The latest turn of the screw in Israel's Operation Get Corbyn (which came in the wake of a Daily Mail beat-up, which came from... ):
"The laying of a wreath by Jeremy Corbyn on the graves [sic] of the terrorist who perpetrated the Munich massacre and his comparison of Israel to the Nazis deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone - left, right and everything in between." (Benjamin Netanyahu tweet, 11/8/18)
And Corbyn's withering, tweeted response to this swaggering bully, the ideological heir to Irgun terrorist Menachem Begin:
"Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's claims about my actions and words are false. What deserves unequivocal condemnation is the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli forces since March, including dozens of children. The nation state law sponsored by Netanyahu's government discriminates against Israel's Palestinian minority. I stand with the tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel demonstrating for equal rights at the weekend in Tel Aviv."
Western 'leaders', accustomed to swooning at Netanyahu's feet, take note.
Showing posts with label Munich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Munich. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Massacre & Incident
Another book review* by Paul Monk in The Australian. Here's how it begins:
"'Barely in modern times has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,' Michael B. Oren wrote in the opening paragraph of Six Days of War (2002),** his compelling history of the June 1967 conflict in which Israel crushed its Arab neighbours and seized control of Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. He listed some of those consequences: the Black September incident in Jordan (1970), the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes (1972)..." (Partial gaps in revisionist critique of Israel, 4/10/14)
So when 11 Israelis are killed it's a massacre, but when nearly 3,500 Palestinians are killed it's merely an incident.***
Why would you bother reading on?
[*Cursed Victory: A History of Israel & the Occupied Territories, by Ahron Bregman; **From Norman Finkelstein's 2002 review of Oren, Abba Eban with footnotes: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations crisis in the US - ie, a jot of the reality of its brutal policies manages to break free of ideological controls - a new propaganda initiative is launched to lift the spirits and close the ranks of the Zionist faithful. After Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Zionist book of the month was Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial. Soon after the Palestinians entered into revolt in September 2000 and Israel unleashed a new round of violent repression, From Time Immemorial - although definitively shown to have been a hoax - was reissued and soared to the top of the Amazon list, soon followed by Oren's book (Amazon frequently featured them together). While certainly a much more sophisticated enterprise, Six Days of War serves the same political agenda as From Time Immemorial. In the introduction Oren states as his goal that the June war 'never be seen the same way again.' In fact he simply repeats the same old, tired apologetics. Like From Time Immemorial, its real purpose is to reclaim the lost world of Zionist heroism and innocence. With so much water under the bridge, however, except among true believers (admittedly not a small number) it's unlikely to succeed."; ***See my 14/8/12 post Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History.]
"'Barely in modern times has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences,' Michael B. Oren wrote in the opening paragraph of Six Days of War (2002),** his compelling history of the June 1967 conflict in which Israel crushed its Arab neighbours and seized control of Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. He listed some of those consequences: the Black September incident in Jordan (1970), the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes (1972)..." (Partial gaps in revisionist critique of Israel, 4/10/14)
So when 11 Israelis are killed it's a massacre, but when nearly 3,500 Palestinians are killed it's merely an incident.***
Why would you bother reading on?
[*Cursed Victory: A History of Israel & the Occupied Territories, by Ahron Bregman; **From Norman Finkelstein's 2002 review of Oren, Abba Eban with footnotes: "Whenever Israel faces a public relations crisis in the US - ie, a jot of the reality of its brutal policies manages to break free of ideological controls - a new propaganda initiative is launched to lift the spirits and close the ranks of the Zionist faithful. After Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the Zionist book of the month was Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial. Soon after the Palestinians entered into revolt in September 2000 and Israel unleashed a new round of violent repression, From Time Immemorial - although definitively shown to have been a hoax - was reissued and soared to the top of the Amazon list, soon followed by Oren's book (Amazon frequently featured them together). While certainly a much more sophisticated enterprise, Six Days of War serves the same political agenda as From Time Immemorial. In the introduction Oren states as his goal that the June war 'never be seen the same way again.' In fact he simply repeats the same old, tired apologetics. Like From Time Immemorial, its real purpose is to reclaim the lost world of Zionist heroism and innocence. With so much water under the bridge, however, except among true believers (admittedly not a small number) it's unlikely to succeed."; ***See my 14/8/12 post Bob Carr Rewrites Jordanian History.]
