Friday, May 17, 2013

The Hypocrisy of the Australian Greens

geoffff


No human rights for women, religious minorities and gays.


If there were trophies for bigotry, superstitious ignorance,  racism and the oppression of women then the regime that rules Iran would take them all. Even the Guardian has difficulty with the persecution of the Baha'i  and the antisemitic and Holocaust denying gangsters of Tehran are notorious.

Iran is among the most egregious governmental violators of religious liberty and human rights. Its treatment of homosexuals is barbaric .Human rights organizations have  expressed alarm about the rise of sexual assault on women prisoners in Iranian jails.

Press TV is the official voice of this vile regime.

Given this record one might expect an Australian politician to take some care before giving Press TV an interview especially in the course of a demonstration ostensibly for human rights. Quite clearly Greens MP David Shoebridge has no such qualms.  

For him and the Greens human rights must mean something very different to what you might understand. Something very ugly indeed.

hat tip Shirlee

cross posted Israel Thrives

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Obama and his Islamist Friends

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives.}

One of the important elements of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up is the fact that the Obama administration has such faith in the enemies of the American people that he actually put them in security positions at the Benghazi facility.

Barry Rubin writes this:
Consider the Benghazi scandal from the standpoint of Benghazi--where the militia that murdered the Americans is one of the most powerful forces in the city--and Libya itself. Suppose that from the beginning on September 11, 2012, the U.S. government announced that the U.S. facility was under attack by a militia group linked to al-Qaida. It would have had to explain why it had hired members of that militia group to guard the facility, a scandal in itself. We know 100 percent that this is true but it hasn't become an issue.
Why in this world would the Obama administration hire members of an Islamist organization to guard American diplomats in a region as violent and unstable as Benghazi, Libya?  Does it make even a wit of sense?  Why wasn't that compound guarded by American soldiers?

This question gets right to the root of the matter because it raises the question of Obama's relationship with, and friendliness towards, the movement of political Islam.  There are people on the hard right who believe that Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim and there are those on the hard right that believe that he, himself, is an Islamist.  I do not think so.

What I think is that Barack Obama is not nearly so intelligent as they kept telling us that he is.  He put Islamists in charge of security in Benghazi because he honestly believes that political Islam is a force and movement that should be negotiated with and cultivated in America's favor.  This is why he helped install the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt.  This is why he allowed Islamists to guard the American compound in Benghazi.  This is why he has deleted all references to Islam within internal government documents and discussion around the problem of international terrorism.

It's not so much that Obama favors political Islam as that he sees it as a legitimate expression of the will of Arab and Muslim peoples throughout the Middle East and therefore believes that it must be accepted, honored, and negotiated with.  If we wish to promote democracy in the Middle East - which would be in American interests - the United States does not get to say just what that democracy should look like.  If the Arab and Muslim peoples in the region wish to promote a violent political movement that is misogynistic, viciously homophobic, genocidal towards Jews, and deeply anti-American who are we to say "no"?

The Obama administration has proven itself friendly toward radical Islam.  This is not a matter of conjecture or theory, but a matter of fact.  The only question is just why is the administration friendly toward radical Islam?  The answer that seems the most reasonable is that the administration promotes radical Islam because it hopes to use that movement to advance American interests on the world stage.

And this is why we must conclude that Barack Obama is not really terribly bright.

Supporting radical Islam in the Middle East, or the Brotherhood in Egypt, will not promote American interests, but undermine those interests, particularly in the long term.  It takes a special type of stupidity to think that helping your enemies, while subverting your friends, can possibly be in the interests of the American people; a little fact that Barack Obama unwittingly taught Ambassador Stevens the hard way.

My suspicion is that Obama and his people are beginning to awaken to this reality, but it is far, far too late and there is little that they can do at this point to change course, anyway.  Barack Obama made a crucial and fundamental miscalculation at the beginning of his tenure and he will never admit what a profound mistake it was to support political Islam in that part of the world.  He cannot admit it because it would be tantamount to acknowledging responsibility for failure, which he will never do.  He won't do it and his supporters won't do it, even if they recognize it, which itself is rather doubtful.

One thing is certain.  Obama supporters will have much to answer for in the coming months and years.

The truth of the matter is that Obama's foreign policy borders on the treasonous.

