A Shadow Minister Afraid of His Own Shadow

I always thought Mark Dreyfus, Australia's Shadow Attorney-General, was elected by his Australian constituents to look after Australia's national interests.

Silly me! It seems that for some of us out there his primary political responsibility is - or should be - to defend Israel whenever they think the occasion demands.

Of course, their baying and yapping over his refusal to reflexively fall in with their peculiar Israel first obsession wouldn't much matter if Dreyfus had the inner fortitude to simply shrug it off and get on with the Australia first business for which he and his fellow parliamentarians were elected.

But no, Dreyfus, for reasons best known to himself, takes the concerns of the Israel first crowd very seriously indeed. So seriously, in fact, that he feels he owes them an explanation for not frothing at the mouth and going for the jugular whenever Israel is critiqued in his vicinity.  Hence his letter in The Australian Jewish News of October 10:

"Several people have written to me and The AJN regarding my participation in the ABC's Q&A program on September 22, and in particular my decision not to directly respond to a comment made by another of the panellists, Randa Abdel-Fattah, that was highly critical of Israel in the context of the recent conflict in Gaza."

Just to remind you what Ms Abdel-Fattah said on Q&A that night, by way of contextualising the phenomenon of Muslim youth radicalisation: "... the one thing we never address is the role of Western foreign policy and the grievances - the legitimate grievances - that cause [radicalisation]... Why is it that we choose to ignore that elephant in the room? The role of Western foreign policy in creating the mess in the Middle East that we see... the fact that we had the decimation of Gaza by Israel two months ago, and the conspiracy of silence - in fact, I'll go even further, the legitimating and justification giving Israel a licence to kill, does that not fuel anger? Does that not plant the seeds? We go around in the West trying to cut down the trees of terrorism even as we plant seeds of terrorism and we do that when we allow Israel to get away with its war crimes..."

A mere statement of the bleeding obvious, I would have thought. But not to Dreyfus:

"One thing on which I and all the letter writers agree is that all the views expressed by Ms Abdel-Fattah were wrong."

All the views?

So Gaza wasn't decimated?
So Israel doesn't get a free pass to kill and maim over and over and over again?
So Israel doesn't do war crimes?
So the sun doesn't rise in the east and set in the west?

But I digress.

Here are Dreyfus's (heavily pruned) reasons for not taking Ms Abdel-Fattah down, Israeli-style:

"I will briefly explain my reasons for not engaging Ms Abdel-Fattah in a debate on Israeli actions on Q&A. First, the recent conflict in Gaza was not the topic of Q&A... Secondly, Ms Abdel-Fattah's views clearly reflected a well-known perspective, and I find it hard to believe that her statements could convince anyone who did not already subscribe to her views on this topic... Finally, I respect the right of Australians to hold and express a diversity of views, including views with which I vehemently disagree."

Well and good. But then he concludes: "I will continue to take real opportunities to sensibly discuss Israel's future security."

Oh, really? Is that your job?

Apparently so.

So, readers, next time you hear the Australian shadow attorney-general going in to bat for Israel, think of the Israel first pack snapping at the poor man's heels, and keep in mind that in Mark Dreyfus we have a shadow minister seemingly afraid of his own shadow.

Oh, and contemplate too the delicious irony of Dreyfus representing the seat of Isaac, named after former Governor-General Sir Isaac Isaacs, who had no problem whatever, bless him, with putting the boot into Zionism and its dirty deeds in Palestine.*

[*See my 29/10/11 post Greg Sheridan's Worst Nightmare.]

Abbottoir Day 2014

Herewith the latest news about our Dear Leader on Abbottoir Day 2014:

"Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has met with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. They met at the 2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. At the start of their meeting, Australian Prime Minister Abbott told Prime Minister Netanyahu, 'I daresay you had an interesting day. I want to stress the affinity of Australia to Israel and remind you that apart from Israel, Australia is the only country on earth that's had a Jewish person as Commander in Chief of the army, Chief Justice and Head of State." (Abbott meets Netanyahu, jwire.com.au, 24/1/14)

LOL, that Head of State (from 1931-36) was, of course, Governor-General Sir Isaac Isaacs, a confirmed anti-Zionist.

