Robyn Williams: How did you make a nano Star of David?
Uri Banin: [I]n nanotechnology, one of the revolutionary ideas is to use chemistry not only to make the nanoparticles but also to incorporate them into devices... And to do that we are constructing nanoparticles which are more clever, more smart. It's a nanoparticle that not only has just a semiconductor material, which is the material that emits the light or a material which would be the components of a transistor, [but] also has a metallic part to it... We combined a nanoparticle which is made of copper sulphide and it is a highly faceted... very beautiful nanoparticle that we've made, about 14 to 20 nanometres in diameter, and then we've attempted to grow a metal on top of this nice nanoparticle in order to achieve this dual particle which has properties of combining a metal and a semiconductor together. And what we saw was a very interesting result which looked under the electron microscope like a nano Star of David. When you look up at this particle, which has a semiconductor of copper sulphide decorated by ruthenium, it really looks like the Star of David... We were of course fascinated by the actual structure that was formed. What happened was that it was a new growth made of a metal on a semiconductor particle because what we saw is that we actually decorate the edges of this particle. Instead of growing a metal island, the metal grew on the edges of the particles forming what looked from above like a Star of David, but in fact was a metal cage, a frame like a birdcage, but 100 million times smaller, surrounding this 20 nanometre particle, which was an additional benefit, discovering this in Jerusalem so close to Temple Mount." (Nanoparticles for diagnostics & light, The Science Show, Radio National, 13/11/10)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Send in the Clown
Unrequited Love:
"[Foreign Minister] Kevin Rudd gatecrashed the special ABC television broadcast with Hilary Clinton on the weekend, demanding a place in the heavily promoted event to share the limelight with the US Secretary of State, an official said... An Australian official familiar with the event said Mr Rudd had stridently demanded plans be changed to include him. 'The behaviour was disgusting and he deserves to be called on it', the official told The Age." (Rudd ruffles feathers to be in Clinton limelight, Daniel Flitton, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/11/10)
Pot Calls Kettle Black:
"Kevin Rudd yesterday warned China that its association with 'obnoxious regimes' such as Burma risked damaging its global standing." (Ties to rogue regimes hurting China: Rudd, Samantha Maiden, The Australian, 15/11/10)
"[Foreign Minister] Kevin Rudd gatecrashed the special ABC television broadcast with Hilary Clinton on the weekend, demanding a place in the heavily promoted event to share the limelight with the US Secretary of State, an official said... An Australian official familiar with the event said Mr Rudd had stridently demanded plans be changed to include him. 'The behaviour was disgusting and he deserves to be called on it', the official told The Age." (Rudd ruffles feathers to be in Clinton limelight, Daniel Flitton, Sydney Morning Herald, 10/11/10)
Pot Calls Kettle Black:
"Kevin Rudd yesterday warned China that its association with 'obnoxious regimes' such as Burma risked damaging its global standing." (Ties to rogue regimes hurting China: Rudd, Samantha Maiden, The Australian, 15/11/10)
Amnon Neumann: Arab Fighter
This post should be read in tandem with the previous post, Frank Lowy: Arab Fighter. It concerns events which took place during the campaign of ethnic cleansing, known to Palestinians as the Nakba (Catastrophe), undertaken by Zionist forces in Palestine in 1948. What follows are extracts from the testimony of Palmach veteran, Amnon Neumann, recorded at a public hearing organised by Zochrot* on 17/6/10. Neumann's unit operated in southern Palestine and the Negev:
The villagers' flight... happened gradually. I only know about what happened from the 'Iraq Suwaydan road, [through] Majdal, to 'Iraq al-Manshiyya... The villagers' flight started when we began cleaning these convoy escort routes. It was then that we started to expel the villagers... and in the end they fled by themselves. There were no special events worth mentioning. No atrocities and no nothing. No civilians can live while there's a war going on. They didn't think they were running away for a long period of time, they didn't think they wouldn't return. Nor did anyone imagine that a whole people wouldn't return. [The Zionist leadership under David Ben-Gurion certainly did. MERC]... The first time I entered Kawkaba and Burayr I was amazed by their poverty. There was nothing there. No furniture and no thing. There were shelves made of straw and mud, the houses were made of straw and mud. They lived there for thousands of years without any change, and the only thing that happened to them was the disaster of the Nakba in 'Tashah' [1948]. Because we didn't come to collect taxes, we came to inherit the land from foreigners. That was the foundation of our thinking. We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don't inherit it from anyone. The land wasn't empty so we inherited it, and whoever inherits the land disinherits others. And that's why we didn't bring them back. It was everywhere, in the north and the south, everywhere. That's the most important point. The land wasn't empty as I was told when I was a child. I know it, because I lived with Arabs...
