Bits & pieces from the KRRS not previously covered, but worthy of attention to any serious student of the rambamming phenomenon:
Merely fortuitous? 'Great minds' thinking alike?
Exhibit 1:
"One Israeli official said yesterday: 'This [Rudd's Cairo (but not Jerusalem) call for IAEA inspections of Israel's nukes] comes, as the Americans would say, completely out of left field...'" (Nuclear inspections call 'curious', John Lyons, The Australian, 15/12/10)
"[The Lowy Institute's Hugh] White says this position [on IAEA inspection of Israeli nukes] is 'diplomacy coming from left field, without follow-through'."
Exhibit 2:
"The comment shocked Israeli officials, who could not recall an Australian minister suggesting that their facility at Dimona should be subject to inspection." (Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/12/10)
"No Australian foreign minister in history has previously called for Israel's nuclear facility to be open to IAEA inspection." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 16/12/10)
Exhibit 3:
"[T]he de facto equating of Israel and Iran is bizarre." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 16/12/10)
"His suggestion that Israel sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was bizarre." (Editorial: Mid-East peace: a time to speak, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/12/10)
'Great minds' thinking 50% alike:
"I accept that they [Begin's Irgun] were not the equivalent of modern terrorists. But people died in that incident. I don't think such a joke was in good taste, although many in the audience appreciated it." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 16/12/10)
"Rudd made a distasteful joke about Menachem Begin carrying out 'some interior redesign' of Jerusalem's King David Hotel - referring to a terrorist bombing in 1946 that killed 91 people." (Editorial: Mid-East peace: a time to speak, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/12/10)
Another of the rambammed - Peter Van Onselen, contributing editor, The Australian - outs himself:
"In Israel last week with a delegation, I received a briefing from the head of Israel's National Economic Council, Professor Eugene Kandel. The centrepiece of his message was pride in Israel's economic peformance over the past 10 years. He glowingly highlighted that its national debt was only 72% of GDP, down from more than 100% at the turn of the century. Only? In Australia he would be laughed out of the room. Incidentally, much of the reduction came from balancing the budget, not paying back debt, and letting economic growth do the rest. The figure of Israel's net public debt as a percentage of GDP that Professor Kandel referred to should cause most Australians to pause and consider the overblown fears our opposition tries to evoke when complaining about the Labor government's so-called build-up of public debt. By all means whinge about waste when it is apparent, but the size of net debt in Australia is minimal, less than 6% of GDP, according to the IMF." (We can keep borrowing if growth continues, 15/12/10)
The Sydney Morning Herald's verdict on the KRRS (my comments in square brackets):
"From his public remarks, [Rudd] has not thrown Australia's diplomatic weight, for what it is worth, at the critical pressure points in the jammed machinery of the peace process. [Er, maybe that's not what the AILF is all about.] Maybe he was more forceful in private discussions... The key blockage, for Israel's Western friends, is its own politics... The debate in Washington is now about how tough to be with Israel [Oh, really? What planet does this editorialist live on?], to try to force the mainstream into a consensus decision. A bit of tough support from a key ally might have helped the Americans. It might have helped the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, face down his right-wing fringe supporters. [Oh, yes, dear old Bibi wants peace but his hands are tied. What planet... etc] Instead, Rudd's public appearances were a feel-good profession of Australian support for Israel. His one comment about West Bank settlements - that they undermine peace prospects - was drawn out of him in Cairo by the Egyptian foreign minister. [No it wasn't. It came in response to a journalist's question at their joint press conference on 11 December (foreignminister.gov.au).]" (Editorial: Mid-East peace: a time to speak, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/12/10)
This is typical of the Herald's hypocrisy - telling Rudd he should've talked tough with the Israelis, but publishing Lenore Taylor's beyond uncritical recycling of Israeli talking points.
Finally, speaking of Rudd on Israeli settlements, this is what he said at that Cairo press conference: "The position of Australia is that new settlements do not contribute but in fact undermine the prospects of a lasting peace settlement in the Middle East. That continues to be our position today. And when I go to Israel in the days ahead I'll be reflecting that position as well." Seems like when he got to Israel, instead of reflecting that position, he actually reflected on it and decided to keep his mouth shut.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Kevin Rudd Road Show 3
The Fairfax press was represented on the KRRS by the sweetly smiling national affairs correspondent Lenore Taylor.
And Albert Dadon, her genial host*, would have been delighted at Lenore's thankyou, thankyou, thankyou so much, Albert note, a wonderfully obliging (pr)op-ed - Decision time looms as Iran races for the bomb (18/12/10) - complete with (Icing on the cake!) Michael Mucci's equally wonderful illustration (mis)representing the Palestine-Israel conflict as equally-matched Israeli and Palestinian (black balaclava, of course!) wrestlers, eternally seeking that decisive, winning hold, whilst lo! [or should that be LOL?], looming over the horizon, is a monstrous, hook-nosed apparition with missiles for horns, ready to nuke them both. Now who could that be, I wonder?
[*"Lenore Taylor travelled to Israel as a guest of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum," ran the appended disclosure.]
What a feather in Albert's cap! And in Fairfax, too, of all places! Well-deserved, of course, given the time and trouble he goes to with these rambamming thingies*.
[*Rambamming: Being sponsored by smooth-talking Israel lobbyists in Australia on a grooming session conducted by tough talking PR people in Israel with a view to the sponsored adopting the missionary position for Israel when required in Australia.]
Now sit back and savour Albert's Saturday morning delight:
"As we emerged stunned and silent from the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem this week onto a balcony overlooking the holy city, our guide swept her hand across the vista and asked whether now we understood why the Jewish people had re-established their homeland and would fight with all their might 'that man' who would take it all away. The man she referred to was not Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority with which Israel has for years been engaged in stuttering peace negotiations. She was talking about the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." (18/12/10)
Did Lenore find this a tad scripted? (Pr)op-ed says no. A tad theatrical? (Pr)op-ed says no. Agenda-ridden? (Pr)op-ed says no.
"A few days later we stood near the kibbutz Misgav Am, high in the upper Galilee, looking out over the now peaceful agricultural plains, up to the snow-capped Mount Hermon, and down at the Lebanese village just a stone's throw away, close enough to wave. Our guide, a former brigadier general who commanded troops in the north during the war with Lebanon in 2006, said that when the Iranian-backed Hezbollah operated freely in the area before the war it was as if Iran itself had been sitting right on Israel's northern border."
Scripted? Theatrical? Agenda-ridden? No. No. No.
"Eight years after my first visit to Israel, one of the most striking things about the discussion during this week's Australia Israel Leadership Forum has been the extent to which the increasing regional dominance and nuclear arms aspiration of Iran is overshadowing and enmeshing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Did Lenore ever wonder: This is getting tiresome. Why is everyone, from prez Peres on down - even the friggin' tour guide at YV for Jesus' sake! - constantly banging on about Iran? (Lightbulb flash in thought bubble above head) Perhaps... Just perhaps... Oh, perish the thought! Could it be they're... they're trying to mess with our minds? (Pr)op-ed suggests no.
"How would Gaza, controlled by Iranian-aligned Hamas, fit in to any peace deal struck between Israel and the Palestinian Authority? Would any deal be possible if both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were emboldened by the backing of a nuclear capable Iran?... Israeli politicians, of all persuasions, saw Iran's growing influence as both the biggest threat to Israel and the world and also a factor making a peace deal far more elusive."
You go, Dadon-backed, Israel-aligned, girl!
"The Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, who the WikiLeaks cables revealed to have been assessed by the Israeli ambassador to Australia as a great friend of Israel, dismayed the Israelis on the eve of his visit this week when he told The Australian newspaper that not only should Israel, along with other nuclear states in the region, sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but that it should also submit to IAEA inspections of the nuclear weapons facilities it does not admit it has. Even though inspections usually go hand in hand with treaty membership, the Israelis bridled at the implied equivalence of Israel and Iran. By the time Rudd was standing beside Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in Jerusalem, he had dropped any reference to inspections and was recognising Israel's 'unique security considerations'. But Rudd's overriding message was the same as everyone else's - that Iran was the 'core strategic challenge faced by us all'."
Did it seem odd to Lenore that the foreign minister of a supposedly independent country - her own - was now singing the exact same tune as every Israeli official who crossed her path? If so, (pr)op-ed doesn't say.
