The people have spoken (and they say similarly in Australia, too):
Almost 60% of British people believe that Rupert Murdoch has too much influence on the country’s politics, according to a new poll.
Israel is unclear whether damning the illegal colonies is acceptable discussion or not?
Like so many Jews in the Diaspora who always demand better Zionist PR – don’t change any policies, of course, just try and sell them better – this latest attempt smacks of desperation:
Military Intelligence is collecting information about left-wing organizations abroad that the army sees as aiming to delegitimize Israel, according to senior Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers.
The sources said MI’s research division created a department several months ago that is dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups and will work closely with government ministries. In recent weeks, the head of the new unit has been taking part in discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office about how to prepare for the possible arrival of a Gaza-bound flotilla in May.
The undefined and potentially broad scope of such a venture, which IDF sources say is focusing on how to respond to maritime convoys aimed at breaching Israel’s Gaza blockade, has some Foreign Ministry officials concerned that the army is overreaching.
“We ourselves don’t know exactly how to define delegitimization,” said one ministry official. “This is a very abstract definition. Are flotillas to Gaza delegitimization? Is criticism of settlements delegitimization? It’s not clear how Military Intelligence’s involvement in this will provide added value.”
Military Intelligence officials said the initiative reflects an upsurge in worldwide efforts to delegitimize Israel and question its right to exist.
“The enemy changes, as does the nature of the struggle, and we have to boost activity in this sphere,” an MI official said. “Work on this topic proceeds on the basis of a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel on the one hand, and efforts to harm it and undermine its right to exist on the other.”
The new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it or imposing sanctions on it. The unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups.
Are there limits to damning Muslims? Not according to the Murdoch empire.
Melbourne’s Herald Sun editor Alan Howe has spent the last years finding new ways to demonise the Muslim religion. We can expect an upcoming column to advocate rounding up all Muslims and putting them on outback farms.
His latest, a letter to former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, a man he longs for, is the kind of unintentionally tragic article by a man who has spent far too much time in the clutches of the Zionist lobby and on free trips to the Zionist state:
Lately, though, events have unfolded with some haste. The West has ill-advisedly been celebrating as a revolution sweeps away the leadership of Tunisia and Egypt, and perhaps soon, even Libya.
That robust survivor Hosni Mubarak, your old colleague in peace, may have been a brutal tyrant but at least he was our brutal tyrant.
Now they say he is similarly struck down by stroke, perhaps being aware that Egypt is lost to his command.
Innocent well-wishers of the West, some of them running their own countries, anticipate free elections and a democratic Egypt, and maybe even a democratic Libya.
That’s unlikely. The Sunnis of Egypt will control whatever happens in the future and their agenda will likely be determined by adherents of Sayyid Qutb and his Muslim Brotherhood.
As you know, Ariel, the Muslim Brotherhood would prefer that Egypt, its neighbours, and eventually all of us, return to an earlier time when misogynist goat-herders were king.
I hope you are better soon. We could do with men like you.
Following my story last week in Crikey about Sydney’s Marrickville council endorsing BDS against Israeli apartheid, the following letter appeared in Friday’s Crikey:
Simon Sawday, Australasian Union of Jewish Students, Vice Chairperson, writes: Re. “NSW election: Greens Marrickville candidate labelled ‘Hamas harlot’”. As the Vice Chairperson of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), I was appalled to see AUJS accused of hanging Anti Greens posters in the city during the Mardi Gras in one of Crikey’s articles by Antony Loewenstein.
Firstly, this accusation has no basis, I would be glad to hear Mr Loewenstein’s source, if he has one.
Secondly, it’s part of the AUJS constitution not to endorse any political party, which is something our executives understand and abide by.
I’m very disappointed that we’ve been wrongfully accused of this on a site as popular as Crikey and would appreciate it if the facts surrounding this are corrected, even if it’s just to say that the accusation has no solid basis and is purely an opinion held by Mr Loewenstein.
And here is my response today:
Two reliable people told me separately last week, after the Marrickville council meeting, that they had heard Jewish participants at the meeting say AUJS were behind the anti-Greens posters. Other people, including the Liberal candidate for Marrickville, were there.
Furthermore, AUJS may not officially back any political party in elections, but they have a history of attacking the Greens on campuses in Sydney and Melbourne, accusing them of anti-Semitism. I have both seen and heard this. And often it comes not from the leadership itself but from AUJS members.
