To Moir or Not to Moir?

While on the subject of political cartoonists, I thought I'd draw your attention to an act of self-plagiarism.

You might remember my 31/7/14 post, Moir: The Herald's Gift to Israel, on the Herald cartoonist's lamentable comment on Operation Protective Edge.

This is what I wrote at the time:

"Moir's cartoon in today's Sydney Morning Herald is an utter disgrace. It incorporates the standard Zionist propaganda line about Palestinian 'militants' using civilians as human shields, with a Hamas fighter aiming an RPG from behind a baby carriage at an incoming missile fired from an Israeli helicopter. Both the Hamas fighter and the helicopter are screaming 'COWARD!' at each other. The piece is irrelevantly titled 'WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS'."

Serendipitously, a cartoon of Moir's from the time of Israel's earlier (08/09) Operation Cast Lead has come into my possession. It shows the exact same Hamas fighter + RPG + baby, only this time in the bottom right hand corner of the cartoon. On the left, instead of an Israeli helicopter, we have an Israeli tank with its gun barrel pointed directly at the Hamas fighter. Both are screaming 'COWARD!' at each other. The piece is titled 'THE PR WAR'. It's dated 15/1/09.

There is, of course, something far more important at stake here than a mere act of intellectual laziness, namely the issue of free speech ( including its corollary, freedom from being smeared for merely exercising freedom of speech).

To return to the case of Moir's cartoonist colleague, Glen Le Lievre. It should be obvious by now that if, like Moir or The Australian's Bill Leak, you're the kind of journalist (I include political cartoonists in this category) who mindlessly recycles Zionist canards, then you're safe from the smear of anti-Semitism. If, on the other hand, like Le Lievre (and Age cartoonist Michael Leunig), you not only understand and feel for the plight of the Palestinian people, but are courageous enough to express it publicly, then expect to be smeared as an anti-Semite.

The smear, of course, has nothing whatever to do with protecting Jews as Jews. It has only one aim: protecting Israel from justified criticism.

The smear works by forcing editors and journalists to always weigh the consequences of speaking out on this important issue. It thus inhibits the telling of inconvenient (to some) but necessary truths.

As Leunig, who has had to weather the smear on behalf of the Palestinians, said in a statement to ABC Television's Media Watch on August 7:

"Every time an editor is forced to back down and make an apology it means the next time a difficult cartoon is put to him he won't take the risk... I think we need to be careful of getting rid of the truth-speakers because that's their job. It's the cartoonists who have traditionally stood up for persecuted minoritis whether they be Jews in the 1930s or Palestinians today."

To adapt Shakespeare's Hamlet, if a political cartoonist has to ask himself every time he feels moved to comment on the genocide in Palestine, To Moir or not to Moir? That is the question.., you know there's definitely something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Moir: The Herald's Gift to Israel

Moir's cartoon in today's Sydney Morning Herald is an utter disgrace.

It incorporates the standard Zionist propaganda line about Palestinian 'militants' using civilians as human shields, with a Hamas fighter aiming an RPG from behind a baby carriage at an incoming missile fired from an Israeli helicopter. Both the Hamas fighter and the helicopter are screaming 'COWARD!' at each other. The piece is irrelevantly titled 'WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS'.

Moir's cartoon of July 16, where he had Israeli shells and Palestinian rockets criss-crossing the sky with each saying 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE', was almost as bad, misrepresenting Israel's latest genocidal rampage as some kind of biblical feud between equals.

Moir's faux balancing act betrays him for what he really is: just another ignorant, both-as-bad-as-each-other, hack at best, a clueless cog in Israel's propaganda mill at worst.

In case you think I'm being too harsh here, merely contemplate the bloody murder so graphically depicted in the half-page photograph of the Gaza holocaust on the front cover of today's Herald, and tell me if you see any balance there.

Those interested might like to read about Moir's pathetic grovel to the Israel lobby, which followed a comparison he drew back in 2003 between the Warsaw Ghetto and Israel's West Bank wall, cited in my 24/1/08 post We Remember Warsaw. It's been all down hill since then.

Thank God for Fairfax cartoonists Glen LeLievre and Michael Leunig.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Several of Australia's political cartoonists have weighed in on the subject of Israel's latest massacres in Gaza:

Typically, the only one who managed to get to the heart of the matter, as he does with every subject he deals with, was the incomparable Michael Leunig.

