"For years, Palestinians in the crowded East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan have complained that the walls of their homes were settling and cracking, disturbed by an underground archaeological dig led by a right-wing Jewish settler group. When that dig was officially unveiled... with the ceremonial smashing of a brick wall, it was President Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who swung the first sledgehammer. The reverberations were literal and metaphorical. US ambassadors to Israel, to avoid being seen as taking Israel's side in the conflict with the Palestinians, have avoided public appearances in East Jerusalem. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and annexed it. Most of the world considers it illegally occupied, and the Palestinians want it as the capital of a future state.... But [Friedman's] starring role at the event run by the City of David Foundation yesterday was more provocative... Over the years, the group has moved hundreds of Jews into Silwan, a neighbourhood with with about 5000 Palestinians. At the same time, it has led a sprawling excavation of an area of Silwan called Wadi Hilweh, where archaeologists [names please] say they have unearthed the original boundaries of biblical Jerusalem. Yesterday's event represented the opening of what the group is calling the Pilgrimage Road, an underground passageway that leads from the Pool of Siloam, where the group says ancient Jewish pilgrims would cleanse themselves, to the point at which they would ascend the Temple Mount... 'Here we have this powerful, irrefutable, undeniable evidence,' Friedman told the guests, which included Israeli and US diplomats and lawmakers, the billionaire Republican donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, and Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Friedman added, 'Were there any doubt, and to me there never was, about the accuracy, the wisdom, the propriety of President Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, I certainly think this lays all doubts to rest'." (US smashes diplomatic barrier, David M. Halbfinger, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 2/7/19)
Two other individuals, apart from the mob above, deserve dishonourable mentions in relation to their cavalier attitudes towards Israeli activities in East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements:
The first is Geraldine Brooks, Australian-born novelist and Catholic convert to Judaism following her marriage to the late US writer Tony Horwitz. Brooks' best-seller, The Secret Chord (2015), has lent credence to the City of David Foundation's tunneling. See my two posts The Tunnel Vision of Geraldine Brooks for details.
The second is former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop, who is on record as saying, "I would like to see which international law has declared [Israeli settlements] illegal." (See Lawyers caution Bishop, John Lyons, The Australian, 27/1/14 in my 28/1/14 post Just How Bright is Julie Bishop?)
Showing posts with label Benjamin Netanyahu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benjamin Netanyahu. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Sunday, June 30, 2019
The Jared Kushner-Netanyahu Connection
Note that the following quotation encompasses Charlie Kushner, Jared's father, Jared and Netanyahu:
"A speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... cost as much as one hundred thousand dollars, and Charlie paid him to speak in New Jersey four times [...] Charlie doggedly groomed his eldest son [Jared] for greatness... He brought Jared with him to meetings with politicians and hosted Netanyahu overnight at the family home, where Jared got to talk to him. (The Israeli politician stayed in Jared's bedroom, while Jared slept in the basement.)" (Kushner Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption: The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Vicky Ward (2019), pp 14/18)
"A speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... cost as much as one hundred thousand dollars, and Charlie paid him to speak in New Jersey four times [...] Charlie doggedly groomed his eldest son [Jared] for greatness... He brought Jared with him to meetings with politicians and hosted Netanyahu overnight at the family home, where Jared got to talk to him. (The Israeli politician stayed in Jared's bedroom, while Jared slept in the basement.)" (Kushner Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption: The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Vicky Ward (2019), pp 14/18)
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Harry's Game
Harry Triguboff (like Frank Lowy and the Pratts, father and son) is the Australian equivalent of conspicuous US Zionist billionaire political donors such as Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban*. By way of an introduction to the vital content of this post, the following data has been gleaned from his Wikipedia entry - with some of the limitations one has come to expect from that source:
In 2016, Triguboff was the richest person in Australia, and is currently the third richest. He was born in Dalien, Lianing, in the former Republic of China (1912-1949) after his Russian Jewish parents left Russia in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In 1947, Triguboff moved to Australia, becoming a citizen in 1961. Just two statements in his Wikipedia entry suggest that he is something more than just a philanthropic billionaire property developer. These read as follows: "Triguboff donates heavily to political parties and uses his influence to seek policy changes."/ "Triguboff, via the Harry Triguboff Foundation , funded a project at the Shorashim Center [in Jerusalem] to assist immigrant applicants to Israel in proving their Jewishness."
Which brings me now to the revealing profile of Triguboff by Tess Durack in the May 29, Murdoch-owned, Wentworth Courier. Titled Top of his game: Harry Triguboff AO, aged 86, is pulling no punches, here are just the plums:
"At the 86th Gala Birthday dinner of Harry Triguboff AO earlier this year, a diverse crowd descended on Darling Harbour's ICC ballroom. Titans of business intersected with Orthodox Jews, tradies and sub-contractors from an array of ethnic backgrounds and families who work for - or whose livelihoods depend on - Triguboff... [T]hey paid tribute to the billionaire property developer whose image was beamed on huge screens... and to raise funds for the hugely successful Our Big Kitchen charity which Triguboff has long backed.
"An introduction from Rabbi Dovid Slavin, founder of Our Big Kitchen, and it was time for the guest of honour to speak. 'I'm very lucky that I found you,' the founder of Meriton [Apartments Pty Ltd] told the crowd of over 200, 'and you are very lucky that you found me!'
"It was a typically candid comment from a man renowned for speaking plainly in a thick Russian accent which lingers despite calling Australia home these past six decades. But even those accustomed to Triguboff's direct conversational style were taken aback by the apparent stream of consciousness that followed that night, as he took aim at national parks and watered-down forms of the Jewish education in a speech that drew an audible gasp or two from some in the crowd.
"'Sydney is a very strange place,' he ruminated. 'The only place in the world where they have so many parks. Everywhere, national parks. They are only good for snakes. No one goes there.' Cue the gasps."
Two months later, Durack was granted an interview by Triguboff which occupies the remainder of her profile:
"In the weeks following the birthday gala he launched legal action against the NSW government - during the thick of its election campaign - over a tower he is building in North Ryde. Does he feel optimistic about the result? 'Well I have to really belt them up,' he says with that trademark pugnacity. 'It's something that has to be done. Whenever I win a case against council - which is very often - I like it to be of benefit to everyone and if I can win this case, it will be of great benefit.'... I ask him how his day has been. 'My day? Fine! I have no bad days! If somebody is giving me the shits, I knock them out.'
"Annotated financial reports sit on the table in front of him... The space [at Meriton HQ on Kent Street] is filled with Chinese ornaments, signed sports paraphernalia and a stunning indigenous artwork in vivid pinks. I ask him who the artist is. 'I don't know. I don't care,' says Triguboff, his voice gruff and commanding. 'People who know painting - they know who it's by.' [...]
"Later today he will continue a 26-year battle to gain approval to secure a block of land on the northern beaches. Infuriated by the interference of councils, he says too many bad decisions are made because aldermen are worried they'll lose their seats. That he is not worried about such considerations puts him in a good position to win. 'I don't think I well win or lose my seat. I do what I think is right,' The ability to do the right' thing is something he respects and counts Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu and John Howard among those he admires. 'I don't think I like him,' he says of the former, 'but I have to admire him because he did such a good job for the country. And everyone loves John Howard. He will do anything for anyone... without thinking what's in it for himself, he did a good job for the country.' [...]
"I press him on the speech he made in Darling Harbour... Surely he can't mean for us to build on our national parks? 'It's true what I'm saying... Sydney is the only city in Australia where we have so many national parks. The problem is... is that nobody uses them, they are just wild - all that is there are snakes so nobody can go there'."**
[*See my 10/7/15 post Her Master's Voice, on Hillary Clinton's shameless courting of this Zionist mega donor to the Democratic Party;**This attitude of Triguboff's is actually long-standing. See my 28/9/10 post Zionist Chameleon.]
In 2016, Triguboff was the richest person in Australia, and is currently the third richest. He was born in Dalien, Lianing, in the former Republic of China (1912-1949) after his Russian Jewish parents left Russia in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In 1947, Triguboff moved to Australia, becoming a citizen in 1961. Just two statements in his Wikipedia entry suggest that he is something more than just a philanthropic billionaire property developer. These read as follows: "Triguboff donates heavily to political parties and uses his influence to seek policy changes."/ "Triguboff, via the Harry Triguboff Foundation , funded a project at the Shorashim Center [in Jerusalem] to assist immigrant applicants to Israel in proving their Jewishness."
Which brings me now to the revealing profile of Triguboff by Tess Durack in the May 29, Murdoch-owned, Wentworth Courier. Titled Top of his game: Harry Triguboff AO, aged 86, is pulling no punches, here are just the plums:
"At the 86th Gala Birthday dinner of Harry Triguboff AO earlier this year, a diverse crowd descended on Darling Harbour's ICC ballroom. Titans of business intersected with Orthodox Jews, tradies and sub-contractors from an array of ethnic backgrounds and families who work for - or whose livelihoods depend on - Triguboff... [T]hey paid tribute to the billionaire property developer whose image was beamed on huge screens... and to raise funds for the hugely successful Our Big Kitchen charity which Triguboff has long backed.
"An introduction from Rabbi Dovid Slavin, founder of Our Big Kitchen, and it was time for the guest of honour to speak. 'I'm very lucky that I found you,' the founder of Meriton [Apartments Pty Ltd] told the crowd of over 200, 'and you are very lucky that you found me!'
"It was a typically candid comment from a man renowned for speaking plainly in a thick Russian accent which lingers despite calling Australia home these past six decades. But even those accustomed to Triguboff's direct conversational style were taken aback by the apparent stream of consciousness that followed that night, as he took aim at national parks and watered-down forms of the Jewish education in a speech that drew an audible gasp or two from some in the crowd.
"'Sydney is a very strange place,' he ruminated. 'The only place in the world where they have so many parks. Everywhere, national parks. They are only good for snakes. No one goes there.' Cue the gasps."
Two months later, Durack was granted an interview by Triguboff which occupies the remainder of her profile:
"In the weeks following the birthday gala he launched legal action against the NSW government - during the thick of its election campaign - over a tower he is building in North Ryde. Does he feel optimistic about the result? 'Well I have to really belt them up,' he says with that trademark pugnacity. 'It's something that has to be done. Whenever I win a case against council - which is very often - I like it to be of benefit to everyone and if I can win this case, it will be of great benefit.'... I ask him how his day has been. 'My day? Fine! I have no bad days! If somebody is giving me the shits, I knock them out.'
