Pathetic Delusions, Real Consequences

Rebecca Weisser, The Australian's opinion editor,  was obviously so impressed with the following Quadrant online piece (16/3/14) by Murray Walters that she included it in yesterday's Cut & Paste column at the foot of the letters page:

"How much should your sense of personal meaning impact on my right to question its authenticity... Section 18C is the muddled product of the inadequate scrutiny of these issues. Here are some examples:

"1) If I claim to have a particular affinity with Thailand on the basis that I have visited 10 times in the last five years, have married a ladyboy I fell in love with in a Bangkok brothel and now claim to identify as Thai for the purpose of the new government's National Rental Assistance Scheme for rich foreign students who want to live close to a university of their choice, should I be: a) given rent assistance because as long as I identify as Thai... that's good enough for the taxpayers of Australia... d) told to go away because my claim to an authentic Thai identity is just the pathetic delusion of a vulgar, fat, ugly, late middle-aged Australian totally oblivious to my narcissism and my inability to see that I am an addled, infatuated daddy cum meal-ticket...

"2) I have two grandparents who were born in Scotland and I come over all maudlin when I hear Paul McCartney's Mull of Kintyre. I now want everyone to recognise me as Scottish. I think I'll apply for cheap housing next to the University of Tasmania to further my studies into Scottish convicts on the First Fleet. They were treated particularly badly... (and) I bear the stain of their oppression to this very day. I should a) be given rental assistance because my sense of belonging and my James Bond impersonation makes me more of a Scot than Sean Connery... c) be told (very respectfully) that my claim will need to be adjudicated by a panel of Scottish elders. Further, I will have to dance the Highland Fling as proof of my ethnicity."

Most amusing. But while we're on the subject of spurious ethnic identities and the benefits accruing therefrom, I can easily top Walters' fictional examples with the actual case of a bloke who not only gets a $3 billion + annual subsidy from the US government, based solely on his particular brand of pathetic delusion, but also gets to parade it - true! - at international forums.

I'm not sure, however, that Ms Weisser would ever be inclined to give him the satirical attention he so richly deserves in her little collection of snippets.

Meet the pathetically (& dangerously) deluded Benjamin Mileikowsky:

"In my office in Jerusalem, there's a - there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next door to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last name. My first, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin - Binyamin - the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his twelve sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria [sic] 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since." (Transcript of Netanyahu's 2011 UNGA speech*)

[*See my 24/9/11 post Benzion, My Father.]

Why Boycott Max Brenner?

Honest reporting invariably plays second fiddle to crusading at Murdoch's Australian. Nowhere is this more so (notwithstanding some useful reports by its Middle East correspondent, John Lyons) than in its fanatical support for Israeli apartheid.

As I demonstrated in yesterday's post, the Australian devotes an extraordinary amount of column space to the burnishing of Israel's increasingly tarnished international image and attacking those Australians who dare to speak up for the Palestinians, in particular those who've declared support for the pro-Palestine BDS movement. The paper's opinion pages are the key here. For as long as I can remember they have been the almost exclusive preserve of Zionist apologists and lobbyists.

A quick scan of the opinion pieces listed in yesterday's post, for example, reveals that of the 8 which have appeared since 16/4, only one in support of the Palestinian case, that by Professor Stuart Rees, a prime target of the current phase of the Australian's anti-Palestinian crusade, has been accepted for publication. This is tokenism at its most blatant.

The following article, Why boycott Max Brenner?, by another of the paper's recent targets, Palestine solidarity activist Patrick Harrison*, was refused publication by the Australian:

"When I visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2011 to take part in environmental volunteer projects, apartheid was plain to see. West Bank Palestinians were restricted in what roads they could travel on to tend their fields. Activists were arrested when they tried to highlight this injustice by boarding buses in Israeli settlements, echoing the Freedom Rides fighting segregation in the US. Every Palestinian house had rainwater tanks because the mains would run dry in the summer; the Israeli settlements had irrigated lawns that could rival Sydney's north shore.

