The Age still treats its readers like idiots

In an earlier post I mentioned that the Age had surprised with the inclusion of an opinion piece from Fania Oz-Salzberger about the weekend's Israeli air strikes at Hamas.

There was of course, another surprise on the front page - a story attributed to the Guardian about the tragic deaths of a family of Palestinians caught in an Israeli attack on the Hamas infrastructure 'I didn't see any of my girls ...'. The online edition doesn't name the author but his name does appear on the front page of the print edition. It's Hazem Balousha reporting from Jabaliya.

Look at the names of the victims, then look again at the name of the "journalist" who wrote the report.

No doubt, the Age wants its readers to get a totally objective picture*.

Or perhaps not - here's an interesting viewpoint from Romeo Mike's blog that might help us understand the pathology behind this sort of journalistic bastardry.

STILL WAITING FOR THE FULL PICTURE

Mike points out how effective Hamas has been in frightening away all of the decent journalists from Gaza through the use of murder, kidnapping, torture and intimidation.

"Over the past two years Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation that has resulted in the death of some and the detention of others.The campaign, which is being waged by both Hamas and Fatah, has received almost no attention from human rights groups and advocates of the freedom of expression throughout the world.

By contrast, when a Palestinian journalist is accidentally wounded by Israeli gunfire during clashes with Palestinians, the incident makes headlines in major media outlets in the US and EU."

And all that's left are those who push Hamas propaganda through its willing accomplices in media channels throughout the world.

* Of course, it may be a co-incidence and there may be no family relationship whatsoever between reporter and subject matter. There could well be thousands of Baloushas in Jabaliya. However, in such a situation it is incumbent on the media outlet to produce some sort of disclaimer or explanation. The Age failed to do this and the fact that its on line edition referenced only "GUARDIAN" and kept the Balousha connection in its blank pages, makes it sound all the more an unprofessional and seemingly deceptive piece of journalism, if indeed, "journalism" is how you can describe what Al Age is doing in this instance.

Surprise

The Age has pulled off surprise ending to the year by actually publishing a sensible article on the current situation in Israel and Palestine by Fania Oz-Salzberger - THE TRAGEDY WHEN A REGIME USES ITS CITIZENS AS TOOLS OF WAR.

Ironically, Oz-Salzberger's excellent summation of the events behind the Israeli strikes reflects poorly on the Age's own shameful coverage over the years of (or rather its suppression of news about) many of the activities of the depraved thuggish Hamas regime in Gaza, its primary objectives and its history of cross border attacks on Israeli civilain populations.

Yesterday, the Age published an article from the elder statesman of Israel's peace camp, Uri Avnery - I DREAM OF ANOTHER ISRAEL - in which Avnery said that Israel must talk to Hamas. Avnery is a courageous man so perhaps, he might want to volunteer for the task and might start off by asking Hamas what it thinks about the two state solution (which Avnery says he supports) and whether it might one day soon consider altering its charter which calls for Israel's destruction and the killing of Jews (presumably Avnery is included in that group).

Avnery was far more sensible when it came to discussing Israel's leadership - "we must prepare the ground for an Israeli Obama."

Now, that's an idea!

As an Age reader pointed out today in its letters section, Obama himself said in July of this year while visiting Israel:

"Any country would find it difficult to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens. If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Death to all Juice

A pro Hamas demonstrator in Manhattan. Nothing more really needs to be said.

No peace until Israel leave Gaza

If you think this photograph was taken before August 2005 when Israel did indeed leave Gaza then you're wrong. It's recent but the intelligensia behind the banner think the place is still crawling with Israelis (as it might very soon).

PEACE PRIZE WINNER EXPOSES HERSELF

It was Sunday morning at 2.00am Melbourne time and Palestinian Legislator Hanan Ashrawi was being interviewed by Rosemary Church on CNN about the Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Ashrawi, as usual, was in automatic pilot playing the blame game and droning on about the occupation, the cycle of violence and excusing the rocket attacks on innocent Israeli civilians that preceded the strike.

