UK Labour cruising towards split over Israel-Palestine, George Galloway, rt.com, 1/8/18:
"Britain's Labour Party prepares to split; the Israel-Palestine issue breaks up the party after 100 years to the relief of Prime Minister Theresa May. At least that's the proximate cause of the rapidly approaching schism in the opposition Labour Party. Attempts to effectively outlaw existential criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel have foundered on the rocks of obduracy of the veteran Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn whose commitment to the Palestinian cause has been a leitmotif of his 40 years in left-wing politics.
"Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Israel has grown massively in recent decades in Britain and throughout the Western world. The recent decision after a passionate debate in the Irish Senate to ban the products of illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories was a high point for the BDS movement. And this decision preceded the new controversial National Law passed in the Israeli Knesset, which UN bodies and others have said makes Israel officially an apartheid state, giving a spur to the BDS cause. Widespread ostracism of apartheid South Africa was an important factor in the downfall of the system in South Africa.
"But Israel is far from taking these defeats lying down. The Israeli embassy in London is a vital center for counter-offensives, [with] ambassador Mark Regev a key operative in Netanyahu's machine. That Israel chose to send Regev to London was an early sign of the importance of the UK battleground.
"When I joined the Palestinian struggle in 1975, you could've fitted all British supporters of the PLO into a small hall, with room for elephants at the back. Now you couldn't fit us into Hyde Park. We are millions, literally. I know when the tide turned because I was there, literally. I left West Beirut in 1982, just ahead of the advancing Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Within hours they were at the gates. Their capture of President Arafat's fiefdom in the West of the city led to the departure of Arafat and his forces under an agreement brokered by the US plenipotentiary Philip Habib. Its terms included the protection of the families the fighters were leaving behind. They were promptly fallen upon by the Israeli-backed Lebanese Phalange militia and massacred.
"The UN and the Israeli Kahan Commission later held that former Israeli defence minister Ariel Sharon - present at the scene of the massacre in the Sabra-Shatila refugee camp - shared responsibility for the murder of thousands of unarmed civilians. Sharon was required to resign from the government of Menachem Begin but would later return as prime minister himself. The massacre marked the beginning of a long, slow but inexorable turn away from Israel by the British labour and trade union movement. I wrote the resolutions that passed that year in both the Labour Party Conference and the Trade Union Congress against fierce Israeli lobbying (I could show you my scars). The resolutions established policy for the first time in favour of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and for the recognition of the PLO as the 'sole legitimate representative' of the Palestinian people. In 1982, this was a heady brew, I assure you.
"Year by year, as Israeli governments became ever more right wing and as the plight of the Palestinians grew ever more grim, the giant tanker turned a little more. Although his lifelong fidelity to this cause was not the reason for Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader - the Iraq War and austerity were much more so - it certainly marked a high water mark in the growing movement against Netanyahu's Israel. And Mr Regev and the embassy were not slow to recognise the danger to their position in a Britain whose perfidy played such a key role for over a century in the Israel-Palestine question.
"The full might of the Israel lobby has been mobilized to first stop Corbyn winning the leadership, to depose him once he had won it, and above all to stop him becoming prime minister. They have had some success, particularly within the ranks of Corbyn's MPs - most of them products of the long reign of Tony Blair. Revolt after revolt from within against Corbyn has been mounted on everything from Brexit to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But the most potent is the now-rampant virulent campaign against 'anti-Semitism' in Corbyn's Labour. What this boils down to is, of course, not anti-Semitism at all but opposition to Israel. The idea that the vegetarian left-wing bicycling peacenik and anti-racism fanatic Jeremy Corbyn hates Jews is as absurd as it is offensive.
"Having failed to dislodge him and failed to make him kneel, his enemies are planning to break away and form a new centrist bloc against Brexit, in favour of NATO and Trident nuclear weapons, and of course in defense of Israel. The last time this happened nearly 40 years ago it failed to prosper. But by dividing the anti-Conservative vote, it kept Mrs Thatcher in power for a whole decade. And thus the only person laughing in British politics today is the beleaguered Mrs May."
Showing posts with label Mark Regev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Regev. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2018
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Fairfax's Puff Piece on Mark Regev
Fairfax hit a new low on the weekend with the publication of a full-page promo by Latika Bourke in The Sun-Herald (22/7/18) on Australia's second worst export after Rupert Murdoch, Mark Regev.
To say that not one hard question was asked and pursued is to misconstrue the nature of the piece. The Aussie boy who's at home spruiking for Israel wanted only the words 'Advertisement Only'.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
An Israeli Plot to Take Over the UK
The complete failure of the British government to respond to Al Jazeera's brilliant exposure of Israeli embassy operative Shai Masot, plotting to "take down" one of its ministers, reminds me of an episode in Lewis Gilbert's classic 1980 British play, Educating Rita.
Remember when Rita's academic supervisor, Dr Frank Bryant, is officially reprimanded for being drunk while giving a lecture, and she asks him if the university is going to sack him? "Good God no," Frank replies,"That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have be rape on a grand scale. And not just with the students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for dismissal, it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar."
For Dr Bryant, think Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev. He has just been informed by an aide that one of his senior diplomats, Shai Masot, has been caught on video, plotting to take down a British cabinet minister:
Regev: Sod them, eh Rachel! Sod them!
Aide: Will they expel you, Ambassador?
Regev: Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Plotting to take down a minister is all right. To get expelled, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with cabinet ministers, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for expulsion it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Prime Minister.
And even then...
Comedy aside, on those rare occasions when Israeli infiltration, manipulation, and corruption of the political processes of Western nations is exposed, it is perhaps less the fact of the subversion that shocks (for that, as anyone with an in-depth knowledge of the Zionist project in Palestine knows, is the nature of the beast) as the supine, look-away, nothing-to-see-here attitude of Western political and media elites.
The following analysis by Mohammed Javed, Where is the outcry over Israel's 'Trojan Horse' in Britain?, examines the meaning and ramifications of the Masot affair, and addresses the question of what should be done about it:
"Put yourself in the shoes of a country, economically rich, culturally diverse, and relatively stable in terms of government. Now imagine that a senior diplomat of a foreign country conspired with like-minded individuals to interfere in your affairs and influence who runs your government. Along with that, imagine that same diplomat admitted he helped set up political groups in order to garner support for his own country, with links and funding coming from that same country.
"Well, imagine no longer, because that is exactly what happened when senior Israeli diplomat, Shai Masot, was captured on video conspiring to 'take down' certain UK government ministers such as Sir Alan Duncan, who has spoken out against Israeli policy and sympathised with the plight of the Palestinians. Recorded by an undercover journalist from Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, it also captured the moment Masot admitted he helped set up pro-Israel political groups embedded within the major parties.
"What would be the logical reaction to such blatant foreign intervention and subtle infiltration? A full-on investigation? A furious purging of the national parties from such influences? Or at least a show of outrage for dramatic effect? Actually, none of that has been done. There have been no extensive discussions and debates on national radio stations such as LBC as would have happened even if the pound falls by a penny, and there was no front-page coverage on any national television station or media outlet apart from a few mentions on the morning after it was exposed. Most importantly, there has been no investigation launched into the issue.
"Let us now compare this to the 'Trojan Horse' scandal which erupted a few years ago in 2014, when there was a frenzy of debate, public fear and drama in the UK officialdom about Muslims apparently taking over the education system and implementing conservative Salafi views on innocent schoolchildren. Based on a whiff of a few leaked letters, all of which could have been fabricated, investigations were launched, arrests were made and the monstrous Prevent programme was fuelled.
"Now, however, definitive evidence has been released of Israeli diplomats plotting to to take down MPs and ministers of this country who do not conform with Israel's policies, as well as confirmation that it was the Israel embassy itself that created and funded Israeli lobby groups to influence the politics of major UK political parties. An invasion of Britain's democratic political body is taking place and has been exposed, yet no investigation is being launched and the government 'considers the matter closed.' Prime Minister Theresa May has herself quickly shut down calls for the matter to be investigated, and the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, does not 'think it will be helpful to dwell on the matter.'
"This is not, however, the only case of aggressive Israeli lobbying and interference in British politics, but is in fact proving to be more than a simple coincidence as more recordings are being revealed to the public. Maria Strizzolo, former aide to MP Robert Halfon and the woman who was seen conspiring with Masot in the London restaurant that evening, boasted of influencing Halfon to voice statements in Parliament in support of Israel while she was working under him.
"Another revelation of Israeli infiltration released shortly after that was that of the National Union of Students (NUS) and the attempted ousting of Malia Bouattia, its first non-white and Muslim president, who is also a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement - all attributes needed to land on Israel's hit list. The vice president of the NUS, Richard Brooks, held secret meetings with pro-Israeli parliamentary officers such as Michael Rubin and directors of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) to overthrow the recently elected president and impose their own figure along with their views, especially the banning of the BDS movement within the Union.
"All of these revelations prove one thing overall: the gradual and deliberate takeover of of the UK by a secret Israeli cabal. A network of individuals in high social and political positions who share the same dangerous psychotic views in support of the continued occupation and oppression of Palestine and its people, along with its other countless objectives for the Middle East, which go far beyond that. This silent revolution obtains its funds directly from Tel Aviv itself, and benefits neither Britain's interests nor the interests of world peace in general. It makes one wonder what has befallen the government, the media, and the people of Britain to make them so apathetic in the face of this invasion.
"The country's solution and road to recovery would need to be one both diplomatic and practical, and would consist firstly of conducting a full, thorough and honest investigation into the Israeli infiltration of the British government. If necessary, there should be arrests, forced resignations or at least demotions of all those found guilty. The next step would be to purge all the UK's political parties - particularly the ruling Conservatives and the divided Labour - of all harmful influence from the Israeli lobby. This would include installing measures and frequently monitoring groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) to ensure that such forces do not again corrupt British politics.
"This is not 'anti-Semitism', but rather a matter of national security. The government and the British people pursued the wrong enemy in the pointless drama of Operation Trojan Horse. There is no Islamic plot to take over the UK, but there is an Israeli one." (middleeastmonitor.com, 21/1/17)
Remember when Rita's academic supervisor, Dr Frank Bryant, is officially reprimanded for being drunk while giving a lecture, and she asks him if the university is going to sack him? "Good God no," Frank replies,"That would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it would have be rape on a grand scale. And not just with the students, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for dismissal, it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Bursar."
For Dr Bryant, think Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev. He has just been informed by an aide that one of his senior diplomats, Shai Masot, has been caught on video, plotting to take down a British cabinet minister:
Regev: Sod them, eh Rachel! Sod them!
Aide: Will they expel you, Ambassador?
Regev: Good God no. That would involve making a decision. Plotting to take down a minister is all right. To get expelled, it would have to be rape on a grand scale. And not just with cabinet ministers, either. That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. No, for expulsion it would have to be nothing less than buggering the Prime Minister.
And even then...
Comedy aside, on those rare occasions when Israeli infiltration, manipulation, and corruption of the political processes of Western nations is exposed, it is perhaps less the fact of the subversion that shocks (for that, as anyone with an in-depth knowledge of the Zionist project in Palestine knows, is the nature of the beast) as the supine, look-away, nothing-to-see-here attitude of Western political and media elites.
The following analysis by Mohammed Javed, Where is the outcry over Israel's 'Trojan Horse' in Britain?, examines the meaning and ramifications of the Masot affair, and addresses the question of what should be done about it:
"Put yourself in the shoes of a country, economically rich, culturally diverse, and relatively stable in terms of government. Now imagine that a senior diplomat of a foreign country conspired with like-minded individuals to interfere in your affairs and influence who runs your government. Along with that, imagine that same diplomat admitted he helped set up political groups in order to garner support for his own country, with links and funding coming from that same country.
"Well, imagine no longer, because that is exactly what happened when senior Israeli diplomat, Shai Masot, was captured on video conspiring to 'take down' certain UK government ministers such as Sir Alan Duncan, who has spoken out against Israeli policy and sympathised with the plight of the Palestinians. Recorded by an undercover journalist from Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit, it also captured the moment Masot admitted he helped set up pro-Israel political groups embedded within the major parties.
"What would be the logical reaction to such blatant foreign intervention and subtle infiltration? A full-on investigation? A furious purging of the national parties from such influences? Or at least a show of outrage for dramatic effect? Actually, none of that has been done. There have been no extensive discussions and debates on national radio stations such as LBC as would have happened even if the pound falls by a penny, and there was no front-page coverage on any national television station or media outlet apart from a few mentions on the morning after it was exposed. Most importantly, there has been no investigation launched into the issue.
"Let us now compare this to the 'Trojan Horse' scandal which erupted a few years ago in 2014, when there was a frenzy of debate, public fear and drama in the UK officialdom about Muslims apparently taking over the education system and implementing conservative Salafi views on innocent schoolchildren. Based on a whiff of a few leaked letters, all of which could have been fabricated, investigations were launched, arrests were made and the monstrous Prevent programme was fuelled.
"Now, however, definitive evidence has been released of Israeli diplomats plotting to to take down MPs and ministers of this country who do not conform with Israel's policies, as well as confirmation that it was the Israel embassy itself that created and funded Israeli lobby groups to influence the politics of major UK political parties. An invasion of Britain's democratic political body is taking place and has been exposed, yet no investigation is being launched and the government 'considers the matter closed.' Prime Minister Theresa May has herself quickly shut down calls for the matter to be investigated, and the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, does not 'think it will be helpful to dwell on the matter.'
"This is not, however, the only case of aggressive Israeli lobbying and interference in British politics, but is in fact proving to be more than a simple coincidence as more recordings are being revealed to the public. Maria Strizzolo, former aide to MP Robert Halfon and the woman who was seen conspiring with Masot in the London restaurant that evening, boasted of influencing Halfon to voice statements in Parliament in support of Israel while she was working under him.
"Another revelation of Israeli infiltration released shortly after that was that of the National Union of Students (NUS) and the attempted ousting of Malia Bouattia, its first non-white and Muslim president, who is also a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement - all attributes needed to land on Israel's hit list. The vice president of the NUS, Richard Brooks, held secret meetings with pro-Israeli parliamentary officers such as Michael Rubin and directors of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) to overthrow the recently elected president and impose their own figure along with their views, especially the banning of the BDS movement within the Union.
