The French Report

We've been hearing oodles in Murdoch's Australian, about the Report of the Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Australian Higher Education Providers, March 2019, drawn up by former Chief Justice of the High Court Robert French, all of it designed to detract from French's key finding here:

"Repeated incidents in Australia in recent times do not establish a systemic pattern of action by higher education providers or student representative bodies, adverse to freedom of speech or intellectual inquiry in the higher education sector."

Instead, The Australian has ignored this key finding and homed in exclusively on French's reference to the adoption of a voluntary free speech code.

According to Sydney University's student paper, honisoit.com:

"Freedom of speech incidents at USyd represent the overwhelming majority of incidents amongst Australian universities if a 2018 audit by the conservative think tank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), cited in the review, is to be believed."

(Note that the IPA audit was conducted by Matthew Lesh, formerly political affairs director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS)).

And why has Sydney University, in particular, come under such scrutiny? Sydney University English department academic Nick Riemer here hits the nail squarely on the head with his quoted (in bold) comment in the following Sydney Morning Herald report:

"The John Howard-helmed Ramsey Centre's struggles to find a home for its degree in Western civilisation has prompted many to accuse the campuses of left-wing bias, but one of the most outspoken critics disagrees. Nick Riemer says universities are not full of lefties. 'The faculty that's in focus is the arts faculty,' he says. Claims it is dominated by cultural Marxists are 'nonsense. Most academics there are centrists'. In fact, he argues, his more left-wing colleagues are the ones under most pressure. 'The biggest irony about all of this is the freedom of speech code will I bet not be applied to the group that is most in need of it in my view, which is Palestine advocates,' he says." (Embracing comfortable ideas, Jordan Baker, 22/6/19)

So, absent Sydney University's arts faculty's courageously standing up for Palestinian rights, there would be no particular focus on Sydney University at all, no audit by the IPA's Matthew Lesh, and ultimately no French Report.

As Riemer points out, advocating for Palestine simply cannot be tolerated by the enemies of the Palestinians in this country. It is they, not the campus Zionists, who are in need of the protection of any campus free speech code which may be adopted.

(See, in particular, my 16/9/14 post Behind AUJS's Campus Offensive and remember that 2014 was the year of Israel's most brutal ever onslaught against the Gaza Strip, Operation Protective Edge, which necessitated an unprecedented PR blitz from Israel's propaganda outlets in the West, including Australia. Context is all.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

"At least 81 Palestinians were injured on Friday afternoon in clashes [sic] between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers in the eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said. Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told reporters that 79 people as well as two paramedics had various injuries in clashes [sic] with the Israeli soldiers... " (81 Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza Strip, xinhuanet.com, 22/6/19)

Why Aren't Australian Journalists Backing Julian Assange? 6

LH has finally tracked down a Late Night Live broadcast, not found in LNL's archives, which corroborates his contention that Phillip Adams "scooped up" Carr, Greer and the Brisbane Writers Festival audience, no less, on September 7, 2018, and took them all to a Brisbane venue known as The New Farm Cinemas to discuss Carr and Greer's books and broadcast it all on LNL. Called Greer and Carr - uncensored, the LNL broadcast is dated 11/9/18.

Phillip Adams began the session by declaring that:

"I can't begin to fathom why the Brisbane Writers Festival has ejected these two and so what we decided to do was have a salon de refuse and that's why we're here tonight."

Greer was first cab off the rank, discussing her book On Rape. Then Adams broached the subject of Julian Assange with her:

"I want to ask you a personal question. I was involved with WikiLeaks and Assange before both became famous brands, and after the trouble in Sweden I've tended to take the John Pilger/Geoffrey Robertson position because I fear for what will happen to Assange if he is sent to the US, but you in fact made me rethink my position. Your view on the Assange case?"

This 'rethinking' amazed me. Had Adams read Greer's book, or was he just reacting to what she had said on the night?

Without giving Greer's full response to Adams' question, I note her following points on Assange on the night:

"He had sex without consulting them"; "this is rape"; "he took a liberty with these women"; "he did [non-consensual sex] 3 times"; "he's still stuck in the embassy where they desperately want to get rid of him. They do say he has personal hygiene problems, which may be a lie"; "I don't like him or the way he's conducted himself, but he has been unfairly dealt with - but not necessarily by his enemies. He's suffered more at the hands of his friends [such as Robertson]." (Note no applause from audience.)

Adams then moved on to ask Carr:

"You describe yourself strongly in the Zionist camp, and as an unabashed supporter of the Jewish state. What changed your mind was pressure applied to you by the lobby when you presented a peace prize to Palestinian leader and frequent LNL guest Hanan Ashrawi. Talk to that."

Here's Carr's full response on the night:

"It was 2003. I was premier of NSW. A peace institute at Sydney University asked me if I'd present an award to Hanan Ashrawi, a brave Palestinian woman. My response was... to encourage a Palestinian woman like this would be good for Israel. In that spirit, and as a long-term president of Labor Friends of Israel, I accepted. There was a hurricane of activity from leaders of the Israel lobby condemning me for agreeing to present the award and I thought for me to accept the invitation and then pull out would be a message for every Australian of Arab background that they really don't count when the Israel lobby gets moving, and I wasn't bloody well going to do it. And with every day I make it clear that to pull out under this sort of pressure would be disgraceful. That taught me a lot about the bullying which is part of the approach of the Israel lobby in Australia, in the US, and elsewhere, and it's fundamentally wrong when they want to blind us to the fact that they're spreading settlements on the West Bank at a pace and a design that will stop a Palestinian state ever being created.. And if they can't see that's not in Israel's interests, then I can't help it, but I'm darn well going to present the case for an end to settlements, for a humane treatment of the occupied Palestinians, and for recognition of Palestine... And I'm proud of being able to shift the attitude of Labor conferences... and get other state Labor conferences to do the same, with a view to having the next national conference of the Labor Party, say in December, in view of all this... recognising Palestine." (Note loud applause from audience.)

So there you have it. But what I find most intriguing in all of this is that nowhere in the msm media did this quite extraordinary holding of a parallel event elicit a mention (at least as far as I am aware), not even from the participants themselves. And also why the broadcast didn't immediately find its way into the LNL archives. I must say too that for me Phillip Adams here remains just as problematic on the subject of Palestine/Israel as ever.

