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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Australian Labor Party MP Joins the Deep Freeze Israel To Death Ruse


geoffff

An appalling essay at the Drum, the blog of the Australian national broadcaster, by ALP Federal Parliamentarian Andrew Leigh. The typical "as a friend" stuff. I left a comment. As one friend to another we owe it to warn Australia as well.


We owe it as friends to warn Israel

251 Comments
ANDREW LEIGH
Andrew Leigh
With plans to further expand settlements in the West Bank and elections next week likely to deliver a government weighted further to the right, Andrew Leigh says prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians look dim. As a friend of Israel, does Australia have a duty to highlight the dangers ahead?
Israelis will go to the polls next Tuesday to elect a new government.
If early signs are to be believed, Israel's most conservative government ever may be replaced by one even further to the right.
Already, there are signs that settler activity will intensify after the election.
The question for Australia is: what can we do to bring about peace in the Middle East?
First, some background.
In last November's United Nations vote on Palestinian status, Israel lost the support of 95 per cent of United Nations members (including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany). If there was one reason, it was the remorseless spread of settlements.
Around 510,000 Israeli settlers now reside in the West Bank. Since the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord, the number of Israeli settlers has doubled. With every block of settlements, a Palestinian state gets harder.
All these settlements are illegal under international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a party, says "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".
This isn't just a matter of legal niceties. From a practical standpoint, settlements make it vastly more difficult - if not impossible - to set up a Palestinian state.





Andrew Leigh Among Friends
Updated


The Ape  has edited and revamped his response  to Andrew Leigh's appalling essay in The Drum the other day. The ABC did not publish the response of course even though the Ape submitted it in good faith.

No sense of humour; the ABC.

The Israel Deep Freeze Double Goose Step Back To The Auschwitz Borders


Dear  Dr Andrew Leigh and ALP

As more than a particular friend of Australia it is only fair to return your warning to Israel right back at you.

 It seems to me that the Australia of your government could do with some warning. Certainly more than  Israel.  The Israelis are under no illusions about what they are up against. You on the other hand appear to be completely clueless.  

Here are some home truths that it might be a good idea to take on board for the sake of our country.



1.History did not begin in 1967

2.That means the settlements are not illegal under international law. It is disappointing that the Australian role in this is being airbrushed out of history in favour of some PC but utterly baseless alternative narrative that turns more on the psychology of the darker  recesses of the extremist religious mind than on any concept of historical truth..

 Even if history began in 1967 the settlements would still not be illegal. That is because of the circumstances in which the land came into the possession of Israel following the war of aggression launched against her at her most vulnerable point at her most dangerous hour by the autocrat in Amman despite direct appeals to remain neutral.. If you cannot think of any precedent in all of history where the loser did not or should not pay some price, even just to ensure security, then you may care to explain what quirk in your mind found an exception for the Jewish state.

3 Certainly since Jordan formally renounced any jurisdiction over the territories Israel would have been within her rights to have annexed the whole kit and caboodle, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and all. That is if the concept of "international law" has any worthwhile meaning worth retaining. That Israel has not done that has nothing to do with international law and everything to do with this being repugnant to any idea of Jewish nationhood. Those who insist on a "one state solution" have usually crossed one of the red lines that define antisemitism. Beyond Jerusalem Israel has never made any permanent claim over the territories. It has always been a matter of where to draw the borders. This has been the only issue both before and after 1967. The Israelis want recognised and agreed borders. The Palestinians and the Islamists and especially Iran  want no borders and no Israelis.

And you say Israel is the obstacle to the two state solution?  That it is Israel that must change?


It is at this point international law becomes irrelevant. It has always been a case of people of goodwill helping an essentially peaceful people have their secure state at peace with all.

Legal niceties aside indeed.

4 All of this is especially true in respect of Jerusalem and the adjoining "settlements", and E-1, that have always been earmarked for Israel under any realistic two state deal. This "settlement activity that roars ahead" of which you speak and which you claim is blocking the Palestinian state is in Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and other areas that have never previously been contested as part of Israel under  land swaps.

 Read Isi Leibler's just published piece on this. Do you have any idea of what you and the ALP  have bought  by signalling that this is again open as far as Australia is concerned? Especially in the explicit context of point 5? Do you seriously think you are helping?

5 The Palestinians have rejected the two state solution with a vengeance. You have no right not to know this.. They demand all the land to the sea. They do this openly and in every speech and they are being encouraged.. Just look at this from just yesterday in the British Parliament from the "Ambassador of Palestine to the UK"  .. in the presence of British MPs.

