PRAISE FOR THE PALESTINIANS

I don't know how Ed O'Loughlin of the Age missed the opportunity to file this feel good story from the Palestinian Ma'an Newsagency - PALESTINIAN SECURITY RETURNS ISRAELI OFFICER 'LOST' IN JENIN.

It's all about how some friendly members of the Palestinian security services returned an Israeli officer who had mistakenly entered Jenin, in the northern West Bank. The civic minded cops saved the soldier from a grisly fate because apparently, when news spread in the city, dozens of furious Palestinian citizens rushed to the square and set the officer's car ablaze.

And all he did wrong was save this poor bloke from a lynch mob!

HAMAS AND FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

The Hamas Movement continues to pressure journalists attempting to operate within its domain of Gaza.

"The attempted arrest of Agence France Press reporter Sakher Abu El Oun came a day after Hamas beat a group of journalists covering a demonstration protesting the Islamic militant group's rule in the Gaza Strip. Abu El Oun, who heads the Gaza journalists' union, harshly criticized the Hamas crackdown." - HAMAS FORCES FAIL TO ARREST AFP JOURNALIST.

Makes you wonder why other journalists operating in the region obediently follow the Hamas line and seek to demonise Israel at every turn. Also makes you wonder at the sanity of those British journalists who are supposedly boycotting the Jewish State.

IT'S NOT A SIN TO TELL A LIE

Thanks to Memri, HERE is some fascinating vision of Egyptian Cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri who teaches children that telling lies is permitted in three ways:-

1. to the wife,

2. to Jews in times of war, and

3. in order to reconcile between two Muslims.

PRESS RELEASE

I don't usually do this but it's necessary because of the Age and Ed O'Loughlin's recent assault on Israel over its policy on Sudanese refugees.

Press Release from the Embassy of the State of Israel:

EMBASSY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

PRESS OFFICE

23 August 2007

Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people who suffered tremendously from persecution, are not indifferent to the suffering of others and wish to express shock and extreme concern regarding the humanitarian situation in Darfur and Sudan.

In light of the situation, Israel has initiated a relief program for Darfur and Sudanese refugees. This is comprised of aid provided by Israeli civil organizations and contribution to UN agencies through the donation of Israeli products, equipment and medical assistance.

Hundreds of asylum seekers of Sudanese origin have arrived in Israel from Egypt. Israel only sent back a small number (46 people) to Egypt, once it had guarantees by the UNHCR and Egypt that the asylum seekers would not be sent back to Sudan.

Israel is very aware of the tragedy in Darfur. It must be remembered that Israel has no diplomatic relations with this country and there is a significant presence of Al Qa’ida operatives in Darfur. For the safety of the Israeli people, the asylum seekers must be questioned to ensure they are not a potential security threat.

Israel is willing to take part in a multilateral solution to the problem, but cannot be the only answer. We call on international organizations and other states to work together to find a long term resolution. In particular, we ask that Egypt, a state signatory to the Refugee Convention and the country from which the asylum seekers are entering Israel, to join with Israel in finding a solution.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government is doing its utmost to ensure that the asylum seekers stay in Israel is as comfortable as possible.

Dor Shapira
Embassy Spokesperson
Embassy of Israel

WHAT THE AGE WILL NOT TELL ITS READERS ABOUT SUDANESE REFUGEES

THIS

News that Israel is a free and safe democratic country that respects human rights is spreading quickly amongst Muslim Sudanese refugees from Darfur who are fleeing genocide. Hundreds, who are looking for asylum and a better life, have crossed the Southern Border into Israel. In this video we hear from one of the 12 mothers about their escape to Israel through Egypt and how well they and their children were treated by the Israel army when they entered Israel illegally. Visit them in their safe houses provide by the Israeli Government.

USING ASYLUM SEEKERS AS A WEAPON

The Age's Ed O'Loughlin is back in town with a story of how Israel has returned 50 Sudanese refugees sneaked across the country's border back to Egypt [Israel starts deporting refugees from Darfur].

True to form, O'Loughlin fails to understand the nuances of the situation concerning the story of the Sudanese refugees so he beats his story up instead to do what he's best at - bashing Israel at every possible opportunity.

In recent months Israel has become a much sought after safe haven for Darfur asylum seekers. Many of them have arrived there culturally disoriented, emotionally and psychologically traumatized and ill equipped to negotiate their way through the day to day challenges of life in a new country. Some of those seeking asylum however, are "economic" migrants who have arrived with the help of professional people smugglers from Egypt. O'Loughlin blurs the distinction between genuine asylum seekers and the "economic" migrants who are simply jumping the queue.

The Egytians have been hostile to the genuine refugees and have done nothing to discourage the people smuggling activites and, as O'Loughlin points out at the end of his article, there have been reports of Egyptian troops killing returning Sudanese in cold blood (but when this happened it was not a story fit for the Age).

