Spotlighting Netanyahu's Role in the US War on Iran

The following article (If the US goes to war with Iran, Netanyahu will be the prime suspect, Chemi Shalev, Haaretz, 16/5/19), is of considerable interest when we consider that Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister at the time of the 2003 Iraq War, felt obliged to keep as low a profile as possible with respect to Israel's crucial role as the key detonator of the war. Sharon relied instead on his US Ziocon assets and the Israel lobby to steer the Bush administration in the direction he wanted, that of regime change and the balkanisation of Iraq, and to utililise the US military, as opposed to the Israeli, to bring this about.

Since that time, it should be clear to all and sundry that the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ditched the pretense of Israel as an innocent bystander in matters of regional regime change and balkanisation, and come out, time and again, publicly swinging in favour of a war with Iran. As Shalev points out, if and when the US takes on Iran militarily, there'll be no hiding the key role of Netanyahu's Israel in initiating the move to Iraq Iran. (Note that I have somewhat truncated Shalev's essay in order to highlight his thesis):

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader to openly express support for the escalating US campaign against Iran, but his statement is an exception to the general Israeli rule... The attempt to distance itself from an American military operation in the Middle East, as if Israel were merely a fan sitting in the bleachers cheering its favorite team, inevitably sparks analogies to Yitzhak Shamir's policy of restraint in the 1991 Gulf War and Ariel Sharon's similar attitude during the 2003 war in Iraq... And while Israel did not come under direct attack in the 2003 Iraq War, it was nonetheless compelled to defend itself against claims, which proliferated as the war progressed, that it had pushed President George W. Bush to decide on the attack in the first place. In the lead up to that ill-fated war, Netanyahu was once again one of a handful of prominent Israelis who preferred to break the silence. In public testimony before the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives in 2002, Netanyahu assured American lawmakers that Saddam either had nuclear weapons or was on the verge of acquiring them... Deposing Saddam, Netanyahu promised, would do wonders for the Middle East as a whole...

"But even without his damning testimony from the past... if war breaks out between the US and Iran, he will be named as the prime suspect as far as its opponents are concerned. Netanyahu... persuaded Donald Trump to abandon Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu convinced Trump that a combination of crippling economic sanctions and a credible military threat will force Tehran to beg for a new and improved nuclear deal, which will include its malevolent regional activities... Netanyahu become a one-man cheerleading squad for Trump's latest moves.

"But while the campaign to blame Israel for the Iraq War was limited to a relatively small clique of its most vociferous critics - the most prominent of which were Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their book about the Israel lobby - conflagration with Iran would dramatically expand the circle of Israel-accusers... It's situation today is substantially worse. After burning his bridges with American liberals, including most Jews... many Democrats are far more likely to point fingers at Netanyahu the moment the first American soldier is killed... Netanyahu believes that the Iranian leadership, like much of the Arab, understands only force. He is convinced that the intense economic pressure coupled with the nightmarish specter of American bombers laying waste to their country will compel Tehran to come back to the negotiating table on all fours in order to carve out the fabled 'better agreement' that both Trump and Netanyahu claim, with no evidence, is eminently achievable... [But] Iran does not view itself as a weak and vulnerable state that has no choice but to capitulate to US ultimatums, but as an equal rival determined to foil Trump or, at worst, survive him...

"Small wonder that in the past 48 hours, White House officials have started to brief US reporters that Trump is less happy with the bellicose approach of his National Security adviser John Bolton, known as one of Israel's closest confidantes in Washington. The catalyst for Trump's reservations was the leaked story of a Pentagon paper prepared for Bolton that envisaged sending 120,000 US troops to fight against the Iranians. Trump boasted that if it came to open conflict, the size of the US force would be much larger, but distanced himself from what critics describe as the warmongering winds emanating from Bolton's office. Experienced Washington observers claim that, based on previous patterns, Trump will soon start criticizing Bolton in public and, after a short hiatus, boot him out of the White House as well... Netanyahu may have to face the possibility that his all-in bet on Trump has failed to produce the dividends he sought and that the anti-Iran strategy built on his beautiful friendship with the US president could be on the verge of collapse.

"The remaining options are both unpalatable for Netanyahu. The first is that Iran will resist recently fortified economics sanctions and continue to incrementally abandon its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, without risking any retaliation from the countries that still adhere to it. The second is a military fare-up between Iran and the US, which or may not cripple Tehran's nuclear infrastructure but is certain to inflict human suffering, financial upheaval, escalating internal strife in Washington and the certainty that Netanyahu will be held responsible for them all. Worse, Trump may eventually reach the same conclusion."

Move Over Geraldine, Fauziah's Here!

Unbelievable! I've just listened to Israel's 'most hated' columnist on Radio National's Sunday Extra (26/11). Visiting Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy was being interviewed by RN presenter Fauziah Ibrahim. (Despite the Arabic name, it seems she's actually from Singapore, and has been working in broadcast journalism for 15 years, including for Al-Jazeera.)

I can't remember, however, when I last heard questions/statements quite as excruciatingly slanted in Israel's favour as Ms Ibrahim's. So much so that I found myself paying more heed to her questions than to Levy's answers!

See what I mean:

*When you say 'automatic [Israeli] soldiers' are you implying they're brainwashed, they don't actually know what they're doing, and they don't have an understanding of the larger context of their role?

[Oh no, Fauziah, they're all Einsteins! No, better, budding high-tech entrepreneurs!]

*This military has been in existence for a long time... are you seeing a difference between this generation and the one you served [in the army] with?

*Have you ever apologised to the parents of the soldiers who died defending this country?

[OFFS!!!???]

*Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab nations. That's an undisputable [sic] fact. Don't you think it's unfair to target the young men and women who were serving their country, risking their lives to protect and defend the country?

[OFFS!!!??? second time around.]

*I want to talk about the elite or the decision-makers. Is there a slow change in mindset? Recently, Israel's president rejected an appeal to pardon Elor Azaria. He was jailed for 18 months for killing a wounded Palestinian attacker. Do you see this refusal to pardon him as a shift in mindset?

*Can you blame [the Israelis] though, when they are surrounded by hostile neighbours and everywhere you go in the media you continually hear about Islamic extremism, and that threat seems to be larger than ever against Israel?

[Hostile neighbours again! This woman sounds like the proverbial broken record.]

*You have been quoted as saying that 'My biggest enemy is the [Israeli] centre and the Zionist left.' How do you counter the arguments of a group of people whose memories still hold the hurt of Nazi persecution and in Israel they have found finally their sanctuary?

[So the Zionist project in Palestine, even though it kicked off in the late 19th century, is all about the Holocaust? There were no Jewish settlers in Palestine before the Holocaust? Every Israeli is a Holocaust survivor, or the descendant of one?]

*How do you counter the views of a group of people who believe it is their God-given right that they live on the land their faith has promised them?

*When you first visited the Palestinian territories in 1967... Take us back to that time. What was your sense then?

*How did you feel about the war at age 14? It was a non-choice war!

