Racist Pogrom Downunder

geofffff

This look like a race riot to you?

Sure it is. One side was drinking Toohey's New. The other Canadian Club and Coke.

That's a race riot for a start.

And there were at least two girls involved.


 Flash. After a vicious race riot in the heart of Sydney last night in which no one was injured but someone took his belt off and observers reported seeing someone else chased down Darlinghurst Road, liberal/progressive social commentators have been sifting through the implications for an increasingly racist Australia..  Although no one who took part can remember exactly what happened  this morning and as no one was hurt no one could care less anyway but everybody on the  left agreed that they think it was a race riot and therefore the rioters were inspired by a speech by Israel's far-right foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman in London last week. It had to be that.





Shirlee has sent a link to Michael Brull's latest article in The Drum suggesting I comment. Well not at The Drum, that's for sure. It's a good thing Shirlee sent the article because there is no way I would have seen it otherwise. I don't read Michael Brull. No offence to Michael. I'm sure he's a very pleasant young man. It's just he does not speak to me.  Also I don't often look at The Drum. Again no offence to The Drum. It's just that there are so many hours in the day and I calculate there would have to be at least one hundred and fifty before I got around to The Drum.


For the benefit of the vast bulk of this blog's best selling audience who live beyond the fair shores of  my country, Michael Brull is no one in particular you should know. Almost nobody in Australia has heard of him either. .The Drum also is nothing you need concern yourself.  Few Australians do..

Michael Brull is a "left/liberal"  or "progressive" style "Zionist" who thinks Israel has to redeem itself from the past and save itself from the Occupation. Otherwise racism and fascism beckon. I hope  I have done this thing no injustice. Indeed, depending on how "progressive" or "left/liberal" a "Zionist" you are, Israel is "on the way" or "well on the way" or "nearly there". I think that's it. Sure there are plenty of strands to it but that's the basic party line as far as I can make out. It's a continuum.   Once Israel "finally gets there", I guess that means you are now officially an "anti-Zionist" and they give you a red badge, a black beret, a rusty revolver and call you comrade with a capital "C".

Someone ungenerously referred to Michael Brull as Loewenstein Lite. For those who don't know, Antony Loewenstein is Australia's only full time professional anti-Zionist. He too is someone who need trouble you no more.  More politely, you could think of Peter Beinart as a kind of Michael Brull with a brain.

The Drum is directed at the Australian inner city public sector degenerate left and self appointed upitself elite demographics (just as the Australian Greens is their party) and therefore of no interest at all to the Australian public except that they have to pay for it all.

Every fortnight or so The Drum runs an Israel bashing essay; or it did the last time I looked. .These may have thinned a little since it became official underground Australian Greens policy to shut up about Israel in public for the time being at least but it seems Michael has been getting more gigs in The Drum lately and Antony fewer. For the ABC this counts as balance.

None of these essays are worth a reply on the merits. People like Michael Brull scan the Israeli English language media for something that fits their world view. Some bad new from Israel. They clutch at any grubby straw in a golden flood of good news. It must stick in the craw; the fact that despite it all Israel is such an enormous success. Israel's technological achievements alone cannot be ignored anywhere in the world and you boycott it at your peril. Be my guest.

Finding bad news in Israel is a global industry. You can be certain that the incident in Sydney last night received barely a moment's attention in Australia today and of course none at all outside Australia. The incident in Tel Aviv would be troubling for an Israeli but of  no particular significance for anyone else. Israel is a magnet for African asylum seekers and economic migrants because they know that if they can actually get to the country they will be treated humanely.

But there's 60 000 of them. Think about it for a second. It really shouldn't take more than that. That's like 200 000 illegal entrants in Australia and many millions more where they came from. Of course it must stop. Of course they can't all stay. It's a no brainer isn't it?  Let them keep drowning in gang run horror passages or stop it. Do you want a country or don't you?

But here's the rub. Where do I get off giving Israelis advice on such matters?  Seriously where could I possibly find the chutzpah?  I'm an Australian for crying out loud. We are on the other side of the planet and we don't even have a land border with any other country..

Asylum seekers, and it seems their descendants, can and do create social tension everywhere in the world, but for countries like Australia and Israel nothing like what we see in Europe notwithstanding some pretty ugly scenes here.

And yet Israel cops the spotlight. Remember this is the ABC that runs The Drum.  The Australian public broadcaster. The BBC's ugly sister.

So it begs the questions does it not?

Why would an Australian take exception to the way Israel is dealing with a pretty serious problem that Australians consider grievous at a fraction of  Israel's?  Indeed why would an Australian take any particular interest in what an Israeli minister said in London let alone Lieberman ? Does he seriously think anyone else does? Who would even know?  Why the two step dance with Israeli politics?

Ultimately there is the one question they are so desperate to avoid they may stop even trying to throw sand in your eyes and settle for rubbing it only in their own..

What do they seriously expect the Israelis to do now that what passes for a Palestinian leadership has once again officially abandoned even the pretence of a two state solution and revealed Oslo was a fraud all along? Just go away? Is that the policy of the left/liberal/progressive Zionists now?

cross posted Israel Thrives

[hat tip Shirlee]


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