BBC - OUR MIDLE EAST EDITOR IS GUILTY

We've known for some time that Jeremy Bowen of the BBC is guilty of bias when it comes to the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours and now, even the BBC has pronounced him guilty.

According to Honest Reporting the "BBC Trust, which oversees complaints to the British state broadcaster, has ruled that Bowen's coverage of Israel in an article on the BBC's Web site and a radio broadcast was partially inaccurate and that aspects of the Internet article lacked impartiality."

In a piece Bowen wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline "Six days that changed the Middle East," about the Six Day War, which was criticized at the time by HonestReporting UK, Bowen referred to "Zionism's innate instinct to push out the frontier". He also wrote that Israel showed a "defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own" and that its generals felt that they were dealing with "unfinished business", left over from the 1948 War of Independence. These references were deemed inaccurate or lacking impartiality by the BBC Trust:

"Readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war," it said. "It was not necessary for equal space to be given to the other arguments, but ... the existence of alternative theses should have been more clearly signposted."

The second finding related to a broadcast Bowen delivered on From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 in January 2008, in which Bowen said the US government considered the Israeli town of Har Homa on the outskirts of Jerusalem as illegal.

The committee found the assertion was inadequately sourced: "The Middle East Editor had stated his professional view without qualification or explanation, and that the lack of precision in his language had rendered the statement inaccurate." It ruled the report had partially breached accuracy guidelines.

Bowen's position as BBC Middle East Editor is now completely untenable but is the BBC going to do anything about it?

Heavens no. Not even a rap over the knuckles.

That's a pity because if there were any ethics left in journalism Bowen would be looking for a new line of work. And based on the photograph of the man (see above), he would be eminently suited for a job as a used car salesperson.

HAMAS COMES OUT OF HIDING BUT ITS APOLOGIST DOESN'T ...

Fairfax journalist and recent author of a fluffy book on Hamas, Paul McGeogh had an OP Ed published in the New York Times this week on Hamas leader in exile Khalid Mishal - HAMAS COMES OUT OF HIDING. McGeogh and Mishal together make clear that Hamas has not changed its attitude towards the destruction of Israel or its own genocidal charter:

Pressed on policy changes that Hamas might make as a gesture to any new order, Mr. Mishal argued that the organization has already shifted on several key points: “Hamas has already changed — we accepted the national accords for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, and we took part in the 2006 Palestinian elections.”

On the crucial question of rewriting the Hamas charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, he was unbending: “Not a chance.” Khalid Mishal is not Yasir Arafat — he is not looking for a Nobel Peace Prize. Among the Hamas articles of faith is a belief that in renouncing violence and in recognizing Israel’s right to exist in 1993, Mr. Arafat sinned against his people.

McGeogh remains ever the apologist for this fascistic organisation and makes the extraordinary claim as a footnote to Mishal's very clear and concise comments:

(Nonetheless, others to whom he speaks have told me that Mr. Mishal has said that “when the time comes,” Hamas will make some of the moves demanded of it by the West.)

This is utter rubbish as Professor Shlomo Avineri pointed out in a letter to the editor of the NYT:

Op-Ed Contributor: Hamas Comes Out of Hiding (April 13, 2009)

In “Hamas Comes Out of Hiding” (Op-Ed, April 13), Paul McGeough writes that when he asked Khalid Mishal, the Hamas leader, if his organization would consider changing its charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction, Mr. Mishal answered, “Not a chance.”

What Mr. McGeough did not mention is that Hamas views all Jews, not just Israel or Zionism, as its enemies.

Its charter goes to some length to state that the Jews (together with the Masons) were responsible for the French and the Communist revolutions; that they instigated World War I to destroy the Ottoman caliphate; that they instigated World War II to make money out of commerce in war materials; that they control world finance and the media; and that they have established numerous secret organizations to achieve world domination.

Some of this is straight out of the anti-Semitic literature of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and some of it — especially the references to the two world wars — is the original contribution of Hamas ideologues.

No Western democracy would tolerate an organization with such views. These are the issues that have to be raised with Hamas leaders by anyone who cares for peace in the Middle East.

Shlomo Avineri
Jerusalem, April 13, 2009

CLOCKWORK GREEN

Some shocking vision of thugs at work in France:



Peaceful demonstrations are a thing of the past when it comes to supporting the Palestinian terror machine in its war against the Jews but what can one expect from hoodlums out to assist those who send rockets into kindergartens?