[Oh, was it? Israel attacked the Egyptian air force on the ground in a pre-emptive strike on 5 June, 1967, and according to Israel's General Peled, Chief of Logistical Command at the time: "All those stories about the huge danger we were facing... an argument expounded once the war was over, have never been considered in our calculations. While we proceeded towards the full mobilisation of our forces, no person in his right mind could believe that all this force was necessary to our 'defence' against the Egyptian threat. This force was to crush once and for all the Egyptians at the military level. To pretend that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel's existence does not only insult the intelligence of any person capable of analysing this kind of situation, but is primarily an insult to the Israeli army." (Le Monde, 3/6/72)

*When did you start to question your birth country's actions against the Palestinians?

*How do you deal with the the animosity from your own fellow Israelis? Do you find it frustrating that your voice is a minority in Israel?

*Do you think you may have any common ground with PM Netanyahu?

[!!!???]

*I want to go back to another leader, Shimon Peres... His politics started very hawkish then he became a dove. Explain how that shift came about.

*Another leader who started off hawkish and then became, not a dove, a little more centre, Ariel Sharon... He orchestrated Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and he had plans to withdraw from the West Bank. If a solution comes with a soldier, how much does politics sway them away from that solution?

[Ah, Sharon the peacemaker. Not at all sorry about the cold water here: "[C]ontrary to the prevailing assumptions, Sharon did not evacuate the Gaza settlements of his own free will. He cooked up his disengagement plan as a means to gain time, at the peak of international pressure that followed Israel's sabotaging of the Road Map. Yet still, at every moment since then, up until the very moment of disengagement, he was looking for ways to renege on this commitment, as he had done so many times previously. But this time he was forced to follow through with the Gaza pullout by the Bush administration. Though it was kept fully behind the scenes, US pressure on Sharon was massive, and included military sanctions on Israel." (The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003, Tanya Reinhart, 2006, p 4)]

*You are a champion of Palestinian rights. Are you also a champion of Palestinian politics?

*Do you feel guilty being an Israeli?

*How effective is BDS?

*It's not fair to target the Israeli citizen or companies through this boycott.

[But it's fine to target - literally - occupied Palestinians?]

*You support a one-state solution, but isn't that unrealistic? It means a whole rethink, a whole shift from Zionism, the Israeli identity. Where do you start?

[OMG, expecting Israeli Jews to think - Gideon, how could you?!]

Tom Switzer Channels Oded Yinon in the Herald

Whatever happened to progress? One hundred years ago we had Britain Sir Mark Sykes and France's Georges Picot, smack bang in the middle of World War I, drawing lines on a map of the Middle East and coming up with the Sykes-Picot Agreement: You take those bits and we'll have these, old chap.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.

Well, they haven't, because now we've got Australia's Tom Switzer and America's John Bolton having another go at drawing lines on a map of the Middle East. Here's Switzer (research associate at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre and host of Radio National's Between the Lines):

"The problem boils down to this: Iraq and Syria as we know them are gone. Iraq is not one people, but rather three peoples: Kurds, (minority) Sunnis, and (majority) Shiites. Syria is also three peoples: Kurds, (majority) Sunnis, and (minority) Alawites/Shiites, who protect the Christians and other religious minorities. None of this should surprise a student of modern history. Both Iraq and Syria are artificial states and ethnically divided societies created out of the ruins of the the Ottoman Empire a century ago. What the US-led invasion in 2003 and the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 did was unleash age-old sectarian animosities that are eroding political structures and borders that have more or less prevailed since the end of World War I. What to do? John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN and senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, has a good idea: create independent states for the Kurds and Sunnis after the defeat of IS. A 'Sunni-stan', he argues, could be a bulwark against the Iran-backed regimes in Damascus and Baghdad." (Redrawing the map is the best solution, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/1/16)

No, the problem really boils down to this - the Switzers and Boltons of this world.

Just a reminder: John Bolton is an American neoconservative, one of the rum crew, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith & Abrams, that formed PNAC (Project for a New American Century) back in the 1990s. At the time the PNAC neocons/Ziocons urged Clinton to blitz Iraq - to no avail. Unfortunately for them, they had to wait for Bush Jr, 9/11 and a few plum posts in the Bush administration before they could realise their dream - today's Iraq (and Libya and Syria).

Bolton became US Undersecretary of State and duly went off to confer with USraeli leader Ariel Sharon in February 2003. Needless to say, there was - LOL - a meeting of minds:

Sharon said "that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. 'These are irresponsible states which must be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve'."

And Bolton replied "that he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea."*

Good old John. As the late Republican Senator (and friend of Jesus) Jesse Helms said in endorsement: "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armaggedon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world."

Actually, it's not Sir Mark Sykes that Tom Switzer and John Bolton are channeling here. It's Israel's Oded Yinon and his 1982 Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties:

"Iraq... is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria... Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us... and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines... is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north."

But hang on, wasn't Oded Switzer telling us only a matter of weeks ago that "The smartest strategy is for the West to slowly but steadily disengage militarily from the Middle East and allow the people in that region to settle their own differences"?**

Now here he is, hanging with John (Regime Change) Bolton, who wants to create Kurdistan, Sunnistan, Shiastan (and, for all we know, Yazidistan as well). (Hey, maybe they could be called Cheneystan, Rumsfeldistan, Perlestan and so on.)

What ever happened to consistency? Oh, wait, I can guarantee that Oded Switzer will never, ever, want to play around with Israel's borders - wherever they happen to be.

And just remember: Oded Switzer doesn't peddle his dubious wares in the Murdoch press, but in Fairfax and on ABC radio.

Have a nice day!

[*Sharon says US should also disarm Iran, Libya & Syria, Aluf Benn, Haaretz, 18/2/03; **The West should let the Middle East settle its own differences, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/11/15]

A Nugget of Truth in The Australian

Here are excerpts from a timely and trenchant opinion piece, It's high time that Australia told Israel a few home truths, by Peter Rodgers, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, published in yesterday's Australian:

"In September 2000, Israel's opposition leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, visited the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, a site of intense religious significance for Muslims and Jews (as the Temple Mount).

"Sharon's purpose was entirely political - a statement that a Likud government would never cede control of the area to the Palestinians. The visit helped trigger the second Palestinian uprising. When it ended, about 6,000 people lay dead, more than 80% of them Palestinian.

"Fast forward to 2015. As Israelis celebrated the Jewish New Year in September, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel led a group of the Likud Young Guard up the Haram al-Sharif, their self-proclaimed goal to 'assert Jewish sovereignty' over the area. Palestinians, not surprisingly, reacted with suspicion, hostility and, in some cases, violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a 'harsh offensive' in return, demonstrating once more that there is no greater double standard in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict than the issue of violence. Israel uses violence against Palestinians as a matter of course. It expects Palestinian quiescence and acts indignantly when this is not forthcoming [...]

"Late last month, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that the Palestinians would no longer abide by the 1993 Oslo Accords. These provided the flimsy scaffold for negotiation of Palestinian statehood. What was remarkable about Abbas's speech was that it took so many years for him to make it. Oslo's corpse had long lain in the morgue. All Abbas did was to invite a viewing.

"With depressingly familiar hype, Netanyahu slammed Abbas's UN speech for its alleged deceit and incitement. He urged Abbas to accept the offer 'to hold direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions'. That was a good one coming from a prime minister whose own preconditions include no Palestinian state ever, who plays godfather to the settlement movement, and who has now deemed it reasonable to use live ammunition against rock-throwing Palestinians.

