Look Who's Got a Gong...

... in the Queen's Birthday Awards:

1 Order of Australia Companion in the General Division:

"Rachel Kohn, Mosman NSW. For distinguished service to the broadcast media, particularly radio, as a creator, producer and presenter, and to Jewish Studies."

Kohn, you may remember, ran a long-running series, The Spirit of Things, on the ABC's Radio National. Particularly memorable on that show was her platforming of Aaron Klein, author of a 2007 book with the following, excruciatingly grotesque, title: 'Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew!'

Then there was her 21/9/08 production, Ties that Bind: Jewish Australians and New Zealanders, for the ABC's Encounter program, in which she laments that "in Australia , there's little understanding... of that Jewish loyalty to Israel. Zionism is a term of opprobrium for so many Australian non-Jews," prompting her Rabbi interlocutor on the program to opine that "we're dealing with professional anti-Semites who who cloak their anti-Semitism by being unduly critical of Israel."

Just click on her label below and read the Klein interviews, and my 29/9/08 post The Lies that Blind.

2 Order of Australia Medal in the General Division:

"Robert Magid, NSW. For services to business and commerce, and to the Jewish community."

Now how coy is that description? Magid is the owner and publisher of that thoroughly Zionist rag, The Australian Jewish News.

Just click on his label below and read my 1/4/13 post Robert Magid's Guide for the Perplexed on his bizarre musing, The wrong of return, which appeared in The Australian Jewish News of 22/3/13. And, while you're at it, I suggest you also take in my 22/5/13 post 'When the Chips are Down': A Review on his lame anti-BDS satire, When the chips are down.

Faith, Love, Stupidity & Hypocrisy at Q&A

Two things in particular about Monday night's Q&A panel discussion on religion got on my goat.

1) In the context of a discussion of 'Heaven', compere Tony Jones raised the old canard of "radical imams offering sexually repressed young men the prospect of 72 virgins in Heaven if they become a martyr."

This little fable reminds me of the quaint idea that Australia is such a fabulous place that Sri Lankans, Afghans, Iraqis etc are falling all over themselves to climb into leaky boats and risk life and limb on the high seas in the hope of eventually washing up on its heavenly shores.

So too the nonsense that the Palestinian suicide bombers of yore (I presume these are what Jones had in mind) were so entranced by the thought of all those tits and bums upstairs that they were prepared to blow themselves up (and any hapless Israelis within reach) just to get a piece of the action.

Needless to say, neither idea comes anywhere close to explaining asylum seekers or Palestinian suicide bombers.

Just as the murder, mayhem, pillage and plunder in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq are sufficient to explain the asylum seeker phenomenon, so too the murder, mayhem, pillage and plunder, introduced by the Zionist settler-colonial project into Palestine, are sufficient to explain the phenomenon of Palestinian suicide bombers.

In the memorable words of Israeli politician-turned-prophet, Avraham Burg: "Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centres of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture. They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated. We could kill a thousand ringleaders a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below - from the wells of hatred and anger, from the 'infrastructures' of injustice and moral corruption." (The end of Zionism, The Guardian, 15/9/03)

Now what was that about 72 virgins, Tony?

2) The other thing that got me going was the exchange between Imam Mohamad Abdalla and 'Jewish-atheist' singer Deborah Conway when the latter opined:

"It is really refreshing to hear you talk that way and I suppose I wish that more Muslim leaders had come out and talked more openly and vigorously by criticising the proponents of people [who perpetrated 9/11]."

"But they have," replied the Imam, "but people are not listening. There has been so many fatwas, legal opinions, issued against terrorism, and I get asked this question again and again: why don't Muslim leaders speak. They have spoken. The fact that you didn't hear about it is perhaps the problem of the media."

Had I been Abdalla I might also have turned the allegation around thus: 'Ms Conway, who among Jewish community leaders in Australia has ever come out in opposition to Zionist terrorism in Palestine or to the Zionist warmongers in the Bush-Cheney administration who led the charge to 'cauldronize' Iraq?'

For Heaven's Sake, Hari!