A typically questioning, introspective Leunigian character is shown, in 4 scenes, reflecting on the news from Gaza which he's just read about in the paper. His observations, one per scene, follow the pattern established in pastor Martin Niemoller's famous description of the Nazi consolidation of power in 30s Germany - First they came for the communists... then they came for the Jews... (The third is especially redolent of this brave cartoonist's brushes with Australia's Israel lobby reflected on in his essay The Cartoonist's Lot in his collection, The Lot: In Words, 2008):

First they came for the Palestinians and I did not speak out because I was not a Palestinian.

Then they came for more Palestinians and I did not speak out because I feared hostilities and trouble.

Then they came for even more Palestinians and I did not speak out because if I did, doors would close to me, hateful mail would arrive, bitterness and spiteful condemnations would follow.

Then they came for more and more Palestinians and I did not speak out because, by then I had fallen into silence to reflect upon the appalling, disgraceful and impossible aspects of human nature. (The Age, 21/11/12)

Please tell me it had nothing to do with the dreaded doctrine of 'balance', but Leunig's sublimity was followed the very next day in The Age by the clueless Dyson:

Standing on a large target, a masked 'militant' is lighting the fuse to a rocket labelled HAMAS. At the top of the frame: MARTYRDOM FOR DUMMIES.

Alas, it was all down hill from there. In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, Moir, still clueless after all these years (at least on the Middle East conflict), had drawn an anonymous Australian citizen, newly emerged from a news agency with a folded paper tucked under his arm and carrying a brief case with the label MID EAST on its side. Walking towards him, holding a placard containing the words IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD DEC 21, is the eternal, bearded, barefoot protester. The weary citizen quips, PROMISE?

Why? Well, because, plastered on the wall around the newsagency's doorway are posters advertising the latest news: IRAN THREAT, ISRAEL RETALIATES, HAMAS RETALIATES, GAZA: EYE FOR AN EYE FOR AN EYE FOR AN EYE..., ISRAEL RETALIATES AGAIN...

Notice how it's never ISRAEL ATTACKS? Moir inadvertently offended the community's arbiters of what can and cannot be said on this subject back in 2003 and is probably still having nightmares about it today (See my 24/1/08 post We Remember Warsaw) Anyhow, I digress. Back to those posters on the wall of the newsagency:

Here's my favorite, on Syria: SYRIA: ABBAS STRIKES - REBELS RETALIATE

ABBAS!!! That's right, Abbas, USrael's Palestinian lapdog!

But on he blunders: SO DOES HAMAS AND ISRAEL, HAMAS REPLIES - ISRAEL TOO.

And then, freaking Abbas again: ABBAS RETALIATES - REBELS RETALIATE .

What a goose Moir is. Surely, anyone whose knowledge of the issue is so limited that he not only confuses the Quisling president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, with Syria's Bashar Asad, but worse, thinks that the old biblical law of an eye for an eye is a sufficient explanation for the various struggles underway in the area, is simply unfit to comment on them.

And if proof were needed that such cartoons as Moir's, which promote the lazy view that they're really all as bad as each other over there, only work to keep people in the dark regarding the actual Israeli coloniser/Palestinian colonised dynamic that underpins the Middle East conflict, it surely came in the form of this morning's Online Readers' Panel pie graph on the question: What best describes your attitude to the current Middle East conflict? The results were as follows: They are as bad as each other - 39.8%; Sympathy towards the Palestinians - 32.2%; Sympathy towards Israel - 16.9%; Don't know - 11.1%.

There you go: Moir - cartoonist for the 'I couldn't be bothered researching this issue properly so to hell with both parties' brigade.

Official: Planet America Revolves Around Israel

Scientifically speaking, we live in a post-Copernican era. That is, we acknowledge that Planet Earth revolves around the Sun.

However, where US foreign policy is concerned, we live in a pre-Copernican era. That is we still think that Planet Israel revolves around America.

Not so! It's actually the other way around: Planet America revolves around Israel.

Still not persuaded?

Here are the relevant clinchers (and a few other gems I took a shine to) from the third foreign policy debate between Barack (Israel is a true friend) Obama and Mitt (We have Israel's back) Romney:

MR: "[T]he greatest threat of all is Iran..."

