Murdoch attack-dog Andrew Bolt worries that the West is “selling out Israel” – yes, saying anything critical of the Jewish state is clearly one step away from anti-Semitism – and then this:
I understand from excellent sources that Israel is alarmed by Kevin Rudd’s increasingly hostile comments (esepcially these) and policies, and major Labor donors among the Jewish Left are finding it much harder to reach for their wallets.
Former executive editor of the New York Times Howell Raines writes in the Washington Post that American mainstream journalists are scared of the power of Fox News and should fight back:
Why has our profession, through its general silence — or only spasmodic protest — helped Fox legitimize a style of journalism that is dishonest in its intellectual process, untrustworthy in its conclusions and biased in its gestalt? The standard answer is economics, as represented by the collapse of print newspapers and of audience share at CBS, NBC and ABC. Some prominent print journalists are now cheering Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp. (which owns the Fox network) for his alleged commitment to print, as evidenced by his willingness to lose money on the New York Post and gamble the overall profitability of his company on the survival of the Wall Street Journal. This is like congratulating museums for preserving antique masterpieces while ignoring their predatory methods of collecting.
Gee, things are tough in the Middle East when Murdoch’s Australian sounds depressed. Maybe, just maybe, more corporate journalists based in Israel will start to write about the reasons for the bleakness; fundamentalist Jews:
The Middle East peace process was in tatters last night and Israel’s coalition government faced crisis after it announced a huge new housing development in the Arab area of East Jerusalem.
Israeli Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon said the Labour Party was considering quitting the coalition government, and Palestinian negotiators said they were pulling out of the US-brokered “proximity talks”.
The crisis erupted during the visit of US Vice-President Joe Biden to Israel to support the talks.
Mr Simhon said: “Members of the Labour Party have more and more difficulty in taking part in a coalition government that they joined with the purpose of relaunching the peace process with the Palestinians.
“The anger of Biden is justified. A grave error has been committed, and there is a price to pay.”
The Arab League, which pressed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept renewed talks even though Israel had not agreed to freeze Jewish settlements, withdrew support for the discussions.
…
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Mr Biden had said privately Israel’s decision to build in East Jerusalem was liable “to set the Middle East on fire”.
It said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent three officials to tell the US delegation he did not know the announcement was coming, but “US administration officials didn’t buy the explanation” and “officials in both the White House and the State Department accused Israel of having set Biden up”.
My following article appears in the Huffington Post:
The arrival of the new American Ambassador to Australia was breathlessly welcomed by the Australia media pack in late 2009. Jeffrey Bleich, an American lawyer from California, assumed his position in Canberra and was introduced to the country through an interview on the public broadcaster ABC.
After the reporter Leigh Sales congratulated Bleich on his appointment, he was treated to softball questions and allowed to outline, unchallenged, the Obama administration’s agenda.
Sales and Bleich joked over the ambassador’s Elvis obsession but substantive questions were almost absent (or follow-ups probing Bleich’s non-answers). No comments about Obama’s continuation of Bush administration policies towards indefinite detention of terror suspects and warrantless wiretapping.
On the eve of Obama’s first visit to Australia in late March, the Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor Peter Hartcher informed his readers that, “the remark by the US ambassador to Australia that his kids are brushing up on their Wii skills is a marker of the rejuvenation of the alliance.”
Hartcher wrote:
“By bringing his family, Obama will give a new generation of Australians a sense of connection with their country’s chief ally… Where the relationship between [former Australian Prime Minister John] Howard and [George W.] Bush was forged in the fire of September 11 terrorism and the Afghan and Iraq invasions that followed, [Australian Prime Minister Kevin] Rudd and Obama have developed a post-crisis partnership.”
Both leaders would be able to “share satisfaction in the early progress of the new strategy in Afghanistan.”
The American/Australian alliance has always been built on supporting Washington’s wars, despite public opinion often opposing these engagements (such as the current Afghan deployment).
After the humanitarian and military disaster in Iraq, the only reason to maintain Australian troops in Afghanistan is to try and regain Washington’s credibility; a difficult task when civilians continue being killed. Australia’s objective has therefore nothing to do with bringing freedom and democracy to Afghanistan.
Furthermore, Australians troops are suspected of committing war crimes in the country and military lawyers are inadequately trained to assess possible breaches of humanitarian law in the field.