 Every Palestinian faction is united on this now. Why wouldn't they? Wherever they look in the West they are being told they are winning .  "Armed struggle" it is. Or the ethnic cleansing of the Jews outside of the 1949 armistice lines, just like from Gaza where they had lived pretty much for as long as there has been a Gaza,,; followed by the  forced collapse of the state through the spurious and offensive Muslim right of return. That is their bottom line.  With respect are you deaf? Do you think the Israelis are? That you overlook Palestinian intransigence and ignore the numerous repeated and specific offers by Israel and the world of a Palestinian state both before and after 1967 right up until Olmert's extraordinary offer a few years ago causes concern about your sincerity when you talk about peace.

6 No where in your essay do you mention the campaign of Nazi inspired genocidal antisemitism that is part of Hamas and Islamist ideology and reaches as far as Australia. That this  has reached this  far , and the threats this conflict and all the others involving radical Islam present on the home front, you appear to have no inkling of at all.  It is as if it does not exist. It is as if this and Islamist imperialism are simply not factors in the equation despite all the evidence.. Just as the human rights of the Israelis to their liberal democracy appear to be of little concern to you, beyond some somewhat condescending quips about technology and economic innovation and independent judges, academics and journalists. Just like Czechoslovakia before she was handed to the Nazis.

More innovative and independent than in Australia. For better or for worse.

7 To expect the Israelis to retroactively deep freeze their vibrant state permanently along 1949 armistice lines in the teeth of all this is an invasion of their human rights. Would you put up with that? . This is not the border. It never was and there have been three wars since then. These lands are not "occupied". They are disputed and especially in regard to those areas which were supposedly settled to be part of Israel under any two state deal long ago,  with land swaps, Jewish East Jerusalem, E-1  and the surrounding neighbourhoods, it is absurd and offensive to suggest that the Fourth Geneva Convention has application as you and the overt Israel bashers, including naturally the UN, have done.

 As far as the Palestinians and their foreign string masters are concerned it is not just these lands that are disputed. All the land is disputed all the way to the sea. Now more than ever. This is at the very core of the problem.  There are reasons why this problem is worse now than ever before.. These are the Islamic Revolution and Islamism. Not necessarily in that order. Did they miss that at your universities? Do you think you are helping by feeding it?

Perhaps you think these are Israel's fault. That you don't even mention the core of the problem suggests you are part of the problem.

8 The Israelis are not going to give up their brilliant little democracy without a fight.. Would you? To paint them into a corner is to invite war. That you can not see this, and you ignore completely the most pressing issue for Israel and the world, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran, as if it was an entirely different and irrelevant topic,  in favour of the by now clearly outright fraudulent  "Palestine"  ruse of the Islamists suggests a serious deficit of political courage. You just cannot bear to face the real problem, as huge as it is, so you look in the exact opposite direction.



I am an Australian of some generations and let me tell you something true, friend. Mate. Friends like you Israel can do without. That you appear to not understand that a liberal democracy anywhere is not dispensable in the face of this vile ideology without us all being dispensable , and that she is not in any way responsible for this vile ideology, or any of the other sick political cultures that have plagued the Arab world since the end of the First World War, including  the Palestinians,  suggests you do not appreciate how crucial this issue is for the health and future of the West and for Australia. The Islamists mean to win. Essays like yours embolden them.   Friends like you both Israelis and Australians can do without.  That is why all Australians, not just Jewish Australians,  who care about ideas like democracy, self determination and human rights should vote against the ALP this year.



Che Gorilla
Resident Human Rights Activist
Geoffff's Joint

Cross posted Israel Thrives

hat tip Shirlee





cross posted Geoffff's Joint

hat tip Shirlee


Update


Some comments at Catallaxy Files from commenters who followed a link to this post

  2. from Geoffff’s link:
    With plans to further expand settlements in the West Bank and elections next week likely to deliver a government weighted further to the right, Andrew Leigh says prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians look dim.
    The only thing looking dim at the moment is Andrew Leigh who appears to forget – or perhaps just agrees with – the Hamas and Hezbollah doctrine that peace will only come once Israel is wiped off the map.

    Gab
    16 Jan 13 at 10:17 pm


  2. geoffff
    I have less than zero time for islamist savages or for the western shills, liars, spivs, allies, enablers and the media gulliblitariat which supports them. My view is that the sole liberal western democracy in the middle east should take any action it desires and which is legal under its own laws to ensure its security.
    Full stop.
    After all, there’s no such thing as a ‘palestinian’, and the only independent states which have ever existed between the Litani, Jordan and Dead Sea were the ancient Jewish kingdoms and modern Israel.

