Apart from the issue of Israeli settlements, which "slowly wormed its way into my consciousness, but not enough to undermine my instinctual support for the Jewish state," it was "the storm of criticism" unleashed by the Israel lobby, following his presentation, as premier of NSW, of the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize to the Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi which gave Bob Carr pause for thought on the subject of Israel - even though he reveals that his motive was merely to "reward a Palestinian leader who has signed up for a peaceful path to Palestinian statehood," and that that had to be "good for Israel." Carr describes the hue and cry as follows:
"Soon after my participation was announced, Jewish leaders launched an 'international petition' to force me to withdraw from the award. Sam Lipski, a prominent member of the Jewish community in Melbourne, denounced Hanan Ashrawi as a Holocaust denier. There was not a shred of evidence, and he was forced to withdraw and apologise. There were threats of funding being withdrawn from Sydney University. Its chancellor, Justice Kim Santow, barred Ashrawi from even appearing in the Great Hall. So much for academic freedom. Letters of protest were dispatched about the award going to a Palestinian, switchboards set aflame with indignation. This campaign had two objectives: to see that no Australian politician attended the presentation of the peace prize and that the peace prize be withdrawn. Lucy Turnbull, then the lord mayor of Sydney, withdrew her attendance. Her husband was running for Liberal Party preselection in the seat of Wentworth, home to a large and influential Jewish community. Kathryn Greiner was a member of the board which had made the decision to award the prize, but she phoned Stuart Rees, the director of the Sydney Peace Prize Foundation, and told him: 'I'll tell you how serious this is. Bob Carr won't come to the dinner. He'll flick the responsibility to [his deputy, Andrew] Refshauge at the last minute. And you won't get the Town Hall. It is more than Lucy's life is worth.' An article in The Australian suggested that by accepting this invitation I had damaged the federal Labor leadership of Simon Crean and quoted an anonymous member of his staff to that effect. Just as federal Labor is lifting its game, the NSW premier does this unconscionable thing that sets us back - this was the tone of the story planted by a member of Crean's staff but not, I am convinced, by Crean himself." (pp 176-7)
The proverbial penny had finally begun to drop:
"The day it appeared I received a call from a former colleague, Laurie Brereton, now serving in the federal parliament, who told me in strong language that I should not back down. He said, 'This group [he meant the Israel lobby, especially in Melbourne] is used to bullying to get its way. They do it all the time. You get nothing by backing off. Stand firm.'... I had already reached the same view as Brereton. If I had backed down it would have sent a melancholic message to all Australians of Arabic or Palestinian background: namely that, through its political clout, the other side - 'the lobby', 'the community' - will always crush you. I had given my word I would present this prize (ironically, because in one tiny way it would make a contribution to Israel being more secure). I would not back down. I have never received more support on any single issue in my time in public life. I was stopped in the street by strangers who said, 'Congratulations on not backing down... ' and seeing me look puzzled would add by way of explanation, '... in meeting...' and, not being able to recall the Arabic name would add, '... that woman.' It was the only controversy I can recall where this continued a month after publicity ceased. The award dinner was a sellout full of people from boardroom Sydney, who, I realised, had an instinctive understanding of what had gone on here: a plain bullying attempt to silence a side in the debate as legitimate as its opposite." (ibid)
The Israel lobby had overreached itself - and, critically, its bullying ways had come, via the media spotlight, to the attention of the man/woman on the street, as evinced by Carr above. He continues:
"The bullying Jewish leadership began to realise they had gone too far. I received a phone call from Frank Lowy, not to threaten or cajole but to ask out of curiosity, 'I just wondered why you did this?' Looking back I'm struck by the assumption there must be something perverse in treating a Palestinian with courtesy, as someone who might have an equal right to attention. I told him I did it because I believed encouraging peaceful Palestinians would be something one might do for a more secure Israel. But it dawned on me - with his phone call and the other reaction - what had been behind this campaign. I came to recognise it as a phenomenon that I later saw discussed on Mondoweiss, an American Jewish website, as 'Jewish Narcissism'. Maybe it's more fairly seen as an acute defensiveness and anxiety about losing friends. Whatever, there was a strong tone of 'How dare you'. That is, how dare you break ranks with us. How dare you criticise Israel. I later encountered this mentality when I was foreign minister." (ibid)
"The assumption that there must be something perverse in treating a Palestinian with courtesy"? The mind boggles. One cannot help but think at this point that if only Carr had spent a little more time reading about Israel's brutal treatment of occupied Palestinians on the ground at the time, instead of stroking Israel lobby egos, then he would have seen the idea of Ashrawi's receiving courteous treatment from Australia's Israel firsters as plainly risible. Still, it must be admitted that the transition from brainwashed Zionist dupe to pro-Palestinian activist is hardly ever a 'road to Damascus' thing.
To be continued...
Showing posts with label Sam Lipski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Lipski. Show all posts
Friday, January 18, 2019
Sunday, November 11, 2018
What My Mind Turns to on Armistice Day
In his peerless work on the perfidious Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the appalling consequences for Palestine and its people that flowed (and continue to flow) therefrom, Palestine: The Reality (1939), British historian J.M.N. Jeffries wrote these justifiably angry words:
"The underlying assumption of [a certain line of 'thought' peddled by the Anglo-Zionist establishment of 1920-23] is that the soldiers who fell in Palestine fell fighting to provide there that form of government which [wartime prime minister] Lloyd George installed. The 5th Norfolks, the 8th Hampshires bled so that the Sevres Treaty might not die: the men of the 53rd Division left six hundred casualties on the Samson Ridge so that the nine subterfuges of the Balfour Declaration might pass unchallenged: the Australian Light Horse charged crying, Advance the National Home! Was anything further from the truth? We know why our soldiers died - in loyalty to their country." (p 402)
My first inkling that this old Zionist myth, stripped of course of its British references, was being recycled here in Australia came when I read the following in 2008:
"The ties that bind Jerusalem and Canberra were further cemented with the commemoration last November of the 90th anniversary of the Charge of the Australian Light Horse brigade [31/10/07], when brave Aussie Diggers trounced the Turks at Be'er Sheva, paving the way for the capture of Jerusalem... And it is in Be'er Sheva that Richard Pratt is ploughing funds to build the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state." (Editorial by Dan Goldberg, Rhapsody: Linking Culture between Israel & Australia, Jan-Mar 2008)
I had stumbled upon what might be termed a 'zombie myth' - long buried, effectively forgotten (but for Jeffries' mention), dug up decades later, dusted off, and re-purposed for another use, but retaining still the core propaganda trope of the original. After all these years, whether with or without external involvement, Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski and his cardboard king (Visy Industries) boss and prominent Zionist donor to the Labor and Liberal parties, the late Dick Pratt, had come up with a neat way of "cementing" - mark that word! - alleged "binding ties" between Israel and Australia when Pratt funded the construction of the Park of the Australian Soldier in Be'er Sheva*. This has now become the point of dissemination of the zombie myth to thousands of clueless Australians, especially politicians, who flock to Be'er Sheva annually.