Why Aren't Australian Journalists Backing Assange? 2

Here's a further thoughtful response to Friday's JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME open letter to Morrison, Albanese and Australian MPs in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald that merits citing here as an addendum to my last post on Julian Assange:

"I was just about to sign the #journalismisnotacrime petition when I discovered it was all about our recent local federal police raids, which are certainly a major concern. But the petition is a bit parochial for me. What about Julian Assange, an international (Australian) martyr for publishing the truth as he knew it to be? He's about to be extradited to the US where God knows what shocking fates await him, and very few people here seem to care. He appears to have very limited popular support, possibly because he's not a 'proper' journalist. But I would have thought this was a great opportunity for his media sisters and brothers in arms to send a message to our own government that we must continue to support all those who who seek to reveal the truth - no matter what. Our collective blind eyes in the Assange case are a disgrace. Instead of abandoning him, he is entitled to whatever protection and support we are able to give him - and at least as much as our local journalists expect and hope for." (Peter Bower, Naremburn, 15/6/19)

Why Aren't Australian Journalists Backing Julian Assange?

First, the latest shocking news on the fate of WikiLeak's Julian Assange:

"Julian Assange will face a five-day US extradition hearing in February next year, a judge has ruled. [He] faces an 18-count indictment, issued by the US Department of Justice, that includes charges under the Espionage Act... Ben Brandon, representing the US, formally opened the case, a day after an extradition request was signed off by the [UK] home secretary, Sajid Ravid." (Julian Assange to face US extradition in UK next year, Haroon Siddique, theguardian.com, 14/6/19)

The following letter of concern over Assange's fate, naming Australian journalist Peter Greste, appeared in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald:

"Andrew Fowler's article was excellent in its balanced reporting of the facts ('Raids a wake-up to journalists who left Assange swinging', June 12). This was in stark contrast to Peter Greste's article several weeks ago, written with a certain callousness. Assanges's treatment does not reflect well on other journalists or on our successive governments. Fowler is correct that what has occurred to Assange may well occur to other journalists if they do not toe the line." (Virginia Robison, Killara, letter to the editor in Sydney Morning Herald, 14/6/19)

In addition, full page ads placed by journalismisnotacrime.org appeared in both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian yesterday signed by 38 Australian journalists, including Greste, Alliance for Journalists' Freedom. The ad is billed as an "Open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese, Members of the Parliament of Australia," and is headlined "JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME".

Part of the text reads: "A healthy democracy cannot function without its media being free to bring to light uncomfortable truths, to scrutinise the powerful and inform our communities. Investigative journalism cannot survive without the courage of whistleblowers, motivated by concern for their fellow citizens, who seek to bring to light instances of wrongdoing, illegal activities, fraud, corruption and threats to public health and safety. These are issues of public interest, of the public's right to know. Whistleblowers and the journalists who work with them are entitled to protection, not prosecution. Truth-telling is being punished."

There are reference in the text to "whistleblowers Richard Boyle, David McBride and Witness K," but, significantly, not to Julian Assange.

The failure to include Assange in the ad would seem to have a lot to do with Peter Greste's 12/4/19 SMH/Age opinion piece, Julian Assange is no journalist: don't confuse his arrest with press freedom:

"As someone who has been imprisoned by a foreign government [Egypt] for publishing material that it didn't like, I have a certain sympathy for Assange. But my supports stops there. To be clear, Julian Assange is not a journalist, and Wikileaks is not a news organisation... Journalism demands more than just simply acquiring confidential information and releasing it unfiltered on the internet for punters to sort through. It comes with responsibility... We at the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom are committed to restoring public trust in in journalism, which can only happen if its practitioners work with responsibility and respect. I has never been about opening up a hosepipe of information regardless of the consequences."

Parenthetically, has Greste, I wonder, taken the trouble to read The Wikileaks Files: The World According to US Empire (Verso, 2015). It contains an extensive introduction by Julian Assange and contributions by a range of journalists on the various regions covered by the files?

Understandably, aware readers - especially in Melbourne's Age - bridled at Greste's piece. John Wallace, for example, director of the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre, and a former member of the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) judiciary committee Victoria, had this to say in the Age's letters pages:

"In Australia MEAA journalist code of ethics offers a less rigid view of journalism, one that allows departures from its standards under certain circumstances. The code's preamble states, in part, that 'Respect for truth and the public's right to information are fundamental principles of journalism'. In its guidance clause, the code recognises that sometimes there will be a conflict in its standards, and that in cases of 'substantial advancement of the public interest' it may be appropriate to override any particular standard. If one accepts the Wikileaks disclosures did substantially advance the public interest, Assange's work can certainly be seen as journalism."

Commented another, "Greste's commentary is especially churlish, given the wholehearted support he enjoyed from the Australian community during his own ordeal. A little less pomposity, please." (Nicholas Grey, Kent Town, SA)

One of the most pointed and relevant comments critiquing Greste's piece came in the form a tweet by an Australian journalist of Palestinian origin, Jennine Khalik: "thinking of being a white male journalist and getting arrested in egypt so people think everything I have to say once im out is relevant and insightful." (May 25)

Greste's assessment of Assange as 'not a journalist' cannot be allowed to stand. In fact, a retraction of his 12 April commentary and an apology seems to me to be in order.

First They Came for Assange

A must-read from Greece's former finance minister and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Yanis Varoufakis:

"My meetings with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange all took place in the same small room. As the intelligence services of a variety of countries know, I visited Assange in Ecuador's London embassy many times between the fall of 2015 and December 2018. What these snoops do not know is the relief I felt every time I left.

"I wanted to meet Assange because of my deep appreciation of the original WikiLeaks concept. As a teenager reader George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, I, too, was troubled by the prospect of a high-tech surveillance state and its likely effect on human relations. Assange's early writings - particularly his idea of using states' own technology to create a huge digital mirror that could show everyone what they were up to filled me with hope that we might collectively defeat Big Brother.

"By the time I met Assange, that early hope had faded. Surrounded by bookcases featuring Ecuadorian literature and government publications, we would sit and chat late into the night. A device on top of a bookshelf emitted mind-numbing white noise to counter listening devices. As time passed, the claustrophobic living room, the badly hidden ceiling-mounted camera pointing at me, the white noise, and the stale air made me want to run out into the street.

"Assange's detractors have been saying for years that his confinement was self-inflicted: he hid in Ecuador's embassy because he jumped bail in the United Kingdom to avoid answering sexual assault allegations in Sweden. Women must be heard when reporting assault. Only the violence that men have inflicted upon women for millennia is viler than the disrespect and denigration to which women are subjected when they speak up.

