"The thing about Murdoch is that he very rarely issued directives or instructions to his senior executives or editors. Instead, by way of discussion he would make known his personal viewpoint on a certain matter. What was expected in return, at least from those seeking tenure of any length in the Murdoch Empire, was a sort of 'anticipatory compliance'. One didn't need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one's long-term interests." (Rupert's Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife, Bruce Dover, 2008, p 149)
Anticipatory compliance (or self-censorship) is a reflex all too familiar to those in the mainstream media who write about the Palestine/Israel conflict. Apart from those at News Limited who actually believe their own pro-Israel propaganda, whenever the subject of Israel's decades-long abuse of the Palestinian people arises, editors and journalists will do what they do in the certain knowledge that, should they breach the red lines laid down by Israel lobby spinmeisters, there will be consequences: angry phone calls, letters, emails, even meetings with management. Is this kind of heat worth it? they'll be asking themselves. Punches will be pulled and difficult questions avoided. The result will be that our understanding of the underlying dynamics of the conflict will be compromised. We'll relegate it to the too-hard basket and concentrate instead on other, clearer, safer crimes, such as Tibet and Zimbabwe. And the relentless, bloody process of wiping Palestine off the map, Palestinian by Palestinian, dunum by dunam, begun in earnest by the Zionist movement in 1948, will continue apace.
Veteran BBC journalist Tim Llewellyn put it thus: "This [unconscious pro-Israel bias] is also evident in insidious self-censorship, in which a reporter senses a way of pre-empting the anxiety of his bosses or the ire of the Israelis or both by crafting his story in a bland and therefore misleading manner: 'Land which the Palestinians say is occupied...'; 'disputed' instead of 'occupied' territories, a phrase that still crops up on the BBC, though the circumlocution is legally and morally indefensible; the misrepresentation of the numbers of Jewish settlers on the West Bank and in Jerusalem; the failure to get into the public British consciousness the nature of the vast Separation and Enclosure Wall Israel is building around and into Palestinian territory, dividing and isolating its people and further damaging their already enfeebled economy. This is still called by the BBC 'a security barrier', conjuring up in the viewer's or listener's mind the image of a temporary structure the local police might put up to fence off a crime scene or to deter football hooligans." (Introduction to Publish It Not: The Middle East cover-Up, Christopher Mayhew & Michael Adams, 2006)
A text book example of anticipatory compliance cropped up in The Australian of 26/4/08:-
Sian Powell's Gaza power play was a feature article on the staging (Belvoir St Theatre, May 14) of the play My Name is Rachel Corrie. Its eponymous subject was callously murdered by an Israeli army bulldozer driver in 2003 while trying to protect, along with fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian home from demolition.
Right at the outset Powell feels compelled to play the faux balancing game: "Playwright Harold Pinter, among others, wrote to defend the play, while a website called Rachel Corrie Facts has been set up to correct the work's 'factual errors and myths'." Not even the qualifier 'alleged' is allowed to intrude on the fiction that RCF is anything more than just another tiresome pro-Israel propaganda site out to sow confusion. "The play has dipped into that most prickly subject," Powell writes, "Middle Eastern politics. Corrie drew derision and admiration during her short life: the play has had the same effect." "Derision" - whose derision? Powell dare not spell it out. The illusion that Corrie's detractors may have had a genuine reason for objecting to the play, as opposed to an axe to grind, is thus created. The play "is sure to draw fire," she adds.
But that's just for starters. Powell quotes an almost apologetic Shannon Murphy, director of the Sydney production: "I actually think it's been blown out of proportion... It's more a coming-of-age story." Although Murphy is described as being "so taken with the play," Powell says this is because it is "a play rather than as a political polemic."
In her gloss on Corrie's life, Powell notes that "as a college student she joined the International Solidarity Movement," parenthetically adding the words "dubbed a pro-Palestinian front." The identity and motives of the dubbers is left to the reader's imagination. Whoever they are, Powell must placate them. The vital and heroic work of the ISM is ignored and its integrity impugned.
She quotes Corrie, mere days before her death, saying, "I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive... Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realise there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with." But this chilling insight into the dark heart of the matter is subverted when Powell goes on to quote Murphy (still in apologetic mode): "'Up until she died she was still trying to grasp what was happening between the Israelis and the Palestinians'... adding that Corrie was angrier with US foreign policy than she was with Israel." (But of course, who in their right mind could possibly blame Israel?)
"Trying to grasp what was happening between the Israelis and the Palestinians"? Really? Corrie knew exactly what was happening. A military machine, the IDF, Jabotinsky's implacable "iron wall of Jewish bayonets," was all around her, destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods on a daily basis, and had been since 1947-8. To suggest that Corrie wasn't quite up to speed on this is either not to understand her words - or else an exercise in anticipatory compliance.
Powell can't even concede that Corrie was murdered: "She was killed in hotly disputed circumstances. It is certain, though, that Corrie was trying to prevent an armoured Israeli D9 bulldozer from working in Rafah... where she believed Palestinian houses were at risk. She was killed either by the bulldozer's blade or by rubble and debris moved by the machine."
So Corrie's death was an accident! An Israeli bulldozer (no human agency is indicated) was quietly working away minding its own business when Corrie, who only "believed" that some houses (whose houses?) were at risk, simply got in the way. Now where could she have gotten the idea that Palestinian homes were at risk? She couldn't possibly have gone to Gaza knowing that over 3,000 Palestinian homes had been toppled in the previous 2 years, or to Rafah knowing that the Israelis were busy bulldozing a 400m corridor separating Gaza and Egypt through people's homes, now could she? Let us hope that the silly girl didn't traumatise the poor driver too much.
