"Donations are a bigger influence on Australian politics than polls and the major parties have a history of ignoring mainstream voter opinion, social researcher Rebecca Huntley says. Australia Fair, Dr Huntley's forthcoming piece in Quarterly Essay, argues that polls are often used as a short-term weapon by political rivals but do not truly influence policy and politics. 'If only research was as influential as donations,' she told The Sun-Herald... 'The biggest change we need to crack in Australia is donation reform; we have to change the money that's involved in politics," she said. 'When you change the money, you change who the politicians listen to. Even though it seems like not as pressing an issue as as health or jobs, it's fundamental'." (Donations 'more influential' than polls, Caitlin Fitzsimmons, 17/3/19)
Huntley's research merely confirms what we already know, namely that Australia's bipartisan support for Israel is the result of significant Zionist money. To cite but one example: "No domestic house in Melbourne has had more influence on public... life than Raheen, the 1870s Italianate mansion owned for more than 35 years by the family of billionaire packaging king Richard Pratt... Raheen is used by the Pratts to court and entertain both sides of politics, to conduct fundraisers and to highlight the cause of Israel, into which the Pratt Foundation pours millions of dollars... " (More than just a home, Pratt mansion welcomes all parties, John Ferguson/Rebecca Urban, The Australian, 11/2/17)
But will this particular aspect of Australia's foreign policy find its way into Huntley's essay? After all, the Quarterly Essay, like The Saturday Paper, is owned by Zionist publisher Morrie Schwartz. Only one way to find out...
PS: I've just read Huntley's essay. Most interesting on the subject of Australian society and what the citizenry think about various domestic issues - Australian democracy, the environment, climate change, asylum seekers etc, but nothing on foreign policy issues as such.
Showing posts with label Morry Schwartz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morry Schwartz. Show all posts
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Friday, January 4, 2019
Why I Don't Buy 'The Saturday Paper'
Here's the reason I don't buy Melbourne publisher Morry Schwartz's The Saturday Paper, which, I hear, is quite popular with progressive Australians:
"Schwartz says: 'I think Israel is over-tackled. The media are too obsessed with it, but a balanced view, sure'." Schwartz also publishes the Quarterly Essay and The Monthly (See my 4/3/14 post The Saturday Paper.)
"The Saturday Paper's coverage of Israel's [2014] assault on Gaza has been conspicuously, well, non-existent." Tim Robertson, Palestine & the Saturday Paper, overland.org.au, 1/8/14 (See my 28/1/15 post The Glass Wall.)
"[The Monthly's] seen as a left-wing publication but the publisher is very right-wing on Israel. He's Jewish... and he's very much to the Benjamin Netanyahu end of politics. So you can't touch [Palestine]. We just don't touch it. There's just a glass wall goes around it." John Van Tiggelen, a former editor of TSP and now staff writer at The Monthly (See my 28/1/15 post The Glass Wall.)
Now as it happens, a copy of TSP dated 27/10/18 has just come my way. That issue contains an analysis, by the paper's chief political correspondent, Karen Middleton, of the fallout from Morrison's Jerusalem fizzer, covering both its impact on the Wentworth byelection and on our relationship with Indonesia. Reading through the piece, Turnbull used to head off regional distrust - lo and behold! - I find Middleton characterising the Palestine/Israel conflict as "longstanding unrest between the Israelis and Palestinian people."
Which, I assume, is music to Morry's ears.
"Schwartz says: 'I think Israel is over-tackled. The media are too obsessed with it, but a balanced view, sure'." Schwartz also publishes the Quarterly Essay and The Monthly (See my 4/3/14 post The Saturday Paper.)
"The Saturday Paper's coverage of Israel's [2014] assault on Gaza has been conspicuously, well, non-existent." Tim Robertson, Palestine & the Saturday Paper, overland.org.au, 1/8/14 (See my 28/1/15 post The Glass Wall.)
"[The Monthly's] seen as a left-wing publication but the publisher is very right-wing on Israel. He's Jewish... and he's very much to the Benjamin Netanyahu end of politics. So you can't touch [Palestine]. We just don't touch it. There's just a glass wall goes around it." John Van Tiggelen, a former editor of TSP and now staff writer at The Monthly (See my 28/1/15 post The Glass Wall.)
Now as it happens, a copy of TSP dated 27/10/18 has just come my way. That issue contains an analysis, by the paper's chief political correspondent, Karen Middleton, of the fallout from Morrison's Jerusalem fizzer, covering both its impact on the Wentworth byelection and on our relationship with Indonesia. Reading through the piece, Turnbull used to head off regional distrust - lo and behold! - I find Middleton characterising the Palestine/Israel conflict as "longstanding unrest between the Israelis and Palestinian people."
