The Protocols of The Elders of Anti-Zion

Did you know that Zaky Mallah is the least of Q&A's problems, according Labor's Shadow Minister for Israel, Michal Danby MP?

In a vitriolic tirade in this week's edition of the Australian Jewish News, this Zionist fanatic has branded Q&A an "awful program" that has "baited Australia's 120,000 Jews for too long." (Ratbags at Q&A, 10/7/15)

That's right, an awful, Jew-baiting program.

And that's because, he mutters darkly, it is run by nasties with "hardline political agendas, operating in the shadows, to distort the public debate, shifting it in a direction that only the 'enlightened vanguard' like them, appreciate."

Apparently, Q&A is a conspiratorial cabal, a kind of Elders of Anti-Zion, if you will. And here's the proof:

"How often do we see Jews with anti-Israel views being paraded on the program? Usually these unrepresentative types use their ethnicity [???] to bag Israel during flare-ups in the Middle East. They have little or no expertise in Middle East affairs. Miriam Margolyes is a primary example of this phenomenon... Many of these folks would normally be excluded by their inarticulateness, such as the obscure Israeli-born fanatic, Ilan Pappe. Q&A even disinterred British violinist, Nigel Kennedy, whom the BBC censored for making anti-Israel editorials during one of his concerts."

Disinter! Disinter!

Then there's "the infamous Lee Rhiannon, the far-left Greens Senator from NSW."

And then there's...

Oh dear, he's run out of names! Just Margolyes, Pappe, Kennedy and Rhiannon!

Some Jew-baiting conspiracy that was.

Given that a selective memory is de rigueur for your Zionist fanatic, Danby can recall the appearance of only one true believer on the show:

"My mate Austen Tayshus (Sandy Gutman) is the closest I've ever seen to one of the very few mainstream Jewish representatives to have appeared on Q&A." (By ms Jewish representatives, Danby means Zionists.)

So let me jog his memory with the following list of Q&A guests, Zionists all:  

Irving Wallach (former head of the Zionist Youth Council of Australia)

Josh Frydenberg ("I will defend Israel's ability to secure itself against some very hostile neighbours.")

Mark Dreyfus (Palestinian observer status at the UN? NO WAY!)

Greg Sheridan ("Israel still looks good, warts & all.") 

Christopher Pyne ("BDS creates disharmony btw Israelis & Palestinians.")  

Tony Abbott ("We are all Israelis.") 

Julie Bishop ("Which international law has declared settlements illegal?")

Julia Gillard (Palestinian observer status at the UN? NO WAY!)

Kevin Rudd ("Support for Israel is in my DNA.")

To name but a few...

And so, having run out of puff on the ABC's Q&A, he has to pad out his rant with the following reference to SBS:

"Isn't it ironic that it's taken a Coptic Christian like executive director Michael Ebeid for a great network like SBS to have resumed balanced programming in this area?"

And thereby hangs a tale:

For the sad and sorry story of how SBS was caned by the Israel lobby and its parliamentary dupes following the 2011 screening of that superb docu-drama on the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, The Promise, just click on the relevant label below.

And for the story of how its managing director, Michael Ebeid, was sent to an Israeli re-education camp in 2012 and graduated with flying colours (white & blue to be specific), see my 8/12/12 post Innocents Abroad, under the same label.

Dumber & Dumber

The sad decline of SBS, Australia's 'multicultural' broadcaster, goes on:

"Hollywood stars and church cults were likely fodder for SBS World News, where newsreader Lee Lin Chin was among staff told to feature 'quirky' stories to attract viewers. News teams were urged to avoid 'turn-off' reports about the Middle East, Ebola, asylum seekers and indigenous Australians. Exceptions include soccer playing refugees with dreams of performing at Eurovision. Research reportedly revealed older viewers preferred stories about fish oil to those about Ukraine. 'Quirky yarns are preferable,' SBS management said, prompting special news features on omega-3 in the Black Sea and Chin's top 10 asymmetrical outfits." (Six degrees of separation of the week's news, Peter Munro, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/4/15)

They Arrest 5-Year-Olds, Don't They?

Listening to SBS World News last night at 6.30 pm, my ears pricked up when, by way of mentioning an upcoming news item, I heard a comment to the effect that Israel's arrest of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy was "heavy-handed." I can't swear to it but assume it came from newsreader Ricardo Goncalves.

The use of such a limp term - a synonym for 'harsh' - just blew me away.

Think about it. Since when does anyone arrest a 5-year-old for anything? And of all the reactions this bizarre behaviour could have elicited - 'outrageous', 'obscene', 'unforgivable', and 'unbelievable' come to mind - the best SBS can come up with is "heavy-handed."

OK, I thought, I'll revisit the entire news bulletin later on the SBS website and transcribe the exact details. When I did, this morning as it happens, the offending comment had simply vanished. Was this simply normal editing procedure or... what?

At any rate my effort was not entirely wasted because it enabled me to check out certain aspects of the news item (from the late, great Al-Jazeera) itself that had troubled me, in particular the prominence given to Israeli spin.

(Having said that, and this is another story entirely, SBS was the only channel I'm aware of that even featured this story. Ditto for the Australian press.)

Here's the transcript, along with my interpolated comments:

Ricardo Goncalves: [The issue of] children being caught up in conflict zones has been graphically illustrated in the West Bank. The Israel Defence Forces has been criticised by human rights organisations for detaining a 5-year-old child after he threw a stone at an Israeli settler's car.

Note the complete absence here of 'occupied' and 'allegedly'.

Simon McGregor-Wood (Al-Jazeera): Wadi' has just been caught throwing a stone.

'Allegedly' is missing here too.

He is 5 years old. In this video shot by the human rights organization B'Tselem, he's being detained by Israeli soldiers. Local Palestinians try to intervene. [Cut to Jessica Montell, B'Tselem's executive director]: 'You can see from the video the panic, the terror in the eyes of the child even when he understands that he's being put into a military jeep surrounded by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers. It's an extremely traumatic experience.' Soldiers take Wadi' home in this jeep. From there his father Karam and he are taken to an Israeli checkpoint for questioning. Karam was blindfolded.

Missing here is the fact that Wadi''s father was threatened with arrest if he did not comply, and that they were taken first to a military base, where Karam was not only blindfolded but also handcuffed.

The rules of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank state that the age of criminal responsibility starts at 12 and that it applies to the children of both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. But in a place like Hebron where children from both sides are often found throwing stones at each other the Palestinians complain it's only ever their children who get arrested. The Israeli army issued a statement saying at no point was Wadi arrested or taken away from his parents.

Are often found throwing stones at each other? Oh, really? Are you sure of that?

[The IDF logo appears on screen accompanied by the following words, which McGregor-Wood reads out:] It goes on to say, 'It is critical to bear in mind that even rocks thrown by children can pose a lethal threat to people. Between January and May 2013 over 2050 separate rock-throwing incidents occurred throughout Judea and Samaria, injuring well over 150 Israelis.'

I'm left wondering here why Al-Jazeera deems it necessary to highlight, visually and orally, such blatant Israeli propaganda. Would any other terrorist outfit be accorded the same courtesy?

Wadi's ordeal ended after a senior Israeli officer intervened. He criticised his men for detaining the boy in front of cameras and ordered the removal of his father's blindfold.

So this is the first officer to appear at either the military base or the checkpoint? What sort of outfit is this IDF? (Please, that was a purely rhetorical question! We all know what sort of outfit it is, don't we?) And still no mention of those handcuffs!

Both were then handed over into the care of Palestinian security officers. Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups say there has been a rise in the number of such incidents in recent months and they are demanding a legal response from the Israeli army but that may not bring much comfort to Wadi' or his father.

Glutton for Punishment

Never again!

Will I bother watching television that is.

I foolishly broke last week's resolution not to watch the 2nd episode of the Israeli (returned) POW drama, Prisoners of War, on SBS on Saturday night, and for my pains learned that our two Israeli prisoners, while in Arab hands, had been stabbed with screwdrivers, attacked with axes (or machetes?), beaten while suspended from the ceiling, beaten while hooded, given electric shocks, and terrorised by three different kinds of mock execution - being put before a firing squad which uses blanks, being hung by the neck but cut down before death from asphyxiation takes place, and having an unloaded rifle placed in the mouth and discharged.

Such are Israel's dream Arabs.*

Then, at 8:30 pm on Monday night, I listened gobsmacked as an ABC2 television voice (female) introduced Louis Theroux's 2011 BBC documentary about Israeli settlers, Ultra Zionists, with these words:

"This program is about Israeli settlers who put their lives on the line to fight for what they believe in."

I nonetheless pressed on, and for my pains was 'rewarded' with hearing the gormless Louis a) ask a settler if he was "partially responsible" for Palestinian hostility towards settlers; and b) ask a Palestinian if he felt "a bit sorry" for them.

I swear - never again!

[*"[Prisoners of War] explores the lasting personal effects of the trauma of war and terrorism without promoting demeaning stereotypes of any group, or lapsing into propaganda." Peter Wertheim, executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), quoted in Acclaimed Israeli drama hits SBS, The Australian Jewish News, 25/1/13.]

'Prisoners of War': Those Bloody Arabs Again!

