"There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery. It was a fine, clear January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the Regents Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with Spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself to other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn the faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of all men's respect, wealthy, beloved - the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the gallows." Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
What about Gilad Shalit? asked James Carleton, presenter of Radio National's Breakfast program this morning.
"Israel calls him a hostage," began Dr Ben Knight, the ABC's Gent in Jerusalem, conveying the Israeli party line (which, alas, in the simple retelling of events, couldn't help but crumble): "Hamas, who've been holding him, call him a captured soldier. He was on patrol [!] near the Gaza border [!!] in June 2006 in an armoured vehicle [!!!] when some militants from Gaza popped up out of a tunnel they'd dug underneath the fence, attacked the patrol [!!!!], killed several soldiers [!!!!!] and took Gilad Shalit back through the tunnel into Hamas."
Into Hamas! Yikes! Dr Knight had pulled himself up just in time. For a nanosecond there he had nearly said into Hamastan. It's happening, he shuddered. Mr Regev. And smack bang in a bloody Radio National interview! Shit!
He was helpless, and could only listen appalled as Mr Regev regaled the Breakfast audience with the tale of that "quite awful character" Samir Quntar* who, back in the 70s, for no apparent reason, had leapt into a dinghy, paddled down the Lebanese coast and onto an Israeli beach, and offed the first Israeli "family, including the children" he could lay his evil hands on (a bit like those "militants," who, for no apparent reason, had just decided to dig a tunnel and plug some Israeli soldiers who were quietly going about their usual morning killing spree).
He listened, numb, as Mr Regev went on about how galling it was for Israelis to see that q***(ar) being swapped for some Israeli stiffs in Lebanon, and then receiving a "hero's welcome" in Beirut. "This really did stick in the Israelis' craw," ranted Regev, "and so here they are going through it again, but what you're looking at this time is a far higher price. This is a live prisoner, and what is being asked by Hamas is the release of miltants inside Israeli jails who... the term over here is blood on their hands."
It was at that very point, where Mr Regev was about to say with blood on their hands, that Dr Knight rallied with the words the term over here is blood on their hands. Just in the nick of time, he thought, the sweat in beads on his forehead. The doctor pressed on heroically: "Now for some of them, they may simply have been involved in throwing a rock at a police officer."
But it was no good, Mr Regev was simply too strong. "But for others," rasped Regev, "we're talking about the people who made the bombs during the Second Intifada when we saw Tel Aviv and Jerusalem living in fear when buses were blowing up. So Israel is having this national discussion at the moment and the line seems to be, yes, we'll do it this time, we'll allow this large number of prisoners released to get our soldier back, but never again. But it's certainly not a done deal. It's a very, very high price to pay for Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when he's got other matters on his hands."
Carleton, clearly taken aback by Dr Knight's increasingly obvious struggle with Mr Regev, tried to toss him a lifeline in the form of a question about Hamas maybe not quite feeling the same way.
To no avail. It was not Dr Knight, but Mr Regev, who responded, "Well, each case on its merits, but you certainly do get the impression that Israelis have had enough of watching these prisoners being released when they certainly feel that they should spend the rest of their lives in jail, and in this case, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of prisoners."
The rest of their lives in jail? It was too much. Dr Knight fought back valiantly: "Now not all of them were involved in those suicide bombing incidents in the Second Intifada. Some of them are car thieves. Some of them picked up in the wrong place at the wrong time and face an Israeli military court, which is not a court that anyone would want to find themselves in if they were Palestinian. But we're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds for one Israeli soldier and you just get the sense that there's a very very strong desire to bring Gilad Shalit home but not at any price and after this there's going to be a major rethink of how it's done."
His bacon was saved - for now. But how much longer can I go on like this, he asked himself, before Dr Knight is no more and only the hideous Mr Regev is left?
Pray for the soul of Ben Knight.
[See my 21/7/08 post The Motiveless Malignancy of Samir Quntar]
Monday, January 4, 2010
Israel's Egyptian Doorkeeper
The Propagandists of the Elders of Zion must work overtime to convince us that Israel really, really, really wants peace with its neighbours. And this is often the kind of 'evidence' they tender: "Following the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace with its neighbor. For over 2 decades, the Sinai Peninsula was home to about 7,000 Israelis. Many Israelis were opposed to the idea of giving up land for an uncertain peace. Over 3,000 settlers in the town of Yamit opposed withdrawal and violently resisted the evacuation of their homes. Under Ariel Sharon's command, the IDF forcefully evacuated settlers from Yamit. The images of Israeli civilians being dragged from their homes by Israeli soldiers resonates in the minds of many Israelis and is an important symbol of how far Israel is willing to go for peace. The Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula showed that Israel is willing to make painful sacrifices for peace. By withdrawing from Sinai, Israel gave up: The homes of over 7,000 Israelis; The Alma Oil Field, valued at over $100 billion - Israel would have had energy independence had they held on to it; More than 170 military installations; Dozens of early warning stations and strategic defense locations." (theisraelproject.org)
But here's what they don't tell you: "Egyptian officials start talking about Egypt's sovereignty every time Gaza is in need of food, even though the people of Gaza have no army intending to invade. All they need - desperately need - is to be able to buy food and other necessities. Maybe the resistance groups have other goals, smuggling money and other weapons in order to defend themselves against Israeli aggression. But whatever weapons are in Gaza, they are not there to fight against Egypt. It is clear that the Egyptian authorities are not revealing the truth about their country's lack of sovereignty over Sinai, and that all this talk about sovereignty and national security is misleading. The fact is, Egypt has no authority over Sinai and cannot take any strategic action without consulting Israel and America. The Camp David accords of 1979 gave Egypt autonomy over Sinai, an allowance similar to that of the Palestinian Authority, and it is limited to running civil affairs. According to the agreement, Egypt can only have one army brigade stationed on the western side of the Sinai Peninsula, west of the Metla and Jeddi routes. This is a purely symbolic presence, in deference to Egypt's self-respect, but this brigade is in no position to go to war or defend Egypt, or even impose any specific policy on behalf of Egypt.The same accord says that the Egyptian army has to be 2 kilometres away from the hypothetical Egyptian-Palestinian border, and Egypt cannot build any air force bases in Sinai; the US, however, can and did build 2 huge airfields for Israel in the Negev Desert as part of the deal. Egypt retains a limited police force in Sinai for civil security and it has to prosecute any persons or groups who try to threaten Israel's security. It is clear that the whole agreement was based on Israel's security, and if Egypt had refused any aspect of this, Israel would not have pulled its forces out of Sinai. For this reason, opening the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza is not allowed, because the border is part of Israel's 'security', and opening it threatens that security. In short, Israel controls the Rafah crossing, not Egypt. Israel decides when Rafah is to be opened and for how long; Egypt is the doorkeeper, no more than that." (Egypt's lack of sovereignty, Dr Abdel Sattar Qassem, Professor of Political Studies, Al Najah National University, 2/1/10, middleeastmonitor.org.uk)
Withdrawal? What bloody withdrawal?
