The Hyping of Hawke 3

By now, after reading my previous two posts questioning his virtual canonisation, it should be apparent that the late, former Australian prime minister, Bob Hawke, was, with his fatal decision to involve Australia in the brutal US-led Gulf War of 1991, very much the war hawk.

Of course, the impacts of war today are seldom confined to the immediate area of conflict, but consideration of their wider impact is of scant concern to those who, like Hawke, are hell-bent on waging them. One of those areas of impact is inevitably the home front.

The following three extracts, detailing the dark forces unleashed by St Bob here in Australia, come from academic Christine Asmar's invaluable essay The Arab-Australian Experience, in Australia's Gulf War (1992). Although the 'experience' she describes took place almost ten years before 9/11, it is chilling to note the sheer depth of Arabophobia and Islamophobia of the time, a phenomenon that Hawke cannot evade responsibility for unleashing, and one that continues to haunt us today with a vengeance:

"For Arabs born and brought up in Australia the experience of the Gulf War was shattering: 'I'd never thought of myself as anything but Australian', said Mary Rebehy, 'and suddenly I realised that some people had never accepted us as Australians at all'. Similarly, John Brennan of the Ethnic Affairs Commission told an audience at the University of Sydney of his shock at having to confront in Australia the 'reservoir of pathological loathing' towards both Arabs and Muslims. A writer to the Age expostulated: 'Australians be damned! They are an alien fifth column and should be interned'. Arab children were abused from passing cars as they walked to school and intimidated by fellow-students while at school, sometimes without teachers intervening. Muslim Arab women were spat at, abused, and had their headscarfs ripped off their heads... Islamic institutions such as the mosque and Islamic Centre at Lakemba in Sydney; the mosques at Preston and Coburg in Victoria; and a Muslim primary school in Perth were all subject to abusive calls, bomb threats and break-ins as were the premises of Arab organisations such as the Lebanese Women's Association and the Australian Arabic Welfare Council, both in Sydney. Many Muslim Australian women became afraid to leave home, even to go shopping." (p 65)

"A particular source of contention arose from the belief that ASIO (the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization) had carried out surveillance, and possibly even harassment of members of the Arab community. An article in the Bulletin in January 1991 claimed that ASIO had mounted 'an operation which has seen the surveillance of scores of Moslems living here, phone tapping, [and] a recommendation to intern certain people'. ASIO was reported to have claimed that 'NSW could be a target of Arab terrorist attacks or sabotage', and that six terrorist plots had been foiled in Australia during the Gulf War. Such reports encouraged the tendency to equate 'terrorist' with 'Arab'. Since no Australian of Arab origin has ever been charged with any crime involving political violence, the reports added to the Arabs' sense of being victimized. Responding to a claim that Muslims were behind attacks on Jewish institutions, the President of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board made it clear that 'there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any Muslim community is behind these attacks'. A large number of individuals in the Arab community, mostly political activists, reported that they had been visited by security personnel and questioned, although there was no suggestion of any physical harassment taking place. Some, however, alleged other forms of harassment and surreptitious surveillance. Whether true or not, those who believed such actions were taking place felt intimidated." (p 73)

"The widespread stereotyping of Arabs left a legacy of vulnerability and alienation. The experience of an unprecedented level of hostility has traumatized many Arabs in Australia, leading some to question the the Australian model of multiculturalism. In the words of Hassan Moussa, a prominent member of the community: 'The war has had a terrible effect on the community's sense of identity. Even today a lot of people are reluctant to say they are of Arab origin. It is very possible that the community may have become isolated and marginalized as a result of this crisis'. Ramsey Jebeile of the Australian Arabic Welfare Council has noticed that, after the Gulf War, Arab schoolchildren and their parents were showing an increased alienation, and a willingness to attribute any unwelcome developments at school to racist discrimination. Even more disturbing is the potentially self-fulfilling sense of hopelessness among school leavers about discrimination ruining their job prospects." (p 79)

To be continued...

'Guardians' of Israel

Most interesting:

"Anonymous far-right groups have launched co-ordinated activity across online platforms in a bid to influence the outcome of the federal election. A group of 'Australian' Facebook pages has been found to be part of a network of at least 15 accounts involved in co-ordinated dissemination of 'misinformation and misleading content', according to analysis by social media intelligence company Storyful... 'Five Facebook pages, sharing anti-Islam content while promoting 'traditional' Australian values, were found to be part of a network of Facebook pages discovered by Storyful that share fringe news content in a co-ordinated manner - links to articles are shared to the network of Facebook pages at the same time and using the same accompanying text. The articles often contain misleading or highly partisan information and many included bigoted or anti-Islam themes. The pages have regularly claimed politicians and the media have remained silent on violence committed by Muslims and frequently spruik One Nation or Fraser Anning.' Storyful, owned by News Corp, The Australian's parent company, said the pages included Guardians of Australia. No sharia law - never ever give up Australia, and Fair Suck Of The Sav, Mate."  (Far right unites to sway poll outcome, Mark Schliebs, The Australian, 7/5/19)

Now here's where the plot thickens:

"Of 17 administrators for the Guardians of Australia page, 12 are listed as being in Australia and 3 in Israel. Two accounts listed as belonging to people in India are administrators of the No sharia law - never give up Australia, along with 6 in Australia and 2 whose locations are unknown." (ibid)

If you track down their FB page, you'll see a lead photo, which reads, BANS BEGIN GOA WILL NOT TOLERATE ANTI-JEWISH SPEECH JUST AS WE WILL NOT TOLERATE HATE SPEECH AGAINST THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN ISLAM. Scroll down, and you'll come to a gormless Israeli yoof, name of Hananya Naftali, darkly intoning in a video that RADICAL ISLAM WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, apparently by stealth, which boy wonder calls "the silent jihad."

Further down, you'll come to another Naftali video: THE ISRAEL-GAZA SITUATION, in which he informs us, in so many words, that while Hamas rains rockets on Israel, Israel responds against "terrorist targets in Gaza," while simultaneously "taking care of civilians" there by showering them with humanitarian aid, electricity and water.

It appears that what these self-proclaimed Guardians of Australia are really guarding is... Israel. What a surprise!

Now just in case your not averse to rolling in his muck, you might want to check out "IDF reservist" Hananya Naftali's tweets.

Reading Brendan O'Neill

What happens when you just make it up as you go along? Well, chances are that what you write will end up looking something like an opinion piece by Brendan O'Neill - half-baked, propagandist. 

