Mainsewer Media Clueless in Gaza

"Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it." Dr Samuel Johnson

Mainstream media or mainsewer media? The Sydney Morning Herald's most recent editorialising on Gaza (Time for bolder diplomacy in Gaza, 5/3/08) fairly reeks of the Israeli master narrative. For the editorialist, Hamas is the problem, and the "conflict" (turkey shoot) in Gaza shows "how ruthless militants using rudimentary weapons can manipulate events to derail the diplomacy of great powers...Of course the militant Islamist movement Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since winning elections and then bloodily vanquishing the forces of secular rival Fatah, provoked the Israeli strikes by firing its rockets into nearby Israeli settlements."

In the topsy-turvy Ziocentric world of the SMH editorialist, the higher up the conflict chain, the less blame attaches. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, who had long ago chosen to sup with the USraeli devil, is merely "weak-kneed" because he suspended 'peace' talks with Israel when he should have been "condemning Hamas." Israel is guilty of little more than "unwise talk" about visiting a "holocaust" on the people of Gaza. And, of course, the US component of the USraeli tag team is entirely above reproach, guilty only of "trying to settle a half-century-long conflict."

Finally, after turning the reality of the Palestine/Israel conflict on its head, the editorialist winds up launching the proverbial flying pig with the prescription that USrael "outflank" Hamas "with bolder peace proposals than we have so far seen...and bring the two-state solution within reach."

Such abysmal ignorance, such infantile defiance of reality! Deep breath, sort the fellow out bit by bit. He needs to do his homework. Has he read, for example, David Rose's enlightening investigation, The Gaza Bombshell in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair? Of course not, so let me pick the eyes out of it for him:-

"Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the US and Palestine which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by [Muhammad] Dahlan [Fatah's resident strongman in Gaza, Abbas' national-security adviser, and the CIA's man ("the son of a bitch we happened to know best...a can-do kind of person...our guy") in Palestine], and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power...But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza." Dubbed by some sources as 'Iran-contra 2.0', this policy "set off a furious debate" within the Bush administration, with Vice President Cheney's chief ME adviser, neocon (& Clean Break author) David Wurmser "resigning in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup." Wurmser "accuses the Bush administration of 'engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory'. He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. 'It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen', Wurmser says. The botched plan has rendered the dream of ME peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. 'There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for ME democracy and this policy', he says. 'It directly contradicts it'."

Has the editorialist read Israeli peace activist, Uri Avnery's Good Morning, Hamas (4/3/08)? OCN! Avnery points out the wonderful irony of Israel's initial support for Hamas in the late 80s, in the hope that it could be used to undermine Fatah, while today supporting Fatah to undermine Hamas. He also recognises the bleeding obvious need for Israel to discuss a cease-fire and then an armistace with Hamas, and warns that "Those who did not want the PLO, got Hamas. If we don't come to terms with Hamas, we shall be faced with more extreme Islamic organizations, like the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Nor will the editorialist have read how USrael's Muhammad "Son of a Bitch" Dahlan is now after PA president Abbas' scalp (Abbas aide: Dahlan is trying to oust PA head, Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 17/2/08).

The SMH editorialist and his kind indeed "have a great aversion to intellectual labour."