How shallow is this?:

"Heaven is a constantly shifting shape because it is a history of subconscious human longings. Show me your heaven and I'll show you what's lacking in your life. The desert-dwellers who wrote the Bible and the Koran lived in thirst - so their heavens were forever running with rivers and fountains and springs... Today's Islamist suicide-bombers live in a society starved of sex, so their heaven is a 72-virgin gang-bang." (Heaven can wait, Johann Hari, The Weekend Australian Magazine, 15/5/10)

Leaving aside the question of whether the Quran (or the Bible for that matter) was written by desert-dwellers, Hari appears blissfully unaware that the notorious 72 virgins, which so titillate the Islamophobic fraternity, are nowhere to be found in the Quran (see my 21/7/09 post 72 Virgins... Again!). Nor does anything remotely resembling sex, let alone a heavenly gang-bang, appear in the Quran, which refers only to the soul's rendezvous with a chaste and perfectly compatible companion.

Hari's lurid nonsense (also dispensed by the odious Christopher Hitchens) is certainly far from original: "In the course of the Middle Ages, Christian hostility was often expressed in anti-Islamic tracts that attacked the supposed falsehoods and inconsistencies in the Koran. Many of these polemics concentrated their attacks on the character of Muhammad himself, who was variously denounced as a 'pseudo-prophet', a 'magician', and a 'carnal' and polygamous libertine who had deceived his credulous followers with blasphemous promises of 'sex in heaven'." (Blood & Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, Matthew Carr, 2010, p 13)

In fact, Hari is so taken with the idea of the Quran as bodice-ripper that he returns for seconds:

"Worse still, the promise of heaven is used as an incentive for people to commit atrocities. I have seen this in practice: I've interviewed wannabe suicide bombers from London to Gaza to Syria, and they all launched into reveries about the orgy they will embark on in the clouds." (Heaven can wait)

Really? Now I don't know what alcohol-induced (?) high Hari was on when he penned that rubbish but it was apparently sufficient to erase all memory of his ever having written the following lines thoughtfully preserved at johannhari.com:

"But we must be honest about this phenomenon. The suicide bombers we are confronting today are reacting against real problems, albeit horribly, and denying this fact obscures the situation we are all in... Survivors of these attacks usually report that the bombers die with a smile on their face - and this is not to do with the belief that they are going to heaven, because secular and Hindu bombers do the same." (We fail to understand the suicide bomber, 21/5/03)

"Many commentators in the West have argued recently that public opinion is being littered with myths about Hamas: that they are supporters of al-Qa'ida, for example, or they believe suicide bombers end up in paradise with 72 virgins... It is not hard to see why people succumb to this madness [suicide bombing], repulsive though it is... From one viewpoint, you are the disenfranchised citizens of a displaced, tiny people who have been abused by the Israelis, abandoned by the Arabs and ignored by the world for 50 years. You will probably never have a decent job; you'll be lucky if you leave Gaza once in your life. You are nothing..." (Hanging with Hamas, 23/8/03)

Wannabe Gazan suicide bombers lusting after cloud-borne orgies? For Heaven's sake, Hari!

The Penny Drops at The Australian

Whatever happened to the 72 virgins* and the terrorist death cults*?

"University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym... carefully studied all 138 suicide bombings between September 2000 and mid-July 2005. He concluded that, in the vast majority of cases, the suicide bombers themselves, whatever their ideological predispositions, or the groups that claimed responsibility, had lost a friend or close relative to Israeli fire. They acted, he wrote, 'out of revenge'." (Sin-binned for blowing the whistle, John Lyons, The Australian, 17/4/10)

[See my posts *72 Virgins... Again! (21/7/09); Repeat After Me (21/5/09)]

Zionist Svengalis

"Not every despairing person can make, at home, the necessary belts, fuses and lethal charges. These things require a godfather." (Christopher Hitchens, Svengalis behind the murderers, The Australian, 20/7/09)

To return to Hitchens' column and the subject of Palestinian suicide bombers (see my previous post), you'll remember the gin-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay's contention that "nasty, vicious, fanatical old men, not human emotions," were the be-all & end-all of the Palestinian suicide bombing phenomenon.

Well, I got to thinking about those grumpy old Svengalis and their bomb belts. Who made the first bomb belt? I asked myself.

