FRESH AIR

UPDATES

Media Week – A capital conspiracy; Vehicular man (and woman) slaughter

Jul 22, 2016 | Allon Lee

Media Week - A capital conspiracy; Vehicular man (and woman) slaughter
news_item/spin640_______________________________________________________________.jpg

A capital conspiracy

The Chilcot Inquiry into the former Blair Government’s decision to sign up to the Second Iraq War never mentioned Israel as one of the reasons for going to war. Yet the Canberra Times (July 8) apparently knows better, claiming in an editorial the real reason Iraq was invaded had “more to do with protecting Israel’s interests than in shutting down Saddam’s so-called terrorist links or preventing him from manufacturing crude weapons of mass destruction.”

This is a dangerously deluded conspiracy theory. In early 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon actually warned the White House not to remove Saddam Hussein.

This was independently verified in 2007 by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2002, who said, “the Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy – Iran is the enemy” and that “if you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy.”

Even Fairfax chief correspondent Paul McGeough (July 8), who has a history of inserting Israel gratuitously into his articles, noted in his piece only that Chilcot stated that British intelligence saw Iran, North Korea and Libya as “greater threats than Iraq, in terms of the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons”.

Vehicular man (and woman) slaughter

Many in the media noted the similarities between the horrific Islamist terror attack in Nice involving the use of a truck to kill more than 80 people and the use of vehicles in recent Palestinian terror tactics.

In the Australian (July 16), a Wall Street Journal report quoted former CIA agent Bruce Riedel saying, “we’ve seen similar vehicle attacks by individual Palestinians against Israelis, which have gotten enormous attention in jihadi circles, and al-Qaida has called for people to imitate them.”

In the same edition of the Australian, Australian Strategic Policy Institute Executive Director Peter Jennings noted that, “Islamic State is not the only terror group to use vehicles as weapons. There have been a significant number of attacks in Israel. These have tended to involve vans or smaller passenger vehicles driven by Palestinians supporting Hamas. In 2008, a bulldozer was used in Jerusalem to kill three people and injure a dozen more.”

Also that day, the paper itself editorialised the same point noting that “vehicles have been used in other terrorist acts, normally to carry bombs, Palestinian militants have been using cars to run down Israeli civilians at bus stops on the West Bank.” (In fact, many of the attacks have been in Israel proper.)

Two days later in the Australian (July 18), Australian Strategic Policy Institute Deputy Director Anthony Bergin noted that “we’ve seen vehicles used in terror attacks before in China, US, Israel and Canada.”

Disappointingly, the Daily Telegraph cover (July 16) reporting the Nice attack listed a number of recent deadly terror attacks that did not include any against Israeli targets. However a report from Cindy Wockner noted that, “the use of trucks has long been a tactic employed as a weapon of terror by the Palestinians in Israel.”

Also in the Daily Telegraph (July 19), columnist Caroline Marcus wrote, “car-ramming has long been a favoured technique of Palestinian terrorists when slaughtering innocent Israeli citizens.”

– Allon Lee

RELATED ARTICLES


Shaking,Hands,Israel,And,Morocco

Morocco and Israel: A disaster underscores how the Abraham Accords have changed the region

Sep 19, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR
Iran Protests (52383779726)

After over 7 months of silence, Government rejects nearly all Senate recommendations on Iran

Sep 14, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR
1J8A7424edit

NSW Parliament pays tribute to AIJAC’s Jeremy Jones, OBM

Sep 14, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR
IAEA head Rafael Grossi (Image: Dean Calma/Flickr)

Sept. 2023 IAEA report: Iran lies and edges even closer to nuclear weapons

Sep 12, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR
A room in Herod the Great's palace near Jericho (image: Flickr/Ian Scott)

Is UNESCO Going to Erase Jewish History From Another Israeli City?

Sep 11, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR, In the media
PNG Prime Minister James Marape opens the PNG Embassy in Jerusalem with Israeli PM Netanyahu (GPO/Screenshot)

Israel and PNG: A relationship built upon faith

Sep 8, 2023 | Featured, Fresh AIR
A scene from the unusually intense and extended battle that took place in Jenin on June 19, which left eight Israelis injured and seven Palestinians dead, six of them gunmen (Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa/Alamy Live News)

Growing security challenges in the northern West Bank

Jun 27, 2023 | Update
Khamenei called for Iran to create 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power capacity - which would require at least 19 more plants the size of Iran's only current nuclear power plant, the Russian-built Bushehr plant (Image: Wikimedia Commons).

Iran’s ambiguous pronouncements on a possible new nuclear deal

Jun 16, 2023 | Update
Image: Shutterstock, Stuart Miles

A “Less for Less” Nuclear Deal with Iran?

Jun 9, 2023 | Update
Recent weeks have seen the rei-gnition of intense discussions regarding US efforts to negotiate a Saudi-Israel normalisation deal (Image: Shutterstock, lunopark)

Saudi-Israel deal progress?/ Israel and Erdogan’s Turkey

Jun 5, 2023 | Update
Palestinian demonstrators demand the resignation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas - the PA is increasingly viewed by many Palestinians as no longer representing their interests (Photo: Shutterstock, Anas-Mohammed)

Palestinian Authority in Crisis

May 25, 2023 | Update
Screenshot from a tiktok video showing Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets being launched at Israel from amidst civilians in a heavily populated area of Gaza

“Shield and Arrow”: Yet another Gaza conflict

May 12, 2023 | Update

SIGN UP FOR AIJAC EMAILS

RECENT POSTS

Shaking,Hands,Israel,And,Morocco

Morocco and Israel: A disaster underscores how the Abraham Accords have changed the region

Iran Protests (52383779726)

After over 7 months of silence, Government rejects nearly all Senate recommendations on Iran

1J8A7424edit

NSW Parliament pays tribute to AIJAC’s Jeremy Jones, OBM

Image: Twitter

AIJAC welcomes Federal Court judgment in Brighton Secondary College antisemitism case

Image: Shutterstock

AIJAC welcomes announcement of additional Australian sanctions on Iran

Shaking,Hands,Israel,And,Morocco

Morocco and Israel: A disaster underscores how the Abraham Accords have changed the region

Iran Protests (52383779726)

After over 7 months of silence, Government rejects nearly all Senate recommendations on Iran

1J8A7424edit

NSW Parliament pays tribute to AIJAC’s Jeremy Jones, OBM

Image: Twitter

AIJAC welcomes Federal Court judgment in Brighton Secondary College antisemitism case

Image: Shutterstock

AIJAC welcomes announcement of additional Australian sanctions on Iran

SORT BY TOPICS