And anyway, "an Israeli Defence Force investigation found that Corrie had not been run over by the dozer and that the driver probably had not been able to see her." Well, that's that then. End of story. The Israelis wouldn't lie now, would they? And this in spite of Powell's earlier claim that the circumstances of her death were"hotly disputed."
As if that wasn't enough to keep the Zionist media pack from the door, "Murphy believes Corrie's death was accidental... 'She slipped and she was trying to scramble up, and it crushed her. It was an accident... No charges have been laid, that's for sure'." This, if correctly reported, is bizarre. Here we have Murphy, described as "so taken" with the play and Corrie's story, apparently unaware of the eyewitness testimony of Corrie's fellow activist, Joe Smith: "Rachel [dressed incidentally in a bright orange jacket with reflective stripes] was kneeling 20 metres in front of the bulldozer on flat ground. There was no way she could not have been seen. We only maintain positions that are clearly visible. She had been doing this all day but this time the driver did not stop. Once she had fallen under the bulldozer, the driver stopped when she was under its middle section and reversed." (Israeli report clears troops over US death, The Guardian, 14/4/03)
Unaware too, it seems, of the words of ISM spokesman, Tom Wallace: "The conclusions are outrageous. If they found that the driver was not culpable what did they find to explain this? How could they find a driver who had run someone over in a slow and deliberate manner in no way responsible?" (TG, 14/4/03)
Anticipatory compliance. Anything to avoid drawing fire from you-know-who.
Rachel Corrie knew exactly what was going on around her and could have had no illusions whatever about the dangers of standing up to the uniformed thugs of the IDF. Whether shooting, shelling, firing missiles or bulldozing, she would have known that the Israeli military is committed to one thing and one thing only - the ethnic cleansing of Palestine - and that nobody, not even a white American woman, would be allowed to stand between it and its historic mission. Rachel Corrie may have been born in the US, but she was murdered in Palestine as a Palestinian.
The psychopathological mindset she was up against becomes clear when one reads the testimony of Moshe Nissim, the driver of one of the bulldozers that flattened the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002: "Do you know how I held out for 75 hours? I didn't get off the tractor. I had no problem of fatigue, because I drink whisky all the time. I had a bottle in the tractor at all times... For 75 hours I didn't think about my life at home, about all the problems. Everything was erased. Sometimes images of terror attacks in Jerusalem crossed my mind. I witnessed some of them. For 3 days, I just destroyed and destroyed. The whole area. Any house that they fired from came down. And to knock it down, I tore down some more. They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I come, but I gave no one a chance. I didn't wait. I didn't give one blow, and wait for them to come out. I would just ram the house with full power, to bring it down as fast as possible. I wanted to get to the other houses. To get as many as possible... Others may have restrained themselves, or so they say. Who are they kidding?...I didn't give a damn about the Palestinians, but I didn't just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders." (Quoted in Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, Tanya Reinhart, 2003, pp 163-164)
It's time the media - and the rest of us - stood up to the Israel lobby's bulldozing of honest reporting and freedom of expression. Acts of anticipatory compliance only reward the bully and diminish us as human beings. Rachel Corrie's courage, and that of her fellow activists in the ISM, is an example to us all.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Light Relief
Maiden, n. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Clewless conduct: "Peaches Geldof [18] has been accused of leaving a trendy London boutique without paying for a dress with a $1100 price tag... In October 2006 Peaches, the daughter of Bob Geldof, was stopped at London clothes shop Urban Outfitters, on suspicion of shoplifting a coat." (Peaches in 'dress mix-up', The Sunday Telegraph, 20/4/08)
and views that madden to crime: "During our conversation, it becomes clear that Peaches [16] admires few grown-ups... But she reserves her harshest judgement for Mike Moore, the documentary-maker behind the anti-George Bush film Fahrenheit 9/11. 'I watched that film and I felt disgusted the way he was so biased. He completely ridiculed him [Bush] and it's just like when you're in a playground and you're bullying a little kid. I was for the Iraq war. I supported Bush completely, which was quite, like my friends, like, hated me for that. Of course, it's terrible that millions of people have died, but if you think of Saddam Hussein and all the terrible things he's done, I mean something doesn't come from nothing. Everyone at school, like, a lot of people knew nothing about the war and were wearing T-shirts saying 'F...Bush' and saying 'Bush sucks'. I think people should be more informed before hating a person for something'." (The self-possession of Peaches, The Sun-Herald, 24/4/05)
Clewless conduct: "Peaches Geldof [18] has been accused of leaving a trendy London boutique without paying for a dress with a $1100 price tag... In October 2006 Peaches, the daughter of Bob Geldof, was stopped at London clothes shop Urban Outfitters, on suspicion of shoplifting a coat." (Peaches in 'dress mix-up', The Sunday Telegraph, 20/4/08)
and views that madden to crime: "During our conversation, it becomes clear that Peaches [16] admires few grown-ups... But she reserves her harshest judgement for Mike Moore, the documentary-maker behind the anti-George Bush film Fahrenheit 9/11. 'I watched that film and I felt disgusted the way he was so biased. He completely ridiculed him [Bush] and it's just like when you're in a playground and you're bullying a little kid. I was for the Iraq war. I supported Bush completely, which was quite, like my friends, like, hated me for that. Of course, it's terrible that millions of people have died, but if you think of Saddam Hussein and all the terrible things he's done, I mean something doesn't come from nothing. Everyone at school, like, a lot of people knew nothing about the war and were wearing T-shirts saying 'F...Bush' and saying 'Bush sucks'. I think people should be more informed before hating a person for something'." (The self-possession of Peaches, The Sun-Herald, 24/4/05)
Saturday, April 26, 2008
On Taking Begging Bowls to Repressive Regimes
"Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor has admitted lifting information straight from online encyclopedia Wikipedia and confusing strands of Islam as he struggled to defend his institution's decision to ask the repressive Saudi Arabian Government for funding." (Uni chief lifted Islam text from Wikipedia)
That was front page news in The Australian of 26/4/08. Murdoch's self-styled Heart of the Nation was waging another of its journalistic jihads "after it was revealed [last week] that Griffith had asked the Saudi embassy in Australia for a $1.37 million grant for its Islamic Research Unit."