Then this question was asked:

Rosemary Church: If Israel was not complying with the terms of the ceasefire, is the firing of rockets the way for Hamas to deal with that? Can they not use alternative channels?

Hanan Ashrawi: Well they certainly tried many different ways. I think the Palestine Authority has been trying through negotiation, through peaceful means but this has produced nothing. And at the same time even though many Palestinians including myself do not condone the use of rocket fire or violence sort of hold the victim accountable while the occupying power is constantly above the law and is not accountable.

Now, Ashrawi was there as a mouthpiece for the Palestinians but certainly not for Hamas. However, she deftly attempted to sidestep the question she was being asked i.e. whether Hamas could use alternative channels to the use of Qassams and answered an entirely different question telling the interviewer what the PA has done and by saying that negotiation had produced nothing forgetting the very real concessions the PA gained from Israel since the Oslo Agreement in 1993 (which Ashrawi incidentally, opposed).

Then she continued in a manner that distinctly sounded like excusing Hamas for violating international humanitarian law. As Bradley Burston points out today in Haaretz (Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear):

"The Human Rights Watch organization has been unequivocal in condemning the use of Qassam rockets as a direct violation of international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The firing of Qassams and mortars against civilian populations also constitutes collective punishment against hundreds of thousands of innocent Israeli men, women and children."

This is Hanan Ashrawi who five years ago and among great controversy was awarded the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize. Her failure to condemn criminal acts of war by Hamas and indeed to attempt to explain or to excuse them is reprehensible and yet another reason why she is not a fit person to hold any worthwhile peace prize other than a Mickey Mouse (make that Farfur) Peace Prize.

BEHIND GAZA

Israel's attack on Gaza: Hamas itself has admitted that most of the dead are their own people i.e. terrorists dedicated to Israel's destruction (a fact that will quickly be suppressed by apologists for Hamas everywhere) Caption: My Own. Photo: NY Times

Israel's attack on Gaza did not come out of the blue. If we follow the serious news outlets which provide a full coverage of events, we have the opportunity to view the entire picture.

Here's the New York Times coverage over the past ten days:-

Israel: Palestinian Militants Fire Rockets From Gaza - December 17

As Truce Ends, Israeli Airstrike Kills One in Gaza - December 20

Israel: 3 Militants Killed in Gaza - December 24

Gaza Rocket Fire Intensifies - December 25

Israel Issues an Appeal to Palestinians in Gaza - December 26

Israeli Gaza Strike Kills More Than 200 - December 27

"Most of those killed were Hamas police officers and security men, including two senior commanders, according to Palestinian officials."

A reminder that it was Hamas police officers and security men who flung their Fatah opponents off the roofs of high rise buildings and performed other horrors on their felow Palestinians when the radical Islamist group took control of Gaza in 2007. This is what happens inside a Hamas meeting and this is how Hamas looks after its children.

Meanwhile, here in Australia, the coverage has been far from satisfactory. One of our newspapers even ran a story about the prospects for peace a few days ago and Hamas didn't rate a mention. They must think their readers, like mushrooms, should be kept in the dark.

FOOTNOTE: The Sunday Age story this morning (Scores killed as Israel pounds Gaza) confirms that Israel had only hit Hamas targets, including command structures and rocket-manufacturing installations and that "the majority of the victims appeared to be members of Hamas, branded a terror group by Israel and the West." Israel's Channel 2 also reported that the strikes were aimed at the Hamas leadership, infrastructure, and logistics and that much of the deaths resulted from secondary explosions due to many of the targets (including those near civilian areas) having been stocked with ammunition and rockets most of which was recently smuggled into Gaza, often in tunnels which news reports were suggesting were also being used to bring food into Gaza.

I predict here and now that, in the coming days, the letters editors of certain newspapers in this country will permit the publication of blood libels suggesting that Israel deliberately targetted innocent women and children.

