Further to my previous post on Churchill, I thought some of his other answers to questions put to him in March 1937 by the Peel commissioners might prove instructive.
Remember, as you read them, that the Palestinian Arabs - Muslims and Christians - constituted over 90% of Palestine's population when the Balfour Declaration, giving British backing to a Jewish National Home in Palestine, was issued in 1917, and that, despite the mass immigration of European Jews into Palestine from 1918 on, under the protection of British bayonets, they were still the overwhelming majority in their ancestral homeland in 1937.
Remember, also, that despite Britain's other myriad colonial crimes, stretching from the very beginnings of the empire 'upon which the sun never set and the blood never dried', no other colonised people that I am aware of were subjected to anything like the Kafkaesque nightmare of having their independence indefinitely postponed by a ruling colonial power with the express purpose that they would one day be superseded by another, 'superior' people, bent on the formation of an exclusive, ethnocratic, settler-colonial state.
Behold the Churchillian 'logic' behind this cruel experiment (or as one of the commissioners put it: 'a thing unheard of in history').
Q: What was the meaning and aim of the Jewish National Home?
A: The conception... was that, if the absorbtive capacity over a number of years and the breeding over a number of years... gave an increasing Jewish population, that population should not in any way be restricted from reaching a majority position.
Q: What arrangements would be made to safeguard the rights of the new minority - the Arabs?
A: That obviously remains open, but certainly we committed ourselves to the idea that some day... subject to justice and economic convenience, there might well be a great Jewish State there, numbered by millions, far exceeding the present inhabitants of the country and to cut them off from that would be a wrong... We said there should be a Jewish Home in Palestine, but if more and more Jews gather to that Home and all is worked from age to age, from generation to generation, with justice and fair consideration to those displaced... certainly... it was intended that they might in the course of time become an overwhelmingly Jewish State.
Q: When you said [in your 1922 White Paper] that the Jewish National Home in Palestine... may become a centre in which the Jewish people may take a pride, what did you mean??
A: If more Jews rally to this Home, the Home will become all Palestine eventually, provided that at each stage there is no harsh justice done to the other residents.
Q: Would this not constitute an injustice to the Palestinian Arabs?
A: Why is there harsh injustice done if people come in and make a livelihood for more and make the desert into palm groves and orange groves? Why is it injustice because there is more work and wealth for everybody? There is no injustice. The injustice is when those who live in the country leave it to be a desert for thousands of years.*
Q: Isn't continuing Jewish immigration a creeping invasion and conquest of Palestine spread over half a century, which is a thing unheard of in history?
A: It is not a creeping invasion. In 1918 the Arabs were beaten and at our disposition. They were defeated in the open field. It is not a question of creeping conquest. They were beaten out of the place. Not a dog could bark. And then we decided in the process of the conquest of these people to make certain pledges to the Jews. Now the question is how to administer in a humane and enlightened fashion and certain facts have emerged.
I could go on, but I'm sure you've got the idea.
[*Shades of Tony Abbott's words of 15/11/14: "As we look around this glorious city, as we see the extraordinary development, it's hard to think that back in 1788 it was nothing but bush."]
Showing posts with label Tony Abbott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Abbott. Show all posts
Monday, March 11, 2019
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Q & A with Tony Abbott
If you're a Young Liberal, and you find yourself under siege by Bolshevik and Maoist academics, to whom should you turn for advice and guidance?
Silly question. Tony Abbott of course!
"Recently, some Liberal students asked me what might they do to armour themselves against their left-wing lecturers. My response: familiarise yourselves with the bigger story of which we Australians are but part. And a good place to begin is to read and regularly re-read the New Testament (it's our core document) and to read cover to cover Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, because you can't understand us without knowing that." (Covert brainwashing of our kids is taking its toll, The Australian, 9/3/19)
And why is our Suppository of Wisdom - Tony's own words, you'll remember - recommending dear old Winston to the troops? Could it be because, deep down, he shares Churchill's colonial, supremacist mindset?
Many examples of this mindset may be adduced from Churchill's long history of racism, but my particular favourite emerged in the context of the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission, aka the Peel Commission. Palestine at the time, of course, was in the throes of a full-scale rebellion against Zionist immigration and colonisation - imposed on the indigenous Palestinians by British bullets and bayonets:
Lord Peel:
"[Do you think] Britain might have some compunction if she felt she was downing the Arabs year after year when they wanted to remain in their own country?"
Churchill:
"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." (Churchill & The Jews, Martin Gilbert, 2007, p 120)
Churchill's testimony, btw, was kept secret by the commissioners.
Silly question. Tony Abbott of course!
"Recently, some Liberal students asked me what might they do to armour themselves against their left-wing lecturers. My response: familiarise yourselves with the bigger story of which we Australians are but part. And a good place to begin is to read and regularly re-read the New Testament (it's our core document) and to read cover to cover Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, because you can't understand us without knowing that." (Covert brainwashing of our kids is taking its toll, The Australian, 9/3/19)
And why is our Suppository of Wisdom - Tony's own words, you'll remember - recommending dear old Winston to the troops? Could it be because, deep down, he shares Churchill's colonial, supremacist mindset?
Many examples of this mindset may be adduced from Churchill's long history of racism, but my particular favourite emerged in the context of the 1937 Palestine Royal Commission, aka the Peel Commission. Palestine at the time, of course, was in the throes of a full-scale rebellion against Zionist immigration and colonisation - imposed on the indigenous Palestinians by British bullets and bayonets:
Lord Peel:
"[Do you think] Britain might have some compunction if she felt she was downing the Arabs year after year when they wanted to remain in their own country?"
Churchill:
"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." (Churchill & The Jews, Martin Gilbert, 2007, p 120)
Churchill's testimony, btw, was kept secret by the commissioners.
Monday, February 4, 2019
Franklin Graham Channels his Inner Frank
So, according to Australian journalism's number one Israel fanboy Greg Sheridan, he & Tony did Billy Graham in 1979:
"With Tony Abbott and an evangelical friend, I went to see Billy Graham at Sydney's Randwick racecourse in 1979. He was compelling and brilliant, with his dramatic gestures, magnificent voice, Hollywood good looks. Neither Abbott nor I felt impelled to join the throngs coming forward to commit their lives, simply because we were already Catholics... So we watched the performance with some admiration from the bleachers." (God and Graham, The Australian, 2/2/19)
That little confession comes in what is essentially a promo for Billy's son Franklin, who'll be touring Australia next week.
As does this telling prognosis from Franklin Graham himself:
"I think, as a nation, our culture will descend eventually into chaos. In parts of the world where the Christian faith has not had much of an influence, such as the modern Middle East, it's scary what people have to endure."
Now in light of that, it's worth remembering what actually happened the last time the medieval forbears of Tony, Greg, and the Grahams 'toured' the Middle East - at various times between the 11th and 13th centuries centuries
Take, for example, the conquest of Jerusalem by those soldiers of Christ, aka Crusaders, aka Franks in the late 11th century. Forget "influence," 'impact' is the word here, and "scary" doesn't even begin to do justice to what Jerusalem's inhabitants had to "endure" in July 1099:
"With the fall of Jerusalem and its towers one could see marvellous works. Some of the pagans were mercifully beheaded, others pierced by arrows plunged from towers, and yet others, tortured for a long time, were burned to death in searing flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet lay in the houses and streets, and men and knights were running to and fro over corpses." (Raymond of Aguilers, quoted in Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History, 2004, p 316)
"After a very great and cruel slaughter of Saracens, of whom 10,000 fell in that same place, they put to the sword great numbers of gentiles who were running about the quarters of the city, fleeing in all directions on account of their fear of death: they were stabbing women who had fled into palaces and dwellings; seizing infants by the soles of their feet from their mothers' laps or their cradles and dashing them against the walls and breaking their necks; they were slaughtering some with weapons, or striking them down with stones; they were sparing absolutely no gentile of any place or kind." Gesta Francorum, ibid, p 317)
"With Tony Abbott and an evangelical friend, I went to see Billy Graham at Sydney's Randwick racecourse in 1979. He was compelling and brilliant, with his dramatic gestures, magnificent voice, Hollywood good looks. Neither Abbott nor I felt impelled to join the throngs coming forward to commit their lives, simply because we were already Catholics... So we watched the performance with some admiration from the bleachers." (God and Graham, The Australian, 2/2/19)
That little confession comes in what is essentially a promo for Billy's son Franklin, who'll be touring Australia next week.