I was wounded and I went home, after April 1948, after they expelled the Arabs in Haifa... Our [Arab] villages, Yajur [2k north of Kibbutz Yagur] and Balad al-Sheikh [today part of Nesher], didn't exist anymore either. They were empty... And then I went back to the Negev and we did the same thing. At that time I didn't see anything wrong with it. I was educated to it just like everybody else. And I followed through with it faithfully, and if I was told things I don't want to mention - I did them without the least of a doubt. Without thinking twice. For 50 or 60 years I've been torturing myself about this. But what's done is done. It was done by order. And I won't go into that, these are not things that... (long silence)
Eitan Bronstein [of Zochrot]: You're saying it was a battle with armed people who were not the inhabitants of Burayr. but at the same time there were still residents of Burayr in the village? Amnon Neumann: Yes! EB: Yes, there are testimonies about a massacre having taken place in Burayr. AN: You've heard about it? EB: Yes... AN: I don't want to deal with it... There was also a second platoon with us in Burayr. One guy, an Egyptian Jew, came here and said - excuse me - 'I fucked her and shot her'. EB: Did you hear him say it? AN: No, I was told about this later. I didn't see him. And then they ran, the people who were there, and saw her, a 17-year-old girl. He had put a bullet through her head... Dan Yahav [Zochrot]: But they had washed her there, she was clean. AN: I didn't see and didn't ask. How do you know? DY: I'm telling you, I know. AN: This particular case? DY: Yes. AN: With this Egyptian? DY: Yes, yes. AN: I see you've done some reach. DY: They washed her, prepared her and then did what they did. (Silence) AN: I didn't know these details and I never wanted to go into the thick of things. DY: By the way, the IDF archive is unwilling to this day to open documents related to cases of rape. It's still [a matter of] 'Israel's security'. (Long silence)
Eitan Bronstein: But you can describe exactly this thing, how you as a soldier, you're shooting people who you see aren't shooting at you, how... how did you understand it back then?... That you had the full right to do it? AN: I didn't understand. I was 19. EB: So you just did it? AN: I was a fool and I didn't know. Yes. That's why I'm in such despair, because soldiers are always 19-20 years old, and they never sober up until they've been through four battles. That's the main point. And there will always be new 19-year-olds.
[*http://zochrot.org/index.php?id=844]
The villagers' flight... happened gradually. I only know about what happened from the 'Iraq Suwaydan road, [through] Majdal, to 'Iraq al-Manshiyya... The villagers' flight started when we began cleaning these convoy escort routes. It was then that we started to expel the villagers... and in the end they fled by themselves. There were no special events worth mentioning. No atrocities and no nothing. No civilians can live while there's a war going on. They didn't think they were running away for a long period of time, they didn't think they wouldn't return. Nor did anyone imagine that a whole people wouldn't return. [The Zionist leadership under David Ben-Gurion certainly did. MERC]... The first time I entered Kawkaba and Burayr I was amazed by their poverty. There was nothing there. No furniture and no thing. There were shelves made of straw and mud, the houses were made of straw and mud. They lived there for thousands of years without any change, and the only thing that happened to them was the disaster of the Nakba in 'Tashah' [1948]. Because we didn't come to collect taxes, we came to inherit the land from foreigners. That was the foundation of our thinking. We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don't inherit it from anyone. The land wasn't empty so we inherited it, and whoever inherits the land disinherits others. And that's why we didn't bring them back. It was everywhere, in the north and the south, everywhere. That's the most important point. The land wasn't empty as I was told when I was a child. I know it, because I lived with Arabs...
