Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A Short Speech For David Shoebridge MLC

geoffff

Onya Pat.

Impossible to listen to Pat Condell's latest video without at least a passing thought for the nasty little gang of creeps who hang around the office of the Greens NSW Parliamentary spokesman for gay and lesbian affairs.

Inviting Holocaust deniers to join them for a nice afternoon cruise on Sydney Harbour in aid of Hamas is the least of it with this mob. 



Saturday, November 9, 2013

BDS Lynch Mob

geoffff


This is from a comment left by A/Professor Jake Lynch on the article put up by New Matilda about the Shurat HaDin action against Lynch and perhaps in time the other BDS louts who believe that marching and shouting outside private businesses associated with a particular single tiny minority is a good way to advance the human condition; according to their world view. "Glad NM has run some good reporting and commentary on this story, to balance some of the material that has appeared in The Australian",  says Prof  Lynch.
Try reading this without getting a nasty chilly stabbing twinge somewhere between the shoulder blades and the right jaw. If you are not yet convinced that BDS is a dangerous and sinister thing straight out of the past, with labels on, then this must do the job.
Israel is singled out for boycott, not because of the religion followed by the majority of its citizens but because of its record of militarism and lawlessness. There are other countries that occupy territory recognised as not their own; kill large numbers of civilians in military action; stockpile nuclear weapons without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and violate the 1973 UN Convention against apartheid. But only one does all four. There is no non-Jewish state in that category, so the charge of discrimination is easily disproved on that count as well.
Jake Lynch
Reading this invokes what I can only call a folk memory. Mind you I've seen it before first hand. I think we all have. This is a man come in judgement who has already found you guilty and has defined the crime that he believes with passion best fits you.You came first. Then the crime made to custom like a ghetto shirt.  He could be an inquisitor priest straight out of the fifteenth century. He even looks the part. There's no point arguing with him. He has come too far to get where he is. The only thing to do is expose him. 
Or do what Shurat HaDin is doing. 
Note the technique. Jake defines the subject for us. The "Jews" are a "religion", as if they are Presbyterians. No hint of a nod to Jewish nationhood not even in Israel. Therefore any claim the Jews have to the land they lawfully settled and the brilliant state they have built and where they live is based on their religion. Never mind the law. The Zionists are lawless.
Then come the Goebbels lies.  The attack is always multi-layered.There are seven lies in less than six lines. To tackle them all is to retreat and defend. To ignore them is to confirm.
Most of all is the fit up. This is how this works. Pick a country. Any country will do. It doesn't even have to be an especially unpleasant country. Be sporting.  Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria ... dozens of others, are no challenge.Then think of some unpleasant things. It doesn't have to be true. It is enough that there are those who say it is true. In the case of Israel you can look to the neighbours for all the material you need and I don't mean what they say.
There are other countries that have annexed whole countries and driven their leadership into exile, stock pile nuclear weapons, ruthlessly suppress and imprison dissidents, aggressively confront other states in all directions, carry out executions in public on an industrial scale and even humiliate the families of the executed. But only China does all of these.  This is not discrimination.  Boycott China.
There are other countries that stock pile nuclear weapons, execute people for blasphemy, persecute minorities, inflame sectarian divisions, savagely oppress women, assassinate civilian politicians and harbour and supply terrorists and terrorist gangs active over the borders while filching billions in aid as a form of extortion. But only Pakistan does all of these. No discrimination here. Boycott Pakistan.
There are other countries that exterminate wallabies as if they are vermin, bludge off neighbours for their defence, expose anti-terrorist operations that they benefit from and put at risk the lives of brave agents in the process, spread cheap antisemitc conspiracy theories, insult visiting Israeli diplomats, discriminate systematically against indigenous people ground down by war and dump their surplus population on the welfare system of the nearest functional state. But only New Zealand does all of these ...
And so on.
In just a few lines Jake Lynch has revealed all you need to know about Jake Lynch. There is a law at work here. To shrug off allegations of bigotry you must discriminate against the target group as much as possible. Simple discrimination is not enough. You must isolate and zero-in with perfect malice one layer at a time until the target stands bare and alone. Then you boycott.  
This can be called Lynch's Law.  

