What's With SBS? 2

More blatant pro-Israel bias on yesterday's SBS' 6.30 pm World News Australia:

The segment Iran tensions flare is introduced thus by the newsreader:

"And in Iran tensions sparked by renewed opposition protests have flared again with clashes reported of supporters and opponents of the country's Islamic regime. Tensions are also brewing between Iran and its arch-enemy Israel, which has warned both Iran and its ally, Lebanon's Hezbollah against any provocation."

The take home message? While Iran (even with its current internal troubles!) and Hezbollah are constitutionally provocative, Israel, as usual, just stands around, minding its own business.

Having first covered the demonstrations in Iran, SBS reporter Vesna Nazor goes on:

"Israel's also reacted to the latest threat from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah after its leader told supporters to be ready to invade northern Israel in the event of any new conflict."

Just the latest in a long line...

The report then cuts to Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah: "I tell the warriors of the holy Islamic resistance... to be ready in case war is forced on Lebanon. The resistance command may ask you to take over Galilee."

Followed by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu: "Hezbollah's leader announced that he intends to conquer the Galilee. Well, I have news for you - he won't."

Nazor concludes with a comment stressing Israel's always peaceful intentions: "Reacting to Egypt's uprising... Israel's leader said his country should hope for the best but prepare for the worst."

Poor, put-upon little Israel, just trying to live a normal life in the toughest of neighborhoods with psychos around every corner!

Except that Nasrallah's "latest threat" didn't just come out of the blue. Completely missing from SBS' shifty and deceitful little propaganda package was the following context: "Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces may be called into Lebanon in the future, during his first military tour with new IDF chief Benny Gantz along the northern border. 'Hezbollah remembers the heavy beating they suffered from us in 2006, but it is not forever, and you may be called to enter again', Barak told the IDF soldiers, adding that 'we must be prepared for every test'." (Barak: IDF soldiers may be called into Lebanon in the future, Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, 15/2/11)

We All Are Hezbollah

"There is a bizarre anomaly there. Lebanon is a member state of the UN. It happens to have a militia... And it happens to be that this militia doesn't just develop a new long bow or more effective arrows, but it happens to have 45,000 rockets and missiles that happen to cover all Israel and they are part of a deployment that tells that they will activate it, and we have seen that they already did it in the past. This militia happens to have a weapons system that some - many - sovereigns do not have. We cannot accept it. We cannot accept these artificial differentiations between the terrorists of Hizballah and the state of Lebanon and their sponsors. And we keep saying, we do not need any conflict there; we will not lead it toward one. But if attacked, we will not run [after] or chase any individual Hizballah terrorist... but we will take both the Lebanese government and other sources of sponsorship, but mainly the Lebanese government and the Lebanese infrastructure, as part of the equation facing us." (Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister speaking at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 26/2/10)

Lebanon (2006)
by David Rovics

Two soldiers had been captured/ They'd crossed to the other side
Two soldiers taken prisoner/ Several others died
This is how it started/ So said the Jewish state
Forget about '96, '82/ '67, '48

Two soldiers taken hostage/ And by the Sea of Galilee
We must defend our borders/ Wherever they may be
We must defend our soldiers/ Wherever they're deployed
Two of them are captured/ One country is destroyed

Somewhere in Tel Aviv/ Generals drawing battle lines
For the town where Jesus/ Turned water into wine
On the ten-year anniversary/ Of a massacre of children
They thought it was a good idea/ To massacre some children

Anyone in the south/ I heard Ehud Olmert say
Everyone's a target/ And may be killed today
And if your home has turned to rubble/ It may be pulverized some more
'Cause to soldiers have been captured/ And we gotta settle up the score

A hundred thousand homes/ Levelled to the ground
Every olive branch on offer/ Burned where it was found
Every chance at dialogue/ Rejected right on cue
If you're gonna burn your bridges/ You might as well bomb them too

They even bombed the prison/ Where they used to torture fighters
Where they had the dogs and leashes/ Cigarettes and lighters
Where they were kept shackled/ Not allowed to stand
Where they torched the forests/ Turned them into sand

Who's the terrorist now?/ And the entire world watches

A few thousand demonstrate/ Governments take action
All too little or too late/ All the telephones are ringing
In case you couldn't read the signs/ This is the IDF
And you're in the firing line

Condoleeza came to visit/ For about an hour
She thought it was a party/ Some kind of baby shower
She said these were the birth pangs/ Of a brand new morn
But in the hospitals today/ All the babies were stillborn

