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An eye for an eye makes us all blind

There were two brothers, but the older brother considered himself more loved by his father. So he tormented his younger brother at every opportunity, especially when his father was not watching.

The younger brother decided to talk to his father about the bullying.
‘He comes into my room, takes my things and …’
‘Just ignore him’, his father interjected. ‘He’ll grow out of it’.

But the behaviour persisted.

Weeks later, the younger brother again sought help from his father.

‘I don’t want to take sides …’
‘What sides?’
‘Well maybe you provoke him’, shrugged his father.

Months later, the younger brother started yelling at his older brother, hoping that by raising his voice and slamming doors, his father will finally fix the problem. But the problem persisted.

So the exasperated younger brother again complained to his father.
‘Try and make peace. If I get involved, things may get worse.’
‘How much worse?’ the younger brother exclaimed. ‘Can’t you see he broke my tooth! What if I did the same to him …’
‘No, no. As I said, just sit down together and don’t get up until you both shake hands.’
But the older brother laughed at the idea of having a talk. ‘You can’t make me do anything!’
‘I’m not making you, I’m asking you,’ the younger brother pleaded between his broken teeth.
‘I’ve only got one thing to say to you,’ grinned the older brother. ‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Of what?’
‘The older brother put up his middle finger. ‘My father is wrapped around my finger, and you know it’.

A year later, the problem persisted. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the younger brother sustained a black eye.

‘Dad! Look at this!’ he pointed to his bruised eye.
‘Did he really do that?’ asked the father.
‘No, I did it myself!’ the younger brother snapped sarcastically.
‘Look, it’s his birthday today. Don’t upset him. Today is a special day.’
The younger brother sighed. ‘Today is like every other day. Another day, another bruise. Why do you keep defending him? Why don’t you teach him a lesson?’
‘Look,’ suggested his father, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘After today, sleep in the spare bedroom, and just keep your distance.’
‘But I love my room …’
‘Do you want to fix this problem?’ his father waved his finger at him. ‘Show some gratitude. At least I’m trying!’
‘If I go to the smaller room, I’m going to avoid him like he doesn’t exist,’ the younger brother declared. ‘And you better stop him if he comes anywhere near me’.

Despite all these promises, nothing changed.

The younger brother noticed that his old bedroom was now occupied by his older brother’s belongings.
‘Hey! What are you doing in my room?’
‘It’s not your room. You left it. It’s my room now.’
‘But you already have your own room.’
‘And I have this one for my things.’

The younger brother stood in the doorway. ‘I didn’t choose to leave. Dad made me do it.’
‘For me. Because he loves me, not you’.

Something snapped. The younger brother snapped his brother’s arm and the screaming echoed throughout the house. Their father came charging in and sheltered his injured son.

‘You will pay for this!’ the father yelled at the younger son. ‘You could have killed him!’
‘He’s been trying to kill me!’ retorted the younger son.
‘Where the hell did you learn to be so … violent? Who taught you this disgusting language?’
The younger brother teared up and pointed to his father.
‘Me?’ his father exclaimed. ‘I never ever taught you to be violent…’
‘Yes you did!’ he insisted. ‘You taught me that this is only language that gets your attention. He screams and you come running. This is not my language. It’s yours.’
‘What?’ his father was perplexed. ‘I taught you to talk, to walk away, to …’
‘To ignore him’, the son continued, rolling his eyes, ‘to make agreements, to shake hands, to offer my room. I did all those things you suggested … but nothing changed. You just kept your distance so I had to fend for myself.’
‘You didn’t try hard enough!’ the father retorted.
‘You didn’t try at all!’ the son interjected.

‘How dare you … God help you, I’m going to break you!’ threatened the father.

‘You can’t’, shrugged the younger brother. ‘I’m already broken.’

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The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

http://bit.ly/1oqLJe2

The most fearful weapon in Israel’s assault: dehumanisation

Canberra Times
August 7, 2014

A Palestinian man at a funeral carries the body of a girl whom medics said was killed by an Israeli air strike. Photo: Reuters

If we were witnessing a kangaroo cull through aerial bombardment, there would be moral outrage. If we were witnessing a whale cull through ships, there would be moral outrage.

But we are witnessing a Palestinian cull by air, land and sea, and we are told to blame the victims for hiding among terrorists.