HALPER: THE LAST WORD

I commented recently on the storm in a teacup created by anti Israel war activist Jeff Halper whose visit was turned into a circus because his helpers followed the now well known formula of deliberately seeking publicity by daring Jewish community interests to shun their activities and then crying "foul".

How ironical of the Fairfax media to highlight Halper and friend's whining about his voice allegedly being stilled. This is the media outlet that somehow manages to refrain from reporting on the atrocities committed on a regular basis by Palestinian terror - like the axe murder of children, the use of mosques to store bombs, the firing of missiles into Israeli kindergartens and this. That sort of censorship seems to be permitted at Fairfax while, at the same time, it is a crime for a community to ignore the warped opinions of a man who is accused of lying to push his own political agenda.

I've come across an item by Bren Carlill on ABC Unleashed - From the ridiculous to the outrageous - which sums things up nicely:

First, a mainstream, pro-Israel Jewish organisation will go through statements previously made by the critic, and then, if they find faults, attack those arguments.

The Israel critic's defenders then jump up and down, claiming the Jewish community is attempting to stifle criticism of Israel. This very course of action has occurred during Halper's visit, played out on the pages of the Australian Jewish News, the Sydney Morning Herald and various angry blogs.

The claims of stifling criticism of Israel are both predictable and unfounded. Indeed, by attacking the arguments of Israel's critics, in this case Halper, the mainstream Jewish community is engaging in discussion, not stifling it. (And by not answering the Jewish community's criticisms, instead simply claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy against free speech, the Israel critic's defenders show the weakness of their central argument...)

To top it off, most of this is lost to the wider Australian community. All they see is a variant of Monty Python's Life of Brian - where members of the Judean People's Front have it out with the People's Front of Judea.

HEY MR. TALIBAN SING A SONG FOR ME

Today's Age reports on the death of a leading female Afghan politician who was shot dead after leaving a provincial council meeting in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan - TALIBAN MURDER WOMEN'S CHAMPION.

"The Taliban claimed responsibility," says Jon Boone of the Guardian reporting from Kabul.

The story is a tragic reminder of the struggle for women's rights not only in Afghanistan but in many parts of the world, particularly where Sharia Law applies.

Places such as Gaza where Hamas introduced Sharia Law in December, 2008 and where women are treated not dissimilarly to those under the Taliban. The only difference is that when a woman is harmed in Gaza for seeking to uphold her rights, it's unlikely that you'll find a report as damning as Boone's article is in the Age or any mention of it at all.

IN THE DARK?

The tiresome saga of Jeff Halper's travails during his visit to Australia continues with the Sydney Morning Herald's article by the man himself - Diaspora Jewry needs to let go of idealised Israel on Friday. The article was perfectly timed to co-incide with the Jewish Festival of Passover which ensured that the majority of the letters published the following day (all from known Israel baiting letter writers) would be supportive of Halper's cause.

Halper had sufficient publicity and ample opportunity to put forward his case during his sojourn here in March but he continues to play the victim and wails about the the cancellation of a scheduled appearance before a handful of members of one Sydney synagogue and the fact that the Australian Jewish News chose not to advertise an appearance by the veteran Israel basher who has been accused of being less than forthright in his hateful disclosures about the Jewish State.

Halper did manage to get a letter published in the AJN in which he moaned about his poor treatment but failed to state that the main case he is pushing is against the two state solution and therefore anti peace. Nor did he explain why his visit was sponsored by Hamas leaning organisations such as Australians for Palestine and the Loewenstein camp which wants to see an end to Israel as a Jewish State and its replacement with the one state solution - i.e. a prescription for genocide.

The most intriguing part of Halper's little diatribe against the Jewish community was this:

Why was I invited to speak in every university in eastern Australia, yet at Monash University I was forced to hold a secret meeting with Jewish faculty in a darkened room far from the halls of intellectual discourse?

Well, one obvious answer would be that, like the Gaza farce of a year ago when Hamas feigned power shortages and held meetings during broad daylight but with curtains drawn, they could have easily opened the blinds.

Or perhaps those members of Jewish faculty wanted to keep their donors in the dark as to their own act of appeasement with an enemy of the Jewish State?

GLORIFYING TRAITORS AND MURDERERS

The Age Insight section demonstrated yesterday exactly why this ailing newspaper is in trouble.

