So much to record. So little time. Here's one I've so far had to put on hold. It concerns the woes of, in the words of the appended bio to the opinion piece I'm about to highlight, "Jamal Rifi AM is a Lebanese-born Australian citizen who runs a medical practice in Sydney. He is a prominent member of the Lebanese Muslim community and was awarded The Australian newspaper's Australian of the year in 2015. https://projectrozana.org/"
Dr Rifi's woes are connected with his involvement in Project Rozana, but I'll leave it to him to relate them, as he has in a 31/5/19 opinion piece in The Australian, The children are all that count: Politics & Religion have no role on Project Rozana, where healthcare is paramount:
"During the past two weeks I have been subjected to an enormous amount of abuse from people whose agenda runs counter to mine Most of that abuse has appeared in Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, an influential Arabic language newspaper affiliated with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the country of my birth."
Now if I may interrupt here to clarify the status of Al-Akhbar. Asad Abukhalil, aka The Angry Arab, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, has not only been a contributor to Al-Akhbar's pages but has had something of a love-hate relationship with the paper over the years, making him something of an objective source on the subject. Here, for example, are just two of his blog (The Angry Arab News Service) posts on Al-Akhbar:
"Ignorant Western correspondents who can't read Arabic refer to Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar, as 'Hizbullah's paper'. Here is a supplement on Lenin published by the paper. You think Hizbullah likes Lenin?" (Al-Akhbar has a special supplement on Lenin: and you think that a Hizbullah paper would honour Lenin and Bolsheviks? November 13, 2017)
"Al-Akhbar's publisher, Ibrahim Al-Amin, published a scathing critique of Hizbullah and its corrupt role in Lebanese domestic politics. He takes on the party for its reluctance to engage in social justice struggle. But the party is not a progressive party so it is not surprising to me." (Criticisms of Hizbullah's political role in Al-Akhbar, September 15, 2017)
Having, I hope, clarified that Al-Akhbar is emphatically not "affiliated" with Hizbullah, let us return to the words of Dr Rifi:
"I have even been referred to the military court in Lebanon in a poorly disguised attempt to discredit me and silence my brother in Beirut, Major-General Achraf Rifi, a former director-general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, former minister of justice and an outspoken critic of Hezbollah and its masters in Iran." (ibid)
(What Dr Rifi does not divulge here is that his brother has "close ties to Saudi Arabia." (See Wikipedia entry for Achraf/Ashraf Rifi.))
"The abuse is directed at my involvement with Project Rozana, a humanitarian organisation that started in Australia in 2013 and is active in the US, Canada, Israel and Palestinian territory. I joined as a director in 2017. Among my fellow directors are inspirational communal leaders of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths... Our single-minded desire is to build bridges to better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians through health... A cornerstone of Project Rozana is to provide lifesaving treatment for Palestinian children and to build the health capacity of Palestinian society... It's about the children... So why am I accused of promoting a policy of 'normalisation' between Palestinians and Israelis? Why have I become the punching bag of people in Australia and Lebanon who regard any affiliation with Jews, let alone professed Zionists, as being haram (forbidden according to Islamic law)? [...] During my 2017 visit [to Israel], I was privileged to meet Palestinian and Israeli volunteers who each day drive critically and chronically ill Palestinian children from their homes in the West Bank to the checkpoints and from these checkpoints to hospitals in Israel... This is a lifesaving service in the real sense of the word." (ibid)
You'll note here that there is no mention of taking critically ill children from Gaza to Israel for medical treatment. The case of Aisha a-Lulu, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14/6/19 under the title A little girl lost in Gaza politics (Isabel Debre & Fares Akram) is a case in point. Here are the relevant extracts from that piece:
"When Palestinian preschooler Aisha a-Lulu came out of brain surgery in a strange Jerusalem hospital room, she called out for her mother and father. She repeated the cry over and over, but her parents never came. Instead of a family member, Israeli authorities had approved a stranger to escort Aisha from the blockaded Gaza Strip to the east Jerusalem hospital. As her condition deteriorated, the child was returned to Gaza unconscious. One week later, she was dead... So far this year, about half of applications for patient companion permits were rejected or left unanswered by Israel, according to the World Health Organisation. That has forced more than 600 patients, including some dozen children, to leave the territory alone or without close family. [...] The Shin Bet [Israel's FBI] declined to comment on the case. But in a statement, it emphasised Israel's security concerns about Gaza patients and their companions. 'The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip, headed by Hamas, are working tirelessly to cynically exploit the humanitarian and medical assistance provided by Israel,' it said. Efrat, of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said he was confident that 'most of these rejections are arbitrary'."