As does this telling prognosis from Franklin Graham himself:
"I think, as a nation, our culture will descend eventually into chaos. In parts of the world where the Christian faith has not had much of an influence, such as the modern Middle East, it's scary what people have to endure."
Now in light of that, it's worth remembering what actually happened the last time the medieval forbears of Tony, Greg, and the Grahams 'toured' the Middle East - at various times between the 11th and 13th centuries centuries
Take, for example, the conquest of Jerusalem by those soldiers of Christ, aka Crusaders, aka Franks in the late 11th century. Forget "influence," 'impact' is the word here, and "scary" doesn't even begin to do justice to what Jerusalem's inhabitants had to "endure" in July 1099:
"With the fall of Jerusalem and its towers one could see marvellous works. Some of the pagans were mercifully beheaded, others pierced by arrows plunged from towers, and yet others, tortured for a long time, were burned to death in searing flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet lay in the houses and streets, and men and knights were running to and fro over corpses." (Raymond of Aguilers, quoted in Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History, 2004, p 316)
"After a very great and cruel slaughter of Saracens, of whom 10,000 fell in that same place, they put to the sword great numbers of gentiles who were running about the quarters of the city, fleeing in all directions on account of their fear of death: they were stabbing women who had fled into palaces and dwellings; seizing infants by the soles of their feet from their mothers' laps or their cradles and dashing them against the walls and breaking their necks; they were slaughtering some with weapons, or striking them down with stones; they were sparing absolutely no gentile of any place or kind." Gesta Francorum, ibid, p 317)
Friday, August 24, 2018
Tony Abbott Nailed
Spot on:
"It has been a hallmark of Abbott's entire political career to view the world in Manichean terms. His own life has been defined and circumscribed by unquestioned beliefs that would admit no subtleties nor entertain doubts. From his Catholic seminarian days, through his anti-left crusades as a student politician, to the culture wars of the 1990s and the NSW Liberal Party's own potent brand of anti-Labor tribalism, Abbott has been captive of inflexible dogma... Intellectually, Abbott has never wavered from the conviction that his real political enemies are secular and progressive Australians... In 1997 I recorded a series of interviews with professed Abbott's political hero, the late Bob Santamaria*, the veteran political activist. I asked him how he saw Abbott, then beginning his political rise, and Santamaria smiled and shook his head. 'Tony, I'm afraid, has never left student politics behind. The world is not black and white; indeed, the older I get the more shades of grey I see. I'm not sure he will change'." (from Political consensus is dead, with Abbott the sectarian, Norman Abjorensen, Sydney Morning Herald, 22/8/18)
And the same goes for his little mate, Greggie Sheridan.
[*For Santamaria on Palestine/Israel see my 27/9/13 post What Would Santa Say? You'll be in for a surprise...]
"It has been a hallmark of Abbott's entire political career to view the world in Manichean terms. His own life has been defined and circumscribed by unquestioned beliefs that would admit no subtleties nor entertain doubts. From his Catholic seminarian days, through his anti-left crusades as a student politician, to the culture wars of the 1990s and the NSW Liberal Party's own potent brand of anti-Labor tribalism, Abbott has been captive of inflexible dogma... Intellectually, Abbott has never wavered from the conviction that his real political enemies are secular and progressive Australians... In 1997 I recorded a series of interviews with professed Abbott's political hero, the late Bob Santamaria*, the veteran political activist. I asked him how he saw Abbott, then beginning his political rise, and Santamaria smiled and shook his head. 'Tony, I'm afraid, has never left student politics behind. The world is not black and white; indeed, the older I get the more shades of grey I see. I'm not sure he will change'." (from Political consensus is dead, with Abbott the sectarian, Norman Abjorensen, Sydney Morning Herald, 22/8/18)
And the same goes for his little mate, Greggie Sheridan.
[*For Santamaria on Palestine/Israel see my 27/9/13 post What Would Santa Say? You'll be in for a surprise...]
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Hypocrisy Alert!
Dreg Sheridan, foreign editor of Murdoch's Israelian, currently has his knickers in a knot over the Australian National University and Sydney University's thumbs-down to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. (This currently homeless entity, significantly, is chaired by former Liberal PM and warmonger John Howard and includes Tony Abbott on its board.)
The Australian National University's rejection of the Centre, he rants hysterically, "has shown us beyond doubt how illiberal, intolerant and anti-Western our big public universities have become... Western civilisation has a huge number of enemies at universities. Ramsey looks like a businessman preparing for a Rotary Club meeting when actually he has been invited to a knife fight. (Our universities are no longer seeking the truth, 7/6/18)
However, as Sheridan has earlier admitted, he and his bestie, Abbott, have been veritable purveyors of illiberality, intolerance and wilful ignorance since their own university days in the 70s:
"No doubt the silliest thing we did at the [Australian Union of Students] conference was to attend a Palestinian film night. Because AUS was spending our money, we wanted to assert... our right to be there. So we heckled the film a bit." (The Tony that I - and others - remember was never violent at uni, The Australian, 12/9/12. See my 13/9/12 post Greg & Tony Do Monash 1.)
So instead of viewing the film with open minds and maybe learning something new, the pair attended with only one aim in mind - to prevent others from learning about Palestine. Apart from any other concerns (such as the Centre's potential for acting as a Trojan horse for the whitewashing and/or celebration of European/US imperial and colonial crimes, to take but one example), our universities are right to be wary of anything touted by such arch hypocrites as Sheridan and Abbott.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
'Everybody Down There Loves Israel'
"The high level of support for Israel in Australia's Jewish community is often reflected by Australia's politicians. I was invited to a lunch for Israeli journalists in Jerusalem. One had just been to Australia on an organised trip, and when we were introduced she said to me: 'I love Australia! You guys talk Zionism better than we do!' I asked her what she meant. 'Everybody down there loves Israel. We met your Opposition Leader [Tony Abbott], who told us how much he loved Israel. We thought he was fantastic, but then we met Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard. She was even better. They were saying things you would not normally hear an Israeli say!'" (Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir, John Lyons, 2017, pp 262-63)
OK, did you cringe? Vomit? Curse? Go foetal?
Really now, do you need to know anything else about the simple-minded pricks who 'run' this bloody country?
For God's sake, BUY LYONS' BOOK NOW and educate yourselves!
As for Abbott and Gillard, far from being poles apart politically, they were united in their opposition to any light being shed on the Palestinian cause. When the Australian Union of Students (AUS) bravely took up the Palestinian issue and sought to educate Australian students on the matter, the thuggish Abbott, along with his nerdy sidekick, Greg Sheridan, attended an AUS conference at Monash University in 1977, the highlight of which, for them, was their disruption of a film night on Palestine sponsored by the AUS. As for Gillard, when she became president of AUS in 1984, she made it her mission to, in the words of David Marr, "take Palestine out of student politics." Gillard, in fact, even threatened to take pro-Palestine student politicians to court for calling her a Zionist!
OK, did you cringe? Vomit? Curse? Go foetal?
Really now, do you need to know anything else about the simple-minded pricks who 'run' this bloody country?
For God's sake, BUY LYONS' BOOK NOW and educate yourselves!
As for Abbott and Gillard, far from being poles apart politically, they were united in their opposition to any light being shed on the Palestinian cause. When the Australian Union of Students (AUS) bravely took up the Palestinian issue and sought to educate Australian students on the matter, the thuggish Abbott, along with his nerdy sidekick, Greg Sheridan, attended an AUS conference at Monash University in 1977, the highlight of which, for them, was their disruption of a film night on Palestine sponsored by the AUS. As for Gillard, when she became president of AUS in 1984, she made it her mission to, in the words of David Marr, "take Palestine out of student politics." Gillard, in fact, even threatened to take pro-Palestine student politicians to court for calling her a Zionist!
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Fancy Meeting You Here
My God, how does one keep up with the antics of these rejects?
