Doing the Donkey* in the NSW Knesset 1

The last time I set out to comment in detail on the bizarre antics of the inmates of the NSW Legislative Council was when they 'debated' the subject of BDS in September 2011. This resulted in 10 posts - the 'Witches Brew' series - spanning the period 17/9/11-17/12/11 and highlighting the lengths to which NSW MLCs are prepared to go in swearing fealty to the Israel lobby.

Having absorbed the blow of that particular 'debate', I had foolishly hoped that it'd be the first and last time I'd be witness to such a grovel in this particular forum. Alas, it was not to be. Many of the same motley crew, primed by a silly season sojourn in Israel, have taken the opportunity provided by a February 28 motion (that the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel January 'study mission' to Israel be 'noted') to do it all again!

Ready yourselves, therefore, for a series of non-consecutive posts, spread over the next few months (there's a lot of ground to cover here), featuring a series of ringing tributes to a fabulous, faraway land "where women glow and men plunder," and where "you can hear, you can hear the thunder/ Better run, better take cover." (Note that, although the motion was moved on February 28 the speeches which followed were only concluded yesterday with the motion's affirmation.)

The mover of the motion, National Party MLC Rick Colless, spoke first, giving a day-by-day summary of the 10-member (plus partner), 5-day tour.

Brace yourselves for the highlights. To borrow the words of the Angry Arab - You will learn that which you knew not before:

In what was to become a leitmotif of these speeches, The Greens just had to be fingered as party (line) poopers: "Noticeably absent from the group were The Greens from New South Wales. The Greens were the only political party represented in the NSW Parliament that did not participate in this very important mission." I had thought Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham might have cracked and found himself wedged between Fred Nile and Robert Borsak on a long haul flight to Ben Gurion Airport, but happily I was wrong.

After reminding his colleagues in the chamber of the alleged purpose of the "study mission" - "to build an understanding of the complex and various issues impacting on Israel and other jurisdictions within the Middle East" - Colless detailed the itinerary thus:

Day 1: Softening up talks from "peace negotiator" Dr Tal Becker of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs; "interfaith" guru Chief Rabbi David Rosen ("enthusiastic & charismatic"); and Ozraeli "human rights" champion Isi Leibler ("succinct overview"). Visit to the Knesset ("one of the most robust debating chambers in the world"); the [illegally occupied and annexed] Old City of Jerusalem (full of "people who adhere to each of 4 [Is the 4th Buddhist?] different faiths... yet live in peace and harmony" [?]); and the Wailing Wall. [Hey Mark (Deckelbaum, guide), what's that structure on the top with the golden dome? Dunno, Rick, we Israelis can't see the dome for the wall.] Finally, dinner with Professor Gerald Steinberg ("enlightening").

Day 2: Bethlehem, to which "our Israeli friends were not permitted to go." Met the Palestinian Authority Governor of Bethlehem "who outlined the PA's perspective." [Which was? Another leitmotif of these speeches is that not one of these rambammed speakers bothers reporting back what any West Bank Palestinian, invariably anonymous, actually said. It's as though they've been programmed to switch off on such occasions. Funny, hey?] Visited Israel's Supreme Court. Had lunch with Jerusalem Post columnist [and Palestinian collaborator] Khaled Abu Toameh who said that the 'Arab Spring' was actually an "Islamic tsunami" [Catchy, eh?] and opined that "once the extremists get the upper hand in many of these areas they will then come after Israel once again... [T]hey would start by eradicating the Jews, then they would eradicate the Christians and then they will come after moderate Muslims and eradicate them as well," which patter "sent a chill up the spines of many of us." Finally, off to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs & Heroes Remembrance Museum, which "had a huge impact on all members of the group."

Day 3: Gush Etzion, "a Jewish settlement block [sic] within the Palestinian area," which "shows there is a great deal of will amongst the Palestinian people, the Muslim people and the Jewish people to work together towards a peaceful solution in that greater area." [My God, who'd have thought - Israel's colonization drive in the occupied West Bank is a joint Palestinian/Muslim/Jewish enterprise!] Met with Ruth Kahanoff, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Asia Pacific Department. [And you all thought Palau, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia etc voted with Israel in the UN as the spirit moved them?] That evening met with Arnold Roth, "a Jewish person formerly from Melbourne who has since gone back [?] to Israel," and whose "daughter died in a terrorist attack." ("To hear what the people have to endure in these terrorist attacks really makes one aware of the sort of terror the people in Israel live with every day.") Finally, dinner with "a Muslim family in the Palestinian area. It was extremely interesting to talk to them and get their views on where the area was heading." [But not sufficiently interesting for Colless to tell us what their views were, it seems.]

