Our new foreign minister, Bob Carr, delivered his maiden speech in the Senate on March 21.
While his focus on key environmental concerns and call for religious tolerance are welcome, the core issues of his portfolio, particularly those to do with our Middle Eastern (and more recently African) involvement, receive scant attention.
In this post I examine the relevant sections of Carr's speech in detail:
"I want to address another global challenge. One month ago, US soldiers burnt copies of the Koran at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan."
So what is the US doing in Afghanistan? And why are we there? Carr doesn't say. In fact, the only other reference to Afghanistan in his speech comes when he acknowledges that both Lab and Lib share a common "commitment to Afghanistan." As if the murder and mayhem in US-occupied Afghanistan today can be reduced to an act of desecration.
"Days later, young people destroyed 238 war graves in Benghazi, Libya. Whether intentional insult or error of judgment, such acts look like cultures of war. Senators may recall the sense of cultures being at war that was felt on hearing reports of the terrible dynamiting by the Taliban of the Buddhas of Bamiyan - those statues carved in stone 15 centuries ago."
No reference to his predecessor, Kevin Rudd, who acted as a one-man cheer squad for Western intervention there? No reflection on the 'wisdom' of that intervention?
"At such times, people might subscribe to the notion that we are being tugged toward the nightmare that the American writer Samuel Huntington predicted in his 1996 book 'The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order'. I remember King Abdullah of Jordan saying at a Davos conference in 2004: Let us avert the clash of civilisations, and help the overlap of cultures. I think those were eloquent words. That notion of an overlap of cultures, I think, is inspiring, especially compared to the alternative notion of monochrome monoliths destroying one another's statuary, smashing one another's grave sites and burning one another's books."
Dragged into a clash of civilisations are we? Or willingly involved in illegal acts of regime change without regard to the cost in lives, resources and treasure? Not a whisper about Iraq, the great crime against humanity that opened the 21st century, just the uncritical invocation of a neocon meme. And strangely, not a whisper about the coming USraeli aggression against Iran despite Carr's characterisation of it on his Thoughtlines blog as "certifiable insanity."
"There have been in the world's history some marvellous cultures of tolerance, and we should dwell on them. In Southern Spain, in medieval times, Moslems, Christians and Jews lived and worked together in the polity known as Al-Andalus. Andalusia, of course, springs from that Arabic noun. One of the caliphs, Abd-ar-Rahman III, who ruled between 912 and 961 - his name has probably not been spoken in this Senate chamber for many years - appointed a devout Jewish scholar, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, as his foreign minister. Why recall this all these centuries later? Simply because of the symbolism. Here was a Moslem ruler who appointed a Jew as his foreign minister. It is what King Abdullah must have had in mind: an overlap of cultures. In that civilisation, Al-Andalus, while Christian Europe's libraries were small, the caliph's library at Cordoba reportedly burst with 400,000 volumes. Jews in this civilisation had their sacred writings translated into Arabic, because they liked the sinuosity of the language. As Maria Rosa Menocal wrote in the Ornament of the World - a beautiful book that I commend to the Senate - this was a society that had the courage to 'live with it's own flagrant contradictions'."*
Certainly the most interesting part of Carr's speech from our perspective. Yes, I think we can say with complete confidence that his reference to Al-Andalus, or any other high point of Islamic civilisation for that matter, is a first for the Australian senate. And yes, he's done well to draw the attention of its unrepresentative swill to such an example. After all, anything that sticks in the craw of Senator Cory Bernardi and his kind is more than welcome.
However, it does rather sit at odds with Carr's lifelong support for the Jewish supremacist state of Israel, which has more in common with the Christian supremacist regimes which followed the reconquest of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in the 13th century, regimes which culminated in the expulsion of an estimated 300,000 Spanish Muslims between 1609 and 1614 by King Philip III. This was perhaps the largest act of ethnic cleansing ever carried out in Europe up to that time, and a forerunner of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces from 1947 to 1950.
