In the lead-up to the next Australian Labor Party national conference in July, the usual suspects, in this instance the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) are getting nervous. Solution: wheel out Murdoch hack Simon Benson to unveil ECAJ's YouGovGalaxy poll which, according to Benson, reveals that:
"Federal Labor is at risk of alienating its support base over the party's pursuit of Palestinian statehood ahead of its national conference, with a majority of its own voters rejecting the move without the Palestinian Authority striking a peace deal with Israel." (ALP voters reject Palestine push, The Australian, 13/3/18)
Sample question:
In your opinion, when should Australia recognise a Palestinian state?
Now check out the framing, particularly of the third:
Immediately, with or without a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel (ALP voters: 14)
[How about:... with or without an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories illegally occupied for the past 60 years?]
After a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (ALP voters 27)
[... premised on Israel's wanting one of course]
When all Palestinian groups renounce violence (ALP voters 12)
[But not Israel of course]
Never (ALP voters 12)
Don't know (ALP voters 36)
[Actually, it's the enormous number of 'dunnos' that make this last category the most interesting. Does it mean that 36% of ALP voters are deaf, dumb and blind? Or live in sheltered workshops? Or under rocks? I mean, this is 2018.]
Showing posts with label Simon Benson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simon Benson. Show all posts
Friday, March 16, 2018
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Time for Greg Sheridan to Move On?
It just keeps getting better and better at Murdoch's Australian:
"Renowned political journalist Simon Benson has joined The Australian as national affairs editor. A news breaker with a formidable range of contacts, Benson has routinely set the agenda on seismic political developments ranging from the Rudd coup to breaking the story of the bid to remove Tony Abbott. The award-winning journalist was national political editor at Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, where he spent more than two decades in senior positions, including NSW state political editor." (Benson national affairs editor, The Australian, 9/12/16)
But really, the Australian is being too modest with respect to Simon. His real forte is obviously foreign affairs:
"Like any normal Sydney family [the people of Sderot] worry about the rising cost of living - mortgage repayments, power prices, grocery bills. But they have an extra burden. Three kilometres away... is the city of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian families live under the grip of terror imposed by Hamas and its jihad brigades intent on erasing the Zionists from the land they claim to be Palestine." (See my 19/11/12 post Israel Lobbyist Asks: Why do we bother?)
Look out, Greg Sheridan...
"Renowned political journalist Simon Benson has joined The Australian as national affairs editor. A news breaker with a formidable range of contacts, Benson has routinely set the agenda on seismic political developments ranging from the Rudd coup to breaking the story of the bid to remove Tony Abbott. The award-winning journalist was national political editor at Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, where he spent more than two decades in senior positions, including NSW state political editor." (Benson national affairs editor, The Australian, 9/12/16)
But really, the Australian is being too modest with respect to Simon. His real forte is obviously foreign affairs:
"Like any normal Sydney family [the people of Sderot] worry about the rising cost of living - mortgage repayments, power prices, grocery bills. But they have an extra burden. Three kilometres away... is the city of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian families live under the grip of terror imposed by Hamas and its jihad brigades intent on erasing the Zionists from the land they claim to be Palestine." (See my 19/11/12 post Israel Lobbyist Asks: Why do we bother?)
Look out, Greg Sheridan...
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Simple Simon, Again
Daily Terrorgraph journalist Simon Benson last came to my notice with a series of blatant propaganda pieces for Israel in 2012. (Click on the 'SB' label below and be amazed at what a little rambamming can do.)
Just to remind you, here's Benson back then:
"The difference is that one side fires indiscriminate rockets into civilian populations with the express intent on terrorising people or killing them. The other side seeks to defend itself and makes mistakes and kills innocent civilians." (See my 8/12/12 post Innocents Abroad.)
Now he's come up with this little gem in an admiring opinion piece on Tone's "tough stance against Russia":
"The last time the Australian Defence Force was deployed to a conflict that involved the West taking on Russia was World War 1." (Muscling up as a mid power, Daily Telegraph, 5/9/14)
That's right folks - Russia! And all this time you thought we'd been fighting the Germans.
Just to remind you, here's Benson back then:
"The difference is that one side fires indiscriminate rockets into civilian populations with the express intent on terrorising people or killing them. The other side seeks to defend itself and makes mistakes and kills innocent civilians." (See my 8/12/12 post Innocents Abroad.)