[See also my 23/12/09 post USrael's Arab Whores]
But here's what they don't tell you: "Egyptian officials start talking about Egypt's sovereignty every time Gaza is in need of food, even though the people of Gaza have no army intending to invade. All they need - desperately need - is to be able to buy food and other necessities. Maybe the resistance groups have other goals, smuggling money and other weapons in order to defend themselves against Israeli aggression. But whatever weapons are in Gaza, they are not there to fight against Egypt. It is clear that the Egyptian authorities are not revealing the truth about their country's lack of sovereignty over Sinai, and that all this talk about sovereignty and national security is misleading. The fact is, Egypt has no authority over Sinai and cannot take any strategic action without consulting Israel and America. The Camp David accords of 1979 gave Egypt autonomy over Sinai, an allowance similar to that of the Palestinian Authority, and it is limited to running civil affairs. According to the agreement, Egypt can only have one army brigade stationed on the western side of the Sinai Peninsula, west of the Metla and Jeddi routes. This is a purely symbolic presence, in deference to Egypt's self-respect, but this brigade is in no position to go to war or defend Egypt, or even impose any specific policy on behalf of Egypt.The same accord says that the Egyptian army has to be 2 kilometres away from the hypothetical Egyptian-Palestinian border, and Egypt cannot build any air force bases in Sinai; the US, however, can and did build 2 huge airfields for Israel in the Negev Desert as part of the deal. Egypt retains a limited police force in Sinai for civil security and it has to prosecute any persons or groups who try to threaten Israel's security. It is clear that the whole agreement was based on Israel's security, and if Egypt had refused any aspect of this, Israel would not have pulled its forces out of Sinai. For this reason, opening the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza is not allowed, because the border is part of Israel's 'security', and opening it threatens that security. In short, Israel controls the Rafah crossing, not Egypt. Israel decides when Rafah is to be opened and for how long; Egypt is the doorkeeper, no more than that." (Egypt's lack of sovereignty, Dr Abdel Sattar Qassem, Professor of Political Studies, Al Najah National University, 2/1/10, middleeastmonitor.org.uk)
Withdrawal? What bloody withdrawal?
[See also my 23/12/09 post USrael's Arab Whores]
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Blink & You'd Have Missed It
You've heard of the Great Firewall of China, erected so that the Chinese can't access information relating to certain taboo subjects such as China's occupation and colonization of Tibet and East Turkistan? Well the latest brick in the wall has just been laid by Apple: "Chinese users of the iPhone are unable to download applications related to the Dalai Lama or to Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, after Apple apparently blocked them from its iPhone app store in the country. The move suggests that Apple has followed Google in self-censoring content available in China, under pressure from the Government." (Dalai Lama blocked from download to iPhones in China, Guardian/SMH, 2/1/10)
The operative concept here is self-censorship, which the Western corporate media, in response to decades of sustained bullying by pro-Israel lobby groups, has been practising for yonks. An egregious case in point is the relative lack of media coverage of the Gaza Freedom March and the Gaza Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza.
One's astonishment at this was given eloquent voice by Ibrahim Hewitt of the UK charity Interpal: "At a time of year when editors are looking for news items to fill their pages and programmes, one story sticks out: an international aid convoy with 400 participants from Britain alone; 1.5 million people awaiting eagerly its arrival and the relief it will bring; a rogue foreign government hindering the relief effort; and friendly governments and their citizens who have given the convoy a heroic welcome as it passed through their countries, across Europe and what used to be called Asia Minor. Take some Brit heroes - men and women of all faiths and none - sacrificing their time over Christmas and probably the New Year to help people under siege in the land of Christ's birth, and throw in the anniversary of the war that compounded the hardship for good measure. All the ingredients of a major story, you may think, but that's where you'd be wrong. This is one story that the major newspapers and television news programmes in Britain and the USA are avoiding. Apart from two brief paragraphs on the BBC news website, you will be hard pushed to find anything. The Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza is a non-event as far as most of the media are concerned, which begs the obvious question; why? Is it less important than Britain's weather? Or the Queen's speech? Or Victoria Wood's midlife crisis? Or Manchester City's human resources skills? What is it about hundreds of people trying to take desperately-needed relief to millions of their fellow human beings at Christmas - a time of peace and goodwill to all, in case that's passed you by - that editors think is not newsworthy? Could it be because the man behind it is British MP George Galloway? Could it be because the rogue state is Egypt and we are trying to ingratiate ourselves with Hosni Mubarak (God forbid!)? Or could it be that too much coverage might upset the Israeli government whose blockade, imposed with the attendant threat of massive military force, has created the 'shattered society' (see Amnesty's latest report) that awaits the convoy's assistance? Any one of these would be shameful if it were true." (The missing story, middleeastmonitor.org.uk, 28/12/09)
But what about the Australian media? Here's the scorecard:
News Limited: Not a whisper. No surprises there.
Fairfax: A short piece (Hunger strikers press Egypt on Gaza march) in the Sydney Morning Herald, courtesy of Agence France-Presse on 30/12/09. Another shortie (Jews, Arabs call to end blockade) on 2/1/10, courtesy of The New York Times' Ethan Bronner (say no more), which featured a photo of Israelis - Israelis!!! - daubed with Stars of David and holding Israeli flags. The caption: "Peace plea... Israelis rally a year after the war." The only decent Fairfax press coverage that I'm aware of was Andra Jackson's report (Australians' Gaza protest) in The Age of 1/1/10. And where was Fairfax Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis?
SBS Television: One brief, derogatory snippet on the 6.30 pm News, 31/12/09. (See my 1/1/10 post So-called SBS/ABC News) Blink, and you'd have missed it.
ABC: Despite the derogatory introduction by presenter Tony Eastley (see So-called SBS/ABC News), Anne Barker's story on the Gaza Freedom March on Radio National's AM program (International protest over Gaza blockade, 31/12/09) was commendable. But where were ABC Television's Middle East correspondents, Matt Brown and Ben Knight?
