A Class of Their Own

"Israel is to build hundreds of new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed three Israelis, one fatally, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday." (Israel to build 400 units to avenge knife attack, AFP/The Australian, 28/7/18)

So Israel wouldn't have expanded its settlement otherwise? Was there ever a more cruel and casuistical colonisation in the annals of settler-colonialism than the Israeli?

The Land of the Profoundly Blind

This is a most interesting development:

"Tel Aviv's mayor on Thursday blamed Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories for a deadly attack carried out by two Palestinian gunmen that left four Israelis dead in the Mediterranean city. Labour Mayor Ron Huldai, 71, told Israeli army radio that the occupation was to blame for Wednesday evenings attack when two armed Palestinian men from near Hebron in the southern West Bank walked into a popular cafe and opened fire on revellers. 'We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights,' he said. 'You can't hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they'll reach the conclusion everything is alright... There has been an occupation for 49 years, which I was part of and I know the reality... We have to show our neighbours that we have true intentions to return to a reality of a smaller Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority'." (Tel Aviv mayor blames Israeli occupation for deadly cafe attack, middleeasteye.net)

OK, so Ron Huldai's still wedded to the racist idea of a Jewish majority in the rest of occupied Palestine, but still, credit where credit's due. Maybe, in recognition of the mayor's incredible achievement in iterating the bleeding obvious, we should consider rephrasing Erasmus' famous dictum to: 'In the land of the blind known as Israel Ron Huldai should be king.'

The grim reality, however, is that in Israel it's the profoundly blind who have always ruled the roost, and who are responsible for the 49-year-old occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories. For example:

"I promise that all those involved in yesterday's deadly terrorist attack will not escape punishment." Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Lieberman: Israel will hunt down all behind the Tel Aviv attack, Tovah Lazaroff, The Jerusalem Post, 6/10/16)

The Myth of the Israeli Moderate

Ever noticed how political transitions in Israel are reported in the corporate press? As though the change constitutes some kind of clear break with the past?

Take the replacement of defence minister Moshe Ya'alon by Avigdor Lieberman, for example:

"Israel's departing defence minister has denounced the 'extremist and dangerous elements' that 'have overrun Israel and the Likud party' as he left office." (Minister's parting shot at 'extremists', Telegraph/UK/The Sun-Herald, 22/5/16)

"Yaalon was one of the last moderate voices in Netanyahu's Likud party." (Israeli defence minister steps down, clearing way for hardliner, Associated Press, theguardian.com, 23/5/16)

You'd never guess that the 'anti-extremist/moderate' Ya'alon had once said that the goal of the Israeli occupation was "to sear deep into the consciousness of the Palestinians that they are a defeated people," and that "we have to consider killing [former Iranian president] Ahmadinejad."

Look, He's Actually Met Them, OK?

Who cares what Israel's political leaders actually say!

If Tony Abbott's Suppository of Wisdom, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian, says they're OK, then dammit, they're OK, OK?

"Those [Arabs] who support Israel 'should receive everything; those against us... we must lift up an axe and behead them - otherwise we will not survive here'." (Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in PA calls for arrest, trial of Lieberman for saying disloyal Israeli Arabs should be beheaded, Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 9/3/15)

On meeting Lieberman, Sheridan found him "charming in a rough, Russian way," and "more open to compromise than many Israelis." (Israeli right-winger redraws the battle lines, The Australian, 17/12/07)

Oh yes, and he's definitely "not an extremist." (Israeli leaders mislabelled by foes, The Australian, 9/4/09)

"In the situation created in the Middle East any territory that will be evacuated will be taken over by radical Islam and terrorist organizations supported by Iran. Therefore, there will not be any withdrawals or concessions. The matter is simply irrelevant." (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Netanyahu says his past support for Palestinian state 'simply irrelevant', Lahav Harkov, The Jerusalem Post, 8/3/15)

Sheridan, who met Netanyahu in 2003 and recorded him saying that "[w]e have to put an end to 'Arafatistan' next door,"* has since breezily opined that he "will be no barrier to peace," and that the Palestinians will get "all the land of the West Bank and Gaza except for the large Jewish settlement blocks [sic]." (There may be the will but not necessarily the way, The Australian, 5/2/09)

[*Matured Netanyahu is ready to rule, The Australian, 13/2/09]

Let Us Pray... For Israel

The Israeli-government-sponsored push to recruit and mobilise Australian politicians to work for Israel has never been more feverish.

