Recently Rambammed

Sarah Ferguson: How do you account for [the Israel lobby] wielding so much power?
Bob Carr: I think political donations and a program of giving trips to MPs and journalists to Israel.
7.30 Report, 9/4/14

Remember Paul Howes' flirtation with horticulture, TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine)? Well, ever since Paul left off linking Israel and Palestine (LOL) and took up a position with KPMG last year, TULIP seems to have withered, judging by the sad state of its Australian website. 

So where's a Labor lad/ladette to get his/her Ziofix these days? No problem! Meet TULIP's successor AILD (Australia Israel Labor Dialogue), which aims "to promote and foster dialogue and fraternal links between the Australian and Israeli Labor parties" (aild.org.au)

AILD, you'll be pleased to know, had its first rambam last month:

"In the first mission of its kind, the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue has hosted a group of 11 members and officials of the Australian Labor Party on a Study Mission to Israel."  (ALP on an Israeli study mission, jwire.net.au, 24/12/14)

Just for the record, the lucky 11 were:

Paul Frayne (Office of Andrew Giles MHR), Kent Rowe (ALP Secretary NT), Mitchell Wilson (NSW ALP Organiser), Jessica Malnersic (President NSW Young Labor), Tim Hammond (Barrister), Adam Slonim (AILD), Kaila Murnain (Assistant Federal Secretary ALP NSW), Michael Vaughan (Office of Tanya Plibersek MHR), Greg Holland (ALP candidate NSW state election), Rose Butler Jackson (Assistant Secretary NSW ALP), Michael Borowick (AILD chair & ACTU Assistant Secretary).

Hm... Rose Jackson, who, like federal opposition deputy leader Tanya (Once Was Warrior) Plibersek, had to recant her views in order to climb the greasy pole. (Just click on the Rose Jackson and Tanya Plibersek labels below.)

Hm... Office of Tanya (Once Was Warrior) Plibersek.

Hm... Assistant Secretary, ACTU.

Here's some of what they got up to:

"The group spent a week touring Israel being briefed by academics, journalists, and policy advisers, the Australian Embassy, the Knesset and spent a morning in Ramallah meeting the Palestinian Authority and PLO spokespeople. Mission highlights included meeting the leadership of the Israeli Labor Party, touring Sderot and the Gaza border crossing, visiting Gush Etzion, and seeing first hand the work of Australian doctors at the Tzefat hospital treating Syrian child casualties of the civil war."

Hm...

Note how a cup of coffee with the PA is always part and parcel of these Zionist propaganda tours, yet has bugger all impact on the rambammed. What happens I wonder? Do the rambammed a) play with their phones? b) roll their eyes? c) stare out the window? d) dream of the long liquid lunch that awaits back in Jerusalem? e) nap? f) all 5?

Note how the Australian Embassy is part of (complicit in?) the exercise.

Note how the carry on at Ziv Hospital, Israel's cover for its intervention in Syria, has become part of the program. (See my 12/12/14 post A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges.) 

Shaoquett Moselmane Speaks Truth to Power

With so many NSW state politicians bending the knee to Israeli apartheid and its local fifth column these days, the voices of those who fearlessly speak out in defence of Palestinian rights deserve our utmost respect.

One such is NSW Labor MLC Shaoquett Moselmane.

He had this to say in the context of a speech on religious freedom in the NSW Legislative Council on May 23:

"In a democratic country such as ours there are many ways in which people can express their views - the opportunities are wide open. I am a person who will not shy away from having my say. I will always say and do what is right, even in the face of the trash I have read in the Australian-Israeli media. One or two reporters writing in the Murdoch press - namely the Australian - have been attacking me and denying the truth of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and the killing and dehumanising of the Palestinian people. This is utter garbage. I accept the right of people to express their views, even when they are wrong, naive, ill-informed, indoctrinated and blinded by the power of a political lobby group that is cancerous, malicious, and seeks to deny, misinform and scaremonger. What I do take exception to is foreigners intervening in the right of Australian politicians to speak out. Therefore, I say to the Israeli ambassador, Yuval Rotem, 'Butt out and stay out. Your perceived right to bully as you do in the Middle East does not extend to the Australian political arena.'

"In today's Australian, Cassandra Wilkinson*, lacking journalistic integrity and an informed knowledge of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands, took aim and attacked me. In an example of sloppy reporting and sloppy journalism, she quotes a statement she attributes to Mr David Shoebridge MLC that was actually made by Dr John Kaye MLC. Perhaps because Dr Kaye is of Jewish descent Ms Wilkinson conveniently attacks others in the NSW Parliament who simply dare to criticise - as any ethical or moral person would do - the state of Israel's illegal and criminal practices against the Palestinian people. I applaud all Muslim and Arab leaders for speaking out on these and other issues. I call on the Australian Arab Muslim community to unite and for once speak with one Australian voice. I ask them to protect the right of their community to speak out and deliver a message of peace and citizenship on behalf of their community so that neither they nor their messages are misconstrued or misunderstood."

In an article in today's Australian (Attack on Israel's backers puts ALP in damage control, Christian Kerr & Mark Coulton), quoting snatches of the above speech, we get some idea of the pressure Shaoquett Moselmane is coming under to toe the party (Likud?) line. One is reminded of the pressure to which the courageous and principled federal Labor MP Julia Irwin was subjected whenever she spoke up for the Palestinian cause:

"Clashes on Middle East policy are expected when the NSW Labor caucus meets tomorrow after a Muslim MP attacked supporters of Israel as 'cancerous' and 'malicious'."

(You'll note here that Moselmane was referring to the Israel lobby, not mere supporters of Israel. He's in good company in this regard: Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton has called the lobby a "ferocious beast," and another former Fairfax columnist and broadcaster, Terry Lane, described it as "malicious, implacable, mendacious and dangerous." (See my 12/6/10 post A Ferocious Beast.)

"MLC Shaoquett Moselmane was slapped down by Opposition Leader John Robertson after he used a speech in parliament about religious tolerance and multiculturalism to attack his critics, including columnists in The Australian... 'I comprehensively reject the allegations made by Mr Moselmane. I have made this clear to him', Mr Robertson said, adding that he had contacted Mr Rotem and Yair Miller, the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. NSW Labor general secretary Sam Dastyari called the remarks 'completely inappropriate'. Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes condemned Mr Moselmane's comments as 'contrary to the policy of the Labor Party'. Mr Moselmane declined to return calls from The Australian."

Watch this space.

[*See my 23/5/13 post Cassandra Wilkinson & Herstory.]

Labor's Zeitgeist Error & Other Bruises

Labor has got Israel all wrong, contends Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan in his latest opinion piece in The Weekend Australian, Carr and Rudd completely wrong on Israel (9/3/13).

"The sad case of Ben Zygier, the Mossad agent who committed suicide... brings to the fore the strange pathologies in Australian opinion concerning Israel [and] also underlines just how badly the Labor government has gone off course in its conception of Israel, and Israel's place in the world... the whole case has been used, characteristically, to paint Israel as a secretive, militaristic, national security state."

Israel militaristic - no way! A national security state - perish the thought!

Ah, but as much as I read and savour every word that Greg writes, nay because I read and savour same, I have to point out that he did write last month that "Mossad secrets, including secrets involving Australians, are very hard to crack." (Mystique of Mossad its greatest weapon, 14/2/13)

Still, are such contradictions not a sign of the man's greatness? Greg need only quote the very great Walt Whitman here: "Do I contradict myself?/ Very well then I contradict myself/(I am large, I contain multitudes)"

Now just because Ozraeli Ben Zygier worked for Mossad and had a rather unusual hobby - collecting Australian passports - that certainly doesn't justify Labor's "two dominant foreign policy figures, Kevin Rudd and Bob Carr" dumping on Israel thus: "This week Rudd demanded that Israel say what Zygier was charged with" and Carr proclaimed that if Israel had used Australian passports for intelligence purposes "Australia would be outraged and, absurdly, Australians would be put at risk."

Admonished Greg wisely: "When dealing with a friendly nation surely it is reasonable to wait for evidence of an offence before throwing the switch to outrage."

Now I agree wholeheartedly with him here. It's called the presumption of innocence. After all, some people collect stamps and others passports, OK? It's called FREEDOM and if you don't like it, you can bloody well bugger off to North Korea!

How, wonders Greg, has it come to this? (Parenthetically, need I remind you that it wasn't always so. Try to remember the kind of September... sorry, I got carried away there for a moment. Remember the good old days, when Kevin had support for Israel in his DNA and Israel's 60th was celebrated in federal parliament? Remember the fabulous Kevin Rudd Roadshow to Israel and back? Remember when Julia, Tim and Albert were an awesome threesome? All but a passing memory now I'm afraid.)

"Beyond Zygier," writes Greg as he chugs upstream into Labor's heart of foreign policy darkness, "let me offer some examples of where Labor has got it so wrong on Israel and then suggest the analytical mistake at the root of these missteps."

And there, lurking in the rank, tangled undergrowth, what does he see? Why it's the very spawn of Bill Hartley himself - Gareth Evans!

"Under the baleful influence of Gareth Evans, a tremendously negative force on on contemporary Labor foreign policy who offers only a bureaucratic version of conventional wisdom (and conventional wisdom is often wrong)," Canberra not only abstained on the vote to elevate the status of Palestinian Authority to observer status at the UN but showered it with "millions of dollars" of aid money.

And this, of course, has taught those layabout Palestinians - the Middle Eastern equivalent of our dole bludgers - that they can get "something for nothing," that they don't need to compromise or negotiate with Israel because "the international community will do their job for them."

Too right, Greg! If only these bludgers would give a little. Take Jerusalem for example. Let the Israelis have East Jerusalem - all of it. They're beautiful. They deserve it. What's wrong with Ramallah for a Palestinian capital? Or, better still, Amman? Baghdad even! Or Lakemba? Why not? Think Israelaterally for a change.

But that shameful Australian abstention in the UN, which had the PA popping Australian-funded champagne corks, isn't all. Did you know that "in the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting in January, Carr ratcheted up Australia's rhetoric on Israel"? 'Fraid so. "For the first time, [Carr's] office was describing all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal."

Just imagine, describing illegal settlements as illegal! Next thing you know he'll be calling the West Bank occupied Israeli territory. And Gaza a concentration camp!

