Gullible's Travels

Is there no end to the goings and comings of the rambammed? Or to their wide-eyed credulity?

Australia's answer to Britain's Colonel Kemp,* retired major-general Jim Molan, mastermind of Operation Fury (Fallujah 2004), defender of Operation Cast Lead (Gaza 2009), architect of Operation Sovereign Borders (Australia), and all-round advocate of smiting them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, has just returned from Israel with a thumbs-up for Israel's Operation Protective Edge (Gaza 2014) in the Australian.

For sheer simple-mindedness, the opening paragraphs of his Israel trod carefully in Gaza war (10/6/15) are hard to beat.

"We sat in the Israeli kibbutz 800m from the closest Gaza Strip building. Four Israeli women told stories of life during operation Protective Edge, the 50-day conflict last year between Israel and Hamas, of the rain of rockets and mortars, 15 seconds warning, days in shelters and of a four-year-old child killed by shrapnel.

"The rockets impacted on every aspect of life but the effect of finding one of the many sophisticated tunnels dug over several years at the very door of the kibbutz for Hamas fighters to kill civilians more precisely and personally [???!!!] was an even greater shock. 'It is not the people of Gaza,' the woman said still visibly disturbed. 'It is Hamas. We are of the Left of Israeli politics and want peace so much. The sound of our planes flying overhead to bomb Gaza challenged every belief I have. But we will not live with terror. Before Hamas we had Palestinian friends in Gaza and we care for those people, it is not their fault. Perhaps we will be friends again one day.'

"Having spent a week in Israel courtesy of a pro-Israel organisation, I found myself saying rather gratuitously: 'As a foreigner with only a week in Israel, I say that your military truly reflects your care for the people of Gaza.' I meant well, knowing that perhaps 2,200 Gazans died of all causes [???!!!] in the latest clash, but she turned on me, saying: 'Of course they do. They reflect our values. They are our sons'."

We are of the Left of Israeli politics and want peace so much...

The sound of our planes flying overhead to bomb Gaza challenged every belief I have...

Perhaps we will be friends again...

Your care for the people of Gaza...

They are our sons...

Can you believe this nonsense?

I bet it was high fives all round for the ladies once Molan had gone. 

[*See my 17/4/15 post The Trouble With Colonel Kemp.]

Is AIJAC Getting Its Money's Worth?

Sarah Ferguson: How do you account for [the Israel lobby] wielding so much power?
Bob Carr: I think political donations and a program of giving trips to MPs and journalists to Israel.

Yet another rambamming of LibLabs took place last month, courtesy of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council's (AIJAC) Rambam Israel Fellowship Program. Those who just couldn't resist this time were: Mal Brough (Lib MP for Fisher), Andrew Leigh (shadow assistant treasurer), Dean Smith (WA Lib senator), Bridget McKenzie (Vic Nat senator), Joanne Ryan (Lab MP for Lalor) and Sean Edwards (SA Lib senator).

For those of you who wish to know:

a) whether the Australian taxpayer and/or AIJAC is/are really getting his/her/its money's worth;

b) the heretofore unrevealed fact that some of our pollies are managing to exercise a degree of self control when the AIJAC operatives come knocking; and

c) some of the hilarious utterances of those under the influence

... read on:

Mal Brough was apparently so overcome by his trip ("illuminating and sobering") that he felt compelled to address federal parliament on the subject. In fact, to my knowledge this is the first time a rambammed pollie has held forth on the subject of his rambamming in parliament:

"For the Prime Minister... of Israel, the reality is that you have literally 15 seconds between receiving a warning and missiles landing in Beersheba, a place known so well to many Australians." (Mal Brough's visit to Israel, jwire.com.au, 28/5/15)

This carefully-crafted sound-bite, so familiar to all of the other rambammed slumbering in the chamber at the time, was obviously still in the 'gee whiz' category for Mal. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to occur to him to enquire, in the manner of the late, great Julius Sumner Miller, Why is it so?

