The empty vessels that made a lot of noise

They came and they went and in the end the two boats that carried pro-Palestinian propagandists and supposedly essential supplies for Gazans turned out to be yet another failed stunt which achieved very little.

Scholar Emanuele Ottolenghi points out the boats contained little beside activists in The "Free Gaza" Stunt. and adds -

As Israeli officials said, humanitarian aid can go through the regular crossings by land. This stunt was not about rescue and deliverance: it was about the romantic self-aggrandizement of a few radical chic buffoons and a propaganda stunt by their puppet masters–the not-so-innocent International Solidarity Movement. Israel acted wisely in letting them through and denying them the much hoped for moment on live camera–being boarded by Israeli naval forces.

BERT & FRIENDS

The Australian letters blog has some entertaining patter about the sacking of Jaspan from readers under the heading - I grew up in a household that revered The Age.

One correspondent who goes by the name of "Bert" has produced this wonderful little piece of comedy that had me slapping my knees in tearful laughter for a good 10 minutes:-

Is it just possible that The Age with a new editor will be less biased and not so pro Israel? Australian media suffers the same timidity as the US, as the Counter Punch website explains: http://counterpunch.org/roberts08262008.html

The Age "pro Israel".

Sheer genius!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

A few months ago it was Ed O'Loughlin, now it's Andrew Jaspan.

Sacked!

The dark days of the blank pages of the age are coming to an end.

The Gaza Boat People Arrive (and nobody cares)

The Gaza boat people have finally arrived and would have been most disappointed that the Israelis allowed them through to Gaza without detaining them and without any violence.

The voyage was mysteriously deelayed for a little while and the given reasons were somewhat vague. However, people in the know believe that these klutzes suddenly realised that the rest of the world was more focussed on the Olympics (a mistake Arafat didn't make in 2000 when he delayed the Second Intifada until after the Sydney Olympic Closing Ceremony) and the war between Georgia and Russia where 2,000 people were permanently ethnically cleansed in the short space of a couple of days.

In the absence of any vision of blood spattered Gaza sailors the world's media passed on these attention seeking frauds who had the temerity to call themselves "peace activists" rather than their proper description of puppets of a warmongering racist regime of thugs.

Wonders never cease

Two years after Israel's Second Lebanon War, the Melbourne Age is beginning to see the light and is even using the "T" word in referring to Hizbullah. It's also conceding at last that the terror group "triggered a war with Israel in 2006" - Move to block Hezbollah's 'terror TV'.

AUTHORITIES are trying to stop an anti-Semitic satellite TV station broadcasting into Australia from Indonesia - which has already rejected US efforts to take the channel off the air.

What is particularly disturbing is the fact that the Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour supports the right of this organisation of thugs (which doesn't discriminate between Arabs and Jews when it comes to committing acts of murder) on the grounds of freedom of speech and the artificial distancing of the political wing of the party from its military wing.

Never mind that al-Manar promotes and raises money for terrorism which is illegal. Never mind that the alleged "freedom of speech" is abused by al-Manar to promote anti-Semitism and that such hate speech is also illegal in this country.

The admission by Jabbour that the channel was "very popular and widely watched by Arabic speakers in Australia" should also be a matter of concern but at least the truth is now starting to leap out of the blank pages!

Time for Israel to take its rightful place

If you ever wanted proof that sports writers have a lot more class than political journalists, Time for Israel to take its rightful place from the Melbourne Age should do the trick.

LETTER OF THE DAY

This is the sole letter in today's Melbourne Age about the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The writer might well be right but I'm surprised at the lack of correspondence or venom and bile from the uusual suspects who would normally be all over this if a certain other nation had responded to an attack from one of its neighbours in Russia's style:

By Georgia, trouble started at home

THE stoush in the Caucasus has all the hallmarks of bygone days, with regime leaders in Moscow calling into line their puppet states. On closer examination it would appear that the gullible leader in Tiblisi may have listened too much to the incompetent leader in Washington.

