Spotlight on the 'Australia Israel Labor Dialogue' 2

More from The Australian's John Lyons on the Elbit Systems-linked Australia Israel Labor Dialogue - Carr wants friends of Israel to open books (17/3/16):

"Pressure is growing for a Labor friends-of-Israel group to open its accounts to show who has been funding trips to Israel for trade unionists and members of the Labor Party. Former NSW premier and foreign minister Bob Carr said yesterday the current situation amounted to 'a shameful look' for Labor's support base. He warned the issue could damage the ALP with its 'hundreds of thousands of voters with Arabic backgrounds'.

"The Australian reported yesterday that a key figure in the Australia Israel Labor Dialogue - Mary Easson - is a lobbyist for the Australian subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit. Elbit is one of Israel's largest manufacturers of bombs, mortars, cyber-warfare systems and drones and was a key supplier of the army during the 2014 war against Gaza. On its website, it says one of its newest products has 'unprecedented lethality.' Ms Easson denies Elbit has ever made a donation to AILD. But Mr Carr said any connection to Elbit was 'a shameful look - arms dealers, civilian deaths, the electronic fence. It would be common sense for party leaders to say the Dialogue must present an independently audited account of its fundraising. The party's credibility with literally hundreds of thousands of voters with Arabic backgrounds is at stake,' he said.

"Ms Easson says Elbit Systems of Australia managing director Dan Webster has assured her no donation had been made from Elbit to the AILD. Mr Carr's call was supported by NSW ALP assistant secretary Rose Jackson, who took one of the AILD's trips. 'All funding and connection should absolutely be publicly declared,' she said. However, many of those who have taken trips clearly do not want to talk about them. The candidate for the federal seat of Perth, lawyer Ted Hammond, has refused to answer questions about his trip. NSW AILD branch patron, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie said Mr Carr's comments were internal ALP warfare. 'I am not interested in a petty side argument between the warring factions in the ALP over Israel and Palestine,' he said. Mr Beattie said there had been no donations since he became patron last year, 'so there was nothing to audit'.

"The growing division within the party over the issue was further evident yesterday when Labor Friends of Palestine published a list of all union and party officials known to have taken trips. The group said Elbit's profits increased 6.1% in July 2014, during the Gaza war, and that Human Rights Watch had confirmed that Elbit's drones had been used on Palestinian civilians. It said the Norwegian State Pension Fund, Denmark's Danske bank, Sweden's largest pension funds, Germany's Deutsche Bank and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund had divested themselves from Elbit for ethical reasons. A growing number of senior ALP figures - including Mr Carr, Tony Burke, Jason Clare, Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese - have all made clear that if Israel continues to expand the population of its settlements on the West Bank and there is no progress to a two-state solution, the next Labor government will recognise Palestine."

So You Think It's Tough Being a Woman in the Labor Party?

"Women face systemic, cultural and rules-based impediments to participation in the Labor Party, according to a landmark report that urges strengthening affirmative action requirements for selecting candidates, officials and union delegations, and imposing sanctions for failure to comply." (Labor's internal sexism revealed, Troy Bramston, The Australian, 4/7/15)

OK, so Labor's still too blokey for female candidates. But, hey, it could be worse, far worse.

What if the candidate is not only a woman but has also been critical - even ONCE - of Israel as well?

That's when the going really gets tough. That's when a sort of McCarthyite process kicks in: 'Are you now, or have you ever been, a Palestinian sympathiser?'

Think I'm exaggerating? I wish! Just click on the Julia Irwin, Rose Jackson or Tanya Plibersek labels below...

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.) 

A Heretic Recants

One of the Labor cult's most bizarre features, particularly for devotees on the rise, involves the recanting of any criticisms of Israel that may have been made in the past, and the subordination thereafter of independent thought on the subject (best exemplified by such criticisms) to the party's prevailing Zionist groupthink.