O'Neill, editor of Spiked, is often recycled in Murdoch's Australian, and it's easy to see why:

"[F]ocus too much on Islamist terrorism these days and you risk being accused of Islamophobia. 'Christians used to do this kind of thing,' they will say, inaccurately, to deflect attention from their own unwillingness to take a strong moral stance on Islamist extreme violence. Or they will point out that the US and Britain and other nations are still engaged in violent conflicts in the Middle East... even though they must know, somewhere inside their moral universe, that there is an immeasurable difference between America's military campaigns in the Middle East (which are wrong)... " (Islamist barbarism thrives on West's weak response, 26/4/19)

"Which are wrong"? Why the brackets, Brendan? Why the dropped voice? Why not say it loud and clear: AMERICA'S MILITARY CAMPAIGNS IN THE MIDDLE EAST ARE WRONG? And why not say why? Because Islamist terrorism has been the result of such campaigns - from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya and to Syria.

"... and the wilful slaughter of children queuing for sweets..."

Of course, our USraeli friends are never "wilful" when they slaughter children queuing for sweets:

"Witnesses to Sunday's incident said a missile that appeared to be a rocket hit an area just outside the gates of the Rafah Preparatory, a boys school where children were queuing to buy sweets and biscuits from stalls. The school had been providing shelter to more than 3,000 people - the same number that had been seeking refuge at a girls school in Jabaliya last Wednesday when it came under attack from a hail of Israeli shells. In contrast to that strike, which wrecked a classroom full of sleeping woman and children, the physical destruction this time appeared minimal: just a small but deep hole in the road where the missile had landed. But that clinical effect masked a devastating human cost. Pools of blood... were seen inside and outside the school, demonstrating how the blast's powerful impact had wished inside the grounds of what was supposed to be a safe haven." (Gaza school attacked as children queue for sweets, Robert Tait, telegraph.co.uk, 3/8/14)

Nothing personal there, of course, just good, clean collateral damage, right? Sorry about that, kids.

"Whether it is their accusations of Islamophobia or their morally relativistic comparison of today's new barbarism with the behaviour of Western armies, the liberal elites key aim seems to be to avoid having to take a strong position on this new, strange, spectacularly anti-human violence."

And, Brendan, what precisely do you mean by "liberal elites"? Do you mean someone like Obama's Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton? 

Was her position on "today's new barbarism" not "strong"? Didn't she propose defeating ISIS "on the battlefield" and working "with our allies to dismantle global terror networks"? (See Combating terrorism & keeping the homeland safe, hillaryclinton.com)

And yet you've already said, "America's military campaigns in the Middle East are wrong." So cut the crap and tell us what you mean by "a strong position."

The trouble with Clinton is that she doesn't seem at all interested in taking on certain regimes who inspire and stoke Islamist terrorism, and for obvious reasons:

"On the contributions given by state actors to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was US Secretary of State, Assange discusses one email in particular: 'There's an early 2014 email from Hilary Clinton... to her campaign manager, that states that ISIS is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.' He states, 'Actually, I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection, perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the place including into many media institutions. Analysts know, even the US government has mentioned, or agreed with, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS, funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it's just some rogue princes using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like but actually the government disapproves, but that email says that no, it's the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have been funding ISIS." (Never forget: the towering exposure of Hillary Clinton by Assange and WikiLeaks, Clinton Emerald, 21stcenturywire.com, 13/11/16)

Nor, for that matter, does the other side of the US coin, non-liberal, populist Donald Trump.

"A weak and morally disoriented West that will not strongly condemn the nihilistic ideology behind the slaughter of Christians in Sri Lanka..."

Now that "nihilistic ideology" wouldn't be Saudi Wahhabism, would it, Brendan?

 "... is a West that cannot feign surprise when such violence continues. It is no longer enough to say 'that's awful' and then move on; we need a serious reckoning with the war on Christians, the rise of seventh-century barbarism and the collapse of any semblance of moral restraint among the new terrorists."

And Brendan, isn't your phrase, "the rise of seventh-century barbarism," just a sneaky euphemism for Islam? Please explain why this isn't Islamophobia.

Bet you'd never conflate the barbarity of the Crusades with Christianity, or for that matter "America's military campaigns" - which you admit are ("wrong").

White Shite

You know in your bones that if a celebrity scholar gets an entire (broadsheet) page to strut his stuff, a thumbs-up editorial, and a glowing introductory article in Murdoch's Australian, that something's seriously amiss. I'm talking here about The Australian's new poster boy, Eric Kaufmann.

Just to fill you in, here's part of the glowing intro by Bernard Lane:

"The political Left is unlikely to succeed in its attempt after the Christchurch Muslim massacre to reimpose politically correct taboos on immigration debates, says an international expert on the rise of right-wing populism. In the war of words after Christchurch, Left activists and Muslim firebrands [!!] have attacked conservative politicians and media outlets for supposedly arming the Australian-born accused killer with bullets of xenophobia and hate speech... 'The Left is trying to use Christchurch to delegitimate the conversation [!!] about Muslim integration and immigration - this is no more intelligent than the Right using jihadist attacks like Charlie Hebdo (in Paris in 2015) to demonise Muslims,' London-based political analyst Eric Kaufmann told The Weekend Australian.

"In his book White Shift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, he argues the success of the populist Right in the West is driven by rapid ethnic change and the white majority's fear for its identity, not by the economic misery of workers 'left behind'. He offers a surprising idea for taking the heat out of culture conflict in the West and easing polarisation in politics. Until recently, mainstream parties had followed the Left's 'anti-racist taboos' on criticising multiculturalism or immigration, thereby gifting votes to Donald Trump, Brexit and a host of parties such as One Nation, he said. With actual racism in decline [!!], the post-1960s Left had widened the definition of racism and demonised white majorities, unwittingly serving as 'a force multiplier' for the populist Right.

"Professor Kaufmann, from Birkbeck College, University of London, predicts immigration trends will see minorities outnumber whites in the US by 2050, with Australia going 'majority-minority' one or two decades later. He said it was not racist for whites, like any other ethnic group, to expect their interests to figure in the trade-offs of immigration policy. Parties such as One Nation actually made white terror attacks less likely because they served as a democratic safety valve for the angst of white majorities [!!], he said. He said there was a danger of more white terror if conservative white insecurity about immigration was forced back underground. But far-right attacks such as last month's massacre of Muslims in New Zealand were 'rare and not really on the rise'.' (Left losing migrant high ground, 6/4/19)

Not at all rare, however, are Western massacres of Muslims in the Middle East by white majority Western 'defence' forces, cheered on, or tacitly supported, by their white majority base at home, but these of course are nowhere mentioned in Kaufmann's calculus.

