Bob Birch is a member of the New South Wales Friends of Palestine. He sent the following letter to Prime Minister John Howard this week:
"Under your government's new anti-terrorism laws an Australian citizen faces a jail term of between three and seven years for 'communicating inciting messages directed...in support of Australia's enemies'.
"This government aligns itself unequivocally with the policies and interests of the state of Israel. In doing so it chooses to ignore numerous United Nations resolutions calling upon the Zionist state to withdraw from territories illegally occupied since 1967.
"I am an Australian citizen. I am unequivocally committed to supporting the aspirations of the Palestinian people to regain their homeland, to compensation for stolen property and to the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
"I would prefer to see these ends achieved by non-violent, political means. However, I fully endorse the right of the Palestinian people to engage in armed resistance against a military occupation which has been in place for 38 years.
"If my views and actions are interpreted as communicating inciting messages directed in support of Australia's enemies, then so be it."
19 Comments:
Thankfully, NZ knows that the Arabs must negotiate with the Israelis. None of the resolutions require Israel to just leave.
A "Friend of Palestine" complains about anti-terrorism legislation. With friends like this, who needs enemies?
If one is to tackle this dispute on abstract terms of equal rights and equal wrongs, how does one interpret the continuing dispossession of Palestinians by the Israeli state?
Birch quite naively hasn't confronted that in Australia the only organisations allowed to foster terrorism, through both propaganda and finance, are those associated with the Israeli lobby.
Given that Anthony and his friends evidently can't or won't read, here are some pictures in pretty colours
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
A lot of those Palestinian children are terrorists. And as we know, IDF troops were instructed to take out the little ones for the hell of it.
Anthony and his friends need to take a collective cold bath and join the real world.
And, to repeat, Anthony and his friends might enlighten us on why the Israeli state is continuing to dispossess Palestinians.
This is the essential fact on the ground that demands explanation.
Is Rowan saying that Israel doesn't intend to kill Palestinian terrorists?
Dumb question time here.
Why was it that when Israel pulled out of Gaza and ceded it to the Palestinians, the response of the Palestinians was to start sending firing upon Israel from the new territories?
Why did the Palestinians vow to increase the bloodshed and celebrate by demolishing synagogues and houses and infrastructure?
Why did Abbas wait until Israel started retaliating before talking about halting the rockets and mortars?
nilnark. dumb question indeed. do you read anything? notice what Israel was doing in the West Bank?
This from Bionic Octopus:
'There is a well-thumbed play-book for this somewhere in the archives of Likud, and it reads something like this:
1) Wait for a lull and the impression of imminent progress toward peace
2) Carry out sudden targeted assassination
3) Provoke thereby pitifully impotent display of rage from Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al-Aqsa/PFLP/Insert Chump Militant Group Here
4) Launch Armageddon on civilian refugees, women and children targeted at random
5) Contact everyone in worldwide media and package Armageddon as 'Reprisal'
6) Rinse 7) Repeat.
And again, again again again, the world will stand by and watch them do it.'
Apparently not, evan.
What I'm think of are the events after the Israeli pull out of Gaza recently. Practically every news outlet carried images of Palestinians wreaking havoc on their new land.
What sort of housing will they have now? Where is the infrastucture? What about the businesses and farms that were left intact so that the new owners could support themselves?
Doesn't matter, I guess. The evil infidels left them behind, they must be haram and therefore destroyed.
Where will they get the resources to rebuild? And while we're at it, what aid are they getting from other arab nations?
I don't expect any concise answers, but these are surely things to be considered.
"3) Provoke thereby pitifully impotent display of rage from Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Al-Aqsa/PFLP/Insert Chump Militant Group Here"
Is "impotent display of rage" your term for the blowing up of a cafe? Or does Israel send reprisals to people waving AK-47s about?
andjam. repeat after me 1,2,3. 3 follows 2. Go back to 2:
2) Carry out sudden targeted assassination
[The IDF kills 5 Palestinians in the West Bank on August 24]
Anthony. go back to AL's post of 24 September, a mere one week ago.
