Even Worse Than Terrorism

Feb 8, 2009 | Australian Values, Democracy, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Even Worse Than Terrorism

“The supreme international crime”

  

Definitions of terrorism in western countries are remarkably similar. According to Chomsky, writing in 2006, official definitions include that terrorism is

“ the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature…through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear,” typically targeting civilians. The British government’s definition is about the same: “Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging or disrupting, and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological cause.”

In Australia’s Crimes Act

“ terrorist act means an action or threat of action where: … the action is done or the threat is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause; and … the action is done or the threat is made with the intention of … (i) coercing, or influencing by intimidation, the government of the Commonwealth or a State, Territory or foreign country, or of part of a State, Territory or foreign country; or (ii) intimidating the public or a section of the public.”

As Chomsky continues,

“ These definitions seem fairly clear and close to ordinary usage. There also seems to be general agreement that they are appropriate when discussing the terrorism of enemies.

But a problem at once arises. These definitions yield an entirely unacceptable consequence: it follows that the US is a leading terrorist state, dramatically so during the Reaganite war on terror. Merely to take the most uncontroversial case, Reagan’s state-directed terrorist war against Nicaragua was condemned by the World Court, backed by two Security Council resolutions (vetoed by the US, with Britain politely abstaining). Another completely clear case is Cuba, where the record by now is voluminous, and not controversial. And there is a long list beyond them.”

This is all very well. But, Chomsky points out, there is an act which is perceived by international courts, beginning at least as early as Nuremberg, as being even worse than terrorism and that is the much higher crime of Aggression.

“ The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Jackson at Nuremberg in terms that were basically reiterated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An “aggressor”, Jackson proposed to the Tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as “Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State,” or “Provision of support to armed bands formed in the territory of another State, or refusal, notwithstanding the request of the invaded State, to take in its own territory, all the measures in its power to deprive those bands of all assistance or protection.” The first provision unambiguously applies to the US-UK invasion of Iraq. The second, just as clearly, applies to the US war against Nicaragua. However, we might give the current incumbents in Washington and their mentors the benefit of the doubt, considering them guilty only of the lesser crime of international terrorism, on a huge and unprecedented scale.

 

It may also be recalled that aggression was defined at Nuremberg as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” – all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example, and in Nicaragua too, if the charge is not reduced to international terrorism. And in Lebanon, and all too many other victims who are easily dismissed on grounds of wrong agency – right to the present.

So this definition of aggression takes in the US, the UK and Australia in the invasion of Iraq. The government of the day, in Australia’s case the Howard government, is therefore guilty of the highest war crime of Aggression. No, I don’t think Howard and his mates are about to be sent a summons to this effect. Note, however, that the high-minded definition of Aggression, under which he would be found guilty if tried, was formulated by a US judge, Justice Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States, who, sentencing Germans to death at Nuremberg, said,

“ If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us….We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”

Under this definition Israel would be guilty of Aggression for its recent invasion of Gaza. So could Hamas be guilty of “refusal … to take in its own territory, all the measures in its power to deprive those bands [of rocket-launching militants] of all assistance or protection” and so would Iran for “provision of support to armed bands formed in the territory of another State”.

 

Time to powder up the wigs?

 

Kev’s Massive Package

Feb 6, 2009 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Values

Kev’s Massive Package

 

It takes Balls to Punish the Jobless

 

The thing about the unemployed is that, well, they’re powerless; or rather, they’re disempowered, particularly by the feeling of being unemployed in a culture in which what you do, not to mention how much you make, pretty much defines who you are and what you’re worth.

On top of that they’re disempowered by the restrictions of poverty – the limitations on food (especially healthy food) and travel.

Unemployed people in Australia are placed by government and its proxies, the Job Networks and ancillary services, under stricter control orders and behavioural requirements than the most oppressed employed people.

What has to be understood is that unemployment in Australia is not so much a political, nor an economic, issue as it is a moral issue.

Unemployed people are suffering.

> Suffering is punishment.

> Punishment is retribution for sin.

> Therefore:    > The unemployed have only themselves to blame.