I'll have more to say about his thesis in my next post, but will leave you to ponder the following key extract from his book, as it appears in The Australian of April 6:

"Ethnic nationhood, which restricts citizenship to members of the majority, is clearly a non-starter. But things aren't so black and white. There is a third possibility - ethno-traditional nationhood, which values the ethnic majority as an important component of the nation alongside other groups. Ethno-traditional nationalists favour slower immigration to permit enough migrants to voluntarily assimilate into the ethnic majority, maintaining the white ethno-tradition. The point is not to assimilate all diversity but to strike a balance between vibrant minorities and an enduring white Christian tradition." (White Fright: It's not racist to be attached to one's own culture)

Jesus Christ!

To be continued...

News Corpse

Sky News Australia is owned by Murdoch's News Corp. The following testimony by a former employee tells you all you really need to know about this particular 'news' outlet:

"... I wasn't shocked [by the Christchurch terror attack] ... This is because for the past three years, I've worked at Sky News. More specifically Sky News 'after dark' - when the rolling coverage of the day's news makes way for conservative commentators to share the 'opinions you can't ignore'. As a young Muslim woman, I had many crises of conscience working here, but the events of Friday snapped me out of the endless cycle of of justifying my job to myself. On Saturday, I finally sent in my letter of resignation... I realised pretty quickly though that the Sky News I worked on wasn't focussed on reporting facts and informing the public. Rather, conservative media commentators came together with current and former right-wing politicians, disseminating misinformation which bordered on conspiracies. I compromised my values and beliefs to stand idly by as I watched commentators and pundits instil more and more fear into their viewers. I stood on the other side of the studio doors while they slammed every minority group in the country - mine included - increasing polarisation and paranoia among their viewers... I answered calls from viewers who yelled about immigrants and Muslims ruining Australia. They did not realise that the person on the other end of the phone was both of those things. And in the aftermath of Friday's terror attack, Sky's coverage also stood out. It was one of the few Australian media outlets who played the live stream footage from inside the mosque... Some nights I felt physically sick, others I even shed tears in my car on the way home." (As the Christchurch attacks unfolded, I knew I had to quit my job at Sky News, Rashina Farrukh, abc.net.au, 19/3/19)

Cory's Crazies

Speaking of neocon and Christian Zionist crazies in the US context, be it known that right-wing Australian politics can more than hold its own in the lunacy stakes.

Take Cory Bernadi's Australian Conservatives, for example. Founded in 2017 after its founder broke away from the Liberal Party, its website proclaims that:

"The values, customs, conventions, and norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition are the foundation for western culture and provide the appropriate framework to inform and guide a free society. Without adherence to these enduring structures and an associated rejection of moral relativism, society induces its decay." (Civil Society, conservatives.org.au/our_principles)

Now talk of a 'Judeo-Christian tradition' invariably masks an Islamophobic agenda. Needless to say, the Australian Conservatives do not disappoint in this respect. Queen Esther may be all the rage among US Christian Zionist crazies, but the Australian Democrats are a tad more modern, if the fifteenth century can be called 'modern' that is. Read on:

"On this day, 29 May in 1453, Constantinople (now Istanbul) - the seat of the Byzantine Christian Empire and the surviving offshoot of the Roman Empire - fell to the invading Islamic Ottoman Turks after a bloody battle and siege that lasted 53 days... The fall of Constantinople was a massive blow to Christendom and Europe, having served as the chief bulwark against (and lightning rod for) the waves of Islamic expansion over the preceding centuries. Constantinople's sacking allowed the Islamic Ottoman Turk armies to advance north and west, deep into Christian Europe... The Islamic surge into Europe was first seriously resisted in the Siege of Vienna in 1529. The Battle at the Gates of Vienna on 11-12 September 1683 began the long decline of this last Islamic Caliphate, which was wound up soon after WWI... " (Fall of Constantinople, conservatives.org.au/fall_of_constantinople)

And what, exactly, are red-blooded, Judeo-Christian Conservatives supposed to do about the fall of Constantinople to the "Islamic" hordes? Why, gird their loins for the coming "Islamic surge" of course. Here's how:

"Mourn/commiserate the fall of Constantinople and the Islamic takeover of its heritage by:

*visiting a cathedral (or church) in your vicinity
*watching a film featuring the ancient city, such as:
  o the James Bond films Sky Fall, The World is Not Enough or From Russia With Love
  o Taken 2
  o The International, or
  o Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
*reading up on the Byzantine Roman and Christian Empire, or some famous fictional works commemorating the Orient Express which once ran from Europe's north to Constantinople (eg Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express or Graham Greene's Stamboul Train) and/or
*sharing this Action Plan post on social media with family, friends and those proud of their Western Christian civilisation and values." (ibid)

Hmm... Now I don't know about you, but if I were Cory Bernardi, and I really wanted to do justice to the gravity of the occasion, I would've added a few extra items to the to-do list for May 29. For example:

*donning sackcloth and ashes
*wailing
*gnashing your teeth
*flagellating yourself
*all of the above

Why History Matters

On 18/3/19 The Australian published a full-page opinion piece, Shared hatred of fanatics, by one of its stable of reactionary pundits, Paul Monk. Monk, thankfully, is only an occasional contributor to Murdoch's Australian mouthpiece. His specialty is Arab/Muslim history, with lashings of Islamophobia. (In earlier scribblings, he has referred to "the dark heart of Islam," declared the Prophet Muhammad to be "a very dubious figure," and claimed his "deity" is "a god of war and conquest." He has also given the thumbs-up to Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, and lauded the late Italian Islamophobe, Oriana Fallaci, as "the great Italian journalist.")

Monk is described grandiosely in an appended bio as "a former senior intelligence analyst, long-time consultant in applied cognitive science and author of 10 books, of which the most recent is Dictators and Dangerous Ideas: Uncensored Reflections in an Age of Turmoil."

But back to Shared hatred of fanatics, written in the wake of the Christchurch massacres. It would take multiple posts to deal with all of Monk's distortions, but I restrict myself to his characterisation of the Crusades as a war of self-defence by the West:

"The crusades were a sideshow and a largely unsuccessful pushback against the Muslim conquest of Palestine and the 'holy places' of the Christian religion. This isn't angry rhetoric, it is basic history."

Except that the Muslim conquest of Palestine happened in the 7th century and the First Crusade in the 11th.

God only knows where Monk's picked up his take on the subject - Murray? Fallaci? Any one of a number of historically unsound Islamophobic websites, such as The Gates of Vienna?

