Why So Shy?

So shy, apparently, is Melbourne "businessman and philanthropist" (AJN, 20/1/12) Albert Dadon about his Australia Israel Leadership Forum (AILF) - which, in its latest manifestation, has grown like good old Topsy into the Australia Israel United Kingdom Leadership Forum (AIUKLF) - that a complete list of those attending its January love-in in Jerusalem cannot be had - not even on Albert's very own Australia Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE) website!

A cast of thousands, both Aussies and Brits, with more Israeli prime ministers, past and present, than you can shake a stick at, and with 'is Lordship Tony Blair 'imself in attendance, and we barely know who fronted!

All we get are gnomic references in The Australian Jewish News such as this: "There was also a raft of international journalists on hand, including The Australian newspaper's foreign editor Greg Sheridan." (Bibi, Blair headline at leadership forum, 20/1/12)

Rafts of international journos, slews of political 'talent', and we the public, their adoring readers/fans, know virtually nothing about it, dammit!

Why isn't the corporate press crowing about this celebrity confab? Why must we first scour a Sheridan column, or stumble across a disclaimer at the foot of a piece by the Herald's now twice-rambammed Asia-Pacific editor, Hamish McDonald (see my 13/1/12 post Ain't love Grand?), to discover even the mere existence of this muted manifestation of movers, this shadowy shindig of shakers? Why must it be left for a humble citizen journalist, such as myself, to scratch around the internet in a near vain effort to round up the revellers?

My gleanings so far reveal only that, in addition to Sheridan and McDonald, "British and Australian lawmakers from both sides of politics were represented. Among the Australian contingent in Jerusalem was Mark Arbib, federal minister for sport & assistant treasurer; Jewish members of Parliament Michael Danby and Joshua Frydenberg... The Britons included Alistair Burt, minister for the Middle East, and Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard." (Joint Australian, British delagation meets Netanyahu, Fayyad, m.jta.org, 17/1/12)

Minister for the Middle East? Is this a first? You couldn't make this stuff up!

OK, so much for the event itself. In Australia, how's the AIUKLF bearing fruit?

I've already registered Sheridan's two lemons and noted that by McDonald (See Ain't Love Grand, 13/1/12, and Faulty Connection, 14/1/12), but observe that the latter's back in today's Sydney Morning Herald with another - Life in Israel an ultra-orthodox paradox - that, in addition to its decidedly desiccated substance, fairly gives me the following pips, which I've taken the trouble to extract for you:

"In Israel itself, the old mix of nation-building pioneers - Ashkenazi Jews steeped in European high culture, kibbutzim making a wilderness bloom, doughty women doing what were then 'men's jobs' everywhere else - is fading fast."

Now if that ain't an A-Z collection of Zionist cliches I don't know what is.

"Internally, the dominance of the right and ultra-orthodox are removing bit by bit Israel's old liberality."

Funny how none of that old Israeli liberality managed to benefit the Palestinians, eh?

"Israelis say Abbas and his non-party Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, can't modify the 'right of return' (to pre-1948 homes) in their demands, and still indoctrinate children that Israel has no right to exist (an accusation disputed by European Union and British monitors of West Bank schools)."

I suppose the bit about EU monitors is about as good as we're going to get from Maccas.

So this is the kind of AIUKLF-generated tripe we're reading in both wings of the corporate press here in Australia. Can't imagine what UK readers are having dished up at the moment by the rest of that mysterious raft of international journalists.

Ain't Love Grand?

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, ace foreign editor of The Australian has just returned from a tryst with his beloved. Although he's still reeling from the encounter, and the sweat has hardly dried, it so rankles when everyone else reckons she's fugly as:

"I have been spending a week in Israel, and visiting some of the Palestinian territories, under the auspices of the Australia Israel United Kingdom Leadership Dialogue*. This quite unique private organisation is the creation of Melbourne businessman Albert Dadon. Remarkably, the dialogue met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and former British prime minister Tony Blair, although those meetings were off the record. Spending time in Israel is dangerous because it is impossible to reconcile the evidence of your eyes with the accepted international narrative about Israel. In the international media, Israel is presented as a militarist, right-wing, oppressive. In fact it is the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East, the only nation where women's rights - and gay rights - are protected. It has a vibrant Left wing, a cacophonous democracy and an innovative economy." (Territorial compromise loses ground in Arab Spring, 12/1/12)

It happened last time too. Same heart-thumping elation. Same eruptions from every nook and cranny. Same nagging thought: Why can't they see her as I do?:

"I have my very own Israel problem and it is this: the Israel I know... bears no relation to the Israel I see in most of the Western media. That Israel of the Western mind (and indeed of the Arab mind) is a hateful place: right-wing, militaristic, authoritarian, indifferent to world opinion, indifferent especially to Palestinian suffering. Yet the Israel I know is mostly secular, raucously, almost wildly democratic, has a vibrant left-wing, having founded in the kibbutz movement one of the only successful experiments in socialism in human history." (Israel still looks good, warts & all, The Australian Literary Review, 6/5/09)

Poor Greg. But, hey, that's love for you!

[14/1/12:* OK, Greg was there, naturally, and Michael Danby I hear, but why is it so difficult to get a list of these junketeers? As it happens, another journalist, the Herald's Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald has just outed himself: Israel struggles with threat from Iran.]

Hamish Does Hasbara

"Israel developed its bomb not because it thought it an essential part of being an independent state, but as a precaution against any of its regional enemies getting one. As the Israeli politician Yossi Beilin once explained it to a group of reporters in New Delhi, this set it apart from the Indians or Chinese. Unlike India, Israel would be ready to trade its bombs away in a genuine and all-inclusive regional non-nuclear pact."

This example of Israeli apologetics cropped up in a Sydney Morning Herald piece, Iran strike a costly attempt to buy time (6/9/08) by Asia-Pacific editor Hamish McDonald.

McDonald's claim that Israel, the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, is, of course, completely groundless:

"Less than 72 hours before it completes its 2-year term in the 15-member UN Security Council, Syria formally introduced a resolution Monday calling for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the politically volatile Middle East... Syrian Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad... said Syria introduced the proposal on behalf of the 22 Arab countries at the UN. The resolution was also endorsed by the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the 54-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), he added. If the Council fails to vote on it by Wednesday, Mekdad said, the new Arab member in the Council, Algeria, 'will continue to pursue the objectives of the resolution'." (Syria calls for nuclear free Middle East, Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 30/12/03)

"Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog... Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told th 139-nation general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that 'Egypt will be tabling a draft resolution on... a nuclear-free zone' and hopes for 'a serious international commitment in this area'." (Egypt proposes nuclear-free zone in Middle East, AFP, 28/9/05)

No prizes for guessing Israel's responses.