As my (thankfully ex)-father-in-law would have said, “If they want a job why don’t they just bloodywell get off their arse and go out and get one?”

The unemployed are not just lazy; they’re devious in their determination to avoid work.

Because unemployment is a moral issue and the jobless are immoral (obviously) the attitude towards them and treatment of them by the employment service industry is justified.

The patronising and sometimes almost bullying attitudes of (some , not all)  “case managers” towards the trapped victims — off whose misfortune they feed — is justified by their demonstrated inferiority.

And so it was easy for Rudd and the rest of the increasingly hideously Howard-like government to “overlook” the unemployed in their gladhanding stimulation. They’ve got no power, no comeback and no voice.

If anyone needs a boost, it’s the unemployed.

Those who participate in work for the dole activities receive a fortnightly income boost of … $20.80. This is supposed to compensate them for the additional transport costs required by their attendance up to four days a week and any additional costs associated with travelling to interviews up to 90 minutes away. At a maximum of $1.30 each way for a full-time work for the dole participant, you can see how very generous this feels for people who are struggling to both pay rent and eat food in the same week.

If Rudd wants a bit of instant stimulation, if he wants the money he provides to go immediately into the ‘economy’ rather than being saved and hoarded, then if he gives it to the unemployed it won’t even touch the sides.

Kevin is aware of the problem (the electoral problem, anyway) with the punishment of the jobless his massive package means.

“ The Prime Minister said yesterday the next COAG meeting would develop a plan to deal with 300,000 more people who would be out of work by 2010, in a dramatic upward revision of the unemployment figures that means an extra 100,000 people jobless by June.

“At the top of our agenda we’ll be dealing with the whole question of the problem of unemployment, the problem of labour market programs, the proper co-ordination of commonwealth and state labour market programs … in the most seamless and sophisticated way possible,” Mr Rudd said yesterday.

As the Government tries to create 90,000 jobs in labour-intensive industries across the nation – building schools and homes to slow the expected rise in unemployment – the latest economic and fiscal outlook predicts joblessness will surge to 7 per cent in 2009-10, up from 4.5 per cent at present.

So far the Government has provided no additional assistance for those without jobs, promising it will have more to say on labour market programs in coming weeks. Welfare groups are angry that the unemployed received none of the handouts in Tuesday’s stimulus package, and the dole was kept at its current level. Mr Rudd said he and Employment Minister Julia Gillard had been looking at options to help the unemployed but had not made a final decision.

“We’re going through a whole range of options, dealing with kids just coming out of the school system who are going to find it difficult entering the labour market, dealing with the challenge of people who are in jobs who may lose their jobs, the geographical concentration of that, the adequacy of the information flow, and the adequacy of supporting labour market programs for all the above, and the existing social security network as well,” the Prime Minister said.

Yes, Rudd is going to do what he has always done. Develop a plan, have more to say later, look at options, assess information flow, manage programs, make a ‘final decision’ in the fullness of time.

Sounds a lot like Peter Garrett, doesn’t it.

The jobless don’t really care how shiny the solution is. They don’t really care whether or not it’s bureaucratically-acceptably seamless, shiny and ‘sophisticated’. The Rudd government — like many before it, it’s true — is hopelessly out of touch with the reality of human experience. But then, you can’t expect more from a Sirhumphreybot MkII.

The trouble for Uncle Kev is that giving money to the supposedly profligate, the wasteful, the idle, the smelly, the drug-raddled, the diseased, the incompetent, the incontinent – the, you know, unemployed – is not electorally attractive and they won’t suffer too much backlash from the good voters – the, you know, employed. Not until there are so many unemployed and pissed-off voters that they might look like losing an election.

The sleaze of the government, the proof that it is politicking all around this, was shown in the interview, with Albanese we think, where the subject of the disenfranchising of the unemployed from the Big Splurge was brought up. The Minister claimed that the unemployed had not been left out. They would benefit, he said, from the job creation efforts that would flow from increased infrastructure spending. This on a day when unemployment is supposed to be about four and a half percent and is expected to grow to over seven per cent over the next year.