So let's see what a reputable historian of the Crusades has to say on the subject of the "basic history" of the crucial First Crusade (1096-99). The following extracts come from Thomas Asbridge's The First Crusade: A New History (2004). (Asbridge is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at Queen Mary, University of London.):

"From its genesis, the history of the crusade was blurred by distortion. The image of Muslims as brutal oppressors conjured by Pope Urban [II] was pure propaganda - if anything, Islam had proved over the previous centuries to be more tolerant of other religions than Catholic Christendom." (p 3)

"The first point to acknowledge is that [the Pope's] call to arms made at Clermont was not directly inspired by any recent calamity or atrocity in the East... And although the Holy City of Jerusalem, the expedition's ultimate goal, was indeed in Muslim hands, it had been so for more than 400 years - hardly a fresh wound... The reality was that, when Pope Urban proclaimed the First Crusade at Clermont, Islam and Christendom had coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity. There may at times have been little love lost between Christian and Muslim neighbours, but there was, in truth, little to distinguish this enmity from the endemic political and military struggles of the age." (pp 16-17)

"At the end of the eleventh century, Christendom was in one sense encircled by Islam, with Muslim forces ranged against it to the east along Byzantium's Asian frontier and to the south in the Iberian peninsula. But Europe was a long way from being engaged in an urgent, titanic struggle for survival. No coherent, pan-Mediterranean onslaught threatened, because, although the Moors of Iberia and the Turks of Asia Minor shared a religious heritage, they were never united in one purpose. Where Christians and Muslims did face each other across the centuries, their relationship had been unremarkable, characterised, like that between any potential rivals, by periods of conflict and others of coexistence. There is little or no evidence that either side harboured any innate, empowering religious or racial hatred of the other.

"Most significantly, throughout this period indigenous Christians actually living under Islamic law, be it in Iberia or the Holy Land, were generally treated with remarkable clemency. The Muslim faith acknowledged and respected Judaism and Christianity, creeds with which it enjoyed a common devotional tradition and a mutual reliance upon authoritative scripture. Christian subjects may not have been able to share power with their Muslim masters, but they were given freedom to worship. All around the Mediterranean basin, Christian faith and society survived and even thrived under the watchful but tolerant eye of Islam. Eastern Christendom may have been subjected to Islamic rule, bit it was not on the brink of annihilation, nor prey to any form of systematic abuse." (p 18)

"The problem addressed by the First Crusade - Muslim occupation of Jerusalem and the potential threat of Islamic aggression in the East - had loomed for decades, even centuries, provoking little or no reaction in Rome. Urban II's decision to take up this cause at Clermont was, therefore, primarily proactive rather than reactive, and the crusade was designed, first and foremost, to meet the needs of the papacy. Launched as it was just as Urban began to stabilise his power-base in central Italy, the campaign must be seen as an attempt to consolidate papal empowerment and expand Rome's sphere of influence." (p 19)

"A central feature of Urban's doctrine was the denigration and dehumanisation of Islam. He set out from the start to launch a holy war against what he called 'the savagery of the Saracens', a 'barbarian' people capable of incomprehensible levels of cruelty and brutality. Their supposed crimes were enacted upon two groups. Eastern Christians, in particular the Byzantines, had been 'overrun right up to the Mediterranean Sea'. Urban described how the Muslims 'occupying more and more of the land on the borders of [Byzantium], were slaughtering and capturing many, destroying churches and laying waste to the kingdom of God. So, if you leave them alone much longer they will further grind under their heels the faithful of God. The pope also maintained that Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land were being subjected to horrific abuse and exploitation... The accusations had little or no basis in fact, but they did serve Urban's purpose. By expounding upon the alleged crimes of Islam, he sought to ignite an explosion of vengeful passion among his Latin audience, while his attempts to degrade Muslims as 'sub-human' opened the floodgates of extreme, brutal reciprocity. " (pp 33-34)

Getting the history right matters, because if it's left in the hands of Monk, Murray, Fallaci and other xenophobes to distort and mangle, their distortions may well influence the likes of the Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant - with deadly effect.

Greg Sheridan: Today & Yesterday

A most interesting response to the mosque massacres in New Zealand comes from the foreign editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan. Suddenly, uncharacteristically, this knee-jerk defender of Israeli apartheid and genocide, is all sweetness and light when it comes to Muslims:

"Today we are all Muslims... Like almost all right-wing terrorism, it was motivated by filthy racism and racial hatred... Everyone involved in politics and online activism should reflect on the dangers of exaggerated rhetoric, exaggerated grievance, exaggerated resentment... Decent social democrats, conservatives, liberals and others do not see race when they interact with other human beings... Yet throughout the West we are in the process of re-emphasising race as the central consideration in our politics." (In face of racist terror, we are all Muslims today, The Australian, 16/3/19)

But MERC has a long memory when it comes to Sheridan. Just cop a load of this Islamophobic dog-whistling:

"Uncontrolled Muslim immigration into Europe has been a public policy failure, if not an outright disaster. This is the view of most Europeans, as measured by opinion polls, and of a large number of European officials and politicians. Having just spent a month in Europe, talking to dozens of officials, politicians and immigrants, it is a view I reluctantly share. This is given sharp relief by the illegal immigration crisis Australia is experiencing to its north. The spike now in boat arrivals involves Sri Lankans, but this is primarily a route that would be used by Muslim illegal immigrants. There is nothing wrong with Muslim immigration. It goes without saying that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants are good Australians and perfectly law-abiding citizens. However, it is simply denying reality to pretend that the cultural distinctiveness and assertiveness of Islam, and of the propensity for a small but distinctively substantial minority to be attracted to extremism, does not pose problems." (Europe looks Down Under for answers on immigration, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 24/10/09)

That's right, "today we are all Muslims," but what about yesterday? And tomorrow?

Morrison & Tarrant: Six Degrees of Separation?

Scott Morrison 2011:

"The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate's growing concerns about 'Muslim immigration', 'Muslims in Australia' and the 'inability' of Muslim migrants to integrate." (Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy, Lenore Taylor, Sydney Morning Herald, 17/2/11)

Scott Morrison 2019:

"I'm horrified by the reports I'm following of the serious shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. The situation is still unfolding but our thoughts and prayers are with our Kiwi cousins." (Tweet @ScottMorrisonMP, 14/3/19)

Note that Morrison cannot even bring himself to use the word terrorism ("serious shooting"), or Muslims ("Kiwi cousins").