On Saturday night, I watched the first episode, on SBS television, of the 10-part Israeli television series, Prisoners of War (Hatufim), often cited as the inspiration for its US counterpart, Homeland*- yet another facet, albeit this time in the cultural domain, of that most peculiar political phenomenon, the Israeli tail wagging the American dog.

Both entertainments, of course, draw on, and feed into, the fears and prejudices of the deeply Arabo- and Islamo-phobic societies which produce them, so it should come as no surprise, at least as far as the first episode is concerned (the only one I intend watching BTW), to know that those into whose hands the eponymous prisoners had fallen are portrayed as diabolical monsters who have no compunction whatever when it comes to messing with Israeli minds or torturing Israeli bodies.

Now I may be wrong, but, given the anti-Arab racism that pervades Israeli society, I'd expect the malignity and brutality of our heroes' captors to remain a key feature of the entire series.

While most of the episode centres on the human interest story of people, essentially presumed dead, coming back to life after a prolonged absence (in this case 17 years) and impacting uncomfortably on the lives of families, most of whom have moved on, a paranoid dimension is introduced with the concept of the Manchurian Candidate - namely, the unsettling idea that these prisoners have been captured by an enemy so irredeemably evil that they stand every chance of being transformed into virtual zombies and reprogrammed as enemy agents. The paranoia emerges early in the episode; as one of the 2 Israeli POWs, Nimrod, is about to board a plane for the journey home, his Arab handler farewells him with the words: "Do you remember everything we talked about? God be with you."

That the POWs have been tortured, both physically and mentally, is established in episode one. Nimrod, for example, while attempting to make love to his wife for the first time in 17 years, flashes back to electroshock sessions in captivity. The other prisoner, Uri, whose girlfriend had given up on him to marry his brother, flashes back to the time when, in the fourth year of his imprisonment, he'd been taken from his dungeon, presumably for the first time, and placed in a room furnished with washbasin, mirror, couch and platter of food. A disembodied Arab voice is heard, saying to the scruffy, fearful man: "This is a gift, from us to you."

Uri peers at his face in the mirror - his first glimpse of himself in 4 years. He stuffs himself with food - his first real feed in 4 years. He even crams pieces of fruit into his pockets for later consumption - his first fruit in 4 years. He sits on the couch, picking up an Israeli magazine that's been put there for him - his first Hebrew-language read in 4 years.

When he comes upon an article with the headline Cheating on an entire nation, we know at once that it is through these cruel means that he first learns that his girl has married his brother. Surely, surely, those merciless sons of Amalek could have spared him this!

So there you have it: hellish torture and deprivation of every conceivable kind from beasts posing as men!

Needless to say, exactly what kind of murder and mayhem our 2 prisoners were perpetrating in Lebanon in the first place doesn't figure. Unless, of course, they were doling out sweets to kiddies, patting them on the head and generally impressing on them what wonderful guys Israeli soldiers are.

Apropos that, I draw your attention to the blurb in Saturday's Australian by TV critic Ian Cuthbertson, who'd selected Prisoners as his 'pick of the week'. Apart from recommending it as "gripping television of the first order," Cuthbertson hilariously refers to our POWs as "abductees captured behind enemy lines in Lebanon."

Finally, a last gloomy thought. Is it just me or are you too wondering whether SBS's screening of Prisoners is by way of penance for screening The Promise in December 2011?

[*See TV's most Islamophobic show, Laila Al-Arian, salon.com, 16/12/12.]

'Rebuilding Lives in Gaza & Tel Aviv'

The pernicious Israel lobby-mandated doctrine of balance was impossible to miss on SBS World News last night. Newsreader Lee Lin-Chin set the tone early in the bulletin: "And later, Coming to terms with the conflict: rebuilding lives in Gaza and Tel Aviv."

Shattered lives! Palestinian and Israeli.

Israelis first? But of course!

Li Lin-Chin: Earlier this week there was a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv which injured 29 people, the first such attack in more than 6 years. Today the ceasefire with Hamas is still holding and the city is pretty much back to normal. On the surface anyway, with a little tension underneath. Here's SBS correspondent Luke Waters reporting from Tel Aviv:

It's difficult to believe but less than a week ago Israel was on the brink of all-out war. It's Saturday night here in Tel Aviv. The bars and restaurants are back in full swing. But just how do locals cope with being on the brink of war one day and face normal existence the next?

[Barfly 1] 'It's not new for us. It's kind of normal and we try to continue with our life.'

[Barfly 2] 'This is the situation. This is where we live. That's what you do about it. You one day live like this and the next day like that.'

That's life indeed in Tel Aviv where bars are full and optimism and fun go hand in hand. [Pan to string quartet playing on promenade] On the surface the sentiment on Golden Beach promenade is similar. Even in less than ideal conditions the waves attract a crowd. [Pan to hang glider] Some even take to the air for entertainment. [Pan to surfboard rider] Tel Aviv resident Arik Cohen says all is not what it seems. Despite the bravado, everyone's aware of the dark reality: 'You live your life but you know something can change at any day.' Arik finds his peace in the water.

[Pan to two fatties] Sisters Aviva and Yael now live in Paris but returned to Tel Aviv last week. 'When we heard that the war started that's why we decided to come because we want to share with our friends and family the situation.'

Giving some confidence: Israel's Iron Dome anti-war missile system which intercepts rockets as they bear down on populated targets. In the 8 days of violence, the system intercepted more than 400 missiles, a success rate of 84%.

[Restaurant patron] 'In a couple of years we'll have 13 of them which will cover Israel completely and then Iran will not be a problem which they are today.'

And with more modern weapons from Libya and Sudan now making their way to Gaza, the range and accuracy of the enemy's arsenal is improved. [Pans to high rise with hole in side] But as this badly damaged building shows, the system certainly isn't fallible and 16% of rockets that did get through like the one which fell here at Rishon LeZion*, the 4th biggest city in Israel and only 15km from central Tel Aviv.

[Man] 'What is new here is that this is the first time some missiles arrived to this area.'

[Woman] 'We are not scared. We are very brave in Israel.'

So far Israel's technology will help temper an old problem, with hopes it will prolong peace. But beyond the bars and the beaches a grim, deadly reality prevails. Everyone hopes differently.

[Arik Cohen] 'It's like you're in another world when you're in the water, so yeah, it's definitely a good escape.'

Ultimately, hope for a peaceful solution remains the ideal outcome.

***

Lee Lin-Chin: On the other side of the border, schools in Gaza have reopened for the first time since the ceasefire was declared in the territory. But, while the children have turned up, the lessons are yet to start:

Nadim Baba, Al-Jazeera: Back with their friends, but for these children there's only one thing on their minds. Many at this school witnessed Israeli air strikes. Some lost their homes. No one can forget what they saw.

[Girl] 'A piece of shrapnel hit my sister in the arm and my uncle's house was hit by a missile.'

And this is what they're doing on their first day - no lessons, just fun.

[Fatima Abu Ahmad, School Principal] 'Psychologically, they're not ready to resume their studies because of the awful things they've seen. They have stories of death and destruction and rubble and fear, things that are not normal.'

But when it's time for drawing it's clear war has traumatised many of these young Palestinians. 'I couldn't sleep all night,' says this girl. 'I was so scared they'd bomb our house. Nobody in our house could sleep.'

The school was badly damaged when a missile hit the mosque next door, meaning several classrooms can't be used. In the middle of the morning more people have arrived. They're the second shift. Like many schools in Gaza this school has two shifts because of overcrowding, and the damage to the classrooms has only made that problem worse. Trained counsellors will also be working with these children, the beginning of a long process, especially because the older ones still display signs of trauma from the war with Israel 4 years ago.

[Counsellor] 'Most of the children which we've seen suffer from nightmares, some behavioural problems such as aggression, bed-wetting, some learning problems, concentration and attention impairment and other problems.'

The physical damage to the school should be repaired in a few weeks but the emotional trauma that these children carry with them will take much longer to heal.

 ***

[* I love the way Waters had to go to Rishon LeZion to find a damaged building for inclusion in a report on Tel Aviv.]

Hm, Hasmi... Harakat... Hamas...

... I think we may be on to something here, inspector.

Last night's SBS Television's World News was the occasion for a brief outburst of hilarity in this household.

Hot on the heels of the prime minister discoursing earnestly on her new 'Australia in the Asian Century' white paper (which highlighted the need for Australians to learn one of the major Asian languages) came a report on the foiling by Indonesian police of a new "terror plot" aimed at the US embassy in Jakarta.

There was SBS reporter Marion Ives busy telling us that "Indonesian authorities say a new militant group called Hasmi is behind the plot," when the report cut suddenly to an unidentified, shaven-headed, forty-something Australian male (presumably a spokesman for the Australian Federal Police or ASIO, or one of their proliferating band of counterterrorism 'experts') discoursing earnestly on the ideological intricacies of the alleged Hasmi plot. Caught in mid-sentence, this genius was recorded saying:

"... and the attacks it was about to carry out are believed to be the first ones it had organised. It's almost certainly a successor organisation to Gema [his pronunciation] Islamiyah and similar groups which have a long history in Indonesia. The other is that the first part of its name is Harakat and that is a name of a number of militant Islamic organisations including Hamas, Al-Shabaab..."

Ergo, Hasmi must be directly related to Hamas. Not!