"Annotated financial reports sit on the table in front of him... The space [at Meriton HQ on Kent Street] is filled with Chinese ornaments, signed sports paraphernalia and a stunning indigenous artwork in vivid pinks. I ask him who the artist is. 'I don't know. I don't care,' says Triguboff, his voice gruff and commanding. 'People who know painting - they know who it's by.' [...]
"Later today he will continue a 26-year battle to gain approval to secure a block of land on the northern beaches. Infuriated by the interference of councils, he says too many bad decisions are made because aldermen are worried they'll lose their seats. That he is not worried about such considerations puts him in a good position to win. 'I don't think I well win or lose my seat. I do what I think is right,' The ability to do the right' thing is something he respects and counts Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu and John Howard among those he admires. 'I don't think I like him,' he says of the former, 'but I have to admire him because he did such a good job for the country. And everyone loves John Howard. He will do anything for anyone... without thinking what's in it for himself, he did a good job for the country.' [...]
"I press him on the speech he made in Darling Harbour... Surely he can't mean for us to build on our national parks? 'It's true what I'm saying... Sydney is the only city in Australia where we have so many national parks. The problem is... is that nobody uses them, they are just wild - all that is there are snakes so nobody can go there'."**
[*See my 10/7/15 post Her Master's Voice, on Hillary Clinton's shameless courting of this Zionist mega donor to the Democratic Party;**This attitude of Triguboff's is actually long-standing. See my 28/9/10 post Zionist Chameleon.]
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Spotlighting Netanyahu's Role in the US War on Iran
The following article (If the US goes to war with Iran, Netanyahu will be the prime suspect, Chemi Shalev, Haaretz, 16/5/19), is of considerable interest when we consider that Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister at the time of the 2003 Iraq War, felt obliged to keep as low a profile as possible with respect to Israel's crucial role as the key detonator of the war. Sharon relied instead on his US Ziocon assets and the Israel lobby to steer the Bush administration in the direction he wanted, that of regime change and the balkanisation of Iraq, and to utililise the US military, as opposed to the Israeli, to bring this about.
Since that time, it should be clear to all and sundry that the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ditched the pretense of Israel as an innocent bystander in matters of regional regime change and balkanisation, and come out, time and again, publicly swinging in favour of a war with Iran. As Shalev points out, if and when the US takes on Iran militarily, there'll be no hiding the key role of Netanyahu's Israel in initiating the move to Iraq Iran. (Note that I have somewhat truncated Shalev's essay in order to highlight his thesis):
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader to openly express support for the escalating US campaign against Iran, but his statement is an exception to the general Israeli rule... The attempt to distance itself from an American military operation in the Middle East, as if Israel were merely a fan sitting in the bleachers cheering its favorite team, inevitably sparks analogies to Yitzhak Shamir's policy of restraint in the 1991 Gulf War and Ariel Sharon's similar attitude during the 2003 war in Iraq... And while Israel did not come under direct attack in the 2003 Iraq War, it was nonetheless compelled to defend itself against claims, which proliferated as the war progressed, that it had pushed President George W. Bush to decide on the attack in the first place. In the lead up to that ill-fated war, Netanyahu was once again one of a handful of prominent Israelis who preferred to break the silence. In public testimony before the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives in 2002, Netanyahu assured American lawmakers that Saddam either had nuclear weapons or was on the verge of acquiring them... Deposing Saddam, Netanyahu promised, would do wonders for the Middle East as a whole...
"But even without his damning testimony from the past... if war breaks out between the US and Iran, he will be named as the prime suspect as far as its opponents are concerned. Netanyahu... persuaded Donald Trump to abandon Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu convinced Trump that a combination of crippling economic sanctions and a credible military threat will force Tehran to beg for a new and improved nuclear deal, which will include its malevolent regional activities... Netanyahu become a one-man cheerleading squad for Trump's latest moves.
"But while the campaign to blame Israel for the Iraq War was limited to a relatively small clique of its most vociferous critics - the most prominent of which were Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their book about the Israel lobby - conflagration with Iran would dramatically expand the circle of Israel-accusers... It's situation today is substantially worse. After burning his bridges with American liberals, including most Jews... many Democrats are far more likely to point fingers at Netanyahu the moment the first American soldier is killed... Netanyahu believes that the Iranian leadership, like much of the Arab, understands only force. He is convinced that the intense economic pressure coupled with the nightmarish specter of American bombers laying waste to their country will compel Tehran to come back to the negotiating table on all fours in order to carve out the fabled 'better agreement' that both Trump and Netanyahu claim, with no evidence, is eminently achievable... [But] Iran does not view itself as a weak and vulnerable state that has no choice but to capitulate to US ultimatums, but as an equal rival determined to foil Trump or, at worst, survive him...
"Small wonder that in the past 48 hours, White House officials have started to brief US reporters that Trump is less happy with the bellicose approach of his National Security adviser John Bolton, known as one of Israel's closest confidantes in Washington. The catalyst for Trump's reservations was the leaked story of a Pentagon paper prepared for Bolton that envisaged sending 120,000 US troops to fight against the Iranians. Trump boasted that if it came to open conflict, the size of the US force would be much larger, but distanced himself from what critics describe as the warmongering winds emanating from Bolton's office. Experienced Washington observers claim that, based on previous patterns, Trump will soon start criticizing Bolton in public and, after a short hiatus, boot him out of the White House as well... Netanyahu may have to face the possibility that his all-in bet on Trump has failed to produce the dividends he sought and that the anti-Iran strategy built on his beautiful friendship with the US president could be on the verge of collapse.
"The remaining options are both unpalatable for Netanyahu. The first is that Iran will resist recently fortified economics sanctions and continue to incrementally abandon its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, without risking any retaliation from the countries that still adhere to it. The second is a military fare-up between Iran and the US, which or may not cripple Tehran's nuclear infrastructure but is certain to inflict human suffering, financial upheaval, escalating internal strife in Washington and the certainty that Netanyahu will be held responsible for them all. Worse, Trump may eventually reach the same conclusion."
Since that time, it should be clear to all and sundry that the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ditched the pretense of Israel as an innocent bystander in matters of regional regime change and balkanisation, and come out, time and again, publicly swinging in favour of a war with Iran. As Shalev points out, if and when the US takes on Iran militarily, there'll be no hiding the key role of Netanyahu's Israel in initiating the move to Iraq Iran. (Note that I have somewhat truncated Shalev's essay in order to highlight his thesis):
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader to openly express support for the escalating US campaign against Iran, but his statement is an exception to the general Israeli rule... The attempt to distance itself from an American military operation in the Middle East, as if Israel were merely a fan sitting in the bleachers cheering its favorite team, inevitably sparks analogies to Yitzhak Shamir's policy of restraint in the 1991 Gulf War and Ariel Sharon's similar attitude during the 2003 war in Iraq... And while Israel did not come under direct attack in the 2003 Iraq War, it was nonetheless compelled to defend itself against claims, which proliferated as the war progressed, that it had pushed President George W. Bush to decide on the attack in the first place. In the lead up to that ill-fated war, Netanyahu was once again one of a handful of prominent Israelis who preferred to break the silence. In public testimony before the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives in 2002, Netanyahu assured American lawmakers that Saddam either had nuclear weapons or was on the verge of acquiring them... Deposing Saddam, Netanyahu promised, would do wonders for the Middle East as a whole...
"But even without his damning testimony from the past... if war breaks out between the US and Iran, he will be named as the prime suspect as far as its opponents are concerned. Netanyahu... persuaded Donald Trump to abandon Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu convinced Trump that a combination of crippling economic sanctions and a credible military threat will force Tehran to beg for a new and improved nuclear deal, which will include its malevolent regional activities... Netanyahu become a one-man cheerleading squad for Trump's latest moves.
"But while the campaign to blame Israel for the Iraq War was limited to a relatively small clique of its most vociferous critics - the most prominent of which were Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their book about the Israel lobby - conflagration with Iran would dramatically expand the circle of Israel-accusers... It's situation today is substantially worse. After burning his bridges with American liberals, including most Jews... many Democrats are far more likely to point fingers at Netanyahu the moment the first American soldier is killed... Netanyahu believes that the Iranian leadership, like much of the Arab, understands only force. He is convinced that the intense economic pressure coupled with the nightmarish specter of American bombers laying waste to their country will compel Tehran to come back to the negotiating table on all fours in order to carve out the fabled 'better agreement' that both Trump and Netanyahu claim, with no evidence, is eminently achievable... [But] Iran does not view itself as a weak and vulnerable state that has no choice but to capitulate to US ultimatums, but as an equal rival determined to foil Trump or, at worst, survive him...
"Small wonder that in the past 48 hours, White House officials have started to brief US reporters that Trump is less happy with the bellicose approach of his National Security adviser John Bolton, known as one of Israel's closest confidantes in Washington. The catalyst for Trump's reservations was the leaked story of a Pentagon paper prepared for Bolton that envisaged sending 120,000 US troops to fight against the Iranians. Trump boasted that if it came to open conflict, the size of the US force would be much larger, but distanced himself from what critics describe as the warmongering winds emanating from Bolton's office. Experienced Washington observers claim that, based on previous patterns, Trump will soon start criticizing Bolton in public and, after a short hiatus, boot him out of the White House as well... Netanyahu may have to face the possibility that his all-in bet on Trump has failed to produce the dividends he sought and that the anti-Iran strategy built on his beautiful friendship with the US president could be on the verge of collapse.
"The remaining options are both unpalatable for Netanyahu. The first is that Iran will resist recently fortified economics sanctions and continue to incrementally abandon its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, without risking any retaliation from the countries that still adhere to it. The second is a military fare-up between Iran and the US, which or may not cripple Tehran's nuclear infrastructure but is certain to inflict human suffering, financial upheaval, escalating internal strife in Washington and the certainty that Netanyahu will be held responsible for them all. Worse, Trump may eventually reach the same conclusion."
Monday, May 13, 2019
A Thing Easily Moved
What was it Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on videotape saying back in 2001?: "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction."