"I defy anyone to come up with a comment by an Israeli official that they wish to obliterate the Arab world, that they wish to destroy the Palestinian people, that they wish to attack Iran, that they wish to take out those forces in Lebanon just for the sake of it... Those words do not exist... But sadly, there are Persians and Arabs who actually believe that no Israeli, no Jew, has the right to be in the nation of Israel."  (ibid)

(Mal, of course, is not in the least concerned with the 1 million Palestinians who were actually wiped off the map of Palestine when it was re-branded 'Israel' in 1948, or with those Zionist ultras who are, even as we speak, sharpening their knives in preparation for the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestine's remnant Arab population still to come...)

Those words do not exist? Oh, really? Let's see:

Here's Israel's genocidal Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, on the Palestinian people last year:

"The Palestinian people is the enemy... its women, its cities, its villages, its property and infrastructure... Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women... they are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads..." (See my 3/6/15 post Meet Israel's Charming New Justice Minister)

Here's Israel's Defence Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, last month on Iran:

"I remember the story of President Truman who was asked, How did you feel after deciding to launch the nuclear bombs, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, causing... 200,000 casualties? And he said, When I heard from my officers that the alternative was a long war with Japan... I thought it was a moral decision... That's what I'm talking about. Certain steps in cases in which we feel we don't have the answer by surgical operations, or something like that."

Here's Israel's Transport Minister, Yisrael Katz last year on Lebanon:

"If such a scenario does materialize, we will raze Lebanon to the ground. We will return it to the Stone Age."

Here's Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, in 2008 on Gaza:

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger Shoah."

Here's Israel's Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit in 2008 on Gaza:

"Any other country would have gone in and leveled the area, which is exactly what I think the IDF should do."

In fact, Mal was so inspired by his rambamming that he actually admonished his fellow MPs:

"I think it behoves those who have declined the opportunity to travel to Israel and learn about it to now do so and open their minds in relation to some attitudes which they hold dear which they may find confronting when they are confronted by the facts."

Thanks to Mal we now know that which we knew not before, namely that there are still some curmudgeons in federal parliament declining the Israel lobby's invitation to be 'illuminated and sobered'.

As for the other rambammed, this was about as good as it got:

Andrew Leigh:

"One of the best running tracks I've ever enjoyed - a 5k stretch of train track in Jerusalem that's been boarded over." (Tweet 3/5/15)

Dean Smith:

"This morning I visited the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, later today I head to Bethlehem as part of the AIJAC delegation." (Tweet, 3/5/15)

"Today in Israel I am travelling to Ramallah to meet Palestinian representatives, then to the Knesset before arriving in Tel Aviv." (Tweet, 4/5/15)

"In Tel Aviv today, soon to meet IDF at Gaza Erez, then to the Park of the Australian Soldier at Be'er Sheva." (Tweet, 5/5/15)

"This morning I am flying from Tel Aviv to the border with Lebanon, then to the northern Israeli town of Safed." (Tweet, 6/5/15)

Bridget McKenzie: Not even a tweet!

Joanne Ryan: Ditto!

AIJAC had more luck in Sean Edwards, who retweeted: 

"?@AIJAC Update Jun 3 @MalBrough MP & Sen @SeanC Edwards recently joined AIJAC in Sydney to report on their Ramban [sic] study visit to #Israel"

(So only Brough and Edwards fronted the AIJAC report-back. Is AIJAC getting enough bang from its propaganda buck here? The silence from Leigh, McKenzie and Ryan must have been DEAFENING for them.)

Like Mal, Sean too felt compelled to share his 'insights', albeit in the Spectator magazine of June 6, under the heading Australian diary. Some highlights:

"There would be few vocations bearing less fruit than that of official Israeli government negotiator. Another Australian, whose name I won't impart, he speaks about negotiating in a region where a 'win-win' outcome has an altogether different meaning than yours and mine. You see, in the Middle East 'win-win' means 'I win twice'. His pragmatism is evident when he concedes parts of Jerusalem might need to be turned over to international custody, but the problem the negotiator and his countrymen face and that no level of pragmatism will negate is that no Palestinian leader wants to be remembered as the guy who struck peace with the Jews."

OK, so now you know why there's no peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it's the latter's fault! Anti-Semitic bastards!

"Ramallah. A leader of the Palestinian opposition, Mustafa Barghouti, meets us here. 650,000 illegal settlers and 625 military checkpoints dotted along the wall, he says."

