HOUSE DEMOLITIONS THAT DON'T COUNT IN THE AGE

A house demolition story that the Melbourne Age will completely ignore - Rocket fired from Gaza strikes house in Sderot

According to the IDF Spokesman's Office, some 450 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel since the beginning of the year.

(obviously the Age guru on the Middle East doesn't consider these civilians have any human rights at all)

Does anyone still wonder why nothing written in the Age about this region ever makes sense?

WHAT AGE READERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW

Any danger that the Age might take some time off from advocating for the Corrie family and let their readers know what sort of a scumbag represented them in an Israeli court?

Lawyer for Corrie family on PA TV in July: Nazi Germany's founding was legal while Israel's founding was theft

Lawyer Abu Hussein:

"Nazi Germany was a state based on the rule of law for a short while... the State of Israel was founded from the start on robbery and theft"

Israel is a "giant monster... we all want to step on its head, but talking is not enough"

POLLARD ON JEWISH CHILDREN UNDER ATTACK

No, this story did not appear in the Age - Israeli kids return to fortress high school. It appeared in today's Australian.

Neither did the story of last week's missile attacks on the civilians of Sderot appear in the Age.

When Ruth Pollard writes about children in the region, she writes about Palestinian children under threat but the stories come from anonymous sources. Her story on Monday was grotesque in that it overshadowed a report about hundreds massacred in Syria.

Even more grotesque is the lack of context and the failure to mention that Palestinian terrorist groups have routinely used children as human shields and to assist in their murderous operations.

Not to mention the burning question of where was the Age when four victims of the Toulouse terrorist attack were laid to rest in Israel a few months ago.

MORE ON POLLARD

STATEMENT FROM ZIONIST FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIA PRESIDENT, PHILIP CHESTER

“Ruth Pollard's story on the alleged actions of the IDF in Monday's Fairfax newspapers included a litany of allegations against unnamed Israeli soldiers, with no substantiation beyond the anonymous whistleblowers’ claims. Rather than providing sound investigative journalism, the article relied on unnamed sources, hearsay and propaganda in a flagrantly one sided piece. In a perverse irony, Pollard has inverted the reality where Palestinian leadership indoctrinate their children to hate and to take up arms against Israelis, blatantly use children and innocent civilians as human shields and in doing so presents a fable where Israel’s curtailing of violence is tantamount to abuse of children.

Breaking the Silence purports to expose the misdeeds of Israeli soldiers. The IDF operates under a comprehensive code of ethics, which all soldiers understand and there is a clear and established process for dealing with incidents where the code has been breached. As with any army and as in any "hot" conflict, there are, from time to time, situations in which individual soldiers breach the code. Where this occurs, the soldiers face the discipline of the military authorities and often extremely severe consequences of their actions. Indeed, in April of this year, an IDF Lieutenant Colonel was dismissed from his position for striking a protester with the butt of his rifle. As Defence Minister Ehud Barak said at the time: "Completing missions and maintaining IDF norms and ethics are not mutually exclusive."
Where minors perpetrate attacks by throwing stones or molotov cocktails, the IDF is obliged to protect Israel's citizens and stop them. Wherever such deterrence breaches behavioural and ethical codes, the soldier would be subject to punishments as determined by the established legal military process.

It is indeed a tragedy that Palestinian children are indoctrinated and trained in violence against Israel – a crime which must be laid squarely at the feet of their leaders.”

NEVER MIND THE EVIDENCE, FEEL THE HATRED

Ruth Pollard of the Age has followed up her account of the Haifa Court’s finding in the Rachel Corrie case - Israeli Army Cleared of activist’s death with a predictable article that barely attempts to conceal her bias on the death of the activist sent into a war zone by the International Solidarity Movement ostensibly to protect Palestinian homes from destruction but, as the evidence in the case suggested, to provide cover for Palestinian terrorists, some of who had attacked Israeli soldiers in the vicinity an hour before her death.

