You've just gotta feel sorry for old Abu Joe:
"Joe Hockey said he was 'devastated' by an article on Fairfax Media front pages that he claims made him appear corrupt, which left his father in tears..." (Fairfax CEO threatened me, says Hockey, Leo Shanahan, The Australian, 10/3/15)
Poor bugger:
"Even his frail father, a refugee who had lost everything and rebuilt his life in Australia, expressed 'a brief doubt' during a phone call." (Fairfax and Treasurer square off over fundraising, Rick Feneley, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/3/15)
Hang on a minute... a refugee who had lost everything?
Jeez, Joe, isn't playing the penniless refugee card a bit rich coming from you? After all, didn't you once say:
"Leave the politics to the countries that are playing the politics. Don't bring the politics here. This is why people come to Australia - not to revisit all of the woes of another nation... Dad's just so unbelievably grateful that in 1947 Australia welcomed him and he sees himself as an Australian. Full stop." Joe Hockey, Sunrise, 16/11/12 (See my 8/8/13 post The Mysterious Abu Joe 1.)
Showing posts with label Joe Hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Hockey. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Friday, August 22, 2014
The Mysterious Abu Joe 3
"Taxpayers are paying Treasurer Joe Hockey $270 a night to stay in a house owned by his wife. Mr Hockey has legitimately claimed $108,000 in travel allowance for 368 nights over the past 4 years, including many nights for parliamentary sitting weeks when he has stayed at the Canberra property in which his wife has a majority share... He would not be drawn on whether there were any tax minimisation advantages to [the] ownership structure of the property... The home is worth an estimated $1.5 million according to local real estate agents... When it was purchased, Mr Hockey was listed on sales documents as owning 5%, his wife, Melissa Babbage, 61% and his father, Richard Hockey, 34%." (You're paying Joe's rent on $1.5m home, Samantha Maiden, The Sunday Telegraph, 17/8/14)
Friday, August 15, 2014
The Mysterious Abu Joe 2
Remember Joe Hockey's pre-election appearance at Sydney's Lakemba mosque, touting his "Palestinian heritage"? (See my 10/5/14 post From the Gaza Strip to the Grand Hyatt.)
Remember my suggestion that "the real story [re Hockey] is not the boof-headed son [but] Hokeidonian the elder"? (See my 8/8/13 post The Mysterious Abu Joe.)
Well, journalist Madonna King's new biography of Hockey, Hockey: Not Your Average Joe, sheds further light, at two points (pp 5-6 & 11-13) in particular, on Hockey's paternal history, and hence on the kind of parental influence which helped form the Joe of today, paradoxically, a man not only devoid of any real feeling for, or interest in, the plight of the Palestinians, empty pre-election emissions notwithstanding, but one who is unambiguously pro-Israel. (See From the Gaza Strip to the Grand Hyatt.)
Here are the relevant excerpts, along my interpolated commentary:
"Growing up in Jerusalem, with troops and civilians fighting it out on the streets..."
Note the vague terminology here. You'd never guess that the British Mandate authorities (troops) were battling a Zionist rebellion (civilians) out to establish a Jewish state based on the dispossession and exile of the majority Arab population of Palestine.
"... he had woken each morning with a fear and dread of what lay ahead and a loneliness that caused an ache in the pit of his stomach. He also remembered the final moments he spent in Palestine, his homeland, a land blessed with the spiritual landmarks of three different faiths, and cursed with a centuries-long tussle for moral and legal ownership."
His homeland. Remember this expression with its connotation of a cherished spiritual connection.
That final bit - cursed with a centuries-long tussle for moral and legal ownership - a reiteration of the idea that Palestine has always been contested terrain (what terrain hasn't?), feeds into the idea that Jews and Arabs have forever been at loggerheads, and that what we are witnessing today is simply the latest manifestation of same.
