denier)

Sheridan has also ludicrously averred in an opinion piece that there has been only "one authentic Jewish Israeli terrorist, Baruch Goldstein." (See my 30/7/11 post Leave Our Islamophobes Alone, OK?)

Someone out there might like to put questions directly to Sheridan about these utterly bizarre assertions. With Pappe at hand to set the historical record straight, I'm expecting Sheridan to emerge groggy and bloodied at best, if not KOed outright.

Just to give you a flavour of Pappe, here are two extracts from his autobiographical Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel (2010):

1) The Palestinian Nakba of 1948 in a nutshell:

"In February 1948, within a year of the British decision to leave Palestine, the Zionist leadership began ethnically cleansing it. Three months later, when the British left, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were already refugees, pressuring the Arab world to take action, which it did on 15 May 1948. But the limited number of troops it sent to Palestine were no match for the efficient Jewish forces and they were defeated. The ethnic cleansing continued and at the end of it almost a million Palestinians became refugees (half of Palestine's population) and with them disappeared half of the country's villages and towns, erased from the face of the earth by the Jewish forces." (p 187)

2) Pappe's journey out of the Zionist cult:

"The year 1982 was also when I began the journey described in this book during and after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that summer. The first turning point was an invitation by the Israeli Embassy in London to speak at a pro-Israel rally in the north of Britain. The spokesperson explained that the ambassador, Shlomo Argov, was critically ill from an assassination attempt and it would be too dangerous to send his deputy. It was not only the willingness to sacrifice me, should there be another terrorist attack, but the presumption I had no reservations about or objections to the invasion that served as a wake-up call. From then on, I embarked on a journey of no return. Powerful as the Zionist grip is on one's thoughts and life, as an Israeli Jew, once you have extracted yourself from its hold, you cannot understand how you could ever have been captivated by its lure, logic or vision. This book is a modest attempt to try to decipher the riddle of an ideology that was once seen by this author as the ultimate expression of pristine humanity, but when abandoned, as a racist and quite evil philosophy of morality and life. Yet the 'divorce' from Zionism is in no way a desire to sever links with what is a vital and vibrant society, in which I still have family and dear friends and about which I cherish many fond memories. But in order to preserve the positive side of Jewish life in Israel, I believe that not only would Palestinians fare better under almost any non-zionist regime, so would most Israeli Jews." (p x)

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Ho hum, what's this? Murdoch's Likudnik rag, The Australian, is now whinging about an outbreak of so-called left-wing bias over at the ABC's opinion website, The Drum:

"This means, for example, that of all the writers who are given a regular platform on the ABC website, I could find only 4 articles that were in some way supportive of Israel and none in favour of the war in Afghanistan. By comparison, there are dozens of anti-Israel and anti-Afghan war pieces on the taxpayer-funded website, most of them accusatory and damning. For example, there are at least 9 anti-Israel articles by Antony Loewenstein alone, 12 anti-Afghanistan war rants by Kellie tranter, and many more from Labor Party speechwriter Bob Ellis scattered among his 110 contributions." (Aunty makes no secret of prejudice: The ABC should focus on the news rather than The Drum's blatant left-wing puffery, Gavin Atkins, 11/5/11)

Oh dear!

OK, so let's check out The Australian's April crop of wholesome, organic, totally bias-free opinion pieces on such matters, shall we?

2/4/11
Greg Sheridan: How I lost faith in multiculturalism
In summary, multiculturalism sux because of Muslims. We need to be more choosy who we let into Australia, know what I mean?
Christopher Hitchens: Iraq cleared the way for Arab revolts
In summary, viva mission creep!
Simon Sebag Montefiore: It's what comes after revolution that matters
In summary, a little air power should do the trick.
4/4/11
Michael Gerson: After rubbishing the Bush doctrine, Obama is being forced to follow suit
In summary, after Bush comes Bushama.
David Burchell: Carping critics betray ideal
In summary, Go get Gaddafi!
12/4/11
Colin Rubenstein: Israel will pay price for Gaza report fiction
In summary, Goldstone, you're a very, very naughty boy!
13/4/11
Zvi Barel: Israel should bite the bullet on Palestine
In summary, Israel should accept a Palestinian state or face a political tsunami in September.
14/4/11
Ted Lapkin: Minister unleashes his inner Germaine Greer
In summary, don't put our daughters on the front line, Mr Smith!
19/4/11
Daniel Pipes: Ankara aims for sheer authority
In summary, Ankara is the new Tehran
25/4/11
Brett Stephens: Syria should be called to account
In summary, go get Assad!
David Ignatius: Security spending all upside down
In summary, we should be spending less on Afghanistan and more on Egypt.
28/4/11
Fouad Ajami: Syria paved way for tyrants of the Arab world
In summary, go get Assad!
30/4/11
Rowan Dean: How an advertising campaign can solve the Middle East crisis
Dean says it so much better than I: "[B]ased on humanity's universal and insatiable desire for personal freedom, opportunity for your offspring, liberty and equality, virtually every man, woman and child in the Middle East will want to move to Israel. Impractical, I know. But it may make them a little less keen to blow up the place."

Kahane Down Under?