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Phillip Adams Drones On
Phillip Adams was at the Brisbane Writers Festival last week, a fact which would not ordinarily interest me in the least, except for the fact that he was chairing a session on the subject of drones and one of his 3 guests happened to be Israeli Mossad salesman, Michael Bar-Zohar, out here pushing his latest book, Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. The other two were lawyer Michael (Dan) Mori, associated, you may remember, with the defence of David Hicks, and UK anti-drone activist James Bridle. (You can hear the entire program, broadcast on October 3, on Adams' program, Late Night Live, on Radio National.)
Of course, the incorrigibly Ziophilic Adams, who invariably goes all soft and gooey in the presence of a Zionist, just couldn't help but allude to the 1972 Munich massacre, which he characterised as a terrorist attack which the Israelis "had to respond to."
This was the first of Adams' many services to the Israeli narrative during the course of the program.
Of course, Israel did not have to respond in the way it did, namely by unleashing a Mossad death squad against Palestinian resistance representatives in Rome, Paris, Nicosia and Oslo between October 1972 and July 1973. None of the individuals murdered in this killing spree had any proven connection with the events in Munich. Israel's actions were nothing more than eye-for-an-eye acts of vengeance, as were its murderous bombing runs over Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria in the immediate aftermath of Munich.*
(In the case of Wael Zuaiter, the resistance movement's representative in Rome, gunned down on 16 October 1972, an Italian court set out to try 8 Mossad operatives in absentia for his death but was forced to acquit them for lack of evidence. In its judgment of 17 December 1980, the Court had this to say of the victim: "The fact is that Wael Zuaiter had established strong ties in a number of Italian political, cultural and press circles and had developed an intense propaganda in favour of the Palestinian cause... However, there was nothing to authorize anyone to think that these activities, which were carried out in compliance with the laws of the host country, were a cover-up for any activities which, objectively, were likely to help extremist groups carrying out obviously unacceptable actions." (For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter, Ed. by Janet Venn-Brown, 1984, pp 209-210))
Adams' opening question to Bar-Zohar - whether drones were "necessary" - facilitated the first of Bar-Zohar's 'tough neighborhood' whines:
"It's very funny to sit here in Australia. You have no problems. You don't have any border with any enemy state, no danger of something exploding suddenly in a cafe or restaurant... and for you it's very easy to judge the outside world... By the way, Israel doesn't use drones for military purposes [because] terrorists live in densely populated territories."
This would have been an ideal opportunity for a critical and informed chairperson to suggest, in one form or another, that this might have something to do with Australia's having come to terms with its indigenous population, as opposed to Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine's indigenous population, but Adams is neither, instead bending over backwards to accomodate the arrogant sod:
"Michael makes the point that Israeli public opinion does not allow for too many civilian deaths, hence the reluctance to use these damn things."
Notice too, how Bar-Zohar is allowed to get away with the lie that Israel doesn't use drones to kill Palestinians. The reality is that they are an integral part of Israel's policy of 'targeted assassination', a euphemism for wiping out any manifestation of armed resistance to Israeli occupation:
"Each targeted assassination is a large-scale operation that integrates hundreds of specialists from different military branches and security apparatuses. Beyond its reliance on background intelligence (much of it gathered in mass arrests and from Palestinians stopped at checkpoints), targeted assassination depends on sharing real-time information between various agents, commanders, operators, and different military planes and on their ability to act upon it. After a Palestinian is put on the death list, he is followed, sometimes for days, by a 'swarm' of different kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles. Often, different swarms follow different people simultaneously in different areas of the Gaza Strip. In this way, the security services establish the targeted person's daily routines and habits and maintain continued visual contact with him until his killing. As well as being cheaper to operate, unmanned drones have the advantage over manned planes or helicopters because they can remain in the air around the clock... and because their formations circulate in relatively small areas while providing a multiplicity of angles of vision. Moreover, drones are quiet and barely visible to the human eye. This is the reason that, beginning in 2004, the air force started to shoot its missiles from drones, rather than from its more visible battle helicopters. A swarm of various types of drones, each circulating at a different altitude, up to a height of 30,000 feet, is navigated by a GPS system and woven by radio communication into a single synergetic reconnaissance and killing instrument that conducts the entire assassination operation." (The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, ed, by Adi Ophir, Michal Givoni, & Sari Hanafi, 2009,pp 544-545) [*See also Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard, Clancy Chassay, The Guardian, 24/3/09.]