Which begs the question: why isn't Dr Rifi's Project Rozana involved in cases like that of Aisha a-Lulu in Gaza? If Project Rozana has the ability to do what it does in the West Bank, with gravely ill Palestinian children such as Rozana, who have their parents by their side in hospital, then why doesn't the same pertain in Gaza? Has Dr Rifi ever raised the matter of gravely ill children from Gaza with Project Rozana? If so, what was their response? And if he hasn't raised the matter, why not?
Showing posts with label Shin Bet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shin Bet. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Playing With Fire in Jerusalem: 2014 & 1929
Yesterday's attack by two Palestinians on a West Jerusalem synagogue is a stark reminder that those Israelis who would mess with the status quo on occupied Arab East Jerusalem's Haram ash-Sharif are playing with fire. This has been acknowledged by no less than the head of Israel's Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen:
"While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly points an accusing finger at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Israel's top secret security service said Tuesday he did not believe Abbas was responsible for the current round of terror and violence... According to the Shin Bet head, the central factors behind the current violence were the murder of Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir... and attempts by Israeli legislators to change the status-quo on the Temple Mount. According to Cohen, visits by right-wing MKs and attempts to introduce legislation which would change the status quo on the flashpoint holy site were the main factors for rising tensions in East Jerusalem... 'The religious aspect which latches onto the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict is very dangerous and volatile because it has implications on the Palestinians and Muslims around the world. We must do everything we can to defuse the current tensions,' Cohen said." (Shin Bet chief: Abbas is not inciting terror, Attila Somfalvi, ynetnews.com, 18/11/14)
Those possessing more than a nodding acquaintance with modern Palestinian history may recall the events in Jerusalem and Hebron of August 1929 and see a parallel with the situation today. The following vivid account of those events is by American journalist Vincent Sheean:
"The disorders of Friday resulted in many deaths among both Jews and Arabs (the Arabs including Christians as well as Moslems), and the impulse of murder continued for a week. At the end of the terror the official roll for Jerusalem was: 29 Jews and 38 Arabs killed, 43 Jews and 51 Arabs wounded...
"The horrors of Friday in Jerusalem were followed by something much worse: the ghastly outbreak at Hebron, where 64 Jews of the old-fashioned religious community were slaughtered and 54 of them wounded. Hebron was one of the four holy cities of Judaism, and had a small, constant Jewish population since medieval days. These were not Zionists at all; a more innocent and harmless group of people could not have been found in Palestine; many of them were Oriental Jews, and all were religious. They had had nothing to do with the Zionist excesses [in Jerusalem], and had lived in amity with their Arab neighbours up to that day. But when the Arabs of Hebron - an unruly lot, at best - heard that Arabs were being killed by Jews in Jerusalem, and that the Mosque of Omar was in danger, they went mad... the Jewish houses were rushed by the mob, and there was an hour of slashing, killing, stabbing, burning and looting...
"I cannot, at this late date, go through all the story of that week; it has been told over and over again... At the end of the disturbances the official British casualty lists showed 207 dead and 379 wounded among the population of Palestine, of which the dead included 87 Arabs (Christian and Moslem) and 120 Jews, the wounded 181 Arabs and 198 Jews...
"The effort to be an efficient, unemotional newspaper correspondent was difficult to the point of impossibility. Living as I did without sleep and without rest, eating little, and that at the weirdest hours, I should probably have collapsed in time simply from physical exhaustion. But there was a great deal more in it than that. I was bitterly indignant with the Zionists for having, as I believed, brought on this disaster*; I was shocked into hysteria by the ferocity of the Arab anger; and I was aghast at the inadequacy of the British government. I knew that the Moslem authorities were trying to quell the storm, and that the British officials were doing their best against appalling difficulties; I also assumed that the responsible Zionist leaders (none of whom were in Palestine then) had done what they could. But all around me were the visible evidences of their failure. Although I had spent a good part of my life amid scenes of violence and was no stranger to the sight of blood and dying men, I had never overcome my loathing for the spectacle even when it seemed, as in some of the conflicts I had witnessed, compelled by historical necessity. But here, in this miserable little country, no bigger, in relation to the rest of the world, than the tip of your finger in relation to your body, I could see no historical necessity whatever. The country was tiny and already inhabited: why couldn't the Zionists leave it alone? It would never hold enough Jews to make even a beginning towards the solution of the Jewish problem; it would always be a prey to such ghastly horrors as those I saw every day and every night: religion, the eternal intransigence of religion, ensured that the problem could never be solved. The Holy Land seemed as near an approximation of hell on earth as I had ever seen." (Personal History, 1935; quoted in From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism & the Palestine Problem Until 1948, Edited by Walid Khalidi, 1971, pp 298-300)
Britain's 1930 Shaw Commission, charged with the task of investigating these events, concluded that their immediate cause was: "The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall... but the incident among them which in our view contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on 15 August 1929."