Anti-Zionist journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein's newmatilda.com essay, Are the Greens ready for hard ball? (30/3/11) shines some light on the dirty war waged behind the scenes against the Greens' candidates in the seats of Marrickville and Balmain in the context of last Saturday's NSW state election:

"Jamie Parker revealed to New Matilda the extent of the hatred directed at him during the campaign due to the Greens BDS policy. He had countless letters sent to him calling him a Nazi and Jew hater. His car was vandalised and campaign signs spray-painted with swastikas. He received death threats and some abusers said they knew where he lived. 'One letter said I wanted to turn Balmain power station into a gas chamber and the light rail would take people there', Parker tells me. 'Lefty Jews told me that you can't be surprised if extreme people do extreme things but they wouldn't come out in public and condemn it'. He was appalled. When the Murdoch press editor David Penberthy wrote that '(Fiona) Byrne's been busy advocating a polite modern rendering of Kristallnacht in the Inner West', Parker hoped progressive Jews he knew would condemn the offensive comparison. They did not. 'These Jews provide cover for extreme actions if they occur. If there's a sniff of you being critical of Israel, such Jews will attack you and cut you loose'. BDS simply made many Jewish people unreasonable and extremely upset, Jews told Parker. Parker says that the reaction of the Zionist lobby and local Jewish community during the election has revealed that they are willing to allow smears and violent actions against the Greens. Parker, who has spent years working on collaborative projects between local Jews and Palestinians, is now fed up with what he sees as Jewish silence. Local Jewish leaders have contacted him since Saturday to try and repair the damage but they still refuse to apologise for aggressive Jewish behaviour."

So who are these extremists? I have aleady, in a previous post on the Greens and BDS, alluded to the late US Rabbi Kahane's fascist, terrorist Jewish Defense League (JDL), and wonder if we are now seeing here the first stirrings of our own version of this creature.

For those unfamiliar with the JDL, Robert I. Friedman's The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane - from FBI Informant to Knesset Member (1990) provides the best intoduction. Here, for example, is Friedman on the founding of the JDL in New York in 1968:

"Preaching Jewish pride and Jewish power, [Kahane] captured the imagination of thousands of Jews, particularly from the lower-middle-class sections of Brooklyn and Queens that were near black ghettoes. His slogans were 'Never Again' and 'Every Jew a .22'. With a Torah in one hand and a gun in the other, Kahane set up a weapons and martial arts training camp in the Catskill Mountains in New York State, just a shotgun blast away from Grossinger's, the famous Jewish-owned hotel. A handful of his elite bodyguards, known as chayas (animals), were trained in munitions and sharpshooting by former officers of the Irgun and Stern Gang. Soon the JDL graduated from confronting black militants to bombing Soviet and Arab diplomats in Europe and America." (pp 83-84)

In his Forward to Friedman's study, Christopher Hitchens succinctly described the JDL as a "movement which spits on democracy, reviles the secular Jew, borrows the language and tactics of the Munich beer-hall and elevates the Fuhrer principle while boasting of an addiction to war, expulsion and triumphalism." (p xi)

One can only hope I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but the behaviour described by Parker, and the silence of so-called progressive (Zionist?) Jews in the face of such behaviour, is a worrying trend indeed.

Loewenstein's expose also quoted the recently retired Greens MLC Ian Cohen. Cohen's words, interestingly, contain no hint of condemnation of the smears and thuggery perpetrated against his fellow Greens, and leave little doubt as to where his sympathies lie:

"Many pro-Israel people worried about the lack of consistency and this included Greens members. Nothing was said about dictatorships in the Arab world from the Greens... I believe there is a huge scope for criticism of Israeli behaviour against the Palestinian people but BDS for the Greens was an old style, in the trenches method of pushing a campaign. It wasn't properly assessed how it would affect the NSW election campaign. The Jewish community outrage had a significant impact on our candidates."

It is surely time for the Greens to break with Zionists of whatever hue, euphemistically referred to by Cohen as pro-Israel people, and come out strongly and unapologetically in support of BDS.

Herald Robs Loewenstein to Pay Rubenstein

On June 4 this year, on the occasion of Israel's Mavi Marmara massacre, the Sydney Morning Herald boldly - for the Herald that is - editorialised that "We believe that it is time for Jews of the diaspora to question Israel's actions. For too long the spectrum of Jewish opinion outside Israel has been narrowed on Middle East questions to a compulsory, unquestioning support for the Israeli government of the day, no matter what. A few brave individuals challenge this orthodoxy - to their cost." (Candour is not Israel's enemy)* [* See my 7/6/10 post The Herald Gets Bolshie.]

At the time, I fondly took this criticism for an indication that past editorial practice, which invariably involved the faux 'balancing' of any item critical of Israel (rare at best) with one taking the contrary view, always penned by a representative of one or other of the Zionist organisations that make up the Israel lobby, was about to change. Foolish me.

One of those few brave individuals referred to - anti-Zionist Jew, blogger and freelance journalist Antony Loewenstein - has, as far as I'm aware, only managed to crack the opinion pages of the Herald twice - twice! -on the issue of the Middle East conflict.

The first time was on January 5 (Gaza's suffering is Israel's shame). The second was today: Western politicians prefer to ignore Israel's inherent racism. The reference point for Loewenstein's piece was Israel's racist and discriminatory proposal to require non-Jews (mainly Palestinians) wishing to marry non-Jewish (ie Palestinian-) Israelis (and so becoming Israeli citizens) to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as 'a Jewish & democratic state'. Loewenstein's was predictably the kind of well-researched and insightful commentary we've come to expect from him. And good on the Herald for giving space on its opinion page to one of those aforementioned few brave individuals.