Kerry's Backhanded Threats

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives.}

The piece below was written by Arlene from Israel:

November 8, 2013: HE'S CROSSED THE LINE!

I'm talking about John Kerry, and actually, he's crossed it twice.

I had no time to write today, with Levy Report work and a very early Shabbat. But I must write, ever so briefly, because people must know about this.

Yesterday, Kerry, who is here, gave a TV interview. And this is what he said (emphasis added):

"The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. Does Israel want a third intifada?"

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/280009

I repeat: Does Israel want a third intifada?

This is a form of intimidation and blackmail: Israel, make additional concessions to the PA, or face the consequences of violence.

~~~~~~~~~~

Not an acceptable way to talk to Israel. Either we make concessions because it's good for us in terms of a deal to be struck, or we shouldn't make concessions.

Violence? We'll have to brace for it if it comes, cope with it. Make a lot of arrests, send out a lot of police and troops, and, who knows? maybe take aim at the heads of a few of the perpetrators of violence that threatens innocent Jewish life, so that people get the message not to fool with us. (I speak for myself and not officially, of course.)

~~~~~~~~~~

But folks, this is not the worst of what Kerry did. The interview was with Udi Segal, of Israel's channel 2 and also with Maher Shalabi, of Palestinian TV.

And so, what Kerry is also guilty of, besides intimidation and blackmail, is incitement. He was speaking to a Palestinian Arab audience as well. And he was giving the nod to their being violent if they are not happy with the Israeli stance.

This is the chief diplomatic officer of the United States of America? This is the despicable low to which the US has fallen?

~~~~~~~~~~

The urgency in writing has to do with my sense that Americans who love Israel -- and I know you are legion! -- need to know what Kerry did. You are likely to be outraged along with me,

~~~~~~~~~~

Please! translate that outrage into action. Do not sit still for a secretary of state who speaks to Israel thus. To protest to the White House or State Department is pointless.

Contact your representatives of Congress. Protest this in the strongest terms. DEMAND that intimidation of Israel stop. Call for the firing of Kerry. He doesn't qualify as dog catcher of Washington DC.