Well we know where the latter was, don't we? Knight was in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, about as far as you could get from Gaza (in Israel), reporting on the woes of Israeli fish farmer Yigal Ben Tzvi. Alas, it seems the bottom has fallen out of Europe's caviar market (Middle East caviar producers hit hard times, 7 pm News, 2/1/10). All the piece wanted was the following surreal exchange:
Ben Knight (scratching head): I seem to recall hearing they haven't got enough to eat down in Gaza.
Ben Tzvi: Let them eat caviar!
The operative concept here is self-censorship, which the Western corporate media, in response to decades of sustained bullying by pro-Israel lobby groups, has been practising for yonks. An egregious case in point is the relative lack of media coverage of the Gaza Freedom March and the Gaza Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza.
One's astonishment at this was given eloquent voice by Ibrahim Hewitt of the UK charity Interpal: "At a time of year when editors are looking for news items to fill their pages and programmes, one story sticks out: an international aid convoy with 400 participants from Britain alone; 1.5 million people awaiting eagerly its arrival and the relief it will bring; a rogue foreign government hindering the relief effort; and friendly governments and their citizens who have given the convoy a heroic welcome as it passed through their countries, across Europe and what used to be called Asia Minor. Take some Brit heroes - men and women of all faiths and none - sacrificing their time over Christmas and probably the New Year to help people under siege in the land of Christ's birth, and throw in the anniversary of the war that compounded the hardship for good measure. All the ingredients of a major story, you may think, but that's where you'd be wrong. This is one story that the major newspapers and television news programmes in Britain and the USA are avoiding. Apart from two brief paragraphs on the BBC news website, you will be hard pushed to find anything. The Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza is a non-event as far as most of the media are concerned, which begs the obvious question; why? Is it less important than Britain's weather? Or the Queen's speech? Or Victoria Wood's midlife crisis? Or Manchester City's human resources skills? What is it about hundreds of people trying to take desperately-needed relief to millions of their fellow human beings at Christmas - a time of peace and goodwill to all, in case that's passed you by - that editors think is not newsworthy? Could it be because the man behind it is British MP George Galloway? Could it be because the rogue state is Egypt and we are trying to ingratiate ourselves with Hosni Mubarak (God forbid!)? Or could it be that too much coverage might upset the Israeli government whose blockade, imposed with the attendant threat of massive military force, has created the 'shattered society' (see Amnesty's latest report) that awaits the convoy's assistance? Any one of these would be shameful if it were true." (The missing story, middleeastmonitor.org.uk, 28/12/09)
But what about the Australian media? Here's the scorecard:
News Limited: Not a whisper. No surprises there.
Fairfax: A short piece (Hunger strikers press Egypt on Gaza march) in the Sydney Morning Herald, courtesy of Agence France-Presse on 30/12/09. Another shortie (Jews, Arabs call to end blockade) on 2/1/10, courtesy of The New York Times' Ethan Bronner (say no more), which featured a photo of Israelis - Israelis!!! - daubed with Stars of David and holding Israeli flags. The caption: "Peace plea... Israelis rally a year after the war." The only decent Fairfax press coverage that I'm aware of was Andra Jackson's report (Australians' Gaza protest) in The Age of 1/1/10. And where was Fairfax Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis?
SBS Television: One brief, derogatory snippet on the 6.30 pm News, 31/12/09. (See my 1/1/10 post So-called SBS/ABC News) Blink, and you'd have missed it.
ABC: Despite the derogatory introduction by presenter Tony Eastley (see So-called SBS/ABC News), Anne Barker's story on the Gaza Freedom March on Radio National's AM program (International protest over Gaza blockade, 31/12/09) was commendable. But where were ABC Television's Middle East correspondents, Matt Brown and Ben Knight?
Well we know where the latter was, don't we? Knight was in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, about as far as you could get from Gaza (in Israel), reporting on the woes of Israeli fish farmer Yigal Ben Tzvi. Alas, it seems the bottom has fallen out of Europe's caviar market (Middle East caviar producers hit hard times, 7 pm News, 2/1/10). All the piece wanted was the following surreal exchange:
Ben Knight (scratching head): I seem to recall hearing they haven't got enough to eat down in Gaza.
Ben Tzvi: Let them eat caviar!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
God Works in Mysterious Ways
"Hundreds of demonstrators gathered on both sides of the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday to mark a year since Israel's 3-week war in Gaza, and to call for an end to the blockade of the area imposed by Israel and Egypt." (Hundreds demonstrate on border with Gaza, Ethan Bronner, New York Times, 31/12/09)
Meanwhile in Sderotgrad, the PR was not going quite as planned: "In Sderot on Thursday, about 200 children holding Israeli flags attached letters of peace to white balloons and sent them aloft on a hillside toward Gaza. But the wind was unfavorable and the balloons flew in the opposite direction." (ibid)
Shucks.
Er... shouldn't that have been so-called 'letters of peace'?
Meanwhile in Sderotgrad, the PR was not going quite as planned: "In Sderot on Thursday, about 200 children holding Israeli flags attached letters of peace to white balloons and sent them aloft on a hillside toward Gaza. But the wind was unfavorable and the balloons flew in the opposite direction." (ibid)
Shucks.
Er... shouldn't that have been so-called 'letters of peace'?
Friday, January 1, 2010
So-called SBS/ABC News
This is how SBS Television's 6.30 News reported the latest on the Gaza Freedom March yesterday: "One hundred pro-Palestinian activists have been allowed to leave Egypt to take part in a so-called Freedom March in the Gaza Strip, but the Egyptian government has prevented another 1,200 people from crossing the border. Tomorrow's march is expected to attract campaigners from more than 42 countries. They will be marking the first anniversary of Israel's 22 [sic] day incursion in Gaza." (31/12/09)
And this is how it was introduced by Tony Eastley on ABC Radio National's AM program: "More than 1,3000 international peace activists from 40 countries, including Australia, are in Egypt this week. The self-styled 'freedom marchers', many of whom are Jewish, include prominent authors, lawyers and journalists." (31/12/09)
so-called: falsely or improperly named
incursion: raid, sortie, attack
self-styled: alleged, pretended
So according to SBS and the ABC, the Gaza Freedom March isn't really a freedom march after all, and the Gaza Freedom Marchers are sort of - well - up themselves. And as for those 23 days of Israeli shock & awe (resulting in 1, 420 Palestinians, including 446 children, killed; 5,320, including 1,855 children, wounded; 4,000 houses destroyed; and 16,000 houses damaged*), why that was really no big deal, just a glorified police raid for Christ's sake!