"Australia has long been susceptible to the line that the Palestinians are not ready for statehood. The Turnbull government, with 7 others (including tiny island states such as the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu), opposed the raising of the Palestinian flag at the UN. The opposition is not much better. The ALP conference last July decided at last to discuss possible recognition of a Palestinian state if there were 'no progress in the next round of the peace process'. As if there were a peace process or the faintest prospect of one.

"Australian governments have often spoken proudly of their friendship with Israel.

"It's high time that friendship was put in the service of peace by telling Israel a few home truths about the Gordion knot that is occupation and violence."

Now here's an excerpt from a letter in reply in today's Australian by Mike Tsykin, Elsternwick, Victoria:

"We remember that Israel is manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism. It is our war as well; we did not wish it, but it is fought in our streets. The best we can do is to continue supporting Israel. We are in this together."

What rubbish! Israel is not "manning the front line in the war against Islamic terrorism," it is manning the front line in Zionism's near 100-year war for Jewish supremacy and hegemony in historic Palestine.

Notice Tsykin's shameless conflation of the young heroes and heroines of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression with the murderous behaviour of our own politically illiterate, disaffected dupes of Islamic State propaganda. Just as Israeli Zionists have no qualms whatever in murdering any number of Palestinians - men, women or children - in their unrelenting push to control and dominate every square inch of Palestine, their cheer squads in Australia and elsewhere have no qualms whatever in stooping to any monstrous lie in order to shield them from justified criticism.

G.W. Bush: Next US Secretary of State?

OK, sod the UK election results.

But it could've been worse. What if Cameron had decided to appoint Tony Blair as his special adviser on UK-Israeli policy?

Too far-fetched?

Not these days:

"After spending months distancing himself from his family's political legacy, [Republican presidential wannabe] Jeb Bush surprised a group of Manhattan financiers this week by naming his brother, former president G.W. Bush, as his most influential counselor on US-Israeli policy." (One of Jeb Bush's top advisers on Israel: George W. Bush, Robert Costa, washingtonpost.com, 7/5/15)

(And just so's you know who's pulling the strings over there:

"Tuesday's session was organized by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer and his advisers so their associates could hear from Bush. Similar meetings have been held with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, three of Bush's potential Republican rivals in the 2016 race." (ibid)

Singer is described on Wikipedia as "an active participant in Republican Party politics... [who] has given millions of dollars to politicians who favour strong military aid to Israel.")

So does Dubya have a track record in managing the Israelis? You betcha:

"President Bush, showing his exasperation as Israeli tanks continued to roll through the West Bank, demanded Saturday that Israel withdraw 'without delay' from the Palestinian cities it has occupied in several days of outright war. 'I don't expect them to ignore [me],' he said. 'I expect them to heed the call.' After aiming those sharp words at the Israelis during a news conference here, Bush followed up with a 20-minute phone call to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. 'He told the prime minister that he meant what he said: that Israel needs to withdraw without delay,' an administration official said. Sharon promised that he would wrap up his military incursion into Palestinian cities 'as expeditiosly as possible,' the official said, but there was no immediate sign of a rollback'." (Bush demands Israel pull out; Sharon to 'expedite' offensive, Edwin Chen & Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, 7/4/02)

Will Australia Resist Israel's Advances?

Now where were we?

Oh yes, way out there on the very tip of that aforementioned UN limb, with Australia astride Israel's lap, getting decidedly physical...

Australia (arms around Israel's neck): Hi, handsome. OMG, is this the hardest cushion I've ever sat on, or are you just, like, pleased to see me?

Israel (smirking, unable to believe his luck): Both, bitch. My dick's as deadly as a rubber bullet, pure steel under a gristle coating. And when I come it's like white phosphorus over Hamastan. Burn, babies, burn, know what I mean?

Australia: Love it when you talk dirty, Israel. Hey, I hear it's such a tough neighborhood around here, I'm surprised you've got time, like, to get it up.

Israel: There's no keeping an Israeli dick down, bitch. We're not known as Erectz Israel for nothing, you know? Let me tell you a story.

Australia: Love stories! A dirty one?

Israel: The best, babe.

Australia: Shoot, handsome... Oh, wait. I can't believe, like, I just said that... (giggles uncontrollably)

Israel: Listen up, bitch, it's about one of our greatest warrior-poets, name of Arik.

Australia: Hey, wasn't he the one who erected all those, like, cheeky settlements in, like, disputed territory?

Israel: That's the one. We used to call him the Bulldozer! Sadly, he's no longer with us anymore, but his spirit lives on! Now, zip it, I've got a story to tell!

Australia: Yes, boss!

Israel: It was back in May '48. Arik was just 12 at the time. Twelve! He was taking part in the Battle of Latrun against the Arab Legion, trying to penetrate the blockade of Jerusalem. He got hit in the nuts - or so he thought - and was evacuated to a camp for the wounded. A sexy young nurse asked him to urinate but he couldn't. When she called for a catheter, he said, Wait, I'll try again. This time he succeeded. Then she kissed him, smack on the mouth! Now how did he put it? It was only then that I realised that my wound was not where I had feared.

Australia: Go on! You're making it up. You Israelis are, like, such liers.

Israel: No way, bitch. It's all there in Uri Dan's book, Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait, page 13.

Australia: Let's give it a go then (kisses him). OMG, you're, like, channeling Arik!

Israel: Every inch an Arik, bitch! Hey, listen, I've got an idea. Now we know each other a little better, why don't you ditch that pad of yours back in Tel Aviv, and I'll set you up with something much nicer here in Jerusalem? Whaddya say?

Can Australia resist? That's the question.

Now in case you think I'm imagining things here, check out Tanya Nolan's interview* with a former Australian ambassador to Israel, Peter Rodgers, on Australia's current - ahem - moves, where she asks him that very question:

Tanya Nolan: What do you think the risk is now, by Australia not recognising that Israel is occupying East Jerusalem, of our being invited to relocate [our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem]?

Peter Rodgers: Oh, I'm sure they'll be invited. It's a question of whether they have the fortitude to resist the invitation.

Watch this space...

[*The World Today, Radio National, 6/6/14]

The Taming of Tanya 3

"Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop will represent Australia at a service for Mr Sharon in Israel on Monday. Shadow foreign affairs minister Tanya Plibersek said in a statement: 'In his final years as Prime Minister, [Mr] Sharon made great strides in the Israel-Palestine peace process, representing a courageous shift in his politics in favour of a two-state solution'." ('Bulldozer' who shaped Israel, Robert Tait, The Australian Financial Review, 13/1/14)

Oh did he now? What part of Sharon adviser Dov Weisglass's statement on the subject do you not understand, Tanya?

