Greg Sheridan : If A Palestinian Says It, It Must Be A Lie

The Australian's "most influential" foreign affairs commentator Greg Sheridan on February 5, 2009 :

I do not believe a single story of Israeli war crimes or atrocities in Gaza. There is no evidence of any such story beyond Palestinian eye-witness accounts....

The United Nations isssued a report yesterday on Israel's clear and painfully obvious war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, which killed more than 1400 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children :

United Nations investigators found that Israeli missiles killed 30 to 40 Palestinians in the immediate vicinity of the Jabalia school in Gaza Strip, where hundreds of others had taken refuge during the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to a report released Tuesday.

The attack against the Jabalia boy school, also known as the al-Fakoura school, which was run by the UN refugee agency in the Middle East (UNWRA), was among the six attacks against UN compounds cited in the report by a three-member investigative board.

'The board found that the undisputed cause of the injuries and the deaths to persons in the immediate vicinity of the school was the firing of 122 mm mortar rounds by the IDF, which landed in the area outside the school and at the compound of a family home nearby,' the report said.

If Sheridan writes about the UN report, he will use the words "one-sided" and "biased" prominently.

He doesn't need to get a memo, he knows what his job is.

Greg Sheridan's Bizarre Anti-Free Speech, Anti-Free Assembly Propaganda

I'm Not Paid To Tell The Truth You Know, Just Because I Write For The Australian

Here's how The Australian newspaper proudly promotes professional propagandist Greg Sheridan :

Greg Sheridan is the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia. A veteran of over 30 years in the field, he has written five books and is a frequent commentator on Australian and international radio and TV.

Here's Sheridan using all that foreign affairs experience in writing about the widespread claims of Israel war crimes committed against Palestinian civilians :

I do not believe a single story of Israeli war crimes or atrocities in Gaza. There is no evidence of any such story beyond Palestinian eye-witness accounts....

There is now :

"There was a house with a family inside .... We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sniper position on the roof," the soldier said.

"He shot them straight away....he killed them."

Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.

The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader's soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza].

"Everyone there is a terrorist."

Greg Sheridan obviously listens very closely to his boss, Rupert Murdoch, and always does what he knows he should.

Sheridan won't be fired, he'll probably just get another award.

So is Rupert Murdoch still quietly funding illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, and the ethnic cleansing it involves, or was that more of a 90s thing?

Too Much Trurth....

Anti-Americanist Andrew Bolt, aka The Professional Idiot, is indeed one delicate little flower. I decided to Have My Say, as his Herald Sun blog invites readers, on a post where he horns in on supposedly misleading reporting about one of the many schools Israel recently bombed in Gaza - in this case, an Australian-ally-launched bomb attack that killed almost as many innocent people as the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London.

But you can only Have Your Say if it doesn't upset his pro-civilian slaughter regular readers.


(click to enlarge)

"SNIP - YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD THREE OR FOUR TIMES BEFORE THAT YOU ARE BANNED. THIS IS THIS YEAR'S REMINDER"

He's lying. Full of shit, as usual. He's never told me that I'm officially banned from commenting on his blog. I've left comments on his blog, here and there, for the past couple of years.

He just didn't like what I had to say this time, which was to point out that defending state terrorist attacks on civilians is just as sick as defending Islamic terrorist attacks on civilians. And that to the people who are being bombed, all bombs feel like terrorist attacks.

Here's a non-banned comment of mine from The Professional Idiot's blog this past Tuesday. This didn't get banned because he agrees with what I said :


(click to enlarge)

By censoring my comment for pointing out that there's not a lot of light between extremist terrorism and state terrorism, the comments section for The Professional Idiot's "Don't Look There! (at all the dead children) Look over there at the Evil UN!" post is filled instead with the usual Megaphone crowd spouting a hundred more excuses why it's okay for an Australian ally in the 'War On Terror' to slaughter hundreds of women and children and bomb schools, hospitals and food warehouses. But that's probably exactly how The Professional Idiot wants it to be.