Palestinians: At least 140 dead, over 200 hurt in IAF Gaza strikes

Palestinians: At least 140 dead, over 200 hurt in IAF Gaza strikes

First reports indicate that the Israeli operation successfully targeted Hamas security compounds throughout Gaza. One television report says that every target was a security target and that the operation was meticulously planned and that most of the dead were Hamas security personnel. No doubt, by the time some news media and letter writers to newspapers get their teeth into this story it will be alleged that 98% of the dead were civilians mainly children (notwithstanding the visual evidence to the effect that many of the black clad dead wore some sort of military and had three day growths).

PALESTINIAN MISSILES CLAIM TWO MORE PALESTINIAN VICTIMS

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza prepare to fire at Israeli civilian tragets. Now, they're giving new meaning to the term "suicide bombers" - NY Times photo.

The world should know that Palestinian terrorists have killed two more Palestinian children as a result of a rocket aimed at Israeli civilians on the other side of its border with Gaza - Palestinian rocket accidentally kills 2 young Gaza girls.

"A projectile fired by Palestinians fell short of its target in Israel on Friday, striking a house in northern Gaza and killing two schoolgirls.

"The attack came as Israel sent mixed signals regarding its plans for Gaza.

"A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday killed the two Palestinians aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said.

"None of Gaza's militant factions claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on the house in Beit Lahiya. Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moiaya Hassanain identified the two victims as 5-year-old Hanin Abu Khoussa and her 12-year-old cousin, Sabah Abu Khoussa. Three other young people were wounded, Hassanain said.

"Hamas police said they were investigating the cause of the blast in Beit Lahiya village in northern Gaza, which medics said seemed to be due to a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired.

"Gaza militants frequently fire rockets at Israel from the same area."

CHRISTMAS 2008 - HITLER RULES IN BRITAIN AND GAZA

When Britain's Channel 4 decided it wanted someone to deliver an “alternative” Christmas message then who else but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the racist who wants to annihilate the only Jewish State on earth?

Iran's Ahmadinejad to give alternative Christmas message.

"If Christ were on Earth today, undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over."

Well actually, if Christ were on Earth today, he would be a target of this anti Semitic, Holocaust denying monster who has threatened to annihilate his country.

The Melbourne Age is hardly any better in its coverage of the news from the Middle East today. In a report taken from "AFP and Agencies - Bethlehem peace plea as violence again rocks Gaza we are told of the violence that "escalated again on Christmas Eve". This violence is cunningly described as "tit for tat" with the responsibility pointing to the Israelis:-

"Gaza militants showered southern Israeli towns with an estimated 30 rockets and at least 20 mortar shells on Wednesday.

"The military wing of the Islamist Hamas movement, which governs Gaza, issued a statement claiming the barrage was in retaliation for the killing of three Hamas gunmen by Israeli
soldiers on Tuesday.

"A subsequent Israeli air raid killed a Hamas militant and wounded four other Palestinians."

Thanks to Elder of Ziyon who sources a Palestinian News Agency we know something more about the "tit for tat" lie often promulgated by those whose sympathies lie with the thugs controlling Gaza.

Firstly, it's a lie that that firing by Palestinians of rockets into Israeli towns and at civilian targets commenced as a result of the Israeli operation on the eve of Christmas. Despite a lull in the violence and the operation of a so called truce, rockets have been fired on Israeli targets on every day this month apart for 11 December, one of the days upon which Israel sent humanitarian aid to Gaza ( a fact routinely ignored by much of the western media and certainly downplayed in Age reports).

Secondly, this is what really happened on Christmas Eve courtesy of Palestinian Newsagency Ma'an (which, despite being an organ of Palestinian propaganda pushing the same flim flam tale of "retaliation", is a more reliable source of news than the Age):-

"Three Palestinians were killed during a military operation near the Israeli-Gaza border in the north of Gaza and another two during a separate mission in the south-central region.

"A statement from Hamas confirmed the death of three activists from their Al-Qassam Brigades.A statement from the group said the three were on a mission near the Israeli town of Netiv Ha’asara on the northern border with the Gaza Strip. They were identified as Muhammad Ma’ruf, Ahmad Abu Al-Ma’azza and Raed Al-Masri.