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Today's Palestine problem did not, in fact, exist until Britain's fateful decision, in 1917, to unleash a toxic European nationalist movement, Zionism, on Palestine, in the teeth of opposition from its indigenous Arab inhabitants. Nor has the Zionist claim to Palestine ever had a valid moral or legal basis. Quite simply, the Zionists and their Jewish state project were imposed on the Palestinians by the British in flagrant violation of the Palestinians' right to national self-determination. One wonders here whether this centuries-long nonsense came from the Hockeys or from King.
"In 1948, Richard had crossed the Jordan River from its West Bank, determined to pursue a new life that might be rich with potential; he dreamt of finding a new homeland, less cursed by entrenched rivalries. As Richard and his only brother, Jack, turned their backs on Palestine on that long-ago January morning, they performed one final act. Richard offered a guttural Arabic curse and spat on the soil, vowing to leave this land and never return. Their land of hope, their land of milk and honey, was to be either Australia or the United States. They joined hundreds of thousands who would make that journey in the post-war years as Palestine (soon to become Israel) shed its Muslim skin to become a Jewish state."
Richard, it is claimed here, entered Jordan in 1948. Keep the date in mind, I'll be returning to it later. Keep in mind too that rich with potential bit, so redolent of the 'me, myself and I' free market ethic we associate with Hockey today.
Entrenched rivalries. Here we go again. Palestine was never a theatre of entrenched communal rivalries. Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews got along just fine until the British entrenched the ethnographic, state-seeking Zionist movement in Palestine from 1917 to 1939.
That mention of the gutteral Arabic curse and its accompanying gob of spittle, was, for me, worth the price of King's book. Some patriot, the old Abu Joe!
But is it true? If, as we are led to believe from the reference to 1948, Richard is fleeing the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine, why would he be cursing not the Zionist forces driving him out but his presumably cherished homeland? Or is the tale merely symbolic of the Hockey family's primary allegiance to making a quid? Remember the phrase rich in potential?
As Palestine shed its Muslim skin??? WTF! Have you ever before seen such a misbegotten euphemism for the Palestinian Nakba as this? Did it, one wonders, come from the Hockeys or from King herself?
"As the war ended, tensions rose again in Jerusalem.. It became clear that the world was going to support the creation of a Jewish state but its reach was contested and the violent tussle for territory escalated. The Hockeduneys... had their home in Julian's Way (now King David Street) in central Jerusalem, close to the administrators of the British mandate. The Irgun, an extreme Zionist group, shocked the world in July 1946 with a bomb attack on the King David Hotel where the British Forces kept their offices... Richard lost seven friends in a moment from hell. On long days, he can still hear the screams of one of them trapped under the rubble... He raced up the road to see if he could offer a hand and returned to his apartment that day knowing that he could never call Jerusalem home."
The Zionist bombing of the King David Hotel was carried out on July 28, 1946.
"Just weeks later, [Hockey's mother] Rose applied... to move her family to Australia but was refused... Eventually, facing a direct threat..."
What threat? If it was a Zionist threat, why not say so? Or would that risk upsetting certain generous donors to the Liberal Party? Maybe, in fact, there was no threat at all. Anyway, moving along:
"... the family packed up... fleeing to Amman, the capital of Jordan... From there, they travelled to Irbid... Richard, Jack and Rose were initially turned down in their application to resettle in Australia... [but on 21 January 1947, Patriarch Balacina interceded on their behalf with Cardinal Thomas Gilroy who worked the required magic.] Their next stop was Beirut... and on 3 September 1948... the Dakota DC3 carrying Rose, Richard and Jack finally landed in Darwin."
You'll note that King's got the year wrong here. It's obviously in 1947 that the Hockeduneys arrived in Australia, a fact confirmed by Joe Hockey in interview. - see my 8/8/13 post The Mysterious Abu Joe.
To conclude, Hockey's father was never a Palestinian refugee in any meaningful sense. He was in Australia before Palestine was even partitioned, reportedly in response to some mysterious alleged threat.