Day 4: Brigadier General Mike Herzog on "the changing Middle East landscape." Then Sderot where the first words we heard were "If you hear a siren, you have 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter." Gee, "those communities live with that sort of stuff exploding every day." On to Beersheba's Park of the Australian Soldier where there's "a memorial to the Charge of the Light Brigade, which occurred on 31 October 1917." [See what I mean about learning that which you did not know before? Silly me, I always thought that the Charge of the Light Brigade took place on October 25 smack bang in the middle of the Anglo-Russian Crimean War of 1854. Oh well, can't win them all!] Dinner with Paul [wait for it] Israel of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.

Day 5: Lunch at Metula on the Lebanese border in a "nice boutique hotel." ("Our hostess told us about the lovely and peaceful town. Someone [on cue] asked, 'What about the rockets?' She said [on cue], 'Well... [w]hen they fire the rockets they generally go straight over the top of us.' Someone else asked [on cue], 'What if they start shooting at you?' She said [on cue], 'Well... we shoot back'... The constant threat does not seem to worry them to any great extent." [Thank God Fred didn't fart is all I can say.] Finally, back in Tel Aviv that night with the Australian ambassador Andrea Faulkner.

Rick and his missus were so enamored of the place that they stayed on for 4 more days, exploring sites of religious significance in Jerusalem, visiting Masada, and inspecting "water recycling and irrigation projects with people from the Israel water industry." Though he's been back here 2 months, I like to think that some of that Israeli water still mingles with the Australian variety behind his ears.

Next in the Doing the Donkey in the NSW Knesset series: Luke Foley MLC reveals why he and his colleagues had no choice but to go to Israel. Stay tuned.

[*See my 2/3/13 post Doing the Donkey.]

Paul Sheehan: Journalist Sans Frontieres

From Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan's obituary for Sabina Van Den Linden Wolanski (1927-2011):

"After creating a successful business importing elegant homeware from Europe and Japan, and astute investments in real estate, she became a woman of means. She then proceeded to give much of her wealth away. She supported a variety of causes which all had a common theme - to seek to increase tolerance between cultures.... She also funded a program for sending journalists to Israel, with no restrictions, so they could experience first-hand the complexities at the core of tensions in the Middle East." (Survivor used her loss to help unite world, 27/6/11)

Ah yes, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Journalists Mission*. And don't you just love Sheehan's spin: with no restrictions. Does that mean that our fearless, crusading journalist ventured to the frontlines of the Israeli colonisation of the West Bank, dodging 'rubber' bullets and tear gas canisters with Palestinians protesting the loss of their land to the Apartheid Wall; or venturing out with Palestinian farmers who harvest their olives while under attack by armed settler gangs; or walking to class with Palestinian kids in Hebron as they're pelted with stones by the brainwashed brats of settler scum; or witnessing the latest settler burning of a Palestinian orchard; or reporting on the Israeli demolition of a yet another Palestinian home?

Of course not.

For Sheehan, it means sitting at the feet of Israeli "warrior-scholars" such as former IDF chief Moshe 'Boogie' Ya'alon, listening to House Arab and Jerusalem Post 'journalist' Khaled Abu Toameh, or getting the drum on just how anti-Semitic Arabs really are from settler Itamar Marcus, before returning to pen Israeli propaganda without disclosing who sponsored him. (See my posts His Master's Voice (27/11/08); and Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH (13/1/09 & 19/1/09)

[*On what I term rambamming, of which the NSWJBoD Journalists Mission is but one component, see my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too.]

No Laughing Matter

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Winston Churchill

Noticed a little rant in today's Australian by The Jerusalem Post's tame Arab, Khaled Abu Toameh. Nothing exceptional, mind you. Just your run-of-the-mill Islamophobic rubbish: "Almost every day, a new atrocity is committed in the name of Islam. 'One can understand why so-called 'moderate' Muslims living under Arab and Islamic dictatorships are afraid to speak out. but what about those living in the West?... These 'moderates' need to understand that Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qa'ida and the rest of the Islamic terror organisations will kill them first on their way to murder the 'Zionists', 'Crusaders' and 'infidels'." (Moderate Muslims need to speak out)

But this caught my eye: "In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian women have been banned, in the name of Islam, from smoking and laughing in public."

