Two minutes of hard facts on Israel/Gaza

(via Glenn Greenwald)

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The Aussies that Andrew Bolt wanted Rudd to throw to the dogs

Over the last week or so Andrew Bolt has repeatedly savaged Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd for his reluctance to publicly condemn and call for Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to stand down.

In a typical rant, Bolt ridiculed “in their miserable entirety [Rudd’s] comments today on human rights in Egypt”, selectively quoting some of Rudd’s remarks in an interview on Sky News.

But by glaring omission, Bolt failed to give any weight to a crucial consideration in Rudd’s approach to the Egyptian crisis.

Part of what Rudd said, but what Bolt did not report, was the following:

Well my more immediate concern is to the well being of Australians in Cairo... we are in a difficult security situation and our first and foremost concern is the well being of Australians in the country.

The title Bolt gave to his post was: “Why won’t Rudd condemn Mubarak? Still chasing your UN votes, Kevin?”

Well, if Bolt chooses to see, he may find his answer in the following:

Australia has protested to Egypt over the targeting of foreigners, including its diplomats and journalists, by pro-government protesters in the capital Cairo.

Attacks and raids on journalists and a confrontation involving Australian diplomats came as the Mubarak regime tries to stifle international scrutiny of political upheavals across the country. ...

Mr Rudd said he had protested to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit this morning about the treatment of foreigners in the country.

“I raised the problems that we have seen with the maltreatment of journalists on the ground from networks around the world,” he said.

“This is not acceptable and that message was delivered very clearly.”

One has to ask how clearly that message might have been delivered had Rudd stuck the boot into the Mubarak regime with the reckless abandon Bolt had been demanding. Does Bolt suppose the regime would have been at all receptive to our diplomacy?

In his hate-driven frenzies, Bolt tears apart anything to hand that represents restraint, order or the related discipline of reason.

UPDATE: Bolt in his latest post quotes from the same news item above, and wonders: “Were our people attacked on the orders of the Mubarak regime?” And he notes that “it’s getting ugly for our own.”

Will the penny ever ƒυςќing drop?

Probably not so far as his readers are concerned, since Bolt has chosen not to quote the part about Rudd’s efforts at diplomacy.

I’ve submitted a comment summarising my concerns as set out above. I conclude with the suggestion that he “try doing some journalism before it's too late for you.” The latter may tend to further limit its chances of getting by moderation, but hey, that’s life.

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The 2008 Bush-Mubarak Love-In

A bit over halfway between the rigged Egyptian presidential election of 2005 and that of 2010, US President George W Bush met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in January 2008 in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el Sheikh.

Bush opened with:

“Mr. President, thank you, sir. It’s a pleasure to be back in Egypt. This is such a beautiful sight, Mr. President. Thank you for hosting my visit here. As you mentioned, I’ve been on a long trip and I can’t think of a better place to end it than right here with you in this beautiful setting.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t get any less gushy than Bush’s opener, and there’s not even the most oblique reference to rigged elections, dictatorship, suppression of democratic aspirations, or anything uncomfortable like that.

Nope, it’s all about “building on important steps” led by Mubarak’s “leadership,” which inexorably lurched into the next rigged presidential election of 2010.

Tragically, Mr Bush couldn’t stand for yet a third term to set that all to rights.

But hey, maybe it wasn’t at all Bush’s murderous, deceitful war in Iraq that set Egypt aflame this last week, but rather Obama’s wide-ranging, visionary 2009 speech in Cairo.

If it all goes pear shaped, then at least you can blame it all on Obama.

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Doctor Easychair settles in

Typically, now Andrew Bolt has ‘discovered’ Egypt he’s the instant authority.

Last December, Rudd visited Egypt, just after President Hosni Mubarak rigged another election and just before these huge protests to topple him.

Good time to talk about democratic reform in the Middle East, right? But clueless and hungry for the Muslim bloc’s votes for his United Nations ambitions, Rudd talked instead about nasty Israel, nice Egypt and scary Iran.

(Yep, it’s simply a disgrace Rudd didn’t see these huge protests coming, as did Bolt.)

In June 1998, then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer visited Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak had never contested a presidential election in over a decade and a half as president.

That would have been a good time as any to talk about democratic reform in the Middle East, right?

But Magic Alex talked instead about the great importance of the Australia-Egypt trade relationship, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop further cooperation and mutual understanding between the two countries.

“Clueless”, Andrew? There’s been plenty of that all ’round for decades.