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/index_en.asp
Refer also to AL's post from Amira Hass (23rd), taken from Haaretz of the 22nd.
'the IDF spent five years uprooting the green lungs of Gaza, mutilating its most beautiful areas and cutting off the livelihood of tens of thousands of families. The Israeli talent for ignoring the enormous destruction that we caused leads to the wrong political assessments. Ignoring it enables the IDF to continue destroying Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Along the fence, around the settlements, in the Jordan Valley, the destruction goes on as a means to continue creating facts on the ground and to guarantee that the future Palestinian entity remains as divided and split and territory-less as possible.' etc. etc.
REPEAT:
'The Israeli talent for ignoring the enormous destruction that we caused leads to the wrong political assessments.'
Did you guys learn anything at school?
Some examples of on-going land and property dispossession by Israel:
1) Construction of the wall beyond current borders. (well known)
2) Lax enforcement of civil harassment of Palestinians. Haaretz
3) Seizing property using "absentee" land lord laws.
4) Removal of other "non-authorized" housing Link
Did you guys learn anything at school?
We learned effective debating for a start Evan. In addition to asking the right questions in the search for the right answers.
The points are simple
1. Israel kept up its end of the bargain by withdrawing from Gaza.
2. Militant Palestinians respond by destroying infrastructure and lobbing a few missiles and mortars at Israel.
3. Israel responds with a surgical strike.
4. The either ineffectual or corrupt Palestinian Government says 'stop it you bad boys' without enforcing any genuine rule of law.
5. It is obvious to everyone except a few either deluded or genocidal fools that the entire drive of these violent jihadists is to wipe Israel (and Jews) off the face of the planet. No much how much land is ceded to them nor how much autonomy they have. These people will not stop. Now they have taken their geographically narrow aim into a worldwide war.
-- Nora
I know 3 follows 2. Would you now be so kind as to answer my question about what "impotent display of rage" means?
Reading this article reminded me of another comment I once read by Saree Makdisi:
"Suicide bombing is merely a tactic used by those who lack other means of delivering explosives. What happened in London occurs every time a U.S. or British warplane unloads its bombs on an Iraqi village.
American and British media have devoted hours to wondering what would drive a seemingly normal young Muslim to destroy himself and others. No one asked what would cause a seemingly normal young Christian or Jew to strap himself into a warplane and drop bombs on a village, knowing full well his bombs will kill civilians (and, of course, soldiers).
Because ''our'' way of killing is dressed up in smart uniforms and shiny weapons and cloaked in the language of grand causes, we place it on a different moral plane than ''theirs.''" more at http://electroniciraq.net/news/2087.shtml
----
So lets declare that western bombs and weapons are terror that must stop and with it stopping a lot of the side effects will stop haunting us.
You can declare that a chicken coop is a dog house, but no one will believe you. Except the dogs.
A mere declaration by a mere mortal is a worthless thing.
Dirt,
Thank you for the compliment. Did the rest have a point or were you hurling to see how far you could hurl?
'Another thing that hardly ever gets a mention is the simple fact that the vast majority of these "insurgents" arent even native iraqis in the first place'
How would you know you goose?
Here we go: the vast majority of the insurgents are Iraqis.
Easy isn't it?
How about you go over and find out for us?
Comical Ali. How appropriate that is.
Most of the insurgency are foreign? Again, how convenient. But why let facts get in the way?
"Report by US think tank says only '4 to 10' percent of insurgents are foreigners."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0923/dailyUpdate.html
It's called fighting an illegal occupation. And it's not unique. History is littered with unacceptable occupations being fought brutally.
comical_ali, your comment indicates you think there is only one group in Iraq, you are totally wrong.
On a daily basis many times a day too occupation troops are attacked by people who are against this illegal occupation. Occupation troops are killed daily and occupation troops are injured daily. I have personally read on Iraqi newspapers information from these groups that they strongly condemn any hate crimes between Iraqis; they are for getting rid of the occupation, for a united Iraq and a true free and democratic Iraq.
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