"NSW Labor is embarking on one of the most ambitious affirmative action programs in its history, with new rules to massively boost the number of women in key roles at the grassroots of the party with the aim of transforming the organisation from the ground up... From July 1, at least 40% of those elected must be women, increasing to 45% in 2022 and 50% in 2027... Acting NSW general-secretary Kaila Murnain said NSW Labor was 'leading the way in encouraging diversity of representation in Parliament, and our historic reforms will ensure our party is more representative at the grassroots level'... Ms Murnain is likely to be elected as general-secretary at the February 13-14 state conference." (50-50 vision: Labor's plan to promote women, Sean Nichols, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/1/16)
Excuse me, comrade, this proposal is simply not good enough as it stands. It needs to reflect Labor's CORE value. So I'm moving the following amendment to remedy this unforgivable deficiency. It can be tacked on the end of your motion:
'And that from July 1, at least 40% of those rambammed must be women, increasing to 45% in 2022 and 50% in 2027.'
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Reviewing the Review
Nicely nailed by reviewer Richard King:
"The first thing you find when you open Anti-Semitism is an errata slip informing you that its author, Frederic Raphael, has mistaken D.H. Lawrence for T.E. Lawrence, Arthur Koestler for Arthur Schnitzler and the figure of 16,000 for 1600 (the number of Jews killed in Jedwabne, Poland, in 1941). This is not a great start; one is entitled to expect a little more care, especially given the gravity of the subject and the brevity with which it is treated here. But none of these confusions, or all of them together, is a patch on the central confusion of this book, which is the equation of determined criticism of Israel with historical anti-Semitism." (The flawed equation at the heart of a timely analysis, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/1/16)
However:
"For while it is undoubtedly true that the miasma of anti-Semitism surrounds much dark talk about the Israel 'lobby', and true too that many liberals and left-wingers are apt to downplay the anti-Semitism extant within the Muslim community..."
So, Richard, some talk about the "Israel 'lobby'" is OK, but not other? Can you give me examples? And why is the word 'lobby' in inverted commas? What's that about?
May I suggest that maybe, if you'd taken the time and trouble to read Mearsheimer & Walt's The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, as every informed person should, I really don't think you'd have used inverted commas in this context.
As for slandering Liberals, Left and Muslims in one fell swoop, I could ask you for chapter & verse on this, but, to take another tack: are you aware that, when all is said and done, for a Zionist, you yourself are actually an anti-Semite? As Chaim Weizmann, who should know a thing or two about Zionism, once declared: "Anti-Semitism... is a bacillus which every Gentile carries with him, wherever he goes and however often he denies it." (Richard Crossman, A Nation Reborn: The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin & Ben-Gurion, 1960, p 21)
"Disproportionate our emphasis on Israel may be..."
Hello? "Our emphasis on Israel"?
What with Zionists blowing their own trumpets on every conceivable occasion when they're not crying anti-Semitism; and the media taking extra-special care not to tread on Israel's toes for fear of coming under Israel lobby pressure (Look, Ma, no inverted commas!) or being smeared as anti-Semitic; and our politicians and journalists, so-called, streaming over to the apartheid state for pro-Israel programming; and Israel routinely testing state-of-the-art weaponry on Palestinian guinea-pigs before exporting it to every conceivable trouble spot around the world; and Israeli-PMs twirling US presidents around their little fingers; and... we're placing a disproportionate emphasis on Israel?!
"Though Raphael is right to say that anti-Semitism and 'anti-Zionism' cannot always be neatly separated..."
No, he's not. He's dead wrong.
Look, it's really not that hard, Richard. If you support the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine, you're a Zionist. If you don't, you're an anti-Zionist. You are either someone who believes that it is right and proper to have a sectarian, ethnocratic state in Palestine, or you aren't.
Richard King btw is the author of a book titled On Offence. I haven't read it, but let me say that if those who make a show of being offended are his subject, and he hasn't got a chapter or two or three on the mob who have made a career out of taking offence at anyone who looks sideways at Israel, aka the Israel lobby, then he needs to do his homework and put out a revised version NOW.