The stars and stripes among the ruins/ Say where they were made
In case anybody wonders/ About all that military aid
In case anybody wonders/ Among the mines around the farms
Or why so many toddlers/ Are missing legs and arms

Or why so many of them ask/ Exactly what was meant
By wiping out their homes/ And then sending them a tent
Or why if you ask them/ Who is Nasrallah?
They'll tell you he's our leader/ And we all are Hezbollah

"Here I am telling the Israelis today: If you hit Dahiyeh, we will hit Tel Aviv. If you strike martyr Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, we'll strike your Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. If you hit our ports, we will hit your ports. If you attack our refineries, we'll attack your refineries. If you bomb our factories, we will bomb your factories. If you strike our power stations, we will strike your power stations. Today on the anniversary of Sayyid Abbass, Sheikh Raghib and Hajj Imad, I announce and accept this challenge. We in Lebanon, as people, army and resistance, are capable forcefully of protecting our country and we do not need anyone in this world to do this for us. This is how we face threats - with counter threats and not with retreat, fear and hiding away. We rather face them with steadfastness, readiness and threats as well. Here I say again we do not want war. We have never sought war. We are a resistance which used to fight to liberate the land and captives. We never wanted to go to war but we are concerned with defending our country, standing firm in our land and preserving the dignity of our people and nation." (Sayyid Nasrallah's Speech on Martyr Leaders' Day, 21/2/10)

Koutsoukis Gets Real

Much of Fairfax Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis' reporting has been problematic and gaffe-prone. (Simply click on his tag at the end of this post and judge for yourself.) In his recent "analysis" of the Goldstone report (Israel & Hamas must heed UN report, SMH, 17/9/09), he arrogantly lectured the (war) criminal and his victim: "If Israel and the Palestinians are ever to escape this conflict, they should follow Justice Goldstone's advice. The self-examination may prove enlightening." The wisdom of Uri Davis' 2003 dictum - "The primary 'terrorist' in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Government of the State of Israel - not the Palestinian suicide bomber" - eludes him.

Most recently, however, in an online opinion piece in The Age, Koutsoukis revealed an uncharacteristic irritation with Israel's latest round of crying wolf: "Forgive me for being confused, but exactly what are the clear and present dangers facing the State of Israel? According to Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations Gabriella Shalev, her government's main goal at this week's UN General Assembly meeting is to show the world how dangerous Iran is. With Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu said to give what his aides say will be a 'dramatic' speech to the UN on Thursday, Shalev said the Iranian threat would be the main focus. 'We know Iran is a dangerous country', Shalev said on Monday. 'We stress and we emphasize that Iran is not only a threat to Israel, it's a global threat'. Israeli diplomats, Shalev added, would meet with their Australian counterparts and officials from other countries, to make them understand 'the challenges Israel is facing at a very crucial time'. Perhaps Shalev should leave time in her schedule to make sure Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak also understands exactly what those challenges are. Last Friday... Barak gave an interview to Israel's biggest selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Instead of the usual palaver about the threats facing Israel, Barak surprised his questioners with this frank admission: 'Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel'*, said Barak." (West Bank occupation poses the real threat to Israel, 23/9/09) [*See my 20/9/09 post From the Horse's Mouth]

Koutsoukis concluded as follows: "Next time we hear that denying Palestinian sovereignty is all about security and keeping Israel safe, remember that security has little to do with it. In the words of Ehud Barak, Israel is strong and there is no one who poses an existential threat."

That Barak's admission seems to have come as something of a revelation to Koutsoukis indicates the latter's ignorance of the historical record, which belies the myth of Israel as some sort of naked, trembling virgin continuously circled by packs of leering bikies (to steal Les Visible's memorable simile). As I've already posted on this subject in relation to the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 (See my 29/5/08 post Benny Revisited), I'll leave you with what Israeli historian Tom Segev has to say about the virgin's knocking knees in the lead-up to the second such stoush in 1967:

"US analysts gave Israel complete military superiority over every combination of Arab forces... A year earlier, the Americans had predicted that Palestinian terror attacks might lead to war. In that event, they believed, Israel would destroy the Egyptian air force and 'within days or weeks' would occupy areas of the Sinai, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights - all, evidently, taken as bargaining chips." (1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East, 2007, p 253)