Rather than bring its readers some contemporary news on the Arab/Israel conflict, its editors have dredged up the tired and aged story about convicted Israeli traitor Mordechai Vanunu who, during the mid-1980s, revealed classified national secrets about his country's nuclear reactor at Dimona - A DEFIANT SPIRIT.

Naturally, in the true spirit of Faifax, Vanunu is painted as a hero in spite of the fact that his revelations resulted in the deaths of three and injuries to eight fellow workers ambushed and murdered in a PLO attack while travelling to work in 1988.

I guess the fact that Vanunu was responsible for the deaths of Israeli workers makes him a hero to those who control the content of the news stories from this region.

TIME FOR COMPROMISE?

Marty Peretz of THE NEW REPUBLIC blogs about US President Obama's comments on the necessity for "compromise" in order to put an end to the deadlock between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

When the tiresome peace processors speak of negotiations they almost always mean concessions by Israel: territorial concessions, concessions on Jerusalem, demographic concessions, symbolic concessions, economic concessions, security concessions, historic concessions, moral concessions, concessions to Palestinian pride and to Palestinian shame. There is no concession that Israel has not tried, in one way or another, to meet. And there are forces in Israel which think that too much has already been forfeited. Of course, Palestinian expectations rise with every concession from Israel.

And on compromise on the part of the Palestinians?

The question then is: what must the Palestinians give up to secure tangible possibilities for statehood?

Yes, I know that there is much that they must accomplish among their to really become a nation and have a history as a people. But, whether we gloat or weep about these deficiencies, that's not our business. There are plenty of states that rule over populations that are neither a nation nor a people. I suspect that the Palestinians won't be the last of this unfortunate formula.

But since President Obama has put the idea of reciprocity on the table he is morally obliged to begin to make a list. And so is George Mitchell and Tony Blair and the busily intrusive European Union. The idea that Israel will give up a series of strategic advantages for recognition of its flag is nonsense.

PASSOVER AND THE PARK HOTEL MASSACRE

Passover 2002

Thirty people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously - in a suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, in the midst of the Passover holiday seder with 250 guests. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

We remember.

MISLABELLING A SIGN OF HATRED

The Australian's Greg Sheridan makes a very forceful point in today's Australian - ISRAELI LEADERS MISLABELLED BY FOES.

OVER the next year or two, probably for as long as it stays in office, there will be a sustained effort to demonise the Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The speech last week by Netanyahu's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in which he explicitly supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute but was reported as if he had said the opposite, is a case in point.

Many in the international press who have a deep seated hatred of Israel automatically resort to applying tags such as "extremist", right winger" and "hard line" when describing Israeli governments of the colour of that currently in power but then ignore the fascism and racism of democratically elected Hamas and the two faced corruption of Fatah which controls the Palestine Authority. These Palestinian parties are in fact far to the right of Liebermam's party (a member of the new Israeli governing coalition) or the Fairfax Press.

In this regard, the reporting in the Melbourne Age has been nothing short of appalling as it continues its campaign of vilifying Israel at almost every opportunity while blanking out any Palestinian sin. If there was any doubt that a Palestinian lobby operates within that newspaper to sow hatred of Israel and Jews then one needs to look no further than its disgraceful censorship of the news about the draconian behaviour of the Palestine Authority and its treatment of the conductor who arranged for her orchestra made up of Palestinian children to play music for Holocaust survivors in Israel.

As Y-Net News Op Ed contributors Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr. Harold Brackman so eloquently point out in THE REAL ROADBLOCKS TO PEACE:

As the international community draws up its list of demands for the Right-leaning Netanyahu government to prove "it’s serious about making peace," they should also give this one to PA President Abbas — "re-instate the Strings of Peace Orchestra." For the question of the fate of this ensemble will reveal more about the future of the Middle East than any speech or position paper.

...

Music’s potential as a universal healer is being played out, not only by Palestinian youngsters silenced in Jenin. Native American musician-composer Bill Miller is currently performing his Grammy Award-winning composition, “The Last Stand,” on tour with Israel’s Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra. The best first - and “last stand” - for true peace resides not in any grandiose road map or political photo-ops, but with people who truly seek coexistence and mutual respect. It is those still small voices that demand our protection and nurturing.

And it is those still small voices that the Age has, to its everlasting shame, completely ignored in its camaign of bloodlust against the Jewish State.

A PASSOVER STORY

This has been passed on to me.

Please enjoy!