Allow me to explain. 'Haraka' is simply the Arabic word for 'movement', as in 'political movement'. It has no religious connotations whatever. Hamas' official name in Arabic is thus 'harakat al-muqawama al-islamiya' (Islamic Resistance Movement). Likewise, Hamas' secular Palestinian rival, Fatah's official name is 'harakat at-tahrir al-watani al-filastiniya' (Palestinian National Liberation Movement).

It's precisely this kind of cluelessness that has me wondering yet again about our bloated security apparatus, which is based on legislation which, according to the Law Council of Australia, is "contrary to the most fundamental principles of our criminal justice system,"* and costs us over a billion dollars annually. (See my posts Beautiful Sets of Figures (31/1/12) and Behind the ASIO Assessment (23/11/10).)

[*Terrorist laws 'go too far', Harriet Alexander, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/10/12.]

Interrogating the BBC on Syria

Watching SBS World News last night, I found myself riveted by the item Syria's Turkish border units 'head for Aleppo'. It came from the BBC and featured reporter Ian Pannell, embedded, predictably, with a group of anti-government  "rebels" and [freedom?] "fighters."

Frankly, whether Pannell intended it or not (and I'm inclined to think not), the rebels came across as a bit of a worry. As indeed did the man showcasing them.

A close and critical reading of the transcript raised all sorts of interesting and disturbing questions, best addressed (on the buck stops here principle) directly to Ian Pannell himself:

"It's the Islamic month of Ramadan so when the sun goes down another day of fasting is done. And in Syria, the rebel army comes out to fight. We joined a convoy on a highly dangerous mission to Aleppo, driving around army checkpoints, sneaking along backroads, headlights off to avoid being seen passing under the nose of government troops and into Syria's 2nd city where the insurgency has found its loudest voice and the battle is at its most fierce."

So the rebels were outsiders in Aleppo, Mr Pannell? Were they invited in or did they simply impose themselves on the city? And just who in Turkey issued them orders?

[In Aleppo: A small group of people are screaming the familiar 'allahu akbar'.]

Was this perhaps staged for the BBC cameras, Mr Pannell?

"Many here are desperate for the rebels to succeed..."

How many, Mr Pannell?

"... but as the rebels take over this district many fear what you're really seeing is an Islamic takeover that'll unleash a whirlwind of devastation and bloodshed across this region. [Men construct a makeshift barricade.]"

Many fear? Many Aleppans, you mean?

Takeover? Then are these Islamist - your word, Mr Pannell - rebels forcing themselves on Allepo?

"Hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand rebel fighters have now pushed into this part of Aleppo city."

I think that answers my question. This is no indigenous force, right?

"As you can see, they've set up burning barricades to try and protect this particular district."

Run that past me again? These rebels are there to "protect" this bit of Aleppo? Did it need protecting, Mr Pannell? Did you gather any evidence that the residents wanted or needed protecting?

"There's a police headquarters and an intelligence office up the road and their fear is that reinforcements will head from downtown Aleppo."

Perhaps the police and their reinforcements thought they were protecting the district... from invading terrorists? What do you think, Mr Pannell?

"[Rebels snipe from buildings.] By daylight rebel snipers take to the roofs, copying army tactics. They control a number of districts and are ready to defend them. It was another day of intensive fighting as the fighters try to extend their control and seek revenge against men they accuse of being shabiha, members of the brutal government militia. There's little justice on either side here. [A group of what appear to be civilians are squatting on the road. The rebels fire over their heads, while another rebel puts the boot in.]"

Is shabiha the only Arabic word you know (apart from allahu akbar), Mr Pannell? Where's the proof these men were shabiha? And what happened to these men, Mr Pannell? Why didn't your camera stick around to show their fate? Or has that been edited out of your footage?

"Losing Aleppo would be a potentially fatal blow to President Asad and today the fightback began with helicopter gunships firing at rebel positions. [Scene of rebels firing skywards from a captured tank.] But even with a tank they'd captured from the army the fighters are vastly outgunned. But what happened next marked a dramatic escalation. [A jet streaks overhead.] For the first time fighter jets took to the skies, arcing through the air and strafing the ground, a mark of how desperate the government has become. But the last word goes to the victims, to the wounded and to the dead. [Swaddled corpse of woman shown.] Aisha almost looks like she's sleeping but she was killed today by an artillery shell. Only the victims are blameless here, and however this ends there will be more of them."

Only the victims are blameless here? So, Mr Pannell, in retrospect, what proportion of blame would you assign to the forces who entered Aleppo in the certain knowledge that they'd be drawing government firepower at the expense of the city and its people? And, just to take you back to Turkey, have you ever thought of doing a piece on their controllers and paymasters there?

Oh, and one more question, Mr Pannell. You're an experienced journalist. You've reported from Gaza. When Gaza was being pulverised by the Israelis in 2008/2009, Israelis being Israelis, they never tired of claiming that Hamas fighters - sorry, militants - were using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Is anyone in Syria using civilians as human shields do you think, Mr Pannell?

SBS Scoops Third Intifada

SBS Television's World News of June 27 featured a report by the BBC's Ian Pannell on the apparent shelling of a northern Syrian town by the Syrian army. It ended with harrowing footage of a wounded Syrian child, a boy of around 8 or 9-years, lying on his stomach in obvious pain, with tears running down the cheek facing the camera as he struggled to describe what had happened to him.

Now given the activities in the area of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), on whose side Pannell was reporting, it was possible to conclude (absent any evidence to the contrary) that this child had been caught up in a shooting war between two sides, even if this was largely a matter of shells on one side and bullets and RPGs on the other.

By way of introducing the next item, on a British report taking Israel to task for its treatment of Palestinian children, newsreader Anton Enus began with the words: "Children caught in the crossfire. That's nothing new for a region such as the Middle East."

God knows I try to keep on top of events in this tiny corner of the world, but, unlike the good folk at SBS, I swear I had absolutely no idea that the Palestinian kids hauled out of their beds in the middle of the night by Israeli terrorists, or slapped around during marathon interrogation sessions by Israeli thugs, were actually caught up in CROSSFIRE.

Thank God for quality journalism.

In Senate Estimates They Can't Hear You Scream

The questioning of SBS's managing director Michael Ebeid on February 14 by elements of the Senate Environment & Communications Legislation Committee over the broadcaster's decision to screen The Promise is revealing of the Israel lobby's ability to deploy its federal parliamentary assets (in this instance, Senators Ryan, Kroger and Fifield) to intimidate SBS or ABC personnel for any expression of opinion or perspective that deviates from the party line of unconditional and uncritical support for the state Israel.

Here are the relevant extracts from the proceedings with accompanying commentary:

Chairperson, Labor senator Doug Cameron:

"As you are probably aware [Mr Ebeid], there has been a lot of controversy around the drama The Promise. Obviously there is a fair bit of interest here but I do not want to have the whole of estimates dealing with The Promise, so can you just give the committee your view on the controversy arising over that drama?"

The very fact that Senator Cameron, one of the rare few in federal parliament capable of independent, critical thought on the issue of Palestine/Israel, feels compelled to say that he doesn't want the whole of estimates dealing with The Promise is an important indication that, as far as the lobby's parliamentary assets are concerned, the protection from criticism of Israel's image takes precedence over any other issue, a quite incredible state of affairs, and one that passes wholly unremarked by the ms media.

Equally noteworthy is the opening sentence of Ebeid's reply, in which he reveals that, whenever SBS dares to run an item on the issue of Palestine/Israel, a ruckus is sure to follow:

"We are certainly aware that any program that we have, whether a documentary or a drama, as this was, that concerns Israel and Palestine certainly has the potential to cause a lot of controversy, as this program did."

In the case of The Promise, a ruckus sufficient, it seems, to compel the broadcaster into taking the following, quite unecessary, evasive action:

"As anticipated, the program did cause some controversy here in Australia, as it did in the UK. In a response to that controversy, after the first episode we had several discussions with some of the Jewish community affairs groups in both Sydney and Melbourne. In response to that, we tried to make sure that all of our audience members were well aware that it was a drama and so we placed a statement at the beginning of the following 3 episodes... to remind audiences that this was a work of fiction and a drama."

To Cameron's great credit, no doubt aware that Ryan, Kroger and Fifield were straining on the leash for a go at Ebeid, he injected the following welcome note of common sense and proportion into the dismal proceedings:

"I enjoyed the program. I thank SBS for sending copies of the program. Because of parliamentary committments I had not seen it. I have now managed to see it. I knew there was going to be a controversy. I enjoyed it. It has had some critical acclaim, hasn't it?"

Cameron's sweetness and light, however, gave way to Liberal senator Scott Ryan's (rambammed 2009 & 2010) assertion that the film "negatively stereotyped" Jews and Israelis:

"[S]ome of the biggest slanders in history have been works of fiction. The overwhelming majority of depictions of Jewish people in this... were of Jewish children throwing rocks at Arab children and soldiers standing by and doing nothing... You have scenes of Jewish women settlers in Hebron... calling Arab women 'whores'... In the historical part you have the clearing of Arab civilians, portraying Jews as the aggressors... I put it to you that [those scenes] represent a negative portrayal of Jewish Israelis."