Never have Zionist PR merchants managed anything quite like this in any country, except perhaps in fostering the myth of 'lost Jewish tribes' in many of our South Pacific neighbours.
For my exploration of this phenomenon, just click on the AIF label below.
[*Of course 'Be'er Sheva' simply did not exist in 1917. Back then it was the Palestinian Arab town of Beersheba. Hopefully, one day, it will return to its old self.]
"The underlying assumption of [a certain line of 'thought' peddled by the Anglo-Zionist establishment of 1920-23] is that the soldiers who fell in Palestine fell fighting to provide there that form of government which [wartime prime minister] Lloyd George installed. The 5th Norfolks, the 8th Hampshires bled so that the Sevres Treaty might not die: the men of the 53rd Division left six hundred casualties on the Samson Ridge so that the nine subterfuges of the Balfour Declaration might pass unchallenged: the Australian Light Horse charged crying, Advance the National Home! Was anything further from the truth? We know why our soldiers died - in loyalty to their country." (p 402)
My first inkling that this old Zionist myth, stripped of course of its British references, was being recycled here in Australia came when I read the following in 2008:
"The ties that bind Jerusalem and Canberra were further cemented with the commemoration last November of the 90th anniversary of the Charge of the Australian Light Horse brigade [31/10/07], when brave Aussie Diggers trounced the Turks at Be'er Sheva, paving the way for the capture of Jerusalem... And it is in Be'er Sheva that Richard Pratt is ploughing funds to build the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state." (Editorial by Dan Goldberg, Rhapsody: Linking Culture between Israel & Australia, Jan-Mar 2008)
I had stumbled upon what might be termed a 'zombie myth' - long buried, effectively forgotten (but for Jeffries' mention), dug up decades later, dusted off, and re-purposed for another use, but retaining still the core propaganda trope of the original. After all these years, whether with or without external involvement, Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski and his cardboard king (Visy Industries) boss and prominent Zionist donor to the Labor and Liberal parties, the late Dick Pratt, had come up with a neat way of "cementing" - mark that word! - alleged "binding ties" between Israel and Australia when Pratt funded the construction of the Park of the Australian Soldier in Be'er Sheva*. This has now become the point of dissemination of the zombie myth to thousands of clueless Australians, especially politicians, who flock to Be'er Sheva annually.
Never have Zionist PR merchants managed anything quite like this in any country, except perhaps in fostering the myth of 'lost Jewish tribes' in many of our South Pacific neighbours.
For my exploration of this phenomenon, just click on the AIF label below.
[*Of course 'Be'er Sheva' simply did not exist in 1917. Back then it was the Palestinian Arab town of Beersheba. Hopefully, one day, it will return to its old self.]
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Sweet Charity
"Heloise Waislitz was only 13 years old when her parents, Richard and Jeanne Pratt, took her to South Africa on a family holiday... I was completely traumatised... I thought 'How can you separate people by the colour of their skin?' And that's why I got into philanthropy,' she tells The Australian in the first wide-ranging interview." (The heiress who keeps on giving, Damon Kitney, The Australian, 8/6/15)
Yes, Heloise, it's dreadful what they got up to in apartheid South Africa back then. Of course, separating people by religion so that you and yours can go and live in Israel but Ahmed Bloggs in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp just across the border in Lebanon can't, that's perfectly OK, right? But I digress:
"In 1995 Richard Pratt made Heloise... the chairman of the Pratt Foundation. He implored her to give and give, declaring he had never heard of an unworthy charity... Few know Waislitz as one of the nation's leading philanthropists, for which she is today [8/6] being awarded a Member of the Order of Australia. The Pratt Foundation... run by distinguished [Zionist] journalist Sam Lipski for the past 17 years... donates to causes in Australia, the US and Israel, giving away $15-$17 million a year."
Tax deductible of course.
The Pratt Foundation's best known project in Israel is probably Beersheva's Park of the Australian Soldier, where rambammed Australian politicians go to learn that Australian troops, by ejecting the Turks from the southern Palestinian town of Beersheba (as it was then known) in World War I, were not engaged in paving the way for the implementation of the proclaimed Allied war aim of a post-war settlement based on the principles of the 'right of self-determination' and the 'consent of the governed' for Palestine's then 90% Arab population, but rather paving the way for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
This deliberate linking of the military exploits of Australian troops in Palestine in World War I with the lobbying exploits of the Zionist movement in London at the same time has, as I have shown in previous posts on the subject, become a staple of Zionist propaganda directed at uninformed Australians.
Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski, for example, put it this way in a recent issue of the Spectator magazine:
"On the same afternoon that the 4th and 12th Light Horse regiments... raced towards Beersheba... Lloyd George's war cabinet met in London. It agreed to support 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...' A few days later, on 2 November, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to lord Rothschild advising him of the British government's decision... More than any other political event... the [Balfour] Declaration... greatly invigorated the Zionist movement [and] paved the way for Israel's emergence 31 years later... If the Turks had held the line at Beersheba... and if the first world war had ended with the decaying Ottoman empire still ruling Palestine, then the Balfour Declaration would have been meaningless. The Light horse victory ensured that didn't happen." (Beersheba Diary, 31/5/15)
What Lipski doesn't tell us, of course, is that, instead of making illegitimate promises to the Zionists in London in 1917, the British had a clear moral and legal obligation to honour their earlier 1915 pledge to the Arabs, given by the British High Commissioner in Cairo to the Arab nationalist Sharif of Mecca, to support Arab independence in the Middle East, including in Palestine, if the Arab forces agreed to join with the British in driving the Turks out of the Middle East.