For your Congresspersons:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

For your Senator:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

And, please, share this posting absolutely as broadly as you can, encouraging others to also protest Kerry's behavior.

~~~~~~~~~~

On the flip side of this vile behavior, we can see encouraging news. Kerry is desperate or he wouldn't be speaking this way. Pay no attention to his babble about how much progress has been made in just days. He is not getting from Israel the concessions he is seeking.

What is more, he has now thoroughly and completely discredited himself with the Israeli government, which had no official comment. I don't know this from official sources but understand it intuitively. He is less likely now, not more likely, to have the leverage to convince our government of anything. One unnamed Israeli official called this, from Kerry, "a worrying and dangerous precedent."

I would say that, should Arab violence increase in the wake of this interview, any Jewish blood that is spilled would be on Kerry's hands.

Let us stay strong, and hold fast to our rights.

Much more - in particular on Iran - coming soon.

Shabbat Shalom.
I do not know that Kerry was intentionally trying to threaten Israel with a third terror war if it refuses to capitulate to Palestinian-Arab demands, but the effect is that of a threat.  He is essentially telling the local Arabs that they have every right to commit violence against Jews if the Jews refuse to submit to their marching orders.

The Palestinian Authority glorifies violence against Jews and among people like Kerry (not to mention Obama or, say, Peter Beinart) that violence is justified because they see Israel as a "colonial-settler oppressor state" or some such propagandistic formulation.  They would never say that they think that violence toward Jews is justified, nor do I suppose that they would even think it, but that's entirely irrelevant.  By articulating what amounts to the "Palestinian narrative" of never-ending Jewish guilt and general Palestinian-Arab innocence they give the local Arabs every reason to believe that they are right to seek the murder of the Jewish people around them.  If this were not the case they might consider strongly objecting to genocidal Arab incitement toward Jews, but they do not.

One of the biggest mistakes that we have made within the diaspora Jewish community, if not the Jewish community more generally, has been in incorporating the "Palestinian narrative" into our way of thinking on the conflict and it is for that reason that so many diaspora Jews oppose "settlement activity."  Yet, by opposing Jews who build housing for themselves in Judaea and Samaria we essentially capitulate to the idea that the Jewish minority in that part of the world deserve whatever beatings the Arabs wish to dish out.

Some would argue that we must oppose the settlements because Israel can be a democratic state or a Jewish state, but not both if it annexes Judaea and Samaria.  Thankfully, I am not calling for any such annexation.  The point is that we should not reward Arab racism toward Jews by agreeing with Mahmoud Abbas that any future state of "Palestine" must be Judenrein.

Palestinian-Arab culture is toxic to everyone in the region, including the Palestinian-Arabs themselves, because it is drowning in resentment and hatred and violence and that resentment, hatred, and violence is stoked by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, not to mention Hamas.

They are raising up yet another generation of Arabs who are taught that Jews are evil and that even the Devil, himself, is Jewish.

There are those who would argue that the Jewish people in Israel have oppressed the local Arabs which is why they are hate-filled toward Jews.  This is false because it confuses cause with effect.  The check-points and restrictions that sometimes apply to local Arabs are not the source of their hatred, but a response to their hatred and it is a very old hatred, indeed.

Fourteen centuries of theologically-based loathing of Jews is the central core of the problem.  Until the Arab majority moves beyond their medieval prejudices, the conflict will continue and increasingly toward their own detriment.

By the way, I would very much recommend Jonathan Tobin's recent discussion of the matter at Commentary entitled, Kerry Tips the Scales Against Israel.

As he writes:
Even before his latest intervention, there was a good chance the Palestinians would use the eventual collapse of these talks as an excuse for more violence. But now they more or less have Kerry’s seal of approval for such behavior. While American diplomats have made some terrible mistakes in the last 20 years in pursuit of Middle East peace, it’s hard to recall a precedent for this sort of incompetence.
I could hardly agree more.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Sticking Up For Shurat HaDin

geoffff


This blog subscribes to New Matilda. It is dirty work but someone has to do it so it may as well be the blog. The Joint occasionally even scans the home page for anything interesting. This blog is a niche operation and pretty much only ever finds a certain set of issues interesting. They range all the way from Leftist/Islamist racism and imperialism at one end of the spectrum to Islamist/Leftist racism and imperialism at the other.

New Matilda styles itself as "independent journalism at its best".   They are "crowd funded" so every now and again I get a puff email asking for money. Sorry guys. Not my crowd.

I got one of these a few days ago that included this paragraph.

