Big Malevolence: Fraser The Anti-Israel Fantasist

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who led the Liberal Party to three election wins, finally succumbing to defeat at the polls by the ALP's Bob Hawke, has died at the age of 84, and inevitably people on both sides of politics are falling over themselves to pay tribute to his memory, no matter what they thought of the manner of his taking office and of his policies while in office.

"In retirement he became a statesman" is a widespread and indeed, an almost consensual view.

It's not the done thing to speak ill of the dead (at least, not immediately after their demise), and so even his those who have the most reason to feel aggrieved by him accentuate the positive, as in this excellent overview of his relations, once upon a time, with Australian Jewry .

Virtually his last political tweet

But make no mistake: hagiography towards Malcolm Fraser is strangely misplaced.

In his "retirement" the haughty and pompous Fraser became a proverbial pain in the tuches, loftily berating the policies of  John Howard and his other successors in the party, from which, having become an holier-than-thou advocate of "human rights" in Australia and around the world, he ultimately resigned.

From "Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs"

Whatever may or may not have been Fraser's achievements and good qualities [update: see Isi Leibler's brief reflection here), his reputation must always be tarnished by the extreme hostility towards Israel that he (of part-Jewish descent himself, by the way) developed, and which include, most inexplicably and dementedly, the acceptance and advancement of a bizarre conspiracy theory regarding Israel's tragic (mistaken) attack on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War.

In an interview last May with ABC Radio Melbourne's Jon Faine (pictured above with Fraser), to plug his anti-American book Dangerous Allies, Fraser declared that former foreign minister Bob Carr was “absolutely correct” in his view that the pro-Israel lobby wielded too much power and maintained that

“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.”

When Faine inquired what he based the claim upon, Fraser replied in characteristically supercilious fashion:

“Information I have. I am not going to tell you the source.”

Little wonder that Australian Jewish leaders condemned his remarks.

Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council  (AIJAC) chairman Mark Leibler commented, inter alia:

"This is a guy who says we’re too powerful as a Jewish lobby. There never has been another case that I can remember that a prime minister or the Australian government has issued a press release calling on us to support a view that they had in relation to Israeli policy....

This is not the same Malcolm Fraser … It seems he’s developed an antagonism towards the Jewish community and Israel for reasons which are certainly not apparent to me or to anyone else.”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 ...."

As Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) president Robert Goot said:

“Fraser’s assertion, that Israel’s missile hit on an American ship in the Mediterranean was not mistaken but deliberate, was disgraceful given the number of international inquiries that found to the contrary. The statement by Fraser that the Jewish community ‘seek to get Australia to adopt policies as defined by Israel’, suggesting dual loyalties, is equally wrong and particularly ­unfortunate.”

And in the words of Zionist Federation of Australia president Danny Lamm :

“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.”

But "Big Mal" Fraser proved incorrigible.  Despite his part-Jewish origins he seems to have become a confirmed antisemite, even granting an interview to Melbourne "Troofer" Dalia Mae Lachlan in which he augmented his nutjob views:

David Singer: Why The "Canberra Declaration On Gaza" Is A Dud

Signatory Sylvia Hale pickets the Israel Film Festival in Sydney yesterday

This, the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer, is entitled "Gaza – Australian Politicians Duped By Dud Declaration".

He writes:

The Canberra Declaration on Gaza signed by 77 current and former Federal and State parliamentarians [including former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser] displays their total factual ignorance and political naiveté concerning the war raging between Hamas and Israel for the last six weeks.

The Declaration has been “Published courtesy of Kohram”.  Kohram is a 24/7 online Hindi and English News and Views website based in Delhi, India. It offers real information relating News Analysis, World Wide News, Politics, Entertainment, Technology, Sports, Industry and Feature Articles on Education.

Another picketer

Australian politicians acknowledging assistance from an Indian media website seems a strange circumstance indeed. The Declaration was created by Maiy Azize, a Canberra-based health and social policy analyst. She is a parliamentary advisor in health and community services and campaigner for @GreensMPs. Twenty-one of the Declaration’s signatories are parliamentarians representing the Greens Party. The header image is attributed to Nakshab Khan and was featured in an article written by him for Kohram on 13 July headlined “Will Israeli Offensive Achieve Anything In Gaza?”

Khan wrote:

“Israel always justifies its aggression on the Gaza strip by blaming Hamas militants for firing crude rockets on the Jewish nation’s southern territories.”

Khan was apparently unaware that in the five weeks preceding 8 July 234 rockets had been launched from Gaza into Israel reaching as far as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Hadera – sending hundreds of thousands of civilians scurrying into air raid shelters and disrupting normal life in Israel as well as threatening its tourist industry in the peak summer season. Long range rockets such as the M-302 were employed – the same missiles confiscated from the KLOS-C weapons seizure.