Note how, in typical Zionist fashion, Ryan simply can't bring himself to refer to Palestinians as Palestinians, and makes no attempt to distinguish between Jews and Israelis. He also seems to be suggesting here that rock-throwing settler children and their foul-mouthed mothers are entirely fictional. Not so. They are, unfortunately, as real as the senator's appalling ignorance of what is going on in Hebron. (See my posts Two Uneasy Pieces (29/3/11) and The Muslim Brotherhood are Just Pussies! (15/11/11) Furthermore, in relation to the events of 1948, Ryan is ludicrously suggesting that by accurately dramatising some of the incidents of Zionist ethnic cleansing that took place at that time, such as the Deir Yassin massacre and the driving out of the Palestinian population of Haifa, the film is negatively portraying the Israelis who perpetrated those crimes. Would he, I wonder, complain with regard to any other dramatisations of war crimes that they unfairly show the perpetrators in a negative light? The mind boggles.

Ryan continued:

"The letter from SBS to Mr Wertheim does concede that people are more likely to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than the Israeli cause at the end. If the overwhelming majority of the portrayals of events is of instances like that, which are the subject of news reports and other complaints to your news service and other news services at intermittent times, if that is not reinforcing a negative stereotype, what is?"

The possibility that Israeli behaviour has for decades now been generating and reinforcing its own negative stereotypes, would obviously be lost on Senator Ryan.

Ryan's nonsense was followed by Liberal senator Helen Kroger (rambammed 2007), who wanted to know - seriously - why SBS doesn't run programs by the Israel lobby before broadcasting them:

"You can see why there is the number of people who wish to ask questions on the level of concern about this production. I will follow up with just a couple more comments, then. Firstly, when you are assessing the quality of content and quality of script that you were referring to and it is a subject based on a particular take on history, do you engage historical experts to give you input into assessing that quality?"

Ebeid: "Certainly not for a drama, but for a documentary we might consult some. I would say, on average, probably not."

"Given the controversial nature of the content of this, did you consider consulting any of the community group stakeholders and getting their feedback on it before it went to air?"

Ebeid: No. We would not normally do that.

Finally, Senator Mitch Fifield (rambammed 2010) revealed the extent of his mastery of the film and the issue it dramatised by suggesting that it was really all about religion!:

"Section 1.6 [of the SBS Code of Practice] says that SBS will not support any particular religion over any other... As this is a drama, I guess it could be construed that it was a dramatic depiction of one religion denigrating another."

Although the committee eventually moved on to lesser matters, the balm of chairperson Doug Cameron's parting words to Ebeid - "I hope tonight has helped the DVD sales for The Promise" - may well have been responsible for restoring the poor man's sanity following the hearing.

PS: Why not help fulfill Cameron's hope by buying a few copies of The Promise and distributing them among your friends. You can pick them up at any JB HiFi or Dymocks outlet.

The Nub of the Matter

The topic under discussion on SBS Television's Insight program last night was Iran: Is Iran a threat? And what would happen if it was attacked?

I couldn't help but notice that the program, and its presenter, Jenny Brockie, more than bent over backwards to accommodate the views of assorted Israeli warmongers such as Michael Herzog, Brigadier General (Ret.), Efraim Halevy, former head of Mossad, 1998-2002, and General Danny Yatom.

That being the case, had I been a member of the studio audience I would have felt compelled to make the following statement:

I'm sorry, but I have to say I'm finding the HYPOCRISY in this studio quite unbearable.

On the one hand, we have a state - Israel - which is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and God knows what else besides.

On the other, we have a state - Iran - which has no nuclear weapons whatever.

Yet what is the question uppermost in the minds of the folk behind this program? Is a Iran a threat?

Ms Brockie, when is Insight going to devote a program to Israel's nukes?

Might I even be so bold as to suggest a suitable title? Israel: How much longer must the world put up with the stifling hypocrisy of a bellicose, nuclear-armed Israel, and its nuclear-armed Western proxies, constantly banging on about Iran's imaginary nukes?

Helen of Zion

One of the most bizarre phenomena in Australian political life is the periodic emergence of certain Australian politicians as unabashed public advocates for the state of Israel. Yet, strangely, it remains largely ignored as a matter for comment or investigation by the ms media - partly, I imagine, because so many of its representatives indulge in the same practice. What other foreign policy issue, it must be asked, elicits this degree of advocacy from so many of our elected representatives, both state and federal?

The latest to emerge in this capacity is Victorian Liberal senator Helen Kroger. Only the other day, she's lashing SBS's managing director at a Senate estimates hearing for daring to screen The Promise (See my previous post). Next thing you know she's attacking the film (and SBS) online in an opinion piece at The Punch. One wonders where she's going to pop up next.

Now I may be wrong but I seriously doubt that Kroger has a real and abiding interest in Israel per se. So who or what has activated her? Hint: Kroger went on an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council-sponsored junket to Israel in 2007.

Could her Punch piece, SBS shouldn't be allowed to re-write history (17/2/12), to which I now turn, be the long-ripened fruit of that journey? If so, you'll need your smelling salts. The bloody thing's gone off!:

Although history is just sooo frightfully difficult to call these days, Kroger informs us, there's still, she insists, "a difference between bona fide perspective and malevolent falsehoods."

As examples of the latter she cites the Passover Blood Libel, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and - surprise, surprise - (though not quite as "sinister" as these two, she adds) The Promise!

The sheer outrageousness of the association aside, the fact of the matter here is that for Israel lobbyists The Promise, being in large part a realistic dramatisation of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe), is far and away the greater concern, undermining as it does one of Israel's key foundational myths: that Israel, declared in May 1948, was the outcome of a genuine independence struggle against the British and the miraculous survivor of a David and Goliath struggle against the Arabs.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Israel, though atypical of the breed, is really just another colonial implant.

The plain facts are that without British patronage, collusion and cold steel, the European colonial-settler movement known as Zionism would never have been able to gain a foothold in Palestine, subject it to wave after wave of Jewish immigration (against the wishes of its indigenous Arab population), buy up much of its best land from absentee landlords (evicting Arab peasants in the process), build an armed state-within-a-state, eventually take up arms against its former imperial patron (who had finally twigged to the cock-up it'd created), and go on to ethnically cleanse Palestine's majority Arab population, steal their homes and lands, and prevent their return.

It is the final stage of the Zionist takeover in Palestine, what Churchill called the "hell-disaster,"* that The Promise so graphically lifts the lid on. And this is what Zionist propagandists, who have lied about and misrepresented the events of 1947-1949 for over 60 years now, most fear. Hence their assault on Kosminsky's film, and the conscription of one of their useful parliamentary fools to wage a campaign, both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, against it.

Here are Kroger's key propaganda points, followed by my commentary:

1) "Many Arabs left their homes before Israel's Declaration of Independence and subsequent invasion by her Arab neighbours."

Oh! Just like that, eh? Just up and left, for no apparent reason. No fuss whatever. Enough said. And this is a "bona fide perspective"?

2) "Erin does not... encounter a single Palestinian militant, despite the prominence of groups including Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Territories."

Maybe, just maybe, Helen, members of these groups aren't prancing around with the words 'Fatah', 'Islamic Jihad' and 'Hamas' in neon lights on their foreheads because they know how trigger happy Israeli troops are.

3) "Nor does Len encounter the anti-Jewish Islamic extremism inspired by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem."

And maybe, Helen, that's because Palestinian opposition to the Zionist takeover of their homeland in 1948 had nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with resisting the loss of their patrimony. Here, for example, is part of a 1921 Memorandum from a joint Muslim-Christian delegation to a visiting Churchill:

"Had Zionists come to Palestine simply as visitors, or had matters remained as before the war, there would be no question of Jew or non-Jew. It is the idea of transforming Palestine into a home for the Jews that Arabs resent and fight against. The fact that a Jew is a Jew has never prejudiced the Arabs against him. Before the war Jews enjoyed all the privileges and rights of citizenship. The question is not a religious one. For we see that Christians and Moslems alike, whose religions are not similar, unite in their hatred of Zionism..." (Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, Doreen Ingrams, 1972/2009, p 118)

4) "No attention is given to the mainstream Jewish paramilitary Haganah (later the Israel Defence Force), who like the British engaged in counterinsurgency against the minority Irgun."

Pull the other Helen! But don't believe me. Read this:

"On the day [Operation Agatha (29/6/46), involving the search of Jewish settlements,] was launched Chaim Weizmann, playing his role of injured innocence to perfection, and with chutzpah, told Sir Alan Cunningham that the British reaction to Jewish violence was a battle against world Jewry. Not all Jews would have agreed. In any case, the following day Ben-Gurion called a meeting of X Command, the existence of which was well known to Weizmann. Palmach, the offensive wing of Haganah, had prepared a plan to destroy the building in which government offices were housed in the south-west wing of the King David Hotel, Jerusalem. At the meeting were representatives of Palmach, Haganah, Irgun and Stern. It was decided the operation should be undertaken by Irgun. X Command issued written instructions. On 1 June, Menachem Begin, the Irgun terrorist leader, began planning the King David Hotel outrage." (A Captain's Mandate: Palestine 1946-1948, Philip Bruton, 1996, p 36)

And this:

"On the margins of the main Jewish military power operated two more extreme groups: the Irgun... and the Stern Gang. The Irgun had split from the Hagana in 1931 and in the 1940s was led by Menachem Begin. it had developed its own aggressive policies towards both the British presence and the local population. The Stern Gang was an offshoot of the Irgun, which it left in 1940. Together with the Hagana, these 3 organisations were united into one army during the days of the Nakba, although as we shall see, they did not always act in unison and coordination." (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pape, 2006, p 45)

5) "I am particularly troubled by the character of Clara Rosenbaum, who alleges to be one of many Jewish women 'paid by the city' to seduce British soldiers. Her inclusion is a smear against all Israeli women."