Characteristically, Adams, wasted no time in switching the focus away from Israeli and onto American war crimes, suggesting to Mori, that unlike Israel, the US is not nearly as averse to a bit of 'collateral damage':
"That doesn't seem to be of great concern in the US, does it?"
Here's what ensued, in particular, Bar-Zohar's second 'tough neighborhood' whine:
Mori: Well, now we're raising the issue of collateral damage and how many civilian deaths are acceptable if we're getting the terrorist planner. Is it OK to kill him if we know there'll be 6 other members of his family, is that OK?
Bar-Zohar: Is it OK? If I listen to all this debate I would find out finally you can't get a war because [Sound of cheering from audience] everything we say - yes, here it's fine, it's fine for you, and I envy you people but when my enemy sits 40 km from my home and attacks me with missiles every day and bombs my restaurants and buses every day, what should I do? Debate what's moral, how to count, how many people are equivalent to death of a terrorist or go after the terrorist. That's the point. And speaking of errors... I can make you a list from here to eternity about the errors which are made in each and every war. War is a very unpleasant business. You've been to war? I've fought in 4 wars in my life. I don't recommend it to anybody, and war is full of mistakes every second and every moment people are killed for no reason and civilians are hurt for no reason so let's not mish-mash everything. There is today a new instrument. Everything changes. Before there were different kinds of war. They were running with spears and arrows. Then the tank came...
James Bridle then intervened to make the following, telling point:
"I totally understand the point Michael is making, that there is a particular situation in Israel that has produced these conditions and these weapons. What these weapons are now doing is carrying the attitudes of that conflict to the rest of the globe."
As did Mori, leading to this little exchange with Bar-Zohar:
Bar-Zohar, No, we didn't produce the killer drones, not at all.
Mori: No, but you produced the concept of executive-directed killings.
Bar-Zohar: No, not for drones.
Mori: No, not for drones, but for the executive determining who's bad and who should be killed.
But Bar-Zohar just couldn't let this one pass:
"You mentioned before about the Munich group which was followed. There was a tribunal in Israel formed by PM Meir, DPM Alon, and Defence Minister Dayan, and they had to approve each file of terrorism submitted to them by the Mossad saying this man should be killed."
At this point, Adams just couldn't help himself, and rushed to Bar-Zohar's aid with this fawning nonsense:
"I think what he might be getting at is that Israel has over quite a long time often done quite remarkable things which the world may have applauded but which weren't really legal. We did a program the other day on Eichman... This is Israeli intelligence - Mossading - at its best, going into another country, taking someone away for a trial back in Israel. You have long history of targeting individuals... but no one does it like the Israelis..."
Bar-Zohar, elated, chimed in with:
"No one does it better, but don't forget we are all the time on the front line..."
Adams blundered on, the imaginary Israel of his salad days, with its legendary Goldas and Moshes, taking possession:
"You have a history as a Labor member of the Knesset. You're the biographer of some very important progressive figures in Israeli politics. There must be times when what Mossad has done or is doing concerns you ethically."
Unfortunately for Adams, his Israeli guest missed the cue to indulge in a bit of good old Israeli 'shoot & cry'. No tortured soul he:
"Not very many times that I remember. You mentioned the case when the Mossad made a mistake killing a poor Moroccan waiter... Israeli government paid a huge amount of money to his family as an indemnity."
Warms your heart, doesn't it?
Adams final Q&A with Bar-Zohar was quality grist to the latter's propaganda mill. "Michael," he asked, "does Hamas or Hezbollah in Lebanon have access to drones?"
Bar-Zohar: No, they don't need to. They don't need drones. They have 40,000 missiles, 40 THOUSAND MISSILES along the Israeli border ready to be launched.
Adams: Nonetheless, it must be highly possible that we're witnessing an arms race spurred by the widespread use of UAVs by the US.
Bar-Zohar: So far they sent 2 drones which were shot down over the ocean before they came into Israeli territory... but they have 40,000 missiles. That's much more dangerous than the drones.