Israel’s inherent entitlement to self-defence under article 51 of the United Nations Charter to prevent the indiscriminate firing of these rockets into Israeli population centres – each rocket an internationally acknowledged war crime – was not worth a mention in Khan’s article.

Australian politicians need to be very careful about their names being identified with a document whose origins are so murky – a Declaration that itself is deceptive and misleading in the following respects:

1. It claims to bear the signatures of members of Australian federal and state Parliaments – yet five of the 77 signatories are former members of those parliaments.

2. Although titled “Canberra Declaration on Gaza” and updated to 4 August it supports

“an immediate cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire deal which includes an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and to the blockade of Gaza”

The Declaration ignores any reference to Hamas having rejected a ceasefire deal proposed by Egypt on 16 July and accepted by Israel – and to a number of ceasefire agreements broken by Hamas since then. The Declaration ignored the findings of the 2011 United Nations Palmer Report which found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza complied with the requirements of international law and recommended that Israel should continue with its efforts to ease its restrictions on movement of goods and persons to and from Gaza in accordance with Security Council resolution 1860 –  all aspects of which should be implemented.

3. The Declaration omitted to include the following underlined words :

“We call on all Australian politicians to also support the United Nations Human Rights Council's decision to launch an independent inquiry into purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014”

4. The Declaration alleged that the rockets fired into Israel were “imprecise” and “cannot be compared with the broad-scale bombing of Gaza by Israel”.

A grossly misleading allegation indeed – echoing Nakshab Khan’s spurious claim – considering Hamas rockets were landing all over Israel – whilst Israel’s response was limited to specific targeted areas within Gaza.

5. The Declaration asserted that:

“Collective punishment is not permitted under the Geneva conventions and is a war crime”.

Whilst not specifically accusing Israel of perpetrating this crime, it is clear that the entire civilian population of Israel was being targeted by the broad-scale Hamas barrage of rockets – whilst large parts of Gaza’s civilian population were not being affected by Israel’s actions.

6. The Declaration claimed that hospitals and places of worship were among the Israeli military's targets – but ignored mentioning that such places were used to conceal underground tunnels and weapons and their use as command centres by Hamas.

7. The Declaration concluded:

“The international community including Australia has a vital responsibility to put pressure on Israel to end its current military attack on Gaza and broker a solution of justice and peace.”

Why no pressure on Hamas – especially as Israel had agreed to end its military attack on Gaza three weeks previously and subsequently on a number of other occasions – only to see them broken by Hamas?

8. The Declaration – like Khan’s article - makes no mention of Israel’s inherent right of selfdefence.

Those parliamentarians who signed this Declaration have some explaining to do to their constituents.

I wrote to Senator Lee Rhiannon – one of two named parliamentarians to contact about signing this Declaration – requesting she comment on my criticisms of the Declaration.

Regrettably at the time of writing this article no response has been received.

Seventy-seven out of a possible 598 Federal and State politicians have signed – which attests to the savvy political acumen of those 521 who have refused to be duped by this dud Declaration.

Leaving The Truth Trouserless: David Singer on the Malcolm Fraser allegations

In this, his latest article, titled "Palestine – Fraser Must Tell The Naked And Unadorned Truth", Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer turns his attention to last week's preposterous claims by Malcolm Fraser.

Writes David Singer:

Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser convincingly exposed the falsity of his own and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s unsubstantiated claim that the pro-Israel Australian Jewish community wielded too much power – with these few well-chosen words to the ABC’s Jon Faine:

“Fraser: Um, I once said that Israel had exercised excessive power in relation to Lebanon. I got some pretty furious phone calls as a result, and people asked to come up and see me. And I thought it was going to be two or three [of them] and I found, well, there were so many they wouldn’t fit in my office. So I said “Let’s go into the Cabinet Room”. They all explained Israel’s position, which I understood. And at the end of that discussion I said, “Well, gentlemen, I am glad to have listened to you, but you know the Australian government’s position”. I said that “The power Israel used was excessive. That view has not changed. But I have heard you. Thank you.” But it’s a continuum, it’s a continuum.”

There could be no clearer case of the total ineffectiveness of those Jewish representatives sitting in the Cabinet Room  – whom Fraser had properly met, courteously listened to and then rebuffed.

These lobbyists again had not got to first base.

Yes Prime Minister – contrary to your highly damaging allegations  – lobbying you on this occasion on this particular issue once again had failed to change your mind.

Yet you misleadingly use this meeting to suggest there is an organised Jewish lobby that exercises too much power over Australian Governments.

