Why is Ruth Pollard Leaving Fairfax?

Sadly, it looks as though Fairfax Media's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard is bowing out. I haven't always been kind to her as some of my earlier posts on her reporting attest but I have to say that the quality of her reporting has only improved with time. Suffice it to say that when the AIJAC crowd start yapping about her 'negativity' towards Israel and her lack of 'balance'* you know she's doing something right.

In fact, one tweet I've read has even suggested that Fairfax will be closing its Jerusalem bureau - which could only mean that Fairfax papers from now on will carry only craportage on the Middle East from the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post. This, of course, would constitute yet another huge milestone in Fairfax's decline into irrelevance.

Given earlier ructions over the reporting of Ed O'Loughlin, Fairfax's ME correspondent until 2008, and the Sydney Morning Herald's treatment of its star columnist Mike Carlton following pressure from Israel lobbyists, one cannot help but wonder about the real reasons for Pollard's leaving her post.

I sincerely hope that Ruth finds the time to write a memoir of some kind, one which frankly tackles the subject of Israel lobby pressure on Fairfax Media in general, and the craven crew at the helm of the Herald in particular, and details what must have been for her an incredibly steep learning-curve in occupied Palestine.

[* The truth about the Gaza war (hint: it's not what Ruth Pollard tells you, aijac.org.au, 5/9/15]

Natural Born Zionists 4

"Four months after settlers threw firebombs into the Dawabshe home as the family slept, the residents of Duma are struggling to face their loss. Rihab's brother Hassan, 31, unlocks the front door of the house that sits on the edge of town. An old olive tree still grows outside, untouched by the flames. The prognosis for 5-year-old Ahmad, who has burns to 60% of his body, is harrowing. 'The doctors tell us there will be skin grafts, plastic surgery and physiotherapy for at least the next 10 years,' Hassan says. The little boy has not been told that he is the sole survivor of the fire. 'Ahmad is the only thing keeping the family from falling apart,' Hassan says. 'We are afraid that the small progress he has made will be destroyed by the news.' Hassan's brother-in-law Nasser, a 42-year-old teacher, says the attack was one of many attempts to force Palestinians from their land. 'It has only made us more determined to seek our freedom and independence,' he says. 'The Netanyahu government supports these settlement groups all the way up to the most senior members of the cabinet,' he says. 'They are the ones who encourage terrorism against our people.'

"On December 3, the Shin Bet announced they had arrested 'several Israelis' in connection with the Duma attack. Fairfax Media contacted the Ministry of Defence and the office of the Defence Minister with a set of questions regarding the administrative detention of Evyatar Slonim and the investigation into the attack on the Dawabshe family. We did not receive a response by the time of publication."

Natural Born Zionists 3

"Evyatar Slonim was born in Israel and went to schools in the northern part of the occupied West Bank which Jewish residents call Samaria or the Shomron - home to 29 illegally-built Israeli settlements. According to the family member, '[Evyatar] has pursued higher Torah learning which is very common for religious young men in Israel. In addition, he studies equine therapy (horse riding therapy), in which he has a diploma. He completed his qualifications with the highest accolades from his teachers.'

"Slonim's parents see their son once a fortnight for 30 minutes, speaking to him through a perspex barrier via telephones inside Eshel Prison. 'Regardless of how long they hold him under these horrendous conditions and how much pressure they place him under it will be of no benefit in solving the crime of Duma or any other crime that they try to associate with him as Evyatar is innocent,' the family member says. 'We are absolutely horrified that in a democratic country [Evyatar] has been imprisoned without a trial.' When I asked how Slonim came to be under surveillance by the Shin Bet, his family member replied: 'We wonder the same ourselves. I am concerned that something sinister could be going on and we may be looking at some sort of Agent X situation,' the family member said, referring to the case of another dual Australian-Israeli citizen, Ben Zygier. Zygier, also known as Prisoner X, killed himself while in solitary confinement in Israel in 2010. He was believed to have been an operative for Israel's national intelligence agency, Mossad.

"Shlomo Fischer of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute is an expert on radical Jewish extremism. He says violence like that committed against the Dawabshe family stems from the perpetrators' belief that they are acting on the 'voice of God.' Their goals are to 'create chaos and undermine the ability of the government to rule and set up a revolutionary redemptive state. They want to replace the current State of Israel with something else - their main animosity, just like al-Qaeda directing their animosity to the non-jihadist Muslim regimes, is against the government of Israel. They are very aware of the fact that they will be treated with kid gloves because they are Jewish - that has been the precedent until now.'

"As Ettinger wrote on his blog: 'The closer we bring the conflict the better it will be for the people of Israel and the land of Israel. Everyone will find many ways to wake people up and act and explain why the land should be left exclusively for Jews.' The concept of redemption in Judaism - the liberation of Jews from exile for the end of days - is central to the beliefs of the Hilltop Youth, says Hagit Ofran, the director of the Israeli NGO Peace Now's Settlement Watch project. The national-religious right in Israel sees the state's existence as an integral part of redemption, but to the Hilltop Youth the Sharon government's 2005 'disengagement' from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank - involving the removal of thousands of settlers - was a huge blow. 'When the disengagement happened, it was as if the state turned its back on the redemption process,' Ofran says. 'Some or most of the settlers said 'OK, we need to work harder on the State of Israel... to continue the fight.' [But] the Hilltop Youth said... 'the redemption will happen even if the State of Israel is not here'.'

"This violent group numbers only in the hundreds, no more than 1,000, says Ofran, but they account for much of the violence perpetrated against Palestinians in the West Bank. 'The settlements are based on discrimination - the fact that you raise children in a place where you as an Israeli Jew have rights and Palestinians do not have rights and are instead living under military law, this raises people to believe they are more than the others'."

Next post: Part 4

Natural Born Zionists 2

"Slonim has been under the gaze of the Shin Bet since at least 2010, court documents indicate. He was arrested on December 30, 2010, at the entrance to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba and found in possession of a knife, tools for housebreaking and a spray can. He had this equipment, police told the court, 'for the purpose of committing a crime or causing a disturbance against Palestinians.' In March 2011 he was arrested again, this time for throwing stones. Court documents indicate he was held for interrogation for 8 days. On another occasion he was accused of attacking a police officer. By March 2015, after months of suspicion over his involvement in the Khirbet Abu Falah attack, he was given an 'administrative ban' by the District Court prohibiting him from entering Jerusalem or the West Bank, his lawyer says.

"When he was arrested in early August, Slonim's parents told Israeli media their son was with them on a family holiday in the north of the country at the time of the Duma attack. For the last four months the criminal lawyer Aharon Rose has represented Slonim, his fees paid not by the young man's parents but by the right-wing legal centre Honenu, which assists settlers and soldiers who fall foul of the law. 'In August 2015... after the burning of the house in Duma in which 3 people from the same family died, the intelligence agencies decided to take the gloves off,' Rose says in his office in Tel Aviv. He is referring to the extraordinary decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet to approve the use of administrative detention - imprisonment without charge - for Israeli citizens. Israel already holds hundreds of Palestinians in administrative detention, despite trenchant criticism from local and international rights groups. Slonim is now 4 months into a 6-month stint in prison. Under administrative detention inmates are not charged, nor are they or their lawyers given an opportunity to respond to the allegations against them. In September, Yaalon said security services knew who had carried out the attack on the Dawabshe family but could not charge them due to a lack of evidence and fear of compromising intelligence sources.

"Both Rose and Slonim's parents, Gila and Zeev Slonim, have spoken out repeatedly against the use of administrative detention. 'Evyatar was not involved in any violent incident whatsoever, not at all and not specifically in Duma,' Rose says. Slonim breached the travel ban imposed on him once, Rose admits, to take part in a wedding at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. 'Security at the court say they knew what he was doing every second of every day... so they must also know he did not participate in any violence at that time,' Rose adds. Slonim has received a visit from Australian consular officials while in prison, Rose confirms. The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade would not comment on Slonim's case, nor would the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv. Fairfax Media made contact with his parents, who moved to Israel from Melbourne in 1989 and now live in the settlement of Tzofim. We were directed to a family spokesman who explained that the gag order placed on the case prevented the Slonims from commenting. Instead, a family member who did not want to be identified answered emailed questions via the spokesman."