Channelling Bibi.

MR: "My strategy is pretty straightforward, which is to go after the bad guys..."

Not to mention the Lone Ranger.

MR: "Russia... is a geopolitical foe... [it] does continue to battle us in the UN time and time again."

How dare the Russians disagree with us!

BO: "[We've got to] make sure that [Middle East] countries are supporting our counterterrorism efforts... make sure that they are standing by our interests in Israel's security, because it is a true friend and our greatest ally in the region."

The Arabs must stand by our interests in Israel's security? Sort of love me, love my dog.

BO: "And so everything we're doing, we're doing in consultation with our partners in the region, including Israel which obviously has a huge interest in seeing what happens in Syria..."

In consultation? Don't bullshit us, Barry, you're just following orders.

MR: "Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea. It's the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally, Israel. And so seeing Syria remove Assad is a very high priority for us."

I can't find Iran on a map of the Middle East but, hey, anything for Israel, OK?

MR: "We need to make sure as well that we coordinate this effort with our allies, and particularly with - with Israel."

We coordinate? Don't bullshit us, Mitt, you're just following orders.

BO: "And we are making sure that those we help are those who will be friends of ours in the long term and friends of our allies in the region over the long term."

Listen up, Ay-rabs: Israel... what's not to love?

BO: "They have to abide by their treaty with Israel. This is a red line with us, because not only is Israel's security at stake, but our security is at stake if that unravels."

Listen up, Gyppos, tear up your treaty with Israel and we'll screw you good!

MR: "We have to also stand by our allies. I - I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

It's all your fault, Barry!

BO: "[O]ur alliances have never been stronger, in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, with Israel, where we have unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation, including dealing with the Iranian threat."

Israel as continent.

BO: "We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined: China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, you name it."

'Cos we gotta look after Israel, OK?

BO: "First of all, Israel is a true friend. It is our greatest ally in the region. And if Israel is attacked, America will stand with Israel. I've made that clear throughout my presidency."

And if Israel attacks, we'll stand with it too!

BO: "I will stand with Israel if they are attacked. And this is the reason why, working with Israel, we have created the strongest military and intelligence cooperation between our two countries in history. In fact, this week we'll be carrying out the largest military exercise with Israel in history, this very week. But to the issue of Iran, as long as I'm president of the United States Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. I made that clear when I came into office. We then organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80%. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest level since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in a shambles. And the reason we did this was because a nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security, and it is a threat to Israel's national security."

Whose economy is in a shambles?

BO: "[T]hey have said they want to see Israel wiped off the map."

Seriously now...

MR: "Well... I want to underscore the same point the president made, which is that if I'm President of the United States, when I'm President of the United States, we will stand with Israel. And if Israel is attacked, we have their back, not just diplomatically, not just culturally, but militarily. That's number one."

Anatomically impossible. How can you have Israel's back if you're joined at the hip?

MR: "[C]rippling sanctions are something I called for 5 years ago, when I was in Israel... I laid out 7 steps, crippling sanctions were number one... Number two... is I would tighten those sanctions... Secondly, I'd take on diplomatic isolation efforts. I'd make sure that Ahmadinejad is indicted under the Genocide Convention. His words amount to genocide incitation. I would indict him for it. I would also make sure their diplomats are treated like the pariah they are around the world. The same way we treated the apartheid diplomats of South Africa."

There's nothing I wouldn't do for Israel!

BO: "The clock is ticking. We're not going to allow Iran to perpetually engage in negotiations that lead nowhere. And I've been very clear to them. You know, because of the intelligence coordination that we do with a range of countries, including Israel..."

A range of countries... including Israel. LOL

MR: "I think that when the president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and Israel [the Iranians] noticed that..."

What'd I say? Joined at the hip.

MR: "Mr President, the reason I call it an apology tour is because you went to the Middle East and you flew to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey and to Iraq. And by the way, you skipped Israel, our closest friend in the region..."

Just who do you think you are, Barry? President?

BO: "If we're going to talk about trips that we've taken - when I was a candidate for office, first trip I took was to visit our troops. And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn't take donors. I didn't attend fundraisers. I went to Yad Beshef (ph), the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable. And then I went down to the border towns of Storok (ph), which had experienced missiles raining down from Hamas. And I saw families there who showed me there where missiles had come down near their children's bedrooms. And I was reminded of what that would mean if those were my kids. Which is why as president, we funded an Iron Dome program to stop those missiles."