I was wounded and I went home, after April 1948, after they expelled the Arabs in Haifa... Our [Arab] villages, Yajur [2k north of Kibbutz Yagur] and Balad al-Sheikh [today part of Nesher], didn't exist anymore either. They were empty... And then I went back to the Negev and we did the same thing. At that time I didn't see anything wrong with it. I was educated to it just like everybody else. And I followed through with it faithfully, and if I was told things I don't want to mention - I did them without the least of a doubt. Without thinking twice. For 50 or 60 years I've been torturing myself about this. But what's done is done. It was done by order. And I won't go into that, these are not things that... (long silence)
Eitan Bronstein [of Zochrot]: You're saying it was a battle with armed people who were not the inhabitants of Burayr. but at the same time there were still residents of Burayr in the village? Amnon Neumann: Yes! EB: Yes, there are testimonies about a massacre having taken place in Burayr. AN: You've heard about it? EB: Yes... AN: I don't want to deal with it... There was also a second platoon with us in Burayr. One guy, an Egyptian Jew, came here and said - excuse me - 'I fucked her and shot her'. EB: Did you hear him say it? AN: No, I was told about this later. I didn't see him. And then they ran, the people who were there, and saw her, a 17-year-old girl. He had put a bullet through her head... Dan Yahav [Zochrot]: But they had washed her there, she was clean. AN: I didn't see and didn't ask. How do you know? DY: I'm telling you, I know. AN: This particular case? DY: Yes. AN: With this Egyptian? DY: Yes, yes. AN: I see you've done some reach. DY: They washed her, prepared her and then did what they did. (Silence) AN: I didn't know these details and I never wanted to go into the thick of things. DY: By the way, the IDF archive is unwilling to this day to open documents related to cases of rape. It's still [a matter of] 'Israel's security'. (Long silence)
Eitan Bronstein: But you can describe exactly this thing, how you as a soldier, you're shooting people who you see aren't shooting at you, how... how did you understand it back then?... That you had the full right to do it? AN: I didn't understand. I was 19. EB: So you just did it? AN: I was a fool and I didn't know. Yes. That's why I'm in such despair, because soldiers are always 19-20 years old, and they never sober up until they've been through four battles. That's the main point. And there will always be new 19-year-olds.
[*http://zochrot.org/index.php?id=844]
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Frank Lowy: Arab Fighter
The saga of Frank Lowy, Australia's richest man, is coming to your TV screen tomorrow night - Family Confidential, ABC1 - and both the Murdoch and Fairfax presses are trumpeting the fact.
Judging by The Australian's coverage, this is what you'll get:
"The story Lowy had kept to himself for so long was the horrifying daily drama of his life as a 13-year-old Jewish boy learning to fight for survival in Hungary after the Nazi invasion. The family scattered, the yellow star, the ghetto, the bodies, the shootings, the narrow escapes, the misery, the humiliation, the scrounging, the desperate desire to live." (Holocaust truth set Lowy free, Jennifer Hewett, The Australian, 13/11/10)
"'People ought to know', Lowy shrugs. Just as he now knows that [his father] Hugo Lowy was beaten to death just after he got off the train at Auschwitz in April 1944... His father was killed immediately because he insisted on going back to pick up the bag containing his prayer shawl after guards took it away from him." (ibid)
Ditto for the Sydney Morning Herald:
"When Frank Lowy was 13 in wartime Hungary, his father left the family home one day and never came back... It would take 50 years... before he finally learnt what happened that day in March 1944, just after Nazi Germany invaded Hungary. All Lowy knew was his father had gone to buy train tickets to try to get his family to a safer place. Everything after that was blank: a mystery that had hung over him all his life. The stranger who Peter Lowy met in Los Angeles in 1991 knew the answer to the question his father had never asked aloud. Having been seized at the station and put on a train to Auschwitz, Lowy's father, Hugo Lowy, had refused an order from Nazi soldiers to surrender his prayer shawl and prayer books... so they could be burned. The soldiers beat him and left him to die by the side of the train wagon in Auschwitz. He never made it inside the camp. For most of his life Lowy could not talk about his childhood ordeal in Hungary, not even to family and friends. It took until this year... for Lowy to finally find some peace and hold a memorial service for him." (Sad secret of a famous son, Adele Ferguson, 13/11/10)
But there's another chapter of the Lowy story which the media show very little interest in - the period from 1946 to 1952 when he lived in Palestine/Israel. What exactly did he get up to then? I tried to shed some light on this in my 19/7/10 post Refugees, but let's see what Murdoch and Fairfax have to say this time around.