Next post: Part 3

Natural Born Zionists 1

Kingdom come is a first-class expose of Israel's coddled and deadly settler spawn by Fairfax's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard. I'm serialising it here. The Australian connection is most interesting:

"The small house of Saad and Riham Dawabshe still smells of the fire that took their lives and that of their 18-month-old son, Ali. The floor is a jumble of clothes, melted furniture and cracked glass, the walls blackened by the ferocious flames that two fire trucks struggled to extinguish. To hear witnesses retell the story of the firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma on July 31 is heart-stopping. Saad, 32, was already dying in front of his house by the time his brother Nasser reached him. Saad's wife Riham, 27, was lying nearby, clutching a blanket she believed held Ali. Two masked Israeli settlers stood over their bodies, determined, Nasser Dawabshe says, to see them die. Another son, five-year-old Ahmad, was trapped behind the lounge room door, his screams rising above the inferno. A neighbour managed to get him out. Ali could not be saved. 'The more we threw water on the flames the more they burned,' Nasser says.

"Days later, three young Jewish men were arrested. They are, Israeli security services allege, involved in a violent underground movement that aims to create a Jewish kingdom. Known as 'The Revolt', their plan entails attacking Palestinians to draw the Israel Defence Forces into a cycle of violence. One of these young men is Evyatar Slonim, a dual Australian-Israeli citizen. The 23-year-old now sits in a small cell in a high-security wing of Eshel Prison in the city of Beersheba. Accused by Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon of 'involvement in activity by an extremist Jewish group', Slonim was already the subject of a year-long 'administrative ban' prohibiting him from entering the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem when he was arrested. Meir Ettinger and Mordechai Meyer, who were arrested at the same time, are also in administrative detention.

"Slonim is a relative of controversial former Knesset member Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, who recently visited Australia to address synagogues in Sydney and Melbourne. Ettinger is the grandson of Meir Kahane, a militant American-Israeli rabbi and former Knesset member whose Kach movement was outlawed in Israel in the 1980s. Kahane was assassinated in 1990 but remains a hugely influential figure on Israel's far right. While authorities have not directly tied the arrest of Slonim, Ettinger and Meyer to the attack in Duma, Yaalon made it clear that the government believes there is a link. In an interview with Israel's Channel 10, the defence minister said: 'We wouldn't conduct these administrative arrests if there wasn't any connection to the arson.' Slonim was previously arrested on suspicion of setting fire to a home in the Palestinian town of Khirbet Abu Falah in November 2014. Ettinger is believed to have been involved in the torching of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes on the shores of the Sea of Galilee on June 17, while Meyer is suspected of an arson attack on Jerusalem's Abbey of the Dormition in May 2014. Through their lawyers, all three deny any involvement in the attacks. The investigation into the Dawabshe murders remains under a gag order in Israel.

"Slonim has been involved in attacks against Palestinians for years, according to court documents seen by Fairfax Media. He is believed to have been part of the extremist group known as the Hilltop Youth, from which security sources believe The Revolt was formed. The Hilltop Youth refuse to acknowledge the authority of the state, the military or their parents. They feel betrayed by the mainstream settler movement which is working in contravention of international law and with the full support of Israel's government - to establish a permanent Jewish presence throughout the occupied West Bank. And in recent years they have been, according to Israeli security sources, the main perpetrators in the so-called 'price tag' attacks against churches, Palestinian civilians and even Israeli military personnel. The 'price tag' is graffiti left at the scene as a message that there is a price to be paid for actions against the settler movement, such as carrying out court-ordered demolitions of settler outposts. At the Dawabshe house, the graffiti in Hebrew reads 'Revenge' and 'long live the Messiah.' A Star of David and a crown are drawn above the phrases.

"The Dawabshe family say they have no idea why they were targeted. But a manual saved on a thumb-drive found on one of Slonim's co-accused by the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, provides some insight into the plans of The Revolt. In their creation of a Jewish kingdom, all non-Jews would be expelled and a third temple would be built on the Temple Mount, where al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand today, forming Islam's third holiest site. 'The starting point of The Revolt is that the State of Israel has no right to exist, and therefore we are not bound by the rules of the game,' the thumb-drive manifesto reads. It goes on in chilling detail to provide a how-to guide for firebombing Palestinian homes or mosques. 'We prefer to use firebombs with our friends so provide yourself with: a molotov cocktail, preferably a litre-and-a-half, lighter, gloves, masks, metal bar/hammer, bag to carry all those,' the manual reads. 'Come to the village and there look for a home with an open door or open window without bars... Simply breaking a glass door or window... turn on [ignite] the fire bomb and throw it in. In order not leave the possibility of escape, burning tyres can be placed at the entrance of the house.'"

Next post: Part 2 

When Journalists Sound Like IS Terrorists

Question: Why did the jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the attacks in Paris have it so damn easy?

Answer: Because there were no obstacles of any kind to obstruct them. Just your average civilian infrastructure: you know, streets, cafes, theatres, stadiums, what have you. Stroll in, stroll out:

"France has vowed a 'merciless' response to an unprecedented terrorist atrocity: six-co-ordinated attacks that stained Parisian streets with blood and left more than 120 people dead." (Paris attacks: France vows 'merciless' response to unprecedented atrocity, Nick Miller, The Sun-Herald, 15/11/15)

Question: Why did the same pack of jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the earlier attacks in Beirut have it so damn hard?

Answer: Well, they had to overcome a bastion, which is to say the projecting part of a fortification built at an angle to the line of a wall, so as to allow defensive fire in several directions, a structure that is part of a stronghold, which is a place that has been fortified to protect it against attack. Seriously:

"Lebanon was holding a day of mourning yesterday for 41 people killed in twin bombings... in southern Beirut... More than 200 people were also wounded... by the explosions... in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood that is a bastion of the Shia Hezbollah movement... The attacks were the deadliest to hit a Hezbollah stronghold..." (Lebanon mourns bomb victims, AFP/The Australian, 14/11/15)

Now for all I know, whoever wrote that Agence France Presse piece, with its bastion and stronghold, could have been an IS operative. After all, look at how IS claimed responsibility for the Beirut blasts:

"In a statement posted online, IS claimed... 'Soldiers of the caliphate blew themselves up in the stronghold of the heretics...'" (IS claims twin suicide blasts, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/11/15)

Stronghold! It's like an IS signature word, know what I mean?

Happily, I think we can safely assume that Herald journalist, Ruth Pollard's no jihadi because she didn't use the term at all in her piece, except, of necessity, in the IS quote:

"Islamic State has claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts in the southern Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh that killed at least 41 and injured more than 200." (ibid)

See? Not a bastion or a stronghold anywhere in sight, just your common and garden area, you know, with streets and cafes and theatres and stadiums and the like.

But just remember, from now on, whenever you see a journalist use the words stronghold or bastion in connection with an IS bombing in southern Beirut, it means that he/she is actually excusing what, if it occurred anywhere else, would be described as nothing less than a monstrous act of terrorism directed at innocent civilians. That, and sounding suspiciously like an IS propagandist.

The Piano Man, Redacted

What the Sydney Morning Herald's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard can write about Palestinian refugee, Ayham al-Ahmad:

"Even as he walks along the border from Croatia into Austria, pianist Ayham al-Ahmad is singing the songs of Yarmouk.

"He is a long way from the neighbourhood he called home for 27 years, a home he was forced to flee in April when Islamic State militants took control of much of Yarmouk, the besieged Palestinian refugee camp just 6 kilometres from the centre of Damascus.

"Since then he has made the trek from Syria into Turkey and down to the Mediterranean coastal city of Izmir where tens of thousands of Syrians have made the short but dangerous passage to Greece.

