Jeff Wells -- PROPHET???

[marmot]

The Animals listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up their minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in agreement with the one who was speaking at the moment.

(from George Orwell's Animal Farm)

[AlicetheKurious]

Marmot, because you made me laugh, which caught me by surprise and made me question whether I was wrong to think you were Sepka the Space Weasel under another name, I will respond to your accusation that I'm intolerant, or insulting or whatever, if someone disagrees with me, particularly about Israel. I had promised myself a break from this board for a couple of days, to refresh my brain.

I do think it's important to be tolerant of other people's differences, in fact, it's one of my big pleasures of life to see something in a new way, to learn a new thing, to have an intelligent argument or debate with someone who has strong views and knows how to back them up.

But show me someone who is tolerant towards everything, and I'll show you someone who is heavily medicated, or who cares deeply about nothing.

Not all topics are equally meaningful and immediate to me personally. It sometimes seems to me that I've spent a good part of my life learning, thinking and arguing about, the Palestine/Israeli question. I've had many Palestinian friends, I went to the occupied territories, visited the camps and the villages before the first intifada, when life was very hard, and the settlements for Jews enjoying their "right of return" were spreading like a blight over the Palestinian lands, but children being shot and homes being bulldozed, families threatened with starvation, were not yet a daily occurrence.

Many of the places that I visited, like Tulkarm refugee camp, Jenin, Ramallah and eastern Jerusalem, I saw on tv many years later, as the Israeli tanks smashed through the narrow streets, shooting at anything that moved, including people, precious water tanks, and open windows where families cowered. Watching this on my tv, I remembered the family who invited us into their home and served us the most delicious chicken and saffron rice I've ever tasted, as we sat in their spotless but simple home, after washing our hands with homemade olive oil soap. I knew they couldn't afford to feed us such a feast, but to refuse would have been a terrible insult to these people, for whom hospitality and generosity are a measure of pride.

One of my best friends here in Egypt is a Canadian, married to a wonderful Palestinian man. His nephew is staying with them right now, having come to Cairo for medical treatment not available to him in Gaza, where he lives. Israeli soldiers shot his leg off with a machine-gun, just one among many Palestinian bystanders who lost limbs in that particular Israeli "Defense" operation. Maybe his leg could have been saved, but the Palestinian hospitals are stretched beyond their limit, with mostly unpaid, overworked, desperate doctors who lack medicines and equipment.

The border was closed by the Israelis, so not only were they unable to get adequate help in Gaza, they couldn't cross into Egypt either. The Egyptian government sent a bus to pick them up and bring them to a hospital here, but it was forced to wait for days until the Israelis finally opened the border.

So, he lost his leg. Who knows how many other limbs might have been saved without that entirely spiteful and callous delay? The man's uncle (my friend's husband), has other nephews, in their early and mid-teens, who were used as human shields by soldiers who smashed into their home, stood them up at a window, and shot indiscriminately into the street and nearby buildings from behind the boys.

Their home was left a shambles by the time the Israeli occupation soldiers withdrew, and the boys, their mother and the other family members who were living with them, were traumatized. All the males between the ages of 15 and 45 that the Israeli soldiers could find were taken away, and some have yet to be heard from.

What has been done to them was a war crime, but among so many war crimes, many of them much worse, it's up to these people to figure out how to cobble together some semblance of a life for themselves and their children, under a crippling siege that has led to record levels of malnutrition and chronic diseases that could easily have been treated, and with no hope of making anything resembling a decent living.

My friend's husband received a scholarship to study at Oxford, after having gone to UNRWA schools (United Nations Refugees and Works Agency); many in his family are also PhD's, some are doctors and experts in international law. This is not unusual among Palestinians, who even under the worst conditions, prioritize education. There are many, highly-skilled surgeons, university professors, engineers and other professionals, who have refused to abandon their homes and their people, even now. My friend's husband is not allowed to go back.

There's so much more I could say, not only about Palestinians that I've known, but about the history, the facts that so few even suspect, and my own personal experience with professional and/or misguided "defenders of Israel", all of which swell my heart with the enormity of the injustice so that sometimes I feel it will explode with sorrow and outrage.

The least I can do, the very least, is to do my little part to widen the cracks in the Wall that the zionists have built between ordinary people in the West and the zionists' Palestinian victims, whom they have maligned as bloodthirsty savages, even as they murder them and their children, and as "smelly, dirty" primitives, even as they shoot at their schools, deprive them of water, and starve them.

I only intended to write a couple of sentences, this has already been way too long and probably too personal. All this is just to say that, yes, I do tend to react badly when someone casually repeats racist zionist hate-mongering as "fact" and then is upset when I react with anger. It's not easy to get at the truth, when the lies are so pervasive. I don't blame people for not knowing, or if they already hold some opinions, but are still open to hearing the other side.

[greencrow0]

Last night I attended a community presentation of the hit stage production:

The Vagina Monologues.

Interesting revelations of a taboo subject, interspersed with activist rants about oppressed women and children in far off lands and the horrible things done to them under military occupation.

Towards the end a grey haired matron came out and powerfully summed up these international oppressions against women and children...specifically referencing Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Sudan....everywhere.... except no mention of

Palestine.

Why?

gc

[yesferatu]

The least I can do, the very least, is to do my little part to widen the cracks in the Wall that the zionists have built between ordinary people in the West and the zionists' Palestinian victims, whom they have maligned as bloodthirsty savages, even as they murder them and their children, and as "smelly, dirty" primitives, even as they shoot at their schools, deprive them of water, and starve them.

I find it curious that we can notice chemtrails since they are obvious, but we should censor how and why we notice zionism....though just as obvious as the chemtrails in the skies.

For my part I will have none of the attacks of racism for noticing.
I favor no ethnicitiy, though I do tend to favor the ethnicity currently being slaughtered, since their deficit of power needs whatever voice can be lent to them.
Also if I tend to notice 70% of this evil governments' ranks filled with a group that comprises 1-3% of our population, I will tend to notice that too. Just like I notice chemtrails. In other words, I notice things that shouldn't be there, and ask why.

[marmot]

Thank you Alice. Honestly, I don't know who Sepka the Space Weasel is. But now I understand why you called me a weasel on another thread.

I respect your position, and I believe you—your retelling of these atrocities committed by the Israelis. And these wicked things grieve me deeply, sincerely move me to tears. Israel should be held accountable for these horrors and severe injustices. Every soul should be treated with respect and dignity, for every one of us were—to use a phrase from the Hebrew Bible—‘made in the image of God.’

