Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Israel Lobbyist Fails Crocodile Dundee Test

Clarification:

In Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, tiresome tireless Israel lobbyist, and former South African apartheid-era journalist, Vic Alhadeff, portrayed his South African employer thus:

"I served as chief sub-editor of The Cape Times during the apartheid era - and Nelson Rohilahla Mandela was the unspoken presence in the room... As one of the nation's anti-apartheid newspapers, we were acutely aware that in our midst was a colossus whose time had come." (Media bans kept colossus out of sight, 7/12/13)

Just as well he said "one of" because really, to rephrase Crocodile Dundee, That wasn't "an anti-apartheid newspaper." This was "an anti-apartheid newspaper":

"The loss-making but hugely influential [Rand Daily] Mail had by then [1985] waged a lonely 30-year struggle on behalf of truth and decency against overwhelming odds. Scores of Kafkaesque laws circumscribed its coverage. It was infiltrated by government spies, communists and agents provocateurs. Its management was either inept or craven or both. Yet despite everything, and thanks to a succession of strong editors, the Mail not only survived but set a standard that all other media outlets in South Africa are still judged against." (The Daily Courage, Robin Knight, Time, 12/6/00)

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