Robert Pape, in his authoritative study of suicide bombing, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005), is of the opinion that "the first attacker to use a 'suicide belt'" was a young female Tamil Tiger recruit named Dhanu, who used the device to assassinate Rajiv Ghandi in 1991. "It is not known how the Tigers hit upon the idea," he writes, but speculates that they may have been inspired by a scene in Frederick Forsyth's 1989 novel, The Negotiator. (Pape, p 227)

Perhaps, but Pape has overlooked another, earlier bunch of Svengalis who beat Forsyth to the punch by decades. First, a little context: From 1945 to 1948, a branch of the Palmach, known as Ha'mossad Le'aliya Bet (or Mossad), organized the clandestine immigration of European Jewish refugees to Palestine in defiance of the restrictions on Jewish immigration imposed by the British Mandate authorities at the time. From August 1946, the British began deporting such illegal arrivals to camps in Cyprus. Now read on:-

"There was resistance of some kind to British capture in almost all the Mossad ships, but it became established Mossad policy beginning with the British government's Cyprus decision in August 1946. The Mossad then issued instructions for passive resistance during the transfer of refugees to the British deportation ships. The initiators of this resistance policy and its escalation were Palmach headquarters in Palestine and members of Mossad's operational arm there. They were responsible for bringing the refugees from ship to shore, and thus the potential sites of clashes with the British were within their 'jurisdiction'. Their commander was David Nameri, a kibbutz member and one of the founders and senior officers of both the Mossad and the Palmach and the liaison between the two. An activist in both his views and actions, he had no direct contact with the refugees as did his colleagues in Europe. He therefore formulated his positions without being influenced by the specific fate of the refugees, their sufferings and fatigue, or their ability to fight or resist. The first instructions on resistance were transmitted from Palestine to ships that were already at sea, before a comprehensive policy had been adopted: 'If there is an attempt to take control of the ships outside the territorial waters, there should be passive resistance such as: preventing them from coming up the ladder, blocking the approaches to the helm and the engine room, interference with handcuffing and creating havoc'. A few days after publication of the British decision on deportation to Cyprus, Nameri demanded that the refugee ships be transformed into true vessels of war. His opinion, and that of some of his colleagues, was that 'shouts and curses' were no longer sufficient and that it was time to act, to conduct a fierce and violent battle against deportation including deliberate sabotage of the deportation ships. Explosions were put on the ships and were sometimes attached to the bodies of refugee women, who thus became living bombs. Instructions were given as to how and when to carry out sabotage. 'If they are deported without any response we will never be forgiven', Nameri stated in a cable to the Mossad in Tel Aviv (he was himself in Haifa, where the refugee ships were held until deportation). Nameri, who undoubtedly remembered the Patria tragedy six years previously - more than 260 Jewish refugees drowned as a result of a badly executed dynamiting of the ship that was supposed to deport them - and his own role in it, was still not deterred from renewing his demand to sabotage ships loaded with thousands of refugees." (From Catastrophe to Power: Holocaust Survivors & the Emergence of Israel, Idith Zertal, 1998, pp 140-141)

So here we have a bunch of "nasty, vicious, fanatical old (?) men" aka the Mossad, under the supreme command of another "nasty, vicious, fanatical old man" by name of David Ben-Gurion, turning female Holocaust survivors into ticking bombs for use against British sailors in a blatant attempt to make propaganda for the Zionist cause. Nice.

As to whether these ticking bombs ever went off, Zertal, an Israeli historian, records only that "[w]hile some [Mossad agents] organized resistance at almost any price, others calculated the cost and benefit, especially with regard to victims. With the deportation of both the Catriel Yafeh and the Twenty Three, orders came from shore to those accompanying the refugees to conceal and transfer explosives on the bodies of women refugee passengers. This appalling order was carried out, and a bomb was detonated on one deportation ship." (ibid p 169)

72 Virgins... Again!

"All you have to do is promise them 72 virgins, and they'll kill to get there." (Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons Everything, truthdig.com, 6/6/07)

Gin-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay, neocon windbag and Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens revisits the phenomenon of the Palestinian suicide bomber, reductively concluding that "nasty, vicious, fanatical old men, not human emotions [such as despair] were making the decisions and deciding the days and the hours of death." (Svengalis behind the murderers, The Australian, 20/7/09) Utterly shallow, of course, but that's Hitchens for you.

A corrective is needed.