 
POSTSCRIPT: Alexander Downer’s United Nations ambitions were fulfilled when, after resigning from Parliament in 2008, he accepted the post of UN envoy to Cyprus, a role he discharged with not unqualified success.

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Objectivity polluted

“We must expose the hypocrisy of human rights organisations that turn a blind eye to the most repressive regimes in the world — regimes that stone women and hang gays — and instead target the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.”

So blathered the Israeli government in response to a report from Human Rights Watch that criticised Israel for maintaining “systematic discrimination” against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Israeli government mouthpiece and spin doctor Mark Regev whined in his uniquely tiresome way that “Human Rights Watch has allowed an anti-Israel agenda to pollute its objectivity.”

The proposition that Human Rights Watch “turns a blind eye to the most repressive regimes in the world” while victimising poor Israel is absolutely risible, as the most cursory glance at HRW’s website will attest.

The volume of HRW’s critical reporting against such repressive regimes is copious in comparison to its occasional focus on Israel’s performance.

Regev and his bosses might want to look a little closer to home if they’re truly concerned about “pollution” of objectivity.

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Olive branches required

I’ve always quite liked the Bard’s Sonnet 107, in particular this passage:

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

But what’s that about olives, hmm?

Olives?

The following commentary illumines the Bard’s meaning here:

In the ancient world olives were an essential commodity, but olive trees required at least nine years to establish themselves.  This could only be done in times of peace.  Marauding armies would frequently hack down olive trees in order to cause maximum damage to the places they had invaded.  Hence production of olives was a sign of peace and stability.

How interesting then that, in a modern-day tawdry, intractable conflict, olive groves have become a “battleground”.

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Battle of the Jiradi Pass

On the afternoon of June 22, 217 (all dates are BCE) Ptolemy IV “Philopater”, likely at the insistence of his generals and Sosibius in particular, had resolved to bring Antiochus III to battle. The two armies had been camped opposite each other for almost five days and the botched attempt on Ptolemy’s life by Theodotus, his erstwhile general of Coele Syria now in Seleucid service, was a product of this procrastination (Polybius, 5. 82.1; 81.1-6 – all references to this author unless otherwise stated). Two days previous Antiochus had closed down the distance between the two camps from 1.8 kilometres to a little less than one kilometre. As a result there “were frequent struggles at the watering-places” as well as “infantry and cavalry skirmishes in the space between the camps” (5.80.5-7).

Ptolemy, who had force marched his army “through the waterless region” from Pelusium to “the spot he was bound for” (5.80.2-3) some nine kilometres southwest of Raphia (near to modern Dikla) in five days – a distance of near 180 kilometres at 36 kilometres per day – had chosen his ground to a purpose. The Ptolemaic army, unlike the Seleucid, had not fought a major set-piece engagement in a generation with much of its work in the intervening years having been carried out by mercenaries. At the head of this largely untried conveyance Ptolemy’s general staff chose, as would other Egyptian generals 2,184 years later, to adopt a largely defensive strategy and block the Jiradi Pass...

Ancient Warfare IV.6

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Position made clear

“When governments refuse to act in the name of civilised society to prevent gross abuses of human rights, we as individuals have a duty to act. The campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions deserves the full support of every thinking and caring Australian.”

• Mrs Julia Irwin, Labor member for Fowler, adjournment speech concluding remarks, House Hansard (PDF), pages 90-93.

Ten minutes and two speeches later...

“I want to make it clear that, in making her adjournment speech tonight, the member for Fowler was not speaking on behalf of the Rudd government.”

• Dr Craig Emerson, Minister for Small Business.

“And from Moscow to Washington, Israel stands utterly friendless. Dangerously alone.”

• Dr Easychair, demonstrating the Bolt brand of accuracy and objectivity.

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That al-Hazmi dude again

The above image is another version of the image of Sheik Mohammed al-Hazmi I examined last weekend. This version was found on the Ha’aretz website (thanks to a commenter). The caption states the image was taken on 31 May, but doesn’t say it was taken during the storming of the Mavi Marmara.

Compare the above with the earlier image:

As can be seen, the Ha’aretz image is less tightly cropped than the offering from the One Stop Israeli Propaganda Shop. This would seem to prove my earlier conjecture that “the size and aspect of the image suggest it has been edited from a larger image.”

So the Ha’aretz image reveals, not only the Sheik “brandishing” his dagger, but also at least two fellow activists “brandishing” cameras. At least one of the others appears to be clapping hands. None of those pictured with the Sheik appear to be agitated, or in a defensive or offensive posture. Most appear to be smiling.