The Australian says only this:
"The Lowy association with Israel predates Australia. After the war, Lowy lefy Hungary for Palestine... He had been arrested by British soldiers on an old tub outside the port of Haifa, then part of British Palestine, and taken to a refugee camp in Cyprus for 6 months. After he arrived in Palestine as part of a quota, he fought for the underground and, after the establishment of Israel in 1948, for the Israeli army. 'The 6 years I spent there really freed me from the encumbrances of the Eastern European persecution', he says. 'You know - I was a free man, free-thinking, could do what I wanted, go where I wanted. It was a very productive time personally, particularly looking back... so by the time I got here, I was not a victim anymore'." (Hewett)
And this:
"A Holocaust survivor, he left Eastern Europe in 1946 to fight in the Jewish underground in what was then Palestine. Fighting Arabs during the day, he studied accounting at night." (Hearth & soul, Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian Review, 13/11/10)
Fighting Arabs during the day, he studied accounting at night? Hm, as you would...
The Sydney Morning Herald says even less:
"Migrating to Australia from Palestine in 1952..."
From Palestine? Frank and friends are going to love that one.
We'll probably never hear the full story of Lowy's Arab-fighting days, although the memory retrievalists of that remarkable Israeli organisation Zochrot* recently managed to pull off a bit of a coup when they managed to coax Amnon Neumann, another old Arab fighter of the time, to talk about his memories of the very dirty war of 1948. Stay tuned for my next post.
[*"Zochrot 'Remembering' is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948." zochrot.org]
Judging by The Australian's coverage, this is what you'll get:
"The story Lowy had kept to himself for so long was the horrifying daily drama of his life as a 13-year-old Jewish boy learning to fight for survival in Hungary after the Nazi invasion. The family scattered, the yellow star, the ghetto, the bodies, the shootings, the narrow escapes, the misery, the humiliation, the scrounging, the desperate desire to live." (Holocaust truth set Lowy free, Jennifer Hewett, The Australian, 13/11/10)
"'People ought to know', Lowy shrugs. Just as he now knows that [his father] Hugo Lowy was beaten to death just after he got off the train at Auschwitz in April 1944... His father was killed immediately because he insisted on going back to pick up the bag containing his prayer shawl after guards took it away from him." (ibid)
Ditto for the Sydney Morning Herald:
"When Frank Lowy was 13 in wartime Hungary, his father left the family home one day and never came back... It would take 50 years... before he finally learnt what happened that day in March 1944, just after Nazi Germany invaded Hungary. All Lowy knew was his father had gone to buy train tickets to try to get his family to a safer place. Everything after that was blank: a mystery that had hung over him all his life. The stranger who Peter Lowy met in Los Angeles in 1991 knew the answer to the question his father had never asked aloud. Having been seized at the station and put on a train to Auschwitz, Lowy's father, Hugo Lowy, had refused an order from Nazi soldiers to surrender his prayer shawl and prayer books... so they could be burned. The soldiers beat him and left him to die by the side of the train wagon in Auschwitz. He never made it inside the camp. For most of his life Lowy could not talk about his childhood ordeal in Hungary, not even to family and friends. It took until this year... for Lowy to finally find some peace and hold a memorial service for him." (Sad secret of a famous son, Adele Ferguson, 13/11/10)
But there's another chapter of the Lowy story which the media show very little interest in - the period from 1946 to 1952 when he lived in Palestine/Israel. What exactly did he get up to then? I tried to shed some light on this in my 19/7/10 post Refugees, but let's see what Murdoch and Fairfax have to say this time around.
The Australian says only this:
"The Lowy association with Israel predates Australia. After the war, Lowy lefy Hungary for Palestine... He had been arrested by British soldiers on an old tub outside the port of Haifa, then part of British Palestine, and taken to a refugee camp in Cyprus for 6 months. After he arrived in Palestine as part of a quota, he fought for the underground and, after the establishment of Israel in 1948, for the Israeli army. 'The 6 years I spent there really freed me from the encumbrances of the Eastern European persecution', he says. 'You know - I was a free man, free-thinking, could do what I wanted, go where I wanted. It was a very productive time personally, particularly looking back... so by the time I got here, I was not a victim anymore'." (Hewett)
And this:
"A Holocaust survivor, he left Eastern Europe in 1946 to fight in the Jewish underground in what was then Palestine. Fighting Arabs during the day, he studied accounting at night." (Hearth & soul, Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian Review, 13/11/10)
Fighting Arabs during the day, he studied accounting at night? Hm, as you would...