For example:
"Unusually specific intelligence reports about Iranian threats to US forces in the Middle East triggered a request by the military for additional assistance as a deterrent against possible aggression, Pentagon officials said yesterday. That threat prompted the Trump administration to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier and its strike group, along with several bombers, to bolster forces in the region." (Spies expose Iranian 'attack plot', The Wall Street Journal/AFP, The Australian, 8/5/19)
Cue Israel:
"News site Axios said [US National Security Adviser John] Bolton's warning came after Israel which has pushed to isolate Iran, passed on intelligence about a possible plot by Tehran 'against a US target in the Gulf or US allies like Saudi Arabia or the UAE'." (ibid)
For example:
"Unusually specific intelligence reports about Iranian threats to US forces in the Middle East triggered a request by the military for additional assistance as a deterrent against possible aggression, Pentagon officials said yesterday. That threat prompted the Trump administration to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier and its strike group, along with several bombers, to bolster forces in the region." (Spies expose Iranian 'attack plot', The Wall Street Journal/AFP, The Australian, 8/5/19)
Cue Israel:
"News site Axios said [US National Security Adviser John] Bolton's warning came after Israel which has pushed to isolate Iran, passed on intelligence about a possible plot by Tehran 'against a US target in the Gulf or US allies like Saudi Arabia or the UAE'." (ibid)
Thursday, April 25, 2019
The Senator from Vermont
"US democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is standing by his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Israel is 'now run by a right-wing, dare I say, racist government'.... The senator from Vermont said he was 'not anti-Israel" but felt Netanyahu was 'a right-wing politician' who was treating the Palestinian people 'extremely unfairly'. Sanders then added that he was '100% pro-Israel' and that the country has 'every right in the world to exist... in peace and security and not be subjected to terrorists' attack'." (Sanders hits out at 'racist' Israeli rule, McClatchy/AP/Sydney Morning Herald, 24/4/19)
This says just about everything you really need to know about the politics of 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
In the words of a university friend quoted in his Wikipedia entry, he was "a swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn't terribly charismatic." While he has a track record of being on the side of the people against the system, he's obviously intellectually blinkered by his youthful brush with Zionism, including a stint on an Israeli kibbutz in the early 1960s.
It speaks volumes too about the limits to freedom of speech and thought in the so-called 'land of the brave and home of the free'. Sanders "dares to say" that Israel now has "a racist government," but cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the Zionist project in Palestine itself is inherently racist (dare I say apartheid), and that every Zionist government since 1948 has contributed its share of anti-Palestinian racism to the present racism of the Netanyahu government.
What's more, while Sanders' talk of Palestinians being treated "extremely unfairly" doesn't even begin to acknowledge the extent of Zionism's genocidal onslaught against them, to confine said unfairness merely to the present Netanyahu government is beyond belief.
And finally, to prate about terrorism without reference to Israel's role as the pioneer of terrorism in the Middle East surely has to be the mother of all sins of omission.
This says just about everything you really need to know about the politics of 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.
In the words of a university friend quoted in his Wikipedia entry, he was "a swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn't terribly charismatic." While he has a track record of being on the side of the people against the system, he's obviously intellectually blinkered by his youthful brush with Zionism, including a stint on an Israeli kibbutz in the early 1960s.
It speaks volumes too about the limits to freedom of speech and thought in the so-called 'land of the brave and home of the free'. Sanders "dares to say" that Israel now has "a racist government," but cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the Zionist project in Palestine itself is inherently racist (dare I say apartheid), and that every Zionist government since 1948 has contributed its share of anti-Palestinian racism to the present racism of the Netanyahu government.
What's more, while Sanders' talk of Palestinians being treated "extremely unfairly" doesn't even begin to acknowledge the extent of Zionism's genocidal onslaught against them, to confine said unfairness merely to the present Netanyahu government is beyond belief.
And finally, to prate about terrorism without reference to Israel's role as the pioneer of terrorism in the Middle East surely has to be the mother of all sins of omission.
Monday, April 15, 2019
Jonathan Freedland's Dream Zionists
Here's the liberal Zionist editor of The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland, pretending that Netanyahu's victory at the polls will be equally bad for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, and omitting the fact that it was the former who enabled it:
"So Palestinians will have to brace themselves for a Trump 'peace plan' that is likely to deny them the territory they need to build a state of their own. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's victory promises a further assault on democratic norms and the rule of law inside Israel. It surely spells gloom for the long-term prospects of both peoples, but they are used to that by now. It's been this way on and off for most of the last quarter century. For truly this is the age of Netanyahu." (Netanyahu's victory means life is about to get worse for Palestinians, theguardian.com, 10/4/19)
George Orwell would be turning in his grave if he knew Freedland had been awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his 'journalism'. Certainly, at least on the subject of Palestine/Israel, he seems incapable of producing anything other than pro-Israel PR.
In a 2012 New Statesman essay, Yearning for the same land, Freedland reveals why.
In it, he argues unconvincingly that, alongside the Zionism we're all familiar with, "the expansionist desire to control the entire biblical land of Israel," there's another "true" Zionism, consisting of "the more modest claim that there should be a Jewish national home within historic Palestine," and that that is the Zionism he, Freedland, professes. IOW, it's two states for two peoples, with the Palestinians getting a mere 22% of their historic homeland at most, contingent on the unlikely event of every soldier and settler pulling up stakes and getting out.
Whatever their imagined difference, both Zionisms, of course, subscribe to the same dogma, namely that Jews constitute not a faith community, but a "people" who, "like every other people, have a right to self-determination in the historic land of their birth." Although the concept of Jewish peoplehood has no basis in fact (and has been exploded most recently by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand in his 2009 book The Invention of the Jewish People), Freedland accepts it uncritically. Nor does he acknowledge the absurdity of this fictional people's achieving its fictional right of self-determination at the expense of another.
Sensing he's on shaky ground here, he attempts to bolster his case by shamelessly playing the Holocaust card: "The Jewish people, scythed by the Holocaust and after centuries of persecution, were gasping for breath in 1948; their need for a home was as great as that of any people in history. They had the right to act, even though the cost for another people, the Palestinians, was immense." Overlooked, of course, is the bleeding obvious that it was Germany, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Holocaust, not to mention the fact that the majority of Jews displaced by the war would have preferred to migrate to the United States and elsewhere than to Palestine.
Freedland goes on to claim that there was no "logical" connection between the pre-1967 Zionist colonisation of Palestine and the post-1967 Zionist colonisation of its West Bank and Gaza remnants. The Israeli settlement of the occupied territories was not, he asserts, "the ineluctable consequence of Zionism - as the Israeli right argued then and now." Presumably, for Freedland, those responsible for settling pre-1967 Palestine, his "true," Labor, Zionists, were more than content with their "national home" in 78% of historic Palestine. How strange then that their behaviour after 1967 belies this:
"The authorized, 'legal' settlements began in the era of the Labor-led governments, from 1967 to 1977. They flourished in the days of the Likud governments that followed and during the subsequent period of the Labor, Likud, and unity governments. In the course of the negotiations that engendered the September 1993 Oslo agreement, and in the period following it, the settlements saw an unprecedented building boom. All the the subsequent governments have made a point of approving new construction, ostensibly only within the boundaries of the existing settlements, but they have always supported - by political and budgetary deed and by failing to enforce the law and deter violations - the establishment of new settlements in the guise of new neighborhoods and 'illegal' outposts." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp xvii - xviii)
Freedland, of course, overlooks entirely the colonial-settler roots of the Zionist project and the trampling of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs' right to national self-determination following World War I; the fact that political Zionism, from its inception, was focused exclusively, as one of its early slogans put it, on 'a land without a people'; and that Zionist colonisation, like every other form of colonisation, has only ever trampled underfoot the rights of those it has dispossessed.
Freedland may try to fool us with his airy talk of Zionist "dreamers" and "two peoples, fated to seek their dreams in the same land," but in truth he's only fooling himself.
"So Palestinians will have to brace themselves for a Trump 'peace plan' that is likely to deny them the territory they need to build a state of their own. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's victory promises a further assault on democratic norms and the rule of law inside Israel. It surely spells gloom for the long-term prospects of both peoples, but they are used to that by now. It's been this way on and off for most of the last quarter century. For truly this is the age of Netanyahu." (Netanyahu's victory means life is about to get worse for Palestinians, theguardian.com, 10/4/19)
George Orwell would be turning in his grave if he knew Freedland had been awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his 'journalism'. Certainly, at least on the subject of Palestine/Israel, he seems incapable of producing anything other than pro-Israel PR.
In a 2012 New Statesman essay, Yearning for the same land, Freedland reveals why.
In it, he argues unconvincingly that, alongside the Zionism we're all familiar with, "the expansionist desire to control the entire biblical land of Israel," there's another "true" Zionism, consisting of "the more modest claim that there should be a Jewish national home within historic Palestine," and that that is the Zionism he, Freedland, professes. IOW, it's two states for two peoples, with the Palestinians getting a mere 22% of their historic homeland at most, contingent on the unlikely event of every soldier and settler pulling up stakes and getting out.
Whatever their imagined difference, both Zionisms, of course, subscribe to the same dogma, namely that Jews constitute not a faith community, but a "people" who, "like every other people, have a right to self-determination in the historic land of their birth." Although the concept of Jewish peoplehood has no basis in fact (and has been exploded most recently by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand in his 2009 book The Invention of the Jewish People), Freedland accepts it uncritically. Nor does he acknowledge the absurdity of this fictional people's achieving its fictional right of self-determination at the expense of another.
Sensing he's on shaky ground here, he attempts to bolster his case by shamelessly playing the Holocaust card: "The Jewish people, scythed by the Holocaust and after centuries of persecution, were gasping for breath in 1948; their need for a home was as great as that of any people in history. They had the right to act, even though the cost for another people, the Palestinians, was immense." Overlooked, of course, is the bleeding obvious that it was Germany, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Holocaust, not to mention the fact that the majority of Jews displaced by the war would have preferred to migrate to the United States and elsewhere than to Palestine.