"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... After all, what have I been shouting for the past year? That I found a device, in cooperation with the management of the world, to ensure that there will be no stopwatch here. That there will be no timetable to implement the [West Bank] settlers' nightmare. I have postponed that nightmare indefinitely... That is the significance of what we did. The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze the process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that that entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." (Quoted in The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003, Tanya Reinhart, 2006, p 43)

Zionist (Wet) Dreaming

I don't know how much more simple-minded commentary on Ariel Sharon in the corporate media I can take. Here, for example, is the concluding paragraph from Jonathan Freedland's obituary (?) in the Guardian online:

"The tragedy for both sides is that the right people to speak that truth [about the Palestinian nakba] were the founding generation. Those who fought the war of 1948 were best placed to close its wounds. An intriguing habit of Sharon's was to refer to places in Israel by their original, Arabic names - thereby acknowledging the truth that usually lies buried beneath the soil. Leading his nation to do the same could have been Ariel Sharon's final mission. They will have to do it without him."  (Ariel Sharon's final mission might well have been peace, 4/1/14)

As if this "intriguing habit" - assuming it ever existed - meant anything more than the fact that Sharon was born and raised in ARAB PALESTINE.

Incredibly, while ms journalists/pundits such as Freedland have no problem spotting war criminals in every other corner of the globe, when it comes to the Israeli variety they go all fey and fall all over themselves in an effort to sanitise the unsanitisable. So here we have Freedland seriously speculating that had Sharon not fallen victim to a stroke in 2006 he'd now be leading an Israeli version of Australia's Sorry movement! Time, as always, to get real:

"Finally in power [in 1977] after 30 years in opposition, the [Israeli] right dreamed of a new map of Israel, and Begin knew how to galvanize the masses with his pioneering speeches. But Likud did not know how to make this map happen. For Sharon, however - a child of Kfar Malal - it wasn't complicated: irrigation systems needed to be set up, roads marked out and houses built. The division of labor was as follows: Begin would speak about the need to increase Israeli settlements... while Sharon would be the contractor. Sharon turned to a new generation of pioneers from Gush Emunim... inspired by the Bible... Ariel shared their love of the land of Israel and the certainty that they were the legitimate owners of the land of their ancestors... From 1977 to 1981 he established more than 60 settlements in Judea-Samaria. Then, in the course of his various later posts - defense, industry and commerce, infrastructure, housing - he reinforced these settlements and increased their number, until they reached 150. Sharon fought against the whole world to strengthen the Jewish presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and he did not appreciate it when, years later, those in charge of the settlements preferred Benjamin Netanyahu over him as the right-wing candidate for prime minister." (Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait, Uri Dan, 2006, pp 77-8)

Fantasies like Freedland's do not arise spontaneously of course - they require a process of indoctrination, preferably from one's earliest days. In an obituary on his mother's death, Freedland wrote:

"Whatever view you ultimately take on the Israel-Palestine question, you cannot hope to understand that conflict unless you also understand this... craving for a place the Jews could call their own." (In death - as in life - my mother was rescued by love, The Guardian, 18/5/12)

Swallow the Zionist dogma that "Jews" must have "a place of their own" - preferably in Palestine - and even a butcher and thief like Sharon will come up smelling like roses.  

Ariel Sharon's Pastrami Sandwich

My favorite tweets on the death of former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon:

Ariel Sharon spent his life working for peace. May he rest in peace now. (US Senator Tom Carper)

Is Senator Carper on crack? (Syd Walker)

R.I.P. Ariel Sharon Man of Peace (2006-2014) (Syd Walker)

Actually, Syd, even with the gag included, I don't wish him to rest in any kind of peace. (Jacques Hughes)

As Shakespeare wrote: 'The evil that men do lives after them,' IMO our task is to minimize that legacy. I wish his bones no harm. (Syd Walker)

Ariel Sharon in 1973 on his plans for irreversible Jewish colonization and Palestinian bantustans in the West Bank: "We'll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank so that in 25 years time, neither the UN nor the US, nobody will be able to tear it apart." (Rania Khalek)

Actually, Syd's wrong about Sharon being a Man of Peace from 2006 to 2014. As the following Circus Israel review of Sharon's 2010 book, Conquering the Void, clearly shows, even while comatose, Arik was waging war:

CONQUERING THE VOID, by Ariel Sharon, as told to Dov Weisglass (Gefen Publishing)

Resolute as ever, the Bulldozer reports from his comatose netherworld, as narrated by his trusted advisor and favorite quipster, attorney Dov Weisglass. Predictably, the incapacitated PM finds no Palestinian partner for peace in the indefinite beyond and must carve out the borders of the Jewish Vegetative State unilaterally. Left with no reasonable alternative, he parachutes behind enemy ether and establishes irrevocable Jewish facts in the clouds. When ethereal Arabs reflexively respond with mindless terror, Arik deploys the IDF to break their vaguely formed bones. Of course, Sharon simultaneously works the diplomatic channel, outflanking Arafat by abruptly disengaging from certain peripheral and non-strategic gastric functions. On a lighter note, the indisposed PM playfully recounts his distaste for his free-floating miasmic dust-bunnies, which he describes as 'cowardly and naive'." (Spring books for fervent Zionists, circusisrael.blogspot.com, 11/4/10)

And speaking of fervent Zionists, it is fervently to be hoped that by the time shadow foreign minister Tanya Plibersek finishes reading Golda Meir's autobiography, a translation of Sharon's latest will be ready for her to take up. (See my 25/12/13 post The Taming of Tanya Plibersek 2)

Tony's Crew

The closer I get to E Day in September, the more I find myself sitting up and taking notice of what Opposition Leader Tony Abbot's cutthroat crew are saying, tweeting, or otherwise emitting.

Three recent items in particular are worth noting. Taken in isolation, they could perhaps be dismissed as aberrations. Put together, however, and it's a different matter. Read on and you can almost see the swagger, the glint in the eyes, and the flashing of knives in the moonlight:

1) What follows is a gobsmacking twitter exchange between South African-born, West Australian Liberal MP Dr Dennis Jensen and an indigenous Australian woman, in which the White Man tells the Black Woman to quit her whining and move on:

Jensen: Hell, how long ago was colonialism? Get over it... every country in the world has been successfully invaded in the past!

The Koori Woman: Do I snap my fingers and forget 213 years of oppression?

Jensen: It is time to unite Australia, not divide based on a victim mentality. What do you do when knocked down, just blame.

(Source: Tweet and sour: MP in spat with Aboriginal woman on colonialism, Dan Harrison, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/4/13)

(BTW, the title 'Dr' denotes not Jensen's bedside manner - he has none - but his PhD in Materials Science and Physics.) 

Now, as you'd expect, this defender of colonialism is also an 'expert' on Palestine/Israel.

Did you know, for example, that those who say Ariel Sharon withdrew his thugs and maddies from the Gaza Strip in 2005 so that he could get the Americans off his back and focus on colonising the more strategic West Bank have got it all wrong?* Apparently, in a completely spontaneous (but in retrospect sadly misplaced) display of generosity and goodwill, this legendary White Man decided to give the sand niggers of Gaza the gift of self-determination! But, hey, were the buggers grateful for their tiny, walled Bantustan on the Med? Not on your nelly:

"Mr Forde, I was in Israel... in 2005 [when] Israel allowed Gaza self-determination. I would have thought that the way in which Palestinians at that stage would have shown goodwill was to try to make Gaza as much as possible a model state. Instead, what they did was that they started firing rockets into Israel."

How to account for the natives being so damn uppity? Dr Jensen, whose research skills are second to none, knows:

"If you look at at Palestinian Authority TV the stuff they put up is appalling... they are inciting children to jihad, which is basically doing a suicide action on behalf of Allah..."