"Documenting every step of his journey on Facebook, the famous piano player of Yarmouk made a quiet, heartfelt plea for safety as he prepared for the sea crossing.

"'Dearest Mediterranean, I am Ayham and I would like to safely ride your waves,' he wrote on September 14. 'People here just want to go to Europe, [they are] paying through their noses for it. They ride in dinghies prone to overturning in seconds, taking all their lives to your deepest canyons. So what's the solution? We would like Turkey to open its borders with Greece and let us board overland in safety, away from the boats of death,' he wrote, signing off: 'This is Yarmouk, from the heart of Turkey, Ayham.'

"The days when I felt the most helpless were when I had money, but I could not get milk for my year-old baby Kinan, or when my older son Ahmad would ask me for a biscuit,' he told Agence France-Presse of leaving his wife and two young children behind - for now - to find a secure place in Europe where he can bring them.

"Ahmad held out for two years as the situation in Yarmouk deteriorated, moving his piano onto an old wooden trolley that he could wheel out of danger whenever the militants got too close or the regime shelling proved too dangerous.

"When he finally decided to move his family out of Yarmouk to the neighbouring suburb of Yalda in April, militants from IS stopped him at a checkpoint.

"They burnt his beloved piano to the ground in front of him, declaring: 'don't you know that music is haram [forbidden by Islam],' AFP reported.

"By the time he made it to Turkey's coast, Ahmad was exhausted and suspicious of the people smugglers who were making their fortune off the desperation of those fleeing the conflict in Syria.

"'We got into the inflatable boat and we made a deal with the smuggler that he wouldn't let more than 40 persons to get in it with us,' Ahmad wrote on Facebook on September 16. 'I was surprised to find more than 67 persons and a lot of baggage.'

"To everyone's great relief, he posted again the next day: 'After a dangerous trip through the Mediterranean Sea I arrived to Greece, thanks for all the prayers and wishes, I love you all very much.'

"By Monday, Ahmad had become one of the 12,000 to 13,000 refugees who had entered Austria in just 24 hours between Sunday and Monday. He is counting down the days before he can send for his family." (Famous pianist escapes to Austria, 23/9/15)

Presumably, this is what Pollard can't write about Ayhan: To find a place of refuge, a Palestinian refugee such as Ayhan has to travel all the way from Damascus to Vienna, a journey of around 2,330 kms. His ancestral homeland, Palestine, known since 1948 to its usurpers as 'Israel', is less than 100 kms from Damascus, but if Ayhan tried to return there, he'd be shot dead at the border... simply because he's not Jewish.

Australia Day Awards 2015

If you were thrilled by the award of a knighthood to Phil the Greek (aka Prince Philip), you'll be over the moon at the award of a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) to Sam the Zionist (aka Sam Salcman):

"For service to the community through a range of organisations:

"Senior Vice-president, Zionist Council of Victoria (ZCV) (formerly the State Zionist Council of Victoria) 15 years; Executive Member 1972-2010. ZCV Delegate to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (formerly the Jewish Board of Deputies) since 1973.

"Member of the Executive of the Jewish Board of Deputies as Chair of the Overseas Jewry Committee, 4 years.

"National Secretary, Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), 6 years; Executive 1974-2012 and since 2014.

"Honorary Treasurer, Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) 1992-1995 and 2000-2007; Honorary Life Member of ECAJ since 2008; Chairman, Overseas Jewry Committee, now known as the Australian Committee for Soviet Jewry (part of ECAJ) 1982-1990.

"Treasurer, Lamm Jewish Library of Australia Board (formerly Makor library) 1994-2003.

"Honorary Treasurer, Australian Reform Zionist Association (ARZA) 2003-2007.

"Vice-Chair, Australia Arava Partnership Committee since 2013 and Committee Member since 1998.

"Founding Member, Australian Friends of Labour Israel (Victoria), 1974; Vice-Chair, 1976-1997.

"Member, Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce Victoria since 1985.

"Secretary, Victorian ALF Foreign Affairs Committee 1976-1980; Member 1975-1982.

"Member, CPA Australia since 1984.

"Foundation Member, Institute of Certified Management Accountants since 1980; Chartered Tax Advisor, Taxation Institute of Australia since 2012.

"Member, Governance Institute of Australia since 1989.

"Recipient, Community Recognition Award, Jewish Community Council of Victoria, 2009.

"Recipient, Jerusalem Prize, Zionist Council of Victoria and Zionist Federation of Australia and World Zionist Organisation, 2003." (Australia Day Awards 2015, jwire.com.au, 26/1/15)

Reading through the above, I found myself wondering whether the Zionist Federation of Australia had nominated Sam for the above award. Wondering thus, I recalled the ZFA's recent (5/12/14) gripe about the 2014 Walkley Awards for journalists.

Railing against awards going to Middle East correspondents Paul McGeough and Ruth Pollard (Fairfax), and John Lyons (News Corpse), the ZFA griped that "Perhaps the only sure-fire way to win a Walkley these days is by spouting Palestinian propaganda and making sure you only tell half the story." (zfa.com.au)

The ZFA's gripe was titled:

How to win a Walkley Award - Step 1: Become Middle East Correspondent, Step 2: Write incessantly against Israel.

But would I be so churlish as to detract from Sam's considerable achievements by titling this particular post:

How to win an Australia Day Award - Step 1: Become a Zionist lobbyist, Step 2: Campaign incessantly against Palestine?

No way!

Still looking for an Australia Day 2015 award to a Palestinian lobbyist...

Pressure Cooker Palestine

"Mohamed Abu Jamal has barely slept in the past 10 days. Every time he closes his eyes he is overwhelmed by the struggle to understand his son's violent actions and to survive the Israeli government's decision to punish his family for those actions... His son's actions came out of nowhere, he says... My son was not religious, he did not go to the mosque to pray - I couldn't believe my child would do such a thing,' Mr Abu Jamal says. But after days of agonising over how someone so loved could commit such an act, he says this: 'When an external force exerts such pressure on a person and makes it impossible for him to live, to earn his daily bread, when you increase the psychological pressure on people, when you add the Gaza war and all those who we saw die, you can feel such despair. All of this combined with his financial difficulties led to this moment... they forced him into a corner, he was suffocating.' 'They' is the Netanyahu government, which Mr Abu Jamal says intentionally pushed Palestinians to the edge with increased land grabs, settlement construction and overwhelming military force. 'Even now they are still pushing, they have yet to return the bodies of my son or his cousin. They cannot commit a crime when they are already dead, so why is the government choosing to punish us?' he asks, crying quietly, his hand covering his face. 'I believe in peace, I believe in a two-state solution but I also believe in dignity for my people, and there is no dignity here'." (Home demolitions wreak vengeance on offenders' families, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/11/14)

No comment needed.

Those Reservations Aside...

Would anyone writing today (or yesterday for that matter) on Germany's occupation of Europe in WW2 bother telling us that said occupation was 'illegal'?

Of course not. Hello? Occupation? we'd scoff.

What if they told us that it was 'considered illegal under international law'?

We'd probably respond here with sarcasm: Oh really, we had no idea. Who would have thought?

What then if they'd bothered to add the qualification 'a point that was disputed by Germany,' as in 'Germany's occupation was considered illegal under international law - a point Germany disputed'?

We'd probably write the author of the piece off as a Nazi sympathiser or apologist.

And yet, Ruth Pollard, Fairfax's Middle East correspondent appears to have no problem writing as follows: "All of [the Israeli-occupied West Bank] is considered illegal under international law - a point Israel has disputed for decades." (Israel fights back against boycott, 8/2/14)

Again, can you imagine anyone writing of the German occupation of France as follows: 'The French resistance movement has taken up arms to drive the Germans out of occupied France. Its detractors label the movement as anti-German.'

Here we'd start by scratching our heads: Who are these mysterious 'detractors' we'd be wondering. Then the penny would drop. Oh, he means the Germans! So why the f**k doesn't he say so?

