Mundine of Zion

As we know, the Israel lobby in Australia spares no effort to win friends and influence people it regards as useful. Hence the interminable planeloads of Australian politicians (federal, state, and even student) and journalists, travelling to the Upstart Nation and returning, like so many Marco Polos from the court of Kublai Khan, with tales of the marvels witnessed thereat, and the bringing together of assorted Jewish millionaires and billionaires at election fundraisers for Lib and Lab.

One of their neatest tricks is to cultivate links with certain high-flyers in Australia's Indigenous community. Two names, in particular, spring to mind in this regard - Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine. I assume that, by rubbing shoulders with them, the lobby hopes to succeed in fooling some of the people, some of the time, into thinking that Zionism is not only a progressive force, but also that a construct known to Zionists as 'the Jewish people' is as indigenous to Palestine/Israel as Aboriginal Australians are indigenous to Australia. And if this 'Jewish people' thingy is perceived as somehow indigenous to Palestine/Israel, then some people, some of the time, may just be fooled into thinking that Israel is something other than just another - God forbid! - colonial-settler state.

I am led to reflect on these matters because of an opinion piece, Jews are the first peoples of Israel - with a right to exist, under the byline Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO (Chairman & Managing Director of Nyunggai Black Group'), which recently (6/3/17) appeared in Fairfax's Australian Financial Review.

Perhaps the most curious thing about it was its title. Was Mundine about to discourse on who was what in prehistoric Palestine? And what does he mean by "first peoples"? And why would anyone bother writing an opinion piece on the subject of Jews having "a right to exist"? I mean, come on, is that really in dispute?

On examination, the piece really had nothing to say on such matters. Mundine's rant turned out to be essentially a call for the Palestinians to pull their fingers out, now, and recognise Israel as a Jewish state. That, and the usual Zionist agitprop.

Of course, I won't waste your time or mine with the Zioprop, but OMFG, the irony of an Indigenous Australian telling Indigenous Palestinians to drop their claim to their ancestral homeland, and declare, hand on heart, that they acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land of Palestine, the people of the Jewish nation, and pay their respects to its Elders past and present, namely, Herzl, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, Begin, Sharon and Netanyahu.

It's a batshit crazy world out there, and getting crazier by the day. We've just had Trump's Housing Secretary, Ben Carson, for example, a black, defy reality by referring to slaves brought from Africa to the US "in the bottom of slave ships" as "immigrants" with a "dream." And over here, in Little America, we've got Mundine, not only inverting reality by calling Palestinians "Arab colonisers" and Israeli Jews "first peoples," but demanding that the former acknowledge the inversion.

And another thing. What the hell possessed the AFR to publish this blatantly false and deeply offensive nonsense? Mundine's drivel should be chalked up as a new low in the sad, precipitous decline of the Fairfax press.

Such Tender Concern

And the (drum)beat(up) goes on...

Murdoch's Australian is sooo worried about Israel NSW Labor:

"As a former national president of the ALP, Warren Mundine is correct to suggest it is NSW Labor that will suffer from its anti-Israel escapade. Israel is the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East; it can look after itself. But, as Mr Mundine says, NSW Labor risks becoming a fringe party." (Editorial: Labor's anti-Israel obsession, 3/2/16)

Now we know why the paper calls itself 'The Heart of the Nation'.

A letter to the Australian from dingaling John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic:

"When a party luminary such as Warren Mundine is sickened by the move and says it has a political agenda verging on anti-Semitism..." (3/2/16)

So even if your twice-rambammed "party luminary" jumps ship for Tony Abbott, who famously characterised the British invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal Australia as "a form of foreign investment by the British Government,"* he's not a rat but a "party luminary"?

OK... So what does that make Ben Chifley?

BTW, have you noticed the form taken by the anti-Semitism smear these days? How no one in the Labor Party who supports Palestinian rights is called an anti-Semite directly? That's reserved for people outside the Labor Party. Inside, they're always accused of "verging on anti-Semitism," or "supporting an anti-Semitic agenda." Neat, eh?