A senior Australian Army media adviser who served in Afghanistan and Iraq accused the Australian government of a culture of excessive spin and unnecessary secrecy, lying about local engagement with the civilian populations and obscuring the mission’s purpose.
There is little discussion in the corporate media over what Australian troops are actually doing in Afghanistan. Instead, the public are mostly treated to articles advocating military escalation. Take this recent piece by Rupert Murdoch columnist, Greg Sheridan, arguing that, “a serious ally would take the lead in a province, as we did in Vietnam.” Public opinion, or morality, is damned.
America has consistently thanked Australia for its reliability. George W. Bush awarded John Howard the Presidential Medal of Freedom in early 2009. Bush said that, “He [Howard] never wavered in his support for liberty, and free institutions, and the rule of law as the true and hopeful alternatives to ideologies of violence and repression. That’s why I called him a man of steel.”
Howard was a full backer of Bush’s “war on terror”, including Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition.
Britain’s Tony Blair and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe were also awarded at the White House ceremony.
Managing the alliance between America and Australia takes little work or imagination from Washington. They have a country desperate to keep on its good side, able to offer its own thoughts but likely to fall into line, no matter what. Washington rightly believes that Australia watches over the Pacific, influencing and pressuring small nations heavily reliant on foreign aid.
Some mainstream commentators have suggested that Obama’s upcoming trip should allow serious discussion about China and energy co-operation.
But Obama’s fortunes are dwindling in America and key policies, on health and climate change, are stalled with little positive resolution expected any time soon. Although a senior Australian minister claimed last week that Obama’s visit would “generate a great deal of interest from the Australian public“, I know of a number of anti-war groups who will peacefully protest America’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and support for Israel.
Australian backing for America isn’t automatic and requires constant massaging by embedded journalists. The Australian-American Leadership Dialogue is a regular and private gathering of the political elites from both countries. Senior journalists, most of whom never disclose their participation, regularly return from meetings praising American initiatives.
As far as I know, there has never been a comprehensive article in the mainstream press that debunks the agenda of the Dialogue or the opinion-shapers involved. Instead, we are treated to occasional references without context.
Australia has long suffered from an inferiority complex towards its super-power boss. Disagreements aren’t unknown between Washington and Canberra – Kevin Rudd refused to help re-settle released Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay despite a request from the Obama administration – but Australia is far more comfortable seeing America as an irreplaceable friend who supposedly shares the same values. China is only a vitally important trading partner.
There is no doubt that Obama himself remains popular in Australia – his allegedly charming demeanour is still profiled in gossip magazines – but the mainstream media reports the torturous progress of the Democrat’s health care bill and the political effectiveness of the Tea Party movement.
Obama’s upcoming visit will be primarily an opportunity for Kevin Rudd in an election year to bask in the glow of a President whose popularity is diving in America but remains buoyant globally.
At a time when America’s ability to shape events in vast swathes of the world are in decline, including throughout South America and the Middle East, Obama will be pleased to visit an unquestioning ally.
The list of Australian corporate flaks backing Israel’s hit in Dubai is growing. Israel is a state religion. Must support. Must back. Must love. Must not question.
Take Murdoch hack Alan Howe (a man with a long hatred of Arabs), here in Melbourne’s Herald Sun wildly supporting Israeli state terrorism and encouraging more death in the name of fighting terrorism:
Israelis 1, Palestinians 0.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a virtueless scrap of humanity, is dead. All good so far.
…
Just days off turning 50, al-Mabhouh knew he was a worthy target for assassination. Usually, he travelled with a team of bodyguards, but they couldn’t get seats on his flight, which was said to be the first leg of a weapons-buying trip to Thailand.
To help secure the success of this well-thought-out killing, Mossad’s agents travelled on forged passports appearing to have been issued in Germany, France, Ireland, the UK and Australia.
Foreign ministers from these countries, including our own Stephen Smith, have been mildly critical of Israel, at least compared with the excitable Hamas spokesman who told Israel to “prepare to receive the hellfire of our anger”. What, and that’s new?
Our reaction was more subdued; forging Australian passports was not “the act of a friend”.
Yes it was.
We cancelled the screening in Parliament House of an Israeli film called Noodle.
Take that, Tel Aviv!
