Morrison Warned Off

"The Morrison government has been advised by key bureaucrats and retired 'wise elders' against moving its embassy to Jerusalem or making other significant changes to Australia's stance on the status of the city central to the Middle East peace process... The government departments and agencies consulted are understood to be aligned in support of Australia's existing position in having its embassy in Tel Aviv. Those include the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Defence Department and ASIO. That was also the majority view of of a small, handpicked group of former top officials or 'wise elders'... These included former Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Michael Thawley, former Defence Department head Dennis Richardson and former Chief of the Defence Force Sir Angus Houston." (Officials warn off embassy relocation, David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 13/12/18)

"The Indonesian Muslim groups behind a one-million-strong rally in Jakarta this month have warned that any move by the Australian government to formally recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital - even if the embassy remains in Tel Aviv for now -  would spark mass protests and a boycott of Australian products." (Holy city as capital to spark boycotts, Amanda Hodge, The Australian, 13/12/18)

Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right

PM Scott Morrison's Wentworth by-election fizzer continues to fizz away:

"The Herald has been told that an Australian minister advised [Indonesian Trade Minister] Mr [Enggartiasto] Lukita there was only a small chance of the embassy move going ahead, raising expectations in Jakarta that Mr Morrison will reconsider his stance. Defence Industry Minister Steve Ciobo... met Mr Lukita recently at a defence event in Indonesia. The Herald was told Mr Lukita said to Mr Ciobo: 'Don't ask when [the $16.5 billion trade agreement] will be signed.' Mr Ciobo replied: 'Enggar, I know.' In one account of this conversation, Mr Ciobo is said to have told [Lukita]: 'About the possibility, I cannot say 100% we will move, but I guess the possibility is less than 5%'." (PM clears way for embassy retreat, David Crowe, Sydney Morning Herald, 15/11/18)

Wow! 5% - just like Morrison's chance of being re-elected.

Meanwhile, back in the surreal world of Australia's federal parliament, our Liberal Likudniks rush to defend Morrison's fizzer from our... Labor Likudniks.

 Here, for example, is deputy PM, Josh Frydenberg:

"There is a fundamental point here, that the government is not backing off: Australia determines its own foreign policy decisions around the locations of its embassies." (Frydenberg pushes for Israel embassy move, Primrose Riordan, The Australian, 16/11/18)

Just around the locations of its embassies, Josh? Nothing to do with how we vote on Palestine/Israel in the UNGA?

And here's defence minister Christopher Pyne:

"Christopher Pyne, a strong supporter of Israel, also backed Mr Morrison and accused Labor of wanting to 'subcontract' foreign policy to foreign governments." (ibid)

Subcontract? Now where have I heard that word before in this context? Bob Carr, of course: "We are not running an Australian foreign policy... Subcontracting our foreign policy to party donors is what this involves." (Diary of a Foreign Minister, p 214)

So what we've got here is the Liberals, who have subcontracted our foreign policy on Palestine to Israel, accusing Labor, who have also subcontracted our foreign policy on Palestine to Israel, of subcontracting our foreign policy to... Indonesia. And so, because both parties have been throwing Palestine and the Palestinians under the Israeli bus for as long as I can remember, Labor has no credible response to Pyne's accusation. Both are equally guilty in this respect.

And, for what it's worth - not much - here's Morrison, the man who lit the fizzer because he thought there'd be some votes in it in a by-election, up on his hind legs, lamely taking up Frydenberg and Pyne's hypocritical refrain:

"The Prime Minister hit back at the Opposition Leader, saying foreign governments should not have veto over Australian policies, and accusing him of being 'quick to take cues on Australia's foreign policy from those outside Australia'."

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right, as the old song has it, neatly sums up Australian policy on Palestine/Israel in Circus Australia.

Our Other Recent Visitor

Flashback:

"If the Coalition wins on September 7, Abbott, with Julie Bishop as his foreign minister, will ensure Australia more deeply and effectively engages with our region. 'More Jakarta, less Geneva' is the catchcry." (Abbott has pedigree to restore Australia's reputation in region, The Australian, 30/8/13)

OK, so how's 'More Jakarta, less Geneva' going?