"All of these revelations prove one thing overall: the gradual and deliberate takeover of of the UK by a secret Israeli cabal. A network of individuals in high social and political positions who share the same dangerous psychotic views in support of the continued occupation and oppression of Palestine and its people, along with its other countless objectives for the Middle East, which go far beyond that. This silent revolution obtains its funds directly from Tel Aviv itself, and benefits neither Britain's interests nor the interests of world peace in general. It makes one wonder what has befallen the government, the media, and the people of Britain to make them so apathetic in the face of this invasion.
"The country's solution and road to recovery would need to be one both diplomatic and practical, and would consist firstly of conducting a full, thorough and honest investigation into the Israeli infiltration of the British government. If necessary, there should be arrests, forced resignations or at least demotions of all those found guilty. The next step would be to purge all the UK's political parties - particularly the ruling Conservatives and the divided Labour - of all harmful influence from the Israeli lobby. This would include installing measures and frequently monitoring groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) to ensure that such forces do not again corrupt British politics.
"This is not 'anti-Semitism', but rather a matter of national security. The government and the British people pursued the wrong enemy in the pointless drama of Operation Trojan Horse. There is no Islamic plot to take over the UK, but there is an Israeli one." (middleeastmonitor.com, 21/1/17)
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Problem Solved
"Controversial Fairfax columnist Paul Sheehan will be one of the more high-profile casualties of the publisher's latest redundancy round, Diary can reveal. Sheehan disgraced The Sydney Morning Herald with an unsubstantiated story about an alleged gang rape in March. He was stood down indefinitely by SMH editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir who said at the time a review of the incident had found 'unacceptable breaches of fundamental journalistic practice.' Perhaps the writing was on the wall for Sheehan, although the redundancy program was still in its 'voluntary' stage as of last week. That could change, given Fairfax editorial director Sean Aylmer told staff on Friday the program had not yielded enough 'suitable' job cuts." (Sheehan facing the axe, The Diary, Media, The Australian, 9/5/16)
So what's next for Paul? Surely not the dreaded scrapheap?
Wait a minute... I've got an idea! Now that ex-Australian Mark Regev has become Israel's ambassador to the UK, Netanyahu will be looking for a new foreign media spokesman. Sheehan should slot in nicely. After all, he's got it all down pat. For example:
"Women [in Gaza], living under sharia law, are used primarily as breeding stock." (See my 13/1/09 post Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH.)
"Most of the constrictive actions Israel has taken in the Palestinian territories - the walls, roadblocks, security restrictions - has been in reaction to an intransigent Palestinian political culture." (See my 21/11/14 post Paul Sheehan: Toeing the Likud Line.)
So what's next for Paul? Surely not the dreaded scrapheap?
Wait a minute... I've got an idea! Now that ex-Australian Mark Regev has become Israel's ambassador to the UK, Netanyahu will be looking for a new foreign media spokesman. Sheehan should slot in nicely. After all, he's got it all down pat. For example:
"Women [in Gaza], living under sharia law, are used primarily as breeding stock." (See my 13/1/09 post Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH.)
"Most of the constrictive actions Israel has taken in the Palestinian territories - the walls, roadblocks, security restrictions - has been in reaction to an intransigent Palestinian political culture." (See my 21/11/14 post Paul Sheehan: Toeing the Likud Line.)
Friday, January 22, 2016
Tanya Plibersek Channels Mark Regev
One of the only truly independent voices - as in willing to speak up for Palestine - in the Australian Labor Party was retired Labor MP Julia Irwin.
Irwin once observed that:
"There is certainly a belief [in the Party] that support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position. Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate, unconditional apology... Labor members will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not in Palestine." (See my 11/8/10 post Julia Irwin Spills the Beans.)
The absolute beyond classic case of this bizarre phenomenon today is surely Australia's shadow foreign minister Tanya (Once was Warrior) Plibersek, who, as a mere MP back in 2002, condemned Israel as "a rogue state... led by a war criminal."
Of course, that was long ago, and the various stages of her transformation from one who once spoke up for Palestine into someone who now speaks up for Israel have been, for those interested, documented by this blogger.
Her opinion piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, however, is the first time where I've actually felt she's become a mouthpiece for Israel:
"The Iranian nuclear deal... is significant [but] we need to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism in our dealings with Iran... Australia must continue to steadfastly oppose Iran's human rights abuses, its inciting language towards the United States and Israel, its support of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and its sponsorship of terrorism." (Clear grounds for Australia to remain cautious with Iran despite nuclear deal, 21/1/16)
As for healthy scepticism in our dealings with Israel, steadfast opposition to Israel's human rights abuses, its threats to nuke Iran, its support for creepy crawlies in Syria and its actual, routine terrorism in Occupied Palestine and elsewhere... forget it!
"When Iran tests ballistic missiles... we should speak up."
But of Israel's tried and tested nuclear arsenal, we shall say nothing.
"We must continue to stand up for our values."
Whose values, Tanya???
[*See my 17/10/13 post A Heretic Recants.]
Irwin once observed that:
"There is certainly a belief [in the Party] that support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position. Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate, unconditional apology... Labor members will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not in Palestine." (See my 11/8/10 post Julia Irwin Spills the Beans.)
The absolute beyond classic case of this bizarre phenomenon today is surely Australia's shadow foreign minister Tanya (Once was Warrior) Plibersek, who, as a mere MP back in 2002, condemned Israel as "a rogue state... led by a war criminal."
Of course, that was long ago, and the various stages of her transformation from one who once spoke up for Palestine into someone who now speaks up for Israel have been, for those interested, documented by this blogger.
Her opinion piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, however, is the first time where I've actually felt she's become a mouthpiece for Israel:
"The Iranian nuclear deal... is significant [but] we need to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism in our dealings with Iran... Australia must continue to steadfastly oppose Iran's human rights abuses, its inciting language towards the United States and Israel, its support of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and its sponsorship of terrorism." (Clear grounds for Australia to remain cautious with Iran despite nuclear deal, 21/1/16)
As for healthy scepticism in our dealings with Israel, steadfast opposition to Israel's human rights abuses, its threats to nuke Iran, its support for creepy crawlies in Syria and its actual, routine terrorism in Occupied Palestine and elsewhere... forget it!
"When Iran tests ballistic missiles... we should speak up."
But of Israel's tried and tested nuclear arsenal, we shall say nothing.
"We must continue to stand up for our values."
Whose values, Tanya???
[*See my 17/10/13 post A Heretic Recants.]
Friday, December 11, 2015
Shefali Meets the Not-So-Beautiful Women from the PLO
I would give my right arm for a recording of this conversation, and my left for what the two women from the PLO said about it afterwards:
"We then left the school, and went to meet two women representing the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization) at the American Colony Hotel. They were very nice, and the conversation was both interesting and passionate. Towards the end, I really said the most simplistic thing of, effectively, 'Can't we all just get along?' It was meant as a light-hearted moment, with optimism, within a difficult conversation. After the lunch, we then went to the Prime Minister's Office (Benjamin Netanyahu) to Mark Regev, the International Media advisor to the PM."
Driven out, exiled, robbed blind, occupied, walled in and shot down like dogs in the street... but for future President Shefali RaZdan Duggal, it's (SMILE): 'Can't we all just get along?'!!!
"We then left the school, and went to meet two women representing the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization) at the American Colony Hotel. They were very nice, and the conversation was both interesting and passionate. Towards the end, I really said the most simplistic thing of, effectively, 'Can't we all just get along?' It was meant as a light-hearted moment, with optimism, within a difficult conversation. After the lunch, we then went to the Prime Minister's Office (Benjamin Netanyahu) to Mark Regev, the International Media advisor to the PM."
Driven out, exiled, robbed blind, occupied, walled in and shot down like dogs in the street... but for future President Shefali RaZdan Duggal, it's (SMILE): 'Can't we all just get along?'!!!
Sunday, October 25, 2015
'Insights' from Israel by Terri Butler MP
For the 'insights' of Terri Butler, Labor MP for Griffith (QLD), we can dispense with the Australian Jewish News report quoted in the previous post and go directly to terributlermp.com for the full text of her report-back speech to her AIJAC handlers. (Speech to Australia-Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, 1/10/15)
Butler's not quite as agog as Bird but it's abundantly clear from her speech that she hasn't got a clue about this issue. Here's how she begins:
"I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet."
That anyone can utter the above words and participate in a propaganda tour to an apartheid state that not only denies the existence of its traditional owners, but ruthlessly applies itself to keeping them down (Palestinian Israelis, occupied Palestinians) or out (Palestinian refugees), is either the height of cynicism or, as I suspect, ignorance.
"Military service, and no doubt the feeling of a need to work together to defend against internal and external threats, gives rise to an enduring esprit de corps for young Israelis."
Does Butler know what fascism is? Can she not see that the above line could've been used to describe the Italian army under Mussolini or the German army under Hitler? Is she that ignorant?
Is she not aware that military service for Israelis involves little more than shoring up a near 50-year illegal OCCUPATION (a word which never passes her lips) - characterised by bloody murder, blatant land theft and rampant colonisation? Or, in the case of Gaza, 'mowing the grass', that cute Israeli euphemism for genocide?
In 37 years on this planet, with a university degree under her belt, can she still be as ignorant of the underlying colonial dynamic that underpins this international running sore as she was at birth?
Unbelievable!
"Mark Regev told us that Jerusalem to the Golan Heights was like the distance from Melbourne to Geelong."
Mark Regev, FFS. Well, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, he would say that, wouldn't he? And while we're at it that's the OCCUPIED Golan Heights, OK?
"... when we went to the hospital in the north..."
That's right, the one where Israel patches up al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists for yet more murder and mayhem in Syria! (See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.)
"The sentiment from government, Knesset members and academics with whom we spoke was that if sanctions had continued, the Iranian people would have demanded that the nuclear program cease in order to have those sanctions lifted."
What a flogging surprise! The Middle East's only nuclear-armed state wants the US, EU, Australia etc to turn the screw ever tighter on the Iranian people to force them into putting pressure on their leaders to drop, wait for it - a nuclear program. But can Butler see the manifest hypocrisy of this? Rhetorical question.
"This is a preference for the bird in the bush over the bird in the hand. One might think reasonable minds could differ, but all those with whom we spoke were firm in their views and unwilling to acknowledge the merit of alternative views."
Another surprise! Israeli officials are one-eyed! What penetrating insight is this? Who could possibly have guessed?
"We visited the settlement in the West Bank. Our host told us he lived there because it was a good place to raise children. I found that frankly unbelievable. He later told us that his children went to school with no Palestinian children. This segregation seems at odds with the already counter-intuitive statement that a settlement in the West Bank is a good place to raise children. It seems more likely that the settlements are tactical given they are, at least ostensibly, a major impediment to, or bargaining chip in, peace negotiations."
The settlement? You mean there's only one?
The settler told Butler his kids' school didn't have Palestinian students? What the hell does she think Israel is running in the OCCUPIED West Bank, a multicultural, inclusive, love-in? What a stellar insight: colonisers don't send their kids to the same schools as the kids of the colonised!
Then there's this deathless doozie: the settlements are "tactical"!
Really? Since when has a coloniser ever erected a structure for merely tactical reasons?
Hello, colonies are, like, forever... if the bastards can get away with it.
And get away with it they do, with Western politicians such as Butler and her mates, who wouldn't recognise the bleeding obvious if it hit them in the face.
Tomorrow: 'Insights' from Israel by Russell Matheson MP.
Butler's not quite as agog as Bird but it's abundantly clear from her speech that she hasn't got a clue about this issue. Here's how she begins:
"I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet."
That anyone can utter the above words and participate in a propaganda tour to an apartheid state that not only denies the existence of its traditional owners, but ruthlessly applies itself to keeping them down (Palestinian Israelis, occupied Palestinians) or out (Palestinian refugees), is either the height of cynicism or, as I suspect, ignorance.
"Military service, and no doubt the feeling of a need to work together to defend against internal and external threats, gives rise to an enduring esprit de corps for young Israelis."
Does Butler know what fascism is? Can she not see that the above line could've been used to describe the Italian army under Mussolini or the German army under Hitler? Is she that ignorant?
Is she not aware that military service for Israelis involves little more than shoring up a near 50-year illegal OCCUPATION (a word which never passes her lips) - characterised by bloody murder, blatant land theft and rampant colonisation? Or, in the case of Gaza, 'mowing the grass', that cute Israeli euphemism for genocide?
In 37 years on this planet, with a university degree under her belt, can she still be as ignorant of the underlying colonial dynamic that underpins this international running sore as she was at birth?
Unbelievable!
"Mark Regev told us that Jerusalem to the Golan Heights was like the distance from Melbourne to Geelong."
Mark Regev, FFS. Well, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, he would say that, wouldn't he? And while we're at it that's the OCCUPIED Golan Heights, OK?
"... when we went to the hospital in the north..."
That's right, the one where Israel patches up al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists for yet more murder and mayhem in Syria! (See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.)
"The sentiment from government, Knesset members and academics with whom we spoke was that if sanctions had continued, the Iranian people would have demanded that the nuclear program cease in order to have those sanctions lifted."
What a flogging surprise! The Middle East's only nuclear-armed state wants the US, EU, Australia etc to turn the screw ever tighter on the Iranian people to force them into putting pressure on their leaders to drop, wait for it - a nuclear program. But can Butler see the manifest hypocrisy of this? Rhetorical question.
"This is a preference for the bird in the bush over the bird in the hand. One might think reasonable minds could differ, but all those with whom we spoke were firm in their views and unwilling to acknowledge the merit of alternative views."
Another surprise! Israeli officials are one-eyed! What penetrating insight is this? Who could possibly have guessed?
"We visited the settlement in the West Bank. Our host told us he lived there because it was a good place to raise children. I found that frankly unbelievable. He later told us that his children went to school with no Palestinian children. This segregation seems at odds with the already counter-intuitive statement that a settlement in the West Bank is a good place to raise children. It seems more likely that the settlements are tactical given they are, at least ostensibly, a major impediment to, or bargaining chip in, peace negotiations."
The settlement? You mean there's only one?
The settler told Butler his kids' school didn't have Palestinian students? What the hell does she think Israel is running in the OCCUPIED West Bank, a multicultural, inclusive, love-in? What a stellar insight: colonisers don't send their kids to the same schools as the kids of the colonised!
Then there's this deathless doozie: the settlements are "tactical"!
Really? Since when has a coloniser ever erected a structure for merely tactical reasons?
Hello, colonies are, like, forever... if the bastards can get away with it.
And get away with it they do, with Western politicians such as Butler and her mates, who wouldn't recognise the bleeding obvious if it hit them in the face.