The dagger, by the way, is known as a ‘jambiya’, which is customarily worn by many males in Yemen. According to the wikipedia,

The jambiya should only come out of its sheath in extreme cases of conflict. It is also commonly used in traditional events such as dances.

It’s clear enough the images above do not depict a state of conflict, extreme or otherwise.

“To celebrate a marriage, men dance with jambiyas drawn.”

 
UPDATE 10 JUNE

I discovered this afternoon that Max Blumenthal apparently debunked this photo on his blog in the last day or so. I’ve been unable to view his post because the traffic to Blumenthal’s site has exceeded his bandwidth; but another blogger sums up:

... Blumenthal noticed something odd about the shot. The raid was conducted at night, but there’s sunlight streaming through the ship’s window. Turns out the fellow was a Yemini [sic] legislator, Mohammad al-Hazmi, who was showing journalists and fellow passengers his Jambiya, a ceremonial dagger carried by many Yemenis. ... al-Hazmi says he wasn’t even carrying the knife at the time of the raid, and with the Israeli troops so eager to shoot, it’s unlikely he would have escaped without a wound or two had he been threatening them.

At least my discussion here serves to show how it only takes a few minutes out of your day to do a bit of fact-checking — unless, of course, your aim is to willfully mislead.

Presumably those who instigated this fraud, and all the willing lickspittles who helped give it legs, believed they were acting in the national interest of Israel. Yet one can only wonder how much this reckless attempt to defame a prominent Yemeni figure may have further poisoned relations within an already fraught region.

 
UPDATE 2: Blumenthal’s post has been cached here.

 
UPDATE 12 JUNE

And the Yemen Observer reports that a “Palestinian source” witnessed al Hazmi on an Israeli television channel “fighting with an Israeli soldier and vowing ‘Allahu Aakbar’ before he was arrested.”

Next there’ll be a guy whose second-cousin claims an undisclosed source told his hairdresser that al-Hazmi blew spitballs at the helicopters.

I can see a lucrative line of picture books for children of the paranoid, titled Where’s al-Hazmi?

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Lies, damned lies, and corrections

While the Sheik has now returned to Yemen to a predictable hero’s welcome, the propaganda battle continues...

The Israel Defense Force has admitted it doctored an audio recording of radio communications between the Israeli navy and vessels in the Gaza Aid Flotilla, in which activists are alleged to have hurled anti-Semitic abuse. The IDF has now released what they say is an un-doctored and completely faithful recording of the exchange in its entirety. Honest!

Meanwhile, one of the activist groups behind the Flotilla, FreeGaza, has denied the nasty statements attributed to Flotilla activists ever took place. Honest!

Today John Lyons in The Australian tries to untangle the facts, if any, from officially sanctioned IDF accounts of the incident.

Noting Lyons’ article, Dr Easychair tries valiantly and successfully to avoid the ‘L’ word, but concedes there have been “gaps and mistakes — or falsehoods.”

But he “can’t see anything in this so far that isn’t explained by rush, adrenalin, a lack of TV cameramen right on the spot of the worst fighting, and an unwillingness to show the IDF shooting people, no matter how justified.”

Needless to say the excuse of ‘rush’ and ‘adrenalin’ (to say nothing of mortal fear) is apparently forbidden the Flotilla activists for their alleged actions.

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Know your enemy

The above image has been put about as depicting Sheik Mohammed al-Hazmi, a Yemeni MP and delegate to the Gaza Aid Flotilla, wielding a dagger with intent to do harm to allegedly well-meaning Israeli commandos as they stormed the Mavi Marmara, a vessel in the Flotilla.

Presented as a poster boy for your worst nightmare about the Islamist bogeyman, the image has been posted on various sites such as here, here and here. At all of these sites the image is invariably accompanied with the following text:

Prominent activists in the Yemeni flotilla delegation were three MPs from the Al-Islah party, an Islamist party that is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. One, Sheikh Muhammad al-Hazmi, was photographed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara brandishing his large curved dagger.

The image and text have almost certainly all been sourced from this page at the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). It seems to be a quick cut’n’paste from your one-stop shop for all your pro-Israel propaganda needs.

MEMRI itself sources the image from this page of an online Arabic news source. Unfortunately the page is in Arabic and MEMRI unhelpfully does not provide a translation.

Those such as myself who don’t have Arabic may try running the url through google’s online translation engine. Although the output yields a somewhat mangled rendering, it seems to say something about the image having been published by Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, suggesting their use of it to be “defamatory.”