"The statement also detailed the death of two other Al-Qassam activists, who were performing a 'mission of Jihad' east of Al-Qarara in the southern Gaza Strip. The two slain activists were named as Islam Jadallah and Muhammad Al-Halabi."

The "two other Al-Qassam activists" were almost certainly victims of another phenomenon rarely reported in the Western media - the Palestinian work place accident.

Also thanks to Elder of Ziyon, here's another story from a Palestinian source that routinely gets suppressed in places like the Age news and is ignored by those who are supposedly concerned with human rights and the welfare of Palestinian children:-

"According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 16:15 on Monday, 22 December, 2008, 3-year-old Myassar Mousa Wahdan, was injured in the abdomen and chest and her 5-year-old brother, Mohammed, was injured in the head by shrapnel from a locally produced rocket that was fired by members of the Palestinian resistance. The rocket fell on agricultural land near Beit Hanoun Agriculture College in the north to Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip. The two children were immediately transferred to Beit Hanoun Hospital for treatment. Medical sources described the wounds of Myassar as serious and reported that she was admitted into the intensive care unit. The wounds of Mohammed were described as moderate.

"In another incident, at approximately 17:30 on Sunday, 21 December, 2008, Hanan Sohwail, 32, was lightly wounded by shrapnel to the right hand when a locally produced rocket exploded near her house in al-Zaytoun quarter in the west of Beit Hanoun Town. She was immediately taken to Beit Hanoon Hospital for treatment

"At approximately 14:40 on Saturday, 20 December, 2008, a locally produced rocket fired by members of the Palestinian resistance fell near a group of children who were playing in a bystreet to the east of the industrial zone, west to Beit Hanoon town. Shrapnel from the rocket wounded two children. The two children were taken to Beit Hanoun Hospital for treatment and then transferred to the intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, since their wounds
were serious. The two children were identified as Sari Mana’a al-Sama’ana, 9, and Safi 'Eid al-Sama’ana, 8."

One likely reason for the suppression of this news is the fact that the harm to the children was not caused by those defending their own children from the same sinister source of violence in the region.

Yesterday, more than 80 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza into Israel causing substantial damage and physical and emotional damage to men, women and children in the communities that were attacked. I'm sure that some day soon, the Age will send its Jerusalem Bureau chief, Jason Koutsoukis, to cover the story of these civilians under siege in as much detail as he has covered the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza who unbeknown to its readers (Hamas and the Oppression of the Palestinians) are living their lives under the jackboot of Hamas.

And just to prove that the blank pages are no myth, Koutsoukis mars an otherwise passable analysis of the current situation in the region - Lack of leadership makes peace an elusive recipe by failing to make any mention whatsoever of who?

That's right Hamas!

HAMAS AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE PALESTINIANS

The truth about Hamas is something you won't read about in many Western media outlets. The Melbourne Age, which publishes the grossest apologies for the thuggish Palestinian regime that rules in Gaza and prints letters suggesting that these people are the next best thing to a boy scout troupe, won't tell its readers following story - Hamas pushes for Sharia punishments.

"The Hamas parliament in the Gaza Strip voted in favor of a law allowing courts to mete out sentences in the spirit of Islam, the London-based Arab daily Al Hayat reported Wednesday.

"According to the bill, approved in its second reading and awaiting a third reading before the approval of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as the Palestinian constitution demands, courts will be able to condemn offenders to a plethora of violent punitive measures in line with Sharia Law.

"Such punishments include whipping, severing hands, crucifixion and hanging. The bill reserves death sentences to people who negotiate with a foreign government "against Palestinian interests" and engage in any activity that can 'hurt Palestinian morale.'"

Yes, even crucifixion and at this time of year too!

But what more can you expect from a bunch of hoodlums that likes blaming it all on the Jews?

CHRISTMAS 2008 - THE HAMAS STORY

Now that Ed O'Loughlin is off the scene at the Age, we aren't reading those pithy tales about poor Palestinian Christians living under Israeli occupation any more. Still, we're not getting any closer to the truth about the rapidling diminishing Christian population in the region (it's diminishing everywhere in the Middle East but in Israel - go figure?).