That Anglo-Arab pact of 1915 was scrupulously observed by the Arab forces who fought and died (alongside the British and the Australians) all the way from Mecca to Damascus for an independent and unified Arab state in the region. Unfortunately, the Arabs were betrayed by Anglo-Zionist collusion and deal-making far from the scene of battle.
The sad truth is that if the Australian troops who'd captured Beersheba had had any inkling of what was afoot in the smoke-filled backrooms of Whitehall, they may well have had second thoughts about the entire Palestine campaign, let alone Beersheba.
Lipski concluded his piece thus:
"Legendary the Beersheba victory may be for many. But for most Australians it's not as legendary as the Gallipoli defeat. For most Israelis, and many Australian Jews, the Light Horse's contribution to Israel's eventual establishment is virtually unknown."
Not if Lipski or the mayor of Beersheva have anything to do with it, however:
"Come the centenary in 2017, Mayor Ruvik... wants thousands of Australians and Israelis to come to Be'er-Sheva, not just to mark the the 100th anniversary, but to honour and celebrate his city's permanent Anzac legacy. I am booking early."
So too, I imagine, will Heloise Waislitz.
Yes, Heloise, it's dreadful what they got up to in apartheid South Africa back then. Of course, separating people by religion so that you and yours can go and live in Israel but Ahmed Bloggs in Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp just across the border in Lebanon can't, that's perfectly OK, right? But I digress:
"In 1995 Richard Pratt made Heloise... the chairman of the Pratt Foundation. He implored her to give and give, declaring he had never heard of an unworthy charity... Few know Waislitz as one of the nation's leading philanthropists, for which she is today [8/6] being awarded a Member of the Order of Australia. The Pratt Foundation... run by distinguished [Zionist] journalist Sam Lipski for the past 17 years... donates to causes in Australia, the US and Israel, giving away $15-$17 million a year."
Tax deductible of course.
The Pratt Foundation's best known project in Israel is probably Beersheva's Park of the Australian Soldier, where rambammed Australian politicians go to learn that Australian troops, by ejecting the Turks from the southern Palestinian town of Beersheba (as it was then known) in World War I, were not engaged in paving the way for the implementation of the proclaimed Allied war aim of a post-war settlement based on the principles of the 'right of self-determination' and the 'consent of the governed' for Palestine's then 90% Arab population, but rather paving the way for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
This deliberate linking of the military exploits of Australian troops in Palestine in World War I with the lobbying exploits of the Zionist movement in London at the same time has, as I have shown in previous posts on the subject, become a staple of Zionist propaganda directed at uninformed Australians.
Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski, for example, put it this way in a recent issue of the Spectator magazine:
"On the same afternoon that the 4th and 12th Light Horse regiments... raced towards Beersheba... Lloyd George's war cabinet met in London. It agreed to support 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people...' A few days later, on 2 November, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to lord Rothschild advising him of the British government's decision... More than any other political event... the [Balfour] Declaration... greatly invigorated the Zionist movement [and] paved the way for Israel's emergence 31 years later... If the Turks had held the line at Beersheba... and if the first world war had ended with the decaying Ottoman empire still ruling Palestine, then the Balfour Declaration would have been meaningless. The Light horse victory ensured that didn't happen." (Beersheba Diary, 31/5/15)
What Lipski doesn't tell us, of course, is that, instead of making illegitimate promises to the Zionists in London in 1917, the British had a clear moral and legal obligation to honour their earlier 1915 pledge to the Arabs, given by the British High Commissioner in Cairo to the Arab nationalist Sharif of Mecca, to support Arab independence in the Middle East, including in Palestine, if the Arab forces agreed to join with the British in driving the Turks out of the Middle East.
That Anglo-Arab pact of 1915 was scrupulously observed by the Arab forces who fought and died (alongside the British and the Australians) all the way from Mecca to Damascus for an independent and unified Arab state in the region. Unfortunately, the Arabs were betrayed by Anglo-Zionist collusion and deal-making far from the scene of battle.
The sad truth is that if the Australian troops who'd captured Beersheba had had any inkling of what was afoot in the smoke-filled backrooms of Whitehall, they may well have had second thoughts about the entire Palestine campaign, let alone Beersheba.
Lipski concluded his piece thus:
"Legendary the Beersheba victory may be for many. But for most Australians it's not as legendary as the Gallipoli defeat. For most Israelis, and many Australian Jews, the Light Horse's contribution to Israel's eventual establishment is virtually unknown."
Not if Lipski or the mayor of Beersheva have anything to do with it, however:
"Come the centenary in 2017, Mayor Ruvik... wants thousands of Australians and Israelis to come to Be'er-Sheva, not just to mark the the 100th anniversary, but to honour and celebrate his city's permanent Anzac legacy. I am booking early."
So too, I imagine, will Heloise Waislitz.
