UPDATES

Media Week – Go figure; Bergs of a feather; Inclement comparison; Total fiction

May 17, 2012 | Allon Lee

Media Week - Go figure; Bergs of a feather; Inclement comparison; Total fiction
news_item/spin640____.jpg

Go figure

An unattributed Age story (12/5) on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails stated that a “fifth of all Palestinians living under occupation – some 700,00 people – have served time in Israeli jails, according to activist groups.”

Although the article did not include the origin of the claim of 700,000, it is a number pushed by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian NGO, and is not credible. Blogger Elder of Ziyon says accepting the 700,000 claim means that since 1967 “there were, on the average, over 23,000 new prisoners a year…or 500 a week… Even during the height of the intifada, the number of these prisoners never reached 10,000….Almost certainly the past eight years have seen the largest number of … prisoners in Israeli prison history because of the intifada. Yet even if you assume that each prisoner is detained for only a single year and only arrested once, these past eight years add up to less than 50,000 prisoners; extrapolated to 1967 it would add up to under 200,000…Even those assumptions are ridiculous.”

Likewise, in an op-ed in the Australian (15/5), Izzat Abdulhadi, the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, claimed that “Since 1967, more than 600,000 Palestinian men have been imprisoned in Israeli jails, a staggering 40 per cent of the male population.”

Bergs of a feather

Israel-related references cropped up in the Herald Sun journalist Nui Te Koha’s (13/5) “interview” with Sacha Baron Cohen’s new alter ego – Middle Eastern dictator Aladeen.

Aladeen said he was forced to make his movie “with the Zionist Hollywood machine… The way they distort reality is almost criminal – did you see Titanic, the film about the ship sunk by Israel in 1912? They blamed it on an iceberg! Everyone knows it was really a Goldberg that did it.” And when asked “who have been the great romances of your life?” Aladeen replied, “I once spent a weekend in Jerusalem with Golda Meir. She was an insatiable lover. To this day, whenever I think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I break out in a cold sweat”.

Inclement comparison

Clive Hamilton was unimpressed with the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Richard Bean’s play The Heretic, which centres on a scientist who doesn’t believe in climate change. On The Conversation website (9/5), Hamilton suggested Bean write “The Heretic 2… in which the maverick academic David Irving, lone defender of the truth, uncovers definitive evidence that the Holocaust never happened. Sent to Coventry by his fellow historians – a spineless lot who have for years been manipulating the evidence to protect their funding and their reputations – David is in the end vindicated; the Holocaust was a Zionist plot after all. Staging that would be courageous.”

A comparison many people would find offensive, given the actual murder of six million Jews, as opposed to the climate change debate regarding the prediction of future events and trends.

Total fiction

Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua absurdly suggested in the Australian (8/5) that Israel can solve the Iranian nuclear question by resuming “the peace process…and achieve the goal of two states for two peoples…Israel should stop the expansion of existing settlements and dismantle illegal ones. Iranians would then be forced to abandon their inflated rhetoric and their evil threats.”

But of course the Iranian leadership is not merely opposed to Israeli settlements, but the Jewish state itself.

Allon Lee

 

Tags:

RELATED ARTICLES


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
Israelis celebrating Independence Day (Yom  Ha'atzmaut) in Tel Aviv (Photo: Shutterstock, Orlov Sergei)

Reflections on Israel’s 75th Birthday

May 3, 2023 | Update
Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu announces a pause in his Government's judicial reform plans in a televised address on Monday, March 27  (Image: Youtube screenshot)

Israel’s controversial judicial reforms put on hold

Mar 29, 2023 | Update
Image: Shutterstock

The implications of the Iran-Saudi deal

Mar 17, 2023 | Update
A joint air force drill during the Israel-US "Juniper Oak" military exercises in January, which were widely interpreted as sending a signal to Iran (Image: Pentagon)

New diplomatic strategies with Iran for 2023

Mar 10, 2023 | Update
Screenshot from a video showing radical Israeli rioters torching Palestinian homes in the West Bank town of Huwara (Image: Twitter)

West Bank unrest escalates following violent riots by Jewish protesters in Huwara

Mar 1, 2023 | Update

SIGN UP FOR AIJAC EMAILS

RECENT POSTS

Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders attend a meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader in Teheran, Iran (Image via Iran’s Supreme Leader’s website)

Essay: A New Multifront Strategy?

Erdogan vs. Kilicdaroglu: The former looks all but guaranteed to win a second round on May 29 (Image: Tolga Ildun/ Shutterstock)

What does Turkey’s election mean for Israel?

Netanyahu (right), with Defence Minister Gallant (top left), IDF Chief of Staff Halevi (bottom left) and other security officials (Image: GPO/ Flickr)

Israeli politics after “Shield and Arrow”

Biblio File: A Bob One Way

A scene from the movie BlacKkKlansman, which recalls an era of Blacks and Jews making common cause

Europa Europa: Antisemitism is its own thing

Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders attend a meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader in Teheran, Iran (Image via Iran’s Supreme Leader’s website)

Essay: A New Multifront Strategy?

Erdogan vs. Kilicdaroglu: The former looks all but guaranteed to win a second round on May 29 (Image: Tolga Ildun/ Shutterstock)

What does Turkey’s election mean for Israel?

Netanyahu (right), with Defence Minister Gallant (top left), IDF Chief of Staff Halevi (bottom left) and other security officials (Image: GPO/ Flickr)

Israeli politics after “Shield and Arrow”

Biblio File: A Bob One Way

A scene from the movie BlacKkKlansman, which recalls an era of Blacks and Jews making common cause

Europa Europa: Antisemitism is its own thing

SORT BY TOPICS