Be that as it may, I'll forgive him for that great intro. above.
As for Frederic Raphael, who, on investigation, turns out to be a novelist and screenwriter, I thought I'd listen to Phillip Adams' interview with the guy (Anti-Semitism then & now, Late Night Live, 26/11/15)
*...*
I heard him [Raphael] say that "Israel has behaved badly," which is based on the incredible assumption that a colonial-settler state which has taken someone else's land, sent its people packing, and refuses them re-entry because it'd mess with the preferred demographic, has the capacity to behave in any other way than badly.
And - *...* - I heard him refer to the "so-called occupied territories."
Without Phillip Adams, who just had to slip in at one point that he was a "philo-Semite," pulling the bugger up, FFS!
"The first thing you find when you open Anti-Semitism is an errata slip informing you that its author, Frederic Raphael, has mistaken D.H. Lawrence for T.E. Lawrence, Arthur Koestler for Arthur Schnitzler and the figure of 16,000 for 1600 (the number of Jews killed in Jedwabne, Poland, in 1941). This is not a great start; one is entitled to expect a little more care, especially given the gravity of the subject and the brevity with which it is treated here. But none of these confusions, or all of them together, is a patch on the central confusion of this book, which is the equation of determined criticism of Israel with historical anti-Semitism." (The flawed equation at the heart of a timely analysis, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/1/16)
However:
"For while it is undoubtedly true that the miasma of anti-Semitism surrounds much dark talk about the Israel 'lobby', and true too that many liberals and left-wingers are apt to downplay the anti-Semitism extant within the Muslim community..."
So, Richard, some talk about the "Israel 'lobby'" is OK, but not other? Can you give me examples? And why is the word 'lobby' in inverted commas? What's that about?
May I suggest that maybe, if you'd taken the time and trouble to read Mearsheimer & Walt's The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, as every informed person should, I really don't think you'd have used inverted commas in this context.
As for slandering Liberals, Left and Muslims in one fell swoop, I could ask you for chapter & verse on this, but, to take another tack: are you aware that, when all is said and done, for a Zionist, you yourself are actually an anti-Semite? As Chaim Weizmann, who should know a thing or two about Zionism, once declared: "Anti-Semitism... is a bacillus which every Gentile carries with him, wherever he goes and however often he denies it." (Richard Crossman, A Nation Reborn: The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin & Ben-Gurion, 1960, p 21)
"Disproportionate our emphasis on Israel may be..."
Hello? "Our emphasis on Israel"?
What with Zionists blowing their own trumpets on every conceivable occasion when they're not crying anti-Semitism; and the media taking extra-special care not to tread on Israel's toes for fear of coming under Israel lobby pressure (Look, Ma, no inverted commas!) or being smeared as anti-Semitic; and our politicians and journalists, so-called, streaming over to the apartheid state for pro-Israel programming; and Israel routinely testing state-of-the-art weaponry on Palestinian guinea-pigs before exporting it to every conceivable trouble spot around the world; and Israeli-PMs twirling US presidents around their little fingers; and... we're placing a disproportionate emphasis on Israel?!
"Though Raphael is right to say that anti-Semitism and 'anti-Zionism' cannot always be neatly separated..."
No, he's not. He's dead wrong.
Look, it's really not that hard, Richard. If you support the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine, you're a Zionist. If you don't, you're an anti-Zionist. You are either someone who believes that it is right and proper to have a sectarian, ethnocratic state in Palestine, or you aren't.
Richard King btw is the author of a book titled On Offence. I haven't read it, but let me say that if those who make a show of being offended are his subject, and he hasn't got a chapter or two or three on the mob who have made a career out of taking offence at anyone who looks sideways at Israel, aka the Israel lobby, then he needs to do his homework and put out a revised version NOW.
Be that as it may, I'll forgive him for that great intro. above.