Freedland goes on to claim that there was no "logical" connection between the pre-1967 Zionist colonisation of Palestine and the post-1967 Zionist colonisation of its West Bank and Gaza remnants. The Israeli settlement of the occupied territories was not, he asserts, "the ineluctable consequence of Zionism - as the Israeli right argued then and now." Presumably, for Freedland, those responsible for settling pre-1967 Palestine, his "true," Labor, Zionists, were more than content with their "national home" in 78% of historic Palestine. How strange then that their behaviour after 1967 belies this:
"The authorized, 'legal' settlements began in the era of the Labor-led governments, from 1967 to 1977. They flourished in the days of the Likud governments that followed and during the subsequent period of the Labor, Likud, and unity governments. In the course of the negotiations that engendered the September 1993 Oslo agreement, and in the period following it, the settlements saw an unprecedented building boom. All the the subsequent governments have made a point of approving new construction, ostensibly only within the boundaries of the existing settlements, but they have always supported - by political and budgetary deed and by failing to enforce the law and deter violations - the establishment of new settlements in the guise of new neighborhoods and 'illegal' outposts." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp xvii - xviii)
Freedland, of course, overlooks entirely the colonial-settler roots of the Zionist project and the trampling of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs' right to national self-determination following World War I; the fact that political Zionism, from its inception, was focused exclusively, as one of its early slogans put it, on 'a land without a people'; and that Zionist colonisation, like every other form of colonisation, has only ever trampled underfoot the rights of those it has dispossessed.
Freedland may try to fool us with his airy talk of Zionist "dreamers" and "two peoples, fated to seek their dreams in the same land," but in truth he's only fooling himself.
Friday, April 12, 2019
Projecting Jakov Baratz
Australia has an Israel lobby with many shop fronts. There's the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), the Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD), and so on.
There are Israeli dupes aplenty, on both sides of the political divide, in federal and state parliaments.
There are Israel-friendly journalists and columnists in the Australian press.
And then, in a class of his own, there's Greg Sheridan, who has been rooting for Israel in The Australian since, oh... time immemorial.
Needless to say, Netanyahu's success in Tuesday's Israeli election has him at his breathless, gushing best.
"Benjamin Netanyahu take a bow," opens his 'analysis' of the 'great' event.
Lost in admiration for this "giant of modern global politics," Sheridan goes to truly extraordinary lengths to play down Netanyahu's ideologically-fueled designs on the whole of Palestine:
"Netanyahu was widely criticised for statements during the campaign about possible future Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This led to some ridiculous headlines to the effect that Netanyahu had said he would annex the West Bank. He said nothing of the kind. His comments were, of course, ambiguous and could be criticised as irresponsible. But as with everything Netanyahu says, they must be evaluated carefully and in all their complexity. He was asked whether he would extend Israeli sovereignty to West Bank settlements and replied along the lines of: Who says we're not? This is a representative Netanyahu formulation, full of implications but with no specific commitment. He was also asked whether this would apply to isolated settlements or just the big settlement blocks, most of which are adjacent or almost adjacent to Jerusalem. These would then be part of Israeli sovereign territory. Therefore if you want to interpret Netanyahu's comments in the softest possible manner, he is merely restating orthodoxy. Making the same commitment for isolated settlements is much more problematic. Netanyahu specifically was not talking about the outposts or settlements that are illegal under Israeli law. The comments must also be understood in the context of Israeli electoral dynamics. Netanyahu was worried some of the smaller right-wing parties would fall under the 3.25% threshold for getting seats in the Knesset. These votes would then be wasted and Netanyahu might have fallen short of government. So for a while he was encouraging settlers and others to vote for non-Likud right-wing parties. But then he got worried that... " (Netanyahu remains Israel's hardball hero, The Australian, 11/4/19)
Is this kind of apologetic not unique in the annals of Australian journalism? Has any Australian msm journalist ever gone to greater lengths to ward off criticism of an Israeli land-thief? The expression 'bending over backwards' hardly begins to do Sheridan's cosseting of Netanyahu justice.
How is one to explain Sheridan's weird adulation of Netanyahu? While we may never get a satisfactory answer to that question, it is worth keeping in mind that his brain throngs with things he picked up long ago from his reading.
For example, Sheridan once revealed that he had been "seduced" by Morris West's 1968 wild eastern, The Tower of Babel.* More precisely, it seems that he was seduced by the novel's fictional hero, General Jakov Baratz:
"He had come to [Palestine] as a child, son of a landless trader from the Baltic, and he had never forgotten the splendour of his arrival: the furnace blaze of the sun, the blinding sky, the mountains hewn as if by wild axe-men, the desert where the air danced and cities and palm trees swam upside down and vanished at a glance. As a youth he had farmed it, building rock walls with his bare hands, carrying baskets of earth on his back, planting the vine twigs and the lemon-trees. As a man he had fought over it, using the military skills that the British had taught him, counting every bloody mile from Lydda to Ramle, to Abu Ghosh and the final foothold on Zion. And now his love for it was manifold: a dark passion that bound him closer to the soil than he ever had been to the body of a woman. He was jealous too, like all lovers; because his tenure in the beloved was always insecure - and no one knew better than he how strongly it was threatened." (p 30)
If, in fact, we are what we read, could the bookish Sheridan, perhaps, be projecting an indelible memory of Jakov Baratz onto Benjamin Netanyahu? Pure speculation, of course, but how else to explain what is going on here?
[*See my August 2009 series of posts, West's Wild East.]
There are Israeli dupes aplenty, on both sides of the political divide, in federal and state parliaments.
There are Israel-friendly journalists and columnists in the Australian press.
And then, in a class of his own, there's Greg Sheridan, who has been rooting for Israel in The Australian since, oh... time immemorial.
Needless to say, Netanyahu's success in Tuesday's Israeli election has him at his breathless, gushing best.
"Benjamin Netanyahu take a bow," opens his 'analysis' of the 'great' event.
Lost in admiration for this "giant of modern global politics," Sheridan goes to truly extraordinary lengths to play down Netanyahu's ideologically-fueled designs on the whole of Palestine:
"Netanyahu was widely criticised for statements during the campaign about possible future Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This led to some ridiculous headlines to the effect that Netanyahu had said he would annex the West Bank. He said nothing of the kind. His comments were, of course, ambiguous and could be criticised as irresponsible. But as with everything Netanyahu says, they must be evaluated carefully and in all their complexity. He was asked whether he would extend Israeli sovereignty to West Bank settlements and replied along the lines of: Who says we're not? This is a representative Netanyahu formulation, full of implications but with no specific commitment. He was also asked whether this would apply to isolated settlements or just the big settlement blocks, most of which are adjacent or almost adjacent to Jerusalem. These would then be part of Israeli sovereign territory. Therefore if you want to interpret Netanyahu's comments in the softest possible manner, he is merely restating orthodoxy. Making the same commitment for isolated settlements is much more problematic. Netanyahu specifically was not talking about the outposts or settlements that are illegal under Israeli law. The comments must also be understood in the context of Israeli electoral dynamics. Netanyahu was worried some of the smaller right-wing parties would fall under the 3.25% threshold for getting seats in the Knesset. These votes would then be wasted and Netanyahu might have fallen short of government. So for a while he was encouraging settlers and others to vote for non-Likud right-wing parties. But then he got worried that... " (Netanyahu remains Israel's hardball hero, The Australian, 11/4/19)
Is this kind of apologetic not unique in the annals of Australian journalism? Has any Australian msm journalist ever gone to greater lengths to ward off criticism of an Israeli land-thief? The expression 'bending over backwards' hardly begins to do Sheridan's cosseting of Netanyahu justice.
How is one to explain Sheridan's weird adulation of Netanyahu? While we may never get a satisfactory answer to that question, it is worth keeping in mind that his brain throngs with things he picked up long ago from his reading.
For example, Sheridan once revealed that he had been "seduced" by Morris West's 1968 wild eastern, The Tower of Babel.* More precisely, it seems that he was seduced by the novel's fictional hero, General Jakov Baratz:
"He had come to [Palestine] as a child, son of a landless trader from the Baltic, and he had never forgotten the splendour of his arrival: the furnace blaze of the sun, the blinding sky, the mountains hewn as if by wild axe-men, the desert where the air danced and cities and palm trees swam upside down and vanished at a glance. As a youth he had farmed it, building rock walls with his bare hands, carrying baskets of earth on his back, planting the vine twigs and the lemon-trees. As a man he had fought over it, using the military skills that the British had taught him, counting every bloody mile from Lydda to Ramle, to Abu Ghosh and the final foothold on Zion. And now his love for it was manifold: a dark passion that bound him closer to the soil than he ever had been to the body of a woman. He was jealous too, like all lovers; because his tenure in the beloved was always insecure - and no one knew better than he how strongly it was threatened." (p 30)
If, in fact, we are what we read, could the bookish Sheridan, perhaps, be projecting an indelible memory of Jakov Baratz onto Benjamin Netanyahu? Pure speculation, of course, but how else to explain what is going on here?
[*See my August 2009 series of posts, West's Wild East.]
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
A Blight Unto the Nations
Seldom does the abyss between fact and fiction yawn more widely than in The Economist:
"Little Israel commands attention because it has a big history: biblical romance and technological talent; the slaughter of the Holocaust and military prowess, energetic democracy and the long occupation of land claimed and inhabited by Palestinians." (King Bibi: a parable of modern populism, The Economist/ The Australian, 30/3/19)
"Israel offers an important test of the resilience of democracy. On April 9 voters face a fateful choice. Re-elect Netanyahu and reward him for subverting the independence of Israel's institutions. Or turf him out in the hope of rebuilding trust in democracy - and aspiring to be 'a light unto the nations'." (ibid)
Lest we forget, April 9 will be the 71st anniversary of the massacre of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin, carried out by Irgun terrorists on orders from their leader, Menachem Begin, in 1948.
Begin, of course, went on to found Israel's ruling Likud party in 1973, becoming its prime minister from 1977-83, and presiding over the brutal invasion (1982) and occupation (1982-2000) of Lebanon.
Netanyahu is his ideological heir, presiding in turn over one massacre after another - operations Returning Echo (2012), Pillar of Defence (2012) and Protective Edge (2014) - against the largely defenceless inhabitants of the blockaded Gaza ghetto, not to mention the ongoing bloodletting along the Gaza border.
And how does The Economist spin this butcher's bloody record?
"With deft use of diplomacy and the mostly cautious use of military force he has boosted security without being sucked into disastrous wars." (ibid)
"Little Israel commands attention because it has a big history: biblical romance and technological talent; the slaughter of the Holocaust and military prowess, energetic democracy and the long occupation of land claimed and inhabited by Palestinians." (King Bibi: a parable of modern populism, The Economist/ The Australian, 30/3/19)
"Israel offers an important test of the resilience of democracy. On April 9 voters face a fateful choice. Re-elect Netanyahu and reward him for subverting the independence of Israel's institutions. Or turf him out in the hope of rebuilding trust in democracy - and aspiring to be 'a light unto the nations'." (ibid)
Lest we forget, April 9 will be the 71st anniversary of the massacre of the Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin, carried out by Irgun terrorists on orders from their leader, Menachem Begin, in 1948.