The Australian's bloodhound, dedicated to sniffing out Muslims under the bed, Richard Kerbaj, had reported accusations, emanating from Clive Wall, a Queensland District Court judge and deputy judge advocate-general in the Australian Defence Forces, that Griffith University was akin to Pakistani "madrassas" [sic: madrasas] and an "agent" of the Saudi regime engaged in "propagating Wahabbism [sic: wahhabism], a hardline brand of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and followed by al-Qa'ida." (Uni defends Saudi grant, 24/4/08) It was Professor O'Connor's "response to The Australian's revelations... published as an opinion article in the newspaper on Thursday [which] contained whole passages of text 'cut and pasted' from Wikipedia." To top it off, The Australian couldn't resist editorialising about how Professor O'Connor "has yet to justify his taking the begging bowl to a repressive regime that punishes by stoning, beheading and amputation, and bars women from driving and most forms of normal life." But more of that later.
Cutting and pasting Wikipedia, eh? If The Australian really wanted to run with a Wikipedia story, how about this one: "A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." The "pro-Israel pressure group" referred to is CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) and the full report, from The Electronic Intifada, 21/4/08, can be accessed at http://www.electronicintifada.net/.
And if The Australian really wanted to chase up a story on universities receiving external funding for the propagation of extremist Middle-Eastern ideologies, it could perhaps investigate the phenomenon of Israel studies - what some may well perceive as an attempt to propagate political Zionism, a hardline brand of nationalism/tribalism practised in Israel and promoted by Israel lobbies in western countries.
Maybe this Jerusalem Post story would be a good place for Mr Kerbaj to start: "A coalition of 31 American Jewish organizations want to bring Israel studies to US campuses... Such a[n Israel studies] program, it is hoped, will help tell Israel's story on American college campuses." (Jewish organizations want to bring Israel studies to US campuses, 2/5/07)
Or maybe he could follow up on Mearsheimer & Walt: "To further counter perceived anti-Israel bias in academia, a number of philanthropists have established Israel studies programs at US universities (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish studies programs that already exist), so as to increase the number of 'Israel-friendly' scholars on campus. NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies on May 1, 2003, and similar programs have been established at other schools, including Berkely, Brandeis, and Emory. Academic administrators emphasize the pedagogical value of these programs, but they are also intended to promote Israel's image on campus. Fred Lafer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes clear that his foundation funded the NYU center to help counter the 'Arabic [sic] point of view' that he thinks is prevalent in NYU's Middle East programs." (The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007 p 181)
Israel studies has in fact already made it to these shores, without the Murdoch press showing a flicker of interest: "Monash University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Richard Larkins, today announced the appointment of Professor Fania Oz-Salzberger to the Leon Liberman Chair of Modern Israel Studies in the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization... Mr Liberman said: 'The Chair... will provide an opportunity to advance a rounded and multi-dimensional discourse with the Modern State of Israel... The Acting Director of the Centre for Jewish Civilization, Professor David Copolov, said that the appointment of Professor Oz-Salzberger would help strengthen Monash's reputation as a trusted source of expert, dispassionate commentary on key issues of contemporary international relevance." (Monash appoints Chair of Modern Israel Studies, 18/4/07, http://www.monash.edu.au/.) For Oz-Salzberger see my February 12 post Rotem's Revenge.
However, to fully appreciate the consummate HYPOCRISY of the Murdoch press taking Professor Ian O'Connor to task for "taking his begging bowl to a repressive regime," one had the happy option of turning to Murdoch's rival, Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald of 25/4/08, and reading George Monbiot's wonderful essay, Strange case of Murdoch's lost empire.