Now he's come up with this little gem in an admiring opinion piece on Tone's "tough stance against Russia":
"The last time the Australian Defence Force was deployed to a conflict that involved the West taking on Russia was World War 1." (Muscling up as a mid power, Daily Telegraph, 5/9/14)
That's right folks - Russia! And all this time you thought we'd been fighting the Germans.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Innocents Abroad
"Four journalists who participated in the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies' Journalist Mission to Israel reported back to the community on Tuesday night." (Israel trip journos report back, The Australian Jewish News, 7/12/12)
Hm, so what exactly did these intrepid souls discover in the home of the IDF coward and the land of the unfree Palestinian?
The Daily Telegraph's national political editor, Simon Benson, who, were are informed, "received the biggest applause" from the assembled believers, presumably for such staggering revelations as this:
"The difference is that one side fires indiscriminate rockets into civilian populations with the express intent on terrorising people or killing them. The other side seeks to defend itself and makes mistakes and kills innocent civilians." (For further news of Simon's stellar career as a reporter of every twitch of the Israeli nerve as their sun was literally blotted out by nuclear-armed Palestinian ICBMs recently, simply click on the SB label below.)
Sky News presenter Brooke Corte, mere inches from those indiscriminate Hamas rockets, took a break from being terrorised or killed by Hamas rockets just long enough to gush:
"On the bus fleeing Beersheva trying to get out of the rocket range, I logged into my Twitter and watched the propaganda war between Hamas and Israeli officials unfold in real time. To be in that situation and watch how the two sides covered that on Twitter in real time as it was happening was a truly unique experience."
Boring, but so typical of the younger generation of twitterati! For example, just compare Brooke's limp 15 November tweet - "In northern Israel today looking across Lebanon and Syria. Beautiful and yet a little close for comfort" - with the literary flair and drama of the 40-something rambamee Peter Phelps MLC's 16 July tweet: "Just peered into Gaza, now I know how Frodo felt when he first gazed upon Mordor." (See my 20/7/12 post Frodos Gaze Upon Mordor.) See what I mean?
Sydney Morning Herald's Saturday edition editor, Judith Whelan, apparently a victim of the dreaded Jerusalem syndrome, poor thing, said that "since she has returned from her trip, every dinner conversation at home with her children has focused on Israel. Whelan, who spent a lot of time reading and studying the Bible in her youth, said Israel is a unique country. 'While standing on the Mount of Olives, I looked down at the huge Jewish cemetery, down the other side a huge Christian cemetery, and then a huge Muslim cemetery. And there, on the Mount of Olives, even in death you have this immense longing for this place. It is the holiest of places for three religions. Can we be surprised that it is constantly fought over?"
Surely proof, if needed, that thinking straight is often in inverse proportion to the mind's religious clutter. (For Whelan's thankyou note to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, see my 19/11/12 post Israel Lobbyist Asks: Why do we bother?.)
Now to the biggest of the JBoD's catch - Michael Ebeid, managing director of SBS. Young Michael, I remind you, was at the centre of the storm over SBS's decision to screen the British drama, The Promise, in November-December last year. In particular, he was assailed on the subject during a senate committee hearing by a gaggle of Israel's useful parliamentary fools (Senators Ryan, Fifield & Kroger). (See my 1/3/12 post In Senate Estimates They can't Hear You Scream.)
One would have thought that, after being forced to defend the public's basic right to watch The Promise and make up its own mind about it from a concerted and sustained attack by elements of the Israel lobby, he'd be wise to the buggers. But no, they got him in the end and packed him off to Israel for reprogramming.
A faint taste of what he'd been through with the lobby, however, can still be detected in his report-back from the experience. After first "reflect[ing] on Israel's great [!] democracy," Ebeid is quoted thus in the AJN:
"'My final general observation is that within Israel there seems to be more varied opinions and moderate views on Palestinian issues than what I've tended to see in Australia. But while I found Israelis do tend to have thick skin, often in the Diaspora community they tend to have a heightened sense of sensitivity around how Israel is portrayed here, and I think this is understandable because often the media is very black and white about how they present the issue.'"
Sad indeed.
Certainly, since the screening of The Promise nothing has appeared on this subject on SBS television that I'm aware of. Can we, therefore, conclude that Ebeid's rambamming was successful? The only other evidence we have that this may be the case comes from his tweets, which, I'm sorry to say, are hardly encouraging:
On 14 November he saw fit to retweet this typically thuggish threat from IDFSpokesperson: "We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."
On the same day he tweeted: "Here is a great report by @simonbenson who I was with today in Sderot near Gaza." Simon Benson, for God's sake!
On 16 November he tweeted: "Being in Israel [this] week has reaffirmed my high respect for journalists who travel the world's hot spots to bring us the news." Of the heat in Gaza - nothing!
On 17 November he breaks into fluent Israeli with: "A video explaining the tactics Hamas terrorist group uses in Gaza. Sadly Palestinian people caught in the middle."