Whilst it's refreshing that we're being fed less of the usual drivel blaming Israel for the plight of Christians in the Middle East, the truth is still suppressed in our own media as this Jerusalem Post analysis indicates - Analysis: Cruelty and silence in Gaza.

The silence of the Age continues with its interminable articles on the plight of the Gazans that provide little understanding as to how their economy has been shattered by the policies of Hamas which is intent upon the destruction of Israel. The Age letters section gives voice to mouthpieces of Hamas to promote an image which suggests that the viscious criminals who rule Gaza are nothing other than a group of friendly boy scouts. Like this ripper from Fay Waddington of Wooloowin, Queensland -

Imprisoned in the open air

THANK you to The Age for the article on the situation in Gaza (20/12). For too long the media has been blind or biased or both on this topic. Biased by constantly referring to Hamas as a radical Islamist group instead of a democratically elected party. Blind to the collective punishment imposed on 1.5 million predominantly innocent people because of that election result.

Biased in using the benign words "Israeli incursion" for brutal disproportionate responses to rockets fired by a small group of militants over which the overall population has little control.

Those benign incursions in March alone caused the death of more than 60 people, many of whom were children. The illegal settlements may have gone but the vice-like control by Israel over every aspect of life for those in Gaza remains. No fuel, no medicine, no fishing, no water, no hope.

Gaza is an open-air prison and Israel's actions constitute a war crime.

The letter published in the Age (which employed Ed O'Loughlin for 5½ years!) suggests there is media bias against the Palestinians, that Hamas is not a radical Islamist group and that, as a democratically elected party, it has no responsibility to rein in the so-called "small group of militants" who fire missiles at its civilains and that Israel is not entitled to defend itself against these "militants". No mention either of humanitarian aid brought in from Israel on a regular basis (except when those missiles are raining down on Israeli population centres).

This is Hamas whose aim is to destroy the Jewish state and kill its Jewish inhabitants and Waddington of Wooloowin, Queensland thinks Hamas is blameless. She's obviously been spending a lot of her time reading news reports from the Age and very little time searching for the full truth.

Thanks to Fay, the Age and the tooth fairy, we're all well educated on the subject as Christmas 2008 approaches.

IRAN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Lewis Carroll would have been very good at describing the insanity of the Iran idiocracy. Thanks to MEMRI TV here's an example of what the inmates of the asylum at the Islamic Republic have been saying lately -

IRANIAN TV: U.S. AND ZIONISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR MUMBAI ATTACKS

Sadly and tragically for the world, the Western media ignores this lunacy and there is some approval for it among fringe elements in the West (mainly from the extreme right and extreme left of the political spectrum). This world view even gains some support from Jews like the Neturei Carta meshugganehs and the likes of screwed up would be journalist Anthony Loewenstein and his few remaining friends.

O'BAMA'S MESSAGE TO THE ARABS

An insightful opinion piece from veteran Israeli journalist Amotz El Asa in the Jerusalem Post - Middle Israel: Obama's real message to the Arabs.

And so, even while Obama makes the post-crude era a tangible prospect, the Middle East's petro-crats still have no plan for its arrival; no plan, that is, other than to say that their location deep in history's dustbin was the plotting of Israel, America and their free lunches.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

This letter in today's Australian just about sums it all up. Very concise and an excellent response to a serial obfuscator:

DORA McPhee (Letters, 11/12) defends Palestinian terrorism as the “right to resist occupation”. In fact, Palestinian terrorism not only predates the occupation, it predates the re-establishment of Israel. Arab terrorism has been waged against Jews in the area continuously since the 1920s. Terrorism is not caused by the occupation; it is a deliberate strategy of sections of the Palestinian leadership, chosen in preference to negotiation.

Israel is committed to a two-state solution living in peace alongside a state of Palestine. It has been since day one of its existence.