Monbiot told the story of how, after buying up Hong Kong's satellite broadcaster Star TV and making a speech in 1993 about how satellite broadcasting constituted a threat to "totalitarian regimes" because it allowed "information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels," which provoked the Chinese to ban satellite dishes from China, "Murdoch spent the next 10 years grovelling. Within 6 months of [the] ban, Murdoch dropped the BBC from Star's China signal. His publishing company, HarperCollins, paid a fortune for a tedious biography of Deng Xiaoping, written by Deng's daughter. He built a website for the regime's propaganda sheet, the People's Daily. In 1997 he made another speech in which he tried to undo the damage he had caused 4 years before. 'China', he said, 'is a distinctive market with distinctive social and moral values that Western companies must learn to abide by'. His minions, Dover [Murdoch's former vice-president in China & author of Rupert's Adventures in China] reveals, ensured 'every relevant Chinese government official received a copy'. He described the Dalai Lama as a 'very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes'. His son James said that the Western media 'were painting a falsely negative portrayal of China through their focus on controversial issues such as human rights'. Rupert employed his unsalaried gofer, Tony Blair, to give him special access: in 1999 Blair placed him next to the then Chinese president...at a Downing Street lunch. To secure limited cable rights in southern China, News Corporation agreed to carry a Chinese government channel... on Fox and Sky. Murdoch promised to 'further strengthen co-operative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude'. Most notoriously, he instructed HarperCollins not to publish the book it had bought from the former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten."
That was front page news in The Australian of 26/4/08. Murdoch's self-styled Heart of the Nation was waging another of its journalistic jihads "after it was revealed [last week] that Griffith had asked the Saudi embassy in Australia for a $1.37 million grant for its Islamic Research Unit."
The Australian's bloodhound, dedicated to sniffing out Muslims under the bed, Richard Kerbaj, had reported accusations, emanating from Clive Wall, a Queensland District Court judge and deputy judge advocate-general in the Australian Defence Forces, that Griffith University was akin to Pakistani "madrassas" [sic: madrasas] and an "agent" of the Saudi regime engaged in "propagating Wahabbism [sic: wahhabism], a hardline brand of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and followed by al-Qa'ida." (Uni defends Saudi grant, 24/4/08) It was Professor O'Connor's "response to The Australian's revelations... published as an opinion article in the newspaper on Thursday [which] contained whole passages of text 'cut and pasted' from Wikipedia." To top it off, The Australian couldn't resist editorialising about how Professor O'Connor "has yet to justify his taking the begging bowl to a repressive regime that punishes by stoning, beheading and amputation, and bars women from driving and most forms of normal life." But more of that later.
Cutting and pasting Wikipedia, eh? If The Australian really wanted to run with a Wikipedia story, how about this one: "A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged." The "pro-Israel pressure group" referred to is CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) and the full report, from The Electronic Intifada, 21/4/08, can be accessed at http://www.electronicintifada.net/.
And if The Australian really wanted to chase up a story on universities receiving external funding for the propagation of extremist Middle-Eastern ideologies, it could perhaps investigate the phenomenon of Israel studies - what some may well perceive as an attempt to propagate political Zionism, a hardline brand of nationalism/tribalism practised in Israel and promoted by Israel lobbies in western countries.
Maybe this Jerusalem Post story would be a good place for Mr Kerbaj to start: "A coalition of 31 American Jewish organizations want to bring Israel studies to US campuses... Such a[n Israel studies] program, it is hoped, will help tell Israel's story on American college campuses." (Jewish organizations want to bring Israel studies to US campuses, 2/5/07)
Or maybe he could follow up on Mearsheimer & Walt: "To further counter perceived anti-Israel bias in academia, a number of philanthropists have established Israel studies programs at US universities (in addition to the roughly 130 Jewish studies programs that already exist), so as to increase the number of 'Israel-friendly' scholars on campus. NYU announced the establishment of the Taub Center for Israel Studies on May 1, 2003, and similar programs have been established at other schools, including Berkely, Brandeis, and Emory. Academic administrators emphasize the pedagogical value of these programs, but they are also intended to promote Israel's image on campus. Fred Lafer, the head of the Taub Foundation, makes clear that his foundation funded the NYU center to help counter the 'Arabic [sic] point of view' that he thinks is prevalent in NYU's Middle East programs." (The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy, 2007 p 181)
Israel studies has in fact already made it to these shores, without the Murdoch press showing a flicker of interest: "Monash University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Richard Larkins, today announced the appointment of Professor Fania Oz-Salzberger to the Leon Liberman Chair of Modern Israel Studies in the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization... Mr Liberman said: 'The Chair... will provide an opportunity to advance a rounded and multi-dimensional discourse with the Modern State of Israel... The Acting Director of the Centre for Jewish Civilization, Professor David Copolov, said that the appointment of Professor Oz-Salzberger would help strengthen Monash's reputation as a trusted source of expert, dispassionate commentary on key issues of contemporary international relevance." (Monash appoints Chair of Modern Israel Studies, 18/4/07, http://www.monash.edu.au/.) For Oz-Salzberger see my February 12 post Rotem's Revenge.
However, to fully appreciate the consummate HYPOCRISY of the Murdoch press taking Professor Ian O'Connor to task for "taking his begging bowl to a repressive regime," one had the happy option of turning to Murdoch's rival, Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald of 25/4/08, and reading George Monbiot's wonderful essay, Strange case of Murdoch's lost empire.