The Sydney Morning Herald says even less:
"Migrating to Australia from Palestine in 1952..."
From Palestine? Frank and friends are going to love that one.
We'll probably never hear the full story of Lowy's Arab-fighting days, although the memory retrievalists of that remarkable Israeli organisation Zochrot* recently managed to pull off a bit of a coup when they managed to coax Amnon Neumann, another old Arab fighter of the time, to talk about his memories of the very dirty war of 1948. Stay tuned for my next post.
[*"Zochrot 'Remembering' is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948." zochrot.org]
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Diggers Who Died for Israel?
I've dealt before with the shameless Zionist appropriation of those bits of Palestinian history on which Australia has impinged, in particular the activities of the Australian Light Horse Brigade in southern Palestine against the Turks in 1917. A reading of my posts Anzac Day Special: Diggers Die for Israel (25/4/08) and Zionst Myth In-formation (1/5/08) should give you an idea of what I'm getting at. The Australian Jewish News has reported the latest episode in this conscious rewriting of history thus:
"Diplomats, civilian delegations and military representatives from around the world gathered in Be'er Sheva last Sunday to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of the World War I battle that took place in that city. Defence attaches from Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa, Austria, and Israel, together with high-ranking envoys from the United Nations international peacekeeping force in Sinai, joined the southern city's municipality for the day's events. The Battle of Be'er Sheva is famous for the charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade, which played a pivotal role in enabling British forces to conquer the Ottomans and paved the way for General Edmund Allenby to take control of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917. The Australian victory... was commemorated in 3 separate ceremonies. The first, co-hosted by the Australian Embassy, the Be'er Sheva Municipality and The Pratt Foundation, was held in the Park of the Australian Soldier, a Pratt Foundation gift to the city... Australian Ambassador Andrea Faulkner said her country has a special bond with the Israeli city, not just because of the battle, but also because of similar climates and water scarcity. The Park of the Australian Soldier, she observed, was testimony of the contribution made by the late Richard Pratt to cement the relationship between Australia and Israel, while simultaneously commemorating history... Referring to both world wars, Faulkner noted that many Australians had fought and died in what is now Israel. Of the 774 fallen Australian troops buried in Israel, 175 are buried in Be'er Sheva, she said." (Diggers not forgotten, 5/11/10)
Note how the Battle of Beersheba becomes the Battle of Be'er Sheva. Note the level of Israeli involvement in this 'commemoration', and the rhetoric of Australia's ambassador to Israel. And note especially the role of convicted price-fixer Dick Pratt's 'Park of the Australian Soldier', explicitly designed as a pilgrimage site to cement the relationship between Australia and Israel. All grist to the Israeli propaganda mill.
What particularly concerns me in this post, however, is Faulkner's reference to the 175 Australian troops, presumably light horsemen, buried in Beersheba. The question arises: did they (or their Turkish opponents for that matter) really need to die? And the fascinating answer is: not if the Morgenthau mission had succeeded.
Now just an historical footnote, it is worth recalling that US President Woodrow Wilson sent a mission to Europe in June 1917 in an attempt to persuade Turkey to break with the Germans and conclude a separate peace with the US, Britain and France. Headed by Henry Morgenthau Sr, America's ambassador to Turkey from 1912 to 1915, it was intercepted in Gibraltar by Chaim Weizmann, Britain's leading Zionist interlocutor and 'father' of the infamous Balfour Declaration. Concerned that the success of the mission would result in the Turk's holding on to their possessions in the Levant, an outcome which would frustrate Zionist designs on Palestine, Weizmann persuaded Morgenthau to back off and terminate his mission.
And the rest, as they say, is history, including the deaths of those 175 Australian troops. Regardless of the success or failure of Morgenthau's mission, the fact remains that the leading Zionist of the day (and later first president of the state of Israel), Chaim Weizmann, saw nothing wrong with sacrificing the lives of Australian (and British troops) so long as he could get his hands on Palestine. Indeed, given his role in scotching the Morgenthau mission, those 175 Australian deaths may legitimately be viewed as sacrifices on the altar of the Zionist project.