One euphemism used for this mass murder of civilians in Gaza is ”mow the lawn”, reducing Palestinians not to animals but to blades of grass. It is sold to us as a two-sided war between the Israeli Defence Forces and Hamas terrorists – not Palestinian people. The Palestinians all belong somewhere on the terrorism continuum as potential terrorists, breeding terrorists, born terrorists, supporting terrorists, hiding terrorists or armed terrorists. The loaded label is intended to throw a blanket over our eyes to blind us from any questions of legitimacy or humanity.

This is the well-worn, war-time propaganda of dehumanisation, aimed to absolve us from any guilt that the humans are like us – with a name, a face, a family, a home, a dream.
But it is time that this dehumanisation was worn out and discarded. It is the ”de” that needs to be mowed away to so we can see humanisation.

Propaganda relies on controlling the cameras. But social media has become a powerful weapon. As pilots ”send” air missiles down to Gaza, Palestinians ”send” videos up for the world to see – graphic and uncensored. Unlike the pilots who see inhuman dots on a screen, the videos enable us to see terrified humans with nowhere to hide. In real time, we become witnesses to the destruction of indigenous Palestinians and the reduction of their homeland to an abattoir.

When the terror-tinted glasses are discarded, this is not hyperbole. This is the making of history. This is the map of Palestine being shrunk and flattened, year after year, war after war, talk after talk, settlement after settlement.

If we could see Palestine from high above the unmanned drones, the picture makes more sense. Gaza is only 360 square kilometres, home to 1.8 million Palestinians, less the current cull. It is wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, so unless they can swim, fly or dig, the people are besieged. Even the birds and fish avoid the area as a no-go zone.

This is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, with more than 5000 people a square kilometre. This equates to Drummoyne in Sydney, St Kilda in Melbourne or Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.

Imagine a leaflet telling you to leave these crowded areas. How is it possible for Israel’s pinpoint technologies to avoid the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians? Where exactly are the humans supposed to swim, fly or dig? How can combatants hide behind human shields in a totally civilian area? How can there be any shields when no school, hospital or UN shelter is spared?

While the charter of Hamas may claim to eradicate Israel ”in words”, it is Palestine that is being eradicated ‘’in deeds’’ through regular culls named Cast Lead, Pillar of Defence and Protective Edge. The proof of the real eradication is in the grotesquely disproportionate fatalities.

The dehumanisation is central to Israel’s arsenal, but is also central to Palestinian reality. Since electing the wrong government in 2006, when Hamas took control of Gaza, these Palestinians endured a siege that has rationed their water, food, medicines, electricity and sanitation.

For the Palestinians in Gaza, the difference between a ceasefire and a war was the difference between continuing to die slowly, or die quickly.

This noose must be loosened if the Palestinian voices are to be heard. The deprivation of these basic human rights of a besieged people is a protracted war crime. The dehumanisation blindfolds us to two facts: all human life is absolutely equal, and these two ”sides” are absolutely unequal.

Any state claiming that their land ”belongs” to their religion, whether Israeli Jews or Hamas Sunnis, leans towards theocracy, not democracy. With or without Israel’s Iron Dome defence missiles, the rockets from Gaza have murderous intentions and must be condemned.

I dread the day that our children’s future children go on a school excursion to the Holocaust Museum and then to a Palestine Museum. They will see the shrinking map of Palestine, before it completely disappeared off the face of the earth. They will see photos, artefacts, testimonials, videos and timelines. They will see how the indigenous people were labelled as Arabs, Muslims, Gazans, Hamas, terrorists and refugees, but rarely as Palestinians. They will see how one proud people (the Palestinians) paid the price for the crimes committed against another proud people (the Jews). They will see how both people were dehumanised.

And our grandchildren will say: but they should have been best friends. And they will ask us how we let this happen to humans.

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We can’t condemn some arms bearers and not others, like Jewish Australians fighting overseas

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We can’t condemn some arms bearers and not others, like Jewish Australians fighting overseas
The Courier-Mail
July 07, 2014

DURING recent Senate estimates hearings, ASIO’s head David Irvine announced that 150 Australian citizens were being scrutinised for suspected military activities in the Syrian conflict.

He cautioned that young recruits could return with “heightened commitments to jihadi terrorism”.

The self-declared caliph of the ever-expanding Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has called on Muslims to “rush” to arms with “heavy boots”. To try to combat home grown terrorism, Attorney-General George Brandis met with Imams who pledged to use their Friday sermons to help de-radicalise youth. Unfortunately, these Imams are more likely to preach to the converted.