Except that the Herald has inexplicably reverted to past bad practice by publishing, bang next to Loewenstein's piece, a defence of the oath by those Jews of the diaspora it had earlier criticised for their compulsory, unquestioning support for the Israeli government of the day, no matter what, a sad reminder that the Herald did not have the courage of its convictions and was still in thrall to pressure from the Israel lobby to exclude or otherwise mute such voices as Loewenstein's. On no other issue can an independent writer know, with almost complete certainty, that, in the rare instance he manages to have an opinion piece published in the ms press, it will be accompanied, like the proverbial albatross around the neck, by a putrid propaganda piece.

To pick through just 3 strands of same - Oath's emphasis on a democratic nation state is soundly based, by the executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), Colin Rubenstein:

1) "[Israel's] oath is not dissimilar to the pledge new Australians recite."

See for yourself. Here's the text of Australia's Pledge of Commitment: "From this time forward, under God (optional), I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey." For it to be in any way similar to Israel's proposed new loyalty oath, Australia's PoC would need to be expanded to democratic and Christian beliefs.

2) "Let's go back to basics. The UN's 1947 Partition Plan called explicitly for the creation of a 'Jewish state', as well as an Arab state..."

Is Rubenstein seriously suggesting here that, in partitioning Palestine, the UN had anything in mind other than that the 'Jewish' state was for those Jews actually living within its confines at the time? There is no evidence whatever that the UN was in the business of rubber-stamping the Zionist fantasy that the 'Jewish' state referred to in the partition resolution was the sole property of Jews wherever in the world they happen to reside. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that the UN intended that the then existing Jewish community in Palestine had carte blanche to turf out the non-Jewish population (comprising almost 50% of the population) residing within its borders in order to make way for the likes of Colin Rubenstein, Vic Alhadeff and Co. (See my 11/11/08 post Talking Turkey on the Two-State Solution)

3) "Many democracies have 'established' religions, including Britain..."

I'm sorry, but the acquisition of UK citizenship is not, repeat not, based on birth to a Christian, let alone a Church of England, mother. (See my 30/6/09 post Calling Italy a Christian State which covers some of this territory.)

To return to the Herald editorial, in particular the sentence, "A few brave individuals challenge this orthodoxy - to their cost." What about a brave editor doing his/her bit? And if advertising revenue is affected, blow the bloody whistle! Now wouldn't that do wonders for the Herald's relevance?

Julia Irwin Spills the Beans

I was thinking only the other day: 'I hope (retiring, pro-Palestinian Labor MP) Julia Irwin writes her memoirs'. I had no idea, however, that we'd be party to her experiences as a supporter of the Palestinians in a thoroughly Zionised Australian Labor Party (ALP) so soon. We have the redoubtable freelance journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein to thank for that scoop, and the complete version of his interview with her may be found at his website. What Irwin has to say, as a party insider, is dynamite, and it will be interesting to see to what extent, if any, it is drawn on by the mainstream media. Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath.

What follows are some of the juicier bits of Irwin's testimony (along with a few of my own comments in square-bracketed bold):

"With a few exceptions, the great majority of the Caucus have strong pro-Israel views. Many have visited Israel as guests of various groups. You would find a check of the Register of Members Interests worth reading as it discloses who has been to Israel and who paid for the trip. Many members and senators from right-wing unions have had close links with the Israeli union movement over the years and have maintained entrenched views."

[For a regularly updated list of these polliewaffles, both federal and state, as well as journalists and others (along with some of their recorded 'impressions') see my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too.]

"While ALP officials, Eric Roozendaal and Mark Arbib have spoken to me and requested that I should have my speeches vetted, visit the Holocaust Museum, visit Israel and meet with members of various Jewish organisations, these requests have not been followed up. After one speech on Palestine, the ALP chief whip tore up my application for leave from the House when I was to attend an Inter Parliamentary Union meeting in Geneva. This was later approved but not before some emotional displays on both sides."

[For the first reported inkling of Arbib's role as an urger for Israel see my 30/7/10 post Get Thee to Israel!]

"Until very recently... Kevin Rudd... [had not] spoken to me on [the Israel/Palestine conflict]... Then, strangely, at the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday before he was deposed as Prime Minister, I had gone up to Kevin to ask him to sign a hardback edition of 'The True Believers' which had been signed by all party leaders from Gough Whitlam [on]. Kevin was surprisingly friendly and inquired about the reaction of supporters of the Palestinian cause to the government's handling of the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over the theft of Australian passports and his statement calling for an inquiry into the Mavi Marmara incident. His remarks led me to believe that there had been some change in the government's position with regard to Israel even if it was only a small step from being totally uncritical."

[The question is to what extent that small step was a factor in Rudd's downfall. My posts, The Best Israel Policy Money Can Buy (22/6/10) and If Only Rudd Hadn't Expelled That Israeli Diplomat... (1/7/10), marshal the available evidence.]

"Without naming names, I could point to at least one ALP member who receives big donations from Palestinian interests but is silent on the issue. (I should add that I have never been offered financial support for my re-election campaigns from groups outside my electorate and none with direct links to Palestinian interests)."

"There is certainly a belief that support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position. Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate, unconditional apology. For all MPs there is the desire to 'play it safe'. Why make enemies over an issue which does not directly affect your local community? And I have to add that many Labor members have an intense dislike of Arabic people. That's something that comes across in their less guarded moments. They will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not Palestine."

[This is a damning insight into the parliamentary wing of the party: a bunch of racists whose leaders are vetted and approved by pro-Israel enforcers.]

"On the Labor side (and as far as I know the same applies to the Liberals), a newly selected member for a winnable seat is hosted to a private fundraising dinner. A table full of Jewish businessmen are happy to hand over $10,000 for the candidate's first campaign. That's a big bonus for a new member and many never forget the generosity. I was never afforded such an honour, but I can say that I would have been suspicious of the motive."