Which, I assume, is music to Morry's ears.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Four Corners' Hatchet Job on Lee Rhiannon
It is always worth keeping in mind that, despite the lurid fantasies of the right-wing nut jobs at News Corpse to the effect that the ABC is a bastion of leftist radicalism, the state broadcaster is in fact merely the propaganda arm of the Australian establishment.
Last night's Four Corners program, Inside the Greens: A Party in Turmoil, which featured former Greens leader Bob Brown and others attacking NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, was a case in point.
Cast your mind back to 2010-2011, when Sydney's Marrickville Council, dominated at the time by The Greens, bravely took a stand for Palestine by adopting a pro-BDS policy against the purchase of Israeli products, and when its Greens Mayor, Fiona Byrne only narrowly failed to snatch the NSW state seat of Marrickville from Labor for her party at the 2011 state election.
Many of Rhiannon's detractors on Four Corners have form going back to that time. Here's a reminder:
Sally Neighbour, the current executive producer of Four Corners, used to write for Murdoch's Australian, and earlier took The Greens to task (Divided we fall) in Morry Schwartz's The Monthly. (See my 3/2/12 post Get Rhiannon! 2)
Richard Di Natale, the current federal leader of the party, once cluelessly agreed to the proposition that the Palestinians should "recognise Israel's existence as a Jewish state," before later backtracking when apprised of the implications of what he'd said. (See my 23/5/15 post Richard Di Natale Reclassified.)
Bob Brown, the party's founder, has attacked the NSW Greens in the Murdoch press, claiming NSW Greens' support for BDS was "against his advice" and urging the branch to stick to "bread-and-butter issues." (See Bob Brown & A Failure of Courage, 1/4/11)
Ian Cohen, a former NSW Greens MLC, has condemned his party's support for BDS as "old style" and expressed concern about "Jewish community outrage." (See my 31/3/11 post Kahane Down Under?)
Christine Milne, Di Natale's predecessor, has spoken out against BDS, travelled to Israel (although whether or not at her own expense we do not know), and once spoke in favour of regime change in Libya. (See Some Questions for Christine Milne (21/4/12), Has Christine Milne Been Rambammed? (11/7/14), A Gripe About The Greens (24/3/11))
Jeremy Buckingham, a NSW Greens MLC, joined the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel and signed the so-called London Declaration on Combatting Antisemitism. (See my 27/5/13 post Et tu, Jeremy?)
The issue of the NSW Greens' support for Palestine emerged only obliquely in the program. Presenter Louise Milligan's bias against that support, however, was clear at this point:
Milligan: While her leader is travelling the country, trying to hold his party together, Lee Rhiannon has flown to the Middle East and is crossing into Palestine.
Rhiannon: When you see it like that you can see why they call it an apartheid wall. What you see when you arrive in this country is apartheid. From the West Bank to Gaza, people are treated as second class citizens. Their human rights are ignored or abused.
Milligan: And she's still lobbing political grenades at her party: reviving a campaign to boycott Israeli businesses in Australia which has seen a backlash against the Greens in the past.
Rhiannon: There is a value in this campaign, and it's a reminder of why people like ourselves in Australia and around the world... it's time to reassess this form of struggle, because there are very clear examples of the value it brings to solidarity and the results it can achieve.
Milligan: Her leader disagrees.
Di Natale: It's not something that the Australian Greens have ever supported. It's not something that I support.
Milligan: It's these sorts of clashes with the federal party that have prompted the Greens elders to tell Four Corners it's time for Senator Lee Rhiannon to go.
Brown: Oh, well, you know, I've been living with Lee for 30 years, but it's the end of Lee's reign. The end is nigh, and I look toward the future.
Last night's Four Corners program, Inside the Greens: A Party in Turmoil, which featured former Greens leader Bob Brown and others attacking NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, was a case in point.
Cast your mind back to 2010-2011, when Sydney's Marrickville Council, dominated at the time by The Greens, bravely took a stand for Palestine by adopting a pro-BDS policy against the purchase of Israeli products, and when its Greens Mayor, Fiona Byrne only narrowly failed to snatch the NSW state seat of Marrickville from Labor for her party at the 2011 state election.
Many of Rhiannon's detractors on Four Corners have form going back to that time. Here's a reminder:
Sally Neighbour, the current executive producer of Four Corners, used to write for Murdoch's Australian, and earlier took The Greens to task (Divided we fall) in Morry Schwartz's The Monthly. (See my 3/2/12 post Get Rhiannon! 2)
Richard Di Natale, the current federal leader of the party, once cluelessly agreed to the proposition that the Palestinians should "recognise Israel's existence as a Jewish state," before later backtracking when apprised of the implications of what he'd said. (See my 23/5/15 post Richard Di Natale Reclassified.)