The family now alleges a the accidental death finding was a "cover up" - Gaza accidental death finding a cover-up: family.

The allegation made by Corrie's mother that Israel's civilian and military courts are a "well-heeled system to protect the Israeli military and the soldiers who conduct actions in that military to provide them with impunity at the cost of all the civilians who are impacted by what they do," is an out and out lie that was allowed to go unchallenged by the reporter.

However, the story of Bassam Aramin's search for justice tells us that Israel's judicial system can and does right wrongs where they are really committed. Pollard should have known better.

Moreover, the expectation that Israel must always find in favour of people sent into such situations to hinder troops sent to protect its own civilians as expressed in the Age articles of this week reek of bigotry and hatred.

If there has been a cover up, it’s been in the way the Age has presented this story and many others involved in this tragic conflict.

The most compelling piece of evidence in the case was the fact that the defence’s own expert witness gave evidence that clearly exonerated the bulldozer driver of wrongdoing. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on the case said, "an expert who testified on behalf of the Corrie family also noted that the driver could not and did not see Ms.Corrie due to the nature of the vehicle he was operating."

This and many aspects of the evidence in the case which went against the Corries' vendetta against Israel as well as coverage of the nefarious activities and lies of ISM have been ignored or downplayed in the Age reports leaving a mostly one-sided and sympathetic coverage of Corrie and her activist fellow travellers.

It is inconceivable that any report on a trial conducted in this or any other country would be so selectively covered.

THE VERDICT

The verdict in the Rachel Corrie case is out and the ruling is that Corrie was solely responsible for her own death.

From the official summary of the court’s verdict:

"During the relevant period of time, the 'Philadelphi Corridor' was the site of daily warfare, i.e. daily gunfire by snipers, missile fire and IED explosions directed at the IDF forces. During this period, unceasing efforts were made to kidnap IDF soldiers. Only soldiers who were in combat units fought in the region."

"According to the notes made in the IDF records, from September 2000 to the date of the incident that is the focus of this lawsuit (March 16, 2003), nearly 6,000 grenades had been thrown at IDF forces in the Corridor; there had been approximately 1,400 incidents of gunfire; and there were more than 40 occurrences of mortar fire. These aforementioned events led to the injury and death of many Israelis."

"The United States government issued a travel warning on March 16, 2003 to warn American citizens against visiting the Gaza Strip area or the West Bank."

"During the period pertinent to this case, there was a military directive in force declaring the 'Philadelphi Corridor' a 'closed military area' and forbidding the entry of civilians."

In the aftermath of the verdict, Israel spokesperson Mark Regev said that the bulldozers were not razing Palestinian homes but clearing terrain so it could not harbour snipers. He also vigorously defended the independence of the Israeli courts and pointed out that Rachel had taken a risk in entering what was effectively a war zone.

This is the background to the death of Rachel Corrie that I fully anticipate will be lost in the fog of the war being fought against the Jewish State by elements in the so-called media.

STORIES AND PICTURES THAT REMAIN OUT OF SIGHT

The Age brought out its Israel bashing cannons for the second day running today with a couple of one sided articles on the case brought against the Israel Defence Forces over the death of International Solidarity Movement's Rachel Corrie - The mother who never gave up and another even more sugary apologia from Ruth Pollard for this sad soul who tried to kid the world she was in the region for the purpose of achieving peace.

True to form, there was no other side to this story and no mention of the ISM's history of backing terrorists including the suicide bombers who blew up a bar in Tel Aviv - Mike's Place on April 30, 2003 - murdering and maiming some true innocents. Three died and about fifty were wounded. None of them had families who would dream of taking their case against the terrorist group that claimed responsibility in a court in Gaza or the West Bank.

You see, that's what the Age has been highlighting even with its factually challenged reports - that in Israel, the rule of law exists and Breaking the Silence and the Corrie family are able to make their cases in the arena of public opinion and inside the legal system. And unlike in the Age, within that system, the contrary view also gets a run.

In a free and open society, we can even talk about the continued exploitation of Rachel Corrie.

