Requiem for Bob Carr's fling in the Foreign Ministry

From Chris Kenny Blog | 17October 2013:

Bob Carr has taken us all for a ride. Plucked out of retirement for a temporary stint as foreign minister, the former NSW premier did a few laps of the globe on taxpayers, messed around with the shambles that is federal Labor and now, despite promises to the contrary, he’ll drop back to his generously taxpayer-funded retirement with lots of material for his next book.

He’ll get gentle treatment, as ever, from most in the media. This former journalist has always seemed to have other journalists in the palm of his hand. So his gaffes and missteps in foreign affairs went largely uncriticised and his cheap political lines were hailed as tactical genius.

And now, even though he promised to stay on and specifically ruled out resigning from the Senate if Labor lost government, he is going. Just another broken commitment. ... he should have been more forthright and should not have nominated to win a new six year Senate term starting next year. While the public will be infuriated at being played for fools by yet another interloper, Carr will get soft treatment from the political class.

...Carr was only ever coming back to politics to have a stint in one of its most interesting and glamorous jobs. He has always had an interest in foreign affairs and so, naturally, jumped at the chance to be foreign minister. He has travelled extensively in just over a year in the job, often with his wife, and according to DFAT insiders, with lots of requests for personal indulgences. And, we are told, he has been keeping diaries for a forthcoming book on these travels, as he has traversed the globe meeting many famous interlocutors.

...Carr wasn’t in the job long enough to ever sound like a practitioner. He often made the mistake of speaking like a commentator on world affairs rather than an advocate for Australia’s interests. Still his more obvious mistakes were perhaps no more than you would expect from a novice foreign minister – being overbearing towards Papua New Guinea and confusing some details over consular cases. Anyone new to the job would make mistakes like these; the trick is to make them only once and learn.

Carr’s more serious missteps involved Australia’s position on Israel. He took his activist-blogger’s approach on this issue into office when he should have left it at the door. He was too quick to condemn Israel and too slow to admonish its enemies. And he happily indulged the anti-Israeli lobby as a price worth paying for Australia’s seat on the UN Security Council.

Hence Carr was happy to send senior diplomats to Tehran to join a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, even though we have an ambassador in Iran who could have adequately looked after our interests. And his overly strident and simplistic criticism of Israeli settlements was ill-advised enough, without adding the inflammatory fact that he voiced it to cheers on the steps of the Lakemba mosque.

And this posture against Israel saw Carr, the temporary tourist of federal cabinet, actively lobby against his prime minister at the time. He helped roll Gillard on the crucial issue of whether the Palestinians should be given observer status at the UN. This is not the way to conduct what has been a largely bipartisan and constant area of Australian foreign policy.

His other grave failing was his virtual absence on our most pressing foreign policy challenge – border protection. With no glamour and no easy solutions available in this vexed area, Carr simply decided to avoid it. He dodged his duty – although it must be said he has in recent months been giving his colleagues some sorely needed and sage advice on the need for tough measures.

...of the three Labor foreign ministers over the past six years, Stephen Smith was probably the best. And on foreign policy, Gillard’s instincts were probably stronger than Rudd’s.

So as we await his formal resignation, there are two points worth making about Bob Carr that I expect too few will make.

• Senator Carr got far more out of his foray into federal politics than he gave, either to the ALP or the Australian public.
• And he played voters for fools by promising to line up for another six years in the Senate when an superannuated retirement and a book about his travels were always beckoning. 

Tanya Plibersek for Foreign Affairs...really??

From The Australian, 16 Oct 2013, by Ben Packham:



...[Deputy Labor leader Tanya] Plibersek, who once called Israel a “rogue state”, has reportedly decided to take the foreign affairs job after exercising her prerogative as deputy to choose her own portfolio.
Colleagues have questioned the move, suggesting other caucus members might be better suited to the role...
During the Iraq war debate in 2002, Ms Plibersek sought to compare the US position on Saddam Hussein's regime to its lack of action on Israel.

