Tuesday 11/1/2011
Dear Ed,
As a concerned Australian citizen, I see the majority of the Marrickville Council have entirely lost their way, deciding to boycott companies that trade with Israel, and aligning themselves with a movement that openly seeks to bring about the end of Israel – the ONLY democracy in the region, and the ONLY place in the region where EVERYONE (women, Palestinian, gays) receives equal human rights.
And how do the Marrickville Councillors reconcile this aim with international law and UN resolutions which all affirm the sovereignty and political independence of the State of Israel and its right to exist in peace within secure borders?
How progressive is it to seek to effectively dismantle the only democracy in the Middle East where everyone enjoys religious freedom and replace it with an Islamist theocratic dictatorship? Or to kill off the only society in the Middle East with free trade unions, a society in which women, gays and minority religious groups have completely equal rights?
Not only does this resolution appear to be a violation of the Trade Practices Act, Council has a duty to its ratepayers to get the best value for money and NOT to sacrifice this in order to follow an external political agenda – ONE FOR WHICH THE RATEPAYERS NEVER VOTED!
This simply smacks of the Greens and left Labour attempting to win the Arab vote, whilst ‘appearing’ to look like concerned citizens. For goodness sakes, even the PALESTINIANS themselves do not want this boycott!!!
All democracy, freedom loving Australians should deride this decision and deride the Councillors for their racist, ignorant, anti-Semitic, anti-Democratic behaviour.
Melanie Jones
This is a letter written by Alan Lazarus Discussing Turkey's Hypocrisy
June 7th 2010
Hypocrite
Witnessing current events unfolding in the Middle East entails stretching ones credulity to the maximum. The latest challenge to ones reasoning is the spectacle of the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, pompously quoting the 6th Commandment (Thou shalt not kill) to the co-founders of the Judeo-Christian ethic on which our Western liberal democracies are based. This is a bit rich, coming from the current leader of a country with a shocking history of perpetrating the first holocaust of the twentieth century, the genocide of the Armenian people (1.5million out of 2.5million were systematically slaughtered between 1915 and 1923) and with the most brutal ongoing suppression of the Kurdish people? Kemal Ataturk would doubtless turn in his grave to see the systematic destruction of the secular, enlightened society he so carefully crafted by this strutting popinjay of a leader and his political cronies.
Add to this the ruthless campaign against the guardians of secularism within the Turkish armed forces, who are being purged in a manner that would have done Stalin proud--and he dares to lecture to Israelis about morality, and about their totally valid right to self-protection? That so many naive, deluded Western misfits and their hopelessly compromised and prejudiced attendant "journalists" have chosen to ally themselves and there forlorn efforts with the likes of Erdogan and Hamas certainly challenges the outer frontiers of plausibility.
Alan Lazarus
This is a letter to The West Australian written By Phil Samuell
7th of June 2010
Dear Sir
Let’s get it straight. Hamas could end the blockade tomorrow if it chose to withdraw its openly stated intention of seeing Israel destroyed and ending its continuing rocket attacks on civilian targets in southern Israel.
What country on earth would not take every necessary step to prevent a hostile neighbour from indiscriminate and deadly attacks on its men, women and children? By any objective criteria Israel deserves the whole-hearted support of the international community so it begs the question, exactly what is the motivation for undermining the sole democratic country in the Middle East?
The jackals who are baying for Israeli blood should be directing their venom against the root cause of the problem – the manifest hatred of the Jewish state because it dares to exist.
Where they humanitarians?
3rd of June 2010
The Free Gaza movement and other pro-Palestinian movements have a tradition of acting peacefully and co-operatively with whom they want to. 5 of the 6 Flotilla's surrendered peacefully to the Israeli naval forces so they could be redirected through Israel for customs checking and immigration. Why is this a big issue? Because if the Free Gaza movement on the Marmara Ship wanted to make a peaceful statement then they would have surrendered and tried to get the aid to the people, if that was what the trip was about, Aid. It wasn’t though; it was a political stunt with no interest in helping the Palestinian People. The Australian Navy has been doing the same thing year in year out with people smugglers and illegal fishing ships, We cannot be two-faced about this issue.
Ben Levitt
Letter written to W.A News by Alan Lazarus about Flotilla
Ben Levitt
Letter written to W.A News by Alan Lazarus about Flotilla
2nd of June 2010
The loss of life which occurred aboard one of the ships in the “Gaza flotilla” is both tragic and extremely regrettable, especially because it could so easily have been avoided. It seems that some of the blame could validly be attributed to a very poorly managed operation on the part of Israeli forces, who seem to have lost some of their previous surgical precision in such instances. Video footage released so far show the Navy Seals allowing themselves to be immediately set upon by the “peaceful activists”, leaving themselves no option but to respond with deadly force.
But let there be no doubt that the bulk of the blame lies with the organisers themselves, an unholy alliance of members of the Turkish terrorist IHH group, and ageing Western leftists presumably seeking to embrace another “cause” following the demise of their beloved Communism. As one of them, Audrey Bomse, brazenly stated in a telephone interview with the BBC shortly after the incident, the primary aim of this flotilla was not just to deliver wheelchairs and teddy bears to the needy children of Gaza but to “break the blockade”, thereby rendering Israel defenceless against the certainty of a flood of arms and increasingly sophisticated rockets from Iran to their Southern proxies, Hamas.