Some of the ISM’s volunteers are undoubtedly naïve young people who arrive in the Middle East with little understanding either of the conflict itself or the manner in which they are cynically exploited by the organisation’s extremist leaders. The ISM, however, is rarely – if ever – held to account by the families (or countries) of those injured or killed as a result of its having encouraged and facilitated their unnecessary entry into a conflict zone and their collaboration – knowingly or not – with proscribed terrorist organisations, even despite statements from ISM leaders such as this one concerning Rachel Corrie’s death:

“It’s possible they [the protesters] were not as disciplined as we would have liked,” Thom Saffold, a founder and organizer of the International Solidarity Movement, said in a telephone interview from the group’s base in Ann Arbor, Mich. “But we’re like a peace army. Generals send young men and women off to operations, and some die.”

And we can even see different and less charming pictures of Corrie and her family such as those posted above and below. At least we can thank the Age for drawing the distinction between the two even if it wasn't forthcoming enough to tell its readers the full story of ISM and Corrie.

POLLARD'S PROPAGANDA

Ruth Pollard's supposed expose on Israeli soldiers' treatment of Palestinian children might have some credibility, particularly if the testimonies weren't anonymous - Ruth Pollard reports from Ramallah in the West Bank.

It would have even more credibility if she ever deigned to report on how Hamas and the Palestine Authority treats its own people and if she ever once reported on the racism, threats to commit genocide against the Jews and the praise heaped on terrorist murderers from the Palestine Authority.

As usual, Pollard's blinkered report evades any of the criticism of the activist group Breaking the Silence such as this piece from Camera dating back to 2009. In it, reference is made to an article which attempts to bolster allegations that Israel was guilty of war crimes by using Palestinian human shields:-

Opening with a first person account of a Palestinian who alleges he was used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers, Wood claims that “this same incident was described by one of the Israeli soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence.” He suggests that because similar allegations were made by someone purporting to be an Israeli soldier who served there (although this is not independently verifiable) , they must be true. He explains:

Until now, the Israeli army always had a ready answer to allegations that war crimes were committed during its offensive in Gaza. Such claims were, they said, Palestinian propaganda. Now, though, the accusations of abuse are being made by Israeli soldiers.

The problem is, however, that this testimony was not based on the soldier's first hand experience, but on what was told to him by others. And, in fact, this story has been refuted by the officer of the Golani Brigade who said that a probe of that brigade's conduct during the war found that no such incidents had occurred.

At the point when we see some context to Pollard's stories and they might actually take on the appearance of something other than propaganda.

THE WORST ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

Now, who do we think would be behind the worst anti-Semitic attack in Australian history?

Letter of the week

A couple of days ago in the Canberra Times

Palestinians at fault

Robert Newton (''Moving towards a just solution'', August 21, p11), stretches credulity by insisting that the Palestinian leadership cannot be expected to negotiate while building occurs within long-established settlements likely to be incorporated into Israel should a peace treaty ever be signed. Unfortunately, settlements are a handy smoke screen, masking Palestinian unwillingness to renew negotiations and to accept the painful compromises needed to end the conflict.

Indeed, settlements cover less than 2 per cent of the West Bank and that amount is not growing under Israeli policies in place for almost a decade.

Moreover, between 1993 and 2009 the Palestinians never insisted on a settlements building freeze as a precondition to negotiation. In 2008 Israel offered most of east Jerusalem, the equivalent of 100 per cent of the West Bank, and a resolution to the refugee issue, seemingly everything demanded of Israel. The Palestinian leadership never even bothered to respond, let alone offer its own plan.

Bill Arnold, Chifley

OY VEY!

Response of the Week

The Australian Financial Review routinely gives the Palestinian Lobby Group Australians for Palestine automatic right of reply to anything it publishes that is remotely related to Israel.

As many have noted, this lobby group does nothing for Palestinians and is more about vilification of Israel and Israeli Jews (often with the support Austalia's own anti-Zionist hate lobby).