And Albert Dadon, her genial host*, would have been delighted at Lenore's thankyou, thankyou, thankyou so much, Albert note, a wonderfully obliging (pr)op-ed - Decision time looms as Iran races for the bomb (18/12/10) - complete with (Icing on the cake!) Michael Mucci's equally wonderful illustration (mis)representing the Palestine-Israel conflict as equally-matched Israeli and Palestinian (black balaclava, of course!) wrestlers, eternally seeking that decisive, winning hold, whilst lo! [or should that be LOL?], looming over the horizon, is a monstrous, hook-nosed apparition with missiles for horns, ready to nuke them both. Now who could that be, I wonder?
[*"Lenore Taylor travelled to Israel as a guest of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum," ran the appended disclosure.]
What a feather in Albert's cap! And in Fairfax, too, of all places! Well-deserved, of course, given the time and trouble he goes to with these rambamming thingies*.
[*Rambamming: Being sponsored by smooth-talking Israel lobbyists in Australia on a grooming session conducted by tough talking PR people in Israel with a view to the sponsored adopting the missionary position for Israel when required in Australia.]
Now sit back and savour Albert's Saturday morning delight:
"As we emerged stunned and silent from the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem this week onto a balcony overlooking the holy city, our guide swept her hand across the vista and asked whether now we understood why the Jewish people had re-established their homeland and would fight with all their might 'that man' who would take it all away. The man she referred to was not Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority with which Israel has for years been engaged in stuttering peace negotiations. She was talking about the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." (18/12/10)
Did Lenore find this a tad scripted? (Pr)op-ed says no. A tad theatrical? (Pr)op-ed says no. Agenda-ridden? (Pr)op-ed says no.
"A few days later we stood near the kibbutz Misgav Am, high in the upper Galilee, looking out over the now peaceful agricultural plains, up to the snow-capped Mount Hermon, and down at the Lebanese village just a stone's throw away, close enough to wave. Our guide, a former brigadier general who commanded troops in the north during the war with Lebanon in 2006, said that when the Iranian-backed Hezbollah operated freely in the area before the war it was as if Iran itself had been sitting right on Israel's northern border."
Scripted? Theatrical? Agenda-ridden? No. No. No.
"Eight years after my first visit to Israel, one of the most striking things about the discussion during this week's Australia Israel Leadership Forum has been the extent to which the increasing regional dominance and nuclear arms aspiration of Iran is overshadowing and enmeshing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Did Lenore ever wonder: This is getting tiresome. Why is everyone, from prez Peres on down - even the friggin' tour guide at YV for Jesus' sake! - constantly banging on about Iran? (Lightbulb flash in thought bubble above head) Perhaps... Just perhaps... Oh, perish the thought! Could it be they're... they're trying to mess with our minds? (Pr)op-ed suggests no.
"How would Gaza, controlled by Iranian-aligned Hamas, fit in to any peace deal struck between Israel and the Palestinian Authority? Would any deal be possible if both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were emboldened by the backing of a nuclear capable Iran?... Israeli politicians, of all persuasions, saw Iran's growing influence as both the biggest threat to Israel and the world and also a factor making a peace deal far more elusive."
You go, Dadon-backed, Israel-aligned, girl!
"The Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, who the WikiLeaks cables revealed to have been assessed by the Israeli ambassador to Australia as a great friend of Israel, dismayed the Israelis on the eve of his visit this week when he told The Australian newspaper that not only should Israel, along with other nuclear states in the region, sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but that it should also submit to IAEA inspections of the nuclear weapons facilities it does not admit it has. Even though inspections usually go hand in hand with treaty membership, the Israelis bridled at the implied equivalence of Israel and Iran. By the time Rudd was standing beside Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in Jerusalem, he had dropped any reference to inspections and was recognising Israel's 'unique security considerations'. But Rudd's overriding message was the same as everyone else's - that Iran was the 'core strategic challenge faced by us all'."
Did it seem odd to Lenore that the foreign minister of a supposedly independent country - her own - was now singing the exact same tune as every Israeli official who crossed her path? If so, (pr)op-ed doesn't say.
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Kevin Rudd Road Show 2
Murdoch's Australian reports on the KRRS:
"Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday visited the parents of a young man who is probably the most valuable prisoner in the world - captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After visiting Israel's President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Mr Rudd dropped in on the tent where Noam and Aviva Shalit keep a daily vigil to maintain public awareness of the plight of their son... He has been denied all visits, including from the Red Cross - a breach of international humanitarian conventions which insist that a prisoner should be given access to medical care. Sitting in the tent yesterday and looking up at one of the posters of Shalit on the wall. Mr Rudd remarked: 'Good looking boy'. 'He used to be', Shalit's father said. 'We are not sure now'. Mr Rudd said he had visited the tent to express Australia's solidarity for the plight of Shalit and for his release." (Rudd offers support for captured Israeli, John Lyons, 15/12/10)
Visits by Rudd & Co to the parents of almost 7,000 completely valueless Palestinian prisoners (including 300 minors, 35 women, 210 prisoners held without charge or trial, Palestinian parliamentarians and others held in solitary confinement since the 2006 Palestinian elections, 1,000 ill prisoners, 750 prisoners of war from Gaza and hundreds of others from the West Bank who haven't clapped eyes on their families for the last 4 years)*: 0
[*Report: 70,000 Palestinians jailed since intifada, The Palestinian Information Center, palestine-info.co.uk, 30/9/2010]
"Israeli officials have described as very curious a call by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that Israel allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities... Australian officials supported Mr Rudd's position. One said there was 'a clear logic' about his comments - international inspectors should have access to all nuclear facilities, wherever they are. One Israeli official said yesterday: 'This comes, as the Americans would say, completely out of left field... What is the point? It is a very curious statement'." (Nuclear inspections call 'curious', John Lyons, 15/12/10)
What the...?! How dare he! Who does he think he is? What prompted Rudd to such heights of insolence, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan wants to know:
"[T]here was one episode of policy freelancing, or innovation, or just downright oddity, that has no honourable explanation and has perplexed, to put it mildly, his many Israeli admirers. In an interview with this paper's John Lyons in Cairo on Saturday, Rudd said: 'Our view has been consistent for a long time and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection'... [T]he de facto equating of Israel and Iran is bizarre." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, 16/12/10)
Ooo... he can't possibly mean our precious friend is, like, totally pissed off with Kevvie, can he?
"No Australian foreign minister in history has previously called for Israel's nuclear facility to be open to IAEA inspection. Israel, not being a signatory to the NPT, has no legal obligation to submit to IAEA inspections... There are areas of deliberate greyness in international diplomacy. No serious Western foreign minister ever demands that Israel submits to IAEA inspection."
I could swear Sheridan's channeling the late Dennis Hopper's manic freelance photographer in Apocalypse Now: Listen up, nerd. You don't inspect Israel. He inspects you. He's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll... when you say hello to him, right, he'll just walk right by you and he won't even notice you, then suddenly he'll grab you and he'll throw you in a corner and say, 'Did you know 'if' is the middle word in life, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all are in doubt'. I mean, I know, I'm a little man. Israel's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. I mean... "
We know, Greg, we know. In the presence of Israel's poet-warriors, we're all such little men.
"So, presumably Rudd would not take such a radical and fateful step unless this prefigured some new and profound Australian policy objective, right? But, dear reader, the truth is that when Rudd got to Israel he did not raise the NPT and IAEA inspections even once in his lengthy meeing with Benjamin Netanyahu, or in his speech to a gala [sic: galah] dinner at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... At a press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Rudd did repeat his statement that Australian policy wanted Israel to join the NPT but by then he had abandoned any reference to inspections."
Of course, Greg, of course. As you, above all, know, the closer one gets to those poet-warriors who walk right by you and don't even notice, the littler, the more insignificant, the more spineless we become. Forget crustaceans, Greg, they at least have exoskeletons. Worms, more like it. We should have been pairs of parapodia appendages crawling - yes crawling's the word, Geg - crawling across the floors of ancient seas.
But I digress. Poet-warrior Lieberman just fixed Kevvie with a baleful glare, grabbed him by the short and curlies, gave them a vigorous twist, grunted, 'Listen up, suckhole, you can stuff the NPT up your wormhole', "we are a very responsible country and a very responsible government and we have proved this for many years,"* and that was that, no more NPT, no more IAEA. In fact, and this must have been hard for Kevvie, no more acronyms for the duration.
[*Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/12/10]
And, notes Sheridan, not a whisper on settlements either: "[A]ll through the Arab world Rudd had denounced Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, but in his talks with Netanyahu and in his public speech they didn't get a mention."