    Mk50 of Brisbane
    16 Jan 13 at 10:24 pm
  3. And I think your blog is excellent. It’s a daily read for me.
    Anyhoo, early start tomorrow….

    Mk50 of Brisbane
    16 Jan 13 at 10:26 pm
  4. An ALP Parliamentarian and “friend” of Israel has joined the “Deep Freeze Israel to Death” Islamist ruse at the Drum.
    I saw that, too, Geoffff. I’m fast reaching the conclusion that Andrew Leigh is becoming the parliamentary ALP’s resident wrongologist — a smartarse fascist academic trying to make a name for himself while standing up for far-left causes like Hamas and the abolition of free speech. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was always a closet arsehole extremist a la Lee Rhiannon.

    Tom
    16 Jan 13 at 10:34 pm
  5. Geofff
    Good post. Leigh is an intellectual lightweight. Always has been.

    JC
    16 Jan 13 at 10:35 pm
  6. Good post. Leigh is an intellectual lightweight. Always has been.
    I are not.
    Youse are!

    Leigh Lowe
    16 Jan 13 at 10:41 pm
  7. There are a lot of politicians that irritate me. Shane Wand grates on me because he so stupid who knows is stupid and we know he knows we know he’s a moron.
    Leigh though grates on men because he appears to me to be sneaky and dishonest while putting on airs of probity.

    JC
    16 Jan 13 at 10:43 pm
  8. Re the Palestinians and the UN, a person who I respect very much put a different spin on the move to give the Palestinians a seat at the table, his take was that they are better in the tent rather than pissing on it. I have not closed my mind on that.
    I do not accept the Andrew Leigh argument that the two state solution is undermined by putting more Israeli settlers on the West Bank. It is undermined more than anything else by the refusal of the radicals to accept Israel’s right to exist.

    Rafe
    16 Jan 13 at 10:53 pm
  9. He’s such a shallow douchebag, Rafe.
    At any opportunity Leigh utters the standard leftie prayer recognizing the original owners bullshit. However I don’t see him giving his house back to the original owners seeing he believes they own the land.
    He doesn’t apply the rule to himself but expects Israel to cede land to the Palis.

    JC
    16 Jan 13 at 10:59 pm
  10. Good enough on every point. And thank you for your kind words. Catallaxy Files
at

12 comments:

  1. NormanFJanuary 16, 2013 at 12:49 AM

    Its a very good reply - it should be added for good measure thought that the Left gets in bed with Islamists and somehow thinks the reason the Middle East is in turmoil is because Israel has not disappeared fast enough for its enemies liking.

    Essays like Andrew Leigh's remind me of the fable about whom the crocodile eats. Sacrificing Israel is only the first meal on the crocodile's menu. It may buy Australia and the West some time. But they they are the next to feed the crocodile's never satiated appetite.

    Its telling that otherwise intelligent people cannot stand completely behind Israel in our century. Appeasement never works. The history of the last century has not sunk in with them. Peace with the Arabs is impossible because they claim all of Israel as theirs. No compromise therefore is possible.

    One can delude oneself about reality. But if Israel is in Ehud Barak's famous formulation, "the villa in the jungle," the rest of the Middle East is the jungle. And that is not going to change there for a long time to come.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2013 at 6:28 AM

    "The question for Australia is: what can we do to bring about peace in the Middle East?"

    Nothing whatsoever. And you're meddling in an affair that is no concern of yours.

    Even if I accepted all that load of bollocks about the "illegality" of Jews populating parts of the Land of Israel (Jews populating the Land of Israel?! Imagine that! Just what is the world coming to? If this goes on, we'll soon have Greeks saying they have a right to populate Hellas!), still I wouldn't believe in any kind of land-for-peace deals. Why? Because we have it on the authority of all our anti-Zionist enemies, both Marxist and Islamic, that the follow-up to the ethnic cleansing of the post-1967 territories of their Jewish population would be the push to create a "state of all its citizens," a multiculturalist nightmare à la Lebanon or Yugoslavia, out of the remaining pre-1967 Jewish State.

    In fact, it's not even a future scenario: Right now, anti-Zionist agitators are bleating about the rights of Bedouins in pre-1967 Israel, and talking about "Jewish settlements" in Jaffa and Acre! The drive to rob the Jewish nation of its self-determination is being mainstreamed as we speak, and the ethnic cleansing of the post-1967 territories is actually only the first stage in a two-stage plan. "There will be no discussion of the Right of Return," say Israel's leaders; but they once used to say any talks with the PLO were out of the question. The world will push for this "Right of Return," the swamping of Israel with Arab colonists; and if our leaders refuse, that refusal will be the "reason" why we'd be "at fault" for yet another Intifada. Were the Jewish State the size of the Tel-Aviv region alone, still the Jew-haters would find a way to depict it as the aggressor.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Daniel BielakJanuary 16, 2013 at 6:52 AM

    From a comment on an article on another web site:

    "I think at least 50% of outsiders including media get Israel wrong because Israel does not behave ‘normally.’ ..."