George Bush has visited Georgia twice in recent times, and Condoleezza Rice has also been there. It would appear to be mischievousness on the part of the US regime that has precipitated this conflict.

The Yeltsin/Putinisation of Russia has certainly not produced an ideal democracy , but on this occasion the villains may not be the Russians.

Rob Park, Surrey Hills

PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE?

Headline in today's Sunday Age:

1600 DEAD IN GEORGIA FIGHTING

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

I'll be cheering for all athletes at the Olympics (the ones that are clean) but I have a soft spot for the following list - the Jews at the Olympics 2008

Jews at the Olympics

JEWISH athletes from countries including Israel, the United States, Australia, Argentina, Britain and Canada are competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing:

Argentina

Hockey, Women
Gisele Kanevsky

Judo, Women
Daniela Krakower

Swimming, Men
Damian Blaum

Table Tennis
Pablo Tabachnik

Weightlifting, Women
Nora Koppel


Australia

Table Tennis
David Zalcberg


Austria

Swimming, Men
Maxim Podoprigora


Canada

Baseball
Adam Stern

Wrestling
David Zilberman, 96 kg
Ari Taub, 120 kg plus


Chile

Tennis, Men
Nicolas Massu


Great Britain

Rowing
Josh West


Israel

Artistic Gymnastics, Men
Alex Shatilov, all-around

Canoeing, Men
Michael Koganov, K-1 500 and 1000 meters

Fencing, Men
Tomer Or, foil

Fencing, Women
Dalilah Hatuel, foil
Noam Mills, epee

Judo, Men
Ariel Ze'evi, 100 kg
Gal Yekutiel, 60 kg

Judo, Women
Alice Schlezinger, 63 kg

Rhythmic Gymnastics, Individual
Ira Risenzon
Neta Rivkin

Rhythmic Gymnastics, Team
Kayta Pizatzki
Racheli Vidgorcheck
Maria Savnakov
Alona Dvorinchenko
Veronica Witberg

Sailing, Men
Gidi Klinger and Udi Gal, 470
Shahar Tzuberi, windsurfing

Sailing, Women
Vered Buskila and Nika Kornitzky, 470
Nufar Eledman, laser radial
Ma’ayan Davidovich, windsurfing

Shooting
Doron Egozi, 50-meter rifle 3, 10-meter air rifle
Gil Simkovich, 50-meter rifle 3, 50-meter rifle prone
Guy Starik, 50-meter rifle prone

Swimming, Men
Itay Chama, 200-meter breaststroke
Gal Nevo, 200 and 400 individual medley
Guy Barnea, 100 breaststroke
Tom Be'eri, 100 and 200 breaststroke
Allon Mandel, 100 and 200 butterfly
Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or, 200 freestyle

Swimming, Women
Anya Gostamelsky, 50 and 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly

Synchronized Swimming
Anastasia Gloushkov and Ina Yoffe, duet

Taekwondo
Bat-El Getterer, 57 kg

Tennis, Men
Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich, doubles

Tennis, Women
Shahar Peer, singles
Tzipora Obziler, doubles with Peer

Track and Field, Men
Alex Averbukh, pole vault
Niki Palli, long jump
Haile Satayin, marathon
Itai Magidi, 3000-meter steeplechase


United States

Fencing, Women
Sara Jacobson, sabre

Kayaking
Rami Zur, 500-meter individual

Swimming, Men
Jason Lezak, 100-meter freestyle, relays
Garrett Weber-Gale, 100 freestyle, relays
Ben Wildman-Tobriner, 50 freestyle, relays

Swimming, Women
Dara Torres, 50-meter freestyle, relays

Track and Field, Women
Deena Kastor, marathon

THEY REFUSED TO GO ...

On the eve of the 2008 Olympic Games, a cartoon from The New Republic:



Click on image for larger and sharper image.