In the mold of the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Anders Breivik, the white supremacist perpetrator of the New Zealand massacres, Brenton Tarrant, had stated in a manifesto that his aim was "to take revenge for the thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history."

This is arguably only a matter of degrees away from the real Scott Morrison, so beautifully summed up by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Tony Wright. (Remember that, before becoming immigration minister, Morrison was the managing director of Tourism Australia, trying to persuade people to visit Australia through an international advertising campaign starring model Lara Bingle, exclaiming, 'Where the bloody hell are you?'):

"His job these days," wrote Wright, "is to persuade would-be visitors to stay away from Australia. The old tourism chief has reversed his talent for propaganda by launching an international advertising campaign warning that the boat borne will find themselves in a concentration camp in the malarial jungles of Manus Island or the sweat box of Nauru, not a Lara in sight, if they so much as think of climbing aboard a leaky craft. Being an enthusiastic Christian, he declares that his concern is for the safety of what he calls 'illegals'." (Morrison keeps House in dark, 14/11/13)

Real Institutional Racism

Fake institutional racism:

"At a press conference in London, Liverpool Wavertee MP [and former director of Labour Friends of Israel] Luciana Berger said she was 'embarrassed and ashamed' to be a member of the Labour Party which she said was 'institutionally antisemitic' and had 'a culture of bullying, bigotry and intimidation'. Ms Berger has long been a target for antisemitic Labour activists who have plied her with abuse and death threats.* (Seven Labour MPs resign citing 'institutional', 'sickening' antisemitism, Orlando Radice, thejc.com, 18/2/19)

Real institutional racism:

"The Conservative party has suspended 14 members for allegedly making Islamophobic comments after a string of abusive posts were uncovered on social media... The suspensions come at a time of growing scrutiny of the Conservative party's record on Islamophobia, with the former Tory chairman Sayeeda Warsi again calling for an internal inquiry and suggesting the most senior figures in the party - including Theresa May - need to take the problem more seriously. The messages included one from an individual who wrote that they would like to 'turf all Muslims out of public office'. Another said they wanted to 'get rid of all mosques'... A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said the [FB] posts showed 'the scale of Islamophobia at all levels of the party is astonishing'." (Tories suspend 14 members over alleged Islamophobia, Dan Sabbagh, theguardian.com, 6/3/19)

[*Berger's Wikipedia entry makes it clear that these came from far-right sources, not "Labour activists."]

Making Australia Great Again with...

... senator Fraser Anning.

After perusing msm accounts of Mad Hatter's Australian Party senator Anning's reference to a "final solution to the immigration problem," you could be forgiven for thinking that his appropriation of the words "final solution" was the worst aspect of his speech.

You would, of course, be overlooking its primary focus: Australia's Muslims - the principal, if not the only, target of Anning's "final solution":

"Historically... the one immigrant group here and in other Western nations that has consistently shown itself to be the least able to assimilate and integrate is Muslims. The first terrorist act on Australian soil was in 1915, when two Muslim immigrants opened fire on a picnic train of innocent women and children in Broken Hill - and Muslim immigrants have been a problem ever since. To paraphrase the words of Sir Winston Churchill: The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power. The influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those that follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. 

"I believe that the reasons for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident. The record of Muslims who have already come to this country in rates of crime, welfare dependency and terrorism is the worst of any migrants... A majority of Muslims in Australia of working age do not work and live on welfare. Muslims in NSW and Victoria are three times more likely than other groups to be convicted of crimes. We have black African Muslim gangs terrorising Melbourne. We have ISIS-sympathising Muslims trying to go overseas to fight for ISIS and, while all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims. So why would anyone want to bring more of them here?"

I'll return to Anning's "final solution" later. Let's first unpack just some of the nonsense above:

1) The first terrorist act on Australian soil? Maybe... but only if you overlook the colonial-settler genocide of Australia's indigenous population.

2) To paraphrase... Churchill? So the arch British colonialist, Churchill, is some renowned authority on Muslims? Really? Be that as it may, Anning isn't, in fact, paraphrasing Churchill, but rather selectively quoting him, lifting the said quote from some Islamophobic shite that's been circulating on the internet for a few years: here it is with the with the missing bits restored (and highlighted): "The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great force. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world." Funny how the quote Anning's latched onto and recycled here never contains those missing words. We can't have the reactionaries' favourite Big White Man saying anything positive about Muslims now, can we?

3) Muslims in NSW and Victoria are 3 times more likely than other groups to be convicted of crimes? As today's Sydney Morning Herald revealed in its own fact check of Anning's speech: "The Herald repeatedly asked Senator Anning's office for the source of this claim, and did not receive a response. Both the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and Victoria's Crime Statistics Agency told Fairfax Media they did not possess or publish reliable data on the religious affiliation of criminals."

4) Black African Muslim gangs? Inconveniently for Anning, the religious background of Melbourne's South Sudanese community just happens to be Christian.

But back to Anning's "final solution," which, BTW, is, in his own words, "a plebiscite to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the Third World and, in particular, whether they want any Muslims or whether they want to return to the predominantly European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus." IOW, a ban on Muslim immigrants and/or a return to the White Australia Policy.

Interestingly, local Zionist spokesmen don't seem all that exercised over Anning's appropriation of the words "final solution" - if these curiously muted quotes from The Final Solution - in the Australian parliament (15/8/18, jwire.com.au) are anything to go by:

"Regardless of his intentions, Senator Anning's choice of words would have been unsettling for Jewish Australians... " Anton Block, President, Executive Council of Australian Jewry

"What a poor and inappropriate choice of words by Senator Anning to make a point about immigration... " Dvir Abramovich, Chairman, Anti-Defamation Commission

Could this softly, softly approach perhaps have something to do with Anning's use of his parliamentary platform last month to move - unsuccessfully as it happens - that Australia recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move our embassy there? (See my 23/6/18 post Time for a New Australian Party)

Of course, none of the msm media outlets, which are dubbing Anning's diatribe 'the final solution speech,' have shown any interest in his services to the country that admits as citizens only bona fide Jews.