Meanwhile, Murdoch’s Australian calls for more Western bombing in the Arab world until, well, “freedom and democracy” appears.
It’s surely time to stop Western states talking publicly against Jewish settlements in the West Bank but allowing citizens to fund them via the tax system:
Margaret A. Weirich (J.D. 2010, Iowa) has published Hijacking the Charitable System: An Examination of Tax-Exempt Status for Charities that Support Israeli Settlements, 14 J. Gender Race & Just. 327 (2010). Here is part of the Introduction:
“This Note will argue that domestic policy, coupled with strong international law principles, justifies the revocation of tax-exempt status from charities that are supporting settlements. The purpose of tax-exempt status is to encourage individuals and groups to provide aid for educational, charitable, and other purposes that help to alleviate the government’s burden. Furthermore, this Note will argue that supporting activities that violate international law and widely recognized public policy does not fall under the intentions of the U.S. Tax Code. Charities that promote activities that are illegal under international customary law, U.S. ratified treaties, and public policy should not be rewarded by the U.S. government with tax-exempt status.
“The Background section will briefly focus on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the settlement issue. The Background section will also feature a summary of many of the aspects of international and U.S. domestic law that will be considered in this Note. The Analysis section will focus first on the legal issues surrounding settlements, then the connection between U.S. charities and settlements, and lastly the issue of tax-exempt status for charities that donate to settlements under the U.S. Tax Code. Finally, the Conclusion will summarize the findings of the Analysis section.”
Hard to disagree with most of what George Galloway says on Sky News:
And Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz seems to agree:
Netanyahu may argue that the last thing Israel dares do today is take significant “risks for peace” in the unpredictable Middle East, with the further private concern that American support is less reliable than it has been for years, as underlined by the rapid abandonment of long-term ally Mubarak. Much of the rest of the world quite obviously thinks differently. Obama’s conviction is apparently that Israel simply must do its best to forge ahead, with America at its side guaranteeing its security, or find itself a pariah nation, resisting a regional push for freedom, that America will be hard-pressed to defend.
AS HE strives frantically to stay afloat in the rising tide of diplomatic pressure, reduced to eking out a few hundred settler-home building starts in the aftermath of the Itamar murders, it has been widely reported that the prime minister will be unveiling a deadlock- busting initiative in the next few weeks, with much speculation about a declaration in favor of an interim Palestinian state.
Personally, I rather doubt it. Netanyahu himself, as far as I can ascertain, has made no promise to deliver any kind of dramatic program. And even if he had been considering one, his inclination to unveil concessions must surely have been greatly reduced by the combination of widening regional instability, the hardening PA negotiating positions, the Victoria interception and its reminder of Iran’s vicious ambition, and, most of all, the sheer inhumanity evidenced in the murders at Itamar.
Several senior people with whom I’ve spoken in recent days, furthermore, strongly doubt that Netanyahu has any kind of new, dramatic formula in mind. One of them indicated that Netanyahu’s game plan is to somehow muddle through the next few months, minimizing the damage of the Palestinians’ push for statehood at the UN General Assembly in September, navigating the Quartet’s impossible deadline for a deal by that same month, and keeping the US administration from imposing anything too unpalatable by November, at which point it will be a year until the presidential elections and Obama will have his hands full.
I would ask the prime minister directly about all this, of course. But Netanyahu, unlike any prime minister in recent years, has steadfastly refused since taking office to be interviewed by this newspaper. He has refused to be interviewed by most other Israeli newspapers, less fair-minded than this one, for that matter. He evidently prefers presidential-style public statements, shortish TV interview spots, and talking to certain foreign reporters who he may feel will ask him less searching questions.
The corporate press have little memory, so suggesting “hot” places to travel usually ignores human rights abuses in a country.
Take Sri Lanka. The New York Times has written before, post the end of the civil war in May 2009, to visit this glorious nation. No comment is made about a nation run by war criminals. It’s a police state, people.
The Times is back at it again:
30 Elephant Orphanage and Kandy Start at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in Kegalle and watch them take their baths; the older elephants submerge themselves in the gentle rapids, while the babies shower their backs with water spurting from their trunks — all against a backdrop of palm trees and distant mountains. Surrounding restaurants have terraces, perfect for nursing a Lion Lager. Next, hire a car and driver for the hilly and often beautiful one-hour drive to the ancient capital of Kandy. Though it suffers from urban sprawl, the city’s center is home to a sacred Buddhist shrine, Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, which is set on a picturesque lake.