The impediment to achieving that goal is the refusal of sections of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

Vic Alhadeff

CEO, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies

The thing that is truly laughable about Ms. McPhee is that she is involved with Palestine Lobby groups such as as Australians for Palestine and Women for Palestine which purport to favour peace but constantly seek to excuse the behaviour of terrorists who are committed to maintaining the violence, destroying Israel and killing Jews.

In any logical view, they are really the enemies of peace and of co-existence between Arabs and Jews in the region.

BLOW UP

The following quote is one of a number from Islamic leaders expressing solidarity with Gaza and aired on Al-Manar and Al-Aqsa TV, December 3 and 5, 2008 - Arab Islamist Clerics to Palestinians: Slaughter the Jews Like You Did in 1929; Blow Yourselves Up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Oh noble Gaza, raise your head high. You have made the Muslims raise their heads high. And you, people of Hebron – you are now waging a war against the Jews. You are well-versed in this. We saw how, on a day in 1929, you slaughtered the Jews in Hebron. Today, slaughter them on the land of Hebron. Kill them in Palestine.

Arise, oh people of Palestine, all the people of Palestine – arise in defense ofyour Al-Aqsa Mosque, arise in defense of Nablus and Hebron. Arise and face the [PA] Preventive Security forces. Fear them not, for they are rabbits. They are wolves, so fear them not, oh lions.

- Sheik Himam Sa'id, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

I'll bet you won't be reading about this in tomorrow morning's paper, nor of the slaughter by Arabs of the Jews of Hebron in 1929, long before the State of Israel was born, long before the Six Day War and long before any security barriers had to be erected to provide security for Jews.

GROTESQUE AND ORWELLIAN

The United Nations and those who grovel at the feet of the Muslim bloc has morphed into an agent of racism and hatred. Jeff Jacoby puts it so well in the Jewish World Review - UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian.

Make no mistake: In likening Israel to apartheid-era South Africa, the UN is engaged not in anti-racism but in anti-Semitism. In the 1930s, the world's foremost anti-Semites demanded a boycott of Jewish businesses. Today they demand a boycott of the Jewish state.


"No good German is still buying from a Jew," announced Hitler's Nazi Party in March 1933. "The boycott must be a universal one . . . and must hit Jewry where it is most vulnerable." Seventy-five years later, the president of the General Assembly urges the world to throttle Israel's 6 million Jews with "boycott, divestment, and sanctions." There is no significant difference between the two cases — or the animus underlying them.


When the UN adopted its odious "Zionism is racism resolution" in 1975, US Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan minced no words. "The United States," he declared, "does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act." Where is such a voice of moral outrage today?

PICTURE NOT WORTH A SINGLE WORD

Remember that deplorable and factually flawed piece of scribbling from Matt Golding in last week's Sunday Age?

Age reader Alan Freedman tells the Age what's wrong with Golding's drivel in its letters section:

Picture not worth 1000 words

YOUR cartoon in last week's Sunday Age equating the growth of Islamism with the entry of the "coalition of the willing" into Iraq only demonstrates that its author, Matt Golding, has been well and truly conned by the fanatical Islamists. In case he hadn't noticed, 9/11 occurred before the invasion of Iraq.

Keen observers of modern-day Islamist terrorism are well aware that the primary motive of these terrorists is their zealous desire for Islam to be the dominant religion in the world, with adherents of all other religions either removed or subjugated.

And by linking their activities to a range of international grievances, they have managed to successfully divert attention away from this overarching aim and presented themselves as saviours of the world's oppressed and dispossessed.

It's a pity Golding is not more familiar with world affairs.

ALAN FREEDMAN, East St Kilda

The Age letters section editor obviously didn't take much notice of Freedman's words because he/she saw fit to publish an even more despicable item than the cartoon itself in the form of an attempt by a member of our own idiocracy Bill Mathew to connect the problem of Mumbai with the conflict between Jews and Arabs half a continent away, despite everything that the sole surviving Islamist thug had to say about the atrrocities his group visited upon the Indian people:

Mumbai just part of a bigger problem

FROM your reports on the Mumbai terror (30/11) and from various other reports in the Australian media over the past week, there is increasing evidence now that the terrorist attack on Mumbai is a spill-over of the Middle-East wars, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US and the UK, the major players in the Middle-East wars, have a duty not only to prevent further escalation by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to eradicate the primary causes and so achieve peace.