Not that the trivial matter of Palestinian land-grabbing colonies wasn't raised with poet-warrior Bibi. But, by his own account, it was Sheridan, not Rudd, who raised the issue of the latter's criticism of settlements with the great man, only to be told, to the muffled accompaniment of bulldozers and excavators carving out a bit more lebensraum off in the distance: "I think it (settlements) is one of the issues that will need to be negotiated, but is it the source or the root of the conflict? No. The conflict went on for decades before there were any settlements. I don't think in its heart this is a territorial conflict - it's an existential conflict about the acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." (Australia a close friend, says PM, 15/12/10)
Singing from the same songbook as poet-warrior Peres, poet-warrior Bibi wasted no time in refocusing Kevvie and his gormless entourage of antipodean suckholes, although unlike Lieberman, he chose flattery rather than a twist: "I think Kevin Rudd has been one of the world leaders who saw the danger posed by Iran. The issue of terrorism is a huge problem but it is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the marriage of weapons of mass death with with a militant Islamic regime. That's"... pause for effect... "Iran." (ibid)
But again I digress. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right, Sheridan's perplexity over Kevvie's impudent behaviour: "One interpretation is that Rudd could not resist telling the Arab audience in Cairo what it wanted to hear, then telling the Israeli audience in Jerusalem what it wanted to hear. This is a common interpretation of Rudd, but one this column has resisted, regarding Rudd as a figure of singular substance in foreign policy. But you cannot have it both ways."
A figure of singular substance in foreign policy - just like you, Greg?
Gosh, the worm's... sorry, the man's, a worry: "The ongoing tragedy with Rudd is that his ability could never remotely be in doubt. He knows more about foreign policy than anyone on either side of the Australian parlianent."
I'm glad you said than anyone on either side of the parliament, Greg. I thought for one silly moment you were going to say than me.
"But these strange quirks seem to get in the way. Rudd's performance in Israel overall was impressive, but there were times when he seemed to strain just that bit too much to connect with the audience."
I know what's coming, Greg. I know what you're getting at. It's Rudd's little witticism about Menachem Begin undertaking some interior redesign of the King David Hotel back in '46, right? (See my previous post The KRRS 1). Right.
"Rudd was referring to the incident in which Israeli independence activists blew up the hotel."
Israeli... whaaat?! Israeli independence activists?! You mean Begin's Irgun terrorists whom Churchill described as "the vilest gangsters"? (See my 26/12/09 post A Murky Legacy)
"I accept that they were not the equivalent of modern terrorists."
Of course you do, they weren't Arabs now, were they?
"But people died in that incident. I don't think such a joke was in good taste, although many in the audience appreciated it."
Your poet-warriors or your worms?
"Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday visited the parents of a young man who is probably the most valuable prisoner in the world - captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. After visiting Israel's President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem, Mr Rudd dropped in on the tent where Noam and Aviva Shalit keep a daily vigil to maintain public awareness of the plight of their son... He has been denied all visits, including from the Red Cross - a breach of international humanitarian conventions which insist that a prisoner should be given access to medical care. Sitting in the tent yesterday and looking up at one of the posters of Shalit on the wall. Mr Rudd remarked: 'Good looking boy'. 'He used to be', Shalit's father said. 'We are not sure now'. Mr Rudd said he had visited the tent to express Australia's solidarity for the plight of Shalit and for his release." (Rudd offers support for captured Israeli, John Lyons, 15/12/10)
Visits by Rudd & Co to the parents of almost 7,000 completely valueless Palestinian prisoners (including 300 minors, 35 women, 210 prisoners held without charge or trial, Palestinian parliamentarians and others held in solitary confinement since the 2006 Palestinian elections, 1,000 ill prisoners, 750 prisoners of war from Gaza and hundreds of others from the West Bank who haven't clapped eyes on their families for the last 4 years)*: 0
[*Report: 70,000 Palestinians jailed since intifada, The Palestinian Information Center, palestine-info.co.uk, 30/9/2010]
"Israeli officials have described as very curious a call by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that Israel allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities... Australian officials supported Mr Rudd's position. One said there was 'a clear logic' about his comments - international inspectors should have access to all nuclear facilities, wherever they are. One Israeli official said yesterday: 'This comes, as the Americans would say, completely out of left field... What is the point? It is a very curious statement'." (Nuclear inspections call 'curious', John Lyons, 15/12/10)
What the...?! How dare he! Who does he think he is? What prompted Rudd to such heights of insolence, foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan wants to know:
"[T]here was one episode of policy freelancing, or innovation, or just downright oddity, that has no honourable explanation and has perplexed, to put it mildly, his many Israeli admirers. In an interview with this paper's John Lyons in Cairo on Saturday, Rudd said: 'Our view has been consistent for a long time and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection'... [T]he de facto equating of Israel and Iran is bizarre." (That's no way to treat a precious friend, Mr Rudd, 16/12/10)
Ooo... he can't possibly mean our precious friend is, like, totally pissed off with Kevvie, can he?
"No Australian foreign minister in history has previously called for Israel's nuclear facility to be open to IAEA inspection. Israel, not being a signatory to the NPT, has no legal obligation to submit to IAEA inspections... There are areas of deliberate greyness in international diplomacy. No serious Western foreign minister ever demands that Israel submits to IAEA inspection."
I could swear Sheridan's channeling the late Dennis Hopper's manic freelance photographer in Apocalypse Now: Listen up, nerd. You don't inspect Israel. He inspects you. He's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll... when you say hello to him, right, he'll just walk right by you and he won't even notice you, then suddenly he'll grab you and he'll throw you in a corner and say, 'Did you know 'if' is the middle word in life, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all are in doubt'. I mean, I know, I'm a little man. Israel's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas. I mean... "
We know, Greg, we know. In the presence of Israel's poet-warriors, we're all such little men.
"So, presumably Rudd would not take such a radical and fateful step unless this prefigured some new and profound Australian policy objective, right? But, dear reader, the truth is that when Rudd got to Israel he did not raise the NPT and IAEA inspections even once in his lengthy meeing with Benjamin Netanyahu, or in his speech to a gala [sic: galah] dinner at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem... At a press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Rudd did repeat his statement that Australian policy wanted Israel to join the NPT but by then he had abandoned any reference to inspections."
Of course, Greg, of course. As you, above all, know, the closer one gets to those poet-warriors who walk right by you and don't even notice, the littler, the more insignificant, the more spineless we become. Forget crustaceans, Greg, they at least have exoskeletons. Worms, more like it. We should have been pairs of parapodia appendages crawling - yes crawling's the word, Geg - crawling across the floors of ancient seas.
But I digress. Poet-warrior Lieberman just fixed Kevvie with a baleful glare, grabbed him by the short and curlies, gave them a vigorous twist, grunted, 'Listen up, suckhole, you can stuff the NPT up your wormhole', "we are a very responsible country and a very responsible government and we have proved this for many years,"* and that was that, no more NPT, no more IAEA. In fact, and this must have been hard for Kevvie, no more acronyms for the duration.
[*Israel rejects Rudd's call for nuclear inspections, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/12/10]
And, notes Sheridan, not a whisper on settlements either: "[A]ll through the Arab world Rudd had denounced Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, but in his talks with Netanyahu and in his public speech they didn't get a mention."
Not that the trivial matter of Palestinian land-grabbing colonies wasn't raised with poet-warrior Bibi. But, by his own account, it was Sheridan, not Rudd, who raised the issue of the latter's criticism of settlements with the great man, only to be told, to the muffled accompaniment of bulldozers and excavators carving out a bit more lebensraum off in the distance: "I think it (settlements) is one of the issues that will need to be negotiated, but is it the source or the root of the conflict? No. The conflict went on for decades before there were any settlements. I don't think in its heart this is a territorial conflict - it's an existential conflict about the acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." (Australia a close friend, says PM, 15/12/10)
Singing from the same songbook as poet-warrior Peres, poet-warrior Bibi wasted no time in refocusing Kevvie and his gormless entourage of antipodean suckholes, although unlike Lieberman, he chose flattery rather than a twist: "I think Kevin Rudd has been one of the world leaders who saw the danger posed by Iran. The issue of terrorism is a huge problem but it is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the marriage of weapons of mass death with with a militant Islamic regime. That's"... pause for effect... "Iran." (ibid)
But again I digress. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right, Sheridan's perplexity over Kevvie's impudent behaviour: "One interpretation is that Rudd could not resist telling the Arab audience in Cairo what it wanted to hear, then telling the Israeli audience in Jerusalem what it wanted to hear. This is a common interpretation of Rudd, but one this column has resisted, regarding Rudd as a figure of singular substance in foreign policy. But you cannot have it both ways."