"To simply call all Israeli settlements illegal," declared Greg, "is simplistic, reductionist, almost childish."

Absolutely! After all, just because a "Jewish suburb" of East Jerusalem is full of illegal Jewish settlers doesn't mean you can call it a 'settlement', right? And if those PA hens have been dumb enough to let "large settlement blocks [sic]" slip through in their 'negotiations' with Israeli foxes, so can the rest of us, right?

Now in addition to that, "Australia's position is also wrong in international law [because] Jordan, which formerly controlled the territory, is not the sovereign power..."

Yes, just because Israel is the only country in the world which reckons the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit an Occupying Power from transferring its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, don't apply to it because Jordan's claim to the West Bank (1948-1967) was dodgy anyway, doesn't mean it isn't right, right? After all, hasn't Greg already declared that "conventional wisdom is often wrong"?

Devastating, eh? But Greg's only just getting started. Here's our bronzed ANZAC kicking sand in Nancy boy Carr's eyes:

"But why take this position at all, except to kick sand in the Israelis' eyes? China claims all of the South China Sea almost right up to the Philippines shore, yet Canberra maintains a strict neutrality. If Israel is a friend why the gratuitous aggro?"

Brilliant analogy! As Jimmie de Rothschild told another Gentile Zionist's Zionist (Blanche Dugdale if you really must know), back in '41: "I had lived so much among Jews that I was taking a Jewish point of view, and could not see things in proportion."*

But there's more! Greg's like a demon dentist whose root canal treatments just go on and on:

"The demand that Obama urgently seek a peace settlement betrays the deeper analytical flaw by Carr and Rudd."

And here's the proof: Syria's finito. Egypt's kaput. The Palestinians are hopelessly divided. How therefore can Israel - which is to peace what a heat-seeking missile is to heat - possibly be expected to make peace under such circumstances?

But all of the above is merely symptomatic of a deeper malaise according to Greg:

"Underlying this is the cardinal doctrine of conventional wisdom among Guardian readers, UN habitues, European think tank staff and the like, and that is the implausible notion Israel is at the heart of Middle East disputes and the West's trouble with Islam."

Now welcome as this news was to me, I must admit to wondering whether or not we have a bit of a 'one hand/other hand' problem here. I mean, on the one hand Israel can't possibly be expected to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians because Syria and Egypt and the rest are exploding all around it, but on the other the Palestinians' trials and tribulations have got nothing whatever to do with the rest of the Middle East or the wider Muslim world. But hey, Greg hasn't been well of late what with his bypasses and all, so we'll cut him some slack, OK? And anyway, he's got lovely quote from "the respected Jeffrey Goldberg, a senior editor at The Atlantic" to back him up, so there.

Lay back, relax, open your mouth wide, just a little bit more:

"Carr, Rudd and Evans add to this zeitgeist error the subsidiary error that Australia seriously damages its reputation by supporting Israel at the UN, a proposition for which there is no evidence. But even if it were true, this would be a price worth paying [because] Israel is Australia's friend and ally."

Yes, Australia, all of Australia, every man, woman and child, should wear it as a badge of pride that, of all the world's passports at its disposal, Israel should choose ours to help it do what all right-thinking people agree had to be done in Dubai. Right-thinking people like union supremo Paul Howes for example, who once wrote: "I'm proud that our nation has played a small and accidental role in the removal of the terrorist al-Mabhouh from the planet."**  Any Australian tourists or travellers in the Middle East who come to grief because they're suspected by the locals of being Mossad agents can just be written off as collateral damage, OK?

[*Baffy: The Diaries of Blanche Dugdale, 1936-1947, 1973, p 183; **See my 8/5/10 post Zionism Red in Tooth & Claw.]

Labor Isn't a Brand, It's a Zionist Cause

"Delegates, sometimes when reforming our great Party is talked about, people say there is a problem with the Labor brand. But delegates, Labor isn't a brand, it's a cause." (Prime Minister Julia Gillard, NSW ALP State Conference, 15/7/12)

But what kind of cause? Alas, a deeply Zionist one.

Just follow the thread:

"A story of plot and counter plot, of frustration and ultimate success was told by The Right Honourable Dr HV Evatt to over 400 people at the Maccabean Hall when the Jewish National Fund opened its Jubilee Year last Monday night. Dr Evatt was President of UN committee on Palestine in 1947, and in 1949 was chairman of the Paris Assembly which debated the Trusteeship of Palestine. Later as Australia's delegate to UN he exercised his chairman's casting vote and was instrumental in having Israel admitted to UN membership. 'Australia stood for justice and had a knowledge of what justice demanded,' said Dr Evatt. 'When the debate was taking place on the establishment of Israel as a State, Australia did not avoid its responsibilities - it voted 'yes' and also voted for full recognition instead of de facto recognition.' Dr Evatt said Israel would stand side by side with Australia in the name of democracy and law and will do all it can to avert war. Mr A Landa, MLA, declared that if it were not for Dr Evatt in the years of 1947-49, Israel - who knows - may not have been in existence today... Mr Landa described Israel as a bastion of democracy in the Middle East. Mr HB Newman presented Dr Evatt with a parchment which was a certificate showing that a forest of 10,000 trees had been contributed by the Australian Jewish community and planted in Israel in Dr Evatt's name." (Dr Evatt at JNF Jubilee, Sydney Jewish News, 24/3/52)

"The ACTU president, Mr [Bob] Hawke, said yesterday that if he were the Israeli prime minister he would drop an atomic bomb on invading Arabs." (Hawke: I'd A-bomb Arabs, Chris Forsyth, The Daily Telegraph, 16/2/74)*

"UNION CHIEF WHO SAID: 'I'm proud our nation helped to kill Hamas terrorist in Dubai'... come hear outspoken Paul Howes." (JNF ad for its 2010 AGM, The Australian Jewish News, 7/5/10)**

"... ALP officials, Eric Roozendaal and Mark Arbib have spoken to me and requested that I should have my speeches vetted, visit the Holocaust Memorial, visit Israel and meet with members of various Jewish organisations..." (Julia Irwin, former Labor member for Fowler, August 2010)***

[*See my 13/7/10 post The Heart that Throbs for Bomber Bob; **See my 8/5/10 post Zionism Red in Tooth & Claw; ***See my 11/8/10 post Julia Irwin Spills the Beans.]

A Myth Is Born 4

Whatever could The Australian's contributing editor, Peter van Onselen, possibly mean by this:

"... the lessons from Marrickville and Balmain are not to take voters for granted by preselecting candidates with controversial pedigrees." (Green dream turns to ashes, 31/3/11)

Keeping in mind the abuse hurled at both Fiona Byrne ("advocating a polite modern rendering of Kristallnacht") and Jamie Parker ("wanted to turn Balmain power station into a gas chamber"), quoted in my last post, is he suggesting that...?

No, of course not! How could I possibly have thought such a thing? No, read on a bit and you see that he's actually referring, courtesy of his disinterested interlocutor Anthony Albanese, federal Labor minister and husband of state Labor MP for Marrickville, Carmel Tebbutt, to "the Israel boycott voted for by Byrne on the Marrickville Council."

But wait a minute! What's that got to do with Byrne's and Parker's "controversial pedigree"? What is Van Onselen really getting at here?

Ah, I see, can't fool MERC: Fiona's really Fatima and Jamie's really Jamil!

As Van Onselen goes on to write, "Local resident and Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes is convinced that if the Greens had selected another candidate they would have won the seat."

So there you go Greens - if only you hadn't run those two Arabs!

WikiLeaks 5: Israel Runs Bang Through It

Today's WikiLeaks blast in the Fairfax press is a beauty:

"US diplomats closely followed the rise of Julia Gillard, applauded her shedding of Labor Left allegiances and confidently predicted that she would be the next prime minister more than 8 months before she deposed Kevin Rudd... Although an early report by the then ambassador, Robert McCallum, said Ms Gillard was 'a loyal and competent deputy', US diplomats had no doubt about her ambitions and as early as June 2008 declared her the 'front runner' to replace Mr Rudd. US diplomats were anxious to establish Ms Gillard's attitudes towards the US alliance and other key foreign policy issues, especially on Israel and Palestine. They were hampered by the fact that the embassy had relatively little contact with her during Labor's years in opposition. Numerous Labor figures were drawn into conversation about Ms Gillard with 'many key ALP insiders' quickly telling embassy officers that her past membership of the Victorian Socialist Left faction meant little and that she was 'at heart a pragmatist'. The NSW Right powerbroker Mark Arbib* described Ms Gillard as 'one of the most pragmatic politicians in the ALP'. When embassy officers reminded Paul Howes, the head of the right-wing Australian Workers Union, that 'ALP politicians from the Left, no matter how capable, do not become party leader, he said immediately: 'but she votes with the Right'. The embassy privately expressed pleasure at Ms Gillard's preparedness to affirm her support for the US alliance, but there was some doubt about the strength of her commitment. 'Although long appearing ambivalent about the Australia-US Alliance, Gillard's actions since she became the Labor Party number two indicate an understanding of its importance', the embassy reported to Washington in mid-2008. '[US embassy political officers] had little contact with her when she was in opposition but since the election, Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... At our request, she agreed to meet a visiting member of the [US] National Labor Relations Board, after prior entreaties by the board members' Australian hosts had been rebuffed. Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it's unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP', the embassy reported. 'It is likely a combination of the two. Labor Party officials have told us that one lesson Gillard learned from the 2004 elections was that Australians will not elect a PM who is perceived to be anti-American'. " (Embassy supported pragmatic Gillard, Philip Dorling, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/12/10)

I'll just stop here for some observations.

Well, there's that word again - Israel. Feel a theme coming on? More of that later.

First, am I imagining things or is it the case that the US here is involved in a process - or at least verging on involvement in a process - of choosing our prime ministers for us? That bit about reminding Howes that ALP politicians of the Left do not become party leader, that bit about an understanding of what she needs to do. Most interesting...