[For a description of the same phenomenon in the UK's Conservative Party see my 12/5/10 post Ziocons Rule.]

"And then there are the trips to Israel. The chance to see the achievements of 60 years of Zionism, and to look down on the depressed Palestinian villages is hard to pass up for some. How could any member not be impressed by such achievement, and how could they not share the fear of the backward Arabs threatening such an enlightened society? Any check of the Register of Members Interests reveals how Tel Aviv is such a popular destination, especially when it's free. A visit to Israel is almost a rite of passage for new MPs and senators."

[Again, a damning insight into mainstream politics in this country and one that's barely caused a ripple of interest in the corporate media - largely because it too is caught up in the same corrupting practice.]

"Shortly after my motion on the Israel/Palestine conflict in 2002, the Israel Lobby sprang into action. 'Jewish Friends of Labor' was formed and no doubt has been a rich source of support for Labor candidates ever since. As I have told Michael Danby, Julia Irwin has been the best electoral asset he has had. The Jewish Lobby needs support from both sides of politics. It cannot afford to snub Labor even if most Jewish voters live in blue ribbon Liberal seats. Personally, while I have survived 4 terms, I have no doubt that senior ALP figures have promised to end my career on more than one occasion. At the grass roots level, in the branches and the wider electorate the lobby has no influence. Only at the highest levels can a member be threatened. But a party which allows that to happen is not worthy of public support."

[Amen, Julia.]

It is devoutly to be hoped that Julia Irwin will find time while retired to pen a fuller account of these goings on.

I Confess

"I've got this terrible habit. It's called thinking." George Carlin

My fave rag (its maxi-me The Australian aside), The Australian Jewish News, has just had a go at "self-confessed* anti-Zionist Anthony [sic] Loewenstein," who "admitted he may have overstepped the mark in encouraging comparisons between Israel and Nazism" by posting a "Third Reich-style image of Julia Gillard alongside the Israeli flag and SS soldiers with the Star of David on their helmets." (Nazi comparison a goosestep too far, 16/7/10) [*Self-confessed anti-Zionist! OMG! Antony, are you now or have you ever been a member of the... ?]

Well, I too have a confession to make: I too... *sob*... sorry... I too recently found myself entertaining such a comparison. No, I hasten to add, I did not need Antony Loewenstein's encouragement in this. It just... sort of... *sob*... happened.

It's OK, I've composed myself. Allow me to explain:

I was listening to Radio National's PM program on July 12, and specifically to an item by Anne Barker on the appalling treatment of Palestinian child prisoners by the Israeli military as revealed in a new report delivered to the United Nations by the Defence for Children International organisation (Lobby group alleges mistreatment of young Palestinian prisoners in Israel), when I was reminded of an episode in a little book I'd read on the German occupation of Britain's Channel Islands...

You can see how insidious this business is, can't you? No wonder Antony got caught out. I mean, I tried to resist, but the comparison just goosestepped its way into my consciousness and, well, just occupied it.

The book was John Lewis' A Doctor's Occupation (1982), subtitled "The dramatic true story, seen through the eyes of a young doctor, of life in Nazi-occupied Jersey."

In September 1942, the Germans, for reasons Lewis could only speculate about, decided to deport English-born Islanders to Germany. Of the occupying German troops, Lewis wrote: "The German private soldiers themselves were very unhappy about the whole thing, which they felt was quite unnecessary and cruel. Several even said so, although not when officers were in earshot. Within the limits of their orders, they were as kind and considerate as could be, and many of them were uncomfortable and shamefaced when confronting the sorrowing, bitter Islanders." (pp 177-178)

It was the following description, however, that came to my mind while I was listening to Anne Barker's report:

"On September 25 a further 300 [deportees] arrived at the weighbridge... As before, crowds turned up to bid goodbye, but this time the Germans had blocked off not only all the streets leading to the weighbridge, but also all points having a view of the harbour, so that relations and friends were cheated of their last farewells... Deprived of the excitement of a patriotic demonstration, parties of teenagers marched through the streets, singing and giving the V sign. They were chased away by soldiers, but groups reformed at other points, and carried on baiting the enemy. At last the soldiers, not entirely unreasonably, lost their tempers when a boy knocked off a German helmet and the others started kicking it around. A German officer began bully-ragging one of them, a well grown teenager of about 14, who suddenly hauled off and gave the officer a sock on the jaw which laid him out cold. The soldiers then drew their bayonets, which had a very sobering effect; 14 boys were carted off to prison, where they remained for a fortnight. They were then tried by court martial. Those of 16 and under were released, after having had a thorough fright. The older ones received varying, not very severe sentences, but a man alleged to have incited them was sentenced to 3 years in a German prison. After this drama, we settled down to our customary dull existence." (pp 181-182)

Under-16s released; the rest given a not very severe sentence. I couldn't believe it. Germans for Christ's sake! A German officer - decked!

Now here, in part, is what had prompted my heinous thought-crime:

"ANNE BARKER: Every year nearly 700 minors as young as 12 are prosecuted in Israeli military courts. Hundreds are currently in jail. Nearly two-thirds of those charged last year were accused of throwing stones at soldiers or Israeli settlers, a crime that can carry 20 years in jail. Yet the organisation Defence for Children International, or DCI, which represents many of them in court, says very often minors are arrested who've done nothing at all. Its lawyer is Gerard Horton.

GERARD HORTON: Someone will have thrown stones at a bypass road or the wall or some army facility or a settlement. The army will then come into the nearest village to where that incident occurred and start arresting children.

