Just what the world needs; another Western leader desperate to be loved by America: President Nicolas Sarkozy is an unusually solid French friend of America. He is also a “mercurial” man operating in “a zone of monarch-like impunity” surrounded by advisers often too fearful to give honest counsel, according to leaked cables from the United…
Showing all posts tagged Julia Gillard
Australian unions, Paul Howes, BDS and loving Israel
My following investigation appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The Middle East “quagmire” is largely “the fault of Israel”, according to Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU). In an interview with Crikey, the author of Confessions of a Faceless Man said that he was a “critical friend of Israel” and the…
No transparency in Serco dealings with contractors
My following article, with Paul Farrell, appears today in Crikey: As we reported yesterday, private company Serco contracts out some of its security personnel to MSS Security, a company owned by an Indian security company with links to Lehmann Brothers.… By outsourcing to other companies, it’s possible for Serco to distance itself from criticism and in…
Western politicians prefer to ignore Israel’s inherent racism
My following article appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Imagine a mainstream Australian politician saying that Aborigines should be banned from leading tourists around Uluru because they might “present anti-Australian positions” to visitors. The outcry would be furious. But a bill is currently before the Israeli Knesset, led by a parliamentarian from the “moderate” Kadima…
Israel lobby snares elite, Australian minds (and very few resist)
Yet more evidence that the Australian political and media are largely bought by the Zionist lobby, unable to think for themselves. This upcoming trip will result in the following (let me make some wild guesses). Iran is a focus, Palestinians have to stop incitement, the occupation isn’t really a problem and Australia must support the…
Moving forward? Australia’s relationship with Israel is dire
My following lead essay appears in the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings: I first discovered the importance of the Israel/Palestine conflict in my early teens, in Melbourne. I remember sitting around the Sabbath table with my parents and cousins, discussing the events of the week as we consumed schnitzels, soggy vegetables and chicken soup.…
Platitudes over Afghanistan were already irrelevant in 2001 post 9/11
What happens when a compliant corporate journalist simply reprints what a military man tells him? Welcome the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher, repeating pro Afghan war propaganda with no contrary views. This is what embedding “journalism” is all about: The Australian officer in charge of the Afghanistan deployment has told Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott…
Australian Jews say enough is enough
The following advertisement appears prominently in today’s Sydney Morning Herald and Australian [in a slightly different version] and in this week’s Australian Jewish News, organised by Independent Australian Jewish Voices:
Zionist lobbyist just wants an Israel that changes nothing
A Zionist lobbyist in Australia whinges about being under any media spotlight. The poor dear. Frankly, the media should be far more inquisitive about his actions, his relationship with the current Labor government and what kind of Israel he really wants (perhaps he’d like to be asked his views on the settler movement and Jewish…
Private contractor Serco escapes scrutiny in the detention debate
My following piece appears today in Crikey: I visited Villawood on Sunday”‰—”‰alongside a delegation of union leaders and Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon”‰—”‰and met several asylum seekers subsequently involved in the protest that ended peacefully last night with the arrival of UNHCR officials. We spent hours conversing with men in their 20s and up from Iraq,…