“I can think of a rogue state which consistently ignores UN resolutions whose ruler is a war criminal - it is called Israel and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon,” the prominent Left faction MP told parliament at the time. “Needless to say, the US does not mention the UN resolutions that Israel has ignored for 30 years; it just continues sending the money.”

Ms Plibersek told The Australian in 2011 that she no longer held such views and had spoken “injudiciously”. “Like most Labor Party members and supporters, I'm in favour of a two-state solution,” she said.

[ForeignAffairs Minister Julie] Bishop said Ms Plibersek must go further if she wanted to take the job and should publicly repudiate her anti-Israel comments.
“Whomever the Labor Party chooses as the shadow foreign affairs spokesperson, I will be looking forward to working cooperatively with them on a range of issues where there should be bipartisan agreement,” she told The Australian.
“If a shadow foreign affairs spokesperson has made statements which have offended our friends and partners, it will be important for that person to make amends.
“Should Tanya Plibersek become shadow foreign affairs spokeswoman I would urge her to publicly retract those statements.”

...The appointment of a Left faction member to the foreign affairs portfolio would be an unusual move, with the post normally assigned to a high-profile right-winger who can more convincingly articulate mainstream views on Israel and the US alliance.
One Labor MP said Ms Plibersek, elected as MP for Sydney in 1998, had come a long way since 2002 in her views on Israel, deciding she wanted to be a more pragmatic player. However, the MP said there were other caucus members who would be a better fit in the job. The MP singled out Richard Marles, who is seen as a strong candidate for a domestic portfolio.
“I think this is a long way from being decided,” the caucus member said.

Labor's former foreign affairs minister Bob Carr has not sought a frontbench position and is expected to announce his retirement from the Senate soon.

Tanya Plibersek, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party

Given her elevation to 2IC in the Labor party, it's timely to recall the following from Hansard, Tuesday, 17 September 2002:

 

Speaker Plibersek, Tanya, MP

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney) (9.50 pm)— I do not support an attack on Iraq. I particularly do not support a pre-emptive first strike. Nor do I support any action that is initiated by the US alone rather than being sanctioned by the United Nations....  the US response is governed by selfinterest and not by universal principles. This leads to hypocrisy.

I can think of a rogue state which consistently ignores UN resolutions, whose ruler is a war criminal responsible for the massacres of civilians in refugee camps outside its borders. The US supports and funds this country. This year it gave it a blank cheque to continue its repression of its enemies. It uses US military hardware to bulldoze homes and kill civilians. It is called Israel, and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon.

Needless to say, the US does not mention the UN resolutions that Israel has ignored for 30 years; it just continues sending the money...

'We are not Arabs. We are Christians who speak Arabic'

From Israel Hayom, 4 Oct 2013, by Dror Eydar:

Many of Israel's Christians feel that their history, culture and heritage have been hijacked by Muslim Arabs in the region, while they feel a much stronger link to Israel's Jews • The Jewish state is the only place where we are protected, they say.

A conference titled "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" in Jerusalem

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Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin

A conference titled "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" in Jerusalem | Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin

It was not just any conference. Even the word "historic" would not do it justice. This was nothing short of the shift of an ancient paradigm.

For a long time we had grown accustomed to thinking about the Middle East as an Arab region. But this region, the vast majority of which was actually originally not Arab, was conquered in the seventh century by tribes hailing from the Arabian Peninsula. They imposed their religion, their culture and their language on the indigenous population, and to top it all off, claimed ownership of the land in the region.

But the social and diplomatic firestorms currently raging around us have begun to chip away at this monolithic point of view among various ethnic groups, whose identities are actually different than the ones we have lazily attached to them, and their voices are beginning to be heard loud and clear: "We are not Arabs," they are saying. "We are Christians who speak Arabic."