A figure of singular substance in foreign policy - just like you, Greg?
Gosh, the worm's... sorry, the man's, a worry: "The ongoing tragedy with Rudd is that his ability could never remotely be in doubt. He knows more about foreign policy than anyone on either side of the Australian parlianent."
I'm glad you said than anyone on either side of the parliament, Greg. I thought for one silly moment you were going to say than me.
"But these strange quirks seem to get in the way. Rudd's performance in Israel overall was impressive, but there were times when he seemed to strain just that bit too much to connect with the audience."
I know what's coming, Greg. I know what you're getting at. It's Rudd's little witticism about Menachem Begin undertaking some interior redesign of the King David Hotel back in '46, right? (See my previous post The KRRS 1). Right.
"Rudd was referring to the incident in which Israeli independence activists blew up the hotel."
Israeli... whaaat?! Israeli independence activists?! You mean Begin's Irgun terrorists whom Churchill described as "the vilest gangsters"? (See my 26/12/09 post A Murky Legacy)
"I accept that they were not the equivalent of modern terrorists."
Of course you do, they weren't Arabs now, were they?
"But people died in that incident. I don't think such a joke was in good taste, although many in the audience appreciated it."
Your poet-warriors or your worms?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The Kevin Rudd Road Show 1
MERC first got wind of the bigger-than-Ben Hur KRRS back in October (See my 25/10/10 post Record Rambam) and has been waiting with the proverbial baited breath ever since for this, the third, the largest, and, it has to be said, the steamiest of Melbourne Zionist promoter and publicist Albert Dadon's Ozraeli love-ins.
Those of you who regularly visit this site might remember his first and second Australia Israel Leadership Forum (AILF) shindigs. In these earlier (2009) productions, starring then DPM Julia Gillard, The Australian Jewish News discerned merely a 'shared sense of joy', with Gillard going so far, at the second, as to dance the hora, a sort of Israeli boot scootin (See my posts Gillard Gets a Gong (29/6/09) & Just Do It, Bitch (11/12/09)). Anyway, lest you think steamy a tad over the top, just wait and see.
Now many of you may have been somewhat distracted by Oprah's recent Sydney lovefest, and so overlooked Rudd's galah performance in Jerusalem. Not that I can really blame you, but to tell the truth, it was really only given its due in The Australian Jewish News and its Maxi-Me, Murdoch's Australian. So sit back while I fill you in on this mother-of-all rambammings in a series of posts, beginning with The AJN's coverage, followed by The Australian's, and concluding with Fairfax's far less attentive fare.
The AJN's coverage was, as you'd expect, full-bodied and exceedingly fruity. Its issue of December 17 bore the brunt with a front page shot of a kneeling, kippah-ed Rudd laying a wreath at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, his figure illuminated by a flame burning behind him. This was accompanied by the kind of words that tell you all you need to know about the politics of the AJN: "ETERNAL FLAME, ETERNAL FRIENDSHIP: This week, 50 Australian politicians, journalists, and business and community leaders travelled to Israel. From the Kotel to the Knesset, Yad Vashem to Tel Aviv, the special relationship between the two countries was embraced and cemented."
Inside, under the headline Peres spreads the love, we learned that "Israel's President Shimon Peres described the relationship between the Jewish state and Australia as one of love... 'Australia is a beloved country in Israel... Love is the diplomacy that exists from the standpoint towards Australia'."
Did I say steamy? Peres' lust for Kevvie was obviously so great at this point that it quite overpowered his syntax. This was Peres' version of Oprah's 'I love Australia. I love Australia. I LOVE AUSTRALIA'. Fortunately for those assembled, despite the pull of Kevvie's obvious charms, Peres' first and only love reflexively kicked in when he began barking about Israel's "moral superiority" vis a vis a certain "brutal Islamic regime" in Iran: "He accused Iran of trying to turn the Middle East into an 'extremist empire' and 'the centre of terror'. 'They destroyed Lebanon - it was a nice country - they destroyed Yemen, they are entering Sudan and Somalia and they are going to South America because the Middle East is too small for them'."
Iran - IRAN! - I-R-A-N! - destroyed Lebanon (and everything else within cooee it seems), and our assembled pollies, journos, business and community leaders no doubt lapped up every lunatic word, having completely forgotten, if they'd ever known in the first place, that Peres was the Israeli prime minister who presided over the first Qana massacre of 1996 with its 109 Lebanese civilian deaths. Alas, this was not the only occasion when the historical record was sent packing from the room.
In another story, Rudd: Time for peace running out, on Kevvie's keynote speech to the AILF (of which, more later), the AJN's Naomi Levin managed the extraordinary feat of topping Peres' gloriously delusional rant when she asserted that "Rudd's call [for an urgent resolution to the Middle East conflict] stands in contrast to some members of the Israeli Government, who are promoting a slower, nation-building process for the Palestinians and imploring the world to focus efforts first on Iran, then on Israel and the Palestinians."
Yes, that's right, we've been wrong all along, Israel's actually been building Palestine, not destroying it! And boy, did the punters go for that one. How do I know? Why, the AJN's editorial, A beautiful friendship: "Values can seem an abstract concept, but they became concrete to the 50-strong Australian delegation, as they questioned, queried and listened intently to some of Israel's most prominent political minds. The all-comers - from Perth to the Gold Coast to the NSW South Coast and everywhere in between - embraced the new perspectives on the peace process and the Iranian threat in particular."
Building Palestine - slowly. Smashing Iran - now! Brace yourselves as these Israeli talking points start proliferating in the Australian ms media.
But the centrepiece of the AJN's coverage of the KRRS was Kevvie's December 13 "keynote address" to the AILF.
Rudd led off with a perfect pearl, which, when and if a book titled Kevin Rudd: The Complete Joke(s) is ever published, will surely occupy pride of place, and which had The Australian's extremely foreign foreign editor, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan literally squirming in his seat and led to the production of an equally fine pearl, destined for inclusion in Sheridan's own similarly titled book (of which particular pearl, more in my next post). But here's Kevvie's: "It is an honour to be among Israeli and Australian friends tonight here in Jerusalem, at the King David Hotel. Shimon Peres, Israel's President, who we met earlier today, said some years ago that when you come to the King David, you come not just as a guest, but you come also to a place which has seen almost the complete cast of players across the history of the modern State of Israel, often in this room in which we gather here tonight. From the 1930s, this hotel became the British field headquarters for what was then British Palestine, until Menachem Begin undertook some interior redesign."
Finished pissing yourselves yet? Rudd's referring of course to the blowing up of the King David Hotel by Begin's Irgun terrorists in 1946 at the cost of 88 British, Arab and Jewish (15) lives. And it is telling that our wit refers to it merely as the "British field quarters", when in fact it also housed the civilian wing of Britain's mandate government in Palestine. After all, it wouldn't do to suggest that the King David was as much a civilian as a military target, now would it? Both the 'joke' and the studied omission were a signal to his hosts that all is forgiven, that the only real terrorists in the Middle East are, have always been, and always will be, Arab. Not, of course, that the Australian contingent even knew what he was talking about. What were our Israeli hosts sniggering about at the start of your speech, prime... sorry, foreign minister?
Moving along, Rudd praised the oleaginous Shimon Peres as a "living treasure of Israel" and "one of the world's truly wise men." This assessment, of course, tells one nothing of Peres and everything you ever needed to know about Rudd. For a correct assessment of Peres, whose name graces a Center for Peace and who is always trotted out on these occasions as the smiling face of the Zionist fist in Palestine, I'll quote from Rannie Amiri's counterpunch.org article Israel's Master of Deception: "The international community has long been enamored by current Israeli President and former Prime Minister, Shimon Peres. Regarded as a voice of reason and a dove among hawks, he adroitly assuages fears and reassures critics with soothing, yet empty words advocating dialogue and the creation of a Palestinian state. By duping the world into believing significant differences exist between his 'left-wing' views and those of Israel's far right, he has proved himself a master at deception." (14/5/10)
As a fan of Peres, Rudd is more than happy to parrot his vacuous... sorry, wise words: "Shimon said earlier today that as we deal with the problems of our current age, we should not be trapped by the language of the past, but rather engage in the language of the future; the language of the generation of today. The language of the generation which thinks increasingly beyond that which is national, to that which is truly global." Needless to say, Peres hasn't had a new idea since he smashed his parents' radio when he found them listening to it on the Sabbath back in 1920s Poland.
