I only wish you had a wider audience.

Speaking of junkets, most American senators have visited Israel more than their own constituents. Evidence of being Israel’s pocket? Of course not, move along.

Bill Clinton, draft dodger extraordinaire and anti-war peace activist who refused to join the US armed forces, once said he would pick up a gun and go fight for Israel. Evidence of being Israel’s pocket? Of course not, move along.

Then earlier today. In a letter to Maliki, the Senators wrote:

Your failure to condemn Hezbollah’s aggression and recognize Israel’s right to defend itself raises serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East.

Don’t you just love the clarity here? All we have been hearing for three years is what a lovely democracy Iraq is becoming, and how sovereign and independent it is. The minute Maliki says boo about Israel, these Senators start to question his entire legitimacy.

The signatories include Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Senator Charles Schumer of New York. Al-Maliki has called for a ceasefire and condemned what he called Israel’s “operation of mass destruction and mass punishment.”

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Hillary Clinton and Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi, have indicated they may boycott Maliki’s speech today unless he renounces his comments.

Can anyone imagine this kind of Mother of All Dummy Spits had Maliki said that about any other country, ally or otherwise? Even if he’d said that about the US, they’d probably just shrug and say that he was entitled to his opinion. But daresay that about Israel and watch out!!

Evidence of being Israel’s pocket? Of course not, move along.

regards, Andrew

AUSTRALIAN COMMITTEE FOR

TRUTH IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Welcome to a new Australian media information service. The name is self-explanatory.

After decades of deceit surrounding events in the Middle East, ACTME believes it is time for truth. This service goes to about 100 media and political contacts.

26 July 2006

TWO CHEERS FOR MR HENDERSON

One of our favourite pin-up boys, Gerard Henderson, has come out in the Sydney Morning Herald (25 July 2006) to scotch once and for all the ridiculous myth that “American and Australian leaders are slaves to an Israel lobby”, to paraphrase the Herald’s write-off.

What courage to say this when Mr Bush, Mr Blair and our own irrepressible Mr Howard go through the latest version of their pantomime, The Three Wise Monkeys, by pretending all is well in Lebanon except, maybe, for a few bits of housing and unwanted infrastructure that inexplicably fell over when somebody let off a cracker.

To suggest there is a conspiracy driven by a domestic Israeli lobby that has our three brave monkeys by the short and curlies is, as Gerard points out, simply preposterous. No, the facts that the US gave Israel more than a week of open slather to execute its carefully planned attacks on Lebanon, using US aircraft, weapons and guidance systems, plus a lot of military gear either paid for or subsidised by the US, while Mr Blair and our Messrs Howard and Downer put their hands over their ears and mouths, cannot in any sense of the word be called a conspiracy. Neither can the fact that the US is rushing hundreds of 2.1-tonne “bunker busters” to Israel, to supplement the thousands of US-made cluster munitions that have been fired at or dropped on targets all over Lebanon. These cluster munitions have been declared to be weapons of mass destruction but why would we care? Nobody is dropping them on us. (They do have a bonus: one in seven of the 88 “bomblets” in each munition fails to explode on impact. This leaves nice little toys for the kids to play with years after the conflict. But, again, who cares?) Conspiracy? What a joke.

It is all quite simple, says Gerard: “Successive administrations in Washington have determined that their support for the democratic government in Israel is consistent with US interests in the Middle East.” Yes, Noam Chomsky has referred to Israel as America’s “attack dog” in the region. At least it’s a democratic attack dog (if the 1948 “ethnic cleansing” of 85 per cent of Palestine’s non-Jewish inhabitants can be overlooked). Millions of Israelis still vote for it. But given Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in the “territories”, not to mention its own Israeli Palestinians, regular aggression against other neighbours and spying and thieving further afield, this might not be the most illustrious example of a democracy Gerard could come up with. What he does NOT do is explain WHY the US has determined this, except to add cryptically: “In short, the US has its own interests that are independent of Israel.” Eh? Does Israel have massive oil reserves we don’t know about? Don’t tell us the US invaded Iraq at the urging of Israeli interests in Washington. We simply wouldn’t believe it. Just as “the US has its own interests” for stirring up Iran and Syria. Obviously the US wants to be hated and devoid of influence from Morocco to Pakistan and beyond.