At the "Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel" conference in Jerusalem, one after another, Israeli Christian representatives took to the stage and greeted the audience with a "moadim l'simcha" ("times of joy" – a common Jewish holiday wish of good tidings). The first speaker was the Rev. Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest in Nazareth and spiritual leader of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum. Naddaf is an impressive man, who speaks in a reserved tone, but is nonetheless articulate and resolute. "I am here to open the public's eyes," he said. "If we want to refrain from lying to our own souls and to the general public, we must say clearly and unwaveringly: enough!"

"The Christian public wants to integrate into Israeli society, against the wishes of its old leadership. There are those who keep pushing us to the margins, keeping us the victims nationalism that is not our own, and of a conflict that has nothing to do with us," he said.

Naddaf spoke of the Christian roots, planted deep in this land since the dawn of Christianity. This is where Jesus Christ's doctrine first emerged. The Christian faith, he said, came out of the Jewish faith and its biblical roots. As far as Naddaf is concerned, what happened in the seventh century was an Arab invasion from which the Christians also suffered. He added that he wasn't very proud of the Christian crusades either, and distanced himself from them.

He surveyed the dire situation currently faced by Christians in Arab states, and said that the realization that Israel is the only country in the region that protects its Christian minority has prompted many Arabic-speaking Israeli Christians to develop a desire to contribute to the state of Israel. That is how the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum came to be.

Naddaf quoted the founder of the forum, Maj. Ihab Shlayan, as saying: "The Christians will not be made into hostages, or allow themselves to be controlled by those who wish to impose their nationality, religion and way of life upon us. We will not agree to hide behind the groups that control the streets. We want to live in Israel -- brothers in arms and brothers in peace. We want to stand guard and serve as the first line of defense in this Holy Land, the Land of Israel."

"We have broken through the barrier of fear," Naddaf went on to say. "The time has come to prove our loyalty, pay our dues and demand our rights." He spoke about the death threats that he and his friends face, and added that despite the hardships they continue forward "because the State of Israel is our heart. Israel is a holy state, a strong state, and its people, Jews and Christians alike, are united under one covenant."

Naddaf was followed at the podium by Lt. (ret.) Shaadi Khalloul, the spokesman of the Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum and an officer in the Israel Defense Forces Paratroopers Brigade. Khalloul, a scholar who studies the history of the Christian faith in the region, spoke about the eastern Christian identity that had been stripped of his people. Over the last three years, he has fought Israel's Interior Ministry over recognition of his community as Aramaic Christians.

We are "B'nei Keyama," which means allies in Aramaic, he said. He has nothing against the Arabs, but it is simply not his identity. It is especially problematic for him because being associated with the Arabs pulls him into a conflict that is not his own, entirely against his will.

Khalloul said that the way to integrate into Israeli society was through military service in the IDF, which he described as a melting pot, but also through education. It turns out that Israel's Christian population is not educated in their own history, only the history of the Arabs and of Islam.

"The typical Christian student thinks that he belongs to the Arab people and the Islamic nation, instead of speaking to the people with whom he truly shares his roots -- the Jewish people, whose origins are in the Land of Israel."

Adding to that point, Rev. Naddaf stepped in and said,
"It is unthinkable that our children will be raised on the history of the Nakba and on the hatred of Jews, and not be taught their history."

It was no coincidence that Khalloul chose the Aramaic word for allies to describe his people. In his view, Israeli Christians are not mercenaries, as they might be perceived, but in fact allies.
"We want to defend the holy land alongside the Jews," he insisted. He mentioned the Christians' support for the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in the 1947 UNSCOP Committee. In a letter to the committee at the time, the Maronites rejected any reference to the land of Israel as Arab land.

Khalloul said further that global Christianity supported them, but refrained from making the support public because of the fact that Christians in the Middle East are hostages in the hands of Islamic forces.

Remarking on the ongoing debate surrounding the issue of a Jewish-democratic state vs. a so-called state of all its citizens, Khalloul said that he preferred a Jewish state that takes care of all its citizens over a state governed by all its citizens, without a Jewish identity.

"Several decades ago, 80 percent of the Lebanese population was Christian," he recalled, "but the 20% Muslim minority imposed their Arab identity on them and many of them left. Today, only 35% of the population is Christian."