Please understand that mine is a position of love for Israel. Not a blind love, but a love that supports her, and desires for her to be a righteous nation.

[elpuma]

My friend's husband received a scholarship to study at Oxford, after having gone to UNRWA schools (United Nations Refugees and Works Agency); many in his family are also PhD's, some are doctors and experts in international law. This is not unusual among Palestinians, who even under the worst conditions, prioritize education. There are many, highly-skilled surgeons, university professors, engineers and other professionals, who have refused to abandon their homes and their people, even now. My friend's husband is not allowed to go back.

I know quite a few Palestinians here in N.A. I am always impressed as to how educated they all are. My children’s pediatrician is Palestinian..... that is, he was born there, raised in Egypt, but not allowed to go back and visit, until he became a citizen of another country.

On another, somewhat related note, I find it interesting how little is mentioned in the media, or in the “blogosphere” for that matter, of the grand theft of Iraqi archeological artifacts, or the wholesale destruction of Iraqi agricultural sovereignty.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Marmot, because you made me laugh, which caught me by surprise and made me question whether I was wrong to think you were Sepka the Space Weasel under another name,

that made me augh actually.

Alice i don't think anyone is saying that what is happening in palestine is OK. I am not.

If you think I am you are far from right, but anyway, I have been involved in some anti Israeli pro pallestinian activism only lightly, cos I was doing something else and the people doing that got involved...

But I have always been aware of whats going on there, since the 80s.

I have even come within a whisker of fighting various Jewish people and some Israeli backpackers in Nimbin once. Arguing over Palestine. And Iraq invading Kuwait actually.

You might think I am tolerant of everything but I am not.

But I hate the term Zionism, it is to me a distraction. And one that serves neonazis and white supreme cysts very well. Perhaps if you had dark skin and lived in the only part of Australia where burning crosses were put on hilltops (recently) and the KKK are talking about opening up a chapter you might understand why I feel that way

Israel wouldn't be getting away with it without the support of many elements that are not Zionist and have no particular desire to support Zionism, just that its agenda and theirs coincide. And probably have since day one.

Israel is a tool for destabilisation of the middle east to allow greater ease of exploitation of their resources at least to my mind.

That doesn't make whats happening to Palestinians any less horrible tho. Nor is it unique today, Africa has similar problems with a different set of causes, people in central and parts of south america are also copping some terrible abuse.

Believe it or not I actually really respect the way you are staunch about Palestine and stick up for them. I also appreciate your compassion for them, especially things like this:

Watching this on my tv, I remembered the family who invited us into their home and served us the most delicious chicken and saffron rice I've ever tasted, as we sat in their spotless but simple home, after washing our hands with homemade olive oil soap. I knew they couldn't afford to feed us such a feast, but to refuse would have been a terrible insult to these people, for whom hospitality and generosity are a measure of pride.

But I just don't see things the way you do. That study on wishful thinking on another thread is a classic example of how we differ.

BTW

and as "smelly, dirty" primitives,

Just cos I said thats how our media portrays anyone not white, thats not how I feel. Don't make that mistake. The media in Australia, well the commercial media particularly has a very eurocentric worldview. Europe is where the only civilisation it trusts came from, its where most of its consumers ancestors came from. And its easy to understand (cos they are "people like us").

[Joe Hillshoist]

On another, somewhat related note, I find it interesting how little is mentioned in the media, or in the “blogosphere” for that matter, of the grand theft of Iraqi archeological artifacts, or the wholesale destruction of Iraqi agricultural sovereignty.

this is possibly one of the most important issues to arise out of iraq.

(Obviously it pales in comparison to the actual suffering of the Iraqi people.)

A whole agricultural history has been wiped out and the only source of seed available is apparantly GMO seed, with a no replant condition attatched to the license to use the technology.

the implications of that probably deserve their own thread.

Buried deep among the Bremer laws was Order 81, ‘Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law’.

At the heart of Order 81 was the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) provision. Order 81, states: ‘Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph (C) of Article 14 of this Chapter.’

In plain English, this gives holders of patents on certain plant varieties, i.e. large foreign multinationals, absolute rights for 20 years over use of their seeds in Iraqi agriculture. The protected plant varieties are Genetically Modified or Gene Manipulated (GM) plants, and an Iraqi farmer who chose to plant such seeds must sign an agreement with the seed company holding the patent that he would pay a ‘technology fee’ and an annual license fee for planting the patented seeds.

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/GMO/Iraq_and_seeds_of_democracy/iraq_and_seeds_of_democracy.HTM

Upon purchasing the patented seeds, farmers must sign the company's technology
agreement (Technology User Agreements). This agreement allows the company to
control farmers' practices and conduct property investigation. The farmer
becomes the slave of the company. Like U.S. farmers, Iraqi farmers will be
"harassed for doing what they have always done." For example, Iraqi farmers can
be sued by Monsanto, if their non-GMO crops are polluted by GMO crops planted in
their vicinity. [5] The health and environmental consequences of GMO crops are
still unknown. GMO-based agriculture definitely encourages monoculture and
genetic pollution. Moreover, this will further increase the already polluted
Iraqi environment as a result of tens of thousands of tons of 'depleted' uranium
dust, napalm, chemical weapons, and phosphorous bombs.

Farmers will also be required to buy fertilisers, herbicides and
insecticides, against plants disease. Iraqi farmers will be required to pay
royalties for the new seeds and they will be forbidden from saving seeds. In
other words, Iraqi farmers will become agricultural producers for export, a
recipe for the introduction of hunger in Iraq, not unknown in many
developing countries. Unless an independent sovereign Iraqi government
repeals these edicts, they will override Iraq's original patent law of 1970,
which, in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, prohibited private
ownership of biological resources.

Furthermore, Order 81 ignores Iraqi farmers' old traditions of saving seeds,
and using their knowledge to breed and plant their crops. It also brutally
disregards the contributions which Iraqi farmers have made over hundreds of
generations to the development of important crops like wheat, barley, dates
and pulses. If anybody owns those varieties and their unique virtues, it is
the families who bred them, even though nobody has described or
characterized them in terms of their genetic makeup. If anything, the new
law -- in allowing old varieties to be genetically manipulated or otherwise
modified and then "registered" -- involves the theft of inherited
intellectual property, the loss of farmers' freedoms, and the destruction of
food sovereignty in Iraq.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/politics/iraq121305.cfm

[AlicetheKurious]

But I hate the term Zionism, it is to me a distraction.