God knows what the Brisbane audience made of all this.
[*See my 2/7/12 post Massacre Inc.]
Of course, the incorrigibly Ziophilic Adams, who invariably goes all soft and gooey in the presence of a Zionist, just couldn't help but allude to the 1972 Munich massacre, which he characterised as a terrorist attack which the Israelis "had to respond to."
This was the first of Adams' many services to the Israeli narrative during the course of the program.
Of course, Israel did not have to respond in the way it did, namely by unleashing a Mossad death squad against Palestinian resistance representatives in Rome, Paris, Nicosia and Oslo between October 1972 and July 1973. None of the individuals murdered in this killing spree had any proven connection with the events in Munich. Israel's actions were nothing more than eye-for-an-eye acts of vengeance, as were its murderous bombing runs over Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria in the immediate aftermath of Munich.*
(In the case of Wael Zuaiter, the resistance movement's representative in Rome, gunned down on 16 October 1972, an Italian court set out to try 8 Mossad operatives in absentia for his death but was forced to acquit them for lack of evidence. In its judgment of 17 December 1980, the Court had this to say of the victim: "The fact is that Wael Zuaiter had established strong ties in a number of Italian political, cultural and press circles and had developed an intense propaganda in favour of the Palestinian cause... However, there was nothing to authorize anyone to think that these activities, which were carried out in compliance with the laws of the host country, were a cover-up for any activities which, objectively, were likely to help extremist groups carrying out obviously unacceptable actions." (For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter, Ed. by Janet Venn-Brown, 1984, pp 209-210))
Adams' opening question to Bar-Zohar - whether drones were "necessary" - facilitated the first of Bar-Zohar's 'tough neighborhood' whines:
"It's very funny to sit here in Australia. You have no problems. You don't have any border with any enemy state, no danger of something exploding suddenly in a cafe or restaurant... and for you it's very easy to judge the outside world... By the way, Israel doesn't use drones for military purposes [because] terrorists live in densely populated territories."
This would have been an ideal opportunity for a critical and informed chairperson to suggest, in one form or another, that this might have something to do with Australia's having come to terms with its indigenous population, as opposed to Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine's indigenous population, but Adams is neither, instead bending over backwards to accomodate the arrogant sod:
"Michael makes the point that Israeli public opinion does not allow for too many civilian deaths, hence the reluctance to use these damn things."
Notice too, how Bar-Zohar is allowed to get away with the lie that Israel doesn't use drones to kill Palestinians. The reality is that they are an integral part of Israel's policy of 'targeted assassination', a euphemism for wiping out any manifestation of armed resistance to Israeli occupation:
"Each targeted assassination is a large-scale operation that integrates hundreds of specialists from different military branches and security apparatuses. Beyond its reliance on background intelligence (much of it gathered in mass arrests and from Palestinians stopped at checkpoints), targeted assassination depends on sharing real-time information between various agents, commanders, operators, and different military planes and on their ability to act upon it. After a Palestinian is put on the death list, he is followed, sometimes for days, by a 'swarm' of different kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles. Often, different swarms follow different people simultaneously in different areas of the Gaza Strip. In this way, the security services establish the targeted person's daily routines and habits and maintain continued visual contact with him until his killing. As well as being cheaper to operate, unmanned drones have the advantage over manned planes or helicopters because they can remain in the air around the clock... and because their formations circulate in relatively small areas while providing a multiplicity of angles of vision. Moreover, drones are quiet and barely visible to the human eye. This is the reason that, beginning in 2004, the air force started to shoot its missiles from drones, rather than from its more visible battle helicopters. A swarm of various types of drones, each circulating at a different altitude, up to a height of 30,000 feet, is navigated by a GPS system and woven by radio communication into a single synergetic reconnaissance and killing instrument that conducts the entire assassination operation." (The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, ed, by Adi Ophir, Michal Givoni, & Sari Hanafi, 2009,pp 544-545) [*See also Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard, Clancy Chassay, The Guardian, 24/3/09.]
Characteristically, Adams, wasted no time in switching the focus away from Israeli and onto American war crimes, suggesting to Mori, that unlike Israel, the US is not nearly as averse to a bit of 'collateral damage':
"That doesn't seem to be of great concern in the US, does it?"