    That's exactly right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Daniel BielakJanuary 16, 2013 at 6:52 AM

      And, as part of Israel not behaving normally, the leaders of the government of Israel are not telling the basic simple essential facts of the situation: the fact that what is now Jordan was part of the British Mandate of Palestine (and constituted approximately two thirds of the British Mandate of Palestine); the fact that the founder of the 'Palestinian movement', Haj amin al-Husseini, resided in Germany from 1941 to 1945, and was an adjoined official of the Nazi regime of Germany, and was a co-architect of the Nazi 'Final Solution' -- the murder of approximately six million Jewish people in Europe by the Nazi regime of Germany; the fact that Haj amin al-Husseini, as the head of the Arab Higher Committee, was the co-ordinator of the Muslim Arab attack on Israel by the armies of several Arab states in 1948; the fact that, from 1949 to 1967, Jordan occupied what is now called "The West Bank" (Judea (Yehouda) and Sameria (Shomron)); the fact that, from 1949 to 1967, Egypt occupied what is now called "The Gaza Strip"; The fact that Fatah was founded in 1958 and was founded by veterans of Haj Amin al-Husseini's organization the Arab Higher Committee; The fact that Haj Amin al-Husseini was the mentor of Yasser Arafat; the fact that, soon after World War II, Yasser Arafat and other young Arab Nationalists (Arab Nazis) were trained in Egypt by German former Nazi officials at the behest of Haj Amin al-Husseini; The fact that the PLO was founded in 1964 and was founded by the Soviet KGB and the then-President of then-Soviet-Supported Egypt, Gamel Abdel Nasser; the fact that the 1964 PLO Charter (and the revised, and current, 1968 PLO Charter) calls for the destruction of what the PLO Charter calls "the Zionist" "occupation" of "Palestine" (destruction which the PLO Charter called for in 1964 -- while Jordan was occupying what is now called "The West Bank" (Judea (Yehouda) and Sameria (Shomron)) and while Egypt was occupying what is now called "The Gaza Strip"); the fact that Yasser Arafat was the head Fatah; the fact that, in the mid 1960's, Yasser Arafat was trained in Egypt by the KGB to become head of the PLO, and that, between 1969 and 1970, Yasser Arafat took the position of head of the PLO; the fact that there were more Jewish refugees from Muslim states in the Middle East than there were Arab refugees from Israel; the fact that the groups of Arab people who are now called "The Palestinians" don't live in Israel and are not citizens of Israel; the fact that approximately twenty percent of the citizenry of Israel are Muslim Arab and Christian Arab and Druze Arab; the fact that the creation of so-called "Palestinian" Arab state in what is now called "The West Bank" (Judea (Yehouda) and Sameria (Shomron)) and in what is now called "The Gaza Strip" would, in fact, be the creation of a second "Palestinian" Arab state -- a second "Palestinian" Arab state in addition to the "Palestinian" Arab state Jordan); etc. (and the facts of the covert U.S. governmental, and British governmental, racist war against Israel -- the fact that the Nazi trainers of Fatah were under the auspices of the CIA; the fact that the CIA recruited several thousand German Nazi officials as the core founding membership of the CIA; the fact that the State Department hired German former Nazi officials; the fact that it was the U.S. government (the Reagan administration, in the early 1980's) who started to push for the creation of a Fatah-PLO Nazi so-called "Palestinian" Arab state in the heartland of the besieged very small sole nation of the Jewish people, Israel; etc.)

      Delete
    2. Daniel BielakJanuary 16, 2013 at 6:59 AM

      Why haven't the leaders of the government of Israel told these facts? Why aren't the leaders of the government of Israel telling these facts? Why aren't any leaders of any prominent so-called "Jewish organizations" in the United States telling these facts? What is wrong with Jewish people?

      The following articles explain what is wrong with Jewish people.

      The Psychology of Populations under Chronic Siege, by Kenneth Levin
      http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-046-levin.htm

      Explaining Jewish Political Behavior, by Barry Rubin
      http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2010/08/explaining-jewish-political-behavior.html

      The Paradox of the Jewish Mind, by David Solway
      http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-paradox-of-the-jewish-mind/?singlepage=true

      Delete
    3. Daniel BielakJanuary 16, 2013 at 7:00 AM

      What needs to be done is to tell the facts of the approximately 90-year history and current reality of the situation that Israel is in. That's the solution. That's the only solution. That's what needs to be done.

