The Zionist lobby’s road map of delusion

Following my recent joint op-ed in the Melbourne Age – on the reality of life in racially exclusionary Israel/Palestine – today the inevitable response from the Zionist lobby. It’s almost embarrassing in its simplicity and dishonesty. So, below are the tried and true methods of the lobby’s (increasingly futile) points of attack:

– Allege Israel is desperately searching for peace, always has and always will be. Ignore the ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank (a point made powerfully in the current edition of the London Review of Books.)

– Accuse critics of Israel of siding with the enemy, ie. Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran etc. We are, after all, clearly traitors to the cause.

– Ignore the elephant in the room, the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

– Argue that dissident groups such as Independent Australian Jewish Voices are tiny, meaningless, useless and irrelevant, then spend most of the column talking about them.

– Accuse the US academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby, of dishonesty. Despite its faults, the work has triggered a vital debate around the world about the power of the Zionist lobby, something Zionists would rather not discuss, including in Australia.

– Ignore the Israel-led blockade and suffering of Gaza.

– Ignore the Israeli authorities’ sympathy and support for the settler movement.

– Portray Israel, the occupier, as the victim, and the Palestinians, the occupied, as the aggressor.

– Argue that Israeli Arabs have equal rights to Israeli Jews, a lie even acknowledged last week by the world’s leading Jewish News Agency, JTA.

– Demand that the Palestinians are “re-educated” into good, little Zionists who love a Jewish state that discriminates against them.

The Zionist lobby knows that the occupation is embarrassing and the world is increasingly against the Jewish state.

Readers of The Age can see through the propaganda.

Yet another own goal by the lobby.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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