We've just had heaps and heaps of Tel Aviv in The Australian, contingent on PM Netanyahu's disgracing us with his presence: fulsome reportage, glowing opinion pieces, editorial encomiums, all of which managed to refer to him correctly as Benjamin Netanyahu or Mr Netanyahu. Stay with me here, the point is coming.

Coincidentally, the Israeli PM's visit overlapped with that of Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, the leader of the world's largest Muslim nation, and one of our closest neighbours. Despite this, Widodo's visit received only a fraction of the coverage accorded to that of Netanyahu by The Australian.

As I suggested in my 1/9/13 post Heaps More Tel Aviv... An Occasional Jakarta:

"Just between you, me and the wall, I know that 'More Jakarta, less Geneva' is a catchy little slogan but wouldn't 'Heaps more Tel Aviv, only marginally less Washington, an occasional Jakarta, and maybe the odd Geneva', though admittedly more cumbersome, better encapsulate our coming foreign policy?"

Not only has the Abbott/Trumble government's 'More Jakarta, less Geneva' (for what it's worth) not been reflected in The Australian, but the latter's only editorial on the visit was titled: Joko visit shows potential (28/2/17).

And throughout the text (x3) Widodo was referred to, not as President/Mr Widodo, but as Mr Joko.

Tanya Plibersek: Remorseful & Redeemed

Deputy opposition leader and foreign affairs shadow, Tanya (Once Was Warrior) Plibersek, speaking on the subject of the impending executions in Indonesia of two convicted Australian drug smugglers, has gone personal:

"During a motion in Parliament calling for a stay of execution, Ms Plibersek used the example of the jailing of her husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter, on a drugs charge to argue for mercy. 'I perhaps have a particular view of remorse and redemption,' she told the lower house. Ms Plibersek's husband is now a senior NSW public servant. He had been a drug dealer in early 1980s, a fact Ms Plibersek acknowledges but rarely speaks about." (Bali two bound for execution island as MPs plead for mercy, Topsfield, Ireland & Bourke, Sydney Morning Herald, 13/2/15)

Whilst I happen to agree with her in this matter, I should point out that her experience of remorse and redemption is not limited to the example of her husband.

As a humble backbencher, Plibersek had once fiercely criticised Israel, declaring it to be, in 2002, a rogue state led by a war criminal (Ariel Sharon). On becoming Bill Shorten's sidekick, however, she publicly expressed remorse for her former honesty by claiming that she had spoken injudiciously at the time.

But more than that, she has gone on to redeem herself by declaring Sharon to be a courageous peace maker and going on a pilgrimage to Israel (January, 2014).

This means that, when it comes to Ms Plibersek, those in the know cannot but "have a particular view of remorse and redemption."

Indonesian Rambamming 2

Another group of Indonesians has just been rambammed*:

"A visit to Israel by a delegation of Indonesian scholars last month has 'the potential to change the world', says the local communal leader who led it." ('World changers' visit Israel, The Australian Jewish News, 6/2/15)

No names, no pack drill.

Says Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) director of international affairs Jeremy Jones:

"This group is a group of people who are currently playing roles in main organisations and who will continue to do so."

That is, well-placed to sell Israel to Indonesians.

"The trip was co-organised with the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Israel."

To get the measure of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, here's an extract from a letter by its director, Rabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein in response to Archbishop Desmond Tutu's call for the boycotting of Israeli apartheid:

"If, as I believe is the case, Israel is the only one to benefit from your religiously inspired vision, manifesting through an economic-political instrument of boycott and divestment, there is something deeply disturbing about being singled out in this way. "

Notice how the skilled Zionist propagandist invites the reader to infer anti-Semitism - something deeply disturbing - rather than crudely allege it? Now for the whataboutery:

"Couldn't the plight of Syrians who are being slaughtered by their own regime, and who can suffer on a given day the same number of casualties that Gaza has seen in the space of a month, be alleviated through BDS? What about tackling the Chinese occupation of Tibet... with the same tools you propose for Israel? This double standard seriously undermines the credibility of your global religious voice." (Alon Gottstein responds to Archbishop Tutu about Palestine & Gaza, tikkun.org, 9/9/14)

As I've mentioned before, the real agenda behind any interfaith initiative in which Zionist lobbyists (who conflate faith with political ideology, Judaism with Zionism) are involved is not to promote understanding of Jews and Judaism as such, but to promote Israel by muting or blunting criticism of it.

