Corbyn's Convulsion

The Zionist smear campaign against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn rolls on. The latest offensive came in the form of a leaked account of his meeting with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council at his Commons office 4 weeks ago:

"Jeremy Corbyn was 'too unemotional or too stupid' to understand claims that he has failed to combat anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it has been claimed. The Labour leader is described as 'bored, uninterested and condescending' in a leaked account of his meeting with Jewish leaders last month to discuss the issue. It suggests he lacks the 'emotional or intellectual ability' to comprehend their demands for more action to tackle the problem. By contrast, he sprang into life with a 'convulsion' when told that his support for a 'two state solution' in the rift between Israel and Palestine meant he was a 'Zionist'." (Corbyn was 'too stupid' to tackle Labour Party anti-Semitism in meeting with Jewish leaders, Simon Walters, dailymail.co.uk, 27/5/18)

Leaving aside the Zionist conceit that anyone who doesn't kiss the Zionist ring is either inert or stupid (or worse), let me proceed straight to Corbyn's convulsion. This is how I imagine it:

Zionist: So you support a two-state solution?
Corbyn: Yes.
Zionist: Israel and Palestine, side by side?
Corbyn: Yes, yes.
Zionist: A Jewish and an Arab state?
Corbyn: Mmm.
Zionist: A Jewish state, eh? So you're a Zionist then?
Corbyn: CONVULSION

Corbyn was obviously too savvy to fall for this ploy. For the experience of another politician who did, check out my 30/5/15 post Richard Di Natale: The Fool Who Rushed In.

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.

Why Do I Get the Feeling?

OMFG, Jonathan Freedland's Guardian is so bloody depressing.

I've just taken a peek, God help me, at the 1,000+ torrent of (overwhelmingly) garbage and bile, aka comment, on its website following Gabrielle Chan's article, Bob Brown endorses action against Lee Rhiannon as Greens turmoil deepens (26/6/17).

What vile, stagnant swamp, I wonder, breeds these sadsacks and mental defectives? Is it any wonder we've got swamp monsters like Abbott, Trumble, Shorten, Dutton, Hanson and the like plaguing us?

In over a thousand 'comments' only one got why the admirable Senator Lee Rhiannon has come under fire from the know-nothings (di Natale) and has-beens (Brown) in her party:

"Why do I get the feeling that Lee's strong stand on the atrocities happening to the Palestinians is behind the hostility to Lee? The Greens may not accept corporate donations, but that does not mean that there are not forces behind the scene pulling strings."

Whoever you are, you have that feeling because you know what's going on.

Update (28/6/17): "'What is happening here is that someone is anonymously feeding journalists misinformation about me. I know that Greens members and our MPs condemn such behaviour.' The campaign against her was about much more than the Turnbull government's Gonski 2.0 school funding 'con-job', she said. 'It is a vicious attempt to destroy my reputation'." (Rhiannon vows she won't be driven out of Parliament, Adam Gartrell, Sydney Morning Herald)

Danby's Guide to Australian Politics

The Australian has just discovered Greens leader Richard Di Natale's 'clarification' that, while he supports the existence of Israel as a state - in the context of a two-state solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict - that doesn't necessarily mean he supports its existence as a Jewish state for Jews everywhere. (See my earlier posts on this subject.)

IOW, Di Natale doesn't support the central Zionist thesis that 'Israel' belongs not only to those Jews who happen to live there now but to all Jews, including the usual Zionist zealots quoted by Christian Kerr in his report Di Natale 'caved in' to Israel extortionists (5/6/15).

One of those was Labor's 'Minister for Israel', Michael Danby MP, who was reported as saying that:

"... the episode undermined 'the image of moderation that the Greens... is so desperate to cultivate.' He said other parties would be 'excoriated' over such a reversal."

Just think about that for a moment.

In effect, what Danby is saying is that anyone who seriously believes that he, Michael Danby, is really an Israeli is a political moderate.

But anyone who thinks he's just an Australian, no more, no less, is a howling political extremist and deserves to be "excoriated."

Right...