Well sure, they probably would say that, wouldn’t they? But at any rate, a quick search of the Ha’aretz site yielded nothing on al-Hazmi. It could be that the Arabic news source was mistaken; or that Ha’aretz indeed did publish the image, then took it down for some reason.

In any event, the ultimate source of the image, and the circumstances in which it was photographed, have not been satisfactorily established by anyone. Even the size and aspect of the image suggest it has been edited from a larger image, thus removing any further detail or context which may illumine its meaning.

And its meaning has, of course, been readily construed by hawkers of pro-Israel propaganda according to their own purposes.

You can read more about al-Hazmi in this puff-piece from The Yemen Times, and in this more critical piece from The Los Angeles Times, both dated in April. The latter article includes an image of the Sheik in repose, taken presumably at time of interview with the writer, in which he is wearing what appears to be the same dagger sheathed at his belt.

Notwithstanding the weapon could well be used to lethal effect, the ubiquity of the dagger around the Sheik’s person might suggest it has some ‘ceremonial’ significance.

Whatever, in my humble opinion it has not been established whether the Sheik’s dagger was “brandished” by him at, or even used against, IDF commandos during the storming of the Mavi Marmara. Or if he did, whether or not it was without mitigating factors such as provocation.

If, however, the image of al-Hazmi “brandishing” his blade is indeed such damning evidence of the Sheik’s murderous evildoing, one can only wonder why Israeli authorities so readily deported him back to Turkey. Surely an attempted murder charge or similar would have been in order?

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Floundering in flotilla facts and furphies

Tobias Ziegler at Pure Poison notes that media pundits who excuse Israel for the Gaza flotilla violence have tended to “look at the event as starting when the ship was boarded — the reasoning and tactics behind doing so, not to mention the legality of doing so, aren’t discussed, as though there were no Israeli decisions that could have changed the events or their consequences.”

It’s true enough that Israel’s apologists want to portray her forces as well-meaning innocents who walked into a trap cunningly devised by the evil Islamists. Notably Greg Sheridan observed that the confrontation with Israeli forces was planned by the activists as “a kind of grotesque theatre, which is what all terrorism is really about, in this case to carry out enough violence to ensure a violent Israeli reaction.”

Meanwhile Andrew Bolt, our Dr Easychair, took much the same line, while further ‘reporting’:

Arab television showed one woman on board [the Mavi Marmara, a vessel among the flotilla] exulting: “We await one of two good things — to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza.”

Added another passenger, Yemeni professor Abd al-Fatah Nu’man: “These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them.”

What our Doctor neglected to mention in his ‘scoop’ was that Arab television aired the footage last Friday, before the flotilla set out for Gaza. Those inflammatory statements by the flotilla activists had apparently escaped Bolt’s attention until he began googling yesterday for material to illustrate his narrative.

But the material surely wouldn’t have escaped the notice of Israeli intelligence. The Israeli forces, therefore, must have had some idea they could meet with some stiff resistance if they attempted to storm the ship. There are more than enough questions around Israeli intentions and actions to suggest that the activists weren’t the only party in this tragedy who might have been planning “a kind of grotesque theatre”.

Interestingly, Dr Easychair also omitted to inform his readers that the same “Yemeni professor” quoted above had further remarked that “the current fleet does not bear weapons or carry armies, but it carries ... believing men, armed with faith.” An inconvenient detail, hence the omission.

 
UPDATE 3 JUNE: A very troubling read from Craig Murray:

NATO HQ in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by Israel on a NATO member flagged ship in international waters is an event to which NATO is obliged — legally obliged, as a matter of treaty — to react.

Meanwhile, Mark Steel takes the Israeli government to task on it’s statement — “We made every possible effort to avoid this incident” — noting that...

the one tiny thing they forgot to do to avoid this incident was not send in armed militia from helicopters in the middle of the night and shoot people. I must be a natural at this sort of technique because I often go all day without climbing off a helicopter and shooting people, and I’m not even making every possible effort.

(via Antony Loewenstein)

 
An example of how Greg Sheridan has earned himself the title of ‘Doctor Pussyfoot’:

Any police operation that results in the tragedy of nine deaths is in some sense a failure.

 
And in another startling development, see the leaked BP’s Note To Israeli Prime Minister About Steps For Good Disaster PR.

Speaking of BP’s little PR disaster, by the way, I’m not sure if I mentioned before how Dr Easychair recently lamented that “a month after the great Gulf of Mexico spill, the wildlife toll is pathetically small.”