Some years back, for example, a rising Labor star, Rose Jackson, was 'discovered' by The Australian (of course!), to have proclaimed, whilst a student politician, that she opposed a Jewish state because all states should be secular, not Jewish, Islamic or Christian.

When outed in the thick of a council election campaign, however, Rose recanted thus:

"Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense. I realise I just misunderstood." (Just click on the 'Rose Jackson' label below for details of the saga.)

Now it's deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek's turn to recant - for a second time, in fact.

She once said, in 2002, in response to the US labelling Saddam Hussein's Iraq a rogue state:

"I can think of a rogue state which consistently ignores UN resolutions, whose ruler is a war criminal responsible for the massacres of civilians in refugee camps outside its borders. The US supports and funds this country. This year it gave it a blank cheque to continue its repression of its enemies. It uses US military hardware to bulldoze homes and kill civilians. It is called Israel and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon. Needless to say, the US does not mention the UN resolutions that Israel has ignored for 30 years; it just continues sending the money."

Plibersek recanted this flawless analysis in 2011:

"Ms Plibersek told The Australian in 2011 that she no longer held such views and had spoken 'injudiciouslly'. Like most Labor Part members and supporters, I'm in favour of a two-state solution, she said." (Israel attack threatens Tanya Plibersek's choice of foreign affairs, Ben Packham, The Australian, 16/10/13)

Now, having put her hand up for the shadow foreign affairs portfolio, she's recanted again - apparently bowing to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's demand that she "make amends" by "publicly retract[ing] those statements." (ibid):

"A spokesman for Ms Plibersek confirmed yesterday that she still stood by her 2011 comments." (Carr set to quit Senate in a week, Mark Coultan & Joe Kelly, The Australian, 17/10/13)

Can a penitential pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Sderot and Yad Vashem be too far off?

Amazing Rose

The Rose Jackson saga continues. For those new to the amazing story of how young Rose pulled off a St Paul on the road to... Jerusalem, just click on the Rose Jackson tag at the end of this post.

Rose is to speak today at a "political-training seminar organised by the NSW Australasian Union of Jewish Students" at Shalom College in Kensington (to be continued on 23/9/08 at NSW Parliament House). She will be sharing the platform with such luminaries as NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal, education minister Verity Firth, Liberal Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell, shadow attorney-general Greg Smith, Coogee MP Paul Pearce , Liberal MLC David Clarke, NSW Jewish Board of deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council director of international and community affairs Jeremy Jones, Woollhara councillor Anthony Boskovitz, former Waverley Council ALP candidate Luke Whittington and others. What a line up!

But all eyes will no doubt be on Rose, whose participation was introduced thus by The Australian Jewish News: "... controversial figure Rose Jackson, councillor George Newhouse's former campaign manager, who copped flack in the press last year [ meaning The Australian] for espousing anti-Zionism. Jackson has since recanted her comments and is tipped to nab a seat on Waverley Council based on initial polling results from last week's local council elections." (Politicos to address AUJS, 19/9/08)

As I wasn't invited, I can only guess at this stage what tune Rose will be singing. Amazing Grace, perhaps? 'Amazing grace/How sweet the sound/ That saved a wretch like me/I once was lost/But now I'm found/Was blind/But now I see'.

A Rose by Any Other Name

[To be read in conjunction with my earlier posts on the Rose Jackson saga: A Faustian Bargain (25/8/08) & Working Out the Mechanics of Our Relationship (18/1/08).]

"The rising Labor star and Waverley Council candidate, Rose Jackson, had an early baptism in politics as campaign manager on George Newhouse's high-profile tilt for Wentworth during the last federal election. Ms Jackson, who was then 22, awoke one morning to a damning front-page story in The Australian accusing her of espousing anti-Zionism in an online student discussion forum. 'I went straight into the bathroom and vomited', she said yesterday. 'I knew I had been misrepresented in such a fundamental way... it not only made me question why I was in politics, it made me feel like my career was over'." (Energy & charisma may take Jackson to a council seat, Josephine Tovey, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/9/08)

Let's get this straight. Rose was heaving over her toilet bowl after reading The Australian. As you would. Specifically, however, after reading a "damning" story "accusing" her of "espousing anti-Zionism." Oh no, not that, not anti-Zionism! Not opposition to colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, racism, collective narcissism, and general swaggering thuggery!