And yet Pollard can write, seemingly without pause: "Formed in 2005 by 170 Palestinian individuals and civil society groups, [the BDS movement] calls for the boycott of Israeli companies and products that profit from Israel's occupation... Its detractors label the movement anti-Semitic..."

Can you also imagine an article on the subject of the Nazi occupation giving the same weight to Germans (whether officials complaining about 'Germany-bashing' or heads of German universities telling us what champions of 'free speech, academic freedom and human rights' they are) as French resistance fighters?

And what would you think of its author if he gave them space to whine that 'the resistance movement was undermining all this and damaging efforts of collaboration'?

Well, Fairfax's cowardly adherence to the insidious dogma of 'balance' ensures that this is effectively what we get in Pollard's piece on the BDS movement.

And while I'm bitching, here are my quibbles about Pollard's report:

a) "Dan Avnon has spent most of his career promoting co-existence between Jewish and Arab Israelis." Name one instance of Avnon having called for or worked for equal rights for 'Arab Israelis,' or else insert the adverb 'allegedly';

b) "The BDS movement has powerful backers" ???!!! Name them!;

c) "While the BDS movement may have appeared... extreme when it began eight years ago." Extreme?! What, after 57 years of Palestinian exile and 38 years of occupation? Give me a break!

Those reservations aside, at least Pollard has raised the issue of BDS (and, in particular, Israeli lawfare outfit Shurat HaDin's unprecedented hauling of Sydney University academic Jake Lynch before the courts this month), only the second Fairfax employee after Richard Ackland* to touch on this most appalling challenge to free speech and academic freedom.

[*See my 18/1/14 post With My Own Eyes.]

Rejected

The next time you read any Israeli propaganda about Israel's Ziv Hospital treating wounded Syrian refugees,* remember Sameeha's mum:

"Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and as the disease progressed she became increasingly worried she was not getting the best care from Gaza's already overstretched medical facilities. She applied for a permit to travel to a hospital in Israel but was rejected. Determined to stay alive for her family, she made her way through one of the hundreds of illegal tunnels then operating between Gaza and Egypt, to seek better treatment in Cairo. 'She crawled all the way from Gaza to Egypt, through a small tunnel, on her hands and knees through the mud,' Sameeha says. 'I remember my brother, who took her through the tunnel, coming back to our house completely covered in mud and I thought, 'What had my mother gone through?'" (Egypt upheaval plunges Gaza into a nightmare of isolation & darkness, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/1/14)

[* See my 3/9/13 post Our Man in Tel Aviv 2.]

The 'F' Word

Ever noticed how Fairfax and Murdoch routinely deploy the 'F' word - 'fled' - to mask the reality of the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Three very recent examples:

"But her [Dr Jean Calder] heart was elsewhere and by January 1981 she was in Beirut as a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, working at the Haifa Rehabilitation Hospital in the Burj Al-Barajneh refugee camp, established by the UN in 1948 for Palestinians who fled from the Galilee in what is now Israel." (An act of love amid Gaza's war, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 23/11/13)

Pollard wouldn't dare tell us who or what they fled from. Maybe the Palestinians are just a naturally skittish people?

"The descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 when the state of Israel was created still live in squalid refugee camps across Lebanon." (Mountain refugees left in a freezing limbo, The Times/AFP, The Australian, 14/12/13)

Notice here how the unnamed Murdoch journalist draws no connection between 'fleeing their homes' and Israel's 'creation'. These are apparently two, quite unrelated phenomena!

Now here's my favorite. (Dima Bawab, BTW, is a British soprano "taking music workshops and concerts to Palestinian people in the West Bank." Note, not the occupied West Bank.)

"Bawab, 32, was born in Jordan and has Palestinian heritage: both of her parents were born in Jerusalem." (Choir noted for change, Matthew Westwood, The Australian, 14/12/13)

Bawab was born in Jordan - of parents born in Jerusalem! So why wasn't she born in Jerusalem?

Westwood's left that bit out. Being born in Jordan of parents born in Jerusalem is made to sound like a completely natural experience.

Maybe they just moved to Jordan because they were bored with Jerusalem? Maybe the air was better there? Hell, maybe the Centrelink payments in Jordan were better? Who knows? Who cares?

Here's a media culture that can't get enough of the 'Holocaust' (or its paler reflections, the 'killing fields' of Cambodia, Rwanda or Bosnia), but of the driving out, by bomb and bullet, of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948... not even a whisper.

Another Triumph for 'Quality Journalism'

Is covering the Middle East conflict correctly really that hard? It would seem so.

Fairfax's Middle East correspondent, Ruth Pollard, seriously stuffed up in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald with this:

"He [Naftali Bennett of the far-right Habayit Hayehudi Party] opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, a key platform of most of the major parties, including Mr Netanyahu's Likud, and instead pushes a plan of annexing much of the West Bank." (Far right spells danger for Netanyahu)

Where does Likud stand with regard to a Palestinian state? Its 2008 platform was unequivocal:

"Israel will not allow the establishment of an Arab Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. The Palestinians will be able to manage their lives freely in the framework of an autonomous regime, but not as a sovereign, independent state." (Likud, ynetnews.com, 1/2/08)

Apparently, a puff or two of smoke and the odd mirror have been deployed since then, yet how anyone can claim so categorically, after reading the following Haaretz report on the subject, that the creation of a Palestinian state is "a key platform" of the Likud is a mystery to me:

"Senior Likud officials called Monday for the omission of a reference to the establishment of a Palestinian state from the party's platform. This was meant to be included after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognized the principle of the two-state solution in his 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech.

"With less than a month to go before the election, Likud and Yisrael-Beiteinu have yet to present the platform of their joint slate, and according to sources in the parties it is not clear when and if a platform will be issued. 'Dividing the land will bring about Israel's destruction,' one senior Likud official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'We've said that in the past and we say it today. How does this sit with recognizing a Palestinian state,' he said Monday, cautioning against adding such a clause to the platform. Another senior party official said, 'Likud's platform to date has not recognized the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Yisrael-Beiteinu rejects outright the possibility that a Palestinian state could be established alongside Israel' Another Likud source said, 'It's not clear how [Likud stalwarts such as] Reuven Rivlin, Moshe Ya'alon or Zeev Elkin could reconcile with a platform that includes acceptance of a Palestinian state.'

"The lack of an official joint platform was very noticeable during an interview Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, number-three on the joint slate, gave Monday to the Ynet news site. He stated his opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, reminding the interviewer that the 'two-state' principle has never been part of Likud's platform and hinting that this will not change during the election campaign... According to Yisrael-Beiteinu's platform, the demand to establish a Palestinian state and the 'right of return' are designed to camouflage the real intention, which is to erase the State of Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state.

"Likud sources said Monday the plan is to keep the party's position on the Palestinian issue as vague as possible in the pre-election period." (Likud officials call to omit Netanyahu's two-state declaration from party platform, Barak Ravid & Jonathan Lis, 25/12/12)

A purely rhetorical question: When are ms correspondents and pundits ever going to wake up? What Israeli leaders say or don't say matters not a whit, all that matters is what's going on ON THE GROUND AS WE SPEAK.

Now I wish that that was my only problem with Pollard's report, but it isn't. Sadly, it also contains the following sentence:

"In recent months, Israel has pushed forward with its plan to expand settlement construction in disputed territory beyond the 1967 borders."

I'm sorry, but resorting to Israeli spin - disputed - to describe the ongoing OCCUPATION and colonisation of the West Bank is to connive in that process.