O'Loughlin concedes that a majority of Israel's 120 parliamentarians, including opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu recently signed a petition calling on the Government to allow Sudanese refugees to remain in Israel until another country could be found to take them.

He rightly points out that the Israeli estimate of about 2800 mainly African migrants and refugees who have illegally crossed its border in recent years is "a low figure compared with the flood of would-be migrants to European Union states" (but he ignores the fact that some of those EU states are substantially larger in size and population than tiny Israel).

O'Loughlin also ignores the fact that Israel, as a member of the community of nations, has a long history and tradition as an asylum provider to refugees from other countries including non-Jewish asylum seekers such as the boat people from Vietnam in the 60's and 70's, those from the Balkan Wars and other places throughout its history.

However, O'Loughlin's greatest transgression is his failure to mention that Israel is working on a strategy for the Darfurian asylum seekers that is to be linked with strategies of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The Darfurian refugees who have come to Australia (there are about 500 of them) have come to this country through this process. O'Loughlin is aware of the UNHCR because he quotes in his article its figures of the number of African migrants trying to cross Israel's desert border with Egypt. He should also be aware but doesn't tell his readers that Israel already has declared 500 Sudanese as are genuine asylum seekers from Darfur.

For a more balanced view, readers should consult the Australian's Israel refuses sanctuary to new Darfur refugees which provides a more detailed analysis of the refugee debate within Israel.

The arrival of the Darfurians has caught the Israeli government off-guard and much of the burden for the care of these refugees is currently being met by volunteer organizations.

Another O'Loughlin omission is his failure to refer to the work being done within Israel to assist the needy Darfur asylum seekers such as the project being carried out in the southern Israeli city of Arad by volunteers from the World Labor Zionist Movement (and its Australian counterpart Ameinu) and the Kibbutz Movement have been working with about 100 Darfurian refugees and in particular their children who have arrived in Israel.

This is the meaning of "asylum" Mr. O'Loughlin - not pure propaganda with which to beat Israel and its people over the head.

AND WE NEED TO TALK MORE ABOUT IRAN

In Iran the Ahmadinejad government has shown that it is learning plenty from the usual suspects it has hosted in recent times including the Holocaust deniers and those Israel haters including some Jews from the extreme left, right as well as the religious loons from Neturei Karta. This is what the Iranians are up to now -

IRAN HANGS 30 OVER 'US PLOTS'

This should be enough to make proud those who have visited this megalomaniacal monster and praised his virtues.

WE NEED TO TALK MORE ABOUT HAMASTAN

I recently read an interview with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke whose response to a question about modernity and the computer age said:-

"Some things have eternal value, and compassion is one of them. I hope we never lose that. Compassion for humans as well as animals."

Clarke believes that ultimately mankind will be regarded by the way it treats other animanl life on earth, like the whale.

Consider then the situation of the Palestinians under Hamas and how it teaches its children through Nahoul the Bee to become martyrs and to abuse animals. We really need to talk about that one day!

WHY THE PAGES ARE BLANK

Could it just be sheer ignorance?

The headline for Brendan Nicholson's article on comments made by visiting Israeli Deputy Defence minister, Dr Ephraim Sneh reads -

ISRAELI URGES SANCTIONS ON IRAQ
Brendan Nicholson

August 16, 2007

But Nicholson's article is about Sneh's call for Australia to support a push for tough international sanctions against IRAN.

Somebody should tell the Age editors that Irak and Iran are different places!

THE BEST WHINES COME FROM PALESTINE

Today's Melbourne Age contains an Op Ed piece from the public advocate for "Australians for Palestine", Michael Shaik who argues that peace in Iraq is inextricably linked to a Palestinian settlement. What Shaik is saying is that if only the Israelis bowed to all Palestinian demands then the killing in Irak would end and presumably so also would the murderous acts being wreaked upon communities in many other regions on the face of the earth.

Poof! Just like that.

Those people from within the Islamic world who are doing nasty things to other people in various parts of the earth from New York, Bali, Chechnya, London, Glasgow, Madrid, Bombay, Thailand and in Israel itself would end the carnage and start treating women and other minorites with dignity and equality if only the Palestinians got their way on everything.

The evidence however, suggests that no rational person should believe what Shaik says for a single instant. For starters, his argument runs counter to what Palestinian and other Islamic terror groups have to say often and in a loud voice i.e. that their aim is to destroy the Jewish State and to kill those of its inhabitants who happen to be Jews.

Shaik concludes his rant by highlighting Israel's "colonisation of the West Bank" and he suggests that should this "continue, the US will find itself defending what former US president Jimmy Carter has described as a regime of apartheid in which Jews and Palestinians living in the same area are subject to different laws and differential access to resources. Should America succumb to Israeli pressure to isolate Iran, it will lose the war in Iraq."