Second, that bit about the embassy being hampered by the fact that it had relatively little contact with her during Labor's years in opposition doesn't quite gell with the following revelation from ubiquitous former Labor leader and critic of the Australia-US alliance, Mark Latham. Remember here the above cable is from 2008: "Over the years I have received tender messages from Gillard saying how much she misses me in Canberra... One of them concerned her study tour of the US, sponsored by the American government in 2006 - or to use her moniker - 'a CIA re-education course'... She promised 'to catch up when I'm back from the US and I'll show you my CIA-issued ankle holster'. I never got to see her ankles or her holster, but I will say this: you have to hand it to those guys in Washington... Within the space of 2 years they converted her from a highly cynical critic of all matters American into yet another foreign policy sycophant'." (Latham turns on 'brainwashed' Gillard, Christian Kerr, The Australian, 20/8/09) See my 22/8/09 post Gillard: 'Sycophant'.

Poor old Mark, he thought Gillard was a highly cynical critic of all matters American when, cavernously hollow woman that she is, she was just saying what she had to say - or thought she had to say - to climb the Labor ladder at the time.

But I digress. Let's get back to our theme - the one that runs bang through all of this -Israel:

"The embassy also applauded what it describes as Ms Gillard's 'pro-Israel' stance, reporting in October 2009 that she had 'thrown off the baggage' of being from what one analyst called the 'notoriously anti-Israel faction' of the ALP. 'As acting Prime Minister in late December 2008, Gillard was responsible for negotiating the government's position on Israel's incursion into Gaza. Left-wing ALP MPs, a group to which Gillard used to belong, wanted her to take a harder line against Israel. 'Instead, she said Hamas had broken the ceasefire first by attacking Israel - a stance welcomed by Israel's supporters in Australia. MP Michael Danby, one of two Jewish members of parliament and a strong supporter of Israel, told us that after the Gaza statement he had a new appreciation of Gillard's leadership within the ALP'." (ibid)

Actually, Gillard was never anti-Israel, not even at university. She knew nothing of the issue and had no interest in finding out about it. Every inch the professional whatever-it-takes politician, she knew instinctively even then that putting one's career first and a real concern for the Palestinian wretched of the earth - or any other for that matter - don't go together. So it's not as if she had to be re-educated. (See my 14/8/10 post The Real Julia Gillard.)

But there's more, much more. In my 8/12/10 post WikiLeaks 4: Let's ask Rotem, he'll know, I mused as follows: "Now how about a WikiLeaks cable reporting [Israeli Ambassador Yuval] Rotem describing [Gillard] as prime ministerial material." Well, how's this for Dorling's final paragraph: "The Israeli Ambassador, Yuval Rotem, told the embassy that Gillard 'has gone out of her way to build a relationship with Israel and that she asked him to arrange an early opportunity to visit'." (ibid)

She asked him! Ambassador, I feel the siren call of your country. I can resist no longer. I am ready to be rambammed. Organise it at once, will you?

Typically, there's not a whisper anywhere in either today's Age or Sydney Morning Herald, not even on the letters page, of our theme. What does that tell you?

[*I'll deal with Arbib and friends in my next post.]

Guess Who Came to Dinner?

In spruiking his new book, Confessions of a Faceless Man, on the coup which replaced Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard, union heavy and Zionist hottie Paul Howes writes:

"The problems within the [Rudd] government... are now widely known. Ministers were not encouraged to debate ideas and Cabinet became a rubber-stamping committee. Those who did try to talk to the prime minister about the problems facing the government were so brutalised by their experiences that many never tried it again. Some cabinet ministers couldn't get a meeting with Rudd at all. Departmental secretaries were left waiting hours and hours for meetings, only to be told to come back the next day, when the charade would be repeated. I experienced this sort of treatment first hand, so I knew the increasing complaints from within the government were justified... The party became increasingly closed, and those within the wider labour movement who spoke out or disagreed on policy issues were marginalised and shut up. That culture needed to end. And that's at least partly why Julia Gillard became the leader of the parliamentary Labor party, and the Prime Minister. I believe that, as Prime Minister, Gillard is keen to ensure that debate is had and ideas are generated... that supporters of the party should be able to make their voices heard without the fear of appearing disloyal. After all, that's democracy... It seems to me that because the election had to be held so soon after the change of leadership, there was no opportunity to properly explain to the Australian people what exactly had gone wrong with the Rudd government. It's time now to confront the elephant in the room." (The elephant in the room, Paul Howes, The Sunday Telegraph, 7/11/10)

So cabinet ministers couldn't get a look in with Rudd, and parliamentary secretaries were kept dangling. The nerve of the man! Why, even His Highness, Paul Howes, got his knuckles rapped! And that, he says, was the elephant in the room.

But that wasn't the elephant in the room. This was the elephant in the room:

Some folk had no trouble getting to see Rudd. In fact, he not only invited them but wined and dined them as well: "When Kevin Rudd sat down to dinner in the Lodge with six leaders of the Jewish community this month several remarked at the trouble he'd taken: the PM had ordered kosher food, flown from Melbourne, for the event. It was a nice touch, but not enough. Rudd convened the dinner as a reconciliation with Australia's Jewry. He was the first prime minister to invite the Jewish leadership to address a crisis in relations since Malcolm Fraser after the outbreak of the first Lebanon War in 1982. But it was going to take a lot more than a kosher dinner to alay the anxiety, anger and frustration around the Lodge dining table... (What am I, chopped liver? How Rudd dived into schmooze mode, Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald, 22/6/10) You can read the rest of Hartcher's account in my 22/6/10 post The Best Israel Policy Money Can Buy.

As for those [Laborites] who spoke out or disagreed on policy issues being marginalised and shut up, that wouldn't happen under Prime Minister Howes, now would it?

Well, yes it would. Take the courageous (and sadly the only) Labor dissent from the party line on the Middle East conflict by former Labor MP Julia Irwin. Hypocrite Howes condemned that out of hand as "a dangerous contribution to the foreign policy debate." (No hope of a fond farewell, Paul Howes, The Australian, 16/9/09)

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists of Palestine

Anti-Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) crusader, Paul Howes, is gearing up to head off a push by a group of Australian unions to have the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) declare its support for BDS*.

In a recent speech to his fans at the Zionist Federation of Australia in Melbourne, Howes, who moonlights as national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, made much of a certain "landmark" agreement between the Israeli trade union federation, Histadrut, and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU): "The reality is that despite the headlines most of the trade union movement in Australia, and across the globe, has not backed BDS... Let's remember just a few months ago, in Vancouver, Canada, the World Congress of the global union movement, the International Trade Union Confederation - the ITUC - stared down attempts to label Israel an apartheid state... In an even-handed response - this was supported by both the Palestinian and Israeli trade unions - the World Congress praised the landmark agreement between the Histadrut and the PGFTU on the rights of Palestinian workers. The ITUC - now led by my former ACTU colleague Sharan Burrow** - of course played a key role in delivering that Palestinian-Israeli agreement... Most importantly... the Israeli national trade union centre, the Histadrut, was honoured by the global trade union movement. Its leader, Ofer Eini, was elevated to the ITUC's 25 member Executive Board, as well as its General Council.. Mr Eini was also elected as one of the global union group's Vice Presidents." (Standing up to the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement, awu.net.au, 10/10/10) [* See my 15/10/10 post Watch This Space ** See my 29/9/09 post ACTU: Missing in Action]

The Histadrut-PGFTU agreement is described on the ITUC website thus: "The key features of the agreenent include the reimbursement by Histadrut to the PGFTU of the outstanding balance of union and legal representation fees paid by Palestinians working for Israeli employers. The reimbursement is based on a detailed year-by-year analysis of the fees paid by Palestinian workers, taking into account funds previously transferred to the PGFTU. The PGFTU will have sole discretion as to how the funds will be spent, in line with its Constitution. In the future, at least 50% of the representation fees paid by Palestinians working for Israeli employers will be transferred to the PGFTU, to enable both organizations to provide representation, legal and other trade union services to the workers." (Israeli & Palestinian trade unions reach historic agreement, 6/8/08)

Given that this is the flimsy peg on which Howes hangs his grandiose-sounding, BDS-bashing outfit, Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine (TULIP), the Histadrut warrants closer examination:

It is certainly no ACTU. From its inception in 1920, the Histadrut has been "at the spearhead of the Zionist colonization in Palestine. Its choice position among the country's Zionist colonizers and its extremely strong organization made it a pioneer in agricultural colonization and in securing jobs for Jewish workers*, by evicting and excluding Arab peasants and workers. The Zionist slogans of the 20s and 30s - 'the Conquest of Work' and 'the Conquest of the Land' - found their principal realizers in the Histadrut." (The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism, ed. Arie Bober, 1972, p 124) [* The Histadrut was known until 1966 as the General Confederation of Hebrew Labour.]

With the Conquest of the Land (of Palestine) completed in 1967 and the Conquest of Work a fading memory, the Histadrut (in tandem with the Israeli government) turned from evicting and excluding Palestinian peasants and workers to robbing them blind. An enlightening January 2010 report by Kav LaOved and The Alternative Information Centre (AIC), The Economy of the Occupation (Zohar & Hever), tells how. It is worth quoting at length:

"Summary: Excessive deductions from Palestinian workers: In this report we propose an approximate calculation of amounts that the Department of Payments deducted from the salaries of Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territoies (OPT) who were employed in Israel, or which were deducted for them from their employers, from 1970 to 2009. These amounts of money were formally deducted in order to finance various social rights for the workers, but in practice, a majority of the money was transferred to the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Histadrut. The calculation shows that over decades, the State of Israel accumulated a debt of billions of shekels to the Palestinian workers. This debt must be paid to the workers themselves or to their beneficiaries, in accordance with the full and detailed lists of the Department of Payments.

"The declared goal of establishing the Department of Payments was to equalise the salary condition of Palestinian workers from the OPT to those of Israeli workers. The Department was established in 1970 and belonged, until 2009, to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour (today it is attached to the Ministry of Interior, after Palestinian workers were defined as 'foreign workers'). The State obligated employers... to transfer the gross salary of the Palestinian workers to the Department of Payments.