No sooner had former Australian PM Julia Gillard finished kissing the ring at one Israeli university, than another former Australian PM, Tony Abbott (2013-15), was doing likewise at another Israeli university:
"Last night I was privileged to receive an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University. We may not be Israel's most important friend, but we should always strive to be one of its most reliable. Something that both sides of politics should always agree on. Congratulations to Julia Gillard for receiving a doctorate from Ben Gurion University too." - Abbott FB post, 19/5/17
Now just in case I need to remind you how reliable a friend of Israel Abbott was/is, here he is bowing and scraping at Sydney's Central Synagogue in March, 2012:
"In so many ways, [Israel] is a country so much like Australia, a liberal, pluralist democracy... A beacon of freedom and hope in a part of the world which has so little freedom and hope.'. [Abbott] added that Australians 'can hardly begin to comprehend the existential threat Israelis live under. 'It is so easy for us in Australia to get moral qualms, if you like, when we read about Israeli actions in - on the West Bank for instance - or Israeli involvement in Lebanon. And yet, we are not threatened in the way Israel was and is, and if we were threatened in the way Israel was and is, I am sure that we would take actions just as strong in our own defence. When Israel is fighting for its very life, well, as far as I'm concerned, Australians are Israelis. We are all Israelis in those circumstances'." (See my 18/3/12 post Abbott: We Are All Israelis.)
No sooner had former Australian PM Julia Gillard finished kissing the ring at one Israeli university, than another former Australian PM, Tony Abbott (2013-15), was doing likewise at another Israeli university:
"Last night I was privileged to receive an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University. We may not be Israel's most important friend, but we should always strive to be one of its most reliable. Something that both sides of politics should always agree on. Congratulations to Julia Gillard for receiving a doctorate from Ben Gurion University too." - Abbott FB post, 19/5/17
Now just in case I need to remind you how reliable a friend of Israel Abbott was/is, here he is bowing and scraping at Sydney's Central Synagogue in March, 2012:
"In so many ways, [Israel] is a country so much like Australia, a liberal, pluralist democracy... A beacon of freedom and hope in a part of the world which has so little freedom and hope.'. [Abbott] added that Australians 'can hardly begin to comprehend the existential threat Israelis live under. 'It is so easy for us in Australia to get moral qualms, if you like, when we read about Israeli actions in - on the West Bank for instance - or Israeli involvement in Lebanon. And yet, we are not threatened in the way Israel was and is, and if we were threatened in the way Israel was and is, I am sure that we would take actions just as strong in our own defence. When Israel is fighting for its very life, well, as far as I'm concerned, Australians are Israelis. We are all Israelis in those circumstances'." (See my 18/3/12 post Abbott: We Are All Israelis.)
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
One Hit Wonders
In 1977, a spectre was haunting Straya - the spectre of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM. In those dark days only one and a half men understood the gravity of the threat of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM to Straya's way of life. And they knew just what to do - cut off its funding:
"When Tony Abbott and I were involved in the Australian Union of Students, this was a very extreme organisation. It sent money compulsorily collected from students to support the Palestine Liberation Organisation which was then engaged in acts of murderous terrorism... In 1977, Abbott and I drove down from Sydney to Melbourne to attend an AUS conference at Monash University... No doubt the silliest thing we did at the conference was to attend a Palestinian film night. Because AUS was spending our money, we wanted to assert... our right to be there. So we heckled the film a bit. Although we were outnumbered... the film was stopped and we were told we had to leave, We were making the point that we shouldn't have to leave because the evening was being funded by our compulsorily collected student union dues. One woman from the far Left came up behind Abbott, took off her wooden clog and whacked him over the back of the head..." (See my 13/9/12 post Greg & Tony Do Monash 1)
And 40 years later, nothing has changed!
Not only is the spectre of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM still haunting Straya, but only Tony Abbott (and greg sheridan) still understand the gravity of the threat of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM to Straya's way of life. And they still know just what to do - cut off its funding:
"Former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for Australia to cut its $40 million-a-year aid budget to the Palestinian Authority while 'it keeps paying pensions to terrorists and their families'." (Abbott urges cut in $40m aid to Palestinians, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 2/1/16)
"When Tony Abbott and I were involved in the Australian Union of Students, this was a very extreme organisation. It sent money compulsorily collected from students to support the Palestine Liberation Organisation which was then engaged in acts of murderous terrorism... In 1977, Abbott and I drove down from Sydney to Melbourne to attend an AUS conference at Monash University... No doubt the silliest thing we did at the conference was to attend a Palestinian film night. Because AUS was spending our money, we wanted to assert... our right to be there. So we heckled the film a bit. Although we were outnumbered... the film was stopped and we were told we had to leave, We were making the point that we shouldn't have to leave because the evening was being funded by our compulsorily collected student union dues. One woman from the far Left came up behind Abbott, took off her wooden clog and whacked him over the back of the head..." (See my 13/9/12 post Greg & Tony Do Monash 1)
And 40 years later, nothing has changed!
Not only is the spectre of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM still haunting Straya, but only Tony Abbott (and greg sheridan) still understand the gravity of the threat of PALESTINIAN TERRORISM to Straya's way of life. And they still know just what to do - cut off its funding:
"Former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for Australia to cut its $40 million-a-year aid budget to the Palestinian Authority while 'it keeps paying pensions to terrorists and their families'." (Abbott urges cut in $40m aid to Palestinians, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 2/1/16)
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Jesus Wept...
To borrow the words of Mike Carlton's tweet (18/12/16), "Oh FFS. If you wanted an example of the utterly barren, impotent irrelevance of Australian politics, here it is:"
"Federal MPs from both sides of parliament have come together to visit Israel and Palestine. Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has led the Australian delegation to the Australia Israel UK Leadership Dialogue... With him are former prime minister Tony Abbott, Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith, Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten, accompanied by his wife Chloe, and Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles. The group enjoyed a jog around Jerusalem." (The running group you wouldn't expect to see: MPs come together in Jerusalem, news.com.au, 18/12/16)
Jesus wept...
Palestine came in the form of Palestinian PM Rami Hamdallah, but all these clowns could find to talk about was... Daesh:
"Mr Shorten said he was encouraged by the Palestinian's comment that Daesh members were 'terrorists using religion as a pretext for crime'." (Bill Shorten & Tony Abbott unite in Middle East, news.com.au, 19/12/16)
(Of course, the US-backed Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) has not, is not and will never use RELIGION as a pretext for CRIMES.)
Then Shorten added: "What it showed me was there was not a homogeneity, there is not one Islam."
What a revelation! So Short-on-brains has had to travel to the other side of the world (at taxpayers' expense) to learn from one of Israel's humble servants in its West Bank bantustan that there are as many shades of Islam as there are of Christianity?
(Of course, quite what this obsessional focus on religion has to do with the bleeding reality of Israeli boots on Palestinian backs and necks is anyone's guess.)
But back to homogeneity. How's this for good old LibLab homogeneity: "Mr Abbott said of the engagement: 'It was at its most interesting, as Bill said, talking about Daesh."
Which he followed with: "I think he was probably at his most evasive when talking about the real prospects for a genuine accommodation between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
Real prospects for a genuine accommodation... ? Crazed Bible-bashing Israeli Daesh (from New York!) are marauding throughout the West Bank, torching Palestinian homes and orchards, and this knuckle-dragging, North Shore bonehead, whose homework on the subject consists of reading Daniel Silva thrillers, is banging on about the real prospects for a genuine accommodation between the Palestinians and the Israelis???!!!
Jesus wept...
Abbott continued: "Nevertheless he certainly appeared on the basis of today's discussion to be thoughtful and reasonable. I guess the challenge is, it's one thing to be thoughtful and reasonable in a public discussion in English, another thing to be thoughtful and reasonable in a public discussion in Arabic. I think that's always been the difficulty."
What more can I say? Here's the White Man telling us that the Indians speak with a forked tongue. Seriously.
Jesus wept...
"Federal MPs from both sides of parliament have come together to visit Israel and Palestine. Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has led the Australian delegation to the Australia Israel UK Leadership Dialogue... With him are former prime minister Tony Abbott, Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith, Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten, accompanied by his wife Chloe, and Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles. The group enjoyed a jog around Jerusalem." (The running group you wouldn't expect to see: MPs come together in Jerusalem, news.com.au, 18/12/16)
Jesus wept...