More Hounding of Jake Lynch 3

November 2, Day 4 of The Australian's attack on Professor Jake Lynch, finally saw the sound and fury move from the front page into the paper's equally arid interior, probably because the attack's principal spear-carrier this time around, Ean - with an E - Higgins, was getting too little joy from Education Minister Christopher Pyne, who "condemned the BDS campaign against Israel, but backed down on a Coalition promise to cut funds to academics who promoted it." (Coalition backs off on BDS)

That "promise," of course, had come from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. However, "[i]n response to questions from The Weekend Australian, Mr Pyne... declined to say he would uphold the categoric policy enunciated by Ms Bishop..." (ibid)

Higgin's fizzer notwithstanding, one of the paper's bigger guns, associate editor Cameron Stewart (rambammed: 2005), was wheeled out to blaze away at the BDS campaign in an opinion piece, which oddly never even got around to mentioning Professor Lynch. Stewart's aim was simply to smear the campaign, in the usual fashion, as a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Much of it consisted of a recycling of the nonsense trotted out on Day 1 of the current attack.

First, there was that convenient springboard, the "violent assault on a Jewish family at Bondi... last weekend." This obviously random attack, by a group of Islander youths, although typical of countless other unprovoked, alcohol-fueled, Saturday night bashings of people of every stripe by thugs of every stripe in Sydney, allegedly had "[t]he Jewish community on tenterhooks," and, according to Cameron, became the occasion for an outpouring of support for the community by religious (including Muslim), ethnic, and sporting groups, and federal and state politicians such as Turnbull, Danby, and O'Farrell.

Juxtaposing an alleged "deep unease" in the Australian Jewish Community with a bald assertion that "anti-Semitic acts are on the rise overseas," Stewart then cited "an anti-Israel protest in Denver, Colorado, as well as demonstrations in France and Belgium" as evidence of the latter. Thus is the dross of a vicious and deplorable, but not particularly unusual, assault, having bugger all to do with genuine anti-Semitism, let alone Palestine/Israel, transmuted by the Murdoch press into yet another manifestation of a supposed rising tide of anti-Semitism, of which anti-Israel protests are, of course, merely the current manifestation.

So let's pause and take a closer look at the "anti-Israel" protest in Denver. Here's The Times of Israel account: "Advertisements accusing Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' appeared on Denver-area buses while the Jewish National Fund held its annual conference in the city. The ads, which include the slogan 'Want Peace? Stop ethnic cleansing in Palestine', were sponsored by the website Notaxdollarstoisrael.com and the Colarado BDS Campaign... Colorado BDS held what it called a 'counter-conference'... to coincide with the JNF session. It included plans for protests outside the Governor's mansion and the JNF conference..." (Denver buses carry anti-Israel ads during JNF conference, 29/10/13)

Photos of the protest at another website show people, including anti-Zionist religious Jews, holding placards reading: Jewish National Fund: Racist; JNF: Violation of Judaism & Godly compassion; Judaism Condemns the State of 'Israel' And its Atrocities.

Enough said.

Interestingly, even Stewart felt compelled to play down the hysteria being whipped up by his own paper over the incident at Bondi: "A closer examination... suggests it was almost certainly a random attack..." This statement of the bleeding obvious, however, was not going to deter him from his work of smearing criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism: "... but it has served to cast a spotlight on anti-Semitism in Australia as some anti-Israel fringe groups are blurring the boundaries between race and politics." The sly implication here, of course, is that anyone who criticises Israel is a demented fringe-dweller who just can't help crossing over to the Dark Side at times.

That other hyped 'incident' of Day 1, involving a pair of UNSW student buffoons and your stereotypical 'offended' Jewish student - "Today I had the worst experience of anti-Semitism in my life" - was again trotted out, and reflected on at length by a "child survivor of the Holocaust and an expert on trauma," called upon by Stewart to dilate on the nature of such 'suffering': "It's like their nightmares coming true again."

Amusingly, in stressing Australia's "relatively easy assimilation of Jews into all aspects of Australian society," Stewart must unwittingly have offended the usual suspects by citing as an example of Jewish success in Australia onetime (1931-36) governor-general Sir Isaac Isaacs, who was firmly of the view that political Zionism "is founded on principles that bear a striking resemblance to the slanderous doctrines that Hitler put forward in justifying Anti-Semitism" and "detracts from the noble principles of our religion." And how right he was when he predicted that the Zionist project in Palestine "would deny equal rights of citizenship to Arabs and others, and would imperil the security of the Holy Places of other faiths." (Isaac Isaacs, Zelman Cowan, 1967, p 234)

Finally, there was the usual spray of letters, falsely conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Too wearisome to repeat, I'll leave you with the shorter of the two more clear-thinking efforts (the other was by Greens senator Lee Rhiannon):

"George Fishman (Letters 1/11) goes much too far saying 'supporters of the BDS are a mask for hatred of Jews.' The fact is there are many people like me who want to see Israel treat Palestinians in a humane and just way. Supporting the BDS is one small way of protesting against Israel, not the Jewish population." Judy White, Rose Bay, NSW

Judy must be one of Cameron Stewart's fringe-dwellers.