Explain again to us how the unemployed are going to benefit from job creation schemes which will at best only slightly slow the increase in unemployment.

If you imagine that the Turnbull Costello party would be any better, you haven’t been around much, have you.

They are unremittingly awful.

Just awful.

The only thing still in Kevin Rudd’s favour is that he is not them.

Not quite.

Not yet.

The coalition’s only role, as they say, may be to serve as a warning to others.

Heather Ridout wants the unemployed to be trained up in readiness for the boom times that will follow the recession [SORRY – REALLY VERY SORRY. SORRY.]

The unemployed ALREADY get trained all the time. All sorts of programs; for example: how to write an application letter that looks exactly like all the others (and tells exactly the same lies and is full of precisely the same bullshit) to an employer who is considering two hundred other identical applications, and is totally over it. For instance.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians are already being trained for jobs that simply don’t exist and won’t for a long time.

In fact, the boom industry for the next few years is going to be … TRAINING!

Wait!

That’s the magical solution!

An endless loop of the unemployed employed to train each other to train each other.

Get your Cert IV now!

 

 

Why Turnbull is Wrong

Feb 5, 2009 | Australian Values, Citizenship, Democracy, Economic Values, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Values

Why Turnbull is Wrong

 

Isslikadreemcumtroo

 

Turnbull is wrong because it is foolhardy to stand between 20 million people and a shitload of money. (Thanks Paul)

Turnbull is wrong because he thinks that there is any debate to be won about whether the pile of money should be shovelled out or not.

Turnbull is wrong because he doesn’t realise that at least 10 million of those Australians have already spent that money in their heads.

He doesn’t understand that they can already see and smell and taste the things they will buy; can already feel the relief from the financial burden they’ve been carrying. They’ve already made their decisions. They’re just waiting for delivery.

Telling them they can’t have it is like brutally waking you from a beautiful dream in which you’ve been expertly stimulated by gorgeous 18-year-old twins who, miraculously, can’t keep their hands and tongues off you.¹ “Isslikadreemcumtroo,” as the Olympians say.

And along comes bloody Turnbull and tips a bucket of ice and water over you and tells you you’re late for work.

He’s not “courageous”; he’s just bloody stupid.

So is Julie Bishop who told Fran this morning that rather than spend all this money right now we should “wait and see” how it pans out.

From what the economic witchdoctors are telling us, that’s like being in a rubber ducky rushing towards a waterfall and saying,

“Yes, I know it looks like foam spray and it does sound like billions of gallons of water thundering over a huge precipice but I think we should save our energy and not start rowing until we are close enough to look over and confirm that it is a waterfall.”

One of the opposition’s own made the most cogent point so far, early this morning, when he pointed out that it may be that Rudd has engineered the elements of the stimulus package to mask the signs of a recession. It will look like a recession, waddle like a recession, and quack like a recession but it won’t BE a recession. Statistically.

(Meanwhile, apparently Peter Costello has decided that he would like another go at not becoming Prime Minister.)

 

¹No personal offence intended. We just picked on some fantasy we saw on TV last night which seemed to be a Work for the Dole project for some of the more photogenic unemployed Hollywood starlets. Please adjust to suit your personal preferences.

 

Just a couple of questions…

Feb 4, 2009 | Australian Values, Economic Values, Global Warming, Media Values, OzPol Values, Values

Just a couple of questions…

 

We have just a couple of questions.

One older; one new

 

Firstly…

Some economists get paid a lot, we assume, at least the “guru”-type ones who appear on television and write books.

What do they get paid for exactly?  To divine the future, supposedly, with their charts and their intuition.

So with so many thousands of highly-paid gurus sharing their wisdom with the world for huge fees, how come only perhaps a handful had any idea whatever of the reality of the economic situation we find ourselves in today?

Yes, it’s true that a very few economists predicted it. But with several thousand economists making such a broad range of predictions a few have to get it right, or luck out.

The ones who did have become instant celebrities. And Satyajit Das is the darling of the ABC across the board.