ANNE BARKER: Gerard Horton says arrests are usually made in the dead of night as a form of intimidation or deterrence.

GERARD HORTON: We have a number of cases where children have woken up at 2 in the morning with an M16 assault rifle at their head, their hands are tied with plastic ties very tight behind their back, they're blindfolded. Generally they're not told why they've been arrested or where they're being taken.

ANNE BARKER: The Israel Defence Force defends its policies on the arrest and detention of Palestinian minors. In its statement to the ABC it says: Rock throwing is a serious offence, placing others at significant risk and endangering both the public and regional security. The same certainly applies to attempts at stabbing a soldier. Offenders of either violation must bear appropriate consequences. But lawyers say, despite what the IDF claims, Israel's treatment of such minors does violate international conventions. DCI says youngsters in custody are usually denied a lawyer until after they make a confession. Often the confession is made under coercion or even torture. Many, it says, are forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they can't understand. Recently it says another 15-year-old boy accused of throwing stones reportedly had car jumper leads attached to his genitals under threat of electrification unless he confessed. Lawyer Khaled Quzmar says such abuse is common.

KHALED QUZMAR: From experience I can say that most children arrested are tortured according to the definition of torture. When we talk about torture, it's physical and psychological.
ANNE BARKER: Now, a DCI report to the UN Committee Against Torture has documented a litany of alleged abuse. Of the cases it examined, it says 69% of minors were beaten or kicked during interrogation. Two-thirds were arrested at home between midnight and 4am. 92% were blindfolded and 14% were placed in solitary confinement."

I can't really understand now why this incident from the German occupation of Jersey came to mind when I heard the above - there is, after all, no real comparison between how the Germans treated the children of Jersey and how the Israelis treat Palestinian children. So I herewith apologise for my rogue thought. Can we agree that it's all the ABC's fault?

A Snowball's Chance

Further to my last post on Noel Pearson:

Should a student at the American University in Cairo (AUC) wish to attend a speech on "civic engagement" given by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan and ask a question of HM, he/she, according to an email sent to AUC students this month, is asked to "submit any questions they have for HM The Queen, which are relevant and related to the topic of HM's lecture," and informed that "We [The Gerhart Centre] will select a maximum of 4 or 5 of the pre-approved questions from students." (Queen Youtube at the AUC, The Angry Arab News Service, 16/2/10)

Reading the above, I was struck by how similar The Gerhart Centre's vetting process was to that of getting a letter into The Australian, save that the Centre at least lets students know in advance that critical questions will have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell of getting through.

No prizes then for guessing which of the following two letters on Pearson's pearler made it to The Australians' letters page yesterday:

"It's unusual for Noel Pearson to have a flight of fancy that's as different as chalk from cheese when he makes links between Aboriginal culture and that of the Jews ('Aborigines can learn from Jews how to preserve culture and prosper', Commentary, 15/2). Both may always have been considered minority peoples but the Jews survived/thrived because they had one big idea together with one tenacious strategy. The Jews' big idea was their monotheistic god and their survival strategy on being dispersed from their homeland was sheer bloody-minded struggle against all odds. A prerequisite was never-ending self-discipline. Aboriginal culture can perhaps have a big 'religious' idea for modern Australia in its own traditional respect for 'country' - the environment for non-Aborigines - as mother and as spiritual nurturer. As to the first Australians' strategy for eventually winning out, like the Jews, perhaps the first step would be Pearson's revolution to reject all the soft options of the welfare state based on handouts." L. Leroux, Acton, ACT

"Noel Pearson's admiration of the Jewish people ('Aborigines can learn from Jews how to preserve culture and prosper', 15 February) is curious for its omissions. In praising their 'resilience and seriousness as a people' and dedication to never forgetting history, he seems to have conveniently overlooked the modern state of Israel. As a Jew, I am constantly astounded how many non-Jews are able to celebrate the Jewish religion and ignore what's happening in Palestine. Modern Zionism has co-opted Judaism and left millions of Palestinians dispossessed in the name of a post-Holocaust myth. Pearson should spend some time in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel proper and discover the real meaning of modern Judaism. Israel's ever-deepening occupation of Palestinian lands is a curious way to fight racism when Israeli laws are specifically designed to segregate people along racial lines." Antony Loewenstein (Aborigines should not look to modern Jews as any kind of inspiration, antonyloewenstein.com, 16/2/10)

A Tale of Two Interviews

Last night, Phillip Adams spoke to anti-Zionist blogger, journalist and author (My Israel Question) Antony Loewenstein on Late Night Live (LNL). No sooner had he mentioned, in his introduction, that Loewenstein had just been to Gaza in the wake of Israel's December/January "attack," than he was trotting out the standard Zionist talking point: "The reason for the attack, Israel said, was to stop Hamas rockets... on southern Israel and to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza." Throughout the interview, Adams was noticeably detached, essentially allowing his interviewee free rein. Only at one point did he elaborate on Loewenstein's words by observing that "... one of the things the Israel Defense Forces does is mete out collective punishment and practise humiliating the Palestinian people." But even this had to be preceded by a repetition of the above talking point: "While the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel is intolerable..."

Adams really only came alive in his second interviewee of the night - with Melbourne-based GP and author (Raft) Howard Goldenberg, who works for part of the year as a relief doctor in remote Aboriginal communities. When asked why, Goldenberg explained: "Two prime ministers ago we had a national program... called reconciliation. I realise that I live in the nicest, racist country in the world, and it's an enormous privilege to live here... and I enjoy it at the cost of the dispossession of its previous owners, and I thought: I'm in a trade that's portable and I can do a token..."