No, that is not "a distraction"; distraction is what you do, Joe. If you can't or won't see that zionism is behind the campaign to dehumanize all Arabs and Muslims as savages unworthy of basic human rights, and if you can't or won't see that zionists in high places are implementing their openly stated plan to achieve the "creative destruction" of the Middle East, turning it into a "boiling cauldron" so that Israel can dominate the region, its people and its resources, then it's no wonder you're always floundering in generalities.

There are specific criminals, violating specific laws; they get away with it because the media they own and control deliberately suppresses the facts, and the individuals in your corrupted governments know which side their bread is buttered on, plus they are afraid of the zionists' big stick.

It is possible to go after individuals and hold them responsible for their own crimes. If the legal and government institutions are too deeply corrupted to allow official action, then it's up to ordinary people to boycott, protest, write letters, and speak up. It's possible for ordinary people to make it very difficult for those individual criminals to enjoy their elite privileges and their ill-gotten prestige. Believe me, such action by individuals and organizations at the grassroots level can do a LOT, as long as it is specific and consistent.

On the other hand, Joe, you seem to always be ready to jump up and suggest that we should focus on "the nature of the state", "humanity", blah-blah-blah, to generalize to the point of falling of the cliff of meaninglessness and paralysis. Maybe you do it on purpose (it does seem very consistent), or maybe it's something to do with your personality, which somehow became persuaded that THINKING and TALKING and ALMOST DOING is an adequate substitute for DOING.

I beg to differ.

[Joe Hillshoist]

On the other hand, Joe, you seem to always be ready to jump up and suggest that we should focus on "the nature of the state", "humanity", blah-blah-blah, to generalize to the point of falling of the cliff of meaninglessness and paralysis. Maybe you do it on purpose (it does seem very consistent), or maybe it's something to do with your personality, which somehow became persuaded that THINKING and TALKING and ALMOST DOING is an adequate substitute for DOING.

You know jack shit about what I do, apart from what I post on a website, and either ignore or don't read heaps of what I post otherwise I don't understand your attitude, someone who disagrees with you on whether or not the neocons are patsies to something else.

If you can't or won't see that zionism is behind the campaign to dehumanize all Arabs and Muslims as savages unworthy of basic human rights, and if you can't or won't see that zionists in high places are implementing their openly stated plan to achieve the "creative destruction" of the Middle East, turning it into a "boiling cauldron" so that Israel can dominate the region, its people and its resources, then it's no wonder you're always floundering in generalities.

See thats complete bullshit. In Australia the agenda behind demonising arabs and muslims is VERY different and has nothing to do with zionism but everything to do with the most base racist politics. The media and government members that openly criticise arabs and demonise muslims do so for political purposes in australia.

Last week Reverend Fred Nile, leader of the rightwing Christian Democratic Party, issued an inflammatory call for the New South Wales state government to ban Muslim women from wearing the chador, the head-to-toe Islamic veil, in public. The coverings, he declared, were a “perfect disguise for terrorists” and could be used to “conceal both weapons and explosives”, citing the recent siege by Chechen separatists in a Moscow theatre.

On the face of it, Nile’s statements are absurd. If the chador is to be banned as an anti-terrorist measure then why not other items of clothing—overcoats, maternal frocks and baggy pants—as well as all backpacks, briefcases and packages large enough to carry an explosive device? By singling out the chador, Nile was making an obvious racist slur: all Muslims are potential suicide bombers and terrorists.

However, the most significant aspect of the incident is not Nile himself, who is well known for his bigoted views, but the response of Prime Minister John Howard. Asked to comment on Sydney radio, Howard did not condemn Nile or his racist statements but confessed his admiration for the NSW politician and did not specifically rule out Nile’s proposal. It would be better, he declared, if Muslim women were “less conspicuous” at this time.

“I don’t have a clear response to what Fred has put,” he said. “I mean I like Fred and I don’t always agree with him, but you know that Fred speaks for the views of a lot of people.” Many people “speak for the views of a lot of people”—Hitler and Mussolini, in their day, did so. The issue is which views and what people?

Nile has built his reputation by attacking homosexuals, welfare recipients and blasphemers, as well as demanding tougher measures against abortion and pornography. Moreover his party has connections to Christian fundamentalist groups in the US, part of the milieu that encourages violent attacks on abortion doctors.

It is not the first time that Howard has engaged in such a political manoeuvre. In 1996, he publicly praised rightwing populist Pauline Hanson for her first parliamentary speech, which consisted of a series of backward attacks on Asian immigrants, Aborigines and welfare recipients. Howard was careful not to openly endorse Hanson’s outlook but welcomed her speech for putting an end to a climate of “political correctness” on these issues.

Howard timed his comments. He made Hanson’s attacks on the most vulnerable sections of the working class a legitimate part of the public debate right at the point when his government was bringing down a draconian budget that made deep inroads into basic services including welfare. While keeping his own distance, he encouraged others to blame immigrants, single mothers and Aborigines for the deficiencies being created by government policy.

In order to woo Hanson’s constituency, the federal government has since adopted many of the policies of her One Nation party. At last year’s election, Howard made the scapegoating of refugees and “border protection” the centrepiece of his campaign, using navy warships to intercept and turn back refugee boats attempting to land in Australia.

Like his earlier support for Hanson, Howard’s warm response to Nile is designed to suit his immediate political needs. He is deliberately encouraging a climate of fear and suspicion against Muslims and Arab-Australians as his government prepares to join the Bush administration in invading Iraq, an impoverished and virtually defenceless country.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/nov2002/nile-n29.shtml

That politicians now have little compunction in making openly racist comments is testimony to the extreme rightward shift in official politics in Australia and to the noxious public climate being fostered by the political and media establishment.

Last week Liberal Party federal backbencher Dana Vale, a former minister for veteran affairs in the Howard government, launched into an anti-Moslem diatribe reminiscent of the cries of “populate or perish” that underpinned the White Australia policy last century. Then the image of Asian hordes descending on Australia was regularly conjured up to justify an openly discriminatory anti-Asian immigration program.

Substitute “Muslim” for “Asian” and you have the gist of Vale’s remarks. While being interviewed about the parliamentary debate over the abortion drug RU486, she declared Australia “would be a Muslim nation in 50 years time” because “we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every year...” Vale went on: “If you multiply that by 50, that’s five million potential Australians we won’t have here.”

