SOME IRANIANS HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR

I've been a watcher of Iranian politics for some time and found their ayatollahs and political leaders to be both humourless and emotionless (well ... the good emotions at least). It was therefore refreshing to read this satirical piece piece on the reformist Iranian website www.khandaniha.com. The site's editor, Manouchehr Honarmand, is responding to the letter sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to U.S. president-elect Barack Obama with an imaginary reply from Obama to Ahmadinejad. One can only hope that he manages to stay out of jail because I don't think Mahmoud and his backers will see anything funny in this:

Dear Mr. Ahmadinejad,

I learnt of your letter to me when my chief of staff Emanuel Rahm informed me that we had to send three dollars to the post office to cover the postage [due]. Next time, please put enough stamps on the letters you send me. I had a hard time with my wife, Michelle, over this. She asked why we had to pay postage due on a letter from someone who calls us 'the Great Satan' and collaborates with the likes of Hugo Chavez. You know that in the States, it's the wives who have the last word. It's not like in your country, where one can shut them up by giving them a sharp whack over the head.

Dear Mahmoud, I hate to tell you that your letter caused us quite a bother. The White House translators couldn't or wouldn't translate it, saying it was a job for the department of religious propaganda. Eventually we had to ask for the help of our friends the Israelis who know Persian better than us and even maintain trade relations with you guys on the quiet.

In your letter, you congratulated me on 'taking' the majority of the votes in the election, which I found quite puzzling. You should know that, in the U.S., presidential candidates do not 'take' votes but receive them from the public. People here do not go to bed on the night [of the election] and then wake up in the morning to find out who has seized the presidency... I have been told that, in one of your elections, a candidate took an afternoon nap, only to discover that, [while he was sleeping,] he had been eliminated from the running and someone else had won the election. Is that a true story?

Mahmoud, darling, in another part of your letter you asked my country to pursue a policy based on 'justice, respect for the rights of human beings and nations, friendship and non-intervention in the affairs of others.' Frankly, this surprised me, because if you are alluding to executions, you guys execute as many people as we do. However, in this country, a capital case is debated for 17 years on average, while in your country, 17 is the age of some of those who are executed... As for intervention in the affairs of others, [you have a point:] We Americans do invest considerable funds [in Afghanistan] in order to enable the children there to attend school. [We also invest funds] in order to prevent Russia from imposing its will on Georgia, and so on. But you guys also intervene in the affairs of others – only instead of sending children to school you strap explosive belts around their waists. A few days ago, the media reported that a three-month-old baby had joined an [Iranian] suicide squad.

Dear Mahmoud, I have no patience to read nonsense and respond to it, so next time you feel like talking to me, please call me on the phone – only please don't make it collect.

- excerpts from www.khandaniha.com, November 11, 2008.

HOSTAGES TO FEAR

They say that the views of The Australian newpaper columnist Janet Albrechtsen are extreme and that they should be discounted because she is from the right. However, in HOSTAGES TO FEAR she absolutely nails down the very crux of the probelms underlying the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

... no one imagines Israel is free from fault. But its Government is not creating civil institutions that preach hatred and violence.

By contrast, an entire generation of Palestinian children is being raised on a full diet of hate education, on jihad and anti-Semitism. This is the long-term hurdle to peace in this generation, and the next.

We don't need activists on boats, psychologists lecturing politics or news commentators with jaundiced bent to prove the truth of her words. The fact that most of the western media suppresses the news of what the Palestinians have been doing to their children tells us that every word that Albrechtsen has written in her weekly column is the solid truth. If only she could tell us why the others prefer to hide that truth in the blank pages!

THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER

More stupidity from the United Nations.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had "followed the lead of her predecessors" by unfairly putting the onus on Israel for humanitarian conditions in Gaza, while giving the Palestinian terrorist group that controls the territory a pass.

In a statement issued today, U.N. High Commissioner Navi Pillay called for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, saying that "…Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months." The commissioner's statement concluded with a brief sentence calling for an end to "Israeli incursions into Gaza and Palestinian rocket fire into Israel."

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Unfairly Blames Israel, Gives Hamas A Pass

I'm personally stunned by the statement. I didn't think that Palestinian rocket fire into Israel came into his brief or that a U.N. official was permitted to conced that such things even existed (especially during the time of a ceasefire/truce/lull or whatever).

Rocket Science

The Israeli newsaper Yediot Aharonot notes that "approximately 25 residents of Gaza are hospitalized at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon," and reminds its readers that last Friday, "a Kassam rocket hit Ashkelon and shook the hospital." The author says, "Outside, there is a war to sow destruction and death, while inside, behind the walls of the hospital, we fight for patients' lives, regardless of their national origin."

The rest of the world's media talks about the suffering of the Palestinians brought about by the conduct of Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups which behaviour is routinely ignored by them.

Don't forget Palestine

The delusional muppets at Australians for Palestine had their "Wall Day" in Melbourne on Friday, 14 November, 2008 and by all accounts, it was an absolute fizzer.

And rightly so because a protest against a security barrier that has saved thousands of lives from Palestinian terrorists deserves to be treated with utmost contempt. It's true that the existence of the barrier has caused some discomfort to the Palestinian people but in the absence of any significant attempt by their leadership to stop the terrorism, the Israelis were left with no choice. And if the Palestinians have friends like the folk down at Australians for Palestine, then based on the gibberish they produce on their website, a peaceful resolution to the conflict and an end to the need for a security barrier are a long, long way off.

It's ironical that the AFP website is currently carrying a fawning tribute to the architect of Israel's security barrier - YASIR ARAFAT d. 11 November 2008 (sic) written by Sonja Karkar.

"Don't forget Palestine
Arafat never did, and he never let others forget"

One would imagine that among those who won't forget the man who died of a mysterious ailment four years ago (and not a week ago as the current AFP home page suggests) would be his beneficiaries who share the $3billion he looted from his own people.

THIS IS RESISTANCE!

This is an example of what resistance to Israel means to some in the Arab world. It's part of a radically different good neighbour policy that rarely gets highlighted in this country. I often ask myself the question why such things are suppressed in our media?

THIS IS RESISTANCE!

WHO'S THE BUNNY?

A man sifts through rubble after Israel's overnight operation and finds the lure that went missing from the Rafah Greyhound Track last week.

Remember the use of emotive photos by the international media showing bombed out building with images of pristine children's toys found in the rubble. The photo opportunities were so widespread and ridiculous that there's little doubt that they were placed there by Hezbollah operatives or even photo journalists in order to draw an emotional response. Here's one that accompanied this jaundiced Guardian article Hamas fires rockets after Israel kills six in Gaza about the destruction of a tunnel by the IDF near the Gaza border that was to be used by Hamas to kidnap Israeli soldiers. A man sifts through rubble after Israel's overnight operation.

Honest Reporting's Backspin is in no doubt and sadly, we're going to see more of this from a willingly gullible western media that doesn't mind having its leg pulled if it's at the expense of the Jewish State.

DIGITAL FAKERY

This is going to come as a shock to the world but today's Melbourne Age has revealed that shonky totalitarian rogue regimes may be using photoshop technology to spread false information - Photos of healthy Kim Jong-il 'faked'. Apparently, "digital sleuths" have uncovered evidence that recently released photographs of North Korean President, Kim Jong-il, were faked to cover up his possible illness.

The folks at Hizbullah and Hamas have been taking advantage of this technology for some time to assist in their propaganda war against Israel. During the Second Lebanon War of 2006, photographers sympathetic to Hassan Nasrallah's terrorist movement (including one whose work was given prominence by news agency Reuters) were caught red handed faking images that were designed to show Israel in a bad light. Despite ample evidence, most of the mainstream media simply ignored the phonies and allowed the anti-Israel propaganda machine to rumble on unchallenged.

Go figure!

POGROM A BLUEPRINT FOR TERROR

During the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis unleashed the greatest pogrom against the Jews of Germany and Austria since the Middle Ages.

So begins the article POGROM A BLUEPRINT FOR TERROR by Michael Abrahams-Sprod in today's Australian Newspaper.

The writer points out that this pogrom "revealed to the world the savagery and barbarism of the Nazi regime, yet that fateful night also lays bare the hollowness of the world's indignation."

Seventy years after the event, the world still does not understand the depth of the horror that was visited on the Jewish people over the seven years that followed "The Night of Broken Glass" - Kristallnacht. We witness attempts by those who wish ill for the Jewish people today to suppress the viciousness of the savagery and the barbarism, to hide it and to make it meaningless.

