A cartoonist's immoral duty to fire missiles at the Jews

Picture: Palestinian leader Haj amin el Husseini meeting friends in the 1940's before planning the final solution. Husseini's Muslim brotherhood is the forerunner for Hamas whose thugs fire missiles at Israeli children. Leunig's duck is probably hiding under his coat.

Thomas Freedman, who used to have a column in the Melbourne Age once wrote that “criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest”.

Friedman's words have come back time and time again to expose Jew bashing charlatans and no more so than the despicable Michael Leunig whose rambling justification for last month's outrageous anti-Semitic daubing was published in today's Melbourne Age.

In a long winded rant, Leunig (though denying it) merely confirms his anti-Semitic credentials by justifying his vomit inducing cartoons that liken Israel's self-defence against thousands of missiles fired at civilian targets by Palestinian terrorists to the actions of the Nazis.

This, while many others in the neighbourhood go about their normal day-to-day jobs of butchering civilians and, in the case of Syria shooting their own women and children in the face without so much as a boo or a sympathetic caricature of a duck.

To Leunig, because they have the edge in military superiority and can minimise the damage to their people through technology and better bomb shelters, the Jews in this neighbourhoid have no right to defend themselves against thousands of lethal rockets including highly sophisticated missiles supplied by Tehran and fired at major population centres by the thugs who rule Gaza.

Leunig's portrayal of the Palestinians as being defenceless against Israel's might ignores the fact that the terrorists are armed and guided by the lunatics from populous oil rich Iran (which incidentally idolises Leunig's anti-Semitic cartoons) who are bent on annihilating the Jewish State and murdering its citizens and have no compunction about taking out fellow Muslims along the way when they commit their crimes against humanity. And let us not forget that Leunig is turning a blind eye not only to the malice of these groups and their threats of genocide but also to what are real war crimes.

Leunig also ignores their chilling and hateful slanders against Israel and the Jews. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League calls the Hamas credo "not just anti-Israel, but profoundly anti-Semitic with racism at its core. The Hamas Charter reads like a modern-day 'Mein Kampf." According to the charter, Jewish people "have only negative traits and are presented as planning to take over the world." It claims that the Jews deserve God's/Allah's enmity and wrath because they received the Scriptures but violated its sacred texts, disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew their own prophets. "The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

Only last week the Hamas  politburo chief Khaled Meshaal claimed “victory”  against Israel stating, “Today is Gaza. Tomorrow will be Ramallah and after that Jerusalem, then Haifa and Jaffa”.

By ignoring the context of the conflict and dismissing the hatred inculcated into Palestinian society by Hamas and the other terrorist groups fighting against the Jews, Leunig is not only running cover for their hateful philosophy with every deluded cartoon he draws but is damaging the prospects for peace for all people in the region by giving succour to the extremists who are the true cause of suffering of both the Arabs and the Jews in the area.

Today's rant in which he attempts to justify himself is as pathetic and as hateful as his scribbling. It is his missile against the Jewish people of who this city still contains survivors of Hitler's brutality. 

Michael Leunig has a moral duty to look into their faces, the faces of Israeli children traumatised by the missile fire of the terrorists and of the Palestinian children used as human shields by the barbarians of Hamas and the other terrorist groups  but he can't bring himself to do it.

E1

An interesting letter in the New York York Times

 E1 and the two state solution

This letter is intended neither to oppose nor to support the recent much publicized announcement by Israel of its intention to build in the area referred to as E1, but merely to draw attention to credible facts. In this connection I  refer to the December 5 oped titled “If Not Two States, Then One” in which Saree Makdisi wrote

“..settlement construction in E1 is no more and no less of a contravention of international law than settlement construction elsewhere in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. What makes this development significant is E1′s location, sealing tight the gap between East Jerusalem and Israel’s largest settlement, Maale Adumim, further to the east”.

First of all it is misleading to state categorically that settlement construction contravenes international law without adding the qualification that there is a large body of authoritative legal opinion which concludes that they are legal.
See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id351.html

Secondly while the author may be justified in criticizing the announcement by the Israel government of its intention to build 3,000 houses in the area adjacent to Jerusalem known as E1 (East 1) as being unnecessary, untimely, unwise or undiplomatic, the claims  that development of E1 will cut off the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from each other and from Jerusalem, bisect the West Bank and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank are egregiously misleading. Repetition of these claims by the media, without verification of the facts cannot be justified.

In paragraph 38 of the executive summary of his November 2012 report, the Right Honorable Lord Justice Leveson wrote about the media

 ”..when the story is just too big and the public appetite too great, there has been significant and reckless disregard for accuracy. Similarly, as evidenced from a range of stories in different titles, it is clear that misrepresentation and embellishment takes place to a degree far greater than could ever be thought of as legitimate or fair comment”.