Bob Brown, the party's founder, has attacked the NSW Greens in the Murdoch press, claiming NSW Greens' support for BDS was "against his advice" and urging the branch to stick to "bread-and-butter issues." (See Bob Brown & A Failure of Courage, 1/4/11)
Ian Cohen, a former NSW Greens MLC, has condemned his party's support for BDS as "old style" and expressed concern about "Jewish community outrage." (See my 31/3/11 post Kahane Down Under?)
Christine Milne, Di Natale's predecessor, has spoken out against BDS, travelled to Israel (although whether or not at her own expense we do not know), and once spoke in favour of regime change in Libya. (See Some Questions for Christine Milne (21/4/12), Has Christine Milne Been Rambammed? (11/7/14), A Gripe About The Greens (24/3/11))
Jeremy Buckingham, a NSW Greens MLC, joined the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel and signed the so-called London Declaration on Combatting Antisemitism. (See my 27/5/13 post Et tu, Jeremy?)
The issue of the NSW Greens' support for Palestine emerged only obliquely in the program. Presenter Louise Milligan's bias against that support, however, was clear at this point:
Milligan: While her leader is travelling the country, trying to hold his party together, Lee Rhiannon has flown to the Middle East and is crossing into Palestine.
Rhiannon: When you see it like that you can see why they call it an apartheid wall. What you see when you arrive in this country is apartheid. From the West Bank to Gaza, people are treated as second class citizens. Their human rights are ignored or abused.
Milligan: And she's still lobbing political grenades at her party: reviving a campaign to boycott Israeli businesses in Australia which has seen a backlash against the Greens in the past.
Rhiannon: There is a value in this campaign, and it's a reminder of why people like ourselves in Australia and around the world... it's time to reassess this form of struggle, because there are very clear examples of the value it brings to solidarity and the results it can achieve.
Milligan: Her leader disagrees.
Di Natale: It's not something that the Australian Greens have ever supported. It's not something that I support.
Milligan: It's these sorts of clashes with the federal party that have prompted the Greens elders to tell Four Corners it's time for Senator Lee Rhiannon to go.
Brown: Oh, well, you know, I've been living with Lee for 30 years, but it's the end of Lee's reign. The end is nigh, and I look toward the future.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Journalists in Glass Houses
"A tissue of lies: Paul Sheehan & 'Louise': The most perfunctory of checks would have shown Paul Sheehan's allegations were almost certainly untrue. But he couldn't help himself"
So runs the headline for Richard Cooke's 25/2 post on The Monthly's Greasy Pole blog.
According to Richard's twitter account, he writes for "The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian, The Chaser & The Check Out."
Although I saw nothing in his piece that I'd disagree with (and even learnt a few things about loopy Louise), I nonetheless found myself wondering whether he was really the best qualified to write it, given the old adage that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I mean, I can overlook a young scribbler's working for Morry Schwartz's 'Don't talk about the Occupation' publications. Jobs are hard to find after all.
But that crap he once wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 about Gaza and Hamas, where he referred to occupied Gaza as a "troubled territory," and the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, as a "terrorist organization," (Hamas vs The Lions Club, 13/9/05), was a classic example of a smartarse journalist tackling a serious subject that he knew absolutely SFA about.
However, it's an episode from 2006, in which Richard managed to display what seems to me something of a malicious streak (as well as confirming his truly abysmal ignorance of the Palestine problem), that reminded me of the old injunction about glass houses and stones. Did he, I wonder, even for a moment, recall his own particular fall from journalistic grace at this time as he wrote about Sheehan's?:
"Asked why he sent a cartoon by Michael Leunig to a Holocaust cartoon competition launched by an Iranian newspaper, freelance journalist Richard Cooke pauses. He is an articulate person, and the pause is an awkward break in an otherwise fluid conversation. 'I'm not sure a can give you a good answer to that,' he said yesterday. He was, however, able to explain how the cartoon, which was rejected by former Age editor, Michael Gawenda, in 2002, found its way onto the Hamshahri website. The newspaper contest - to find a cartoon on the Holocaust - came after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, angering Muslims around the world.
"Cooke, 26, who contributes to the satirical website The Chaser and has been a contributor to various Fairfax publications said he read about the Holocaust competition on the web and remembered the Leunig cartoon. He then found himself wondering 'what would happen if these two things were brought together.' The Leunig cartoon stirred 'multiple feelings, some of them conflicting' within him, he said. The first frame, Auschwitz 1945, shows a man with the Star of David on his back walking towards an arched entrance bearing the words 'Work Brings Freedom.' The second frame, Israel 2002, shows a man with the Star of David and a rifle. He also walks towards an arched entrance, this one bearing the words 'War Brings Peace.' Cooke says he is personally unsympathetic to the sentiments in the cartoon. Of Leunig he says: 'I don't think he is an anti-Semite but I think that work could be interpreted by some people... in a way that he hadn't intended it to be taken.'