As a more moral associate of Weizmann's, Harry Sacher, argued at the time: "To oppose the advocates of peace with Turkey meant possibly prolonging the war. 'I myself would not buy a British protectorate at the cost of prolonging the war by a single day'." (The Balfour Declaration, Jonathan Schneer, 2010, p 273)
What was that line of George Santayana's? Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
"Diplomats, civilian delegations and military representatives from around the world gathered in Be'er Sheva last Sunday to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of the World War I battle that took place in that city. Defence attaches from Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa, Austria, and Israel, together with high-ranking envoys from the United Nations international peacekeeping force in Sinai, joined the southern city's municipality for the day's events. The Battle of Be'er Sheva is famous for the charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade, which played a pivotal role in enabling British forces to conquer the Ottomans and paved the way for General Edmund Allenby to take control of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917. The Australian victory... was commemorated in 3 separate ceremonies. The first, co-hosted by the Australian Embassy, the Be'er Sheva Municipality and The Pratt Foundation, was held in the Park of the Australian Soldier, a Pratt Foundation gift to the city... Australian Ambassador Andrea Faulkner said her country has a special bond with the Israeli city, not just because of the battle, but also because of similar climates and water scarcity. The Park of the Australian Soldier, she observed, was testimony of the contribution made by the late Richard Pratt to cement the relationship between Australia and Israel, while simultaneously commemorating history... Referring to both world wars, Faulkner noted that many Australians had fought and died in what is now Israel. Of the 774 fallen Australian troops buried in Israel, 175 are buried in Be'er Sheva, she said." (Diggers not forgotten, 5/11/10)
Note how the Battle of Beersheba becomes the Battle of Be'er Sheva. Note the level of Israeli involvement in this 'commemoration', and the rhetoric of Australia's ambassador to Israel. And note especially the role of convicted price-fixer Dick Pratt's 'Park of the Australian Soldier', explicitly designed as a pilgrimage site to cement the relationship between Australia and Israel. All grist to the Israeli propaganda mill.
What particularly concerns me in this post, however, is Faulkner's reference to the 175 Australian troops, presumably light horsemen, buried in Beersheba. The question arises: did they (or their Turkish opponents for that matter) really need to die? And the fascinating answer is: not if the Morgenthau mission had succeeded.
Now just an historical footnote, it is worth recalling that US President Woodrow Wilson sent a mission to Europe in June 1917 in an attempt to persuade Turkey to break with the Germans and conclude a separate peace with the US, Britain and France. Headed by Henry Morgenthau Sr, America's ambassador to Turkey from 1912 to 1915, it was intercepted in Gibraltar by Chaim Weizmann, Britain's leading Zionist interlocutor and 'father' of the infamous Balfour Declaration. Concerned that the success of the mission would result in the Turk's holding on to their possessions in the Levant, an outcome which would frustrate Zionist designs on Palestine, Weizmann persuaded Morgenthau to back off and terminate his mission.
And the rest, as they say, is history, including the deaths of those 175 Australian troops. Regardless of the success or failure of Morgenthau's mission, the fact remains that the leading Zionist of the day (and later first president of the state of Israel), Chaim Weizmann, saw nothing wrong with sacrificing the lives of Australian (and British troops) so long as he could get his hands on Palestine. Indeed, given his role in scotching the Morgenthau mission, those 175 Australian deaths may legitimately be viewed as sacrifices on the altar of the Zionist project.
As a more moral associate of Weizmann's, Harry Sacher, argued at the time: "To oppose the advocates of peace with Turkey meant possibly prolonging the war. 'I myself would not buy a British protectorate at the cost of prolonging the war by a single day'." (The Balfour Declaration, Jonathan Schneer, 2010, p 273)
What was that line of George Santayana's? Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Your Wish is Our Command
Spotted on page 2 of today's Sydney Morning Herald, under the heading Clarification:
"An information panel with the Good Weekend story 'Project: Gaza' last weekend should not have said that Mohammed al-Dura died after being shot by the Israel Defence Forces. The events at Netzarim Junction, Gaza, on September 30, 2000, remain in dispute. The information was introduced during the production process."
Oh, really? One thing not in dispute is that the Herald is missing a spine.
"An information panel with the Good Weekend story 'Project: Gaza' last weekend should not have said that Mohammed al-Dura died after being shot by the Israel Defence Forces. The events at Netzarim Junction, Gaza, on September 30, 2000, remain in dispute. The information was introduced during the production process."