You may not want to hear it, but it happens to be the truth.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Antizionists and other bigots in my valley

geoffff


The "Insiders" Beacon on the Hill

Echonetdaily is the voice of of "progressivism" in the Tweed Valley and therefore almost never publishes what I have to say about "Palestine" and Israel. For them, this is a closed world where "Zionists" are evil and the "Palestinians", and all who support Palestinianism , are a light unto the nations.

In the tradition of "thinking locally and acting globally"  this blog will treat Echonetdaily with the same courtesy as it treats all soft and ignorant Jew-haters who would have us believe that the whole Middle East problem is because of the Jews.  

This letter was published today in their electronic newspaper. 

Gareth Smith, Byron Bay

It’s so good to see Byron Shire locals helping to relieve Ethiopia’s water crisis through their Wellwishers charity which has sunk 510 wells since 2002, changing the lives of 220,000 people: brilliant! (Echo,April 30).
Byron Friends of Palestine support the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) which, through its Maia (‘water’ in Arabic) campaign, has provided clean water to 16 large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to 22 kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages.
They achieved this despite Israel’s blockade of water purification units, destruction of Gaza’s electricity generating station and water infrastructure.
Operation Cast Lead, for example, destroyed or made unusable 800 of Gaza’s 2,000 wells and caused $5.97 million in damage to Gaza’s wastewater treatment  facilities.
While Israelis enjoy 300 litres of water/day per capita, Palestinians average about 70 litres/day against the World Health Organisation’s recommended 100 litres/day per person.
Access to clean water is a basic human right and Israel’s water deprivation tactics are a violation of international law which the world community should not tolerate.
...........
Complete bullshit. As anyone in possession of the facts could tell you in a second.
Byron Bay. That would be right. Three times as many people have been killed in the Syrian civil war in the last two years than "Palestinians" in the war against Jewish nationhood and the Jews since 1948. The people at Echonetdaily seriously don't give a stuff about that. 
Che Gorilla replied on behalf of this blog and all decent people everywhere.
There are grave violations of international law in that part of the world. All of them are committed by Hamas, Fatah and their murderous allies.
The criminals are not the Israelis who provide water, power, food and medical services to the “Palestinian” population in massive quantities. The criminals are the “Palestinian” leadership who have viciously oppressed these people for decades. Do not be fooled into supporting these racist fronts for antisemitic propaganda.



Will Echonetdaily even publish this reply?
I doubt it. They never have. Maybe it is time to get in touch with their advertisers.  Now there's a Zionist conspiracy theory they can dine out on.

Update

They did not.


Sunday, May 12, 2013

The Remains of Ben Zygier

geoffff


R.I.P.


At The Conversation ( "The enemy of trusted journalism is disinformation and spin")  what hopefully is the last gasp of the "Prisoner X" affair is being exhaled and this tragic business can finally be put to rest and the family left in peace. No doubt the conspiracy theories will continue forever and for certain it will be slyly integrated into the eternal disinformation campaigns against Israel and the Jews. That always happens. 

Associate Professor Felix Patrikeef took on the job of writing two short pieces for The Conversation in  an information vacuum that was being filled to the brim with disinformation in the general media and overflowing with malicious spin.

The first was on 22 February when the "affair" was at its peak and the whole Australian political class was in an orgasmic rapture of rancid speculation especially in the Fairfax/ABC mindgroup.  At its worst journalists pontificated about the dual loyalty of the Australian You Know Whoooos. They do that. They have always done that. 

The second was posted three days ago. It is striking how fundamentally the political climate surrounding the "affair" has changed in these weeks. There is only one reason for this. Der Speigal published an article which among other things killed stone dead  the more lurid and ugly analyses at least in public or polite company where  "progressives" still believe it expedient to suppress open displays of antisemitism. Then the ABC hammered the last nail when the Foreign Correspondent team, the same unit that broadcast the original story, broadcast an update last Monday. 

So what have we learnt? That Israel sometimes uses clones of foreign passports to provide cover for its agents on national security missions while abroad? Duh. So does every other  intelligence and security agency in the world  including the Australian  Security and Intelligence Service as an Australian politician got into strife for publicly almost admitting when the Dubai affair broke.  What else?

On 15 February this blog  said this when there really wasn't a lot to talk about but a certain element of the Australian media and political classes were absolutely preoccupied with talking about it anyway. What to say? 