They Also Serve Who Only Sit Like Ducks & Wait

Fairfax's Middle East correspondent, Ruth Pollard's latest (13/11/12) report - Frustrations mount over 'crazy' tit-for-tat Gaza strikes - on Israelis living with Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, is a cut above the usual ms reporting on this issue. I'm , therefore, posting it in full, with commentary where appropriate. (Ms reporters such as Pollard are, of course, excluded by Israeli authorities from reporting from the other side):

"The alert sounds and a voice booms out across the neighbourhood, intoning urgently in Hebrew: 'Tzeva Adom, Tzeva Adom, Tzeva Adom.' The phrase means Colour Red, and it is part of an early warning system established in communities in southern Israel to signal an imminent rocket attack from Gaza. When the alarm sounds, 'you have 15 seconds to grab the children, get into the hallway, shut all the doors, cover the kids and wait for the boom - we do not ever know where it falls,' says Micky Keidar, who lives on Kibbutz Re'im with his wife, Reut Nehushtan, and their two children. It is a stomach-churning, terrifying routine familiar to most families living in the towns and kibbutzim along the Gaza border, and many say they are tiring of the constant threat. 'I do not agree that the only solution is that they bomb us and we bomb them,' Mr Keidar says. 'The government [of Israel] must stop the bombing but they must do it in a peaceful way... and Hamas must stop throwing bombs and missiles at us.' Ms Nehushtan agrees: 'It is crazy for us and crazy for them,' she says. 'There is no effort on the part of either government to talk - it does not affect their leaders, it does not affect our leaders but it effects the people on both sides.' As Mr Keidar walks along the small paths lined with bright pink bougainvillea that connect Kibbutz Re'im's houses to the kindergarten and dining hall, military helicopters and jets fly overhead, interrupting what he describes as - mostly- a very peaceful existence. We arrive at a house that just two weeks ago sustained a direct hit from a missile fired from Gaza, which is just 4.7 kilometres away. A gaping hole in the external wall reveals a bedroom destroyed - its owner had just got out of bed and run to the hallway at the sound of the alarm, barely escaping serious injury or death, Mr Keidar says."

OK. Mr Keidar is clearly unhappy with his predicament but one wonders if it ever occurs to him that his government has a vested interest in maintaining it? Without concrete evidence of Israeli 'suffering' in a place such as Sderot, government PR would lose a vital element in its 'volatile Lebanese border/moving Yad Vashem/besieged Sderot' pilgrimage route for foreign political, media and other dignitaries. Why, gullible hacks such as our very own Miranda Devine would not then be able to vomit such invaluable pro-Israel PR as this: "We flew by helicopter south to Sderot, where dozens of Israelis have been killed and wounded in the past decade by rockets fired from nearby Gaza. We saw burned-out missiles, piled in neat stacks at the back of the police station, and labelled with the date they arrived. One bore the previous week's date. People are starting to return to the town after the rockets slowed in 2008, but you can understand the fear Israelis have, with a hostile Hamas-controlled Gaza in their midst, and the future prospect of a similar threat in the West Bank." (See my 27/11/10 post Amanda Does Israel.) If it's any consolation to Mr Keidar and those in his position, without their predicament, pro-Israel propaganda in the West would lose its QPE. QPE? Yeah, Qualitative Propaganda Edge.

"They are not the only ones questioning the effectiveness of the military's actions against militants in Gaza, whose response - a barrage of rocket fire - disrupts the lives of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians. Five years ago a group of Israelis from villages and townships along the Gaza border formed Other Voices, and they have called on the government to 'immediately enter into diplomatic and political contacts with the Hamas government. 'We are sick and tired of being sitting ducks who serve political interests,' the group's latest statement to prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich reads. 'Rockets from there and bombardments from here do not protect us. We have played around with those games of the use of force and war for long enough. And both sides have paid, and are continuing to pay, a high price of loss and suffering,' they said. 'The time has come to endeavour to reach long-term understandings which will enable civilians on both sides of the border to live a normal life.'"

At last a break from the usual reportorial formula of Palestinians attack/ Israelis retaliate!

"Julia Chaitin, a resident of Kibbutz Urim and spokeswoman for Other Voices, described the constant bombardment as 'a crazy situation.' 'There is no military solution to this issue - there must be another way.' Dr Chaitin has maintained constant contact with friends in Gaza and says the situation for them is also untenable. 'I talked with one friend today and he told me the [Israeli] air force was just striking, it seemed to him, indiscriminately all over Gaza - it is an impossible situation.'"

But, but, but, isn't it always, always, always Palestinian and only Palestinian fire that's indiscriminate?

"The overwhelming strength of Israel's defence forces over Gaza's militant groups, even with their newly acquired weapons, exacts a heavy toll, not just on militants but on a civilian population already struggling with an unemployment rate of 45%, severely restricted electricity services and dangerously contaminated water supplies. Gaza remains subject to severe restrictions on imports, exports and the movement of people, by land, air and sea as a result of Israel's blockade and a significant number of the coastal strip's 1.6 million residents live below the poverty line, the United Nations says."

Whaaat! How dare Ms Pollard deviate from 'suffering' Israelis to SUFFERING Palestinians!

"Security experts have also raised questions about whether the current approach - in which Israel launches air strikes against Gaza militants to prevent what it describes as potential terror attacks - is working. 'It is true that Hamas fires at Israel in response to our actions,' Giora Eland, former director of the National Security Council told the newspaper Maariv recently. 'We need to check whether this policy is good or whether it should be changed... This is discussed in the security establishment. It's a question that has been asked again and again for many years: what is the policy, when do you initiate military action and what is your threshold.'"

OMG! Straight from the horses's mouth: "It is true that Hamas fires at Israel in response to our actions."

"Eshkol Regional Council chairman Haim Yellin described an equation that is 'accepted by everyone', in which Israel targets those who it says are planning terrorist attacks and, in response, militants fire Kassam and Grad rockets into Israel. 'It is clear to me that this is the situation and we have to learn to live with it, so long as there isn't a peace agreement or a large-scale military operation like Cast Lead,' he told Maariv."

And again: "Israel targets those who it says are planning terrorist attacks and, in response, militants fire Kassam and Grad rockets into Israel."

"Alex Fishman, a commentator for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, described Israel's Gaza policy as an 'admission of failure'. 'Israel now finds itself in a pathetic, if not flat-out stupid situation, in relation to the Gaza Strip. Almost every two weeks, in a recurring cycle, it deals with an additional round of violence. This scenario of terror-attack-reaction-rocket fire ad infinitum is essentially the Israeli government's admission of the failure of its security policy when dealing with the Gaza Strip.'"

Alex, mate, what part exactly of Giora's and Haim's statements did you not understand?

Pen-Pushers for Zion: A Tribute

You've really got to hand it to Zionist letter writers. Ready to swing into action at a moment's notice, they valiantly confront threats to Israel's image in the corporate press whenever these arise.

Could it be, however, that their brave efforts are insufficiently appreciated by broadsheet browsers? Are readers aware, as they imbibe a Zionist letter along with their tea and toast, that they are witness to a truly heroic endeavour? Do they ever pause to consider, as I do, that there, beneath their drips and crumbs, lies the artistry of a deluded soul who has taken on a labour so great, but ultimately so futile, as to make the legendary Sisyphus look positively sissy?

I'm pretty sure they don't, because otherwise the letters page would be flooded with applause at the sheer chutzpah of such an endeavour.

And so, in an effort to draw a jaded readership's attention to the epic struggle of those who have dedicated their lives to wrestling reality to the floor and making it cry 'uncle', I've decided to devote this post to the elucidation, not to say celebration, of that too-often overlooked literary genre, the Zionist defence of the indefensible.

This opportunity arose with the publication in the Sydney Morning Herald of a letter by Stuart Sontag of Bondi in response to Fairfax Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard's candid report on the decidedly unhealthy interest taken by the heroes of the Israel Defence Forces in Palestinian children, Children on front line in West Bank (27/8/12).

"It is disturbing to see allegations of Palestinian children being harmed in clashes with Israeli soldiers..."

As you see Sontag opens on just the right note. You can tell immediately we're dealing with a master of the genre. In telling us what a sensitive soul he is, he deftly, expertly, sucks us in, disarms us. Here's a typically caring SMH reader, we think, alive like us to the sufferings of the wretched of the earth. And so we don't really notice that what it is that actually disturbs him is that Israel's occupying forces are generating negative publicity in the press. Pretty neat, eh?