Richard Di Natale: Wet Behind the Ears

"Stop saying that nobody knew how to cultivate oranges in Jaffa until the Jews showed them how. 'Making the desert bloom' makes desert dwellers out of people who were the agricultural superiors of the Crusaders." (Christopher Hitchens)

Thus blurted Richard Di Natale:

"Israelis are at the forefront of innovative technologies around [water saving]. Why wouldn't we be learning from some of the new technologies that the Israelis have developed?" (Di Natale in his own words, The Australian Jewish News, 22/5/15)

Although he's obviously unaware of it, the Greens leader here is mouthing the latest twist on one of the oldest Zionist talking points in the book, the one about Israel 'making the desert bloom'.

Before he spouts any more nonsense of this kind, could some Green or other out there please draw his attention to the following INCREDIBLY INTERESTING piece? Thanks in advance:

"The New York Times invites us to gaze with wonder on the miracles of Israeli technology today, with a page 1 photo and story touting the innovations that have saved the country from drought. Because of wise policies and applied science, we learn, 'there is plenty of water in Israel.'

"The Times never tells us, however, that a significant number of those who reside on the land are seriously deprived of water: Palestinians in some areas of the West Bank are forced to survive on only 20 liters of water a day per person, well below the World Health Organization minimum of 60 liters. In Gaza 90% of the water is unfit to drink.

"Meanwhile, Israelis in West Bank settlements 'generally have access to as much running water as they please,' according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, and Israelis over all use three times as much water as Palestinians. Settlers also confiscate West Bank springs, and Israeli security forces destroy water equipment in Palestinian villages and prevent their residents from building cisterns and wells... Israel steals the water from under the feet of Palestinians, draining West Bank aquifers, allocating 73% of this water to Israel and another 10% to settlers. Palestinians are left with 17%, and many are forced to buy from the Israeli water company at rates up to 3 times as high as the tariffs charged Israelis." (From NY Times applauds while Israel robs Palestine of water, timeswarp.com, 30/5/15)

Related posts: Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner (25/11/08); Zionism 101: Making the Desert Bloom (2/11/10); Making Deserts Bloom 1 (5/11/11); The Blooming Desert (24/4/12).

Richard Di Natale: The Fool Who Rushed In

You can read the full story, New Greens boss Richard Di Natale forced to clarify Israel stance (Max Chalmers, 28/5/15) on the New Matilda website.

Briefly, Di Natale's office has been prompted, obviously by some kind of backlash from rank-and-file Greens, to issue the following clarification of his recent interview with the Australian Jewish News, the subject of my 23/5/15 post Richard Di Natale Reclassified: "He had no intention for his comments to be interpreted as support for establishment of a 'Jewish state'. It's not a phrase that he used."

"According to his office," writes Chalmers, "Di Natale simply agreed to a question put to him by [AJN] journalist Gareth Narunsky, apparently missing the distinction being made."

The "distinction" referred to is that between Israel as is, on the one hand, and the Zionist dogma of Israel as the State of Jews wherever they live, on the other.

IOW, the likes of Josh Frydenberg (Lib) and Mark Dreyfus (Lab), simply by demonstrating that their mothers are Jewish, can, if they so choose, take up Israeli citizenship, while millions of Palestinian Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, driven from their homeland in 1948 and 1967 by Zionist terror gangs, are not allowed to return.

The fact that Di Natale was unaware of this elementary distinction between Israel, the state of its citizens, and Israel, the state of its citizens plus every other Jew on the planet, including Frydenberg and Dreyfus, but  rushed in regardless with his de facto endorsement of Zionist holy writ, to the delight of the AJN and its ultra-Zionist readers, speaks volumes about his ignorance on the subject of Palestine/Israel.

There is no excuse here. The issue's been on the boil since the late 19th century, yet the man who would be king of a viable third force in Australian politics, cannot pass Israel 101?

The Australian Jewish News, BTW, is standing by its story and has released a tape of this part of its interview with Di Natale. You can listen to it on Chalmers' NM report, but here's the transcript:

Gareth Narunsky: One of the sticking points that the Palestinian Authority... the leadership [is] their refusal to accept Israel's existence as a Jewish state. Do you have a view on whether they should or shouldn't?