Troubled eh? Better shield your wide, innocent eyes from this then, my dear:

"'The Jewish Agency set up special clubs for the purpose of propaganda', said Motti Golani, a historian of the British Mandate at Haifa University. 'There were dancing parties, clubs with lectures, dinners. The [Jewish] Agency pushed young girls, of around 18 or 20, to have relationships with British soldiers. It was a kind of spying." (Dances & dalliances: legendary Jerusalem bars opens once more, Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, 13/11/11)

6) "Statements such as 'the Jews want it all - all the land', 'we found Jews living in our houses', or 'that's what the Jews want' have no place on Australian television."

What intolerable nonsense this is. Here it is, 2011, almost a century since the perfectly idiotic Balfour Declaration was issued by the government of Lloyd George, with Israel in control of 100% of historic Palestine, with the majority of Palestinians in exile and the rest under occupation, losing homes and land on a daily basis, and Kroger's telling us that to say the above is offensive! She's certainly no Lord Curzon. Here's the British Foreign Secretary's frank assessment of Zionist aims in a 1920 letter to Zionist arch-dupe, Balfour:

"As for Weizmann and Palestine, I entertain no doubt that he is out for Jewish Government, if not at the moment, then in the near future... On December 17th, he [Weizmann] telegraphed to Eder of the Zionist Commission at Jaffa: 'The new proposal stipulates first that the whole administration of P. shall be so formed as to make of P. a Jewish Commonwealth, under British trusteeship, and that the Jews shall so participate in the administration as to secure this object'. Further 'The Jewish population is to be allowed the widest practical measure of self-government and to have extensive powers of expropriating the owners of the soil, etc'. What all this can mean except Government I do not see. Indeed a Commonwealth as defined in my dictionary is a 'body politic' a 'state' an 'independent community' a 'republic'. I feel tolerably sure therefore that while Weizmann may say one thing to you, or while you may mean one thing by a National Home, he is out for something quite different. He contemplates a Jewish State, a Jewish nation, a subordinate population of Arabs etc. ruled by Jews; the Jews in possession of the fat of the land, and directing the Administration. He is trying to effect this under the screen and under the shelter of British trusteeship." (Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, Doreen Ingrams, 1972/2009, pp 57-58)

That Kroger apparently has nothing better to do than peddle this kind of propaganda - and that at taxpayers' expense - is a scandal which cries out for serious investigation.

[*See my 5/2/10 post Hell-Disaster.]

The Offended

Christian Kerr's at it again. No, not Lee Rhiannon this time. You can only flog a topic so many times without tedium setting in. This time it's The Promise:

"SBS screened the controversial drama The Promise in the knowledge it would offend the Jewish community, Liberal senators have claimed." (SBS knew Israel drama would offend Jews, Lib senators insist, The Australian, 16/2/12)

Got the buzz word? The Promise is controversial.

Controversial is a code word at The Australian. Its special application there might be explained by one of its operatives thus: 'Whoever (or whatever) deviates from the Zionist party line is anathema to us here at The Australian, and one of our resident witch-finders - Kerr, Saluszinsky, Neighbour - will be given the task of beating him/her/it up in article after article, thus allowing us to slap on the warning label, controversial, designed specifically to distance the reader from the abhorred deviation and its perpetrator. Works wonders!'

Now you'll notice that not only did SBS dare to screen something controversial, but it knew that in doing so "the Jewish community" would be offended! That of course means the Jewish community in its entirety, not just the Zionist ideologues and propagandists of the Israel lobby for whom toeing, defending, and promoting the party line on Israel is the alpha and omega of their existence, and for whom The Australian is their mouthpiece of choice.

"Under questioning from Victorian Liberal senator Helen Kroger in estimates..."

Ah, Helen Kroger, rambammed into service back in 2007 (See my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too).

"... SBS managing director Michael Edeid [sic: Ebeid] said the broadcaster entered into a pre-sale deal with the producers of The Promise knowing the subject matter would be controversial." (ibid)

So here we go from the fantastic allegation that SBS deliberately set out to stick it to the entire Jewish community to SBS simply knowing, both from the hue and cry which accompanied The Promise's screening in the UK, and decades of Zionist pressure to bend SBS to its will, that any film on Palestine that flouts the Zionist party line is ipso facto controversial, let alone one which dares to shine the light on the bloody Zionist takeover of Palestine in 1948.

Senator Kroger opined that "SBS appears to have put a business decision ahead of independent assessments, which determined that it was offensive to the Jewish community." (ibid)

Independent assessments... determined that The Promise was offensive to the Jewish community? Rich comedy indeed! The extraordinary premise here is that media outlets should refer all items pertaining to Palestine/Israel to one or other branch of the Israel lobby (the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in this instance) for an independent (!) assessment of the item's offensiveness to the Jewish community (!) before they are published or broadcast. Or, IOW, the Israel lobby decides what we read and see.

Thank God SBS's Ebeid had the gumption to say to Kroger, "SBS accepts that it will, from time to time, broadcast programs that offend some individuals or groups." (ibid)

How I'd love to see a debate between the rambammed Kroger and The Australian's also-rambammed (2008) columnist Janet Albrechtsen, who once wrote a column called The freedom to be offensive (20/4/09). In that essay, Planet Janet pronounced that: "You are either for free speech - whoever exercises it - or not. Freedom of expression is simply meaningless if it does not include a right to be wrong and a right to be offensive." Maybe Christian Kerr could chair the debate.

What's With SBS World News?

SBS Television's screening of The Promise is one thing. Its 6.30 pm World News coverage of the Middle East, though, is quite another, with some of its reports, on Iran and Syria in particular, in the distinctly dodgy category.

Given that SBS (and the ABC) provides no transcripts of its news reports, the dodgies tend to escape the kind of rap over the knuckles they so richly deserve. One item in tonight's news, however, proved so dodgy that I actually went to the trouble of preparing my own transcript. The offending item, which will probably disappear into the ether within days, if it hasn't already done so, was dubbed Friends of Syria. Here it is in italics, along with my comments:

Lee Lin Chin:

Syria's bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters has drawn global criticism but the country still has a few friends on its side, among them Iran and its powerful and far-reaching Quds security force.

Far-reaching? Please explain! And as for friends, what about the ones that really matter: "Despite the diplomatic crisis Syria now faces, Mr Assad still boasts strong local support. 'There's good reason why 55% of Syrians polled recently still support Assad. They prefer his (flawed) promise of security and stability to the (untested) opposition's offer of a democracy enveloped in blood', Ed Hussain, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, wrote in The New York Times. 'Assad's appeal is not that he offers freedom, but security'." (Russians to push Assad for reform, Ruth Pollard & Dylan Welch, Sydney Morning Herald, 8/2/12)

Brian Todd Reporting, Al-Jazeera:

Al-Jazeera? The fast-talking American, Brian Todd, is actually a CNN correspondent. Linking him to Al-Jazeera could be a cock-up. It could also, however, be a cover-up. Is SBS attempting to disguise blatant CNN propaganda by passing off Todd as an Al-Jazeera correspondent and hoping we won't notice? Later in the piece, as you'll see, Todd refers to his CNN employer directly.

A crackdown that's brutal, relentless and possibly part of a frightening collaboration. The commander of Iran's notorious Quds force has been inside Syria recently according to various media outlets. One report in the Haaretz newspaper says he's even been inside the war room of Syria's Bashar al-Asad helping Asad direct his forces.

Possibly... various media outlets: How vague is that? Haaretz: Isn't it interesting that Todd omits the adjective Israeli when mentioning Haaretz?

The Quds force, the secretive, lethal arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. Its leader a shadowy, ominous figure, General Qassem Suleimani.

Secretive... lethal... shadowy... ominous: This is the news?

Concern among US officials about Qassem Suleimani goes all the way to the top. Here at the Treasury Department he's been cited more than once for his repression of the Syrian people during this uprising and for taking part in terrorist plots.

Oh well, if the US Treasury Department says it's so, who am I to quibble? Still, for such a secretive, shadowy guy, Treasury sure seems to know a lot about him.

Treasury officials say Suleimani oversaw the Quds force officers involved in the alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US, and analyst Matthew Levitt, who's written books about Iran's proxy in Lebanon, the terrorist group Hezbollah, says Suleimani's imprint is on some well known operations:

Matthew Levitt? Deputy assistant secretary for intelligence & analysis at the Treasury Department, former 'senior fellow' with Ziocon think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), that is.

'We have the attacks in Argentina. We have the attack on the Khobar Towers*. We have lots of surveillance of US officials and diplomatic installations'.

