Crescent International, October 2009
Among the articles in this month’s edition of Crescent International are Annual ritual at the UN, The crumbling world order, Iran’s real crime: refusing to venerate the West’s holy cows, The creeping Vietnamization of Afghanistan, and Cageprisoners: breaking cages of hate.
In the editorial of Australia/Israel Review this month, there is the usual mind-boggling nonsense. Take, for example, this comment on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza: “…Israel and its moral military should be congratulated by the international community for keeping civilian casualties so low in extremely difficult circumstances, against an enemy that exploits Israel’s commitment to civilian life and international law.”
In the magazine’s Scribblings section, Tzvi Fleischer reports American law professor Alan Dershowitz as saying the Goldstone Report on Cast Lead “makes a peace deal entailing an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank considerably more difficult” – as if Israel would, under any circumstances, even consider making such a withdrawal. (The words in quotation marks are Fleischer’s, not Dershowitz’s.)
Hard line needed with Iran, says Dom-Post
This is what is known as “manufacturing consensus” for war. The editorial, and others like it, persuade us to accept a possible (inevitable?) attack on Iran by suggesting that, if/when an attack occurs, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad will be entirely to blame – just as “they” (Arabs/Muslims) are always to blame when we attack/dispossess them. Note how the editorial trots out the totally discredited assertion that if we hit “them” hard enough, they will see their leaders, not us, as the cause of their suffering, and (presumably) overthrow their government. Did this tactic work in Iraq in the 1990s? Has it worked in Gaza since Israel imposed its unconscionable blockade of the territory?
On Page 1 of The Dominion Post today, there is another article about Ahmadinejad under the headline “Ahmadinejad’s Jewish past revealed”. According to The Daily Telegraph, a photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots, and once went by the name Sabourjian. Enter the inevitable “experts”, who opine, in the words of the article, that “Ahmadinejad’s track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past”. One such “expert”, an Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, says: “Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.” But hang on a minute! Has Ahmadinejad, in reality, made any “hate-filled attacks on Jews”? And isn’t this suggestion that he is “overcompensating to hide his past” an example of facile analysis – the kind of thing that any third-rate psychologist would say? Isn’t it also a very “Western” analysis, which attaches an importance to ethnic/religious origin that is entirely contrary to the principles of Islam. After all, it wouldn’t matter, in Islam, if Ahmadinejad had himself been a practising Jew earlier in his life. One of the great Muslim scholars of the 20th century, Muhammad Asad, was Jewish by birth.
The assertion that “Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith” is also totally untrue. I have yet to meet a Muslim who, as a former Christian or Jew, now condemns his/her old faith. He may criticize it, but he certainly doesn’t condemn it. He may even, like me, continue to admire some aspects of it, such as Gothic architecture and Gregorian chant.
Crescent International, September 2009
The September edition of Crescent International contains articles headlined “Torture as US state policy” (editorial), “Rabbis involved in organ sales”, “Obama excels predecessors in subservience to the Zionist warmongers”, “Sectarianism still dominating Iraqi politics”, “9/11: mysterious collapse of third building” (cover story), “Gitmo child prisoner finally returns home”, “‘Security’ operations target Muslim charities”, among many others. An archive of articles that have appeared in Crescent International can be found at its website.
The September edition of Australia/Israel Review contains an editorial deploring the reported decision of the Australian Media and Communications Authority to give its “seal of approval” to al-Manar, the Hezbollah television station that broadcasts throughout Asia and Australia via an Indonesian satellite company. There is also a rather ironic article in which Oakland Ross, of the Toronto Star, laments the “self-replicating propagation of erroneous information” that has seen a “never-uttered utterance” of former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon spread far and wide since 2002. (The “never-uttered utterance”: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”) I am touched by this Zionist concern for historical accuracy – almost as touched as I am by the Zionist call for “moral clarity”.
New Zealand troops in Afghanistan
Mike Moreu’s cartoon from the Manawatu Standard of September 4, 2009.
Afghanistan: the ultimate boot camp?