Syria, too, he added, is comprised of Christians and Kurds who are not Arab. "Where is the respect for these groups? For their history and their culture?" Only in a Jewish state, he concluded, will different groups be given the right to exist.

Naddaf then interjected and said, "That is not just [Khalloul's] opinion. The entire forum shares this view."

The last representative to take the stage was Capt. Bishara Shlayan, whose initiative to establish the Christian Israeli Party was first reported in Israel Hayom this past July. Following the report, Shlayan was bombarded with responses from all over the world.

"We were raised on Arab political parties," he said, "the communists, and then the National Democratic Assembly. In time, I realized where these Arab parties were taking us -- only against Israel."

He said that Islam was imposing itself on the Christians in the region. Thus, for example, the ancient "Miriam's Spring" evolved into the "Nazareth Spring." In his youth, he had received a red flag, he recounted. But today, he sighed, "our children are being raised on the green flag, on anti-Israeli culture."

"We need to create a different culture," he continued. "We need to hand out Israeli flags to every child. Education begins here. You enter a school in Nazareth, and you will not see a single Israeli flag. They don't recognize it. You will only see Palestinian flags."

Shlayan is well aware of the claims that Israeli Christians are not afforded all the rights to which they are entitled. "That may be," he said, but "you have to begin by pledging loyalty to your country and serving it. I believe that."

All the above is only part of what was said at the recent conference of the Liaison Committee of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel.

The Christian communities' march toward the heart of the Israeli consensus has an iconoclastic significance. It is reminiscent of Abraham's smashing the idols and thereby smashing certain thought conventions and patterns. It is important not only on the inter-faith and theological level; it is also important to Israel's efforts to prove our rights to the world. Parts of the Christian world see us as the crucifiers of the Palestinians, even though this could not be further from the truth. Therefore, when the Israeli Christians stand by the State of Israel and declare that this is the Land of Israel and not Palestine and that Jews did not steal this land but rather returned home as the Bible prophesied, it has immeasurable significance.

We, as a society and as a state, must embrace these courageous people, who spoke from the very deepest recesses of their hearts. We must help them, provide for them and integrate them into our society. And no less importantly, we must protect their lives. Our lives and our future depend on it.

 

 

Friends of Israel: Wake up!

From The Times of Israel, 10 Oct 2013, by Hen Mazzig:

Hen Mazzig  is the Campus Coordinator for StandWithUs' Pacific Northwest chapter in the United States. Hen was in the … [More] IDF for almost five years. As a lieutenant in the COGAT unit, he worked as an intermediary between the Israeli Defense Forces (the IDF) and the Palestinian Authority (the PA), the UN, and the many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work in the West Bank. Hen's unit was responsible for overseeing the construction of medical facilities, schools, environmental projects, roads, water-related infrastructure, and for security coordination with the Palestinian Security Forces, part of the Palestinian Authority.

As a young Israeli who had just completed five years of service in the IDF, I looked forward to my new job educating people in the Pacific Northwest about Israel. I was shocked, however, by the anti-Israel bigotry and hostility I encountered, especially in the greater Seattle area, Oregon, and Berkeley. I had been very liberal, a member of the leftist Zionist party, Meretz, but the anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel that I have seen in the U.S. has changed my outlook personally and politically.

This year, from January through May, I went to college campuses, high schools, and churches to tell people about the history of modern Israel, about my experience growing up in the Jewish state, and about my family. I also always spoke about my military service as an officer in an IDF COGAT unit that attends to the needs of Palestinian civilians who are not involved in the conflict and promotes Palestinian civil society. Each time I would speak and take questions for an hour or more. I have shared my personal story with over 16,000 people at many, many college campuses and high schools, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Washington, Seattle University and many others. Many of those to whom I spoke were supportive, friendly, and open to hearing about my Israel. But, sadly, far too many were not.