Here's what ensued, in particular, Bar-Zohar's second 'tough neighborhood' whine:
Mori: Well, now we're raising the issue of collateral damage and how many civilian deaths are acceptable if we're getting the terrorist planner. Is it OK to kill him if we know there'll be 6 other members of his family, is that OK?
Bar-Zohar: Is it OK? If I listen to all this debate I would find out finally you can't get a war because [Sound of cheering from audience] everything we say - yes, here it's fine, it's fine for you, and I envy you people but when my enemy sits 40 km from my home and attacks me with missiles every day and bombs my restaurants and buses every day, what should I do? Debate what's moral, how to count, how many people are equivalent to death of a terrorist or go after the terrorist. That's the point. And speaking of errors... I can make you a list from here to eternity about the errors which are made in each and every war. War is a very unpleasant business. You've been to war? I've fought in 4 wars in my life. I don't recommend it to anybody, and war is full of mistakes every second and every moment people are killed for no reason and civilians are hurt for no reason so let's not mish-mash everything. There is today a new instrument. Everything changes. Before there were different kinds of war. They were running with spears and arrows. Then the tank came...
James Bridle then intervened to make the following, telling point:
"I totally understand the point Michael is making, that there is a particular situation in Israel that has produced these conditions and these weapons. What these weapons are now doing is carrying the attitudes of that conflict to the rest of the globe."
As did Mori, leading to this little exchange with Bar-Zohar:
Bar-Zohar, No, we didn't produce the killer drones, not at all.
Mori: No, but you produced the concept of executive-directed killings.
Bar-Zohar: No, not for drones.
Mori: No, not for drones, but for the executive determining who's bad and who should be killed.
But Bar-Zohar just couldn't let this one pass:
"You mentioned before about the Munich group which was followed. There was a tribunal in Israel formed by PM Meir, DPM Alon, and Defence Minister Dayan, and they had to approve each file of terrorism submitted to them by the Mossad saying this man should be killed."
At this point, Adams just couldn't help himself, and rushed to Bar-Zohar's aid with this fawning nonsense:
"I think what he might be getting at is that Israel has over quite a long time often done quite remarkable things which the world may have applauded but which weren't really legal. We did a program the other day on Eichman... This is Israeli intelligence - Mossading - at its best, going into another country, taking someone away for a trial back in Israel. You have long history of targeting individuals... but no one does it like the Israelis..."
Bar-Zohar, elated, chimed in with:
"No one does it better, but don't forget we are all the time on the front line..."
Adams blundered on, the imaginary Israel of his salad days, with its legendary Goldas and Moshes, taking possession:
"You have a history as a Labor member of the Knesset. You're the biographer of some very important progressive figures in Israeli politics. There must be times when what Mossad has done or is doing concerns you ethically."
Unfortunately for Adams, his Israeli guest missed the cue to indulge in a bit of good old Israeli 'shoot & cry'. No tortured soul he:
"Not very many times that I remember. You mentioned the case when the Mossad made a mistake killing a poor Moroccan waiter... Israeli government paid a huge amount of money to his family as an indemnity."
Warms your heart, doesn't it?
Adams final Q&A with Bar-Zohar was quality grist to the latter's propaganda mill. "Michael," he asked, "does Hamas or Hezbollah in Lebanon have access to drones?"
Bar-Zohar: No, they don't need to. They don't need drones. They have 40,000 missiles, 40 THOUSAND MISSILES along the Israeli border ready to be launched.
Adams: Nonetheless, it must be highly possible that we're witnessing an arms race spurred by the widespread use of UAVs by the US.
Bar-Zohar: So far they sent 2 drones which were shot down over the ocean before they came into Israeli territory... but they have 40,000 missiles. That's much more dangerous than the drones.
God knows what the Brisbane audience made of all this.
[*See my 2/7/12 post Massacre Inc.]
Monday, July 2, 2012
Massacre Inc.
"America is about to enter a presidential election year... The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues - health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration - and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well... Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one country - Israel - as well as their determination to maintain unyielding US support for the Jewish state."
So begins the introduction to Mearsheimer & Walt's 2007 classic, The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy.