It's not clear how this all ties in together or even what "different laws" Shaik refers to - does he mean Palestinian laws that mandate a death penalty for Muslims who sell land to Jews? Is that Shaik's idea of Apartheid?

In typical Age style, the same edition backs up Shaik's incoherent rambling with an equally one sided news item from Steven Erlanger - Israel's 'separation road' unveils dual exit strategy. There's no mention of course, of the reason for what is described as an "ominous map of the future" and how it came to be be conceived. Threats of terror and annihilation against the Israeli people and the carrying out of such threats on its innocent civilian population are generally irrelevant to the reporting of much of what goes on in this region from the Age. That is perhaps why it has a credibility rating of zero in the eyes of many observers.

HOLLYWOOD ART IMITATES STUPIDITY

Blogger Debbie Schlussel tells of The Muslim Honor Killing Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See. It's about how Muslim pressure groups (aka The Muslim Lobby) have successfully managed to have the script of the Hollywood movie "Crossing Over" changed to remove an honour killing scene.

"In their successful campaign to get the scene removed, Iranian Muslims whined that Iranians don't commit honor killings. But they should tell that to the Iranian Supreme Court, which--only four months ago--acquitted a gang of six men who brutally murdering a woman because she was holding hands with a man to whom she was engaged."

The movie stars Harrison Ford and Sean Penn, is produced by the Weinstein Brothers and written and directed by Wayne Kramer. All bar Ford are Jewish. The Weinsteins claim they removed the scene because:

"While we believe strongly in freedom of expression, we also believe in the importance of constructive dialogue between artists and the communities they seek to portray."

Sadly for these shmucks and their audiences, there is no such thing as "constructive dialogue" when it comes to the anti-Semitic scenes in the movie which remain intact so it might be a good idea when this shmatteh comes to a cinema near you, that you give it a wide berth.

TIMELINE - 9 AUGUST 2001 [THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED]

A little over a month before the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks by Islamic extremists on the United States of America another group of religious fundamentalists murdered fifteen people including 7 children and injured 130 in a suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem. The murderer concealed the bomb in a guitar case.

The responsibility for the killing was claimed by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The reason for the murder was that the victims were Jewish. It had nothing to do with the occupation by Israel of lands gained in the 1967 Six Day War because both groups openly maintain that they seek to destroy Israel and to kill Jews.

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

Frimet and Arnold Roth are the parents of one of the 15 who died in the Sbarro pizzeria - Malki z"l. They have established The Malki Foundation in her memory and to provide home help for families with disabled children of all races and religions. Please click here to visit the website and please consider making a donation to this worthy cause.

WHERE DO LIES BEGIN?

The Palestinian Newsagency Maan reports on the death of two young Palestinian children in an explosion at a housing estate in the northern Gaza Strip. The report adds that eight others were injured in the incident but the cause of the explosion has not been verified.

Notwithstanding this the Maan Report is entitled "Unexploded Israeli rocket detonates killing two children in Gaza". It cites many local residents who told their reporter that they believed it was "a Palestinian homemade projectile, launched by one of the factions and targeting Israel, which landed in the area and killed the two children." Of course none of the factions announced responsibility for the explosion and not surprisingly an unnamed leader within the Palestinian "resistance" balmed it on an unexploded rocket "launched by the Israelis."

How do you think this story will be treated if it gets run over here?

Hat Tip: Elder of Ziyon

Hat Tip:

NOT ON THE RADAR

Now it might be only me but I wonder whether this news story would ever see the light of day in the media if the slaughter had been perpetrated by a certain neighbour of the Arab country that is shamefully responsible for what happened here?

WE WOULD RATHER DO BUSINESS WITH 1,000 HAMAS TERRORISTS THAN A SINGLE ISRAELI

This sign was prominently displayed by a business in Netanya. Are you outraged at such an inflammatory statement and hoping that anti-hate groups are marching on this business?

Well, it's not happening in the case of this business whose proprietors have made a simple statement.

And the business?

The Chevra Kadisha [funeral parlour]

CRICKEY ... IT'S ED AGAIN?

An article on crikey.dom.au relates the apparent confusion at the Fairfax organisation surrounding the appointments of foreign correspondents to various parts of the world.

It seems that there might have been a gigantic cock-up reminiscent of the news reporting Fairfax has been providing from a certain region in respect of which only half of the news usually ever sees the light of day in its Melbourne broadsheet.

Sad to say, Age readers have been sentenced to another year of drudgery and fractured news stories if the report about the reappointment of the Jerusalem correspondent is correct and that Ed O'Loughlin has the gig for another twelve months.

The good news is that The Blank Pages of the Age lives on for at least another twelve months!