Israel's would-be defence minister, General Moshe Ya'alon, has flagged a possible air strike on Iran's nuclear facilities (The Australian, 24/11). This is a clarion call for further expansion of the Middle-East wars; it will have unforeseen consequences. Israel's invasion and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and the inhuman treatment of its indigenous inhabitants spawned the Middle-East wars and numerous oil crises. The unquestioning support of the US for Israel has exacerbated the situation over the past four decades. If Iran is working on nuclear bombs, then the existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal is the prime reason for it. If we want a nuclear-free Middle East, the disarmament must start with Israel. If we want a peaceful Middle East, Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories and compensate the refugees. The world has paid a heavy price for Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This situation must not be allowed to continue

BILL MATHEW, Parkville

Really Mr. Mathew?

A bunch of crazed Islamicist hoodlums arrives in town to avenge some grievance they have over the conflict in Kashmir, murder more than 170 people in their attacks on a number of buildings including a Jewish centre where they torture and kill among others a rabbi and his young wife and we blame it on who?

The Jews.

Why? Because they're defending themselves from other aggressive warmongering Islamicists like Hamaz, Hizbullah and the Iranian mullahs who are working overtime to develop a nuclear weapon with which to destroy the Jewish State.

How convenient for you Mr. Mathew and how pathetic for the Melbourne Age to allow such racist tripe into its pages when so many other more logical views don't ever see the light of day there.

Kristallnacht + 70 years

Seventy years ago today William Cooper, an Aboriginal rights activist, marched from his home in Footscray, a suburb in Melbourne's west, to the German consulate in South Melbourne to deliver a formal protest against Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) when hordes of Nazi thugs burned and looted between 250 and 500 synagogues, as well as 7,000 Jewish shops and 800 homes taking thousands of Jewish men to concentration camps.

Cooper did this in a faraway land and as a member of an oppressed community that had its own problems with persecution. No-one else, not the League of Nations, not the United States or Great Britain uttered a word.

Only William Cooper and his people.

And despite all that, it would be almost thirty years before his own people would be legally recognised as citizens in their own land and almost seventy years before an official apology was given to them by the government of this country.

Cooper's was a unique act of enormous courage in a world that was indifferent to the suffering of others. He is one of the truly heroic figures of this nation.

Speech by Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem

HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS

Cartoonist Jacob Kirchen of dry bones blog highlights the hysterical blindness of apologists all over the world over the venal acts of thuggery prepetrated last week in Mumbai.

One such apologist is a Mr. Sol Salbe of Maidstone, Victoria who didn't have to be restrained to make apologies for the failure of Muslim community leaders to condemn the atrocities perpetrated in India (some of them were too busy justifying these acts to do that). Salbe penned this letter to the Age on Wednesday:

Staying silent where others have before

TIME and time again, we are told that Muslim Australians are failing to integrate into our society. But it seems that it is a case of damned if they don't and damned if they do.

Letter writers berate Australian Islamic organisations for remaining silent. But the standard practice in this country is for members of specific communities to say nothing when people in their country of origin commit atrocities.

Such atrocities have been committed in the name of nationalism, democracy and other ideologies, as well as protecting dozens of "sacred homelands". But a search of newspaper files will not find too many letters from organisations representing American-Australians, Israeli-Australians or Serbian-Australians (and the list is far from exhaustive).

I personally think that condemning the Mumbai attacks would have been wise move for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. But it should not be damned for doing something where no one else has shown it the lead.

Sol Salbe, Maidstone

Salbe has it so very wrong when excusing silence on the basis of the silence of others. Apart from his moral blindness, he gets it factually wrong as well. In the wake of the murder of the deranged madman Baruch Goldstein of 29 Arabs in Hebron in 1994, the then president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, the late Rabbi Chaim Gutnick wrote this letter which was published in the Melbourne Age:

Whatever the provocation, the murder of the Arabs praying in their mosque was a heinous and dastardly crime and it stands condemned in the eyes of those who belong to the Jewish faith.