Another 'Clanking Colonel' Enters Federal Politics

Beware the entry of 'clanking colonels' (Bob Carr's phrase for Labor's Colonel Mike Kelly at the time of the 2003 Ashrawi affair) into Australia's federal parliament. It's yet another indication of Australia's appalling decline into USraeli-style reaction, bigotry and sabre-rattling:

"New Liberal senator Jim Molan is making no apology for using social media to share inflammatory anti-Muslim videos from Britain First - the same racist hate group Donald Trump was widely condemned for promoting. Labor has accused Senator Molan of stoking racism and bigotry and the Islamophobic Register of Australia says his actions are dangerous. Senator Molan admits that he cannot verify whether the videos are real [!!!] or whether they really show Muslim violence as Britain First claims but has strongly rejected the racism claims." (No apology by new senator, Adam Gartrell, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/2/18)

Now cop this from the man who has defended Israel's 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead, contributed to the Israeli propaganda offensive against the UN's Goldstone Report, perpetrated Operation Fury against the Iraqi City of Fallujah in 2004, and can see no difference between  a Palestinian resistance organisation such as Hamas and a global organisation such as al-Qaida:

"I've put my life on the line for major Islamic, Muslim countries in this world. And I find it deeply offensive that this cheapo back at me has come out on day one,' the former major-general told the ABC..."

Under the Heel

You can learn a lot from the Australian's editorials. (Fortunately, so in need are we of enlightenment in these dark times, their always industrious editorialist churns out around three per day.) As it happens I found two of today's particularly enlightening.

Spain confronts jihadi menace, for example, informed me that between 711 and 1492 "most of what is now Spain and Portugal was under the heel of Muslim Moors."

I got from this that Muslims had heels and that to find oneself under one of these was indeed most unfortunate.

As for the second, Patriots should close ranks informed me that "the defacement of statues of Captain Cook, Queen Victoria and Governor Macquarie in Sydney" was a huge NO-NO.

This got me wondering. Was I safe in concluding that the editorialist believed that, unlike your Muslim Moors, Christian Brits lacked this particular anatomical feature?

I believed I was - which led me to speculate:

Are heels an exclusively Muslim thing? Is this because of Islam? Is it in the Muslim DNA, so to speak, to grind non-Muslims underfoot?

Conversely, are Christians (and Jews for that matter), by virtue of their heel-lessness, therefore incapable of such dreadful behaviour?

Yes, that must be it! And so, with the editorialist's assistance, I could not but reflect on just how lucky Australia's first peoples were to make the acquaintance of James, Victoria, Lachlan and their ilk!

My God, if it'd been those bloody Muslims and their bloody heels, they'd have been in real trouble.

One to Avoid

Paul Monk's review of Douglas Murray's book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam tells us more about the Islamophobia of the Monks and Murrays of this world than it does about either contemporary Europe, the Middle East or Islam. (Murray, BTW, is an associate editor of the Spectator.)

Here's Monk's hilarious opening paragraph:

"Douglas Murray was born in London in July 1979, putting him midpoint between Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's January flight from Paris to Tehran to lead the Shia Muslim revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, which triggered a global Sunni Muslim jihadist reaction." (Resisting Europe's Muslim tide, The Australian, 26/8/17)

No hint here that the Iranian revolution was a popular revolt against the repressive US client regime of the Shah, which emerged as the result of a CIA-engineered coup against the democratically-elected  government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. Just a "Shia" brainsnap on Khomeini's part, apparently.

Likewise, there's no hint that Monk's grand "global Sunni Muslim jihadist reaction" was kicked off in Afghanistan by the US, which funded, trained and armed Sunni Arab jihadis such as bin Laden for use against the Russian-backed secular government of Afghanistan.

IOW, poor old Murray had the terrible misfortune to be born at a time when those fiendish Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, experienced a sudden rush of blood to the head, which caused them to drop everything, and plot the forced Islamification of Europe, while the imperialist West, both the US and its European clients, was just innocently standing by, minding its own business as usual.

"In short, this journalist, author and political commentator has lived all his life against a background of Muslim insurgency and terrorism, as well as massive and now all-but-unrestricted Muslim immigration into Europe."

Of course, what prompted said "massive" Muslim immigration into Europe just may have had something to do with US/US client regime-change wars in Libya and Syria, but hush, we don't want to go there, it might spoil the story.

"Against that background, he reflects on the angry last writings of the great Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, denouncing what she saw as the betrayal of the West and the capitulation of its leaders to Iranian and Sunni jihadist intimidation."

"Great"? Totally unhinged, actually.

Monk concludes his review with his own (and - what a coincidence! - Murray's) "uncomfortable" reflection on "the Gothic and other Germanic migrations into the Roman Empire," and "the Arab migrations of the 7th and 8th centuries that swamped the southern and eastern littorals of the Roman world and overran the Persian and Turkish worlds."

So the Arabs are the new Goths and Vandals, and the Turks, who did not appear on the scene until the 11th (Seljuqs) and 13th (Othmanlis) centuries were rolled (swamped!) by the Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries? Right...

Fact Checking Zionist Trolls

Comment threads following items on Palestine/Israel posted on the Internet invariably contain contributions originating from cogs in one or another part of Israel's vast propaganda mill. These contributions, of course, are designed merely to sow confusion and muddy the waters.

Here, for example, are 3 examples taken from the comment thread following the article Canadian 'crusader' sparks outrage with Bethlehem anti-Muslim video (middleeasteye.net, 13/3/17). They are consecutive and the orchestration is clear:

Fasdunkle:

PLO isn't secular. Read the Constitution of Palestine

Lloyd Kennedy/ Fasdunkle:

Article 4 of the constitution states that
1: Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained.
2: The principles of Islamic Shari'a shall be the main source of legislation.
3: Arabic shall be the official language.
It doesn't state that the ruling authorities are not secular.

Nan/ Lloyd Kennedy:

Sharia is Islamic religious law, so yes, it does say the authorities are not secular. They must follow Islamic religious law.

***

Total bullshit, of course.

Here is Article 4 of the Palestinian National Charter (1968)*:

"The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership of the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them."

Article 16, the only one that refers to religion, reads as follows:

"The liberation of Palestine, from a spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn will safeguard the country's religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion. Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all spiritual forces in the world for support."

[*Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement, Leila S. Kadi, PLO Research Center, 1969, pp 137 & 139]

A Tale of Two Women

Before Anzac Day, Murdoch's Australian chose to hammer Sudanese-born Yassmin Abdel-Magied over an innocuous statement on Q&A. And since Anzac Day, it has continued doing so, on an almost daily basis, over an equally innocuous Anzac Day tweet.

While Fairfax's Herald has been reporting on the case of Egyptian-born Eman Sharobeem, currently appearing before the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) on allegations of milking the public purse of almost $600,000 as head of Western Sydney's Immigrant Womens Health Service, there has been not a whisper about her in The Australian, save for a brief page two mention on May 10 and 12.

But then Ms Abdel-Magied is a Muslim, and Ms Sharobeem is a Christian.