His interlocutor, Mr Forde asks:

"Have you seen that TV... or are you relying on stuff you were given by... [Israel] lobby groups?"

And Jensen replies:  

I have seen it on the internet.

(Source: Supporting the Recognition of Palestine as a Non-Member UN State, Standing Committee on Petitions, 12/4/13)

2) "An article published by a Liberal Party-aligned think tank that advocates killing off the poorest 20% of Australians as a way to get the budget back on track has been described as a 'disgraceful rant' by Treasurer Wayne Swan. A 'modest cull of the enormously poor' has been suggested by right-wing business lobbyist Toby Ralph in a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece written in reaction to the federal government's attack on the 'fabulously wealthy' through superannuation taxes. 'In contrast to the fabulously rich, the enormously poor make little useful contribution to society,' wrote Mr Ralph, a long-time Liberal Party campaign strategist." (Kill poor to fix budget, writes lobbyist with Liberal links, Heath Aston, Sydney Morning Herald, 17/3/13)

3) "Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has demoted a member of his staff for threatening the head of an indigenous education charity. Mr Abbott has announced his director of policy, Dr Mark Roberts, has been demoted following an investigation into his behaviour at a Sydney dinner on Thursday night. Political commentator Peter van Onselen has insisted several witnesses saw Dr Roberts make a throat slitting gesture to Andrew Penfold, the chief executive of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation... 'I heard him say slit the throat or cut the throat, I heard the cutting of funding as an exact quote...' Mr van Onselen said. Mr van Onselen said Dr Roberts had made a throat cutting gesture which was witnessed by his wife and other guests at the dinner... Mr van Onselen said Dr Roberts later approached him and offered to give him information from within Mr Abbott's office in return for keeping quiet about the incident..." (Abbott staffer demoted after incident at Sydney party, Dan Harrison, Sydney Morning Herald, 19/4/13)

Be afraid...

[*See my 21/8/12 post Zionising the Draft Modern History Curriculum 6.]

So What Else Is New?

This news really should have come as no surprise:

"Israel and US scientists say the comatose former prime minister Ariel Sharon showed 'significant brain activity' in an MRI scan, responding to pictures of his family 7 years after a stroke left him unconscious." (Sharon: sign of brain activity, AFP/Sydney Morning Herald, 29/1/13)

After all, a book was published on this very subject some years back. What's more, it was dictated by the great, but comatose, man himself to his mate, Dov Weisglass. Published in Israel by Gefen Publishing, it's called Conquering the Void.

Here's the gist:

"Resolute as ever, the Bulldozer reports from his comatose netherworld, as narrated by his trusted advisor and favorite quipster, attorney Dov Weisglass. Predictably, the incapacitated PM finds no Palestinian partner for peace in the indefinite beyond and must carve out the borders of the Jewish Vegetative State unilaterally. Left with no reasonable alternative, he parachutes behind enemy ether and establishes irrevocable Jewish facts in the clouds. When ethereal Arabs reflexively respond with mindless terror, Arik deploys the IDF to break their vaguely formed bones. Of course, Sharon simultaneously works the diplomatic channel, outflanking Arafat by abruptly disengaging from certain peripheral and non-strategic gastric functions. On a lighter note, the indisposed PM playfully recounts his distaste for his free-floating miasmic dust-bunnies, which he describes as 'cowardly and naive.'" (Spring books for fervent Zionists, circusisrael.blogspot.com, 11/4/10)

Drama Queens

No country produces drama queens, fabulists and obsessives quite like Israel. Here's Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, for example, in full-flight at the UN General Assembly in 2009. How his audience kept a straight face is beyond me:

"This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene 3 decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past 30 years this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others."

Lying dormant for centuries!? Schlock horror at its best!

Reading Israeli 'journalist' Uri Dan's Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait (2006) only confirms the impression. When it came to bravura performances, Sharon, Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was more than a match for Bibi. The porcine war criminal had bullshit in buckets and chutzpah in spades.

Only Sharon, for example, could get away with this one:

"Lebanon is also strongly determined to obtain nuclear weapons." (p 229)

Lebanese nukes! And his faithful PR flak, Uri Dan, didn't even bat an eyelid!

And here's Sharon on the subject of the Holocaust. (Now I know what you're thinking: there couldn't possibly be anything I haven't already heard on that subject, right? Wrong!) Forget the antics of the Grand Mufti, according to Sharon, the Palestinian people itself is collectively responsible for the Holocaust. Here's how he spins it:

"The Shoah itself is linked to Arab terrorism of the 1930s since it encouraged the British government, then masters of the country, to publish the White Paper of 1939 that limited the number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine to 75,000 people over 5 years. Those were precisely the years that saw the horror of Nazism. There is no doubt that without that White Paper hundreds of thousands, even millions, of European Jews could have been saved. At the time when Jews could still escape, the doors of Eretz Israel were closed to them!" (p 139)

Get the drift? Instead of engaging in a desperate revolt for independence from the British, whose declared mission since 1917 had been to hand their country over to Zionist colons, the Palestinians should have sat on their haunches, pondered the plight of Germany's Jews, and thought first and foremost about what they could do to help them. Yeah, right.

And talk about obsessed. Captain Ahab, in mad pursuit of Moby Dick, was a model of rationality compared to Sharon. For Sharon, Yasser Arafat was "the greatest enemy that the Jewish people have known since the end of World War II" (p 102), "a modern pharaoh" (p 134) who dwelt (at least until 1982) in "a kingdom of terror" in Lebanon (p 95).

And if ever you wanted a rationale for a land grab, try topping this one:

"I voted against ceding Hebron to the Palestinians; this would endanger the Jewish community resettled in the town. The number of deaths among those heroic Jews who have continued to live in Hebron since then has justified my fears. King David spent seven and a half years in Hebron, where he was crowned, and the town is mentioned 1,023 times in the Bible. And this what we are asked to give up?" (p 172)

A mere eight and a half years and it's yours for all time!

But if you think it's just Sharon who's crackers, listen to his biographer/buddy, Uri Dan:

"When Sharon, full of life, humor and energy, climbed into his jeep with his soldiers headed for the battlefield, I saw historical figures: the Jews fighting for their freedom against the Greeks, Romans and others; David confronting Goliath; the Judges of Israel; Gideon and Samson." (p 18)

Syrian Barbarism

Typical Syrian barbarism:

"One military defector stated that he had decided to defect after witnessing the shooting of a 2-year-old girl in Al Ladhiqiyah on 13 August by an officer who affirmed that he did not want her to grow into a demonstrator', the report says." (Syrian death toll includes 250 kids, The Wall Street Journal/The Australian, 30/10/11)

There's just no way that could happen in civilised Israel, right?

Wrong:

"Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription, 'Better use Durex', next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, '1 shot, 2 kills'." (Dead Palestinian babies & bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009, Uri Blau, Haaretz, 20/3/09)

Ah, but that's now. Back in the good old days - 1953 - when Israel's 'soul' was intact, knocking off women and children was unheard of, right?