Each time ASIO raises these alarms, echoes rebound with broader questions about Australians in foreign armies.
Sympathisers of the Muslim Australians taking up arms in Syria ask why Jewish Australians taking up arms in Israel experience immunity rather than scrutiny.

Nominally, the two situations are deemed incomparable: the Muslims are taking up arms with illegitimate and criminal terrorist organisations such as the al-Qa’ida-linked al-Nusra and ISIS and al-Qa’ida itself, whereas the Jews are taking up arms with the legitimate army of Israel. But this black and white branding belies the many shades of grey in between.

The atrocities committed by the loose affiliation of brigades and foreign mercenaries in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq are undeniably immoral and inhumane. They have been incriminated for beheadings, kidnappings, crucifixions and cannibalism, as propagated on their own videos.

But the activities of the Israel Defence Forces and its official brigades are well documented by many human rights groups. They have been accused of collective punishment, illegal occupation, imprisonment of minors, torture of prisoners, bulldozing of homes, expansions of settlements and deployment of cluster bombs. Smart uniforms, badges and stripes do not make this right.

Just when does loyalty to a foreign country become disloyalty to Australia? Our homegrown “jihadists” are neither the first nor last to take up arms abroad, as borne out in the recent book Foreign Fighters by Dr David Malet.
Australians fighting with Iraqi jihadists 0:26

This longitudinal study covering 200 years, concludes that most responsive recruits tend to be “marginalised in the broader society”.

Spanish Australians fought on both the Communist and the Catholic side of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Jewish Australians fought in 1948 to establish a homeland. Australians fought on all sides of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s with Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians, Slovenes and Macedonians. But who decides if this military service is moral and justified?

Most Australians now concede our participation in the “Coalition of the Willing” against Iraq in 2003 was unjustified given the false weapons of mass destruction pretext, which has precipitated a spiralling regional and sectarian war.
Since Saddam Hussein was toppled, Western governments have deemed those who have taken up arms against the Iraqi government as insurgents and enemies. But if those same mercenaries crossed the border to fight with the Free Syrian Army, they would be deemed as Western allies.

We can no longer pretend military service by dual citizens will not present conflicts of interest. Even by serving in the ostensibly benign Israel Defence Forces, our citizens would be inadvertently enforcing a one-state solution when Australia officially upholds bipartisan support for a Palestine/Israel two-state solution.
So rather than continuing this subjective policy of selectively condemning some arms bearers while condoning others, our government needs to take the more moral position of banning all such activities.

It is time to review the bilateral agreements regarding dual citizens and their duty for foreign military service. If our young citizens are seriously interested in taking up arms, then suitable candidates could be recruited into our national service. As citizens, this is both their right and responsibility.

Joseph Wakim, a founder of the Australian Arabic Council, is a freelance writer.

Originally published as What of Jewish Australians fighting overseas? Comments

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Palestinian unity is path to peace

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=16271
http://bit.ly/RlOFu2

Online Opinion, 7 May 2014

If Israeli leaders are worried about a Palestinian unity government, they should look in the mirror. If they are worried about the forbidden apartheid word, they should look out the window.

When Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that ‘Abu Mazen has chosen Hamas and not peace,’ Palestinians enduring daily occupation asked: what peace?
If the continuing construction of Israeli settlements, home demolitions and military raids are ostensibly the hallmarks of ‘peace’, then Palestinians cannot be blamed for seeking alternatives. These actions in themselves have ‘essentially buried’ any remnants of a peace process.

It appears that no matter what Palestinians do, apart from capitulation, they are always the villains, never the victims.

If Palestinians embark on armed resistance or intifada, they are terrorists.

If a non-government movement embarks on a non-violent civil resistance or BDS, they are anti-Semitic.

If Hamas is democratically elected in Gaza as they were in 2006, they are blockaded.

If Fatah rivals Hamas as it did since 2007, it is rendered as impotent and illegitimate.

If Fatah reconciles with Hamas, they are anti-peace.

While the Netanyahu government rejects Hamas for refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist, it refuses to recognise Palestine’s right to exist along the 1967 borders.

The US has threatened to stop providing aid to the Palestinian Authority unless three conditions are met: recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept previous agreements. The fact that these reciprocal stipulations are not imposed on Israel highlights the bias of the peace broker.