…
Quietly, over the years, after having breathed a sigh of relief, most of the world came to understand what a favour that little country [Israel] had performed for them.
These days attention has turned towards Iran and its development of a nuclear program. This, too, is to generate power. Then why hide it at terrific expense under the desert?
Gaza is an Iranian proxy state where that country’s hate for the West is played out in fights against Israel.
This is the War on Terror.
Iran is the terror. Its Gaza agents are the terrorists. We must kill them.
And next on the agenda is Iran’s nuclear plant.
Rupert Murdoch must be so proud of the movement he’s helped create:
The US is facing a surge in anti-government extremist groups and armed militias, driven by deepening hostility on the right to Barack Obama, anger over the economy, and the increasing propagation of conspiracy theories by parts of the mass media such as Fox News.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US’s most prominent civil rights group focused on hate organisations, said in a report that extremist “patriot” groups “came roaring back to life” last year as their number jumped nearly 250% to more than 500 with deepening ties to conservative mainstream politics.
The SPLC report, called Rage on the Right, said the rise in extremist groups was “a cause for grave concern” given their propensity to use violence during their heyday in the 90s, most notably with the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. It added that the issues driving support for such groups were increasingly populist and that “signs of growing radicalisation are everywhere”.
“Patriot groups have been fuelled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded “socialist” or even “fascist” by his political opponents,” the report said.
“Already there are signs of … violence emanating from the radical right. Since the installation of Barack Obama, rightwing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation’s first black president. One man from Brockton, Massachusetts – who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites – is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama’s inauguration. Most recently, a rash of individuals with anti-government, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.”
…
The report says that, unlike during the 1990s, the patriot movement’s core ideas are more widely propagated and accepted by prominent politicians and some in the mass media, such as the Fox News presenter Glenn Beck.
“As the movement has exploded, so has the reach of its ideas, aided and abetted by commentators and politicians in the ostensible mainstream,” said the report. “Beck, for instance, reinvigorated a key patriot conspiracy theory – the charge that the federal emergency management agency is secretly running concentration camps – before finally ‘debunking’ it.”
The selling of a war against Iran seems to be going swimmingly well in the US:
A majority of American voters think military force will be necessary to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons program, and many think it will be “a disaster” if Iran gains nuclear capabilities.
A Fox News poll released Tuesday finds that 60 percent of voters think force will be required to stop Iran, while 25 percent think diplomacy and sanctions alone will work.
My following article is published today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum:
Israel is a protected species in the international arena. Many Western states, including Australia, have long tolerated behaviour by the Jewish state that is condemned if committed by any other democracy.
This reality makes the current scandal over the alleged Mossad hit last month in Dubai of a senior Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, all the more fascinating. The Palestinian militant may be dead but Israel’s reputation and credibility have taken a severe beating. The Israeli press are reporting that up to a third of a key Mossad hit squad may have been compromised.
Australia has a long history of bi-partisan support for the Jewish state but I can’t recall another time when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed such public outrage over Israel’s apparent use of Australian passports to cover their tracks in the Dubai murder. This is despite a Jerusalem Post columnist insisting that, “it behoves Western democracies not to lose sight of the fact there are instances in which ends do justify means”.
In this case, Australia apparently does not agree. Smith said he told Israel’s Australian ambassador, Yuval Rotem, that, “if the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend.” Rudd was equally indignant though refused to specify what action might be taken if Israel did not co-operate. Senior ministers in both the ALP and Liberal party were equally vague on ABC’s Lateline on Friday.
Perhaps an early indication of Canberra’s anger was seen in a vote in the UN last week that saw Australia abstain from backing Israel against the serious allegations contained in the Goldstone Report related to allegations of war crimes in Gaza. This is a change from months of unqualified backing for Israel’s onslaught against Gaza in late 2008/early 2009.
The headline of an article by Sydney Morning Herald journalist Peter Hartcher summed up the mood: “Betrayed PM should not be taken for granted by Israel”. The Age’s Diplomatic Editor Daniel Flitton argued that, “a long friendship is on the line”.
Not so fast. Canberra is apparently upset that Israel has abused its deep friendship. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government probably presumed that a strong ally such as Australia would be unfazed by the abuse of its passport system or more likely hoped it would never become public. An Israeli official, anonymously of course, told the conservative Washington Times that the revelation of Mossad’s behaviour in Dubai would not affect intelligence sharing between Israel and the West.