This type of misrepresentation and embellishment of facts is egregiously evident in media reports about Israel; most recently about the above mentioned announcement..

E1 comprises an area between Jerusalem and the populated town (or settlement) of Ma’ale Adumim with a population enumerated in January 2008 of 34,495.

A glance at a Google map shows immediately that the claims of bisecting are completely untrue as a wide area remains between the eastern border of Ma’ale Adumin, the Dead Sea and Jericho comparable with Israel’s 15km waist between Tulkarm on the West Bank and Netanya.

Map data ©2012 Google, Maps GIsrael, ORION-ME

There have also been suggestions for an additional north-south road between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.

Moreover, Mayor, Benny Kashriel has invited European ambassadors to visit E1 and see for themselves that building on E1 is within Ma’ale Adumim’s municipal boundaries and won’t harm the creation of a Palestinian state.

While the timing and manner of PM Netanyahu’s announcement were unfortunate and clumsy, editors and politicians are expected to keep themselves well informed about matters on which they comment. If they did so and if they checked their facts before publishing or speaking out, they would realize that the hysterical headlines and frenzied summoning of ambassadors to protest the announcement have been disproportionate

The fact is that the decision to build in E1 does not originate with the Netanyahu government. In October 1994, the late Yitzhak Rabin expanded Ma’ale Adumim to include E1 and he provided the above mentioned mayor of Ma’ale Adumim Benny Kashriel with annexation documents.

Even the dovish Geneva Initiative promoted among other Palestinians by Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee and by Israeli supporters, notably Yossi Beilin, who cannot by the widest stretch of imagination be considered a right-winger, proposes that Ma’ale Adumim be incorporated into Israel in a two state peace agreement. http://www.geneva-accord.org/mainmenu/settlements

More topically, during a video address to a 2009 rally in memory of the late lamented Yitzhak Rabin, President Obama urged us all to follow Rabin’s path to peace and it may surprise many to realize that Rabin had no intention of returning to the 1967 lines.

In his last speech a few weeks before the dreadful assassination, Yitzchak Rabin said

“First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev — as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty.. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.
See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id308.html

The world would be a better place if the media were to abide by the standards of journalistic integrity they profess to uphold and observe the tenet “Comment is free, but facts are sacred” as appropriately stated by C.P. Scott in his celebrated 1921 essay, “A Hundred Years”

As Justice Levenson wrote in paragraph 37 of his executive summary

“..Although code compliance is written into many journalists’ contracts, there seem to be few internal consequences for breach whether that breach was established as an inevitable conclusion following litigation or after criticism by the Press Complaints Commission”.

In the circumstances I trust that you will readily correct any incorrect statements you have made in repeating the above misleading claims.

Sincerely

Maurice Ostroff

Let's talk about Hamas

 This is their logo.

Do they look friendly to you?

THE UN has brought confrontation

According to Palestinian journalist Khalid Abu Tuomeh in Palestinians: What The UN Brought:

There has been no mention of the peace process or coexistence with Israel. The belligerent and defiant tone of Fatah officials sent the message that the Palestinians are now headed toward confrontation with Israel -- not peace.

He gets it while very few other do.

 

CEASEFIRE

A ceasefire agreement is supposed to be in place and the cycle of ceasefires continues between Israel and the Palestinians as we wait for the first of the inevitable breaches by one or other of the Palestinian terrorist groups which will most likely go unreported in the west until the inevitable Israeli retaliation.

Meanwhile, there is no ceasefire in nearby Syria where the army and rebels continue their killing sprees unabated, where the number of deaths continues to be far greater than in this conflict and where you are far less likely to see its victims on the front page of your newspaper unless they are falsely attributed as victims of Israeli strikes.

And thanks to this letter writer in the Age, we also know that the killing goes on in Sudan  which coincidentally is one of the sources of Palestine's terror rockets but of course people like Leunig don't stand up for the victims of Sudan's violence. No one, least of all the execrable hypocrite Leunig cares about the Nuba people in South Kordofan.

Invisible conflict

FOR more than a year, the government of Sudan has been bombing the homes of the Nuba people in South Kordofan, Sudan, forcing thousands to flee to refugee camps in South Sudan. The government of Sudan has also been blocking humanitarian aid to those who have not managed to escape. Intermittent bombing by Sudanese government forces is also ongoing in Blue Nile State, Sudan. I've been told the lack of media attention is because ''no one cares about what happens to Africans''. International media focus may help to shame the Sudanese government into allowing aid access - but what will it take to make the suffering of thousands of people in Sudan front-page news?

Esther Anderson, Surrey Hills

LEUNIG COMES FOR THE JEWS

"First They Came for the Jews" by Pastor Niemoller 

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

 Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. 

... and when they came for the Jews they did so because they were Jews and not because the Jews had fired a single missile at the German people ... nor did they send suicide bombers into German streets ...  not did they disembowel pregnant German mothers in front of their children.