Smoking and laughing banned in public - but only for women - and in the name of Islam! The nerve of those Hamas guys!

OK, so let's deal with the alleged ban on smoking first. You're probably imagining, as Abu T expects you to, the already downtrodden women of Gaza now being set upon by male chauvinist Hamas goon squads whenever they dare light up in public. Such a picture sort of detracts from the Israeli blockade, doesn't it? Well, hush my mouth, did I mention the Israeli blockade? Abu T doesn't. Which is precisely the point of his slimy little propaganda piece. It's only when you realise that cigarettes have to be smuggled into Gaza through tunnels and sold for God knows what exhorbitant price before you find yourself thinking about whether the women of Gaza can even afford cigarettes in the first place. But Abu T's little deception doesn't end there.

What Abu T doesn't let on here is that the ban only applies to the water pipe or nargila, a fact which only emerges in another of his 'reports' in The Jerusalem Post: "The Hamas-controlled Ministry of the Interior on Sunday issued an order banning women from smoking the nargila in public places in the Gaza Strip." Nor, it seems, has the ban on smoking the nargila in public got anything particular to do with Islam either: "Ehab Ghissin, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said that the decision to ban women from smoking the nargila in public was taken because the practice 'violated social norms and traditions'." Nor is such a ban applied exclusively to women: "[T]he ban also applied to minors under the age of 18." (Hamas bans women from smoking in public, The Jerusalem Post, 19/7/10)

So let's amend Abu T's original sentence: In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian women and under-18s of both sexes have been banned from smoking the nargila in public in an attempt to maintain traditional social standards. Discriminatory, sure, but nothing to put the criminality of the Israeli blockade in the shade.

And why do I have the feeling that the following would not find its way into an Abu T 'report': "Police in the northern West Bank district of Salfit detained and charged 6 men on Wednesday for smoking in public during the fasting hours of the Muslim holy month. Police charged the unidentified men with 'violating the sanctity of Ramadan'." (PA police detain 6 for smoking during Ramadan, maannews.net, 19/8/10)

OK, now what about Abu T's claim that Hamas has banned women from laughing in public?

This allegation (which, through the magic of the internet, has become almost a meme) revolves around a Palestinian woman named Asma al-Ghul. Before we examine Abu T's own spin on al-Ghul's story, let's see how her story is presented by others:

"Hamas security forces detained a Gazan journalist at a beach over the weekend because she was not wearing a headscarf. Asma al-Ghul, who writes for the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam [sic], said she was at the beach... with a mixed group of friends when men in civilian clothing asked her why she was not wearing a headscarf. When she asked them who they were, they showed her Hamas security forces identity cards. She said that when questioning her, the men accused her of 'laughing out loud' and walking around the beach without a male escort. They would have arrested her, Al-Ghul said, if she had not phoned the Hamas authorities. She was released after her Palestinian passport was confiscated. Al-Ghul also said the men threatened her life and that she cannot leave her home." (Hamas arrests Palestinian woman for not wearing headscarf, Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz 6/7/09)

Accused of laughing out loud, but no hint of a ban there.

"An attempt by Hamas police to detain a young woman walking with a man along the Gaza beach has raised alarms that the Islamic militant group is seeking to match its political control of the coastal territory with a strict enforcement of Islamic law... Freelance journalist Asma al-Ghoul says a group of Hamas police sent a clear message that certain behaviour would not be tolerated when she went to the beach one evening in late June. Al-Ghoul, 26, said she was spending time with a group of friends, 2 women and 3 men on the northern Gaza shore. Al-Ghoul is fairly exceptional in Gaza because she does not wear a headscarf. On that evening she wore jeans and a T-shirt, a dress that is considered fairly provocative in Gaza's conservative society and which could have easily attracted the attention of the plain-clothes Hamas vice police who patrol the beaches. Al-Ghoul swam, fully dressed, with a girlfriend, and then asked a male friend to walk her over to a nearby beach house rented by another couple she knew to shower and change. Three policemen showed up and waited for al-Ghoul in the beach house garden, said an eyewitness who asked to remain anonymous because of security concerns. They took her identity card and demanded she accompany them to a nearby station, an order she refused. The eyewitness said the police did not say why they wanted to detain al-Ghoul, but were insinuating that her behaviour was unbecoming. Under Hamas' strict interpretation of Islamic law, a woman should not go out in public with men who are not related to her. The police eventually returned al- Ghoul's identity card after the home owner contacted a senior Hamas official who intervened and spoke to the officers by telephone..." (Hamas tries to detain woman walking with man, Diaa Hadid, The Guardian, 8/7/09)