"The Department of Payments is supposed to deduct from the salaries various taxes and deductions for social benefits equal to those of Israeli workers. In upholding its obligation to deduct money from the Palestinian wages, the Department was stringently meticulous. However, in upholding its obligation to provide workers with services and benefits in exchange for these deductions, the Department was negligent. Thus, for example, 92% of the money supposedly deducted for National Insurance for old age payments, disability, unemployment and child payments was transferred to the Ministry of Finance. Money was transferred to National Insurance only for insurance in cases of work accidents and bankruptcy of the employer. This is the most scathing example, but not the only one, of cruel theft under the protection of a government decision, the declared goal of which is 'protection' of Palestinian workers. We made the calculation for Palestinian workers who formerly worked in Israel. Two groups of Palestinian workers are prominently absent from this report: Palestinian workers in the Israeli settlements in the OPT and informal Palestinan workers, whose salaries were not transferred through the Department of Payments. Separate research should be undertaken concerning these groups..." (pp 6-8)

Fast forwarding to the exact amount : "The calculated amount of debt without interest is NIS 3.082 billion, and with interest the amount reaches NIS 8.350 billion. It is important to note that this calculation is accurate to 2009, in 2008 prices, and does not include central elements for which information is not available. The calculation is therefore lacking." (p 23)

While the report discusses a range of deductions, for the sake of brevity and because it mentions our "landmark Histadrut-PGFTU agreement," I'll zero in on item 4 only:

"4. Organising fees - Histadrut: In a 1970 government decision, which established the Department of Payments, the Histadrut also received a piece of the pie. Palestinian workers were forced to pay 'orgainizing fees' to the Histadrut at a level of 0.7% of their salaries. The Histadrut allocated to the workers individual assistance, but no defence of their rights vis-a-vis the Ministry of Finance and Department of Payments. Through its constitution, the Histadrut even denied the right of workers who are not citizens of Israel to become members.

"On 6 August 2008, the Histadrut signed an agreement with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). The Histadrut transferred to the PGFTU the amount of US$3.6 million (NIS 12.76 million, according to the exchange rate on the date of the agreement), an amount meant to represent the organizing fees collected since 1993. According to our calculations, from 1993 to 2008, the Histadrut collected organising fees from the Palestinian workers in Israel in the amount of NIS 66.2 million (not including interest): more than five times the amount returned by the Histadrut. The agreement additionally determined that half of the organizing fees collected by the Histadrut after signing would be transferred to the PGFTU.

"Based on a calculation of 0.7% of the salary of Palestinian workers as organizing fees for the Histadrut until May 2005 (when the fees were raised to 0.8%), we reached an amount of NIS 132 million (in 2008 prices) which was deducted from 1970 to 2009 as organising fees. After deducting the money that was transferred to the PGFTU and half of the fees in 2009, excessive deductions in the amount of NIS 116 million remain.

"Addititionally, the Department deducted an additional 2.74% for a Provident Fund and health tax, which were included in the same package of deductions as organising fees for the Histadrut. The health tax covered health insurance of the workers in the OPT. It is unknown to us where the money deducted for the Provident Fund went and on what authority it was deducted.

"On the basis of a circular of the Department of Payments, we know that for the Provident Fund, NIS 0.54 were taken from every worker in the construction sector for each day of work at least until 1993, ie. 3.1% of their salary. From here we calculated that from 1970 to 1993, NIS 152 million (in 2008 prices) were taken from them for the Provident Fund. We do not know if this deduction continued after 1993, but we do know that the workers did not receive a Provident Fund.

"Under the false definition of Palestinians as 'daily' or 'temporary' workers, a majority of the benefits determined in the collective bargaining agreements of the Histadrut with the employers were stolen from Palestinian workers, including increments for security, family upkeep, grants for not missing work, a 13th salary in the agricultural sector and more." (pp 11-13)

The term 'short end of the stick' comes to mind here, but, in light of the report's findings (dismissed by the Histadrut as "tendentious and false" (p 21)), it looks like the PGFTU (and those it supposedly represents) have been given more of a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. BDS activists take note.

Watch This Space...

"Australian unions are signing up to an international campaign to boycott Israeli goods, but a fight is brewing over a proposal for the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) to endorse the movement. The broad-based divestment and boycott campaign is targeting companies that profit from the Israeli settlements. The Electrical Trades Union (ETU), the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU), the Queensland branch of the Rail Tram & Bus Union (RTBU) and the Finance Sector Union (FSU) have all passed a resolution supporting the international campaign of 'boycott, divestment & sanctions' (BDS) against Israel... Australian Workers Union (AWU) national secretary Paul Howes said he would fight any plan to see the ACTU endorse the sanctions..." (Unions to take Israel boycott plan to ACTU, Patricia Karvelas, The Australian, 15/10/10)

Chalk & Cheese

Neocon persiflage from Murdoch fishwrapper:

"I believe the US-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but once it was done it was a job that needed to be completed. History will show that invasion has most likely had the adverse effect of strengthening the arm of fundamentalist Islamo-fascists who seek to subjugate their people under a theocratic dictatorship. But unlike Iraq, the decision by John Howard to send troops into Afghanistan was not so much to maintain our alliance with the US but to defend the values of liberty, equality and justice that are fundamental to our way of life... Failure to defeat the totalitarian far right wing Islamo-fascists, who distort the Islamic faith to suit their extremist ideology, could set off a domino effect in the Middle East with the potential to unleash a new global force, hell-bent on subjugation under their ugly ideology." (Why we need to be there, Paul Howes, The Sunday Telegraph, 3/10/10)

Scholarly reflection from Cambridge University Press:

"Initially, it would seem, the radical Islamism of the twenty-first century belongs to an inclusive class of revolutionary movements that might best be identified, didactically, as antidemocratic - one of an indeterminate number of movements that include a wide variety of related forms - among which one might find a subclass of neofascisms. For the purpose of our analysis, however, Islam's jihadists-salafists hardly qualify for membership in the latter category. Today's Islamists are religious eccentrics, antinationalists of conviction, political reactionaries, indifferent to economic growth and industrial development, and committed to terrorism as their principal method of restoring the dignity and glory of their ummah. They simply do not satisfy the criteria that would make them credible neofascists. The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of religious movements that might conceivably be considered neofascist; Islamic fundamentalism, struggling to restore an Islam of yesteryear, happens not to be of their number." (The Search for Neofascism: The Use & Abuse of Social Science, A James Gregor, 2006, pp 195-196)

Pure Genius!

Following hot on the heels of his electrifying speech to the assembled faithful at the Jewish National Fund AGM last month - Israel an apartheid state?! No way, Jose! A tad biased against its Arabs maybe, but an apartheid state? Never! - union supremo, Labor queenmaker, and all round visionary genius, Paul Howes, is once again socking it to them:

"In a speech at an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch... Howes argued that Australia's north-western region would flourish if 'desert settlements', just like Be'er Sheva, had been built." (Howes says Australia needs a Be'er Sheva, Australian Jewish News, 6/8/10)

Er... Paul, Be'er Sheva, as you call it, is/was never a Zionist settlement. In 1948 it was a small Palestinian town called Beersheba, in the northern part of Palestine's Negev Desert. According to British mandate figures for 1946, both Jewish population and land ownership in the Negev district was less than 1%. Despite this, the UN partition resolution of 1947 included the bulk of the Negev in the proposed Jewish state - but not, I hasten to add, Beersheba. That was to be in the Arab state. So why today do we have an Israeli city called Be'er Sheva? Simple - Arab Beersheba got a Zionist makeover in 1948! In the words of Ilan Pappe: "Another ominous-sounding name was given to the [Zionist military] operation in the Beersheba-Hebron area: 'Python'. Apart from the small town of Beersheba, which with its 5,000 inhabitants was occupied on 21 October, two large villages, Qubayba and Dawaymeh were taken. Habib Jarada who today lives in the city of Gaza, remembered the people of Beersheba being driven out at gunpoint to Hebron. His most vivid image is that of the town's mayor beseeching the occupying officer not to deport the people. 'We need land, not slaves', was the blunt answer." (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006, p 195)

But I digress: "Following the election, Howes plans to discuss with the government the prospect of a Pilbara city, based on Israel's successes. Drawing on the wild idea in the 1930s to create a Jewish homeland in the remote north-west Australian Kimberley region, the union leader showed knowledge of Israeli history and geography. 'One wonders what could have happened had the refuge and safe haven, a homeland away from home for a restless, troubled, brilliant, exiled people using their passionate ingenuity, which created a great flowering in the Negev desert, had been instead concentrated on our great spread of sand in the west', Howes said." (ibid)

Er... Paul, one doesn't have to wonder. We know that "[i]n the Pilbara it was common practice to forcibly retain Aboriginal people on pastoral stations to be used as slave labour." (Pilbara Aboriginal history, wangkamaya.org.au) However, if Zionists had colonised the Pilbara, we know what they would've said to its indigenous people, not to mention their white, but non-Jewish, pastoralist slave drivers, don't we?: "Sorry, we need land, not slaves."

I apologise for interrupting your little fantasy, please continue: "'A wilderness was to be tamed and turned into farms and orchards and pastures and factories, with secondary industries such as tanning, tinned fruits, jams, leather products, mats and bricks, with a dam across the Ord [river] and hydro-electricity, all done by 75,000 Jewish settlers who would write poems about the kangaroo and the kookaburra'."(ibid)

Er... Paul, I'm going to have to stop you there, mate. You might like to take a gander at this: "Israel's founding father had a dream of making the Negev desert bloom, a vision clouded today by the harsh reality of industrial wastelands, chronic unemployment and fading hopes. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, settled thousands of people in the desert in an attempt to transform it into a flourishing centre of the newly established Jewish state. But in recent years that Zionist dream has crumbled before globalisation, as factory after factory, set up to provide work for the desert pioneers, has shut its doors, moving east in search of cheap labour." (Globalisation clouds vision of Israel's Negev desert, france24.com, 3/12/09)

Refugees

To rephrase Orwell: All refugees are equal, but some refugees are more equal than others:

Paul Howes, AWU national secretary, anti-Rudd conspirator, Murdoch columnist, and Israel luvvie, believes, correctly, that Australia's refugee policy should conform strictly to the requirements of international law, it being crystal clear on the subject:

"I have always been a strident (some would say overly strident) believer in our responsibility to welcome refugees, regardless of how they arrive in this country. I don't hold this belief because I'm some bleeding-heart lefty. I believe this because I feel it is our responsibility, as human beings, to demonstrate compassion to the most vulnerable people on the planet. But I'm in the minority on this. Most Australians, if we look at the polls, want to take a firm stance against those refugees arriving by boat. Most people, despite international law being crystal clear on the subject, still incorrectly believe that if you arrive by boat, you are an illegal immigrant. In my opinion, I think it's sad that we, as a nation of immigrants, are unable to feel more compassion and be more welcoming to those who arrive here after us." (Our sad boat policy, The Sunday Telegraph, 11/7/10)

International law, as our learned friend (we are talking law here) says, is crystal clear on the subject of refugees. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), for example, says unambiguously: "Article 14 (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."