Palestine came in the form of Palestinian PM Rami Hamdallah, but all these clowns could find to talk about was... Daesh:
"Mr Shorten said he was encouraged by the Palestinian's comment that Daesh members were 'terrorists using religion as a pretext for crime'." (Bill Shorten & Tony Abbott unite in Middle East, news.com.au, 19/12/16)
(Of course, the US-backed Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) has not, is not and will never use RELIGION as a pretext for CRIMES.)
Then Shorten added: "What it showed me was there was not a homogeneity, there is not one Islam."
What a revelation! So Short-on-brains has had to travel to the other side of the world (at taxpayers' expense) to learn from one of Israel's humble servants in its West Bank bantustan that there are as many shades of Islam as there are of Christianity?
(Of course, quite what this obsessional focus on religion has to do with the bleeding reality of Israeli boots on Palestinian backs and necks is anyone's guess.)
But back to homogeneity. How's this for good old LibLab homogeneity: "Mr Abbott said of the engagement: 'It was at its most interesting, as Bill said, talking about Daesh."
Which he followed with: "I think he was probably at his most evasive when talking about the real prospects for a genuine accommodation between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
Real prospects for a genuine accommodation... ? Crazed Bible-bashing Israeli Daesh (from New York!) are marauding throughout the West Bank, torching Palestinian homes and orchards, and this knuckle-dragging, North Shore bonehead, whose homework on the subject consists of reading Daniel Silva thrillers, is banging on about the real prospects for a genuine accommodation between the Palestinians and the Israelis???!!!
Jesus wept...
Abbott continued: "Nevertheless he certainly appeared on the basis of today's discussion to be thoughtful and reasonable. I guess the challenge is, it's one thing to be thoughtful and reasonable in a public discussion in English, another thing to be thoughtful and reasonable in a public discussion in Arabic. I think that's always been the difficulty."
What more can I say? Here's the White Man telling us that the Indians speak with a forked tongue. Seriously.
Jesus wept...
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
What Turns Tony Abbott On
If the old adage 'you are what you eat' is true, how much more so is 'you are what you read'? So what's Tony Abbott reading these days? Thrillers, apparently:
"'Something I haven't done for years I've been able to do a bit of over the last 12 months and that is to read thrillers. I've started reading some of the Daniel Silva books,' he said, praising the American novels as fascinating and 'high pressure yarns'. 'The hero is an Israeli secret agent and he gets up to all sorts of adventures all around the world, whether it's dealing with dodgy priests in the Vatican or Islamist terrorists. One way or another, he's busy,' Mr Abbott said." (Fifty Shades, thrillers & war: bookworm Abbott, Fergus Hunter, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/12/16)
Daniel Silva is described by Wikipedia as a US Roman Catholic convert to Judaism who lives in Florida. Adam Kirsch, writing at tabletmag.com, describes him as "thrilling to the romance of Israeli power," and "relish[ing] the idea of Israel as the champion of Jews worldwide - the tough Zionist Jews who come to the rescue of soft Diaspora Jews." (The unsettling exploits of Daniel Silva's Mossad superspy, 3/8/16)
IOW, just the kind of peddler of puerile pulp nonsense for a halfwit like Abbott.
To give you some idea of just where Silva is coming from and just how appalling he is (and how Zionists conflate the Islamic State phenomenon with Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and colonisation), here he is on something called 'The Hugh Hewitt Show':
HH: "The other thing that's genuinely spooky, Daniel Silva, about The Black Widow [Silva's latest concoction], ... this past Sabbath, Jews around the world and people who support the state of Israel are grieving the death of Hallel Ariel, a 13-year-old American stabbed to death in her West Bank home as a result of a young Palestinian acting spontaneously. And throughout The Black Widow there is this background murmuring of the reality of life in Israel today, which informs The Black Widow... And it's in the headlines... today, in a way, because it's an American victim, that maybe they... normally aren't aware of it, and it's explained in The Black Widow. That's also spooky.
DS: Well, I was in Israel working on the book when this... started to percolate. And Gabriel Alon [Silva's Mossad hero] is a great lover of Jerusalem, as I explain in this novel, and I am a great lover [of Jerusalem]. And I go all over the place in Jerusalem, including into neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian area in East Jerusalem. And, you know, every day when I was there last summer, it would be some little incident somewhere around the Damascus Gate in the Muslim quarter of the Old City... one of the things that people don't realize about East Jerusalem is that there are sort of abutting neighborhoods of religious Jews right up against Palestinian areas. And... there's a lot of friction there. And I just had a sense that something was about to really happen there. And then, you know, I would go to the Damascus Gate, and a few hours later someone would be stabbed, and I had just been there with my son... you know, feeling like a complete idiot. And then it's really broken out into the open. And I think it's symptomatic, unfortunately, of the remarkable job that the Israeli Security Services have done in shutting down the Palestinian terrorist networks." (hughhewitt.com)
Of course, there's no mention of Israeli settlers invading Palestinian homes, or of a Palestinian community under a turn-of-the-screw occupation. God forbid that any note of reality should disturb this charmed circle. Spooky!
"'Something I haven't done for years I've been able to do a bit of over the last 12 months and that is to read thrillers. I've started reading some of the Daniel Silva books,' he said, praising the American novels as fascinating and 'high pressure yarns'. 'The hero is an Israeli secret agent and he gets up to all sorts of adventures all around the world, whether it's dealing with dodgy priests in the Vatican or Islamist terrorists. One way or another, he's busy,' Mr Abbott said." (Fifty Shades, thrillers & war: bookworm Abbott, Fergus Hunter, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/12/16)
Daniel Silva is described by Wikipedia as a US Roman Catholic convert to Judaism who lives in Florida. Adam Kirsch, writing at tabletmag.com, describes him as "thrilling to the romance of Israeli power," and "relish[ing] the idea of Israel as the champion of Jews worldwide - the tough Zionist Jews who come to the rescue of soft Diaspora Jews." (The unsettling exploits of Daniel Silva's Mossad superspy, 3/8/16)
IOW, just the kind of peddler of puerile pulp nonsense for a halfwit like Abbott.
To give you some idea of just where Silva is coming from and just how appalling he is (and how Zionists conflate the Islamic State phenomenon with Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and colonisation), here he is on something called 'The Hugh Hewitt Show':
HH: "The other thing that's genuinely spooky, Daniel Silva, about The Black Widow [Silva's latest concoction], ... this past Sabbath, Jews around the world and people who support the state of Israel are grieving the death of Hallel Ariel, a 13-year-old American stabbed to death in her West Bank home as a result of a young Palestinian acting spontaneously. And throughout The Black Widow there is this background murmuring of the reality of life in Israel today, which informs The Black Widow... And it's in the headlines... today, in a way, because it's an American victim, that maybe they... normally aren't aware of it, and it's explained in The Black Widow. That's also spooky.
DS: Well, I was in Israel working on the book when this... started to percolate. And Gabriel Alon [Silva's Mossad hero] is a great lover of Jerusalem, as I explain in this novel, and I am a great lover [of Jerusalem]. And I go all over the place in Jerusalem, including into neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian area in East Jerusalem. And, you know, every day when I was there last summer, it would be some little incident somewhere around the Damascus Gate in the Muslim quarter of the Old City... one of the things that people don't realize about East Jerusalem is that there are sort of abutting neighborhoods of religious Jews right up against Palestinian areas. And... there's a lot of friction there. And I just had a sense that something was about to really happen there. And then, you know, I would go to the Damascus Gate, and a few hours later someone would be stabbed, and I had just been there with my son... you know, feeling like a complete idiot. And then it's really broken out into the open. And I think it's symptomatic, unfortunately, of the remarkable job that the Israeli Security Services have done in shutting down the Palestinian terrorist networks." (hughhewitt.com)
Of course, there's no mention of Israeli settlers invading Palestinian homes, or of a Palestinian community under a turn-of-the-screw occupation. God forbid that any note of reality should disturb this charmed circle. Spooky!
Friday, July 29, 2016
The Aussie Shirtfronter's Guide to History
I doubt failed PM Tony Abbott has ever come across a war he didn't like. (As opposed to actually being in one of course.) And, as a natural-born scrapper and pugilist, it seems to be of crucial importance to him that, in any stoush in which Australia has ever been involved, we land the first punch.