You might wonder how they get away with it. To us [pace Nicholas Gruen] there is no noticeable difference between economists and, say, astrologers, or witchdoctors, or fortune-tellers, with their secret-mystic language, their rattling bones, their scattered entrails, their magical scrapings in the dirt, their dramatic show of divine inspiration and their theatrical gravitas.

But now here they go again, unbowed and unashamed, wise after the event, explaining what happened and how and, for yet more money, rattling their bones about what is yet to come.

As if they had any idea!

The real question is:

how have we let them get away with it?

Secondly…

We are told that a fiscal stimulus is all the go. In fact, if we put pink bats into every roof in the country for a mere several billion dollars, we will produce a greenhouse gas reduction equal to removing 1 million cars from the road. Our paltry greenhouse target — of, what is it, 5% ? — would be achieved in a minute, about ten years ahead of schedule or something; after which we could start really getting serious about it.

The question is:

if it was always this easy why was getting the government to come at even the measliest reduction so bloody difficult? You would have thought the entire government was getting a bikini wax, one hair at a time.

The screaming!

The struggling!

The biting and kicking!

Or like root canal therapy without an anaesthetic.

The fact appears to be that this current “emergency” is relatively — and hopefully — time limited (but who knows? — it’s economists who are telling us this…).

Global warming is a much greater emergency, will last thousands of years longer and affect billions more people, not to mention other living things. If you were willing to go into deficit for something, this ought to be that thing.

 

 

[Clarification: Sir Roger does not wear a bikini or have personal experience of waxing, but once assisted with a home-based procedure. He still has the fingernail scars to prove it. He did, however, suffer an excruciating anaesthetic-free root canal treatment and thinks he would prefer to give birth to a horse.]

Happy Birthday

Jan 26, 2009 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Fame, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Values

Happy Birthday

Today was a dual anniversary – the 221st anniversary of the birth of (European) Australia and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robbie Burns.

The two are related. Burns was a fierce advocate of Enlightenment principles and the fight for the rights of citizens against the arrogated and entrenched power of aristocracy, royalty and privilege. The result of the fight of which he was a part is the democracy which we enjoy here in Australia and in all other liberal democracies.

If we want to keep our freedoms and our rights we need to remember how very recently that fight was fought and how many try to subvert them and take ownership of them and even simply fail to understand them – most recently, in this country, various members and operatives of the Howard government (Ruddock, Andrews, Keelty for instance) and even of the NSW Iemma government; in the US, Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, Card. The appalling Yoo of course.

 

As we mentioned in a previous post,

“ Burns himself could have been transported to Botany Bay, as fellow Scots Thomas Muir, Thomas Palmer and William Skirving were in 1794.

Muir escaped in 1796 on an American ship which had been sent to rescue him. He fled to France, still in the midst of its Revolution. America had only recently won its own independence from Britain.

In France Muir worked with the famous Thomas Paine who had agitated for American Independence. Paine famously wrote “Common Sense” and “The Rights of Man – a guide to the ideas of the Enlightenment”.

(Muir had been a student of John Millar, Scottish philosopher and historian and author of “The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks; or, An Inquiry into the Circumstances which give rise to Influence and Authority in the Different Members of Society [1771]¹). ”

According to Wikipedia,

“ The Scottish Enlightenment was … characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments…

Sharing the humanist and rationalist outlook of the European Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the fundamental importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority which could not be justified by reason…The Scottish Enlightenment had effects far beyond Scotland itself, not only because of the esteem in which Scottish achievements were held in Europe and elsewhere, but also because its ideas and attitudes were carried across the Atlantic as part of the Scottish diaspora which had its beginnings in that same era.

Here is the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

 

2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

 

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

 

4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

 

5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.

 

6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents

 

7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.

 

8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.

 

9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner’s person shall be severely repressed by law.

 

10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.

 

11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

 

12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.

 

13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.

 

14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.

 

15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.

16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.

 

17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.

Not a bad start.

Robbie Burns put it in a nutshell:

To crouch in the train of mere stupid wealth and greatness . . .