"The fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would not have been little more than a local riot," the Commission concluded, "is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future... The feeling as it exists today is based on the twofold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and in time pass under the political domination of the Jews."
If, for Sheehan, Palestine in 1929 was "as near an approximation of hell on earth as I had ever seen," one can only wonder what he'd make of it today.
[*These were the 'Maccabees', armed followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, godfather of Revisionist Zionism, the movement which, in its current Likud incarnation, now governs Israel. Netanyahu's fire-eating father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's secretary. See my 24/9/11 post Benzion, My Father.]
"While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly points an accusing finger at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Israel's top secret security service said Tuesday he did not believe Abbas was responsible for the current round of terror and violence... According to the Shin Bet head, the central factors behind the current violence were the murder of Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir... and attempts by Israeli legislators to change the status-quo on the Temple Mount. According to Cohen, visits by right-wing MKs and attempts to introduce legislation which would change the status quo on the flashpoint holy site were the main factors for rising tensions in East Jerusalem... 'The religious aspect which latches onto the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict is very dangerous and volatile because it has implications on the Palestinians and Muslims around the world. We must do everything we can to defuse the current tensions,' Cohen said." (Shin Bet chief: Abbas is not inciting terror, Attila Somfalvi, ynetnews.com, 18/11/14)
Those possessing more than a nodding acquaintance with modern Palestinian history may recall the events in Jerusalem and Hebron of August 1929 and see a parallel with the situation today. The following vivid account of those events is by American journalist Vincent Sheean:
"The disorders of Friday resulted in many deaths among both Jews and Arabs (the Arabs including Christians as well as Moslems), and the impulse of murder continued for a week. At the end of the terror the official roll for Jerusalem was: 29 Jews and 38 Arabs killed, 43 Jews and 51 Arabs wounded...
"The horrors of Friday in Jerusalem were followed by something much worse: the ghastly outbreak at Hebron, where 64 Jews of the old-fashioned religious community were slaughtered and 54 of them wounded. Hebron was one of the four holy cities of Judaism, and had a small, constant Jewish population since medieval days. These were not Zionists at all; a more innocent and harmless group of people could not have been found in Palestine; many of them were Oriental Jews, and all were religious. They had had nothing to do with the Zionist excesses [in Jerusalem], and had lived in amity with their Arab neighbours up to that day. But when the Arabs of Hebron - an unruly lot, at best - heard that Arabs were being killed by Jews in Jerusalem, and that the Mosque of Omar was in danger, they went mad... the Jewish houses were rushed by the mob, and there was an hour of slashing, killing, stabbing, burning and looting...
"I cannot, at this late date, go through all the story of that week; it has been told over and over again... At the end of the disturbances the official British casualty lists showed 207 dead and 379 wounded among the population of Palestine, of which the dead included 87 Arabs (Christian and Moslem) and 120 Jews, the wounded 181 Arabs and 198 Jews...
"The effort to be an efficient, unemotional newspaper correspondent was difficult to the point of impossibility. Living as I did without sleep and without rest, eating little, and that at the weirdest hours, I should probably have collapsed in time simply from physical exhaustion. But there was a great deal more in it than that. I was bitterly indignant with the Zionists for having, as I believed, brought on this disaster*; I was shocked into hysteria by the ferocity of the Arab anger; and I was aghast at the inadequacy of the British government. I knew that the Moslem authorities were trying to quell the storm, and that the British officials were doing their best against appalling difficulties; I also assumed that the responsible Zionist leaders (none of whom were in Palestine then) had done what they could. But all around me were the visible evidences of their failure. Although I had spent a good part of my life amid scenes of violence and was no stranger to the sight of blood and dying men, I had never overcome my loathing for the spectacle even when it seemed, as in some of the conflicts I had witnessed, compelled by historical necessity. But here, in this miserable little country, no bigger, in relation to the rest of the world, than the tip of your finger in relation to your body, I could see no historical necessity whatever. The country was tiny and already inhabited: why couldn't the Zionists leave it alone? It would never hold enough Jews to make even a beginning towards the solution of the Jewish problem; it would always be a prey to such ghastly horrors as those I saw every day and every night: religion, the eternal intransigence of religion, ensured that the problem could never be solved. The Holy Land seemed as near an approximation of hell on earth as I had ever seen." (Personal History, 1935; quoted in From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism & the Palestine Problem Until 1948, Edited by Walid Khalidi, 1971, pp 298-300)
Britain's 1930 Shaw Commission, charged with the task of investigating these events, concluded that their immediate cause was: "The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall... but the incident among them which in our view contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on 15 August 1929."