"Cooke did not send the cartoon itself to the Hamshahri competition, but he sent the link to Media Watch and an accompanying note purporting to be from Leunig. The consequences of writing a note in the cartoonist's name was not something he thought about because 'it never occurred to me that it would be quoted.' But Cooke was seriously mistaken. He saw the cartoon - the first entry in the competition - and the faked note posted on the site about 1am on Tuesday. At 2am he rang the Fairfax switchboard in Sydney wanting to pass on the anonymous message that the words on the irancartoons.com website did not belong to Leunig but he could not raise anyone. At News Ltd he found only a security guard at the Daily Telegraph. Later on Tuesday morning, when he checked Google, he found 150-related stories on the Leunig story.
"Cooke knew that because he had left the telephone number of The Chaser on the email - 'not the smartest move' - the hoax would be traced to him. 'If I had gotten a second opinion I probably wouldn't have done something so stupid.' He spent much of Tuesday watching more stories on the hoax being posted on the web. 'My feelings at this point were confused,' he says. 'A lot of them were nervous feelings.'
"On Tuesday evening, Cooke received a telephone call from Julian Morrow, executive producer of the television satire, The Chaser, who asked what he knew about the hoax. Morrow said he knew nothing of it until he received a call from The Age that night. Morrow advised Cooke to apologise to the cartoonist, something Cooke said he had wanted to do when the controversy began to erupt. Cooke does not remember exactly what he said to Leunig, but he recalls 'that he mainly seemed to be relieved that it wasn't a neo-con pressure group who had posted the cartoon, just a dipshit from The Chaser.' He also admits he has played pranks before... Morrow said when he found out on Tuesday night that a person connected to The Chaser website had perpetrated the hoax, he was particularly unhappy that Leunig had been misrepresented. He was pleased that Cooke's apology had been accepted by the cartoonist." (Satirist wishes he got a second opinion before starting Leunig hoax, Katherine Kizilos, The Age, 16/2/06)
What a goose...
So runs the headline for Richard Cooke's 25/2 post on The Monthly's Greasy Pole blog.
According to Richard's twitter account, he writes for "The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian, The Chaser & The Check Out."
Although I saw nothing in his piece that I'd disagree with (and even learnt a few things about loopy Louise), I nonetheless found myself wondering whether he was really the best qualified to write it, given the old adage that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
I mean, I can overlook a young scribbler's working for Morry Schwartz's 'Don't talk about the Occupation' publications. Jobs are hard to find after all.
But that crap he once wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005 about Gaza and Hamas, where he referred to occupied Gaza as a "troubled territory," and the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, as a "terrorist organization," (Hamas vs The Lions Club, 13/9/05), was a classic example of a smartarse journalist tackling a serious subject that he knew absolutely SFA about.
However, it's an episode from 2006, in which Richard managed to display what seems to me something of a malicious streak (as well as confirming his truly abysmal ignorance of the Palestine problem), that reminded me of the old injunction about glass houses and stones. Did he, I wonder, even for a moment, recall his own particular fall from journalistic grace at this time as he wrote about Sheehan's?:
"Asked why he sent a cartoon by Michael Leunig to a Holocaust cartoon competition launched by an Iranian newspaper, freelance journalist Richard Cooke pauses. He is an articulate person, and the pause is an awkward break in an otherwise fluid conversation. 'I'm not sure a can give you a good answer to that,' he said yesterday. He was, however, able to explain how the cartoon, which was rejected by former Age editor, Michael Gawenda, in 2002, found its way onto the Hamshahri website. The newspaper contest - to find a cartoon on the Holocaust - came after a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, angering Muslims around the world.
"Cooke, 26, who contributes to the satirical website The Chaser and has been a contributor to various Fairfax publications said he read about the Holocaust competition on the web and remembered the Leunig cartoon. He then found himself wondering 'what would happen if these two things were brought together.' The Leunig cartoon stirred 'multiple feelings, some of them conflicting' within him, he said. The first frame, Auschwitz 1945, shows a man with the Star of David on his back walking towards an arched entrance bearing the words 'Work Brings Freedom.' The second frame, Israel 2002, shows a man with the Star of David and a rifle. He also walks towards an arched entrance, this one bearing the words 'War Brings Peace.' Cooke says he is personally unsympathetic to the sentiments in the cartoon. Of Leunig he says: 'I don't think he is an anti-Semite but I think that work could be interpreted by some people... in a way that he hadn't intended it to be taken.'
"Cooke did not send the cartoon itself to the Hamshahri competition, but he sent the link to Media Watch and an accompanying note purporting to be from Leunig. The consequences of writing a note in the cartoonist's name was not something he thought about because 'it never occurred to me that it would be quoted.' But Cooke was seriously mistaken. He saw the cartoon - the first entry in the competition - and the faked note posted on the site about 1am on Tuesday. At 2am he rang the Fairfax switchboard in Sydney wanting to pass on the anonymous message that the words on the irancartoons.com website did not belong to Leunig but he could not raise anyone. At News Ltd he found only a security guard at the Daily Telegraph. Later on Tuesday morning, when he checked Google, he found 150-related stories on the Leunig story.