But a former Australian Middle East ambassador, Ross Burns, is pleasantly surprised by the Rudd government’s strong line. It is time, he writes, that Australia matures and gets past its “smitten” love affair with the Jewish state.
It is possible that Australia will briefly downgrade its relationship with Mossad, as Canada did after the botched assassination attempt in 1997 of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal using fake Canadian passports, but backing Israel for Australia is too central to its complicity with the US alliance to seriously question or radically change.
A better example may be New Zealand in 2004, when then Prime Minister Helen Clark discovered Israeli agents trying to steal the country’s passports and suspended diplomatic relations until an apology was forthcoming.
Countless reports have emerged over the years of Israeli allegedly using Australian passports as cover for covert activities but successive Australian governments have never fully pursued the leads. The public should ask why.
The Australia/Israel relationship is not based on shared values, as constantly stated by the elites in both countries. Instead, Canberra’s usual blind backing of Israeli actions is directly related to the relationship with Washington. If US President Barack Obama suddenly cut all aid to the Jewish state due to its intransigence, rest assured Australia would follow. Our foreign policy in the Middle East is not independent.
But there is no doubt that Kevin Rudd, like most Prime Ministers before him, view Israel as a unique state deserving special privileges. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said on the weekend that Rudd must take a much harder line on Netanyahu.
The Holocaust could no longer be used to justify acts of terrorism in the name of supposed security, he argued: “That happened 65-66 years ago and it cannot be used any longer to prevent proper discussion of Israel’s policies when those policies are counter-productive to world peace. To suggest that those who are critical are anti-Semitic – I reject that utterly.”
Others, such as The Australian’s Greg Sheridan, applauded the murder of the Hamas leader but asked Israel to be more careful next time. In other words, don’t get caught with blood on your hands.
Outright condemnation of Israeli actions has risen in the mainstream press. Amin Saikal in the Sydney Morning Herald accused Israel of committing state terrorism and The Age claimed Israel had “lost friends” over the scandal.
Extra-judicial killings are a central feature of the “war on terror” and Israel is only one of its supporters. The Bush administration (along with the Obama White House) strongly backed the concept of assassinating individuals deemed to be “terrorists” in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald articulates the largely hidden program:
“Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose ‘a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests.’ They’re entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.”
A robust democracy would not allow the executive to engage in wanton killing in the name of eliminating “terrorists” but little has been discussed in Australia that acknowledges the fundamental problems with this post 9/11 reality (despite the occasional exception).
Israel’s actions over the Hamas murder are deplorable and must be fully investigated (and Washington pressured to join the hunt for clues). The image of Israel in the wider Australian society has inevitably taken a welcome hit but it remains highly unlikely that the political and media elites will implement the obvious implications of the latest affair; Israeli behaviour in the Middle East and the occupied territories are not the sign of a responsible or democratic nation.
Surely article of the day about Australian passports being involved in the Dubai murder (while Israeli itself continues to deny its involvement, sounding a little like a scorned schoolchild who doesn’t like admitting he hits girls). Over to you, Greg Sheridan (essentially wishing well Israel and any other country that wants to murder supposed terrorists in an extra-judicial way but urges it to be done cleaner):
Israel has every right to wage war against those who wage war against it but Israel certainly does not have the right to misuse the passports of innocent Australians in the process.
This was a very bad mistake by Jerusalem. There will be a great deal of criticism of Israel over the next few days. Let’s be clear what Israel deserves criticism for.
Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorists and murderers. The international community cannot condemn Israel for waging too indiscriminate a war against Hamas in Gaza, then condemn it all the more for a targeted strike against a key terrorist murderer.
Morally, there is no difference in Israel’s actions from those of the US when it targets al-Qa’ida and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan for strikes by unmanned drone aircraft. The Australian Special Air Service has been sent on similar missions in Afghanistan. But one glaring question out of this debacle is how did it go so wrong. Israel has conducted numerous operations like this, often enough with the co-operation of one or other Arab intelligence agency. The reach, expertise and stealth of Mossad is legendary in the Middle East, and a substantial part of Israel’s overall military prestige. But this operation has attracted all the wrong kind of publicity and left behind embarrassing video images and evidence of Mossad agents’ behaviour. The misuse of Australian passports is a shocking mistake by Israel. Perhaps the key strategic challenge Israel faces is its diplomatic and political isolation. Apart from the US, Israel has no better friend in the world than Australia.