Vale’s comments follow a violent and ugly race riot against Middle Eastern people by a drunken mob in the Sydney suburb of Cronulla last December. In its wake, the media, government and opposition parties in New South Wales have continued to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria by fostering fears about “Middle Eastern crime”.

Significantly Vale’s bigoted statement drew only muted criticism across the political spectrum and not a single serious demand that she be disciplined. Politicians of all stripes dismissed Vale as a kind of oddball whose comments were “unfortunate” and “dopey” and unrepresentative of views in parliamentary circles.

Labor Opposition leader Kim Beazley referred to Vale as “poor old Dana”, adding that she was “an authentic representative of this [Howard] government’s growing extremism.” He did not elaborate further, however. To do so would have raised questions about Labor’s own support for the Howard government’s “extremism”—from its anti-refugee policies to its assault on democratic rights through draconian anti-terror laws.

Vale’s outburst, however, is far from an aberration. It reflects the climate cultivated over the past five years by the Howard government, with the support of Labor and the media, to vilify people of Middle Eastern descent as potential terrorists determined to impose an Islamic state in Australia.

The aim of the campaign has been to harness public opinion behind the bogus “war on terror” and Australian military involvement in the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. On the domestic front, it is designed to create a climate of fear and tension to divide working people amid growing popular anger and hostility over unemployment, deteriorating social conditions and social inequality.

Howard is cultivating a right-wing base among the most backward sections of the population. In response to Vale’s comments, government ministers were careful not to alienate this constituency.

Howard’s response is a signal that the anti-Muslim campaign is about to be intensified. Within days of the Vale incident, the Australian, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship, published the contents of an interview with Howard in December—just days before the Cronulla race riot—for an upcoming book dealing with his 10 years as prime minister.

Howard’s remarks were just as inflammatory as those of Vale. During the interview, the prime minister declared that there was a “fragment” of Muslim immigrants that was “utterly antagonistic to our kind of society”. He claimed that there was “no equivalent in the raving on about jihad” among other immigrants, adding that “some of the associated attitudes (of Muslims) towards women are a problem”.

In an associated editorial, the Australian gave its full support to Howard’s pandering to anti-Muslim prejudice. “In recent years we have had no one, other than Muslims, bring such missionary zeal to the establishment of their own religions and society within our own,” it declared.

The editorial noted that Howard had been consigned to the “political wilderness” in 1988 for calling for a cut to the number of Asian immigrants. “His latest comments should not have the same effect,” the Australian emphasised. “They should, in fact, be closely studied by both Australians who were born and bred here and the most recent arrivals to the country.”

In other words, the encouragement of racism and backwardness that was politically unacceptable two decades ago has now become the norm. Remarks that can only spur on the persecution and vilification of Middle East and Muslim immigrants should, according to the Australian, not only be condoned but welcomed and studied.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/vale-f22.shtml

In a survey of more than 5,000 Australians, researchers found that while there is persistent intolerance directed at aboriginal and Jewish Australians, anti-Muslim sentiment is also very strong.

The study identified Muslims as one of the country's most marginalised religious and ethnic groups, with many Australians believing Muslims and people from the Middle East were unable to fit in to Australia.


Many said Muslims did not fit in
More than half of those surveyed said they would be concerned if a relative married a Muslim.

About 45% said some cultural groups did not belong in Australia, and almost half believed Australia was weakened by people of different ethnic origins sticking to their old ways.

Dr Kevin Dunn from the University of New South Wales, who will present the findings at a Sydney conference on immigration, blames media representations of Muslims and western antipathy towards Islam.

He says Muslims suffer from stereotypes of Islamic misogyny and sexism.

Dr Dunn conducted similar research in the mid-1990s, which found that negative attitudes at that time were directed mostly towards people from South East Asia and China.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2778821.stm

Yeah thats all about zionism isn't it.

Thats an ols ploy, play the race card in australian politics....

If you can't or won't see that zionism is behind the campaign to dehumanize all Arabs and Muslims as savages unworthy of basic human rights, and if you can't or won't see that zionists in high places are implementing their openly stated plan to achieve the "creative destruction" of the Middle East, turning it into a "boiling cauldron" so that Israel can dominate the region,

OK What australian zionists in high places are doing this?

And you see this as happening because that way Israel can dominate the middle east, whereas I see it happening cos that way the US and scumfuck capitalists, to quote the late BH, can control the world via dominating the ME resources.

Once the resources are gone the zionists will have no suppor from the US.

But by all means start a grass roots campaign to find a way to charge these people, its a great idea, the only way anything useful ever gets done is on a grassroots level.

have I ever said not to?

You don't need my approval to do it anyway.

Anyway keep ranting about my distractions. Here is another one.

In Australia anti Muslim sentiment has been used to cover the dismantling of much that was decent, or even fully decent about australia. It has fueled a deep and ugly division in australian society that has spawned cracks of its own. In the process what was once supposed to be "Commonwealth" ie sharted by australians for their benefit,

(yet anopther myth, that might actually work well if enough people believed it, for all his flaws ie being a politician, Chavez seems to be making peoples lives better.)

- has been privatised and looted, while society has undergone some changes -> making people work harder for longer for less, and have less freedom and control over their lives.

Plus all the enviro destruction.

And the concentration camps.

And basically a society that mirrored the rise of fascism and nazism in germany and italy pre ww2 in many ways. Alot of older liberal German immigrants in my part of the world are very disturbed by these trends, they are very familiar to older germans.

It hs sweet FA to do with allowing Israel to run rough shod over the middle east. But not according to you.

You must be right, thank you for correcting my reality.

[Gouda]

Alice, as usual, everything you have posted and examined is essential for us to know and think about - and as Chris Floyd wrote, that's "Damning stuff." But in the context of this thread, maybe you are rushing too quickly past the "neocons" to Zionism and the state of Israel (who are entwined with all this, but I am not convinced are "behind" all this) without stopping for a moment to examine the Neocons as a uniquely american phenom within the context of the vast, deep, and much more powerful (than Israel) American military-industrial-finance-anti-intellectual complex.

I remember that Jeffery Blankfort said, in an interview I think you posted, that the Israelis actually despise american jews and take the american neocons for the idiots they are. I wonder if that sentiment isn't likewise, appearances notwithstanding. The neocons, idiots that they are, were well-armed idiots, with the loaned backing of the american military and intelligence colossus. But not anymore, necessarily.