The world should know what the Nazis did to the Jews - in full and with no excuses and no sickening false comparisons. To the extent that it does not know and does not seek to learn the horrors of the Holocaust, humanity is put to shame.

Tunnel Vision

Jason Koutsoukis recently misinformed Age readers about the 800 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that he was told to say are being used to smuggle vital supplies like food and petrol for the poor suffering Gazans - Blockade forces Gazans underground to survive.

Well Jason, this might come as a surprise but the primary purpose of the tunnels is not to supply food and other supplies for needy Gazans - they are being supplied regularly through the normal channels and they wouldn't be needed at all if the Hamas junta agreed to abide by the reasonable requirements of a civilized government and stopped advocating genocide against its neighbour. The main purpose of the tunnels is like everything else that pre-occupies Hames: the destruction of the Jewish State and the killing of Jews. This is done through smuggling Iranian and Syrian weaponry and, once in a blue moon, by kidnapping or attempting to kidnap Israeli soldiers operating on the Israeli side of the border.

After being fooled into providing support for the Hamas PR machine with his 1 November article, Koutsoukis followed it in describing a 4 November IDF operation in Ceasefire in danger of collapse. The story is also about tunnels but these couldn't possibly be used for smuggling food and supplies into Gaza. These point in the direction of Israel and were going to be used for terrorist purposes so the IDF took the tunnelers out of the equation.

There should be no problem about that if the journalist covering the story wasn't such a stupid ass and couldn't see that Hamas has taken him to the cleaners over his stories about the poor, starving people of Gaza.

Wake up and realise that it's Hamas that's the problem Jason and they've played you on a break this time!

WE NEED TO TALK MORE ABOUT HAMAS

While Palestine advocates like Dr. Sarah Roy, a child of holocaust survivors, takes the opportunity to bash Israel on the holiest night of the year for Jews, the Hamas party which was elected to lead the Palestinians and runs Gaza with an iron fist, continues to unequivocally seek the annihilation of the Jewish people - Hamas Cleric Muhsen Abu 'Ita: The Annihilation of the Jews in Palestine One of the Most Splendid Blessings for Palestine

It's not pleasant to witness the suffering of those Palestinians or those Israelis who are caught in this violent conflict but it is very clear that their suffering arises from attitudes such as those espoused by the likes of Muhsen Abu whose views are endorsed at the very top of the Hamas tree.

However, Roy's talking tour of this country ignored those annihilationist views and focuses solely on blaming the Israelis. One can only wonder therefore at the sad pathology of people like Roy and her fellow traveller Geoffrey Binder who seek to use this connection with the holocaust to perpetrate their attacks on Israel which has to defend itself against a philosophy and a culture that aims to to repeat the horrors of the Third Reich.

The Muhsen Abu sermon will of course, never see the light of day in our mainstream media and will, in the main, stay on the blank pages.

RELIGIOUS CLEANSING IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The LA Times reports on what it calls "religious cleansing in the Middle East" in its editorial - A Christian exodus.

"The religious cleansing of Christians in Iraq is part of a larger pattern in which a faith with origins in the Middle East is being driven out of its native region. From Iraq to Lebanon, which once claimed a Christian majority, to Bethlehem, the West Bank town revered as the birthplace of Jesus, intra-Muslim violence and the Arab-Israeli struggle have combined to persuade (and in some cases force) Christians to relocate to Europe or North America."

The intolerance of Muslim regimes should not come as a surprise. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab and Muslim lands were "cleansed" from their host countries in the wake of Israel's independance in 1948 and prominent Palestinian political groups continue to call for the cleansing of Jews from the Middle East landscape, often with the open support of the so-called intelligensia in the West, some of who even call themselves "Jews" and attend Israel-bashing meetings on Judaism's holiest night.

WE NEED TO TALK MORE ABOUT SUDAN

Eric Reeves reports in The New Republic that "...[I]ncredibly, the regime committing genocide in Darfur is now meant to be in charge of a critical U.N. poverty and disease eradication program." - Millennium Development Grotesquery

He refers to the Sudanese government which has been selected to chair the UN programme overseeing the eradication of disease and poverty.

"Since it was the African countries' turn to pick the chair of the organization, and since the selection of Sudan was supported by China, the outcome - however outrageous--is hardly surprising. Strong support from the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference helped ensured Khartoum's diplomatic victory. The selection of the National Islamic Front regime as chair is no mere symbolic exercise, though the symbolism of the choice is intensely dispiriting. For it comes at a time when the head of the regime faces a likely arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court - for crimes against humanity and for genocide in Darfur."

The inmates are well and truly in charge of the asylum.

Martin Whacks Fairfax

Matthew Ricketson of the Melbourne Age reports that "veteran broadcaster Ray Martin has accused commercial television networks and Fairfax Media, owner of The Age, of abandoning serious journalism - Martin hits out at TV networks and Fairfax cut-backs.

"Would the last journo out please turn off the studio lights?" he quipped to the audience at the annual Andrew Olle address in Sydney.

Too late Ray. The decline at Fairfax began long ago. It gathered momentum in 2002 with the appointment of a Middle East correspondent whose partisan views gave readers a highly slanted picture of the war between Israel and the Palestinians and precious little of the deadly conflicts brewing within Palestinian society during the past six or seven years. Things only got worse when Andrew Jaspan was given the gig as editor.

Abandoning serious journalism?

With O'Loughlin and Jaspan as the clown princes, Fairfax in Melbourne at least, was hardly an exponent of serious journalism, was it Ray?

RACISM AND HYPOCRISY

Detractors of Israel often accuse it of being many things which it is not. During a recent debate on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, one of the speakers offered his opinion that Israel was a "grubby little racist state" but when challenged, he failed miserably to provide any justification for this claim (which probably explains why his organisation has so few friends).

It's a pity therefore that news such as this story from Haaretz - Israel grants rare entry to cancer-stricken Iranian boy hasn't hit the media in our country. Israel welcomes a 12-year-old cancer-stricken Iranian boy for emergency treatment on his brain tumor while the leader of his country President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants Israel "wiped off the map" and vows that Iran will support the anti Semitic Hamas movement which rules Gaza until the "collapse of Israel".

What a shame that neither of these stories are covered in our local press.

TAKING INDEPENDENCE TOO FAR

The Independent Australian Jewish Voices is advertising a series of public lectures to be given around the country by Dr. Sara Roy who many would say is an apologist for radical Islam and Hamas which has among its aims, the destruction of the State of Israel and the killing of Jews everywhere.

The Melbourne public lecture will be held at the University of Melbourne tomorrow night 8 October 2008. The timing is impeccable for these independent "Jews" - most of those who aren't so independent will, in some way or another, be taking part in the observance of Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement.

In their defence I guess the people at the IAJV can say that the speaker is something of a nobody so there's nothing really to atone for on their part.

O'LOUGHLIN MAKES NICE ABOUT ISRAEL

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning when I noticed this article published in the Sunday Age - Revealed: diary of a man who lived and died in space.

An O'Loughlin reporting in the Age from Jerusalem and not a single word of disdain and contempt for Israel or its people.

Thank you Toni O'Loughlin for covering this story about the late Israeli astronaut and hero of the Jewish people with the compassion and honesty that has been so long missing from in your own newspaper, the Guardian, and in Australia's Fairfax media. It was like a breath of fresh air.

SHANA TOVA - HAPPY NEW YEAR

SHIMON PERES - UN SPEECH

Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen ...

Over Sixty years have passed since the United Nations General Assembly voted on the historic resolution that would have put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Resolution 181 called for the establishment of a Jewish and an Arab state. Its title was: "Plan of Partition with Economic Union". It envisioned two states for two peoples, each fulfilling a distinct national aspiration.

The Jewish people adopted the resolution and established the State of Israel. The Arabs rejected it and led to war.

What happened in the ensuing years is much different from the resolution's original intent. While much has changed, the ironies of history summon similar circumstances today.

Today, again, we are the middle of the lake. There is no sense in rowing back. Continuing forward will show how near we are to the shore of peace.

Mr. President,

A year prior to Israel's declaration of statehood, its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, called me, a young man from a Kibbutz, to serve in our national defense.

Since then, I participated in Israel's dynamic realities: the building of security, striving for peace. So, I need no book to learn the history. I witnessed its miraculous unfolding.

We went through seven wars. All have paid heavily. Tears still flow down the faces of bereaving mothers.

Remembrance Days fill the air with silent prayers of widowed families who lost young boys and girls in battle. They are, today, at the same age, but lifeless.

Israel turned military victories to a peace process, knowing that the cost of life renders imperfect peace superior to perfect victories.