Guess it just wasn't your day, Rose.

Update: This popped up in The Australian's Cut & Paste of 12/9/08: "Would-be Labor councillor Rose Jackson claims in The Sydney Morning Herald that she was "fundamentally misrepresented" in The Australian: [insert above quote from the Herald] But in an article in The Australian on August 23, Jackson admits she did espouse anti-Zionism as a student activist: 'Rose Jackson said two years ago she opposed Zionism because it calls for the creation of a Jewish state, 'and I think all governments should be secular. No Jewish, Islamic, Christian states... in the world, just good, robust, secular democracies'. 'Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense', she told The Australian Jewish News this week. 'I realise I just misunderstood'."

You're branded for life, Rose.

A Faustian Bargain

A Moral Principle met a Material Interest on a bridge wide enough for but one.
"Down, you base thing!" thundered the Moral Principle, "and let me pass over you!"
The Material Interest merely looked in the other's eyes without saying anything.
"Ah," said the Moral Principle, hestitatingly, "let us draw lots to see which shall retire till the other has crossed."
The Material Interest maintained an unbroken silence and an unwavering stare.
"In order to avoid a conflict," the Moral Principle resumed, somewhat uneasily, "I shall myself lie down and let you walk over me."
Then the Material Interest found a tongue, and by a strange coincidence it was its own tongue. "I don't think you are very good walking," it said. "I am a little particular about what I have underfoot. Suppose you get off into the water."
It occurred that way.

The Moral Principle & the Material Interest - Ambrose Bierce

The Australian's Zionist enforcers cannot rest until those who've strayed from the party line have been rounded up and returned to the ideological fold. Former National Union of Students (NUS) prez Rose (daughter of Liz) Jackson was one such. Their vindictiveness towards her has been documented in my 30/7/08 post The Bile Duct of the Nation. But, now that she's finally been corralled, will all be forgiven? Read all about it:

ALP candidate rues anti-Zionist stance read the headline in The Australian of 23/8/08. "Rose Jackson, the former campaign manager for failed Labor candidate George Newhouse, has retracted anti-Zionist statements she made in 2006 as she attempts to clinch a seat on a Sydney local council with a large proportion of Jewish voters."

Jackson's crime? As NUS president, she had sent an email to a chat room 2 years ago, saying that "she opposed Zionism because it calls for the creation of a Jewish state, 'and I think all governments should be secular. No Jewish, Islamic, Christian states anywhere in the world, just good, robust, secular democracies. By speaking out on behalf of the Palestinians and Lebanese people, we can give voice to those that some governments would wish to silence'."

Oh, dear! Jackson's now backpeddling furiously. Her comments back then, she says, were "naive. Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense. I realise I just misunderstood. Obviously, the state of Israel is not a state for the Jewish religion, but a homeland for the Jewish people. It's a really robust democracy; there are plenty of non-Jewish people in Israel who have full citizenship rights. If there's discrimination, it's no worse than what would happen in Australia or America or anywhere else. I completely support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state."

Jackson was rewarded by a pat on the head from Vic Alhadeff, CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies: "It would have been very easy for Ms Jackson to go along with the anti-Semitism of the far Left when she was president of the NUS. Instead she chose the politically unpopular and risky path of speaking out against the anti-Semitism of the far Left, and she deserves credit for that." Should she not be consigned to the political dustbin at the upcoming council elections on September 13 Jackson can perhaps look forward to (a) a right rambamming* in Israel; (b) an open door into state/federal politics; (c) further rambamming in Israel; and (d) heaps of photo-ops with lobby movers & shakers.