"So when I came home for Christmas and showed my family the photos I took in the West Bank, they could easily see the comparison. For my family, it's close to home - my parents met and married in South Africa under apartheid. However, calling Israel an 'apartheid state' means something much more than just a comparison with South Africa before 1994. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force in 2002, defines apartheid as 'an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups.' This is the crime of which Israel is guilty with laws of citizenship that discriminate against non-Jews, dozens of other examples of institutional racism, and legal distinctions between 'Israeli Arabs', West Bank residents and East Jerusalemites - of which 80% live in poverty according to a recent report.

"This is why I campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The parent company of Max Brenner - a chocolate shop company that has become the focus for the BDS campaign in Australia - is the Strauss Group. It is not merely a financial partner in this apartheid the way many multinationals are. Its support of the Israeli military extends as far as to donate care packages to commandos of the Golani and Givati brigades to 'sweeten their special moments.'** These brigades are Israel's shock troops; the Givati brigade penetrated furthest of all units involved in the 2008-09 invasion of Gaza. The Golani brigade was stationed at checkpoints in the Palestinian city of Hebron shortly after I visited the West Bank. Christian Peacemaker Teams' activists documented a rise in the number of serious human rights violations against the people of Hebron at the time.

"Max Brenner Australia's relationship to the Strauss Group is plain to see, although the company tries to hide it. In an interview in the Australian, the general manager of Max Brenner in Australia, Yael Kaminsky, said Max Brenner Australia 'never got involved with the Strauss Group... we only have the franchise rights in Australia and we report to the office of Max Brenner that is based in New York.' Yet the Strauss Group's annual report last year said Max Brenner International in the US is wholly owned by Strauss USA, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Strauss Group Ltd. The report said 'the [Strauss] Group operates chocolate bars' in Australia.

"Boycotting Max Brenner has nothing to do with the identity of the company's owners, just as the campaign to boycott Veolia for its operations in the occupied territories has nothing to do with the religion or race of its boss. It is about raising awareness of the Israeli government's crimes in Palestine. If the owners of Max Brenner are as truly independent of of ties with Israeli apartheid as they claim, they can easily put an end to protests outside their stores by rebranding their store, handing back the franchise rights, and sending a signal that people of all backgrounds condemn Israel's crimes." (Green Left Weekly, May 22)

[*Patrick has a blog: Al-Thawra Eyewitness; **See my 12/7/09 post How Sweet It Is.]

PS: The Australian's opinion page editor, Rebecca Weisser, has an article in today's paper arguing against the privatisation of the ABC, but reckons it needs more - wait for it - balance. (Subsidy fine, but balance required)

Never Let a Chance Go By

As a professional film reviewer without an axe to grind, the ABC's Margaret Pomeranz has this to say about the new British comedy Four Lions:

"The controversial satirist Chris Morris did extensive research for his debut feature film Four Lions. He discovered, like with stag parties and five-a-side football teams, that terrorist cells have their fair share of conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. He says terrorism is about ideology, but it's also about berks... as you'll see. The leader of this British-based group, Omar... is determined to go to training camp in Pakistan, and he and the terminally dimwitted Waj... finally get their chance. I think Chris Morris is a bit too clever for me. I didn't find this film funny at all, except for a couple of moments. Ultimately, I was left with a feeling of profound sadness. The never-ending riff on the comedy of extreme dumbness I know a lot of people find hilarious, but it bores me. I didn't believe these characters, is anybody that stupid? And so I found it difficult to enter into the spirit of the film... Morris has used satire to rail against people's suggestibility, and this film certainly delivers that. But I just don't get it. I don't get this film. It seems to me that Morris has tried to create comedy with a message, but about what? How dumb terrorists are? Or maybe how dumb audiences are. I wish I could be more informative, but it's beyond me." (At the Movies, abc.net.au)

As an opinion page editor with a whopping great Zionist axe to grind, The Australian's Rebecca Weisser has this to say about Four Lions:

"Morris's insight about the extraordinary, indeed hilarious, stupidity of terrorists is profoundly subversive. It turns on its head the favoured view of the left-leaning intelligentsia that terrorism is a rational act, a recognisable if misguided indictment of the West or a tragic but understandable response to the terrible injustices visited on Muslims... in the Muslim world... The terrorists are not apparently motivated by Tony Blair's alleged war crimes in Iraq or the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, which are barely discussed. And it is not about Israel, which is mentioned only by implication when the terrorists' car breaks down and one of the terrorists blames Jewish parts." (Complete idiots slide into jihad, 21/8/10)

While Margaret finds Four Lions merely a failed attempt at slapstick, Rebecca opportunistically seizes on Morris' hyped expertise on jihadi terrorism ("After years of research speaking to everyone who might know...") to get Israel, Blair, and the rest, off the hook as a driver of Muslim rage.