Such an offensive suggestion is utterly false – as your own recollection confirms.

Maybe you felt uncomfortable when confronting the larger than anticipated number of lobbyists who had unexpectedly filed into your office. Numbers may be a turn-off  – as can be exasperation resulting from meetings over the same issue.

You admitted having received some pretty furious phone calls from these people. Prime Ministers would not probably appreciate such calls and their tenor.

Larger than expected noisy interest groups combined could have been even more counter-productive. Personal impressions created by lobbyists can be the kiss of death negating detailed well-researched fact-based arguments.

The indisputable fact however remains that the representations made by this group of lobbyists – for whatever reasons – were once again rejected. But my most serious criticisms - Prime Minister – are reserved for these following comments you made:

“The Jewish community…well not all the community…because I have had many letters, I’ve got many letters in my office in the files that say “No we don’t agree with the publicly proclaimed leaders of the community in Melbourne. We take a different view.” But they’re not going to say so publicly. The Jewish community seek to get Australia to support policies as defined by Israel. Look, Israel years ago, during one of the wars, killed 30 or 40 Americans on a spy ship in the western (sic) Mediterranean.

Faine: That was a mistaken missile hit, if I remember correctly, or an air strike. I can’t remember.

Fraser: Well, the Americans tried to cover it up. It wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate.

Faine: You believe so?

Fraser: Yes.

Faine: Based on what?

Fraser: Information I have. I am not going to tell you the source."

You revealed there were an undisclosed number of publicity shy Australian Jewish citizens who had previously written to you requesting you not to accept the views of the organised Jewish community leaders supporting policies as defined by Israel differing from theirs.

That argument was your perfect entitlement to accept and theirs to make  – but you can’t have it both ways.

Being ready to reject the views of these community leaders knowing this could lead to possibly losing votes if the majority of Jewish voters they represented were unhappy with your decision does indeed suggest you were a politician of principle – a rare phenomenon in politics.

So why allege excessive power-wielding when you were prepared to dismiss their submissions even if it cost you votes in sending them back to Melbourne empty-handed – which is what you actually did?

But far worse – you told the interviewer you believed that the Americans had deliberately covered up an attack on the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967 at the height of the Six Day War.

When asked to provide the evidence to substantiate your claim  – you refused to reveal the source. Prime Minister  – six American investigations into these claims resulted in the following findings:

C.I.A. report June 13, 1967 No malice; attack a mistake

U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry June 18, 1967 Mistaken identity

Report by Clark Clifford July 18, 1967 No evidence ship was known to be American

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 1979/1981 No merit to claims attack was intentional

National Security Agency 1981 Mistaken identity

House Armed Services Committee 1991/1992 No support for claims attack was intentional

Refusing to substantiate your highly damaging claim on public radio after it was challenged as being factually inaccurate - is surely conduct unbecoming of a former Prime Minister.

Prime Minister – On 14th October 1986 you were discovered in the foyer of a seedy Memphis hotel wearing only a towel and a dazed expression.

Have you been caught out with no clothes on once again? Will remaining silent on America’s cover up enhance your credibility?

Do we believe you or six American investigations?

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.”

Read more here

From the Land of Oz - A Tale of Two Malcolms

If you've ever been to the London borough of Tower Hamlets - not the most heimishe of locations nowadays - you may have noticed a large exterior wall clock dedicated to the memory of Minnie Lansbury, who died in 1922 aged 31.  Born to Jewish parents surnamed Glassman, Minnie was a suffragette and popular civic leader, renowned for her compassion for the neighbourhood's poor.  She was the daughter-in-law of George Lansbury, the famous Labour Party leader.  Her widower remarried, and became the father of celebrated actress Angela Lansbury.

     Malcolm Turnbull, the urbane Oxford-educated barrister/merchant banker who led Australia's Liberal Party (the Aussie equivalent of the British Conservative Party) from 2008-9, is the son of Angela Lansbury's cousin Coral, and like his forebear George Lansbury he is something of a philosemite.  He is certainly one of the best friends that Israel has in the antipodes, and the other evening he proved his credentials yet again when during the current federal election campaign he and his two rival candidates for the parliamentary seat of Wentworth in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs (which he has represented since 2004) addressed the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. A video of all three speeches can be viewed here
http://vimeo.com/13499830 and there is a a synopsis of them here
http://www.jwire.com.au/news/wentworth-candidates-address-board-of-deputies-plenum/10541

Turnbull's unequivocal warmth towards Israel and his profound grasp of the harsh realities that Israel confronts contrasts sharply with the woeful stance of his octogenarian namesake and fellow Liberal Malcolm Fraser, who was prime minister of Australia from 1975-83.  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.