"The fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would not have been little more than a local riot," the Commission concluded, "is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future... The feeling as it exists today is based on the twofold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and in time pass under the political domination of the Jews."
If, for Sheehan, Palestine in 1929 was "as near an approximation of hell on earth as I had ever seen," one can only wonder what he'd make of it today.
[*These were the 'Maccabees', armed followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, godfather of Revisionist Zionism, the movement which, in its current Likud incarnation, now governs Israel. Netanyahu's fire-eating father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's secretary. See my 24/9/11 post Benzion, My Father.]
Monday, November 10, 2014
Geraldine Doogue, Rapt
Seems like Geraldine Doogue just can't get through her Saturday Extra slot on Radio National without some of that good old Israeli PR stuff:
"Israel's surveillance relies almost entirely on human intelligence, primarily Palestinians living in the occupied territories, that are recruited by Israel's secret security service Shin Bet. One of the most notorious cases involves the son of a Hamas founder, 17-year-old Mosab Hassan Yousef, who was recruited in the late 1990s to spy on his own people for over a decade. He was given the code name The Green Prince. And his relationship with his Israeli handler Gonen Itzhak was unconventional to say the least. A new documentary screening in Australia this week brings Mosab Yousef's story to the screen for the first time." (The Green Prince)
Awesome!
"He was groomed to be a future leader of Hamas," exulted her guest, Israeli film maker Nadav Schirman, "he is a real prince of Hamas."
"The story of [his] relationship [with his handler]," Schirman explained, "is a story of hope, of friendship transcending politics."
Geraldine, of course, gets the wobblies with just about any Israeli guest but how could this one have known about her childhood passion for fairy tales? Spooky!
"When you're in Ramallah," she gushed, "you can see Jerusalem. You can touch it. Now that can be a threat... or an unbelievable possibility."
Back in Jerusalem, knuckle-dragging Jewish mobs may have been combing the streets, baying for Arab blood, but nothing could penetrate the charmed circle inhabited by Geraldine and her guest at the RN studio here in Sydney.
"We [colonising Israelis and colonised Palestinians, that is] are very close," he rhapsodised, "sons and daughters of the same region."
Fabulous!
Incredibly, Geraldine managed to shake the spell just long enough to venture the following observation:
"We, my producer and I, were intrigued by the psychological profile of Mosab himself and we didn't necessarily feel your film asked all those questions about whether this man was a stable man. He did this betrayal of his own people. As he said: 'To work for Israel is worse than raping your own mother' so he did this amazing betrayal and I still couldn't quite understand why."
Which led to the following extraordinary riff by Schirman, so extraordinary that I am compelled to interrupt with a succession of reality checks where required lest Shin Bet HQ be inundated with half-witted Hamas terrorists hammering on its door and demanding some of what Mosab's on. Oh, and also because the lovely Geraldine was obviously so smitten the last thing that would have occurred to her was to interrupt his flow with a question - if you know what I mean:
"This is at the heart of the film because when you talk to Shin Bet agents and handlers, motivation, why would somebody work for Israel? Why would a source betray their own people and work for the enemy? That's the motivation... Motivation is something that evolves over time so that there's not one reason why Mosab did it... Now when you see the film... you'll see that his first motivation was revenge. He said, 'Yes, I'll work for the Israelis because I wanna kill one.' Then he's sent to prison as part of his cover and then he realises Hamas is torturing their own people for no reason..."
Right, so its Hamas, not Shin Bet, that does the torturing. So glad we got that one right.
"... so he's confused because he grew up to be a prince in Hamas..."
Notice how what began as a code word has taken on a life of its own with Schirman.
"... and then he goes to meet the Shin Bet again expecting them to be manipulating him but no, they're like, no listen, you've gotta be a good student, you've gotta respect your parents, you've gotta be a good Muslim, pray 5 times a day, you've gotta finish your school, and he's confused but he's very curious."