We have also achieved two peace agreements. The first with the largest Arab country, Egypt. The second with the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan.

All the land, water, and natural resources that fell in our hands through war, were repatriated after peace was signed. Our countries can now offer remedies to other disputed areas.

But for peace, the call in our region is to repair the damaged environment and wounded land leading to poverty.

If we shall not overcome the desert, the thirst, the pollution - they will overcome us.

Joint ventures can meet this call. Nature does not carry a national passport.

With the Palestinians, we negotiate full peace. Both parties agreed to building a Palestinian State side by side with Israel, living in peace, security and respect.

We tried to conclude the negotiations this year. It will take longer. But, I believe it can be accomplished within the next year.

We agreed to progress in spite of possible changes that may take place in the leadership.

Gaps have been narrowed through negotiations. Particularly the territorial ones. But, peace is not just a matter of territorial compromise.

Rogue politics reject peace even where territorial dispute was resolved.

In Lebanon, we implemented resolution 425. Yet Hizbullah paralyzed the country and cut the road to peace.

From Gaza, we withdrew completely and dismantled our settlements. Hamas responded with a bloody takeover and turned the strip into a basis of rocket fire.

These militants carry no positive alternative - but the agonies of Job.

They added kidnapping to bombings, bringing strife for innocent families. From this important stage, I call for the immediate release of Gilad Schalit. The son of Aviva and Noam. A peace-loving family.

This honored assembly should make his release top of its agenda. Holding a hostage in Gaza determines its isolation and further deterioration.

Mr. President,

At the center of this violence and fanaticism stands Iran.

It built a danger to the entire world. Its quest for religious hegemony and regional dominance divides the Middle East and holds back chances for peace, while undermining human rights.

Iranian support for Hizbullah divided Lebanon. Its support for Hamas split the Palestinians and postpones the establishment of the Palestinian State.

Yesterday, on this very stage, the Iranian leader renewed the darkest anti-Semitic libel - the protocols of the elders of Zion. An attempt to bring to life one of the ugliest plots of history.

Their despicable denial of the Holocaust is a mockery of indisputable evidence, a cynical offense to survivors of the horror. Contradictory to the resolutions adopted by this assembly.

Iran continues to develop enriched uranium and long range missiles.

They introduce a religion of fear, opposing the call of the lord in respect of life.

The Iranian people are not our enemies. Their fanatic leadership is their problem and the world's concern.

Their leader is a danger to his people, the region and the world.

He is a disgrace to the ancient Iranian people.

He is a disgrace to the values of Islam.

He is a disgrace to this very house, the United Nations, its basic principles and values.

His appearance here is already shame.

The Jewish People have known, throughout history, to stand firm at the face of evil.

Alongside the enlightened humanity we shall know to enable good and freedom to prevail.

Tehran combines long-range missiles and short-range minds. It is pregnant with tragedies.

The General assembly and the Security Council bear responsibility to prevent agonies before they take place.

Israel has shown that democracies can defend themselves. We do not intend to change.
Terrorism did not solve a single problem. It never has, and never will.

They will make the world ungovernable. If small groups of violent killers are allowed to threaten innocent masses, the world will be without order or security. A hopeless battleground.

The free world must unite to combat it.

Israel, on its part, shall continue to seek peace. We suggest immediate peace with Lebanon.

Israeli prime ministers indicated to Syria that for peace, we are ready to explore a comprehensive compromise.

In order to gain trust, and save time, we have suggested face-to-face meetings with President Assad: "Follow the successful example set by President Sadat and King Hussein".

We still await an answer.

I know there is a growing concern that peace is far away. My life-long experience provides me with a different point of view.

True, I have seen stagnation and regression in our journey. But, today, I can identify a road leading to the right direction.

In addition to the peace agreements, a series of summits took place - Madrid, Oslo, Wye, Camp David, Sharm and Annapolis. Their accumulated sum encourages a clear direction. In fact, Israelis and Arabs are marching towards peace.

After a long internal debate, Israel accepted the two state solution.

The Arabs replaced the three NOs of Khartoum (no peace, no negotiation, no recognition) with a peace initiative, inaugurated by King Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al Saud.

I call upon the king to further his initiative; it may become an invitation for comprehensive peace, one to convert battlegrounds to common grounds.

I invite, respectfully, all leaders to come and discuss peace in Jerusalem, which is holy all of us. Where we all pray to the same lord, as offspring of the same father.

Israel shall gladly accept an Arab invitation at a designated venue where a meaningful dialogue may take place.

Mr. President,

We are facing a serious economic crisis. Maybe it has happened because we are rich and light with funds and poor and heavy with ideas. While we live in an era where science, not land, is the basis of economy.

Science does not stop at borders. Is not disturbed by distance.

Wisdom is not conquerable by armies. Knowledge diminishes discrimination because it operates through good will and transcends race, nationality and gender.

The Global dangers unite and divide us at the same time.

The dangers are the deterioration of environment. The shortage of water. The lack of renewable energy. The spread of terrorism and the increased poverty.

Divisions of the free world will increase them.

Unity offers the potential of alternatives. It will direct global investments to new areas and demanding challenges like health, security, education and environment.

The future is not in the hands of oil or gold. Intellectual assets, new inventions and superior education hold the key to our future.

In our region, border areas can become open economic zones. Enabling free movement of people, commodities and ideas. They may encourage tourism and build High Tech incubators. They will cultivate advanced agriculture.

Economic zones will provide a million jobs and produce billions of cubic meters of desalinated water. We started to do so. The first steps are promising.

The 21st century calls for pioneers. It is an opportunity to provide our children with peace and knowledge. Strength and friendship. It is their right. It is our moral obligation.

Mr. President,

The Jewish people are celebrating a new year. I would like to end with a quote from Rabbi Nachman of Breslav:

"May it be thy will to remove war and bloodshed from the world and perpetuate the wonders and greatness of peace.

All the inhabitants of the world shall recognize and know the truth: that we have not been placed on this earth to wage war and not for hatred or bloodshed."

Amen.
Shana Tova.
Thank you, Mr. President

DOCTORS WITH BORDERS

Elder of Ziyon presents vision from Israel's Channel 2 news of Hamas humiliating doctors in a Gaza mosque and reports that "the Doctors Without Borders website still has no condemnations of the arrests, torture and humiliation that Gaza doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab techs have been forced to undergo for the past month."

FEASTING IN GAZA

In today's Melbourne Age Jason Koutsoukis continues to cover the political situation in Israel following Tzipi Livni's dramatic victory in the contest for leadership of the Kadima party - 40 days for Livni, wilderness for Olmert.

Strangely enough, the killings of 20 Palestinians by fellow Palestinians in the wilderness of Gaza rates no mention. As I've said many times before, Palestinian lives only have a meaning to most of the world's media if they are lost in fighting with Israelis and even when the latter are defending themselves against terrorists bent on wiping out Jews, the blame is mostly sheeted home to the Jews.

So the Jason Koutsoukis article ends with a little speculation on a future timeline:-

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

■Ehud Olmert formally resigns as Prime Minister and his cabinet resigns with him.

■President Shimon Peres consults parties to choose a Knesset member to form a new cabinet — expected to be Kadima leader Tzipi Livni.

■The prime minister-designate has 42 days to form a coalition acceptable to the Knesset.

■If no coalition is formed, a general election must be held in 90 days.

So permit me to add some speculation of my own -

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

■Palestinians continue to kill Palestinians and the world continues to yawn and take no notice.

■Palestinians continue to intermitently breach the ceasefire recently reached with the Israelis by attacking Israeli civilians and nobody apart from the victims will really care.

■So called "peace activists" will continue to lie with their allegations comparing conditions in blockaded Gaza to concentration camps and Darfur while well fed Gazans are photographed in their feasting [hat tip: Elder of Ziyon], not a soul has died of starvation there and there's plenty of pictorial evidence of fat mammas in residence there.

■Anti Jewish crusader and ignoramus Antony Loewenstein suddenly wakes up to the fact that Tzipi Livni is a "she" and not a "he".

Lost in the mail

Alan M. Dershowitz makes the point in his jpost blog Double Standard Watch the "Democratic Party, and its leaders, made a deliberate decision not to invite Jimmy Carter precisely because they so fundamentally disagree with the bigotry toward Israel and its Jewish supporters that he displayed both in his mendacious book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and in his subsequent television appearances."

Poor old demented Jimmy thinks it was he who made the decision not to speak at the convention and that the invitation was lost in the mail.

Pigs fly!

