John Lyons' Book Featured in Guardian

Some choice excerpts from Pro-Israel advocates in Australia targeted three journalists, new book claims (Amanda Meade, 29/7/17):

*Lyons, Sophie McNeill (ABC) and Peter Cave (ABC) "were subjected to consistent pressure from the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)." AIJAC "prepared dossiers on Cave and other ABC reporters 'and sent them to like-minded journalists and members of parliament'."

*Lyons "says the former editor of the Weekend Australian Nick Cater refused to publish [Lyon's] work and the pro-Israel lobby bombarded editors with criticism of his reports. 'I phoned Cater and he confirmed that he'd asked for my work to no longer appear in the Inquirer... I let [editor-in-chief Chris] Mitchell know that... the exclusion from the Inquirer was just the latest in a long series of disagreements with Nick Cater... he intervened and told Cater that excluding me from the Inquirer was not acceptable."

*"Lyons writes that an Israeli embassy official was invited by Cater to the Australian's head office in Canberra, and told editors that the embassy was not happy with them. 'To me the idea of an officer of a foreign government wandering the floor of my newsroom criticising me was outrageous'."

*"In 2015, AIJAC sent a file on McNeill to Jewish members of the ABC board, including the then chairman James Spigelman, and this file claimed among other things that she was unsuitable because she had said 'one of the saddest things I've seen in my whole life is spending time filming in a children's cancer ward in Gaza'." The then ABC managing director Mark Scott ordered a detailed response from corporate affairs, which he took to the board. 'I will not cower to the AIJAC,' Scott said, according to Lyons. Scott was also forced to defend McNeill from attacks at Senate estimates after the dossier was sent to key parliamentarians."

*"Lyons writes that AIJAC director Colin Rubenstein had unprecedented access to the Australian, speaking regularly to editors and even suggesting articles the paper should run... Mitchell, who was supportive of Lyons, later told him that Rubenstein would go behind his back and call Cater if he refused to take his call, Lyons writes."

*"Lyons argues that Australian journalists should not accept the trips to Israel organised by the lobby - 'During my time in Israel I would come to believe that Australia's uncritical support of Israel is both illogical and unhealthy,' he writes. 'For more than 20 years, Australians have read and heard pro-Israel positions from journalists, editors, politicians, trade union leaders, academics and students who have returned from the all-expenses-paid Israel lobby trips. In my opinion, no editors, journalists or others should take those trips: they grotesquely distort the reality and are dangerous in the sense that they allow people with a very small amount of knowledge to pollute Australian public opinion'."

Just Another Manic Rambam*

"The potential for Australia to learn from Israel's 'can-do culture' was not lost on Nick Cater and James Brown, who attended a Rambam intensive study tour to Israel in July for Australian journalists and academics. At a debriefing luncheon in Sydney last week hosted by Rambam organisers, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), both described touring Tel Aviv's high-tech scene and having Israeli start-ups pitch directly to them, as eye-opening experiences... eight journalists and academics went on the trip." (Aussies share insights of Israel, The Australian Jewish News, 29/8/16)

So who were the other 6, and why didn't they attend the AIJAC debriefing? C'mon guyz-n-galz, out yourselves!

Now for those 'insights'.

Gem from Brown, research director, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney:

"The thing that really stood out for me is the Israeli culture of argument."

I know just what you mean, James: up is down, left is right, black is white etc, etc, etc.

Gems from Cater, executive director, Menzies Research Centre, Australian columnist:

"Israel seemed to me to be even more stable and remarkable a country because of what was happening around it. It's not accidental - it's because of the values, principles and institutions put in place by its founders."

What was happening around Israel? You mean, Israel's an innocent bystander in a tough neighbourhood, right, Nick? 

Israeli values, principles & institutions? You mean, Nick, like Jewish supremacism, ethnocracy, apartheid & occupation?

"After speaking with Israelis and Palestinians, Cater and Brown were not confident about prospects for peace on the horizon. 'One thing I found very disheartening was the consequence of the growth of the idea... on the Palestinian side, that any form of normalisation, as they call it, in relation to Israel is a sell-out,' Cater said."

Cater, it seems, would have felt so much better if only he'd spoken to Palestinians who'd embraced Israeli repression, occupation and colonisation. Presumably, nothing whatever about the Israelis, their repression, their occupation or their colonisation, disheartened him in the least.

Speaking for myself, I have to say that I, for one, am very heartened that AIJAC couldn't find any Palestinian who embraced normalisation with Israel for Nick and his fellow rambamees to talk to.

[With apologies to The Bangles.]

History 1, Nick Cater 0

In his attack on Australian historians who dare to examine critically (or revise) accepted Anzac dogmas, Anzac cynics blind to reality: Historians of the Left fudge the facts to fit their own myth (22/4/14), The Australians' Nick Cater writes mockingly:

"Major General Herbert Cox must have been mistaken when he told officers departing for France in April 1916 they were fighting for 'the suppression of a tyrannical and brutal militarism, the refutation of the abominable doctrine that Might is Right, the defence of the rights of weaker nations, and the solemnity and binding nature of treaties'."

Fine sentiments indeed, Nick. However, in the case of the Arabs during and after WW1, that's all they were.

When it comes to a tyrannical and brutal militarism, the British and the French, in the case of Palestine and Syria respectively, simply replaced the Ottoman Turkish version with their own. The British, moreover, paved the way for the apartheid Zionist version which continues to plague Palestine and its neighbours to this day.

As for the solemnity and binding nature of treaties, the British failed to honour the Hussein-McMahon Treaty of 1915, in which they had promised independence in exchange for the Arab Revolt against the Turks (1916-18), and took over Palestine as a colony (or 'mandate' if you're into euphemisms).

Finally, with regard to the Palestinian rights of self-determination and independence, the British ignored these at every turn, preferring instead to flood Palestine with Zionist settlers who, in 1948, did away with them entirely and went on to rule Palestine according to the abominable doctrine that Might is Right.