What does the Prisoner X tragedy prove?

Nothing at all really.

 As if there has never been a death in custody in an Australian prison.

As if Australian law does not provide not only for the prosecution of persons employed by Australian security agencies for divulging secret information but also for the trial proceedings to be in secret AND even for the prosecution of court officials who keep a record of those proceedings.

That the Australian and Western media have demonstrated how much and how intensely they absolutely love a dead Jew?

Not that either. We already knew that.


Contrast the treatment of this affair with how the same political classes are coping with the news that the Boston marathon outrage was an attack by political Islamist ideology. 

This is a job for Che Gorilla who as usual took it upon himself to venture forth into the The Conversation on the ground he is the only non-human primate in this outfit and therefore really the only one qualified to engage intellectuals especially on their own turf. He knows his way around a jungle when he sees one. 







Che Gorilla

Human Rights Activist
This is the second piece from Professor Patrikeef on Prisoner X. Much has changed since the first was posted at The Conversation on 22 February. Almost nothing was known then as you would expect about national security matters in both Australia and Israel. However nothing of any particular interest is known now. What is interesting is how Australian commentators and observers including in the universities have handled the saga.
The first article was mainly about the al-Mabhouh Dubai operation and the small part that an Australian passport was able to play in neutralising this dangerous international criminal and terrorist while he himself was on an operation. In a vacuum this was within the range of reasonable informed speculation I suppose but as it turned out there was no connection between Zygier and the Dubai incident and the subsequent diplomatic fallout.
Now we can only speculate about why an intelligence asset that the Israelis were cultivating, and who Zygier apparently stupidly betrayed, only served three years instead of fifteen ( or indeed taken out the back and shot after "debriefing" -- this is Hezbollah after all), and whether he was a real asset or a double (or triple) asset or just an asset in progress. Or a double asset in progress or ...
Enough.
As for Ben Zygier? Now that we know what we should have known in the first place, that his death was suicide just as the Israelis said it was (why would you put a man you intended to liquidate in a high security "suicide proof" cell that was supposed to be under video surveillance?). Like every death in custody it was a tragedy but was the result of at worst pretty typical organisational bungling and incompetence that you can see anywhere in the world and not the result of malice or foul play. How boring.
What's more he was treated humanely, had full access to his family and lawyers and was receiving due process. How very boring.
A barometer of how Israel is treated by the "progressives" and others in Australia is in the comments threads of the two pieces.
There were 68 comments under the February article and they ranged the full range of speculative malice. This was cold blooded murder back then. Prisoner X had been "imprisoned without trial" and "tortured". There was"substantial evidence of the collusion of Israeli institutions & authorities - including the courts - in covering up and denying Zygier due process. "
"lets face it - he was executed"
"No shadow of doubt - you can see Netanyahu's own fingerprints on Zygier's neck under the gravestone"..

Not much room for speculation there.
And now that it is known to be all crap you can gauge the loss of interest here. 11 comments only and a few of those are by the usual anti-Israel fanatics.who spend their time scanning the internet for opportunities to vent undisguised Jew hatred.
In a news vacuum speculation mushrooms but it is now a law of nature that when the matter concerns Israel or anything remotely connected in the public (and academic) mind, such as Islamic militarism and terrorism, the speculation will quickly gurgle into elaborate, malicious and utterly baseless conspiracy theories.
Evidence is irrelevant.
Compare and contrast this with the Boston Marathon bombings for instance where once again The Conversation provides a classic counterpoint. To have even prematurely suggested that the bombings might have been inspired by political Islamist ideology before it was known for sure that the attack was inspired by political Islamist ideology was to invite condemnation for "Islamophobia". Moreover it was perfectly acceptable to more than speculate about a well funded conspiracy of the you know whoooos to wage an Islamophobic campaign of hate against all Muslims.
Not much room for speculation there either.
A discussion of this phenomenon at The Conversation is here.
cross posted Israel Thrives

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Just Another Dumb Academic

geoffff



"Thank You Intel.  Now Boycott Israel "


Israel is a leader in adult stem cell research in the treatment of the neurological disease ALS or Lou-Gehrig's Disease. Research is at the clinical trial stage. This is the disease that Stephen Hawking has.

The equipment that Hawking uses to communicate with the world has at its core, technology developed by Intel Israel. 