How boring these facts when compared with those snappy Israeli talking points and sound bites! Anyway, when it came to Israeli settlements, Sean had already been immunised:

"The Gush Etzion settlement shares one thing in common with all of the other settlements. 'There's a reason they're all on the high ground,' offers a former military officer... Controversial they are but the Israelis haven't added a single new one in more than a decade and they would surrender many of them under a negotiated peace plan."

(Predictably, Sean hadn't heard of Netanyahu's pre-election promise not to evacuate any settlements.)

Barghouti may as well have been talking to... the Apartheid Wall. Just why he, and others like him, allow themselves to be used in these propaganda exercises is one of life's little mysteries. Certainly, Sean's contempt for Barghouti is evident: "Old men, old prejudices, old parties. Depressing."

"I join Dave Sharma and his family in Tel Aviv for drinks and seek his counsel on many of the things I've heard from generally partisan sources. He's Australia's youngest ever ambassador and an excellent sounding board."

Partisan sources? Sean couldn't possibly mean the Israelis now, could he? Anyway, I'm sure that Israel's Australia's man in Tel Aviv set him straight.

"Next day, at Ziv Hospital in Israel's north, another Australian; a pediatrician spending his days fixing Syrians from the civil war [?!]. An investment in hearts and minds that will pay off when his patients stop to consider, despite the fashionable hatred for the Jews, who helped them when they needed it."

Ah, good old Ziv Hospital! Could Sean have consulted Dave re those vicious rumours that Ziv is the propaganda facade behind which Israel is aiding and abetting the salafi/takfiri aggression against Bashar al-Asad? (See my 12/12/14 post, A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges.)

Now how's this for an admission:

"In a sense the tour didn't teach me anything I didn't already know: after two thousand years in limbo, these people now have their land and will give it up for no one."

WTF! Don't tell me that this bloke's been imbibing Zionist Kool-Aid along with his Clare Valley Shiraz for yonks, and really only went along for the ride! Seriously now, AIJAC...

That Food on the Stove

"I do completely agree that to turn falafel to something that is considered Israeli food is just totally wrong." - Yotam Ottolenghi, quoted in Yotam Ottolenghi & the authors of 'The Gaza Kitchen' discuss food, conflict, culture, bonappetit.com, 27/3/13)

Damn right, Yotam. Just like turning Palestine into something called Israel.

But I digress:

"When Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their villages and homes in 1948, many left with little more than the clothes on their back. Food was left on the stove. Crops were left unharvested. But the land emptied of its inhabitants was soon occupied by new residents.

"From 1948 to 1953, almost all new Jewish settlements were established on refugees' property... During these early years, many Palestinian refugees attempted to return to their lands. By 1956, as many as 5,000 so-called 'infiltrators' had been killed by Israeli armed forces...

"The Nakba in 1948 was the settler colonial conquest of land and the displacement of its owners, a dual act of erasure and appropriation. Citing 'reasons of state', Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion appointed a Negev Names Committee to remove Arabic names from the map...

"But it did not stop with dynamite and new maps. The Zionist colonisation of Palestine has also included culture, notably cuisine. This is the context for the so-called 'hummus wars': it is not about petty claims and counterclaims, rather, the story is one of colonial, cultural appropration and resistance to those attempts.

"In the decades since the establishment of the State of Israel on the ruins and ethnically cleansed lands of Palestine, various elements of the indigenous cuisine have been targeted for appropriation: falafel, knafeh, sahlab and, of course, hummus. Though these dishes are common to a number of communities across the Mediterranean and Middle East, Israel claims them as its own: falafel is the 'national snack', while hummus, according to Israeli food writer Janna Gur, is 'a religion'." (Israel's obsession with hummus is about more than stealing Palestine's food, Ben White, thenational.ae, 23/5/15)

Israeli appropriation of Palestinian cuisine, of course, is only the most recent manifestation of Zionist theft in Palestine, and one designed to facilitate the fictional claim to somehow being native (give or take 2 millennia) to the area.