Memo to the Arab/Muslim community: the next time Hockey turns up at a mosque or other gathering, peddling his "Palestinian heritage," tell the bugger to pull the other. Oh, and don't forget to follow up with an appropriate curse in guttural Arabic.
Remember my suggestion that "the real story [re Hockey] is not the boof-headed son [but] Hokeidonian the elder"? (See my 8/8/13 post The Mysterious Abu Joe.)
Well, journalist Madonna King's new biography of Hockey, Hockey: Not Your Average Joe, sheds further light, at two points (pp 5-6 & 11-13) in particular, on Hockey's paternal history, and hence on the kind of parental influence which helped form the Joe of today, paradoxically, a man not only devoid of any real feeling for, or interest in, the plight of the Palestinians, empty pre-election emissions notwithstanding, but one who is unambiguously pro-Israel. (See From the Gaza Strip to the Grand Hyatt.)
Here are the relevant excerpts, along my interpolated commentary:
"Growing up in Jerusalem, with troops and civilians fighting it out on the streets..."
Note the vague terminology here. You'd never guess that the British Mandate authorities (troops) were battling a Zionist rebellion (civilians) out to establish a Jewish state based on the dispossession and exile of the majority Arab population of Palestine.
"... he had woken each morning with a fear and dread of what lay ahead and a loneliness that caused an ache in the pit of his stomach. He also remembered the final moments he spent in Palestine, his homeland, a land blessed with the spiritual landmarks of three different faiths, and cursed with a centuries-long tussle for moral and legal ownership."
His homeland. Remember this expression with its connotation of a cherished spiritual connection.
That final bit - cursed with a centuries-long tussle for moral and legal ownership - a reiteration of the idea that Palestine has always been contested terrain (what terrain hasn't?), feeds into the idea that Jews and Arabs have forever been at loggerheads, and that what we are witnessing today is simply the latest manifestation of same.
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Today's Palestine problem did not, in fact, exist until Britain's fateful decision, in 1917, to unleash a toxic European nationalist movement, Zionism, on Palestine, in the teeth of opposition from its indigenous Arab inhabitants. Nor has the Zionist claim to Palestine ever had a valid moral or legal basis. Quite simply, the Zionists and their Jewish state project were imposed on the Palestinians by the British in flagrant violation of the Palestinians' right to national self-determination. One wonders here whether this centuries-long nonsense came from the Hockeys or from King.
"In 1948, Richard had crossed the Jordan River from its West Bank, determined to pursue a new life that might be rich with potential; he dreamt of finding a new homeland, less cursed by entrenched rivalries. As Richard and his only brother, Jack, turned their backs on Palestine on that long-ago January morning, they performed one final act. Richard offered a guttural Arabic curse and spat on the soil, vowing to leave this land and never return. Their land of hope, their land of milk and honey, was to be either Australia or the United States. They joined hundreds of thousands who would make that journey in the post-war years as Palestine (soon to become Israel) shed its Muslim skin to become a Jewish state."
Richard, it is claimed here, entered Jordan in 1948. Keep the date in mind, I'll be returning to it later. Keep in mind too that rich with potential bit, so redolent of the 'me, myself and I' free market ethic we associate with Hockey today.
Entrenched rivalries. Here we go again. Palestine was never a theatre of entrenched communal rivalries. Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Jews got along just fine until the British entrenched the ethnographic, state-seeking Zionist movement in Palestine from 1917 to 1939.
That mention of the gutteral Arabic curse and its accompanying gob of spittle, was, for me, worth the price of King's book. Some patriot, the old Abu Joe!
But is it true? If, as we are led to believe from the reference to 1948, Richard is fleeing the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine, why would he be cursing not the Zionist forces driving him out but his presumably cherished homeland? Or is the tale merely symbolic of the Hockey family's primary allegiance to making a quid? Remember the phrase rich in potential?
As Palestine shed its Muslim skin??? WTF! Have you ever before seen such a misbegotten euphemism for the Palestinian Nakba as this? Did it, one wonders, come from the Hockeys or from King herself?