"I recall saying to Julian that, had it been me, I would want to confront my accusers, and listen to them carefully and respectfully, regardless of whether official charges had been brought. He replied that he, too, wanted that. 'But, Yanis,' he said, 'if I were to go to Stockholm, they would throw me in solitary and, before I got a chance to answer any allegations, I would be bundled into a plane heading for a US supermax prison.' To drive the point home, he showed me his lawyers' offer to Swedish authorities to go to Stockholm if they guaranteed that he would not be extradited to the United States on espionage charges. Sweden never considered the proposal.

"During Assange's years in Ecuador's embassy, in circumstances that the United Nations deemed 'arbitrary detention,' many friends and colleagues mocked his fear - and lambasted me for believing him. Last September, the historian and feminist intellectual Germaine Greer summed up that belief on Australian public radio: 'He won't be extradited to the United States,' she said derisively, blaming Julian's lawyers for misleading him into fearing such an extradition while collecting his book's royalties.

"Now he is languishing in Belmarsh, a notorious English high-security prison, in a windowless basement cell with even less fresh air and light than before. Unable to receive visitors, he awaits extradition to the US. 'Let him rot in hell,' is a frequent response from good people around the world who were incensed by WikiLeaks' release of Hillary Clinton's emails ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, which blew fresh wind into Donald Trump's sails. Why, they ask, has Assange not released anything damning on Trump or Russian President Vladimir Putin?

"Before I explain why his detractors should reconsider, let me state for the record my personal frustration with his support of Brexit, his injudicious attacks against his feminist critics, his editorializing in favour of Trump, and, crucially, his communications with Trump's people. I expressed this frustration to his face several times. But castigating WikiLeaks for not publishing leaks that damage all sides equally is to miss the point. WikiLeaks was established as a digital mailbox where whistle-blowers could deposit information that is true and whose revelation is in the public interest. This is WikiLeak's sole obligation. By design, it cannot control who leaks what; its technology prevents even Assange from knowing a whistle-blower's identity. If this means that most leaks will embarrass Western powers, that is WikiLeaks' great, if imperfect, service to us - service that, to my frustration, was diminished by Julian's editorializing.

"Recent developments prove that his current predicament has nothing to do with the Swedish allegations or his role in aiding Trump against Clinton. With Chelsea Manning in prison again for refusing to confess that Assange incited, or helped, her to leak evidence of US atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the best explanation of what is going on comes from Mike Pompeo, Trump's first CIA director and now US Secretary of State.

"Pompeo described WikiLeaks as 'a non-state hostile intelligence service.' That is exactly right. But it is an equally accurate description of what every self-respecting news outlet ought to be. As Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky have warned, journalists who fail to oppose Assange's extradition to the US could be next on the hit list of a president who considers them the 'enemy of the people.' Celebrating his arrest and turning a blind eye to Manning's continued suffering is a gift to liberalism's greatest foes.

"Besides liberalism, Assange's persecution by the US security-industrial complex has another victim: women. No woman, in Sweden or elsewhere, will get justice if he is now thrown into a supermax prison for revealing crimes against humanity perpetrated by awful men in or out of uniform. No feminist goal is served by Manning's continued suffering.

"So here is an idea: Let us join forces to block Assange's extradition from any European country to the US, so that he can travel to Stockholm and give his accusers an opportunity to be heard. Let us work together to empower women, while protecting whistle-blowers who reveal nefarious behavior that governments, armies, and corporations would prefer to keep hidden."

The Senator from Vermont

"US democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is standing by his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Israel is 'now run by a right-wing, dare I say, racist government'.... The senator from Vermont said he was 'not anti-Israel" but felt Netanyahu was 'a right-wing politician' who was treating the Palestinian people 'extremely unfairly'. Sanders then added that he was '100% pro-Israel' and that the country has 'every right in the world to exist... in peace and security and not be subjected to terrorists' attack'." (Sanders hits out at 'racist' Israeli rule, McClatchy/AP/Sydney Morning Herald, 24/4/19)

This says just about everything you really need to know about the politics of 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.

In the words of a university friend quoted in his Wikipedia entry, he was "a  swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn't terribly charismatic." While he has a track record of being on the side of the people against the system, he's obviously intellectually blinkered by his youthful brush with Zionism, including a stint on an Israeli kibbutz in the early 1960s.

It speaks volumes too about the limits to freedom of speech and thought in the so-called 'land of the brave and home of the free'. Sanders "dares to say" that Israel now has "a racist government," but cannot bring himself to acknowledge that the Zionist project in Palestine itself is inherently racist (dare I say apartheid), and that every Zionist government since 1948 has contributed its share of anti-Palestinian racism to the present racism of the Netanyahu government.

What's more, while Sanders' talk of Palestinians being treated "extremely unfairly" doesn't even begin to acknowledge the extent of Zionism's genocidal onslaught against them, to confine said unfairness merely to the present Netanyahu government is beyond belief.

And finally, to prate about terrorism without reference to Israel's role as the pioneer of terrorism in the Middle East surely has to be the mother of all sins of omission.

Julian Assange: Free Speech Warrior

The hypocrisy of the fake free speech warriors at The Australian is exposed in the Murdoch rag's editorial on the arrest of genuine free speech warrior Julian Assange:

"It is not known when Assange might face a US court, but he should. He could not hide forever. In the interests of all Western nations and the fight against terror, US security and military services need to protect sensitive information and close loopholes that allowed so much data to be extracted and dispersed." (Assange must be accountable, 13/4/19)

Here is Assange's compelling rationale for the over 2 million US diplomatic cables published up to 2015 from his introduction to The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire (2015):

"While national archives have produced impressive collections of internal state communications, their material is intentionally withheld or made difficult to access for decades, until it is stripped of potency... What makes the revelation of secret communications potent is that we were not supposed to read them. The internal communications of the US Department of State are the logistical by-product of its activities: their publication is the vivisection of a living empire, showing what substance flowed from which state organ and when.

"Diplomatic cables are not produced in order to manipulate the public, but are aimed at elements of the rest of the US state apparatus, and are therefore relatively free from the distorting influence of public relations. Reading them is a much more effective way of understanding an institution like the State Department than reading reports by journalists on the public pronouncements of Hilary Clinton, or Jen Psaki.