When I served as a soldier in the West Bank, I got used to having ugly things said to me, but nothing prepared me for the misinformation, demonization of Israel, and the gut-wrenching, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hostility expressed by many students, professors, church members, and even some high school students right here in the Pacific Northwest.

I was further shocked by how unaware the organized Jewish community is and how little they are actually doing to counter this rising anti-Semitism, which motivated me to write this article.

 

This new form of bigotry against Israel has been called the “new anti-Semitism,” with “Israel” replacing “Jew” in traditional anti-Semitic imagery and canards, singling out and discriminating against the Jewish state, and denying the Jewish people alone the right to self-determination. The new anti-Semitism is packaged in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS), which claims to champion Palestinian rights though its real goal is to erode American support for Israel, discredit Jews who support Israel, and pave the way for eliminating the Jewish state. One of BDS’ central demands is the “complete right of return” for all the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees, subtle language that means the end of Israel as the Jewish homeland because it would turn Israel into a Palestinian-Arab majority state.

 

It is surprising that an extremist group like BDS is ever taken seriously, but BDS advocates have found receptive audiences in some circles. Their campaigns are well organized and in many cases, well financed. They have lobbied universities, corporations, food co-ops, churches, performing artists, labor unions, and other organizations to boycott Israel and companies that do business with Israel. But even if these groups don’t agree to treat Israel as a pariah state, the BDS activists manage to spread their anti-Israel misinformation, lies and prejudice simply by forcing a debate based on their false claims about Israel.

 

To give you a taste of the viciousness of the BDS attacks, let me cite just a few of the many shocking experiences I have had. At a BDS event in Portland, a professor from a Seattle university told the assembled crowd that the Jews of Israel have no national rights and should be forced out of the country. When I asked, “Where do you want them to go?” she calmly answered, “I don’t care. I don’t care if they don’t have any place else to go. They should not be there.” When I responded that she was calling for ethnic cleansing, both she and her supporters denied it. And during a presentation in Seattle, I spoke about my longing for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. When I was done, a woman in her 60’s stood up and yelled at me, “You are worse than the Nazis. You are just like the Nazi youth!” A number of times I was repeatedly accused of being a killer, though I have never hurt anyone in my life. On other occasions, anti-Israel activists called me a rapist. The claims go beyond being absurd – in one case, a professor asked me if I knew how many Palestinians have been raped by IDF forces. I answered that as far as I knew, none. She triumphantly responded that I was right, because, she said, “You IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won’t touch them.”

 

Such irrational accusations are symptomatic of dangerous anti-Semitism. Yet, alarmingly, most mainstream American Jews are completely oblivious to this ugly movement and the threat it poses. They seem to be asleep, unaware that this anti-Jewish bigotry is peddled on campuses, by speakers in high schools, churches, and communities, and is often deceptively camouflaged in the rhetoric of human rights.

 

The American Jewish community and its leaders are not providing a united front to combat this latest threat. Unfortunately, this repeats a pattern of Jewish communal groups failing to unite in a timely way to counter threats against us individually and as a community.

 

Shockingly, a small but very vocal number of Jews actively support BDS. They often belong to organizations that prominently include “Jewish” in their names, like Jewish Voice for Peace, to give cover to BDS and the anti-Semitism that animates it. A question that we, as a Jewish community must ask ourselves, is whether it is ever appropriate to include and accept Jews who support BDS and directly or indirectly advocate the ultimate elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.

I think it is not.

 

My experiences in America have changed me. I never expected to encounter such hatred and lies. I never believed that such anti-Semitism still existed, especially in the U.S. I never knew that the battlefield was not just Gaza, the West Bank, and hostile Middle Eastern countries wanting to destroy Israel and kill our citizens and soldiers. It is also here in America, where a battle must be waged against prejudice and lies.

 

I implore American Jews [and Friends of Israel]: do more.

 

Israel cannot fight this big battle alone. If you are affiliated with a Jewish organization, let it know you want it to actively, openly and unequivocally oppose the BDS campaign and those who support it. Inform yourself, your friends and families, by visiting websites of organizations like StandWithUs, Jewish Virtual Library, AIPAC, AJC and others that will update you and provide information about BDS and anti-Semitism.