Tomorrow: 'Insights' from Israel by Russell Matheson MP.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Prisoner X
A most interesting story this one. Here's Fairfax's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard's report from today's Sydney Morning Herald, 'Australian's suicide in solitary': Netanyahu under pressure:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to answer questions over allegations that an Australian citizen committed suicide while being held in solitary confinement in the country's highest-security prison.
"The man known as 'Prisoner X' was held in conditions of such strict secrecy in Israel's Ayalon Prison that not even the jail's staff knew his name or the crime he was alleged to have committed, the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program said on Tuesday.
"It named 'Prisoner X' as 34-year-old Ben Zygier and said it appeared the former Melbourne man had been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad before his disappearance in early 2010. He had moved to Israel 10 years before that, changing his name to Ben Alon and marrying a local woman with whom he had two children, the program said.
"He was allegedly found in his high-security cell in December 2010 and his body flown home to Australia soon after, Foreign Correspondent reported.
"Ben Zygier is believed to have been the son of Geoffrey Zygier, the executive director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission and one of the leaders of the Melbourne Jewish Community. He also had identification using a third name, Ben Allen, the program alleged.
"The Israeli Government has gone to extreme lengths to suppress the story since news of Prisoner X's arrest first appeared in 2010, with a judge issuing a gag order that prevented any mention of the case, or even the fact that there was a gag order, the ABC reported.
"At the time, the revelation that a prisoner was being held in total seclusion in a private wing of Ayalon Prison for an undisclosed crime prompted human rights groups to launch a campaign to force Israel to reveal his identity.
"'He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world,' a prison official was quoted as saying at the time in the Yediot Ahronot before the story disappeared from its website.
"Soon after the ABC's story was broadcast last night, Mr Netanyahu's office convened an urgent meeting of the country's senior media editors, the Haaretz newspaper reported. 'The PMO asked members during the meeting to co-operate with the government and withhold publication of information pertaining to an incident that is very embarrassing to a certain government agency, Haaretz said. All reference to the report on Prisoner X disappeared from Israeli news sites, including Haaretz, shortly after the meeting.
"The Prime Minister's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the issue, which was raised in the parliament during a debate by Ahmed Tibi, the leader of the United Arab List - Ta'al, as well as by Labor politician Nachman Shai and Meretz party leader Zahava Gal-On. In response to Mr Tibi's questions about Israel's treatment of 'Prisoner X', Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman replied: 'I cannot answer these questions because the matter does not fall under the authority of the justice minister. But there is no doubt that if true, the matter must be looked into.'
"When the scant details of the 'Prisoner X' story first came to light, Israel's human rights groups were quick to express their concern.
"'It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place,' the Association for Civil Rights in Israel wrote in June 2010. But they, too, appear to be bound by the court's gag order - their spokesman told Fairfax Media overnight that ACRI could not comment on the matter at this time.
"Human Rights Watch has also raised the alarm at the secrecy surrounding Mr Zygier's arrest, incarceration and death, warning that Israel was required to notify another country if it takes one of its citizens into detention and if that citizen dies in detention. It should notify the person promptly of any charges against them, ensure they had access to a lawyer and to someone outside detention, said HRW's senior Middle East researcher, Bill van Esveld, who is based in Jerusalem. 'If the allegations are correct and Israel denied knowledge of his detention, then that is a 'disappearance' under international law,' Mr van Esveld said. He noted that while Palestinian prisoners were regularly detained without charge and often denied access to a lawyer for an unacceptable period of time, it was rare for Israeli prisoners to experience this kind of treatment.
"Foreign Minister Bob Carr described the allegations as troubling. 'It's never been raised with me. I'm not reluctant to seek an explanation from the Israeli government about what happened to Mr Allen and about what their view of it is,' he told the ABC. 'Even if Prisoner X has now been identified, his crime, however, remains a mystery, although it has been widely speculated that it would have involved treachery to warrant such extreme measures.' Mr Carr's office did not respond to questions from Fairfax Media."
The Australian's report, Israeli prisoner Mr X 'an Aussie' really doesn't add much of substance to the above except this: "Foreign Correspondent reported that it lodged a Freedom of Information report with the Department of Foreign Affairs about Zygier, but was refused the documents on the basis it could 'have a substantial adverse impact on the proper and efficient conduct of consular operations.'" (Mitchell Nadin)
I'm left wondering whether the case of Prisoner X isn't connected in some way to Mossad's theft of Australian and other foreign passports for use in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January 2010. For those interested in refreshing their memories regarding the details of that case, simply click on the Mossad label below. My many posts on the subject begin with Disinformation Services (8/2/10) Particularly interesting, in the light of both Netanyahu's imposition of silence on the matter of Prisoner X and DFAT's refusal to hand over relevant documents, is my 15/10/10 post Omerta.
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to answer questions over allegations that an Australian citizen committed suicide while being held in solitary confinement in the country's highest-security prison.
"The man known as 'Prisoner X' was held in conditions of such strict secrecy in Israel's Ayalon Prison that not even the jail's staff knew his name or the crime he was alleged to have committed, the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program said on Tuesday.
"It named 'Prisoner X' as 34-year-old Ben Zygier and said it appeared the former Melbourne man had been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad before his disappearance in early 2010. He had moved to Israel 10 years before that, changing his name to Ben Alon and marrying a local woman with whom he had two children, the program said.
"He was allegedly found in his high-security cell in December 2010 and his body flown home to Australia soon after, Foreign Correspondent reported.
"Ben Zygier is believed to have been the son of Geoffrey Zygier, the executive director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission and one of the leaders of the Melbourne Jewish Community. He also had identification using a third name, Ben Allen, the program alleged.
"The Israeli Government has gone to extreme lengths to suppress the story since news of Prisoner X's arrest first appeared in 2010, with a judge issuing a gag order that prevented any mention of the case, or even the fact that there was a gag order, the ABC reported.
"At the time, the revelation that a prisoner was being held in total seclusion in a private wing of Ayalon Prison for an undisclosed crime prompted human rights groups to launch a campaign to force Israel to reveal his identity.
"'He is simply a person without a name and without an identity who has been placed in total and utter isolation from the outside world,' a prison official was quoted as saying at the time in the Yediot Ahronot before the story disappeared from its website.
"Soon after the ABC's story was broadcast last night, Mr Netanyahu's office convened an urgent meeting of the country's senior media editors, the Haaretz newspaper reported. 'The PMO asked members during the meeting to co-operate with the government and withhold publication of information pertaining to an incident that is very embarrassing to a certain government agency, Haaretz said. All reference to the report on Prisoner X disappeared from Israeli news sites, including Haaretz, shortly after the meeting.
"The Prime Minister's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the issue, which was raised in the parliament during a debate by Ahmed Tibi, the leader of the United Arab List - Ta'al, as well as by Labor politician Nachman Shai and Meretz party leader Zahava Gal-On. In response to Mr Tibi's questions about Israel's treatment of 'Prisoner X', Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman replied: 'I cannot answer these questions because the matter does not fall under the authority of the justice minister. But there is no doubt that if true, the matter must be looked into.'
"When the scant details of the 'Prisoner X' story first came to light, Israel's human rights groups were quick to express their concern.
"'It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place,' the Association for Civil Rights in Israel wrote in June 2010. But they, too, appear to be bound by the court's gag order - their spokesman told Fairfax Media overnight that ACRI could not comment on the matter at this time.
"Human Rights Watch has also raised the alarm at the secrecy surrounding Mr Zygier's arrest, incarceration and death, warning that Israel was required to notify another country if it takes one of its citizens into detention and if that citizen dies in detention. It should notify the person promptly of any charges against them, ensure they had access to a lawyer and to someone outside detention, said HRW's senior Middle East researcher, Bill van Esveld, who is based in Jerusalem. 'If the allegations are correct and Israel denied knowledge of his detention, then that is a 'disappearance' under international law,' Mr van Esveld said. He noted that while Palestinian prisoners were regularly detained without charge and often denied access to a lawyer for an unacceptable period of time, it was rare for Israeli prisoners to experience this kind of treatment.
"Foreign Minister Bob Carr described the allegations as troubling. 'It's never been raised with me. I'm not reluctant to seek an explanation from the Israeli government about what happened to Mr Allen and about what their view of it is,' he told the ABC. 'Even if Prisoner X has now been identified, his crime, however, remains a mystery, although it has been widely speculated that it would have involved treachery to warrant such extreme measures.' Mr Carr's office did not respond to questions from Fairfax Media."
The Australian's report, Israeli prisoner Mr X 'an Aussie' really doesn't add much of substance to the above except this: "Foreign Correspondent reported that it lodged a Freedom of Information report with the Department of Foreign Affairs about Zygier, but was refused the documents on the basis it could 'have a substantial adverse impact on the proper and efficient conduct of consular operations.'" (Mitchell Nadin)
I'm left wondering whether the case of Prisoner X isn't connected in some way to Mossad's theft of Australian and other foreign passports for use in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January 2010. For those interested in refreshing their memories regarding the details of that case, simply click on the Mossad label below. My many posts on the subject begin with Disinformation Services (8/2/10) Particularly interesting, in the light of both Netanyahu's imposition of silence on the matter of Prisoner X and DFAT's refusal to hand over relevant documents, is my 15/10/10 post Omerta.
Friday, November 16, 2012
ABC Tigress Mauls Israeli PR Flak
My God that Fran Kelly of Radio National's Breakfast program is a regular tiger - sorry, tigress. Once she gets her claws into some hapless PR flak, that's it. Dead (nay, mince) meat!
And so it was yesterday morning when the Israeli Prime Minister's oleaginous spokesman, Mark Regev, on the line from Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem to sell Israel's latest killing spree in Gaza, found himself on the receiving end of she-who-goes-straight-for-the-jugular.
A fearless defender of the poor and the oppressed, more on top of the Middle East conflict than Finkelstein and Loewenstein combined, Kelly gave the unfortunate lad no quarter - none! Why, the poor bugger could hardly get a word in edgewise and, by the end of it all, was literally reduced to silence.
Mark Regev? Reduced to silence? Don't believe me?
Seeing is believing. Here's the transcript, read it for yourself:
FK: Well, let's return to the leading international story of the moment, the Israeli strikes on Gaza which have killed Hamas' top military commander. Hamas says the death of Ahmed al Jabari will, as they put it, open the gates of hell. Israel launched about 20 strikes on Gaza overnight after a spike in rocket attacks against Israel over the weekend. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he's preparing to intensify the Gaza operation if necessary. Four years ago Israel launched a ground offensive along with a blockade of Gaza which killed over one thousand Palestinians and left 13 Israelis dead. Mark Regev is the chief spokesperson for for the Israeli prime minister. He joins us from Jerusalem. Mark, welcome again to Radio National Breakfast.
MR: Good morning.
FK: Mark, why does Israel argue that the assassination of Ahmed al Jabari is legitimate?
MR: This particular individual is a military commander, the commander of Hamas. He was directly responsible for countless rocket attacks across the border. You know, over the last few months we've literally had hundreds of rockets on Israeli cities, on Israeli towns, on Israeli villages, on rural communities. They indiscriminately just target civilians. It's a war crime, it's an act of terror, and enough is enough after we had 120 such rockets on the weekend. We said we're gonna strike back and we're gonna neutralise this threat to the Israeli civilian population.
FK: And does Israel believe it has done that now? If Ahmed al Jabari was directly responsible for those attacks in your words, he was killed in the first strike, the first attack in those 20 strikes, is that the end of it now? Have you achieved your mission?
MR: We've also, in parallel, targeted missile facilities in the Gaza Strip because we are, of course, concerned with retaliation and over the last few months Gaza, the Hamas leadership, has received from Iran, and also from Libya, thousands of rockets and missiles and we're trying to take them out so we don't see these munitions target our civilian population. We've got an alert on in the south today. Obviously, schoolchildren are in bomb shelters. Everyone's preparing for a Hamas retaliation and so we're acting...
FK: Well you would expect...
MR:... we're acting...
FK: I beg your pardon, Mark.
MR:... we're acting to take, trying to neutralise that threat as best we can.
FK: So you would be expecting retaliation. Hamas is threatening retaliation because, as you have schoolchildren sheltering in bunkers, they claim they had some children among the civilians killed in these air strikes overnight.
MR: It's a very important distinction, a very important distinction. They fire indiscriminately into our civilian population, trying to kill our people. We are trying to be as surgical as is humanly possible, and it's very difficult because, as you know, Hamas puts its military facilities right deliberately in the middle of civilian neighbourhoods, using Gaza civilians as human shields. Nevertheless we're making every effort possible to avoid civilian casualties. The people of Gaza are not our enemies. The enemy is Hamas, these extremists who, under Australian law, Israeli law, American law or European law, Japanese law, Canadian law, Hamas is registered as a terrorist organisation and rightly so.
FK: The people of Gaza are not your enemy but the people of Gaza, with these first 20 strikes, some - many - have already been injured and some have already been killed. More will be killed if Israel escalates this offensive. Is Israel preparing to intensify the operation?
MR: The bottom line is we didn't want this round of fighting. We were responding to this escalation that Hamas instituted over the weekend. Now they've started this, we'll finish it. We cannot allow...
FK: And what does that mean?
MR: That means we cannot allow Hamas to hold the civilian population of southern Israel, more than 1 million people, hostage to constant rocket attacks. We were down in the south earlier this week and we heard schoolchildren and they said to us, you know, children all round the world they hear a bell that means school's about to start or school's about to end. When children in southern Israel hear a bell, it's a siren. They run to a bomb shelter and they've got all of 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter before that missile launched by Hamas hits them and possibly kills them. We can't stand for this. No government in the world would see its civilian population that are targeted this way by a group of terrorists on the other side of the border. We have to act to protect them.
FK: So when the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon urges both sides of this conflict to de-escalate the tensions now and the violence now it doesn't sound like Israel is prepared to do that yet.
MR: We will continue to make sure that our civilian population is safe. That is our first obligation as a government. You've gotta remember there's one million Israelis who live in the southern part of our country who have been on the receiving end of rockets from Gaza, not for days but for weeks and for months now and it's simply intolerable. What would the Australian government do if its civilian population was targeted by terrorists? You would act. The Australian government would act and rightly so to protect its people. Well, we're doing exactly the same.
FK: But when you say, and Israel says, they started it, we're going to finish it, what does that mean, because 4 years ago Israel invaded and blockaded Gaza. Many people, many, many hundreds of people, Palestinian civilians and others, including Israelis, were killed in that. It didn't finish it. The pattern established suggests that, you know, strikes like this and escalating strikes like this don't end anything.