More Human Wrongs

It seems that whenever Jews commit any violent acts in the Middle East it makes the news, even when the violence is in self-defence or in reaction to violence instituted by Arabs against Jews.

Hence, Melbourne Age reporter Jason Koutsoukis was on the ball with his article "Stabbing ignites Jewish rampage" about Jewish settlers who went on a rampage through the West Bank at the weekend after a nine-year-old Jewish boy was stabbed by a Palestinian intruder. The behaviour of the settlers was reprehensible but it was newsworthy even if the slant was heavily against the Jews by the way in which the "Jewish rampage" was highlighted.

Personally, I've never seen a Jewish rampage anywhere and would be curious to know what differentiates Jewish rampages from say, Mongolian rampages.

It seems however, that when the violence is Arab on Arab violence the blank pages rule comes into vogue and the Age goes shtumm. News like this piece is obviously of no interest to Age readers - 11 killed as Hamas forces battle armed clan in Gaza. The lives of the victims of this sort of violence seem to be worth even less than the Israeli victims of ongoing Palestinian violence even during the time of the alleged cease fire between Israel and the thugs running Gaza.

Then again, there's no such thing as a "Palestinian rampage" is there?

DEAR PROFESSOR

I've come across this brilliant piece from Ann Bayefsky who is Director, Touro Center for Human / Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute / Professor, York University. Rights and the Holocaust.

In Lethal Politics: Antisemitism as Human Rights she tells how human rights have become "a potent force for denunciation and defeat – not in the hands of the abused, but in the hands of the abusers".

It's a damning look at how the United Nations human rights organs in particular have been bastardised and overrun by barbarians and human rights abusers who use the U.N. as a force against the civilised world and of course, the Jewish people.

MICKEY MOUSE AGAIN & AGAIN

We all know about the callous use by Hamas of animal cartoon characters to indoctrinate Palestinian children into hating Jews - all of us bar those who only read the Melbourne Age during Ed O'Loughlin's term as Jerusalem correspondent when such stuff was apparently not deemed newsworthy.

Now Israel's peace partner, the Fatah controlled Palestine Authority is getting in on the act according to Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of Palestine Media Watch.

Fatah TV, controlled by the office of PA head Mahmoud Abbas, is airing a children's show that glorifies a mass murderer of children while trying to create a Mickey Mouse Club atmosphere.

Last week the program taught children to deny the existence of Israel.

Check it out - it's absolutely appalling!

So you want to boycott Israel?

BRAVO HONDA

DEATH OF A "MARTYR"

The folk down at Hamas whose raison d'etre is to kill Jews are mourning the recent passing of one of their comrades who died a martyr, from cancer - Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades Information Office. To make matters worse, those nasty Jews get the blame because Mohammed Rawhi Mahmoud Hassouna "didn’t manage to travel for medical treatment, because of the Zionist siege on Gaza strip."

Aw, shuchs!

The communique doesn't mention whether our boy Mohammed was wearing his suicide belt when the request was made for him to obtain treatment.

[Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon]

One battling team not giving up on peace

Full marks to the Israeli-based Peres Peace Centre and the Palestinian al-Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue for their efforts to get together the team of twenty-six footballers (13 Israelis and 13 Palestinians) taking part in the 2008 Australian Football International Cup.

The team which wore yellow guernseys with a peace motif (see above) was part of a 16 team international competition, that took place in Melbourne, Geelong and Warrnambool over the past fortnight. The Peace Team displayed great spirit in its first few matches in which they were outplayed by stronger teams including the eventual winners Papua New Guinea but it came back at the end to record two victories against China and Finland.

The players would most certainly been singing their theme song - the John Lennon version of "All we are Saying is Give Peace a Chance" - with great gusto at the end of their last game playoff for 13th and 14th at the Western Oval against the Finns which they won by a whopping 75 points.

For the record the scores for that game were:

Peace Team 15.5.89 defeated Finland 2.2.14

Peace Team

Goal Kickers: R. Nadir 2, K. Abualthom 2, Y. Belik 2, N. Almanasra 2, F. Rumman 2, D. Haim, A. Abu Haduan, K. Kol, N. Koke

Best Players: R. Nadir, A. Suissa, D. Haim, U. Kandel, D. Tamimi, K. Abualthom

Finland

Goal Kickers: T. Heiskanen, T. Oksanen

Best Players: V. Koivunen, J. Loven, K. Byrne, K. Heikkila, F. Romar, S. Doherty

And for the record, congratulations to the Melbourne Age's Martin Flanagan for his absorbing story about the team - One battling team not giving up on peace

Flanagan understands that it's the people and not the politics that is the only hope the troubled region has for true peace - a message lost on so many others over the ages.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BLOOD LIBEL

Islamic and Arab leaders in Australia are fast developing a penchant for making the most horrendously racist statements about Jews and Israel.

And they are getting away with it - both in the broader community and within their own constituencies.

Last month, it was Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour who was quoted in Melbourne Age in support of Hizbullah's Al Manar television channel which broadcasts programmes that describes Jews as "the offspring of apes and pigs" and advocates their annihilation. He told Barney Zwartz of the Age [Jam 'terror TV' broadcasts, says group] that "he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of 'the crimes of the state of Israel' it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals."

Jabbour made a pathetic and unconvincing attempt to back track on his comments but kept his foot firmly planted in his mouth as an outraged Jewish community group's Anti-Defamation Commission sought sympathetic ears throughout the wider community and among Islamic, Arab and Palestinian groups.

It got very little response from them - not even a critical op ed from supposed moderates like Waleed Aly and Maher Mughrabi who usually have something to say about racism and intolerance in the coverage of issues relevant to the people from this region.

Now joining Jabour and the widely discredited Sheik Hilaly whose racist and misogynist views are now well known (and fortunately condemned by most in this country) is Australian Federation of Islamic Councils President Ikebal Patel who couldn't resist the temptation to draw on Israel as the cause for the problems in far away Afghanistan when asked to comment on the Special Forces Australian soldier who was critically injured in an ambush by the Taliban - Wounded soldier flown to Europe:

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel issued a statement expressing sympathy for the wounded soldiers and their families. He said he was concerned about developments in Afghanistan and the increasing numbers of military and civilian deaths.

And he questioned the continuation of the war and linked the Taliban campaign to the situation in Israel and Palestine.

"There must be a better way to deal with terrorism than by means of war," Mr Patel said. "We must address the many underlying causes of terrorism and violence, such as the 60-year-old injustices and suffering of Palestinian people at the hands of a brutal Israeli regime."

Right.

Apart from the fact that this statement fairly drips with insincerity (Patel's point was to vilify Israel and there's absolutely not a skerrick of sympathy in him for the wounded Aussie soldier), the claim inverts the historical truth of this conflict so that the terrorist becomes the victim and not the instigator and aggressor of violence in the region.

Apologists like Patel simply ignore the fact that the violence and the terror in Israel/Palestine historically stems from attacks on Jews in the 1920's and '30's starting with the horrific massacre of the Jews of Hebron in 1929.

Further, to suggest that the motivation for the Taliban's terrorism in Afghanistan is related at all to the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs ignores the history of the current jihadist campaign. Is Patel really suggesting that Hamas and Hizbullah are no different to Al Qaeda, Iraq's Baath Party, and the Iranian regime?

Meanwhile, the silence of the so-called moderate Arabs in the face of these overt racist comments remains deafening.

It has been a major disappointment that the Arab community has generally failed to embrace the concept of the Peace Team - a group of 13 Palestinians and 13 Israelis competing in the AFL's International Football Championships that end today in Melbourne. The rabid opposition by some of the local Palestinian groups to the concept of Israelis and Palestinians - Jews, Muslims and Christians - playing together in one sporting team to promote peace and reconciliation is not only a tragedy but an indication of how hopeless a task it is to achieve peace in the region.

The silence of Australian Arabs in the face of these developments is another source of despair for the prospects of peace because that silence also seems to be reflected among most Arabs and Palestinians everywhere.

LOCKED IN

The ABC news reports that an Australian woman is among four "peace" activists who have been stranded in the Gaza Strip - Aussie activist stranded in Gaza.

What makes her a "peace activist"?

Ms. Lock entered the territory as part of an initiative of the Free Gaza Movement in an attempt to "break the siege of Gaza". However, as Honest Reporting has revealed, "a closer look at the background and motivations of these so-called 'peace activists' exposes an anti-Israel publicity stunt." - Sailing Into a Publicity Stunt.

