Daphne Anson: "The Jews – Once So Oppressed, Now So Oppressive": Odious article by ABC broadcaster Peter Goers

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)

Monday, 19 May 2014

"The Jews – Once So Oppressed, Now So Oppressive": Odious article by ABC broadcaster Peter Goers

Adelaide-based Peter Goers is a broadcaster with the ABC, Australia's answer to the BBC.

In Adelaide's Sunday Mail a couple of years ago he wrote, inter alia, when regretting the rise of militant atheism:

'I write as a poor Christian, happily raised a Methodist thanks to the quiet and nurturing faith not of the fathers but the mothers.

I will never deny the beautiful faith of my mother and grandmother and my Sunday school education, which was a blessing.

That said, I'm also a bit of an agnostic as are all reasonable people of reasonable faith. None of us knows if there is a God, but there's always hope.

I have enormous respect for agnostics and for people of quiet, personal, fulfilling faith which must always question. I do not believe in proselytising.'

He continued:

Muslims do not proselytise and some of the best Christians I've ever known are Muslims. We would do well to learn from moderate Islam.' [Emphasis added]

He had nothing to say in that article about Jews, who of course, unlike Muslims and indeed Christians, famously do not proselytise.

Evidently in that astonishing blanket claim about Muslims he has never encountered any of the Islamic proselytisers who spruik their conversionist pamphlets on busy shopping streets in Australian capital cities as they do in the dear old Motherland. But at least his comment indicates where his sympathies apparently lay, and this may be instructive in light of his latest article, referred to below.

(Indeed, in another article he wrote that Australia

"may be better off as a Muslim nation. Christianity has never been less popular and Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. It's a religion of peace, love, family values and respect, and the only faith to give women equality in its holy book." [!!!!!!! Emphasis added])

Last week Goers visited Palestine with the Australian Friends of Palestine (its home page carries that set of misleadingly mendacious maps) and South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, who found the situation in Hebron "heart-breaking" according to press reports.

In today's Adelaide Sunday Mail Goers has an article entitled "The Shame of Israel's Palestinian Apartheid" in which he demonises Israel from start to finish. It is as offensive an article as any that I have ever read in Australia (and, believe me, I've read a lot of newspaper articles dealing with Jews and Israel, and should be protested by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry).

The article begins on a hyperbolic note, and continues in lacrymose mood:

"Jesus wept. In Palestine, Jesus wept and so did I. I weep for the Palestinians living under the Israeli apartheid ...'

I'm not begrudging Goers his sympathy towards Palestinians. But this is a damning dangerous article.

There is not one word of understanding for Israel's predicament, no word of sympathy for Israeli civilians suffering terrorist attacks, no attempt to explain why Israel erected its security barrier or how that barrier has reduced suicide bombings, no attempt to set the "refugee"issue in context, no attempt to empathise at all with a country that Goers, in a picturesque analogy, accurately describes as tiny.

He has swallowed the Palestinian narrative hook, line, and sinker.

But it is not only Israel that is demonised by Goers. So, too, are the Jews. And Jesus, the Judean, the Jew, is decribed as a Palestinian!

'I weep for those who must live behind the wall....

I weep for all 720km of this barbaric wall in Israel, a tiny country twice the size of Kangaroo Island.

I weep for the worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most holy place in Islam. It’s in the Old City of Jerusalem, next to the Dome of the Rock – one of he most thrillingly beautiful structures in the world....

I weep for the many Israelis who want to destroy the 1400-year-old Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian churches in this land whence prophets come.

I weep for the Palestinians who are second-class citizens in their own land. Intimidated, harassed, removed....

I weep for the settlements and the 630,000 intrusive settlers in Palestinian territory. I weep for faith, killed by fundamentalism. I weep for the illegal military occupation of Palestine for 47 years after millennia of occupations of this land as old as time. Jesus was a Palestinian born under another occupation.

I weep for this apartheid....

I weep for Palestinian refugees....

I weep for the oppressive, bellicose Israelis. The Jews – once so oppressed, now so oppressive. Recently the most distinguished Israeli writer Amos Oz decried some of his countrymen as “Hebrew neo-Nazis”. I weep that the Palestinians are “the Jews of the Jews”....

I weep for greed ...

I weep for the 1004 Palestinian children arrested, tortured, abused and abducted last year....

I weep for the pain and cost of all this useless persecution ...

I weep for this land of endless repression....'

See all of Goers' outrageous article here

9 comments:

Ian19 May 2014 at 01:36
I saw the article about Xenaphon by the odious Lyons in last weeks OZ, Nick has swallowed all the lies as well.
BTW Henderson demolished Fraser in the OZ
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oldschooltwentysix19 May 2014 at 03:31
Another Jew hater. Go figure. Weeps for fellow Jew haters under the guise of caring for the people they oppress so they can continue the Jew hatred.
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Daphne Anson19 May 2014 at 06:56
How ironic it is that, in the past, Jews were oppressed and persecuted owing to false and malignant charges, and now, as Goers odious allegations demonstrate, Israel, the Jew among the nations, is being subjected to false and malignant charges.
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Anonymous19 May 2014 at 07:27
1) For search engine reasons, put the actual evil author's name right in your blog entry title, so people who want to learn more about him will see this

2) Five anti-Israel people and zero pro-Israel people commented on the actual article. If any of you want to make a difference, you need to take 3 minutes to sign up for that site and complain about it.

3) Anybody offended by that article also needs to complain to the editors. Go to the website, click around, find their editorial department emails, and send links to this daphneanson blog entry with your complaints.

4) I checked their Twitter account (that newspaper) and barely anybody tweeted at them.

All you pro-Israel people need to make your VOICE HEARD, in multiple ways. Complaining on a pro-Israel blog and then forgetting about it won't accomplish anything. Half the battle is blog entries like this one here. THe other half is DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT, whether you simply complain on Twitter, complain on email, make phone calls, or even better, complaining to the editors, reaching out to sponsors, etc.

These are my thoughts in an effort to help the pro-Israel side. YOU have to do stuff. (YOU being EVERYBODY who actually cares).
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Ian19 May 2014 at 21:24
Bolt has picked this up
Jews “bellicose”, Palestinians “kind” - the ABC guide to racial etiquette and the Middle East
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Ian19 May 2014 at 23:26
Honest Reporting have picked it up as well
So Appalling, It’ll Make You Weep
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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.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

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Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

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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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