Inevitably, of course, when Rudd is regaling a Zionist audience, he'll start banging on about Doc Evatt's hand in the destruction of Arab Palestine... sorry, the creation of Israel: "My distinguished predecessor as foreign minister, [Dr HV] Evatt, chaired the UN Commission on Palestine in 1947... This was the commission that recommended the establishment of both an Israeli [sic: Jewish] state and a Palestinian state. And when its recommendations were taken to the UN General Assembly, Australia was the first state to vote in support of the establishment of the modern State of Israel."
Par for Rudd's course, of course. A new element in these ritualised proceedings, however, was injected with some first rate Holocaust breastbeating: "Of course, in the years following the war, Australia also received tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors and other Jewish refugees from Europe as they came to Australia to make their home. Regrettably, history records that we were not always so generous. As I acknowledged last night at Yad Vashem, when Australia met with 31 other nations at the Evian Conference in 1938, we refused to open our hearts and we refused to open our doors to the Jewish people of Europe, despite the unfolding persecution against them. Disgracefully, our representative at the time said we could not help, that Australia had no racial problems at the time, nor did it wish to import any. The ancient scriptures have long enjoined us all never to harden our hearts, and yet still we and the other Christian nations of the world did just that."
This is truly gobsmacking stuff. Here we have the man (?) who, as PM, hardened his heart with a "tough but humane" policy toward the current wave of refugees from wartorn Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, invoking the historical record on the Evian Conference before an audience of Zionists and their sundry Australian dupes and fools, and apologising for supposed Christian complicity (Christian nations) in the Nazis' persecution of German Jews, when the fact of the matter is that the Zionist supremo of the day, David Ben-Gurion, was instrumental in nixing the conference: "The Jews could only have one destination - Eretz Yisrael. So in June 1938, shortly before Allied representative met in Evian, France, to seek ways of rescuing Jews, Ben-Gurion frankly voiced his concern to colleagues in the Jewish Agency Executive. He did 'not know if the conference will open the gates of other countries... But I am afraid [it] might cause tremendous harm to Eretz Yisrael and Zionism... Our main task is to reduce the harm, the danger and the disaster... and the more we emphasize the terrible distress of the Jewish masses in Germany, Poland and Rumania, the more damage we shall cause'. So be silent, Ben-Gurion cautioned his comrades... And in the silence... Evian failed." (Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire, Dan Kurzman, 1983)
After the obligatory references to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Cooper (See my 12/12/10 post The ABC of Zionist Propaganda), Mr Guilty asked, "So why do I reflect on these things at some length this evening? To say to our Israeli friends that none of us come to the history of modern Israel with hands that are completely clean. But in Australia, through the actions of successive governments since the war... we have honoured our friendship with Israel in good times and in bad. We have supported you in all the major wars you have fought, because in Australia you are among friends."
In short, because we feel we didn't pull our weight in the 30s by taking in German Jews, even though that was the last thing your founding fathers would have wanted us to do, we will give you now a free pass to grind the faces of the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Iranians, and whoever takes your fancy... in perpetuity.
Then he turned to Israel's much-hyped "security challenges," shamelessly parroting the same old, same old, proven bogus wiping-Israel-off-the-map mantra: "The Iranian leader's proclamation that Israel should be removed from the map of the world was a chilling reminder of the rank anti-semitism from decades past." And ditto for Hezbollah and Hamas, who, of course, cannot possibly be conceived as anything other than Iran's supposed "terrorist" proxies, with nothing better to do than mindlessly launch their rockets and make Israeli lives an absolute misery.
Eventually, we reach the fabled peace process, which had Rudd crying into his beer: "Sometimes it seems as if we have been wandering in the desert for the last 40 years... I am increasingly concerned that the window for peace may be beginning to close." His nightmare vision? "What happens to the security of Israel if the peace process collapses completely?" Remember the dreaded Second Intifada, he enjoins: "I remember touring the Old city then and touring it alone. There was no-one on the streets. People were afraid." Israeli people, that is. Who gives a rat's for Palestinian fear? Certainly not Rudd or his handpicked camp followers. Certainly not the Israeli officials lapping all this up.
"What will happen in Egypt? What will happen in Jordan?" he wailed. "And what dividend would a collapse in the peace process deliver to Iran and its quest for political legitimacy and the expansion of its diplomatic and security footprint across the wider Middle East and beyond." Doesn't bear thinking about, eh?
But, my friends, "there is another scenario to consider": The Israeli lion lieth down with the Palestinian lamb, the Arabs beat their swords into ploughshares, Iran and its proxies vanish in a puff of smoke, and "7.5 million Israelis" get to make a grab for those lucrative Arab markets.
But, hey, don't think I'm trying to impose anything on you blokes, no, these are just "scenarios worthy of careful analysis," cuz always remember, my beloved friends in Zion, "Whatever the future holds through this peace process and beyond, you will forever have strong and reliable friends in Australia."
Yes, you heard it. Forever! As Oprah would say, "Who is feeling the love right now? Do you feel sexy, Australia?"
Those of you who regularly visit this site might remember his first and second Australia Israel Leadership Forum (AILF) shindigs. In these earlier (2009) productions, starring then DPM Julia Gillard, The Australian Jewish News discerned merely a 'shared sense of joy', with Gillard going so far, at the second, as to dance the hora, a sort of Israeli boot scootin (See my posts Gillard Gets a Gong (29/6/09) & Just Do It, Bitch (11/12/09)). Anyway, lest you think steamy a tad over the top, just wait and see.
Now many of you may have been somewhat distracted by Oprah's recent Sydney lovefest, and so overlooked Rudd's galah performance in Jerusalem. Not that I can really blame you, but to tell the truth, it was really only given its due in The Australian Jewish News and its Maxi-Me, Murdoch's Australian. So sit back while I fill you in on this mother-of-all rambammings in a series of posts, beginning with The AJN's coverage, followed by The Australian's, and concluding with Fairfax's far less attentive fare.
The AJN's coverage was, as you'd expect, full-bodied and exceedingly fruity. Its issue of December 17 bore the brunt with a front page shot of a kneeling, kippah-ed Rudd laying a wreath at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, his figure illuminated by a flame burning behind him. This was accompanied by the kind of words that tell you all you need to know about the politics of the AJN: "ETERNAL FLAME, ETERNAL FRIENDSHIP: This week, 50 Australian politicians, journalists, and business and community leaders travelled to Israel. From the Kotel to the Knesset, Yad Vashem to Tel Aviv, the special relationship between the two countries was embraced and cemented."
Inside, under the headline Peres spreads the love, we learned that "Israel's President Shimon Peres described the relationship between the Jewish state and Australia as one of love... 'Australia is a beloved country in Israel... Love is the diplomacy that exists from the standpoint towards Australia'."
Did I say steamy? Peres' lust for Kevvie was obviously so great at this point that it quite overpowered his syntax. This was Peres' version of Oprah's 'I love Australia. I love Australia. I LOVE AUSTRALIA'. Fortunately for those assembled, despite the pull of Kevvie's obvious charms, Peres' first and only love reflexively kicked in when he began barking about Israel's "moral superiority" vis a vis a certain "brutal Islamic regime" in Iran: "He accused Iran of trying to turn the Middle East into an 'extremist empire' and 'the centre of terror'. 'They destroyed Lebanon - it was a nice country - they destroyed Yemen, they are entering Sudan and Somalia and they are going to South America because the Middle East is too small for them'."
Iran - IRAN! - I-R-A-N! - destroyed Lebanon (and everything else within cooee it seems), and our assembled pollies, journos, business and community leaders no doubt lapped up every lunatic word, having completely forgotten, if they'd ever known in the first place, that Peres was the Israeli prime minister who presided over the first Qana massacre of 1996 with its 109 Lebanese civilian deaths. Alas, this was not the only occasion when the historical record was sent packing from the room.
In another story, Rudd: Time for peace running out, on Kevvie's keynote speech to the AILF (of which, more later), the AJN's Naomi Levin managed the extraordinary feat of topping Peres' gloriously delusional rant when she asserted that "Rudd's call [for an urgent resolution to the Middle East conflict] stands in contrast to some members of the Israeli Government, who are promoting a slower, nation-building process for the Palestinians and imploring the world to focus efforts first on Iran, then on Israel and the Palestinians."
Yes, that's right, we've been wrong all along, Israel's actually been building Palestine, not destroying it! And boy, did the punters go for that one. How do I know? Why, the AJN's editorial, A beautiful friendship: "Values can seem an abstract concept, but they became concrete to the 50-strong Australian delegation, as they questioned, queried and listened intently to some of Israel's most prominent political minds. The all-comers - from Perth to the Gold Coast to the NSW South Coast and everywhere in between - embraced the new perspectives on the peace process and the Iranian threat in particular."