It should never be forgotten that back when the Zionist movement was still establishing itself in Palestine under the protection of British guns (1918-48), Zionists settlers wouldn't be seen dead eating falafel, hummus and the rest. Check out this little propaganda gem from 1935: 

"Four years ago, there were no cafes in Palestine except for a few Arab cafes or restaurants in the older sections of the town, where, in their picturesque garb, they squatted on the floors smoking narghillas. These older places have been replaced by more up-to-date Jewish cafes where modernly dressed Orientals and Christians patronize these places amid light and cleanliness, unknown in the old regime, where orchestras entertain the guests, with high class foods and drinks.

"The most popular cafe in Jerusalem is known as The Vienna, where the elite of the community and other well-known personages are to be found among the guests. The Europa is a much larger and much gayer place than the Vienna. There, the audiences are more cosmopolitan and there is dancing and other amusements for the guests. Many Arabs go to the Europa. There are many other smaller places, among them the Machnes Yehudah which caters specially to the Oriental Jews." (Palestine's night life goes modern! High class, modern cafes and restaurants now offer good food, drinks, music!, M.L. Avner, The American Jewish Outlook, 13/9/35)

Danby's Guide to Australian Politics

The Australian has just discovered Greens leader Richard Di Natale's 'clarification' that, while he supports the existence of Israel as a state - in the context of a two-state solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict - that doesn't necessarily mean he supports its existence as a Jewish state for Jews everywhere. (See my earlier posts on this subject.)

IOW, Di Natale doesn't support the central Zionist thesis that 'Israel' belongs not only to those Jews who happen to live there now but to all Jews, including the usual Zionist zealots quoted by Christian Kerr in his report Di Natale 'caved in' to Israel extortionists (5/6/15).

One of those was Labor's 'Minister for Israel', Michael Danby MP, who was reported as saying that:

"... the episode undermined 'the image of moderation that the Greens... is so desperate to cultivate.' He said other parties would be 'excoriated' over such a reversal."

Just think about that for a moment.

In effect, what Danby is saying is that anyone who seriously believes that he, Michael Danby, is really an Israeli is a political moderate.

But anyone who thinks he's just an Australian, no more, no less, is a howling political extremist and deserves to be "excoriated."

Right...

Factchecking David Kilcullen

I was listening recently to Islamic State & global terrorism: where to now? (1/6/15) on Radio National's Big Ideas program.

Presenter Paul Barclay was interviewing David Kilcullen, introduced as "a former Australian army colonel, with a PhD in insurgency movements. He has been a counterterrorist adviser to the US and worked closely with Iraq War supremo, General David Petraeus, and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Kilcullen is critical of many aspects of the West's strategy, post 9/11, which, he argues, led to the rise of Islamic State. He warns the global terrorist threat is now the new normal. So how do we defeat ISIS?"

Nothing special. Just another of those bland, softball ABC interviews with a reliably safe subject who'll possibly go on, like other 'clanking colonels' before him, Mike Kelly (Lab) and Andrew Nikolic (Lib), to become a celebrity candidate for one or the other party. Parachuted into a safe seat would seem appropriate here.

Still, at least Kilcullen did get around to stating the bleeding obvious, namely that, "If we hadn't invaded Iraq, there wouldn't be any ISIS today."

Anyway, somewhere towards the end of the show, the interview took a somewhat more interesting turn, for me at least, when Kilcullen mentioned Israel.

He had just been telling us that the West needed to get serious about ISIS, by which he meant eliminating it. At which point Barclay wondered whether the US might not be feeling a tad war weary these days. (The US war weary? We wish!)

Kilcullen responded by asserting that, unfortunately, the price you pay for isolationism is a police state, or words to that effect. Presumably, he meant that if we didn't get stuck into ISIS over there, ISIS would be stuck into us over here. He went on:

If anyone's ever been to Israel - I have not, but I've heard from people who have, that very domestic security stuff is the price you pay for taking...

Paul Barclay: Well, you destroy democracy in order to save it.

David Kilcullen: Exactly.

Damn! I wish Barclay had let Kilcullen finish his bloody sentence, so that I don't have to infer what he was going to say. Anyway, what I imagine Kilcullen PhD meant was that poor little Israel is so menaced by Palestinian baddies that it has no choice but to erect walls and barriers and checkpoints, and flood the streets with security personnel and troops, otherwise... KABOOM!