Monbiot told the story of how, after buying up Hong Kong's satellite broadcaster Star TV and making a speech in 1993 about how satellite broadcasting constituted a threat to "totalitarian regimes" because it allowed "information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels," which provoked the Chinese to ban satellite dishes from China, "Murdoch spent the next 10 years grovelling. Within 6 months of [the] ban, Murdoch dropped the BBC from Star's China signal. His publishing company, HarperCollins, paid a fortune for a tedious biography of Deng Xiaoping, written by Deng's daughter. He built a website for the regime's propaganda sheet, the People's Daily. In 1997 he made another speech in which he tried to undo the damage he had caused 4 years before. 'China', he said, 'is a distinctive market with distinctive social and moral values that Western companies must learn to abide by'. His minions, Dover [Murdoch's former vice-president in China & author of Rupert's Adventures in China] reveals, ensured 'every relevant Chinese government official received a copy'. He described the Dalai Lama as a 'very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes'. His son James said that the Western media 'were painting a falsely negative portrayal of China through their focus on controversial issues such as human rights'. Rupert employed his unsalaried gofer, Tony Blair, to give him special access: in 1999 Blair placed him next to the then Chinese president...at a Downing Street lunch. To secure limited cable rights in southern China, News Corporation agreed to carry a Chinese government channel... on Fox and Sky. Murdoch promised to 'further strengthen co-operative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude'. Most notoriously, he instructed HarperCollins not to publish the book it had bought from the former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten."
Friday, April 25, 2008
Anzac Day Special: The Diggers Who Died for Israel
Rhapsody: Linking Culture between Israel & Australia is a little magazine which comes as an insert every two months in The Australian Jewish News. The following item appears in the latest (April-June) issue of Rhapsody:-
"The Park of the Australian Soldier, to be dedicated in Israel on 28 April by Richard Pratt* and a host of Israeli and Australian dignitaries, will commemorate the charge of the 4th Bridgade, Australian Mounted Division, against the Turkish positions at Beersheba (now Be'er Sheva) on 31 October 1917. The park is being constructed by the Pratt Foundation and its dedication is being co-ordinated on the Foundation's behalf by the Australian Government. The Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, will lead the Australian delegation. It is the first time Australia's Head of State will visit Israel whilst still in office. The area will feature a landscaped recreation park with an innovative playground catering for the needs of children with disabilities and a sculpture** by the Australian Peter Corlett, commemorating the Australian Light Horse."
[*Pratt (Order of Australia), you may remember, is Australia's cardboard king and chief of Visy Industries. He was convicted last year of price-fixing and fined $36 million dollars.][**"Corlett's bronze statue of a mounted light-horseman hurdling sandbags will feature a Magen David (star of David) in its design." (Be'er Sheva park, statue, to honour ANZAC charge, The Australian Jewish News, 25/5/07)]
In the previous issue of Rhapsody, editor Dan Goldberg expounded on the true significance of the above: "The ties that bind Jerusalem and Canberra were further cemented with the commemoration last November of the 90th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Horse Brigade, when brave Aussie Diggers trounced the Turks at Be'er Sheva, paving the way for the capture of Jerusalem...And it is in Be'er Sheva that Richard Pratt is ploughing funds to build the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state."
Yes, that's what it says: "... the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state."
Now we know that Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, just before last year's federal election, declared that "his support for Israel was 'in my DNA'," but none of us, I'll wager, had any idea that Australia's genetically-determined support for Israel extended to the rewriting of history such that Australian troops, who thought they were fighting and dying for King and Country, were actually fighting and dying for a state that still had 31 years to go before it came into being!
"The Park of the Australian Soldier, to be dedicated in Israel on 28 April by Richard Pratt* and a host of Israeli and Australian dignitaries, will commemorate the charge of the 4th Bridgade, Australian Mounted Division, against the Turkish positions at Beersheba (now Be'er Sheva) on 31 October 1917. The park is being constructed by the Pratt Foundation and its dedication is being co-ordinated on the Foundation's behalf by the Australian Government. The Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, will lead the Australian delegation. It is the first time Australia's Head of State will visit Israel whilst still in office. The area will feature a landscaped recreation park with an innovative playground catering for the needs of children with disabilities and a sculpture** by the Australian Peter Corlett, commemorating the Australian Light Horse."
[*Pratt (Order of Australia), you may remember, is Australia's cardboard king and chief of Visy Industries. He was convicted last year of price-fixing and fined $36 million dollars.][**"Corlett's bronze statue of a mounted light-horseman hurdling sandbags will feature a Magen David (star of David) in its design." (Be'er Sheva park, statue, to honour ANZAC charge, The Australian Jewish News, 25/5/07)]
In the previous issue of Rhapsody, editor Dan Goldberg expounded on the true significance of the above: "The ties that bind Jerusalem and Canberra were further cemented with the commemoration last November of the 90th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Horse Brigade, when brave Aussie Diggers trounced the Turks at Be'er Sheva, paving the way for the capture of Jerusalem...And it is in Be'er Sheva that Richard Pratt is ploughing funds to build the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state."
Yes, that's what it says: "... the Park of the Australian Soldier - a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state."
Now we know that Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, just before last year's federal election, declared that "his support for Israel was 'in my DNA'," but none of us, I'll wager, had any idea that Australia's genetically-determined support for Israel extended to the rewriting of history such that Australian troops, who thought they were fighting and dying for King and Country, were actually fighting and dying for a state that still had 31 years to go before it came into being!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Armenia On My Mind
The ABC's current affairs program Foreign Correspondent on 22/4/08 dealt with Turkey, Armenia, and the conflicting passions surrounding the Armenian genocide of 1915. In Armenia/Turkey: Ghosts of the Past, reporter Eric Campbell ably exposed the refusal of the Turkish establishment to acknowledge Turkey's responsibility for the ethnic cleansing of its Armenian minority. So far, so good. The synopsis of the program on Foreign Correspondent's website (www.abc.net.au/foreign), however, detracted massively from Campbell's report.