Yet, who was manipulating who? Actually, I am certain both were manipulating the other (within an even larger con), and this has yielded the mutually disastrous effects we have been cataloging with horror here.

Maybe this was intended - to have these jerks mutually annihilate each other via their mutual cooperation to smooth the way for bigger jerks.

I think in the next year or two we will see things looking very different for Bush, the Neocons, and Israel - indeed, their (political) fortunes have already been going sour. Which of course does not mean any improvements for the Iraqis or Palestinians. Or the Israeli people.

[NavnDansk]

I have read a little about what Monsanto is doing with seeds and refusing to allow saving of seeds which is unspeakable. Greg Palast was right when he wrote for Tikkun that the invasion of Iraq's paperwork was more like a hostile takeover of another corporation rather than a war.

What is to prevent the American or Iraqi farmer from continuing to use and save the seeds they have or buying from another company?

[Joe Hillshoist]

I think alot of Iraq's seed sources have been trashed by 4 years of ground war and a further 12 of economic war.

I also think the agreements signed by Bremer give exclusive contracts to some companies re provision of services. One of them is supplying seed sources.

In theory farmers could try to source other seed, but then even if they could get it there, something I imagine wouldn't be easy, there is still the risk of cross polination with monsanto stock, and the associated loss of seed rights.

There's a real trend in this process to turn a middle class nation into a feudal hellhole where everyone is working themselves further and further into debt trying to pay off ridiculously expensive agricultural "technology" and associated products/poisons.

[AlicetheKurious]

I've been trying to post this since yesterday afternoon (yesterday morning in North America). It was very frustrating and a huge waste of time, that I can't afford to repeat. There is something going on with the RI board, maybe the problem is just with me, but I don't have this problem with other web-sites.

I really enjoy posting here, I find the others' posts stimulating enough that I'm motivated to do my homework and post responses. I don't mind the time I spend researching or writing, but it would be criminal of me to neglect my my kids my husband, my friends and my other responsibilities (as I did yesterday), hovering around my computer, waiting for a post to go through.

Anyway, here's the post I was trying to send (my fingers are crossed):

First, Gouda, just because an octopus has 8 tentacles doesn't mean that they are each separate animals.


Second, Joe said:

You know jack shit about what I do, apart from what I post on a website

Well, duh! That's what I'm responding to.

See thats complete bullshit. In Australia the agenda behind demonising arabs and muslims is VERY different and has nothing to do with zionism

"PRIME Minister John Howard will be presented the prestigious B'nai B'rith international Presidential Gold Medal for his "outstanding" support of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony in Washington on Tuesday, May 16 [2006].

...B'nai B'rith Australia/New Zealand president James Altman said: "In a world where many countries are demonising Israel, which is leading to antisemitism in those countries, John Howard and his government have been a beacon of light against that trend."

Howard's commitment to Israel and the Jewish community was also the topic of an address last week to the American Jewish Committee (AJC), in which he praised Australian Jewry's "invaluable contribution" to the broader community, and reiterated the government's "steadfast" commitment to a "safe and secure Israel".

In a congratulatory video message screened at the AJC's 100th annual meeting in Washington, Howard said the Australian Jewish community "plays a major role in strengthening the friendship between Australia and Israel and in bringing us closer to our allies".

Congratulating the AJC for its accomplishments on human-rights issues and the advancement of inter-faith relations, the PM stated: "The international Jewish community and the state of Israel have no closer friends than Australia and the United States."

http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news_print.asp?pgID=533


American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris:

"Since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, you [John Howard] have stood shoulder to shoulder with the state of Israel. Since the launching of the war on terrorism, you were there from the very first day. And I don't just mean literally in Washington but with your words. And more important even than your words, with your actions that surpassed even your eloquent words.

You've been there with us. And I who have the privilege and punishment of watching the United Nations at work in both New York and in Geneva know that there are very few nations that are prepared to exhibit the kind of courage - moral, intellectual, philosophical, political on behalf of what is right and just, respecting Western values, respecting the United States, respecting Israel, respecting human rights.

There are few countries that we can count on more steadfastly than Australia, and I thank you for that as well."

http://www.aijac.org.au/events-promotio ... d-ajc.html


Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council Director Colin Rubenstein:

" For more than 30 years in public life, John Howard has stood firm as a strong and sincere friend of Israel who shares that vision and has argued for it, whatever the situation may be, whether in government or in opposition.

Thirty years, ladies and gentlemen, is a long commitment on any issue, and it's a true measure of the man and of his principle and of his resolve. Prime Minister Howard's commitment to Israel is genuine, and his commitment to Middle East peace and our community has never wavered.

When I had the good fortune to accompany the Prime Minister during his visit to Israel in the year 2000, I saw at firsthand the warmth and appreciation Israel's political and business leadership showed to him for his support and courage.

The Prime Minister forthrightly praised Israel's Camp David peace offer, and he's repeatedly condemned the Palestinian violence and bloodshed over the last year that has left the Oslo process in tatters. And it has been said several times today that at the United Nations under John Howard's leadership, the Australian government has abstained from or opposed morally skewered and sometimes viciously anti-Israel resolutions.

It's assisted Israel's admission into the WEOG Group at the United Nations. Australia was right to stay away from the conference of high-contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention in December that convened solely for the purpose of hectoring and delegitimizing Israel. Above all, at the Durban Conference on Racism, which just turned into a display of the very evils they were supposed to combat, Australia took a vitally important role in moderating the proceedings..."

http://www.aijac.org.au/events-promotio ... d-ajc.html


"John Howard’s April 29 - May 2 [2000] visit to Israel, the third by an Australian Prime Minister, was highly successful….

Part of the reason for this success was Howard’s long-standing natural sympathy and affinity for Israel. John Howard has been close to the Jewish Community and a strong supporter of Israel throughout his political career, and it showed in many ways.

…as he received an Honorary Doctorate from Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University, in recognition of his long-standing support for Israel and for Middle East peace. As Howard said in his acceptance speech, "The personal affection I have for the state of Israel, the personal regard I have for the Jewish people of the world, will never be diminished. It is something I hold dearly, something I value as part of my being and as part of what I have tried to do with my life."