"Whilst in their internal communications State Department officials must match their pens to the latest DC orthodoxies should they wish to stand out in Washington for the 'right' reasons and not the 'wrong' ones, these elements of political correctness are themselves noteworthy and visible to outsiders who are not sufficiently indoctrinated. Many cables are deliberative or logistical, and their causal relationships across time and space with other cables and with externally documented events create a web of interpretive constraints that reliably show how the US Department of State and the agencies that inter-operate with its cable system understand their place in the world.

"Only by approaching this corpus holistically - over and above the documentation of each individual abuse, each localized atrocity - does the true human cost of empire heave into view." (pp 5-6)

Remi Kanazi Denied Visa after ADC Intervention

The following Australian government outrage hasn't, to my knowledge, been covered in the mainstream Australian press. Here is the text of a petition circulating on the matter. (It may be found at www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/overturn-visa-ban-let-palestinian-poet-into-australia):

"World renowned American, Palestinian writer, poet and organiser Remi Kanazi has had his visa revoked. He was planning a speaking and performance tour of Australia. The organisers of his tour claim that the denial of his visa is an attack on free speech and the right of Palestinians to enter this country. Kanazi has been denied a visa after a campaign by the Anti-Defamation Commission to the minister for immigration.

"Marxism Conference organiser Vashti Kenway says that 'The denial of Kanazi's visa is a clear violation of the right of free speech in this country. This is the second time Palestinian speakers at our Marxism Conference have have had a visa denied them and the third to have major issues.'

"In 2016 Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah had to battle to get a visa into Australia and in 2017 Bassem Tamimi from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, father of political prisoner Ahed Tamimi, was denied entry. Prominent Palestinian spokesperson Nasser Mashni from Australians for Palestine says: 'This decision is an act of selective, politically-motivated censorship. It is clear the government is deliberately silencing and preventing human rights defenders and Palestinian voices for justice from being heard in Australia.'

"The Anti-Defamation Commission claim Kanazi is anti-semitic for his support for Palestinian resistance and have garnered support for their campaign from a number of MPs.

'The conflation of support for Palestinian resistance with anti-semitism is a common trope. Similar accusations have been levelled at British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and American senator Ilhan Omar in recent months. This is slander and operates to silence Palestinian voices. Standing up for the human right of Palestinians to resist their occupation and the war waged against them is entirely justified,' Kenway claims.

"Kanazi is a globally renowned and respected commentator on Palestinian issues. His political commentary has been featured by news outlets throughout the world including the New York Times, Salon, Al Jazeera English and BBC Radio. He has appeared in the Palestine Festival of Literature. this is the first time that he has ever been denied a visa anywhere in the world."

You click on the 'Remi Kanazi' label below to read his poem, The Dos & Don'ts of Palestine. And while we're at it, here's another from his 2011 collection, Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance & Palestine:

Only as Equals

every time I think of 9/11
I see burning flesh
dripping off the bones
of Iraqi children in Fallujah
now Gaza
I tend to memorialize the forgotten
the collateral damage
eclipsing America's unpunished crimes

maybe it's because I'm a numbers guy?
because if I had a dollar
for every time
an Iraqi died since 2003
I'd be a millionaire

and don't get me wrong
sometimes I don't know
who to hate more
the governments in the West
or the politicians in the East
who sell their souls
quicker than the oil they export
straw men who use Palestine
as a tool to line their pockets
and don't give a nickel
to their people
quisling governments
who stitch mouths shut for a check
from Washington and AIPAC
how can they be
Israel's prototypical anti-Semite
if they're signing peace accords
to oppress their own people?

then Orientalists and hypocrites
talk about how democracy
can't be allowed in the Middle East
because of what happened in Gaza
a Hamas bogeyman
wrapped in democratic elections
Rahm Emmanuel wants to educate me
and my people
about democracy gone wrong
why doesn't he try
implementing one in Israel first?
instead of bowing down to terrorists
like his father and the IDF
lauding a third-rate, racist, European society
that's imploding faster
than its moral standing in the world
enlightened like 1950s Afrikaners
and slave traders
just because the house is beautiful
doesn't mean the bones you built it on
have fully decomposed

the Israeli left
is about alive as Ariel Sharon
I'm sick and tired
of asking for permission to resist
from antiquated leftists and progressives
who care more about keeping it Kosher
than moving things forward

I put down my pen and waving fist
to resist with college kids
and Palestinians
boycott and divest
because who cares about
preserving a living
when governments
are killing civilians?

we'll boycott Elbit Systems
Caterpillar and your apartheid companies
we're taking back the right of return
and the keys to our country
because we never asked you
to go back to Europe
or sit in open-air prisons
I'm not asking for your advice
I'm explaining the decision

you can stay here
with us
but only as equals
it's not that you're Israeli
it's that you're wrong
that's why I fight for my people!

IHRA's 'Working Definition' of Anti-Semitism

In the propaganda war aimed at UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in the party by his Blairite enemies, the false allegation of anti-Semitism has pride of place. Which begs the question: what, exactly, do these elements mean when they use the term? What, IOW, is their definition - if they actually have one - of anti-Semitism?

As often as not it will be the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) 'working definition' of anti-Semitism, which widens the scope of the term well beyond its traditional meaning of hatred of Jews simply because they are Jews to include criticism of Israel. The following history of that text, and how it came to be adopted by the British government, comes from a British judge, Stephen Sedley:

"In 2005 a working party of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, an EU institution, produced a forty-word 'working definition': Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

"It was followed by a series of examples, of unknown authorship, which, depending on their context, might constitute acts of anti-Semitism. Of the 11 examples, seven referred to Israel rather than to Jews. But both the definition and the illustrations were rejected by the EUMC, and in 2013 its successor, the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), removed the entire text from its website as part of a clear-out of non-official documents.

"In May 2016 the same text was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a Berlin-based association of 31 states, at its meeting in Bucharest. To it were added, in the IHRA's press release, the list of 11 examples [...]

"In December 2016, a press release from the Department for Communities and Local Government and the prime minister's office announced that the UK had 'formally' adopted the IHRA's working definition of anti-Semitism, setting out the forty-word definition without any of the associated examples. It is not known what 'formal' adoption means in constitutional terms: either a text has to take legislative form, with all that this entails, or it remains simply a policy. On the same day Jeremy Corbyn announced that the Labour Party was adopting the definition.