Now I'm assuming that Article 13 (2) is equally crystal clear to our learned friend: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

At the risk of giving my learned friend a bad dose of cognitive dissonance, can I therefore assume that he supports the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands in what is today known as Israel, but was then (1948) known as Palestine?

Orwell again: All refugees are equal, but some refugees aren't even refugees:

Interestingly, Julia Gillard made her first official statement on the issue of refugees on July 6 at Frank Lowy 's think tank, the Lowy Institute. Of Mr Lowy, Australia's second richest man, she had this to say:

"I am very thankful to the Lowy Institute for hosting me today. This Institute has established a reputation for independent, robust and forceful analysis of our nation's place in the world. It is exactly the right place to make today's address: Moving Australia Forward. I first would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution of the Institute's benefactor, Frank Lowy. Frank Lowy is a great Australian. He was a refugee who escaped to Israel after World War II in a crowded boat full of asylum seekers. After fighting for Israel, he arrived on our shores as a very determined 21 year old. He worked hard and went from factory worker to milk bar owner to Blacktown shopping centre developer and, in time, to the largest retail property group in the world - truly great achievements, and what a remarkable story... But moving forward means we must agree on the organising principles for developing policy, and believe we can agree on most principles. That we should be prepared to accept people in legitimate need just as a young Frank Lowy was accepted 60 years ago." (From the Prime Minister's speech Moving Australia Forward)

So, according to Gillard, Lowy was a refugee who escaped to Israel after World War II in a boat crowded with asylum seekers, and in legitimate need when he later reached Australia.

A refugee? Escaping to Israel? After the war was over? Really?

The 16-year old Frank Lowy left Hungary in 1946 and boarded the Mossad* vessel Yagur in France, part of a Mossad people smuggling racket (to use the term much beloved of our polly-waffles these days) to transfer as many displaced European Jews to Palestine as possible, despite the British Mandate blockade on illegal Jewish immigration. The Yagur was intercepted by the British and its passengers detained in Cyprus, before being moved to a detention camp in northern Palestine.

Lowy eventually ended up in the Haganah's Golani Brigade which played an integral role in the ethnic cleansing of the Galilee area in 1948.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe affords us a taste of what the Golanis got up to: "The first targets of the Israeli forces in the 10 days between the two truces were the pockets within the Galilee around Acre, and Nazareth. 'Cleanse totally the enemy from the villages' was the order that 3 brigades received on July 6, two days before the Israeli troops - straining at their leashes to continue the cleansing operations - were ordered to violate the first truce. Jewish soldiers automatically understood that 'enemy' meant defenceless Palestinian villagers and their families. The brigades they belonged to were the Carmeli, the Golani and Brigade Seven, the 3 brigades of the north that would also be responsible for the final cleansing operations in the upper Galilee in October. The inventive people whose job it was to come up with the names for operations of this kind had now switched from 'cleansing' synonyms ('Broom', 'Scissors') to trees: 'Palm' (Dekel) for the Nazareth area and 'Cypress' (Brosh) for the Jordan Valley area." (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006, p 158)

After fighting for Israel, as Gillard spins it, Lowy migrated to Australia in 1952. How he could be described, as Gillard does, as being in legitimate need at this time is beyond me.

[*Yes, a Mossad vessel. See Idith Zertal's From Catastrophe to Power: Holocaust Survivors & the Emergence of Israel, 1998, p 237. See also my 17/6/10 post Cannon Fodder for Zion: Exodus 1947]

Howes: Apartheid? No Way!

In a previous post (Zionism Red in Tooth & Claw, 8/5/10), I drew attention to an advertisement in the Australian Jewish News for the Jewish National Fund's AGM, featuring the following extraordinary words: "UNION CHIEF WHO SAID: 'I'm proud our nation helped to kill Hamas Terrorist in Dubai'... come to hear outspoken Paul Howes."

Paul Howes is, of course, much more than a mere union chief: in addition to being national secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and vice-president of the ACTU, he's the founder of the anti-BDS/pro-Israel front group, Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine (TULIP), a Murdoch columnist, and a member of the Labor cabal which engineered the overthrow of former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

So what exactly did Howes have to say at the JNF AGM? We don't know whether or not he led off with 3 cheers for Mossad, as per the above advertisement, but the AJN does quote him as being "resolutely opposed to BDS because it is part of a campaign to delegitimise Israel and suggest it is a rogue state," and refusing to "accept comparisons between Israel and apartheid in South Africa." (Union boss slams boycotts, 11/6/10)

With regard to the latter, Howes was reported as saying: "'In South Africa, there was legislation and constitutional provisions that denied the humanity of one section of its own people, which barred them by law from jobs, education and health services and denied them the right to participate in free and open elections. None of this is true for Israel's minority communities'... He conceded, though, that in some circumstances, there is a certain bias against Israeli Arabs by Israeli Jews. 'But unlike apartheid South Africa, this bias is not built [legislated] in the political system to deny the right to vote for instance - and Israeli Arabs can agitate for democratic change and have their voices heard in the free media of Israel'."

Howes is here reprising the propaganda patter of Israeli-'Palestinian' and Jerusalem Post 'journalist' Khaled Abu Toameh, a recent lobby-sponsored visitor to these shores: The good news is that Israel is not an apartheid state. The bad news is that there is discrimination inside Israel. (See my 24/5/10 post Second-Class Citizen Khaled)

The punters at the JNF AGM would have lapped it up, of course, but Howes, like Abu T, has it completely wrong. Israel is indeed an apartheid state, and precisely because it legislates the division between Jews and non-Jews. To cite my words in Second-Class Khaled: "Our most reliable guide to Israel's apartheid legislation is Israeli scholar and activist, Uri Davis. In his invaluable treatise, Apartheid Israel (2003), Davis points out that apartheid is a political system where racism is regulated through acts of parliament, and shows that, in Israel's case, the main body of Israeli law, via its incorporation of the exclusivist constitutional stipulations of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), the Jewish Agency (JA) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF), incorporates a distinction between Jew and non-Jew. Although the Israeli Knesset is formally accountable to all its citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, in the key areas of immigration, settlement and land development, the Knesset has passed laws ceding state sovereignty to, and vesting its responsibilities with, the WZO, the JA and the JNF, which are constitutionally committed to serving and promoting the interests of Jews and Jews only. In Davis' analysis, this legal deception has given rise to a veiled, but no less real, apartheid, which ensures, for example, that 93% of pre-1967 Israel is retained for cultivation, development and settlement by, and for, Jews only."

Telling a JNF audience that Israel is not an apartheid state would be a bit like telling an AWU audience that Australia is not a capitalist state.

Confected Outrage

Israel luvvie, Sunday Telegraph columnist and national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, is in high dudgeon:

"The Melbourne Age carried a front-page story last week about the employment status of the Prime Minister's partner, Tim Mathieson. He works as a salesman for a Melbourne property company, chaired by Albert Dadon, prominent in the local Jewish community. The article implied that, somehow, because Mr Mathieson works for a company associated with a Jewish community member, this would somehow impact on the PM's stance on foreign policy, particularly in relation to her views on Israel.... Ludicrous, isn't it?" (An age-old bias rears its ugly head, The Sunday Telegraph, 4/7/10)

No, not really. Not if you'd bothered to mention that Dadon is a leading Israel lobbyist with a history of sponsoring our politicians, including La Guillotine herself, to Israel for brain transplants. Or to let on that Mathieson was certainly not employed for his expertise in real estate. Or to tell your readers that you were part of the push which ousted Rudd and installed La Guillotine as his replacement. Or to let those not yet in the know that you yourself simply can't do enough for Israel.

Predictably, Howes reckons La Guillotine's "the best person for the job." Her latest deeply thought out foreign policy utterance will probably tell you why: "The Prime Minister said she had no plans for big changes in foreign affairs. 'Sitting here now it's not my intention to change any of the fundamentals of our foreign policy', she said. 'So, obviously, support the American alliance; support the continued deployment in Afghanistan - I had a comprehensive briefing about that; our support for Israel; focus on our region. I've had the opportunity to speak to a number of people around the world in the sense of congratulation phone calls and other things so I don't have any short-term or any dramatic policy changes in mind'." (Gillard rejects Rudd's Asia vision, Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/7/10)

Zionism Red in Tooth & Claw

The latest issue of The Australian Jewish News (7/5/10) carries a most extraordinary advertisement, co-sponsored by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the St George Bank, for JNF NSW's June 2 Annual General Meeting.

The ad features Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union (AWU) national secretary and ACTU vice-president, as the AGM's "guest speaker."

For a Zionist institution that these days likes to conceal its historic role as a snapper-up of Palestinian land for Jews-only use with folderol about tree-planting and conservation*, the JNF here bares its teeth as an integral component of the Zionist project to wipe Palestine off the map.

[*See my 12/8/08 post A Certain Jewish Tree Planting Group]

The relevant text (accompanying a photo of Howes) reads as follows: "UNION CHIEF WHO SAID: 'I'm proud our nation helped to kill Hamas terrorist in Dubai'... come hear outspoken Paul Howes..."

Let's get this straight: JNF NSW is inviting the Jewish community - as the ad puts it: "The entire community is invited" - to come and hear Paul Howes tell them how proud he is that Australia helped a gang of Israeli assassins asphyxiate an unarmed, defenceless man in a third country. That's right - Australia, accessary to murder!

Just imagine the uproar (particularly in the Murdoch press) were a local Arab/Muslim organisation to invite the Arab/Muslim community to celebrate the murder of an Israeli abroad.

Of course, Howes did not put it quite that starkly when, in his Sunday Telegraph column of 7/3/10*, he wrote "I'm proud that our nation has played a small and accidental role in the removal of the terrorist al-Mabhouh from the planet." He was referring, of course, to the Mossad assassins' use of Australian passports. One can't help wondering, however, whether Howes would be entirely comfortable with the JNF's 'streamlining' of his words. What part of the old saying - If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas - does he not understand I wonder.