Wrong:

"Sharon's life-long war against the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular started immediately after that first successful operation against the Bedouin. His next major proposal to command headquarters was a limited raid against the al-Burg refugee camp, which was supposedly used by infiltrators as a base. When he described the details of the operation to his soldiers, one of them - according to Uri Benziman - observed that the obvious objective of the raid was to kill as many civilians as possible. The soldier complained that this was an improper objective, but Sharon ignored the remark. The result was that 15 Palestinians were killed, most of them women and children. Interrogated by superiors after the raid, he argued that the high casualty rate was necessitated by the need to defend the lives of his soldiers. He explained to his own soldiers that all the women of the camps were whores that served the murderers." (Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling, 2003, pp 48-49)

Battered Palestinian Syndrome 2

"The white liberal may be a little taken aback to know that from all-Negro audiences I never have had one challenge, never one question that defended the white man. That has been true even when a lot of those 'black bourgeoisie' and 'integration'-mad Negroes were among the blacks. All Negroes, among themselves, admit the white man's criminal record. They may not know as many details as I do, but they know the general picture. But let me tell you something significant: this very same bourgeois Negro who, among Negroes, would never make a fool of himself in trying to defend the white man - watch that same Negro in a mixed black and white audience, knowing he's overheard by his beloved 'Mr Charlie'. Why, you should hear those Negroes attack me, trying to justify, to forgive the white man's crimes! These Negroes are people who bring me nearest to breaking one of my principal rules, which is never to let myself become over-emotional and angry. Why, sometimes I've felt I ought to jump down off that stand and get physical with some of those brainwashed white man's tools, parrots, puppets. At the colleges, I've developed some stock put-downs for them: 'You must be a law student, aren't you?' They have to say either yes, or no. And I say, 'I thought you were. You defend this criminal white man harder than he defends his guilty self!'" (The Autobiography of Malcolm X, p 391)

Izzeldin Abuelaish, the subject of an earlier post by me (Battered Palestinian Syndrome, 24/2/11) is in town for this month's Sydney Writers Festival. Of course, a bit of PR never goes astray when you've come all the way from Canada to flog your wares, and by a process thus far unknown to us, the Herald's Good Weekend mag has come to the rescue with Healing Heart by David Leser.

If my first brush with a piece on Abuelaish had me squirming in my seat, this one's got me coughing and spluttering as well:

"'My God, my God, they killed my daughters. Shlomi, I wanted to save them, but they are dead. They were hit in the head. They died on the spot. Allah, what have we done to them? Oh God'."

What have we done to them?! We?!!

"Abuelaish was trusted and well respected, not just by members of the Israeli media, but by the country's medical fraternity as well. He'd been the first Palestinian obstetrician and gynaecologist to have been given a residency inside an Israeli hospital. He helped scores of infertile Israeli couples realise the joys of childbirth... He'd proven himself a man of peace, someone prepared to condemn his own side's suicide bombings, in private as well as in a public letter to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. 'Israelis are our friends', he would often tell his daughters, 'and we should love them as we love one another'."

The House Arab (see my final paragraph) always has to earn his master's trust. It's not 'Israelis can be our friends once the occupation is over and our rights as human beings have been restored', but Israelis are our friends, full stop. Honestly, if Malcolm X had heard such nonsense, he would've been too busy trying to find a bucket to get physical.

"Abuelaish was born in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza in 1955... [In 1967] Israeli tanks rolled through Abuelaish's street as they sought to secure the territory from Egyptian rule... [In 1970], the streets of the territory were widened so that Israeli tanks could negotiate their way more easily. Hundreds of houses, including Abuelaish's family home, were bulldozed to the ground."

So Abuelaish was a refugee. As Leser explains, "his family's land - located in what is today the northern Negev Desert of Israel - was lost during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (The land is today owned by the now-comatose former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and his family.)." His precarious Gaza refuge was invaded by the Israelis in 1956, about which Leser makes no mention, and again in 1967. And then his family home is bulldozed by none other than Ariel Sharon, the butcher who squats on Abuelaish land in the Negev to this day.

But we are expected to believe that all of this took a back seat to his romance with a kind Jewish family on whose farm (whose farm?) near Ashqelon he worked for just 3 months at the age of 15. Just to clarify, allow me to supplement Leser's sanitised sketch above with an account of what was really going on in the Gaza Strip at this time:

"Between 1967 and 1970, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip's refugee camps engaged in sporadic armed resistance against the Israeli occupation. In August 1970, Sharon began mopping up remnant guerilla cells. He operated systematically and with great brutality, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood and from grove to grove. The army imposed day-long curfews and gathered the entire population of a neighborhood or refugee camp (preferred sites were the Shatti and Jebalia camps), thus enabling the soldiers to make house-to-house searches and ensuring easy access for the military to any part of the Gaza Strip. This meant demolishing thousands of homes [not hundreds as Leser has it] and uprooting large portions of the Gaza Strip's citrus groves, the region's only crops. Orders were given to shoot any suspect without trial or inquiry, and over a thousand people were duly shot dead or executed." (Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Baruch Kimmerling, 2003, p 61-62)

"'Izzeldin was a special person, with a balanced point of view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict', Dr Shlomo Usef, the director of Soroka hospital observed. 'He saw it as a conflict with two sides, and himself as the person to bridge the two'."

Just how balanced Abuelaish is may be seen from the inclusion in his book (no, I still don't have a copy) of a 2001 photograph of the good doctor standing, with a broad smile on his face, with Ehud Barak, the war criminal who, as defence minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead directed the murderers of Abuelaish's daughters and hundreds more children just like them. (You can see the photograph at the Youth Against Normalization blog, 13/2/11) The balanced Abuelaish helps perpetuate the pernicious nonsense, referred to again and again on this blog, that the Zionist project of now hot, now cold ethnic cleansing (See my last post), of wiping Palestine and its people literally off the map, is somehow an equal struggle between two right sides which can be bridged if only other Palestinians were more like Abuelaish.

"Now based in Toronto with his 5 remaining children, Abuelaish was last year nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize following the publication of his book 'I Shall Not Hate'... Often a keynote speaker at peace conferences, he is in Spokane to talk at the Second International Conference on Hate Studies, a multidisciplinary forum seeking to combat extremism in all its guises: racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism..."

Hate studies?! My God, you can see this one coming a mile off. Cop this from the Keynote Speech at the First Conference to Establish the Academic Field of Hate Studies by Kenneth S Stern of The American Jewish Committee (AJC):

"But the problem [of anti-Semitism] is also one of definition. A 2002 Anti-Defamation League survey said that while 17% of Americans were anti-Semitic, only 3% of college students were. But during the period when that survey was taken, the ADL and many other Jewish organizations, including the AJC, were spending an inordinate amount of time tackling anti-Semitism on campus... The problems on campus were not coming from those who felt that Jews were greasy or slimy, or who wouldn't live next door to or wouldn't marry a Jew. They were from college students who didn't have a problem with Jews individually, but whose anti-Semitism was manifest in its collective expression, namely in the State of Israel." (The Need for an Interdisciplinary Field of Hate Studies, ajc.org, p 20)

Ah yes, the collective Jew, Israel. What bunkum! But, hey, Stern knows it's a stretch and so he adds the rider, and don't they all?: "This is not to say that criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitism. It clearly is not."

Ah, so we can all go home then? Afraid not, there's a catch, and isn't there always?:

"But to single out only one people on the globe as not having the right to self-determination, or holding their state to a higher standard of behavior than that applied to any other nation, is a form of bigotry that doesn't get picked up in the classic measuring instruments looking at inter-group attitudes."

