Israel truths buried under false media narrative

Louise Adler has sided with the plight of Palestinians. Picture: Aaron Francis

Anti-Zionism is not synonymous with anti-Semitism, but some anti-Zionist Jews seem silent on the anti-Semitism of Middle East regimes determined to exterminate Jews and wipe out Israel.

Think here of Louise Adler and Antony Loewenstein.

Adler on October 13 published a piece in the UK Observer criticising Jewish author Howard Jacobson for not recognising the tragedy befalling Gazan Palestinians.

Loewenstein’s most recent book, The Palestine Laboratory, was predictably awarded a Walkley Award by the media union last year.

Not much has been heard from either Adler or Loewenstein about the massacre of 1200 innocent Jewish civilians on October 7 last year.

The pair focus on the role of Israel in the appalling deaths of innocent Palestinians but seldom criticise the tactics of terror groups that use Palestinian or Lebanese civilians as human shields.

Yet they surely know life became much more dangerous for Palestinian and Lebanese civilians after Hamas’s ill-judged attack.

Here’s the thing in media terms: left wing journalists love quoting Jews who criticise Israel.

It’s a version of the ABC’s strategy of rolling out the welcome mat for former Coalition leaders who want to criticise the Coalition.

John Hewson or Malcolm Turnbull are prime examples, both happy to be useful fools for left media criticism of conservative politicians and policies but hardly ever heard attacking Labor politicians or policies.

Similar media strategies are used when quoting preferred Middle Eastern media talent in Australia.

Few journalists or academics of Middle Eastern background have admitted October 7 was an atrocity. Think Antoinette Lattouf or Randa Abdel-Fattah.

Nor have most been prepared to call out the rampant anti-Semitism of many in the Arab world or in the Persian leadership in Iran. They see the conflict in terms of perceived power imbalances and anti-colonialism.

In this narrative no blame is attached to al-Qaeda in the Islamic world for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Syria in the wake of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, or in reprisal for last year’s barbaric slaughter orchestrated by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed last week.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed last week. Picture: AFP

Their lines are part of the historical inversion used by terrorists against the West that suggests Israel commits genocide or enforces apartheid, even though Arab, Druze and Christian minorities elect members to the Knesset. You won’t find any Jews running for office in neighbouring Muslim countries.

This column reckons many political leaders and journalists operating in the Middle East are committed to genocide.

But it is tiny Israel that gets accused of genocidal intent, a country of 10 million in a region with 315 million Arab Muslims and more than 50 million Persians.

This column is a critic of the influence wielded by Qatar’s Al-Jazeera news service, which runs relentless pro-Hamas propaganda.

Look at the social media posts of prominent Al-Jazeera journalists on the first anniversary of October 7.

The Middle East Media Research Institute has reproduced a since-deleted post from veteran Al-Jazeera journalist and presenter Jamal Rayyan posted on October 6. It depicts Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock with celebratory fireworks and the number 7 illuminated in the sky.

The post reads: “This is the day that restored honour and prestige to (our) nation.” No wonder some Muslims here thought it appropriate to celebrate that day’s barbarism this October 7 rather than hide in shame.

The former editor of the Qatari daily Al-Arab, Abdullah bin Hamad Al Athbah, posted a photo of a Hamas operative with a captured Israeli soldier, writing: “A year has passed since the blessed Al Aqsa Flood began on October 7, which shattered the dream of the Jews and the Zionists and of Zionism.”

In a separate post, including footage from the October 7 attack, he wrote: “The apartheid regime that the Zionist Jews created is on its way to destruction with the power of Allah.”

Reflect here on the influence Al-Jazeera wields in Muslim communities throughout the world.

And remember Israel was created by UN Resolution 181 and Palestinians were given a state next door. Israel’s Arab neighbours immediately invaded the new country and were beaten in 1948.

While most Israeli media express sorrow at the loss of innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza, Israeli journalists know their neighbours are not kidding when they talk publicly of exterminating Israel and Jews.

The Washington Post and The New York Times last week reported documents captured on computers seized from Hamas in Gaza.

They detailed plans by Hamas leader Sinwar – revealed in minutes of 10 different meetings – that included discussions of how to blow up three buildings in Tel Aviv. They also detailed Sinwar’s attempts to enlist Hezbollah and Iran to join the planned 9/11-style attacks.

The documents show Hamas avoided confrontation with Israel for two years from 2021 to “maximise the surprise of October 7”, according to the Times, and was determined “to disrupt efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia”.

Yet in Australia some leftist protesters still deny the atrocities of October 7.

Lest student leftists imagine Hamas is motivated by a political commitment to Palestinian freedom rather than pure hatred of Jews, this column suggests reading the words of its Middle East supporters.

Hamas political bureau member Osama Hamdan in a podcast posted to YouTube on October 11 said: “The people who launched the Al Aqsa Flood (October 7) wrote the first line in the story of the end of Israel.”

Why would Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not take that seriously?

Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk told Algeria’s AL 24 Television on October 12: “We must replace the international organisations America uses to control the world – UNESCO, WHO, FAO – and establish alternatives to … the Federal Reserve and the World Bank.”

Iran’s holocaust-denying anti-Semitic leadership has been consistent since the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution in its commitment to destroy Israel.

In an October 4 interview on IRINN TV, government official Reza Taghavi said Adolf Hitler was right. Zionists needed to be persecuted, deported and killed everywhere.

A member of a committee that regulates Friday sermons by the nation’s imams, he said: “Zionists are not real Jews. They are a bunch of crazy, barbaric wolf-like predators. Their cartels have taken over the Western media and Western economic hubs.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on October 4 praised the October 7 attack and claimed the “resistance” was the least the Muslim world could do. He said Israel was America’s bloodthirsty “mad dog in the region”.

This is what university protesters are supporting – a repressive, anti-democratic, anti-women, anti-gay medieval death cult.

Radical Islamists should be taken at their word.

The executive director of the Council of Islamic American relations, Dawud Walid, said in a Friday sermon on September 20: “If enough Americans became Muslim the issue of Palestine would be solved. We should be calling Jewish Voices for Peace, lefty Democrats and Candace Owens types to convert to Islam”.

Today’s protesters should look to the fate of pro-women marchers in Iran two years ago to imagine their lives in an Islamist world.