Finally, on 18 November, a killer tweet which reveals Ebeid's essential shallowness like no other: "Over Israel vs Hamas? Then switch over to SBSTWO at 11pm for Brazil vs Spain Futsal WC Final."
Fair dinkum, it's enough to make you weep.
Hm, so what exactly did these intrepid souls discover in the home of the IDF coward and the land of the unfree Palestinian?
The Daily Telegraph's national political editor, Simon Benson, who, were are informed, "received the biggest applause" from the assembled believers, presumably for such staggering revelations as this:
"The difference is that one side fires indiscriminate rockets into civilian populations with the express intent on terrorising people or killing them. The other side seeks to defend itself and makes mistakes and kills innocent civilians." (For further news of Simon's stellar career as a reporter of every twitch of the Israeli nerve as their sun was literally blotted out by nuclear-armed Palestinian ICBMs recently, simply click on the SB label below.)
Sky News presenter Brooke Corte, mere inches from those indiscriminate Hamas rockets, took a break from being terrorised or killed by Hamas rockets just long enough to gush:
"On the bus fleeing Beersheva trying to get out of the rocket range, I logged into my Twitter and watched the propaganda war between Hamas and Israeli officials unfold in real time. To be in that situation and watch how the two sides covered that on Twitter in real time as it was happening was a truly unique experience."
Boring, but so typical of the younger generation of twitterati! For example, just compare Brooke's limp 15 November tweet - "In northern Israel today looking across Lebanon and Syria. Beautiful and yet a little close for comfort" - with the literary flair and drama of the 40-something rambamee Peter Phelps MLC's 16 July tweet: "Just peered into Gaza, now I know how Frodo felt when he first gazed upon Mordor." (See my 20/7/12 post Frodos Gaze Upon Mordor.) See what I mean?
Sydney Morning Herald's Saturday edition editor, Judith Whelan, apparently a victim of the dreaded Jerusalem syndrome, poor thing, said that "since she has returned from her trip, every dinner conversation at home with her children has focused on Israel. Whelan, who spent a lot of time reading and studying the Bible in her youth, said Israel is a unique country. 'While standing on the Mount of Olives, I looked down at the huge Jewish cemetery, down the other side a huge Christian cemetery, and then a huge Muslim cemetery. And there, on the Mount of Olives, even in death you have this immense longing for this place. It is the holiest of places for three religions. Can we be surprised that it is constantly fought over?"
Surely proof, if needed, that thinking straight is often in inverse proportion to the mind's religious clutter. (For Whelan's thankyou note to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, see my 19/11/12 post Israel Lobbyist Asks: Why do we bother?.)
Now to the biggest of the JBoD's catch - Michael Ebeid, managing director of SBS. Young Michael, I remind you, was at the centre of the storm over SBS's decision to screen the British drama, The Promise, in November-December last year. In particular, he was assailed on the subject during a senate committee hearing by a gaggle of Israel's useful parliamentary fools (Senators Ryan, Fifield & Kroger). (See my 1/3/12 post In Senate Estimates They can't Hear You Scream.)
One would have thought that, after being forced to defend the public's basic right to watch The Promise and make up its own mind about it from a concerted and sustained attack by elements of the Israel lobby, he'd be wise to the buggers. But no, they got him in the end and packed him off to Israel for reprogramming.
A faint taste of what he'd been through with the lobby, however, can still be detected in his report-back from the experience. After first "reflect[ing] on Israel's great [!] democracy," Ebeid is quoted thus in the AJN:
"'My final general observation is that within Israel there seems to be more varied opinions and moderate views on Palestinian issues than what I've tended to see in Australia. But while I found Israelis do tend to have thick skin, often in the Diaspora community they tend to have a heightened sense of sensitivity around how Israel is portrayed here, and I think this is understandable because often the media is very black and white about how they present the issue.'"
Sad indeed.
Certainly, since the screening of The Promise nothing has appeared on this subject on SBS television that I'm aware of. Can we, therefore, conclude that Ebeid's rambamming was successful? The only other evidence we have that this may be the case comes from his tweets, which, I'm sorry to say, are hardly encouraging:
On 14 November he saw fit to retweet this typically thuggish threat from IDFSpokesperson: "We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."
On the same day he tweeted: "Here is a great report by @simonbenson who I was with today in Sderot near Gaza." Simon Benson, for God's sake!
On 16 November he tweeted: "Being in Israel [this] week has reaffirmed my high respect for journalists who travel the world's hot spots to bring us the news." Of the heat in Gaza - nothing!
On 17 November he breaks into fluent Israeli with: "A video explaining the tactics Hamas terrorist group uses in Gaza. Sadly Palestinian people caught in the middle."
