LETTER OF THE WEEK

From Today's Canberra Times:


Iran's nuclear plans

The letters by Paul Fitzwarryne and John Richardson (October 5) responding to my article ''Can we force Iran to abandon its nuclear plans'' (October 2, p9) include unwarranted ad-hominem attacks against me. Their primary target, however, is the state of Israel, which was not the subject of the original article.

The governments of virtually the entire free world, including Israel, believe Iran is working on developing nuclear weapons capability. This estimate is based upon hard evidence, not supposition.

Section H of the [International Atomic Energy Agency's]'s August 30 status report on Iran's nuclear program is wholly devoted to the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. It describes the intelligence it has received regarding Iran's efforts towards developing a nuclear explosive device as ''credible'' and also mentions receiving recent corroborating evidence.

The contention that Iran would find it difficult to enrich its uranium to weapons grade under the eyes of IAEA inspectors is dubious. The IAEA has repeatedly complained that Iran has hidden much of its program from its view - something even some Iranian officials have admitted is true.

The excuse that 20 per cent enriched uranium has peaceful applications ignores the fact that Iran's stockpile is many times greater than what is necessary for medical research. In fact, it is consistent with one conceivable purpose only - the foundation for the development of nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Iran continues to bring more centrifuges online and grow its stockpile further, even in the face of international sanctions. Why?

Regarding the issue of legality, Israel, which has never confirmed nor denied possessing nuclear weapons and has certainly never threatened any country with nuclear attack, is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran, however, is.

Furthermore, the presumption of an Israeli nuclear arsenal has never sparked a regional arms race. But countries such as Saudi Arabia have vowed to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. Riyadh clearly fears Tehran more than Jerusalem.

Paul Fitzwarryne's vile and historically revisionist misrepresentation of Zionism, his attacks on Israel's legitimacy and denial of the Jewish people's roots in Israel display even more ignorance than his comments on Iran, which is a mighty feat indeed.

Ahron Shapiro, South Melbourne, Vic

ANTI SEMITIC SCANDAL ROCKS ANTI SEMITIC GROUP

This is ridiculous but these anti-Semites are arguing about which of them is the anti-Semite - Will Free Gaza implode due to anti-Semitism scandal?

The ultimate objective of this momement is to free Gaza so that it can commit war crimes on the inhabitants of the Jewish State and to ultimately destroy it.

These people are a joke!

Frau Berlin

Last week The Age told us what a corrupt bunch Hamas was in Gaza. Now, they're firing at civilain targets - Heavy mortar, rocket fire from Gaza hits southern Israel. That's a war crime. Let's hope they tell this narrative as well before the Israelis start firing back at the terrorists and they make that they entire story.

NO KIDDING

Ruth Pollard of Fairfax Media has finally discovered Hamas - Torture part of Gaza justice system

  Hamas did not respond to calls from The Age for comment.

 

This might be a little late but since it's topical I bring to your attention this opinion piece in the Washington Post from Colbert I. King - Iran’s anti-Semitism makes it the greatest threat to Jews

SHAME

Shame on this country for sitting by meekly while Ahmedinejad spoke to the United Nations. Canada did not sit back meekly as the Iranian leader produced a hateful, anti-Western, anti-Semitic views diatribe. The sucking up to the Arab and Muslim lobby in the UN for favours in other areas is sickening.

If ...

If this story was about a senior Israeli Minister, it wouldn't take much time for it to be featured at the forefront of a certain newspaper's world section. At a pinch, it might even have made the front page. But the story is not about an Israeli - Senior PA minister suspected of sexually harassing employee "The incident occurred a week ago, according to the employee, and her husband, a member of Abbas' Fatah party and a former Israeli prisoner, demanded a PA investigation." You can read it in Haaretz otherwise, it's blank pages stuff.

Anatomy of a lie

It's interesting how easy it is to blame the Jews for most things in this new age - Anatomy of a lie.

Media outlets are only tempted to publish wild ideas about Jewish money, because they are readily believed within wider society. The longer this vicious circle continues, the more Jews will be forced into a corner, bound and trapped by the stereotypes which are readily thrust upon them.

WHEN PALESTINIAN SUFFERING MEANS NOTHING

PLO: 18 Palestinians killed in Damascus

One Shalit Terrorist Is Arrested, While Another Tries to Self-Immolate The Israelis aren't responsible so it's not news.