As for Frederic Raphael, who, on investigation, turns out to be a novelist and screenwriter, I thought I'd listen to Phillip Adams' interview with the guy (Anti-Semitism then & now, Late Night Live, 26/11/15)
*...*
I heard him [Raphael] say that "Israel has behaved badly," which is based on the incredible assumption that a colonial-settler state which has taken someone else's land, sent its people packing, and refuses them re-entry because it'd mess with the preferred demographic, has the capacity to behave in any other way than badly.
And - *...* - I heard him refer to the "so-called occupied territories."
Without Phillip Adams, who just had to slip in at one point that he was a "philo-Semite," pulling the bugger up, FFS!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Go Girl!
Hm... so Jamie Clements, the General-Secretary of NSW Labor, has grown too sexy for his shirt and "his likely replacement" will be Kaila Murnain..." (Love's Labor's loss, Sean Nicholls, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/1/16)
I should bloody well hope so!
After all, as a graduate of the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue's December 2014 Rambam,* Kaila is eminently qualified for this very important position.
[See my 4/1/15 post Recently Rambammed.]
I should bloody well hope so!
After all, as a graduate of the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue's December 2014 Rambam,* Kaila is eminently qualified for this very important position.
[See my 4/1/15 post Recently Rambammed.]
Friday, January 15, 2016
Canterbury Cathedral as 'Contested Shrine'
How would Anglicans feel about Muslims wanting to pray (as Muslims) in Canterbury Cathedral?
How about actual visits to pray there?
How about stepped-up visits?
What if the Western media took to describing Anglican concern/resistance to stepped-up Muslim visits to Canterbury Cathedral as Anglican agitation?
Better still, what if the Western media began referring to Canterbury Cathedral merely as a contested Canterbury shrine?
There'd be an uprising, right?
Muslim blood in the streets?
Fleet Street a smoking ruin?
So how do you think Palestinians feel when they read shit like this:
"... a surge of Palestinian street attacks... fuelled in part by Muslim agitation at stepped-up Jewish visits to a contested Jerusalem shrine..." (Israel slams Swedish minister over inquiry call, Dan Williams, Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 15/1/16)
How about actual visits to pray there?
How about stepped-up visits?
What if the Western media took to describing Anglican concern/resistance to stepped-up Muslim visits to Canterbury Cathedral as Anglican agitation?
Better still, what if the Western media began referring to Canterbury Cathedral merely as a contested Canterbury shrine?
There'd be an uprising, right?
Muslim blood in the streets?
Fleet Street a smoking ruin?
So how do you think Palestinians feel when they read shit like this:
"... a surge of Palestinian street attacks... fuelled in part by Muslim agitation at stepped-up Jewish visits to a contested Jerusalem shrine..." (Israel slams Swedish minister over inquiry call, Dan Williams, Reuters/Sydney Morning Herald, 15/1/16)
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Great Moments in BDS
Ah, religion...
Put to one side for now what it preaches, all that pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die stuff. Let's just focus on the behaviour of believers instead, in this case the Uniting Church:
"Proposal 66 calls upon the assembly [of the Uniting Church] to 'establish an awareness-raising campaign throughout the church on the plight of Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian people, including promotion of the boycott of goods from the illegal settlements in the West Bank as part of the campaign.' However, it stops short of endorsing the formal Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, with the church's Reverend Dr Mathew Wilson telling the AJN, 'We do know that there are significant anti-Semitic problems with the full BDS movement'." (Talks to continue with Uniting Church despite boycott motion, The Australian Jewish News, 8/1/16)
Sweet Jeeesus, will you take a look at that motion?!!
- "the plight of Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian people":
FFS, 'Palestinian Christians' and 'Palestinian people' are separate entities? Seriously?
- Israeli criminality is confined to "illegal settlements in the West Bank"? Really?
Look, ever since Herzl & Co, over a century ago, began coveting Palestine as a 'Jewish state' and turning a blind eye to the people who actually lived there, 90% of whom were non-Jews (not to mention the fact that most of the Jewish 10% at the time were not Jewish-staters), criminality in every sense of the word has been core Zionist praxis. But all the UC can see is "illegal settlements in the West Bank"! What a feat of selective vision is this?