Monday, March 30, 2015
'An Audible Drawing In of Collective Breath'
I'm sure that Sam Lipski (then & now) actually thinks that the incident he describes below reveals more about Bob Hawke than it does about the 3,000 blinkered individuals listening to him:
"For the Jews of Australia, it was a night to remember. On May 17, 1988, some 3000 of them came to the Concert Hall at Melbourne's Arts Centre to celebrate, to pay tribute and to give thanks. On stage were 15 former Soviet refuseniks. Just months earlier... Mikhail Gorbachev had let them leave for Israel. Just days earlier they had landed at Melbourne Airport to a heroes' welcome from the Jewish community... But later in the evening, prime minister Bob Hawke punctured the mood of celebration. In an otherwise powerful and uplifting speech, Hawke included just one unsettling sentence. In it he drew comparisons between Soviet Jews and the Palestinians and black Africans under apartheid. There was an audible drawing in of collective breath. Then a turning of heads in disbelief. The remarks distressed the refuseniks, disappointed many of Hawke's admirers, and marked a turning point in Hawke's public views on Israel. With a few words, his public persona changed from the Jewish state's most passionate admirer in Australia to its sorely troubled critic." (On a night for refuseniks, Hawke brought Palestinian conflict to the party, Sam Lipski & Suzanne Rutland, The Australian, 28/3/15)
"For the Jews of Australia, it was a night to remember. On May 17, 1988, some 3000 of them came to the Concert Hall at Melbourne's Arts Centre to celebrate, to pay tribute and to give thanks. On stage were 15 former Soviet refuseniks. Just months earlier... Mikhail Gorbachev had let them leave for Israel. Just days earlier they had landed at Melbourne Airport to a heroes' welcome from the Jewish community... But later in the evening, prime minister Bob Hawke punctured the mood of celebration. In an otherwise powerful and uplifting speech, Hawke included just one unsettling sentence. In it he drew comparisons between Soviet Jews and the Palestinians and black Africans under apartheid. There was an audible drawing in of collective breath. Then a turning of heads in disbelief. The remarks distressed the refuseniks, disappointed many of Hawke's admirers, and marked a turning point in Hawke's public views on Israel. With a few words, his public persona changed from the Jewish state's most passionate admirer in Australia to its sorely troubled critic." (On a night for refuseniks, Hawke brought Palestinian conflict to the party, Sam Lipski & Suzanne Rutland, The Australian, 28/3/15)
Monday, December 29, 2014
The Exodus Master Narrative 1
Egypt has reportedly banned the latest sword-and-sandal extravaganza Exodus: Gods & Kings because "it asserts historical falsehoods and spreads a 'Zionist view'." (Egypt bans 'Exodus: Gods & Kings' movie, Rick Gladstone, New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 27/12/14)
News of same will, I imagine, be greeted by smirks on the part of those who see Hollywood productions as nothing more than entertainment.
They, of course, will have no idea that the biblical Exodus (with its fable of liberation from slavery in Egypt, 40-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and final entry into the 'Promised Land') is an integral part of the Zionist master-narrative drummed into the heads of every Jewish-Israeli schoolchild (and promoted as well in Jewish, and, I suspect, Christian, schools around the world). As Israeli scholar and educationist Nurit Peled-Elhanan points out:
"The Zionist narrative inculcated in Israeli schools relates a continuous struggle of the Jews against non-Jewish conquerors, usurpers of the land and persecutors. In their recent history school book, Naveh et al. 2009 reproduce this narrative of continuity as follows: 'The holidays and memorial days of Israel were molded as a continuous struggle of the Jewish people for its very existence, according to the familiar pattern of the Jews as few and good, struggling against the Goyim (non-Jews) who are numerous and bad. In Hanuka - the Makabbim against the ancient Greek, on Adar 11th - Trumpeldor and the defenders of Tel-Hai (1904) [sic: 1920] against a gang of Arab 'plunderers', in Purim - The Jew Mordechai and his niece - Queen Esther - against wicked Haman, in Passover - Moses and the children of Israel are struggling to free themselves from slavery against Pharoe and the Egyptians, on Holocaust Day - the rebels of the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazi Germans, on memorial day and Independence Day - the combatants of 1948 against the armies of the Arab states in their masses, and on 33 Ba'Omer - the [ancient] Jewish fundamentalists against the Romans. All these contexts are mixed together to create an artificial defining narrative, which construes the collective memory of the Jewish citizens of Israel'." (Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology & Propaganda in Education, 2012, p 7)
In fact, so seriously do Israel firsters take the historicity of the biblical Exodus narrative (a matter to which I shall return to in my next post) that we even have Australian Zionist and Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski arguing that the "Exodus master story" (his words) be given precedence over what he calls the "Holocaust master story" (his words) in Australia's national curriculum. (See my 12/4/10 post Sam Lipski's National Curriculum.)
To be continued...
News of same will, I imagine, be greeted by smirks on the part of those who see Hollywood productions as nothing more than entertainment.
They, of course, will have no idea that the biblical Exodus (with its fable of liberation from slavery in Egypt, 40-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and final entry into the 'Promised Land') is an integral part of the Zionist master-narrative drummed into the heads of every Jewish-Israeli schoolchild (and promoted as well in Jewish, and, I suspect, Christian, schools around the world). As Israeli scholar and educationist Nurit Peled-Elhanan points out:
"The Zionist narrative inculcated in Israeli schools relates a continuous struggle of the Jews against non-Jewish conquerors, usurpers of the land and persecutors. In their recent history school book, Naveh et al. 2009 reproduce this narrative of continuity as follows: 'The holidays and memorial days of Israel were molded as a continuous struggle of the Jewish people for its very existence, according to the familiar pattern of the Jews as few and good, struggling against the Goyim (non-Jews) who are numerous and bad. In Hanuka - the Makabbim against the ancient Greek, on Adar 11th - Trumpeldor and the defenders of Tel-Hai (1904) [sic: 1920] against a gang of Arab 'plunderers', in Purim - The Jew Mordechai and his niece - Queen Esther - against wicked Haman, in Passover - Moses and the children of Israel are struggling to free themselves from slavery against Pharoe and the Egyptians, on Holocaust Day - the rebels of the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazi Germans, on memorial day and Independence Day - the combatants of 1948 against the armies of the Arab states in their masses, and on 33 Ba'Omer - the [ancient] Jewish fundamentalists against the Romans. All these contexts are mixed together to create an artificial defining narrative, which construes the collective memory of the Jewish citizens of Israel'." (Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology & Propaganda in Education, 2012, p 7)
In fact, so seriously do Israel firsters take the historicity of the biblical Exodus narrative (a matter to which I shall return to in my next post) that we even have Australian Zionist and Pratt Foundation CEO Sam Lipski arguing that the "Exodus master story" (his words) be given precedence over what he calls the "Holocaust master story" (his words) in Australia's national curriculum. (See my 12/4/10 post Sam Lipski's National Curriculum.)
To be continued...