Hot on the heels of the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism mass sign-in in May comes this little try-on:

"A bipartisan group in Federal Parliament will form an Australian Israel Allies Caucus (AIAC) after a Knesset Christian Allies Caucus (KCAC) delegation met with politicians, including Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott last Friday. KCAC director Josh Reinstein said the delegation, which included KCAC chairman and MK David Rotem, was on a fact-finding mission... 'We want to establish an Australian Israel Allies Caucus, as Australia and Israel share values and have always enjoyed a culture of mutual support. We wanted to find out which politicians would be interested in being involved.' Reinstein said, 'They [the caucus] will take on legislation and resolutions and mobilise support for Israel.'... The delegation met with federal politicians, including Christopher Pyne, Philip Ruddock and Jewish MP Josh Frydenberg... The AIAC will join a growing network, including 5 caucases in America, 7 in Europe and 3 in Asia... The delegation also met with the NSW Parliament and more than 100 religious leaders at a forum organised by NSW Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile." (Israeli allies caucus to be founded in Parliament, The Australian Jewish News, 28/6/13)

A real can of worms this one. Let's dissect a few:

Josh Reinstein, director of the KCAC, is an American-born Israeli who works for Israel's Ministry of Public Diplomacy & Diaspora Affairs, headed by Yuli Edelstein MK (Likud), the main man behind the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism initiative. (See my 17/5/13 post The Tel Aviv Declaration on Combating Criticism of Israel.)

David Rotem is a Yisrael Beiteinu MK. This is the party led by the thuggish former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, once known for suggesting that Gaza be nuked and currently on trial for corruption.

In the photograph which accompanies the above report, in addition to the political fraternity, Frydenberg, Reinstein, Abbott and Rotem, we have Christian Zionists, Keith Buxton and Marisa Albert:

Buxton is director of the Queensland-based Bridges for Peace, which has links with the KCAC. His support for the Zionist project in Palestine is apparently unconditional and appears to derive from his own peculiar theological ruminations: "Firstly, I need to emphasise that we do not proselytise. Nor do we focus on an apocalyptic Armageddon scenario [in scripture]. I personally believe that references in Zachariah to Jews being converted and destroyed are a misreading. Sadly, in many ways, the destruction can be seen to have already happened, with the fall of Jerusalem and the events of the Holocaust. We stand with Isaiah's call to 'comfort my people.' We focus on the fact that God is faithful to his covenant promises to the Jewish people and to the land, going right back to Genesis 12... The Jewish people are an integral part of God's redemptive purpose." (A chat with Reverend Keith Buxton, The Australian Jewish News, 1/10/10)

Albert heads the Jerusalem East Gate Foundation, a "Filipino Christian Ministry based in Manila and Jerusalem," which has reportedly "organized and funded" the "Jerusalem-Australia initiative." (Pro-Israel caucus to be formed in Australia, Gill Hoffman, cac.org.il, 21/6/13). Here's a potted biography:

"President of Kol Adonai Foundation (Philippines) and the East Gate Foundation (Jerusalem). The partner organizations are Asia initiatives to bring spiritual, moral and practical support from Asia into Israel. Their main ventures include live praise and worship on the Mt.of Olives, the production and worldwide airing of 'Voice From Jerusalem' programs and the Asia-to-Israel Shavuot Worship Tours. As member to the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, EGFJ was the organizer and major sponsor to the first Jerusalem Summit Asia held in Manila in August 2004. Miss Albert was former President of White Stone Productions, a special events management corporation which serviced top multinational companies in Asia. She is also President of the In His Care Leadership Network Israel."  (jerusalemsummit.org)

Something of the flavour of Ms Albert's particular brand of Christian fruit juice can be gathered from this little item at koladonai.org:

"When in Jerusalem, one of the most authentic and meaningful biblical sites to visit for a time of meditation, prayer and praise fellowship is the Mount of Olives. We know that the presence of God is within us and everywhere that is sanctioned unto Him. But there is a significance also to the places that evidence biblical occurrence and biblical prophecy. The pilgrim and tourist who comes to Israel also 'comes home' to his biblical homeland and enters into a prophetic connection. Coming into the Holy Land also enhances spiritual prayer connection These are prayers of thanksgiving and honour to the Holy One who dwells in Zion; prayers for spiritual aspirations; prayers for loved ones; prayers for the church and for the community of nations; and prayers for peace for Israel. They may be prayers for the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital city of the coming King. They may be prayers calling on the love of Messiah to touch the precious people of the Middle East with His great love, hope, peace and blessings. They may be prayers that cry out, 'Come, Messiah, Come!" (At the most special Prayer Mountain in the world)

Now of course these Christian Zionists aren't always off with the pixies. They also take time off to push a very Israeli political agenda. Like Iran-bashing, for example. I wonder, could an Abbott (or Rudd) government, under the influence of their kool-aid, ever go this far:

"Edelstein and other speakers frequently cited the pressure from members of Canada's Israel Christian Allies Caucus who were successful in lobbying Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to completely sever ties with Iran last week." (Int'l Christian lawmakers vow to stop Iranian nukes, Melanie Lidman, cac.org.il, 10/3/12)

Then there's Jerusalem. Could an Abbott (or Rudd) government, under the influence, ever fall victim to UJS (United Jerusalem Syndrome) and go where no country, not even the US component of USrael, has ever gone before:

"High-profile parliamentarians and congressmen in Washington, Europe and elsewhere around the world are celebrating together the historical date of the reunification of Jerusalem,' [Former tourism minister Benny Elon & president of the Israel Allies Foundation] said, 'and at the same time they are trying to do their best to relocate their embassies to Jerusalem through legislation." (International Israel Allies representatives in US, Europe and Israel for a united Jerusalem, Gil Hoffman, cac.org.il, 6/3/13)

OK, to sum up this terminal madness, we have here a Filipino Christian Zionist happy clapper organising and funding Israeli government representatives on a trip to Australia to recruit Australian politicians to 'do the donkey' for Israel. It doesn't get much more bizarre - or brazen - than that. (In case you've forgotten what doing the donkey entails, allow me to refer you to my posts USrael: The Movie (14/2/13) and Doing the Donkey (2/3/13) - to be read in that order.)

A Match Made in Hell

It seems only yesterday that The Australian's foreign editor Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan was adamant that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no more right-wing than Malcolm Fraser:

"[Benjamin] Netanyahu, not least in the Australian media, is almost always called 'hardline right-wing'. This would be the equivalent of calling the government of John Howard or Malcolm Fraser hardline right-wing... Netanyahu leads the Likud Party, which has been Israel's centre-right party for decades... It would be much more honest to label Netanyahu's Government centre-right. This question of language is of the first order of importance. The ancient Chinese sage Confucius, when asked what would be the main political reform he would carry out if he achieved state power, replied: 'It would certainly be to rectify the names.' Israel's enemies, heirs to ancient anti-Semitism, are on a relentless quest to delegitimise and demonise it at every point. Mislabelling a democratic government of mainstream, democratic politicians as hardline right-wing is an important part of that quest." (Israeli leaders mislabelled by foes, 9/4/09) [See my 15/4/09 post Selling Lieberman.]

And that was despite Netanyahu's Likud being in coalition with Moldovan bouncer Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party, which advocates loyalty oaths and army service for Palestinian Israelis and transferring some of their towns to the Palestinian Authority. At the time Sheridan had gone on to assure us that: "It is fair to say [Lieberman] is to the right of Netanyahu but not fair to say he is an extremist." (ibid)

Now that Netanyahu and Lieberman have tired of living in sin and decided to tie the knot, however, the Netanyahu government has taken on a whole new complexion, much as Dr Jekyll took on a whole new complexion when he turned unambiguously into Mr Hyde before embarking on a nocturnal killing spree:

"Whatever pretense the Likud Party still had as the 'moderate right,' at least by Israel's standards, vanished in a flash yesterday with the announcement of the joint Likud-Beiteinu list in the upcoming election. Hawkish Netanyahu at number one, and super-hawk Avigdor Lieberman at number two, the party is well and truly Israel's War Party... Lieberman's political career has centered around the twin goals of making people swear loyalty oaths and attacking Iran. Netanyahu's last few months in office have been defined almost entirely by a single-minded determination to start a war with Iran at any cost." (Israel's super-hawk merger makes Iran war the election's central issue, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 26/10/12)

Bob Carr Meets Avigdor Lieberman

I've been checking Foreign Minister Bob Carr's blog, Thoughtlines with Bob Carr, ever since I placed a 'FYI' on the comment thread to his September 10 post, Jordan's tolerance shines a light on the rest of the world, drawing my fellow historian's attention to his egregious misrepresentation there of modern Jordanian history, namely the 1970 massacre of Palestinians known as Black September, as per my post of August 14, Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History.

Well, it still hasn't appeared. And so I'm left to ponder, yet again, the puzzle of those who parade as history buffs but whose real forte is fairytales.

Be that as it may, I couldn't help but notice another post of Bob's, Meeting with Avigdor Liberman, dated August 14.

OK, now that I know he's not interested in being corrected, I won't bother telling him he's misspelt Lieberman's name.

However, I couldn't help but notice, as I read his short account of said meeting, the following sentence:

"Senator Carr also raised Australia's concerns regarding Israeli settlement activity in the Palestinian Territories."

Which had me wondering: Does Bob know that Lieberman lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim?

If not, why not? If so, did he bring the subject up? If not, why not? If so, what was Lieberman's response?

And then this troubling thought popped into my weary head: Could our Bob be simply going through the motions here?

'Of course not,' I'm sure he'd say, huffily, 'our conversation was frank, wide-ranging and constructive.'

And, in its own way, I imagine it probably was:

Bob Carr: Nokdim, eh? Nice place to live, Avigdor?

Avigdor Lieberman: The best!

BC: It's on a hill isn't it? All your settlements are on high ground, aren't they?

AL: That's right, Bob. And the views, maaate, the views! Let me tell you about the views! Why, on a clear day you can see all the way to the Nile in the south and the Euphrates in the east - wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?

BC: *Sigh* - only too well, I'm afraid. Look, Avigdor, I really don't want to go there, can we change the subject?

What a Pity Lieberman Speaks Fluent Israeli

Sometimes (well most of the time actually) I just don't understand The Australian Jewish News. No sooner had I registered (in my previous post) my amazement that former Argentine military supremo Jorge Videla speaks fluent Israeli, than I came across the much more extraordinary spectacle of an  AJN columnist expressing amazement that Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, does too:

"Avigdor Lieberman has such a way with words. Israel's ultra-controversial Foreign Minister went to visit el-Zamouk last week, a Bedouin town in southern Israel, to emphasise the fact - much to residents' anger - that the government considers it illegally built. His subtext was to point out that unauthorised structures in the village are still standing, even though, to his disappointment, the state has begun evacuating Jewish settler homes that are illegally built on Palestinian land. As Lieberman spoke to reporters, an Arab lawmaker, Taleb el-Sana, came to heckle him. 'You have no business to be here,' el-Sana said. 'You are persona non grata in the Bedouin communities. You act like the mafia.' Did Lieberman continue in a dignified manner? Or come up with a witty response? Nope, instead he threw out that stock insult that members of the Israeli right love to throw out at Arabs with whom they have a conflict. 'You are a terrorist,' he retorted." (The things Liebermans say, Bob Meiser, 6/7/12)

If only Lieberman had displayed a bit of the old Jewish wit instead of speaking fluent Israeli, then it would have more than made up for the bulldozing of Bedouin homes, right Bob?

Only Ill-Timed?

"Ill-timed oath may torpedo talks," is the headline which introduces Middle East correspondent John Lyons' report in The Australian of 8/10/10.