Di Natale (rushing in, scoffing): Well, of course. I mean if you have a two-state solution, refusing to acknowledge the right of one state to exist is patently nonsense... it's self-evident that you can't, we're not going to achieve progress until we accept that both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to exist, determine their own futures and that's what a two-state solution means.

Sure, fools rush in. All the time. Especially into Australian parliaments. But if the Greens are ever to break LibLab's stifling monopoly on Australian politics and introduce a genuinely fresh approach to people and planet, they have to be up to speed on this particular issue. That means, in a nutshell, rejecting Zionism and its modus operandi, calling for the right of return of Palestinian refugees, embracing the pro-Palestine campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israeli apartheid, and supporting the creation of a secular democratic state for all of its citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in historical Palestine.

Richard Di Natale Reclassified

In my May 7 post on Richard Di Natale, The Green's New Limp Lettuce Leader, I jestingly classified him as being at the iceberg lettuce end of the greens spectrum.

Having just read Di Natale in his own words in The Australian Jewish News of May 22, however, I now realise I was wrong. Even an iceberg lettuce would have a more informed, nuanced and ethical perspective than this:

The two-state solution: "Most people who have followed this issue and care about it, would acknowledge that there really isn't any other [sic] alternative."

Hello? Does anyone seriously believe that Di Natale has ever "followed and cared about this issue"? Even for a nanosecond?

There is "no alternative" to two states? Oh, really?

IOW, there's no alternative to:

a) an ethnocratic, apartheid Israeli state on 78% (+ settlements + Jordan Valley + East Jerusalem) of historical Palestine; and

b) an impoverished, de-militarised, non-contiguous series of Palestinianian bantustans (with no control over borders or airspace) on the bits left over.

Although Di Natale lives in a unitary state blind to ethnicity or sectarian affiliation, he doesn't see it as an alternative to the above?  Well I'll be buggered!

Scary.

Recognising Israel's existence as a Jewish state: "Of course. How can you have a two-state solution when you refuse to acknowledge the right of one state to exist? It's patently nonsense."

Let's get this straight. The occupied Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza (many of whom, BTW, are the descendents of refugees from Israel improper) should recognise Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state which excludes the indigenous, non-Jewish Palestinians it turfed out in 1948 by denying them the right of return?

IOW, he expects the West Bankers and Gazans to kiss international law and basic, inalienable human rights goodbye and recognise an apartheid state based on the permanent exile of most Palestinians?

Apparently so. After all, as far as Di Natale's concerned, anything less is "patently nonsense."
  
BDS: "It's just not the party position. Some time ago we made a very clear statement that we didn't believe that this was a pathway to peace."

I think what Di Natale really means here is that BDS is not a pathway to peace with the Zionist lobby.

'Israeli' technology: "Israelis are at the forefront of innovative technologies around [water-saving]. Why wouldn't we be learning from some of the new technologies that the Israelis have developed?"

Which simply means that he cannot see past the brand Israel hype to Palestinian water tanks riddled by Israeli bullets and Israeli settler swimming pools brimming with water.

On visiting Israel: "Absolutely."

Iceberg lettuce? This bloke's not even a member of the plant kingdom. Is there a mycologist in the house?

Picking Off The Greens

Here's a massive generalization that I have no trouble whatever in making: How people approach the Palestine problem tells you everything you really need to know about them.

Do they have the wit to see its underlying colonial dynamic? Do they have the intelligence to see through the reams of propaganda, endlessly generated and carefully crafted to cover this up? Do they have the sense to see the need for just a little homework on the subject, a little reading, before shooting their mouths off? Do they have the morals which mandate always standing with the powerless and the oppressed against their oppressors? And finally, do they have the courage to stand up to the lies and the slurs which emanate from the appalling tribal pathology of those who batten on Palestinian dispossession and suffering?