MR: Well, the real solution is, of course, peace, to negotiate a peace agreement with our Palestinian neighbours. The problem is that Hamas opposes peace, Hamas opposes reconciliation, Hamas even opposes dialogue with Israel. We hope it's possible to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but it's clear Hamas is the enemy of everyone who wants to seek peace and reconciliation in this part of the world. They're in the camp of Iran and Hezbollah. They're very very extreme, they're very radical. I would argue that they're not only the enemy of Israeli civilians, they're the enemy of Gaza civilians, because instead of putting their efforts into making schools in Gaza better, investing in Gaza infrastructure, these Hamas radicals put the people of Gaza... their radical, anti-Israel agenda is more important to them than anything else and the people of Gaza suffer because of that.
FK: Mark Regev, thank you very much for joining us on Breakfast.
MR: Thank you for having me.
FK: Mark Regev is the chief spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
And so it was yesterday morning when the Israeli Prime Minister's oleaginous spokesman, Mark Regev, on the line from Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem to sell Israel's latest killing spree in Gaza, found himself on the receiving end of she-who-goes-straight-for-the-jugular.
A fearless defender of the poor and the oppressed, more on top of the Middle East conflict than Finkelstein and Loewenstein combined, Kelly gave the unfortunate lad no quarter - none! Why, the poor bugger could hardly get a word in edgewise and, by the end of it all, was literally reduced to silence.
Mark Regev? Reduced to silence? Don't believe me?
Seeing is believing. Here's the transcript, read it for yourself:
FK: Well, let's return to the leading international story of the moment, the Israeli strikes on Gaza which have killed Hamas' top military commander. Hamas says the death of Ahmed al Jabari will, as they put it, open the gates of hell. Israel launched about 20 strikes on Gaza overnight after a spike in rocket attacks against Israel over the weekend. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he's preparing to intensify the Gaza operation if necessary. Four years ago Israel launched a ground offensive along with a blockade of Gaza which killed over one thousand Palestinians and left 13 Israelis dead. Mark Regev is the chief spokesperson for for the Israeli prime minister. He joins us from Jerusalem. Mark, welcome again to Radio National Breakfast.
MR: Good morning.
FK: Mark, why does Israel argue that the assassination of Ahmed al Jabari is legitimate?
MR: This particular individual is a military commander, the commander of Hamas. He was directly responsible for countless rocket attacks across the border. You know, over the last few months we've literally had hundreds of rockets on Israeli cities, on Israeli towns, on Israeli villages, on rural communities. They indiscriminately just target civilians. It's a war crime, it's an act of terror, and enough is enough after we had 120 such rockets on the weekend. We said we're gonna strike back and we're gonna neutralise this threat to the Israeli civilian population.
FK: And does Israel believe it has done that now? If Ahmed al Jabari was directly responsible for those attacks in your words, he was killed in the first strike, the first attack in those 20 strikes, is that the end of it now? Have you achieved your mission?
MR: We've also, in parallel, targeted missile facilities in the Gaza Strip because we are, of course, concerned with retaliation and over the last few months Gaza, the Hamas leadership, has received from Iran, and also from Libya, thousands of rockets and missiles and we're trying to take them out so we don't see these munitions target our civilian population. We've got an alert on in the south today. Obviously, schoolchildren are in bomb shelters. Everyone's preparing for a Hamas retaliation and so we're acting...
FK: Well you would expect...
MR:... we're acting...
FK: I beg your pardon, Mark.
MR:... we're acting to take, trying to neutralise that threat as best we can.
FK: So you would be expecting retaliation. Hamas is threatening retaliation because, as you have schoolchildren sheltering in bunkers, they claim they had some children among the civilians killed in these air strikes overnight.
MR: It's a very important distinction, a very important distinction. They fire indiscriminately into our civilian population, trying to kill our people. We are trying to be as surgical as is humanly possible, and it's very difficult because, as you know, Hamas puts its military facilities right deliberately in the middle of civilian neighbourhoods, using Gaza civilians as human shields. Nevertheless we're making every effort possible to avoid civilian casualties. The people of Gaza are not our enemies. The enemy is Hamas, these extremists who, under Australian law, Israeli law, American law or European law, Japanese law, Canadian law, Hamas is registered as a terrorist organisation and rightly so.
FK: The people of Gaza are not your enemy but the people of Gaza, with these first 20 strikes, some - many - have already been injured and some have already been killed. More will be killed if Israel escalates this offensive. Is Israel preparing to intensify the operation?
MR: The bottom line is we didn't want this round of fighting. We were responding to this escalation that Hamas instituted over the weekend. Now they've started this, we'll finish it. We cannot allow...
FK: And what does that mean?
MR: That means we cannot allow Hamas to hold the civilian population of southern Israel, more than 1 million people, hostage to constant rocket attacks. We were down in the south earlier this week and we heard schoolchildren and they said to us, you know, children all round the world they hear a bell that means school's about to start or school's about to end. When children in southern Israel hear a bell, it's a siren. They run to a bomb shelter and they've got all of 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter before that missile launched by Hamas hits them and possibly kills them. We can't stand for this. No government in the world would see its civilian population that are targeted this way by a group of terrorists on the other side of the border. We have to act to protect them.
FK: So when the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon urges both sides of this conflict to de-escalate the tensions now and the violence now it doesn't sound like Israel is prepared to do that yet.
MR: We will continue to make sure that our civilian population is safe. That is our first obligation as a government. You've gotta remember there's one million Israelis who live in the southern part of our country who have been on the receiving end of rockets from Gaza, not for days but for weeks and for months now and it's simply intolerable. What would the Australian government do if its civilian population was targeted by terrorists? You would act. The Australian government would act and rightly so to protect its people. Well, we're doing exactly the same.
FK: But when you say, and Israel says, they started it, we're going to finish it, what does that mean, because 4 years ago Israel invaded and blockaded Gaza. Many people, many, many hundreds of people, Palestinian civilians and others, including Israelis, were killed in that. It didn't finish it. The pattern established suggests that, you know, strikes like this and escalating strikes like this don't end anything.
MR: Well, the real solution is, of course, peace, to negotiate a peace agreement with our Palestinian neighbours. The problem is that Hamas opposes peace, Hamas opposes reconciliation, Hamas even opposes dialogue with Israel. We hope it's possible to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but it's clear Hamas is the enemy of everyone who wants to seek peace and reconciliation in this part of the world. They're in the camp of Iran and Hezbollah. They're very very extreme, they're very radical. I would argue that they're not only the enemy of Israeli civilians, they're the enemy of Gaza civilians, because instead of putting their efforts into making schools in Gaza better, investing in Gaza infrastructure, these Hamas radicals put the people of Gaza... their radical, anti-Israel agenda is more important to them than anything else and the people of Gaza suffer because of that.
FK: Mark Regev, thank you very much for joining us on Breakfast.
MR: Thank you for having me.
FK: Mark Regev is the chief spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Magical Mystery Tour
What, I ask, could possibly turn a sweet little ABC presenter into a ravening Mark Regev?
I ask this curious question after having heard Lateline's bambina Emma Alberici interview soft Zionist Peter Beinart (The Crisis of Zionism) on 26 April. But was it really Emma? I mean, there I was watching her, but what was that I was hearing? I'll be damned if it wasn't everyone's favourite Israeli spin doctor!
After noting in her introduction that many American Jews have "dismissed [Beinart's] book" as "an attack on Israel by someone whose views on Israel are at best simplisic and at worst demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East," Emma went on to assail Beinart with Gazan rockets, decades of peace-seeking Israeli governments, Palestinian leaders who'll be damned if they'll recognise the state of Israel, and Hamas, "which continues to perhaps not call for the destruction of the state of Israel, but it certainly doesn't recognise it."
Where were all these Israeli talking points coming from? Surely not from bambina Emma?
A quick scan of our poppet's profile at the Lateline website revealed her to have been a business journalist, and more recently, the ABC's Europe correspondent. Reading between the lines, I'd say that all she knows about the Middle East came from mere snatches of mainstream media coverage of the area, probably inadvertently soaked up between trips to the shoe shop and the hairdresser.
So if Emma's Mark Regev wasn't something out of the Twilight Zione, what was it?
Could she have collaborated with one of the other 13 members of the Lateline 'team'? I wondered. After all, what's a 'team' for? But which one? Zipping through their website profiles, I could only conclude that 12 of them would probably struggle to locate the Middle East on a map of the world. But Candice Talberg's profile, however, looked a little more promising. It read as follows:
"Candice Talberg is a producer with Lateline... She has worked as a journalist in the UK, the Middle East and South Africa. Candice worked as a journalist at the BBC in London for 5 years before moving to Australia in 2005. While there she worked in both news and current affairs, making foreign documentaries and producing international news. She worked for a range of programmes, including Newsnight, HardTalk, BBC World News and Correspondent, where she was the researcher on a story which won a Peabody Award in 2003."
That disclosure of course could hardly be considered conclusive. I mean, face it, how many corporate journalists who've spent time in the Middle East really know what's going on there? No names, no pack drill, mind you. Anyway, since it was the only lead I had, I decided to google Candice.
I found a Candice Talberg who was a graduate (1993) of the United Herzlia Schools of South Africa and a Candice Talberg (and here my heartbeat accelerated appreciably) who had been an employee (Public Affairs) of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies in 2006. That's right, a colleague of Vic Alhadeff's, no less. Could one survive such an experience and emerge unscathed? I asked myself.
Still, even assuming that these 3 Candice Talbergs are in fact one and the same, was I any closer to unravelling the mystery of why an amore like Emma seemed to be channelling Mark Regev (or maybe even Vic Alhadeff!) last Thursday night? Who, but the proverbial fly on the wall, will ever really know?
But alas, no sooner had I gotten to the bottom of one mystery (all things being equal) than others presented themselves.
Why, I couldn't help asking, does Ms Talberg's Lateline profile leave out such vitally important background information as a stint at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, if indeed she had worked there? And how, moreover, does a former Israel lobby employee manage the kind of objectivity supposedly required for a job at the ABC?
After all, with bambina Emma uncharacteristically coming on like Mark Regev when interviewing a critic of Israel, even one as meek and mild as Beinart, I hardly think viewers can be blamed for asking such questions.
I ask this curious question after having heard Lateline's bambina Emma Alberici interview soft Zionist Peter Beinart (The Crisis of Zionism) on 26 April. But was it really Emma? I mean, there I was watching her, but what was that I was hearing? I'll be damned if it wasn't everyone's favourite Israeli spin doctor!
After noting in her introduction that many American Jews have "dismissed [Beinart's] book" as "an attack on Israel by someone whose views on Israel are at best simplisic and at worst demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East," Emma went on to assail Beinart with Gazan rockets, decades of peace-seeking Israeli governments, Palestinian leaders who'll be damned if they'll recognise the state of Israel, and Hamas, "which continues to perhaps not call for the destruction of the state of Israel, but it certainly doesn't recognise it."
Where were all these Israeli talking points coming from? Surely not from bambina Emma?
A quick scan of our poppet's profile at the Lateline website revealed her to have been a business journalist, and more recently, the ABC's Europe correspondent. Reading between the lines, I'd say that all she knows about the Middle East came from mere snatches of mainstream media coverage of the area, probably inadvertently soaked up between trips to the shoe shop and the hairdresser.
So if Emma's Mark Regev wasn't something out of the Twilight Zione, what was it?
Could she have collaborated with one of the other 13 members of the Lateline 'team'? I wondered. After all, what's a 'team' for? But which one? Zipping through their website profiles, I could only conclude that 12 of them would probably struggle to locate the Middle East on a map of the world. But Candice Talberg's profile, however, looked a little more promising. It read as follows:
"Candice Talberg is a producer with Lateline... She has worked as a journalist in the UK, the Middle East and South Africa. Candice worked as a journalist at the BBC in London for 5 years before moving to Australia in 2005. While there she worked in both news and current affairs, making foreign documentaries and producing international news. She worked for a range of programmes, including Newsnight, HardTalk, BBC World News and Correspondent, where she was the researcher on a story which won a Peabody Award in 2003."
That disclosure of course could hardly be considered conclusive. I mean, face it, how many corporate journalists who've spent time in the Middle East really know what's going on there? No names, no pack drill, mind you. Anyway, since it was the only lead I had, I decided to google Candice.
I found a Candice Talberg who was a graduate (1993) of the United Herzlia Schools of South Africa and a Candice Talberg (and here my heartbeat accelerated appreciably) who had been an employee (Public Affairs) of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies in 2006. That's right, a colleague of Vic Alhadeff's, no less. Could one survive such an experience and emerge unscathed? I asked myself.
Still, even assuming that these 3 Candice Talbergs are in fact one and the same, was I any closer to unravelling the mystery of why an amore like Emma seemed to be channelling Mark Regev (or maybe even Vic Alhadeff!) last Thursday night? Who, but the proverbial fly on the wall, will ever really know?
But alas, no sooner had I gotten to the bottom of one mystery (all things being equal) than others presented themselves.
Why, I couldn't help asking, does Ms Talberg's Lateline profile leave out such vitally important background information as a stint at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, if indeed she had worked there? And how, moreover, does a former Israel lobby employee manage the kind of objectivity supposedly required for a job at the ABC?
After all, with bambina Emma uncharacteristically coming on like Mark Regev when interviewing a critic of Israel, even one as meek and mild as Beinart, I hardly think viewers can be blamed for asking such questions.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Mugged by the Analogy
As the Freedom Flotilla 2 prepares to sail for Gaza, in addition to a range of pre-emptive Israeli dirty tricks - threats to ban participating journalists from entering Israel, the dissemination of false stories about violent extremists infiltrating the ranks of the flotilla activists, and sabotage of vessels moored in Greek and Turkish ports - the ms media will be flooded with Israeli propaganda tropes such as this from Netanyahu flak Mark Regev: "Israel cannot allow unfettered naval access to the Gaza Strip because if we did you would see Iranian missiles reaching Hamas." (Gaza ships hit by Israeli attack, Mark Weiss, Telegraph/SMH, 2/7/11)
The aim of this and all the other variations on the theme to come, will of course be to divert world attention from Israel's Nazi-style blockade of Gaza.