The Free Gaza Movement "is a coalition of groups such as the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

ISM has a shameful record of placing foreign nationals in danger through encouraging 'direct action', which resulted in the death of American citizen Rachel Corrie. In 2003, ISM's extreme ideology was underscored when terrorists, originating from the UK, used ISM as a cover to attack Mike's Place bar in Tel Aviv, murdering three people. More recently, ISM has been a leading force in the violent protests against the security barrier at Ni'lin, while an ISM activist has been jailed in the US, charged with "giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas."

The picture at the top is a nice example of what Hamas is all about, yet not a single one of the so-called "peace activists" or their supporters has had a critical word to say about the rulers of Gaza.

Some peaceniks!

And since Ms Lock has been trying to get back home through the Egyptian border, it might be an idea for her to let her fellow "peace activists" know on her return that Gaza is not completely surrounded by Israel and to ask them to stop issuing misleading statements to this effect. They don't fool anybody except those who travel on ships of fools.

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS (AND MORE)

Mark Aarons, in the Australian, puts forward an interesting history of the conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbours - More than the sum of its parts. He starts with the long held views by those who support the Jewish State that when Israel declared independence in 1948, it was on the cards that the nascent state would be "strangled at birth".

Aarons delivers the two conflicting narratives and comes up with the logical conclusion that there are only two realistic choices for the Palestinians. They can fight a war without end (a choice made by the ruling Hamas) or they can make "a noble compromise" with the Israelis which will result in a two State solution.

The Australian allows for public comments at the end of the article. There should be some interesting responses.

Another dose of unreality

It seems that they're waiting for the next full moon.

There's a blogger who posts on a blog called Middle East Reality Check who is has joined the group of unhinged individuals who really believe that "both Fairfax and Murdoch are overwhelmingly pro-Israel in orientation: the former, largely out of cowardice and often (but not always) out of sheer ignorance and/or incompetence*, the second out of pure Zionist zeal."

I you want to read more of this stupidity try - Try Busting the Zionist Blockade of the Australian Press.

The empty vessels that made a lot of noise

They came and they went and in the end the two boats that carried pro-Palestinian propagandists and supposedly essential supplies for Gazans turned out to be yet another failed stunt which achieved very little.

Scholar Emanuele Ottolenghi points out the boats contained little beside activists in The "Free Gaza" Stunt. and adds -

As Israeli officials said, humanitarian aid can go through the regular crossings by land. This stunt was not about rescue and deliverance: it was about the romantic self-aggrandizement of a few radical chic buffoons and a propaganda stunt by their puppet masters–the not-so-innocent International Solidarity Movement. Israel acted wisely in letting them through and denying them the much hoped for moment on live camera–being boarded by Israeli naval forces.

BERT & FRIENDS

The Australian letters blog has some entertaining patter about the sacking of Jaspan from readers under the heading - I grew up in a household that revered The Age.

One correspondent who goes by the name of "Bert" has produced this wonderful little piece of comedy that had me slapping my knees in tearful laughter for a good 10 minutes:-

Is it just possible that The Age with a new editor will be less biased and not so pro Israel? Australian media suffers the same timidity as the US, as the Counter Punch website explains: http://counterpunch.org/roberts08262008.html

The Age "pro Israel".

Sheer genius!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

A few months ago it was Ed O'Loughlin, now it's Andrew Jaspan.

Sacked!

The dark days of the blank pages of the age are coming to an end.

The Gaza Boat People Arrive (and nobody cares)

The Gaza boat people have finally arrived and would have been most disappointed that the Israelis allowed them through to Gaza without detaining them and without any violence.

The voyage was mysteriously deelayed for a little while and the given reasons were somewhat vague. However, people in the know believe that these klutzes suddenly realised that the rest of the world was more focussed on the Olympics (a mistake Arafat didn't make in 2000 when he delayed the Second Intifada until after the Sydney Olympic Closing Ceremony) and the war between Georgia and Russia where 2,000 people were permanently ethnically cleansed in the short space of a couple of days.

In the absence of any vision of blood spattered Gaza sailors the world's media passed on these attention seeking frauds who had the temerity to call themselves "peace activists" rather than their proper description of puppets of a warmongering racist regime of thugs.

Wonders never cease

Two years after Israel's Second Lebanon War, the Melbourne Age is beginning to see the light and is even using the "T" word in referring to Hizbullah. It's also conceding at last that the terror group "triggered a war with Israel in 2006" - Move to block Hezbollah's 'terror TV'.

AUTHORITIES are trying to stop an anti-Semitic satellite TV station broadcasting into Australia from Indonesia - which has already rejected US efforts to take the channel off the air.

What is particularly disturbing is the fact that the Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour supports the right of this organisation of thugs (which doesn't discriminate between Arabs and Jews when it comes to committing acts of murder) on the grounds of freedom of speech and the artificial distancing of the political wing of the party from its military wing.

Never mind that al-Manar promotes and raises money for terrorism which is illegal. Never mind that the alleged "freedom of speech" is abused by al-Manar to promote anti-Semitism and that such hate speech is also illegal in this country.

The admission by Jabbour that the channel was "very popular and widely watched by Arabic speakers in Australia" should also be a matter of concern but at least the truth is now starting to leap out of the blank pages!

Time for Israel to take its rightful place

If you ever wanted proof that sports writers have a lot more class than political journalists, Time for Israel to take its rightful place from the Melbourne Age should do the trick.

LETTER OF THE DAY

This is the sole letter in today's Melbourne Age about the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The writer might well be right but I'm surprised at the lack of correspondence or venom and bile from the uusual suspects who would normally be all over this if a certain other nation had responded to an attack from one of its neighbours in Russia's style:

By Georgia, trouble started at home

THE stoush in the Caucasus has all the hallmarks of bygone days, with regime leaders in Moscow calling into line their puppet states. On closer examination it would appear that the gullible leader in Tiblisi may have listened too much to the incompetent leader in Washington.

George Bush has visited Georgia twice in recent times, and Condoleezza Rice has also been there. It would appear to be mischievousness on the part of the US regime that has precipitated this conflict.

The Yeltsin/Putinisation of Russia has certainly not produced an ideal democracy , but on this occasion the villains may not be the Russians.

Rob Park, Surrey Hills

PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE?

Headline in today's Sunday Age:

1600 DEAD IN GEORGIA FIGHTING

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

I'll be cheering for all athletes at the Olympics (the ones that are clean) but I have a soft spot for the following list - the Jews at the Olympics 2008

Jews at the Olympics

JEWISH athletes from countries including Israel, the United States, Australia, Argentina, Britain and Canada are competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing:

Argentina

Hockey, Women
Gisele Kanevsky

Judo, Women
Daniela Krakower

Swimming, Men
Damian Blaum

Table Tennis
Pablo Tabachnik

Weightlifting, Women
Nora Koppel


Australia

Table Tennis
David Zalcberg


Austria

Swimming, Men
Maxim Podoprigora


Canada

Baseball
Adam Stern

Wrestling
David Zilberman, 96 kg
Ari Taub, 120 kg plus


Chile

Tennis, Men
Nicolas Massu


Great Britain

Rowing
Josh West


Israel

Artistic Gymnastics, Men
Alex Shatilov, all-around

Canoeing, Men
Michael Koganov, K-1 500 and 1000 meters

Fencing, Men
Tomer Or, foil

Fencing, Women
Dalilah Hatuel, foil
Noam Mills, epee

Judo, Men
Ariel Ze'evi, 100 kg
Gal Yekutiel, 60 kg

Judo, Women
Alice Schlezinger, 63 kg

Rhythmic Gymnastics, Individual
Ira Risenzon
Neta Rivkin

Rhythmic Gymnastics, Team
Kayta Pizatzki
Racheli Vidgorcheck
Maria Savnakov
Alona Dvorinchenko
Veronica Witberg

Sailing, Men
Gidi Klinger and Udi Gal, 470
Shahar Tzuberi, windsurfing

Sailing, Women
Vered Buskila and Nika Kornitzky, 470
Nufar Eledman, laser radial
Ma’ayan Davidovich, windsurfing

Shooting
Doron Egozi, 50-meter rifle 3, 10-meter air rifle
Gil Simkovich, 50-meter rifle 3, 50-meter rifle prone
Guy Starik, 50-meter rifle prone

Swimming, Men
Itay Chama, 200-meter breaststroke
Gal Nevo, 200 and 400 individual medley
Guy Barnea, 100 breaststroke
Tom Be'eri, 100 and 200 breaststroke
Allon Mandel, 100 and 200 butterfly
Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or, 200 freestyle

Swimming, Women
Anya Gostamelsky, 50 and 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly

Synchronized Swimming
Anastasia Gloushkov and Ina Yoffe, duet

Taekwondo
Bat-El Getterer, 57 kg

Tennis, Men
Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich, doubles

Tennis, Women
Shahar Peer, singles
Tzipora Obziler, doubles with Peer

Track and Field, Men
Alex Averbukh, pole vault
Niki Palli, long jump
Haile Satayin, marathon
Itai Magidi, 3000-meter steeplechase


United States

Fencing, Women
Sara Jacobson, sabre

Kayaking
Rami Zur, 500-meter individual

Swimming, Men
Jason Lezak, 100-meter freestyle, relays
Garrett Weber-Gale, 100 freestyle, relays
Ben Wildman-Tobriner, 50 freestyle, relays

Swimming, Women
Dara Torres, 50-meter freestyle, relays

Track and Field, Women
Deena Kastor, marathon

THEY REFUSED TO GO ...