Oh, really? One thing not in dispute is that the Herald is missing a spine.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Words Behind Words
Read the following exchange between Senator Ludlam of The Greens and Mark Scott, Managing Director of the ABC at a Senate Estimates hearing on 27 October. It's classic fan dancing - on both sides. In the spirit of keeping it real, I've added the words behind the words, those that must have come to mind but never quite made it to the tongue, and those that never even got that far, in square brackets bold:
Senator Ludlam: Can you provide us with an update of whether the ABC has reconsidered its position [not to screen the Australian doco, Hope in a Slingshot,] and how you have gone about finding some other points of view to balance out the point of view in that documentary?
Mr Scott: We reviewed it and will not be showing it. I think when we first reviewed it there were questions as to the plurality of viewpoints, whether in fact it took a certain perspective [dared to portray Palestinians as human beings] and how under our editorial policies we would look to balance that [to nobble that] ... But it has been reviewed by our television division... I think finally the television division came to the view that it was not to the standard that they would want to acquire... They did not feel it was particularly compelling for the kinds of audiences that we would be seeking on ABC 1 [for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) crowd], and that was the final judgment on it.
Senator Ludlam: But it was initially accepted. You said the issue was quality, so it was nothing to do with the political view? [nothing to do with portraying the Palestinians as human beings?]
Mr Scott:... I think finally they came to that view irrespective of editorial policy issues. That was not finally the driving force in their decision. They finally came to a view that they just did not think it was a particularly compelling film. [They finally came to a view that they couldn't afford to upset AIJAC.]
Senator Ludlam: Are you aware that the producers have updated and edited the film to address the interpretation that they believe have been placed on it?
Mr Scott: I am not sure which edit they have seen, but I understood that they did review the film again... and tried to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. We have some new people in key roles in our television division [people who know who must be appeased, and who can safely be ignored] - a new head of factual, a new controller of ABC1 and ABC2. I am not quite sure whether the final sign-off has come, but they have decided to pass...
Senator Ludlam: [But] this one caught our interest in particular because it was [initially] accepted.
Mr Scott: I understand that.
Senator Ludlam:... Step us through how you balance this out. You commission or acquire what you call opinion content, which does express a certain point of view.
Mr Scott: Yes, and we do run them. We have run Richard Dawkins... Dick Smith. I will explain what we often do, though, if it is contentious and opinionated - and there is a place for opinion on the ABC. It is allowed. It is in our editorial policies. You want to have some debate. So what you often do... is have a discussion afterwards... [However,] I think the feeling was that this film was not up to the standard for that kind of treatment. [I think the feeling was that, with this film, we would only be throwing fuel on the fire if we followed it with a discussion. I mean, take that bloody Israeli propaganda piece Murder on the Med (or Collision Course as we called it), the Foreign Correspondent website was deluged with anti-Israel comments for days afterwards. A discussion after Hope in a Slingshot would've gone the same way. We simply weren't prepared to risk it. Anything for a quiet life as they say.]
Senator Ludlam: Can you advise, then, how the program Death in the Med - or Collision Course, I think it is also called - satisfied your editorial policies?
Mr Scott: Which one, sorry? [Death in the Med? What Death in the Med?]
Senator Ludlam: Death in the Med... Was there a forum that followed that one?
Mr Scott: I am not sure - what was that one about? [Nothing. I know nothing.]
Senator Ludlam: I believe they rioted in the UK when it was screened because it was seen to be...
Mr Scott: We did have some complaints around that program. [Oh, that Death in the Med!]
Senator Ludlam: Was there a forum after that one?
Mr Scott: No, there was no forum after that.
Senator Ludlam: I struggle to understand how on the one hand you can run opinion content... and on the other you have got an impartiality requirement...
Mr Scott: [It's all coming back to me now.] That was the one that we received 90 alleged complaints of pro-Israel bias. Yes, now I remember.
Senator Ludlam: [What the f... !] Were they complaints, or alleged complaints?
Mr Scott: They were alleged complaints. [Look, tree hugger, it's really very simple. If the complaint is about Israeli propaganda, it's not really a complaint, just an alleged complaint... Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.] But the program was viewed by audience consumer affairs, who advised that the program was balanced and that they believed those complaints were without basis... I think if we had come to an editorial judgment about that program, or our television or news division which is responsible for Foreign Correspondent had come to a view that this was opinion, rather than a topical and factual program or news program, then it would have needed a different treatment. That was not the judgment they came to about that program. It might be that some people who watched it have a different view, but that is the judgment of our television team and news team have had to make.