      Facts of the approximately 90-year history and current reality of the situation that Israel is in:

      It's about Standing Up for the Human Rights of the Jewish People
      http://israel-thrives.blogspot.com/2012/12/its-about-standing-up-for-human-rights_17.html

      "It's not about 'belief in God'. It's not about 'belief in the Bible'. It's not about 'Jewish values and culture'.

      "It's about truth and justice. It's about standing up for the human rights of the Jewish people. ..."

      ----

      BTW:

      The Secret War Against the Jews, by John Loftus and Mark Aarons
      http://books.google.com/books/about/The_secret_war_against_the_Jews.html?id=trU7nY-T-4EC

      "The authors demonstrate that numerous Western countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, have conducted repeated and willful spying missions on Palestine[2] and later Israel over many decades. While on the surface these two countries and others profess to be ardent allies of Israel, they work, in fact, through their intelligence services to betray Israel's secrets to the Arabs. ..."

      America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History, by John Loftus
      http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Nazi-Secret-Insiders-History/dp/1936296047

      John Loftus was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Justice Department and had above Top Security clearance in the U.S. government.

      Big Oil Underwrites Anti-Israel Conference, by Cliff Kincaid
      http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/big-oil-underwrites-anti-israel-conference

      The Arab Lobby, by Lee Smith
      http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/44096/the-arab-lobby/

      Johann von Leers and Walt/Mearsheimer, by Clemens Heni
      http://clemensheni.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/johann-von-leers-and-waltmearsheimer/

      "Most people think that the book 'Israel Lobby' by Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer was published in 2007 -- at the same time in the US and in Germany, by the way. Well, the first edition of that book was rather published in 1940 -- by leading National Socialist anti-Semitic publicist Prof. Dr. Johann von Leers. Von Leers published 'Kräfte hinter Roosevelt' ('Forces behind Roosevelt') in Berlin in 1940. ..."

      Delete
    4. Daniel BielakJanuary 16, 2013 at 8:33 AM

      Correction:

      I wrote:

      "...in the mid 1960's, Yasser Arafat was trained in Egypt by the KGB to become head of the PLO..."

      Which should be:

      "...in the mid 1960's, Yasser Arafat was trained in Russia by the KGB to become head of the PLO..."

      Delete
  4. Mike L.January 16, 2013 at 9:34 AM

    This isn't just a matter of legal niceties. From a practical standpoint, settlements make it vastly more difficult - if not impossible - to set up a Palestinian state.

    This is pure racism.

    The implication seems to be that the Palestinian-Arabs cannot be expected to have a state if that state also contains Jews.

    And the truly sad thing is that the Jewish left is giving cover to this anti-Jewish racism, which is used as a weapon against Israel, by essentially agreeing with it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JayinPhiladelphiaJanuary 16, 2013 at 11:22 AM

      I'd like to think that history will not look back kindly on pro-apartheid progressives like this character and his fellows at places like Daily Kos and elsewhere on the 'Left' blogosphere.

      Can you imagine the same being said of any other ethnic group in any other situation?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2013 at 1:00 PM

      Back when Seri Nusseibeh announced that the new Arab state would allow no Jews to reside in it, you could hear the crickets chirping on DKos—and on the Progressive Left in general.

      In that, and in their contention that Zionism is a White European Colonial Settler movement, and in their racialist view of "European Jews" vs. "Arab Jews" (a deeply offensive term that any Sephardi Jew in Israel would react to in outrage, comparable to using the N-word on an African-American), ignoring the fact that Jewishness has never been defined on racial lines, the extreme Left goes full circle to meet their extreme Right counterparts, the pond scum of Stormfront. They too are rabid anti-Zionists, only they don't bother to maintain the pretense of a disconnect between their anti-Zionism and their classical, 1930s-style Jew-hatred.

      Delete
    3. JayinPhiladelphiaJanuary 16, 2013 at 2:38 PM

      If my time at Daily Kos taught me one thing, it's that progressive opposition to ethnic cleansing has a glaring exception. That exception, of course, is when it is being done to Jews.

      Delete
  5. geoffffJanuary 16, 2013 at 1:20 PM

    This post and your comments have been picked up pretty widely in Australia. I have submitted my response to Mr Leigh ALP to the Drum as a head article

    http://geofffff.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/alp-joins-deep-freeze-israel-to-death.html

    ReplyDelete