- "We do know that there are significant anti-Semitic problems with the full BDS movement." OFFS!!!!
What a colossal slander is this?! Please, Rev. Dr, thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: do be my enemy for friendship's sake.
Put to one side for now what it preaches, all that pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die stuff. Let's just focus on the behaviour of believers instead, in this case the Uniting Church:
"Proposal 66 calls upon the assembly [of the Uniting Church] to 'establish an awareness-raising campaign throughout the church on the plight of Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian people, including promotion of the boycott of goods from the illegal settlements in the West Bank as part of the campaign.' However, it stops short of endorsing the formal Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, with the church's Reverend Dr Mathew Wilson telling the AJN, 'We do know that there are significant anti-Semitic problems with the full BDS movement'." (Talks to continue with Uniting Church despite boycott motion, The Australian Jewish News, 8/1/16)
Sweet Jeeesus, will you take a look at that motion?!!
- "the plight of Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian people":
FFS, 'Palestinian Christians' and 'Palestinian people' are separate entities? Seriously?
- Israeli criminality is confined to "illegal settlements in the West Bank"? Really?
Look, ever since Herzl & Co, over a century ago, began coveting Palestine as a 'Jewish state' and turning a blind eye to the people who actually lived there, 90% of whom were non-Jews (not to mention the fact that most of the Jewish 10% at the time were not Jewish-staters), criminality in every sense of the word has been core Zionist praxis. But all the UC can see is "illegal settlements in the West Bank"! What a feat of selective vision is this?
- "We do know that there are significant anti-Semitic problems with the full BDS movement." OFFS!!!!
What a colossal slander is this?! Please, Rev. Dr, thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: do be my enemy for friendship's sake.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Tweet of the Day
Iranian protesters burned the Saudi embassy in Tehran & 5 Arab countries severed their ties with Iran. The IDF have burned Gaza over and over again, yet Arab countries maintain and expand their peaceful relations with Israel. Go figure. (Expanded tweet of Abo Maryam)
Monday, January 11, 2016
A Tissue of Lies
When the whole of your politics is based on a lie - that Palestine is 'Israel' and belongs to every single Jew on the planet, but not its indigenous Palestinian Arab owners, and that 'truth' is a matter of saying whatever it takes to advance your goal of Jews IN, Palestinians OUT - then spats like the following take on their proper proportion:
"Former US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk lied twice about a supposed conversation he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the funeral of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, a Prime minister's Office official said this week. The spat involving Indyk began following the airing of a PBS 'Frontline' program about Netanyahu on Jan. 5. In an interview for the program, Indyk referred to a conversation he claimed he had with Netanyahu at Rabin's funeral... At the time, Indyk was the US ambassador to Israel and Netanyahu was the Likud party leader as well as head of the Israeli opposition. Indyk told PBS... I remember Netanyahu saying to me: 'Look, look at this. He's a hero now, but if he had not been assassinated, I would have beaten him in the elections, and then he would have gone into history as a failed politician.' In response to that comment, the Prime Minister's Office issued a blanket denial on Wednesday, saying the conversation described by Indyk 'never happened'." (Prime Minister's office: Martin Indyk fabricated conversation with Netanyahu, jwire.com.au, 8/1/16
"Former US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk lied twice about a supposed conversation he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the funeral of assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, a Prime minister's Office official said this week. The spat involving Indyk began following the airing of a PBS 'Frontline' program about Netanyahu on Jan. 5. In an interview for the program, Indyk referred to a conversation he claimed he had with Netanyahu at Rabin's funeral... At the time, Indyk was the US ambassador to Israel and Netanyahu was the Likud party leader as well as head of the Israeli opposition. Indyk told PBS... I remember Netanyahu saying to me: 'Look, look at this. He's a hero now, but if he had not been assassinated, I would have beaten him in the elections, and then he would have gone into history as a failed politician.' In response to that comment, the Prime Minister's Office issued a blanket denial on Wednesday, saying the conversation described by Indyk 'never happened'." (Prime Minister's office: Martin Indyk fabricated conversation with Netanyahu, jwire.com.au, 8/1/16
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