Senator Ludlam: Can you provide us with an update of whether the ABC has reconsidered its position [not to screen the Australian doco, Hope in a Slingshot,] and how you have gone about finding some other points of view to balance out the point of view in that documentary?
Mr Scott: We reviewed it and will not be showing it. I think when we first reviewed it there were questions as to the plurality of viewpoints, whether in fact it took a certain perspective [dared to portray Palestinians as human beings] and how under our editorial policies we would look to balance that [to nobble that] ... But it has been reviewed by our television division... I think finally the television division came to the view that it was not to the standard that they would want to acquire... They did not feel it was particularly compelling for the kinds of audiences that we would be seeking on ABC 1 [for the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) crowd], and that was the final judgment on it.
Senator Ludlam: But it was initially accepted. You said the issue was quality, so it was nothing to do with the political view? [nothing to do with portraying the Palestinians as human beings?]
Mr Scott:... I think finally they came to that view irrespective of editorial policy issues. That was not finally the driving force in their decision. They finally came to a view that they just did not think it was a particularly compelling film. [They finally came to a view that they couldn't afford to upset AIJAC.]
Senator Ludlam: Are you aware that the producers have updated and edited the film to address the interpretation that they believe have been placed on it?
Mr Scott: I am not sure which edit they have seen, but I understood that they did review the film again... and tried to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. We have some new people in key roles in our television division [people who know who must be appeased, and who can safely be ignored] - a new head of factual, a new controller of ABC1 and ABC2. I am not quite sure whether the final sign-off has come, but they have decided to pass...
Senator Ludlam: [But] this one caught our interest in particular because it was [initially] accepted.
Mr Scott: I understand that.
Senator Ludlam:... Step us through how you balance this out. You commission or acquire what you call opinion content, which does express a certain point of view.
Mr Scott: Yes, and we do run them. We have run Richard Dawkins... Dick Smith. I will explain what we often do, though, if it is contentious and opinionated - and there is a place for opinion on the ABC. It is allowed. It is in our editorial policies. You want to have some debate. So what you often do... is have a discussion afterwards... [However,] I think the feeling was that this film was not up to the standard for that kind of treatment. [I think the feeling was that, with this film, we would only be throwing fuel on the fire if we followed it with a discussion. I mean, take that bloody Israeli propaganda piece Murder on the Med (or Collision Course as we called it), the Foreign Correspondent website was deluged with anti-Israel comments for days afterwards. A discussion after Hope in a Slingshot would've gone the same way. We simply weren't prepared to risk it. Anything for a quiet life as they say.]
Senator Ludlam: Can you advise, then, how the program Death in the Med - or Collision Course, I think it is also called - satisfied your editorial policies?
Mr Scott: Which one, sorry? [Death in the Med? What Death in the Med?]
Senator Ludlam: Death in the Med... Was there a forum that followed that one?
Mr Scott: I am not sure - what was that one about? [Nothing. I know nothing.]
Senator Ludlam: I believe they rioted in the UK when it was screened because it was seen to be...
Mr Scott: We did have some complaints around that program. [Oh, that Death in the Med!]
Senator Ludlam: Was there a forum after that one?
Mr Scott: No, there was no forum after that.
Senator Ludlam: I struggle to understand how on the one hand you can run opinion content... and on the other you have got an impartiality requirement...
Mr Scott: [It's all coming back to me now.] That was the one that we received 90 alleged complaints of pro-Israel bias. Yes, now I remember.
Senator Ludlam: [What the f... !] Were they complaints, or alleged complaints?
Mr Scott: They were alleged complaints. [Look, tree hugger, it's really very simple. If the complaint is about Israeli propaganda, it's not really a complaint, just an alleged complaint... Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.] But the program was viewed by audience consumer affairs, who advised that the program was balanced and that they believed those complaints were without basis... I think if we had come to an editorial judgment about that program, or our television or news division which is responsible for Foreign Correspondent had come to a view that this was opinion, rather than a topical and factual program or news program, then it would have needed a different treatment. That was not the judgment they came to about that program. It might be that some people who watched it have a different view, but that is the judgment of our television team and news team have had to make.
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