As in the US, so too, unfortunately, in Australia. Here is merely the most recent example:
"The House of Representatives rose in unison on Tuesday in support of a motion calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to observe a minute of silence at the London Games for the 11 Israeli victims of the Munich massacre [of 1972]. The move comes less than a month after an open letter from The Australian Jewish News beseeching the IOC to hold a memorial at the 2012 Games attracted a raft of high-profile signatories, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott." (Parliament rises for Munich, 29/6/12)
Nothing like a shared ignorance, sycophancy, and crying need for campaign funds to unite Lib and Lab. And nothing like our Israel lobby (and its parliamentary operatives, Paul Fletcher (Lib), Josh Frydenberg (Lib), Mike Kelly (Lab), and Michael Danby (Lab), who moved the above bi-partisan motion) to pull a stunt like this on behalf of a state whose very road to statehood was paved with the massacres of Palestinians and other Arabs, and whose history ever since has been studded with them.
I merely recall the one which followed, within mere days, the Munich massacre:
"When Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics of 1972, Syria bore the brunt of Israel's eye-for-eye reprisals. It was, of course, more like 20 eyes for one. For at least 200 people, many of them women and children, and possibly as many as 500, died in simultaneous air attacks on nine separate targets. The Phantoms and Skyhawks swooped on the suburban Damascus resort of al-Hama; the bombs fell indiscriminately on Palestinians in their hillside dwellings and on Syrians, in their cars or strolling by the river Barada on their weekend outing. Survivors recounted how they were machine-gunned as they ran for cover." (The Gun & The Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst, 1977, p 251)
But don't ever expect any of our parliamentary sheep to stand up for these people.
To inject a little perspective here, allow me to adapt the words of Edward John Eyre (written in 1845) about the internecine warfare which arose when European settlers invaded Aboriginal Australia in the 19th century: Could blood answer blood, perhaps for every drop of Israeli's shed by Palestinian natives, a torrent of theirs, by Israeli hands, would crimson the earth. (See my 12/6/08 post Pemulwuy in Palestine.)
So begins the introduction to Mearsheimer & Walt's 2007 classic, The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy.
As in the US, so too, unfortunately, in Australia. Here is merely the most recent example:
"The House of Representatives rose in unison on Tuesday in support of a motion calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to observe a minute of silence at the London Games for the 11 Israeli victims of the Munich massacre [of 1972]. The move comes less than a month after an open letter from The Australian Jewish News beseeching the IOC to hold a memorial at the 2012 Games attracted a raft of high-profile signatories, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott." (Parliament rises for Munich, 29/6/12)
Nothing like a shared ignorance, sycophancy, and crying need for campaign funds to unite Lib and Lab. And nothing like our Israel lobby (and its parliamentary operatives, Paul Fletcher (Lib), Josh Frydenberg (Lib), Mike Kelly (Lab), and Michael Danby (Lab), who moved the above bi-partisan motion) to pull a stunt like this on behalf of a state whose very road to statehood was paved with the massacres of Palestinians and other Arabs, and whose history ever since has been studded with them.
I merely recall the one which followed, within mere days, the Munich massacre:
"When Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics of 1972, Syria bore the brunt of Israel's eye-for-eye reprisals. It was, of course, more like 20 eyes for one. For at least 200 people, many of them women and children, and possibly as many as 500, died in simultaneous air attacks on nine separate targets. The Phantoms and Skyhawks swooped on the suburban Damascus resort of al-Hama; the bombs fell indiscriminately on Palestinians in their hillside dwellings and on Syrians, in their cars or strolling by the river Barada on their weekend outing. Survivors recounted how they were machine-gunned as they ran for cover." (The Gun & The Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst, 1977, p 251)
But don't ever expect any of our parliamentary sheep to stand up for these people.
To inject a little perspective here, allow me to adapt the words of Edward John Eyre (written in 1845) about the internecine warfare which arose when European settlers invaded Aboriginal Australia in the 19th century: Could blood answer blood, perhaps for every drop of Israeli's shed by Palestinian natives, a torrent of theirs, by Israeli hands, would crimson the earth. (See my 12/6/08 post Pemulwuy in Palestine.)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
The Israeli Mystique
How many death squad leaders do you think could make it to Australia on a tour sponsored by a 'local' women's organization, and be given a platform in a major broadsheet to lecture its readers on security? But it's OK. He's Israeli and that's sooo cool. His name is Juval Aviv. Juval supposedly* "led a deadly team of 5 assassins to avenge the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes [at the Munich olympics.]" He's "on an Australian tour sponsored by the Women's International Zionist Organization." And he's appeared, complete with pic, to proffer his pearls in the Sydney Morning Herald (A bloody & vengeful claim to fame, Daniel Flitton 2/9/08).
