His Master's Voice

The Rudd government has finally bitten the bullet on Mossad's use of Australian passports in its dirty work in Dubai in January, and decided to expel an Israeli 'diplomat'.

No doubt our Israel lobbyists and their auxiliaries at The Australian have been preparing for this moment. Yesterday, they swung into action. Here's The Australian's foreign editor, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, expertly lip-syncing the lobby:

Lobby: "Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Robert Goot and Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) president Philip Chester issued a joint statement registering their disappointment. 'We consider that decision to be an overreaction'." (Jewish leaders bemoan reaction, 25/5/10)

Sheridan: "The Rudd Government has overreacted and made a bad mistake in expelling an Israeli diplomat over the Dubai passports affair." (Badly misjudged action will have a political cost, 25/5/10)

Lobby: "[Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) executive director] Mr [Colin] Rubenstein was disappointed that Australia had followed the precedent of the ousted British Labour government 'in its overreaction'. Ireland, France and Germany, which also had passports allegedly implicated in the killing of Mabhouh, had not taken such action, he said. 'I didn't think we would ape the British', he said." (Jewish leaders bemoan reaction)

Sheridan: "Surely the Rudd government is more mature and worldly than the most desperate days of the dying Gordon Brown interregnum? Australia should not ape its former masters in London in this but embrace some of the sophistication of Berlin or Paris..." (Badly misjudged action will have a political cost)

Hang on! Let's hear that last bit again: the sophistication of Berlin or Paris? It seems only yesterday that Sheridan was deriding these two sophisticates as "two faded and unprincipled hags of old Europe." (The psychosis of despising all things American, 6/2/03)

PS: More monkey business over at News Limited: "So why has the Prime minister now aped that craven British response?" (The PM's trashing of brand Australia, Andrew Bolt, Daily Telegraph, 26/5/10)

PPS: Even more monkey business at NL! Here's Sheridan quoting Labor's Minister for Israel, Michael Danby: "Even if there was some obscure previous incident, Berlin and Paris are as sophisticated as the mandarins of Canberra and their reaction (no expulsion) demonstrates why we did not have to ape the British Foreign Office." (Expelling Israeli diplomat was a confected, self-serving exercise, The Australian, 29/5/10)