Bernard Lewis Demolishes Piers Akerman

How erudite is Piers Akerman! All of history is lodged in the man's noble cranium! One cannot but be humbled by the depth of his scholarship:

"Alexandria had housed the greatest library in the ancient world before it was burnt by the Romans in pre-Christian days. Historians say the fire may have spread accidentally from ships in the harbour. The library was rebuilt and the city retained its reputation as one of the most cosmopolitan seats of civilisation in the world. Egypt became a Christian nation, not through invasion, but through persuasion. That changed with the Arab invasion 600 years after St Mark's arrival. In 642AD, Caliph Omar promptly ordered the burning of the papyrus books and records in the rebuilt library. It is held that he told a general: 'If those books are in agreement with the Koran, we have no need of them, and if these are opposed to the Koran, destroy them. The destruction of knowledge, beauty and culture was deliberate - as deliberate as the most recent destruction of the ancient monuments and temples in Palmyra in Syria by ISIS and the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan." (Christianity attacked at holiest celebration, Sunday Telegraph, 16/4/17)

Oh, wait:

"From Professor Hugh Lloyd-Jones's review of Luciano Canfora's book on the library of Alexandria [NYR, June 14], one learns, with astonishment, that the author, and perhaps even to some degree the reviewer, are still disposed to lend credence to the story of how the great library of Alexandria was destroyed by the Arabs after their conquest of the city in 641 AD, by order of the Caliph 'Umar.

"This story first became known to Western scholarship in 1663, when Edward Pococke, the Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, published an edition of the Arabic text, with Latin translation, of part of the History of the Dynasties of the Syrian-Christian author Barhebraeus, otherwise known as Ibn al-'Ibri. According to this story, 'Amr ibn al-'As, the commander of the Arab conquerors, was inclined to accept the pleas of John the Grammarian and spare the library, but the Caliph decreed otherwise: 'If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed.' The books in the library, the story continues, were accordingly distributed among the four thousand bathhouses of the city, and used to heat the furnaces, which they kept going for almost six months.

"As early as 1713, Father Eusebe Renaudot, the distinguished French Orientalist, cast doubt on this story, remarking, in his History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria published in that year, that it 'had something untrustworthy about it.' Edward Gibbon, never one to miss a good story, relates it with gusto, and then proceeds: 'For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences.' To explain this denial, Gibbon gives the two principal arguments against authenticity - that the story first appears some six hundred years after the action which it purports to describe, and that such action is in any case contrary to what we know of the teachings and practice of the Muslims.

"Since then, a succession of other Western scholars have analyzed and demolished the story - Alfred J. Butler in 1902, Victor Chauvin in 1911, Paul Casanova and Eugenio Griffini, independently, in 1923. Some have attacked the internal improbabilities of the story. A large proportion of books of that time would have been written on vellum, which does not burn. To keep that many bathhouse furnaces going for that length of time, a library of at least 14 million books would have been required. John the Grammarian who, according to the Barhebraeus story, pleaded with 'Amr for his library, is believed to have lived and died in the previous century. There is good evidence that the library itself was destroyed long before the Arabs arrived in Egypt. The 14th century historian Ibn Khaldun tells an almost identical story concerning the destruction of a library in Persia, also by order of the Caliph 'Umar, thus demonstrating its folkloric character. By far the strongest argument against the story, however, is the slight and late evidence. Barhebraeus, the principal source used by Western historians, lived from 1226 to 1289. He had only two predecessors, from one of whom he simply copied the story and both preceded him by no more than a few decades. The earliest source is a Baghdadi physician called 'Abd al-Latif, who was in Egypt in 1203, and in a brief account of his journey refers in passing to 'the library which 'Amr ibn al-'As burnt with the permission of 'Umar.' An Egyptian scholar, Ibn al-Qifti, wrote a history of learned men in about 1227, and includes a biography of John the Grammarian in the course of which he tells the story on which the legend is based. His narrative ends: 'I was told the number of bathhouses that existed at that time, but I have forgotten it. It is said that they were heated for six months. Listen to this story and wonder!' Barhebraeus merely followed the text of Ibn al-Qifti, omitting his final observation on the number of baths. The number is provided by other Arabic sources, in quite different contexts.

"To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam, but even in the literatures of the Coptic and other Christian churches, of the Byzantines, of the Jews, or anyone else who might have thought the destruction of a great library worthy of comment. That the story still survives, and is repeated, despite all these objections, is testimony to the enduring power of a myth.

"Myths come into existence to answer a question or to serve a purpose, and one may wonder what purpose was served by this myth. An answer sometimes given, and certainly in accord with a currently popular school of epistemology, would see the story as anti-Islamic propaganda, designed by hostile elements to blacken the good name of Islam by showing the revered Caliph 'Umar as a destroyer of libraries. But this explanation is as absurd as the myth itself. The original sources of the story are Muslim, the only exception being Barhebraeus, who copied it from a Muslim author. Not the creation, but the demolition of the myth was the achievement of European scholarship, which from the 18th century to the present day has rejected the story as false and absurd, and thus exonerated the Caliph 'Umar and the early Muslims from this libel.

"But if the myth was created and disseminated by Muslims and not by their enemies, what could possibly have been their motive? The answer is almost certainly provided in a comment of Paul Casanova. Since the earliest occurrence of the story is in an illusion at the beginning of the 13th century, it must have become current in the late 12th century - that is to say, in the time of the great Muslim hero Saladin, famous not only for his victories over the Crusaders, but also - and in a Muslim context perhaps more importantly - for having extinguished the heretical Fatimid caliphate in Cairo, which, with its Isma'ili doctrines, had for centuries threatened the unity of Islam. 'Abd al-Latif was an admirer of Saladin, whom he went to visit in Jerusalem. Ibn al-Qifti's father was a follower of Saladin, who appointed him Qadi in the newly conquered city.

"One of Saladin's first tasks after the restoration of Sunnism in Cairo was to break up the Fatimid collections and treasures and sell their contents at public auction. These included a very considerable library, presumably full of heretical Isma'ili books. The break-up of a library, even one containing heretical books, might well have evoked disapproval in a civilized, literate society. The myth provided an obvious justification. According to this interpretation, the message of the myth was not that the Caliph 'Umar was a barbarian because he destroyed a library, but that destroying a library could be justified, because the revered Caliph 'Umar had approved of it. Thus once again, as on so many occasions, the early heroes of Islam were mobilized by later Muslim tradition to give posthumous sanction to actions and policies of which they had never heard and which they would probably not have condoned.