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Holocaust Studies Make the Grade
A campaign by elements of the Israel lobby to have the Jewish component of the Nazi genocide, aka 'The Holocaust'*, included in Australia's national history curriculum (see my 12/4/10 post Sam Lipski's National Curriculum) has finally borne fruit.
[* In his invaluable book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000), Norman Finkelstein calls 'The Holocaust' "an ideological representation of the Nazi genocide."]
According to the Australian Jewish News: "The official inclusion of Holocaust studies in the new national curriculum has received a cautious welcome from community leaders and educators. The curriculum was approved by a Ministerial Council meeting in Canberra and endorsed by state and territory education ministers last week... Holocaust studies have been included in two areas of the history curriculum - as part of the Australian immigration story to be taught in year 6 and as part of World War II studies in year 10. Sydney Jewish Museum education director Avril Alba described the inclusion of Shoah studies in the new curriculum as 'a positive step forward... [I]t provides teachers and students with an excellent opportunity to study both the context within which the Holocaust took place and the radicalising effect of the war." (Green light for Shoah studies, 17/12/10)
A cautious welcome?
Ah, "[b]ut [Alba] voiced concern over the limited time the subject is given in the curriculum, saying 'the challenge for teachers will be to both contextualise the unfolding of the Holocaust within the broader context of World War II but also to point out its distinctive features'." (ibid)
OK, Avril, to accomodate your concern, we'll omit the bit in the WWII depth study which goes: "An overview of the causes and course of WWII."
Ah, but "[t]he Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) also expressed reservations. 'The revised content description appears to be an improvement on the original draft', said ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim. 'One difficulty is that study of the Holocaust is limited to the years 1942-1945. This is inaccurate and omits the Nazi program of mass shootings and other atrocities between 1939 and 1941 in which 1.5 million Jews were systematically put to death'." (ibid)
OK, Peter, 1939 through to 1945 it is. We'll just drop the bit about the "use of the atomic bomb."
Ah, but "Pratt Foundation chief executive and AJN columnist Sam Lipski earlier this year cited concerns about how the syllabus might be delivered if the Shoah wasn't contextualised. 'Without also studying who the Jews were, how they began, and what they've had to say about themselves and to the world over 3 millennia, a generation of Australians will gain a misleading picture', Lipski wrote in an AJN column." (ibid)
OK, Sam, we fully understand your concern, and you'll be pleased to hear that we're seriously considering dropping the history syllabus altogether and replacing it with Jewish/Israel studies.
Seriously though, if dunum by dunum, goat by goat is your mantra and modus operandi, can enough ever really be enough?
Not that I'm the only one ever to have had reservations about The Holocaust being used to promote Israel. Even acclaimed Nazi hunter and Zionist Simon Wiesenthal, in Jerusalem for the 1961 trial of Eichmann, had initial misgivings: "Wiesenthal did not object to the tendency to present the extermination of the Jews as a vindication of Zionist ideology and as justification for the existence of the State of Israel. But Israel's goal of gaining a monopoly over the legacy of the Holocaust aroused a sense of discomfort in him." (Simon Wiesenthal: The Life & Legends, Tom Segev, 2010, p 153)
This discomfort, of course, didn't last long. When, in the wake of Israel's conquest of the West Bank in 1967, it was suggested to Wiesenthal that it was "tragic" that an attempt to redress the injustice to the Jews by creating Israel had given rise to a fresh injustice to the Palestinians, he was adamant: "No, it is not tragic. The creation of Israel was the only possible and the only correct reaction to Auschwitz. There had to be a country in the world where the Jews were the landlords instead of tolerated guests." (ibid, p 219)
If the Wiesenthal line on The Holocaust is the one advanced in our year 10 classrooms, Zionist propagandists will have achieved a significant victory. One can but wonder at the contents of any curriculum support material that might be sent by ECAJ to our schools. On the other hand, if classroom discussion of one terrible injustice turns to discussion of another... watch this space.
Anyway, for teachers of year 10 history out there who are serious about their subject and who may have been wondering just what the real significance of the Nazi genocide is, here's our big picture man, James Petras: "The Nazi genocide against the Jews is an example of the ruling elite victimizing a minority population to create cross-class cohesion, diverting the masses from internal labor-capital conflicts and the real or potential costs of imperialist policies. To deflect their focus on capitalist exploitation, the ruling elite directed worker and middle class discontent to Jewish bankers and capitalists. This propaganda was especially effective in professions like medicine and the retail trade in which competition for positions and market shares between Jews and non-Jews was especially intense. The transition from intensified exclusion and ethnic discrimination to the practice of genocide coincided with Germany's massive military, economic and political expansion and conquest of the late 1930s and early 1940s. As the costs of empire-building increased, so did the need to deflect the increasing anger and anxiety of the population by giving their ills a perpetrator's face (the Jews), and giving them lower ranking populations to despise (the Slavs). Parallel to the Jewish-Nazi Holocaust, the German imperial conquest of great swaths of Eastern Europe and especially Russia led to an even greater holocaust, the killing of some 9-10 million Slavs and the enslavement of many millions more to the imperial-capital war machine." (Genocides, Cohesion & Imperialism, in Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants, James Petras, 2007, p 77)
Chew on that, Peter, Sam.
[* In his invaluable book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (2000), Norman Finkelstein calls 'The Holocaust' "an ideological representation of the Nazi genocide."]
According to the Australian Jewish News: "The official inclusion of Holocaust studies in the new national curriculum has received a cautious welcome from community leaders and educators. The curriculum was approved by a Ministerial Council meeting in Canberra and endorsed by state and territory education ministers last week... Holocaust studies have been included in two areas of the history curriculum - as part of the Australian immigration story to be taught in year 6 and as part of World War II studies in year 10. Sydney Jewish Museum education director Avril Alba described the inclusion of Shoah studies in the new curriculum as 'a positive step forward... [I]t provides teachers and students with an excellent opportunity to study both the context within which the Holocaust took place and the radicalising effect of the war." (Green light for Shoah studies, 17/12/10)
A cautious welcome?