And just for the record, Chris Morris, in interview, disagrees with Rebecca Weisser:

Isn't it the case that a lot of the motivation for terrorists is the material promise of a sated afterlife, that the rewards aren't actually that spritual?

I think that idea of a paradise as luridly attractive is a bit of a journalistic myth to be honest. It's a complicated set of motivations but I think one reason they're doing this is more like giving money to Live Aid.

Like a charitable donation?

But a donation that's gone a bit far! We've tried to represent lots of different motivations in different individuals - from pure nihilism to not really knowing. Unless you're a nihilist you have to believe you're doing the right thing. If you show a person something that's undeniably terrible - some Muslims being very badly treated - then unless you're inhuman, you'd sort of say, Yes that's awful, what can I do about it? 'Well, give some money, help with some food aid. Or if you want to do a bit 'more', I can tell you how...'" (Chris Morris talks about making Four Lions, film4.com)

Second-Class Citizen Khaled

The Australian's opinion editor, Rebecca Weisser, just cannot comprehend why Palestinians don't raise their champagne glasses and toast the birth of the Jewish state on May 15:

"The Palestinian diaspora in Australia is facing an unexpected catastrophe. Normally, May 15, Israel's Independence Day, is the most important day of the year for celebrating their victimhood: the catastrophe, as they see it, of the founding of Israel." (Journalist says only truth will set Palestine free, 15/5/10)

One 'brave' Israeli Arab soul, however, refuses to celebrate his 'Palestinian' victimhood on May 15:

"But, this year, visiting fresh from the streets of Gaza, Ramallah and Jerusalem is Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab Muslim journalist, who declares: 'I'd rather be a second-class citizen in Israel than a first-class citizen in any Arab country'. And some in the diaspora are not happy about his visit." (ibid)

Mind you, it's not that Abu T's exactly over the moon about being a second-class Israeli: "If I were a Jew living in Israel, I would be very worried about the deterioration of relations between Jews and Arabs inside the country. We, the Israeli Arabs, have been extremely loyal to the State of Israel ever since its establishment. We are the Arabs who in 1948 did not challenge Israel's right to exist.* We accepted Israel. We welcomed Israel. We helped build Israel. Israel gave us passports, citizenship, okay. But... sadly, the State of Israel or the Israeli establishment were not equally loyal towards its Arab minority... I'm talking about employment, services, infrastructure. We continue to suffer from what [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert called a policy of systematic discrimination against the Arab minority. Now the good news is that Israel is not an apartheid state. But the bad news is that there is discrimination inside Israel. It's not just against Arabs - it's against Russians. It's against Ethiopians. It's against the elderly. It's against the disabled. If this policy continues and the Israeli establishment does not wake up and embark on an emergency plan to improve its relations with its Arab minority, the third intifada will be on the streets of Haifa and Akko, and the Negev and Galilee." (Citizen Khaled, The Australian Jewish News, 21/5/10)

Whence this mysterious, free-floating discrimination, sufficient to have Israeli Arabs (but not Russians, Ethiopians and the elderly) take to the streets in protest, but not sufficient to be called apartheid? Abu T doesn't say, but he's emphatic that, whatever its origin and nature, because Arabs can live in Jewish neighborhoods and go to Jewish schools, it's therefore not apartheid.

Leaving aside the question of just how many Arabs actually live in Jewish neighborhoods or go to Jewish schools, Abu T's PR line is that, because the obvious segregation of South African apartheid isn't replicated in Israel, it's therefore not an apartheid state. His other is to point the finger at alleged apartheid in the Arab/Muslim world: "I passed some Lebanese girls who were organising Israel Apartheid Week in Canada. I stopped at their information table and I asked them, 'Excuse me, which apartheid are you talking about?' They said, 'Of course, the Jewish state, and apartheid against the Palestinians'. And I asked them if they were from Lebanon. 'What about apartheid in Lebanon against the Palestinians, where in Lebanon there is a law that prevents Palestinians from working in more than 60 professions? By law, it's written in the law'. Can you imagine if the Knesset met tonight and passed a law banning Arabs from working in one profession?"

