Daphne Anson: Malcolm Fraser's Mad Malice: The Israelis deliberately bombed the USS Liberty claims former Aussie prime minister

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Thursday, 15 May 2014

Malcolm Fraser's Mad Malice: The Israelis deliberately bombed the USS Liberty claims former Aussie prime minister

"Tamie has one. Malcolm is one". That was a crudely sexist (Tamie, short for Tamara, is Malcom Fraser's wife) bumper sticker that I remember seeing on vehicles in Canberra after Fraser took office in 1975.

It reflected the raw anger and contempt among sections of the Australian public for the way in which the Liberal Party prime minister had been catapulted into office that year, in an audacious totally unexpected and possibly illegal coup involving the peremptory sacking of the Labor Party prime minister Gough Whitlam by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, an event of the "I-remember-where-I-was-and-what-I-was-doing-when-I-heard-the-news" class. and one which still rankles with many Australians today.

From a conservative's perspective, Gough Whitlam, a patrician lawyer of radical bent, was arguably the worst prime minister in Australian history, and, in contrast to Fraser, he was certainly no friend to Israel.

But since leaving office Fraser has changed, shifting ever leftwards, as seen in this recent interview with political scientist and public intellectual Robert Manne, whose journey has been similar. A former blogger here in Australia, a chabadnik, expressed this metamorphosis of Fraser's, which includes being an apologist for Islam, well in 2007:

''Former PM Malcolm Fraser (from 1975-1983) is opening his big mouth again and accusing the present government of using "the politics of fear to damage traditional Australian values". He said this and more in a speech at the Australian National University today as reported on ABC news.

[Fraser] was one of the most right wing PMs we have had and is now reinventing himself as a (small "l") liberal.'

In one of my early blogposts, in 2010, I summed up Fraser thus:

'The supercilious Oxford-educated scion of the squattocracy and of a mother of Jewish descent, Una Woolf, Fraser is widely remembered for three things: the controversial manner of his appointment to office, the much-mocked pronouncement that "life wasn't meant to be easy", and the mysterious loss of his trousers in a seedy hotel in Memphis in 1986 when he was chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. While prime minister he was a hard-headed rightwinger, and in 1975 his Cabinet learned of a plot by Palestinian terrorists to assassinate three prominent Aussie champions of Israel - future Labour prime minister Bob Hawke, communal leader Isi Leibler, and journalist Sam Lipski. Fraser was perceived as friendly to Israel.

Subsequently, however, Fraser - evidently determined to be an elder statesman of international import - reinvented himself as an extreme small-l liberal and a self-righteous exponent of "human rights", founding the organisation Australians All. He sounded off to the embarrassment of his Liberal Party successors, undermining them, especially the estimable and staunchly pro-Israel John Howard. He loftily dismissed widespread public fears of large-scale Muslim immigration, made light of the threat from radical Islam, called for Israel to negotiate with Hamas (thereby earning the soubriquet "Mad Mal of Hamastan"), and rounded on "the Jewish lobby" - yes, he used that very phrase - when Zionist leaders pointed to the flaws in his arguments and questioned the wisdom of his views. He flounced out of the Liberal Party in 2009, condemning its conservatism. Early this year he was quick off the mark to urge the then prime minister Kevin Rudd to expel Israeli diplomats from Canberra in reprisal for the use of four Australian passports by the team believed to be responsible for the assassination in Dubai of the Hamas arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Perhaps the kindest thing to be said about Malcolm Fraser is that he should have had the grace and good sense years ago to button his lips and fade quietly into one of those spectacular antipodean sunsets.'

Already dubbed by some "Mad Mal of Hamastan", Fraser has reached a new low in his comments about the small valiant beleaguered Israeli nation. Evidently Fraser has been reading, and giving credence to, one of the darkest anti-Israel theories on the internet, as exemplified by this article by British antisemite Alan Hart.

As the Australian Jewish News (which hit the news stands today) reports, during an interview last Friday on ABC Radio Melbourne, when Fraser (plugging his new book Dangerous Allies) was asked by host Jon Faine

'if he agreed [with former Foreign Minister Bob Carr] that “the pro-Israel and in particular Jewish community lobby in Australia wielded too much power”, Fraser responded, “They certainly do.”

When Faine suggested other religious, ethnic and communal groups, like the Italian community, also lobbied the government, Fraser said, “I don’t think the Italian community, just to take one example, try to get us to follow any particular policies in relation to Italy. And that’s the difference … The Jewish community seek to get Australia to support policies as defined by Israel.”

Shockingly, Fraser also wallowed into the muck of conspiracy theory when he said, referring to the USS Liberty disaster of June 1967:

“Israel years ago, during one of the wars, killed 30 or 40 Americans on a spy ship in the Western Mediterranean.

The Americans tried to cover it up. It wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate.”

Long-serving Zionist Federation of Australia president and current AIJAC head Mark Leibler is reported as saying:

“To make these allegations about Israel deliberately targeting Americans when there’s no evidence to support it, when successive inquiries by both the Americans and the Israelis have demonstrated that this was an accident, I just think it is appalling beyond description...".

The present president of the Zionist Federation points out

“The [USS Liberty] incident was subject to no less than 10 American investigations and an additional three Israeli investigations, all of which found that it was indeed an accident.

If Mr Fraser has a credible source to back up his outlandish claims, then he is duty-bound to reveal it.”

6 comments:

Joe in Australia15 May 2014 at 13:27
"Tammie has one. Malcolm is one."

A husband!
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Ian15 May 2014 at 23:01
Poor Mad Mal he's now lost the last of his marbles.
Of course the radio intercepts released by the NSA prove that it was a mistake.

I'm happy the cartoonist managed to get a Mugabe reference in there.

"Fraser's 1987 biographer Philip Ayres wrote: "The centrality of Fraser's part in the process leading to Zimbabwe's independence is indisputable. All the major African figures involved affirm it."
Mugabe is quoted by Ayres: "I got enchanted by (Fraser), we became friends, personal friends ... He's really motivated by a liberal philosophy."
Fraser's role also attracted tributes from Australian diplomats. Duncan Campbell, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has claimed that Fraser was a "principal architect" of the agreement that installed Mugabe and that "he was largely responsible for pressing Margaret Thatcher to accept it".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/you-got-him-in-so-help-kick-him-out/story-e6frg7ef-1111116070981
ReplyDelete
Replies
Anonymous16 May 2014 at 00:15
Seems like Martin Indyk in the US is on a similar trajectory
ReplyDelete
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Jill17 May 2014 at 01:06
Fraser (as well as Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard ) is a Fabian Socialist working to the New World Order - he is scum.

Please share this reclamation of the Temple Mount campaign:
TEMPLE MT Jewish Liberty March
http://www.gofundme.com/tmount?pc=tw_p2

THank you.
ReplyDelete
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'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

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'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

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Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
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[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

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I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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