Netanyahu would be hypocritical to threaten a Palestinian national unity government when his own Likud-led coalition announced a similar pact with Shaul Mofaz, chairman of the opposition Kadima party, exactly two years ago.

His current cabinet includes head of the Jewish Home Party, Economy Minister Neftali Bennett, who has publicly called for the unilateral annexation of Area C which is 60% of the West Bank. He has vowed that “a Palestinian state means no Israeli state. That’s the equation … There is not going to be a Palestinian state within the tiny land of Israel.” With these one state solutions declared by Palestine’s peace partner, is there anything left to negotiate? Should Netanyahu be given an ultimatum to choose between peace with Palestinians or these partners: “You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace, so far he hasn’t done so.”

His cabinet also includes Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who opposed a 2003 amnesty of 350 detained Palestinians: “It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that’s the lowest point in the world.”

Apparently, only the Hamas rhetoric is an obstacle to peace, as the national unity governments of Israel are internal affairs.

In Cairo in 2011, an attempt at rapprochement by the two Palestinian factions failed to fulfil the accord. Hamas is now forced into a compromising position because its ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been ousted in Egypt and their smuggling tunnels to Gaza have been blocked. The misery and poverty of Gazans has necessitated negotiation and further compromises may follow.

Talking peace with a united and elected Palestinian government is not the beginning of the end. It is the epitome of democracy and the perfect climate for honest dialogue.

With elections in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine pending, Israel has long lost its monopoly as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’. While US Secretary of State John Kerry cannot rewind the tape on his ‘apartheid’ slip, it will continue to be a self-fulfilling prophecy if Israel does not rewind the shrinking map of Palestine.

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Rabbi or imam, a threat is still a threat

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http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/joseph-wakim-rabbi-or-imam-a-threat-is-still-a-threat/story-fni6unxq-1226833133261

The Advertiser
20 February 2014

“BY the power of our Holy Torah, we admonish you to cease immediately all efforts to achieve these disastrous agreements, in order to avoid severe heavenly punishment for everyone involved.”

In an open letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, this wrath formed part of a recent statement by Rabbis from the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel and “hundreds of other Rabbis in Israel and around the world”.

The rabbis were incensed by Kerry’s mediation between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

Their statement did not register on our media radar, as such ultra-orthodox voices are treated as atypical of mainstream Israeli society. If the word Torah is replaced by Koran in this statement, the words severe, punishment and everyone suddenly read as a global fatwa.

These rabbis attribute terrorism exclusively to their enemy as they proclaim that Kerry’s “incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe”.

This war-speak reaches the same pitch as their Muslim counterparts who purport to speak for the same deity.
But it is a fallacy to assume that only Muslims execute such threats and take the divine law into their own hands.

In 1994, Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at a Hebron mosque. He belonged to the Jewish Defence League, which the FBI later classified as a “far right terrorist group”.

He was publicly denounced by mainstream Jewish bodies as a lone madman and an extremist, yet over 10,000 sympathisers visited and venerated his “holy” shrine until it was forcibly removed by the government in 1999.

The growing influence of the 10 per cent of ultra-Orthodox citizens within Israel’s population of eight million continues to create a sectarian-secular divide.

While they may not resort to street violence like Palestinian stone-throwers, they flex their political muscle with violent decisions that suffocate Gazans, expand settlements and segregate the West Bank.

In Australia, the growth of the Muslim presence has seen a growth in Islamophobia. Too often, the extreme actions of an extreme minority are treated as typical and therefore stereotypical.

When the abhorrent placard at a 2012 Sydney rally screamed ‘‘Behead all those who insult the prophet’’, Australians screamed even louder with outrage.

Those responsible for this message were swiftly condemned and written off as unrepresentative by Muslim elders. But the mud stuck on the Muslim name.

When the abhorrent YouTube video by Sheikh Sharif Hussein was falsely attributed to the Islamic Da’wah Centre of South Australia in August 2013, again the elders tried to extinguish the local backlash and gross generalisations.

His “sermon” labelled Australian soldiers in Iraq as ‘‘crusader pigs’’ and beseeched Allah to kill Buddhists and Hindus who have harmed Muslims.

More than anyone, Israelis should understand that hate speech is the ominous precursor to violence, especially when coupled with real power and weapons.

