Updates

Undiplomatic posting

Perhaps one can dismiss the opinion in the Canberra Times (8/09) of Peter Rodgers, former Australian ambassador to Israel, that Israeli intransigence prevents a Palestinian state on the basis that his tenure ended there in 1997.
“If statehood is good enough for Israelis why should it be denied to the Palestinians? That the Israeli Government and its supporters at home and abroad oppose the resolution reflects the double standards which epitomise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Perhaps Rodgers doesn’t know that Israel offered a statehood deal in 2000 so generous that former US/President Bill Clinton “couldn’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to let it go”, or Israeli PM Ehud Olmert’s even sweeter offer in 2008 was humbly declined by the same leadership now demanding UN recognition for a state previously rejected as unacceptable because of the need to grant Israel peace in exchange.

Missing link still not found

ABC’s “Lateline” (9/09) choose as its 9/11 anniversary interviewee, Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit hunting Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, who, as he always does, blamed US support for Israel as one of the stimuli for anti-US terrorism.
“…they’re not fighting us because of who Americans are…they’re fighting because of what our government has done in the Muslim world over the past 40 years… and probably the most dangerous thing now is our unqualified, unquestioning support for the Israelis.”

No conversion for this Paul

Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Paul McGeough responded to the Palmer Report investigating the flotilla incident in May 2010 that resulted in deaths and injuries (7/09). As a flotilla passenger, who labelled Israel’s actions in stopping the ships “piracy”, but was not on the Mavi Marmara where the violence happened, McGeough dismissed the report’s criticisms of the Turkish Islamist IHH group that initiated the violence as “More an opinion than a definitive finding in law”.

Even McGeough concedes that: “The report does conclude the naval blockade of Gaza is legal and Israel is justified in enforcing it to prevent the delivery of weapons…”. But this concession is undermined when he writes that the report “…arrives at this point only after isolating the blockade from the wider suite of strategies that Israel uses to control the Gaza Strip.”

With the main stumbling blocks out of the way, McGeough emphasises the report’s analysis of the wounds on the 9 dead activists while ignoring how 40 activists wielding metal bars, slingshots, chains and knives attacked the descending Israeli commandos who carried paintball guns and side-arms in their back pockets.

Seeing red over Greens’ BDS support

Writing in the Canberra Times, Reverend Peter Kurti (6/09) attacked NSW Greens’ BDS support: “Committed to the belief that Israel…is the leading threat to world peace, the…campaign is part of a renewed offensive to challenge the legitimacy of the state of Israel. And with that, the nature of the BDS campaign is revealed. Far from being simply an attempt to urge the Israeli government to change its policy on the occupied territories, the campaign really amounts to a denunciation of the Jewish state itself…if BDS is so concerned about ‘basic human rights’ and ‘violations of international law’, why was it so oddly silent when Syrian forces…shelled…Latakia, forcing more than 5000 Palestinian refugees to flee…?”

Allon Lee