How else to explain this stuff and nonsense from his recent opinion piece published in the incredibly shrinking Sydney Morning Herald, Australians on the Western Front still offer a lesson to us today:
"But Australians didn't just fight at Gallipoli and in France. An Australian battery fired the Empire's first shot in anger to stop a German ship leaving Port Phillip. The Australian Light Horse was the spearhead of the British army that liberated Jerusalem and Damascus." (28/7/16)
Life being too short, I won't burden you with the rest of the paragraph, let alone a discussion of the the entire piece, but that second sentence cannot be allowed to pass as fact. No Australian (or Brit for that matter) ever fought his way into Jerusalem in December 1917 or Damascus in September 1918.
On the 'liberation' of the former, see my 24/4/15 post In the Burning Sands of the Middle East, a response to an earlier attempt by Abbott to peddle this tripe. On the 'liberation' of Damascus, you can read my 13/12/11 post Daley of Damascus.
But just to underline what fantastic bullshit Abbott is feeding us mushrooms here, let me focus again, using a different source this time, and at greater length, on the circumstances in which the 'liberation' of Damascus from Turkish control occurred:
"What a British army, much superior in numbers and arms and enjoying the goodwill of the Arab civil population, did to a Turkish army, much inferior in equipment, ill-fed and ill-clad and moreover operating in a hostile country has been well told in the official history [by Captain Cyril Falls, 1930]. All that is proposed to chronicle here, if only very briefly, is the part played by the Arabs in the victory and the whole campaign. The three Turkish armies in Palestine to the east and west of the River Jordan were supplied by the Hijaz railway running from Damascus to the junction at Dir'a from which one branch fed the forces in the western sector and the other those in the eastern. It was of vital military importance to cut off these connections before the British offensive was launched. The task was entrusted to Faisal [leader of the Arab Revolt]. A mobile column of 5,000 Arabs, who on the 17th and the 18th of September 'emerged like phantoms from the desert', blew up the railway to the north, south and west, shutting off Turkish supplies and cutting off lines of retreat. The few available British aeroplanes struck at Turkish army headquarters, telegraph, telephone, and road junctions. In the words of the historian, [British commander General Edmund] Allenby's victory was thus facilitated by 'two comparatively novel tools - aircraft and Arabs'.
"Once the Turkish lines were pierced to the north of Jaffa the fate of the two [Turkish] armies to the west of the Jordan was sealed. They offered such resistance as was necessary to cover the retreat northwards. The Arabs threw themselves across the line of retreat of the army to the east of the Jordan, hindered its retreat, captured prisoners and inflicted heavy casualties. Thus Allenby's victory was assured long before his forces reached Magiddo, the official name of the battle for Palestine and Syria. Limon von Sanders [the German commander of the Turkish forces], like British official historians of the war, stressed the importance of the aid given to the British forces by the Arab civil population. He cited the specific example of his headquarters at Nazareth, into which the British forces were led by Arab scouts along tracks.
"Confidence in victory was so high that barely 24-hours after the breakthrough [of] the Turkish lines Allenby despatched [T.E.] Lawrence by plane with a message to Faisal in these terms: 'I send Your Highness my greetings and my most cordial congratulations upon the great achievement of your gallant troops at Dir'a, the effect of which has, by throwing the enemy's communications into confusion, had an important bearing upon the success of our operations. Thanks to our combined efforts, the Turkish army is defeated and is everywhere in full retreat.'
"After the capture of Nazareth, von Sander's headquarters, the advance on Damascus was a speedy combined operation: the British army swung north-east inland along the ancient highway that forded the Jordan at Jisr Banat Ya'qub and straight to Qunaitira; the Arabs along, and mostly to the east of, the Hijaz railway. There was no 'fall' or 'surrender' of Damascus in the military sense. Politically the four centuries of Turkish rule came to an end at 2 pm on 30 September when, while the senior Turkish and German commanders were still in the city and offering no resistance, a provisional Arab government was proclaimed and the Arab flag was hoisted on the Town Hall. During the night of 20 September an advance force of the Arab Camel Corps entered the city, apart from many irregulars. Next morning at 7.30 am, Sharif Nasir rode, accompanied by Nuri Sha'lan, into the city to the Town Hall, soon to be followed by Lawrence.
"Here it is relevant to dispose of a myth that the city 'surrendered' to an Australian force and that the Arabs were not the first to take it. An advance guard of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade was ordered to block the road from Damascus to Hims to prevent the Turkish retreat. But on account of the terrain in the Barada Gorge it was necessary to pass through the northern outskirts of the city. This the Brigade did unobtrusively early on the first of October. To magnify this episode and to represent it as evidence that the Arabs were not the first to enter Damascus is absurd. As stated above the city was under an Arab government from the afternoon of the previous day. There was no significance, military or political, in the passing of the Light Horse Brigade even through its centre. Allenby himself put it in the right words in a report to London: 'When my troops [Arab, Australian and British] entered the city an Arab administration was in being and Arab flags were flying from government buildings.' He described his own entry into the city as merely a 'visit'." (Anglo-Arab Relations & the Question of Palestine 1914-1921, A.L. Tibawi, 1977, pp 294-96)
PS: This very evening, while browsing in a bookshop, I happened upon a just-published 'history', The Last Fifty Miles: Australia & the End of the Great War, by Adam Wakeling. I couldn't help but note that Wakeling - *sigh* - peddles the very myth alluded to by Tibawi.
How else to explain this stuff and nonsense from his recent opinion piece published in the incredibly shrinking Sydney Morning Herald, Australians on the Western Front still offer a lesson to us today:
"But Australians didn't just fight at Gallipoli and in France. An Australian battery fired the Empire's first shot in anger to stop a German ship leaving Port Phillip. The Australian Light Horse was the spearhead of the British army that liberated Jerusalem and Damascus." (28/7/16)
Life being too short, I won't burden you with the rest of the paragraph, let alone a discussion of the the entire piece, but that second sentence cannot be allowed to pass as fact. No Australian (or Brit for that matter) ever fought his way into Jerusalem in December 1917 or Damascus in September 1918.
On the 'liberation' of the former, see my 24/4/15 post In the Burning Sands of the Middle East, a response to an earlier attempt by Abbott to peddle this tripe. On the 'liberation' of Damascus, you can read my 13/12/11 post Daley of Damascus.
But just to underline what fantastic bullshit Abbott is feeding us mushrooms here, let me focus again, using a different source this time, and at greater length, on the circumstances in which the 'liberation' of Damascus from Turkish control occurred:
"What a British army, much superior in numbers and arms and enjoying the goodwill of the Arab civil population, did to a Turkish army, much inferior in equipment, ill-fed and ill-clad and moreover operating in a hostile country has been well told in the official history [by Captain Cyril Falls, 1930]. All that is proposed to chronicle here, if only very briefly, is the part played by the Arabs in the victory and the whole campaign. The three Turkish armies in Palestine to the east and west of the River Jordan were supplied by the Hijaz railway running from Damascus to the junction at Dir'a from which one branch fed the forces in the western sector and the other those in the eastern. It was of vital military importance to cut off these connections before the British offensive was launched. The task was entrusted to Faisal [leader of the Arab Revolt]. A mobile column of 5,000 Arabs, who on the 17th and the 18th of September 'emerged like phantoms from the desert', blew up the railway to the north, south and west, shutting off Turkish supplies and cutting off lines of retreat. The few available British aeroplanes struck at Turkish army headquarters, telegraph, telephone, and road junctions. In the words of the historian, [British commander General Edmund] Allenby's victory was thus facilitated by 'two comparatively novel tools - aircraft and Arabs'.
"Once the Turkish lines were pierced to the north of Jaffa the fate of the two [Turkish] armies to the west of the Jordan was sealed. They offered such resistance as was necessary to cover the retreat northwards. The Arabs threw themselves across the line of retreat of the army to the east of the Jordan, hindered its retreat, captured prisoners and inflicted heavy casualties. Thus Allenby's victory was assured long before his forces reached Magiddo, the official name of the battle for Palestine and Syria. Limon von Sanders [the German commander of the Turkish forces], like British official historians of the war, stressed the importance of the aid given to the British forces by the Arab civil population. He cited the specific example of his headquarters at Nazareth, into which the British forces were led by Arab scouts along tracks.