To accept an invitation from the President of Israel to a scientific conference and then to publicly cancel and join a boycott is more than just boorish manners and ignorance. 

There has to be some plane in time in some dimension of the multiverse where the miracle of human inquisitiveness tips for the urge for its own extinction. Surely the end of time's brief history. Hawking may have found it. He can keep it.  

Zionist Conspiracy has a suggestion that should relieve Hawking of any pending moral dilemma now that he has used Israeli scientific knowledge to add his voice to the racist and morally repugnant BDS campaign. Harsh but fair. 


  I would like to propose that if Israeli researchers discover a cure for the disease, it should be refused to Stephen Hawking.   After all, we would not want to compromise his strong moral stand on behalf of the "suffering Palestinians"!   And boycott for the goose is also boycott for the gander.  Let us not put Hawking into any uncomfortable ethical position now that he has decided to join the BDS terrorists and boycott Israel.  So let us help him avoid compromising his principles and simply let him know in advance that he will be denied any cure for ALS that ever comes out of any Israeli institution or research.



"No Jew stem cell injections for me"


hat tip Doodad and  Ziontruth  at Israel Thrives

update


Alan Dershowitz at the Algemeiner  


The only logical conclusion that can be derived from Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel, coupled with his enthusiastic visits to Iran and China, is that he actively endorses and supports the repression practiced by the Iranian mullahs and the Chinese party bosses. Why else would he single out the world’s only Jewish state for his academic boycott?
Prior to the cancelation of his academic talk in Israel, it might have been argued that his visits to Iran and China reflected not support for the regimes but rather a neutral approach to academics, or a refusal to participate in academic boycotts.  No longer can this justification work.  The only possible justification for distinguishing between Israel on the one hand and Iran and China on the other hand would be if Israel’s actions were worse than those of Iran and China.  Only a knave or a fool would believe that to be so.  Israel’s academies are among the most open, diverse and free in the world.  Israeli universities have affirmative action programs for Palestinians and other minorities.  Political dissenters receive tenure and thrive at Israeli universities.
Read on

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The New Antisemitism

geoffff

A recently broadcast Israeli documentary on modern antisemitism. Produced by Ya’acov Eilon . Harrowing.





hat tip Elder of Ziyon

Letter From Israel



    elinor        אלינור   

                                                                                                                        




New Grocery Store, New Butcher

Our nearest grocery store is shabby, the cashiers are nerky and frequently absent and the management simply doesn't care.  Slimy lettuce leaves on the floor are a constant danger.  I really try not to patronise it because it’s such a trial.

Wandering beyond my new neighbourhood, I discovered a branch of this store but one quite differently managed.  I quickly decided it was a real find, stocked with items I thought were gone from here forever—Quaker Squares, Knorr Kneidlach, even Schweppes Tonic Water without Popsicle flavouring—wow.  I drifted to the back to find a meat counter resembling a newly constructed stage set, completely unattended.  Shortly a nice, round, man in a spotless apron came in from a side door and asked if he could help me. I admired his bristling, white moustaches before remarking on the bargain prices I was seeing in the case.  Meat of any kind is expensive in Israel.

It’s been a long time since I had a kindly, capable butcher.  My former butcher, a native of Brooklyn, exchanged his shift with that of a colleague so as to attend a lecture and got dead in a suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem, many years ago.  So when this man, whom I felt was one of our ‘cousins’, greeted me with warmth, I was happy to have him show me his domain.  The chickens and beef were basically the same as those sold absolutely anywhere in this country, but the showcases were clean and the meat looked fresh and appealing.  I chose some karayim, which are called Maryland in Australia (I don’t know why) and legs-and-thighs or pulkas elsewhere. 

Cut them up for you? he asked.  Yes, please.  Remove the schmaltz?  Yes.  What was that?  Startled, I looked up at the Arab butcher who was surgically removing the fat from my chickens and humming By mir bis du Schoen under his breath.  Um, where do you come from?  Teibeh, a village about half an hour’s drive from here.  Uh huh. 

Hurrying to a doctor’s appointment I did not get the rest of the story but oh boy, when I have time, will I return to my Yiddish-speaking Arab butcher and find out.  Maybe he once was a shabbas goy, as was General Colin Powell in his youth. 

The chicken was very tasty.

Cross posted Israel Thrives