An American president's gotta do what an American president's gotta do!

MR: "Our relationship with Israel, my relationship with the prime minister of Israel, is such that we would not get a call saying our bombers are on the way, or their fighters are on the way. That is the kind of thing that would have been discussed and thoroughly evaluated well before that kind of - "

Famous last words...

PS 26/10/12: Incredibly, but typically, the SMH editorialist (An America where being reasonable is audacious), writing in yesterday's issue on the final debate, simply DID NOT NOTICE that it was ALL  ABOUT ISRAEL. Nor did its cartoonist, Moir, whose lame comment, in effect, was simply that Romney had emerged the worst for wear.

Fairfax Is All Yours, Gina 2

Further to my previous post, it doesn't get much worse than this:

Fairfax journalist, Jonathan Swan, writes an astonishingly puerile opinion piece which lashes Israel with a limp lettuce leaf over its treatment of African refugees (while failing completely to reference its prior creation and treatment of Palestinian refugees) and comprehensively misrepresents the Zionist entity's  founding by portraying it as some kind of humanitarian rescue mission. Added to this folderol are quotes from Israel lobbyist, Vic Alhadeff, and a Canadian bozo who can still, in the first decade of the 21st century, without a blush, write a book with the title Why I am a Zionist. (Opening sentence: "I am a Zionist because I am a Jew and without recognising a national component in Judaism, I cannot explain its unique character as a National Liberation movement for the Jewish people.") Swan's pathetic piece, in short, is Zionist to its bootstraps.

Yet, despite conveying the impression throughout that butter hadn't melted in Israel's mouth until the African refugee issue came along, he came under attack on the letters page in the following issue of the Sydney Morning Herald, not from anyone with a real knowledge of Palestinian history, but  from two diehard defenders of Israel for whom any criticism of their home-away-from-home is anathema. 

Presumably, no letters were received from readers pointing out the bleeding obvious, namely,  that Israel was founded on Palestinian dispossession, statelessness and exile, stemming from the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces in 1948.

So then, why did no one among the paper's readership bother to write in with this kind of critique? 

Simple. This is knowledge from which Herald readers have been shielded by decades of Zionist propaganda pieces; a corresponding dearth of anything in any way critical of the Zionist project and its bloody record in Palestine and surrounds; vacuous, always Israel-friendly, editorials; reliably lame cartoons on the Middle East conflict (G'day, Moir); and red-carpet treatment onto the letters page by legions of Israel lobbyists and apologists (Greetings, George Fishman).

Obama: Feel the Love

Gawd! I've said it before (Cartoon Corner, 21/9/10) and I'll say it again: like the paper he cartoons for, the Sydney Morning Herald's Alan Moir simply hasn't a clue when it comes to Palestine/Israel.

Twice this week (24/27) now he's drawn cartoons based on the false and misleading premise that there has been some kind of major falling out between Obama and Netanyahu over the former's reference to Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank.

In the first, Netanyahu has fainted at Obama's mere mention of the 1967 borders. In the second, Obama and his wife are watching an erupting volcano through the window of an aircraft. Iceland? asks wifey. Netanyahu, replies the prez.

Why am I drawing your attention to this? They're only cartoons, aren't they? Sure, but while readers will happily skip the Herald's equally lame editorials on the same issue, all of them will view the cartoon and quite possibly be misled into thinking that what is in fact an obscenely close relationship between Obama and Netanyahu is actually on the rocks.

Now Netanyahu knows Bushama's a complete pushover:

"In a video aired on Israel's Channel 10 this summer, Netanyahu was seen during the second intifada bragging to West Bank settlers about how he had sabotaged the Oslo Accords. 'I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders', he told them. In that secretly-filmed conversation, Netanyahu also revealed his dismissive attitude towards the United States. 'I know what America is', he said. 'America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way'." (Obama's Israel policy: Speak softly & carry a very big carrot, Maidhc O Cathail, middleeastmonitor.org.uk, 3/12/10)

And hell, if Bushama's not red hot to trot, then I really did come down in the last (cold) shower. I mean, check out the foreplay in his speech to AIPAC on 22 May:

"Good morning! Thank you, Rosy, for your very kind introduction. But even more, thank you for your many years friendship. Back in Chicago, when I was just getting started in national politics, I reached out to a lot of people for advice and counsel, and Rosy was one of the very first. When I made my first visit to Israel, after entering the Senate, Rosy - you were at my side every step of that very meaningful journey through the Holy Land. And I want to thank you for your enduring friendship, your leadership and for your warm welcome today. Thank you to David Victor, Howard Kohr and all the Board of Directors. And let me say that it's wonderful to look out and see so many great friends, including Alan Solow, Howard Green and a very large delegation from Chicago. I want to thank the members of Congress who are joining you today - who do so much to sustain the bonds between the United States and Israel - including Eric Cantor, Steny Hoyer, and the tireless leader I was proud to appoint as the new chair of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. We're joined by Israel's representative to the United States, Ambassador Michael Oren. As well as one of my top advisors on Israel and the Middle East for the past 4 years, and who I know is going to be an outstanding ambassador to Israel - Dan Shapiro. Dan has always been a close and trusted advisor, and I know he'll do a terrific job. And at a time when so many young people around the world are standing up and making their voices heard, I also want to acknowledge all the college students from across the country who are here today. No one has a greater stake in the outcome of events that are unfolding today than your generation, and it's inspiring to see you devote your time and energy to help shape the future."

Can you feel the looove? Can you feel it? Make no mistake, this is river deep and mountain high, folks!

"[T]he bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable, and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad."

Damn it, bro', this is Porgy and Bess! Cain't you feel every throbbing inch of it?

"America's commitment to Israel's security also flows from a deeper place - and that's the values we share. As two people who struggle to win our freedom against overwhelming odds, we understand that preserving the security for which our forefathers fought must be the work of every generation. As two vibrant democracies, we recognize that the liberties and freedom we cherish must be constantly nurtured. And as the nation that recognized the State of Israel moments after its independence, we have a profound commitment to its survival as a strong, secure homeland of the Jewish people."

Why, this is Tammy Wynette standin' by her man, man, and Patsy Cline falling to pieces all rolled into one with maple syrup on top:

"We also know how difficult that search for security can be, especially for a small nation like Israel in a tough neighborhood. I've seen it firsthand. When I touched my hand against the Western Wall and placed my prayer between its ancient stones, I thought of all the centuries that the children of Israel had longed to return to their ancient homeland. When I went to Sderot, I saw the daily struggle to survive in the eyes of an 8-year old boy who lost his leg to a Hamas rocket. And when I walked among the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, I grasped the existential fear of Israelis when a modern dictator seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to wipe Israel off the map."

Do I make myself clear?

The Red Line

A red line runs through the mainstream media, a line which journalists cross at their peril. Which is to say, you don't, whatever you do, criticise Israel and expect to get away with it - ever.

Anyway, that was my thought as I looked at the Moir cartoon in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.

There was Obama strolling through a typical American city, reading a newspaper and muttering 'Why? Why? WHY?' in response to the latest US domestic massacre in Tucson. On either side of the street were cinemas, video stores and gun shops, all promoting bang bang.

Good one, Moir, I thought. What do Americans expect, living in a country where every lunatic has a gun and is prepared to use it, a country, moreover, that loves nothing better than invading other people's countries and turning them into toast with strawberry jam, especially if the people there happen to be brown, or, not to put too fine a point on it, brown & Muslim. (See my 11/11/09 post Remembrance Day)

Then I recalled Moir's pathetic misreading of Obama's US-sponsored Israel-PA 'peace' talks on December 15 last year: A poster of Obama with the word 'HOPE' is sitting on a wall in occupied Palestine. Below it, on the street, are two donkeys, one labelled Israel, the other Palestine, heading in opposite directions. Both are saying 'NOPE'.

In that cartoon, Moir misrepresents Obama as an honest broker, a bringer of peace and goodwill, without a hint whatever of his country's financial, military and diplomatic backing of Israel, and certainly none of its bizarre subservience to the agenda of the Israel lobby. Likewise, he misrepresents Israel and the Palestinians as two absolute equals, with no reference at all to the complete domination of one by the other. This lame caricature is just another sorry variation on an earlier effort by Moir, on the same theme and with the same cast, of September 2010. (See my 21/9/10 post Cartoon Corner)

So, it's acceptable for a cartoonist to portray an American president, who presides over a land that can't seem to get enough bang bang on the big or little screen, naively wondering why Americans are gunning one another down Tucson-style, but not an Israeli prime minister, who presides over the brutal occupation of another people, with troops and tanks and settler scum on hair trigger, naively wondering why the occasional Palestinian lashes out in a seemingly futile act of resistance.