"In neither of these announcements were the tendentious illustrations included. But central government has cited them as grounds for rejecting the advice of the Home Affairs Committee that the 'definition' should be qualified by spelling out that in the absence of additional evidence of anti-Semitic intent, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel's government, to hold it to the same standard as other liberal democracies or to take a particular interest in its policies or actions. A number of municipalities, including London, Manchester and Birmingham, have adopted the list wholesale - London, among others, using a version which omits the proviso that the listed examples depend on their context.

"What is at issue is suggested by the prime minister's contemporaneous speech, quoted in the government's press release: 'Israel guarantees the rights of people of all religions, races and sexualities, and it wants to enable everyone to flourish.' From this it isn't far to the first of the 'examples' of anti-Semitism: 'Manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.' Leaving aside the difference between targeting and criticism, one asks: conceived by whom? The world at large, millions of Jews included, conceives of Israel as a state with the same rights and obligations as any other state, including an obligation not to extend its territory by incremental colonisation or to occupy and administer the land of others under military law. It is hardline Zionism, and hardline jihadism which coincide, as extremes tend to do, in regarding Israel as a 'Jewish collectivity' - jihadism by seeking to identify Israel with all Jews (making every Jew a legitimate terrorist target), Zionism by seeking to identify all Jews with Israel (whence the description of Israel's Jewish critics as 'self-hating').

"None of this is addressed by a definition which sets the bar needlessly high by stipulating hatred rather than simple hostility as the defining characteristic of anti-Semitism, nor by tendentious examples which look to immunise Israel from sharp criticism. Those who seek to make use of such material in the UK should perhaps remember that public authorities are bound by the Human Rights Act to give effect to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right of free expression subject only to restrictions prescribed by law - which the IHRA definition is not."

The above history, as well as Sedley's essay Defining Anti-Semitism can be found in the London Review of Books (4/5/17 & 8/2/18 respectively), or in Karl Sabbagh's go-to book on the subject of the campaign against anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party, The Antisemitism Wars: How the British Media Failed their Public (2018).

Mike Carlton's 'On Air' 4

Great globs of bias and invention in the Murdoch gutter tradition...

"The Herald was getting twitchy. There was a snowstorm of letters to the editor from Jewish readers protesting furiously about the column, the headline and the Le Lievre cartoon. The cartoon drew the initial fire; a lot of people assumed I had drawn it, and written the headline as well. There were angry demands for me to be sacked. Dutifully, the editor published some of the more rational letters in the paper. Other people cancelled subscriptions. A number of Jewish-owned businesses withdrew their advertising... On the grapevine, I heard that directors on the Fairfax board were having their arms twisted and their ears bent, not least by the AIJAC. Many were receptive.

"On Monday, 4 August the editor-in-chief of the Herald, Darren Goodsir, publicly apologised for the cartoon. He also phoned to ask me to apologise to anyone I had offended. Reluctantly, I said I would consider it. The time bomb was ticking.

"Unsurprisingly, it exploded in the Murdoch press, led by the Australian and the Daily Telegraph. I had been on their notorious 'shit list' for years. The Australian had managed to get hold of the tweets and a lot of the emails I had sent to my attackers. The tweets were available for all to see, but the emails were not and obviously had been forwarded to the paper in a bunch. By whom? Your guess is as good as mine. The next day they were splashed in a long front-page story. It was heaven on a stick for the Murdochracy. There were two big birds to kill with one stone: the hated Fairfax press in general, and me in particular. Away they went. 'Fairfax Media is under pressure to sack columnist Mike Carlton, who has been ordered to apologise for using anti-Semitic and abusive language towards readers,' it began. On and on it went, a poisonous cocktail of a few facts heavily larded with great globs of bias and invention in the Murdoch gutter tradition. With malicious dishonesty, the paper mentioned not once the torrent of Jewish hatred which had prompted my response. There was not a syllable of the Nazi smear, the 'Hitler's bitch' stuff. The impression given - deliberately - was that I had exploded with rage at polite, reasoned criticism.

"I believe the Telegraph was even more vile in its attack on me. I never bothered to read what it ran - not then, not since - but I was told it splashed all over the shop as well. Somebody showed me the artwork they had confected. Against the background of a bombed and burning village, my head had been wrapped in a keffiyeh, the chequered Arab scarf, then photo-shopped onto the stooped and evidently fleeing body of a man in burned and tattered clothing. Carlton's a terrorist, geddit?" (pp 511-12)

To be continued...

The Zionisation of America 2

In addition to US state legislatures doing their bit to protect Israel from free speech, Congress has also been getting in on the act:

You will hopefully remember Greenwald's 2017 piece* on the AIPAC-inspired Israel Boycott Act (S. 720), "introduced by Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, that would criminalize participation in any international boycott of Israel. After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a statement vehemently condemning Cardin's bill as an attack on core free speech rights, one which 'would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs,' numerous senators announced that they were re-considering their support." (School contractor in Texas denied work over pro-Israel loyalty oath)

Greenwald updates us here on Cardin's latest move:

"But now... a modified version of the bill is back and pending in the lame-duck session: 'Cardin is making a behind-the-scenes push to slip an anti-boycott law into a last-minute spending bill being finalized during the lame-duck session.' The ACLU has also condemned this latest bill because 'its intent and the intent of the underlying state laws it purports to uphold are contrary to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and association.'... While that 'new version clarifies that people cannot face jail time for participating in a boycott,' the ACLU insists that it still leaves the door open for criminal financial penalties' for anyone found to be participating in or even advocating for a boycott of Israel." (ibid)

Watch this space...

[*For the gruesome details, see my 23/7/17 post First They Came for the Palestinians. See also my 10/7/18 post Ziofascist Legislation Creep  in the US.]

The Zionisation of America 1

From 'the world's greatest democracy', aka the 'Home of the brave' and 'Land of the free', further evidence of the rapid advance of that most insidious phenomenon, the Zionisation of America:

"A children's speech pathologist [Bahia Amawi] who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she 'does not' and 'will not' engage in a boycott of Israel or 'otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm' on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court... alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech." (School contractor in Texas denied work over pro-Israel loyalty oath, Glenn Greenwald, theintercept.com, 17/12/18)

"The anti-BDS Israel oath was included in Amawi's contract papers due to an Israel-specific state law enacted on May 2, 2017, by the Texas State Legislature... The bill [authored by an evangelical Republican rep.] unanimously passed the lower House by a vote of 131-0, and then the Senate by a vote of 25-4." (ibid)

 "At the time that Texas enacted the law barring contractors from supporting a boycott of Israel, it was the 17th state in the country to do so. As of now, 26 states have enacted such laws - including blue states run by Democrats such as New York, California, and New Jersey - while similar bills are pending in another 13 states." (ibid)

You won't, of course, have heard about this outrage from any branch of the Australian corporate media.