The violent voices of these rabbis deserve the same amplification and accountability as their Muslim counterparts. We cannot keep marginalising them as extremists who don’t count.
They do count, and so will their victims.

Joseph Wakim is the founder of the Australian Arabic Council and author of Sorry we have no space

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Australia must find balance on Palestinians

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/australia-must-find-balance-on-palestinians/story-fni0ffsx-1226798510096

http://bit.ly/1cEKfo5

Australia must find balance on Palestinians

Herald Sun

9 January 2014

THE world body that created the state of Israel in 1947 has proclaimed 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Yet Australia was one of the seven opponents of the UN General Assembly vote on November 26, alongside Israel and the US.

Sometimes the best way to bring home the Palestinian plight is to bring it closer to home metaphorically: imagine living in a four-bedroom home with a garden that has been in your family name for many generations. Then, there is a door knock and authorities say you now need to allow refugees to live in one of your bedrooms. You accommodate. You now need to share your kitchen and bathroom.

More refugees and their relatives arrive. Now you need to sacrifice a second bedroom. Your family start to complain that they feel suffocated.

Your tenants are now armed and behave more like landlords. They insist that you now need to squeeze your growing family into one bedroom, or you are free to leave to live with your relatives in another neighbourhood. The new settlers now need priority access to your kitchen and bathroom. When you complain that this is unfair, you are told to use the kitchens and bathrooms of your neighbours.

The locks in the house have been changed, as have the locks to the control room that houses the water and electricity mains. The settlers now wish to demolish the ancestral home and the garden in order to build a larger house. Trees and personal connections to the land are uprooted. You are welcome to stay as a tenant so long as you stay within your confines and obey their landlord rules.

The majority of your neighbours have witnessed this catastrophe and have protested peacefully about illegal expansions. However, a couple of mansions in the neighbourhood have provided armed guards to protect the settlers from unbalanced criticism.

From the confines of your shrinking one-bedroom bunker, you are asked why the two families cannot live in one home as equals in peace and harmony.

Perhaps Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop would pose such an absurd question. During the pre-election week, Mr Abbott pledged that “we are firmly committed to restoring the Australia-Israeli friendship to the strength it enjoyed under the Howard government”.

This golden age saw foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer promote an unprecedented allegiance to Israel. After the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006, he trumpeted that “Australia had been more supportive of the Israelis than 99 per cent of the world” and that “being called pro-Israeli (is not) a badge of shame”.

Is this restoration representative of our Australian population? In November 2011, a Roy Morgan Research poll revealed the majority of respondents surveyed believe Australia should vote “yes” to recognise Palestine as a full member state of the UN. While 51 per cent responded “yes”, only 15 per cent responded “no”.

Before the so-called Arab Spring, Israel was touted as the only democracy in the Middle East. In December, Mr Abbott qualified Israel as “the only mature pluralistic democracy in the Middle East”.

How is it that this “bastion of Western civilisation” that was founded by refugees has now created its own refugees?

By abstaining from rather than supporting UN resolutions to end “all Israeli settlement activities in all of the occupied territories”, the Abbott Government will be voting against the “free world” and relegating itself to a handful of incomparable member states such as Papua New Guinea and South Sudan. It will be voting to sustain human misery and rendering a two-state solution totally unviable.

As more “peace talks” buy more time for more Palestinian land to be settled, there is more imbalance between occupier and occupied. This is best brought home with a floor plan of the shrinking territories in question.

Hence it is ironic that the justification for our policy change is that “Middle East resolutions must be balanced” and based “on its merits”. This wrongly presumes that there are two equal sides and any imbalance is tipped in Palestine’s favour.

The imbalance is evident when only one side deploys unmanned drones for military surveillance. Only one side has the backing of “the most powerful nation on Earth” by US President Barack Obama’s own admission.

The Abbott Government needs to fulfil its loyalty to our own democracy before it pursues loyalty to a foreign democracy.
Given our bipartisan support for a national apology to our dispossessed people, it is highly hypocritical to now cuddle up to those doing the dispossessing.

Joseph Wakim is founder of Australian Arabic Council and author of Sorry we have no space.