So this is the agenda Abuelaish is only too happy to lend his name too. Malcolm X has done us all a service in drawing our attention to the phenomenon of the House and the Field Negro*. Now that brown is the new black, if we're incapable of calling a spade a spade here, I'm sorry, but we may as well pack up and go home.

[* See my 21/4/11 post Slavish Devotion]

Zionism 101: Making the Desert Bloom

"You don't simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away. I prefer to advocate a more positive policy... to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave." Ariel Sharon, The Times, 24/8/88

"Today [Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad] says the olive tree is fundamental to Palestinians, likening attacks on them to 'terrorism'. 'The youngest olive tree here [in Turmus Ayya] is older than the oldest (Jewish) settlement', he says. 'People say we don't know who the settlers are but the settlers have an address and it is called the government of Israel'. Next to him, Robert Serry of the UN adds: 'In recent weeks in this village alone, settler extremists have destroyed hundreds of trees by poison or by knocking them down. The same story can be told by villagers in many other places. I am appalled at acts of destruction of olive trees and farmlands, desecration of mosques and violence against civilians'. The Australian drove to see dozens of small trees just opposite an illegal Jewish outpost. At the base of almost every tree are two or three drilled holes. The trees have died. At another field, much older trees have four, sometimes five, holes. So fresh is the killing the trees are only beginning to die. Liquid stains from a foul-smelling substance can still be seen. In the field above, the same story. Row after row of poisoned trees. Probably 100, all dying. Settlers say there is no evidence they are responsible, but it would be difficult for Palestinians to be doing the killing as the Israeli army permits many of them to enter their groves only twice a year - planting and harvesting time." (Olive branch out of question as Palestinians see their trees die, John Lyons, The Australian, 1/11/10)

Mosque Busters

Follow the thread:

"Yehuda Etzion was no less colorful. A student of the Elon Shvut Yeshiva, determined and zealous in his faith, he was among the 'professional settlers' during the first years of Gush Emunim, spending long periods on the hilltops, moving constantly from one to another. Etzion did his military service as a paramilitary yeshiva soldier in combat engineering, a unit that provided him with the training in explosives that he latter used in terror group activities. He was a partner to the first settlement attempt by the Elon Moreh nucleus in Samaria, in the spring of 1974, and was among those who were forcibly evacuated while Sharon was endeavoring to protect him with his own body and instructing the evacuating soldiers to refuse to obey orders. Afterward Etzion headed the work brigade out of which the settlement of Ofra grew. During the days of Camp David he took part in demonstrations all over the country and organized protest settlements. However, the failure of the settlement attempt at Rujaib near Nablus right after the signing of the Camp David agreements led him to cut himself off from Gush Emunim and to a period of isolation and thought. Settling the land no longer looked to him like the most important course of action. He set out to seek a 'personality of spiritual stature, who would put himself at the head of an initiative that would march the Jewish people toward the fulfillment of their destiny'. The books of his relative, Shabtai Ben-Dov, and the conversations he conducted with his friend Yeshua Ben Shushan gave him ideas about the ways of accelerating the process of the Redemption... When Etzion asked... Ben-Dov whether removing the Dome of the Rock from the Temple Mount would start a dynamic of Redemption, the latter replied..., 'If you want to do a deed that will solve all of the problems of the Jewish people - do that!' Etzion and Ben Shushan turned for advice to Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook, the spiritual leader of Gush Emunim, and the rabbi directed them to Ariel Sharon." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp 81-82)

"The destruction of a mosque by Hindu radicals that led to some of the bloodiest religious riots in India since Partition was 'meticulously planned' by politicians including a former prime minister, according to a leaked report of the official investigation. The razing of the 16th-century Babri Mosque - in the northern town of Ayodhya, on December 6, 1992, by an estimated 150,000 Hindus - led to national violence in which about 2000 people died, mostly Muslims. The demolition also cemented the power base of the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to power 4 years later. BJP hardliners had long claimed the mosque stood on the birthplace of Lord Rama, the Hindu warrior god, and had campaigned for a Hindu temple to be built on the site... Those [politicians] allegedly involved included former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee..." (Hindu MPs behind razing of mosque, Rhys Blakely, The Australian, 25/11/09)

"Ariel Sharon [was] the first Israeli prime minister to visit India since independence in 1947... During a dinner organised in his honour by his Indian counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on September 9, Sharon reaffirmed his government's determination to 'act against terror'. Vajpayee said: 'Our defence cooperation rests on the foundation of mutual understanding of security concerns'. The spectacular blossoming of Israeli-Indian relations owes much to their joint perceptions of 'Islamic threats' in Kashmir and in Palestine. Long fascinated by Israel, the leaders of the nationalist Hindu Indian Peoples Party (BJP) decided in 1999, after a fresh wave of bloody clashes with Kashmiri guerillas... to call on Israeli expertise... The events of September 11, 2001, further boosted that cooperation, and the Indian prime minister's national security adviser... speaking earlier this year to the American Jewish Committee in Washington, argued in favour of a central axis consisting of the United States, Israel and India that would fight terrorism together. Israel is now India's second-largest arms supplier after Russia." (Sharon & Vajpayee see eye to eye on terror, Francoise Chipaux, Guardian Weekly, 18/9/03)

The Beat-Up Goes On

How to Do It by Michael Leunig

Take a woman. Take a child. Take a man.
Treat them with contempt. Drive them off their land...
Kill their loved ones & their respected elders.
Take away their rights & their defences.
Destroy their homes, their trees, their sacred places
And all that they hold dear. Call them mad.
Slander those who pity them.
Malign them. Degrade them.
Torment & exclude them.
Make them poor.
Make their lives impossible.
Persecute and oppress them.
That's how you do it.
That's how you do it!

"A children's television program regularly features disturbing topics such as death, destruction and martyrdom.* It's broadcast by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip... " That was the 7.30 Report prattler Ali Moore introducing Kids TV causes a stir in Israel on 17/7/08. Apparently, it's OK for Israel to blockade, starve, shell, rocket and shoot up the people of the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, but not for their elected government to reflect any of this on kids' tv.

[*1,050 Palestinian children killed since September 2000; 72 in 2008]

Ali prattled on, "Israeli soldiers fire into the air whenever a Palestinian gets too close to the border fence." Now that will have been some consolation to the 3 Palestinian famers who got "too close" last month and were shot in the legs. And on, "Meanwhile, critics have accused Hamas of using its television arm to prepare children to be suicide bombers." Critics, eh? Now who could they be?

The prattler then introduced the ABC's Middle East correspondent Matt Brown, who led off with: "Sarah [sic] Barhoum is no ordinary 12-year old. This straight A student is already a television star, hosting her own program on a TV station run by the Islamist militant group Hamas. Every Friday after prayers Sarah [sic] Barhoum presents 'Pioneers of Tomorrow' on Hamas' Al-Azhar TV." Brownie's confused Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV with Egypt's Al-Azhar University, but that's a mere bagatelle.