Begin, of course, went on to found Israel's ruling Likud party in 1973, becoming its prime minister from 1977-83, and presiding over the brutal invasion (1982) and occupation (1982-2000) of Lebanon.
Netanyahu is his ideological heir, presiding in turn over one massacre after another - operations Returning Echo (2012), Pillar of Defence (2012) and Protective Edge (2014) - against the largely defenceless inhabitants of the blockaded Gaza ghetto, not to mention the ongoing bloodletting along the Gaza border.
And how does The Economist spin this butcher's bloody record?
"With deft use of diplomacy and the mostly cautious use of military force he has boosted security without being sucked into disastrous wars." (ibid)
Monday, March 18, 2019
'Israel Mourns'
The arch-terrorist who presides over a worse-than-apartheid state never misses a trick:
"Israel mourns the wanton murder of innocent worshipers in Christchurch and condemns the brazen act of terror in New Zealand. Israel sends its condolences to the bereaved families and its heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery to the wounded." (Tweet @netanyahu, 15/3/19)
Seldom has the stench of hypocrisy been so rank.
As it happens, 19 of the 50 slain were reportedly of Palestinian origin, and hence, in one form or another, already the victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
And this, just before, or after - I don't know which, and it hardly matters - Netanyahu ordered 100 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
"Israel mourns the wanton murder of innocent worshipers in Christchurch and condemns the brazen act of terror in New Zealand. Israel sends its condolences to the bereaved families and its heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery to the wounded." (Tweet @netanyahu, 15/3/19)
Seldom has the stench of hypocrisy been so rank.
As it happens, 19 of the 50 slain were reportedly of Palestinian origin, and hence, in one form or another, already the victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
And this, just before, or after - I don't know which, and it hardly matters - Netanyahu ordered 100 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Classic Greg Sheridan
They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Philip Larkin
***
For you who do not know him - him being Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch's Australian - this is really all you need to know:
"Israel is a small, clever, tough, extraordinary nation - a land of limitless impossibilities, as they say. And it has had giants among its leaders: David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, legends of diplomacy like Abba Eban or Shimon Peres, and legendary military heroes like Moshe Dayan. Netanyahu stands shoulder to shoulder with them At a time when Western politics in many nations is falling apart, he has been the seemingly indispensable national leader for a decade, winning four elections. He is known for his national security policies but he has also presided over the birth and development of the so-called Start-up nation, the progenitor of Nasdaq listings and patents and hi-tech everything." (Closing act in the age of Netanyahu may lie ahead, 16/2/19)
Now Greg's suffered from Exodus syndrome, like, FOREVER, and it's his Dad and Auntie Poppy who are largely to blame for setting his juvenile brain in this form of adamantine concrete at a tender age.
As he explains in his autobiography, appropriately titled When We Were YOUNG & FOOLISH: A Memoir of My MISGUIDED Youth" (2015): "My family was always pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. Dad often told me that if Christ was the saviour, the Catholic religion was true, and if he wasn't the saviour, then the Jewish religion was true... Auntie Poppy always told me I must never forget that the Jews were God's chosen people... Dad and Auntie Poppy were always pro-Jewish and pro-Israel." (p 22)
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Philip Larkin
***
For you who do not know him - him being Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch's Australian - this is really all you need to know:
"Israel is a small, clever, tough, extraordinary nation - a land of limitless impossibilities, as they say. And it has had giants among its leaders: David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, legends of diplomacy like Abba Eban or Shimon Peres, and legendary military heroes like Moshe Dayan. Netanyahu stands shoulder to shoulder with them At a time when Western politics in many nations is falling apart, he has been the seemingly indispensable national leader for a decade, winning four elections. He is known for his national security policies but he has also presided over the birth and development of the so-called Start-up nation, the progenitor of Nasdaq listings and patents and hi-tech everything." (Closing act in the age of Netanyahu may lie ahead, 16/2/19)
Now Greg's suffered from Exodus syndrome, like, FOREVER, and it's his Dad and Auntie Poppy who are largely to blame for setting his juvenile brain in this form of adamantine concrete at a tender age.
As he explains in his autobiography, appropriately titled When We Were YOUNG & FOOLISH: A Memoir of My MISGUIDED Youth" (2015): "My family was always pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. Dad often told me that if Christ was the saviour, the Catholic religion was true, and if he wasn't the saviour, then the Jewish religion was true... Auntie Poppy always told me I must never forget that the Jews were God's chosen people... Dad and Auntie Poppy were always pro-Jewish and pro-Israel." (p 22)
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Make One, Two, Three, Many Guatemalas*
Sorry, but I can't rest on this subject. Even the Lowy Institute is giving the embassy shuffle the thumbs-down:
"Moving the Australian embassy when no other first world country is would dilute the unity of Western effort further and reward Israel without getting anything in return. No wonder Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was effusive in his praise of the proposal - he probably never thought he would get two Guatemalas in his time in office." (Jerusalem embassy move is down and out on three counts, Rodger Shanahan, The Australian, 22/11/18)
Two Guatemalas? And Australia is the second! Ay caramba! So let's check out the first:
"'We have had an excellent relationship with the people of Israel since the foundation of the State of Israel,' President Jimmy Morales told CBN on Wednesday. His Central American country, now the most heavily evangelical nation in Latin America, was an early supporter of Israel's independence in 1948 and the first to establish an embassy in Jerusalem in the late 1950s. (It was later one of 13 nations that withdrew their embassies from the disputed city due to a 1980 United Nations resolution.)... Citing prayer and prophesy as their motivation, Morales and Vice President Jafeth Cabrera officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year and pledged to return Guatemala's embassy there. 'People in Guatemala pray for the peace in this region, pray for Jerusalem, and they are excited,' said Sarah Angelina Solis, Guatemala's ambassador to Israel, in an interview with CBN. 'I feel this is a gift from God. I know that a lot of blessings will come after this decision. This is a promise in the Bible, in Genesis...'" (Blessed through Israel: how Guatemala's evangelicals inspired its embassy move, Kate Shellnutt, christianitytoday.com, 17/5/18)
This millenarian madness, of course, is continent-wide, but the rot appears deepest in Central America, particularly in Guatemala:
"As once Catholic-dominated nations in Central and South America see the rise of evangelicos, particularly from Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, they've also grown more supportive of Israel as a political state and a holy land, keen to the Lord's words to Abraham: 'I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.' (Gen. 12:3 NIV). Guatemala and Honduras - which have undergone the most dramatic declines in Catholic identity (down nearly 50% in 45 years, according to the Pew Research Center) - were among just a handful of countries to side with the US when the UN voted to condemn its decision to recognize Jerusalem again... Guatemala's third evangelical president, Morales has prioritized Israel since his election in 2015, making the country his first official visit outside of the Americas." (ibid)
But the Lord's 'blessings' now being showered on Jimmy Morales' Guatemala actually go back to the 70s and 80s:
"Even in the midst of the endless misery and cruelty of Central America, Guatemala stands out as a country where those in power have been fighting the powerless with an unusual degree of ruthlessness and bloodiness. Over the years, reports of the horrible realities of Guatemala have been numerous and the judgments harsh. What is unique is the extent to which those who carried out the deliberate policies of endless killings have proclaimed their indebtedness to Israel, as the source not only of their hardware, but of their inspiration. Israel became the main support of the Guatemalan military regimes, as attested to by both General Romeo Lucas Garcia and General Efrain Rios Montt in no uncertain terms. It was Rios Montt, born-again Christian and dictator of Guatemala in 1982-1983, who explained the ease with which he took over in March 1982 simply: 'Many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis' (Greve, 1984) [...] In Guatemala, Israeli advisers are not just instructors: 'Israeli advisers - some official, others private - helped Guatemalan internal security agents hunt underground rebel groups' (Cody, 1983, p 7). They have been directly engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns against the Indian communities." (Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms & Why, 1988, pp 79-81)
The genocidal Indian-fighter Rios Montt, it seems, is something of a role model for Morales:
"Rios Montt died in Guatemala City on April, 2018, of a heart attack at the age of 91. The government of Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales lamented his passing." (Efrain Rios Monttt - Wikipedia)
In fact, Guatemala's love affair with Israel goes back even further, as a young British officer, stationed in Mandate Palestine at the time the Irgun and Stern gangs were strutting their stuff, noted acidly in his memoir:
"This was the day, 16 June [1947], which heralded the arrival of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. This travelling circus, under its self-appointed ringmaster, Jorge Garcia-Granados, a Guatemalan whose country had little to learn about oppressing indigenous peoples, passed five weeks in the Holy Land, adding not a jot to its preconceived ideas. His personal conclusion was that Palestine was a police state, because, thanks to terrorism, it had been forced to spend $2,000,000 a month on security, or P7,010,000 per year. Necessity, the need to support a subjective viewpoint, in this case became the mother of invention." (Philip Brutton, A Captain's Mandate: Palestine 1946-1948, 1996, pp 99-100)
Garcia-Granados went on to pen his own memoir, which concludes thus:
"Yes, it was true, the birth of Israel had taken place in the agony of war. I was convinced that this war need not have been... Nonetheless, bloodshed had come, and we recognized the realities of the situation. Despite this unnecessary tragedy, we, who had considered the needs and problems of Palestine and its peoples, knew that Israel would live. It must live! Its existence was the first step toward the achievement of security and peace and a new awakening in the lands of the Middle East. How far from Guatemala to Israel - and yet, how near! In a world of many peoples, the struggle was one." (Jorge Garcia-Granados, The Birth of Israel: The Drama as I Saw It, 1948, pp 290-91)
Just how well that worked out we can see today in the smoking ruin that passes for the Middle East, and just how near Guatemala is to Israel today can hardly have been imagined by the deluded author of these words.
[*With apologies to Che. I have, of course, borrowed his memorable injunction, 'Make one, two, three, many Vietnams', to describe Netanyahu's attempt to circumvent apartheid Israel's pariah status.]