What a mensch is Juval!
Herald journalist Flitton was spell-bound: "This much is clear. Mr Aviv is a fascinating storyteller with strong views on the present-day terrorist threat."
If only the former Howard government had listened to Juval back when and followed his sage advice, we would never have joined the Coalition of the Willies! Cop this: "I'm in the loop, I'm seeing a lot of information, and I can tell you that Australia was always far away, the dark side of the moon... You were isolated, you were in a bubble, and you were secure... Australia's troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan make it a bigger terrorist target, lifting it to rank alongside the US, Israel and Britain." Oh, John/Peter/Alexander & Co, what have you done?
But now, warns Juval darkly, "That bubble has burst... Australia today is exactly where America was before 9/11 - gullible, believing you are secure because you are an island. You have done a lot [fridge magnets?], but you are light years away in Australia from really being ready for an attack. A lot of people really don't believe it is going to happen."
Shit! Juval, save us! Waddawegonnado, O Great "White House & Congressional Counter-Terrorism Consultant"? - You "should sit down and work out emergency plans, including places to meet if [your family] cannot return home and who will pick the children up from school." Gee, thanks, Juval, I feel so much better prepared now. - You're welcome, just make the cheque out to my "New York private investigation firm."
Enough of the banter - what really interested me in Flitton on Juval was the light shed by the latter on Israeli law enforcement methods: "We found those 11 terrorists, and one by one, we brought them to justice - which we only know how to do in Israel, as I always say." You m-m-m-mean, stammered Flitton, as a chill ran down his spine, "executions"? The "stocky and smiling" Juval nodded. "At the time, " he said, we had "to send a message of strength."
There you have it: Israeli 'justice' has always been more about bloody corpus than habeas corpus.
* 'Supposedly'. As in 'according to Juval'. Have the good ladies of WIZO been conned? Has Juval's "700-strong audience in Melbourne last week" been dudded? Is Juval really who he claims to be? I'm sure it doesn't matter to WIZO, of course. Political Zionists thrive on delusion. What actually happened is neither here nor there for them. Truth, like Australian or American politics, always boils down to 'Is it good for Israel?' Anyway, fact or fiction, Juval has no doubt stiffened the spines of the Zionist faithful wonderfully, so I'm sure WIZO got their money's worth. And the audience most likely found his tales of derring-do as spell-binding as Flitton did. The latter, of course, did note that "[Juval's] story has been challenged by Israeli intelligence officials" - but that, folks, isn't the half of it:-
Ponder this excerpt from Secret Agent Schmuck: The spooky truth behind the media's favorite 'spy' by Chris Thompson, writing in The Village Voice of 16/10/07: "... Aviv has built a remarkable career for himself. In 1989, following the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland, airline officials hired Aviv to investigate the incident. His report - alleging that the bombing was a CIA gun-and-drug smuggling operation gone terribly wrong - was leaked to the press, reportedly by Aviv himself. News outlets like Time, NBC, ABC, and Barron's picked up the story. But as more skeptical journalists began to examine Aviv's report, Pan Am officials suddenly dropped their plans to use it as a defence, and the media outlets that had run Aviv's allegations squirmed under the scrutiny. A Brooklyn federal magistrate later found Aviv's report to be utterly without merit. Today, American intelligence officials who were charged with investigating the Pan Am 103 bombing are still furious with Aviv - and they fume over the fact that national television outlets treat him as anything but a fraud. 'This crud, this piece of dirt, went around inventing stories about how this plane got destroyed, because he was paid money to do so', says Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations and analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre. 'The man is not worth being in human company, frankly'. 'This guy's full of shit', says Larry Johnson, who served in the CIA and as a deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. 'What's true is, yes, he has a security and corporate-intelligence firm, and he's big at playing up the Israeli mystique. If you say it with a foreign accent, you're good to go'." (http://www.villagevoice.com/)
And how's this for chutzpah: according to Flitton, secret agent schmuck wears "a round badge with the CIA emblem proudly pinned to his lapel." Nice!