Ah, "[b]ut [Alba] voiced concern over the limited time the subject is given in the curriculum, saying 'the challenge for teachers will be to both contextualise the unfolding of the Holocaust within the broader context of World War II but also to point out its distinctive features'." (ibid)
OK, Avril, to accomodate your concern, we'll omit the bit in the WWII depth study which goes: "An overview of the causes and course of WWII."
Ah, but "[t]he Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) also expressed reservations. 'The revised content description appears to be an improvement on the original draft', said ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim. 'One difficulty is that study of the Holocaust is limited to the years 1942-1945. This is inaccurate and omits the Nazi program of mass shootings and other atrocities between 1939 and 1941 in which 1.5 million Jews were systematically put to death'." (ibid)
OK, Peter, 1939 through to 1945 it is. We'll just drop the bit about the "use of the atomic bomb."
Ah, but "Pratt Foundation chief executive and AJN columnist Sam Lipski earlier this year cited concerns about how the syllabus might be delivered if the Shoah wasn't contextualised. 'Without also studying who the Jews were, how they began, and what they've had to say about themselves and to the world over 3 millennia, a generation of Australians will gain a misleading picture', Lipski wrote in an AJN column." (ibid)
OK, Sam, we fully understand your concern, and you'll be pleased to hear that we're seriously considering dropping the history syllabus altogether and replacing it with Jewish/Israel studies.
Seriously though, if dunum by dunum, goat by goat is your mantra and modus operandi, can enough ever really be enough?
Not that I'm the only one ever to have had reservations about The Holocaust being used to promote Israel. Even acclaimed Nazi hunter and Zionist Simon Wiesenthal, in Jerusalem for the 1961 trial of Eichmann, had initial misgivings: "Wiesenthal did not object to the tendency to present the extermination of the Jews as a vindication of Zionist ideology and as justification for the existence of the State of Israel. But Israel's goal of gaining a monopoly over the legacy of the Holocaust aroused a sense of discomfort in him." (Simon Wiesenthal: The Life & Legends, Tom Segev, 2010, p 153)
This discomfort, of course, didn't last long. When, in the wake of Israel's conquest of the West Bank in 1967, it was suggested to Wiesenthal that it was "tragic" that an attempt to redress the injustice to the Jews by creating Israel had given rise to a fresh injustice to the Palestinians, he was adamant: "No, it is not tragic. The creation of Israel was the only possible and the only correct reaction to Auschwitz. There had to be a country in the world where the Jews were the landlords instead of tolerated guests." (ibid, p 219)
If the Wiesenthal line on The Holocaust is the one advanced in our year 10 classrooms, Zionist propagandists will have achieved a significant victory. One can but wonder at the contents of any curriculum support material that might be sent by ECAJ to our schools. On the other hand, if classroom discussion of one terrible injustice turns to discussion of another... watch this space.
Anyway, for teachers of year 10 history out there who are serious about their subject and who may have been wondering just what the real significance of the Nazi genocide is, here's our big picture man, James Petras: "The Nazi genocide against the Jews is an example of the ruling elite victimizing a minority population to create cross-class cohesion, diverting the masses from internal labor-capital conflicts and the real or potential costs of imperialist policies. To deflect their focus on capitalist exploitation, the ruling elite directed worker and middle class discontent to Jewish bankers and capitalists. This propaganda was especially effective in professions like medicine and the retail trade in which competition for positions and market shares between Jews and non-Jews was especially intense. The transition from intensified exclusion and ethnic discrimination to the practice of genocide coincided with Germany's massive military, economic and political expansion and conquest of the late 1930s and early 1940s. As the costs of empire-building increased, so did the need to deflect the increasing anger and anxiety of the population by giving their ills a perpetrator's face (the Jews), and giving them lower ranking populations to despise (the Slavs). Parallel to the Jewish-Nazi Holocaust, the German imperial conquest of great swaths of Eastern Europe and especially Russia led to an even greater holocaust, the killing of some 9-10 million Slavs and the enslavement of many millions more to the imperial-capital war machine." (Genocides, Cohesion & Imperialism, in Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants, James Petras, 2007, p 77)
Chew on that, Peter, Sam.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sam Lipski's National Curriculum
"The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensible ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a 'victim' state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood - in particular immunity to criticism, however justified." (Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, 2000, p 3)
Efforts by elements of the Israel lobby to have what they term 'Shoah studies/Holocaust education' included in Australia's new national history curriculum for year 10 have had a measure of success with the appearance in the draft curriculum, of the following unit:
"12. Depth Study 1. The Great War & its aftermath: The significance of WW II, including the Holocaust and use of the atomic bomb. Content elaboration: (1) understanding the social & scientific impact of the war including the nature and effects of the Holocaust; what total war meant for civilians in Asia, Europe & Russia; developments in science & technology (2) examining reasons for the defeat of Germany; discussing the dropping of the A-bombs & the Japanese surrender (3) debating the significance of WW II (eg assessing the 'Good War'); looking at the impact of propaganda; analysing the contribution & change in status of women; study migration away from Europe; comparing the 1945 post war settlement (eg the Marshall Plan with Versailles Peace arrangements; discussing consequences of the Holocaust)"
That Israel lobbyists are more concerned with making pro-Israel hay out of the Holocaust than with its place in history soon becomes apparent, however:
"The inclusion of Holocaust education within the proposed history curriculum was not strictly satisfactory though, with [Robert] Goot [of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)] criticising the decision to incorporate the Shoah as part of a wider unit looking at the aftermath of WW II. 'The conflation of themes, and the attempt to assimilate other large and complex areas of study into the curriculum for teaching the Holocaust, invites confusion and will make what is already a challenging teaching and teacher-training task virtually impossible', he said. 'The formulation of the curriculum concerning the Holocaust needs to be refined'." (Holocaust studies welcomed into new national curriculum, The Australian Jewish News, 5/3/10)
Now, leading Australian Zionist, Pratt Foundation CEO and former AJN editor Sam Lipski has weighed in with his concerns that, even should ECAJ get the kind of refinement they want, this would still not ensure, from the Zionist perspective, the right result:
"While welcoming its inclusion as 'an important step forward', the ECAJ said it was 'disappointing' that the Holocaust was listed within the wider topic of WWII, and 'regrettable' that the draft's focus was on discussing the Holocaust's 'consequences', rather than on what actually happened. Together with Jewish educators and other community stakeholders, the ECAJ will be expressing these concerns during the public consultations. I wish them well... But nobody should have any great expectations. Even if the government planners accept every one of the Jewish community's suggestions - and that's unlikely - there's no way of ensuring that's how the curriculum will be taught in the classroom... given the track record of many Australian teachers on allied subjects such as Israel and the Middle East..." (Shoah studies are not enough, AJN, 9/4/10)
ECAJ's concern about discussing the Holocaust's 'consequences', would, I imagine, relate to any suggestion that Europe somehow sought to assuage its guilt over the Holocaust by acquiescing in Zionism's takeover of Palestine, or, to put it in terms that a year 10 student would surely understand, because the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust against European Jewry, the Palestinians had to pay with the loss of their homeland. You can just see the hands going up: 'Miss, that's not fair!' No, unless the Holocaust is made a stand-alone unit, any such discussion could prove counter-productive from a Zionist perspective. And then you've got Lipski's Zio-centric concern about ensuring how the curriculum will be taught in the classroom... given the track record of many Australian teachers on allied subjects such as Israel and the Middle East.