"The itinerary saw the group travel all over Israel and meet with rabbis, imams, peace negotiator Tal Becker, a Muslim judge and the governor of Bethlehem. They toured Sderot and the Erez crossing, where they spoke to ordinary Gazans coming in and out of the strip."

Prison? What prison?

"Being a religious group, the delegation prayed in locations including at Yad Vashem - 'they saw it as a spiritual place', Jones said - overlooking the Sea of Galilee, at the Al -Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and even in a rabbis house... At the Ziv Hospital in Tzfat, the group conversed in Arabic with Syrians being treated for injuries sustained in Syria's civil war..."

For the low-down on Ziv, see my 12/12/14 post A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges.

[*See my 6/5/10 post Indonesian Rambamming.]

Abbott's 'Jakarta Focus' in Focus

Tony Abbott in 2012:

"Sensible countries focus their foreign policy on what's clearly in their national interest. That's why I keep saying that the next Coalition government's foreign policy would have a 'Jakarta focus rather than a Geneva one'. What happens in our region usually matters more to us than what happens elsewhere. What's more, we can usually better influence what's happening in our region... In foreign policy, the first priority of an incoming Coalition government would be to repair the damage done to Australia's relations with our neighbours... East Timor... Indonesia..." (On world stage, Rudd spoke loudly and carried a small stick, Sydney Morning Herald, 23/2/12)

So how's it all going now, Tone?

"Australia had been 'stupid' to allow its navy ships to cross into Indonesian territory, and tension over the incident would delay the process of repairing relations damaged by recent spying revelations, according to a senior Indonesian politician." (Australia 'stupid' on territorial breaches, Indonesian MP says, Michael Bachelard & David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 20/1/14)

"Attorney-General George Brandis has given an extraordinary undertaking not to read highly sensitive documents seized by ASIO agents in a raid on East Timor's lawyer last year. The undertaking comes as Australia attempts to thwart a Timorese bid in the Hague to have the material returned." (Brandis to Hague tribunal: I won't read East Timor files, Tom Allard, Sydney Morning Herald, 21/1/14)

Well done, Tone, George, stay focused and keep up the good work!

Please Go Quietly into that Good Night, Julia

I see that the martyred St Julia has emerged from the swimming pool of her $1.8m beach-side Adelaide home long enough to pronounce on the issue of Australian spooks listening in on the Indonesian president's phone, boring us all rigid with polliewaffle about the need for 'checks and balances' and the 'robustness' of 'the system'.

Really now, why should anyone take her seriously on this - or any other - issue in light of her sycophantic response to the discovery that the Americans were listening in on her phone:

"If my telephone was intercepted when I was prime minister, all that anybody would have heard would have been praise for President Obama."

Julia, please, please, just take your halo and your Jerusalem Prize and go, alright?

Heaps More Tel Aviv... An Occasional Jakarta

Hm... think of Tony Abbott and the first thing that springs to mind is his "sound foreign-policy pronouncements and his extensive experience walking the world stage," right?

No?

So who TF are you to disagree if the federal member for Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg, asserts that the above is the case?

"If the Coalition wins on September 7, Abbott, with Julie Bishop as his foreign minister, will ensure Australia more deeply and effectively engages with our region. 'More Jakarta, less Geneva' is the catchcry... The Opposition Leader understands the subtleties of the region. He has given speeches in Beijing, Tokyo and Jakarta about the opportunities that are presented to Australia by Asia's rising middle class." (Abbott has pedigree to restore Australia's reputation in region, The Australian, 30/8/13)

For the life of me I can't understand why Josh didn't include in the above catalogue, Toeknee's brilliant Indonesian boat buyback scheme.

OK, "[a] senior member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ruling coalition said the buyback plan showed the Opposition Leader lacked understanding of Indonesia, and the broader asylum-seeker problem... 'This is a really crazy idea, unfriendly, derogatory and it shows a lack of understanding in this matter,' [he said]." (Jakarta furious over Abbott buyback plan, AAP, The Australian, 27/8/13)

But then, what would he - Mahfudz Siddiq - know? He's just the head of Indonesia's parliamentary commission for foreign affairs.