"Cooke knew that because he had left the telephone number of The Chaser on the email - 'not the smartest move' - the hoax would be traced to him. 'If I had gotten a second opinion I probably wouldn't have done something so stupid.' He spent much of Tuesday watching more stories on the hoax being posted on the web. 'My feelings at this point were confused,' he says. 'A lot of them were nervous feelings.'
"On Tuesday evening, Cooke received a telephone call from Julian Morrow, executive producer of the television satire, The Chaser, who asked what he knew about the hoax. Morrow said he knew nothing of it until he received a call from The Age that night. Morrow advised Cooke to apologise to the cartoonist, something Cooke said he had wanted to do when the controversy began to erupt. Cooke does not remember exactly what he said to Leunig, but he recalls 'that he mainly seemed to be relieved that it wasn't a neo-con pressure group who had posted the cartoon, just a dipshit from The Chaser.' He also admits he has played pranks before... Morrow said when he found out on Tuesday night that a person connected to The Chaser website had perpetrated the hoax, he was particularly unhappy that Leunig had been misrepresented. He was pleased that Cooke's apology had been accepted by the cartoonist." (Satirist wishes he got a second opinion before starting Leunig hoax, Katherine Kizilos, The Age, 16/2/06)
What a goose...
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Is There a Glass Wall at the 'Good Weekend' Too?
Thinking about the 'troubling narrowband view of Middle Eastern politics' displayed by the Good Weekend's deputy editor Greg Callaghan, I thought it might be useful to see where its editor, Ben Naparstek, stood on the subject.
Naparstek had, of course, previously edited (09-12) Morry Schwartz's The Monthly, a magazine so protective of Israel that one of its writers has spoken of the existence there of "a glass wall."
The worst was confirmed, however, when I read a November 2011 interview with him. (The Monthly editor, Ben Naparstek, abc.net.au, 13/11/11) Here's the relevant bit:
Julia Baird: And [Jacqueline Rose] is a great critic of Zionism, isn't she?
BN: She is. And I must say I don't agree with most of her writings on Israel/Palestine. I think that her call for a boycott of Israel is incredibly unfortunate given what an intelligent and magnificent writer she is. [I see, so calling for a boycott of apartheid Israel is just plain dumb?] She's not talking about boycotting any of the other countries in the Middle East which are under the thumb of tyranny, in which they execute people on a daily basis. [So let me get this straight. Israeli occupation forces blaze away at anything that moves, as reported in today's Herald*, but that's not executing people? Or when they knocked off a 16-year-old after fucking him around at a West Bank checkpoint just the other day (25/4)**, that wasn't an execution? Or when they fired on and wounded 12 Palestinian civilians in the period from April 16 to April 22***, those weren't attempted executions? ]... I mean Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Why this intense focus on it by the left liberal intelligentsia? I think that's a form of madness. I really do. [Naparstek's obviously the 3 wise monkeys all rolled into one.]
JB: So you're not a supporter of the BDS here either then?
BN: Of course not. I'm a total opponent of it. And fortunately it hasn't gained much traction here. I think that it's outrageous that Bob Brown hasn't taken a stronger stance against Lee Rhiannon for calling for a boycott. Bob Brown, you know, if he's serious about leading a genuinely progressive party, should not allow those kinds of extremist elements to fester within it. And the fact that... Bob Brown might not be the leader in five years and that, heaven help us, Lee Rhiannon could be, is... a very terrifying thought. [This is an extraordinarily censorious outburst, given that elsewhere in the interview Naparstek accuses "the left" of being supportive of free speech only when it suits them and of trying to "silence" Andrew Bolt, "someone who had made statements that were deemed offensive to aboriginal people."]
Naparstek also said in the above interview that: "If I only published writing that reflected my personal beliefs and opinions, then The Monthly would be a very dull magazine indeed."
Nice disclaimer, but seriously, folks, have you ever read anything even remotely critical of Israel in the Good Weekend?
[*Soldiers tell of 'shoot to kill' orders, Ruth Pollard; **Ali Sa'id Abu Ghannam, 16, was shot dead east of Jerusalem after being harassed by Israeli troops on April 25 (See Palestinian teen killed by army fire in Jerusalem, imemc.org, 25/4/15); ***4 protestors, including 2 children were shot and wounded in Bil'in and Ni'lin weekly protests; 5 other protestors, including a child, were shot and wounded during other protests; and 3 Palestinian civilians, including a child were shot and wounded east of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, pchrgaza.org.]