Yesterday AFP spokeperson had a particularly vile piece published in the AFR. Here's a brief but to the point response to his hate filled rant.

Moammar Mashni (Letters, August 22) is passionate about alleged Israeli policy. What he fails to concede is that from inception Israel has been faced with an existential threat that beggars comparison. Terrorist attacks, the intifada and a persistent rejection of their rights to exist have all shaped everyday Israelis’ responses to violence, racial hatred and geopolitical enmity. The Druze, Bedouin and Christian Arab members that fight alongside their Jewish fellow citizens know enough of the source of aggression in the region.

Noel Hadjimichael Roseville NSW

FATAH CELEBRATES MURDERERS

This news from Paelstine Media Watch will never see the light of day in the Age - Fatah football tournament named after three terrorists

Fatah held a football tournament for youth named after three terrorists who murdered Rabbi Meir Chai, a 45 year-old father of 7. The terrorists killed the Rabbi in a drive by shooting in 2009. All three terrorists were killed in a shootout with Israeli soldiers two days after the murder.

This is the party of the PA's Mahmoud Abbas, allegedly Israel's "peace partner".

FACEBOOK PRAISE

A post on Aly Raisman's Facebook page...

Dear Aly,

I want to tell you about how you became the hero of a gym full of Israeli soldiers.
The same Israeli soldiers who have to deal with Iran's nuclear threat to the Jewish state. The same ones who serve two-to-three years of their lives, because we have to; because there's no one else that would do it besides us, because our neighborhood sucks, and when the leadership next door in Syria massacres their own people, there's no way we would let them lay hands on our kids, as foreign dictators have done for thousands of years.

You picked a song for your floor routine in the Olympics that every Jewish kid knows, whether their families came from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, the Asian steppes of Azerbaijan, the mountains of Morocco or the Kibbutzim of northern Israel. It's that song that drew almost everyone at the Israeli army base gym to the TV as soon as the report about you came on the news this morning. After showing your floor exercise to Hava Nagila, the announcer told about your gold medal with unmasked pride, and of your decision to dedicate it to the Israeli athletes who were killed in the Munich Olympics in 1972.

There were some tough people at that gym, Aly. Men and Women, Battalion Commanders from Intelligence, Captains from the navy, Lieutenants from the Armored Corps and more. You probably understand that words like 'bravery' and 'heroism' carry a lot of weight coming from them, as does a standing ovation (even from the people doing ab exercises.) There was nothing apologetic about what you did. For so long we've had to apologize for who we are: for how we dress, for our beliefs, for the way we look. It seems like the International Olympic Committee wanted to keep that tradition. Quiet, Jews. Keep your tragedy on the sidelines. Don't disturb our party.

They didn't count on an 18 year-old girl in a leotard.

There wasn’t one person at the gym who didn’t know what it was like to give back to our people, not one who didn’t know what happened to the good people who died in 1972, not one who didn’t feel personally insulted by their complete neglect in the London Olympics, the 40 year anniversary of their deaths, and not one who didn’t connect with your graceful tribute in their honor.

Thank you for standing up against an injustice that was done to our
people. As I was walking back to my machine at the gym, I caught one of the officers give a long salute to your image on television. I think that says it all.

Sincerely,

Dan Yagudin
Officer, Israeli Defense Force

Windows 2012

Brilliant cartoon from Yaakov Kirschen's drybonesblog

Al Quds Day

Iran and Hezbollah issue warnings to Israel

"Hezbollah chief Nasrallah says will retaliate to any Israeli aggression, while Iranian President calls state a 'tumour'."

Ahmedinijad has on at least six occasions threatened to destroy Israel.

Iranian general: Israel must be destroyed

We're all waiting for some coverage from our local broadsheet on these bellicose statements.

OFF THE ROOF

Uproar as footage shows Syrian rebel atrocities

Horrific videos purportedly showing Syrian rebels throwing the bodies of postal workers off a roof and a man's throat being savagely cut triggered outrage among rights activists on Monday.