The oath referred to, of course, is Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's divisive and discriminatory loyalty oath, requiring prospective citizens of Israel - meaning primarily Palestinians wishing to marry so-called Israeli Arabs - to swear allegiance to 'the state of Israel' as 'a Jewish and democratic state'. Just passed by Netanyahu's cabinet, it is about to go before Israel's Knesset for ratification.

To clarify, this is an oath which demands of occupied or exiled Palestinians that they swear allegiance to a state that claims it belongs to every Jew on the planet, but most emphatically not to the indigenous Palestinian population whose land it has stolen. In addition, it claims to be democratic, despite some 5 million Palestinians, who should be living within its borders, being locked out of their homeland, stateless and disenfranchised for over 60 years.

For the Murdoch press, however, this oath is merely ill-timed, not ill-conceived.

Selling Lieberman 2

How The Australian's foreign editor spins Israel's foreign minister:-

"Over the next year or two, probably for as long as it stays in office, there will be a sustained effort to demonise the Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The speech last week by Netanyahu's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in which he explicitly supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute [!] but was reported as if he had said the opposite, is a case in point." (Israeli leaders mislabelled by foes*, Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, 9/4/09)

And what Lieberman actually says:-

"The international community has to 'stop speaking in slogans' if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict... Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday... 'Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world', he said... 'And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers...' Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as 'land for peace' and 'two-state solution', were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said... The path forward, he said, lay in ensuring security for Israel, an improved economy for the Palestinians, and stability for both. 'Economy, security, stability', he repeated. 'It's impossible to artificially impose any political solution. It will fail, for sure. You cannot start any peace process from nothing. You must create the right situation, the right focus, the right conditions'." ('World leaders must drop their slogans', David Horovitz, 24/4/09)

[*See my earlier post on the Sheridan/Lieberman love-in: Selling Lieberman, 15/4/09]

Selling Lieberman

Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, The Australian's comprehensively rambammed foreign editor, continues to amaze with the sheer chutzpah of his propaganda pieces.

April 9 was no exception. Sheridan was at great pains to emphasise that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was leading a centre-right government, not a hardline right government, and declared that anyone who begged to differ was simply an "enemy of Israel," an "heir to ancient anti-Semitism," and engaged in a "relentless quest to delegitimise and demonise [Israel] at every point" by "mislabelling a democratic government of mainstream, democratic politicians as hardline right-wing... an important part of that quest." (Israeli leaders mislabelled by foes).

Of course, while Sheridan, a legendary deligitimiser, demoniser and mislabeller of the Palestinians (he later refers to the democratically elected Hamas government of Palestine as a "terrorist death cult"), is busy affixing the 'correct' labels, the rest of us have long since concluded that Livni=Barak=Netanyahu=Lieberman.

Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, in particular, is in dire need of sanitisation, and this is exactly what Sheridan sets out to do. A piece of cake, of course. Simply ignore, as Sheridan does, Lieberman's call for the bombing of the Aswan Dam when Egypt lent support to Arafat (1998); his proposal to divide the West Bank into 4 cantons (2001); his statement that the Palestinians should be given an ultimatum - 'At 8am we'll bomb all the commercial centers... at noon we'll bomb their gas stations... at 2 we'll bomb their banks...' (2002); his proposal that Israel's thousands of Palestinian prisoners be drowned in the Dead Sea (2003); his declaration that 90% of Israeli 'Arabs' "have no place [in Israel]" and should "take their bundles and get lost" (2004); and his call for the execution of Israeli 'Arab' MKs who meet with members of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (2006).

Of course, the fact that Lieberman had advocated (2004) transferring those bits of Israel riddled with 'Arabs' to the Palestinian Authority in return for the annexation of those bits of the West Bank blessed with Israeli settlement blocs could hardly be ignored. Ditto the fact that he had gone to the last election with a proposal that Israelis be required to swear a loyalty oath and undertake military service, a thinly disguised attack on Israeli 'Arabs'.

With regard to the former proposal, Sheridan speciously claims that Lieberman can't be accused of advocating "ethnic cleansing or anything like it" because, although "the land underneath [the feet of Israeli 'Arabs']" might become part of "a Palestinian state," "presumably no Israeli citizen would be forced to give up their citizenship."