"Moving the Australian embassy when no other first world country is would dilute the unity of Western effort further and reward Israel without getting anything in return. No wonder Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was effusive in his praise of the proposal - he probably never thought he would get two Guatemalas in his time in office." (Jerusalem embassy move is down and out on three counts, Rodger Shanahan, The Australian, 22/11/18)
Two Guatemalas? And Australia is the second! Ay caramba! So let's check out the first:
"'We have had an excellent relationship with the people of Israel since the foundation of the State of Israel,' President Jimmy Morales told CBN on Wednesday. His Central American country, now the most heavily evangelical nation in Latin America, was an early supporter of Israel's independence in 1948 and the first to establish an embassy in Jerusalem in the late 1950s. (It was later one of 13 nations that withdrew their embassies from the disputed city due to a 1980 United Nations resolution.)... Citing prayer and prophesy as their motivation, Morales and Vice President Jafeth Cabrera officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last year and pledged to return Guatemala's embassy there. 'People in Guatemala pray for the peace in this region, pray for Jerusalem, and they are excited,' said Sarah Angelina Solis, Guatemala's ambassador to Israel, in an interview with CBN. 'I feel this is a gift from God. I know that a lot of blessings will come after this decision. This is a promise in the Bible, in Genesis...'" (Blessed through Israel: how Guatemala's evangelicals inspired its embassy move, Kate Shellnutt, christianitytoday.com, 17/5/18)
This millenarian madness, of course, is continent-wide, but the rot appears deepest in Central America, particularly in Guatemala:
"As once Catholic-dominated nations in Central and South America see the rise of evangelicos, particularly from Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, they've also grown more supportive of Israel as a political state and a holy land, keen to the Lord's words to Abraham: 'I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.' (Gen. 12:3 NIV). Guatemala and Honduras - which have undergone the most dramatic declines in Catholic identity (down nearly 50% in 45 years, according to the Pew Research Center) - were among just a handful of countries to side with the US when the UN voted to condemn its decision to recognize Jerusalem again... Guatemala's third evangelical president, Morales has prioritized Israel since his election in 2015, making the country his first official visit outside of the Americas." (ibid)
But the Lord's 'blessings' now being showered on Jimmy Morales' Guatemala actually go back to the 70s and 80s:
"Even in the midst of the endless misery and cruelty of Central America, Guatemala stands out as a country where those in power have been fighting the powerless with an unusual degree of ruthlessness and bloodiness. Over the years, reports of the horrible realities of Guatemala have been numerous and the judgments harsh. What is unique is the extent to which those who carried out the deliberate policies of endless killings have proclaimed their indebtedness to Israel, as the source not only of their hardware, but of their inspiration. Israel became the main support of the Guatemalan military regimes, as attested to by both General Romeo Lucas Garcia and General Efrain Rios Montt in no uncertain terms. It was Rios Montt, born-again Christian and dictator of Guatemala in 1982-1983, who explained the ease with which he took over in March 1982 simply: 'Many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis' (Greve, 1984) [...] In Guatemala, Israeli advisers are not just instructors: 'Israeli advisers - some official, others private - helped Guatemalan internal security agents hunt underground rebel groups' (Cody, 1983, p 7). They have been directly engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns against the Indian communities." (Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms & Why, 1988, pp 79-81)
The genocidal Indian-fighter Rios Montt, it seems, is something of a role model for Morales:
"Rios Montt died in Guatemala City on April, 2018, of a heart attack at the age of 91. The government of Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales lamented his passing." (Efrain Rios Monttt - Wikipedia)
In fact, Guatemala's love affair with Israel goes back even further, as a young British officer, stationed in Mandate Palestine at the time the Irgun and Stern gangs were strutting their stuff, noted acidly in his memoir:
"This was the day, 16 June [1947], which heralded the arrival of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. This travelling circus, under its self-appointed ringmaster, Jorge Garcia-Granados, a Guatemalan whose country had little to learn about oppressing indigenous peoples, passed five weeks in the Holy Land, adding not a jot to its preconceived ideas. His personal conclusion was that Palestine was a police state, because, thanks to terrorism, it had been forced to spend $2,000,000 a month on security, or P7,010,000 per year. Necessity, the need to support a subjective viewpoint, in this case became the mother of invention." (Philip Brutton, A Captain's Mandate: Palestine 1946-1948, 1996, pp 99-100)
Garcia-Granados went on to pen his own memoir, which concludes thus:
"Yes, it was true, the birth of Israel had taken place in the agony of war. I was convinced that this war need not have been... Nonetheless, bloodshed had come, and we recognized the realities of the situation. Despite this unnecessary tragedy, we, who had considered the needs and problems of Palestine and its peoples, knew that Israel would live. It must live! Its existence was the first step toward the achievement of security and peace and a new awakening in the lands of the Middle East. How far from Guatemala to Israel - and yet, how near! In a world of many peoples, the struggle was one." (Jorge Garcia-Granados, The Birth of Israel: The Drama as I Saw It, 1948, pp 290-91)
Just how well that worked out we can see today in the smoking ruin that passes for the Middle East, and just how near Guatemala is to Israel today can hardly have been imagined by the deluded author of these words.
[*With apologies to Che. I have, of course, borrowed his memorable injunction, 'Make one, two, three, many Vietnams', to describe Netanyahu's attempt to circumvent apartheid Israel's pariah status.]
Thursday, November 22, 2018
About Those Bloody Comment Threads...
A most interesting corporate media phenomenon is the alacrity with which those 'readers' who, like moths to a flame, respond whenever Guardian Australia deigns to allow them the opportunity to do so. I say 'deigns' because these opportunities are quite rare.
In addition to Katharine Murphy's report of November 17, with its categorical assertion that Israeli PM Netanyahu was part of Australian PM Morrison's "circle of trust" in the lead-up to the latter's announcement, during the Wentworth by-election, that he would be moving Australia's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - a truly stunning revelation which all of our corporate media outlets have, inexplicably, thus far ignored - Guardian Australia also posted an eminently sensible opinion piece by former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, giving the idea of the embassy move the thumbs-down. (See my 18/11/18 post Morrison's 'Circle of Trust'.)
Guardian Australia allowed comments on Carr's piece, but, interestingly, not on Murphy's, which brings us back to my first paragraph. Carr's piece attracted almost 170 comments, just about every one of which hammered Morrison and his embassy proposal in no uncertain terms. Morrison was slammed variously as stupid, a moron, an idiot, an imbecile, a clown, a buffoon, a blunderer and, even, 'deranged', and his proposal as a brain-fart or a thought-bubble. He was fingered as a plaything of Trump or the US State Department and Defence/ intelligence community and a lickspittle. Many commenters cited his evangelical faith as the reason for his announcement. They spoke of 'fundamentalist Christian apocalypticism', 'prayerful clappers', 'playing the religion card', 'enmeshed in religious extremism', and 'the fanatical US religious right'. His senior ministers were referred to as a rabble and Frydenberg in particular was singled out as 'incredibly immature' and wanting to 'raise awareness of his heritage'. Not one revealed any knowledge of the hold exercised by the Israel lobby over the two major parties. The word 'Zionist' was conspicuous by its absence.
Only one, it seems, had taken the trouble to read Katharine Murphy's article, yet even his/her comment was problematic. I quote it here in full so you'll see exactly what I mean:
"What KM's related reporting suggests is that while the timing might have been all about Morrison's desperation as he saw Wentworth slipping away from the Liberals, this particular idea was hardly unspoken within the Liberal Party right wing faction that has secured power..."
You'll notice at this point that the commenter has failed to register the fact that Murphy includes Netanyahu in Morrison's 'circle of trust'. This is quite an oversight to say the least. He/she goes on to provide a link to Murphy's article and then wanders off course with this comment: "It's worrying how much more of this fundamentalist Christian apocalyptisism is going to inform Liberal Party policy... "
Frankly, one wonders whether even if Guardian Australia had allowed its 'readers' to comment on Murphy's report, just how many would have overlooked her revelation about Netanyahu's involvement in the decision to shift the Australian embassy to Jerusalem.
Let me hazard a generalisation as to why this may be the case here: those who flock to comment on Guardian Australia's (and other such websites) are more interested in hearing the sound of their own voices than in informing themselves through a little wide reading on the subject at hand. Typical of this phenomenon is the following comment from the same thread:
"The whole issue of Israel and Palestine has been going on with various intensity since the day I was born. It has been in the background of all of our lives... for most of our lives. There never seems to be any end to this conflict, the never ending war..."
Makes me want to scream: well, pick up a few reputable books on the subject and find out WHY the issue has been on the boil for as long as you can remember!
In addition to Katharine Murphy's report of November 17, with its categorical assertion that Israeli PM Netanyahu was part of Australian PM Morrison's "circle of trust" in the lead-up to the latter's announcement, during the Wentworth by-election, that he would be moving Australia's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem - a truly stunning revelation which all of our corporate media outlets have, inexplicably, thus far ignored - Guardian Australia also posted an eminently sensible opinion piece by former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, giving the idea of the embassy move the thumbs-down. (See my 18/11/18 post Morrison's 'Circle of Trust'.)
Guardian Australia allowed comments on Carr's piece, but, interestingly, not on Murphy's, which brings us back to my first paragraph. Carr's piece attracted almost 170 comments, just about every one of which hammered Morrison and his embassy proposal in no uncertain terms. Morrison was slammed variously as stupid, a moron, an idiot, an imbecile, a clown, a buffoon, a blunderer and, even, 'deranged', and his proposal as a brain-fart or a thought-bubble. He was fingered as a plaything of Trump or the US State Department and Defence/ intelligence community and a lickspittle. Many commenters cited his evangelical faith as the reason for his announcement. They spoke of 'fundamentalist Christian apocalypticism', 'prayerful clappers', 'playing the religion card', 'enmeshed in religious extremism', and 'the fanatical US religious right'. His senior ministers were referred to as a rabble and Frydenberg in particular was singled out as 'incredibly immature' and wanting to 'raise awareness of his heritage'. Not one revealed any knowledge of the hold exercised by the Israel lobby over the two major parties. The word 'Zionist' was conspicuous by its absence.
Only one, it seems, had taken the trouble to read Katharine Murphy's article, yet even his/her comment was problematic. I quote it here in full so you'll see exactly what I mean:
"What KM's related reporting suggests is that while the timing might have been all about Morrison's desperation as he saw Wentworth slipping away from the Liberals, this particular idea was hardly unspoken within the Liberal Party right wing faction that has secured power..."