"As the war ended, tensions rose again in Jerusalem.. It became clear that the world was going to support the creation of a Jewish state but its reach was contested and the violent tussle for territory escalated. The Hockeduneys... had their home in Julian's Way (now King David Street) in central Jerusalem, close to the administrators of the British mandate. The Irgun, an extreme Zionist group, shocked the world in July 1946 with a bomb attack on the King David Hotel where the British Forces kept their offices... Richard lost seven friends in a moment from hell. On long days, he can still hear the screams of one of them trapped under the rubble... He raced up the road to see if he could offer a hand and returned to his apartment that day knowing that he could never call Jerusalem home."
The Zionist bombing of the King David Hotel was carried out on July 28, 1946.
"Just weeks later, [Hockey's mother] Rose applied... to move her family to Australia but was refused... Eventually, facing a direct threat..."
What threat? If it was a Zionist threat, why not say so? Or would that risk upsetting certain generous donors to the Liberal Party? Maybe, in fact, there was no threat at all. Anyway, moving along:
"... the family packed up... fleeing to Amman, the capital of Jordan... From there, they travelled to Irbid... Richard, Jack and Rose were initially turned down in their application to resettle in Australia... [but on 21 January 1947, Patriarch Balacina interceded on their behalf with Cardinal Thomas Gilroy who worked the required magic.] Their next stop was Beirut... and on 3 September 1948... the Dakota DC3 carrying Rose, Richard and Jack finally landed in Darwin."
You'll note that King's got the year wrong here. It's obviously in 1947 that the Hockeduneys arrived in Australia, a fact confirmed by Joe Hockey in interview. - see my 8/8/13 post The Mysterious Abu Joe.
To conclude, Hockey's father was never a Palestinian refugee in any meaningful sense. He was in Australia before Palestine was even partitioned, reportedly in response to some mysterious alleged threat.
Memo to the Arab/Muslim community: the next time Hockey turns up at a mosque or other gathering, peddling his "Palestinian heritage," tell the bugger to pull the other. Oh, and don't forget to follow up with an appropriate curse in guttural Arabic.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
My Curlies for Joe Hockey on Last Night's Q&A
The Australian treasurer's ducking and weaving on last night's Q&A in response to questioners' manifest anger and disbelief over just where this free market ideologue and his bogan mates were taking this country was, of course, predictable.
However, when a member of the audience alluded to his privileged schooling, and Hockey hastened to point out that his father had "come as a migrant from Palestine with no money," I would have followed up with these even more personal questions:
Mr Hockey, did your father leave Palestine in 1948 at the urging of Arab leaders so that their armies could drive the Jews into the sea, as the official Israeli version of these events has always maintained?
Mr Hockey, do you believe that your father, as a 1948 Palestinian refugee (and of course you, as his son), should have the right of return to Palestine from which he was driven in 1948, and if not, why not?
Mr Hockey, when you visited that Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza in the 90s with your father, you reportedly stated that 'there but for the grace of God I could've been.'* What exactly did you mean by this, and how do you think those unfortunate Palestinians ended up living cheek by jowl in those squalid Gazan refugee camps?
[*See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.]
However, when a member of the audience alluded to his privileged schooling, and Hockey hastened to point out that his father had "come as a migrant from Palestine with no money," I would have followed up with these even more personal questions:
Mr Hockey, did your father leave Palestine in 1948 at the urging of Arab leaders so that their armies could drive the Jews into the sea, as the official Israeli version of these events has always maintained?
Mr Hockey, do you believe that your father, as a 1948 Palestinian refugee (and of course you, as his son), should have the right of return to Palestine from which he was driven in 1948, and if not, why not?
Mr Hockey, when you visited that Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza in the 90s with your father, you reportedly stated that 'there but for the grace of God I could've been.'* What exactly did you mean by this, and how do you think those unfortunate Palestinians ended up living cheek by jowl in those squalid Gazan refugee camps?