On the eve of the 2008 Olympic Games, a cartoon from The New Republic:



Click on image for larger and sharper image.

THE PRODIGAL SON

Here is some nice bedtime reading for 83 year old holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein as she blissfully sails the Mediterranean on her so-called rescue mission allegedly bringing aspirins for the Gazans and their rulers in Hamas - Prodigal Son.

The son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef talks about his father's movement:-

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I'll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn't even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn't wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn't need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist." (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

Sweet dreams, Hedy.

Life in Gaza

Asylum seeker shot dead in Gaza - THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

Despite diversionary stunts like the boat trip to hell mentioned in yesterday's blog, the daily news is just beginning to centre on the real nature of the society that Hamas has been working hard to establish in Gaza and would do in the rest of the Palestinian territories if it achieved its aims. One of the victims in this instance was a man who once sought and was refused asylum in Australia.

This guy had problems with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He claimed to have been tortured and the previous government knew all that and still forced him out.

It seems he had problems with his friends as well because he found himself involved in a fight between two families and, "we understand, he was shot dead by a member of one of the families."

Nice guy ... deserving of the refugee advocate who spoke on his behalf.

A sick PR stunt ...

The Hamas Movement which controls Gaza makes no bones about where it stands in relation to Jews. It wants to destroy their state, replace it with an Islamic nation state and it wants to kill as many Jews as it can to achieve that aim. It's all there in its Covenant.

So you might want to ask why 83-year-old German-born Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein has joined Palestinian activist Michael Shaik in aiding the Hamas cause by hopping on a boat and joining 60 other so-called "peace activists" - Melbourne man's bid to run Israeli blockade.

Ms. Epstein is rather delusional if she thinks her involvement will aid the cause of peace or bring any relief to the masses of Gaza. The medical supplies her boat might bring into the Palestinian territory will amount to a fraction of the aid supplied by the Israelis and others and which are delivered to the Gazans on a daily basis through various checkpoints on the border - that is, on days when the trucks delivering the aid aren't being shot at by terrorists under the orders of, well ... Hamas.

This entire effort is more correctly a public relations stunt aimed at diverting attention away from the now well documented human rights abuses of the thuggish Hamas junta and its adversaries in Fatah.

As for Ms. Epstein, the Holocaust survivor, it seems that she hasn't learned many lessons from her tragic experience. Then again, there were always some Jews around in those times, who were willing to give aid and support to the enemy - even when that enemy's avowed aim was to obliterate the Jewish people from the face of the earth.

HOLY COW - PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS

Former Age Jerusalem Bureau chief Ed O'Loughlin would be turning in his grave if he could read this report from his successor Jason Koutsoukis - Hamas, Fatah accused of methodic torture

Koutsoukis tells us that both the ruling parties of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stand accused of "serious human rights abuses including torture."

During O'Loughlin's watch at the newspaper, these human rights abuses, which are Palestinian on Palestinian abuses, went on but for some strange reason were rarely covered. This, despite the fact that during 2007 and into 2008, more Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of their brothers and sisters than at the hands of the IDF.

The media remains shy about the horrific human rights abuses of the Palestinian terrorist groups, backed by their governing bodies, and deliberatley aimed at Jews. These abuses have taken place for decades, yet neither the physical violence or the threats and intimidation and even teaching hatred of Jews were subjects considered suitable of their proper coverage.

Perhaps the times really are changing.

SHOCK AS AGE MENTIONS GAZA VIOLENCE

I can't believe that the Age has published this - Hamas arrests rivals after deadly bomb attacks.

"THE Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is moving to suppress an outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip that began at the start of the weekend and left seven people dead.

"Explosions, believed to be the work of the rival Fatah group, on Friday evening near Gaza beach killed five senior Hamas members and a child."

There has been no "outbreak" of violence in Gaza that started on the weekend. It's been an ongoing thing which has been happening for several years. Last year, more than 600 Palestinians, a majority in Hamas controlled Gaza, met violent deaths at the hands of other Palestinians, mostly as a result of what people would normally term as "terrorist actions". It's only the news about them that has been suppressed whereas the deaths of Palestinians involved in violent actions against Israeli civilians (which numbered far less than the 600 Palestinians murdered by other Palestinians) were highlighted and often wrongly blamed on Israel.

Today's "news" is only "news" because, for once, it's rated a mention and wasn't kept on the blank pages.

A TERRIBLE BARGAIN

A TERRIBLE BARGAIN

Today's Australian nails it on the matter of "those people who are preoccupied with false arguments about moral equivalence in the long-running Middle East conflict." As much as some folks might claim otherwise, there is no moral equivalence between the barbarism of Hizbullah, Hamas and their Syrian and Iranian benefectors.

The declaration of a public holiday to honour the return of Samir Kuntar who murdered an Israeli man in front of his four-year-old daughter, then killed the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt, is a blight on all of humanity.

But there are many bargains made in this part of the Middle East and those bargains made in the past by those in the public arena that gave succor to the thugs will come back to haunt many of the players in this conflict.

HIZBULLAH'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

"If Nasrallah's great achievement was to conceal the fate of our sons, then I pity him and the Lebanese people. If Hizbullah's great achievement is the release of Kuntar, who is nothing but a repulsive murderer, then I pity them."

Shlomo Goldwasser - father of murdered Israeli hostage Ehud Goldwasser.

LEBANON'S DAY OF SHAME

"Lebanon declared a national holiday to mark the return of its prisoners, who will be greeted by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and President Michel Suleiman in Beirut." - Grief and joy as bodies, men returned home

How tragic and shameful for the Lebanese people that their government, strangled by the barbaric and psycopathic thugs of Hizbullah, could descend to such depraved celebrations for the return to their bosoms of mass-murderers like Kuntar.

This is a black day for the world and for those who made apologies and excuses for Hizbullah in the public domain and in particular those in the media who, in some cases, even went to great lengths to make them seem heroic.

The world now knows the nature of the beast with which the Jewish people have to contend on a daily basis.

PHOTOGRAPH: The pride of Lebanon (from Israellycool)

ONE MAN'S HERO IS ANOTHER'S DIRTBAG ...

For those who a sadistic bent who are celebrating the pending release of the terrorist Samir Kuntar, here is the previously unreleased file on this barbarian - The Kuntar File, Exposed - Yediot Aharonot - by Nir Gontarz.

LETTERS OF THE WEEK

From today's Melbourne Age:

Despite false Arab claims of its being a land-grab, Israel has long acknowledged that the fence is a security barrier rather than a political barrier, which, unlike the lives taken by Arab violence, is reversible. While making every reasonable effort to re-route the fence in order to accommodate Palestinian needs, Israel cannot be expected, in the absence of peace, to dismantle a barrier that has saved the lives of so many of its citizens.

The "impenetrable obstacle" to resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the fence, but the intractable Arab hatred of Israel that made its erection necessary. That hatred remains the real barrier to lasting peace and reconciliation between Israeli and Arab.

Merv Morris, East St Kilda

THE US has built an enormous wall to separate itself from Mexico. There are no security issues here, none of its citizens are in danger of being blown up by Mexican bombers, no one in Mexico is firing a daily dose of rockets across the border hoping to kill schoolchildren. It is purely an economic thing, to protect jobs.

No one is claiming that the US stole New Mexico, California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida or Texas from Mexico after winning a war that it waged against Mexico. But when Israel builds a wall to protect its citizens from actually being killed, the media and much of the world are enraged. I wonder why.

Peter Cohen, Bentleigh

These letters won't reverse some of the nonsense that is published from time to time in this newspaper about Israel's security barrier that has helped save hundreds if not thousands of lives - most of them Jewish (which perhaps explains why there is very little done to explain the other side in certain parts of the media).

NOT A SINGLE WORD!