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Prisoner X exposes double standards


http://bit.ly/132TaN7

ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate
Posted Wednesday, 20 February 2013

Prisoner X exposes double standards

Imagine if Prisoner X was an Australian dual citizen who was recruited and incarcerated by the Syrian Mukhabarat rather than the Israeli Mossad. Would our Zionist leaders remain silent as they are now, or demand the loyalty of Syrian dual citizens? Should those driven by their ideology be labeled as fanatical terrorists or noble nationalists, or should this depend on whether they are Arabs or Jews?

Local Arab leaders are no strangers to having their loyalty questioned after two ‘Gulf Wars’, even if they are Australian rather than dual citizens.

I have publicly urged the Australian government to interrogate Australian citizens who visit the war zones of Syria, especially those who claim to be on a humanitarian mission but are then posted and boasted on the social boast as military martyrs sacrificing for their ‘brothers in arms’. Any military, para-military or intelligence service outside Australian defense and security forces should be deemed suspicious.

This does not mean that we should treat such citizens like the US Military Commission treated David Hicks who was charged with ‘providing material support for terrorism’. But it does mean that we cannot turn a blind eye to the human traffic and ‘rites of passage’ between Australia and Israel. Prisoner X now has a name – Ben Zygier, and this illicit recruitment of Australian citizens has a name – exploitation.

The indoctrination of Australian dual citizens into Israeli identity is nothing new. The aptly named Birthright Israel Foundation offers a free ten day educational tour of Israel for 18 to 26 year olds who are first time visitors. Its local representative is the Zionist Federation of Australia which has facilitated over 3300 Australian visits.

Their itinerary is founded on the ‘birthright of all young Jews to visit their ancestral homeland [to]…build a certain future for the Jewish people’. It has no place for education about uncertain future of the Palestinian people. Nor are visitors educated about the contradiction within their definition as both Zionist and ‘democratic’ given the many exclusive rights reserved for its Jewish citizens.

By their own admission, ‘more than 60,000 young Israelis, many of whom are active IDF soldiers, have traveled with the participants’.

The active conscription into the IDF deserves sharper focus in the light of their recent plan to ‘counter the steady decline in the number of conscripts since 2005’. This has been attributed to the drop in immigration by Diaspora Jews or Aliyah. According to Haaretz news, their recruitment drive targets a 15 percent increase from abroad such as Australia, plus a lethal combination of ultra-Orthodox youth and Arab Israelis.

We already had a wake-up call two years ago in Feb 2010 when a Hamas militant Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai by Mossad agents with a forged Australian passport. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned the Israeli ambassador that this was not the ‘act of a friend’, and then expelled a Mossad agent.

This incident taught us that an ‘Australian passport allows Israeli spies to travel throughout the Middle East without attracting suspicion’. But during his recent interview with ABC radio, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia Philip Chester vehemently denied that ‘when we send Australians to live in Israel …there’s an industry that exists of harvesting …passports in any … illegal way.’

The unanswered questions about Prisoner X go beyond the peculiarities of Ben Zygier. They go to the heart of the taboo question on dual citizenship that the Zionist President evaded: ‘At what point does loyalty to Israel become disloyalty to Australia?’

Just because Australia and Israel are allies in the Middle East does not mean that there will never be a conflict of interest. The ‘anti terrorist’ ends does not justify illegal means. What about differences in the United Nations such as Israel voting against the recent vote to upgrade Palestinian status whereas Australia abstained? What about the fact that Zionist recruitments into IDF are essentially a one state solution to ethnically cleanse the land of their ‘birthright’, whereas Australia supports a two state solution?

Our dual citizenship laws need to be clear about this loyalty question. Australians fighting for the ‘Free Syrian Army’ or answering fatwas for a holy war from muftis in Saudi Arabia should be interrogated, but we have no t heard of one arrest or criminal charge. And would Australian Syrians who are recruited to fight with the national army be just as culpable or is that different? How is it different to an Australian Israeli ‘serving’ in the occupied West Bank?

The Department of Foreign Affairs ‘Dual nationals ‘web page merely warns about the ‘liability for military service’ as a possible obligation, and the risk of imprisonment for defaulters. But this needs much greater elaboration, especially for countries which Australia regards as enemies.
Ironically, there has been gnashing of teeth over this one soul that we have never seen over the thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who are imprisoned, tortured and killed by the same Israeli apparatus.