Wonderful, I thought, a man who practises what he preaches. Then Adams, one of Australia's card-carrying atheists, came out with this: "It's the Jewishness now I want to look at because, to your surprise, you had specifically Jewish reactions to aspects of Aboriginal life. What were they?" Replied Goldenberg: "It was a surprise, but when I reflected, I realised I should have anticipated that members of two peoples with histories of dispossession and humilation and killing would recognise each other, would find points of intersection and of parallel, and I think equally powerful were operations of community and family and those bonds that are extremely strong..." Fair enough. But no, this apparently wasn't good enough for Adams. He had to channel the doctor's thoughts in a specifically Zionist direction: "And also the deep mythology of land, which of course is the Israel story or the claim that Israel makes." Goldenberg took the bait: "That's right, and Aboriginal people remind me from time to time that that reclaiming of land and of pride should be a model to them. All this is unexpected, and then, in really remote places a bloke will hail me and discuss the Middle East with me in a most sophisticated way [Adams laughs], and this bloke, an initiated elder, is watching CNN every night and is much more up to date than I am about the Middle East."

To clarify: Having only just interviewed Antony Loewenstein on the trials of the dispossessed, indigenous population of Palestine, Adams consciously elicits from Goldenberg a statement to the effect that the political Zionist myth of a return to, and a "reclaiming," of Palestine, what he terms the "Israel story," is seen by some Aboriginal Australians (or at least those who watch CNN) as some kind of "model" for Australia's dispossessed, indigenous population. The mind, as they say, boggles.

Something Quite Disturbing

An Australian blog called The Sensible Jew (TSJ) emerged in May this year to some mainstream media fanfare in The Age. It proclaimed its mission as: "Occupying the territory between the Beth Din & Antony Loewenstein since 2009." Those behind it could abide neither the current Jewish community leadership (too Zionist) or Antony Loewenstein (too anti-Zionist).

The latter, of course, had their measure, writing, in a letter to The Age: "The new blog The Sensible Jew... appears unconcerned with anything other than improving the PR of the Zionist agenda. While a mature debate is raging overseas about war crimes in Gaza, ongoing settlement expansion in the West Bank and racist laws in Israel that would ban Arab memorials for 1948 ethnic cleansing, the mostly anonymous bloggers prefer to talk about Jewish spokespeople appearing clumsy on television. As is seen in Britain and the US, a growing number of concerned citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, are no longer willing to accept a self-described Jewish state that actively discriminates against the non-Jewish population. A global campaign to boycott Israel is growing in strength. Instead, the Australian Jewish community obsesses about who belongs to what Jewish roof body. The parochialism is startling." (13/6/09)

As it happened, the TSJ bloggers recently decided to call it a day - but not before making this revealing comment in their final post: "Some in the [Jewish] community... have rejoiced at this blog's closure. There have been thanks given to God, and other expressions of similar delight. My concern is not that there might be people who disagree with me... but that there are Australian Jews who felt that a group of Zionists, whose beliefs fall very much within the mainstream of Australian Jewish life, could somehow be so vile that this blog's closure could provoke utter bliss. The most radical position presented on this blog has been the mooted democratisation of our leadership. That there is a significant number of people that cannot tolerate such a mild topic for debate without resorting to flaming, abuse, and trolling is symptomatic of something quite disturbing. Many more have commented or emailed to express support for what this blog was about. But such people were rarely motivated to comment on multiple occasions. Some privately confided that they were intimidated by the trolls, or that they just couldn't be bothered fighting with the more conservative elements. Such people felt that if their opinions and identities were made public, they would be publicly shamed, ridiculed, or defamed. Again, such people were not propounding radical views, and ours is not a violent community, so it shocked me profoundly that there was enough fear to keep a significant number quiet." (SJ signs off, 15/7/09)

The very first comment to follow was even more forthright: "But you have learned something that some of us have faced for years in our attempts to offer alternative opinions, that there is a vicious, intolerant and nasty streak in the community, that [, and] I don't like to say this, but say [it] with some sadness, [there is] a good dose of fascism."

Although continuing to cling to their illusions of a kinder, softer Zionism, we should at least be greatful to the TSJ bloggers for such a frank acknowledgment of the nature and modus operandi of the Zionist dead-enders they (and we) have had to contend with.

The SMH Gets Real (At Last)

The Bulldozing Entity has been illegally bulldozing Palestinian homes for as long as I can remember. One hundred and seventy-nine allegedly 'illegally built' Palestinian homes are currently awaiting that fate in illegally BE-occupied & illegally BE- annexed Arab East Jerusalem. (See Ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, Marcy Newman, electronicintifada.net, 10/3/09) We even have the case of a Palestinian resident who, in the certain knowledge that his home is about to be illegally bulldozed by the Bulldozing Entity, has asked a friend to do it for a fraction of the $20,000 demolition fee charged by the Entity. (See Facing Israeli demolition, Palestinian razes his home, Mohammad Assadi, wire.antiwar.com, 6/3/09)

Retired Israeli anthropology professor and co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) Jeff Halper is now in Sydney blowing the whistle on such, and related, bastardry. And the usual suspects are upset: Robert Magid, owner and publisher of The Australian Jewish News, has pulled an ad for a talk by Halper in a Sydney synagogue because "I don't like the crowd who are bringing him out... They use their Judaism to bash other Jews and issues associated with the Jewish community" (Academic's visit divides Jewish groups, Andrew West, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/3/09). The "crowd," being Jews Against the Occupation, Independent Australian Jewish Voices, and the Coalition for Justice & Peace in Palestine. And now it seems even the synagogue crowd have developed cold feet: "We have a deep committment to free speech... but [some] members were very worried about what the professor might say," said a synagogue source (ibid).