No mention of laughter there whatsoever - let alone an Islamically-inspired Hamas ban on women laughing in public.

Now here's Abu T writing in The Jerusalem Post for 6/7/09 under the hading, 'They accused me of laughing in public' (+ my comments in square-bracketed bold): "A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public. The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers. 'They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab', Ghul told a human rights organisation in the Gaza Strip. 'They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine'. In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya News website, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the [alleged] Hamas government's Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice security force. The special force reports directly to the Ministry of Waqf Affairs and is said to be [!] a copy of units that have long been operating in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. The Hamas government, according to local reporters [who shall remain nameless], has refrained from publicly admitting that the force exists out of fear of being branded fundamentalist. The Hamas force consists of dozens of plainclothes police officers who patrol beaches, public gardens, restaurants, hair salons and coffee shops to make sure that males and females are not mixing together and that the women are dressed modestly. Ghul said that many Palestinian women have noticed the presence of the police officers at the beaches and other sites. She said that the talk in the Gaza Strip these days was about Hamas' intention to impose the hijab on all female school children from first to 12th grade. She said she was astonished by the fact that the Hamas security forces were providing security to hotels that are frequented by women wearing miniskirts while at the same time targeting 'common people' who go to beaches and public parks. Ghul said that Hamas has banned men in the Gaza Strip from swimming topless. 'And as in my case, Hamas has banned women from laughing while swimming', she added. She and her friends were stopped by Hamas policemen while swimming in the sea. She said that the policemen confiscated her passport and laptop after accusing her of laughing loudly and appearing in immodest clothes in a public place. Two of her male friends were detained for questioning for three hours. They said the police officers beat them and abused them verbally before releasing them. Hamas security commanders initially said that the journalist and her friends were stopped because they were having a mixed party at the beach. Later, one of the commanders said that Ghul was stopped because she was not wearing a hijab while swimming. Another commander [My God, this Hamas is all chiefs and no Indians!] claimed that the journalist and her friends were stopped because they had been seen smoking nargilas and partying in a public place. Islam Shahwan, spokesman for the Hamas security forces, said that policemen had been deployed at the beaches at the requeset of the Minstry for Waqf Affairs. He said the policemen's task was to impose law and order and prevent harassment of families picnicking and swimming at the beaches. 'We are there for the safety of the people', he said. 'We operate there to prevent men from harassing women. We've received many complaints about these negative practices'. Shahwan said that Hamas does not interfere with the way women want to dress. However, he stressed, 'we must preserve our Islamic culture and traditions. If there's a woman who wants to dress as she wishes, she must go to a private swimming pool and not to a public place'."

Al-Ghul says Hamas has banned women from laughing while swimming. And if al-Ghul, as 'reported' by Abu T, says Hamas has banned women from laughing while swimming then it must be so. But, hey, no mention of public places!

I rest my case.

Second-Class Citizen Khaled

The Australian's opinion editor, Rebecca Weisser, just cannot comprehend why Palestinians don't raise their champagne glasses and toast the birth of the Jewish state on May 15:

"The Palestinian diaspora in Australia is facing an unexpected catastrophe. Normally, May 15, Israel's Independence Day, is the most important day of the year for celebrating their victimhood: the catastrophe, as they see it, of the founding of Israel." (Journalist says only truth will set Palestine free, 15/5/10)

One 'brave' Israeli Arab soul, however, refuses to celebrate his 'Palestinian' victimhood on May 15:

"But, this year, visiting fresh from the streets of Gaza, Ramallah and Jerusalem is Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab Muslim journalist, who declares: 'I'd rather be a second-class citizen in Israel than a first-class citizen in any Arab country'. And some in the diaspora are not happy about his visit." (ibid)