Oh, and he'd know wouldn't he? As Sara Roy, of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, has written of Levitt's book on Hamas: "[It] has many serious flaws and merits a detailed critique that extends well beyond the scope of this review. His is not a work of analysis or scholarship, to say the least, and despite certain points that are interesting and accurate, anyone wishing to gain a substantive, reasoned and critical understanding of Hamas would do well to look elsewhere." (Book Review, mepc.org)

Analysts say Qassem Suleimani is known as an aggressive commander. He's been called the sharp point of the Iranian spear, a rising star since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s when he led a series of daring missions behind Iraqi lines. He is such a powerful figure now experts say that he reports directly to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, not to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the Syrian conflict... (to Levitt): 'What could he bring to the Syrians that they don't already have?

Well, you took the words right out of my mouth, Brian. Has anyone noticed the following recurring trope: The Iranians were supposedly so hopeless at putting down their own popular protests in 2009 that they needed the help of Lebanon's Hezbollah. Now, apparently, the Syrians are supposedly so hopeless at putting down theirs that they need the help of the Iranians, who were once supposedly so hopeless at putting down theirs they they needed the help of... Get the picture? (See my 28/1/12 post With My Own Eyes! Really!) This is getting rather silly, guys.

[Matthew Levitt speaking] 'We know that Iran, for example, provided Syria with the technical capability to follow Facebook and social media to be able to see where the next protest was going to be. We suspect and are concerned about Quds Force providing training and in fact weapons for advanced snipers and things like that'.

You couldn't possibly expect the technologically-challenged Syrians to handle all this on their own, could you?

It was the Quds force, analysts say, that played the key role in suppressing the 2009 Green Revolution inside Iran. Why would Iran send such a key figure to Syria?

Now I'm confused. If the Quds Force are so damn hot (Iran, Iran-Iraq War, whatever), how come Lebanon's Hezbollah was supposedly needed in 2009?

Aram Nerguizian, Centre for Strategic Studies: 'The loss of a strategic ally like Syria's Asad regime would be a critical blow to an Iran that looks at the region, sees a US that has withdrawn from Iraq, a Gulf that is up for grabs from a geo-political standpoint'.

Analysts say that's because Syria is a key pipeline for weapons, supplies and trainers sent from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and similar aid to another group the US considers a terrorist organization, Hamas.

Analysts? Would that be Ziocon or Israeli analysts by any chance?

Contacted by CNN, a Syrian official at the UN would not comment on the report of Qassem Suleimani being inside Syria other than to say that the Haaretz newspaper is hostile to Syria. An Iranian official at the UN did not respond.

Other than to say, Bugger off, Brian!?

For your interest, these are the SBS junketeers (that I know of) who've taken the Kool-Aid in Israel recently (See my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too):

Brian Thomson, SBS senior correspondent - 2012
Peter Charley, producer, Insight - 2008
Paul Cutler, SBS TV News & Current Affairs - 2007

NB: In a similar report from the UK's Daily Telegraph, its Washington correspondent, Alex Spillius cited the NATO/Saudi/Qatari-backed, Muslim Brotherhood-dominated, anti-Asad Syrian National Council (SNC) as the source for an alleged visit by Suleimani to Syria "to advise the regime on repressing protests and the armed resistance."

The headline for Spillius' piece in the February 9 edition of the Telegraph read Syria: Iran's elite Quds force 'advising Assad regime'. Spillius' article also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of February 11 but the Herald's headline treated the SNC allegation as fact: Iran sends head of elite force to Syria to advise Assad [sic] regime on repression tactics.

[*See US officials leaked false story blaming Iran for Khobar attack, Gareth Porter, antiwar.com, 24/6/09.]

Ashrawi Redux?

Remember how, back in 2003, Australia's Zionist lobby did its block over the Sydney Peace Foundation's award of its Peace Price to Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, and how the resulting furore embroiled a host of prominent figures, including the Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Lucy Turnbull, and Sydney City Councillor, Kathryn Greiner?

Unfortunately for the lobby, which naturally prefers night to day, the Ashrawi affair (if I may call it so) gained wide media coverage, including a remarkable full-page feature (in The Australian of all places) by journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen. Wynhausen's expose began thus:

"The 2003 Sydney Peace Prize fracas reveals how a powerful minority of Jews stifle debate." (Take the free out of speech, 4/11/03)

It ended with the clearly fed-up director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Stuart Rees, saying:

"[However many times] I try to explain why we made the award to Ashrawi, our critics come back with the same questions: Am I an apologist for Palestine? Am I against the Jewish community? I've taken stands on issues before and got some static, but not this onslaught, bullying and intimidation."

That the firestorm whipped up by lobby bullying ended up singing the firebugs who started it was as good as admitted at the time by the then editor of The Australian Jewish News, Vic Alhadeff, who was quoted by Wynhausen as complaining that:

"The whole thing 'has spun out of contol. The Jewish community has become the focus of this issue rather than whether or not Dr Ashrawi is a worthy recipient. It looks like the Jewish community is anti-free speech when the reverse is true."

I recall here the Ashrawi affair because the latest outbreak of Zionist bullying and intimidation, centring on SBS's screening of The Promise, has today finally surfaced in the Fairfax press:

"Australia's peak Jewish body is seeking to halt promotion and DVD sales of the SBS series, The Promise, a dramatic portrayal set in Israel it has likened to Nazi propaganda. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said the British-made drama, inspired by accounts of British soldiers who served in Palestine during the 1940s, was anti-Semitic and in direct violation of of the SBS code covering prejudice, racism and discrimination... In its 31-page complaint to the SBS ombudsman, the ECAJ said historical inaccuracies and 'consistently negative portrayals' of The Promise's central Jewish characters 'without any redeeming virtues' compared to the 1940 Nazi film Jud Suss, as well as Palestinian propaganda that 'all Jews are collectively guilty of the wanton shedding of innocent blood'. It contended that identifiably Muslim characters would not be similarly portrayed by SBS. In a letter to the broadcaster, ECAJ executive director, Peter Wertheim, said the complaint also related to any marketing, promotion or sale of the DVD, which would be 'inappropriate' while the determination was pending. 'Nothing should be done by SBS or SBS Shops which pre-empts or presumes the outcome of your final decision', he wrote." (SBS fields complaints over series set in Israel, Leesha McKenny, 17/1/12)

It will be interesting to see where this leads. Will it receive the media attention it deserves? Will it click with those who understand the vital importance in a free society of vigorously resisting attempts to undermine the right to freedom of speech? Or will McKenny's welcome report be it? A lot, of course, depends on whether or not SBS continues to show the kind of spine which led to the screening of The Promise in the first place. For the nonce, SBS appears to be playing a straight bat:

"An SBS spokeswoman said the broadcaster had received a high level of positive and negative viewer feedback to the series. She said that it was expected the ECAJ's complaint would be resolved well in advance of the February 8 DVD release, 'it is unnecessary to provide any undertaking regarding the DVD release. SBS will assess its position in relation to the sale of the DVDs once the complaint has been resolved', she said." (ibid)

Whatever the upshot, it is to be hoped that the ECAJ intervention will result in increased publicity and sales (even if online) for this most worthy DVD.

PS (18/1/12): Three letters in support of The Promise were published in today's Age. Curiously, no such letters appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.
PPS (19/1/12): One letter appeared in today's SMH.

Secret White Mens Business at San Remo

I notice that one of the arms of the Zionist lobby, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), has formally complained to the SBS Ombudsman about the station's screening of The Promise, Peter Kosminsky's stunning dramatisation of the unfolding of the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe) in the late 1940s, intercut with the Palestine of 2005. One monster moan, it may be viewed in its entirety at the Australians for Palestine website.

Relying on the patently absurd pretence that the colonial Zionist project in Palestine of 'out with the indigenous Arabs & in with Jews from wherever they can be scrounged' - with the lavish assistance of first the British and now the Americans - is really little more than just a "conflict of narratives," the document wails that "The Jewish [not Zionist you'll note] narrative is either falsified or simply not told."

An example of this, we are informed, is that "no mention is made of... the fact that the international community, as early as 1920, recognised the legitimacy of the Jewish people's [Zionist movement's] aspirations to reconstitute their national home in Israel [Palestine] and obligated Britain, as the Mandatory power, to 'facilitate Jewish immigration... and close settlement by Jews on the land...'"

'Wow!' the SBS Ombudsman is expected to exclaim, '"the international community," even as far back as 1920, was clamouring for a Jewish state in Palestine!'

And to ponder thus: 'That settles it then. If it was good enough for "the international community" in 1920, then it's good enough for me now. Who could possibly go up against "the international community"? If they, in their infinite collective wisdom, said in 1920 that the Zionists could have Palestine, who am I, or the people who actually lived there at the time for that matter, to get sniffy?'

Well, hopefully the SBS Ombudsman wasn't born yesterday and will ask herself just who was this exalted "international community" of 1920?

Footnote 8 informs us that:

"In April, 1920, following the end of World War I, a Council of the victorious Allied and Associated Powers met at San Remo and granted Britain a mandate to govern Palestine, the terms of which were ratified by the League of Nations in July 1922 and included an obligation that Britain 'should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Brittanic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

So, it transpires that, according to the fine print, this august entity, "the international community," turns out to be merely "the victorious Allied and Associated Powers" (AAP).

But who am I, or the 90% of the Palestinian Arab population at the time who were distinctly leery at the prospect of having their newly liberated turf handed over to some mob from Europe, to question the AAP's authority to confer legitimacy on whomever it chose? I mean, weren't the AAP the very fount of wisdom and probity in the post-war world of 1920? Were not they, of all people, in a position to somehow channel the will of the world when it came to disposing of the former Turkish province of Palestine?