[*Statistics from the Gaza Community Mental Health Program]
Now you tell me if if the above is really that much different from this little Zionist rant by one Eric Trager, "Writer, Ph.D. student" over at huffingtonpost.com under the header CODEPINK's 'Gaza Freedom' Mockery: "If you've been following CODEPINK's so-called 'Gaza Freedom March' on the blogosphere, then you probably know what it is against... yadda...yadda...yadda." 30/12/09)
And this is how it was introduced by Tony Eastley on ABC Radio National's AM program: "More than 1,3000 international peace activists from 40 countries, including Australia, are in Egypt this week. The self-styled 'freedom marchers', many of whom are Jewish, include prominent authors, lawyers and journalists." (31/12/09)
so-called: falsely or improperly named
incursion: raid, sortie, attack
self-styled: alleged, pretended
So according to SBS and the ABC, the Gaza Freedom March isn't really a freedom march after all, and the Gaza Freedom Marchers are sort of - well - up themselves. And as for those 23 days of Israeli shock & awe (resulting in 1, 420 Palestinians, including 446 children, killed; 5,320, including 1,855 children, wounded; 4,000 houses destroyed; and 16,000 houses damaged*), why that was really no big deal, just a glorified police raid for Christ's sake!
[*Statistics from the Gaza Community Mental Health Program]
Now you tell me if if the above is really that much different from this little Zionist rant by one Eric Trager, "Writer, Ph.D. student" over at huffingtonpost.com under the header CODEPINK's 'Gaza Freedom' Mockery: "If you've been following CODEPINK's so-called 'Gaza Freedom March' on the blogosphere, then you probably know what it is against... yadda...yadda...yadda." 30/12/09)
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A Resistant People
"Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Article 13(2) Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In his explicitly racist apologia for Israel's running amok in Gaza last December-January, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan trotted out one of the classic tropes of Zionist propaganda: "Because the existence of Israel radiates an affront to the Muslim world, only Palestinians have been sequestered from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to a special agency. That agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNWRA] for Palestine Refugees, has warehoused displaced Palestinians for decades because it has been in the interests of the Arab world for this problem not to be solved. Gaza has become a giant warehouse of misery. It has no economic growth, no prospects, almost no civil order, yet about half the population is under the age of 17. The population has exploded amid economic privation. Women, living under Sharia law, are used primarily as breeding stock." (It's too easy just to blame Jews*, 12/1/09). [*See my 13/1/09 post Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH.]
I was reminded of Sheehan's little stinker when I came across a 1973 interview with American Harry N. Howard, UN adviser, Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian & African Affairs, 1949-1956. Howard's testimony not only refutes the hoary Zionist canard of Palestinians as pawns of the Arab states, but provides a fascinating insight into US cluelessness in the Middle East in general and the grip of the nascent Israel lobby on the US Congress in particular. Best of all, through Howard's recollections, comes a real sense of the stubborn resistance of the Palestinian people, well before the rise of the armed Palestinian liberation movement, to all attempts to deflect them from the path of return to their homes and lands in 1948 Palestine.
Tellingly, Palestinian refugees (1948 -) are referred to throughout the interview simply as 'Arabs', surely a major impediment to a simple understanding that all the Palestinian refugees ever wanted (and still want) was (is) to return to their Palestinian homeland, rather than be fobbed off on one or other of the surrounding Arab states. Zionists, of course, routinely refer to Palestinians, either in or outside Israel improper, as Arabs, a linguistic circumlocution designed to perpetuate the idea that Palestinians qua Arabs can comfortably be accomodated in any of up to 25 Arab states and territories. A convenient untruth indeed. The complete interview can be found at trumanlibrary.org:
Richard D McKinzie: "You were an adviser to the UN delegation at the time when a lot of relief activities were being sponsored by the United Nations. I speak specifically of the Arab refugee problem. Do you recall particular problems in getting... Department of State acceptance for that? There was some talk against some of these projects as being 'international WPA'. [Works Progress Administration - the largest of President Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. The WPA employed millions of unemployed Americans on public works projects in 30s America.]
Howard: Yes, and that the money was all wasted, and the Arab refugees were living high and so on... I served as the Acting US representative... on the UNRWA Advisory Commission. I got around to practically all of the refugee centers during the 7-year period that I was there. Generally speaking, I think even Americans who have dealt with the problem - even Department of State officers - have not understood what has happened. This is certainly true of many Senators and Congressmen who visited the area. We have put into UNRWA more than $500 million. [Firstly,] we have assumed that the Arab states have done nothing at all except raise hell about the [refugee] problem. As a matter of fact, by my own calculations, which are based on UN documentation, the Arab host governments and other Arab governments, directly and indirectly, have probably contributed... at least $200 million in goods, services and cash. The assumption here is that they do nothing constructive at all. Secondly, there is also an assumption that these people, who are poor, are not worth the candle. Thirdly, there is a misconception that all the refugees have done is to lie [around] rotting in camps, being too lazy to work in the earlier years, and are now [1973] guerillas fighting in their frustration. It is assumed that all UNRWA has done is to spend money on food and shelter and keep the problem from being 'solved'. [However,] UNRWA also has an educational program which meets some of the educational needs of close to half a million people, from first grade through to secondary school. It issues scholarships of about $550 per year which send qualified Arab refugee students to the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo, Damascus University, and the new Jordan National University. [UNRWA] also has one of the best vocational training programs. As a matter of fact, the largest percentage of UNRWA funds now go into education and training, not into relief, ie food and shelter. One of my friends, who used to direct it, tells me that the UNRWA Health Service, run on the basis of some 4 cents per day per refugee, is probably the best public health service in any developing area. As a matter of fact, the entire budget for UNRWA represents about 10 cents per capita per day. Once, when the US representative at the UN General Assembly was raising hell about the UNRWA budget, charging that UNRWA was supporting guerillas who were attacking Israel, and urging various cuts in expenditure, the UNRWA Commissioner General, Lawrence Michelmore, replied: 'Let's be clear about what we're talking about. We are talking about 10 cents a day for people... not $50, or $100, or $200 a month, which we have here in this country, but 10 cents a day'. I, frankly, was very much impressed with what I saw and what was done, and, as I say, I went all around.
McKinzie: All that was assumed to be quite temporary?