Mind you, it's not that Abu T's exactly over the moon about being a second-class Israeli: "If I were a Jew living in Israel, I would be very worried about the deterioration of relations between Jews and Arabs inside the country. We, the Israeli Arabs, have been extremely loyal to the State of Israel ever since its establishment. We are the Arabs who in 1948 did not challenge Israel's right to exist.* We accepted Israel. We welcomed Israel. We helped build Israel. Israel gave us passports, citizenship, okay. But... sadly, the State of Israel or the Israeli establishment were not equally loyal towards its Arab minority... I'm talking about employment, services, infrastructure. We continue to suffer from what [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert called a policy of systematic discrimination against the Arab minority. Now the good news is that Israel is not an apartheid state. But the bad news is that there is discrimination inside Israel. It's not just against Arabs - it's against Russians. It's against Ethiopians. It's against the elderly. It's against the disabled. If this policy continues and the Israeli establishment does not wake up and embark on an emergency plan to improve its relations with its Arab minority, the third intifada will be on the streets of Haifa and Akko, and the Negev and Galilee." (Citizen Khaled, The Australian Jewish News, 21/5/10)

Whence this mysterious, free-floating discrimination, sufficient to have Israeli Arabs (but not Russians, Ethiopians and the elderly) take to the streets in protest, but not sufficient to be called apartheid? Abu T doesn't say, but he's emphatic that, whatever its origin and nature, because Arabs can live in Jewish neighborhoods and go to Jewish schools, it's therefore not apartheid.

Leaving aside the question of just how many Arabs actually live in Jewish neighborhoods or go to Jewish schools, Abu T's PR line is that, because the obvious segregation of South African apartheid isn't replicated in Israel, it's therefore not an apartheid state. His other is to point the finger at alleged apartheid in the Arab/Muslim world: "I passed some Lebanese girls who were organising Israel Apartheid Week in Canada. I stopped at their information table and I asked them, 'Excuse me, which apartheid are you talking about?' They said, 'Of course, the Jewish state, and apartheid against the Palestinians'. And I asked them if they were from Lebanon. 'What about apartheid in Lebanon against the Palestinians, where in Lebanon there is a law that prevents Palestinians from working in more than 60 professions? By law, it's written in the law'. Can you imagine if the Knesset met tonight and passed a law banning Arabs from working in one profession?"

Put to one side the capital F fact that the only reason the Palestinians are in Lebanon is because Israel refuses to allow them to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled by Zionist forces in 1948, an issue Abu T shows not the least interest in, and consider the implication of his final question - that Israel's Knesset has never actually passed anti-Arab/pro-Jewish legislation when in fact such legislation is fundamental to Israel's status as a Jewish state.

Our most reliable guide to Israel's apartheid legislation is Israeli scholar and activist, Uri Davis. In his invaluable treatise, Apartheid Israel (2003), Davis points out that apartheid is a political system where racism is regulated through acts of parliament, and shows that, in Israel's case, the main body of Israeli law, via its incorporation of the exclusivist constitutional stipulations of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), the Jewish Agency (JA) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF), incorporates a distinction between Jew and non-Jew. Although the Israeli Knesset is formally accountable to all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, in the key areas of immigration, settlement and land development, the Knesset has passed laws ceding state sovereignty to, and vesting its responsibilities with, the WZO, the JA and the JNF, which are constitutionally committed to serving and promoting the interests of Jews and Jews only. In Davis' analysis, this legal deception has given rise to a veiled, but no less real, apartheid, which ensures, for example, that 93% of pre-67 Israel is retained for cultivation, development and settlement by, and for, Jews only.

Obviously though, when your trip to Australia is paid for by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the United Israel Appeal (UIA), and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, you're not going to go there.

[*We threw every flower we had at the Zionist forces!]