So what does he propose? Why, the further (even preferred) inclusion in the national curriculum of Zionist foundational mythology no less: "The Passover haggadah* in the history section... and the biblical text from Exodus, Chapters 1-20, in the English section."
Lipski avers that "the Jewish interest, and the wider Australian interest, would be better served if the coming generation of Australian students learnt about Jews and Judaism from 'the exodus master story' rather than from 'the Holocaust master story'." As he explains: "Studying the Holocaust in a Jewish historical vacuum... inevitably means that it will present Jews as uniquely victimised in human history - and only as that. Without also studying who the Jews were, how they began, and what they've had to say about themselves and to the world over 3 millenia, a generation of Australians will gain a misleading picture. Of no benefit to them, and certainly none to the Jews."
[*The Haggadah is a Jewish religious text that sets out the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah is a fulfillment of the scriptural commandment to each Jew to 'tell your son' about the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah. (wikipedia)]
Lipski's plaint offers a fascinating insight into the Zionist mindset. On the one hand, while he wouldn't balk at any pro-Israel propaganda dividends accruing from pushing what Finkelstein calls the "specious victimhood" of the Holocaust master story in the national curriculum (the best possible ECAJ refinement), he believes that only the addition of the exodus master narrative would ensure the maximisation of such dividends.
And what exactly is this exodus master narrative alluded to by Lipski? Well, it just so happens that it's the first installment of Zionism's national mythology. The proverbial thin end of the Zionist wedge, so to speak. To quote from the puckish Shlomo Sand, who is to Zionist mythology what Richard Dawkins is to religious mythologies in general:
"For Israelis, specifically those of Jewish origin, such [modern European national] mythologies are far-fetched, whereas their own history rests on firm and precise truths. They know for a certainty that a Jewish nation has been in existence since Moses received the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai, and that they are its direct and exclusive descendants (except for the 10 tribes, who are yet to be located). They are convinced that this nation 'came out' of Egypt; conquered and settled 'the Land of Israel', which had famously been promised it by the deity; created the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon, which then split into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. They are also convinced that this nation was exiled, not once but twice, after its periods of glory - after the fall of the First Temple in the 6th century BCE, and again after the fall of the Second Temple, in 70 CE. Yet even before that second exile, this unique nation had created the Hebrew Hasmonean kingdom, which revolted against the wicked influence of Hellenization. They believe that these people - their 'nation', which must be the most ancient - wandered in exile for nearly 2,000 years and yet, despite this prolonged stay among the gentiles, managed to avoid integration with, or assimilation into, them. The nation scattered widely, its bitter wanderings taking it to Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland, and distant Russia, but it always managed to maintain close blood relations among the far-flung communities and to preseve its distinctiveness. Then, at the end of the 19th century, they contend, rare circumstances combined to wake the ancient people from its long slumber and to prepare it for rejuvenation and for the return to its ancient homeland. And so the nation began to return, joyfully, in vast numbers. Many Israelis still believe that, but for Hitler's horrible massacre, 'Eretz Israel' would soon have been filled with millions of Jews making 'aliyah' by their own free will, because they had dreamed of it for thousands of years. And while the wandering people needed a territory of its own, the empty, virgin land longed for a nation to come and make it bloom. Some uninvited guests had, it is true, settled in this homeland, but since 'the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion' for 2 millenia, the land belonged only to that people, and not to that handful without history who had merely stumbled upon it. Therefore the wars waged by the wandering nation in its conquest of the country were justified; the violent resistance of the local population was criminal; and it was only the (highly unbiblical) charity of the Jews that permitted these strangers to remain and dwell among and beside the nation, which had returned to its biblical language and its wondrous land." (The Invention of the Jewish People, 2009, pp 16-17)
The only thing I can't understand is Lipski's recommendation that Exodus, Chapters 1-20, be included in the English section of the national curriculum. Isn't it supposed to be history?