…The uniqueness of Howard’s ties with the Jewish state were also well-appreciated on the Israeli side, and the rapport Howard established with Israeli Prime Minister Barak was particularly impressive..
…
Howard for his part showed admirable poise, as well as regard for the delicacy of the process, in deflecting attempts by journalists and Arafat to persuade him to take positions on issues being negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians, such as Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, a Palestinian state and refugees. His response was the one which is genuinely most helpful to the peace process, namely that Australia would not take sides on issues currently being negotiated between the parties…"

http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2000/256/howisr.html


"In his examination of the Israel lobby in Australia, Loewenstein particularly focuses on the shock troops at the forefront of the public relations war waged in Australia by Zionists, the AIJAC. Loewenstein’s exploration of how the AIJAC works, especially in relation to the Australian media, is essential reading.

Loewenstein notes that despite anti-Palestinian bias being prevalent in the Australian media, AIJAC constantly lays charges of anti-Israel bias. According to Loewenstein, “In AIJAC’s opinion, any news story that portrays Israel in a critical light is biased, irresponsible” and a sign of anti-Semitism.

Unable to prove any real systemic anti-Israel bias in the media, AIJAC resorts to filing complaints that are “narrow, nitpicking” and focuses “on the use of single words in coverage”, Lowenstein argues. He notes this is a key characteristic of the pro-Israel lobby in the US and Australia — the relentless challenging of matters of fact such as the use of the words “occupation”, “settlement” or “Occupied Palestinian Territories”. The use of such words, which are descriptions of fact, are regarded as a sign of bias."

Review of "My Israel Question" by Antony Loewenstein
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2006/684/8073


"On August 30 in Melbourne, opposition leader Simon Crean delivered an address at the Werdiger Family Hall. The event was organised by the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the State Zionist Council of Victoria and the Jewish Community Council of Victoria.

The speech was so unashamedly pro-Israeli that it can only be described as sycophantic. At one point, the “opposition” leader recalled standing on the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and from there being “concerned” about Israel’s security. Not once did he mention the UN resolutions calling for Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories, nor indeed the UN charter, which prohibits outright the acquisition of land by force.

Crean’s uncritical support of the Israeli narrative further erodes the credibility of Labor’s foreign policy...

The Israeli Society Against Torture reported that during the past three years, the “use of torture” against Palestinian prisoners had become the “norm” rather than the “exception”.

And yet in his speech in Melbourne, Crean saw fit to commend Israel on its “implementation of the road map” and laid the blame for its failure squarely with Palestinians. While he was fawning over Israel’s commitment to peace, an eight-year-old Palestinian girl, Aya Fayad, was shot dead by Israeli occupation troops in the Khan Younis refugee camp.

Conspicuously absent from his speech was a call for an immediate end to the military occupation. The week before, the Labor leadership had silenced two of its backbenchers from speaking against a motion put forward in parliament to commend Israel. Instead, former Labor leader Kim Beazley, Crean and Labor foriegn affairs spokesperson Kevin Rudd vied with Liberals to heap the most praise on the Zionist state.

The ALP’s reaffirmation of its support for imperialist Israel follows a report issued by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) on June 13, entitled “Israel and the ALP”. The report is highly critical of what it perceives as “burgeoning criticism” of Israel amongst some ALP backbenchers. This was sparked by a parliamentary debate on a motion put forward by Labor MP Julia Irwin calling for nothing more than that “Israel return to the 1967 borders and that a UN force be put into the West Bank and Gaza to assist the creation of Palestine”.

The ADC report quoted a number of influential Jewish leaders critical of the ALP and concluded with the unveiled threat that “opinions like that must worry ALP leaders concerned with ensuring the maintenance of political, electoral and financial support for the party from Jewish Australia.”

…

The statements made by Crean, Beazley and Rudd represent the historic attitude of the ALP in supporting an imperialist Israel at the expense of Palestinian human rights. Indeed, Crean himself makes reference to the ALP’s Doc Evatt, the Australian who chaired the UN committee that first carved up Palestine, paving the way for the expulsion and dispossession of more than 750,000 Palestinians in 1948."

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2003/553/29569


I've posted the full article from the Jewish Forward, because this publication has an unfortunate tendency to delete articles that provide information that is quoted or linked to, in writings that are critical of Israel (somehow, they're even removed from the Wayback Machine)...

FBI Affair Costs Lobby Dynamic Director Rosen

Ori Nir | Fri. Apr 29, 2005

WASHINGTON — The FBI investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has in recent months eroded the reputation and credibility of the powerful pro-Israel lobby, Washington insiders said. But the firing of Steve Rosen, Aipac’s policy director, is the first tangible price — and a very dear one — that the organization is paying as a result of the scandal.

Ironically it is a self-imposed price, which sources close to Aipac described as a damage-control measure aimed at distancing the organization from the scandal. Sources close to Aipac said that for the sake of self-preservation, the group is letting go of its intellectual dynamo and toughest political enforcer, a man who insiders characterize as Aipac’s behind-the-scenes leader.

“It’s hard to imagine Aipac without Steve Rosen,” said David Twersky,
director of international affairs at the American Jewish Congress. “Regardless of one’s judgment on the outcomes, this is the guy who more than anyone else shaped the institution as it currently exists.”

Rosen, who reportedly has been the subject of an FBI probe for allegedly passing documents to an Israeli diplomat in 2003, is widely credited with turning Aipac into [b]America’s most powerful foreign policy lobbying organization and one of the strongest lobbies in Washington. In the 23 years that he spent at the organization, Rosen emerged as a lobbying rainmaker, a Washington fixture who has friends and allies in the most influential positions of America’s policy establishment.[/b]

Yet for years, Jewish communal leaders felt uneasy with what they saw as his secretive, Machiavellian mode of operation, as well as with his often confrontational and abrasive demeanor. Last week, when Aipac confirmed that he had been sacked, nobody gloated about his demise, but several Jewish activists were relieved to see him go. “Steve embodies what many don’t like about Aipac: the overreaching in using Jewish power,” one Jewish communal leader said. “He is now the victim of his own overreaching.”

With his sharp analytic skills, his impressive breadth of knowledge and his quirky sense of humor, Rosen created close relationships with both career civil servants and political appointees in Washington’s successive administrations. He perfected what one former colleague characterized as the art of “power schmoozing,” the ability to convince interlocutors that they could always learn new facts or insights from him. These skills were invaluable for Aipac, and therefore for Israel, pro-Israel activists said.