Now that BP’s top-kill operation has failed, and the oil seems set to gush forth for months to come, our Doctor may find the wildlife toll much more to his satisfaction.

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Doctor Easychair, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying...

“What courage has he, Doctor Easychair, the basking sycophant?”

• Thomas Müntzer

Andrew Bolt — our own Doctor Easychair — decided last week that AusAID’s giving $5.5m to a Kenya-based NGO was “Rudd giving aid to Mugabe.”

This week Dr Easychair has decided that a bloodbath perpetrated in international waters by heavily-armed Israeli commandos is “the lynching of Israel.”

Now that Rudd has expressed qualified condemnation of the killings, it’s better than even money we’ll be reading tomorrow in Bolt’s column of how Rudd gives aid and succour to Hamas.

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These people are insane

Israeli prime minister and apologist for political terror, Binyamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, has been at it again, recently authorising the assassination of an enemy operative on foreign territory, this time in Dubai.

Undoubtedly Bibi was inspired by his earlier ‘success’ in the attempted assassination of a Hamas king-pin in the Jordanian capital in 1997.

Bibi’s ‘success’ in this latest foreign murder-and-mayhem escapade includes having placed in danger a number of innocent foreign nationals whose identities were stolen by his Mossad assassination team.

Meanwhile Jewish settlers on the West Bank, who enjoy Bibi’s nod-and-wink support in flagrant violation of international law, have attacked their own Israeli Defence Forces when they “mistook a military exercise for an attempt to evict them.”

It really is long past time the entire region was placed under international administration.

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war ever lasting

[In forty years since 1967] Israel had achieved neither the security it craved nor all of the land to which its people felt entitled. By clinging to its illegal settlements, it had created the justification for the harsh security regime that encircled millions of embittered Palestinians and left many of its own citizens living a reality tinged with fear and anger.

Forty years on, Israel was still fighting the last day of the Six-Day War.

• Paul McGeough, Kill Khalid, Ch 26

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Israeli Tourism Ministry redraws map

The Israeli Tourism Ministry has given effect to Likud policy and laid claim to "Greater Israel" in a campaign poster.



The poster, displayed on London's Ungerground, has been removed following complaints that it misrepresents Israel's borders. Clearly not to some within the Israeli government though...

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Bag Bibi

In Paul McGeough’s Kill Khalid, the author recounts frenetic behind-the-scenes jockeying for US favour, in the wake of the horribly botched and comprehensively bungled Israeli attempt to assassinate Hamas king-pin Khalid Mishal in 1997 in Amman, Jordan.

The only concrete, and not inconsiderable, outcome of the attempted assassination was that Mishal lay in a Jordanian hospital on life support, having been administered a lethal chemical concoction during a farcical street fracas outside his office by Mossad agents, posing as Canadian tourists. But Jordan’s King Hussein, one of Israel’s only two allies in the Arab world, was furious at Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s perfidy, and demanded the formula and antidote for the mysterious chemical agent.

Both the King and ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu “were racing to get the ear” of then-US president Bill Clinton.

After more than a year of Netanyahu’s treachery and deceit and after decades of condescension by some in the Israeli establishment toward his desperate but dignified little kingdom, [Hussein] was going to settle for nothing less than the complete humiliation of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Treachery and deceit? Bibi???

I’m sure Bibi even now is completely unaware of ramped-up settlement construction on the West Bank. As Ant Loewenstein notes, the Israelis presently are building settlements as fast as they can, apparently right under Bibi’s unsuspecting nose. But I digress from McGeough’s pot-boiler account of the hitherto untold dramatic events of 1997...

Like a child who’d over-reached his abilities, Bibi called the White House in Daddy-Come-Fix-It mode. The Clintons, however, were off gadding about the Union, as the First Family is wont to do, so the job of fielding the call from Bibi fell to Clinton’s special envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross.

A breathless and, at times, seemingly incoherent Netanyahu was patched through for what would be a very difficult exchange... Dispensing with any greeting, Netanyahu blurted out his key point: “The king — he’s threatening to cut relations.”

After skilfully divining what was troubling poor Bibi...

Ross was direct — there were no options. “You don’t have a choice, do you? Give him what he wants.” But Netanyahu pushed back. He wanted another solution...

Still in his bed, Ross nearly fell out of it when Netanyahu countered by suggesting that, if King Hussein wanted to save Mishal, he should send him over the river for treatment in a good Israeli hospital. Having dispatched the would-be killers, Netanyahu seemed to believe he might now be trusted to save the victim’s life.