[*See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.]
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Joe Hockey: From the Gaza Strip to the Grand Hyatt
BEFORE last September's federal election, the then shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, was touting his 'Arab heritage' at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque:
"If there is a change of government on the 7th of September it will be the very first time in Australian history that someone of Arab heritage has taken a leadership position in Australia." (The politics of Palestine, Jonathan Swan, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/12/13)
Or was it his Palestinian heritage?
"Joe Hockey, appearing at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque this morning for an end of Ramadan ceremony, says he will be the first person of Palestinian heritage to take a leadership role in Australia if the Coalition wins the election." (Day Four - The Australian - Election 2013 Live Coverage, livenews.theaustralian.com.au, 8/8/13)
Hockey's paternal grandmother, you see, was a Palestinian, and his father a refugee from the Nakba of 1948.
Of a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1998 with his father, Hockey is reported to have said:
"We walked through the refugee camp where you'd had 3 generations living in a room 2m x 2m. It was very emotional because there I was with my father, and there but for the grace of God I could've been." (See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.)
Did he, I wonder, ask how it was that those refugees came to be penned up - grandparents, parents, and kids - in their 2x2 shacks? Did the fact that most Palestinians were stateless refugees set him thinking? Did the sight of armed Israeli thugs lording it over them stir him to anger?
Apparently not, because here he is AFTER the election, buttering up Jewish punters at a May 2 Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Grand Hyatt, in a bid to sell them on the upcoming budget with its whizzbang work-till-you-drop-at-70 and upfront-payments-to-the-doctor provisions :
"I wanted to be here today because I want to express my immense admiration for the Jewish community in Australia. In general terms I can think of no other single community that has a greater love for its children and no other community that has a greater devotion to its future, no matter how great the sacrifices of the past. Your love and protection of family and your focus on legacy and prosperity are what I strive for daily with my own family and they are firmly among the principles that brought me into public life. So I really wanted to properly, for the first time, at a public forum like this, acknowledge and thank you for your leadership in the community." (Hockey hails community, The Australian Jewish News, 9/5/14)
No other single community has a greater love for its children. And no other community primes its children with the outrageous belief that the land from which those Palestinian refugees in Gaza were expelled by Zionist terror gangs in 1948 is really theirs.
And this is the same Sloppy Joe who tells the rest of us - we who love our children less - that the Age of Entitlement is over.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
"If there is a change of government on the 7th of September it will be the very first time in Australian history that someone of Arab heritage has taken a leadership position in Australia." (The politics of Palestine, Jonathan Swan, Sydney Morning Herald, 26/12/13)
Or was it his Palestinian heritage?
"Joe Hockey, appearing at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque this morning for an end of Ramadan ceremony, says he will be the first person of Palestinian heritage to take a leadership role in Australia if the Coalition wins the election." (Day Four - The Australian - Election 2013 Live Coverage, livenews.theaustralian.com.au, 8/8/13)
Hockey's paternal grandmother, you see, was a Palestinian, and his father a refugee from the Nakba of 1948.
Of a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1998 with his father, Hockey is reported to have said:
"We walked through the refugee camp where you'd had 3 generations living in a room 2m x 2m. It was very emotional because there I was with my father, and there but for the grace of God I could've been." (See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.)
Did he, I wonder, ask how it was that those refugees came to be penned up - grandparents, parents, and kids - in their 2x2 shacks? Did the fact that most Palestinians were stateless refugees set him thinking? Did the sight of armed Israeli thugs lording it over them stir him to anger?