That is the difference Michael Leunig - and it's what makes you a horrible, disgustingly sick piece of work.

 The most vile cartoon published in the Age in years.

Fog of War - 5

I've refrained thus far from going into too detailed an analysis of the Age's coverage of the conflict because quite frankly, Pollard and McGeogh aren't really journalists in the sense that we expect them to report on all of the facts in anything that remotely resembles objectivity so it's a waste of time going through their propaganda with a fine tooth comb. We all know exactly what it is.

However, the mind still boggles when I read this sccount from Pollard about Gaza's motorcycle lynch mob: 'spies' executed, corpse dragged through streets. 

The impression I get is that the reporter is doing her level best to present the case for these horrendous extrajudicial killings. She's also confused as to where these deaths figure in the obligatory scoreboard at the foot of the article. Naturally, Pollard's scoreboard doesn't reveal the not insignificant number of Palestinians who have died as a result of many of the misfired Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets which hit the wrong targets.

The truth of course is that the victims of this conflict are all in part victims of a media that gives Hamas succor by dignifying its thuggish, uncivilised behaviour and this article demonstrates the truly ugly side of the Age style of journalism which leaves so much to the blank pages.

Fog of War - 4

Last Thursday, three Israelis were killed when a Hamas rocket slammed into a residential building in the Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi. This is British Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi's susequent tweet repeatiing the tired old claim that Hamas missiles are harmless.

Another hideous liar - and stupid to boot, coming from a British Labour MP!

DATELINE LONDON - A FARCE

I managed to catch up with the BBC's Dateline LOndon programme last night and what a farce that was?
The panel was made up of four reporters and a compere who were all of the same mind about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Israelis were the villains and Hamas are almost as pure as the driven snow.

One of the reporters, a Sudanese, couldn't help trotting out lie after lie including the doozy about assassinated Hamas monster Jabril being on the verge of agreeing to a "peace" deal with Israel. She clearly comes from the Joseph Goebells School of Journalism and the rest of the panel were no better because none of them challenged her outrageous lies.





Needless to say, the war crimes of the Sudanese government and its decades-long campaign of genocide against its southern minorities was left unmentioned by the journalist/propagandist on the panel.

As an exercise in groupthink and stupidity it rated first class.

Otherwise, it stunk.

Fog of War - 3

GUARDIAN LIE Emily Drabble tells an outright lie in Israel's assassination of Israel and Gaza News resources round up.

Thanks to elderofziyon we know that she told this lie:-

Israel's assassination of Hamas' top military commander this week has triggered fears of a whole new surge of violence in Gaza and the Middle East. The Israeli air strike on the Ahmed al-Jabari's car – which also killed a six-year-old girl and an 11-month old baby – was just the first step in a new Israeli military operation to eliminate militants and weapon sites in the Gaza Strip.

As reported in the Telegraph - How Israel killed Ahmed Jabari, its toughest enemy in Gaza

Unlike targeted killings in the past, there was no collateral damage except for some minor injuries from flying glass. Israel has learnt the hard way that accidentally killing civilians carries a damaging political cost.

The murder committed was of the truth but that's de rigeur for the Guardian.

Hamas – godless killers

This is what it's about - Hamas – godless killers

In firing at Jerusalem, the Islamists underlined that they have no compunction about murdering absolutely anybody

Statement from the Prime Minister

 

PRIME MINISTER 

CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 

Australia is gravely concerned by escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The Government condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip and calls on Hamas to cease these immediately.

Australia supports Israel's right to defend itself against these indiscriminate attacks. Such attacks on Israel's civilian population are utterly unacceptable.

Further escalations in rocket attacks from Gaza, such as those seen overnight, will not serve the interests of the Palestinian people or their cause for self-determination and statehood.

We urge both Hamas and Israel to exercise restraint and to protect the lives of civilians.

The Government of Australia will work earnestly with other countries to end further attacks from Gaza and to encourage a de-escalation of this conflict. We encourage regional countries, particularly Egypt, to support efforts to restore peace.

The only way forward is a two-state solution based on direct negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.


SYDNEY
16 NOVEMBER 2012
PRESS OFFICE: (02) 6277 7744

Outside the Fog of War

Today's Australian Editorial Gets it Right -

Israel's first duty must be to defend its citizens

HAMAS has only itself to blame for the latest Israeli military strikes in Gaza and the sooner the international community accepts this - rather than indulging in another round of knee-jerk condemnation of the Jewish state as an aggressor - the sooner an element of reality will return to Middle East peace efforts.

Letters get it right

Both from today's Australian:

Hamas's intransigence

HAMAS is an organisation founded and rooted in genocidal violence against Jews and Israel. History has demonstrated the futility of attempting to negotiate with such organisations, with military strength being the only language it respects.