"We should ask what we Australians can do, in our modest way, to steer the world away from Koran burnings, the bombing of Buddhas and the despoilation of brave soldiers' graves towards peaceful overlap and pluralism. We can make sure that our multicultural society continues to tick over. I do not think there is a need to fetishise multiculturalism or to give it a capital 'M' but, simply, to relax into our easy going Australian ethnic and cultural diversity based on tolerance and respect. We can redouble our efforts in the Alliance of Civilisations - and earlier this afternoon I met another UN ambassador who was a member of that alliance - sponsored by the governments of Spain and Turkey. We can enhance our work in the region for interfaith dialogue. We can work with Indonesians, the largest Islamic nation in the world, which continues to spurn extremism."
All bandaid solutions I'm afraid. What we as Australians should do is decline to participate in, or better, forthrightly oppose, the kind of American imperial aggressions that set the scene for such behaviour and worse. But that, I'm afraid, is a bridge too far a conga-line suckhole like Carr.
"Running foreign policy is about protecting our national interest. Although by every tenet of diplomatic doctrine that comes first and foremost, it is also about being an exemplary global citizen when it comes to protecting human rights and protecting the world's oceans. To this I would like to add that in foreign policy we may also promote and defend cultural diversity, the idea of a planet of seven billion that celebrates and does not deny its contradictions."
Cultural diversity? Sure, it beats the resurgent Islamophobia of a Nicholas Sarkozy, but is that the best Carr can come up with?
[* Highly recommended: Blood & Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, Matthew Carr, 2009]
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Drama Queens
No country produces drama queens, fabulists and obsessives quite like Israel. Here's Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, for example, in full-flight at the UN General Assembly in 2009. How his audience kept a straight face is beyond me:
"This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene 3 decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past 30 years this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others."
Lying dormant for centuries!? Schlock horror at its best!
Reading Israeli 'journalist' Uri Dan's Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait (2006) only confirms the impression. When it came to bravura performances, Sharon, Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was more than a match for Bibi. The porcine war criminal had bullshit in buckets and chutzpah in spades.
Only Sharon, for example, could get away with this one:
"Lebanon is also strongly determined to obtain nuclear weapons." (p 229)
Lebanese nukes! And his faithful PR flak, Uri Dan, didn't even bat an eyelid!
And here's Sharon on the subject of the Holocaust. (Now I know what you're thinking: there couldn't possibly be anything I haven't already heard on that subject, right? Wrong!) Forget the antics of the Grand Mufti, according to Sharon, the Palestinian people itself is collectively responsible for the Holocaust. Here's how he spins it:
"The Shoah itself is linked to Arab terrorism of the 1930s since it encouraged the British government, then masters of the country, to publish the White Paper of 1939 that limited the number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine to 75,000 people over 5 years. Those were precisely the years that saw the horror of Nazism. There is no doubt that without that White Paper hundreds of thousands, even millions, of European Jews could have been saved. At the time when Jews could still escape, the doors of Eretz Israel were closed to them!" (p 139)
Get the drift? Instead of engaging in a desperate revolt for independence from the British, whose declared mission since 1917 had been to hand their country over to Zionist colons, the Palestinians should have sat on their haunches, pondered the plight of Germany's Jews, and thought first and foremost about what they could do to help them. Yeah, right.
And talk about obsessed. Captain Ahab, in mad pursuit of Moby Dick, was a model of rationality compared to Sharon. For Sharon, Yasser Arafat was "the greatest enemy that the Jewish people have known since the end of World War II" (p 102), "a modern pharaoh" (p 134) who dwelt (at least until 1982) in "a kingdom of terror" in Lebanon (p 95).
And if ever you wanted a rationale for a land grab, try topping this one:
"I voted against ceding Hebron to the Palestinians; this would endanger the Jewish community resettled in the town. The number of deaths among those heroic Jews who have continued to live in Hebron since then has justified my fears. King David spent seven and a half years in Hebron, where he was crowned, and the town is mentioned 1,023 times in the Bible. And this what we are asked to give up?" (p 172)
A mere eight and a half years and it's yours for all time!