My Seder With Brando by Louie Kemp

You might remember him as Don Vito Corleone, Stanley Kowalski or the eerie Col. Walter E. Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now,” but I remember Marlon Brando as a mensch and a personal friend of the Jewish people when they needed it most.

I got to know Marlon about 30 years ago through a mutual friend. His son, Christian, came to work for me in fisheries I owned in Alaska and Minnesota. Marlon impressed me as a dedicated parent. He would often call me up to check up on his boy with all the tenacity and loving concern of a Jewish mother: Was he eating enough? Did he get to work on time? Was he hanging out with the right people?

Christian was a great kid. He worked hard, had a good attitude and earned the respect of all his co-workers.

In the mid-1970s, when I would visit Los Angeles from my home in Minnesota, Marlon and I would get together. I was starting to become increasingly involved in my religion and he would tell me with great pride and satisfaction about his support for Israel even before it became a state. Marlon explained that in 1946, two years before Israel achieved statehood, he desperately believed that the survivors of the Holocaust deserved to have their own land where they could live free from oppression and the anti-Semitic tyranny of the outside world.

True to form, Marlon put his money where his mouth was and donated all of his proceeds from the play, “A Flag Is Born,” to the Irgun, a Zionist political group dedicated to rescuing European Jewry and the establishment of Israel as an independent sovereign nation. He continued his donations and charitable work over the entire two-year run of the play as it went from Broadway to touring destinations around the United States.

“A people that have fought so hard to survive need and deserve their own land,” he told me. “ I did all that I could and actively supported Israel’s statehood anyway I was able.”

Marlon also told me with great emotion that his success in theater and movies was largely due to the Jewish people in New York who befriended and taught him. He warmly mentioned Stella Adler, the legendary acting coach who both taught Marlon his craft and housed him with her family while he was getting on his feet as an actor. He was also especially proud of the fact that he could converse in Yiddish, having learned it while living with her family.

One of my visits to Los Angeles coincided with Passover. I was not yet Orthodox and made plans to attend a seder at a local synagogue with my sister. Marlon called me that very day and invited me out to dinner. I graciously declined, explaining that it was Passover and I was going to a seder. Marlon became audibly excited over the phone and said, “Passover — I’ve always wanted to attend a seder. Can I come with?” He had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I told him it could be arranged and called the synagogue adding one more to our list.

A short time later, Marlon called me back and asked if he could bring a friend. I said, yes, by all means, never thinking to ask his friend’s name. I called the shul again. They were a little less patient this time and begrudgingly told me that they could squeeze one more person in, but this was absolutely the last one as they were now officially sold out.

Still later that day, I received a phone call from a childhood friend of mine who had become a well-known singer/songwriter. Being Jewish himself, and hearing I was going to a seder, he asked if he and his wife could go along. The shul was unhappy to receive my most recent request, but somehow I softened the heart of the receptionist and she agreed to let my people go — to the seder.

I will never forget the sight of our table in the synagogue, Marlon Brando was to my left and sitting next to him was his guest. This was during the height of Marlon’s involvement with Native American causes and he had brought with him noted Indian activist Dennis Banks of Wounded Knee fame. Banks was dressed in full Indian regalia: buckskin tassles on his clothes and long braids hanging down from a headband, which sported a feather. My childhood friend Bob Dylan sat to my right joined by his wife, my sister Sharon and other friends.

At first the seder progressed normally without anyone in the temple noticing anything out of the ordinary. After about 45 minutes, the rabbi figured out that ours was not your average seder table. “Mr. Brando, would you please do us the honor of reading the next passage from the haggadah,” he said. Marlon said, “It would be my pleasure.”

He smiled broadly, stood up and delivered the passage from the haggadah as if he were reading Shakespeare on Broadway. Mouths fell open and eyes focused on the speaker with an intensity any rabbi would covet. When he was done I think people actually paused, wondering if they should applaud.

Somewhat later the rabbi approached another member of our table.

“Mr. Dylan, would you do us the honor of singing us a song?” The rabbi pulled out an acoustic guitar. I thought he would politely decline. Much to my surprise Bob said yes and performed an impromptu rendition of “Blowin’ in the Wind” to the stunned shul of about 300 seder guests. The incongruity of a seder, with Marlon Brando reading the haggadah followed by a Bob Dylan serenade, would have made for a good Fellini movie. Needless to say, everyone was both shocked and thrilled by this unusual Hollywood-style Passover miracle. The entire shul came by to shake both Marlon and Bob’s hands and they actually paused and spent time with everyone.