[*Rambam (v) To be sponsored by smooth-talking Israel lobbyists in Australia on a grooming session by tough-talking PR people in Israel with a view to adopting the missionary position for Israel when required in Australia. Usually said of Australian politicians, media hacks and other serviceable community misleaders.]

Jackson's climb-down and Alhadeff's spin warrant analysis. To begin with the latter. Alhadeff's words (and Jackson's) imply that, as NUS prez, she was easily manipulated. He says by an evil anti-Semitic entity known as the "far Left." She, by the influence of "the prevailing polemic on campus at the time." These two really need to sort this out. Either way, however, the implication is clear - the lady's mere putty in the hands of others. Perfect pollie material! Also, Alhadeff couldn't be clearer on the subject of anti-Semitism. His words falsely imply that to oppose the concept of a Jewish state in Palestine is to be an anti-Semite. Ipso facto, Jackson was once an anti-Semite. Having recanted, however, she can now presumably be described as a reformed anti-Semite. Howling nonsense, of course, but why expose yourself to such implied smears?

Let's now examine the 'intellectual' baggage Jackson's now taken on:

"The state of Israel is not a state for the Jewish religion, but a homeland for the Jewish people."

Yes, that's the Zionist line. And for those who toe it, Israel belongs not just to those who live there, a majority of whom are Jews, but to Jews wherever they are, whether practising or not, whether desirous of living there or not. The only requirement to take up Israeli citizenship is to have a Jewish mother/grandmother. However, if you were born there, or your parents or grandparents were born there (as is the case for the now millions of Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugees descended from the population expelled by Zionist forces under cover of war in 1948), but your mother/grandmother isn't Jewish, stiff cheddar - stay away. So, in return for accepting the Zionist belief (which has no basis in international law) that there exists an entity called "the Jewish people", whose only real home is Israel, one must accept the continued exclusion of millions of non-Jews from that place, despite their real and proven connection to it, and despite their right to return to it being grounded in international law.

"[Israel's] a really robust democracy."

Only superficially. Jackson is ignorant of, or chooses to overlook, the fact that Israel is both democracy and Jewish (ie having a Jewish majority) simply because 750,000 indigenous non-Jews were expelled from its territory in 1948. For Israel to be a genuine democracy it would have to allow back in and give the vote to those millions of Palestinian refugees now disenfranchised and stateless beyond its borders. Israel's "really robust democracy" is based on one almighty Israeli-engineered gerrymander.

"There are plenty of non-Jewish people in Israel who have full citizenship rights."

Jackson again is either ignorant of, or chooses to ignore, the fact that those "non-Jewish people," the indigenous rump that somehow managed to avoid being expelled in 1948, do not have the same citizenship rights as Israeli Jews. Yes, they have have an equal vote. Yes, there are Palestinian Arabs in the Israeli parliament. And yes, (at least in principle) they have equal standing before the law. However, they do not have the same inheritance rights, the same access to the material resources of the state (notably, land - 93% of which is off limits to non-Jewish citizens - and water), or the same access to welfare resources (such as religious services and child benefits) as Israeli Jews. Chapter 3 of Uri Davis' invaluable Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (2003) documents this fundamental inequality in citizenship rights between Israel's Jewish and non-Jewish citizens.

"If there is discrimination, it's no worse than what would happen in Australia..."

If there is discrimination!? Jackson's assertion is total nonsense. As Davis reveals, Israel is actually an apartheid state in that it discriminates in law between its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. This is because it has incorporated the exclusivist constitutional stipulations (such as "land acquired as Jewish property"/"the inalienable property of the Jewish people"/"Jewish labour") of the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund into Israeli law. Needless to say, there is no such distinction in Australian law between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. And not only are there no indigenous Australian refugees living in exile, but there are no indigenous Australians living under military occupation.

"I completely support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state."

Let's be clear about this: in supporting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, Jackson supports its right to discriminate by law against its indigenous Palestinian Arab population, whether they be second class citizens inside pre-1967 Israel, under Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, or stateless exiles since 1948.

No political post is worth your soul, Rose.