WE KNOW HE'S DUMB BUT ...

Anti-Israel activist Antony Loewenstein: “Six Million Should Die.” This speaks for itself.

No offence, but if you aren't articulating a view I support I assume you're Jewish

The Australian's Cut and Paste points out the hypocrisy of those who seek to turn the blame for the behaviour of thugs onto others. It's the rioters who merit the condemnation as stated by some of the more sensible members of the Islamic community. What a pity they seek advice from the idiot fringe like Hizb ut-Tahrir, GreenLeft.org.au, Ilan Pappe and the usual suspects.

ABC gives Pappé a forum for his fractured "facts"

The ABC has a knack of bringing up the most vehement of anti-Zionist rogues at the most opportune times when it's difficult for most Jews to be on panels and in audiences to respond to them. Such was the case a while ago when the only Jew they could find for a panel discussion on Israel was Antony Loewenstein and last night, the had the notorious fact bender Ilan Pappé fracturing the truth on the history of Israel on Q & A. Firstly, they had the Dorothy Dixers in the audience such as the Palestinian woman who gave Pappé the opportunity for a perfect segue into accusations of ethnic cleansing and thuggery by the Zionists. There was also a yobbo in the crowd who crowed about meeting the Mayor of Jerusalem last year and being told that he had plans to build 90,000 homes for settlers in the municipality. As if ... Pappe himself was unleashed to provide his standard tirade without much questioning of the fact that he has been pilloried for his inaccurate versions of events. Pappe himself admits he is more interested in ideology than facts and that he bases his accusations against Israel not on substantiated facts, but on Palestinian narrative - When Ideology Trumps Scholarship. Fortunately, one of the panellists, Irving Wallach was on hand to rebut Pappé's lies and he pointed out that the events of 1947-8 were precipitated by a viscious hate campaign orchestrated by the Palestinian leader, Haj Amin El Husseini, who sat by Hitler's side during WW2 planning the extermination of Jews. Pappé at first tried to dismiss this as something that never happened but when Wallach pointed out that anyone could google the Grand Mufti and discover what he was up to at the time, he tried to poo hoo his role and set up another lie that the Palestinians, notwithstanding the Mufti's Nazis connections, were welcoming and brotherly towards the Jews of the time. It was pure bullshit and no true historian would have the gall to try to get away with that sort of papp in public. And anyone with half a mind would understand that in 1947 any cohort of Hitler and Eichmann who worked on their final solution for the Jews just a few years earlier wasn't going to be trusted by any of them any time soon. Some historian is this Pappe. For good measure, here's another who questions his disregard of the facts ... The faux Zionist history of Ilan Pappé The Pappé circus is travelling around Australia pedalling its hatred of Israel and doing untold damage to the cause of peace between Jew and Arab in the region.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Islamists don't seem to grasp the concept of the free society even when they're in one. That and all: Israel is the source of all evil. Imre Salusinszky

WHY AGAIN?

Why is the story of Iran's threats against Israel consigned to the blank pages?

HANSARD

Israel
Senator SINODINOS (New South Wales) (15:57): I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) Senator Rhiannon has acknowledged that some votes shifted away from the Greens in Marrickville in the New South Wales local government elections because of the boycott of Israel issue,
(ii) Marrickville Greens councillor, Ms Marika Kontellis, voted in 2011 to retain the Council's Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) policy and in August 2012 attended the Byron Bay BDS conference,
(iii) the New South Wales Greens chose Mr Karel Solomon, a BDS advocate who has branded Israel an apartheid state, as a candidate for the Marrickville Council, and
(iv) Ms Irene Doutney, the Greens candidate for Sydney Lord Mayor, has supported BDS actions and said that she personally favours a full boycott of Israel;
(b) calls on the New South Wales Greens to explicitly reject the BDS policy; and
(c) condemns the BDS campaign.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Mark Bishop): Leave is granted for one minute.
Senator SINODINOS: This motion addresses an issue which was important in New South Wales in the inner city of Sydney in the context of a campaign by Greens councillors to promote a boycotts, divestments and sanctions policy against the state of Israel. My reason for putting this motion up is that the results of the local government elections in New South Wales—
Senator Fierravanti-Wells: The overwhelming results!
Senator SINODINOS: The overwhelming results in New South Wales confirmed a backlash towards these sorts of campaigns. The point I want to make is: if we want to engage states, promote cooperation and peace on issues like the Middle East, the best approach is to engage the parties involved rather than to seek to isolate parties and make them appear to be the villains that they are not. I am therefore calling on the New South Wales Greens to explicitly reject the BDS policy and for the Senate to condemn the BDS campaign.
Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:58): I seek leave to make a short statement.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.
Senator MILNE: The Australian Greens have always had a position of supporting a two-state solution. We support the aspirations and rights of the Palestinian people and the Israeli people to an 60 SENATE Wednesday, 12 September 2012
CHAMBER

