Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Marilyn Shepherd: "Hamas are not corrupt. They do not divert from charities, they raised the money to spend on schools and hospitals."

This from the Paul McGeough book you are reviewing here, taken more or less at random, concerning the arrest of Mohammad Salah amongst other Hamas 'fund raisers in the USA and Middle East':

"Just four days after Salah's arrest in Israel there was an unseemly rush to get at the funds in his accounts.

A person described by the FBI as an unidentified individual attempted to cash a $299,950 check, which had supposedly been signed by the Salah. It was payable to Nasser Al-Khatib, who worked in the United States as a private secretary to Mousa Abu Marzook. The bank refused to clear the check and later the FBI concluded that the handwriting was not Salah's.

Three days after that attempted check fraud, it was Salah's wife, Azita, who lunged.

She withdrew an amount just shy of $750,000, depositing it in a new account at the Standard Bank and Trust. Two months later, she drew $97,067.93 to pay down the mortgage on their home, which was in Salah's name, even though she well knew the funds had been deposited for distribution to foreign charities.."

 - Paul McGeough, Kill Khalid (op cit), p 100.

There's pages of stuff like that in McGeough's book.

Mousa Abu Marzook, for example, was on a $30,000-$40,000 per annum salary regularly passed millions of dollars through his personal accounts in 1989 and 1990 (McGeough  op cit - page 88) and at the time of his arrest had $490,000 in one personal saving account alone. (McGeough  op cit - page 89)

In fact, while Hamas supporters are today ready to acknowledge Yasser Arafat's corruption, we all recall how they defended him against such accusations when he was in power.

Today, they defend Hamas just as they used to defend Arafat.

Well, well, well, get a load of this:

LABOR leader and alternative prime minister Kevin Rudd pledged his party’s continued support for Israel, describing himself as an “unapologetic and lifelong friend” at a Jewish fundraiser this week.

In his first address to a Jewish audience since becoming Opposition leader, Rudd, who was leading polls for preferred prime minister this week, was guest of honour at Tuesday’s Yeshiva Centre fundraising dinner.

Donning a kippa, Rudd told about 1200 guests at the Sydney Convention Centre at Darling Harbour that Israel was “near and dear to my heart”.

Citing Ben Chifley’s government of 1945 to illustrate Labor’s long-time support and friendship for Israel, he said the two have stood “shoulder to shoulder” since the establishment of the Jewish State.

Mr William no doubt has reams of posts condemning such pandering?

Lest one think he's merely using an emotive issue, rather opportunistically, and rather shabbily, with which to attack people.

Is it really about Israel? In Western circles is it ever really just about Israel?

No doubt also the Australian Defense budget will be rising. That's of course when Mr William's preferred government kicks out all those evil American military types. Should be any day now..........

Ernest William: "And of course my old question remains unanswered - why should any of the ICC signatories even consider new Israel is a state of any kind?"

Why don't you start by asking the government you cheerlead for? And whilst you're at it, you could ask why they feel the need to be so protective of American military bases (Israel comes under the same protective umbrella).

According to a poster here, they've (that'd be your favorite government) just upped the penalty for protesting against American military bases in Australia. That of course would be your selected government, no?

I'm also led to believe your preferred government celebrated Israel's 60th birthday (Google told me).

Now I know you like to accuse all and sundry of being "Zionist stooges", a part of a lobby, and such. I've got to write, it looks to me, I may have found one of the world's biggest supporters. And I'm sure there's much, much more.

So let's forget about the rest of the world's involvement (namely America) and talk about Australia's, huh? Namely the current Austalian Government. A little close to home, perhaps? I bet it beats talking about the current economic climate though.

People in glass houses and all that.

Ernest William: "So Israel can do as it likes? And so can the US? And so can all of the non-signatories and those who have not ratified? Radical and rogue countries without any consideration for anyone else".

In strictly legal terms, they'd be constrained, only by their own laws.

It's a good thing the USA possesses fucking big nuclear bombs, no? For the USA at least.

Then reason and logic would dictate that anyone can attack Israel and the US without fear of the International Criminal Court? No more active sympathy with 9/11’s or WW II?

Well it would, though, it doesn't. I think the favorite Nazi saying was the Geneva Convention doesn't exist here. For them, unfortunately, they didn't possess fucking big nuclear bombs.

Does this also mean that the actions of the Nazis was not an infringement of international law if as Morrella states - there isn't any such law!

There's victors law. Reading history I don't think the Nazis won.

And of course my old question remains unanswered - why should any of the ICC signatories even consider new Israel is a state of any kind?

Why don't you email and ask them? I can't answer the question.

There's a famous saying: "When in Rome..." It stands the test of time.

You keep asking for answers about how the world works. Well, you've just been supplied. It seems rather pointless attacking the messenger. And anyhow for a person with "your apparent life experience", didn't this cross your mind, oh I don't know, about forty years ago?