Sucked in!
"You have to understand Mosab grew up in a devout Muslim family. The first time he saw a movie was when he was 22. All he knew was Islam, and all of a sudden the Shin Bet handlers are teaching him about democracy, the rule of law, they're teaching him about the constitution... about philosophy."
Schirman's tripping here.
Democracy? For Palestinians?
The rule of law? For Palestinians?
The constitution? Israel doesn't have one FFS!
Philosophy? Give me a break!
"His mind is expanding so he's learning a lot..."
Now I did say Schirman's tripping, didn't I?
"... and then he's a kid and he gets to play James Bond."
Hang on, I thought he'd been groomed to be a prince? What's this James Bond nonsense? So much for the efficacy of Hamas grooming.
"You know, the Palestinians of the West Bank lived under Israeli occupation so there's a lot of barriers."
This must have come as something of a revelation to Geraldine.
"They can't go everywhere they want but he has a special permit, he can go everywhere. There's freedom, there's power, another motivation. There's the excitement and most important as he grows as a young man internally he comes to understand that he's doing the right thing. He's preventing terror attacks so he's helping not only the Israelis, the Americans, the Australians who happen to be visiting and sitting on a bus and can be blown up."
So Shin Bet dungeon's are really just reform schools for wayward Palestinian youths who didn't know right from wrong until ripped from their beds at 2 pm in the morning by Shin Bet operatives, sorry, educators?
"He's also helping his own people because of the retaliation cycle..."
Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate, Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate, Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate... got that listeners?
"... so he believes he's doing the right thing, and most importantly, I asked him, 'Mosab, how can you sleep under the same roof as your parents and betray them' and he's like 'I was earning money, I was putting food on the table of my family. The fact that I worked for the Israelis kept my father alive. My father was on the kill list. The fact that I collaborated with the Israelis helped keep him alive so am I a traitor or am I helping them?'"
There you go... the only way for a Palestinian youth to get his Dad off the Shin Bet kill list is to agree to inform on him. Right...
"One just has to open their mind and understand him."
Geraldine: Hm...
Seeing Geraldine's completely lost for words, which is kind of unusual for her to say the least, allow me to ask the bleeding obvious of Schirman: Nadav, since Mosab's now shacked up with Israel's bitch, aka the USA, and experimenting with Christianity and yoga,* does that mean Dad's back on the Shin Bet kill list? Oh, and If Israel's so hot, why isn't Mosab living there? Hm?
[*"I believe by daily [yoga] practice every morning and breathing to clear our minds from pollution, from all type of mental intoxications, we are able to handle the challenges of life, the challenges of the mind that we create for ourselves, better." (Mosab Hassan Yousef, quoted in Yoga, Hamas & hope: The story behind The Green Prince, Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post, 24/5/14)]
"Israel's surveillance relies almost entirely on human intelligence, primarily Palestinians living in the occupied territories, that are recruited by Israel's secret security service Shin Bet. One of the most notorious cases involves the son of a Hamas founder, 17-year-old Mosab Hassan Yousef, who was recruited in the late 1990s to spy on his own people for over a decade. He was given the code name The Green Prince. And his relationship with his Israeli handler Gonen Itzhak was unconventional to say the least. A new documentary screening in Australia this week brings Mosab Yousef's story to the screen for the first time." (The Green Prince)
Awesome!
"He was groomed to be a future leader of Hamas," exulted her guest, Israeli film maker Nadav Schirman, "he is a real prince of Hamas."
"The story of [his] relationship [with his handler]," Schirman explained, "is a story of hope, of friendship transcending politics."
Geraldine, of course, gets the wobblies with just about any Israeli guest but how could this one have known about her childhood passion for fairy tales? Spooky!
"When you're in Ramallah," she gushed, "you can see Jerusalem. You can touch it. Now that can be a threat... or an unbelievable possibility."
Back in Jerusalem, knuckle-dragging Jewish mobs may have been combing the streets, baying for Arab blood, but nothing could penetrate the charmed circle inhabited by Geraldine and her guest at the RN studio here in Sydney.
"We [colonising Israelis and colonised Palestinians, that is] are very close," he rhapsodised, "sons and daughters of the same region."
Fabulous!
Incredibly, Geraldine managed to shake the spell just long enough to venture the following observation:
"We, my producer and I, were intrigued by the psychological profile of Mosab himself and we didn't necessarily feel your film asked all those questions about whether this man was a stable man. He did this betrayal of his own people. As he said: 'To work for Israel is worse than raping your own mother' so he did this amazing betrayal and I still couldn't quite understand why."