"Confidence in victory was so high that barely 24-hours after the breakthrough [of] the Turkish lines Allenby despatched [T.E.] Lawrence by plane with a message to Faisal in these terms: 'I send Your Highness my greetings and my most cordial congratulations upon the great achievement of your gallant troops at Dir'a, the effect of which has, by throwing the enemy's communications into confusion, had an important bearing upon the success of our operations. Thanks to our combined efforts, the Turkish army is defeated and is everywhere in full retreat.'
"After the capture of Nazareth, von Sander's headquarters, the advance on Damascus was a speedy combined operation: the British army swung north-east inland along the ancient highway that forded the Jordan at Jisr Banat Ya'qub and straight to Qunaitira; the Arabs along, and mostly to the east of, the Hijaz railway. There was no 'fall' or 'surrender' of Damascus in the military sense. Politically the four centuries of Turkish rule came to an end at 2 pm on 30 September when, while the senior Turkish and German commanders were still in the city and offering no resistance, a provisional Arab government was proclaimed and the Arab flag was hoisted on the Town Hall. During the night of 20 September an advance force of the Arab Camel Corps entered the city, apart from many irregulars. Next morning at 7.30 am, Sharif Nasir rode, accompanied by Nuri Sha'lan, into the city to the Town Hall, soon to be followed by Lawrence.
"Here it is relevant to dispose of a myth that the city 'surrendered' to an Australian force and that the Arabs were not the first to take it. An advance guard of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade was ordered to block the road from Damascus to Hims to prevent the Turkish retreat. But on account of the terrain in the Barada Gorge it was necessary to pass through the northern outskirts of the city. This the Brigade did unobtrusively early on the first of October. To magnify this episode and to represent it as evidence that the Arabs were not the first to enter Damascus is absurd. As stated above the city was under an Arab government from the afternoon of the previous day. There was no significance, military or political, in the passing of the Light Horse Brigade even through its centre. Allenby himself put it in the right words in a report to London: 'When my troops [Arab, Australian and British] entered the city an Arab administration was in being and Arab flags were flying from government buildings.' He described his own entry into the city as merely a 'visit'." (Anglo-Arab Relations & the Question of Palestine 1914-1921, A.L. Tibawi, 1977, pp 294-96)
PS: This very evening, while browsing in a bookshop, I happened upon a just-published 'history', The Last Fifty Miles: Australia & the End of the Great War, by Adam Wakeling. I couldn't help but note that Wakeling - *sigh* - peddles the very myth alluded to by Tibawi.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
From Tony Abbott's opinion piece in today's Australian, The national security case for the Abbott government:
"The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world."
OMFG, he's talking about Isr...
- Get real, of course he's not talking about Israel and Palestine. He's talking about Russia, Ukraine and Flight MH17.
Just for a minute there...
"The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world."
OMFG, he's talking about Isr...
- Get real, of course he's not talking about Israel and Palestine. He's talking about Russia, Ukraine and Flight MH17.
Just for a minute there...
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Such Tender Concern
And the (drum)beat(up) goes on...
Murdoch's Australian is sooo worried aboutIsrael NSW Labor:
"As a former national president of the ALP, Warren Mundine is correct to suggest it is NSW Labor that will suffer from its anti-Israel escapade. Israel is the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East; it can look after itself. But, as Mr Mundine says, NSW Labor risks becoming a fringe party." (Editorial: Labor's anti-Israel obsession, 3/2/16)
Now we know why the paper calls itself 'The Heart of the Nation'.
A letter to the Australian fromdingaling John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic:
"When a party luminary such as Warren Mundine is sickened by the move and says it has a political agenda verging on anti-Semitism..." (3/2/16)
So even if your twice-rambammed "party luminary" jumps ship for Tony Abbott, who famously characterised the British invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal Australia as "a form of foreign investment by the British Government,"* he's not a rat but a "party luminary"?
OK... So what does that make Ben Chifley?
BTW, have you noticed the form taken by the anti-Semitism smear these days? How no one in the Labor Party who supports Palestinian rights is called an anti-Semite directly? That's reserved for people outside the Labor Party. Inside, they're always accused of "verging on anti-Semitism," or "supporting an anti-Semitic agenda." Neat, eh?
[*Tone's words were: "I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British Government in the then unsettled Great South Land."]
Murdoch's Australian is sooo worried about
"As a former national president of the ALP, Warren Mundine is correct to suggest it is NSW Labor that will suffer from its anti-Israel escapade. Israel is the only vibrant democracy in the Middle East; it can look after itself. But, as Mr Mundine says, NSW Labor risks becoming a fringe party." (Editorial: Labor's anti-Israel obsession, 3/2/16)
Now we know why the paper calls itself 'The Heart of the Nation'.
A letter to the Australian from
"When a party luminary such as Warren Mundine is sickened by the move and says it has a political agenda verging on anti-Semitism..." (3/2/16)
So even if your twice-rambammed "party luminary" jumps ship for Tony Abbott, who famously characterised the British invasion and colonisation of Aboriginal Australia as "a form of foreign investment by the British Government,"* he's not a rat but a "party luminary"?
OK... So what does that make Ben Chifley?
BTW, have you noticed the form taken by the anti-Semitism smear these days? How no one in the Labor Party who supports Palestinian rights is called an anti-Semite directly? That's reserved for people outside the Labor Party. Inside, they're always accused of "verging on anti-Semitism," or "supporting an anti-Semitic agenda." Neat, eh?
[*Tone's words were: "I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British Government in the then unsettled Great South Land."]
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Israeli Settlers: Symptom, Not Cause
While in general agreement with Professor Hal Wootten QC's opinion piece in yesterday's Canberra Times, Lessons that Tony Abbott failed, the following paragraph calls for correction:
"Right on the doorstep of Islamic State, a fanatical Jewish minority has hijacked Israeli policy towards Palestine on the basis of ancient texts claiming a gift of land from God thousands of years ago. The resulting intensive Jewish settlement of the West Bank has probably made impossible the obvious two-state solution to the difficulties created when the Christian West exported its Jewish problem to Arab land."
Political Zionist fanaticism didn't begin with the post-1967 colonisation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It has been with us since the very beginnings of the political Zionist movement in the late 19th century. Political Zionism was always a fanatical creed, and the unholy Zionist trinity of Herzl (1860-1904), Weizmann (1874-1952) and Ben Gurion (1886-1973) who drove it were all fanatics for whom Palestinian Arabs were nothing but obstacles on the path to an exclusively Jewish State.
The post-67 Israeli settlers are simply the heirs of the pre-67 Zionist kibbutzniks who drove 85% of Palestine's indigenous Arab majority out of 78% of Palestine in 1948, stole their homes and lands, and refused their return.
As for "hijacking Israeli policy towards Palestine," the invaders and occupiers of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were all pre-67 kibbutzniks, and every Israeli government, Labor or Likud, has facilitated the rise and rise of the post-67 settler movement in the OPTs.
Nor did "Christian" Britain, which opened post-Ottoman Palestine up to political Zionist colons after 1917, "export its Jewish problem." Britain didn't have a Jewish problem to export. It did, however, create a Palestine problem which is still with us today. Its crime was to aid and abet the Zionist fanatic Chaim Weizmann in imposing Jewish colons on a vulnerable and unwilling Palestinian Arab population. As we know, it usually takes two to tango.
"Right on the doorstep of Islamic State, a fanatical Jewish minority has hijacked Israeli policy towards Palestine on the basis of ancient texts claiming a gift of land from God thousands of years ago. The resulting intensive Jewish settlement of the West Bank has probably made impossible the obvious two-state solution to the difficulties created when the Christian West exported its Jewish problem to Arab land."
Political Zionist fanaticism didn't begin with the post-1967 colonisation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It has been with us since the very beginnings of the political Zionist movement in the late 19th century. Political Zionism was always a fanatical creed, and the unholy Zionist trinity of Herzl (1860-1904), Weizmann (1874-1952) and Ben Gurion (1886-1973) who drove it were all fanatics for whom Palestinian Arabs were nothing but obstacles on the path to an exclusively Jewish State.
The post-67 Israeli settlers are simply the heirs of the pre-67 Zionist kibbutzniks who drove 85% of Palestine's indigenous Arab majority out of 78% of Palestine in 1948, stole their homes and lands, and refused their return.