I hold to be prostitution in anyone that is not born a slave. 

Happy Birthday Robbie. (And colonial Australia)

 

Only Thus?

Jan 13, 2009 | Cultural Values, Democracy, Racism, Religious Values, Terrorism, Values, War

Only Thus?

 

Let’s get one or two things clear:

  1. We are not against Jewish people in general.
  2. We are opposed to the actions of some individuals in particular.
  3. We are not opposed to their religion in particular.
  4. We are opposed to all religious belief (except, of course, the Flying Spaghetti Monster) in general, all religious practice and especially all religious coercion.
  5. We are not opposed to the State of Israel.
  6. We are opposed to some Israeli politicians, apparatchiks and apologists, their actions and their dishonesty.
  7. We are not pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian
  8. …except in the sense that we are pro-humanity and pro-human beings.
  9. We are opposed to the killing and harming and exploitation of human beings by any person or any group in the pursuit of political agendas.

So that said…

There is an Israeli election coming up. Tzipi Livni is up against Netanyahu.

Also, George Bush, well-known for being the easy pushover for American Zionists, is about to be stop being President.

Livni has had one last window of opportunity. And, coincidentally enough, she is now claiming that the “Gaza job” is almost complete. Just in time to be over for Obama’s inauguration.

So who is Tzipi Livni? [Most of this from Wikipedia]

Tzipi Livni is a child of the Jewish struggle for a homeland, the daughter of Eitan Livni (born in Poland) and Sara Rosenberg, both prominent former Irgun members.

Irgun was a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah.

The Irgun was the armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. He expressed this ideology as

“every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state”.

Some of the better-known attacks by Irgun were the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 [killing 92 people] and the Deir Yassin massacre (accomplished together with the Stern Gang) on 9 April 1948.

In the West, Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by The New York Times newspaper, The Times of London, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, and prominent world and Jewish figures, such as Winston Churchill, Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, and many others.

Irgun attacks prompted a formal declaration from the World Zionist Congress in 1946, which strongly condemned “the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare”.

Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel’s right-wing Herut (or “Freedom”) party, which led to today’s Likud party. [And Kadima, Livni’s party, is a splinter from Likud.]

“ The symbol of the Irgun, with the motto “Only Thus” alongside a hand holding a rifle in the foreground of all of mandatory Palestine (both sides of the Jordan River), symbolized the striving for Hebrew independence over the entire land of Israel, to be achieved only by the power of Hebrew weapons.

In 1948, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and other prominent American Jews signed a Godwin’s-Law-compliant letter that began:

“ Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

Soon after World War II, Winston Churchill said “we should never have stopped immigration before the war”, but that the Irgun were “the vilest gangsters” and that he would “never forgive the Irgun terrorists.”

Are we drawing too long a bow, or is the spirit of Irgun alive in Israel today?

The Times:

“ British anger at terror celebration

July 20, 2006

The commemoration of Israeli bombings that killed 92 people has caused offence.

The rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

In 2006, Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv at the time, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem at the time, wrote in response to a pro-Irgun commemoration of the King David Hotel bombing:

“ We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”

They also called for the removal of plaques at the site which blame the deaths on “ignored warning calls.” The plaques read:

“ For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated,”

but McDonald and Jenkins asserted that no such warning calls were made, adding that even if they had,

“ this does not absolve those who planted the bomb from responsibility for the deaths.”

It is hard to think that Livni’s politics are not deeply influenced by her family’s past and by the history, politics and culture of Irgun. There are scarily striking echoes here. To Livni and the Israelis, Palestinians who act militarily for what they believe are their rights are “terrorists” who, along with their children and families, need to be shot, bombed and killed. Israelis, in stark contrast, are “freedom fighters” whose deeds deserve commemoration.

Livni this week blamed the Palestinians for their own deaths, for the very same reason that her political forbears blamed the Brtitish for their deaths at the King David Hotel 62 years ago: the Palestinians had been phoned to warn them that their homes were about to be bombed. It was up to them to evacuate. Ah, yes. The good old game of “blame the victim”.