"As soon as the crisis of war began, the press began comparing Nasser to Hitler. In the past, other Arab leaders had been compared to Hitler, but this had been done to insult them, not as part of the situational assessment and a reason to attack. 'Nasser speaks clearly, as Hitler did on the eve of the Second World War', wrote Ze'ev Schiff. Nasser's speeches, Radio Cairo broadcasts, and the anti-Semitic cartoons of in the Egyptian press prompted this assertion... This was... Israel's official propaganda line. The Foreign Minister instructed the Israeli embassy in Washington to ask for an urgent meeting with James Reston, associate editor of The New York Times, to persuade him that the only difference between Nasser and Hitler was that Hitler had always claimed he wanted peace, while Nasser was explicit about his aim of destroying Israel." (ibid, p 284)

"The [Israeli] generals were in their forties, family men, but they clung to the Israeli culture of youth; they were like adolescent boys or bulls in rut. They believed in force and they wanted war. War was their destiny. Almost 20 years had passed since the army had won glory in the War of Independence, and 10 years since the victory in the Sinai. They had a limited range of vision and they believed that war was what Israel needed at that moment, not necessarily because they felt the country's existence was in danger, as they wailed in an almost 'Diaspora' tone, but because they believed it was an opportunity to break the Egyptian army." (ibid, p 296)

From the Horse's Mouth

"Iran poses no existential threat to Israel, its Defence Minister has declared. In an interview for Jewish New Year published yesterday in the country's top-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Ehud Barak said he saw no country being capable of challenging Israel. 'I don't belong to those who believe that Iran is bringing Israel to an existential situation. Israel is strong. I don't see anyone who is capable of facing it with an existential threat'." (Iran can't wipe us off map: Israel, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/9/09)

So that's that then. No existential threats whatever. So much egg on so many faces.

Propaganda v Self-censorship

The Australian's editorials on Palestine-Israel are a bottomless pit of Zionist mythology and propaganda. In Two-state solution is worth the effort: Palestinian allies must not stymie the peace process (14/1/08), the editorialist spins the proverbial sow's ear of Bush's recent gigs in Jerusalem and Ramallah into the silk purse of a serious attempt to create a "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent" Palestinian state. Amid his pigs-will-fly persiflage, he embeds the following Zionist myths, lies, misrepresentations and errors: "In 2000, after the Clinton administration brokered an agreement in which then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak offered a deal that would have set up an independent state in all of Gaza and 90% of the West Bank, PLO leader Yasser Arafat rejected the offer and Palestinians responded by launching a 4-year suicide-bombing campaign, targeting Israeli civilians. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas launched a bombing campaign on Israel and a brutal takeover of the territory, with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah later attacking Israel from Lebanon in 2005."

Myths

The myth of Barak's 'generous offer' is staple fare for The Australian (and the mainstream media in general), recycled ad nauseam over the years on the basis of Goebbel's formula: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Mearsheimer & Walt's indispensable The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy (2007), offers just one of the many scholarly refutations of this nonsense. Under the heading, Camp David Myths (pp103-107), they write: "According to this story [ie the portrayal of Israel as primed for peace and the Palestinians as bent on war], Prime Minister Barak offered the Palestinians 'almost everything' they wanted at Camp David...But Arafat, still determined to derail the peace process and eventually destroy Israel, rejected this generous offer and instead launched the Second Intifada...There is only one problem with this widely held version of events: it is not correct...the terms [Barak] offered them at Camp David were far from generous."

Mearsheimer & Walt point out that: a) The Palestinians were offered immediate control of Gaza b) Eventual control of 91% of the West Bank c) Minus 10% of the West Bank in the form of the Jordan Valley, which Israel would hang on to for 6-21 years, leaving the Palestinians with immediate control over only 81% of the West Bank d) Minus a further 5%, owing to Israel's more reductive definition of what actually constituted the West Bank. That is, the Palestinians were effectively offered only 76% of the West Bank, and this despite "the fact that they had already agreed in the 1993 Oslo Accords to recognize Israeli sovereignty over 78% of the original British Mandate [of Palestine]. From their perspective, they were now being asked to make another concession and accept at best 86% of the remaining 22%."

Nor were the Palestinians to get a) a contiguous state b) sovereignty over occupied Arab East Jerusalem c) control over borders, airspace or water resources. In addition, they would be denied the right to form an army.

"Given all this," Mearsheimer & Walt conclude, "it is not surprising that Barak's former foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was a key participant at Camp David, later told an interviewer, 'If I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David as well'."[Mearsheimer & Walt's account unfortunately omits to mention Israel's refusal to repatriate or compensate Palestine's 1948 and 1967 refugees.]