Building Palestine - slowly. Smashing Iran - now! Brace yourselves as these Israeli talking points start proliferating in the Australian ms media.
But the centrepiece of the AJN's coverage of the KRRS was Kevvie's December 13 "keynote address" to the AILF.
Rudd led off with a perfect pearl, which, when and if a book titled Kevin Rudd: The Complete Joke(s) is ever published, will surely occupy pride of place, and which had The Australian's extremely foreign foreign editor, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan literally squirming in his seat and led to the production of an equally fine pearl, destined for inclusion in Sheridan's own similarly titled book (of which particular pearl, more in my next post). But here's Kevvie's: "It is an honour to be among Israeli and Australian friends tonight here in Jerusalem, at the King David Hotel. Shimon Peres, Israel's President, who we met earlier today, said some years ago that when you come to the King David, you come not just as a guest, but you come also to a place which has seen almost the complete cast of players across the history of the modern State of Israel, often in this room in which we gather here tonight. From the 1930s, this hotel became the British field headquarters for what was then British Palestine, until Menachem Begin undertook some interior redesign."
Finished pissing yourselves yet? Rudd's referring of course to the blowing up of the King David Hotel by Begin's Irgun terrorists in 1946 at the cost of 88 British, Arab and Jewish (15) lives. And it is telling that our wit refers to it merely as the "British field quarters", when in fact it also housed the civilian wing of Britain's mandate government in Palestine. After all, it wouldn't do to suggest that the King David was as much a civilian as a military target, now would it? Both the 'joke' and the studied omission were a signal to his hosts that all is forgiven, that the only real terrorists in the Middle East are, have always been, and always will be, Arab. Not, of course, that the Australian contingent even knew what he was talking about. What were our Israeli hosts sniggering about at the start of your speech, prime... sorry, foreign minister?
Moving along, Rudd praised the oleaginous Shimon Peres as a "living treasure of Israel" and "one of the world's truly wise men." This assessment, of course, tells one nothing of Peres and everything you ever needed to know about Rudd. For a correct assessment of Peres, whose name graces a Center for Peace and who is always trotted out on these occasions as the smiling face of the Zionist fist in Palestine, I'll quote from Rannie Amiri's counterpunch.org article Israel's Master of Deception: "The international community has long been enamored by current Israeli President and former Prime Minister, Shimon Peres. Regarded as a voice of reason and a dove among hawks, he adroitly assuages fears and reassures critics with soothing, yet empty words advocating dialogue and the creation of a Palestinian state. By duping the world into believing significant differences exist between his 'left-wing' views and those of Israel's far right, he has proved himself a master at deception." (14/5/10)
As a fan of Peres, Rudd is more than happy to parrot his vacuous... sorry, wise words: "Shimon said earlier today that as we deal with the problems of our current age, we should not be trapped by the language of the past, but rather engage in the language of the future; the language of the generation of today. The language of the generation which thinks increasingly beyond that which is national, to that which is truly global." Needless to say, Peres hasn't had a new idea since he smashed his parents' radio when he found them listening to it on the Sabbath back in 1920s Poland.
Inevitably, of course, when Rudd is regaling a Zionist audience, he'll start banging on about Doc Evatt's hand in the destruction of Arab Palestine... sorry, the creation of Israel: "My distinguished predecessor as foreign minister, [Dr HV] Evatt, chaired the UN Commission on Palestine in 1947... This was the commission that recommended the establishment of both an Israeli [sic: Jewish] state and a Palestinian state. And when its recommendations were taken to the UN General Assembly, Australia was the first state to vote in support of the establishment of the modern State of Israel."
Par for Rudd's course, of course. A new element in these ritualised proceedings, however, was injected with some first rate Holocaust breastbeating: "Of course, in the years following the war, Australia also received tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors and other Jewish refugees from Europe as they came to Australia to make their home. Regrettably, history records that we were not always so generous. As I acknowledged last night at Yad Vashem, when Australia met with 31 other nations at the Evian Conference in 1938, we refused to open our hearts and we refused to open our doors to the Jewish people of Europe, despite the unfolding persecution against them. Disgracefully, our representative at the time said we could not help, that Australia had no racial problems at the time, nor did it wish to import any. The ancient scriptures have long enjoined us all never to harden our hearts, and yet still we and the other Christian nations of the world did just that."
This is truly gobsmacking stuff. Here we have the man (?) who, as PM, hardened his heart with a "tough but humane" policy toward the current wave of refugees from wartorn Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, invoking the historical record on the Evian Conference before an audience of Zionists and their sundry Australian dupes and fools, and apologising for supposed Christian complicity (Christian nations) in the Nazis' persecution of German Jews, when the fact of the matter is that the Zionist supremo of the day, David Ben-Gurion, was instrumental in nixing the conference: "The Jews could only have one destination - Eretz Yisrael. So in June 1938, shortly before Allied representative met in Evian, France, to seek ways of rescuing Jews, Ben-Gurion frankly voiced his concern to colleagues in the Jewish Agency Executive. He did 'not know if the conference will open the gates of other countries... But I am afraid [it] might cause tremendous harm to Eretz Yisrael and Zionism... Our main task is to reduce the harm, the danger and the disaster... and the more we emphasize the terrible distress of the Jewish masses in Germany, Poland and Rumania, the more damage we shall cause'. So be silent, Ben-Gurion cautioned his comrades... And in the silence... Evian failed." (Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire, Dan Kurzman, 1983)
After the obligatory references to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Cooper (See my 12/12/10 post The ABC of Zionist Propaganda), Mr Guilty asked, "So why do I reflect on these things at some length this evening? To say to our Israeli friends that none of us come to the history of modern Israel with hands that are completely clean. But in Australia, through the actions of successive governments since the war... we have honoured our friendship with Israel in good times and in bad. We have supported you in all the major wars you have fought, because in Australia you are among friends."
In short, because we feel we didn't pull our weight in the 30s by taking in German Jews, even though that was the last thing your founding fathers would have wanted us to do, we will give you now a free pass to grind the faces of the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Iranians, and whoever takes your fancy... in perpetuity.
Then he turned to Israel's much-hyped "security challenges," shamelessly parroting the same old, same old, proven bogus wiping-Israel-off-the-map mantra: "The Iranian leader's proclamation that Israel should be removed from the map of the world was a chilling reminder of the rank anti-semitism from decades past." And ditto for Hezbollah and Hamas, who, of course, cannot possibly be conceived as anything other than Iran's supposed "terrorist" proxies, with nothing better to do than mindlessly launch their rockets and make Israeli lives an absolute misery.
Eventually, we reach the fabled peace process, which had Rudd crying into his beer: "Sometimes it seems as if we have been wandering in the desert for the last 40 years... I am increasingly concerned that the window for peace may be beginning to close." His nightmare vision? "What happens to the security of Israel if the peace process collapses completely?" Remember the dreaded Second Intifada, he enjoins: "I remember touring the Old city then and touring it alone. There was no-one on the streets. People were afraid." Israeli people, that is. Who gives a rat's for Palestinian fear? Certainly not Rudd or his handpicked camp followers. Certainly not the Israeli officials lapping all this up.
"What will happen in Egypt? What will happen in Jordan?" he wailed. "And what dividend would a collapse in the peace process deliver to Iran and its quest for political legitimacy and the expansion of its diplomatic and security footprint across the wider Middle East and beyond." Doesn't bear thinking about, eh?
But, my friends, "there is another scenario to consider": The Israeli lion lieth down with the Palestinian lamb, the Arabs beat their swords into ploughshares, Iran and its proxies vanish in a puff of smoke, and "7.5 million Israelis" get to make a grab for those lucrative Arab markets.
But, hey, don't think I'm trying to impose anything on you blokes, no, these are just "scenarios worthy of careful analysis," cuz always remember, my beloved friends in Zion, "Whatever the future holds through this peace process and beyond, you will forever have strong and reliable friends in Australia."
Yes, you heard it. Forever! As Oprah would say, "Who is feeling the love right now? Do you feel sexy, Australia?"
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Don't Mention the Lobby!
Yet another (WikiLeaks-inspired) gem from Australia's 'most influential foreign affairs commentator', Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan:
"One of the clear revelations from these leaked cables is that numerous Arab leaders have asked the Americans to take military action to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. One might note that this does rather give the lie to the insane notion - peddled not least by US academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt - that an all-powerful Jewish lobby is the only group in the world so exercised about a nuclear Iran as to consider supporting military action." (Cables expose Arab states' hypocrisy over Iran, The Australian, 4/12/10)
While one is busy noting along with Sheridan, one might also care to note that Sheridan completely misrepresents Mearsheimer and Walt.