But if you think it's just Sharon who's crackers, listen to his biographer/buddy, Uri Dan:
"When Sharon, full of life, humor and energy, climbed into his jeep with his soldiers headed for the battlefield, I saw historical figures: the Jews fighting for their freedom against the Greeks, Romans and others; David confronting Goliath; the Judges of Israel; Gideon and Samson." (p 18)
"This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene 3 decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past 30 years this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others."
Lying dormant for centuries!? Schlock horror at its best!
Reading Israeli 'journalist' Uri Dan's Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait (2006) only confirms the impression. When it came to bravura performances, Sharon, Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, was more than a match for Bibi. The porcine war criminal had bullshit in buckets and chutzpah in spades.
Only Sharon, for example, could get away with this one:
"Lebanon is also strongly determined to obtain nuclear weapons." (p 229)
Lebanese nukes! And his faithful PR flak, Uri Dan, didn't even bat an eyelid!
And here's Sharon on the subject of the Holocaust. (Now I know what you're thinking: there couldn't possibly be anything I haven't already heard on that subject, right? Wrong!) Forget the antics of the Grand Mufti, according to Sharon, the Palestinian people itself is collectively responsible for the Holocaust. Here's how he spins it:
"The Shoah itself is linked to Arab terrorism of the 1930s since it encouraged the British government, then masters of the country, to publish the White Paper of 1939 that limited the number of Jewish immigrants to Palestine to 75,000 people over 5 years. Those were precisely the years that saw the horror of Nazism. There is no doubt that without that White Paper hundreds of thousands, even millions, of European Jews could have been saved. At the time when Jews could still escape, the doors of Eretz Israel were closed to them!" (p 139)
Get the drift? Instead of engaging in a desperate revolt for independence from the British, whose declared mission since 1917 had been to hand their country over to Zionist colons, the Palestinians should have sat on their haunches, pondered the plight of Germany's Jews, and thought first and foremost about what they could do to help them. Yeah, right.
And talk about obsessed. Captain Ahab, in mad pursuit of Moby Dick, was a model of rationality compared to Sharon. For Sharon, Yasser Arafat was "the greatest enemy that the Jewish people have known since the end of World War II" (p 102), "a modern pharaoh" (p 134) who dwelt (at least until 1982) in "a kingdom of terror" in Lebanon (p 95).
And if ever you wanted a rationale for a land grab, try topping this one:
"I voted against ceding Hebron to the Palestinians; this would endanger the Jewish community resettled in the town. The number of deaths among those heroic Jews who have continued to live in Hebron since then has justified my fears. King David spent seven and a half years in Hebron, where he was crowned, and the town is mentioned 1,023 times in the Bible. And this what we are asked to give up?" (p 172)
A mere eight and a half years and it's yours for all time!
But if you think it's just Sharon who's crackers, listen to his biographer/buddy, Uri Dan:
"When Sharon, full of life, humor and energy, climbed into his jeep with his soldiers headed for the battlefield, I saw historical figures: the Jews fighting for their freedom against the Greeks, Romans and others; David confronting Goliath; the Judges of Israel; Gideon and Samson." (p 18)
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Sgt. Bales: Scholar & Gentleman
"Every American soldier I've known... has been a very fine human being and I can tell you that on a number of occasions in south-east Asia in tsunamis in Aceh and all over the world where the happiest sight on the horizon is a US soldier." Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan, Q&A, 12/4/10
OK, so he may have blown 16 sleeping Afghan men, women and children to kingdom come, but you know what, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is not only the kind of gentleman you'd expect to find in the US army, but a Middle East scholar as well:
"Army comrades described him as a model soldier who was polite, professional and exceptionally cool under fire. A student of Middle Eastern history and customs, he often admonished younger GIs to treat non-combatants with courtesy and respect. 'Some guys have a pretty negative attitude, but Bales wasn't like that at all', said Captain Chris Alexander, who served with Bales in Iraq. 'He said there was no need to be a jerk. Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone if you need to'..." (Model soldier's growing stress over cash crisis, Joby Warrick, Washington Post/Daily Telegraph/ New York Times/ Sydney Morning Herald, 19/3/12)
His Middle East studies taught him that Middle Easterners, whether Iraqis or Afghans, may variously be described as 'sand niggers', 'rag heads', 'dune coons', or 'terrorist shits who deserve to die'. They also made him fluent in such languages as Arabic and Pashto, with words such as 'habibs' and 'hajjis' tripping off his tongue. But that's not all. Bales' studies have really honed his capacity for critical thought, resulting in the following piercing insights:
"Bales offered his own insights on the war in Iraq after he fought in a battle in Najaf in 2007 in which 250 enemy fighters died, in clashes described by some as 'apocalyptic'. 'I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day', he said afterwards in a testimony collected for a military training college. 'We discriminated between the bad guys and the non-combatants and then afterwards we ended up helping the people that 3 or 4 hours before were trying to kill us. That's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that'." (ibid)
Move over, Alan Dershowitz!