Howard: We assumed in the beginning it would be very, very temporary, and it is very interesting to read the records on this point. Back in 1949 and 1950, it was assumed that the problem was going to be solved within roughly a year or so. This was a basic assumption, I would say, clear down to 1956 - that any day now it was going to be ended. Well, it wasn't. People like Gordon Clapp, who used to head the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and who headed a UN Economic Survey Mission in the Middle East in 1949, had a much clearer view of the long-range, complex character of the refugee problem. Gordon Clapp made one basic point about some of the things which were then being contemplated as a solution. He said that to engage in large scale economic development projects as a solution to [the refugee] problem was only to invite frustration and failure. The Arab refugees were not ready for this approach. Neither were the Arabs generally, nor the Arab governments. Three years later, in January 1953, we went in for a big $150 million program. We tied all that up with refugee resettlement. That ruined it immediately. President Eisenhower sent out Eric Johnston as his personal representative to examine the situation and push the project. Ralph Bunche [UN's Chief Palestine Mediator following the Stern Gang's assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte] told me once that Eric Johnston was the worst qualified person he had ever known going out to the area to work on that problem. Among other things, he was a member of the American Christian Palestine Committee, a strongly pro-Zionist group. Well, every time Johnston went out to the Middle East, he would come back here and make a statement. One such statement, for example, said: 'We are now at the one-inch line'. He did not say which goal post it was. He added that as soon as the project, largely covering the Jordan Valley, was completed, some 250,000 refugees could be resettled. He had no idea, of course, that he was killing the project with the remark about resettlement. The average Arab response to that kind of statement was: 'The hell you say, you are not going to resettle anybody'. That did not mean that the Arabs did not believe in economic development. It did, however, mean that they were not going to support economic development if we were going to tie it up with refugee resettlement. I'll give you another example. In 1961, Senator W Stuart Symington was in the Middle East. He is a very able Senator and, among other things, wanted to look into the refuggee problem. We took him down to UNRWA Headquarters for a briefing session. He had just read a truly dreadful article by Martha Gellhorn, also from St Louis, on the refugee problem in the October 1961 Atlantic Monthly.* It was one of the worst articles I've ever read on the subject, although he obviously believed it. We got together other items for him to read, including Don Peretz's book Israel & the Palestine Arabs, one of the very best books on the subject. Both Don and Martha Gellhorn happen to be Jewish, although Don is a scholar and knew something about the subject, while Martha Gellhorn knew nothing about it. After the briefing session with UNRWA officers, we took Senator Symington, with John Newhouse, his assistant, down to the new vocational training centre for refugees near Sidon, and also took him through the Ein Hilweh refugee center nearby, which is not a bad place. John Newhouse and I were determined that we would also get Senator Symington, if he had time, to see the worst, since, like Martha Gellhorn, he had the impression that the Arab refugees were living high off the lamb - if not the hog. As it turned out, Senator Symington did have an extra day or two in Lebanon. So we took him over to a refugee center named Gouraud, named after the French Field Marshal, just around the corner from the ancient ruins of Ba'albek. This was an old Ottoman army barracks used after World War I for some 300 French soldiers. Some 3,000 Arab refugees were now housed there. It was about the dirtiest, filthiest place one could imagine. As we went through the refugee center, Senator Symington kept repeating: 'This is very sad, this is very sad', and I will never forget it. I think he did forget it, but we'll let that pass. I told the UNRWA area officer, Khalil Ja'abari, a Palestinian Arab from Nablus - something of an extremist - that Senator Symington was very pro-Zionist, but very able as a senator, and should be completely free, in view of the character of the place, to go wherever he wanted to. Senator Symington kept repeating that this was all 'very sad', and my friend Khalil remarked: 'Well, Senator, I guess you have seen another side of this problem'. Senator Symington asked me to ride back into the mountains with him when we had finished the tour. On the way I offered to take him through another dreadful refugee center, named after the British Field Marshal Wavell but he protested that he would become ill if we did. Then he asked the usual silly question - the fundamental question - 'What do you think is the solution of this problem?' I replied: 'Well, if you are thinking of a political solution, I don't even think in those terms at all'. Senator Symington remarked: 'Don't you think that it is primarily because of [Israeli] Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's intransigence?' Symington would never have said this publicly. I remarked that, in my opinion, as long as Ben-Gurion lived, and as long as his spirit dominated the political scene in Israel, there would be no hope of a political settlement, and that I would not now want to wager that the Arabs would make an adjustment if Israel did move in the direction of compromise and peace. Then we talked about projects for economic development. I told Senator Symington that Eric Johnston used to come out to the Middle East on the matter of the development of the Jordan Valley and the sweet waters of the Nile Valley. But he made the same fatal mistake, every time he returned to the US, of saying: 'When we finish the project, some 250,000 people will be resettled'. I added: 'That ended the project'. 'But', Senator Symington added: 'If I didn't say that, I'd never get the money out of the US Congress'. I replied: 'This is precisely the case. If Mr Johnston did not say it, he wouldn't get the money out of the US Congress; if he did say it, he wouldn't get the project'. And that was that. There are nuances in this kind of development which, I am afraid, Americans have never really understood or appreciated. Harry Labouisse left his post as director of UNRWA in the spring of 1958... When he paid his farewell call on [Jordanian] Prime Minister Samir Rifai, the latter begged him to ask the US Government not to force him to make a public statement of his own conviction that the Arab refugees would be staying right where they were, not returning to their former homes. He would be murdered, he thought, if he said so publicly. Well, there was much in that sort of thing, and I think we have never appreciated this nuance in this country - not at all. When Norman Burns was head of the AID program (USOM) in Jordan in 1959, he negotiated an agreement with the Jordanian government on the construction of the East Ghor irrigation canal, which included land reform. The project involved only the US and Jordan, not Israel. You will read the agreement in vain to find any reference to the fact that there were some 100,000 refugees in the East Ghor of the Jordan Valley who would benefit both from the irrigation and the land reform. The Jordanian and US governments knew this. Both knew that to put it down on paper would be disastrous for the project, so there was no mention of it in the agreement."
[*The Arabs of Palestine. More on Martha in a later post.]
In his explicitly racist apologia for Israel's running amok in Gaza last December-January, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan trotted out one of the classic tropes of Zionist propaganda: "Because the existence of Israel radiates an affront to the Muslim world, only Palestinians have been sequestered from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to a special agency. That agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNWRA] for Palestine Refugees, has warehoused displaced Palestinians for decades because it has been in the interests of the Arab world for this problem not to be solved. Gaza has become a giant warehouse of misery. It has no economic growth, no prospects, almost no civil order, yet about half the population is under the age of 17. The population has exploded amid economic privation. Women, living under Sharia law, are used primarily as breeding stock." (It's too easy just to blame Jews*, 12/1/09). [*See my 13/1/09 post Oriana Fallaci Meets Israeli PR at the SMH.]