Presumably? Sheridan, of course, ignores the racist Israeli obsession with demography and the maintenance of a Jewish majority state underpinning Lieberman's 'transferist' thinking. Back in 2007, however, when Sheridan actually interviewed Lieberman in Israel, he acknowledged, correctly, that "the idea of excluding people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion is anathema to every liberal principle," (although going on to qualify this with the bald assertion that it "conforms to the reality of the Middle East"). (See my 21/12/07 post Greg Sheridan: Charmed by Israel's 'Most Dangerous Politician')

Presumably, Sheridan's concern for "liberal principles" is now passe. That said, even then Sheridan made excuses for Lieberman, finding him "charming in a rough Russian way" and "more open to change than many Israelis."

As for Lieberman's proposal for a mandatory loyalty oath, Sheridan is of the view that while this may be seen "as insulting to Israel's Arab citizens," it is "not the black hand of fascism," and that it is "not unreasonable for Lieberman to want to debate the civic identity of Israel's Arab citizens."

Insulting to Israel's Arab citizens? Just a debating exercise? Here's former Israeli 'Arab' member of the Knesset Azmi Bishara: "The people who stayed here [after the expulsion of 1948] did not immigrate here. This is our country. This [Israeli] state came here and was forced on the ruins of my nation. I accepted citizenship to be able to live here, and I will not do anything, security-wise, against the state... but you cannot ask me every day if I am loyal to the state. Citizenship demands that I be loyal to the law, but not to the values or ideologies of the state." (Lieberman's charm offensive, Palestine Monitor, 9/3/09) Amen.

Analogising

"You know, I have always argued strongly, in Arabic and English, against analogies between Israel and Nazism, and I have always argued against Arab invocations of the holocaust in describing Israeli terrorist murder of Palestinian civilians. I have been thinking all that through this week." (The Angry Arab News Service, 12/1/09)

Dealing with Polish Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-

"On 22 August [1939], as Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to sign the non-aggression pact, Hitler was at his mountain fastness in Berchtesgaden, giving a speech to his senior military commanders. Notes taken at the time indicate exactly what kind of war he foresaw: 'A life and death struggle... The destruction of Poland has priority. The aim is to eliminate active forces, not to reach a definite line... I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting or waging a war, it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. Eighty million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness'. On 1 September, with nearly 2 million German troops pouring across the frontier into Poland from the west, north and south, the Fuhrer issued the following proclamation: 'To the Wehrmacht! The Polish state has rejected the peaceful regulation of neighbourly relations I have striven for and has appealed to arms. The Germans in Poland are being persecuted by bloody terror and are being driven from their homesteads. A series of frontier violations, of a nature not tolerable for a great power, proves that the Poles are no longer willing to respect the German Reich's frontiers. To put an end to this lunacy, there remains no other course for me but to meet force with force'. Inside the Reich, Goebbels had been whipping up anti-Polish feeling, running scare stories on the suffering of ethnic Germans." (Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, Mark Mazower, 2008, pp 64-65)

Dealing with Palestinian Terrorism or Regime Change? You decide:-

"The Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, "called on the IDF to 'take off its gloves', head into Gaza with armored tractors and raze an entire neighborhood from which rockets have been launched." (IDF should wipe out parts of Gaza, Jerusalem Post, 11/2/08)

The Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, said that the Palestinians are "bringing upon themselves a greater Shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in airstrikes or on the ground." ('Shoah' an admission, Arabs say, SMH, 3/3/08)

"As tit-for-tat attacks across the Gaza border intensified after the collapse of the end of a 6-month truce, the 2 main rivals in the Israeli elections in February vowed to remove Hamas from power, using military means if necessary... Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister who will lead... Kadima in the election, said, 'The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple* the Hamas regime in Gaza. The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic'. Later Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing Likud party... said, 'In the long term we will have to topple the Hamas regime'..." (Israel's leading parties vow to wipe out Hamas, Guardian/SMH, 23/12/08)

[*We did not seek out war, but the circumstances became impossible. Even when it all began, we were very restrained. We didn't say that we want to topple Hamas. I don't know if we can make Hamas disappear, but we didn't say 'topple'." (Olmert: Rice shame-faced by Bush over UN Gaza vote, ynetnews.com, 12/1/09)]