Naparstek had, of course, previously edited (09-12) Morry Schwartz's The Monthly, a magazine so protective of Israel that one of its writers has spoken of the existence there of "a glass wall."
The worst was confirmed, however, when I read a November 2011 interview with him. (The Monthly editor, Ben Naparstek, abc.net.au, 13/11/11) Here's the relevant bit:
Julia Baird: And [Jacqueline Rose] is a great critic of Zionism, isn't she?
BN: She is. And I must say I don't agree with most of her writings on Israel/Palestine. I think that her call for a boycott of Israel is incredibly unfortunate given what an intelligent and magnificent writer she is. [I see, so calling for a boycott of apartheid Israel is just plain dumb?] She's not talking about boycotting any of the other countries in the Middle East which are under the thumb of tyranny, in which they execute people on a daily basis. [So let me get this straight. Israeli occupation forces blaze away at anything that moves, as reported in today's Herald*, but that's not executing people? Or when they knocked off a 16-year-old after fucking him around at a West Bank checkpoint just the other day (25/4)**, that wasn't an execution? Or when they fired on and wounded 12 Palestinian civilians in the period from April 16 to April 22***, those weren't attempted executions? ]... I mean Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Why this intense focus on it by the left liberal intelligentsia? I think that's a form of madness. I really do. [Naparstek's obviously the 3 wise monkeys all rolled into one.]
JB: So you're not a supporter of the BDS here either then?
BN: Of course not. I'm a total opponent of it. And fortunately it hasn't gained much traction here. I think that it's outrageous that Bob Brown hasn't taken a stronger stance against Lee Rhiannon for calling for a boycott. Bob Brown, you know, if he's serious about leading a genuinely progressive party, should not allow those kinds of extremist elements to fester within it. And the fact that... Bob Brown might not be the leader in five years and that, heaven help us, Lee Rhiannon could be, is... a very terrifying thought. [This is an extraordinarily censorious outburst, given that elsewhere in the interview Naparstek accuses "the left" of being supportive of free speech only when it suits them and of trying to "silence" Andrew Bolt, "someone who had made statements that were deemed offensive to aboriginal people."]
Naparstek also said in the above interview that: "If I only published writing that reflected my personal beliefs and opinions, then The Monthly would be a very dull magazine indeed."
Nice disclaimer, but seriously, folks, have you ever read anything even remotely critical of Israel in the Good Weekend?
[*Soldiers tell of 'shoot to kill' orders, Ruth Pollard; **Ali Sa'id Abu Ghannam, 16, was shot dead east of Jerusalem after being harassed by Israeli troops on April 25 (See Palestinian teen killed by army fire in Jerusalem, imemc.org, 25/4/15); ***4 protestors, including 2 children were shot and wounded in Bil'in and Ni'lin weekly protests; 5 other protestors, including a child, were shot and wounded during other protests; and 3 Palestinian civilians, including a child were shot and wounded east of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, pchrgaza.org.]
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
The Glass Wall
Back in August last year, journalist and writer Tim Robertson couldn't help but notice something missing in Morry Schwartz's Saturday Paper:
"There's been high praise for the Saturday Paper... the paper's commentary is insightful and well-informed: it has a stable of some of Australia's best writers... and it's a welcome addition to the Fairfax/News Ltd duopoly that's been one of the great scourges of Australian democracy... Nonetheless, the Saturday Paper's coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza has been conspicuously, well, non-existent. As the death toll rises and more atrocities are committed, the Saturday Paper's pages remain, to date, devoid of any comment. One might consider this highly unusual. After all, it's long been left to independent Left-wing media to support the Palestinian cause in the face of the grossly more powerful Israeli state and its supporters here in Australia. But for long-time readers of The Monthly, which, like the Saturday Paper, is published by Morry Schwartz, the coverage might not come as such a shock. (Mr Schwartz also publishes Black Inc. and the Quarterly Essay.)" (Excerpt from Palestine & the Saturday Paper, overland.org.au, 1/8/14)
Robertson went on to quote John Van Tiggelen, former editor of the Saturday Paper and now staff writer at The Monthly, speaking at the June 2014 Wordstorm Festival in Darwin. (Since Robertson's original quote is highly edited, I've reproduced the Van Tiggelen quote below more fully):
"I have to be careful here because I still get most of my wage from The Monthly. But, um, it's very different from Fairfax. I have to be honest here and say that at Fairfax, at the Good Weekend writing the long features, I never experienced political interference... Whereas when you work at a small publication, and it doesn't matter whether it's Graeme Wood at The Global Mail or Morry Schwartz... at The Monthly, you work very closely with a publisher and things do get spiked and you have raving rows about what goes through and what doesn't. And there are certain glass walls set up by the publisher that you can't go outside of. And we were talking about it beforehand with Antony [Loewenstein] - one of those is Palestine. [The Monthly's] seen as a left-wing publication but the publisher is very right-wing on Israel. He's Jewish, um, and he's very much to the Benjamin Netanyahu end of politics. So you can't touch it. We just don't touch it. There's just a glass wall goes around it." (abc.net.au/tv/bigideas, 25/6/14)
Robertson concludes correctly that the editorial regime which prevails at the Saturday Paper (and by extension at Schwartz's other publications such as The Monthly and the Quarterly Essay) "is no different to the Murdoch press' universal support for the Iraq War (though the scale is smaller): top-down, institutionalised censorship based on the political beliefs of one individual," adding that "It's fundamentally undemocratic and undermines the whole notion of a free press."