By virtue of his contacts and access, Rosen navigated some of Aipac’s most sensitive and complex advocacy initiatives, whether it was promoting the joint American-Israeli Arrow anti-missile defense system; fortifying the relationship among the United States, Israel and Turkey, or urging a tougher American policy for confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Recently, Rosen led a semisecret ambitious initiative to establish pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the United Kingdom, where antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments are rising. Aipac is also working to empower the pro-Israel communities in other European nations, as well as in Canada and Australia.

Inside the organization, it took Rosen several short years to reach the top of the policy-making apparatus and become its de facto chief executive. Aipac executive director Howard Kohr, a Republican, was hired by Rosen years ago to lobby the executive branch. Later he was pushed by Rosen to head the organization. Kohr, whom many characterize as Rosen’s protégé, has seldom challenged Rosen’s decisive steering of the organization’s lobbying policy, according to Aipac insiders.

“It’s bizarre to think of Aipac firing Rosen; it’s like a body deciding to sever its own head,” said a congressional aide who is closely familiar with the pro-Israel lobby.

Rosen, 62, grew up a red-diaper baby in New York. His parents, Rosen tells his friends, were too caught up in issues of the left — such as the Spanish Civil War, organizing unions and McCarthyism — to think about Israel. His passion for the Jewish state emerged when, as a young university professor, he studied Israel’s wars with its Arab neighbors.

He joined Aipac in 1982, after a short career in academia and a stint as an analyst at the California-based RAND Corporation. At the time, Rosen championed the notion that Israel was a first-rate strategic asset to America in the Cold War. That notion, he told his Aipac colleagues, would be most effectively pushed in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department rather than on Capitol Hill. Soon Rosen turned Aipac’s department of information and research, which he headed, from a branch aimed at serving the lobby’s legislative department to an independent entity, which mainly lobbied the executive branch.

Rosen pushed for the formation of an independent think tank that would be funded by many of Aipac’s donors: That body, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy is America’s most active and influential Mideast think tank today.

“He’s a very talented person,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I don’t think anybody is happy to see him go.”

http://www.forward.com/articles/fbi-aff ... tor-rosen/


"Keith Rupert Murdoch (born March 11, 1931), is an Australian-born American media proprietor who is the majority shareholder and managing director of News Corporation, one of the world's largest and most influential media corporations. He is one of the few chief executives of any multinational media corporation who (through his family company) has a controlling ownership share in the companies he runs.

...

Murdoch is generally regarded as the single most politically influential media proprietor in the world, and is regularly courted by politicians in the United States, Britain and Australia. His politics have been regarded by some as being conservative despite the fact that he has been a strong supporter of British Prime Minister Tony Blair of the Labour Party. Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded into British and American media, and in recent years has become a powerful force in satellite television, the film industry and other forms of media.

...
Over the next few years, Murdoch gradually established himself as one of most dynamic media proprietors in [Australia], quickly expanding his holdings by acquiring a string of daily and suburban newspapers in most capital cities, including the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Mirror proved crucial to his success, allowing him to challenge the dominance of his two main rivals in the Sydney market, the Fairfax Newspapers group, which published the hugely profitable Sydney Morning Herald, and the Consolidated Press group, owned by Sir Frank Packer, which published the city's leading tabloid paper, the Daily Telegraph.

In 1964, Murdoch made his next important advance when he established The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, based first in Canberra and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet, gave Murdoch a new respectability as a "quality" newspaper publisher, and also greater political influence since The Australian has always had an elite readership, if not always a large circulation.

In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph from Sir Frank Packer, making him one of the "big three" newspaper proprietors in Australia, along with Sir Warwick Fairfax in Sydney and his father's old Herald and Weekly Times Ltd in Melbourne. In the 1972 elections, Murdoch swung his newspapers' support behind Gough Whitlam and the leftist Australian Labor Party, but by 1975 he had turned against Labor, and since then has almost always supported the rightist Liberal Party.

Over the next ten years, as his press empire grew, Murdoch established a hugely lucrative financial base, and these profits were routinely used to subsidize further acquisitions. In his early years of newspaper ownership Murdoch was an aggressive, micromanaging entrepreneur. His standard tactic was to buy loss-making Australian newspapers and turn them around by introducing radical management and editorial changes and fighting no-holds-barred circulation wars with his competitors. By the 1970s, this power base was so strong that Murdoch was able to acquire leading newspapers and magazines in both London and New York, as well as many other media holdings.

Murdoch's desire for dominant cross-media ownership manifested early—in 1961 he bought an ailing Australian record label, Festival Records, and within a few years it had become the leading local recording company. He also bought a television station in Wollongong, New South Wales, hoping to use it to break into the Sydney television market, but found himself frustrated by Australia's cross-media ownership laws, which prevented him from owning both a major newspaper and television station in the same city. Since then he has consistently lobbied, both personally and through his papers, to have these laws changed in his favor.
...
Murdoch moved to Britain in the mid 1960s and rapidly became a major force there after his acquisitions of the News of the World, The Sun and later The Times and The Sunday Times, which he bought in 1981 from the Thomson family, who had bought it from the Astor family in 1966. Both takeovers further reinforced his growing reputation as a ruthless and cunning business operator. His takeover of The Times aroused great hostility among traditionalists, who feared he would take it "downmarket." This led directly to the founding of The Independent in 1986 as an alternative quality daily.

Murdoch has a particular genius for tabloid newspapers. The Sun in London, The Post in New York, The Herald Sun in Melbourne and The Daily Telegraph in Sydney are among the most successful, profitable and influential tabloids in the world. Despite his personal conservatism, he allowed his editors (particularly in Britain) to exploit the selling power of soft-core erotica in the form of topless page three girls (such as Samantha Fox) to increase circulation. As a result, Auberon Waugh of Private Eye dubbed him The Dirty Digger, a name that has endured.

In 1986 and 1987, Murdoch moved to adjust the production process of his British newspapers, over which the printing unions had long maintained a highly restrictive grip. This led to a confrontation with the printing unions NGA and SOGAT. The move of News International's London operation to Wapping in the East End resulted in nightly battles outside the new plant. Delivery vans and depots were frequently and violently attacked. Ultimately the unions capitulated and other media companies soon followed Murdoch's lead.
...
In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC, however, ruled in Murdoch's favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. In the same year Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website as well as funding a right-wing magazine, The Weekly Standard. In the same year, News Corp. launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia in a partnership with Telstra.