"It is surely time that the Caliph 'Umar and 'Amr ibn al-'As were finally acquitted of this charge which their admirers and later their detractors conspired to bring against them." (Bernard Lewis, letter in response to The Vanished Library by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The New York Review of Books, 27/9/90)

Leak's Last Cartoon

In case you didn't already know, The Australian's cartoonist, Bill Leak, died last week. The newspaper was/is inconsolable and carried/carries glowing tribute after glowing tribute... along these lines:

"Awesomely talented, wickedly funny, brilliantly insightful, relentlessly engaging, and defiantly courageous, Bill Leak came to be the beating heart of this newspaper." (Bill Leak was brilliant, fearless & widely loved, Editorial, The Australian, 11/3/17)

Oh, really?

Let's see how such plaudits stack up against Leak's last cartoon of March 10.

Predictably, it was one of the many editorial weapons deployed by The Australian on the latest front in its relentless, decade-long (at least!) crusade against all things Islam.

Having moved on - for the time being at least - from mauling Q&A panelist Yassmin Abdel- Magied, the paper was now on the warpath over the struggle to uphold our virginal Aussie Values in those hotbeds of Islamist radicalisation, the public high schools of Western Sydney. Ground zero for the struggle was/is Punchbowl Boys High School, whose principal and deputy had recently been stood down for some reason that still remains swathed in mystery.

Leak's last leak, if I may so indelicately, but accurately, describe his last spray, featured a reporter with a mike interviewing NSW education minister Rob Stokes outside the gates of Punchbowl Boys: "So, Mr Stokes - about this latest kerfuffle...," he asks. Stokes is depicted, smiling, severed head in hand, saying "Oh, y'know - boys will be boys."

Wickedly funny and brilliantly insightful?

Not if the expose Inside Punchbowl High: a battle for hearts & minds (John Lyons/ Paul Maley/Jennine Khalik), which appeared in the paper the day after, can be believed*.

Here, essentially, is what that 'Inside Story' revealed: that Punchbowl Boys' principal Chris Griffiths was not Jihad Dib, the school's former principal, show pony, and now Labor MP for Lakemba; that Griffiths had a different management style to Dib (who was characterised as 'diplomatic'); that Griffiths declined to involve the school in a deradicalisation program; that Griffiths was "hardworking" and "guided by the best interests of his students"; that, while Griffiths was a Muslim convert, "parents were dumbfounded at the suggestion [he] was zealous"; that "there is no evidence [the school] was, or is, a hotbed of radicalisation"; that his religion "was [Griffiths'] strong point at the school, but his weakness at the department level when people made complaints"; that "Griffiths... might have an unfair dismissal case against the government"; and that, according to a parent, "If there are families who... wanted to be very Islamic, they would've gone to an Islamic school".**

In short, Leak's last spray could not have been wider of the mark, so to speak. So much for funny and insightful.

As one reader commented pertinently over at the Independent Australia website, in response to their piece, Bill Leak: speaking freely of the dead:

"Bill Leak had a glass jaw and not much by way of artistic talent. Half of his cartoons needed a Bill Leak cipher expert to translate the cartoon for ordinary readers. All his cartoons seemed to come from a fantasy world in which straight, white, right-wing men are treated like a needy, endangered species, while everyone else, GLBTs, women, non-Caucasians, all pose a terrible threat to traditional white power. It's going to be impossible to miss the little, right-wing drummer boy. That's about the nicest thing I can say about Bill Leak by way of a eulogy."

Amen...

Tomorrow: Bill Leak's wickedly funny and brilliantly insightful cartoons on de Middle East.

[*To be fair, some journalism in The Australian is actually quite good; **By way of insightful contrast: "'But every time I've been treated like absolute garbage it's exclusively been by young, well-dressed, former private school boys. How do I know they went to a private school? Because they all have the same routine of commenting on my appearance, then asking me what school I went to.'" (Brisbane Uber driver airs gripe over sexist questions from male passengers, au.news.yahoo.com, 14/3/17)]

Independent, Fearless Journalism, Guardian-Style

"Become a supporter. Support our independent, fearless journalism in Australia," pleads the ad on the Guardian Australia website.

I wonder, though, what happened to that independent, fearless journalism when the Guardian reported on the recent case of the Quebec terrorist, Alexande Bissonnette as follows:

"Those who know Bissonnette have described him as pro-Donald trump, anti-immigration and sympathetic to the far right." (Fox News tweet made no mention of the other man arrested after Canadian PM's office steps in, Ashifa Kassam, 1/2/17)

The Guardian left out the fact that Bissonnette was an admirer of Israel and its army. To learn about that one has to go to the Electronic Intifada website, where Ali Abunimah points out that:

"Quebec media have pointed to the Facebook page of Bissonnette [which] showed that Bissonnette has 'liked' a number of political figures and entities which, if taken as signs of his views, may indicate far-right leanings. His 'likes' include the official Facebook pages of Trump, Le Pen, the 'Israel Defence Forces' and a group called 'United with Israel'." (Quebec mosque attack suspect liked Trump, Israeli army, French far-right, 30/1/17)

For those with eyes to see, Zionism and far-right extremism are natural bedfellows. See my 19/4/12 post 'Our Zionist brothers'.

Trump's Biggest Fans

Palestinian-Israeli freedom fighter Haneen Zoabi MK on Israel and Trump:

"Israel, she says, wants to 'close the file on the Palestinians' demand for a state. Binyamin Netanyahu... 'is shifting the paradigm from managing the crisis to solving the crisis - but [this is] a one-sided solution in the interests of Israel. Something has changed in the minds of Israelis: Palestinians have ceased to exist. The walls are not just physical, they are also psychological.'

"This mindset is reinforced by the new US president, she says. 'Donald Trump may seem bizarre and unique to most of the world, but not for Israel. His kind of populism [and] his way of violent speech are the dominant model in Israel. Israel is the only country not shocked and not afraid of Trump. On the contrary, Netanyahu and Trump represent the same model.' If Trump follows through on his election pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, signifying endorsement of Israel's claim of the city as its 'eternal and undivided capital', there should be 'strong reaction', says Zoabi.

"Zoabi said that Trump's ban on people from some Muslim countries entering the US was a dangerous formalisation of Islamophobia. 'This hatred is nothing new, it's part of the culture, but now it's being turned into policy. It's becoming part of the norm that you can talk with hatred about Muslims without feeling any shame,' she said." (From Haneen Zoabi: 'Israel is the only country not shocked by or afraid of Trump', Harriet Sherwood, theguardian.com, 31/1/17)