Mohammed M Hafez' Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers (2006) is a nuanced and insightful study which examines the individual, organizational, and societal motives behind the phenomenon:

"[A]t the level of the individual, religious and nationalist appeals that equate self-sacrifice with martyrdom and national salvation are instrumental in producing volunteers for suicide attacks. Individuals are not inspired to carry out suicide bombings because these are the optimal tactic given the constraints of the political environment or the calculations of costs versus benefits; rather, they are inspired by the redemptive nature of self-sacrifice. The religious and nationalist framings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades go beyond mere manipulation of individual minds; they combine religious texts and historical narratives with ritual and ceremony to foster a culture that venerates martyrdom. The cultural context of Islamic revivalism and the political context of nationalist conflict allow those appeals to resonate with the broader public and with potential bombers. Militant groups also draw on the desire for national empowerment in the context of powerlessness in order to motivate individuals to undertake 'heroic' acts to shake the passive public into action. Finally, militant groups draw on the desire for vengeance that arises when individuals perceive members of their actual or imagined community as humiliated or traumatized by hated enemies.

"At the level of the organization, the case of the Palestinian suicide bombers shows that despite the outwardly religious nature of militant groups, strategic considerations in the context of asymmetrical warfare are the primary drivers for the adoption of suicidal violence as the preferred method of resistance. The difference between those who support suicide bombings and those who oppose them does not correspond to a religious-versus-secular split - both religious and secular factions see the value of suicide attacks. Instead, the split among supporters and opponents corresponds to the divergence between those who believe resistance is the only viable option and those who believe negotiations are more effective. Thus, it would be a mistake to equate suicidal violence solely with Islamism or religious fundamentalism.

"At the level of society, the Palestinian case shows that communities embrace and venerate 'martyrdom operations' when 2 conditions converge: (1) communities feel a deep sense of victimization and threat by external enemies in the course of political conflict, and (2) legitimate authorities promote or acquiesce to extreme violence. Palestinian suicide bombings in the al-Aqsa uprising developed out of a mix of threats and opportunities. On the one hand, the Palestinians felt victimized by Israelis who used harsh measures and collective punishments to end the uprising. On the other hand, the Palestinians felt empowered by government and religious authorities to strike back with extreme violence to punish the Israelis. This dynamic suggests that the phenomenon of volunteerism for suicide bombings is intricately connected to the broader political contexts in a given society. Militant organizations, no matter how ideologically savvy and politically astute, cannot generate high rates of volunteerism for suicide attacks without the presence of opportunities and threats in embattled societies." (pp 67-68) [See also my 2/7/09 post Schmoozing With Aaron Klein!]

And here's the Israeli context, without which the above would not have been possible, from US academic Steve Niva: "While suicide bombings are often portrayed as individual and random acts of fanaticism or desperation, leading to an excessive focus on the 'mind of the suicide bomber', my research has found that suicide bombings are highly organized and patterned. They are the product of a deliberate strategy by militant groups to both punish Israel for specific acts and to mobilize popular support for their organizations. I trace the origins of this pattern to the first suicide bombing inside Israel in April 1994 that came exactly 40 days (the standard Muslim mourning period) after the massacre of 29 Palestinians praying in a Hebron mosque by the American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein in February 1994. Since that time, my research has shown that Palestinian militant groups have adopted a policy of using Israeli acts of violence, especially assassinations of militant leaders and civilian massacres, as the trigger for launching suicide bombing attacks inside Israel... [M]y research suggests that the pattern of suicide bombings can only be explained in the context of Israel's violent actions, often war crimes under international law, which routinely precipitate and provide a rationalization for such attacks." (academic.evergreen.edu)

Needless to say, a shot as cheap as Hitchens' just wouldn't be complete without the following: "To have added the promise of paradise to this pogrom is to have made spiritual and mental sickness complete; to have made it a sexual paradise is obscene into the bargain. (Women martyrs are obviously not offered the same level of bliss and promiscuity by the Koran [sic].)"

Nor are martyred men, Bozo. The 72 virgins are not found in the Quran, but in a 9th century hadith from Ahmad al-Tirmidhi: "The martyr has a guarantee from God: He forgives him at the first drop of his blood and shows him his seat in Heaven. He decorates him with the jewels of faith, protects him from the torments of the grave, keeps him safe on the day of judgment, places a crown of dignity on his head with the finest rubies in the world, marries him to 72 of the pure virgins of paradise and intercedes on behalf of 70 of his relatives."