Other Indonesians are more discerning:

"Hikmahanto Juwana, an international affairs expert from the University of Indonesia, has described the plan as 'humiliating', and says it shows the Coalition has a poor understanding of its northern neighbour... He said buying the boats would cause the fishermen to lose their livelihoods and would lead to resentment and even conflict between the local population and foreigners." (ibid)

Well, maybe not.

But anyway, what would this Indonesian Hik know? The proven fact is that Australians know more about Indonesia than Indonesians do!

For example, a recent DFAT poll shows that, like their soon-to-be new leader, Toeknee Abbott, Australians have an astonishingly sophisticated understanding of Indonesia:

Almost 50% of Australians believe Indonesia is a threat to our national security; 47% believe that Indonesia is an Islamic state, not a democracy; 18% thought Indonesia had made no effort at all to combat people smuggling; 20% thought Bali was a country; and "the two words that Australians most associate with Indonesia were 'holiday' and 'Muslim'." (Indonesia threat to security, Bernard Lane, The Australian, 27/8/13)

Your Indo Hiks and Mahfudzies need to understand that it's only because we have such an Indonesia-literate population that we'll be electing a foreign policy sophisticate like Toeknee Abbott to the prime ministership next Saturday.

Finally, just between you, me and the wall, I know that 'More Jakarta, Less Geneva' is a pretty catchy little slogan but wouldn't 'Heaps more Tel Aviv, only marginally less Washington, an occasional Jakarta, and maybe the odd Geneva', though admittedly more cumbersome, better encapsulate our coming foreign policy?

Hm, Hasmi... Harakat... Hamas...

... I think we may be on to something here, inspector.

Last night's SBS Television's World News was the occasion for a brief outburst of hilarity in this household.

Hot on the heels of the prime minister discoursing earnestly on her new 'Australia in the Asian Century' white paper (which highlighted the need for Australians to learn one of the major Asian languages) came a report on the foiling by Indonesian police of a new "terror plot" aimed at the US embassy in Jakarta.

There was SBS reporter Marion Ives busy telling us that "Indonesian authorities say a new militant group called Hasmi is behind the plot," when the report cut suddenly to an unidentified, shaven-headed, forty-something Australian male (presumably a spokesman for the Australian Federal Police or ASIO, or one of their proliferating band of counterterrorism 'experts') discoursing earnestly on the ideological intricacies of the alleged Hasmi plot. Caught in mid-sentence, this genius was recorded saying:

"... and the attacks it was about to carry out are believed to be the first ones it had organised. It's almost certainly a successor organisation to Gema [his pronunciation] Islamiyah and similar groups which have a long history in Indonesia. The other is that the first part of its name is Harakat and that is a name of a number of militant Islamic organisations including Hamas, Al-Shabaab..."

Ergo, Hasmi must be directly related to Hamas. Not!

Allow me to explain. 'Haraka' is simply the Arabic word for 'movement', as in 'political movement'. It has no religious connotations whatever. Hamas' official name in Arabic is thus 'harakat al-muqawama al-islamiya' (Islamic Resistance Movement). Likewise, Hamas' secular Palestinian rival, Fatah's official name is 'harakat at-tahrir al-watani al-filastiniya' (Palestinian National Liberation Movement).

It's precisely this kind of cluelessness that has me wondering yet again about our bloated security apparatus, which is based on legislation which, according to the Law Council of Australia, is "contrary to the most fundamental principles of our criminal justice system,"* and costs us over a billion dollars annually. (See my posts Beautiful Sets of Figures (31/1/12) and Behind the ASIO Assessment (23/11/10).)

[*Terrorist laws 'go too far', Harriet Alexander, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/10/12.]