OK, so he may have blown 16 sleeping Afghan men, women and children to kingdom come, but you know what, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales is not only the kind of gentleman you'd expect to find in the US army, but a Middle East scholar as well:
"Army comrades described him as a model soldier who was polite, professional and exceptionally cool under fire. A student of Middle Eastern history and customs, he often admonished younger GIs to treat non-combatants with courtesy and respect. 'Some guys have a pretty negative attitude, but Bales wasn't like that at all', said Captain Chris Alexander, who served with Bales in Iraq. 'He said there was no need to be a jerk. Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone if you need to'..." (Model soldier's growing stress over cash crisis, Joby Warrick, Washington Post/Daily Telegraph/ New York Times/ Sydney Morning Herald, 19/3/12)
His Middle East studies taught him that Middle Easterners, whether Iraqis or Afghans, may variously be described as 'sand niggers', 'rag heads', 'dune coons', or 'terrorist shits who deserve to die'. They also made him fluent in such languages as Arabic and Pashto, with words such as 'habibs' and 'hajjis' tripping off his tongue. But that's not all. Bales' studies have really honed his capacity for critical thought, resulting in the following piercing insights:
"Bales offered his own insights on the war in Iraq after he fought in a battle in Najaf in 2007 in which 250 enemy fighters died, in clashes described by some as 'apocalyptic'. 'I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day', he said afterwards in a testimony collected for a military training college. 'We discriminated between the bad guys and the non-combatants and then afterwards we ended up helping the people that 3 or 4 hours before were trying to kill us. That's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that'." (ibid)
Move over, Alan Dershowitz!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Emails & Emails
This just doesn't add up:
"As the international community struggled to absorb the bloodiest episode yet in Syria's brutal crackdown in Homs, Bashar al-Assad was in Damascus composing a private email to his wife [Asma], according to a cache of what appear to be emails from the Syrian first couple obtained by The Guardian." (President sent iTunes to wife while Syria burned, Robert Booth & Luke Harding, The Guardian/Sydney Morning Herald, 16/3/12)
I mean Bashar's an Arab, right? So his wife couldn't possibly be out shopping BY HERSELF in Europe, could she? I mean who's Bashar going to smack around every night if Asma's off in Europe? It just doesn't make sense. You know what? I reckon The Guardian's been hoaxed.
Yet, there are emails and there are emails, know what I mean? The following email, from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Syrian president, I can vouch for, coming as it does from the Syrian opposition and leaked to that most reputable of news sources The Angry Arab News Agency:
'Habibi Bashar, Let's face it, you and I and Nasrallah are all just a bunch of terrorists. Yes, and I have a nuclear bomb and deserve to be bombed by NATO. Oh, and we both killed Hariri. Oh, and we're also behind September 11. Cheers, Mahmoud'.
Now, if this isn't the SMOKING GUN we all need to wipe Iran, Syria and Lebanon off the map, I don't know what is.
"As the international community struggled to absorb the bloodiest episode yet in Syria's brutal crackdown in Homs, Bashar al-Assad was in Damascus composing a private email to his wife [Asma], according to a cache of what appear to be emails from the Syrian first couple obtained by The Guardian." (President sent iTunes to wife while Syria burned, Robert Booth & Luke Harding, The Guardian/Sydney Morning Herald, 16/3/12)
I mean Bashar's an Arab, right? So his wife couldn't possibly be out shopping BY HERSELF in Europe, could she? I mean who's Bashar going to smack around every night if Asma's off in Europe? It just doesn't make sense. You know what? I reckon The Guardian's been hoaxed.