And note the deployment of the words 'allegations' and 'clashes', with their wonderful reality-dispersing properties. When Palestinians (or in this instance, self-hating Jewish-Israeli traitors who dare to spit on the institution that tried but failed to make men out of them) report what Israeli troops get up to, it's 'allegations' all round. But when the Israelis talk about the Palestinian 'militants' (I won't even go there) they so regularly gun down in Gaza, the 'a' word never fails to make a non-appearance.

As for 'clashes', what a great word for suggesting that the all-powerful and the completely powerless are equal participants in the unfolding drama. (In the photograph accompanying Pollard's report you may have noticed Israeli troops 'clashing' with a pair of little girls as they protest the manhandling of their mother by Israeli troops.)

So much artful dodging, and we haven't even finished the sentence yet! I told you Sontag was good:

"... many of whom are barely adults themselves."

Awesome, eh? The human rights abuses of state terrorists and occupiers reduced to the dimensions of a schoolyard scuffle between the Year 8s and the Year 9s! But there's more. The master's barely stirred: 

"However, Palestinian minors using apparently primitive weapons such as rocks, Molotov cocktails and knives have killed Israeli soldiers and civilians alike."

 Apparently primitive weapons. How good is that? A rock is only apparently primitive. None of us could possibly have dreamt up the notion that a rock is actually a quite sophisticated weapon, cunningly designed to fit into the hand and incorporating such ingenious built-in features as jagged edges which can be lethal when used against fresh-faced Israeli kiddies carrying apparently sophisticated weapons who may have inadvertently blundered, whilst out on a fun run, into a Palestinian town or village. 

"Responding to such potentially lethal threats using non lethal means will always present operational challenges to Israeli forces..."

But hasn't it been dinned into us that Israel is loaded with entrepreneurial talent, that it is to the Nobel Prize winner what Australia is to Vegemite, meat pies and Holden cars? Haven't we been literally bombarded with the idea that Israel is behind practically every conceivable invention since the wheel? And yet, stone-throwing kids are somehow in the too-hard basket.

But therein lies Sontag's magic, because, while we weren't watching, he's slipped us the idea that it's actually the occupied, rather than the occupier, that constitutes the lethal threat. And so we're out to such simple ideas as: if Israel's inadvertently armed, khaki-clad kiddies are really in such danger, then maybe the Israeli government should simply end the occupation. But that's not all:

"... but also to Australian Diggers in Afghanistan and even to NSW Police in Kings Cross."

The appeal to the Aussie patriot in all of us! Brilliant! And we know he's right: rock-throwing Afghan kids have killed over 30 Australian Diggers in Afghanistan so far, and rock-throwing Australian kids have killed so many NSW police in Kings Cross over the years that the media doesn't even bother reporting it any more.

"The real culprits are Palestinian terrorist organisations..."

A masterstroke that one! Now we're a million miles away from those barely adult Israeli troops. And speaking of PTOs, you've heard about those Palestinians keys, right? No, not the ones associated with the Nakba and being turfed out of your home back in 1948. The ones to be found in every Palestinian kid's back, such that all the PTO operative has to do is wind the kid up, literally, position him on a path frequented by those barely adult Israeli troops allegedly armed with apparently sophisticated weapons, and when the latter finally appear, the joint's rocking. Why, you can just about see the evil gleam in the PTO operatives' eyes as they wind up their pawns and place those deadly rocks in their paws. But the PTOs are not the only ones responsible for the plight of the barely adult, allegedly abusive Israeli youngsters. Sontag has even bigger fish to fry:

"... using Western funds..."

Shame on you, Bob Carr!

"... which indoctrinate their own children via tainted school books,..."

Tainted with talk about some fictional entity called Palestine!

"... official media and some mosques to become media 'heroes'..."

Shame on you Fairfax! Shame on you, Ruth Pollard! Shame on you Islam!

Such is Sontag's witchery that, in our anger at this parade of villains - PTO puppet masters, their Western funders, tainted Palestinian textbooks, a lying Palestinian media, virulent sermonising in Palestinian mosques, and a gullible Western media - we've all but forgotten the Palestinian kids left shackled and bleeding in Israeli dungeons.

"... by deliberately seeking confrontations."

How masterful that substitution of 'deliberately' for 'allegedly', and, what with the synonym power that adds 'confrontations' to the earlier 'clashes', Pollard's words about "the [Israeli] military's consistent arbitrary invasion of villages and homes... to create [in Palestinians] the feeling of being chased" are way down the memory hole.

So let's hear it for Stuart Sontag of Bondi. Without his tireless efforts, and those of his fellow pen-pushers for Zion, constantly pushing poop uphill, always setting us straight on Israel's trials and tribulations, we might actually be confronted by the scary thought that this great pillar of Judeo-Christian civilization, this mighty bulwark against Islamic barbarism, isn't really all it's cracked up to be.

Perish that thought!

Down the Memory Hole

Oh dear! Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, steamed foreign editor of The Australian is sooo sorry:

"Many readers were surprised, as I was, to read a headline in The Weekend Australian: Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid [by Middle East correspondent John Lyons]. The headline did an injustice to the story, which only used the word apartheid in reporting the comments of one person who was interviewed. The editor of this august journal has confirmed to me that the headline was a mistake, the sort that creeps into newspapers where staff are always battling the pressure of deadlines. The Australian believes, and certainly I personally believe, the word apartheid has no application to Israel, which is a democracy in good standing, which extends basic rights to all its citizens, whatever their race or creed. Too often the misuse of such a word is designed to demonise Israel, wholly unjustly. In this case, it was a mistake." (EU piggies won't go to market, 10/5/12)

You'll recall my 7/5/12 post Consensus At Last... in which I reported the above (100% correct) use by Murdoch's Australian of the 'a' word in relation to the world's whitest sepulchre.

You'll also recall The Australian's publication of several outraged (and outrageous) letters by the usual suspects, one of which I tackled in my 8/5/12 post The Other Side of Israel's Jewish Character.

And you'll recall the consensus achieved by Fairfax's Middle East correspondent, Ruth Pollard, in The Sun-Herald ('They want to destroy our village': Israel plans solar panel demolition, 6/5) in also invoking the 'a' word in relation to our whiter-than-white sepulchre.

Well, that rare consensus between the Murdoch and Fairfax press continues today, albeit with an interesting difference:

While over at The Australian, John Lyons' report has been retitled Living under a residency cloud in Israel,  wailing and gnashing of teeth are the order of the day, sackcloth and ashes are being distributed and donned, and (?) heads are rolling all over the floor, over at Fairfax, a deathly silence prevails, epitomised by the apparent disappearance of Ruth Pollard's report, 'They want to destroy our village': Israel plans solar panel demolition, from the Herald's website.*

All of which just goes to show that when the dogs of the Israel lobby bark, the corporate media caravan comes to a grinding halt!

[*I've just (7:09 pm) located a copy at aap.newscentre.com.au.]

Consensus At Last...

... in the Murdoch and Fairfax press!