Finally, on 18 November, a killer tweet which reveals Ebeid's essential shallowness like no other: "Over Israel vs Hamas? Then switch over to SBSTWO at 11pm for Brazil vs Spain Futsal WC Final."
Fair dinkum, it's enough to make you weep.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
News Ltd's Pro-Palestinian Saboteur Strikes Again
The nameless pro-Palestinian saboteur, who has heroically taken it upon himself to subvert the dominant 'Israel First' paradigm that rules the roost at Murdoch's News Ltd, has struck again, this time in the pages of yesterday's Daily Telegraph.
His handiwork was clearly evident in the graphic which accompanied Simple Simon Benson's latest advertisement for SUFFERING Israel:
LIFE GOES ON AS THE ROCKETS RAIN DOWN shouted the banner headline superimposed on a photograph of a Palestinian rocket emerging from a Gazan city (L) and an Iron Dome rocket emerging from its launcher in Israel (R).
At the bottom of the two photos, blurred together to form one, was a red square and a yellow circle. The red circles contained the words Qassam Rocket, GAZA (L) and Iron Dome, ISRAEL (R). And in the yellow circles: 800+ Missiles launched from Gaza (L) and 85% Interception success rate (R).
In keeping with the Left/Right juxtaposition, below this graphic, were block descriptions of how a Qassam and an Iron Dome work.
Accompanying the Qassam half, however, was a photograph.
A mean, nasty, smirking Qassam rocket? No way! A mean, nasty, smirking Qassam launch squad? Not on your nelly!
No - three Palestinian guys with - wait for it - slingshots! No kidding!
And the saboteur's bleeding obvious message? If truth be told, compared to Israel's bloated, US-supplied arsenals of shells, rockets and bombs (containing depleted uranium and who knows what else), which receive practically no attention from the corporate media, those fearsome 'Palestinian rockets', with which the corporates are currently bombarding us, are little more than slingshots.
Not since our News Ltd saboteur slipped the headline Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid into the 5 May 2012 emission of The Australian, which caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the time, have we seen anything quite like this. (See my posts Consensus at Last... (7/5/12) and Down the Memory Hole (10/5/12).)
Where and when, I wonder, will News Ltd's brave pro-Palestinian saboteur strike next?
His handiwork was clearly evident in the graphic which accompanied Simple Simon Benson's latest advertisement for SUFFERING Israel:
LIFE GOES ON AS THE ROCKETS RAIN DOWN shouted the banner headline superimposed on a photograph of a Palestinian rocket emerging from a Gazan city (L) and an Iron Dome rocket emerging from its launcher in Israel (R).
At the bottom of the two photos, blurred together to form one, was a red square and a yellow circle. The red circles contained the words Qassam Rocket, GAZA (L) and Iron Dome, ISRAEL (R). And in the yellow circles: 800+ Missiles launched from Gaza (L) and 85% Interception success rate (R).
In keeping with the Left/Right juxtaposition, below this graphic, were block descriptions of how a Qassam and an Iron Dome work.
Accompanying the Qassam half, however, was a photograph.
A mean, nasty, smirking Qassam rocket? No way! A mean, nasty, smirking Qassam launch squad? Not on your nelly!
No - three Palestinian guys with - wait for it - slingshots! No kidding!
And the saboteur's bleeding obvious message? If truth be told, compared to Israel's bloated, US-supplied arsenals of shells, rockets and bombs (containing depleted uranium and who knows what else), which receive practically no attention from the corporate media, those fearsome 'Palestinian rockets', with which the corporates are currently bombarding us, are little more than slingshots.
Not since our News Ltd saboteur slipped the headline Living under the cloud of Israel's cruel apartheid into the 5 May 2012 emission of The Australian, which caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the time, have we seen anything quite like this. (See my posts Consensus at Last... (7/5/12) and Down the Memory Hole (10/5/12).)
Where and when, I wonder, will News Ltd's brave pro-Palestinian saboteur strike next?
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
The Israeli Ambassador to Gaza
Palestinian kids are being torn limb from limb or pulled limp and lifeless from the rubble of destroyed apartments in Gaza but you won't be reading anything about that in Rupert Murdoch's Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph. Certainly not from the pen of the recently rambammed Simon Benson.
No, Benson's job, it appears, is to serve up to readers examples of the Israeli soul, which, even as Hamas rockets literally block out the sun over Israel, always manages to shine through.
You will of course remember, from the previous post, young Sivan Hanukayer from Israel's Stalingrad, Sderot:
"She says that when the rockets rain down, all she can think of is hate. Wanting her enemies across the border 'dead, erased'. When it's over, and she returns to a rational state, she sympathises with the Palestinians across the border who are used as human shields by the jihadists."