I was reminded of Sheehan's little stinker when I came across a 1973 interview with American Harry N. Howard, UN adviser, Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian & African Affairs, 1949-1956. Howard's testimony not only refutes the hoary Zionist canard of Palestinians as pawns of the Arab states, but provides a fascinating insight into US cluelessness in the Middle East in general and the grip of the nascent Israel lobby on the US Congress in particular. Best of all, through Howard's recollections, comes a real sense of the stubborn resistance of the Palestinian people, well before the rise of the armed Palestinian liberation movement, to all attempts to deflect them from the path of return to their homes and lands in 1948 Palestine.
Tellingly, Palestinian refugees (1948 -) are referred to throughout the interview simply as 'Arabs', surely a major impediment to a simple understanding that all the Palestinian refugees ever wanted (and still want) was (is) to return to their Palestinian homeland, rather than be fobbed off on one or other of the surrounding Arab states. Zionists, of course, routinely refer to Palestinians, either in or outside Israel improper, as Arabs, a linguistic circumlocution designed to perpetuate the idea that Palestinians qua Arabs can comfortably be accomodated in any of up to 25 Arab states and territories. A convenient untruth indeed. The complete interview can be found at trumanlibrary.org:
Richard D McKinzie: "You were an adviser to the UN delegation at the time when a lot of relief activities were being sponsored by the United Nations. I speak specifically of the Arab refugee problem. Do you recall particular problems in getting... Department of State acceptance for that? There was some talk against some of these projects as being 'international WPA'. [Works Progress Administration - the largest of President Roosevelt's New Deal agencies. The WPA employed millions of unemployed Americans on public works projects in 30s America.]
Howard: Yes, and that the money was all wasted, and the Arab refugees were living high and so on... I served as the Acting US representative... on the UNRWA Advisory Commission. I got around to practically all of the refugee centers during the 7-year period that I was there. Generally speaking, I think even Americans who have dealt with the problem - even Department of State officers - have not understood what has happened. This is certainly true of many Senators and Congressmen who visited the area. We have put into UNRWA more than $500 million. [Firstly,] we have assumed that the Arab states have done nothing at all except raise hell about the [refugee] problem. As a matter of fact, by my own calculations, which are based on UN documentation, the Arab host governments and other Arab governments, directly and indirectly, have probably contributed... at least $200 million in goods, services and cash. The assumption here is that they do nothing constructive at all. Secondly, there is also an assumption that these people, who are poor, are not worth the candle. Thirdly, there is a misconception that all the refugees have done is to lie [around] rotting in camps, being too lazy to work in the earlier years, and are now [1973] guerillas fighting in their frustration. It is assumed that all UNRWA has done is to spend money on food and shelter and keep the problem from being 'solved'. [However,] UNRWA also has an educational program which meets some of the educational needs of close to half a million people, from first grade through to secondary school. It issues scholarships of about $550 per year which send qualified Arab refugee students to the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo, Damascus University, and the new Jordan National University. [UNRWA] also has one of the best vocational training programs. As a matter of fact, the largest percentage of UNRWA funds now go into education and training, not into relief, ie food and shelter. One of my friends, who used to direct it, tells me that the UNRWA Health Service, run on the basis of some 4 cents per day per refugee, is probably the best public health service in any developing area. As a matter of fact, the entire budget for UNRWA represents about 10 cents per capita per day. Once, when the US representative at the UN General Assembly was raising hell about the UNRWA budget, charging that UNRWA was supporting guerillas who were attacking Israel, and urging various cuts in expenditure, the UNRWA Commissioner General, Lawrence Michelmore, replied: 'Let's be clear about what we're talking about. We are talking about 10 cents a day for people... not $50, or $100, or $200 a month, which we have here in this country, but 10 cents a day'. I, frankly, was very much impressed with what I saw and what was done, and, as I say, I went all around.
McKinzie: All that was assumed to be quite temporary?
Howard: We assumed in the beginning it would be very, very temporary, and it is very interesting to read the records on this point. Back in 1949 and 1950, it was assumed that the problem was going to be solved within roughly a year or so. This was a basic assumption, I would say, clear down to 1956 - that any day now it was going to be ended. Well, it wasn't. People like Gordon Clapp, who used to head the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and who headed a UN Economic Survey Mission in the Middle East in 1949, had a much clearer view of the long-range, complex character of the refugee problem. Gordon Clapp made one basic point about some of the things which were then being contemplated as a solution. He said that to engage in large scale economic development projects as a solution to [the refugee] problem was only to invite frustration and failure. The Arab refugees were not ready for this approach. Neither were the Arabs generally, nor the Arab governments. Three years later, in January 1953, we went in for a big $150 million program. We tied all that up with refugee resettlement. That ruined it immediately. President Eisenhower sent out Eric Johnston as his personal representative to examine the situation and push the project. Ralph Bunche [UN's Chief Palestine Mediator following the Stern Gang's assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte] told me once that Eric Johnston was the worst qualified person he had ever known going out to the area to work on that problem. Among other things, he was a member of the American Christian Palestine Committee, a strongly pro-Zionist group. Well, every time Johnston went out to the Middle East, he would come back here and make a statement. One such statement, for example, said: 'We are now at the one-inch line'. He did not say which goal post it was. He added that as soon as the project, largely covering the Jordan Valley, was completed, some 250,000 refugees could be resettled. He had no idea, of course, that he was killing the project with the remark about resettlement. The average Arab response to that kind of statement was: 'The hell you say, you are not going to resettle anybody'. That did not mean that the Arabs did not believe in economic development. It did, however, mean that they were not going to support economic development if we were going to tie it up with refugee resettlement. I'll give you another example. In 1961, Senator W Stuart Symington was in the Middle East. He is a very able Senator and, among other things, wanted to look into the refuggee problem. We took him down to UNRWA Headquarters for a briefing session. He had just read a truly dreadful article by Martha Gellhorn, also from St Louis, on the refugee problem in the October 1961 Atlantic Monthly.