Hitchens should be so lucky.

Schmoozing with Aaron Klein!

"The Spirit of Things is an adventure into religion and spirituality. It explores contemporary values and beliefs as expressed through ritual, art, music, and sacred texts." (About Us, www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings)

"In a Sydney Morning Herald survey of Australia's top 100 intellectuals, Rachael Kohn was voted in the top 50 (SMH, March 12-13, 2005)." (http://www.rachaelkohn.com/)

"Israel, homosexuality, and Hollywood are targeted for elimination according to the young men from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Aaron Klein, an Orthodox Jew and intrepid journalist, has made it a point to seek them out and get answers to his questions. In this edition of The Spirit of Things you will be amazed at the courage and frankness of Klein as he tells presenter Rachael Kohn about his experiences." (promo for Talking with Terrorists, 15/6/08)

If you thought Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan's Deep inside the plucky country (see my 20/1/08 post, Gullible's Travels) was good, then Rachael Kohn's interview with young Aaron, Talking with Terrorists, is better! In fact the only thing that could top it would be a Greg (JP) Sheridan interview with him. Just imagine: Deep inside the plucky Aaron Klein.

Intrepid and courageous Aaron is the author of what promises to be (I haven't yet had the pleasure of reading it) a scholarly, but entertaining tome on terrorism titled Schmoozing with Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal their Global Plans - to a Jew! WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem correspondent has apparently gone where no journalist has gone before, deep into the gaping jaws of the global jihad, and lives to tell the tale.

But then you'd expect no less from a WND man. Check out for yourself this Brave New World of journalism aka A Free Press for a Free people. Be tempted by the bodybuilding ads or the Ann Coulter wannabes wearing "conservative t-shirts" (Up Your Arsenal!/I'd Rather Be Waterboarding etc). Go ahead! Get clicking! That body and that t-shirt could be yours! (I've never set eyes on Aaron! but I reckon it must've been his body and his t-shirt that turned Rachael's head.) Or maybe some diverting DVDs? How about "The UFO Conspiracy: Space Travelers or Demonic Deceivers?" Or "Watch Darwin croak on video: New work shows mounting evidence for intelligent design of the universe." Still interested in the nooos? Click on "Today's [1/7/08] WND News Highlights" and read all the news that's fit to slaver over: "Democratic Party official accused in satanic rape, kidnap"; "Obama campaign site: Free Islamic terrorist!"; "Student says 'F... off!' on test, gets better grade"; "Now you can dress like a polygamist, too!" And my own favourite: "Ever want to just scream 'NOOOOO!'? Here's [the] answer to worries over issues like blog support for terrorists": "A blog posting on Sen. Barack Obama's official campaign site has urged Americans to work to release an imprisoned terrorist fundraiser, the New York Times reports there [are] a new contingent of political activists calling themselves 'Hussein', and a group of Hindus is presenting Obama's campaign with an idol of a Hindu monkey-god after hearing the candidate carries a smaller version of 'Lord Hanuman' as a good-luck charm. Ever wanted to scream 'NOOOOOO!'?"

Actually, Aaron! (and Rachael), YESSSSSS!

What's with the Obama angle? Some curmudgeons reckon Aaron!'s got an Obamabee in his bonnet: "Klein made a name for himself by getting terrorists to say nice things about Democrats and allying himself with extremist elements of the Israeli right... Klein originally called Hilary Clinton the 'jihadist choice for president', but when Clinton stumbled, he turned his fire to Obama, attempting to expose his so-called 'terrorist connections'." (Ari Berman, Smearing Obama, The Nation, 13/3/08). Others have been so unkind as to refer to his "long and dubious reporting history at WND." (Terry Krepel, Aaron Klein's Mighty Wurlitzer, http://www.conwebwatch.tripod.com/) Whining liberal scum to be sure. They don't know him as Rachael does. And she's in the top 50! Judging by her interview, I imagine the study of terrorism will henceforth be divided into BK! (Before Klein!) and AK! (After Klein!), the courageous/intrepid Klein! having put it at last on a scientific footing. And just to remind you how primitive and dated some of the BK! studies now are, here's a sample:

"In an investigative report by the Guardian newspaper, the friends and families of 21 suicide bombers were interviewed. It was reported that all the families described the bombers as being influenced emotionally by daily images of killings, sometimes 'breaking down in tears or shouting before their television sets'." (Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers, Mohammed Hafez, pp 48-49)