Sounds a lot like Hamas 2007 so I'm surprised it made the ABC

Some mother do have them

Anger as activists answer Iran call

In short - these people are scum.

BBC

Interesting story for Harry's Place - Everything Silverstein and the BBC Think is Gold Is S**t

LETTER OF THE WEEK AND AN UNBELIEVABLE RESPONSE

First, the letter of the week from yesterday's Australian

Wrong on Israel

JOHN Lyons's article on historian Tom Segev ("Israeli widows reveal the reality of land built on myths", 11-12/8) made the absurd claim that before the "new" historians such as Segev, Israeli "children were taught that when Israel was established in 1948 it had been empty - it was a land without people for a people without land".

This is not true. There has certainly been criticism of past Israeli curriculums for having paid insufficient attention to the 1948 Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian plight generally, but students were never taught that the land was completely empty.

Indeed, the line about "a land without people for a people without land" has nothing to do with the 1948 refugees. It is the core of a twisted criticism of the whole Zionist movement from 1895 onward by Edward Said and his followers.

The misrepresentation is two-fold. First, while there was a slogan used by a small part of the Zionist movement for a few years after 1900 that spoke of "a land without a people for a people without a land", this is materially different from "a land without people". The early Zionists were aware that Palestine had Arab inhabitants but noted they were not considered a separate nationality or people at that time. But for those dedicated to Israel's destruction, such as Said, it is more convenient to dishonestly rewrite the slogan to pretend that the "racist" Zionists declared Palestinians were not people.

Moreover, to characterise Zionist and Israeli history on the basis of this single slogan, employed by a few Zionists for only a few years more than 100 years ago, is to indulge in the crudest form of propaganda.

Tzvi Fleischer, Australia-Israel Review, South Melbourne, Vic

Followed by a nasty piece of hearsay upon hearsay and more hearsay which does nothing other for me than to prove Tzvi Fleischer's proposition that it is more convenient for some to dishonestly rewrite history and "to pretend that the "racist" Zionists declared Palestinians were not people."

Terra Nullius myth
TZVI Fleischer claims history is being dishonestly misrepresented on the basis of a "single slogan" used by "a few Zionists for only a few years more than 100 years ago" (Letters, 14/8).

In 1935, my husband (then a teenager, now deceased) spent six months in a training camp for German Jews being prepared to work on kibbutzim in Palestine. He was told the land of Palestine was empty except for a few nomadic Arabs down in the desert. Similar "indoctrination" (my husband's word for the training) must have been practised on Australian Jewish youth in that period, as I've heard older Australians born and educated here reciting similar untruths. Funnily enough, another slogan I've heard recalled implicitly admits the land was already occupied and farmed: "Yard by yard, goat by goat."

Robyn Walton, Toorak, Vic

THE OPPOSITE OF BDS

AFTER THE OLYMPICS ... THE WORLD'S FASTEST MEN

PALESTINIANS ACKNOWLEDGE BLOCKADE LIE

Buoyed by growing tensions between Hamas and Cairo in wake of last week’s terrorist attack in Sinai, the Palestinian Authority on Saturday called on the Egyptians to tighten the blockade on Gaza by destroying all tunnels under their border with the Strip.

The PA said the tunnels did not contribute to the economy in the Gaza Strip and were being used only by a small number of people for personal gain.

Abbas urges Egypt to destroy underground tunnels

We should be expecting an apology to be published in most Western newspapers tomorrow who regurgitated the lies of the flotillistas who sailed against the Israel and defamed it by making false claims about the Israeli blockade.

But I'm not holding my breath.

IRWIN COTLER ON THE MUNICH ELEVEN

IRWIN COTLER ON THE MUNICH ELEVEN

CHRISTIANS

From Joseph W in Harry's Place

In Iran, a 6-year prison sentence is upheld for a Christian accused of “propaganda against the Islamic Regime by helping spread Christianity through the country”.