PS: Response (4/11/13) from Daniel Lewis, Rushcutters Bay, NSW: "While I'm sure Judy White would never identify with anti-Semites, there is a simple test. Besides Israel, who else are you boycotting? Syria has killed more Palestinians in the past year than Israel. Hamas killed more Palestinians in 2008 than Israel did. Jordan killed more Palestinians in a single week than Israel did in the following 50 years..." So says Daniel Lewis, but here's a question for him: What were those Palestinians doing in Syria, the Gaza Strip and Jordan in the first place?

Greg Sheridan's Worst Nightmare

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan is a troubled man these days. The Australian's foreign editor is wracked by this terrible thought:

"Ireland is the land of my ancestors. I still have close family connections there. Without any qualification, I love Ireland deeply. It has, sadly, again fallen on tough economic times, but it is facing up to them resolutely. And it remains an astonishing source of culture. But if it elects [Martin] McGuiness, a former IRA terrorist, as president, for the first time in my life I will be thoroughly ashamed of the Irish... If they elect a wretched terrorist like McGuiness, the Irish will have demonstrated a loss of faith in themselves, their own inherent decency and moderation." (A figurehead should not be elected, The Australian, 27/10/11)

Needless to say, as far as I'm aware, Sheridan's never had a problem with Israeli terrorists, such as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, becoming prime ministers of his even more beloved Israel (1977-83 & 1986-92 respectively), so there you go.

That aside, if I were Sheridan, I'd be consoling myself with the thought that things could be worse - much worse. How about an anti-Zionist for governor-general of Australia? Or worse still, how about a governor-general who actually was an anti-Zionist?

And why raise what for Sheridan must be the ultimate in nightmare scenarios?

Well, in the same column, having noted that the Irish presidency is largely ceremonial, he blithely alludes to "the solid steady people who have been our governors general - Quentin Bryce, Mike Jeffery, Bill Hayden, Zelman Cowan, going all the way back to Isaac Isaacs," seemingly unaware that the first of these native-born G-Gs, Isaac Isaacs (G-G: 1931-36), who was a Jew, was also an anti-Zionist!

The following quotes, which may be found at isaacisaacs.blogspot.com reveal that not only was Isaac Isaacs solid and steady, but remarkably clear-thinking and utterly principled as well:

"[T]here is no warrant, legal or moral, for making Palestine a Jewish State, any more than an Arab State, but there is every reason for making it what the Mandate terms it, a Palestinian nationality, that is bi-national..." (The Nationality of the Australian Jew, 9/9/47)

"[Political Zionism] has run the entire gamut of racial nationalism from the... very modest hope of restoration of Palestine as the centre of a new, positive, and intensive Jewish cultural life to the extreme theory of Jewish nationalism practically identical with Nazist and Fascist theory, which holds that the bonds of Jewish racial nationalism are eternally indissoluble, that there can only be ever one Jewish homeland, only one land in which the Jew can ever feel himself completely at home, that eternally he is a member of the Jewish racial nation, however that term may be defined, that he resides among the nations, as at present, only a temporary sojourner, that he is in Diaspora, in 'Galut', in exile, and that Israel's redemption from the sad fate of the last 1500 years or even the last 2500 years will be only when it will be restored to the role of completely and predominately Jewish independent statehood in Palestine, in whatever form and however achieved this Statehood may take, Commonwealth, Republic, or Dominion." (Palestine: Peace & Prosperity or War & Destruction? Political Zionism: Undemocratic, Unjust, Dangerous, p 23-4, 14/1/46)

"A most serious responsibility... for affording a just and acceptable basis for a peaceful and harmonious solution rests primarily on the shoulders of Political Zionism because it is actively pressing for political measures intended to swamp the Arab population [of Palestine]..." (ibid, p 5)

"[The demands of political Zionism are] inconsistent in demanding on one hand, on a basis of a separate Jewish nationality everywhere Jews are found, Jewish domination in Palestine, and at the same time claiming complete Jewish equality elsewhere than in Palestine, on the basis of a nationality common to the citizens of every faith." (ibid, p 11)