That was in last Friday's edition. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph (18/11), Benson brings us the heart-warming story of Dr Lior Sasson, who specialises in mending Palestinian kiddies' hearts:
"As Israel and Hamas exchanged rocket fire..."
Parenthetically, if you had to 'receive' rocket fire, which would you choose, that coming from Gaza or that raining down on Gaza from Israel? Just asking.
"... over the border, doctors from the Save a Child's Heart Foundation were planning a procedure that would offer [7-year old Palestinian] Mohammed [Naser] a life that would have otherwise been tragically cut short... 'We never let the conflict interfere with what we are doing,' the foundation's head of surgery, Dr Lior Sasson said. 'If there is a kid we can help, we do it. If we are successful, we send home an ambassador.'"
Fat chance, Dr Lior! These brainwashed savages, unlike Benson and the readers of the DT, are blind to the radiance of the Israeli soul. As Benson says:
"His family cared little for the irony - that they had to turn to a people they are told are their enemy to save their son's life as their leaders prepared for full-scale war."
You can imagine the scene:
Benson: Do you not realise, woman, the incredible irony in your son being healed by those you've been taught to see as your enemy? Do you not see that, while the good Israeli doctor is saving your son's life, your leaders are trying to kill him?
Mrs Naser (Remains silent, looking puzzled, as if thinking, Who the hell is this lunatic?)
Benson ('thinking' aloud): As I expected, irony is quite simply beyond these people. (Scribbles thought in notebook and departs for long liquid Tel Aviv lunch.)
But this business about little Mohammed returning to Gaza as an ambassador for Israel has got me intrigued.
Just imagine, if you will: Mohammed's back in Gaza City with his family. He sets off, through the rubble-strewn and smoking streets, the constant din of Israeli planes, helicopters and drones and the occasional sound of exploding bombs failing to deter him in his mission. You see, Mohammed can't wait to tell his best friend, Ahmed, about the wonderful Dr Sasson and all the other beautiful Israeli souls he's met in Israel.
Before long he reaches Ahmed's two-storey house. Or what is left of it. He stands in disbelief, gazing at what looks like a concrete and rebar version, only larger, of an Ikea furniture piece which someone's simply given up on assembling in sheer frustration and left behind after first taking to it with a sledgehammer and then setting it on fire.
"Ahmed!" he cries out in anguish. His only answer is the sickly-sweet smell of rotting flesh which wafts his way from somewhere deep under the pile. Overcome by a steely anger he simply cannot control, he looks up at the humming, droning sky and screams: "Fucking Israelis!"
No, Benson's job, it appears, is to serve up to readers examples of the Israeli soul, which, even as Hamas rockets literally block out the sun over Israel, always manages to shine through.
You will of course remember, from the previous post, young Sivan Hanukayer from Israel's Stalingrad, Sderot:
"She says that when the rockets rain down, all she can think of is hate. Wanting her enemies across the border 'dead, erased'. When it's over, and she returns to a rational state, she sympathises with the Palestinians across the border who are used as human shields by the jihadists."
That was in last Friday's edition. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph (18/11), Benson brings us the heart-warming story of Dr Lior Sasson, who specialises in mending Palestinian kiddies' hearts:
"As Israel and Hamas exchanged rocket fire..."
Parenthetically, if you had to 'receive' rocket fire, which would you choose, that coming from Gaza or that raining down on Gaza from Israel? Just asking.
"... over the border, doctors from the Save a Child's Heart Foundation were planning a procedure that would offer [7-year old Palestinian] Mohammed [Naser] a life that would have otherwise been tragically cut short... 'We never let the conflict interfere with what we are doing,' the foundation's head of surgery, Dr Lior Sasson said. 'If there is a kid we can help, we do it. If we are successful, we send home an ambassador.'"
Fat chance, Dr Lior! These brainwashed savages, unlike Benson and the readers of the DT, are blind to the radiance of the Israeli soul. As Benson says:
"His family cared little for the irony - that they had to turn to a people they are told are their enemy to save their son's life as their leaders prepared for full-scale war."
You can imagine the scene:
Benson: Do you not realise, woman, the incredible irony in your son being healed by those you've been taught to see as your enemy? Do you not see that, while the good Israeli doctor is saving your son's life, your leaders are trying to kill him?
Mrs Naser (Remains silent, looking puzzled, as if thinking, Who the hell is this lunatic?)
Benson ('thinking' aloud): As I expected, irony is quite simply beyond these people. (Scribbles thought in notebook and departs for long liquid Tel Aviv lunch.)