"In attacking Hamas' regime in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces will try to 'send Gaza decades into the past' in terms of weapon capabilities while achieving 'the maximum number of enemy casualties and keeping Israel Defense Forces casualties at a minimum', GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant said." (GOC Southern Command: IDF will send Gaza back decades, Uri Blau, Haaretz, 28/12/08)

"Tel Aviv's early insistance that this massive military exercise was about putting a halt to Palestinian rockets being fired into or near communities in the south of Israel never rang true.
Measure it by the number of rockets - 8000 - plus [sic: see my 5/1/09 post Go Figure 1] over eight years - and indeed it sounds like a genuine existential threat. Consider the toll - 20 Israeli deaths spread over eight years, which is about half the number of deaths in just a month of Israeli traffic accidents - and it all loses its oomph as a casus belli. Israel does not want to deal with Hamas - it wants to annihilate the Islamist movement. The Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, said as much when she dashed to Paris last week to head off a French push for a 48-hour ceasefire. 'There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region', she said. If there was any doubt after Livni spoke, it evaporated on Friday when the Deputy Prime Minister, Haim Ramon, told Israeli TV: 'What I think we need to do is reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern. That's the most important thing'. And at the United Nations in New York, the Israeli ambassador, Gabriella Shalev, also seemed to depart the approved script. '[It will continue for] as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely', she said." (Mission revealed: destroy Hamas, Paul McGeough, SMH, 5/1/09)

"'We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II, [Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor] Lieberman added." (Lieberman: Do to Hamas what the US did to Japan, Jerusalem Post, 13/1/09)

"Israeli analysts say a ground war in Gaza City would make the conflict to date seem tame. 'The Israeli Defence [sic] Forces will enter, with great force, with tens of thousands of soldiers, into the heart of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip', the respected commentator Alex Fishman wrote in yesterday's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. 'There will no longer be strikes at the margins from the ground and destruction from the air. Now we are talking about armoured divisions that will not leave a single stone standing on their way into the refugee camps and into the heart of one of the most crowded cities on Earth'." (Israel divided over its next move, John Lyons, The Australian, 14/1/09)

Greg Sheridan: Charmed by Israel's "Most Dangerous Politician"

Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign Editor. He is also a recipient of the Zionist Federation of Australia's Jerusalem Prize "for his support for Israel." (The Australian Jewish News, 27/4/07) Currently in Israel, he's been talking to some VIPs - VIPs like Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, dubbed by Hebrew University's Professor Zeev Sternhell, "Israel's leading academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism...[as] 'perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel.' " (Extreme right-winger to join Israeli government, The Scotsman, 23/10/06)

Lieberman, who heads a party called Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), was born in Moldova and emigrated to Israel in 1978. As a Jew he became an instant citizen under Israel's Law of Return. This parvenu, whom Sheridan found "charming in a rough, Russian way," (Israeli right-winger redraws the battle lines, The Australian, 17/12/07) has a bellicose bee in his Moldovan bonnet about the indigenous peoples of the area, whether Israeli Arabs (who should be moved out of Israel), inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (who should be treated like the Russians treat the Chechens), or other Arabs, such as Egyptians (whose Aswan dam should be bombed). (Israel must treat Gaza like Russia does Chechnya: hardliner, AFP, 1/11/06)

Sheridan really digs Lieberman, finding him, "...more open to compromise than many Israelis." But what could Sheridan possibly mean here by "compromise"? Does Lieberman believe in ending the 40-year Israeli occupation of the territories, allowing for a contiguous Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine? As if! No, Lieberman believes that "as well as territory, Israel should give away people too, in particular its Muslim Arab citizens. He doesn't want to expel them exactly, just redraw some borders so that some Arab towns and villages move into a new Palestinian state nextdoor, thus making Israel a more Jewish state." Seems that in Israel the word 'compromise' is as movable as the word 'borders'.

At first Sheridan seems to recoil from such a Clayton's "compromise": "The idea of excluding people on the basis of their ethnicity or religion is anathema to every liberal principle..." But, where Israel is concerned, "liberal principles" can always be compromised and excuses found: "Yet it conforms to the reality of the Middle East. Hamas extremists are trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip. The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state. And even the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew."