Anti-Semitism still a roadblock to peace

This article in The Australian by Ian Wilcock is well worth a read - Anti-Semitism still a roadblock to peace

IT would be a hard heart that could not feel sympathy for Palestinian national aspirations, if the objective is the establishment of a state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. Nonetheless, it remains a formidably difficult task to accommodate the competing interests of these two national movements in the tiny chunk of territory in question. (The size of Israel and the West Bank combined is only about one-ninth the area of Victoria).

However, that challenge is made even more daunting by the torrent of virulent anti-Semitism emanating from the Palestinian Authority and bodies it controls. These utterances should be deeply alarming to anyone with an even passing familiarity with where the worst excesses of dehumanising anti-Semitism can lead.

An organisation named Palestinian Media Watch does an outstanding job of bringing attention to what the PA and related organisations are saying in Arabic, as opposed to the usually more temperate comments made in English for the world outside the Middle East.

The views of this author would never get an airing in some other media outlets for the obvious reasons.

CRISIS

The dire financial situation in the West Bank under the Palestine Authority's administration is certainly a matter of concern and it's about time the Age woke up and highlioghted the corruption, ineptitude and inefficiency of the PA in this area. Off course, Ruth Pollard would not be herself if she failed to highlight the effect of the "occupation" in relation to the plight of the Palestinian economy and the demonstrations taking place there - Crisis deepens as mass protests hit West Bank.

Nor would she be herself if she left out the part about the role of the Palestinian leadership and the various political groups within their society in perpetuating that occupation by concentrating on delegitimising Israel at every turn, something about which Pollard herself should be all too familiar.

Meanwhile, it came as no surprise to read this and to discover that there was no mention of the recent deaths of more than 400 Palestinian refugees at the hands of the Syrians or of the rockets fired at Israeli civilian targets by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza.

Little wonder the Palestinians are in crisis.

THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

... is not Israel.

Syrian troops storm Damascus refugee area, chase rebels

Hundreds of Palestinians killed in this conflict.

Blank page stuff.

Israel's Hadas Yaron

Israel's Hadas Yaron wins best actress at Venice Film Festival

PRIZE LIAR NO PEACENIK

Reuters photo

When Hanan Ashrawi won a peace prize from some nuff nuffs in Sydney some years ago, we were never really given any proof at all that she was deserving of such a prize. Instead, the anti-Israel elements involved with the award and a number of hangers on turned the whole thing around blaming the pro Israel Jewish lobby for all number of crimes and misdemeanours for simply having the chutzpah to question why this propagandist was being awarded a peace prize despite the fact that very little evidence existed to justify the award.

Several years have passed and Ashrawi has still not done a thing to justify the prize and of course, peace between Israel and Palestine seems more of a dream to some than it was then.

Meanwhile, Ashrawi is a member of the PLO Executive which honours suicide bombers by naming streets, city squares and football tournments after them, which slanders Israel and Jews at every opportunity and which spreads massive lies about Jewish ties to the land, to Jerusalem and which seeks to revise every aspect of the recent history of the region.

Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has noted Ashrawi's latest attempt to revise history by claiming that there were no Jewish refugees from Arab lands in the last century but rather that they came to Israel volunatarily "pressured by Zionist groups." - No such thing as Jewish refugees.

This is yet another lie from the pen of the person who we know is a serial liar but who receives special protection from many who are as culpable as she is for the sad state in which the Palestinian people find themselves in. Here is what David Harris had to say about Ashrawi's claims - Hanan Ashrawi Is to Truth What Smoking Is to Health.

Ashrawi does what she does because she knows she can get away with her lies. She knows this because the people who award her peace prizes and those who write poisonous propaganda in some of what were once the world's leading newspapers allow this to happen because their hatred of Israel and its people are as deep as hers.

Hanan Ashrawi Is to Truth What Smoking Is to Health