What a mensch is Juval!
Herald journalist Flitton was spell-bound: "This much is clear. Mr Aviv is a fascinating storyteller with strong views on the present-day terrorist threat."
If only the former Howard government had listened to Juval back when and followed his sage advice, we would never have joined the Coalition of the Willies! Cop this: "I'm in the loop, I'm seeing a lot of information, and I can tell you that Australia was always far away, the dark side of the moon... You were isolated, you were in a bubble, and you were secure... Australia's troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan make it a bigger terrorist target, lifting it to rank alongside the US, Israel and Britain." Oh, John/Peter/Alexander & Co, what have you done?
But now, warns Juval darkly, "That bubble has burst... Australia today is exactly where America was before 9/11 - gullible, believing you are secure because you are an island. You have done a lot [fridge magnets?], but you are light years away in Australia from really being ready for an attack. A lot of people really don't believe it is going to happen."
Shit! Juval, save us! Waddawegonnado, O Great "White House & Congressional Counter-Terrorism Consultant"? - You "should sit down and work out emergency plans, including places to meet if [your family] cannot return home and who will pick the children up from school." Gee, thanks, Juval, I feel so much better prepared now. - You're welcome, just make the cheque out to my "New York private investigation firm."
Enough of the banter - what really interested me in Flitton on Juval was the light shed by the latter on Israeli law enforcement methods: "We found those 11 terrorists, and one by one, we brought them to justice - which we only know how to do in Israel, as I always say." You m-m-m-mean, stammered Flitton, as a chill ran down his spine, "executions"? The "stocky and smiling" Juval nodded. "At the time, " he said, we had "to send a message of strength."
There you have it: Israeli 'justice' has always been more about bloody corpus than habeas corpus.
* 'Supposedly'. As in 'according to Juval'. Have the good ladies of WIZO been conned? Has Juval's "700-strong audience in Melbourne last week" been dudded? Is Juval really who he claims to be? I'm sure it doesn't matter to WIZO, of course. Political Zionists thrive on delusion. What actually happened is neither here nor there for them. Truth, like Australian or American politics, always boils down to 'Is it good for Israel?' Anyway, fact or fiction, Juval has no doubt stiffened the spines of the Zionist faithful wonderfully, so I'm sure WIZO got their money's worth. And the audience most likely found his tales of derring-do as spell-binding as Flitton did. The latter, of course, did note that "[Juval's] story has been challenged by Israeli intelligence officials" - but that, folks, isn't the half of it:-
Ponder this excerpt from Secret Agent Schmuck: The spooky truth behind the media's favorite 'spy' by Chris Thompson, writing in The Village Voice of 16/10/07: "... Aviv has built a remarkable career for himself. In 1989, following the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270 people in Lockerbie, Scotland, airline officials hired Aviv to investigate the incident. His report - alleging that the bombing was a CIA gun-and-drug smuggling operation gone terribly wrong - was leaked to the press, reportedly by Aviv himself. News outlets like Time, NBC, ABC, and Barron's picked up the story. But as more skeptical journalists began to examine Aviv's report, Pan Am officials suddenly dropped their plans to use it as a defence, and the media outlets that had run Aviv's allegations squirmed under the scrutiny. A Brooklyn federal magistrate later found Aviv's report to be utterly without merit. Today, American intelligence officials who were charged with investigating the Pan Am 103 bombing are still furious with Aviv - and they fume over the fact that national television outlets treat him as anything but a fraud. 'This crud, this piece of dirt, went around inventing stories about how this plane got destroyed, because he was paid money to do so', says Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations and analysis at the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre. 'The man is not worth being in human company, frankly'. 'This guy's full of shit', says Larry Johnson, who served in the CIA and as a deputy director in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. 'What's true is, yes, he has a security and corporate-intelligence firm, and he's big at playing up the Israeli mystique. If you say it with a foreign accent, you're good to go'." (http://www.villagevoice.com/)
And how's this for chutzpah: according to Flitton, secret agent schmuck wears "a round badge with the CIA emblem proudly pinned to his lapel." Nice!
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