Now Moir knows the red line well because when he inadvertently crossed it in August 2003 by drawing a comparison between Israel's West Bank wall and the Nazis' Warsaw Ghetto, he came under sustained attack from the usual suspects and was forced to issue a grovelling apology. (See my 24/1/08 post We Remember Warsaw)

Ever since then he hasn't gone anywhere near the red line, which is what makes his cartoons on the issue so utterly lame and irrelevant.

And isn't it curious how clueless Obama can be in a violent America, but oh so wise and all-knowing in a violent Middle East.

Cartoon Corner

A political cartoon in the hands of a master such as Michael Leunig can take you straight to the (often dark) heart of a matter. In lesser hands, it can misrepresent and mislead.

This was the case with Moir's cartoon in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald: Obama stands atop a small, cube-shaped castle in a desert landscape, leaning wearily on the battlements, the very picture of exasperation. The word 'PEACE' is prominently displayed above the castle door, which bears an 'ENTER' sign. In the desert below, Israel (Netanyahu) and Palestine (Abbas), portrayed as blind men, complete with dark glasses and canes, wander aimlessly in opposite directions, tapping their canes.

The message: Obama, an honest broker, knows exactly what is required for a lasting peace in the Middle East and is doing his level best to achieve it. Netanyahu and Abbas, however, equally blind and equally lost, are obviously incapable of coming to the party. Poor, long-suffering Obama, is destined to be disappointed.

Moir is clearly out of his depth on this issue. He has no understanding of the underlying dynamic: Obama is Israel's ho; Netanyahu a vicious, swaggering bully, pumped on US steroids; and Abbas a shifty, servile beggar.

To approximate this, Moir's 'Peace' castle should be replaced by a rat trap surrounded by smoking ruins and broken and bleeding Palestinian bodies. A crumb labelled 'Palestinian state' sits on the catch. An Abbas rat sniffs it gingerly as Netanyahu and Obama walk off into a sunset labelled 'Israel-US Co-Prosperity Sphere'. Obama's head lolls on Netanyahu's shoulder, his left arm tenderly circling his waist. Netanyahu's right hand vigorously fondles Obama's bum.

We Remember Warsaw

On 22/1/08 the following letter appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald:-

"Nearly 70 years ago, in a small European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear. Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace." Zaid Khan, Blakehurst

This was followed, on 23/1/08, as befits the Israel lobby's insistence (except when their own spokespeople are crowding out dissenting voices) on a policy of faux balance whenever Palestine-Israel comes up on the opinion pages, by:-

"I am not as familiar as Zaid Khan with Europe 70 years ago but, to the best of my knowledge the oppressed minority in Warsaw were not firing Katyusha rockets indiscriminately into the surrounding area and neither were their kids being wrapped in explosives and sent out to blow up the neighbours." David Calvey, Vaucluse

So far, so predictable. The prospect of pursuit by a snarling, snapping pack of pro-Israel media hounds is usually enough to deter the Bambi responsible for the letters page from publishing letters in support of Palestine. Had Bambi realised he/she'd let his/her guard down with Zaid Khan's timely letter and sought to ward off the hounds by publishing Calvey's too-clever-by-half riposte from, of all places, Vaucluse?

I will say nothing of Calvey's cheap shot, other than to point out that the resistance in Gaza does not fire Katyushas and wonder, along with Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, just why, given the anger and desperation in the ghetto, there aren't in fact more suicide bombers: "The truth is that nearly every Palestinian has many reasons to be fed up with life to the point of suicide and thoughts of revenge, and those thoughts are not only linked to military attacks. Even without killing, the Israeli occupation regime kills hope, plans, relationships, ways of life. Living among Palestinians brings daily examples of the thousands of shades that despair has, just as the regime of occupation and colonization brings with it thousands of variants of material and mental abuse. Every moment, people mourn for the lives they could have had and which they are not experiencing. How explosive is the daily insult which people experience under a foreign rule that decides who will live in their own house and who will not, who will have access to their lands and who will not, when the bulldozer will tear up your grandparents' land in order to attach it to a highway and a green settlement, who will waste several hours every day at a checkpoint, who will send their children to the university and who will send them to beg, who will lose their source of livelihood, who will see their family and when, and who will not." [Where are the suicide bombers? 12/07].