[*Tone's words were: "I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British Government in the then unsettled Great South Land."]

Send in the Clowns

Murdoch's campaign to head off a move to ban rambamming at this month's NSW Labor conference grinds on:

"Former labor national president Warren Mundine has launched a blistering attack on the party, saying its move to ban sponsored trips to Israel is 'verging on anti-Semitic' and is 'sickening to watch'." (Anti-Jew Labor bid 'sickens' Mundine, Sharri Markson, The Australian, 2/2/16)

Seriously, does anyone really care what Gerald Gollum Henderson's twice-rambammed (2006/2009) son-in-law, who deserted Labor in 2012 to join Abbott's Indigenous Advisory Council, thinks?

I mean, what are we to make of a bloke with supposed expertise on indigenous issues in Australia, who  emerges from the woodwork on occasions like this for a froth & bubble defence of the apartheid state in occupied Palestine? Talk about sickening to watch!

Then there's this numbers man:

"The NSW ALP international relations policy committee chairman Michael Forshaw told The Australian yesterday that 39 resolutions had been received concerning Israel and Palestine, compared with 17 resolutions dealing with other international issues, such as the Syrian war, the Myanmar junta, Paris terror bombings, China free trade and foreign aid. There were none on Saudi Arabia or Iran." (ibid)

39 to 17?

It couldn't possibly be because, unlike all the other issues, Palestine dates back to 1917, now could it?

Finally, we have 'Senior Writer' (LOL) Sharri Markson "commenting" that:

"The NSW branch of the Labor party should be focusing on refining its health, education and transport policies before it begins to get involved in the Middle East."  (Racist views pushing ALP's stand on Israel)

Followed by this rider: "Sharri Markson last year travelled to Israel with the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council."

Sickening, eh?

From Diversionary Programs to Diversionary Propaganda

In its never-ending quest to defend the indefensible, The Australian Jewish News, in its February 14 issue, launched no less than 5 attacks (+ editorial & front page) on Four Corners' recent exposure of Israel's mistreatment of Palestinian children, Stone Cold Justice. (See my 10/2/14 post Murdoch Beds Aunty.)

The grubbiest, for me at least, was that by lawyer George Newhouse. Billed as "the head of Shine Lawyers social justice department" and one-off "advocate for Aboriginal youth in detention in WA (Wilson v Francis [2013] WASC 157)," his was a cynical attempt to use an entirely unrelated issue - Aboriginal detention rates in Western Australia and the Northern Territory - in order to divert attention from Israel's "systematic abuse and torture"* of Palestinian youths:

"The Four Corners program highlighted the disgraceful treatment of Palestinian youth in the Israeli military youth justice system but they also reported the news that the Israeli government and its military has accepted that reform is required and will take steps to improve military youth justice and detention. That's more than can be said for the governments of Western Australia and the Northern Territory who refuse to address the problem. Things are so bad that the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Chairperson Warren Mundine called for a national summit on Aboriginal justice issues and the soaring incarceration levels... It's time for UNICEF and Four Corners to investigate the treatment of Aboriginal children in youth detention in WA. Until then one might take a jaundiced view about the ABC's internationalist position on this vital issue." (We need to look in our own backyard)

So that's it then. The trigger-happy lads of the WADF (Western Australia Defence Force) are running amok in Aboriginal communities, ripping kids from their beds in the dead of night and secreting them in detention centres, where they're subjected to abuse and torture designed to elicit false confessions of stone-throwing and/or agreement to act as spies and informers.

Well, no.

Since Warren Mundine is Newhouse's cited authority here, let's explore what Mundine has to say about the issue of Aboriginal youth in detention.