And don't dare think it can't happen here. Remember how the shit hit the fan when Sydney's Marrickville Council bravely adopted a pro-BDS position in 2011?

I'll leave you with Greenwald's assessment to ponder:

"Put simply, it is impossible to be a credible, effective, genuine advocate of free speech and free discourse without objecting to the organized, orchestrated, sustained onslaught of attacks on the free speech and free association rights undertaken specifically to protect the Israeli government from criticism and activism. Self-professed free speech defenders who only invoke that principle when their political allies are targeted are, by definition, charlatans and frauds. Genuine free speech advocates object to censorship even when, arguably especially when, the free speech rights of their political adversaries are assaulted."

A LibLab Witch Hunt

A South Australian public school teacher, Regina Wilson, is currently being crucified by the Murdoch press for introducing "partisan politics" - the words are those of the Liberal South Australian treasurer, Rob Lucas - for posting the following on the Australian Education Union's FB page:

"I am going to try to ensure that the next generation of voters in my classroom don't vote Liberal, without being political of course, as I won't tell my students what to think, but I teach them how to be critical thinkers who question those in power and especially those who seek to keep the status quo for the rich, upper classes and refuse to acknowledge the rest of us." (Teacher's vow to turn kids off Libs, Michael Owen, The Australian, 21/11/18)

Far from being hounded by the Murdoch press, Ms Wilson deserves a medal for her devotion to the welfare of her students. After all, she's doing her bit to ensure that the racist, sexist, born-to-rule rabble, quoted below, get nowhere near the reins of power:

"... CBD has stumbled upon a rich resource that should allow future anthropologists to answer the question: how do party staffers and their friends see themselves? The answer is in a private Facebook page populated by Liberal staffers for dozens of (NSW) MPs from Premier Gladys Berejiklian to Finance Minister Victor Dominello, Sports Minister Stuart Ayres and Better Regulations Minister Matt Kean. Its name? 'Not so Subtle Young Lib Traits'.

'Having the ethnic pushed to the front of every group photo,' one Lib suggests.

'And the females!' another quips.

'Thinking that you're a humanitarian because coal exports lift billions out of poverty' is another well-liked post.

'The ratio of gay to straight men almost making up for the lack of women,' gets 60 likes.

'Working for a politician and realising that you're working in this public sector and that makes you nothing more than a filthy commie', comes with the crying face emoji.

One of our favourites: 'Trying to hide your metro aussie accent when talking to Young Nats, Aboriginals or anybody over the age of 50 by faking a strong rural accent like a top country gent' (only 18 likes).

Less creative: 'Being white.' " (The Young Liberal Manual, Kylar Loussikian, CBD, Sydney Morning Herald, 25/10/18)

Now read on as South Australian and federal Labor unite with the Liberals against this admirable woman:

"State Labor's education spokeswoman, Susan Close, said yesterday: 'Party politics should be kept out of the classroom.' This came a day after federal Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek joined federal Education Minister Dan Tehan in calling on schools to ensure children were not being indoctrinated with the political ideologies of teachers." (Teacher claims harassment by 'sexist minister', Michael Owen, The Australian, 24/11/18)

Truly vile.

BWFheads

"My experience of extremists in Australia's Israel lobby summed up in two words: attempted bullying." - Bob Carr tweet, 21/7/18

"Former foreign minister turned political memoirist Gareth Evans has threatened to boycott the Brisbane Writers Festival after organisers decided to remove Bob Carr and Germaine Greer from the program. Mr Evans, who was due to speak about his new book, Incorrigible Optimist, at the festival... said he was 'gob-smacked' by the move. 'This a fundamental freedom-of-speech issue,' he told The Australian. 'I haven't decided yet whether to withdraw from the festival or to take part and tell them, on stage, in no uncertain terms, how stupid it is'." (Evans threatens writers festival boycott to back Carr, Greer, Stephen Romei, The Australian, 26/7/18)

Damn right!

"He said he would wait for a full response from BWF acting chief executive Ann McLean. In a detailed letter to her yesterday, he said the ban on Mr Carr and Dr Greer was 'utterly unworthy of any literary festival that wants to be taken seriously. What on earth can you guys be thinking? Have you even begun to think about the reputational damage this will do, here and internationally, to your festival and your capacity to attract participants in the future? Please think again'."

The answers to those questions is: OBVIOUSLY NOT.

"In response, Dr McLean said the festival decided in early June not to proceed with Mr Carr due to 'the need to provide engaging choices for our audience'."

What bullshit this is!

"Earlier, she told The Australian Mr Carr would 'just talk about his book' rather than the selected topic, 'What the World Needs Now'."

OFFS! You're kidding me!

"Dr McLean acknowledged there were concerns the media interest in Dr Greer and Mr Carr would 'overshadow' other writers at the festival."

By which she means, in fluent schmaltz: What the world needs now is love, sweet love... lalalalala...

"Their 'controversial' nature was also a concern."

At last we're getting to the NUB of the matter!

"Mr Carr's new book, the political memoir Run for Your Life, includes his thoughts on the US, China and the Israel lobby."

BINGO!

"In a letter to MUP (Melbourne University Publishing), Dr McLean noted BWF had to consider the 'brand alignment of several sponsors we are securing for the festival'. In response, Mr Evans outlined six questions he would like answered, including: 'Are you able to say which sponsors you had in mind, and precisely how you - or they - saw Carr as affecting their 'brand alignment'? Did it have anything to do with his well-known positions on Palestine-Israel and China?'"

You've nailed it, Gareth!

Whatever Happened to Free Speech?

Now here's a loaded opening sentence:

"Jewish groups are demanding an apology from the ABC over an interview with a disgraced British vicar accused of anti-Semitism and spreading anti-Israel conspiracy theories." (ABC under fire for interview with accused anti-Semite, Michael Koziol, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/4/18)

To unpack: Jewish groups or Zionist shop fronts?* Disgraced? - says who? Accused means guilty? Has Israel never been known to conspire?