Yet, there are emails and there are emails, know what I mean? The following email, from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Syrian president, I can vouch for, coming as it does from the Syrian opposition and leaked to that most reputable of news sources The Angry Arab News Agency:
'Habibi Bashar, Let's face it, you and I and Nasrallah are all just a bunch of terrorists. Yes, and I have a nuclear bomb and deserve to be bombed by NATO. Oh, and we both killed Hariri. Oh, and we're also behind September 11. Cheers, Mahmoud'.
Now, if this isn't the SMOKING GUN we all need to wipe Iran, Syria and Lebanon off the map, I don't know what is.
Busted!
Not only do we have young Israelis flogging Dead Sea mineral products (coming from an illegal factory in an illegal settlement built on illegally-confiscated Palestinian land in the illegally-occupied Palestinian West Bank) fanning out in our shopping malls, we also have them flogging dodgy paintings on our streets. Typically, the latter phenomenon has yet to engage the attention of the Australian ms media. But, thanks to the efforts of a New Zealand woman, the phenomenon has at least made it into the NZ press:
"A scam involving Israelis selling artwork door-to-door has been busted, thanks to the suspicions of a Richmond woman. The Israelis now face deportation. Immigration New Zealand says one, an overstayer, has been taken into custody pending deportation, 5 found to be working in breach of visitor visas have been served with deportation liability notices and a seventh, due to leave New Zealand voluntarily, has been warned about working in breach of visa conditions.
"Richmond resident Rebekah Young said she felt uneasy when a man claiming to be an Israeli student came to her door selling artwork 2 weeks ago. She said he told her they were one-off prints of original paintings. She liked one called Passion Flower and bought it for $180, and he told her a mobile picture framer could call and frame it. She paid a total of $320. Later she discovered a neighbour had been offered the same one, and another the same was seen in the back of the framer's van. She had expected he would be a Nelson framer, but he too was Israeli. 'I just had this sick feeling in my stomach that something was not right', she said. She said she then went onto her computer and googled 'art scam' and found similar stories in Auckland, Napier and Christchurch. So she rang the police. Police caught up with the Israelis when they called at another Richmond house. Young got her money back and handed over the artwork she had bought.
"Senior constable Marty Tutton, of Wakefield, said it was a case of buyer beware. Anybody could sell door-to-door but the issue was how they were selling and whether there was a misrepresentation, or an attempt to deceive. 'They have been spoken to and advised of the correct procedures in New Zealand'. He said there were 5 in a van and they admitted to selling artwork in Nelson, Stoke and Richmond. They were not charged but the police contacted Immigration NZ. Immigration NZ manager fraud and compliance, Peter Elms, said INZ staff and police visited a Nelson address on Monday and spoke to 7 Israeli nationals. 'INZ understands that the artwork being sold door-to-door is pictures purchased from China for a small sum and sold for between $150 and $400 each'." (Israeli art scammers told to quit country, stuff.co.nz, 15/3/12)
[For Mossad's activities in NZ, click on the NZ tab below. Also read the comprehensive report Mossad down under-again? (23/7/11) by KR Bolton at foreignpolicyjournal.com; For more on Israeli 'art students', see my 30/9/10 post Round Round Get Around...5.]
"A scam involving Israelis selling artwork door-to-door has been busted, thanks to the suspicions of a Richmond woman. The Israelis now face deportation. Immigration New Zealand says one, an overstayer, has been taken into custody pending deportation, 5 found to be working in breach of visitor visas have been served with deportation liability notices and a seventh, due to leave New Zealand voluntarily, has been warned about working in breach of visa conditions.
"Richmond resident Rebekah Young said she felt uneasy when a man claiming to be an Israeli student came to her door selling artwork 2 weeks ago. She said he told her they were one-off prints of original paintings. She liked one called Passion Flower and bought it for $180, and he told her a mobile picture framer could call and frame it. She paid a total of $320. Later she discovered a neighbour had been offered the same one, and another the same was seen in the back of the framer's van. She had expected he would be a Nelson framer, but he too was Israeli. 'I just had this sick feeling in my stomach that something was not right', she said. She said she then went onto her computer and googled 'art scam' and found similar stories in Auckland, Napier and Christchurch. So she rang the police. Police caught up with the Israelis when they called at another Richmond house. Young got her money back and handed over the artwork she had bought.