That Herald report was followed next day by a somewhat exasperated editorial (With friends like these...) which dared to cast doubt on Magid's motives in pulling the ad: "Maybe it's because criticism that can't be easily shrugged off as ill-informed or even as anti-Semitic is harder to answer." The editorial then topped that by linking Magid's move to the US Israel lobby's mugging of NIC nominee Chas Freeman and drawing a rare conclusion of some relevance:- "Unlike the previous failed Obama appointments, the problems with Mr Freeman clearly stem from his outspoken, independent views rather than tax arrears, suspected abuse of office or conflicts of interest. His withdrawal augurs badly for Mr Obama's administration as it shapes up to dealing with a new Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu. As Mr Freeman has bitterly pointed out, many of Israel's overseas supporters identify Israel with one faction of its politics, meaning Mr Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. That hardly speaks to Israel's great strengths. It will only make many think twice about the shrill messages about Iran's nuclear threat, Shiite extremism or the danger of even attending the forthcoming Durban Review Conference on racism and discrimination... "

The carry-on over Jeff Halper's visit has been comprehensively dealt with by Australian Jewish anti-Zionist journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein. Suffice it for me to focus in the rest of this post on just two matters arising: the Herald's flawed framing of its otherwise highly relevant editorial, and the issue of what's eating Robert Magid.

The Herald has adopted the pc convention that before you can venture a criticism of the Bulldozing Entity, you've first got to praise it to the skies. Hence the opening sentence: "Israel is a democracy." Bulldust! It's actually a country under the control of a minority Jewish supremacist regime. Think about it. Four to five million of its potential citizens, the descendents of Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces under cover of war in 1948, live, disenfranchised and stateless, outside its borders. The Bulldozing Entity has defied international law now for over 60 years by vetoing their return. Over one million of the Entity's current population of around 7 million are Palestinian Arabs, the descendents of those who escaped the ethnic cleansing of 1948. When the Bulldozing Entity allows the 4-5 million Palestinian refugees to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled in 1948, and grants them full citizenship rights, including the right to vote, then and only then will talk about the Entity being a democracy cease to ring hollow.

As for Mr Magid, remember the "crowd" he doesn't like? Jews in various stages of bucking Zionist orthodoxy? Those who "use their Judaism to bash other Jews"? Yes? Well, like all dyed in the wool Zionists, he can't bear Jews who don't swallow political Zionism hook, line & sinker, including, I've no doubt, Jeff Halper.

In an extraordinary obituary on the late British plawright Harold Pinter published in his paper on January 23, Magid vents his Zionist spleen at one of that 'dreadful' "crowd". The following extracts reveal infinitely more of the suffocating tribal madness which is Zionism than they do of Pinter:-

"Later in the [Charlie] Rose [2006] interview, Pinter stated: 'I am speaking as a Jew and I deplore what Israel is doing. I deplore the continual harassment of the Palestinians... who are stopped by Israeli soldiers, who are actually [he pauses and screws up his face] thugs'. Pinter should have applied his rich imagination to envisage his only son, straight out of high school, scared, stationed at a checkpoint, evaluating whether the woman before him was really pregnant, or wearing a suicide vest... [H]is website didn't contain a trace of his Jewishness, and this was reflected in Pinter's life - until it came to Israel-bashing. Then surprisingly, he found his Jewish soul. He joined Independent Jewish Voices and underwent a metamorphosis where he found a Jewish voice within a British gentleman's body. And with this voice, he proclaimed, 'Israel's injustice to the Palestinians was an outrage' and 'the central factor in world unrest'. What do we make of this man, who was born a Jew, yet only displayed hatred and contempt for his own?... The tragedy of Pinter's life was that he was a great talent who provided insights into human nature. But his final betrayal, after a life denying his Jewish ancestry, was to define himself as a Jew in order to attack his fellow Jews. This transformation from Lear to Iago is worthy of a play."

IOW, Jews who are not Zionists are traitors to the cause.

The Zionist La Passionara

In Activist has a gender for peace, and it's all in the talk (9/8/08), the Sydney Morning Herald's Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis introduces us to "Israeli-American author, playwright and women's rights activist Naomi Ragen*," who is about to darken our doorstep for the 3rd time - for which you can thank the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA).

[*He forgot to throw in card-carrying Likudnik.]

Koutsoukis tells us that Naomi "has many passions, some contradictory." So sit back, relax, and enjoy some Zionist plain-speaking from Ragin' Ragen:

After "lamenting the end of women's dialogue that for one brief moment Oslo allowed," Naomi opines, "'If we women [Israeli and Palestinian] could just keep sitting together and talking, we'd get a lot done'." Exactly what 'they' got done during that "one brief moment" she doesn't say, but you'll be pleased to know that Naomi, "an Orthodox Jew... receives Christmas cards from a member of the Jordanian royal family, a Muslim"! Now if only the anonymous Jordanian blueblood, prime ministerial wannabe Tzipi Livni, and Naomi, of course, could sit down over a cuppa, a new era of peace and harmony would dawn in the Holy Land. Yeah, right!