"Radio National marked the start of Passover... by speaking to Stephen Sizer, a retired Anglican vicar and critic of Christian Zionism... "

And how did Israel mark it? By massacring Palestinians.

And as for Sizer being a "critic of Christian Zionism," which End Times theology mandates that, prior to the fabled Battle of Armageddon, Jews either convert to Christianity or die,** wouldn't that, like, be a plus? But no, what really matters to our knee-jerk Zionist complainants, is not Jews as Jews, but apartheid Israel.

Sizer's 'crime'? In 2015, "he shared an article from the website Wikispooks titled '9-11 Israel did it'...", saying, "'the article raises so many questions'." At which, lo and behold, "the Church of England subsequently barred him from writing or speaking about the Middle East."

Perhaps if Radio National had interviewed one of our very own Anglican Friends of Israel instead, said "Jewish groups... demanding an apology from the ABC," would have been happier. After all, AFI's aims include such Zio-friendly items as (1) "To resist the call for a boycott of Israel"; ( 4) "To recall the Church to G-d's Covenant with the Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith"; and (5) To call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs - of both word and deed - inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and their State." (anglicanfriendsofisrael.com)

FYI: Stephen Sizer's 2014 book on Christian Zionism is Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon.

[*Those "demanding an apology" are revealed later in the piece: Peter Wertheim, chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), who railed against what he called a "soft" interview, and Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), who declared that the ABC had "'crossed the line big time' in giving Dr Sizer a platform 'to spew his anti-Israel venom'".]

[**"Chuck warned us that Jews who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as their messiah by the time of the Battle of Armageddon will face divine punishment in the form of a double-strength Holocaust. 'Check it out! Zechariah 13:8 - "in the whole land, says the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive". A third of the world's Jews, six million out of eighteen million, died in the Holocaust. We're talking two-thirds at Armageddon - do the math!'" (Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, Victoria Clark, 2007, p 16)]

Stratton 1, Wright 0

Further to my post on the Romper Stomper remake, Shakespeare's Romper Stomper II (6/12/17), compare and contrast:

"[Australian actress Jacqueline] McKenzie demurs when it comes to discussing the outrage that followed the original film [Romper Stomper], which depicts graphic violence between neo-Nazi thugs and the Vietnamese community in Melbourne. Review's David Stratton refused to give it a star rating: in response, [director Geoffrey] Wright tipped a glass of white wine on him at the Venice film festival." (Radical reboot, Justin Burke, Weekend Australian Review, 23/12/17)

"Wright is an ardent supporter of freedom of speech and association - features of our polity that he believes attract migrants from the world's trouble spots in the first place." (ibid)

A Guest of the Lowy Institute

"There was passionate support for foreign news reports at the Lowy Institute's media awards in Sydney on Saturday night at which the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens delivered the keynote address... Stephens referred to the controversy that followed Lowy's invitation for him to speak at the media award ceremony, which was to be named after the late ABC broadcaster Mark Colvin. But Lowy removed Colvin's name after a family disagreement. 'I'm aware of the controversy that has gone with my selection as your speaker,' Stephens said." (Guthrie's content shake-up threatens ABC empires, Amanda Meade, theguardian.com, 29/9/17)

Hmm... The controversy that has gone with my selection as speaker.

It appears that Colvin's wife, in particular, objected to her husband's name being associated with that of Stephens. But why? Could it possibly have had something to do with Stephens' Zionism?

Since this was nowhere explicit in Stephens' LI speech (on dissent), presumably only the brows of the more informed in the audience would have furrowed at the ludicrousness of Natan Sharansky being mentioned in the same breath as Galileo, Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks, and Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the US, being singled out as a victim (of "organized claques of hecklers"/"junior totalitarians" no less!), we really need to look elsewhere for it.

Over at PragerU.com, for example, where Stephens lets it all hang out. Gird your loins for What's holding the Arab world back?:

"In the judo competition of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, an Israeli heavyweight judo fighter named Or Sasson defeated his Egyptian opponent, Islam El Shehaby, in a first-round match. The Egyptian then refused to shake the Israeli's extended hand, earning boos from the crowd.*

"If you want the short answer for why the Arab world is sliding into the abyss, look no further than this little incident. It illustrates how hatred of Israel and Jews corrupts every element of Arab society.

"You won't find this explanation for the Arab world's decline among journalists and academics. They reflexively blame the usual suspects: the legacy of colonialism, unemployed youth, the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide, and every other politically correct excuse they can think of. For them, hatred of Israel is treated like sand in Arabia - just part of the landscape.

"Yet the fact remains that over the past 70 years the Arab world expelled virtually all of its Jews, some 900,000 people, while holding on to its hatred of them. Over time the result proved fatal: a combination of lost human capital, expensive wars against Israel, and an intellectual life perverted by conspiracy theories and a perpetual search for scapegoats. The Arab world's problems are a problem of the Arab mindset, and the name of that problem is anti-Semitism.

"As a historical phenomenon, this is not unique. Historian Paul Johnson has noted that wherever anti-Semitism took hold, social and political decline almost inevitably followed. Just a few examples:

"Spain expelled its Jews in 1492. The effect, Johnson noted, 'was to deprive Spain (and its colonies) of a class already notable for the astute handling of finance.'

"In czarist Russia, the adoption of numerous anti-Semitic laws ultimately weakened and corrupted the entire Russian government. These laws also led to mass Jewish emigration, resulting in a breathtaking loss of intellectual and human capital.

"Germany might well have won the race for an atomic bomb if Hitler hadn't sent Jewish scientists like Albert Einstein and Edward Teller into exile in the US.

"These patterns were replicated in the Arab world. Contrary to myth, the cause was not the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. There were bloody anti-Jewish pogroms in 1929, Iraq in 1941, and Libya in 1945.

"Nor is it accurate to blame Israel for fuelling anti-Semitism by refusing to trade land for peace.

"Among Egyptians, hatred of Israel barely abated after Prime Minister Menachem Begin returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. And among Palestinians, anti-Semitism became markedly worse during the years of the Oslo peace process.

"Johnson calls anti-Semitism a 'highly infectious' disease capable of overwhelming intellectuals and simpletons alike. Its potency, he noted, lies in transforming a personal and instinctive irrationalism into a political and systematic one. For the Jew hater, every crime has the same culprit and every problem has the same solution. Anti-Semitism makes the world seem simple. In doing so, it condemns the anti-Semite to a permanent darkness.