Put to one side the capital F fact that the only reason the Palestinians are in Lebanon is because Israel refuses to allow them to return to the homes and lands from which they were expelled by Zionist forces in 1948, an issue Abu T shows not the least interest in, and consider the implication of his final question - that Israel's Knesset has never actually passed anti-Arab/pro-Jewish legislation when in fact such legislation is fundamental to Israel's status as a Jewish state.

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-67 Israel is retained for cultivation, development and settlement by, and for, Jews only.

Obviously though, when your trip to Australia is paid for by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the United Israel Appeal (UIA), and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, you're not going to go there.

[*We threw every flower we had at the Zionist forces!]

A Real Journalist

Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh is in town, with both the Sydney Morning Herald (toda Miranda) and The Australian (toda Rebecca) sufficiently impressed to serve up his "insights." Here's Abu T's bio in both papers:

"An Israeli citizen and Arab Muslim, one of 1.4 million Arabs in Israel, Toameh first worked for the PLO newspaper Al-Fajr, where he said editors waited for instructions from Yasser Arafat about how big his picture should be and what should be on the front page. Wanting to be a 'real journalist', he went on to work for foreign news organisations, such as BBC and CNN, where his high-level contacts on both sides and courageous independendence provided invaluable insight." (Why 'balance of terror' feels safer than the peace process, Miranda Devine, SMH, 13/5/10)

"Toameh started his career in journalism at the Palestinian newspaper Al-Fajr, but he left because it was not about journalism but propaganda. He says, 'It's ironic that people like me have to go and work in the Israeli media to be able to practice genuine journalism'." (Journalist says only truth will set Palestine free, Rebecca Weisser, The Australian, 15/5/10)

Abu T now writes for a real newspaper, Israel's Jerusalem Post. In fact, the Post is so real (even surreal) it runs t-shirt ads under the heading Don't Mess With Us! Show Off Your Mossad & Israeli Pride, offering shirts bearing such warm and fuzzy messages as: Don't mess with Mossad; Mossad; Mossad's Dubai Operation; and We are watching - Mossad.*

And if that's not real enough for you, there's its editor-in-chief, David Horowitz, the author of such standards of genuine journalism as Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terror; A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills & Panic of a Life in Israel; and Shalom, Friend: The Life & Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin.

Abu T's bona fides as a real journalist don't just come from the paper he works for, however. Just look who's sponsoring his visit. None other than those well-known afficianados of genuine journalism, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the United Israel Appeal. I cannot for the life of me, therefore, understand why Amanda and Rebecca, both real, nay surreal journalists, omitted to mention just who was paying Abu T's way.

But the sine qua non of a real journalist is surely the quality of his insights, and my fave Abu T insight, faithfully recorded by Rebecca, is: "If Palestinians are allowed to get on with their lives, things will continue to slowly get better."

[*Jerusalem Post: Profiting from Mossad murder, richardsilverstein.com, 2/3/10]

How to Pick a Palestinian Terrorist

Ever wondered what it's like being The Australian's opinion page editor Rebecca Weisser?

Guided by your near supernatural ability to differentiate between what you call mainstream and radical opinion, and your unerring sense of exactly what it is the readers want to read (See my 26/4/10 post Do You Want Your News Limited?), you and you alone can decree the following 'opinion' mainstream and so worthy of gracing the pages of The Australian:

"What is more, any Palestinian state would materialise only amidst compromise. There will be no return to the 1967 borders; at most Palestinians would be compensated for territorial adjustments made necessary by large blocs of Jewish settlements and Israeli security concerns. There will be nothing more than a token right of return for Palestinians to Israel. Jerusalem will remain undivided and at most shared. Terrorists would see all this as a sellout, and they would target not just Israel but those Palestinians and Arab states that made peace with it." (The Palestinian peace distraction, Richard N Haass, The Wall Street Journal/The Australian, 30/4/10)

So if you're a Palestinian and you cannot bring yourself to graciously accept (a) Israel's hanging on to large chunks of occupied West Bank territory in defiance of international law and the resolutions of the United Nations; (b) the ongoing 62-year exile of Palestinian refugees from their homes and lands in pre-1967 Israel; (c) Israeli sovereignty over occupied East Jerusalem; and you dare to suggest that any Palestinian leader who does is a sellout, then, hey, you're a terrorist.