As for "hijacking Israeli policy towards Palestine," the invaders and occupiers of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were all pre-67 kibbutzniks, and every Israeli government, Labor or Likud, has facilitated the rise and rise of the post-67 settler movement in the OPTs.
Nor did "Christian" Britain, which opened post-Ottoman Palestine up to political Zionist colons after 1917, "export its Jewish problem." Britain didn't have a Jewish problem to export. It did, however, create a Palestine problem which is still with us today. Its crime was to aid and abet the Zionist fanatic Chaim Weizmann in imposing Jewish colons on a vulnerable and unwilling Palestinian Arab population. As we know, it usually takes two to tango.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Abbott's Parliamentary Piss-Up
Remember Joe Hockey's 'age of entitlement'?
As a Liberal, he should know.
Born-to-rule bogan Liberals are full of it.
Don't believe me? Read on:
"It was more frat house than Parliament House as Tony Abbott and his staff partied into the night in the hours after Malcolm Turnbull deposed him as Prime Minister. At Mr Abbott's insistence, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds played as junior staffers deliberately poured wine on furniture and cabinet minister Jamie Briggs injured his knee trying to crash tackle the outgoing prime minister." (Raucous antics iced Abbott's blues as suspicions ran wild, Sid Maher, The Australian, 14/11/15)
But then what would you expect from someone who once said, 'We're all Israelis now', and invited Benjamin Netanyahu down under for a visit?
As a Liberal, he should know.
Born-to-rule bogan Liberals are full of it.
Don't believe me? Read on:
"It was more frat house than Parliament House as Tony Abbott and his staff partied into the night in the hours after Malcolm Turnbull deposed him as Prime Minister. At Mr Abbott's insistence, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds played as junior staffers deliberately poured wine on furniture and cabinet minister Jamie Briggs injured his knee trying to crash tackle the outgoing prime minister." (Raucous antics iced Abbott's blues as suspicions ran wild, Sid Maher, The Australian, 14/11/15)
But then what would you expect from someone who once said, 'We're all Israelis now', and invited Benjamin Netanyahu down under for a visit?
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Tweets of the Week
What I love about Corbyn; he has ALL the right enemies.
- Adnan Sadiq 17/9/15
But I could've told you, Tony, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
- Neale Ferguson 20/9/15
- Adnan Sadiq 17/9/15
But I could've told you, Tony, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
- Neale Ferguson 20/9/15
Friday, September 18, 2015
Shit Happens
Andrew (Blazing Barrels) Hastie, desperately seeking the West Australian seat of Canning for the Libs in tomorrow's by-election, said in today's Australian:
"The biggest thing that was missing for 6 years under Labor was serious intellectual engagement with soldiers on the ground about how to best prosecute the war in Afghanistan." ('Labor MPs put Diggers at risk', Andrew Burrell, 18/9/15)
But what does former SAS captain Hastie mean by serious intellectual engagement?
Something along the lines of Tony Abbott's sage observation, in Tarin Kowt in 2011, to US commander James Creighton on the death of Australian soldier, Lance Corporal MacKinney?
Just to jog your memory:
"It's pretty obvious that, well, sometimes shit happens, doesn't it?"
Now top that, if you can, for serious intellectual engagement!
Here's an idea: seeing Andrew's big on serious intellectual engagement, if, perish the thought, Canning voters do the dirty on him in tomorrow's by-election, what better valedictory than 'Well, sometimes shit happens, doesn't it?' could he possibly come up with?
"The biggest thing that was missing for 6 years under Labor was serious intellectual engagement with soldiers on the ground about how to best prosecute the war in Afghanistan." ('Labor MPs put Diggers at risk', Andrew Burrell, 18/9/15)
But what does former SAS captain Hastie mean by serious intellectual engagement?
Something along the lines of Tony Abbott's sage observation, in Tarin Kowt in 2011, to US commander James Creighton on the death of Australian soldier, Lance Corporal MacKinney?
Just to jog your memory:
"It's pretty obvious that, well, sometimes shit happens, doesn't it?"
Now top that, if you can, for serious intellectual engagement!
Here's an idea: seeing Andrew's big on serious intellectual engagement, if, perish the thought, Canning voters do the dirty on him in tomorrow's by-election, what better valedictory than 'Well, sometimes shit happens, doesn't it?' could he possibly come up with?
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
When Malcolm First Met Tony
Thus spake Tony Abbott's Suppository of Wisdom, Greg Sheridan, in today's Australian:
"History will be much kinder to the Abbott prime ministership than today's analysis would suggest. Some of his achievements - especially stopping the boats - could probably not have been done by any other prime minister. And they will continue to benefit Australia for many years to come. The crisis engulfing Europe would have engulfed Australia had Abbott not been prime minister. That is a massive, historic achievement." (Tony Abbott loyal to a fault: why Philip was knighted)
Sound familiar?
Here's Abbott's SOW on the bloke who blew Iraq away:
"George W. Bush may well be judged, ultimately, a great president, especially in the war on terror." (A good president for these terrible times, 14/9/06)
The meaner and uglier, the better Greg likes 'em, especially if they love bombing Arab countries.
If Greg hadn't been so busy talking up his old mate, he might've remembered writing this in his recently published memoir:
"Malcolm [Turnbull] first met Tony Abbott at the AUS conference in Melbourne in 1978, which Malcolm covered for The Bulletin. The two had a jovial conversation that was very much a two-way affair rather than an interview. In the conversation Malcolm described Tony's political style as 'exuberant' but in The Bulletin described it as 'boisterous'. Malcolm wrote about Tony that: 'While he can win support from students because of the shocking state of affairs in AUS, he cannot take the next step because of his conservative moral views.'" (When We Were Young & Foolish, 2015, p 306)
And doesn't that sound familiar?
Here's an extract from M'Lord Turnbull's 'Abbott's Gotta Go' speech of the 14th:
"We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities... and how we seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy not slogans. We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people. Now if we continue with Mr Abbott as prime minister, it is clear enough what will happen. He will cease to be prime minister and he'll be succeeded by Mr Shorten."
But what does a style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence mean?
OK, OK, I think M'Lord Turnbull means something like this:
Bogan Slogan a la Abbott: Nope, nope, nope.
Advocacy a la M'Lord Turnbull: No, no, no.
See the difference?
"History will be much kinder to the Abbott prime ministership than today's analysis would suggest. Some of his achievements - especially stopping the boats - could probably not have been done by any other prime minister. And they will continue to benefit Australia for many years to come. The crisis engulfing Europe would have engulfed Australia had Abbott not been prime minister. That is a massive, historic achievement." (Tony Abbott loyal to a fault: why Philip was knighted)
Sound familiar?
Here's Abbott's SOW on the bloke who blew Iraq away:
"George W. Bush may well be judged, ultimately, a great president, especially in the war on terror." (A good president for these terrible times, 14/9/06)
The meaner and uglier, the better Greg likes 'em, especially if they love bombing Arab countries.
If Greg hadn't been so busy talking up his old mate, he might've remembered writing this in his recently published memoir:
"Malcolm [Turnbull] first met Tony Abbott at the AUS conference in Melbourne in 1978, which Malcolm covered for The Bulletin. The two had a jovial conversation that was very much a two-way affair rather than an interview. In the conversation Malcolm described Tony's political style as 'exuberant' but in The Bulletin described it as 'boisterous'. Malcolm wrote about Tony that: 'While he can win support from students because of the shocking state of affairs in AUS, he cannot take the next step because of his conservative moral views.'" (When We Were Young & Foolish, 2015, p 306)
And doesn't that sound familiar?
Here's an extract from M'Lord Turnbull's 'Abbott's Gotta Go' speech of the 14th:
"We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities... and how we seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy not slogans. We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people. Now if we continue with Mr Abbott as prime minister, it is clear enough what will happen. He will cease to be prime minister and he'll be succeeded by Mr Shorten."
But what does a style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence mean?
OK, OK, I think M'Lord Turnbull means something like this:
Bogan Slogan a la Abbott: Nope, nope, nope.
Advocacy a la M'Lord Turnbull: No, no, no.
See the difference?