Sadly Mr. Salbe, a reprentative of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society, has by resorting to a twisted form of explanetics, chosen to join the hysterically blind. But that seems to be the way of Jewish anti Zionists. As Yossi Klein Halevi points out in The New Republic when discussing why Israelis love Chabad:-

Contrast Chabad's embrace of the Israeli ethos with ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists--one of whom, Leibish Teitelbaum, a member of the Satmar hasidic sect, was killed in Mumbai. Teitelbaum's family demanded that his coffin not be draped in the Israeli flag, even though his body had been retrieved and flown home by the Israeli government--a reminder that Jewish anti-Zionism is less an ideology than a character flaw, a lack of capacity for gratitude. Chabad defines itself by its love for every Jew; the anti-Zionists define themselves by the Jews they despise.

What is terrorism?

One of the things that struck me about the presentation of the news of the atrocity at Mumbai was the way the po faced newsreaders at the BBC and some of their guest commentators as well as certain newspaper outlets around the world strained to identify the murderers as "miltants" when clearly they were perpetrating acts of unrestrained terror on their victims. Tom Gross asks - If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?

Australia's own village idiot John Pilger has a different view of terrorism. The real terrorists are the British as he points out in the Guardian -

STORED in the great British libraries, unclassified official files tell the truth about British policy and human rights, from officially condoned atrocities in the concentration camps of colonial Kenya to the supply of biological weapons to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. As we hear the moralising drone of ex-British military "security experts" telling us what to think about current events in Mumbai, we might recall Britain's historic role as midwife to violent extremism in modern Islam, from the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s through the overthrow of Iran's liberal democratic government to MI6's arming of the Afghan mujaheddin, the Taliban in waiting.

Thanks to the Australian we know that the apologetic Pilger, wrote on 13 September 2001 in Britain's New Statesman:

FAR from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims; that is, the victims of American fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.

A more logical voice is that of Melanie Phillips who writes in The Daily Mail:

IT is not "our" fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination. The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances - Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya - merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all "unbelievers". The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian unbelievers as possible. Where they found Muslims, they spared them. They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of the Chabad House, a pious Jewish outreach organisation with no Israeli or political agenda, underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

WHY KILL THE RABBI?

Thank you to the Australian newspaper for today publishing Killing defies pathetic explanations by David Aaronovitch.

SO, why kill the rabbi? There is a branch of apologetics - which I take crudely to be the belief that the crime is the fault of the victim - that assumes a milder form, and which I'll call explanetics. So the explanatists' view of the Mumbai massacres last week is that the cause lies in what concretely has been done to, or in the vicinity of, the young, cool-looking men with the grenades and the machineguns.

We live in a democracy so it's possible for some of those who have the mindset to produce what the writer calls "explanetics" to justify cold blooded murder (one of the victims was an anti zionist Jew which makes the exercise even more problematic) to have their say in the section immediately below the article. Someone should tell these blithering idiots that they have strayed away from the Age and should immediately go back there.

Here's an example of what an apologetic ranter can come up with if he tries really hard -

THE brutalising of Muslims in Kashmir may no longer be understood as a problem that begins and ends with India. It may be constructed as part of a broader conspiracy, spearheaded by the US. In this connection, Kashmir becomes a symptom of a more general disease that also explains the plight of Muslims in places as disparate as the Palestinian territories, Chechnya, Somalia, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines, all of which may be generalised in the one struggle: the globalisation of terrorism.

That's Walid Ali in the Age and now we know exactly why these barbarians walked into a Jewish religious facility and murdered the rabbi's wife in front of her poor husband and then finished the young rabbi off along with others including, of all people, an anti-Zionist rabbi. Thanks Walid. You're an absolute genius!

SHEER AND UTTER FILTH

From this week's Sunday Age.

The cartoonist is an unknown but the editor should have known better and had more respect for the victims than to publish this error swathed piece of sheer filth and drivel.