Yes, Virginia, Israel is an apartheid state, whether it's in Israel (im)proper:

"In the never-ending conflict in the Middle East, Taiseer Khatib and his wife Lana are part of a new frontline... Born in Akko (Acre) in northern Israel where his family goes back more than 400 years, Khatib married Lana, whose family fled Haifa, in Israel, for Jenin in the West Bank in 1948, upon the formation of Israel. Under Israeli law, Palestinians from the West Bank are not permitted to migrate to Israel, even if they have a spouse there. Many Palestinians who live in Israel, officially known by Israel as 'Israeli Arabs', form relationships with Palestinians in the West Bank... [A]s 'a West Banker', Lana Khatib can only pass through Israeli checkpoints into Israel to visit her husband in Akko if she can get a temporary visitor's permit... 'We feel like half-humans', Taiseer Khatib told visiting journalists this week. 'Any immigrant who is coming to Israel from Ethiopia or Russia who is new to this city, the minute he puts his feet down at the airport, he has more rights than I have. I'm talking pure racism, which is beyond apartheid. Under apartheid, there were cases where people were allowed to have mixed marriages but she (Lana) is part of me and the state is interfering in my personal choices, getting into my bed, my own room'." (Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid, John Lyons, The Australian, 5/5/12)

Or in the occupied West Bank:

"The residents of the tiny Palestinian village of Sheb al-Buttum, built on the hard soil and rocks of the South Hebron Hills, are thankful for small mercies. The recent installation of 4 neat rows of solar panels has brought a steady supply of electricity to the village for the first time, allowing them to abandon the expensive and unreliable generator they could only run for 2 hours a day. They now have enough power to run a fridge (to store the butter they make from their sheep and goat's milk), an electric churn (to save hours of hand mixing every day) and when their children need to study after dark they can do so by a light brighter than a candle's flicker. But this clean energy project is now under threat - Israel's Civil Administration has put a demolition order on the panels.

"Since January more than 100 solar panels and 6 wind turbines - installed by Israeli group Community Electricity & Technology Middle East (COMET-ME), and funded by the German foreign ministry - have been marked for demolition. They cover 7 villages. The COMET-ME director, Noam Dotan, a retired Israeli tech executive and physicist, says Israel wants to move all Palestinians from the area. 'The fight here is a daily fight for every dunum [1000 square metres]'.

***

"All the villages are in Area C, which covers 60% of the West Bank, and is under Israeli administrative control. It is home to 150,000 Palestinians and contains the bulk of Palestinian agricultural and grazing land... At the same time as it has refused to permit Palestinian construction in the area, Israel has allowed more than 300,000 settlers to develop more than 135 settlements and 100 outposts - areas that are off limits to Palestinians and yet often built on privately-owned Palestinian land, the settlement watch group Peace Now says.

"Israel also prevents Palestinian villages from connecting to the water and electricity grids for nearby settlements, says Alon Cohen-Lifshitz of Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights. 'Israel wants to clean this area of Palestinians', Mr Cohen-Lifshitz says. 'It is not occupation, it is apartheid'." ('They want to destroy our village': Israel plans solar panel demolition, Ruth Pollard, The Sun-Herald, 6/5/12)

The Pop-Up Propagandist

On the rare occasion when corporate press reporting of Palestine/Israel gets real an interesting pattern emerges:

Take, for example, Fairfax Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard's informative and harrowing snapshot of Israeli colonial metastization in the West Bank in Monday's Sydney Morning Herald:

First there's the statistics, giving the reader some idea of the overall scale of the problem:

" A 20% rise in settlement construction across the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the past year has taken land critical to the creation of a Palestinian state and placed a two-state solution further away than ever a report has found. Building has started on at least 1850 housing units, while there were 3500 units already under construction, the Israeli settlement watch group Peace Now said. Eleven new settlements - home to 2300 settlers and 680 structures - were recognised by Israel last year when it legalised those outposts (outposts are created when a settlement expands to a new area of land). A further 1577 units were flagged as part of the Ministry of Housing's official list of pending tenders, the report found. 'The Netanyahu government is promoting several plans precisely in disputed areas which could prevent the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel', Peace Now found..." (Palestinians live in fear for their lives as two-state solution hopes fade)

Then there's the account of Israeli settler wolves descending on the Palestinian fold, giving the reader an insight into what life is like for Palestinians at the pointy end of the process:

"The West Bank village of Asira, just south of Nablus, knows too well the challenges of living under Israel's military occupation in the shadow of a settlement. Villagers said they were consistently attacked by residents of the neighbouring settlement of Yizhar, as often as once a week. But the house that bears the brunt of those attacks is the Maklouf residence. It is the last home in the village and closest to the settlement. The family has an extraordinary collection of home movies, shot by their mother on a hand-held video recorder, that depict life on the front line of settler violence. In video after video, seen by the Herald, armed settlers, their faces covered by scarves, charge down the hill towards the Maklouf home, firing guns, throwing stones and weilding iron bars, and screaming obscenities against the prophet Muhammad, the family and the village. One settler rampage that began at 12.15am on December 12 lasted at least half an hour, the family said. The family - mother Khadra, father Ibrahim and their 6 children - said they thought they would die. Desperate calls to the Israeli Defence Forces, stationed just kilometres away, went unanswered as the group of at least 100 settlers surrounded them, throwing rocks and bricks at their house and banged on their walls with iron bars. 'You cannot imagine the fear', Khadra Maklouf said, 'The girls were screaming... I was terrified somebody would get shot and killed'. Ibrahim, her husband, said: 'Now the younger boys are too frightened to use the toilet, and the girls will not even go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. We are worried whenever they are playing outside that the settlers might harm them'." (ibid)

Finally, along with the stats and human interest material, but always in the next day's edition and on the letters page, there's your pop-up Zionist propagandist, with his grab-bag of bald assertions, half-truths and evasions, taking Pollard to task for alleged sins of omission, the purpose being, of course, to somehow blunt the impact of her report. And in this instance, you'll be surprised to know, it's Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies:

"Ruth Pollard tells only part of the story. The reported attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers are condemned unequivocally by the Israeli government and perpetrators are regularly prosecuted. As for the settlements, Israel has demonstrated repeatedly that settlements have never been an obstacle to peace. It has withdrawn from settlements in Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank itself. And the last 6 Israeli prime ministers, including the incumbent, are publicly committed to a two-state solution." (More to the story, 17/1/12)

Mind you, the pop-up propagandist is really only an integral component of fair dinkum news stories on Palestine/Israel. Search for him following an item on any other international issue and you'll search in vain. Interesting, eh?

Now lest anyone accuse me of a bald assertion of my own, to whit, that Alhadeff's peddling propaganda here, I offer the following thoughts on his letter:

1) Reported attacks! Why, reported attacks are hardly attacks at all, right?

2) The Israeli government condemns the attacks and 6 Israeli PMs are publicly committed to two states, but given such supposed striving for what is right and proper, isn't it amazing how the prospect of a Palestinian state, as Pollard's report indicates, is receding at a rate of knots as the years roll by? Unless, of course, Alhadeff's really talking about an Israeli state and an Israeli settler state but is simply too shy to let on.

3) The key to Israeli condemnations, public commitments and like blather was brought to us back in 2004 by Pollard's predecessor Ed O'Loughlin, who quoted Peace Now's Dror Etkes' classic advice: "We shouldn't believe in anything that is said. We should just monitor what happens on the ground." (Israel ploughs on with huge settlement, 14/8/04)

4) Ploughing on, what about those regularly prosecuted perpetrators? What's really going on there? Are Israeli jails filling with settler thugs and pogromists? Hardly: "According to OCHA, 80-90% of the files opened against Israeli settlers following attacks on Palestinians and their property are regularly closed by the Israeli police without prosecution." (Palestine Monitor Factsheet-Update, 15/3/10)

But, you might say, that was then, what about today? These days your Israeli settler pogromists even attack their IDF minders. Surely, you'd think, for that they'd be locked up and the key thrown away, right? Think again: "[Major General Avi Mizrahi] expressed frustration at the treatment of the settlers who commit violence. 'The entire circle has to be closed from the police to the prosecution... If yesterday I had arrested 20 people here, it is clear to you that they would have been released next morning'." (Jewish settlers storm Israeli base, John Lyons, The Australian, 15/12/11)

Some Honest Reporting At Last

I spend a lot of my time on this blog critiquing the pro-Israel bias of corporate journalists. Just occasionally, however, they manage to get things right, and deserve credit for doing so.