You'll notice at this point that the commenter has failed to register the fact that Murphy includes Netanyahu in Morrison's 'circle of trust'. This is quite an oversight to say the least. He/she goes on to provide a link to Murphy's article and then wanders off course with this comment: "It's worrying how much more of this fundamentalist Christian apocalyptisism is going to inform Liberal Party policy... "
Frankly, one wonders whether even if Guardian Australia had allowed its 'readers' to comment on Murphy's report, just how many would have overlooked her revelation about Netanyahu's involvement in the decision to shift the Australian embassy to Jerusalem.
Let me hazard a generalisation as to why this may be the case here: those who flock to comment on Guardian Australia's (and other such websites) are more interested in hearing the sound of their own voices than in informing themselves through a little wide reading on the subject at hand. Typical of this phenomenon is the following comment from the same thread:
"The whole issue of Israel and Palestine has been going on with various intensity since the day I was born. It has been in the background of all of our lives... for most of our lives. There never seems to be any end to this conflict, the never ending war..."
Makes me want to scream: well, pick up a few reputable books on the subject and find out WHY the issue has been on the boil for as long as you can remember!
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Morrison's 'Circle of Trust'
Paul Kelly, the Australian's editor-at-large, gives the thumbs down to Morrison's Israel embassy fizzer. Although he gets many things right, it seems that he's wrong when he claims that "nobody" had "sought or requested - neither the US nor Israel" shifting our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem:
"The first truth is Australia didn't need Indonesia to tell it this is an unwise decision - the originating problem is not Indonesia's reaction but Australia's bad judgment. The second truth is that it is folly for Australia to embark on a Middle East policy change that nobody has sought or requested - neither the US nor Israel - that was taken without any proper assessment, that was recommended by no government agency and that will damage our critical relations close to home." (There is no upside in Jerusalem shift, 17/11/18)
In a truly stunning revelation Guardian Australia's Katharine Murphy contradicts Kelly in no uncertain terms:
"Roll forward now to mid-October, the week before the Wentworth byelection, and a growing sense of alarm that the government would not hold Turnbull's vacated seat... Morrison consulted his leadership group (but few others, as it turned out, although one of the people in the circle of trust was the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu) and then flagged the embassy shift publicly." (Morrison's Israel embassy policy cannot be fathomed - and risks his political survival, 17/11/18)
If the Israeli PM was behind the decision to move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, why isn't this news all over the msm?
"The first truth is Australia didn't need Indonesia to tell it this is an unwise decision - the originating problem is not Indonesia's reaction but Australia's bad judgment. The second truth is that it is folly for Australia to embark on a Middle East policy change that nobody has sought or requested - neither the US nor Israel - that was taken without any proper assessment, that was recommended by no government agency and that will damage our critical relations close to home." (There is no upside in Jerusalem shift, 17/11/18)
In a truly stunning revelation Guardian Australia's Katharine Murphy contradicts Kelly in no uncertain terms:
"Roll forward now to mid-October, the week before the Wentworth byelection, and a growing sense of alarm that the government would not hold Turnbull's vacated seat... Morrison consulted his leadership group (but few others, as it turned out, although one of the people in the circle of trust was the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu) and then flagged the embassy shift publicly." (Morrison's Israel embassy policy cannot be fathomed - and risks his political survival, 17/11/18)
If the Israeli PM was behind the decision to move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, why isn't this news all over the msm?
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Anatomy of an Affair
Once, Australian prime ministers were content to merely flirt with the Zionist entity, acting as one of its fig leaves in the UNGA. It was, of course, highly embarrassing to watch, and the eye-rolling that must have gone on among the other representatives of UN member states at the spectacle can only be imagined.
But then, under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's relationship with the apartheid state began to move beyond mere flirtation when Turnbull issued an invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to 'Come up and see me sometime, big boy.' This was only last year.
Under Turnbull's successor, Scott Morrison, however, all caution was thrown to the winds when, in his haste to win over the Jewish community in the crucial Wentworth by-election, he fatally took a leaf out of Trump's book and spoke of moving Australia's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. By doing so this clueless evangelical goof didn't so much climb as leap into bed with Netanyahu. Not, repeat not, a pretty picture.
There are signs, however, that in the cold glare of the unforgiving morning light, our happy clapper PM began to experience an 'Oh no, what have I done?' moment. Hence his decision to "review" his embassy-to-Jerusalem brainsnap.
What, however, this klutz seems not to have thought about is that Netanyahu is not the kind to take this lying down, and, sure enough, the inevitable Israeli bullying and threats were not long in coming:
"Israel has made it clear it expects the Australian government to follow through. Brigadier General (retired) Yosi Kuperwasser, a former head of the research division at Israel Defence Force Intelligence, said if Australia did not follow through, it could have serious consequences. "I think as an Israeli, it would be a very strange move if Australia ultimately decided not to move to Jerusalem. It could be very dangerous," he said." (Jakarta a "key factor in Israel" decision, Primrose Riordan, The Australian, 1/11/18)
Watch this space...
But then, under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's relationship with the apartheid state began to move beyond mere flirtation when Turnbull issued an invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to 'Come up and see me sometime, big boy.' This was only last year.
Under Turnbull's successor, Scott Morrison, however, all caution was thrown to the winds when, in his haste to win over the Jewish community in the crucial Wentworth by-election, he fatally took a leaf out of Trump's book and spoke of moving Australia's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. By doing so this clueless evangelical goof didn't so much climb as leap into bed with Netanyahu. Not, repeat not, a pretty picture.
There are signs, however, that in the cold glare of the unforgiving morning light, our happy clapper PM began to experience an 'Oh no, what have I done?' moment. Hence his decision to "review" his embassy-to-Jerusalem brainsnap.
What, however, this klutz seems not to have thought about is that Netanyahu is not the kind to take this lying down, and, sure enough, the inevitable Israeli bullying and threats were not long in coming:
"Israel has made it clear it expects the Australian government to follow through. Brigadier General (retired) Yosi Kuperwasser, a former head of the research division at Israel Defence Force Intelligence, said if Australia did not follow through, it could have serious consequences. "I think as an Israeli, it would be a very strange move if Australia ultimately decided not to move to Jerusalem. It could be very dangerous," he said." (Jakarta a "key factor in Israel" decision, Primrose Riordan, The Australian, 1/11/18)
Watch this space...
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Trump Whisperers
Just to revisit the issue of rising petrol prices:
"The risk of a global energy shock is rising rapidly as the looming US sanctions on Iran and a rising US dollar combine to export layers of stress to the rest of the world. While the renewed US sanctions don't officially kick in until early next month they are already having a significant effect as Iran's customers scramble to find different sources of supply. Iranian oil production is falling quite rapidly... Trump, who sometimes appears to have trouble seeing the relationship between cause (his sanctions) and effect (the soaring oil prices) has accused OPEC of 'ripping off' the the rest of the world." (Rising oil prices, $US put pressure on energy costs, Stephen Bartholomeusz, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/10/18)
There is, of course, more to this msm story than meets the eye. But don't expect it to be spelt out in the corporate media. Sure, you'll hear some gibberish on the matter from Trump from time to time, but don't be deceived. It's those who are whispering in his ear that matter here, in particular US national security adviser John Bolton and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bolton is a neocon - more accurately Ziocon - from the Bush era, and a long-time advocate for regime change in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq. He has a record, like his fellow Ziocons, who became an integral part of the Bush administration, of wanting to topple Middle East governments opposed to Israel, and reconfigure the Middle East in its interests, stretching back to his association with neocon think tank the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the 90s. Revealingly, in 2005, Bolton was awarded the Zionist Organisation of America's Defender of Israel award.
Netanyahu's obsession with Iran as a so-called existential threat to Israel also goes back decades. One only has to observe his theatrical sabre-rattling directed against Iran in the UNGA and other international fora, not to mention his unprecedented hold (through the Israel lobby) over both houses of the US Congress and his easy access to the president himself.
If you really want to understand why you're paying more for your petrol, mark these words of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter from his 2006 book, Target Iran. (p 208):
"The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton."
"The risk of a global energy shock is rising rapidly as the looming US sanctions on Iran and a rising US dollar combine to export layers of stress to the rest of the world. While the renewed US sanctions don't officially kick in until early next month they are already having a significant effect as Iran's customers scramble to find different sources of supply. Iranian oil production is falling quite rapidly... Trump, who sometimes appears to have trouble seeing the relationship between cause (his sanctions) and effect (the soaring oil prices) has accused OPEC of 'ripping off' the the rest of the world." (Rising oil prices, $US put pressure on energy costs, Stephen Bartholomeusz, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/10/18)
There is, of course, more to this msm story than meets the eye. But don't expect it to be spelt out in the corporate media. Sure, you'll hear some gibberish on the matter from Trump from time to time, but don't be deceived. It's those who are whispering in his ear that matter here, in particular US national security adviser John Bolton and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Bolton is a neocon - more accurately Ziocon - from the Bush era, and a long-time advocate for regime change in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq. He has a record, like his fellow Ziocons, who became an integral part of the Bush administration, of wanting to topple Middle East governments opposed to Israel, and reconfigure the Middle East in its interests, stretching back to his association with neocon think tank the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the 90s. Revealingly, in 2005, Bolton was awarded the Zionist Organisation of America's Defender of Israel award.
Netanyahu's obsession with Iran as a so-called existential threat to Israel also goes back decades. One only has to observe his theatrical sabre-rattling directed against Iran in the UNGA and other international fora, not to mention his unprecedented hold (through the Israel lobby) over both houses of the US Congress and his easy access to the president himself.
If you really want to understand why you're paying more for your petrol, mark these words of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter from his 2006 book, Target Iran. (p 208):
"The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton."
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Foreign Interference?
In light of his tendency to downplay the role of the Israel lobby vis-a-vis corporate interests in US Middle East policy, the following recent statement of Noam Chomsky makes interesting reading:
"[I]f you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts... compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done. I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies - what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress... calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president?" (haaretz.com, 22/8/18)
"[I]f you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts... compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done. I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies - what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress... calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president?" (haaretz.com, 22/8/18)
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
How to Talk to Benjamin Netanyahu
The latest turn of the screw in Israel's Operation Get Corbyn (which came in the wake of a Daily Mail beat-up, which came from... ):
"The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves [sic] of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone - left, right and everything in between." (Benjamin Netanyahu tweet, 11/8/18)
And Corbyn's withering, tweeted response to this swaggering bully, the ideological heir to Irgun terrorist Menachem Begin:
"Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children. The nation state law sponsored by Netanyahu's government discriminates against Israel's Palestinian minority. I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv."