OMG, did I just use the 'N' word? I did! Now I'll be in big trouble because I've just crossed one of those red lines Zionists keep on declaring in a futile effort to ward off legitimate criticism of Zionist criminality, namely the drawing of analogies between Israeli and Nazi behaviour, which apparently makes one guilty of something called 'the new anti-Semitism', which is really, so Zionist logic goes, just the old anti-Semitism in new clothes. Why use the analogy then? Well, after reading the following, I was quite literally mugged by it:
"The closed [Warsaw] ghetto greatly complicated the problem of obtaining food. The legal food ration established by the German authorities guaranteed death by starvation. The average legal calorie allotment in 1941 was 2,613 for Germans, 699 for Poles, and 184 for Jews. All food shipments, like all other imports and exports to and from the ghetto, had to pass through the German-controlled Transferstelle on the corner of Stawki and Dzika streets. It quickly became apparent that if the ghetto was going to survive, the Jews would have to forget about 'legality' and smuggle in as much food as they could. More than 80% of all food consumed in the ghetto would be smuggled in." (Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, & the Oyneg Shabes Archive, Samuel Kassow, 2007, pp 107-108)
That reminded me of this:
"Documents, whose existence were denied by the Israeli government for over a year, have been released after a legal battle led by Israeli human rights group, Gisha. The documents reveal a deliberate policy by the Israeli government in which the dietary needs for the population of Gaza are chillingly calculated, and the amounts of food let in by the Israeli government measured to remain just enough to keep the population alive at a near-starvation level. This documents the statement made by... Dov Weisglass, adviser to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger'." (Israeli government documents show deliberate policy to keep Gazans at near-starvation levels, Saed Bannoura, imemc.org, 6/11/10)
How, other than 'Nazi-style blockade', would you describe a deliberate policy of ghettoisation and enforced malnourishment reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto?
[See also 'Put the Palestinians on a diet' - media bury documents revealing Israel's deliberate policy of near-starvation for Gaza, medialens.org, 17/11/10.]
The aim of this and all the other variations on the theme to come, will of course be to divert world attention from Israel's Nazi-style blockade of Gaza.
OMG, did I just use the 'N' word? I did! Now I'll be in big trouble because I've just crossed one of those red lines Zionists keep on declaring in a futile effort to ward off legitimate criticism of Zionist criminality, namely the drawing of analogies between Israeli and Nazi behaviour, which apparently makes one guilty of something called 'the new anti-Semitism', which is really, so Zionist logic goes, just the old anti-Semitism in new clothes. Why use the analogy then? Well, after reading the following, I was quite literally mugged by it:
"The closed [Warsaw] ghetto greatly complicated the problem of obtaining food. The legal food ration established by the German authorities guaranteed death by starvation. The average legal calorie allotment in 1941 was 2,613 for Germans, 699 for Poles, and 184 for Jews. All food shipments, like all other imports and exports to and from the ghetto, had to pass through the German-controlled Transferstelle on the corner of Stawki and Dzika streets. It quickly became apparent that if the ghetto was going to survive, the Jews would have to forget about 'legality' and smuggle in as much food as they could. More than 80% of all food consumed in the ghetto would be smuggled in." (Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, & the Oyneg Shabes Archive, Samuel Kassow, 2007, pp 107-108)
That reminded me of this:
"Documents, whose existence were denied by the Israeli government for over a year, have been released after a legal battle led by Israeli human rights group, Gisha. The documents reveal a deliberate policy by the Israeli government in which the dietary needs for the population of Gaza are chillingly calculated, and the amounts of food let in by the Israeli government measured to remain just enough to keep the population alive at a near-starvation level. This documents the statement made by... Dov Weisglass, adviser to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger'." (Israeli government documents show deliberate policy to keep Gazans at near-starvation levels, Saed Bannoura, imemc.org, 6/11/10)
How, other than 'Nazi-style blockade', would you describe a deliberate policy of ghettoisation and enforced malnourishment reminiscent of the Warsaw Ghetto?
[See also 'Put the Palestinians on a diet' - media bury documents revealing Israel's deliberate policy of near-starvation for Gaza, medialens.org, 17/11/10.]
Friday, October 15, 2010
Your Radio Israel
If you thought you were listening to ABC radio yesterday, specifically to the item Iranian president's Lebanon visit stirs unease on The World Today with Eleanor Hall, you were wrong. You were actually listening to Radio Israel (my comments in square brackets):
HALL: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long talked of wiping Israel off the map (1) - with or without nuclear weapons. And today in a highly provocative move (2) he's preparing to visit Hezbollah strongholds (3) in southern Lebanon. That will bring him barely two kilometres from the Israeli border. But even inside Lebanon the Iranian leader's visit is highly controversial (4) because many accuse Iran of interfering in Lebanese affairs. Middle East correspondent Anne Barker reports.
[(1) No anti-Iranian Zionist propaganda piece would be complete without this canard. (2) So? Even when he rolls over in his sleep it's a highly provocative move. (3) Arabs live in strongholds, Israelis in towns and cities. (4) So? Even when he farts it's highly controversial.]
BARKER: He's a man who inspires the extremes of devotion or hatred wherever he goes. [Whose hatred, Anne?] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Beirut to huge crowds who welcomed his first official visit to Lebanon. Thousands of Shi'ite Muslims lined the airport road waving Iranian flags and throwing flowers at the presidential motorcade. But most were supporters of Hezbollah [and Amal?]- the Shi'ite militia which relies on Iran for both funding and weapons and which shares Iran's hatred of Israel. [Really? Just because Israel's always threatening to nuke it?] Although at a press conference in Beirut president Ahmadinejad appealed to all Lebanese to resist the Zionist enemy. 'Iran and Lebanon have common points of view', he said. 'Both countries are against the occupation, aggressions and crimes committed by the Zionists'. Nevertheless the Iranian president's visit has instilled fear among Lebanon's majority non-Shi'ite population. Many [How many, Anne?] Christians or Sunni Muslims or the minority Druze believe that Iran through Hezbollah wields far too much influence on Lebanon's internal politics and government. A group of about 250 [Oh, that many!] politicians, lawyers and activists have written an open letter criticising president Ahmadinejad's support of Hezbollah and voicing fears that Iran is trying to drag Lebanon into a new war against Israel. 'Your talk of changing the face of the region and wiping Israel off the map', it says, 'makes your visit seem like that of a commander to his front line', the letter reads. It's that front line that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to visit today in a move that many in both Lebanon [250?] and Israel interpret as a deliberate provocation. The Iranian leader will visit Lebanon's south where Hezbollah militants wield control including villages along the border that were bombed by Israeli forces in the last war in 2006. There were reports president Ahmadinejad might even throw stones across the border in a symbolic show of Iran's defiance. Mark Regev is a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.
REGEV: The Iranians are showing the whole world that they have succeeded to dominate Lebanese politics through their proxy Hezbollah. They are forcing their agenda on Lebanon and are creating a hub for terrorism and a threat to regional stability. [And who better than Mark Regev to tell us about... Lebanon!]
BARKER: Even members of Lebanon's own government have expressed alarm at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit. [Members? Oh, you mean the Phalangist, Faris Said? Yes, I suppose that is more worthy of mention than reporting his meetings with both the Lebanese president and prime minister.] One politician has said the Iranian leader is seeking to transform Lebanon into an Iranian base on the Mediterranean. [Faris Said?] Others [No names, no pack-drill.] fear his visit will upset the fragile balance between competing religious and ethnic groups and set Lebanon on a new path to sectarian conflict. [Of course, Lebanon's fragile balance had nothing whatever to fear from Israel's 2006 attempt to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" (Dan Halutz) or its current threat to "destroy Lebanon's army in 4 hours." ('IDF can destroy Lebanon army within 4 hours', ynetnews.com, 27/8/10)]
HALL: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long talked of wiping Israel off the map (1) - with or without nuclear weapons. And today in a highly provocative move (2) he's preparing to visit Hezbollah strongholds (3) in southern Lebanon. That will bring him barely two kilometres from the Israeli border. But even inside Lebanon the Iranian leader's visit is highly controversial (4) because many accuse Iran of interfering in Lebanese affairs. Middle East correspondent Anne Barker reports.
[(1) No anti-Iranian Zionist propaganda piece would be complete without this canard. (2) So? Even when he rolls over in his sleep it's a highly provocative move. (3) Arabs live in strongholds, Israelis in towns and cities. (4) So? Even when he farts it's highly controversial.]
BARKER: He's a man who inspires the extremes of devotion or hatred wherever he goes. [Whose hatred, Anne?] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Beirut to huge crowds who welcomed his first official visit to Lebanon. Thousands of Shi'ite Muslims lined the airport road waving Iranian flags and throwing flowers at the presidential motorcade. But most were supporters of Hezbollah [and Amal?]- the Shi'ite militia which relies on Iran for both funding and weapons and which shares Iran's hatred of Israel. [Really? Just because Israel's always threatening to nuke it?] Although at a press conference in Beirut president Ahmadinejad appealed to all Lebanese to resist the Zionist enemy. 'Iran and Lebanon have common points of view', he said. 'Both countries are against the occupation, aggressions and crimes committed by the Zionists'. Nevertheless the Iranian president's visit has instilled fear among Lebanon's majority non-Shi'ite population. Many [How many, Anne?] Christians or Sunni Muslims or the minority Druze believe that Iran through Hezbollah wields far too much influence on Lebanon's internal politics and government. A group of about 250 [Oh, that many!] politicians, lawyers and activists have written an open letter criticising president Ahmadinejad's support of Hezbollah and voicing fears that Iran is trying to drag Lebanon into a new war against Israel. 'Your talk of changing the face of the region and wiping Israel off the map', it says, 'makes your visit seem like that of a commander to his front line', the letter reads. It's that front line that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to visit today in a move that many in both Lebanon [250?] and Israel interpret as a deliberate provocation. The Iranian leader will visit Lebanon's south where Hezbollah militants wield control including villages along the border that were bombed by Israeli forces in the last war in 2006. There were reports president Ahmadinejad might even throw stones across the border in a symbolic show of Iran's defiance. Mark Regev is a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.
REGEV: The Iranians are showing the whole world that they have succeeded to dominate Lebanese politics through their proxy Hezbollah. They are forcing their agenda on Lebanon and are creating a hub for terrorism and a threat to regional stability. [And who better than Mark Regev to tell us about... Lebanon!]
BARKER: Even members of Lebanon's own government have expressed alarm at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit. [Members? Oh, you mean the Phalangist, Faris Said? Yes, I suppose that is more worthy of mention than reporting his meetings with both the Lebanese president and prime minister.] One politician has said the Iranian leader is seeking to transform Lebanon into an Iranian base on the Mediterranean. [Faris Said?] Others [No names, no pack-drill.] fear his visit will upset the fragile balance between competing religious and ethnic groups and set Lebanon on a new path to sectarian conflict. [Of course, Lebanon's fragile balance had nothing whatever to fear from Israel's 2006 attempt to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" (Dan Halutz) or its current threat to "destroy Lebanon's army in 4 hours." ('IDF can destroy Lebanon army within 4 hours', ynetnews.com, 27/8/10)]
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Journo Hack Hearts PR Flack
In Behind the lines of Mr Cool, Fairfax's Middle East correspondent, Jason Koutsoukis, brings his journalistic 'talents' to bear on everyone's favourite spinmeister Mark Regev:
"Regev's greatest gift as a spokesman for Israel is his ability to control himself. It's difficult to imagine him losing his cool, raising his voice or displaying any kind of arrogance and zealotry, which could so easily alienate an audience." (Sydney Morning Herald, 28/8/10)
Yes - in much the same way as Koutsoukis' greatest gift as a journalist is to forgo the kind of homework and hard questions which could so easily have the Israel lobby hassling the Herald's editor.
"'One thing I am meticulous about is to make sure that I am properly prepared and properly briefed on whatever position it is that I am called upon to explain'."
OK. Got that? Before he talks to journalists, Regev must ensure that he has been properly prepared and briefed on whatever position he has been called upon to explain. IOW, that he has the official line down pat.
"'It's never personal for me when I'm on camera'. His boss, Netanyahu, refuses to utter the words 'two-state solution' for fear of inflaming his political allies in [sic] the right, but Regev is unafraid to express his personal view in favour of such an outcome."
So although Mr Spin has just explained that before talking to journalists he learns the official line by heart, the clueless Koutsoukis goes on to describe him as unafraid to express his personal view!?
And this personal view, we are supposed to believe, is really Netanyahu's view - except that he's regrettably forced to take a 'Don't mention the two-state solution' vow of silence for fear of frightening his coalition horses.
OK... And Mr Spin's daring personal view is... ?
"'We need to be respectful of the Palestinian narrative, and of the Arab perspective of this conflict. Palestinians want their own state. I understand that. I support that aspiration'."
Well ain't that nice! His master's voice supports a Palestinian state! What a wonderful world! So I can now move on and blog about something else then?
Not quite. If there's one word in this game that tells you its user is talking through a hole in his posterior, it's the word narrative - a word designed to magically transform the killing fields of occupied Palestine into your proverbial level playing field and conjure up that old cliche about there being two sides to every story.
Nor should it be forgotten (as a vertical German soldier might once have said of a horizontal Pole while standing on the latter's neck):
"'Behind the headlines of this conflict lies the fact that we have been living with each other for such a long time'."
So long, in fact, they're practically best friends:
"'We, Israel and the Palestinians, know each other very well'. Regularly in on-air conflict with representatives for the Palestinian side of the argument, Regev says he enjoys strong personal relationships with the same people off camera."
Yes, Jason, we get along like an olive orchard on fire. But alas, there's a problem:
"'I am strongly of the view that while Palestinian aspiration for statehood is entirely legitimate, I think the Palestinian people have been consistently betrayed by their leadership. Statehood has become a matter of choice for the Palestinian leadership'."
Yes, there's no avoiding the issue. Although Israel is well served by its leaders, the sad fact is the Palestinians are eternally betrayed by theirs.
Now if only they had a visionary leader like Bibi, who, after his meeting with President Obama on July 6, spoke of his "'vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state' that would recognise 'the Jewish state'." (In speech to Jewish leaders, Netanyahu endorses two-state solution, Doug Chandler, The Jewish Week, 7/7/10)
"Regev's greatest gift as a spokesman for Israel is his ability to control himself. It's difficult to imagine him losing his cool, raising his voice or displaying any kind of arrogance and zealotry, which could so easily alienate an audience." (Sydney Morning Herald, 28/8/10)
Yes - in much the same way as Koutsoukis' greatest gift as a journalist is to forgo the kind of homework and hard questions which could so easily have the Israel lobby hassling the Herald's editor.