The Rambamming of Jose Ramos-Horta

East Timor's President, Jose Ramos-Horta, was recently in Israel, supposedly to "seek support for agricultual self-sufficiency, food security and maritime security." (East Timor president seeks agricultural, security support, Greer Fay Cashman, The Jerusalem Post, 15/2/11)

Praised by Israeli president Shimon Peres as "representing the highest order of morality," Ramos-Horta returned the compliment by describing Peres as "the best of the Jewish people," and revealed that "he had first become aware of Israel and the Jewish people as a teenager in the 1960s when he read Exodus." (ibid)

In Reflections on a visit to Israel & Palestine (8/3/11), published at The Huffington Post, the "international voice of the Timorese people" during Indonesia's 24-year occupation (1975-1999) of East Timor and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1996) reveals how impressed he was by everything he'd seen and heard in the Jewish state.

Strangely, for all his post-Exodus experience of struggle (admittedly diplomatic, but no less important for that) against the brutal Indonesian occupation of his homeland, Ramos-Horta's understanding of the Zionist project in Palestine seems hardly to have progressed beyond the colonial vision of Leon Uris' trashy propaganda novel. Indeed, the word occupation appears nowhere in this account of a journey to a land now in its 63rd year of Zionist occupation. And why should it? Essentially, as the East Timorese president argues, the Palestinians have never had it so good:

"I recently completed my first State Visit to Israel and Palestine... During my 5-day visit I met with the elder Statesman Nobel Laureate President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin, President Mahmud Abbas and senior advisers and ministers. I was surprised by the state of peace and economic prosperity prevailing in Israel and the West Bank. Israelis and Palestinians alike are pleased that not one single attack has been launched from the West Bank into Israel in 4 years... Visiting the West Bank I envied the relative prosperity of the Palestinians and the progress being made in their State-building exercise. Palestinians in the West Bank are far ahead of most Sub-Sahara African States, and indeed well ahead of my own country, in economic well-being and the development of the State institutions. Israelis were not bestowed with the same resources available to much of the Arab world. Yet Israelis are ahead of their neighbors, and of many European countries in such fields as humanities, science, food security, information technology, and medicine. They have harvested more Nobel prizes than any other individual country of its size. That this tiny country struggling with water scarcity is a major exporter of high quality agriculture [sic] goods to Europe and Russia illustrates the well-known Jewish resilience and creativity in the face of extreme adversity. Palestinians living in the West Bank, who have been much less fortunate in life [!] than Israelis, are yet ahead of their Arab brothers and sisters in the critical areas of higher education, and serve in key positions in government, business and academia throughout the region, in the US and Europe. In my conversations with Israeli leaders I was struck by the respect I heard for President Abu Maz [sic] and other Palestinian leaders. From the Palestinian side, in spite of decades of betrayal and suffering, I did not hear much animosity towards Israelis and Americans. In spite of obvious long-standing American bias towards Israel, the Palestinians I spoke to continue to favor US mediation. Prime Minister Netanyahu says that he is anxious to restart face-to-face dialogue. He appears to be firmly committed to the two-State concept, to a truly independent Palestinian State, one that is economically prosperous. Yes, the settlements remain a complex issue, but it is a mistake to make them the central issue. The Israelis know that once a final settlement is achieved the settlements have to go. They did it in Gaza and they are prepared to do it in the West Bank with 'minor border adjustments' from both sides."

So says Ramos-Horta today, but in a 1999 interview, he could almost have been talking about Palestine when he said of the Indonesian occupation:

"I don't think it has been their intention to wipe out the entire population but at least to reduce it to a minority. Through the killings, through forced sterilization of women, through transmigration, you achieve precisely that aim: you turn the local people into a minority in their own land. Then you resolve the problem. Similar to the Chinese approach in Tibet." (A profile of East Timor's Jose Ramos-Horta, Conan Elphicke, solidarity-us.org)

Back then, he would, you'd assume, have been aware of Israel's support for that occupation:

"Officially, [Indonesia] is... a country with a hostile attitude toward Israel. Unofficially, however, things are different. According to the CIA (1979), the Mossad has a station in Jakarta operating under a commercial cover. A British journalist reported that Israel has had 'major military contracts' with Indonesia (Coone, 1980). And an Israeli journalist stated that Israeli arms were used in the war Indonesia waged against the people of East Timor (Baram, 1982b). In 1979, the United States arranged the sale of 14 Skyhawk planes from Israel to Indonesia (Klich, 1982a). An American journalist reported at the same time that 'the US government is fronting an arms deal in which Israel, without being publicly identified as the source, is selling Indonesia used warplanes obtained from the United States. Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that Israel is shipping Indonesia 16 A4 fighters, bought for $25.8 million in the first such third-country sale of US warplanes' (Wilson, 1979, p. A10). In 1983, another squadron was said to be in the process of delivery (Melman, 1983b)." (The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms & Why, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, 1987, p 32)