It contained the following sentence: "Respected historians say as many as a million people were killed and many more made refugees. (see extract*)" The extract turned out to be a quote from The Middle East by Bernard Lewis, billed as "an authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern History." Lewis' description of the mass deportations of Armenian civilians were oddly tentative, almost apologetic: "... a practice sadly familiar in the region since biblical times"/"... the task of escorting the deportees was entrusted to hastily recruited local posses"/"The Ottoman central government seems to have made some effort to curb the excess."
What possessed the ABC? Quoting neocon Godfather and Israel apologist Bernard Lewis ("respected historian" and "authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern history") on the subject of the Armenian genocide is like quoting David Irving on the Nazi genocide*. Despite the synopsis' acknowledgment that "in some countries such as France, it is a criminal offence to deny the Armenian genocide," it appears that those responsible for the program (or at least the synopsis) were unaware that they were quoting a holocaust (as in Armenian holocaust) denier.
In fact, Lewis was convicted of denying the Armenian genocide by a French court in 1995. The relevant part of the judgment reads, "... the fact remains that it was by concealing information contrary to his thesis that the defendant was able to assert that there was 'no serious proof' of the Armenian genocide; consequently he failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence by offering unqualified opinions on such a sensitive subject; and his remarks [in an interview with Le Monde], which could unfairly rekindle the pain of the Armenian community, are tortious and justify compensation..." The plaintiff's brief, quoted in the judgment, advanced the view that Bernard Lewis is "actually an engaged intellectual who conducts intensive 'lobbying' activities on behalf of Turkey."
But it gets worse. Lewis' academic career kicked off with a fascination for Kemal Ataturk's secular/democratic transformation of Turkey, a seductive vision which he communicated directly to Dick Cheney in the months before the US invasion of Iraq and which came to be adopted as a blueprint for a post-Saddam Iraq. The 'Lewis doctrine' as it was known held that democratic transformation could be forced on Iraq and that Ahmad Chalabi was just the man to do it. It was also Lewis, not Samuel Huntington, who constructed the 'clash of civilizations' thesis, the intellectual underpinning of Islamophobia. (See Michael Hirsh's 2004 essay, Bernard Lewis Revisited, at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/)
*Nor can Lewis be entrusted with the subject of the Nazi holocaust. As US academic and author Norman Finkelstein points out, "Especially in the wake of Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and as Israeli propaganda claims came under withering attack by Israel's 'new historians', apologists desperately sought to tar the Arabs with Nazism. Famed historian Bernard Lewis managed to devote a full chapter of his short history of anti-Semitism... to Arab Nazism." (The Holocaust Industry, p 62)
It contained the following sentence: "Respected historians say as many as a million people were killed and many more made refugees. (see extract*)" The extract turned out to be a quote from The Middle East by Bernard Lewis, billed as "an authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern History." Lewis' description of the mass deportations of Armenian civilians were oddly tentative, almost apologetic: "... a practice sadly familiar in the region since biblical times"/"... the task of escorting the deportees was entrusted to hastily recruited local posses"/"The Ottoman central government seems to have made some effort to curb the excess."
What possessed the ABC? Quoting neocon Godfather and Israel apologist Bernard Lewis ("respected historian" and "authority on Islamic and Middle Eastern history") on the subject of the Armenian genocide is like quoting David Irving on the Nazi genocide*. Despite the synopsis' acknowledgment that "in some countries such as France, it is a criminal offence to deny the Armenian genocide," it appears that those responsible for the program (or at least the synopsis) were unaware that they were quoting a holocaust (as in Armenian holocaust) denier.
In fact, Lewis was convicted of denying the Armenian genocide by a French court in 1995. The relevant part of the judgment reads, "... the fact remains that it was by concealing information contrary to his thesis that the defendant was able to assert that there was 'no serious proof' of the Armenian genocide; consequently he failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence by offering unqualified opinions on such a sensitive subject; and his remarks [in an interview with Le Monde], which could unfairly rekindle the pain of the Armenian community, are tortious and justify compensation..." The plaintiff's brief, quoted in the judgment, advanced the view that Bernard Lewis is "actually an engaged intellectual who conducts intensive 'lobbying' activities on behalf of Turkey."
But it gets worse. Lewis' academic career kicked off with a fascination for Kemal Ataturk's secular/democratic transformation of Turkey, a seductive vision which he communicated directly to Dick Cheney in the months before the US invasion of Iraq and which came to be adopted as a blueprint for a post-Saddam Iraq. The 'Lewis doctrine' as it was known held that democratic transformation could be forced on Iraq and that Ahmad Chalabi was just the man to do it. It was also Lewis, not Samuel Huntington, who constructed the 'clash of civilizations' thesis, the intellectual underpinning of Islamophobia. (See Michael Hirsh's 2004 essay, Bernard Lewis Revisited, at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/)
*Nor can Lewis be entrusted with the subject of the Nazi holocaust. As US academic and author Norman Finkelstein points out, "Especially in the wake of Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and as Israeli propaganda claims came under withering attack by Israel's 'new historians', apologists desperately sought to tar the Arabs with Nazism. Famed historian Bernard Lewis managed to devote a full chapter of his short history of anti-Semitism... to Arab Nazism." (The Holocaust Industry, p 62)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
If you go out on the campus today...2
Update: In my first post of the same name (18/4/08), I analysed some of the campus carry-on of the US Zionista vigilantes over at StandWithUs.com, a self-styled "pro-Israel advocacy organization" now taking root here in collaboration with the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
I made the point, in reference to an exhibition currently touring US campuses, Breaking the Silence, that the SWU Zionistas had no compunction in targeting fellow Jews deemed to have deviated from the (Kadima/Likud or worse) party line. Another, nastier, example of SWU anti-Jewish activism may be found at http://www.richardsilverstein.com/. Under the heading Jewish Organizations Harass Jewish Peace Activists you can read how an "associate director of Stand With Us" was caught out sending an email to a Jewish peace activist at his home email address, asking him why he hated being a Jew and why he was in favour of murdering Jews.