"'One thing I am meticulous about is to make sure that I am properly prepared and properly briefed on whatever position it is that I am called upon to explain'."
OK. Got that? Before he talks to journalists, Regev must ensure that he has been properly prepared and briefed on whatever position he has been called upon to explain. IOW, that he has the official line down pat.
"'It's never personal for me when I'm on camera'. His boss, Netanyahu, refuses to utter the words 'two-state solution' for fear of inflaming his political allies in [sic] the right, but Regev is unafraid to express his personal view in favour of such an outcome."
So although Mr Spin has just explained that before talking to journalists he learns the official line by heart, the clueless Koutsoukis goes on to describe him as unafraid to express his personal view!?
And this personal view, we are supposed to believe, is really Netanyahu's view - except that he's regrettably forced to take a 'Don't mention the two-state solution' vow of silence for fear of frightening his coalition horses.
OK... And Mr Spin's daring personal view is... ?
"'We need to be respectful of the Palestinian narrative, and of the Arab perspective of this conflict. Palestinians want their own state. I understand that. I support that aspiration'."
Well ain't that nice! His master's voice supports a Palestinian state! What a wonderful world! So I can now move on and blog about something else then?
Not quite. If there's one word in this game that tells you its user is talking through a hole in his posterior, it's the word narrative - a word designed to magically transform the killing fields of occupied Palestine into your proverbial level playing field and conjure up that old cliche about there being two sides to every story.
Nor should it be forgotten (as a vertical German soldier might once have said of a horizontal Pole while standing on the latter's neck):
"'Behind the headlines of this conflict lies the fact that we have been living with each other for such a long time'."
So long, in fact, they're practically best friends:
"'We, Israel and the Palestinians, know each other very well'. Regularly in on-air conflict with representatives for the Palestinian side of the argument, Regev says he enjoys strong personal relationships with the same people off camera."
Yes, Jason, we get along like an olive orchard on fire. But alas, there's a problem:
"'I am strongly of the view that while Palestinian aspiration for statehood is entirely legitimate, I think the Palestinian people have been consistently betrayed by their leadership. Statehood has become a matter of choice for the Palestinian leadership'."
Yes, there's no avoiding the issue. Although Israel is well served by its leaders, the sad fact is the Palestinians are eternally betrayed by theirs.
Now if only they had a visionary leader like Bibi, who, after his meeting with President Obama on July 6, spoke of his "'vision of a demilitarized Palestinian state' that would recognise 'the Jewish state'." (In speech to Jewish leaders, Netanyahu endorses two-state solution, Doug Chandler, The Jewish Week, 7/7/10)
Monday, January 4, 2010
Dr Knight & Mr Regev
"There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery. It was a fine, clear January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the Regents Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with Spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself to other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn the faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of all men's respect, wealthy, beloved - the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the gallows." Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
What about Gilad Shalit? asked James Carleton, presenter of Radio National's Breakfast program this morning.
"Israel calls him a hostage," began Dr Ben Knight, the ABC's Gent in Jerusalem, conveying the Israeli party line (which, alas, in the simple retelling of events, couldn't help but crumble): "Hamas, who've been holding him, call him a captured soldier. He was on patrol [!] near the Gaza border [!!] in June 2006 in an armoured vehicle [!!!] when some militants from Gaza popped up out of a tunnel they'd dug underneath the fence, attacked the patrol [!!!!], killed several soldiers [!!!!!] and took Gilad Shalit back through the tunnel into Hamas."
Into Hamas! Yikes! Dr Knight had pulled himself up just in time. For a nanosecond there he had nearly said into Hamastan. It's happening, he shuddered. Mr Regev. And smack bang in a bloody Radio National interview! Shit!
He was helpless, and could only listen appalled as Mr Regev regaled the Breakfast audience with the tale of that "quite awful character" Samir Quntar* who, back in the 70s, for no apparent reason, had leapt into a dinghy, paddled down the Lebanese coast and onto an Israeli beach, and offed the first Israeli "family, including the children" he could lay his evil hands on (a bit like those "militants," who, for no apparent reason, had just decided to dig a tunnel and plug some Israeli soldiers who were quietly going about their usual morning killing spree).
He listened, numb, as Mr Regev went on about how galling it was for Israelis to see that q***(ar) being swapped for some Israeli stiffs in Lebanon, and then receiving a "hero's welcome" in Beirut. "This really did stick in the Israelis' craw," ranted Regev, "and so here they are going through it again, but what you're looking at this time is a far higher price. This is a live prisoner, and what is being asked by Hamas is the release of miltants inside Israeli jails who... the term over here is blood on their hands."
It was at that very point, where Mr Regev was about to say with blood on their hands, that Dr Knight rallied with the words the term over here is blood on their hands. Just in the nick of time, he thought, the sweat in beads on his forehead. The doctor pressed on heroically: "Now for some of them, they may simply have been involved in throwing a rock at a police officer."
But it was no good, Mr Regev was simply too strong. "But for others," rasped Regev, "we're talking about the people who made the bombs during the Second Intifada when we saw Tel Aviv and Jerusalem living in fear when buses were blowing up. So Israel is having this national discussion at the moment and the line seems to be, yes, we'll do it this time, we'll allow this large number of prisoners released to get our soldier back, but never again. But it's certainly not a done deal. It's a very, very high price to pay for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when he's got other matters on his hands."
Carleton, clearly taken aback by Dr Knight's increasingly obvious struggle with Mr Regev, tried to toss him a lifeline in the form of a question about Hamas maybe not quite feeling the same way.
To no avail. It was not Dr Knight, but Mr Regev, who responded, "Well, each case on its merits, but you certainly do get the impression that Israelis have had enough of watching these prisoners being released when they certainly feel that they should spend the rest of their lives in jail, and in this case, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of prisoners."
The rest of their lives in jail? It was too much. Dr Knight fought back valiantly: "Now not all of them were involved in those suicide bombing incidents in the Second Intifada. Some of them are car thieves. Some of them picked up in the wrong place at the wrong time and face an Israeli military court, which is not a court that anyone would want to find themselves in if they were Palestinian. But we're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds for one Israeli soldier and you just get the sense that there's a very very strong desire to bring Gilad Shalit home but not at any price and after this there's going to be a major rethink of how it's done."
His bacon was saved - for now. But how much longer can I go on like this, he asked himself, before Dr Knight is no more and only the hideous Mr Regev is left?
Pray for the soul of Ben Knight.
[See my 21/7/08 post The Motiveless Malignancy of Samir Quntar]
What about Gilad Shalit? asked James Carleton, presenter of Radio National's Breakfast program this morning.
"Israel calls him a hostage," began Dr Ben Knight, the ABC's Gent in Jerusalem, conveying the Israeli party line (which, alas, in the simple retelling of events, couldn't help but crumble): "Hamas, who've been holding him, call him a captured soldier. He was on patrol [!] near the Gaza border [!!] in June 2006 in an armoured vehicle [!!!] when some militants from Gaza popped up out of a tunnel they'd dug underneath the fence, attacked the patrol [!!!!], killed several soldiers [!!!!!] and took Gilad Shalit back through the tunnel into Hamas."
Into Hamas! Yikes! Dr Knight had pulled himself up just in time. For a nanosecond there he had nearly said into Hamastan. It's happening, he shuddered. Mr Regev. And smack bang in a bloody Radio National interview! Shit!
He was helpless, and could only listen appalled as Mr Regev regaled the Breakfast audience with the tale of that "quite awful character" Samir Quntar* who, back in the 70s, for no apparent reason, had leapt into a dinghy, paddled down the Lebanese coast and onto an Israeli beach, and offed the first Israeli "family, including the children" he could lay his evil hands on (a bit like those "militants," who, for no apparent reason, had just decided to dig a tunnel and plug some Israeli soldiers who were quietly going about their usual morning killing spree).
He listened, numb, as Mr Regev went on about how galling it was for Israelis to see that q***(ar) being swapped for some Israeli stiffs in Lebanon, and then receiving a "hero's welcome" in Beirut. "This really did stick in the Israelis' craw," ranted Regev, "and so here they are going through it again, but what you're looking at this time is a far higher price. This is a live prisoner, and what is being asked by Hamas is the release of miltants inside Israeli jails who... the term over here is blood on their hands."
It was at that very point, where Mr Regev was about to say with blood on their hands, that Dr Knight rallied with the words the term over here is blood on their hands. Just in the nick of time, he thought, the sweat in beads on his forehead. The doctor pressed on heroically: "Now for some of them, they may simply have been involved in throwing a rock at a police officer."
But it was no good, Mr Regev was simply too strong. "But for others," rasped Regev, "we're talking about the people who made the bombs during the Second Intifada when we saw Tel Aviv and Jerusalem living in fear when buses were blowing up. So Israel is having this national discussion at the moment and the line seems to be, yes, we'll do it this time, we'll allow this large number of prisoners released to get our soldier back, but never again. But it's certainly not a done deal. It's a very, very high price to pay for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when he's got other matters on his hands."
Carleton, clearly taken aback by Dr Knight's increasingly obvious struggle with Mr Regev, tried to toss him a lifeline in the form of a question about Hamas maybe not quite feeling the same way.
To no avail. It was not Dr Knight, but Mr Regev, who responded, "Well, each case on its merits, but you certainly do get the impression that Israelis have had enough of watching these prisoners being released when they certainly feel that they should spend the rest of their lives in jail, and in this case, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of prisoners."
The rest of their lives in jail? It was too much. Dr Knight fought back valiantly: "Now not all of them were involved in those suicide bombing incidents in the Second Intifada. Some of them are car thieves. Some of them picked up in the wrong place at the wrong time and face an Israeli military court, which is not a court that anyone would want to find themselves in if they were Palestinian. But we're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds for one Israeli soldier and you just get the sense that there's a very very strong desire to bring Gilad Shalit home but not at any price and after this there's going to be a major rethink of how it's done."
His bacon was saved - for now. But how much longer can I go on like this, he asked himself, before Dr Knight is no more and only the hideous Mr Regev is left?
Pray for the soul of Ben Knight.
[See my 21/7/08 post The Motiveless Malignancy of Samir Quntar]
Monday, October 26, 2009
When Bibi Met Kevi
"Israel's international spokesman, Australian Mark Regev..." (Regev upbeat on Mid-East peace, Rowan Callick, Sydney Morning Herald, 15/10/09)
Oh, so he's Israel's international spokesman and Australian too? Isn't that nice? If you're Mark Regev, you can have your cake and eat it too. Even though you were born and raised here as Mark Freiberg, you can take advantage of that amaaazing little Israeli Law of Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to anyone, anywhere, providing he's got a Jewish mother, while retaining your prior citizenship. But, if you're a Palestinian, and you're unfortunate enough to have a Muslim or a Christian mother, even with the weight of international law on your side (in the form of the right of all refugees to return to their homes), you're going nowhere. No, Israel (occupied Palestine) is reserved exclusively for those with the right bio-theological connections - people like Mark Freiberg/Regev.
"Back home in Melbourne..." (ibid) That's right, two homes! Pretty neat, eh? And it looks like it's a working holiday because he's had his back scratched by Philip Adams* and he's talking non-stop to anyone who'll listen about - you guessed it - Iran.
[*"He started his brilliant career as a student at Mt Scopus, Melbourne, and when I lived in Melbourne I used to do fundraising for Mt Scopus and clearly Mark has been a beneficiary. Mark, how does a bright young fella from Mt Scopus finish up in this lofty position?" LNL, 14/10/09]
"We think multilateral action is required on Iran. Its leadership should be given a crystal clear instruction: you can't have business as usual and a nuclear program at the same time." (ibid)
Really? Surely if the country for which you officially spruik can have both business as usual and a few hundred nukes, why can't Iran have a nuclear program? As our Kev might say, in any other context, fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate!
Now did the bright young fella from Mt Scopus say multilateral action? Meaning? Well, let him finish: "'But if it proves impossible to get a UN Security Council resolution with enough teeth to make a difference' he raised the prospect of enlisting 'enough countries which do agree, who are important players in the world, to do so'." (ibid)
Whoa! Run that past me again. If the Security Council doesn't do it for Israel, then Israel's going to whistle up its mates and get them to give Iran a right thumping. Right. And just who might these mates of Israel be? Brace yourself: "During a recent visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Mr Netanyahu held meetings with just 4 other government heads besides the US and Palestinian leaders; those of France, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Kevin Rudd, he said, made a favourable impression, with his firm grasp of the Middle East." (ibid)
OK, could the lingering effects of Bibi's heady pheromones be the cause of Kevi's current flexing of his rhetorical pecs on the subject of asylum seekers? You know - all that jazz about being tough and hard-nosed? And that firm grasp of the Middle East? Eww! Is it, like... by the throat? Anyhow, you can be sure something was passing between those two in New York in September. After all, Kevi and New York go back a long way. Strange urges overtake him there. The last (?) time he was there, in 2003, wasn't he kicked out of a nightclub called Scores - Scores for Kevin's sake! - for laying hands on the dancers?
OK, steady on, MERC, keep it under control, let's stick to Rumsfeld's known unknowns, shall we? Now we all know that Rudd is a genetically-engineered organism, OK? (Well he did once say that support for Israel was in his DNA, didn't he?) So how could he not have attended Bibi's award-winning performance at the UN, right? Maybe that's it then, it was probably one of the ripping yarns (penned by the bright young fella from Mt Scopus?) with which Bibi regaled his American, French, Canadian, and Australian audience, that did it for Kevi.
Could it have been this one perhaps?: "The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. Last month I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie? A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by Nazis. Is that also a lie? Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually end up engulfing many others."
Or this one?: "This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past 30 years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays* or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against the fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilisation against civilisation. It pits civilisation against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."
[*"Gays and lesbians are sick people. It's definitely a disease. They haven't invented a cure for it yet, but I hope they will." Eli Yishai, Deputy Israeli PM, quoted in Eli Yishai is just Jean-Marie Le Pen with a beard, Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 26/10/09]
Perhaps this one?: "The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom? Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world? The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?"
Or the whole damn kit and kaboodle? Hey, what's not to like if support for Israel has been spliced into your DNA?