But that's not all - apart from being destructive of journalism per se, the erection of glass walls (and the phenomenon of self-censorship that accompanies it) leaves the consumer of that journalism in something of a quandary.
Take, for example, the following passage from Van Tiggelen's admiring profile of Labor's Tanya Plibersek in The Monthly of November 2014:
"If deputy leaders didn't get to choose their portfolios, foreign affairs might have eluded Plibersek. Her reputation has been built on tackling social issues, such as homelessness, domestic violence and discrimination. More significantly, she is of the Left, a faction less inclined to bipartisanship (and, specifically, to pro-Israel views) than the portfolio generally demands. Back in 2002, in an otherwise sharply argued speech dismantling the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Plibersek described Israel as a 'rogue state' for its flouting of UN resolutions. She also called its then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, a war criminal. Today, though, you'd be hard-pressed to find a crack between the Government and the Opposition on security or Middle East policy. Plibersek has long recanted her comments on Israel and appears to be in lock step with the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, on the matter of Australia's renewed military engagement in Iraq."
Take that highlighted bit. I may be wrong but Van Tiggelen seems to be suggesting that, but for the references in the speech to Israel, the speech was fine. And yet he makes no attempt to explain why those references are in any way problematic. More importantly, what about his failure to probe the issue and circumstances of Plibersek's recantation of those references, surely a matter that goes to the very heart of Plibersek's intellectual and moral courage? I mean, isn't that what any journalist worth his salt would do? Could Van Tiggelen be self-censoring or Schwartz red-penciling? Who is really speaking here, Van Tiggelen or Schwartz? See the problem?
"There's been high praise for the Saturday Paper... the paper's commentary is insightful and well-informed: it has a stable of some of Australia's best writers... and it's a welcome addition to the Fairfax/News Ltd duopoly that's been one of the great scourges of Australian democracy... Nonetheless, the Saturday Paper's coverage of Israel's assault on Gaza has been conspicuously, well, non-existent. As the death toll rises and more atrocities are committed, the Saturday Paper's pages remain, to date, devoid of any comment. One might consider this highly unusual. After all, it's long been left to independent Left-wing media to support the Palestinian cause in the face of the grossly more powerful Israeli state and its supporters here in Australia. But for long-time readers of The Monthly, which, like the Saturday Paper, is published by Morry Schwartz, the coverage might not come as such a shock. (Mr Schwartz also publishes Black Inc. and the Quarterly Essay.)" (Excerpt from Palestine & the Saturday Paper, overland.org.au, 1/8/14)
Robertson went on to quote John Van Tiggelen, former editor of the Saturday Paper and now staff writer at The Monthly, speaking at the June 2014 Wordstorm Festival in Darwin. (Since Robertson's original quote is highly edited, I've reproduced the Van Tiggelen quote below more fully):
"I have to be careful here because I still get most of my wage from The Monthly. But, um, it's very different from Fairfax. I have to be honest here and say that at Fairfax, at the Good Weekend writing the long features, I never experienced political interference... Whereas when you work at a small publication, and it doesn't matter whether it's Graeme Wood at The Global Mail or Morry Schwartz... at The Monthly, you work very closely with a publisher and things do get spiked and you have raving rows about what goes through and what doesn't. And there are certain glass walls set up by the publisher that you can't go outside of. And we were talking about it beforehand with Antony [Loewenstein] - one of those is Palestine. [The Monthly's] seen as a left-wing publication but the publisher is very right-wing on Israel. He's Jewish, um, and he's very much to the Benjamin Netanyahu end of politics. So you can't touch it. We just don't touch it. There's just a glass wall goes around it." (abc.net.au/tv/bigideas, 25/6/14)
Robertson concludes correctly that the editorial regime which prevails at the Saturday Paper (and by extension at Schwartz's other publications such as The Monthly and the Quarterly Essay) "is no different to the Murdoch press' universal support for the Iraq War (though the scale is smaller): top-down, institutionalised censorship based on the political beliefs of one individual," adding that "It's fundamentally undemocratic and undermines the whole notion of a free press."
But that's not all - apart from being destructive of journalism per se, the erection of glass walls (and the phenomenon of self-censorship that accompanies it) leaves the consumer of that journalism in something of a quandary.