Apparently not, because here he is AFTER the election, buttering up Jewish punters at a May 2 Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Grand Hyatt, in a bid to sell them on the upcoming budget with its whizzbang work-till-you-drop-at-70 and upfront-payments-to-the-doctor provisions :
"I wanted to be here today because I want to express my immense admiration for the Jewish community in Australia. In general terms I can think of no other single community that has a greater love for its children and no other community that has a greater devotion to its future, no matter how great the sacrifices of the past. Your love and protection of family and your focus on legacy and prosperity are what I strive for daily with my own family and they are firmly among the principles that brought me into public life. So I really wanted to properly, for the first time, at a public forum like this, acknowledge and thank you for your leadership in the community." (Hockey hails community, The Australian Jewish News, 9/5/14)
No other single community has a greater love for its children. And no other community primes its children with the outrageous belief that the land from which those Palestinian refugees in Gaza were expelled by Zionist terror gangs in 1948 is really theirs.
And this is the same Sloppy Joe who tells the rest of us - we who love our children less - that the Age of Entitlement is over.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
The Mysterious Abu Joe 1
The following terribly sad exchange with shadow treasurer Joe Hockey took place on Channel 7's Sunrise program on November 16 last year:
Presenter: OK. Next topic... Israel and Hamas are on the brink of war. Pro-Palestinian activists held a rally and a march in Western Sydney overnight. They are calling for a boycott of the pro-Israeli chocolate cafe chain Max Brenner. Joe, your perspective on this? Your Dad - as we know - came here as a Palestinian refugee. Do you think there is a need to see this here, over what is happening in the Middle East?
Hockey: No. Emphatically not. Leave the politics to the countries that are playing the politics. Don't bring the politics here. That is why people come to Australia - not to revisit all of the woes of another nation.
Presenter: What does your Dad think seeing all of this?
Hockey: Well, Dad's just so unbelievably grateful that in 1947* Australia welcomed him and he sees himself as an Australian. Full stop. He looks at it and he just thinks it will never be resolved over there. When you look at these sorts of events, how does it stop? But Israel does have, entirely, a right to protect its citizens.
Presenter: Oh, not to this extent.
Hockey: But hang on, understand this. There have been random bombings from Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group. It is not a Government. It has taken over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. It has launched terrorist attacks into Israel. Israel has got a right to defend itself. Hamas is part of a wider terrorism network. The people of Gaza are not particularly embracing Hamas, and they are using it as a staging post to attack Israel. (joehockey.com)
The real story here is not the boof-headed son. It's obvious from his answers that he's completely clueless when it comes to the Middle East, and that he'd repeat any fool thing put into his head by the usual suspects, just to blend in.
No, the real story, if our journalists but knew it - but of course they don't - is Hokeidonian the elder, described elsewhere as "dropping the 'donian' part of his name when he migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from the turmoil of the Middle East." (See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.)
[*So which is it? '47 or '48?]
Presenter: OK. Next topic... Israel and Hamas are on the brink of war. Pro-Palestinian activists held a rally and a march in Western Sydney overnight. They are calling for a boycott of the pro-Israeli chocolate cafe chain Max Brenner. Joe, your perspective on this? Your Dad - as we know - came here as a Palestinian refugee. Do you think there is a need to see this here, over what is happening in the Middle East?
Hockey: No. Emphatically not. Leave the politics to the countries that are playing the politics. Don't bring the politics here. That is why people come to Australia - not to revisit all of the woes of another nation.
Presenter: What does your Dad think seeing all of this?
Hockey: Well, Dad's just so unbelievably grateful that in 1947* Australia welcomed him and he sees himself as an Australian. Full stop. He looks at it and he just thinks it will never be resolved over there. When you look at these sorts of events, how does it stop? But Israel does have, entirely, a right to protect its citizens.
Presenter: Oh, not to this extent.
Hockey: But hang on, understand this. There have been random bombings from Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group. It is not a Government. It has taken over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. It has launched terrorist attacks into Israel. Israel has got a right to defend itself. Hamas is part of a wider terrorism network. The people of Gaza are not particularly embracing Hamas, and they are using it as a staging post to attack Israel. (joehockey.com)
The real story here is not the boof-headed son. It's obvious from his answers that he's completely clueless when it comes to the Middle East, and that he'd repeat any fool thing put into his head by the usual suspects, just to blend in.