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Abbott of Syria
Sit back, take it easy, crack a tinnie, and let Tone, Jules & Shero sort out Syria for YOU:
"The anticipated green light [for Abbot to approve air strikes on Syria] followed a formal request from President Barack Obama's administration, which itself had come after signalling from Canberra that such an invitation would be favourably received." (Syria air strikes loom, Mark Kenny/David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/9/15)
Sir! Sir! Pick me, sir! Pick me!
No one wants to be left off the team, OK?
"Tony Abbott has set realistic limits for the expansion of Australia's military action in the Middle East, saying airstrikes by the RAAF in Syria will be used to degrade and destroy the Islamic State terror group but not topple the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad... 'Do we want Assad gone? Of course we do. Do our military operations contribute to that at this time? No, they don't,' he said yesterday, adding that the 'Assad regime is not the kind of government that we could ever support' [...] [Mr Abbott] told the ABC's 7.30 program. 'It's not easy to find moderates in that part of the world, particularly in Syria. At the moment the main forces are the gruesome Assad regime; the if anything more diabolical Daesh death cult; and then of course the people linked with al-Qa'da. So it's difficult to find effective moderates in Syria'." (Assad not in our sights: PM, Brendan Nicholson, The Australian, 10/9/15)
OK, so it's not about regime changing the brutal, the gruesome Asad then?
Errr... Hmmm:
"Australia is ramping up diplomatic efforts, with the US and Britain, to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad politically at the same time it bombs Islamic State in the country and takes refugees to ease the humanitarian crises. Tony Abbott is preparing a political strategy to take to US President Barack Obama and the world leaders summit at the UN in three weeks, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop working with US Secretary of State John Kerry on a political solution aimed at removing Assad without promoting Islamic State." (Allies look to end of Assad, Dennis Shanahan, The Australian, 11/9/15)
On the other hand, the horrible dictator's not really that bad.
Certainly better than Saddam:
"Thus our military actions in Syria may well help Assad. So be it. We will be attacking Assad's chief enemy, Islamic State. That inevitably will take some pressure off Assad. Assad is a horrible dictator but in the last years of his rule before the outbreak of the Arab spring his regime was not especially bad by Arab standards. He certainly in those days bore no comparison with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Since his regime was challenged his regime has been utterly brutal and murderous." (Abbott gets it right on Syrian refugees, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 10/9/15)
And anyway, look what happened in Libya when we bumped off Gaddafi:
"But Western governments are undergoing an agonising reappraisal. If Assad is overthrown the new situation may be even worse, with nothing left but a civil war between Islamic State, al-Qa'ida and various warlords. Overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya produced no benefit for anybody though the Australian government of the time (and, let me hasten to say, this writer), led by then foreign minister Kevin Rudd, warmly supported it. It may be that any negotiated political future for Syria involves Assad." (ibid)
***
OK, so with these Einsteins in charge, sitting back, taking it easy, and cracking a tinnie is obviously not an option.
Well, you've got a choice:
Stay home and scream into your pillow or
Attend tomorrow's NO Australian War on Syria! rally & march.
Sydney Town Hall, 11 am.
"The anticipated green light [for Abbot to approve air strikes on Syria] followed a formal request from President Barack Obama's administration, which itself had come after signalling from Canberra that such an invitation would be favourably received." (Syria air strikes loom, Mark Kenny/David Wroe, Sydney Morning Herald, 9/9/15)
Sir! Sir! Pick me, sir! Pick me!
No one wants to be left off the team, OK?
"Tony Abbott has set realistic limits for the expansion of Australia's military action in the Middle East, saying airstrikes by the RAAF in Syria will be used to degrade and destroy the Islamic State terror group but not topple the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad... 'Do we want Assad gone? Of course we do. Do our military operations contribute to that at this time? No, they don't,' he said yesterday, adding that the 'Assad regime is not the kind of government that we could ever support' [...] [Mr Abbott] told the ABC's 7.30 program. 'It's not easy to find moderates in that part of the world, particularly in Syria. At the moment the main forces are the gruesome Assad regime; the if anything more diabolical Daesh death cult; and then of course the people linked with al-Qa'da. So it's difficult to find effective moderates in Syria'." (Assad not in our sights: PM, Brendan Nicholson, The Australian, 10/9/15)
OK, so it's not about regime changing the brutal, the gruesome Asad then?
Errr... Hmmm:
"Australia is ramping up diplomatic efforts, with the US and Britain, to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad politically at the same time it bombs Islamic State in the country and takes refugees to ease the humanitarian crises. Tony Abbott is preparing a political strategy to take to US President Barack Obama and the world leaders summit at the UN in three weeks, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop working with US Secretary of State John Kerry on a political solution aimed at removing Assad without promoting Islamic State." (Allies look to end of Assad, Dennis Shanahan, The Australian, 11/9/15)
On the other hand, the horrible dictator's not really that bad.
Certainly better than Saddam:
"Thus our military actions in Syria may well help Assad. So be it. We will be attacking Assad's chief enemy, Islamic State. That inevitably will take some pressure off Assad. Assad is a horrible dictator but in the last years of his rule before the outbreak of the Arab spring his regime was not especially bad by Arab standards. He certainly in those days bore no comparison with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Since his regime was challenged his regime has been utterly brutal and murderous." (Abbott gets it right on Syrian refugees, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 10/9/15)
And anyway, look what happened in Libya when we bumped off Gaddafi:
"But Western governments are undergoing an agonising reappraisal. If Assad is overthrown the new situation may be even worse, with nothing left but a civil war between Islamic State, al-Qa'ida and various warlords. Overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya produced no benefit for anybody though the Australian government of the time (and, let me hasten to say, this writer), led by then foreign minister Kevin Rudd, warmly supported it. It may be that any negotiated political future for Syria involves Assad." (ibid)
***
OK, so with these Einsteins in charge, sitting back, taking it easy, and cracking a tinnie is obviously not an option.
Well, you've got a choice:
Stay home and scream into your pillow or
Attend tomorrow's NO Australian War on Syria! rally & march.
Sydney Town Hall, 11 am.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
No Photo, No Mention, No Comment
No photo:
"Today we are saddened by the loss of Reham Dawabsheh, who succumbed to her wounds after more than a month struggling to survive. Most of her body was burnt as Israeli terrorists attacked and burnt her home, killing her toddler son Ali and her husband Sa'ad. Now Ahmad Dawabsheh, 4 years old, is the only one left from the family, with burns over 60% of his body.
"If Israel is not stopped and held accountable then Reham will not be the last victim of Israeli terror. There is a culture of hate that has been developing in Israel by supporting settlements and apartheid. The assassination of the Dawabsheh family reflects the clear connection between hate speech, settlement expansion and the impunity granted to Israel by the international community.
"Over a month has passed and the Israeli government hasn't yet brought the terrorists to justice. In fact, more hate-speech and incitement have been issuing from members of the Israeli government, more settler attacks have been carried out, and more Palestinians have been killed, injured and/or detained.
"We hold the Israeli government fully responsible. Once again we call on the international community to protect the Palestinian people under occupation and to put an end to Israel's culture of impunity." (Statement by PLO Secretary General Dr. Saeb Erekat on the martyrdom of Reham Dawabsheh, 7/9/15)
No mention:
ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian
No comment:
Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten
"Today we are saddened by the loss of Reham Dawabsheh, who succumbed to her wounds after more than a month struggling to survive. Most of her body was burnt as Israeli terrorists attacked and burnt her home, killing her toddler son Ali and her husband Sa'ad. Now Ahmad Dawabsheh, 4 years old, is the only one left from the family, with burns over 60% of his body.
"If Israel is not stopped and held accountable then Reham will not be the last victim of Israeli terror. There is a culture of hate that has been developing in Israel by supporting settlements and apartheid. The assassination of the Dawabsheh family reflects the clear connection between hate speech, settlement expansion and the impunity granted to Israel by the international community.
"Over a month has passed and the Israeli government hasn't yet brought the terrorists to justice. In fact, more hate-speech and incitement have been issuing from members of the Israeli government, more settler attacks have been carried out, and more Palestinians have been killed, injured and/or detained.
"We hold the Israeli government fully responsible. Once again we call on the international community to protect the Palestinian people under occupation and to put an end to Israel's culture of impunity." (Statement by PLO Secretary General Dr. Saeb Erekat on the martyrdom of Reham Dawabsheh, 7/9/15)
No mention:
ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian
No comment:
Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten
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