Take, for example, the following passage from Van Tiggelen's admiring profile of Labor's Tanya Plibersek in The Monthly of November 2014:
"If deputy leaders didn't get to choose their portfolios, foreign affairs might have eluded Plibersek. Her reputation has been built on tackling social issues, such as homelessness, domestic violence and discrimination. More significantly, she is of the Left, a faction less inclined to bipartisanship (and, specifically, to pro-Israel views) than the portfolio generally demands. Back in 2002, in an otherwise sharply argued speech dismantling the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Plibersek described Israel as a 'rogue state' for its flouting of UN resolutions. She also called its then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, a war criminal. Today, though, you'd be hard-pressed to find a crack between the Government and the Opposition on security or Middle East policy. Plibersek has long recanted her comments on Israel and appears to be in lock step with the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, on the matter of Australia's renewed military engagement in Iraq."
Take that highlighted bit. I may be wrong but Van Tiggelen seems to be suggesting that, but for the references in the speech to Israel, the speech was fine. And yet he makes no attempt to explain why those references are in any way problematic. More importantly, what about his failure to probe the issue and circumstances of Plibersek's recantation of those references, surely a matter that goes to the very heart of Plibersek's intellectual and moral courage? I mean, isn't that what any journalist worth his salt would do? Could Van Tiggelen be self-censoring or Schwartz red-penciling? Who is really speaking here, Van Tiggelen or Schwartz? See the problem?
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
The Saturday Paper
Is Melbourne publisher (The Monthly, Quarterly Essay) Morry Schwartz's TSP a brave new venture in fearless, investigative journalism? Or just another exercise in Zionist gatekeeping?
"[Peter] Craven [editor of Quarterly Essay 2001-04] is on friendly terms with Schwartz but acknowledges the publisher's heart 'will always belong to Robert [Manne*, La Trobe University academic, author and member of QE's editorial board]. He says Schwartz was always keen for robust editorial debates, becoming noticeably 'toey' on discussions of Israel. Everyone says Schwartz responds viscerally to this question. 'Loyalty to the idea of a Jewish homeland is very important to him,' argues Manne. Says Craven: 'He's very one-eyed on these sort of things. I once said to [his wife] Anna I was going to see [the opera] Tristan und Isolde and she said, 'Peter, I won't even buy German goods.' In 1982, Schwartz published Blanche D'Alpuget's biography of Bob Hawke after Penquin and Melbourne University Press turned it down. 'Morry was very influenced by the fact that Bob was a huge supporter of Israel,' D'Alpuget tells me. 'It was really Bob's connection to Israel that he leapt at.' (Schwartz disputes this; he says he sensed the public was hungry for political biography...) Critics wonder how TSP will cover the Middle East. Schwartz says: 'I think Israel is over-tackled. The media are too obsessed with it; but a balanced view, sure.' He imposed upon Craven his preference for Australian-centric content but concedes a newspaper can't ignore world crises..." (Paper tiger: Morry Schwartz's gamble, Kate Legge, The Australian, 14/12/13)
[*For Robert Manne and QE, see my three posts: Who Speaks for Palestine? (2/9/11); The Silence of the Intellectual 1 (6/9/11) and 2 (7/9/11).]
"[Peter] Craven [editor of Quarterly Essay 2001-04] is on friendly terms with Schwartz but acknowledges the publisher's heart 'will always belong to Robert [Manne*, La Trobe University academic, author and member of QE's editorial board]. He says Schwartz was always keen for robust editorial debates, becoming noticeably 'toey' on discussions of Israel. Everyone says Schwartz responds viscerally to this question. 'Loyalty to the idea of a Jewish homeland is very important to him,' argues Manne. Says Craven: 'He's very one-eyed on these sort of things. I once said to [his wife] Anna I was going to see [the opera] Tristan und Isolde and she said, 'Peter, I won't even buy German goods.' In 1982, Schwartz published Blanche D'Alpuget's biography of Bob Hawke after Penquin and Melbourne University Press turned it down. 'Morry was very influenced by the fact that Bob was a huge supporter of Israel,' D'Alpuget tells me. 'It was really Bob's connection to Israel that he leapt at.' (Schwartz disputes this; he says he sensed the public was hungry for political biography...) Critics wonder how TSP will cover the Middle East. Schwartz says: 'I think Israel is over-tackled. The media are too obsessed with it; but a balanced view, sure.' He imposed upon Craven his preference for Australian-centric content but concedes a newspaper can't ignore world crises..." (Paper tiger: Morry Schwartz's gamble, Kate Legge, The Australian, 14/12/13)
[*For Robert Manne and QE, see my three posts: Who Speaks for Palestine? (2/9/11); The Silence of the Intellectual 1 (6/9/11) and 2 (7/9/11).]
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