"'I did this because of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The falling of shuhada [those martyred by Israeli forces]... and the destruction everywhere in Palestine... I did this for God and for the Palestinian people'." (Ibid p 50)

"[O]ne cannot simply disaggregate nationalism and religious revivalism; the suicide bombers are dying for God and country. Religious revivalism, nationalist conflict, and community ties underpin the culture of martyrdom that emerged during the second Palestinian uprising. Organizations drew on these 3 sources of identity to engender the myth of the heroic martyr. These identities were interwoven by militant groups to frame martyrdom as an act of redemption, empowerment, and defiance against unjust authorities. Volunteers for suicide attacks are not brainwashed victims of opportunistic organizations, nor are they manipulated individuals who are fooled by calculating terrorists. Instead, it is more appropriate to say that they are inspired by the opportunity to fulfill their obligation to God, sacrifice for the nation and avenge a grieving people." (Ibid, pp 50-51)

"The bottom line... is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation... Religion plays a role. However, modern suicide terrorism is best understood as an extreme strategy for national liberation against democracies with troops that pose an imminent threat to control the territory the terrorists view as their homeland." (Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape, p 23)

Klein!, the intrepid, the courageous, has consigned such studies to the academic dustbin. He has single-handedly swept aside all distinctions: Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qa'ida, Hezbollah, whatever, they're all just "terror organizations." Movements of national liberation from occupation? Bah, humbug! Terrorists are just natural born killers, "pure evil, [they] exist to kill, like a bird flies, and ice is cold... They kill, that's what they do." And why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it, apart of course from being evil, wicked, sinful, vicious, wrong, base, vile, nefarious, malign, malevolent, nasty, and just plain bad?

Aaron! knows 'cause he's been schmoozing with terrorists since he was 19! As the clearly smitten Rachael reminds her listeners at one stage, "'I'm talking to Aaron Klein!, a young fellow who decided that the threats by terrorists to wipe out Israel, America and Western culture were not to be taken lying down." Barely out of coonskin cap and short pants, still at uni (Yeshiva), and he's off to schmooze with al-Qa'ida no less, in Terror Central aka London, no less. Blimey! The CIA may be chasing their tails, but our Aaron!, a mere penniless student presumably, leaves behind his job at Macca's, and manages to smoke out al-Qa'ida faster than you can knock back fries with that. How did he do it? Sadly, Rachael's too mesmerised to ask.

What was that question again? Why do Palestinian schmuiciders do it? Well we know it's not because they're bored with the Israeli occupation because Aaron!'s also been schmoozing with Hamas leader Mahmoud ('I may be busy dodging Israeli missiles, Aaron! me lad, but I can always fit you in') al-Zahhar who tells him "that they're just against the Zionist occupiers, and that they have nothing against Judaism," but the intrepid one just knows (in his bones I guess) that "ultimately it isn't really tue." Still, isn't it funny how all the other terrorists are so "open... about the fact that that their war is a war of culture... of bringing their religion really around the world," but this one isn't. But he is really 'cause Aaron! the brave eventually manages to winkle the truth out of the old scoundrel: "I actually just talked a few weeks ago with Mahmoud al-Zahhar the chief of Hamas on the Gaza Strip*, and he told me that Islam will be spread around the world, that this is the ultimate goal and ideology of Hamas." [*Can't understand why Rachael, one of our top 50 intellects, didn't correct him here. Surely she knows that MZ is actually the Hamas government's foreign minister.]

Anyway, I digress. What was the question again? Ah, why do Palestinian schmuicide bombers do it? Yes, I know, because they can't help themselves, they're all snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails. But, and here's the paradox: although they're evil bastards, they just want to cosy up to God! Yep, that's what "Ahmed... an Islamic Jihad recruit in Jenin" told Aaron!: "[T]his isn't about occupation, it's not about the fact that he lives in poor conditions... he had a fine house and said he wasn't rich, wasn't poor, but he said that he was blowing himself up... because... it's the best way to reach the highest levels... of Allah's paradise." Kids like Ahmed are apparently just putty in the hands of "sheiks/lower-level terrorist leaders" who are "using religion to justify their political aims which is in part to destroy Israel." Carping, canting critics might of course point out that schmuicide bomblings from the secular al-Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine might do it because they find the Israeli occupation a bit of a bore, but who gives a... They're probably on Barack HUSSEIN Osama's payroll anyway.