The Professional Idiot just can't handle The Trurth (sic)

Reality Has A Hamas-Related Bias

By Darryl Mason

The Australian newspaper reveals there is outrage, from some, that Australians are angered and outraged now they are finally seeing the true horror of what Israel has done to Gaza on the evening news. The outrage that Australians are disgusted by what they see and hear about Gaza on the news is now becoming shrill :

Sure enough, some television programs did invite a token Israeli guest who tried to explain Israel's case. But the answers given seemed to be presented as propaganda, and the implication was that the only story to be believed was the Hamas narrative.

When news finally gets out about how those hundreds of women and children died in Gaza, the news takes on a 'Hamas narrative'. If you believe the stories from the UN, from the Red Cross, from the BBC, from CNN, from ABC, from the Murdoch media, from The Australian itself, about children hiding in UN safe houses and hospital being shelled by Israel, you are believing 'The Hamas Narrative'. It is implied.

Wow.

...the strategy has worked for Hamas: it produced the images that screamed from the front pages of newspapers and TV screens, pushing the buttons of people across the world.

Yes, why would people across the world have their buttons pushed by images like this?



Presumably, the preferred reaction to images of civilian slaughter by an Australian ally is to not have any buttons pushed at all.

It gets a little creepy.

Emotions cloud the context; the result is a circus.

Don't become emotional when you hear and see on the evening news that an Australian ally, an ally in the 'War On Terror', is slaughtering women and children by the hundreds.

By forgetting the context, voluntarily or not, much of the Western commentators have implied this: it is permissible for terror groups to use civilians as human shields, but not for a legitimate country to mistakenly kill civilians in the course of battling enemy.

The latter is being portrayed as a crime against humanity.

It usually is when hundreds of civilians are killed, and when it keeps happening, to UN buildings and schools, when the UN has told the legitimate country that those buildings belong the UN, and have civilians in them.

The worry about 'Western commentators' forgetting "the context" of how missiles tear off children's legs and shred their faces with shrapnel is misplaced concern. Those who have to sell Israel's side of the state terror attacks on Gaza have got far bigger problems than 'Western commentators' nosing around the words "war crimes".

When even the Murdoch media are running news caps like the one below, on News.com.au's main page and the Daily Telegraph online front page, for almost 48 hours, you've got a serious, devastating public relations disaster on your hands :

Apparently the people of Gaza got off lightly, writes Albert Dadon, founder and chairman of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange :

The only surprise is the low number of civilian casualties in an area where 1.4 million Palestinians live....

1300 dead, more than 5000 wounded, thousands of buildings destroyed, including schools and hospitals, playgrounds bombed....

This is a result of the care with which Israel has operated.

Imagine the death toll if they didn't care?

Israel says 12 per cent of casualties are civilians, Hamas say 40 per cent. Whatever the percentage, it is a tragedy. But citing numbers and showing images while forgetting the context creates one more casualty: the truth.

I think you will find The Truth became a casualty in what Israel is doing to Gaza a long time ago.

The headline for the opinion piece quoted above, published in a newspaper, is extraordinary.

Images Of Bloodshed Obscure Truth

A newspaper is telling you not to trust the usually non-bloody images they allow you to see.

But even those images don't obscure the obvious truth of the bloodshed in Gaza, and who is responsible for it.

You've Got Your Notes, You've Been Briefed, Now Go Write Some Blogaganda

Australia Will Back UN Investigation Of Israel War Crimes

The Rudd government treads softly, but the message is clear :

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said the government was deeply concerned about the continuing conflict in the Gaza Strip.

"The death of Palestinian civilians in conflict is tragic and we urge Israel to ensure that it takes all precautions to avoid and minimise harm to civilians," she said.

"The Australian government supports the proper investigation of allegations of violations of international law."

That's diplomatic speak for 'war crimes'.

The Rudd government doesn't have to look too far to find obvious violations of international law by Israel :

From the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons :

1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

A federal Labor source says that the disgust and anger at Israel's slaughter of hundreds of children in Gaza, and the targeting of hospitals, schools and even UN food warehouses, is deep and wide and very much alive across the government, including many of those politicians who have long thought that Israel could do next to no wrong.