Similarly, there could be only a tiny handful of leaders anywhere in the world as committed to Israel as Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. A smart nation, and Israel is normally among the smartest, does not ever, under any circumstances, burn friends like that. Canberra has a very close, active and intimate intelligence relationship with Israel. Many of our top intelligence people go there for consultations and even for special short course training. It is astonishing to find a circumstance in which the PM is condemning Israel. To misuse the Australian connection in this way is a very poor show by the Israelis. For God’s sake, don’t do it again.
Via ThinkProgress:
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now owns a 7 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, making him the company’s largest shareholder outside of Murdoch’s own family. Alwaleed is best known for going to Ground Zero after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and personally handing then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani a check for $10 million to help finance relief efforts. Afterwards, Alwaleed released a statement blaming the attacks not on the Saudi airline hijackers, but on U.S. policies in the middle east. As a result, Giuliani returned the prince’s donation, gaining him praise from Fox News for doing so. Now that Alwaleed has a controlling ownership in News Corp., he is gaining influence over Fox News. In 2005, just months after Alwaleed acquired his first 5.4 percent stake in News Corp., Fox News covered riots in Paris under a banner saying “Muslim riots.” Alwaleed allegedly called Murdoch and had him change the banner to say “Civil riots.” Investigative journalist Joseph Trento also reported that a comment he recently made on a Fox Network morning news show, Fox and Friends, about Saudi Arabian money still financing Al Qaeda, was edited out of the show. Trento also reports that Alwaleed “has personally donated huge amounts of money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.” In a rare interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in January, AlWaleed explained his personal reasons for seeking influence in American politics: the U.S. buys Saudi Arabia’s oil, and the bulk of his country’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from oil. Fox News reliably broadcasts misinformation on clean energy, and aggressively fights efforts to move America away from being dependent on a fossil fuels.
Next time anybody talks about the inherent morality within the Murdoch empire, remind them of this:
Rupert Murdoch’s media giant News International could face a judicial inquiry after a highly critical parliamentary report today accuses senior executives at its top-selling newspaper of concealing the truth about the extent of illegal phone hacking by its journalists.
The 167-page report by a cross-party select committee is withering about the conduct of the News of the World, with one MP saying its crimes “went to the heart of the British establishment, in which police, military royals and government ministers were hacked on a near industrial scale”.
MPs condemned the “collective amnesia” and “deliberate obfuscation” by NoW executives who gave evidence to them, and said it was inconceivable that only a few people at the paper knew about the practice.
How does Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post report an attack when it’s “only” committed by a white person (instead of a Muslim?)
A very strong article by Fairfax Middle East correspondent Jason Koutsoukis that outlines a Jewish state increasingly at war with itself, while the Jewish Diaspora simply whistles while their beloved state walks towards a cliff:
On the way out of a popular Jerusalem steakhouse last Wednesday, I was introduced to an American-Israeli named Eliza.
A member of the Israel Defence Forces public relations unit, Eliza quickly explained that she was busy hosting a dinner for some foreign journalists. “Whom of course, internally, I despise,” she added apologetically, not knowing who I was.
Among the “despised” journalists at her table were Charles Levinson of The Wall Street Journal, and Sheera Frenkel, who writes for The Times of London. Both are American-born Jews, and neither they, nor their Murdoch-owned mastheads, are what you would call typically rabid haters of Israel.
Whether or not the IDF flack actually loathed these two reporters hardly matters. What her comments do reveal is the deep resentment felt by Israel’s political elite towards what is perceived to be a biased foreign press corps.
After last year’s war in Gaza, and the later report for the United Nations Human Rights Council by Justice Richard Goldstone that accused Israel of war crimes, sensitivity to how Israel is perceived abroad has been more heightened than ever. Yet the most piercing insights into the Israeli-Arab conflict today have nothing to do with the foreign media. They come from within Israeli society itself.