It seems appropriate to outline a few historical facts at this point:
In 2004, after constant pressure and badgering from the UN as well as many Western nations, Israel under Ariel Sharon made a fateful (and, in retrospect, probably an incorrect) decision and carried out the painful process of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, leaving behind most of their infrastructure for successful hothouse agriculture. Within days, all of this was trashed by ecstatic “liberated” Palestinians. In short order thereafter, Hamas- a proscribed terrorist organization- took over and began a constant and deadly rocket and mortar attack on Southern Israel, notably the town of Sderot. This continued unabated for a number of years—conservative estimates entail over 7000 rockets fired at Israel since their disengagement from Gaza in August 2005. During all this time, there was hardly a peep of protest from the international community, apart from an occasional sympathetic clicking of tongues by some of the more “enlightened” Western countries.
No other nation in the world would have tolerated this kind of onslaught—in 2007 alone, 1,117 trauma files were opened in the Sderot Mental Health Centre. Yet when Israel eventually initiated Operation Cast Lead in December of 2008, taking extraordinary care to minimise civilian casualties (Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, later commented in his challenge to the infamous “Goldstone Report” in Geneva, that “the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare”), there was an immediate and hysterical outcry by the world community, very similar to what we are witnessing today as a result of this “flotilla” debacle. This includes howls of protest from that august and dignified body, the UN –the source of all Wisdom, Reason and Evenhandedness. Contrast this, by the way, with the fact that UN NGOs such as the United Nations Human Rights Council under Navi Pillay actually congratulated the Sri Lankan government for winning their war with the Tamil Tigers, when 23,000 innocent Tamil civilians had just been slaughtered on a Sri Lankan beach by government forces.
It also needs to be pointed out that the Israelis have extremely good reasons not to trust any UN undertakings. After their disastrous war in Lebanon, Israel carried out a unilateral ceasefire on the understanding that European Governments would bolster UN Unifil forces in southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River, in order to prevent Hezbollah – another Iranian proxy – from firing rockets into Israel. Nevertheless, it is certainly no secret that, under Unifil's noses, Hezbollah now has more stockpiled rocket arsenals in Southern Lebanon (sent from Iran through Syria) than at any previous time.
Despite all of the above, and notwithstanding the tragic recent consequences of a malicious and purposeful provocation by known terrorists and misguided Western leftists on this sinister flotilla, the Western world has again burst forth with howls of protest in a veritable orgy of self-righteousness. Our own gutless prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who is daily proving that he is a man without a shred of integrity or moral fibre, calls immediately for an end to the Gaza blockade without even waiting for the outcomes of any official inquiry. In other words, in his personal headlong rush into dubious glory at the UN, he bows to Arab/Islamic/African demands and calls for the removal of a fellow democracy’s right to protect itself from annihilation.
Arguably, the greatest threat facing Western civilization today is the rising tide of radical Islamic fundamentalism as typified by nation states such as Iran and political movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and it is shocking to see that increasing numbers of the West’s chattering classes and their political representatives are literally falling over themselves to appease, placate and accommodate one of the most intolerant, violent and regressive social forces known to modern man.
Have we in the West gone entirely insane? Have we altogether lost any semblance of a moral compass? What could possibly cause us to abandon the only fellow democracy in a dark sea of increasing Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East? The answer, unfortunately, is as inescapable as it is sad and regrettable – that after a 60 year guilt-induced hiatus, a sinister but familiar sentiment is again beginning to throb and pulsate in the primordial slime of an ancient hatred towards a people who have been cursed with the word “chosen”
Alan Lazarus
Menora
This is a letter that Tim Rossanis wrote to The Australian
1st of June 2010
Israel was acting in self defense, both in the fact that it searched the ships in the first place (an exercise of Israel's sovereign right to defend itself) and in its killing of those who attacked the Israeli commandos. It is clear on the video, that the soldiers landed on the ship, only to be beaten and bashed by the 'peaceful humanitarian aid civilians'. Anyone with an ounce of sense would notice that this is another propaganda ploy of the deplorable left. To Clive of Tamworth, who thinks Israel should be "abiding by international norms" - here is some International Law for you: Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they: (a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture; Numerous times, Israel offered the flotilla vessels accompaniment to shore in a legal and procedural fashion - where aid would have reached Gaza if it had been handled correctly. They refused because they knew it would not give them the opportunity to create the media circus that has now ensued.
This is letter written by Robert to The West Australian
1st of June 2010
A navel blockade has been imposed by Israel because it is currently in a state of armed conflict with the Hamas regime that controls Gaza. Hamas has repeatedly bombed civilian targets in Israel with weapons that have been smuggled into Gaza by various routes including the sea.
In accordance with international law, Israel has published the existence of the blockade including the coordinates via the accepted international professional maritime channels.
Maritime blockades are a legitimate and recognised measure under international law. When a blockade is in effect, no vessels can enter the blockaded area.
Since the ceasefire in January 2009, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered from Israel - that is almost a ton of aid for each man, women and child in the Gaza Strip.
Israel had invited the organisers of the flotilla to use the land crossings, in the same manner as all the reputable international organizations.
To refuse to accept this offer shows that the organisers of the flotilla are more interested in promoting their radical agenda then any genuine concern for the well being of the Palestinians.
Robert Raymen
0 comments:
Post a Comment