Well, before we go along with the ECAJ's little sleight of hand here, maybe we need to learn a little more (if this isn't getting a tad too contradictory) about the secret white men's business transacted at San Remo. And who better to guide us than our good friend, JMN Jeffries, whose eye is nothing if not forensic:

"The next day, the 25th, was a Sunday. Two communiques were issued that same evening... The first said: 'The Supreme Council met at 11 am today at the Villa Devachan. There were present Signori Nitti and Scialoja, MM. Millerand and Berthelot, Mr Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, M. Matsui and Mt Underwood Johnson. [Mr Johnson was the United States 'observer'. He did not take an active part in, nor have any responsibility for, the proceedings.] The question of the Mandate for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia was discussed, and the question of the new Armenian State was settled. The Council finally discussed the resumption of commercial relations with Russia...' The second communique... dealt with the afternoon session, and held no reference to the Near Eastern countries, as the Adriatic question and Germany's attitude to the Treaty of Versailles were the subjects of debate.

"So that the sole official information given to the world upon what had happened at the morning session of the 25th, as far as the Near Eastern countries were concerned, was that 'the question of the Mandates for Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia were discussed'. Discussed, indeed! During that session, which lasted for 3 hours, the 'examination of the Palestine question' which had begun upon the Saturday had been concluded, and Britain had been granted, or awarded, or indemnified with the nomination as Mandatory. And at this session, the Balfour Declaration had been inserted into the draft-Mandate which was being prepared as part of the coming Treaty [with Turkey].

"In fine, Sunday the 25th was the fateful day, the day of days, and that particular session was of pre-eminent interest, was a moment when the destinies of the most sacred land on earth were determined for, at the very least, a long period. A type of government, too, never before essayed in human society was inaugurated, or was introduced after some fashion, and the countries which were to govern thus unprecedentedly were named.

"Yet no faintest suggestion of what had been done was vouchsafed by the Conference chiefs in their official report of their transactions. They said that the question of the Mandate for Palestine (and for the other Arab lands) had been discussed, as though there had been some talk about it, and then they had gone on to other matters. More than this they never disclosed. The nearest they reached to any sort of explanation of their business was the last sentence of the previous day's communique, stiff wth constraint and wariness.

"It is true that official communiques are noted for their reticence. It is also true that international Conferences are fatiguing affairs, and that at the end of a long day tired men may cut their labour by giving the shortest possible account of what has happened. But reticence, not saying much about the event of the day, is one thing, and concealing it altogether when it is a final decision is another. The crucial meeting in this case was held in the morning, and there was ample time to announce what had taken place during it. The news could have been given in less than 20 words, in as many words as were employed to obscure it.

"That 25th of April something of great moment had been accomplished, though the absolute character of the act remained undefined. It was, therefore, the duty of the Allied plenipotentiaries to make clear in an official statement what (in the current phrase) 'they thought they were doing'. That they made no such explanation shows how ill at ease they were about the character of the day's work.

"Babies born that April morning have become young men and women, and yet we are about as ignorant as they were in their mothers' arms of what occurred at the Villa Devachan. This only we know, that the Balfour Declaration was slipped into the Mandate, and that it was Signori Nitti and Scialoja, M. Matsui, Lord Curzon, Messrs. Berthelot, Millerand and Lloyd George between them who somehow nominated as Mandatories the countries represented by MM. Berthelot and Millerand and by Lord Curzon and Mr Lloyd George. It was a very intimate occasion, so intimate that 4 of those present suffered from ingrowing functions, nominating and being nominated at one and the same time. The sole clue to what a spectator might have witnessed of their proceedings from start to finish is to be found in the statement of a correspondent that 'One cheerful feature about the Conference so far is the progress made in settling the Turkish Treaty. Discussions have run on the most cordial lines'. Indeed they had done so.

"This is the most living account of what happened which we possess. The League of Nations' own account of the birth of Mandates is highly significant because, in an Irish way, there is no account. 'There is no record of the conversation by which Great Britain was selected as Mandatory for Palestine', confesses the League's official handbook.

"Under such circumstances, it is impossible to prevent imagination from playing with the scene at the Villa Devachan. One pictures the bustling but superfluous helpfulness of the other delegates as Mr Lloyd George efficiently levered the Balfour Declaration into the draft-Mandate. But the assumption of the draft-Mandate itself is not so easy to picture.

"Did Signori Nitti, Scialoja, Millerand and Berthelot segregate themselves and then propose Great Britain as Mandatory for Palestine? Did Mr Lloyd George simper and blush acceptance, or look sternly before him and say duty was duty? Did the French delegates then go to the chairs at the foot of the table? Did the British delegates take the vacated seats at its head, along with the Italians and the Japanese, meditate their choice with them for a pensive second, and then in chorus with them offer 'Syria' to France? Whereon did the French delegates, with national immunity from humbug, nod and thank the British for carrying out the arrangement of the previous September?

"Maybe it happened after this fashion: more probably it did not. Procedure demanded that all the Principal Allied Powers should nominate the Mandatory, so Mr Lloyd George and poor Lord Curzon, completely out of his element, one imagines, will, in some way that we cannot guess and upon which unhappily silence has been maintained, have taken part in nominating themselves.

I interrupt Jeffries' narrative flow at this point to remind you of ECAJ's characterisation of the San Remo cabal as "the international community." Well - surprise, surprise - where Zionist propaganda is concerned there is indeed 'nothing new under the sun':

"The official silence concerning the details of this odd performance has not prevented a hundred writers and orators in the service of the Zionist thesis from projecting ever since, through the best part of 2 decades, moving pictures of the moral glory which descended on the Villa Devachan that day. Mr Lloyd George has been presented, as upon the screen, in the role of the world's knight, bending a knee to receive Britain's obligations in Palestine. Like an accolade they were laid upon his shoulders by the incarnate kingly conscience of mankind.

"Whatever happened then, this did not. At San Remo the nomination of Mandatories, after the manner of the dubbing of knights, was not practicable, or rather was not picturable. Britain and France had long fixed their respective Mandatory spheres between them, and the story of their being 'chosen' now for these positions is only elaborate and disingenuous pretence. Mr Lansing, the American Secretary of State till that February, who knew all that was afoot, passed on these League and Mandate manoeuvres a judgment so apt that it must be quoted here. 'If the advocates of the [mandate] system', said he, 'intended to avoid through its operation the appearance of taking enemy territory as the spoils of war, it was a subterfuge which deceived no one. It seemed obvious from the very first that the Powers, which under the old practice would have obtained sovereignty over certain conquered territories, would not be denied mandates over these territories'.

"Pure clap-trap also is the story of the resigned acceptance by the Mandatories of their nominations, which in fact they 'accepted' with the resignation of stockbrokers accepting profits. Mr Lloyd George... already had blurted out in one of his unguarded moments that 'France would be compensated for the oil-wells of Irak by the Mandate for Syria'. As for what are called 'obligations', it would have been a rash statesman who would have dared to refuse a full load of them to Mr Lloyd George himself. That was the real situation. The chivalrous parties concerned were each responsible for his own knighthood, and even such a political gymnast as the same Lloyd George could hardly have laid his obligations upon his own shoulder and have bade himself to rise without throwing his frame and his features into contortions too unmannerly ever to be displayed to the public. Why, the secret of the scene could not even be risked by one word about it in a turgid little communique!" (Palestine: The Reality, 1939, pp 344-347)

Memo to the SBS Ombudsman: should an impeccably presented, high-falutin' document from any of the following outfits - ECAJ, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Zionist Council of Australia, or the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) - darken your doorstep, for God's sake, read the fine print.

Now You See It...

Now you don't.

One can only imagine the ructions over at SBS Television at the brave decision to screen Peter Kosminsky's insightful and historically accurate recreation of modern Palestinian history, The Promise, the final episode of which is to be screened this Sunday. Alas, absent a whistleblower, we cannot, of course, be privy to the gory details.

We are lucky, however, to have been afforded a tiny glimpse into what happens behind the scenes when a mainstream media outlet such as SBS throws caution to the winds and gives the Palestine problem the attention it deserves.

The glimpse I refer to is the fact that, while SBS's website hosted a forum for viewers' comments following the first two episodes of the 4-part series, this was abruptly terminated a mere 4 days after episode 2 and has not resurfaced since.

Why?

Well, the short and winding road which led to the termination of same seems to have begun with a comment from a certain 'surferbob' which appeared on the thread following episode one. From memory, I found it a model of rational and informed discourse on the subject at hand. And yet, without explanation, it was soon removed by the SBS moderator. Its disappearance prompted another commenter, 'Emile', to ask why. As it happens, it was at this point that I began printing off some of the comments, which enables me to quote verbatim the conversation that ensued:

SBSMegan: Hi Emile, surferbob's comment was removed because it contained racist expressions that were deemed inappropriate for this forum.

Emile: These were not apparent to me, I'm afraid. I really think the alleged 'racist expressions' you took exception to should be discussed in the interests of fairness and openness. Could you kindly list them for us, Megan?