This applies to Fairfax's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard for her report, Bedouin battle to stay in their villages ends in rubble, in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald. Although she doesn't use the term 'ethnic cleansing', this is in fact the phenomenon Pollard documents in her report, as this month's briefing to the UN Committee on Economic & Cultural Rights by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) shows:

"[S]ince 1967 Israel has demolished over 25,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The motivation for demolishing these homes is purely political: to either drive the Palestinians out of the country altogether or to confine the 4 million residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to small, crowded, impoverished and disconnected enclaves. This policy will effectively foreclose the possibility of any viable Palestinian entity and the realization of Palestinian self-determination, while solidifying Israeli control, illegal settlement expansion and de facto annexation of the occupied territory. Taken against the background of Israel's systematic destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and urban neighborhoods in the 1948 war and subsequently, as well as its ongoing policy of demolishing 'unrecognised villages', the picture that emerges is one of ethnic cleansing."

It should never be forgotten that, whether backing Israel to the hilt in the UN, throwing birthday parties for it in federal parliament or catering to its domestic agents' every whim, official Australia is 100% complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine*.

Here is Pollard's report in full:

"The Israeli authorities came without warning last week, and despite her pleas for time to pack, the house Rifa al-Oqbi shared with her 2 young sons was demolished, and with it some of their most valued possessions. Smashed pale blue and white floor tiles lay among the debris of broken brick blocks and wooden framing, as her sons Ali, 5, and Omar, 4, played in the rubble of what was once their home in the village of al-Qrain, in the Negev Desert of southern Israel.

"The village was under a demolition order, but experts say there is rarely any warning before the bulldozers arrive. 'They asked me to immediately leave my house, and I asked them for 24 hours so I could remove the furniture and my other belongings... and they said no', the 31-year-old explained. 'They closed this entire area, and when I tried to grab one more thing, they beat me and threw me to the ground... and beat up a relative who came to help'.

"Israel's long-term goal of evicting between 30,000 and 40,000 indigenous Bedouin from their lands in the Negev Desert in order to create new Jewish settlements was cemented on September 11 with the adoption of the Prawer Plan. Due before parliament in the coming days, opponents of the plan say it will result in the seizure of two-thirds of the Bedouin's land, destroy all but 10 of the 45 'unrecognised' Bedouin villages in the Negev and extinguish the Bedouin's land claims without proper compensation.

"Thabet Abu Ras, the director of the Negev Project at Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said that although they make up about 30% of the region's population, the Bedouin occupy only about 2.5% of the Negev. They have already been 'corralled' onto the smallest amount of land possible', he said. 'If you take the land from the Bedouin... you are denying their right to exist'. Professor Abu Ras, who is also a professor of political geography at Ben Gurion University, has just returned from a lobbying trip to the US to try to raise the plight of the Bedouin.

"The Israeli cabinet this week gave the green light for work to begin on 10 Jewish settlements in the area 'to attract a new population to the Negev'. On Thursday, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met the mayors from some Bedouin villages before the implementation of the plan, in which the 10 villages that are allowed to remain will become eligible for government services. All others will be razed and their residents forced to move to towns such as the government-created Hura, which has schools, a medical clinic, paved roads, water and electricity. To many Bedouin, Hura is overdeveloped and has no agricultural land for grazing. It 'feels like a prison', one community leader said.

"Mr Netanyahu said the plan would 'allow the Bedouin, for the first time, to realise their assets and turn them from dead capital to living capital to receive ownership of the land, which will allow for home construction, according to law, and for the development of enterprises and employment. This will jump the population forward and provide it with economic independence'.

"In a report before the development of the Prawer Plan, retired judge Eliezer Goldberg recommended that many Bedouin villages be recognised, acknowledging their 'general historic ties' to the land. Then the government asked the former deputy head of the National Security Council Ehud Prawer to implement Justice Goldberg's recommendations. He istead proposed the immediate transfer to the state of half the land claimed by the Bedouin, with minimal compensation for the remaining land. Not a single Bedouin was consulted by the committee.

"One village, al-Araqib, which is home to about 300 Bedouin, has been demolished and rebuilt 29 times in the past 18 months. The battle between Israeli forces and Bedouin in al-Araqib is played out with monotonous regularity. It is a process repeated throughout the region. Khalil al-Amour, school teacher, law student, father of 7 and the leader of the village of al-Sira, knows this battle. His house, along with the rest of the village of 47 homes and 500 people, is the subject of a demolition order. 'It is about cramming the maximum Bedouin onto the minimum amount of land', he said. And because his village is one of the many 'unrecognised villages', there is no running water, electricity, social services or schools. They are cut off from the rest of Israeli society, despite the fact that they serve in the army, vote, pay taxes and speak Hebrew, and some work in nearby Beersheba and other major centres. Many are now fighting through the courts for ownership of what land they have left. Mr Amour has a document he says proves his family ownership of the land, dated November 23, 1921, notarised by Britain. It is not recognised by Israel.

"There is often a deep misunderstanding of what it means to be a Bedouin, fuelled partly by a romantic image as the original nomads of the desert, resistant to the ways of the modern world. 'Bedouin are not against development and advancement and improvement to our lives', Mr Amour said. 'We just reject the way the government impose this on us. They are asking us to move to cities and towns that are the antithesis to Bedouin being. Israel uses a demolition order 'to encourage us to move'.

"Forced to live under the constant threat of demolition, the people of al-Sira are deeply frustrated and depressed. 'Even though they are determined to stay and fight, everything we build in this environment may not be here in the long term, so we build very rough just to survive', Mr Amour said.

"Professor Abu Ras estimates that in 1948 there were 100,000 Bedouin in the Negev. By 1951 there were 10,000 remaining, the rest had been forcibly moved to Jordan and the Sinai. Professor Abu Ras said the plan to push the Bedouin from their land had been under development since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, when they were first moved into what was known as the 'siyag triangle' in the Western Negev, with the promise that they could soon return to their ancestral lands. 'They are still waiting'.

"He estimates that under the Prawer Plan the Bedouin would receive just 100,000 dunams (10,000 hectares) of their outstanding claim of 600,000 dunams and monetary compensation would be far less than half the land value. For many Bedouin, some of whom have already been forcibly relocated at least once by the government, that compensation is just not enough."

Can Pollard's fine expose go unpunished? Stay tuned.

[*Not that complicity in Israel's ongoing crime against humanity bothers our rambammed polliewaffles. Here's federal treasurer Wayne Swan, for example, in 2003, extolling Israel's policies towards its Bedouin population after having travelled to Israel on a National Australia Bank Yachad Scholarship. Note that Swan 2003 sounds no different to Netanyahu today: "In the Negev Desert... there are programs that generate opportunities for the local Bedouin community. Young people receive scholarships and housing assistance to complete school education. There is affirmative action to ensure many can enter university and family-support programs for Bedouin children run by Bedouins [sic]. Conventional wisdom suggests disadvantaged communities such as the Negev Bedouin will not attain social or economic parity with other Israelis for generations. In providing intensive family support and access to education and training, however, the Israelis aim to accelerate the economic development. The long term aim is, of course, security and stability. There are clear lessons for Australia here... There are strong parallels between the experience of the Bedouins [sic] in Israel and our indigenous community." (We can learn from Israel's policies, The Sun-Herald, 30/11/03)]

Shared Pain?

"There is pain on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide today, as the names of the 477 prisoners set to be released in the first stage of the deal for Gilad Shalit's freedom were revealed on the Israeli Prison Services website. For many in Israel it is inconceivable that men and women sentenced to multiple life sentences for terrorist attacks such as the 2001 bombing of a Tel-Aviv night club that killed 21, and a suicide bombing of a restaurant in Haifa in 2002 in which 14 people died, could be released.." (Anger in Israel over price paid for Shalit's freedom, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 17/10/11)

A night club and a restaurant. Thirty-five Israeli deaths*. Ouch!

What about the Palestinian side of the divide?

Although so many Palestinian structures have disappeared under Israeli bombs, shells, missiles and bulldozers that Pollard wouldn't have had the space to list even a fraction of them - even had she been so inclined - none are mentioned. Neither are Palestinian deaths, which number 6,540 between 29/9/00 and 30/9/11, according to B'tselem.

Give me Israeli pain any day.

[*1,095, 9/00-9/11]