Which led to the following extraordinary riff by Schirman, so extraordinary that I am compelled to interrupt with a succession of reality checks where required lest Shin Bet HQ be inundated with half-witted Hamas terrorists hammering on its door and demanding some of what Mosab's on. Oh, and also because the lovely Geraldine was obviously so smitten the last thing that would have occurred to her was to interrupt his flow with a question - if you know what I mean:
"This is at the heart of the film because when you talk to Shin Bet agents and handlers, motivation, why would somebody work for Israel? Why would a source betray their own people and work for the enemy? That's the motivation... Motivation is something that evolves over time so that there's not one reason why Mosab did it... Now when you see the film... you'll see that his first motivation was revenge. He said, 'Yes, I'll work for the Israelis because I wanna kill one.' Then he's sent to prison as part of his cover and then he realises Hamas is torturing their own people for no reason..."
Right, so its Hamas, not Shin Bet, that does the torturing. So glad we got that one right.
"... so he's confused because he grew up to be a prince in Hamas..."
Notice how what began as a code word has taken on a life of its own with Schirman.
"... and then he goes to meet the Shin Bet again expecting them to be manipulating him but no, they're like, no listen, you've gotta be a good student, you've gotta respect your parents, you've gotta be a good Muslim, pray 5 times a day, you've gotta finish your school, and he's confused but he's very curious."
Sucked in!
"You have to understand Mosab grew up in a devout Muslim family. The first time he saw a movie was when he was 22. All he knew was Islam, and all of a sudden the Shin Bet handlers are teaching him about democracy, the rule of law, they're teaching him about the constitution... about philosophy."
Schirman's tripping here.
Democracy? For Palestinians?
The rule of law? For Palestinians?
The constitution? Israel doesn't have one FFS!
Philosophy? Give me a break!
"His mind is expanding so he's learning a lot..."
Now I did say Schirman's tripping, didn't I?
"... and then he's a kid and he gets to play James Bond."
Hang on, I thought he'd been groomed to be a prince? What's this James Bond nonsense? So much for the efficacy of Hamas grooming.
"You know, the Palestinians of the West Bank lived under Israeli occupation so there's a lot of barriers."
This must have come as something of a revelation to Geraldine.
"They can't go everywhere they want but he has a special permit, he can go everywhere. There's freedom, there's power, another motivation. There's the excitement and most important as he grows as a young man internally he comes to understand that he's doing the right thing. He's preventing terror attacks so he's helping not only the Israelis, the Americans, the Australians who happen to be visiting and sitting on a bus and can be blown up."
So Shin Bet dungeon's are really just reform schools for wayward Palestinian youths who didn't know right from wrong until ripped from their beds at 2 pm in the morning by Shin Bet operatives, sorry, educators?
"He's also helping his own people because of the retaliation cycle..."
Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate, Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate, Palestinians attack, Israelis retaliate... got that listeners?
"... so he believes he's doing the right thing, and most importantly, I asked him, 'Mosab, how can you sleep under the same roof as your parents and betray them' and he's like 'I was earning money, I was putting food on the table of my family. The fact that I worked for the Israelis kept my father alive. My father was on the kill list. The fact that I collaborated with the Israelis helped keep him alive so am I a traitor or am I helping them?'"
There you go... the only way for a Palestinian youth to get his Dad off the Shin Bet kill list is to agree to inform on him. Right...
"One just has to open their mind and understand him."
Geraldine: Hm...
Seeing Geraldine's completely lost for words, which is kind of unusual for her to say the least, allow me to ask the bleeding obvious of Schirman: Nadav, since Mosab's now shacked up with Israel's bitch, aka the USA, and experimenting with Christianity and yoga,* does that mean Dad's back on the Shin Bet kill list? Oh, and If Israel's so hot, why isn't Mosab living there? Hm?
[*"I believe by daily [yoga] practice every morning and breathing to clear our minds from pollution, from all type of mental intoxications, we are able to handle the challenges of life, the challenges of the mind that we create for ourselves, better." (Mosab Hassan Yousef, quoted in Yoga, Hamas & hope: The story behind The Green Prince, Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post, 24/5/14)]
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Who Am I to Demur?
Chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and NSW Human Rights Award judging panelist, Vic Alhadeff (said panel having just been chosen by no less a luminary than NSW Premier Baruch O'Farrell*) had an opinion piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.