And you'd also assume that he was aware of the devastating aerial bombing campaigns waged against the East Timorese resistance and people beginning in 1977:

"Detailing events in Natabora, in the south, a refugee described how: 'Three aircraft - I think they were Skyhawks - bombed the region, killing thousands of people. In particular, women, children and old people were killed, people who couldn't run for cover. They were killed in large numbers. All we could do was pray for God's protection. The planes came in low and sprayed the ground with bullets, with their machine guns killing many people'. Bombing was followed by a campaign of encirclement in which the population was surrounded by concentric circles of troops, with Timorese youths and men forced to march in front of them." (Indonesia's Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor, John Taylor, 1991, p 87)

Of course Ramos-Horta knew about all this: "Ninety per cent of the weapons and equipment that the Indonesians use are American, including the low flying jets that blew apart Ramos-Horta's sister before his mother's eyes, and broke the back of Falantil in the late '70s." (A profile of...)

Yet, speaking during his visit at the Hebrew University's Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations on Peace-Building, State-Building & Reconciliation: Experiences & Perspectives, Ramos-Horta is reported to have said: "We have reconciled with all those who have occupied us, and today we have exemplary relations with Indonesia." (East Timor president seeks...)

Presumably, this reconciliation applies also to those who aided and abetted Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. Would he, I wonder, be so forgiving if East Timor were still under Indonesia's thumb, as Palestine is still under Israel's?

To another matter. While in Israel, the deeply reconciled, cap-in-hand East Timorese president is reported to have perfomed his own version of one of those famous Israeli shrugs: "While keen to enhance relations with Israel, he admitted that the fruits of friendship would be a one-way street because there is very little that East Timor can do that will benefit Israel." (East Timor president seeks...)

How very cute! Now just watch how East Timor votes in the UN General Assembly when an Israel-related matter next arises.

Desperate & Dateless Aussies

"Australia and NATO coalition allies made a desperate bid to convince a disillusioned and divided Dutch government to keep its troops in Afghanistan, WikiLeaks cables reveal. But the reluctant Dutch believed there was no 'coherent, winnable, game plan' for creating a stable democratic government in Kabul, classified US diplomatic cables, dating from 2007, show... Efforts to boost the coalition contribution in Oruzgan in the wake of the looming Dutch withdrawal had modest success. A joint Dutch-Australian approach to Singapore resulted in a field hospital but a request for military support from Indonesia had resulted in an offer of 'one policeman'." (Canberra, NATO 'pleaded' with Dutch to stay in Afghanistan', The Australian, Mark Dodd, 20/1/11)

I had no idea the Indonesians had such a wicked sense of humour.

Burning Question

How come 'lost Roman tribes' look like Romans...

"Genetic testing of villagers in a remote part of China has shown that nearly two-thirds of their DNA is of Caucasion origin, lending support to the theory that they may be descended from a 'lost legion' of Roman soldiers... Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood." (Genetic tests may prove theory of China's lost Roman legion, Nick Squires, Telegraph, London/ Sydney Morning Herald, 25/11/10)

... but 'lost Jewish tribes' are indistinguishable from their fellow countrymen?

"A 19-metre-tall Jewish menorah... rises from a mountain overlooking the city of Manado, courtesy of the provincial government. Israeli flags decorate motorcycle taxi stands, one near a six-year-old synagogue... Long known as a Christian stronghold and more recently a home to evangelical and charismatic Christian groups, the Manado area in northern Indonesia has become the unlikely setting for increasingly public displays of pro-Jewish sentiments as people have embraced the faith of their Dutch-Jewish ancestors... They researched Judaism at an internet cafe in Manado, turning to Google for answers... 'We're just trying to be good Jews', said Toar Palilingan, 27, who, wearing a black coat and a broad-brimmed hat in the ultra-Orthodox style, led a Sabbath dinner at his family home recently with two regulars. 'But if you compare us to Jews in Jerusalem or Brooklyn', said Mr Palilingan, now also known as Yaakov Baruch, 'we're not their yet'." (Indonesia's novice Jews turn to Rabbi Google, Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 24/11/10)

Gillard's Education Revolutions

"My firm belief is that the future of our two countries will be determined by what is happening in the schools of each of our nations today." (Julia Gillard's November 2 speech in Jakarta: Australia will spend $500 million to upgrade Indonesian schools, Tom Allard, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/11/10)

Indeed.