* It was one of the worst articles I've ever read on the subject, although he obviously believed it. We got together other items for him to read, including Don Peretz's book Israel & the Palestine Arabs, one of the very best books on the subject. Both Don and Martha Gellhorn happen to be Jewish, although Don is a scholar and knew something about the subject, while Martha Gellhorn knew nothing about it. After the briefing session with UNRWA officers, we took Senator Symington, with John Newhouse, his assistant, down to the new vocational training centre for refugees near Sidon, and also took him through the Ein Hilweh refugee center nearby, which is not a bad place. John Newhouse and I were determined that we would also get Senator Symington, if he had time, to see the worst, since, like Martha Gellhorn, he had the impression that the Arab refugees were living high off the lamb - if not the hog. As it turned out, Senator Symington did have an extra day or two in Lebanon. So we took him over to a refugee center named Gouraud, named after the French Field Marshal, just around the corner from the ancient ruins of Ba'albek. This was an old Ottoman army barracks used after World War I for some 300 French soldiers. Some 3,000 Arab refugees were now housed there. It was about the dirtiest, filthiest place one could imagine. As we went through the refugee center, Senator Symington kept repeating: 'This is very sad, this is very sad', and I will never forget it. I think he did forget it, but we'll let that pass. I told the UNRWA area officer, Khalil Ja'abari, a Palestinian Arab from Nablus - something of an extremist - that Senator Symington was very pro-Zionist, but very able as a senator, and should be completely free, in view of the character of the place, to go wherever he wanted to. Senator Symington kept repeating that this was all 'very sad', and my friend Khalil remarked: 'Well, Senator, I guess you have seen another side of this problem'. Senator Symington asked me to ride back into the mountains with him when we had finished the tour. On the way I offered to take him through another dreadful refugee center, named after the British Field Marshal Wavell but he protested that he would become ill if we did. Then he asked the usual silly question - the fundamental question - 'What do you think is the solution of this problem?' I replied: 'Well, if you are thinking of a political solution, I don't even think in those terms at all'. Senator Symington remarked: 'Don't you think that it is primarily because of [Israeli] Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's intransigence?' Symington would never have said this publicly. I remarked that, in my opinion, as long as Ben-Gurion lived, and as long as his spirit dominated the political scene in Israel, there would be no hope of a political settlement, and that I would not now want to wager that the Arabs would make an adjustment if Israel did move in the direction of compromise and peace. Then we talked about projects for economic development. I told Senator Symington that Eric Johnston used to come out to the Middle East on the matter of the development of the Jordan Valley and the sweet waters of the Nile Valley. But he made the same fatal mistake, every time he returned to the US, of saying: 'When we finish the project, some 250,000 people will be resettled'. I added: 'That ended the project'. 'But', Senator Symington added: 'If I didn't say that, I'd never get the money out of the US Congress'. I replied: 'This is precisely the case. If Mr Johnston did not say it, he wouldn't get the money out of the US Congress; if he did say it, he wouldn't get the project'. And that was that. There are nuances in this kind of development which, I am afraid, Americans have never really understood or appreciated. Harry Labouisse left his post as director of UNRWA in the spring of 1958... When he paid his farewell call on [Jordanian] Prime Minister Samir Rifai, the latter begged him to ask the US Government not to force him to make a public statement of his own conviction that the Arab refugees would be staying right where they were, not returning to their former homes. He would be murdered, he thought, if he said so publicly. Well, there was much in that sort of thing, and I think we have never appreciated this nuance in this country - not at all. When Norman Burns was head of the AID program (USOM) in Jordan in 1959, he negotiated an agreement with the Jordanian government on the construction of the East Ghor irrigation canal, which included land reform. The project involved only the US and Jordan, not Israel. You will read the agreement in vain to find any reference to the fact that there were some 100,000 refugees in the East Ghor of the Jordan Valley who would benefit both from the irrigation and the land reform. The Jordanian and US governments knew this. Both knew that to put it down on paper would be disastrous for the project, so there was no mention of it in the agreement."
[*The Arabs of Palestine. More on Martha in a later post.]
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Israel's Sock Puppet at the ABC
A more blatant display of Israeli propaganda than last night's 7.30 Report's Gaza conflict - one year on would be hard to find:
"The aim of the attacks was to end the rocket attacks being made on Israel by Islamic militants." (from the introduction on the website)
"The aim was to end the barrage of crude rockets being being constantly fired by Islamic militants towards Israeli towns." (from presenter Chris Uhlmann)
"Operation Cast Lead was launched to put a stop to years of Hamas rockets on Israel's southern towns and cities." (from ABC Middle East correspondent Ben Knight)
That's our (Zionised) ABC for you, folks. It doesn't get much more mantra-like than that.
Well, why did Israel attack Gaza? Quite simply, to get its mojo (aka deterrence capability) back after losing it to Hezbollah in 2006. Don't believe me? Well, just listen to the war criminals behind the Gaza Holocaust:
"The recent military operation in the Gaza Strip against Hamas has restored Israel's deterrence among its enemies and in the perception of the whole world, Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert said." (PM: Gaza op restored Israel's deterrence, Etgar Lefkovits, Jerusalem Post, 26/1/09)
"Hamas was dealt a blow that created 'the deterrence that is now enabling calm'." (Barak says deterrence enabled calm, Hanan Greeberg, ynetnews.com, 19/1/09)
"[Tzipi Livni] said the Gaza offensive had restored Israel's 'deterrence' against militant factions seeking to attack it... Hamas now understands that Israel will act 'wildly' to any attacks against it, she said regarding the 'deterrence'." (Livni: Only Israel will decide when to end Gaza offensive, Deutsche Presse-Argentur, jewishfederations.org)
No, it wasn't about rockets, rockets, rockets - that was just the fiction decided on by the warmongers to sell Israel's wilding to the world - it was about deterrence, deterrence, deterrence.
Then there's this gobsmacking exchange where Ben Knight throws all pretense of journalistic objectivity to the winds and becomes a mere sock puppet for the Israelis:
"Yohanan Plessner, Knesset EU Relations Committee: The laws that govern warfare today are in many ways not so relevant to security challenges.
Yohanan Plessner is a former Israeli army commando who now maintains Israel's relations with Europe.
Yohanan Plessner: In the new kind of warfare today, civilians are more likely to get hurt as long as terrorist organisations and their sponsors are... situating the centre of gravity of their forces within the civilian population.
Ben Knight: That's exactly what Hamas did in Gaza, so did Hezbollah in South Lebanon a few years ago."
And, incredibly, he does it again:
Ben Knight: Israel's problem is not just where it fought in Gaza, but how. White phosphorus burns down to the bone. It's not supposed to be used in built-up civilian areas. Jumaa Al Najar was one of those hit with a white phosphorus shell.
Jumaa Al Najar, Victim: All over my legs, it felt like I was on fire.