Call me naive, but if these are not the kind of qualities we expect to see in Greens politicians (as distinct from the hollow, opportunistic and cowardly LibLab variety), then what, I ask, is the point of this parliamentary third force?

Sadly, with the honourable exception of Lee Rhiannon (Senate), John Kaye (NSW) and David Shoebridge (NSW) (& please prod me if I've missed anyone else here), the current crop of Greens politicians are either deafeningly silent on Palestine or, even worse, beginning to sing like canaries for the Zionist lobby. Just to focus on the latter group, here's their record so far:

Christine Milne, the new leader of the party, has told The Australian Jewish News that "BDS is behind us." (See my 21/4/12 post Some Questions for Christine Milne.)

Jeremy Buckingham (NSW) has joined the steering committee of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel. (See my 25/2/12 post Jeremy Buckingham Crosses the Rubicon.)

Cate Faehrmann (NSW) has called the anti-Max Brenner protests anti-Semitic. (See my 16/11/11 post Witches Brew 8.)

Colleen Hartland (Victoria) sucks up to the Peres Centre for Peace. (See my 17/6/11 post Foul Play.)

And it's now the turn of Richard Di Natale (Senate):

"Support for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement by the NSW Greens was a huge mistake, admitted Senator Richard Di Natale at the Limmud Oz conference last weekend. He said the position, adopted last year by NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon, never was or would be Greens federal policy. 'It was hugely damaging and it was the wrong thing to do. We are a democratic party, it was a state branch that passed it because people didn't understand what it meant,' said Di Natale, who appeared on a panel with MPs Colleen Hartland and Sue Pennicuik and Jewish educator Ittay Flescher*, who probed The Greens on their policy affecting Israel and Australian Jews." (BDS was a huge mistake, admit Greens, The Australian Jewish News, 15/6/12)

The curious thing is that Di Natale is, among other things, the Greens spokesman for West Papua. The following appears on his website:

"The Greens believe that the indigenous people of West Papua should have the opportunity to democratically decide their own future, in accordance with international standards of human rights and the principles of international law. Greens spokesperson for West Papua Richard Di Natale has called on the Australian government to show leadership on the issue of West Papua. There are ongoing concerns about escalating conflict and the oppression of Papuans by the Indonesian military, partly trained and armed by Australia. The Greens have called upon Australia to suspend military ties with Indonesia, so long as such violence and human rights abuses continue. The West Papua region remains very difficult for journalists and human rights monitoring organisations to access. The Greens have also called for open access to journalists and human rights monitors."

Maybe Di Natale's website should now feature the following disclaimer:

"The Greens do not believe that the indigenous people of Palestine should have the opportunity to democratically decide their own future, in accordance with international standards of human rights and the principles of international law. In fact, they don't even believe they are the indigenous people of Palestine. Greens non-spokesman for Palestine Richard Di Natale has not called on the Australian government to show leadership on the issue of Palestine. In fact he has even slammed members of his own party who have shown leadership on this issue! There are ongoing concerns about escalating conflict and the oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli military, diplomatically supported by Australia in the UN and other international fora (but frankly, Richard's too busy watching football to really give a stuff). The Greens have not only not called upon Australia to suspend diplomatic ties with, or cut support for, Israel, so long as such violence and human rights abuses continue, they have even condemned citizen-led initiatives such as BDS . The Occupied Palestinian Territories remain very difficult for journalists and human rights monitoring organisations to access, but who gives a toss? The Greens have never called for open access to journalists and human rights monitors. And anyway, they're much too busy schmoozing with Indonesia - sorry, Israel - lobbyists."

Some disturbing facts (and a truly mind-blowing question) for the Greens' spokesman for West Papua:

1) West Papua is occupied land. Palestine is occupied land (from the River to the Sea).
2) West Papua has been colonised by Indonesia. Palestine has been colonised by Zionist colons, initially with the backing of British bayonets, and now with American.
3) West Papuans want freedom and independence from Indonesian colonialism. Palestinians want freedom and independence from Israeli colonialism.
4) Would Richard Di Natale embrace a West Papuan-led BDS campaign?

[*A most suitable subject for my very next post.]