New Matilda was the only Australian media outlet to come out strongly against the outrageous attack on academic freedom and freedom of association by Israeli law centre Shurat HaDin, which is pursuing legal action against Professor Jake Lynch from Sydney University.

So I followed the link. As you do. New Matilda and the usual suspects have launched a nasty attack on Shurat HaDin. That is interesting. This is one reason I think ECAJ was wrong to disown the Shurat HaDin initiative. BDS is a sinister movement that will take every opportunity to press its world view that as we know has a wildly disproportionate focus on Jews at every level.

This is what these people do when they think they can do it with impunity. ECAJ made no observations on the merits of the case. New Matilda and the BDS group it harbours are now pressing the issue. This is what happens when you give these people an inch. Surely we know who they are by now. 

I noted the Shurat HaDin case and was happy to just watch it unfold. After reading this article I've changed my mind. This is not entirely a simple reflex at the sight of the white of their eyes. They are after all not all British. I am going to stick up for the Shurat HaDin action. Community leaders are squeamish about it but it has drawn the "destroy Israel" mob out into the open and we should take a shot. At least not let their narrative go unanswered.

This is the linked article.






Israeli Law Centre Sues To Outlaw Boycotts

By Max Chalmers

Professor Jake Lynch
Professor Jake Lynch
An Israeli legal centre has made good on threats to take Sydney University Professor Jake Lynch and the BDS movement to court - and seeks to have BDS declared unlawful, reports Max Chalmers
After months of speculation, emails, and a visit to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the self-described “Israeli legal centre” Shurat HaDin has made good on its threat to pursue legal action against the controversial Boycotts, Sanctions, and Divestments (BDS) movement in the Federal Court.
The organisation this week filed a case against University of Sydney academic Jake Lynch, accusing the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies director of breaching Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act by supporting the global BDS movement, which aims to pressure Israel into ending its occupation of the Palestinian territories, returning to 1967 borders, and allowing the return of the Palestinian diaspora.
...and this ...
The announcement of court proceedings has drawn outrage from pro-BDS groups. In a press conference held yesterday in Sydney’s Queen’s Square, University of Sydney academic Stuart Rees said Shurat HaDin was endangering free speech in Australia and conflating critiques of Israeli policy with anti-semitism. Rees, who chairs the Sydney Peace Foundation, rejected accusations that supporters of BDS take an unfairly tough line on Israel and said he and Lynch also worked hard to draw attention to human rights abuses in places like Sri Lanka, West Papua, Cambodia, and Saudi Arabia.
“This notion that because we are also focused on the human rights of people in Israel and in Palestine — that we therefore don’t pay any attention to anything else — is a typical deflection technique,” he said.
Along with Lynch, Rees has collected 2000 signatures from people willing to act as co-defendants, not least of whom is Booker prize winning author Arundhati Roy. 
Though Lynch remains on research leave, the small crowd was also addressed by University of New South Wales Associate Professor Peter Slezak. The son of Romanian holocaust survivors, Slezak said he was keenly aware of the dangers of anti-Semitism, but that the BDS movement should not be understood through the lens of racial discrimination.
“It is clearly not about anti-Semitism to criticise violations of international law. Israel is a state like any other state,” Slezak said.
Rees described Shurat HaDin as an aggressive foreign organisation during his press conference, and said they were using the Australian legal system to silence anti-Israeli dissent.


You see, this is the sort of stuff that I find more than vaguely irritating. Academics engaging in what used to be called "Direct Action"  claiming that their political activity as academics that has nothing to do with research and teaching is always covered by academic freedom and free speech. 
What has this got to do with free speech? This is about the boycotting of private businesses and individuals entirely on the basis of their perceived association with Jewish nationhood as manifest in the State of Israel. What's there to talk about there?
What has this got to do with academic freedom? How does that work? Does this mean academics are always exempt from the consequences of political acts they carry out as academics that have nothing to do with research, publishing and teaching? Does that mean academics on strike must still be paid because to cut the flow would infringe their academic freedom?
So I left this comment and to their credit NM published it. 






geoffff
Posted Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - 16:00

I don't know how I missed this. If it wasn't for that begging email asking for money I would have overlooked this fatuous piece entirely. Better late than never.
I applaud the actions of Shurat HaDin and I wish them well. This is an important case that defines limits in more ways than one. I also support the Government's decision to cut funding to this academic unit and hope that it is kept to its promise to cut ALL funding including for projects that are claimed to be not specifically  for BDS or other antizionist or antisemitc and racist attacks on a besieged minority in both the Middle East and Australia.