In 1996, Fox established the FOX News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station. Since its launch it has consistently eroded CNN's market share, and now it now bills itself as "the most-watched cable news channel." This is due in part to recent ratings studies, released in the fourth quarter of 2004, showing that the network had nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category. However, FOX's cable-news dominance has in recent years been challenged by the growth of MSNBC.
...
Murdoch publications worldwide tend to adopt anti-French, pro-Israel and pro-American views. During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, all 175 Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide editorialized in favour of the war. [2] Murdoch served on the board of directors of the Cato Institute."

http://www.superiorpics.com/rupert_murdoch/



"Murdoch's strong personal and business attachments to Israel led him to become a strong political backer and close friend of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. His favorable coverage of the Israeli government has not really been reciprocated—Murdoch has faced legal trouble in Israel for tax reasons—but he has received recognition in the U.S.: in 1982 the American Jewish Congress in New York voted Murdoch "Communications Man of the Year."

Murdoch's close relationship with Sharon and heavy investment in Israel led former Times Africa correspondent Sam Kiley to resign his position. "The Times foreign editor and other middle managers flew into hysterical terror every time a pro-Israel lobbying group wrote in with a quibble or complaint," Kiley said, "and then usually took [the lobby's] side against their own correspondent...No pro-Israel lobbyist ever dreamed of having such power over a great national newspaper." After one conversation in which Kiley was asked not to mention a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed by Israeli troops, the reporter "was left wordless, so I quit."

Murdoch uses his various "acquisition binges" for far more than simple financial gain. HarperCollins often pays huge book advances to public figures with political influence. For example, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received an initial $4.5 million deal from HarperCollins at the same time as major telecommunications legislation was before Congress. Gingrich eventually was shamed into returning some of the money, but the fact remains that since most of these books never make their advance money back, they appear to be generous "gifts"—or worse—from Murdoch to the individuals in question.

Murdoch uses his newspapers in a similar manner. ...

The steady beating of war drums by neoconservatives like William Kristol was, in the eyes of many, the most influential factor in the U.S. decision to go to war against Iraq. Referring to Kristol's numerous articles and media appearances in support of the war, Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen even dubbed it "Kristol's War."

One reason Kristol was able to help create this war was the fact that he had a ready-made platform, courtesy of the Australian press lord Rupert Murdoch, who underwrites Kristol's magazine, The Weekly Standard. Never mind that, according to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, the magazine has operated at a financial loss ever since it was founded. It succeeds in its main purpose, which is to provide legitimacy to the ubiquitous Kristol and other staffers of the little-read Weekly Standard in their primary role as television talking heads.

The son of Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, Kristol, like his parents, is a charter member of the group known as the neoconservatives, a loose network of hawks whose influence is perceived by many to be a primary factor behind the president's decision to attack Iraq. ...

Kristol then co-launched the New American Century group, of which the most prominent neocons are members, and which in 1998 petitioned then-President Clinton to "[remove] Saddam Hussain and his regime from power." Co-signers of the petition included Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky and Robert Zoelick—all senior officials in the current Bush administration. While Kristol's government connections are clear, less certain are the facts surrounding his various business dealings. He was definitely paid $100,000 to serve over two years on an Enron advisory board.

Today, in addition to The Weekly Standard, Kristol operates a think tank that boasts big-name scholars and former government officials, and is a regular figure on Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Among his regular coterie are Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Perle, who recently resigned the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board due to allegations of conflicting interests.
...

From the May 25, 2002 15 Minutes magazine:

"This is how Mike Bloomberg decided to go for the gold at City Hall. Last spring, he asked Ed Koch what it was like to be mayor of New York…

"[Koch] said that in 1977 the editors of the New York Post interviewed the seven [mayoral] candidates. Koch stood sixth in the polls. A week later his phone rang. ÔIs Congressman Koch home?' ÔWho's calling,' Koch asked.

"Murdoch proceeded to inform the candidate that the next day's New York Post would endorse him on the front page.

"Rupert,' Koch replied, "you just elected me mayor of New York.'"

[size=18]"

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/june2003/0306024.html

[Joe Hillshoist]

And your point alice?

You obviously have no understanding of what is happening here.

Point one is that not many long term major party pollies in Australia are enemies of Israel.

Point 2 is that advancing zionist causes in australia... its not the issue. The issue is a dismantling of democracy in australia, and muslims form a great scapegoat, partly cos of their percieved differences and partly cos of the events in NY on sept 11 and more to the point in Bali the following year. I suppose 4 years of anti lebanese bullshit from the likes of Alan Jones (right wing peadophile broadcaster) was simply to prime the aussie population for last years war.

Point 3 is that no politician wants anything to do with palestine after bali, the association with suicide bombers is just not worth the hassle.

point 4 is that Jewish people have made a valueable contribution to australia, recognising that does not make you a zionist.

Howard is a little slimeball at the best of times, but his use of anti muslim racism plays off something different in australia than pro zionist support.

Of course his attitude to palestine is disgusting. Its John Howard we are talkng about. But his attitude, and that of all those pro zionist lobby groups in australia has not been enough to prevent a series of palestinian leaders, politicians and academics being interviewed on Lateline, a national current affairs show with as much cred as any in the world probably, on the ABC, the government funded public broadcaster.

And the interviews are no less harsh than when they interview the fascist suit apologists for the idf. But the palestinian people always have a full chance to make their point.

Murdoch is slime too, and incredibly powerful, but again his agenda isn't Zionism, its money, and control.

Murdoch wants to own more media in Australia, Howard is prepared to allow that and murdochs papers support him. Murdochs agenda is privatisation and the feudal power that goes with it. They both have the same attitude to economics and politics, conservative, and converted to neo conservative. Howard is basically a fascist at heart, and a small weak man with physical courage - there is a bumper sticker in australia "John Hunt is a Coward". He is like the little yap in the old warner bros cartoon, and the US, specifically Bush, is the big bully whose belt he can ti his tongue to the back of in the knowledge that someone else will get picked on.

I know these may seem like generalisation to you but they are the context of anti muslim racism in australia. Not a manipulative plan to bias Australian minds to support Israel. Just a manipulative plan to bias australian minds to support Howard.

Zionists support him cos they know a good thing when they see it I am sure.

But that doesn't mean his anti muslim anti refugee rhetoric is for their benefit. Howard only does stuff for his own benefit.

I can see how it would be easy to make that association between anti muslim racism in australia and a zionist agenda, from the outside without an understanding of australian politics. But musilms are the latest in a long line a scapegoats, the hangover of our "white australia" mentality. As I said before the race card is one of the most powerful that can be played in australia at the right time in the right way.