THE PRODIGAL SON

Here is some nice bedtime reading for 83 year old holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein as she blissfully sails the Mediterranean on her so-called rescue mission allegedly bringing aspirins for the Gazans and their rulers in Hamas - Prodigal Son.

The son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef talks about his father's movement:-

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds' and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I'll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn't even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn't wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn't need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist." (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

Sweet dreams, Hedy.

Life in Gaza

Asylum seeker shot dead in Gaza - THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

Despite diversionary stunts like the boat trip to hell mentioned in yesterday's blog, the daily news is just beginning to centre on the real nature of the society that Hamas has been working hard to establish in Gaza and would do in the rest of the Palestinian territories if it achieved its aims. One of the victims in this instance was a man who once sought and was refused asylum in Australia.

This guy had problems with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He claimed to have been tortured and the previous government knew all that and still forced him out.

It seems he had problems with his friends as well because he found himself involved in a fight between two families and, "we understand, he was shot dead by a member of one of the families."

Nice guy ... deserving of the refugee advocate who spoke on his behalf.

A sick PR stunt ...

The Hamas Movement which controls Gaza makes no bones about where it stands in relation to Jews. It wants to destroy their state, replace it with an Islamic nation state and it wants to kill as many Jews as it can to achieve that aim. It's all there in its Covenant.

So you might want to ask why 83-year-old German-born Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein has joined Palestinian activist Michael Shaik in aiding the Hamas cause by hopping on a boat and joining 60 other so-called "peace activists" - Melbourne man's bid to run Israeli blockade.

Ms. Epstein is rather delusional if she thinks her involvement will aid the cause of peace or bring any relief to the masses of Gaza. The medical supplies her boat might bring into the Palestinian territory will amount to a fraction of the aid supplied by the Israelis and others and which are delivered to the Gazans on a daily basis through various checkpoints on the border - that is, on days when the trucks delivering the aid aren't being shot at by terrorists under the orders of, well ... Hamas.

This entire effort is more correctly a public relations stunt aimed at diverting attention away from the now well documented human rights abuses of the thuggish Hamas junta and its adversaries in Fatah.

As for Ms. Epstein, the Holocaust survivor, it seems that she hasn't learned many lessons from her tragic experience. Then again, there were always some Jews around in those times, who were willing to give aid and support to the enemy - even when that enemy's avowed aim was to obliterate the Jewish people from the face of the earth.

HOLY COW - PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS

Former Age Jerusalem Bureau chief Ed O'Loughlin would be turning in his grave if he could read this report from his successor Jason Koutsoukis - Hamas, Fatah accused of methodic torture

Koutsoukis tells us that both the ruling parties of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stand accused of "serious human rights abuses including torture."

During O'Loughlin's watch at the newspaper, these human rights abuses, which are Palestinian on Palestinian abuses, went on but for some strange reason were rarely covered. This, despite the fact that during 2007 and into 2008, more Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of their brothers and sisters than at the hands of the IDF.

The media remains shy about the horrific human rights abuses of the Palestinian terrorist groups, backed by their governing bodies, and deliberatley aimed at Jews. These abuses have taken place for decades, yet neither the physical violence or the threats and intimidation and even teaching hatred of Jews were subjects considered suitable of their proper coverage.

Perhaps the times really are changing.

SHOCK AS AGE MENTIONS GAZA VIOLENCE

I can't believe that the Age has published this - Hamas arrests rivals after deadly bomb attacks.

"THE Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is moving to suppress an outbreak of violence in the Gaza Strip that began at the start of the weekend and left seven people dead.

"Explosions, believed to be the work of the rival Fatah group, on Friday evening near Gaza beach killed five senior Hamas members and a child."