How would Israelis react if people said of the Holocaust, “Well, you know, you have only yourselves to blame. If you weren’t jewish….” Of course they’d be outraged, and rightly.

“ A military spokeswoman, Maj. Avital Leibovich, said Monday that the army had “no intention of harming civilians.”

The height of the disingenuousness of the Israelis comes in saying they don’t “intend” to kill civilians, while knowing that they certainly will, and proposing that, since they didn’t ‘intend’ the inevitable casualties they will certainly cause, they are not therefore accountable for them. In fact they go further and sheet the responsibility home to Hamas. Or accident. In this way, of course, they kill and maim any number of innocents without, supposedly, troubling their conscience at all. The Israelis seem to be proposing that ‘lack of intention’ is exculpatory. It is not.

Whether they ‘intend’ the deaths of innocent civilians or not, the Israelis are responsible for them and accountable for them. Their squirming avoidance of responsibility and their refusal to admit blindingly obvious agency is the real awfulness in the matter and the true indication of the national character flaw. Not to mention their retreat behind the magic mirror of the past — you know, the one that makes everyone who looks into it turn into an anti-semite at the slightest suggestion of criticism of their ruthless, immoral, bloodthirsty 21st century politicians.

The awfulness doesn’t stop there. Israeli spokesperson, sleazy — and unfortunately and shamefully Australian — Mark Regev, said wtteo “we are sorry a UN truckdriver was killed. We don’t know if Hamas was operating in that area on that day and the UN trucks got accidentally caught in the crossfire, but it is terrible that they were”, sliding from barely plausible scenario to probable fact in the course of a single sentence.

All the people who have acted to shed blood, or failed to act to stop it – Israelis, Hamas, Bush, Tony The Fixer Blair, the UN – must be called to account for the consequences of their actions and inaction, particularly given their sleazy attempts to avoid accountability.

The greatest lie may have been that told by Condolleeza Rice, that a ceasefire was desirable but that it must be sustainable and must include disarming Hamas.

No! That is not what was required.

What was required was for Israel to stop killing people.

That’s all.

Stop killing innocent people, children, babies, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. The rest can be worked out later. It’s like someone saying, “The Indians are attacking, they’re firing arrows at us. Quick, find some wood and nail it across the windows,” and you say, “No, no, if you’re going to alter the appearance of the windows first we need to discuss colour, and call in the interior decorator to make sure it’s done nice. And I want frilly curtains.”

Just stop killing each other. That is not difficult. At all.

The stupidity of the Israeli action in Gaza is that it is blindingly obvious that it ensures that hostility towards Israel and Israeli citizens is perpetuated and increased and not just amongst Palestinians.

Anti-Israeli feeling is growing globally. People are impatient with Israel’s politicians. They are over its immature tantrums, its childish emotions and bullying excesses.

The Israelis have lost much of the grassroots international support they had and it is going to be increasingly difficult in the future for liberal-democratic regimes around the world, – or even America – to carry their populations with a pro-Israeli stance.

But surely that is not what Israelis want – permanently to play the role of self-inflicted victimhood.

If the Israelis should listen to anyone, I plead with them, listen to the great souls amongst you, past and present.

Listen to Daniel Barenboim. Watch what he does; see how he reconciles Israeli and Palestinian. Hear what he says and listen to the music he makes with his Israeli/Palestinian, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

 

 

UPDATE:

Oops! Wonder what Regev (née Freiberg) will say about the Israeli shelling of the UN compound in Gaza. How will he blame Hamas for this one? Will it be another case of crossfire or did the gunner swallow a muslim-sympathising fly just as he was pressing the button?

Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, said it was a “grave mistake” and he took it “very seriously”. He assured Ban Ki-Moon that “extra attention” will be paid to U.N. facilities and staff and this will not be repeated.”

Unfortunately the Israeli track record is not good on the “never again” scale. They killed the UN truckdriver just the other day, and during their glorious fight against Lebanon recently, remember they shelled a UN observation post killing at least two UN officials.

“Oops, sorry, I’ll try not to do it again,” isn’t really good enough, is it.