There is no question that Shurat HaDin is acting in the spirit of the Southern Poverty Law Center on which it is based. 
You need to understand that what we have here is a fundamental ideological dispute. I am as appalled by you as you are by me. When I see a BDS rally on the news I could not be more sickened than if it was a march by the KKK in Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1961. For exactly the same reasons.
Claims that this is not discrimination are risible. Lynch and Rees say they draw attention to "human rights abuses" in places like Sri Lanka, West Papua, Cambodia, and Saudi Arabia. How come no one ever hears of this? Apart from the fact there is no remote comparison, in none of those cases, or any other even more egregious examples they ignore, are they demanding and imposing boycotts, organising political meetings, demanding the dispossession of people from their land on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality or working for the dissolution of a state with concrete foundations in international law.  
If you do not understand that this is discrimination and double standards of the ugliest kind then maybe you might get it if we sang it to you.
This has got nothing to do with free speech. Rees and Lynch can say what they like. This has got nothing to do with academic freedom. Lynch and Rees have crossed the line into political activism and they have no right to complain if they are treated as political activists.
It has nothing to do with Palestinian rights. If Rees and Lynch and the whole BDS mob gave a damn about the Palestinians they would be howling for their liberation from the death grip of Hamas and the cold, brutal, corrupt  hold of Fatah. They would be demanding that they be treated as equal human beings in the places they live including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Invariably the places of their birth.
Rees and Lynch call for boycotts. They implement them. They want private businesses and individuals cut off from that which nurture them; including other academics.  By what special pleading do they claim exemption from that which they demand for others? 





And today this :






Is It Anti-Semitic To Protest Injustice?

By Peter Slezak

Even its critics must acknowledge that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a peaceful protest against Israel's serious violations of human rights and international law, writes Peter Slezak
After a recent public speech, I received an email from someone I don’t know named Bloom, who said that I should have perished in the Holocaust with the rest of my family.
Ironically, the insult was prompted by my support of an academic colleague, Professor Jake Lynch, who has been charged in Federal Court with racial discrimination against Jews, but who is, in fact, a distinguished defender of human rights, justice and international law. Acting in accordance with the growing movement for institutional Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Lynch chose not to collaborate with an Israeli academic from a university deeply complicit in the brutal 46-year occupation of Palestine.
Non-Jewish critics of Israel are accused of anti-semitism for supporting causes such as BDS, while Jewish critics regularly receive vile denunciations and even death threats from other Jews. Most common is the label "self-hating Jew" – a pseudo psychological diagnosis of a mental disorder for which the only criterion is criticism of Israel.
Support for the BDS movement is not anti-semitic. Even its critics must acknowledge that BDS is based on the call from Palestinian civil society to protest Israel’s serious violations of human rights and international law.
Palestinians have long been condemned for violent resistance to the Israeli occupation, so the emergence of peaceful protest through BDS should be welcomed. Instead, it is denounced and slandered as racist. But BDS is a rights-based movement which is against racism in all forms, notably and explicitly against anti-semitism.

Dear me. Do read it all. This does require a response and I've made a start (below). But there's so much material here it will require several posts.






geoffff
Posted Thursday, November 7, 2013 - 14:40

What I said here. But without the typos.
I never cease to be astounded that BDS supporters always, always, seek to pre-emptively deflect the mantle of racism by hiding behind a Jew upfront saying what they want him to say for them when in fact this merely confirms it. 
"... while Jewish critics regularly receive vile denunciations and even death threats from other Jews. Most common is the label "self-hating Jew" – a pseudo psychological diagnosis of a mental disorder for which the only criterion is criticism of Israel."
I simply do not believe this. Any "vile denunciations" would be from someone's cousin probably over dinner.
"Self-hating Jew" is a phrase I never use myself. It's too "touchy feely". Almost hippy. A bit too west of Byron Bay .Anyway I've never seen it defined that way.
I prefer the term, "antisemite". 
More coming in a post near you soon.

OK. More posts coming. Do look through the comment thread under the Shurat HaDin post. There's a comment from Jake Lynch himself. It includes the most chilling rationale for why BDS is not discriminatory I have ever seen.  
Cross posted Israel Thrives
                   New and Views From Jews Downunder