Define terrorism, Rachael asks. "Targeting civilians for murder to achieve political ends," says Aaron!, but faster than you can mutter 'Israeli state terrorism', he reminds us that "you can't compare terrorists that target women and children, that send schmuicide bombers into restaurants, that shoot rockets from civilian population centres into Jewish homes... to the IDF which really take all precautions necessary to ensure that there aren't civilian casualties."

And how right he is. It's so obviously, dreadfully wrong when Palestinian terrorists target Israeli civilians, but not so when our Israeli heroes kill Palestinian civilians 'cause, gosh, they don't intend to, even though they know they're there, all around, acting as human shields or just getting in the way, damn them. And anyway, the IDF do it cleanly, from a watchtower, from a great height, from way out at sea even, so there's no blood on their hands. And what's more they've got that lovely man from the foreign ministry, Mark Regev, to assure the viewers that there were no Palestinian civilian casualties, only 'collateral damage'.

Rachael asks Aaron! if the terrorists mind him calling them terrorists. But you know who the boss is in this relationship. After all, Aaron!'s been staring down Pure Evil since he was 19 and petrifaction still hasn't set in. The terrorists complain to him that they're not terrorists, but Aaron!'s one tough-talking dude. He won't put up with their whining. He just socks it to 'em, unblinking: "You need to understand that this is the way I think that the West views you. You're just going to have to accept that." And you know what? Aaron! doesn't let on, but I reckon they must just slink off with their forked tails firmly between their legs and their little horns quite crestfallen. And that Aaron!'s not even mad at them! There's only one thing that gets his dander up - the Israeli government! Yep! That's right. Know why? It's 'cause the Israeli leadership, the American leadership and the media are falling over themselves to hand over Israeli "territory" to the terrorists. And you know what that'll lead to: "[W]e're going to have rockets flying into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv..."

No, Aaron!'s not being paranoid. You can see why he's got the shits with the terrorist-appeasing Olmert, Bush and NYT if you read some of his hair-raising despatches at WND. The fiercesome rate at which illegal Palestinian terrorist settlements are proliferating throughout East Jerusalem would be enough to give anyone the wobbles.

In the next exciting episode Aaron! gets stuck into terrorists, the media, Hollywood, terrorists, liberals, terrorists, and more terrorists. Watch this space.

We Remember Warsaw

On 22/1/08 the following letter appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald:-

"Nearly 70 years ago, in a small European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear. Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace." Zaid Khan, Blakehurst

This was followed, on 23/1/08, as befits the Israel lobby's insistence (except when their own spokespeople are crowding out dissenting voices) on a policy of faux balance whenever Palestine-Israel comes up on the opinion pages, by:-

"I am not as familiar as Zaid Khan with Europe 70 years ago but, to the best of my knowledge the oppressed minority in Warsaw were not firing Katyusha rockets indiscriminately into the surrounding area and neither were their kids being wrapped in explosives and sent out to blow up the neighbours." David Calvey, Vaucluse

So far, so predictable. The prospect of pursuit by a snarling, snapping pack of pro-Israel media hounds is usually enough to deter the Bambi responsible for the letters page from publishing letters in support of Palestine. Had Bambi realised he/she'd let his/her guard down with Zaid Khan's timely letter and sought to ward off the hounds by publishing Calvey's too-clever-by-half riposte from, of all places, Vaucluse?

I will say nothing of Calvey's cheap shot, other than to point out that the resistance in Gaza does not fire Katyushas and wonder, along with Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, just why, given the anger and desperation in the ghetto, there aren't in fact more suicide bombers: "The truth is that nearly every Palestinian has many reasons to be fed up with life to the point of suicide and thoughts of revenge, and those thoughts are not only linked to military attacks. Even without killing, the Israeli occupation regime kills hope, plans, relationships, ways of life. Living among Palestinians brings daily examples of the thousands of shades that despair has, just as the regime of occupation and colonization brings with it thousands of variants of material and mental abuse. Every moment, people mourn for the lives they could have had and which they are not experiencing. How explosive is the daily insult which people experience under a foreign rule that decides who will live in their own house and who will not, who will have access to their lands and who will not, when the bulldozer will tear up your grandparents' land in order to attach it to a highway and a green settlement, who will waste several hours every day at a checkpoint, who will send their children to the university and who will send them to beg, who will lose their source of livelihood, who will see their family and when, and who will not." [Where are the suicide bombers? 12/07].