Marilyn Shepherd: "Eliot, Hamas started because Fatah is corrupt to the core and the Palestinians got sick to death of them."

Nobody disputes that. But that doesn't alter the fact that Hamas themselves are racist, incompetent cowards fit only for murdering helpless prostitutes, attacking harmless eldery civilians, shooting their Palestinian critics and cowering being human shields.

And as Paul McGeough's book amply demonstrates, they are corrrupt to the core themselves, thieving from charities and elsewhere and diverting ill gotten gains to their own illegal and immoral purposes.

It is a pitiful reflection on the so called "peace" movement and western Leftist "intellectuals" that they now find themselves having repeatedly to defend such vermin.

Paul McGeough should be congratulated for having brought all this to the public's attention, and I heartly recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn about the disgusting Hamas fascists.

Ernest William: "It is an interesting fact that only the powers that be support the Zionist's illegal invasion - as far as I can tell, the world experts in the fields of law and justice all condemn that action but then - they have no political or financial gain to be otherwise."

There isn't of course any universally accepted "international law". Outside of maritime that is. There are really only a number of signatures on agreements that can be, and often are, broken at any time. International law is political - it's always been political - it'll always be political.

Any yahoo can quote their particular version of "international law", and on the net, they often do. Rarely if ever is it result-based.

The morals of any situation are of course an entirely different thing. Morals and law, my man, aint the same thing.

Jawing this law and that law is seemingly meaningless without results. I really don't know why people even bother.

Ernest William: "I believe that the American government, heavily manipulated by the Zionist Lobby, cares little about international law or human rights whenever they don’t suit them."

The American Government, similar to any government, works for its own perceived advantage. Sure, it disregards others' law, when that law doesn't suit. Similar to any other government, really. There isn't any such thing as an all encompassing "international law". Even the people most involved with the concept would admit it's mostly a political solution. That's not "real" law.

Unfortunately, the views of the Zionists receive special treatment in Australia with a strange sort of inverted sense of “free speech” while at the same time claiming to be part of the moral high ground.

Nations generally support the things they know best. In America and Australia, Jews are far more established than Arabs. Israel is far more established in the general mindset. I really don't see this changing. No matter the protests.

In Boston they supported the IRA. In Russia they supported Serbia. In China they supported North Korea etc... All stands up to basic logic to be honest.

Australia (and let's be brutally honest) enjoys an American defensive umbrella. Australians can pretend or deny this all they like, yet their neighbors openly state the fact. This allows Australia to direct otherwise defensive spending toward other areas. A privilege many places (mostly all places) don't enjoy.

Let's say, Mr William, that no matter the protests of you, and your ilk, American policy makers know you don't intend on ever changing a thing, they've always known it. And so do every single one of your possible "hostile" neighbors. And for Australians, that's a very good thing.

Hamas's imposition of Shari'a law in Gaza may provide a legal basis for the surviving Israeli families of suicide bombing victims to kill relatives of the bombers as payback.

Also, a Jewish group is considering using suicide bombers against Palestinians in Gaza, based on Hamas laws which make suicide bombing for political purposes legal in Hamas controlled territory.

ABC correspondent Philip Williams spoke to the Israeli group's organiser, lawyer Meir Schijveschuurder, who lost much of his family in a Palestinian suicide attack:

"If they go to, let's say, Palestine, Gaza Strip - the Hamas is the government over there - then we going to act in the same law, the same Shari'a that mean blood under blood. You know, the children or the brother have all the rights to do it back, and we're going to do it."

That's an interesting twist, isn't it?

Fiona: Oh sure, Eliot, provided you like your twists spiralling into an all-engulfing blood feud on all sides.

Eliot Ramsey: "They booked into the Philadelphia Courtyard Marriot.  I'm not kidding."

Lucky for Samah, the Marriott family are at worst, Mormons.

Power corrupts and absolute power.....?

I am thankful at the "wake up" call we are all having in the civilised world concerning the frightening power of the Zionist Lobby in the US, especially in foreign policy.

At this site I found an entry that should have been one of the many warnings we have had with this subject.

I quote just part of that article:

"In the wake of Israel's massive assault on heavily populated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip earlier this year, Amnesty International called for the United States to suspend military aid to Israel on human rights grounds. Amnesty has also called for the United Nations to impose a mandatory arms embargo on both Hamas and the Israeli government. Unfortunately, it appears that President Barack Obama won't be heeding Amnesty's call."

"During the fighting in January, Amnesty documented Israeli forces engaging in "direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate." The leader of Amnesty International's fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip and southern Israel noted how "Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes." Amnesty also reported finding fragments of U.S.-made munitions "littering school playgrounds, in hospitals and in people's homes."

I feel that I belong to a lost country when this sort of thing is happening in a world which should have learned some lessons from the many bloody wars that have been provoked, orchestrated or just plain decided upon – like Iraq!