At no point in their groundbreaking book (about the Israel, not Jewish lobby as Sheridan slants it) do M&W talk of an all-powerful Jewish lobby. If anything, they understate their thesis, venturing no further than to claim that the Israel lobby has a "significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East." (The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007, p 6)
Regarding Sheridan's accusation that they peddle an insane notion that the Israel lobby is the only group in the world so exercised about a nuclear Iran as to consider supporting military action, M&W's position is far more nuanced than Sheridan's caricature allows, factoring in both the United States and Iran's Arab neighbours: "The United States, Israel, and Iran's Arab neighbors, including many of America's Gulf allies, have an independent interest in keeping Iran non-nuclear and preventing it from becoming a regional hegemon. Washington would be committed to keeping Iran in check even if Israel did not exist, so as to prevent the other Gulf states from being conquered or cowed by Tehran."
However, "[o]ver the past 15 years, Israel and the lobby have pushed the United States to pursue a strategically unwise policy toward Iran. In particular, they are the central forces today [2007] behind all the talk in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill about using military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Unfortunately, such rhetoric makes it harder, not easier, to stop Iran from going nuclear. During the 1990s, Israel and its American supporters encouraged the Clinton administration to pursue a confrontational policy toward Iran, even though Iran was interested in improving relations between the two countries. That same pattern was at play again in the early years of the Bush administration, as well as in December 2006, when Israel and the lobby made a concerted effort to undermine the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that President Bush negotiate with Iran. Were it not for the lobby, the US would almost certainly have a different and more effective Iran policy." (ibid p 282)
We now know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that some Arab leaders have privately urged war to stymie Iran's nuclear program (See my 4/12/10 post WikiLeaks 2). However, to illustrate the absurdity of Sheridan's implication that these US clients are somehow the Israel lobby's equal in pushing for a war against Iran, read the following extract from M&W, substituting the Gulf Cooperation Council for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and try keeping a straight face while doing so: "Perhaps the best evidence of AIPAC's influence on US policy toward Iran was revealed in mid-March 2007, when Congress was attempting to attach a provision to a Pentagon spending bill that would have required President Bush to get its approval before attacking Iran. In light of what has happened in the Iraq war, this was a popular measure on Capitol Hill and appeared likely to gain approval. It was also consistent with Congress's consitutional authority. But AIPAC was firmly opposed, because it saw the legislation as effectively taking the military option against Iran off the table. It went to work in the halls of Congress, and with the help of a handful of pro-Israel representatives... the provision was removed from the spending bill. One month later, when Congressman Michael Capuano (D-MA) was asked why the language on Iran was stripped out of the bill, he answered with one word: 'AIPAC'. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) offered the same assessment." (ibid p 301)
Frankly, I don't believe for a moment Sheridan's even read M&W.
As the Australian corporate media's leading Israel advocate, Sheridan never misses an opportunity to burnish Israel's image. Hence we read: "[T]he cables show the weakness, one might even say the hypocrisy, of much Arab politics. The only Middle Eastern leader who seems to talk about Iran in private in exactly the same way as he talks about them in public is Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu."
Typically, he's not interested in why: While polls reveal a majority of Israelis see Iran as a threat and support an attack on it, a majority in the Arab world are favorably disposed toward Iran's nuclear program and see Israel and the US as the primary threat. (2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll) It is understandable, therefore, that while Arab leaders aligned with the US are prepared to sing in private the kind of anti-Iranian tunes they know American diplomats want to hear, mindful that the Arab street is humming a decidedly different tune, they wouldn't dare do so in public. Certainly, none of them seem inclined to join in with Israel's sabre-rattling.
Oh, and speaking of WikiLeaks and a certain all-powerful/ significantly influential/ whatever lobby, how's this for an admission of who really rules the Middle Eastern roost: "Israel has been largely untroubled by the leaks because US views on key Middle East issues are so close to its own." (Outrage, admiration & indifference: Responses on WikiLeaks from world leaders depend on their relationship with the US, Sydney Morning Herald, 11/12/10)
"One of the clear revelations from these leaked cables is that numerous Arab leaders have asked the Americans to take military action to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. One might note that this does rather give the lie to the insane notion - peddled not least by US academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt - that an all-powerful Jewish lobby is the only group in the world so exercised about a nuclear Iran as to consider supporting military action." (Cables expose Arab states' hypocrisy over Iran, The Australian, 4/12/10)
While one is busy noting along with Sheridan, one might also care to note that Sheridan completely misrepresents Mearsheimer and Walt.
At no point in their groundbreaking book (about the Israel, not Jewish lobby as Sheridan slants it) do M&W talk of an all-powerful Jewish lobby. If anything, they understate their thesis, venturing no further than to claim that the Israel lobby has a "significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East." (The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007, p 6)
Regarding Sheridan's accusation that they peddle an insane notion that the Israel lobby is the only group in the world so exercised about a nuclear Iran as to consider supporting military action, M&W's position is far more nuanced than Sheridan's caricature allows, factoring in both the United States and Iran's Arab neighbours: "The United States, Israel, and Iran's Arab neighbors, including many of America's Gulf allies, have an independent interest in keeping Iran non-nuclear and preventing it from becoming a regional hegemon. Washington would be committed to keeping Iran in check even if Israel did not exist, so as to prevent the other Gulf states from being conquered or cowed by Tehran."
However, "[o]ver the past 15 years, Israel and the lobby have pushed the United States to pursue a strategically unwise policy toward Iran. In particular, they are the central forces today [2007] behind all the talk in the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill about using military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Unfortunately, such rhetoric makes it harder, not easier, to stop Iran from going nuclear. During the 1990s, Israel and its American supporters encouraged the Clinton administration to pursue a confrontational policy toward Iran, even though Iran was interested in improving relations between the two countries. That same pattern was at play again in the early years of the Bush administration, as well as in December 2006, when Israel and the lobby made a concerted effort to undermine the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that President Bush negotiate with Iran. Were it not for the lobby, the US would almost certainly have a different and more effective Iran policy." (ibid p 282)
We now know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that some Arab leaders have privately urged war to stymie Iran's nuclear program (See my 4/12/10 post WikiLeaks 2). However, to illustrate the absurdity of Sheridan's implication that these US clients are somehow the Israel lobby's equal in pushing for a war against Iran, read the following extract from M&W, substituting the Gulf Cooperation Council for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and try keeping a straight face while doing so: "Perhaps the best evidence of AIPAC's influence on US policy toward Iran was revealed in mid-March 2007, when Congress was attempting to attach a provision to a Pentagon spending bill that would have required President Bush to get its approval before attacking Iran. In light of what has happened in the Iraq war, this was a popular measure on Capitol Hill and appeared likely to gain approval. It was also consistent with Congress's consitutional authority. But AIPAC was firmly opposed, because it saw the legislation as effectively taking the military option against Iran off the table. It went to work in the halls of Congress, and with the help of a handful of pro-Israel representatives... the provision was removed from the spending bill. One month later, when Congressman Michael Capuano (D-MA) was asked why the language on Iran was stripped out of the bill, he answered with one word: 'AIPAC'. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) offered the same assessment." (ibid p 301)
Frankly, I don't believe for a moment Sheridan's even read M&W.
As the Australian corporate media's leading Israel advocate, Sheridan never misses an opportunity to burnish Israel's image. Hence we read: "[T]he cables show the weakness, one might even say the hypocrisy, of much Arab politics. The only Middle Eastern leader who seems to talk about Iran in private in exactly the same way as he talks about them in public is Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu."
Typically, he's not interested in why: While polls reveal a majority of Israelis see Iran as a threat and support an attack on it, a majority in the Arab world are favorably disposed toward Iran's nuclear program and see Israel and the US as the primary threat. (2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll) It is understandable, therefore, that while Arab leaders aligned with the US are prepared to sing in private the kind of anti-Iranian tunes they know American diplomats want to hear, mindful that the Arab street is humming a decidedly different tune, they wouldn't dare do so in public. Certainly, none of them seem inclined to join in with Israel's sabre-rattling.