Western 'leaders', accustomed to swooning at Netanyahu's feet, take note.
"The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves [sic] of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone - left, right and everything in between." (Benjamin Netanyahu tweet, 11/8/18)
And Corbyn's withering, tweeted response to this swaggering bully, the ideological heir to Irgun terrorist Menachem Begin:
"Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children. The nation state law sponsored by Netanyahu's government discriminates against Israel's Palestinian minority. I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv."
Western 'leaders', accustomed to swooning at Netanyahu's feet, take note.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
The Netanyahu Declaration
On the subject of Israel's latest APARTHEID legislation:
"'We have determined in law the founding principle of our existence,' [Netanyahu] said. 'Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and respects the rights of all of its citizens'." (More equal than others, David Halbfinger & Isabel Kershner, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 21/7/18)
Note the second half of Netanyahu's sentence: "and respects the rights of all of its citizens."
Remind you of anything?
That's right, the Balfour Declaration's utterly hollow, 'safeguard' clause:
"... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities... "
Moving along, here's a Palestinian Israeli perspective on the new bill, which fleshes out just what it means to live as a non-Jew in a Jewish state, from Yousef Jabareen, MK (Hadash), Israel just dropped the pretense of equality for Palestinian citizens (latimes.com, 20/7/18):
"The Israeli Knesset on Thursday passed into law a bill designed to make a permanent underclass of Palestinian citizens. It threatens to set the country on a course to a full-blown Jewish theocracy. The so-called 'Jewish nation-state' bill formalizes in Israeli law the superior rights and privileges that Jewish citizens of the state enjoy over its indigenous Palestinian minority, who comprise roughly 20% of the population. It demotes Arabic from one of two official languages to a mere 'special' status, deepens racial segregation by directing the government to 'encourage and promote' Jewish settlement, and declares that the right to self-determination in Israel is 'exclusive' to the Jewish people, denying the history and ancient Palestinian roots in this land. It also prioritizes the Jewishness of the state over its democratic character, omitting any reference to 'democracy' or 'equality'.
"The final reading of the nation-state bill took place just days after the Knesset rejected a bill that I, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and Knesset member, had introduced. My bill called for Israel to guarantee full equality for all of its citizens, regardless of religion or race. A similar bill introduced in June calling for Israel to be a country 'for all its citizens' was banned from even being discussed. The fate of these three bills confirms what Palestinians have always known: In Israel, only Jews enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship.
"The tension of being a Palestinian citizen of a country that defines itself as Jewish has shaped every aspect of my life, from early childhood to my career as a human rights activist and a member of Israel's parliament today.
"I was born in Umm al Fahem, which pre-dates the state of Israel and is one of the largest Palestinian towns in the country. Although it is bigger and older than the Jewish municipalities that surround it, the residents of Umm al Fahem are denied the same quality of public services that Jewish towns receive, including in healthcare and public transportation.
"I first began to understand the unequal nature of Israeli society when I was 12 years old and started going to school in nearby Nazareth. Because we didn't have a bus station, I had to hitch a ride to and from class every day and witness the stark contrast between the crumbling buildings, roads, and other underfunded public infrastructure in Umm al Fahem and those of the affluent Jewish towns I traveled through.
"Every day, I would also pass by the village where members of my mother's family lived before Israel's establishment, Al Lajjun. They were uprooted and told they could not return. Israel's destruction of Palestinian communities like my ancestral village continues today, in places like Umm al-Hiran, a town in southern Israel facing destruction so that it can be replaced with a city for Jews (to be called 'Hiran').
"The nation-state bill further marginalizes my community and entrenches Israel's regime of racial discrimination and deterioration into apartheid. It will lead to more racist, anti-democratic laws, adding to the more than 50 laws already on the books that disadvantage non-Jewish citizens.
"In contrast, the bill I introduced called for the country to become a democracy that guarantees complete civil and national equality to all who live within its borders. It would have ensured that Israeli law is based on universal values that recognize both Arab and Jewish ethnic groups. The state would have been required to invest the wealth of this land for the benefit of all its citizens, not just a privileged majority. There would be equal status for the Arabic language and culture, and inclusive national symbols, so Palestinian girls and boys would feel welcome in their own country, and no longer have to be represented by a country's flag containing religious symbols that are not their own.
"Like President Trump in the United States and right-wing demagogues elsewhere, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government wish to turn the clock back on humanity's march toward a freer, more just and egalitarian world. Imagine if Trump and the Republican Party passed a constitutional amendment declaring the U.S. to be officially a Christian state, formally subordinating the country's democracy to right-wing, fundamentalist Christian principles, and encouraging American cities and towns to exclude Jews, Muslims and indigenous Americans.
"That is the situation that Palestinians in Israel face today. As we continue our struggle for equal citizenship and the just rights of Palestinians everywhere, we call on our brothers and sisters of conscience in the U.S. and around the world to support our shared vision for enlightened democracy and the well-being of all people, regardless of race or religion."
"'We have determined in law the founding principle of our existence,' [Netanyahu] said. 'Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and respects the rights of all of its citizens'." (More equal than others, David Halbfinger & Isabel Kershner, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 21/7/18)
Note the second half of Netanyahu's sentence: "and respects the rights of all of its citizens."
Remind you of anything?
That's right, the Balfour Declaration's utterly hollow, 'safeguard' clause:
"... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities... "
Moving along, here's a Palestinian Israeli perspective on the new bill, which fleshes out just what it means to live as a non-Jew in a Jewish state, from Yousef Jabareen, MK (Hadash), Israel just dropped the pretense of equality for Palestinian citizens (latimes.com, 20/7/18):
"The Israeli Knesset on Thursday passed into law a bill designed to make a permanent underclass of Palestinian citizens. It threatens to set the country on a course to a full-blown Jewish theocracy. The so-called 'Jewish nation-state' bill formalizes in Israeli law the superior rights and privileges that Jewish citizens of the state enjoy over its indigenous Palestinian minority, who comprise roughly 20% of the population. It demotes Arabic from one of two official languages to a mere 'special' status, deepens racial segregation by directing the government to 'encourage and promote' Jewish settlement, and declares that the right to self-determination in Israel is 'exclusive' to the Jewish people, denying the history and ancient Palestinian roots in this land. It also prioritizes the Jewishness of the state over its democratic character, omitting any reference to 'democracy' or 'equality'.
"The final reading of the nation-state bill took place just days after the Knesset rejected a bill that I, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and Knesset member, had introduced. My bill called for Israel to guarantee full equality for all of its citizens, regardless of religion or race. A similar bill introduced in June calling for Israel to be a country 'for all its citizens' was banned from even being discussed. The fate of these three bills confirms what Palestinians have always known: In Israel, only Jews enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship.
"The tension of being a Palestinian citizen of a country that defines itself as Jewish has shaped every aspect of my life, from early childhood to my career as a human rights activist and a member of Israel's parliament today.
"I was born in Umm al Fahem, which pre-dates the state of Israel and is one of the largest Palestinian towns in the country. Although it is bigger and older than the Jewish municipalities that surround it, the residents of Umm al Fahem are denied the same quality of public services that Jewish towns receive, including in healthcare and public transportation.
"I first began to understand the unequal nature of Israeli society when I was 12 years old and started going to school in nearby Nazareth. Because we didn't have a bus station, I had to hitch a ride to and from class every day and witness the stark contrast between the crumbling buildings, roads, and other underfunded public infrastructure in Umm al Fahem and those of the affluent Jewish towns I traveled through.
"Every day, I would also pass by the village where members of my mother's family lived before Israel's establishment, Al Lajjun. They were uprooted and told they could not return. Israel's destruction of Palestinian communities like my ancestral village continues today, in places like Umm al-Hiran, a town in southern Israel facing destruction so that it can be replaced with a city for Jews (to be called 'Hiran').
"The nation-state bill further marginalizes my community and entrenches Israel's regime of racial discrimination and deterioration into apartheid. It will lead to more racist, anti-democratic laws, adding to the more than 50 laws already on the books that disadvantage non-Jewish citizens.
"In contrast, the bill I introduced called for the country to become a democracy that guarantees complete civil and national equality to all who live within its borders. It would have ensured that Israeli law is based on universal values that recognize both Arab and Jewish ethnic groups. The state would have been required to invest the wealth of this land for the benefit of all its citizens, not just a privileged majority. There would be equal status for the Arabic language and culture, and inclusive national symbols, so Palestinian girls and boys would feel welcome in their own country, and no longer have to be represented by a country's flag containing religious symbols that are not their own.
"Like President Trump in the United States and right-wing demagogues elsewhere, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government wish to turn the clock back on humanity's march toward a freer, more just and egalitarian world. Imagine if Trump and the Republican Party passed a constitutional amendment declaring the U.S. to be officially a Christian state, formally subordinating the country's democracy to right-wing, fundamentalist Christian principles, and encouraging American cities and towns to exclude Jews, Muslims and indigenous Americans.
"That is the situation that Palestinians in Israel face today. As we continue our struggle for equal citizenship and the just rights of Palestinians everywhere, we call on our brothers and sisters of conscience in the U.S. and around the world to support our shared vision for enlightened democracy and the well-being of all people, regardless of race or religion."
Friday, July 20, 2018
He Did It My Way
"I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction." - Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to his Israeli settler mates in Hebrew in 2001
***
Now here's another surprise. Not:
"In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump's decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal. In the video, which the Kan public broadcaster said was filmed two weeks ago, Netanyahu can be seen speaking to activists and senior members from his Likud party. 'We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,' Netanyahu says in the video. 'And we didn't give up'." (In recording, Netanyahu boasts Israel convinced Trump to quit Iran nuclear deal, Alexander Fulbright, timesofisrael.com, 17/7/18)
***
Now here's another surprise. Not:
"In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump's decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal. In the video, which the Kan public broadcaster said was filmed two weeks ago, Netanyahu can be seen speaking to activists and senior members from his Likud party. 'We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,' Netanyahu says in the video. 'And we didn't give up'." (In recording, Netanyahu boasts Israel convinced Trump to quit Iran nuclear deal, Alexander Fulbright, timesofisrael.com, 17/7/18)
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