Israel, the Australian government’s ‘steadfast friend’, has committed an act of terror against the people of Lebanon.
It came not long after Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote, ‘Israel is turning, with alarming speed, into a country that lives on blood.’
The pagers which exploded in Lebanese streets, markets, cars, homes, and hospitals were detonated at 3.30pm, when children were out of school. People were relaxed, not on their guard. At least two children were killed.
Australians who were in Bali on 12 October 2002 would be able to empathise with the people of Lebanon; millions of other Australians would feel compassion. However, the response from our government lets us down.
When interviewed by journalist Sabra Lane on ABC radio, Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong’s words were vacuous and inappropriate:
Sabra Lane: Our correspondent tells us that there is fear and panic in the civilian population in Lebanon with many civilians injured and killed in these attacks. Some human rights groups say that this is state terrorism. Is it?
Foreign Minister: Look, yeah, we do recognise, as I said, Hizballah as a terrorist organisation, and we recognise the unique security circumstances of the State of Israel. Having said that, you know, we are concerned at all the violence. There is a cycle of violence in the Middle East….
Someone determined to call out Israel’s terrorism was Jewish American blogger Richard Silverstein, who posted this emphatic message: ‘I am a Jew. I once loved Israel (love-hate actually). I studied at its universities. I am a fluent In Hebrew. But Israel has turned. It has become a monster. It is evil.’
Writing for Israel’s mainstream Haaretz newspaper, Gideon Levy expressed his shock and concern, writing that (although) ‘We are in the middle of the most criminal and most redundant war Israel has ever embarked upon…it wants another one.’ ‘One thousand explosions with 3,000 injuries are an invitation to war.’
Recently ABC journalist John Lyons travelled to Iran, Lebanon and Israel to tackle that question of an impending catastrophic regional war in the Middle East.
In his follow-up report for the Four Corners program ‘The Big War’ (26/8/24), Lyons highlights one basic truth: Iran and Israel with their respective allies could set the region alight if they were to go to war. What Lyons didn’t do is investigate who wants a catastrophic regional war and is working to provoke it.
Perhaps the government’s commitment to Israel prevented Lyons from informing his ABC audience that for a long time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working hard to provoke a war that would bring in the United States and its allies.
Long before the exploding pagers and the Four Corners report, Netanyahu’s intent was evident.
In April, Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks wrote: Netanyahu ’seems deaf to the world’s entreaties against escalation. And we wait, helplessly, to see what risk he will take next.’
Brooks’s opinion piece is titled, ’Only one man can stop the world plunging into full-scale war’.
In July, that man, Netanyahu, charmed the US Congress when he addressed it and talked up a war between ‘barbarism and civilisation’. The rousing reception Netanyahu received pointed to the strength of the Israel lobby on US foreign policy.
In Israel itself, a great deal of disquiet and dissension is expressed by prominent Israelis.
For example, Maj.-Gen. (ret) Itzhak Brik predicts that Israel will collapse within a year if the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues. He sees Israel’s ‘use of assassinations’ as ‘a step threatening to ignite the entire Middle East’.
One opinion writer in Haaretz has described Netanyahu as a ‘Vile Messiah Leading a Cult of Lies and Death‘.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, who has chronicled the history of Zionism, sees the current times as the ‘beginning of the end of Zionism’.
In his view, historians would agree that “the beginning of the end of projects such as Zionism is the most dangerous chapter in the history of a place. It is when the regime… fights for its existence, and then it is very cruel, it’s ruthless”.
There is substantial evidence for such a view. For months, the cruelty of the Zionist project has been most evident in Gaza and the West Bank – and now in Lebanon.
Even the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, has noted that Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is out of control and is a serious threat to national security.
A lengthy New York Times article on Israeli extremists has outlined how ‘extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace,’ and ‘how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.’
The subtitle for the NYT article is telling: ‘After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.’
A former Israeli minister of defence, has spoken out against two powerful ultranationalists in the Israeli government – Security Minister Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich – who are inspired by the rabbi of “the Jewish underground”, which commits acts of terror in order to “hurry up the last war” – a war of “Gog and Magog”.
The ‘Jewish underground’ comprises thousands of settlers who have been armed by the security minister.
According to Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, “Netanyahu does not want peace because peace would mean having to face politics”.
That is, Australia’s steadfast friend, Israel, never wants peace because it would have to ensure through diplomacy and international law that Palestinians are no longer denied their political rights as equal citizens in a sovereign state.
The politics of peace would also mean Israel would have no reason to claim billions of dollars in US aid for the purchase of weapons. It would mean Palestinians might eventually outnumber Jews in a truly democratic state ‘between the river and the sea’. .
Israel’s ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people and its commitment to a forever war are supported in the West by the so-called Christian Zionists who believe that a big war will lead to all dead Christians rising “to meet the Lord in the air” – the ‘rapture’.
Among these Christian Zionists are Mike Pompeo – ex-CIA director and Secretary of State under President Trump – and Scott Morrison. (It is worth noting that Pompeo and Morrison reportedly have a strategic advisor role with AUKUS investor DYNE Maritime.)
(Considering the fulsome support given the state of Israel by some Christians, it should come as no surprise that Zionism began as an evangelical Christian project.)
It surely behoves our government to stand up to the Israel lobby and the Christian Zionists. The big war that Netanyahu wants would be catastrophic for the peoples of the world. It would cost the lives of ADF personnel and have a serious detrimental impact on our economy as well as all aspects of our society.
Besides historian Ilan Pappe, for decades, eminent Jewish intellectuals have opposed the Zionist project and the terror which accompanies it. They include Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt; Canadian physician and author Gabor Maté; British Israeli academic Avi Shlaim; and Australian British actress Miriam Margolyes.
So few of us want a ‘big war’. Yet, while Israel takes us in that direction, our government behaves like the ‘three wise monkeys’.
Susan Dirgham
Susan Dirgham is a retired ESL teacher. She taught at the British Council in Damascus from September 2003 to January 2006. She is editor of the magazine ‘Beloved Syria - Considering Syrian Perspectives’. She was the national coordinator of ‘Australians for Reconciliation in Syria’.
President of ‘Australians for Reconciliation and Truth Towards Syria’ (Artts) whose main aims are to lobby the government to lift the sanctions on Syria and to establish ties between Australians and Syrians, particularly in the arts.
Contributions to Pearls and Irritations
Your contribution will fund quality independent comment and analysis in Pearls and Irritations
Contribute