Just a couple of years ago, Marlon called me up in Minnesota, out of the blue. We had kept in touch through the trials and tribulations he was going through with his family. “Louie Kemp,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about you. Twenty years ago you took me to a seder. I want you to know that I still think about it to this very day. In fact, I was thinking about it today and that’s why I called you.”

He continued to thank me and tell me of the special spiritual impact it had on him and how much he identified with a people freeing themselves from bondage and uniting to celebrate and remember that freedom.

He told me he was sending his three youngest children to a Jewish day school in Los Angeles. When I asked him why, he said, “Louie, don’t you know that the Jewish schools are the best?” I could almost hear him smiling over the phone.

STRANGE WORLD, SICK PEOPLE - Part Two

STRANGE WORLD, SICK PEOPLE - Part One

In case anyone harbours any illusions about democratically elected Hamas and whether it has any peaceful intentions, here's an article written by a Palestinian journalist and Hamas mouthpiece Khalid Amayreh - Hamas: We will not recognize Israel-period

Next time you read someone saying that Hamas doesn't mean what it says in its Charter, remember this article from Amayreh who is a regular poster of nasty anti Israel and anti Jewish comments at the foot of articles in Haaretz.

In the next following post you can judge for yourself whether there is any difference between Hamas and your classical, common and garden variety Jew hated. Despite this, there are people around the world and including this country who describe themselves as Jews and yet embrace Hamas and it's ideology.

Strange world, sick people.

STRINGING EVERYBODY ALONG

Honest Reporting has an item on the political agenda of former CNN employee Nidal Rafa who abused Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon at a media event, calling him a "fascist" - More Shocking Evidence of CNN's Faulty Hiring Policy.

It now appears that Rafa has acted as a stringer or a "fixer" and has a long history of Palestinian activism. That should preclude providing objective and neutral support for the foreign press and one wonders how many stories about this part of the world have been published by news outlets oblivious to the fact that the "fixer" really did "fix" the message imparted by unwitting or lazy journalists not interested in checking whether they were being told the truth.

THE AIRBRUSH SCAM

Picture: The Israeli woman who won't be airbrushed out of existence by the Blank Pages of the Age

The Age seems intent on following the U.K's Guardian newspaper all the way in its attempts at villifying and scorning the Jewish State judging by today's offering from the Sunday Age - ISRAELI PAPERS AIRBUSH WOMEN MINISTERS FROM PHOTOS.

It seems that the editorial staff of a couple of obscure Israeli ultra-orthodox newspapers deemed that printing pictures of women is "immodest" so they "simply airbrushed the offending female figures out of photographs of Benjamin Netanyahu's new cabinet" according to the Guardian's Rachel Shabi who wrote that "two female ministers within a 30-strong cabinet may not sound like a big deal".

Naturally, it's a big enough deal for the Age to make it THE story of the day from a region where this week Palestinians axed a young Israeli kid to death, where Palestinian leaders exiled the conductor of a youth orchestra because it played music for Jewish Holocaust victims and where Arab leaders (including Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas) got solidly behind the Sudanese President who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide.

That's not news in the Age which has to turn the airbrushing of women from a photo by a couple of hitherto unknown ultra Orthodox Jewish newspapers into a big ticket item.

Well go figure!

You may accuse me of being politically incorrect till you're blue in the face but I missed the Age coverage when Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli (pictured above) appeared on the cover of the Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated Magazine - Israeli model Bar Refaeli lands Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover. No doubt, I will also miss the Age story one day when a pretty Gazan follows Refaeli's lead and gets executed by a Hamas firing squad for her troubles.

Predictably, Australia's own intellectually challenged Hamas loving Israel loathing Jewish Holocaust denier, Antony Loewenstein, picked up on the story in Jews with gender issues forgetting that he has shown a penchant of his own with gender issues when it comes to the subject of Israeli ministers. He once described former Kadima Minister Tzipi Livni as a "he" (she's definitely a "she") but we can forgive him for that because, in the scheme of things, it was one of his lesser gaffes!

There's a double standard too at the Age because back in 2006 when elections were held for the Palestinian Legislative Council, that newspaper did an excellent job in airbrushing out of existence the true story of Mariam Farhat, or Umm Nidal (mother of Nidal) who was elected on the Hamas ticket. Ms. Farhat was identified by the New York Times as "the mother of three Hamas supporters killed by Israelis" and added that "she bade one son goodbye in a homemade videotape before he stormed an Israeli settlement, killing five people, then being shot dead. She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Known as the 'mother of martyrs,' she was seen in a campaign video toting a gun."