In that post I also described the SWU travelling exhibition Inside Terrorism: The X-ray Project, a propagandist exploitation of x-rays of Israeli civilian victims of Palestinian suicide bombings, showing nuts, bolts and nails lodged in their bodies by the force of the blast. I made the point that the oft-heard Zionist call for 'balance' was not, in this case, met by the inclusion in the exhibition of x-rays of Palestinian victims of Israeli state terrorism.
An example of what might have been seen, if they had practised what they preached, are x-rays of Palestinians killed by flechette shells. The recent death by flechette in the Gaza Strip of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana is relevant here. The following paragraphs are from Donald Macintyre's 18/4/08 report, Tank shell that sprays deadly darts killed cameraman in Gaza, say doctors, in the UK Independent:-
"Bordered by lemon trees on one side and an olive grove on the other, the country lane leading to Joher Al Dik, where Fadel Shana was killed doing his job, was all but deserted yesterday afternoon. But two teenage boys from the Nusseirat refugee camp displayed half a dozen of the dull, black, inch-long darts which they said they had found amond the cactus growing along the verge opposite where Mr Shana had parked his unarmoured SUV to film a tank on Wednesday afternoon.
"According to doctors who examined [Shana's] body...at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, it was controversial darts like those, fletchettes, fired from an Israeli tank shell that explodes in the air, that caused his death. X-rays displayed to Reuters showed several of the flechettes embedded in the dead man's chest and legs, and more were found in his flak jacket, clearly emblazoned, like his vehicle, with 'TV' and 'Press' signs...
"The Israeli military was silent last night on whether it planned to launch the 'swift, honest, and impartial investigation' into Mr Shana's death, urged by David Shlesinger, the editor-in-chief of Reuters News, who said the medical evidence underlined the case for such an inquiry. While expressing 'sorrow' for Mr Shana's death, a military official said the area was one in which there was 'ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organisations on a daily basis'. The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives'. But Mr Shlesinger said: 'The markings on Fadel Shana's vehicle showed clearly and unambiguously that he was a professional journalist doing his duty. We the military must work together urgently to understand why this tragedy took place and how similar incidents can be avoided in the future. This tragic incident shows the risks journalists take every day to report the news.
"The military would only say that all its weapons 'are legal under international law'. Israel's Supreme Court rejected a 2003 petition arguing that the use of flechettes as an anti-personnel weapon contravened a 1980 UN convention, but the Israeli human rights group Btselem said last night that the flechettes violated international law and demanded a criminal investigation."
I made the point, in reference to an exhibition currently touring US campuses, Breaking the Silence, that the SWU Zionistas had no compunction in targeting fellow Jews deemed to have deviated from the (Kadima/Likud or worse) party line. Another, nastier, example of SWU anti-Jewish activism may be found at http://www.richardsilverstein.com/. Under the heading Jewish Organizations Harass Jewish Peace Activists you can read how an "associate director of Stand With Us" was caught out sending an email to a Jewish peace activist at his home email address, asking him why he hated being a Jew and why he was in favour of murdering Jews.
In that post I also described the SWU travelling exhibition Inside Terrorism: The X-ray Project, a propagandist exploitation of x-rays of Israeli civilian victims of Palestinian suicide bombings, showing nuts, bolts and nails lodged in their bodies by the force of the blast. I made the point that the oft-heard Zionist call for 'balance' was not, in this case, met by the inclusion in the exhibition of x-rays of Palestinian victims of Israeli state terrorism.
An example of what might have been seen, if they had practised what they preached, are x-rays of Palestinians killed by flechette shells. The recent death by flechette in the Gaza Strip of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana is relevant here. The following paragraphs are from Donald Macintyre's 18/4/08 report, Tank shell that sprays deadly darts killed cameraman in Gaza, say doctors, in the UK Independent:-
"Bordered by lemon trees on one side and an olive grove on the other, the country lane leading to Joher Al Dik, where Fadel Shana was killed doing his job, was all but deserted yesterday afternoon. But two teenage boys from the Nusseirat refugee camp displayed half a dozen of the dull, black, inch-long darts which they said they had found amond the cactus growing along the verge opposite where Mr Shana had parked his unarmoured SUV to film a tank on Wednesday afternoon.
"According to doctors who examined [Shana's] body...at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, it was controversial darts like those, fletchettes, fired from an Israeli tank shell that explodes in the air, that caused his death. X-rays displayed to Reuters showed several of the flechettes embedded in the dead man's chest and legs, and more were found in his flak jacket, clearly emblazoned, like his vehicle, with 'TV' and 'Press' signs...