[* See my 7/3/10 post The ACTU's Sarah Palin]

While on the subject of the JNF, there is one little indicator that Australian Jews are finding the JNF's apartheid somewhat problematic. In the AJN's regular Vox Pop feature, in its issue of 10/8/07, 5 young Jews were asked: "Should the JNF be allowed to exclude non-Jewish Israelis from leasing its land?"

Four of the 5 answered as follows: They shouldn't be able to refuse, because what difference does it make if they are Jewish or non-Jewish? It's discrimination. (Kim Alman, Student, 17); No, as long as they have good intentions and are happy to live under the same laws as everybody else. (Wendy Ginsburg, Medical administrator); No, provided the people supporting the JNF are aware that they are giving the money to both Jews and non-Jews. (Greg Kitay, Financial analyst, 26); It's a straight business decision. They should lease to whomever they see fit, but they shouldn't discriminate on the basis of race. (Josh Gordon-Carr, Student, 20). The fifth answered, Yes. The money given to the JNF is provided by and meant for Jews, hence the name. (Danny Buchen, Student, 19)

Four out of five ain't bad.

Putting the Slipper In At the Herald

As the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh continues to reverberate, the penny is ever so slowly starting to drop at the Sydney Morning Herald. Journalist Hamish McDonald ventures a rare criticism - well, sort of - of Israel, its local lobbyists and their dupes in Canberra:

"The coolness didn't last long... [O]ur politicians find it hard to maintain any indignation, let alone anger or rage, against Israel." (True friends must tell the truth, 20/3/10)

Labor MP Julia Irwin, who launched a devastating attack on union leader and fan of Israeli death squads Paul Howes in the House of Representatives on March 15, is virtually the only exception to this depressing truth.

"This week the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, was buttering up Israel and its local lobbyists again, by staging a special press conference and media opportunity at Parliament House to 'receive' a written report and set of recommendations on boosting relations. This was handed over by Albert Dadon, the new mover and shaker in Australia's Jewish community, on behalf of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, a second-track diplomacy venture started two years ago on the model of businessman Phil Scanlan's longer-running Australia America Leadership Dialogue... The Israeli forum seems already to be well into the uncritical boosterism of which Scanlan's group gets accused in some circles. It has chosen this time to suggest that, along with more trade, agricultural and scientific exchanges and so on, Australia develops military-to-military ties with Israel.* Smith said he was 'very happy' to receive this report, which would get 'serious consideration' from the Prime Minister, adding: 'The friendship between Australia and Israel is longstanding and it is enduring, and that will continue. Despite recent events, which have been the cause of public commentary between Australia and Israel, that friendship will endure'. The, ahem, recent events include the use of forged copies of Australian passports in the recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, and the 'insulting' (US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's word) action of Benjamin Netanyahu's government in announcing more Jewish housing in disputed [!!!] East Jerusalem as the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, arrived in Israel and US-brokered 'proximity talks' between Israel and the Palestinians were about to start. Australian Federal Police agents have been to Israel to inquire about the passports, and ASIO has been put on the case too. But no-one is expecting the AFP to find a link to Mossad, unless the Israeli intelligence agency has been very careless indeed. Some longer coolness about East Jerusalem would have been in order. Netanyahu, who included a smarmy letter in Dadon's report, has been trying to weasel his way out of the row with Washington by blaming the timing, but not the substance, on his interior minister and the Jerusalem mayor. Australia's rebuke was mildly worded. 'I share the view that this is a bad decision at the wrong time and it's not a helpful contribution to the peace process', Smith said, adding that Israel was undoing the 'very hard work' of the US and others to get the two sides working towards a 'two-state' solution... Behind its profession of undying support for Israel, the Rudd government has put a bit more detachment into our policy, ending our previous lining up with a bunch of tiny American client states in UN votes on the Middle East... It doesn't seem to be having any impact on Netanyahu and has opened Rudd to opposition sniping that he's selling out Israel to win Arab votes for the UN Security Council seat. Both sides of our politics could do well to adopt the Rudd-Confucian doctrine of the 'zhengyou', the 'true friend' (in Chinese) who can point out shortcomings."

OK, I know this is hardly Meirsheimer/Walt standard but maybe we can at least agree that it's a start.

[*See my 19/3/10 post Crazy Love]

The ACTU's Sarah Palin

Remember when Sarah Palin was John McCain's running mate and we were all chilled by the realisation that Hockey Mom could be but a heartbeat away from the presidency? To be sure, the stakes are nowhere near as high, but the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) vice president Paul Howes is but a heartbeat away from the ACTU presidency, and I find that pretty chilling. As if his anti-BDS front, TULIP - see my 29/9/09 post ACTU: Missing in Action on Palestine - weren't worry enough, now he's come out, in a column in Murdoch's Sunday Telegraph, as a cheerleader for Mossad assassins:

"Let's be clear: the death of al-Mabhouh is a positive outcome for those who believe in peace and justice... [W]e're talking about a man who has turned Palestinian children into human bombs to murder and terrorise Israeli civilians..." (Dubai killing strikes blow for decency, 7/3/10)

Note here the recycling of Zionist propagandist and Age 'journalist' Julie Szego's line about Mabhouh "turn[ing] Palestinian children into bombs for the wiping out of Israeli children..." (beautifully skewered by letter writer Sol Salbe: "How could he have been involved in the use of children, or anyone else, as suicide bombers when he left the occupied territories* before the first suicide bomber appeared on the scene, and spent 2003, one of the worst years for such bombings, in an Egyptian jail?" See my previous post, Mabhouh Mythology).

[*In 1989 to be exact. Hamas' first suicide bombing wasn't until 1994 - 8 years after its founding - and "was carried out in retaliation for the Hebron massacre, in which a fanatic Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshipers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in February 1994." (Hamas for Beginners, Khaled Hroub, 2006, p 52)]

Of course, the drive-by smear is the weapon of choice for Zionist media assassins like Szego and Howes, and that turning Palestinian children into human bombs is typical. It goes without saying that the findings of those who've actually researched the phenomenon, such as political scientist Mohammed Hafez (University of Missouri), are simply not on their radar: "Observers of the second intifada often comment that suicide bombers do not lend themselves to easy generalizations. Other than being Muslim, usually unmarried, and in their late teens or early 20s, the bombers have little in common." (Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers, 2006, p 24)

And those Australian passports? Not a problem. What's a passport (or two, or three) between friends?: "The question of the use of Australian passports in the operation in Dubai raises many issues for the Australian Government. Traditionally, Australia has been a loyal friend of Israel, no matter which party is in government. This is something that should make us all proud. Some have argued that if Israel has illegally used Australian passports, this is not the action of a friend. Maybe. But in my view, friends stand by each other in the good times and the bad, and a friend is someone who lends a hand when the going gets tough. That's why I'm proud that our nation has played a small, and accidental role, in the removal of the terrorist al-Mabhouh from the planet."

Friends stand by each other, eh? But think about it. If Australia were a real friend to Israel, surely we'd be supplying Australian passports, no questions asked, right? But hang on! Aren't we really more than just good friends? Aren't we, in fact, mates? After all, we partied together in Parliament House, didn't we? And we drop in on each other regularly for a spot of mutual backscratching, don't we? Not to mention our love-ins at the UN. So, in addition to keeping our little mate in passports, why don't we also join him in the biffo and mount a few joint Mossad/ASIO operations? But let's not stop there. As a reflection of true mateship, ASIO could be rebadged Ozzad and operate under the motto By way of self-deception.

Now someone needs to get that ball rolling here, and who better, say I, than the Sarah Palin of the ACTU? Howes is obviously a straight shooter - if you get my drift - and a man who puts his money where his mouth is, so I imagine he's already lent his mates a hand and given them his passport, and is now in the process of assembling a bipartisan team of Arab fighters. Such doughty pro-Israel warriors as Christopher Pyne, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, and Kevin Rudd, to name only the most obvious, spring to mind.

I mean, would you expect anything less from the man who penned these rousing, dare I say Churchillian, words?: "The world defeated Nazism. Now the world must support those countries fighting Islamo-fascism. It is a war that is being fought on the streets of Tehran, where democratic forces battle that Islamic dictatorship; it's being fought on the streets of Gaza, after Hamas launched their coup there; it's being fought in Lebanon against Hezbollah and in the mountains of Afghanistan against the remains of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The fighters had a small victory in Dubai."

And these words - are they not straight out of John Howard's mouth?: "It is in our nation's interest and the interests of the world as a whole, to ensure democracy, liberty and freedom thrives. It is in our interest to ensure that a free, secular and healthy democratic Palestinian state is created. It is in our interest to ensure that when private citizens leave their homes and go to work or school that they don't have to fear suicide bombers will kill them." Just beautiful! Takes you back, doesn't it?

Except there's only one hitch. Howes is adamant that Hamas' redundant and superseded 1988 Charter is what rules it out of the "national liberation movement" stakes, and puts it into the "ugly Islamo-fascist terrorist organisation" category instead. Still, what's good for the goose is equally so for the gander, no? So the Likud Charter (aka Likud Party platform), which "flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River," should not only rule out the creation of a "free, secular and healthy democratic Palestinian state," but any claim of Israel's ruling party to being merely a Middle Eastern version of the Australian Labor Party, right?

Now I'm sure that as a teen Trot once, Howes must've heard Che Guavara's famous Create One, Two, Many Vietnams. Maybe this explains his distinctively neoconservative cry, Create One, Two, Three Wars on Terror: "This is not an easy war to fight, or to win. It has to be fought in many different theatres."

Pretty heady stuff, eh? But he does have lighter side. Check this out for comic relief: "But it is in our interest to ensure that all human beings regardless of their sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and political belief can live their lives free from persecution or harassment. Hamas and al-Mabhouh stand against all these values - values we hold dear. Therefore, it is in our nation's interest to do whatever we can to remove these vile people from power - by any means necessary." Regardless of religion? Apparently, not only does the Jewish state not discriminate on religious grounds, but the world is flatter than you ever thought possible.

Only... one... heartbeat... away. One! Scary!