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Render unto Caesar: Israel and the Catholic Church must have their day in court

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Render unto Caesar: Israel and the Catholic Church must have their day in court

Joseph Wakim ABC Religion and Ethics 17 Dec 2012

The public faces of Israel and the Catholic Church in Australia, Pell and Netanyahu, need not to fear the criminal courts. It may earn them greater respect, to replace the suspicion and resentment.

What do abuses of power by church clergy and the Israeli government have in common? Both flirt within civil spheres while they skirt the criminal courts.

Both church and Israeli leadership have portrayed violations against children and Palestinians respectively as anything but criminal. The defence mechanisms deployed by both theocratic institutions bear striking similarities. As their sanctity is subjected to unprecedented scrutiny, they may face unprecedented accountability to the law of the land.

With the Gillard government’s launch of the Royal Commission into “institutional responses to child abuse,” Catholic Cardinal George Pell has had to reconstruct paedophilia more as a crime than a sin. By biblical definitions, sins disobey divine laws and make a “separation between you and your God.”

Under Catholic Canon Law, sins are forgivable through the sacrament of confession and the fulfilment of the prescribed penance. Contrary to popular misconceptions, absolution is neither an absolute guarantee nor a revolving door. If the sin is a crime, the confessor may be told “no absolution without first confessing to the victim, handing yourself in to the police, and treating your addiction.”

The confession can remain confidential, and the sin can remain forgivable, but “conditions apply.” Sacred laws and secular laws are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Sins should be surrendered to God, but crimes should be surrendered to the courts – and the two can be both compatible and concurrent. Enough experienced clergy have declared that child abuse is rarely confessed, as paedophiles tend to be more pathological and do not see themselves as sinners.

In past practice, such perverts were (mis)managed and transferred internally as serial sinners who are forgiven and “will try not to sin again.” Instead, they could have been treated as serial criminals who infiltrated and polluted their holy order and need to be stripped of their collars and cloth then surrendered for punishment as well as penance.

Cardinal Pell should have focused less on the “seal of confession is inviolable” and more on “nobody is above the law of the land.” Even Jesus Christ was subjected to trials in both courts, albeit unjustly. His charge of blasphemy was heard before the Sanhedrin Court under Jewish law, and had this charge upgraded to treason before Governor Pilate under Roman law. Contrary to the false witnesses, Jesus never shunned secular obedience nor the law of the land, but instructed his followers to “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”

Hence, this does not challenge the theology of forgivable sins, but couches them into dual accountability, which is integral to this message of Jesus.

Criminal courts have never been perfect, but they cannot be skirted. If these institutions and leaders have nothing to hide, then they should have nothing to fear.

Just as the confessional has been exempted from the mandatory reporting of child abuse as a criminal offence, Israel expects to be exempted from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It expects those harmed by its “apartheid policies” to remain silent and relinquish their right to access the ICC, or face further financial bribery from its American accomplice.

Ironically, Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s vindictive “talking point” after the recent UN decision was that, “The Palestinians will quickly realize that they made a mistake when they took a unilateral step that violated agreements with Israel.” And yet the only unilateral step is the latest roll out of 3000 Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. Netanyahu seeks a bilateral solution by pretending that “our conflict with the Palestinians will be resolved only through direct negotiations,” as if they were two equal sides. But the real solution is multilateral by taking the territorial violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity to the ICC.

With some Israeli leaders believing that they have a divine right to all of the Promised Land that was given to Abraham and his “seed,” this would resonate with the defence of some Catholic leaders that Canon Law is above the law of the land. The parallels extend to paradoxes about those skirting the criminal justice system: How can “men of the cloth” who ostensibly represent holiness stoop to such evil acts? How can descendants of Holocaust survivors on the holy land preach “never again” yet practice or condone such inhuman acts? How can authorities charged with the custody of weaker parties, holy lands and minors betray that trust with crimes?

Both authorities may need to literally surrender land for peace. While the church may need to sell estates to pay for civil damages and criminal trials, the Israeli government may need to roll back the settlements so that Palestinians have a viable sovereign state.

There is growing disquiet among both church laity and Israeli citizenry over the skirting of criminal culpability. These voices prefer their leadership to “come clean” so that those corrupting their core values are exorcised: voices like veteran Israeli soldiers who testified against abuses in Breaking the Silence; voices like the Catholic laity who reconcile Canon Law with secular law.