Apparently, during the Christmas-New Year break, a lot of federal, and state, politicians copped earfuls of questions, outrage and abuse from friends and family and neighbours on why Australia was so quiet about what Israel was doing to the people of Gaza, and why we were not, as a nation, voicing our opposition to a War On Terror ally killing and wounding thousands of civilians.

Some will try and convince you that the only Australians fully outraged and disgusted by the destruction of Gaza and the slaying of so many children are Muslims with Palestinian-heritage.

They are liars.

John Pilger On The Gaza Genocide

Australian journalist, and decades-long veteran war correspondent, John Pilger, remains one of the most internationally respected and best-selling non-fiction writers this country has ever produced, and yet no Australian daily newspaper will publish his work. Not one. He's a journalist who he can premiere his latest documentary in Sydney and Melbourne and pull audiences numbering in the thousands, but Pilger is effectively black-banned by the mainstream Australian media.

Are stories like this the reason why?

For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it.

On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.

Read The Full Story Here

It's Not "War", It's Just Another 'War On Terror' Massacre

By Darryl Mason

The savage slaughter of hundreds of civilians in Gaza is now so obvious, so horrific, that even some of the Murdoch media can't pretend it's not happening.

From the news.com.au and Daily Telegraph online front pages at 1.30am today :



The story.

It's pretty obvious why they don't have this story open for comments. The disgust felt by most Australians at what is being done to the Palestinian people in Gaza grows by the day, as Israel kills more than 500 men, women and children in nine days of artillery attacks, tank assaults and gunship strafing.

And finally, Rudd voices his outrage - well, not really - at the relentless slaying of children by an Australian ally engaging in acts of brutal terrorism and collective punishment :

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Israel must meet its humanitarian obligations to the people of Gaza.

"Australia recognises Israel's right to self-defence while we call on all parties to avoid any actions which result in unnecessary suffering or increased suffering on the part of innocent civilians,'' he said.

Israel had to meet its humanitarian obligations under international law and ensure people in Gaza had access to basic goods, food, humanitarian assistance and medical supplies.

Mr Rudd said a diplomatic solution should halt the rocket attacks against Israel "by the terrorist organisation Hamas'' and stop arms shipments into Gaza.

It should also bring about the opening of the Gaza crossings, involve an immediate ceasefire and "form part of a longer term compact involving Israel and Palestine, based on a two-state solution".

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman, who has been busted plagiarising Israeli Army press releases and propaganda and publishing it under his own byline, pathetically tries to tamper the growing disgust at Israel's mass killings by not mentioning the outrageous death toll, already beyond 500 people, at all. He describes "collateral damage" as "a small bonus."

Like Akerman, The Sydney Morning Herald, supposedly an Israel-hating organ of Evil Pagan Lefties, sees no reason to mention all those dead kids, and in the below online front page pic shows Israel Army missiles and artillery shells on a report about Hamas rockets being fired into Israel. Just another editorial mistake, presumably :



From the on-the-spot report, where Israeli locals appeared more upset by car alarms than the Hamas rocket hit :

Looking at the raw numbers - more than 10,000 Qassams fired in the past six years and 19 people killed - the rockets do not appear all that effective.

Wonder why would that be? This is what a Qassam rocket looks like :



These rockets are not being smuggled in from Iran, or whatever bullshit claims are now circulating in the media, these are homemade weapons. They are ineffective at killing because as far as military grade missiles go, they are utter shit, they don't even rate. They are effective at scaring the hell out of thousands of Israelis, but not quite as effective as the terror that comes from helicopters gunships unloading into Gaza apartment blocks, and blowing up mosques while women and children are praying inside.

Why does the Australian media so religiously follow the Israeli propaganda line that what is now going on in Gaza is "War"? Homemade rockets against the best gunships and weapons of mass destruction that American, British and Australian tax dollars help to buy is not "War" by even the loosest definition.

To quote HG Wells, it's like bows and arrows against the lightning.