A Real Journalist

Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh is in town, with both the Sydney Morning Herald (toda Miranda) and The Australian (toda Rebecca) sufficiently impressed to serve up his "insights." Here's Abu T's bio in both papers:

"An Israeli citizen and Arab Muslim, one of 1.4 million Arabs in Israel, Toameh first worked for the PLO newspaper Al-Fajr, where he said editors waited for instructions from Yasser Arafat about how big his picture should be and what should be on the front page. Wanting to be a 'real journalist', he went on to work for foreign news organisations, such as BBC and CNN, where his high-level contacts on both sides and courageous independendence provided invaluable insight." (Why 'balance of terror' feels safer than the peace process, Miranda Devine, SMH, 13/5/10)

"Toameh started his career in journalism at the Palestinian newspaper Al-Fajr, but he left because it was not about journalism but propaganda. He says, 'It's ironic that people like me have to go and work in the Israeli media to be able to practice genuine journalism'." (Journalist says only truth will set Palestine free, Rebecca Weisser, The Australian, 15/5/10)

Abu T now writes for a real newspaper, Israel's Jerusalem Post. In fact, the Post is so real (even surreal) it runs t-shirt ads under the heading Don't Mess With Us! Show Off Your Mossad & Israeli Pride, offering shirts bearing such warm and fuzzy messages as: Don't mess with Mossad; Mossad; Mossad's Dubai Operation; and We are watching - Mossad.*

And if that's not real enough for you, there's its editor-in-chief, David Horowitz, the author of such standards of genuine journalism as Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terror; A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills & Panic of a Life in Israel; and Shalom, Friend: The Life & Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin.

Abu T's bona fides as a real journalist don't just come from the paper he works for, however. Just look who's sponsoring his visit. None other than those well-known afficianados of genuine journalism, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the United Israel Appeal. I cannot for the life of me, therefore, understand why Amanda and Rebecca, both real, nay surreal journalists, omitted to mention just who was paying Abu T's way.

But the sine qua non of a real journalist is surely the quality of his insights, and my fave Abu T insight, faithfully recorded by Rebecca, is: "If Palestinians are allowed to get on with their lives, things will continue to slowly get better."

[*Jerusalem Post: Profiting from Mossad murder, richardsilverstein.com, 2/3/10]

Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH 2

One of my commentators, 'g', after complaining to the Sydney Morning Herald about the failure of its columnist Paul Sheehan to disclose that his November 2008 trip to Israel was sponsored by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBOD) and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, received an email from letters editor Mike Ticher informing him/her that Sheehan would be "addressing the issue in next week's column." (See my 13/1/09 post Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH & g's comment following my 16/1/09 post Sleepless in Sderot, Legless in Gaza)

A disclosure of sorts duly emerged in Sheehan's column of 19/1/09, Obama is walking a high wire. To find it one had first to wade through the following sludge: Barak Obama is eminently qualified for the presidency because he displays "intellectual adroitness, from his choice of cabinet to his choice of words. Even his choice of TV show..." Which can only mean that, if you can put together a cabinet that Dick Cheney approves of*, string a few words together (unlike Bush), and enjoy a TV show about "dysfunctional" black Americans, you've got the makings of an American president that Sheehan would approve of. All this, however, is just by way of getting to the real subject of the column - the Middle East conflict.

[*Cheney has described Obama's national security team as "a pretty good team."]

Sheehan opines that "it is of some concern that [Obama] will make the Middle East his priority, in particular the Arab-Jewish schism." Why this should be concerning he doesn't say. Then there's that nonsense about "the Arab-Jewish schism." I certainly wasn't aware that there was once a religion, X, which split into Arabs (an ethnic descriptor) and Jews (a religious descriptor), but that's Sheehan for you. He goes on: "The Israeli-Palestinian divide has done little to enhance the reputation of Congress or American presidents for the last 60 years." Hm. Reading Sheehan is often like reading tea leaves in the dark, and about as useful. He seems to be saying that Congress/American presidents have always come out the worst for wear as far as the Middle East conflict is concerned. If so, the logical thing would suely be to acknowledge the reason for this state of affairs - the Israel Lobby's stranglehold on US policy in the Middle East. But Sheehan's not going there, of course.