Now in case you missed it, here are the opening lines:
"I'm a Seinfeld aficionado. I've watched every episode a ridiculous number of times, yet still find the humour brilliant. But then there's 'The Soup Nazi' - an episode about a surly delicatessen owner who refuses to serve customers who flout his excessive rules of decorum. It's witty and well scripted, but it commits a cardinal offence: it trivialises the meaning of what a Nazi is, and in doing so degrades the language associated with those who devised, planned and perpetrated the most grotesque genocide in history." (Don't call me a Nazi-Nazi: trivialising a word sends the wrong message about a genocidal regime, 17/5/13)
Got the idea?
Of course, Alhadeff has no such problem with the trivialisation of the word 'anti-Semitic', which once meant simply 'hatred of Jews as Jews', but is now routinely deployed by Zionist propagandists to blunt and deflect perfectly justified criticism of apartheid Israel and its ruling Zionist ideology. Nor, for that matter, did he have any problem, as far as we know, with the BDS movement being smeared as quasi-Nazi during the BDS 'debate' in the NSW Legislative Council in September 2011, despite being present in the visitors gallery throughout. (See my Witches Brew series from 17/9/11 to 17/12/11.)
Be that as it may, I was later reminded of Alhadeff's opinion piece when reading a review by Jordan Mainzer of the new Israeli film The Gatekeepers, which features the reflections of 6 former heads of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet.
In his review, Mainzer quoted Avraham Shalom, head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986, saying that "the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a 'brutal force, similar to the Germans in World War II'." (Is occupation sustainable? Thoughts on Dror Moreh's 'The Gatekeepers', huffingtonpost.com, 25/3/13)
My first reaction was: Sort of leaves Seinfeld's 'Soup Nazi' in the shade, doesn't it?
But then, on further reflection, I began to have doubts. After all, I thought, what would a former head of Shin Bet know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine? I mean, if the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor, in his/her infinite wisdom, thinks that Alhadeff on Nazis is good enough for its readership, and if Baruch O'Farrell, in his infinite wisdom, thinks Alhadeff's the right man to size up contenders for a prestigious human rights award, who am I to demur?
[*See my 9/5/13 post Barry to Baruch in 60 Seconds.]
Now in case you missed it, here are the opening lines:
"I'm a Seinfeld aficionado. I've watched every episode a ridiculous number of times, yet still find the humour brilliant. But then there's 'The Soup Nazi' - an episode about a surly delicatessen owner who refuses to serve customers who flout his excessive rules of decorum. It's witty and well scripted, but it commits a cardinal offence: it trivialises the meaning of what a Nazi is, and in doing so degrades the language associated with those who devised, planned and perpetrated the most grotesque genocide in history." (Don't call me a Nazi-Nazi: trivialising a word sends the wrong message about a genocidal regime, 17/5/13)
Got the idea?
Of course, Alhadeff has no such problem with the trivialisation of the word 'anti-Semitic', which once meant simply 'hatred of Jews as Jews', but is now routinely deployed by Zionist propagandists to blunt and deflect perfectly justified criticism of apartheid Israel and its ruling Zionist ideology. Nor, for that matter, did he have any problem, as far as we know, with the BDS movement being smeared as quasi-Nazi during the BDS 'debate' in the NSW Legislative Council in September 2011, despite being present in the visitors gallery throughout. (See my Witches Brew series from 17/9/11 to 17/12/11.)
Be that as it may, I was later reminded of Alhadeff's opinion piece when reading a review by Jordan Mainzer of the new Israeli film The Gatekeepers, which features the reflections of 6 former heads of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet.
In his review, Mainzer quoted Avraham Shalom, head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986, saying that "the Israeli occupation of Palestine is a 'brutal force, similar to the Germans in World War II'." (Is occupation sustainable? Thoughts on Dror Moreh's 'The Gatekeepers', huffingtonpost.com, 25/3/13)
My first reaction was: Sort of leaves Seinfeld's 'Soup Nazi' in the shade, doesn't it?
But then, on further reflection, I began to have doubts. After all, I thought, what would a former head of Shin Bet know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine? I mean, if the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor, in his/her infinite wisdom, thinks that Alhadeff on Nazis is good enough for its readership, and if Baruch O'Farrell, in his infinite wisdom, thinks Alhadeff's the right man to size up contenders for a prestigious human rights award, who am I to demur?
[*See my 9/5/13 post Barry to Baruch in 60 Seconds.]
