The following article, by Michael Rogers, appears in today’s Sydney Wentworth Courier newspaper:
A senior Israeli diplomat has called on Australian Jews protesting against Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip to visit the conflict zone and see the Israeli people’s suffering for themselves.
More than 120 prominent Jewish Australians, including anti-Zionist author Antony Loewenstein and Greens MLC Ian Cohen, called for an immediate end to the war against Hamas.
In a statement co-ordinated by the group Independent Australian Jewish Voices, they described the conflict as “inhuman, superfluous and abominable” and said the assault on Gaza would “only inflame hatred of Jews and of the state of Israel”.
By Tuesday morning, at least 60 civilians were among at least 530 Palestinians killed in the current conflict, which began on December 27 with Israeli air strikes and escalated when Israel sent ground troops into the Gaza Strip on January 3.
It is understood a number of Eastern Suburbs locals are currently serving in the Israeli army and at least one is on the ground in Gaza.
The deputy chef de mission of the Israeli Embassy, Eli Yerushalmi, said his country would continue its assault until Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel.
He said Hamas had fired more than 8000 rockets and mortar shells into Israel in the past eight years.
“There is no country in the world that would absorb this kind of situation,” Mr Yerushalmi said. “This is something we cannot tolerate and we have a right under international law to simply defend ourselves against these terrorists.”
To the Australian Jews opposing the war, he said: “It’s very easy when you’re outside to say ‘Israel is exaggerating; what is Israel doing?’ Israel is doing something that any normal country in the world would do – simply, defending civilians against an enemy which wants to destroy you and erase you.”
There have been no public rallies in support of Israel in Sydney, but about 2000 people attended a demonstration against Israel’s military action on Sunday. A pro-Palestinian rally in Melbourne on the same day drew about 3000 people, while 500 attended a pro-Israel rally.
Mr Yerushalmi said protesters at rallies against Israel were predominantly Arab and their demonstrations would not influence the country’s operations.
“Every time there is something in the Middle East, they will demonstrate about Israel. Not because Israel is now acting in Gaza, but because they don’t want to see Israel alive at all,” he said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Monday that Australia recognised Israel’s right to self-defence but he called on Israel and Hamas to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Mr Yerushalmi said Australia had shown understanding for Israel’s actions because “Australia, being a Western country, understands very well that no country on earth can actually tolerate a situation in which its citizens are rocketed.
“Like Australia, Israel also hopes that we will reach a ceasefire, but this ceasefire has to be different from cease-fires in the past.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the loss of life in Gaza was “deeply regrettable”, but it arose after Hamas had fired more than 6000 rockets into Israel from Gaza in the past three years and failed to renew the most recent ceasefire.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said the Australian Jewish community supported both Israel’s actions and Palestinians’ desire for an independent, democratic Palestinian state. The council also said every civilian casualty – whether Palestinian or Israeli – was “a true tragedy”.
Accompanying the article is the following photograph of NSW Jewish Board of Deputies head Vic Alhadeff. Yes, Zionist lobby, only you speak for Jews:
The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda
by Michel Chossudovsky
[...]
The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analysed in a historical context. Operation “Cast Lead” is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:
“Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.”(Barak Ravid, Operation “Cast Lead”: Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)
[...]
The longer term objective of this plan, as formulated by Israeli policy makers, is the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestinian lands:
“Terrorize the civilian population, assuring maximal destruction of property and cultural resources… The daily life of the Palestinians must be rendered unbearable: They should be locked up in cities and towns, prevented from exercising normal economic life, cut off from workplaces, schools and hospitals, This will encourage emigration and weaken the resistance to future expulsions” Ur Shlonsky, quoted by Ghali Hassan, Gaza: The World’s Largest Prison, Global Research, 2005)
“Operation Justified Vengeance”
[...]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11606
11. ” WE have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are rsigned to live here as slaves”:
Chairman Heilbrum of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv.
14. “WE must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return: David Ben-Gurian, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Zohar’s Ben-Gurion. The Armed Prophet, Prentice Hall, 1967. p. 157.
16. “We must use terror, assasination, imtimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid Galilee of its Arab population:
Israel Koeng. “The Koeng Memorandum”.
24. One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail: Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb 27. 1994 [source. NY Times, Feb 28, 1994, p1]
I wonder how much Aussies (Goyim ones) are worth?
For about 132 pages of further enlightenment on the intellectual musings in and relation to the Middle East, go to Whatreallyhappened.com. (Mike Rivero in Hawai) 6th Jan 09 at 9.11.
Of course the other side says much the same, it is just that we have their comments thrown dawn our throats consistently by the Controlled Mass Media on behalf of those seeking their final solution in Gaza.
Infidels and Goyim’s do not belong in the Middle East, Howard the man of steel had no excuse to send us to the area.
George is going to give Howard a medal! [good boy johnie!!] because he is a man of steel; yep, he is; no flesh, no heart no bone, just a steel ‘puppet’.
Get the message; Rudd and Gillard? get out of the place, one of our soldier’s fingernails is not worth the whole friggin area.
‘The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said the Australian Jewish community supported … Palestinians’ desire for an independent, democratic Palestinian state.’
Perhaps the Australian Jewish establishment would like to publish for general availability the decisive actions that the self-appointed spokespersons for Australian Jewry have taken to give substance to their support for a Palestinian state.
Given that no Israeli statesman (sic) can be found who sees the two-state solution as anything but rhetoric for consumption by the gullible, one would expect to see local officialdom running into conflict with its Lords and Masters.
Has the news not yet reached the local self-appointed spokespersons that their favourite gangster state has now made an independent Palestinian state impossible?
So why the claim? After all, they’ve had 40 years plus to get something happening. But no, the dispossession continues apace.
Is mendacity the price of admission to local leadership?