But maybe Bibi's rippers were really just the softening-up process. Maybe, just maybe, it was more up close and personal than that. Maybe it really was down to those irresistable Israeli pheromones I've already alluded to. After all, as ABC Radio National's Sabra Lane reported at the time, "this afternoon [Rudd]... also... had a chat with Benjamin Netanyahu... And it's quite funny during the stage the cameras were allowed in to capture images of the two leaders talking, Benjamin Netanyahu sort of had a little bit of fun with the Prime Minister saying that either Australia had to move or the UN had to move. He was sort of making fun how far and distant Australia is from New York." (Rudd takes place on world stage, The World Today, abc.net.au, 24/9/09)
Hm... That "either Australia had to move or the UN had to move" line that Sabra Lane thought was just Bibi making fun, I reckon she got it all wrong! You know what? I reckon Bibi was telling Kevi that either he or the UN had to move... on Iran.
Dinkum!
Oh, so he's Israel's international spokesman and Australian too? Isn't that nice? If you're Mark Regev, you can have your cake and eat it too. Even though you were born and raised here as Mark Freiberg, you can take advantage of that amaaazing little Israeli Law of Return, which grants Israeli citizenship to anyone, anywhere, providing he's got a Jewish mother, while retaining your prior citizenship. But, if you're a Palestinian, and you're unfortunate enough to have a Muslim or a Christian mother, even with the weight of international law on your side (in the form of the right of all refugees to return to their homes), you're going nowhere. No, Israel (occupied Palestine) is reserved exclusively for those with the right bio-theological connections - people like Mark Freiberg/Regev.
"Back home in Melbourne..." (ibid) That's right, two homes! Pretty neat, eh? And it looks like it's a working holiday because he's had his back scratched by Philip Adams* and he's talking non-stop to anyone who'll listen about - you guessed it - Iran.
[*"He started his brilliant career as a student at Mt Scopus, Melbourne, and when I lived in Melbourne I used to do fundraising for Mt Scopus and clearly Mark has been a beneficiary. Mark, how does a bright young fella from Mt Scopus finish up in this lofty position?" LNL, 14/10/09]
"We think multilateral action is required on Iran. Its leadership should be given a crystal clear instruction: you can't have business as usual and a nuclear program at the same time." (ibid)
Really? Surely if the country for which you officially spruik can have both business as usual and a few hundred nukes, why can't Iran have a nuclear program? As our Kev might say, in any other context, fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate!
Now did the bright young fella from Mt Scopus say multilateral action? Meaning? Well, let him finish: "'But if it proves impossible to get a UN Security Council resolution with enough teeth to make a difference' he raised the prospect of enlisting 'enough countries which do agree, who are important players in the world, to do so'." (ibid)
Whoa! Run that past me again. If the Security Council doesn't do it for Israel, then Israel's going to whistle up its mates and get them to give Iran a right thumping. Right. And just who might these mates of Israel be? Brace yourself: "During a recent visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Mr Netanyahu held meetings with just 4 other government heads besides the US and Palestinian leaders; those of France, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Kevin Rudd, he said, made a favourable impression, with his firm grasp of the Middle East." (ibid)
OK, could the lingering effects of Bibi's heady pheromones be the cause of Kevi's current flexing of his rhetorical pecs on the subject of asylum seekers? You know - all that jazz about being tough and hard-nosed? And that firm grasp of the Middle East? Eww! Is it, like... by the throat? Anyhow, you can be sure something was passing between those two in New York in September. After all, Kevi and New York go back a long way. Strange urges overtake him there. The last (?) time he was there, in 2003, wasn't he kicked out of a nightclub called Scores - Scores for Kevin's sake! - for laying hands on the dancers?
OK, steady on, MERC, keep it under control, let's stick to Rumsfeld's known unknowns, shall we? Now we all know that Rudd is a genetically-engineered organism, OK? (Well he did once say that support for Israel was in his DNA, didn't he?) So how could he not have attended Bibi's award-winning performance at the UN, right? Maybe that's it then, it was probably one of the ripping yarns (penned by the bright young fella from Mt Scopus?) with which Bibi regaled his American, French, Canadian, and Australian audience, that did it for Kevi.
Could it have been this one perhaps?: "The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. Last month I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie? A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by Nazis. Is that also a lie? Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually end up engulfing many others."
Or this one?: "This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past 30 years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays* or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against the fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilisation against civilisation. It pits civilisation against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."
[*"Gays and lesbians are sick people. It's definitely a disease. They haven't invented a cure for it yet, but I hope they will." Eli Yishai, Deputy Israeli PM, quoted in Eli Yishai is just Jean-Marie Le Pen with a beard, Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 26/10/09]
Perhaps this one?: "The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom? Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world? The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?"
Or the whole damn kit and kaboodle? Hey, what's not to like if support for Israel has been spliced into your DNA?
But maybe Bibi's rippers were really just the softening-up process. Maybe, just maybe, it was more up close and personal than that. Maybe it really was down to those irresistable Israeli pheromones I've already alluded to. After all, as ABC Radio National's Sabra Lane reported at the time, "this afternoon [Rudd]... also... had a chat with Benjamin Netanyahu... And it's quite funny during the stage the cameras were allowed in to capture images of the two leaders talking, Benjamin Netanyahu sort of had a little bit of fun with the Prime Minister saying that either Australia had to move or the UN had to move. He was sort of making fun how far and distant Australia is from New York." (Rudd takes place on world stage, The World Today, abc.net.au, 24/9/09)
Hm... That "either Australia had to move or the UN had to move" line that Sabra Lane thought was just Bibi making fun, I reckon she got it all wrong! You know what? I reckon Bibi was telling Kevi that either he or the UN had to move... on Iran.
Dinkum!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Awesome Israelis & Godawful Gazanazis
Herald Sun columnist Alan Howe was a member of DPM Gillard's entourage to Israel in June. So unbelievably awesome did he find the World's Most Vibrant Nation that he decided to stay on to chart its Epic Struggle against the Forces of Darkness bent, as usual, on its Utter Annihilation.
Alan's latest column, Stone-age ambition (20/7/09), is a Searing Expose of the Pain & Suffering of the Heroic Inhabitants of "the world's most bombed city," Sderotingrad [Move over Stalingrad, Hamburg and Dresden!], as they stoically endure Wave after Wave of Gazanazi rocket attacks: "On most corners there are simple concrete bomb shelters, smaller versions of the ones in their schools where the shelters also serve as playgrounds, a prime Arab target, of course. No one in Sderot [and Alan's interviewed all 20,000 of them!] drives around listening to CDs or the radio. They are permanently tuned to the possibility they'll hear a calm, disembodied woman's voice announcing 'Tseva Adom' - Code Red. Because they have got just seconds to get from their vehicle to a shelter, seat belts are never worn. No one has a shower unless there is someone else in the house, no point in smelling like roses with a homemade missile about to reshape your roof... Almost a third of the people of Sderot are being treated for psychiatric illness." The horror! The horror!
As for the Evil Roof-Renovating Gazanazis, Sderotingrad's elevation to the status of "world's most bombed city" is the least of their vile accomplishments! Did you know that these Spawn of Amalek have also been "the first to bomb themselves back to the Stone Age"? Pretty fiendish, eh? Alan reveals that, in the "festering malevolence" that is their Gazan Lair, they had actually been "praying for" Operation Cast Lead, knowing that if only they could "goad the Israeli army into an indiscriminate response," they'd reap a bountiful PR crop of..."dead schoolkids." The dirty bastards!
But hang on, surely the Awesome Israelis didn't fall for that, did they? Fraid so. The Cunning Gazanazis, of course, got just what they wanted, a bumper crop: "[T]he most insightful moment of [the conflict] was captured on film: a Hamas hero, trying to evade Israeli fire, picks up a small child by the scruff of the neck as 'cover' as he runs from one side of the street to the other." The dirty bastard!
But hang on, didn't Alan just say something about an "indiscriminate" Israeli response? Yes? So here we have the Godawful Gazanazis goading the Awesome Israelis into an indiscriminate response - but using their own Gazanazikids as human shields to guard against same. This didn't quite add up, I twigged. Surely a mere human shield's not going to stop an indiscriminate response. So I googled for that film clip Alan had found so insightful. No trace. Alan, please? I typed in "scruff of the neck" but all I could find was a reference to an Israeli colonel testifying before an Israeli court that "a slap, sometimes a punch to the scruff of the neck or the chest, sometimes a knee jab or strangulation to calm somebody down is reasonable." (The truth walks into a court in Jaffa, Michael Sfard, forward.com, 10/6/09). And I typed in "human shield" only to find out that Amnesty International had not only cleared Hamas of this despicable practice, but fingered the IDF instead. (Amnesty: Israeli troops used children as human shields in Gaza, antiwar.com, 1/7/09) Blimey, was I confused!
But then, I thought, who am I but a mere blogger, one given, in the words of Alan's boss, John Hartigan*, to "the trivialisation and corruption of serious debate." Who am I to cavil with a Quality Journalist like Alan? I should have been a pair of ragged claws... etc, etc. [*See my 2/7/09 post Corrupting serious Debate]
Truly, Alan's Israeli handlers should be proud of the man. He's a credit to them. Still, if I may venture a criticism - not of him, but them: Why, if they wanted Australians to gain the maximum insight into the Trials & Tribulations of Sderotingrad, didn't they put him in touch with Yad Ezra V'Shulamit. That's right, Yad Ezra etc etc. You see, Sderotingrad is not only bigger than Stalingrad, but bigger than Stalingrad and the Ukrainian famine combined: "What are people feeling in southern Israel today? Fear. Tension. And hunger. The Jewish residents of Sderot, Netivot, Be'er Sheva and Ofakim are literally starving, afraid to risk their own lives to go in search of food and, just as likely, not finding it. 'Shops are closed, businesses are closed, and more than 200,000 people don't know where their next meal is coming from', says Ariel Lurie, founder and executive director of Yad Ezra V'Shulamit, which is trying to ease the humanitarian crisis in Israel's southern cities under fire... Yesterday, as a Yad Ezra V'Shulamit volunteer handed out bread, groceries and chickens in a Sderot bomb shelter, a man told her the conversation he had overheard between his wife and son. There were only 2 pieces of bread left, and a little soup. 'You eat the bread', his wife had said. 'No, you eat it', the boy replied. 'No, I want you to eat it', the wife insisted. The argument went on for some time, as neither wanted to risk his life to go get more food. In the end, they decided to eat the soup and to save the bread for the next day." (Yad Ezra V'Shulamit feeds hungry residents of southern Israel, Haaretz, 13/1/09)
See what I mean? Mark Regev seems to be losing his touch.
Alan's latest column, Stone-age ambition (20/7/09), is a Searing Expose of the Pain & Suffering of the Heroic Inhabitants of "the world's most bombed city," Sderotingrad [Move over Stalingrad, Hamburg and Dresden!], as they stoically endure Wave after Wave of Gazanazi rocket attacks: "On most corners there are simple concrete bomb shelters, smaller versions of the ones in their schools where the shelters also serve as playgrounds, a prime Arab target, of course. No one in Sderot [and Alan's interviewed all 20,000 of them!] drives around listening to CDs or the radio. They are permanently tuned to the possibility they'll hear a calm, disembodied woman's voice announcing 'Tseva Adom' - Code Red. Because they have got just seconds to get from their vehicle to a shelter, seat belts are never worn. No one has a shower unless there is someone else in the house, no point in smelling like roses with a homemade missile about to reshape your roof... Almost a third of the people of Sderot are being treated for psychiatric illness." The horror! The horror!
As for the Evil Roof-Renovating Gazanazis, Sderotingrad's elevation to the status of "world's most bombed city" is the least of their vile accomplishments! Did you know that these Spawn of Amalek have also been "the first to bomb themselves back to the Stone Age"? Pretty fiendish, eh? Alan reveals that, in the "festering malevolence" that is their Gazan Lair, they had actually been "praying for" Operation Cast Lead, knowing that if only they could "goad the Israeli army into an indiscriminate response," they'd reap a bountiful PR crop of..."dead schoolkids." The dirty bastards!
But hang on, surely the Awesome Israelis didn't fall for that, did they? Fraid so. The Cunning Gazanazis, of course, got just what they wanted, a bumper crop: "[T]he most insightful moment of [the conflict] was captured on film: a Hamas hero, trying to evade Israeli fire, picks up a small child by the scruff of the neck as 'cover' as he runs from one side of the street to the other." The dirty bastard!
But hang on, didn't Alan just say something about an "indiscriminate" Israeli response? Yes? So here we have the Godawful Gazanazis goading the Awesome Israelis into an indiscriminate response - but using their own Gazanazikids as human shields to guard against same. This didn't quite add up, I twigged. Surely a mere human shield's not going to stop an indiscriminate response. So I googled for that film clip Alan had found so insightful. No trace. Alan, please? I typed in "scruff of the neck" but all I could find was a reference to an Israeli colonel testifying before an Israeli court that "a slap, sometimes a punch to the scruff of the neck or the chest, sometimes a knee jab or strangulation to calm somebody down is reasonable." (The truth walks into a court in Jaffa, Michael Sfard, forward.com, 10/6/09). And I typed in "human shield" only to find out that Amnesty International had not only cleared Hamas of this despicable practice, but fingered the IDF instead. (Amnesty: Israeli troops used children as human shields in Gaza, antiwar.com, 1/7/09) Blimey, was I confused!
But then, I thought, who am I but a mere blogger, one given, in the words of Alan's boss, John Hartigan*, to "the trivialisation and corruption of serious debate." Who am I to cavil with a Quality Journalist like Alan? I should have been a pair of ragged claws... etc, etc. [*See my 2/7/09 post Corrupting serious Debate]
Truly, Alan's Israeli handlers should be proud of the man. He's a credit to them. Still, if I may venture a criticism - not of him, but them: Why, if they wanted Australians to gain the maximum insight into the Trials & Tribulations of Sderotingrad, didn't they put him in touch with Yad Ezra V'Shulamit. That's right, Yad Ezra etc etc. You see, Sderotingrad is not only bigger than Stalingrad, but bigger than Stalingrad and the Ukrainian famine combined: "What are people feeling in southern Israel today? Fear. Tension. And hunger. The Jewish residents of Sderot, Netivot, Be'er Sheva and Ofakim are literally starving, afraid to risk their own lives to go in search of food and, just as likely, not finding it. 'Shops are closed, businesses are closed, and more than 200,000 people don't know where their next meal is coming from', says Ariel Lurie, founder and executive director of Yad Ezra V'Shulamit, which is trying to ease the humanitarian crisis in Israel's southern cities under fire... Yesterday, as a Yad Ezra V'Shulamit volunteer handed out bread, groceries and chickens in a Sderot bomb shelter, a man told her the conversation he had overheard between his wife and son. There were only 2 pieces of bread left, and a little soup. 'You eat the bread', his wife had said. 'No, you eat it', the boy replied. 'No, I want you to eat it', the wife insisted. The argument went on for some time, as neither wanted to risk his life to go get more food. In the end, they decided to eat the soup and to save the bread for the next day." (Yad Ezra V'Shulamit feeds hungry residents of southern Israel, Haaretz, 13/1/09)
See what I mean? Mark Regev seems to be losing his touch.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Controlling the Terminology
"If you can control the terminology of the debate, you can win the debate." Mark Regev, Israeli prime minister's spokesman for international media, in PM spokesman: Naming Gaza op 'Cast Lead' was a PR mistake, Cnaan Lipshiz, Haaretz, 24/4/09.