ACTU: Missing in Action on Palestine

"[I]ndustrial workers and their trade unions have been the least active and militant components of the anti-imperialist movements. Many workers fear the loss of employment, faced by a mass of unemployed workers. Equally damaging, most of the trade union officials have consolidated control and become closely linked to tripartite pacts with the state and employers, and reject independent class action, let alone active anti-imperialist solidarity." (Empire With Imperialism: The Globalizing Dynamics of Neo-liberal Capitalism, James Petras & Henry Veltmeyer, 2005, p 113)

ACTU supremo Sharon Burrow met Dr Ron in 2006: "Two MPs from the Labor Party's left faction and the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) met with the director-general of the Peres Centre for Peace last week in a bid to build bridges. Tanya Plibersek and Maria Vamvakinou, both of whom have previously been critical of Israel, as well as ACTU chief Sharan Burrow, from the left flank of the union movement, met with the Peres Centre's Dr Ron Pundak during his 5-day visit to Australia to promote the opening of the Australian arm of the centre. Pundak told the AJN... he believed both Plibersek and Vamvakinou are 'pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian*, yet critical of many of the policies of the Israeli Government'." (Peres Centre woos ALP's left faction, The Australian Jewish News, 15/12/06) [*NB Palestinians, not Palestine.]

In 2008, however, despite Pundak's charms, Burrow could still - well, sort of - call a spade a spade in response to Israel's barbarous Operation Hot Winter in Gaza: "ACTU President Sharan Burrow is calling on the Australian government to take the urgent steps required to help parties to avoid further bloodshed and to request commitment from the Israeli Government to adhere to international laws and conventions in respect to military conduct." (The ACTU condemns military attacks against Palestinian & Israeli civilians, actu.asn.au, 5/3/08)

By 2009, however, in response to Israel's even more barbarous Operation Cast Lead (Gaza again), the "bloodshed" was gone, replaced by a "humanitarian crisis," and Australia, not Israel, was told to pull its finger out: "As the situation continues to escalate and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip worsens, the ACTU calls on the Australian government working through the United Nations to increase pressure for an immediate ceasefire and an end to all violent hostilities." (Global action needed to effect immediate Gaza ceasefire & restart peace process, actu.asn.au, 7/1/09)

In 2008, international law and the UN was Burrow's reference point, including a recognition that Israeli occupation was simply not on: "'International humanitarian law prohibits targeting of civilan populations under all circumstances; in this conflict, this applies to both the Israeli military and those launching rockets from Gaza', said Ms Burrow. The ACTU supports the stance of the United Nations... The ACTU's policy is that "real progress be made to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, based on the co-existence of 2 sovereign states in line with United Nations' resolutions. Furthermore, the ACTU opposes the establishment of the 'separation wall' as a violation of Palestinian human rights'. The ACTU supports... UN policy that the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights should be ended." (ibid)

By 2009, however, the UN's only role was to clean up after Israel and "dialogue" was counselled. (Oh, yeah, and while we're watching the bloodbath in Gaza, let's put our hands together for... Israeli and Palestinian trade unions): "'The people suffering from Israel's military actions and Hamas' rockets are working people who live in Gaza and the Sderot region of Israel. The ACTU has long supported... a genuine internationally-backed negotiation process for a peaceful and sustainable resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Ms Burrow said the ACTU applauded the Palestinian and Israeli trade unions in their efforts for peace, for decent work, sustainable jobs and livelihoods, and for social and political rights for workers living in Israel and the Palestinian Territories... The people of Gaza who have been suffering so long without food, fuel, water and medicines, and without the opportunity to travel outside their enclave, must be able to receive essential humanitarian supplies from the United Nations and the international community', Ms Burrow said. She said a solution to bring about a lasting peace will only become possible if there is a willingness for dialogue and creating a ceasefire is the first step." (ibid)

In June 2009, while the ACTU Congress passed ringing resolutions on Western Sahara and Sri Lanka, to cite but two examples, Palestine had magically disappeared from the union agenda. But not, I hasten to add, from Burrow's thoughts, which were decidedly warm & fuzzy on the subject. In July, she once more advanced solidarity between Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists as the definitive answer to the Zionist project of wiping Palestine (and its people) off the map:

"Trade unionists must show they can create practical examples of solidarity between Israelis and Palestinians, the president of the ACTU, Sharan Burrow, told a labour movement meeting in Sydney this week. 'These practical working models would be a demonstration to all that a peaceful end to the strife between the two peoples can be achieved', Ms Burrow told a largely labour movement audience attending a Fringe Event at the Australian Labor Party national conference... The discussions [of practical solutions at the Fringe Event] highlighted the recent creation of a new global labour grouping Trade Unions Linking Israel & Palestine (TULIP) which seeks to promote solidarity with both the Israeli trade union movement, the Histadrut, and the Palestinian trade union movement, the PGFTU. Paul Howes, the national secretary of the AWU, is a founder of TULIP, a global anti-boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) trade union group. Ms Burrow, who is also President of the International Trade Union Confederation [ITUC], related stories about her several visits to the region where she shared both feelings of fear and optimism, despite the horrors, with her Palestinian and Israeli trade union sisters and brothers. She praised the purpose of the Fringe Event to look at what the labour movement does best: 'build solidarity because we recognise that a worker is a worker is a worker, who deserved equal treatment in our eyes as they are all brothers and sisters... If we can build solidarity between unions, first and foremost in this region the PGFTU and the Histadrut - something we have been doing through the work most particularly of the International Transport Workers Federation [ITWF] - then I am sure that trade unions can make a difference." (Unions back Palestine/Israel peace, labor.net.au, 2/8/09)

Still, Burrow somehow manages to take time off from group-hugging her "Palestinian and Israeli trade union sisters and brothers" and popping up at anti-BDS (Israel) functions to head up pro-BDS (Burma) campaigns: "'No company could be proud of dealing with Burma... Major companies around the world are now withdrawing. Businesses who stay in there know they are helping the junta and therefore [abetting] the abuse of human and trade union rights...' Ms Burrow will join Burmese democracy activists in Sydney today for the beginning of a campaign to pressure Australian companies into withdrawing from Burma." (Jetstar denies link to Burma rights abuse, Deborah Snow, Sydney Morning Herald, 28/9/09)

Now let's contrast 'our' ACTU's complete absence of a resolution on Palestine (Burrow's warm and fuzzies notwithstanding) with Resolution 76 of Britain's Trade Union Congress (TUC): "Congress condemns the Government of Israel's January offensive in Gaza resulting in 1,450 Palestinian deaths and 5,000 injured and the massive destruction of infrastructure. Congress further condemns the ongoing blockade that is in contravention of International Law. Congress calls on the General Council to: i) use its influence with the British Government to make appropriate representations to the international community to secure support for a negotiated settlement based on justice for the Palestinians; ii) build solidarity with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. Congress condemns the Histadrut statement of 13 January 2009 in which it backed the attacks on Gaza and calls on the GC to pressure the Government to: a) condemn the Israeli military aggression and end the blockade on Gaza; b) end all arms trading with Israel; c) impose a ban on the importing of goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories; d) support moves to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Congress further calls on the GC to encourage affiliation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and to develop an effective Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign by working closely with the PSC to: 1) raise greater awareness on the issues; 2) promote a targeted consumer-led boycott; 3) encourage trade unionists to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in the illegal settlements; 4) encourage campaigns of disinvestment from companies associated with the occupation."

Way to go!

The Israeli Occupation of Federal Parliament 4

The Istralian's 12 March exorcism of the Nakba ad (See TIOOFP 2) continued on 13 March. In what must have been a first, the entirety of its letters page (excepting the First Byte column) was given over to letters on and around the offending ad, 14 of them - 11 to 3 in Israel's favour, of course - under the banner headline: An island of civilization in a sea of barbarism. All the old, familiar Zionist talking points were there:-

Bill James of Bayswater, Vic, who contributed the above header (hereinafter known as the 'stream of bat's piss' argument, deriving from Monty Python: "Your Highness, when I say you are like a stream of bat's piss, I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark."), holds that Israel is a miraculous, liberal democratic survivor "surrounded by enemies dedicated to its destruction and the extermination of its inhabitants," hereinafter known as the Amalek-Dalek exterminator assertion. [Amalek: the archetypal Biblical enemy of the Jews, against whom King David waged a war of extermination. Some Israeli settler fanatics are wont to see the present indigenous Palestinan Arabs as Amalek.] "It would be interesting to know how many of the individuals and organisations in the anti-Israel advertisement...have ever protested against the dictatorship, torture, sexism, racism, censorship, military imprisonment and denial of human rights rife among Israel's opponents," he asked, combining the classic Zionist defensive technique of finger-pointing (hereinafter known as the 'Why are you pickin' on me, Miss? They're doin' it too' diversion) at other, presumably Arab countries (and Iran of course), with broad brush smear, obviating the need for specifics which might invite rebuttal. In this treatment Israel is as white as Arabs/Muslims are black.

Merv Morris of East St Kilda, Vic, in a staple of Zionist propaganda, trades on the legacy of the Nazi Holocaust (hereinafter known as the 'My Holocaust is bigger than your holocaust' boast) to justify Israel's existence at the expense of Palestinian national rights, suggesting that if Israel had been around then it would've provided "sanctuary" for its victims. [See my previous post] Merv, like Bill, uses a variant of the 'stream of bat's piss' argument, describing Israel as "a beacon of enlightenment, egalitarianism and democracy in an area of repression, fundamentalism and black hatred," and concludes with a grizzle about how Israel is "misrepresented internationally," hereinafter known as the 'Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. I think I'll go eat worms' whine.

George Adamowicz, of Brighton, Vic, having dusted off his battered copy of Leon Uris' propaganda novel, Exodus, trots out the old Amalek-Dalek exterminator assertion in his reference to "the invasion of the fledgling state by Arab armies intent on wiping it out." He then hilariously castigates the defenders of Amalek-Dalek as "lacking compassion for the other side."

Mark Reid, Doncaster, Vic, invokes the 'My Holocaust is bigger than your holocaust' boast to falsely claim, in response to a correspondent from the day before, that, no, Israel was not "founded on the blood of hundreds and thousands of Palestinians" but rather "on the ashes of millions who were executed in the Nazi Holocaust." In reminding us "how much better off the Palestinians would be if, over the last 60 years, they had shed their victimhood to develop a democratic government," he uses a variant of the 'If only they'd pull their finger out' lament.