A New Zealand Herald article (August 26, 2009) headlined “Boot camps offer hope to ‘unexploded time-bombs’ ” begins: “The Government has announced 40 places in controversial military-style boot camps will be available to deal with serious young offenders. The camps, to cost $5.3 million over four years, were one of a range of initiatives announced by Prime Minister John Key in Wellington today.”
Interestingly, Kim Workman, project director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment, has commented: “Boot camps and their variants are known in the profession as “correctional quackery” – they satisfy the desire to punish, but fail to produce a result.”
Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws bans (Maori) gang patches
Now the city of Wanganui, led by mayor Michael Laws, is telling people what they can’t wear in public – unless, of course, they are members of groups that are “law-abiding and non-confrontational generally”. Note the “generally” that is tacked on to the end of the statement, which will be found in the third paragraph of the following NZPA report published in the New Zealand Herald on August 31, 2009:
Wanganui District Council banned gang patches from the city at its council meeting today.
The bylaw, which comes into force on tomorrow, will give police powers to fine patchwearers $2000 and to take their gang insignia from them.
“This bylaw is intended to deal with…. gangs, but will not affect clubs and groups who are law-abiding and non-confrontational generally,” a report on the gang bylaw submissions hearing, tabled at today’s meeting by senior councillor Randhir Dahya, said.
“There are people in Wanganui who will say we don’t have a gang problem but the fact is there is a gang problem in Wanganui, just as there is in other towns and cities.”
Police “totally supported” the passing of the bylaw, Mr Dahya’s report said.
“This bylaw demonstrates this council’s commitment to making Wanganui a safe place for all.”
The council was required to signpost where the bylaw would be enforced, and could not determine “all public places in the district are public places”.
Barred from court over scarf
It’s sad to see someone in New Zealand making an issue of hijab. To me, the interesting paragraph is the one in the last column that reads: “The judge mistakenly assumed that her headgear was a demonstration of protest at the court.” Is this malicious ignorance, or what?
Gaddafi ‘opens the taps’
I like cartoonist Mike Moreu, but think he is weak on Islamic/Middle Eastern issues (which is hardly surprising when one considers their simplistic, often biased coverage by the Western media). I am among those who think the release of “Lockerbie bomber” Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on August 20 probably had little or nothing to do with either compassion or oil. I suspect, like many others, that an appeal lodged against his conviction might have resulted in its being quashed. Then people would have had to ask the awkward question: “Who was really responsible for the Lockerbie bombing?” The cartoon is from the Manawatu Standard of August 25, 2009.
Will the Maori voice be heard in Auckland?
These cartoons, both by Mike Moreu, are about one of the big issues in New Zealand at the moment: whether Maori iwi (tribes) should have “reserved seats” on the new council that will serve the proposed Auckland “supercity” – an amalgamation of all the small “cities” that at present make up the urban entity known as “Auckland”.
As I understand the debate, it is basically between those who believe the Maori, as the tangata whenua (“people of the land” or indigenous people) have a special status in this country, and those (mainly white right-wingers) who maintain we are “all New Zealanders” and that no one should receive preferential treatment. (Such people are usually against any kind of “affirmative action”, and maintain that if the Maori lag in a whole range of social indexes they should simply pull their socks up – easily said if you are speaking from a position of social advantage.)
Since power in this country is at present held by such people, in the form of the National Party, the decision, unsurprisingly, has been that the Maori iwi should have no special representation in Auckland.
At the time of writing, in the words of a Television New Zealand report on August 27:
“Protests are being organised against the Government’s decision to rule out reserved Maori seats on Auckland’s new city council and the Labour Party is going to try to create them by putting up amendments in Parliament.
“Cabinet this week ruled out any reserved seats for Maori , causing tensions within National and between its support parties – ACT and the Maori Party.
“ACT leader Rodney Hide, the Minister of Local Government, strongly opposes having reserved seats and the Maori Party is just as adamant they should be part of the new council’s structure.”
The cartoons are from the Manawatu Standard of August 21 (top) and August 26.
Should gay couples be allowed to adopt?
Something that cartoonist Mike Moreu does quite well is bring out the violent, intolerant streak in white, middle-class New Zealand society. The above cartoon is from the Manawatu Standard of August 29, 2009.