Next day something interesting happened. Readers, it seems, had had enough. They could see right through Calvay, the invisible man, directly into the heart of darkness that is the Warsaw/Gaza Ghetto:-

"What we can never know, David Calvey, is whether the oppressed in Warsaw would have retaliated had they been given the means with which to do so." Rachel Merhabi, Turramurra

"You're right, David Calvey, the oppressed minority in Warsaw did not protest with rockets and suicide bombs. But I believe most of them ended up in the Nazi gas chambers." Paul Sadler, Newtown

"The reason, David Calvey, that the oppressed minority were not fighting back with weapons and explosives is that they didn't have them. I am sure Polish Jews would have used anything available and done anything possible to disrupt the German war machine. I am sure what Zaid Khan was getting at is the massive hypocrisy of Israel: it was oppression back then when done to them, but it is somehow OK to do it to someone else now." David Gardiner Camperdown

"Maybe I'm not as familiar as David Calvey with Europe 70 years ago but, if the oppressed minority suffering in Warsaw was subjected to the same oppression for 50 continuos years or more, they too would take more extreme measures, Also, to the best of my knowledge, like the people in the occupied territories, the oppressed in Warsaw did eventually revolt against the oppression, and justifiably so." Brad Spencer Ljubljana, Slovenia

"I don't need to visit Gaza to tell David Calvey that 99% of its population don't have rockets in the back shed and bomb vests in the bedroom. Like the Jews in Warsaw, most Palestinians in Gaza are being held captive with the barest of essentials, purely on the basis that they were 'accidentally' born of the wrong blood in the wrong place. How can the average Palestinian Joe hope to stop the actions of a few mad militants? And why should the Israelis expect them to do so? The current Israeli policy holds every man, woman and child responsible for any act of terrorism. Last thing I heard, there were quite a few unsolved murders in Sydney. I say we lock the whole place down until people there realise that the rest of the country won't tolerate it. After all, if they are prepared to murder their fellow Sydneysiders, they might come after the rest of us." Anura Samara Geneva, Switzerland

What on Earthwas Bambi thinking when he/she let this lot in? Had Bambi also had enough? Will he/she now be torn to pieces by the pro-Israel pack? Will there be a mea culpa in the next issue? Think I'm joking? Let's go back a few years and look at the brouhaha which followed Herald cartoonist, Moir's cartoon of 12/8/03, in which he dared to associate Israel's West Bank wall of 2003 with the Warsaw Ghetto of 1943. The Herald was inundated with outraged letters, 9 of which were published over the next 2 days.

To top it off, in the issue of 16/8/03, the following grovel from Herald editor, Robert Whitehead appeared: "It is as important for the Herald to be accurate and fair as it is to admit when we do not live up to its own high standards. That is why we began inviting people earlier this year to help us correct the record whenever they saw a material error. An honesty about mistakes and a willingness to fix them is important to us and our readers. The same is true of errors of judgement. Finding ways to redress these, however, can be less straightforward. An example this week was the Moir cartoon published on Tuesday. It likened the Nazis' building of the Warsaw ghetto with the Israeli Government's building of a security fence on the West Bank. To publish it was a lapse of judgement and I apologise to the many readers who, understandably, took great offence. As Moir said in a note in the aftermath, he was intending to be provocative 'but I should have used a less sensitive metaphor to make the point about historic irony'."

Pathetic! But funny how the comparison comes naturally to Palestinians - as an inmate of the virtually encircled West Bank town of Qalqilya commented at the time to a journalist from the UK Observer: "It feels like a concentration camp...with the difference that there the people were waiting for death. Here they are just waiting for us to leave."

The Herald's grovel back then reminds us of the need to stand up to the lobby. In the words of Mearsheimer & Walt : "As the primary source of independent thinking in democratic societies, scholars and journalists should be encouraged to resist the lobby's efforts to shape public discourse and to encourage more open discussion of these important issues." [The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy p 351]

What will tomorrow bring?