The public faces of these powerful institutions – Cardinal George Pell and Benjamin Netanyahu – do not need to fear the criminal courts. But when they were silent about the unholy atrocities committed by their lower ranks, there were screams by those violated. By facing the law of the land, they are reconciling with the rest of the human family. This may earn them greater respect and openness, to replace the suspicion and resentment.

Joseph Wakim established the Streetwork Project for exploited children in Adelaide in 1986, was appointed Victorian Multicultural Affairs Commissioner in 1991, and founded the Australian Arabic Council in 1992. In 1996, he received the Commonwealth Violence Prevention Award for his anti-racism work. In 2001, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his anti-racism campaigns.

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Israel’s Level Playing Field

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There is a four letter word that blinds us every time we try to make sense of the Israeli-Palestinian reality on the ground. The word is as loaded as a suicide bomber or a cluster bomb: “side”.

We hear it when our media interviewers endeavour to avoid bias and show balance: “So to be fair, now let’s hear from the other side…”

We hear it in the public discourse and talkback that follows: “They are always blaming each other for the blockade and the rockets. I think each side is equally in the wrong.”

We hear it from politicians, such as our Foreign Minister Bob Carr, calling for “both sides to exercise a high degree of restraint”.

The word side subtly suggests equality of two nations, two armies, two peoples.

What Israelis and Palestinians share is their love of the land and their religiosity.

But beyond this, their comparative military muscle and political power is beyond “sides” because of the sheer scale of Palestinian military inferiority: one to one thousand fold.

Australian born spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister, Mark Regev, perpetuates this propaganda of parity when he asks, “How would you respond to rocket fire attacks from terrorists?”

The latest in a series of “surgical” assaults on Palestinian targets has been translated as “Operation Pillar of Defence” for Western audiences, but in Hebrew means “Pillar of Cloud”, after a story from the book of Exodus, where God adopts the form of a pillar of cloud to protect the Israelites and confuse the Egyptian army. Indeed, using the word “side” blows a pillar of cloud to obfuscate some obvious facts about the inequality.

Only one side has the backing of “the most powerful nation on Earth”, by US President Barack Obama’s own admission; a nation ready to (ab)use its power of veto to block any motions against Israeli aggression, and block any motions for Palestinian statehood, even the upcoming bid for UN non-member observer status on 29 November.

Only one side has the most sophisticated technology and weaponry, made in the US, to actually obliterate Gaza into non existence, or indeed a pillar of cloud.

Only one side deploys unmanned drones for military surveillance so that the eye in the sky is constantly invading its neighbour’s sovereign airspace.

Only one side has imposed a unilateral blockade since 2007 as collective punishment for electing a Hamas government, depriving 1.6 million people of essentials and of any semblance of a normal life.

Only one side has the infrastructure to sound the sirens so that its citizens have some advance warning to seek shelter and survive an attack.

Only one side can assassinate a leader, such as Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on 14 November, and escape international condemnation.

Only one side still milks the “war on terror” rhetoric to justify their “self defence” against a population under siege.

Only one side predictably unleashes an assault against its neighbours with impunity in the lead up to elections, and is more interested in the numbers of political points scored than the Palestinian people killed.

This was the case with Operation Lightning Strike one month before the March 2006 election. This was the case with Operation Cast Lead three months before the February 2009 election. And this is now the case in the lead up to the 22 January election. The incumbent Israeli prime minister plays the politics of fear while assuring his voters that only he could protect them. The incidental quota of killings is about 100 Palestinians for every Israeli.

The pillar of cloud blinds us to the growing chorus of enlightened people who refuse to be locked into sides, but are rising above the pillar, cloud, missiles and drones to see an ever shrinking Palestine.

Such people have liberated themselves from the shackles of sides. People like Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who visited Australia in September and declared, “the less Zionist I became, the more Jewish I became”. People like veteran Israeli soldiers who have confessed and denounced their inhuman abuses against occupied Palestinians in their courageous and collective testimonial “Breaking the Silence”.
Carr must privately know the truth about Gaza, but cannot admit it publicly, as he warns Israel of the “danger of the world seeing it as a disproportionate reaction”.

Enough smoke and mirrors. The word “side” flattens a turbulent terrain into a level playing field. It blinds us to the mountains, valleys, deserts and walls that differentiate the occupier from the occupied. The only level playing fields in the past have been those homes that have been bull-dozed to a series of ground zeros to make way for settlement expansions. The level playing fields of the future will be those created by the devastating effects of Operation Pillar of Cloud.