Emile's response went answered, but the forum, with contributions from sundry commenters, including Emile, continued on - until, on Thursday 8, 'surferbob' resurfaced and addressed SBSMegan thus:

"Well, Megan, if you diagree with my comment that Israel has taken a seismic shift towards the right - sliding into fascism - read respected Israeli commentators such as Uri Avnery for their opinion. Better still, go there and see the living proof. I have witnessed protesters blinded, disfigured and killed at peaceful, non-violent protests against the ongoing theft of Palestinian lands. I myself, at 70 years of age, have been tear-gassed and shot. Welcome to the real Israel - or would you rather just censor comments you find unpalatable and label them racist?"

As I said earlier, a model of rational and informed comment. The above comment remained on the thread and was joined 3 hours later by this from 'Emile':

"With respect, Megan, I really do think you've had long enough on this. What precisely was your problem with surferbob's previous comment? What are your/SBS's criteria for alleging that his earlier comment contained 'racist expressions'? In the absence of any clear statement on this, commenters can only conclude that your decision to delete his comment was based on nothing more than your own, not necessarily informed (How would we know?), individual opinion."

Not only was there no response to this comment from 'SBSMegan', but the entire forum was closed, without notice or explanation, the very same day, and has not reappeared since. What - and this is, of course, an entirely rhetorical question - is SBS afraid of?

But there's more: In addition to the moderator's unilateral, and, on the face of it, contemptuous pulling of the plug on SBS's rightly questioning audience, a disclaimer of sorts - "This is a drama inspired by the accounts of British soldiers who served in Palestine" - appeared as an appendage to the precis of episode 3.

It would seem that SBS is reacting here to complaints from Israel lobbyists contesting the drama's historical veracity, the absurd and insulting (to both Kosminsky and to the historical record) insinuation being that The Promise is really little more than a dramatisation of the anti-Semitic attitudes of British troops serving in Palestine at the time.*

The following salutary letter in this week's Australian Jewish News by Arje Singer of Castle Cove only serves to highlight the crackling hysteria coming from Israel lobbyists on the one hand - "Forget Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is old hat. The new strategy... is to depict the Holocaust in all its horror in order that Jews can be charged ('You of all people') with failing to live up to it."** - and the evident cowardice of certain quarters at SBS on the other:

"As an Israeli citizen, I couldn't find any anti-Israeli parts in The Promise. Every person has the right to bring his views to the general public. Not every picture or book must be Zionist. The TV series has historic background. It is completely ridiculous to write: 'Viewers unfamiliar with the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may come to view Israel more negatively'."

[* Maybe I'm reading a bit too much into this. In an interview with Kosminsky in The Guardian of 23/1/11, Britain's humiliation in Palestine, Rachel Cooke writes: "Between 1945 and 1948, some 100,000 soldiers served in the British-controlled Mandate of Palestine. Kosminsky's team spoke to around 80; he found the men's stories to be both gripping and moving, so he carried on, wading next through letters, diaries, memoirs and history books. Slowly, a theme began to emerge. 'The thing that came out most strongly', he says, 'was that the men all arrived in Palestine feeling incredibly pro-Jewish. A few of them had helped to liberate the [concentration] camps, so they had seen what had happened [to the Jews] with their own eyes... Over time, though, the soldiers' attitudes changed. Some of this was just the usual British support for the underdog; there's no question that by 1948 [when Israel declared itself an independent state] the Arabs were perceived as that. But also, if you're being attacked on a daily basis [by the Jewish resistance], if you're under constant threat of kidnap, if you're confined to barracks behind a lot of razor wire, your feelings are bound to change'."; **Howard Jacobson, Ludicrous, brainwashed prejudice, The Independent/AJN, 2/12/11]

Looks Promising!

I'm making no predictions about the worth or otherwise of this series until I've seen it with my own eyes. However, this item in today's Australian Jewish News does make it look... well, promising:

"A new TV series set to begin airing on SBS1 this Sunday prompted outrage from the Jewish community when it was broadcast in the UK earlier this year. The Promise tells the story of Erin, a young London woman, heading to Israel for the summer, who discovers the diary of her sick grandfather, which relates his part in the post-World War II British peacekeeping [!!!] force in pre-state Palestine. According to the Israeli Embassy in the UK, it received more complaints about The Promise than any other program, with a spokesman saying it 'created a new category of hostility towards Israel'. President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Vivian Wineman, wrote a letter to the UK broadcaster Channel 4 slating it as 'a propagandist caricature'. He added: 'The Promise consistently demonised Jews, by using distasteful stereotypes and even comparing the actions of the Nazis during the Holocaust to those of Jews in mandate Palestine'. The board also expressed 'grave concerns at historic [sic] inaccuracies', while Man Booker prize-winning author Howard Jacobson slammed it as a 'ludicrous piece of brainwashed prejudice'." (Mandate drama isn't very promising)

Why do I have this feeling that, even as I write, someone at SBS could already be copping flak over The Promise?

Lobby? What Lobby?

When it comes to the Middle East conflict the Sydney Morning Herald editorialist never seems to get it:

"The short-lived boycott of Israel by Marrickville Council has been an interesting study of how distant foreign policy issues can sometimes intersect with local politics. The council and its mayor, Fiona Byrne, would never have envisaged the attention they ended up getting from what they would have regarded as a worthy but probably futile gesture."

Attention? Scan my 8/4/11 post The Australian Goes on the Warpath and tell me that's the word. Bullying, intimidation, thuggery, lies, misrepresentation, but attention?

"After all, many other councils - especially in the gentrified inner areas of Sydney and Melbourne - have similarly 'warned the Tsar' by adopting causes in conflict with Canberra's official policy. They have flown the Tibetan or West Papuan flag, hosted East Timorese resistance leaders, damned the Burmese junta. Why not support Palestinians?"

Causes in conflict with Canberra's official policy? Who is the Herald trying to kid here? Gillard's about to raise the issue of Tibetan human rights in China. Last November she wrote a letter of support for Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and called for the release of Burmese political prisoners, free and fair elections and a political reconciliation process. At the same time, the Indonesian president complained that she was trying to 'pressure' him to investigate evidence of torture by the Indonesian military in West Papua. As for East Timor, the Howard government's military intervention in support of the East Timorese people seems to have been forgotten. But Palestine? Gillard's been cosying up to their oppressors ever since her university years. (See my 24/6/10 post Julia Gillard: A Retrospective)

"The difference is that Israel is a democracy, at least within its 1967 borders, and is open to argument; indeed in its domestic politics it's riven by argument. By jailing a former president for rape and putting a recent prime minister on trial for corruption, it has shown a strong ethos of impartial justice."

A democracy within its 67 borders? But without genuine equality for its non-Jewish citizens, and with the vast bulk of its indigenous population ethnically cleansed, stateless, and therefore disenfranchised, since 1948. Impartial justice? For Jews maybe, but for Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line?

No, the difference is not that Israel is or is not a democracy. The difference between councils taking up other causes and that of Palestine is that, in the case of Palestine, and only in the case of Palestine, there's a fanatical fifth column on hair-trigger ready to spring into action to snuff out any publicly expressed deviation from its dogmas. In the words of Herald columnist Mike Carlton, "It is a ferocious beast, the Jewish lobby. Write just one sentence even mildly critical of Israel and it lunges from its lair, fangs barred." (See my 12/6/10 post A Ferocious Beast)

The problem with the Herald editorialist is that he/she/it has a memory like the proverbial sieve. The Herald reported back in 2007 on Marrickville Council's first foray into Palestinian solidarity, the formalisation of a sister city relationship with Bethlehem Council. Smooth sailing? Not on your nellie: "The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies says the Palestinian council is controlled by the Muslim organisation Hamas. 'Their raison d'etre, as clearly expressed in Hamas's charter, is the destruction of Israel and worse than that, to kill every Jew', the board's chief executive, Vic Alhadeff, said..." (O little town of Marrickville what a fuss you've caused, Sunanda Creagh, 20/6)

And when Leichhardt Council proposed holding an exhibition highlighting the plight of Israeli-occupied, settler-infested Hebron... Well, you can read about that in my 26/5/08 post A Tale of Two Exhibitions)

And just in case I haven't made myself crystal clear - It's the Lobby stupid! - you may have heard SBS World News reporter Marion Ives saying, in her report on the BDS debate at Marrickville Council last Tuesday night: "The failure of the Israel boycott has raised questions about another council policy. For 12 years Marrickville has had a ban on Burma and one councillor now wants that rethought." (Boycott backdown)

Twelve years and we barely even knew about it. I wonder why?

Foreign Correspondent Discovers Martyrdom Gene

You get your laughs where you can in this game.

Under the heading Bahrain protests continue, tonight's SBS' 6.30 pm World News Australia screened a BBC clip on the reoccupation of Manama's Pearl Square by protesters, following the withdrawal of the police:

As a crowd of protesters streamed back towards the square they'd earlier been violently evicted from, chanting the now almost universal Ash-sha'b yureed isqaat an-nizaam (The people want the regime overthrown), reporter Ian Pannel was solemnly telling viewers: "What they're calling for is a free and fair government."

But that stab in the dark was quickly topped by this absolute gem, in which he managed to combine classic Western orientalism with blatant genetic determinism: "The protest movement is rooted in the Shia community. Sacrifice and martyrdom courses through their veins."

Hilarious!