"Senior constable Marty Tutton, of Wakefield, said it was a case of buyer beware. Anybody could sell door-to-door but the issue was how they were selling and whether there was a misrepresentation, or an attempt to deceive. 'They have been spoken to and advised of the correct procedures in New Zealand'. He said there were 5 in a van and they admitted to selling artwork in Nelson, Stoke and Richmond. They were not charged but the police contacted Immigration NZ. Immigration NZ manager fraud and compliance, Peter Elms, said INZ staff and police visited a Nelson address on Monday and spoke to 7 Israeli nationals. 'INZ understands that the artwork being sold door-to-door is pictures purchased from China for a small sum and sold for between $150 and $400 each'." (Israeli art scammers told to quit country, stuff.co.nz, 15/3/12)
[For Mossad's activities in NZ, click on the NZ tab below. Also read the comprehensive report Mossad down under-again? (23/7/11) by KR Bolton at foreignpolicyjournal.com; For more on Israeli 'art students', see my 30/9/10 post Round Round Get Around...5.]
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Abbott: We Are All Israelis
How interesting. Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott makes what must surely be one of the most hyperbolic and fatuous statements of his political career, namely, that 'We are all Israelis', and it's been ignored both by the ms media and his own website! Work that one out.
Abbott's revelation of our supposed Israeliness (Israelianity?) came in a speech he gave at Sydney's Central Synagogue on March 9, the only source for which is The Australian Jewish News:
"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'. He 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'." (Abbott: We are all Israeli, 16/3/12)
Now if this isn't the biggest load of old cobblers from the mad monk to date, I'll eat my computer. Two points:
First, Israel is not a liberal, pluralist democracy. It's a Jewish ethnocracy based on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's majority non-Jewish population, who live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries and who would love nothing better than to return and take part in a genuine, post-apartheid election, on an equal footing with Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians currently under military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Then and only then will Palestine/Israel amount to a liberal, pluralist democracy.
Second, the only threat, whether existential or actual, that's ever existed in Palestine/Israel from 1917 until today has been that directed against the Palestinian people by the Zionist colonisation of their homeland.
So, if it's a matter of Australians identifying with those under threat, as it should be, then as far as I'm concerned - to rephrase Abbott's words - Australians are Palestinians. We are all Palestinians in those circumstances.
Abbott's revelation of our supposed Israeliness (Israelianity?) came in a speech he gave at Sydney's Central Synagogue on March 9, the only source for which is The Australian Jewish News:
"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'. He 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'." (Abbott: We are all Israeli, 16/3/12)
Now if this isn't the biggest load of old cobblers from the mad monk to date, I'll eat my computer. Two points:
First, Israel is not a liberal, pluralist democracy. It's a Jewish ethnocracy based on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's majority non-Jewish population, who live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries and who would love nothing better than to return and take part in a genuine, post-apartheid election, on an equal footing with Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians currently under military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Then and only then will Palestine/Israel amount to a liberal, pluralist democracy.
Second, the only threat, whether existential or actual, that's ever existed in Palestine/Israel from 1917 until today has been that directed against the Palestinian people by the Zionist colonisation of their homeland.