Ben Knight: Before the war, Jumaa Al Najar was a textile salesman. He can now barely walk and his right hand is paralysed and he can't get out of Gaza for treatment.
Jumaa Al Najar: Before I was wounded I was the breadwinner in my home. Now I sit at home wondering how to support my family.
Ben Knight: Israel knows it's not the only nation faced with the problem of fighting enemies who operate in civilian zones.
Knight seems blissfully unaware that reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Dugard Committee and the Goldstone Report have found no evidence to back Israel's claim that Hamas is using human shields. Nor does he appear aware that such claims were retracted by the Israeli military when they were first used to cover its crimes in Lebanon in 2006. Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for example, had this to say on Israel's massacre of dozens of Lebanese civilians at Qana in south Lebanon: "As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident. It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time. The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday." (Livni: Qana attack led to turning point in support for Israel, Yoav Stern, 1/8/06)
And back when Israel was "punishing, humiliating and terrorising" (to borrow Justice Goldstone's exact words) the people of Gaza, Ben Knight was blithely reporting - I kid you not - on how Arab television was punishing Israel with footage from Gaza. (See my 14/1/09 post Choking on My Falafel) And before that, in September 2008, Knight was busy parroting the argot of the Jewish cowboys who rule the range in the Wild West Bank. (See my 6/10/08 post The Media is the Message)
No wonder the local Israel lobby's given the tick to Knight and his equally clueless ABC colleague Matt Brown*: "On the ABC, both radio and television, the standard of Israel coverage has... depended on the quality of the correspondents. Early in the decade, with Tim Palmer and then Jane Hutcheon, the coverage was at times deplorable. More recently, however, correspondents such as Matt Brown and Ben Knight have delivered more thoughtful and even-handed reporting on the whole." (Bias & Balance in the noughties, Jamie Hyam, The Australian Jewish News, 18/12/09) [*See my posts Sleepless in Sderot, Legless in Gaza (16/1/09) & The Beat-Up Goes On (27/7/08)]
"The aim of the attacks was to end the rocket attacks being made on Israel by Islamic militants." (from the introduction on the website)
"The aim was to end the barrage of crude rockets being being constantly fired by Islamic militants towards Israeli towns." (from presenter Chris Uhlmann)
"Operation Cast Lead was launched to put a stop to years of Hamas rockets on Israel's southern towns and cities." (from ABC Middle East correspondent Ben Knight)
That's our (Zionised) ABC for you, folks. It doesn't get much more mantra-like than that.
Well, why did Israel attack Gaza? Quite simply, to get its mojo (aka deterrence capability) back after losing it to Hezbollah in 2006. Don't believe me? Well, just listen to the war criminals behind the Gaza Holocaust:
"The recent military operation in the Gaza Strip against Hamas has restored Israel's deterrence among its enemies and in the perception of the whole world, Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert said." (PM: Gaza op restored Israel's deterrence, Etgar Lefkovits, Jerusalem Post, 26/1/09)
"Hamas was dealt a blow that created 'the deterrence that is now enabling calm'." (Barak says deterrence enabled calm, Hanan Greeberg, ynetnews.com, 19/1/09)
"[Tzipi Livni] said the Gaza offensive had restored Israel's 'deterrence' against militant factions seeking to attack it... Hamas now understands that Israel will act 'wildly' to any attacks against it, she said regarding the 'deterrence'." (Livni: Only Israel will decide when to end Gaza offensive, Deutsche Presse-Argentur, jewishfederations.org)
No, it wasn't about rockets, rockets, rockets - that was just the fiction decided on by the warmongers to sell Israel's wilding to the world - it was about deterrence, deterrence, deterrence.
Then there's this gobsmacking exchange where Ben Knight throws all pretense of journalistic objectivity to the winds and becomes a mere sock puppet for the Israelis:
"Yohanan Plessner, Knesset EU Relations Committee: The laws that govern warfare today are in many ways not so relevant to security challenges.
Yohanan Plessner is a former Israeli army commando who now maintains Israel's relations with Europe.
Yohanan Plessner: In the new kind of warfare today, civilians are more likely to get hurt as long as terrorist organisations and their sponsors are... situating the centre of gravity of their forces within the civilian population.
Ben Knight: That's exactly what Hamas did in Gaza, so did Hezbollah in South Lebanon a few years ago."
And, incredibly, he does it again:
Ben Knight: Israel's problem is not just where it fought in Gaza, but how. White phosphorus burns down to the bone. It's not supposed to be used in built-up civilian areas. Jumaa Al Najar was one of those hit with a white phosphorus shell.
Jumaa Al Najar, Victim: All over my legs, it felt like I was on fire.
Ben Knight: Before the war, Jumaa Al Najar was a textile salesman. He can now barely walk and his right hand is paralysed and he can't get out of Gaza for treatment.
Jumaa Al Najar: Before I was wounded I was the breadwinner in my home. Now I sit at home wondering how to support my family.
Ben Knight: Israel knows it's not the only nation faced with the problem of fighting enemies who operate in civilian zones.
Knight seems blissfully unaware that reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Dugard Committee and the Goldstone Report have found no evidence to back Israel's claim that Hamas is using human shields. Nor does he appear aware that such claims were retracted by the Israeli military when they were first used to cover its crimes in Lebanon in 2006. Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for example, had this to say on Israel's massacre of dozens of Lebanese civilians at Qana in south Lebanon: "As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident. It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time. The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday." (Livni: Qana attack led to turning point in support for Israel, Yoav Stern, 1/8/06)
And back when Israel was "punishing, humiliating and terrorising" (to borrow Justice Goldstone's exact words) the people of Gaza, Ben Knight was blithely reporting - I kid you not - on how Arab television was punishing Israel with footage from Gaza. (See my 14/1/09 post Choking on My Falafel) And before that, in September 2008, Knight was busy parroting the argot of the Jewish cowboys who rule the range in the Wild West Bank. (See my 6/10/08 post The Media is the Message)
No wonder the local Israel lobby's given the tick to Knight and his equally clueless ABC colleague Matt Brown*: "On the ABC, both radio and television, the standard of Israel coverage has... depended on the quality of the correspondents. Early in the decade, with Tim Palmer and then Jane Hutcheon, the coverage was at times deplorable. More recently, however, correspondents such as Matt Brown and Ben Knight have delivered more thoughtful and even-handed reporting on the whole." (Bias & Balance in the noughties, Jamie Hyam, The Australian Jewish News, 18/12/09) [*See my posts Sleepless in Sderot, Legless in Gaza (16/1/09) & The Beat-Up Goes On (27/7/08)]
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