"Here," he rambles on, "I have found another significant detail about the new president. Last year, in Chicago, Obama spent 2 hours being briefed by Khaled Abu Toameh. He listened, he wrote a lot of notes', Toameh told me." Toameh who? "For years Toameh has repeatedly antagonised and embarrassed the Israeli Government, and the Fatah and Hamas parties in the Palestinian territories, by exposing lies and brutal acts on all sides." The Israeli Government, really? Let's check out Toameh's latest (2/1/09) antagonisings and embarrassings of the Israeli Government, shall we? "In recent weeks, Hamas and its supporters did almost everything to drag Israel into a new round of violence. By refusing to extend the unofficial [!?] cease-fire with Israel that expired 2 weeks ago, Hamas paved the way for the massive IDF operation designed to halt the rocket attacks on Israel. The Palestinians who are now shouting and crying because of the Israeli offensive should direct their anger first and foremost toward the 'elected' [!!?] government of Hamas. Tragically, the Palestinians who voted for Hamas and those who continue to rally behind the movement are responsible for the ongoing violence. They had a chance to revolt against Hamas, but chose to either remain silent or continue siding with the movement." (Hamas & the Palestinians, hudsonny.org) The man's a veritable scourge! You couldn't possibly get anything more antagonising and embarrassing for Israel than that, now could you?

Toameh who? "Toameh is a Palestinian Muslim who lives in East Jerusalem. He works as the Palestinian affairs correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, is an authority on Fatah and Hamas, and is widely sought as a consultant by foreign media." Yes, this fearless antagoniser and embarrasser of Israel works for the rightwing Jerusalem Post, and is much sought after by the right people, like those over at the Hudson New York thinktank (hudsonny.com), for example, which recruits "moderate Muslims" to, among other things, "counter lawsuits intended to intimidate and silence critics of religious extremism, and combat States which train children to be suicide killers." At Hudson-NY, you'll be pleased to know that Toameh rubs shoulders with other much sought after antagonisers and embarrassers of Israel such as Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis, Douglas Feith and Irshad Manji.

Now according to Sheehan, Toameh reckons Israel, the US and the EU "have been deluded about the growing strength and pragmatism of Hamas." Back to those tealeaves in the dark. Does this mean that Toameh thinks Hamas is a pragmatic organization, but the 3 amigos don't believe it is, or that he thinks Hamas is not pragmatic but the 3 amigos believe it is? And you'd better give a rat's arse what Toameh thinks, folks, because, according to Sheehan, "everything [Toameh] predicted has come to pass." And what, dear reader, has this prophet and scourge of Israel predicted? Sheehan doesn't say. But, hey, the fact that, according to Sheehan, Obama "has gone outside the policy makers, think-tankers, lobbyists and armchair experts" and listened to "someone who inhabits the dangerous territory between... sworn enemies" gives us a real "insight" into the man. Oh? And who, I wonder, brought them together? Hudson-NY?

Ah, at last: "I had a briefing with Toameh in November, though can claim no credit for finding him. It was part of a study tour for Australian journalists to Israel, sponsored by the Jewish Board of Deputies which was omitted from my column last week." Why was it omitted? And who, pray tell, omitted it? Questions! Questions!

But it's not so much the forced, buried, glancing nature of Sheehan's disclosure that concerns me - that was utterly predictable. No, something else has been omitted here. You see, Sheehan's met the prohet and scourge before on a previous trip to Israel in 2006, a trip, which, if sponsored by the JBOD, is a fact he also failed to disclose at the time. That trip yielded 2 pro-Israel columns, the second of which, A sovereign Palestine? No chance (1/1/07), introduced us to a "prominent Palestinian moderate, Khaled Abu Toameh... who writes for The Jerusalem Post." Toameh back then was also music to Sheehan's ears: he blamed Israel's annexationist West Bank wall on, wait for it, "Yasser Arafat's intifada," and called Fatah a "mafia" and a "monster." Hamas, by contrast, Toameh thought "much less corrupt, much more competent, and more pragmatic." Aha! So the prophet and scourge had ruled, in 2006, that Hamas was PRAGMATIC? But hold on! In Sheehan's 12/1/09 column, It's too easy just to blame Jews, he's written that "Hamas is, above all, about jihad." So, who's right, the prophet and scourge, or the SMH's "armchair expert"? Is Hamas a pragmatic organization to be preferred over its corrupt and incompetent Fatah rival (Toameh), or is it just another jihadi arm of Al-Qaidah (Sheehan)? Questions! Questions!

Finally, one last bolt of blinding insight from Toameh out of Sheehan ("At the time [11/08], Toameh described Gaza as 'a frightening situation'. And that was well before Israel's military offensive.") and that, as Peter Cundall (a man who knew good manure when he saw it) used to say, is your lot for the week.

The SMH, slip, slip, slip-sliding away...