In the past two years, internationally acclaimed films such as Waltz With Bashir, Ajami, and Lebanon, have added exceptional context to the deep divisions within Israeli society and the long-term effects of the conflict on its people. More disturbing still are the verbatim accounts of some of the soldiers who have served in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The damaging effects of the occupation, not just on Palestinians but on the soldiers themselves, are laid bare in a booklet published last week by the group Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army veterans who have taken it upon themselves to expose life in the occupied territories to the Israeli public. Titled Women Soldiers’ Testimonies, the booklet details the experiences of more than 40 female soldiers who have served in various roles in the territories since 2000.
Testimony 24 was provided by a sergeant on a night-time search for weapons near Hebron, a Palestinian city that is also sacred to Jews and whose centre has been taken over by Israeli settlers. It was about 2am when the raiding party climbed the steps to a large Palestinian house.
“So we entered these people’s home, the father opens the door for us, in his robe, and the mother and grandmother and two little kids woke up too. Now they look at you with this look, like ‘you’re entering our home at two o’clock in the morning’.
“Everything was just so messed up . . . and the father tries to ask, the owner tries to ask questions and talk and none of us even bother to speak to him at all. The soldiers go on, opening and trashing and trashing just about everything in that house, turning the whole place inside out . . . all the drawers, the closets, everything. And we didn’t find a thing. Nothing.”
After an hour, the soldiers went on to a second house.
“That was the first moment I realised why we are looked at like that, and why we are so hated. You enter in the most disgusting manner, without a drop of humanity, because the disrespect in the answers the man was given — the wife and children were not even addressed — I mean, no one even looked at them.
“I can’t even begin to describe to you the shame I felt, ashamed of the way we were behaving, entering their home like that, that we . . .
“I’ll never forget this as long as I live, I’m telling you. I have this picture in my head, of those kids staring at me.”
Australian, Jewish Zionist MP Michael Danby loves to talk about human rights in many countries around the world, except of course Palestine. It’s the usual program; issue directives without political risk but support the most reactionary elements of the Israeli political elite.
And bombing Iran. Take his piece in the Wall Street Journal that argues – seriously, does this guy get his talking points from the Israeli Foreign Ministry? Actually, don’t answer – that the bombing of Iran (by Israel?) will be the fault of…China:
President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is determined to build nuclear weapons and has threatened Israel with destruction many times. He may be bluffing, but this is not a risk Israel can afford to take. If the international community cannot restrain Iran, the government of Israel will face great pressure to take pre-emptive steps to protect the country against attack.
Thus, China’s greed for secure oil imports and its willingness to deal with outlaw regimes to get these imports is causing a breakdown in the world’s only system for disciplining countries that endanger peace. If the U.N. sanctions break down in Iran, this opens up a serious danger of war—and China will bear a heavy share of the blame.
It’s such a hackneyed article (though fits the Journal perfectly) that you wonder why he bothers.
If Israel bombs Iran, Israel will be to blame. As will Washington (and probably Canberra). And Israel will pay a very high price for this criminality.
Yet another intellectually bankrupt example of modern Zionism.
Are any prominent Zionists capable of defending anything other than war these days?
Need evidence that most corporate journalists see politics as a game, like sport? Over to you, Politico:
Fox News has been making a serious charge about mainstream political reporters: They hate Sarah Palin.
This is not just wrong, it’s absurd. The reality is exactly the opposite: We love Palin.
And if Palin does not exactly love us, she’s smart enough to recognize how quickly reporters devour every provocative remarkinfluence in Republican politics. she utters. She knows how to exploit our weakness to guarantee herself exposure far out of proportion to her actual
It’s a tangled, symbiotic affair—built on mutual dependency and mutual enabling.
For the media, Palin is great at the box office. Among modern American political figures, she is second only to Barack Obama in generating clicks (for Web sites like this one) and ratings (for the cable news networks hungering around the clock for fresh material.)
When Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly interviewed Jon Stewart this week, it actually seemed like the two of them could be the kind of friends who rarely agree but enjoy the verbal stoush. Of course, O’Reilly usually bullies anybody he doesn’t like; it’s the Murdoch way:
Daniel Pipes, a Jew who always loves to find a new war to support, has a new article (re-published in Murdoch’s Australian, of course) that offers the US President a way out of his political troubles:
Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
This “exclusive” in today’s Murdoch Australian (also featured in the Melbourne Age) is a wake-up call to the Australian government. Blindly supporting Israel and mouthing platitudes about a two-state solution, while remaining silent on the siege of Gaza and the growing occupation, comes with a price:
Kevin Rudd’s bid for a UN Security Council seat has been dealt a severe blow after a warning from the Arab League that it is less likely to succeed because of Australia’s support for Israel.