Efforts by elements of the Israel lobby to have what they term 'Shoah studies/Holocaust education' included in Australia's new national history curriculum for year 10 have had a measure of success with the appearance in the draft curriculum, of the following unit:
"12. Depth Study 1. The Great War & its aftermath: The significance of WW II, including the Holocaust and use of the atomic bomb. Content elaboration: (1) understanding the social & scientific impact of the war including the nature and effects of the Holocaust; what total war meant for civilians in Asia, Europe & Russia; developments in science & technology (2) examining reasons for the defeat of Germany; discussing the dropping of the A-bombs & the Japanese surrender (3) debating the significance of WW II (eg assessing the 'Good War'); looking at the impact of propaganda; analysing the contribution & change in status of women; study migration away from Europe; comparing the 1945 post war settlement (eg the Marshall Plan with Versailles Peace arrangements; discussing consequences of the Holocaust)"
That Israel lobbyists are more concerned with making pro-Israel hay out of the Holocaust than with its place in history soon becomes apparent, however:
"The inclusion of Holocaust education within the proposed history curriculum was not strictly satisfactory though, with [Robert] Goot [of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)] criticising the decision to incorporate the Shoah as part of a wider unit looking at the aftermath of WW II. 'The conflation of themes, and the attempt to assimilate other large and complex areas of study into the curriculum for teaching the Holocaust, invites confusion and will make what is already a challenging teaching and teacher-training task virtually impossible', he said. 'The formulation of the curriculum concerning the Holocaust needs to be refined'." (Holocaust studies welcomed into new national curriculum, The Australian Jewish News, 5/3/10)
Now, leading Australian Zionist, Pratt Foundation CEO and former AJN editor Sam Lipski has weighed in with his concerns that, even should ECAJ get the kind of refinement they want, this would still not ensure, from the Zionist perspective, the right result:
"While welcoming its inclusion as 'an important step forward', the ECAJ said it was 'disappointing' that the Holocaust was listed within the wider topic of WWII, and 'regrettable' that the draft's focus was on discussing the Holocaust's 'consequences', rather than on what actually happened. Together with Jewish educators and other community stakeholders, the ECAJ will be expressing these concerns during the public consultations. I wish them well... But nobody should have any great expectations. Even if the government planners accept every one of the Jewish community's suggestions - and that's unlikely - there's no way of ensuring that's how the curriculum will be taught in the classroom... given the track record of many Australian teachers on allied subjects such as Israel and the Middle East..." (Shoah studies are not enough, AJN, 9/4/10)
ECAJ's concern about discussing the Holocaust's 'consequences', would, I imagine, relate to any suggestion that Europe somehow sought to assuage its guilt over the Holocaust by acquiescing in Zionism's takeover of Palestine, or, to put it in terms that a year 10 student would surely understand, because the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust against European Jewry, the Palestinians had to pay with the loss of their homeland. You can just see the hands going up: 'Miss, that's not fair!' No, unless the Holocaust is made a stand-alone unit, any such discussion could prove counter-productive from a Zionist perspective. And then you've got Lipski's Zio-centric concern about ensuring how the curriculum will be taught in the classroom... given the track record of many Australian teachers on allied subjects such as Israel and the Middle East.
So what does he propose? Why, the further (even preferred) inclusion in the national curriculum of Zionist foundational mythology no less: "The Passover haggadah* in the history section... and the biblical text from Exodus, Chapters 1-20, in the English section."
Lipski avers that "the Jewish interest, and the wider Australian interest, would be better served if the coming generation of Australian students learnt about Jews and Judaism from 'the exodus master story' rather than from 'the Holocaust master story'." As he explains: "Studying the Holocaust in a Jewish historical vacuum... inevitably means that it will present Jews as uniquely victimised in human history - and only as that. Without also studying who the Jews were, how they began, and what they've had to say about themselves and to the world over 3 millenia, a generation of Australians will gain a misleading picture. Of no benefit to them, and certainly none to the Jews."
[*The Haggadah is a Jewish religious text that sets out the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah is a fulfillment of the scriptural commandment to each Jew to 'tell your son' about the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah. (wikipedia)]
Lipski's plaint offers a fascinating insight into the Zionist mindset. On the one hand, while he wouldn't balk at any pro-Israel propaganda dividends accruing from pushing what Finkelstein calls the "specious victimhood" of the Holocaust master story in the national curriculum (the best possible ECAJ refinement), he believes that only the addition of the exodus master narrative would ensure the maximisation of such dividends.
And what exactly is this exodus master narrative alluded to by Lipski? Well, it just so happens that it's the first installment of Zionism's national mythology. The proverbial thin end of the Zionist wedge, so to speak. To quote from the puckish Shlomo Sand, who is to Zionist mythology what Richard Dawkins is to religious mythologies in general:
"For Israelis, specifically those of Jewish origin, such [modern European national] mythologies are far-fetched, whereas their own history rests on firm and precise truths. They know for a certainty that a Jewish nation has been in existence since Moses received the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai, and that they are its direct and exclusive descendants (except for the 10 tribes, who are yet to be located). They are convinced that this nation 'came out' of Egypt; conquered and settled 'the Land of Israel', which had famously been promised it by the deity; created the magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon, which then split into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. They are also convinced that this nation was exiled, not once but twice, after its periods of glory - after the fall of the First Temple in the 6th century BCE, and again after the fall of the Second Temple, in 70 CE. Yet even before that second exile, this unique nation had created the Hebrew Hasmonean kingdom, which revolted against the wicked influence of Hellenization. They believe that these people - their 'nation', which must be the most ancient - wandered in exile for nearly 2,000 years and yet, despite this prolonged stay among the gentiles, managed to avoid integration with, or assimilation into, them. The nation scattered widely, its bitter wanderings taking it to Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland, and distant Russia, but it always managed to maintain close blood relations among the far-flung communities and to preseve its distinctiveness. Then, at the end of the 19th century, they contend, rare circumstances combined to wake the ancient people from its long slumber and to prepare it for rejuvenation and for the return to its ancient homeland. And so the nation began to return, joyfully, in vast numbers. Many Israelis still believe that, but for Hitler's horrible massacre, 'Eretz Israel' would soon have been filled with millions of Jews making 'aliyah' by their own free will, because they had dreamed of it for thousands of years. And while the wandering people needed a territory of its own, the empty, virgin land longed for a nation to come and make it bloom. Some uninvited guests had, it is true, settled in this homeland, but since 'the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion' for 2 millenia, the land belonged only to that people, and not to that handful without history who had merely stumbled upon it. Therefore the wars waged by the wandering nation in its conquest of the country were justified; the violent resistance of the local population was criminal; and it was only the (highly unbiblical) charity of the Jews that permitted these strangers to remain and dwell among and beside the nation, which had returned to its biblical language and its wondrous land." (The Invention of the Jewish People, 2009, pp 16-17)
The only thing I can't understand is Lipski's recommendation that Exodus, Chapters 1-20, be included in the English section of the national curriculum. Isn't it supposed to be history?
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