In Indonesia, Prime Minister Gillard is hoping to extinguish sectarian fires: "Australia will spend $500 million building 2000 new schools in Indonesia and upgrading the curriculums of 1500 Islamic madrasas to improve prospects for Indonesia's youth and moderate the influence of the country's religious schools." (ibid)

In Australia, however, she's busy fueling sectarian fires: "Recently the PM, Julia Gillard, 'turbo-charged' the [National School] Chaplaincy Program [first introduced by John Howard] and prompted an unseemly rush to chaplaincy, even in the NSW government school system, which has historically eschewed mixing church and state. One of Gillard's key election campaign promises in August was to boost school chaplain numbers. Her $222 million pledge - more than double Howard's spend - is expected to result in federally funded chaplains at more than one-third of Australia's 10,000 government and non-government schools. Constitutional concerns about the separation of church and state... have been swept aside in the subsidy scramble." (With God by their side, Damien Murphy, Sydney Morning Herald, 30/10/10)

Not bad for a declared atheist, eh?

Oh, and as for Australia's future being determined by what is happening in our schools, I thought you might like a glimpse at where we might be heading with the PM's little $222 million sectarian feeding frenzy: "A couple living on the NSW north coast say they are scared to speak out against the chaplaincy program because their 8-year old son has been attacked at school. They wish to remain anonymous, but say that the local Christian lobby that applied for and secured funding for a chaplain did so without the knowledge of the general parent body. 'Since then, we've had to comfort our son on more than one occasion when he's come home upset after being told by other people that he'll literally 'burn in hell' because he does not share their religious beliefs or attend the same church', the father says." (ibid)

Indonesian Rambamming

Not content with romancing Australian media hacks in Israel, a process of co-optation I have called rambamming*, Australia's Israel lobby has also been busy romancing their Indonesian counterparts. [*See in particular my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too]

Organised jointly by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Indonesia's first (?) rambamming took place in 2007. AIJAC's executive director Dr Colin Rubenstein was uncharacteristically blunt, voicing the lobby's rationale as follows: "[The 7 Indonesians] were a group of very senior journalists with great political contacts and influence on public opinion." (Indonesians make historic visit to Israel, The Australian Jewish News, 2/11/07)

While in Israel, the Indonesians met then foreign minister Tzipi Livni (who reportedly told them "it was important for Indonesia to be a force for moderation in the Middle East") and president Shimon Peres (who said, "Our enemies are not the Muslim or Arab world. Our enemies are hatred and terror"). (ibid)

The 2007 rambammed were Bambang Harymurti, editor-in-chief of Tempo; Uni Lubis, vice-chief editor of Star AN TV; Tofan Mahdi, managing editor of The Java Post; Ray Wijaya, news division head of PT Cipta TPI; Meuta Hafid, news anchor of Metro TV; Artine Ution, chief editor of TPI TV; and Endy Bayuni, editor-in-chieh of The Jakarta Post.

This February, 9 more Indonesian hacks took the plunge: Arief Suditomo, programming and production director of the SUNTV Network and editor-in-chief of RCTI television; Maria Hartiningsih, senior journalist at Kompas Daily; Heru Hendratmoku, production director at Radio News Agency; Dwi Kristanto, front-page editor, Rakyat Merdeka; Eva Mazrieva, news producer at ANTV Jakarta; Retno Shanti Ruwyastuti, deputy chief editor, Metro TV in Jakarta; Purwanto Setiadi, managing editor, Tempo; Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, deputy chief editor, The Jakarta Post; and Avian Tumengkol, editor-in-chief, Waspada Online and editor-at-large, The Waspada Daily in Medan. (Source: Selamat Israel, AJN, 30/4/10)