So, if it's a matter of Australians identifying with those under threat, as it should be, then as far as I'm concerned - to rephrase Abbott's words - Australians are Palestinians. We are all Palestinians in those circumstances.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Israel's Similes & Ours
In enumerating the reasons for the latest Israeli wilding in the Gaza Strip, which has to date resulted in the death of 25* and the wounding of 80, Jerusalem Post journalist, Yaakov Katz, has written matter-of-factly that "lastly, the IDF is using this as an opportunity to do some 'maintenance work' in Gaza and to mow the lawn, so to speak, with regard to terrorism, with the main goal of boosting its deterrence and postponing the next round of violence for as long as possible." (Analysis: Easy to start, hard to end, 10/3/12)
[*As of 12/3/12]
Maintenance? Mowing the lawn? Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! I've got a wonderful feeling. Everything's going my way. Hm, I think I'll go out and mow the lawn before it gets away on me. Gotta keep those nasty weeds in check, eh? For example, there's Mohammed Mustafa al-Hassumi, 65, and his daughter Faiza, 30. And there's Nayif Qarmout, 14, and Ayoub Assaliya, 13. Oh, and his 7-year old cousin too. Too damn many to mention, if you must know. OK, what'll it be? I've got so many damn new-fangled American mowers, snippers, trimmers and other whizzbangs in the garage I can hardly keep up with them all. Then there's the weedicides... but don't get me started on those. Maybe I'll just make do this time with the Apache helicopter, and the F16 and V-58 fighter jets. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go...
Oh well, I suppose horticultural similes come naturally to the kind of folk who, legend has it, made the desert bloom, but for the rest of us mere mortals, whenever we see Israelis in action, somewhat different, darker similes generally spring to mind. Similes like these, for example, from Australian journalist Tony Clifton, who witnessed Israeli industry and whizzbangery like you wouldn't believe in Lebanon in 1982:
"Israeli attempts to get into [Beirut] were like the efforts of a madman trying to smash down the door of a house with an axe. He flails away in a crazed frenzy, then he tires and his battering slackens; but then the rage grips him again and he hacks away with greater vigour." (God Cried*, p 23)
"Watching the Israeli air force smashing Beirut to pieces yesterday was like having to stand and watch a man slowly beat a sick dog to death with an axe handle." (ibid, p 24)
"[Israeli Prime Minister] Begin was not stopped by a phone call from President Reagan... he ended the war because he had got what he wanted, just as a rapist stops humping after he has had his orgasm." (ibid, p 13)
[*One of the finest pieces of engaged journalism/photojournalism ever written. For excerpts, click on the Tony Clifton tab below. Better still, do yourself a favour and pick it up on Amazon; See also my 13/2/09 post Backburning the Palestinians?]
[*As of 12/3/12]
Maintenance? Mowing the lawn? Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! I've got a wonderful feeling. Everything's going my way. Hm, I think I'll go out and mow the lawn before it gets away on me. Gotta keep those nasty weeds in check, eh? For example, there's Mohammed Mustafa al-Hassumi, 65, and his daughter Faiza, 30. And there's Nayif Qarmout, 14, and Ayoub Assaliya, 13. Oh, and his 7-year old cousin too. Too damn many to mention, if you must know. OK, what'll it be? I've got so many damn new-fangled American mowers, snippers, trimmers and other whizzbangs in the garage I can hardly keep up with them all. Then there's the weedicides... but don't get me started on those. Maybe I'll just make do this time with the Apache helicopter, and the F16 and V-58 fighter jets. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go...
Oh well, I suppose horticultural similes come naturally to the kind of folk who, legend has it, made the desert bloom, but for the rest of us mere mortals, whenever we see Israelis in action, somewhat different, darker similes generally spring to mind. Similes like these, for example, from Australian journalist Tony Clifton, who witnessed Israeli industry and whizzbangery like you wouldn't believe in Lebanon in 1982:
"Israeli attempts to get into [Beirut] were like the efforts of a madman trying to smash down the door of a house with an axe. He flails away in a crazed frenzy, then he tires and his battering slackens; but then the rage grips him again and he hacks away with greater vigour." (God Cried*, p 23)
"Watching the Israeli air force smashing Beirut to pieces yesterday was like having to stand and watch a man slowly beat a sick dog to death with an axe handle." (ibid, p 24)
"[Israeli Prime Minister] Begin was not stopped by a phone call from President Reagan... he ended the war because he had got what he wanted, just as a rapist stops humping after he has had his orgasm." (ibid, p 13)
[*One of the finest pieces of engaged journalism/photojournalism ever written. For excerpts, click on the Tony Clifton tab below. Better still, do yourself a favour and pick it up on Amazon; See also my 13/2/09 post Backburning the Palestinians?]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)