No, the real story, if our journalists but knew it - but of course they don't - is Hokeidonian the elder, described elsewhere as "dropping the 'donian' part of his name when he migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from the turmoil of the Middle East." (See my 30/7/13 post Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control.)
[*So which is it? '47 or '48?]
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Joe Hockey: My Palestinianity is Firmly Under Control
Seriously head-shaking stuff:
"The Hockey* life story is one of the more textured of an Australian public figure and bears re-telling for what it reveals about a more complex individual than might seem to be the case on an affable surface. Of Palestinian-Armenian origin (his paternal grandmother was Palestinian); grandfather, who deserted the family, was Armenian) Hockey is the product of a marriage between Richard Hokeidonian and Beverly Little... Richard had dropped the 'donian' part of his name when he migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from turmoil in the Middle East. He named his youngest child Joseph Benedict out of gratitude to former Labor Prime Minister Joseph Benedict Chifley. Hockey's Palestinian connection has been tricky for him over the years, given his own party's tilt towards Israel. He does not deny his heritage. He has Palestinian and Armenian friends, but Hockey's Sydney and Canberra milieu is far removed from a conflict on the other side of the world. 'It's my culture. It's my heritage. It helps to define me. But it doesn't control me,' he says. He describes, nevertheless, an emotional reaction after visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza in 1998 with his father. 'We walked through the refugee camp where you'd had 3 generations living in a room 2 metres by 2 metres. It was very emotional because there I was with my father, and there but for the grace of God I could've been.' Could it be the Palestinian loss of patrimony has something to do with Hockey's desire to own a piece of Australian countryside? He describes his 200-hectare cattle property in the Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns... as his reality check." (No more Mr Sunrise, Tony Walker, Financial Review Magazine, August 2013)
Don't you just love the sentence: "Richard... migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from the turmoil in the Middle East."
Shhh... don't mention the NAKBA!
And don't you just love how, while your Danbys and Frydenbergs have no qualms about flaunting their Zionism, Joe Hockey keeps his Palestinianity firmly under control?
[*For my readers overseas, Joe Hockey is Australia's shadow treasurer.]
"The Hockey* life story is one of the more textured of an Australian public figure and bears re-telling for what it reveals about a more complex individual than might seem to be the case on an affable surface. Of Palestinian-Armenian origin (his paternal grandmother was Palestinian); grandfather, who deserted the family, was Armenian) Hockey is the product of a marriage between Richard Hokeidonian and Beverly Little... Richard had dropped the 'donian' part of his name when he migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from turmoil in the Middle East. He named his youngest child Joseph Benedict out of gratitude to former Labor Prime Minister Joseph Benedict Chifley. Hockey's Palestinian connection has been tricky for him over the years, given his own party's tilt towards Israel. He does not deny his heritage. He has Palestinian and Armenian friends, but Hockey's Sydney and Canberra milieu is far removed from a conflict on the other side of the world. 'It's my culture. It's my heritage. It helps to define me. But it doesn't control me,' he says. He describes, nevertheless, an emotional reaction after visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza in 1998 with his father. 'We walked through the refugee camp where you'd had 3 generations living in a room 2 metres by 2 metres. It was very emotional because there I was with my father, and there but for the grace of God I could've been.' Could it be the Palestinian loss of patrimony has something to do with Hockey's desire to own a piece of Australian countryside? He describes his 200-hectare cattle property in the Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns... as his reality check." (No more Mr Sunrise, Tony Walker, Financial Review Magazine, August 2013)
Don't you just love the sentence: "Richard... migrated to Australia in 1948 to get away from the turmoil in the Middle East."
Shhh... don't mention the NAKBA!
And don't you just love how, while your Danbys and Frydenbergs have no qualms about flaunting their Zionism, Joe Hockey keeps his Palestinianity firmly under control?
[*For my readers overseas, Joe Hockey is Australia's shadow treasurer.]
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