Hashem Yousseff, chief of cabinet for Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa, told The Australian Canberra kept “bad company” at the UN, where it often opposes anti-Israel resolutions in alliance with the US, Canada and small Pacific island states.
Australia’s support for Israel, he said, was “one of the elements that will be taken into consideration” by the 22-member Arab League in deciding whether to support Australia’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council for the 2013-14 term.
Mr Yousseff said the Arab nations would consider how different candidates affected their interests. “For us, the Arab-Israeli issue is an important part of the consideration.”
Canberra has invested huge political, diplomatic and financial resources in its bid for one of 10 non-permanent Security Council seats.
But Mr Yousseff’s comments indicate it will be difficult for Australia to out-poll the European nations, which are regularly more critical of Israel.
Australia has not held a seat on the Security Council for more than 20 years.
Mr Rudd has cast his foreign policy as consisting of three pillars – the US alliance, engagement with Asia and leadership in multilateral organisations. A Security Council seat would be the crowning achievement of the multilateral pillar.
Unsure what to really think of the Iraq war? Let Murdoch’s Australian guide you through the complexity:
Tony Blair was called a murderer on Friday by outraged activists after his evidence before the Chilcot inquiry into the origins of the war to remove Saddam Hussein.
It is the sort of foolish sloganising that always characterised the case against the invasion. While there is no doubting claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in 2003 were plain wrong, there is no denying he had used them in the past. That Saddam also wanted the world, specifically his enemies in Iran, to believe he still had WMD was revealed last year in declassified FBI interviews with the dictator. Certainly Mr Blair, like George W. Bush and John Howard, was too willing to act on poor-quality intelligence, but this does not make Saddam innocent of crimes against the Iraqi people committed over decades, of being a threat to the peace of the Middle East and the wider world. Nor is there any denying the US and British occupation of Iraq was badly planned and initially poorly managed, that the Americans in particular were not capable of defending the Iraqi people against terrorists determined to kill to stop democracy being established. But this does not mean Mr Blair was wrong. He acted in the interests of Britain, its allies and as we know now with democracy taking hold in Iraq, the people of that long-suffering country.
That’s sorted then.
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald rightly concludes that the responsibility-free media class that advocates “for more wars that never touch their lives” should be treated with the contempt they deserve (while, in contrast, somebody like Howard Zinn, who opposed wars, is side-lined or even ignored by the mainstream):
I’m periodically criticized for an ”angry” tone in my writing, which I always find mystifying. I genuinely don’t understand why anger should be avoided or even how it could be. What other reaction is possible when one looks around and sees the government leaders who committed these grave crimes completely unburdened by any accountability and treated as respectable dignitaries, or watches the Tom Friedmans, Jeffrey Goldbergs, Fred Hiatts and other unrepentent leading media propagandists who helped enable it still feted as Serious and honest experts, or beholds the current Cabinet and Senate filled with people who supported it, or observes the Michael O’Hanlons and Les Gelbs and other Foreign Policy Community luminaries who lent trans-partisan credence to it all continue to traipse around still pompously advocating for more wars that never touch their lives?
A few months ago, I did an MSNBC segment with Dan Senor, who is currently a Fox News contributor, author of a new book hailing the greatness of Israeli innovations, a recent addition to the Council on Foreign Relations, and husband of CNN anchor Campbell Brown. But back in 2003 and 2004, he was Chief Spokesman for the ”Coalition Provisional Authority” in Iraq — the U.S. occupying force in that country. Sitting in the green room with him before the segment, I was really disgusted by the paradox that one is supposed to treat him as just some random political adversary deserving of standard civility, respect and respectability — in other words, a Decent Person is supposed to forget that he was an official who enabled and lied about some of the most monstrous acts of the last many years and is wholly unrepentent. And, of course, he was going on MSNBC that day to opine about our current foreign policy options: direct involvement in this horrific crime is no disqualifying factor; it’s not even a black mark against someone’s credibility and reputation.