'Sarah' was quoted saying, "I want to tell the whole world that Palestinian children live with the effects of a siege, killing and destruction." As you would if you lived in the world's largest concentration camp and were old enough to string 2 words together. But Brownie couldn't help himself, cutting in with "Al-Azhar TV's childrens' program comes with a hard propaganda edge." It was a real 'Bah, humbug!' moment. "In this skit," he continued, "Nahoul the Bee is desperately ill and pays the ultimate price for the Israeli blockade and Egypt's decision to cooperate with it. After his death, Nahoul was replaced on the show by his rabbit brother Assud, which means lion. Assud's fate, according to Hamas, will reflect the fate of the Palestinian people." When Assud was asked why he was called Assud, he explained that although a rabbit is a coward, "I, Assud, will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up, Allah willing, right?" Jeez, Louise, you're supposed to think. Brownie's right. This bunny's a bloomin' anti-Semitic, jihadist cannibal! No wonder those "critics" are a-tremble. So this is what Hamas are dishing out to the kiddies of Gaza! Or is it?

I hate to be picky, but 'bee' in Arabic is nahla, not nahoul, and 'lion' is asad, not assud. So where is Brownie getting 'nahoul' and 'assud' from? Then there's the bit about getting rid of the Jews. If Israel proclaims itself to be a 'Jewish' state, and its armed forces are raining death and destruction on your people, you're going to want to get rid of... the French? And as for eating them up, what else would you expect a lion to do? Finally, Allah willing (inshaa'allah) just happens to be what most Muslims tack onto the end of just about any sentence, as in, 'I'll see you tomorrow, Allah willing'. It's not peculiar to your spittle-flecked, sabre-wielding, infidel-hating jihadi in full flight. There, Assud doesn't look quite so scary now, does he?*

In terms of where this was all going, the penny finally dropped when an Israeli "critic" from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) was trotted out. The smell of Hamas bees and bunnies was immediately overwhelmed by that of Israeli rat.

Described coyly by Brownie as a "private think tank", MEMRI is a Zionist propaganda arm which parades (on its website) as an "independent, nonpartisan" organization that "explores the Middle East through the regions media." A reference to "the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel" was reportedly deleted some years ago. One critic has dubbed it selective MEMRI.

MEMRI was co-founded by Yigal Carmon, an Israeli intelligence agent and counter-terrorism advisor to former Israeli PMs Shamir and Rabin, and US neocon Meyrav Wurmser. Its modus operandi is to cherrypick the Arab/Iranian media for anything that can be used (or construed) to paint the Arabs (and Iranians of course) in the worst possible light, translate it, and disseminate the product to politicians, academics and journalists such as Matt Brown. You'll find an English translation of the above program, for example, on MEMRI's website, but interestingly, you won't find the original Arabic to enable a cross-check of its accuracy. Nor, tellingly, will you find any nasties from the Hebrew press. Any journalist worth his salt would take MEMRI with, well, a grain of salt. Brownie, however, seems to be on a salt-free diet.

What really caught my attention, though, was the MEMRI "critic" himself, one Menahem Milson, telling us that "[Hamas TV] idolises death and killing and what they call martyrdom." Talk about a blast from the past. This guy has the kind of form that makes all that blather on MEMRI's website about its independence and nonpartisanship positively risible. Back in 1981 Milson had been hand-picked by then defence minister Ariel Sharon to head up a new civilian administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, the centrepiece of which would be a confederation of villages, known as the Village Leagues, which Sharon hoped would dance to Israel's tune as collaborationist 'moderates' in opposition to the 'radicals' of the PLO. Sort of today's Fatah 'moderates' vs Hamas 'extremists'. Milson at the time was a professor of Arabic literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Like his master, he was of the view - still heard today on the Israeli right - that Jordan is really Palestine, while the West Bank, rebadged as Judea and Samaria, is an integral part of Eretz Yisrael. All talk of a Palestinian state in the territories was verboten. And while the settler movement took root in the occupied territories, Sharon and Milson diverted international public opinion with talk of autonomy for the Palestinians while suppressing those who advocated Palestinian statehood. As it happens, Milson's Quisling quest fizzled and he was succeeded as civilian administrator in 1982 by Colonel Yigal Carmon, who had no better luck. Yes, that Yigal Carmon - the co-founder of MEMRI. What a coincidence!

Second "critic" off the rack was a Palestinian, Hazem Abu Shanab, from Gaza's Al-Azhar University. Brownie introduced him thus: "Al-Azhar [sic] TV is not only raising the ire of Israelis, but of many Palestinians as well." Two questions here. Is there anything pertaining to Palestinians that doesn't raise the ire of Israelis? And just how many Palestinians is he referring to? Abu Shanab's soundbyte was singularly unenlightening: "He is not a child anymore, he's something different. He's a person with hatred, with different emotions, with a different way of thinking." For starters, who the hell is "he"? Assud, we assume. So is it too much to expect Brownie to have told us that Gaza's Al-Azhar is - ahem - Fateh-aligned?

Sharon's former offsider then chimed in to tell us that Saraa's "program is aiming at very young children with messages that are filled with images and expressions of death, martyrdom, killing... It's the repetition of certain cliches: the filth of the Jews. The Jew is not to be trusted. He is murderous. He is deceptive." OMG! We Israelis fill their lives with death and destruction, and they have the gall to talk about it, and even call us murderers! Some people have no gratitude.

Prattler Moore signed off with the comment, "Extraordinary program." And she's right. Extraordinary for its failure to provide any kind of historical context (the majority of Gazans were ethnically cleansed from what is today called Israel by Zionist forces in 1948 and have been denied the elementary right of return, accorded all refugees by international law, for over 60 years), its sloppiness (Al-Azhar/Al-Aqsa, etc), and its provision of a platform for Israeli propagandists to malign and misrepresent their brutalised victims without let or hindrance. In sum, Kids TV causes a stir in Israel came with a hard propaganda edge.

[*To see just how far this kind of thing can be sexed-up, you might like to check out the UK's Daily Mail. Here's the DM header: Hamas launches TV Bugs Bunny-lookalike who declares 'I will eat the Jews' (12/2/08). Saraa Barhoum is described as a "sweet looking girl in a headscarf" and "winsome Saraa". She is said to have hailed Nahoul as a "martyr" - "in the style of Hamas suicide bombers who are promised they will marry 72 virgins in paradise". In the MEMRI transcript, Saraa agrees with Assud that "We are all ready to sacrifice souls and everything we own for our homeland," but there is no talk of suicide bombing or 72 virgins. Assud, dubbed "the Bomber Bunny," is described as "swearing to devour the Jews with his bare rabbit teeth," but the fact that he's playing the lion is omitted. The program is alleged to have "ended with the catchy song: 'We will never recognize Israel'", but there is no mention of this in MEMRI's transcript. Saraa and Assud are alleged to have "urged their young audience to liberate Tel Aviv," and to "liberate our homeland from the Zionist filth." The MEMRI transcript, however, mentions only liberating Al-Aqsa mosque "from the filth of those Zionists." Assud's return to Palestine with the "Key of Return" to "liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque," present in MEMRI's translation, is absent from the DM story. Finally, there's a huge difference between the DM's "Zionist filth" and MEMRI's "the filth of those Zionists." Not to mention the difference between that and the probably more accurate translation, 'the defilement of those Zionists'. The DM, incidentally, supported both Mussolini and Hitler right until the outbreak of war in 1939.]