I believe that the American government, heavily manipulated by the Zionist Lobby, cares little about international law or human rights whenever they don’t suit them.

Unfortunately, the views of the Zionists receive special treatment in Australia with a strange sort of inverted sense of “free speech” while at the same time claiming to be part of the moral high ground.

If anyone in this day and age believes that we Australians are isolated from the horrific abuses of human rights by the new Israelis, they are only adopting the pacifist attitude which always precedes a major conflict.

Marilyn Shepherd: "Eliot, it doesn't matter if Palestine was part of Jordan in some distant past.  The book is about Hamas."

All of Palestine was part of Jordan as recently as 1919.

In fact, as Paul McGeough points out quite clearly on page 10 of the book, the West Bank was annexed again by Jordan in 1950.

It remained part of Jordan until as recently as 1967.

And Gaza was part of Egypt as recently as 1967.

My 13 year old niece probably thinks 1967 was "in some distant past", Marilyn.

But you were alive in 1967. It's in your lifetime.

Marilyn Shepherd: "And Jews never, ever kill their own, do they?"

On March 14, 2009 - 9:15pm you said about the demonstrably false claims of a "Leningrad" style "massacre" of Palestinians at Jenin that "it does not take away from the atrocity if only 52 people were murdered does it?"

Yet oddly, a deliberate Hamas programme of murdering hundreds of helpless Palestinian prostitutes in Gaza is, it seems, mitigated on the grounds that other people "kill their own" too.

And Hamas murdering scores of civilian Jews in the days leading up to and during the Jenin attack is excused on the grounds that it represented some sort of, what? Self defence by those doing the suicide bombings before the Jenin attack?

Is that because in your view, Palestinian prostitutes and elderly Jews are worth less as people than the Hamas thugs who slit their throats or blow them to smithereens?

Or is there some other explanation?

Marilyn Shepherd: This is the most chilling report from Jenin that I have ever read."

Talking about Jenin and statistics, this is from Paul McGeough's book, Kill Khalid. (Allen & Unwin, 2009).

On page 274-278, Paul recounts how an Islamist campaign of suicide bombings against civilian targets in Israel led directly to the IDF attack on Jenin.

The first of these suicide bomb attacks was the Passover Massacre at the Park Hotel on 27 March 2002 (page 274 of McGeough).

Five days later, another stupid suicide bomber attacked the Matza restaurant at Haifa. (page 275).

Total dead: 45, all civilians, mostly elderly.

The immediate result, Israeli retaliation at Jenin.

This is what Paul says on page 278 about Jenin;

"When the shooting stopped, fifty-two Palestinians and twenty-three Israelis were dead"."

During the "siege" of Jenin, the usual claque of leftist propaganda lackeys in the West variously compared it with the siege of Leningrad, the bombing of Dresden and the World Trade Centre disaster.

Actual result: 52 dead Pelstinians, 68 dead Israelis. And Yasser Arafat completely humiliated and reduced to asking Arial Sharon for permission to cross his own compound to go to the toilet.

But what are you saying, Marilyn? 

Paul McGeough's book is wrong about the outcome at Jenin?

Marilyn Shepherd: "Eliot do you ever read anything or simply rely on what the Zionists claim to be the truth."

This is from Paul McGeough's book, Kill Khalid. (Allen & Unwin, 2009). This is about the immediate post-World War One period:

"The region was a veritable postage stamp, on which contemporary rivalries -  territorial, religious and political  - predated the Great Powers’ division of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1, a carve up that was based entirely on Western interests. Later, what had been historic Palestine became Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian occupied territories.."

- page 21

 Then this about the 1960s and '70s...

"Amidst talk of an overthrow and the seizure of Jordan as the basis for a new Palestinian state [by the PLO and Fatah], King Hussein struggled to control his realm."

 -  page 24

 Then this...

"The King clung to the belief that he among Arab leaders was the rightful representative of the Palestinian people. With the exception of the tissue-sized Gaza Strip, all of the putative Palestinian state had, for a time being, been formerly Jordanian."

-  page 26

So, Marilyn. Paul McGeough is stating clearly there that Jordan was Palestine. And even that Arafat's PLO was trying to take over Jordan to set up a Palestinian state.

Is that your understanding?

If so, should Jordan give back all of its ‘stolen’ lands to Palestine?

If not, why not?

Given the interest in the Zionist lobby, surprised no one has yet stepped forward with this purler about US Jewish lobby interference in even top-level US security issues ("US intelligence chief blames Israel lobby for departure", 13/3,  the Australian newspaper).

Seems not even US intelligence can operate without Zionist lobby oversight.

Why not just hand the keys of to the missile silos in Colorado over,  just declaring them as the latest acquisition in the growth of Eretz Israel?

Terrible when you have to cede control not only of even  your own life to outsiders, but without anything better than their say so, as a lame excuse.