Paul Howes, National Secretary, AWU (Australian Workers Union), Sydney, NSW, in lamenting "those union leaders...and Labor MPs who line up in support of Hamas," asserts that Hamas has "a history of hostility to labour unions," a wonderful example of the 'Please Miss, the dog ate my homework' excuse: one assumes that Mr Howes' complaint about Hamas and labour unions relates to the Hamas takeover of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) Gaza offices in the context of Hamas' preemptive coup against Fatah in June 2007. [See my post Mainsewer Media Clueless in Gaza]. But really now, is it too much to expect a former "Research Officer with the Labor Council of NSW (awu.net.au, Personality Profiles: Paul Howes) to do a little homework before opening up on an issue like this? With a little googling, for example, he might have come across the aljazeera.net report of 14/7/07 by Omar Khalifa, Palestinian union hit on all sides. Khalifa writes that "The PGFTU, in the West Bank and Gaza, has been attacked from all sides - by Hamas, a Fatah militia and Israel..." Yes, Fatah and Israel. It is even more of a worry that Paul cannot distinguish between a matter of internal Palestinian wrangling and the overarching contextual issue of Palestine's comprehensive mugging by the Zionist colonial-settler project aka Israel. But perhaps there's another explanation: Howes, high school dropout, ex-Trot, member of the NSW Right and advocate for debate over whether Australia should go nuclear , is a protege of ex-AWU head, (& now federal Labor MP) Bill Shorten, who, in turn, is a mate of Visy chief Dick Pratt (fined $36 million recently for price-fixing), whose Pratt Foundation "donates more than $14 million a year to philanthropy in such [needy] countries as Australia, Israel and the US." (Rhapsody: Linking Culture between Israel & Australia, Jan-Mar 2008 p 13). Bill Shorten has, of course, like so many of our mainstream political and civic leaders, been Rambammed. (See my earlier post Rambammed)

Dr Philip Mendes & Professor Douglas Kirsner of Monash University, Vic, are of the opinion that those "who felt the need to advertise their continuing prejudice towards Israel...need to come to terms with reality," given that Israel was born of a 1947 UN resolution which the Amalek-Daleks just couldn't hack [See my previous post], causing them to attempt "to drown Israel at birth," yet another example of the Amalek-Dalek exterminator assertion. They further claim that "the Palestinian refugee tragedy" was "a direct by-product of that decision to go to war, " (another example of the use of the 'Why are you picking on me, Miss? They're doin' it too' diversion). Think about that. These two are are falsely claiming that there were no Palestinian refugees prior to the Amalek-Daleks hitting the warpath, another example of the 'Please, Miss, the dog ate my homework' excuse. So much for the credibility of Dr's & Prof's. In their letter we see our first example of the diversionary flying pig invocation, with Dr & Prof asserting that Palestinians and Israelis should be in the business of achieving "a compromise two-state solution." Now listen up, Pallies, despite Palestine being compromised down from 100% (pre-48) to 43% (UN Resolution 181) to 22% (48-67) to around 10% today, there's always more room for compromise! Typically, Dr & Prof are mum on the main impediment to a two-state solution (to Israel's problem), the always expanding, still illegal, Israeli settlements.

James Johnson of Bentleigh East, Vic, is "amazed to see an advertisement attacking Israel," with no mention of that UN vote in 1947 or the Palestinian rejection of it or the Amalek-Daleks who invaded "Israel...with the stated intention of 'pushing its population into the sea'." (Amalek-Dalek exterminator assertion alert!) And didn't we need reminding, yet agaiiin, that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East." ('Stream of bat's piss' argument alert!)

Peter Wertheim of Darling Point, NSW, alleges that "the parliamentary motion of support for Israel was passed unanimously," [A striking example of the 'Please Miss, the dog ate my homework' excuse, given that The Canberra Times (but not The Istralian*) had reported that "more than a dozen ministers and Labor backbenchers (& "some Liberal MPs") were absent." PM snubbed from all sides over Israeli motion, Ross Peake, 13/3/08] Peter plugs 47 agaiiin, and introduces the Amalek-Dalek assertion: "the invasion of the country by 5 Arab states in May 1948 or the gobbling up of the West Bank and Gaza Strip [before they were gobbled up by Zionist forces] by Jordan and Egypt..." Peter is also the first of our propagandists to invoke the talking point always kept in reserve for anyone who raises the issue of Palestinian refugees: "the dispossession of an equal number of Jews in Arab countries from their homes and livelihoods after 1948," hereinafter known as the 'I beat the crap out of you, but he allegedly beat the crap out of me, so we're equal, right? argument. Hm, "after 1948"? So the Palestinians were dispossessed first? Maybe, just maybe, the two issues are unrelated! And of course, whenever the issue of Palestinian refugees comes up, it's customary to assert that they have been "deliberately kept in refugee camps for decades to be used as pawns to serve the political agendas of their leaders and the educated fools in the West who support them [Hello, signatories!]." Well, that's easily dealt with: Israel implements UNGA Resolution 194, allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands in Israel, and, hey presto, no more pawns! We might call this one the 'OK, so we gave 'em a stick to beat us with, but we sure as hell don't want it back' retort.

Dr Philip Cole of Townsville, Qld, wields the whinge of last resort - 'Miss, they're pickin' on me for no reason at all' plaint, aka the spurious accusation of anti-Semitism: "It seems that anti-semitism is the only form of racism that is not only acceptable, but positively fashionable..."

Ivan Kassel of St Ives, NSW, is disgusted and offended by "the advertiser's wrongful accusation of racism and ethnic cleansing occurring in Israel," despite the fact that these occurred in Palestine. He deploys the 'Israelis-target-only-terrorists, while-terrorists- always-hide-behind-human-shields' rationale: Israel "does all it can to limit civilian casualties." The Nakba ad calls Israel's establishment a "catastrophe," but Israel, Ivan tells us, was "formed by UN charter" [UN what?!] and in fact "is the land Jews were expelled from at least 2000 years before Palestinians arrived," the first use here of the trusty (but hypocritical) 'Thousands of years, and we still haven't gotten over it, but the Palestinians should - now!' line. If only Hamas would "lay down its arms and sit at a table," shrug's world-weary Ivan, yet another variant of the 'If only they'd pull their finger out' lament.
R W Corfield of Subiaco, WA, a staunch defender of dissent from the official line, would refer the signatories, described as a "bunch of troublemakers," to ASIO for investigation: "If that rather rabid advertisement on the alleged genocide in Palestine did nothing else, it would certainly have provided some more grist to ASIO's mill. Most of the usual suspects are there, of course, and a sprinkling of clergy with not enough to do." RW is convinced that, apart from death and taxes, "of two things I am certain...First, that the Jews are entitled to their state...Second, there was no genocide." He thinks it, therefore it is.

That's it, and here for the record is the tally:-

Amalek-Dalek exterminators assertion: 5

Stream of bat's piss argument: 3

'Please, Miss, the dog ate my homework' excuse: 3

'Why are you pickin' on me, Miss? They're doin it too' diversion: 2

'My Holocaust is bigger than your holocaust' boast: 2

'If only they'd pull their fingers out' lament: 2

'Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I think I'll go eat worms' whine: 1

Diversionary flying pig invocation: 1

'I beat the crap out of you, but he allegedly beat the crap out of me. So we're equal, right?' argument: 1

'OK, so we gave 'em a stick to beat us with, but we sure as hell don't want it back' retort: 1

'Miss, they're pickin' on me for no reason at all' plaint: 1

Israelis-target-only-terrorists, while-terrorists-always-hide-behind-human-shields rationale: 1

'Thousands of years, and we still haven't gotten over it, but the Palestinians should - now! line: 1

* The Istralian's 'reporting' for the day gives the impression that the only dissent came from Labor MP Julia Irwin: "The House of Representatives passed with bipartisan support a government motion marking the anniversary in May, with only Labor backbencher Julia Irwin abstaining from the vote in a protest at human rights abuses by Israel." The following information was left to the final paragraph: "Ms Irwin said at least 10 of her ALP colleagues and 4 Coalition parliamentarians had congratulated her on her stand."" (PM lauds Israel, but urges peace, Patrick Walters, Brad Norrington, 13/3/08)

Update: The torrent of letters on the Nakba ad continued with 6 in The Istralian of 14/3/08 under the grandiloquent heading, An epic and inspirational story in world history. Three of them provided further examples of the talking points already cited. Dr Bill Anderson, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, Vic, in another blow to the credibility of our academic friends, begins with the 'Thousands of years, and we still haven't gotten over it, but the Palestinians should - now!' line: "After thousands of years in the land which is now Israel they were defeated, displaced and disperced by the Romans...They returned as sons and daughters returning home, not as colonial aggressors." That such mythological nonsense can gush from the pen of an academic from a School of Historical Studies is a terrible indictment of our universities. Nor does it get any better, ending with this variant of the stream of bat's piss argument: "Israel continues to survive as a bastion of democracy in a troubled region..."

Mervyn F Bendle, School of Arts & Social Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld, dealing a third blow to academic credibility, launches his irritation at "the propaganda war against Israel," with the 'My Holocaust is bigger than your holocaust' boast: the ad's attempt to "promote the concept of al-Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948 as a counterweight to the Holocaust (Shoah) that involved the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis...[is designed] to relativise the horrendous tragedy suffered by the Jews and make it seem no greater than that allegedly suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of Israel...[and] to displace the Holocaust and make it appear that the Palestinians have suffered a greater tragedy. The goal, pursued by many Muslim leaders, is to deny that the Holocaust happened."

Dr George Foster, Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendents, Miranda, NSW, continues in the same vein with "Survivors of the Holocaust know the real meaning of ethnic cleansing and genocide," and concludes with his own variant on the 'Miss, they're pickin' on me for no reason' plaint: "To compare Israel's actions in defence of its citizens...with Nazi Germany policies of extermination - as that advertisement does - is frankly anti-semitic..." That the Nakba ad makes no mention whatever of Nazis, but simply and objectively points out that Israel is because Palestine isn't, escapes him.