 

I urge the organized Jewish community [and Friends of Israel] to wake up and stand up for the Jewish state of Israel, and for all it represents, and for all it works to achieve.

"Israel Violates Syrian Human Rights," Arabs Tell UN

From UN Watch, 10 Oct 2013:

At the UNHRC's "Hate Israel Day," Syria, Egypt and Pakistan for the Islamic States accused Israel of violating the human rights of Syrians. Attacks by Islamic terrorists in Kenya and Pakistan were ignored. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer asked why.

Brave act of "resistance" praised – attack on a 9-year-old Israeli girl

From AIJAC, 9 October 2013, by Sharyn Mittelman:

A nine-year-old Israeli girl, Noam Glick, was reportedly stabbed in the chest on Saturday night while playing outside her home in Psagot, a West Bank settlement southeast of Ramallah, in what Israeli authorities suspect was an attack by a Palestinian who had broken into the settlement from a nearby village. (Initial reports that the girl was shot proved to be incorrect.) The girl is reportedly in a stable condition at a Jerusalem hospital. Israel's Defence Forces said the incident was ''being investigated as a possible terrorist attack''.

This latest attack follows two other attacks about three weeks ago - the kidnapping and killing of soldier Tomer Hazan by a Palestinian in Qalqilyah and the shooting of 20-year-old IDF soldier Gavriel Kobi in Hebron.

Disturbingly, Fatah's official Facebook page appears to have praised the stabbing - though under the false impression that it was a shooting supposedly committed by the same individual that shot Kobi. Palestinian Media Watch reported,

"Writing on behalf of Fatah, the page administrator praised ‘the sniper of Palestine' who began his work in Hebron (the shooting of the soldier), passed through El-Bireh (the shooting of the girl), and - according to the Fatah Facebook page administrator - will continue in more places in the future'".

A translation of the posting on the Fatah Facebook page reportedly stated:

"The sniper of Palestine was here. He saluted Hebron, and rested in El-Bireh. He left the signature of [real] men in different parts of the homeland. He saluted and left, and moved on to a different place, with a new signature, as he tells the stories of those who love the homeland."

In a meeting with Israeli Knesset members, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas later issued a somewhat ambiguous condemnation of the incident - mentioning it along with Palestinians that have been killed, saying: "Two days ago a girl was shot or stabbed. That is not the topic of discussion for today. Four Palestinians were killed in Kalandiya, too... We should all condemn murder and bloodshed of innocents."

Meanwhile Hamas' website Al-Qassam also reported on the attack by a "resistance fighter" without ever mentioning that the "settler" shot was a nine-year-old girl. It stated:

"A Jewish female settlers was seriously wounded on Saturday in a possible sniper attack in Psagot settlement to the northeast of Ramallah city, the Israeli police claimed. The Israeli police are still investigating all options, including the possibility that the Psagot settlement was infiltrated by a Palestinian resistance fighter, according to different media reports. The Israeli settler was shot outside her dwelling and taken to an Israeli hospital in occupied Jerusalem. Israelis claim she is in critical condition, although media pictures of her show otherwise..."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the stabbing in Psagot as "a heinous attack" which he blamed on Palestinian incitement. Netanyahu said at the start of Sunday's cabinet briefing:

"I must say that the Palestinian Authority cannot shirk its responsibility for these kinds of incidents as long as incitement there continues... The murderers must understand that this won't help them."

Despite a long period of relative calm, Israeli officials and military observers are concerned that tensions in the West Bank could escalate into an intifada. Former IDF Central Command chief Gadi Shamni told Army Radio:

"The events of the past month may lead to an escalation in the West Bank... It's very difficult to determine if this is the start of an intifada... However, we have here the evidence of three separate events. We need to look at them. They may not be related to each other, but I have no doubt that once events such as these occur, this can encourage all sorts of people who might not have acted, to act."