As for the origins of the Second Intifada, Mearsheimer & Walt write that "The common claim that Arafat launched the Second Intifada in...2000...does not stand up to evidence either...The former head of Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, has stated that 'Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada'...[Shlomo] Ben-Ami is exactly right that the Second Intifada 'did not start merely as a tactical move. It erupted out of the accumulated rage and frustration of the Palestinian masses at the colossal failure of the peace process since the early days of Oslo to offer them a life of dignity and well-being, and at the incompetence and corruption of their own leaders in the Palestinian Authority'."

Lies & Misrepresentations

"When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas launched a bombing campaign on Israel..." asserts the editorialist.

In fact Hamas observed a unilateral 'temporary hudnah' or tahdi'ah (calming) from March 2005 until an Israeli shell pulped a Palestinian family enjoying a picnic on a Gaza beach in June 2006. While the Palestinians both offered, and unilaterally observed, truces/ceasefires on a number of occasions since the outbreak of the Intifada, for the Israeli killing machine it was always just business as usual.

Then there's the assertion that "Iranian-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanon in 2005." Zionist propaganda typically misrepresents both Hamas and Hezbollah as mere puppets of Iran/Syria, because to acknowledge them as indigenous, essentially nationalist reactions to Israeli aggression and occupation would be to shift the focus of responsibility for their existence and behaviour onto Israel. Notice too how Israel, which is funded by the US to the tune of $3 billion in direct foreign assistance per year, is never routinely described as 'American-backed'. Then there's the characterization of Hezbollah's limited hostage taking raid, which provided Israel with the pretext to launch its own premeditated aggression on Lebanon, as a general 'attack' on Israel. And finally, there's the straight factual inaccuracy of claiming that this took place in 2005, instead of 2006.

The Sydney Morning Herald's editorial of the same day, Ambushed in the Levant, thankfully manages to avoid the above, and even contains some meat: "Israel refuses to return to its pre-1967 borders, as required by United Nations resolutions, insists it will hold onto all of Jerusalem, and is determined to deny the right of return to Palestinians uprooted from their lands when Israel was created in 1948."

Those words, however, are prefaced (and compromised) by the following inanity: "[Olmert and Abbas] have not budged from their entrenched positions."

While Israel's intransigence is clearly referenced, the editorialist cites no such intransigence on the Palestinian side. The nonsensical notion that there is some kind of balance of intransigence here is sadly typical of the Fairfax press, and suggests a reflexive deference, honed by pressure from the Israel lobby, to the empirically false idea that, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, both sides are somehow equivalent. Forthrightly acknowledging that Israel to Palestine is as hammer to anvil is to invite flak from lobby hacks, so Fairfax invariably takes the line of least resistance, indefensible assertions notwithstanding.

The Herald editorial is further marred by the following unbelievably coy reference: "It is to be hoped that future US leaders put a premium on trying to resolve regional conflicts earlier in their terms, and are braver in staring down powerful domestic lobby groups that erode their ability to act as credible honest brokers." Which "regional conflicts"? What "lobby groups"? The Herald editorialist simply cannot name names. He's loud in urging future US presidents to 'stare down' the lobby whose name he dares not speak, but can barely emit a squeak when it comes to naming the bugger himself.

It takes a Mearsheimer & Walt to spell it out: "Once again, as the presidential campaign season gets underway, the leading candidates are going to enormous lengths to demonstrate their devotion to the state of Israel and their steadfast commitment to its 'special relationship' with the United States.

"Each of the main contenders emphatically favors giving Israel extraordinary material and diplomatic support - continuing the more than $3 billion in foreign aid each year to a country whose per capita income is now 29th in the world. They also believe that this aid should be given unconditionally. None of them criticizes Israel's conduct, even when its actions threaten US interests, are at odds with American values or even when they are harmful to Israel itself. In short, the candidates believe that the US should support Israel no matter what it does.

"Such pandering is hardly surprising, because contenders for high office routinely court special interest groups, and Israel's staunchest supporters - the Israel lobby, as we have termed it - expect it. Politicians do not want to offend Jewish Americans or 'Christian Zionists', two groups that are deeply engaged in the political process. Candidates fear, with some justification, that even well-intentioned criticism of Israel's policies may lead these groups to turn against them and back their opponents instead...

"...they fear that speaking the truth would incur the wrath of the hard-liners who dominate the main organizations in the Israel lobby. So Israel will end up controlling Gaza and the West Bank for the forseeable future, turning itself into an apartheid state in the process." [Israel's false friends, Los Angeles Times, 6/1/08]