Oh, and speaking of WikiLeaks and a certain all-powerful/ significantly influential/ whatever lobby, how's this for an admission of who really rules the Middle Eastern roost: "Israel has been largely untroubled by the leaks because US views on key Middle East issues are so close to its own." (Outrage, admiration & indifference: Responses on WikiLeaks from world leaders depend on their relationship with the US, Sydney Morning Herald, 11/12/10)
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
USrael's Poodle
WikiLeaks' release of US diplomatic cables has prompted some in the Australian press to reflect on the wisdom of this country's coital lock with the US. This, of course, is welcome. But notice how the wisdom of our coital lock with Israel, evidence of which crops up again and again in these cables, elicits no such reflection:
"[T]he WikiLeaks revelations... raise more important questions about the way Australia conducts its relations with the wider world, and especially with its principal ally, the US, and principal two-way trading partner, China." (Clients act like sycophants. Allies shouldn't: We need mature ties with the US - and leaders to match, Editorial, The Age, 9/12/10)
"Laurie Ferguson... who was dumped as parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs and settlement services told The Weekend Australian the government had overreacted to the WikiLeaks release of secret US documents. He said the information that had been released was crucial to democracy and exposing the truth... 'I think it is important that the world is informed on how intense the Saudis are about Iran's nuclear program and, for instance, that some members of the federal Labor Party caucus are so heavily engaged in briefing another nation'. Mr Ferguson took a veiled swipe at Sports Minister Mark Arbib, saying he was glad it was now well-known that the right-wing Labor frontbencher was a secret source for the US government." (Gillard's left flank revolts over Assange, Patricia Karvelas, The Australian, 11/12/10)
"On occasion, [the US] treats even its allies with disdain. The cables reveal the US forcing Britain to restrict the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. They show it talking Germany out of issuing warrants for the arrest of CIA officers who kidnapped a German citizen and tortured him at length before conceding they had the wrong person. The US, which likes to see itself as the exceptional nation and preaches freedom and democracy across the world, can be remarkably intolerant of anything it sees as threatening its interests. These and other cases put into context why Australian governments so often have asked 'How high?' when the US asks us to jump. Mark Arbib is just the latest in a long line of Labor politicians on the make who see earning brownie points with the Americans as a necessary step on their path to power." (Assange has less to answer for than Clinton, Mike Steketee, The Australian, 11/12/10)
"The idea of partnering the US in a war with China, which comes specifically from Kim Beazley's reported comments*, is the ultimate example of [Australian ministers or prime ministers giving commitments to the US that have been secretly witheld, probably from their own government and certainly from the Parliament]. A war over Taiwan would be an absurdity. The idea that we should participate in such a conflict is unconscionable and totally contrary to Australia's interests and indeed to Australian security. We know Beazley has always had a great affection for the US. There is nothing wrong in that, but when it clouds judgment and submerges our own national interest it becomes dangerous. Australia and the US have many intersts in common, but we are a separate nation with our own national concerns... We need a more coherent and confident sense of ourselves. We don't have to choose between America and China, but America needs to understand that on several issues Australia's national objectives will not coincide with hers. This has been so in the past but over the past 15 to 20 years we have become too compliant, too subservient in the false belief that that would create security for Australia." (Slavish devotion to the US a foreign policy folly for Australia, Malcolm Fraser, The Age, 14/12/10)
Why is it so?
[*Beazley is now Australia's ambassador to the US. A US diplomatic cable reveals that this Labor lickspittle, at the time leader of the opposition, assured US officials in 2006 that Australia would always side with the US in the event of a war with China.]
"[T]he WikiLeaks revelations... raise more important questions about the way Australia conducts its relations with the wider world, and especially with its principal ally, the US, and principal two-way trading partner, China." (Clients act like sycophants. Allies shouldn't: We need mature ties with the US - and leaders to match, Editorial, The Age, 9/12/10)
"Laurie Ferguson... who was dumped as parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs and settlement services told The Weekend Australian the government had overreacted to the WikiLeaks release of secret US documents. He said the information that had been released was crucial to democracy and exposing the truth... 'I think it is important that the world is informed on how intense the Saudis are about Iran's nuclear program and, for instance, that some members of the federal Labor Party caucus are so heavily engaged in briefing another nation'. Mr Ferguson took a veiled swipe at Sports Minister Mark Arbib, saying he was glad it was now well-known that the right-wing Labor frontbencher was a secret source for the US government." (Gillard's left flank revolts over Assange, Patricia Karvelas, The Australian, 11/12/10)
"On occasion, [the US] treats even its allies with disdain. The cables reveal the US forcing Britain to restrict the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. They show it talking Germany out of issuing warrants for the arrest of CIA officers who kidnapped a German citizen and tortured him at length before conceding they had the wrong person. The US, which likes to see itself as the exceptional nation and preaches freedom and democracy across the world, can be remarkably intolerant of anything it sees as threatening its interests. These and other cases put into context why Australian governments so often have asked 'How high?' when the US asks us to jump. Mark Arbib is just the latest in a long line of Labor politicians on the make who see earning brownie points with the Americans as a necessary step on their path to power." (Assange has less to answer for than Clinton, Mike Steketee, The Australian, 11/12/10)
"The idea of partnering the US in a war with China, which comes specifically from Kim Beazley's reported comments*, is the ultimate example of [Australian ministers or prime ministers giving commitments to the US that have been secretly witheld, probably from their own government and certainly from the Parliament]. A war over Taiwan would be an absurdity. The idea that we should participate in such a conflict is unconscionable and totally contrary to Australia's interests and indeed to Australian security. We know Beazley has always had a great affection for the US. There is nothing wrong in that, but when it clouds judgment and submerges our own national interest it becomes dangerous. Australia and the US have many intersts in common, but we are a separate nation with our own national concerns... We need a more coherent and confident sense of ourselves. We don't have to choose between America and China, but America needs to understand that on several issues Australia's national objectives will not coincide with hers. This has been so in the past but over the past 15 to 20 years we have become too compliant, too subservient in the false belief that that would create security for Australia." (Slavish devotion to the US a foreign policy folly for Australia, Malcolm Fraser, The Age, 14/12/10)
Why is it so?
[*Beazley is now Australia's ambassador to the US. A US diplomatic cable reveals that this Labor lickspittle, at the time leader of the opposition, assured US officials in 2006 that Australia would always side with the US in the event of a war with China.]
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
LowyLeaks
Forget WikiLeaks. Too raw. Too unfiltered. Bad for your health, actually. If you really want to know what's going on, try LowyLeaks, aka The Lowy Institute, and allow their (always) senior policy analysts to tell you what only they think you need to know:
"Foreign policy expert Rory Medcalf has called for a considered debate on the impact of the ongoing publishing of classified diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. Mr Medcalf, a senior policy analyst at the Lowy Institute, argues the release of the cables would hurt western diplomacies more than authoritarian nations such as Russia or China. The website is bad for diplomacy and encourages voyeurism, Mr Medcalf said. 'My focus is very much on the consequences', Mr Medcalf told AAP on Tuesday... In an earlier blog posting, he attacked the media for focusing so heavily on the continued publishing of cables, suggesting newspapers were doing it for commercial reasons... If the public really needs to know, then there's... no reason we should not see the original documents." (Consequences of leaks will be bad: expert, Peter Veness, AAP, 14/12/10)
Sorry to be such a voyeur, Rory old chap, but I'm a member of the great unwashed who really, really needs to know - original documents only, of course - what Frank Lowy's "Israeli charities" are, OK?
As in, "The Lowys deny wrongdoing and avoiding tax. They say the funds in the Liechtenstein account were distributed to Israeli charities in 2001 and not to any Lowy family member." (Lowy blasts US tax authorities, Leonie Wood, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/11/10)
"Foreign policy expert Rory Medcalf has called for a considered debate on the impact of the ongoing publishing of classified diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. Mr Medcalf, a senior policy analyst at the Lowy Institute, argues the release of the cables would hurt western diplomacies more than authoritarian nations such as Russia or China. The website is bad for diplomacy and encourages voyeurism, Mr Medcalf said. 'My focus is very much on the consequences', Mr Medcalf told AAP on Tuesday... In an earlier blog posting, he attacked the media for focusing so heavily on the continued publishing of cables, suggesting newspapers were doing it for commercial reasons... If the public really needs to know, then there's... no reason we should not see the original documents." (Consequences of leaks will be bad: expert, Peter Veness, AAP, 14/12/10)
Sorry to be such a voyeur, Rory old chap, but I'm a member of the great unwashed who really, really needs to know - original documents only, of course - what Frank Lowy's "Israeli charities" are, OK?
As in, "The Lowys deny wrongdoing and avoiding tax. They say the funds in the Liechtenstein account were distributed to Israeli charities in 2001 and not to any Lowy family member." (Lowy blasts US tax authorities, Leonie Wood, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/11/10)
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