Got that?

Do You Want Your News Limited?

"Rebecca Weisser, opinion page editor for The Australian, told a Limmud-Oz audience that the opinion pages in commercial newspapers were part of the business of giving the readers what they want to read." (Australian editor seeks big ideas, big names & good writers, The Australian Jewish News, 12/6/09)

Except that what the readers want to read is decided by... Rebecca Weisser:

"In the case of a mainstream daily newspaper, such as The Australian, she said, the views need to fall within mainstream views, which should be apparent to the reader. An example, she said, was an opinion piece written by a Palestinian intellectual that argued for a one-state peace solution for Israel. Weisser rejected the submission on the grounds that it was too radical. 'If an opinion piece would seem more at home in the Green Left Weekly, then it would probably not [sit well in] the opinion section of a mainstream paper', she said."

And who is this Zionist Guardian of The Mainstream View at News Limited?

Briefly, one who calls the Israeli-occupied West Bank a "contested place" and for whom the only good Palestinian is a "moderate" one; one for whom Israel's illegal West Bank colonisers and pogromers are just regular volk unfortunately forced to live with "the threat of violence" but nonetheless bravely determined "to create a place that is safe to rear their children"*; and one for whom the likes of Alan Dershowitz, Michael Danby MP and AIJAC's Colin Rubinstein** are the interviewees of choice.

[*Visions of the old settlers, The Australian, 29/11/08; **Mideast Studies accused, The Australian, 21/11/06]

His Master's Voice

"Prepare for war. Last week I met the Boogie Man, the former head of the Israeli Defence [sic] Forces, General Moshe 'Boogie' Ya'alon, who is preparing the political groundwork for a military attack on Iran's key nuclear facilities," writes recently rambammed (see Rambam Alert!, 17/11/08) Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan (Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran, 24/11/08).

Of course, you wouldn't know about Sheehan's rambamming because there's nothing anywhere in (or near) his propaganda - sorry - opinion piece to indicate that he's just been on a NSW Jewish Board of Deputies/Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs junket to Israel to meet the Boogie Man and other Israeli Strangeloves, or "warrior-scholars" as Sheehan prefers to call them.

Boogie's message is: "There is no way to stabilise the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime... We have to consider killing [Ahmadinejad]." So, this swaggering psychopath - sorry - warrior-scholar with the ridiculous moniker, who's aiming for a cabinet post should the right-wing Likud* come to power in next year's Israeli elections, asserts the untrammeled right of the Middle East's No. 1 Destabiliser to 'stabilise' the Middle East by rolling any other nation that dares lift its head and knocking off its leader. And Sheehan's role in all this Israeli sabre-rattling (accompanied by the absurd Mucci cartoon: a mushroom cloud cradling a missile), is to sell Israel's military madness to the Australian public. It is a mark of the Herald's precipitous decline into irrelevance as a source of informed and critical comment that, while the likes of Sheehan are kept on, real journalists such as Mike Carlton and (soon) Alan Ramsey are cut loose.

[*Sheehan has the nerve to refer to the Likud, ideological heir of revisionist Zionism and the pre-state terrorist Irgun, as "conservative."]

The Australian's opinion editor Rebecca Weisser (in need of no rambamming whatsoever when it comes to amplifying the party line), was also there in Jerusalem (Israeli general ups ante on Iran, 24/11/08) channeling the very same threats from Boogie.

I particularly enjoyed this little gem: "General Ya'alon said a two-pronged approach was necessary to defeat jihadism. 'From top down, using a big stick... From bottom up, using education'." You can add that to your file of pithy Zionist sound-bytes.

Even better, however, came in Weisser's potted bio of Boogie - a reference to the great man's "success in quelling the second Palestinian offensive launched in September 2000."  

Offensive? You do remember the Great Palestinian Offensive of 2000, don't you? How the terrifying might of the Palestinian armed forces, with firepower the likes of which the world had never seen before, was unleashed on the hapless, helpless Israelis who were all but driven into the sea?

Until Boogie Boy turned up to give the Palestinians a bit of stick, that is.