The targeted killing of Ahmed al-Jabari will no doubt result in much righteous indignation from Gaza. But it will eventually result in a reduction of rocket attacks and attempted incursions from Hamas. This is the way the world works in the Middle East.
Alan Freedman, St Kilda, Vic

THE patience of Israelis in the face of daily provocation is remarkable but with the US presidential election out of the way and Hamas's supply chain from Syria disrupted, an Israeli response was just a matter of time. Iran's preparedness to defend its nuclear arsenal may also be tested; and the Arab Spring may yet arise in Tehran.
Greg Jones, Kogarah, NSW

The Fog of War - 2

THE AGE - WHO ELSE? 

According to Ruth Pollard in - War fears rise as Israel kills Hamas commander
"ISRAELI ground forces are on standby to enter the Gaza Strip after the Israel Defence Forces said they had hit more than 100 ''targets'' in the besieged coastal territory, an offensive that began with the assassination of Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari in a missile strike in Gaza City."

I get it.

This all began when Israel decided to waste a terrorist with blood on his hands.

Pollard knows nothing of the hundreds of missile and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian targets that preceded this action.

Fool!

The Fog of War - 1

THEY'RE AT IT AGAIN!
The terrorists at Hamas have instigated a war with Israel with their constant rocket attacks directed at Israeli civilian targets, the latest escalation having begun on 10 November. The rockets threaten the lives of over a million men, women and children but the media slept through these attacks.

Israel's patience finally ran out and it has struck back with the surgical assassination of the leader of Hamas' military wing.

The apologists for terror immediately came out of the woodwork and the Palestinian propaganda campaign against Israel immediately swung into action.

Thanks to Israellycool the first fraud of the war has already been uncovered  - The Tan Jacket Man
Watch his amazing recovery between 2:12 and 2:43!

There are more lies to come.

WHO WOULD TOLERATE THIS?

It's on again ...

After four days of instensified bombing of large areas of Southern Israel by Hamas, during which time 1,000,000 Israeli citizens came under enemy attack, Israel finally lost patience and targeted Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas' military wing, in the Gaza Strip in a pinpoint surgical operation:



Other than Jabri and his driver, there were no casualties. His death will however, bring outrage from the usual sources.

In the next few days, media outlets like the Age which all but completely ignores the plight of Israel's civilians and either ignores or excuses the war crimes of Hamas, will be out in force.

Let them know what a bunch of weasel mothed hypocrites they really are.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

From Today's Canberra Times:


Iran's nuclear plans

The letters by Paul Fitzwarryne and John Richardson (October 5) responding to my article ''Can we force Iran to abandon its nuclear plans'' (October 2, p9) include unwarranted ad-hominem attacks against me. Their primary target, however, is the state of Israel, which was not the subject of the original article.

The governments of virtually the entire free world, including Israel, believe Iran is working on developing nuclear weapons capability. This estimate is based upon hard evidence, not supposition.

Section H of the [International Atomic Energy Agency's]'s August 30 status report on Iran's nuclear program is wholly devoted to the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. It describes the intelligence it has received regarding Iran's efforts towards developing a nuclear explosive device as ''credible'' and also mentions receiving recent corroborating evidence.

The contention that Iran would find it difficult to enrich its uranium to weapons grade under the eyes of IAEA inspectors is dubious. The IAEA has repeatedly complained that Iran has hidden much of its program from its view - something even some Iranian officials have admitted is true.

The excuse that 20 per cent enriched uranium has peaceful applications ignores the fact that Iran's stockpile is many times greater than what is necessary for medical research. In fact, it is consistent with one conceivable purpose only - the foundation for the development of nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Iran continues to bring more centrifuges online and grow its stockpile further, even in the face of international sanctions. Why?

Regarding the issue of legality, Israel, which has never confirmed nor denied possessing nuclear weapons and has certainly never threatened any country with nuclear attack, is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran, however, is.

Furthermore, the presumption of an Israeli nuclear arsenal has never sparked a regional arms race. But countries such as Saudi Arabia have vowed to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. Riyadh clearly fears Tehran more than Jerusalem.

Paul Fitzwarryne's vile and historically revisionist misrepresentation of Zionism, his attacks on Israel's legitimacy and denial of the Jewish people's roots in Israel display even more ignorance than his comments on Iran, which is a mighty feat indeed.

Ahron Shapiro, South Melbourne, Vic

ANTI SEMITIC SCANDAL ROCKS ANTI SEMITIC GROUP

This is ridiculous but these anti-Semites are arguing about which of them is the anti-Semite - Will Free Gaza implode due to anti-Semitism scandal?

The ultimate objective of this momement is to free Gaza so that it can commit war crimes on the inhabitants of the Jewish State and to ultimately destroy it.

These people are a joke!

Frau Berlin