He goes on: “It is much the same in Australia. The Howard Government and the Kim Beazley-led Opposition support Israel’s right to exist and oppose those nations (Iran, Syria) and terrorist groups (Hezbollah, Hamas) [the latter created by Israel as a foil to the PLO, in case he has forgotten] that want to drive all Jews out of their homeland.” With propaganda like this, who needs a Zionist lobby? Homeland? Does he mean the homeland from which the Palestinians were expelled in 1948 by European Jews waving the perfidious Balfour Declaration (written mainly by Chaim Weizman)?

Gerard continues: “This policy is deemed by the Coalition and Labor to be in line with Australia’s interests. It is not driven by any local version of an Israel lobby.” So why does the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council bother existing? We imagine it and the other pro-Israel organisations in Australia cost quite a penny to run. And all for nothing, according to Gerard. Why pay for all those Aussie journos’ junkets to Israel? (Has Gerard been on one of these junkets? Has he told us?) Who pays for AIJAC? The Israeli government? Australian taxpayers more likely, through donations to “charities”. Some charities!

But Gerard is right on one point: Howard and the rest of the Australian “leadership” (we use that word with reservation) are not slaves to any Israeli or Zionist lobby. There is no slavery or other compulsion we are aware of. These leaders have submitted to Israel’s desires of their own free will. All we are waiting for is for someone to tell us in what way this country benefits from supporting killing, misery, instability and poverty in a potentially rich part of the world that, given an outbreak of peace and stability (not the enforced American kind), could be a valuable partner for Australia in advancing commercial and humanitarian causes. Does our government not understand that the greatest driver of “terrorism” in the region is our contribution to treating millions of people as second- or third-class humans – people who are expected to soak up all the bombs we want to drop on them without raising a finger in self-defence?

Instead of soberly reciting, sometimes unwittingly, the Australian Government’s plagiarised, seriously biased and counterproductive claptrap, it might be time for the brighter sparks of the Australian media scene to ask some real questions.

Here’s a challenge for Mr Henderson (and the rest of the media): Let us see how many mainstream media outlets review Antony Lowenstein’s forthcoming book, My Israel Question. How many of those reviewers will be “Middle East experts” who, just by coincidence of course, consistently support Israel and its half century of trashing the neighbours on one pretext or another.

Some great stuff here today.

By the way Glenn the Horse /rider /cart, analogy. I instantly saw John Howard and Downer walking at the back with shovels. Collecting the horse shit.

What surprises me is how many posts his Blog gets. I noticed that a good percentage of those that post are Americans, which makes sense. There is frequent mention fo blogs liek Little Green Footballs, so I suspect that the right wing blog world is much tighter and incestuous than the left.

Henserson writes for the SMH here and is a regular on ABC Radio NAtional. Founder ( I think) of the right wing think tank the Sydney Institute. Considerably more able than the aformentioned.

That’s incredible. So Tim Blair sends out hiw orks to troll through here and report back to the master of the precioussssss right.

How incredibly pathetic! I took TP to have more integrity than that, but call me a fool for overestimating a right wing moonbat.

Who is this Henderson guy anyway?

no blog, just comments here. tim blair lurks at the websites of his betters so he can pick up morsels of the humanity he and his acolytes lack. He throws them to his pack of hounds; they chew on it for a while but don’t have the stomach for engagement, like their fearless leader. Henderson with fangs.

Hi Joseph,

Ok, my use of “never” was definitely ill-advised, but maybe I just got a little carried away. I’ve addressed that on Antony’s site.

Now perhaps you’d like to justify your slurs about “factual slop”, the unfavourable comparison with Today Tonight, and so on. If you have nothing to say beyond what you have said already, well, I’ll assume that you’re guilty of what I’d accused Henderson of, namely nitpicking because you’re unable to contest the broader argument.

What’s more, if you have the courage of your convictions, respond publicly on Antony’s site, I’d prefer not to receive unsolicited emails from you unless there is a really good reason for you to address me in that way.

Regards,
Andrew

PS I’d say the limited response to Henderson’s article in the SMH letters page (the only other letter published on the topic was to denounce folks who hold dual citizenship) today basically backs my position…

I noticed the thread at TB’s blgo attacking you. What was all that about? Where did it originate?

Do you have a column or a blgo somewhere?

You are right about the limp wristed posters at TB btw. They so enjoy to fling mud at others, but heaven forbid should anyone try to stand up to them!! I foudn out this week that I have since been banned from there for nothing more than dissenting views.

These moonbats so love war and to sling bile, but they have a incredibly weak stomach for debate.