Next day something interesting happened. Readers, it seems, had had enough. They could see right through Calvay, the invisible man, directly into the heart of darkness that is the Warsaw/Gaza Ghetto:-

"What we can never know, David Calvey, is whether the oppressed in Warsaw would have retaliated had they been given the means with which to do so." Rachel Merhabi, Turramurra

"You're right, David Calvey, the oppressed minority in Warsaw did not protest with rockets and suicide bombs. But I believe most of them ended up in the Nazi gas chambers." Paul Sadler, Newtown

"The reason, David Calvey, that the oppressed minority were not fighting back with weapons and explosives is that they didn't have them. I am sure Polish Jews would have used anything available and done anything possible to disrupt the German war machine. I am sure what Zaid Khan was getting at is the massive hypocrisy of Israel: it was oppression back then when done to them, but it is somehow OK to do it to someone else now." David Gardiner Camperdown

"Maybe I'm not as familiar as David Calvey with Europe 70 years ago but, if the oppressed minority suffering in Warsaw was subjected to the same oppression for 50 continuos years or more, they too would take more extreme measures, Also, to the best of my knowledge, like the people in the occupied territories, the oppressed in Warsaw did eventually revolt against the oppression, and justifiably so." Brad Spencer Ljubljana, Slovenia

"I don't need to visit Gaza to tell David Calvey that 99% of its population don't have rockets in the back shed and bomb vests in the bedroom. Like the Jews in Warsaw, most Palestinians in Gaza are being held captive with the barest of essentials, purely on the basis that they were 'accidentally' born of the wrong blood in the wrong place. How can the average Palestinian Joe hope to stop the actions of a few mad militants? And why should the Israelis expect them to do so? The current Israeli policy holds every man, woman and child responsible for any act of terrorism. Last thing I heard, there were quite a few unsolved murders in Sydney. I say we lock the whole place down until people there realise that the rest of the country won't tolerate it. After all, if they are prepared to murder their fellow Sydneysiders, they might come after the rest of us." Anura Samara Geneva, Switzerland

What on Earthwas Bambi thinking when he/she let this lot in? Had Bambi also had enough? Will he/she now be torn to pieces by the pro-Israel pack? Will there be a mea culpa in the next issue? Think I'm joking? Let's go back a few years and look at the brouhaha which followed Herald cartoonist, Moir's cartoon of 12/8/03, in which he dared to associate Israel's West Bank wall of 2003 with the Warsaw Ghetto of 1943. The Herald was inundated with outraged letters, 9 of which were published over the next 2 days.

To top it off, in the issue of 16/8/03, the following grovel from Herald editor, Robert Whitehead appeared: "It is as important for the Herald to be accurate and fair as it is to admit when we do not live up to its own high standards. That is why we began inviting people earlier this year to help us correct the record whenever they saw a material error. An honesty about mistakes and a willingness to fix them is important to us and our readers. The same is true of errors of judgement. Finding ways to redress these, however, can be less straightforward. An example this week was the Moir cartoon published on Tuesday. It likened the Nazis' building of the Warsaw ghetto with the Israeli Government's building of a security fence on the West Bank. To publish it was a lapse of judgement and I apologise to the many readers who, understandably, took great offence. As Moir said in a note in the aftermath, he was intending to be provocative 'but I should have used a less sensitive metaphor to make the point about historic irony'."

Pathetic! But funny how the comparison comes naturally to Palestinians - as an inmate of the virtually encircled West Bank town of Qalqilya commented at the time to a journalist from the UK Observer: "It feels like a concentration camp...with the difference that there the people were waiting for death. Here they are just waiting for us to leave."

The Herald's grovel back then reminds us of the need to stand up to the lobby. In the words of Mearsheimer & Walt : "As the primary source of independent thinking in democratic societies, scholars and journalists should be encouraged to resist the lobby's efforts to shape public discourse and to encourage more open discussion of these important issues." [The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy p 351]

What will tomorrow bring?