To understand the virulent Zionist campaign directed against the just-concluded Anti-Racism Review Conference (Durban II), it is first necessary to acquaint oneself with the language used in the 'debate' over Palestine/Israel at The World Conference Against Racism (Durban I) of 2001.
The initial text contained 6 paragraphs dealing with "Zionist racist practices," including an appeal for Israel "to revise its legislation based on racial or religious discrimination such as the law of return and all the policies of an occupying power which prevents the Palestinian refugees and displaced persons from returning to their homes and properties," and a suggestion for the need "to bring the foreign occupation of Jerusalem by Israel, together with all its racist practices to an end." Draft documents had referred to the "increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism" and "movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority." To sum up, Israel was correctly fingered as a state which practices racism.
However, after an American and Israeli walkout - and the possiblity of same by Canada and EU countries - the final text was rewritten by conference officials to remove the 'offending' language. (A parallel, but separate, NGO Forum, to its credit, did in fact produce a document describing Israel as a "racist, apartheid state.")
This final text (the Durban Declaration & Program of Action (DDPA), with its bland references to the "plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation" and their right to "an independent state," became the focal point for the campaign to boycott Durban II because, despite all references to the Palestine/Israel conflict eventually being dropped from the Durban II draft text, it still reaffirmed the earlier DDPA of Durban I. And so, for no other reason than that of eliminating the DDPA's tokenism, an attempt was made to scuttle the Durban II conference, with Israel (and its overseas lobby groups) orchestrating a boycott by fellow colonial-settler states, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, aided and abetted by former colonial states such as Italy, the Netherlands and Germany. The phony nature of this campaign to control the terminology of the 'debate' was highlighted by Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, in her final address to the conference:
"I had to face a widespread and highly organized campaign of disinformation. Many people, including Ministers with whom I spoke, told me that the Durban Declaration & Programme of Action (DDPA), which... was agreed by 189 states at the original World Conference Against Racism in 2001, was anti-Semitic, and it was clear that they had either not bothered to read what it actually said, or they were putting a cast on it that was, to say the least, decidedly exaggerated. Many others have labelled the entire Durban process a 'hate fest'... [T]his is hyperbole... a gross exaggeration. But it is everywhere on the Internet. And, I'm sorry to say, in many mainline newspapers, who, incidentally, declined many op-eds that I sent to them... If people actually read the DDPA, they would have realised that it includes a paragraph which says that 'the Holocaust should never be forgotten'. It includes two paragraphs that denounce 'anti-Semitism and Islamophobia', one paragraph which mentions the suffering of the Palestinians, their right of self-determination and the security of all states, including Israel, and two paragraphs calling for peace. That's all there is on the Middle East. And I could not get these corrections published in some important newspapers, particularly in the US, who used the word 'hate fest' without checking these paragraphs... Because of this campaign that was so determined to kill the conference, some countries decided to boycott it, although a few days earlier they had actually agreed on what is now the final text. I consider this bizarre. You agree on the text on Friday evening, and walk out on Sunday..."
The repeal, in 1991, of General Assembly Resolution 3379 (1975) equating Zionism with racism ("Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination"), following a successful number-crunching campaign by the Bush I and Israeli governments, was an important, initial step in Israel's efforts to gain control over the terminology of the 'debate'. Thirty-four years later, it seems that for the UN to so much as hint that Palestinians are living under "foreign occupation" is enough to trigger the kind of "bizarre" spectacle referred to by Navi Pillay.
To understand the virulent Zionist campaign directed against the just-concluded Anti-Racism Review Conference (Durban II), it is first necessary to acquaint oneself with the language used in the 'debate' over Palestine/Israel at The World Conference Against Racism (Durban I) of 2001.
The initial text contained 6 paragraphs dealing with "Zionist racist practices," including an appeal for Israel "to revise its legislation based on racial or religious discrimination such as the law of return and all the policies of an occupying power which prevents the Palestinian refugees and displaced persons from returning to their homes and properties," and a suggestion for the need "to bring the foreign occupation of Jerusalem by Israel, together with all its racist practices to an end." Draft documents had referred to the "increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism" and "movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority." To sum up, Israel was correctly fingered as a state which practices racism.
However, after an American and Israeli walkout - and the possiblity of same by Canada and EU countries - the final text was rewritten by conference officials to remove the 'offending' language. (A parallel, but separate, NGO Forum, to its credit, did in fact produce a document describing Israel as a "racist, apartheid state.")
This final text (the Durban Declaration & Program of Action (DDPA), with its bland references to the "plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation" and their right to "an independent state," became the focal point for the campaign to boycott Durban II because, despite all references to the Palestine/Israel conflict eventually being dropped from the Durban II draft text, it still reaffirmed the earlier DDPA of Durban I. And so, for no other reason than that of eliminating the DDPA's tokenism, an attempt was made to scuttle the Durban II conference, with Israel (and its overseas lobby groups) orchestrating a boycott by fellow colonial-settler states, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, aided and abetted by former colonial states such as Italy, the Netherlands and Germany. The phony nature of this campaign to control the terminology of the 'debate' was highlighted by Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, in her final address to the conference:
"I had to face a widespread and highly organized campaign of disinformation. Many people, including Ministers with whom I spoke, told me that the Durban Declaration & Programme of Action (DDPA), which... was agreed by 189 states at the original World Conference Against Racism in 2001, was anti-Semitic, and it was clear that they had either not bothered to read what it actually said, or they were putting a cast on it that was, to say the least, decidedly exaggerated. Many others have labelled the entire Durban process a 'hate fest'... [T]his is hyperbole... a gross exaggeration. But it is everywhere on the Internet. And, I'm sorry to say, in many mainline newspapers, who, incidentally, declined many op-eds that I sent to them... If people actually read the DDPA, they would have realised that it includes a paragraph which says that 'the Holocaust should never be forgotten'. It includes two paragraphs that denounce 'anti-Semitism and Islamophobia', one paragraph which mentions the suffering of the Palestinians, their right of self-determination and the security of all states, including Israel, and two paragraphs calling for peace. That's all there is on the Middle East. And I could not get these corrections published in some important newspapers, particularly in the US, who used the word 'hate fest' without checking these paragraphs... Because of this campaign that was so determined to kill the conference, some countries decided to boycott it, although a few days earlier they had actually agreed on what is now the final text. I consider this bizarre. You agree on the text on Friday evening, and walk out on Sunday..."
The repeal, in 1991, of General Assembly Resolution 3379 (1975) equating Zionism with racism ("Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination"), following a successful number-crunching campaign by the Bush I and Israeli governments, was an important, initial step in Israel's efforts to gain control over the terminology of the 'debate'. Thirty-four years later, it seems that for the UN to so much as hint that Palestinians are living under "foreign occupation" is enough to trigger the kind of "bizarre" spectacle referred to by Navi Pillay.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Shoot & Lie
"Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah." (Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon quoted in You're all targets, Israel tells Lebanese in South, Harry de Quetteville, telegraph.co.uk, 28/7/06)
"The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qana that 'according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy. All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians', the statement said." (Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents, ynetnews.com, 30/7/06)
Qana 1996
"On April 18 1996 at 2.08 pm, Israeli tank fire had attacked the [UN base in the village of Qana in South Lebanon] and killed 109 Lebanese refugees who had taken shelter in the UN compound from Israel's bombardment of South Lebanon... The attack against the base came exactly one week after Israel launched 'Operation Grapes of Wrath' against South Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley under the pretext of neutralising Hezbollah guerillas in the area. Israeli military officials announced that the attack on Qana was triggered after several Hezbollah guerillas fired 5 Katyusha rockets at an Israeli commando group which had advanced beyond Israel's self-declared 'security zone'. The purpose of the artillery barrage, they argued, was to provide protective fire to their commandos, not to hit the UN base. Very few Lebanese believed Israel's version, while the UN soldiers were even more sceptical. A UN investigation, published the following month, concluded that it was 'unlikely' that the Israelis had hit the base in error. Amnesty International issued its own report in July and declared that the attack had been intentional." (Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, Hala Jaber, 1997, pp 169-171)
Qana 2006
The Spin...
Brianna Keilar: We're joined now by Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev. He is live with us from Jerusalem. I have to ask you, Mark, what happened in Qana?
Mark Regev: Well, it's obviously a tragedy and I think I speak for all of my countrymen when I express regret and sorrow to see such carnage, such death. We didn't want to see this. I don't think anyone wanted to see this. This is a real tragedy... I think everyone understands that. I think though also, I mean, if people are pointing the finger and they should point the finger clearly at Hezbollah. [It's] a cowardly organization... hiding behind women and children, fighting until the very last Lebanese civilian - I mean there's a problem with Hezbollah tactics, they work out of mosques, out of residential areas... (Israeli airstrike kills 50 in Qana, cnn.com, 30/7/06)
The Reality...
"In its lead story August 1, the Hebrew edition of Haaretz online reported that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) claim that Hezbollah missile launchers and Hezbollah fighters were in and around the building in Qana which they shelled early Sunday morning [30/7/06] was false. Oddly, this article, which points to Israeli culpability and recklessness in what some are calling the IDF's second massacre in Qana... has been largely ignored in the international press... Initially, Israeli military sources had reported that the deaths in Qana were caused not by the Israeli air attack early Sunday morning, but by an accidental explosion, many hours later, of Hezbollah ordnance that was stored inside the building. According to the Haaretz article, this is not true. Israeli Air Force sources have admitted, according to Haaretz, that the deaths in Qana were caused by the Israeli shelling. Between 30 and 60 deaths were reported..." (Israeli newspaper reports that the army lied about Qana, Ira Glunts, antiwar.com, 3/8/06
"This war, perhaps more than its predecessors, is exposing the true deep veins of Israeli society. Racism and hatred are rearing their heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. 'The inclination of the commander' in the IDF is now 'to kill as many as possible', as the military correspondents on television describe it. And even if the reference is to Hamas fighters, this inclination is still chilling." (The time of the righteous, Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 9/1/09)
Jabalya 2009
The Spin...
Scott Bevan: Mark Regev [spokesman for the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert], in relation to Gaza yesterday, you said of the Israeli attack on that UN agency school in a refugee camp in Gaza... it's another example of how Hamas deliberately brutalises the civilian population. How would you describe the Israeli forces' actions towards the civilian population in that instance?
Mark Regev: In that particular incident, it's clear what happened. We had an Israeli military unit in a combat situation, and they were fired on by multiple mortar shells. They did what any military unit would do, whether Australian, Canadian or Israeli in a combat situation - they were fired upon, they returned fire to the people who were shooting at them.
Scott Bevan: But the UN...
Mark Regev: The ultimate crime here was done by Hezbollah [sic].
Scott Bevan: But the UN Relief & Works Agency...
Mark Regev: Hezbollah [sic] had taken...
Scott Bevan: The UNRWA has said after a preliminary investigation it's 99.9% sure [that Hamas were not firing from the school], or are your forces 100% sure that they were?
Mark Regev: I can say the following, and I know this to be true. We know that there was hostile fire from either inside the UN facility, or immediately adjacent to [it], on our forces. That we know for a fact. Now, in either situation, Hamas is directly responsible for using a UN facility for a human shield, and using those innocent civilians, those innocent refugees, there for human shields. In both cases Hamas is guilty of breaking the norms of conventional behaviour and they should be roundly criticized for it. (Israel faces conflict on 2 fronts, The 7.30 Report, 8/1/09)
"For its part, the Israeli Defence Force steadfastly maintains that mortars had been fired from the school. In a statement released by a spokesman, Captain Benjamin Rutland, it said it has incontravertible evidence to support its version of events. 'An initial inquiry by forces operating in the area of the incident indicates that a number of mortar shells were fired at IDF forces from within the Jabalya school. In response to the incoming enemy fire, the forces returned mortar fire to the source', he said. 'This is not the first time that Hamas has fired mortars and rockets from schools, in such a way deliberately using civilians as human shields in their acts of terror against Israel'." (School slaughter intesifies demands for ceasefire, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 8/1/09)
"Although Israel said its return fire landed outside the school, witnesses described a series of blasts, which Israeli officials said suggested militants had rigged the building with explosives." (UN rejects claim on school, John Lyons, The Australian, 8/1/09)
The Reality...
"The United Nations is claiming Israeli military officers have admitted there was no Palestinian gunfire emanating from inside an UNRWA school in Gaza which was shelled by an IDF tank. Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the shelling... UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that the army had conceded wrongdoing. 'In briefings senior [IDF] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school', Gunness said. 'The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional'. He noted that all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself. 'There are no up-to-date photos', Gunness said. 'In 2007, we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over'." (UN: IDF officers admitted there was no gunfire from Gaza school which was shelled, Barak Ravid, Haaretz, 9/1/09)
The 'Aussie Mafia' of Spin Doctors in Israel...
"Captain [Benjamin] Rutland, 34, born in Paddington and raised in Bondi and who studied arts-law at the University of NSW, is one of the public faces of Israel's war in Gaza... How does he feel when he hears... about the 40 deaths at a UN school in Gaza hit by Israeli tanks? 'When that first came in we didn't have much information', he said. 'There was a sense of horror. But as the information filtered in that Hamas fighters had been in there, that changed. If rockets were being fired at Sydney, Canberra or Melbourne, the Australian Government would respond'... Captain Rutland is part of what he calls 'an Australian mafia' who are prominent in selling the war, along with friend Guy Spigelman, an Israeli reservist also in the public affairs unit of the army. Then there's Mark Regev, Israel's face to the world, who moved to Israel from Melbourne. " (Aussie mafia of spin doctors in Israel, John Lyons, The Australian, 10/1/09)
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