There has been no "outbreak" of violence in Gaza that started on the weekend. It's been an ongoing thing which has been happening for several years. Last year, more than 600 Palestinians, a majority in Hamas controlled Gaza, met violent deaths at the hands of other Palestinians, mostly as a result of what people would normally term as "terrorist actions". It's only the news about them that has been suppressed whereas the deaths of Palestinians involved in violent actions against Israeli civilians (which numbered far less than the 600 Palestinians murdered by other Palestinians) were highlighted and often wrongly blamed on Israel.

Today's "news" is only "news" because, for once, it's rated a mention and wasn't kept on the blank pages.

A TERRIBLE BARGAIN

A TERRIBLE BARGAIN

Today's Australian nails it on the matter of "those people who are preoccupied with false arguments about moral equivalence in the long-running Middle East conflict." As much as some folks might claim otherwise, there is no moral equivalence between the barbarism of Hizbullah, Hamas and their Syrian and Iranian benefectors.

The declaration of a public holiday to honour the return of Samir Kuntar who murdered an Israeli man in front of his four-year-old daughter, then killed the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt, is a blight on all of humanity.

But there are many bargains made in this part of the Middle East and those bargains made in the past by those in the public arena that gave succor to the thugs will come back to haunt many of the players in this conflict.

HIZBULLAH'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

"If Nasrallah's great achievement was to conceal the fate of our sons, then I pity him and the Lebanese people. If Hizbullah's great achievement is the release of Kuntar, who is nothing but a repulsive murderer, then I pity them."

Shlomo Goldwasser - father of murdered Israeli hostage Ehud Goldwasser.

LEBANON'S DAY OF SHAME

"Lebanon declared a national holiday to mark the return of its prisoners, who will be greeted by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and President Michel Suleiman in Beirut." - Grief and joy as bodies, men returned home

How tragic and shameful for the Lebanese people that their government, strangled by the barbaric and psycopathic thugs of Hizbullah, could descend to such depraved celebrations for the return to their bosoms of mass-murderers like Kuntar.

This is a black day for the world and for those who made apologies and excuses for Hizbullah in the public domain and in particular those in the media who, in some cases, even went to great lengths to make them seem heroic.

The world now knows the nature of the beast with which the Jewish people have to contend on a daily basis.

PHOTOGRAPH: The pride of Lebanon (from Israellycool)

ONE MAN'S HERO IS ANOTHER'S DIRTBAG ...

For those who a sadistic bent who are celebrating the pending release of the terrorist Samir Kuntar, here is the previously unreleased file on this barbarian - The Kuntar File, Exposed - Yediot Aharonot - by Nir Gontarz.

LETTERS OF THE WEEK

From today's Melbourne Age:

Despite false Arab claims of its being a land-grab, Israel has long acknowledged that the fence is a security barrier rather than a political barrier, which, unlike the lives taken by Arab violence, is reversible. While making every reasonable effort to re-route the fence in order to accommodate Palestinian needs, Israel cannot be expected, in the absence of peace, to dismantle a barrier that has saved the lives of so many of its citizens.

The "impenetrable obstacle" to resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the fence, but the intractable Arab hatred of Israel that made its erection necessary. That hatred remains the real barrier to lasting peace and reconciliation between Israeli and Arab.

Merv Morris, East St Kilda

THE US has built an enormous wall to separate itself from Mexico. There are no security issues here, none of its citizens are in danger of being blown up by Mexican bombers, no one in Mexico is firing a daily dose of rockets across the border hoping to kill schoolchildren. It is purely an economic thing, to protect jobs.

No one is claiming that the US stole New Mexico, California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida or Texas from Mexico after winning a war that it waged against Mexico. But when Israel builds a wall to protect its citizens from actually being killed, the media and much of the world are enraged. I wonder why.

Peter Cohen, Bentleigh

These letters won't reverse some of the nonsense that is published from time to time in this newspaper about Israel's security barrier that has helped save hundreds if not thousands of lives - most of them Jewish (which perhaps explains why there is very little done to explain the other side in certain parts of the media).