But this business about little Mohammed returning to Gaza as an ambassador for Israel has got me intrigued.
Just imagine, if you will: Mohammed's back in Gaza City with his family. He sets off, through the rubble-strewn and smoking streets, the constant din of Israeli planes, helicopters and drones and the occasional sound of exploding bombs failing to deter him in his mission. You see, Mohammed can't wait to tell his best friend, Ahmed, about the wonderful Dr Sasson and all the other beautiful Israeli souls he's met in Israel.
Before long he reaches Ahmed's two-storey house. Or what is left of it. He stands in disbelief, gazing at what looks like a concrete and rebar version, only larger, of an Ikea furniture piece which someone's simply given up on assembling in sheer frustration and left behind after first taking to it with a sledgehammer and then setting it on fire.
"Ahmed!" he cries out in anguish. His only answer is the sickly-sweet smell of rotting flesh which wafts his way from somewhere deep under the pile. Overcome by a steely anger he simply cannot control, he looks up at the humming, droning sky and screams: "Fucking Israelis!"
Monday, November 19, 2012
Israel Lobbyist Asks: Why do we bother?
Now I don't know about you but I've often wondered about the mysterious deputies referred to in the moniker NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. I mean, we all know its public face and CEO, the ubiquitous Vic Alhadeff. But just who are these faceless deputies?
Well, you're not going to believe this, but I recently found myself meandering along the mean streets of a certain Australian city when the proverbial flatbed truck came careening around a corner and, quite by happenstance, deposited a certain document at my feet. And blow me down if it wasn't penned by one of the faceless ones! Spooky, eh? Now as the document - a letter in fact - would appear to be of some interest to students of the rambamming phenomenon which receives so much attention on this blog, I've decided to post it in full, omitting only the name of the author:
Am Israel Chay! My dear fellow deputies,
As we well know, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies study tours to Israel are to the Australian journalist as candy is to a child. In fact, how often have we joked together that those who miss out sound awfully like that kid in the song: 'What about me? It isn't fair...'
Seriously though, given the meagre results of our most recent effort, I find myself compelled to ask: are we really getting our money's worth these days? Or, to put it even more bluntly, what kind of propaganda bang are we getting for our big bucks?
Unfortunately, up and coming Greg Sheridans seem in pretty short supply these days and, I'm sorry to say, I fear we may be facing a bottom-of-the-barrel scenario. Take the latest lot of junketeers, for example. Although eight of the species have recently been wined, dined and schmoozed in the usual right royal manner by our Israeli partners, only two, Judith Whelan of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph, have so far made any effort to repay our extraordinary kindness.
And, of the two, it's really only Simple Simon, as we are want to call him sotto voce, who's produced the goods. Frankly, this is simply not good enough.
To take Whelan first. The woman's clearly all sizzle and no sausage! I mean, check out the header on her piece: The normality of a nation on the brink. Full of promise, right? Redolent of Poland on the eve of the day when the massed German panzers began revving up for a visit.
But then what do we get? The Dark Forces of Amalek in Gaza are raining intercontinental ballistic missiles, bristling with nuclear warheads, on Tel Aviv and our Israeli brothers and sisters are barely 15 seconds from becoming toast, and all bloody Whelan can come up with is this drivel:
"Through it all, the traffic kept moving, planes kept taking off and the volleyball players on the beach kept on with their game... Look at the streets of Tel Aviv and you wouldn't know it. The people here seem used to these situations - they have lived under the threat of rockets, of suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks for too many years. They know when to worry, and they are not too worried yet." (16/11/12)
Not too worried yet? Now how in Herzl's name is the Herald reader going to take Israeli SUFFERING seriously after that?
And then she goes AWOL up at Metula on the Lebanese border and ends up quoting some silly old bugger called Rivka Jacobs: "When I open my window in the morning, I say, 'Good morning, Hezbollah!' Because we are just 600 metres away."
Shit! I mean, seriously, how lame is that compared to our blessed Joseph Trumpeldor's dying words as his sacred blood became one with the soil of our beloved Eretz Israel: 'Never mind, it is good to die for our country'?
After that, all I can say is thank God for good old Simple. I mean, the PAIN of our people in Israel is instantly brought home to the readers of the Tele the moment they read his opening words:
"You know things are getting pretty grim when you have to put your dog on valium to cope with stress. Or plant gum trees around your home to obscure it from terrorists firing rockets at you." (In the never-ending Gaza war even dogs take tranquillisers, 16/11/12)
And just imagine the frisson of terror experienced by Tele readers as they read this little ripping yarn:
"Like any normal Sydney family [the people of Sderot] worry about the rising cost of living - mortgage repayments, power prices, grocery bills. But they have an extra burden. Three kilometres away... is the city of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian families live under the grip of terror imposed by Hamas and its jihad brigades intent on erasing the Zionists from the land they claim to be Palestine."