The Age did a wonderful job of airbrushing this particular female Hamas politician right out of existence. However, you can't say that the Age was discriminatory because it also managed to apply the airbrush to another candidate whose nickname (for obvious reasons) is "Hitler". Apparently, there's a lobby at the Age that doesn't want its readers to know such things about Palestinian politics.

THE PEACE PARTNER WHO ENDORSES GENOCIDE

We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas - In Defense of Genocide An Arab summit embraces the butcher of Darfur.

WHO CARES WHEN AFRICAN MUSLIMS ARE BUTCHERED?

There's a double standard out there, I'm sure.

This week, the leaders of the Arab world (a nice wholesome bunch of royal hangers on, petty dictators and one or two token democratically elected heads of state) descended on Qatar for a continuation of their interminable squabbles among each other, some chest beating about the Zionists and to show their support for Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on charges of genocide.

Marty Peretz in his New Republic blog comments:

The summiteers are not concerned about human rights in their own countries or very much, for that matter, in each others' countries. But do any of you doubt that Bashir is guilty of genocide? Do any of you doubt that hundreds of thousands (three, maybe four hundred thousand) of African Muslims have been murdered by Arab Muslim hordes deployed by Khartoum to kill, rape and pillage.

The Arabs are moved only by the plight of the Palestinians.This is true. It is, in fact, a truism, so obvious that one should be embarrassed even having to argue it. And why the plight of the Palestinians? Because their condition can be blamed on Israel and--make no mistake about it--on the Jews, the Jews the world over.

Peretz adds:

I also believe that Israel, with America and England and Australia, are probably
the most ethically constrained militaries in the world. Of one fact I am
absolutely certain: the leaders of the Arab world are welcoming a mass murderer
into their midst. And, instead of turning him over to authorities in the Hague,
they are welcoming him because he is an Arab who is killing black Africans.

The double standard?

Scour your newspaper for reports on the number of people butchered by the Sudanese and their proxies on a daily basis and look as well for reports on the number of allegations of war crimes made against Israel in the wake of its war with Hamas in Gaza. Look for the number of reports of Hamas atrocities and note the tone of the articles in newspapers such as the Melbourne Age.

Look out for follow up stories in the Age on the conductor of the Palestinian orchestra now that Palestinian officials have banished her from the West Bank because she decided to bring music to elderly survivors of Isreal's victims of genocide.

You won't find them because the Palestinian lobby censors running the media intifada against Israel over there have consigned the stories to the blank pages.

DOCTORS FOR TERROR

Dr. Yoel Abells who writes on health matters for The National Post is concerned about the use of medical publications such as Lancet to push a particular political agenda - Journals have no role in placing blame in Gaza conflict.

His sage comments also apply to the wider media which in some quarters have become apologists for Gaza's terrorist government.

THE ORCHESTRA THE AGE FORGOT

Yaakov Kirschen's comments on The Orchestra the Age forgot - THE AGE PALESTINE LOBBY KICKS AN OWN GOAL.

THE APRIL FOOL

Last week I reported on the efforts of IAJV court jester Michael Brull in providing his own inane brand of commentary on the Jewish community's reaction to the jailing of "Edward Einfeld (sic) - CLASS ACT. Brull's entry was subsequently sent into the ether when someone at the IAJV presumably discovered that he was confusing Edward Einfeld with Jerry Seinfeld or perhaps it was Marcus Einfeld.

Believe it or not, Brull's hateful rants against Israel are receiving oxygen over at The New Matilda where there's ample material to demonstrate his eminent qualifications to take out our April Fool award for 2009.

His piece when is an Anti-Semite not an Anti-Semite is too vulgar for words and is a typical example of the smoke and mirrors obfuscation we've come to expect from the IAJV crowd. The comments of one of the New Matilda contributors sum it up well:

It is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel and i’ve never heard a mainstream Jewish leader say that it is. If it were anti-Semitic to criticise Israel than the most anti-Semitic country in the world would be Israel. However it is discriminatory to take actions out of context, hold Israel to a higher standard than other nations or to demand the dismantling of Zionism without demanding the dismantling of any other nationalist aspirations be they ethnic or religious. It is discriminatory to demand an academic or economic boycott of Israel and not call for boycotts against any of the other major human rights abusers.