"Today there is no great university in the Arab world, no serious scientific research, a stunted literary culture. In 2015, the US Patent Office reported 3,804 patents from Israel, as compared with 30 from Egypt, the largest Arab country. Hatred of Israel and Jews has also deprived the Arab world of both the resources and the example of its neighbour. Israel quietly supplies water to Jordan, helping to ease the burden of Syrian refugees, and quietly provides surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to Egypt to fight ISIS in the Sinai. But this is largely unknown among Arabs, for whom the only permissible image of Israel is an Israeli soldier in riot gear, abusing a Palestinian. Successful nations make a point of trying to learn from their neighbours. The Arab world has been taught over generations only to hate theirs.

"This may be starting to change. Recently, the Arab world has been forced to face up to its own failings in ways it cannot easily blame on Israel. The change can be seen in the budding rapprochement between Jerusalem and Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

"But that's not enough. So long as an Arab athlete can't pay his Israeli opposite the courtesy of a handshake, the disease of the Arab mind and the misfortunes of its world will continue.

"For Israel, this is a pity.

"For the Arabs, it's a calamity."

See what I mean?

[*"I have no problem with Jewish people or any other religion... But for personal reasons, you can't ask me to shake the hand of anyone from this State... " (Islam El Shehaby: 'I've respected the judo rules, lespritdujudo.com)]

The Dead Weight of Israel Lobby Censorship

From the Australian's former Middle East Correspondent, John Lyons:

"Through my six years in the Middle East I'd come under constant pressure from Israel lobby groups to pull my punches. I realised from many discussions with other foreign journalists that this pressure was applied in many countries. Of the many hours of discussion I had with my colleagues in the foreign media, one comment shocked me. It was when I asked Phillipe Agret, the bureau of Agence France Press, a question. AFP is one of the most powerful news agencies in the world. It is highly regarded as credible and independent. It is famous for resisting pressure in whichever country it operates. Agret and I were discussing how some media groups censored their reporting out of Israel in a way that they did in no other country. I asked him who he thought was self-censoring out of Israel. Without hesitation, he replied: 'Everybody'." (From Man in the middle: For a Jerusalem correspondent, the truth is always hard won, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 22/7/17)

Errr... any of you guys ever heard of resistance?

"Why do the supporters of Israel want to prevent stories like this [Four Corners: Stone Cold Justice (2014)] from spreading overseas? When we arrived we did not realise the prize that many political factions in the country coveted: formalising the occupation of the West Bank into official annexation and achieving Greater Israel... In order to continue pursuing its endgame of annexing the West Bank, [the Israeli right] can't allow the international community to form the view that the occupation is unacceptable. So reports of brutality in the West Bank are minimised so that international opinion does not turn against it." (ibid)

NB: The TWA's piece, Man in the middle, is an edited extract from Balcony Over Jerusalem, by John Lyons and Sylvie Le Clezio, released today.)

First They Came for the Palestinians...

Political Zionism's global reach, manipulation and corruption of Western, particularly US, institutions goes on:

"The criminalization of political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The UK has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the US, governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On US campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as 'the Palestine exception' to free speech.

"But now, a group of 43 senators - 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats - wants to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country's decades-old occupation of Palestine. The two primary sponsors of the bill are Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is the punishment: Anyone guilty of violating the prohibitions will face a minimum civil penalty of $250,000, and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison." (US lawmakers seek to criminally outlaw support for boycott campaign against Israel, Glenn Greenwald & Ryan Grim, theintercept.com, 20/7/17)

The entire report is well worth a read and contains such revelations as: "Perhaps the most stunning is our interview with the primary sponsor of the bill, Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin, who seemed to have no idea what was in his bill, particularly insisting that it contains no criminal penalties."

No Apology Necessary, Yassmin

I see that the Murdoch press has, predictably, raised a hue and cry over an Anzac Day FB post - Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine) - by Muslim activist and ABC television presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied.  According to The Australian, it "sparked scores of outraged responses, with many accusing Abdel-Magied of disrespecting Australian soldiers." (Muslim blogger's 'disrespectful' message deleted, Pia Akerman, 26/4/17)

Yes, I'm sure it did. The entire Abdel-Magied Monitor unit at NewsCorpse must have been, like, spewin'.

As it happens, Yassmin ended up deleting, and apologising for, the post on the same day. But really, what was the need? Frankly, who gives a toss what the Murdoch press thinks! And anyway, isn't NewsCorpse the self-appointed defender of free speech against the dreaded political correctness?

What's more, thinking Anzacs would have approved of Yassmin's post.

After all, here's what Australia's last Anzac, Alec Campbell, had to say about Gallipoli on his deathbed in 2002: "For God's sake, don't glorify Gallipoli - it was a terrible fiasco, a total failure and best forgotten."

And this from Anzac Len Hall: "Next time I would fight for the Turks. They are good people and it was their land not ours." (See my 23/4/13 post Real Anzacs Don't Wave Flags. Under the AIF label below.)

But let's look on the bright side. In a 25/11/16 post Ya Yassmin, I voiced my irritation at Yassmin's doing a gig in Tel-Aviv as part of a government-sponsored speaking tour of the Middle East and Africa last year. I went on to note, however, that she had (in Ramallah?) acquired (or was given) a copy of Joe Sacco's amazing/must-read/must-have graphic history, Palestine, and expressed the hope that as she read it, "the proverbial light bulb" would grow "ever brighter in her head," and that this would be the beginning of "an intellectual journey" for her.

Well, I'm pleased to say that her Anzac Day FB post, with its reference to Palestine, seems to have confirmed that hope.

You might recall an earlier hue and cry over SBS presenter Scott McIntyre, who referred to the commemoration of Anzac Day, in a 2015 Anzac Day tweet, as "Remembering the summary executions, widespread rape and theft committed by those 'brave' Anzacs in Egypt, Palestine* and Japan." (He also added, "Wonder if the poorly-read, largely white, nationalist drinkers and gamblers pause today to consider the horror that all mankind suffered.")

Scott refused to apologise, was duly sacked by his employer, and went on to fight an unfair dismissal case which was settled out of court last year. Again, on April 24, 2016, he tweeted yet another anti-war message, "Heroism on demand, senseless violence, all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism," and backed up his 2015 tweet with chapter and verse from the historical record.

[See my 29/7/09 post The Sarafand Massacre.]