IOW, if I've got him right, Kilcullen PhD seriously has no idea just who is menacing who in ISRAELI-OCCUPIED Palestine. Extraordinary!

And then you've got Barclay (described on RN's website as "a Walkley Award-winning journalist and broadcaster with an appetite for ideas and in-depth analysis and discussion," and is 53-years old to boot - no spring chicken in other words) invoking the word "democracy" in relation to Israel and not even hinting that what may superficially resemble a police state in Israel is actually the wherewithal needed to keep a COLONISED and OCCUPIED people down.

Anyway, Barclay continued along these lines:

I used to host a national talkback program on Radio National during the very hot period after 9/11 and you get a lot of free advice on how to deal with the global terrorist threat... and the view that I got from many, many people was that if we just gave the Palestinians back their land, let them have their own state, if America stopped roaming around the world as if it owned the place, and if you treated Muslims and their culture with the respect they deserved [we wouldn't have a problem]. What is your answer to that?

DK: First answer is to quote Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, who was asked this very question: 'What can we do that's gonna change your calculus?' And he said, 'We are not fighting so you will offer us something, we are fighting to destroy you.' Yes, there are probably people out there who you could deal with but there's still a very hard core of people who are not about some kind of deal with the West and if we just change our behaviour this can all end. These [people] are about totally redefining all human beings on the planet. So there's this element out there that's...

PB: And they're the people you say we need to annihilate?

DK: Their ability to function as a state, yes, not kill every last one.

Now if we just stop there. Kilcullen PhD has just broadcast to the planet that Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah is coming to get us. Seriously.

Google that quote about "...we are fighting to destroy you," and you find it's attributed not to Hezbollah's current secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, but to a dude (a word Kilcullen loves to toss around) by the name of Hussein Musawi. You also find that the word 'destroy' is replaced by 'eliminate'.

The 'Massawi' quote can be found, for example, in such fear-mongering Islamophobic rants as America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006) by Mark Steyn (p 151), and Citizen-Soldier Handbook: 101 Ways Every American Can Fight Terrorism (2009) by Michael Mandaville (p 6). It is in the nature of these things, of course, that no citation or context is supplied, just the same old sentence endlessly recycled.

And what do you know? It even pops up in Kilcullen PhD's own book, Counterinsurgency (2010), followed merely by this: "Hussein Massawi, Hezbollah (2003)."  (p 167)

So who is Hussein Mussawi? In Steyn and Mandaville he's described as "the former leader of Hezbollah."

But look him up in some reputable tome on the subject of Hezbollah and you'll find as follows:

Hezbollah: Born With a Vengeance (1997), Hala Jaber:

"Islamic Amal had been started by Hussein Musawi in 1982, following Nabih Berri's political stance towards the Israeli invasion. Musawi was one of the few visible radicals in the early 80s. He was one of the many militants who held America responsible for encouraging and allowing Israel to invade and occupy Lebanon. His continuous denunciations of the West and his close relations with Iranian radicals made him a prime suspect during the West's desperate search for the names behind the new, invisible Islamic phenomenon." (pp 53-4)

In the Path of Hizbullah (2004), Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh:

Hussein Mussawi is mentioned merely as the leader of Islamic Amal.

Hizbullah: The Story From Within (2005), Naim Qassem:

No mention.

Hezbollah: A Short History (2007), Augustus Richard Norton:

No mention.

IOW, Hussein Mussawi is not a leader of Hezbollah

Interestingly, if you consult Kilcullen PhD's own book, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (2009), this is what you get on Hezbollah:

"Hizballah, as a Shi'a organization that embodies elements of terrorist, insurgent, propaganda,charity, and social work, with a global reach [WTF?!], profound political influence in the Levant, and a client-proxy relationship with the Iranian regime, is a non-state instance of expanding Shi'a influence." (p 18)

There's no mention whatever here of Hezbollah's primary characteristic, namely that it is a Lebanese resistance movement born in response to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Mind you, he's quite capable of describing East Timor's FRETILIN, which fought a guerilla war against Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1975 to 1999, as a resistance organisation (p 208). But Hezbollah? Forget it. How could anyone possibly resist an Israeli invasion and occupation?