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Har-Zionistas
"The dark soul of the Bible has come alive among the sons of Nahalal and 'Ein Harod." Moshe Sharett
"Meanwhile, in the country as a whole, there developed around Unit 101 [1953-54] the aura of heroic legend. Its centrepiece was the Arab-fighter extraordinary, Meir Har-Zion. Two or three nights a week, for months on end, this young commando took part in reprisal raids, 'laconically killing Arab soldiers, peasants, and townspeople in a kind of fury without hatred'. He would introduce variations into a monotonous routine. Once, he and his comrades crossed the frontier, seized 6 Arabs, killed 5 of them with a knife as the others watched, and left the sixth alive so that he could tell. His private exploits revealed the same natural bent. On leave, and bored, he once made a daredevil foray deep into enemy territory; on his way back to Jerusalem he shot an Arab soldier on the main highway. Later his sister was killed by a bedouin on one of her own sorties into enemy territory. Har-Zion revenged her by killing two bedouins whom he deemed to be connected to her death. Eventually he was critically wounded in action; his life was saved by a battlefield tracheotomy performed with a penknife. His memoirs and numerous press interviews are the story of a man who can describe, with dry relish, what it is like to stab an Arab shepherd in the back - and who recommends that anyone who wishes for the 'marvellous, sublime feeling' of 'knowing that you are a male' should kill with a knife rather than a gun." (The Gun & the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst, 1977, p 183)
"Undercover Israeli intelligence officers appeared on national television Saturday to talk about assassinating Palestinians in a program broadcast on Israel's Channel 10. Oren Beaton presented a photo album of Palestinians he killed during his time as a commander of an undercover Israeli unit operating in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Beaton explained that he kept photos of his victims. 'This is a photo of a young Palestinian man called Basim Subeih who I killed. This is another young man. I shredded his body, and the photo shows the remnants of his body', he said. The TV program also featured an undercover agent referred to as 'D', who openly admitted killing 'wanted Palestinians'. He complained of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and said that the state had rejected his demands for compensation. The Channel 10 presenter appealed to the Israeli government to meet the agent's demands. 'Those are the Shin Bet agents we only hear about and never see, and thanks to them we live safely', she said... Agent 'D' said officers would... 'seize the target and wait until the commander arrives to confirm his identity. Then we shoot him'." (Israeli undercover agents boast of killing Palestinians on TV, maannews.net)
"Meanwhile, in the country as a whole, there developed around Unit 101 [1953-54] the aura of heroic legend. Its centrepiece was the Arab-fighter extraordinary, Meir Har-Zion. Two or three nights a week, for months on end, this young commando took part in reprisal raids, 'laconically killing Arab soldiers, peasants, and townspeople in a kind of fury without hatred'. He would introduce variations into a monotonous routine. Once, he and his comrades crossed the frontier, seized 6 Arabs, killed 5 of them with a knife as the others watched, and left the sixth alive so that he could tell. His private exploits revealed the same natural bent. On leave, and bored, he once made a daredevil foray deep into enemy territory; on his way back to Jerusalem he shot an Arab soldier on the main highway. Later his sister was killed by a bedouin on one of her own sorties into enemy territory. Har-Zion revenged her by killing two bedouins whom he deemed to be connected to her death. Eventually he was critically wounded in action; his life was saved by a battlefield tracheotomy performed with a penknife. His memoirs and numerous press interviews are the story of a man who can describe, with dry relish, what it is like to stab an Arab shepherd in the back - and who recommends that anyone who wishes for the 'marvellous, sublime feeling' of 'knowing that you are a male' should kill with a knife rather than a gun." (The Gun & the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, David Hirst, 1977, p 183)
"Undercover Israeli intelligence officers appeared on national television Saturday to talk about assassinating Palestinians in a program broadcast on Israel's Channel 10. Oren Beaton presented a photo album of Palestinians he killed during his time as a commander of an undercover Israeli unit operating in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Beaton explained that he kept photos of his victims. 'This is a photo of a young Palestinian man called Basim Subeih who I killed. This is another young man. I shredded his body, and the photo shows the remnants of his body', he said. The TV program also featured an undercover agent referred to as 'D', who openly admitted killing 'wanted Palestinians'. He complained of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and said that the state had rejected his demands for compensation. The Channel 10 presenter appealed to the Israeli government to meet the agent's demands. 'Those are the Shin Bet agents we only hear about and never see, and thanks to them we live safely', she said... Agent 'D' said officers would... 'seize the target and wait until the commander arrives to confirm his identity. Then we shoot him'." (Israeli undercover agents boast of killing Palestinians on TV, maannews.net)
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