"[Naomi] is convinced the controversial wall separating Israel and the West Bank is essential for security." [Not illegal, you'll note, merely "controversial." Note also Katsoukis' description (clueless/deliberate?) of the wall "separating Israel from the West Bank," when much of it is built inside the West Bank.] Yet this "passion" for the wall is contradicted, according to Koutsoukis, by Naomi's refusal, against the wishes of her fellow Jews in the Ramot neighbourhood of Jerusalem, to countenance the building of "a fence that would have prevented her neighbours from the Arab village Beit Iksa coming to their construction jobs. 'These were honourable men coming in to do their jobs and we never, ever had any trouble with any of them. Why would I cut them off from their livelihoods? If anything had ever happened, of course, I'd have been the first to have insisted on the fence'." Hm, what a friend to the good folk of Beit Iksa! Only trouble is, as the headline has it, it really is "all in the talk."

To begin with, Naomi's home of Ramot [Allon] is an illegal Israeli settlement built on occupied land (1347 dunums) stolen from Beit Iksa in 1973. What's more, Ramot snaffled a further 112 dunums of Beit Iksa's land between 2002 and 2004. With the completion of Israel's Apartheid Wall, Beit Iksa will lose 60% of its land to the Israeli side (See Beit Iksa loses its lands to the Israeli Segregation Wall, poica.org).

Then there's the slight matter of Naomi's revisionism. As a novelist (she's also here for the Melbourne Writers' Festival), you may be sure she knows that a first draft can always benefit from a good re-write. And so the second draft (above) of Naomi Stands Alone Against the Wall, in which she portrays herself as a lone defender of the "honourable men" of Beit Iksa, is way better than the first, which appeared in the March 2006 edition of Mideast Outpost (http://mideastoutpost.com/archives/2006_03.html) under the heading Handing Jerusalem to Hamas. Back then Naomi wrote as follows: "During the intifada, [Beit Iksa] villagers regularly walked across the wadi and up the steps past my home to work in construction jobs in Ramot and elsewhere. This, even after terrorists were found with suicide belts in Ramot... The police never checked these workers, despite repeated phone calls and warnings." And remember how, in her second draft, she said she opposed the building of the wall because it would have prevented the villagers of Beit Iksa from "coming to their construction jobs?" That was mucho better than the first draft, which had her opposing the wall because it'd leave Beit Iksa on the Palestinian side of the wall where it would become a hotbed of Hamasian terror on Ramot's very "doorstep." And how does she know this? Because those bloody villagers "voted 100% for Hamas" in the election!

Although Naomi knows how to spin a tale or two, she's apparently somewhat reluctant to turn her hand to politics. But if she did, "the number one item on her agenda would be 'to introduce the death penalty for terrorists. We need to kill these people, not let them sit in our jails and then trade them to freedom in return for the bodies of Israeli soldiers who lost their lives protecting their country'." Jeez, Louise, this lady's got balls! Maybe Her Highness could double as Lord High Executioner. Or is hangin' too good for 'em?

In reference to her coming ZFA appearance(s), Koutsoukis asks Naomi why she'll be addressing "only a Jewish audience." She responds, "Because we are living through the most ignorant time in Jewish history. They don't realise that there was never a Palestinian state here - never a real state between the Babylonian destruction and the reborn state of Israel." Told you she's got balls! She's singing from the same hymn book as that other Zionist iron maiden, the late PM Golda Meir. As Golda once laid it on the line: "There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Seems Naomi's a throwback to the Good Old Days of Golda, and it's been all down hill ever since.

Now Koutsoukis describes Naomi as "warming to her theme over gnocci and a peppery Judean Hills* cabernet in Jerusalem's German Colony neighbourhood." How very civilized. But no sooner has he asked if she'll be debating Antony Loewenstein in Australia, than she's come unstuck, choking on the gnocci and spraying cabernet all over him: "'Bring it on'," she splutters. "'Those kind of people are easy. They say one lie after another. He's a typical self-hating, ignorant Jew'."

[*A "Judean Hills cabernet"? Is that the brand, I wonder, or can we expect Jason to begin referring to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in his reports as Judea and Samaria?]

Finally, after wiping Jason down, Naomi's onto another of her "many passions," this time fulminating against the two-state solution: "'A complete disaster... Look what happened in Gaza. A total betrayal. As soon as we withdrew from Gaza, they started attacking us... I liked Sharon up until the Gaza withdrawal, but then he sold out his country', she says. Which is perhaps why the notion held by some right-wing religious Jews - that Sharon, still in a coma after a stroke in January 2006, is being punished by God for the Gaza withdrawal - does not strike Ragen as offensive. 'I think there might be something to it'."

Spruiking the wall, spruiking the death penalty, unable to see the Palestinians for the suicide bombers, unable to see the Palestinians before there were any suicide bombers, unable to see the Palestinians full stop, more right-wing than Sharon himself, indulged over gnocci and peppery Judean Hills cabernet by a handsome young Greek-Australian reporter, poised to fly off to the Antipodes to stiffen the spine of Australian Zionists - what a woman!

But there's more. What about the bit about Naomi being a "women's rights activist"? Koutsoukis didn't go there, but The Australian Jewish News did: "It is not just external threats that Ragen sees as a challenge. She has recently spoken out against the introduction of segregated buses in Jerusalem, in which women are forced to sit at the back, so they don't offend ultra-Orthodox sensibilities. 'If you have a situation where all of a sudden the private realm of religion starts dictating where you can sit on a bus, that's a challenge for the whole country, and that is something that needs to be dealt with no less than the military problems and the secular problems that we have', said Ragen, who labels herself modern-Orthodox." (Ragen: We're between hope and a hard place, 1/8/08)

Talk about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! What about where "the private realm of religion starts dictating" whether Palestinian refugees can return to their homes and lands? But that's Zionism for you: still crazy after all these years.