"The Israeli military was silent last night on whether it planned to launch the 'swift, honest, and impartial investigation' into Mr Shana's death, urged by David Shlesinger, the editor-in-chief of Reuters News, who said the medical evidence underlined the case for such an inquiry. While expressing 'sorrow' for Mr Shana's death, a military official said the area was one in which there was 'ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organisations on a daily basis'. The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives'. But Mr Shlesinger said: 'The markings on Fadel Shana's vehicle showed clearly and unambiguously that he was a professional journalist doing his duty. We the military must work together urgently to understand why this tragedy took place and how similar incidents can be avoided in the future. This tragic incident shows the risks journalists take every day to report the news.
"The military would only say that all its weapons 'are legal under international law'. Israel's Supreme Court rejected a 2003 petition arguing that the use of flechettes as an anti-personnel weapon contravened a 1980 UN convention, but the Israeli human rights group Btselem said last night that the flechettes violated international law and demanded a criminal investigation."
Monday, April 21, 2008
Asleep at the Wheel
"Israel's success at fragmenting physical and geographical Palestine is matched by its success in having shattered the social, political and economic strata as well... during 'Operation Defensive Shield' in the spring of 2002, IDF soldiers were responsible for destroying the records of civic institutions and NGOs throughout the West Bank city of Ramallah, very often the central location for these offices. Ransacking soldiers left furniture and appliances wrecked beyond repair. Food, drink, mud, urine, faeces, and trash covered the floors, and graffiti was scrawled across the walls. After removing computer hard drives (which were transported to Israel) soldiers smashed up the computers and printers rendering them permanently unusable. They spilled out the contents of the filing cabinets, burned or shredded documents and papers leaving them strewn across the floors or scattered in the streets. Soldiers also burned, shredded, and sometimes shot at personal photographs, posters and pictures on the walls. In addition to the destruction of these offices, IDF soldiers vandalized radio and TV stations, banks, schools, hospitals, medical clinics, and cultural centers. Many soldiers broke or shot bullets through office windows, destroyed office, medical and school supplies, trashed the lavatories, and broke down the doors to the buildings." The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle, Ramzy Baroud, 2006 pp 5-6
"Have you seen the [Palestinian] Ministry of Culture, the inside of that?
- I've seen the pictures that [the Palestinians have] shown all over the place.
You've seen the shit - excuse me using the word - all over the place, the broken photocopiers, the files pulled out - what military objective is there in that sort of rampage?
- I don't want to be the one who consistently says that all [the Palestinians] do is lie. But I have problems with a lot of the pictures that I've seen...I just say that we have a code of ethics which is very different from anything else I've heard anywhere else." (Exchange between Debbie Whitmont of the ABC's Four Corners and Colonel Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the wake of Israel's 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the occupied West Bank.)
One such trashed organization in Ramallah was the independent, non-partisan Palestinian NGO Ma'an Development Center. Eleven years of records, data and teaching manuals were destoyed, in addition to equipment to the value of $40,000. The Ma'an Development Center, with a focus on health and aged care, literacy, vocational education and so on, was one of 3 projects in the occupied Palestinian territories funded by the ACTU's Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA. To my knowledge, no mainstream Australian media outlet reported the attack.
Incredibly, the Ma'an Development Center (still funded by APHEDA) has again been trashed by the IDF. According to a 3/4/08 press release, posted on APHEDA's website, the Center's doors were blown open at 2 o'clock in the morning, causing major damage to its offices. Many other public, private, and NGO institutions in Ramallah received similar treatment at the same time. No mainstream Australian media outlet bothered to report the attack.
Another APHEDA-funded Palestinian institution, El Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip, also came under attack, by Israeli tanks. According to a 16/4/08 press release, in addition to its buildings, the cable of the hospital's only generator was damaged, endangering the lives of paralyzed and comatose patients. No mainstream Australian media outlet bothered to report the attack.
"Have you seen the [Palestinian] Ministry of Culture, the inside of that?
- I've seen the pictures that [the Palestinians have] shown all over the place.
You've seen the shit - excuse me using the word - all over the place, the broken photocopiers, the files pulled out - what military objective is there in that sort of rampage?
- I don't want to be the one who consistently says that all [the Palestinians] do is lie. But I have problems with a lot of the pictures that I've seen...I just say that we have a code of ethics which is very different from anything else I've heard anywhere else." (Exchange between Debbie Whitmont of the ABC's Four Corners and Colonel Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the wake of Israel's 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the occupied West Bank.)
One such trashed organization in Ramallah was the independent, non-partisan Palestinian NGO Ma'an Development Center. Eleven years of records, data and teaching manuals were destoyed, in addition to equipment to the value of $40,000. The Ma'an Development Center, with a focus on health and aged care, literacy, vocational education and so on, was one of 3 projects in the occupied Palestinian territories funded by the ACTU's Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA. To my knowledge, no mainstream Australian media outlet reported the attack.
Incredibly, the Ma'an Development Center (still funded by APHEDA) has again been trashed by the IDF. According to a 3/4/08 press release, posted on APHEDA's website, the Center's doors were blown open at 2 o'clock in the morning, causing major damage to its offices. Many other public, private, and NGO institutions in Ramallah received similar treatment at the same time. No mainstream Australian media outlet bothered to report the attack.
Another APHEDA-funded Palestinian institution, El Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip, also came under attack, by Israeli tanks. According to a 16/4/08 press release, in addition to its buildings, the cable of the hospital's only generator was damaged, endangering the lives of paralyzed and comatose patients. No mainstream Australian media outlet bothered to report the attack.
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