Andrea Levin writes a powerful piece in the Jerusalem Post about the selectivity of the New York Times in its presentation of the news on the Israel/Palestine conflict -The silence of 'The Times'

Defamation of Israel and efforts to call the defamers to account have long been news the Times has deemed not fit to print. Its silence on recent developments concerning the al-Dura affair is just the latest iteration of a decades-long Times lie.

Levin echoes many of the complaints previously made in this blog about some of our local news outlets. There has of course, been a substantial improvement since the departure of Ed O'Loughlin from the Fairfax organisation but coverage of the "Pallywood" phenomenon remains thin on the ground in this country.

Unfortunately, the problem is exacerbated by the attitude of some of our own Jewish academics - one recently was quoted as having objected to the use of the term "Pallywood" because it might offend Palestinian sensibilities.

I suppose that the time will come soon when we are forced to stop teaching and studying the Holocaust because it might offend some Germans.

EXCUSES

Honest Reporting's latest offering Humanizing the Murderer is a look at how the mainstream media has sought "motives" to explain last week's brutal bulldozer attack by a Palestinian from East Jerusalem. It covers the usual pandering to the cause of the Palestinians in which the Jews must be blamed for every imperfection on the other side.

I'm not always in full agreement with Caroline Glick but HR nails it with this quote from her Jerusalem Post article - The media and enduring narrative when she noted that the bulldozer attack was only the second Palestinian attack on Israelis to be preserved on film. The first was the bloody lynching of two IDF reservists in the early days of the Second Intifada in 2000. Glick pointed out that both cases drew apologies from the networks that showed them:

In this case, as in the case of the lynching eight years ago, the reason the BBC apologized is not because the film's images were too gruesome, but because it strayed from the accepted narratives of the Palestinian war against Israel. To maintain the narratives, "the right editorial balance between the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's audience," is one that engenders the belief that Israel is either morally indistinguishable from the Palestinians, or that Israel is morally inferior to the Palestinians.

A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL

Bradley Burston writes a column in Haaretz entitled a Special Place in Hell. Today, he asks about Palestinian terrorism and whether it is a natural act.

What, exactly, is a decent person supposed to think?

On a quiet and clear morning in Jerusalem, a woman is driving toward the heart of the city, her infant with her in the car. There is nothing to fear.

It is not a military area, it is not a sector of occupation, it is not a settlement - Jews have lived and worked here for more than a century. Jewish doctors and nurses were treating Arab infants, women, the elderly and the infirm here as early as 1902, when Shaare Tzedek Hospital opened across the street.

There is nothing to fear.

Except for the man behind the wheel of a bulldozer, who has taken it upon himself to kill Jews.

I think the question must also be asked of all those apologists for terrorism in the media and elsewhere. What, exactly, is a decent person supposed to think about this or about the deeds of Sami Kuntar the psychotic butcher of innocent civilians who is about to be exchanged for the corpses of Israeli soldiers and some information from Hizbullah about the whereabouts of others taken captive? It's a rhetorical question so the Pilgers, the Fisks and the Loewensteins of this world needn't bother deigning to answer.

REPORTING LIES IS CRIMINAL

Jewish Jew basher Antony Loewenstein has been put in his place on his own blog by a correspondent Sol Salbe over his parroting of a report from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information which recently condemned "the detention of Palestinian Journalist Mohammad Omer Mughir by Israeli Occupation Forces. Muhammad was detained, assaulted and interrogated on June 27th upon his return to Gaza after receiving the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism." - Reporting is a crime

Salbe points out that:

Does not it stuck you odd that Omer would have been attacked by the Israeli security forces upon his return to Gaza? There are no Israeli forces in Gaza and any incursion would have been such a mnajor violation of the ceasefire that even the Australian media would have reported it.

Omer was set upon at the Aleenby Bridge while crossing the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank from Jordan. With the Rafah crossing closed someone with a permit need to travel via the West Bank into Israel and from there in to Gaza. If bloggers would like to be treated as journalists then fact-checking of obviously impossible assertions is not an option but a necessity.

Like the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the area's geography is not Loewenstein's strong point. In the first edition of his book, My Israel Question, he placed Israel's Gallilee region in Lebanon. This would have surely been a highpoint in his career as an author as it was for Louise Adler (also apparently Jewish) as a book publisher.

OH ... AND INCIDENTALLY

Today's Melbourne Age carries a story from its new Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jason Koutsoukis about a deal between Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and Labour Party leader Ehud Barak that has effectively saved Olmert's political skin for the time being - Leadership deal saves Israeli PM.

Buried away at the very end of the article are these paragraphs:-

"Meanwhile, the fragile truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip appeared to be in danger of collapsing after rockets were fired yesterday from Gaza into the Israeli township of Sderot, injuring two people.

Just days after the truce was agreed to, the rocket attacks were launched after Israeli soldiers killed two Islamic Jihad members in the West Bank. Islamic Jihad had previously said before signing the truce that it would respond to assassinations carried out by Israel in the West Bank.

Following the rocket attacks, Mr Barak, who is Defence Minister, ordered all crossings to the Gaza Strip closed, with only humanitarian supplies allowed through the Erez crossing in Gaza's north-east.

Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that controls Gaza, said it was doing everything possible to preserve the truce."

Strange that such news finds itself situated at the very end of the article. No mention of what the Islamic Jihad people were doing when when killed by the IDF or the fact that Islamic Jihad often carries out operations in conjunction with Hamas and that it wouldn't dare do so without Hamas' consent. Still one wonders whether Koutsoukis' predecessor would have even deigned to mention the rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets at all.

One also wonders about the photograph accompanying this article about the Israeli political crisis. The picture is of a restaurant 'Buns and Guns', located in the security zone of Beirut. Lebanon isn't even mentioned or relevant to the article but someone at Fairfax doesn't mind associating Israeli leaders with this gruesome gun theme.

PEACE OFFENSIVE

Martin Peretz of The New Republic has written a great piece on recent peace efforts from Israel including negotiations with Syria and the truce with Hamas brokered by the Egyptians. Here are some excerpts from Peace Offensive:

In Middle Eastern wars, the United Nations is almost always hectoring Israel for being reluctant to seek peace. So it was a stunner when Terje Rød-Larsen--U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's "special coordinator" in the occupied territories, Kofi Annan's "personal representative" to Yasir Arafat, Ban Ki-moon's "special representative" for overseeing the cease-fire agreement ending the second Lebanon war, and in his next posting "envoy to the personal representative of the special coordinator for planetary salvation"--lambasted Israel for its recent negotiations with Syria: "Israel has given Syria a huge gift, without thus far receiving anything in return."

It used to be that Israel would move the heavens to rescue its kidnapped soldiers. This is one reason for the daring of so many of its fighting men. In recent years there has been an increase in kidnapping as a battle tactic by both the Palestinians and Hezbollah. Frankly, the Arabs play cruel games with these people (and their relatives), not saying whether they are dead or alive, even those who were captured decades ago. Are Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser still in this world? Nasrallah will not say. Gilad Shalit, it is believed, is still alive. Why was he not released in exchange for the last return of Palestinian prisoners? Liat Collins had a story, "Between life and the dead," in the Jerusalem Post some weeks ago detailing this manipulation of sorrow and fear. Dog tags and body parts are transmitted but not accurate information or men who are still breathing. Make peace with these people? This might be the only instance you hear me utter this: I wholeheartedly agree with the U.N. hack.

What amazes me is that these people have so much support among our intellectuals and within our media. Peretz has nailed it as usual but the world doesn't care. So two years down the track, captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit remains a prisoner who has none of the rights accorded to most captives in his situation. Yet, Age cartoonist Petty has sympathy for the supposedly democratically elected Hamas that holds him.

PETTY CASH

The Melbourne Age yesterday published a vile excuse for a cartoon by one of its resident scribblers who goes by the very appropriate name of "Petty". It makes little sense but it's clearly a pro Hamas piece and is typical of the uninformed and ignorant rubbish that could only emanate from a newspaper edited by someone who once published an opinion piece that suggested Israel and the Mossad were behind the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Hamas is in power by virtue of a democratic election in much the same way as Hitler and Mugabe were democratically elected but Petty would never dare to put together a comic little piece in support of the thuggery that has forced Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai out of Friday's Presidential poll, would he?

Quite apart from the historically incorrect and the odious nature of Petty's daubing, what makes the publication of his racist attack on the Jewish State and its people even more incrdible is its timing.

Now, in the early days of the truce between Israel and Hamas, when Israel is living up to the terms of its agreement and allowing in a promised 30 per cent increase of food and commercial goods into Gaza which it said it would do when the violence against its citizens stopped.