A riot leaves a village in Egypt with no Christians remaining.

19 Christian worshippers are massacred in Nigeria.

EAT YOUR HEART OUT ROGGE

And yes ... she not only brought home the gold but she paid tribute to the murdered Israelis of Munich 1972. Kol Hakavod.

Gold medal Jewish gymnast Aly Raisman pays tribute to Munich 11

GENOCIDAL SUDAN GETS UNHRC GIG! (TRUE)

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch condemned the candidacy of Omar Al-Bashir’s Sudanese regime, despite the International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest on charges of genocide, for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, as just now confirmed by a United Nations website

This is so sick ...

It’s Official: Genocidal Sudan Running Uncontested for U.N. Human Rights Council Seat

Olympic Silence: The Anti-Semitic Past of the IOC

An interesting article in the Gatestone Institute - Olympic Silence: The Anti-Semitic Past of the IOC.

The official OIC biography does not make a reference to Count Baillet-Latour as an organizer of the Nazi games. The OIC honors him as one of the great figures of the Olympic Movement. In 1936, after the games, the Count became an honorary member of "Freude und Arbeit," the Nazi sports organization of propaganda minister Goebbels. The Count's wife congratulated Hitler when he annexed the Sudetenland, and in 1940, when Germany invaded her home country, thanked him "for bringing Nazi ideology to Belgium".

DON'T STOP NOW

Not so great news from Barry Rubin of the Rubin Report but we live in the 21st Century and a fighting chance means just that and more particularly if you're determined.

The Silent Tattoo

The picture from the blog of author, novelist, broadcaster, cultural commentator Norman Lebrecht says it all -  French swimmer stuns Olympic Games with a silent tattoo

Fabien Gilot, a member of the gold medal-winning 4 x 100 team raised his arm in triumph to reveal a tattoo in Hebrew reading: אני כלום בלעדיהם - in English: I am nothing without them.

Life or Death in the Gaza Strip

LETTER OF THE WEEK

From today's Australian

Frontline children

INTERNATIONAL law requires different legal systems for foreigners on territory under occupation as compared to a country's own citizens.

To apply the same law would be to legally annex the foreign territory and population. Israel has not done that in Palestine ("Carr raises concerns over plight of Palestinian children in Israeli jails", 28-29/7).

The violence perpetrated by Palestinian juveniles is politically motivated by a narrative of heroic hatred and local support. Under the Geneva conventions, youths can be detained for security reasons, and those over 14 can be prosecuted.

While the Israeli military justice system needs improvement, what is really needed is peace education. Children should not be manipulated on to the front lines of battle.

Greg Rose, Faculty of Law, Wollongong University, NSW

SYRIA'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS

“Can you imagine Hezbollah - the people who are conducting, with Iran, all these terror attacks around the world - can you imagine that they would have chemical weapons? It would be like al-Qaida having chemical weapons. It is something that is not acceptable to us.” Benjamin Netanyahu

Jacob Kerschen's cartoon gets it right - Dry Bones Blog

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PERSON?

A letter to the Oz -

All blood is sacred

NO, Rachel Birati (Letters, 31/7) Israeli blood is not cheap. It is a sacred commodity - as is the blood of every other person.

Why not a minute's silence for the victims of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan? Or for Jesse Owens and his bravery in Berlin? Or Jim Thorpe - robbed not so much for his profession but his heritage.

Perhaps the call for a moment of remembrance would receive greater support if one group didn't consistently try to claim a monopoly on suffering.

Stephen Morgan, Runcorn, Qld

Firstly, none of the others mentioned by Stephen Morgan were murdered whilst under the auspices of the Olympic Movement.

Secondly, nobody made a request to commemorate these people at the Olympics.

Thirdly, who has ever tried to claim a monopoly on suffering?

Because the answer to the third point is clearly, not the Jews or Israelis, I think that what is wrong with Morgan is that he holds a deep seated grudge against the Jewish people.

And we know what that is commonly called.