Admittedly, just between you and me, there is the odd factual error here - it's Gaza City, not the city of Gaza; it's 1.5 million Palestinians, not families, who live in the Strip; the only terror Palestinians have ever experienced has come, and let's be frank here, from the IDF and its predecessors; yes, unhappily, Israel was once known as Palestine; and finally, Simple can't decide whether Sderot has 20 or 24 thousand people - but hey, this is Simple Simon writing for the even simpler Simons out there who read the Tele, so who's to twig?
I also like the way Simple brings the fundamental humanity and decency of our Israeli brothers and sisters to light:
"Sivan Hanukayer... says that when the rockets rain down, all she can think of is hate. Wanting her enemies across the border 'dead, erased'. When it's over, and she returns to a rational state, she sympathises with the Palestinians across the border who are used as human shields by the jihadists."
Ah, the immortal Israeli soul, irrationally hateful only in the direst of circumstances but always resuming its natural tendency to turn the other cheek and even empathise with its enemies when the danger is over. Compare that with Simple's wonderful depiction of the Gazans as hostages of Hamas jihadists, leaving the reader to deduce that, as victims of the Stockholm syndrome, they're simply incapable of either rationality or empathy.
And, bless his soul, Simple even fell for that old ham, Noam Bedein:
"Noam Bedein, the director of the Sderot information centre, says the entire town has been on edge for weeks. It's hard to lead your life constantly looking out for missile shelters just in case your 15-second race for life starts. That is how long they have to get into a bomb shelter before terror strikes. 'Mothers have to stop their cars, get out, try to unbuckle two kids, then get them to the shelter,' he tells me. 'What the mothers are discovering is it's impossible... they are being forced to choose. Which child do I save?'"
Oh well, if Simple could swallow that and regurgitate it for his readers, no doubt they'll lap it up. (Yuk! I've just thought of the implications of that sentence!)
But Simple's piece de resistance surely has to be his final paragraph. That should clinch the deal with Tele readers, no sweat! I bet you didn't know that the dastardly leader of the "jihad brigades," as Simple calls them, had actually managed to insult the memory of our immortal Aussie diggers? Read on:
"Al-Jaabari [sic] has carried out hundreds of rocket attacks on Israeli towns including Be'er Sheva, where the Australian Light Horse Brigade is remembered for heroic feats in 1915 - defending a land that is in a constant state of war."
Only Simple could come up with Aussie diggers defending Israel 34 years before it came into existence from the invading Turks who'd ruled it since the 16th century. Priceless!
OK, to return to the subject of this letter, as good as Simple's contribution to the cause is, it's still only one out of eight, or one and a half if you include Whelan's pathetic effort. One wonders, therefore, why we bother. Any ideas?
Looking forward to your thoughts on this vital matter, fellow deputies.
Well, you're not going to believe this, but I recently found myself meandering along the mean streets of a certain Australian city when the proverbial flatbed truck came careening around a corner and, quite by happenstance, deposited a certain document at my feet. And blow me down if it wasn't penned by one of the faceless ones! Spooky, eh? Now as the document - a letter in fact - would appear to be of some interest to students of the rambamming phenomenon which receives so much attention on this blog, I've decided to post it in full, omitting only the name of the author:
Am Israel Chay! My dear fellow deputies,
As we well know, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies study tours to Israel are to the Australian journalist as candy is to a child. In fact, how often have we joked together that those who miss out sound awfully like that kid in the song: 'What about me? It isn't fair...'
Seriously though, given the meagre results of our most recent effort, I find myself compelled to ask: are we really getting our money's worth these days? Or, to put it even more bluntly, what kind of propaganda bang are we getting for our big bucks?
Unfortunately, up and coming Greg Sheridans seem in pretty short supply these days and, I'm sorry to say, I fear we may be facing a bottom-of-the-barrel scenario. Take the latest lot of junketeers, for example. Although eight of the species have recently been wined, dined and schmoozed in the usual right royal manner by our Israeli partners, only two, Judith Whelan of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph, have so far made any effort to repay our extraordinary kindness.
And, of the two, it's really only Simple Simon, as we are want to call him sotto voce, who's produced the goods. Frankly, this is simply not good enough.
To take Whelan first. The woman's clearly all sizzle and no sausage! I mean, check out the header on her piece: The normality of a nation on the brink. Full of promise, right? Redolent of Poland on the eve of the day when the massed German panzers began revving up for a visit.