Now, when people of goodwill seek to bring about peace by negotiation in this troubled region.

Then again, his cartooning work leads one to to doubt whether Petty knows or understands the broader issues of the conflict and the difficulties involved in achieving a peaceful two state solution when you have a thug movement which advocates the destruction of one of those states and genocide against the Jews.

PORKY PIE OF THE DAY

The Australian Financial Review allowed this through onto its letters page:-

Palestinians miss out

The Palestinians were entitled to reject the United Nations partition plan. By 1947, despite massive Jewish immigration from Europe Jews formed only 33% of the population. However, the UN Partition plan gave the Jews 54% of Palestine, even though they owned only 6 % of Palestine’s land.

So the Palestinians were asked to give up more then half of their country for the benefit of a minority of recently arrived European settlers. Not surprisingly, they refused.

These European Jewish settlers had no intention of restricting their state to the borders envisaged by the UN partition plan. In November 1947 they attacked the Arab state proposed under the UN, destroyed hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, and expelled their inhabitants. Only the intervention of the Arab armies in May 1948 prevented a Jewish takeover of all of Palestine in 1948

Paul Dixon,
Fraser,ACT

The flaw in Dixon's argument is that implication that because the Jews owned 6% of what remained Palestine in 1947 then the Arabs must have owned all of the remainder which is untrue - most of it was Crown Land and a large part of it was desert land. The big lie is that European Jews "attacked the Arab state proposed under the UN". This is a preposterous assertion that would make even the most bent of revisionist historians blush bright red. It is the sort of lie we can expect from unrepentant anti-Semites who have no qualms about distorting Jewish history for their own propaganda ends.

NOT FIT TO PRINT

According to Haaretz, "Hamas on Friday claimed responsibility for an explosion a day earlier in a house in northern Gaza that killed seven Palestinians, one of them an infant girl" - Hamas claims responsibility for deadly blast in Gaza house.

The news has met with stunnded silence from most of the international media as often happens when Palestinians kill Palestinians - and there's a lot of that going on lately.

We rarely, if ever, read of incidents like this one reported in the Palestinian Ma'an Newsagency - Two Palestinians killed in Rafah underground tunnel system.

Can't blame the Jews - then it's not news!

STANDING ON PRINCIPLES

Kudos to the Austrlian and its op ed writer, Canadian MP Irwin Cotler for this piece in support of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's principle stand on Iran's threats against Israel:

"THE enduring lesson of the Holocaust - and the genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda - is that they occurred not simply because of the machinery of death, but because of the state-sanctioned incitement to hatred.

It is this teaching of contempt - this demonising of the other - this is where it all begins.

As the Supreme Court of Canada put it, "The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began with words." The court added - in words echoed by the International Criminal Tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda - that these are "the catastrophic effects of racism", the chilling facts of history."

A stark contrast to the recent ranting and apologetics for the racist Iranian regime from Amin Saikal in the Fairfax media.

A BRITON SEES THINGS IN RAMALLAH

Honest Reporting has an interesting item on an alleged eye witness report given by the BBC's Aleem Maqbool which differs markedly from those of other news agencies.

It seems that objectivity among many in the British news media has been flushed down the gurgler these days and this is particularly so inside the BBC which has had a great deal to do with this disturbing development in a country that has some dark traditions of anti-Jewish behaviour in its history.

WHEN HUMAN RIGHTS MEANS SUPPORTING GENOCIDE

In the almost two years of its existence, the major beneficiary of the activities of the United Nations Human Rights Council has been Hamas - an Islamic movement whose stated aim is to destroy a member state of the United Nations and to commit genocide. That Hamas has sufficient support in the UN is a blight on the organisation that was established in the shadows of the Second World War and the atrocities committed between 1939 and 1945.

According to a Reuters Report, the "United States has quietly informed Western allies of its intention to walk away from the U.N. Human Rights Council."

The U.S. deserves congratulations for taking this honourable and ethical stand while those who remain on UNHRC are deserving of contempt.

The Fifth of June

Today is the 41st Anniversary of the commencement of the Six Day Way and the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. The following has been released by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

In April 1948, one month before Israel declared independence, Robert Kennedy, then 22, traveled to Palestine to report on the conflict for the Boston Post. His four dispatches from the scene were published in June 1948. The newspaper closed in 1956, and for decades the reports were virtually forgotten. The following are excerpts:

"Unfortunately for [the Jews, Jerusalem's water] reservoir is situated in the mountains and it and the whole pipeline are controlled by the Arabs. The British would not let them cut the water off until after May 15th but an Arab told me they would not even do it then. First they would poison it."

"The Arab responsible for the blowing up of the Jewish Agency on March 11, 1948, said that "after the explosion, upon reaching the British post which separated the Jewish section from a small neutral zone set up in the middle of Jerusalem, he was questioned by the British officers in charge. He quite freely admitted what he had done and was given immediate passage with the remark, 'Nice going.'"

"The Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British to take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops crossed unmolested....I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah [of Trans-Jordan]. There were also soldiers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq."

"The Arabs in command believe that eventually victory must be theirs. It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist. They...promise that if it does become a reality it will never have as neighbors anything but hostile countries, which will continue the fight militarily and economically until victory is achieved."

"The Jews on the other hand believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East. The Arab world is made up of many disgruntled factions which would have been at each other's throats long ago if it had not been for the common war against Zionism."

A TALE OF TWO JUNTAS

"A flotilla of US navy ships off the coast of Burma are leaving after failing to get the junta's permission to unload aid supplies to "ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands" of cyclone survivors." - US ships sail away as Burma snubs cyclone aid.

In another part of the world, trucks carrying supplies of humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza and oil terminals from which much needed fuel is delivered to them, are under constant attack from Palestinian terrorist groups acting with the blessing of the Hamas junta.

The Burmese junta and the Hamas junta are reprehensible and are exercising collective punishment on the their own people and yet, throughout the world, there is a body of people who either cheer Hamas on and blame Israel for the crisis or refuse to even talk about it.

Clearly, those in power in Burma are disgusting and need to be overthrown for the sake of the Burmese people, but the stench of hypocrisy applies to those who turn their heads away and ignore the obsene behaviour of the Palestinian leadership in Gaza and in many instances, in the West Bank as well.

Modern Myths of Jewish Evil

This Jerusalem Post Editorial - Myth & Muhammad al-Dura - reminds us how the recent (and largely unreported) French Court of Appeals decision on the fraudulent al-Dura affair "calls much-needed attention to the ways in which world opinion is shaped by perceptions that are themselves shaped by a not infallible media and how such myths are "fervently seized by those who seek confirmation for their belief in Israeli culpability, that it is likely never to be erased from international consciousness."

The excellent blog "This Ongoing War" also succinctly put it as follows:-

"If the editors, photographers, cartoonists, reporters and analysts who shape the reports delivered into the conventional news channels were obliged to face critical analysis, had to justify their frequently agenda-driven spinning, had to give an accounting for their prejudicial distortions and lies, then most of the venom directed at Israel and Israelis wouldn't be there."

And it really is a case of frequent media spinning that is not confined to the single story of the Muhammed al-Dura video, filmed by Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahma and aired by France 2 with its explosive but misleading commentary from Charles Enderlin who was nowhere near the scene but blamed the Israelis for the child's death. The cameraman's film (at least the 18 minutes out of 27 that the court ordered to be released) showed what the Jerusalem Post called "apparently staged scenes and faked ambulance runs". The international news media has been infested over the past decade by an industry of lies.

Danny Seaman describes how far reaching and damaging this industry has become for Israel and the Jewish people:

"Often we see reports about some kind of harm done to the Palestinians by Israel that immediately make headlines worldwide. In many cases, the charges turn out to be false, yet the damage to Israel is already done. This stems from the fact that foreign networks do not do the minimum they should be doing – verifying sources and crosschecking information. After all, they always attribute reports to Palestinian reporters and always find 'credible' sources that would confirm the charges."

We've seen this here in one of our reputable news outlets where, for 5½ years we had to endure one man's reporting which relied heavily on so-called "credible sources" telling tall tales that often contained obvious flaws that remained unchallenged by the reporter. Despite the failure of our media to cover the French Appeals Court decision, such reporters are now well and truly on notice. As the Jerusalem Post editorial concludes:

"[T]he sordid affair teaches a valuable lesson about the dangerous enthusiasms, especially in Muslim societies, and especially among those who claim to speak for an awakened conscience, for modern myths of Jewish evil."