Then the prime minister swung wildly, helplessly in the opposite direction: “But... if we were ready to cooperate, I’m not sure that he would accept our help...”

After some minutes of this pathetic performance, Ross finally asked:

“Did it occur to you that it [the covert assassination] might go wrong?”

After a long silence, Netanyahu replied: “No...”

“How could you be so irresponsible? Don’t you understand how essential the Jordan relationship is for you?” Ross demanded...

At this stage, Netanyahu simply stopped talking.

Dennis Ross prodded further, but...

There was no response from the Jerusalem end. Just silence... Ross was attempting to get Netanyahu to explain why the Israelis believed they had to go after Mishal in Amman. But all that was coming back to him was Netanyahu’s slightly unhinged plea for Washington to extricate him from a mess of his own making.

Seemingly unaware that he was repeating himself, the prime minister resorted to mantra-like repetitions: “Break in relations... Clinton must call the king... Break in relations... Clinton must call the king.”

Astonishingly, that gibbering mass of incompetence remained in office for a further almost two years; and even more astonishingly became prime minister again in February this year.

 
UPDATE

“Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication [sic] normally with the White House.”

• Haaretz

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Groundhog Friday

September 1997...

Netanyahu wanted Palestinians to accept just half of the disputed West Bank, along with the continued existence of most of the controversial Israeli settlements. He now believed that the Palestinian Authority should be no more than a quasi-state, like Puerto Rico or Andorra; that it should have neither arms nor an army; and that Israel should retain control of its borders, air space, and precious water resources. Finally, on the volatile issue of Arab control of Jerusalem, Netanyahu believed Palestinians should be grateful if he permitted a new entity whereby they might be allowed to look after the Muslim holy places in the disputed city.

• Paul McGeough, Kill Khalid, Ch 10

June 2009...

Netanyahu threw down the gauntlet to the US last night, grudgingly agreeing to a limited Palestinian state that would be demilitarised and not in control of its airspace or borders. The hawkish Prime Minister insisted that Israel would never give up a united Jerusalem as its capital, and said that established Jewish settlements in the West Bank would continue to expand...

• Times Online

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It’s Tehran, er, Tiananmen, er, 8888 again

It’s emerged that up to 20 Iranian citizens have been murdered by their country’s state security forces, and associated bully-boy militias, for exercising their rights to peaceful political protest. That number likely will escalate into three figures by the time the dust settles.

The Iranian popular uprising has inevitably invited parallels with the Tiananmen Square uprising, and subsequent massacre, in Beijing 20 years ago, in which hundreds of protestors were murdered. For example, is this Tehran’s Tiananmen Square?

It’s inevitable that the media will frame a story in terms of recognisable or iconic antecedents (a tendency sometimes taken to absurdity, as in the current ‘Utegate’ scandal here in Australia). However, I don’t recall any news outlet in 1989 characterising the Tiananmen massacre as “China’s 8888”.

The 8888 Uprising in Burma began, as the tag suggests, on 8 August 1988, not one year before the Tiananmen events. Estimates of murdered Burmese citizens are in the tens of thousands. Unfortunately, perhaps, for the Burmese, their tragedy wasn’t represented in our media with dramatic, memorable footage of, say, a student protestor in a danse macabre with a tank.

It’s to be hoped that the current events in Iran will become neither their 8888 nor their Tiananmen. Both those uprisings yielded no tangible results for the respective citizenry, and most of the world merely shrugged and moved on.

Yes, here’s hoping the effort and blood of those brave Iranian patriots will not be in vain nor so easily lapsed in the world’s consciousness.

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Israeli govt no longer an impediment to peace?

The mouse that roared... Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s long overdue concession of the need for Palestinian statehood is being reported in the Murdoch press as both a “grudging agreement” with, and a “throwing down the gauntlet” to, US President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo.

Well whatever, but meanwhile Australian foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith entertains a sliver of hope that the Israeli government will no longer hinder the ‘peace process’:

“What Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech reflects today is there is now a basis for a peace process for negotiations to commence,” he said. “We welcome the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu has, for the first occasion, indicated that peace in the Middle East has to be based on a two-state solution.”

It’s unclear from Mr Smith’s comments, however, whether it’s more a hope than a prayer...

“That is the only basis on which enduring and just peace can be found in the Middle East,” Mr Smith told Sky News. “People should now get back to the peace process in earnest.”

Perhaps Mr Netanyahu could “get back” to President Obama’s call for a halt to expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

view at youtube

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