But then what do we get? The Dark Forces of Amalek in Gaza are raining intercontinental ballistic missiles, bristling with nuclear warheads, on Tel Aviv and our Israeli brothers and sisters are barely 15 seconds from becoming toast, and all bloody Whelan can come up with is this drivel:
"Through it all, the traffic kept moving, planes kept taking off and the volleyball players on the beach kept on with their game... Look at the streets of Tel Aviv and you wouldn't know it. The people here seem used to these situations - they have lived under the threat of rockets, of suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks for too many years. They know when to worry, and they are not too worried yet." (16/11/12)
Not too worried yet? Now how in Herzl's name is the Herald reader going to take Israeli SUFFERING seriously after that?
And then she goes AWOL up at Metula on the Lebanese border and ends up quoting some silly old bugger called Rivka Jacobs: "When I open my window in the morning, I say, 'Good morning, Hezbollah!' Because we are just 600 metres away."
Shit! I mean, seriously, how lame is that compared to our blessed Joseph Trumpeldor's dying words as his sacred blood became one with the soil of our beloved Eretz Israel: 'Never mind, it is good to die for our country'?
After that, all I can say is thank God for good old Simple. I mean, the PAIN of our people in Israel is instantly brought home to the readers of the Tele the moment they read his opening words:
"You know things are getting pretty grim when you have to put your dog on valium to cope with stress. Or plant gum trees around your home to obscure it from terrorists firing rockets at you." (In the never-ending Gaza war even dogs take tranquillisers, 16/11/12)
And just imagine the frisson of terror experienced by Tele readers as they read this little ripping yarn:
"Like any normal Sydney family [the people of Sderot] worry about the rising cost of living - mortgage repayments, power prices, grocery bills. But they have an extra burden. Three kilometres away... is the city of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinian families live under the grip of terror imposed by Hamas and its jihad brigades intent on erasing the Zionists from the land they claim to be Palestine."
Admittedly, just between you and me, there is the odd factual error here - it's Gaza City, not the city of Gaza; it's 1.5 million Palestinians, not families, who live in the Strip; the only terror Palestinians have ever experienced has come, and let's be frank here, from the IDF and its predecessors; yes, unhappily, Israel was once known as Palestine; and finally, Simple can't decide whether Sderot has 20 or 24 thousand people - but hey, this is Simple Simon writing for the even simpler Simons out there who read the Tele, so who's to twig?
I also like the way Simple brings the fundamental humanity and decency of our Israeli brothers and sisters to light:
"Sivan Hanukayer... says that when the rockets rain down, all she can think of is hate. Wanting her enemies across the border 'dead, erased'. When it's over, and she returns to a rational state, she sympathises with the Palestinians across the border who are used as human shields by the jihadists."
Ah, the immortal Israeli soul, irrationally hateful only in the direst of circumstances but always resuming its natural tendency to turn the other cheek and even empathise with its enemies when the danger is over. Compare that with Simple's wonderful depiction of the Gazans as hostages of Hamas jihadists, leaving the reader to deduce that, as victims of the Stockholm syndrome, they're simply incapable of either rationality or empathy.
And, bless his soul, Simple even fell for that old ham, Noam Bedein:
"Noam Bedein, the director of the Sderot information centre, says the entire town has been on edge for weeks. It's hard to lead your life constantly looking out for missile shelters just in case your 15-second race for life starts. That is how long they have to get into a bomb shelter before terror strikes. 'Mothers have to stop their cars, get out, try to unbuckle two kids, then get them to the shelter,' he tells me. 'What the mothers are discovering is it's impossible... they are being forced to choose. Which child do I save?'"
Oh well, if Simple could swallow that and regurgitate it for his readers, no doubt they'll lap it up. (Yuk! I've just thought of the implications of that sentence!)
But Simple's piece de resistance surely has to be his final paragraph. That should clinch the deal with Tele readers, no sweat! I bet you didn't know that the dastardly leader of the "jihad brigades," as Simple calls them, had actually managed to insult the memory of our immortal Aussie diggers? Read on:
"Al-Jaabari [sic] has carried out hundreds of rocket attacks on Israeli towns including Be'er Sheva, where the Australian Light Horse Brigade is remembered for heroic feats in 1915 - defending a land that is in a constant state of war."
Only Simple could come up with Aussie diggers defending Israel 34 years before it came into existence from the invading Turks who'd ruled it since the 16th century. Priceless!
OK, to return to the subject of this letter, as good as Simple's contribution to the cause is, it's still only one out of eight, or one and a half if you include Whelan's pathetic effort. One wonders, therefore, why we bother. Any ideas?
Looking forward to your thoughts on this vital matter, fellow deputies.
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