The following text, from ABC Radio National's The World Today (Jobs not jail for troubled Indigenous youths: Mundine, 9/1/13) appears to be the source for Newhouse's reference to Mundine but, as you'll see, beyond Newhouse's cherry-picked reference to "soaring incarceration levels," it has little or nothing to do with the content of the Four Corners program:

Samantha Donovan: One of Australia's most prominent Indigenous leaders is calling for a national summit on Aboriginal justice issues to reverse soaring incarceration levels...
Emily Bourke: What's driving this increase?
Warren Mundine: I'm critical of all governments over the years and critical of the Aboriginal leadership... We are looking at the wrong end. We're looking at the jail end of it... We are trying to make culturally appropriate prisons, you know... where people get in trouble, they go on the culture camps. What we should be doing is the complete opposite. We need to be putting diversionary programs in that focus on keeping kids in the classroom and getting into jobs.
Emily Bourke: Warren Mundine says going to jail is a badge of honour for some young Aboriginal men and he also concedes some find it easier and even more appealing to go to jail... Warren Mundine says police and magistrates are hamstrung.
Warren Mundine: I do feel for the legal and also for the policing end because there are not options or supports for them to actually do these diversionary programs. We've got these silly ideas of black prisons and culturally appropriate prisons... We've got to get away from that and we've got to say let's have black classrooms... black jobs... and lets have commercial activity happening in Aboriginal communities rather than the jails.

Clearly, this business resembles Israel's abuse of Palestinian kids about as much as the proverbial chalk resembles the proverbial cheese.

More recently, Mundine is quoted in The Australian as saying:

"What I discovered when I headed Generation One was that there's about 40-50,000 people not in the Centrelink system or in employment so what they're doing is they're living off their families and humbugging... They get into criminal situations. We don't just say 'no dole', we've got to put in place processes to make sure they don't go into criminal activity'." (Youth missing from system, says Warren Mundine, Patricia Karvelas, 15/2/14)

Nor, it seems, does Mundine have any issue with the West Australian government:

"Mr Mundine said he had secured the support of the West Australian Corrective Services Commissioner... and the state government to try out the diversionary plan to tackle the incarceration rate. 'Everyone supported it'... he said."

The lengths Zionists will go to shield the object of their devotion from justified criticism is quite extraordinary. This includes, as we see here, the cynical manipulation of one indigenous issue in order to distract us from paying attention to another.

[*See my 18/4/13 post The UN Goes to Water.] 

Indians Dreaming of Cowboys

"Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes settlements, released a report on Saturday saying that at least 44 new settlement sites had been established in the West Bank since Mr Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001. The outpost settlements are most vulnerable to attack by Palestinian militants because they are often located outside perimeter fences. Their residents are considered the most ideological and radical of the settlers. 'They imitate the Wild West. They have horses. They have cattle. They have guns. They are playing cowboy and treating others, in this case the Palestinians, as though they are the Indians,' said Amiram Goldblum of Peace Now." (Israel orders removal of illegal settlements, Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 1/7/02)

"Itamar has a wild west feel to it and Hayman, who was born in Hollywood and left the US for Israel 15 years ago, sees himself as a modern John Wayne, pioneering settlement in a hostile land. 'I'd rather be making the news than watching it in television,' he says." (Settled in & staying put, Catherine Taylor, The Australian, 6/7/02)

Got the pic?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, two Australian 'Indians' are dreaming of cowboys:

Warren Mundine:

"Jewish people are a nation of people originating from a common geography, genealogy, language and religion. They were also dispossessed of land and sovereignty and dispersed over thousands of years, yet they maintain their identity as a people and nation." (Vilification law changes not about freedom but how we think about race, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/12/13)

Noel Pearson:

"In the legal world, Arnold Bloch Leibler is a force of nature, with clients including a disproportionate share of the country's wealthiest companies and families, and a vast pro bono practice stretching from the Yolngu of Arnhem Land to the Yorta Yorta of Victoria. During an articled clerkship at ABL's Collins Street headquarters I came to know the story of Australia's Jewish community and how a people endured oppression and discrimination through history; how they rose up from the ashes of the Holocaust." (Invaluable lessons in striving on behalf of one's community while serving humanity, The Australian, 21/12/13)