Kilcullen PhD resumes:

And the second is this bar fight analogy. So the situation we're in is George Bush walks into a bar and punches a bunch of people and starts a big bar fight and then hands it over to Obama who sits quietly on his bar stool, and maybe that's a great solution if you haven't already punched a bunch of guys and started a bar fight, but now we're in this fight so you gotta deal with it.

The Anglo-US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a bar fight? Seriously? What nonsense, it was a bloody home invasion!

Meet Israel's Charming New Justice Minister

Hi, Ayelet Shaked here. I'm Israel's BRAND SPANKING NEW (5/15) justice minister. Welcome to my FB page.

Let me introduce myself: I'm 39-years-young, a software engineer by training, my party is 'Jewish Home', and my hero is Yitzhak Shamir. And I like Israel. No, just joking. I love Israel! XOXOXO

What I hate is... Palestinians. They really suck! You see:

"The Palestinian people have declared war on us, and so we must respond with war.

"No, no, no, not just another operation... no destruction of terror infrastructure, no targeted killings, none of that nonsense. Enough already with the oblique references, OK?

This is a war. Know WTF that means, war?

"No, no, no, not a war against terror, or against extremists, and certainly not a war against the Palestinian Authority...

"No, this is a war between two people.

"And the enemy is? You guessed it: The PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!

"And why are they the enemy? Hell's bells, don't ask me, ask them! They started it, OK?

"Shit, I just don't understand why it's so damn hard to speak plainly about these things. Why do we have to make up a new name for this war against the Palestinian people every other week? Why is everyone so horrified when it comes to understanding that the Palestinian people, every last one of them, is the enemy?

"For G-d's sake, every war is a war between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, every single one, is the enemy, OK?

"So declaring war's no war crime. Nor is responding with war. Nor is using the word war. Nor is clearly defining who the enemy is. On the contrary, the morality of war, is based on the assumption that there are wars, that war is not normal, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, its elderly, its women, its cities, its villages, its property and its infrastructure...

"Look, behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads, and this includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons. Nothing could be more just than that! Yeah, and the same for the homes in which they raised those snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there."*

[*My ever-so-slightly tweaked translation of a posting - since deleted - on Ayelet Shaked's FB page. See Israeli lawmaker's call for genocide of Palestinians gets thousands of Facebook likes, electronicintifada, 7/7/14.]

Zionism's Long March Through the Institutions

Remember Rudi Dutschke's idea of a leftist 'long march through the institutions of power', aimed at achieving cultural hegemony or dominance in society? In relation to 'the Left' you'll probably only come across the expression these days in the anti-Left rantings of the likes of Gerard Henderson (or Gerard (Gollum) Henderson as Mike Carlton so felicitously calls him).

That doesn't, of course, mean that there is no long march through the institutions going on out there. How else, for example, to describe Zionism's penetration of our parliaments, both federal and state, through the formation of Parliamentary Friends of Israel groups? These currently exist in federal parliament, and in the NSW, Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian parliaments.

Now we have this:

"The Queensland Parliamentary Friends of Israel met last week for the first time since the election of the new Labor government. More than 20 members attended from both major political parties, including opposition leader Lawrence Springborg... [Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies (QJBD) president Jason] Steinberg... said an Israel study tour... was [a] possibility going forward. 'That's definitely the plan, obviously tying in with AIJAC [Rambam] and other similar programs,' he said." (Qld pollies unite for Israel, The Australian Jewish News, 29/5/15)

QPFOI seems to have been formed last year during the inglorious, one-term reign of Campbell Newman.

For the record, some of the other names mentioned in the AJN's report on the parliamentary side are Steve Minnikin (National MP for Chatsworth) and Linus Power (Labor MP for Logan). On the Zionist side, there's - *sigh* - Vic (I Get Around) Alhadeff (NSW Jewish Board of Deputies).

These PFOI groups would certainly make an interesting subject for a thesis by some Palestine/Israel savvy political science student out there.