Let us examine these bold but specious assertions. First, that the reality of the Middle East is ethno-religious exclusion. This is certainly the case with Israel, and does not depend on whether or not Lieberman's brand of ethnic cleansing is one day implemented. As a Jewish state, representing not its citizens (one fifth of whom are Arabs), but 'the Jewish people' from Moldova to wherever, Israel privileges Jews over non-Jews. This is true both for its own non-Jewish citizens, who are denied access to land and resources within Israel, and to the stateless Palestinian refugees expelled by Zionist forces in 1948 from their homes and lands in what is now Israel, who are denied the right of return. As American-Palestinian academic Joseph Massad puts it: "...Israeli racism...manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israeli Lands Administration law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories." (Israel's right to be racist, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007836/op1.htm) No other Middle Eastern state, whatever their failings, comes anywhere near the Israeli reality of ethno-religious exclusivism.

Second, that Hamas is "trying to kill, convert or drive into exile the tiny Christian minority in the Gaza Strip." One recent source, the Jerusalem Post, no less [Gaza: Christian-Muslim tensions heat up, 25/9/07], reports an attack on an 80 year-old Christian woman by "a masked man" who "demanded her money." This led to an appeal by Palestinian Christians to Hamas "to make an effort to protect Christians." Curious that they should be appealing to a movement allegedly involved in "killing, converting and exiling" Christians. In fact, as Palestinian academic, Khaled Hroub, has written: "In its conduct towards the Palestinian Christians Hamas has shown extraordinary sensitivity...there have been no religious-driven or sectarian friction or riots in Palestine during the lifetime of Hamas that could be linked directly to the movement." (Hamas: A Beginner's Guide, pp. 90-1)

Third, that "The Jewish minorities have been driven out of virtually every Arab state." Pushed or pulled, Mr Sheridan? Consider the following extract from CIA adviser, Wilbur Crane Eveland, who was in Iraq at the time (early fifties): "Just after I arrived in Baghdad, an Israeli citizen had been recognized...his interrogation led to the discovery of 15 arms caches brought into Iraq by the underground Zionist movement...In an attempt to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the US Information Service Library and synogogues, and soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. Embarrassed, the Iraqi government launched a full-scale investigation, and shared its findings with our Embassy. Iraqi Chief Rabbi Sassoon Khedouri...was urging his people to be calm and remain, remembering that they were native Iraqis first and that Judaism was only their religion, which they could practice freely as always. In spite of our constant reports that the situation in Iraq was exaggerated and artificially inflamed from without, the State Department urged us to intervene with the government to facilitate an air-lift that the Zionists were organizing to 'rescue' Iraqi Jews...Although the Iraqi police later provided our Embassy with evidence to show that the synogogue and the library bombing, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaign, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of Iraqi Jews, whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase the Israeli Jewish population..." (Ropes of Sand (1980) pp. 48-9)

Fourth, the laughable assertion that "the logic of objecting to every Jewish settlement in the West Bank can be seen as endorsing the notion that Israel should bequeath to the Palestinians a state which contains not a single Jew," is like asserting that, because the French objected to the German occupation of France in WW2, they must have been prejudiced against Germans.

Of course, there's more, much more, but let's fast forward to Sheridan's oh so understanding conclusion: "What [Lieberman's] political rise does show is just how weary people are getting of the failure to solve the conflict and how longingly many Israelis are looking to straightforward notions such as separation as their salvation." What the rise (and rise?) of Lieberman actually reveals is the rising racism at the very heart of the Jewish state. As Palestinian-American academic, Saree Makdisi, has pointed out, the only difference between Lieberman and mainstream Israeli politicians is that while they both "agree that a line of concrete and steel ought to be drawn with Jews on one side and as many Arabs as possible on the other," the latter "argue that it is OK to have a few Arabs on the inside, as long as they behave themselves, and don't contribute too heavily to what Israelis refer to as 'the demographic problem'." (http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi03312006.htm)

Partisan journalism doesn't get much better than this.